As Joshua nears the end of his life, he is concerned that God’s people continue to honor the Lord. He does all he can do to encourage this devotion, being absolutely sure where his own loyalties lie. In the 24th chapter, Joshua is one hundred and ten. He has seen a great deal. He has grown a great deal. He walks closely with the Lord. His last words recorded for us are well worth hearing. The burden is on his heart as he knows he’s about to die. His burden is not for himself, but for those who will be left behind.
Joshua, through the course of his life, has made a number of wise choices and he has seen what happened to those who did not make choices quite as wise. He understands the promise of God. He understands the power of God. He is intensely aware of what God is capable of doing and where God wants to take these people. So as he is preparing to say good-bye to them, his words to the children of Israel are “Choose well.”
The people responded to Joshua’s challenge, as he had hoped they would, by committing themselves to serve the true God. They sought to put far from them the service of other gods or the forsaking of the true God. They recognized the Lord as the God who had brought them from slavery in Egypt, had done great miracles before them, and had cared for them and met their needs as they had traveled through the wilderness. Furthermore, God had driven out before them the people of the land and had given the land to them. So they ought to serve the Lord as the true God. This is exactly what Joshua had taught them. It was the correct response, and it was the response Joshua sought. The people recognized God’s blessings to them and their obligation to serve Him.
In a number of Churchmouse articles, I shared with you the progress the Diaconate has achieved in reaching its goal of growing a parish care program at church. Today’s Laity Sunday is our introduction to you the culmination of months of work on this program. The Diaconate spent one beautiful September weekend at Block Island. Besides spending time just enjoying each other’s company and, of course, deciding what our next meal was going to be, we gathered away from our church for the purpose of focusing on our goals for the program year. We discussed many goals that we wanted to explore: recruiting and supporting new members, reaching out to members we haven’t seen in church for many years, incorporating our youth more into the life of the church and, of course, parish care. Some of you may remember when Jim Christopher was here, we explored the idea of Care teams and for awhile we did have a few active care teams. In fact, our involvement in Faith in Action grew out of this effort. Doug Robbins serves as program director and Phil Swain is a member of the Board. Unfortunately, for an assortment of reasons – lack of time, other priorities and distractions, busy schedules, our church care teams disbanded. The premise behind care teams was a great one – 59 minute meetings (which anyone who has served or is serving on a Board is salivating over this concept) and having enough volunteers so that no one person was bearing the brunt of the commitment. I remember going to a Care Team orientation and feeling almost as energized as I have by this presidential election campaign. The orientation sessions gave me hope – hope that we could provide a variety of services to our friends and family in the church and in this town. We had commitment then to make these care teams work. I feel we can have this same commitment to providing parish care at a level that is comfortable for all.
During our retreat on that lovely September weekend , the Diaconate became committed to providing a broader parish care program to our congregation. We recognize the increasing needs of our congregation members – we listened to what all of you told us. We also recognize that there is some parish care that could be provided by all of us and not necessarily solely by Donna & Jonathan. We talked about the various ways our congregation currently or historically has provided care to our members through programs such as Home Communion, prayer shawl ministry, flower deliveries, quilts and meal preparation to name a few. We chose a few areas on which to focus our attention: providing transportation to and from church services & events, sending cards/notes for birthdays and poignant anniversaries, and visitation. As our Board shrinks in size and increases in outside obligations, we recognize the need to recruit members of this congregation to help us with parish care. There are members who have approached me willing to visit our homebound friends. There are members who are willing to provide transportation to & from church to folks who can no longer drive. There are people that have already made a commitment to provide parish care to others in whatever way they are comfortable in providing it.
I mention commitment. Parish care does require a certain level of commitment. I would bet that if pressed all of you could remember a teacher that touched your life somehow, that made a difference in whom you are or who you will become. I had a wonderful professor at UConn that I will always remember. She was my literature professor and responsible from leading me from a degree in math to a degree in literature – a pretty major leap in majors! She inspired all of us to perform some form of service to one another or to our country. She helped me realize what was missing in my life at that point. I am hoping that you will be inspired to want to perform a form of service for each other. I am not asking you to do this for the Diaconate but for each other. I do think it is fitting that we bring our vision of parish care to the congregation two days before we celebrate Veterans Day, a holiday where we remember and honor those men and women who cared about our safety and loved this country so much that they chose to serve in times of conflict and war. We sit here knowing we can help someone by providing a ride to & from church, or taking 5 minutes a week to call someone; we also sit here knowing that someday we may need that call or need that ride.
Joshua asked the people of Israel, are you ready to serve the Lord? I stand up here today hoping that you are ready to answer the call, Joshua’s call and participate in our parish care program.
I want to leave you with a quote from Joshua: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord”. Amen.
Barry Wilcock: I am the secretary for the board of deacons. I confess: I usually type up the minutes of last month’s meeting on the Monday night before we meet again. At my previous job I was known to put the finishing touches on a report minutes before the meeting was beginning. So, it is ironic for a chronic procrastinator like me to read and preach on Matthew 25.
One way to look at this passage is to compare it to the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. In Jesus’ time a wedding was a big event in the town. The bride and groom were excused from certain religious duties and the scribe was allowed to take time away from his holy books. The high point of the wedding came when the bridegroom took the bride from her father’s house to her new home, escorted by the bridesmaids. This wedding we read about had ten bridesmaids. The passage says that five of the bridesmaids were wise and five were foolish. Five of them were prepared. They had their lamps and had enough oil. They understood that it was their duty to lead the wedding party from one house to the other. In this house, this church, the deacons are charged with leading this congregation on its spiritual journey. The diaconate has spent a considerable amount of time working on the subject of parish care. We know that parish care happens in our church. You watch out for each other by visiting shut-ins, delivering poinsettias at Christmas and lilies at Easter. You prepare meals and lend a hand to friends who are sick.
We have created a subcommittee of the diaconate that will oversee Parish Care in our church. The deacons of that subcommittee will coordinate lay volunteers and delegate the ministries that are needed. The insert in today’s bulletin will help us do that. Please thoughtfully consider this questionnaire and let us know how you can be part of Parish Care or, equally important, what needs exist, either for yourself or for someone you know.
That is an important truth to remember: There are two sides to parish care. We need people who are willing to give, but we also need people who are willing to receive. We New Englanders can be fiercely independent. Many of us are descendants of people who left the Old Country to start a new life in a far away land. Our ancestors settled in and carved out a new life, often beginning with very little. We are self sufficient, often choosing to suffer in silence rather than impose upon a neighbor. We need to nurture the grace and faith to accept gifts of Christian care from our church family. I have learned that giving and receiving warm the soul.
I happen to be on a special diet and it is not by choice. If I eat gluten I can get very sick. Unfortunately gluten is in wheat, rye, oats and barley. That narrows down the food that I eat. You may have seen me reach into my pocket on Communion Sunday and pull out my own little cube of bread which I make with rice flour in place of wheat. Even that much gluten could cause a problem. So, imagine the challenge of delivering a meal to our house. I have not been on this diet all my life. The condition only became active about 16 years ago. It took a while to adjust to this change and to learn what I could or could not eat. Later, when my son Brian was 5 and my daughter Meghan was 3, my wife Nancy was seriously ill. She was so dehydrated that she was at home on an IV. I was still wrestling with this diet and we were all pretty wiped out. At the time we were members of the First Congregational Church in Vernon. A friend knew we were having a tough time. Not only was she kind enough to prepare a meal for us, but also took the time to make it gluten free so that I could enjoy it. That was such a blessing and it meant so, so much. A member of my church family knew me well enough to provide me with unique, personalized care.
Some of you may know that I am an automotive enthusiast. I often work on my own car. As much as I wish to have the big red tool box with all the shiny tools from the Sears Craftsman catalog, I just have the basic socket set and wrenches plus a few extras. Sometimes, though, the basic tools do not do the job. That pair of pliers I use can slip, leaving me with a little less skin on my knuckles or worse, breaking the part I was trying to fix. The job goes so much smoother when you have that special tool that was designed for a particular task.
The deacons would like to help you have the right tools for parish care. There is a way to offer help to some one in Christian love and we would like to provide that sort of support and training. When we see how many of you have offered to help with parish care we will arrange some sessions to give you the know-how to provide the care our congregation needs, like the friend who cooked a special meal for me.
“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” There is an urgency to parish care. Presently we are doing a good job, but we can always do better. We need to maintain existing relationships and establish connections for new relationships. We each need to really know our church family, to have everyday knowledge of each other in order to build bridges over the turbulent waters. This takes discipline. It takes more than the casual “Hi, howya doin” over coffee in Chapin hall. It is important to be ready so that when something big happens we are not caught off guard – without enough oil in our lamps.
Together, we are capable of doing this. Yes, there are some people who appear built to serve, who seem to have the knack for making things happen around here. There are people who look at ease standing in front of the church making an announcement about upcoming events or offering a prayer as the liturgist when one minister is away. Some of you work behind the scenes, chairing a committee or serving on a board. But even less visible are the people who quietly serve by giving a ride to someone who is not able to drive, cooking and delivering a meal to some who just came out of the hospital, sending a card to someone on a special or difficult day or stopping by to visit someone who is not able to get out of their house. Every one of us is able to do something for someone else, no matter how small it seems. It may be huge to the one who needs it. As I said, it takes discipline: If I can do this…. I remember the first time I served as liturgist. It is a good thing that we have this pulpit here. That way you did not see my knees shaking (like they are now). Honestly, discipline is something I am short on. The reason you will find me typing the minutes at 11pm on the first Monday of the month, the reason I have not studied the Bible as much as I wish I had, the reason I have not done a particular project, the reason is lack of faithful discipline. It is so much easier for me to sit on the couch and turn on the TV. It is easier for me to go on the internet and check out the auto racing site. That is my particular struggle and I pray every day for the focus to do the things that are important. All of us pray that prayer in our particular struggles for discipline.
Yet, it is so very important for each of us to take care of one another, to practice parish care NOW, even in basic and simple ways, so that we have a strong foundation when a significant need arises. Our goal is to keep this body of Christ strong and to spread our love and care as far as we can. Allow the deacons to guide you in the ways of parish care. The bridegroom is Jesus Christ. The bride is the church and that is us. Bring your oil and trim your wicks so that you can serve the bridegroom in a manner that honors Him. “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Amen