The Scandal of Grace is That It’s for You
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For July 1, 2018:
The Scandal of Grace is That It’s for You
by Tom Willadsen
Mark 5:21-43, 2 Corinthians 8:7-15, Psalm 130
In the News
I write Thursday, June 21, 2018. By far the story that has gotten the most press coverage for the last week is the situation regarding children being separated from their parents at US borders. Some of these families seek to enter the United States illegally; others are seeking asylum status. Children in both situations are being taken from their parents.
NPR reported on June 20, "Inside an old warehouse in South Texas, hundreds of children wait in a series of cages created by metal fencing. One cage had 20 children inside. Scattered about are bottles of water, bags of chips and large foil sheets intended to serve as blankets."
The Associated Press reported the same day, that their reporters visited one site on Monday (6/18/18) and described a "large, dark facility" with separate wings for children, adults and families:
There has even been discussion in the press about whether a room whose walls are chain link fence is, in fact, “a cage.”
Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said:
"Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful."
This is a peculiar passage to use to justify the separation of children from their families. Paul was speaking to a completely different society in which Christians were persecuted and targeted for persecution. It was far better for Christians in Rome to not call attention to themselves while being so weak and outnumbered. The notion that all law is God-approved, and should therefore be obeyed does violence to Paul’s counsel to the Romans.
Scripture, especially the Psalms and Prophets are filled with admonitions to protect widows and orphans. The 10 Commandments are explicit in including slaves and “resident aliens” in the rest and refreshment of Sabbath.
The United States’ capacity to process requests for asylum is severely overburdened. NPR reported June 21, that there are 3,000 cases currently pending.
NPR’s John Burnett has reported (6/20/18) that some families are not being allowed to request asylum -- that they are being repeatedly turned away and told the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) facility is too full to accept them. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen has denied that some asylum-seekers who present themselves at a port of entry are being turned away, which would be a violation of international law.
"We are saying we want to take care of you in the right way. Right now we do not have the resources at this particular moment in time. Come back," she said. (This statement appears to confirm the contention that asylum seekers are, in fact, being turned away, in violation of international law.)
Images of children separated from parents, and the defense of this practice by government officials calls into question who is welcome in this country and who is worthy of being protected. Those who argue for the necessity of cutting off immigration entirely contend that there simply are not enough resources and jobs to admit new people to the United States, legally or illegally.
Recent federal budgets that have cut funding for Homeland Security and the State Department are overwhelmed by people fleeing violence, domestic abuse, poverty and natural disasters from other nations.
There is a cost, in human and humane terms, to how we welcome and seek to include refugees and the most vulnerable populations into society.
In the Scriptures
Immediately before today’s pericope in Mark, Jesus performed an extraordinary miracle in “Gentile-land.” He drove a legion of demons out of a man who was publically known as a wild, crazy man who lived among the tombs. Jesus drove his demons into a herd of swine, who then drowned themselves. I’ve always pictured this as a thundering stampede of cloven hoofs, lemming like. Imagine the sound of the stampede; imagine the sound of thousands of porcine cannonballs. (Memo to myself: great band name “Porcine Cannonballs.”) The swineherds ran into town and the townspeople came out to see the formerly possessed man wearing clothes and in his right mind. They begged Jesus to leave, go back across the sea; leave Gentile-land. The formerly possessed man begged to join Jesus, but Jesus commissioned him to tell the people in Decapolis [Ten Cities, also Gentile-land] what Jesus had done. No messianic secret this time. Not on that side of the sea.
As today’s lesson begins, a great crowd awaited Jesus’ return. A prominent, probably wealthy, leader of the synagogue, Jairus, greets Jesus, and bows before him and begs him to lay hands on his daughter who is gravely ill. Jesus heads to Jairus’ home and the crowd goes with him. An unnamed woman who has suffered a hemorrhage for twelve years, who has suffered under the care of physicians, says to herself, “if I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” She reaches out and touches the end of Jesus’ clothes and Jesus perceives that healing power has left him. There are numerous people who are in contact with Jesus in the press of the crowd, but this woman’s faith not only makes her well, it gets Jesus’ attention. Twice Jesus asked who touched his clothes. The disciples point out that lots of people had been touching him, that’s the thing about crowds. The woman who had been healed, came forward and bowed, with “fear and trembling.” She was unclean, in touching Jesus’ clothes she had made him unclean. She’s all better, miraculously, but still afraid of the consequences of her reaching out in faith -- reaching out from the depths of despair as Psalm 130 reports. Her hope was in the Lord, whose power redeemed her. Jesus said nothing about ritual purity; he spoke words of radical inclusion, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
“Daughter” is a term of intimacy and connection.
At the end of chapter three in Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ mother and brothers approached him, but Jesus said, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
The newly-healed, socially-restored woman, is closer to Jesus than his immediate family! And she’s the second person who has bowed before Jesus in the last two minutes. There’s Jairus, remember him? Remember the guy whose twelve-year-old daughter was gravely ill? But things had taken a turn for the worst. His daughter died; there was nothing left to do.
Psychologists say that the death of one’s child is the worst possible grief. How grief can be compared is a mystery to me, but it can only be heart breaking when a child does not live to adulthood. Jesus overhears the news that Jairus’ daughter has died and says to him, “Do not fear; only believe.” Jesus brings only his inner circle with him, the Executive Committee of the disciples, Peter, James and John. There is a commotion at Jairus’ house. It is possible there are some professional mourners in the crowd. Jesus informs them that the little girl, unnamed, isn’t dead, but merely sleeping. They laughed at him.
The inner circle, Jairus and Jairus’ wife went in to the room. Jesus touched her; said, “Little girl, get up,” in Aramaic -- and she did!
And Jesus told them not to tell anyone. Here among the Jews, the miracle is to be kept under wraps. The formerly demon-possessed man was commissioned to tell of his healing among the Gentiles.
In the lesson from 2 Corinthians, Paul urges the Corinthian Christians to support the poor believers back in Jerusalem. The Corinthians are relatively wealthy, and Paul commends to them the joy of generosity. Their support would cross a social, ethnic line between Jew and Gentile. Though the gospel has traveled to distant lands, it is strong enough to connect all people under one Lord and Savior. Besides, Paul reasons, there may be a time when the Corinthians will be in need.
In the Sermon
There is a difference between law and power. The ability to enforce the law does not obligate its enforcement.
There is a difference between right and good. As a nation we are deeply divided by those who seek one at the expense of the other.
It would have been easy for Jesus to have refused to visit Jairus’ home. Certainly, Jesus made himself ritually unclean by taking the hand of the little girl after she had died. He could have obeyed the law, and probably even Jairus would have understood. He was a leader of the synagogue; he knew the law. Jesus could have chosen “law” over “good” -- obedience over healing. By ignoring the law, his healing points to something much deeper, more humane. He chose life. The contrast between inclusion and exclusion cannot be starker than the chasm between life and death. Jesus saw and exalted the value and worth of one whom society could have easily ignored. Jesus did that a lot. Extending love, inclusion, blessing, life to all kinds of people. All kinds of people. Even children.
In the same way, Jesus could have condemned and publically shamed the woman who reached out to him in faith. Instead he embraced her, welcomed her into his family. It is her faith that has brought her restoration. It is her faith that gave her a new life. Whether she was daring or desperate we can only guess. She took a risk, stretched out in faith and was restored. Restoration, reconciliation, inclusion…beyond what people and our laws and customs can see.
Today when we see children held in cages and tents, children of loving parents whose crime is seeking a better, safer life for themselves and their children we must stop and ask, “What’s right? What’s good?”
Today, families of people seeking asylum status -- fleeing homelands because of well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political affiliation or social group -- separated in violation of international law, we need to ask “What is the cost in human terms of what is being done under the rule of law?”
Before becoming famous for writing and illustrating children’s books, Dr. Seuss drew political cartoons and images for print ads. This eerily prescient cartoon was drawn on the eve of World War II.
I close with a passionate cri de cœur by the mother of an adopted child, not a child who has been separated from her parents, but one who has lived the trauma of being orphaned or abandoned. There is a cost in human terms to the actions our nation is taking to protect the homeland:
SECOND THOUGHTS
Excel in Giving
by Mary Austin
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
We need not a rule book, Paul says, but a measuring stick, when we think about giving. Faith prompts us to give -- not because we have to, but because we are eager to. He’s laying down a challenge -- if your faith is genuine, then you will give. Um, okay -- even if our faith isn’t genuine, no one wants to be on the wrong side of that measure. Paul sets the stage for his argument by using the example of the Macedonian church, which has given generously, even in adversity. Urging the churches in Corinth to rise to the occasion, he sprinkles in a little rivalry to spur their giving.
He reminds us that giving lives in the balance between our abundance and someone’s need. We expect generosity from people who have much to give, and still gifts come from unexpected places. The gift and the giver surprise us.
A California couple recently lived up to Paul’s exhortation to excel in giving. Moved by the widely shared picture of a two year old migrant girl crying as her mother was interviewed at the border, they “started a Facebook fund-raising page for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or Raices, a nonprofit organization that provides low-cost legal defense services to immigrant and refugee families in Texas. The Willners set a modest goal of $1,500.” They ended up raising $15 million for the center, which was overwhelmed by the unexpected show of support. “The funds will go toward legal representation for immigrant children and parents in Texas, as well as toward paying parents’ bond so they can be released from detention centers and reunited with their children. The organization -- which currently has about 50 lawyers on staff -- plans to go on a hiring spree and fund training for volunteer lawyers willing to travel to Texas.” More than 425,000 people made contributions. It became the single largest fundraiser in Facebook’s history.
We have much more to give than we think we do, suggests professor and writer Adam Grant. The secret of it is not in the giving, but in the asking. Grant writes about the workplace, but the same dynamic happens at church. “The hallmark of any great work culture is that people care as much about each other’s success as their own. They share their knowledge, connections, and help without any strings attached. Many organizations never reach that level of “productive generosity,” and it’s not because people aren’t willing to give. It’s because they’re afraid to ask for help -- they don’t want to look incompetent or embarrass themselves. In doing so, they make it difficult for people to know where, when, and how to contribute.” Paul is right -- giving generously wakes up something important in us. But people have to let us know how to give. Grant adds, “There’s even evidence to suggest that 75%-90% of all helping in workplaces starts with a request. In other words, if you want people to give, you have to make it easy for people to ask.”
No surprise -- we become more generous when it’s easy to give. Surprise -- we also become more generous when it’s easy for people to ask. Facebook understands this, and it’s easy to set up a fund raiser, like the California couple did. Like Paul, they even apply a little shame -- when your birthday is approaching, they ask if you would like to do a birthday fundraiser for a cause dear to your heart.
Writer Chris Keating recently shared that the Presbyterian Church (USA), meeting at its General Assembly in St. Louis, planned to take an offering to supply bail money for people in jail for minor offenses. Taking a break from committee meetings, commissioners collected $47,000 and marched to the Justice Center to bail out non-violent offenders eligible for bail. We expect proclamations and budgets and debates from this kind of meeting, and here was an act of unexpected generosity.
For Paul, as he writes to the believers in Corinth, eagerness in giving makes our gift acceptable, no matter the size. It doesn’t have to be millions, as prospective college student Chris French discovered, when he want to visit his mother in the ICU of a Washington, DC hospital. Wearing a hat from Florida A&M University (FAMU), he was stopped by a woman in the waiting room. She told him “her niece had planned to start her freshman year at Florida A&M University the following week. But her niece had been struck by a stray bullet earlier in the day, and the family was anxiously awaiting news of her condition. French realized she was talking about Jamahri Sydnor, a 17-year-old bystander who had been caught in a hail of bullets intended for someone else as she drove on a street in the District.” He had never met Jamahri, but they were both part of a texting group for incoming students, so he had heard about the shooting. He offered to pray with the family, and then discovered the next day that Jamahri had died. The family asked if he was ready for school, and Chris French explained that with his mother’s illness, he hadn’t had time to shop. Jamahri’s parents had him come to their home, and they pressed on him the things they had bought for her to take to FAMU. Chris French said “he felt a little awkward because he didn’t know the family well, and they were in such deep mourning. “Her father just put the stuff in my trunk and told me to take care,” French said. But then Jamahri’s parents told French to come back the following day, because they had more things to give him.”
Their eagerness in giving continued the next day, when the family gathered, prayed with Chris, opened their wallets and gave him money for the trip to school. “Other family members gathered around and they prayed together. Then, one by one, they all opened their wallets, giving French spending money as a gesture of friendship and to help ease his transition into college. They prayed and told him to stay in touch, which he does.
In a terrible season of grief, Jamahri’s parents and family excelled in giving to a stranger. Out of modest means (her mother is a police officer and her father is a bus driver) they made a deep difference in the life of a stranger. Even in their sorrow, they somehow had the eagerness to give that Paul praises.
With so many claims on our time and funds, we feel beset by all the places where we could be giving. Paul calls us out of obligation into eagerness, bringing us back to the surprise of giving where we don’t expect it, and receiving when we don’t deserve it. We are often urged to strive for excellence in sports or school, in making money or getting promotions, but Paul turns us in another direction, inviting us to excel at being generous. Our generosity is enough, he promises. Our eagerness to give is its own gift.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love:
Death
In the June issue of People magazine there was an article titled: My Father’s Suicide Made Me An Activist. The magazine interviewed high school sophomore Julia Spoor. When Julia was 7-years-old she noticed a change in her father’s personality. That year he twice tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills. Then, on September 25, 2009, the 43-year-old electrical engineer killed himself with a hand gun, just ten days before Julia’s 8th birthday. Though her father showed no signs of mental illness when he purchased his revolver, after the two attempted suicides Julia said, “that would have been the point for someone to say, ‘This guy should not possess a firearm.’” Now 16, Julia has become an activist for “red flag laws,” already in place in six states, which help families remove guns from someone in crisis. She also promoted the Wear Orange initiative, where on June 1 everyone was to wear orange as an effort to raise awareness of gun violence. She also helped launch Students Demand Action, a national student-based organization advocating tougher gun legislation.
Application: A common theme in our lectionary readings is death and the accompanying grief, and how individuals dealt with it.
* * *
Death
In the June issue of People magazine there was an article titled: After Tragedy, A Family’s Crusade. Rory Staunton, a 12-year-old student, got a 1-inch cut on his arm during gym class on a Wednesday in March 2012. The next day he was in his pediatrician’s office with severe pain, vomiting, and a 104-degree fever. Two days later he was in the hospital’s ICU unit. On Sunday of that week, he died of sepsis. Sepsis is a condition when your body’s immune system has an extreme reaction to an infection by attacking its own tissues. Rory’s mother, Orlaith said of the ordeal, “It’s just astounding. When Rory died I thought, ‘This has to be something really rare.’ I didn’t think there was anything that could kill him within four days that I wouldn’t know about.” As it is, sepsis is the leading cause of hospital deaths. Orlaith, and her husband Ciaran, both restaurant owners, launched the Rory Staunton Foundation. The purpose of the foundation is to help raise awareness of sepsis and how to prevent it. They have been instrumental in getting some statewide mandates in New York for establishing hospital protocols for dealing with sepsis.
Application: A common theme in our lectionary readings is death and the accompanying grief, and how individuals dealt with it.
* * *
Stewardship
Ree Drummond is better known to her fans and followers as the Pioneer Woman. What began as a blog in 2006 has exploded into her own Food Network program, five bestselling cookbooks, a lifestyle magazine and a houseware line. She and her husband, Ladd, opened a restaurant in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Ladd grew up in Pawhuska, where for five generations his family has worked a cattle ranch. Pawhuska was once a thriving city economically, but with the loss of the oil industry it has been a struggling community. With the Drummond’s restaurant, Mercantile, thousands of fans come to Drummond each week. This of course, has restored the city’s economy. Ree and Ladd’s business is driven by their strong Christian faith. The Pioneer Woman said, “We’re Bible-reading folks, and we love that verse that says, ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.’ We’re very mindful of storing up our treasures in heaven rather than on earth. We don’t want to bury them in the backyard and sit on them. It’s exciting to use whatever success we’ve achieved to do things that aren’t just about us.” This has been demonstrated in how the Drummond’s treat their employees and have contributed to Pawhuska.
Application: Paul discusses the need to have a “fair balance” when dealing with others.
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Discipleship
Ree Drummond is better known to her fans and followers as the Pioneer Woman. What began as a blog in 2006 has exploded into her own Food Network program, five bestselling cookbooks, a lifestyle magazine and a houseware line. She and her husband, Ladd, opened a restaurant in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Ladd grew up in Pawhuska, where for five generations his family has worked a cattle ranch. Pawhuska was once a thriving city economically, but with the loss of the oil industry is has been a struggling community. With the Drummond’s restaurant, Mercantile, thousands of fans come to Drummond each week. This of course, has restored the city’s economy. In their effort to continue to revive the city, Ladd suggested restoring an old building into a Boarding House. Ree at first was skeptical of the project and its possibility to be successful. She also wondered if she and her husband needed another project. As the Pioneer Woman reports: she said “’Let me sleep on it,’ Then he broke ground while I was asleep.” Within 30 minutes of the opening for reservations, the Boarding House was booked solid for the first six months.
Application: A recurring theme throughout our lectionary readings for today is the call to be a faithful and active disciple.
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Healing
Elizabeth Perkins is an actress who starred in the films About Last Night and Big. Many may remember her for playing Celia on Showtime’s drama Weeds which ran for five seasons. In the spring of 2005, during her first season with Weeds, Perkins became increasing fatigued, lost weight and was constantly thirsty. She went to her family physician who immediately rushed her to the hospital by ambulance. Her blood sugar was 640, when 100 is normal. Parker was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She must inject herself with insulin five or six times a day. Of her illness Perkins said, “It’s a lonely disease because you’re managing it all on your own. Outside you appear 100 percent fine, but inside you are battling something deadly.”
Application: We need to be aware and supportive of those who are suffering from a “lonely disease.”
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Ministry
Fifty years after the debut of the television show Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, and fifteen years after the death of its star, Fred McFeely Rogers, a documentary, titled Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, is being shown. The documentary will draw on highlights from its 856 episodes and interviews with individuals who personally knew Rev. Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister. Rogers, born in 1928, was a sickly child who spent most of his time in his bedroom writing music and stories for his puppets. After Rogers graduated from Rollins College and later received his divinity degree, he took his love for children and his desire to educate them about life in a meaningful in a fun way and combined it with his own childhood ambition of music and puppets. Though the show had a clam atmosphere, Rev. Rogers did discuss for children the controversial issues of the day. For example, when race relations were being strained, he promoted acceptance. It was known that in urban areas, such as Pittsburgh where Rogers’ produced his show, acid was being poured into public swimming pools so black children could not swim in them. Demonstrating against this, Rogers invited Francois Clemmons, a black man and homosexual, onto his show as his next-door neighbor police officer. Together they sat barefooted in a toddler swimming pool, black skin touching white skin. They then dried each other’s feet. Clemmons recounts that episode saying, “The idea of our two skin colors being there together in that little pool of water represented that issue in Fred’s mind.”
Application: As we can see from our story of Jesus in today’s lectionary reading, we are called to minister unto all people.
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Justice
A new television show has just premiered on the Paramount Network. The show is called Yellowstone, staring Kevin Costner. Costner plays John Dutton, a rancher and patriarch of a western dynasty, who controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States. In the show Costner battles slimy politicians and corrupt developers, using intimidation and even violence to protect God’s country. Taylor Sheridan, who created the show, said, “He is a king protecting a kingdom, and morality doesn’t factor into such things.”
Application: Paul teaches us in our lectionary reading that morality does play into the things we do.
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Discipleship
In 1982, Vanna White became the official cohost of the television show The Wheel of Fortune. Then, she had no conception that she would now be celebrating her 35th season on the show, along with Pat Sajak. White, 61, said, “This has really turned into a great thing. We’ve reached many generations from young to old, from babies to 100-year-olds.” If you happened to watch every show during those 35 years, you may have noticed that the South Carolina native has worn 6,500 outfits, and never worn the same outfit twice.
Application: When we are first called to follow an assignment from Jesus, we never know to what extent it will lead.
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Healing
Thandie Newton, 45, first broke into the movie business in 1994, starring with Tom Cruise in the film Interview with the Vampire. Newton has finally reached a major milestone in her career, with a starring role in the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story. She plays the character Val, a hard-bitten thief. Newton was raised in London by her Zimbabwean mother, Nyasha, a nurse, and her British father, Nick, an artist. Newton enjoyed going to the movies, but the experience often left her troubled. On the Solo set, Newton often thought about her own childhood, saying, “I was a kid that loved these films, and yet there was nobody like me looking out from the screen. I can’t tell you what that feels like. What would the little Thandie have wanted to see? A black woman in her natural glory. And I got to do that.”
Application: Jesus understood how being a part of someone’s life is healing.
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Unity
In order to foster congeniality and cooperation among various Christian denominations, the World Council of Churches established a week of Christian unity called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In 1980 liturgies and material were written that all denominations could use to foster unity. Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, referred to the resources as “the kindergarten of ecumenism.”
Application: Paul discusses that in our eagerness to serve the Lord, there must be unity among us.
* * * * * *
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Love in Action
Unexpected Generosity
One day in early May Bilal Quintyne felt a call. The amateur boxer was preparing for a training run in Smyrna, Ga., when he noticed an older woman sitting in a wheelchair by the side of the road. The chair was stuck, and she could not move.
“She kind of had a blank look,” he recalled. “I just asked her, ‘Are you okay?’ ”
The woman, 67-year-old Belinda Whitaker, told him that she had been there for 45 minutes since her wheelchair motor conked out. She was within a few steps of a church and a carwash. But aside from a passerby who had helped her back into her chair after she was thrown to the ground by the initial jolt, no one had offered assistance.
So, she asked Quintyne if he would he call someone to help.
“I’ll do you one better,” he said. “God blessed me with an able body. I’ll push you home.”
Whitaker was skeptical. She says she thought, “Yeah, sure, he says that, but after he gets going he’s going to say, ‘This is too much for me.’”
Whitaker is a a semiretired real estate agent who had polio as a child. She had set out from her senior housing complex that day to do some shopping. Her electric wheelchair had recently gotten a new battery, and after it stopped, she jiggled some wires to try to find a connection, but it wouldn’t move.
“I was sitting there thinking, ‘What should I do? Should I call the police?’” she said. “I put my head down and said, ‘Dear God, dear God, please find somebody safe to help me out.’ The next thing I know, Bilal shows up.”
Her home was a 30-minute walk, and the wheels on the 360-pound chair had seized up, making it harder to push for the first part of the journey. Along the way, Quintyne’s trainer, Tony Willingham, drove up expecting to do a training session. He saw what was going on and started filming it.
“He just said he was taking her home,” Willingham said. “He just does stuff like that. That’s who that kid is.”
When he finally got her home, Whitaker hugged the sweating young boxer and he went on his way.
Then Quintyne posted Willingham’s video on his Facebook page, and it went viral. It garnered 3.4 million views, and he got calls from all over the world. But until last week, he didn’t know who Whitaker was and she didn’t know who he was. That changed when a friend of Quintyne’s saw Whitaker getting a coffee at a local gas station and recognized her as the woman in the video.
Coincidentally, the same week, Stephan Bell, Belinda Whitaker’s pastor saw the video on Facebook. With pastor Bell’s help, Whitaker and Quintyne reconnected last week, and she invited him to church on Sunday. He was overwhelmed by the reception.
“They gave me a plaque,” Quintyne said. “The pastor said, ‘That’s what it’s about, taking care of your community, not just sitting there and talking about God, but going out and practicing what you preach.’”
The church presented him with a rousing ovation, a plaque, a church T-shirt, and a $25 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory.
“I just felt so much love,” he said. “I don’t see myself as no superhero, I don’t see myself as no great guy. I’m just a moral man doing what I was put on this Earth to do.”
A man helped a woman stranded in a wheelchair. What he did next went viral. by Tara Bahrampou, Washington Post 06/19/2018
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Pennies from Heaven
Unexpected Generosity
Genevieve Via Cava rarely dined in restaurants, bought new clothes or splurged on movies or musicals, choosing instead to dutifully deposit the checks she’d earned from her job as a special needs teacher in the bank.
Friends and former colleagues were shocked to learn two months ago that Via Cava, who died in 2011 at age 89, had quietly amassed a fortune worth several million dollars and had left $1 million of it to New Jersey’s Dumont School District to fund college scholarships for special needs students.
When her estate was finally settled in April, a check was delivered to the Dumont Board of Education, stunning the district’s superintendent, Emanuele Triggiano, when he opened the envelope.
“We never could have imagined that she’d amassed that kind of money,” Triggiano tells People Magazine. “She’d told me once that she planned to leave something to help students, but $1 million? It’s incredible.”
Widowed since 1990, Via Cava -- who clipped coupons weekly and didn’t have children of her own -- taught in several Bergen County, New Jersey, schools from 1945 until her retirement in 1990. Her gift will fund one or two annual $25,000 scholarships in perpetuity, says Triggiano, “making a huge impact in the lives of the kids she loved.”
https://people.com/human-interest/special-needs-teacher-leaves-1-million-former-school/
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A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
Empowering Children & Women
Fred Rogers, affectionately known to generations of kids as “Mr. Rogers” spent his adult life empowering children with messages of acceptance and love. And if you ever wondered just how powerful his message was and just how much impact it had on the kids who faithfully watched him on television, consider this:
On May 17, 1992, Fred Rogers was invited to deliver the Opening Invocation for the Commencement Ceremony at Boston University. His introduction was a simple one, something like: Fred Rogers will now lead us in the invocation.
The roar of approval from the soon-to-be graduates was nearly deafening and went on for several minutes. Fred began to speak and the ovation started again. And again. Finally, with that quiet, gentle voice that was so inimically his own, he said simply, “Will you sing with me?” and began singing that familiar little song that he wrote for his television program many years ago.
“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood / A beautiful day for a neighbor / Would you be mine? / Could you be mine?” Etc.
Within moments, the entire audience, including the faculty and staff were singing with him. At the close of the song, he invited the class to be seated, which they did quietly, and he offered a prayer.
* * *
You Were A Child Once, Too
Empowering Children and Women
From: CAN YOU SAY…HERO? By Tom Junod
Esquire Magazine, November 1998
YOU WERE A CHILD ONCE, TOO. That's what Mister Rogers said, that's what he wrote down, once upon a time, for the doctors. The doctors were ophthalmologists. An ophthalmologist is a doctor who takes care of the eyes. Sometimes, ophthalmologists have to take care of the eyes of children, and some children get very scared, because children know that their world disappears when their eyes close, and they can be afraid that the ophthalmologists will make their eyes close forever.
The ophthalmologists did not want to scare children, so they asked Mister Rogers for help, and Mister Rogers agreed to write a chapter for a book the ophthalmologists were putting together -- a chapter about what other ophthalmologists could do to calm the children who came to their offices. Because Mister Rogers is such a busy man, however, he could not write the chapter himself, and he asked a woman who worked for him to write it instead. She worked very hard at writing the chapter, until one day she showed what she had written to Mister Rogers, who read it and crossed it all out and wrote a sentence addressed directly to the doctors who would be reading it: "You were a child once, too."
And that's how the chapter began.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030301184814/http://esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030227_mfe_rogershero_1.html
* * *
The Last (plastic) Straw
Empowering Children and Women
Last fall, the CEO of San Francisco-based Dignity Health received an email out of the blue. It was from a 16-year-old Girl Scout named Shelby O’Neil.
With all due respect, she wrote, the company’s “Human Kindness” commercial had a glaring flaw: It depicted the casual use of a disposable plastic straw to blow out a birthday candle. “Did you know that straws are one of the top ocean polluters?” she wrote. “Scientists are predicting by the year 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish if we don’t start making drastic changes with our plastic pollution. I’m urging you to stop using this specific commercial.”
Shelby, now 17, lives in San Juan Bautista, Calif., a small city 14 miles from the beach. Learning about the dangers of plastic pollution in the ocean spurred her to focus her Girl Scout Gold Award project, the organization’s highest honor, on trying to do something about it. Items such as plastic straws, stirrers and cup lids are too small to be recycled and are made to break down more quickly than other plastics, she said. “That may sound good, but unfortunately they get broken down into small micro plastic that can be consumed by animals like fish, and then we end up eating the fish,” she said.
Shelby started a nonprofit, Jr Ocean Guardians, to help educate lower-grade level children about plastic and recycling, and has hosted beach cleanups with schoolchildren. Then she decided to take her campaign to the grown-ups.
She identified several companies that use plastic straws, stirrers and cup lids, and wrote them letters.
Not all the letters she wrote got traction. A California-based burger chain told her it had no intention of ceasing to use plastic. But to her surprise, the CEO of Dignity got back to her personally. So did the president and CEO of Farmer Brothers coffee and the sustainability manager at Alaska Airlines. After being in touch with Shelby, all three companies decided to reduce or eliminate the use of the items she objected to.
Shelby’s letter to Dignity, which has 39 hospitals in California, Arizona and Nevada, spurred corporate meetings on the issue, said Mary Ellen Leciejewski, vice president of corporate responsibility there. “We looked at our operations and we discussed that not only could we reduce our straw usage but we could eliminate our plastic stirrers and lids as well,” she said. “We’ve always had a strong sustainability program and we had been doing other things, but this particular one hadn’t risen to the surface yet.”
Dignity halved its use of plastic straws, stirrers and cup lids from 8 million to 4 million per year. They are no longer available in its cafeterias but are still available for patients. “The fact that a 16-year-old girl had taken the action to write the CEO” was a powerful incentive, Leciejewski said. “Maybe it was that it was a single person, one lone voice.”
Jacqueline Drumheller, sustainability manager for Alaska Airlines, said Shelby’s request echoed waste-reduction goals the company was already working toward. As of next month Alaska Airlines, which used 22 million plastic stir straws and citrus picks each year, now plans to use stir straws made from white birch and citrus picks made of bamboo.
And Farmer Brothers wrote to Shelby saying it would replace plastic stirrers with wooden ones.
Why does Shelby think the companies listened to her?
She laughed. “I guess confidence?” she said. “I was never really scared of reaching out to companies, because someone needed to do it.” And, she said, she’s not the shy type. “If no one else is doing it, then I’ll do it.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/06/22/a-girl-scout-wrote-to-companies-with-a-heartfelt-request-as-a-result-they-cut-down-on-millions-of-plastic-straws/?utm_term=.0edc0349fedf
* * *
The Social Entrepreneurship Of Women & Girls
Social entrepreneurship is the attempt to draw upon business techniques and private sector approaches to find solutions to social, cultural or environmental problems. Empowering women and girls in this important endeavor is the goal of www.girltank.org.
We are Bold. We are Dreamers. We are Innovators. We are a movement of female change agents and thought leaders that dare to change the world. Thus reads the masthead of their home page.
Sejal Hathi and Tara Roberts found each other coincidentally while independently pursuing their dream of empowering young women worldwide. These dynamic young women joined forces and founded Girltank, an online community supporting young entrepreneurs doing exceptional things. "All around the world girls are starting promising projects," says Sejal, "yet there was no infrastructure for them to sustain their work and be recognized as real innovators."
Girltank provides a forum for girls interested in similar causes to collaborate, hosts a database of video clips featuring girls discussing challenges they face in their respective projects, and provides a crowd-funding platform to raise money for promising ventures. "I believe it's time for a woman-led movement to change the world," says Tara Roberts, "focused on principles like compassion, cooperation, and empathy.
“We knew that it was time for a ‘think tank’ and a movement dedicated exclusively to courageous and brilliant women and girl social entrepreneurs all around the world. That is why we’re focused on building the largest community of female social entrepreneurs in the world and global ecosystems of collaboration and resources to ensure that we support this generation -- and many generations to come -- of female leaders. From Mumbai to Seattle, we refuse to lose another voice.
Today, the Girltank movement is stronger and more diverse than ever. Girltank is a collective of women and girls starting businesses in big cities, building movements in slums, forming clubs from Vietnam to San Francisco and innovating in fields like STEM where few women hold visible positions of power. These are the women and girls who are undertaking a cause bigger than yet inseparable from who they are.
Their home page concludes: “To all these women and girls, we’ve got your back. To all of you reading this, we invite you to join us and dare to change the world.”
* * *
7 Ways to Empower Girls and Women
To celebrate International Women’s Day, World Vision offers these “seven easy ways to make a big difference in the lives of daughters, sisters, and mothers around the world -- and right in our own neighborhoods.”
1. Provide the ticket to education: clean water.
Girls in poor communities often miss school because of a lack of clean water in their village. Instead of attending class, millions of girls and women are forced to spend several hours each day carrying water an average of 6 kilometers for their families, water that is often dirty and dangerous to their health.
2. Support girls and women in crisis.
Millions of girls are subjected to abuse, child labor, sex trafficking, child marriage, and other offenses. Your gift will go where it’s needed most, protecting girls and women by equipping skilled, local staff to offer training, education, counseling, medical care, small business loans, and other programs that reach women and girls as well as boys -- helping to end cycles of gender-based violence.
3. Mentor a girl close to home.
A growing poverty rate, poor-performing schools, and teen violence make it tough to be a girl growing up in the United States. Reach out and influence the life of a young girl in your own community by volunteering as a tutor or mentor.
4. Invest in a small business owner.
Through World Vision microloans, you can connect with hardworking female entrepreneurs who are waiting to realize their dream of building or expanding a successful business. A small loan is all they need. Even better, when the loan is paid off, your donated funds are recycled again and again to help more people and make a bigger impact.
5. Use your voice to end preventable deaths of mothers and children.
Although incredible progress has been made over the last several decades, we can’t stop speaking up. Nearly 2.7 million newborns around the world still die each year, about 1 million on their very first day of life, over 300,000 women die annually due to complications during pregnancy or childbirth, and 16,000 children die every day, most from preventable and treatable causes such as pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria. Congress listens to the calls and reads the emails from you. Tell them to support the Reach Every Mother and Child Act (S. 1911, HR. 3706) to help implement a more efficient, sustainable approach for saving the lives of moms and babies.
6. Help a new mom.
The first weeks of a newborn’s life are the most critical. You can help save young lives around the world by giving a new mother the essential things like a bassinet, cloth diapers, blankets, a container for clean water, and soap. Your gift also provides life-saving infant care training. Know a new mom near you who might be feeling overwhelmed? Mothers of Preschoolers connects moms of young children all over the world to a community of women in their own neighborhoods who meet together to embrace the journey of motherhood.
7. Tell the women in your life that you care.
Empowering women starts right in our families, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Write a note of thanks to that teacher who encouraged you years ago, pick up coffee for that new mom in your office who’s struggling to balance it all, or tell your own sister, daughter, or mother how much you appreciate them.
https://www.worldvision.org/gender-equality-news-stories/seven-ways-empower-women-girls
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship: (Based on Psalm 130)
Leader: Out of the depths we cry to you, O God.
People: O God, hear our voice! Be attentive to the voice of our supplications!
Leader: If you should mark iniquities, O God, who could stand?
People: But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
Leader: We wait for our God, our soul waits, and in God’s word we hope.
People: We hope for with our God there is steadfast love and great power to redeem.
OR
Leader: The God of creation calls us all together.
People: We come to worship with our sisters and brothers.
Leader: All people are the children of God.
People: We open our hearts to all of God’s people.
Leader: God has been generous to us.
People: We will share God’s bounty with others.
Hymns and Songs:
God of Grace and God of Glory
UMH: 577
H82: 594/595
PH: 420
NCH: 436
CH: 464
LBW: 415
ELA: 705
W&P: 569
AMEC: 62
STLT: 115
Renew: 301
Now Thank We All Our God
UMH: 102
H82: 396/397
PH: 555
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533/534
ELA: 839/840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above
UMH: 126
H82: 408
PH: 483
NCH: 6
CH: 6
W&P: 56
Renew: 52
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
Jesus Calls Us
UMH: 398
H82: 549/550
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171/172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELA: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
O God of Every Nation
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELA: 713
W&P: 626
This Is My Song
UMH: 437
NCH: 591
CH: 722
ELA: 887
STLT: 159
By Gracious Powers
UMH: 518
H82: 695/696
PH: 342
NCH: 413
ELA: 626
W&P: 75
Give Thanks
CCB: 92
Renew: 266
Walk with Me
CCB: 88
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who created us all out of the dust of the earth:
Grant us the grace to reach out to those who are rejected
and to empower those who have no power;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you created all life from the dust of the earth. You have made us all sisters and brothers in your family. Help us to see others through you eyes that we may reach out to those who are rejected by others. Help us to give power to the powerless. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially when we have failed to share with others and have regarded others as less worthy than ourselves.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. In generosity and love you have created all people. We know that we all come from one source and are all loved by you and yet we are often selfish taking more than we need while others do without. We think of ourselves as worthwhile people while we doubt the integrity and worth of others. Open our eyes and our hearts that we may realize the commonality of all people and respond with generous and caring hearts. Amen.
Leader: God welcomes all of our attempts to be more loving and caring. Receive God’s grace and forgiveness and in the power of God’s Spirit, reach out to others.
Prayers of the People
We worship you, O God, because you are the creator of all life. You are the foundation on which our lives are based.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. In generosity and love you have created all people. We know that we all come from one source and are all loved by you and yet we are often selfish taking more than we need while others do without. We think of ourselves as worthwhile people while we doubt the integrity and worth of others. Open our eyes and our hearts that we may realize the commonality of all people and respond with generous and caring hearts.
We thank you that you are no respecter of persons but regard each of us as your beloved child. We thank you for those who have shared your love with us and who cared for us instead of judging us. We thank you for Jesus who taught us how to live as sisters and brothers together.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We remember those who lack the necessities of life and those who do not have the power to decide their own lives. We pray for those who are working for justice and peace in our world.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Pass out bags with wrapped candies, pennies or little toys inside. The bags should have very different amounts in them. Ask the children to empty their bags and show what they have. Ask if everyone got the same amount. What should we do about that? What if those who have the most give some to those who have the least? Help the children to even out the items. This makes everyone feel good and it pleases God.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Summertime is Sharing Time!
by Chris Keating
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Gather ahead of time:
Bring out the balancing scale, say to the children, “Let’s pretend each of these weights (or objects) are the fun things we like to do in the summer. Here, this weight could be your summer trip. (Place a weight on the scale). This weight could be your fun camping trip, or a pool party.” Continue adding weights until the scale is terribly unbalanced. (Make sure there are a couple weights on the other side.)
Summer time is a fun time! We might even say it is a time of abundance. Ask the children if they know how to define “abundance.” Summer can be a time of abundance for vegetable gardens, or flower gardens. Summer can also be a time of “abundant” or plenty fun time. Look at the scale -- it is filled with good things.
Say to the children, “In the Bible, Paul knew some people whose lives were full of good things. The people lived in a town called Corinth, and their lives were a little like this scale -- filled! But Paul also knew some Christians who were very poor. They were hungry and needed things. Their lives looked a little like this side of the scale. But Paul wanted to help these other friends. So, he wrote to the Cornthians and said, “Let’s try to balance things.” He said to them, “Friends in Corinth, if you share some of what you have (move a weight or two until the scale is balanced), you can make sure our friends in Jerusalem have what they need.” Paul reminds the Corinthians that just as Jesus shared God’s love with us, so we should share God’s love with others. Sharing is an important part of being a Christian.
Sharing helps others experience God’s love. Ask them, “I wonder if you can think of some ways you can share God’s love this summer?” If they need help, suggest that they bring boxes of breakfast cereal next Sunday to be given to a local pantry, or perhaps gather socks for the homeless.
Close with a brief prayer giving thanks for God’s love, and asking God to help us become people who share what we have.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, July 1, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- The Scandal of Grace is That It’s for You by Tom Willadsen -- Unclean. Diseased. Dead. Jesus takes everyone by surprise in extending welcome and inclusion where walls of human creation have kept people from full inclusion in society. Grace is for everyone. The scandal of grace is that it’s for you.
- Second Thoughts: Excel in Giving by Mary Austin -- Paul reminds us that giving lives in the balance between our abundance and someone’s need. Sometimes gifts come from unexpected places. The gift and the giver surprise us.
- Worship resources by George Reed that focus on generosity and the empowerment of the powerless.
- Sermon illustrations by Ron Love, and Dean Feldmeyer.
- Summertime is sharing time! -- Children's sermon by Chris Keating -- Children learn that summertime can also be a sharing time as we heed Paul’s admonition in 2 Corinthians 8.
The Scandal of Grace is That It’s for You
by Tom Willadsen
Mark 5:21-43, 2 Corinthians 8:7-15, Psalm 130
In the News
I write Thursday, June 21, 2018. By far the story that has gotten the most press coverage for the last week is the situation regarding children being separated from their parents at US borders. Some of these families seek to enter the United States illegally; others are seeking asylum status. Children in both situations are being taken from their parents.
NPR reported on June 20, "Inside an old warehouse in South Texas, hundreds of children wait in a series of cages created by metal fencing. One cage had 20 children inside. Scattered about are bottles of water, bags of chips and large foil sheets intended to serve as blankets."
The Associated Press reported the same day, that their reporters visited one site on Monday (6/18/18) and described a "large, dark facility" with separate wings for children, adults and families:
There has even been discussion in the press about whether a room whose walls are chain link fence is, in fact, “a cage.”
Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said:
"Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful."
This is a peculiar passage to use to justify the separation of children from their families. Paul was speaking to a completely different society in which Christians were persecuted and targeted for persecution. It was far better for Christians in Rome to not call attention to themselves while being so weak and outnumbered. The notion that all law is God-approved, and should therefore be obeyed does violence to Paul’s counsel to the Romans.
Scripture, especially the Psalms and Prophets are filled with admonitions to protect widows and orphans. The 10 Commandments are explicit in including slaves and “resident aliens” in the rest and refreshment of Sabbath.
The United States’ capacity to process requests for asylum is severely overburdened. NPR reported June 21, that there are 3,000 cases currently pending.
NPR’s John Burnett has reported (6/20/18) that some families are not being allowed to request asylum -- that they are being repeatedly turned away and told the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) facility is too full to accept them. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen has denied that some asylum-seekers who present themselves at a port of entry are being turned away, which would be a violation of international law.
"We are saying we want to take care of you in the right way. Right now we do not have the resources at this particular moment in time. Come back," she said. (This statement appears to confirm the contention that asylum seekers are, in fact, being turned away, in violation of international law.)
Images of children separated from parents, and the defense of this practice by government officials calls into question who is welcome in this country and who is worthy of being protected. Those who argue for the necessity of cutting off immigration entirely contend that there simply are not enough resources and jobs to admit new people to the United States, legally or illegally.
Recent federal budgets that have cut funding for Homeland Security and the State Department are overwhelmed by people fleeing violence, domestic abuse, poverty and natural disasters from other nations.
There is a cost, in human and humane terms, to how we welcome and seek to include refugees and the most vulnerable populations into society.
In the Scriptures
Immediately before today’s pericope in Mark, Jesus performed an extraordinary miracle in “Gentile-land.” He drove a legion of demons out of a man who was publically known as a wild, crazy man who lived among the tombs. Jesus drove his demons into a herd of swine, who then drowned themselves. I’ve always pictured this as a thundering stampede of cloven hoofs, lemming like. Imagine the sound of the stampede; imagine the sound of thousands of porcine cannonballs. (Memo to myself: great band name “Porcine Cannonballs.”) The swineherds ran into town and the townspeople came out to see the formerly possessed man wearing clothes and in his right mind. They begged Jesus to leave, go back across the sea; leave Gentile-land. The formerly possessed man begged to join Jesus, but Jesus commissioned him to tell the people in Decapolis [Ten Cities, also Gentile-land] what Jesus had done. No messianic secret this time. Not on that side of the sea.
As today’s lesson begins, a great crowd awaited Jesus’ return. A prominent, probably wealthy, leader of the synagogue, Jairus, greets Jesus, and bows before him and begs him to lay hands on his daughter who is gravely ill. Jesus heads to Jairus’ home and the crowd goes with him. An unnamed woman who has suffered a hemorrhage for twelve years, who has suffered under the care of physicians, says to herself, “if I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” She reaches out and touches the end of Jesus’ clothes and Jesus perceives that healing power has left him. There are numerous people who are in contact with Jesus in the press of the crowd, but this woman’s faith not only makes her well, it gets Jesus’ attention. Twice Jesus asked who touched his clothes. The disciples point out that lots of people had been touching him, that’s the thing about crowds. The woman who had been healed, came forward and bowed, with “fear and trembling.” She was unclean, in touching Jesus’ clothes she had made him unclean. She’s all better, miraculously, but still afraid of the consequences of her reaching out in faith -- reaching out from the depths of despair as Psalm 130 reports. Her hope was in the Lord, whose power redeemed her. Jesus said nothing about ritual purity; he spoke words of radical inclusion, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
“Daughter” is a term of intimacy and connection.
At the end of chapter three in Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ mother and brothers approached him, but Jesus said, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
The newly-healed, socially-restored woman, is closer to Jesus than his immediate family! And she’s the second person who has bowed before Jesus in the last two minutes. There’s Jairus, remember him? Remember the guy whose twelve-year-old daughter was gravely ill? But things had taken a turn for the worst. His daughter died; there was nothing left to do.
Psychologists say that the death of one’s child is the worst possible grief. How grief can be compared is a mystery to me, but it can only be heart breaking when a child does not live to adulthood. Jesus overhears the news that Jairus’ daughter has died and says to him, “Do not fear; only believe.” Jesus brings only his inner circle with him, the Executive Committee of the disciples, Peter, James and John. There is a commotion at Jairus’ house. It is possible there are some professional mourners in the crowd. Jesus informs them that the little girl, unnamed, isn’t dead, but merely sleeping. They laughed at him.
Side bar here: Nowhere in scripture is Jesus recorded as having laughed. He said lots of funny things; he used sarcasm and irony and exaggeration to brilliant effect, but while one can find, “Jesus wept.” nowhere does it say, “Jesus laughed.” And the Greek verb for laugh is not the kind of laughter at a funny joke. It is a laughing at, laughing against.
The inner circle, Jairus and Jairus’ wife went in to the room. Jesus touched her; said, “Little girl, get up,” in Aramaic -- and she did!
And Jesus told them not to tell anyone. Here among the Jews, the miracle is to be kept under wraps. The formerly demon-possessed man was commissioned to tell of his healing among the Gentiles.
In the lesson from 2 Corinthians, Paul urges the Corinthian Christians to support the poor believers back in Jerusalem. The Corinthians are relatively wealthy, and Paul commends to them the joy of generosity. Their support would cross a social, ethnic line between Jew and Gentile. Though the gospel has traveled to distant lands, it is strong enough to connect all people under one Lord and Savior. Besides, Paul reasons, there may be a time when the Corinthians will be in need.
In the Sermon
There is a difference between law and power. The ability to enforce the law does not obligate its enforcement.
There is a difference between right and good. As a nation we are deeply divided by those who seek one at the expense of the other.
It would have been easy for Jesus to have refused to visit Jairus’ home. Certainly, Jesus made himself ritually unclean by taking the hand of the little girl after she had died. He could have obeyed the law, and probably even Jairus would have understood. He was a leader of the synagogue; he knew the law. Jesus could have chosen “law” over “good” -- obedience over healing. By ignoring the law, his healing points to something much deeper, more humane. He chose life. The contrast between inclusion and exclusion cannot be starker than the chasm between life and death. Jesus saw and exalted the value and worth of one whom society could have easily ignored. Jesus did that a lot. Extending love, inclusion, blessing, life to all kinds of people. All kinds of people. Even children.
In the same way, Jesus could have condemned and publically shamed the woman who reached out to him in faith. Instead he embraced her, welcomed her into his family. It is her faith that has brought her restoration. It is her faith that gave her a new life. Whether she was daring or desperate we can only guess. She took a risk, stretched out in faith and was restored. Restoration, reconciliation, inclusion…beyond what people and our laws and customs can see.
Today when we see children held in cages and tents, children of loving parents whose crime is seeking a better, safer life for themselves and their children we must stop and ask, “What’s right? What’s good?”
Today, families of people seeking asylum status -- fleeing homelands because of well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political affiliation or social group -- separated in violation of international law, we need to ask “What is the cost in human terms of what is being done under the rule of law?”
Before becoming famous for writing and illustrating children’s books, Dr. Seuss drew political cartoons and images for print ads. This eerily prescient cartoon was drawn on the eve of World War II.
I close with a passionate cri de cœur by the mother of an adopted child, not a child who has been separated from her parents, but one who has lived the trauma of being orphaned or abandoned. There is a cost in human terms to the actions our nation is taking to protect the homeland:
My youngest child spent the first 14 months of her life in a government institution. As far as we know, she was taken care of by caring people, and her basic needs were met. She is a very loving, intelligent, goofy, and creative child. She is a typical 9-year-old who does not like to clean her room, rolls her eyes a lot when we talk to her, and gets frustrated when we tell her "no." Research shows us, however, that even with all of the love that we have given her and all of the care she was given before we got to her, she still suffered trauma -- trauma that I have no control over and that we will continue to deal with as she wonders why there was no "parent" for her for the first 14 months of her life, and the trauma that her developing brain encountered is something we work through. I am not going to debate why or how this happened to her, whether it was a good choice by her biological mother, if it was fair, if it would have been the same or different for any other child, or what she remembers; she is my child now, and I am immensely thankful for her. I only know that knowing that she was without a parent during that time breaks my heart.
I watch the news now, and my heart continues to break -- I see the elected leader of our country choosing to enforce a policy that, at the end of the day, puts small children in this same situation. Regardless of what you think about these parents (we can have that debate later) the children involved are children who are going to be damaged by these actions. I cannot imagine being a parent of these children -- coming to this country in search of safety and hope, and having my child taken from me. I cannot imagine the fear and heartbreak this is causing those children.
Please talk to me later about these people "breaking the law" or how "this is the fault of the Democrats" -- I promise you I will debate that with you. That is not what this is about.
FB post 6/20
SECOND THOUGHTS
Excel in Giving
by Mary Austin
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
We need not a rule book, Paul says, but a measuring stick, when we think about giving. Faith prompts us to give -- not because we have to, but because we are eager to. He’s laying down a challenge -- if your faith is genuine, then you will give. Um, okay -- even if our faith isn’t genuine, no one wants to be on the wrong side of that measure. Paul sets the stage for his argument by using the example of the Macedonian church, which has given generously, even in adversity. Urging the churches in Corinth to rise to the occasion, he sprinkles in a little rivalry to spur their giving.
He reminds us that giving lives in the balance between our abundance and someone’s need. We expect generosity from people who have much to give, and still gifts come from unexpected places. The gift and the giver surprise us.
A California couple recently lived up to Paul’s exhortation to excel in giving. Moved by the widely shared picture of a two year old migrant girl crying as her mother was interviewed at the border, they “started a Facebook fund-raising page for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or Raices, a nonprofit organization that provides low-cost legal defense services to immigrant and refugee families in Texas. The Willners set a modest goal of $1,500.” They ended up raising $15 million for the center, which was overwhelmed by the unexpected show of support. “The funds will go toward legal representation for immigrant children and parents in Texas, as well as toward paying parents’ bond so they can be released from detention centers and reunited with their children. The organization -- which currently has about 50 lawyers on staff -- plans to go on a hiring spree and fund training for volunteer lawyers willing to travel to Texas.” More than 425,000 people made contributions. It became the single largest fundraiser in Facebook’s history.
We have much more to give than we think we do, suggests professor and writer Adam Grant. The secret of it is not in the giving, but in the asking. Grant writes about the workplace, but the same dynamic happens at church. “The hallmark of any great work culture is that people care as much about each other’s success as their own. They share their knowledge, connections, and help without any strings attached. Many organizations never reach that level of “productive generosity,” and it’s not because people aren’t willing to give. It’s because they’re afraid to ask for help -- they don’t want to look incompetent or embarrass themselves. In doing so, they make it difficult for people to know where, when, and how to contribute.” Paul is right -- giving generously wakes up something important in us. But people have to let us know how to give. Grant adds, “There’s even evidence to suggest that 75%-90% of all helping in workplaces starts with a request. In other words, if you want people to give, you have to make it easy for people to ask.”
No surprise -- we become more generous when it’s easy to give. Surprise -- we also become more generous when it’s easy for people to ask. Facebook understands this, and it’s easy to set up a fund raiser, like the California couple did. Like Paul, they even apply a little shame -- when your birthday is approaching, they ask if you would like to do a birthday fundraiser for a cause dear to your heart.
Writer Chris Keating recently shared that the Presbyterian Church (USA), meeting at its General Assembly in St. Louis, planned to take an offering to supply bail money for people in jail for minor offenses. Taking a break from committee meetings, commissioners collected $47,000 and marched to the Justice Center to bail out non-violent offenders eligible for bail. We expect proclamations and budgets and debates from this kind of meeting, and here was an act of unexpected generosity.
For Paul, as he writes to the believers in Corinth, eagerness in giving makes our gift acceptable, no matter the size. It doesn’t have to be millions, as prospective college student Chris French discovered, when he want to visit his mother in the ICU of a Washington, DC hospital. Wearing a hat from Florida A&M University (FAMU), he was stopped by a woman in the waiting room. She told him “her niece had planned to start her freshman year at Florida A&M University the following week. But her niece had been struck by a stray bullet earlier in the day, and the family was anxiously awaiting news of her condition. French realized she was talking about Jamahri Sydnor, a 17-year-old bystander who had been caught in a hail of bullets intended for someone else as she drove on a street in the District.” He had never met Jamahri, but they were both part of a texting group for incoming students, so he had heard about the shooting. He offered to pray with the family, and then discovered the next day that Jamahri had died. The family asked if he was ready for school, and Chris French explained that with his mother’s illness, he hadn’t had time to shop. Jamahri’s parents had him come to their home, and they pressed on him the things they had bought for her to take to FAMU. Chris French said “he felt a little awkward because he didn’t know the family well, and they were in such deep mourning. “Her father just put the stuff in my trunk and told me to take care,” French said. But then Jamahri’s parents told French to come back the following day, because they had more things to give him.”
Their eagerness in giving continued the next day, when the family gathered, prayed with Chris, opened their wallets and gave him money for the trip to school. “Other family members gathered around and they prayed together. Then, one by one, they all opened their wallets, giving French spending money as a gesture of friendship and to help ease his transition into college. They prayed and told him to stay in touch, which he does.
In a terrible season of grief, Jamahri’s parents and family excelled in giving to a stranger. Out of modest means (her mother is a police officer and her father is a bus driver) they made a deep difference in the life of a stranger. Even in their sorrow, they somehow had the eagerness to give that Paul praises.
With so many claims on our time and funds, we feel beset by all the places where we could be giving. Paul calls us out of obligation into eagerness, bringing us back to the surprise of giving where we don’t expect it, and receiving when we don’t deserve it. We are often urged to strive for excellence in sports or school, in making money or getting promotions, but Paul turns us in another direction, inviting us to excel at being generous. Our generosity is enough, he promises. Our eagerness to give is its own gift.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love:
Death
In the June issue of People magazine there was an article titled: My Father’s Suicide Made Me An Activist. The magazine interviewed high school sophomore Julia Spoor. When Julia was 7-years-old she noticed a change in her father’s personality. That year he twice tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills. Then, on September 25, 2009, the 43-year-old electrical engineer killed himself with a hand gun, just ten days before Julia’s 8th birthday. Though her father showed no signs of mental illness when he purchased his revolver, after the two attempted suicides Julia said, “that would have been the point for someone to say, ‘This guy should not possess a firearm.’” Now 16, Julia has become an activist for “red flag laws,” already in place in six states, which help families remove guns from someone in crisis. She also promoted the Wear Orange initiative, where on June 1 everyone was to wear orange as an effort to raise awareness of gun violence. She also helped launch Students Demand Action, a national student-based organization advocating tougher gun legislation.
Application: A common theme in our lectionary readings is death and the accompanying grief, and how individuals dealt with it.
* * *
Death
In the June issue of People magazine there was an article titled: After Tragedy, A Family’s Crusade. Rory Staunton, a 12-year-old student, got a 1-inch cut on his arm during gym class on a Wednesday in March 2012. The next day he was in his pediatrician’s office with severe pain, vomiting, and a 104-degree fever. Two days later he was in the hospital’s ICU unit. On Sunday of that week, he died of sepsis. Sepsis is a condition when your body’s immune system has an extreme reaction to an infection by attacking its own tissues. Rory’s mother, Orlaith said of the ordeal, “It’s just astounding. When Rory died I thought, ‘This has to be something really rare.’ I didn’t think there was anything that could kill him within four days that I wouldn’t know about.” As it is, sepsis is the leading cause of hospital deaths. Orlaith, and her husband Ciaran, both restaurant owners, launched the Rory Staunton Foundation. The purpose of the foundation is to help raise awareness of sepsis and how to prevent it. They have been instrumental in getting some statewide mandates in New York for establishing hospital protocols for dealing with sepsis.
Application: A common theme in our lectionary readings is death and the accompanying grief, and how individuals dealt with it.
* * *
Stewardship
Ree Drummond is better known to her fans and followers as the Pioneer Woman. What began as a blog in 2006 has exploded into her own Food Network program, five bestselling cookbooks, a lifestyle magazine and a houseware line. She and her husband, Ladd, opened a restaurant in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Ladd grew up in Pawhuska, where for five generations his family has worked a cattle ranch. Pawhuska was once a thriving city economically, but with the loss of the oil industry it has been a struggling community. With the Drummond’s restaurant, Mercantile, thousands of fans come to Drummond each week. This of course, has restored the city’s economy. Ree and Ladd’s business is driven by their strong Christian faith. The Pioneer Woman said, “We’re Bible-reading folks, and we love that verse that says, ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.’ We’re very mindful of storing up our treasures in heaven rather than on earth. We don’t want to bury them in the backyard and sit on them. It’s exciting to use whatever success we’ve achieved to do things that aren’t just about us.” This has been demonstrated in how the Drummond’s treat their employees and have contributed to Pawhuska.
Application: Paul discusses the need to have a “fair balance” when dealing with others.
* * *
Discipleship
Ree Drummond is better known to her fans and followers as the Pioneer Woman. What began as a blog in 2006 has exploded into her own Food Network program, five bestselling cookbooks, a lifestyle magazine and a houseware line. She and her husband, Ladd, opened a restaurant in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Ladd grew up in Pawhuska, where for five generations his family has worked a cattle ranch. Pawhuska was once a thriving city economically, but with the loss of the oil industry is has been a struggling community. With the Drummond’s restaurant, Mercantile, thousands of fans come to Drummond each week. This of course, has restored the city’s economy. In their effort to continue to revive the city, Ladd suggested restoring an old building into a Boarding House. Ree at first was skeptical of the project and its possibility to be successful. She also wondered if she and her husband needed another project. As the Pioneer Woman reports: she said “’Let me sleep on it,’ Then he broke ground while I was asleep.” Within 30 minutes of the opening for reservations, the Boarding House was booked solid for the first six months.
Application: A recurring theme throughout our lectionary readings for today is the call to be a faithful and active disciple.
* * *
Healing
Elizabeth Perkins is an actress who starred in the films About Last Night and Big. Many may remember her for playing Celia on Showtime’s drama Weeds which ran for five seasons. In the spring of 2005, during her first season with Weeds, Perkins became increasing fatigued, lost weight and was constantly thirsty. She went to her family physician who immediately rushed her to the hospital by ambulance. Her blood sugar was 640, when 100 is normal. Parker was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She must inject herself with insulin five or six times a day. Of her illness Perkins said, “It’s a lonely disease because you’re managing it all on your own. Outside you appear 100 percent fine, but inside you are battling something deadly.”
Application: We need to be aware and supportive of those who are suffering from a “lonely disease.”
* * *
Ministry
Fifty years after the debut of the television show Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, and fifteen years after the death of its star, Fred McFeely Rogers, a documentary, titled Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, is being shown. The documentary will draw on highlights from its 856 episodes and interviews with individuals who personally knew Rev. Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister. Rogers, born in 1928, was a sickly child who spent most of his time in his bedroom writing music and stories for his puppets. After Rogers graduated from Rollins College and later received his divinity degree, he took his love for children and his desire to educate them about life in a meaningful in a fun way and combined it with his own childhood ambition of music and puppets. Though the show had a clam atmosphere, Rev. Rogers did discuss for children the controversial issues of the day. For example, when race relations were being strained, he promoted acceptance. It was known that in urban areas, such as Pittsburgh where Rogers’ produced his show, acid was being poured into public swimming pools so black children could not swim in them. Demonstrating against this, Rogers invited Francois Clemmons, a black man and homosexual, onto his show as his next-door neighbor police officer. Together they sat barefooted in a toddler swimming pool, black skin touching white skin. They then dried each other’s feet. Clemmons recounts that episode saying, “The idea of our two skin colors being there together in that little pool of water represented that issue in Fred’s mind.”
Application: As we can see from our story of Jesus in today’s lectionary reading, we are called to minister unto all people.
* * *
Justice
A new television show has just premiered on the Paramount Network. The show is called Yellowstone, staring Kevin Costner. Costner plays John Dutton, a rancher and patriarch of a western dynasty, who controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States. In the show Costner battles slimy politicians and corrupt developers, using intimidation and even violence to protect God’s country. Taylor Sheridan, who created the show, said, “He is a king protecting a kingdom, and morality doesn’t factor into such things.”
Application: Paul teaches us in our lectionary reading that morality does play into the things we do.
* * *
Discipleship
In 1982, Vanna White became the official cohost of the television show The Wheel of Fortune. Then, she had no conception that she would now be celebrating her 35th season on the show, along with Pat Sajak. White, 61, said, “This has really turned into a great thing. We’ve reached many generations from young to old, from babies to 100-year-olds.” If you happened to watch every show during those 35 years, you may have noticed that the South Carolina native has worn 6,500 outfits, and never worn the same outfit twice.
Application: When we are first called to follow an assignment from Jesus, we never know to what extent it will lead.
* * *
Healing
Thandie Newton, 45, first broke into the movie business in 1994, starring with Tom Cruise in the film Interview with the Vampire. Newton has finally reached a major milestone in her career, with a starring role in the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story. She plays the character Val, a hard-bitten thief. Newton was raised in London by her Zimbabwean mother, Nyasha, a nurse, and her British father, Nick, an artist. Newton enjoyed going to the movies, but the experience often left her troubled. On the Solo set, Newton often thought about her own childhood, saying, “I was a kid that loved these films, and yet there was nobody like me looking out from the screen. I can’t tell you what that feels like. What would the little Thandie have wanted to see? A black woman in her natural glory. And I got to do that.”
Application: Jesus understood how being a part of someone’s life is healing.
* * *
Unity
In order to foster congeniality and cooperation among various Christian denominations, the World Council of Churches established a week of Christian unity called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In 1980 liturgies and material were written that all denominations could use to foster unity. Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, referred to the resources as “the kindergarten of ecumenism.”
Application: Paul discusses that in our eagerness to serve the Lord, there must be unity among us.
* * * * * *
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Love in Action
Unexpected Generosity
One day in early May Bilal Quintyne felt a call. The amateur boxer was preparing for a training run in Smyrna, Ga., when he noticed an older woman sitting in a wheelchair by the side of the road. The chair was stuck, and she could not move.
“She kind of had a blank look,” he recalled. “I just asked her, ‘Are you okay?’ ”
The woman, 67-year-old Belinda Whitaker, told him that she had been there for 45 minutes since her wheelchair motor conked out. She was within a few steps of a church and a carwash. But aside from a passerby who had helped her back into her chair after she was thrown to the ground by the initial jolt, no one had offered assistance.
So, she asked Quintyne if he would he call someone to help.
“I’ll do you one better,” he said. “God blessed me with an able body. I’ll push you home.”
Whitaker was skeptical. She says she thought, “Yeah, sure, he says that, but after he gets going he’s going to say, ‘This is too much for me.’”
Whitaker is a a semiretired real estate agent who had polio as a child. She had set out from her senior housing complex that day to do some shopping. Her electric wheelchair had recently gotten a new battery, and after it stopped, she jiggled some wires to try to find a connection, but it wouldn’t move.
“I was sitting there thinking, ‘What should I do? Should I call the police?’” she said. “I put my head down and said, ‘Dear God, dear God, please find somebody safe to help me out.’ The next thing I know, Bilal shows up.”
Her home was a 30-minute walk, and the wheels on the 360-pound chair had seized up, making it harder to push for the first part of the journey. Along the way, Quintyne’s trainer, Tony Willingham, drove up expecting to do a training session. He saw what was going on and started filming it.
“He just said he was taking her home,” Willingham said. “He just does stuff like that. That’s who that kid is.”
When he finally got her home, Whitaker hugged the sweating young boxer and he went on his way.
Then Quintyne posted Willingham’s video on his Facebook page, and it went viral. It garnered 3.4 million views, and he got calls from all over the world. But until last week, he didn’t know who Whitaker was and she didn’t know who he was. That changed when a friend of Quintyne’s saw Whitaker getting a coffee at a local gas station and recognized her as the woman in the video.
Coincidentally, the same week, Stephan Bell, Belinda Whitaker’s pastor saw the video on Facebook. With pastor Bell’s help, Whitaker and Quintyne reconnected last week, and she invited him to church on Sunday. He was overwhelmed by the reception.
“They gave me a plaque,” Quintyne said. “The pastor said, ‘That’s what it’s about, taking care of your community, not just sitting there and talking about God, but going out and practicing what you preach.’”
The church presented him with a rousing ovation, a plaque, a church T-shirt, and a $25 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory.
“I just felt so much love,” he said. “I don’t see myself as no superhero, I don’t see myself as no great guy. I’m just a moral man doing what I was put on this Earth to do.”
A man helped a woman stranded in a wheelchair. What he did next went viral. by Tara Bahrampou, Washington Post 06/19/2018
* * *
Pennies from Heaven
Unexpected Generosity
Genevieve Via Cava rarely dined in restaurants, bought new clothes or splurged on movies or musicals, choosing instead to dutifully deposit the checks she’d earned from her job as a special needs teacher in the bank.
Friends and former colleagues were shocked to learn two months ago that Via Cava, who died in 2011 at age 89, had quietly amassed a fortune worth several million dollars and had left $1 million of it to New Jersey’s Dumont School District to fund college scholarships for special needs students.
When her estate was finally settled in April, a check was delivered to the Dumont Board of Education, stunning the district’s superintendent, Emanuele Triggiano, when he opened the envelope.
“We never could have imagined that she’d amassed that kind of money,” Triggiano tells People Magazine. “She’d told me once that she planned to leave something to help students, but $1 million? It’s incredible.”
Widowed since 1990, Via Cava -- who clipped coupons weekly and didn’t have children of her own -- taught in several Bergen County, New Jersey, schools from 1945 until her retirement in 1990. Her gift will fund one or two annual $25,000 scholarships in perpetuity, says Triggiano, “making a huge impact in the lives of the kids she loved.”
https://people.com/human-interest/special-needs-teacher-leaves-1-million-former-school/
* * *
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
Empowering Children & Women
Fred Rogers, affectionately known to generations of kids as “Mr. Rogers” spent his adult life empowering children with messages of acceptance and love. And if you ever wondered just how powerful his message was and just how much impact it had on the kids who faithfully watched him on television, consider this:
On May 17, 1992, Fred Rogers was invited to deliver the Opening Invocation for the Commencement Ceremony at Boston University. His introduction was a simple one, something like: Fred Rogers will now lead us in the invocation.
The roar of approval from the soon-to-be graduates was nearly deafening and went on for several minutes. Fred began to speak and the ovation started again. And again. Finally, with that quiet, gentle voice that was so inimically his own, he said simply, “Will you sing with me?” and began singing that familiar little song that he wrote for his television program many years ago.
“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood / A beautiful day for a neighbor / Would you be mine? / Could you be mine?” Etc.
Within moments, the entire audience, including the faculty and staff were singing with him. At the close of the song, he invited the class to be seated, which they did quietly, and he offered a prayer.
* * *
You Were A Child Once, Too
Empowering Children and Women
From: CAN YOU SAY…HERO? By Tom Junod
Esquire Magazine, November 1998
YOU WERE A CHILD ONCE, TOO. That's what Mister Rogers said, that's what he wrote down, once upon a time, for the doctors. The doctors were ophthalmologists. An ophthalmologist is a doctor who takes care of the eyes. Sometimes, ophthalmologists have to take care of the eyes of children, and some children get very scared, because children know that their world disappears when their eyes close, and they can be afraid that the ophthalmologists will make their eyes close forever.
The ophthalmologists did not want to scare children, so they asked Mister Rogers for help, and Mister Rogers agreed to write a chapter for a book the ophthalmologists were putting together -- a chapter about what other ophthalmologists could do to calm the children who came to their offices. Because Mister Rogers is such a busy man, however, he could not write the chapter himself, and he asked a woman who worked for him to write it instead. She worked very hard at writing the chapter, until one day she showed what she had written to Mister Rogers, who read it and crossed it all out and wrote a sentence addressed directly to the doctors who would be reading it: "You were a child once, too."
And that's how the chapter began.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030301184814/http://esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030227_mfe_rogershero_1.html
* * *
The Last (plastic) Straw
Empowering Children and Women
Last fall, the CEO of San Francisco-based Dignity Health received an email out of the blue. It was from a 16-year-old Girl Scout named Shelby O’Neil.
With all due respect, she wrote, the company’s “Human Kindness” commercial had a glaring flaw: It depicted the casual use of a disposable plastic straw to blow out a birthday candle. “Did you know that straws are one of the top ocean polluters?” she wrote. “Scientists are predicting by the year 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish if we don’t start making drastic changes with our plastic pollution. I’m urging you to stop using this specific commercial.”
Shelby, now 17, lives in San Juan Bautista, Calif., a small city 14 miles from the beach. Learning about the dangers of plastic pollution in the ocean spurred her to focus her Girl Scout Gold Award project, the organization’s highest honor, on trying to do something about it. Items such as plastic straws, stirrers and cup lids are too small to be recycled and are made to break down more quickly than other plastics, she said. “That may sound good, but unfortunately they get broken down into small micro plastic that can be consumed by animals like fish, and then we end up eating the fish,” she said.
Shelby started a nonprofit, Jr Ocean Guardians, to help educate lower-grade level children about plastic and recycling, and has hosted beach cleanups with schoolchildren. Then she decided to take her campaign to the grown-ups.
She identified several companies that use plastic straws, stirrers and cup lids, and wrote them letters.
Not all the letters she wrote got traction. A California-based burger chain told her it had no intention of ceasing to use plastic. But to her surprise, the CEO of Dignity got back to her personally. So did the president and CEO of Farmer Brothers coffee and the sustainability manager at Alaska Airlines. After being in touch with Shelby, all three companies decided to reduce or eliminate the use of the items she objected to.
Shelby’s letter to Dignity, which has 39 hospitals in California, Arizona and Nevada, spurred corporate meetings on the issue, said Mary Ellen Leciejewski, vice president of corporate responsibility there. “We looked at our operations and we discussed that not only could we reduce our straw usage but we could eliminate our plastic stirrers and lids as well,” she said. “We’ve always had a strong sustainability program and we had been doing other things, but this particular one hadn’t risen to the surface yet.”
Dignity halved its use of plastic straws, stirrers and cup lids from 8 million to 4 million per year. They are no longer available in its cafeterias but are still available for patients. “The fact that a 16-year-old girl had taken the action to write the CEO” was a powerful incentive, Leciejewski said. “Maybe it was that it was a single person, one lone voice.”
Jacqueline Drumheller, sustainability manager for Alaska Airlines, said Shelby’s request echoed waste-reduction goals the company was already working toward. As of next month Alaska Airlines, which used 22 million plastic stir straws and citrus picks each year, now plans to use stir straws made from white birch and citrus picks made of bamboo.
And Farmer Brothers wrote to Shelby saying it would replace plastic stirrers with wooden ones.
Why does Shelby think the companies listened to her?
She laughed. “I guess confidence?” she said. “I was never really scared of reaching out to companies, because someone needed to do it.” And, she said, she’s not the shy type. “If no one else is doing it, then I’ll do it.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/06/22/a-girl-scout-wrote-to-companies-with-a-heartfelt-request-as-a-result-they-cut-down-on-millions-of-plastic-straws/?utm_term=.0edc0349fedf
* * *
The Social Entrepreneurship Of Women & Girls
Social entrepreneurship is the attempt to draw upon business techniques and private sector approaches to find solutions to social, cultural or environmental problems. Empowering women and girls in this important endeavor is the goal of www.girltank.org.
We are Bold. We are Dreamers. We are Innovators. We are a movement of female change agents and thought leaders that dare to change the world. Thus reads the masthead of their home page.
Sejal Hathi and Tara Roberts found each other coincidentally while independently pursuing their dream of empowering young women worldwide. These dynamic young women joined forces and founded Girltank, an online community supporting young entrepreneurs doing exceptional things. "All around the world girls are starting promising projects," says Sejal, "yet there was no infrastructure for them to sustain their work and be recognized as real innovators."
Girltank provides a forum for girls interested in similar causes to collaborate, hosts a database of video clips featuring girls discussing challenges they face in their respective projects, and provides a crowd-funding platform to raise money for promising ventures. "I believe it's time for a woman-led movement to change the world," says Tara Roberts, "focused on principles like compassion, cooperation, and empathy.
“We knew that it was time for a ‘think tank’ and a movement dedicated exclusively to courageous and brilliant women and girl social entrepreneurs all around the world. That is why we’re focused on building the largest community of female social entrepreneurs in the world and global ecosystems of collaboration and resources to ensure that we support this generation -- and many generations to come -- of female leaders. From Mumbai to Seattle, we refuse to lose another voice.
Today, the Girltank movement is stronger and more diverse than ever. Girltank is a collective of women and girls starting businesses in big cities, building movements in slums, forming clubs from Vietnam to San Francisco and innovating in fields like STEM where few women hold visible positions of power. These are the women and girls who are undertaking a cause bigger than yet inseparable from who they are.
Their home page concludes: “To all these women and girls, we’ve got your back. To all of you reading this, we invite you to join us and dare to change the world.”
* * *
7 Ways to Empower Girls and Women
To celebrate International Women’s Day, World Vision offers these “seven easy ways to make a big difference in the lives of daughters, sisters, and mothers around the world -- and right in our own neighborhoods.”
1. Provide the ticket to education: clean water.
Girls in poor communities often miss school because of a lack of clean water in their village. Instead of attending class, millions of girls and women are forced to spend several hours each day carrying water an average of 6 kilometers for their families, water that is often dirty and dangerous to their health.
2. Support girls and women in crisis.
Millions of girls are subjected to abuse, child labor, sex trafficking, child marriage, and other offenses. Your gift will go where it’s needed most, protecting girls and women by equipping skilled, local staff to offer training, education, counseling, medical care, small business loans, and other programs that reach women and girls as well as boys -- helping to end cycles of gender-based violence.
3. Mentor a girl close to home.
A growing poverty rate, poor-performing schools, and teen violence make it tough to be a girl growing up in the United States. Reach out and influence the life of a young girl in your own community by volunteering as a tutor or mentor.
4. Invest in a small business owner.
Through World Vision microloans, you can connect with hardworking female entrepreneurs who are waiting to realize their dream of building or expanding a successful business. A small loan is all they need. Even better, when the loan is paid off, your donated funds are recycled again and again to help more people and make a bigger impact.
5. Use your voice to end preventable deaths of mothers and children.
Although incredible progress has been made over the last several decades, we can’t stop speaking up. Nearly 2.7 million newborns around the world still die each year, about 1 million on their very first day of life, over 300,000 women die annually due to complications during pregnancy or childbirth, and 16,000 children die every day, most from preventable and treatable causes such as pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria. Congress listens to the calls and reads the emails from you. Tell them to support the Reach Every Mother and Child Act (S. 1911, HR. 3706) to help implement a more efficient, sustainable approach for saving the lives of moms and babies.
6. Help a new mom.
The first weeks of a newborn’s life are the most critical. You can help save young lives around the world by giving a new mother the essential things like a bassinet, cloth diapers, blankets, a container for clean water, and soap. Your gift also provides life-saving infant care training. Know a new mom near you who might be feeling overwhelmed? Mothers of Preschoolers connects moms of young children all over the world to a community of women in their own neighborhoods who meet together to embrace the journey of motherhood.
7. Tell the women in your life that you care.
Empowering women starts right in our families, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Write a note of thanks to that teacher who encouraged you years ago, pick up coffee for that new mom in your office who’s struggling to balance it all, or tell your own sister, daughter, or mother how much you appreciate them.
https://www.worldvision.org/gender-equality-news-stories/seven-ways-empower-women-girls
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship: (Based on Psalm 130)
Leader: Out of the depths we cry to you, O God.
People: O God, hear our voice! Be attentive to the voice of our supplications!
Leader: If you should mark iniquities, O God, who could stand?
People: But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
Leader: We wait for our God, our soul waits, and in God’s word we hope.
People: We hope for with our God there is steadfast love and great power to redeem.
OR
Leader: The God of creation calls us all together.
People: We come to worship with our sisters and brothers.
Leader: All people are the children of God.
People: We open our hearts to all of God’s people.
Leader: God has been generous to us.
People: We will share God’s bounty with others.
Hymns and Songs:
God of Grace and God of Glory
UMH: 577
H82: 594/595
PH: 420
NCH: 436
CH: 464
LBW: 415
ELA: 705
W&P: 569
AMEC: 62
STLT: 115
Renew: 301
Now Thank We All Our God
UMH: 102
H82: 396/397
PH: 555
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533/534
ELA: 839/840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above
UMH: 126
H82: 408
PH: 483
NCH: 6
CH: 6
W&P: 56
Renew: 52
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
Jesus Calls Us
UMH: 398
H82: 549/550
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171/172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELA: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
O God of Every Nation
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELA: 713
W&P: 626
This Is My Song
UMH: 437
NCH: 591
CH: 722
ELA: 887
STLT: 159
By Gracious Powers
UMH: 518
H82: 695/696
PH: 342
NCH: 413
ELA: 626
W&P: 75
Give Thanks
CCB: 92
Renew: 266
Walk with Me
CCB: 88
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who created us all out of the dust of the earth:
Grant us the grace to reach out to those who are rejected
and to empower those who have no power;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you created all life from the dust of the earth. You have made us all sisters and brothers in your family. Help us to see others through you eyes that we may reach out to those who are rejected by others. Help us to give power to the powerless. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially when we have failed to share with others and have regarded others as less worthy than ourselves.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. In generosity and love you have created all people. We know that we all come from one source and are all loved by you and yet we are often selfish taking more than we need while others do without. We think of ourselves as worthwhile people while we doubt the integrity and worth of others. Open our eyes and our hearts that we may realize the commonality of all people and respond with generous and caring hearts. Amen.
Leader: God welcomes all of our attempts to be more loving and caring. Receive God’s grace and forgiveness and in the power of God’s Spirit, reach out to others.
Prayers of the People
We worship you, O God, because you are the creator of all life. You are the foundation on which our lives are based.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. In generosity and love you have created all people. We know that we all come from one source and are all loved by you and yet we are often selfish taking more than we need while others do without. We think of ourselves as worthwhile people while we doubt the integrity and worth of others. Open our eyes and our hearts that we may realize the commonality of all people and respond with generous and caring hearts.
We thank you that you are no respecter of persons but regard each of us as your beloved child. We thank you for those who have shared your love with us and who cared for us instead of judging us. We thank you for Jesus who taught us how to live as sisters and brothers together.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We remember those who lack the necessities of life and those who do not have the power to decide their own lives. We pray for those who are working for justice and peace in our world.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Pass out bags with wrapped candies, pennies or little toys inside. The bags should have very different amounts in them. Ask the children to empty their bags and show what they have. Ask if everyone got the same amount. What should we do about that? What if those who have the most give some to those who have the least? Help the children to even out the items. This makes everyone feel good and it pleases God.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Summertime is Sharing Time!
by Chris Keating
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Gather ahead of time:
- Read 2 Corinthians 8. Look up details about the collection for the saints in Jerusalem, consulting a Bible commentary or dictionary for insights into Paul’s understanding of generosity.
- Find out if agencies in your community have any special programs for the summer which may require donations, or if the agencies have urgent needs.
- One agency which serves the homeless recently posted a list of items it needs in the summer which otherwise might be neglected: bug spray, socks, sun screen, and rain gear.
- Some food pantries find the need for breakfast and lunch items goes up in the summer because children often get these meals at school.
- If possible, find a simple balancing scale and weights to use.
Bring out the balancing scale, say to the children, “Let’s pretend each of these weights (or objects) are the fun things we like to do in the summer. Here, this weight could be your summer trip. (Place a weight on the scale). This weight could be your fun camping trip, or a pool party.” Continue adding weights until the scale is terribly unbalanced. (Make sure there are a couple weights on the other side.)
Summer time is a fun time! We might even say it is a time of abundance. Ask the children if they know how to define “abundance.” Summer can be a time of abundance for vegetable gardens, or flower gardens. Summer can also be a time of “abundant” or plenty fun time. Look at the scale -- it is filled with good things.
Say to the children, “In the Bible, Paul knew some people whose lives were full of good things. The people lived in a town called Corinth, and their lives were a little like this scale -- filled! But Paul also knew some Christians who were very poor. They were hungry and needed things. Their lives looked a little like this side of the scale. But Paul wanted to help these other friends. So, he wrote to the Cornthians and said, “Let’s try to balance things.” He said to them, “Friends in Corinth, if you share some of what you have (move a weight or two until the scale is balanced), you can make sure our friends in Jerusalem have what they need.” Paul reminds the Corinthians that just as Jesus shared God’s love with us, so we should share God’s love with others. Sharing is an important part of being a Christian.
Sharing helps others experience God’s love. Ask them, “I wonder if you can think of some ways you can share God’s love this summer?” If they need help, suggest that they bring boxes of breakfast cereal next Sunday to be given to a local pantry, or perhaps gather socks for the homeless.
Close with a brief prayer giving thanks for God’s love, and asking God to help us become people who share what we have.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, July 1, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
