“Through the Hands of Us”

Psalm 77: 1-3, 16-20
Luke 9:10-17

2 Corinthians 1:8-11

September 4, 2005

On June 23, 2002, I stood before you for the very first time from behind this pulpit and read to you this text from the gospel of Luke and preached my first sermon. Many of you remember what I said in the sermon about the long horn cattle right next to the church, but I also said something else as well. I told you about what Jesus said to the disciples when they were confronted with an enormous task of feeding the multitude of humanity that had followed them, when they wondered who on earth was going to help. The numbers of people were overwhelming. Counting men, women, and children, there may have been 10,000, 15,000, or even 20,000 people. The disciples were convinced that the task was beyond their ability and resources. What difference could they make? But Jesus says to them, “You give them something to eat.”

I also told you about a firefighter named, John Mason, who after seeing the devastation and destruction and the mass of refugees in Kosovo, wondered who on earth was going to help. And that he heard a voice say, “I am,” and that he laughed out loud and said to himself, “I am just one man, what difference could I make in the face of all that devastation?” And how he remembered the familiar words of his mother, “Sometimes one person taking just one small action can make all the difference.”

And I told you that John Mason packed a crate with tools and a backpack with clothes, and boarded a plane for Kosovo, but that when he arrived he could not fathom the severity of the destruction. The river of humanity he saw was overwhelming. Refugees, hungry and thirsty and exhausted, were carrying what few possession they had left, flooding the roads and countryside, and John Mason wondered if this was not an impossible task. But I also told you that John Mason faced the impossible task head on, that he went to work lobbying the U.S. government, building homes, and caring for all those who had lost so much, and that one by one houses and villages and lives were rebuilt and restored.

Over the last week, like you, I have been riveted to the cable news networks watching the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Every video I see and story I hear reminds me of the other great natural disaster that just occurred in southwest Asia at the end of last year. The videos and stories have been heart wrenching. The devastation to the gulf coast is incredible and nearly incomprehensible. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless. Whole cities nearly completely under water or destroyed all together. People wading through water full of human sewage, human remains, gasoline, and other chemicals. People sitting on top of their homes, and cars, and apartment buildings waiting to be rescued. People having to find safety from the rising water in their attics, sometimes clawing their way through the roof to get up higher, and countless more unable to do so. People – infants, children, men and women, old and young - with no food or water or shelter. People who have suffered lose of everything. A wife who told her husband to take care of the children and grandchildren and then was swept away in the water as he watched helplessly. Parents missing children, wives missing husbands, brothers missing sisters, and whole families still unaccounted for. A multitude of refugees walking the bypasses not knowing where they are going. And the untold number of people who are still trapped in their homes, or missing, or buried under the mounds of debris that litter the landscape. These are not scenes and stories about people from the other side of the world, they are the scenes and stories from the people in our own back yard.

Even with all of our technology, feats of engineering, and modern comforts and benefits of living in this country, the hurricane and its aftermath remind us that there are forces much stronger and more powerful in the world than ourselves, forces which we can neither control nor stop. We human beings like to believe that we have a good handle on things, that we are the rulers of the roost, and even that we are impervious to the dangers of the world in which we live. But the reality of this week reminds us that we can really only stand in awe and sometimes even dread of the power of nature. In an instant lives were changed. In an instant what was before is now no more. In an instant order was turned into chaos and a daily struggle for survival, and we all learned again that we are not impervious to the ebb and flow of the power of nature.

Our ancestors knew all too well of the power of nature and the ensuing chaos nature can sometimes bring, and they wrote of their awe and fear and their deepest questions for us to read. In Psalm 77, the Psalmist writes,

The waters saw You, O God,
The waters saw You and were convulsed;
The very deep quaked as well.
Clouds streamed water; the heavens rumbled;
Your arrows flew about.
Your thunder rumbled like wheels; lightning lit up the world;
The earth quaked and trembled.
Your way was through the sea,
Your path through the mighty waters;
Your tracks could not be seen.

Yes, our ancestors knew the terrors of the forces of nature, and their writings tried to make sense of the chaos around them. Just as we try to make sense of it during times like these. But in spite of all the chaos, the Psalmist concludes this Psalm with a proclamation, “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”

In the midst of the chaos, God was present leading and providing for God’s people through the hands of others, just as God does today through the hands of us. In the face of this catastrophic devastation and the tragic human story that continues to unfold along the Gulf coast, it is easy to believe that the situation is too impossible for us to deal with, that we cannot make a difference. But Jesus’ words to his disciples is a reminder to all of us that the enormous and many times overwhelming task of doing God’s work can be met head on, not from outside ourselves, but from that which is in ourselves, from within our own hearts of compassion, from within our own gifts, abilities, and talents, from within our own resources, from within our own faith that believes God is not absent amidst the chaos, but ever present in it.

My friends, in the face of overwhelming odds, in the face of human suffering and lose, in the face of catastrophic destruction, we are called to do what seems to be an impossible and overwhelming task. But it is a task, a mission, a beckoning, that cannot be ignored or put aside, and it cannot be done except through the hands of all of us. This is why we are here. This is why we have been called together as a people, this is why we have been called out of the world, so that we may go into the world, not to do our own will, but the will of the one who sends us as the very instruments of God’s work in the world.

Whatever is available in the way of human resources, whatever is possible in the way of efficient organization, whatever is possible in the power and abundance of God’s grace and strength and goodness, amazing results can be produced, for as our text says in Luke, all of the thousands of people “ate and were satisfied.” Therefore, we will continue to pray and we will not lose hope, for everyday we see the outpouring of care and compassion, the silent heroes who risk their lives for others, the determination of the human spirit to survive, and the resolve that this nation will overcome this crisis, and one by one homes and communities and lives will be rebuilt and restored, and we will be a better people for it.

Therefore I stand up here before you once again to call upon this humble, servant church to the great task set before us. I call upon this congregation to put together a task force in conjunction with the Mission and Outreach Ministry to begin looking for the most faithful and appropriate way for us to help the people who have suffered so much and will continue to suffer for months and even years to come from the hurricane.

I also call upon this congregation, every person here today, and every member and friend of this church, to join together and be a leader in this community when it comes time for our plan of action to be carried out. This congregation, throughout the years, has always come together in times of crisis. As one of your Elders says to me all the time, “Finley’s footprints are all over this community.” Well now it is time to take another step and plant some of our footprints in other communities. I am convinced that we will answer this call, because we always have, and because we always will, for the Lord is always sending us to go forth, into a world that is in need of God’s love and care and grace, to serve our God and our neighbor in the way that is of the kingdom to which we belong, in the only way that those in the kingdom know how - through the hands of us for the glory of God. Amen.