Juggling Greatness

Ephesians 2:4-10

“For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

In the early 1980s, one dark and rainy night, Kit Summers was crossing the street on his way to the Atlantic City casino where he performed his world-class juggling show when he was struck, full speed, by a truck. Kit was thrown onto the hood of the truck, broke the windshield with his head, rolled off and tore off the side-view mirror with his body, and was thrown into a crumpled heap 30 feet away.

For 37 days, the juggler lay in a coma. When he awoke, it was quickly apparent that this man would have to learn to do everything all over again—eating, walking, talking, let alone juggling! In his mind, Kit knew how to do these activities, yet the pathways from his brain to his nervous system had to be established all over again. After a year of patience, dedication and discipline, and on the anniversary of his terrible accident, Kit performed his juggling act again before a live audience.

Kit would never again be world-class at juggling--it was physically impossible after the accident, but he found a way to use his talent for a very good work: the entertainment of juggling is now a background he uses to teach young people in schools across our country to set goals, make good choices, don‘t go to school to get good grades, go to school to learn. Summers calls this day-long presentation “Educational Entertainment Excellence.” If you go to his website (www.kit summers.com), you will find among many sayings of his these words of encouragement.

“Things don't get better by chance, they get better by change.”

“Learn from what happens--set-backs, successes, accidents, etc.--

then move on.”

We hear stories like Kit Summers' from time to time on the news, of people overcoming great challenges or heartbreak and use their experiences to motivate, encourage and bring healing to others. If you're anything like me, you might ask yourself questions like, “Would I have the strength, determination, and heart that it takes to overcome the odds?”

Maybe the better question is, “Would I be able to do that--to take a setback, limitation or calamity--and use it to achieve something important for others?

Perhaps the best question of all to ask ourselves is, “Will we trust God, who made us to be what we are, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (2:10)?

Most of us, fortunately, will never suffer such a catastrophic accident and injury like Kit Summers, yet I think one of the teachings from this Ephesians’ passage is that God created each one of us with a job to do, a purpose to accomplish, a ministry to share in and through the relationship we have with Jesus Christ.

Paul's testimony in his letter to the Ephesians reminds us that “We are what [God] has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (2:10). [Other texts read, We are the handiwork of God.]

So, how do you feel about yourself today? Do you feel you are the handiwork of God? Do you feel you could change the world or are you satisfied to just get by, make your way through daily life--juggling mediocrity?

We are not created for a life of just getting by, taking care of our own, and turning away from those in need even when we are in need ourselves. Kit Summers used determination, commitment and sacrifice to regain his ability to juggle neon scarves, bowling pins and flaming torches. Then, Christ used Kit to carry out good works with youth across America. That’s when Kit Summers began juggling greatness. He is beautifully woven into the handiwork of God.

Paul’s words say that we are created for greatness--over the course of my ministry the last 17 years, when I am counseling someone who is struggling and about to settle for less--or worse, give up, I have used this promise: “You are created for great things.”

Greatness in God’s eyes is different from what the world sees as greatness. Some of us are called to be world-class parents, some world-class firefighters, some world-class nurses and teachers and grocery store workers. It’s not the actual job/work that encompasses greatness it is what you bring to it, how you put your personal mark of who you are created by God to be that makes all the difference. [Story of “Johnny the Bagger” (www.YouTube.com)]

There are thousands of people who do great things in our world, but the ones who know they are God’s handiwork are the ones who juggle true greatness. We become God’s handiwork when we unclench our death grip on our lives and ask Christ Jesus to live within us, so that we may engage, enact, and encourage others with acts of loving service in Christ’s name. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God….”

Friends, being the handiwork of God is not for the fainthearted, for folks who are willing to settle for mediocrity. Life does not get better by chance; it gets better is by change, and that change comes when we are willing to give Christ control of our lives.

It is not enough to know in our minds what God wants us to do through Jesus Christ; we have to establish and reestablish daily the pathway between our hearts and our hands, our faith and our Father, our works and our Savior.

Christ did not come into this world so that we can walk around comatose to the deep needs of others around us. Christ did not hang on the cross so that we might have the status of belonging to his church. Christ came to us, spoke to us, prayed for us, and died for us so that we can humbly and lovingly be world-class jugglers of God’s greatness. Thanks be to God. Amen.

March 18, 2012

First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME

The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

The Path of Influence

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

“I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations,

for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”

Some products we use daily might not be here at all if somebody hadn't goofed but then realized the fortuosity of their “mistake” and they started something important to us today. Corn Flakes and Silly Putty, Post-It Notes and the Slinky all were discovered or devised as the result of an accident, oversight.

Of course, we hear often of others who “invent” schemes and products to deceive the unsuspecting—to steal their life savings or sell them inferior products that do not do what they say they can do. These folks start things like Ponzi schemes and cellulite removing creams. Neither of which work except for the one who started them.

Maybe you have heard the story about the man who was refused entry into a fancy dinner club because he wasn't wearing a tie. The doorman sent the man away with instructions to return if, and only if, he had a tie wrapped around his neck. The fellow rummaged through his car, but couldn't find a necktie. However, he did find a pair of jumper cables in the trunk. He decided to fashion a ;necktie from those jumper cables. He returned to the door of the club. The doorman saw those jumper cables around the man's neck and realized that technically they could serve as a tie. So the doorman said, “Well, I guess you can come in.” Then he added, “Just don't start anything.”¹

When God created heaven and earth, God was starting something, started something big, started something that would last through all generations, something that was very, very good. Yet, along the way evil slithered in and spawned its influence over people who were vulnerable, folks who were told they could be like God or even becoming God.

Of course, none of us can become God, but we can strive to be like God. Jesus was God in the flesh and he came to show us the way away from evil and to teach us how to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Jesus is the perfect path of influence to follow if we desire to become like God, to become the people God designed us to be. This is God's plan, God's covenant. This life we have is no accident, no fluke, no mistake, for whatever God makes is good—very, very good. God designed us to be intentional about life. We are not here to profit, to destroy the earth or devastate one another. We are here to lengthen the path of influence which began so long ago, in a desert place, at the feet of nomads, Abraham and Sarah.

The paths we tread are not marred by physical boulders and hills, tree roots and thick, prickly branches, but we do encounter these elements symbolically in the challenges and troubles we face in life as we strive to remain under the influence of our Savior, Jesus. We can be blocked by stones of sin, hills of struggles we think we might never be able to conquer, tripped by the roots of evil that send us falling off the path and into the arms of painful brambles that draw, if not blood, some of our life force.

During Lent we remember the pain and struggle—and the triumphs—of Jesus' journey. If it happened to him it can happen to us, too. How do we stay on the path of his influence? We keep our eyes on him, on the goodness he leads us to, that we may experience God's love and grace, as Jesus experienced it. We train our hearts to listen and our eyes to witness God's promise that echoes through the generations: “I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”

Entrusting self and soul to the Son of the God of the Covenant is a tall order for anyone. Perhaps we can take a cue from Henry Brown.

Mr Brown was a slave in Richmond, VA, in 1856, and he decided to runaway, even though the penalty for doing so was a first-class trip to the gallows. Henry had heard of an abolitionist in Philadelphia, and so he concocted a plan. He found a wooden crate just large enough for him to drawl inside. He postmarked the box to the free territory of Pennsylvania. He got inside the box, sealed himself in, and mailed himself to freedom.

This was not a well thought out plan: it took three weeks for the abolitionist to get the package. We have no idea how Brown managed to survive the trip, but when the man opened the crate, Henry managed to stand up and he said, How do you do, sir. My name is Henry Brown and I was a slave. I heard about you being and abolitionist, so I am entrusting my future to you.”²

God wants us to entrust our futures, in this world and the next, to Jesus Christ. Jesus is God's son and a great son in the line of Abraham's sons down through the generations. It may be difficult to envision the hundreds and hundreds of generations since Abraham and Sarah had Isaac. It's too broad to understand that path of influence, so let's focus it a little closer to our own history in the faith.

Way back in 1858 a Sunday School teacher in Chicago named Ezra Kimball became interested in the spiritual welfare of a young shoe shop clerk in his town. After debating inwardly what to do about it, Kimball took himself to Holton's shoe store. He walked by the store several times before going in the door, finally mustering the courage to approach the young man, who was working in the stock room at the time. Kimball proceeded to talk with this youth about his faith. The shoe clerk Kimball influenced that day was Dwight L Moody, who subsequently became a great evangelist and whose works are still influencing others for the faith today.

Yet, this is not where the path of influence ends. Moody went on to preach a crusade in England and, in 1879, awakened the heart of Frederick B Meyer, a pastor of a small church. Meyer went on to become a renowned theologian. In fact, years later, Meyer was preaching in Moody's school in Northfield, MA, when a young man in the back row heard Meyer say, “If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?” Those words transformed the ministry of another man, J Wilbur Chapman. Chapman became a YMCA worker, back when the Y was still a religious institution. The path does not end at the Y.

Chapman recruited a former baseball player to help him in his ministry. After being a popular outfielder in baseball's National League during the 1880s, Billy Sunday became one of the most celebrated and influential American evangelists during the first 20 years of the 20^th century. Later at a revival in Charlotte, NC, Billy Sunday so excited a group of local men that they began an ongonig prayter group. Later they engaged an evangelist named Mordecai Hamm to come to their town to keep the revival spirit alive. In that revival, Mordecai Ham influenced another young man with the gospel so much so that he came to faith on the spot. Perhaps you know him? That man was Billy Graham. And so the path of influence continues, generation to generation.

Ezra Kimball had no idea was chain of influence his obedience to the Lord set in motion. If we widen the historical lens, Abraham and Sarah had no idea what would happen because of their obedience to the Lord. What would they say if they knew that today, you and I would be revisiting their story; that “more than a billion Christians and nearly as many Moslems and Jews would be telling and retelling their story all over the world”?

You and I do not have to be Dwight Moodys, Billy Sundays, or Billy Grahams, yet we should strive with all our heart, mind, soul and strength to be the influences God has created us to be, to influence others to find faith in Jesus Christ, and to join the path of influence that others, too, may take the journey to salvation. The future depends on us. If we fail to influence others, generations after generations may never hear of Jesus, let alone know him, and never mind feasting at his table. Make no mistake: our generation has an important job to do: to influence the next generation. Let us not become the weakest link. Amen.

March 5, 2012/First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME/The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

1Duncan, King. “Acting on Faith” Dynamic Preaching, Jan Feb Mar 2012, p 1.

2Gregory, Leland. Stupid History Tales of Stupidity. Kansas City, MO: Andrew McMeel Pub, 2007, p 246