Thomas Cockrell November 7, 2010 Transforming Lives in Christ
The Feast of All Saints (observed) Luke 6: 20-31
Good morning!
My name is Tom Cockrell and I am honored to speak to you this morning as the parish observes one of the great Christian holidays: the Feast of All Saints. Today we remember loved ones now departed who played special roles in our lives. Our memories honor their lives and contributions and bind us all together: those past, present and future.
We don’t do any special decorating for the occasion and people don’t line up under the cloisters to nab a prized pew. We do, however, celebrate the Feast of All Saints with special music, as is St. Philip’s joyous tradition on first Sundays. As resplendent as today’s musical offering is, the focal point of our worship is the gospel: Luke’s account of The Beatitudes which culminates in what has become known as the Golden Rule.
The secular world has coopted Jesus’s words, and the Golden Rule is often quoted as a hackneyed prescription for playing fair in the sandbox of life. What many miss is that in the verses preceding that scriptural sound-byte Jesus delivers hard-hitting words that were intended to challenge our assumptions about life, community, and our relation to our money. The Message, a modern edition of the Bible using the rhythms and idioms of contemporary language, paraphrases the end of today’s passage and the Golden Rule this way:
Live generously. Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them![1]
This is no “quid pro quo” or “tit for tat,” “if you do this, then I’ll do that.” Jesus calls us to unilateral action.
My charge today is to share with you some of my history and how it has led me to share of my time, talent and money with the parish. Not only am I going to “grab the initiative,” but I am going to take a little artistic license as well. And I will need your participation. We didn’t do this in rehearsal yesterday! John, don’t worry. I think it going to be all right.
As the son of an Episcopal priest, I spent my early years sitting with my mom and three sisters in the front pew of my dad’s churches. I distinctly remember feeling trapped in that pew, indulging in a child’s fantasy that everyone was scrutinizing me, reading my devious mind, knowing that I didn’t measure up
to the angelic expectations which I imagined they had of me. It can be a hard role to play–PK.
Now for the audience participation part of the program:
Please raise your hand if you are a preacher’s kid, love, are married to one, or will admit to calling one your friend.
I know you are Episcopalians, but it is OK to look around to see who has raised their hand.
Escaping that front pew and moving to children’s choir stalls couldn’t happen soon enough for me: I wanted to participate. My life changed when dad called a very close friend to the position of organist at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Hartford, Connecticut. Bernard Stone, Uncle “B” to me, was my first piano teacher, choirmaster and dear family friend. He allowed me to sit next to him on the organ bench during the postlude to turn pages. On special occasions he let me pull on additional stops for the big finale. After he finished, on his signal, I always got to press the cancel button.
Raise and wave your hand if there was, or is, a special church musician in your life. Don’t just raise those hands, channel your inner evangelical and wave them! Come on choir, if I can’t count on you for this help.
Thank you, Garmon and Jeffrey.
Fast forward thirty years. Life does, after all, fly by.
In August 2000, Yvonne and I arrived in Tucson with seven-year-old Alexandra and two and a half -year-old James in tow. We started our search for a parish home one week, nixed that church immediately and on our second Sunday of auditions we landed at St. Philip’s. We came armed with a mental checklist. As professional musicians we immediately appreciated the quality and breadth of the music program here. Check. Ample free parking? Check. That Sunday we happened upon the rousing preaching of a spunky woman with a Southern accent, Susan Anderson-Smith. Double check.
Raise and wave your hand if you know how HARD it is to write a sermon and how much prayer, research, frustration, dedication and time it takes to do it. Those not waving should try it sometime.
Thank you, clergy.
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But the item most important to us in auditioning St. Philip’s was, did this church welcome children at its services and show that it valued them with a commitment to dynamic music, church school and youth programs? Fourth and final check. Audition passed: where do we sign up, how do we pledge? We have been here ever since.
As soon as they were old enough, both Alexandra and James joined the boys and girl’s choirs while Yvonne and I took up residence with other choir parents in the unofficial choir cheering section back yonder.
Raise your hand if you are, or ever have been, a choir member, acolyte, usher, altar guild member or parent of the above.
Thank you for your contributions to our worship.
Raise your hand if today you honor the life and memory of Ben Day and all others who have served St. Philip’s young people over the years.
I must have a neon sign on my forehead that blinks the message “just ask me–I’ll say yes.” When we lived in New York City, the panhandlers in the subway, without hesitating, made a beeline for me. The thing is, I do say yes, and almost always share what I have in my pocket. Jesus, in today’s gospel, requires us to do so.
At St. Philip’s I think that same facial expression landed me a two-year stint teaching Sunday School. Ten years on, it is gratifying to say that many of those kids, now serve the parish as youth leaders and contribute greatly to our communal life, even while busy working and in college. A couple weeks ago, in a forum discussing how we are going to preserve our vulnerable parish educational programs in the face of possible new cuts, a few said that they would gladly pledge. I surmise these young adults also voted last Tuesday.
Raise and wave your hand if you have ever taught church school, led a youth group or been the supportive spouse or partner of one who did.
Thank you for your contribution.
No longer able to sit cross legged on the floor like Bruce Phillips, I transformed from Sunday School teacher into committee member. Committee members get to sit in chairs and drink coffee with corn syrup whitener–yum. For the past eight years I have drunk a lot of that stuff while serving with Rosalind, Bruce and many dedicated parishoners on the various committees that guide our children, youth and family ministries. In early 2008, I accepted the rector’s and senior warden’s request to serve with Eric Rau as a Co-Commissioner of Education when Children, Youth and Family Ministries merged with Adult Formation.
Raise your hand if you are serving St. Philip’s on some sort of committee. Two committees? There is no extra credit for three or more–just ask your spouse or partner! Blessed are the committee members.
Thank you for your service.
With the ever increasing busy-ness in my life, it is easy for me to neglect my own spiritual center and growth. Enter God’s still small voice, in the person of Greg Foraker, to be ordained deacon here, two weeks from today. Greg gently and persistently nudged me to enroll in Quest, an eight evening exploration and meditation on one’s faith with a small group of other seekers. Quest was a rewarding and refreshing respite from the busy-ness of my week. It also gave me a firsthand appreciation of the riches we offer for adults seeking to grow in their faith.
Raise and wave your hand if you have taken Quest, Re-Quest or are fans of the wealth of our Sunday forums and during-the-week classes.
Raise your hand if you contribute time, talent, passion and PowerPoint to the Adult Formation offerings. Thank you for sharing.
On separate occasions, Yvonne and I participated with one of the children in God Across Borders, billed as an “inter generational advance” to Mexico. In April 2009 Alexandra and I, along with about twenty other parishoners, walked from Nogales, Arizona across the Mariposa checkpoint into Sonora. Within a couple hundred yards of the border, stands an outdoor soup kitchen, run by a posse of salt-of-the-earth nuns, that feeds several hundred recently deported people every day. Some of us helped serve a meal to the guests, others painted a shelter that provides temporary refuge for women and their children who have no one to turn to, once they have been dropped off the INS bus and have walked back into Mexico. We left feeling that there is so much need and so much more to do. The immigration issue is emotional, divisive and very challenging on all fronts. But people of faith working together to serve individuals in need should be the first to take bold steps forward.
class=Section4>Raise and wave your hand if you are involved in border issues, or outreach to the homeless, the hungry, the poor, the prison, the immigrant, the disenfranchised. Thank you for your serving Christ in these people.
I am on sabbatical from the University this semester (yippee)! One of things I am most cherishing is sharing my Thursday afternoons with our After School Music Program kids. What I enjoy most are the one-on-one piano practice sessions with five or six of the children who are just learning to play. We love playing our duets. I challenge them to play the short pieces over and over again, each time we get a little bit faster until we crumble–and then we laugh--a lot. When I go back to my day job in January, I will really miss them and the joy they bring me each week.
Raise your hand if you are a volunteer with the After School Music Program, contribute to the Christmas Project, tutor in a school or work with other St. Philip’s ministries that honor and serve children.
Raise your hand if you can play piano and are free Thursday afternoons beginning in January.
Raise your hand if your name is Sally Gunderman or Laura Rubbo and you are crying ecstatically.
Thank you all.
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The verses that immediately follow today’s gospel passage are appropriate for us to consider as we weigh the value this parish holds for our lives. Again, from The Message Bible:
Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them!...If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that....Help and give without expecting a return...You’ll never–I promise–regret it. Live out this God-Created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously.”[2]
Just as I have turned my presentation to you on its head, I invite you all to turn the idea of pledging to the parish on its head. What if you thought of your pledge as providing the financial resources to enable all these passionate arm wavers, your neighbors in the pews, to do their good works?
Well that IS what your pledge does. My family’s pledge doesn’t “fund” our interests at St. Philip’s. Rather, it supports all of you and your work. It buys the fixings to make sandwiches for Casa Maria, it provides scholarship assistance for families that need help sending their kids to choir camp or on a youth retreat, or pilgrimage. And yes, our pledge even helps to pay for the air conditioning in the summer. Everything is important to our mission–even coffee whitener.
The parish can’t plan and budget accurately without your pledge. Plate donations are wonderful and essential–thank you!--but they do not help us budget and plan. Without sounding too much like KUAZ, one hundred new pledges of one dollar a day, $7 a week, $365 a year, will go a long way toward relieving--but not solving-- our very serious financial situation. Please pledge more if you are able. For those already pledging: thank you, and please consider increasing your pledge. This cannot be stressed enough: there is no pledge too small, everyone’s gift is valued greatly. Pledging is a spiritual act of gratitude, faith and commitment to the parish.
Thank you for contributing to my life and enabling my work here, through your financial commitment to the mission of St. Philip’s. As you consider, and maybe reconsider, your pledge this week, close your eyes and recall everyone with their hands raised high–but now joyously waiving their pledge envelopes. One final request:
If at any time in the past several minutes you raised your hand or were waving your arms, please stand.
John, it appears that the congregation is all fired up and ready to go. Would this be the opportune time for us all to reaffirm our faith, perhaps in the words of the Apostle’s Creed--as found on page 96?
AMEN