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Sunday's Sermon
Feb 24, 2008

1099
"Dwelling With The Rose"
The Rev. Dennis Posno

 

I preached a message years ago
    in which I wrapped my thoughts around a remarkable sentence
        written by the Russian author Anton Chekhov,
      a sentence that speaks to the human condition, our condition.
Chekhov wrote:  “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

That sentence speaks to the human condition, our condition:
    the understanding that no matter how good we are, or how saintly,
        for all of our goodness we are guilty of much that is less than good,
            and we are far from perfect.
                For “every saint has a past” … even the best of us.

And it also speaks to the understanding that no matter how bad we may be,
    or how sinful, there is much in us that is good,
        and none of us is ever beyond redemption.
            For “every sinner has a future” … even the worst of us.

After the service on that day, one of my friends approached me.
    He had his bulletin in his hand, and as we began to talk
        he showed me the notes that he had made during the message.
            He had written four words on his bulletin:
        Saintly Sinner and Sinful Saint.
And he was wondering, in his teasing way, which one I thought he was.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
                       
As I reflected on that moment this week
    his comment reminded me that there is another undeniable truth, too, 
        whether we’re saintly sinners or a sinful saints:
            our lives are going to have an influence on somebody, somewhere, 
                and the kind of influence it will be is up to us.

Your life is going to have an influence on somebody, somewhere,
and the kind of influence it will be
is up to you.

One of my favourite stories is about Dwight L. Moody,
    the great American evangelist of the latter part of the nineteenth century,
        who evangelized much of the world.

The year was 1872.
The place was Dublin, Ireland.
Dwight L. Moody was attending a meeting
conducted by a man named Henry Varley
in, of all places, a hay mow.

But I guess if our Lord could be born in a manger
He can surely be preached in a hay mow.

As those assembled listened, Varley said quietly to them all:

“The world has yet to see what God can do

                with
            and for
        and through
    and in a person
who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.”                      

The next Sunday, Moody was back in London, England,
and there he thrilled to the preaching of Charles Spurgeon,
perhaps the greatest preacher of his day.
But as he listened to Spurgeon,
the words that Henry Varley had spoken from that hay mow in Dublin
kept returning …
running through his mind and heart.

“The world has yet to see what God can do

                with
            and for
        and through
    and in a person
who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.”              

As Moody pondered those words, he thought to himself:

“Varley meant anyone.
He didn’t say they had to be educated
                or brilliant
            or anything else  -
        just a person, consecrated to Him.
    Well, by the Holy Spirit in me
I’ll be one of those people.”

And that’s exactly what he became.
    The shoe salesman who had become the preacher
        became the evangelist:
    a consecrated messenger of God …
an instrument in the hands of God.

The world has yet to see what God can do with your life.
And that’s what I want to talk about this morning:
the difference that your life makes.

For the past number of years,
    when we hold our UCW Memorial Service in the Fall,
        I have read a poem called “A Fable.”
It reads this way …

A Persian fable says:  One day
A wanderer found a piece of clay,
So redolent of perfume
Its odor scented all the room.
“What art thou?” was the quick demand;
“Art thou some gem of Samarcand?
Or spikenard rare in rich disguise,
Or other costly merchandise?
“Nay, I am but a piece of clay.”
“Then whence this wondrous sweetness, pray?”
“Friend, if the secret I disclose,
I have beendwelling with the rose.”

Dwelling with the rose.
    Believe it or not,
        every one of you makes a difference …
            every one of you exerts on influence …
                on someone,
                    somewhere.

And as I would tell my friend  -  the saintly sinner, or was that the sinful saint  -
    that it is important to understand
        that difference can be for good
            or for something less than good.
                You can bring faith to a situation, or fear …
            hope, or despair …
        optimism, or pessimism …
    a blessing, or a curse.
That God-given choice is always yours.

And it is important to understand
    that the difference you make …
        the life you live …
            the way you are with those around you …
        for someone,
    somewhere,
just might make all of the difference in the world.

Years ago, there was a college professor in Baltimore
    who engaged his students in a project.
        His sociology class was to go into the slums
            and get the case histories of 200 young boys.
                They were asked to write an evaluation of each boy’s future.
                    In every case the students wrote,
                        “He hasn’t got a chance.”

Twenty-five years later another sociology professor
    came across this earlier and long-forgotten study.
        He had his students follow up on the project
    to see what had happened to these boys
who twenty-five years earlier didn’t have a chance.

With the exception of 20 boys whom they couldn’t locate or who had died,
the students discovered that 176 of the remaining 180
had achieved more than ordinary success as lawyers, doctors and businessmen.

The professor was astounded.
    He decided to pursue the matter further.
        He was able, without exception, to track down every one of them,
    and of each of them he asked the question:

“How do you account for your success?”

And to that question, put to 176 men, the answer was the same …
a reply full of gratitude: “There was a teacher.”

The teacher, it happened, was still alive,
    so the professor sought her out
        and asked this old but still alert lady
            what magic formula she had used
                to pull these boys that seemed to have no chance
                    out of the slums and into successful achievement.

She looked at the man.
Her eyes brightened.
Her face broke into a smile.
“It’s really very simple,” she said.
“I loved those boys.”     

 “Friend,” said the clay, “if the secret I disclose,
I have been dwelling with the rose.”

The clay of the lives of those didn’t-have-a-chance boys
    who were now successful men
        became fragrant like a rose
            because of that teacher.

It is as Booker T. Washington wrote:

“There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence

of a high, pure, simple, and useful life.”

Those men had been dwelling with the rose.

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia
once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.
The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four-year old
whose next-door neighbour was an elderly gentleman
who had recently lost his wife.
Upon seeing the man cry,
the little boy went into the old man’s yard,
climbed onto his lap and just sat there.
When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbour,
the little boy said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.”

And who knows about the clay of that elderly gentleman’s life?
    The difference that one little boy’s sitting-in-his-lap
        and helping-him-cry with him gesture might have made?

In his recovery from the shadows into the light …
from his sense, perhaps, that he had lost his reason to live
to the place where he discovered that life was worth the living still …
I’m sure he could have said,
“Friend, if the secret I disclose,
I have been dwelling with the rose.”

It was as Emily Dickenson wrote:

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”

That man had been dwelling with the rose.

A nurse tells a most remarkable story.

When she first went to work in a government convalescent home
she was assigned to an elderly patient
who had not spoken a single word in three years.

The other nurses disliked the patient so much
    that she was always passed on
        to the newest member of the staff.

Now this particular nurse was a Christian,
    or at least she’d always thought she was,
        and she decided that her Christian love
            was only as good as her love for this particular patient.

The old woman used to sit in a rocking chair all day long.
So the nurse pulled up another rocking chair
and just rocked along side of her.
Rocked and rocked and rocked.
And she loved her and loved her and loved her.
And the third day this woman opened her eyes and said,
“You’re so kind.”

Those were the first words she had spoken in three years.
And within two weeks she was out of the home.

And so this patient, who had not spoken,
who was rocked and loved into good health,
if asked about her recovery, surely might have said:
“Friend, if the secret I disclose,
I have been dwelling with the rose.”

The great Christian writer and speaker Rufus Mosley used to say:

“You are born of the qualities you habitually give out.
If you give out hate, you become hateful.
If you give out criticism, you become critical.
If you give out love, you become lovely.
So give out love and only love.”

And he was asked, “But, Mr. Mosely, suppose they don’t take your love?”
His answer?  “Increase the dose.”

The clay of that woman’s silent and solitary life
    became fragrant like a rose
        because of that nurse.

She had been dwelling with the rose.

One of the passage of scripture read this morning is from Jesus’ teaching.
To those who had gathered to listen, Jesus said:
“You are the salt of the earth.”
Now that might not sound very earth-shaking to you
but to those listeners it must have been.

Salt was greatly valued in Jesus’ time.
    It was indispensable for the preservation of food.
    A bag of salt was reckoned to be as valuable as a person’s life.
In those words Jesus has lifted us up and given us significance and value.

Your life will make a difference for someone, somewhere.
Let it be for the good …
to add zest to life …
to preserve that which is true and lovely and precious.

And to those who had gathered to listen, Jesus also said:
“You are the light of the world.”
There is a lot of darkness out there:
the darkness of sin …
the shadow of sorrow …
the dull grayness of hopelessness …
the blackness of dreams turned to ashes
and courage turned to fear.
That kind of darkness envelopes many people.

And there is someone, somewhere,
who just might be needing the light of your life.
Let it shine.

As the apostle Paul wrote:
    “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children,
        and live a life of love, just as Jesus loved us
            and gave himself up for us
                as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Our last hymn today is “O Master, Let Me Walk With Thee.”
Let His walk be the walk you take.
Let your life be devoted to His service.
                        Let your words proclaim, always, the love of Christ.
                                Let your work be to His glory and always a blessing to others.
                                        Let your hope be in Him
                                                and His peace the peace in which you live.

Let your life be lived in such a way
    that those who know you … whose lives rub up against yours …
        will be able to say of you, because of the influence of your life on theirs:
        “Friend, if the secret I disclose,
    I have been dwelling with the rose.
That person’s life has made all of the difference in the world to me.”
SOLI DEO GLORIA