5/6/62

Scripture: Mark 12: 28-34

Before addressing myself to the subject of today’s sermon, I want to comment on my experience of last Sunday. I was in Huron, South Dakota, visiting my mother, my sister, and my brother and family. We all went to church. My mother, now in her 85th year, seldom goes to church now, by reason of frailty in health, though she has been an ardent church woman all of her life. Usually she stays in her room, listens to radio services, and prays for the usefulness of her son’s ministry in Wisconsin Rapids. But last Sunday, we took her to church, and I sat beside her with gratitude in my heart. Two babies were baptized in that service!

My brother, nephew and sister sang in the church choir. And that choir is remarkable. The congregation was, admittedly, much smaller than the Easter congregation of the week before. But not the choir! I counted a full 56 singers plus the director and the organist. I saw no vacant seats in the choir loft, though I was later told that two members had been excused. The music was an excellent aid to worship. The anthem was reverently and ably sung under skilled direction. I was grateful for it, and wondered at the devotion of the singers. The loft, so they say, is always full --- even the worst of the winter’s flu epidemic found no more than 2 vacant chairs among 58 choir members. They just want to sing! And it is a glorious service that they render.

I do not know, personally, of another choir where there is a waiting list of singers who would like a place in that choir should a vacancy occur. I am told that a vacancy does occur if a singer has as many as 3 unexcused absences in a row. The members sing regularly every Sunday from the first of September to the last of May. And there are extra programs of choir music at Christmas and Easter.

During June, July and August, that choir disbands completely. The director goes abroad or returns to music school. Individual choir members take turns supplying one Sunday’s solo during summer services. Then everyone returns to rehearsals and Sunday anthems with a will in September.

What a glorious thing it can be, in any church, if there are people --- many people --- who serve in a choir, on a board, in the church school or vacation school, in a fellowship of men or of women or of youth --- faithfully, enthusiastically, devotedly, dependably. It brings dignity to the worship of God when people put their love of Him into such active terms. And it does something splendid to the lives of those who serve!

Now, having shared a bit of experience and observation with you, I want to talk for a while about Love.

Scripture: Mark 12: 28-34.

They tell me that there are more solid forms of reading material than that which is found in the Reader’s Digest. Perhaps that is one reason why I like to relax with that popular magazine now and then. In the latest issue, I found an article by George Grant entitled simply: “I Love You.” In a few vivid paragraphs he develops a plea that these three wonderful words ought not to be left clinging to our tongues unspoken, when they should be said. They carry so much of gratitude, of understanding and faith that they can promote untold good when allowed to go free in open expression.

George Grant had commanded a merchant vessel during World War II. He and his crew had been through a host of wartime hazards in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, delivering ammunition and supplies, shot at by submarines and bombers and enemy vessels. He had not only commanded his crew; he had disciplined them and had cheered them.

When his orders came to transfer, a dozen crew men wanted to see him. He met them on the lower bridge. An embarrassed oiler stepped forward in swift embarrassment and handed him a small package. He says that he had a lump as big as a barge in his throat when he though of all he had done to, and for, and with, those men. The package contained a watch, inscribed, “To Capt. Geo. Grant who has guided us safely through this war.”

“Why did you do this?” he blurted. And the old oiler answered, in Spanish, “We love you, sir.”

What an expression to light up the life of the captain -- as well as to illuminate the life of crew members, too!

It need not be classified as great writing, but I think you may find it readable and suggestive to look over the rest of Grant’s article when you have a few minutes for relaxation reading.

Now and then you hear it said of a couple that “they certainly are devoted to each other.” It may be observed of some husband and wife who have faced life together through many years; or it may be remarked of someone quite young. But the remark usually carries the idea that love is expressed, and therefore realized. There is strength for the beloved when he or she has heard, or been assured or reassured, of the love. There is strength also for the one who expresses the love.

Enid McAdams gives it as his opinion that there is a difference between devotion and emotion. “Devotion,” he says, “is the fact of love. Emotion is involved in the expression of the fact.” Of course emotion, without devotion, is hypocrisy; but devotion without emotion is dull and drab. And the two had best go together. It is like “faith” and “works” as they are discussed in Bible and in church doctrine.

I recently heard of a school principal who took issue with one of the music teachers of his community who was training children to sing a musical setting of the Lord’s Prayer. He really “blew his stack” in anger. “Who do you think you are, teaching children to sing the Lord’s prayer, when you come from a church where people think they will get to heaven by their good works?” I think he was grossly unjust to the teacher to whom he was speaking as well as to her church. But the principal belongs to a church wherein faith is especially emphasized, and whose founding father underlined the Scriptural reference: “The just shall live by faith” and then added the word “alone” -- making it read “The just shall live by faith alone.”

Actually, faith does not eliminate the need for good works. Indeed, “faith without works is dead.” [James 2: 26]. In fact, a vital faith issues in action -- in works -- in expression of some sort. The same is true of emotion and loving devotion -- they properly go together.

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According to Jesus, the first and greatest Commandment is to “love the Lord, they God --- with all thy heart.” But it follows immediately that we are to love Him with the whole of our mind, our intelligence, our efforts -- to serve him in our actions as well as to love Him with our emotion. Genuine love is expressed.

Jesus had no time or place for empty emotionalism -- that is, emotion for emotion’s sake. You may recall the account of a certain woman in a crowd where he was teaching. She called out, “Blessed is the woman that bore you.” Jesus apparently regarded the statement as a kind of emotional outburst. For he answered in a gentle but positive rebuke: “Blessed, rather, are those who hear the word of God, and keep it!” [Luke 11: 27-28]. Our expression of devotion to God, or to our fellow man, is seen for what it is by the way we back it up in positive action.

In the lobby of a hotel, a little girl, standing with her parents, was sure that she saw a well-known stage actress. With child-like audacity, she walked over to the woman and asked, “Aren’t you an actress?” The answer was an affirmative nod of the head. But the little girl stood there as if expecting something else. After a further pause, she asked, “Well, why don’t you act, then?” The question is fully applicable to our general spiritual life. As Christians, our love and our faith is to be expressed in action.

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There is a story in the Acts of the Apostles concerning the apostle Peter --- how Simon Peter was thrown in prison by Herod; and James was killed, in order that Herod might curry favor with Jewish leaders who wished to stamp out the Christian faith. Perhaps you remember how Peter was miraculously delivered from the prison and went to the home of John Mark’s mother, Mary, where a prayer meeting was in session. When Peter knocked at the door, a young maiden named Rhoda answered the knock. She was so surprised and delighted to see Peter, free from prison, that she ran to tell the others. In doing so, she forgot to open the gate and let him in! It would seem that her emotion got the best of her. What was needed was the opening of the door. But Rhoda was so emotionally wrought up that she even forgot that there was a door! [Acts 12: 1-17].

There may be some who get so emotional about their religion that they forget to do anything useful or constructive about it.

On the other hand, we probably must admit in honesty that we modern day Christians tend to lean the other way. We may look with such disfavor upon emotional outbursts that we fall into Saint Augustine’s classification of “frost-bound Christians.” In a church where they have bishops, the bishop announced that he would like for all of the churches of his area to participate in a “quiet day” retreat. Whereupon one of the ministers in his area suggested: “What my parish needs is not a quiet day, but an earthquake.” And Jesus must have had something like it in mind when he said, “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.” [Matthew 10: 34].

The Christian gospel ought to have its chance to be disturbing to us -- to be exciting, to set us about the expression, the work, the activity of Christian love and purpose. We could do with a generous dose of the zeal, the enthusiasm, the fervor, of the early church. Those early witnessing Christians got excited enough about their gospel to be missionaries in a great evangelistic thrust! And that explains the spread of the early church -- indeed of the church’s mission through all the intervening years.

There have been few times in the history of our country when there has been such wide-spread interest in religion as there is today, if we may judge by church membership and attendance in proportion to total population. But are we willing to launch out into the deep and let down our nets in ventures of faith? Or are we fearful that we might catch more religion than we want? Someone has said, “Yes, we are decent, but not ardent.”

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It is interesting to contrast Jesus’ estimate of another woman’s expression with that of the one I mentioned before whom he mildly rebuked. This time, a woman came in to where he was dining with friends, probably reclining at table as was the custom on occasion. The woman’s tears fell on his feet. She hurriedly wiped them away with her hair and then put perfumed ointment on his feet. It was apparently a lavish act, and there were those who adversely criticized. But Jesus was deeply moved, for it was a genuine expression. [Luke 7: 36-50].

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The genuineness of little children is often startling. There had been a startling day when Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, when people in some numbers, had shouted their “hosannas” and proclaimed: “Blessed be the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” It proved to be shallow, but a little later children, gathering around him after he had driven money changers from the temple, picked up the refrain, shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David.” The “proper” sort of people who were temple leaders were displeased. But Jesus asked them, “haven’t you read that ‘out of the mouths of babes praise has been perfected’?” A young child is not afraid to express an emotion concerning religion, or anything else.

Do we ever have the “Joy of salvation” expressed in our lives? A little girl came downstairs one morning, after a good night’s sleep, exuberant as only a child can be in the early hours of the day. She rushed into the kitchen where she noticed that her mother seemed, for some reason, to be a bit glum. “Mommy,” she said, “aren’t you happy?” “Why, yes,” came the answer, “surely, I’m happy.” “Well,” said the little daughter, “Why don’t you tell your face about it?” The expression of happiness is a reassurance of its presence!

Carl Patten tells the story of a lady whom he met in the east one summer. The story is about her father and mother -- especially her mother. They were Norwegians. The father was a young man when he came to the united States against the wishes of his family. They predicted that nothing good would come of it. But there was a girl in the same town in Norway, with whom the young fellow talked over the future. And, as a girl will sometimes do, she made him a promise. He was to go to America and get work and save his money. When he had saved enough, he was to send for her to come, and they would be married.

He came to this country. But he had a long and hard time getting started. Work was scarce; men were plenty; nobody seemed to need him. The prospect for the girl in Norway did not look good. Finally the young fellow got a job with a maker of telescopes and other scientific instruments. He lived in a little room over the shop, and he boarded himself -- eating in his room. At the end of the first month, when he drew his first wages, he did not put them in the savings bank. He did not buy some better clothes or more food, both of which he needed. He spent the whole month’s wages for a locket and sent it to the girl back in Norway. Then he saved his money carefully, and by and by the girl came. They were married. He was promoted. He became a partner in the business. Finally he became the owner. He became well known among scholarly men. He made telescopes for the great observatories. He probably made more fine, and large, telescopes than any man in America up to that time.

He grew wealthy. He went everywhere to see and talk with scientific people. At least one excellent college, Amherst, awarded him an honorary degree. His wife went everywhere with him and shared in his prosperity.

After he died, at a good old age, his wife took out that locket that he had sent when she was a girl (before she came to America) and began wearing it regularly again. She grew old, and feeble, and finally childish. Her daughter said that when she got so that she could hardly remember anything any more, she never forgot one thing -- that was the locket. Every day she wore it. Every night, when her daughter helped her into bed, she said the same words, as if she had never said them before: “This is the locket your father gave me. He bought it with the first money he ever earned. Put it right there.” The next night it was the same, and the next, and always, “This is the locket your father gave me. He bought it with the first money he ever earned. Put it right there.”

There is such a thing as love. Whether it be the love of a man for his wife, of a mother for her children; of a boy for his chum or his dad, of a sailor for his captain -- whatever it is, it is the finest thing in the world. It deserves expression.

Today is the beginning of National Family Week. The week continues until Mother’s Day next Sunday - the Festival of the Christian home. There is no better time to give expression to our emotion of affection, in the home or among the other folk whom we love.

There is no better time than now, to express the love of God which we have in our hearts, in action that will describe our faith.

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, May 6, 1962.