Father
John McGinn, Rector
It was one
of the most gripping news stories of the year 2003. In the beautiful, but desolate mountains of
He saw
immediately that he was in trouble, unable to budge the rock. Aaron took out his pocket knife and chipped
away at the rock for ten hours, managing only to produce a small handful of
dust. Obviously this was not going to
work. Days were passing and no one knew
where he was. Even worse, his family and
friends were used to him going off for days without contacting anyone, so they
were no looking for him.
With his
arm still wedged beneath this enormous boulder, Aaron Ralston recorded a video
message to his parents telling them good-bye.
At the end of several days with no food or water, Aaron made a
remarkable choice. He decided to
amputate his own arm. His knife couldn’t
cut through rock, but it could cut through flesh.
That is
exactly what he did, using only a pocket knife.
He cut off his arm. What an
amazing display of courage and determination.
After he
was finished he applied a tourniquet to his arm and repelled nearly 70 feet to
the canyon. Then he hiked five miles
downstream where he encountered other hikers and was rescued.
Aaron Ralston
made the excruciating decision to amputate his right arm to save his life. This is truly an amazing story.
Who can
read this story without thinking of Jesus’ words from the gospel reading from today?
“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into
Hell.” What a stark declaration from
Jesus. “If your hand causes you to sin,
cut it off.”
Is this
from the same level of those societies that cut off the hands of thieves? We view that, here in the western world, as
barbaric.
This is
not the kind of Jesus that we prefer. We
like a soft Jesus; one that talks like a guru from the 1960’s does about peace
and love, and how we are all God’s children.
This harsh Jesus offends our Live
and let live sensibilities.
Obviously,
Jesus did not mean that we should chop off the offending appendage. Still the
words convey an earnestness that we should heed. “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.”
Sometimes
in life we have to choose, and isn’t that what Jesus is really saying
here. You really can’t have it all. Sometimes you have to make a decision. Aaron certainly made a choice; sacrificed his
arm in order to save his life. There are
choices that must be made in life and those choices determine our destiny.
Some of
our older members here this morning may remember the ridiculous and time
honored story about the old country preacher and his teenage son. One day while the boy was at school, the
father decided to try an experiment. He
went into the boy’s room and he placed on his desk three objects; a bible, a
silver dollar and a bottle of whisky.
“Now,” said the old preacher, “I will hide behind the door here and when
my son comes home from school I will see which one he picks up. If he picks up the bible he will be a
preacher, if he picks up the dollar he will be a business man, but if he picks
up the bottle of whisky he will be a no-good drunkard.” Soon the old man heard his son’s footsteps
and he watched as the son walked over to the three items that were placed on
the desk. First the boy picked up the
bible, and placed it under his arm. Then
he picked up the silver dollar and dropped it in his pocket. Finally he uncorked the bottle and took a big
drink. “Lord have mercy.” The old man
whispered “He is going to be a politician.”
I guess
you could say that unless you are going to be a politician, you are going to
have to make some choices in life. Life
is made up of choices. Choices about how
you spend your time. Choices about how
you spend your money. Choices about what
you think is really important.
Just as Aaron
Ralston made the excruciating decision to amputate his arm, so there are
choices each of us must make.
If you are
going to have a healthy body, there are choices you must make about what you
eat and what you drink. If you are going
to have a healthy spiritual life, there are choices you must make about the
input you give your mind. If you are
going to have a healthy marriage, friendship, family, there are choices you
will have to make every day.
Every day
we are confronted with choices. Most of
them are relatively easy choices. They
require little time and energy. When you
got ready to come here this morning, you probably didn’t have any agonizing
choices about what to wear. I hope you
didn’t agonize too much about whether to come to the service this morning or
not. Our live consist of the choices we
make, and I believe the most important choice is the choice to follow Jesus.
It really
doesn’t matter in the long run where you chose to live, what kind of car you
drive, or what music you listen to. The
only thing that really matters is whether you consciously seek to be all that
God means us to be
Now I
realize that I may need to convince some of you of that. Many of us are what might be called “of
course” Christians. That is if I was to
ask you if you were a Christian, you would say “Of course. My parents are
Christian, I have gone to church all my life, I am not Jewish, Buddhist,
Agnostic. Of course I am a Christian.”
Unfortunately, the world is full of “Of course” Christians. That is different than the Christian that
follows Jesus.
What
difference does it make if I become one of Jesus’ followers or an “of course” Christian? What difference does it make if I become one
who is really affected by Jesus’ presence in my life?
I want to
ask you a couple of important questions this morning.
Is it
important to you to live an affected life?
Some people live lives that have no real impact on the world around
them. They are there, but that is really
all you can say about them. They are
nice people, who don’t do any harm, but the world will not be much affected by
their passing and no one will really miss them that much. They haven’t lived bad lives, just
unremarkable ones. Our faith in Jesus
should give unity and purpose to our lives and help us to affect the world
around us.
The word
RELIGION comes the Latin Religio, which means: to bind up. If our faith is alive, it helps us to bind up
our lives into a unified whole. Our
commitment to Jesus affects our abilities as parents. When we define ourselves as a Christian
parent that indicates how seriously we take our role as fathers and
mothers. Our children become a great
priority in our lives and we seek to guide them along the path of righteousness
and love. We stand by them when they are
in trouble and we never give up on them.
Why? Because we have made a
commitment to be the best parent that we can be.
Our faith
binds up our life in a unified whole. If
you are a follower of Jesus, you are a better marriage partner, a better
parent, a better friend, you are a more dependable employer or employee, and
you are a more responsible member of the community. All of this is enhanced when you follow that
humble Galilean.
The first
question is: Are you interested in an
affective life? And the second question is:
Are you interested in living an eternal life?
Jesus gave
us an important promise after his resurrection “Where I am, you may also
be.” We don’t talk much about that
promise except at funerals or on Easter, but it is a critical part of our
faith. Eternal life is not an award for
being good boys and girls. If it were we
would all fall a little short. Eternal
life is a gift God gives us because of His love for us.
What is
our response to that gift? Hopefully it
is to follow Jesus.
“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off” It is not one of Jesus more popular teachings. I did not want to read the Gospel this morning after watching the Red Sox over the last few days. Jesus says to us in a stark way that a choice must be made. We can not forever straddle the fence. Are you on Jesus’ side, or not? Jesus promises us an eternal life and a more affective life, and all we have to do in return is to say yes. Amen.