November 25, 2007

“Help!  I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up”

A sermon preached at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Durham, North Carolina

The Reverend Paul Ransford, Jr.

So the first time we hear this plaintive cry is from a poor woman who is all by herself in a TV commercial.  I think her name is Mrs. Fletcher.  She became very famous and the line was repeated often.

 Zena, the warrior Princess, is the next one to make the line famous as she calls out from underneath the rubble of a building that has fallen on her.  “Help!  I’ve fallen, and I cannot get up.”

The next one to echo the line and to drag it to new depths of the mundane was the great cultural icon, Austin Powers.  He changed it slightly to, “Help!  I’ve fallen off a cliff and I can’t get up!”

Well, the time has passed for this saying.  It’s passé now as a pop cliché.  The message isn’t passé however.  It’s still an emotional tugger.  It’s my coat hanger for this sermon.

Our gospel lesson gets repeated three times.  You noticed this, I’m sure.  When three gospels all pick it up it must mean something is important.

So what this sermon is all about loves our neighbor.  We’re not going to speak of the global neighbor this morning or of local needs or of the homeless.  This is an in-house sermon just for us that I have been saving up after years of study and observation at Westminster—well, ten years now.

One of the starting points for this sermon is that we collectively are so busy that we do not have time individually to stop, to stoop, and to care for one another.  That’s a bad thing.

In his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul says to those early Christians who are trying to learn the ropes that they are to bear one another’s burdens.  That is
Greek for, “We’ve got to help each other out!”

And you know what? We are really, really good at helping out people on the other side of the world and down on the gulf coast.  We will truck down to the homeless shelter in Durham again this week to feed people that we do not know, and if anyone stands in front of this table and says, “Give me your dough”, we turn our pockets inside out.  Some of you even get mad if you miss the pitch and are left out of the initial shake down!  We are a giving, mission-minded church known for our generosity and our outreach.  Come here on Christmas Eve with your checkbook if you don’t believe me.  You will be reminded again that you are not the only one who gets to write nice checks between now and the end of the year.

What we are missing in our “reach” is our down-reach.

The facts of life are that life is tough.  It is full of bumps, some really huge potholes, lots of unwelcomed and unplanned detours, and for some of us, some deeply scarring events. This is not to say that there are not wonderful byways, great celebrations, realized dreams, a sense of accomplishment and joy. But in the best of lives there is trial and tragedy.  We stumble.  We fall.  We can’t get up.  Not by ourselves.

A child can fall down with a skinned knee and not be able to get up. There are a thousand and one things that can and do assail this congregation that can bring us to our knees or take the wind out of us, and yet we motor on…we get up!…yeah, yeah, yeah …  (even when we fall down in the woods in the middle of the night and break a leg) …some of us really are dumb…mostly because we’re too stubborn, too overwhelmed by the business of our own lives that we cannot take the time to hurt, to grieve, to rest. . to go to the doctor.

We incur financial setbacks, we get stuck in deadly dull and boring jobs, we get turned down to colleges of choice, we don’t get picked for select soccer, our pets die, we get lousy reports from our oncologists, our cardiologists, and our chiropractors, our aging parents start failing and need huge amounts of attention and resources.  These things happen to all of us.  It can be really tough.  “My heart cries out to Thee O, Lord, my enemies surround me.”

Let’s help each other out.

Let’s work at bearing each other’s burdens. It’s a command. 

We need to work at being there for each other when life plays “smack-down”. These events don’t usually go up on billboards.  Those of us who choose to suffer our bad falls in silence hinder our neighbor from sharing in our lives in a meaningful way.  Yes, now, sometimes there is a persistent enough friend or relative that our “Help! I’ve fallen” gets out.  Sometimes even the church finds out in a timely way, and we get to be church to each other. 

Do you know that our great God of love suffers when we suffer?  God has no desire for us to suffer alone.  “When life gets tough, the tough get going” is not a Christian mantra. Help!  Is the call of Israel in the wilderness.  “Help!  I’ve fallen…” is the call of the Psalmist before God’s throne of grace.  Help!  I’ve fallen is the call of the leper, the cripple, the blind, the ostracized to Christ the Healer whom we greet on this day as Christ the King.

 Stop. Look. Listen. Your neighbor needs you.  A phone call, a bump into the shopping cart in the aisle at Harris Teeter in front of the Coco Puffs, a dinner date with a couple you’ve let fall by the wayside because—you know, “We used to do a lot more when the kids were around.”  A pause on the porch after church to get more news on “How is your mother?  Didn’t you just fly out there?  (That one is too timely. Our dear Nancy Rozak called from the airport on Thanksgiving Day to say she was in the boarding line for a plane to Arizona to see her mother in hospice.  Her mother died yesterday morning).

You will never ever begin to comprehend how important your expressions of love and concern are for your neighbor. It is God’s love in a hug, a handshake, or a sappy card.  I know.  During this year of medical adventures, I have experienced the huge love that this congregation is capable of, and now I am exhorting you to share the wealth.

And now we have another full inquirers’ class. Our third one this year—during an interim period!!  Where are these people coming from?  What are they looking for?

And we have guests each week who grace us with their presence.  Is it possible that these folks are looking for the same thing that you and I did when we came in that door—looking for the love of God in a welcoming fellowship…a harbor…a hand up?

We’re usually pretty good at this, but I have talked to some folks who visited us a number of times before anybody even “howdied” at them.  Down-reach…a hand up…come join us…where are you from…welcome!  Want to join our supper club?  Can you play basketball?  Can you to sing?  Do you like to sing?  Sit by me on Bubba!

The ways to care are countless.  The ways to honor Christ the King by our love of one another are as plentiful as the falling leaves.

 Brothers and Sisters, let us love one another for love is of God.  Amen.