Hindsight

from my sermon on Nov. 20, 2011 from Matthew 25:31-40

They say that hindsight is....20/20. In other words, in looking back, we see better, we can say, "Ah, that's how it really was."

In this passage, those who honored the Christ didn't see him until they looked back. It was in how they treated the most vulnerable....giving food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, taking care of the sick, visiting those in prison. They didn't do it to get credit, or earn salvation, or even to to see Jesus. They did it because it was the right thing to do. It was only in looking back, in hindsight, that they saw Jesus.

Looking back, we may see Jesus as well. I want us to look back over our recent past. Twp years ago, our church began to participate in Imagine No Malaria. To date, we have given over $35,000 to this cause. The Austin District was the pilot program for the whole denomination and has given almost $1 million. The UMC as a denomination has given more than 588,000 bed nets, trained more than 35,000 health care workers, and resourced more than 15 health clinics. We have the boldness to say that we want to rid the continent of Africa of the disease of malaria by 2015. Can you see Jesus here?

in this past year, Our congregation sent mission teams to Haiti, Uganda, Honduras on the international front. We sent youth and adults to North Carolina to ReCre, to do home repair. We sent a team to do home repair in New Orleans area. How long ago did Katrina hit? We are still there serving people. Now we are going to Bastrop after the wildfires. I know that I am leaving out many other missions, but these give you some idea of how we have been serving in the wider world and closer to home.

We are a 5 star mission church. That means we pay all of our apportionments or "a portion meant" for others. This current year that means out of our $1 million budget, we are giving $119,689 for others. We also give to many internation, national, and local missions. I have a certificate here that thanks us for being a 5 star mission church.

Westlake UMC has a tradition of Christmas in October. Already you have given $7,630 plus many blankets, coats, scarves, clothes, etc. Others have taken care of pets or given coffee to troops.

Westlake participates in Any Baby Can, Brackenridge Sewing room, Capital Area Food Bank, Caritas, Family Eldercare, Foundation for the Homeless ( recognize Robert and Peggy Davis for their service), Grace Food Pantry, Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels & More, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, Montopolis Center, New Life Institute, Safe Place, Women's Storybook Project...and many more. Can you see Christ here?

If you come around this church, you will be encouraged to join us in our vision statement of "Following One, Serving All."

There is a danger in not seeing. I tell a parable that I got from Clinebell's Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling, a story that was written in 1953. Let's see if it still fits.

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little lifesaving station. the building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, buththe few devoted members kept a constatn watchover the sea, and with no though for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, adn various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for teh support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be porvided as the first refuge of thsoe saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully adn furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as sort of a club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving mision, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club's decoration, adn there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held. About this time a large ship was wrecked off teh coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new clud was in chaos. So the property comittee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. They did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, adn if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those, waters, but most of the people drown!

God save us from ever becoming a club! May we always see ourselves as a lifesaving station!

I challenge you: Where do you see yourself in mission? Where do you see Christ? I have shared with you many ways for you to get in mission through this church. The worship bulletin and the website have many other ways every week. But I want you to see yourself in mission in your business place, your neighborhood, your school, your family. Don't wait for me to call you; Christ has already called you. The point for each of us is this: me in mission. Everyone of us in mission.

There are some folks practicing this in our midst. Karen was talking to me. She said, "I want to hold babies." We thought and we prayed and we looked. It turns out that St. David's Neo-natal ICU needs people to hold babies...to feed them...to talk to them...to hold them. Karen found her place in mission. There is a man in our midst who has a passion for the soldiers returning home. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down. Many troops are coming home. Some have a difficult adjustment. You know the unemployment rate among these troops is higher than the general population. This man is working with the Red Cross to help these soldiers. There is another man who sees the high unemployment in the Texas Valley. He is creating a non-profit to provide training for the Latino population. The fifth graders get it. Two Sunday ago at their Fifth in Service to Him they collected some 173 lbs. of food for the food bank. Our youth get it. Last Sunday at the youth council, one of the young women said, "I come to worship and Sunday School and Bible Study. I get it about God and the Bible, all the teaching. What would get me here for UMYF (United Methodist Youth Fellowship) is not games and sugar or more teaching. What would get me here is mission. I want to make a difference in the world.

I am going to allow for some silence. I want you to look back over your life. Where have you seeen Jesus? That may be God nudging you into that particular ministry. Might this be your calling? Then look ahead. How will you be in mission? Where you see the Christ?