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 Isaiah 40:28-31 | Matthew 25:31-40
All my life I have been fascinated by the idea that every individual has the potential to live a life that makes a big difference, that counts for something. Today I am going to tell some stories about the power of one--one person, one life--and what one can accomplish.
One of my biggest heroes is Mahatma Gandhi. He was born in India in 1869. He was just starting out as a young lawyer, but he had not had much success--in fact, he was struggling to get his legal career underway. He had never been much of a student; he had trouble with mathematics. (Just keep in mind, you can still have a great life; I have always been terrible with math.) Eventually, Gandhi found a job in South Africa, and was able to start his work as a lawyer there.
One night he had to take an overnight train to a distant city. He bought a First-Class ticket and got settled in; the train was on its way. A white man came into the cabin and noticed a man with dark skin was sitting in the First-Class carriage. The customs of the day in South Africa did not allow this, and the man reported the situation to the conductors, who told Gandhi he was not allowed to sit in First Class. Gandhi protested; he showed his First-Class ticket. He was entitled to sit there, and he would not leave. The conductors continued to insist, and he continued to assert his right to sit in First Class. The conductors eventually got a policeman, and in a remote town, in the middle of the night, they literally, unceremoniously, threw him off the train with his baggage.
Gandhi was humiliated. And we all know that anger follows humiliation. But fortunately, by grace, he was a peaceful person, he was intent on peace, and his anger did not become destructive. He had learned the wisdom of focusing his anger in constructive ways, and soon was committed to changing the horrible conditions where people, because of the color of their skin, or their caste or social group, were oppressed and humiliated. He developed the concept of non-violent resistance to protest laws that discriminated against the Indian population in South Africa, and eventually gained real concessions from the government.
Returning to his native India, he led a movement to gain independence for his people (almost a billion) from the tyrannical rule of the British Empire, using the same principles of non-violent resistance. Even though he was a Hindu, he knew the New Testament well, and he always said that the Sermon on the Mount got through to his heart. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are you when you are persecuted. And when somebody hits you on the right cheek, turn the left cheek also. This is hard, but he believed it. You pray for your enemies. You do good to those who do evil to you. He was saturated with the truth of these teachings.
Gandhi led a revolution that was completely non-violent. He was often met with violence, but he never gave in to it and retaliated in kind. In fact, his consistent non-violence often defused situations. If he had not taken the leadership in this way, millions of lives could well have been lost in a revolutionary battle for India's independence. India did become an independent nation, all because of the power of one amazing individual, Mahatma Gandhi, who for people all around the world remains an inspiration and a model.
One person, one soul, making a difference.
I love this insight from Robert Collyer, a 19th-century minister who emigrated to the United States from England. He was horrified by slavery in America and joined the anti-slavery movement, giving his life to it.
God hides some ideal in every human soul. At some time in our life we feel a trembling, fearful longing to do some good thing. Life finds its noblest spring of excellence in this hidden impulse to do our best.
During the summer I often visit a camp in Maine run by Seeds of Peace, a peace organization founded by John Wallach, which is now run by his widow Janet. For twenty-five years John Wallach was a journalist, working mostly in the Middle East. What he saw there was the result of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth thinking: centuries of hatred and killing. An ideal came to reside somewhere in his soul, that somehow the killing could be stopped, and he was given the dream of a place that could become a seedbed of peace. He would bring together the brightest fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, from Palestine, Israel, Egypt, and Lebanon, and countries all around the Middle East. As teenagers they would still be young enough not to be fully entrenched in the mutual hatred of that region. John decided he would create a program where they could get to know and understand one another as human beings, not as enemies. These young people would go back home after their camp experience as Seeds of Peace.
The camp has been hosting young people from the Middle East since 1993. I have visited there several times, each time an extraordinary, moving experience. I remember once at a discussion session when a young Palestinian girl said, "All Israeli soldiers are killers," and an Israeli girl responded, "No, that isn't true. My brother is in the Army, and he isn't a killer." The process of enemies communicating with each other had begun.
Three weeks later, when the camp session was over, everybody in the group was respecting, if not loving, those they had feared and disliked. All but a few of the more than two thousand young people who have been to that camp have started out hating the enemy, and then have discovered that the enemy has a face, and feelings, and longings, and fantasies, and humor. They have discovered that their enemy is a human being, and as these young people discover the humanity in their brothers and sisters, former enemies, they become friends. Now there are more than two thousand Seeds in the Middle East.
Janet Wallach invited me to have lunch with two of the graduates from about ten years earlier, a Palestinian woman named Lena and an Israeli young man named Yoyo. Yoyo had just finished seven years of service in the Israeli Army. Before the Army would give him a top security clearance, they told him he would have to promise not to speak to any Arab while he was serving. This was very difficult, because many of his good friends were Arabs. He couldn't wait to get out of the military so he could get back to Seeds of Peace; now he works for them.
At our luncheon I kept probing to find out what, from their experience as Seeds, had changed for these young people. How had they been converted from hatred to love? What they kept saying was that you cannot hate other people once you have seen their human faces, once you have shared laughter or heard another's story. At one point I said to Yoyo, "You own this, don't you?" and he replied, "No, I don't own it. It owns me."
What they were describing to me is religion in its purest form. It is all about love. There is one Spirit; there is one God. But we cannot leave it alone; we feel we have to interpret God. We pile on all kinds of rules and regulations, divisions and judgments, and we get away from the pure essence of religion--love, which is forgiveness, compassion, and understanding. That pure essence is what is influencing the Seeds. This is the ideal that God put into John Wallach.
At the end of a camp session I attended three or four years ago a young girl said to me, "Just think of what could happen, if one day the leaders of our countries are Seeds." I believe it's going to happen, because Lena and Yoyo said, "We are getting on in the world. We are working for newspapers, we are working for government, our influence will be felt one day, and it will be a changed world."
I have a dream. It is an ideal; some might say it is a fantasy, but I don't think so. It is a dream and a prayer that I know will not come about in my lifetime, or my children's--perhaps in the lives of my grandchildren's children. I would like to think they will experience it. It is my dream that the time will come that when there is conflict, war will not be an option. We would still celebrate Memorial Day, but the uniforms that are being worn today would be in museums, and people would have grown up to understand that freedom and justice are for every person, and every person would protect that interest. We will get there when we discover that every human being is like every other human being: a special creation, a child of God.
I know one complaint is that my vision of a peaceful world would be very hard to attain. Yes, it is hard. Nothing good in life is ever easy. Nothing ever goes in a straight line. Isaiah speaks to this, assuring us that when we do good we have the strength of God on our side.
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
God can make it possible for the amazing power of one to make the necessary difference.
In Matthew 25, Jesus is talking to His disciples about the rewards that await the righteous in Heaven, and He says,
Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
As He was talking, the disciples were shrugging their shoulders and looking at each other and wondering what He was talking about. One of them said, "We never saw you in any of those situations, nor did we do any of those things." Then Jesus said something extraordinary: "Any time you do this for anyone in the human family, you do it for me." As Robert Collyer said, God puts an ideal into the soul of every human being, and we feel a trembling, fearful longing to do some good thing.
Several weeks ago one of our ushers brought a woman to meet me after the worship service, telling me she had a remarkable story. Her name was Regina Grebb; I had met her when she had joined the church, but I didn't know her well. Since then we have become good friends.
Regina had heard on the radio about a man who would soon die if they couldn't find a kidney for him. Regina, listening, thought, "I can do that." So she called the station, and soon embarked on the long series of tests to discover if her kidney would be compatible. "When I discovered that my blood type was right, I knew it was all going to happen," she told me.
A few days before the operation, I asked, "Regina, have you met the man yet?" "No," she answered, "they think it is best to wait until after the surgery, but I know his name is Stuart, and he is thirty-five years old with three children. That is all I need to know."
The day after the operation, she was wheeled into his room and met him and his wife. "Words cannot describe it," she told me. "There was so much emotion, and warmth, and hugs, and tears. I have never given birth to a child, but it was like giving birth. I knew that through me somebody would have life."
We talked for awhile about the many people around her who had serious questions about her giving a kidney to a complete stranger. Among them, of course, were her parents, who were very concerned for her. I asked her the question I am sure everyone had asked. "What made you do it?"
She said, "I knew it was the right thing to do." This story has an even happier ending. Regina's mother is now in the process of preparing to donate a kidney herself.
It is the amazing power of one--what one individual can do. When we get in touch with the ideal God plants in us, we find we have to do good or we are not fulfilled. And when the going gets tough, we wait upon the Lord, Who renews our strength. We lift up like the eagle, and we soar.
Bless you. Let us pray.
Lord, for the blessings of our lives, the gifts that you give us, O Lord, we say thank you. Give us the courage to realize that we have an amazing power of one. AMEN |
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