3RD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
June 1, 2008

STRIVING BUT NOT SUCCEEDING
Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-31
Matthew 7:21-29

          It may seem obvious, but living a Christian life is not an easy thing.  Let’s take a single example, patience.  We know that as Christians we are suppose to be patient people, but how many times have we all succumbed to the temptation to blow our horn at some nonagenarian who is going about 15 miles an hour on a summer day with our car full of frozen goodies?  Or why is it that there is always a major problem with the person who is ahead of us in the department store?  Are we filled with Christian love and understanding at these moments?  I wonder.

          Now truth be known, some folks don’t even bother trying to live lives worthy of the calling to which they have been called.  Some of the early followers of Jesus were like this.  They were pietistic camp followers, simply tagging along to see what was in it for them.  In our Gospel, Christ makes His feelings about those folks perfectly clear.  21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ 23Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’  There is not much subtlety here as Christ roundly condemns them.  And sometimes, dear friends, there is more of this attitude in our own lives than we care to admit.

          But usually, we are more accurately placed in the second camp.  These are those folks who try, but don’t quite succeed.  Paul deals with this in our Second Reading.  For there is no distinction, 23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.   Don’t these words ring true?  Most of us start with the best intentions in the world, but somehow or the other, something goes wrong.  We really don’t want to spread gossip, but there we are talking about so and so’s dress or Mr. Y’s third martini at the latest cocktail party.  We plan to volunteer at our son’s school, but somehow never ever quite get around to it.  We labor over our taxes and come to the questionable conclusion that no one would notice if we fudge a little at our expenses.  After all, we need those few dollars more that the government.

          So what do these two rather challenging lessons mean to us?  I think that a basic message we should carry away is that we should keep trying even if we never can quite get it right, even when we constantly fall short of perfection.  Which also means we should be careful not to judge others who may not meet our high standards, because there are some who feel that we can never meet their high standards.  Ultimately, there is only one person whose judgment really matters and that is Christ, the great judge of us all.

But on this day when we honor our Sunday School teachers, let me draw a concluding illustration from these precious ranks.  Inevitably, every good teacher will walk away from one lesson or another feeling they have not succeeded.  Often they are right.  But they learn something about themselves and keep at it.  Going back over more decades that I can to admit, the name of Alma Herbstreit comes to mind, or Miss Alma as we called her, the reigning matriarch of our Sunday School back in New York as I was growing up.  An imposing figure who was not the greatest of teachers Miss Alma just kept at it. 

Her legacy tells the story.  Recently three of her “boys” got together in the Pocono’s to retell old tales.  Bill has had a long and varied career in city housing in New York, eventually becoming the General Manager of Coop City in the Bronx, one of the largest apartment complexes in the country.  Dan served as a Detective in a Manhattan Precinct and now is the President and CEO of the Lutheran/All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village Queens responsible for the 225-acre facility containing 1 million graves.  I was the third member of that dubious trio.   Miss Alma may have not been the greatest educator in the world, but she helped to shape us and we did not turn our too badly.

For there is no distinction, 23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, all too true.  But we keep on forging ahead knowing that by the power of the Spirit we are also are shaping lives and establishing rich legacies for the future.  Amen.