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With Help From Friends | Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 | October 28, 2001 |
Quraishi and his relatives gave Ding imported Pakistani sweets, grains and tea as they all watched the enormity of events displayed on TV. They helped investigate flights back to Chicago (none), rental cars (gone), train schedules (madness). They were particularly distressed that, in addition to a husband, Ding had a 9-month-old baby girl at home.
"So," recalls the cab driver, "I say, 'If you want, I can drive you there.'" Even though he had never driven further from New York than Connecticut. "She was my passenger." he says, "It was my duty to get her to her destination." So he persuaded his brother-in-law to lend him his van and to come along. On their way out of town a group of teenagers in Brooklyn spied the van with Pakistanis in the front seat and accosted it, screaming, "Terrorists!" About 10 p.m. the Chinese woman and the Pakistani men--three Americans--were on the open road heading toward Chicago. They were hungry so Quraishi says to his brother-in-law. "Let's try Chinese food. When she was at our home, we asked her to try our food. Now we should have her food."
About midnight they stopped for gasoline. The station owner turned out to be Pakistani. "The gas is free," he said.
In the afternoon, Ding phoned home and asked her in-laws to cook dinner: No pork, she specified on her guests' behalf and no alcohol. They arrived in Chicago safely.
After dinner and a brief nap, the two Pakistanis headed back to New York.
Driving away, Quraishi, says he got a reward far beyond the good fee Ding paid him: the sight of her face, so distraught the day before, now flushed with happiness as she stood holding her baby.
"I'm honored that she trusted me," the cabbie told the Tribune columnist. "It was my privilege and honor that she never showed that she was scared."
Ding told the columnist, "He did a very tough thing. I probably wouldn't do it for someone else. He's going back to another world, and not a friendly place. I'm worried for him."
This is one of many stories of strangers helping strangers in the wake of the events of Sept. 11. Usually people get help from friends. I believe that was the case in today's story from the Gospel of Luke.
The story is about Jesus healing a paralyzed man and the negative reaction of the religious authorities. But it is the beginning of the story I want us to notice. A group of people (Luke says they are men--the other gospels just say people) bring a paralyzed man, on his bed, a stretcher we might say, to see if Dr. Jesus can help him. I choose to believe that these are friends of the man. He obviously cannot get to Jesus by himself so they cooperate to get him there. But the crowd in the house with Jesus is so great it spills out the door and the men cannot get in, let alone bring a stretcher in. One of them has an idea which will require the help of all of these friends. They go up to the roof and remove some tiles and together they lower the man on his bed right into the midst of the people gathered around Jesus. I remember as a small child when I first heard this story how puzzled I was. All the houses I knew about had sharp slanted roofs with shingles, so my image of what these friends of the paralytic did was very strange. But even with the 1st century houses and their flat roofs this was not a simple task, I'm sure. So for me the real punch of this story is that this man experienced God's grace in a special way because of the action of his friends.
Most of us recognize the joy given to us by friends and the value of friendships. Perhaps that is why so many organizations use the word "friend" in their name: Friends of the Library, Friends of the Environment , Friends of the Sea Otter and so forth. When the medical community chimes in, the value of friendships is dramatically underscored. Fewer friends lead to higher stress and a shorter life. In a study of 2,800 men and women over the age of 65, those with more friends had a lower risk of health problems, and they recovered faster when they did develop them. A Yale University study of 10,000 seniors showed that having friends reduced the risk of death by about 50 percent over a five-year period. Friends can help you reduce stress, improve the quality of your life, help you live longer, help you get a better job, help you expand your business, improve your marriage and derive more joy form your life. As the Beatles sang, we all get along with a little help from our friends.
This community of faith, New England Congregational Church, is a community which hopes to foster friendships. Many of our existing programs and much of the new programming we are undertaking help us to make and deepen friendships. Let me mention two. Our youth programs provide opportunities to build friendships and opportunities to understand relationships, to build trust, to take opportunities to work together.
I have had the privilege to observe rehearsals of the children’s choirs led by Ina Heup. I have watched as Ina molded those choirs into a group of friends who care for each other as well as make music together. You will recall that September 11 was on a Tuesday. Tuesday afternoons the Pilgrim choir and the Plymouth Rock choir meet. Ina tells me that when she asked if the children wanted to talk about the events of that day they responded, "Let's sing." And they did. Friends helping friends by singing together.
Now is the time of the year when the church comes to each of us and asks us to pledge our financial support for the coming year. Those who are on the stewardship committee say to us, "Friends, we need your help; we need your support."
Money raising usually poses a problem for churches. There is the risk of appearing to talk too much about money. But we cannot shirk the responsibility of raising sufficient funds to carry on the church program.
There have been many odd schemes in churches to meet budgetary needs. I know of a church in another denomination in a Chicago suburb which was approached by one of the cellular phone companies with this proposal: allow us to remove the large wooden cross on top of your church and replace it with one that is made of fiber glass which will contain our communication antennas inside. The cross on the church was a memorial gift. But when the church board found out how much the cellular phone company was willing to pay for putting the "cellular cross" on the church, they decided they would agree and provide another memorial somewhere else in the church. In fact there is a trend across the country to use church steeples as towers in which to place antennas for wireless service. Pacific Bell promises Green Hills Baptist church of La Habra, California $14,400 a year to rent its steeple. As far as I know we have not been contacted.
Each year every church has to ask for money. One pastor, noting the pervasive presence in American culture of the lottery, suggests, with tongue planted firmly in his cheek, a program he calls "The Lord's Lottery."
When the ushers bring the offering plates forward they are to be dumped into one big container. The chair of the finance committee reaches in and draws out one offering envelope. The giver of the "winning" offering envelope receives double his or her money back. There is also the potential for membership growth if you limit envelopes to church members. Of course the more you give the more you have a chance to get back. No, don't look for that here at New England.
This church's way--which I think is the best way--of raising money is to say to each of us, "Friends, we need your help. What can we count on you to give?"
Without the help of a fellow immigrant, Joy Ding would have been stranded in New York.
Without the help of his friends, the paralyzed man in today's gospel lesson would not have been in the presence of Jesus to receive God's grace.
Without the help of friends--without your help--New England Church will not be able to do what it needs to do. Join your friends and give. Amen
Joe Dunham
| Copyright © 2001 by Joe Dunham. All rights reserved. |