Sermon Library
“What A Difference A Day Makes”
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
September 13, 2009
Service Theme: Pentecost XV-2009
Source: Luke 19: 1 – 10
Pentecost XV-2009 September 13, 2009
What A Difference A Day Makes
Luke 19: 1 – 10
How They Met
I always enjoy asking a couple about to be married how they first met. The stories are invariably interesting. I have heard many, many couples say it was love at first sight. This is a cliché, but I have heard it too many times. It must really happen. I always remember the story of a bride who instantly fell in love with a man when she saw him at a distance in a shopping center parking lot. She went after him, but could not find him. So she left a note between the car window and windshield wiper. The note worked. They dated for a couple of years and now they were in my office about to be married. The bride reiterated to me that she had dated many men, looked at many men, but as soon as she saw this man, she knew she was going to marry him. What a difference a day makes.
In contrast to this love at first sight story, I have also heard many other couples state that they knew each other as friends for a long time first and that their relationship slowly grew from friendship to husband and wife. This is a love growing over many first-sights. It is just the opposite, but both are very real. Yet, even the couples who state that their love slowly evolved will also admit that there was often one episode or moment that made the change from friends to lovers. What a difference a day makes.
What we know is that significant changes in life can both occur over a slow period of time or a change can happen in a moment. It seems that the momentary incidents in life are most remarkable. Think about your life and what has occurred for you in the changes you have made in your life either by your own making or by sheer coincidence or serendipity. One day can make a difference of a life time.
Fred Craddock and the Old Man
Fred Craddock is a well known minister among ministers. Like Thomas Troeger Dr. Craddock is a homiletics professor. Fred tells this story of vacationing in the Smokey Mountains area of Tennessee. He and his wife had found a lovely restaurant at a place called the Black Bear Inn. Craddock says: We were seated there looking out at the mountains, when this old man, with shocking white hair, a Carl Sandburg-looking person came over and spoke to us. He said “You’re on vacation?” We said “Yes” and he just kept right on talking. “What do you do?” he asked. (“Well, I was thinking,” Craddock notes, “that it was a rather presumptuous question so soon in the conversation and I certainly do not want to let anyone know while on vacation, but it slipped out of me and I said I was a minister.”) Then the man said, “Oh, a minister, well I’ve got a story for you.” He pulled out a chair and sat right down at our table. “Won’t you have a seat?” Craddock added after the fact.
He began, “I was born back there in these mountains and when I was growing up I attended Laurel Springs Church. My mother was not married and as you might expect back in those days, I was embarrassed about that – at school I would hide in the weeds by a nearby river and eat my lunch alone because the other children were very cruel. And when I went to town with my courageous mother, I would see the way people looked at me trying to guess who my daddy was.”
“The preacher fascinated me, but at the same time he scared me. He had a long beard, a rough-hewn face, a deep voice, but I sure liked to hear him preach. But I didn’t think I was welcome at church so I would go just for the sermon. And as soon as the sermon was over, I would rush out so nobody would say, ‘what’s a boy like you doing here in church?” “One day though,” the old man continued, “I was trying to get out but some people had already got in the aisle so I got stuck. I was trying to get out, getting in a cold sweat when all of a sudden I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked out of the corner of my eye and realized it was the face of the preacher. And I was scared to death.”
The preacher looked at me. He didn’t say a word, he just looked at me, and then he said ‘Well boy, you’re a child of . . .’ and he paused, and I knew he was going to try to guess not who my mother was but who my father was.” “The preacher again said, ‘Now let’s see – you’re a child of . . . um. Why, I know, you’re a child of God! I see a striking resemblance boy!’ He swatted me on the bottom and said, ‘Go claim your inheritance!’” And then the old man who was telling the story looked Fred Craddock in the eyes with his bright blue eyes and bushy white hair and said emphatically, “I was born on that day!”
The man left and walk out of the restaurant. When the Craddocks left the waitress hoped that the gentleman was not a bother. She added, “He is a good man. He is over eighty years old and he lost his wife a while ago. He comes by here on occasion just to visit and have supper. He is actually well known around here because he was once the governor of Tennessee.” Craddock thought to himself. This man went from hiding from others to leading the state and it undoubtedly began with the simple acclamation, “You are a child of God. Go claim your inheritance.” What a difference a day makes.
Zacchaeus
Zacchaeus had such a day as well. He must have known something about this man Jesus to have climbed a tree for a better look or perhaps to hear better what he had to say. Apparently it was even before Jesus began to speak, Jesus found Zacchaeus. And all Jesus said was, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So Zacchaeus made haste and came down, and received him joyfully. Others questioned why Jesus would eat with Zacchaeus at his house let alone talk to this man a known thief. Zacchaeus must have perceived the risk Jesus was taking and at the moment Zacchaeus life was changed. Zacchaeus said, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house. For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.” There was no healing, no praying, no anointing, just words of invitation and an act of compassion and it changed Zacchaeus’ life. What a difference a day makes.
Mark and Sarah
There are hopefully many special moments in our lives which have made life long changes. There are also, however, moments in all of our lives which have been more than challenging. These serious challenges can also change us in an instant. I recently read about a couple named Mark and Sandra Landau. The Landaus are believed to be the only couple in the United States to have both had heart transplants. They have both had businesses which have been both successful and failures. They had a small but successful department store which was hit hard by a flood one day. Insurance only covered half of their merchandise. They worked harder and were paying off their business loan and on the way back to profit, when the river rose again and took out the store completely this time. As if anything could be worse, not long after the second flood, he is diagnosed with a terminal heart condition. Mark is put on the heart list, but it takes awhile. After almost a year waiting and getting weaker, he literally began to make arrangements with the funeral home, but right after his visit to the funeral home, he received the call from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. His pager goes off and he has two hours to get there. He is sorry for the donor, but grateful to be a recipient. After a year of recovery, he and his wife begin planning a small vacation. His wife has been so devoted to her husband’s medical condition and recuperation that she has not had her own physical for quite awhile. She decides to do this before their vacation. It is then discovered that she has a coronary disease that was even more advanced than Marks. Another year later, Sandra received her new heart. In a local interview, Mark and Sandra practically said at the same time, “One day we are up and one day we are down, one day we are rich and the next day we are poor, one day we are almost dead and the next day we have a new heart. Through it all, there is only thing that really matters and it’s simply about being alive.” What a difference a day can make. Jesus said I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly. Sometimes we need to have something taken away to realize how much we already have. Jesus said, “Be not anxious about tomorrow.”
The Last Day
Jesus also said, “let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you and where I am you may be also.” We also know the truth for all of us that any day can be our last day. Exactly eight years ago on September 11 there were 2,966 people who without warning lived their last day. To think that it was at the hand of 19 other human beings is unthinkable. As unthinkable as this atrocity is, it does cause any of us to think of the precariousness of life.
9-11 was horrific in all ways. In another way, it has become a significant symbol revealing in an almost sacramental way, the incredible fragility of life. So many lives lost in one moment, in one day, in one place. According to the United States Census Bureau, however, there are over 7,000 people who die every day in this country. This is one person every 15 seconds. This is just in the United States. There are over 150,000 people who die each day in the world in one way or another. Death is a reality in our lives. We observe it daily in the news and we probably here about a serious illness or death personally every week (or so) of each of our lives. Death surrounds us on a daily basis, yet many people prefer to keep the subject under wraps.
Facing Death Is Facing Life
Yet, addressing the reality of death some time in the future can provide us a place to live more completely in the present. In Ed Bastian’s and Tina Staley’s book Living Fully Dying Well we can read, “We desperately want to live. But we cannot face life without facing death. We talk about life and analyze it but don’t live because we cannot endure the deaths it takes to come magnificently alive. There is no new life without death of the old life.” Accepting our death is a great way to accept our life. To fear death is to fear life. I encourage you to have a copy of this book. You can read portions of it when you are in the mood. It will not give you the secret of heaven, but it will help lessen fear and create familiarity.
It is our faith, our God, our Jesus, which has allowed us to believe. God has instilled this thought in our hearts and minds. Prophets have made it a promise. Nature teaches us over and over again that life is, indeed, regenerative. The Psalmist has a great sense of living in the creation of God. In Psalm 144 we read, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock. O Lord, what is man that thou does regard him or the son of man that thou does think of him? Man is like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow.” Let me hear in the morning of thy steadfast love, for in thee I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to thee I lift up my soul. Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”
Let us look on life as realistically and honestly as possible. But let us also embrace as realistically and honestly the promise that God has given us and Jesus Christ has shown us. If we do this today – it will make a difference today. What a difference a day can make.
9-11 E-mail
There was an email message that began making the rounds in the days right after 9-11. There were different versions. Here is the main one: (Remember 9-11 was a Tuesday.)
On Monday, we e-mailed jokes. On Tuesday we did not.
On Monday, we were fussing about praying in school. On Tuesday, we would have been hard-pressed to find a school where someone was not praying.
On Monday, our heroes were celebrities and athletes. On Tuesday, we relearned who real heroes are.
On Monday, there were people trying to separate us by race, sex, color, and creed. On Tuesday, we were all holding hands.
On Monday we were irritated that our rebate checks had not arrived. On Tuesday we gave money away gladly to people we had never met.
On Monday we were upset that we had to wait five minutes in a fast-food line. On Tuesday we stood in line for three to five hours to give blood for the dying.
On Monday we argued with our kids to clean up their rooms. On Tuesday we couldn’t get home fast enough to hug our kids.
On Monday we went to work as usual. On Tuesday we went to work, but some of us didn’t come home.
On Monday we had families. On Tuesday we had orphans, widows and widowers.
On Monday, September 10, life felt routine. On Tuesday, September 11, it did not.
What a difference a day makes. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
Aspen Chapel
0077 Meadowood Drive
Aspen, Colorado 81611
http://www.Aspenchapel.org