SERMON

JOY IN THE END! - A FITTING MEMORIAL

by

Eldridge E. Fleming, Ph.D.

MAY 28, 2000

Sixth Sunday of the Easter

New Hope Presbyterian Church

Rienzi, Mississippi

Readings: Acts 10:44-48; 1 John 5:1-16; John 15:9-17

The Call to Worship: (Psalm 98):

The Children's Message:

Good morning!

Well, I was going to talk about heroes this morning. Mr. Redding set the pace in a very nice way by talking about a fellow who turned out to be quite a hero in the Pacific theater of the second World War. Today is Memorial Sunday and it is the day that we come to think about the people that we've loved and cared for and who have died. In a way, we've turned Memorial Day into a kind of holiday of remembering war heroes. But the truth is when Memorial Day was started -- at least in its beginning about 1868, I think -- a guy by the name of Logan wanted to have declared in his part of the world in Illinois a day to remember. He was thinking in terms of the Civil War heroes -- and not necessarily heroes, but just people who had died in the Civil War -- and this day was called Decoration Day. It wasn't this Sunday, it was Decoration Day. If you visit churches in various places, you'll find that they have what is called Decoration Day. That's held once a year when they clean up the cemeteries. Now our cemetery here always looks very nice. Mr. George has some kind of connection with some people and they keep it very nice. I think he does it -- he used to do it. Anyway, the cemetery here looks very nice all the time, but some cemeteries are just let go all year and then people come in and clean it up in the month of May. They cut down all the weeds and clear out all the bushes, and everybody decorates the graves. So that was called Decoration Day and some people still refer to it as Decoration Day.

The purpose of this day is to show honor to those who have died, and since we have some military operations that happened in May -- Victory in Europe came in May of World War II -- since then we've built up Memorial Day weekend and have kept it going. We go out and put flowers on the graves and clean the cemeteries and do all those things in honor of those who have died. We don't have to be just people who are veterans to be remembered on Memorial Day. We remember all of those who have died before us. That is why today is such a special day.

We have people here today who aren't here every Sunday. We have visitors here today and are glad to see them. It may be that they are here because it is Memorial Day weekend, a special time to honor those who have gone on before us. I hope that you have a good day and that you remember those special people -- grandparents and so forth -- who have been important in your life. That is what Memorial Day is all about.

Let's have our prayer together.

Father, we give you thanks for today and we pray that you will be with these today and give them Your blessings in a special way. We know they are loved by You and by each other and by their parents and grandparents. We thank You for them. In Jesus' name. Amen.

The Scripture Reading:

Our first reading today comes from Acts. It is a passage that is intriguing and I hope that you will see some of the intrigue as we hear it. Acts 10:44-48 RSV

Peter had taken some friends with him as he was speaking to this particular gathering and while he was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. Now you all think about that intriguing passage, and we'll get back to it in a little while.

Our reading from the epistle comes from 1 John 5:1-16 RSV. There are several segments to this and so, if you would, let's give our attention to it. The word of God for the people of God, so listen to what He is saying. A trivia question would be, "Is there anything that you are not to pray about?" Take it from there.

The gospel reading for the morning comes from John 15:9-17. We are continuing the reading from John, where Jesus is speaking to his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. If you would and can, would you stand with me as we hear the gospel?

The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

The Sermon:

As I mentioned earlier in speaking with the children, this is, of course, Memorial Sunday -- Memorial Day weekend is around us -- and we are celebrating the memories of those who have died and moved onto another life. We come celebrating what other people have done because it is only proper and fitting that we do that.

When we remember someone, we try to remember those things that are good about them. As well, we cannot help but also remember that about them which is not so good about them. So your memory of others is a very special thing. You want to keep it, you want to nurture it, and if possible, you want to correct it.

Sometimes we develop memories that are inaccurate and in the development of those inaccurate memories, we may set our feelings or our emotions on a course, and that course might lead us to great pain and cause us to feel things and experience things or even do things that we should never have to do. I remember when I was a younger fellow and a young pilot, and my children were small, that one of the things I wanted to do which is common to every newly certificated pilot, was that I wanted to take my children for a flight. And so I did. I have two sons and a daughter and since I was flying an aircraft that would take four, I took them all for a flight. They flew with me and seemed not to be greatly upset or anything, but whenever time passed after that -- twenty to twenty-five years later -- in conversation with my daughter, I discovered that she had thought that I had tried to kill them while I had them in the airplane.

Now I admit that I may not have been the smoothest pilot in the world, but certainly her remembrance of me doing loops in a Cessna 172 was grossly inaccurate. You can do that if you have enough courage and if you are suicidal -- and I don't think I've ever been suicidal -- and you can roll them over and you can twist them around. Certainly we are cautioned to never do that with them because it messes up the instruments on the dash and you don't want to pay for all of that. So needless to say, that never occurred. But somehow or other in her mind, she had remembered that I had tried to kill them by looping the airplane.

Well, she never wanted to fly with me again and I never could understand that, but now I know why that had been there. Consequently, by the conversation I at least straightened out the information, but I did not straighten out the emotion. The emotion was there based on the memory and the memory was inaccurate and the memory said those things occurred. So she still has trouble with flying, although she has been able to manage to fly commercially without too much problem.

We want to share our memories with one another. We want to share our memories of those that we love and those that we care for, and this is the day, this is the weekend, this is the time in our society when we have set a special day to do just that. Again as I mentioned earlier with the children, this has turned into sort of a memorial weekend for military people and for heroes of that certain type, but in reality we use it more broadly than that. We use it to remember all of those who have been with us before but now are gone. Some of you are here today because you are here for that special purpose, that is, to remember those that you have loved.

All those of us who have lost loved ones, we think about our mothers and our fathers. We remember what they were like and what they liked and what they didn't like. We remember about how they're disciplined and how they were forgiving and all those things. It is a time for refreshing our memories, and today we do that. That is what we want to do and I hope you will do that even more.

That raises, then, the question about what kind of memories are you creating for those around you? One of those tasks that we all ought to take seriously is the writing of our funeral, setting out in an organized fashion what you would like said at your funeral. Now I know that we are not here today to do a seminar in funerals, that's not it. Some of you will come up with some funny things and some of you will just be blank. You'll ask, "What do I do now? What do I say?" It really is helpful to the minister if you have it already laid out. Really! So it is helpful. I thought about that, where do I want to have my funeral?

Mr. Keenum, an attorney in this church, has worked in disabilities hearings with a judge by the name of Robert L. Cox. On some occasons I was the vocational expert, Mr. Keenum was the attorney and we happened to be in the court room at the same time with Judge Cox as the hearing judge. Judge Cox's funeral was last Thursday.

I thought it was unique in the way that they memorialized him. You notice that word, "memorialized" for Memorial Day? See my connection? These things that were unique about him were several, but these are particularly outstanding. His body lay overnight in First Christian Church in Tupelo. The church was locked. He was there for the evening "visitation" with his family, and I happened to be the last one in. I don't know how I got that honor, but I was the last one in and the director was about to leave the casket open. Somehow or other that didn't quite fit with me. You know, I grew up in the day and age whenever you had someone's wake, that was it, because you stayed with them all night to make sure everything was all right. So, to leave someone alone dead in the church -- that was different. I asked if he was going to leave the casket open and he thought for a minute and then answered, "Well, maybe I'd better not." So he didn't and we left.

But the next day at the funeral, that was different, too. The family processed in as they do and sat in their reserved section and we all sat down. The minister had an opening prayer and we sang a hymn and then he said, "In accordance with the judge's wishes and his family's wishes, we want anyone who wants to say anything about him to be able to do that." Now that was opening Pandora's box; but anyway, he was organized and he had everybody cued and I didn't have a chance to say anything. I could have told some funny stories, but then we would have been there more than an hour and that wasn't kosher, either, but different people began to speak and four or five people told interesting things about his life. That was different. I've had occasions when several people would speak and do a eulogy or sorts, but that was different. I thought we were doing pretty good and would be getting out about thirty minutes after the service started and that was okay, but then the minister started the service. So after an hour we got out, but the service was different and people could speak about what they remembered about him.

Now what do you want people to remember you by? That is really, really important. As we look at the scriptures that we have heard read this morning, we find things in them that are intriguing to me because stand out. Love is just all through the passages from the epistle and gospel of John, but the one that gets my attention first is the one about Peter.

Now when I say the word Peter -- the apostle Peter -- you have a memory of Peter. He stands out in your mind. He is unique. In this passage in Acts, he is speaking to a group and he has brought with him some friends. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that if they are circumcised friends, they are male friends, and they are listening and he is speaking. Then all of a sudden, these people who are not of the Jewish belief began to sing praises and state praise and thoughts to God, they began to speak in a language that was strange, and it is obvious to those who are there that the Holy Spirit is doing something in this crowd. So Peter interrupts whatever it is that he is saying and is astounded that this can happen. He is so moved by it that he asks if anyone can refuse water for baptizing these people, because they have been filled with the Spirit just like he and his friends have been filled with the Spirit.

Then the next thing is really intriguing to me. Peter ordered -- that's right, ordered -- them to be baptized. I thought that to be kind of pompous, that it was really dictatorial, and then I remembered that over in Matthew, Jesus said to Peter and those guys, "I'm going to build my church and whatever you bind will be bound whatever you loose will be loosened." So Peter ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for they were already filled with the Holy Spirit. Now when I think about that and I think about Peter and I think about that crowd, I have an image of that and it is a very pleasant memory. It is a joyful memory, and I think it is fitting that we think about things around us, people around us, as we look at what we are remembering about one another.

The passage in John deals with loving one another. "If you say that you have the love of God in you, and you live like the devil, you're a liar." Tough stuff. He doesn't believe it. You can tell who you've been with by the way you talk, the kind of language that you use, how you express yourself. Jesus said, "I give you a new commandment. Love one another." And then John, writing later, said, "Now we know that you have the love of God in you if you love one another." Not only does that love permeate through your life, but it also goes into your social relationships. And if you see someone who is doing something that they shouldn't, if you see someone who is sinning, you are going to confront them with that.

Here he gets into this tough, tough discussion and I'm glad we have two good doctors with us this morning. We'll let them be empathetic, at least, with what I'm about to say. You know, we have to watch how we behave because the way we behave not only sets how people will remember us, but it is going to set our relationship with God. If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask and God will give life to such a one. In other words, you can intercede for them. Confront, intercede, ask God to forgive them for their sins. That's all right. No problem.

There is a sin, though, that is mortal -- it means deadly. "I do not say that you should pray about that." Now my head gets to going with that. I remember what Jesus said about there being an "unforgivable sin." In that case as I recall it, Jesus is dealing with some Pharisees, Sadducees, and so on and they are giving credit to the devil for what he is doing through the power of the Holy Spirit. He's saying to them, "that is unforgivable. You can't give the devil credit for what God is doing, and when you discredit God by saying that God is not doing it when He is, you are in trouble." In this passage, John is saying that there is a mortal sin.

One of the commentaries that I looked in, the commentator said that it seems as though John is saying to us, "When you get so calloused in your lack of responding to God, he is saying it is fruitless, it is hopeless, don't waste your time doing it." Interceding for people who become so calloused and non-caring about God until they don't even reflect on God anymore, he said, "They've committed a mortal sin, and I don't know if you should waste your time praying for these people." You and I have known a few folks like that during our lives, people who have gone their way believing what they want to, who have gotten so caught up in the modern-day world of seeing things -- the modern-day world is a phrase I use for any generation and it has been true since the days of Adam to the present -- that we can get so caught up in what we are doing and in the way everybody else around us is behaving that we forget who Jesus is and who God is and what He wants from us. We forget that and we get so carried away with things that we don't give any thought to God. John says this over and over, "And for those persons who were once in the household of faith and they stray away to the point where they don't care anymore, then that person is in deep, deep trouble." How can you win them back? He says it is impossible, once they have tasted the glory of the grace of God and rejected it, that's a mortal sin.

So my friends, as we come to remember things, we need to remember the grace of God. We need to stir up within us a place for the Spirit of God to work, to provide a space for God to use us and to work in our lives. Let us not forget who brought us here, who saved us, who loves us, who guides us, who makes us to be who we really are. Parents are so important to their children.

Well, I had to lighten it up some way or the other at the end. It is Memorial Day weekend and we've had a great day here. It is a good time to be alive and I'm so glad you are here this morning. Amen.

Postscript:

It is so good to have all of you here. We have two granddaughters with us. Ashley White is with us from Huntsville and Bailey Fleming from Tupelo. We had them last night and they were together yesterday and they are still talking to one another, so we're doing fine. Yesterday was kind of a special day. I have two sons and a daughter and Martha has two daughters and a son. My youngest son told us that he and his wife are going to have a son in August and he will be the first grandson to have the Fleming name.