Sermon (May 6) - "Three Simple Rules: Do Good"

     As we celebrate our church’s bicentennial anniversary, it’s important for us to remember that back in 1812 when our church was officially formed, there were only ten members.  And those ten members would meet each week to encourage each other to live out three simple rules of doing no harm, doing good, and staying in love with God.

     We already looked at the first simple rule last Sunday.  Do no harm.  Today, let’s look at the second rule.  Do good.

     When John Wesley spoke about doing good he had some specific things in mind that fit the context of 18^th century England but still translates in our day and age.  At the heart of doing good for Wesley was in ministering with the poor.  In Wesley’s words, they were to do good to all “by giving food to the hungry, clothes to the naked, by visiting and helping them that are sick or in prison.”

     Wesley lived during a time when England was going through an economic transition that was hurting the poor.  People were leaving farms and villages for factory jobs in towns.  They worked for low pay in deplorable conditions and received no benefits.  Frail children were put to work in jobs unfit for many adults.  These were the people who the early Methodists were reaching.

     We serve three hot lunches every week here at the church for anyone who is in need.  When I first came to the church, I was so impressed that we served this many meals every week throughout the year.  I asked one of the volunteers how this ministry got started. 

     And she told me that it started out of a bible study that had been meeting here at the church.  The people of that bible study believed that God was calling them to live out what they had been learning in their study of the Bible.  It started as one lunch per week and it gradually grew to what it is today, three hot meals every week. Here’s a short video of this wonderful ministry.

     There’s an endless list of possibilities in doing good. 

     Last week, someone shared with me about a young adult woman at a United Methodist Church in the Dayton area who is in school training to be a hair and make-up stylist.  She wanted to reach out to the teen girls of her community who couldn’t afford to go to the prom.  At no cost to the teens on what is usually her most profitable day of the week, she provided them with free make-up and high styling.  This was how she was living out her faith in doing good.

     Each month, our church offers what is called our Second Saturday outreach.  It’s a great way to spend a couple of hours on the second Saturday of each month to be a blessing in our community.  Different teams of people are sent into our community which includes taking fruit and cookies to first time responders, visiting with nursing home residents, serving at the Habitat for Humanity Restore, picking up litter along the bike path, and many different random acts of kindness.

     There are a lot of stories that have come out of our Second Saturday outreach.  One of my favorite stories is from a woman who was blessed twice in one day.  She said that she went to visit her mother at a nursing home.  Some folks from our church came into the room with a bag of fruit and cookies to brighten her day and that meant so much to her.

     This woman then needed to go to Krogers that same morning and another Second Saturday team ended up helping her with her grocery cart and gave her a Hershey Kiss and said, “God loves you.”  When she went back to see her mother at the nursing home, she told her what had happened and that made her mom so proud that her church was doing so many good things in one day.

     I’m going to share a story about Pastor Cheryl now.  Pastor Cheryl is always doing good in big and small ways.  Just before this past Christmas, she visited somebody in the nursing home.  And this person told her how she loves attending our candlelight service on Christmas Eve.  Knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to attend our Christmas Eve service, the next time she came to visit her, Pastor Cheryl brought some battery operated candles and set them up in her room so that she could experience her own personal candlelight Christmas Eve service.

     My wife told me about a time when she was going through the drive thru at Starbucks and the person in the car right behind her who was a church member paid for her Starbucks drink.  By the way, I’m just throwing this out there.  I drive a green Saturn.  Bold coffee, no sugar or cream, thank you.

     One of our youth in the church goes out of her way to pick up two other youth so they can enjoy our weekly youth breakfasts on Thursday mornings.

     This past winter when we had all of that ice over the weekend, without being asked, one of you stood outside in the cold to help our church members walk from the icy parking lot to our church entrance. You were concerned for their safety.  You were living out this simple rule and you made a difference by offering God’s love to others.

     Why did John Wesley include “doing good” as one of the three simple rules? The answer to that question can be summed up in just one word – grace.  Grace is God’s unconditional love that is offered to every single person.  Grace is what reminds us that no matter who we are or what we have done, God loves us with an overflowing love.

     In the letter of I John, we are told, “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

     At the heart of the Christian is the understanding that God’s loves everyone.  God loves each of us so much that God went so far as to send us Jesus who gave his very life for us. 

     Whenever we receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion, it’s a time for us to remember just how much God loves us.  The bread and the cup are symbols of what Jesus did for us by dying on the cross. 

     Friends, this is a love that just cannot be kept to ourselves.  It’s a love that reaches beyond us, beyond our church walls to all people and in all places.

     When we do good, we are responding to what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.  In the I John passage, it then says, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is form God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

     In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells us that if we want to bear fruit, then we need to abide in Him.  Jesus is the vine and we are the branches.  The key is for us to stay connected to Christ.  Then we will bear much fruit.

   I see so much fruit through you.  I see so much good being done every day in the life of our church. 

     Many of you know that one of our church members, Regina Gottliebson has been battling cancer.  Regina sings in our choir and is one of our praise singers. She has been traveling from Lancaster to a cancer hospital in the Chicago area to receive treatments.

     Last week, while she was in Chicago receiving more treatments, she took a turn for the worse.  She became immobile from the aggressive type of cancer and needed surgery to relieve pressure on her spine where it had spread.

     The next challenge was how to get her safely back home from Chicago and into the care of hospice.  The cost to get her home by ambulance was astronomical - $9,000 dollars!  People here at our church began praying about how to help Scott and Regina.  These prayers led to many people wanting to live out this simple rule of doing good.

     A member of our church who has a plane offered to fly to Chicago and bring her home but his plane wasn’t equipped for a stretcher. A couple of people in our church were ready to take time off work, drive out to Chicago and bring them home in an SUV if there wasn’t a better solution.

     And then, God answered our prayer.  Another church member had connections with a local ambulance service and when the owner heard about Scott and Regina’s situation, they offered to do drive to Chicago and bring them back to Lancaster for only $2,000, just covering the basic expenses of the trip.

     Remember the church member who was willing to fly out to Chicago?  Thanks to his generous donation and some help from our pastor’s discretionary fund, we were able to pay for the ambulance service and Scott and Regina arrived at the hospice Pickering House this past Wednesday morning.

     Several people from our church welcomed them home with singing and words of encouragement early that morning.  So many people prayed and did a lot of good for Scott and Regina this past week.  What a great church you are!

     You are living out this simple rule in so many wonderful ways.  Keep on doing what you’re doing.  Or as John Wesley reminds us, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”