It's the little things

 

A sermon preached at St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Georgetown, DE

and broadcast simultaneously on Sirach 26:10

Advent IV - December 19, 2021

 

 

I want to tell you this story of my experience with a 92-year old retired pastor in the Assemblies of God Church who taught me the importance of “little things” that seem insignificant but can be a lifeline and a pathway to salvation.

 

I went to see him on Christmas Eve. His family said he was sleeping more and more and eating less and less. He was fragile and pale and looked increasingly gaunt. He was off almost all his meds, all except the one for pain. He had gone from taking morphine every 4-6 hours to every 3-4 hours during the day. That and a sleeping pill at night held him mostly until morning.

 

We had a time of prayer and, to my surprise, he asked for communion. I was only too happy to oblige. I think I said something about how it was no trouble; that it was a little thing, really. A bit of consecrated host. A sip of water. A time of prayer. Not much. Certainly I could provide that for him, especially on Christmas Eve.

 

After communion, he rested a bit and then, he pulled himself up and said, "And now, I want to tell you about the importance of little things. Little insignificant things. Things that don't seem to have much value but they can repair a relationship and save a life. I want to tell you about the inestimable value of one thin dime."

 

He told me a story about his oldest son, his firstborn, the one named after him, the one he now lives with. He talked about the time that his son's first wife left him. After a year of marriage, right after high school. For no apparent reason. Just packed her bags, waited at the kitchen table with a casserole in the oven, the house clean and the laundry done until he came home from work.

 

Said she didn't want to be married anymore. Said there was no one else, there just wasn't anything left of her. Said she had lost herself in everything everyone expected of her which she couldn't do. Especially not have babies. Lord, no, she said. She didn't want any babies. Not now. Maybe not ever.

 

And, she needed to find herself. Nothing personal on him. Just very personal for her.

And, just like that, she was gone.

 

His son was brokenhearted. His heart just flat out broke, is what. He cried for what his father said must have been two weeks. Straight. Day and night. Night and day. Didn't eat. Didn't drink. Just cried his heart out from his bed or sofa.

 

And then, his father said, his son lost his mind.

 

He picked himself up of the couch and said to his father, "I have to leave. I don't know where I'm going or when I'll be back. I just got to go."

 

So his father said, "What could I do? The boy had to go. He had to put himself back together. He had to heal himself. I couldn't do it. That was more medicine than I had in me. He had to go out into the wilderness, battle his demons and pray for the angels to find him and rescue him."

 

Which, apparently, he did.

 

One particularly fierce battle with those demons happened on the train tracks just outside of Los Angeles, California.

 

His son, his firstborn son, decided that the only way to end his pain was to stand in front of an oncoming train. He figured it would be fast and he'd be dead before he knew what hit him.

It would be, he thought, a mercy.

 

At this point in the story, my patient asked that the head of his bed be raised so he could see me better. After I adjusted his pillows and gave him a sip of water, he cleared his throat and continued.

 

His son said that, as he was waiting for the train, he heard a voice say, clear as a bell, "Look inside your wallet." He thought it might be the voice of God, telling him to get out his wallet so his body could be identified after his death.

 

And then, he heard the voice say, "Remember the one thin dime."

 

That's when he remembered that, at his graduation from high school, his father gave him one thin dime and said:

 

"Put this in your wallet and keep it there. It's not much but it will give you one phone call to make if you are ever in any trouble. It will remind you that, if you ever question who you are, you can always call the one who gave you your life and your name; that you are always mine and I am always yours. It will remind you that you can always call me and, no matter where you are or what you've done, I will come and get you. It may not be worth much, but what it represents is worth everything in the whole world. It represents unconditional love."

 

And, in that moment, his son picked himself up from the tracks and walked the short distance to the train station. He picked up the payphone, put in the dime, and made a collect call to his father.

 

"Daddy," he said, "this is your son. Your prodigal son. I just used the one thin dime you gave me. And so I'm calling you, just like you said to do. Daddy, I want to come home. Can I come home now? I think I'm going to be okay if I can just come home."

 

"And so, he came home," he said, "My son came home to his prodigal father. I called an old pastor friend of mine who lived right outside of LA. He came right to the train station and picked up my boy. He and his wife fed him. Said he ate like he hadn't seen a good plate of food in years. He'd been gone a little over a year, so who knows what he had or hadn't eaten in that time."

 

He sighed, cleared his throat and continued, "He stayed with them about a week and then we got some money for a bus ticket home. He was pretty wore out when he got home - looked very thin and his mother liked to have a heart attack when she saw him - but by the next week he had a job and the next year he met the woman he's now married to and they've been happy together ever since."

 

"One thin dime," he said, shaking his head in continued amazement. "Just one thin dime."

 

Then, he reached into the pocket of his pajama shirt and pulled out a thin dime, breathed on it, polished it a bit on his blanket, and gave it to me.

 

"Here," he said, "put this in your wallet. I know you can't make a phone call with it. Ain't no phone booths in too many places these days, anyhow."

 

"But, I want you to keep it and if you're ever feeling poorly, like your ministry don't matter to none but Jesus and you wonder why you keep at it when you could be making more money doing something else and none of it seems worth it any how or any way . . . that time, you just take out this dime and hold it in your hand. And know that once there was an old, dying man who loved Jesus very much and saw the love of Jesus in your heart, too."

 

"Know that you ministered to this poor old raggedy, full of cancer minister and let him minister to you and you helped him to feel worthwhile and useful and purposeful again."

 

So, of course I got all girly-burbly and when I opened my mouth nothing came out but "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

 

At least, that's what I thought I was saying.

 

I'm not sure, but I just might have had an ecstatic moment there myself.

 

One thin dime. That's all. Just one thin dime.

 

It's not so much about the dime, you see. It's about the importance of little things. Little, seemingly insignificant things. Things that don't seem to have much value but they can repair a broken heart and save a life. It may not be worth much, but what it represents is worth everything in the whole world. It represents unconditional love.

 

At the time, no one thought much of a visit between a young pregnant girl and her older pregnant cousin. If anyone had seen them, they just probably looked like two women so happy to see one another one of them burst out in song. But, that little song, made up of a series of little words carried by little notes, was enough to shape and form the mind of the son in her womb and made the nascent prophet forming in the womb of her cousin to leap for joy.

 

Many thought that, when the King of Israel would come, it would be with great power and might and glory. But, God sent them a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

 

Small. Not worth much. But, capable of healing broken hearts, restoring dignity and value and worth, and saving a life, representing unconditional love.

 

What has God sent you that you’ve been storing away that you may need this Advent? What have you overlooked or diminished in your life that you might rediscover this during such a time as this?

 

Perhaps the words of Mary Oliver’s poem “Invitation” will open your heart and inspire your soul to consider those questions. Oliver writes:

 

Oh do you have time

to linger

for just a little while

out of your busy

and very important day

for the goldfinches

that have gathered

in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,

to see who can sing

the highest note,

or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,

or the most tender?

 

Their strong, blunt beaks

drink the air

as they strive

melodiously

not for your sake

and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning

but for sheer delight and gratitude –

believe us, they say,

it is a serious thing

just to be alive

on this fresh morning

in the broken world.

 

I beg of you,

do not walk by

without pausing

to attend to this

rather ridiculous performance.

 

It could mean something.

 

It could mean everything.

 

It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:

You must change your life.

 

Amen.