Sermon "A Marked People"
Chris Rygh
& Rev. Dr. Steven A. Peay
Sunday, September 13, 1998
go to
Bible Study
"A Marked People"
Chris Rygh
Think about yourself.
Think what a remarkable unduplicated, miraculous thing it is to be you. Of all the people who have come and gone on the earth--Eve, Moses, Cleopatra, Socrates, Joan of Arc, Richard the Third, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Raquel Welch, Pearl Buck, Robert Redford--not one of them is like you. No one who ever lived, no one who is to come had your combination of abilities, talents, appearance, friends, acquaintances, burdens, sorrow or opportunities.
No ones hair grows exactly like yours does. No one's fingerprints are like yours. No one has the same combination of secret inside jokes and family expressions that you know.
The few people who laugh at all the same things you do don't sneeze the way you do. No one prays about exactly the same concerns you do. No one is loved by the same combination of people who love you. No one. No one before, no one to come.
You are absolutely unique. Enjoy that uniqueness. You do not have to pretend in order to seem like someone else. You weren't meant to be like someone else. You do not have to lie to conceal the parts of you that are not like what you see in anyone else. You were meant to be different. Nowhere ever in all of history will the same things be going on in anyone's mind, soul and spirit as are going on in yours now.
If you did not exist, there would be a hole in creation. A gap in history. Something missing from God's plan for humankind. Treasure your uniqueness. It is a gift of God given only to you.
Enjoy it. Share that uniqueness. No one can reach out to others in the same way that you can. No one can speak your words. No one can convey your meanings. No one can comfort with your kind of comfort. No one can bring your kind of understanding to another person. No one can be cheerful and lighthearted and joyous in your way. No one can smile your smile. No one else can bring the whole unique impact of you to another human being.
Share your uniqueness. Let it be free to flow out among your family and your friends and to people you meet in the rush and clutter of living wherever you are.
That gift of yourself was given you to enjoy, but not to hoard. Give yourself away.
See the uniqueness around you in each person you meet. See it. Receive it. Let it tickle you. Let it inform you or nudge you or inspire you or comfort you. The collection of the unique, irreplaceable beings around you now has never been available before and will not be in quite the same way again.
And so, dear, special, irreplaceable person receive the gift of yourself and others. Notice the gift. Enjoy it. Celebrate it. And be very, very thankful.
That was written by Dorothy Williams and it echoes what the psalmist says when he finally understood his own uniqueness and looked heavenward and said, "Now I give thanks to thee, O Lord! For I now understand that I am fearfully and wonderfully made."
You, each one of you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are custom designed, hand crafted and utterly unique. There's not an ordinary person here. You are an original. And you matter to God.
I want you to know that the highest priority in my life is to introduce people to the person of Jesus Christ, and then as God gives me the ability to try to assist people in whatever way I can to grow and flourish in their relationship with Christ. That is the highest calling in my life.
I've given my life to that. My second highest priority is to do whatever I can do to improve the self esteem of those people that God allows me to influence. And you say, "That is a sweeping statement." You're right it is. And I didn't say it lightly.
You see, I've discovered over the course of my life that if I can encourage people to enter into a personal, growing relationship with the living savior Jesus Christ, and then if I can assist them in realizing how precious they are to God, how deeply he treasures them, some absolutely amazing things happen to individuals over time. Lifelong fears begin to subside. Destructive thought patterns begin to fade. Ruinous behavior patterns tend to dissipate. Annoying relational patterns disappear. And that has been happening to many of you over the years. It has given me unspeakable joy to witness.
"A Marked People"
Rev. Dr. Steven Peay
Jesus was a clever teacher. He knew exactly how to get to the hearts and minds of his hearers -- he brought them to the vision of profound and lofty things through the lens of everyday life. "What man wouldn't go looking for his lost sheep when one animal can make the difference between a good and a bad year?" "What woman wouldn't go in search of a coin whose loss might mean the family goes hungry for a day or two?" Yes, Jesus knew how to teach and what he taught was that those people....and we people, too, are marked.
Is there a black mark on souls? Is there something that sets us apart or makes us different? O my....can anyone see it? Marked? Are we marked like Jean valJean in "Les Miserables" relentlessly pursued by a Jouvert? Are we marked like 'The Fugitive' with that detective after him, and the one-armed man always eluding him? Marked? How?
We are marked because, as it says in Psalm 139, we are "fearfully and wonderfully made, a little lower than the angels." Marked with the image of the invisible God who made heaven and earth and all that is. Marked with what the philosopher Pascal called a "God-shaped void" or, as Augustine wrote in his Confessions with a restless heart, because God has made us for himself and "our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O God." We are a people marked and pursued, as the poet Francis Thompson in "The Hound of Heaven" recording how, "I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter." And yet, though he fled, God found him.
We are marked and no matter how hard we try to fill the void that is in our lives with relationships, achievements, jobs, successes, failures, things, whatever, only God can fill it. We are marked and because of it God pursues us with greater diligence than the shepherd looking for his sheep or the woman her coin. God pursues us because we are valuable to Him. We may reject, we may flee Him, but as we run from him he runs toward us!
It was this simple message that Jesus taught in parables long ago. It is still the "relevant message" of this historic church as it seeks to "connect people with God." It is the reason that dedicated, loving people teach our children and why we offer adult education in different forms and times....all because we are marked with the love of God.
When Jesus' words and example hit home in the life of the marked man Paul, his life was turned around. From an encounter on the Damascus road, he became not one who ran from God, but one who ran toward him, "seeking the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." In the letter to the Philippians he appeals to us to be of the same mind and seek growth in spiritual maturity, writing, "Brethren, join in imitating me and mark those who so live as you have an example in us." (3.17) What Paul is saying is, that if God has gone to such great effort to find us, we should take equal pains in finding him.
So, I urge you on this "rally day," as we begin a new church programming year, to take advantage of all the opportunities this church offers to run toward God. Learn about other religions and what is distinctive and decisive about the message of Jesus and the Christian faith. Enter into the study of any number of spiritual books and of THE BOOK itself. Join Congregationalists from across the country as we seek to better understand and envision the future of our Congregational Way of being church. Take a few moments each day to read from the Bible and to pray -- surely if the average American has time for four hours of television a day some time can be spared for God? If you're already doing it -- grand. Stay at it!
The words of that clever teacher of long ago are still true. May we, all together, deepen and broaden the mark that is upon us so that the image and love of God may shine out of us. We're a marked people. Thank God. Amen.
