| July 23, 2006 | Church of the Covenant |
| The Rev. Dr. Robert J. Campbell | |
| Printer-Friendly Version |
Isaiah 58:3-9
Matthew 5:14-16
How does the song go? "Summer time and the livin' is easy, cat fish are jumpin'." An old college friend used to sing it with her sultry voice on hot summer evenings. It brings to mind images of cool glasses filled with ice cubes, sweating in the humidity.
My dogs love ice cubes. You don't dare shake your glass when it's almost empty. When we first got the new refrigerator and they discovered the ice cube dispenser on the door we caught them helping themselves.
There are a couple of what they call "old school" rappers with names like "Ice Cube" and "Ice Tea." I'm not sure how they got their handles, but then I'm not sure I know anything about "rap." I do know about ice cubes. The ones I like the best are those nice little uniform squares.
When I was a youngster we had an ice box. We lived in a log cabin in Oglebay Park where my mother was working. I was mesmerized when the "ice man cameth" using his massive tongs to carry a huge chunk, depositing it in the space under the lift top. When my father hit the ice block with an ice pick and it splintered it seemed almost magical; maybe that's where my fascination with ice began.
Some of you know that for my birthday several years ago Carol took me to an Ice Hotel in Canada. The plates were made of ice; the glasses were ice; the floor and chairs and tables were ice; even the bed was made of ice. It was great fun even if it was 13 degrees below zero.
Ice cubes, they are so plain and simple a thing, yet they quench the thirst, cool the fevered brow, and when you're hot they help you "chill." Yet, in the middle of winter, ice is about as welcome here in Cleveland as the plague. Some have told me about times when bulldozers had to dump the snow and ice into the lake just to make some room on the streets. I've even heard of folks on the upper East side who refuse to use it in the summer, because they get so sick of it all winter.
I came across a story about "100 tons" of ice that seemed appropriate given the weather we have been having. Back in the 1800's there was a Boston merchant who became known as the "ice king." The idea came to him at a family gathering when his brother mused that Massachusetts' ice might really be appreciated in the islands. Frederic Tudor, teaming up with a partner who provided blocks of ice with few impurities, took his first shipment to the Caribbean packed in sawdust. He found the melting loss to be almost nothing and he sold it cheap. Building a market he then turned to Calcutta.
If you wanted ice in an English upper crust household in Calcutta, you had to settle for a slushy substance scraped from water left overnight and cooled with Salt Peter. So in the late spring the ship Tuscany was packed with layers of straw and wood, and ice, 100 tons of it; then set sail from Charlestown, Rhode Island. It was the first ice to cross the equator on its way around the tip of Africa en route to India.
Despite the summer heat the ship arrived in September with a full cargo. One eyewitness wrote, "How Calcutta's tables glittered that morning. The butter dishes were filled, the goblets of water were converted into miniature Arctic Seas with icebergs floating to the surface. All business was suspended until noon," and of course the benefit of the ice went much further, it kept food fresh for weeks; helped doctors. It was incredible that something so worthless in winter to people in cold Massachusetts, something so mundane could become so valuable in Calcutta.
Now, I suspect you're beginning to wonder where I'm going with this. So let me ask you a question, “What kind of people did Jesus pick to be his disciples? Think of the most common, most ordinary folk, people who were just like the ones standing in front of you in the check-out line at the grocery store yesterday reading the gossip papers. Or think of the people who sit on the beach, not very many super models, mostly a lot of "wanna be's" with bathing suits too small and pot bellies burned because they're too close to the sun. Lots of people like we see in the mirror in the mornings. Just common, plain ordinary people are who he picked.
Yet, Jesus said to the likes of them, "You are the light of the world, so let your light shine." Sparkle like a glass full of ice cubes on a bright sunny day. Trouble is most people don't see themselves the way Jesus did or does.
Here's the thing, we don't have to go all the way to Calcutta or even to Mississippi like our young people did recently on their mission trip. We don't have to go to South Africa like Bob Ault did; all excellent ways to understand that the church, while centered in a local congregation, is without boundaries or borders. But we don't have to go to the far corners of the world or this country. We don't have to go any further than our front stoop to let our light shine.
All we need to do is remember that this church began with three congregations made up of a garden variety of people. That it was the commitment of ordinary people, with a vision, who merged those congregations into a single Covenant and it was individuals like any one of you who rolled up their sleeves and followed Philip Bird on the picket lines for fair wages, and walked hand in hand with Harry Taylor on the civil rights marches. But only after ordinary persons who were on Session made the courageous decision to integrate this congregation before telling others what they should do. It was ordinary people like you who have stood the high ground for all these years, not necessarily trying to change the world, just trying to do what God seems to be calling us to do. And what is even more interesting is that as ordinary, garden variety people in this congregation start doing what they hear God whispering they, just like those first followers, discover a new meaning to their faith.
Imagine, simply by telling people that God loves them and accepts them for who they are, something as common and ordinary as that, can make a parched world around us sparkle like ice catching the sun's rays on a hot July morning.
You see, God's idea of how the world ought to be, happens that way. You start bringing someone to church or you greet a new student and make that person feel at home. You take some old clothes to the Cache and by luck see the glee in someone else's eyes when she sees something of yours and acts as if she's just found a treasure trove. Or you sing in the choir or teach Sunday school and a few years later watch one of those little tykes stand in this pulpit on Youth Sunday and deep down you know you did something to make the world better. It happens when a new Habitat house is dedicated and you remember the sweat you put into it. It even happens when you decide to share your presence with the rest of us on a Sunday morning because you become a gift of God's grace.
As I think about this fall, which I've been doing for the last couple of weeks, laying out sermons for the year and thinking about budgets and programs that will help this church sparkle even more than it already does. As I think about all of our resources resting in common ordinary people who are very special—special not because I think you are, but because God has really told you so—when I start to think about that, I think of what a real difference we can make to a world thirsting for hope.
So here's the thought I want you to take home with you. In the heat of the summer there is nothing like a cool glass of water filled mostly with ice cubes. Just rubbing it on your cheek gives you relief. It's something we take for granted. We forget that there are those who are sweltering in the sun. People longing to hear those words Jesus said, "Come all of you who are thirsty." So we need to remember that and we need to remember that to all of us ordinary folks he said, "You are the light, the sparkle in the world." You are that place of bright ideas that can make this community better. We need to remember that he says to each of us "no matter how much or how little talent you have, no matter how old or young you are or feel, no matter how down and out you may be, you too can refresh someone else's life and in so doing you will be amazed at what happens to you."
So over the next few weeks as you have a nice tall cool drink, even the ones with a little "spirit" in them, when you "clink" those ice cubes, think about this church and this fall and all we can do with the ordinary talents we have to make other people's lives better and then make up your mind to start to glitter and shine in the "Son's" reflection as you become a light in Covenant's corner of God's world.
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