STICKING TO YOUR STORY. I once was a coin collector. More specifically, a penny collector. Lincoln Head pennies

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "STICKING TO YOUR STORY. I once was a coin collector. More specifically, a penny collector. Lincoln Head pennies"

Shanon Eaton
6 years ago
Views:

1 1 November 8, 2009 STICKING TO YOUR STORY I once was a coin collector. More specifically, a penny collector. Lincoln Head pennies in particular. As a boy I collected them. I still have them in a binder. I collected all the Lincoln Head pennies from 1909 when they began minting them to the present day. Yes, there was a period of time in my life when a pile of change for me was a potential gold mine. It is amazing what you can find in a pile of change. In my serious penny collecting days the one penny that eluded me and eludes me still - the 1909 S VDB penny the rarest of all the Lincoln pennies. Just under 500,000 of the pennies were minted and today that little penny is worth about $550. On EBay you can pick it up for about $1200. So it caught my attention a couple years ago when I read an article in the New York Times about Scott Travers. Scott Travers is a big coin guy. He writes about them, he collects them and he is the former Vice-President of the American Numismatic Association. (I suspect many of you are members of the American Numismatic Association?) A couple of years ago when it rolled around to National Coin Week (you all know when National Coin Week is, don t

2 2 you?) Scott Travers had the desire of sparking interest in coins and coin collecting took out of his collection three rare pennies a 1914 D, a 1908 and a 1909 S VDB and he spent them. He used them to buy some trivial items including a pretzel on a street corner in New York -- in order to put them into circulation. He made sure the papers and the media covered the purchases so that the world would know that there were those three coins to be found that there was the possibility and still could be the possibility that in your pocket or in your purse you could be carrying a treasure. In your pocket you could be carrying right now a 1909 S VDB. And if you are I expect you to put it in the offering plate and I will be counting the offering after the service. The truth is you could be carrying a treasure and not even know it. That s the truth when it comes to coins. But there is another truth and that is that there is another treasure that you are most definitely carrying and you likely have no idea how much of a treasure it is. There is a treasure that you are most definitely carrying and you likely have no idea how much of a treasure it is. In our lesson this morning we read this very interesting story about a man who has been born blind. He is sitting along the road as Jesus walks by and the disciples point him out. And after a little conversation Jesus spits. He spits on the ground the dusty ground and

3 3 with his spittle he forms a little mud and he takes the mud and spreads it on the man s eyes and he tells the man to go wash in the pool of Siloam. Which he does and he returns able to see. Now that is, in essence, his story. I was blind the man Jesus came along, put mud on my eyes, told me to wash in the pool of Siloam and when I did I was able to see. I once was blind, but now I see. This was this man s story. Now when the people who know him or know of him see that he is able to see then want to know what happened. So what does the man do? He tells them his story. And that is all he does. He tells them his story: I was blind the man Jesus came along, put mud on my eyes, told me to wash in the pool of Siloam and when I did I was able to see. Now in reaction to his story people want him to provide commentary and analysis. Why did Jesus do this? Was it really Jesus that did it? Were you really born blind? What does it say about Jesus if, in fact, he did it? And isn t Jesus a sinner and how could a sinner perform a miracle of healing?

4 4 All sorts of commentary and analysis they want to get out of this man. But all the blind man, now the seeing man, has to say is his story. I once was blind, but now I see and that Rabbi Jesus is the one who made it happen. He had a story and he was sticking to it. Others had commentary and others had analysis the Pharisees, the crowd, his parents but all this blind man, now seeing man, had was his story. It s hard sometimes to let a story be just a story. The Yankees won the World Series last Wednesday. That s a hard thing for me to say, but I ll say it. It s true. They beat the Phillies 4 games to 2 in the World Series. That was the story of what took place at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night. Now when you turned on the TV Thursday morning you heard more than just that story. You heard commentary and analysis. Well, why did the Yankees win the World Series? Weren t they supposed to win the World Series? It s because they have too much money that they won the World Series. It s because of their manager they won the World Series. It s because the Phillies couldn t hit that they won the World Series. It s not the Yankees won the World Series, it s that the Phillies lost the World Series. And now all of a sudden the story is no longer that the Yankees won the World Series the story is about what everyone thinks about the Yankees winning the World Series. Turn on Sports Talk radio and you start hearing people fighting over why they think

5 5 the Yankees won the World Series. But underneath it all there is really only one thing an event a real event the Yankees won the World Series. You see the truth is each of us has our own story when it comes to what we believe. Each of us has a story. For each of us something has happened along the way that makes us believe that there is a God in heaven and that Jesus is his Son. We have read something. We have experienced something. We have been in relationship with someone. We have seen something whatever it is something has happened to us that makes us believe that there is a God in heaven and that Jesus is his Son. That the story of the Bible is true. And every one of our stories is different than the other. I have not yet run across a person who has the same story as someone else. At our Men s Breakfast a couple of weeks ago I told the story of when I was ten years old and got dragged to the Christmas Eve service by my mother. When you re ten your heart is not often in it when it comes to Christmas services. Your heart is back underneath the Christmas tree. Many of you know that my great grandfather was a Presbyterian minister, and my grandfather was a Presbyterian minister, and my father and his brother Presbyterian minister and my two brothers are Presbyterian ministers. Talk about a dysfunctional family. Well my father and grandfather were leading the service my grandfather and grandmother were visiting for Christmas. My grandfather was retired. But dad

6 6 asked him to be in the service. And granddad had the Pastoral Prayer that night. And as he began to pray I remember as a little ten year old listening to his praying. And I remember saying to myself as I listened to him Boy, it sound like he is talking to a real person. And it sounds like he is talking to someone in the room. A real person in the room. And it sounds like he is talking to real person in the room who is his best friend. A real person in the room who is his best friend. And I remember saying to myself if God can be that a real person, in the room who can be your best friend then that s all right for me. I can believe in a God like that. Now that is my story. It s not a terribly profound story, but it s my story. And it is real.. and it is one of the reasons why I believe what I believe. And the thing about that story is that it is a treasure. It is an enormous treasure. And it is an enormous treasure because it becomes my way of telling myself and telling the world that there is a God who is real and who has touched my life. It s not a story that you can argue with I suppose it is a story someone else can give commentary to and provide analysis of but no amount of commentary and analysis can take that story away from me. I was blind, but now I see. You see that s the thing about our stories we have them and they are very real and they are very personal these encounters we ve had with God but for some reason we feel

7 7 reluctant to share them. And maybe the reason we feel reluctant is that we re not sure how valuable they are. They re like the coins in our pocket. They rattle around there and we don t think they add up to much. But there is this one coin this 1909 S VDB that s worth a lot. It s called your story. And there is only one like it. And this story tells the world that at least one person believes and has had an encounter with the living God. I remember a Session retreat I led a long time ago and at one point I guided them through a little faith sharing exercise where I asked them each to share a time in their life when they experienced that God was real. Now on that Session we had an elder who was not a real touchy-feely kind of guy. He wasn t much into sharing anything. He was an all-business, bottom line kind of guy. The kind of guy that you knew just did not like these namby-pamby kind of exercises. So we went around the table and everybody shared their stories of how God had been real in their life. And then we got to Charles and I thought to myself I wonder what s going to happen here. And so I looked over and I saw these big tears welling up in his eyes. And he said, You know, no one has ever asked that question of me before but when you asked, I instantly remembered my wedding day and the picture I have in my mind of my bride walking down that aisle and I can remember saying to myself 46 years ago My God, I don t deserve her. She is a jewel. She is a gift. And I am not worthy. Thank you, God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

8 8 That was his story and no one was going to take it from him. It s been asked, What do you get when you cross a Presbyterian with a Jehovah s Witness? You get a guy on your doorstep that doesn t know what to say. But of course the truth is we do know what to say. Because deep down amidst all the loose change and the commentary and the analysis deep down we each have a story. A very precious story. A treasure. A 1909 S VDB. And it is real. Once we were blind, but now we see. It is real and no one can take that story from you. But the question is are we going to give it? Are we going to share it? Are we going to put it into circulation? Are we going to let the world hear and see that at least according to one person there is a God who is real and so loves the world. When the plate goes by in a minute and you drop in your pledge card your dropping it is because there is a story behind it. You are investing in this ministry because somehow, someway God has been real to you. It s one way of telling your story. But think of all the other ways.

9 9 Every Friday, an old man walked from his house in the early evening down to the ocean, carrying a bucket of shrimp. And as the sun started its descent and the evening waves gently lapped the shore, he walked to the end of the pier and reached in his bucket of shrimp and began to feed the birds who were already there waiting for him. Slowly, intentionally, he distributed the contents of his bucket, as he did every Friday evening with the sun slipping down over the horizon. What was he doing there? He was saying thank you. His name was Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. Years before, in October, 1942, President Roosevelt dispatched Rickenbacker with a special message to General MacArthur who was beginning to plan American strategy in the Pacific War. But the B- 17 became lost, ran out of fuel and went down. The crew of eight made it into lifeboats and then began a harrowing desperate flight to survive the sun, sharks, waves, and most of all, hunger. When it seemed that the end had come and there was no hope, when they had prayed all they could pray, Captain Rickenbacker, in the raft, was asleep with his cap over his eyes. He felt something. A bird had lit on his head. He knew if he could catch

10 10 it, they would survive. He did. And they ate it. They used its entrails for bait. They survived. And so the old captain, now hunched over, but still proud, every Friday of his life took his bucket and shrimp and fed the birds and looked to heaven and said, Thank you. It was his story, and he was sticking to it. Let us pray. Gracious God we thank you for our stories. We thank you for all those moments in our life when you showed up times when we knew you were real the time when you sacrificed your life on the cross. We thank you that we can believe. And so now because of our stories - we make our commitments - and ask that by your spirit these commitments will allow us even more to tell our story to tell your story to the world. In Christ s name, Amen.

JESUS HEALS THE MAN BORN BLIND JOHN 9:1-41

JESUS HEALS THE MAN BORN BLIND JOHN 9:1-41 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:4-5 (ESV) In him was life,