Rev. Jennifer Whipple
Congregational Church of Brookfield (UCC)
10th Sunday After Pentecost
August 9, 2009
"Buckets"
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Prayer:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our minds and hearts
gathered here this day be acceptable in your sight, Oh Lord, our Strength and
our Redeemer. Amen.
There are two reasons I share the following with you today.
First, because I, like many other folks, think that some of the best
sermons are lived and experienced – not preached.
Unfortunately for you, that doesn’t mean that I am not going to preach
this morning. That does lead to the
second reason, however, because many of you have been asking about how the
Senior Youth Fellowship Mission Trip went.
So I would like to share a few experiences from our recent week working
with Cluster 13 Ministries in Camden, NY – experiences through which our youth
preached to me and to others. These
were the experiences I thought of when I read today’s scripture lesson from
the letter to the Ephesians.
In order to share these experiences we first need to lay some groundwork.
In the past few weeks we have heard much about the letter to the
Ephesians. The main idea of this
letter, that was more than likely written to be circulated through many new
communities of faith at the time, was to instruct on the virtues and actions
that build up the community of Christ and to advise against the vices that would
break it down. The goal was to get
people away from thinking and living only for themselves and toward depending on
and encouraging one another.
The time in which Paul was teaching and writing was not necessarily an
easy time for new believers. Ephesus
itself was a port city, and when Paul arrived and started sharing his new belief
about one God, riots ensued and people, including Paul, were arrested.
Belief in one God meant economic issues – after all many of the
artisans of the time relied upon the ability to paint or sculpt the variety of
Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. Not
to mention the social issues this new belief caused – preaching against many
of the behaviors that had become second nature to people.
Instead Paul and those who followed him were asking people to take on
conduct proper to those who were now baptized into a new nature – things, as
we know, like care for the poor, encouragement of one another, imitation of
Christ, love of neighbor – all of which were to build up the new community –
the Body of Christ.
Christian Community – that is what we live in when we are on mission
trip. In order to prepare for that
we have every person who will be going on the trip, adults included, sign a
covenant that says that they will do everything they can to bring the best they
have to our Christian Community for the time we are away.
And the moment they sign up for the trip each of our young people signs a
contract that says that they will attend Senior Youth Fellowship meetings and
participate in fundraising activities and team meetings in order to get to know
one another. Because it is not every
day that you walk into unfamiliar surroundings with 20 or so other people in tow
– some good friends or perhaps family, but others who live in different towns
or that you barely have a chance to say “hello” to in the hallways at school
or work – and set up camp in a hallway or classroom of a church.
Every person willingly volunteers to sign on for all that this situation
entails – which involves a lot of new labor serving others, but also a lot of
labor serving one another. From
cooking meals, to washing dishes, to cleaning bathrooms top to bottom, to
mopping floors and vacuuming hallways, to leading devotions at the end of the
day – when you are away on mission you agree to help take care of one another
in these ways and to work together to build up the community.
(This is also the reason why I tell parents that if their kid comes home
and says that he or she does not know how to wash dishes, or vacuum, or even do
yard work – they are probably telling a bit of a tall tale!)
Luckily we had the bucket book with us to help remind us of how we were
to behave toward one another – even when we were wearing rubber gloves and
cooking large amounts of taco meat, roofing a house, or cleaning the toilets!
“So what is the bucket book?” you might ask.
A logical question, of course. The
Bucket Book is a book that Megan Montgomery received for high school graduation
called Have You Filled a Bucket Today?
The goal of this book is to help children understand how encouraging
words breed good feelings in others, and in turn help you feel good about
yourself. This book, which you will
hear more about early this fall, explains that you can be a “bucket filler”
– choosing to share kind words and the gifts of encouragement and gratitude
with others – or you can be a “bucket dipper” – choosing to hurt
others’ feelings with your words and actions.
As it is written in the Letter to the Ephesians, “Let no evil talk come
out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need,
so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”
As we chose to use this book as the centerpiece of Monday night’s
devotions the question was whether our group of 15 teenagers would think it was
incredibly hokey or whether it would make a mark?
Well, apparently the latter was the answer, because from that moment on
we spent the rest of the week working to fill one another’s buckets,
apologizing when we bucket-dipped, and spending time filling the buckets of
plenty of folks we didn’t know as well – whether by supporting their local
business, sharing Cluster 13’s mission with others around the area, or with a
kind word yelled from one of our very inconspicuous cars – considering they
had CT license plates and window chalk I think people knew that we weren’t
from the area – a favorite phrase was “Have a great day!”
This story set up a system of accountability to one another and to God
for how we behaved together for the week in Camden – and offered a helpful
reminder and a even new take on how we should behave as brothers and sisters in
Christ every day as well.
The letter to the Ephesians continues, “Rather let them labor and work
honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the
needy.” Although none of the
members of our group were hardened criminals – as the author of Ephesians is
writing about with these words of instruction, we did recognize that working
hard meant offering something of ourselves and our gifts to others.
Through the many hours of labor our group volunteered we were able to
fill some buckets. We salvaged $1500
or so worth of building materials for Cluster 13 from a business that was being
converted to a Meals on Wheels center, helped a young family who had experienced
an electrical fire that completely gutted their house clean out, insulate, and
begin to sheetrock, replaced windows and built a back deck on a home, helped
muck out and preserve house goods for a family whose floor was rotted out, and
we shared a new outlook and opportunity with our main project – putting a new
roof on a woman’s house.
When we arrived at her house the first day all we saw was a mossy roof
with a big blue tarp on top, a back yard with grass so high we couldn’t even
see the fenced in swimming pool (turned frog pond), and a lot of dilapidated
items. Each person who has a project
worked on through Cluster 13 Ministries applies to have that project done –
and is considered for assistance based on finances, mental and physical health,
and various other factors. We never
met the woman who lived in the house, but she had grown up with one of
Cluster’s volunteers, and he gave us an update toward the end of the week.
By the time we left the house her backyard had been restored and cleaned,
her picnic table and swing were in working order, and she had a completely new
roof. Without having to give step by
step instructions our young folks took it upon themselves to complete project
after project. For example, while we
were waiting for the roofing supplies to come, they found a lawnmower and
weedwacker and got to work. They
grabbed garbage bags and started filling them.
They took apart the picnic table, cut new wood, and put it back together
again. They sanded and waterproofed
woodwork and removed old appliances. And
when the roofing project began they shared and learned from our adults – and
put every ounce of energy and newfound skill they had into completing the
project. This was truly a team
effort. We heard many words of
encouragement.
And the report that came back from the homeowner was that she had been
embarrassed to come home while we were there because of the state of things when
we arrived, but as she stopped back in at night after work she was amazed at the
amount that was accomplished. A
woman who was recently widowed, had had a drinking problem, and was a compulsive
hoarder said that she was so grateful and was going to see this as a new
opportunity – a new lease on life. She
wanted to use our kids’ projects and motivation to jumpstart her life and get
things back on track. Their hard
work and willingness to give of their time, talent, and treasures were her
inspiration and gift.
“So then, putting away
falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of
one another…Do not let the sun go down on your anger…And do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of
redemption…and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another.” What experience filled
your bucket today? This was the
question we were asked at the beginning of our devotion time on Thursday
evening. Usually by Thursday night
people are cranky and overtired from a combination of late nights, early
mornings, and sleeping on the floor with other people all around them.
I just waited for blank stares and locked lips.
Instead we each took the opportunity to celebrate the amount of work that
had been done – an entire large roof in three days and so many other projects
as well– and thank others among us who had worked to fill our buckets.
In gratitude and thanksgiving I watched as our young folks and adults
alike gave kudos to one another about how they had felt encouraged and supported
throughout the week.
And that perhaps would have been good enough, but then we went deeper,
and this is the part that will stick out in my mind as different than other
trips. You see, at the end of the devotion some of the young gentleman in our
group asked a more difficult question. What
did you do to bucket dip this week? Wow!
At first the group thought it might have been a joke.
Did they really want us to do this? But
one by one, people identified ways they had fallen short of encouraging one
another and others outside of our group as well – and in turn strengthening
the Body of Christ. Our kids were open and honest – grateful and humble –
admitting places where we had fallen short and asking forgiveness.
As a pastor it was an amazing experience – not because we were
acknowledging the ways we had done others wrong, but because in that circle that
night there was an immense sense of trust, love for one another as brothers and
sisters in Christ, grace, and forgiveness. At
the end of our “group celebration and confession” (as I have come to call
it) in devotions that night I felt moved to prayer.
The prayer I prayed was one in which we gave it all to God – asking for
forgiveness, acknowledging God’s grace in our lives, and giving thanks for
each of the people in that room and the hard work they were willing to do not
only physically but spiritually and in relationship building – in building up
the Body of Christ -- throughout the week. As a pastor it was one of those
moments and experiences that will stay in my mind for a long time as a true
example of what it means to live and grow in faith and community with one
another. It was an experience that
no one could have set up or made happen. Instead
in that moment, and as I look back weeks later, I realize that it was all the
Holy Spirit doing her work.
“God in Christ has forgiven you.” It says in Ephesians.
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.”
Our week of mission did not take place in a location as exotic as the
Dominican Republic or as seemingly destitute as the areas just outside of New
Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, but in Camden, NY this year we truly lived and
grew in Christian community. Eyes
were opened to the need not all that far away in a regular small town, and lives
were changed – both the lives of those with whom we were able to share our
resources and talents and our lives. You
will have opportunities to hear more stories early in the fall – from the
mouths of babes, if you will. Until
then we thank you for your care and support for us in preparing for our trip and
while we were on the road. And,
learning from our young folks, might we work to fill the buckets of those around
us remembering that God first encouraged us by calling us beloved.
And might we remember to follow the example of those around us – no
matter how young or old, rich or poor -- as we strive to be a true community of
Christ. Amen.
Note: The Bucket Book is --
McCloud, Carol. Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily
Happiness for Kids, Ferne Press, 2006.
