A teacher in New York City decided to honor each of her seniors in High School by telling them the difference each of them had made. She called each student to the front of the class, one at a time. First, she told them how they had made a difference to her and the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon, imprinted with gold letters that read, “Who I Am Makes a Difference.”
Afterwards, the teacher decided to do a class project, to see what kind of impact recognition like this would have on a community. She gave each student three more blue ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this little ceremony of acknowledgement. Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honored who, and report back to the class a week later.
One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon that said, “Who I Am Makes a Difference,” and put it on his shirt. Then he gave the man two extra ribbons, saying, “We’re doing a class project on recognition, and we’d like for you to go out, find someone else to honor, and give them a blue ribbon.”
Later that day, the junior executive went in to see his boss who had a reputation for being a grouchy kind of guy. He told the boss that he admired him for being a creative genius.
The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the blue ribbon and give him permission to pin it on him. The boss said, “Well, sure.” The junior executive took one of the blue ribbons that said “Who I Am Makes a Difference” and placed it on his boss’ jacket, just above the heart. Then he asked, offering him the last ribbon, “Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honoring someone else? The teenager who gave me these is doing a school project, and we want to keep this ribbon ceremony going to see how it affects people.”
That night, the boss came home and sat down with his 14-year old son. He said, “The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of my employees came in and told me he admired me, and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine that! He thinks I’m a creative genius! Then he put this blue ribbon on me that says, “Who I Am Makes a Difference.”
“Then he gave me an extra ribbon and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was driving home tonight, I started thinking about who I would recognize with this ribbon and I thought about you. I want to honor you. My days are hectic and when I come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. I yell at you for not getting good enough grades and for your messy bedroom. But somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You’re a great kid, and I love you.”
The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn’t stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, “Dad, earlier tonight I sat in my room and wrote a letter to you and mom, explaining why I had run away. I was gonna get out of here as soon as you went to bed tonight. My life is such a mess. I’m such a disappointment to you and mom, and I just didn’t think that you cared at all, and I just felt like I couldn’t go on. But now, I guess I won’t be needing that letter.”
Then he showed his father the letter he’d written. It was full of anguish and pain.
The boss went back to work a changed man. He was no longer so much a grouch, but made sure to tell all his employees how they made a difference.
The junior executive went on to help many other young people with their career planning, one being the boss’ son, and never forgot to let them know they made a difference in his life.
The student graduated from high school, and then college, got married and had a family. Now, when he tucks his children into bed at night he always tells them what a difference they make.
And the teacher?
Well, the teacher keeps on teaching, always aware of the great truth she learned – that what we say and do in the present has a profound effect upon what happens in the future.
Let’s switch gears for a moment right now and think about Jesus. Let’s consider his life, and his words, and his actions. Do you realize his ministry was mainly about bringing people the message, “You Make a Difference to Me, Others, and to God?”
Do you remember how he related to the poor, and the hurting, and the guilt-ridden, and the outcasts? Do you remember what he taught the rich to do with their wealth, and the powerful to do with their power, and the gifted to do with their gifts? Do you remember what he commanded us – his followers – to do with our lives, words and actions?
Jesus came into a broken world, a world wounded by sin and dominated by the dehumanizing powers of evil. Unlike many of his contemporaries – and definitely unlike many religious people in our own day – Jesus did not want to destroy this broken world. He didn’t want to blow it up, and all of us sinners along with it. No. What he taught was this: “For God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved”
The highly respected Anglican theologian N.T. Wright observed that Christians today do not adequately understand Jesus’ teaching about heaven. The first-century believers – those who knew Jesus personally – had a very different understanding of heaven than we do. Heaven – to them – was not “pie in the sky when we die”, but the establishment of God’s rule on earth. The kingdom of Rome which ruled over Jesus and his countrymen – and indeed all kingdoms that rule over our lives today – will one day be superseded by the kingdom of God. That’s what Jesus taught and that’s what they believed. After all, Jesus had instructed his followers to pray, “…thy kingdom come, they will be done – (WHERE?) – ON EARTH as it is in heaven.” Jesus’ teaching about salvation is classically Jewish – he was a Jew, after all. It was about God’s kingdom being established on earth. And once the kingdom is complete, he said, the resurrection will take place with a fully restored creation for all God’s people to enjoy. This is the Good News – the GOSPEL – that Jesus preached and the people believed! This is the Gospel that got Jesus killed by the kingdom of Rome. Can you figure out why? This is the Gospel Jesus entrusted to you and me.
But the inauguration of God’s kingdom here on earth is far from complete. And the Gospel teaches it requires the full participation of all God’s people, including us. So in the present time, we are to live out the practices and values of God’s kingdom as though it is here – just like Jesus did – doing justice, offering forgiveness, acceptance, compassion, healing, and transformative love. Living these ways in the PRESENT will bring about the kingdom in the FUTURE!
It is interesting to me that the very words used in first-century Judaism to describe this work to which we are called are tikkun olam which, translated, means “repairing the world.”
That’s the job Jesus asks us to help him with – repairing the world.
In other words, Christianity is focused on doing today the things that will repair the world and its people and bring about God’s future tomorrow. That teacher in New York, you see, was doing just that. She used words now to bring about an unseen tomorrow in the lives of her students, and those they touched. She was helping create a future far better and far more beautiful than anyone could possibly imagine in the present.
We Christians are to live with an eye toward the future intended consequences of our faith. Listen to the words of St. Paul in our reading from 2nd Corinthians 4. He was speaking to a group of people who had it really rough! The world they lived in seemed out of control. For all their efforts to live as Christians, all they seemed to get was frustration and persecution. It isn’t easy living as a Christian in this broken world! It isn’t for us, and it WASN’T for them! So Paul writes to them and us: “DON’T LOSE HEART!” he says:
“…our troubles right now in the present are nothing compared to the future glory of the kingdom. So fix your eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Being a Christian means living for the future!
A mother once asked her high school daughter what she aspired to in the future. The girl said, “Gettng out of high school!”
The mother laughed. Then she said, “And then what?”
The girl thought for a moment and then answered, “I guess I’ll go to college.”
Her mother said, “And then what?”
“Well, I suppose I’ll get a job.”
“And then what?”
“Mother! This is stupid! I’ll probably get married and have kids!”
“And then what?”
“I’LL GROW OLD LIKE YOU AND DIE!” she replied in frustration.
The mother became quiet for a moment. Then she asked:
“And then what?”
This is one of the most significant questions we can ask: “And then what?” The reason this question is so important is because God has guaranteed us a future. The popular cliché “Tomorrow may never come” is not true. Yesterday has gone. Today will soon leave us. But in God’s kingdom, there is always a TOMORROW! From the time you were born to this very moment, your life has been full of, “And then what’s?” Once, we were little children, but THEN WHAT? We became teenagers, but THEN WHAT? We grew into adulthood, and went off to college and/or a career, and many of us got married, and some of us had children, and all of us got older, and many of us retired to beautiful East Tennessee – BUT WHAT’S NEXT?
Jesus Christ tells us we are guaranteed a FUTURE!
And being a Christian means living NOW to bring about that unseen but promised tomorrow of the kingdom of heaven.
So what can you and I do today that will help create a better tomorrow?
Well, for one thing, in the immortal words of Jim Valvano, “Don’t give up. Don’t EVER give up!” If you – like Coach Valvano – are facing terminal cancer, don’t give up! There WILL be a tomorrow because God promises you the future, even in death. If you have come to the end of something – the end of a relationship, a marriage, a career, even the end of your rope…DON’T GIVE UP. God’s tomorrow WILL come! You can’t see it now, but it’s worth today’s pains to keep walking toward it.
Don’t EVER give up. God promises you a tomorrow that is more beautiful than you can imagine.
Second, do things with your life, words and actions that transform peoples’ lives. Maybe you can do something as simple as what that teacher did. Tell people they make a difference to you and that their lives count for something. Tell your kids. Tell your parents. Tell your spouse. Tell your neighbor, and the person who mows your lawn, and the waitress at the restaurant, and the nurse’s aide who empties your bedpan in the hospital. Give out blue ribbons to people every day and see what happens!
And finally, let the future come into our church.
You know, most of us would love this church to be like the church we used to attend. Like the little ditty sings, “I want a church just like the church that I was brought up in!” Or if you don’t know that song, you may know, “Gimme that old time religion, that old time religion; gimme that old time religion, it’s good enough for me.”
No, it’s not. Faith is about the unseen future, not the visible past.
How can our church help God bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth?
Let me close today simply by saying, “Who you are makes a difference!”
To me.
To our church.
To our community.
And most especially to God.
So don’t lose heart, dear friends! Press on to God’s future!
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