Every Seed Must Die

David Orendorff · John 12:20-26 · April 2, 2006

I introduce you to two of the 1990 winners of the Temple Awards for Creative Altruism. First, Millard Fuller and Linda Fuller: “At the age of 30, attorney Millard Fuller and his wife Linda Fuller were millionaires who seemed to have it all, but they realized that something important was missing. Linda and Millard decided to sell their businesses, give all their money away, and devote their lives to God's work. In 1976, they founded Habitat for Humanity with the belief that 'all God's children deserve a simple, decent place to live.’

Habitat for Humanity is a homebuilding partnership that has built over two hundred thousand homes in thirty-one countries, providing housing to over one million people as of June 2005. Houses are built or renovated using volunteer labor and donated materials, and sold to a family in need, at no profit and no interest.

Jimmy Carter, a Habitat volunteer, has said, ‘I've learned more about the needy than I ever did as president. The sacrifice I thought I would be making turned out to be one of the greatest blessings of my life. I don't know of anything that more vividly demonstrates love in action than Habitat for Humanity.’1 “The 1990 Temple Awards For Creative Altruism”, Joanne Miller and Mary Luck, in Noetic Sciences Review, No. 17, Winter, 1990-91, p. 35.

Secondly, I introduce to you Kip Tiernan:

In 1968, Kip Tiernan walked away from a 20-year career as an advertising executive to join an urban ministry and live among the poor and disenfranchised in Boston so she could stay in touch with the realities of life at the bottom. Since then, she has organized a network of at least 25 different agencies to deal with the problems encountered by homeless men and women, refugees, the mentally handicapped, the poor, and other members of society's rapidly expanding underclass.

Kip has always been ahead of her time. When she started the first women's shelter in the country 16 years ago (now 32 years ago), officials told her there were no homeless women. 'Opening “Rosie's Place” when I did was not a bad idea,’ she said recently. 'The only thing is that shelters aren't a solution. Jobs are a solution. Education is a solution. Affordable housing is a solution. Equal pay is a solution. “Charity” is the crumbs from the table; “justice” is being able to sit at the table.’2 ibid., p. 36.

The Fullers and Kip Tiernan have let most of who they previously were die that they might be servants to God's children. These are the few who have found within themselves the courage to let go of their own deaths, to give away their anxieties over their lives, and to plant themselves as seeds within the earth.

They are the people of compassion who serve hospitals and orphanages and sometimes die of unnamed diseases. They are the unknown missionaries who have taken the word of compassion and justice around the world to sometimes be killed before they could speak. They are the ones who give their lives for us without a whisper of their name, without a handshake or a medal. They are the seeds that have died that we might live.

I am struck by those serving in and by the veterans from the Middle East War who give themselves like seeds for our sake. The papers run headlines praising them. I, too, believe they should be praised. It is a great and brave thing to interrupt your life, to travel halfway around the world, and to risk dying for a principle, for a belief, for a people.

Sheila Cates, an old friend now deceased, once let me read a letter from her brother who was stationed in Rihyad, Saudi Arabia. He was proud to be there in the first Gulf War. He believed that what he was doing was in defense of liberty and justice. And he was willing to die that we might continue to live under the twin eagles of democracy. There are many men and women like him.

Such a willingness to sacrifice for us and for the many peoples of the Middle East deserves to be honored. Whether we agree with the war or not, these men and women are to be honored for their sacrifice.

After all, it is a soldier that first recognizes the meaning and power of Jesus’s sacrifice. This soldier, more than others, knew what it meant to offer one’s life for the lives of others. The soldier says, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”3 Mark 15:39

One last example is Willie. Willie had just turned 15. Both parents were dead. Willie stood at the edge of the family farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and watched as the Confederate troops moved into position against the Union soldiers...then he went to the Union officers and told them what he had seen.

In the midst of the battle, Willie would carry water to the wounded and dying of both sides. In those four days, more than 53,000 would die. Later, Willie heard these words as Abraham Lincoln dedicated the national cemetery at Gettysburg:4 Adams, Paul, When Wagon Trails Were Dim, Montana Conference Board of Education of the Methodist Church, 1977, p. 36.

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.5 Lincoln, Abraham, “The Gettysburg Address”

President Lincoln reminded Willie of divine origins and promised harvests, that there might be a new birth of freedom for all people.

Willie left the farm and began to preach. He went westward and landed in Fort Benton of the Montana Territories in 1872. There he gathered a congregation to hear the word and to do the work of freedom as found in Jesus the Christ.

William Wesley Van Orsdel became one of the great early Methodist preachers. He traveled all across Montana, meeting in homes or in bars, wherever he could gather someone to listen to him sing and tell the stories of Jesus. When he died in Helena in 1919, “there were two conferences, several thousand members, with churches, parsonages, schools, and hospitals, in the building of which he had had a part either actively or through his encouragement.”6 Smith, Jesse, Brother Van, Stone and Pierce, 1958, p.21.

In our very midst are saints who plant themselves with compassion. I have seen Chris Aakre quietly feed Tent City, sometimes alone and sometimes with a little help. I have listened to Mimi Johnson describe her ministry to the street children of Seattle. I have seen the work of Andrea in ministry to the families of the prisoners in Monroe. I have seen many of you give days and miles to care for the young women of Chrysalis. I know Terri Stewart works on behalf of bringing

love to the women’s prison in a Kairos ministry. I know you doctor and I know you nurse. I know you to be teachers who care and have made sacrifices in wages and time to for students. I have seen you be parents of gentleness and compassion. I have heard you contractors struggle with building and plumbing as a matter of compassion to people and the earth. I have experienced the love that comes from so many.

I know of you in your work at Bear Creek in classes, on committees, with covenant and reunion groups, with the Walk to Emmaus, in twelve-step programs, as a beautician, or to people isolated by age or illness.

So great is the outpouring of God’s Spirit with us that there are among us more saints than I know. There are quiet ones of who make compassion live in hidden ways. I am in awe and wonder at what God makes ripe in you. Your seeds are legion. Your willingness to sacrifice is inspiring. Each and all of you make the divine promise true that in trusting God you will not be alone, but will bear great fruit. I have seen only the smallest part of the harvest and I am in amazement.

Every congregation I have ever served has been filled with such saints. I am thankful that you permit me to worship with you. I thank God that I have been called to follow and serve Jesus here with you. May our service, and our ministry, forever plant the seeds and gather the harvest.

Amen and Shalom.