On Youth Sunday, Austin Anderson, the Senior Warden of the Youth Vestry preached at the 10am and 5:30pm services. Here are his touching words.
Today, we all listen to Jesus speak the words of judgment. The coming of the end of days – a day when not a stone will be left in its original place – is a mighty thought to behold. To be waiting on earth for the days when all be ended and every human being weighed and seen fit for heaven or not, is very grounding. Such an impressive ending to our survival seems over the top, unrealistic, or even incomprehensible. The words spoken today, the turning of “kingdom against kingdom” and “nation against nation,” the ‘great earthquakes and famines’ that will devastate the world and its people are real today. These problems exist today as an extension of all the war and famine and disaster throughout history.
We experience these wars every day on a much smaller scale [as well]. We may go to sleep at night with food in our stomachs, however many of us still suffer from our own famines and plagues. People can be plagued with a lack of love or affection. Disasters can be divorces and the battles for property that follow. Cancer affects each of us directly or indirectly. For a lot of us, the world can seem to be crumbling around us. Our hunger can be for a connection or friend that has moved on. Whether these friends move on to a new state, a new country, a new life, or the next life, it is difficult to live without these connections. We get eaten by our own hunger every day.
I grew up through my mother’s alcoholism and the divorce of my parents. I was in late middle school by the time everything was in full swing. I was young enough for it to have a profound effect on me and my psyche, but mature enough to know that it was having this effect. Beginning in the eighth grade, I knew true independence. I had more independence then than I do now. I learned, on my own, what the word walking truly meant. I did not have a good bike to ride, and rarely did I have it with me. So, when I called my mother after school, or after basketball, and found from her voice that she was in no shape to drive, I would walk. I walked all over town. I could have asked someone for a ride. I know I could have found a friend who was going home late too. But I felt from the beginning that this was my problem, and I could not put my burden on others. I would not be a charity case. So I lied. I told my mother I had a ride, and I told my friends my mother was coming to get me she was just running late. The after everyone else was gone, I would walk home. I would walk to the YMCA. I would walk to Hindley School to play basketball.
I was able to find a game that was built and played by those who could not or would not go home. I was able to identify myself as a person who had a basketball court first and a house second. In most places where basketball rules, that is the case. I was blessed with friends and mentors from all different walks of life. I found salvation and escape in a new place. My first church was a court. I found my religion in a YMCA. The basketball court is a place where you must stay strong and remain within yourself each and every day. You are judged on court every day by opponents, old and new a like. Each day is a test to become something better than you were yesterday. These daily personal tests are mirror images, scaled down, to those that face the entire world.
Most people fail to see this judgment in their life. Most anyone would have a hard time comprehending such a grave and almighty event. If you have read the Book of Revelations, or even seen some representation of the End of Days, know that such an occurrence is highly unlikely. The difficulty is realizing that judgment is every day. Every day you are alive and conscious of your faith, you are entering your judgment day. What we as people fail to recognize is that we can not wait for judgment to come to us and turn the world upside down and throw fire and brimstone. If that day comes, we are all too late. But each and every one of us has been given a chance to walk and love as Christ loved us every day. Every day something is going to happen, there will be adversity in every day of your life. That is something that none of us can change. The difference between strong people and weak people, strong Christians and weak Christians, is the choice we make to respond to that problem, that adversity. Many of us can have one hard fall. Many of us will get up and curse out our God, we will say things like ‘Why me?’ and ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ The truth is that you do not deserve the freedom from trouble as long as someone else is troubled.
More often than not, the adversity will pile on. Heavier and heavier these troubles weigh down on us. They build one atop another, until we think we can bear no more weight. It is a test, not a punishment. Can you stay standing next to Jesus when your father curses you out, when your mother stops loving you, when your brothers turn their backs? Can you stay with God, when everything tells you to leave him? That is the question God asks you daily when he places personal feuds in your life, or places a catastrophic event in your life, or when a loved one is taken from your life. Can you stand back up, seemingly alone and stripped, to tell everyone that you love God, even more, for sparing what he did.
Now, it is crazy to think that we must all uphold a constant sense of love and faith in the Lord. We are all guilty of not truly loving our neighbors. We are all guilty of not truly loving our enemies as if they were our family. We often can get caught up in this me-against-the-world mentality. It is important to know that we don’t have one chance. Life is not a pass/fail course. We do not have to plan how to defend our actions of yesterday. With faith in the Lord, we can wake up tomorrow and be completely different. All Jesus asked from us when he came was an apology. In exchange, He can give us the wisdom to speak and act with Him. If you wake up tomorrow, and you change the way you react to your own struggles, you can change yourself.
You are cordially invited to the
