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Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766

July 27, 2003
Sermon: "Digging into the Past"
Scripture: Joshua 11:7-13
Reverend Larry Gerber

Successful Native American investment plans emphasize family, not individuals. The same strategy worked in the book of Joshua, and could change the way the church does business. Certainly, the scripture we just read, Joshua was an individual who listened to God. God told Joshua exactly what he needed to do, in order to keep God's family growing. He had to kill the enemy, burn the village, and grow a new city, of God's people.

A blue-chip investment firm flailed and flopped recently when it flew a person in a double vested suit from the high-rise canyons of Boston to the mesas of the Navajo nation to explain to a group of Arizona Navajos why they should invest for old age. What the investment company was attempting to do, was to get the Navajo's to invest in their company, for their own profit. What they failed to do, was to research the history of the Navajo's.

Hoping to hook the 95 Navajos gathered, the man from Boston started by asking how many had heard of Willard Scott. None had. The representative explained that Willard Scott was the former weatherman of the Today Show who often featured 100-year-olds on their birthdays.

"You know what?" the rep queried. "More people are living to be a hundred." No one reacted. On the reservation, people die younger than the general population. The pitch didn't even cross the plate.

Undaunted, he persevered by telling them about health consciousness and New Year's resolutions to lose weight. Again, blank stares. The Navajos don't make New Year's resolutions, don't have health clubs and aren't obsessed about weight.

And so it went. What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Clearly Boston had nothing to do with the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.. The Bostonian wasn't able to cross the cultural divide in this low-income population where they don't even have Navajo words for "savings" or "retirement." A local resident explained that for the Navajo, "Money is different. It's there to be spent. If you have some, you help your family."

Later, the tribal offices set up their own investment team, led by a 24-year-old investment-savvy Navajo. This time, this team was able to get the pitch into the strike zone where the people could hit the ball. They emphasized family, and how saving can help others, not just the individual. "We don't target only the participants, we target families." With unemployment as high as 70 percent on the reservation, the team hopes that by encouraging those who have jobs to save money they'll be better able to help their relatives in the long run. It isn't investing for selfish reasons. It's investing for the benefit of their wider family. Since then, there's been a 10 percent increase in the investment plan participation.

In a culture that's truly family-based, taking a family approach works, savings grow, and in the long run, the family benefits. Even Blue Blood Bostonian Brahmin investment firms get it. Stocks bought today are not just for retirement; they're there to pass on to the children, who pass them on to their children, and on and on, never spending the principle and reinvesting a percentage of the dividends, buying more as necessary and watching the whole thing grow generation after generation. It's a way for families to pool their income so that eventually no one in their family lacks.

Of course, not everyone can do this. Taking the short view is tough enough for most folks trying to make ends meet, pay mortgages, finance cars, fund orthodontics. The long, long view is an idea many folks never think of, let alone dream about. Investing for the long term is a hard sell to much of America.

It's a hard sell for the church, too. But the early church gave it a shot. In the story of Joshua, they had to destroy others in order to build for their own future. My "dig" in Hazor, Israel, in 1998 was an experience of how one can dig into the past, just to see if a particular story is true. If we truly found the ruins of the palace of Joshua, that has been buried for over 3,000 years, then we have dug up the past, and have proven that particular Biblical story to be true, and then we have revealed the gruesome details, that he killed to 40,000 inhabitants, along with theirKing, and then burned the entire city, according to his understanding of God's will, in order for God's Kingdom to expand and flourish.

In the book of Acts, the Apostles, and the early Christians agreed to pool their resources. "No one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common" (Acts 4:32). They sacrificed. They sold what they had, land or houses, and turned it over to the group - and as a result, no one lacked. They worked together. They invested themselves with social capital. They created community. They took chances. They invested in each other and everybody's needs were met. "There was not a needy person among them" (4:34).

As we dig into the past, we see a dramatic change from those whom God spoke to in the Old Testament, and those who followed God through His Son, Jesus Christ. In the early Christian community, no one was orderd to destroy another people, or to burn a city, but to reach out in love, through self sacrifice, for the benefit of all peoples.

In this period of unparalleled prosperity, the church is filled with needy people. Some need money. Others need love. Some need hope. Others need joy. Some need solace. Others need prayer. All need God. That's the bear market news.

But we're a part of a bull market church. Needy people have a lot to give. The church is a mutual funding company. Lots of folks who come to church lack something, and often are seeking that something in church ... from us, from God.
•Need: Some lack companionship because they're widowed and lonely.

Investment: Invest yourself in a friendship with an elder and see what good can come from it for everybody.

•Need: Some come to church because they hurt inside.

Investment: Invest your ear time for their mouth time.

•Need: Some lack heat, or food, or school clothes, or money for the doctor.

Investment: Sink your money in the church's mission account.

•Need: Out-of-hand kids today need a helping hand.

Investment: Invest yourself in the Sunday school, youth programming, tutoring and mentoring.

The church is an investment club, only our capital is more than money. We invest our time, energy, talents, hopes and cash in our church. Or in our membership vows inThe United Methodist Church, we give of our time, our talent, our gifts, and our services.

What would the church look like if it could be a people, a place, where no one lacked? A place where we invested ourselves in each other? A place where no one was needy? The church would look like the people of God acting with one mind and one heart.

Church isn't just for us. It's here because ancestors in faith built it, mind and heart, sweat and bones, calluses and money. Most of here this morning are heirs to their investment in us long before we even were born. Most of us grew up in a town or city, where our forfathers and mothers provided the sanctuary, the Sunday school rooms, the parking lot, the bell, the organ, the choir robes, the pulpit, the carpet, the kitchen. And some of you brought the heritage from your past, in order to build what we have today.

All of us here today, have invested ourselves to some degree, in the life and future of this church, because of your roots, and our past history.

We need to calculate church today with the same equation that our ancestors did. It's not just for us that the church is here. The church is here, ready to serve those who move into our neighborhood, and have a need that only the church can provide.

Jane and I had the opportunity to live with 35 elementary school children and 15 other counselors and program leaders in one of our United Methodist Camps, this past week. Some of these children came from well to do homes, and most of them had a church home. Yet, some of them came from poorer, one parent homes, or a home where there grandparents were raising them.

A few were not church related; but one of the local newspapers heard about our camp; that it was going to deal with archaeology, along with teaching the children about God. The Las Vegas Sun said that they would provide scholarships for some of these kids, if we did not cram United Methodism down their throat. We assured them that we would teach them about the importance of digging into the past, through archaeology, and that we would teach about God, and the Christian way of life, but it was not our intention to convert them to Methodism.

So, we had a great mix of kids. We helped them to dig into their past as well as the past of other people. Who was the most important person or persons in their lives, and why? What, or who, were they most afraid of?

They learned about the Native Americans who lived in Las Vegas long before them, and about their culture and spirit world. They hiked to a rather hidden area of some beautiful petroglyphs. We listened to Victoria, a young woman who was working on her thesis for a Doctorate in Archaeology. We, in fact, were part of her thesis. She showed pictures of some of the past history that she had dug up. We gave the children an opportunity to "do a dig". We had buried some modern things, along with ancient relics, and explained how we dig up the past, and examine it, so that we can understand the past. We also dug into the Bible, in order to see God's plan unfold.

We take the Bible for granted, but some people don't know the Bible, or God, or Jesus Christ. We dig up the past, in order to bring the Biblical stories to the surface. We spent one night in worship under the deep black and quiet sky, watching darkness set in, and stars appear, as if from no where. The only light was my flashlight, as it focused on the story of Creation. The only sound, was my voice, as the 6 days of creation unfolded. Then there was a beautiful moment of silence. It was interrupted by a round of applause, not for my reading of the story, but for their thankfulness to God for the work he had done, and the gift of life he had given. We sat still a little longer and ended the evening with the Lord's Prayer.

At least for 4 days of their lives, those at Mount Potosi United Methodist Church Camp, forgot about their riches and their rags; their whole families, and their broken families. They were together as children of God, regardless of race, color, or creed; regardless of richness or poorness.

We were gathered, as young, and not so young, digging into the Biblical past, and then into our own past. It was the first step in finding where we are today, in the family of God; and where we might go in the future, because we children of the heavenly father, because He accepts me just as I am. We are different in the eyes of the world, by our heritage, and our background, but we are equal in the eye of God.

He will receive you just as you are, but you must come to him. His door is open. He asks no questions about your past. He simply says that he accepts you just as you are. Come to Him today, perhaps for the first time. Even if you have been on bended knee before Him in the past, come and renew your covenant to be His child.

The next time an investment firm comes from Boston to The Navajo Nation, I would hope that that person might dig into the past, before presenting the game plan for the people who live there.

Dig into the past. Remember that Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down, because he listened to God. He went to Hazor and did what he felt led to do, by the voice of God.

Jesus went ahead of us to prepare the way for eternal life.. We, through worship and Bible study have dug into the past. We have seen the preparation our Lord has made. It is time to let the light of Jesus shine on your heart today.

God has given us a life time, however long that may be. We must choose to live long enough to last that life time. Let us stand, let us sing: Just as I am without one plea. Rekindle the flame, or receive Christ for the first time in your life. Come from where you are, to where Jesus is.

Laura and I, and Stephen Ministers will be here to pray with you if you so choose. Or come before God just to give thanks and ask for strength and guidance, or to just praise His Holy Name. Come, sing, pray, and praise His Holy Name.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766