August 23, 1998 - LESSON: Ephesians 2:17-22, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: God's Place

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INTRODUCTION:

1. It is not Italy, it is New York.
2. It is not the Capulet's and the Montague's, it is the Jets and the Sharks
3. It is not Romeo and Juliet, it is Tony and Maria.
4. There is a plaintive song in West Side Story, by Leonard Bernstein and Steven Sondheim
1. Maria and Tony are looking for a place.
1. Their own place
2. A place far from the gangs and the poverty.

"Somewhere"

There's a place for us
Somewhere a place for us
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us
Somewhere

There's a time for us
Some day a time for us
Time together
With time to spare
Time to look
Time to care
Someday,

Somewhere
We'll find a new way of living
We'll find a way of forgiving
Somewhere

There's a place for us
A time and place for us
Hold my hand
And we're halfway there
Hold my hand
And I'll take you there
Somehow
Someday
Somewhere

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1. Their place will not be found
1. There is a rumble between the Sharks and the Jets
2. In the aftermath, Tony is killed.

Main Body:

1. We also have a place.
1. We can find our place.
2. Place is not a location
1. It is not a city or a town.
2. It is not a home in a sub-division.
3. Place is not a position.
1. It is not a promotion.
2. It is not a salary increase.
4. Place is a new way of living.
2. Place is not something that we can create.
1. It is something for which we must ask.
1. In their book, The Aladdin Factor,⁽¹⁾ authors Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (best-selling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series), devote their entire book to the importance of asking for what we want in life.

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2. They list five barriers to asking:
1. 1. Ignorance (We can ask for knowledge)
2. 2. Limiting and inaccurate beliefs (We can ask for the truth which sets free)
3. 3. Fear
1. Fear of rejection (We can ask for comfort which brings contentment)
2. Fear of looking stupid (We can ask for wisdom)
3. Fear of being powerless (We can ask for power)
4. Fear of humiliation (We can ask for glory)
5. Fear of punishment (We can ask for forgiveness and thus be pure)
6. Fear of abandonment (We can ask to be adopted)
7. Fear of endless obligation (We can ask for the power to say, "no")
4. 4. Low self-esteem (We can ask for and receive dignity)
5. 5. Pride. (We can ask for a humility which enables us to accept our strengths and weaknesses)
2. Finding our true place changes you.
3. It creates boldness and strength.
3. This place enables you, allows you to see beyond yourself and your own personal needs.
1. Saul Bellow has a marvelous short story entitled "Leaving the Yellow House."
1. It's the tale of Hattie Simmons Waggoner, an elderly woman who lived alone in a house that she inherited.
2. It was all she had and was everything to her.
3. The woman who willed it to Hattie was now dead.
4. All Hattie's family was gone. She had no children or husband.
5. Living alone and becoming increasingly frail, she turned in on herself and turned also to drinking too much.
6. She, of course, knew that she had to make a change.
1. She could not continue in that big rambling house.
2. She had to go somewhere else, to leave the house (that's one of the meanings of the title "Leaving the Yellow House").
3. She had to leave it to someone in her will.
1. That's the other meaning of the story's title.
2. She knew this, but for years did nothing about it.

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7. Then, one day, driving while drunk, she had a minor traffic accident.
1. Her arm was broken.
2. Her license was taken away.
3. She recovered, but the arm was slow to heal.
8. Friends came to tell her that she had to leave, had to get out-- still she couldn't.
9. One night, thinking that she'd finally come to a decision, she sat down and began to write a will:
1. "I, Harriet Simmons Waggoner, being of sound mind and not knowing what may be in store for me at the age of 72 (born 1885), living alone at Sego Desert Lake, instruct my lawyer, Harold Claiborne, Paiute County Court Building, to draw my last will and testament upon the following terms."
2. She lifted her pencil from the page, thought a bit, took a drink, realized that she spent all her life waiting. She thought to herself, I was waiting, thinking, "Youth is terrible, frightening. I will wait it out. And men? Men are cruel and strong. They want things I haven't got to give."
3. Then she turned again to write the will:
1. "Upon the following terms...Because I have suffered much. Because I only lately received what I have to give away...It is too soon! Too soon!...Even though by my own fault I have put myself into this position. And I am not ready to give up on this. No, not yet. And so I'll tell you what, I leave this property, land, house, garden, water rights, to Hattie Simmons Waggoner. Me! I realize this is bad and wrong. Not possible. Yet it is the only thing I really wish to do, so may God have mercy on my soul."

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10. In her hour of extremity and need, all she could think to do was to try insanely to leave the house to herself, to perpetuate a tragic situation.
11. She could not accept and would not choose the decision that was forcing itself upon her.
12. She could not leave the house.
2. She could not ask
3. She could not get beyond herself.
4. She died and the house was left to others.
5. A place provides a new way of seeing.
4. This place makes it possible to find a new way of acting.
1. Michael Scrogin, Practical Guide to Christian Living⁽²⁾, relates the answer of Mohammad Ali to a question that he was asked.
1. Muhammad Ali was once asked to name the greatest lesson he learned in life.
2. Ali thought for a moment and then told the story of a heavyweight title bout against Sonny Liston in 1964.
3. "Liston was the strongest man I'd ever fought," Ali said. "Every time I hit him, it hurt me worse than it did him. I gave him everything I had.
4. When the sixth round ended, I was completely spent.
1. I couldn't even raise my arms.
2. I couldn't even stand up to go back onto the ring.
3. 'I'm goin' home!' I told [trainer] Angelo Dundee.
4. 'I'm not going back in there!'"

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5. Hearing this, Dundee demanded that Ali get ready to go in.
1. Ali refused.
2. The bell rang, and still Ali didn't leave his seat.
3. Dundee pushed him and shouted, "Get in there and don't come out until you're the heavyweight champion of the world."
6. Ali struggled to his feet. Liston didn't.
7. At the end of that fight, Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, was the new heavyweight champion of the world.
8. "The greatest lesson I've learned," Ali said, "is to have someone pushin' you and makin' you do things you don't think you can do."
2. The greatest lesson that we can learn is that there is no one pressurin' pushin' you or makin' you do things you don't want to do.
3. The new way of living leaves you no alternatives.
4. You will do what needs to be done, because it needs to be done.