by Rev. Dr John Evans
Exodus 14:19-31
Matthew 18:21-35
Do you ever have one of those days when everything seems to go wrong?
This happens to me, and it usually concerns some relatively small domestic project, like fixing a squeaking door or some such. First of all, you don’t quite have the right tool, and so you improvise. And then what you improvise with – breaks; so it has to be repaired. So you need to drive to the hardware shop, but have a flat tyre on the way – are you getting the picture? And by the end of the day, the door still squeaks, you have a new useless tool, and several other things to fix up, it has cost you a fortune, you didn’t really save money anyway, everyone thinks you are a grump . . and so on. Do you have those days? It can also happen with computers.
Such days are frustrating, even memorable – but hardly life changing. But a day, one day, one moment can change a life, a family, even a nation or the world. The day that just slipped by during the week was one of those days – 11 September 2001, or 9/11 as the Americans call it, changed the world . . . sadly, to be a more troubled and fearful place. But for us as individuals, a single day or moment in time – can change who we are, what we do, how we live, how we approach life. It might be the day of an accident – or a medical diagnosis, the birth of our child, a move, a new job, our marriage – as the song says, “what a difference a day makes.”
Over the last couple of months we have been hearing the great foundational stories of the Jewish people – from the Garden of Eden, to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and up to Moses. Today we reach the day, the one day, when at last they are free.
The Hebrew people have been oppressed in Egypt. Despite the pleadings of their leader Moses, Pharaoh does not let them go. There comes then the series of plagues and signs from God – at last culminating in the dreadful death of all first-born Egyptians. They are released, and we find the Hebrew people, after taking a rather indirect route, encamped beside the Red, or Reed Sea. They are able to buy a little time with the God-given pillars of cloud and fire in between themselves and the Egyptian army. It is, however, crunch time. The Hebrew people are already getting anxious. “What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? It is better to be slaves there than die out here,” they plead with Moses.
Then comes the scene made famous by the film The Ten Commandments. Moses raises his hand, the waters retreat, the Israelites cross on dry land, the Egyptians follow, the waters then recede – horse and rider are tossed into the sea. As verse 14:30 says,
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians.
That day – they were free; that day the new community was forged; that day of carnage, perhaps like for us as Australians when we think of 25th April, 1915, when the nation was forged in the midst of a bloody and tragic battle – the Hebrew people became an new community. That day changed lives for the Hebrew people. Salvation – freedom means a new life. It happens in a moment, and has life-long consequences.
The gospel reading also is about a moment of forgiveness – a moment of new life; a day that should have led to different consequences, but didn’t. We call this story of Jesus’ the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. This story of Jesus is dramatic, exaggerated, but has a simple message. One day, one moment can change your life and we should seize that moment and that day and live a new life . . . don’t squander it. If we have been forgiven, we are to forgive others.
Again, I think the story is well-known. A servant is forgiven a huge amount, a Fanny May and Freddie Mac sort of debt – $12 trillion dollars – I don’t even know how many noughts in all of that – but this person is forgiven such a debt, and then demands a repayment of a miserable sum from someone he just bumps into. Well, the person gets their comeuppance in the story. A surprising day in that person’s life is wasted – I would go so far as to say the day of possibility was obscenely violated.
Jesus is obviously, graphically reminding us, made all the clearer from our vantage point after his death and resurrection, that in God’s love we are forgiven our past and able to live a new life. What do we make of this possibility? Do we take it? Do we live it out?
Well, what has all of this to do with what we focus on today – recognition of our volunteers?
I will say categorically this place, Church of All Nations, and its small community service agency, transforms lives. For many who come here, and by no means all, but for many – this place featured as being the day when someone finally listened; when a small word of encouragement that they could begin again, was offered – they could do it; when help was offered. There could be a new start. The Church of All Nations was the place of “the new day” and of all its promise. The demons of the past, the horse and rider, were tossed into the sea; the squillion dollar debt was forgiven. A new day dawned.
What a difference a day makes . . .
Of course for many we see, in fact most people we see, it is not a new day; it is the same old day. The same old tedious, dark, lonely day. We are just a routine part of that day. A day of not quite being able to make ends meet; or feeling depressed and unworthy; or of seeing no way forward; or not really believing there is any other way of life which might not involve a variety of addictions and ill health. We need to be there too for these people – always striving that there might be a new day for them – but advocating for them and standing with them in the meantime.
But then for our volunteers, a day can make a difference as well.
So often I have heard from people they came to the point when they realise that they have received so much, they want to give something back. They may have just retired, and they want to still be engaged with the community; they may come from the other side of town, a very privileged side of town, and they wish to do something different. They may have been one of our clients; experienced that day that made a difference in their life, and now want to share something of that experience with others.
By and large our volunteers are like a “happy outcome” to our story of the unforgiving servant. Instead of being miserly with the experience they have had of life, they seize the opportunity, volunteer, and share the full life they have with others. Volunteering is the direct opposite to the attitude of our antihero in the story of the unforgiving servant.
Volunteering in the Church of All Nations Community Support is obviously not the only thing one can do in response to God’s love to us shown in the death and resurrection of Christ. Living a transformed life, forgiving others as we have been forgiven, as the Lord’s Prayer says, is part of it. The possibilities are endless.
Volunteering is, however, a significant one, which we want to honour and respect today. Because, at the end of the day – if I can use that expression – we as a congregation could not operate our community involvement here in Carlton without you. We would not be able to do the all work – from the out-front work to the behind-the-scenes stuff – without our volunteers. We thank you; we want to acknowledge your work over many years; and we want to be with you as we look to the future.
What a difference a day makes.
It changed Israel for ever, it can change us. Indeed, it is the belief that we in fact here can make a difference – here, each day, this gives has the spirit to keep on going.
And today, of course, we celebrate this spirit of volunteering.
