Renewal through Faith
Sermon preached by Rev. Patricia Farris
March 26, 2006

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.

As we continue into our Lenten theme of Renewal, today being Renewal through Faith, I want to ask you this morning what you think it means to “have eternal life”? What is this assurance of faith, that God loves us so much that he would do everything to make eternal life possible for us? Eternal life, for the likes of you and me?

Eternal life. We read this passage so often at funerals and memorial service that we may only associate eternal life with something that comes after death, something glorious in the presence of God and all the angels. This is indeed “life fulfilled beyond our imagining,” as we say in prayers on those occasions when we give thanks for a life and commend it to God for eternal keeping.

But God is offering us so much more in Christ Jesus. God is offering not only life after death, but the fullness of life even now. In John 10:10 Jesus himself tells us: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” What is this life, this quality of life in Christ Jesus, that transforms us, renews us, changes everything, all because God loves us so very much?

You know, just this week, your pastors were reflecting a bit on our pastoral work with you all at the moment. Part of the rich privilege as well as the sorrow of this calling is that we walk with you through life’s hardest times. And it seemed to us that, perhaps, for inexplicable reasons, there seems to be a larger measure of pain out there in you all at this moment. We all carry so much, much of it just below the surface, not visible to the naked eye. We are carrying the sorrow of the illness of dear friends and loved ones. We are carrying the grief of a parent’s death or lingering illness. We are carrying the monkey of addiction. We are carrying the sin of mistakes and actions that have hurt others deeply. We are carrying the panic of unemployment and the slow torture of unfulfilling work. We are carrying desperate love for our children and their pain. We are carrying the desolation of broken marriages and relationships. We are carrying so much, in our own lives and in the lives of friends and those we love. (continued...)

"Renewal through Faith" by Rev. Patricia Farris, March 26, 2006

To each of us this morning, many carrying heavy loads, God is saying: I love you with my whole heart. I have sent Christ Jesus to be your peace. I have sent him to walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death. I have sent him not to judge you, but rather to lift you up and make you whole. I have sent him to guide you into eternal life.

Our faith is in a God who says no matter what you have done, no matter how bad things are in this moment, no matter how shattered your heart or how shaky your faith, I am with you in Christ Jesus, so great is my love for you. And I am bringing you strength and assurance and promise and hope.

There are many ways to access these rich resources of faith – in worship, in prayer, in small groups and classes, in counseling, in service to others. We had one such opportunity here last Sunday as many of us got to meet and talk with Rev. John Fanestil who was our guest. John is a United Methodist minister, a friend, and now a published author. He has written a book — and there are still some for sale in our church library — called Mrs. Hunter’s Happy Death: Lessons on Living from People Preparing to Die. John’s work on the book and the insights he shared with us are wonderful resources for us all in accessing the gift and the power of eternal life on both sides of the grave.

John is first a pastor. And in this book he ties together experiences he had with people in his various congregations with a wonderful tradition in the church, primarily among Methodists, that was called “happy death” and was written up in the religious magazines of the 18th century. They were filled with accounts of deaths of faithful Christians, not so much in the obituary style we know today, but from a faith perspective. Believing, as did John and Charles Wesley, that God’s grace is available to all, and that we are perfected in this grace as we move through life, that as we approach death we in fact draw near to the fulfillment of this grace, accounts of the death of Mrs. Hunter and many like her were written up and published to encourage others in the faith. For in their experience, death is a fulfillment, a completion, a blessed moment in which to be made more perfect in love. It was, therefore, not to be feared, but embraced, and all the blessings of this spiritual journey, this faith awakening, were available to be shared with other believers, to strengthen their faith and to assure them of God’s love for them.

As John researched the old magazines and journals, he realized that he had seen the same lived faith in parishioners he had known. And that all these, through faith, had embraced the gift of eternal life long before the moment of their death. Let me share one account that he read to us last Sunday. It’s the story of a man he calls Jim Wislocki, who, after his second marriage, had joined the church late in life.

“About a year after joining the church, Jim was diagnosed with cancer — a CAT scan had revealed a malignant tumor growing beneath his skull, behind his left (continued...)

"Renewal through Faith" by Rev. Patricia Farris, March 26, 2006

ear. A few weeks later he called me up and asked if I could tell him why he wasn’t depressed. I couldn’t, of course, but when he told me he was preparing to undergo intensive chemotherapy, I assumed he was mustering a kind of optimism that I had seen before in cancer patients. In my experience, this kind of optimism serves people well, so I offered Jim nothing but encouragement. “I don’t know why you’re feeling so upbeat,” I said, “but I say just run with it.”

“Something about Jim, though, was different from most cancer patients I had known. Throughout the course of his treatment, his spiritual awakening accelerated. In the midst of a taxing regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, he was absolutely blooming. He was in love with his wife — ‘the best wife anyone could ever want.’ He was in love with his new church — ‘a great church, a fantastic group of people.’ He was in love with life.”

John needed a new laptop computer and he knew that Jim was something of a computer expert. He called Jim for advice.

“’Let’s go shopping,’ Jim proposed. I was quick to accept the invitation. Jim and I drove to Westwood, to a little computer store that dealt in high volume with faculty and students at nearby UCLA. Jim was on a mission to get me the best laptop money could buy. After I insisted again and again that I really did need to work within a budget, Jim finally relented. He asked a salesman to start up a couple of different models and took them for a test drive while I looked over his shoulder. After talking me through a comparison, Jim pointed at the second laptop on the counter and said, ‘This is a great computer. This is the best value. This will last you a long, long time.’ Six years later, when I first sat down to type out Jim’s story on my [laptop], I remarked that he was entirely right.

“After shopping, we drove down the coast and stopped for lunch at a fish house in Marina del Rey. Sitting on the restaurant’s sunlit veranda, eating a swordfish sandwich, Jim could hardly contain himself. This was an absolutely incredible day. I had just bought what was arguably the best laptop computer in the world (under $1500 anyway). We were eating the best swordfish ever caught. Our view of the Pacific was unsurpassed. Surely I had to agree with him: life just doesn’t get any better than this.

“Jim Wislocki, dying of cancer, was treating me to one of the best days of his life. It was one of the best days of my life too.”

Later, Jim’s cancer spreads and he eventually stops all curative measures in hopes of improving the quality of his remaining weeks or months. John writes:
”At this point in his life Jim astonished me. Quite simply, he displayed no fear or apprehension in the face of death. In fact, apart from the thought of leaving Barbara, he did not give any real signs of lament. Every day was better than before, filled with remarkable surprises and unexpected gifts. As his body died from cancer, Jim’s spirit was being filled to the brim with life and love.” (continued...)