Way back in 1953, the following parable first appeared in an article by Theodore 0. Wedel titled "Evangelism - The Mission of the Church to Those Outside Her Life" (The Ecumenical Review, October 1953, p. 24).  In light of my message this past Sunday morning on Matthew 16:13ff regarding the responsibility of the church to reach the lost, I thought I would post it today.

"On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little lifesaving station.  The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought of themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost.  Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous.  Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work.  New boats were bought and new crews trained.  The little lifesaving station grew.

Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped.  They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea.  So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building.  Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated It beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of club.  Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work.  The lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club's decoration, and there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held. 

About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people.  They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin.  The beautiful new club was in chaos.  So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership.  Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club.  Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station.  But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast.  They did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the some changes that had occurred in the old.  It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded.  History continued to repeat itself; and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs all along that shore.  Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown!"

Remember, church, what you have been called to do!!!
 
 
As we celebrate our nation's 234th birthday, I thought it appropriate to post the following piece by Otto Whittaker.  I hope you find it thoughtful during this time of the year. 

I AM THE NATION
by Otto Whittaker

"I was born on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offered freedom to the oppressed. I am the nation! 

I am 250 million plus living souls and the ghosts of millions more who have lived and fought and died for me.

I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington and fired the shot heard around the world. I am Washington, Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys and Davy Crockett. I am Lee, Grant, and Lincoln.

I remember the Alamo, the Maine, Pearl Harbor and 9/11. When freedom called, I answered and I stayed until it was over, over there. I left my heroic dead in Flanders Fields, the rock of Corregidor, on the bleak slopes of Korea, in the steaming jungles of Vietnam, and the desert sands of Kuwait.

I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas, the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coal mines of the Virginias and Pennsylvania, the fertile lands of the West, the Golden Gate and the Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Monitor, the Merrimac, and the Challenger.

I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific.. .more than 3 million square miles of land throbbing with industry. I am more than 2 million farms. I am forest, field, mountain, and desert. I am quiet villages and cities that never sleep.

You can look at me and see Ben Franklin walking down the streets of Philadelphia with his bread loaf under his arm. You can see Betsy Ross with her needle. You can see the lights of Christmas and hear the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" as the calendar turns.

I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. I am 200,000 schools and colleges and more than 300,000 churches where my people worship God as they choose. I am a ballot dropped into a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium, and voice of a choir in a cathedral. I am an editorial in a newspaper and a letter to Congress.

I am John Glenn and Neil Armstrong and their fellow astronauts who whirl through the spaces above my head. I am Eli Whitney and Stephen Foster, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Billy Graham.

I am Horace Greeley, Will Rodgers, and the Wright brothers. I am George Washington Carver, Jonas Salk, and Martin Luther King, Jr. I am Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, and Thomas Paine.

Yes, I am the nation and these are the things that I am. I was conceived in freedom and, God willing, in freedom I shall spend the rest of my days.

May I always possess the integrity, the courage, and the strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom and a beacon of hope to the world."

May God bless this great country!  And may God find this country worhty of His favor!