PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY:

ONE BY ONE BY ONE BY ONE

November 13, 2005

Texts – Jeremiah 31: 31-34

Matthew 25: 31-46

As a rule, I don’t like autobiographical sermons. Too often they come across as pompous and self-important. I pray that will not be the case with my offering this morning.

Tomorrow evening, Donna and I will climb aboard a Continental Airlines flight here in Burlington. We’ll deplane in Newark, and then fly non-stop to New Delhi, India – a journey spanning fourteen hours, over 8,000 miles, and ten and one half time zones. After a bit more than a day’s lay-over there, we’ll board an Indian Airlines Air Bus for another four hour flight to the southern tip of the Indian sub-continent. By Thursday afternoon (Indian time), we’ll be in the coastal village of Colachel in Tamil Nadu state.

Eleven months ago, Colachel was “ground zero” for the devastation visited upon the people of Southern Asia by the tsunami of December 26^th. The official death toll in that village alone stands at eight hundred and eight five souls; half again as many remain “missing” and are presumed dead. When seven of us from this congregation visited last January, the District Superintendent of Police for that region told us that thousands more would have surely perished had it not been for the presence and healing power of a small but well equipped hospital in the heart of the village.

Most of you already know this story, I’m sure, but some among us do not so please bear with me briefly. The James Hospital which Donna and I will visit this week is a one hundred bed primary care facility. Modestly out-fitted (by western standards) with modern medical equipment, the Hospital is run by a husband and wife team, Senega and James Premkumar. Our congregation has had an on-going partnership with them for almost fourteen years.

Last winter, when the tsunami struck, we promised to assist them with financial resources and urged them to do whatever was necessary to help the thousands who had been affected. They took us at our word. On the first day alone, they admitted seven hundred and eighty four patients; they also handled nearly six hundred corpses. In the course of the following weeks and months, nine thousand persons received medical treatment; thirteen thousand were fed and sheltered.

Our promise of financial aid has been fulfilled. When our neighbors learned through the media of the James Hospital’s mission in Colachel, contributions poured into our Church. By the time seven of us left for India two and a half weeks later, we were able to take with us $117,000, but that wasn’t the end of it. We sent an additional $41,000 in the next four months, and tomorrow Donna and I will carry with us the remainder of the gifts we’ve received. The grand total now stands at $170,557.

It is a story of amazing generosity. We did not do this alone. Twenty three other faith communities here in Vermont lent their strength to the effort, as did over four hundred persons from the community at large who have no “faith-based” connection that we know of. Our share of the

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giving ended up being about a quarter of the total. None of it would have happened, however, without our participation . . . our partnership . . . our friendship with a family few of us have ever even met. And that’s the story I want to tell this morning, because for me it is the story of practical Christianity.

The story begins in the summer of 1982, twenty three years ago. A small fellowship group from the First Congregational Church of Wilmette, Illinois – the church I was pastoring in those years – was in the habit of meeting in one another’s homes on a monthly basis. Occasionally they would share a meal together; more frequently they simply enjoyed dessert and conversation with each other. Members took turns arranging a program for their time together: it might be slides of a recent trip someone had taken, or a book discussion on a topic of current interest. On this particular evening in August 1982, the group invited two young students from the nearby Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, to come and talk about the churches of their home communities. One of them was named James Vijayakumar.

Vijay (as he is known) was a 32 year old doctoral student from a very small village in Southern India. He had been sent by the Church of South India to study in the United States for two years. After he had told his story, Jean Cleland – a member of our Wilmette Church – asked him if he had found a congregation to worship with. He’d only been in the country a few weeks; the answer was no. “Then you must worship with us,” Jean said. Vijay replied that would be wonderful but he had no means of transportation. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Jean said, “I’ll pick you up and drive you.” “Every Sunday?” Vijay asked. “Why don’t we just do it ‘one by one’?” Jean replied. One by one . . .

And so that Fall as I led worship on Sunday mornings, I couldn’t help but notice this handsome young man whose warm mahogany skin tones set him apart within our predominantly Euro-American congregation. We chatted frequently during our after church coffee hours. Eventually I asked him if he would be interested in joining our fellowship. He said he would. We scheduled a time to meet. When we did I learned that Vijay’s father had died just prior to his coming to America, and that the small hospital he had started in their home in an isolated village was now being run by Vijay’s wife, a recent medical school graduate.

“How long have you been married?” I asked. “Oh just a few months,” he said. “But you’ll be here for two years!” I protested. “Yes,” he said, “but the Church of South India cannot afford to send my wife also. This is not uncommon for us, Bob,” he went on; “there are too many who need help.” “Well maybe so,” I said, “but you’re the only one I know. Why don’t we see if the Church in Wilmette can help you and your wife be together?”

I brought the question to our Board of Deacons. They shared it with the Women’s Fellowship. The money for an airplane ticket was forthcoming. Three months later Vijay’s wife, Sujaya, joined him. That’s one way to grow a Church’s membership – One by one by one . . .

Vijay and Sujaya returned to India after his studies were complete. He began to teach as a professor at the United Theological College in Bangalore. She stayed in their home village, seventeen hours away by bus, tending to the needs of her patients. We corresponded intermittently. I told them about the sabbatical which the Wilmette Church had offered me. They sent back an invitation to come to India and to preach at a “convention” in their local diocese. Off I went.

In January of 1986 the James Hospital was little more than a first aid clinic. Patients slept on wooden benches; water was carried by hand from an open well nearly a mile away. It was primitive to say the least, but it was the only medical facility available for thousands of people. The day I arrived, an eleven year old boy was admitted by his mother and father. He was suffering from dehydration brought on by cholera.

After trying unsuccessfully to treat him, Sujaya said to the parents: “You must take him to the Church of South India Hospital in Neyoor.” They refused, pointing out that they had neither the bus fare to get him there – 25¢ – nor the co-pay which the hospital required – 75¢. “We will give you the money for the co-pay and we will drive you there,” Sujaya offered. The parents refused again. “We are poor,” they said; “this is the only hospital that God has given us. You must treat him. If it is God’s will he will survive; if it is not God’s will, then he will die here.”

Four days after I arrived, the little boy died. His given name was Benjamin. I was deeply moved. At home my eleven year old son named Benjamin was safe and sound. I could not believe – I cannot believe – that it is God’s will for any eleven year old to die from diarrhea.

I spent five weeks in India that January. I baptized Vijay’s and Sujaya’s first born child; they named me her godfather because she was “Made in the U.S.A.”! I also met Vijay’s younger brother, James Premkumar – a college lecturer at the time, but a young man with a dream of following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a physician.

“We cannot afford to send him to medical school,” Vijay told me, “but it would be wonderful if he could go, because then he could take over the work here and Sujaya and I could actually live together.” “How much does it cost to go to medical school in India?” I asked. “$24,000,” Vijay said. “You mean $24,000 a year?” I asked. “No, no . . . $24,000 for five years,” he said. “Doesn’t the Church of South India have any scholarships?” I asked. “Yes of course,” Vijay said, “but there are too many who need help.” “Well,” I said, “you’re the only one I know. Why don’t we see if the Church in Wilmette can help?”

So I came home and I reported to the congregation. I told the story of the boy named Benjamin, and of Prem’s desire to become a physician. “If anyone would like to help send him to medical school,” I said, “won’t you please talk to me during the coffee hour?” Four weeks later we were able to send Prem a check for $24,000. We raised the money the old-fashioned way – One by one by one by one . . .

How much time do we have? Shall I go on? The story does, of course! The invitation that Jean Cleland gave to a stranger to join her in worship led to a relationship with a church and then to a friendship between two families and then to a career devoted to providing medical care to the poorest of the poor. James and Sujaya Vijayakumar today live in Cleveland, Ohio. Vijay oversees all of the mission work in Southern Asia which is carried out by our United Church of Christ and by the Disciples of Christ. Sujaya serves as a resident physician at the Cleveland Clinic. James Premkumar and his wife Senega, of course, live in Colachel, about 5 kilometers from the village where his father began to practice medicine in 1946. In addition to the hospital, they also now operate a School of Nursing for some ninety young women, and they opened up a school for teachers just last year.

One by one by one by one . . . Our poet laureate knew this dynamic –

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair . . .

Because it was grassy and wanted wear; . . .

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way . . .

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence;

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

[“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost]

It is the way things work, isn’t it? “Way leads on to way . . .” Just so, God works through us . . . God works with us . . . One by one by one by one . . .

I am as certain as certain can be that my friend Jean Cleland had no thought for the future ramifications of her actions when she offered a young stranger a weekly ride to her church. It just seemed the right thing to do. I can tell you without hesitation that I certainly had no thought of the future ramifications when I asked the Women’s Fellowship of the First Congregational Church of Wilmette to help a young couple to be re-united. The same thing can be said in many respects of my decision four years later to tell Prem’s story to my congregation. Certainly the money he needed for medical school was way beyond our mission budget’s scope.

Over and over the pattern has been repeated. “Way leads on to way . . .” “One by one by one by one . . .” You just do the next right thing you can think to do, and then you let the “chips” fall where they may.

Jesus’ parable of the Great Judgement has a twist within it that most of us fail to see. Oh we know the story; indeed we know it quite well. “For I was hungry, and you fed me; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; a stranger, and you welcomed me; naked, and you clothed me; sick and you visited me; imprisoned, and you came to me . . . . For as you have done it unto the least of these my sisters and brothers, you have done it unto me.” That’s how it goes. But notice – neither those on the King’s right hand nor those on his left have any remembrance at all of having done a thing, do they? Both say, “When did we see you hungry ... or thirsty ... or naked ... or sick ... or imprisoned?” Both are in the dark.

The point of his story, and the essence of what I call “practical Christianity,” is simply this – Life comes to us a moment at a time . . . a day at a time. It is the little things we do . . . the little decisions we make . . . which ultimately shape not only our own destinies but the destinies of untold numbers of our sisters and brothers. “Way leads on to way . . .” So let us practice our faith one by one by one by one, and trust God to use our offerings to bringing healing and hope to the least of these our sisters and brothers. Amen.