South Roanoke United Methodist Church

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October 2, 2005 
20^th Sunday after Pentecost

Extreme Home Makeover 2—Build to God’s Specifications

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20   
            Mt. 5:1-11

They show up in your front yard early one morning.  One of them has a megaphone and shouts, “Good morning!”  A very lucky and very deserving family comes bounding out of their house to greet their visitors because they know that rude awakening can only mean one thing:  they have been chosen by ABC TV for an “extreme home makeover.”  This family, chosen from among the 10,000 applications the network receives each week, will have their home completely renovated to their own particular personal needs and tastes in one week’s time.  In the end, viewers and participants celebrate a great gift given to a family that so richly deserves it.

Last week in the first in this series of sermons I suggested that the Bible says an extreme home makeover is exactly what we need.  When the Bible says you need one it is not talking about real estate.  The home makeover the church can give you is not a house of lumber, pipe, wire, appliances, and furniture.  The Bible speaks of a home.  The church is concerned about the people, not the house.  If you listen to the Bible and learn from the church today you’ll begin to understand what you’re really yearning for when you wish somebody would wake you up early in the morning to tell you that you have been chosen for an “extreme home makeover.”

This morning I want to suggest to you that if you want to get the home makeover the Bible has in mind for you you have to build to God’s specifications.

James C. Williams never sent in an application, but he was in need of an extreme home makeover.  He and his wife, Carol, had two children.  His oldest child, son Curt, was the apple of his father’s eye.  Father and son communicated well and each found a meaningful relationship within the family and with one another.  However, Jim had

       great difficulty enjoying the parenting experience with my…
       daughter, Beth. (James C. Williams, Parenting on Point, Abdingdon Press, 2002, p. 11) 
By the time she was sixteen years old he was completely frustrated with her because, as he described it,

she did not ‘embrace my world’ as I thought she should, and we
      fought all the time. (Ibid)

One significant bone of contention between them was the argument that always ensued when she came in late and the interrogation that always followed as to where she had been.  They finally came to a truce on this matter, with parents agreeing not to ask where she was and she agreed to always be in on time.

On November 11, 1995 the call came from the hospital.  A drunk driver killed 19 year old Curt, then a thriving college sophomore.  Carol left immediately for the hospital as he waited behind to locate Beth who was out on a date.  Hours later, he and Beth finally made their way to the hospital.  They did not share a word with one another all the way there.

I sat in the front seat with my minister and Beth sat in the backseat by herself.  Two days after Curt’s funeral, God ‘opened my eyes.’  I realized for the first time how distant Beth and I had become.  I realized that I needed to change as a parent or I was going to lose Beth, too.   (Ibid., 11-12)

That moment began a journey for him that culminated in a major shift in his career path.  Following his passion to make a difference in the lives of children and parents he developed a series of educational and motivational speeches and classroom presentations, parenting classes and workshops, and, eventually the book Parenting on Point:  Leading Your Family Along God’s Path.  The video course later developed from this book is the class Dr. Steffe is teaching for our “University of Faith” series on Wednesday evenings.

In his book he asks the question:  Why are things more difficult for parents today?  In his work with so many troubled children and parents and families he has discovered one common thread:

All of these young people lack a “North Star” to follow. (Ibid., 17)

 A “North Star”—that’s what he calls it:

          a sense of direction for our children and our families;…a moral center of the family—the foundational family value system, or the guiding moral values and principles.      (Ibid., 12)

He quotes Steven Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, who, in 1997, identified that

          The average parent spends only fifteen minutes a day having meaningful conversation with each child in the family…(and only) three of the fifteen minutes are spent saying something positive.  This means that, at best, most parents have a potential of three minutes a day to focus on the family’s compass—or to reinforce the family’s “North Star”…for their children.      (Ibid., 18)

The greatest parenting challenge today, he says, is the challenge of the artificial star—that

huge magnet, drawing them away from the North Star. (Ibid., 19)

These are the things in the culture that have so much influence on us and our children:  sex, drugs, celebrity, and violence.  I do not believe I need to extensively illustrate the magnetic attraction of these “artificial stars” to make his point this morning.

When God gave Moses the ten commandments on the top of the mountain, when Jesus shared the beatitudes from the top of that hill, that’s where humanity found the Master Plan.  The ten commandments and the beatitudes describe life as it was originally recreated.  In the beginning we didn’t need a list on stone tablets or a sermon from a hill to tell us how we ought to behave because that’s the way God made life and that’s how humanity lived it.  It was a gift given to us.  In the Garden Creator and created willed one will; we lived the way God made life spontaneously, naturally, because that life was planted deep in our hearts, it is the life-blood of our soul.  The only reason God has to patiently teach us these things all over again is because we turned our back on that life and made ourselves into quite something else indeed.  So God gave the gifts of the ten commandments and the sermon on the mount to remind us, show us, nurture us back to the true life that is still in us.  In the Christian tradition these are for us that great “North Star” that James Williams is talking about.

The point of his book and the point of the Scripture today, is staying true to that “North Star.”  How do you do that?  He suggests we need to be so much more intentional today about passing on the values of our family and our faith.  You need to clarify for yourself and make clear to your children that sense of direction, moral center, foundational value system by which you and your family live.  If you get clear about that it can become more self-evident to everyone what behaviors, decisions, and activities are acceptable and what are not.  How do you get clear?  In preparation for this family fun weekend for the purpose of getting clear on this, parents should first find consensus on the key elements of our faith,
the values and principles that are of utmost importance to the family, what kind of atmosphere you want in your home and the kind of behavior you wanted demonstrated.

Sometime during the weekend sit down together, even with the youngest children, and develop together what he calls “a family mission statement.”  If you have young children, start with the Golden Rule.  Older children can be more involved in the process.  The more involved they are, he says, the more the truth discovered there will be implanted in their hearts.  In his book he shares the first outline of his own family’s mission statement when they first stated it:

          It is the mission of the Williams family to:
          --respect each other at all times
          --follow the Ten Commandments
          --love each other unconditionally
          --follow the Golden Rule
          --go to college
          --respect our elders
          --etc.

He shares how vital such a family mission statement would have been for them had they thoroughly discerned it earlier in their lives.  He describes five miserable years spent in another city when he moved his family from their beloved Pittsburgh to what he felt then was a wonderful opportunity in another city when the children were young.  He was recovering from a severe back problem at the time of the move.  His new position was ten times more stressful that his previous job requiring ten to twelve hour days, plus Saturdays.  When he was not at work he was at the “Y” exercising his back.  It turned out that his family was unhappy in the new location and never felt accepted.  In Pittsburgh everything was so different:  the mortgage allowed Carol to stay home with the kids; their best friends lived next door; they were close to family and were very active in their small church; help from friends was abundant whenever his back went out.  He looks back on that decision to move with guilt and shame.  Workshop participants ask him from time to time why he didn’t just quit and go back to his old job?  He reports he probably could have gotten his old job back, but the thought just never occurred to him.  You see, it was a PROMOTION—a unique opportunity he felt he just couldn’t pass up.

          What I realize now is that if we had written a family mission statement after the birth of our two children, and if that mission statement had included a sentence about always putting faith and family first, then I am absolutely sure we never would have left Pittsburgh.

Today James Williams’ daughter Beth has a family of her own.  It was not too late for father and daughter to mend their relationship and find fulfillment and joy in one another once again.

Robin Reed, the weatherman for local TV channel 7 for the past 24 years, gave a wonderful presentation to our Adult Fellowship a couple of weeks ago.  He is often asked why he hadn’t moved on up and gone to larger television markets.  How many of you remember the flood of 1985?  He left his pregnant wife and young child safely at home on Wasena Ave that morning only to have them rescued from high water through the kitchen window by boat.  Needless to say she didn’t think very much of his weather forecasting after that!  After the flood waters receded and they were cleaning up the mess the boss at the TV station dropped by and gave him an envelope.  His coworkers had collected $1,200 to help them out.  On that very day he decided that Roanoke was home for them.  That’s why he is still here today.

The Church has the truth shared in the ten commandments and the sermon on the mount.  The Church places before us this morning the gift of life restored to its original state in the form of the Body and Blood of our Lord.  Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup God restores that life in you, giving it to you as a gift.  The Bible says you need an extreme home makeover.  The Church can give you one exactly to God’s specifications.  God is so anxious to give it back to you.  Come to the table today and receive it with joy.

William G. Davidson