October 19, 2003

Scripture Readings:

Philippians 2:5-11

Matthew 4:14-16

Sermon:

Faith and Courage

(c) 2003 Bill McWilliams

"Faith and Courage"

Bill McWilliams

Laity Sunday

October 19, 2003

Texts: Philippians 2:5-11, Matthew 5:14-16

Our Scripture reading this morning tells us to "let our light shine before others," that God might be glorified through our lives. And one of the ways in which we can be built up in our own faith is through the examples of those around us - people we have known or have heard about, whose lives have been a witness of faith, of courage, of Christ-like love and sacrifice.

When we are young, we start with a fairly simplistic idea of what courage is - the "courageous" person is the one who is "never afraid of anything." But as we mature, we begin to understand that this is not a real picture of courage. We all have things that cause us fear - and often, fear is healthy. It helps to keep us out of danger. In fact, if you talk with a fire captain, a police chief, a military commander, or anyone whose work involves leading people into dangerous situations, they'll tell you that the last person they want alongside them in that situation is the person who is not afraid of anything. That's not a "courageous" person. That's a foolish person, a "loose cannon" who's going to be a danger to themselves and everyone around them.

True courage doesn't deny the existence of fear - or of danger, for that matter. True courage is based on recognizing that there are times when there is something at stake that is much more important than our fear, much more important than our personal comfort, or even our safety - and on being willing to act on that basis.

Certainly, the events of 9/11 gave us many examples of that kind of courage. God was very much at work on that day. To me, the real story of 9/11 - the one that needs to be told over and over, and never forgotten - is not that 19 people came to kill and destroy, but that hundreds and thousands rushed to help. They rushed into burning buildings, to get people out. They rushed into piles of rubble to look for survivors. They rushed into a cockpit, and put a plane down in an open field, to prevent it from being crashed into a building. They recognized that something was at stake that was far more important than their fear, and they acted on that basis.

Ultimately, that kind of courage - the willingness to risk oneself for others - is always grounded in faith. In order to put ourselves at risk for others, we first have to believe that there is something that is much bigger and more important than ourselves. If we think of it the other way around - if we take God out of the picture for a moment - then that kind of self-sacrifice makes no sense whatsoever, when we examine it coldly and logically. If we all got here by some random accident, if there is nothing beyond me - if I am the ultimate expression of anything I will ever know or experience - then it makes no sense for me to risk me for the sake of someone else. I'll be at risk of losing so much more than I could ever gain.

That kind of courage makes sense only if we believe that there is something beyond us - something more important than ourselves - and that by acting in this manner, we are somehow acting in tune with the "whatever-it-is" that is more important than ourselves. Something in the nature of this self-giving love rings true with something deep inside of us.

To me, the fact that we all admire this kind of courage is one piece of evidence for the existence of God. We can't write this one off to our upbringing, or to something that was taught to us by our society, because we find that it cuts across all barriers of culture and language. People from every culture admire courage - the willingness to put oneself at risk for the sake of others, or for the sake of the greater good. It's not something we are taught - it seems to be "hard-wired" into our very being by the one who created us.

As Christians, we believe that we have some additional insights. The God who is revealed to us in Scripture is a God who commands us to love - and warns us that in order to do so, we will need to be willing to face our fears. Indeed, the Gospel that we proclaim tells us that this kind of self-giving love is nothing less than the very nature of God - a God who loves us enough to come into our world, as one of us, and model that kind of love for us. The Gospel proclaims that the nature of God is revealed in Jesus,

"who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross."

Self-giving love is the nature of the God in whose image we were created, and our own souls recognize that image when we catch a glimpse of it in the lives of those around us.

Over the past few years, I have had the privilege of seeing, knowing, or hearing about a number of people whose faith and courage have helped to illuminate my way - people whose actions have spoken volumes to me about the nature of God, and about what real courage is. I want to share a few of their stories with you this morning, and I hope that you find them to be as inspiring, and as illuminating, as I have.

One such story involves one of our own. Many of you know Dave Lepine, and his wife Denise and their children, Sarah, Amanda, and Joey. You know of Dave's deep faith, and of his involvement as one of the leaders of our youth group. You're also familiar with Sarah's battle with anorexia, and you've seen Dave's love and support for her in this battle.

This past summer, Dave taught us all a lesson in courage, when we went with the youth group to Six Flags. Like many people, Dave has an intense fear of amusement park rides - the fast, high, violent kind. It's a fear that many people share - a fear of being at the mercy of the ride, of being out of control. Usually, if we have a fear like that, we simply avoid the situation - but Dave had reason to confront it.

Sarah had a particular goal that she needed to reach in her struggle with anorexia, and Dave wanted to help her. He wanted to give her some additional incentive to keep working at it. So Dave made a wager with her - he set a certain goal for himself, and told her that if she reached her goal before he reached his, Dave would ride the "Superman" roller coaster - I believe that it's the highest and fastest in New England - in the front row.

Sarah did reach her goal first, and when we went to Six Flags, Dave rode "Superman." Virtually the whole youth group was there to watch.

If you're familiar with the ride, you know that there's an automated camera that takes a series of pictures as the train comes by at about 60 mph or so. When you get off the ride, there's a booth with a bank of video screens, showing the pictures of everyone who was on the ride, and you have the opportunity to buy the picture of yourself and your group.

We had to buy the picture of Dave - and it's something to see. If you've never seen what pure, unadulterated, abject terror looks like, that picture is about as close as anything I could think of. But it's also a picture of a few other things. It's a picture of what love looks like. And it's a picture of what courage looks like.

I was glad that we were all there to see it, because everyone in the group that day, whether they realized it or not, got a real lesson from Dave. They got a lesson in love - from a man whose love for his daughter superseded all thoughts of his own personal comfort. They got a lesson in faithfulness - from a man who did what he had promised to do, even though it was the last thing in the world that he ever wanted to do. And they got a lesson in courage - not the false, "bravado" kind of courage that denies the existence of fear, but the true courage - the courage that says, "There is something at stake that is far more important than my fear, and it's on that basis that I will act." I was glad to be there to see it - how often do you get to see a real hero?

I also could not leave any discussion of faith and courage without telling you about a remarkable young man I was privileged to know. Matthew DeRocchi was a young man who worked in our shop when I first arrived at Welch Fluorocarbon. He was a friendly, outgoing young man, one who would do anything he could for anyone. He was a member of the Lee Fire Department, and already understood what it was to face danger for the sake of others. I remember being amazed to learn that he was only nineteen years old at the time. At age nineteen, he had a maturity and a level-headedness not often found in people much older. But little did we realize at the time how much Matty had yet to teach us.

It began one day when he woke up to discover that half of his body was paralyzed. He couldn't move, he couldn't get out of bed, he could hardly even speak. He was hospitalized immediately, and the tests showed a grim diagnosis - MS, multiple sclerosis.

Matty showed us a hint of how he would respond to this when I visited him in the hospital. He was in a room full of friends and visitors, and he was on prayer lists and prayer chains throughout the community, including ours. While I was there, he broke into tears - not tears of self pity, not an attitude of "why me?" They were tears of gratitude - he was so greatly moved by the fact that so many people cared for him, so many people were praying for him.

Matty battled his way back, through the hospitalization and a long period of rehab, and eventually came back to work for us. He could no longer work in the shop, because the summer heat would aggravate his condition. So he became our customer-service person - the interface between the customer and the work coming into the shop - and he did a wonderful job at it. There was never a complaining attitude, never any self-pity. His attitude was summed up in a letter that he wrote to everyone in the company when he returned. He thanked us for all the support, the prayers, the love and concern, and he summed up his attitude in one simple sentence - "I will live with MS." He made it clear that the important word in that sentence was not "MS" - the important word was "live." And he did live - thoroughly and courageously. His was not the false courage that denies fear - he lived every day with the very real fear that he could awaken any morning with half of his body paralyzed again. But he lived on the basis that there was something more important than the fear - the fact that he was alive, and had another day to live to the fullest. He had always wanted to see Alaska, and he and his dad went on a cruise to Alaska. He had always wanted to see Hawaii, and he visited Hawaii when his brother was stationed there in the Army. He had always wanted to try sky diving - and he and his dad went sky diving.

Matty's courage was a lesson to all of us. I had known him to be a man of faith - he was raised in the Catholic church, and I had also seen him at services here on a number of occasions - and we talked about it a few times in quiet moments at the office. We didn't get into theological details - they didn't seem to matter. What was important was the courage he derived from that faith. To this day, whenever I think of the word "courage," Matty is one of the first people to come to mind. I've always been glad that I had the opportunity to tell him so during one of our talks.

We lost Matty two years ago. But characteristically, we did not lose him to the disease that he had battled so courageously. We lost him to a motorcycle accident. And while that was, and still is, a shock and a tremendous loss, it's fitting that he died living his life and doing something that he loved. He was only twenty-two years old at the time, but in those twenty-two years, he had touched the lives of so many people that his funeral procession brought the town of Durham to a complete standstill.

We still remember Matty every week in our company. On his trip to Hawaii, he discovered a recording - a silly song called "Aloha Friday," celebrating Friday and the arrival of the weekend. Matty thought it was funny, and brought the record back with him. Every Friday, he would play "Aloha Friday" for us over the intercom. We still play "Aloha Friday" over the intercom every Friday, and we have a moment to stop and remember Matty, and the lesson in courage that he was to all of us.

Matty's brother Mark is made of the same stuff. He's in Iraq right now, and his is one of the names hanging on our remembrance candle.

And I could not leave any discussion of courage without sharing with you one of the most extraordinary stories of courage I've ever heard.

For several years, we've had the privilege of vacationing on Hatteras Island, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And if you go to the Outer Banks, you can stop in the little town of Rodanthe, about halfway down the main island. In the town of Rodanthe, you'll find the Chicomocomico Lifesaving Station, now run by volunteers, and dedicated as a museum to the United States Lifesaving Service.

In the early years of our country, many people died in shipwrecks along our coasts. The shallow waters off of Hatteras Island were particularly treacherous, with a well-deserved reputation as the "graveyard of the Atlantic." Thousands died each year, often within sight of land, because there was no organized means of rescue. There had been some volunteer efforts, but they were scattered, and varied widely in their effectiveness. So in the early 1870's, Congress appropriated money for the establishment of the United States Lifesaving Service - a forerunner of the current U.S. Coast Guard - with Sumner Kimball as its first General Superintendent. Sumner Kimball established it as a first-rate service, and wrote the Book of Regulations that governed every aspect of the service. Lifesaving stations were built at eight to ten mile intervals up and down the coast, each manned by a station keeper and a crew of rescue personnel, known as "surfmen."

It took a rare person to be a surfman. They lived by the Book of Regulations, which stipulated that they would come to the rescue any time that lives were in peril. It didn't matter what the conditions were. It didn't matter what the dangers were, or what the odds were of them being injured or killed in the process. If lives were in peril, they went to the rescue. Their attitude was best summed up by Captain John Midgett, the first keeper of the Chicomocomico station. A passerby saw them putting out to sea for a rescue one day in the teeth of a howling storm. In a genuine concern for their safety, the passerby asked, "Captain, if you go out in these conditions, do you really expect to come back?" Captain Midgett gave the reply which became the unofficial motto of the Lifesaving Service. "I don't know anything about coming back," he said. "All I know is, the book says you go out. It doesn't say a word about coming back."

I don't believe that you can make a commitment like that apart from faith. So it didn't surprise me to learn that the men of the Lifesaving Service tended to be men of faith. The Book of Regulations, by which they lived, gives some hint of this when it mandates that six days a week they drilled, they practiced, and they maintained their equipment. Sunday, by the Regulations, was given to church service in the morning, Sabbath rest in the afternoon, and church service in the evening --unless, of course, there was a rescue to be performed.

If you go to the Chicomocomico Station, they'll show you the equipment used by the Lifesaving Service, and they'll tell you the history of it. They also used to do a demonstration of the technique used for close-to-shore rescues, where a small cannon would fire a line out to the ship, and the survivors would be brought in one at a time in a device known as the "breeches buoy." They don't do the demonstration any longer - the cannon used black powder, which they're not permitted to have on the premises since 9/11 - but to me, the demonstration, as interesting as it was, was not the highlight of the visit. To me, the highlight of the visit was the story that they'll tell you - the story of the men of the Chicomocomico Station and the rescue of the crew of the Mirlo.

The Mirlo was a British tanker, operating between the United States and Britain during World War I. In August of 1918, the Mirlo was steaming north along the shoreline of Hatteras Island, bound for Britain with a cargo of refined fuel oil and gasoline. It was a bright and sunny, but windy, day, at about 4:00 in the afternoon.

The waters off of Hatteras Island had provided productive hunting ground for German U-boats, and the initial reports were that the Mirlo had been torpedoed. After the war, when U-boat log books became available, it was realized that no U-boats were in the area at the time, and it was concluded that the Mirlo had struck a mine - which were also laid in great numbers in those waters by the German U-boats.

As the Mirlo steamed northward, about seven miles off shore, there was a sudden horrendous explosion, which tore a huge hole in the ship's hull. The captain of the Mirlo realized that his ship was doomed, so he took the only course of action he felt was available to him --he turned the ship toward Hatteras Island in an attempt to run the ship aground, thereby making the rescue easier and perhaps salvaging some of the precious cargo.

But as the Mirlo turned toward the shore, there was a second horrendous explosion as the ship struck yet another mine. The Mirlo was now dead in the water, and the captain gave the order to abandon ship.

Meanwhile, on the shore, the men of the Lifesaving Station knew immediately that the ship was in trouble. The explosion had rattled the windows of the Lifesaving Station, and the Mirlo was clearly visible and clearly in trouble. At six miles out, she was much too far out for the Lyle gun and the breeches buoy - the men of the Lifesaving Service would have to launch their small surfboat and go out to the ship.

The day was windy, and the surf was exceptionally rough, even for these experienced surfmen. Three times they launched their small boat, and three times they were capsized by the waves. Three times they gathered up their equipment, stowed it all in the boat, and launched again. On the fourth attempt, they got the boat launched, started their small engine, and headed out toward the crippled and sinking Mirlo.

Out at the Mirlo, the evacuation was not going well. The Mirlo carried several large lifeboats, sufficient for her crew of 54. The first boat, with the captain and about half the crew, launched without incident and began rowing away from the ship. The other lifeboat, however, became tangled in the lines as it was being lowered and flipped over, spilling the men and their equipment, including the oars, into the sea. Some of the men managed to stay with the boat and get it launched, but without oars, they could only watch helplessly as the wind carried them away from the ship, and away from the men in the water.

At about this time, something inside the Mirlo, either the fire from the ship's boilers or the fire from the explosions, touched off the fuel oil and gasoline that were pouring out onto the ocean, and the Mirlo and everything around her became one gigantic torch. The men in the water were surviving by staying under the water until they had to breathe, then splashing the flames away, coming up for air, and going back under.

The men of the Lifesaving Service first determined that the first lifeboat (the one with the captain and 16 of the crew) was safe, and then shut off their engine, switching to oars for maneuverability. Picking their way through the flames and the burning debris, they began hauling in the men who were in the water. As they did so, of course, the men were covered with burning oil and gasoline, and the men of the Lifesaving Service were becoming covered with burning oil and gasoline as well. As they pulled the men in, they covered them with wet blankets in the surfboat and went on to look for the next men.

Finally, having rescued all of the men in the water, they rowed back out of the flaming debris, when they heard screams from the second lifeboat - the one without oars. As the fire created an updraft, air was rushing in from the sides to take its place, and this draft had caught the second lifeboat and was pulling it into the fire. Some of the men in the lifeboat tried to jump out, but were stopped by their shipmates. Before the men of the Lifesaving Service could get there, the lifeboat and the men disappeared into the fire.

The men of the Lifesaving Service rowed back and forth, but could find no opening in the solid wall of flame. So these men, who had already been on fire at least once - their clothes were on fire, their hair was on fire, their skin was on fire - pointed their surfboat into the flames and rowed directly into the middle of that inferno.

Somehow in the middle of all the flames, they found the other lifeboat, got a line on it, and pulled it back out of the fire.

Even having done all of this, however, their work was not yet completed. They had three boatloads of burned and injured men which had to be piloted back to the island, back through the same pounding surf that had capsized them three times on their initial attempt to launch. Making repeated trips back through the surf, they ferried the men ashore until all had been rescued.

There were 54 men on board the Mirlo when she struck the first mine. Of those 54, ten were killed outright in the explosions. Forty-four lived to go into the water. Of the forty-four who lived to go into the water, forty-four were delivered, alive, to the shores of Hatteras Island by the six men of that lifesaving crew.

Often we think of the Congressional Medal of Honor as being our country's highest award for bravery. But in the Lifesaving Service, they had one which was even more highly prized - the Grand Cross of the American Red Cross of Honor, sometimes known as the "Cross of Valor." So highly prized is it, so rarely awarded, that in the history of the United States, only eleven Crosses of Valor have ever been awarded. Of those eleven, six were worn by the men of that lifesaving crew.

The United States Lifesaving Service no longer exists as such - in 1915, it was absorbed into what is now the United States Coast Guard. Its methods of breeches buoy and surfboat have given way to patrol boats, fast cutters, and rescue helicopters. But in its approximately 50 years of operation, it was responsible for saving the lives of almost 200,000 people in life-threatening shipwrecks along the country'' shorelines. Who can say how different our nation, and our world, are today, because of their efforts? Because of their efforts, 200,000 people did not have their lives cut short. They went on to invent things, start businesses, raise families. 200,000 people whose spouses were not widowed, whose children were not orphaned - 200,000 people who went on to accomplish things that survive to this day.

That's the power of that kind of courage, that kind of faith, that kind of love. That's the power of a small group of people who have the courage to live by a radical, self-giving principle - "The book says you go out. It doesn't say a word about coming back." Or, as the same concept is expressed in a book which is much more familiar to us: "Greater love has no one than this - that he lay down his life for his friends."

And in the face of that kind of love, that kind of courage, that kind of faith, mountains do move - they don't have a choice. The mountains come down, and in their place, we are left with the lives of those who lived with that kind of courage and faith - lives that shine for us, like beacons, to light our way.

"Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven."

Let it shine.

Amen.

©2003, W. H. McWilliams

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