For Eldon it meant, first of all, that he saw himself as a sinner, a part of sinful humanity. That is why we have used Psalm 51 as our reading from the Psalter. Nearly every sentence of this Psalm of David in Eldon’s Bible is highlighted. This no doubt raises all kinds of questions in our minds about what it means to be a sinner. We usually think of sin as the disobedience of commandments or the breaking of laws. Sins were once considered by many of us good church people as being things like playing cards, gambling, swearing and, especially, anything having to do with sex. It was our way of saying, “Thank goodness we are not like those other people!”

In the Bible, however, that is not the real meaning of sin. Sin relates to the freedom our Creator has given us as human beings. It relates to our freedom to make choices. It is in making choices that we lose our innocence in growing up to become responsible and faithful human beings. It is in raising questions, having doubts, and even in making bad choices that we learn what it means to be accountable for our lives as co-creators with God. As the apostle Paul says near the end of I Corinthians 13, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” (I Corinthians 13:11)

When it comes our sin as human beings Paul focused on that which he called boasting or human pride. This does not mean that pride is bad or sinful in and of itself. We need pride in our work and in what we do, especially if we are good at what we do. It is a good think to have pride in our good works, in the church as well as elsewhere. As we all know, Eldon Brown had a lot of pride. His pride sometimes bordered on what some might have seen as arrogance. He was proud of his intelligence, his way of thinking, his work as a pastor and counselor. He was proud of the jeeps and motorcycles and other things he worked on and enjoyed.

As Paul and probably Eldon well knew, however, there is a hidden danger in pride. The danger is that we become too focused on ourselves, on our accomplishments and our mundane or earthly concerns. We lose sight of what it means for us to be spirit filled human beings made in the image of God. We even come to think that our worth as human beings is derived from these things we have accomplished, whether from our good works or from our accumulation of money and earthly goods. This becomes our sin, or that which the Bible calls idolatry. In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul calls it “the worship of the creator rather than the Creator.”

This is the concern of the prophet Jeremiah in our first lesson today. The people of Israel had forgotten who they were and how they had gotten to where they were as people blessed by God. They had come to believe that they had done it all by themselves by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. Jeremiah reminded them that who they were and where

they were was given to them by the grace and mercy of God.

It is not a bad or negative thing, therefore, to confess as Eldon did that we are sinners. It is a way of re-presenting in our lives the reconciliation the world has been given by God. It is a way of repenting, or turning around once again to the realization that our worth as human beings does not flow from anything we can be or do in and of ourselves, no matter how good we might be. Our worth as human beings flows simply out of one fact alone: That we are loved by the reality of God our Creator! Eldon said to me not long ago, “I know God loves and forgives me, but I have a hard time forgiving myself.”

As a human being Eldon was also very much of a theologian. This no doubt also requires some explanation. We have mistaken notions about what it means for us as human beings to be theologians. More often than not, we think of theology in academic terms. We think of theologians primarily as those who teach in seminaries, or those who become clergy and speak in obscure terms about things having to do with God and religion.

Schubert Ogden, in his book on The Understanding of Christian Faith, says that all of us as human beings are in some sense theologians. Especially as we experience awe and wonder and think about what it means for us to be human beings in the presence of the mystery of ultimate reality. It is this kind of question which prompted the writing of another of Eldon’s favorite scriptures. In Psalm 8, written at least a couple of millenniums ago, a human being looked into the night sky and reflected on the question: “What are human beings that thou art mindful of them, the Son of Man that thou dost care for him?”

We have all had this kind of experience, looking into the infinite depths of space, sharing in discussions with others, sitting alone by ourselves, or singing in worship that great hymn, “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made.” Who are we? Why are we here? What is required of us? What is the meaning of our lives as human beings, living on this tiny speck of rock and dirt in the backwaters of the Milky Way in the presence of the awesome and mysterious reality we call the universe?

In his book on Christian faith Schubert Ogden equates the word “theologian” with the word “witness.” This you might recognize as a word we United Methodists have found wise to add to our promise in becoming members of the Christian Church. It was always in this sense that Eldon was a theologian. He was constantly reflecting on what it means for us to exist in this world as human beings in the presence of that awesome and mysterious reality the Israelites referred to as “Yahweh,” the One great reality who says simply, “I am.”

Which leads to the third thing we can say about Eldon as a human being. He was not only a theologian, but he was a Christian theologian, a Christian witness. This does not mean, as we often suppose, that he was a paragon of virtue, one who always lived by the rules, always demonstrating a faultless life as a perfect person, whatever that might mean.

In the text read at the beginning of this witness there is, as was said, an intriguing question. Jesus asks, “When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?” It is intriguing because he does not ask whether the Son of Man will find “religious or good people on earth.” He does not ask whether the Son of Man will find a lot of people attending churches, as though this and other visible means are the only measurements of what it means for us to live in faith as human beings in this world.

In the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible we read that it was in Antioch that “the disciples were for the first time called Christians.” It does not say anything about their character, whether good or bad. It does not say anything about ideas, beliefs or creeds they carried around in their heads. It does not say anything about political ideas, whether conservative or liberal, or anything about sexual orientation, whether straight or gay. It says, simply, “They were disciples.” They were followers of Jesus. They were followers in the way of faith in which Jesus lived, trusting in the reality of God’s presence and love in their lives and the lives of those around them.

In his book on the understanding of Christian faith, Schubert Ogden does not focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus as the event revealing for us the presence of God’s shalom in the world. He focuses, rather, on something said in a hymn of Charles Wesley’s. In “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” Wesley celebrates the revelation of God in Christ with these words: “Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art.”

This means that the evidence of God’s presence in the world was in the life of a human being. It was in the life of a human being who cared, the revealing of a loving Creator in human flesh. Jesus, according to those who witnessed his presence, offered the wholeness and healing of God’s shalom to those whose lives were broken by sickness. He broke bread with prostitutes and sinners and other people marginalized by the social mores of his time. He ministered to and gave worth and respect to those considered outsiders in a world of privileged insiders. He told parables, such as that read today in our Gospel lesson. He showed by this parable and others that honor and respect in life is not given always and only to those who might think they deserve or have earned it because of their human accomplishments. Honor is given to all human beings, whoever they are, invited to be guests of honor in the presence of God’s reign of shalom.

When we watch the six o’clock news on television every evening we are told of all kinds of problems in the world which need to be solved. We are told furthermore that it will cost a lot of money to even make a dent in any of these problems. Jesus, on the other hand shows us a way of life that does not cost money. He says in Luke’s Gospel that it is “God’s pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Or, as the prophet Isaiah once said, “Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!” It is God’s pleasure to fill you with shalom, to give you pure, unbounded love. By this unconditional love we are given the freedom to love ourselves and all whom we meet in our journeys of faith, whether they be friend or foe. We are given freedom from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, so that we may seek for love and justice, not only among ourselves as church people, but also in the communities in which we live and move and have our being.

This blessed assurance of God’s love in Christ that Eldon Brown experienced was witnessed for some of us five years ago as Eldon laid helpless on a hospital bed in Phoenix. He was seriously ill and his worth as a human being could be found in nothing he could do, whether for himself or anyone else. He could not DO anything, he could simply and only BE! Laurie and Joyce and I were visiting him one day when he could not speak and could barely move. Since he could not talk with us Laurie used an alphabet board which enabled him to point to letters spelling out what he wanted to say. At one point Joyce asked him if he sometimes felt like Job lying there helpless and suffering as he was. He began to spell out the letters, “I-h-a-v-e-J-e...” and we immediately knew what he was saying: “I have Jesus.”

In that moment Eldon was given the shalom of God whom Jesus, Son of Man and child of God, comes to re-present in our human lives. Eldon was given that reality which sustains us all, even in the midst of our most terrible pain and human suffering. He was given the peace of God which passes all understanding. This is what it meant for Eldon to be a human being, one living in and on the free way of faith revealed for us in Jesus Christ. This is what it means for us, too, to be living as followers of Jesus on the free way faith in the presence of the Living God.

Amen.

Sermon delivered by Rev. Robert Fiske on August 29, 2010.