A Sermon Preached at St. Stephen’s on June 25, 2006, by the Rev. Cork Tarplee

            The acolyte getting vested in the Narthex noticed photographs of two young men hanging on the wall.  “Who are those guys?” she asked.  “They’re two men who died in the service,” answered the acolyte mistress. Said the acolyte in a shaky voice, “Which service, the 8:00 or the 10:00?”

            Often in life we end up worrying about the wrong stuff.  That’s one of the arguments in a new book by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert called Stumbling on Happiness.  Gilbert studies what makes people happy and after a mountain of research and testing concludes, “because of logic processing errors our brains tend to make, we don’t want the things that would make us happy and the things that we want (more money, say, or a bigger house or a fancier car) won’t make us happy.” Gilbert begins his book saying that all those things we think we’d do if we knew we only had a little while to live—like telling the boss off or taking off for Acapulco-- are not the things we’d actually do at all—and they wouldn’t make us happy if we did.  Gilbert says that part of the problem is that our “psychological immune system” is triggered by big negative events like the death of a loved one or the loss of a job, but not by little negative events like an argument with your spouse or boredom at work.  The result is that we sweat the big stuff that matters less than we believe and ignore the stuff that really matters.

            Take this morning’s Gospel for example.  The disciples are sailing across the lake in a small boat and a storm comes up. The lake is known for violent storms with twenty-foot swells in it and divers have found more than one ancient boat at the bottom.  The disciples are terrified that they’ll die.  In contrast, Jesus—also at risk of dying, by the way—is asleep on a soggy cushion in the stern.  They wake him up. He stops the storm. Then he asks them the question: “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” “You’ve been with me all this time and you still don’t know what matters?”

            Well, when you come right down to it—and when your life is really on the line—what DOES matter?  Well, Jesus’ whole life and teaching says that what really matters is your relationships: with others, yourself, and with God.  What matters is a kind word and a hand holding yours: family and friends who care about you and know you care about them.  What matters is integrity in our dealings, being really who we are and being true to ourselves.  What matters is standing up for what we know to be right.  Gandhi warned us that what will destroy us is not the windstorms in life but these things: politics without principle, pleasure without conscience, wealth without work, knowledge without character, business without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice. To that I would add an element Gandhi seemed to have missed: relationships without gentleness. In the end it matters less whether we live or die than how we live while we have the chance.

            Today at St. Stephen’s we celebrate two great things.  We send off a little delegation to New York ’s Gay Pride Parade.  In the light of continued insults from those who call themselves Christian, the witness of a congregation willing to say by its presence, “You are loved and valued,” is important.  We also celebrate the 50^th wedding anniversary of two quiet people, Felder and Sara Ruth Dorn, whose compassionate work help make St. Stephen’s a caring congregation. Our celebration proclaims that what each of us does moment by moment matters very much in God’s kingdom.

            We are all of us assailed by fears and windstorms in life.  From time to time our fears tempt us to forget what really matters.  Today, at least, let us remember that it is the day to day stuff that makes a difference:   kindness to friends and strangers, a life of openness and integrity, and faithfulness to the God of Love and Justice.      AMEN