Rev. Dr. Bary R. Fleet - Pastor
June 1, 2008 – 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 6:11-22; 7:24; 8:14-19
Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28 
Matthew 7:21-29

A Rainbow Story

I want to share a story about Sam Waters.  Sam had come home.  He was Tom and Betty’s son and, even as a child, he had been a handful.  Veteran church school teachers suddenly decided to retire or take a couple of years off when they knew Sam would be their turn to try and teach Sam.  Tom and Betty also had trouble with Sam.  Once, he and some other boys broke windows around town, including windows at their church.  The church did not press charges; Tom and Betty paid to have the windows replaced.

Just after Sam turned 18, he was driving some friends around one night.  He waited while they stole a bottle of whiskey from a liquor store.  He didn’t know they had a gun.  They emptied the cash register, then shot and wounded the owner.  Sam went to prison for eight years.

When Sam got out of prison, he moved away, but he could not get work.  After all, Sam had a criminal record.  He came home to live with his parents.  They were thrilled to have him home again and tried to make life normal.  Sam spent his days looking for a job and helping his dad on the farm.  On Sunday’s they came to church.

That is why people talked.  How could Tom and Betty take him back after all he’d done?  Some didn’t like the idea of having an ex-con in the congregation.

One day, Sam showed up at the pastor’s office.  He didn’t know what to do.  His parents loved having him in church, and he had actually enjoyed worship.  It meant something to him to sit beside his parents who had been so faithful.  But every time they walked into the church, people turned away.  He was beginning to think that it might be better if he stayed home.

The pastor had seen the way Sam and his parents were treated, and he had heard the talk.  Still, she trusted the goodness of these people.  She knew they did not want to see Sam take advantage of them again.  She said she would bring it up, with his permission, at the next Deacons’ meeting.     

The board grew quiet as the pastor recounted her talk with Sam.  Nearly everyone in the room remembered when Sam was sent away.  They had prayed and grieved with his parents, some of them had written to Sam in prison.  Now that he was back, they were confused.

John Hughes was the first to speak.  “Did you know that as a teenager I went to reform school?”  They had no idea.  John said he could offer Sam a job.

Then Margaret Offenbach recalled aloud a story of Sam in her first grade Sunday School classroom.  (They had all heard this story before.)  The subject was Noah and the ark, and they had made rainbows from construction paper.  After class, she remembered that she had left her lesson book in the room and went back for it.  There stood Sam, drawing a multicolored rainbow on the wall with permanent magic markers.  “I didn’t have the energy to clean it off, so I just left it.”

Another deacon said he’d been teaching in that classroom and had tried to paint over the rainbow several times, but it still showed through.  Everyone laughed.

“So, what shall we do?” asked the pastor.  The Deacons agreed to think about it.

The following Sunday, Sam served as liturgist.  The congregation listened intently to the readings, including the one from Genesis about the flood.

At the time for prayer requests, the pastor called on Sam.  He thanked the worship deacon for allowing him to be the liturgist.  He thanked John Hughes for giving him a job, and his parents for sticking by him, even when he had been very difficult.  He thanked the church for honoring the vows they had made when he was baptized.  He said he knew they had not pressed charges when he had broken church windows as a boy, and appreciated that expression of love for his family.

Sam then told how the day’s reading had reminded him of something that happened when he was in the first grade in Mrs. Offenbach’s class.  He knew most of them had heard he drew a rainbow on that wall, but probably didn’t know the whole story. 

When Mrs. Offenbach came back into the classroom that day and saw what he was doing, she did not fuss or even tell him to stop.  She stood for a moment and then said, “Well, neither one of us will make it to church on time if I don’t help,” as she picked up the purple marker.

When Sam told this part of the story, everyone laughed and looked back at Margaret Offenbach, who appeared quite embarrassed by this new and complete version of the story she had been telling for years.

Sam said he’d gone back in that classroom just to look, and to his surprise the rainbow was still there.  Someone had tried to paint over it, but it still showed through.  That morning 20 years before with Mrs. Offenbach had been the most memorable moment of all his years in church, because, that day, while they drew together on the wall, a wise teacher had talked to him about grace.  She spoke of how sad God was over the way people behaved, and how the rainbow was God’s promise of grace.  She talked about how all of us – including grownups – make God sad sometimes, and she spoke of the rainbows of grace in her life.  He remembered that she mentioned her family, her church, and his class, and even that time with them coloring on the wall.

Now, Sam said, he knew that his life had reflected that lesson.  God had grieved over some of the things Sam had done, yet God still showed grace.  Sam had nearly covered up that grace by ignoring it.  But the grace still shone through, just like the rainbow on that classroom wall.

The grace of God for him, said Sam, was in being able to come home again.  He knew he did not deserve it, but he was grateful for it.  Then he sat down, embarrassed that he had talked so long.  No one else noticed the time.

From that day on, it was easier for the church to be the church.

May we, too, be a grace-filled church … remembering the rainbow, and letting it shine for all!

NOTE:  This sermon is credited entirely to “The Clergy Journal” February, 2008.  Editor Rebecca Grothe.  Inver Grove Hieghts:  Logos Productions.

SERMON IN A SACK: A Newspaper.  Talk about what you can believe … only what God says.  That’s what made Noah special – be believed God, and did what God told him to – even when other people laughed.