SERMON
Rev.
John Carl Swanson, Pastor
Union
Congregational Church
Text
John 14:5-14
Many people liked last week’s sermon, and
I have to admit, I thought the mooring/sailboat illustration worked well. By the way, I’ve asked Peggy to put each
week’s sermon on our Website. Many
people liked it but, well, I have to admit that it was real, shall we say, “Boaty”. And, as most
of you know, I’m want to use a lot of “Boaty” or “nautical” illustrations. After thirteen years here, many of you can
now not only properly moor a boat but properly sail one, better than me, what
with all of the boat and nautical stories I’ve told! So today, no boats! Oh, by the way, most ministers have one pet
inspiration that motivates their sermon illustrations, for me it is, of course,
the nautical; for my friend Rob, it’s the woods, for Roger, my Pastor when I
was a boy, it was Charlie Brown. You know, the comic
strip Peanuts. Well today, no boats, no
navy, no ocean; I’m going to talk about “HORSES!” So here goes!
Well, before I go too far, I do have to
give a sort of disclaimer here, because the horse I’m going to talk about did
have a somewhat nautical name, a Biblical nautical name: Jonah.
Boy, he was a whale of a horse!
Pun intended!
We owned Jonah when we lived in Middleboro
and he was a wonderful animal. Jonah was
a leopard spotted appaloosa that I bought for Martha as an ordination present,
upon her ordination in 1988. We had
Jonah for many 10 years, until we moved up here to
Let me tell you about Jonah. He was an appaloosa, an “appy,” a popular
breed of horse known for their gentleness and intelligence and for their
“blanket coloring,” which people may or may not think of as beautiful. Jonah was an exception, for he was a truly
beautiful horse to look at; a handsome horse, a Dalmatian horse; white with red
spots, red polka-dots and a beautiful flowing mane and tail, most unusual for
an appy. He was 15.2 hands high, which
is mid-sized for a horse, and boy, was he gentle. A top notch rider could have a vigorous ride
on him, yet a child or an adult who had never ridden a horse could have a
quiet, gentle ride. He was so gentle and
well trained, in fact, that he didn’t even need a bit in his mouth when he was
being ridden. You know,
the metal bar that attaches to the bridle and fits in the horse’s mouth. He was one of the few horses I’ve ever seen
who could be ridden regularly with a hackamore, that is, a bitless bridle.
We loved that horse and we used him a
lot. I would even take him
swimming. He would do the horse
paddle! He also threw me in the pond
once. It was Thanksgiving morning,
1988. I had gone for a morning ride and Jonah
and I waded out a few yards into the pond located at the end of our street, as
was our custom. Jonah bent his head down
to take a nice deep drink of the cold pond water and I took a moment to stretch
and lean back in the saddle and survey the beauty of the woods and pond on a
clear and cold Thanksgiving morning. Well, he must have seen a fish or something,
because suddenly Jonah reared up and I found myself in Tispaquin Pond, a very
cold Tispaquin Pond. Jonah instantly
calmed down, took another sip of the water and then turned his head and gave me
a most quizzical look, as if to say “Why are you sitting in the pond? Isn’t it cold?”
“Thanks you moron,” I said as I laughed
and climbed back aboard. “Actually, I’m
the moron, because I’m wet and you are not.
Come on, let’s go home.” I then
took him back up the street to his barn and tucked him away, with barely enough
time to dry myself off and get to dinner.
I loved that horse. Think Mr. Ed and Wilbur in the great old
television show. And, I loved taking
care of him. In fact, do you know what
my favorite task was? It was mucking out
his stall! That’s right! Cleaning out his stall!
My first church had many fine people in it
but it had had a history of some struggles which continue to this day. I was actually the third minister in 10 years,
and since I left there they have had several more. Sadly, that is not all that uncommon for
Protestant Churches. We are so blessed
here to be a happy church where people work together and love one another, as
is commanded, by the way, not requested but commanded by our dear Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. Indeed, Jesus says
to us repeatedly, “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Anyway, one of the reasons that I loved
mucking out the stall was to relieve tension, indeed it was, next to sailing,
(oops, I said the S word!) the best stress reliever I ever experienced. With Jonah we did what is called “rough
board,” which meant that we did all the care for our horse, and just rented out
the stall. We rented a stall in a tiny
little barn that was part of a former dairy farm and had a great big pasture
for Jonah to hang out in. So, every day,
on my way to work, I would turn Jonah out to the pasture; that is, I would open
the barn day, put Jonah’s lead rope on him, open his stall door and simply lead
him out to his pasture.
At the end of the day, I would usually go
to the barn right from the office. I’d
take off my suit jacket and my clerical collar (in those day’s, having only recently
been ordained, I practically wore my collar on my pajamas!) and grab the
shovel, clean up the stall, and shovel in clean wood shavings. I’d then fill Jonah’s water bucket, pour two
coffee cans full of sweet feed into his feed dish and put a flake, a square
chunk of hay, into his hay manger. Then,
I’d simply open the pasture gate and push the wheel barrow of dirty bedding out
to the bedding pile in the pasture. By
this point Jonah would be my side, nuzzling me.
“Hold your horses, ha, ha,” I’d say.
“Let me put the wheel barrow away and then I’ll come for you.”
I wouldn’t even bother to put Jonah’s lead
on him to bring him into his stall.
Instead, I’d put the wheel away and simply open the pasture gate again,
and Jonah would walk right across the twenty or so feet of yard to the barn and
right into his stall.
Sometimes, after he had finished eating, I’d
put his halter on him, bring him out of the stall and cross-tie him in the
middle of the barn, clipping one end of a sort of horse leash which was
attached to the wall on each side of his halter. Then, I would give him a good grooming,
brushing him and combing his wavy mane and long, flowing tail. Oh, did I love that horse, especially taking
care of him.
So, what does Jonah, and my care of him,
have to do with today’s Gospel Reading, John 14:5-14? Well, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through Me.” John 14:6
You know, Jonah was a wonderful
horse. Ed, the retired dairy farmer from
whom we rented Jonah’s barn, said Jonah was one of the smartest, gentlest, and most
well-mannered horses he had ever seen.
And Ed was a horseman; he had had many horses over the years.
Well, Jonah could do a lot of things; he
was, as I said, real smart, he was real gentle; he was a delight to have, to
ride and to play with. Indeed, he could
do a lot of things. However, he
somehow never learned how to climb a fence gate. He somehow never learned how to muck out his
own stall. He couldn’t brush himself,
feed himself or clean the mud and muck out of his hooves. Instead, for all of these tasks to be
completed, he needed me. He needed me
and he depended on me to take care of him and to meet all of his needs.
Well, I have to confess that one day, I
let Jonah down. I let Jonah down and
didn’t take care of him the way I should.
I had gone hiking for a few days in
Now, I wasn’t too worried about doing this
to Jonah. After all, it was a beautiful
September night and there was still plenty of green grass for grazing in the
pasture. Horses are herbivores, they
live on grass, and horse feed is really more of a supplement. Therefore, I thought to myself, one night out
on the range wouldn’t hurt him, indeed, he might enjoy himself. After all, horses were once, once, that’s the
operative word once, wild animals. They
were outside all the time! So it would
be no big deal if I left him out just one night.
Now, to be fair to myself, we often did
leave Jonah out during the good weather, but we did this when we were at our
house, only a block from the barn. But
tonight, I would not be around, and neither was Martha. I had called her from
Well, I’ll never forget waking up in the
middle of the night to a brilliant flash of lightening and a loud crash of
thunder. “Jonah!”
I said to Martha. “Oh no,” she said, “We
didn’t turn him in!”
Early the next morning, as I was brushing
a somewhat damp horse, I heard the sound of Ed’s golf cart and braced myself
for what I knew was coming. “Reverend,”
Ed said. Ed always called me Reverend
when he was mad at me. “Reverend, how would you have liked to have spent last
night out in the rain during that storm?”
“I know, Ed,” I replied, “We were up in
“Reverend,” Ed stated firmly, “When you
have a horse, you have to take care of him.”
With that he drove off and I felt about an inch high.
Well again, Jonah could do many things,
but he couldn’t climb a fence and neither can you; the fence that is death
and separation from God.
I took pretty good care of Jonah but I
once let him down. God, however, takes
excellent care of us and will never let us down. Again, God takes excellent care of us and
will never let us down. Rather, He is ALWAYS
THERE FOR US, He is ALWAYS NEAR, He will NEVER LEAVE
US OR FORSAKE US. There is a wonderful
Scripture verse that tells us this truth so well, “See, I will never leave or
forsake thee, because I have carved thee on the palm of My Hand.” (Isaiah 49:16)
God promises that He will always take care
of us, He never lets us down, He never forgets us or
makes us wait for care.
And, like I USUALLY took great pains to
provide for Jonah, God provides for us by preparing a place for us, right with
Him, right in glory, right in heaven, forever.
In last week’s sermon, we heard the
wonderful words of John 14:1-4: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it
were not so, I would have told you. I am
going there to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you
to be with me that you also may be where I am.
You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Jonah couldn’t climb a fence to get out of
the rain. He was totally dependant upon
me. The only way he could get into a
lovely warm stall, with fresh water, lots of hay, yummy sweet feed and a comfortable
bed of shavings was if I first of all prepared the nice place for him, and
secondly went and opened the gate for him.
Jesus has prepared a place for us,
heaven, and the only way we can get there is if He opens the gate, and He has,
by His death on the Cross for our sin.
There is no other way, no other way under heaven
or on earth by which one can be saved from death and judgment, than by faith in
Jesus Christ. Did you hear that? Let me say it again as I have said it before
and will say it again and again.
There is no other way under heaven or
on earth by which one can be saved from death and judgment than by faith in
Jesus Christ.
Jesus, the only way? What about all those good Jews and Muslims,
one might ask? Well, the answer is that
there are no good Jews or good Muslims.
AND there are no good Protestants or Catholics or Orthodox or
Scientologists or any one else. For all,
and hear this, for all of us, ALL OF US, have sinned and have fallen short of
the glory of God, have fallen short of what God created us to be. Therefore, there is NO righteousness in us,
none at all.
All of us are lost, all of us are sinners,
all of us would be doomed if it were not for the blood of Jesus. Do you believe that?
Last year, a mine shaft collapsed, I
believe it was in
Yet, in our incredibly affluent, yet
morally bankrupt and incredibly cruel world, a world that is dying, how is it
that so many people seek every other way they can find to peace, joy,
fulfillment and salvation than God’s way?; God’s way which is faith in Jesus
Christ, His only begotten Son?
John 14:5-6 says this, and this quote
follows the one we just heard from Jesus:
“Thomas said to him (Jesus), ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going,
so how can we know the way.’
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the
truth and the life. No one comes to
the Father except through me.”
Today’s Gospel features Thomas. Thomas is my favorite disciple of them
all. He seems so real! He doubted.
Don’t we? Yet he came to
Jesus. Have you?
Only through Jesus can we know the way to
God. By uniting our lives with His, we
are united with God. Trust Jesus to take
you to heaven and all of the benefits of God will be yours today.
To say that Jesus is the only way to the
Father, to heaven, sounds narrow, but it is in fact wide enough for the whole
world! Instead of worrying about how
limited this sounds, as so many people do, we should instead be saying, ‘Thank
God’ there is a way to heaven!
In His Name. Amen.