Rob O's Sermon

The work we did on this years mission trip was, in my words “flipping hard”. It’s been nearly two years since hurricane Katrina and there is still much work to be done, and this year Godsquad rose to the challenge and did our part in helping those victims of the hurricane. As I said before, the work we did was very hard and exhausting. Many of us were sore and tired during the first few days of work, but there was also a great sense of satisfaction in the work we did. I discovered this after my first day of work where I gutted part of a house. For those of you who don’t know, gutting is the term that is used when ones house is “systematically” stripped of its walls, ceiling, and everything else, until only the frame is left standing. So our job on this day of work was to rip out the sheetrock walls and ceiling. The work itself was tough: having to pull and rip down sheetrock with a heavy crowbar, but it was really the heat and humidity of New Orleans that caused one to fatigue and tire. Towards the end of our work, our group leader asked for volunteers to pull down the drywall ceiling. I was tired, but I volunteered anyway and proceeded in pulling down the ceiling. Every time we pulled down a piece of drywall, black dirt and debris would come falling down on top of us and when I walked outside after we were done my whole body was caked in a layer dust and dirt and whatever else had been sitting in that ceiling for years. I was tired and very dirty, but I felt like I had done some real work that would be helpful to the people we serviced. Over the next few days of work we gutted, painted and rebuilt more houses and after every day I felt that same sense of satisfaction, that we were doing good work, almost every day of the six days that we worked.
In the reading from Isaiah 1:1-20 God is telling Isaiah that he is frustrated with all of the animal sacrificing and burning of incense that people are doing in his name. The reading is meant to teach us that it doesn’t matter if you go to church every day and praise God or if you sacrifice a hundred bulls in the name of God. What matters is that you are a good person who strives to do good, or as described in Isaiah “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow”. On our trip I discovered that I feel Gods presence much more when I am doing good deeds like gutting houses and painting, than when I’m at church. I’m going to be honest with you. I usually only come when I am called to acolyte, but I would rather be showing my spirituality by getting caked in dirt than by sitting in a pew any day.