Terry Paul Choyce
June 15, 2008, Brunswick Street United Church
Today is Father's Day. I have decided to talk about a feature of fathering, which is responsibility. Of course, we all need to be responsible, whether we have children or not, whether we are men, or not. But, when a person decides to become a parent, the amount and intensity of responsibility multiplies greatly. And we must be responsible not only for our children, but for ourselves, and for making the world the best place possible for all of us.
One of the most responsible Canadians I can think of is Dr. David Suzuki. He is a famous scientist and television personality. His main passion for the last 30 years has been to make us aware of how beautiful and magnificent nature is, and also how fragile and threatened it has become as a result of pollution, over-consumption, the population explosion, and gross neglect and abuse of our natural resources. His outlook for our future is very bleak unless we all take responsibility now for how we live our individual lives, and how we teach our children and others about caring for this planet. We must all learn to use less fossil fuel and buy products which are good for the environment in how they are created, how they are used, and how they are disposed of. We must make sure that big businesses and governments adhere to environmental practices which are healthy to the earth, not destructive. We must clean up what has already been made a wasteland by our greed and ignorance. If we do not take responsibility for how we live now, our children will inherit a very toxic planet.
Grace Beazeley lent me this book last week, Six Degrees of Dignity by David W. Shannon. Mr. Shannon was born and raised in NS and was quite the athlete. He represented the province in the 1981 Canada Games on the rugby team. Then at the age of 18, on Sept. 23,1981, while playing rugby at the University of Waterloo, he was tackled and his neck was broken. David was left a quadriplegic. But in a wheel chair he went back to university and then to law school at Dal, and then he got his graduate law degree at London School of Economics and Political Science.
Mr. Shannon has become a strong advocate for the rights of those with disabilities. He says that there are 600 million disabled people world-wide, 80% of them in developing countries. The vast majority of these people live with daily prejudice and denial of their basic human rights. This is true even in Canada. From buildings which are inaccessible, to jobs which are denied to people unfairly, to social apathy and even cruelty, disabled people struggle every day for their dignity and often, for their very lives.
As a way to promote the potential of the disabled, Dave Shannon drove his electric wheel chair across Canada in 1997. He covered 9,000 kilometres in 197 days. He wrote "The cross-Canada tour was a physical journey, and also a metaphor for the potential of persons with disability: that denial of dignity and equality is primarily a matter of perception, not a tangible merit. The value of an individual should be measured by the existence of one's spirit, not the difference of one's physicality." Today David is very active in making sure the rights of the disabled are respected, and that new laws and new attitudes will make life much better for them all.
In our New Testament reading today, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. In those times foot washing occurred often, but it was done by servants, children, or women. For Jesus to wash the feet of his disciples was a message to them of their importance, and how much he honoured them. And I think it was a message to them that they would soon have the responsibility of taking his word out into the world. He knew he would be dead in a few days, and he needed to symbolically empower his followers to follow in his footsteps. Those 11 men were to go out and tell others about the love of God, and of how they were to love and care for all people. Jesus instructed them to wash each other's feet, which I interpret as being like servants to each other and helping each other in every way. He emphasised the equality of all people, which in those days was a very new concept. Jesus took on the responsibility of making the ultimate sacrifice of his life, so that humans would eventually come to realise that each of us is a valuable part of God, and we are all responsible for each other.
I want to tell you another example of a man who took Jesus's message very seriously, and dedicated his life to making life better for others. Murray Abraham grew up in Nova Scotia. When he was 15 he entered a Jesuit training program. In 1954 he was ordained and sent to a school in northern India, as head master.
One day the wall of the school collapsed. This was an extremely poor town, and the people were often hungry, and they had little education. The government did not think educating the peasants was necessary. So Father Abraham returned to Nova Scotia to further his own education, and to fund-raise for the school. He got the idea to ask people to commit the cost of one dessert a week to his school. Many people in the Maritimes did this, and signed a Book of Life to promise to donate money to the school.
Father Abraham returned to India and began work. It took 7 years to construct a new school. In 1968, he became ill and had to return to Canada. Three months later he embarked across Canada to generate more money for the community. With this money he started a poultry farm, to have eggs and meat for the people. This grew to include pigs, and then to purchase farm land. The community flourished, and when the article I read was written, there were 1480 students at the school. And Father Abraham help to create an agricultural college in the town to teach people how to efficiently farm. This one man changed the lives of many thousands of people because of his love of Jesus and his desire to make life better for others.
The men in this sermon dedicated themselves to causes they believe in. They demonstrate what one person can do with determination and faith. Whether it is taking care of our children, our environment, or each other, we can each make a difference. We each have the power to make this world a better place, with the help of God.
