Scripture: Acts 28:1-10
REMEMBERING AN OLD YOUTH CAMP
Following World War I, visionary people associated with the City Missionary Society of Boston, Massachusetts established what came to be known as Camp Waldron. Young people from all over New England attended summer activities there for some seventy years. Last year, however, it was closed, and the land bulldozed to make room for expensive homes. Though the camp itself no longer exists, the experiences shared by those who spent their summers do still exist. Harold Putnam, born in 1916, was one of the young people who spent almost every summer there for nine years. He cherishes the experiences associated with Camp Waldron. When he was a youth, the news of his local church was distributed from house to house by messengers; Harold was one of those messengers. His reward for doing that work was to go to Camp Waldron. It was there that he met his buddy, Pete Knight, from Dartmouth College, who became his canoe mate. Pete was instrumental in Harold going to Dartmouth where he received the education that placed him in a favorable position for getting his career job at the Boston Globe.
Although Camp Waldron no longer exists as a place, it does exist as an experience. As a good steward of the experience, Harold cherishes all that it represents which has so significantly enriched his life both personally and professionally. He sees the importance of the seemingly minor experiences of life.
Those who are not good stewards of experiences, overlook their significance. They pass by on the other side of a thousand experiences every day—opportunities for growth, opportunities for enrichment; opportunities for service; opportunities for joy.
REMEMBERING BEING STRANGERS ON AN ISLAND
In Acts 28:1-10, Luke, the author, tells about being at sea with the apostle Paul on his way to Rome when their ship was wrecked by a storm. They ended up on the island of Malta. Beginning with verse 2, Luke says: “The natives showed us unusual kindness. Since it had begun to rain and was cold, they kindled a fire and welcomed all of us around it. 3>Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, when a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand.”
Luke goes ahead to say that when Paul shook it off without being hurt, they were so impressed that they thought that he was a god. Continuing his story in verse 7, he writes: “Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the leading man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days. 8>It so happened that the father of Publius lay sick in bed with fever and dysentery. Paul visited him and cured him by praying and putting his hands on him. 9>After this happened, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. 10>They bestowed many honors on us, and when we were about to sail, they put on board all the provisions we needed.”1
I call your attention to three features of this account:
CHERISHING OUR EXPERIENCES
First, he cherished enough of the details of the story to make it interesting. He tells us about it being rainy and cold; that’s why they built a fire. He tells us about spending three days in the home of Publius the leading man of the island. He tells us that the father of Publius was sick in bed with a fever and dysentery. Luke tells just enough of the details for us to get the picture without boring us with too much.
Earlier this year, while a guest in the home of Chuck and Lucy Harter who live near Columbia City, Indiana, Chuck began telling me about an experience he had had as a young man. His teen-age daughter immediately interjected, “O, I like this story.” Obviously she had heard it many times before and had grown to appreciate it.
The stories of our lives are the word pictures we paint of our experiences. Some are pleasant; others are painful, but all of them together form the texture of our lives. The story told at the dinner table in Columbia City that Sunday afternoon was a mixture of pain and pleasure. As Chuck told it, giving some details, but not so many that we lost interest in the big picture, I could tell that not only was he cherishing the experience once again, but that his wife and daughter were too. It had become their story, as well. It was an experience which though it belonged originally to Chuck Harter, now belongs to the rest of the family, as well. If any thing happens to him so that he can no longer tell the story, I’m quite sure that his wife and daughter will continue cherishing the experience so that they can tell it too. All of them are acting as good stewards of the experience. They see it as part of the texture of what it means to be members of the Chuck and Lucy Harter family, and they cherish it.
So with Luke. He saw Paul’s experience as part of the texture what it means to be members of the Christian community, and he cherished it.
RECORDING OUR EXPERIENCES
Second, Luke recorded the experience of being on Malta. Consequently, those living in a far different time and space, can, nevertheless, enter into what happened there some two thousand years ago. Literally millions of people have heard about the hospitality of the natives of Malta and about the healings that took place there. We know about it not because Malta was such an important place. We know about it not because Publius was a world renowned leader. We know about it because Luke exercised good stewardship of the experience by recording it.
Not many of us will ever write books about our experiences, or have articles published. But most of us can write letters. I have the practice of writing a letter to our four children once a week. Since I began this in December of 1988 when our oldest son moved into his own house, to date, he alone has received 408 letters, to say nothing about the letters to the younger children as they too left home base. It’s amazing how many stories get recorded in the course of a year in that many one-page letters.
Until recently I wondered whether any of them kept the letters. When our daughter Anne was moving home from college last summer, Darlene commented about her having so much stuff to move. “In fact,” Darlene asked me, “are you aware that she has kept every one of your weekly letters, and that we have to move those, too?” Well, no, I wasn’t aware that she was keeping all of them but I admit that I was glad to hear it even though it means more stuff to move around.
But letter writing is only one way of exercising good stewardship of our experiences. Another is to keep a daily journal. It doesn’t have to be long, perhaps only three or four lines each day at the end of the day.
Other people, having a poetic flare, write poems about heir experiences. Others paint pictures. Others take snap shots or make videos and tapes. I remember Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary saying once, “You can take all the snap shots you want; I prefer my tape recordings.” There are many ways to record our experiences. Luke exercised his stewardship by writing. Thank God he wrote.
CELEBRATING THE GRACE OF GOD IN OUR EXPERIENCES
Third, Luke celebrated the grace of God in the experiences they had on Malta. He celebrated God’s protecting grace by telling about Paul suffering no harm from the viper that came out of the fire. He celebrated God’s healing grace by telling about the father of Publius and others being cured. More casual observers would have found it easy to leave the miraculous out of the picture. They would have had plenty to talk about without saying anything about the miraculous. They could have talked about what Publius looked like, or about the furnishings in his house, or about the food served. But Luke was attuned to the divine drama, taking place. His eyes were open to see God at work in the unusual circumstances in which they found themselves.
Ron Coody, an ecologist in Kazakstan, tells about the time recently when he, his family and others thought they were going to have to leave the country for lack of visas. When finally their visas were extended for another six months, Ron realized that the hand of God was in the distressful experiences. He writes: “This dry, dusty land, sparsely populated but very needy, is watching us, to see what we will do now that we have finally been given six more months to live and work here. It is important that we become a component of the community, which is an asset, not merely neutral, or even a liability. Our aim now is to be an asset through more direct assistance to the Kazaks by digging wells, funding medical equipment and projects and working to bring in western investment.”
Ron Coody, in the uncertainties of being at the mercy of Kazakstanian officials, experienced the grace of new opportunities for service. He saw the hand of God at work in the unusual circumstances of their lives. Instead of lamenting their plight, he and his colleagues discovered the hand of God in the midst of it. They are cherishing the opportunity to tell the story; they are writing about it so that others can profit from it; they see evidences of the grace of God at work in the experiences, painful though they were. They are committed to being good stewards of their experiences.
YOU AND YOUR OWN EXPERIENCES
You, too, have all sorts of experiences. Are you a good steward of them? No one else in the universe has exactly the same experiences you have. You can be a good steward of them by cherishing the opportunity to tell about them and by recording them and by celebrating the grace of God at work in and through them. You, my dear listener, are rich with experiences. Handle your riches with care, my friend, and see what God will do with them.
PRAYER
Let us pray:
Gracious Lord of the experiences of life, grant to us the inspiration of your Holy Spirit that we may be good stewards of all that happens to us. Grant to us the desire to cherish all that makes us and not somebody else, the willingness to record our experiences, and the insight to see your hand at work in them. This we ask in the name of Christ, our Lord. Amen.
1 New Revised Standard Version used here and throughout.
First, he cherished enough of the details of the story to make it interesting. He tells us about it being rainy and cold; that’s why they built a fire. He tells us about spending three days in the home of Publius the leading man of the island. He tells us that the father of Publius was sick in bed with a fever and dysentery. Luke tells just enough of the details for us to get the picture without boring us with too much.
Earlier this year, while a guest in the home of Chuck and Lucy Harter who live near Columbia City, Indiana, Chuck began telling me about an experience he had had as a young man. His teen-age daughter immediately interjected, “O, I like this story.” Obviously she had heard it many times before and had grown to appreciate it.
The stories of our lives are the word pictures we paint of our experiences. Some are pleasant; others are painful, but all of them together form the texture of our lives. The story told at the dinner table in Columbia City that Sunday afternoon was a mixture of pain and pleasure. As Chuck told it, giving some details, but not so many that we lost interest in the big picture, I could tell that not only was he cherishing the experience once again, but that his wife and daughter were too. It had become their story, as well. It was an experience which though it belonged originally to Chuck Harter, now belongs to the rest of the family, as well. If any thing happens to him so that he can no longer tell the story, I’m quite sure that his wife and daughter will continue cherishing the experience so that they can tell it too. All of them are acting as good stewards of the experience. They see it as part of the texture of what it means to be members of the Chuck and Lucy Harter family, and they cherish it.
So with Luke. He saw Paul’s experience as part of the texture what it means to be members of the Christian community, and he cherished it.
RECORDING OUR EXPERIENCES
Second, Luke recorded the experience of being on Malta. Consequently, those living in a far different time and space, can, nevertheless, enter into what happened there some two thousand years ago. Literally millions of people have heard about the hospitality of the natives of Malta and about the healings that took place there. We know about it not because Malta was such an important place. We know about it not because Publius was a world renowned leader. We know about it because Luke exercised good stewardship of the experience by recording it.
Not many of us will ever write books about our experiences, or have articles published. But most of us can write letters. I have the practice of writing a letter to our four children once a week. Since I began this in December of 1988 when our oldest son moved into his own house, to date, he alone has received 408 letters, to say nothing about the letters to the younger children as they too left home base. It’s amazing how many stories get recorded in the course of a year in that many one-page letters.
Until recently I wondered whether any of them kept the letters. When our daughter Anne was moving home from college last summer, Darlene commented about her having so much stuff to move. “In fact,” Darlene asked me, “are you aware that she has kept every one of your weekly letters, and that we have to move those, too?” Well, no, I wasn’t aware that she was keeping all of them but I admit that I was glad to hear it even though it means more stuff to move around.
But letter writing is only one way of exercising good stewardship of our experiences. Another is to keep a daily journal. It doesn’t have to be long, perhaps only three or four lines each day at the end of the day.
Other people, having a poetic flare, write poems about heir experiences. Others paint pictures. Others take snap shots or make videos and tapes. I remember Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary saying once, “You can take all the snap shots you want; I prefer my tape recordings.” There are many ways to record our experiences. Luke exercised his stewardship by writing. Thank God he wrote.
CELEBRATING THE GRACE OF GOD IN OUR EXPERIENCES
Third, Luke celebrated the grace of God in the experiences they had on Malta. He celebrated God’s protecting grace by telling about Paul suffering no harm from the viper that came out of the fire. He celebrated God’s healing grace by telling about the father of Publius and others being cured. More casual observers would have found it easy to leave the miraculous out of the picture. They would have had plenty to talk about without saying anything about the miraculous. They could have talked about what Publius looked like, or about the furnishings in his house, or about the food served. But Luke was attuned to the divine drama, taking place. His eyes were open to see God at work in the unusual circumstances in which they found themselves.
Ron Coody, an ecologist in Kazakstan, tells about the time recently when he, his family and others thought they were going to have to leave the country for lack of visas. When finally their visas were extended for another six months, Ron realized that the hand of God was in the distressful experiences. He writes: “This dry, dusty land, sparsely populated but very needy, is watching us, to see what we will do now that we have finally been given six more months to live and work here. It is important that we become a component of the community, which is an asset, not merely neutral, or even a liability. Our aim now is to be an asset through more direct assistance to the Kazaks by digging wells, funding medical equipment and projects and working to bring in western investment.”
Ron Coody, in the uncertainties of being at the mercy of Kazakstanian officials, experienced the grace of new opportunities for service. He saw the hand of God at work in the unusual circumstances of their lives. Instead of lamenting their plight, he and his colleagues discovered the hand of God in the midst of it. They are cherishing the opportunity to tell the story; they are writing about it so that others can profit from it; they see evidences of the grace of God at work in the experiences, painful though they were. They are committed to being good stewards of their experiences.
YOU AND YOUR OWN EXPERIENCES
You, too, have all sorts of experiences. Are you a good steward of them? No one else in the universe has exactly the same experiences you have. You can be a good steward of them by cherishing the opportunity to tell about them and by recording them and by celebrating the grace of God at work in and through them. You, my dear listener, are rich with experiences. Handle your riches with care, my friend, and see what God will do with them.
PRAYER
Let us pray:
Gracious Lord of the experiences of life, grant to us the inspiration of your Holy Spirit that we may be good stewards of all that happens to us. Grant to us the desire to cherish all that makes us and not somebody else, the willingness to record our experiences, and the insight to see your hand at work in them. This we ask in the name of Christ, our Lord. Amen.
1 New Revised Standard Version used here and throughout.
Script 2598 (GWS)
October 13, 1996
SERIES: HANDLE WITH CARE
2. “The Stewardship of Experiences”
Scripture: Acts 28:1-10
October 13, 1996
SERIES: HANDLE WITH CARE
2. “The Stewardship of Experiences”
Scripture: Acts 28:1-10
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