What Can I Do?

"WHAT CAN I DO?" (January 26, 2003)

"And Jesus said to them, 'Follow me and I will make you fish for people.' And immediately they left their nets and followed him." Mark 1:17

It has been said that there is a world of difference between merely existing and really living. You can measure the difference by how we say the same thing. Take, for instance, the four words: what can I do?

On the one hand you can say these words with the tone which says "what can I do", that is, there is really nothing I can do about it. Many today are tempted to respond this way in the light of the events which are thrust upon us. Years ago someone came up with the phrase "compassion fatigue": so much is thrown at us daily that after a while your well of compassion has run dry.

Similarly, we are bombarded with material about which to be worried: the economy, war with Iraq, war with North Korea, now even smallpox. We are truly in a sensory overload situation. We hear of crimes in our city, massacres in foreign countries. We have news 24/7 on CNN and many other telecasts. The load of trouble that is dumped on us daily is incredible. We feel utterly powerless to do anything about it. So the natural thing for many is to shrug their shoulders and say "what can I do?" and crawl into some kind of shell.

But what if we change the emphasis: "what can I do?" Then those four words are completely different. I think part of what the New Testament means by conversion is turning from passive, hopeless, shoulder-shrugging attitude, to the active, hopeful, and believing attitude. In J. B. Phillips' marvelous paraphrase of Romans 12, he writes "do not let the world squeeze you into its mold, but remold the world from within." There is so much today conspiring to squeeze us into the mold of defeatism and pessimism and "what can I do" attitude.

Early in the Bible, in fact in the book of Deuteronomy, there are these words: "God has set before you life and good and blessing and evil. Therefore, choose life…." There are, of course, limits to our choices, as the Bible also makes clear, and it is always within the parameters of God's sovereignty, but on nearly every page from the early stories of the Garden of Eden, there is given to us the responsibility of choice. Much of the Bible is exactly about those early words in Deuteronomy,: choose life, choose true living. Joshua said, "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The prophet Elijah said, "Choose you this day whom you will serve."

When Jesus began calling his disciples he was calling them to choose life: "Follow me," he said. Certainly in our Lord's time on earth there were many reasons for pessimism. The power of Rome was unchallenged, slavery was rampant, wars and conflicts were widespread, people did not feel they mattered for much. But there was Jesus calling people to a new way of life in which they took possession of it and said, "what can I do?"

One of the great powers of Scripture is this timeless message. Even ordinary people do not have to be always victims. They can be overcomers, as St. Paul said.

One person who made the choice of how he was going to say those four words, "what can I do?", was André Trocme, a Protestant pastor in a small village called Le Chambon in France who during World War II saved hundreds of Jews. Trocme came from the tiny minority of Protestants called Huguenots and during World War I his family had been refugees themselves, so he knew what it was to identify with the downtrodden. As a Pastor, he was committed literally to the Sermon on the Mount and that the essence of the Gospel lay in love of God and neighbor and a total commitment to non-violence. When he arrived in Le Chambon with his wife Magda and four children those were the principles he instilled in his people.

With the Fall of France in 1940 it wasn't long before those principles were put to the test. The village became part of Vichy France, but Trocme would not allow it to succumb to the ultrantionalism and chauvinism of the day. And when the order came for the deportation of all Jews, he organized the village's quiet but organized opposition. Le Chambon became a safe haven for thousands of Jews. Trocme and his friends in the presbytery operated right under the noses of the Vichy police and later of the Gestapo themselves. Trocme died in 1971 and shortly after a tree was planted for him in Israel's Holocaust memorial honoring him among the "righteous Gentiles". All because he said, "what can I do?" and he meant it.

Of course, we do not face anything like what André Trocme faced. But we face just as much as he did the temptation to give in, to say there's nothing one person can do, to become apathetic or crawl into our shells. The problems are too big, we are too small. "What can I do?"

Today we have our annual meeting. We hear reports of our church boards, of the different things which have been going on in our church this past year, and we elect people to serve on the board and lead and direct our church. One way of reading these reports is to see that everyone mentioned here in one way or another is answering the question, "What can I do?" not with an apathetic shrug but with a raised hand. The world's problems may be immense, the powers that be may be too formidable all around, but these are people who are saying, OK, I am still going to follow Jesus wherever He calls me.

When people accept these positions in the church I never worry about those who feel they are not worthy or are not up to it. In fact, that is far preferable to the person who feels they can do it on their own. The best attitude is the one which is not full of self-importance but relies on God. Jesus says "I will make you fishers of people…." I will make you a powerful person of prayer. I will make you a talented teacher. I will make you a leader for my people - if you let me. If we follow Christ, if we say "what can I do?", He will make us what we need to be.

Read the reports of the deacons, of the elders, of the trustees, and see what so many people are doing to give their own answer to their own question, "what can I do?" Read what Ken Bell has done to organize the counting program of the Trustees, or Ingrid Anthony and her many cards and visits that she has done for the deacons. Or Irene Balram who not only teaches in the Sunday School every Sunday but also is on the evangelism and church growth committee of the Session.

Read about what Vicky Amritt and the other volunteers with the Hub church program did this year as our church participated in the 9/11 relief effort of the Presbyterian Church by acting as a Hub for people in economic need. Vicky could have said, this problem is too immense, this attack too terrible, there is nothing I can do. She didn't say that. She and the others gave of themselves to help others and without regard to religion, just basic human need.

These and others are answering in their own way the question "What can I do?" and they are answering it not with a shrug of the shoulders but with a raised hand and a willing heart.

Albert Schweitzer wrote these now famous words about the call of Jesus to the disciples by the lakeside:

He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those men who knew him not.

He speaks to us the same word: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks that he has to fulfill for our time.

He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings that they shall pass through in his fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who he is."

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Acknowledgements: David H. C. Read, Curious Christians. Interpreter's Bible. Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood be Shed: The story of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There