Scriptures for Sunday, July 6, 2019
Psalm 30
2 Kings 5:1-14
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

My friend Don Clatterbuck died on Monday afternoon, and his family is following his wish to have Rev. Jim Harris, Rev Joel Robinette, and me take part in his funeral, this Saturday.  Jim’s brother Paul was a resident of Keezletown’s CoHope School, where Nancy and her mother and I worked.  That was also where I met Don, who was a day-student— always the first to get in the van in the morning and the last to be dropped off at his home near Penn Laird each evening.  Don’s family and the Harris family were longtime pillars of Keezletown United Methodist Church.  Don was always faithful to his home church, and Joel comes latest in a long line of Don’s pastors there.
If you have heard me speak at Bethel, over these dozen or so years, you will have heard about Don.  You may have met him in person, too!  He attended services at Bethel at least twice: once when I was ordained, and one Sunday morning during this past year.  (There may have been one other occasion.)  I could not fail to mention Don in sermons and conversation, because he has been such an inspiration and teacher to me for over thirty years.
 
In the category of Inspiration, here’s the bottom line: If Don could achieve so much, love so many people and profoundly touch their lives, without being able to use his hands, feet, or a clear voice, what’s my excuse ?  I started working with Don and the other CoHope people in order to make a little money to feed and house our little family.  That crass and worldly impulse threw me into the light of amazing spiritual grace: Inspiration.  Don and several of the CoHope folks were born into Cerebral Palsy, a condition in which the person’s brain cannot control their muscles.  Other CoHope people were dealing with Muscular Dystrophy and Polio, which caused them to experience similar symptoms.  Being close to Don and the others gave me a front-row seat to the battle of the ages, in which the spirit strives to master the flesh.  I don’t have words to explain why I was especially drawn to Don— other folks were more drawn to other CoHope people— but in Don we found a mighty warrior whose strength was in the spirit.  
Inspiration: when the spirit triumphs and takes control from the inside.
 
When Jesus sent his disciples on their first mission experience without him along, he told them, “Whoever listens to you listens to me,
   and whoever rejects you rejects me,
   and whoever rejects me
            rejects the One who sent me.”
                                                  - Luke 10:16

So then there is the category of Teaching.  In good teaching, Inspiration is applied to the real circumstances of life.  With Don in my life, it wasn’t that Don explained a lot of information to me: rather, he applied Inspiration to his own life and he enlisted me (and dozens of other co-conspirators) in turning his dreams and schemes into realities.  He didn’t know everything, nor did he know how to do everything— but he did apply himself and all the resources he could muster, over and over again, to accomplishing his goals.  Whether it was raising funds for Relay for Life or pulling out the stump of a tree he no longer liked, Don found ways to make things happen.  He didn’t make the candy Eater eggs or drive the tractor, but he persuaded others to use their resources alongside him to get things done.  Even when I knew that Don was mistaken about facts or processes, his drive carried me along to apply my own knowledge, my circle of friends, money, transportation, etc., to his chosen task.  So Don’s teaching operated on a high level, getting the learner to grow in creativity and resourcefulness.
 
Don came up in a different world, when people who have disabilities were kept out of public goods such as schooling and access to buildings.  For the sake of humanity and the nurture of every person, I will work so that we never go back to those bad old days.  But I thank God that, in spite of all the unjust barriers, Don was surrounded by plucky, gritty people who made ways out of no way.  They set up special schools, invented wheelchairs and walkers and ramps and lifts and many other tools of accessibility, turning the impossible into the routine.  Along the way, Don himself became a model of godly spirit, pluck and grit.  We will be blessed if we meet more folks like him.  They are around.                                       My friend Don Clatterbuck died on Monday afternoon, and his family is following his wish to have Rev. Jim Harris, Rev Joel Robinette, and me take part in his funeral, this Saturday.  Jim’s brother Paul was a resident of Keezletown’s CoHope School, where Nancy and her mother and I worked.  That was also where I met Don, who was a day-student— always the first to get in the van in the morning and the last to be dropped off at his home near Penn Laird each evening.  Don’s family and the Harris family were longtime pillars of Keezletown United Methodist Church.  Don was always faithful to his home church, and Joel comes latest in a long line of Don’s pastors there.
If you have heard me speak at Bethel, over these dozen or so years, you will have heard about Don.  You may have met him in person, too!  He attended services at Bethel at least twice: once when I was ordained, and one Sunday morning during this past year.  (There may have been one other occasion.)  I could not fail to mention Don in sermons and conversation, because he has been such an inspiration and teacher to me for over thirty years.
 
In the category of Inspiration, here’s the bottom line: If Don could achieve so much, love so many people and profoundly touch their lives, without being able to use his hands, feet, or a clear voice, what’s my excuse ?  I started working with Don and the other CoHope people in order to make a little money to feed and house our little family.  That crass and worldly impulse threw me into the light of amazing spiritual grace: Inspiration.  Don and several of the CoHope folks were born into Cerebral Palsy, a condition in which the person’s brain cannot control their muscles.  Other CoHope people were dealing with Muscular Dystrophy and Polio, which caused them to experience similar symptoms.  Being close to Don and the others gave me a front-row seat to the battle of the ages, in which the spirit strives to master the flesh.  I don’t have words to explain why I was especially drawn to Don— other folks were more drawn to other CoHope people— but in Don we found a mighty warrior whose strength was in the spirit.  
Inspiration: when the spirit triumphs and takes control from the inside.
 
When Jesus sent his disciples on their first mission experience without him along, he told them, “Whoever listens to you listens to me,
   and whoever rejects you rejects me,
   and whoever rejects me
rejects the One who sent me.”
- Luke 10:16
So then there is the category of Teaching.  In good teaching, Inspiration is applied to the real circumstances of life.  With Don in my life, it wasn’t that Don explained a lot of information to me: rather, he applied Inspiration to his own life and he enlisted me (and dozens of other co-conspirators) in turning his dreams and schemes into realities.  He didn’t know everything, nor did he know how to do everything— but he did apply himself and all the resources he could muster, over and over again, to accomplishing his goals.  Whether it was raising funds for Relay for Life or pulling out the stump of a tree he no longer liked, Don found ways to make things happen.  He didn’t make the candy Eater eggs or drive the tractor, but he persuaded others to use their resources alongside him to get things done.  Even when I knew that Don was mistaken about facts or processes, his drive carried me along to apply my own knowledge, my circle of friends, money, transportation, etc., to his chosen task.  So Don’s teaching operated on a high level, getting the learner to grow in creativity and resourcefulness.
 
Don came up in a different world, when people who have disabilities were kept out of public goods such as schooling and access to buildings.  For the sake of humanity and the nurture of every person, I will work so that we never go back to those bad old days.  But I thank God that, in spite of all the unjust barriers, Don was surrounded by plucky, gritty people who made ways out of no way.  They set up special schools, invented wheelchairs and walkers and ramps and lifts and many other tools of accessibility, turning the impossible into the routine.  Along the way, Don himself became a model of godly spirit, pluck and grit.  We will be blessed if we meet more folks like him.  They are around.
“Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this,
   that the spirits submit to you,
   but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
                                    - Luke 10:20