"The World is Healed One Act at a Time"
Matthew 25:31-46
Rev. Dr. Bruce Epperly, Westmoreland UCC
July 20, 2025
One of America’s greatest spiritual leaders, Howard Thurman, dedicates his autobiography, With Head and Heart, “To the stranger in the railroad station in Daytona Beach who restored my broken dream sixty-five years ago.”
As a rising first-year high school student in Daytona Beach,Florida, Thurman discovered that only three high schools in Florida admitted African American students. He would have to live with one of his relatives in Jacksonville to continue his education. When the time came to leave for Jacksonville, Thurman walked to the station dragging with him a big trunk with only a rope for a handle. When he arrived at the station, ticket in hand, the station master told him that he couldn’t carry the trunk aboard because it lacked a proper handle. He would have to put it in the baggage section which required a storage fee that the young student lacked. Heartbroken and hopeless, his dreams shattered, young Thurman sat down on the steps of the railroad station and began to cry. After a few moments, he looked to find a man’s face staring at him. A working man, “dressed in overalls and a denim cap.” As he looked at Thurman, he rolled a cigarette, lit it, and then exclaimed, “Boy, what are you crying about?” When Thurman explained his predicament, the man took Thurman to the agent and asked, “How much does it take to send this boy’s trunk to Jacksonville?” He took out his rawhide bag, counted some money, and gave it to the agent. “Then,” as Thurman relates, “without a word, he disappeared down the railroad track. I never saw him again.”
Jewish mysticism, according to Abraham Joshua Heschel, asserts that when you save a soul, it’s as if you saved the universe. When you destroy a soul, it’s as if you destroyed the universe. I take a shorter view of the relationship of time and salvation: the world is saved one moment and action at a time. Each encounter we have – each word we speak – advances or stalls the spiritual and moral arcs of the universe in their aim toward justice. Just one look, one word, one action, one touch, can be a tipping point between life and death for a person or a nation.
Several years after the railroad incident, Thurman enrolledin the historically black Morehouse College. Thurman recalls a balm in Gilead, when President John Hope addressed young African American men, living in the era of Jim Crow, as “young gentlemen.” In Thurman’s words, “What this term of respect meant to our faltering egos can only be understood against the backdrop of the South in the 1920’s. We were black men in Atlanta during a period in which the state of Georgia was infamous for its racial brutality. Lynchings, burnings, unspeakable cruelties were the fundamentals for black people.” In a time in which African Americans were constantly berated,“no wonder every time Dr. Hope addressed us as ‘young gentlemen,’ the seeds of self-worth and confidence, long dormant, began to germinate and sprout.”
Just one word can change a young person’s life. Just a word of respect or praise can awaken self-respect and give birth to dreams of a more abundant life.
As you have done unto the least of these, my brothers and sisters, your brothers and sisters, your kin, the bone of your bone, the flesh of your flesh, all creatures great and small, you have done unto me. Just one little act can change a life. Just a smile or touch can heal the spirit.
The Prayer of Jesus says let God’s realm come on earth as it is in heaven. God’s realm is the world of Shalom in which Christ greets us in every face, and as Pelagius says, in every newborn we can see the face of God.
Small acts can lead to great results! Meteorologists note that a butterfly flapping its wings in Pacific Grove, California, can impact the weather in Bethesda, MD. Prayers here at Westmoreland can play a role in calming the environment in Washington DC or sooth and energize cells and souls of persons in crisis. We can, in each moment – as Mother (Saint) Teresa says – do something beautiful for God.
God is not far off. Nor is God apathetic. What we do matters to God. Not in a transactional way but in a relational way. The One to Whom All Hearts are Open and All Desires Known is touched by every event. God feels our pain, suffering with us, and delights in our achievement, celebrating alongsideus. God says to each of us: you are my beloved child, and you can do this – you can face your fears, you can keep calm when everyone’s lost their composure, you can stand up to tyrants knowing that God has your back.
More than that, as Theresa of Avila says, we are the hands and feet of God. We are also voice of God, speaking words of healing and love. The ears of God empathizing with pain. The energy of God enlivening and enlightening cells and souls. The incarnation of God pointing a pathway to hope and wholeness. Our vocation is to be God’s companions in healing the world one act, one community, one congregation at a time. This church is God’s Incarnation: in our fallibility and uncertainty, we have a task to be God’s companions in saving the world by faithfulness, generosity, and commitment to stand for justice and companion the vulnerable.
Even the least of us, the weary among us, can do something beautiful for God, raising spirits, opening the doors to possibility, and healing broken hearts and nations. The mystic activist Dorothy Day, as she aged, could no longer physically protest injustice. Yet, she did not give up heart, “I can still pray,” she proclaimed. We may seem small to the outsider, and some of us may have lost a step in physical ability, but we can still pray.
What if everyone here committed a time each day to pray for justice, peace, and healing of the soul of our nation, of Israel and Gaza, of famine in Africa, for the conversion of heart of our nation’s and world’s leaders. What if ten million open spirited people of faith committed to shining a light on the world in thoughts and deeds. The tyrants would tremble, the poor would be uplifted, and the marginalized would receive the affirmation they need.
Our prayers, our acts, our thoughts, our empathy, provide an environment in which God can be more active in the incarnation of the moral and spiritual arcs in our nation and our planet.
Leo Tolstoy penned a short story, “Where Love Is, God Is” about a shoemaker Martin Avdeitch. A widower, whose children had also died, Martin lived in a basement apartment, which also served as his workshop. Through this window he could see only the feet of people, most of whom he could recognize by their shoes.
Each evening Martin read his Bible. One night he read the story of a Pharisee who judged the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet and felt that he was like that pharisee, only living for himself. As nodded off to sleep, he thought he heard God’s voice, whispering “tomorrow I will visit you.”
Throughout the day, Martin kept his eyes peeled for God’s visitation. He observed an old man shoveling snow, trying to earn a meager living, and invited him in for tea and conversation.
Later Martin observed a young woman with her baby, not properly dressed for the frigid cold. Her husband was in the military, and she was on her way to his parents’ home. He invited her in for a meal, gave her his wife’s coat and sent her off with money for the journey. As dusk descended, he saw a boy struggling to free himself from the clutches of an older lady, from whom he had stolen an apple, from her street stand. He paid for the fruit and spoke kind words to the angry merchant and the hungry child, who walked off together, reconciled.
Night fell, and still no Jesus. Martin wondered why God had not visited him. Then, in his reverie, he saw three figures to whom he had shown hospitality, and heard the words, “as you
have done unto the least of these, you have done unto me.” Surely, God had come in the face of the stranger, the vulnerable, the young, and aged. Surely God has come to you today – even here at church.
Yes, the world is saved one moment at a time. Chaos is stilled by a calm spirit and a word of love. Healing mediated by a comforting touch, and the flow of divine energy. One light can illuminate the darkness and help a lost soul find their way home. And so, let your light shine, let your spirit heal, let your hands strengthen, and your generosity transform. From one little light, we see Jesus in the other and share in the dawning of God’s world of Shalom. And so let us sing:
This little light of mine
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Everywhere I go,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Everywhere I go,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Everywhere I go,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Jesus gave it to me
I’m gonna let it shine.
Jesus gave it to me
I’m gonna let it shine.
Jesus gave it to me,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Amen.
