Scout Law, Seeds for Men

Transcribed from the sermon preached February 10, 2013

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Matthew 13

 
On my first camp out with the scouts, we went to Anza Borego, which is a big rock, hilly oasis down in the Southern California dessert. We hiked in during the afternoon and everybody was anxious to set up their tents. Four of us were pretty close friends; one got the other three of us to join, so we set up our tents next to each other. That night it rained, and what our two friends hadn’t noticed was that the soft sand they had set up their tent in was a sand bar of the creek. So above the noise of the rain we heard some commotion, the guys were rushing out of their tents after they woke to find a river running through it. We wound up making room in our tent for them, but we surely let them know how dumb they were for setting up their tent in a riverbed.

The scouts is a great organization, and one that provides many opportunities for adventure, learning and fun. Much of the learning is by trial and error. Even though we gave the guys all sorts of trouble for setting up their tent in the riverbed, it could have just as well been us. But not after that trip. You can bet that every scout on that trip always checked for possible problems with their tent placement. Babe Ruth is known as the home run king. But did you know that when he was playing, he had more strikeouts than any other player. Sometimes we are afraid to try things because we are afraid to fail. You don’t strike out if you don’t step up to the plate. You also don’t hit home runs. I think that tells us the first step to bravery, one of the scout laws. You’ve got to step up to the plate, you have got to go on that first trip and set up your tent for the first time, you have to go and plant the seeds to get a harvest. Thoughts and words are just seeds; without putting them into action, they produce nothing. Gay Hendricks said, “It is seldom the things you try and fail at that deeply trouble you later in life – it is the things you never tried at all.”
I love the scout law, and believe they are great values to live by. You might say these values are seeds we plant in the soil of our lives that we might have a bountiful harvest. Maybe the scouts that are here can help inform everyone what the scout laws are:

A scout is:
• Trustworthy, • Loyal, • Helpful, • Friendly, • Courteous, • Kind, • Obedient,
(• reasonably discerning), • Cheerful, • Thrifty, • Brave, • Clean, • and Reverent.
I thought I would do a quick review of what these words mean.

Trustworthy means to be worthy of confidence. Faithful. When we agree or say we are going to do something, we do it. Antonyms, or the opposite of trustworthy is dodgy, uncertain, undependable, fickle. Being trustworthy as parents or leaders is extremely important. We trust that those to whom we give authority will have the best interest of children and young people in mind.

Loyal means loyal means faithful to a person, a government, a cause, ideal, custom, or institution. It means that we are dedicated to something or someone and not just when it is easy, but also when it is hard. When we take vows in marriage we commit to being loyal for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or worse.

Helpful: Well, we know what helpful is. Strange thing is that sometimes when we are growing up and even when we are adults, it is tempting to not be helpful. When someone drops a bag and all the stuff falls out, some might be tempted to laugh and make fun of the person. Well, scouts agree in their laws to be helpful, to not go along with a mean crowd.

Friendly: Again, we know what friendly is, even though not everyone is friendly and few of us are friendly all the time, especially if we have a brothers or sisters. For some reason in junior high and high school, it seems like we think that being friendly to some people will rub off on us the wrong way. If for some reason they are unpopular, we are afraid that if we are friendly to them their unpopularity might rub off on us. Or maybe we want to appear tough, and friendly doesn’t always look tough. But sometimes we have to be tough in our friendliness. We have to be friendly even when it might not be the popular thing to do.

Courteous: now this is a good one and I think it has faded in recent years, fallen on rocky ground. To be courteous is to be marked by respect for and consideration of others. Other words for courteous are polite, gracious, well mannered. It means, so my mother told me, we don’t knock people out of the food line to be first, we stand aside for an elderly couple walking down the street, rather than walking so big and proud that there is no room for anyone else. It means we open doors for ladies or our elders. It means we are respectful even in disagreement: we simply state our case and allow the other to speak. We state our case without personal accusation or slander of the other. Courteous means we say please and thank you and don’t burp or pass gas except when we are with a bunch of other boys in a tent far from our mothers and sisters. Even then, our friends might wish we were more courteous.
I think courteousness has gone out of style some because as marginalized people have gained a voice, they have noted that courteousness often covers hypocrisy. Too often in the past people have very polite in public only to use words and power behind the scenes to get their way. So marginalized people have decided we have been sitting on the sidelines politely long enough. It is time to stand up and be counted. But it remains true that no matter who we are, we need friends to be successful, and in the long run, being courteous will pay off by people liking us. The other thing is that having a courteous society is more pleasant to live in. The way we behave affects the behavior of others around us. If we are courteous, others are more likely to be courteous too.

Kind: again I think we know what kind is and isn’t. It isn’t mean or rude. There is a great video going around the Internet from the TV show “What Would You Do?” A Middle Eastern man dressed in Muslim clothes has a flat tire and asks for help. So they film people’s reaction. A lot of people just keep on going, but a young man comes along and grabs his tire iron and proceeds to change the tire himself. The Muslim man tries to pay him, and he says no way, put that money away. I am just doing you a favor. That is kindness.

Obedient: Now obedience is another one of those traits that has faded in our day. It means that we respect authority and do as we are told or have contracted to do. Growing old is a bummer. You lose energy and strength and resilience physically. But there is one great thing that comes with age, and that is experience. Our traditions and laws and rules usually are born of experience. Little children for instance, often don’t know and don’t pay attention to the dangers of the street. Even though they don’t understand, it is important that they understand obedience to their parents when they are commanded not to go in the street. The Ten Commandments have been passed down for thousands of years because they have proven to be basic laws of life. We don’t always want to obey them, but we trust that they are commands for a reason. Obeying them will help us and others in the long run.
Obedience to the laws of the land is part of what we call a social contract. We trust our elected representatives to make laws that benefit the whole, and by obeying them even when it is inconvenient, we all of us have a better life in the long run. When trust breaks down, obedience breaks down. So it is super important that as you grow older and take on responsibility that you are trustworthy.
Now I would throw in another law about here: A scout will use reasonable discernment. We know that sometime governments and society sets up rules that are not just. As Christians our highest authority is God, and God commands us to do unto others, as we would have them do to us, to love our neighbor as ourselves. So if a law of the land fails to follow the law of God, then in obedience to God we would be disobedient to the unjust law or action. And so for example, you have the opportunity to sign a St. John’s letter addressed to the National Boy Scout office, asking them to change their law prohibiting gays from being in the scouts. We want them to admit gay boys and men who are nevertheless faithful adherents to the scout oath and law. That is fair and just.

Cheerful: Cheerful means we are full of cheer, we are positive, hopeful, with a good sense of humor, we cheer people on to be successful. My friend Roger Crawford has one finger on one hand, two on the other and a prosthetic leg. By being positive and cheerful, he was able to become a professional tennis player. Roger says, I would rather have one leg and a positive attitude, than two legs and a negative attitude every single time.

Thrifty is also a quality has landed on stony ground in today’s capitalist economy. Thrifty is to manage your resources wisely and without excess waste. In scouts you learn to use thrift and ingenuity to survive on the few things that you have. On the one hand in our culture, it often takes thrift to innovate and create new products. So thrift in this way is praised. On the other hand products are made to wear out and we are encouraged to throw away and buy the latest thing, even when we don’t need it, even when it adds to the waste of valuable resources. My wife is one of the most thrifty people I know. Because she grew up where most people had very little, she learned how to make do with what she had. A thrifty person once said, “There are two ways to be rich: in abundance of possessions or in the scarcity of your wants.

Brave; brave is courageous, willing to try new things, willing to do the right thing even when it is hard. It means getting back up after we have been knocked down. Christmas night 1776, George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware through ice and snowstorm, many with horrible or even no shoes, (though I find that hard to believe), and they proceeded to defeat the Hessian forces in Trenton New Jersey. That was brave, and this incredible bravery planted the seeds to victory in the revolutionary war. In 1955 Rosa Parks decided it was time to disobey the unjust law that blacks had to sit in the back of the bus. That was one of the seeds of bravery that grew into the harvest of the civil rights movement.

Clean: We know today that cleanliness is the best way to prevent illness and the spread of disease. But we also look better and feel better when we are clean. Cleanliness can often be a sign of respect for oneself. This doesn’t mean that we are afraid to get dirty at work, or that we look down on those who are dirty due to the job they do or lack of water or because they can’t afford new clothes for every season. James Bond can have a fight and a chase, over rooftops, through crowded streets, rip the top off the roof of a train and jump in. Then all he has to do is straighten the tie on his tuxedo and he looks as clean and sharp as a groom on his wedding day. That is not reality. Real men get dirty and real men know when it is time to take a shower.

Reverent: Reverence is honor or respect, profound adoring. It is to revere: it is to show devoted deferential honor: We believe that there is a Creator who made all things sacred: Showing gratitude and honor to our God, we treat all things as if we were guests in someone else’s house. We show reverence for God and life.
So these are the seeds we call the scout law: seeds, which sprout boys into a harvest of young men, seeds, which are the foundation for a civil and successful society. We might ask ourselves, which of these seeds have fallen on rocky ground, or on the path where it is snatched up by our bird like friends, or tangled in the weeds of society, or fallen onto a dry place within our hearts. Ought we not reflect, prepare and till the soil of our hearts to be deep and fertile ground for these laws? For Christians, the water and fertilizer is God’s grace. In those areas where our seed or soil is found inadequate, we receive forgiveness and are cleansed, and nurtured to new life. As a seed is buried in the ground yet grows to produce fruit, so our selfish, mean and untrustworthy self lives so that it may grow up to eternal life. Knowing we are loved unconditionally, we can be brave and try, try, try again.