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| Chapel Door, Woodlawn Christian Church Lake City, Iowa Wm Roy Karlen photo |
This past Sunday afternoon, the apartment building that my son Creath lives in caught fire and was severely damaged. The damage was significant enough that the entire building was condemned by the City and all of the residents had to be relocated. So, yesterday afternoon I drove to Sioux Falls, SD in order to help my son Creath and his roommate Jeff move their belongings from their apartment to a different apartment across the way in the same apartment complex.
Creath and Jeff were very lucky as the fire reached the apartment next to theirs but was stopped there. They also didn't have too much water in their apartment which was amazing to me. This had been my biggest fear with all of the musical instruments Creath owns I was scared to death they would be ruined. Though his violin could be replaced it is one he's had since High School and is a symphony quality instrument. It was very expensive and we purchased it because we hoped he'd have and play it for the rest of his life. It's loss would have been horribly sad, fortunately it is fine and was in the case out of harms way.
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| Photo taken from in front of Creath's apartment doorway. That door is the fire door. It performed its function pretty well, though the fire did penetrate into the apartment directly next to it. |
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| Creath's apartment building. |
The sermon this last Sunday was dedicated to my late friend Mark Winquist who passed away four years ago. Sunday was the fourth anniversary of my reading the email that told me he had passed and that his funeral was the next morning.
Time seems to fly and it's hard to believe that four years have ticked away from me. The older we get, the faster time does seem to transpire, it's something we've all heard all of our lives and sadly, it's true.
I need to get back to work on the service for this coming Sunday so I'll just leave you all with my favorite refrain. "Be a Blessing to Someone Today!"
In God's abundant and endless grace,
Roy
Sermon given by Pastor Roy Karlen, on May 31, 2015 at Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, Iowa.
Good morning once again, I'd like today to do something that I have been known to do every once in a great while, and that's to dedicate a sermon to an individual from my past. Today, I'd like to dedicate this sermon to my late friend, roommate, training partner, powerlifting coach and a good Christian man, Mark Winquist.
But before I get into all of that, let's go before God in Prayer and reflection.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, Abba, we ask for you to be with us here today, to once more let us be in your Holy presence. Father, please work within our hearts and our minds to let us draw closer to you. Creator God, open our ears and soften our souls that we might hear your word and come to know you more fully. Ancient Lord, lead us on the path towards a deeper and fuller relationship with You. For these blessings, we pray in your Holy and Grace filled name.
AMEN
It seems so often in life that it's not the usual folks that you'd think of that God decides to use for His purposes here in this world. Do you remember the story of when King David was chosen by God and anointed by Samuel.
1 Samuel 16:1-13 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
16 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, seeing I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” 2 And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3 And invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me him whom I name to you.”4 Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?”5 And he said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; consecrate yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he consecrated Jesse and his sons, and invited them to the sacrifice.
6 When they came, he looked on Eli′ab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 8 Then Jesse called Abin′adab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “TheLord has not chosen these.” 11 And Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and fetch him; for we will not sit down till he comes here.” 12 And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him; for this is he.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah.
Now, David shouldn't have been the son chosen from among Jesse's children. In the Hebrew culture it was always the oldest son who was to be the most favored. David is the youngest, the least of the lot, the last one that God should have turned to among Jesse's offspring.
If you look through your own live, I'm sure you've witness this phenomenon as well. God has this wonderful and puzzling ability to call upon the least likely, the one we've all dismissed as a lost cause. There is a saying that I dearly love that states “God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called”. We shouldn't be concerned about if we are worthy, are we too old or too young, I don't have the education or the training, I'm too bashful or too this, or too that. If we feel in our hearts that God has a purpose, a place, a mission for us, we need to act on that calling and step forth in faith.
The sermon today is as I said dedicated to my late friend Mark Winquist.
Mark was a year behind me in college, he was an electrical engineering major who carried a very good grade point average and yet dropped out of school one semester before his graduation. Mark went to work for the railroad driving stakes in railroad ties. He later worked for many, many years at a bicycle shop assembling and selling bicycles. To be completely honest, he was a very difficult man to understand in many ways.
I met Mark at the beginning of my sophomore year, he was from Milbank, SD the same town as another friend, training partner, and roommate of mine, John Forman. John and I had started training together during our Freshman year at South Dakota State University, 'GO Jacks', and when Mark showed up for school he immediately started training with us. John and Mark had grown up together back in Milbank and it was only natural that Mark would fall in with John and I. All three of us were members of the Powerlifting Team at SDSU.
Mark was a trumpet player and performed with the Marching Band at State. He continued to play his trumpet for the rest of his life, in fact he prerecorded several songs specifically to be played at his own funeral.
Mark was without a doubt pound for pound the strongest man I've ever known personally. Back in college he was ranked as one of the strongest powerlifters in the world in his weight class. At one time, he was number one in the back squat for the entire world in the 132 lb weight class. Mark competed and won National titles as well as competing and placing 2nd Internationally. He was an incredibly strong man.
I liked Mark a great deal, but as I said already he was a difficult soul to understand and eccentric to a fault. Knowing him like I did, he was almost the last soul I'd have ever thought would have ever dedicated so much of his life to others and to God. Mark in those days was thoroughly self-absorbed and focused solely on Mark.
Mark and I had fallen out of communication for approximately 20 years. He had been very fond of and a friend of my first wife, and when our relationship ended so many years ago, my friendship with Mark was also strained it seemed. I don't believe he ever forgave me for my failures at that point of my life.
I did reach out to Mark a couple of times through the years, and I left a few messages on his answering machine. But, either because of an inability to forgive, or just his normal odd ball fashion, he never got around to calling me back. I did manage to catch him on the phone about a year and half before his death, which was also about a month before he discovered he had cancer. Another one of our old weighlifting friends was being installed into the South Dakota Powerlifting Hall of Fame and I was trying to work out to meet with Mark and some other lifting friends at the powerlifting meet in Sioux Falls where this was to occur. Mark though was just too busy to attend. As it turned out there was a blizzard that day and I didn't make it to the meet either.
On May 31st of 2011 I walked into work on a Tuesday after the Memorial Day weekend. As I generally do in the morning I went to the computer to check my e-mail. There I saw an e-mail from my friend John Forman. It simply said 'Mark' in the title of the e-mail. For some reason I knew immediately in my soul that Mark had died. There is no reason that I should have thought this, as the last time I had talked to Mark he was healthy and doing fine, nor had I heard anything at all about him being diagnosed with cancer. For some strange reason I just knew in my heart that he was gone.
I opened the e-mail and discovered that my fears were very real. John simply said in his e-mail that Mark had died on Saturday May 28th and that his funeral was the next morning at 10 am in Brookings, SD. I fired back an e-mail to John that simply said “I'll see you in the morning”.
I spent the rest of that day rushing around to make arrangements so I could be out of the Gallery the next day. So that Wednesday morning, I woke up early and hit the road for Brookings. I pulled up to the United Methodist Church in Brookings, SD about 15 minutes before the service was to start.
Now my expectations when I walked into that church, was to see a few folks, mostly from Mark's hometown of Milbank, SD, and a fair number of big burly and muscular men and likely a few muscular women as well. I expected that this would be like a homecoming for old weightlifters, who were in my experience the main people Mark had time for.
What I found when I walked inside was my friend John and another friend of ours Lane, who had also gone to High School with Mark. Both of them were pall-bearers and I spoke briefly to them and went inside to find a seat. There wasn't a single weightlifter to be found inside that sanctuary. What there was though was a church packed to the rafters. So much so that they seated me in the back pew of the pews reserved for the family.
I looked around that church in amazement, the Mark I knew wasn't a friendly and outgoing soul. In fact you had to work pretty dang hard to be his friend. The pews in this church formed a slight 'U' shape around the altar and pulpit, and there was a balcony that wrapped all the way around in a big 'U' shape as well. When I looked up into the balcony I could see that it was almost entirely teenagers and young people. And there was a ton of them up there! The pews were entirely filled.
It was a great memorial service to a man that I had thought I knew pretty well, or at least I knew him well at one time. As the various individuals came up to talk about Mark's life and as the Minister gave her message. I was moved to the point of tears, honestly I can tell you I cried more at Mark's funeral than I have ever cried at a funeral. There was so much genuine expression of love and admiration that flowed in that sanctuary that day that I was simply overwhelmed.
I learned that my old friend who had been in my experience been so very self-absorbed, was for this congregation invaluable. He was by all appearances, almost an indispensable part of his church. He was their youth leader, he ran the sound system, he was their music director, he was the Property Chair for their Church Council, and he went by the building every evening to make sure all was well. Mark also filled the role as the Associate Minister for his church and stepped into the pulpit if the Minister had to be gone. Beyond the local congregation he was the leader for the youth camps for the United Methodist in South Dakota.
That sanctuary was filled with young people. Well over a hundred of them, young people whose lives had been impacted for the better by a man I never really knew it would seem. That day I not only grieved the loss of an old friend but I grieved the loss of a friend I never got to know.
Mark and I had never talked about God or religion in any fashion. As far as I knew in our days of running together, he wasn't religious at all. I certainly wasn't and it wasn't a topic I'd have wanted to discuss anyways. But ultimately, Mark's death had a very big impact on me for a number of reasons, and ultimately on my own personal vision of God. The area that we're concerned with today, is that I came to see that God could and would use the least likely to further His Kingdom.
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| Window in the Chapel of Woodlawn Christian Church Lake City, Iowa Wm Roy Karlen photo |
Never, ever feel that you have nothing to offer to God. He can and he does use whom ever he pleases to accomplish His ways in this world. Even though I was already in the process of becoming a Lay Minister when Mark passed away, it reaffirmed to me that God can do wonderful things with the least and the least likely.
It helped convince me that God could use this old cowboy, and sinner to help His children and His creation. Mark's impact in this world is far from over, for not only are there dozens of youth up in South Dakota who he impacted and God only knows how and where they'll end up serving... but Mark continues to have an impact on me and indirectly he's having an impact on all of you as a result.
We will never know how far our actions, our beliefs, our service, our lives will reach out to others. Your life could be the inspiration for someone you've never even met. Let's make sure we're all living lives that are worthy of that influence. It's what we're called to be and to do.
God Bless you all, let us pray:
Dear God, take our hands, and work through them, take our lips, and speak through them, take our minds, and think through them, take our hearts, and set them on fire with Your love;
by the power of Christ who is always with us. AMEN
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