8/23/2026 - “The Voices We Carry” - Rev. Anthony Spearhart

So today, um I'm sure you heard of uh the the study uh called family systems theory, right?

So so today, because I'm sure we all have studied that, right?

So anyway, today I'm coming with what I'm whimsically calling family systems theology.

So there are some voices that we never truly stop hearing.

Sometimes it's a phrase, sometimes it's a saying, sometimes it's a song, sometimes it's just something silly.

Or simply the way that someone looked at life.

So today I'd like to share um a little bit about my family, um, specifically my grandparents.

So if I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times from my grandmother.

This saying that has kind of become our our family motto.

Um, one that I had actually shared um in my candidating weekend.

And she would even uh write the initials of this particular saying on every card, on every newspaper article that she would send to us.

Uh in fact, I'm I'm wearing that t-shirt today with those letters on it.

And that saying was put a smile on your face and a song in your heart.

So, as I've told you in the past, my grandmother was diagnosed with dementia.

And uh in that study, in all my advocacy with the Alzheimer's Association, I had learned about this program called Music for Memory.

Um, which let me, I guess, spend an entire sermon talking about that program alone, so I'm not going to right now.

Um, but things to come uh soon.

But anyway, so we took that saying, put a smile on your face and a song in your heart, and put it to music in hopes that that saying that was familiar to her would ignite those communication pathways through this science of study of music and memory, and and give us the opportunity to to communicate with her.

And let me tell you, it successfully did many, many times.

So that song, um, which I'll play for you at some point, not today, because we don't have the full amount of time to do that, but so that was my grandmother saying.

And it has it has lived, uh lived within me as as I've gone and done everything that I've done.

It was a way to remember that yes, life is gonna bring difficult times and and um and not that only positivity can get us through that, but to remember to keep a smile on our face and a song in our heart, even when times are difficult.

And yes, that is most definitely scriptural as well.

So then my grandfather, he had a saying as well.

So when we were little kids in grade school, my grandfather would pick us up for school when they were not winter burning in Florida.

He would pick us every pick us up every day for school, and he'd come in without bursting through the door with energy and says, Boys, do you got your Vs this morning?

And that meant, do you have your Vim, vigor, and vitality?

And he would say, you know, as we were getting to the car, and you know, especially on days when we were tired and didn't want to go to school, he would say, Well, boys, you better have your Vs by the time we get to school, or I'm gonna come and sing and dance in the hallways.

And so we made sure that we had our V's.

Now, I will admit there was one one day where we did not have our Vs, and and we got out of the car and closed the door, and Grandpa pulled away.

And we thought we were in the clear.

But he didn't pull away, he pulled into the parking lot, parked his car, came into the school and in the hallways, did his Mercy Dots, and did his little dance to go with that Merzy Dots.

And let me tell you, we made sure every single school day after that that we had our Vs.

But that has carried through my life as well, to always have that energy for life, that energy to to barrel through whatever whatever comes before us in life.

Uh, because if we come come at it with a with a positive note, um not that it can necessarily completely change everything, but it can change how we see things.

And that's what that was about, to to come at life with the fullness of energy that God has blessed us with.

So we took that saying um as well and later on put it a song.

Um now the the song for grandma was definitely reflective and um and sweet and kind and loving.

Now, the one we wrote for grandpa was a little bit more silly because that's who he was.

Um actually at his at his his bedside um the week before he passed, my brothers sat together and we collected a list of all the silly things that Grandpa used to say.

Things like uh when he would get mad, he would say, shit to bed.

Or uh, do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?

Or what do you think of the price of apples?

Or, you know, when the when the grass got long and he and we weren't there yet to come mow the grass, he would say, Boys, the grass is so tall I got lost in the yard today.

But it was that silliness, uh, that's even through that silliness that that brought us back to making sure that we had our Vs.

And I used to think, especially with all grandpa's silliness, that it was just silly things that they said, but somehow throughout time they turn into something special and turned into a motto for life.

We're woven.

Our lives are woven from people, from stories, from wisdom, from love, wounds, faith, and hope that existed before us.

And scripture seems to understand that.

So when Second Timothy speaks about Timothy's faith, it does not begin with Timothy.

It begins with his grandmother Lois.

And his mother, Eunice.

And then the writer says, essentially, that faith now lives in you.

But here's the important part that Timothy is not told simply to remember it.

He's told to rekindle it.

To let what lived in them catch fire in you.

That is ancestry becoming courage.

And Hebrews gives us one tiny line that I cannot get away from.

It says, of Abel, though he died, he still speaks.

As some voices do.

Some lives keep speaking because what they gave us has become part of who we are.

And that is where I hear in this poem from our general minister and president, the Reverend Dr.

Karen Georgia Thompson, in her book Drums in Our Veins.

The poem entitled Faith Journey.

Hear the voices of the ancestors.

Come home, child, come home.

There's the call to rituals past, an invitation to learn the ocean's secrets unknown.

Return to the blue skies, they call, come walk our mountains and learn.

Remember who you are.

You were a child of these seas.

Come, child, come home.

The voices of the ancestors call again.

Child, listen to each drumbeat.

The universe speaks in mysterious ways, receive of old wisdom to walk these challenging days.

Return to the stories of the grandparents, survival, success, impossibilities, remember who you are.

Find your way home to the deepest knowing, live life.

Hear the drumbeat, hear the ancestors speak.

Child, read the prophetic skies.

Wisdom carried on the rolling clouds, give yourself to the peace you crave inside and out.

Return to the chants that fill your soul, taste the earth, read the waves, remember who you are.

You were a child of the stars, have faith, read the skies, the voices of the ancestors rise.

Child, touch the wisdom of trees, thousands of years held in their trunks, fill your fingers and hands with their ancient healing.

Return to dreams that kept you awake, smell the revealing sands of time, remember who you are.

You were born to speak boldly with souls, reach out, touch the healing.

The voices of the ancestors cry, Child, breathe earth's fire.

Inhale the memories of generations gone, live into your destiny.

For this you were born.

Return to the spirits who sent you, feel the urgency of now.

Remember who you are.

You were born to swim deep, fly high, breathe the fire, hear the invitation of the ancestors.

Child, come ride the wind.

Believe you are possible, you are the universe, the earth, water, wind, and fire.

Return to yourself, grasp the joy that abounds, remember who you are.

Seeing the unseen, come ride the wind.

Again and again, remember who you are.

But did you notice the ancestors in the poem are not calling the child backward, they're calling the child forward.

Listen, breathe, touch, ride the wind, live into who you were born to be.

And that's what Isaiah does too.

Isaiah is speaking to people who have lived through loss, exile, and enormous uncertainty, and God tells them, look to the rock from which you were hewn.

Remember Abraham.

Remember Sarah.

Remember where you came from, not so you can recreate, recreate their world, but so you can remember.

So you can remember what God has already brought your people through.

Look back long enough to find the strength to believe forward.

And then Hebrews brings the whole thing home.

After naming generation after generation of people who struggled and trusted, endured and failed, got back up and kept going, the writer says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race that lies before you.

Before us.

That matters.

The witnesses may be behind us, but the race is before us.

Our ancestors do not call us backward, they give us strength to move forward.

We can honor the people who built this church.

We can remember the people who worshipped here, taught here, served here, loved here, fought for this church, and dreamed about what it would become.

But honoring them does not mean recreating the church that they knew.

Because the world before us is not their world.

The needs are different, the questions are different.

And God, the still speaking God, is still calling.

So maybe we do not need our ancestors to necessarily give us a map because they never walked this exact road.

Maybe what they gave us was better than a map.

Courage, compassion, joy, persistence, and faith.

The ability to keep going when the way ahead was not clear.

And those things still travel well.

Through stories, through songs, through communities, through grandmothers who tell us to keep a song in our hearts.

Through grandfathers who remind us to find our vim, vigor, and vitality.

Through saints whose names we know.

And through countless others whose names we may never know.

So, church, hear the voices.

Remember who you are.

Remember the rock from which you were hewn.

Remember the great cloud of witnesses surrounding you.

And then look ahead.

Because there is still ministry ahead of us.

There are still people who need welcome.

There is still justice that needs doing.

There is still healing that needs tending.

There is still joy waiting to be discovered.

Because the race is still before us.

So I encourage you to take their courage.

Take their faith.

Take their strength.

And then remember who you are.

And church, run toward the future God is already calling us into.

Remember who you are.

Amen.

So go now carrying the voices that have shaped you.

Remember who you are.

May we carry their courage, their faith, and their love, and with God beside us, may we run towards the future still unfolding before us.

So may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

All of the things that you showed us, and everything you did how the nothing had you told us, how to understand and showed us how to be a strike.

Open up your heart.

Into grandpa's van, we would go as he would teach us his golden rules.

But today you do not have a fee.

This morning you don't want to be crazy, it's a weed record.

From the rides of the school, your little titties and exclamation through and through.

I still had my feet while doing too many laps around the tree.

You got lost in the yard today because the grass was way up to your mood.

Can you spell Afghanistan after all the words?

Got the group, you never can poop.

That's fifty whips, with a wet noodle.

With the window, when it was cold, in the store.

Spend all day with the best grandpa in the land.

Someday you'll be gone.

But your memory will follow me along.

As I walk off this door with my feet forevermore.

In the morning mirror, I would say to myself, Because you told me so.

Now I'm the best.

And with God, there's nothing I can't do.

Work hard, but always have a silly hard work.

Don't take any wooden nickels.

Be a good person.

Give the others.

Make sure you have your view.

Switch them, bigger and vital.

Let everybody saw it.

Let it begin with Be the best that I can bigger and vitality.

The bigger vitality.