“Mabel Anderson, Lamb of God”
It seems to me totally fitting that we should be paying our last respects to Mabel on Thanksgiving weekend. For that is what we are doing here today. We are giving thanks to Almighty God for sharing this beautiful woman with us.
As I sat down this week to put pen to paper to try and capture the essence of the life we are celebrating today, I found my words to be totally inadequate. How could I possibly put into words a wonderful life of 85 years? A life of faith, love, caring and charity. When it comes to Mabel Anderson, mere words written on paper are not enough. Any eulogy worthy of Mabel would have to come from the heart. To know her and to be in her presence was truly humbling and as I sat and pondered, I felt that perhaps this task was better suited to someone of the likes of a Billy Graham or a Dr. Robert Schuller. How could I possibly sum up and praise someone so beautiful? But then I remembered; Mabel would not expect me to. She knew that the least would be first and those who were humble would be exalted. I have to confess that, as a minister, I sometimes get the feeling that I know it all, I understand it all and I’m going to tell it all and you had better pay attention. Yet when I preached to Mabel, I knew I was truly preaching to the choir. I didn’t feel worthy preaching to her. She should have been preaching to me.
We have spent the past few months in church reading from the Gospel according to St. Matthew. And in the past few weeks we have heard several stories and parables by Jesus, informing us of what was required from his followers to gain entry into his heavenly kingdom.
1. Parable of Wedding banquet – “Many are called but few are chosen”
2. The question from Sadducees regarding the greatest law
3. “All who exalt are humbled, all who humble are exalted”.
4. Parable of the 10 bridesmaids.
5. The Parable of the 5 talents
These stories and parables of Jesus make us nervous and we think to ourselves, “Is Jesus talking about me”? Am I foolish? Am I prepared? Have I wasted my God-given talents? Am I too self-centered? I have to admit that I have a long way to go and many amends to be made before I am ready. I could see myself in these scriptures, as I’m sure many of the congregation could (if they were paying attention). But not Mabel. As I preached I would look out at the congregation and there sat Mabel and Joel, so much in love. Mabel would have that warm, loving peaceful smile of hers. She knew what I was talking about and she was not afraid. She was ready for God. Then there was the Gospel story last week about sheep & goats, etc. Mabel was not here to hear it, but it was truly about her. (Paraphrase story in Matthew 25:31-46). Mabel Anderson, Lamb of God, was going to visit the sick and the shut-ins when she fell and went to the hospital. Mabel kept a journal for many years. Her journals fill countless volumes and fill many bookshelves and drawers in her home. Every day she wrote a little something about what happened in her life. Sometimes she would write only a paragraph and other times several pages. It was always about the people in her life that she loved so much, seldom about her, and she always ended it with a little snippet about the weather and current events. The last entry into her journal was Tuesday, November 5th 2002, Election Day as Mabel noted. She wrote that day about how sorry she felt for her wonderful husband Joel who had lost 3 of his cows to an unexplained illness. Her heart was heavy because of the sorrow Joel felt. She shared his pain that day. And she ended that day by saying that she was going to bake a cake and take it to the nursing home because tomorrow she was going to visit and share her time and talents with the residents. That was her last entry. 85 years old and still caring for others. As I mentioned earlier, the story about the sheep and the goats was a story about Mabel. Her passion for caring for the least of God’s children never shined brighter than when she was teaching and taught she did for 37 years. She taught and loved each child with a passion and love seldom paralleled and never equaled or surpassed. She cared for each child as if they were God’s own children because she knew they were, and treated them as such. And her students knew this. I’m going to tell you a story now; a story I call the Tale of Two Teachers. The first part of this story comes from a collection of inspirational tales compiled by Tony Campolo, noted Christian author. (Story about Teddy Stallard and Miss Thompson)
Teddy certainly qualified as one of the least interested in school. He was musty, wore wrinkled clothes, his hair was never combed, one of those kids in school with a dead pan face, expressionless, sort of a glassy, unfocused stare. When Miss Thompson spoke to Teddy, he always answered in monosyllables.
Unattractive, unmotivated, and distant, he was just plain hard to like. Even though his
teacher said she loved all of her class the same, down inside she knew she wasn’t being completely truthful. In fact, whenever she marked Teddy’s paper, she got a certain perverse pleasure of putting X’s next to the wrong answers. And when she put the F’s on of the paper, she always did it with a flair. She should have known better, she had Teddy’s records and she knew more about him then she cared to admit.
The records read: First grade,
Teddy shows promise with his work, but has a poor home situation.
Second grade,
Teddy could do better but he receives little help at home and his mother is seriously ill.
Third grade,
Teddy’s a good boy but too serious. His mother died last year, he is a slow learner.
Fourth grade,
Teddy is very slow but well behaved, his father shows no interest.
When Christmas came and the boys and girls in Miss Thompson’s class brought her Christmas presents, they piled the presents on her desk and crowded around to watch her open them. Among the presents, there was one from Teddy Stallard. She was surprised that he had brought her a gift, but he had, and Teddy’s gift was wrapped in old brown paper and was held together with scotch tape.
On the paper were written the simple words, For Miss Thompson from Teddy. When she opened Teddy’s present, out fell a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half the stones missing and a bottle of cheap perfume. The other boys and girls began to giggle and smirk over Teddy’s gifts.
Miss Thompson at least had enough sense to silence them by immediately putting on the bracelet and putting some of the perfume on her wrist. Holding her wrist up to the children to smell, she said, doesn’t it smell lovely? And the children took the cue from the teacher and readily agreed with ooh’s and ahh’s. At the end of the day, when school was over and the other children had left, Teddy lingered behind. He slowly
came over to the desk and he said softly, "Miss Thompson you smell just like my mother and her bracelet looks pretty on you too. I’m glad you like my presents."
Teddy left, Miss Thompson got down on her knees and asked God to forgive her.
The next day when the children came to school, they were welcomed by a new teacher.
Miss Thompson had become a different person. She was a new person committed to loving her children and doing things for them that would live on after her. She helped all the children, especially the slow ones, especially Teddy Stallard. By the end of the school year, Teddy had showed dramatic improvement and caught up with most of the students and even ahead of some.
Well she didn’t hear from Teddy for a long time and then one day she received a note that said,
"Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know, I’ll be graduating second in my class from high school." Four years later another note, "Dear Miss Thompson: They just told me I’ll be graduating first in my class here at the university. It hasn’t been easy, but I liked it."
And four years after that,
"As of today Miss Thompson, I am Theodore Stallard, M.D. I wanted
you to be the first to know that I am getting married next month, the 27th to be exact, and I want you to come and sit where my mother would sit if she were alive. You’re the only family I have since Dad died last year.
Love, Teddy."
She went to the wedding and sat in the front row.
And vowed to never forget Teddy Stallard
Mabel Anderson was that type of teacher. Always as caring as the teacher Miss Thompson became. She loved each child equally, regardless of family status or economic background. They were all special to her. Many years ago, I was told, one of her students would come to class in dirty, worn clothes. Whether he was that way because his parents could not afford new clothes or because of indifference, like Teddy’s father, didn’t matter. Mabel bought some new clothes to school so that this child could put on nice clothes during the day. And she always had him put his old clothes back on when he went home because she didn’t want to embarrass his family or destroy their dignity. And you wouldn’t believe the cards Mabel received from former students while she was ill. The following card is typical (read card). And Mabel never forgot about her students, even after they left her class. She cared about each and every one even after they reached adulthood. I am going to be reading a prayer later that Mabel had written last spring, but I feel compelled to read a portion of it right now because it shows how much she cared for her students. This is from Mabel’s journal entry on April 22, 2002 as she was attending a funeral in Fonda for an old friend (read passage). That was how much Mabel loved her students, to pray for them when they were troubled.
Death never comes easy. Whether it comes like a thief in the night, unexpectedly and sudden or whether it comes like an unemployed relative to linger for what may seem an eternity, it is never easy. As we gathered in prayer around Mabel’s bed, we prayed that death would come peacefully and swiftly, not that we encouraged or relished the thought but because we knew she was suffering and that, most importantly, she was ready. She made note of that fact when she entered the hospital. She said she was ready to meet God. There were no last-minute conversions, no deathbed confessions, no begging for forgiveness. She was prepared like the wise bridesmaids. Yet we are sad, we grieve and we share the pain that her loved ones feel. Our hearts go out to her beloved husband Joel, her daughters Joelle and Jolene and to the their families and to her 5 wonderful grandchildren who will miss her dearly. We are sad, yet we rejoice in the fact that we had Mabel with us for 85 years. To quote Mabel, and this is from an article about her and Joel about a year ago in the BV Journal, “(read quote)”. Well, Mabel, you left the world a lot better and for that we rejoice. I know that on last Monday afternoon a beautiful woman appeared at heaven’s gate and said, ”Lord, I saw you hungry and I fed you; I saw you thirsty and I gave you drink; I saw you naked and I clothed you; and I saw you sick and I went to visit you, but I fell and I didn’t make it and now I am here”. And I know that God put his loving arms around her and said, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into my heavenly kingdom”. Amen.
