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Easy to Do Nothing
Scout Sunday 2011
February 6, 2011

Introduction:
A couple of years ago a father of a 13 year old Scout (I would guess somewhere around a First Class or Star Scout) wrote a letter to Mike Rowe asking for help motivating his son to continue in Scouts until he got his Eagle. The gist of the response was that there was nothing Mike could say to the Scout that would motivate him to continue to work toward his Eagle rank. The desire and motivation must come from within. Mike said: ” the best decisions I’ve made in my own life…were all choices that required sacrifice, hard work, and delayed gratification. I have no idea if you possess those qualities, or even envy them. But I can tell you for certain, that NOT getting your Eagle, will be one of the easiest things you’ve ever done.”

Easy. The focus of many parts of life these days is how easy things can be. Staples, the office supply company, has an advertising campaign with this: an “easy button” where you can make difficult activities easy just by pressing this big red button.

Good news! Our lives can be easier! I am here today to tell you that this applies across the board to this audience. This church, as the charter organization, would have an easier time NOT sponsoring a Boy Scout Troop and NOT sponsoring a Cub Scout Pack. All of the Scouters, the adult volunteers that help the Pack and Troop, would have an easier time NOT helping out and using their time for all the other things that keep us busy. As for the Scouts, you would definitely have an easier time NOT doing any of the camping or service projects or merit badges and spending your time at home playing video games.

But Scouts are not office supplies, and we can’t just take the easy way.

The problem with this approach is that we aren’t called to just do the easy things. Often, the things we are called to do are the hard ones. As Christians we are called to make a stand for those that can’t stand up for themselves. Have mercy for those that have wronged us. Even love those we fear.

The Church:
This church is my “home” church, even now that I have been a member of South Broadway in Denver longer than I was ever a member here, this will always be my home church. As a church, it might be easier if you took the scout room downstairs and converted it to storage, or asked the Pack to find a different place to meet, but easier isn’t the right path. It also might be easier to keep the doors to the church locked than to welcome strangers in. That way there wouldn’t be any danger of anyone coming through the doors that might challenge your beliefs!

But that isn’t what we are called to do. When Jesus was recruiting Disciples, he didn’t promise an easy path, but a journey of challenge to go with the fulfillment. He didn’t issue an “easy button” to each disciple as they took up his cause. As a church, Scouting is one of the youth programs provided to the younger members. Just like the Chi Rho and CYF programs or the Sunday School programs, Scouting is an opportunity to help provide that moral compass that these Scouts will use for the rest of their lives. This isn’t easy, but it is what we are called to do as Christians.

But the Scout Troop isn’t just for the younger members of our congregation. We welcome any family with an interest in Scouting to join either Pack 13 or Troop 13. Increasing membership isn’t the reason the church sponsors Scout groups, it is an obligation to serve those in the surrounding community.

Today this congregation is collecting food for those in need through the “Souper Bowl of Caring”, another way to serve the community. As a congregation it would be easier to stay comfortable here in the sanctuary, have a nice lunch after the service and go on with our very busy lives. But that isn’t what we are called to do. We reach out. We help. We care.

How different would the Good Samaritan story be if the Samaritan was only concerned with the easiest path?

As a direct beneficiary of the generosity of this church and the choices to support Scouting, I thank you for not taking the easy path and deciding to do nothing.

The Scouters:
All of the volunteers that help in Scouting have wished for an “easy button” at one point or another. Whether you are a brand new Den Leader in the Cub Scout Pack worried about how to wrangle a group of 6 and 7 year old boys, or a seasoned Scoutmaster that is worried about one of the Scouts in his Troop there are hard patches for any Scouter, and an “easy button” would be a welcome relief.

It would be so much easier to leave all of this someone else. After all, we are all busy people; surely someone else can take up the challenge.

Phil Peck, a friend of mine, is a Scoutmaster in Idaho. In answer to the question “why do we do what we do?” he gave the following response:

“For me it’s simple, I know, for 100% certainty, that every second I spend giving the promise of Scouting to even just one Scout, that I’ve helped him become a better man. It’s true, we often don’t see it while they’re Scouts, but later in life, when we’re long gone, they look back on the things we taught them, the values we instilled in them, the experiences we’ve granted them and they realize they’ve become more than most other men. They may not be rich or popular, but these men of our future are better, happier, more worthwhile men and they have us to thank for that.”

He is exactly right. I know I owe a great debt to my Scoutmasters Steve Klocksiem and Russ Black. The time these two invested in a bunch of loud, dirty, unorganized bunch of boys still amazes me to this day. They knew what Scouting had to offer, and were unwilling to let us go through adolescence without the lessons, support and adventure that we found through the Troop. I don’t know all the stories of what happened to the boys in Troop 13, but I know some. I also know that the influence of Steve and Russ stretches from Houston to Portland, and from here in Casper to the University of Cambridge in England, to the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. The impact of these two truly circles the globe.

There are many more volunteers that made just as much of a difference. There is David Stone, who drove up from Laramie to make good on a 5 year old promise he made to an awe struck Tenderfoot Scout. At David’s Eagle Court of Honor, the first the Tenderfoot had ever seen, he said how cool the whole thing was and that he would earn his Eagle too someday. David had promised on the spot that he would attend. And five years later he made good on that promise. I was that Tenderfoot Scout, and I am grateful to David for not taking the easier path.

I could go on for hours about those that volunteered their time to change lives in Scouting (but don’t worry, I won’t). Bob Downs and Keith Ames, who were Scoutmasters of Troop 13 before I was a member, would spend their summers at Camp Buffalo Bill, teaching Scouts the skills they would take with them for the rest of their lives. Daryl Jackson who spent years as a Scout Executive in the council. Denis Smith, who was the Treasurer on the Troop Committee for all the years I was a Scout. There are many, many more, and they all make a difference.

As Phil said: “not helping our young men will be the easiest thing you’ve ever done. Do yourself a favor, make it hard on yourself.”

I am thankful for all of the Scouters that helped me over the years, and I am glad each of them chose to make it hard on themselves and did not take the easy path.

The Scouts:
And for the Scouts, you don’t get an “easy button” either. Don’t get me wrong, you are going to be having a lot of fun, but there is work involved too. Hard work isn’t a bad thing, it actually is something to be proud of. The whole reason that obtaining the rank of Eagle is an “achievement” is precisely because it is hard work.

This life lesson isn’t limited to just the ultimate rank in Boy Scouts. One of the core values of Cub Scouting is Perseverance. Sticking with something and not giving up even if it is difficult. How many Cub Scouts even know that there are core values in Cub Scouting? Not many I suspect. But while they are having fun building and racing pinewood derby cars, or selling popcorn so they can throw a pie in the Cubmaster’s face, the seeds of perseverance are being sown.

Ask any Scout about their favorite camping trip. I have yet to hear an answer that includes the easiest trip they ever went on. It is always the ones with a challenge. Bad weather or winter camping, or climbing to the summit of a mountain peak, the pride in the accomplishment comes from the adversity. The hard work leads to the satisfaction. If it was easy, everyone would do it. If everyone does it then it isn’t an accomplishment.

When talking to the 70,000 Scouts at the National Jamboree this summer Mike Rowe told them the secret in Scouting. Scouting makes you uncomfortable, and then teaches you to like it. He said “If you can figure out how to like a hard thing, to enjoy the thing everyone else goes out of their way to avoid…you are going to do well in whatever you try.” Whatever you try. Not just “do well when camping” or “do well in First Aid” but in whatever you try.

And that’s the head-fake in Scouting. You may be having way too much fun to notice, but as a Scout you learn that the right thing to do and the easy thing to do are seldom the same thing. As was mentioned at the beginning, not doing something is one of the easiest things you can ever do.

In Conclusion:
So we are not called to do the easy thing, but we are promised that if we put our faith in God, we will be given the strength to persevere. In the bible verse from Isaiah (my favorite, by the way) we are reminded that when you put your faith in God, and rely on God for your strength, there is no limit to what can be done.

“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.” — Phillips Brooks U.S. Episcopal bishop (1835–1893)

Troop 13 has at least 57 Scouts that have achieved the rank of Eagle. A recent study by the Baltimore Area Council found that each Eagle project averages over 200 hours of service. Two hundred hours. If the projects in this Troop are on par with those in Baltimore (and really, why wouldn’t they be?) then there are five and a half years worth of world-changing service from just one requirement for one rank in one Troop in one council in the United States. As you think of how this scales up across the country, you start to see the miracle that Bishop Brooks was talking about.

So wherever you are in the spectrum, a Cub Scout, a Boy Scout, an adult volunteer Scouter, or a member of the church I challenge you to do one thing. Do the things that are hard. Take on the world as it is and change it to what it should be. It is always easiest to do nothing or to leave it to others. But by accepting the challenge you will change lives. Not only the lives of those in Scouting here at First Christian Church, not only lives world wide, but maybe, just maybe your own.

Thank you, and God bless.