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July 18, 2001 By E. Ray Moore, Jr., Th.M
TEXT: Mark 14:3-9
We have come to celebrate the life and memory of Daisy
Burnette Moore today. She was devoted wife, mother, grandmother,
great grandmother, friend, None of her family was prepared
for her sudden home going and we are almost without words.
On my trip home from MO on Monday I asked God to help me
see her in the Scriptures. I focused on a text that I felt
helped describe the kind of Christian woman she was and
I hope will help us understand her and also cause us to
commit ourselves unreservedly to our Lord as she did.
READ Mark 14:3-9
The setting for this text is the next to last dinner that
Jesus celebrated with his closest friends and disciples
before his arrest, trial and death on the Cross where He
made atonement for our sins, securing salvation for all
who would put their trust in Him. Like Mary of Bethany Daisy
Moore lived a committed life, abandoned to God, extravagant
in her commitment to Christ. This kind of life still surprises
us today, even sometimes irritates us as it did several
of the 12 disciples in Jesus' day. In our day the Marys
are not often understood when so many live only for personal
peace and affluence. Like the alabaster box broken and wasted
on Jesus this kind of life gives off a fragrance that blesses
all who come in contact with it because it represents a
life not lived for self.
The particular phrase I would focus upon in this text is
seen in verse 8: "She has done what she could."
Jesus described this village woman, Mary of Bethany, as
one who gave all she had. This alabaster box of spikenard
was valued at I year's wages and she broke it. She did not
pour it out in little portions, but she broke it and wasted
it on our Lord in preparation for His burial. Jesus puts
high value on this kind of activity and a life lived in
such a fashion. He said of this, "She has done what
she could..." which means she had no more to give.
He commended her when others wondered. And such a woman
was my mother. She too "has done what she could."
There are areas where "she has done what she could:
1. "She has done what she could" for her family.
This is the most obvious area of her contribution for which
her children and grandchildren received the greatest blessing.
Dad reminded us yesterday how she came to Ft. Knox, KY in
the dead of winter of 1942 so they could drive together
to Spartanburg. SC to get married. They drove until they
found a preacher and a church to do the ceremony. They didn't
want the ceremony to be done by a simple Justice of the
Peace.
She paid her own way to her own wedding. Nobody to give
her away, no maid of honor, no wedding dress and no long
honeymoon. Just a 3-day pass and war waiting on young lovers.
She then followed him throughout the West to Oregon, where
I was born and onto Fresno, CA until 1944 when he shipped
out for Guam and Tinian with the 20th Air Corps. She then
took a train all the way across USA with me on one hip and
bottles of water and luggage on the other to Atlanta GA
to wait out the war and to see if her man would return.
No wonder they call them the "greatest generation."
My earliest memories are of her reading to me from the
blue books stories of Roland blowing his trumpet calling
on his uncle Charlemagne to come to his aid against the
Saracen hosts, and of the little Dutch boy keeping his thumb
in the dyke to save his city until help could arrive. She
read and taught all of us the great literature as well as
the Gospel and Bible. She prayed for and encouraged all
her children and grandchildren.
There are just too many stories to tell about how she served
and loved her family.
In her later years she was so happy to have made new contact
with her mother's Ralston family in North Georgia. She loved
her Moore family but how she enjoyed her Burnette family
too. In summer 1998 She, Dad, Tom Moore and his son, Stuart,
made a trip to Scotland to visit Moore and MacDonald family
sites, but also they discovered the Burnette family estate
from which her family had come to the USA. Only it was more
than a mere estate; Crathes Castle is one of the beautiful
sites in Scotland today, dating back to the Middle Ages.
She learned that the Burnette family had played a pivotal
role in maintaining the Reformation in Scotland. Dad said
he had to travel to Scotland to learn he had married a Duchess.
2. She has done what she could for God's truth.
As one contemporary songwriter has said, "Believe
the truth, defend the truth and speak the truth in love."
Paul the Apostle even said, "Let God be true and every
man a liar." God is not dependent upon us, but He does
rejoice and use those who love the truth of the Gospel and
His holy Word. We won't be able to understand Daisy Moore
if we don't see this. She loved to see churches walking
in the purity of the Gospel of Christ. She longed to see
all God's children living and expressing the truth of the
Gospel. She longed for all her friends and family to know
the Savior who said, "I am the Way, the truth and the
life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
The wall of her home is covered with dozens of photos of
her children and grandchildren. She loved them all, but
she wanted God's best for each one. She asked my wife Gail
to cross-stitch a text from 3 John 4:" 1 have no greater
joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." This
text hangs on the wall in the midst of the photos of the
family she loved so dearly.
All of us, her children and grandchildren, must ask ourselves
if we have this same commitment to truth. This is what she
prayed and wanted for each of us. Search your own heart
and see what role you will play in answering her prayers
for you.
As a result of her love for the Truth she cared more for
what God said and thought than the fickle opinions of men.
Those come and go, but "the word of the Lord abides
forever."
As a small child she once lay near death's door from smallpox.
She told me her father, Thomas Burnette, knelt at her bedside
for hours, if not most of several days, never leaving her
side, praying for her recovery and deliverance. She did
recover and lived many more years. She had experienced the
power of God as a child and her confidence in God and Ms
truth never wavered.
3. She did all she could for her church.
She loved her church and this particular congregation,
but she has loved and served in many such churches. She
had been SS teacher at all levels, children, teens and adults,
since I can remember from my boyhood on. And she was a good
one. She would be counted among the many Bible women and
workers who keep churches running today. She once served
as church Secretary to First Baptist of Walterboro and Superintendent
SS and Bible teacher in Aiken First Baptist Church. She
was given to visitation of the sick and other church members.
She was given to hospitality and could set a table to honor
her friends with charm and beauty of both homegrown flowers
and food.
She did all she could to advance the Kingdom of God expressed
through Ms church. In particular, she gave most of her life
to various SBC churches, but also participated in other
evangelical or Bible-based churches. In her later years
she greatly rejoiced in the recovery of theological orthodoxy
among the SBC churches. This gave her particular joy as
she had prayed and labored for this for many years.
4. She did what she could for her country.
She was a patriot. She loved the rich and godly history
of this once great Republic. She felt it was slipping away
and she devoted much of her life to work for its recovery.
Whether she and others have failed or succeeded only time
will tell, but she did what she could. From childhood I
still remember Dad and Mom teaching us from Dean Clarence
Manion's writings of Notre Dame Law School, about limited
and Constitutional government. From the early 1960's until
today they worked on many projects and campaigns to- advance
limited and Constitutional government in America. She and
Dad were early members of the SC Republican Party qualifying
among the early founders when so few participated.
In recent years her love for limited and constitutional
government in the political process was expressed by her
participation in the Charleston Election League.
Daisy Moore did what she could. Everything she had was
invested, her gifts, talents, family, property, finances
all were invested in the Kingdom of God. Mary of Bethany
wasted her greatest possession on her Lord in anticipation
of His death and burial. She alone anointed His body for
burial, as was the custom of the day. You remember don't
you that Jesus died on a Holy Day and was hurriedly taken
from the Cross and laid in a borrowed tomb without completion
of the rituals of anointing the body. When they came to
finish the anointing on Sunday He was not there. He was
risen. Their opportunity had passed. Only Mary of Bethany
had this high honor. Martyred missionary, Jim Elliott, said,
"He is no fool who gives what he can not keep to gain
what he can not lose." What we do for our families,
our churches, our community only will last.
Daisy Burnette Moore will be remembered that "She
has done what she could."
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