I hope you're well! It's been awhile since I've written - I've been busy at the church with home visits, leading devotionals, sermon writing, and office work - but I also found a few days to sneak back to Cannon Falls - how good it was to see dear friends, family, and reconnect for a bit. I adopted a dog while I was down that way, too - I brought Spike, a 5 year old Golden Retriever, back with me to Pelican Rapids. I figure I put on 700 miles plus between Pelican Rapids, Cannon Falls, Iowa, and back. It was a quick and dirty trip, going everywhere and seeing everyone, but it was a blast!
This morning I preached the last sermon in our series on the book of Hebrews. Next Sunday is a big Sunday at Zion - we begin the Narrative Lectionary year, beginning with Creation, it's Rally Sunday (the kids are singing songs and we have a blessing of the backpacks), and Sunday School kicks off, along with our 1st Sunday of the month community potluck.
Here's my sermon text from this morning. Words about faith, resurrection life, and finding Christ in all of this.
Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and God’s Son
Jesus the Christ. Amen.
I remember it
well. I had just come home from a high school band trip to Chicago and my mom
was sitting on the couch in our farmhouse living room. It was dark and
beginning to rain outside and I knew something was up. Soon she told me, “Dad
decided, we decided, that the cows are going to go. We’re going to sell them.
We told your brothers, and grandparents.” When she started to cry I started to
cry, and we sat in that moment together for a long while. Later on, I asked why
– why our lives were shifting under our feet, why what had long been considered
as a possibility “far out there” had finally come to be a very real reality,
why this had to happen. What would be changed? Everything, we thought – dad
would no longer be at home with us kids, he would have to find a job somewhere
else, us boys wouldn’t be able to help with the feeding and milking and sending
the cows to pasture each night as the sun set, among other concerns this change
brought. My mother, ever so wise, was quick to remind us that there was good news in this,
too. Whatever came next, we would have a more livable income. Dad would be free
to come to more of our events at school and in the community. They wouldn’t
have to worry as much about putting equipment back together on a quick weld and
a prayer that it holds together. They’d maybe be able to take a step back and
breathe.
We went to
Marcell, Minnesota, where my grandparents have a lake home, the day after the
cows left the farm. We didn’t want to come home that time – that was the
longest family vacation I feel like we ever took together. When we got back,
school was soon around the corner, and my father would be walking into a new
job in a turkey factory in Cannon Falls. When we got home, there was no more
mooing or bellering from the cows. The pasture stood still, untrodden, only the
grasses waving about. It was oddly, eerily, silent. When 7 o’clock came that
night, for the first time in dad’s 23 years of milking we didn’t go out and gather
the cows. Dad started his new job the same day we began school. That morning,
we all walked out the door, anxious already to see him at the end of the day
and ask how his day had gone. Classes began for us kids, in high school and
elementary school, and we found ourselves very soon wrapped in a new reality.
This is our last
sermon on our series of the book of Hebrews. Next week we transition back to
the beginning of it all – starting on Creation. In the book of Hebrews, we know
that the congregation is faltering – in their faith and life circumstances. The
words at the beginning of chapter 11 are an explanation of what faith looks
like, and what it calls us to believe – “by faith we understand that the worlds
were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things
that are not visible.” The author goes on to share the story of our ancestors
in faith, of Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham – of how by their faith, they were
received as righteous in God’s sight. In using ancestral lineage and story, the
author is showing that faith was lived out for many, many years by people who
trusted in God even when they couldn’t see God – why should the Hebrews way of
operating be any different? In building an ark long before there was any sign
of rain, Noah and his family was protected from the flood. By picking up and
moving to a foreign land in complete trust of what God had told him, Abraham
looked forward to the fulfillment of God’s promise – Sarah giving birth to a
son named Isaac. In continuing to live out their faith and profess belief in
Christ, the Hebrews congregation is indeed stranger and foreigner to the Roman
people, who aren’t afraid to execute and martyr Christians. Professing their
faith is difficult, and comes with sometimes the threat of death, but the
promises of God will always withstand.
It’s easy to
look at the texts and think, well, of course, these people were Bible
superstars – they were chosen by God to be a part of this divine drama, of this
story of salvation played out in history. Of course, these people of faith were
model examples. I know even personally it’s hard for me to follow – it’s hard
at times to have faith in God’s promises when I want to see things happening
immediately. It’s hard to have faith in the face of violence, destruction, and injustice. It’s hard to have
faith in times of uncertainty. When I look around at what’s going on in our
world, it becomes hard at times to notice Jesus, or the Spirit, or God in the
day to day. At times, their movements in the world in and among us as people of
God can seem to be barely audible whispers. It would be so much easier if God
spoke to us in loud, clear ways that told exactly what to do in the midst of
confusion, despair, or loss. I imagine the Hebrews congregation felt the same
way – so much so that they wanted to revert back to how things had always been
done – sacrifices, etc. They had a hard time imagining that Jesus might ever be
up to something when they couldn’t see him in the flesh. I find myself there,
too, some days – how much easier it would be to do things on my own, without
prayer, without listening to the true call of God.
But, my friends
– I can tell you today that we do have Jesus. We have the promises of God in
Christ that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of
things not seen. We are uplifted in our faith by our own clouds of witnesses –
think of the people in your life who love, support, and care for you throughout
your seasons in life – and it is easier then to live out our faith because of
their encouragement. It is because the love that we show each other is indeed
love that is of God. It is all because of Jesus, brothers and sisters – the
pioneer and finisher of our faith – that we can be thankful for this gift,
freely given by his death on the cross. By Christ’s death, death itself was
silenced and faith was given freely to us, even when we struggle to believe.
Even when we wonder what is going on in the world, or we wonder where our own
lives are headed – it is then out of those moments that Jesus intersects our
very own realities and shows us the world as it will be when the kingdom of God
is made real here and now. Think of when we see good stories on the news – of a
child found safely, when people donate for a refugee’s child’s education, and
so on – those stories illustrate what faith embodies – compassion and care and
justice for the neighbor. The new reign of God will be that plus more one
hundred times over. Even though we cannot see Christ in our midst, there is
still evidence, bountifully so, of faith being lived out in the midst of so
many things that worry and concern us. Faith shows us, my brothers and sisters,
that the resurrection life will always, always, have the final say. God indeed
does have the final word.
My family
eventually lived into what resurrection life looks like for them. My dad was
digging a grave in the rain for our church when he got off his last shift at
work, he told us later that “It was pouring and I was soaked but I was the
happiest man in the world. I was free.” He used his cloud of witnesses – family
and friends who gathered around him and gave him encouragement and time to talk
as he decided to open up his own tree service. From word of mouth, he began
building up a list of customers and soon was self-sustaining. Now, 8 years have
passed and he employs two of my younger brothers and has a host of other equipment
and doesn’t have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck as was our reality
for so many years prior. He’s able to do a lot more with us as a family and
above all he’s happy.
We here at Zion
are knitted into a story of faith and a story of salvation that is thousands of
years old. We hear stories of Abraham and Abel and Noah who followed God
believing in God’s promises. I don’t think we need to go build an ark or offer
our sons, but I think it’s important that we listen to what God is calling us
to in our faith – no matter how small our actions might seem – we are all
called to be a part of the bringing about of God’s kingdom here and now. We can
begin by living in the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of
things unseen, for there, my friends, we find resurrection life, the risen
Christ, and the living God who set this mystery into motion. Let’s go – we have
work to do. Thanks be to God. Amen.
God's deep peace this night, friends -
Dean
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