June 14, 2023

 Remember Rachel’s ordination, her standing here and Bishop Laurie asking her all the questions: Would she faithfully preach and teach in accordance with the Holy Scriptures and the creeds and confessions, would she be diligent in her study of the Holy Scriptures and her use of the means of grace, would she pray for God’s people, nourish them with the word and Holy Sacraments, and lead them by her own example in faithful service and holy living, would she give faithful witness in the world, that God’s love may be made known in all she does?  And she boldly answered “Yes, with the help of God.”  I remember my own ordination those big expectations and that I was unlikely to be able to fulfill them, but I was also aware of God’s grace which gave me enough hope to answer the same way Rachel did. In our baptisms, too, we state our intention to live among God’s faithful people, to read the scriptures and pray, to receive the Lord’s Supper, to proclaim Christ, to care for this world God has made, and to work for justice and peace in all the world.  It is a lot to take on for anyone, but over and over we say, “Yes, with the help of God.”

                It reminded me of the Israelites this morning in the reading from Exodus, when they all say so naively, “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.”  How could they possibly know what they were agreeing to?  They are just beginning a 40 year journey in the wilderness school of hardships and complaining and rebellion and fear and turning to false gods and new rules for living as a community and becoming the people of God and God becoming angry and Moses making a case for the people and God cooling off.  What a journey it would be, difficult and trying!  It is a lot to take on for anyone, but they all say, “Yes, with the help of God.”

              What are they saying yes to and what are we saying yes to, when we answer in the affirmative to such a call as this?  Many times we think we are saying yes to being the workers, the ones bringing good news to the poor, healing the sick, etc.  But what if Jesus is sending us out and it is our job to be receptive to the healing and new life he is trying give to us?

            For Moses and the Israelites, God is trying to convince them to let God lift them up on eagles’ wings, to let God love them and make of them a life-giving community.

            In the Psalm, God is again trying to make the community into a single flock, receiving food and protection from God.

            And Paul is trying to convince the Romans to receive God’s love and grace, even as they suffer persecution.

                I think a lot of it is that we don’t want to be unprepared and look foolish.   The Disciples were instructed to go out without money or extra clothes or much training.  They are going to have to ask for help, they are going to have to receive.  If we are Jesus’ disciples, we are going to have to ask for help.  We are going to look like we don’t know what we are doing.  We are going to make mistakes.  We want to get this right.  But God is trying to keep us humble, so we will fail.  And God is trying to keep us creative, so we will fail and have think creatively.  Sometimes we think it is our job to save others, and we forget that only God can do that.  We often bring supplies and gifts, we bring the know-how and the labor, and we try to do for others.  In that case, we put people in a situation where we are the haves and they are the have-nots and we are better than they are.  However, if we go in with nothing, having nothing and knowing nothing, we leave room for them to be the experts about their own lives.  We open ourselves to receiving from others, needing them as much as they need us, so we will be more likely to form community of equal partners with balanced power.

                God brought the Israelite people through the wilderness so they would practice being God’s people, and being community together with each other.  It was a learning experience in which they often looked and felt foolish.  It took all these years of walking together to learn how to rely on God and how to treat each other.  We are in a wilderness school too.  God is bringing us new experiences that disorient us and make us feel foolish, not to make fun of us, but to remind us who we rely on and belong to, who is with us always gathering the harvest with us, and that it isn’t about us but about the body of Christ, the whole community finding healing and wholeness and connection.

                And it is about what brings us hope and keeps us going, what motivates us to respond to God’s call to join in the work and be receivers of God’s grace and the grace and love of the community.  Do we hope in our own powers?  If so we are disappointed.  

I got curious about the reading from Romans so I looked up the original language. I specifically wanted to know what it meant by “character.”  But it got me looking at the whole passage.  First of all, the reading from Romans says we are justified by faith, and my question is whether it is our faith that justifies us and makes us right with God, or whether it is Jesus’ faith.  Hint, hint, I’m leaning on it being Jesus’ faith that saves us rather than our own.  Secondly, the word “boast” is actually the word meaning to rejoice.  So we rejoice in our sufferings, we rejoice in our hope of sharing the good news.  And the comes the part, “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us.”  It is actually more like this, “suffering produces patience, and patience produces experience, and experience produces expectation.”  In other words it is only through life experience that we learn who to trust and where to put our hope, because we keep practicing in the wilderness school of life, that stuff doesn’t fulfill us, that we need to take care of each other, and that God comes through for us, the only reliable one, the only one who fulfills the expectations—again, whose expectations?  Ours or Gods?  Expectation is more than hope, more than a dream, but a promised reality, assured, expected.  Expectation opens us up to receive from others and make room for God’s grace and the love of our community.

                This world is full of suffering.   We have the means to be comfortable, or at least keep up the illusion of comfort.  But God invites us to let go of worshiping comfort and join the harvest.  We are invited to go where there is suffering, to experience suffering ourselves, in order to find abundant life.  The harvest is plentiful.  There is a lot of work to do.  Parents need comforting whose children have been destroyed by gun violence.  Drug babies need rocked at the hospital.  Veterans who have lost limbs need a friend.  Teens who are struggling need support networks.  The homebound need visitors.  Will we go where we are uncomfortable?   If we do, we will be enrolling in wilderness school. We will find that we are powerless to fix other people’s problems, but they will minister to us.  We will have the chance to work side by side and learn from the best, our Savior Jesus.  We will look foolish.  We won’t know what we’re doing or be prepared.  Jesus calls us to serve where we aren’t the experts.  Jesus doesn’t want experts who already know everything, know-it-alls that aren’t trainable.  Jesus wants people who are open to learning and receiving help.  What we’re going to get out of this is going to be good for us and others.  We’re going to get a healthy dose of humility.  We’re going to become part of something greater than ourselves.  Jesus is going to use us to bring in the Kingdom.

            It’s all hands on deck!  Let’s get moving.  Jesus is calling us to day one of the harvest.  By the time the day is through we’re going to be pretty worn out and by the time 40 years is through we’re going to wonder if it will all be worthwhile, but we’ve got the best teacher there is, and we’ve got the expectation, the promise of what will be.  None of us will be greater than another, but all will have what they need and all will be included, and all will know they are loved, all will stand in God’s presence and all will see God’s presence in each other, and all will feast and be filled, and all will find fulfillment.  The promised land awaits.  Let us be open to receiving the gifts that God is sharing with us.