I Hope You Dance

This morning's sermon at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN

Text: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19

I remember incidents when I was young and again when my children were little where we were in the church sanctuary rehearsing for a Christmas pageant or some other event with kids participating in worship. Naturally, there was noise and running around and excitement and enthusiasm. Invariably, some adult would give a lecture on being quiet and respectful and not running or making noise “in God’s house.”

Now, I’m all for respect—for God, you, me, elders and children and people who aren’t like us as well as people who are—but what came across to me in those incidents was children being told that God is stern and serious and doesn’t like laughter, playing, running, dancing or any of the things children do naturally because they are filled with joy.

I don’t think God wants us to be “the frozen chosen” or a bunch of down-in-the-mouth, scowling folks who can’t ever laugh, clap or dance in church. Children can and will learn about respect just by being in worship and participating as part of the congregation. And we’re not afraid to laugh or clap when the Spirit moves us, but I’m not sure we’re prepared to dance in church the way David danced before the Lord!

Joy is contagious and it is good to share joy. Life is tough enough without trying to be serious all the time. In the midst of the trials of our daily lives, when there is pain and grief in families… when we or people we know are seriously ill… when our church or our community struggles to find ways to bring new people into the fold… when good friends die or move away… when tragedies happen to us or people we know… we need to be able to come together as a dancing, sharing, joyful, celebrating community. In the dancing, sharing and joyful celebration, we are reminded that in spite of everything, life has this persistent tendency to go on and God is ever-present with us through it all.

God’s love and presence are worth celebrating because that’s how we get through the bad stuff—by knowing and trusting that God loves us and is with us. So, even in our sorrow, I hope we dance. It doesn’t always need to be a rollicking, kick-up-your heels dance. It can be a slow, deliberate and mournful kind of dance. Just dance!

We’re mostly aware of David in the Hebrew Scriptures as hero and king, and his memory was a bright, sustaining source of hope for the people of Israel. But when we think of his humanness, we tend to focus on his flaws, especially his tragic affair with Bathsheba. However, David—who, according to tradition, composed the psalms—was obviously a person of deep feeling, and today’s passage about his joy gives us insight into another side of his passion; his profound gratitude and praise for God’s work in the life of Israel—bringing the people together, strengthening them in common cause against the Philistines, establishing the people and their land and the Davidic dynasty to the glory of God and fulfilling the promises of God right before their eyes, in their own lifetime.

The ark—which was said to house God—had been returned by the Philistines (after they captured it) because of its awesome power which frightened the foreigners. But for awhile it rested in the house of Abinadab. David is establishing Jerusalem as his seat of power. He wants to restore the ark to the center of the people’s shared life, so he goes to fetch the ark from its temporary home. Technically, the ark had always had a temporary home, because it moved with the people on their journeys and rested only for a time in Shiloh. So it’s likely that David felt the ark was coming home, even though that home was a new one.[i]

In a ritual celebration of bringing the ark home, David expressed his joy by dancing. Right now that may be the last thing most of us feel like doing. It’s been a hard week. For our congregation it’s been a hard couple of years. We’ve lost so many people who truly loved our church and supported it in every way they could. On July 3^rd I joined Mary Johnson and her family at Big Falls cemetery for Arden’s committal service. Yesterday we celebrated Bob’s life and grieved our own loss

It can definitely feel overwhelming, and when we lose a loved one it’s easy to wonder how the sun can possibly come up again for another day?

But the sun does come up again, so I hope you dance—like David—because God loves Arden and Bob and all the others and gave them new life, and God loves us and journeys with us in this life.

As members of the United Church of Christ, we are the people who profess that God is still speaking, and because that is true, we are allowed—in fact we are called—to dance! We can express our feelings, no matter what they are, because we know God loves us and God understands our feelings, no matter what they are. God calls us to BE, not just to observe; to live life, not just look on from the sidelines.

The song says, “And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance/I hope you dance/I hope you dance.”[ii] In the life we’re given, I bet God says, “I hope you live. I hope you live.”

Our life is God’s gift to us. How we live it is our gift to God. So remember David—dance and sing and make a joyful noise to the Lord! That energy and enthusiasm will keep us fresh and vital! AMEN.

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[i] Adapted from http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/s071606.html

[ii] “I Hope You Dance,” by Lee Ann Womack. http://www.lyrics007.com/Lee%20Ann%20Womack%20Lyrics/I%20Hope%20You%20Dance%20Lyrics.html

In Memory of Bob...

Bob Frederickson, the Moderator of our church and a beloved friend to everyone in the congregation and many, many people in town, died on Monday. At least 600 people attended the memorial service today which was held at Backus Community Center. The cross was created by Bob's daughter out of some of his cross-country skis.

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Scripture Texts: John 14:1-7 and Luke 6:20-23, 27-31

If ever there was someone who really lived by the Golden Rule, Bob certainly did. He was always ready to lend a helping hand or a listening ear or take a “coffee break.”

We could count on Bob to be in the church kitchen helping with the Easter Breakfast and the Mother’s Day Brunch. If you needed something he’d be the first to say, “I’ll get it.” One of the members of Faith United Church told me this week, “he was the kindest man I ever met.”

Bob was the only person I knew who had the tools for mounting pictures on a brick wall. When I came here 10 years ago I had two framed art prints by Fr. Edward Hays that I brought with me to hang in my office. I planned to collect them as they became available. I told Bob how my husband said he’d buy them for me but I’d have to get them framed. Bob drilled the holes and lined them up and said, “I hope you stay here long enough to fill the whole wall.” There are a total of six now and I think that’s all that will be released.

Have you ever had a glazed croissant with Bob? They’re definitely sinfully delicious! He would go to Canada to get them and bring them to work, or to someone’s house if there had been a death in the family, or even to church to share in the office.

He loved giving gifts as well. It might be his favorite round white Scotch Mints, or a bit of chocolate, or something that fit in with your favorite hobby—either something practical or a joke or maybe both. Sometimes he’d bring a cartoon or a story he thought you’d enjoy. He was always thinking about others.

Recently, Bob brought in a Plexiglas container, filled it with cough drops and put it out in the Narthex. He asked our office administrator to print up a sign that says, “Thou shalt not cough in church.” Bob, I promise to keep that container filled!

A couple times a year, often around Christmas, I get either a cold or allergies that have my voice sounding like it does today. Sometimes an embarrassing coughing fit interrupts the sermon. So several Christmas Eves ago Bob walked into the office before the service and handed me a little oblong box, wrapped in Christmas paper with a pretty red bow on top. He told me I should open it right then. Can you imagine what it was? I certainly had no clue, but it was quite the Christmas gift—a bottle of Buckley’s Cough Syrup! I’d never even heard of the stuff before, but he told me it comes from Canada and that it tastes pretty bad, but it works like a charm…

OK, so most cough medicine tastes pretty bad, right? You just have to do it quick and get it over with. So off I went to the kitchen, read the instructions, pinched my nose and gulped down a whole TABLEspoon of Buckley’s in one swallow. And I thought I was gonna die!! It was like drinking Vick’s Vapo-rub—or worse! Bob had a good chuckle over the expression on my face when I came back upstairs. He said, “the reason it works is because it tastes so bad you don’t ever want to take it again so you don’t dare cough!”

Bob was always involved in Faith United Church. He was a reader, served on committees, took his turn mowing the lawn, shoveling snow and checking on our troublesome roof. Most recently was our Moderator for the past year and a half until he started cancer treatments. When we needed grab bars and a new toilet, in the “Memorial Bathroom,” Bob made it happen. When one of the pews came loose not too long ago, Bob was lying on the floor a few days later bolting it back into place.

Certainly there is a special place in heaven that has been prepared for Bob! As Bob loved everyone he met, so God loves all God’s people, on a grander scale. We take comfort in Jesus’ words from John’s gospel, “…if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

The resurrection to new life is God’s generous and loving promise to all of us. And Jesus tells the disciples, “you know the way to the place where I am going.

Fortunately for most of us, we have that wonderful, brave “doubting Thomas,” who doesn’t hesitate to raise the critical questions that everyone else always wanted to know but was afraid to ask. Thomas says, “Geez, Jesus, we haven’t got a clue where you’re going, let alone how to get there! How can we possibly know the way?”

But it turns out the answer is simple—thanks for asking, brother Thomas! Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. All we have to do is follow him. And if we follow him we will know God. And when we know God we will want to live and love by the Golden Rule.

Bob’s was a life well-lived. We must now entrust him to God’s care, keeping our special memories tucked carefully inside our hearts. Jesus’ promise is for each of us, “where I am, there you may be also.” And it is the promise of the resurrection that gives us hope and comfort

Praise God for the gift Bob was to each of us! Praise God for God’s never-ending love for all of us! Praise God for loving arms to surround us in times like these! Praise God for memories! Praise God for this life and for the never-ending life to come! Praise God for faith and hope and love….!

Praise God! AMEN.

Our Independence

Today's sermon at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN

Text: Matthew 11:25-30

In the midst of parades, fireworks and food, I often wonder how much Americans think about the birth of our country and the heritage of freedom that began when the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence 233 years ago.

Congress first passed a resolution declaring our independence from England on July 2, 1776. The vote was 12 to nothing, with the New York delegation abstaining because they hadn’t received any instructions from the New York Legislation on which way they were authorized to vote.

Having taken this decisive step toward freedom, the Continental Congress spent two more days debating the wording of the document that was to be sent to Great Britain informing them of this action. As you probably know, that document was written by Thomas Jefferson with a number of minor editorial changes suggested by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin.

The Declaration of Independence was revolutionary in more than just its intent to assert its own authority to separate from the mother country. It also proposed radically new theories of government and individual rights.

Most governments of that era were monarchies which operated under the divine right principle. Because the right to wear the crown was hereditary, it was believed that God intervened directly in the birth process to select the right ruler for various circumstances.

A different theory of governance grew out of the Church in which certain groups of Christians, including Congregationalists, strongly upheld their right to assemble, to elect their own leaders and to jointly determine their own rules for governing their organizations.

Based on that belief, a political theorist named John Locke argued that each person had a natural right to enter into a contract with his or her neighbors to determine the form of government under which they wanted to live. It was this doctrine of natural rights to which the Continental Congress pointed as its authority for breaking away from Great Britain.

On July 4, 1776, no one could know what the result of this rebellion would be. They only knew that they were standing up to the strongest nation on earth and that the success or failure of their cause would depend on God.

There was always a very deep religious feel to the Colonial cause. In fact, after the war, George Washington wrote, “There never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States, and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God, who is alone able to protect them.

The signers of the Declaration were a good cross-section of the upper classes of that time. Twenty-four of them were lawyers or judges. Eleven were merchants; nine were farmers and large plantation owners. All of them were well-educated men of means. But they all signed the Declaration of Independence knowing that the penalty would be death if they were captured by the British.

The document itself ends with the words, “For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” And many of the 56 signers of that document had to pay an extremely heavy price for making that pledge.

Five of them were captured by the British and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army while another had two sons captured. Nine fought and died from wounds or hardships brought on by the Revolutionary War.

Some had their properties looted, or lost their ships, or had to hide out—living in caves—until the war was over. Many died destitute—ostracized by their friends for signing the Declaration.

That was the price of the freedom they provided for all of us. Because of the gift of freedom that they passed down to us, most of us living in modern America have been saturated with blessings to a degree unimaginable at the time of the Revolution. Yet we take those blessings for granted as if they were somehow simply our fair share.

In a similar situation, Abraham Lincoln once said, “We have forgotten the gracious Hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom or virtue of our own.”

In the early days of our country great sacrifices were made for the public good. Today most Americans have a hard time imagining these kinds of sacrifices or realizing what great responsibilities go with the freedoms we enjoy.

We may know that Jesus says, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required...”[i] but we don’t think about it very often.

And, of course, we do know that there are some among us who are denied certain rights and privileges on the basis of prejudice or fear, but we rarely stop to take a public stand on behalf of their liberties. We see injustices in our country and assume that they’re so outrageous that surely someone else will take care of them. And then we forget about them.

But in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus calls us to a greater level of commitment. He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The ease he’s talking about isn’t the ease of inaction. What he’s referring to is shouldering a task that is custom-designed for each person’s specific gifts and abilities. True freedom can never be found in inactivity, because then we will become dependent on the decisions and actions of others, whether they are good or bad.

True freedom—like that imagined by the signers of the Declaration of Independence—lies in taking a stand for what’s right and then facing the consequences, whatever they may be. According to the Bible, true freedom can only be found in service to Christ—otherwise we become slaves to the whims of the world around us.

James Watkins has written, “Peacemaking is the central declaration of the gospel. Grace...is experienced as peace. The peace which only God can give is able to heal the brokenness, pain and insecurity which most of us experience.

“When we know God’s peace, Christians go into the world in great joy to point to and become a part of God’s peace-giving... Peacemaking occurs whenever Christians encounter brokenness, conflict, injustice and pain. Consequently, peacemaking occurs in our own lives, our families, congregations, communities and in the international arena.”So, the American Revolutionary War has put us in a unique position to wage God’s peace in the world. And, with God’s guidance, that is something to which we can pledge ...our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. AMEN.

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[i] Luke 12:48

Fireworks!

Some of our 4th of July fireworks -- viewed from the end of our street, which was virtually a front-row seat!

Desperate Faith

This is my sermon from thismorning at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN

Text: Mark 5:21-43

What do we do when we’re desperate? Some people make deals with God. Some do things they would never consider doing were they not incredibly desperate. The saying “desperate times call for desperate measures”—or it could also be drastic measures—came to mind, so I looked it up online. Here’s what I found: “…according to the Oxford dictionary in quotations, on the 6^th [of[ November 1605, Guy Fawkes is reputed to have said ‘The desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy’…But it does not credit this as the original source.”[i]

That version of the quote may be even more appropriate to today’s gospel text than the more familiar one about desperate times and measures.

This is a wonderful story about 2 unnamed women who are helped by Jesus. The stories are intertwined and contain much symbolism. In both cases there is desperation and faith—or desperate faith—on the part of someone in the story.

In the case of the 12-year-old girl who is dying, the desperation and the faith belong to her father Jairus. This man was a religious leader—head of the synagogue—with power and authority in the Jewish community. He was probably a member of the group of religious leaders who were not very happy with Jesus because of his popularity with the masses and because of the things he said and did that seemed quite contrary to Jewish Law.

We can certainly understand Jairus’ fear that his daughter is dying and his desperation to get Jesus to his house in time to save her. But the original hearers of the story would have been surprised by Jairus’ emotions and his willingness to seek out this itinerant preacher-healer who was already in trouble with the authorities who were very likely Jairus’ friends.

Prior to the scientific age people did not allow themselves to get too attached emotionally to their children because so many of the children died young in the days before vaccinations, hospitals, and prenatal care. In Jesus' time “60 percent of live births usually died by their mid-teens.”[ii] The gift of a child must have seemed too precarious to invest in wholeheartedly, yet this man couldn't bear to lose his little girl even in a time when daughters were not valued as much as sons. But he is desperate, so he risks being ridiculed, and he risks missing the last few precious moments in his daughter's life.

Jesus is with the usual crowds that follow him, but he immediately agrees to go with Jairus. The crowd goes along too. There are lots of people all wanting to get close to Jesus. I don’t know if they’re jostling or not, but Mark tells us they are pressing in close around Jesus so that I’d imagine you’d hardly know who’s who. Because of this large crowd, it’s amazing to the disciples when Jesus stops and asks, “Who touched me?”

In a crowd like that you’re likely to be bumping up against lots of people so what’s the big deal? But to Jesus it was a big deal. Someone needed his compassionate healing energy and he chose not to let it be an anonymous situation.

We, like the disciples, might wonder how he could possibly have known what happened when the woman with the hemorrhage touched the hem of his clothes. But Jesus was aware that healing power had left him. One of my Reiki instructors in Sedona told about being in line at the grocery store and feeling the Reiki energy kick in and flow out from his body. He wondered who it was nearby who was in need of that energy. I experienced it once myself when I placed by hand over the baptismal font while saying the prayer of blessing over the water and felt the Reiki energy begin to flow from my hand to the water.

The woman who had been bleeding for 12 years was desperate. She had been unclean for 12 long years, which was also the entire life of Jairus’ daughter. That means that NO one had touched her for 12 years. She was isolated. She was tired. She had no energy; no life. She had a desperate faith that touching Jesus would make a difference!

Did Jesus make the incident public so that everyone would know about the power he had? I really don’t think so. He made it public so that everyone would know that the woman was no longer unclean and so she would know that she was loved; that she was important. Now she could be welcomed back into her community. She was acceptable again under the law. What compassion! What a gift!

But as a result of Jesus’ distraction with the healing of a nameless woman in the crowd, too much time has passed. Jairus had been so anxious to get Jesus to his house as soon as possible. Instead messengers come to tell Jairus they are too late—his daughter has died. No point in bringing the Teacher home now. Don’t bother him; let him be.

But Jesus isn’t going to be thwarted by these bearers of bad news. He says to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid, just believe.” Imagine! In the face of such terrible news Jesus says “just believe.”

And so they set off again. But this time Jesus takes only Peter, James, John and Jairus with him. When they get to Jairus’ house everyone there laughs at Jesus and ridicules him for saying the little girl is only sleeping.

I have this wonderful picture in my mind of Jesus saying, “OK that’s it, everybody OUT!” Then he takes Jairus and his wife, Peter, James and John and goes to where Jairus’ daughter is. He takes her hand and calls her to get up and that’s precisely what she does!

We’re told that in the face of everyone’s amazement, Jesus tells them to feed the girl and not to let anyone know what happened. So… what? They’re going to tell everyone, “oh yeah, the Teacher was right after all—she was only sleeping!”??! Sure. Yeah. Right. Although that might be easier to swallow than to believe Jesus could raise people from the dead. Maybe they could get away with it! But like so many other times when Jesus said “don’t tell,” I’m sure the story spread like wildfire.

These beautiful stories can also be tough because children still die and not everyone who prays for healing gets it. So… what is it? Don’t they have enough faith?

Instead of analyzing whether someone has enough faith or not, maybe we should be asking why these stories are included in Mark’s gospel. Maybe these are not stories about how to get God to do what we want—in other words how to keep in control—maybe these are stories about who God is, how God acts, and what God is like! Maybe Mark’s gospel tells these stories for just ONE reason—to make it clear that this is no ordinary man. This man is the son of God. Believe it!

Miracles are not always what we imagine, and neither is healing. We need to be open to the fact that healing may be “the restoration of meaning to people’s lives no matter what their physical condition might be.”[iii]

In response to people’s desperate faith, Jesus says come and live! “You who believe, and you who sometimes believe and sometimes don't believe much of anything, and you who would give almost anything to believe if only you could…. Get up, all of you—all of you” and LIVE! Jesus gives life not only to the dead, but to those of us who are "only partly alive…who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and the…miracle of every day we live and even of ourselves.” Jesus calls us to the power of new life, new hope, new being.[iv]

This is what God is like—filled with compassion and love for everyone, even the unclean and the unnamed. Jesus risked becoming unclean himself twice in this text—once by being touched by the bleeding woman and again by touching the dead girl. People and Love were always more important than religious law and societal taboos.

In these stories we catch a glimpse of the Reign of God, where all are heard, all are loved and community is restored. AMEN.

[i]http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_said_'Desperate_times_call_ for_drastic_measures'

[ii] John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus Year B.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Frederick Buechner, "Jairus's Daughter" in Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons.

UCC General Synod 27

The 27th General Synod of the United Church of Christ (UCC) is currently meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan with a theme of "Immerse Yourself."

I have attended a number of Synods...

1993 in St. Louis, MO

1995 in Oakland, CA

1997 in Columbus, OH

2003 in Minneapolis, MN

2005 in Atlanta, GA

2007 in Hartford, CT - the UCC's 50th birthday bash!

This year I'm not able to attend, but through the increasing wonders of technology I've been able to watch General Synod sessions, worship services and speakers live right on my laptop! Live Coverage is almost as good as being there! But I do miss the connections and conversations with friends and colleagues as well as all the displays and booths. Hopefully I'll be there in 2011!

Thanks to everyone who's working so hard to make this General Synod another great experience AND especially to those who are bringing it live to my livingroom!!

"We Walk by Faith, Not by Sight"

Sermon preached by the Rev. Sue Judson Hamly on June 14, 2009 at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN

Texts: 2 Corinthians 5:6-17 Mark 4:26-34


At the end of today's worship service there was a special called congregational meeting to vote on whether or not we would offer the use of our building for a pilot project being developed by a community task force to provide shelter for the homeless in our community and county beginning this coming winter. This was my sermon...

Outside our kitchen window, on the west end of the house, directly under the window & growing up above the level of the windowsill, is a bush. It’s just an ordinary bush—a shrub—but a couple of years ago I noticed that one of our cats liked to sit on that particular windowsill quite a bit. Eventually I found out why.

Jesus talks about the mustard seed that is the smallest seed yet grows into the largest shrub—with branches, even—“so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”[Mark 4:32]

Someone planted those shrubs outside our kitchen window—and along the “bedroom wing” of our house as well. I don’t know if Cecil Hess planted those bushes, or Dr. Crowe, or Mark and Nancy Ness. All I know is that someone who lived in the house before us planted them. And, like the person in Jesus’ parable who scatters seed on the ground and then eats and sleeps and doesn’t worry about those seeds, they went about their business of living. And the shrubs grew. We know not how, but it’s one of God’s miracles of life.

God sends the rain, the sun, the snow, the hail, the cold, the heat and the humidity. And the shrubs and bushes grow. Homeowners eventually have to cut them back so they don’t completely cover the windows of the house. And still, they continue to grow.

And my cat sat on the windowsill and watched because the birds didn’t make nests in the shade under the shrub; those cute little birds lived IN the shrubbery. And when someone walked by, or there was a loud noise in the cul-de-sac, or someone drove in the driveway… the birds would frantically rise—as one—out of the bush up into the safety of a taller, nearby tree. And the cat thought that was a wonderful sight to behold—definitely worth sitting on the windowsill and waiting to see!

That bush—and the others around our house—doesn’t produce pretty flowers or edible berries or anything. It’s very plain. It’s just there. In the winter it’s a mass of bare twigs until it becomes a huge white snowball. But in the summer—ooooh! In the summer (I don’t know how, just as the seed-scatterer in Jesus’ parable doesn’t know how) it miraculously sprouts green leaves so it’s no longer bare and barren-looking. And it becomes a temporary home, a haven, a safe refuge, a shelter for some of the birds who spend their summers here in the north.

We could be like that shrub or bush! We could be a temporary home, a haven, a safe refuge, a shelter! It’s not as frightening or difficult as some people might think. We have been presented with a wonderful opportunity for mission in our community—a terrific opportunity to immerse ourselves and Share the Love!

Not long after I became pastor at the Congregational UCC in Decorah, Iowa, I was visited by a member of a community committee that was working to find sponsors for Vietnamese refugee families who wanted to come to the U.S. Other churches in town were sponsoring families, which entailed getting them set up with furniture, winter clothing and food and helping them out until they were able to get work and become self-supporting. I told the committee representative that our congregation was mostly older and not large enough to support a family.

A year or so later we were contacted again. This time, they said, there was a father and his young son who needed sponsors. With only two people to provide for, was that something our church might be able to do?

Spear-headed by 2 members of the congregation who were deeply committed to this project, we agreed that we would try sponsoring a father and son. We had no idea how it would turn out or exactly what it would entail, but we chose to “walk by faith, not by sight.”

And what a wonderful experience it was! Nghiep and Thuc (otherwise lovingly referred to as “Nip & Tuck”) taught us about love, honor, appreciation, and their culture. Nghiep went to work at the turkey plant in Postville, eventually being able to send money to the rest of the family back in Viet Nam. We all enjoyed watching Thuc blossom and become fluent in English, excel in school and enjoy being a kid growing up in the Midwest as if he’d been born here.

Eventually they brought the rest of their family over, and on the Saturday before my last Sunday there, we had a wedding! I was privileged to officiate at the marriage of Nghiep’s oldest daughter to the son of the first family that had been sponsored by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Our two passionate members thought it was the perfect opportunity for a traditional Vietnamese wedding, but the families thought otherwise—they wanted a very traditional American wedding! It was great fun watching my Lutheran colleague teach the guys how to usher people in and out of pews and how to hold their arms just SO to escort the women down the aisle!

Because most people would rather walk by sight than by faith, making changes, doing new things and taking risks can be quite frightening. But Paul says, “…if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” [2 Cor. 5:17]

God calls us to do new things and Jesus says, “…Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”[1] The “least of these,” no matter who they are, or how we might feel prejudiced against them, ARE members of God’s family, every bit as much as we are.

We live in uncertainty, between the planting and the harvest. We don’t know what may grow from the seeds we sow. Symptoms of our anxiety include perfectionism, drivenness, moral outrage, restlessness, dread of being alone, and estrangement from God. This kind of anxiety is "an occupational hazard of being a finite creature in a universe of infinite possibilities.” Barbara Brown Taylor tells us that “What is absent when anxiety is present is faith…[faith] that God will be God, that the automatic earth will yield its fruit, that life can be trusted.” The antidote to anxiety is courage, which is chosen “over and over again, every day that [we] live, if real living is what [we] are after….” And if real living is what we’re after, then we should “scatter [our] seeds,”[2] open up our hearts and our doors and be willing to be amazed at what God will do through us! Wouldn’t it be great to see what God can do through us if we give God room, if we give God a chance?

Taking the first step—opening our doors and our hearts—may feel like the old cartoons where the character walks off the edge of a cliff into nothingness and fear and scrambles frantically to get back up to solid ground. But as God’s people we DO walk by faith, not by sight. We don’t walk alone because God is always with us. And as we gather at Christ’s table we are reminded that we are all one in the Body of Christ.

I may not see what lies ahead, but still I walk—in faith. AMEN.

Endnotes:
[1] Matthew 25:40, NRSV.
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Automatic Earth,” from Mixed Blessings, quoted at http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/june-14-2009-eleventh-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html
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The Congregation voted to be part of the pilot project by offering our building as one of three sites for the start of the pilot homeless shelter project.