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Reformation
Sunday 2006 |
|
Reformation
Sunday 2006 |
The red paraments on the
altar are for Reformation Sunday, not in celebration of the way the World Series
went, though Cardinal fans might argue otherwise.
I enjoy watching baseball and got to take in one of our son Micah’s
softball games recently. He plays on
a church league, much like Faith Lutheran’s. The
night I was there he caught a foul fly ball that looked impossible to catch. Cheers
went up in surprise. After the game, I asked him how he caught that fly. He
said, “It wasn’t a hard catch, mom. It
just looked hard.”
How often, I wonder, is
that the case with other things: things like making a soufflé; or like ballroom
dancing; or like coming to faith; or growing in faith.
Are they really hard, or do they just look that way?
What Micah also said is instructive. He
added, “The reason the catch looked impossible is that I turned the wrong way.
Had I done it right, it would have
looked easy.”
Jesus says, “Take my
yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Jesus also says in today’s Gospel, “If you continue in my word, you are
truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you
free.” And again Jesus says, “I have come that you might have life, and have
it abundantly.” And Jesus knew the
Psalm that says, “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”
An easy yoke; being truly
free; having life abundant; being happy: are gifts of God and because they are
gifts, there is, on the one hand, nothing difficult about it.
On the other hand however, we often come at it like Micah came at
catching that fly ball. We come at
it the hard way, making it appear to others, and to our selves, like way too
much work.
Jesus’ offer of an easy
fit is attractive – as is his offer of freedom, life abundant and happiness.
The Bible tells us these are ours, even – grace tells us – when we
turn the wrong way. The little
catching analogy works better than one might expect because Micah still caught
the ball. In spite of his backhanded
twist and turn, the far reaching ball still ended up in his mitt.
Grace is still ours, in spite of our sometimes odd stretches.
Being set free for lives
well lived is at our finger tips even when we tangle our arms in mid air in the
effort. How this can be, is grace!
It can be – because it is not about us in the long run.
It is about a God who wants so much for us to catch the gifts of faith
that God comes to wherever our twists and turns take us.
We have a God who loves us so radically, that God comes down from the
comfort and safety of heaven to be with us.
We have our God at our fingertips because God has chosen to be that
available. Right here!
But one challenge awaits
us. God is here, but are we? Are
we here, or are we off worrying about yesterday or tomorrow?
Are our thoughts present for God’s real presence, or are we caught up
in how we’re going to get our homework done or the right job or the
relationship we long for; or how our kids are going to get all those things?
Are we in touch with the joy and freedom for others that are ours because
we have a very present God, or are we distracted by what Thomas Keating calls
programs for happiness?
A life of faith may look
impossible for us if we think it’s about us making the right moves at just the
right times. But the good news is
that faith is a gift. It is
something we receive, not something we do. It’s
about trusting that even when we seem to endlessly miss the fly ball coming our
way, we are still in the game and, in fact, we are the ones being caught.
Faith is about trusting God to catch us and include us and love us into
the truth that we are free from worry about ourselves and free for love of
neighbor.
And that truth goes
further, for as Father Richard Rohr says, Jesus said a ridiculous thing.
He said God’s favor falls on the good and the evil; the just and the
unjust. We may not like that. Why should God help the other team? We want God on
our side. But God is present with
the truth: that love isn’t just for those who twist or turn the way we think
they should. God is present, period. Present
to all who will simply be still and notice.
We can run away from
faith, to be sure, but the Gospel calls us over and over to stop running, to put
down our walls, to “Be still, and know that God is God.” Faith
is not about doing, but about being – being open; being receptive; being
attentive to the truth that God’s love calls us into God’s wider purposes:
the real source of happiness.
In Confirmation we walk
through Luther’s Small Catechism which includes: The Lord’s Prayer, the
Creed, the Ten Commandments, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.
In Luther’s explanation of the third article of the Creed he writes
what I think are some of the most powerful words he ever wrote.
In explaining what it means to say, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the
Holy Catholic Church” Luther writes:
“I
believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ
my Lord, or come to him. But the
Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts,
made me holy and kept me in true faith.”
That’s why we need the
church, and why we need to gather as the church, because the church is where the
Gospel is made audible and visible in the ways Jesus promised.
We can go in
every-which-direction to come to faith, to gain happiness, to find freedom, to
live abundant lives – trying to get there on our own.
But, as Luther wisely says, we cannot get there on our own.
We cannot come to faith and its gifts by our own effort.
We come by being responsive to the Holy Spirit who calls us through the
Gospel. It is a matter of being –
being open to Christ’s real presence in the bread and wine: “This is my
body, for you.” If Jesus said so,
we need only be open to this promise.
Jesus also said, “Lo, I
am with you always.” Comfort is as
close as receptivity to that gift. “Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is
easy.” We can be connected to all
kinds of claims, but God alone is attentive to every detail of who we are – an
attentiveness that helps us discover that faith is about learning that it is we
who are being caught and that the game is ever so much larger than the one we
thought we were playing.
In baptism we are caught
by the watery glove of God – and not so we can take our ease in these waters,
but so that we can be happily hurled out daily from these waters for the life of
the world. Jesus also said, “When
you feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the prisoner, you do so to me.”
We are set free from preoccupation with ourselves, for service to our
neighbor. We are free because God is intent on catching us through word and
water, bread and wine, the forgiveness of sins, and the call to be disciples.
Jesus says, “If you
continue in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and
the truth will make you free,” free for a wider story, a greater purpose than
any game we could imagine signing up for on our own: called, gathered,
enlightened and made holy for God’s purposes. May
God bless us to know that being caught and called by God for the grand adventure
God has in mind is as good as it gets. May
we be receptive to this baptismal catching and this everlasting call!
Amen.
+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson,
to the glory of God
Faith