Sermons

12th Sunday after Pentecost

8/27/2006

I was listening to a conversation this past week about golfer Tiger Woods. The discussion was about Tiger’s latest tour win last Sunday and the question was asked – is he really that good? Yes. Even Jack Nicklaus was quoted as having said he really is that good. As the conversation continued, though, it was brought out that Tiger works hard to be good. He’s disciplined, he regularly exercises, and he continually practices. But let’s imagine for a minute an early conversation Tiger might have had with his father. “Come on Tiger, let’s go practice”. “Please, dad, no. It’s too hard – I just can’t get my swing right. I’ll never be really good – I just want to quit and go back to watching you play”. “It’s going to take hard work, son. Are you up for the challenge or not?” Who knows if it ever happened this way – but it might have. It could have seemed so impossible, so hard to believe and understand he could actually be a champion, that Tiger was willing to give up being a participant and just be a fan. Or maybe not even be interested in golf at all. This Sunday is the conclusion to Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. Since the last Sunday in July we have heard the account of Jesus feeding the physical hunger of the five thousand, moving the next week to Jesus being the bread of life. Then we heard that whoever believes Jesus came from heaven as the bread of life will live forever. Last week we heard that we must take this up a notch and eat and drink of the flesh and blood of Jesus.
As the teaching has progressed, so has the reference to the crowd – it’s gotten smaller and smaller. The account reads that five thousand were fed, then a crowd goes after Jesus. The Jews are reported to complain and grumble about Jesus’ claim to being the bread of life, then his followers complain because the teaching is too hard. Finally, Jesus is left with the twelve – the chosen. Where some were only looking to be satisfied physically and others got angry because Jesus claimed to be someone more than they perceived as just Mary and Joseph’s son and a number simply turned away, the twelve remain. Jesus turns to his chosen and says, “you don’t also want to go away, do you? Is this teaching too hard for you to take? Are you willing to continue investing the time and energy to truly understand what I am teaching?” And Peter, the consummate spokesperson, replies, “Lord, the one in authority, if we turn away from you, to whom will we go? Who else would we follow? You have words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. We realize and understand you are who you claim to be. This is the essence of faith. God wishes for us to believe Jesus was sent by God and is the “in flesh” embodiment of God. Chapter 1, verse 1, of the Gospel of John says “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. The twelve, through Peter, respond that they believe the words of Jesus are words that mean life, eternal life. Yet today we hear so many words that seem so much easier to believe. They are words of death – words that are “un” life. We hear the word disease and believe we are completely unhealthy. We hear the word divorce and believe we are unlovable. We hear the word fired and believe we are unproductive. We hear the word poor and believe we are unworthy. These are words of the flesh – words that conjure up faces to go with them, probably faces of family and loved ones. And even though they are painful words, they are familiar. However, Jesus’ words are words of life. Believe, eat and drink, follow me, abide in me and I abide in you, the Father – God – grants you to come to me. But the faces are not as familiar – the concepts not as concrete. The images are cloudy and hard to understand. It takes some work – study, prayer, worship through hearing the word and celebrating the sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism – and not just one time, but daily, weekly, year after year.
Faith has an interesting way of sort of sneaking up on you. The Holy Spirit enters through all these means and faith increases. Like Peter, we can reach a point where we say – we have come to believe and know – where else would we go? My call to public ministry includes a piece of that revelation. At the age of 19 I was baptized in the Lutheran church. I had attended church when I was young, mostly Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, but had never been baptized. From the time of my baptism, I felt I had come home. Church was where I wanted to be as much as possible. I volunteered for all sorts of committees and functions, and soon I realized I spent about four out of seven days or nights at church doing something. My profession at the time was in insurance – not something I hoped to retire from, for sure. But I didn’t really know what else I wanted to be. My pastor encouraged me to think about ordained ministry, but I sort of laughed it off. Surely I wasn’t the type God was looking for, whatever that might have meant. I was pretty shy, very uncertain of myself – I couldn’t possibly be a pastor. But the thought never really went away. Several years down the road I met Doug. We were married and soon I was able to quit the insurance business.
In fact, for a while, I didn’t work outside the home at all. Then, a blurb in a Sunday bulletin said a local Lutheran church was looking for a part-time secretary – and I jumped at the chance and I continued to volunteer doing all sorts of things at my church – hoping this nagging feeling would go away that I should be doing something more. Later, an opportunity came available to work with the mission director for North Carolina and Virginia synods, so I worked a full day – half for the church and half for the mission director. Through these positions I was able to meet many different types of pastors, see many different types of ministries, and the nudge just kept getting stronger. Finally, I met someone who described their sense of call much like mine – feeling blue each fall as seminary would be starting thinking I should be there, finding myself more and more involved in all aspects of the church and loving it, realizing there were gifts and talents given to me by God that could be used to bring glory to God and build up the church. Basically, it got to the point where I just felt I couldn’t do anything else but surrender and follow the path of discernment toward ordained ministry because I, like Peter described, really had “no where else to go”.
I must admit the last two and a half years haven’t always been easy. Studying is hard work. Leaving my husband and family behind and heading six hours north where I knew no one at seminary was painful and lonely and frightening. Gaining confidence that God really does equip the called instead of calling the equipped comes from opportunities that present themselves where I know I don’t have the answers, yet they come. Trusting that God is really in control when other people decide the places you are sent to do ministry and preach and learn. People say Doug and I have made big sacrifices. Maybe, but no bigger than anyone who works hard to understand Jesus’ teaching. Jesus’ words are difficult to understand, Jesus’ words do require some action on our part – surrender, trust, love, forgiveness, peace, justice. Jesus’ words are words of the spirit, without flesh, without concrete images, but true and trustworthy – and full of promise – life, eternal life, forever life. Thanks be to God.

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12th Sunday after Pentecost