On Not Taking "No" for an Answer

Bethesda Lutheran Church, Moorhead, MN

September 9, 2012

Mark 7:24-37

How good are you at taking “no” for an answer?

Whether you’re selling a product or issuing an invitation….whether you’re locked in an argument or simply trying to “make your case”….how do you respond when the other person shakes her head and says:  “You have not persuaded me.”

Do you try again, dig in deeper….or do you shrug your shoulders and mutter:  “Oh well, you win some and you lose some?”

This Syrophoenician woman in our gospel story was absolutely no good at taking “no” for an answer.

This woman, a non-Jew from a people who had never been very good neighbors to the Jews, seeks out a visiting Jew named Jesus who appears to have come to her seashore city, simply wanting to “get away from it all.”   Why else would Jesus be holed up in that area, “the region of Tyre” where the local citizens were not of his kind, and thus all-too-happy to leave him alone?

But somehow this woman found Jesus.  Breaking all sorts of gender taboos and social conventions about Jews keeping their distance from Gentiles…..this woman located Jesus because she had one laser focus, one single-minded purpose:   to get help for her deranged daughter.

And for her trouble, this woman receives a unique response from Jesus, the normally compassionate healer and savior.    Hers is the only request for help uttered in the four gospels to which Jesus responded, “No—nothing doing.”

That alone might have defeated other petitioners, but not this woman.   A “no” from Jesus should have put an end to the matter, but not with this woman, who persisted in hounding Jesus to give her daughter aid.   

Isn’t that just like a parent of a very sick child, though?

But the response she received isn’t “just like Jesus.”   It shocks us with its apparent rudeness.   In the face of woman’s repeated pleading Jesus dismisses her, rather crudely:   "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

Translation:  “Let the children of my people Israel be fed first, for it is not fair to take the chosen Jewish children’s food and throw it to the unclean Gentile dogs.”

Ouch.  That had to sting!  Whatever got into Jesus?

But Mark, the teller of this story, doesn’t even pause to ponder that question.   Mark, rather keeps the spotlight on this Gentile woman, who—rather than allowing herself to be rebuffed—simply barrels on  ahead, coming back at Jesus, using his own words to gain her advantage.

“"Sir,” she shot back at Jesus, “even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

Now I wonder if Jesus was expecting THAT!

I wonder if Jesus suspected how this woman was “on to him.”

It is as if this woman, whatever research she had done on Jesus, knew and believed in the center of her being two things about him:   that Jesus came into the world to help people…..and that Jesus did this out of the overflowing abundance of God.   

She trusted that Jesus’s capacity to heal was so potent that all the woman needed was just a little bit of it…simply the ”crumbs” from the table of this Master would get the job done, bring healing to her tormented daughter.

For saying this, for articulating this persuasive logic (logos), for making this compelling case, Jesus gave the woman what she was seeking:  "For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter."

More than another tale of a wondrous healing, this gospel story holds up for us a picture of faith in which faith is something more robust and muscular than we often imagine it to be.

Faith, we Lutherans are wont to say, is the means whereby we receive the good gifts of God---forgiveness, freedom and a future without end in Jesus Christ.

God gives us those things, unconditionally, for Jesus’s sake….and we receive those things by faith.   Faith in this way of describing it, is often viewed as a wholly passive thing, a mere receiving.

But what if faith has more to it than that?   What if faith is like your heart muscle—a pump in your chest that’s so powerful and persistent that it will beat continuously from the moment you come alive until you draw your final breath?

What if faith is like this Syrophoenician woman’s fierce determination not to accept “no” for an answer—even if the “no” seems to be coming straight from God?    What if faith is like a muscle to be toned and pounded by a lifetime of rigorous reflection and rugged resistance against everything and anything that would challenge such faith?

I am captivated by that question, especially on this Rally Day for so many of our churches….when our focus turns again toward another program year of faith formation, especially for those in the first third of life.

What quality or character of faith does God seek to form in each one of us?  A passive, receiving-only sort of faith?  Or a more adventuresome, daunting faith that boldly sails out of safe harbors, straight into stormy seas….fearlessly, recklessly trusting that God’s abundance, God’s overflowing, overpowering grace will meet us wherever we look?

Recently a retired pastor friend told me about an amazing adult Bible study group that meets right here in Moorhead every Friday morning.   This is not just a chance for Lutherans to quietly sip coffee together and dip gingerly into the scriptures.   When this group met for the first time, the tone was set by one of the participants who told my friend:  "I assume that you're going to draft questions for us, and when you do, make them as hard as possible." 

Not surprisingly, this Bible study is still going full-tilt after 4 ½ years.  And what gives it such zip and crackling energy is the constant expectation that dwelling in God’s Word should be a  hold-on-to-your cap, energetic endeavor that challenges participants to the max.

“We…discover that during virtually all of our discussions the risen Jesus shows up,” my pastor-friend went on to tell me.  “We find ourselves on a fantastic journey with [the risen Jesus] in the context of the gospel, and in the context of our individual lives between sessions.  Indeed, when we [come]together, we…share life experiences (without betraying confidences), which [serve] to further illumine our understanding of the gospel.”

So what if, as Bethesda begins another program year of Christian growth and learning and service, you cultivated among yourselves such an expectation that dwelling in God’s Word will be one of the most graciously-unsettling exercises for disciples of all ages?

What if cultivating the questions—the hardest questions you can pose to God and God’s people—what if treasuring lively, difficult questions became the heart of all your endeavors to grow together in God’s grace?   What if your children developed within them a constant expectancy that God is so huge and wide and full of mercy that we can throw anything at this God, and God can more than handle it all?

What a sea change that might bring about in the church!

Two years ago Kenda Creasy Dean of the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary wrote a book entitled  Almost Christian:  What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church.  In this book she unpacked the critical findings of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) that was conducted in 2005.

A central conclusion of this nationwide survey of American youth is that most of them adhere to something Dr. Dean calls Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.   That is to say:   “Religion helps you to be nice (it's moralistic) and feel good (it's therapeutic), but otherwise God stays out of the way except in emergencies (it's Deist).  That's what most teenagers think.  The ways they described God in the study were revealing; God was either the cosmic butler (staying out of the way until called upon to meet my needs) or the divine therapist (God's main goal is to help me feel good about myself).”[1]

And where did our young people learn such a vanilla, pale-imitation shadow of robust Christian faith?

They learned it from us, not because we intended to teach this, but because this is how Christian faith has come off to too many of the next generation—a tepid, harmless version of the Real Thing.

If we think there is a better way, a more compelling vision to share with our children….let us take our cues from this nameless Syrophoenician woman in Mark, chapter 7. 

Let us “catch” if we can, even a small measure of her reckless, damn-the-torpedoes faith that will not take “no” for an answer, because it is a faith that comes straight from our reckless God who never takes “no” for an answer, either!

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

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[1] “Almost Christian: Q&A with Kenda Creasy Dean” by Terrace Crawford.   Accessed on August 28, 2011 at  

http://www.churchleaders.com/youth/youth-leaders-articles/145646-almost-christian-q-a-with-kenda-creasy-dean.html.   All quotes in this column are from this article.

 

It's All Gift from the Father of Lights

Trinity Lutheran Church, Moorhead

Installation of Pastors Matthew McWaters, Laura Stancher and C.J. Valenti
September 2, 2012
James 1:17-27

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

The last leg of our journey involved a slow ride on a dusty road up into the highlands north of Managua.   Our 4-wheel drive land-rover, painfully navigated the wash-boardy gravel path, until finally we reached our destination in a remote rural area of Nicaragua

As soon as we stopped, fireworks announced our arrival.   Fiesta time!  The mariachi band was already “cooking,” neighbors gathering in a makeshift tent-chapel, all dressed up on a Monday morning to pray and sing and hear from dignitaries….as we faced an “altar” piled high with squash and melons from local gardens.

And the object of all this fuss wasn’t really the arrival of three ELCA synod bishops and the president of Lutheran World Relief.

No, the object of our attention appeared to be much more modest:   a balloon-festooned well-- bubbling up cool, clear water from 130 feet below the ground.  

“El agua es la vida” we heard---Water is life.   So sing, light bottle rockets, and turn the crank on that well—men, women, children—everyone taking their turn.    Because persons who used to trudge 5 kilometers to bathe and draw water from a muddy river now have safe well-water, right in their midst.

When we norteamericanos sat down with the local well committee—eight community leaders who had guided this project---when we asked them what this new well meant in their lives….their first response was this:  “This water is God’s gift to us.”   El agua es la vida—from God’s fatherly hand.

And that was more than pious palaver from people trying to impress the obispos—the visiting bishops.  No, this confession flowed straight from their faithful hearts, as clear and clean as the water that had brought us together.

We pressed them, though:  “Who’s permitted to drink from your new well?” we asked.

Members of the well committee quickly replied: “Everyone!”

“Do you really mean that everyone can drink from this well? Even those who don’t pay the monthly water tax?”

“Yes,” they insisted. “God gave us this water. Lutheran World Relief helped us access this water--and we must share it in solidarity with all who are thirsty.”   

It was as if these sisters and brothers were “channeling” the opening lines of this morning’s Second Lesson:  “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

If something—anything—good comes your way, my dear friends, luck has nothing to do with it.  

If anything good and true and beautiful plops itself down in your lap:   pretend it has a big red ribbon tied around it, a gift straight from the heart of the Father of lights….the God of all creation….who is utterly, completely “for you” and who will not anytime soon change his mind about you.

This gracious truth, that came home to me two weeks ago in the outback of Nicaragua, comes home for all of this morning as we dwell in God’s Word.   All we are and have is pure gift, coming down from the Father of lights, “with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

God is not wishy-washy about you or me or anyone else.   God is steadfast and sure, God’s regard for us unwavering, unalterable in his overflowing love for us and for everyone.   This core truth about God has become the center of our lives through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Pretty good stuff, wouldn’t you agree?  

…Especially as it comes to us from the book of the Bible that Martin Luther nicknamed the “epistle of straw!”

For you see, in the first edition of Luther’s translation of the New Testament, published in 1522, the Great Reformer was pretty blunt:  “In fine, Saint John’s Gospel and his first epistle, Saint Paul’s epistles, especially those to the Romans, Galatians, Ephesians and Saint Peter’s first epistle—these are the books which show thee Christ, and teach thee everything that is needful and blessed for thee to know even though thou never see or hear any other book or doctrine.   Therefore is Saint James’s epistle a right strawy epistle in comparison with them, for it has no gospel character to it.”

If the Letter of James had any practical use, Luther mused, its pages could well be torn out of the Bible and used for kindling in your fireplace.

Really, Brother Martin?  Whatever got into you?

What got into Martin Luther was all the stuff that comes after the first two verses of our Second Lesson—all the stuff about what we should do and avoid, how we shall live and conduct ourselves with one another….all the ways that faith brings forth sound and (dare we say it?) good works in our lives.

Locked in the doctrinal struggles of the 16^th century Reformation, when the church seemed to be teaching Christians to perform meritorious works to get on God’s good side….when reformers were lifting up faith alone as the sure basis of our “rightness” with God….Luther lashed out at James’s apparent over-emphasis on good works.

But wait. 

In the midst of this titanic church struggle, another word emerged:  “Faith….is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God….It makes us altogether different persons, in heart and spirit and mind and powers…..[Faith] is a living, busy, active, mighty thing….It is impossible for [faith] not to be doing good works incessantly.   It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them.”

Who said that?   James, the writer of this Epistle of Straw?  

No.  That is Luther, seemingly talking out of the other side of his mouth, in his preface to the Epistle to the Romans!

It is as if Luther himself, peered ever deeper into the alleged conflict between faith alone and good works, and he realized that faith is never alone….that is not like a lifeless stick or a dead stone…but that faith is vibrantly alive, and like every other living being, faith transforms us and our world.  

Faith bears good fruit, as inevitably and abundantly as this summer’s apple crop, even in a season of drought here in the Midwest. 

And it’s all gift, from the Father of lights!

All the good things we know we don’t deserve…it’s all gift from the Father of lights.

And all the ways we find ourselves grasping and responding to these gifts….that’s all gift, too, from the Father of lights.

So if you listen more than you speak, and if you speak in measured ways (what a concept, especially in this nasty political campaign season!)…

….and if you curb your anger, or if you seek to generate more light than heat with your heartfelt opinions….it’s all gift from the Father of lights.

And when you “rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness,”….it’s all gift from the Father of lights.

And when you “welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls”….that too is all gift from the Father of lights.

And when your hearing of God’s Word sets your hands in motion and moves your feet toward widows and orphans, enacting God’s Word….guess what:  it’s all gift from the Father of lights.

You get the picture, my friends.   And what a word this is for a time like this in Trinity’s life and mission!

For today we welcome three new Transition into Ministry pastors—Matt, Laura and C.J.    Believe you me:  They have performed many works of the law, good works to arrive here.  

They have rolled up their sleeves and mastered Greek, learned exegesis, studied church history, practiced pastoral care.  They have survived harrowing internships and the perilous ELCA candidacy process and the daunting call process…..they have been been poked, prodded, examined, approved….and even “pasturized” by the rite of ordination.  And they stand before you today, ready to jump into ministry with both feet….

….but here’s the deal:  all their energy and skills and imagination and hard work…..it’s all sheer gift, from the Father of lights….

And the same goes for everything else that might be on our minds this morning—the fleeting hours of summer’s last holiday weekend, anticipation of a new school year, the start of a new program year here at Trinity, and the senior pastor call process over which your congregation and call committee have been earnestly praying and laboring…..all of these “good works”…it’s all gift from the Father of lights.

And if everything we are and have, everything that commands our attention and our energy, if it’s all sheer gift from the Father of lights---how…how can it be anything but good?

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

Disciples Become Apostles

Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?

Disciples Become Apostles

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Acts 1:8

So, as we saw in last month’s Bible study, the Risen Christ doesn’t hang around the place of his temporary burial following Good Friday.   Jesus the Living One has places to go, people to see, a world to capture with the astonishing news of God’s victory at the Cross.

But in the first chapter of the Book of Acts the disciples encounter a sharp curve in the road.   Having broken free from the grave, having returned to Galilee—the place of mission—the Risen Christ takes his followers by surprise.   While he was speaking with them “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”  (Acts 1:9)

Jesus’ Ascension stops his followers dead in their tracks—mouths agape, staring off into the stratosphere.  What now?  

The disciples might have stood there forever, dumbfounded by the Ascended Jesus’s unexpected departure.   But fortunately two men in white appeared, snapping them out of their momentary stupor:  “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”  (Acts 1:11)

So Jesus was still alive, still out ahead of his followers, but no longer with his feet planted on the earth, at least for a time.   Ascension would not be the end of it all.  Jesus would return one final time, to complete all things and make the whole creation new.

But what were Jesus’ followers to do in the meantime?

No Time for Distractions!

One thing the disciples were not to do was to get lost in speculation about the whys and wherefores of Jesus’ subsequent return.   Jesus himself called that a dead end.   “It is not  (emphasis added) for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.”  (Acts 1:7)

Despite the crystal clarity of the Risen Christ on this subject, generations of his followers have ignored his teaching.   As recently as last year, a radio “evangelist” Harold Camping predicted Christ’s final coming on May 21, 2011 at 6 p.m. sharp.  All over the world billboards were put up, possessions were sold, “Rapture” sermons were delivered and “Left Behind” parties were planned.   And, of course, our Lord didn’t return on Mr. Camping’s timetable.  

There is a genuine issue at stake here, though.  We long for God’s final purposes to be achieved.   We ache for God to consummate all of God’s saving work.  All Christians affirm the final word about Jesus in the Apostles’ Creed, that “he will come again, to judge the living and the dead.”

But how and where and when exactly will that happen?   Jesus’ clearest answer is:  “No one knows.  Not the angels in heaven.  Not even the Son.  Only the Father knows….and he isn’t telling!”  (Matthew 24:36)  Speculating about matters that are “beyond us” will only distract us from what matters most to God.

Truth be told, we 21^st century disciples still get distracted by other things---end of the world speculating, moralizing about other people’s behaviors, arguing over church politics.  We can become so distracted by other, lesser things that we miss the Main Thing, which is sharing Christ.

How does your community in Christ sometimes become distracted from what matters most to God?

The Way Ahead

It is way above our pay grade to know all the details of Christ’s final coming.  So we would be wise to focus on other things.  And fortunately here in Acts 1 Jesus tells us what those other things happen to be.

“So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  (Acts 1:6-8)

It’s not for us to peer into God’s heavenly timetable.   But what we can do is bear witness here and now in this world.

Jesus paints a picture of how that would play out for his first disciples.  Picture it as a series of concentric circles.  “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,” Jesus declares, “and you will be my witnesses

·       in Jerusalem,

·       in all Judea and Samaria, and

·       to the ends of the earth.”

It all starts where it all started for Jesus, in Jerusalem, where the Cross was raised up on the city’s garbage heap and where the crucified Jesus was raised up three days later.  Jesus says:  “start here, in Jerusalem, then move on out to the first ring of witness, Judea and Samaria.  Walk where I walked, and then keep on moving out to the ends of the earth.”

This is, in fact, exactly what unfolds in the Book of Acts.   With the ascended Jesus no longer bound to a single spot on earth, he now lives and moves in and through the community of disciples that bears his name.   Their communal life mirrors remarkably the life of the earthly Jesus:

·       By calling Matthias to replace the traitor Judas, they reconstitute the Twelve followers whom Jesus first called (Acts 1:12-26)

·       They are “baptized” by the fire and wind of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was baptized at the Jordan River, claiming his identity as God’s beloved, chosen one (Acts 2:1-21)

·       The disciples proclaim God’s in-breaking Rule, as boldly as Jesus did, drawing thousands into the community of Christ (Acts 2:22-47).

·       They continue Jesus’ redemptive ministry of healing (Acts 3).

·       They stand up before opponents—the same Council that condemned Jesus—and testify fearlessly to Christ  (Acts 4).

·       They shape a radical new life, along the contours of Jesus’ way of praise, service and generosity—even in the face of persecution “push-back” (Acts 5).

·       They enter into their own Holy Week “passion,” exemplified in the arrest, trial and martyrdom of the deacon Stephen (Acts 6-7).

Slowly it must have become apparent to the disciples that Jesus did not leave them at his Ascension.   Jesus did not become absent from them—but rather, he became powerfully present to them and in them, in the power of the Holy Spirit.   Their new life as the community of Christ replicated and re-presented the life of Christ in the world.

Is this not true for Christ’s disciples, his followers in every time and place?   How does your congregation, your community of Christ, reflect and re-present the life of Christ today?

To the Ends of the Earth

Jesus’ pre-Ascension commissioning of his disciples in Acts 1:8 plays itself out in the first seven chapters of the Book of Acts.   There’s just one problem, though:  the disciples don’t get any farther than Jerusalem. 

This reminds me of what a Christian leader from Africa once said:  “Oh, you Americans!   You’re always trying to fish INSIDE the boat.”

But Jesus, in Acts 1:8, is crystal clear.  His followers’ place to fish is OUTSIDE the boat, in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth.   “Move on out,” Jesus commands.

Follow the narrative in the Book of Acts carefully, and you’ll notice that Jesus’ first followers didn’t actually DO all that Jesus commissioned them to do until Acts 8.   The disciples got “stuck” in Jerusalem until the horrific martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7).  THEN, “a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.” (Acts 8:1)

God uses whatever’s at his disposal—even the horror of persecution—to pursue God’s purposes, through God’s people.  

God doesn’t call us to stay stuck in one place or to try “fishing inside the boat.”  God in Jesus Christ calls us to move out, to advance into the world, bearing the Good News about Jesus, wherever we are sent.   God calls and energizes disciples (“followers”) to become apostles (“sent ones”).

When we get stuck, God gets us unstuck.  In her book, The Great Emergence, author Phyllis Tickle quotes an Anglican bishop who believes that about every 500 years the Christian church holds a big rummage sale.[i]  Every five centuries, give or take, God turns the church upside down, in order to get us off our duffs and move us out once again, to recapture for a new generation the freshness and alluring aroma of the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

Do you think we might be in such a “rummage sale” moment in today’s church?   How do you perceive God getting us “unstuck” so that God can get us all sent out once again?

QUESTION:  How is God transforming disciples into apostles today?   Where is God sending you?  

ANSWER:  Out of the boat.  Into the world.  Bearing witness to Jesus.

Bishop Larry Wohlrabe

Northwestern Minnesota Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
God’s work.  Our hands.

For reflection and discussion:  Please use the questions printed in red throughout the Bible study.

This is the ninth in a series of monthly Bible studies during 2012 focused on the question:  “Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?”   These columns are designed to equip the disciples and leadership groups such as church councils, for faithful and fruitful ministry.   Feel free to use the column for personal reflection or group discussion, e.g. church council meeting devotions/discussion.

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[i] Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence:  How Christianity Is Changing and Why (Baker, 2008), p. 16.

God's-Eye View

Ordination of Scott Marlin Morey

Fridhem Lutheran Church, Lengby, MN

August 4, 2012

Isaiah 6:1-8 and Ephesians 4:1-16

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Last month I traveled 14,587 miles over two continents, one ocean, involving nine takeoffs and nine landings in jet airplanes of all sizes.

Although I don’t fly as often as some business travelers, I have gotten to a point where I read my newspaper right through the flight attendants’ safety instructions…and I yawn during the takeoffs, the landings and the high-altitude scenery.

But not last month.  Because most of my travel happened in the context of vacation, I actually looked out the window of those jet airplanes and I marveled. 

·        I marveled at the sight of a moonrise over the Atlantic Ocean as night literally descended upon us. 

·        I marveled at the magnificence of those mountains that surround Salt Lake City.

·        I marveled at the green-and-tan farm-and-ranch checkerboard that one beholds from above our part of the country.

Simply put, when you are cruising  between 7 and 8 miles above the earth, you see things you don’t notice when your feet are planted firmly on the ground.

You see things—dare I say it?—perhaps more the way that God sees things.   You finally see “the forest for the trees,” quite literally.

In today’s scripture readings we’re treated to a God’s-eye view of things, a high altitude panorama that permits us momentarily to escape the dirty details of earthly, grounded life….envisioning heaven and earth from the Creator’s vantage point.

So in Isaiah chapter 6, we look over the prophet Isaiah’s shoulder as he stands trembling in the heavenly throne-room, with the Lord “high and lofty,” and angelic beings attending to him, and the smoke and  rumble of an earthquake punctuating the announcement that ”Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the earth is full of his glory.” 

Now there’s something we don’t hear or see in our everyday lives—God in all his “Godness!”

And here in our second reading from Ephesians 4, the same high-altitude view of things is rolled out as the apostle sees past all the divisions that appear so daunting on the ground, so that we too-often forget there is (finally!) only ONE:   “one body and one Spirit,…one hope…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

When our feet are nailed to Mother Earth we can miss all that.  Our attention to the differences, divisions, and details….can rob us of the “forest for the trees view” that God has—God who is “above all and through all and in all.”

Take a jet airplane ride….survive nine takeoffs and nine landings…..and catch a glimpse of how big God is and how wide and far and deep God’s reach extends.

And yet, even this little comparison I’m drawing between seeing at ground level and seeing from 39,000 feet above the earth….even this “angle” doesn’t quite get it right, because you see God’s angle of vision is another animal entirely.

God, after all, sees the forest for the trees at all times….and yet not without also always seeing each and every tree in each and every forest.   

God’s vision is amazingly “bin-ocular.”   God sees what you and I cannot see:  the huge, broad patterns right alongside the tiniest, most intricate details.

And we encounter that reality as well in these breath-taking texts for today.

For, although Isaiah sees God, “high and lofty” in the smoking, thundering heavenly throne-room….Isaiah is not swallowed up by that vision.   Isaiah, a creature of time and space, is not overlooked. 

In fact, this whole scene unfolds precisely for Isaiah’s benefit, and for the benefit of Isaiah’s wayward people.    A call rings out:  “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?”    We need someone down there.  Who will go to speak on the ground for the One whose glory fills the earth?

“Me,” ventures Isaiah.  “Here I am, send me.”    “Me,” we whisper.  “I could do that.  I could be that on-the ground witness.  Here I am, send me.”

This compelling vision is repeated in Ephesians.   For even as we see the forest for the trees—even as we catch a glimpse of what God sees, of who God is:  ONE reality, one God, one great story of God descending in Jesus and ascending back to heaven before descending again in the power of the Spirit…

Even as the fog clears and we “get it” that God is going to be all in all….we are not swallowed up by that vision, our individuality isn’t simply  dissolved into the One who is “above all and through all and in all.”

No.  God never loses sight of us, each of us, in all our intricacy, in all our variegated giftedness, in all the conditions of creaturely, down-to-earth life….because the issue remains the same:  God needs feet on the ground to go for God into all the world and reflect God and serve God and bear witness to God’s glory that fills the earth.

So we have here in Ephesians, that laser-focus on God’s calling once again:   “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called….”

Someone writing from a jail cell (can you get more down-to-earth than that?!) …a prisoner writes to encourage disciples to “lead a life worth of your calling” because God needs you “on the ground,” living and working and being and speaking up for God….

And because that happens in a whole host of ways, God pours out very specific gifts for this royal service, like a victorious conqueror distributing the booty, passing out the spoils of his victory….God sprinkles gifts across the whole world for ministry-on-the ground:  

·        gifts for crossing borders to testify that Jesus is risen (we call them apostles)….

·        gifts for fearlessly telling the truth in a world that prefers to live by lies (we call them prophets)…

·        gifts for making sure that the story of Jesus lives as truly good news (we call them evangelists)….

·        gifts for tending vibrant Jesus-communities with generous care and compelling insight (we call them pastors and teachers).

God showers down all those gifts in order to get the job done—the job of bringing heaven and earth together again, Jesus’ job of breaking down all the dividing walls and creating in himself one new humanity, one new Body of Christ through which God truly will be “all in all.”

We belong to a God of “bin-ocular” vision who, unlike any of us, can see the forest for the trees while at the same time never missing a single tree in the forest.  

And because this God’s love for us is made manifest in Jesus’life, death and resurrection…because Jesus has set all things right in heaven and on earth…you and I can dare to go for this God into our bounded, earthly lives….reflecting, witnessing to, and staking out a claim to this world, for God.

And although that is really and truly something that ALL God’s children are called to do—to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called….it does all come to a particular focus whenever we call, ordain, and install a pastor.

Because we ask pastors to center and invest all their time and attention on tending what we all are called to be about: building up the Body of Christ here on earth, in and through the church.

And this too, is a big picture/little picture reality.   For the “holy, holy, holy” God has called you, Scott Marlin Morey---called you not to work at 39,000 feet above sea level….but right here, down on the ground, in dusty places, among dirty people like all of us gathered here.

For as certain as the “devil is in the details,” even more so our God is in the details of creaturely life, now renewed and transformed in Jesus the King.  

So we set you aside this evening, for some very specific work, Scott.   We lay hands on you to signify that God has laid claim to you to

·        Cross borders to announce that Christ has died, is risen and will come again;

·        And to speak truth fearlessly to persons who prefer to live by lies;

·        And to make sure that Jesus’ story is always told as the good news that it is;  

·        And to tend the church—here at Fridhem and wherever else you will be called to serve—to tend God’s people with generous care and compelling insight;

·        And to do a whole bunch of other things that pastors do, not all of them very “high or lofty,”  but all of them necessary so that God’s people might grow up fully into Christ Jesus.

So there you have it.  This calling to which you have been called should keep you busy for as long as God gives you life and breath.

Count on it, for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.