Sermon July 20

I recently read the story of Anne Kennedy Rickover, an average 55 yo Midwestern woman who was waiting in anticipation. She writes: “I hadn’t been pregnant in 20 years, but this was planned, just as my previous pregnancies had been. For no logical reason, I woke up one day and knew that it was time, my body knew it was precisely the right time.” No, Anne was not a 55 year old woman about to deliver a baby, but instead, she was in preparation for another “birth” of sorts. She continues: “I knew it was time to ask my parents to move closer to me, from suburban Philadelphia to Lincoln NE. The last time I lived less than 100 miles from my parents, I was 18. But, reports kept telling me they were not able to stay in their home, the home they bought when I was 3 months old. As with my first “pregnancies” I read…but I looked in vain for books that explained how to move your parents across the country to a new life.” Anne outlines the struggles she endured as she went through the labor pains and delivery of this new life. She ends by saying “Perhaps I would feel the pain of their eventual leaving less if they still lived 1,300 miles away, but I believe life has an infinitely greater sweetness and richness now, at the poignant beginning and ending of yet another cycle of life.”
Anne’s experience is probably a familiar story to some of you…you too may have stood in her shoes as you “delivered” this new life…others may have the knowledge, as I do, that Anne’s story will become your own someday. The pains and joys of truly being a family, of saying goodbye to the old radiate off the pages of Anne’s story. But that’s what being family is about, isn’t it? Both the joys and the sorrows of being united with other people is exactly what makes us family…it is also what makes being in a family so difficult, isn’t it? We don’t get to fast forward through the pains of aging parents, we don’t get to skip over difficult times with children, or with our spouse. Instead, being family means we experience the pains with the joys.
In our reading from Romans today, we are reminded that we are also a part of a larger family, God’s family. We read “with our spirit, we are children of God and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with Him.” The passage tells us that we are fully God’s children, living as heirs of His kingdom. This community, along with the Christian community throughout the world, are a part of that family. Anne is an heir of her parents, thus, she suffers with them, so that she may also experience life with them. We, as heirs of God, will suffer with God, so that we may also be glorified with Him.
And we do experience the suffering that goes along with being in God’s family, don’t we? We suffer illness, brokenness, and separation in spite of the fact we are in the family. We are not spared the pain of life in the family of Christ. I would like to share with you the writings of a friend who experienced just such a pain. She writes about the sadness experienced when life is not “how it ought to be” for her child. Even as members of the body of Christ, suffering and pain are still utterly present, because the world is not how it should be:
“In countless ways sin disrupts shalom in our lives, leaving chaos as a consequence of both our sin and the original sin. In addition to these "culpable disturbance(s)" of shalom, we experience daily disruptions of peace that are not directly linked to willful acts- but rather are byproducts of the inherited, willful disobedience. Applied to our situation, for example, I acknowledge that Sandra is a sinner, but since she has not willfully subverted God's shalom, she suffers disruption in many ways in her young life as an indirect byproduct of the Curse. She bears on her body and in her brain the marks of a fallen world. It is painful to try to imagine the way it is supposed to be for Sandra, because it feels so far from our grasp, and indeed it is. But we trust that one day Sandra will know the Shalom that was intended for her from the creation of the world, and in that hope I press on to dream.
In the world that is "supposed to be" I see Sandra shouting her name from a cliff, and while she's up there she continues on to exclaim to the world what she is passionate about, what gives her joy and makes her cry and what things she finds most beautiful on this earth. I see Sandra with opinions and the ability to articulate them, even fiercely at times. I see Sandra performing impromptu puppet shows in the driveway on warm summer nights. I see Sandra growing in her knowledge of God's love for her. I see Sandra going to homecoming dances and finding someone who loves her almost as much as her Daddy and I do and one day committing her life to walk beside him as her partner. I see her in whatever ways she wants to see herself, freely embracing life in the way it ought to be. And when it's all said and done, when it is finished and when it is just beginning, I see Jesus wipe the tears from my eyes and from James. I see Him wipe the tears from Sandra's eyes and invite her, invite us all into his new heavens and new earth to live exactly as He intended- exactly as it is supposed to be, in the world that is "supposed to be.”
This is where our hope lives, friends. We hold to the promise of Romans 8, that someday “creation itself will be set free from its bondage and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” But TODAY, in the midst of the suffering of our world, we are strengthened, knowing God is not only present in our suffering, God experiences our suffering with us. Because we, (right here) are the FAMILY OF GOD we DO NOT bear these burdens alone. We are family, and in the midst of praises, and in the midst of pain, we hold to the hope that life has an infinitely greater sweetness and richness now, as we wait for a new heaven, and a new earth.

Sermon July 6

“Come to me, all who are weary, and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” While every chapter of the Bible has words that bring comfort and peace for daily living, I believe our Gospel for today is one that hits home for many of us. Who isn’t feeling weary by a heavy burden in their lives? We’re all in need of rest, and a place to lay our burdens, aren’t we? I recently read that most adults have experienced insomnia or sleeplessness at one time or another in their lives. An estimated 30-50% of the general population are affected by insomnia, and 10% have chronic insomnia. Our inability to find rest in our lives takes a toll on our health too. Lack of sleep can aggravate health conditions, such as high blood pressure, and obesity and can be downright dangerous—going without sleep for more than 24 hours is as dangerous as driving drunk. Sleep-related accidents were linked to over 23,000 fatalities and as many as 2.5 million disabling injuries a year, along with annual costs of $43 billion to $56 billion. We spend millions on sleep aids, which bring temporary relief, and are certainly needed by many. But, our weariness is often deeply rooted and due to anxiety, tension, and fears, that keep us on edge, day and night, with or without medications. When Jesus said, “come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest” I believe He was talking to us. But, sadly, our Biblical counterparts did not listen to Jesus anymore than we do, they too were missing the message.
Our gospel reading begins as Jesus reminds the people of John the Baptist, an eccentric leader who lived in the desert and ate wild honey and locusts. He was sent from God and had a message to tell people—“Prepare the way of the Lord!” Jesus is coming (the one who is to bring us rest). The people thought He had a demon and turned away from him. In fact, if we look in Chapter 11, we read that John the Baptist is in jail, and the people have turned from him. No rest for the people, and no rest for the messenger. Then in verse 19, Jesus reminds the people of the words they spoke against him during His ministry. “A friend of tax collectors and sinners.” They don’t listen to the message of rest offered by Jesus either. How could their rest come from a poor Jewish carpenter, living in Nazareth?
Like us, people in Biblical times had plenty that would keep them from finding comfort and peace. Will I have enough to get by? Will my loved one survive this illness? What should I do about a rift with a family member or friend? Will I always feel this alone? Perhaps we have more in common with those in the Bible than we think. Because, aren’t WE facing these same burdens, and fears? Fear of stability, conflict in our family, addictions, depression….sleepless nights? And, don’t WE, like those in our Gospel reading miss the messages being sent to us from God? It’s easy to think “these people couldn’t find rest? They had Jesus WITH them. If I had Jesus WITH me, I’d find rest too!” But, would we? Right here, today, we have the promise that Jesus is present, through our community of believers, through this bread and wine, yet we still doubt. Those in biblical times wrote John the Baptist off as demon possessed, and Jesus as a friend of sinners. And their weariness lingered. What messages from God do we discredit? In what ways do we contribute to our exhaustion, as we try to do things “our way?” We won’t find rest on our own, and “our way” contributes to all the problems I listed at the beginning: poor health, broken relationships, feelings of abandonment.
But, Jesus CAN NOT and WILL NOT leave us in this place. Even after he tells his followers the ways in which they discredited His message, He stays with Him, and gives them the promise: “come to me, all you that are weary, and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” It doesn’t mean we will be free from problems in our lives, but it does mean that we can find rest. This is a love story. A story of a savior, who will FORGIVE the burdens or sin and of this world. A savior, who promises to be PRESENT in our lives, through community and communion, through doubt, weariness and sin. “Come to me.” He says. “You WILL find rest for your souls.”