You are not alone.
This month’s Bible study in
the Christ women’s group was on this theme. Then women of various ages wrote on
various situations: “You are not alone when you are at a crossroads,” “You are
not alone when you’re sure you are right.” “You are not alone… when you are afraid.”
A teacher named Norma shared
this story about that third one. “You are not alone… when you are afraid.”
When she was just 11 years old, she was home one mid-August evening. She was
reading Little Women. The phone rang.
“Mother said we had to go quickly to the hospital; she found a neighbor to take
them. There they sat in a hallway for a long time waiting for someone to tell
them something. Finally, Mother stopped a doctor passing by and said, ‘They
brought my husband in, but I don’t know what’s happened to him.’ The doctor
responded, ‘Don't you know he’s deceased?’ I didn’t know what that word
meant—until mother cried out, ‘You mean he’s already dead?’” Norma writes, “To
this day, I fear I will suddenly hear those words again. I feared I would hear
them before my fiancé and I could marry… Burton and I have been married 55
years.”
The Rev. Dr. Norma Cook Everist, Summary of story from Gather, May 2017… page 23
You are not alone…
In response, Judy Nass shared
her own story, and she’s given permission to me to share it with you this
morning. When Judy was seven years old, she lost her Dad. When she was 22, she
lost her Mom. When she got married, a great-uncle came to stand in for her
parents. Maybe I already knew this story from years ago when I first sat in
Judy and Dave’s home and asked them about their story… but this week, it sank
in deeper, maybe because of these words from Jesus, “I will not leave you
orphaned.”
Judy is not the only one in
our congregation who has had the experience of losing both her parents at a
young age… of moving through some of life’s major milestones without beloved
family members there to cheer her on… whether it was because of death or broken
relationships, many of us have had these experiences of loss… and it’s from
that deep place (whether we faced it with courage and determination or not)…
that Christ promises, “I won’t leave you there.” Like Norma’s lifelong sense
that this might happen again, many of us have a nagging sense that something
has happened to us that no one else can understand… that in some way, we are on
our own… and directly to that unspoken assumption and question, “Where are
you?” Jesus speaks the Spirit of truth, “I will love you and make myself know
to you.”
On Friday and Saturday,
Pastor Elizabeth, Spence Blum, Kathy Kostad, Eric Miller (one of our
seminarians who was invited to lead in worship) and I were at the synod
assembly. Throughout 2017, our Bishop has been inviting us to reflect on a
Bible passage from Matthew 9 where Jesus has compassion for the crowds and then
says this to the disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are
few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his
harvest.”
The Bishop’s report was
crafted around this theme… of all the hard things we’re facing as church
together, of all the hard things we’re facing as neighbors and communities,
nations, globe, as a whole creation… and then, how God (the Lord of the
harvest) is providing…
She told several stories and
this was the third one…
She shared how she goes
out regularly for breakfast with a particular friend, and on this day, their
breakfast was at the French Hen. Right at 8 am, they walked in when their
server unlocked the door. They sipped their coffee, opened the menu, and she began to imagine the dish
she would order… maybe coconut lime French toast, or maybe biscuits and gravy
with a cheddar chive biscuit, or maybe the quiche Lorraine… Then, their waiter,
Ben, came over to take their order. He leaned right down to their eye level and
said, “I have to be honest with you. The chef didn’t make it in today. So… I
could give you a yogurt parfait or we have some pastries. I definitely have
coffee, but if you want to go somewhere else, I would understand that, too.”
I’ve got to be honest with
you. This is what we’ve got. Maybe it’s not what expected or hoped for but it’s
enough.
Our church building was built
100 years ago with a capacity of 400. Our worship is typically 120, although if
we all showed up at once, we would be more like 300… we could look at this as a
reason for disappointment, shame, or embarrassment—that we’re not filling our
space except when we host large groups who meet to advocate with legislators
across the street… but this story of Ben-the-waiter’s honesty in the
circumstances gives us a glimpse of how we might respond…
I’ve got to be honest with
you. Changing patterns of religion, faith, and life mean there are those who
aren’t showing up. So, look around. This is who we’ve got to reach out in this amazing
neighborhood, along the Green line (with an average of 30,000 riders each day).
This is who we've got and it's enough. Our Synod has just received a grant to gather young adults (19-29) to do local immersions
such as the one Craig Dokken is doing right now in Tanzania in Atlanta, Georgia,
and then, right here, along the Green Line, to imagine how to engage more
actively with the diverse neighbors who travel the Green Line daily. We are
going to want to be a part of that… to send young adults on our behalf and then
listen deeply to what they learn together.
Recently, our youth members
brought a resolution to Council to make even more clear our welcome to all
people by making sure our congregation is included on websites promoting welcoming
churches to GLBTQ+ people throughout the area. The Council passed this
resolution, and at the Synod Assembly, I went to a workshop about welcoming where the need for
this public welcome became even more clear… Did you know that in 28/32 states, if
you are GLBTQ+, you can be fired or evicted for that reason alone? Did you know
there is a travel advisory throughout Texas—that it might be dangerous to
travel there? Did you know that by far, the majority of people 40 and under
look for this marker—an openly welcoming church—because it matches their values
around who should be welcome in our churches? So… as a congregation that has
always quietly welcomed all, as we move into a time of having a more public
welcome, how much are we willing to learn in order to be filled with
compassion, again and again, as we learn more and more about God’s great
diversity? Or as visiting Bishop Guy Erwin put it, "What's our capacity for change on behalf of the neighbor?"
“I will not leave you
orphaned,” says Jesus in times like these, when there are crowds of people on
the Green Line train, maybe feeling harassed and helpless… maybe wondering if
they are all alone, going through whatever they’re going through…
Bishop Guy Erwin, visiting
from the Southwest California Synod said that they joke in his synod that if
every Lutheran would simply become an Uber driver and share the good news of
Jesus’ welcome with one passenger, they would have an unprecedented wave of
evangelism (that’s the churchy word for sharing the story of God’s love and
welcome)… I think that’s true here, too. So, think about your own daily life…
maybe you’re not a talkative Uber driver, but you do encounter people who need
to know, they’re not alone. Though they may have been orphaned through death or
rejection... God has not left them. God’s with them, and you’re with
them—the body of Christ, the hands and feet and voice of Christ.
Jesus
says today, “It’s true, people can’t see me. But you can… the Spirit is living
in you. Because you love me, you will do what I have said… (and remember last
week, “You will do even greater things…”). Through sharing God’s outpouring,
life-expanding love with others… it may be that we will know God in Christ far
better than we have ever before, the God who will never leave us orphaned, the
God who promises to be there for you.
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