June 15, 2008
Rev. Patricia L. Liberty
Gather Us In
Think back to the first time you remember being here.
It may not be the first time you were here….for you may have arrived in the arms of your parents or as a small child.
Think back to the first time YOU remember being here.
Perhaps it was not so long ago.
What drew you here?
Remember what it was like to not know many people, wondering when to sit and when to stand, wondering if what was really true that all were welcome at the table.
When the present is filled with uncertainty, or distress we return to those times, the past is close to the present when we are anxious about the future.
We sit in this present moment and remember and wonder and worry.
These are challenging days. Many of you come with distress and anger and sadness, this is not an easy time.
And God gathers us in.
What drew us here years ago draws us here today…this is where we belong. With the disciples of old we ask where else can we be…for it is God who has the words of eternal life we so need to hear when the sands of the present moment shift.
Since 1724 faithful women and men have gathered in this place as the body of Christ.
These walls bear witness to countless prayers uttered in moments of profound joy for the good gifts of life, blessings pronounced over new love, promises of our faith spoken in wrenching sorrow
Children brought to the waters of baptism and countless loaves broken in remembrance of the one in whose name we gather and for whose kingdom we labor.
Hundreds of years, thousands of worship services, hymns sung, prayers prayed and love made visible in the world that waits for us when our worship comes to an end.
God gathers us in….and sends us out. Even in the midst of the changes that wrench our hearts.
Matthew’s words for us today are the job description for our life as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Begin in compassion Jesus has for those followers. What we share with our counterparts of antiquity is that we do ministry in uncertain times and change happens faster than we can keep up with.
We are not the first to journey through such a time. Such times have marked our rich history and still we are here. When we are long passed such times will mark the church yet again. It is what it means to be human.
And our humanness is met with God’s call and presence and grace and strength. God gathers us in and asks us to trust the promise.
When Jesus called the twelve and he called them by name, and the text is careful to make note of something about them, lest we forget that they were not religious professionals waiting in the job pool but ordinary people living ordinary lives invited to an extraordinary call.
As you look over the list of those early disciples, you may notice the several descriptive details given, about Matthew the tax collector and Simon "the Canaanean," two people who would have been on opposite sides of the Roman controversy, since Matthew was a tool of the empire and Simon would have been a passionate revolutionary opposing it. Yet they both found their lives transformed by their encounter with Jesus. In what ways has your life been transformed by your encounter with God, with Jesus, with inclusion in the life of the community of faith? Who are the people in churches who might be surprised to find themselves sharing a pew, sharing communion, sharing their lives, with one another? God still speaks in ways that surprise us, pulling together and planting together and then sending out together the most unexpected of mission partners.
Kate Huey writes,
“The twelve disciples become the hands, feet, legs, hearts, and minds of Jesus. That was the way it was originally and still is true today. For Jesus to complete his mission in today’s world, he needs hands, feet, legs, hearts, and minds. The harvest is overwhelmingly great and Jesus needs willing hands, willing hearts, willing minds and willing spirits. Jesus gets work done today through his disciples who are committed to doing the work.”
It is important to take the time we need to grieve and to work through our loss. It is important that we talk and listen both to each other and to God. It is ours in these days to seek God’s grace and care, to receive the gentle ministrations of the good shepherd in our distress…and also to keep before the call that stretches us to the future.
We do not know what that future holds but we do know who holds the future. And god gathers us in for encouragement, for prayer, for community to be together, work and worship together, to seek direction together, to find the way together. God gathers us in.
And then God sends us out. In scripture we are told it is two by two, a reminder that we need one another and that we can do more together than we can on our own.Sends them out with instructions to travel light…
Fewer depend on God…trust God’s abundance and the hospitality of others
It’s a reminder of what we are to be about…a community of healing, teaching, and proclaiming the good news. It is the mandate that grounds us in the midst of change and uncertainty.
This has powerful implications for how we see our ministry. It's tempting for us in the church to see its "reason for being" in meeting the needs of those (of us) who are regulars, like members of a private club. It is hard to meet the challenges and changes that time brings and especially when the future seems uncertain we grab on to the past for a sense of stability.
Work is here in the present moment, as God gathers us in and asks us to consider the future moving slowly and sadly for the time being, waiting and working and watching for god’s nudging toward a yet unknown future.
Trust the promise. God gathers us in.