May the God of peace hold me by my right hand and guide me, Who is a Shepherd to shepherds and a Guide to guides; In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Good Morning! As always it is lovely to see you from the pulpit at Redeemer, (especially those of you who are joining us this morning at our invitation from this week). Well, it’s been a really busy week. I mean, I got my car fixed, went to the library, got a haircut… oh, yeah, and we also had 200 or more people on campus everyday for VBS. If you had a chance to be on Redeemer’s campus over the past few days, you would have seen something remarkable: a place transformed with one purpose in mind: to teach some of our smallest neighbors about Jesus and about how he taught his disciples to pray. In fact, the last time I spoke to you all I did my best to describe this lesson in prayer, which we call the Lord’s Prayer, in terms of an invitation; an invitation to a deeper life in Christ. In a lot of ways, VBS was our Church living out that very invitation. By opening our doors, I think we made Christ’s lesson in prayer personal with each of every one of our students, with our youth aides, adult volunteers, musicians, and even our clergy joining in praise and as we all joined our voices in that basic action of the Church’s spirituality, praying together.
Now, as much as I’d love to take on the challenge of trying to knit together Luke’s telling of Jesus as home wrecker with VBS Sunday, I think I’ve indirectly found my way to our lesson from Hebrews. Today, we heard about a ‘cloud of witnesses,’ a hall of fame of faith. Now this is interesting, because of how the writer of Hebrews is utilizing this grand list of Biblical heroes. The previous section of Hebrews, some of which we heard last week, contains luminaries of the faith of the Hebrew people, the faithful short list of the first five books if you will. We’ve got Noah, we’ve got Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, my personal favorite Joseph, we’ve got Moses, and more: all of which described in terms of how they put their faith in the One God into action, how they followed after His purposes and answered His call. It’s pretty likely that the congregation receiving this letter of exhortation was fairly well familiar with the history of God’s covenanted people Israel. In fact, when read in one sitting, you can see for yourself the beauty of its argument, placing Christ in the center of Israel’s particular theology of salvation. But fundamentally, it is a sermon, an exhortation; and encouragement to a young Christian community using a language, a story, easily accessible by the first audience of the letter.
In needing some encouragement, the community that received the letter to the Hebrews is not all that unlike our own here at the Church of the Redeemer. We all need some examples to help lead us in faith, to encourage our growth in Christ. We all need our own ‘cloud of witnesses’ from time to time. But this Sunday, especially with all of our young folks around it really makes me think that our community here can start to think of itself as a cloud of witness, ready to share our faith and help nurture Christian disciples of all ages.
This really requires a lot from us. It requires that we know about each other’s stories of faith, and it might even mean that we start to examine our own so we can share them. You know, it’s funny: when you can freely articulate your walk with God, people respond in the most interesting and surprising ways. A couple of examples: when I tell people that I didn’t grow up in church, and that I read the Bible for the first time in a college class at FSU some people are quite encouraged! And not just because they like the garnet and gold of my alma mater. Another example: just this week, I got a chance to tell some of our VBS students about why I wear black clothes around. Seems like a fairly simple question, but it opened up the door to a conversation that leads from black clothes right to how we as Christians are meant to represent Christ in everything we do.
So how can we become our own cloud of witnesses, here to our community at Redeemer, to our kids, and hopefully to our broader community of Sarasota? Allow me the chance to be a little glib: Get caught in the act of being a Christian. Come to mass, come to pray here, pray at home. Read the Scriptures, ask questions, and work to find answers together with God’s help. Get some practice with the Book of Common Prayer, and use it at home! If you have a role in the Church’s worship life and a young person seems interested, so long as it is with parental supervision or consent, show them around! All the while, take the extra time to examine how God is working in your life and then, be ready to share; be ready to be a witness!
Now this is especially important for our parents. I don’t meet that many parents in Church that don’t care about their kids’ spiritual lives, it is of great concern to them (and to me for that matter as youth minister) that their kids are brought up in the faith. But sometimes, I hear that it isn’t always easy for parents to be kids’ main contact in matters Spiritual. Well, we want to help parents with that all important task. Fr. Marsden, Mrs. Jackie Boedecker, and I have been extremely interested in how we can get the faith we give to our kids to “stick.” Thanks to some awesome groundwork laid by Mrs. Boedecker and of course Mr. Chris Wood, I think we are just about ready to start unveiling some tools we are learning about from the unfortunately titled resource called “Sticky Faith.” Our goal in using this resource is all about becoming even more intentional about discipling our kids’ in Christ’s flock. It is meant to help improve our ability as a community to be intentional communicators of the faith, so that as our kids grow, graduate and head off into the world, their lives in Christ might thrive no matter what comes their way.
Let me be clear: It’s not a magic bullet. There’s no such thing here. But I think it is safe to say that continuing to work together and bearing with another, with a bit of shared vision and intentionality is much better than not.
In closing, I’d like to thank one of the folks who has been in my cloud of witnesses. Chris Wood has been an outstanding example of Christian brotherhood in the time I have spent working with him. As we say goodbye, I suppose it is pretty good that he leaves to go to boot camp for priests. If I’m honest, I’m not sure I want him to go, I like working with him. But, God calls and if we’re smart, we listen. (Drive safe, sir.)
On that note, this week let’s all pray for help answering God’s call, in becoming a cloud of his witness here in Sarasota.
Keep each other in those prayers.