I’m excited. I’m excited that it is time for my favorite continuing education event of the year. On Monday morning I fly out to Washington DC for a week of preaching and preachers. I know, right? It’s called the Festival of Homiletics and the event gathers together some of the best preachers and teachers of preaching from the mainline traditions of the Church, along with about eighteen preachers like me from all over the country and the world. And for a week or most of a week, we worship and we learn and we hear preachers from morning until evening. Four or five sermons a day, along with three or four lectures on preaching a day. Can you imagine? Aren’t you envious of me? Wouldn’t you like to come along with me and listen to preachers all day long for five days?
I’ve been going to this event for many years, almost twenty years by now, and I haven’t found very many lay people who think that even sounds interesting, let alone consider for a moment that they would go along. Maybe one that I can think of. But most consider it something akin to torture to image listening to sermon after sermon for a whole week.
To each their own, we say, one person’s meat is another person’s poison. Yeah, I get that. The idea of spending an afternoon watching fast cars drive in circles doesn’t really excite me at all. But this city is pretty stoked about it. It takes all kinds to make a world. That’s another thing they say. We say. Because it is true. Because there is so much variety in the world. So much difference in preference and behavior, in ways of walking through the world. It’s a wonder that any of us get along, frankly. Yet we do. Somewhat. And we need to more than we do. We need to be bound up. We need to be one heart and one mind, as the church was, once upon a time.
I’m excited because it is Pentecost again. It is that time where we remember that what we are is not just what we see. When we are reminded that the real power we have to do anything as the church is not our own power, but God’s power poured out in fire and wind. And we are reminded that the first thing that happened was that bridges were built. Barriers were overcome. By the power of the Spirit, on Pentecost, the followers of Jesus spoke in other languages. They could have said, no, if they are coming here, these foreigners, they have to learn our language, they have to be like us, speak like us. But they didn’t. They spoke to them in their language, crossed that barrier of separation and told everyone they could the good news that had saved them from despair.
It’s about a church coming together. Recognizing that they can only be the church if they are together. That their doubt and fear and despair had driven them apart. But when they came together, that’s when the Spirit came. That’s when the power came. That’s when the hope came. Despite their differences they came together.
I’m excited because this Pentecost we will welcome some new members to the church here at Southport. A group of young people have walked a path of learning and growing that we call Confirmation, and on Pentecost Sunday will say yes to the church. They’ve already said yes to Jesus, and to the faith. Some of them years ago. But now they will say yes to the church. They will acknowledge that if they are going to walk in the way of faith it will be better to do it together.
Because not every step will be an easy or a certain one. Not every turning will be a helpful one. We need each other if we’re going to walk in the way. We need the family, the body of Christ. If only to remind us that there is One who walks with us always.
Isaiah 43:1-3a But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
This has always been a favorite passage of mine. Favorite from Isaiah, certainly, favorite of the whole Bible. Partly because it is so brutally honest. When you pass through the waters, Isaiah says God says, when you walk through fire. When, you notice, not if. When. It’s going to happen. It is part of life, this wading through the waters of doubt and despair, this plunging into the fires of suffering and sin. It is just as certain as your next heartbeat, as that breath you just took. Anyone who tells you that a life of faith is a life of safety and security is lying to you. Anyone who says Jesus promises a protective bubble around you, health and wealth and prosperity, is not telling you the truth.
So, what’s the point, you might ask? And many do ask. Even those on the inside, those who are walking. We all ask from time to time. Why bother? Why not just make your own way. You are as likely to be as happy following your own nose as you are trying to keep up with Jesus who insists on walking through some rough neighborhoods and over some dangerous terrain. So why bother? The young people in the Confirmation class asked that. Why bother with the church? Why bother standing up and making these vows, these promises?
I’m excited because we’re all going to say yes again on Pentecost. We are engaging in a renewal of baptism ritual all morning long. A chance to say yes to walking in the way of Christ, the way of faith, the way of grace. We are remembering that we made a choice at some point in our journey. Maybe a long time ago. And maybe someone made it first for us, but then we said yes, ok, I’ll claim those promises, I’ll confirm those vows. It’s now my choice, my decision. I’m going to walk through the waters, I’m going to stride through the fires. We may forget from time to time. We may want to follow our own way, our own desires, our own laziness or sinfulness or just stubbornness. Or we may think we’ve got a better idea, one of safety for me and those like me, those I can love easily. And we forget that we said that we wanted to walk differently. We wanted to walk hand in hand with the One who loves us more than we can even imagine.
We forget. So we’re remembering. On Pentecost. Wind and fire, water and covenant. We’re remembering together. And that’s precisely what we’re remembering. That we’re together. That for us, it isn’t all about me. It isn’t just what I want, what I earn, what I deserve. Because when we decide to live by that accounting, we will come up a lot more short than we realized. What we deserve, what we’ve earned, is a lot less than we imagine. Our eyes are truly bigger than our stomachs. Our glorification of self is bigger than our reality, than our influence. Until we decide and remember we decided to walk in the way of the One who was glorified in His suffering, in His surrender, in His dying, and by His living we are made more than we could possibly be on our own.
And no one is going to remind us of that but the community of faith, who knows us in our weakness and loves us in our hope. No one is going to keep us alive in faith than the partners on the journey who remind us who we are. And that no matter how deep the water, no matter how hot the fire, we come through because we are surrounded by those who have walked this way before and are walking it again with us. That’s why we bother. Not to protect us from this life, but to help us experience it with hope. Not to shield us from pain but to help us let that pain transform us into something more, something better, something more alive.
I’m going to the Festival by myself, but not alone. There will be many others there, most of whom I don’t know but yet am indebted to. And I get to extend the event this year and go spend a few days with my daughter Maddie in Boston, that’s a bonus I give thanks for. But more than that, I go with you. The family of God. Not to drag you along to something that just might bore you to tears. But to carry you in my head and my heart as I continually ask what can I share from all of this that just might make a difference to my brothers and sisters at Southport and beyond? How can I walk with them through their waters because they have walked with me in mine? I’m excited about finding answers to those questions.
Shalom,
Derek
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