Sermon - 2013-09-08 - Start in the Portland Lutheran Parish

Today is a day of new beginnings and celebrations. Today we begin the Fall as we start another year of Sunday School, we begin a new chapter within this church, the ministry that God is calling you to and we begin our time together. Today we gather as the whole church, to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the ELCA. Yes today is truly a day to celebrate.

Since today is my first day with you, I would like to share a little about myself. Who I am. Where I have come from. Even within the time of Jesus, people wanted to know about him. Where he had come from. Who his parents were. It didn’t matter  who he was until Jesus began performing the works that only God could do among them.  Even though I cannot do those miracles Jesus did, you may be curious about who I am.  

I was born and raised in Fremont NE, a town of about 25,000 people. My parents were my Sunday School teachers, they helped me with school, and even supported me when I wanted to try a sport. I played the trumpet and even was pretty good at it. I was active in school, band, choir, and also in church. Even in high school, I attended the classes and Bible Studies that were meant for adults. During my Junior year, my youth pastor asked me, “Have you ever thought of going to seminary?” I looked at her and said. “No.” I was not worthy enough. Sure church was important but to lead it. I couldn't handle that. At the end of high school, I was able to go on a trip to Europe. Within 30 days, we traveled through 11 countries. It was roughly 2-3 days per country. We got to see a snapshot of a lot of different things from culture, history, and people. The things that are so often part of a history book was standing before me. Walking into a cathedral, I was amazed at the size, the presence and connection that I felt with all the people who had been within that place before me.

After graduation, I went to Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD. It was here that I got swept up in being on my own that I left the church for a few years. I had other things that filled my time. But then I soon realized that those things did not fill the gaps for which I was truly searching. I wanted something that was meaningful, deep and would help me no matter what happened. I wanted answers to life questions. I lived in the information age, and yet no one could give me one solid answer that fully satisfied me.

I went to the job that I had planned for so long, I went to be a camp counselor at a camp that I grew up at in Nebraska. Here I met others who were facing the same questions, who had the same problem, and who felt distant from the church. Yet while we were there, we could form our own community, help one another, and even be church for one another. It was here that I realized a lesson, one that I was taught, but had finally experienced. Church is the people and not the building. The next year, I went back. Longing for the same experience, I did not find it, but it was still a familiar place to grow. We were wrestling with the questions, we helped one another, and we were church, but it was different. Church was different, the people were different which meant that the church had to be different. The next year, I found the experience was the same but different. Yet while I was teaching a group of 1st-3rd graders and one of them asked me. What is the meaning of life? And with that deer in the headlights look, I gave him a stammering of: “uh, uh...” It finally hit me. “To live out your baptism.”

This simple answer satisfied this little boy and even caused me to rethink my own life. To live out your Baptism. What does that mean? It was that summer, that I finally answered the call that God had been giving to me. Go be a Pastor. No you don't have to feel worthy, but you will be my disciple. So in my Senior year of college, I changed my major to religion to prepare for seminary. As I started doing this, things just seemed to fall into place.

Now, it wasn't until I started to really wrestle and think about the Words that God had given to God's people. It was then that  I really began to understand and live them out. For as we hear within the Deuteronomy text today, God has given you life and prosperity, death and adversity. Now which one will you choose? Which one do you want for your life? To follow God's commandments is to accept the love that God has given to you in life and in the very Word of God spoken to you. God helps you understand, “I made you to be my own, to live out your life in this way, and I want to be there with you.” To live out your Baptism is to wrestle and understand the Word that God has spoken to you. To be in community with those who love and care for you because you are a brother or sister in Christ. We live out those commandments to help us be that community, to serve God and neighbor.

After graduating from Seminary, I was given the call to serve two years with Norman and Davenport Lutheran Churches near Kindred. As I have closed that chapter, it has given me the opportunity to begin a new chapter together in community with you. We gather together to wrestle with those tough questions, situations and experiences that are apart of life.  Not to face them alone, but face them together as community and in community with the One who wants life and prosperity for you. Not always in the way that we think of it, but through eternal life and in ways that can not be taken away from us. This is what we have done for 25 years in the ELCA. This is what we have done for 2000 years as Christians. This is what we have done as God's People for generations.

Thanks be to God. Amen.