Have any of you ever told someone you wouldn’t do something, and really meant it, only to find yourself later doing that very thing? It’s funny how that works out sometimes. Over the course of my life there have been many things I have told God I would never, ever do, and I have done just about all of them. Here’s a tip: if you really don’t want to do something, don’t tell God about it.
As I was growing up I had some pretty strong ideas about what I would be comfortable doing with my life, and what I would definitely not be doing with it. For example, I was pretty sure I would never speak in front of people or lead group activities and stuff like that. I just didn’t feel like I had the self-confidence or courage for that sort of thing. So, no public speaking! Then, as a junior and senior in high school I started to think of possible majors in college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew for sure it would not be theology, or anything to do with church. I mean, it sounded so boring! (For those who don’t know, I was a theology major.) And finally, I grew up in the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. They have a focus on globel missions, and while I appreciated that other people went out into the world to share the gospel, I most certainly was never going to be a missionary or do any kind of mission work in a foreign country! However, I thought I reached a deal with God—if for some reason God wanted me to do mission work somewhere, I would go anywhere but El Salvador. I was definitely not going there. Like I said, it really is funny how things work out sometimes. Eight years ago I was a senior in high school, making decisions about what I was going to do with the rest of my life. If God had told me I would be doing all of this, I think I might have pulled a Jonah!
You remember Jonah. He’s the guy who freaked out and ran in the complete opposite direction when God asked him to do something. And we know what happened, right? God had a big fish swallow him up and he ended up turning around and doing what God wanted. Well, I was reading this story the other day and was thinking about the imagery of Jonah getting swallowed up by the fish, and then caught up in God’s mission for him. And it struck me—Oftentimes the things we don’t think we can swallow are the things that end up swallowing us. The things we don’t think we can swallow are the things that end up swallowing us.
As I was reflecting on the texts for today I started to wonder about Abram, and how he might have felt when God told him to leave his home and most of his family and go to some far away land. He didn’t even tell him where. Now, granted God did follow up that command with a bunch of talk about how Abram would be the father of a nation, whose name would be made great, how God would bless him and he would bless all the people in the world, which is nice. But I wonder if Abram’s initial reaction wasn’t more like, “Um…No.” I know I probably would have been a little hesitant to pack up and move just like that. Still, all we read is that Abram left as the Lord had told him. Nothing about how he might have been afraid, or how his first instinct was to run away. Nothing about how he wasn’t sure he could swallow it.
I want to stay with that idea of being afraid to follow God for just a moment. I think it’s something we can all relate to—being afraid of something. Have you ever been so afraid that you couldn’t move? Or speak? Has there ever been a time in your life when you were scared to do something but did it anyway? How about a time when you were scared and you didn’t do anything? I know some of the teenagers here have a few good stories about me being too scared to move—like each fall when we would go through the haunted corn maze at Meadowbrook farm, and somehow I would end up being at the head of the group each time. Yeah, that’s not gonna work for me. I remember one time, it was right after we entered the maze, there was this really narrow, really dark pathway we found and I just stopped, and wouldn’t move. One of the kids, I think it was Kevin Klika, finally had to step up take the lead, and I think I hid behind him for the rest of the way.
Youth ministry has made me do a lot of things that scare me, actually. One of my biggest fears up until a few years ago was thunderstorms. I had some pretty awful experiences of camping during thunderstorms when I was young. Come to think of it, I wasn’t a huge fan of camping either. At least, not when it was cloudy. So, it made perfect sense that I would apply to be a camp counselor at a summer camp in the middle of Wisconsin. Where you take kids camping, and it storms. A lot. Well, one week I was leading a canoe trip on the Wolf River. It was me, counselor Katie, and her cabin of ten 7th grade girls. Surprisingly, no, the idea of guiding ten twelve-year-olds in canoes down a river isn’t the scary part of this story. I loved that. But these clouds started rolling in halfway through our trip and within one minute the sky was black, the wind was out of control, and we had almost gone deaf after the loudest thunderclap I had ever heard. So, the twelve of us pull our canoes to the nearest part of shore that we can, which turned out to be a swampy mosquito nest. So there we stood in one of the nastiest thunderstorms I have ever seen. Katie and I were doing our best to keep spirits up by singing songs, making jokes, praying, and telling the girls that this happens all the time and is nothing to worry about. Of course, inside I was pretty sure we were all going to die.
Well, obviously we all survived and made it back to camp, safe and sound. In fact, we had some pretty good laughs on the way home. Experiences like that have a way of bringing people together. Those shared memories are the building blocks of friendships that can last a lifetime. Unfortunately for me, I had to take a group out camping that night and had to comfort a group of girls for what seemed like forever before the camp staff was able to come get us and take us back to safety. But you know what, those girls still remember that experience, they still laugh about it, and they remember how we comforted each other, prayed together, and how God kept us safe. Sure I was scared, but look what came of it: a few, albeit strong, thunderstorms are a small price to pay for a lasting impact to be made in the lives of those girls.
Someone else was afraid in our Gospel lesson today. We were introduced to a man named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, who came to ask Jesus a question. You might have missed this part, because it’s only mentioned once, but we’re told that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. This isn’t just some random fact included to give some background on the scene. The fact that Nicodemus sought out Jesus at night is crucial to understanding what’s really going on. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a part of the Jewish ruling council. Remember, the Pharisees don’t like Jesus. They’re skeptical of him, threatened by him. They’re the ones who are plotting to kill him. Nicodemus is one of them. What would they think if they saw Nicodemus with Jesus? Especially if they heard what it was he had to say?
So Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, so that no one would see him. Because he’s about to do something big. He basically tells Jesus, “You’re for real. I know it. No one could do the things you do if God wasn’t a part of it.” And Jesus, never really inclined to give a straight answer to anyone, responds by saying, “You’re right. But let me tell you something—these things I’m doing, they point to a greater kingdom, a new reality. But no one can touch this kingdom or experience this new reality unless they are born again of water and the spirit.” Now, Jesus’ whole response to Nicodemus can seem a little cryptic and confusing, or at least I think it can be. But the message is simple—the world is broken. People are broken. Humanity is broken. We are beyond fixing. If there is any hope for redemption or renewal we need exactly that – to be made completely new. Our souls are so beyond repair that we need to be born all over again, born from the waters of baptism and the Spirit of God.
So Nicodemus is told that to be a part of this new kingdom, this new reality, he is basically going to have to be reborn. If anyone is going to touch this new kingdom he or she is going to have to be born into a new reality and let go of their old self, their old life, their old reality. Like Abram, or Jonah, or Nicodemus, or anyone who has ever said “yes” to God, we’re going to have to be open to the possibility that God has a bigger plan for our life than we do. We’re going to have to be ready to be swallowed up.
William Willimon is a United Methodist bishop down in Alabama, a former dean of Duke University, and widely considered to be one of the best preachers in America. I had never heard of him until two days ago, when I was talking with my best friend, Suzi Orlopp, and swapping sermon ideas. She’s out in Wyoming doing her internship for seminary, and I thought it might be helpful to bounce a few sermon ideas off her. Well she read me this quote of Willimon’s about what this new birth means for us, and I wanted to share it with you. He writes:
We might come to the waters of baptism singing the old hymn “Just as I am,” but we will not stay by being our same old selves. The needs of the world are too great, the suffering and pain too extensive, the lures of the world too seductive for us to begin to change the world unless we are changed, unless conversion of life and morals becomes our pattern. The status quo is too alluring. It is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the six-thirty news, our institutions, our theologies, our politics. The only way we shall break its hold on us is to be transferred to another dominion, to be cut loose from our old certainties, to be thrust under the flood and then pulled forth fresh and new-born. Baptism takes us there.
Departing from the status quo is risky. Leaving the safe and familiar can be terrifying. But we’ve all done it. We’ve all taken a risk. We watch people take this risk every time there is a baptism. I’m curious, what goes through your minds when we have a baby baptized here? If you’re like me a lot of time you’re thinking, “Isn’t the baby cute,” or “What a good baby, she didn’t cry at all,” or, “Oh my goodness, will the baby ever stop crying??” How many of you are thinking, “Watch out baby, you just did a scary thing?” Now, as babies we might not have been fully able to grasp what exactly our baptism meant for us. But as we grow we come to learn that it is a daily dying to ourselves and rising to Christ. A daily giving up of the old and being filled with the new, God’s new. A daily risk. We might not know where God is going to take us. We might not think we have what it takes to do what God wants. We might doubt our ability to swallow what God has for us.
I’ve doubted my ability many times. I’ve questioned whether God had the right girl for the job in my work not only as a youth director, but even as a theology student and a camp counselor. The first summer I worked at Imago Dei Village, where I actually met several of our youth—four years before I ever applied here—I would get so nervous each Sunday morning about my soon-to-arrive campers that I would almost become sick. The thought of having to lead and interact with these kids for 6 whole days terrified me. But somehow I managed to do it, and fall more in love with it as each week went by. And that love turned into a calling, a vocation, and led to a full-time job in youth ministry here at Our Savior’s. And I was scared before I came here, and have been scared about the unknown many times while I’ve been here. But I have developed such a passion for this kind of ministry that I can’t imagine doing something else. I can’t imagine a life where I wouldn’t be interacting with young people to share God’s love. There was a time when I thought I wouldn't be able to do this job, and now it’s the only thing I can imagine doing, it’s my life’s purpose. This thing I didn’t think I could swallow, it’s swallowed me up completely.
Thank you for doing that. Thank you for bringing me here, for welcoming me into your lives. Parents, for letting me be a part of your child’s life. Your kids are the most amazing people I have ever met, they have influenced me and made more profound and powerful an impact on me than I could ever hope to have on them, and I love them more than words can say. Thank you all for helping me discover God’s purpose in my life.
I want to leave you with one final quote from the seventeenth-century Catholic priest Jean-Pierre de Caussade. When it comes to letting go and submitting to God’s desire for our life, he writes, “It is not our business to decide what the ultimate purpose of such submission may be, our sole duty is to submit ourselves to all that God sends to us and to stand ready to do God’s will at all times.”
Where is God sending you? Is God asking you do to something that scares you? I hope so. I hope each and every one of you learns to let go of your fears and let God lead you where you never thought you’d go. Stand ready and be ready to be swallowed up. Amen.
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