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Rez is a community where Jesus welcomes, shapes, and sends disciples for the good of our neighborhood. No matter where you are in life, this is a place for you.
Life Together In The Goodness Of God
We have just listened to some very challenging readings. Readings that call us to examine our hearts, our spirits, call us to look honestly at our lives, and ask if we are living up to the standard Scripture sets for us. We heard Jeremiah voice his lament in which he strongly protests God's actions against him, but concluding by affirming that he has faith that God will still care for those who are needy. The psalmist expresses her irritation with her enemies and earnestly requests that God's mercy and comfort be extended to her. We've probably all been there. Paul really gets down to business and spells out to the Roman church that grace is not a moral free pass, but calls for the believer's union with Christ and the real life implications of this union. And then, of course, from Matthew, we hear Jesus clarify the nature of true faith versus false faith and the cost of faith in our relationships, in our lives. And he honestly confronts the disciples with the critical choices they have to make, choices that will be before them, like the choices that are before us. Now, immersing myself in these passages during this past week made me reflect upon what I'm made of, how my heart and soul have been formed, and what choices I have made and will continue to make. And it being the week of Father's Day, I also ended up thinking about how some of the men present in my early life are still a part of who I am today. First, my great-grandfather, Olifar. I have a small, tiny black-and-white photograph from a summer day in the early 50s that shows my great-grandfather, then in his 80s, sitting in a chair in the middle of our backyard. In the background, you see the waters of the harbor and of the fjord. And his cane leans against the chair, tells us that he probably wasn't walking really well anymore, and tied to one of the chair arms is a long rope. And at the end of that rope, that end of that rope is attached to a harness I was wearing. I was, I am sure, a handful perfectly capable of getting away from him and reaching the dangerous waters before he could catch up with me. Now, four generations of my family lived together in that house, and while all the other members of my family were busy with their daily tasks, his work was to watch over me, to keep me safe. Through the next ten years of my childhood, he was there, always ready to listen, usually offering a slice of apple and a good story. He always, always had patience and time for me and for anyone else around. That image has stayed with me. Then there was one of my grandfathers, Fafa. I vividly remember him, a hard-working fisherman with a very gentle soul. He worked on our boat every day, setting nets, pulling in nets, long hours, hard work, and any free time was spent mending nets and repairing gear. But every Saturday evening, he would wash up in our kitchen sink, put on a clean shirt, and a jacket replaced his usual heavy sweater. He would then go for a walk in our little town, just down the main street and back. Some nights I got to walk with him. On one particular evening when I was in the third grade, we stopped in front of the radio store, where a television, a black and white television, was displayed in the window with a sound coming out through a speaker. Not having a television in our home, we watched for a few minutes. It was a documentary about children in India who not only had smallpox postules all over their bodies, but distended bellies from hunger. As we were ready to walk on, my grandfather said, and I can hear it to this day, well, now we have seen that, so we have to do something. We have to help. And he assisted me in the weeks ahead. He assisted me and my friends, you know, second, third graders, to put on a talent show in our yard that raised some money that was given to a church fund that helped people in India. But I tell you, those words have stayed with me. Now, my other grandfather, Bestify, was also around, and some summers I got to go to my other grandparents' home. They lived in a much larger town. Now, Bestify had also worked on the water all his life as a commercial sailor and later on as a dock worker. By the time I came around or came along, he and my grandmother ran what is known as a warming room. Their house, located on the harbor, had a very large room with long wooden tables and benches, a large coffee station, really a room, a pantry type of thing. A coffee room joined the family kitchen and that room. Three times a day, mid-morning noon and mid-afternoon, the room filled with dozens of dock workers as well as sailors whose ship were being loaded or unloaded. They came in for a cup of hot coffee, eating their packed lunches or buying a simple roll with butter, cheese and jam, and in the afternoon perhaps a piece of freshly baked pastry. Bestify allowed me to help when I was there on vacation, allowed me to help pour coffee, bring around sugar and cream as well as serve some rolls and pastry. But he talked to me very seriously. He said, we have to be kind and polite to these hardworking men, mostly locals, but also sailors from other ports and even other countries. Bestify said that many of them did not live close to their families, at least during the week, and some even spent months on cargo ships, and that giving them somewhere warm to sit, a cup of good coffee and sharing stories was the most home they might know that day or week or month. That stayed with me. Now, I grew up in a very small town, a fishing village really, and hourly, daily, weekly, seasonally, every time there was a worship service, whether it be, you know, Eucharist communion, baptism, confirmation, wedding or funeral, the church bells rang out over our little town. The beginning and end of every day was marked with 15 minutes of ringing. You had to ring the sun up and you had to ring the sun down. Church bells marked the life of the town. Church bells marked the hours of our lives. That church had walls going back to the 13th century, and the bells date to the early 1600s. I was baptized in the 1800-year-old font when I was just three weeks old, surrounded by family, including my great-grandfather and grandfathers. That environment let me to know that the lives we lived were lived in God's time and in God's world. Most of my family went to church pretty regularly. The church pastor came to my public school and taught Bible and religion classes. My mother taught me prayers and hymns. I learned to love God, to not tell lies, to not steal, to love my neighbor, and all those good lessons, right? I loved Jesus and I knew Jesus loved me. Confirmation and receiving Holy Eucharist were milestones for me. Believing God and living in God's world were simply realities of life, both in good and bad times. Sure, awful things happened, like the death of my great-grandfather, one of my grandfathers, and my father. All happened within a year's time when I was 11, 12 years old. But they were buried from the church, the only church there, with the bells ringing out, and every day I could look out across the fjord and know they were buried in the family gravesite visible right over there. It was all one simple world, God's world, and life went on. A few years later, my mother, brother, sister, and I moved to the United States. My mom had married an American who had visited family in Denmark. Of course, coming to a new country had its challenges. A lot of stories to tell about those days. But in looking back, I believe the biggest one for me was figuring out how I was still living in God's world. I couldn't recognize what was around me as being God's world. We moved from our little tiny town to Dallas, Texas, and there seemed to be a church on every corner and in every neighborhood, but there were no church bells marking the times of day, marking the times of life. My stepdad was an elder at the large downtown Presbyterian church, and so that's where we went. I actually thought it was the state church of Texas, okay, but don't tell the Baptists. But it was at least 15 miles from our house, and none of our neighbors went to the church we did, but had their own places to attend on Sunday morning. I thought it was crazy. Church community was limited to a few hours per week, and I was lost. I was lost. It was like God had not moved with me, and I couldn't find God. I continued to say my prayers, and I read my Danish Bible. I went to church, to Sunday school, and to youth group, and I professed my faith in some formal way, I remember, but it was something to do, something just to get done, like an activity or social event. It was about 10 years before I truly began to find myself again, and possibly to catch a glimpse of that God's presence was here, even in this foreign and strange land. Like Jeremiah, I had to learn that even as life had challenged me in ways I did not like, God's care was still around. As it says in Matthew, if God can keep up with the sparrows, surely I was not outside God's reach. I was led to a church community where I could see that the things that had shaped me, my great grandfather's gift of care and attention, my grandfather's call to action when we heard about something wrong, and my other grandfather's strong sense of hospitality, in this church community I found these things were present and honored. I learned that practicing who I already was, who I had been shaped to be, was practicing in daily life, listening to and answering the call of Christ. I learned that making community with others, reaching out to help the neighbor, and practicing hospitality is indeed Jesus' pure call. A wise Episcopal priest taught me to not be afraid to give God the credit. It had seemed so automatic as I was growing up in my small town, and I believed my faith was deep then. But I got the courage, the teaching, to bear witness to what Jesus Christ was doing in and with my life. Not new things, things I knew that had been grown in me from when I was a baby. But I learned to give Jesus, to give God the credit. Paul and Matthew wrote words of instruction to early churches that lived in very perilous times of persecution and poverty, and some had to leave all, including family, behind in order to profess Jesus as Lord of their lives, of their times. And you know what? These words speak to us today. These words speak to us today, living as we do in perilous times, where God's love, God's righteousness, God's justice are hidden behind human lust for power and control. Now, perhaps more than ever in our lifetimes, we must boldly speak out about what God is doing in us and among us. Yes, we're called to do the good works to create the hospitality, to love the neighbor and the neighborhood. And we're called to say that God working in us makes it possible to do these things. We take the time to listen. We help and love our neighbor. We practice hospitality. And the powers of this world, the powers that claim ultimate power in this world, must hear that we do so in the name of the one we call Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We must, in the words of the baptismal covenant, proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ, the good news of God in Christ forming and shaping us through our parents and great grandparents and friends and our church, doing work that is more amazing that we can even begin to ask or imagine. We must proclaim by word and example the good news of Christ in our lives. So help us, God. Amen.