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“Love and Faith”
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalms 139 and 119; Philemon 1:4-22;
Luke 14:25-33
Rev. Sandy Nuernberg
Oakland-Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, WI
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time -
Christian Education Sunday
Rally Day
September 9, 2007
Please pray with me, O
God, as we hear and see for ourselves that discipleship is distinctive,
difficult, different, and demanding, help us to be compassionate of other’s
in their faith that doesn’t follow you, and to be challenged in loving and
living our faith in you as we believe and follow your example. AMEN.
Personal letters are not much
written anymore are they? They are a lost art; text-messaging and e-mailing send
messages faster, but I daresay they are much less personal, in love or in faith.
Mother taught us to acknowledge gifts given us by thank-you notes; she even made
Dad write them! To this day it is one of my favorite pass-times; another is
coming home and finding the mail on the kitchen table, and first, before
anything else, I look for any personal letters; handwriting I recognize,
addresses of family or friends I can identify. Two I want to tell you of today;
one year ago last Wednesday was my father’s death and many of you have helped me
through this still difficult time period. I thank you so much. But shortly
before his death, where Dad and Mom retired in the ‘80s in Arizona, he wrote me
a letter telling me how he felt he was on this same path, a journey with me in
becoming a pastor–he was, then, so excited about coming here to meet you all for
my ordination, one year ago tomorrow! It was his love, his faith that I’d make
it, and in his words, his seemingly intimate commitment and connection with me
that I won’t soon forget.
Another letter I have is from
1967; it’s in one of my jewelry boxes from my twin sister, Cindy, a nurse living
then in Palo Alto, California, where she had purchased her first car, a blue
Volkswagen. She started her letter to me, “Destroy after reading!” In it she
told me she had a car accident, needed my help making her monthly payment on it,
and that, “Mom and Daddy have enough to worry about and I wasn’t hurt.” She
asked for something, but her love showed as she took time to write; I remember
most, her handwriting, which hasn’t changed–it’s a beautiful kind of drawing
penmanship. These and other letters I keep, I mean, I keep much correspondence
sent to me (look in my office); did you know, after one year and some now, Ruth
(Poole, our business manager) and I admitted to each other we are ‘pack-rats’.
For me, personal letters are examples of Christian discipleship. They are, along
with e-mails, healing, soothing and softening, comforting; a salve (balm) to my
body and soul and are a part of our personal love and faith for/about each
other.
In our scriptures today in Luke,
and in a beautiful love letter in the one chapter of Philemon, we find examples
of love and faith inclusive of Christian discipleship. As we know, central to
these scriptures is Christ Jesus, His love for us, His faith in His Father. We
desire our Christian education programs to emphasize this; this new year as well
as every year. We also know that this request of love and faith in Christ and
for ourselves is not easy, it’s from our baptism to our death. Christian
discipleship, Jesus tells us, is not emphasizing selling of our possessions of
money, as some believe, walking away from ‘the good life,’ and therefore
unappealing. It’s in committing ourselves to Christ in our connectedness with
one another, ‘a good life’ of love and faith together, and that’s appealing!
It’s love and faith in Christ that is early on in our lives, presently,
and forevermore.
In following Jesus early on, we
remember in Luke, he is not impressed by the crowds, their whining and wanting
‘the easy life’; he warns his followers with what is truly involved. He tells
them quite harshly it’s all commitment or nothing, if you can’t place me (Jesus
Christ) first, if you can’t bear your cross, if you do not give up all your
possessions; but I like Matthew’s version, because he’s less abrasive, he
doesn’t use the word hate but says, “He who loves father and mother more than
me,” (Matt. 10:37) can’t be my disciple.
Jesus Christ is to be their/our foundation, their/our rock of salvation, and not
anyone else. For me, Ann Weems writes a simple poem entitled, “Faith” that sums
up what Luke tells us in his rather stark terms, but she says ‘A profession of
faith is not a part-time promise; it’s a whole time/all the time/ every time way
of life, and we who say we believe in Jesus Christ are saying now and tomorrow
and forever.’(Weems, Ann, Searching For Shalom,
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991, p. 55).
The examples we hear of the tower
builder and the king waging war hit home for me in pondering these texts of
present day discipleship. If we don’t understand it sooner, that the mortgage
can’t be paid, if we got into debt without a clue, later we’ve got to understand
and accept the foreclosure. If we don’t have the weapons to take care of 20,000
in war in the world with only 10,000 military, are the risks worth the outcome?
Jesus asks is it or is it not a time to ask for peace? If we can contemplate the
outcome, can realize our intentions of the pilgrimage ahead, we can be in
readiness to follow Christ? In our songs, prayer, Bible readings, praise, and
practices in life, can we be disciples of Christ? Jesus tells us in committing
our ‘whole’ selves, we can.
In describing his Christian
discipleship, mission journeyman and apostle Paul writes his personal letter,
while in prison,‘ with my own hand (v. 19).’
Perhaps prison is a place to think and write about such things as love and
faith, for Paul writes to Philemon, a master and dear friend, in a plea for the
life of Onesimus, his (Philemon’s) slave. Paul appeals for the master in
acceptance of his slave; Onesimus had run away and had become Paul’s personal
prison friend, his ‘own heart’, ‘child’, and ‘beloved brother.’ But he has faith
in Philemon; he wants Philemon to make the decision to no longer have Onesimus
as a useless slave, but be happy for his freedom as a brother and allow Onesimus
to help spread the gospel. After all, this is Paul’s life, his own gospel
mission ministry. Here, as in other texts, we aren’t told the outcome of either
disciple, are we?
We are implored us this day to ask
what happens in our lives of Christian discipleship, now and in the future; do
we sit down and know where God is present, how God is revealed to us as
community? Is it in writing-letter or by e-mail, is it our personal pilgrimage
in love and faith in Christ? Are we committed and connected in the love and
faith that Jesus asks of us; all parts of us? Are we in a hurry-up, impersonal
society of e-mailing and text-messaging without checking our spelling or what we
are saying on cell phones or, rarely, in our hand-written personal letters? Does
being fast bring no connectedness and no personal relationships? Are we
prepared, ready for the reality of Christian discipleship in our committedness
and connectedness as we sing, pray, read scripture, encounter silence within us,
even uncomfortably, and have fellowship together in our church? In all of this,
we can ask ourselves, do we really know each other? In love and faith, can we
reach out and touch someone, our neighbor, and call them by name, as Jesus does
us? Let it be so.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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