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June 8, 2008
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Genesis
12:1-3, Psalm 33:1-4, Romans 4:18-25, Matthew 9:18-26
Second Call: God
Who Never Is Done with Us Yet
Victoria Elizabeth “Toree” Legg -- on this
Sunday we delight to share in your confirmation of baptismal vows and your
conscious decision to join and identify your life in faith with the church
universal, the United Methodist Church, and this humble congregation. We affirm
with you the miracle of this “second call.” The same God who calls forth all
things in the beginning comes into history over and over again -- through
calling such unlikely old nomads as Abraham and Sarah, such despised “tax
collectors and sinners” as Matthew – even you, even me, even us. Our God of the
“second call” never is done with us yet! Every time we may think we have
answered forever, God calls again! God like the ubiquitous wireless phones of
today serves as one long interruption of our settled lives.
Jesus knows all about interruptions. Here he is
trying to respond to the plea to raise from death the young daughter of an
important leader in the synagogue. All of a sudden this old, poor, abused,
unknown, unclean woman comes of out the crowd to make an unauthorized “tap” into
Jesus’ power to heal. Jesus does not deny her. This story is, Toree, so
“intergenerational”—like confirmation! In the picture on the bulletin cover –
as I see it -- an older hand laid on an infant hand. As confirmation is “laid
on” baptism – the assurance of what we have hoped for.
Our lives in faith are made up of perpetual
“call and response.” We act as you do today, Toree, on the promise of “a big
family” with room for us all to belong. It is the promise that every stranger
is a new family member for us to meet. You have been in this congregation all
your life. This congregation has “raised” you, “lifted you up” as one of our
own. (I’m sure certain preachers make you feel you have been here a lifetime –
all in one sermon!) Yet today we meet you anew -- as if for the first time. We
promise always to try to meet you as if for the first – to let you be fully and
freely the God-given, God-gifted, God-called wonder you are.
You tell us your full name – Victoria Elizabeth
Legg – consists of two queens and a body part! It is so fitting to share this
Sunday with our appreciation of the choir – for you absolutely love music! You
play the piano and love to sing – when nobody else is around – which means you
are exactly who the choir is looking, listening for! Your family – whom we are
so privileged to know and love – and friends mean everything to you. You know
what it means to “belong” to God and to each other. Already you help with
ushering and with the children’s program. You enjoy many interests and
activities – including taking pictures and video taping – the person we need to
make a “power point” or video for our church!
Your spirit is “adventurous” – like the first
season of the church year that reminds us life is a trip! (If we can afford any
trips any more!) The journey is home. Life can be so full of false starts,
wrong turns, and dead ends. So full of bumps, and stalls, and detours of every
kind. (Try getting around Reno/Sparks any summer!) Life can be all too full of
awkward arrivals, short stays, unexpected departures. We can get tired –
depending on where we are in life – of saying so many hellos and goodbyes. We
make up so much of life on the way, even on the run – as if it were all about
getting some place else. Let the journey be its own reward, Toree – all the
sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, feelings and memories of life.
The land where we are going, and already are, is
less about place than promise. The very meal we share on the way -- with
strange friends and friendly strangers -- is one of thanksgiving for life and
communion with one another. Our meal originates in the experience of making
haste to leave bondage in Egypt. It becomes with Jesus a meal for those with no
fixed place to call their home – no sure place even to spend the night. Just as
we thank God for the families and those who served them in Family Promise this
week –we know we are related and called to be responsive as well to those
dwelling in “Tent City” on 4th Street.
Toree, your coming of this age and decision this
morning inspires us to want to say “thank you” for all our life and work as a
church family – and especially for worship, our public work as a people of faith
in and for all the world. We give thanks for the Chancel Choir – the direction
of Andy, the music of Cheryl and others who have played with the choir this
year. We give thanks for the Bell Choirs and the singing of the children. We
give thanks for all who preach and lead worship, all who read and dramatize
scripture, all who usher and greet and clean and adorn our spaces of worship.
We give thanks for the bulletins, newsletters, flowers, refreshments – and all
who make them happen. We give thanks for all the leaders, conveners, teachers
of all the groups and activities in and around us -- large and small, formal and
informal, structured and spirit-led.
Mystic Mesiter Eckhart says, If our only prayer
were “Thank you,” it is enough!
We give thanks for all the personal and pastoral
care and support – the phone calls, the visits, the cards, the meals, the
thoughts and the prayers that surround and support and sustain us. Toree, your
confirmation, your membership and “adulthood,” so to speak, in the church remind
us there are so many crucial changes of life and relationship –
baptism/confirmation, graduation/ordination, marriage/divorce,
retirement/relocation, subtraction/addition, separation/renewal, injury/illness,
discernment/discovery, call/commission, work/vocation. All of our
lives/relations, families/households teach us change is the only constant.
It takes all of us to be the church! We all
need help to hear second (third, fourth hundredth, countless) calls and claims
of God in our lives. We hear each in our own ways, yet all together -- terms we
can grasp, yet mysteries – responses we can make, yet offerings. We all are
united but not uniform, different but not divided. Whatever we do, however we
do it – we know from Abraham and Sarah who give up their home and homeland, and
from Jesus who gives up his life – it is bound to get us in some kind of trouble
with someone some of the time!
There will be times, Toree, when we feel at great odds with ourselves – Who are
we, really? In mind? In body? In spirit? And whose are we? What gives our
lives conviction and faith, courage and hope, compassion and love? Given that
our transitions may be so many – and our tributes so few and so far in between –
What is worth doing? What
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