Closing Sermon

2007 Bishop’s Convocation

October 24, 2007

Pastor Sara J. Anderson

Christ the King Lutheran Church, Wilbraham, Mass.

I love the words from our text today: Jesus said, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

As I hear that call to be united with Christ and sent, I can’t help but think of my Great Grandmother. Great Gramma came to America to escape the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Her story is one I recently told while urging China to stand against the genocide happening today in Darfur. It is a story of a young girl torn away from family, forced to leave her beloved aunt behind, as she was urged to run away under cover of darkness. It is a story that includes the horror of hiding under dead bodies so they might escape the military that tortured and killed them as they marched from Armenia.

It is story that includes leaving behind family, country. A story that could focus on what it means to be lost, lonely, and forsaken.

But this is not the totality of my great grandmother’s story.

Every Sunday, my family would gather for a meal together around our kitchen table. Great Gramma would tell us about what it meant to escape the genocide but then she’d tell another story. Drawing us close, she’d pull my twin sister and I onto her lap. She’d hold us tightly and tell this story:

“Do you know the story of Noah’s Ark?” YES, Noah built an Ark and survived the flood.

“Do you know where Noah’s Ark landed?” On Mt. Ararat!

“Do you know where Mt. Ararat is located? In Armenia!

“Do you know what that means?”

EVERYONE is a descendent of an … ARMENIAN!

See, you learn something new every day. And, I learned an important lesson from my Great Grandmother. She made scripture come alive for me. Abraham wasn’t just another figure in history. Abraham is my history, is my family. Moses walking through the wilderness, that is a part of my story, it is apart of our story. The promise made to Noah is our promise. All our stories are intertwined together.

Our walk through our own wilderness moments, the moments when we as a people called to share the news, get bogged down by sin, by apathy, by one more person lost, when we ourselves get lost, God walks with us.

God comes not only in the wilderness, not only on the mountaintop but on the cross. That deep abiding act of love, God’s only Son, given for you, means we do not walk alone.

I remember the first moment that message rang deep and true. As a Roman Catholic, I’d been wrestling with my call to ordained ministry. I’d been to that wonderful place called Camp Calumet and I’d heard those words at communion: “This is the Body of Christ, given for you.” It was my confirmation day in the Catholic Church. I was serving as a Eucharistic minister for the first time that day. I helped to distribute the wine. There, on that day, we were told to say simply, “The blood of Christ.” But, as I gave out communion for the first time I wanted to shout, “GIVEN FOR YOU!”

I knew then this was a story I was called to tell. It is a story that goes beyond the Ark and a promise in a rainbow. We are called to tell that story. The incredible story of God’s love, that in a small bit of bread, a sip of wine, we are forgiven through the greatest act of love. Christ’s death on the cross, his life given for you.

This is the love that abides in me, that abides in you, a love that binds us together, as one, as family. Armenian! Swedish, Hispanic, German, Latino, African American, and on and on, we are drawn together in Christ, marked Children of God, we are family.

In our text Jesus prays for our witness to this truth, prays for us

So that all might be one just as Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus.

So that all might be in the Son and the Father

So that the world might believe that God sent Jesus.

It is a prayer that our witness might be rooted in Christ, for we are stronger for telling the story together.

I don’t know about you-but that’s the hardest part of telling this story for me.

It’s hard to bear that witness when there is so much to distract us and pull us away. Ministry can feel so lonely and isolating. No one is in the exact same place at the exact same time. Whether we’ve been at this forever and our stories seem to have run dry, or we’ve just started and don’t seem to ever have enough experience. Or our congregation wants a savior and they’re looking to you. While, you are thinking, “I can’t perform a miracle!” Perhaps, the conflict that is a part of congregational life is piling up around you and they are ready for another crucifixion and you pray, “Not Me!”

It is hard in those places to witness. It is far easier to turn inward, to begin to believe it is about ourselves, to focus on “me”. And there are so many other things as well. There is genocide, terrorism that battles against freedom of faith. There are sports games that seem to overwhelm the Spirit, and debates over sexuality that divide rather than draw us to the word.

Our fiercely individualist nature, our human sinfulness turns us away from God, draws us inward, we begin to focus only on ourselves, on our agenda, and it is isolating and exhausting.

Our walks through the wilderness moments and even those wonderful joyful mountaintop moments are empty if walked alone.

Jesus offered a prayer that we might be one with God. Then he offered his life, that as we eat this bread, and drink this wine that is, given for you, we might do this in remembrance of Christ. Yesterday, Bishop Payne preached a good word to us. A word that reminded us that Christ is present not only here in the bread and wine but in all the places that we are sent. God is with us.

I love to tell that story, a true Story of a great love, for us, the children of God. This is a story we carry with us wherever we go. It is a story we live. We can sing that story (one of my favorite hymns just happens to be, “I love to tell the story”)

We can read that story; we have heard that story from our incredible speaker Diane this week, and we have the bible initiative to encourage us to engage with the Word.

We can listen to that Story, turning to one another, taking time to hear another’s witness.

We can live that story as we serve. We serve in so many ways, fighting to end genocide in Darfur, working to end hunger in our World through the one campaign, seeking to remain faithful to the Word in our congregations and places of ministry.

And of course, we can pray that the Spirit might guide us as we wander from the truth.

But most importantly, we can tell the story.

God’s story, of justice and mercy, of conviction and comfort, of command and calling, of wandering and of being found, of doubt and faith, is meant to be proclaimed.

We listen to the Word. We come together around the table, celebrating God with us and- us in God- as we go to tell the story with all its scenes of Glory, the old, old story of Jesus and his love. Amen.