Sermon from Sunday, November 10, 2024
The Rev. Megan Collins
My goodness, it has been a week.
I was among those of you who stayed up until the late hours on Tuesday night and into Wednesday, watching the coverage come in on the election. I was too antsy to sit still, so I alternated between perching on the edge of the couch watching the news coverage, and sitting at the counter, stress eating snacks. If there is a limit to the number of pigs and a blanket a person should eat, I think I have found it. What is the FDA limit on pigs and a blanket? Apparently every hot dog we eat takes 36 minutes off our lives. I’m thinking Tuesday may have been a bit of a setback for my longevity. But apparently it’s okay, because I read that the same rules applied to us this week that we follow when we travel through airports. Wear only comfortable clothes. Calories don’t count. You can eat Pringles for breakfast. Take a nap in the middle of the floor, anytime if you need to.
It’s been a week.
This morning is one of those days as a preacher it is tempting to do what my teacher did in elementary school when she had been a long week - just put on a movie. Today we’ll be watching Moana.
But instead, let’s talk.
I know this morning there are many here who are grieving, who are processing the outcome of the election on Tuesday. It will be no surprise to you that Dave and I and our family count ourselves among those who grieve. I know there are also others who are just ready to get this tense season behind us and move ahead, and that there are some who are celebrating the results.
Some of you may feel like parts of this sermon are for you, and some parts are not. You would be right about that. In seminary they told us that the church is called to both comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. Our Scriptural text for today does a bit of both. I believe, as it always does, the Bible has a word for each of us, and God will let us know what we need to hear.
We’ll be looking at Galatians 6. It’s one of those passages many of us have read so often that we don’t really hear it because it’s so familiar, so today, we’ll read it from the Message translation, to keep it fresh, and help it speak a new word to us. Before we start, Galatians is going to take us right into our what’s next, our where do we go from here after this week. So before we jump in, for those who grieve today, you can take a minute. Give yourself the compassion and grace to take time and just grieve. Be upset. Shout at the sky. Lay on the couch and scroll on your phone. Put up a Christmas tree while you eat the rest of your Halloween candy, whatever helps. But then, soon, if you haven’t already, go ahead and dust yourself off, change out of your pajamas, and get ready to live out the teachings of Galatians, even if you don’t feel ready for it. Because all of us have a purpose. Let’s take a look. It starts out in chapter 6, verse 2.
2-3 Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
One thing right at the center of our walk of faith, is to literally follow Jesus, to live as he lived (or at least try to). Jesus reached out to those who are oppressed, which means we do too. We, as we follow in the footsteps of Christ, look out for those on the margins, for those who suffer, for those who have been told they don’t matter or aren’t equal. Even if we are personally struggling, we look out for those who are struggling more than we are, then we share their burdens with them. We try to lighten their load. Galatians says none of us are above this work. There is no out because of what you do or don’t want to do, or who you think you are. There is no out because it will cost you something. Reaching out to the oppressed is the responsibility of all Christians. This is our calling. This is what happens when we follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
Look at yourself, and at your life, and find the work that is yours to do. Sink yourself into it. We’ll talk more about that in a minute. But first, Galatians says, as you do this work, resist the urge to be super duper proud of your own goodness. Really resist the urge to compare yourself to what other people are doing, to think about how much better you are than them. Careful now . . pride is so tempting.
6 Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.
In other words, it’s time to get to work. You who have had people pour into you. There are people in your life that helped you get to the place you are in now. it’s time to get to share that with other people.
7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
Galatians is getting into it now. No one makes a fool of God. What you plant today, is is what you will harvest. Plant selfishness and you just get weeds, and all you’ll have to show for it, is weeds.
What you plant today, is what you will harvest.
No one who plants selfishness, harvests love.
No one who plants greed harvests generosity.
No one who plants individualism harvests a community.
No one who plants defeat, harvests hope.
And, for those who feel stuck in place this morning, If you don’t get off the couch, if you plant nothing today, there will be nothing to harvest tomorrow.
Today is the day to get to work. Plant seeds so you can start building the future. Plant the things of God - justice, compassion, goodness, peace, joy, love - and that is what the harvest will bring. What a promise. Now before we go on, a couple of things to remember about planting seeds.
First, when you plant seeds, they need to be protected. There will be those who try to grab those seeds of joy or hope or goodness you are planting. Don’t let them. Protect your seeds.
Second, seeds need to be nourished and attended to. When you find the good that is yours to sow, lean into it. Feed it with your time and your energy. Don’t let it whither. Don’t give up (we’ll talk more about that in a minute). It’s not enough to do one thing today then move on.
The third thing about sowing seeds is this: the harvest is not always predictable. With seeds, lots of things influence the timeline of when they come to harvest. This is so much more true of our work. As you do good in the world, as you plant seeds, there is no definite timeline on when they will sprout up, and definitely no guarantee of when they will fruit, but we are promised it is coming. Now, as we go back to our passage, here comes one of my favorite teachings from Galatians, the teaching that I hold onto today:
9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.
We cannot grow tired of doing good, because when we do good, we are promised a harvest, as long as we don’t give up. Some of you this morning may feel like you don’t have any power, that you are unsure about the future. But you can’t let that feeling take your ministry away. You are called to serve in a way that only you can serve, to do the good that is yours to do in the world. Each of you, every person, has a unique call from God to serve the church and to serve the world. We need each other because no one of us can do it on our own. I read this week “I cannot do all the good the world needs. But the world needs all the good I can do.” All of us need to get to work living out the unique role God calls us too. We might be tired. We might feel weary. But Galatians promises us if we don’t give up, there will be a harvest of what we are sowing now.
Church, there is no out on this, where you can just sit back indefinitely and not be a part of God’s mission. Maybe you think you have nothing to offer. Maybe you think you aren’t needed. Maybe you think nothing you do will make a difference. Maybe you think you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. None of that is true.
You do have something God has gifted you to offer to the world. You are needed. You can make a difference. There is no out if you just don’t want to.
Women, I have a special word to you. It’s way too easy for us to not speak up and live out the call God has put on our lives. We can so easily hide behind other people or blame restrictions in our lives or wait for someone to give us an invitation or permission to serve. But the very first people at the empty tomb were the women. They were entrusted with the message of hope and resurrection. Now you are too.
What you reap today you will sow tomorrow. The time to do hard things, the time to do your good, is now. You can’t grow weary and you can’t give up. So how do you know what your ministry is to do? What is the good you specifically are called to? Glad you asked. Frederick Beuchner writes:
There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-Interest. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.
Find your good to do based on this. Find the place where the ministry that brings you joy, the good you have been equipped to do, meets the deepest needs in our world, the place where people need you the most. That’s your good. That’s your seed to sow.
Sometimes doing good is easy. Sometimes everything works out in our favor. We sow some seeds and just a few days later they sprout up and by next month, there’s fruit. Sometimes it’s much harder, and it takes longer to make a difference. Sometime we won’t get to see the fruit at all. Martin Luther King Jr knew more about this than most, about the long work of sowing seeds for the harvest, about doing good, even when it’s hard, about not getting to see all the ways his work made a difference. In 1962, he wrote:
"When I first flew from New York to London, it was in the days of the propellor type aircraft. The flight over took 9 ½ hours. On returning to the States from London I discovered that the flying time would be twelve hours and a half. This confused me. I knew that the distance returning to New York was the same as the distance from New York to London. Why this difference of three hours, I asked myself. Soon the pilot walked through the plane to greet the passengers. As soon as he got to me I raised the question of the difference in flight time. His answer was simple and to the point. “You must understand something about the winds,” he said. “When we leave New York,” he continued, “the winds are in our favor; we have a strong tail wind. When we return to New York from London, the winds are against us; we have a strong headwind.” And then he said, “don’t worry though, these four engines are fully capable of battling the winds, and even though it takes three hours longer we will get to New York.” Well, life is like this. There are times when the winds are in our favor—moments of joy, moments of great triumph, moments of fulfillment. But there are times when the winds are against us, times when strong head winds of disappointment and sorrow beat unrelentingly upon our lives.31 We must decide whether we will allow the winds to overwhelm us or whether we will journey across life’s mighty Atlantic with our inner spiritual engines equipped to go in spite of the winds. This refusal to be stopped, this “courage to be,” this determination to go on living “inspite of,” is the God in man. He who has made this discovery knows that no burden can overwhelm him and no wind of adversity can blow his hope away. He can stand anything that can happen to him.”
Doing good isn’t always easy. We don’t always see the fruit right away, but we are promised a harvest. We are called to do this work, even if we feel like we are walking into a headwind to do it. And here’s the best part: You will not do it alone. God will be with you in it. God will give you what you need. God will send you God’s people.
One of the beautiful things about being a church together is our call to serve together. Each of you has a piece to do. This beautiful, messy community we call the church, will continue to be a place where you can come in from your work in the world, covered in the dirt and mud of sowing seeds out in the muck, and take a rest. You can bring your frustrations and your grief. Your church will be a place where you can admit that for a moment, you are in fact weary in doing good. Where you can admit that today, you want to give up. We will pray and we will sing and we will remember that God is ultimately the one on the throne. Nothing can change that. We will remind you that God is always with you, and nothing, and no one, can separate you from the love of God. We will help brush you off, and we will give you some rest, and then we will walk back out there together, arm in arm, to get back to work, because there are more seeds to plant. I’ll close with a quote from Dr. Walter Bruggeman, who is a renowned Old Testament scholar and theologian. He shared this reflection earlier this week:
"Like the ancient prophets, we are dispatched back to the good work entrusted to us. It is the work of peace-making. It is the work of truth-telling. It is the work of justice-doing. It is good work, but it requires our resolve to stay at it, even in the face of the forces to the contrary that are sure to prevail for a season. We are in it for the long run, even as the Holy One is in it for the very long haul, from everlasting to everlasting. We do not ease off because it is hard. "
Church, let us never grow weary in doing good.
Let us sow seeds today that will change tomorrow.
Let’s get to work.
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