After a long lunch with a dear friend, I'm spending Day 4 of my sabbatical working on a sermon.
This sounds wrong, of course. And I thought at first it would be but things have a way of working out.
I'm preaching Sunday, Jan. 15 at Trinity Lutheran in Kona, Hawaii. My intention was merely to worship with this congregation, since I'll be on the Big Island for a week for a yoga retreat and they are the only ELCA congregation on the whole island.
When I emailed the pastor to invite him to lunch and give him a heads up on my visit, he immediately invited me to preach. I hesitated. This is supposed to be my sabbatical, people! But I said yes because it's my default value.
Then this week I started working on the sermon. And wouldn't you know it? The text invites me deeper into some of the very questions I took this sabbatical to ponder.
The text is from John 1:43-51, where Jesus calls Phillip and Nathanael to be disciples. Phillip, apparently, was an easy sell, but Nathanael not so much. Nathanael asks a skeptics question, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Instead of chiding him for his doubts, Phillip simply response, "Come and see."
Then, Nathanael meets Jesus and is impressed that Jesus recognized him from before. Nathanael responds by praising Jesus and following him. Later in John's gospel, this same disciple will witness the resurrected Jesus on the beach.
This story is part of Nathanael's faith journey (we can only guess at the rest) and is his call story. That's exactly what I'm reflecting on during sabbatical: faith stories and call stories. Phillip became a way that God's grace was revealed to Nathanael on his faith journey.
My premise is that getting in touch with our faith story can equip us to share our faith others and to invite them to "come and see," whether we use words or not. For believers, we are such because someone told us. How else could we know?
What do you think? Who shared their faith with you? How did they do it?
PS: Thanks to http://freechristimages.org/biblestories/jesus_calls_his_first_disciples.htm for the beautiful painting above.
3 comments:
Who shared their faith with me? Well, my folks brought me to church, and served on council / vestry and led music and participated in fellowship events, and when I was a young musician they always found a simple part so I could share my musical gifts along with them. They modeled excellent church participation. I remember camps, and Cursillo weekends, and youth group events. But it was my talks with my grandma, usually in the car, that really stick with me. That's where I heard about her personal faith, rather than our corporate faith. -- Love, Kathy
The Prayers of the People this coming Sunday will echo some of what you say, and will also mention the Faith Story project. I think it is our job to invite, and the Holy Spirit's job to take it from there. And who knows who might be touched by your faith story, whether shared in worship or more informally?
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