Dear Church: A sermon by Deacon Erin Power

At our recent retreat for Conference Deans, Deacon Erin Power (Assistant to the Bishop for Synodical Life) preached a powerful and timely sermon for our life together as Christ’s Church in the Rocky Mountain Synod. I commend this proclaimed word to you as part of the Spirit’s Re•Forming work among us.

From the Story of the Woman at the Well

John 4: 27-52

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

Dear Church

I have to confess It is slightly intimidating to reflect on the upcoming Sunday’s gospel to a group of colleagues, many of whom preach every week. However, as we were cleaning up last night I walked up to the Bishop and asked, “are we having worship tomorrow?” Before I fully thought it through (as often happens to me around here), I blurted out, “Great, I am going to give the message, I have something to say.”  And then went home and said, “Okay holy spirit, you got me into this mess…”

“They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’”  –THAT!  That is what we are about at our best:  God’s love so embodied that our people say “we have experienced it for ourselves”.  And it’s not easy. As we engaged in conversation these past few days around stewardship, resources, debt, I began to recognize the cultural, maybe generational, lens I bring to the conversation and potentially the challenge I bring to the institution. You see I grew up with Enron, Martha Stewart and the bank bailouts shaping my understanding and trust of institutions. Those stories are deeply embedded into my experience and lens.  I have ultra-sonic BS radar and will walk away the minute I think you selling me something or I sense a hidden agenda. I will challenge the institution for the sake of being too institution-y.  Dear church you are going to have to work hard to get me to the table.   I moved away from home the year following 9/11, with the world being different, less safe than I had previously known and experienced. I came into adulthood changing as the world around me changed and unfolded into this new version of America.

And it hasn’t gotten any easier as a new generation enters the conversation.

But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 

Dear colleagues, I stand here today grateful for your work and your witness, your showing up day in and day out, proclaiming the gospel, loving your people, wrestling in all of that often-annoying grey. As the leaders “in the trenches”, I am beginning to think that sometimes we experience different churches. Maybe it’s my slightly birds-eye view, or maybe it is my first-call, haven’t-done-this-long-enough-to-know-better naiveté, but I see a different church.  Fields ripe for harvesting.

Or maybe more accurately, I have experienced a different church than the stories I sometimes hear.  As I reflected on this story from John, it hit me- I am the Samaritan woman. Okay not the whole had 5 husbands, living with someone who isn’t my husband thing. But the transformed by the power of God, ife changed by the love of Jesus woman, the woman who then engages the world differently because of her encounter of grace, of being known by god. And it happened in your church.

It is as this transformed Samaritan woman that I hear questions, stories I don’t fully understand. I hear the stories of congregations who feed their community every week and say they aren’t relevant. Congregations who say they have nothing to offer young people. 

We need different programs.

We need different worship.

We don’t have enough.

We aren’t enough.

This is the church many of our people see. These stories happen in your church.

And in my slightly over-dramatic tendency, when I hear the stories we tell ourselves, I either fall on the floor or pull on my hair, and blurt out in shock: you have the gospel, you have the cross, you have bread and wine. What more do you need?

I shake my fist in frustration as my heart breaks at our collective pain in these stories we tell ourselves, because I want us to see the power of God in ancient words and simple loaves of bread that happens your church.

As the Samaritan woman transformed by the word of God, I can often only see the world through that new reality. I am the woman wonders aloud “he knew everything I have ever done- and still talked to me.”

So let me tell you about your church. Your church that is just a church, just a group of ordinary people, gathered in ordinary buildings, on just another Sunday morning. Your church that is our ordinary earthen vessel. The earthen vessel that proclaimed the Good News, embodied love, and was conduit for the unleashing of the Holy Spirit that allows me to say today, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that I believe, for I  have heard for myself,  and I  know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.'

Dear Church,

I was 19 when I arrived for my first summer at one of your camps. Knowing not a soul, I drove in wondering what the heck I really got myself into. I was greeted by enthusiastic peers welcoming me, and who, even after we got to know one another, accepted me fully.  It was in these first weeks of camp I experienced radical hospitality for the first time. I was welcomed with no conditions, I was encouraged to try new things and supported through my successes and epic failures. Dear church, you are one of the only places someone is welcome, where someone belongs, simply by walking through the doors. Where we are treated as equals around the table with no questions asked. In my summers at camp I discovered gifts that changed my focus of study and experienced the radical hospitality that has shaped my theology and call to ministry. This happened in your church.

Fast forward a few years later and I am swimming neck deep amid a quarter life crisis. Yes, this is a real thing. I quit my job, experienced depression, moved across the country to escape, and lost all the things I associated with my identity. And while feeling completely lost, I somehow found myself walking into a Lutheran church in Spokane, WA. Because that was known. Your words, your songs, your pews were known and therefore safe. 

Dear Church you welcomed me with open arms for a few short Sundays before I moved on. As my wandering continued you welcomed me in Bismarck, ND, Custer, SD, Sacramento, CA, St. Bernard, LA, and Alexandria, MN. When I knew nothing else, I knew your liturgy, I knew your songs. I knew I would hear “the gifts of God for the people of God. All are welcome.” This happened in your church.

Fast forward another 12 addresses and I arrived in Denver with a U-Haul of mismatched furniture, no job, and a roommate who insisted I had to visit this church- I would love it.

I arrived by myself the following Sunday morning, hoping to blend into the crowd, which turned out to be impossible as one of 25 people in worship. As I sat I my pew very intent on reading my bulletin, a woman marched- and yes, it was a determined march- deadlocked directly on me. “I don’t think I know you. I’m Wendy."

I assured her she did not know me, that I was a new visitor, etc. and worship began. 

Cue end of the closing hymn and I see Wendy again deadlocked on me headed my way.  “You must be Lutheran. You knew all the words to all of the liturgy.”

“Yes, I grew up in the Lutheran church," I replied.

 “Good," she declared, “this is your home now. We will see you next week.”

With a loaf of bread in my hand it seemed as if my fate was sealed. There are just some people you don’t argue with. This happened in your church.  And while I wouldn’t necessarily encourage this strong-armed approach with all visitors, “Good, this is your home now” was life-giving Gospel to a wandering nomad trying to find a place she fit.

Dear Church, you offer hospitality and sacred community in a world determined to tell us some people are in while others are out. Do you know what a gift this is to the world?

Over the next 5 years Wendy, along with myself and 4-5 other women, formed the Wednesday evening prayer group. A group of women (though a few men trickled in and out) ages 25-70 prayed each other through tears and family struggles, talked through job searches and new relationships, studied scripture and reflected on current events. Dear Church who thinks they have nothing to offer to young people. The wisdom, experience, and love from your church guided me through the figuring out of my life that happens when you start new chapters, especially these new chapters as a young adult. And in return I was invited into the lives of these women, trusted with their joys and pains, allowed to offer my gifts and experience back to them.  This is holy, Gospel work and it happened in your church.

And each Sunday dear Church, I see you love our kids. I see you greet 3-year-old Isaiah who has been an usher for the past 2 years, kneeling at the altar alongside his dad to receive communion before ushering up everyone else.  With tears I tell the story of 4 year old Tess, who, having experienced her place at the table each week, was with her dad changing the paraments and suddenly declared, “Dad, go get on your tall knees and I’ll hand out the bread.”

This happened at your church. Dear Church, your youngest members are being told a story of acceptance and love and grace before the world can tell them something different. If you do nothing else, do this. 

It is holy, sacred work when you gather around the font and welcome a new life. It is the very kingdom of God when you gather around the table; when you gather around the table and the future is unknown, when life piles on its stress, when it is too much, and you remind us that God says I am enough. The message of the table, the font, and especially the cross is foolish, and as someone who experienced them in sacred community, who experienced them in YOUR church, it is the power of God.

Today I offer to you my story, and invite you claim it as your story, as our story, because it happened in our church.

And so dear Church, I will continue to show up with all of my passion, frustration, and challenging of the institution because I see you church when you embody the love of God and it is beautiful. And the world needs it. Oh this world so desperately needs your love. This love in an earthen vessel that says to those institution challengers who are hard to get around the table “come. All is now ready and all are welcome.”  I will continue to show up and tell my story-our story- that says through small acts of radical welcome, hearts are transformed, lives are changed, different stories are told. ‘It is no longer because of what you said that I believe, for I  have heard for myself,  and I  know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.'