I am very thankful that on my pastor's retreat this week that 5,000 people didn't show up asking to be fed and cared for. Our Minnesota Conference Clergy Retreat really wasn't quite the wilderness as I went through the north part of the Twin Cities to get to Buffalo, MN to an abbey called Christ the King nestled in the town on a lake. The retreat leader, Rev. Martha Brunell (my spiritual director) used a book called "How, Then, Shall We Live?" by Wayne Muller to guide our discussion and contemplation. His book focused on 4 questions: 1. Who Am I? 2. What do I love? 3. How shall I live, knowing I will die? 4. What is my gift to the family of the earth? In broadly applying this to our church about who we are, we are still trying to decide who we are after 115 years of existence. It is more apt to define this church by what we do than by any theology or definition of membership (God save us from defining who or who not is a member). In two weeks, we will gather to work on a new mission statement and that will help. We define ourselves who we are by what we love, being an open church that strives to welcome everyone, being a just peace church that just doesn't talk the talk but shows up to protest, to write to our elected officials, and rolls up are sleaves to get our hands dirty rehabbing a rain garden downtown. We live our faith by feeding the poor, giving transportation to the foreign workers, and a safe place for many different types of groups and people in our church building. What is this church's gift to the family of the earth, not just people, not just God, but to the whole planet, all that is alive, moving, and eons old? It is feeding the hearts, minds, bodies, and souls of the planet in are many interests, learnings, and activities.
Let's start in the wilderness, since we are so much closer to it than the abbey just outside of the Twin Cities. The NRSV tells of coming to a deserted place, but it is the same word in Greek that starts the Gospel of where John the Baptist preached and into where the Spirit drove Jesus to be among the wild beasts and waited upon by the angels. Much of the Bible concurs that the wilderness is not the place to be, it is dangerous, filled with threats, and makes for a very hard life. But, however, nonetheless, the wilderness is where God provides manna, water, and meat to the freed Hebrew people, where the prophets proclaim God can cause pools and life to spring up, and often it is out there, out here, where sometimes we can more easily find God because we are bereft of distractions, especially in our modern world. We have about 5,000 people in our whole county which is about double the size of Rhode Island. Imagine if I brought the whole county with me to the retreat? Cook County is abundant in water, forests, and land, not so much in population, unless you count the deer, the black flies, and ticks. Our County Commissioners made a cry from the wilderness to be the first county in the state of Minnesota to pass a "Climate Change Emergency Resolution" this past Spring.
The commentators for our pledge drive talked about seeing this story of the feeding of the 5,000 on different levels. One level is the simple story of a large crowd of people getting the bodies filled after their hearts, minds, and souls were filled with the teachings of Christ. Another way to look at this story is a foreshadowing of the final banquet where God takes us away from all we know into a unfamiliar place but shows that God's Realm has abundance for all. There is also the pre-enactment of the Lord's Supper were Jesus takes the food, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to all so that they may be filled.
We are in uncertain times and a future that looks bleak if we watch too much news and listen to the pundits, podcasts, and politicians. We can, however, focus on our gifts and love, not fear; trust, not doubt; and work, not worry! This congregation and community is blessed with an abundance of talent, intelligence, and heart. In North Dakota, I heard from many a conference minister and preacher that, out there, we lived in the wilderness and that was were God moved. Too often, our churches and people were motivated by fear of failure, fear of scarcity, and fear of being irrelevant in the world. So the churches and the conference and the state has slowly sunk down with nostalgia its only comfort. Does Cook County have problems? Yep. Our State? Our Country? Our World? Yep, yep, and yep. But we also have groups of people who are rising up and working on those problems. We are adapting our Thanksgiving Dinner to feed our neighbors, we are adapting our constitution to serve who shows up now and keeping it flexible for the future, and we are grounding ourselves in compassion, in justice, and the belief that there is enough for all, not just barely enough, but truly enough for all our needs, all the needs of the world, if we can just share, be generous, and feed the world with a love that is limitless, boundless, and eternal. The steadfast love of God endures forever. Say it with me, "The steadfast love of God endures forever, the steadfast love of God, endures forever..." And it feeds all hearts, minds, bodies, and souls and the planet upon which we live and breathe. Amen? Amen.
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