Day by Day
April 17, 2005
Psalm 23
Acts 2:42-47
Today’s story has been so hard for me to compose. It’s been really difficult to contain because it’s exactly where we find ourselves. We are working as a community in living out the day to day aspects of our faith. This week alone we have worked as a community in a plethora of ways attempting to model, serve, and grow our faith. I’ll give you a brief replay of things that I saw happening this week. On Monday the Zambian Children’s Fund filled up the Fellowship Hall once again trying to prepare for the shipping of things to Zambia later this month. Tuesday all the Southern Arizona clergy gathered together and had a brown bag lunch. We caught up, got acquainted, had wonderful dialogue about Saturday and Nicole’s council and then dialogued about the sacrament of baptism and the blessing of marriages. Tuesday afternoon was filled with people stopping by the office in and out working on individual projects. Susan stopped by to work on the altar, the evolving prayer corner and parament closet. Then the Arizona Coalition for Fairness’s Collaboration and straight allies committees had meetings in our fellowship hall and their children played in our nursery which Cindy helped us find someone to staff. Cindy Wallace went to a TIHAN Liaison Meeting for our community on Wednesday night. And I went to the Arizona Coalition for Fairness Steering Committee meeting taking on the Faith community Outreach and Collaboration chair. Thursday, Wingspan was nominated to win an award for community programs of excellence in the non-profit community. They were being nominated for their work with the Rainbow Build, the Holocaust Exhibit of the Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals and the Arizona Coalition for Fairness Rally…We participated and supported all three of these projects with our time, our presence, our dollars and in exchange we were invited to have a seat at the table. Bob Jedinak went on our behalf. Summer Church Camp is right around the corner and this year Super camp will again take place. Three camps with three different age groups happening at the same time. Thursday all the Deans and the camp director came together here to pray and plan for what will unfold in just a few more weeks. FYI 24/7 gathered here with Dacia and Barbara to plan their first official fundraiser and then joined the adults for our regular Prayer Meeting. Friday morning I met with another someone who saw us on Betsy’s well maintained website and had a few questions, I spent some time over lunch talking about one of our justice projects, and participated in the fifteenth anniversary celebration of Pima County Interfaith Coalition at Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church. Finally, Saturday we gathered with our sister churches from all over our conference to celebrate all Nicole has learned and this call she is working to fulfill. The Women’s Fellowship kicked off their newly organized group with providing the snacks, Viriginia glowed from 100% turnout by the Southern Association due to her invitations and follow-through. And, Nicole was confident, articulate, and thorough with each answer given. And last night many of us supported the annual TIHAN fundraiser. What a week! And, it wasn’t any out of the ordinary week here. This same amount of activity seems to be happening in the day to day.
Just one year ago we could not have done half of these things, for we had no place to hold the events. Just one year ago we only had enough people to work at getting the foundation of our community stabilized and the word out around town that we were alive and well. This year that work continues but we have enough gathered and committed to a loving open God that we are working to open ourselves to a commitment to living our lives day by day with this God and living it out beyond the confines of the people we are today.
But it’s not easy is it. Now, instead of just taking care of things, we’re having to learn to communicate with one another. Not just about getting a project done, but making sure in the day to day we’re thinking about all of the people gathered and where our boundaries lie. We’re having to think about doing tasks and who needs a phone call or an update. As we have begun to live in the day to day, we are feeling the stretch of growth and we seek, we seek a God that’s with us, we seek a guide, a light, a shepherd to lead us.
I love the image of the Good Shepherd and despised the image of the lost sheep. After I had told my mother that church was an institutional hoax, drive in offering was another concept I had of it, she allowed us to visit any church that interested me. She not only allowed it, she would go with me, we would discuss what was said and how we felt afterwards. We journeyed for four years through two home towns and a lot of towns nearby. And, we landed in a United Methodist church in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin with a clergy couple serving as pastor. Dick was responsible for calling on the homebound and educational growth. Marilynn was responsible for preaching and administration. It was the only place that had a woman up front. It was the first time I heard the word in a voice like my own. They all held hands at the end of worship and sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again…The man next to me held my hand, looked into my eyes, and he meant it. I was hooked. And over this entire experience stood an enormous Shepherd. They had your traditional sanctuary, two rows of pews. The sanctuary seated about 500 split with a center aisle. The aisle led to a raised platform up three steps. Steps which stretched leaving a stone planter filled with green plants on each side. The stone lectern on one side the pulpit on the other. A wooden rail encompassed another raised platform where communion was served. And behind this from floor to ceiling was an enormous depiction of Jesus as Shepherd. There, carved into the stone was the Shepherd, hugging a staff, with giant sheep to his left and his right. I loved this depiction. He was approachable, calm, present, secure…Each Good Shepherd Sunday I remember him.
And, I loved hearing the stories about Jesus as Shepherd, staring into this giant. I wanted to know that I was a part and all of us gathered, we were his flock. That he would ensure our care and keep us from harm. That Jesus would bind our wounds, make sure we were fed, love us. And that community of faith latched right on to me. Immediately asking me to work in the church nursery watching the small children. Inviting me to youth group and Sunday School. Nurturing my call and faith in Confirmation. They allowed me to read Scripture on Sunday morning, supported youth Sunday each year where we planned and led the service, they created an internship for me before I knew what it meant to go to seminary and become ordained. They took me to the bedsides of the sick and dying. They allowed me space to teach and lead the youth. They encouraged me to create a new Sunday morning worship service and lead it with my own growing concept of the living God. They embodied this stone depiction, they shepherded me. They wrote my recommendations to seminary. They encouraged my study through care packages. They listened and asked lots of questions each time I returned home from undergrad. They lived with me each and every day… Until I came out.
Day by Day our lives take us to the most unexpected places. I spent my whole life feeling so ordinary, so girl next store, so Midwest. And, after I told my people that I had been dating a woman and even though we had broken up, it was something that was going to stick. After I had told them my truth, they sat around the kitchen table with me at the parsonage and said good-bye. They called me the little lost sheep that wandered off to college and left God behind. I left the parsonage absolutely numb. As I drove away from town towards the college I attended five hours away, it was absolutely terrifying. Every odometer click felt like another person leaving my life. As I drove, I remember realizing the further away I got, the more alone I felt. No parents. No siblings. No community of faith. Just me. Just me. And, as I lay in my bed that night, New Year’s Eve, crying myself to sleep…I couldn’t imagine why this living had to be so hard. How I had woken up in one place and ended up in another, physically, spiritually, emotionally. I didn’t feel lost, but I knew that I had lost them.
I’ve really disliked the story of the lost sheep ever since that moment. And, every time the Scripture brings us to Shepherds and sheep I have this mixed bag of feelings. Absolute peace about the shepherd but absolute despise for the sheep. And, it was Barbara Eiswerth who reminded me of a different tale. We were at the God Is Still Speaking training this past fall and she stood up after a video piece on the lost sheep and said, “I was one of the lost, and now I’ve been found.” I remember feeling as if the room stopped and no one breathed. I remember looking at the faces of those who are from our community. How tears of joy sprang to our eyes…I believe in God, I believe the wisdom of God hovered over the deep and began creating, I believe that wisdom became incarnate in Jesus who was born, lived, died and was resurrected through the living word. I believe that the word lives and breathes and inspires us day by day. God the shepherd, Christ the shepherd does not lose the sheep. Never loses the sheep. We can try to run but God is with us and in us. We can deny that presence, that voice, that peace, but God is in us with us we are not alone. We can feel lost, but God holds us in the palm. And most importantly, when the rancher puts up a fence and intentionally leaves a sheep out, the sheep didn’t get lost, it was separated. This is where we meet our resurrected Jesus every day, at the fence. Who are the ranchers putting up fences? How do we have input to where they are anchored? What does the shepherd do? Psalm 23…
Every day, day by day, we work at this living. Every day, day by day we work at living in faith. Occasionally we are shut out by a wall or a fence…let us not be those who maintain the barbed wire, razor wire or a fence…let us be believers, in a love more great, in a Jesus alive within us, in a spirit inspiring us luring us to go on…Day by day our faith will grow if we engage it. Day by day our faith will grow in spite of what life throws our way if we lean into it, question it, challenge, support it, feed it, listen to it, grow it. Day by day our learning, our focus, our persistence will generate an air about us, a spirit, an energy that is contagious, and day by day we will grow in number. Let’s go out and be shepherds, responsible for the moving, the feeding, the nurturing, the protecting of the living word, the God within, the move within the call of Christ. Let us pray.