Sunday, November 15, 2020
Dear St. Luke Community,
Someone once asked me how I saw myself as a minister. For example, did I see myself as shepherd? Dave Slorpe once described it more like being a border collie. That rings true as I’m always looking to see who we haven’t seen in a while and searching ways to bring them back into the fold. But lately I’ve felt more like a mother who is about to send their first born off to college. Part of me wants to hold on forever and the other knows the healthy thing to do is trust.
Trust has been coming up a lot lately, in both discussions and sermons. It seems in times of crisis, the fundamentals of our faith become essential and the quality of what once sounded like a platitude now feels deeply meaningful. Trust is one of those fundamentals. Trust requires a kind of risk, because there is a letting go of control required. The truth is, we’re never fully in control, but we love to convince ourselves we can manipulate our future through the choices we make, as though our lives were some kind of chess board. It’s not. And the future of the church is not. God is in the mix, and it always feels risky to let go and let God.
Jesus illustrates this for us in his Parable of the Talents for this Sunday (Matthew 25: 14-39). One of the servants chooses to bury his talent. According to the Oxford Dictionary, to bury is to put or hide under ground, cause to disappear or become inconspicuous.
What leads us to disappear; playing it safe rather than investing in God’s ability to drive this life? Fear certainly plays a part, as does our ego, which would always prefer to be in the driver’s seat. I look forward to exploring this more on Sunday.
Also this Sunday, we will watch the baptism of Will and Ben White that took place on the lawn outside the sanctuary Thursday morning. But that baptism is not fully complete until you all have your congregational response and we share in our oldest creed as a congregation. I look forward to sharing in that joy together.
See you Sunday,
Nicole