May 29, 2016 Luke 5.1-11

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret,
and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,
he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake;
the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon,
and asked him to put out a little way from the shore.
Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,
“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.
Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
When they had done this, they caught so many fish
that their nets were beginning to break.
So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them.
And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying,
“Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”
When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

***
Candy Aldredge, our Personnel Chair, called me. She had spoken to a perspective Music Director/Accompanist for our church, and encouraged, she sent along an e-mail but heard nothing back. She also hadn’t heard if a musician friend had been able to forward the church’s job description to the local music community. Candy had called the LaGrande newspaper and found out that job posting ads ran in the hundreds of dollars and on top of all that, I had accidentally passed along a couple wrong numbers for potential people, which of course led nowhere. Moreover, Candy had back issues to deal with which were presenting themselves in a similar hopeless manner. There was a way in which she, like Simon, had been fishing all night in the lake of Gennesarat and come up with nothing. “Katy, I don’t know what to do from here.”

And with that particular sentence, for once, I did. Despite the variables, there is an equation in my head, which goes, ‘When you don’t know what to do, you pray.’ It’s bad algebra; it doesn’t guarantee an exact answer, it doesn’t make a Music Director/Accompanist appear from thin air, or instantaneously heal Candy’s back, or reel in the biggest single catch of a fisherman’s life, but by pulling the boat out into the deep water of prayer and letting down our nets, we acknowledge the depth of God’s bounty despite our lack. To pray acknowledges hope and with hope I believe comes endless possibility.

Simon, the fisherman, says, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” Maybe Simon, the experienced fisherman, is merely humoring Jesus the preacher; maybe Simon feels pretty hopeless about the possibility of catching fish, and his address of, “Master,” is merely sarcastic. There are certainly times, after long and hard efforts, that to pray can feel like a joke. But to be a fisherman, it not only requires skill, but also a belief in chance, or happenstance, or serendipity, or luck, or grace, or God - whatever you want to name that presence of possibility, which joins the exact moment you lay down your net - with a fish swimming in your direction. So maybe, as a fisherman, Simon says, “Master,” in a way that acknowledges there is always room to be pleasantly surprised. I imagine, Simon, giving one more cast toward the sea of possibility. I imagine it like Candy, bowing her head on the other end of the phone, and we together, letting down our nets into the deep water of prayer, that we might be pleasantly surprised. We said Amen and waited.

And maybe that is the other part of fishing, the waiting. Perhaps waiting is the Y variable in the equation of prayer. And in this case it was very small, as thirty minutes later. I got a text from the same perspective candidate kindly following up about the e-mail. An hour later my friend sent a new number for an interested candidate we were previously unable to reach, and that afternoon, the woman who handled the much cheaper newspaper Ad in Baker said her daughter would be prefect and might be interested. That and at least yesterday, Candy’s back hurt a little less. The fisherman caught so many that their nets were beginning to break and I too was overwhelmed by God’s bounty. Can you imagine all those gills and tails, and eyes, and slimy scaly skin filling the boats such that they began to sink? Can you imagine all the songs, all the chords, all the notes, all the scales that those Music Director/Accompanist possibilities could play and summon out of our small repertoire? Can you imagine the fisherman hailing their friends over to fill yet another boat? Can you imagine inviting your friends over to experience that moment of still quiet that can fill our sanctuary after a hymn or instrumental benediction? Can you imagine?

There is a bounty under the sea, but how many times have we have told the story of coming up empty. I wonder, if when challenged, how will we say Master? Will we say it as fisherman, still willing to pull toward deep waters of prayer. I believe how we answer changes us from fishermen to fishers of men, fishers of people. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” Do we answer with our skill of fishing, or do we answer with our hope?

The fisherman leave their catch in the end, and we can see their answer there, and I think Jesus could too. In the end it wasn’t about their skill or the bounty of fish. In the end it was about their hope in possibility, and they are to share their hope, to feed people with hope. When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him. May we also.

May 22, 2016 By Luke Rrembold

On the wall of the PYG Pen downstairs, we have handprints of the numerous youth that have gone through our church’s youth program. One of my favorite activities with the Open Door students in the morning, and then lately with our young ones at PYGlet dinners, has been to challenge them to find my handprint on the wall. It doesn’t take them long, but sometimes, if I’m feeling mean, I’ll make them figure out how old I am based on my graduation year. There is something special each time I challenge the youth with this activity: it is a reflection of my youth in this church, the fulfillment of baptismal vows this congregation made when my grandfather and Jack Urey baptized me in this very sanctuary.

The best part of this activity is, and a few of the youth catch it, is that my handprint is actually on two walls downstairs. Across the room from the lineup of youth participants in our youth group over the years is the list of adult leaders of the youth group, and their handprints. Annalea Kauth’s handprint now is beside mine, and as a fellow child of this church I think she will join me in saying that having your hand in two places in that room represents some sort of closure, something coming full circle.

There are ways in which that second print, as an adult leader of youth in this church, has been the symbol I’ve attempted to live into in my time back in Baker. I am not just a child of this church, and I am not just an employee of this church. I am both. I have witnessed firsthand the way this congregation lives into its baptismal vows. I can look around and see my parents, the doctor that delivered me, countless school teachers and Sunday School teachers that educated me, congregants that adopted me as their own and supported me throughout the years. Coming home, coming back, this was a way for me to give in the same way that I had been given, to live into those promises of community and support as an adult.

It is humbling and intimidating to serve in a congregation where you have been given so much. In the presence of those who have shaped me, I have often been awed by the wisdom and knowledge. I have followed in big footsteps: a garden my mom and Sharon Defrees cultivated for years, what Liz Romtvedt continued to nurture and grow...it can be scary to enter into that garden. You could overrun what is already growing, or accidentally kill it off entirely. I know firsthand how much joy and pride this congregation takes in its youth ministry and its youth. Yet rather than being possessive or overbearing about what my job looked like, our congregation has been supportive in allowing me to vision anew, creating new types of youth gatherings and interactions.  From the first day, I have felt encouraged in my ideas, in my leadership, in my evolving call to ministry.

I knew from the beginning I was not alone in this work. When I needed support and ideas, my support group of Bill Fessel, Denny Grosse, Kyra Rohner-Ingram, Tim Smith, and Tracy Lehman was there for me. Annalea has been omnipresent in our youth events, with Zach Allen joining in a bit later. Pastor Katy has had my back and my sanity, consistently advocating I find balance in work and personal. All around me were my congregation, the same people that had walked beside me early in my faith, now walking with me as an adult and the leader of the youth program.

When I read today’s scripture, and I hear Jesus saying “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at this time,” I hear a very human Jesus. I picture Jesus looking into the eyes of people he loves and cares about, having so much on his heart, but knowing everything can’t be said at once. I wrote the other day, as I was cleaning out some drawers in my office: “To be truly, profoundly grateful is to grasp at words like warm air, desperate to speak but unable to articulate.” That is my sentiment when I try to say the things when I want to say to this church: I grasp at words, but they cannot capture a lifetime of shared experience and gratitude.

I believe this church has taught me patiently and graciously, but you can’t speak a lifetime of wisdom in just a short amount of time. In fact, if there’s one thing I’ve learned working with these teenagers over the last few years: there’s a saturation point where nothing really sinks in anymore. For two different periods of life, both in childhood and as an adult, this church has taught me and supported me, but each time has had a point where we say, “that’s all I can say to you, for now.” Something about that “for now,” speaks volumes. It speaks to longer timelines and bigger story arcs than a few simple years, or even just about one person. It recognizes those that will come after, and the way God will speak through them.

Over the last few months, I’ve had many moments where I have much to say, but I am unable to speak.  I’ll choke up during youth group on any given Wednesday, or any of the last few Sundays.  Yearly events have yielded many emotions, everything from the 30 Hour Famine to our annual PYG Easter egg hunt the Wednesday night before Easter. It’s not that these events will stop-- the beauty of this church, and the youth of our group, is that these events continue—it is not a Luke-exclusive event. The struggle for me is that I won’t be a part of them.

To say that it is a pleasure to work with these teenagers is beyond an understatement. The gifts they have given to me over these last three years are some that I will treasure for the rest of my life. I have laughed with these youth, I have cried with these youth, I have been downright frustrated with these youth. Yet, in true fashion, these beloved children of God have taught me about grace, about forgiveness, about patience. They’ve taught me how to love generously and with abandon, and to lead wholly and humbly. To leave this group now feels like a job left undone-yet again our scripture reading reminds us: not everything can happen at once. The work of resurrection and redemption, of brokenness and grace--this work takes time.

I have had my moment of peace, though, even in the midst of this struggle and grief, leaving youth, a congregation, and a community that I love. Tears filled my eyes on April 10, Youth Sunday as I watched our youth lift their hands in benediction. It was another Youth Sunday with the youth telling a difficult story, a personal story that takes courage and conviction to share. I couldn’t see it from the congregation: I was instead kneeling behind the pulpit, but I watched as the youth interacted directly with this church, their church. It was a special moment to me, having worked to empower these youth with the courage to speak their story, and then watching the faces of the congregation from the vantage point of the youth, faces filled with support and love. It was a moment where you didn’t have to speak, because the Spirit was so present in this sanctuary there was no doubt that Jesus’ words were true: “The Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

We belong to Jesus. I have watched for three years the ways the Spirit is moving in this church, the ways Jesus is alive in so many ways in our midst. While I mourn my loss, and the ways in which my relationships within this church will change, I do not mourn an end, because it isn’t an end. I came home to give back, to share my gifts with a congregation that had shared so much with me: I believe that work continues for each and every one of us. This work, the work of listening to the Spirit, of empowering our youth in our church and community, of building towards something you may never see--it continues. Jesus still has much more to say.  He spoke to us long before I was born a child of this church and will continue to speak in our midst long after I leave you. He is still speaking. Let us listen. Amen.

May 8, 2016 Acts 16:16-34 (19b-40)

they seized Paul and Silas 

and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. 

When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, 

“These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews 

and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” 

The crowd joined in attacking them, 

and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing 

and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 

After they had given them a severe flogging, 

they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. 

Following these instructions, 

he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. 

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, 

and the prisoners were listening to them. 

Suddenly there was an earthquake, 

so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; 

and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. 

When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, 

he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, 

since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. 

But Paul shouted in a loud voice, 

“Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 

The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, 

he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 

Then he brought them outside and said, 

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

 They answered, 

“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 

They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 

At the same hour of the night he took them 

and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. 

He brought them up into the house and set food before them; 

and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. 

When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, “The magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.” But Paul replied, “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.” The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. 40After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home; and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.

***

This past Thursday, I had a little gathering at the manse, or parsonage, where I live. I had checked the weather, hoping for a sunny day, which had been granted, but by them I was setting up tables outside, I had to put potted plants on the tablecloths as centerpieces so everything wouldn’t blow away. By the time friends were arriving, the wind was really blowing and the sky was turning dark. I said, “This weather can only be described as ominous,” and in my head, I thought, I like it! There was a charge in the air, which gave a sort of energy and life to the gathering as we watched lighting come closer and closer, counting, watching. For all I had prepared, with food and music, the weather was the treat. It started to rain and my friends paraded inside with plates of food, and those same tablecloths but I liked they were he type friends who would rather get a little wet and be outside in it. We danced until the lighting came so close it zapped the music, and I asked does anyone want to do sparklers, and a resounding yes came from those on the deck. At the moment we lit the first rounds the raindrops weren’t a bother, and circles of shining flame danced in the yard, then the rain came harder, and the lighting would flick on the daylights of the sky, so close to us it was as if for a second, we were in the afternoon. Nature one upping the sparkers, until they got too wet and could no longer be lit. My friend and I raced out in the yard to play in the rain and being adults we realized it was quite cold and went back inside to which my friends and I stood at windows and watched and listened and the party died down, and they went home, soaked and happy. A friend later described it as the most invigorating thing she had done in awhile, and I replied that I guess the rain does that to all living things. 

And I imagine how the charge of the earth and waves of the oncoming earthquake fueled Paul and Silas in their praying and singing, just as the lighting did our dancing. A caveat, I don’t believe that God foreordained the other night’s storm, nor Paul and Silas’s earthquake, but I do believe in both instances God used them to God’s good purpose. That just as our dancing didn’t bring on the rain, Paul and Silias’ praying and singing didn’t bring on the earthquake. But I do believe because of the lightning we danced harder and because of the earthquake Paul and Silas sang louder. Paul and Silas, after being attacked, and stripped and flogged and beaten, prayed and sang hymns to God, and beneath their cell the ground was moving, the earth then too was charged and waves of energy pulsed through the prison. I imagine their singing becoming louder and the words of their prayers almost violent with energy and perhaps at a crescendo the walls came crumbling down. While they didn’t make the walls come down, the earthquake must have created an energy in the room that joined what was human and what was nature into something divine. 

I imagine upon witnessing this the fear of the jailer, now less in control, not only of Paul and Silas’ voices praising God, but now their whole physical beings now free and everyone else’s as well. In the dark, the jailer believes the prisoners all have gone, and he will be punished, as brutally as those whom he has watched, if not death itself. Picking up his sword, to do the deed himself, then Paul shouted with a loud voice,

“Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 

I imagine the voice carrying the same seismic strength as his former prayers and I imagine the jailer now hearing that same voice which spoke of God now speak to him. Likewise, I don’t know how Paul saw, since the jailer then calls for lights, to see if what Paul says was true. But Paul did, and saved the jailer’s life. They all did, these men, these prisoners, they have saved him, instead of saving themselves. These are the stories we hear, of the ways natural disasters create divinity among humanity. No wonder the jailer has fallen down trembling, an earthquake would do that on its own, but here so have the disciples. 

Then the jailer brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” In this instance saved is meaningful word. The jailer has been saved from an earthquake, saved from suicide, and saved from death by the magistrates. He has already been saved, but he noticed that there power in Paul and Silas that is beyond nature, beyond humanity. It is the power of the divine. The power to save. Paul and Silas answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” It was then that the jailer became a believer in God, not because of an earthquake, but because of the divinity within Paul and Silas’ humanity. 

There were times in the rain the other night that I commented, that God was just showing us up, we had cascarones - God had lighting in the distance, we had dancing - God zapped our music, we had sparklers and God could light up the sky. But the weather wasn’t God. The weather was the weather. What was God was the way it made us come together and feel alive. It felt like a christening, a baptism of sorts, the kind that makes you know your saved, not from storms or trials, but the saved that means you feel the divinity in humanity in the unlikelyhood of summer’s first storm and an earthquake in prison.

May 1, 2016 Acts 16.9-15

SECOND SCRIPTURE READING (PASTOR)

Note: While I usually tell stories about myself, if I tell other people’s stories, or stories about people I make a point to ask them prior, and offer to have them read it first. This sermon has two of these such cases.

Acts 16.9 - 15

During the night Paul had a vision: 

there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, 

“Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 

When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, 

being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, 

the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, 

which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. 

We remained in this city for some days. 

On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, 

where we supposed there was a place of prayer; 

and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. 

A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; 

she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. 

The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. 

When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, 

“If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, 

come and stay at my home.” 

And she prevailed upon us.

SERMON (PASTOR)  

I was snowshoeing the other day with Luke, Zach Eggers and Zach Allen, and Blake, a friend visiting Luke. I stopped for a minute and had the guys snowshoe on, and as they went, Blake asked Zach Allen, “So, what brought you to the church?” and Zach explained that a couple of congregants, who were his patients, had invited him. To which, almost out of my earshot, I heard either Luke or Eggers say, “Tell the real story,” and I smiled, without having to hear the rest. Shirley and Dale Dodson had told Zach to come to church because there was cute pastor his age. Likewise, not knowing the moment a parishioner walks in the sanctuary door the parishioner is off limits for the pastor to date, the Dodsons told me, “We invited our doctor who is your age to church,” wink, wink. I remember first meeting Zach, shaking hands at the sanctuary door, and both of us with our unique laughs chuckling at the awkwardness. 

And as I snowshoed toward the guys, I thought about just how different what became of that introduction was than its intent. Yet, its even better. Zach Allen has found a family in this church, a home away from home, and the church has been graced by his gifts and increasing leadership, and will be ordaining him an elder this day. Likewise, here we all were in the woods, with three great friends. I had gotten to know Zach, and introduced him to Luke, and they became fast friends, and Luke hung out with Eggers and the three of us skied together, and now, the four of us were snowshoeing though the woods and laughing, and as I caught up to the guys, I was that deep kind of thankful. God had planted a seed with Shirley and Dale, which didn’t grow in the way they expected, but it grew into something much more profound, a Jack in the beanstalk of grace. And this is the way God works. And I think this is exactly what Paul experienced in Lydia. 

Paul received a vision to go to Macedonia and preach the good news to the people there, and so he went immediately. He sailed from one place to the other, and on again, until he came to that Roman city and after he had been there preaching for a few days, he went to the place of prayer for sabbath and rest. There by the riverside, he found Jewish women, like those from home, who already believed in God. They opened their hearts to Paul’s Good News of Christ and were baptized in that river, and welcomed Paul and the disciples to Lydia’s home to stay and receive hospitality. Paul expected to convert the Macedonian Roman men in the streets and government buildings, but here he was preaching to women of his own background in this foreign place. Its like going from here to South America and preaching to people from Baker City, who then implore you to stay with them. I imagine Paul hiking out from that place by the river, and thinking about how differently he initially imagined God’s call to them in Macedonia from what it later became. It grew into something so much more profound, and this is the way God works. 

I was at breakfast with Sam Sullivan and she was telling me about a recent trip with her Middle School Leadership Class to learn about and care to the poor in Portland. She was telling about the amazing family that runs the program. That they used to live here and attend the Nazarene Church, and one Sunday Sam looked at their young son, Jake, who was born with spina bifida. Sam wondered who was going to take care of him. I wonder if in that moment God was planting a seed. Jake’s family moved to Portland and Jake grew up really serving and living amongst the homeless. Sam describes that the family usually split the class up into groups to walk around town, and when he was just twelve, Jake would have his own group. He would tell kids older than himself and adults - yes, lets talk to this person who is homeless and he would know them by name. He also knew the people for whom it was better to let be. He knew the streets from serving them. This last trip, Jake, in his scooter showed groups of students around town, to which the kids responded that they wanted to be like Jake. In the evening, Sam stayed with the students in a building downtown, which Jake’s family owns. Jake told Sam that he had locked every door, and that she could lock this one behind him, and he told her just what to do is something seemed sketchy. Then he said, “If you felt a bit unsafe, I will stay and take care of you.” It wasn’t seed Sam thought would be planted as she watched this child with spina bifida and wondered who would take care of him. Instead, this young man, was making sure he took care of them, not only students, but the homeless community of Portland. Sam said she locked the door after him, and he said, “Remember, (pointing to his scooter), this thing goes fast, I can be here if you need me.” She nodded, the door clicked, and Sam burst into tears, with that deep kind of thankfulness, the kind where God takes what you think you’ve planted and grows it into something so much more profound. Sam told her students in the morning this story and I wonder, what shall grow from that single seed. 

First Presbyterian, there is a quote that says, if the only words you ever pray are, “Thank you,” it is enough. The places where God changes our trajectory are often the places where we find that deep thankfulness. Today, I want to hear about those seeds, which grew into more than you could have ever imagined, because this is the story of our God, and thankfulness is the story of God’s people. Amen.