Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

“So who is going to preach?”

This question lingered in my Honda Accord for several exits as we headed down Interstate 71 from Wooster, Ohio, to Cow Creek, Kentucky.  There were three of us in the car that fall Friday in 1980:  Jim, now a retired cardiologist, Jenny, who married me twenty years later, and me.  All seniors in college, we had volunteered to lead worship for Joe Powlas, long-time pastor, missionary, and friend who would be away that weekend from this tiny hamlet in the hollers.

So we drew straws, and I literally came up with the short stick. Yikes. I had heard many a sermon but giving one was a short stick too far.  After admitting I had nothing to say (I really didn’t), Jim and Jenny became coach and cheerleader.  We saw some sheep in the fields, so I ended up with more than a few sheep stories.  A church sign had some catchy phrase, so I tried to memorize it.  That was it.  Nothing like solid preparation.

Sunday came soon enough.  Though I remember nothing about Jim’s part, Jenny gave a beautiful pastoral prayer.  My sermon? I remember some trying-to-be-kind faces staring back at me, and it was so short (what can you do with a few sheep and a church sign?) that I woke up the organist stretched out on the organ bench behind me who was obviously accustomed to a longer nap.

Something completely different happens in Luke 4:16-29 where Jesus gives his first sermon in front of his hometown friends and family. Reading from Isaiah 61:1-2 he lifts up good news, release to captives, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, the year of jubilee . . . you know, normal sermon stuff.  Oh, he had them in the palm of his hands, these hometown folks so proud of their hometown boy!  No snoozing organists are seen anywhere.

If Jesus had stopped there, he would have kept his body and reputation safe.  But he continued on and talked about God’s mercy and love extending to all people.  Everyone, even non-Jews.  Hearing this, the whole congregation rose up, turned against him, and in their rage, drove Jesus out of town to the edge of a cliff to hurl him over.  So much for first sermons.

Fortunately, Jesus escaped to preach another day, and the world is better for it.  Oh, we try our best to distort his message to make it jive with our own thinking or soften his words so as not to irritate or offend.  We try to squeeze Jesus into a spiritual-only category and conveniently forget his penchant for prophets.  We tend to think, perhaps without knowing it, that we are somehow more worthy than others.

Jesus would have none of it.  He stood on the shoulders of prophets to lift our vision to a loving, compassionate and merciful God who loves all people including, let’s just say, those on the other side of the political divide or Haitian refugees in Springfield.

Since my first sermon in Cow Creek, I have found it hard to be a follower of Christ.  That cliff outside of town can seem pretty close at times, but then, closer still is the mercy of God that erases all lines we draw between people.

So, I am thinking we all just might need to draw straws and see who is next on the preaching schedule, because God has a lot to say about how we treat each other, and it might as well come through all of us.

Grace and peace,

Harry