Elements of a Living Faith: part 2

-- September 14th, 2008

Pastor Laurie Eaton

• Psalm 119: 98-105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path
• Philippians 4: 4-7 In all things supplication; pray to the Lord
• John 4: 19-29 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth

"Prayer, Worship and Studying Scripture as ways to nurture our faith"

Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let me begin with some confessions. I'm kind of a church geek. (Maybe you already knew that) I think Bible jokes are funny - and I make my kids roll their eyes whenever I make a play on words that comes from the Bible. And, on Christmas eve, when most everybody wants to be home alone with family, I want most of all to be here - worshipping and celebrating the incredible work of God in our midst, with the gathered family of faith!

That's what fills me up/gives me energy and great joy - what inspires me (literally "breathes in" to me) to really live! Right, you say. You're a pastor. True enough. But I think what is true for me is at least on some level also true for you. Without the inspiration of the foundations of faith, trying to follow Jesus feels just like a bunch of obligations and expectations. Or worse: it feels totally irrelevant to the rest of life.

If religion, faith, the Bible and all it contains, are simply someone else's "rules for how we're supposed to live" then it is nothing more than a burden. But if the Bible is a love story of cosmic proportions weaving its way through generation after generation - then it is an invitation to a life of wonder and anticipation - an energizing foundation for really living!

Our book of faith is, in fact, an invitation from the Creator of the Universe to a relationship of great joy and adventure. The writer of the psalm selected for today calls scripture "sweeter than honey" and "a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."

As a community we are beginning this program year with a reminder to get "back to the basics." The Elements of a Living Faith, which you see around you in the sanctuary and will encounter in various ways through the year, are simply the foundations of a living relationship with the God who gives you life. These are the practices that people of faith have found powerfully useful over time. But not for their own sake! Each one of the Elements of a Living Faith is not a goal in itself, but simply a tool to deepen your connection with the God who calls to you constantly in love, to enable you to be a sign of God's love in every part of your life.

Today we participate in community acts that demonstrate what we mean by a living faith. We witness and share in baptismal promises made and fulfilled right before our eyes. At 11:00 a father and son will be baptized in the same baptismal waters. And at 9:00 we support parents in the promises they made at the baptism of their children. They will "place in their hands the Holy Scripture" as we give Bibles to the 5 year old and 4th grade Sunday school classes. As usual, we know what the kids need. But we tend to forget that we need it too.

Our reading from Philippians reminds us of the importance of prayer: "in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." When our 3 year olds begin Sunday school, we teach them about prayer, just as parents taught them to talk when they were babies. When 6th graders finish Sunday school and prepare to enter Confirmation, we remind them of the importance of prayer by teaching them new languages and ways to nurture their communication with God.

5 year olds, 4th graders, confirmation students, and all the children in between are urged every week to open their Bibles and learn God's story, in order to find their place in it. We want them to become acquainted with the One who loved them into life, who loves them through life, and who will love them into eternity. We know what the kids need. The question is, do we meet these same needs as intentionally in our own lives, once we consider ourselves "grown up?" Or do we settle for a "Sunday school faith" and never realize the treasures that belong to us as adult children of the Living God? I know in many ways I am (literally) "preaching to the choir."Many of you are involved in a regular study of scripture. You are the ones who gather regularly in worship. Here we share the experience of Jesus' promise to be present where two or three are gathered in his name. We remember who we are, and repent, (that is we return) to being who God calls us to be, and we together offer our praise to the Source and Ground of life. We are fed in body, mind, and spirit as we share the Lord's meal, hear the Word of God proclaimed and join together in prayer.

Here we have a venue to practice and hold one another accountable to God's greatest commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And this is what empowers us to go out from here for another week - filled and restored --to God's vision for how God intends life to be, and --with the power God gives us to transform the world according to God's vision. Back to basics indeed.

You, each one of you - have been named and claimed in baptism as God's beloved sons and daughters --washed in the waters of baptism and set free from everything that threatens to bind you: fear and sin and death --filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and sent as God's ambassadors into the world. Like the Samaritan woman who couldn't wait to tell others about her amazing encounter with Jesus at the well, you are encouraged to let yourself be caught up in the same wonder and adventure of a life of faith.

Jesus came into this world to reveal the very nature of God, and to show us how to live in God's presence. The "Elements of a Living Faith" are intended to keep you, keep us, closely connected to the life of Christ. Prayer, Worship, and Studying Scripture are not dry, dusty requirements, obligations laid on you as a burden to an already over-full life. They are means of nurturing a living relationship with the God who loves you more than you can ever know, and who needs you to accomplish God's work in the world. A remarkable invitation to remember your place in God's love story. A call to be engaged in a Living Faith. And that changes everything!
Amen.