Messiah Church - ELCA

When I was growing up outside of Neenah, because we had a lot of land, and not a whole lot of neighbors, we always seemed to have plenty of animals around.  My family raised chickens, geese, and ducks for awhile.  For a few seasons we raised rabbits but for the most part, throughout many years, we had dogs, hunting dogs.  You see my Grandfather, my Dad and my older brothers were hunters and so it seemed natural that they would spend a good part of their free time training good hunting dogs.  Now although I wasn’t a hunter, I always enjoyed the dogs.  In fact, when I was ten my Dad allowed me to take the coins I saved all year long and buy myself a young beagle pup.  Since most of the coins I saved were nickels, that’s what I called him…Nickels.  I remember the day we went to pick him out.  His Father was a field champion and had won many awards.  Nickels however was a little too big and his tail a bit strange looking so the owner was willing to let him go cheaply.  Anyway, for me he was just the right color, the right shape, and the right size.  Beagles are hunting dogs, still it made no difference that I wasn’t a hunter, it was the right animal for me.

            I loved the dog as anyone might love a pet.  I fed it, nurtured it, played with it and cared for it.  Nickels never lacked for food or comfort.  At times however, Nickels seemed restless and unfulfilled.  Whenever I would throw a ball or a stick out into the field, Nickels would stand near the object confused as to fetch it or sniff around.  Whenever I would walk out into the woods, Nickels would run around barking frantically and searching in circles, always returning panting, winded and obviously frustrated with a scent he didn’t recognize.

            Slowly I came to realize that Nickels was not meant to be a house pet - soon I came to see that I was stopping him from being what he was meant to be - a hunter.  I gave him to my Uncle Wally who trained him how to follow a scent, how to break off a trail when called, and how to kick up animals without killing.  He lived for a number of years.  Nickels always seemed happier after that - I guess he finally came to know the thrill for which he was born.

            There comes a point in all of our lives when we need to let someone go in order that they might learn who or what they truly are.  Whether its a young mother who must send her first child off to kindergarten, or a middle-aged man who must give away his only daughter in a wedding ceremony, or an elderly woman who kisses her husband one last time before he dies - there comes a point when all of us need to let someone go in order that they might grow and discover who they truly are.

            I sometimes think that Jesus ministry was one of preparing his apostles for the moment he was to leave them. And perhaps this was the greatest miracle of Jesus life – that he entrusted the mission and ministry of the Kingdom to ordinary people in their ordinary lives. Still, Jesus knew that he needed to let go of the Apostles in order that they might grow and discover themselves as the key preachers of the Kingdom of God.  I am sure that Jesus must have felt a tremendous desire to hold on to his friends.  Certainly Jesus must have been filled with nostalgia and memories of the good times - the times when they laughed together, sang together, slept under the stars together, worked miracles together, even suffered together.  Yet Jesus knew that if they were to grow and become what they were meant to become then he must let them go and return to the Father.  It was only after Jesus left, that the Apostles came to know the thrill for which they were born.

            So many times in our Christian lives and in our prayer, we feel as though God is so far away.  So many times we wonder where Jesus is.  So often we have feelings of abandonment, and yet at some point we come to realize that perhaps these are the times when we grow most of all.  Perhaps it is in these moments, when Jesus seems to have left us behind, that we grow to become what we were always meant to become.  Jesus left his mission in the hands of the Apostles, and that mission is the thrill for which they were born, to proclaim love and peace and a new Kingdom to the world.  It is that mission which we have inherited today and the thrill for which we were born.  Like the Apostles so long ago, Jesus knows what we can be, he knows what we are able to do, and he is never far from us, the mission is in our hands.

This past week was an emotionally draining one for me. As a congregation we have followed the journey of Dan Robinson. We have prayed for his recovery and for his Mom and Dad. The outcome was not what we had prayed for; not what we expected; not what any of us care to even imagine. The Robinsons said goodbye to their twelve year old son on August 19^th in the late afternoon. As I drove home from Children’s Hospital I spoke out loud a poem from one of my favorite authors, Robert Frost. As we approach the end of one season and the beginning of another, I share that poem with you.

                        Nature’s first green is gold,

                        Her hardest hue to hold.

                        Her early leaf’s a flower;

                        But only so an hour.

                        Then leaf subsides to leaf.

                        So Eden sank to grief,

                        So dawn goes down to day.

                        Nothing gold can stay.

            Nothing gold can stay gold; nothing young can ever stay young; nothing pure and perfect and innocent can ever stay that way. Life it seems is filled with moments when we are reminded of Robert Frost’s words – times of darkness when we are forced to say goodbye. And as much as I love the season of autumn with its promise of cooler temperatures and wonderful colors, there is also a kind of sadness that goes with every autumn. The leaves eventually fall and the trees are bare, and suddenly I am reminded of all the goodbyes in my life – nothing gold can stay.

            How hard it is to stand before grieving people – no – how impossible at times as in the death of a young boy, and to promise them that the voice they hear around them, the grief that is deafening, that feeling that nothing gold can stay is only ONE voice - and there is another! My role as a pastor and preacher is to help them listen to another voice, sometimes drowned out by the first and lost amid the tears but always there. Jesus was a man who knew about this other voice. He called it the reign of God. He promised people that if they listened and if they looked and if they believed they would discover this voice within them. It began so small, the size of a mustard seed, barely noticeable and hardly audible. But Jesus promised them that if they listened, the voice was indeed there.

            You know that voice don’t you? We cradle a newborn baby, or hear the laughter of children, or watch our grandchildren play in joyous abandon and we hear that voice welling up within us. We fall in love, and profess love, and plan a future with the one we love and that second voice grows ever louder and more distinct. We walk amid the autumn leaves, and breathe in the wonderfully clear air, and feel a oneness with everything that lives, and that second voice almost yells to us and overwhelms our darkness and doubt. We hear the reign of God speaking surely and clearly –

                        The world is wrong-

                        Things that are gold can stay gold-

                        God will always be within us and around us-

                        We have come from God and we are going to God-

                        In the end, there IS God! 

            In the sad goodbyes of your life remember why we call ourselves Christians. We are people who listen to another voice when all around us is darkness and doubt. We are people who trust that this voice will speak to us in the most unexpected of times and often in the hardest of times. We are people who believe that this voice is strong enough to drown out any other and carry us through to the end. This voice is God – In the end there IS God!  

One of the great joys for me every summer is listening to baseball games on the radio. I enjoy the banter of the announcers, the strategy of the game, and the slow, summertime pace of America’s Pastime. I’ve always enjoyed baseball, even from the first time I put on a Little League uniform and played in a real game. Some of my favorite memories of summers past had to do with baseball. My heroes were baseball players. And baseball was a love that I shared with my Dad. Through the years I have also enjoyed stories of baseball (I’ve even shared some in my sermons). Here’s one that I only heard recently:

Shortly after arriving in the big leagues, pitcher Orel Hershiser was called to the office of General Manager Tommy Lasorda. Orel knew the news wasn’t going to be good. He had had a disappointing start as a relief pitcher. He had been hit hard in only two innings of relief. Lasorda, however, didn’t focus on his record. He told Orel to sit down and this is what he said: You don’t believe in yourself! You’re scared to pitch in the big leagues! Who do you think these hitters are, Babe Ruth? Ruth’s dead! Look kid, you’ve got great stuff. If you didn’t I wouldn’t have brought you up. I’ve seen guys come and go son, and you’ve got it! You gotta go out there and do it on the mound. Be a bulldog out there. In fact that’s gonna be your new name. From now on I’m gonna call you Bulldog Hershiser. Bulldog, starting today I want you to believe that you are the best pitcher in baseball. I want you to look at every hitter you face and say, ‘There’s no way you can ever hit me!’

Years later in his autobiography Out of the Blue, Orel Hershiser recounted that story of Tommy Lasorda and said: I couldn’t get over that Lasorda felt I was worth this much time and effort…he believed I had more potential than I thought I had. He believed I had big league stuff and because he believed it, so did I.

The very next game Hershiser pitched three relief innings and gave up just one hit. The next season he entered the starting rotation and won 19 games. The year after that - in 1988 - he turned in one of the most dominating pitching performances of all time. I can still remember the camera shots of Hershiser in the dugout between innings of the World Series, eyes closed in meditation, humming to himself the Christian hymns of his childhood to keep him focused. Orel Hershiser became the only player to receive the CY Young award, the Championship Series MVP award, and the World Series MVP award in the same season. He pitched three complete games in the playoffs, two of them were shutouts. He was dominating! When asked about Hershiser’s amazing performance, Tommy Lasorda simply responded: That’s my Bulldog!

Believe it or not, stories like this always cause me to think of the gospel, and coincidentally, it is why I sometimes share these stories on Sunday. Jesus was a man who believed in people. How many times do the scriptures record those moments when Jesus saw something extraordinary in a leper or an outcast, a peasant or a prostitute, a simple fisherman or an ordinary laborer – something extraordinary that they could not see in themselves? And the stories of the Gospel always end the same way. Because Jesus believed in them, they began to believe in themselves - and more - they began to believe in the God who would use them to do extraordinary things.

Still I find it ironic, that we who call ourselves Christians, we who follow this Jesus, this amazing man who was always able to lift people up, and inspire them to great feats, and resurrect them to new lives – we Christians often find it so difficult to do the same. Often I find that I am stingy with my words of affirmation. I hold back on my compliments and support. I get so wrapped up in my own daily worries and struggles that I fail to inspire the people around me.

In a world that can be so hard and cruel, I wonder if this isn’t one of the greatest challenges of following Jesus, to lift each other up! It only takes a second to look at your spouse and children and find something about them that you can affirm. It only takes a moment in your workplace (places that can sometimes be so toxic) to see the good in a co-worker or colleague and to affirm him/her for something. It only takes a few moments to make small talk with the strangers you meet each day. Somewhere, somehow there will be those opportunities to affirm them, to affirm something about them, to let them know that you actually saw them. With only a few words you can can tell others in small ways that you believe in them – and perhaps because you believe in them, they will believe in themselves. There is enough criticism in the world; enough tearing own; enough division. To affirm the good in one another is a great part of following Jesus. Our task is to lift one another up!