What Is Your God Story?

Proper23 – Cycle B

I know of a pastor who does this thing.  He goes to a coffee shop, orders his coffee, sits at a table, and pulls out a sign that he puts on the table.  The sign says, “Tell me your God story.”

Then he drinks his coffee.  People sit down.  They tell him a story.  They tell him all kinds of stories.

I remembered that pastor as I have been reading a book that will be part of diocesan convention next week.  The book’s author, Dwight Zscheile is our keynote speaker.  The book is called The Agile Church.

The chapter that engaged my imagination is “Disciplines of a Learning Church.”  The first discipline is: Cultivate places for conversation and practice.  The author writes about how the church typically approaches nonchurch members.  Typically, we invite them to come to us so they can hear our story.

Now let me say, it’s a powerful story.  In fact, the fourth discipline he names is: Interpret the present in light of the past.  Our story, the one we are living now, is part of a bigger story.  When we read Scripture every Sunday, we are connecting to that bigger story.  And we draw from it.  The bishop described this two weeks ago – the Book of Exodus, the people of God on the move from their settled past to an unknown future.  Their holy place, their sanctuary was a tent.  They folded it up and they moved.  And Jesus who did not have a place to lay his head, whose ministry was always on the road, or in somebody’s living room for the evening.

On the move is part of our past and it sustains us as we fold up our tent and move into our future.

But that’s the fourth discipline.  Let’s go back to the first.

Baptized into a Life That Matters

Proper 20 -- Cycle B, September 23, 2018

The first movie I ever say was Sleeping Beauty.  It began with a christening.  All the people and all the fairies of the kingdom came to greet the little Princess Aurora, to offer gifts and wishes and blessings.

And here we are this morning for little Josephine, with gifts and wishes and blessings.  The corporate blessing, the blessing we have gathered to offer is this: that Josephine may lead a life that matters.

In this great big world that ignores all but the powerful and mighty, first we say that Josephine herself matters.  She is a precious child of God, a princess in her own right, in the kingdom of God.

And then we are here to lead her to live a life that matters.

The last several weeks our lessons have been about wisdom.  To know what is a life that matters and then to live it -- what could be wiser than that?

That is our wish, our blessing for Josephine this morning.

I remember the evening after my son Jacob was born.  I held him in my arms and prayed that he would be happy.  Isn't that what parents say, "I just want my children to be happy."

A friend in Costa Rica said something similar for himself a few years back.  He was feeling sorrowful, as he often does, and was in his cups, which he thinks would make him less sorrowful.  But it doesn't.  He said to me, "All I want is to be happy.  Is that asking too much?"

He asked as though he thought I would have the answer, me being a priest and all.  Now, it's not my first rodeo, and I don't counsel people while they are drunk.

But I did have an answer.  I'm saving it for him.

No, to be happy is not asking enough.  The thing is, if what you are pursuing is happiness, you will never get there.  Oh, you might experience pleasure.  You might distract yourself temporarily from your sorrows.  But it's when you lose yourself in something else, when you create, or help, or stand up for something important, or love, when your own happiness is forgotten, that's when it comes.