The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen! And Happy Anniversary! On this day sixty-one years ago—July 29, 1951—the little Lutheran Mission here in Versailles officially became Grace Lutheran Church. Twelve charter members signed their names to our first constitution and our congregation was born. Today’s Gospel is a particularly good Gospel for today. In today’s Gospel, Jesus “made His disciples get into the boat.” Dear Christian friends, Hardly anyone seems to have noticed. I checked the archives at the newspaper office. Relatively few residents of Versailles seem to have known what vitally important thing was happening in their midst on July 29, 1951—sixty-one years ago today. They all saw the front page news about Orville Williams winning the jalopy race up in Syracuse. A couple pages deep, they saw advertised a Western film called “Sugar Foot” starring Randolph Scott and playing at the Royal Theater. If they took the time to read the locals, they would have noticed that Mr. and Mrs. Gene Bartram made a weekend trip to Minneapolis to attend his uncle’s funeral. No news about the Lutherans, as far as I can see. It was announced that the Missouri Lutheran Mission was meeting at its temporary location across from the east entrance of the fairgrounds, services at 9 AM—but that announcement ran every week. The same ad was still running three months later, still calling us the Missouri Lutheran Mission, not even seeming to know that our name is Grace. Ask my opinion and I’ll tell you that our charter should have been front page news. But God knows better. Twelve people—twelve people joined by a common confession, held together by a single desire, dissatisfied with every other churchly form in town—a mere twelve people laid pen and ink onto a fresh constitution and Grace Lutheran Church was born. Racecars growled and movies flickered and all of life continued humming along in Versailles as if nothing ever happened. What exactly did happen when those twelve people signed our first constitution? Nothing more and nothing less than this, using Words from today’s Gospel: “Jesus made His [twelve] disciples get into the boat.” We owned the property, but our church building had not yet been yet built in 1951. We were still meeting at our temporary location across from the east entrance of the fairgrounds, services at 9 AM, and these roof arches did not yet stretch themselves over our heads for quite some time. Nevertheless, you should look at this ceiling every week and thank God for what happened on July 29, 1951, when “Jesus made His [twelve] disciples get into the boat.” We regularly call this room our sanctuary, but the other, more ancient name for this room is the Nave. The word “nave” comes from the same Latin source as our English word “navy.” This room is our Nave and “nave” means “boat.” Our ceiling is even designed to look like a boat overturned upon us, complete with ribs and a sturdy keel. Each of these pine boards is anchored in July 29, 1951. “Jesus made His [twelve] disciples get into the boat” and hardly anyone noticed, but greatest acts of God are seldom noticed and never front page news. I wonder, who? Who in today’s crowded Gospel might have noticed and considered it important when “Jesus made His disciples get into the boat”? Baskets of bread and fish—leftovers from feeding 5,000 men—still were about. The crowd not only felt committed to following Jesus; it was continually rushing around, in search for another sensation of being with Jesus (Mark 6:33). No one except the disciples themselves could have cared too much when Jesus set their little boat adrift on choppy sea, having insisted and required that they get into the boat. And that boatload of twelve had a hard time of it. “They were making way painfully,” says Mark, “because the wind was against them”—just as the wind has blown steadily against us for sixty-one years. Every year, at the closing of the books, we should sing praise to God that somehow our boat has stayed afloat. Just because it is our anniversary, we do not need to pretend that our journey has been easy. “They were making their way painfully because the wind was against them.” More than once, the storm has likewise torn at us while we bent our backs to our oars. Just last week we decided to spend a large amount of money that simply must be spent—the boat needs repair! Still more money must yet be spent on still more repairs and it seems safe to say that we will probably be making our way painfully again, with the wind against us. But in all our sixty-one years, how long have we ever held two dimes back-to-back, before needing to throw them both into the sea? Still we float and we do not sink. Why do we float? Why don’t we sink? We float because “Jesus made His [twelve] disciples get into the boat.” We do not sink because Jesus did not “pass by them,” but “He got into the boat with them.” That piece of paper—that charter with twelve names on it—that was God’s doing. That piece of paper was as much God’s act as your baptismal certificate was. And the Nave has kept us safe and secure, even against the wind. And every Sunday Jesus comes and remains here with us in our Nave—here in our boat—speaking His peace and calming our storms. • When you hear the absolution, where Jesus forgives all your sins, that is the simple act of Jesus saying to you, while you huddle here in this boat and Nave, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” • You take the body and blood of Jesus in Holy Communion, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. When you do, Jesus comes miraculously to you. Just as when He walked upon the sea in today’s Gospel, Jesus’ Body and Blood in Holy Communion here today are a divine miracle—a miracle that defies the limitations of nature. Stated another way, it is not impossible for Jesus to walk on water and it is not impossible for Him to be physically with you in Bread and Wine! In both cases He comes bringing comfort and salvation to those who are clinging to the gunnels of boat! Every Sunday Jesus walks on the water for us. Every Sunday Jesus speaks peace and comfort and forgiveness to us. And only the people who are in the boat know about it. And there is no headline about His presence with us because the greatest acts of God are seldom noticed and never front page news. Be that as it may, “He spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.’ And He got into the boat with them.” _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
