Thankful for Faith in Small Places
Pastor Mathew Magera – 11/21/18 – Sermon 312
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Thanksgiving Eve always puts
us into the book of Deuteronomy, during Moses' final sermon before the people
would cross the Jordan and inherit the Promised Land God had set apart for them
many generations prior. We hear these important words from Moses as a reminder
for us not to forget the Lord our God. These words are important because
forgetting God is surprisingly easy to do. For Moses' audience, they knew the
consequences of forgetting about God after wandering in the wilderness for 40
years. In a world and a culture easily swayed by outside forces and ideas, it
was paramount that Moses' words penetrated the people to their very core, for
without God, none of what they had accomplished would have been possible.
For us today, forgetting
about God is also seemingly easy enough to do. It's just too easy to slip into
a good book, fall into the news reports, find our ways into places where God is
just otherwise absent. Other than going to worship, it is difficult to
experience God outside of the church. In some cases, it may be against popular
culture, unwritten rules or social expectations to have a sense of God or
faith. Yet, there are some places, perhaps small places where God and faith can
be seen in our world outside of the church that might encourage us to look
deeper, be thankful for their existence, and call upon them when it seems the
world is forgetting about God or leaving faith behind.
I want to share three short
stories with you this evening that highlight where we just might find faith in
small and unexpected places. One of these stories is my own personal experience
but the two others were shared with me and likely a few others here by a member
of this congregation. My hope is that these simple stories might set off a
spark within you to either also remember areas of your life where you have seen
God or faith in small places or help give you the motivation to begin looking
for signs of God or faith in those small places and to be thankful when we find
them.
Faith in the
Capitol
Two months ago, my family
took a short weekend trip to Washington DC. I love DC because most everything
there is to see is free of charge. We had a busy weekend planned but one of the
things I wasn't necessarily looking forward to was our tour of the Capitol
building. I was more interested in getting a tour of the White House and the
FBI Headquarters. The Capitol just didn't seem that fascinating. The weekend we
were there was the weekend most of the Kavanaugh protests were taking place. We
zigzagged our way to the office of Senator Gary Peters where we would begin our
tour avoiding protests along the way. The senator's office sent us on our way
with a French intern to teach us about American government and show us the
capitol. We avoided the streets by hopping on the special underground train
system to get from the office buildings to the capitol. The tour was alright
but the most significant part of that day for me was after we parted ways with
our tour guide and went up to sit in with the House of Representatives.
It was nearing the end of
the lunch break as we silently took our seats in the balcony. The room was
mostly empty and unfortunately stayed that way for most of the time we sat
there. But, I wanted to see them meet and talk about things so we waited until
they were to go back in session at 1pm. Not too long after the top of the hour,
the room still mostly vacant, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan came in and a
Catholic priest approached the microphone and invited the entire room stand and
join in a moment of prayer. Once the prayer had been completed, we faced the
flag, put our right hand over our hearts and we recited the pledge of
allegiance. Then, we sat down.
Now, this order for
beginning their sessions is probably pretty normal for them. I have colleagues
who have been invited to pray at state government meetings. But, for me, to be
in our nation’s capital, a place constantly in the news for this and that, a
place known for controversy, extreme political views and scandals, for me to be
in that place and to pray in that place, to say the words "one nation
under God" in that room, it just moved me. To be reminded that the people
who work there are human beings just like us, to be reminded that they are
sinners just like us, to see a different side of our nation, not just what
comes across the headlines each day, it reminded me that God is still present
in our nation’s capital. God may be being pushed out or set aside more and more
but I found faith in a very unlikely place that day.
Faith and
Football
Locust Fork High School is
probably a school you've never heard of. It's a high school in Alabama. Earlier
this year, something changed at this high school, a tradition was altered that
would affect an entire community. The school district put an end to the
practice of allowing a volunteer to offer a prayer over the loudspeaker prior
to their sporting events after a complaint was filed by a Wisconsin-based
atheist group. The new policy would still allow for a moment of silence to take
that place. I don't think the decision was meant to take God out of the
sporting events, but you can imagine for any Christian families in that high
school, it would make a larger difference having to give something up than for
non-Christian families to perhaps have gained something.
One person in the community,
as a way to be as accepting of this new policy as possible without being
negative, organized other families to utilize that moment of silence at the
next football game as an opportunity for everybody to pray the Lord's Prayer
together. People were getting on board, churches were being called on to help
pay for the creation of special shirts with the words "We Believe" on
the front and the words of the Lord's Prayer printed on the back. Over 1,000 of
these shirts were made and passed out free to the public before the start of
the next football game and there were between 300 to 400 people who did not get
one because they ran out.
Sure enough, people came out
to the high school to enjoy a Friday night football game sporting these
t-shirts. The players wore special shirts during their warm-ups that read,
"God, team, me." The time came for the moment of silence. People
stood and the voice of the crowd came to life as they recited the Lord's Prayer
together. There were people at that stadium that did not want the Christian
faith to be set aside. I don't want to even get into the politics behind what
took place but I believe that night a statement was made that they would not go
quietly into the night. One place where faith was once a regular part of
community life had now been turned into a place where faith would not easily be
seen anymore. But, on that Friday night in September, faith was found in a
small and unlikely place. [1]
[2]
Missouri Grace
I want to tell you that I
try to remove politics from my sermons and from our worship services but as I
sat down this year and thought and prayed about how I would work this very idea
of thankfulness for faith in small places, one of the largest and most
recognizable places where we might see faith being dimmed in our everyday lives
is in politics. This last story also has a somewhat political angle to it also.
Cape Girardeau, Missouri is
also likely a place you've never heard of. But, this small town on the
Mississippi River got its name in the news only a few weeks ago on the heels of
a visit from our nation's president. He was there ahead of the mid-term
elections in the coming week. I've never gone to a political rally before but
I've read that security requires attendees to arrive exceptionally early and be
in position for sometimes hours ahead of the event itself. I also read that it
was not uncommon, because of these procedures in place, for medical emergencies
to take place due to the length of time being held in certain locations. This
was most certainly true in the town of Cape Girardeau a few weeks ago.
During the President's
speech a woman down in front near the stage collapsed and needed medical
attention. The President stopped speaking and allowed medical personnel to
attend to her. The break was nearly ten minutes long but likely felt like an
eternity. About seven minutes into the break as this woman was being attended
to, the crowd suddenly started singing Amazing Grace. I watched the whole thing
on YouTube as I prepared to speak about this story. It was truly amazing, there
were no cues, no leaders. All of a sudden out of the crowd a few people start
singing, a few more join in, and before you knew it, it was Amazing Grace in
full surround sound followed by cheers and applause from the crowd.
I don't expect to find God
at a political rally, I really don't. God and faith can be touchy subjects in
politics. Maybe not everybody was singing that night, but somebody was, and
somebody else was, and even somebody else was. The sound of faith in that ever
popular hymn echoed in that stadium and at least in that one instance on that
one night, faith was found in a small and maybe unlikely place.[3]
[4]
* * *
I share these stories, again
not to bring politics into the church, but to remind us that as we sojourn
further in this life and see what appears to be the Christian faith being
slowly snuffed out in the world, there are places we can still find it where we
might otherwise feel it no longer exists. There are places where people still
believe in the power of our risen Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not just talking about
these public places that are nowhere near Trufant either. They just happened to
be the focal points for the stories I shared with you tonight. Those stories
happen here too. If I sat down with you, I'm sure you could come up with at
least one story where you saw or experienced God or faith in a place so small
it would otherwise be unlikely or unexpected. Those stories exist even here and
I want to hear about them. I want you to share them, not only with me but each
other. We need to hear these stories.
So, I think back to Moses
preaching to the people as they were about to enter the Promised Land. They
would not have gotten as far as they did without God. Moses didn't want them to
forget God, he didn't want them to forget how God provided for them. They knew
what happens when God is forgotten or left out or set aside. Those 40 years
happened. Moses didn't want that to happen again, he didn't want the people to
forget God again or miss out on being thankful for how God was taking care of
them. Unfortunately, as the story goes, they would forget about God. It's an
unpleasant part about being human and we're not unlike those people who were
listening to Moses. We probably know what our lives are like with God out of
the picture or we can imagine what it might be like.
It's not that without God He
would punish us but that without God it's almost like we're punishing
ourselves, misplacing hope, losing focus and wandering off into the wilderness
or into exile. God doesn't want us to be in a place in our lives where we are
without him because he knows what happens where he is not God. We need to
embrace and continue to tell of the places where we find scatterings of faith
in otherwise small places because it is through these places that we might
remember that we are God's children and because of his love for us he is our
God. Whether you find yourself in politics, a football game or an otherwise
public venue where you wouldn't expect to see God but do, these places where we
meet God out in the community are those instrumental moments of our faith that
we can be thankful for because they help us to see that without a doubt God is
still active in the world, God still loves the world and God is still saving
the world. I pray this be on your minds this week as we give thanks for all
that we have been given but most importantly for the gift of eternal life
through Jesus Christ. May you be showered with the blessing of thankfulness
this evening and as you go your way tonight. To God be the glory, now and
always. Amen.
[1]
https://www.christianpost.com/news/town-recites-lords-prayer-wears-we-believe-t-shirts-after-prayer-banned-at-football-games-227603/
[2]
https://www.facebook.com/RickKarleWBRC/videos/234974123845815/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDI2MTI4MTEyNzoyMTM5M
DUwMDIyNzgwMzUz/?fref=search
[3]
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/crowd-at-trump-rally-sings-amazing-grace-after-woman-collpases
[4]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-wXE4uh8P8