Continuing in God's Word - Reformation Sunday
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
October 27, 2024
Life is full of change. There is a dizzying pace of
teaching and feeding and healing and confrontations that lead up to today in
the gospel. Jesus has said “I am the light of the world whoever follows me will
not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” Condemnation follows from
some of the religious authorities. He then predicts his own death and
encourages people to believe. Some do. Some ask, “Who are you?” And some stop.
We know some stopped believing because Jesus is speaking to those who HAD
believed in him. Who are asking questions and having doubts because what Jesus
says in a world with a lot of competing pressures is hard to process. Are the
religious authorities right or wrong? It
feels like walking in the dark and life doesn’t make sense.
It is now that Jesus says, “If you continue in my
word, you are truly my disciples. To be a disciple means to follow, to let
Jesus continue to teach and to lead. Because when competing pressures make us
stressed, or when life doesn’t make sense or when others are saying that
believing in the loving God Jesus reveals is nonsense- we need to know how to
keep following. It is not enough to just “believe.”
47 years ago, I professed my faith and was confirmed. That
is a lot longer than I would like it to be. Our confirmation class was 4 years
long and we had sponsors. Mine was a delightful older woman named Mrs. Virginia
Milligan. I would visit her apartment to learn from her as a part of
confirmation. She made sure I knew why I believed what I believed. She
gave me a gift for confirmation. Lots of other girls got necklaces or crosses.
She gave me Halley’s Bible Handbook. An overview of every chapter and
book of the Bible, history of Christianity and a rousing chapter on the
importance of reading God’s word every day. Inside the cover she wrote verses
she thought I should have with me to believe, study, pray and witness and wrote
the acronym “FAITH”- Forsaking All I Take Him” signing it, “In Christian love.”
After a written final exam and “surviving” a conversation with the leaders of
the church, in the presence of about 700 in worship, I said I believed Jesus
Christ was my Lord and Savior and that I would follow Jesus. I was 14. By 16 I felt
called to be a pastor and by 17 I had preached the Easter Sunrise Service. But
much to my surprise I learned that my church did not believe women could be
pastors. I was disappointed. I wanted to love and help people. But I kept
believing.
When I went to college, I went to the church next to my
dorm with a friend and felt loved and cared for, until the fact he was gay was
a problem that needed to be fixed. My friend felt lost, and his death made me
feel like all that talk about loving people was false. So, I stopped. Stopped going
or talking to God. For some reason I kept taking that Halley’s Bible
Handbook with me, to college and law school. It moved with me when I took
my first job and when I unpacked it, I remembered that while I had given up on "a church,” I had not actually given up on God. I looked at those verses from
Virginia Milligan and went back to worship.
I realized that my world of my 14 -year-old
belief was different in some ways from my 24-year-old faith, but in the essentials,
it was the same. As I married and we had our first daughter who almost died, I
realized my 24-year-old faith was different from my 29-year-old faith in some
ways. When my uncle died by suicide when I was 42, and some people told me that
he was beyond salvation, I had to remember that this was not Jesus saying this;
it was what some people believed that was darkness and not light.
The irony of Mrs. Milligan is that there were things I
never knew about her, or if she told middle school me, I forgot. She had a
Master of Arts from Biblical Seminary of New York and advanced work at
Syracuse, Columbia University and Pitt. She had served as Dean of Women both at
Pitt and Carnegie Mellon and was the National Secretary for Native American
Ministries in the Presbyterian church. In another time she would have been a
pastor.
Did my home church get the “no women pastors” thing
right? No. Did folks who tried to convert my gay friend get it right? No. Did Halley’s Bible Handbook get it
right? The 24th edition is “Completely revised and expanded.” BUT did
my mentor plant seeds for another day? Absolutely. You know who knew those things and chose her
to be my mentor? God did. You know when I learned her history? This week. I
marvel at how she continued in God’s word and what God was up to until age 97. And
by God’s grace I became a pastor who still needs Jesus to keep teaching me to
follow. The interesting thing about that church that said women couldn’t be
pastors is that now their lead pastor is a woman named “Pastor Carolyn.”
The world will be ever changing, and sometimes downright
distressing. There is no denying that- Jesus didn’t and neither should we.
At the same time, what God began in our baptism and the
work of the Holy Spirit will continue. Our walk with Jesus will include times
when our faith is formed and re-formed. Continuing to learn is vital- none of
us would do well to walk around with our 14-year-old faith unchanged. What I
think is equally vital is that we notice that Jesus is speaking to a group of
“YOU.” If you’ve ever done a group project, you know sometimes we want to throw
up our hands and check out. Love in community can be downright hard. But what
would we miss if we all just decided to see our life as an independent project?
In an ever-changing world we need each other as we learn
how to do the only thing Jesus commands- Love One Another. That’s the truth. People
come and go but two things are constant- following Jesus means doing the only
thing he commands- love one another. And God is constantly present in the power
of the Holy Spirit and in the sacraments of baptism and communion that remind
us God is with us and we are with each other. These are given to us to help us
remain in the truth about ourselves and about God’s love. For all the times we
do not get the “loving” thing right, or even walk away in frustration or
misunderstanding, God is not letting go.
Faith in community matters. We will not get it right all
the time- its why we have confession and forgiveness right up front even when
maybe it feels like we’re just saying the words. But the reason to continue in
God’s word and keep following where Jesus is leading is it helps us resist the
urge to get captivated by other things and other people who will not give us
life and will leave us empty in the end. If you step away, know that most of us
have too sometimes. We are all learning to practice “no judgment, just love.” But
there’s grace for that.
God’s grace is true even when like those religious
leaders in the gospel, we’re sure we are NOT deceived, but we probably are. Confirmands,
your faith life began at this font. It is not just beginning, nor is it ending.
It will continue. We want you here not to fulfill some dream of the pastors. The
truth is We are better when the fullest expression of God’s truth
includes each one of you and all of us as beloveds trying to continue in God’s
word of love.
If someone is encouraging you to embrace a life that is
not grounded in Jesus’ truth of “You are beloved to God, love one another,”
don’t follow. We are created, claimed and beloved by God. We are saved by the
cross of Christ. That truth is what sets us free from whatever tells us we are
anything less. Created, claimed and beloved-that truth is yours when you are
here and wherever you go. And your faith community will be praying for you. We
can’t wait to see where the journey goes. Amen.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
Sermon Text: John 8:31-36
31 Jesus
said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are
truly my disciples; 32 and
you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They
answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to
anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Very
truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The
slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there
forever. 36 So if the Son makes you
free, you will be free indeed.
BACK