"Sighting Grace: God’s Call" - Sermon for Ash Wednesday

Sighting Grace: God’s Call
Ash Wednesday
February 26, 2020
Grace, Waseca, MN
Matthew 6,1-6, 16-21

After a brief jump ahead to chapter 17 for the Transfiguration, we’re back in Matthew for Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Here, in one of five discourses, Jesus as shown as the consummate teacher and authoritative interpreter of the Mosaic law. He is instructing his followers in the life of discipleship, what it means to faithfully live as God has intended. Today’s text about prayer, fasting and giving alms is a good reminder that it is not only important what we do for the life of faith but also how we do it.

I like how Eugen Peterson paraphrases Jesus’ words in The Message:

6 “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.
2-4 “When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—‘playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.

It’s a good reminder for the beginning of Lent when are invited to think deeply about our faith. It’s also helpful to take a step back when we are tempted to post on social media what we are giving up for our Lenten discipline. Yet, our text also presents something of a conundrum when we look at this year’s theme: Sighting Grace. We have a lineup of speakers who will be openly talking about where they’ve seen God working in their lives. But our hope is that you will see that we aren’t parading our piety, because God is the hero of these stories, not us. We also hope that by sharing our experiences you’ll see God working in your lives, too.

Tonight, I’m going to tell you about God’s call for me to become a pastor, how God brought that about. In 1984 I attended the Virginia synod assembly of the old Lutheran Church in America (LCA), a predecessor body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Back then, it was common to include an ordination service for pastoral candidates as part of the assembly. After 35 years, I can still picture one of the ordinands serving Holy Communion post-ordination, seeing absolute joy on his face, and hearing a voice: “You should be doing that.” It was the first and only time I have clearly heard God’s voice.

Now, we had moved to Northern Virginia only two years prior and bought our first house one year earlier. Oh, and we were expecting our first child. Cindy, my wife and former Roman Catholic, was not enthusiastic about the prospect of me becoming a pastor much less trotting off to seminary. So, I pushed God’s call aside.

As you may have figured out, God didn’t quit on me and I saw God’s hand in various events over the next eight years. For example, when I had a question about the Trinity, my pastor gave me a book to read, which was cool. Jim Bittner, one of our church members, saw me with the book and said, “If you’re not careful you are going to end up in seminary with your collar turned backwards.” Jim, his wife and five kids were headed there themselves.

Then, when my father died in 1989, I did the eulogy at his funeral. I’m told that the pastor was hastily editing his sermon behind me as I talked. Afterwards, a number of people told me I needed to be a pastor. It was nice, but I really didn’t want to hear it. By this time, we were operating our own business and the economy wasn’t doing well. I saw an ad for a position back in Chicago and for which I was well suited. I interviewed several times, was wined and dined. It was perfect, except that I didn’t get the job because the owner of the company wanted younger and less experienced person in his company to have the job. I was crushed. God was closing doors.

By this time, we had two daughters and God kept bringing up being a pastor in various ways. In my Christmas letter of 1991, I mentioned to some relatives I was struggling with this call to ordained ministry. One night soon after, I received a call one night from another relative saying, “If you decide to go to seminary I’ll help financially.” I was stunned because I hadn’t even sent this relative a letter. Yet, I continued to struggle with the call. One day I whined to my sister, Cheryl: “I’m 38 years old and I’ll be 42 when I graduate.” In her kind but no-nonsense way she replied, “Scott, you’ll be 42 years old whether you go to seminary or not, so you might as well do what God is calling you to do.” That unlocked something inside of me and Cindy agreed I should apply, figuring she was safe because I’d procrastinate. I didn’t and I did.

So, at the age of 38, with a wife and daughters 4 and 8, we sold our house and move to Pennsylvania so I could attend seminary at Gettysburg. It took eight years from that initial call to begin seminary, but was working in more ways than one. During that time God gave me the opportunity to own and operate a business while gaining valuable experience as a lay leader and teacher in a congregation. God continued to provide as we left seminary without debt yet continued to be tithers. I could say more. But, as I said at the beginning, I am not the hero in this story; this story is about what God has done.

So, this Lent I am inviting you to come and listen to the stories people will be sharing about how they have seen God working in their lives: Marlys, Tom, Andrea, Terry and Bishop Hassanally. In doing so, we hope that you can see where God is working in your lives, not if God is working, but where God is working. For as Peterson reminds us, this is how “… God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.” Blessed Lent as you are “Sighting Grace” my sisters and brothers. Amen.

For an audio version of this sermon click here.