"Listening Servants" September 17, 2006

(First, read the text for this sermon: Isaiah 50:4-9a)

I was out on my bicycle for a morning ride. I do that several times a week, getting back home as the morning rush hour is in full swing. This particular morning, workers were tearing up Jamestown Road in front of the Fresh Market shopping center, there was lots of confusion. I was in front of a driver who passed me, and then he stopped to make a left turn. So, I had to go around him, to keep going straight. As I passed him, on the right side of the lane, it happened. He yelled at me out his open window, calling me something I can’t repeat at this moment. (I will say that it was a two word epithet. The first word, a two-syllable adjective, begins with the letter “f”; and the second word, a two letter noun, begins with the letter “a.”)

I was enraged! In fact, I turned around and followed him into his parking lot. “What’s the problem?” I asked. He went off on a diatribe directed against me, as a representative of his enemies. “You bicyclists …” he began.

The exchange did not last long. I thought it best if I just continued on home. But my anger was hot! And, certainly, the anger is still there. It’s easy to call up, at a moment’s notice. I don’t know what I did that was wrong! In fact, I was in the right! I have the same right to the road as he did. “Same road. Same rules. Same rights.” And so, my anger is justifiable! Right? You’re on my side! Right?

So far, I’ve been speaking according to how the culture forms you and me to behave.

The culture we live in forms us by certain values. Those values include a sense of competition which goes way beyond something healthy, turning into a need to get as much as I can for myself, and to control others. The culture values judging who’s right and who’s wrong. The culture values criticizing and/or punishing those who are wrong. The culture values pursuing redress for grievances. The culture would form us to act in those ways.

But God yearns to form us in an entirely counter-cultural way. This morning’s passage from the prophet Isaiah reveals this. It is a passage that is radical, and extremely challenging. You and I are not used to living in the way these verses describe.

In the prophetic book of Isaiah, there are four passages describing what’s become known as the “Suffering Servant.” This morning we’re reading the third of these passages. We Christians see Jesus in these “Suffering Servant” descriptions. And so, as we are called to imitate our Lord, these passages become a description of our servanthood, as well. But it is impossible to be formed in this servanthood unless we listen to God – rather than to other messages from the culture that would form us to behave in a different way.

The first verse of this morning’s reading describes this listening. The writer talks of his servanthood of teaching, of speaking words that are able to strengthen those who are worn out. But first, before he can speak, he must listen, to hear what he is to say!

The Lord God has given me
the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens--
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.

The Biblical writer’s servanthood is awakened, day by day, as he listens to God.

What messages are you formed by? By what you hear from the culture? Or what you hear from God?

If you listen to the culture’s messages, then you are formed in anger and intolerance. You are formed to think the world revolves around you and your desires. (If I am formed by the culture, then I delude myself into thinking I am right in nursing my anger towards the driver that cursed at me.)

But when you and I listen to God – then we are formed in an entirely counter-cultural way. The problem is that there are so many voices competing with God’s Word, so many voices that are louder! But listen to what we read this morning:

Morning by morning he wakens--
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.
The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious,
I did not turn backward.
I gave my back to those who struck me,
and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
from insult and spitting.

This shakes just about every assumption you and I live by, if we are formed by the culture. The listening servant is suffering from the persecution of others. But he is obedient to God, by not striking back against those who are making him suffer.

Certainly, there are many forms of suffering that you and I endure. There is injustice. Some in this room have suffered from age discrimination. (How easy is it for someone in his late 50s or 60s to get a new job? How easy it is for someone in her early 20s to get others to take her seriously?) Some in this room have suffered from sex discrimination. Many of us could tell stories of injustice experienced. Many in this room could tell stories of suffering because of emotional or physical illness or disability. Some in this room could tell stories of suffering from physical or sexual or emotional abuse.

These verses from Isaiah would form you and me not to retaliate against another person who causes suffering. We are formed not to ask, “why me,” or, “why is God doing this?” Instead, we are formed to see God’s faithfulness to us in our suffering, God’s faithful presence, strengthening us so we can endure, and hope. Listen to this:

The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
he who vindicates me is near.

And then the writer turns to a legal metaphor:

Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
Let them confront me.
It is the Lord God who helps me;
who will declare me guilty?

Wow. What confidence in God’s presence and strength, even in the midst of severe suffering! Remember this prophet’s vocation, expressed in the first verse of the passage: he has received from God the ability “to sustain the weary with a word.” But first he has to listen – for God, and for what God would have him say. He is listening for God – in his suffering.

Morning by morning [God] wakens--
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.

The way of the world is to nurse our anger at the other person who does us wrong. The way of God is stopping to listen – considering the reasons why the other person may be angry at me – and praying for my enemy and for myself. (Authentic prayer causes us to be honest before God, and it releases us from the illusion that we are better or more righteous than others!)

The way of the world is to ask, “Why me?” when enduring illness or disability. The way of God is to stop to listen – recognizing how God is present in our suffering, suffering with us, strengthening us.

We only come to an awareness of God’s presence through listening, in servanthood.

Morning by morning he wakens--
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.

Marjorie Thompson writes: “We develop ‘ears of the heart’ by listening for the Lord’s voice in the midst of all the other voices clamoring for our attention….[Such perception] comes as a gift and evolves gradually as the Spirit trains us in receptivity to God’s mysterious ways. The practice of simple but specific disciplines of prayer” opens us to an awareness of God’s presence in all of life.

How do you listen for God? How do you allow God to form you in faith? How does God inform your servanthood?

A discipline of prayer could be simply sitting, early in the morning with a mug of tea, or late at night before sleep, raising to God how you’re doing today – and then listening for what might come.

A discipline of prayer could be reading over the daily lectionary, slowly, paying attention to a verse that catches your attention, and sitting with that verse, listening for what God is saying to you in those words.

A discipline of prayer could include meeting each month with a spiritual director, who is someone who asks how the Holy Spirit is moving in your life, and who then listens with you.

How wonderful to say, with the prophet,

Morning by morning he wakens--
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.

In the name of God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"Be Opened" September 10, 2006 Proper 18

(First, read the text for this sermon: Mark 7:24-37)

“Be opened.” That’s what Jesus says to the man who cannot hear and cannot speak, in this morning’s story from the gospel of Mark. “Be opened. Be opened from deafness. Be opened from the inability to speak.”

But, of course, the meaning of the story goes far beyond the specific encounter between Jesus and this person in need – because the story is included by the writer in this persuasive narrative he’s put together, that’s called a “gospel.” The gospel of Mark (as well as the other three gospels) are intended to persuade you and me that Jesus the Christ is the light of the world, the path of salvation. That is the point of the stories that are told.

And so, as we read this story from Mark this morning, it is directed towards you and me: “Be opened. Be opened to how God is moving within you and among us. Be opened to how God broadens your vision and sharpens your awareness of the work God gives you to do. And be opened to how God restores your energy when you are worn out, because you have been working too hard.”

How does that happen for you? How are you opened? Perhaps, instead, I should first ask: What is it that closes you off?

Is it fatigue? How often is it that, at the end of the day, you are so tuckered out that all you want to do is to cocoon at home? “Stop the world! I want to get off!”

In fact, that’s how Jesus feels, as this morning’s gospel story begins. Did you notice that? It’s easy to miss – unless you pause to dwell on the very first verse of the passage. Listen again: From there [Jesus] set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.

It’s something that might not enter into your conception of who Jesus was, and what he was like. But Jesus is fully human, and, as this morning’s story begins, he is fully exhausted. In the gospel of Mark, the action is happening fast and furious – one healing following another, one teaching following another – and it is all a heavy burden for Jesus because he is provoking great hostility by what he’s doing and saying. Barely into the third chapter of Mark, Jesus’ opponents already begin plotting how to kill him. What’s just happened, in the sixth and seventh chapters of Mark’s story, has been a nasty confrontation. Jesus has called the leaders of God’s people hypocrites, calling attention to how their rules about purity and cleanliness have led people to lose sight of God’s simple command: that we are to love God and love our neighbor.

Emotionally, physically, and, I’ll bet, spiritually drained, [Jesus] entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. And here’s what we read: Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

Emotionally, physically and spiritually worn out by the hostility he is provoking, and by incessant demands of people in need, Jesus tries to hide away in a safe house, to rest, to recover, to recuperate. But yet another person in desperate need finds him, and begs him to do just one more healing. Here’s how I interpret this difficult passage: it is out of his fatigue that Jesus treats the woman in a shocking manner. She is not one of God’s chosen people. She is not a Jew. She is a Gentile. And Jesus compares Gentiles to dogs! Do you remember what Jesus says? He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

Biblical scholars say that this is a reminder that the early Jesus people were Jews, and that there was conflict in the early church over whether God even offered grace to people who were not Jews, to people like you and me, Gentiles. We do need to remember that. But that doesn’t interest me nearly as much as what this passage reveals about Jesus – because his actions are so un-Jesus like. In his exhaustion and frustration, Jesus calls the woman a dog, unworthy of his favors! (Have you ever said something you’ve regretted, because you’ve been so tired and worn out?)

Now. Remember how the woman responds? Is it because of her faith? Is it because she is truly humble? Is it because she is simply so nakedly desperate that her daughter be healed? She says to Jesus, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." In other words, if that’s all Jesus is going to offer, then she is open to receive the crumbs of his attention!

Here’s what happens. This remarkable woman and those remarkable words of faith penetrate even into Jesus’ fatigue – and these words open Jesus himself to the constant, unrelenting, unceasing movement of God’s grace! Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go -- the demon has left your daughter." So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Does weariness close you off, as well, to God’s grace? Be opened. Be opened to how God is moving within you and among us. Be opened to how God broadens your vision and sharpens your awareness of the work God gives you to do. And be opened to how God restores your energy when you are worn out, because you have been working too hard.

Sabbath time opens us to all of that. Sabbath time is time when you are free from the compulsion to be productive, to be “doing something constructive.” Sabbath time is when you rest in the presence of God. Indeed, God uses sabbath time to open you up to God’s presence.

Something important occurred during my early-morning period of sabbath time, this past Monday. Let me tell you that I am rarely in a spirit of openness first thing, upon waking, as I begin these moments of sabbath early each morning. I first have to simply rest in God’s presence, to see what it is that I will receive. So, I was sitting out on my screened porch, and it was raining. There was just beginning to be daylight. I was reading in the daily lectionary, and the lectionary had gotten to John chapter three, and the passage about God sending the Son purely because God loves us. And I sat with that. God loves us. God loves me. And it was raining. (It was pouring! I was surrounded by water coming from the sky, with only my little roof keeping me dry.) And I received anew this realization from God: that we are immersed in love, just as the earth was being immersed in water on that morning. (There’s great baptismal imagery in all that!) Indeed, it is often true that nature reveals God so clearly, when we are opened, (and when we’re not entombed 24/7 behind closed windows, in air conditioning).

Christianity is so physical, anyway! There is the bread and the wine, which is the body and blood of Jesus. There is the finger of Jesus poking into the ear of the man who cannot hear, to open him to the movement of the Holy Spirit. There is the spit and Jesus’ touching the man’s tongue, to open his ability to speak of the movement of the Holy Spirit.
In all things physical, we are immersed in God’s presence and love and grace.

Be opened. Be opened to how God is moving within you and among us. Be opened to how God broadens your vision and sharpens your awareness of the work God gives you to do. And be opened to how God restores your energy when you are worn out, because you have been working too hard.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"The Work God Gives You To Do" September 4, 2006

Labor Day arose from the conditions of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. In the mid-1800s, factory jobs in cities promised workers higher wages and better opportunity than had been true on the farm, but many found themselves working 12 to 14 hour days in dingy and often-dangerous conditions, with Sunday as their only day off each week. By the 1870s, labor unions were being born, and there was increasing talk about raising the dignity of workers. Politicians started listening. In 1882, the New York legislature created a state Labor Day holiday. Over the next ten years, 23 other states followed suit, and, in 1894, Congress created the federal Labor Day holiday. The purpose of the holiday was to set aside time to celebrate the social and economic achievements of American workers, the contributions that workers have made to the strength and prosperity and well-being of our nation.

That’s what you’ve been thinking about, all weekend long, right? Unfortunately, as the decades pass, we lose sight of the significance of a holiday, and that’s happened in this case. Today, ironically, Labor Day means extra work for many – to pull off big sales at car dealers and carpet outlets and shopping malls! For many, Labor Day simply serves as a marker on the calendar: as we turn away from summer, and towards fall. For public school children in many states, this weekend is seen as the last hours of freedom before school begins on Tuesday.

Here’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to re-imagine Labor Day – as a religious holiday (holy day)! That’s because the value of your work is a major theme in Martin Luther’s theology. According to Luther, your work is given to you by God. Your baptism is your commission to vocation. In your everyday lives, where God has placed you – in your work situations and among the people you see regularly – your vocation is to work for the extension of God’s kingdom on earth.

How can we see signs that “your kingdom [is] com[ing]?” According to Scripture and the witness of the saints, it is when people treat others in grace-filled ways; when people build each other up; when people engage in peacemaking, and work for justice, and care for those in need, and to care for our own health and well-being even as we work to serve others. These are just a few examples of what our baptismal vocation looks like.

Here’s something important. This is work you are called to do in your daily lives! It can be work you do for pay. It can be volunteer work. It is work that rarely makes headlines. But it is work given to us by God.

What does that work look like, in your day-to-day lives? To help raise some possibilities, this morning, several of our members will share something about the work that God gives them to do.

Nelia Heide is a retired sales executive and former school teacher, who moved here with her husband, Walt, from New Jersey. Nelia now serves in a number of volunteer capacities, offering her excellent administrative and leadership gifts. Her understanding of her ministry has evolved over those life transitions.

I remember the Sunday a few years ago when I was shaking hands with Pastor after the service and he asked me, “How is your ministry at the Woman’s Club doing?” I don’t remember my exact words, but I was definitely surprised at the question, and I answered something to the effect that “I’ve never really thought of that as my ministry.”

But I couldn’t get his question out of my head?

You see, my thinking was…I was involved with the Woman’s Club as a social group doing service related activities, yes, but this was not my ministry…not that one place that I was going to choose where I would be able to “make a difference.” After all, a ministry is a serious thing that you chose after exploring all the possibilities. But Pastor’s question that Sunday gave me a whole different perspective. It put me on another track.

What if I did think of my time spent with Women’s Club as my ministry?

It didn’t have to be my only ministry.

What I found over the past several years, since that eye-opening question, is that the work God gives you to do, your ministries, comes to you in many ways. Some you search for, some find you; others are thrust upon you, and some you inherit.

I’d like to share with you how some of the ministries that make up my life have come about.

My work with the Christian Education Committee seemed to find me. My teaching background was in elementary education, and I had always thought of myself as a teacher even though I had left teaching to join the business world some 18 years before. But even there, I would operate with the same guidelines in mind as with teaching. Discover the needs; meet the needs. Linda Loyd nurtured my coming to this committee where I work with others to help meet the Faith Formation needs of our congregation.

I learned how you inherit ministries the day Ursula Murden said to me she wanted to nominate me for the Senior Center board of directors. Ursula and Bob were instrumental in the building of the Historic Triangle Senior Center and felt it was time to pass on their ministry. I think the way Ursula put it was---“Vee need new blood!” When someone asks you to carry on a ministry that they have devoted so much time, energy and love to, it is impossible to say no.

My ministry at the Senior Center is a focal point for comprehensive, coordinated senior activities that enrich the spirit and feed the minds and bodies of all Seniors in the Greater Williamsburg area.

At the same time I was asked to be chairperson for the Senior Center Board a year ago, the Center took on a new challenge. It was asked to run the new RIDES program which was the product of various agencies in town, including the SR Center, FISH, Faith In Action and others, collaborating to provide a single transportation service for seniors over 55 and disabled of any age to get them to their non-emergency medical appointments. We welcome any volunteers who may want to add driving for RIDES to their ministries.

Now the problem with ministries is you sometimes put too much time in to a single ministry, to the detriment of your other ministries. I learned this when I was getting some feedback from my husband, Walt, regarding the amount of time I was working on Senior Center “stuff”, as he calls it. With my new found feelings of living my faith through my ministries, I was explaining to him how important these ministries were to me. And here are the words from Walt I can still hear as he replied, “ What about your ministry here at home with me?”

First of all he used the right words to get my attention, and secondly HE WAS RIGHT.

Again my idea of ministry expanded. I was throwing myself into all these new areas and needed to remind myself of the other areas I had been neglecting.

I’ve always had this problem with maintaining balance in my life, as some of you may have from time to time in your lives. It should be easier in retirement where there are not as many “have to dos” competing for your time.

But somehow with all the choices now available, it’s even more difficult to maintain that balance. But what is helping me with this is thinking in terms of balancing ministries, rather than that elusive “finding balance.” This seems to make it easier for me to work towards that good balance.

A few weeks ago Pastor talked about how others know we are Christians. When I went on to the St. Stephen website to reread that sermon, I wandered into Pastor Ballentine’s blog and found a quote he was sharing from the late Orthodox theologian, Alexander Schmemann. His words reinforced for me the opportunities that I have available to live out my faith through my ministries.

Schmemann writes, "We have no idea how, in fact, we constantly influence one another by our words, by the very 'tonality' of our personality. And ultimately people are converted to God, not because someone was able to give brilliant explanations, but because they saw in the other person that light, joy, depth, seriousness, love which alone reveal the presence and the power of God in the world."

In all of my daily ministries, I have the opportunity to show that light, that joy, and love to everyone I am with, whether it is the cashier at the grocery store, a person I am driving to a medical appointment, my husband, on the phone with a grandchild, at a board meeting of the Senior Center or working with the Christian Ed Committee.

What I have come to realize is that this ministry takes place wherever I am. Knowing this, I have the total sense that I am constantly practicing my faith.

Schmemann has some additional thoughts that have proved so true in guiding the direction of my work. “A casual conversation…can do more for communicating a vision of life, an attitude toward others or toward work, than formal preaching. It can sow the seeds of a question, of the possibility of a different approach to life, the desire to know more.”

It was pastor’s casual question that led me to a whole new approach to my life’s ministries.

Christine Hallman has been at St. Stephen since she was an undergraduate at the College of William and Mary, where she met her husband, Jonathan. Christine works for the health of others as a social worker, counselor and educator. But she’s also mindful that we are more than what we do, and she raises the importance for our ministries of caring for our own health as well! Here is what Christine has to share:

Before I start I feel the need to emphasize that this is my understanding of things at this point in my faith journey, but my understanding is subject to change any moment at God's will. I do lots of different kind of work for God. I am a counselor, an educator, an advocate, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a neighbor, ... the list goes on and on.

I think that the most important work that I do is taking care of myself and living each day one day at a time trying to do God’s will. I consider God my perfect parent who accepts me where I am while also encouraging me to continually grow. As I go forth each new day I remind myself that I am His child and that because He is a wonderful parent I will always be within His sight, even if sometimes I forget He is there.

Throughout the day I try to check in with God and with myself so I am able to keep things in perspective and interact fairly and respectfully with others. During my interactions with others I try to remind myself that Jesus never judged people, instead he met them where they were. I think that Jesus puts joy and well being in each of our hearts which we are meant to share with others. For example, when I get into a disagreement with a family member I ask myself "Do I want to be right, or do I want to maintain a good relationship?" When someone cuts me off on the highway instead of speaking in anger, I say a prayer. When I do counseling I feel that I am bringing my clients closer to God, even when we don’t specifically talk about God. Encouraging health and wellness is a testimony of Jesus’ restoring powers.

I try to stay open to God’s will and I am amazed at all that He has led me to do. Even five years ago I would never have thought that I could be a mental health counselor. I didn’t even know if I could find the will to stay alive. I was severely depressed and anxious. I allowed myself to live in the darkness for several years when it finally occurred to me that God is a God of light and that he died on the cross and was raised again for me. As a Christian I had a spiritual calling to choose health and to get the help I needed to overcome the darkness. Learning to overcome the darkness was and at times continues to be hard work, but I remind myself frequently that God wants us to walk in light. Also to help me maintain mental health I had a Stephen Minister and I still listen to Christian music or read the Bible whenever I start feeling anxious or depressed. I also made, and continue to make, a point of changing how I think and speak to lessen pessimism. God is a God of creation and life. He wants us to speak life. He is the Great I Am, not an ‘I am not.’

Even when I feel in my heart that God has called me to do something, it doesn’t mean that it will be easy or fast. I have to continually assure myself that where he guides, he provides and remind myself to walk by faith and to go where Jesus leads me. Many times each day I have to remind myself that my blessings are not curses. As I do the things I am called to do, such as cleaning my house, choosing to control my anger, or doing counseling, I try to remember to lift up a prayer before and invite Jesus to come in and lead my work. Without him I could not do what I do.

I often fall short of the mark, but I feel strongly that God calls us to strive greatly with the understanding that we will fall short. The nice thing about working for God is that instead of feeling like I have to do it, I want to do it, and even if I don't quite succeed, I get up and try again.

Carla Javier arrived in town about a year ago, with her husband, Michael, to become the director of the Kids First Coalition, a program of Child Development Resources. Through her own experiences, she has gained an acute awareness of how God directs us into our ministries, through the twists and turns of our lives. Here are the notes for her comments:

• I am the co-director of a community project, Kids First Coalition. There are 32 partner agencies from the greater Williamsburg area
• It seems that all my past experience has brought me to this place.
• I was not one of those people who always knew what they wanted to do and then, went for it in a direct path.
• Discerning God’s call and understanding how my past experiences could be used occurred on more of a circular than a linear journey.
• As a kid, I was an idealist. I thought I would “change the world.”
• When I was 12 and they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, I said I would be a lawyer for the American Indian Movement! Not the typical answer. And as it turned out, not exactly what God had in mind for me.
• Education, teaching, held no interest. Teaching was not for me. I just couldn’t see how you could “change the world” through teaching. (Of course, this meant that God would call me to a life as an educator. I just didn’t know it yet.)
• I was not raised in any church or with any specific religious teaching. But when I wound up by accident in a Lutheran College, I first heard that idea of a vocation or a “calling.” Lutheran theology appealed to me, with the focus on redemptive grace and the emphasis on the blessed community. So, I was confirmed there.
• And, I thought I’d become a Lutheran minister after the model of the wonderful campus pastor---after all, all of my friends were going on to seminary….
• Graduation with my highly marketable Sociology and English degrees and marrying the man of my dreams, moved me in a different direction.
• After about six years of trying things on – as a social worker, a group home mother, working with adults with disabilities – I found myself, again by accident, in a Master’s program for Early Childhood Special Education.
• This landed me in a clinic that served children under 3 who were developmentally delayed or disabled.
• Ultimately, I supervised the state program for children who had multiple disabilities including deaf-blindness.
• I received more from these kids and their families than I ever gave. I came to believe that this was the work God had called me to do.
• I saw miracles happen in this work beyond my own skills or understanding.
• I was fortunate to be able to make home visits to see parents and their children with a team including Speech Therapist and a Teacher of the Visually Impaired. Our purpose was to consult and develop a plan to unlock the world for tinfants and toddlers with multiple disabilities.
• Often, we would be driving to the home after reading a child’s chart and I would know that with all my education and training, I had no idea what to tell these parents.
• Often the parents had been given no hope for improvement with their child. They were told that their child could not learn.
• I would find myself praying that in some way, God would guide our team to have something to offer the families that would be helpful.
• And when we were humble enough to really get out of the way, God would answer that prayer.
• One particular child, Marquise, illustrates this process beautifully.
1. Marquise was born to a teen mom, severely abused and had been placed with his aunt.
2. He had cerebral palsy, and was blind and g-tube fed. The doctors had told the family that he would never be able to do anything.
3. When we first saw him, he was laying on a bed in a darkened room in his aunt’s house.
4. I was at a loss. He just lay there, unresponsive.
5. We tried everything in our bag of tricks with no response
6. Until finally, we were led to wait.
7. Just to wait, not to do anything.
8. We held a flashlight, very still for about three minutes.
9. Three long minutes.
10. And Marquise reached for the light!
We all cried and I knew that the spirit of God was working through us. It went against every instinct I had to just wait. But sometimes waiting on God is doing something.
Hope was born that day. Marquise could learn.
• These experiences prepared me for the work I find myself involved in now, directing a project that advocates for children like Marquise and for those who our are society’s throw away children. Those born to teen mom’s, placed in foster care, raised in poverty, children of abuse and violence and addiction.
• And here is where my journey comes full circle. For the story of the children I advocate for, is my story. I was born to a teen mom, placed in foster care, raised in poverty, victim of abuse and violence and addiction.
• It is clear to me now that each step on the journey was not an accident—in fact each decision or event moved me closer to where I am today and was, for me a gift of grace.
• Each step has been a response to the call of God.
• In answering this call, I believe that there is hope for all children. That all children can learn.
• That God does not desire any child to grow up with abuse, violence, hunger or pain.
• With Dag Hammarskjold, I can say, “I don’t know who or what put the question. I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer ‘Yes’ to Someone-or Something—and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore my life in self-surrender, had a goal. From that moment I have known what it means ‘not to look back.’”

Werner Bieber moved to Williamsburg not long ago, from Lynchburg, Virginia. He and his wife Mary live at Patriot’s Colony, which includes a health care center. Listen to Werner’s description of a ministry he has developed.

“Visits with Noah” is how we are listed on the activity calendar in the Convalescent Center at Patriots Colony. Several times a week we go to see the shut-ins, so after five months we have made many friends. I reside in Independent Living at Patriots Colony, and Noah is our 11 pound miniature long-haired dachshund. He is very gentle and likes people. (He is timid around larger dogs; he doesn’t know he is one!)

Our visits may be brief or extended. I approach new residents slowly, introduce ourselves, and ask if they would like to pet Noah. The response is usually positive; it is amazing how many are dog lovers and owned pets at some time or other, so we start a conversation that way. Next, I will ask if they would like to give Noah a treat, and I place a Cheerio in the palm of one hand. Noah very gingerly takes the tid-bit which makes the giver smile and pet him some more.

Each visit seems to produce a special happening. Mary, a stroke victim, who cannot talk and is bedridden, seemed unresponsive until I held her shaking hand and put a Cheerio in it. When Noah accepted the treat, there was a quiver of a smile and I cold tell by her eyes how pleased she was. Now there is always that welcome response. We greeted Elsa, who is a member here at St. Stephen, on her 96th birthday. We see Ken, another member, regularly.

Ruth a 101-year-old resident, is usually found in her wheelchair traversing the halls. I must stop each time I see her to go through the ritual – even if it is three or four times! I was cautioned that one fellow is of a nature where he might be abusive to Noah. After talking to him a few times, he progressed to the point where he now wants to pet Noah and offer the treat.

There are many other incidents which I could recount. We have seen as many as 30 persons during one visitation. Relatives have told me how much the visits are appreciated and have indicated when their family member would be receptive to a visit.

The staff makes certain they are not forgotten, and the chaplain ahs told me how worthwhile this program is. I feel more rewarded than any of the people I see. When I am seen without Noah, people will ask me where my “side-kick” is. They may not know me by name, but everyone knows Noah.

Has this been helpful, to hear some descriptions of the work God gives us to do? My hope is that the stories that you’ve heard from fellow worshipers help you identify how God calls you to vocation. We witness to the Good News of God’s grace through Jesus the Christ in the work we do for the Kingdom, in our every day lives.

To conclude, please pull out the bulletin insert entitled, “Affirmation of the Vocations of the Baptized.”

Dear Christian Friends: baptized into the priesthood of Christ, we are all called by the Holy Spirit to offer ourselves to the Lord of all creation in thanksgiving for all that God has done and continues to do for us.

Through Holy Baptism our heavenly Father set us free from sin and made us members of the priesthood we share in Christ Jesus. Through Word and Sacrament we have been nurtured in faith, that we may proclaim the praise of the Lord and bear God’s creative and redeeming word to all the world.

Brothers and sisters, both your work and your rest are in God. Will you endeavor to pattern your life on the Lord Jesus Christ, in gratitude to God and in service to one another, at morning and evening, at work and at play?

I will and I ask God to help me.

The Lord be with you.
And also with you.

Let us pray. Almighty God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you have knit these your servants into the one body of your Son, Jesus Christ. Look with favor upon them in their commitment to serve in Christ’s name. Give them courage, patience, and vision; and strengthen us all in our Christian vocation of witness to the world and of service to others; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia