Sermon by Bishop Deborah Hutterer, May 12, 2024

Sunday, May 12, 2024
Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Bishop Deborah Hutterer

Grace and peace to you from the Triune God in whom we live and move and have our being.

My 89 year old mother lives in Minnesota and we talk 3-4 times a week to catch up on life. She asked where I was preaching this weekend and if I was going to include Mother’s Day in the sermon. Well, I said, I’ve been asked to preach because there will be confirmations and first communions. So, probably not. 

She replied, “Almost everyone in that room has a mother, grandmother, an auntie or some female figure that helped them know Jesus. You should mention Mother’s Day.” So as I begin this morning, thank you to those who have provided motherly care, nurture, love and prayer—those known to us and those who we don’t know that have raised our names in prayer.

Which is a great segue for today’s gospel.

Jesus is not the “parent” of his disciples but his love for them is deep. He is praying this prayer the evening before his death, after he had washed the disciples’ feet, shared bread and wine and gave them the command to “love one another.”   

During this prayer, Jesus looks ahead to his own departure, realizing that he’d have to leave his friends in a highly challenging world. The success of his mission depended on the disciples’ not being transported out of this world or locked away some place far from the realities of the Roman Empire.

The world of the first century was out of whack. People didn’t know right from wrong. The Roman Empire was oppressive, it was built on violence, fear and coercion. People with power took advantage of those who didn’t. Leaders looked to their own self-interest. Jesus called these ordinary people to follow and to learn from him how to push the reset button. Jesus promised to make them people who would carry the message of repentance, hope, justice and reconciliation into a broken world so others would catch the vision. Teaching them to love so others might see the Kingdom of God is at hand. Teaching them to be courageous and speak truth to power when it was called for.

The only way this thing—his mission—was going to work after he was gone was if the disciples continued to labor in this world. The one that was going to arrest him, whip and mock him, and nail him to a cross of wood. This was the world in which they’d have to work and why Jesus spent so much of this prayer asking God to give them all the help, protection, and support possible.

Jesus prayed for his followers then and for us now—asking that we

Would be protected from fragmentation. They we would be one in heart and purpose.

That our joy would be complete in ministry.

That the followers of Jesus would be protected from evil—all that would oppose God in this world. And that

That his followers would be sanctified in the truth—that followers would be emboldened and empowered to speak on behalf of and act for this world to be how God envisions it to be. 

Here we are over 2,000 years later—you are sitting here—as believers and followers. Today 15 people will reaffirmation their baptism. Sometimes children are brought to the waters of baptism and parents and sponsors speak on their behalf. The affirmation of baptism invites them to profess this faith We call it confirmation. 

Seven people will receive their first communion. The ELCA believes that in the gift of bread and wine we receive the true body and blood of Jesus. That the words given and shed for you assure us that Jesus offers us forgiveness of sin. In forgiveness of sin there is life and salvation.

In these actions today the individuals affirm, and we as a community affirm with them, that we belong to God through Jesus. That we are loved, called, claimed and sent into the world to serve and love. People who love orphans, care for the sick, the immigrants and refugees, and all those who might be forgotten. 

If we in the church ever needed a reality check as to what we should expect as we follow Jesus and live the way of peace and justice, Jesus’ prayer—and Jesus’ life, death and resurrection—should remind us that we should not expect smooth sailing.  

Now this next part of my message today that was for the first communion and confirmands, but since I did not want to write two sermons, I’m going to share this part with you. 

I wish, I think we would all wish, we could tell those first communion and confirmands that the world is safe, or that someday it will be. All of the adults in this room would love to make you feel secure about life—knowing that the FBI, CIA, law enforcement or, some super hero will make it better. That you are safe from war, guns and violence and that cars will not crash and burn. I wish I could tell you that people you love and know will not get sick or die. But the images from the daily news and the stories we hear remind us of what a fragile thing life is. 

The gospel, the Good News of Jesus, has something to say about this.

The world is a dangerous place AND there is so much good about this world and life that God created. We are surrounded by God’s good gifts, and it is right to take joy in them today and hope that you can take joy in such things in the future. But your final security and ultimate hope will never come from this kingdom on earth. 

I want to invite all of the people who will take their first communion and those who will be confirmed. Please come up and join me by the baptism font. 

Consider this a more mature form of the “Children’s Sermon,” if you will, but I really do want you to come up here.

For probably every one of you there was a time when someone who loves you brought you to this font or one like it in some other church. 

When Christian parents bring a person to the water in a baptismal font, they admitted that on their own, they could not guarantee your future. In baptism God claims you. Your parents handed you over to God through Jesus, in whose hands alone you would be safe forever, in life and in death.  

Jesus meets you in baptism. Ultimately there is no other security in this world.  God claims you.  You belong to God. You are beloved. And God says, “No matter what happens, I’ve got you and I will never leave you alone.” Trusting this you are free to live boldly and courageously for others.

It IS a rough world.  So I urge you, and all of us gathered here today, not to conform to the roughness of this world, not to go with the flow of anger and revenge, or cynicism/tune it out, but to trust that in the waters of baptism, in wine and bread the body and blood of Jesus we are all being transformed from the inside out to live as people who follow Jesus.

This is a place to be reminded of your connection to God’s love in Jesus. Of your connection to each other. Let this love invite you into the hard work of figuring out how God has gifted you to make a difference in this world. 

Today we celebrate you and welcome you as fellow workers in our call to love God and our neighbor to bear the fruit of love in this beautiful, broken world.

Thanks be to God.