Pastor Dismer’s sermon from June 8:

“We grow in faith by practicing it - side by side - with all God’s faithful people”

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Sometimes our lessons are hard to hear because they convict us. Sometimes they are difficult to understand. Today’s lessons, on the other hand, are pure encouragement.

Today’s lessons from the disciple Matthew, and the apostle Paul, are all about faith.

For the next 20+ weeks, we’ll ask what a life of faith is all about. So, let us ask, what is faith, how do we get it, how do we nurture it?

Arthur Gordon, in his book: “A Touch of Wonder,” shared this story, which I must confess as a duck hunter, speaks to my heart:

I remember a cold December afternoon years ago when I was in my early 20s. A friend and I were winding up a day of duck hunting. We were picking up the decoys when a flight of Canada geese came by. They drove right across the sunset, so low that you could see their wingtips in the burnished water. The sight was so magnificent that I exclaimed, “Look at that! It makes you grateful just to be alive.” And my friend said quietly, “Grateful to whom?”

The beginning of faith is acknowledging that life is a gift. And, if there is a gift, there is a Giver.

Madelyn, Liliana and Owen are being baptized today. One of the gifts that we acknowledge as Christians comes to us in baptism: the gift of being accepted by God, the Giver, as his son or daughter.

This is why we baptize infants in the Lutheran church. We believe that this gift is so precious that we cannot wait to give it to our children. And, it doesn’t matter whether the children even know or understand yet, what is happening, what is being given - because we all promise: sponsors, parents and congregation, to make sure that as our children grow we will teach them to know the Giver, and to understand the gift.

We promise to teach them by bringing them to worship, by introducing them to the Scriptures, by helping them learn the creed, the 10 commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer.

And as we do that, we might ask, will they find faith? Is this how we get faith?

Arthur Gordon, in the book I just quoted from, once interviewed Dr. Sam Shoemaker, an outstanding American clergyman. Gordon asked him about faith, and this is what Dr. Shoemaker said:

FAITH IS CONTAGIOUS, BUT YOU HAVE TO COME IN CONTACT WITH IT TO CATCH IT!

Let me repeat the verses from Deuteronomy that were read last week: fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds. Teach them to your children when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Faith is contagious. Our children can “catch” it from us. We can “catch” it from each other.

When we bring our children to worship; when we come ourselves, we will come in contact with people of faith.

We will meet the faith of:

· the hymn writers

· the Scripture writers

· of those leading us in prayer

· of those we sit beside

· of those who faithfully attend worship, who faithfully walk down the aisle for communion

· of those who faithfully give their offerings

· of those who faithfully participate in the life of the congregation, encouraging and uplifting us all by their very faithfulness.

Today’s lessons are all about people of faith, people who’s faith we are invited to get close to, people whose faith can nurture and inspire our own.

In today’s gospel lesson from Matthew we meet Matthew himself, as he tells us how he was invited to follow Jesus.

Matthew was a tax-collector, a person whose profession brought great opportunities for dishonesty and much hatred from the tax-payers. Jesus invited Matthew to leave this life behind, and follow him, and in faith, Matthew did!

We also meet a ruler, a person of power, a person who gave commands and expected others to follow them; a man whose daughter had died.

This man also turned away from his normal life, his life of power, and humbling himself before a man of no authority, asked Jesus for help. In faith he asked Jesus to return his daughter to life.

Even as Jesus agreed to follow the man to his daughter’s side, another person of faith appeared. Today we also meet a woman with a terrible medical problem, one which branded her as “unclean.” As such she was expected to live her life in isolation, away from everyone else.

She, too, acted contrary to what was expected. She reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ gown. In faith she reached out for healing, and Jesus told her that her faith was the vehicle by which she was healed.

The apostle Paul, in our other lesson today, reminds us of the faith of Abraham: Abraham and his wife Sarah – elderly people, who were promised by God to have a child who would be the beginning of many nations, whereby the world would be blessed.

In faith they trusted what they otherwise could not have believed for one minute, and God’s promise became reality.

If we look carefully at these stories, we will see that faith, for these witnesses, was not just a special feeling, or a religious idea.

Faith, for these people, was the motivation behind their actions: trusting in the power and truth of God’s promises, they acted in unexpected ways. They took a “leap of faith.”

How can we be people of faith like this? FAITH IS A GIFT, and we can begin by acknowledging the Giver: By worshiping, by praying, by honoring God in the way we live our lives.

FAITH IS CONTAGOUS and we can choose to get close to people of faith: people from the past, as we read their hymns and prayers and stories, and people around us today.

We will not have a hard time recognizing people of faith, because they are the people who know that God is love. They treat others’ shortcomings with patience; they make every effort to help those in trouble; they are welcoming, and kind and inclusive. These are the people we should seek out, get to know, become friends with, and learn from.

Faith is the inspiration behind our actions, our behaviors, so let us choose to behave lovingly towards all whom we encounter. Let us choose to live with mercy and justice, kindness and forgiveness.

Christianity is the only religion where the starting point is acceptance by God. Other faiths require a life lived according to various requirements in an effort to bring one at last into God’s presence.

Our faith tells us that we begin where others hope to end: in the presence of God. In baptism we are accepted into God’s family – with no previous requirements or accomplishments on our part. This is where faith begins – with the Giver. Faith is God’s baptismal gift to us. How we live in faith is up to us.

Dom Helder Camara, a bishop in Brazil, who was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and who, in 1970 received the international Martin Luther King Jr. Award, wrote many brief meditations. In closing Let me share one that speaks to life lived in faith:

IF YOU SHARE YOUR BREAD IN FEAR, MISTRUSTINGLY, UNDARINGLY, IN A TRICE YOUR BREAD WILL FAIL. TRY SHARING IT WITHOUT LOOKING AHEAD, NOT THINKING OF THE COST, UNSTINTINGLY, LIKE THE SON OF THE LORD OF ALL THE HARVESTS IN THE WORLD.

What is faith? the acknowledgement of God as the Giver of life and salvation by the very way we live. How do we get faith? It is a gift from God, bestowed upon every one of us with no requirements or strings attached. How do we grow in faith? By practicing it, side by side, with all God’s faithful people. Amen