In today’s text, Jesus calls Peter to walk on the water of the Sea of Galilee — and he does!  I’m taking the opportunity to talk about people who called me to leave the safety of my routine and dare something new — and a few people who just shoved me out of the boat!  (By the way, I should probably have changed the title of this sermon…)

Don’t Look Down

Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22, 45b; Matthew 14:22-33

Three things have shaped my sermon for today. First are the three cottage meetings we have had so far this summer, where church members and I have shared stories of how we came to be part of this congregation in Northfield. The part of my own story that often provokes questions is the part where I leave my job and my home in Seattle and head for seminary.

How did I decide to do that? I am asked; and it is a remarkably difficult question to answer.

Second is the story of Peter stepping out of the boat that we just heard. I felt a lot like Peter, I think, when I moved to Berkeley to attend Pacific School of Religion – at least I felt like I was jumping out of a boat and into some deep water.

And third is the visit of our Conference Minister, Rev. Karen Smith Sellers, and the celebration of the Leysath award that I was presented at our Annual Meeting back in June. When I accepted the award, I thanked a number of people – past and present – who have shaped and formed me as an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Some of them were people who I watched jump out of the boat myself; some of them were people who called me to jump out of the boat; and one or two of them might be described as people who gave me a little shove over the side.

I want to share their names and their stories, very briefly, today. My hope is that hearing me name the boat-jumping people in my life will nudge you into thinking about the people in your life who have done the same thing themselves, called you to do it, and maybe given you a little shove. So, here’s my list.

Among those who were examples of courageous initiative, I will start with Murdale Leysath, about whom Karen Smith Sellers will say more in a few minutes. Murdale was the first woman to serve as a conference minister in the United Church of Christ. Her ministry, and the ministry of other women of her time, was often marginalized, trivialized, or ignored. They were not accorded respect, but they served faithfully anyway.

I also want to tell you about Lulabelle Cassill, who traveled from Chicago to Chewelah, Washington in 1932, because that little church “could not afford a real pastor.” She brought the congregation to life: refurbished their building, perked up the Sunday School, wrote a Christmas pageant that was performed for nearly 40 years, and years later came back to service as interim minister and oversee the groundbreaking for their new building. That congregation, which I served from 1991 to 1997, continues to thrive today, a beacon of compassion and justice in its community.

Among those who called and pushed were the two friends who heard my call to ministry before I could. Lucia Schubert was a member and leader of the church I joined in Seattle, and she invited me to a weekend leaders retreat when I first joined the Christian Education Board. Her hospitality drew me into the life of the church. Katherine Mulhern was a business school student and single mother when I met her, but she increasingly felt a call to ordained ministry. She knew it was impractical for her to go to seminary, but she was convinced that I should. I convinced her that she should. She entered Eden Seminary the same time I went to Pacific School of Religion, and she now serves as pastor of Edwards Congregational UCC in Davenport, Iowa.

Then there were the brilliant and fierce women who were my teachers in seminary. Barbara Brown Zikmund is a distinguished church historian and was dean when I was at PSR. She taught a wonderful course about women in American Protestantism that was probably my favorite class. She has faced two public and significant disappointments – a faculty vote that ended her deanship at PSR, and the withdrawing of her name as a nominee for a national church office – and done so with dignity and grace, finding other venues to continue her service to the church.

Karen Lebacqz (whom some of you will remember from her visit here several years ago) taught ethics at the seminary, and insisted upon a high level of analysis and reflection in her courses. While I was at PSR, Karen decided to be ordained in the United Church of Christ because, as she told me, she wanted to be accountable to her church, and not just to the academy.

Flora Wuellner taught Prayer and Spirituality, and invited her students to find their own spiritual disciplines and prayer styles. She looks like the fair godmother in Cinderella, and I’ll bet there have been many people who failed to recognize the depth and wisdom of her spirit. She taught me that you don’t have to wake up at 5 am and kneel on a hard floor to have a relationship with God …

Deborah Streeter was my field education supervisor, and patiently helped me bridge the gap between classroom learning and pastoral ministry. In the face of her own disappointing experiences in the church, Deborah established her own ministry devoted to the spiritual care of the ocean and shoreline in Big Sur where she lives, and now also serves the Northern California Conference as one of their Associate Conference Ministers.

I want also to mention and thank the clergymen who opened their brotherhood and welcomed me as a sister in Christ. Phil Eisenhower was my first pastor in Seattle. Although he could be gruff, and was known to tell a sexist joke from time to time, he was unfailingly supportive of women leaders in the congregation and the wider church. His Associate Pastor, Todd Wyrick, was the first person who explicitly asked me if I were going to go to seminary, and then wrote me a letter of recommendation so kind that it made me cry. Don McClellan introduced me to computer networking even before anyone knew what the internet was, and visited me regularly while I was in seminary. He offered counsel during the nervous time when I was searching for my first call, and then again during the prolonged time when I was searching for my second. His good friend and colleague Tom Hunter was a wonderful teacher and musician, who taught me much about the ways that singing together can shape the faith of a congregation. Don died about a year ago and Tom this summer, and the church is poorer for it. Finally, there is my buddy Kent Gilbert, who was my seminary co-conspirator on many wonderful schemes, not the least of which involved four cases of very good wine. His first parish was about 200 miles from mine, and we supported each other through those first few years of ministry.

It is hard not to identify the church with the storm-tossed boat in which the disciples were sailing that night long ago. And so I want to name the three United Church of Christ congregations that have shaped me: Magnolia United Church of Christ

in Seattle, where I rediscovered the faith I had not practiced since I was a teenager; Chewelah UCC, whose members nurtured me from a seminary graduate to a working pastor; and, of course, this church. Here’s how I described our congregation at the Annual Meeting: “First UCC in Northfield, which continues its 152 year tradition of generosity and witness, which celebrated its sesquicentennial by giving away more than $50,000, and which celebrated its Open & Affirming Commitment 6 years ago by offering an extravagant welcome to my beloved partner Jean Chagnon.”

So the answer to the question about my leaving Seattle and going to seminary is this: I saw people jump out of the boat – when they got in trouble, sometimes Jesus reached out and pulled them out himself; sometimes he used the hands and voices of other people. [By the way, that’s how I understand the section were heard today from Psalm 105: it retells some of the story of Joseph, who was pushed out of his home and his homeland.] Moreover, there were people in my own life who were the hands and voices of Christ – people who called out and named my gifts, people who encouraged me, and people who goaded me. There were communities of faith – including this one – that invested their love, care, and support in me and in my ministry.

Let me invite you to take a moment of silence now, to recall those moments in your own life when you have felt a call to step out of a safe place into a risky place, and of the hands that have held you when you stumbled. [pause]

And let me invite you to take another moment to listen for the voice that may be calling you – or all of us – into stepping out onto the water again. [pause]

May we be as impetuous and as faithful as our brother Peter.

Amen.

Prayer for August 10, 2008

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

Gracious and Loving God, we bring before you this morning the prayers that we cannot bring ourselves to say aloud.

We pray for ourselves and our loved ones who are tormented by addictions and alcoholism …

We pray for ourselves and our neighbors who are embroiled in conflict, violence, or abuse.

We pray for ourselves and our community in the face of civic controversies and breakdowns in decision making ..

We pray for ourselves and our neighbors who grieve, whether the loss is the death of a loved one, the ending of a dream, the passing of an opportunity, or the hope of a change …

We pray for ourselves and others whose financial situation is precarious …

We pray for ourselves and our neighbors who suffer from despair, anxiety, and depression …

We pray for the leaders of our nation, of whom we expect so much and towards whom we forgive so little ..

And we pray for healing from the secret wounds that only you can see in our hearts.

All these things we pray in the name of the one to whom all hearts are open, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us ..