Sermon of the Week:
Renewing our Strength–Into a Hopeful Future
A sermon preached for The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on November 14, 2021.
Special Music: Faithful
Hymns: Great is Thy Faithfulness
Though I May Speak
Keywords: Choose the Potato, Halloween, Questions for Church, Hopeful Future, Stewardship. #pcusa
Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Isaiah 40:28-31
and Ephesians 1:15-23
Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-733469.
All rights reserved.
I don’t quite know if this story will work,
But I’m going to give it a go anyway.
A few weeks ago,
my wife Brook sent me an Instagram post she saw.
She doesn’t do that very often.
She’s more likely to send me funny Tiktoks of dogs being silly or something….
I almost never get Facebook or Instagram suggestions from her.
But it was the first of November
and this was an Instagram post
about Halloween the night before.
The post was making the rounds online, apparently.
Her friends had liked and commented on it,
Which is how she saw it,
And she thought I’d like it.
She told me that it might preach,
Which is something we preachers say
When we see something that carries with it
Some deeper meaning,
something that will help commend the gospel in a sermon.
This story, that news article, this commercial…
Might be funny. Might be inspiring. Might be serious.
Might be able to say something about God.
That’ll preach, we would say.
And Brook thought that this Instagram post might fit that too, somehow.
All Brook knew, I think, was that it was different.
It got boosted by a few other Instagram accounts
That post good-hearted material online.
This one was shared on Upworthy,
Where it had received 471,000 likes on November 4th,
Just three days later.
I don’t think that Brook was aware
That I know the guy who made that original post on Instagram.
His name is Matt Schultz, and he’s a pastor up in Anchorage.
And Matt was talking about his amazing success on Halloween
Handing out treats for all the trick-or-treaters.
Matt clearly lives in a neighborhood with more children
than the neighborhood we live in.
We were delighted, this year, when we had maybe 15, 18 groups stop by
Which is a lot for us.
I think people were more eager to get out this year
Because many people didn’t go trick or treating last year
With the pandemic and Covid and all that.
Our neighborhood doesn’t have a lot of kids in the first place
But it was great to see our neighbor’s son
Dressed head to toe as their pet retriever
And some of the kids from next door
As a baseball player and ninja.
We love Halloween.
This year, like every year, we get all decorated
we put pumpkins out on the porch
and some hay bales and cobwebs and all that,
lights on, bucket of bite-size candy bars and tootsie rolls at the ready
and wait to see if any kids will come by.
For many years we had just a small handful,
three or four or five groups of kids if we were lucky.
This year was better, meaning we had more.
Now, we’ve heard of people getting cute for Halloween.
Putting toothbrushes or dental floss or an apple and such in their bucket.
We always said, oh, goodness,
they’re gonna get a trick this year for sure…
And we didn’t ever want to do that,
Wouldn’t think of it…
The kids spend their whole year waiting for the one day
They get to go around as Woody from Toy Story
and get a bucket full of candy…
We surely were going to oblige.
So when we saw Matt’s post on Instagram,
We were kind of shocked, to be honest.
The post was a picture of his treat bucket
This orange wooden basket with black paint on the front
To look like a jack-o-lantern
And It’s got all the staples in there
Snickers and Twix and Milk Duds
No Reese’s, I noticed. That’s a major fail right there Matt, my friend.
And on top of the bucket was something out of place.
It was a potato.
Yes, that’s right.
A potato.
Here’s what Matt wrote:
“Tonight, kids chose Potato more than 25 times,
Each time triumphantly proclaiming to family and friends,
‘I GOT A POTATO!’
One kid shouted, ‘A potato, just like last year!’
And another group of said,
‘Oh, you’re the potato house? You’re legends!’
This has become an unexpected and joyful tradition.
Kids are given the free choice,
And over and over again, they choose Potato.
My friends, every day you are given a choice.
I encourage you: Choose Potato.
///
So, what do you think?
Choose Potato.
Does that preach?
Yeah, I’m with you, I don’t know.
Sounds a bit odd, I agree with you.
But let’s just unpack this a bit.
Sometimes, all it takes to make someone laugh
Is to take the most ORDINARY of things
And to put them to use in unexpected ways.
That’s what most humor is, really.
Just ask my kids about all those dad jokes I like to tell.
I used to be addicted to soap
But I’m all clean now.
When does a joke become a dad joke?
When it becomes apparent.
I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon.
I’ll let you know.
But it’s also true
That it doesn’t take something extravagant to make a difference
To make a connection…
It doesn’t take a lot.
Sometimes something as mundane, as ordinary, as a potato will do.
On a night like Halloween,
With all the pageantry and the hoopla
Kids running from house to house with their glowsticks
Parents carefully watching from a few steps away
There’s kind of a routine that gets going:
Ring the door-bell.
Trick or Treat
Oh, hey there, what are you supposed to be
A rocket ship?
A football player?
A ghost?
A gumball machine?
Here, have some Candy…
Have fun, be safe, enjoy your childhood,
know we care about you….
And we wave at the parents as they walk on to the next porch.
My friend Matt offered all that too, right?
For the kids in his neighborhood
with his basket of candy…
But Matt also added something unexpected,
something earthy,
something simple:
A raw potato.
It gave the kids
A different kind of choice
And 25 kids apparently decided that they wanted THAT this year
Because it was different…
And because it was A POTATO.
Kids love potatoes.
Goodness, I love potatoes. Particularly mashed potatoes.
I don’t know when Matt started offering potatoes on Halloween
But now it’s a tradition.
And Matt was taken by that,
enough to post this online
Which isn’t his normal kind of social media post at all
He’s usually talking about homelessness in Anchorage
But that post of his was liked
by almost half a million people
people who went and checked him out, you know…
Who got to know him and his work a little bit.
And it was shared on dozens and dozens of other platforms…
All because a simple, silly, ordinary, inexpensive idea:
When you are given the choice,
Whenever you can, Choose Potato.
Happy Halloween!
///
One of the things that has been impacting the church recently
Is fear about our sustainability.
Do we have enough?
Enough people?
Enough resources?
Enough time?
Enough energy?
To which I say, yes, yes we do.
Each gift is needed and necessary and so very appreciated,
And your gift, is more appreciated than we could ever adequately express,
But sometimes we get so focused on those questions
And are worried by them,
That we don’t think about other questions
Important questions:
Do we have enough creativity?
Do we have enough compassion?
Do we have enough faithfulness?
Do we have enough love?
Those are the stuff of sustainability, too.
At least they are for a church.
Those are the questions that, honestly,
Should guide every church,
every community that seeks to follow God on the way of Jesus Christ.
Our session has been reading a book together this year
Called Quietly Courageous:
Leading the Church in a Changing World
And the author, Gil Rendel,
Argues that we have all been grounded in an understanding of church
That was formed in the 1950s and 1960s, after the second world war
Which was a time of unprecedented output in our country.
Lots of churches grew as suburbs grew
When there was societal pressure to join a church…
And many of those churches did big and good things
But sought to focus on bigger, glitzier, more.
It was not a normal time, those decades of unusual growth,
But because of that, we keep judging ourselves
based on THAT period
Rather than THIS period, the one we’re living in.
And it is really tempting to fret about not living up to the way things WERE
Instead of asking ourselves
if we are focused on the right things
And if we have enough for THOSE things,
for God’s purpose, Today.
Do we have enough creativity?
Do we have enough compassion?
Do we have enough faithfulness?
Do we have enough love?
And when we’re stuck in those older models of things
We get wrapped up in fear and anxiety and worry…
Until those just gobble us up
Or… something happens to shake us free.
///
Something maybe like an unexpected potato.
It is so simple, really.
Its genius.
Who doesn’t love a good potato.
It doesn’t cost all that much.
Cheaper than the candy, that’s for sure.
And it somehow lights up those kids more than the Snickers and the Twix.
I mean, they wanted the candy too, I’m sure,
from all those other stops,
But Matt found a way to be different, to connect,
Without getting the most expensive candy…
Just by doing things a little bit special.
By trying to connect in a different sort of way.
I wonder what we, good church,
Could learn from that…
Maybe we could see that it doesn’t take much to connect with our neighbors
It doesn’t take much to try to bring joy and happiness to others.
Just a bit of creativity, and a willingness to give it a try.
///
Some of the most powerful passages of Scripture
Are those that recommend an alternative
to fretting about whether we will have enough…
How many times does Jesus talk about money, about food,
About work, about enough…
and Jesus answers, in parables,
about the God of generous abundance, the God of Prodigal, Prodigious love.
In all of those moments, the Bible talks about hope—
A sense of trust about the future, God’s future
And an invitation to join God for the journey to get there.
The reading we just offered
From the letter to the Ephesians
Is another good example of this.
The author offers a word of greeting to the church in Ephesus,
Noting how he has heard of their faith and their love
Which rouses within him a sense of thanksgiving.
I wonder, did you hear what he said about hope,
About the importance of hope
For the community of faith?
I remember you in my prayers, he writes.
I pray that God will give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation
As you come to know Christ Jesus,
That you might know the Hope
To which you are called,
Which are the riches of God’s glorious inheritance
The immeasurable greatness of his power
For those of us who believe it.
Hope is the currency of the faithful,
Ephesians suggests.
And we hear words like
Immeasurably Great
Powerful
Glorious Inheritance
The hope to which you are called.
A hope that we find in Jesus Christ
Whom God has placed over all things
A sign that, in the end, God’s plan will win
That love is more powerful than hate
That life will triumph over death.
And that we have a part to play in supporting that plan,
God’s very world on Earth.
Hope is the currency of the faithful.
And hope is grounded in a sense of trust
In what God is doing all around us
And where we follow where God leads us
Believing that there are good days ahead.
///
This is one of my favorite Sundays of the church year.
It’s not officially on any liturgical calendar,
but Stewardship Dedication Sunday has always been a joy.
Today we celebrate all that is life giving,
joy seeking
forgiveness making
love building about this place.
Every good deed that we do, together.
Every prayer we offer for one another.
Every expression of support and welcome that we can muster.
Today we lift up where our heart is:
The hope we have because God is our God
And we are God’s people
Learning how to follow God because of Jesus Christ.
Today is a celebration of what it means to be church.
What it means to be community.
The work of reconciliation that we have been given.
What it means for us to live into the Story of God’s great love
God’s triumph in our lives
life over death
trust over fear.
More than ever, the world needs the kind of community
That a church like the Kirk can offer.
Have you felt that, as you watch the news
And talk to your neighbor
And just watch how people act towards one another?
I truly believe that.
A church that affirms:
There is enough creativity,
There is enough compassion,
There is enough faithfulness.
Enough hope.
Because God is here
And we respond to God with thanksgiving
With a desire to follow where she leads us.
It doesn’t have to be grand.
It doesn’t have to be glitzy.
It just has to be true. Genuine. Authentic.
Faithful.
To those people, people who wait for the Lord,
People like us…
We will find our strength renewed
Our spirits enlivened
Our hopes confirmed.
We’ve been seeking to be that sort of church for sixty some years
And, with God’s help, we’ll be doing that for many many more.
So way we continue to look forward,
Trusting that God’s good gifts for us are sufficient
To be the church God wants us to be
And may we welcome everyone to experience God’s love
As we seek to be God’s church, here, today.
May it be so.
Amen.
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