What does it mean to be human, in our faith communities?

Psalm: 119:33

(In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit)

Confession… I wasn’t the best student growing up.

My birthday is September 2 nd so I was right there at the cut off mark of

when you put your child in school.

I started out being the youngest in my class… and surprise, surprise…

I started out my schooling a little immature and I goofed off too much

in class.

So… my parents held me back in the 3 rd grade… reflecting back,

That was a fantastic decision, because… now being one of the oldest

kids in class this allowed me to catch up… a little bit… with maturity and

learning…

And yet, I was still just an above average student who mostly read

surfing magazines and comic books.

This wasn’t only with public school.

This averageness and goof-ball shenanigans was also a part of my

experience and rearing in Sunday School and Confirmation Class and

Youth Group at church…

I confess I made my Sunday School teachers question why they even

volunteered to teach in the first place… (I know this because my old

Sunday School teacher told me this at my ordination).

Yes indeed, it was the patience of my parents, teachers, tutors, youth

directors, Sunday School teachers, pastors and church community that

led me through my formation into a person who claims to be a disciples

of Jesus and a pastor who is called to help form and shepherd other

disciples of Jesus.

Now I still love surfing magazines… or now a days – Instagram videos

and vlogs of surfing… and I still read comic books…

BUT I also love to learn and read about our world, about theology and

philosophy, to read and listen to podcasts about the intersection of

faith and science and pop-culture.

I am still being shaped

I am still a work in process

My formation and faith formation is a life-long never ending process of

becoming.

Today is Rally Day

That’s Lutheran insider language for…

“Sunday School is starting again!”

And so we “rally”

We rally not around a building, or our ministers, or some trending

program…

We rally around the Triune God (Father/Son/Spirit… a Divine cosmic

entanglement of relationship of love and grace)

We rally around Jesus, our Rabbi… teacher/shepherd… our Lord… The

Christ.

You see, the grace given to us in Christ is free!

We don’t have to earn it, or be smart enough to comprehend it, or

make straight A’s in school or Confirmation Class…

God loves us no matter what.

And yet we are called to be formed and shaped by this unconditional

grace.

To learn and grow and become who God is calling us to be.

Not only filling our minds full of information and facts… but also our

hearts, our relationships, our vocations and how we live in community

with one another within these walls and beyond.

Faith Formation involves all of who we are.

A catechism for the whole self.

And so as we experience the love and grace of the Triune God…

Who meets us where ever we are in this process

Who meets us in the person of Jesus

Who meets us in God’s Word

Who meets us in the waters of baptism

Who meets us in bread and wine at this table

…we are then called to process and learn and grow in and from these

encounters.

To explore this experience… to understand what this means and how it

shapes our lives being lived in the world we inhabit.

And so… Yea… I guess that’s my “hot take” on Rally Day.

Now we didn’t plan it this way, its just how the Holy Spirit works

sometimes… it just so happens that on Rally Day we hear scripture

readings from the lectionary that have A LOT of instructions, teachings

and commandments within them this morning.

Jesus is teaching his disciples a healthy way to deal with conflict as we

live in community with one another….

As we all know People are gonna People…

Ezekiel (in the way that often prophets do) reminds Israel how to live in

this world with God’s Torah leading the way.

Paul instructs the church in Rome how the commandments of God

become a gift for living our lives in relationship with one another… and

how all the commandments can be summed up as “Love your neighbor

as yourself.”

And then we hear Psalm 119 sing out…

“Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will observe it to the

end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it

with my whole heart.

Lead me in the path of your commandments…”

The Psalms are the prayer and hymn-book of the Hebrew scriptures…

These were Jesus’ hymns and songs and prayers and poems for worship

and his faith formation.

In our hymnals, which we cracked open today, we have all 150 Psalms

as our first 150 hymns….

If you take a look, our hymns start at 151 because we acknowledge the

Psalms… with all of their praise, and laments, and questions, and

doubts and anger and joy and hope… is a part of our faith history and

heritage.

Now, in our scripture readings today we read back and forth Psalm

119… We read only 8 verses but in its entirety this is a long prayer and

hymn… It is 176 verses broken down into 21 stanzas (and you think

some of our hymns are long!)

Each stanza is 8 verses long broken up by the Hebrew alphabet.

Probably used as a memorization tool… but also, the psalmist and poet

praises God with everything from “A to Z” or better said “aleph to tav”.

Our eight verses into todays readings use a plethora of words to

describe the Torah, or God’s teaching and law…

Words like… statures, understanding, law, commandments, decrees

and ordinances.

But interestingly the Torah, or God’s Law, in Psalm 119 is not presented

as a strict set of rules and regulations…

Rather, the Law or Teachings of God… is a way of life… a posture of

being I the world that helps one grow in our relationship with God and

our neighbor.

It is a gift that gives life, life to its fullest potential as we lie in

relationship with one another.

You see our God is not a God of arbitrary rules and regulations, or some

strict Professor in the clouds… but rather One who calls us to a life to

be lived in community with one another and to be intentional with the

relationships entrusted to us.

For us, Rally Day is a day can be a new start in our faith formation.

A chance to reflect anew on how God is shaping us and forming us to

be the people of God in the world.

This formation of faith is an ongoing process and partnership with one

another, a gathering of “2 or 3” or more, in Jesus’ name and then sent

out to “love our neighbors as ourselves”.

And like the Psalmist we embrace and live into the prayers, hymns,

poems, laments, questions, anger, joy, and hope in the adventure we

call faith.

In the realm of the conversations around Faith and Science…

One of the main questions that always rises to the surface is the

questions… “What does it mean to be human?”

What is our place and meaning in the vast universe we inhabit?

What does it mean to be human in the diverse ecologies of organisms

and animals?

What does it mean to be human with the emergence of tools and

technology and robots and Artificial Intelligence?

And so on and so on and so on…

A friend of mine who works deeply at the intersection of faith and

science shared a story with me that he was at a Science and Religion

conference and one of the keynote speakers open his presentation with

the question…

“What separates us humans from robots and AI?”

He paused to allow those present to soak in the question and reflect on

how they would approach the question…

And then he said, “Well, luckily there is this little box I can check off

when I’m paying for something that says… I’m not a robot.”

Or maybe we get that question that says, “Identify the boxes that have

a stop light in it”

And there’s that one box that is barely touching the edge of the

stoplight… do I check that one?

Or what about the stoplight pole… is that a part of the stoplight?

Maybe I am a robot.

I believe…

Jesus not only models for us on how to be a human…

But he also speaks to the reality that we don’t do fait and life alone.

We live in a complex and abundant ecology of relationships…

Not just with other humans, but also with plants and animals and

oceans… an entanglement of relationships…

And so in the gospel of Matthew today Jesus speaks to the reality that

where “2 or 3” are gathered he is there in the midst of it…

And this is often hard work and involves things like conflict and

different opinions and different world views…

People are gonna People

We aren’t robots… we are human

And for those looking at what success means for the Church…

Jesus doesn’t say “where: 1000

gather, there I am in the midst of them”.

He chooses to lift up the small group

The relationship between a few people

Between just a couple of people

And so perhaps it not only means to be human is to be in intentional

relationship with one another… but also this is what it means to be the

Church… the body of Christ in the world.

And so on Rally Day

Yes, we rally around opportunities to grow in our faith.

But we lift up the importance doing this in community.

To be intentional with the relationships entrusted to us.

…and in all this… we place our hope in the promise that Jesus is right

here in the middle of it all.

AMEN