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When Jesus went out with his disciples, there was ALWAYS work to be done: people needed healing. It couldn’t wait. It was busy, no time to rest. (I am gathered with the children on a quilt in front of the church to talk with them.)
But REST is NECESSARY for human bodies! God made human bodies and then God made a day for rest! The day was called Sabbath, and God made it a commandment.
It is hard to follow that rule: to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. But listen: *
Do you hear it? God speaks in the silence! It takes practice to learn to listen for God in the silence. It takes discipline—it takes commitment—to be a disciple of Jesus.
Jesus says “Come away… and rest a while.” This can be a retreat in nature, a camp, or some kind of journey away from everyday life. Maybe you can’t physically travel anywhere, so then you commit your time—now I will decide to rest, and pray, and think about God.
I just got back late last night from a special kind of journey: to the ELCA Youth Gathering. It’s held every three years for high school students—someday, it will be your turn!
The Youth Gathering is a special time to get together with thousands of Lutherans all over the world to learn about God’s love for YOU as an individual, created in God’s image and created for a purpose. This year the theme was “Created to Be” and we learned about daily themes: created to be brave, authentic, free, disruptive, disciples.
AND the Gathering is a place to explore what God is doing in the WORLD, through the church, and to begin to discern—to figure out—where you feel energized and joyful, because when you notice that, you are learning what God created you for.
And you’re never alone! We always have partners on the journey. So I want to share some items from my trip.
First, I went on this trip when I was in high school, and the ELCA Youth Gathering is held in different places—in the year 2000 it was here in St. Louis!—but in 1997 when I attended as a high school student, I went to New Orleans! They used to print materials, and I got a Bible from that Gathering, “River of Hope.”
Did you know there’s a big river in New Orleans? Did you know it’s the SAME big river that flows through our city too?! The Mississippi River! So we traveled from St. Louis basically down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Okay, that would have been cool, but this time we actually just took a bus. From our congregation, Gethsemane, we had five youth and three adults. We gathered with youth and adults from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Manchester and Christ Lutheran Church in Webster Groves, and all together we filled up a bus and drove alllllll day on Tuesday.
In the late afternoon, we were getting close to New Orleans, and we could see on either side of the road was water and trees growing out of the water—it’s a swamp! From the moving bus, I could see the alligators swimming just under the surface of the water! There’s a lot of water in New Orleans—the Mississippi River runs into the ocean. What ocean? Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico.
It’s summer and hot and lots of water, so the air is humid, a lot like here in St. Louis. As soon as we got to New Orleans, we dropped off our suitcases in the hotel and went to a big arena for that night’s Mass Gathering, which happened every night.
The Mass Gathering is where we sing worship songs, listen to people talk about God and the Bible and about their faith in God. The arena holds thousands of people. How many people are in this room right now? Maybe 100? The Mass Gathering had thousands of people! There were 16,100 participants at the Youth Gathering this year.
So anytime we went into a building for activities, the Mass Gathering in the arena or the convention center for accompaniment projects and interactive learning, we had to go through security, and everything we took inside had to fit into a small clear plastic bag and carry water in a clear water bottle.
I hate to downsize. I like to have snacks with me, and I like to be comfortable and be prepared. When Jesus sends out disciples to share the Gospel, he tells them: take nothing with you! No bag, no food, no money, no credit card, no cell phone, not even an extra shirt. I don’t like that! I am not brave enough to do that! It was hard enough to pack everything into this small bag just to travel around during the daytime!
unpack bag
I’m so tired today! And do you wonder where the rest of the youth are? They’re at home, sleeping! They’ll give a report on their trip later sometime.
But it was worth it to me to spend time with them, walking around the city, learning their interests and humor.
And it was worth it to me to make the journey, because I got to see so many old friends—from 25 years of doing ministry in many different ways! I took selfies with friends I met when I was a summer camp counselor, some of them were my campers and now they are youth directors and pastors! Friends from when I was in campus ministry in college, when I was a volunteer youth director and when I worked as a part-time youth director. Friends from when I worked with ELCA Global Mission and lived in Japan, and I saw friends who work with ELCA Global Mission now and who work with the Lutheran church in Sierra Leone where my family lives. I saw our friend Maryn Olson who is a member of this congregation and who works with Lutheran Disaster Response! I saw friends from when I was in seminary, candidacy, and internship, and 15 years of pastoring. A kid ran up to me who I didn’t recognize—I baptized him about ten years ago when he was a little boy. So special for me!
All these friends reminded me that God has always provided what I need. Whenever I took a leap of faith, God provided the people and the community I needed, people who encouraged me and helped shape who I am now.
I hope that in 15 or 12 or 9 or 6 or 3 more years, I hope you also get a chance to go to an ELCA Youth Gathering. Wherever you go, God will provide whatever you need to fulfill God’s call. You are created to be free, to be disciples!
That thing about Jesus sending out disciples and saying “Don’t bring anything with you”—I think what he’s really saying is
You don’t HAVE TO bring anything.
You already have everything you need to tell the story of God’s love.
There is no template or guidebook stronger than the Holy Spirit,
who will give you the words to say.
The more you take steps of faith and leaps of faith, the more you say yes to God’s call, the more amazing things you will see and experience and witness.
One of our youth who went to the Youth Gathering said, “I thought it was just gonna be more church. But it’s, like, fun church. It’s hype church.”
Yes, it’s worship, AND it’s serving AND partnering AND discerning AND it’s FOR YOU! That is the life of a disciple: not only life, but abundant life.
Amen.
Pastor Cheryl
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