Thank you for the opportunity to bring the good news of Jesus Christ from Red Willow to you in Grand Forks and surrounding areas!
That is really what we are all about here at Red Willow—we create an atmosphere where the good news of Jesus Christ oozes out from the most unexpected of places, often in the places you least expect it. Here at Red Willow, the good news gets preached in the gaga ball pit, on a pontoon ride, and in front of a campfire with singing and dancing. If this past year of the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that the good news should be preached in places and times we least expect it—like to a computer for you all to see, even when you live not that far down the road. This proclivity for the good news to show up in places we least expect it is something that happens at camp, but not only at camp. After all, camp is not just a place, it is an attitude; it is the promise that God meets us on the way when we put aside our normal for the sake of something better.
That is universal, isn’t it? We have a God, who we know in Jesus Christ, who rarely acts as anybody expects. He is born in a barn; he recruits a gang of ragtag dropouts he calls disciples, who manage to only ever ask the stupidest questions; then, he goes and gets himself crucified an enemy of the state. This Jesus we worship does not according to the script, which should bring us some comfort in unprecedented times, because these are times desperate for the good news of a Savior who contradicts our expectations. One such example of this occurs in the Gospel reading today. Jesus shows up on the road not preaching about the law, but in fact breaking the law. Now, that is not what a nice, cozy, comfortable savior-of-the-world does, now is it? Sabbath was (and is) a hard-and-fast law that is not to be broken. You don’t pick grain; you don’t heal; you don’t do any work whatsoever. In the Jewish tradition of the day (and in several traditions still to this day), this is absolute—you simply don’t do it.
And not for a bad reason, either. We are commanded to keep sabbath to remind ourselves that we are not, in fact, God. This is the tradition; this is wisdom; this is the way that it is. You don’t touch that tradition—that is, unless you are Jesus. You see, the Gospels show us that Jesus was not a fan of normal. If Jesus had the choice between normal and extraordinary, he chose extraordinary every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
On the other hand, we tend to like normal. We spend of our lives fighting for normal, especially when facing adversity. Normal is comfortable; normal feels good. But Jesus didn’t come into the world for people who thought that normal was good. Jesus came for the least and the lost and littlest, the persecuted and the decimated and the dying; and if you aren’t one of those, then Jesus isn’t preaching to you, because you don’t need the good news nearly as desperately as your neighbor who is suffering, who is persecuted, who is hurting. But don’t you worry, because your time will come!
It is little surprise, therefore, that those of us who grow up to seek after comfort and the feeling of normalcy also grow up and out of camp. Camp becomes like Santa Claus or Sunday School—a thing that we value for the next generation or the generation after. And when we feel this way, we begin to lose ourselves—not because of camp specifically but because camp points us toward something that is true—the very Savior of the world that we once felt so strongly in our lives but perhaps not today. We all need that break from what is normal in order to feel the extraordinary coursing through our veins. God doesn’t show up in the routine; God shows up in the extraordinary. And the extraordinary is what camp is all about. This is the place to break out of your routine, to burst your bubble, and find that God is the God of the abnormal, the extraordinary.
But you might be thinking, Oh, great, that sounds wonderful, but, let’s be honest, this is just a shtick asking for money. Ah! Now here’s the zinger: Remember, camp is not just this place; it is an attitude. At our best, we can lay the groundwork for the extraordinary in any moment of our lives in any place where we are grounded. You should support any ministry that is a seedbed for the extraordinary. In fact, it starts in your own home.
When Jesus picks grain on the Sabbath, he shows us that the farm is a holy place, and the authorities grumble. When Jesus heals the same day, he shows that the marketplace—the grocery store—is a holy place, and the authorities scheme. The point of this scripture is not to tell us that the law is bad or that we need to do away with it; the point is that Jesus is extraordinary, and every place in our lives might be extraordinary as well. The great news about this? We live in an extraordinary time already! And that is scary, because lots of scary things have happened in the world; scary things are still happening. Yet, scary times create the garden bed on which the extraordinary is planted. Will you run from it in search of what is normal or tend to it and watch the extraordinary bloom.
Camp is one of those places where this happens for so many; it is where it has happened for me. Probably it has been that for some of you as well. We plant the garden bed and the extraordinary grows out of it. Therefore, is it any surprise that this scene today shows Jesus plucking wheat from the field.
The
agrarian author-poet, Wendell Berry, once called the Bible a hypaethral
book. This is your Greek lesson for the day, and it is a great lesson because
odds are your pastor does not know this Greek word either so you can throw out
all that seminary knowledge and meet each other on equal ground. Hypaethral means
“open to the skies.” The Bible is a book that is best read underneath the open
skies, not secluded in some office somewhere. I have found that my faith comes
alive in the same way—not secluded on my own but under the skies where I am
reminded of the bigness of it all.
We get stuck on the minutia of daily life. Can you believe what she posted on Facebook? I can’t believe he or she got elected! I’m so annoyed by so-and-so for doing such-and-such. Our lives are so often spent moving from one little track to another, often frustrated, rarely open to possibilities. Meanwhile, we have a God in Jesus Christ who picks the grain and heals because that is what a God who is bigger than the boxes we construct for her will do.
Like a speed bump that we curse, but is it worse
To stay safe but lose our purpose?
The lilies out our doors preach
To remind us that we are human, that we are little, that we are fragile;
And that we are protected by mercy that breaks from on high.
But that speed bump also begs that we slow down
To honor the sabbath-rest that Jesus-himself breaks
Only for nourishing and healing.
This is ours, too, when the pace of life slows, and we breathe in the crisp, clean air.
We are more than our fears, more than our worries.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say. After all, Jesus healed on the Sabbath; he didn’t attempt to heal; he didn’t give it a good shot. He changed a life forever by breaking through what was expected. And it was not without risk. We know where the story is heading; we know Jesus ticks off all the wrong people. The extraordinary has the habit of doing that. To a lesser degree, it is also why you can’t really share the experience of the extraordinary with anyone back home; they either took part or they didn’t.
You see, I expect
that most of these Pharisees heard about Jesus healing second hand—at least, I
like to give them that much credit—because when you come face to face with the
incredible, it tends to break through even our hard exteriors. And, boy, do we
need some hard exteriors broken down these days! You, me, 90% of the
internet—we all need our exteriors broken down by Jesus, who breaks the law for
our sake and who meets us contrary to our expectations.
As a representative of your camp, I want you to know that this good work is happening here. Lives are changed; the ordinary is transformed to the extraordinary, but it didn’t begin here and it won’t end here either. Each and every child goes home changed; each and every counselor reassesses; God moves us through places like these, but the lion’s share of this work is revealed in the ordinary—what we might call the “back home.”
It isn’t normal—nothing about Jesus is—and thanks be to God for that, because we all need a little extraordinary in our lives—today and every day.
