Last week, I was with a group of friends I haven’t seen for many years. As we were catching up, one friend talked about his family’s decision to leave one church and join another. “They weren’t preaching the gospel,” he explained. As the conversation unfolded, I determined it was more likely they weren’t preaching the gospel he wanted to hear.
Driving home later that night, I realized we had more in common than I first thought because I also like my faith community to preach the gospel in the ways I most like to hear it. Since I do a fair amount of the preaching in my community, I have just fared better than my friend.
Left unchallenged, we probably all seek the most comfortable version of faith and sit down there, hoping never to change pews. God is a lot less interested in those assigned seats than we are, I think, and so the Holy Spirit afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. One way that happens in our faith communities is through our constant engagement with each other. And when I say “each other,” I don’t just mean those of us who already have a favorite pew. I mean all of us–the whole big family of creation as God has provided it, and especially those parts that are new and unfamiliar to us–the perfect strangers around us.
This summer’s lay preaching series theme is “Perfect Stranger,” using stories and images from Isaiah 43 and Matthew 25. On 8/13, Greg Winter will kick off with “Stranger Presence.” On 8/20, Anne Kersten will look at “Stranger Serving,” and on 9/3, Brenda Nelson will close with “Stranger Welcome.” Each will invite us to reconsider who the strangers might be in our midst, and how their presence continually transforms and recreates us as a church.
I can’t wait to hear what they have to share! I hope you’ll make every effort to join us for each of these faithful and inspiring sermons. I’ll be there, in my regular pew of course, and there will be room enough for all of you, too, as well as any strangers or friends you might want to invite along!
See you at worship,
Pastor Susan
