The Faithfulness of God
Announcements
Maggie: Now I'm on. Good morning, church. Oh, it's so good to be together this morning. My name is Maggie. I'm part of the table team. I'm glad to see your smiling faces this morning. I'd love to tell you about some of the stuff we've got coming up here in the life of the table, but before I do that, let me tell you about something that happened this past week. Marta Smith, Jae Bates, and Ben Richter took a rowdy, terrific bunch of middle schoolers to Valley Fair, and they had a great time. And we are so grateful for our middle school ministry. It's continuing to grow as we grow as a church, and so if you've got middle schoolers or you're interested in that, or you don't even have to have middle schoolers, actually, if you are a grown-up and you're like, "You know what? I would like to give back to the youth of this church.” Boy, have I got a volunteer opportunity for you. Please see Marta, who's our youth pastor. She would love to talk to you about what Wednesday nights are going to look like this fall. So go see Marta if you'd like to volunteer. They're not scary. I have two of them. They're great, so go volunteer with the middle schoolers.
With that, though, we're taking a little summer break, so you're going to see a bunch of little faces. The youngest members of our community are going to be with us the next two Sundays as our table kids team takes a break. If, however, your kids are babies, toddlers up through age four, the nursery's still available, so feel free to head upstairs and make use of that, but we welcome their energy. We welcome their questions, their whispers, and there's a whole table of activities, ways to engage with the service in the back, so feel free to stop by there and pick up some fidgets, some fun things, and then return them when you're done. I'm talking to my kids now. Return the fidgets when you're done and with service today. Thank you.
Friends, we do not have worship on Labor Day weekend, so on Sunday the 6th, we won't be here. Don't come. I hope that you are with your people. I hope that you're celebrating in community, and yeah, then we are ramping up for the biggest, the best fall kickoff on Sunday, September 13th. It's always a good time. We're going to have a food truck. We also are going to provide some additional food as well, and so this is where it comes in. Many hands make light work. That's what my mother used to tell me when I was a child, so I'm telling you all, we could really use some help, some setup, some serving, some teardown, and all of those sign-up sheets are in the gathering space, so when we're done here and you go next door to get a cup of coffee and a donut, you'll find a table full of sign-ups, and that is how we church happen, is with all of you, and we're grateful. We're grateful to all of you who pitch in, and so we need some help, so find those sign-ups there.
The last thing I want to tell you about is something that's newer in the life of our community, and I'm so excited about it. We're calling it Connection Circle, and this is an opportunity for folks who maybe are newer to the community, or maybe you're not. Maybe you've been around a bunch, but you just found a way to plug in, either in service or in small group, or whatever it is. It's an opportunity for you to get to know people from the table in a smaller group setting. We're going to be doing it on Wednesday nights for Wednesday night in September, two in September, two in October, and then we're going to have a party, so there will be a fifth Wednesday night in there, too, but we would love to invite you to be a part of that. We are also offering childcare, so if you need childcare on those Wednesday nights, please RSVP online, and we'll make sure that we have that set up for you. If you have any questions about it, come find me after. It's a new thing. I'm excited about it. We've got a great team of leaders who are leading it, and I'd love to chat with you about it. And now it's Justin’s turn for the message. Come on up, Justin.
Sermon
Justin: Good morning. Good morning. As Maggie said, my name is Justin. I'm one of the pastors on staff here at the table, and it's good to see you today. We're continuing on in our series called Hills and Valleys, and I don't know about you, but I've been really moved by the stories that we've heard over the past few weeks. The vulnerability and the openness to sharing that we have here in this community is so powerful, and so if you've spoken thus far, Chelsea and Nancy and Tami, thank you so much. Your stories matter not only to God, but to us, and we're so grateful to have you and your stories in our community, and they're making a real impact. Today Jon Bird is going to share when I'm done talking, running my mouth, and then Maggie Keller will share next week. So there's still a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks with the Hills and Valleys series. Our focus this morning is going to be on God's faithfulness in the Hills and Valleys of life, and I wish that I had a great explanation for how God's faithfulness works, and I just don't.
I have far more questions than I do answers about what it means for God to be faithful in any given situation. Like I think about sports, and we hear athletes all the time talk about how God was so faithful on the field tonight. I prayed for a win, and God really showed up. I'm like, okay, but so God's hands are just tied when it comes to all of the children dying over the war in Gaza, but when it comes to the baseball field, God is just really, really moving, really working. Like, what does that even mean?
I guess it means God hates the twins, but...Oh! I'm so sorry! I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Too spicy.
But in all seriousness, let's bring it back. In all seriousness, I think it's so important for us to reimagine what God's faithfulness is like. When we hear God is faithful, it's often tied to some grand expression of the things that we desperately want to come to fruition in our lives. We're trained to almost see God's faithfulness as a victory of some sort, and I'm not saying that it can't be those things. Like, if you got that promotion that you really wanted at work, of course you felt a deep sense of God's faithfulness to you in that moment. Of course you did. But perhaps God's faithfulness is just as present in the valleys of life as it is on the hilltops. And if we can only conceive of God's faithfulness as winning or overcoming something, then we will never be able to recognize God's faithfulness in the valleys of our lives. So what if God's faithfulness looks a lot quieter than we thought? What if God is showing up and is active and present even when we don't feel like that's true for us at all?
We're looking at the story of Moses' birth this morning, and it offers us a glimpse of God's faithfulness in a way that I think really deserves our attention. In the opening verses of Exodus, we see that the Hebrew people are thriving, and not everybody is happy about that. We're introduced to a new Pharaoh, and this Pharaoh, the text says, is not aware of Joseph. So this is a new Pharaoh who does not know about Joseph and the way that he rescued the Egyptian people from famine and became the Pharaoh's right-hand man. Enough time has passed where that's not a reality. And so this Pharaoh does not see the Hebrew people as a blessing. In fact, the opposite is true. This Pharaoh sees these people as a threat to his power. He says these people are thriving, and they're having so many children that they're going to eventually outnumber us, and when they do that, they're going to partner with enemy territories, overcome us, and they're going to escape.
So what does he do? He enslaves them and starts to treat them harshly. And if that wasn't enough, he takes it a step further, and he tells the midwives to kill all of the Hebrew baby boys. And so before I even read this passage this morning, I think it's important that we see and listen to this story through the eyes of the oppressed Hebrew people. I believe that one of the best ways for us to understand God's faithfulness is to understand it through the eyes of the oppressed. I think about Metro Search and the immigrant community here in the Twin Cities. I think about our friends at Park Place and what they went through, how they couldn't leave their homes, they couldn't go to school, work, they couldn't go to the grocery store. They were just trapped in their homes and scared.
These families had every right to complain, to be angry, to question God, but as we were on the same routes, I think what most of us witnessed was not complaining or anger. Time and again we heard about gratefulness to God for the blessing of God's faithfulness in the midst of such devastating and horrible circumstances. Sometimes God's faithfulness can look like a gallon of milk, I guess.
That's the sort of thing that we need to pay attention to in a story like this one. When we think of Moses, we typically think of the burning bush or the parting of the Red Sea, but we don't have any of that yet in this story. This story takes place in a deep valley for the Hebrew people. Pharaoh has all of the power, severe mistreatment and persecution loom over the heads of the Hebrews and against all odds were introduced to a mother's love and a baby in a basket. So Exodus 2:1-10 says this:
"Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds in the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and he was crying, and she took pity on him. This must be one of the Hebrews' children, she said.
When his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Yes." So the girl went and called the child's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses because she said, "I drew him out of the water."
In that passage of scripture, how many times did you hear God mentioned? None, right? But if we look closely enough, we can see God's activity all over this story. In verse 2, what we read in English is, "She saw that he was a fine baby." But that's not actually what the Hebrew says. The Hebrew says, "And she saw that he was good." It's the language of creation, right? This is how the creation account expresses God's creative work. God looked at everything God had made and saw that it was good.
And why was it good? Because it was functional, because it had a life-giving purpose. Everything that God made was designed for thriving and flourishing. So this new mom looks at her baby boy and sees a child that is good. She sees a child with purpose. And if we're willing to hear this story through the eyes of the oppressed, through the eyes of the Hebrew people, then what comes to the surface is that Moses' mom is really the God-like figure in this story. She is the creator of what is good. She is birthing life in the midst of Pharaoh's crippling reign.
And it isn't grandiose, and it isn't even all that noticeable. It's a Hebrew mom with absolutely no power, trusting that God can do something with the life of this baby. And so she places Moses in a basket and puts him in the Nile River. And again, the English here really fails us and doesn't do it justice, because the word for basket is actually "arc." It's the same word used in the story of Noah's ark, which is rare in the Old Testament. And just like Moses' mom covers the papyrus, basket, and pitch, Noah also covers the ark and pitch. There's an undeniable parallel there. And so what comes to the surface in both of these stories is that despite the circumstances, God is providing a path towards life. All is not lost for these vulnerable people because God is working on their behalf. God isn't mentioned one time in this text, and yet God is still working. God is still showing up in unexpected ways and through unexpected people.
Sometimes, I'll get asked how I recognize God's faithfulness in my life, especially in some of the darker seasons of my life, like when it comes to some of the rejection that I've experienced with my family. And I like to tell people about the prayer journal that I used to keep a while ago. I kept a prayer journal, and I would write in it every night. And one day, I just decided instead of writing a new prayer, I'm going to go back, and I'm just going to read all of the prayers that I prayed. And what I discovered was that every single one of them had a resolution in some way, and I just didn't realize it in the moment. I had an entry from college about needing some clarity and a safe person that I could talk to about my struggles. And at my conservative Southern Baptist College, they had just so happened to hire the most progressive ally as a guidance counselor that they could possibly find, and she met me at Clemson University, which was 30 minutes away from my campus, just so I felt safe enough to tell her the truth.
So yeah, I could sit around and be bitter and angry about my family, and sometimes I can't. But I've learned over time that even though I don't fully understand how God is faithful, I can rest knowing that God is faithful.
And in those valleys where it's hard to understand, God is still at work. It's the gallons of milk. It's the guidance counselors. It's the papyrus baskets covered in pitch that remind us, "Oh, that is what God's faithfulness looks like." The valley is not devoid of God's faithfulness. It's actually teeming with it if we're willing to look, if we're willing to notice it. And in the story of Moses, perhaps the most unexpected place we find God's faithfulness is through Pharaoh's daughter. It's one thing for Moses to be protected by his own mother, but for the daughter of Pharaoh to step in and have compassion and mercy on this child, it's kind of a plot twist. And she acknowledges that this baby is a Hebrew and then pays his own mom to nurse him and take care of him. I love how God's faithfulness shows up in this story. It is so gritty and grounded. Right there in Pharaoh's palace, his own daughter undermines his authority by showing mercy and compassion to this baby. Pharaoh's very own household ends up preserving the threat that he is so bent on eradicating. That is how the power of God's faithfulness works. And so I can't explain how God's faithfulness works. I just know what it looks like when I see it.
And so when you're in the valley, I encourage you to look for it too. Look for it in the places and the people that the world often ignore. Look for it in the mercy and the compassion of that unexpected neighbor. Look for it in the small ways that life is overcoming death. And I trust that you will meet and experience our faithful God there.
Let's pray. Lord, great is thy faithfulness in both the grand ways and the unassuming. We have gratitude in our hearts this morning that you are with us in every valley. Give us the eyes to see your faithfulness in every season no matter what comes our way. And we pray all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Well, this morning I am excited to invite up Jonathan Bird to share his story with us today. He and his wife, Kendall, and their two daughters, Bernie and Beatrice, are such a blessing to our community. So let's give it up for Jon Bird.
Hills & Valleys Story
Jon Bird: Good morning. There we go. Good morning. Like Justin said, my name is Jonathan Bird. You can call me Jon Bird. Bird and the kids can call me Jono or Mr. Bird. My wife, Kendall, and I, who is up here singing today, we have been, and our two girls who are also with us, Beatrice and Bernadette, or Bea and Bernie, who I'm sure you've all seen running around. We've loved the care you've given them. We've been attending here since the services were moved to mornings last spring. When Justin asked me to speak during our Hills and Valley series, and like many of you, I can think of more than a few hills and quite a few valleys, I wanted to speak on something that propelled me to today, to right here in front of you.
Kendall and I left my childhood church where I was the children's director in late 2017, in the hopes to find something that meshed better with a changing view of our faith and what a church should look like. We found a place that we felt was a better representation of what a church should be. We put a lot of time, love, and tears into that church. As we survived COVID as a church, we found out that the pastor was going through a divorce that split our church in two. There was a lot of he said, she said, making the situation around this relationship and event very hard to parse. Eventually, the board decided that the pastor was fit to return and announced it during service and during that announcement, half the congregation stood up and left and never returned.
After reversing that decision to bring the pastor back and two whole editions of the board dissolving, I decided to put my hat in the ring to be part of the board. If you really want to know the nitty gritty of trying to deal with the bylaws of two different denominations and rule structures, let me know, I can talk about it later.
We tried our best to save that church and it was truly time in a valley. We ran out of money and I had to meet with the pastor individually and tell him we couldn't get him anymore on leave. I felt like a terrible person to have to go and share that news. We got to a point where we weren't able to figure out a way forward. We ran out of money, half of those who were still attending didn't want to move on from the pastor who we really weren't able to bring back and the other half were kind of just done.
We got to the point where we realized we had to close the church down. Another valley. I felt that I didn't do enough, that I could have done a better job. What did I do wrong? I was thinking I failed the church. I didn't match the calling that God had put on me for that moment. And in that moment, had I been unfaithful to God because we were closing down the church or had his faithfulness waned, I didn't know.
We met with the denomination that owned the building and the other building stakeholders and after we were given some assurances and some pretty hard conversations, we were told that the ministry could again one day happen in that building. So we made it official, we voted and the church was dissolved. While I felt at the time and still do feel it was the correct move, I still felt like I had failed. The fact that I had been a part of something that I loved and cared for, it was done.
Kendall and the girls and I tried to find a new church home as we continued to navigate our faith and belief system. We had a hard time finding some place to call home. We visited a few places but none of them felt quite right. We knew that God's faithfulness was around but we had a hard time feeling it. While Kendall and I continued to understand what was next for us, we went to our first pride to volunteer at her company's booth. I decided that this was as good a place as any to find a new church. So I circled all the churches on the list that looked good and decided to visit them. While searching for churches we ran into...
Kendall and I are high school sweethearts. It's a story for another time but a great story nonetheless. We ran into Maggie. We struck up a conversation about looking for a church. We found out they met on Sunday nights and that was not for us. She told us though a little conversation was happening about maybe changing times and changing places. Very interesting for us. And if you haven't figured it out yet, the church that we used to attend was Resurrection, the church that used to be in this building.
In a way that I could not have understood at that time, it feels like it was ordained by God. The valley of closing a church, friends being at each other's throats and losing a church home, the hill that we have been brought to is higher than we could have ever imagined. I wouldn't have thought that I would have ended up in a queer affirming church standing with our community and upholding justice. I cried when I found the table. I had grown up believing that queer people needed to be fixed. Social justice was completed by MLK and we didn't need to bother with it anymore. And Christianity should permeate every part of society and was and is and always has been a Christian nation. That's what I grew up believing.
But at The Table I've been allowed to re-examine my belief structure without judgment. And now the number of people I get to call friends and family and get to love has grown, leaps and bounds. I get to see things from perspectives that I would have never seen and get to learn and love in ways that I never thought possible.
Church for me has always been more than a checkbox that I need to complete every week. This is a place where I can raise kids and love and be loved and build lasting relationships. The last sermon that the associate pastor gave before he left resurrection said that if I get to heaven and God said that I loved too much, so be it.
I want to thank all of you for allowing us to be a part of this community. Being on the board of both the old church and this one has been incredible to have something so hard and sad to come into something so joyful and loving. We closed that church with a prayer that ministry would once again happen and it has. God truly is faithful. Thank you.
Words of Institution
Marta: That's tough to follow. Yeah, when Justin said the "on faithfulness," I like you maybe thought of the song "Greatest Thy Faithfulness," which is 103 years old, a very old song that we sing a lot of times at funerals. I think about a funeral being a hill in a valley in its own way, a celebration of life and also a deep, deep loss, and how it's both at the same time and how it's God's faithfulness that's moving and working, both celebrating the life of those who have gone on but also those who are gathered alongside.
And in the same way at communion, we're carrying a lot of different things, a lot of different hills and valleys individually and as a collective together. And I think about all the little ordinary ways that God is moving right now that maybe we're not aware of, the little things that brought us to the community that we're in, in the situations we're in, things that we may not be able to identify but that knowing that God's faithfulness, morning by morning, we're being aware of new mercies. And so again, that's what I love about communion is because this is something tangible that we all need wherever you are on your journey. We all need food. We all need to stop and pause and refuel and reconnect. And so we celebrate the sacrament every week as an opportunity to recenter, to reset, and to notice how God is continuously at work.
So the way that we celebrate communion here is through intention. So you'll walk up, if you are in front of the orange line, you'll come up to this station. If you're behind, you'll start at the back station, starting with the back row. We'll walk up, take a piece of gluten-free bread and dip it into the cup, which is grape juice, and you'll hear the words, "The body of Christ broken for you and the blood of Christ shed for you." And you can return to your seat through the other aisle. Everybody is welcome at communion wherever you are in your faith journey or not faith journey, no matter how old, no matter how young. There is a seat for you at the table. So I invite you, whether in body and spirit, to please stand and recite the words that Jesus taught us by saying, "Our God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy name and all thy will be thy word."