Sermon for 4th Pentecost
Just Get into the Elevator
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
This Wednesday, June 23, 2021, marks the 45th anniversary of my ordination as a Lutheran pastor.
I was ordained on June 23, 1976, with 8 others by Bishop Wilson E. Touhsaent, who had been pastor of my home congregation, Atonement Lutheran Church in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, before he became the first bishop of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod in 1968. I have always considered Bishop Touhsaent my spiritual father. Assisting Bishop Touhsaent was the Rev. Harold S. Weiss, who at that time was the synod secretary and would become the synod bishop after Touhsaent’s retirement in 1983. In that year I would join Bishop Weiss’ staff as one of his bishop assistants.
But in June of 1976 Kris and I had just moved to Catasauqua, Pennsylvania where I had been called to be pastor at Holy Trinity Memorial Lutheran Church. I had begun serving the congregation a few weeks before my ordination and my new church members kindly chartered a bus to bring members from Catasauqua to the ordination. My ordination sponsor was the pastor of my home congregation, the Rev. Richard L. Lundin. He and his wife, Lucy, were among Kris’ and my guests at the ordination. My parents and brother were there also as well as my Aunts Edna and Ruth.
My hair was already thinning in the photo of the nine of us ordained that evening at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. Today that photo is sobering in that at least three of those pictured have now died.
This year, 2021, Mt. Olive had planned a celebration for my 45th ordination anniversary on this very Sunday, June 20, but then COVID-19 happened. We are now planning to celebrate this fall, on Sunday, October 31, Reformation Sunday, in-person at our 9:00am worship service. Everyone is invited to join us.
It is funny what I remember from my ordination service this many years later. One of my Muhlenberg College Jewish friends was at my ordination and told me afterwards that it reminded him of a fraternity initiation. He meant it as a complement, and I took it that way.
What I remember most from that long-ago ordination evening is the sermon peached by the Rev. Elton P. Richards, Jr., then pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Reading, Pennsylvania. In his sermon Pastor Richards remembered an elderly pastor friend who had told Richards that he loved to play card games, but had to do it in secret, drawing all the blinds closed in his home, because of his small-town community opposition to anyone playing cards, especially a pastor.
It seems now hard to believe, but even in the mid-20th century there were areas of this nation where card playing and public dancing were forbidden or, at least, frowned upon.
Reflecting on what the elderly pastor had said, Pastor Richards called on us to live our lives as pastors “with the blinds open,” not afraid of criticism or opposition from others, sharing ourselves with others in our congregation and community. Pastor Richards challenged us nine ordinands and everyone present that evening not to live in fear.
I have tried to live my life as a pastor “with the blinds open.” I have tried to be a person who does not live in fear of what others might think.
Over the years I have also learned a few things – I like to take my ministry seriously, but not myself. I try to remember, especially now as an older, white male heterosexual, I try to remember to listen more and talk less, to shut-up and listen. I have always known that God’s love for everyone is wide and deep and know that even more now.
I believe in heaven and the heaven I believe in is open to everyone. I cannot imagine heaven without my non-Christian friends. I agree with ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaten that if hell exists, it is not populated.
One hard lesson for me is this – EVERY time I have reacted in righteous indignation to some person or situation, I have been WRONG. Every time.
My years of ministry well exemplify the clique – “Want to make Gd laugh, tell God your plans.” I never expected any of the calls which followed my first – a member of the synod staff, a leader of the national church, pastor of one of the largest Lutheran congregations, an officer of a large multi-faith media coalition, and this wonderful call here at Mt. Olive. Want to make God laugh, tell God your plans!
My ministry has taken me across the USA and around the world. I have led hurricane rebuilding trips to Honduras and Nicaragua, met with Presidents and Princes and Popes and Patriarchs and Archbishops, taught in Madagascar and South Africa, travelled multiple times to Jerusalem and the West Bank, and visited hunger relief projects in Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia, as well as around the USA.
Along the way, people in every one of my ministry calls have been kind and accepting. And thankful and supportive. I have even found my picture on the side of a Santa Monica bus!
I have tried to live my life with the blinds open.
And, at best, and thinking of today’s gospel lesson, I have tried to be a pastor, a person, who does not live in fear, a person not afraid to get into the “elevator” of ups and downs that life brings.
I have tried to be a person not afraid to get into the elevator of life and that led me once into a very unusual actual elevator experience.
Let me explain:
Before moving to Santa Monica, Kris and I lived four years in New York City, first on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a wonderful place to live. Our first apartment was in a fairly new high-rise building on the back corner of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
The apartment building was located at 110th Street & Morningside Avenue right next to Morningside Park, just several blocks from the top of Central Park. Our apartment was on the 8th floor, high enough to block most of the street noise. We really enjoyed living there. I could easily walk to my office which was just about 15 blocks away.
One morning I was waiting on the 8th floor for the elevator. When the elevator door opened, I was faced with an alarming site. In the elevator to my left were three young women, one visibly near the end of her pregnancy, all looking very frightened. And, in the elevator to my right was a young man, shoeless and naked except for his underwear. He was holding a screaming baby, a baby only loosely clothed in a cloth diaper.
“Get in the elevator,” the man snarled at me.
Now, my first reaction, my fear reaction was understandably NOT to get into that elevator. The man looked very dangerous, and the women appeared to be in fear of him. And I had only seconds to make a decision before the elevator door would close.
Quickly, I saw the fear in the eyes of the women to my left. And a panicked look in the man’s eyes.
I jumped onto the elevator and the door closed.
As soon as we reached the first floor, the man with the baby, the man with no shoes and only dressed in his underwear briefs, this man ran out the door of the building, heading around the block with the child.
The women and I quickly exited. The pregnant woman looked at me with fear and worry. Quickly the full story poured out. The man had jumped into the elevator with his sick baby. He had tried to call an ambulance, but his telephone had not worked in the elevator. Without thinking, the pregnant woman had given him her phone and taken his. And now the man and the baby had run from the elevator, with her telephone, the telephone with her husband’s and all of her emergency numbers. And her baby was due that week.
“What can I do?” she asked.
I was pretty sure that he went running to the emergency room at St. Luke/Roosevelt Hospital, since St. Luke/Roosevelt Hospital was just 3 blocks away.
“Let’s go,” I said. “I will go with you to get your telephone back.”
So, off we went to that hospital. Now, I was not dressed in my clerical collar, but, somehow, I convinced the guard to let us into the hospital and even to let us into the emergency room bay where the young man’s child was already receiving life-saving care. The young man was terribly embarrassed by all that had happened and greatly relieved to exchange telephones with the pregnant woman.
The woman and I headed off to our respective offices. I never learned the names of any of the folks I met that day, but I did hear that the baby fully recovered.
“And leaving the crowd behind, the disciples took Jesus with them in the boat, just as he was.”
So writes St. Mark in our Gospel lesson for today. And since you have just heard me read the full lesson, you know what happens next - a great windstorm, a swamped boat, and frightened disciples. And a Jesus who even the wind and sea obey.
Sometimes you and I, we just need to have faith and get into the boat, to follow Jesus where Jesus leads us.
Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes writes these words:
““They took Jesus with them in the boat, just as he was.”
“Not the holy, jewel-encrusted Jesus, not the Son of God believe-it-or-else Jesus, but the teacher from Galilee, plain, just as he is.
“No emblems, no gesture, no crown. No doctrine, no special powers. Just Jesus’ presence, his open heart, his willing flesh.
Let Jesus go with you. Take him as he is. Jesus will change your journey. You may still be frightened, but just get in the boat.”
Not fear, but trust and faith. Just get in the boat.
Not fear, but trust and faith. Just get in the boat.
And sometimes you also just have to get into that elevator.
Amen.
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
June 20, 2021
