Worship > Sermon Archive

The Reverend Beth Fain

February 17, 2008

Lent 2a RCL: Knit one, yarn over, knit, knit, knit-create a Church
(Genesis 12. 1-4a) (a children's sermon)

Our lesson from Genesis stops a half a verse too soon.
For those of you who were following along in the Bible when the lector read our lesson, what did our lectionary leave out? Yes. Abram is 75 years old when he left Haran. 75!
Abram and his family had already traveled about 1000 miles west from Ur to Haran.
His father, Terah, started the journey to Canaan with Abram, Abram's wife Sarai, and Terah's grandson, Abram's nephew, Lot. For whatever reason, Terah decides they've gone far enough, and they settle in Haran. The family accumulates a lot of possessions. Terah dies in Haran.
God comes to Abram and tells him that he has not yet traveled far enough.
Abram's not finished yet.
Abram needs to get on the road with Lot and Sarai and all their Haranian possessions and not stop and settle until God tells him to.
As an incentive, God does tell Abram all the good things he will receive because of going where God tells him to go.
His little family, just him and his wife Sarai, will become a great nation.
Lots and lots of people.
Even though they haven't had any children yet.
Even though Abram's 75 years old and Sarai is well past child-bearing years.
God tells Abram that he will be blessed.
That whoever blesses Abram and Abram's descendents will be blessed, too.
On the flip side, whoever curses Abram and Abram's descendents will be cursed back.
He also tells Abram that through Abram the whole world will be blessed.
Abram gets to decide, at 75 years of age, whether or not he wants to step out in faith and trust God.
He does for the next 600 or 700 miles.
Kept traveling, probably asking God over and over, "Are we there yet?"
until he gets to the land of Canaan and God says, "This is the place."
We heard today about another man who stepped out in faith.
Nicodemus is a man who has done well for himself among the most orthodox of the Jewish tradition.
He's heard about the great things Jesus has done-specifically turning water into wine and cleaning up the improprieties being done in the Temple.
God tickles Nicodemus' imagination-maybe God has more for him.
Nicodemus steps out and goes on a secret night journey to seek out Jesus.
Could there be anything more for him?
Yes, Jesus says.
From the beginning of time.
God has loved the world, the whole world, no exceptions, so much that he wants each of them, each of us to have absolute fullness of life, blessed, active, vigorous, devoted to God life ever and forever, always, and ever more shall be.
Or as we know it: 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
But don't stop there:
"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world, (the whole world), might be saved through him."
Abram, stepped out in faith and, through him, the whole world will be blessed, Nicodemus stepped out in faith and learned that, through Jesus, the whole world might be saved.
What in the world happens when we step out in faith?
How often do we allow ourselves to step out beyond our safe zone and go to an uncertain land? To be blessed. To be saved.
Neither Abram or Nicodemus had any idea where they would end up.
Both risked uncertainty to go to the next place that God would send them.
They took one step, and then another, and then another….and at some point ended some place new.
Then God called them out to take yet another step and another and another.
On my birthday trip to Nova Scotia I stepped out and started knitting a shawl that has taught me about that step by step by step spiritual growth that leads to some place new.
I started the shawl with about 7 balls of yarn that was called, I'm not kidding, Grace.
The shawl pattern is very, very easy.
It starts with casting on 3 stitches.
Then knitting those three stitches.
And then it begins to grow.
Each row you make an additional stitch with a "yarn over" on the second stitch.
Row by row, one stitch extra at a time it grows.
Until it looks like this.
This shawl is not only a metaphor about how God causes spiritual growth in us, one step at a time.
It is even more for me a metaphor about how God grows the Church.
Three stitches, God, the Trinity.
The basis of God's Church.
Father. Son. Holy Spirit.
One person at a time, one by one by one, the church grows.
When I saw that there wasn't going to be enough Grace yarn to finish the shawl, I bought some more.
This time I intentionally chose several different balls of yarn called Be Sweet that is made by a women's cooperative in South Africa that enables these women to have a meaningful livelihood, with the bonus of some of the proceeds going to local schools.
Fraught, I'd say. Yarn that was beautiful, but gives back.
I continued to knit, now using a diversity of yarns, row by row, stitch by stitch, until I had this shawl.
Today each of us is invited to grow our faith, one stitch at a time, using a diversity of resources.
Today each of us is also invited to grow St. Mary's, one person at a time, by each of us inviting one friend or neighbor or coworker or family member, a diversity of people, to come with us to church. Each week. Especially during Lent.
Especially for Easter.
So today I'm starting another shawl.
That you're going to help finish.
I'm using a St. Mary's blue yarn.
It's actually called Baghdad Blue from a yarn company called Peace Fleece.
All the proceeds from the sale of Baghdad blue, the color of the late afternoon sky shortly after the snow clouds have broken, are donated to the Palesatinian/Israeli village of Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salaam.
I'm starting it with three stitches.
Father Son and Holy Spirit.
Then I knit, knit, knit.
Then I start another row. Knit, make one new stitch, knit to the end of the row.
I'm going to pass this project around.
Anyone who knows how to knit can grow this shawl.
If you don't know how to knit, perhaps you can help pay for the yarn.
Or maybe you can crochet.
Or you can pray.
Or you can do whatever you do best.
But one by one by one.
We grow the shawl.
We grow our faith.
We grow the Church.
AMEN

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