Greetings to you in the name of our Lord. Sunday was Pastor Naasz's farewell and Godspeed ceremony. We had one service Sunday morning instead of our usual two and it was really nice to see the church that full. Communion took forever, but that is a great thing. To see so many people all receiving the Lord's body and blood was a beautiful sight. Then we had a lunch and a reception type program where several people spoke and presented gifts to Pastor Naasz and Arlene. During the lunch they had made a slide show of pictures from Pastor Naasz's 32 years of service and it was fun to see. In 32 years he had over 200 baptisms, over 300 confirmation students, over 100 weddings, and over 200 funerals. It was a really nice reception honoring all the years and work he put into his ministry. Then we had the farewell service in the afternoon. Again the church was packed full with over flow seating filled too. He had a really cool sermon all about how he tried his hardest over 32 years to preach the Gospel in it's truth and purity, but his main point of the sermon was that even though he was serving God he also had so much fun just being with the people. He gave examples of having fun with the confirmation kids and Sunday school kids, men's club and LWML, and many other groups and opportunities in the church that he had to really enjoy being with the people of his congregation. It was a really cool sermon and I think was a pretty accurate summary of his ministry. You could tell by all the tears as people gave him hugs on the way out that he was not only a good pastor but a dear friend to so many people. Then we had cookies and coffee after the service where many of the people stayed around to talk to Pastor and Arlene.
Monday morning we had about ten guys from the congregation show up to help pack up Pastor and Arlene into two trailers and they were on the road shortly after ten headed to Pierre where they have a 20 acre farm to now call home. Today we began the prep work for the remodeling of the kitchen in the parsonage and tomorrow they start tearing down walls and getting the place dirty. I have decided upon pastor's suggestion to keep living with the family I have been living with instead of moving into the upstairs of the parsonage while they remodel it. I actually love living with them and they have been so amazing to me; I just did not want to even flirt with overextending my welcome. However, they told me they are happy to have me and told me to stay as long as I need. I am going to stay until at least all the destruction is done at the parsonage and see how the construction is going before making any changes. I truly have been blessed here by everyone from the church taking such good care of me.
My thought for the day is really more of a suggestion. I know this may blow some people's minds away but I recently read the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. I highly recommend every one to read it at least once in their life, if not once every couple of years. He starts out kind of trying to "prove" God has to exist and actually does a really good job of it. His whole basis is on the fact that morality exists among all people of all times. Now it is much more detailed than that, but that is his main thrust. Then he goes on to show how morality actually should look in the Christian perspective. He does such a good job of explaining the life we should be living as Christians and how far off we truly are from living that way. I would like to quote the entire book on here but that would take far too long. One thing I did find funny enough to actually laugh out loud as I was reading it was the idea that Christ did the unexpected. He died and the enemies thought they had won, but then He did the unexpected and rose again. He goes on to show this is really how the Christian church has always functioned. Enemies of the church have been trying to kill it and it's growth for all of time. So he goes on to say that every time a persecution of the church or something major like that happens, just when the enemy thinks Christianity is dead and buried for good it springs back to life. I laughed at his final comment which was "No wonder they hate us so much." We just keep coming back. It's like the game whack-a-mole. You hit one down and two others pop up. But there is truth to it too. God has not let His church die from the beginning of creation. Through all the trials, self-divisions, bad publicity, and persecutions (even the persecution of Christ), the church remains alive today. God is with His church and will not let sin, death, or the devil overcome Him. He is in control of all things and no matter how powerful the devil is, he will never be strong enough to overcome the reign of Christ.
However, the most valuable part of Lewis' book to me was the way he showed that the entire reason we are living this life is to be the creation of God. God made us. He fearfully and wonderfully made us and for the entire purpose of being His people who live a life of being His people. We have our vocations and our unique personalities. We are all made with strengths and weaknesses and will all live very different lives. But the point is that no matter what, no matter who we are, we are His and we need to live according to that truth. This does not mean we all have to be pastors or church workers or give up our careers for full time charity work. While all those things are noble and pleasing to God, so is being a nurse, insurance sales person, banker, grocery store clerk, farmer, teacher, or roofer. We are all different and all have many different vocations. Even besides careers there is mother, father, sister, brother, neighbor, wife, husband, grandma, grandpa, club member, friend, citizen, voter,etc. All of these vocations are important and make you who you are, but the most important thing to remember is that above all of these vocations, above every vocation you will ever have, you are first and foremost a creature of God. You were made by Him and given the very life you have by Him in order to have all your vocations. Then through the gift of faith in His Son by the power of the Holy Spirit we are children of God. We are creatures because He made us, but we are children because He adopted us. Through the work of His Son on the cross and through the empty tomb, He has made us His children and gives us eternal life as our inheritance. So yes we are very different people, but we are all united in the one body of Christ. Paul makes this same point in Corinthians 12 where he states that all believers are the one true body of Christ. There are many different parts but all one body. You cannot have a body of all ears or you would not be able to see. We are such different people and yet we are all here on this earth, all living this life here in the now for one main purpose: to be the children of God. That is the entire purpose of life. We strive everyday to be the faithful people of God, filling our vocations to the best of our abilities in a Christian, faithful, God-pleasing way. Then we have the gift of forgiveness when we fail to live as the people of God. We have His grace and mercy which allows us sinners to remain as the children of God and strive to live for Him again tomorrow. I hope I was not too repetitive, but to me this is so important. Our true identity, our entire purpose of life and reason for being here, is given to us in our relationship with the one true God. That is pretty awesome and fearful all the same time. This is why Luther writes "we must fear, love, and trust in God above all things" as the explanation of the first commandment. I must here note that Lewis is a much better writer than I am though so I truly do want to recommend you read his book. All praise be to the one true God who made us His creatures, all different, but yet who made us His children by adopting us all into the one body of Christ, His Son, our Savor, who has won for us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life. Amen.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you so much for being our Father, our Maker, and our Redeemer. You have given each of us our own talents and gifts and for that we praise You. We ask that You give us Your Spirit to guide us to use those gifts and talents for the highest good. We ask that You give us the strength to live each day as Your creation honoring You and as Your children worshipping You in everything that we do. Thank you so much for giving us Your Son as our Savior, to bring us all untied into the one body of His. Let us be the one true body of Christ, living and working together to help that body grow and to bring the good news of Your gifts of forgiveness and eternal life to all people. And keep us in the one true faith of Your name as long as we live. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
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