Sermon for the 2025 Synod Assembly
St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Mahtomedi
John 1:35-42
Grace and peace to you in the name of the Living God, Christ Jesus, our Lord. AMEN.
I don’t know if I made it to church the first few weeks of my life, but when I was six weeks old, I was brought there for my baptism. Five other infants were baptized that same morning. There at the font our formal story with God began, though surely God was watching and hovering and caring about all six of us long before then.
We have many stories of baptism and first encounters with God in this room. Maybe a college roommate encouraged you to come along on a spring break trip with others in Campus Ministry and somewhere during that week of riding in a van together in Appalachia, or while painting a house for an elderly stranger, who served you iced tea and conversation, or in the middle of the late-night jam session around the firepit at the camp where you were staying, something quickened in you that led to your being here today.
“Come with me,” someone said – “come with me” to the Bible study, the AA meeting, the Wednesday night meal, the Sunday service, and something you didn’t foresee began to take root and grow within you.
Or maybe, you are one of those brave individuals, who convinced yourself to walk through the doors of the church all on your own. I met a man like that at House of Prayer earlier this year. He lives across the street from the church in an apartment complex. One day he showed up alone for worship and rather than staring at him, people came up and introduced themselves and said, “welcome” and he was a stranger no more.
I could say to you that no one intentionally invited me to church and that my family simply did what families did back in the 1950’s. But I know too well the story of my parents, who carried me to church on that first Sunday in November.
My father’s mother died before he started school. For a while he was sent away from his siblings to live with relatives he did not know. A spinster aunt insisted that he be brought back home and she helped her brother raise his three children. My father didn’t read until he was nine. His family spoke German and English at home. But later, as a teenager, he found in Luther League a place he could really belong, and the church was a kind of second home for him the rest of his life.
My mother, growing up on a small farm out in the open country, watched the church she loved blow down in a tornado when she was a girl. It was not rebuilt, and she prayed every night that God would give her a church. When she started high school in town, one of her friends said, “Ruthie, come to Luther League with me.” I bet you can see where this story is headed.
In the Gospel of John, we see how such invitation works. When John the Baptist points out Jesus to two of his disciples, they are curious about him. They want to know where this rabbi is staying and doing his teaching and Jesus says to them, “Come and see.” And as they literally follow him to that place, their relationship with Jesus begins to take root.
In the Gospel text this morning, St. John tells what happened the next day. The very first thing Andrew does is find his brother Peter. And he says, “Bro, you have got to come meet this guy,” and he brought Peter along to meet Jesus for himself. Siblings are like that. Peter would one day be the bishop of Rome – the pope – but long before that vocation was revealed, it was his brother Andrew, who invited him to first meet Jesus.
Today, I can’t help but comment on the recent election of another pope. Who knew that Lutherans in America could be so excited about Leo XIV, but I bet you are as excited as I am?
Here is a world leader, who knows our culture; a Christian of deep faith, who cares about immigrants and those on the margins, who speaks out for peace and justice, who recognizes the inherent dignity of all people, and whose life reflects the Biblical values of humility and compassion. His election was a huge surprise, and it reminds us that God is always at work in ways we may not see; ways that are quite apart from the bluff and bluster – the meanness — of those who greedily think too highly of themselves. When the Pope Leo said – “Give a chance to the God who waits for you without judgment” what can we of the Reformation heritage add — except AMEN?
Friends, we are in a season of focus on each one of us being an inviter for others to discover what God is about in the world today. You know as well as I do, that we no longer live in the world in which I – and many of you – were baptized. We have heard the testimony of Pastor Miguel Gomez-Acosta and how an unplanned encounter can be an opportunity to share God’s love with a broken-hearted person. We have heard Professor Lois Malcolm unpack what it means to unbind the chains that hold people captive. Both have told us that we are but the vessel the Holy Spirit uses and who we are – the stories of our lives – are all we need to be able to say to another person “come with me”… “come and see.”
Nothing ever just happens. Have you figured that out in your life? Behind the ordinariness of our lives is the rich fabric of the lives of those before us and around us. It’s a single woman, who takes on the care of her brother’s three children. It’s a high school freshman, who is the answer to prayer when she says to a new classmate, “Come to church with me”. It’s the people who cross the sanctuary to introduce themselves to a man they do not know, and who later make room at the coffee hour for him to sit with them. No big deal – no sermon, no angry words of judgment — simply God’s good news for all being made known. God’s love for all. God’s mercy and care for all. God’s fierce commitment to justice and compassion for all.
In about a minute we are going to sing one of my favorite hymns. With all of us standing shoulder-to-shoulder – with all these extraordinary musicians and choir – our voices will reverberate so that we are not singing alone but we are caught up in the song of this whole assembly. I’m going to come up the aisle and ask you to scooch together – you do know how to scooch? — so that I can actually feel your singing in my body. You’ll feel it, too.
When we begin to sing, I want you to remember the people whose faith helped carry you to this day. And then as we sing on through the verses, I invite you to open your heart to the ways God will use you to invite others into life in Christ. Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Bishop Patricia Lull
May 17, 2025
