Let the Rocks Be Silent!!

Today you will hear a couple of “crazy faith” stories from members of our congregation.
Why? Because without crazy faith, there can be no movement, no transformation, no change.
We are in a wonderful yet critical time of our life as a church, a fork in the road, so to speak. God is calling us to move, to be transformative in what we do and how we do it, and in order to do that, we will have to have …crazy faith.
I shared in Wednesday afternoon Bible study that the one thing that makes me crazy is for people to say what we cannot do. I know there are limits based on money and resources, but there is also God, a God who tells me we can do all things, no matter the obstacles.
From the very beginning of our existence, we had great limitations over which hovered a great God. There were rumors that we would fall off the map and doubts that we could survive a number of different experiences we had. Yet, God hovered and we persevered.
What have we learned? For the few who have been here from the beginning, we have learned that with God, nothing is impossible. Things have looked bleak, like they did for the woman in 1 Kings 4 who, though she had “just a little oil,” was told to collect jars and fill them with oil in order to pay her bills. Whatever doubts and concerns she had, she put them aside and did as she was told, and God blessed her. God stood Ezekiel before a field, a valley of dry bones and asked the prophet if the bones could live, and though Ezekiel most probably believed that those bones could not live, he yielded the floor to God, so to speak, prophesied to the bones as God commanded, and saw life come from death.
We are not dead, far from it, but we are being called to greater vitality. We are being called to heights that are so far beyond what any of us can imagine …and yet the call is there. And so I ask you to listen today, to internalize just a tad of crazy faith, and hold on even as you ride.
I am in Washington D.C. today but this is the last Sunday I will be out for 2010. Though I need to go out to make more money, I also need to do my work here. I have to have crazy faith, too, or, I should say, more faith than I have. God is, and God always has been …so there’s no reason for me to believe that God will not continue to be.
My prayer is that Advent UCC enter this new chapter of the book that is being written about how faith works with excitement and fervor. God did not put us here to languish. God put us here …and has kept us here…to show how good God is. If we do not do what God is calling us to do, the very rocks will cry out.
O rocks, be silent!
Pastor Smith