St. Paul Lutheran Church

Stewardship 2011 - Faith Voyage pt. 1

Faith Voyage

As many of you know, I begin to think (some would say obsess) about the next Stewardship theme even before the last campaign is over.  Last year I was compelled by the fact that “We are saved by the grace of God alone -- not by anything we do.”  This seemed impossible to believe, and frankly, pretty difficult to top as far as themes go… and then I read a passage from a book Pastor lent me.

In his Christmas Book, Martin Luther described the Nativity and something he wrote stuck with me – I’ll paraphrase him … that God and man should be joined in the Child Jesus and that there should be a Virgin birth were not the most amazing Christmas miracles – they were “mere trifles for God”.  The most amazing miracle was that Mary actually believed she was going to give birth to Jesus.  Luther says “had she not believed she could not have conceived.”   The other miracles were that Joseph accepted the word of God and didn’t toss Mary into the street, that the wise men kept their mouths shut and didn’t tell the King where Jesus was and that the shepherds took the word of an Angel as truth and not the after effect of a bad meal or drink.  These people weren’t Pharisees or Kings and most of them weren’t even people of learning, wealth or position and yet each of them had faith that God was delivered to them in the form of a small child and each did whatever it took to make sure that birth happened.

When I look out at all of you now, I see the same kind of amazing faith and determination.  Faith in God, faith in Jesus, faith in each other, faith in a small church with big aspirations….faith that this economy and the challenges of our day-to-day lives will not distract us from what is truly important.

So, if we have faith, why is it also a voyage?

 

 

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