Quite often someone will tell me, “Sounds like you got a sermon in there.”
Usually they are referring to something in our conversation. And it might be just about anything. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about fishing, hunting, car repair, gardening, carpentry, splitting wood, or any number of topics, but seemingly out of the blue that comment will arise—“sounds like a sermon in there.” And that is very interesting to me.
Whether it is a member of the church I serve, another congregation, or a member of the community, they find an opportunity to share that comment with me. Of course they know my vocation is to be a pastor and therefore I write sermons.
If they are members of Bethlehem and have experience of my sermons, they know that I strive to be a preacher focused on the Word of God and so the Bible is the major resource in my communications in newsletters or sermons whether on Wednesday evenings or Sunday mornings. But invariably the comment, “sounds like a sermon in there,” comes up when we are not talking about the Bible, or even anything commonly thought of as sacred or holy. And that is very interesting to me. It tells me a lot about the spiritual connections we all make with the world around us.
“There is a sermon in there.” That comment also happened when I was talking about one of my favorite topics—honeybees. Recently I was describing my joy at taking on beekeeping as a hobby. For four years now I have been in the process of trying to raise bees and have been meeting with some success and a whole lot of fun.
And I must add that this is not an easy geography in which to do so. Our cold, long winters make beekeeping particularly challenging.
Other parts of our country however experience worse challenges which are absolutely disastrous and quite often of human origin.
I was describing to a friend the huge losses commercial and hobby beekeepers are experiencing nationwide due to various diseases and stressors caused by pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals or invasive species of parasites, of mites or fungi. I then went on to praise the vigilance of the Thunder Bay Beekeeper Association that has been able to set up an unofficial quarantine area which has been free of mites for over 30 years.
Therefore the Cook County Hobby Beekeepers have made a commitment to order bees only from our friends in Thunder Bay and enjoy the benefits of healthy, strong bees. We know and trust our source for honeybees. “Sounds like a sermon in there.”
And I saw right away that my friend made the spiritual connection. I thought I was talking about bees. He heard a metaphor of his life and his need to focus on God, his need to resist the commercialization of life, the materialism that infects our spirits, and his need to turn to trusted friends and resources. Did I say all that? No, but he heard all that.
And that is not an isolated kind of experience. Therefore I know that you also “have a sermon in there.”
Every one of us is surrounded by examples of grace and providence. We see it in the beauty of God’s creation. We witness it in the kind and generous actions of friends and strangers, and we feel it in the happenings of daily life. And then we have an opportunity to “preach it” to ourselves or with another. And sometimes it takes that other person listening to point it out to us. It may happen when you are talking about an accident you survived, or it may be about something unique you have witnessed, and it may be in the most commonplace actions of all. Suddenly in the middle of daily living God will connect the dots so to speak and you will be given a truth to ponder or a reason to give thanks and praise.
Of course the “sermons” life delivers to you are not always warm and comfortable. Sometimes God gives us wisdom in the midst of the troubles we have brought on ourselves or received from others. Plenty of people have described to me the dark valleys they have found themselves in and how they recognized that God was somehow walking with them all the way to a new clearing or mountaintop. They heard a warning delivered in hard times, they found “the sermon in there,” and sought to share it with others.
Thank you for listening from your soul. Together we do a better job of listening to what God is telling us. I believe God’s gospel and law are being spoken around us continually if we have ears to hear. I look forward to your stories and God’s wisdom we can share.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week our contributor is Reverend Mark Ditmanson of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.
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