Monday, June 24, 2013

Pentecost 6 C - 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21
There’s no going back to the plow once the yoke has been burned and the oxen have been eaten. Jesus makes the same observation in reverse, “no one who puts their hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service…” (Luke 9:62) The point being when God calls you are either all in or you’re out. I had the privilege to preach at the ordination of Calvary's former intern and now Pastor Alex Hoops on Saturday. As I write this he and Emily and daughter Amelia are in route to Minot, North Dakota (via Indiana) where he has been called as the Associate Pastor of Bread of Life Lutheran Church. For a boy from Florida that’s like burning the yoke and boiling the oxen. Why Not Minot? Because the fields are ripe for harvest in North Dakota but in this day and age the harvest is in the oil boom that has brought workers from all over the country and so God has called Alex as an evangelist to speak the Gospel to the faithful of Bread of Life Lutheran but also to the lonely far from home who might not know how hungry they are for the bread of life that satisfies. Emily (who speaks Spanish which will come in handy for the large population of migrant workers) is a co-worker in the Gospel, and an evangelist in her own right through whom the love of God shines without the need of translation. And so it is with all of us who are called to follow and not look back trusting that as long as we have breath in our body God has placed us where we need to be to do the work that needs to be done. That being said I am glad God called me to Texas.

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