Over a month ago, when I planned worship for today back, I decided, let’s call this Celebration Sunday.  I figured, it’s Labor Day weekend—our last chance to enjoy summer before fall comes.  Technically summer doesn’t end until the autumnal equinox, which this year is on Wednesday, September 22 at 3:21 pm.  So we do have a couple more weeks of summer.  But school has started, the apples are getting ripe, fall is on its way.  Let’s celebrate summer while we can.  Let’s focus on an uplifting scripture, let’s celebrate communion, let’s even have the ice cream truck come to church.  And then, bonus, we found out we could return to Riddle Village for our Sunday evening service.  Because of COVID, we haven’t been there in eighteen months.  I was really looking forward to a special Celebration Sunday today.

But this week has not felt like much of a celebration.  Hurricane Ida packed a punch!  And it’s not just Louisiana that’s been affected.  There has been significant flooding in at least ten states.  Add to that the forest fires in California, refugees coming from Afghanistan who need help, the earthquake victims in Haiti struggling to recover…Here I thought 2021 was going to be a brighter year compared to 2020.  But this week I struggled at times to see the light in the midst of so much darkness.

So I am really glad we are looking at this story recorded in Luke 14 because there is one thing Jesus makes crystal clear:  WE HAVE A CHOICE.  We have a choice, whether or not we will attend the banquet.  The term, “RSVP” is French for repondez, s’il vous plait, which means, “respond please.”  All week long, I felt like Jesus was saying to me, Dorry, I am inviting you to trust me, even when things are hard.  How will you respond?  Dorry, I am inviting you to keep the faith, even when it feels like things will always be hard.  Dorry, I am inviting you to celebrate with me, because I am in the midst of every storm.  YOU HAVE A CHOICE!  Dorry, how will you respond?

We started out the worship service by reading Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  It’s not a well-known passage of scripture.  I always need to consult the index to find it in my Bible!  But I love this verse.  We have been invited to find our seats, now, at a heavenly banquet, and I can picture our Heavenly Father, taking delight in us, and rejoicing over us with singing.  Singing praises to God is one of our favorite ways to worship.  But how often have you thought about God rejoicing over you with singing?  It’s like how we love to sing, “Fly, Eagles, Fly, on the road to victory”, and rejoice over our beloved football team when they win a game.  Only in this case, God rejoices over us because God has won the game:  God has defeated sin and death, and arranged for us to be in communion with him forever.

Although we might not be familiar with Zephaniah, the story is one we already know by heart.  The people of Judah had repeatedly disobeyed the Lord and were being cast out of Jerusalem for their sin.  The first two and a half chapters are all doom and gloom.  But then, Zephaniah suddenly switches gears.  He writes of how God will yet be merciful, how Judah will be restored, how God and God’s people will be reunited, and there will be a beautiful celebration.  Sound familiar?  That’s a lot like Jesus’ message, too.  Zephaniah prophesied that God will quiet his suffering children with his love.  God will rejoice over them with singing.  God will bring them back to a place of beauty and peace.  Today we celebrate God’s grace that provides for us, even when we have sinned.  No matter what happens, there is always reason to celebrate with God.

Now, I know this might sound contradictory after having spent several weeks this summer talking about the idea of lament, and encouraging people to name their sadness and disappointment and fear and shame before the Lord.  Lament is still important.  But our scripture today reminds us that life is a both/and situation.  There is sin to be dealt with—and there is grace.  There is sadness to be mourned—and there is celebration.  There are stark realities that require us to put our faith in action—and there is hope that has nothing to do with our abilities or strength.  The question for today is, will we choose to honor the both/and?  Or will we let the temporary sufferings of this world seduce us into thinking there is nothing to rejoice in any longer?

Next week we will begin our Fall series on the book of James.  I chose as our September memory verse, “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”  That’s James 2:17, and it seemed like a really good verse for us this month, as we get “back to work” after enjoying our summer holidays, and as we anticipate our Help Build Hope weekend coming up from September 24-26.  We will be building all the walls for a Habitat for Humanity House in the parking lot of Lima Church because faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.  By mid-afternoon that Saturday, we will have tangible evidence that our faith is alive:  a few dozen walls, stood up according to the blueprint of the house, ready to be taken to Georgia where they will be used to replace a house destroyed by tornado.  Faith must have works.  It must make a difference.  If it doesn’t result in change, it’s not faith!

But what is also true is, our faith is not dependent upon our goodness.  It’s dependent on God’s goodness!  God’s love is unconditional.  It’s not reserved only for a certain few who can meet stringent criteria.  It’s for everyone!  And it never changes!  It provides for us, even when we sin.  There is always reason to celebrate with God.  We are always being invited to a party!  The question is not IF we will RSVP.  It’s HOW we will RSVP.  Will we respond in faith, and say yes to the fullness of God’s love?  Will we say yes and continue to hope and trust?  Will we say yes, as James says in the opening verses of his letter, and consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds?  Will we say yes with Paul, who was sitting in jail when he wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!” ?

Or will we let the temporary circumstances of this world get us down?  Friends, WE ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE.

I was thinking this week about how there is a lot the pandemic has taken away from us.  Quarantine takes away our freedom of movement, wearing a mask impinges on our ability to breathe easily, constantly changing protocols take away the freedom to make plans for the future, news of ever increasing death tolls and record numbers of hospitalizations chip away at the freedom we once enjoyed to live, for the most part, without having suffering be center stage.  But even when our freedoms are restricted, WE ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE.  We do not have to choose despair.  We can choose to put our trust in God.  We can choose to light a candle in the darkness.  We can choose to join the party, and invite others, too.

Here again, we’ve got a both/and thing going on.  We can make the choice to align our spirits with the Spirit of God, who is Love, Hope, Peace and Joy.  And that choice, to align ourselves with the Spirit of God, does not mean we will not struggle with anxiety, or depression, or physical ailments, or unanswered prayer.  I started out this sermon by saying, this week I have at times struggled to SEE the light in the midst of all the darkness, let alone SHINE the light.  Maybe you have, too.  The question is, what will we do about that?  As I have shared before, I meet with a psychologist every two weeks, I have done that the time I’ve been in ministry.  I see a spiritual director once a month.  Every Thursday I meet with four clergy colleagues on zoom.  We all need support, some of us or maybe most of us at times even need professional support.  We all need healing and loving care and have growing edges and times when the struggle gets the best of us.  Jesus himself told us, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  There is no shame in struggling.  Just the opposite is true.  Jesus says there is a blessing, a sacred gift.

But struggle often makes us feel like victims instead of victors. And what I really want to remind us of today is, we have been invited to the feast!  We are victors!  We may not have been popular in 8th grade, we may have struggled to find a place at a lunch table in the cafeteria our whole lives, but we are invited to sit at God’s table!  We are welcomed, we are received, we are honored.  God is so glad to have us in the mix, God serves us personally.  God waits on us.  God provides for us.  God quiets us with his love and rejoices over us with songs of encouragement, comfort, and praise.  We are not powerless victims.  We are victors through Christ our Lord.  And as victors, WE ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE as to how we will respond to God’s invitation.

At the start of the summer, I wrote a newsletter article and preached about spiritual pathways.  In his book, God Is Closer Than You Think, Rev. John Ortberg says since people are all different, it makes sense that we would connect to God in different ways.  He identified seven spiritual pathways that help us keep, and grow, our faith:

INTELLECTUAL: learning new things is how you hear God best
RELATIONAL: you connect with God best when you are in deep relationships with others.
SERVING: you feel most connected to God when you are serving others.
WORSHIP: you feel closest to God when you are caught up in praising God.
ACTIVIST: you feel most spiritually alive when you are working for a cause.
CONTEMPLATIVE: it takes solitude and quiet for you to feel most connected to God
CREATION: you connect with God most easily when you are enjoying nature.

I thought it would be fun if each of us picked a pathway and tried one new thing this summer to help us grow closer to God.  Then on Labor Day, we could report on what we did and learned.  Two super people in our congregation took me up on that offer, and sent in their “Spiritual Scoops”.  Mike Smith decided to try the service pathway.  He volunteered at the Delco Food Project on Thursday mornings from 9:00-1:00.  He said his experience, “helped me understand how any of us could find ourselves in need and with God’s love we can help and lift each other up.  In the process I gained appreciation and love for people I might not have met and I made many new friendships.”  That’s a pretty good result, don’t you think?

Terry Baidokas decided to try to creation pathway.  She traveled to Iceland with her family where they hiked up the Fagradalsfjall volcano which has been erupting since April 17th of this year.  She said, “Being outdoors and especially being drawn to nature replenishes me, moves my heart, opens my soul and strengthens my faith and brings me closer to GOD.”  She felt God’s power in the face of that volcano, and was struck by its beauty.  Who knew we could be moved to worship by a volcano?

It just goes to show you, WE ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE.  In the midst of struggles of many kinds, we can choose to rejoice.  We can choose to take our seat at the banquet table and allow God to quiet us with love and cheer us on with singing.  We may struggle from time to time, or even all the time!  But struggles do not mean we are victims.  Christ has invited us to share in his victory over sin, death, and despair.  Whether we realize it our not, we are always responding.  But we can always choose to respond with a Yes!, to all God is doing in and through us.

It’s Celebration Sunday.  Fall is on its way.  The seasons are changing.  But God’s steadfast love endures forever.  So let’s rejoice and be glad, because, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God”!  Amen.