Epicurious Lutheran

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Saturday night, I had the privilege of watching the stage production of “Come from Away” (comefromaway.com) at Shea’s 710 Theater (www.sheas.org/710-theatre). Sami and Tom Wnek recommended it after seeing it themselves. Wow! What a show!

If you aren’t familiar with “Come from Away,” it’s the story of the community around Gander International Airport in Newfoundland. As you know, when 9/11 happened, many airplanes were in the air when the airspace across the United States was closed forcing planes to land quickly. This airport was used to receiving 6-10 flights each day. On 9/11, they received 38 planes that were diverted to Gander. This community of Gander had a population of about 9,000 people, but the planes that landed there carried about 7,000 people about doubling their population.

Planes were landing full of people who knew little, if anything, about the events that had transpired while they were in the air. What a moment for the people of Gander! How would they meet this moment? The people of Gander had decisions to make about how they would treat the “plane people,” the people who had “come from away” (which is the Newfoundlander phrase for anyone not from the island). In that moment, they decided to treat them not as a problem or as strangers, but as unexpected and welcome guests. They chose to focus on what was most important despite the deficiencies and what seemed an impossible task.

How were they to gather all the needed supplies, shelter everyone, feed everyone, care for everyone, transport everyone? At the time, there was a bus strike. Without buses, how do people move around? The people involved in the dispute agreed that their disagreement was with each other and not with the people who “came from away.”

Then the cast of “Come from Away” sang words that linger in my heart and mind: “You are here at the start of a moment, on the edge of the world.”

When we are at the start of a moment – on the edge of something – how do we meet that moment? What rises to the top as what is most important? It doesn’t mean other things in our lives are not important. The differences we all had before 9/11 were still differences, but, especially in that moment, other things mattered more.

As I experienced “Come from Away” on Saturday night, in addition to completely changing my sermon for Sunday, it brought me back into the moment of 9/11 and it also brought me back into the scriptures. It called to mind the manyexamples throughout the Bible of people who were “at the start of a moment, on the edge of the world!”

The gospel that served as the basis for this sermon is from St. Luke chapter 20. In chapter 22, Jesus is arrested. In chapter 23, Jesus is crucified. So, the people we’re reading about were living in a moment because this was the end of Jesus’ life and ministry. People were growing increasingly angry with Jesus and His message. The Sadducees were religious leaders who were focused on and limited by their understanding of the Torah, which is the first five books of the Hebrew Bible – what we call the Old Testament. They aligned themselves with Roman authorities to maintain their position of power and influence. They did not believe in the resurrection of the dead … life after death. So, why would they ask Jesus a question about the circumstances of a woman in the resurrection? They set the scene for Jesus of a woman who had been married to seven brothers – only one of them at a time. After all of them had died, they asked, “Whose husband is she in the resurrection?”

Many of us have questions about what happens after this life and what our relationships will be, and maybe even whether heaven is real. These are important questions. In the midst of the Sadducees trying to entrap Jesus and in the midst of the anxiety and anger of the time, Jesus cut through it all to share the truth that, here, in this moment, the message is that our God is a god of life and not death. Our God is a god of the living and not the dead.

The Sadducees were stuck by their understanding of what they thought was important and limited by what they thought was possible at the start of this moment as they were on the edge of the world. Do you know what happened to the Sadducees? Do you know any Sadducees today? Their faith and practices were so tied to the Temple that, when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, they didn’t … or couldn’t … adjust. No matter how hard they tried and no matter how much they wanted to survive, they eventually ceased to exist. Their views on what was most important blinded them to the fact that, with Jesus, everything was changing … they were at the start of a moment.

Today … and, frankly, every day … you and I live and observe the start of many moments; some feel like they even put us on the edge of the world. As we celebrate Veterans Day this week, we remember in our prayers and with our thanks the veterans who have endured many moments and likely have felt on the edge of the world serving our country. We celebrated with the Hunt family as Aberdeen Amity was baptized into Christ. We shared our Statements of Intent as we made good and faithful guesses about how much we could give in gratitude and thanksgiving for the work of the church, fully realizing that circumstances could change over the next year affecting our ability to give what we intended. We are thankful for the gift of music, through Kristen, Justin, Erin, our choirs, through the people who presented “Come from Away,” and through the gifts of composer, Caroline Mallonée, who was with us in worship.

You and I … we are here at the start of a moment, on the edge of the world. Yes … there are many unknowns … there are real limitations … but there is also hope! There are ways in which the impossible becomes possible as we join together as a matter of who we are. We are people who follow Jesus who is the god of the living … the god of life. This is the start of a moment. How do you and I get the opportunity to meet this moment with love, faith, and hope?

In the name of Jesus. Amen!