Rally Day Reflections: Embracing Discipleship and Community

Foreign.

Thank you for engaging with the homily by Pastor Chill Will from

Chapel Hill.

I hope this message encourages you, challenges you, and moves you

to go deeper in your faith and enrich how you love God and love

your neighbor in your day to day life.

Just a reminder.

Like the scriptures and gospels themselves, this homily was

written for a particular community in a particular, particular

context, time in history.

And yet, like our sacred texts, I hope that these words hold

timeless truths about God's unconditional love and grace.

We hope these words speak to you in a meaningful way.

I'm so excited.

So at rallies, you know, as someone who grew up at the beach,

someone who loves waves, I think for rally day we need to make

a wave in church.

Don't you think you're gonna start over here?

You don't have to stand up.

You just kind of go like, woo.

All right.

Oh, that's a little baby wave.

Look, that's the precursor.

You ready?

Here we go.

Ha.

Now you guys participate too.

Go like this.

You ready?

We'll start down here.

We'll see if the wave gets going from this way.

All right, you ready?

Everybody say, like, rally day as your wave goes.

You ready?

Man, we're getting these Lutherans awoken up this morning.

All right, so I think of rally day.

I think of cheers and waves.

I'm thinking of what would be a good rally or a cheer that Jesus

would create.

Are you guys ready for this?

I think I got one in my head.

You ready?

Here we go.

Ha ha, ha ha ha.

I'm better than you.

Sick burn.

No.

Does that match up with Jesus?

How about this one?

Na na na na na.

I am better than you.

You think Jesus would have any kind of nana Nana cheers.

What would his cheer more be like?

What do you think his cheer would be like?

If we know Jesus and learn about Jesus and go to Sunday school

and hear those stories and think about how Jesus lived in the

world, what would be a cheer that he has?

What do you think?

All right.

Treating everyone equally.

I love that one.

There you go.

Someone who's been listening to the Jesus story.

So be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're equal in God's

sight.

Would that be it?

Kind of, sort of a little.

We're getting there.

We're getting there.

All right.

What do you.

About including people?

All right, I'm getting stuff everywhere, and that's okay.

We'll clean that up later.

All right, here we go.

How about like, yay, yay, yay.

Everyone's included in God's grace and love.

Now I'm going to teach a parable about that.

You think that would work?

Yeah, we're getting there.

What's another one?

All right.

Okay.

What do you think?

What do you say?

Oh.

Oh.

Everybody's loved and everyone is in my heart.

That is beautiful.

So we're just gonna do this.

When I go, like, everyone is loved.

Everyone's in my heart.

You ready?

You gotta say it with me.

All right.

Everyone is love.

Everyone's in my heart.

Everyone's in my heart.

Everyone is loved.

I think that.

I think that works.

I think we'll land there.

How about that?

Okay.

Today is rally day, and it's a day that we kick off Sunday school

and faith formation opportunities where we learn about

Jesus and these stories, how everyone is loved and welcomed on

God's team.

So I want you to really listen and pay attention, not just in church,

but also in Sunday school and other areas of your life where Jesus

and God is teaching us to be his followers and disciples.

We call it faith formation because we're being shaped to being

like Jesus in the world.

Thank you for helping me out and learning about Jesus, just as

we teach Jesus to you.

You helped teach me about Jesus too.

The Holy Gospel according to Luke.

Now, large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned

and said to them, whoever comes to me and does not hate father

and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life

itself cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my

disciple.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit

down and estimate the cost to see whether he has enough to complete

it.

Otherwise, he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish.

All who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, this fellow

began to build and was not able to finish.

Or what king going out to wage war against another king will not

sit down first and consider whether he is able with 10,000, to

oppose the one who comes against him with 20,000.

If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends

a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

Oh.

Therefore none of you can become my disciple if you do not

give up all your possessions.

Gospel of the Lord.

Thanks to you, O Christ, you may be seated.

In the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Happy rally day.

Oh, I'm sweating a little bit running around, I gotta say.

Yeah.

But I'm feeling.

I'm excited about today.

It is indeed one of my favorite days of the church year

around here.

At Holy Trinity.

Now granted, this day isn't a high feast day on the church wide

liturgical calendar like Christmas and Easter and Pentecost

or even Reformation Day.

But we do this every year here at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and

Lutheran Campus Ministry at the start of the fall semester to

kick off Sunday School and to rally around faith formation opportunities

within our community of faith.

This past week I did some reflecting on Rally Day and rallies

in general, especially when it comes to sports.

There's no escaping the hype and attention given to the kickoff

of college and pro football, especially this season in our neighborhood.

There is a gravitational pull for pulling for certain teams that

we are invested in or loyal to.

We often get our team spirit and loyalties from our family and

our hometowns and where we spend our money for education.

Of course, there are healthy and not so healthy rivalries and

it's hard not to get pulled into the game and competition of

who is best or which team is better than the other my team or

your team.

It wasn't that long ago when I was getting to know someone a little

better and they felt safe enough to reveal to me that they

were a NC State fan and my unconscious response was kind of

like, oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, it's not healthy.

My dad was a UNC grad and he brainwashed us.

Carolina blue.

We never ever pulled for the other shade of blue that's just down

the street.

Even when they were playing other non conference teams in the

NCAA tournament, we just like to watch them lose.

I was brainwashed so deep that when Coach K became the coach for

the USA Olympic team, it was actually hard for me to pull for

the USA during the Olympics.

Maybe a bronze medal isn't that bad.

I know, I know.

It's really bad.

It's really unhealthy.

It's more of a reflection on me and toxic fandom than anything

else.

So Coach K, if you're watching online, I've grown since then.

I promise.

I promise.

In our daily lives we must acknowledge the human pursuit of

of the game, of winning and losing, choosing and deciding winners

and losers and who we're going to pull for and root for.

Now, I agree.

Competition in and of itself is not necessarily bad.

I love sports.

I love thrilling competition.

I have three fantasy football teams that I'm following today on

my phone.

And yet, as your pastor, I want to help you and encourage you

to not allow toxic fandom or the game of choosing winners and

losers to slip into your spirituality and discipleship.

Our scripture lessons this morning hold up A mirror that challenge

us to reflect on our loyalties and our commitments, to wrestle with

the question of who we are truly pulling for or loyal to.

When I read the Scriptures on my own and in community, I constantly

ask and I'm challenged with who does Jesus pull for?

Who does Jesus rally around?

Does God Jesus play the game of winners and losers, of who's in

and who's out?

How do we relate to one another even with those who are different

than us or see the world differently than me or pull for a

different team than me?

Now, it's not every Sunday that we read an entire book of the

Bible during worship.

That's exactly what we did.

This morning.

Sylvia read St. Paul's short letter to Philemon.

You should feel a sense of accomplishment.

This morning we read an entire book of the Bible.

We even added the last three verses.

That isn't in the lectionary just so we could say we read the

whole letter in church today, a large part of the New Testament

is reading someone else's mail.

It's largely consisted of St. Paul's correspondence to different

churches and communities who are trying their best to understand

what it means to follow and believe in Jesus and how this young

church claim who claims Jesus to be the Christ follows this Christ

who lived and died and rose again from the dead.

St. Paul writes this short letter to Philemon from prison, and

the whole point of this letter is to appeal on behalf of a runaway

slave named Onesimus.

Unlike other letters from St. Paul, this simple, straightforward

letter contains no major christological images or themes or

Nor does Paul spend a lot of time trying to wrap his head and

heart around the mystery of the Trinity and what the resurrection

of the dead could look like.

Rather, his straightforward purpose is to ask Philemon and the

members of his household church to welcome back Onesimus not

as a slave, but rather as a brother in Christ.

Now, we don't know all the details of why Onesimus is no longer

with Philemon or how Paul ended up meeting and partnering with

Onesimus.

But from the letter we can infer that these three Paul, Philemon

and Onesimus became providentially connected in their

faith in Jesus and in claiming Jesus to be the crucified and risen

Christ.

Because of that, they are bonded and connected in a new way,

in a new, liberating way.

Not wasting any time, Paul gets to the heart of the matter.

I am appealing to you for my child, Onesinus.

Formerly.

Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful

to both you and me.

And there's A play in words here, because Onesimus's name in

Greek means useful.

I am sending him that is my own heart back to you.

No longer as a slave, but more than a slave, as a beloved brother,

especially to me now, but much more to you, both in the flesh and

in the Lord.

Now, this short correspondence letter doesn't solve the problem

of slavery being a reality in the Bible.

Nor does it relieve the tension that the Bible has historically

been used to both justify slavery and the rejection of slavery.

But there is a reason that the early church put this short letter

in the canon of Scripture.

Within the tension of messy relationships and power systems that

pit classes and status and so called winners and losers against

each other.

Paul is not afraid to go there, to lean into the tension,

to set a vision of kinship and equality within the Christ who challenged

and flipped over norms and relationships and systems that pushed

people to the margins.

I confess that if I were to pick the scripture lessons for Rally

Day, the ones we read this morning were probably not at the

top of the list.

But they do hold up a mirror.

They do challenge us to move out of complacency and where we are

comfortable in our faith and push us into areas where we're called

to move and grow.

How is our faith in Christ and following Christ pushing us to see

the world differently?

We see others differently.

I wish I knew the rest of the story and how things went down with

Onesimus and Philemon.

I wish I knew if they reconciled or not.

Perhaps there was a hackley ever after ending in their relationship

and then that house church.

But I don't know.

We don't know.

Maybe that's the point.

That's why this letter was put in the Bible for the first place.

Challenge us to put ourselves in their shoes and situation and

to be challenged by the kinship of God, the equal footing

that we all have in Christ, the radical nature of grace and hospitality

of God that welcomes us to a table where we are all brothers and

sisters in Christ.

Even if community and relationships can often get messy.

You see, we are entrusted with a sacred story, a story that we are

a part of, a story that we play a part in.

So how would this story play out?

Well, the plot continues to thicken.

It thickens with God's grace and love in our faith formation.

We too shouldn't be afraid to go there, to lean into the tension,

to see how God's story matches up with our story, with Jesus's high

demands of discipleship and challenging systems and norms that

distract or get in the way.

Of God's nearness.

We are called to be lifelong learners and to continue to grow

in our faith in discipleship.

You see, faith formation isn't about winning or losing or trying

to get God's attention or approval.

Rather, it's growing deeper into the reality that is already

present with us.

An unconditional love of God that will never let us go.

The unconditional love of God that is for all.

Even for those who pull for different teams then and here's the

grace and good news in all this.

When Jesus talks about losing one's life and following him, it's

in that following and growing that we actually find and discover

where we truly belong in the unconditional grace filled love of

the Triune God.

Let's keep going.

We are all on the same team.

Let's keep this rally going, rallying around Jesus who we call

the Christ.

Let's see how this divine love story plays out.

Amen.

Foreign.

Thank you for listening.

If there is anything that stood out for you, or if you have

a question or you just want to have a conversation, you are always

free to reach out and contact us.

And remember you are not alone and.

That you are loved with a love stronger than death.

Sam.