Installation Sermon for Matt Falco
Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church
January 15, 2017
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I’m so pleased Matt invited me to preach today—it’s a gift to be here with all of you on this red-letter occasion in the life of this congregation.
Woody mentioned during worship this morning that Doug Gerdts and I serve the same congregation in Delaware. And many of you came up to me and said, “Oh, we love Doug!” And “Please tell him we said ‘hello.’” And “We remember Doug so fondly.” Now, I’m wondering if we’re talking about the same person…
Oddly enough, Woody and I served the same church in Austin, Texas albeit not at the same time. And I, of course, know Matt, Lauren and the boys, from the years we spent together at Austin Seminary.
And while I’ve only just met all of you, we seem to associate with the same people, so we’re practically family when you think about it.
Let us pray.
Living God, in humility we ask that our words and heartfelt meditations be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
My first memory of Matt occurred before we even met.
I was at Austin Seminary for their Discovery Weekend, a weekend where faculty, staff, and a few students are on their best behavior in the hopes of seducing the most promising students (obviously it worked…). Inside the campus’s main building a table was set up with the usual plastic nametags. While looking for my own, I came across the name “Falco.”
I remember thinking “What a cool name!” and was eager to meet the person it belonged to. I’ve since discovered that the name is Italian and means “falcon.”
The weekend was called Discovery Weekend because we were supposed to discover whether or not the sense of call we were experiencing was indeed the Almighty nudging us into something new. What’s more, we were there to discover whether Austin Seminary was the right place to answer that call.
For Matt and Lauren, the answer was clearly ‘yes’ to both; but they got more out of that weekend than bargained for because it was there they made a further discovery: they were pregnant.
They left a day early--but…like falcons returning to their falconer—they returned the following fall, answering ‘yes’ to the call, with a baby in tow.
We don’t always know what we’re getting ourselves into when we say ‘yes’ to something, babies or calls.
Which is why I’m sympathetic to these early Christians in Corinth. They’re former pagans drawn into a strange new way of interpreting the world: through the lens of the cross. And while they want desperately to say ‘yes’ to this cross lifted high, they can’t quite get their heads wrapped around it. And, their frustration leads to serious arguments.
Some sided with the old leader. Some with the new. Theology, polity, leadership—it all came into question and everyone thought their answer was right, but not just right, a better way to do religion.
So, they wrote a letter to Paul, expressing concerns.
Paul wrote back and we call that letter, 1st Corinthians. In it, Paul minces no words, and even calls them babies. Not to belittle them, not to chastise them; simply to remind them they are the baby of the family; and when you’re trying to prove yourself, when you’re learning, it is easy to get stuck in the muck and mire of doing religion, of producing programs, promoting activities, attending meetings, and obsessing over the three B’s: budget, building, and bodies. They’re babies because they mistake doing religion with being the church.
I can’t imagine the Corinthians loved hearing those words, “you’re babies”—no one would. But sometimes even the babies of families give us great stories to learn from, and my own baby brother, Clay, is no exception.
When Clay was about 9 years old, my family went to a family reunion in East Texas. After a week of potato salad, we were getting ready to head home. But my brother was a very lazy kid blesshisheart and was always, always finding ways to get out of doing any kind of work; and lugging bags and coolers to the car was no exception. So, he devised a plan. The rooms we were staying in were those adjoined rooms with the double doors in the middle. And, earlier in the week, all the cousins had fun climbing in-between the doors like Spiderman. Well, my brother remembered this and in order to get out of working, he managed to shimmy between the doors and get them both shut.
Then, we checked out of the hotel—loaded 20 people into two vans and set off for home. After driving for a few minutes, the two vans rolled up next to each other at a stoplight. My mom rolled down the window and asked the other van if they had Clay. They looked around—nope—no Clay.
It is at this very moment, that I start to remember that I may or may not know exactly where he is. “Um, Mom.” And the vans whipped back around.
Housekeeping had to let us back in to the rooms, where we found a screaming, red-faced child banging on the doors.
We, as a church, often find ourselves as that baby, stuck between the doors of doing the work of religion and being the community of the cross, governed not by what feels good, but by what feels uncomfortable, because it demands that we say ‘yes’, again, and again, and again, and again...
To use Matt’s own words that he writes while describing his own baby years, his years of learning and growing in seminary, he says, “we were broke. It was like drinking from a firehose.”
And, I don’t know about you, but celebrating God bringing Matt, Lauren, and the boys into this church family seems like a reason to acknowledge that even amidst our own brokenness and guzzling of information, God keeps planting seeds, providing the water, and is the power behind our growth—God gives us people who play music, who hike, who know good whiskey, who rock at Nintendo, who serve God, people who love us even when we cry, scream, and wail. Even when elections don’t make sense and bomb threats are called in, and death penalties are administered, and protests erupt. Even then, God continues to say to us, see, I am doing something new and look, it’s only January.
My wife and I found a new podcast called “Reply All.” We were intrigued by a particular episode, one that revolved around Christians. Admittedly though, about 5 minutes in, we were a bit skeptical of this story; these weren’t our kind of Christians.
It was about a husband and wife who had three children, and the baby of the family developed brain cancer soon after his arrival. After several successful attempts at a very invasive cancer, they thought it was time to start celebrating remission. But, baby Joel, yet again, had a tumor. Only this one was inoperable, terminal, and particularly ferocious.
However, this family had the kind of theology that believed they just needed to pray harder, pray more, pray with more people…to do religion better, harder, faster, stronger. And, so they did.
But, they also did something very unusual. Joel’s dad was a gamer. And, started writing a game about a moment he experienced with his son. His son was crying and wailing and no matter what he did, Joel screamed louder and louder. At his wits end Joel’s dad started crying too, and it’s at that moment when Joel stopped and slept.
His game idea was just that—to play a game where you can’t control anything, and at some point, you simply receive God’s mercy. Nothing you’ve done right, nothing you’ve done wrong, just grace.
Oddly enough, several investors backed the game and it garnered further development. However, the couple depleted their entire savings to make the game. They fought. They struggled. They spent hours upon hours tending to this game about their son—about God giving mercy.
And, then in the midst of creating the game, they got news that it would be days, hours that Joel had left for this world. So, they invited everyone they knew to come to their house to pray. Joel had already beaten 15 or more supposedly incurable tumors in his three short years. Surely, this one could be defeated too. On the podcast, you can hear a bad recording where there is a large crowd gathered at their house—you can hear the strain in their voices as they pray. You can hear the full energy. You can feel that everyone in that room is 100% present.
Joel died that night.
A year later, Joel’s mom and dad are sitting with the journalist who is recording this podcast. And, they are asked how they feel about the way everything happened. Joel’s mother seems different, less sure of religion, but sure of something; she says, “We gave our all. Our money, our prayers, our friends, our jobs, our hearts. I’m glad, I’m glad we gave Joel all we had.”
Friends, as you start a new moment in your church life, you will be both the baby of the family and the dutiful parent. You will do religion: you will do it well and you will do it badly. You will seek and you will give advice. You will wail. And, you will comfort. You will be the church in unimaginable ways. And, if you’re doing it right: you will give your money, your prayers, your friends, your jobs, your hearts. But, it will be God who gives God’s all. It will be God who uses the Falcos. It will be God who uses you, your money, your prayers, your friends, your job, your hearts.
And, when you are stuck in the doings of religion, God will find you and bring you mercy not because you did something right or something wrong but because you’ve brought yourself here, to a place where you are planted, watered, and given life. It is simply our job to be falcons who return to the falconer, because this is what we have said ‘yes’ to, not a religion, but to a manger, a homeless Rabbi, a radical, an imperfect church community, an execution and resurrection, and a cross lifted high.
Amen.
Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church
January 15, 2017
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I’m so pleased Matt invited me to preach today—it’s a gift to be here with all of you on this red-letter occasion in the life of this congregation.
Woody mentioned during worship this morning that Doug Gerdts and I serve the same congregation in Delaware. And many of you came up to me and said, “Oh, we love Doug!” And “Please tell him we said ‘hello.’” And “We remember Doug so fondly.” Now, I’m wondering if we’re talking about the same person…
Oddly enough, Woody and I served the same church in Austin, Texas albeit not at the same time. And I, of course, know Matt, Lauren and the boys, from the years we spent together at Austin Seminary.
And while I’ve only just met all of you, we seem to associate with the same people, so we’re practically family when you think about it.
Let us pray.
Living God, in humility we ask that our words and heartfelt meditations be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
My first memory of Matt occurred before we even met.
I was at Austin Seminary for their Discovery Weekend, a weekend where faculty, staff, and a few students are on their best behavior in the hopes of seducing the most promising students (obviously it worked…). Inside the campus’s main building a table was set up with the usual plastic nametags. While looking for my own, I came across the name “Falco.”
I remember thinking “What a cool name!” and was eager to meet the person it belonged to. I’ve since discovered that the name is Italian and means “falcon.”
The weekend was called Discovery Weekend because we were supposed to discover whether or not the sense of call we were experiencing was indeed the Almighty nudging us into something new. What’s more, we were there to discover whether Austin Seminary was the right place to answer that call.
For Matt and Lauren, the answer was clearly ‘yes’ to both; but they got more out of that weekend than bargained for because it was there they made a further discovery: they were pregnant.
They left a day early--but…like falcons returning to their falconer—they returned the following fall, answering ‘yes’ to the call, with a baby in tow.
We don’t always know what we’re getting ourselves into when we say ‘yes’ to something, babies or calls.
Which is why I’m sympathetic to these early Christians in Corinth. They’re former pagans drawn into a strange new way of interpreting the world: through the lens of the cross. And while they want desperately to say ‘yes’ to this cross lifted high, they can’t quite get their heads wrapped around it. And, their frustration leads to serious arguments.
Some sided with the old leader. Some with the new. Theology, polity, leadership—it all came into question and everyone thought their answer was right, but not just right, a better way to do religion.
So, they wrote a letter to Paul, expressing concerns.
Paul wrote back and we call that letter, 1st Corinthians. In it, Paul minces no words, and even calls them babies. Not to belittle them, not to chastise them; simply to remind them they are the baby of the family; and when you’re trying to prove yourself, when you’re learning, it is easy to get stuck in the muck and mire of doing religion, of producing programs, promoting activities, attending meetings, and obsessing over the three B’s: budget, building, and bodies. They’re babies because they mistake doing religion with being the church.
I can’t imagine the Corinthians loved hearing those words, “you’re babies”—no one would. But sometimes even the babies of families give us great stories to learn from, and my own baby brother, Clay, is no exception.
When Clay was about 9 years old, my family went to a family reunion in East Texas. After a week of potato salad, we were getting ready to head home. But my brother was a very lazy kid blesshisheart and was always, always finding ways to get out of doing any kind of work; and lugging bags and coolers to the car was no exception. So, he devised a plan. The rooms we were staying in were those adjoined rooms with the double doors in the middle. And, earlier in the week, all the cousins had fun climbing in-between the doors like Spiderman. Well, my brother remembered this and in order to get out of working, he managed to shimmy between the doors and get them both shut.
Then, we checked out of the hotel—loaded 20 people into two vans and set off for home. After driving for a few minutes, the two vans rolled up next to each other at a stoplight. My mom rolled down the window and asked the other van if they had Clay. They looked around—nope—no Clay.
It is at this very moment, that I start to remember that I may or may not know exactly where he is. “Um, Mom.” And the vans whipped back around.
Housekeeping had to let us back in to the rooms, where we found a screaming, red-faced child banging on the doors.
We, as a church, often find ourselves as that baby, stuck between the doors of doing the work of religion and being the community of the cross, governed not by what feels good, but by what feels uncomfortable, because it demands that we say ‘yes’, again, and again, and again, and again...
To use Matt’s own words that he writes while describing his own baby years, his years of learning and growing in seminary, he says, “we were broke. It was like drinking from a firehose.”
And, I don’t know about you, but celebrating God bringing Matt, Lauren, and the boys into this church family seems like a reason to acknowledge that even amidst our own brokenness and guzzling of information, God keeps planting seeds, providing the water, and is the power behind our growth—God gives us people who play music, who hike, who know good whiskey, who rock at Nintendo, who serve God, people who love us even when we cry, scream, and wail. Even when elections don’t make sense and bomb threats are called in, and death penalties are administered, and protests erupt. Even then, God continues to say to us, see, I am doing something new and look, it’s only January.
My wife and I found a new podcast called “Reply All.” We were intrigued by a particular episode, one that revolved around Christians. Admittedly though, about 5 minutes in, we were a bit skeptical of this story; these weren’t our kind of Christians.
It was about a husband and wife who had three children, and the baby of the family developed brain cancer soon after his arrival. After several successful attempts at a very invasive cancer, they thought it was time to start celebrating remission. But, baby Joel, yet again, had a tumor. Only this one was inoperable, terminal, and particularly ferocious.
However, this family had the kind of theology that believed they just needed to pray harder, pray more, pray with more people…to do religion better, harder, faster, stronger. And, so they did.
But, they also did something very unusual. Joel’s dad was a gamer. And, started writing a game about a moment he experienced with his son. His son was crying and wailing and no matter what he did, Joel screamed louder and louder. At his wits end Joel’s dad started crying too, and it’s at that moment when Joel stopped and slept.
His game idea was just that—to play a game where you can’t control anything, and at some point, you simply receive God’s mercy. Nothing you’ve done right, nothing you’ve done wrong, just grace.
Oddly enough, several investors backed the game and it garnered further development. However, the couple depleted their entire savings to make the game. They fought. They struggled. They spent hours upon hours tending to this game about their son—about God giving mercy.
And, then in the midst of creating the game, they got news that it would be days, hours that Joel had left for this world. So, they invited everyone they knew to come to their house to pray. Joel had already beaten 15 or more supposedly incurable tumors in his three short years. Surely, this one could be defeated too. On the podcast, you can hear a bad recording where there is a large crowd gathered at their house—you can hear the strain in their voices as they pray. You can hear the full energy. You can feel that everyone in that room is 100% present.
Joel died that night.
A year later, Joel’s mom and dad are sitting with the journalist who is recording this podcast. And, they are asked how they feel about the way everything happened. Joel’s mother seems different, less sure of religion, but sure of something; she says, “We gave our all. Our money, our prayers, our friends, our jobs, our hearts. I’m glad, I’m glad we gave Joel all we had.”
Friends, as you start a new moment in your church life, you will be both the baby of the family and the dutiful parent. You will do religion: you will do it well and you will do it badly. You will seek and you will give advice. You will wail. And, you will comfort. You will be the church in unimaginable ways. And, if you’re doing it right: you will give your money, your prayers, your friends, your jobs, your hearts. But, it will be God who gives God’s all. It will be God who uses the Falcos. It will be God who uses you, your money, your prayers, your friends, your job, your hearts.
And, when you are stuck in the doings of religion, God will find you and bring you mercy not because you did something right or something wrong but because you’ve brought yourself here, to a place where you are planted, watered, and given life. It is simply our job to be falcons who return to the falconer, because this is what we have said ‘yes’ to, not a religion, but to a manger, a homeless Rabbi, a radical, an imperfect church community, an execution and resurrection, and a cross lifted high.
Amen.