Finding Faith ... in God's in-breaking in the middle of nowhere

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Jan. 5, 2021. This was the 34th digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.

So, in the summer of 1987, my mother moved her and myself, the last of nine kids, from Crookston, which was our hometown, about 30 miles south to Fertile, Minn.

Both towns, if you are not familiar with them, are about 90 or so miles kind of due north of here. In fact, if you follow Highway 75 straight up north, you'll end up hitting Crookston. And while Crookston wasn't a booming metropolis at about 6,000 people then, it was to say a fair bit larger than Fertile ... population 900. Now I know some of you who grew up in Wolverton might be chuckling at that 900, but when you are 12 years old and had the run of the town on your bike and you had older brothers that could lead you astray, moving to a place that was 10 times smaller can make you feel like you're moving to, well, nowhere.

I won't sugarcoat it for you. ... Those first couple of years in seventh and eighth grade were really difficult for me. After all, as I said, I was the youngest of nine. I was the only child that wouldn't end up graduating from school in Crookston. But after many years of being on her own, and raising kids as a single mother, my mother had met someone. And they had developed a close relationship, and so we moved to Fertile so that she could be with him. And while the times were difficult for me, I'm afraid to admit that I made it a whole lot worse for my mother. I didn't make it a secret that I wasn't happy about moving into the middle of nowhere, where nothing happened. And I was pretty hard on her. For a couple of years there wasn't a lot of harmony in our house, and looking back on that some 30-plus years later, I can admit that.

But also looking back now, I can also admit that come my ninth grade year, when I had finally found a stable group of friends who accepted the outsider -- those of you who come from a small town know that it takes about three years before you become not the new kid, right? And that was also about the time that I found sports. ... Looking back now, I can see that it all kind of settled in for me, and I started to call Fertile home.

And imperceptibly, over several more years, some really good things started to happen in my life. I started getting into shenanigans far less and into my homework and school activities far more. It was about this time that I started to see myself actually going to college, which was a rare thing in my family. I started to see that I had an entirely different trajectory ahead of me that I never would have seen had I stayed in Crookston, where I likely would have followed in the footsteps of my siblings.

But that move gave me a different life, in a smaller town, with more eyes on me, and I was able to get away with far less. And today I realize that some really important, life-changing things can happen in places that are in the middle of nowhere.

Faith Family, I think our gospel tonight, too, reminds us that really important things -- I dare say, world-changing things -- happen in nowhere places ... like out in the boondocks by the Jordan River, for instance. ... Now the Gospel of Mark, that we read from tonight, doesn't emphasize as much as some of the other gospel gospels how out of the way it is that John the Baptizer had set up camp. But I am telling you, this was the wilderness, and yet our gospel tonight tells us that people from all over the Judean countryside and all the people of the city of Jerusalem were making their way out to John who had taken up residency along the Jordan River so that they could be baptized in the middle of nowhere.

And if that wasn't miraculous enough, then along comes Jesus, our gospel tells us, and John baptizes Christ right there in the Jordan. And there Jesus's ministry begins; there God parts the skies; and the Holy Spirit descends from above to settle on Jesus. ... And our Christ begins his public ministry in the middle of nowhere. ... In the middle of nowhere, our lord was baptized.

Think about that for a minute! ... Our Lord was baptized not in the powerful city of Jerusalem but out in the wilderness by a crazy man dressed in camel hair. ... Our Lord was baptized not in front of powerful Roman leaders, or even in front of the high priests of the temple, but he was baptized in front of the masses, the everyday people from the Judean countryside ... all through the city of Jerusalem. ... And no one was excluded; there were no outsiders at Jesus's baptism out in the middle of nowhere.

Tonight's gospel, Faith Family, is a powerful reminder to us that God's in-breaking into this world can happen in the most unlikely ... in the most auspicious ... of places. ... It can happen in the wilderness along a riverbank. ... It can happen in small towns where the trajectory of young men are changed. ... It can happen in front of the unwashed masses, as we call them, where all of the outsiders are included with all of the insiders.

And I think that in this year when we have not been able to worship together in person this gospel text is a reminder -- a powerful reminder -- that God's in-breaking into this world doesn't happen only in these hallowed and holy four walls of our sanctuary. ... Quite frankly, it's actually often the opposite. ... God's in-breaking into this world is happening all around us, all the time, and not just in the powerful cities filled with powerful people. ... And not only in the churches that are scattered across our lands. ... But everywhere, Faith Family ... and also in the middle of nowhere ... even like places like little, ol' Fertile, Minn.

It happens everywhere if you are looking ... and that is the Good News for this Tuesday, Jan. 5th, and Sunday, Jan. 10th, the baptism of our lord Sunday. ... Amen.