July 29, 2024
• Rev. Mindie Moore
Life’s A Roller Coaster Week 4: You Made It!
Colossians 3:15-17 NLT
INTRO: Intro self, final week in the series (your last week to take your picture in front of this beauty—show picture of Hazel...this could be you!)
You know, as we come to the end of this series, it makes me think of the end of a roller coaster and the feeling of DEEP PEACE AND GRATITUDE that I feel once you pull back in the station. It’s that moment where if you’ve got hair, it is all over the place, maybe you’re relieved that you didn’t lose your phone or your glasses, and as I think about THAT moment...I am instantly reminded of the first “real” roller coaster I ever took my daughter on, the Mystic Timbers at Kings Island.
Now, I just want to say, Hazel was probably 8 at the time. And there was deep trust in our relationship. She believed anything I would say. She KNEW her mother had her best interest in mind. AND...this roller coaster ride MIGHT have called that trust into deep question for this poor child.
I had told her that it would be fun! It would be exciting but not too scary. I was operating under no firsthand research, we talked about POV videos last week...I didn’t watch a single one, BUT acting on the advice of her best friend, also age 8 at the time, so what could go wrong?
All you really need to know is that now, before many rides we go on, including when we went to Disney this year, so YEARS later, she asks me, “is it really ok or is this another Mystic
Timbers situation?” I will never ever live that down. And honestly, I shouldn’t! This ride was WILD. I mean, it was intense for me and if that had been my first roller coaster I don’t think I would have ever gotten on another one.
And as we pulled into the station at the end, we looked at each other, and despite the fact that I had a bit of a terrified and angry child on my hands, we both had to laugh. Like that anxiety laugh, like we did not die kind of laugh. Because: it was over! We both felt the relief. We made it, we survived...and we were grateful.
The roller coasters of our lives can be like that. They can be thrilling or scary or intense. But the thing about the roller coasters we experience, is that no matter HOW wild or frequent they are, they don’t last forever. Now, it can feel like it sometimes, like the ride will go on indefinitely, but just like an amusement park roller coaster, there is an end point. There is a “home base” a “back to the station” experience that we get to have. And, as people of faith, that experience that we get to have is deeper than a superficial relief. The experience that we are invited to have comes through Christ and has the power to shape us in some pretty incredible ways.
So that’s what we’re going to talk about today, in this final week. How we are shaped by the roller coasters that we experience and maybe more importantly, how our relationship with Jesus shapes us during all of it. And I want you to hold on to this question as we talk today...we’re going to come back to
it at the end: (SLIDE) What can we count on and trust during the ups and downs of life?
We’re basing our conversation today on a scripture from the book of Colossians. This is an interesting book of the Bible, because it is one of the many church letters that we find in the New Testament, but unlike many of these letters that we automatically attribute to being written by Paul, this one has some mystery around it. Some scholars think it was a little after Paul’s life and ministry. Some think because of some theological nuances and differences that it was probably someone who Paul had trained, but not Paul himself. I’m not sure it’s the MOST critical thing about this book, but the possibility that this was written by someone other than Paul shows us the impact that this growing church movement was having throughout the world and I would say, the impact that Paul’s ministry as a whole was having. This movement was catching on and people were inspired to keep this thing called the church growing and evolving so that it could help people know who Jesus was.
And no matter who wrote this, it’s still a letter to a church with an important message. Now, the Colossian church had been on a roller coaster ride, for a many years. This city, located in what we would consider Turkey today, had experienced a series of natural disasters, noteably a couple of earthquakes. And so through no fault of their own, life isn’t as good as it once was. They are struggling and trying to rebuild and because of this, they’ve become pretty vulnerable to the world around them.
They are tired and worn down and a huge concern for this church is that they are susceptible to teaching and influence that they normally wouldn’t have been. If they aren’t careful and aware, they might find themselves being shaped in ways that might not really reflect what they believe or who they want to be.
And maybe you’ve been in a similar spot, where you had been through something that was so hard, and so tiring, and just really took you out on the other side feeling different. Maybe you found yourself looking for hope wherever you could find it, no matter what form that took. Maybe you went through a loss or a really difficult season, or even just a big moment of change, and realized that there were things influencing you that normally wouldn’t have even been on your radar.
Just a couple of weeks ago, we hosted a workshop at St. Luke’s called Scams Targeting Seniors. And this whole event was to resource the seniors in our community to guard against people wanting to take advantage of them, especially when they are vulnerable. David Meyers, who is our Director of Safety and Security, told me that a common way people are scammed right now is called the Romance Scam, where dishonest people watch for obituaries and then find ways to pursue grieving partners under the guise of being in relationship with them...but it’s all a trick in order to get money out of them. The fact that these people are grieving and have been through something incredibly difficult makes them susceptible to
something they probably wouldn’t be swayed by under different circumstances.
And so this event talked about scams like that and was really happening in order to help people remember what they know and use that knowledge to recalibrate. To come back to what is real and true. It makes me think a lot about the purpose of this letter. This letter that was written so this church would do the same thing. That they could remember what they know and come back to something real.
And what this community knows, what is real for them, is that they have the example and message of Jesus that has been shaping them up to this point. A lot of stuff has happened, but they KNOW peace. They KNOW gratitude. They KNOW the importance of being a community that supports and cares for each other. They KNOW all of these things. And as they look back on the ride they’ve been on...they need to take a deep breath and let their knowledge and their experience shape them in a way that’s going to take them beyond where they are in that moment and anchor them to God, no matter what life might look like.
It’s true that there’s a lot the people in Colossae can’t control...and it’s also true that they have a ton of choice in this moment. They really are in a place where they can see what’s going on around them, they can see the different influences at play, and they can decide what they will be guided by. And they get to choose if that thing that guides them will be something
that looks like gratitude and peace...or if it’s going to look more like scarcity and self-preservation. Those are two legitimate ways to move around the world—people make those choices ALL the time—but the thing is, one of them centers us on Christ and one of them centers us on ourselves. (SLIDE) Peace and Gratitude bring us back to Christ, scarcity brings us back to ourselves. Peace and Gratitude help us act in a way that invests in people and this world; scarcity helps us act in our own best interests. Peace and Gratitude leads to growth and legacy that goes beyond us; scarcity has a pretty short shelf life.
We can’t necessarily choose the rides we end up on, but we can choose the state of our hearts that we work to create. We can choose if we’re going to learn and grow and find Jesus in the middle of our situations. I think this is why the writer of Colossians uses this language of “let” over and over in the passage. It says:
LET the peace of Christ rule in your hearts
LET the message of Christ fill your lives
LET your life be totally shaped and molded because you know the love and grace of Jesus
Basically—let these things be true for you. No matter what the ride has looked like. No matter how quickly you want to run over to the next one, the next experience, hoping it will be better and more exciting and less nauseating than that last one! No matter how hoarse your voice is from yelling as you went
over those hills. No matter WHAT. Let these things that Jesus gives us, let gratitude and peace, have some freedom to do their work in our lives.
And we can let these things do that work because (SLIDE) No one is exempt from the possibility of peace and gratitude. Not a single one of us. No matter how hard your roller coaster has been, even if it’s like Space Mountain, friends—I can’t ride that one anymore. It’s too much! I had a headache and just felt wrong! EVEN if it’s like that...peace and gratitude are possible. Because those things don’t come from the things going on around us. Those things come from Jesus. And unlike a ride that desperately needs a refurb...Jesus is consistent. Jesus can be trusted. Jesus wants goodness and hope for every single one of us. And we can cultivate that, we can grow that, we can let our lives be deeply shaped by who Jesus is and how the Holy Spirit works. We get that choice.
And when we make that choice, when we say that we are going let gratitude and peace and the work of Christ have that shaping power in our lives, that is going to move us to action. Where I think we sometimes lose the power of these words of “peace and gratitude” is that we reduce these things to a feeling. We make it like a fuzzy blanky. Now, I LOVE a fuzzy blanky. My favorite thing to do once the kids are in bed at night is to sit on the couch with a fuzzy blanky. That feeling is GREAT! BUT when we only let peace and gratitude get as deep as the
comfort of the good things that we feel, I think we sell it a little short.
I think we deepen the power of these things in our lives when we build a foundation of peace and gratitude that flows from who Jesus is and leads us to who Jesus is calling us to be. This call that the writer is making to the Colossian church is incredibly action-oriented. I want you to look at this Scripture (SLIDE) and see all the action words here, because this is really important to how we understand this thing we’re talking about: 15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. 16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
That’s a lot of activity. That is a picture of a life that lets peace and gratitude do some work on us so that we live like these are actually in the driver’s seat of our souls. They shape us individual people and if we’re letting them truly do their work, they’re shaping us as communities too. The more we lean into peace and gratitude, the more we see this invitation to create
spaces together that look a lot like Jesus. They take us beyond ourselves and help us see our part in something bigger.
About a year and a half ago, I went to a retreat called Pastors, Priests, and Guides. One of the “guides” that week was Stephanie Spellers (SLIDE). She is an Episcopal Priest and led us through some really incredible moments of seeing how our individual connection to God, it is so crucial. So important, so necessary to invest in. AND. And.
She reminded us that our individual connection to God...that’s never where the formation is supposed to end. She really encouraged us to explore how our soul’s connection to God is shaping the communities we are leading or participating in. She reminded us that we have this sacred responsibility to care deeply about that. That if I’m doing a consistent and holy gratitude practice every single day and I’m having the fuzzy blanket feeling but that practice isn’t going beyond ME and into whatever communities I find myself in—that might be a family, a workplace, a school, a church, a social group—if those practices don’t flow out of me into those places...then something about my personal spiritual life is going to need tended to. She says that our call as people who follow Jesus is to create “beloved communities” where we help one another become everything that God dreams of us becoming.
That’s not always easy work...but I know it’s holy. I know it’s what Jesus did. I know it was the mission of the Early Church. And I know that when we look at our stories, and the roller
coasters that happen within them, I know that when we let those things teach us and point us back to these things that we find in Jesus, I know that when we let things like peace and gratitude be a strong undercurrent in all of these stories...when we do that, living these things that this letter talks about and creating these types of beloved community, they happen in a different way. Our perspectives shift, we can be open to the experiences of the people around us, we can act from a place of peace and gratefulness that ends up looking like a life of deep joy.
Because if we hold that question in front of us, that we asked at the very beginning of this message: (SLIDE) What can we count on and trust during the ups and downs of life? I don’t usually answer these kinds of questions, so today is a special exception. Because I think a pretty powerful answer is (SLIDE) the peace and gratitude that comes from Jesus. Will it take away some of the chaos we experience? Will it stop us from ending up on the Mystic Timbers? It won’t. But those things we find through Jesus...they will get us through it. They will remind us what we know to be true. They will be a safe and soft place to land. And they will have ability to shape us and our communities through every single twist and turn.
Let’s pray.