"Be wise in the way you act with people who are not believers, making the most of every opportunity" (Colossians 4:5; NCV)

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

I've never been sure whether this is a blessing or a curse, but since I was a little boy, I've had this ability to concentrate very intently. I'm not talking about, you know, some kind of Stephen King, shatter-glass-with-my-brain sort of thing. But even as a kid, I could lose myself in a book, or an assignment, or a project that interested me in such a way that I could sort of turn off the world. When Carolyn and I started dating, it was one of the first things she noticed about me, and not surprisingly, it was one of our first "issues." If I had a school assignment or was even watching a movie, I could just sort of blink out. You know, the "Planet Earth calling Mike" sort of thing.

Well, as you might guess, this was a pretty handy skill in the school environment, and by the time I was turned 20 I had decided that I would become a kind of professional student. I would get my graduate degree and I would become a professor and devote my life to the close study of ancient texts and documents. I would get one of those jackets with leather patches on the elbows, I would smoke a pipe, and I would write scholarly essays and books on subjects for all the other people wearing jackets with leather patches and smoking pipes.

By the middle of my senior year I was all set to go. I'd been accepted and had my choice of graduate schools, several of which offered me money and teaching fellowships to come and study there. Carolyn and I would get married, we'd move into a cool, hipster kind of apartment, and I would go shopping for jackets and pipes. And it was right then I started to get these little taps on my shoulder. It wasn't a bolt of lightning and I didn't see the heavens open; it was just a little tap on the shoulder. Not just coincidentally, thanks to Carolyn I had gotten involved in a Lutheran campus ministry and I was hanging out and doing things with a group of Christian people who were also making decisions about their futures. So I get this "tap" on my shoulder and somehow from somewhere inside me this thought kind of floats to the surface of my brain: "You need people." Well, I immediately blew that off, since, after all, I was spending quality time virtually every day and all day with the likes of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. What do you mean, "I need people"? That's when I get this other little tap and another thought bubbles up: "You need living people." I had an argument for that, too, because by this time Carolyn and I were pretty much engaged. We hadn't set a date, but we were definitely getting married. I had a living person in my life. And no sooner had I made that argument then here comes another little tap and another thought: "You need more people." What? I need more than one person in my life? You mean I can't build my whole life around just this one person? You mean I can't expect this one person to meet all my needs and be my sole companion and soul-mate who will complete me, fulfill me, and support me for the rest of my life? It might have been the voice of God, or it might have been the voice of Carolyn, or it might have been the voice of God coming through Carolyn, but the answer was a definite, "No."

And that's a big part of how I ended up in seminary. I turned down my graduate school offers, and two weeks after we got married, we moved to Minnesota for me to enroll in a Lutheran seminary only two months after I had become a confirmed Lutheran church member. Of course, I hadn't finished my first quarter in seminary when I concluded I would never be a Lutheran pastor. My name didn't end in "-stad" or "-sted" or "-berg" or "-borg" or "-mann" or "-dorf" or "-sen" or "-son." I didn't go to a Lutheran college, neither my father nor grandfather or uncles or cousins were Lutheran pastors. I didn't know any Ole and Sven jokes and nobody I met up there had ever even heard of Boudreaux or Thibodeaux. Honestly, I didn't even know what a pot luck supper was, much less anything about church councils, congregational meetings, women's circles, or confirmation camp. So, I thought, forget the pastor stuff. I'd go back to the books. I'd become a theologian. I'd go straight through seminary and on to graduate school. In fact, I went three years straight through and was planning on skipping internship altogether. As I started my senior year, the president of the seminary told me that whatever area of theology I chose to pursue, he would make a place on the faculty for me when I finished. I was set, ready to go. Maybe I'd get that jacket with the leather patches and the pipe, after all. And wouldn't you know - tap, tap, tap.

Now I'm not saying that God tapped me to be a Lutheran pastor. Actually, I can provide you with the names and numbers of people who would argue quite the contrary. But (!) I am saying that God was tapping away, occasionally nudging, and sometimes pushing me to reach out beyond myself. Whatever I did in life, whatever my life's work, God had no intention of me living in my own little bubble. I don't claim to be able to read God's mind, but I know from God's Word that God did not create me to inhabit my own little universe with my own little select circle of people like me. What's more, I can also tell you that God's Word of reaching out would never have made a blip on my radar screen except for the groups of people who reached out to me. I'm talking about that original campus ministry group who didn't laugh when I said I was thinking about seminary. I'm talking about the classmates and teachers in the seminary community who didn't write me off as a total loser. I'm talking about my internship church who loved me in spite of my many gaffs and missteps, and for the last thirty years the people of Hope, Faith, and now Christ who have stuck their necks out to call me pastor.

I've told you my story not because it's intrinsically worthwhile or even all that interesting, but rather, because I think there's at least one point where my story intersects yours. God has made all of us to reach out beyond ourselves. God has poured the love of Christ into our hearts to give that love away to the world all around us - to the hurt and the hungry, the lonely and the bereaved, the neighbor next door and the neighbor who lives on the other side of the planet. God has made us, named, claimed, and redeemed us to reach out beyond ourselves, our own, our kind. Simply getting an education, a job, a car, a house, a family, a dog, and a pension is not a life plan. God has planned us, created and wonderfully made us to reach out beyond ourselves, and yet there are so many things in our lives that resist and subvert God's plan for us. In my case, I think I became so enamored with books because I was so afraid of people, and often, I still am. I'm afraid of being judged, of being rejected, of failing others, and fear always drives me to put my guard up and withdraw into myself. Martin Luther described sin as being turned in upon our selves, and nine times out of ten it's fear that turns us in to the point that we become so obsessed with ourselves and our situations that we lose track of everything and everyone else in the world.

But God has given us Jesus Christ, the only Son, so that we can love the fear out of one another, and consequently reach out better than we could have ever hoped or imagined. Together, we can reach out across the social barriers that so often divide us - age, race, sex, culture, and income. Together, we can reach out with whatever we have, however little or much, for God to divide and multiply and feed the empty hearts, minds, and souls of a starving world. And together, we can reach out to introduce the neighbor, colleague, friend or family member to the God they have never known, the God who has reached out to us in the love and mercy of Jesus Christ.

We all have a story, but God's story is for us to reach out together.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.