Sacrifice

For us, George is father, grandfather, relative, friend, neighbor, parishoner, colleague, co-worker, care-giver, coffee-companion, and more categories.

I speak today from several particular spots in that web of relationships.

For me, George is uncle, mentor, and role model.

Somewhere across the years I picked up a working definition of the word sacrifice as “prayer with an object.”

Sacrifice is conversation with God together with something in our hand, something to be given up or given away.

That is an intriguing idea; let's follow it.

The objects used in sacrifice can be anything in all of creation.

Those that are liquid are called libations.

In ancient times it might be oil or wine that would be poured out upon the altar together with a prayer of thanksgiving for the wonders and harvest of creation granted to our care and use.

Paul in our second lesson today speaks of a libation, but not of olive oil or wine.

Rather he refers to his own life.

I am already being poured out as a libation, he writes, and the time of my departure has come.

The word for departure has the sense of death as a letting go of something that has been held tightly, an outpouring of life.

That certainly happens at the point of death, but Paul says that it is already happening, there in the midst of his life.

He regards the whole of his life as a libation-sacrifice, as a continuing prayer to the Father accompanied by the outpouring of his life.

Of course he is thinking of Christ's outpouring of life on the cross and also each time the people gather for the holy Communion.

But isn't Paul's life his own, to do with whatever he wishes?

We are driven to think this way by our own quiet desires, aided and abetted by advertisers and other voices.

“Go your own way.”

“Do your own thing.”

“Grab as much as you can as long as you can.”

“The one with the most toys, wins.” etc.

The prophet Jeremiah disagrees vigorously.

In his vision, the Lord says to Jeremiah, Before I formed you in the womb I knew you...and appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Before Jeremiah can say or do anything, God already has put his claim on him, and that primary claim endures throughout life, no matter how many twists and turns it takes.

His life is not his own.

Paul understands that, too.

Sacrifice...prayer with an object.

Libation ...a poured out sacrifice.

Paul's life...following that of our Lord Jesus, is a libation-sacrifice for the sake of any who will hear him, since he knows that his life is not his own.

And Uncle George.

There is a letter that has gotten lost at some point over the years,

a letter that I wish that I had,

a letter that George wrote to me when I was in Jr. High school.

We had an assignment to prepare a “career notebook”, to investigate a career, any career, and assemble all the information we could find about it.

I chose ordained ministry, a very un-typical choice for a PA farm-boy.

(I'm still the only person to be ordained from our home congregation in 160 years.)

Part of the assignment was conducting interviews of persons who are active in that career, so I interviewed our home pastor in person, and Uncle George by letter.

He answered the questions gracefully and warmly. not sugar-coating the difficulties, but insisting that despite the problems, the Lord will point enough resources our way in order to accomplish what God wants to be done.

He poured out his thoughts and reflections in that letter which I read and re-read, and made a key part of the notebook project.

George and Isabel and the boys all came to the farm in PA each summer during our growing-up years, and of course we would be in Sunday School and worship each Sunday.

Even though he was supposed to be on vacation, whenever the adult group teacher asked him if he would lead the class, he always graciously agreed.

Over the years, I've come across pastors who will not extend themselves for anyone, refusing to even answer the phone if it is inconvenient.

I can't even imagine George doing that.

In later years, things were turned around and rather than George and Isabel coming to PA, Donna and I and our kids traveled to Minnesota each summer.

They were always gracious hosts.

There were sure to be interesting things planned for us to do together.

George never gave any hint that this was an imposition; he offered time and interest, thought, and activities.

He poured himself out in conversation with me over the years.

During the annual visit, George and I would have a review of what had been going on in my parish.

He would offer his gentle probing questions and help me think through the situations and sometimes see them in a fresh light with the voice of experience in the Gospel.

There have been painfully difficult times, also.

In the sadness of the death of son Peter, he could have thought only of his own grief, but he considered ours also.

He decided to let us arrive here before asking me if I would play the organ for that funeral service, because he knew that otherwise I would be fretting for hours and days before I could do anything.

Some of the events that made the biggest impression on me were those times that he poured out his life and faith at funerals within the family.

At the close of the evening visitation period, George called the family members together, and with a few quiet sentences, summarized our thoughts in thanksgiving for the life now completed.

What a difficult task, done so graciously!

I trust that his outpouring has had a salutary effect on my own ministry over the years, in this and many other ways.

I remember the time in the early 1960s when George and Isabel went to the Lutheran World Federation assembly in Helsinki Finland.

How exotic!, I thought, to be able to travel like that, to hear the gospel in different venues, to share life and faith with folks from around the world.

It tickled my imagination to look for that kind of experience someday.

And it so happens that I have had some opportunities for travel and service.

Several years ago I was on an archaeological dig in Wadi Hamam in Israel.

On one of our days off, several of us rented a car and toured around northern Israel, including the place mentioned in today's gospel reading.

Caesarea Phillipi had been a place of worship for many centuries before the Romans got there.

They added some fancy temples at what was held to be an ancient entrance to the underworld.

So in this place of the worship of Pan and many other gods, Jesus asks, “Who do folks say that I am?”

and then the direct personal challenge: “Who do you say that I am?”

This question is placed right at the center point in Mark's gospel.

It is the central question that each of us is challenged to answer.

It is the central reason for George's self-giving...in his service as a Navy chaplain, as pastor in parishes in Wisconsin and Minnesota, service on the Synod staff, and assisting in parishes including here at St. John in retirement years.

One wouldn't be willingly driving to yet another church meeting out across the prairie in a winter snowstorm if it were just a job.

But to help someone else wrestle with Jesus' question “Who do you say that I am?” and what are we therefore to be doing?...George gave of his life gladly.

As proclaimers of the Word of God and persons for whom words are a chief tool, books are precious to a pastor.

In our summer visits, I would often spend much time with George's books, to the considerable annoyance of my dear wife.

George gave me several that I treasure, including the memoirs of his grandfather, also named Pastor George H. Gerberding.

He described his grandfather as a “bantam rooster”, ready to take on any discussion or situation, ready to present the challenge of the Gospel to any person at any time.

May a good dose of that spirit continue through the generations to come!

And that is the chief thing.

I do remember the irritated father George who had to banish Dick's untanned groundhog pelt from the family station-wagon one hot summer trip home from PA.

I remember the exasperated father George when beginning driver Donald Paul backed the family car into the elm tree at the farm.

I remember the patient husband George when Isabel requested another flowerbed be constructed, where?

I remember the bemused father George when he heard how son Stephen terrorized me, his landlubber cousin when he raced the boar home ahead of a storm, the boat touching only the whitecaps on the way.

Others will remember times on the lake, times in the coffee-shop, concerts, and other fun things.

But even more importantly, we celebrate this day that God made a promise to George in Holy Baptism, a promise to hold onto him forever.

We celebrate this day that his confidence in this promise led George to pour out his life in service to the Lord Jesus and to so many persons around himself.

We celebrate this day that the same offer and challenge is come to us, and that we in turn have opportunity to respond.

May we receive the gifts of God that come through George and use and share them as generously as God first gave them.

That will honor George the manager of God's gifts, and even more, honor Jesus the giver of those gifts,. ...in whose name we give thanks. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.