Sermon - 7-11-21

<p>I was ordained on the evening of Thursday, August 30, 2012, at St. Ansgar Lutheran Church in Portland, ME.  In that same service, I was installed to serve as Associate Pastor to the people of St. Ansgar.  I vividly remember my ordination, and I vividly remember the weight of the questions Bishop Margaret Paine asked me during that service.  When pastors are ordained and then installed to serve in a congregation, they are asked to promise to teach and to preach according to the scriptures and the theological tradition of the Church.  I remember feeling the awesome responsibility communicated in those questions and the gravity of the promises I made.  The congregation is also asked to hold the pastor to those promises and to question the pastor when it is not clear he or she is doing that.  When talking to the congregation about their roll in receiving a newly installed pastor, I like the comments one Assistant to the Bishop often makes.  He says, “At the same time, the congregation is also to remember that it is not the preacher’s calling to <em>tickle our ears</em> with pleasant things we want to hear; it is his or her calling from God, to rightly preach the word of truth – AND to challenge us to grow in our faith and godly actions.”</p> <p>His words are fitting as we look at today’s readings.  Today, I am not called to <em>tickle your ears</em> with pleasant things you want to hear, but I am called to speak the truth.  And, the truth often calls us to turn around and be open to change that enables us to grow more deeply in our understanding of faith, to be open to <strong>being</strong> changed and <strong>being</strong> made new.  </p> <p>In our Old Testament reading, the prophet Amos was not thinking about changing the world, let alone changing himself, when his life was <strong>suddenly</strong> changed. God called Amos to leave his family and friends, leave behind his occupation of caring for sycamore trees, and even leave his country, to prophesy to the people of the Northern Kingdom.  Amos was called to