Friends in Faith,
This month I come to you still celebrating my recent wedding and celebrating the community at Faith Lutheran too! Amanda and I had an amazing time in Texas with family and friends, and I didn’t quite know I would feel all the things I was feeling down there. Many of my own friends and family are still in that area, and some I hadn’t seen in years. But they came out and celebrated and supported us and our adventure, and it gave us the gift of community.
But I know Amanda and I want to say thank you to you here in Reno as well. Thank you for your energy and welcome, your good wishes and blessings and gifts. You have given, and continue to give us, the gift of community.
With all that in mind, I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday that Fred Niedner had taught us about the gospel of Luke back in January at our “Bible Retreat.” He said:
You and I are more like Luke’s audience than those of the other gospels, and Jesus is inhabiting our story. Luke’s Jesus travels around, and always stops for meals, and he tells parables in which we so easily find ourselves learning what the truest treasure of life is. The same thing Heaven treasures: People! Relationships! Friends. Which is all Jesus ended up with—his only treasure. He had no money, no institution, not even a home his estate could sell. He had only friends. That was his treasure, and our life works the same way.
Friends, I can see and feel and notice my life working in the same way. Even (or especially) fresh off of getting married last week.
I am so lucky to marry Amanda and that she said “I Do.”And I know … as excited we are about being married, and making a life together, and opening wedding gifts, what we know we’re already treasuring so much is that loving people are surrounding us. In marriage you’re probably supposed to say that your partner is the “One Treasure,” and that’s got a truth to it.
But I’m fresh from the front lines, to report to you — it’s about all of us. And it’s about heavenly treasure! And it’s people, relationships, friends.
So thank you for the lesson. But thank you most for the incarnation of community.
My wife and I treasure you,
+ Pastor Shaun