Happy birthday! If there was ever a scripture passage to be used as a birthday greeting, it's today's passage. And I kid you not: it's the luck of the lectionary today. I didn't hand-pick this. Paul starts out his letter to the church in Colossae in the same spirit as my great-aunt Bernice sending birthday greetings to me, the oldest daughter of her namesake, her only sister's oldest child. It sounded to me like, "You know who I am, so I know you'll pay attention to what I'm about to tell you. You are such a lovely girl, you ought to practice the piano more. There will be challenges ahead of you, so that discipline will help you stay on track."

Should we feel intimidated when we get this kind of birthday greeting? My Aunt Bernice was kind of scary. I knew she had some sort of claim on me by virtue of being the person my mother was named after, but she was so big, and she only visited a couple of times a year, so I hardly knew her. And she seemed to have such high standards, always giving me the impression I could do better. The first reading of this passage leaves me with that same impression. Paul is a distant faith relation to the folks in Colossae, but he has a claim on them by virtue of being an apostle. Paul has some pretty high standards. Is he telling them how well they are doing? - but the way Aunt Bernice would, saying how lovely they are, but to use more self-discipline.

Paul begins by lifting up the gifts of the church. These are gifts which I, by virtue of being your pastor, am entitled to say are gifts that are shown by Springwater. Paul gives thanks for the church's faith in Christ, a faith that they embraced enthusiastically from the beginning. Boy, that sounds like Springwater. I love to read the history book about this church, because the faithfulness of those charter members is echoed all through the years. Folks who met in the schoolhouse when everything burned in 1902. Folks who sat in our sanctuary while their feet froze, who continued singing hymns of praise and coming together for Sunday School when there were so very few of them, when they shared pastors, when wars and epidemics raged. Paul gives thanks for the church's faith, and he also gives thanks for the love they have for each other. You know, back in the days when this was literally a "family church," when everyone was related by blood or marriage or shirttail, it might have been easier to show what Paul praises at Colossae: "the love that you have for all the saints." Sometimes to new-comers this looks to still be the case, but it is less and less true that Springwater people are all related to each other. When I first came here, one of the things that struck me, right from my first interview with the PNC, was that you all referred to the church as your "family." You are not all cousins, but you treat each other like brothers and sisters. When visitors come, you welcome them as if you already love them, and that is something that the apostle Paul finds worthy of praise at Colossae.

The way Paul writes, faith in Christ and love for each other are the grounds on which the hope of the church is based, and hope is about the "final reality," heaven. Hope is important because it is the motive for growth, and we all know that growth is the hallmark of life. When any living organism stops growing, it's dead. This is particularly true of Christians. This is where Paul might sound like Aunt Bernice, and it makes me nervous. This is not meant to make the readers nervous. In the most encouraging of ways, Paul is saying "keep on keeping on." There is no hidden barb about "you're such a lovely girl, you ought to - " whatever. Paul is saying that as Christians we're resident aliens. You know, "This land is not my own, I'm just a passin' through, the angels beckon me, way up beyond the blue." But in some funny, turned-over way, because we're resident aliens, because we aren't staking our grade next quarter or the reason for our existence or betting the bank balance, because we know this reality is not the final word, we can keep on keeping on. We can look at the big picture, the final reality, the Truth-with-a-capital-T that says, "This is not the end of the story. This is not it." This gives us the freedom to do what God calls us to do. It gives us the incentive to not just "do the right thing." It gives us the wherewithal and the reason to continue to grow. And on our birthday, it is fitting that we look at the future. It is fitting that we look at God's call to us, God's call to Springwater, to not just keep on being Springwater, but to keep on being Springwater in better, more true-to-who-we-are ways. Because, there are challenges that lie ahead, and you can be sure that the challenges will come in the very areas in which you are gifted and being blessed. Isn't that the way? So what challenges can Springwater look forward to? This is what I suspect.

First, faith challenges. We profess faith in the triune God - creator, redeemer, comforter. We profess faith in the God who made us and called us, the God who loves us enough to become a human on our behalf, the God who is dying - literally - to love us. This is not the way of the world. We are the aberrations, we are the exceptions, friends. We live in a world which is unchurched, which puts its faith in what it can see and measure and manipulate. That is not our God. If we want to continue being the church, we will be challenged to affirm over and over that we believe in an invisible, powerful God. Not just by what we say, but by acting as if we trust that this God we profess cares about us individually and intimately. We will be challenged in love. If Springwater wants to continue, it will have to welcome people who are not exactly like us, people who might not be as easy to love. The stark truth of the demographics of our congregation is that we are aging. We love the life and liveliness that young people bring to us, we get juiced up over Vacation Church School for a week, but we could only do that, because we brought in other young people to be their mission project. In ten years, how old will our treasured and beloved 90 year olds be? Our 80s? Middle-aged people like me will have to admit we are nearly retirement age. And will we have a youth group to continue to jazz us up?

We will be challenged in hope. In a hope-less, cynical world, in a time when the middle class is shrinking and technology has not brought the solutions we'd expected, in a time when Christ still has not visibly returned - how do we sustain our hope? There are some writers who fictionalize it with novels about being Left Behind. In a world where bigger is better, there are some who derive hope from mega churches, because they seem to be some measure of success. Some people can get by on "pie in the sky in the sweet by and by." Some people can get by thinking to establish the kingdom through social justice. It seems like these hope-holders take a lot of effort. How do we hang onto hope? There is only one tried-and-true way: to experience it. We are people who have been rescued. We are, therefore, people of hope. We are people who no longer have to grope and tentatively feel our way in the dark. We are people who can be at-home enough anywhere, because we know that fundamentally we are aliens here until we get home. We are people with nothing to lose, since we are no more than the captives of the victorious party in a cosmic war. We are captives of the victor, getting ready to go home. When Paul prays for the church at Colossae, he asks that they be made strong, that they be made patient in order to endure, and he joyfully gives thanks for who they are.

On our birthday, I want to pray the same prayer for us.

BIRTHDAY LITANY FOR SPRINGWATER PRESBYTERIAN
COLOSSIANS 1:9-14

Pastor: God has called this people.
People: God has called this church.
Pastor: God called our ancestors to this place.
People: God is calling us now.
Pastor: We have never stopped thanking God . . .
Women: . . . for the inheritance of our faith,
Men: . . . for the faithful ones who came before us,
Children: . . . for friends who love us now,
People: . . . for church families closer than kin.
Pastor: We are a people rescued by God.
Women: Called out of darkness . . .
Men: . . . citizens of God's realm . . .
People: . . . people saved and forgiven.
Pastor: For this reason, we are a people constantly giving thanks.
People: We give you thanks, O God.
Pastor: And God delights when we ask for more, and so we ask . . .
Women: We ask to be wise in spiritual things.
Men: We ask to know the ways to live that will please God.
People: We ask for understanding of God's will for us,
Children: . . . ways that will make us strong and help us to grow,
People: . . . ways that will honor God.
Pastor: God will give us strength . . .
People: . . . to be patient.
Pastor: God will give us understanding . . .
People: . . . to make the right choices.
Pastor: God will give us wisdom . . .
People: . . . to be obedient.
Pastor: God will make us fruitful . . .
People: . . . to live like people whose future is assured.
All: Let us never stop joyfully giving thanks to the God of our salvation.