Five hundred twenty one of us stood up and made pledges to God. Some of us were ordained clergy but the vast majority were lay members of our congregations. Women, men, young, old, all of us pledged to undertake, support and lead caring ministries in our congregations. This was the end of an intensive week of training for Stephen Ministry Leaders and I couldn’t have been prouder, not just of Glenn Wolfgang (and myself, I confess) who had just completed the training, but also of Bonnie Stump who had completed the training five months before and gone on to train our first class of Stephen Ministers (Carol Blatt, Linda Gaertner, Gus Wolf and Glenn). As we stood, singing “Here I Am, Lord,” my mind wandered back to the bible study we had done earlier in the day. One of the verses we studied was in the fifth chapter of 1 Thessalonians, and read in part as follows:

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. for you yourselves know very well that the day of the lord will come like a thief in the night. when they say, “there is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and there will be no escape! but you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. so then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, 11)

Now, mostly when we interpret these verses, our minds go to the end times, the Rapture, the final reckoning when God will separate the sheep and the goats and we hope to get off with a stern reprimand. But, earlier in the week, one of the presenters had related a story by Erma Bombeck, in which Erma, tired and out of sorts was at the airport hoping just to be left alone. The woman next to her said in a quavering voice, “I wonder if it is cold in Chicago” and Erma replied shortly, “Most likely” and returned to her book without looking up. The woman continued, “Because I don’t have a license to drive anymore and my husband’s casket is on the plane and I don’t know how I’m going to manage to get him to the funeral home.” Erma related that she felt like the lowest form of life imaginable. Well, she and the woman talked and after a time they boarded the plane. Their seats were in different sections of the plane and as she put up her bag she looked back to see her new friend say to her seatmate, “I wonder if it is cold in Chicago.” She writes that she sent up a little prayer hoping the seatmate would have the grace to listen, just to listen.

In light of Erma’s story, I thought about the day of the Lord in the Thessalonians scripture in a whole new way. The day of the Lord, the day of judgment, the day when the Lord tests our mettle comes to us without any warning at all -- no raging seas, no rending of the sky, no crash of thunder. The day of judgment comes when a child comes for a hug, or a young person with a question, or our seatmate with a quavering concern, “I wonder if it is cold in Chicago.” We are not children of the dark who hope that our own cleverness and money and resourcefulness will save us from ever needing God or someone’s help and concern. We are children of the light who know the blessedness of a loving God and a caring community and who are or should be ready at any moment to be Christ to others in the least likely of places.

At the end of the day, that is what Stephen Ministry is about and I’m thrilled that this ministry of listening, healing and Christian concern will soon formally begin at Saint Nicholas. Of course the practice of Christian concern, of members helping members, has been here from the very start of Saint Nicholas as any number of people will tell you. But I’m surprised at how even the training for this ministry has helped me to see scripture and listening and relationship in a whole new way. We’ll soon be starting a new class of Stephen Ministers. Find out whether you’d like to walk with someone as a caregiver or if you would like to have someone walk with you through a difficult time. Talk with Bonnie or Glenn or me or any of the Stephen Ministers.

Pastor Greg