This program year in worship we’ll be addressing the overarching theme of “Finding Our Way”. Our worship committee and staff spent a great deal of time capturing an image of the individual spiritual journeys we are on and our collective commitment to move in a common direction and support each other on the path. For each liturgical season throughout the year we’ve selected a sub theme and accompanying symbol. They all appear on the beautiful banner in the narthex stairwell created by members and friends of our worship committee. Matching bulletin covers are also being created for continuity. This fall, we start our process of finding our way with a walk through the Gospel of Luke. As we reflect on the biblical history of Jesus’ life and ministry, may HIS story, become OUR story. Before I get started, I thought I’d let you in on a little secret I’ve found for building my arm and shoulder muscles. You might wish to adopt this regimen. Three days a week works well. I started by standing in the garage and, with a 5-pound potato sack in each hand, extended my arms straight out to my sides and held them there as long as I could. After a few weeks I moved up to 10-pound potato sacks, then 20-pound potato sacks and finally I’ve gotten to where I can lift a 50-pound potato sack in each hand and hold my arms straight out for a minute! Now, I’m moving up to the next level and will start putting a few potatoes in the sacks, but I would caution you not to overdo it at this point. That’s essentially the level of discipleship that Jesus’ followers were exercising. Crowds were following him around entertained by his storytelling, impressed by his miracles, comforted by his attention. But finally, in Luke 14, we hear the exasperation in Jesus’ voice. He tells them that if they really want to strengthen their faith they have to start putting some potatoes in the bag. And exercising that kind of discipleship may mean some blood, sweat and tears. Verses 25-33 contain three different exercises that weigh heavily on our spiritual growth. The first is in verse 26 and sounds quite harsh, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” A key to understanding this strange statement is the word translated in English as “hate”. Fortunately, the Greek word for “hate” does not mean anger or hostility; it’s more of a synonym for “loving less”. The version of this statement in Matthew 10:37 reads, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” In other words, we are not to despise our relatives, but we are not to worship them either. Family commitments should draw us closer to God, not further from God. The second exercise Jesus speaks of is in verse 27, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Jesus doesn’t say may not, but cannot. Jesus calls us to carry the cross and follow him, to accept challenges, risks and sacrifices instead of settling in our comfort zone. But such selflessness isn’t for the purpose of being a martyr and bringing attention to ourselves because of all our suffering, but rather for the purpose of alleviating the suffering of others. The third exercise Jesus speaks of is in verse 33, “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” This hits close to home for many of us when we realize how many possessions we truly have and how complicated it would be to give them all away. A classic statement from C.S. Lewis offers a helpful interpretation of the financial cost of discipleship: “I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditures on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charity expenditure excludes them.” Mother Teresa was born August 26, 1910 with the given name, Agnes Bojaxhiu. As a Roman Catholic nun, she exercised the kind of committed and sacrificial discipleship described in our text from Luke for today. For over forty years, she ministered to the needs of the poor, sick, orphaned and dying in Calcutta, India. Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity order and expanded her mission of mercy to 4,800 sisters and more than 750 homes worldwide. On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, dubbed “Saint of the Gutters,” went to Oslo, Norway to receive that ultimate world accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. Sub-zero temperatures didn’t dissuade her from wearing her trademark sari and sandals. In her acceptance lecture she confidently declared, “It is not enough for us to say, ‘I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,’ since in dying on the Cross, God made himself the hungry one — the naked one — the homeless one.” Jesus’ hunger, she said, is what we must find and alleviate. Referencing the upcoming Christmas holiday, she said it should remind the world “that radiating joy is real” because Christ is everywhere — “Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive.” Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997 and this week, on the 10th anniversary of her death we learn that the public confidence she displayed is not her only legacy. In a book released this week we catch an intimate glimpse of a Good Samaritan who was on a continually curving journey of faith complete with its ups and downs. I haven’t yet read Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, but was initially captivated by a Time Magazine article about it two weeks ago and more recently, a few online reviews. The book is a compilation of letters that Mother Teresa wrote to trusted superiors and in her private diary. Its release has been somewhat controversial, because it surfaces a very searching and struggling side to this courageous and caring woman. For instance, just eleven weeks before her Nobel Peace Prize speech, Mother Teresa wrote to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, “Jesus has a very special love for you, but as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — listen and do not hear — the tongue moves in prayer but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have a free hand.” To the Rev. Perier back in 1953 she wrote, “Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself -- for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started ‘the work’”. “Where is my faith?” she wrote in another letter. “Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. If there be a God -- please forgive me.” And then these painful lines, “When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven -- there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. I am told God loves me -- and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.” Time magazine journalist, David Van Biema comments, “Come Be My Light is that rare thing, a posthumous autobiography that could cause a wholesale reconsideration of a major public figure — one way or another. It raises questions about God and faith, the engine behind great achievement, and the persistence of love, divine and human. That it does so not in any organized, intentional form but as a hodgepodge of desperate notes not intended for daylight should leave readers only more convinced that it is authentic — and that they are, somewhat shockingly, touching the true inner life of a modern saint.” Personally, I don’t view such honest doubting and wrestling of the spirit as a denigration of Mother Teresa’s faith in the least. In fact to the contrary, she fully immersed herself in doing the work of Christ, despite the pain and apparent futility. She continually took steps toward justice when injustice seemed to abound. When her dark nights of the soul seemed overwhelming, she didn’t languish alone, but vulnerably shared herself with others. For me that’s all a part of the costly faith Jesus describes in our passage from Luke. If this woman on the road to sainthood can have such a story, it validates the depth of our own faith and our own need to keep serving amidst our struggling. It’s been a full weekend here at Good Samaritan – a pig roasted, a wedding conducted, a Hearts and Hammers house power washed, games played, shirts painted, church clothing and books sold, backpacks and briefcases and bags blessed and tagged – and now we gather for Sunday worship. If we’re trying to find our way on our journey of faith, why does it all start here? Because whether it’s the history of HIStory, namely Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, or HERstory in the case of Mother Teresa, or OUR story, faith is walked in community. None of us have the strength to walk it alone; none of us have the foresight to find our way alone; and what a gift it is to start out together!