Renewing Rural Life

[This message was shared this evening with the Hocking County Granges as they commemorated Rural Life Sunday in the chapel of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

After I learned that today is Rural Life Sunday for the Hocking County Granges, I decided I need to poke around on the Internet to learn just what that entailed. I did know a little about the Grange. My mother-in-law grew up in Wellston, where her father was deeply involved with the Grange. It was a center for the community’s social life and an advocate for rural and farm interests.

But what, after all, does a city slicker who grew up in Columbus and graduated from a little college on North High Street—you may have heard of Ohio State—know about rural life?

A little bit. During my seminary years, Ann, our then-one year old son (he's now 26), and I lived in Benzie County, Michigan. I don't know whether this is still the case, but back in those days, Benzie County was the smallest Michigan county in population. Year round, 11, 500 people called the place home. But when the snowbirds came back to stay in the cabins on one of the county's 28 named lakes, the population ballooned to 36,000. The biggest town had about 1800 people. (Several years after we lived there, the ABC radio news network reported that Benzie County had finally gotten its first traffic light!) In spite of the loss of many businesses and industries, people still cherished and strove to hold onto living there. We learned while there that there's something special about life in rural communities where people know and look out for one another.

This was underscored during the six years I spent as pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church near Okolona, in northwestern Ohio. But I learned even more than that. It was while living at Okolona that my faith in Jesus Christ grew more than at any other comparable period of my faith life. In a very real sense, the people of my first parish taught me how to live as a Christian in the everyday world.

One of my teachers was John Baden. John was deep into his seventies when I met him, long retired from farming, but still in love with rural living. “You know, Pastor,” he told me, “if you’re a farmer, you have to have a lot of faith. You have no control over the sun and rain. You have to trust that God will provide.”

That’s really true of anyone who seeks to build a life in the Hocking County countryside or in small towns like Logan, Gore, McArthur, Rockbridge, or other communities that dot our area. You have to trust that God is going to renew towns and villages and rural areas just as He renews the earth every spring.

In fact, on my prayer list each day is a petition for not just the spiritual renewal of Logan and Hocking County, but also for its economic revival. I’ve come to appreciate the rural life as a life that helps people grow strong in their faith and in their love for neighbor and that allows them to enjoy a life less stressful than that lived by big city dwellers, a life in which it’s easier to see the stars in the nighttime sky and the power of God reaching right into our daily existences.

I want places like the communities of Hocking County to be able to provide the opportunities for making a living that will allow young people to stay in Logan, Gore, McArthur, and Rockbridge. I’m praying and I’m trusting that God will answer these prayers.

But in the meantime, how do we live?

In my exploration on the Internet, I ran across the thoughts of Judy Pressler, one time state chaplain of the Grange in Pennsylvania. Her message was called, “Step Into the Light of Springtime.” I really loved what she wrote. Listen to some of it:

…Spring. That is on everyone’s mind…how hardy those little daffodils, crocus and hyacinths are. They have peeked their heads out of the ground a couple of times already only to get slapped down again with a cold snap and get covered with snow and ice…

They are a good example of [a Scripture verse…Matthew 5:16 [where Jesus says:] ‘Let your light so shine before [others], that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven’…

Now, this is a particularly important verse for we Lutherans. It’s the verse we use every time someone is baptized. We present the baptized person, whether an adult or a child, with those words, urging them to live their faith in Jesus out loud in public. You see, Jesus and the Bible are insistent that our faith in Him is not a private, personal matter. Faith in Christ is a very public matter. We’re to love our neighbor, for example, out where the whole wide world can see it. We’re to tell others the Good News that God so loves them that He sent His only Son Jesus and whoever believes in Him will live with God forever. “A city on a hill,” Jesus once said, “cannot be hid.” Instead, people from miles around can see its light and its life. Similarly, our relationship with Jesus can’t be hidden. Like the daffodils and hyacinth that blossom like crazy in the spring, we’re to let the world know that Jesus is our Lord and our everything.

Jesus will be seen in the way we treat our spouses and our children, in the way we get along with our neighbors, in the courtesy we display for people while driving on Route 33 or at the meat counter in the Kroger store.

The wonderful thing about rural life for the follower of Jesus Christ is that it’s easier to have an impact, easier for others to see how much our Lord means to us.

The difficult thing about rural life for the follower of Jesus is that it’s easier to have an impact, easier for others to see us being hypocritical or, as is true for all of us, how we occasionally fall on our faces and live as something less than Christians.

But even when we fall on our faces, the great thing is that our neighbors will be able to see that, unlike an often cruel and heartless world, the God we know in Jesus Christ forgives us our sins and gives us brand new starts. God brushes us off and tells us He still loves us!

Judy Pressler also writes:

Those beautiful, fragile spring flowers sure do persevere to show off their beauty and bring a bright light after the long dark wintry days.

They won’t stay hidden under a blanket of snow very long! We can take a lesson from them.

Oh sure, we will get enthused with Spring chores: cleaning the windows, fertilizing the lawns, and washing our cars. That may be a first step....getting everything bright and shiny. But there is another step involved. We gotta let our lights and lives shine in ways that will get others curious about Who generates our inner light. We can’t let busyness, pride, gossip, jealousy and all those other “snows” cover our beautiful joy inside. The love in our hearts should melt all those distractions and serve as a beautiful light of hope in the future.

I agree. As we pray and work for the spiritual and economic renewal of our community, we need to let others see the light of Jesus Christ’s love shining brightly in our lives. When others see Jesus shining brightly in our love and service in Christ’s Name, they will be given an indispensable gift: hope.

Last week, a professor of meteorology named Edward Lorenz died. Lorenz was the scientist who came up with what’s known as “chaos theory,” called “the third great scientific revolution of the 20th. Century.” In a nutshell, chaos theory holds that “very small changes…can have very large and unexpected consequences.” The 1972 article in which Lorenz explained his theory was subtitled, “Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” Lorenz answered his own question with a resounding, “Yes!” (See here. Subscription necessary.)

And today, what I want to tell you is that as we consider how best to strengthen and renew rural life here in our community, never underestimate the impact of a life faithfully lived for Jesus Christ here and now.

Even the smallest act done in Jesus’ Name can have a positive impact. Mother Teresa had her own version of Lorenz’s theory. She said, “Small things done in great love will change the world.”

You can believe that! Some years ago, I read an exchange of letters between a young woman who had attended a Christian rock concert and a member of the band she saw perform. The young woman revealed that she had never heard of the Christian band until her friend asked her one afternoon to go hear them that night. It just happened that at the moment her friend called, the young woman was planning her own suicide. She was going to take her own life that night. When her friend called, she thought, “I’ll go to this concert and then commit suicide afterward.” At the concert, she and her friend sat in one of the first few rows. Sometime during the evening, the member of the band to whom she wrote her letter looked at her…and smiled. I knew then, she wrote, that I wouldn’t follow through on taking my own life. Isn’t God amazing?, the rock musician wrote. God can take something as small and insignificant as a smile and assure us that He loves us. That one single smile saved a young woman’s life. Small things done in great love can change the world!

Own Jesus’ words as your own personal motto and mission statement, “Let your light so shine before [others], that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” If a butterfly in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas, imagine the impact on Hocking County when you and I let Jesus Christ be seen in all that we say and do and are! Live and pray, serve and work in Jesus’ Name and the lives of all you know will be bettered not just today, but for all eternity!