I Am

The Summer of 2021 was a strange time, to say the least. Some were rushing to be vaccinated; others were determined not to be. While there was plenty of hope, joy, and excitement, I remember it as a time of division, anxiety, fear, illness, and death as cases of COVID-19 were rising again. Many resolved to live as though everything were back to normal.

How would I shepherd this congregation through this once-in-a-century crisis? The pandemic upended our faith practices, transformed our approach to sacraments, and fundamentally altered what it meant to be "gathered" in God's presence. Everything had changed, and yet, our God had not changed.

The Rev. Cassie Waits wondered if we might encourage the congregation to find hope in this tumultuous time. She proposed an eight-week sermon series on the "I AM" statements of Jesus. Eight times in the gospel of John, Jesus describes himself by saying, "I am..." This was good enough for me, but Cassie had more. She wanted us to "do something."

I'm not really one for creative ideas in worship. I even wear the same shoes every Sunday. Switching out the laces every once in a while is variety enough for me! I trust Cassie, though, so we kicked her idea around with a few other wise church staff people (Mary Groves, especially), and a plan was born. Each Sunday would have a different-colored ribbon. On those ribbons, the congregation would write a response to the sermon: a prayer, a word, a challenge. Throughout the summer, the ribbons would be tied to a structure outside, built by Tim Hammond and Howard Swinford. The wind would blow through those ribbons, lifting our prayers to Almighty God.

It was the most important sermon series I've ever been a part of.

The sermons in this book are the sermons that we preached. Each sermon ends with a prayer and nudge to you to "do something" with them. You might find your own ribbons to write on, or you might write a letter to the person whom the sermon made you remember. Whatever you do, do something so that you be not "hearers of the word only, but doers" (James 1: 22)