Jeremy L. Berg

Last night was a sweet kind of homecoming for me. I was invited back to speak at the church of my childhood, where I was baptized and confirmed and the early seeds of my faith were sown. I brought my two boys along to show them where it all began for me.

Appropriately, Joyce was serving soup in the kitchen. Joyce was my Sunday School teacher about 40 years ago and I still remember her teaching us “This Little Light of Mine.” She and her husband have been faithful saints serving this one church for 53 years! I saw her weeding the church garden last summer and I just stopped and marveled at that level of devotion and service.

As we ate in the fellowship hall, I pointed to the risers in the back of the room where I once stood singing in a Christmas program with dozens of other squirrelly kids. We went into the sanctuary and I was handed a microphone and order of service. Gulp. I still can’t believe I make a living doing public speaking…after so many years of paralyzing fear of it. God’s mercy and goodness (and hint of divine cruelty) at work.

Pastor Ryan is leading the church in a Lenten theme of “Walk Dusty” based on the rabbinic saying about following so closely after your rabbi that you get caked with the dust of his sandals. More nervous than usual, I got up and tried to keep my testimony to the allotted 7-9 minutes. Ha! My sermon intros are usually that long. [Listen to a summary of my message here.]

“In the summer of 1979, my dad in his yellow leisure suit and my mom in her flower vested dress brought me forward to this baptismal font,” I started my talk. “Promises were made and holy water was applied. The most beautiful baby to ever come out of Mound!”

Groans and chuckles.

I continued, “But what no one knew that day was that if you walked out of the church that morning and threw a ball as far as you could down the street, it might’ve bounced enough times to hit the back of a grocery store building where that baby would be preaching the gospel in a newly planted church 30 years later!”

Dramatic pause.

“Just one city block, but a 30 year journey with plenty of twists and turns to get there.”

I then went on to talk about my best efforts to follow closely after Jesus, and all the moments where I got a little dust of Jesus on me.

I got a little dust on me at all those Wednesday night confirmation classes I didn’t always want to attend.

I got a good deal more dust in my face on those special mission trips where Jesus showed up.

I remember the dust of the stars falling down from the heavens one night when I climbed up on the garage roof and beheld God’s glory in the night sky.

Then a shovel of the Rabbi’s dust was poured onto me in college as I sensed a call to vocational ministry.

While I briefly celebrated the ways I had tried to follow closely after God all these years, my main message was to share the good news about the grace of God in the moments when I lost my way, fell off the path, got turned around or lost in a dead end or dark alley. Turning to Psalm 23, I noted that “There’s someone else who follows after us!”

“Surely Goodness and Love will follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6).

Two thousand years ago, the goodness and mercy of God took on flesh and blood and a name, and He has been following after us ever since. Pursuing us. Chasing us. Wooing us. Rescuing us. He follows us down dead end alleys and pulls us back onto the path. He follows us into the wilderness of life’s confusion and brings clarity and hope.

I went on to tell of the ways God’s goodness and mercy followed me back to my hometown to start a youth ministry years ago, mercifully working through a young and idealist man over my head in ministry.

I told of God’s goodness and unfailing love following me into the daunting task of planting a new church in my hometown 13 years ago. Oh, I have fallen back on his goodness and mercy so, so many times in my pastoral journey.

More recently, I sensed God’s the breath of goodness and mercy on the back of my neck driving back and forth to Children’s Hospital for 31 agonizing days as our son fought for his life. In the darkest moments of that harrowing journey, I trusted God’s goodness and love would keep following us in and out of that hospital each day.

I left my childhood church with two invitations:

First, let’s admit that many people don’t feel like God’s goodness and mercy is following them all the days of their lives. Rather, it feels more like bad luck and hard times is chasing after them like a cartoon storm cloud over their head. God wants us to be his goodness and love with skin on as we pursue such people and surround them with his loving presence. If God’s goodness and mercy seem distant, then let us bring some of it to them as we pursue them in love.

Second, I invited us to take a moment this season of Lent to just stop moving and simply turn around to look back at the footprints of the Lord behind us and to count all the ways and moments God’s goodness and mercy has been following us.

The Christian life and the gospel of Jesus is living in the tension of our following after Jesus in faithful obedience, and God’s grace and love following after us when we lose our way.

I ended my message with some Bible trivia by asking, “Who is the very first missionary in the Bible? Who is the first person to go seeking and saving the lost?”

Not Abraham. Not Moses. Not Jesus. Go further back in the story. Keeping going, all the way to chapter 3. There on page 3 of a very big book we find Adam and Eve lost in their sin, hiding in the bushes in shame. And there you see it for the first time: God’s goodness and mercy goes “searching for them in the cool of the day” and pursuing them with love while the juice of their disobedience is still running down their chin.

An animal was sacrificed. Blood was shed. A covering was made. God clothed them with his grace.

God’s Goodness and Mercy has been chasing after us for a very long time, and the good news is that “Surely [His] goodness and love will continue to follow us all the days of our life.” So, take a moment today to stop, turn around, and thank Him for having your back.