Are you saved? This is a question that can make some of us cringe with discomfort. There is an inference that the one who asks is, and the one being asked, is not. There is a touch of superiority, a feeling of hierarchy that can place an uncomfortable arrogance between the one asked and the one asking. How do we answer? What words do we use to avoid succumbing to the same feeling of elitism? Even if we are able to answer assuredly, there is still the implication that we are the one who can save ourselves.

It seems to me that only Jesus has the right to ask this question. It is Jesus who has the power to open our hearts. I think Jesus, despite his strong words, is asking us as an invitation, not an evaluation.

It’s a strange thing about faith. We don’t get faith by going to church, serving on committees, or even by reading the Bible. We don’t catch faith like some bacteria in the air; yet the irony is that faith is contagious. It can even be infectious. It grows when fed; blooms when watered, and strains its head toward the light. The garden metaphor is helpful here. We know that tending a garden has three basic elements: light, food and water. Without any of these critical ingredients the plant will die.

In the Isaiah passage today, the imagery of a vineyard is painted. It has been carefully tended by the Gardner. All has been done to make it grow strong: watered, fed, weeds pulled, soil loosened, with the very best plants carefully put in the prepared soil. The Gardner was proud of the crop. But the garden did not flourish. The crop was bitter, the grapes turned sour.

The discouraged Gardner threatens to tear down the garden and let weeds choke out the healthy plants. In this passage God is the gardener and the people of Israel are the rotten grapes. How much God loved the people, but they did not produce justice. Instead they murdered and destroyed; they let their faith go to seed. And the despairing Gardner was unable to harvest.

After the planting, you and I are entrusted with the gardening of our faith. We may grow strong and healthy feeding on the nutrients we need to survive. But then a hailstorm hits, we run for cover. We allow the weedy behavior of our lives to choke out our fragile faith. We turn our faces to the darkness that surrounds us every day, instead of reaching for the light. We get tired of pulling the weeds, using the right nutrients, and tending the once healthy garden of our faith. We allow the busyness weeds to crowd our hearts until there is no room for God. And it is dangerous.

Why is it that things of great value, need so much of our attention; such investment of time and energy; while so many things of the world, like corruption, greed, isolation, selfishness, can creep into our lives relatively unnoticed, making us so vulnerable?

Marriage is like that. We give it a burst of fertilizer in the beginning that causes it to bloom. The courtship, our best behavior, the attention we share with each other, the thoughtful ways we say "I love you". Then, as we transition into the deeper stage of setting down strong roots, we turn our attention to other things. We forget about feeding the relationship in all the ways that caused it to flourish in the first place. Children arrive, vocations demand our energies, establishing friends, acquiring needed possessions, and managing our finances, soon takes up all of our time. New experiences, quiet walks, sharing our hopes and dreams are too easily extinguished. Without us even realizing it, the light in our eyes has gone out. Feeding the relationship stops and the soil becomes dry. Subconsciously we drift into acting as though our retirement plans, our health care, our families and jobs, are a fair exchange for our relationship.

It is even easier for us to be unavailable for a relationship with God. We allow our sprouting garden of faith to wilt in the hot sun, saying we are too tired to water it; too stressed to fertilize it. And why wouldn’t we be? We have allowed all the other important areas of our lives to take precedence. "Are you saved?" Perhaps our discomfort rests in knowing our tending has fallen short.

Down deep, in the quiet moments of our hearts, we know that it is not our good works, or our wonderful families, or our rewarding jobs, or even our investments that pave our way to heaven. Jesus gives us the potting soil for our faith: read my words; pray to me; talk about me with others; involve yourself in the church I have given you; know me. Surround yourself with people of faith. Practice it. These are the potting soils of our faith.

We know that if we only take from a relationship and never give in return, it will shrivel up and die. This is not a new phenomenon. So why do we coast on our faith? Why do we allow all other areas of our lives to take the best from us? Why do we think it will survive on its own, when no other area of our life is like that?

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book The Preaching Life, writes how we are all called to faith. She says "That is our common call. It comes to each one of us in a different way, calling for the particular gifts of our particular lives, and each of us is free to respond or play deaf." God calls us from the womb and never stops calling us home."

Next week, I will be preaching from the text when Jeremiah receives a dramatic call from God, which is no less dramatic than our own. Exciting, surprising, frightening, captivating, unmistakable, our God never stops calling us, and this is the Good News. We are called into life through our birth; we are called through our Baptism; through our confirmation, our membership. We are called into relationship with our families, friends, and strangers. God calls us into vocations, into faith and eventually Heaven itself. The call of God is sacred, unique for each one of us, personal, permanent, and ever changing.

Some of us in this congregation have had the unique opportunity to be part of God’s call with someone else. Someone else’s story can help us see our own story with more clarity. God’s call on another, gives us a window into seeing God’s claim on our own lives. This is pretty exciting business.

This morning you have heard about the call to seminary on Heather Cameron’s life. Her willingness to say yes, not knowing where it will lead, how it will be funded, or what will happen along the way. Now you have the opportunity to hear a very different story. It is about a woman from Ethiopia who came to the United States in 1991 as a political refugee, seeking asylum. She escaped with her husband to a foreign land in the United States, not knowing what would greet her, or how she would survive. She did not know the language or understand the culture. When she arrived and everyday since, she has felt strongly the hand of God upon her; a hand that has saved her. In 1999 she was employed by our church as a custodian. The members of this church helped her get acclimated to the culture, education and the government. Now, after a lot of hard work and difficult times she is about to become a US citizen.

Her name is Amelework Seyfu, whom many of you know. I have asked her to share just a few moments of her faith journey with us this morning. She has come to say thank you. Amelework…..

The call of God on all of our lives comes in different forms, at different times in our lives. We can hear stories of how God called another person and think it is just for certain people. We hear other stories and too easily say, "Well, God hasn’t called me." And we turn away.

It was no different in Jesus’ day. People gathered around to listen to this teaching, to marvel at his miracles but then, they, like we, drifted away, back to the demands and interests of the world, and when they did, as we do, we find a desperate Jesus too; desperate to get our attention; desperate to save us.

You’ve noticed it haven’t you? We can see it in his use of hyperbole, or his reversal of ideas, and it grabs our attention. For example: Love your enemies instead of hating them as they hate you. Be glad with those who persecute you; don’t strike back when someone injures you; forget about accumulating possessions. This is not what the world teaches us and that is why there is a steady increase in his intensity.

Now today we hear the words from the Prince of Peace, telling us he didn’t come to bring peace; he came to bring division: father against son; mother against daughter; families divided. Confusing words if we take them literally, but consistent if we hear the message. Jesus has come to turn everything upside down and right side up. He didn’t come to smooth things over or be "Minnesota nice" as they say at home. Nothing, not even family itself, is more important than our relationship with God, and Jesus wants desperately for us to know this. He is not saying give up family; he is saying our faith comes first, and then all else will fall into place.

Jesus wants us to act before it is too late. It takes work to invest in our relationship with God. It takes discipline to say no to things that steal time away from God. You remember the story of the man building storage barns for his possessions. His faith was his most valuable possession, but he didn’t know it. He spent his last day on earth building storage barns instead. He didn’t know that his faith was his passport through suffering, indecision, and the direction for his life. He never knew that his faith was designed to bring him joy. He didn’t know that his faith was his ticket into Heaven. When his time was up, he had invested his life acquiring and managing his things. They did not save him while he lived or when he died.

Jesus appears to us today with the same desperation. He appears to us in ways different than 2000 years ago to get our attention. His words are desperate words to us, challenging us outside of our limited view of who this Jesus is. Jesus is desperate today to save us from ourselves and others. He tries to tell us that faith is our armor in a dangerous world; a faith that speaks to us when we are tempted; one that asserts itself when we think we deserve a little break from church; a faith that shakes us when we say the Bible is too much work to read. It is this Jesus who invites us into a community of protection, when we say we have never been in a small group before; who shields us when we feel defenseless.

But here’s the catch: tending our faith is not all up to God. God provides the living water, the food and the light. All is in place, but God does not force us to take it. We are free to turn our backs. We are free to choose the darkness instead of the holy light. We are free to squander our time and waste our money. We are free to throw away our health, and ignore relationships. We are free never to get involved in growing our faith; and we are free to shrivel and die.

Are you saved? Saved from destruction? Saved from unnecessary suffering? Saved from unhappiness? Will you have enough faith stored when trouble comes your way? Or will all of your efforts have gone to storing and gathering what cannot save you? Jesus cautions: be ready so you won’t be left behind. Get on the right path; have your lamps lit so you can find your way, for "There are many who choose the road to destruction and few who seek the road to life."

For those who say, "I’ll do it tomorrow; Jesus says today is the day to call the estranged family member. Today is the day to write that note to a grieving friend. Today is the day to say, "I’m sorry" or "I love you". The urgency of Jesus’ words is unmistakable. He is desperate that we hear these saving words; so desperate that he give his life for us, that we might understand. Not because if we will be punished if we don’t; but because if we aren’t prepared we will miss the banquet. The commentator Barclay puts it this way: "There is nothing so fatal as to feel that we have plenty of time. One of the most dangerous days in a person’s life is when he or she discovers the word "tomorrow".

This is the kingdom work Jesus is talking about. This is the faith building that will save us. Are you saved? With faith in Christ Jesus, you are.

Amen