“What Are You Taking Home With You?”
Preached Thursday, July 25, 2024 at Camp Asbury
“because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”
What are you taking home with camp from you this week?
(Get answers)
Hopefully you are leaving with everything you came with. I think your parents or caregivers would appreciate that. Maybe you’re leaving with some crafts, some artwork, a four leaf clover…
I have some things here with me that I’ve taken home from camp when I was a camper and counselor here…Let me show you:
(Go through props - art, four leaf clovers, letters, tshirts, etc)
But…are any of you taking something home that you can’t hold? These things, our luggage, our camp tshirts, crafts we made…these are all what we call tangible. We can see them and we can touch them and hold them and physically carry them home.
What are you carrying out mentally? What has this week at camp taught you? Has anyone learned a new skill?
(Let campers list skills they’ve learned)
While I was at camp I learned how to make a fire and cook over it. I learned how to be a complete boss at the ropes course. I learned the words to a bunch of camp songs. I even learned interesting facts about nature/God’s creation.
What about friendships? Have any of you formed new friendships this week? Or this summer? Why don’t we just raise our hands for this one?
Yeah - I made new friends while I was a camper. One year I met a girl named Hilary and we wrote letters and emails to each other the whole school year. And for the next couple summers we planned on coming back to camp the same week and getting to share camp together again. I also have lifelong friends who were my co-counselors at camp. I’ve met people at camp who I’ve carried into my life beyond camp.
What about in Bible study - what have you learned this week?
(Let campers share about Bible study)
This week you’ve heard about the Ethiopian Eunuch getting baptized and how God’s love is for ALL people - ages, nations, races, genders. You heard about The Last Supper and how God calls all Christians, even those with different worship practices, to be one together. You heard about The Lord’s Prayer and how God wants to hear us pray and how God wants us to care and pray for each other too. Today you heard or maybe you will hear around your campfire’s about Jesus teaching on hospitality, and again about how God wants to include ALL people and asks us to do the same. Tomorrow you’ll hear about The Good Samaritan and again about how God wants us to love and care for all people and show them God’s love.
Now my question is - are these things you’ve learned about - are they tangible - something you can see and touch and smell and taste or are they intangible? Something you can’t touch but you can feel it in your heart? What do you think?
(Let them answer)
Right - they are intangible. We can’t carry these things home in our luggage. But we do carry them with us - we carry them in our hearts.
We carry them in the experiences we’ve had here at camp. We might not have touched them with our hands but we have experienced something and we know what we’ve experienced just as much as we know the crafts we made this week. And we can take those things with us. We can take the friendships we’ve made - and if we can carry those friendships throughout the school year or longer - that’s awesome. And even if we can’t stay in touch after camp - we know those friendships are still things that, even if for just a week or for a summer, have changed us - hopefully for the better. And we can take those things we talked about in Bible study - and they can remain head knowledge or we can carry them with us in our hearts. And let the words our counselors shared with us this week, let them change how we see God and others. Let them change how we practice living out our faith. Let them change how our faith becomes alive because of the way we treat and welcome and care and pray for other people.
And in this way - although these things are intangible - they can be tangible. You can’t touch the idea of loving others like God loves them - but when you live it out, you can. You can touch your neighbor’s hands or hug them as you offer them care and friendship. You can give them food or a meal. You can live out love. God’s love for them. Through you - God’s intangible love - can become tangible. You can see and experience the ways you show care and support for one another and how you were acting as God, as Jesus, for that person.
So tonight we will take Holy Communion - have bread and juice together - and this is something that is both tangible and intangible.
It’s tangible because you can touch the bread. You can taste it. You can taste the sweetness of the juice on your tongue. You can see bread crumbs on the ground. This is something we experience with our bodies. And Jesus wanted to give us that tangible experience of a way to remember something intangible. That is - Jesus wanted to give us something that we can see and smell and taste - to remember something that we can’t see and smell and taste but we can feel it in our hearts - and that’s how much God loves us.
And we can remember how much God loves us every time we come to the Communion table. And maybe we come from different traditions and maybe in our non-camp life, we don’t normally take communion - and the beautiful thing about that is, we can connect this table to every table we eat at. Every time we eat bread. Everytime we have juice. Every time we eat with people and it's an experience of love and joy. Every time we do that - we can also remember this meal - this meal that means God’s love for us. And in that way, the intangible - God’s love for us - becomes the tangible - the taste and smell of food and the love shared between people who eat together.
So tomorrow as you pack up your bags and stop by lower Asbury on your way out to gather anything you made this week - and you think about what you’re bringing home with you this week…
Think about the things that you’re bringing home with you that you can't touch:
The friendships you made.
The skills you learned.
How you’ve experienced God while here.
How you’ve learned about how God loves us and wants us to love others.
How this meal reminds us of God’s love.
You can’t touch these things - but you’ve experienced them this week and they have been just as real to you as the luggage that you are bringing home. And in some ways, they are even more real - eventually you may outgrow the camp tshirts. The four leaf clovers pressed between the pages of your Bible may disintegrate into nothing. Crafts may fall apart, be lost, or thrown away. But God’s love isn’t going anywhere. God’s love for you isn’t going anywhere. God will always be reaching out to you - through Scripture, through bread and juice, through friendships, and through the beauty of nature - always reaching out to share love with you and encourage you to share God’s love with each other.
And that’s a beautiful thing - whether you can touch it or not. So I pray and hope and know that you will be leaving camp this week with God’s love because it is always with you.
Amen.
Hopefully you are leaving with everything you came with. I think your parents or caregivers would appreciate that. Maybe you’re leaving with some crafts, some artwork, a four leaf clover…
I have some things here with me that I’ve taken home from camp when I was a camper and counselor here…Let me show you:
(Go through props - art, four leaf clovers, letters, tshirts, etc)
But…are any of you taking something home that you can’t hold? These things, our luggage, our camp tshirts, crafts we made…these are all what we call tangible. We can see them and we can touch them and hold them and physically carry them home.
What are you carrying out mentally? What has this week at camp taught you? Has anyone learned a new skill?
(Let campers list skills they’ve learned)
While I was at camp I learned how to make a fire and cook over it. I learned how to be a complete boss at the ropes course. I learned the words to a bunch of camp songs. I even learned interesting facts about nature/God’s creation.
What about friendships? Have any of you formed new friendships this week? Or this summer? Why don’t we just raise our hands for this one?
Yeah - I made new friends while I was a camper. One year I met a girl named Hilary and we wrote letters and emails to each other the whole school year. And for the next couple summers we planned on coming back to camp the same week and getting to share camp together again. I also have lifelong friends who were my co-counselors at camp. I’ve met people at camp who I’ve carried into my life beyond camp.
What about in Bible study - what have you learned this week?
(Let campers share about Bible study)
This week you’ve heard about the Ethiopian Eunuch getting baptized and how God’s love is for ALL people - ages, nations, races, genders. You heard about The Last Supper and how God calls all Christians, even those with different worship practices, to be one together. You heard about The Lord’s Prayer and how God wants to hear us pray and how God wants us to care and pray for each other too. Today you heard or maybe you will hear around your campfire’s about Jesus teaching on hospitality, and again about how God wants to include ALL people and asks us to do the same. Tomorrow you’ll hear about The Good Samaritan and again about how God wants us to love and care for all people and show them God’s love.
Now my question is - are these things you’ve learned about - are they tangible - something you can see and touch and smell and taste or are they intangible? Something you can’t touch but you can feel it in your heart? What do you think?
(Let them answer)
Right - they are intangible. We can’t carry these things home in our luggage. But we do carry them with us - we carry them in our hearts.
We carry them in the experiences we’ve had here at camp. We might not have touched them with our hands but we have experienced something and we know what we’ve experienced just as much as we know the crafts we made this week. And we can take those things with us. We can take the friendships we’ve made - and if we can carry those friendships throughout the school year or longer - that’s awesome. And even if we can’t stay in touch after camp - we know those friendships are still things that, even if for just a week or for a summer, have changed us - hopefully for the better. And we can take those things we talked about in Bible study - and they can remain head knowledge or we can carry them with us in our hearts. And let the words our counselors shared with us this week, let them change how we see God and others. Let them change how we practice living out our faith. Let them change how our faith becomes alive because of the way we treat and welcome and care and pray for other people.
And in this way - although these things are intangible - they can be tangible. You can’t touch the idea of loving others like God loves them - but when you live it out, you can. You can touch your neighbor’s hands or hug them as you offer them care and friendship. You can give them food or a meal. You can live out love. God’s love for them. Through you - God’s intangible love - can become tangible. You can see and experience the ways you show care and support for one another and how you were acting as God, as Jesus, for that person.
So tonight we will take Holy Communion - have bread and juice together - and this is something that is both tangible and intangible.
It’s tangible because you can touch the bread. You can taste it. You can taste the sweetness of the juice on your tongue. You can see bread crumbs on the ground. This is something we experience with our bodies. And Jesus wanted to give us that tangible experience of a way to remember something intangible. That is - Jesus wanted to give us something that we can see and smell and taste - to remember something that we can’t see and smell and taste but we can feel it in our hearts - and that’s how much God loves us.
And we can remember how much God loves us every time we come to the Communion table. And maybe we come from different traditions and maybe in our non-camp life, we don’t normally take communion - and the beautiful thing about that is, we can connect this table to every table we eat at. Every time we eat bread. Everytime we have juice. Every time we eat with people and it's an experience of love and joy. Every time we do that - we can also remember this meal - this meal that means God’s love for us. And in that way, the intangible - God’s love for us - becomes the tangible - the taste and smell of food and the love shared between people who eat together.
So tomorrow as you pack up your bags and stop by lower Asbury on your way out to gather anything you made this week - and you think about what you’re bringing home with you this week…
Think about the things that you’re bringing home with you that you can't touch:
The friendships you made.
The skills you learned.
How you’ve experienced God while here.
How you’ve learned about how God loves us and wants us to love others.
How this meal reminds us of God’s love.
You can’t touch these things - but you’ve experienced them this week and they have been just as real to you as the luggage that you are bringing home. And in some ways, they are even more real - eventually you may outgrow the camp tshirts. The four leaf clovers pressed between the pages of your Bible may disintegrate into nothing. Crafts may fall apart, be lost, or thrown away. But God’s love isn’t going anywhere. God’s love for you isn’t going anywhere. God will always be reaching out to you - through Scripture, through bread and juice, through friendships, and through the beauty of nature - always reaching out to share love with you and encourage you to share God’s love with each other.
And that’s a beautiful thing - whether you can touch it or not. So I pray and hope and know that you will be leaving camp this week with God’s love because it is always with you.
Amen.
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