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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Amen.

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It seems only right and fitting for me to let you all know that we are now one and a

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half days post Call Day.

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And also that we are now 21 days till graduation or the end of the semester.

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But you see, we've kind of been at this countdown game for a while now.

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I mean, it was just a year until Call Day.

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And then it was a hundred days until Call Day.

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And then three days, four hours, and 32 minutes until Call Day.

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But why are we so obsessed with countdowns?

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Why has it so seemed to consume us?

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I think for one thing it's because we're looking forward to what is coming next.

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Or maybe we're trying to get away from something that we wish was done.

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I mean, so maybe you've started a countdown till when you get to move.

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Or maybe you started a countdown till when you'll be installed.

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Or until the last time you'll have to write one of those papers.

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Or until the last time you'll have to read one of those papers.

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But we seem to be obsessed with countdowns.

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And you know, they can be good things because we're looking forward to something.

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But they can also be all-consuming things.

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Because I think if we're also honest with ourselves,

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one of the reasons we like countdowns is because then that's when real life begins.

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That's when real ministry will get to begin.

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And so we count it down, we cross it off with big red X's across our calendars.

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But I also have to wonder, what have we missed?

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What have I missed in the here and the now?

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Because I've been so focused on the future and what is coming next.

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What will I miss over the next couple of weeks, the next month or so,

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because I'm so consumed with what's coming next?

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Now look, don't get me wrong.

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I am really excited to get to go to California and serve God's people there.

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But this is what I also know.

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There's only 21 more days till graduation, until the end of the semester.

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21 more days of sitting in this room with these people.

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In fact, if you look around, there will never be another time

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where this group of people is together in the same place at the same time on this side of heaven.

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What are we missing today?

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Those things in the future, those visions that we have, they can be really good things

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until they become all-consuming things.

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Until they define who we are, and until they become a detriment, not only to ourselves,

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but to those around us.

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And so this morning, I don't want to miss the trees for the forest.

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And yeah, I know that's backwards from the popular cliche,

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but I think that's where most of us are.

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We're so consumed by the forest, we're so consumed by our grandiose visions of what's coming next,

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that we've missed the trees that are right in front of us.

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The single leaf of one of those trees that's right in front of us.

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You see, J.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings,

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he wrote a short story at one point called Leaf by Niggle, and it kind of describes this conundrum.

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You see, Tolkien, he was in the middle of writing The Lord of the Rings when he got writer's block.

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He couldn't move forward with his grand masterpiece, it had just come to a halt.

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And one day in the midst of this writer's block,

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Tolkien was inspired to write Leaf by Niggle.

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And as the story opens, we meet the character Niggle, who is an artist.

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Well, he's actually a painter.

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And Niggle has this grand vision of this painting that he would like to do.

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And it's of this majestic tree against a beautiful mountain backdrop.

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And he wants to paint it on this grand canvas.

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But there's a problem.

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You see, Niggle's kind of a slow worker.

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And he's also often distracted by the townspeople and by his neighbor,

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who are constantly asking him for help, and just needy over and over again.

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And it seems to Niggle that every time he finally gets to work on his masterpiece,

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somebody comes knocking and needing something, and he's getting more and more frustrated with them.

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And then one day, death comes for Niggle.

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But he doesn't want to go.

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He hasn't finished his masterpiece yet.

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In fact, he's only painted one leaf.

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I mean, yeah, there's paint kind of on the rest of the canvas.

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But he's really only finished one leaf.

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And I kind of have to wonder this morning that that's where we find the disciples

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just before our passage for this morning.

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You see, Jesus has died.

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His ministry just seemed to be getting going.

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He seemed to have only gotten one leaf painted before he was taken away from them.

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And it seemed like that because they were so consumed with their vision of what God was going

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to do, of how God was going to use them, that they had missed the Jesus who was right in front of them.

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In fact, the scriptures will say that Jesus came and tabernacled among us.

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He literally pitched his tent with us so that he could be in the moment with us.

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And I don't know if you've ever been tent camping before, especially with 12 guys.

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But let's just say after a little while, you begin to smell like each other,

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because it's an intimate experience.

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And these guys, they had been traveling with Jesus for three years.

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And yet when Jesus sees them in our text, he chides them,

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because they had been so consumed with their vision of the future,

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so consumed with who would get to sit on his right and on his left,

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that they had completely missed Him.

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But then, Jesus does something really interesting.

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He commissions them and sends them out.

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He does this in this passage and in other passages.

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He commissions them and sends them out.

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And we can't miss this, because in the commissioning of the disciples,

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he is redefining who they are.

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He's giving them a new identity and bringing them back into the here and the now by sending them out.

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You see, because you don't send somebody out with your message unless they belong to you.

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And the message he sends them out with is one of baptism,

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is one of calling people back to Him.

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And so they go forth and do so.

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And the remembrance of their baptisms as well,

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it has to draw them back to him and back to the moment and the people who are right in front of them.

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Because you can't stand in the waters of baptism.

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You can't dip your hand into the waters of baptism without being in the here and the now

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and remembering it yourself of who Jesus called you in that moment.

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Which is what he also does for us this morning.

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He calls us back to Himself in His word and through our baptism and He commissions us and sends us out.

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He sends us out to do the same thing.

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To be reminded of our baptisms, commissioned by Him, that our identity is not in how many leaves

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you get painted.

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It's not in who you will be in a couple of weeks.

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It's in who He is here and now for us.

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It was in His work and not our own.

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And so in doing so, we now get to, in light of our baptisms and in light of Romans 8:15 to 16,

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be reminded of God's word over us.

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You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.

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If we can grasp this, it changes everything.

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If we understand that we are commissioned by Him to be His own, we are then set completely

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free today knowing that He's taken care of tomorrow.

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And so we don't have to worry about how many leaves we get painted before we're called home.

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In fact, we can rejoice instead in having painted maybe just one leaf and loved others in the

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process.

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And we realize it's not our job to paint the whole canvas.

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In fact, it's something we've been called to do together.

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And it's something that won't be fully realized until Christ's coming, when we will get to see

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His full vision in its completeness.

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Which brings us back to Niggle.

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Death had come for him.

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And in this fantasy story, death takes Niggle by train into the afterlife.

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And then Niggle sees something out in the distance that catches his attention.

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And he has to go see what it is, and so he jumps off the train and goes running.

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And standing before him is a grand tree.

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But he realizes it's not just any tree, it's his tree.

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And it's more beautiful than he could have ever imagined.

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In fact, it's more beautiful than he could have ever painted in a thousand lifetimes.

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And so he takes a deep breath and he says, it's a gift.

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The tree is a gift.

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You see, your visions and hopes for tomorrow, they may very well be from God.

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But you are also invited to be present here and today, knowing that God has painted the mountains.

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Knowing that God has taken care of it all.

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And that tomorrow has enough worry of its own.

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So today, you're invited to go out and play catch with your son in the yard.

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You're invited to connect with an old friend you haven't talked to in a while.

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You're invited to go see Mrs. Schmidt in the hospital for the fourth time in two weeks.

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You're invited to stay up until past one o'clock

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on the night that you're supposed to preach in chapel to talk with good friends.

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You're invited maybe to read that book for class that you've been putting off.

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Because that's what it means today to paint your leaf.

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Knowing that God's got tomorrow taken care of.

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So don't worry about that. For today, paint your leaf.

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And when you get the opportunity to show it to your Heavenly Father,

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hear Him say to you, you are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased. Amen.