Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

It is truly amazing to see a hundred or so young people from ages 9 through 16 singing and dancing in praise of God and, I think, even more amazing to see counselors who are mostly in their late teens and early 20s teaching younger kids about who Jesus is and what God’s grace looks like. That is why I am so grateful to all of you for allowing me to go spend a week there as chaplain.

And you know, this was my first time being chaplain at the kid’s overnight camp at Calumet. I have been chaplain before at the family camp, but this was a really different experience with Calumet this last week.

There was obviously more energy – often sugar induced from the snack bar… but also because the kids were deeply engaged with each other and so willing to just give things a try. Since the camper’s counselors were also young people, they also brought an energy and creativity to the ministry that I loved to see! You might not be surprised, though, that some of the “Bible Study” skits and activities that these 20 year olds invented for their campers struck me as creative… but a bit random.

One morning, to introduce the theme of the day, which was, “God’s Word Comes Near to us in: Listening” the counselors did a skit about being old geezers in a nursing home who couldn’t hear their nurse…The point of the theme – according to the curriculum I received - was for campers to explore God’s presence in the loud moments of camp – singing, cheering, dancing – and in the quiet moments of camp, devotions and vespers. We can listen for God in all kinds of places.

Well, that skit about being old geezers was not really checking any of those boxes.

After that random skit, I joined a cabin of 6^th graders and their counselors for Bible study. To be clear there wasn’t much Bible in the study… the campers were given a “Boston Tea Party” themed scenario where they needed to capture four boxes of tea from two British soldiers (counselors dressed in red), so that they could throw them into the harbor which for us was the lake.

Ostensibly, the point was that the kids needed to listen to each other and work as a team to steal the tea crates.  Ok, but also, not really the curriculum…

And guess what, because of my perception of the daily activities at camp being pretty unrelated to an exploration of who God is and how God comes near in the Word, I started to really force my morning and evening devotions to stick very stringently to the curriculum. I was almost panicked thinking, if these kids aren’t deeply exploring these biblical themes, then my role as their pastor for the week is to get them to “actually” do the thing they came to church camp to do!

After fretting over my morning and evening devotions on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning, I sat down Tuesday afternoon to take some time to read and study the scripture texts we just read together this morning. My obsession with Calumet’s curriculum suddenly began to melt away.

Because Jesus says to not be afraid, stop putting so much time and attention into our possessions and things of the world and to be ready and attentive to the coming of God’s Kingdom which Jesus says is “God’s good pleasure” to give to us.

I was obsessed with forcing the curriculum, I was obsessed with ensuring the kids learned something about God and Jesus in those first few days. So much so that I was totally missing the fact that they WERE learning so much about God because they were experiencing God’s presence at camp. I was the one who wasn’t because I was too preoccupied.

The second part of our Gospel reading is a short parable from Jesus about watchfulness for the coming Kingdom of God. That we should always be alert because Christ will come again at any time! Stay up, be on the look-out, we can’t miss it!

And what I realized as I was studying this text this week in the midst of all those kids running around at camp was that they were the ones who were really fulfilling Jesus’s request to be ready for the kingdom.

I came to understand that what Jesus asks of us in this text is to be not afraid, be not obsessive about our attentiveness in waiting for God’s Kingdom. In obsessing about our watchfulness, we just might miss it.

I was missing it at the beginning of the week at Calumet.

Those goofy skits and theme-based activities that had only the slightest thread of connection to the biblical theme for the day were actively revealing what God’s kingdom might look like – play, friendships, teamwork, enjoyment of creation for creation’s sake. The Word of God was indeed coming near to those campers!

After this aha moment, the brand new friendships that I saw constructed between 9 year olds revealed what the kingdom might look like. Those kids coming from all over New England, with different backgrounds, different races, different parental combinations and living situations were holding hands as they walked from activity to activity because they came to love each other.

A 14-year-old camper told me that she wanted to go to an entirely different camp but was sent to Calumet because there was a spot open during the week she had available. She has been going to Calumet for the last 4 summers and staying with the same group of girls who she met on that first summer when she didn’t even want to be there. Because the Holy Spirit was at work with her and her friendships. The Kingdom of God’s love got to her and now she’s singing and dancing in praise of Jesus Christ and wants to become a counselor in training next year which means she’s going to be teaching others about the love of God through Jesus Christ. Wow! THAT is the kingdom becoming and growing, right in our midst.

And I was blind to all of that because I was afraid the kids weren’t “learning” and I was utterly obsessing about how to teach the curriculum! So, thanks be to God for giving me this text this week because once I was freed from my obsession – I started to have a lot more fun doing those unrelated activities with the campers and I was able to take the pressure off of my morning and evening devotions where I still faithfully introduced the daily theme, but through an inviting the Holy Spirit in, who then helped to deepen my relationship with the campers and staff. This shift helped me to “be not afraid” and I started to have faith in God’s work at camp through the experience of camp – play, creativity in creation, friendships.  

The Apostle Paul writes in the letter to the Hebrews that “Faith is the foundation for things being hoped for, proof for things we do not see.”

The kids at Camp Calumet were the faith-filled ones who provided me with a foundation from which I began to see God’s Kingdom become real right in front of my eyes. Decreasing my sense of anxiety around the curriculum and increasing my sense of joy alongside all those campers showed me what God’s good pleasure in giving us the Kingdom might feel like.

It's beautiful and I’m in awe about how wonderful it is that God blesses us with God’s own good pleasure in revealing the Kingdom to us through faith. A faith that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, allows us to let go and fear no more, and to trust that God is indeed at work. To God be all the glory.

Amen.

The Rev. Ryan Heckman | August 10, 2025