Ramblings

"A Beloved Household of God" - 1/13/2019

Sermon preached at Hope Lutheran Church based on the Gospel, Luke 3.

When we adopted our two daughters, we spent a lot of time on their names. We wanted names to fit their Chinese/American identity and were not too long.
Our first decision had to do with their last name. For those who are not aware my wife and I followed the practice of my northern European heritage where women did not necessarily change their last name upon marriage. My wife has kept her last name of Borstad. So, when it came to our daughters, we decided that if we were going to live in the United States it would be easier to have their last name of Fredrickson.
Next, we wanted to continue to use their Chinese names in some way. We chose to use their Chinese first names, as their middle names.
However, it was it their first names that took the most time. After a lot of back and forth between my wife and I, a few resources we consulted as well as our mutual family trees, we ultimately decided on Mari for my oldest and Anna for my youngest. “Mari,” a form of Mary and “Anna” are both relatively common first names in Northern Europe and would fit the last name of Fredrickson. But their first names are also translatable and transferrable. Mari is how the Chinese translate Mary and Anna are found in the Mandarin version of the stories in Luke in the Bible.
Not everyone takes that amount of time on names, like the woman who named her baby Female (pronounced feh-MAH-lee) for no other reason than that it was on the newborn’s wristband. Another couple also after some time in the hospital, named their child Urine (pronounced yuREEN). One couple I heard decided to pick a random middle name, and so they settled on Random. And of course, here in Texas we have the famous Governor James Stephen Hogg and his wife Sarah who named their daughter Ima.
I have been thinking about names because of our Gospel. Not only are names and their meanings common in biblical times but names provided some identity. For example, if you read the footnotes of your Bible, they will often explain the meaning of various names. Aaron means “teacher” or “mountain of strength.” Isaac means “laughter.” John comes from “the grace or mercy of the Lord.”
Biblical names also carried an identity; A hoped-for destiny. In Matthew we are reminded that “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Although the name “Jesus” was as common in that day as Michael, John or David, the meaning Jesus had was entirely uncommon. Jesus literally means “salvation” or “the Lord saves.” In this case, his name and his life were one; they show his meaning, identity and destiny.
This has meaning for us, in the season of Epiphany, when we affirm the combination of not only Jesus his identity but affirm but his title as “Christ, the Messiah.” In Luke’s version of the story of Jesus’ baptism not only do we recognize the shining forth of God to humanity in human form, but we hear captured an element of his destiny as the Messiah.
It begins today, as we hear today, with John the forbearer, unfurling God’s ultimate plan for redemption. John was then --- as we would probably see today --- as somewhat of an oddity in society --- dressed in camel hair and eating locusts and wild honey. We also get the sense that --- now as then --- that wild look in his eyes bore the divine authority of prophecy. He was a man on a mission.
We are also informed that this John toured about the countryside, smashing societal conventions not only through his clothing but what he said. John said, that this redemption plan of God’s would not come through a redeemed religion or a redeemed ancestry. It would come through the very Epiphany of Redemption.
John went about “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” The messiah, John said, wanted their public proclamation of their brokenness and need. This messiah would be a righter of wrongs who would level the playing field between spiritual haves and have-nots. All people could access this salvation from God, and so even tax collectors --- our modern-day terrorists and death-row murderers --- even those people could be baptized by John and have their identity realigned.
We are told that in response to John, “the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah.” But John said that he was not to be named the “messiah.” Nor was John baptizing them in his name --- in his identity --- in his destiny. Instead, “Christ” the anointed, John knew would be the one. “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
So, as the people entered the waters with John, he baptized them into this kingdom coming. Into this Name which would one day arrive.
And then one day … the Name appeared.
We get so little of Jesus before today. A baby Jesus, a circumcision, a refugee, a 12-year-old in the temple, and then quickly we have gone through the sands of time and suddenly we have an adult man, a roughly 30-year-old Jesus leaving his home in Galilee and entering his life of public ministry. We are told that Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John as well --- a symbol of his inauguration of the kingdom --- his identity as its King.
God, however, would not have an ordinary coming-out naming party for his Son. God made it spectacular. As Jesus emerges from the waters of baptism, God attended through a supernatural manifestation of his Spirit and through words each of us would be giddy to hear: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” “Salvation” is called “Beloved.” While Jesus was being baptized, his Father named him Beloved and showered him with pleasure. But what is also interesting is that this naming of Jesus today as beloved, means something for all of us as well.
What might it mean? Well, in today’s naming of Jesus we get the inauguration of what will be our identity in baptism. It is a family name without a name; a family of “faith.” Certainly, Jesus had a nuclear family in Mary and Joseph and siblings. Also, Jesus grew up, lived and died a Jew. For example, shortly we will hear that when he returns to Nazareth his former neighbors exclaim, “isn’t this Joseph’s son and aren’t his mother and siblings here with us?” But that is not the only identity we hear today.
When we adopted our daughters, it was important to include a family name. Somewhere in my distinct past I had an ancestor who was Fredrick --- and in that culture the son took on the father’s first name and added “son” --- and became Friedeksson. It was the same for the women, “dottir” or daughter added to Fredrick would be Friedeksdottir and would remain unchanged.
Today we hear that the public identification with family is important and pleasing to God. But the family name we are talking about of course is not one designed by biology, ethnicity, sexuality or gender, Jew or gentile, rather it is the family of God, i.e., a family of faith.
Second, in Jesus’ baptism we see the signs that this naming includes a kingdom. At our wedding my wife and I formed a new family. We certainly came from families but in marriage we established a new household. Later, after we realized that biological children were a challenge, we chose adoption. Our daughters then became part of our household, “our kingdom” with rights and responsibilities. Similarly, today, God confirms that Jesus is part of a family and kingdom. This household of God, this kingdom has business in the world. It has work to do with rights and responsibilities. As the author of the gospel of John would quote Jesus reminding us: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (13:35).
Now we could spend time what it means to be part of this household, this kingdom but for us 21st century Americans, let me mention one important aspect. God’s household includes some distinctly unfavorable people and as you notice Jesus didn’t say distance yourself from Judas so they will know you aren’t whacky, too. Likewise, this kingdom includes people I personally have difficulty with, people I consider outright racists and homophobes. A symptom of that is Sunday’s mornings are most divided hours in the US.
The tax collectors were baptized by John, and then Jesus was. Our family name is “Beloved” and just like our human families, it may have a few characters as well --- relatives we wish would just go away. Yet, we all have rights and responsibilities, along with vocations, in this household of God, this Kingdom of God bound by God’s forgiveness and love.
And finally, one other aspect that we remember and see in Jesus baptism is that it reminds us what baptism means for us. It isn’t a hoop to jump through and a box to check. It isn’t a spiritual security blanket for our children. It isn’t a religious routine that just goes with the territory or because we don’t want to hurt grandma’s feelings.
Jesus goes into the waters of baptism to publicly affirm that he identifies who he is and whom God has made him to be. So, by the same token an important aspect of Baptism in not only do we recognize the baptized persons place in the family, we agree with them that they are God’s and God is theirs. And we agree with them that we engage in a lifelong commitment to grow in our faith asking for and trusting in forgiveness. It is a means of grace as we grow in rights and responsibilities.
That is why when children have an opportunity to affirm their faith, they join us in affirming a faith every day. And affirmation even through death, that in faith we have an identity, eternal to which we belong. Throughout this journey our baptismal destiny as part of God’s eternal family is celebrated.
We can be such insecure, approval-seeking people. Our clothes have labels, our honor-roll children have bumper stickers, our titles put letters behind our names, we idolize the most handsome or most beautiful. There is a corner of cyberspace that many of us call social media whether Facebook or snapchat or Instagram where we can carve out as our own --- our pictures, our music, our quotes, our blogs and journals --- and to cap it off, a counter numbering all those who have added us as their friends and a place where they can leave us messages.
But before cyberspace was even invented God provided a way for us to know we are liked, even more so, beloved. Much of social media is a way for to impress, add our voice, distinguish ourselves and gain approval, but in Baptism God identifies us and call us into a family and kingdom with right and responsibilities.
Meaning, if we are good enough for God, we are good enough.
In following God, through the baptismal waters, we are given God’s name --- God’s meaning, God’s identity, God’s destiny.
After the naming event, Jesus left the water and went ashore and started living out his identity and name. May we sisters and brothers rise and bear the family name as we live out the grace of God! Amen.

Janus Faith - 1/6/2019

Sermon presented at Hope Lutheran Church on January 6, 2019 based on Matthew 2: 1-12. 

Here we are in transition. Last year you and I experienced some changes with the retirements of both Pastor Bill and Music Director Vicky during the summer. I experienced a departure from Good Shepherd to serve as your transitional part time pastor beginning in late July. Together we are exploring the development of a parish among this and the other three congregations on the northwest side of San Antonio.
So, it was some trepidation that I begin my sermon this morning by reminding you that in some ways, January is an exciting month because we are in tension, but not for what you may think on this, the first worship of 2019.
In fact, the name of this month not only has associations with tension, but it goes along with the concepts of beginnings, doorways, openings, and gateways while simultaneously with a foot firmly rooted in the past.
First some background. There’s little doubt that the name of our month of January derives from the Roman god Janus. Janus is usually depicted as having two faces, one looking to the past and one to the future. But before we jump to the conclusion, “That is why January is the beginning of the year!” we would be wrong.
What we often forget is that the Roman calendar (from the Latin calends) began with March, not January. And that makes sense because for the Romans, the months before January were numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10 --- and thus you all who have some Spanish ability recognize --- September comes from septem, October from octo, November from novem and December from decem, Latin for “ten.”
Why the names and numbers on the months no longer match is that in 1582, Pope Gregory adjusted the calendar so that January became the first month of the year. And in 1752, the British and the colonies adopted the same calendar which we call the Gregorian calendar.
That of course means very little for us today except for as I said we have an opportunity to understand this “tension” between the past and future through the eyes of faith.
Janus as I mentioned is usually depicted with two faces, one looking toward the past and the other toward the future. And in some ways, this is where we are today. We are “Janus” like, alive in this tension between the past and future. We are looking ahead and wondering what’s next. “What will this year bring forth? What can I reasonably expect?” And perhaps we’re also wondering, “Where is God leading us? What can we do better to utilize our gifts in the kingdom of God?” Likewise, we have our eyes on the past with longing and sadness as well fondness for what was.
Into this discussion, the Bible can help us, particularly, the story of the Magi. Because it is through the eyes and experiences of these foreigners, traveling from their native lands, east to west, that we can learn as we live in this tension.
The “magi,” not so much kings as our sending hymn our 18th century folk song suggests. More than likely they originated from a priestly class. Therefore, they were sorcerers, fortune-tellers, astrologers. They represent the “wisdom of the east.” Which in of itself is interesting because as you may know, Judaism and Christianity traditionally did not and do not care that much for fortune-tellers and astrology. If you are wondering why, Leviticus 19 is but one example. And to clarify we don’t know how many Magi there actually where, we go along with Longfellow’s famous poem, there were three because of the number of gifts. But perhaps the Orthodox churches have it right and there were twelve.
Whatever the number, the author of Matthew presents them as a bit innocent. They seem naive about Herod, and the political and social culture they enter, though they followed generally the proper trajectory --- east to west --- they wind up nine miles off, to Jerusalem instead of Bethlehem.
Yet it is there in Jerusalem that we are told, the magi tell King Herod about the birth of a “king of the Jews.” What a shock for these foreigners to tell Herod this because that of course is the title which technically belonged to Herod. But we digress for however innocent there were, they came following what they had believed a star had told them.
Now King Herod and the people of that day would not have been surprised at the mention of a natal star. The births of Pliny and Alexander the Great had supposedly been attended by astral events. Virgil notes that a star led Aeneas to the place where the city of Rome was to be founded.
More importantly however, at the news Herod we are told is agitated, troubled, filled with inner turmoil --- “and all Jerusalem with him.” Jerusalem as you may remember was a “company town,” dominated by the Temple bureaucracy, the king and their overseers, the Romans. So, when the king gets nervous, the whole city gets nervous. A “king of the Jews" other than Herod could be upsetting.
In response, Herod does what all of us can resonate with, he mines the past, trusts in what he knows. He calls the experts together --- “the chief priests and scribes.” Not so much unlike ourselves when confronted by something that throws us off balance; don’t we look to mine the past for answers. The “chief priests and scribes” provide an appropriate citation. The central text appears to be Micah 5: 2: “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me, one who is to rule in Israel.”
Now after the past has given direction, we move but not without an interesting query; Herod quizzes the magi on the time the star appeared. Why is this important and how is it that everyone but these Magi missed this visible star we are left in the dark, nonetheless their response establishes a range of age that will set the stage for what happens in the section that follows: Herod's slaughter of the innocents. All born within two years of this “exact time” will be killed.
And perhaps using their naivety, Herod sends the magi to Bethlehem with his permission with the condition that they supply him information about the child. He wants to “worship” him, he says, but, of course, he really wants to eliminate this rival. Lying and violence go together. They are “business as usual” all under the guise of honoring the past. The magi seem to go along with this. They go interrupted by the star, which returns to guide them to the child.
We are then told that the magi see the child --- Mary is mentioned via preposition, and Joseph not at all --- and they worship. We are also told that gifts were presented. The magi bring gold and frankincense, which recalls Isaiah 60:6 --- “they shall bring gold and frankincense.” But those well-known gifts fit for a king also include myrrh, a very expensive perfume used by the Romans to mask the smell of decaying corpses. Why is this third gift included? It is as many have wondered does it portend the future --- that Jesus will die on the cross.
Before the magi take their leave, they receive a dream which tells them to avoid Herod, and they go home “by a different way.” The magi are led and instructed by God onto a new path.
Again, how does this story help us? Astrologists from the East recognizing what in hidden right before everyone? Magi giving gifts fit for a king and the dead?
In this final story regarding his birth we have a reminder of what the 20th-century Quaker theologian Elton Trueblood called the “holy conjunction” this tension between the coming together of “and:” Christ’s humanity and divinity, king and messiah, roots and fruits, the life of devotion and the life of service.
The late M. Scott Peck, a psychiatrist and best-selling author who wrote a lot about religious themes, took this idea of the holy conjunction further. He argued that the ability to integrate faith and reason into our lives is part of what constitutes integrity. Like the magi, “instead of an either/or style, we are pushing for both/and thinking. We are not trying to get rid of reason but promote ‘reason plus.’ Reason and mystery. Reason and emotion. Reason and intuition. Reason and revelation. Reason and wisdom. Reason and love.”
In other words, in the magi we have the conjunction of reason and mystery and in Herod we have the unwillingness to live in this tension and the threat it brings with the temptation to respond with lies and violence.
Another name for what Peck is talking about is the tension of opposites. It is this Janus-like looking backward/forward of this month: an exercise in seeing our opposites in tension; our beliefs and our actions often seem at odds or our strengths appear at times to be cancelled out by our weaknesses; our habits by change.
Parker J. Palmer, who writes on spirituality, says that more than once he “despaired at the corrosive effect” upon his life of his contradictions. He explains, “I had thought that living spiritually required a resolution of all contraries and tensions before one could hope, as it were, to earn one’s wings.” But he says that as he labored to remove these contradictions before presenting himself to God, he eventually realized he had to become less focused on the contradictions in his life and more focused on what God wanted him to be. “Perhaps,” he concluded, “contradictions are not impediments to the spiritual life, but an integral part of it. Through them we may learn that the power for life comes from God, not from us.”
We have placed January as our cultural beginning, but we would be amiss if we were not to be honest and see our tensions this new year; neither complacent about the places where we fall short, but fearful of what change in the power of God might mean. The foreign magi were comfortable living in that tension of reason and mystery but not Israel at the time of Jesus.
Let us therefore once again this Janus day, neither deny nor exalt in our contradictions --- are we foreign Magi who recognize Jesus/or are we so into our American culture we do not recognize Jesus --- but more importantly let us recognize and live into these tensions between our dreams and deeds and count on the grace of God each day. Paul would later explain it this way to the Philippians, “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
The ancient Roman god Janus along with our gospel story reminds us that six days into 2019, on the first day of new season, while we know we have not yet reached the goal of full identification with Christ, let us press on for we are in Christ. Let us live into the tension between our dreams and deeds and live on Jesus. Christmas is over and now is the time to leave from the manager a different way than the way we came.
Today, this is more necessary than ever. At Hope do we live out as a church with habits of the past or live into the unknown because Christ Jesus has made us his own? This question can be one for us as citizens, can we be politically conservative and advocate for social justice? Can we be politically liberal and promote personal responsibility?
In our story of the magi can we be foreigners and recognize the reason and mystery of the Christ child? Can we both give and leave our gifts and go a different way? As Martin Luther put it, can we be simultaneously saint and sinner?
Let us live into this two-faced Janus for in faithful living will we find grace for the new year as we are Christ’s own. Amen.

"Our Song" - 12/23/2018

Sermon presented at Hope Lutheran Church on December 23, 2018, 4th Sunday of Advent based on the Gospel Luke 1: 46-55. Recently, I had an interesting experience that I have not had in a long time. We were invited to someone’s home for fellowship but that was not what was different. What was interesting was that we had group singing! Over refreshments and before a light dinner, we sang Christmas carols at someone’s home!
Group singing is rapidly becoming a lost art in our wired culture. I am thankful for our shared ministry “beer and hymns” events we had this past year, but I realize that are some of you who remember the singalongs around a piano in someone’s living room or a church hall. That’s a pleasure largely lost on most of us who are younger.
In thinking about that experience, I also realized that as 21st century Americans, there are just four occasions --- outside of hymn-singing in church and perhaps at a concert with our favorite performer --- when we typically consent to turn off the TV, or remove the earbuds, stow the smartphone and join our neighbors --- in song.
The first one I thought of is the solemn observance we share: singing the National Anthem together at a sporting event or community gathering. The second time we seem to sing together is during the seventh-inning stretch at a baseball game. Against all odds, at the first stanza of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” --- a pop song of a bygone era --- people join in. The third is at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Although the Scottish dialect of “Auld Lang Syne” is largely incomprehensible to many, it is the one foreign language song that some will cheerfully mumble their way through it --- maybe it is the champagne that helps. I wonder if we should try some prosecco or champagne at church to help our church singing?
But it is the fourth national if not international song that I think is truly the one where even the most diehard, “I can’t sing” person will join. The fourth is “Happy Birthday to You” just before the guest of honor blows out the candles on the cake.
It is this fourth one, that I have been thinking about as we approach Christmas for some obvious and less obvious reasons. There’s something very personal, even intimate, about singing “Happy Birthday to You.” Unlike the other numbers in our oh-so-limited national American songbook, this is the only song directed to an individual. It is not directed to support patriotism, each other or a seventh inning stretch. Rather it is a song which the whole gang may cheerfully join, in a personal way by name!
We do remember and observe the birthdays of some people we don’t know personally, mainly because there are Monday holidays associated with them ---George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. --- but if it weren’t for the day off from work, even those would probably escape our attention.
The other big public birthday celebration, of course, is Christmas. The irony here, though, is that nobody knows when Jesus’ real birthday is. December 25th was chosen by the early church, several generations later, to blunt and co-opt the impact of the Roman winter solstice celebrations. As the pagans in the northern hemisphere celebrated the coming of the sun, it was easy for Christians to celebrate the birth of the Son of Righteousness.
That is why today’s gospel reading is so interesting because for Christians. “Happy Birthday” is not the preferred song as we prepare for God to blow life into this world. Rather we have a new song, the Magnificat, Mary’s song.
Fortunately for Mary, she has a home to go to sing, a place where she receives a warm welcome. Although we don’t include the back story, her older cousin Elizabeth is also expecting. Whatever her neighbors in Nazareth may be whispering about her, she knows she and Elizabeth will have much to talk about.
Elizabeth receives her with the warmest possible greeting: “Blessed are you...” It’s not the sort of thing people typically said to an unmarried teenage mother. No, the people around such a young woman are more likely to say, “Cursed are you. Cursed are you, to have brought such a fate down upon yourself and upon this family.” Elizabeth, however, has no such reservations. She welcomes her relative with open arms. She blesses her.
Mary’s not the only one who can sense the blessing in this upcoming birthday. Elizabeth does too. Between them, they have more than enough faith to see this thing through, giving life to both Jesus and John: two men who, between them, will change the world. It couldn’t have happened, though, without the faithful vision of Mary and Elizabeth, enabling them to bear the burden of this birthday. It is to this welcome from Elizabeth that Mary sings.
Now we know that there are of course several others what are called songs in the Bible, poetic words without the music. In the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, there are the songs of Moses (Ex 15: 1-18), Miriam (Ex 15: 19-21), Deborah (Ju 5:1-31), and Hannah (1 Sam 2:1-10). And there are a couple more in the New Testament all found in Luke who will besides Mary’s Song provide three more, the song of Zechariah (1:67-79), Simeon (2:28-32), and that of “a multitude of the heavenly host” (2:15).
But it is this song, commonly called “the Magnificat” that we are all encouraged to group sing along with today. It is a song where Mary in the first part (1:47-50) speaks of what God has done for her. What does God do for Mary? God “…has looked upon the humiliation of his servant, for behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed...” In first century Israel, one could hardly be more humiliated than to be a dirt-poor, unmarried, teenage woman.
Yet, “behold!”, Mary exclaims. “Behold” is an important word. It signals: “Pay special attention.” “From now on” --- from hitting bottom onward --- everyone “will call me blessed.” Mary’s relative Elizabeth had already done so, and repeatedly, but now everyone will.
“...for the Powerful One has done great for me and holy his name, and his mercy (is) into generations and generations, to the ones fearing him...” Mary concludes her own personal exaltation of God for doing “great for me.” She then celebrates God's mercy far into the future.
In the second half (1:51-55), Mary speaks of what God has done for Israel and the world, a theme that we will hear repeated throughout Luke; the proud, the powerful, and the rich are the opponents of Jesus. But now in Mary's child, God has intervened on behalf of the “lowly” and the “hungry.” God lifts them up, but “scatters the proud ones,” “destroys the powerful ones,” and “sends away empty” the rich.
Mary is singing that God has a “preferential option for the poor.” God is always on the side of those on the bottom, those who are excluded, those left out. It is of course, not that the poor will suddenly become materially rich, rather that God is about justice. Yet, God does not triumph over the rich and powerful in a vindictive way, but rather as a loving parent. God wants the rich and powerful to change, like Zacchaeus and join the mission of the kingdom.
What this group song reminds us is that this is how God triumphs. God triumphs not through violence. Violence is the way of the powers of this world, and of evil and is their customary pattern. God, however, triumphs through compassion and love.
So, as Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, she sings her own birthday song. Unlike however when we sing “Happy Birthday to you…” Mary’s anthem of God’s triumph is not without its dark themes --- the scattering of the proud, the fall of kings. What a burden she must bear! Yet, what a blessing she discerns during it all.
On this 4th Sunday of Advent, can this be our song as well? Absolutely for all of us have been lifted, no matter the depth of where we are or where people or society have put us, we are lifted by God’s love, forgiveness and grace. Or perhaps we are the rich, reminded to walk in the steps of Jesus. Today Mary teaches us a new song, that not only does God not care about our wealth, what we have or have not achieved, God prefers the poor.
When Mary’s sings todays, there is a so much behind it. For example, Jesus’ upcoming birthday is a burden for Mary and Joseph, no doubt about it. The news of Mary’s pregnancy during her betrothal period sets off a minor scandal. It nearly leads to a breakup of her relationship with Joseph. As so often happens with awkward pregnancies everywhere, Mary travels away from home for a while. Whether her parents arrange to have her sent away, or through Joseph’s insistence or whether she undertakes the journey on her own, no one knows and is left unsaid. This journey could very well be that everyone needs to get a little distance from each other to sort out this ambiguous news --- a mixture of joy and anxiety.
This is where it returns to us. It is a mixture of joy and anxiety for us who live 21 centuries post-Birthday to remember it’s not always an easy thing to glimpse God’s promise in these days. It is hard to join in group singing.
It’s so much easier to avoid the truth and focus on the veneer, the things the world is fond of seeing this time of year. The promise of the secular Christmas is merrymaking --- without true joy. It’s a profusion of material goods --- bereft of spiritual values. It’s frantic, scurrying people grasping --- all the while failing to celebrate gifts of the Spirit they’ve already been offered in abundance.
Faced with the onslaught of Christmas materialism, it’s easy to avoid singing during the holiday. It is easier to complain. We complain about Christmas trees going up in department stores before Halloween. We complain of how “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” so often seem to drown out “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Silent Night.” We complain about people rightly pointing out that the words to “Baby, it’s cold outside” has a much darker meaning 50 plus years later. We complain that the holiday seems to have hijacked the holy day.
Well, these things are all true, but if we let our distaste for all that birthday materialism eclipse the deeper meaning of Christmas found in Mary’s song, then this birthday will lose it depth and simply become another “Happy Birthday.”
In just a day, we will be singing Christmas carols. Within days we will sing for a new year. Bowl games will begin with our national anthem.
It is today, in this Christmas group song from Mary that we truly are blessed. Blessed are we, as we walk through these final days of Advent with eyes wide open to the signs of God’s presence for the lowly --- and God’s promise to the rich and powerful --- ready to sing along with Mary. Amen.

"Fear" - 12/16/2018

Sermon based on Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Luke 3:7-18 shared at Hope Lutheran Church.

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
That line is from the carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” It is a wonderful image of eternal light beaming from a stable setting where the Christ child dozes. But did you do what most of us do, not really hear that line? Hope springs eternal from this birth to a world where hope so often seems in short supply …. but fears? “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” What does fears have to do with Christmas?
The history of the carol provides a hint. It was written in 1868 by the famed Episcopal pastor of Trinity Church in Boston, Rev. Phillips Brooks. As you may have noticed it was 150 years ago and the American Civil War had ended only three years earlier. Yes, Lee and Grant had signed their peace accord. Yes, battle-weary veterans from both sides had laid down their arms and trudged home. But just imagine, families had been decimated by the carnage of the most brutal war America had ever known. Families counted themselves lucky if those returning had come home lacking an arm or a leg or an eye or shivering with PTSD. They knew their loved ones could just as easily have not come home at all. Major portions of this nation still lay in ruins, the KKK was growing in power and influence and President Andrew Johnson --- regarded by many historians as our nation’s worst --- was doing his best to dismantle everything his predecessor President Lincoln had accomplished for former slaves at such a terrible human cost.
Therefore, when Rev. Brooks wrote the lyrics to what became “O little town of Bethlehem,” it gave war torn Americans some comfort to picture the humble Bethlehem stable as the place where hope and fear meet each other in the Christ child. Almost seems quaint --- but is it? Although most of us ignore the lyrics of what we sing, I wonder if it is important to review why fear is included at all?
Do we have fears? Our answers, no doubt, are probably as varied as our numbers this Sunday morning. Now I don’t want to engage in a debate into what is real or imagined because public perceptions do not match reality. Although you and I are largely safer and on average will live longer than fifty years ago I sense most of us would say these are anxious times. Whether rich or poor, employed or unemployed, member of the majority or minority, the cacophonous “Isn’t it awful?” refrain of our American society pounds its way into our hearts and minds.
Now if you are still wondering what that has to do with preparing for Christmas look again at our gospel and John the Baptist. How can that voice crying in the wilderness be something other than a bump in the road. It seems quite the opposite from anything Christmas: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Well, if you haven’t figured it out yet, let me let you in on a little secret, Christmas is as much about fear as it is about hope; we cannot have one without being honest of the other.
We do not vanquish fear by denying or avoiding it for fear is as much a part of the Christmas story as peace and joy. By acknowledging our fears, it will help us prepare for what comes. It is only by moving through our fears can we fully grasp the joy that awaits us on the other side, the triumphant good news of the Christ child coming into the world.
We see that played out in today’s scripture not only in Luke but in our Old Testament lesson as well. If you ever wonder, why Lutherans bother to read from the Old Testament, this week is a good reminder. The author of the gospel according to Luke seems to be trafficking in fear while the Zephaniah passage sounds a note of triumphant hope: “The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.”
Not that Zephaniah’s larger prophecy is all sweetness and light. Like his contemporary the prophet Jeremiah, Zephaniah earlier voices the message of an angry God seemingly with words that John the Baptist could have repeated: “On that day, says the Lord ... I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the people who rest complacently …., those who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.’”
Those words from over three thousand years ago could be an indictment of our culture. How many of our neighbors respond to God with a shrug, “The Lord will not do good, nor will God do harm”? How many of us feel the same? But that is the point of Zephaniah and John the Baptist, if we do not grapple with our fears honestly, we will certainly not be able to understand a God of love.
Now if you are wondering how is it that John’s and Zephaniah’s words that seem more about judgement help us to understand our fears? I know I am getting ahead of myself, but we hear it in the angel’s repeated greeting: “Do not be afraid.” To Joseph, to Mary, to Zechariah, to Elizabeth, to the Shepherds, just go down the list of Christmas characters. What is said to all of them, “Do not be afraid!”
There is the obvious, an angelic presence might have seemed startling, but fear is about the future. We humans have a negativity bias. Our brains pay more attention to the negative situations, experiences and information in life than the positive. It’s easy to imagine a future of gloom and doom rather than to imagine a positive and happy one. So for example, God sends a message about the future and we imagine ---- gloom and doom.
Second, fear is about loss. We fear change. We fear the end of things. We fear that someone we love will leave us or die. We fear losing a job, income or the pleasures we’ve come to enjoy. We fear losing our health, comfort and control. We fear we’ll be rejected. We fear dying alone. That is why when we hear about God’s judgement, like in John’s message, we immediately assume the loss of control, and we do not like change!
Once we walk out these doors, we don’t get any of this discussion in the secular version of the coming holiday. I triple dare you, when you are at HEB next time and O little town of Bethlehem comes on and the line is repeated “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight” see what happens if you were to shout out, “Let’s talk about our fears!” and see what happens.
Christmas has been made into all light and no shadow, all merriment and no wickedness. And for those who turn for a moment from the relentless yuletide cheer to acknowledge some all-too-human problem, difficulty or fear, they might be accused of lacking enough “Christmas spirit.”
Our secular American culture may be quick to domesticate God into a benevolent philanthropist, a kindly figure very much like Santa Claus, but that’s not the full biblical witness. To prepare for the coming of the Messiah we are preparing as John the Baptist is reminding us that “God is to be loved, yes; but God is also to be feared” and we can’t have one without the other. We are afraid of loss; we are afraid of loss of control and can’t imagine God any other way! No wonder it is a shock when it comes in a baby! Fear in a baby?
I realize that is a problematic thing to say, because none of us wants to hear about fear when churches around this nation are less and less important in people’s lives. Who wants to be reminded of fear especially to neighbors who already have an image of God as harshly judgmental --- perhaps even terrifying. Pastor, what we need right now is to be reminded that God is one of love and peace, of empowerment and affirmation.
Well, God is all those things as well, to be sure --- but in order to do so, we need to bring our fears as Joseph, Mary, Elizabeth and all the rest brought theirs. Clearly, John the Baptist sees the connection, as do the gospel-writers, as they bookend the Christmas story with angels who preface good news with “Fear not,” on one side, and with the soldiers of a jealous national leader who run babies through with their swords, on the other.
We don’t get to Christmas by detouring around fear. Rather in this season of preparation, if we listen to our fears, Zephaniah and John are telling us good news. They’re telling us that all these fears of ours are ultimately powerless when laid up against the great plans God has for this world and all who dwell therein.
Theologian Leonard Sweet describes this Sunday this way by in a story about a certain Native American tribe who had a unique way of preparing its young for adulthood. On the night of a boy’s or girls 13th birthday, they were led out into the wilderness to spend 3 days alone. Most young people, at that point in their lives, had never been away from the security of their elders. Yet, these young teenagers were blindfolded and taken miles away. When each one took off their blindfold, they found themselves in the middle of the wilderness. Alone. Dependent on nothing but their wits, what they remembered from their survival training and the good will of the Great Spirit.
We can well imagine the three days for these young people. Imagination magnified every sound, until it seemed like a fearsome monster. But then, finally, came the fourth day. When dawn broke, they would rub the sleep from their eyes and look around. What they would see would not just be the wilderness in the light of the day but — a person from the tribe, standing armed with bow and arrow. It would be a parent or other elder. They would have been there all along, weapons at the ready, watching over these youngsters for the whole time.
What did that teach those young adults? Fear is human. We are all afraid. There are indeed times when thick darkness surrounds us, and we may justifiably wonder if we’ll ever see daylight again. Our nights can be long and dark. But those young people were taught that even in our deepest moments and times of loneliness and despair, we are not alone. There is one who waits beside us.
In a matter of days, we will gather to celebrate the good news of the Messiah’s birth. Will these days of fear meet hope in the manger? The fear of God, as Proverbs says, is “the beginning of wisdom” because we when we are honest about our fears, we are open to the fact that we are not in control, and we will face loss, and those fears will be met by the presence of God as a babe. Amen.

Christians under Construction - 12-9-2018

Sermon shared at Hope Lutheran on Sunday, December 9th based on Philippians 1: 3-11. 

How are the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City and the Ajuda National Palace in Lisbon, Portugal related? All are unfinished, incomplete, still in the process of being built. Link to list of unfinished buildings
The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, is 601 feet long and 124 feet high and features the longest Gothic nave and rose window in the U.S. Yet, although construction of this colossal building began in 1892 and has been fully open since 1941, there are still portions still waiting to be completed. Over the years, the congregation has been plagued by financial woes, changes in architectural plans, wartime delays, engineering problems and, in 2001, a fire. Thus, today, 126 years to the month after the cornerstone was laid, this massive church is dubbed “Saint John the Unfinished.”
But if you think that project has taken a long time, consider the Ajuda National Palace in Lisbon. It originally started in 1796 as the home for the Portuguese royal family. Over the centuries a series of wars hampered construction as well as financial problems. Yet through it all construction continued until the 1910 Portuguese revolution which abolished the monarchy and evicted the occupants. Currently the half-finished palace functions as a museum.
Yet, I wonder if those ventures along with the countless others from the New Zealand Parliament building to the Westminster Cathedral hate it when that word --- unfinished --- gets attached to their names? I know I do because we have a few at our home. We have yet to repaint my youngest daughter’s bedroom, even though she is now away to college. Along with that, we have several other projects that we would prefer to call “a work in progress.”
However, we label such incomplete projects, whether large or small they seem to stand in judgment of us, reminding us that while we may have plenty of ideas and ambition, we’re not so good with follow-through. No matter how much we would prefer to say we are done, we have plans, projects, that remain.
Of course, it’s one thing to have unfinished plans around the house; it’s quite another thing to realize how unfinished we are as individuals --- how far short we fall of the goal of being the persons God calls us to be. Given that the New Testament uses the word “saints” to refer to living followers of Jesus, that means we could refer to ourselves as “Saint Charles the Unfinished,” or “Saint Carolyn the Unfinished.” We acknowledge that we are works in progress --- “Lutherans under construction.”
Dr. Martin Luther, the 15th century Roman Catholic priest, university professor, and reformer, our namesake, called it being “simul justus et peccator” which we loosely translate into English as “simultaneous saint and sinner;” that is at the same time both righteous and broken. Human beings are justified by grace alone, but at the same time we will always remain sinners, even after baptism.
How can this be? Luther pointed out that being a saint isn’t simply about what we do or don’t do but about who we are in relationship with God. Likewise, that is also true of being far from God, for it isn’t all about what we do or don’t do, but who we are living yet in a broken relationship with God.
For example, the focus of the story of Adam and Eve’s is not just that they ate a piece of fruit; broke one of God’s rules. Their real issue in the story was their desire to be “like God,” relying on their self-centered judgment rather than trusting God above everything else including their own consciences. For us, too, our specific behaviors are only symptoms of this self-centered condition that theologians call “original” to all humanity. Meaning that you and I may not be murders, a symptom of this broken relationship with God, yet we are in the same boat.
Well, whether you are Lutheran or not, this image of being unfinished is not a Lutheran invention; it comes right from Scripture. For instance, the author of Hebrews wrote, “Therefore let us go on toward perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again the foundation: repentance from dead works and faith toward God ...” (6:1).
The writer of Hebrews wasn’t suggesting that we abandon the basic teachings about Christ in the sense of rejecting them for something different. Rather the author was saying that if we’re spending all our time repeating the basics of the faith --- it is just echoing --- then we aren’t moving.
For example, I lived in Iceland for a year in the early 1980’s in what people call nowadays a gap year during college. The family who gave me board were building a new home and I provided some cheap labor. As you can imagine in that context, to do any construction you have to spend a lot of time and money on the foundation going deeply below the permafrost. We spent days on the rebar and forms until finally we had reached the point of pouring the cement. I remember the fears of the family, “Had we done enough?” Likewise, there comes a time when we need to build upon our foundation. That connects to Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, where after commanding his followers to love their enemies, he added, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
I realize that is a lengthy introduction, but I think that is helpful as we hear Paul’s assertion in our Philippians reading: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”
“The day of Jesus Christ” in that verse refers to the time of Jesus’ second coming and is no doubt the reason that the lectionary committee selected this passage as the 2nd reading for this Second Sunday of Advent, a season of the church year that both celebrates Jesus’ first coming, in the Incarnation and anticipates his second coming at the consummation of the age.
But the apostle’s Paul’s point is, the completion point of a life in God is not until the end, and even then, it only comes with God’s help. In the meantime, we are not to let our shortcomings in our lives derail us from going on toward perfection in love, from growing in Christ, from gaining faithful maturity. In other words, we have no clue as to when God will complete what God has been doing since the dawn of time, through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, so don’t let what God is doing, stop us from doing what we are to be --- towards perfection.
In the Philippians passage, Paul goes on to say that his prayer for the believers in Philippi is that their “love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help [them] to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ [they] may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”
The late British author C.S. Lewis, the author for example of the “Lion, Witch and Wardrobe” wrote about this. He said that when we seek Christ’s help in being the person God wants us to be, Christ doesn’t settle for giving us just a little.
As an illustration, Lewis explained that as a child, he had toothaches and knew that if he told his parents, they’d give him an aspirin to deaden the pain for the night. But he wouldn’t tell them until the pain got bad because he also knew they would also take him to the dentist the next day and he didn’t want that. “I wanted immediate relief from pain,” Lewis wrote, “but I could not get it without having all my teeth examined. And I knew those dentists; I knew they started fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. They would not let sleeping dogs lie; if you gave them an inch, they took it all.”
Lewis went on to say that Christ is like the dentist, Christ provides love and forgiveness but will not stop there, for he wants to make us perfect. Lewis pictures Christ saying “Make no mistake, I will make you perfect. ... I will never rest, until you are literally perfect… until my Father can say without reservation that he is well pleased with you, as he is well pleased with me.” If you give Christ an inch, he’ll take it all.
So, why is this fact of faith important to recognize. I think that diagnosing the unfinished nature not only reminds us none of us is to be stagnant in faith. It also reminds us about the nature of growth. It is not however about morals, certainly morals come into play. Rather it begins with being humble, recognizing that we aren’t all that God intends for us to be. This humility is so that we are gracious and willing to listen far more than we are to about to tell others what to do.
Likewise, this is a reminder to beware of certainty. The unfinished nature of our knowledge means that our “Christ lite” opinions aren’t the last word on all the topics of faith. Some of our notions on faith may even turn out to be “half-baked” --- which is a synonym for unfinished. I remember seeing this in some of the missionaries I experienced in Japan, so full of certainty that not only did the ignore the nearly 600 years of Christians in that nation, but of a spirituality that goes back for a millennium.
This realization is also a reminder that we work on being perfect in love. We do that by saying yes as God reveals new things to us that need to be converted to go forward in our relationship with Christ and with others. Consistency in the Christian life does not begin at Baptism rather and ends at confirmation or when we have reached 80, faithful life comes slowly and sometimes even painfully through subsequent submissions to God’s call and refining Holy Spirit. For instance, Lutherans are celebrating over 40 years of the ordination of women, yet to this day not only are there other Christians against this very notion, there are capable women who are not accepted in positions of leadership. The same goes for pastors who are LGBTQ. Every day is a new beginning what have we yet to learn?
Remember that although the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine is far from finished, ministry has been taking place there since its beginning. It is true in our lives: although we may be half-baked, we are God’s people not only in acts of love, generosity and faithfulness but exploring new ways that are being revealed. Where in our lives of faith do, we need to explore as we live out God’s kingdom?
As always let us be hopeful although unfinished. Reminded that as each of us remains in Christ, “the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” So, we are Christians under construction moving toward perfection. A fellow pastor shared it this way. During her final year of college, she sought some advice from one of her professors. He said, “Remember that even if you make the right choice, you’re forgiven.” True enough! Amen.

"What do you know?" - 11/18/2018

Sermon preached at Hope Lutheran based on Mark 13: 1-8

“What do you know?” The standard response of course is “not much ---you.” Today’s lesson is a reminder to us as Christians that we live on a need to know basis, that is why when some may ask us, “What do you know” --- “not much you” are so accurate.
Of course, that expression is found in other places when honesty to the question of “What do you know?” “I know enough.” For example, one’s “need to know” probably has military origins. When the military believes that certain information is extremely sensitive, the files are placed under severe restrictions. In these cases, the government does not want someone who is unauthorized or lacking proper security clearances to be privy to sensitive data. What do you know when you are low on the list, “not much…you”
Parents --- to cite another example --- do not tell their children everything. They don’t want their children to be burdened or to worry about things children should not worry about. What when a child was to ask another, “What do you know…” the child can truthfully answer “not much…you?”
God, likewise, does not tell us everything, perhaps for similar reasons as parents with children. A part of our faith journey includes acknowledgement that we’re on a need-to-know basis and “what do you know?” --- “Not much you?”
In Acts 1:7, Jesus tells his disciples that there are some things they do not need to know. “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” But here’s the thing: We do know something!
In today’s text, clearly, the disciples need to know something and receive a reminder of “need to know.” So, what do they “need to know?”
Before that let’s back up. In our gospel, Jesus and the disciples leave the Temple for the last time. The next time they are here it will be for Jesus’s death. As they leave, an unnamed disciple exclaims on the magnificence of the Temple. “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”
That is not that odd, remember many of the men and women who followed Jesus were from the small villages around Galilee. They probably had not wandered far from the Sea of Galilee, which gave them their livelihood. So, when you take those who have lived among a few rough homes and where a few dozen people were the whole community, to the city for the first time, or bring some uneducated fishermen from the uncultured north, you’re going to get men and women who are mightily impressed with what they see. We are told that all the disciples were impressed. “Look at these buildings! So cool! Look at this temple! And the size of the blocks of granite! Wow!”
Jesus, however was not impressed. Of course, he’d been to the temple before and had even held a seminar there at the age of 12 for some of the most learned rabbis of the country. Jesus told the disciples that the temple was just a heap of rocks. “Ah, you’ve noticed! Yes, these buildings and stones are huge, but I will let you in on a secret. The day is coming when not a stone will be left untouched. This place is going down.”
After this comment, the disciples and Jesus continued their way. Then we have a rather abrupt change of venue. Jesus and the disciples are sitting “over against” --- the Temple on the Mount of Olives. An appropriate setting because the Mount of Olives had apocalyptic associations. For example, it is the place from which God would fight against the enemies of Israel according to Old Testament prophet Zechariah.
There we are told four of the disciples --- Peter, James, John and Andrew --- took Jesus aside and away from the others --- perhaps they thought the other disciples did not need to know, “and they asked him privately, ‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?’” (vv. 3-4).
Surprisingly, Jesus agreed with them --- to a point. At the end of this chapter, Jesus reminded them that “about that day or hour [when the heavens and earth will pass away] no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (v. 32). So, Jesus begins to share what he does know and what he feels these four disciples “need to know.”
What does he say, and what does it mean? Our reading is only a small part of what Jesus does say to them. Briefly let’s review. Here’s how he begins: “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs” (vv. 5-8).
From that we gather, we need to know that false teachers exist. Falsehoods are always lurking. Their selling points? They have some authority otherwise they wouldn’t be “shepherds,” but what they are adding to what they know is not true. In other words, they are suggesting that whereas most of us are on a need-to-know basis, they are not. Somehow, they have access to knowledge no one else has.
Be cautious, Jesus, says. What you need to know, Jesus is reminding them, is that NO ONE knows more than you will know right now. He will later say that neither he nor the angels know what is known only to God. Be careful about signing on with a charismatic leader who claims to have knowledge, a key to the Book of Revelation for example that no one else has.
What else do we need to know? We need to know that faithfulness to God is not about buildings, regardless of their size or history. The temple was beautiful, marble and gold among others, with a thousand plus year history at the time of Jesus. Today, that temple of stone and marble is gone. All that remains is a base of one wall. Yet, the church of Jesus Christ is alive and well. What do we need to know? We may worship in buildings, we may even spend most of our budget on maintaining them, but God does not live in buildings made by human hands. God dwells in the human heart here and out these doors.
What else do we need to know? Well, we know that our faith is not linear. Yet, Jesus reminds us that life will not keep going around and round in repetitious moments of joy and suffering; all of this is headed toward a culminating point --- a point about which we know very little. There was a beginning, and there is an end point. God is a God of story, of creation. God is going to wrap things up. This is our hope. Jesus told the disciples that when the temple comes down, it is not the end, but the beginning of the “birth pangs” … the end is still to come, and then a new beginning.
We also need to know that there is no cause for alarm. While we may feel everything is falling apart, coming down, things are simultaneously, coming together. For example, an Episcopal priest by the name of Michael Marsh once wrote, “I remember the morning of my divorce. I remember the afternoon my younger son called and said, ‘Dad, I just joined the Marines!’ I remember the night my older son died. With each of those events one of the great buildings of my life was thrown down. Stones that I had so carefully placed and upon which I had built my life no longer stood one upon another. Temples of my world had fallen. My world had changed, and my life would be different.” He goes on to write that we all build temples, and all of them will eventually come crashing down. Jesus reminds us that as we stand in the rubble, God is alongside prepared to help us rebuild.
Granted while all this provides us somethings for us to know it also leaves many, many questions answered. But think about, what don’t we need to know? Well, for example: For one moment in our lives we once held a world record; when we were born, we were the “youngest person on the planet.” More people die while taking “selfies” than from shark attacks. The world’s tallest building --- Burj Khalifa --- is so tall that, after seeing the sunset at ground level, you can grab a lift to the observation deck at the top and watch the sunset again! All trivia, and now we know. But do we really need to know it?
We don’t need to know when or how soon Jesus is coming. No matter what TV garbage a preacher might say, what we did need to know we have been told, and just a reminder they don’t know either. For all of us are on a need to know basis.
We don’t need to know what is going to happen tomorrow. Instead, now I don’t like to quote scripture out of context but let me read Matthew 6:34. Jesus said, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” We’re on a need-to-know basis because we already have enough that we know about.
What should we do in the meantime? First, and therefore most important, keep calm and get ready for Thanksgiving and give thanks! Second, be alert and watchful. Jesus, too, tells us to “keep awake.” What should we watchful for? Not for caravans of people searching for a better life, or wars or famine or deadly fires, or earthquakes. Rather, we are watchful so that we can be the helpers to rebuild and care and share the love of God through Jesus.
For Mark, God is indeed intervening, but not in the form of earthquakes or war or bad things happening to good people, or the occasional miracle rather God has come as one who suffers, one who reigns from a cross, who as Simeon suggests at this very same Temple 30 plus years before when he saw Jesus as an infant, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation of the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”
So, what you know? Not much you? And what we do know, we have been given: forgiveness and love through God's grace from Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

"Enough is Enough" - 11/11/2018

Sermon presented at Hope Lutheran based on Mark 12: 38-44

Picture two older people. Both are in their 80’s and struggling with pain. At first it was the small things, the difficulty they noticed with getting dressed, getting out of bed or the car and the walking. Over time the pain reached a point that it got to be too much and first my father and in December my mother went through and will be going through hip replacement surgery. Their threshold of pain had been reached; Enough is enough.
Picture a man who’s been struggling for many months with a thought. He’s always enjoyed having a drink with dinner, but what began long ago as one drink has turned into two, or three and where he needs a drink to get through the day. His marriage and job are on the rocks. He’s troubled by the thought that maybe he’s an alcoholic. A friend of his who’s in recovery himself has said as much. He’s told him about Alcoholics Anonymous and how it literally saved his life. He’s given him his card and said, “Call me any time.” The man fishes the card out of his top dresser drawer. Enough is enough.
Picture a woman who has been abused for years. She has compromised, lied to herself, and given in, traced and retraced the same pathways, resurrected the same tired, old arguments for and against staying in the marriage. There seems to be no way out. Over the years, she has gently suggested a therapist and once even caught herself in the car ready to drive away. But each time, she stayed perhaps too frightened and for a while there was the children. Now, one morning she realizes there is only one solution. She packs her bags and leaves. Enough is enough.
Why is it that, in each of these instances, somebody’s finally able to say, “Enough is enough?” While others of us may continue? Today’s story of what is commonly called the “Widow’s Mite” is perhaps an example of someone declaring “enough is enough” with profound ramifications.
Let’s review. It is Tuesday of the week that Jesus will die. Jesus had entered the city of Jerusalem two days previous. On the first day, upon entering the city, Jesus had gone to the Temple, looked the place over, then left for Bethany which was about two miles away.
The next day, Monday, Jesus came back to the Temple, this time he famously drove out both “those who were selling and those who were buying.” In anger, Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers, who changed coinage into coins that could be used at the temple, coins without any face or symbol so not to break the commandments all for a fee of course. Jesus also turned over the seats of those who sold doves. Why doves? They were the least expensive animal sold to the poor that could be purchased for the obligatory sacrifice at the altar of the Temple.
Now remember that this is a direct attack on that whole system. The Temple was not only a religious but an economic institution as well. It had hundreds of employees, and Jerusalem was a “company town.”
So, our reading today comes the day after that outrageous incident, on Tuesday of what we know as Holy Week. During this week Jesus also spoke on several controversial topics, skewering all his major opponents --- chief priests, scribes, elders, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians --- we are told to the great delight of the crowd.
Today, Jesus began speaking about the scribes --- those who kept the rules of the Temple who desire to prance around in long robes, receive greetings in the marketplaces, and sit in the most desirable seats in the synagogues and at dinners. In a society heavily influenced by issues of honor and status. Jesus mocks them for it.
Apart from their ostentatious display, however the scribes also do real damage. In that economic system, they are “the ones devouring the houses of widows.” When someone died, for example, the scribes would help “manage” the deceased person's estate. Naturally, the scribes would charge a hefty fee for this “service.” Making matters even worse, the scribes accompanied their exploitation with a thick layer of sanctimony --- “praying publicly, praying long.”
Then --- notice the stage direction in this event --- Jesus “sat opposite the treasury.” This treasury was in the Court of Women section of the Temple. It consisted of 13 flute-shaped chests into which people threw their offerings. This was quite an open procedure. That such a system might generate some “showing off” would not be surprising. Thanks to www.progressivinvolement.org

It is there we are told, Jesus notices a poor widow among others who came and put in two small coins, worth a penny. After witnessing this, Jesus called his disciples. He prefaced his remark to them with “truly I tell you,” indicating as you know an important message. The poor woman has given more than anyone, he says, “for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” Jesus' gives a three-fold description of the woman's economic condition. She gave: “out of her poverty,” “everything she had,” “all she had to live on.”
We need to be reminded Jesus does not laud the woman nor is there any comment on her faith. Even Jesus himself, it seems, thinks the widow’s gift is too much for he notices that she gave “all she had to live on.” And yet, it’s her decision --- her desire to give herself into poverty. No one --- not even those around her --- would have said this woman ought to give up the very last two coins she had, placing herself in abject poverty.
But she does it anyway. She does it of her own volition. Strange as it may seem she decides that having --- absolutely nothing --- enough is enough. What led to that? Perhaps Jesus knew but he does not tell us. Had she given up on life? Was she terminally ill? Depressed? Whatever it was for her in giving she guarantees she will not have enough. She may die as a result of this action.
Why is Jesus noticing this? One reason may be because, remember this is during the week Jesus will die. It’s parallel to a decision Jesus himself will soon make, just a few days from the date he tells this parable. As Mark tells it, Jesus struggles with the agony in the garden when he implores, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” A short time after, he will be on the cross, when this happens: “Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ ... Then Jesus breathed his last.”
Have you ever wondered, why did Jesus choose that Friday to say enough is enough and give it all? Why that Passover holiday? Why not another year or two later? Why not a year before? Was it in this woman’s example that Jesus saw his own giving. “Enough is enough” and gave it all?
Well, what can this mean for us? Saying “enough is enough” can be a good thing. At that time, it may not feel good, pleasant or an easy decision, but it’s a recognition that it’s time for a change. It’s a decision to move on. What is that trigger?
Let me give you one possible example. “You can never be too rich or too thin,” said Wallis Warfield Simpson, who married King Edward VIII of England --- a decision that led to his decision to abdicate the throne. Many people --- thinking of the deadly diseases of anorexia and bulimia --- would disagree with the Duchess of Windsor on the too-thin part. But too rich? What does that mean? To quote a character in one of Jesus’ parables, “You can always build a bigger barn, right?” --- but that when it comes to the accumulation of material wealth, do we believe the sky’s the limit? Is there ever enough is enough?
We notice that in the book of Revelation. As many of you know at one spot the author spins a colorful picture of a heavenly city that’s about as far removed from the widow’s last two coins as possible. This city --- God’s city --- is positively glittering: “The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel. ... And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.”
This opulence of course, is beside the point. Why? Like much of Revelation, the author provides a message of hope in comparison to the opulence --- the beast --- of Rome, the center of that known world. The author points out that God’s kingdom is greater, that even that earthly glitter is insignificant because of the glory described in the verses that follow: “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”
Do you notice the irony? What value are streets of glittering gold and gates of shimmering pearl in a city that is lit by the glory of God? Exactly, no value what so ever.
Let’s return to the widow in our story. Whatever drove her to say enough is enough and give everything away into abject poverty Jesus may have seen a flicker of God’s light. Even if she could have contrived to take that copper with her --- it would be utterly insignificant.
Similarly, what leads any of us to say “enough is enough” … but a glimmer of hope? That the pain and fear of surgery will lead to some pain relief? That the dullness to life that alcohol can provide is not worth life itself? That the fear of what might happen when one drove away compared to the freedom from abuse?
We do know that to Jesus within days, Jesus gave it all. So, when we are desperate, terminal, when whatever has led us to “enough is enough” that on the cross Jesus is hope, a glimmer of the glory of God. In her sacrifice it was a window into that glory of God. Enough is enough when we see hope. May we be open to that good news every day of our lives. May we be the sign of hope for others, may we find hope, that whatever glitters, whatever we hold on, is dark in the Kingdom of God where we truly find our hope. May we be open to that glory of God found in Christ. Amen.

 

Emotional Jesus - 11/4/2018

Sermon based on John 11: 32-44

As many of you know, emoticons or better known using the common Japanese word emoji are those little graphic ideograms or facial representations we might use in an instant messaging, email, or text message. Today, I just want us focus on those of faces showing various expressions. I have an example of the simpler ones up on the screen.

Because emoji are often used as shorthand for emotional responses, we're likely to think of them as a creation of the computer age, with the ubiquitous yellow "smiley face" as the first of them.

But emoji are much older than the computer era. For those of us old enough, the smiley itself, (the picture on your left) with its black, bracket-shaped mouth and two oval dots for eyes inside a black circle, was reportedly first created in 1963 for an advertising campaign by the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts. It wasn't copyrighted or trademarked then, so that is one reason Walmart was able to so easily incorporate it into its advertising.

Yet emoji are older than that. In 1912, journalist and novelist Ambrose Bierce, wrote an essay in which he advocated using printed symbols to represent snickering, heavy laughter and irony. But before any of those, an 1881 issue of a British magazine combined type symbols as a tongue-in-cheek way of expressing emotions. Even that usage, however, isn't the oldest appearance of emoticons. Some illuminated manuscripts from the 15th century have figures and faces included in the illustrations to cue emotional responses at points in the text.

But it even goes back further: to the late first century, when John's gospel was written. If you were going to create an emoji-illustrated copy of John's gospel, chapter 11 would be a good place to start. That's not because the story told in this chapter is particularly simple but because it's filled with developments that raise emotional responses in the participants. And, if we read it closely, it's likely to provoke emotional responses in us, as well. What's more, none of those responses is silly, trivial or childish.

I bring this up because unfortunately, as Christians we may have found ourselves in a place where we may think emotion is not meant for worship, or Christian community or as behavior appropriate for Christians. For example, if you would take a random poll and ask people in America what they think being a Christian means, most of them would say something like, “To live good lives and go to church.” As you know that has nothing to do with being a Christian. Sure, living a good life and going to church are wonderful things, good to emulate, but being a Christian is something entirely different.
The word “Christian” actually means “being like Christ.” We could live good lives and go to a place of worship every day, but still not be a Christ like. To be a Christian means to be as much like Christ in our everyday life as we possibly be. And if that is the case, which I believe to be true, today’s lesson reminds us that being like Christ includes sharing our emotions.

As Jesus and his friends were affected by the emotional component of their human nature, likewise Christians today aren't exempt from the raw experience of human emotion. Why? Simply, emotions expressed without hesitation is both honest and redemptive. God designed our emotions to be gauges, not guides. Emotions are meant to report, not dictate. The pattern of our emotions therefore will give us a reading on where our hope is because they are wired into what we believe and value — and how much. We see that in Jesus where we hear of his emotions, and where his hope lies.

If you don’t believe consider this myth we may have found ourselves: The myth that Christians are to trust in their knowledge, not their feelings. That we are people in Jesus and therefore shouldn't be so weak as to succumb to feelings of fear, distress, anger, grief or irritation. That somehow, we are to transcend earthly cares. No wonder some consider Christians mere unfeeling robots.

Jesus on the other hand, experienced paying taxes, heartily eating and drinking and climbing into fishing boats. Jesus was hungry, thirsty and weary, so weary that Jesus was able to fall asleep in the cramped quarters of a small boat in a storm.

We also know that Jesus experiences the darker emotions of a troubled human soul --- loneliness, perplexity, alarm, dismay and despondency. And just look at today, Jesus wept.

If you still don’t see it, write today’s gospel with emoji. When we jump into this lesson, Jesus finally has arrived in Bethany, Lazarus is dead. In fact, he's been dead four days. Martha has just finished talking to Jesus and out comes Mary to express her grief and disappointment in Jesus, saying, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” There's no way to read that except as accusatory, and there's an emoji for that, but that single one isn't enough to illustrate what's going on inside Mary at this moment. We need the accusatory emoji, to be sure, but we also need the ones for hurt, grief and even anger.

Now, we need a flurry of emoji. For when Jesus sees Mary and her neighbors weeping, he was, in the words of our NRSV Bible, “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” A surface reading of this phrase suggests that Jesus felt deep compassion at that point, but Bible scholars tell us the underlying biblical Greek words communicate not compassion but agitation and indignation. And then we are told Jesus started sobbing.

Of course, we know the rest of this story. Jesus, “again greatly disturbed” goes to Lazarus' tomb and calls him forth from death. Lazarus comes forth, alive again. For the neighbors who witnessed all this, the amazement emoticon is likely the appropriate one. But the final emoticon for Mary and Martha surely is the one for joy.

What does this all mean for us? I think we need a good reminder on this All Saint’s Sunday when the memory of loved ones’ those we want to remember and perhaps those we want to forget are now in God’s hands yet linger in our hearts. It's okay to experience all those emotions those memories bring. Jesus did. So, we're allowed. When our emotions are painful, we can remember that we have a Savior who weeps with us. And if we stay with Jesus, the final emoji to tell our story will be the one for joy.
Yet, why the struggle, why do we think emotional response are so misplaced? Are we somehow better than Jesus…? I think not. Rather, let us be honest, the reason worship for many of us is not a place where we share our emotions has nothing to do with Jesus, it all has to do with our own pride… When we recognize it as such we may be more aware of course, there is for us the ultimate mark of Jesus’ humanity, namely his mortality. Jesus died! It is not that Jesus fainted from fear or swooned from pain, but that Jesus died from mortal wounds. None of us so proud that we will not experience death.
So, cleaning our spiritual house for the fresh winds of the Spirit includes our emotions and they impact how we treat each other, how we express ourselves in faith, and whether our emotional expressions include love, thankfulness, joy, and grief, as well as anger. As we see today, emotions aren’t imperatives; they’re not our boss. But they’re indicatives; they are reports. Our emotions are gauges not guides.

What would our faith be like if we had an emotion-less or passion-less Jesus Christ? If in today’s lesson Jesus had not wept, or Mary had not expressed her anger? What if the neighbors had not been amazed!
We all experiences challenges along life’s journey. Our feelings as we react to circumstances and situations we encounter reveal much about each of us. God created us with emotions. God knows that our emotional needs are just as important as our physical, social, and educational needs. Being aware of our own and other’s emotional needs can go a long way in helping all of us experience the love of God and be Christ-like. Likewise, as we consider the needs of others in our community it is vital to listen and be empathetic to each person’s story as guide.

This is such an enormous topic, and all I have done is scratch its surface. It leads to other considerations such as the role of how Christians have shared their emotions in history and faith, the role of other emotions in faith, and the challenges of ill placed behavior out of manipulated emotion that for example have led to Jewish pogroms in the past and a host of other evil like white supremacy and Christian nationalism today.

We have an emotion filled faith called to be like Christ, aware of what masks needs to be put aside so that we can engage and fight against evil. Do we have the courage to place an emoji down in our faith journey this day making room for God? And what would we put? Perhaps not even one but a whole sentence! Because when we do, we may be surprised to realize that when we do express a whole sentence of emoji, we are being more like Christ, and more open to God’s cleansing Holy Spirit, found in community, in reading God’s living word and at the Table. …. Amen. 

Cup of Humble - 10/21/2018

Sermon based on Mark 10: 35-45

Back in 2006, there was a bestselling book that caused quite a stir. It was called “Three Cups of Tea” and it was written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. It was about Greg’s life, a life-threatening experience in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan and how it came to be that he began building schools. If you remember this was about five years into the US invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11th attacks in late 2001.

That book touched a chord with many leading to numerous fundraisers including a program called “Pennies for Peace” where pennies were dedicated to building schools especially ones that included girls.

Four years later however, we came to find out in an expose by the TV news program called Sixty Minutes and a book published shortly later by Jon Krakauer called “Three cups of Deceit” that the monies raised and donated to the non-profit created by Mortenson called the Central Asia Institute was being inappropriately used for personal use by Mr. Mortenson. Furthermore, come to find out that Mr. Mortensons’ story about his journey in the mountains, befriending a Pakistani tribe and building schools had a lot of holes and was less than accurate.

Well, after several lawsuits and investigations, Mr. Mortenson returned over a million dollars and resigned from the board of the institute, but the repercussions continued in subsequent years. For example, co-author David Oliver Relin committed suicide in 2012. And in 2016 a documentary was distributed called “3000 Cups of Tea” which initially was intended to refute the allegations but ultimately led to only more concerns.  Story

That lingering story came to mind after I re-read today’s gospel, an incident between Jesus and two disciples, brothers James and John and later the other disciples. According to what we are told, they responded to Jesus query, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” James and Joh responded not with sorry, we take back our request to sit on the right and left side of you Jesus in glory, instead they answered: “We are able.” When Greg Mortenson published his book, I am sure he intended to put himself in the most flattering light as many of us would do, not knowing what was going to happen and the impact on his later decisions. When James and John answer, “we are able” and to which Jesus says, “…you will be baptized…” we see the coming together of the best of human intentions and failings.

So much like James and John. Because all of us know --- since we have heard the stories many times --- what will happen. Jesus is on a journey to the cross. Within a year, the disciples scatter hither and yon in the garden after his arrest and absent upon his death on the cross. Later we hear how the disciples gather behind locked doors in grief and fear, confused by the message of the women, and then experience the shock of Jesus’ resurrection and accession. And on one fine morning are filled with Holy Spirit, become fluent in other languages and are off into the world as missionaries.

Tradition has it that James was martyred in what we now call Spain and that John, lived the longest, is the only one to die of natural causes after having written several books found in the New Testament. Yet, today, they say: “We are able.”

Their story is our own, because like it or not, we are implicated when those two disciples and all those who follow answer with “We are able!” James and John are nothing if not bold --- boldly wrong at what they were saying perhaps, but bold nonetheless. Just like we and countless others before us have boldly confessed our faith, bold in our affirmation, but without too much time passing act far more like Peter when he proclaims he will never deny Jesus, then promptly does.

We could of course argue, as I indicated earlier they will later receive the Holy Spirit. Although that is accurate, lingering in the air like a bad smell, is that unspoken challenge that we associate with those who we assume are disciples of Jesus. For we join the ranks who begrudgingly affirm “we are able” but speaking for myself, the reality is usually a highly uncomfortable, “It is a work in progress.”

Not that we can’t come up with good excuses as countless others have done before us. Let us focus on one: It’s the fault of the Holy Spirit! But that of course would go across the very essence of faith; that we all have received the gift of faith by the power of the Holy Spirit in baptism. As Jesus himself tells us today: “with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” We could as many want to do, “well it is because we didn’t get that Holy Spirit in the first place.” At that we may either smolder or search for the right mix of religious leader, community and music that will have us “experience it,” until life creeps back in ….

Thankfully today’s event does not end with the promise of James and John, for later we hear how when getting wind of what happened the other disciples are angry. Was it because James and John voiced in their request a secret longing of all to be recognized? Or was it because they are as conflicted between affirming that they are ready, yet struggling with what that means and their own inadequacies?

We don’t have to think too deeply to see what Jesus is trying to explain to all the disciples, too us. Go back to Mark 8:29-30, where Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus doesn’t disagree. Start reading from there, straight through to today’s passage. It appears that once James and John and the other disciples understood that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, they stopped listening to anything else. As commentator André Resner Jr. points out, in the intervening verses 1. Jesus tells his disciples that following him means thinking of themselves as people who deny self for Jesus’ sake and for the sake of the gospel, risking and accepting worldly shame (8:34-38); Jesus reminds them that they are to listen to his words above all others (9:7); Jesus reminds they to remain humbly dependent on God’s power to do God’s work (9:14-29). Jesus reminds them do not play the games of competitiveness, one-upmanship or glory grasping but choose the role of least of all and slave to all (9:33-37). Jesus reminds them to relinquish control for who does what and how they are to help build the kingdom; in other words, giving up the need to be God’s quality-control experts --- think control freaks --- for anything that’s done for God (10:38-41). Jesus teaches them to keep children at the center of their work, even when it appears distracting (9:36-37, 42-48; 10:13-16); and as we were reminded last week not become overburdened by possessions but receive the gift of the hundredfold promise (10:17-31).

What does that mean? Return with me to the story of Gregg Mortenson. I do not know much of what has happened since, however, I marvel at the irony of it all. Because if you were to read that initial book, that started it all “Three Cups of Tea,” the whole premise is that in the process of being rescued and then living with these mountain tribesmen, he discovered that the cup of tea is filled with humble tea. On that mountain he learned to be humble. Ironic because if he learned it that is what not happened later in his life.

Likewise, it’s not too difficult to see the irony of the request of James and John, from the perspective of what they should’ve known by that point: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Because, if you read it in context, of what I reminded Jesus had said up to this point, that the way of cross was NOT toward any glory.

I am thankful that if we hold to tradition James and John faithfully lived out their promise “we are able.” Because whether James made it to Spain or this John is the same John with the vision on the island of Patmos, today’s event is a healthy reminder that we disciples are called to drink a humble cup of tea that the Lord puts in front of us, seeking not to be served but to serve.

Granted, however it's strange because it is the superhuman that we hold to be the model, not the way of Christ. The way of Christ goes against every human instinct because in the process of evolution, it has favored the strong, the powerful, and the paranoid. Those are our own ingrained “default positions.”

When Jesus, in a radical reversal, says that true life comes from denying one's evolutionary instincts and following instead the “way,” it means that as we follow it is not based on how much Holy Spirit we think we have, how much courage or faith the size of the mustard seed produces, rather in following we affirm the whole of our human experience, pain and brokenness, whether it's in our knee, or family or in our neighborhood. In following we acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers and the ones we do have run counter to all our human instinct. In following the way, we realize we walk with others in the same boat and all that separates us from someone else is very thin indeed. In following we become open to reconciliation --- open to the humbling restoration of our relationship with God, with others, and with our own true self not because of anything we are, have done or will do, but because the restoration we have is a gift from God.

Martin Luther King Jr. put it this way: “Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.” Rather to follow the way of Jesus, means doing as Jesus did, giving of one's self to be “slave of all.” And what is a slave? A slave is a human being with limited power and no resources and all one has come by the master. The truth is that none of us is “able,” but we serve a Great God. With Christ's forgiveness and inspiration filled “with a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

That was true for James. True for John. True for any one of us who drink humble tea, who live out our affirmation: “We are able.” Amen.

Vocation - 10/14/2018

Sermon based on Mark 10:17-31

    How do you change a negative into a positive? Now I am not discussing mathematics and changing negative numbers. Rather, I was thinking of something entirely different. Parker Palmer, an author and educator, in a book about discerning our vocations, discusses what he calls the Rosa Park Decision. Link
    Rosa Parks is that famous African American activist who on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, rejected a bus driver’s order to relinquish her seat in the “colored section” to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled. That action helped encourage what became a pivotal event in the civil rights, the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
    Parker calls this “the Rosa Parks decision. She essentially said, ‘I'm no longer going to behave on the outside as if I were less than the full person I know myself to be on the inside.’” Or to put it another way, “How do people find the courage to bring inner convictions into harmony with outer acts, knowing the risks involved?”
    When the police came to Rosa Parks on the bus and informed her that they would have to put her in jail if she did not move, she replied, ‘You may do that.’ It was that moment something clicked according to Palmer, a very polite way of saying, ‘How could your jail begin to compare with the jail I have had myself in all these years by collaborating with this system that has treated me as less than equal?” What happened to Rosa Parks is where all of us need to be.  Palmer wrote: “They decide no longer to act on the outside in a way that contradicts some truth about themselves that they hold deeply on the inside.”
    That question on vocation posed by educator and author Parker Palmer came to mind, after reading today’s gospel reading, where a would-be follower --- identified only as a rich person --- approaches Jesus, whom he believes to be have some insight regarding the kingdom of God.
    This man seems to be interviewing for a job and even has an impressive resume. He seems to be looking for a place to live out his beliefs. According to what we read, Jesus looks at this guy and likes him --- a lot. In fact, the text says Jesus loved him. Jesus would love to have him --- let’s call him Jose --- join the team. And why not? Jesus would be smart to add this discipleship candidate. Our congregation certainly would!
    All indications are that he is young. He’s reverential ---- he knelt before Jesus. Jose we are told follows the Law of Moses, so he’s religiously observant, indicating that he will pass his background check, has no criminal record and is an upstanding citizen. And --- need we forget --- he’s a potential angel investor, a wealthy person with financial resources to fund Jesus’ mission!
    With that impressive resume, Jesus gives Jose the good news: the job is his. All he must do is donate 100 percent of his possessions and give them to the poor --- not 5 percent or 10 percent, but 100 percent. Then, Jesus adds that once Jose has disposed of his possessions, he can then, return and follow. The opportunity is his. He has found a place to live his values!
    But we are told that Jose, alas, is “shocked.” Now some of us probably can see this coming as Jesus had recently posted a memo about picking up the cross and following. Nonetheless, we may be surprised as much as Jose, because in the past Jesus had not explicitly demanded that level of sacrifice. Was it perhaps because the other disciples, other than Matthew the former tax collector come from more humble beginnings, being fisherman and all for example.
    Regardless, Jose we are told is genuinely disappointed and went away not upset but grieving. He just can’t do it. Jose turns away and we never hear of him again in the gospels.
    Palmer says when Rosa Parks refused to stand she was putting into harmony her true self, undivided. Parker Palmer suggests what ultimately changed for Rosa Parks was that she was not longer willing to put up with the punishment she knew she would receive by remaining in that seat with what she was doing to herself on the inside.
    But what about Jose? Does that explain what happened to him, divided between what he voiced, the language he used, the right things he said, and what was in his heart? Let us go back to the text --- notice at least six things: Jose wants to “inherit” eternal life. Jesus gets a little touchy about being called “good.” And then for us Lutherans this whole thing about, “entering” the kingdom of God is all about what we do --- not what we believe --- is grating. And in this era of President Trump, Jesus says it is difficult for the wealthy to get into the kingdom of God. And although Jesus doesn’t really explain this comment, Jesus does say that “for God all things are possible.” Then of course we have that famous line often misquoted where Jesus says that “many” --- not all!!! --- who are first will be last, and the last will be first.
    So, let’s take a closer look at these six statements.
    First, Jose --- who in Luke is called a “ruler” (18:18) and in Matthew is called “young” (19:20) — wants to inherit eternal life. This is a good thing. How can it be a bad thing? But Jose is not sure what he needs to “do."
    Overall this gives us a positive image of Jose. He runs up to Jesus. He’s eager and excited. He kneels before Jesus right there in the road, in public, in broad daylight. He doesn’t seek a midnight meeting with Jesus as did Nicodemus. He’s bold, self-assured, reverential and respectful.
    Jose must have been encouraged when Jesus began to rattle off portions of what is known as the second table of the Ten Commandments, which pertain to one’s relationship to one’s neighbors. Jose was probably feeling, “Yes! I got this!” He tells Jesus, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth” (v. 20).
    But Jesus somehow knows that there’s possibly an obstacle which has such a strong hold on this young man that he’ll not be able to commit to this life of following Jesus; this journey of combining heart and life.
    Second, Jesus gets a little touchy about being called “good.” Why? Jesus might have been trying to dampen this young man’s enthusiasm. “Hold on for a second! Don’t call me good.” And citing Jewish tradition which reserves the title of “good” for God alone, he reminds Jose that eternal life is all about God. But, still, Jesus’ response seems odd, and the young man might not have understood the point Jesus was making --- just like we, too, don’t always understand what the Lord seems to be saying to us, this challenge of faith in our heart and on our lips.
    Third, “entering” the kingdom of God is all about what we do — not what we believe. This is the    conclusion we might come to when reading this passage. Again, for us Lutherans that is distributing because it is God’s grace alone that brings us right before God, but this reading is a good reminder that what we do --- does matter. For the rich man, his failure to do the one thing that would demonstrate his faith in Jesus revealed this disconnect. Jose didn’t even try.
    By asking Jose to give his possessions to the poor --- an ultimate expression of his ability to keep the second table of the Ten Commandments --- Jesus reveals that Jose cannot keep one of the commandments from the first table, that is, the prohibition against idol worship. His possessions where his idol and when it came down to it, that was the truth.
    Rosa Parks knew that she was equal to anyone else but was being treated as subhuman. Today, we come to find out who Jose was. Jesus’ command unerringly zeroed in on Jose’s exclusive source of well-being. His most important sense of self came from the status, power and security his affluence afforded him. Not faith in God. It was the fact that he was privileged, and Jose is exposed. He is an idol worshiper and his idol are mammon. Jose ultimately cannot give up his privilege for the promise of being made whole.
    Fourth, Jesus says it is difficult for the wealthy to get into the kingdom of God. Jesus’ suggestion that Eli impoverish himself also flies in the face of the common understanding --- even currently --- that blessings are a sign of divine favor. Jesus says it is no such thing.
    Jesus’ command not only shocks the man, but it stuns those who cling to the standards of first-century faith at the time of Jesus. While there was no scriptural prohibition preventing Jews from giving away all personal belongings, it was expected that no one give more than one-fifth of one’s personal property. This ensured that no one would not be reduced to poverty --- thus becoming another candidate for charity them self.
    But note that although Jesus says it is hard for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God, he does not say it is impossible. It’s difficult not because there’s anything inherently wicked about being rich, but because the love of wealth so often makes it difficult to be our true selves. It could be because they don’t know who they are apart from their wealth. Do we know we are children of God adopted into the family of God by Baptism?
Fifth, Jesus doesn’t really explain himself to the disciples, but only says that “for God all things are possible.” In fact, that the wealthy or the powerful enter the kingdom of God is nothing short of amazing. For us Lutherans of course, that is something we know well because it’s mindboggling that anyone is allowed into the kingdom of God! It’s only by the love, grace and mercy of God! Jesus’ final words reveal where we place our confidence: “For God all things are possible.”
    Lastly, Jesus says that “many --- not all!!! --- who are first will be last, and the last will be first” (v. 31). Jesus reminds his disciples --- after Jose has arisen from his kneeling position and left, unhappy and grieving --- that a little humility, any humility, goes a long way. Or as Parker Palmer suggests: “every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need,” if we only are honest. For example, what if Jose instead of walking away had simply said, “Jesus help me, for I cannot.”
    How can today lesson help any of us who perhaps are in the same boat as the wealthy young, man. I suspect none of us is fully ready to deed everything over to this church and come live in this building to do mission and ministry all day, every day. Perhaps that is why we honor such people as Rosa Parks! Nonetheless the truth is eternal life is found only in the Way with Jesus. This young man’s failure to follow through on Jesus’ final demand reveals that all his language did not reflect his heart and was governed more by possessions and position than by a true thirst for justice.
    Now let us be clear, the wealthy man’s shock and sadness are not a judgment of his worth in the kingdom to come; they simply reveal his inability to accept the call of Christ that is before him. Jesus still loved him. Rather, he has missed the opportunity for a true blessing, to be whole.
    God's demand is for all our heart, mind and soul not because God needs anything, rather so that we be made whole.  We are broken people. Recognizing how far we are from God’s desires but even more so trusting in the only thing that carries us, Jesus life, death and resurrection. May we grow each day into whom God has called us to be. Trusting in the grace we have received so that we act on the outside in a way that does not contradict the faith and truth that we are saved by the cross, adopted into God’s family and blessed. Amen.

Words - 10-7-2018

Sermon based on the Gospel: Mark 10:2-16

Quiz time. What is the longest word in the English language? If we were to be one of those Trivial Pursuit types, we may come up with the word that's been the gold standard: Antidisestablishmentarianism. At 28 letters, that's a mouthful, and while many of us might know the word, fewer will know its definition as “the belief that opposes removing the tie between church and state.” It's not exactly a word used in everyday conversation, especially in the US that has a long constitutional history of separation of Church and State. But it would make a killer point-getter in Scrabble.
But is it really the longest word? Not exactly. There is a one letter word that is longer: Floccinaucinihilipilification, which means “an estimation of something as worthless.”
And to be honest, there are people who spend time poring over such things who point out that there are chemical names that are a lot longer than that, including names of proteins that have more than a thousand letters and place names like the 85-letter name of a hill. For example, from a medical perspective, the longest word in the English language is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis --- a 45 letter word that describes a disease of the lungs, which would seem to be a bad thing if it takes that long to say.
When it comes to big words, English has more than its fair share but, if the events of this past couple weeks in our nation’s capital regarding the confirmation of now associate supreme court judge Kavanaugh and the accusations of drunkenness, sexual assault and his temperament has reminded any of us, we humans are often very guilty of failing or trying hard to avoid saying what we mean. Big words, avoidance and host of ways are used by us to avoid the truth or allow us to say very little while speaking a lot.
Conversely, equally the wonder of humanity and the way we communicate is that, sometimes, small words along with a few words, allow us to say a great deal. Big words may sound impressive because they are hard to pronounce, yet they may rarely be fully understood, and perhaps a way for us to avoid difficult topics. Instead it's often the small and few that are the hardest to say but have the clearest and deepest meaning.
I am not bringing this up to assist you with your crossword skills, or to help us get out of the rabbit hole of Washington D.C. that we have created, rather today in this week's text, Jesus is teaching about words and relationships. While the lesson is apparently some large thoughts about divorce and the relationship between married individuals, Jesus is helping all of us shift the center of our language on relationships from the language of law to the language of love.
How do we know that? Well let’s begin where the story begins with the first verse missing in our reading, the geography: “the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan.” Why would we begin there, because remember context is everything. For this location was the very same region where Mark tells us at the beginning of his gospel that John the Baptist had operated during his ministry (1:5), and John's ministry echoes through this passage.
Earlier in Mark 6:14-29, we read the story of how John the Baptist had died at the hands of King Herod Antipas. Think of that episode as a kind of first-century soap opera: The king ditches his lawful wife, Phasaelis, and Herodias divorces Philip so that the two can be together. But the reason this setting is important is that while this divorce was legal according to Roman law, Jewish law was quite different, and John the Baptist called the king on it, saying, “It is not lawful (Jewish) for you to have your brother's wife.” In response, John gets beheaded.
Simply put legal and illegal divorce and marriage is the air so when those interested in what is legal --- the Pharisees --- want to “test” Jesus, they do it with; a faith based system from the vocabulary of the law court; “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” The test was to place Jesus squarely in the same position that had resulted in John the Baptist being killed. It seems that they are hoping at least to challenge his popularity or perhaps even allow them to bring him up on charges of treason.
At first, Jesus sounds like a skillful lawyer, answering the question with a question: “What did Moses command you?” The question is subtle. Moses had no “command” on this issue.
Jesus perhaps knew how the pharisees would respond. “Moses permitted to write a paper of divorcement and to release.” Moses had permitted divorce as he helped the community develop a faithful response to living out this covenant with God. The provision for divorce in Deuteronomy 24 was, essentially, a concession to the reality of human relationships and an attempt to provide structure and guidelines in its wake. The pharisees present an acceptable legal and faithful argument based on the book of Deuteronomy.
Jesus however, recenters this permission with a sharp rejoinder. “For your hardness of heart” Moses allowed divorce, he says. The accusation of “hardness of heart” is a serious one. For example, do you remember from your Biblical studies who else famously in the Old Testament we are told was “hard of heart?”
Well the Pharaoh was one. The Pharaoh who had received the message from Moses to let his enslaved people go, had also had “hardness of heart.” Yes, it was technically legal in covenant law, if you took it literally in Deuteronomy, for a man to divorce his wife by simply writing her a certificate of dismissal. Do the paperwork and it was done (v. 4).
Jesus however centers the nature of the language from the legalese of the hard heart, to the language of love. Rather than the legal bonds his interlocutors are concerned about, Jesus is concerned about the bond of love. Put aside the law of Moses in this case, says Jesus, and look at what God intended from the beginning of creation (vv. 5-6). In effect, Jesus will base his argument on a broader understanding --- not specific commands or permissions, but a general attitude toward lives and relationships based on God's design of creation.
Going back to Genesis, Jesus outlines the intent of the bonds between two in the first place: the leaving and cleaving and becoming one. What were once two separate people now become “one flesh” --- one person joined together by God who created this diverse humanity to fit together emotionally, physically and spiritually. As God's own nature is three-in-one, so too is the nature of human relationships: reflecting the diverse image of God they were created to be from the beginning. The legal language of divorce is symptom of our separation. The language of love is about bonding.
We can see that Jesus seems to understand divorce as a indication of human vocabulary. And what is that vocabulary? Well, rather than a bunch of words that are longer than your arm, the increasingly become more and more specific and less understood. Instead the vocabulary of creation uses short words that carry a lot of meaning. Words like: I am sorry (three words, 8 letters). Please forgive me (three words, 15 letters). I love you (three words, 8 letters).
This vocabulary of love for many of us isn’t any easier to say than floccinaucinihilipilification, but they mean so much more. In our relationships, Jesus calls us not to turn to the legal dictionary but toward each other.
Certainly, it's clear from this text that Jesus is anti-divorce. To his disciples in private, Jesus gets serious about the kind of cavalier attitude that people in that time frame took when they ditched one spouse for another (vv. 10-12). Jesus understood that the kind of selfish male individualism that characterized Herod's court is all too common. In that male centered culture, where polygamy was possible and common, adultery was a crime only for women. But, contrary to the common assumption, Jesus does not “prohibit” divorce.
What Jesus does do is remove divorce from being something of a technical issue as cover for male sinfulness, and places it in the much broader context of God's desire for human life at the beginning of creation. For example, notice that the author of Mark follows up Jesus' teaching on divorce with a scene of Jesus with children (vv. 13-16). They are the ones to whom the kingdom belongs. Jesus blesses them and calls us to bless them, too but this is not about the "simple faith" of innocent children and how we all should emulate their unquestioning trust. Rather, in the kingdom of God, which is to be practiced here on earth, children are to be “received.” They are to be accepted. The vulnerable are not to be turned away just because they are small and powerless. Quite the contrary, in fact. Turn a child away --- turn away those who are weak --- and you are not living a kingdom lifestyle.
Following a lesson on divorce the author of Mark places Jesus words again in the language of love, not the law. So Jesus is not implying here that divorce is forbidden under every circumstance. What Jesus does say, however, is that we need to place the foundation of the Kingdom of God vocabulary in love, constantly aware of small and powerless, and to use every word and every opportunity we can to bring reconciliation to our relationships with a spouse, with children, with everyone and, most importantly, with God. That's how we were designed by God to be: one flesh, bonded by love, together.
Secondly, what about us who have divorce as part of our life journey? Whether as adults or children of divorce, as you may notice Jesus does not say, well now everyone needs to get back together. Rather Jesus is speaking to present and future relationships and possibilities. Jesus asks for us to ask to confess for and accept forgiveness and begin anew daily.
Moving forward in grace then how does that process enable us in our language of love not only to change our vocabulary, but even our sentence structures? Just return to the events of these past few weeks in our nation’s capital. What if from the onset before Judge Kavanaugh was even chosen, it had begun in the language of love, confession, forgiveness and reconciliation --- how could it have unfolded?
What happens on the public stage is a symptom of our own lives. What words would we use to characterize our relationships? What words do we need to change in our vocabulary to strengthen the bonds we have between each other, and between us and God? And how is even our sentence structure toward the immigrant, refugee and the vulnerable a sign of our brokenness.
God did not design us to have relationships that are examples of floccinaucinihilipilification. We were designed for each other, and that's the good word! The children had been brought so that Jesus might bless them. Jesus does that, and much more for all of us. Amen.

Location - 9/16/2018

Sermon preached at Hope Lutheran Church, San Antonio, Texas.  Based on Mark 8: 27-38.

    Who knows that you are here? Perhaps you have a family member who knows that you attend worship on Sunday mornings at Hope Lutheran Church. Or maybe you have friends or neighbors that know that on Sunday mornings when you leave your home it is to go to church.
    I know this however, if you have a cellphone with you, ATT, Verizon or Sprint or whatever phone provider you use knows where you are. From the data that they are receiving to provide you service, they know that you are here. Now, I am not an Alex Jones conspiracist, so I am not mentioning this to you for some outlandish reason, instead this “data” is why the technology boom of the last few decades have so impacted our world. That same device that we use to make phone calls, use as our map, phone book or even store have been a godsend not only for many of us but also for marketers. So, ATT, Verizon or Sprint know that on Sunday mornings you will be found at Hope Lutheran Church.
    And so much more. Say you are searching online for a new pair of shoes. You surf through images of Doc Martens, wedge sandals and Ugg boots. You then decide to see what’s happening on Facebook. Suddenly, ads for Doc Martens and Ugg boots are plastered all over your page. And you will continue to see them until you search for something else, which will then take over your page and so on and so on.
    It’s little wonder that we have begun to believe that marketers know more about us than we know about ourselves, and they know what we want even before we do from all the data from me and you! But did you know “data” is not just in our century?
    When Jesus took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi discussed in the gospel, he gave them a couple of poll questions, but in this case it’s a survey not so much designed to gather information or data as an opportunity to define the brand of discipleship Jesus was looking for from them and, by extension, from us.
    Jesus knew his disciples better than they knew themselves, and Jesus knew that their preferences for the kind of Messiah they were looking for --- needed refining and redefining. Here, in this largely Gentile region near the Cave of Pan --- which many people in the ancient world regarded as one of the entrances to Hades ---Jesus begins to turn his disciples’ attention from their needs and desires toward the way of the cross --- admittedly, a much tougher sell!
    The gospel seems to begin that as they were walking, Jesus suddenly gave them the first survey question: “What’s the word on the street about me? Who do people say that I am?” (v. 27).
    As they had traveled with Jesus through the villages of Judea and Galilee, it is safe to assume that the disciples had collected data, hearing the buzz, feeling the pulse of the crowd. The crowd had a variety of opinions and just enough data to begin forming a profile of this healer and teacher from Galilee.
    One significant data point seemed to dominate the survey: The crowd believed Jesus was a prophet in the mold of John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the earlier prophets who dominated Israel’s history. To the crowd, Jesus was a kind of a throwback to an earlier age and perhaps, like John the Baptist and Elijah, he was in the model of a forerunner to the real Messiah to come. This was a radical interpretation of the data, but it wasn’t quite radical enough.
    Many opinions about the Messiah’s role and mission were in circulation. We know from a variety of sources outside of the New Testament that Messiah wannabes had popped up before Jesus and would continue to do so afterward, each gathering their own group of followers and selling their vision of what God had planned to do through them. We still have that to this day.
    The common thread of the data around the Messiah --- which means “anointed one” --- was that he would be a descendant of the Old Testament figure of David and restore Israel’s independence, bringing earthly deliverance to the earthly kingdom of Israel, a great nation to guide the other nations.     This vision of a Messiah was also skewed by the bias of people looking for relief from oppression by Rome and years of foreign domination before the current regime. Therefore, it is understandable when people heard the word “Messiah,” they thought of someone who might be the modern equivalent of a new populist leader.
    This is also why the crowd saw Jesus as a prophet and not a Messiah. He wasn’t acting like someone who wanted to cooperate with Rome, and thus his poll numbers would not seem to indicate that he would be a viable candidate “to drain the swamp” and restore the nation of Israel.
    We recognize now that their view of Jesus is rather myopic, seen through the skewed lens of cultural and personal bias toward what a prophet and a Messiah might really look like. It’s no coincidence that in the story immediately preceding this one, Jesus heals a blind man who at first sees people but not with the full clarity of vision. Indeed, to him they looked like trees walking around (v. 24). It took a second application of Jesus’ healing hands for the blind man to finally see things clearly and in perspective. The crowd, too, needed a similar retooling of vision to understand the information about Jesus’ identity.
    Returning to the gospel, Jesus then asked a follow-up survey question of his disciples, not what did others think --- “But who do you say that I am?”
    Peter, an eager guy who today would be the first to participate in every online survey, gives his opinion without hesitation: “You are the Messiah” (v. 29). That seems like the right answer. The author of Mark has already told us up front that his gospel is “the good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). “Christ” is the Greek rendering of “Messiah” and so it seems that Peter has grasped the message.
    But like the crowd, Peter’s own bias gets in the way of understanding what that word, that title, means. Indeed, there is still great potential for misunderstanding until all the data is in, which is why Jesus “sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him” (v. 30).
    Instead, Jesus himself then begins to fill in the data. In the first of three predictions about his death, Jesus tells his disciples that he will be rejected, undergo great suffering and be killed, but then he will rise again after three days (v. 31). The author of Mark reiterates that Jesus said this “quite openly,” giving the information as clearly as possible (v. 32). But this new piece of information doesn’t fit Peter’s messianic profile, and he took Jesus aside and began to “rebuke” him (v. 32).
    Peter was close to Jesus and saw some potential. After all, one who could feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish and then walk on water had to have the ability to be the kind of Messiah who would do great things and kick out the Romans. But now Jesus was talking about rejection, suffering and death. How can you be the Messiah if you’re dead? That kind of data made no sense to him, nor to the other disciples or the crowd.
    It made perfect sense to Jesus, who understood the bigger picture of where things were trending. Jesus rebuked Peter’s rebuke with a stern word, one Jesus uses to cast out demons: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (v. 33).
    In the rebuke of Peter, Jesus recognized the temptation to be the kind of Messiah that was all about polling numbers, the kind of Messiah Satan himself had earlier tempted Jesus to become (1:12).
    Jesus is moving in a different direction --- one in which they and perhaps a few of us may want to go.
Jesus calls “the crowd together with the disciples.” This instruction is for everyone. It is a call to deny one's self, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. We have tended to psychologize this and make it over into something more in tune with 21st century life, such as interpreting “taking up one's cross” to mean putting up with one's circumstances in life. We have also taken this to mean putting up with abuse both physical, verbal and sexual.
    Jesus makes it clear: It’s about the cross. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (v. 34). To get behind Jesus is to get under a cross and walk on a road to rejection, suffering and self-denial. It’s a life of doing what’s right and hard, rather than wrong and easy with all the stumbles and falls that will mean. Following Jesus is not trendy and cool. And if it ever is, we’ve got the wrong Jesus. It’s following Jesus in a life lived on behalf of others: the poor, the marginalized, the “lepers” of our day and age. Those are the “divine things” Jesus wants his disciples to focus on, not the “human things” of popularity, prosperity and power.
    To follow Jesus, in other words, is to embrace a downward mobility towards justice not only for all of us who have been cast aside but for all in favor of Christ’s preferences for all of creation. We know this because Jesus does not use the language of courts or politics, as we might expect. Rather, Jesus uses the language of economics: “For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and to lose one's life? For what might a person give in exchange for that one's life?” (vv. 35-36).
    All those biblical Greek words --- profit, gain, lose, exchange --- in that sentence are terms of the marketplace. A definition that is chilling and startling for us who live in the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world but Jesus calls us to check a different box and follow a different, unprofitable life --- the way of the cross.
    Jesus recognized that this isn’t a popular way, and that the world sees the cross as a weird and gross marketing strategy. It seems far easier to live blaming those of a different skin tone, class, sexuality and gender, but as Jesus reminds us those who are ashamed of him, his words and his way will feel the real sting of shame (v. 37).
    It’s easy for those of us who are 21st-century disciples of Jesus to want to tailor our message and our methods to better fit market trends. I’d like myself and Hope Lutheran to be popular, trendy and have a lot of people following us. We’re tempted, like Peter, to answer Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” by making him into a Messiah who fits a profile and shows up on searches.
    But Jesus won’t have it. There’s only one real answer to that question --- Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, and he calls us to follow him to the cross. It’s the way of self-denial, self-sacrifice and self-giving. It’s not just about information; it’s about imitation. Yes, like those early disciples we may be clueless, need to be rebuked on occasion, but every day we have a new opportunity to answer, “Who do we say that Jesus is? ATT, Verizon and Sprint can locate us instantly, but it is up to claim that we are located on the path of the cross. Amen.

Sparring - 9/9/2018

Sermon, preached at Hope Lutheran based on Mark 7: 24-30.

    Manny Pacquiao is a Filipino world champion professional boxer, named the boxer of the decade in 2010. This did not happen overnight for Pacquiao started boxing at the age of 14 while living in the streets of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Manny turned professional when he was 16 years old, and now nearly 20+ years later has a record of 60-4 as an amateur and currently has a record of 60-7-2 as a professional, with 39 wins by knockout.
    Manny is, one could easily say, a successful professional boxer, so it should interest us how that came to be. Obviously he had some natural talent however in the world of professional boxing, Manny developed his skills over time in training which included sparring against other boxers. There's nothing unusual rather it is standard practice to have fighters train against other boxers --- it's a case of steel sharpening steel. Sparring of course does not mean that one will be as successful as Manny, nonetheless it an important component of training and is not limited to boxing. Sparring is a factor in wrestling, Karate, Taekwondo and a host of other sports.
    This matter of sparring, that is, going up against another for purposes of improving or honing one's own output, is not limited to the contact sports. One place where, over the centuries, a kind of sparring was common was among the rabbis who studied Jewish law. It's not uncommon over the centuries to see such rabbis described as “sparring” with one another over biblical texts and points. Here is but one example, from a reference book published in 2017 including from the period of Jesus: in making a point about the interrelatedness of biblical texts, it was recorded, “This is nicely illustrated in a rabbinic tale about R. Simeon ben Azzai, sparring partner of Rabbi Aqiba” (emphasis added).
    Now why should that interest us? Well, do you recall that in several places in the gospels, Jesus' contemporaries address him as “rabbi?” Most certainly it was a term of respect, and it denoted that the person so addressed was considered a teacher and spiritual leader. Therefore, when we keep in mind that people called Jesus “rabbi,” and that rabbinic sparring was not unknown, it goes a long way in helping us unlock one aspect of what may be going on in the 1st half of our gospel reading, one that many of us find troubling.
    The challenge for 21st century ears is that this dialogue between Jesus and woman seems to portray Jesus as treating the Syrophoenician woman poorly.
    Before we get to deeply into that let us set up the context. The author tells us up front that Jesus has retreated to Tyre, a Gentile area, in present day Lebanon and doesn't want anyone to know where he is --- “definitely did not want.” Jesus, in fact, is “preached out, prayed out and peopled out,” as commentator John M. Rottman puts it. Jesus needs not only some down time, but more importantly, some alone time with himself and some up time with his heavenly Father.
    Then we are told that somehow, word gets out that Jesus, now with a growing reputation as a healer --- confirmed in the 2nd half of our gospel --- is in a house, and a woman whose daughter has “an unclean spirit” finds Jesus. This unclean spirit could cover a broad spectrum from epilepsy to mental illness to a persuasive evil. Regardless this woman asks for his help; she wants Jesus to literally in Biblical Greek “throw” out this spirit in her daughter.
    Now let us not that by ordinary standards of the day, the male Jewish Jesus could and should have ignored her completely. First, she's a Gentile, and Jews and Gentiles had and unfortunately have had centuries of bad blood between them. Second, she's a Gentile woman in an era when it was considered inappropriate for a woman to approach a man to whom she is not related. Not only did she address him, she threw herself at his feet.
    Now remember, back to what is stated in our lesson, Jesus is worn out, wanting only to rest and recharge, and she is intruding. Given all of that, we could hear Jesus' response to her in the context of “Go away, and don't bother me.” Not that that is much better to our 21st century “Jesus is always kind and good” mindset.
    Instead what Jesus did say was “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.” His meaning, apparently, is that his primary mission is to his fellow Jews, and it's not right to take that priority and throw it to dogs --- the Gentiles.
    Now as I have said, to us modern readers, that sounds awful; it sounds -- well -- un-Christlike. In our day and age, when Jesus is erroneously portrayed as a peaceful, white, blond almost inhuman male this seems incongruous.
    Now to be fair, although Jesus was using a common word among the Jewish community of that era for Gentiles, there have been countless commentaries on the fact that the word Jesus used that is usually translated into English as “dogs” was a diminutive, more like “puppies.” And based on our tendency in this nation to be far more concerned about our pets than fellow humans, that may sound better.     Nonetheless, still, we must wonder is that any way to behave toward a woman who's desperate?
    Here is a possibility. We may not be hearing the exchange the way the woman did, and Jesus intended. We may be overhearing a sparring match. Then Jesus' comments to her about the puppies is, in fact, not rude, but an invitation to her --- to be his sparring partner. Jesus may be honoring her with this invitation, because any kind of rabbinical sparring, or even an intellectual discussion was explicitly denied to women in that time, especially a Gentile woman.
    The author retelling this event does not give us how much time passed but it seems like she doesn't hesitate for even a nanosecond to dish it right back at Jesus: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.”
    In an astonishing turnabout, Jesus agrees with the woman and grants her request. Note also that Jesus doesn't say anything about the woman's faith, rather, it is her argument that he applauds --- “because of this word” --- “for saying that” --- “go.” We can almost imagine Jesus nodding his head in admiration when the woman fires this at him.
    Another reason to believe this interpretation may be helpful is that it in the context of sparring it should not necessarily surprise us for there is biblical precedent for sparring with God.
    Take Hannah found in the book 1 Samuel in the Old Testament. In that case we find Hannah praying and praying and praying, and finally has a compromise with God, a child but one dedicated back to God. Or take Abraham. When God told Abraham of the forthcoming destruction of Sodom, Abraham pushed back by asking if God would spare the city if 50 righteous people could be found there. Abraham then whittled the number down, successively, to 45, 40, 30, 20 and 10.
    There's also the time when God, speaking from the burning bush, called Moses to lead the Hebrew tribe out of Egypt. What we may forget is that Moses spent most of the ensuing conversation talking back to God, arguing that God had called the wrong person. He didn't win that argument, but, in the process, Moses did receive the help he needed to succeed. And if we really want an interesting review of sparring, the book of Habakkuk is, if nothing else, a transcript of the prophet disputing with God.
In each of these cases, important changes took place in their lives of faith. Hannah got her heart’s desire only to then to have to give him for God’s purpose. Abraham learned more about God's expectations for righteousness. Moses the one who wondered why on earth God chose him freed his people and led them through the wilderness using the tools God gave him. Habakkuk learned about trusting God during trouble.
    So, what does all this mean for us? For one thing, it's a reminder that questioning, pushing back, expressing doubt, showing irreverence and arguing are not out of bounds in our relationship with God. We needn't fear that we'll offend God. Of course, God will have the final word. Yet in the sparring, we may receive insight, inspiration, understanding, “a blessing” if you want to call it that --- or if not that, at least the comfort that comes from having aired our grievances, doubts and fears even if the reaction isn't what we'd hoped for.
    Second this event with Jesus and this woman tells us that speaking plainly about the things that nag us could be considered an act of faith. There is no mention of faith in this story, yet, was it only desperation that brought this woman across the threshold, across the cultural divide and the sexism of 1st century Palestine? Our faith may be thin or weak, or based on desperation but, even in a diminished condition, it's a route to truth. What's more, faith given by grace is a channel through which God works.
    To further support this view, if we read this story of Jesus and this unnamed woman from Matthew’s gospel, Matthew adds a detail that Mark doesn't mention. In Matthew's account, after the woman spars with Jesus, he replies, “Woman, great is your faith!” What faith did she show?
    There is one more aspect to this event for in sparring with Jesus, this woman was, in fact, serving as steel that sharpened his steel. This woman had her daughter healed but what did Jesus gain in sparring with this woman? Perhaps like Manny it added strength for the impending journey to the cross.
    As 21st century Christians citizens, let us not be afraid that in the hustle and bustle of our lives, in despair, anger or simply with a sigh, sparring with Jesus is not out of the question. Sparring does not depend on when’s degrees whether black belt or no belt in faith, on one’s number of knockouts or getting knocked down. Rather the question is “What is God inviting us to spar?” Because if we have learned anything, that in Scripture, when we do spar with God taking what is deep in hearts and minds up to God, not only do we learn something about God we learn about this faith we have received by God’s grace. Amen.

 

"Imitation is ..." 9-2-2018

Sermon based on James. Presented at Hope Lutheran.

    How did you learn to drive? I learned to drive in the badlands of western North Dakota in an old borrowed pickup truck with a classmate as my teacher. Being that it was stick shift and on rough rocky ups and downs, I learned through many stops and starts how to let out the clutch and push on the gas without stalling.
    I don’t know about you, but what if we could skip all that and just “YouTube it” instead?
That’s what an 8-year-old boy in Ohio did on one recent Sunday night. Our young innovator had a problem: mom and dad had fallen asleep, and the boy and his 4-year-old sister were hankering for some late-night McDonald’s. The golden arches were a mile and a half away --- too far for a walk in the dark. So, the boy did what any self-respecting Gen-Z kid would do when confronted with a conundrum. He looked up “How to drive a car” on YouTube, emptied his piggy bank, then bundled his sister into the car and headed out for a Happy Meal.
    Police said later that the boy obeyed all the traffic laws, didn’t hit a single thing, and drove “effortlessly” through town as though he had been driving for years --- all because he watched a few minutes of video instruction and then did precisely what it said to do.
Our young adventurer seems to have grasped early on what many of us grasped much later in life. That is that, on the internet, someone somewhere has created a video to show us how to do what we’re about to attempt. Whether it’s a repair for our home or our car, how to put on makeup, learning self-defense or making dinner, our even how to prepare a sermon, all we need to do is look it up on the world’s most popular video site --- even if its expertise on the best way to massage our pet opossum --- because, apparently, opossums need massages --- something else we can learn on YouTube!
    For the few of us who don’t know, there are millions of these tutorial videos, most produced by people who have a skill and simply want to share it. It’s the crowd sourcing of expertise that makes it possible for the most mechanically inept person to fix a faucet, or a maker of microwave mac and cheese to become a gourmet chef. Of course, all this instruction depends on the viewer’s willingness to experiment and put the information into practice. Without that, it’s just another internet time-waster with cat videos.
    People in the ancient world obviously didn’t have YouTube. Most of their learning was accomplish ed by watching someone model the activity in question face to face or by receiving a letter from a distant instructor --- which took way longer than even dial-up internet service, for those who remember!
    The reason that I bring this up is that over the course of September our second reading will be from one of the books of the New Testament called James. The author of James, who some Biblical scholars have suggested could even have been a brother of Jesus, intended audience were Christians of Jewish background who were caught up in the upheaval. In mid-first century Palestine, there where outbreaks of violence and insurrection --- a conflict that would culminate in the Jewish revolt of A.D. 66-70 and the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem. In fact, the whole Roman world was dealing with unrest, including economic problems, food shortages, and the rapid turnover of Roman emperors that led to an erratic government policy toward minorities like Jewish Christians and others.
    The problem before the church in that time of uncertainty that this author tried to address in his letter can be summed up something like this: “How do we remain a faithful Christian community in the midst of this time of trial and temptation?” James wrote to encourage his brothers and sisters and to give them some practical instruction on how to navigate in difficult times.
    Therefore, because we live in our own turbulent times and we will be hearing from the book of James all of September, some time on the book may help.
    The first and most important concept found across the chapters is that the author of James suggests that faithfulness is to be practiced. If we were to read the letter from beginning to end, it seems to read like a series of random tutorial videos on life, but James made clear that no amount of instruction matters unless it is put into practice. We can watch all the video’s we want to, but unless we are willing to be like that 8-year-old and take the wheel it only remains a video. James wanted the church to represent faithfulness not only in hearing the instruction but doing the instruction as well.
    “Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him” (v. 12). In that strange language of 20 centuries ago, James saw his situation as a time of testing for the Christian community, but also an opportunity to demonstrate faithfulness.
    For James, this time of testing was not something that God had thrown down in front of his people to break them. It was not a test of their faith, but rather it was a chance to shine as a community of the new creation that God had brought forth in the death and resurrection of Jesus (vv. 13-17).
    You see in that day and age many in the Greco-Roman world, many consulted astrology and the alignment of the stars as a kind of first-century YouTube to help determine their course of action. James called the church to remember that they have been given the “perfect gift” of God: the “Father of lights,” the one who created the stars in the first place.
    Unlike the changeable nature of events in the world James said, there is “no variation or shadow due to change” in God’s nature (v. 17). God and the word of God are the only reliable bedrock for a community of faith, which God created “in fulfillment of his own purpose” and birthed “by the word of truth” (v. 18).
    James sets this up as a direct contrast to the other kind of “birth” people have; a birth conceived out of heterosexual sex, which, in turn, gives birth to death (v. 15). Now we could look up “How to give birth” on YouTube and find a whole bunch of videos --- you know, in case we need to check out a video while racing to the hospital. But for James, the only birth that really matters is the one that happens when we are born anew daily, “first fruits” of God’s new creation in Christ (v. 18).
    Unfortunately, our fundamentalist Christian brothers and sisters have created this impression that this word is black and white in King James English. But what James had in mind, is that God’s word is reason under holy inspiration that helps us when the world seems to be spinning out of control. It’s tempting to give into anger, revenge and nasty words. Just like there are a ton of instructional videos on YouTube, there are plenty of folks who also use that platform to rant, spew venom and conspiracy about some person, cause or issue.
    James instead reminds us that this is like trying to deal with a problem without taking the time to read the directions first. “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness” (vv. 19-20). James instructs his brothers and sisters to get rid of that kind of toxic reactivity and instead, begin with step one: “welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls” (v. 21). The same “word of truth” that gives new birth daily also guides the words and actions of the one whom God has saved.
    How does that “record” button start? James says that we are at our best when we practice. “But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves” (v. 22). The purpose of receiving instruction, receiving the “word of truth,” is to put whatever we do know into action. If, say, I watch a YouTube video on how to fix a leaky faucet but never pull out the tools and get to work trying what I’ve learned to use, then I will still be stuck with a constant drip. If we just watch the video and say, “Yeah, I’ll need to get back to that,” We will quickly forget everything we’ve learned.
    The author of James says the same thing happens when we only hear or watch and don’t put it into practice. When we fail to take the word, we have received and put it into rehearsal, nor built a kind of spiritual muscle memory, then we fail to recall who God created and redeemed us to be as people gathered to be co-creators for the kingdom of God (vv. 23-24).
    If, on the other hand, we keep our focus on “the perfect law, the law of liberty,” and persevere, being hearers and doers as flawed as we are, we will be “blessed” in our doing. “Blessed” is not getting our Powerball number or the tornado missing our homes, so it flattens our neighbors, rather blessed is satisfaction in practicing what we have been instructed to do.
    Now, I don’t know about you but when I have looked at some of the YouTube videos to accomplish a task which in my case is usually with a plumbing problem, some tutorials don’t quite convey the information in a way that’s easy for us to follow. Try tying a bow tie while watching a video, for example. It’s difficult because that mirror image forces me to do everything backwards. Rather to tie that bow tie effectively I need someone standing beside me to show me how, guiding my fingers and helping me develop the internal memory of the process until it becomes second nature. It’s one thing to conceptualize the process, and quite another to execute.
    The same is true for “faith,” says James. It’s not simply about a solo running of the mouth and declaring one’s faith; nor is it about lashing out at those who might be challenging (v. 26). It is faith, in other words, that uses the model of Jesus for both its belief and its practice. But perhaps like tying a bow tie, there are some things YouTube just can’t quite teach. It can’t teach us how to be a follower of Jesus. Oh, sure, it can teach us the principles of discipleship, but to really learn, we are stronger and healthier when we live out faith with others who likewise strengthen and help us be healthier along the way. Information alone won’t get it; it takes imitation in community as well. That’s why we need a community of faith to guide us and give us examples for putting this infinitesimal faith we have into practice.
    In a culture where there is plenty of upheaval, we are the opportunity to be the glimmer in the night that reflect God’s glory. And we shine most brightly when others have a sampling of faith come up in their top ten searches and want to be instructed in how to do the same.
    Sure our “videos” may be clumsy, amateurish and there may be others with more views, but an 8-year-old learned to drive by watching a poor tutorial video and then grabbing the keys. Because, all the motivation he needed was not found in the video, or in what he heard or saw, but in the prospect of a Happy Meal.
    Over the coming month as we hear the words from the book of James, may we be motivated to take the examples of faith we have been given by grace in, with and through Jesus Christ to put into practice God’s grace because we are models of faith in hopeful community to an even greater destination, better than just some golden arches. Amen        .

Psalm 111 - 8/19/2018

Sermon for Hope Lutheran based on Psalm 111.

    “Great are the works of the Lord,” says the writer of Psalm 111, “studied by all who delight in them.”
    But I wonder do we? Not only do we study? Do we have delight in them? In this American era of angst and depression I wonder if we shouldn’t take a moment and start from square one. I decided this Friday to take an different Psalm than in our lectionary because I wonder if not only we forget God’s great works we forget the works of Brownie Wise, Art Fry and Lonnie Johnson, studied by all who love stories of successful startups. These folks put energy and creativity into small projects that became really, big.
    Brownie Wise, for example, was a secretary at an aviation company in 1947. She began to sell brooms at parties in private homes to make a little extra cash. Soon she began to offer a product called Tupperware, and her “party plan” sales technique took off. Today, party businesses offering everything from jewelry to candles to animated Bible stories.
    In 1974, Art Fry was working as a project developer at 3M. He wanted a better bookmark for his church hymnal, so he and Spencer Silver, a colleague, invented Post-it Notes. The 3M company now sells 50 billion of them annually.
    Lonnie Johnson was working as a nuclear engineer in 1982, and he invented an environmentally friendly heat pump. But guess what? It was also a very cool water pistol. Known as the Super Soaker, his water pistol sold 200 million units in its first 10 years.
    Great are the works of Brownie, Art and Lonnie. Without them, we wouldn't have Tupperware, Post-it Notes or Super Soakers. Our leftovers would spoil, our bookmarks would fall out and our summer picnics would be much less fun. Drier, perhaps, but less fun.
    Of course, it may be that you are not a big fan of those products. Fair enough. But the point is that they were all startups --- small that quickly became very, very big.
    What we take for granted in God’s great works we forget began small. Twenty-one centuries later in our self-absorbed and individualistic culture we may miss how those small God initiated innovations turn out have lasting and deep connections to our lives. In other words, what has God done for me lately?
    That if anything is a good reason to review today’s Psalm 111, a song of praise for God's wonderful works, a celebration of the spiritual projects that have touched and transformed not only our individual lives but the universe for all time.
    Call them God's startups. The first is the Righteous Startup. The psalm begins by speaking of God's “righteousness,” which endures forever. Righteousness is one of God's most innovative projects, with a long track record, beginning with the people of Israel and continuing into our church. In the Old Testament, Job was one of the more interesting examples of a righteous man, called “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” In the New Testament, we may encounter a righteous woman named Dorcas, who we are also told was “devoted to good works and acts of charity.”
Now to clarify, these two I mentioned, Dorcas and Job were not self-righteous --- holier-than-thou, self-satisfied, smug. No, they were truly righteous, we are told which means being in right relationships. Self-righteous people are annoying, while truly righteous people are healthier to be around even when they are going through difficult times like Job.
    A life of righteousness includes treating your neighbor as you would like to be treated, neither    oppressing nor being oppressed. It means that we keep God's will and put energy into good works and acts of generosity. A righteous person follows the example of Jesus in stressing that the most significant matters of the law are “justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23).
    Rule-following which we often equate as honorable has the unfortunate tendency to make a person self-satisfied and smug, which is why God's righteousness goes beyond a checklist of rules and regulations. “You are buying a flat screen TV and live off food stamps therefore you must be a delinquent bum” so says our rule-based self-righteousness. But the practice of God's righteousness involves loving the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind. It also includes loving our neighbor as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). By that standard, we have a measurement of true righteous where being in a right relationship with God means a right relationship with the people around us.
    The other aspect of this of course, is that none of us can achieve this righteousness on our own. We need constantly need help, which is why God sent Jesus Christ to assist us. Using Pastor Eugene Peterson’s version of the Bible he quotes Paul as saying in Galatians, “We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through faith in Jesus Christ.” God's righteousness startup reaches its greatest success when we are made right with God and with each other by the gift of grace through our faith in Jesus Christ.
    The second startup mentioned in Psalm 111 is the Covenant. For many in this nation, covenant gets lost in a misguided attempt to place a piece of covenant the Ten Commandments in stone into public spaces. But as Lutherans we know why not the beatitudes as well; or bread and wine or the baptismal font?
    Instead, let’s review covenant. After the great flood, God made a covenant with Noah, saying, “I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants.” God promised never again to destroy people with a worldwide flood (Genesis 9:9, 15). Similarly, God made a covenant with Abram and Sarai, saying, "I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous" (Genesis 17:2).
    In just those but two stories out of so many, we are reminded that a covenant is a promise-based relationship, one in which God promises to be our God and we promise to be God's people. The good news is that God is always faithful to the promise, even though we people quite often, repeatedly waver, fall away or go our own ways.
    You might think of the covenant as being God's “Like” button, a divine version of the button that we push on Facebook when we like something. But, did you know that the “Like” button itself was a startup? In 2007, a team of Facebook developers and designers built a working prototype of what they called the “Awesome” button. A couple of years passed before CEO Mark Zuckerberg approved the “Like” button, and then it quickly took over.
    The covenant is in a sense, God's eternal “Like” button. All through the Old Testament, in countless episodes in people’s lives from through the horrific from drought, illness and death to the profound acts of love, God renews the covenant and calls people back to faithfulness.
Then, in the New Testament, God makes a new covenant --- a promise of a relationship through Jesus Christ. According to Hebrews, “Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant.”
    From the beginning of salvation history to today, God keeps pushing the “Like” button by repeatedly renewing the covenant in our faith journeys. That is our model. God's faithfulness is a template for our faithfulness, especially as we try to honor our commitments in the covenants of marriage and other important promise-based relationships.
    The next of God’s startup is redemption. Psalm 111 says that God "sent redemption to his people" (v. 9), from the earliest days of the biblical timeline. But what is redemption all about? According to religion professor Timothy Willis, redemption was needed in the ancient world when people had been imprisoned until the family could pay to reconcile a debt. The redeemer was the one who paid the debt for the debtor, buying back the debtor. In a similar manner, prisoners of war were redeemed through the payment of a ransom.
    God fashioned this idea of redemption and made it big, extending it far beyond the paying off debts and the saving of prisoners. Over time, the word described any kind of rescue or deliverance, and God became known as the Ultimate Redeemer. We have God redeeming persons from death (Job 33:28) and redeeming a Hebrew tribe from Egypt (Exodus 6:6).
    In the New Testament, Jesus became our Redeemer. Jesus redeems by his life, teaching, death, and resurrection giving us the forgiveness that we cannot give ourselves. In Christ, God redeems us from our human brokenness, to adopt us as children into God’s family.
    Maybe you have traveled to Rio de Janiero in Brazil and seen the prominent mountain with a statue that stands 98 feet tall, with outstretched arms that span 92 feet. The statue is called Cristo Redentor, which means “Christ the Redeemer.” Standing on a 26-foot pedestal, it dominates the skyline. From a distance, it appears to be either a cross or a person extending a welcoming embrace. But it pales in comparison to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Today, the redemption offered by Jesus is the greatest wonder of the world.
    Righteousness. Covenant. Redemption. These divine startups are now so common, that they become throw away lines to be fought over rather than studied.
We forget that the exploded like the tutoring provided by a hedge-fund analyst named Sal Khan, who s    tarted out by helping his cousin with math via Yahoo. Then he moved his instructional videos to YouTube. Now he runs an education nonprofit called Khan Academy, and his videos have been viewed 1.25 billion times.
    Bigger than Khan Academy are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. Those are square one in our lives in the wonderful works of God. For God's innovations are our key to a daily life of righteousness, one in which we can enjoy a daily right relationship with God and with each other. When we relish God's startups, we discover that covenant-keeping is the foundation of healthier relationships, friendships and commitments. When we marvel at God's innovations, we realize that redemption is needed by all of us who require daily forgiveness that we cannot give ourselves or others.
    “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” says Psalm 111. “All those who practice it have a good understanding.” In daily practice of God's startup efforts, we gain wisdom and understanding about what is most important in life. And by trusting in the gift of God's righteousness, covenant and redemption, we gain a relationship with God that is greater than any human innovation.
    I like my post it notes, and we have a cabinet full of Tupperware and its generic knockoffs, and I have been known to use a super soaker on the unaware, but it is in God’s startups that truly make our lives meaningful because in them we are forgiven, picked up off the ground, and loved. Amen.

Perservative Free Bread - 8/5/2018

Sermon for Sunday, August 5, 2018.  Based on John 6: 24-35.  Shared @ Hope Lutheran, San Antonio.

Did you go through the drive through on your way to church this morning and pick up a breakfast sandwich or taco? Or perhaps after worshipping this morning, will you swing by Panera for what is termed “fast/casual”?

Over the past 100 years, huge changes have been made to the way food is prepared and delivered to us. If someone from 1918 were to suddenly appear into our world today, one major shock would be how our eating and drinking has been transformed by innovation.

Just imagine the changes. Telephone-based food ordering with delivery started at a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles in 1922. Now, food delivery in the United States is a $43 billion business, involving apps such as Grubhub and Postmates. Drive-thru restaurants first appeared in 1948, when a burger chain called In-N-Out Burger allowed people to order and pick up food without ever leaving their car. Today, up to 70 percent of fast-food sales are drive-thru. Using consistent preparation methods and a dependable supply chain, the McDonald's system was created in 1955. Now, almost every restaurant has a similar system.

In 2017, robots became the latest growing innovation. Chowbotics is a salad maker, Cafe X is a robot barista, and a pizza company is testing delivery via self-driving cars. “Customers will grab their order from the back,” reports Fast Company, “just imagine, no human interaction necessary.’”

That's kind of creepy, isn't it? No human interaction necessary. What a shock to someone from 1918.
Today we are reminded that the true innovator of eating was Jesus not only by feeding thousands with little, but Jesus always had that universal and human touch. Famously, in one of the few miracles to appear in all four gospels, Jesus fed 5,000 people by the Sea of Galilee. With just five barley loaves and two fish, Jesus created a meal in which everyone gets as much as they want, and all are satisfied.

Our gospel is a follow up to that miracle from the perspective of the author of the gospel of John. In response to the miracle and the reaction, Jesus warns the crowd not to focus too much on the bread that he has just given them. “Do not work for the food that perishes,” he says, “but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”

Perhaps that event is so much part of our Christian knowledge that we may not realize the curiosity of the people with that innovation. And considering that it happened over 20 centuries ago, we may not understand all the dynamics of this “food that endures for eternal life.”

With any innovation, it would be helpful for us in to remind ourselves that Jesus is not speaking about an easy-to-store, vacuum-sealed miracle, packaged for delivery, rather a food that endures.

First, let us briefly summarize this portion of the gospel. The people of Galilee have already had a memory of an innovation in eating. Not drive-thru restaurants, but by a miraculous bread that came from heaven. “Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness,” Jesus is reminded; “as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’” (v. 31). As a practicing Jew, not only does Jesus know all about this manna-style bread, Jesus goes on to explain that he is not replicating some story from the past. Rather, Jesus wants to introduce something innovative. “Very truly, I tell you,” says Jesus, “it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven” (v. 32). Jesus' answer is not only to affirm God over Moses, but that God “gives” --- present tense --- while Moses “gave” --- past tense.

From the point of view of the fourth gospel, the crowd is focusing on the past. Today, Jesus is shifting them to the present and future. Moses gave “the bread from heaven" while God gives “the true bread from heaven.” Where once God gave “bread” to the Israelites wandering in the desert through Moses, now the “bread of God” is “the one coming down” ---Jesus --- who “gives” in the present into the future. An even bigger innovation.

Furthermore, Jesus is talking about heavenly bread that doesn't simply fill the stomach, but a bread that actually “gives life to the world.” Not only is it something not found on the menu at Bill Miller’s, it feeds in a new and innovative way.

Not surprisingly, like we do for the free samples of a new product at Sam’s Club, the people respond by saying, “Sir, give us this bread always” (v. 34).

Well what does all this mean for us? There are those fond memories of how we were fed in the past, perhaps it is a homemade meal during Thanksgiving or Christmas that we seek to replicate. Yet no matter how much we try to follow the recipe, we can never quite replicate the emotions. Perhaps those past remembrances, like manna, still feed us even though we are fully aware that it leaves us living in the past.

There however something else in today’s lesson for us to explore. I think we can understand the hunger of those people around Jesus, and although we are on this side of the resurrection, we may have some of their same challenges and questions. What exactly is this bread of God that gives life to the world today? We know it's not a loaf of Mrs. Baird’s that has gone through an assembly line and we know it's not a type of bread kneaded by a robot or delivered by a driverless car, sooo…. what is it?

Shockingly this bread of God is nothing less than Jesus himself. “I am the bread of life," says Jesus. "Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (v. 35).
In other words, the greatest of all innovations in eating is the appearance of Jesus as the “bread of life.” Into the past, present and future, we can receive “the true bread from heaven” which gives life to the world and satisfies our deepest hunger and thirst. Wow….

What does it mean for Jesus to give life to the world? Over the years that I have been Pastor I have come to see it as both something that is both universal and very uniquely personal, and both levels are equally important. Not only is bread a universal food, a form of it is available almost everywhere around the world, bread is also very personal in the sense that it appears with different tastes and textures in a variety of cultures, from pitas to baguettes to corn tortillas to gluten free.

Likewise, bread exists on a universal level, Jesus is the Word of God in human form. As God's Word, Jesus existed "in the beginning with God." John tells us that all things came into being through him, and “what has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (1:2-4).

So, whether we are pondering the Big Bang or the creation of life on Planet Earth, it is important to realize that Jesus was there. Everything has come into being through him, including life, all of life, not just a certain kind or type or sexuality or gender. The apostle Paul says much the same thing in his letter to the Colossians, when he describes Jesus as the firstborn of all creation. “All things have been created through him and for him,” says Paul. “In him all things hold together” (1:15-17).

Jesus was in the beginning with God. In Jesus all things hold together. This is the universal, metaphysical Jesus, the eternal bread that gives life to the world.

But maybe this cosmic Christ is too big for us to swallow in one piece. It is hard to take a bite out of something this large. It may help to move to a much more personal level, focusing on Jesus as the bread of life for each of us. Perhaps that's why he was born in the little town of Bethlehem, which means "house of bread."

As our personal bread, this body of Christ, life in the daily grind of faith, in community, is bread that strengthens us to face the challenges of life, both small irritations and huge obstacles.

For example, how many of you have seen that snicker’s bar commercial where one moment they are an irritable, famous person, then after eating snickers bar the person returns to their normal selves with the tag line “Snickers satisfies.” Everyone knows what it feels like to be “hangry” -- that is, bad-tempered or irritable because of being hungry. A little snack can lift our spirits and give us the strength we need to move ahead. Long-distance runners know that they cannot complete an entire marathon with the fuel they have in their stomachs from breakfast. They must eat along the way, fueling their muscles with gel-packs and power bars and other carbohydrates. Without being too silly, likewise we can say “Jesus Satisfies.”

It is in that personal faith that means something to us today, as the bread of life, in faith, in community, that Christ feeds us. Christ is the Word of God in human form, offering us correction and guidance and forgiveness. Jesus is the bread of life in an anthropological formula of story and experience that gives us nourishment and strength and inspiration. Without this living bread, we may not have that little extra for another day in our own exodus journey’s. Jesus is the One who is with us and available to us, able to satisfy our hunger and our thirst; to feed our soul, to connect us more deeply with others.

Shortly, we will be celebrating the Eucharist, the sacrament of the Lord's supper, Holy Communion. It's no surprise that this meal is offered regularly, because we all need the nourishment that comes from the bread. When Jesus broke bread at the Last Supper and said, "This is my body that is for you," Jesus fully expected that his followers would break the bread regularly in remembrance of him (1 Corinthians 11:24). Jesus knew that we would need the bread of life not just once, but repeatedly.

But what about those who are not in community? Who are not gathered around this table? This bread comes with an extender not preservatives. For example, in the summer of 2010 forty volunteers spent three months constructing an outdoor oven at White Bear Lake UMC. After pouring cement, mixing mortar, setting brick, constructing walls and chimney and applying stone to the exterior, that oven is used weekly to feed people through bread bakes and pizza events, building community, extending the bread.

Jesus is God's greatest innovation, the one sent into the world "so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (3:16). Nourished by "the food that endures for eternal life," we can be Christ's people in the world as well as point others toward the peace and justice.

Over the centuries, there have been many innovations in eating, from food delivery to salad-making robots. The goal of much of it is to prevent spoilage, it is "the food that perishes" (v. 27). Contrast that with the Biblical Greek word we translate as “endures” in vs. 27 which can also be translated as abiding (menein). In every single case, Jesus is the one who "abides," the one who is there, the one who is with the people, and does not spoil.

Today and every day, we are reminded that in community we abide in the bread of God, cosmic and personal, which gives life to the world. Today, we join the crowd around Jesus in saying, “Sir, give us this bread always” (v. 34) challenged not only with the personal and universal of Jesus in our lives but likewise entrusted and transformed into the body of Christ to extend this bread. Meaning, that when we are fed, it is to become conscious that we are the bread of life and by living it, we can make all the difference.

The only question left I leave for you to wonder, how many Lutherans does it take to serve this innovative bread? Amen

 

Double Vision - 7/29/2018

Sermon for Hope and Lutheran Church of the Resurrection.  Shared on July 29th.  Based on Ephesians 3.

Property taxes! If there is anything that riles people up these days is property taxes!
As you may know property taxes are a percentage based on the determined “value” of our property. And there is the rub. What is the value of our homes and land? Should it be determined by the sale price of comparable homes? And what exactly should be considered similar?
Now somethings should be obvious. For example, if one home is 3000 square feet that would be not be the same as a home that is 5000 square feet. But what about a home that is say is 2000 square feet but is on a hill side overlooking the Guadalupe River? Should the view of the river be considered?
That is exactly the case in New Hampshire for example. Officials in New Hampshire in 2003 decided that all those majestic panoramas for which the state is famous are not priceless after all. Homeowners pay through their nose for what they can see with their eyes. Officials consider views as a bonus features of houses, akin to a pool or an attached garage, and tax assessors put dollar amounts on them. This, in turn, requires homeowners with a glorious view to feed the community coffers.
New Hampshire is not the only state that taxes property for the grandeur beyond their gates --- the practice has taking root elsewhere --- but it’s really began in the Granite State because of an influx of people seeking homes with impressive views, and because the state like our own state of Texas has neither a state sales tax nor a levy on personal income. So, property tax has become a primary revenue source for government operations. Heavenly beauty outside your manor means hefty bills inside your mailbox.
The irony is that from a property owner’s perspective, the more valuable view can be the one from which little inspiration and/or uplift can be drawn. Which would you rather have? A large home whose value is found in an less than onerous tax bill but overlooks a slag heap, or barren, straightforward landscape? Or would rather pay more for a small, rustic cabin with a latrine out the back but with a spectacular mountain vista and tax bill to match? It is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. It is from our Christian perspective … a sign of the human condition.
I wonder, if all things were equal ---- recognizing that we have deliberately practiced racist redlining ---- but just go with me, without the incentive of keeping one’s property tax low, would we deliberately choose the hardscrabble, the rocky? How many of us would intentionally purchase land or a home because it has a horrible view?
Yet, guess what, when we move beyond the realm of actual real estate, that is exactly what God’s people have done time and again. We deliberately are called to choose the mustard seed, the distinctly unpromising terrain because we have a bigger view of things. The way of the cross … it is in the eyes of the beholder!
Just look at Paul’s words to the Ephesians. Consider how Paul invested himself in barren land. If we read Paul’s words in Ephesians 3 out of context --- as we do by starting at verse 14 and not verse 1, chapter 1 --- it is easy to assume that Paul is residing in some fancy digs. “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,” Paul writes. He goes on to say that he prays “according to the riches of [God’s] glory.” He speaks of knowing the “fullness” of God and then concludes with a line of benediction: “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly ...”
Such words and phrases as “riches,” “glory,” “fullness” and “accomplish abundantly” hardly leave us thinking he is speaking from a grim, disheartening circumstance, but that was the case. Paul is in prison as he writes these words. And in the verse right before our reading, he mentions his sufferings. “I pray therefore that you may not lose heart over my sufferings for you; they are your glory.”
Consider what Paul is saying. I am in prison and I am suffering, yet in this very next paragraph he begins these powerful words of praise for and confidence in God. What on earth is Paul smoking?
It’s because from his prison window, Paul says he has a great view. With the perspective of faith, Paul can see glory emanating from God and he catches a vision of the human-scape as God wants it to be, a realm in which God “is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” It is not that he is oblivious, but it means that his prison does not define him.
In the centuries since Paul wrote these words from prison, Christians have done the same time after time. We have come upon repulsive and heart-sickening situations, but instead of running away, we have set up camp. Think of Albert Schweitzer doctoring the disease-ridden poor of Africa and Mother Teresa caring for the dying poor of India. We also live lives of faith in the communities of which we are part think of William Booth ministering to the dirt-poor of England and the number of charities, helping organizations, 12-step groups, hospitals and ministries that began because somebody looked at bleakness but saw the opportunity for blessing.
On a more personal scale, and far less famous this same sort of thing happens every day. People take their nieces and nephews and grandchildren into their homes, volunteer to hospice, help at soup kitchens, answer hotlines for people in crises, and do the thousands of other thankless tasks that help struggling brothers and sisters make it through another day.
Returning to Ephesians, it seems like Paul, when we catch the vision of Gods “breadth and length and height and depth” we can invest ourselves in the most unpromising circumstances, have little that is tangible to show for our efforts but still see God’s grace from our vantage point. Then we can declare, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father ....” In a sense, the way of the cross calls for a kind of double vision, so that when we look out of our spiritual window upon our neighborhoods, we see two things: the faraway and the near-at-hand, the cost and the vision.
What do you think? Is this double vision as easy as Paul seems to make it out to be? Is it difficult to look outside a prison window while seeing bars, also see God’s horizons? Not in a sweet bye and bye, but in the here and now?
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher, poet and writer gives us a way to think through this. One day in 1836, after walking the land around his Massachusetts town, Emerson famously returned home and wrote: “The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some 20 or 30 farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men’s farms, yet it is to this their warranty-deeds give no title.”
Emerson was talking about having the vision not of a tax man but as a poet who can look at the faraway sweep of what’s before him and see not tax able chunks, but the panoramic glory of the whole view.
Poetry is one kind of vision, akin to the spiritual farsightedness that enables us to “see” the coming kingdom and trust its reality. It perhaps was that sort of poetic vision Paul had when he declared, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine ....”
Emerson does allude to the other kind of vision, too --- the near-at-hand. He mentions property owned by three of his neighbors, Miller, Locke and Manning. Their lands, along with those of others, made up the larger landscape about which Emerson waxed poetic.
But how do you suspect did Miller, Locke and Manning viewed their land? Did they wake up in the morning, cup of coffee in hand gaze from their porch and wax poetically as Emerson? Remember this was New England, known for its rocky soil, so Miller, Locke and Manning were the ones who had to dig the boulders out of the ground. They were the ones who had to plant the fields, mend the fences, tend the livestock, maintain the buildings, reap the harvest and foot the tax bill. Their view was the nearsightedness, their view was out of bent back and arthritic knees, that feeds the hungry at hand and deals with the fundamentals of daily existence. Emerson did not pay their property taxes, did he?
That is of course the danger of what happens when we take scripture out of context. Paul is realistic. Later in Ephesians, after his rhapsodic burst about the big picture, discussed with his readers about the daily nitty-gritty of the cross: “Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.”
That is of course the nub of our faith journeys isn’t it? This dual vision; We have the view of Emerson and live lives of Miller, Locke and Manning. We have the vision of Paul as well as the lives of a small, struggling congregation in Ephesus.
The hardscrabble abound, but often don’t look much like vistas. Usually they look more like overwhelming needs or intractable problems. It is often hard to see much promise in them. Our lives often don’t much match the way the kingdom of God is described in the Bible --- because I don’t know about you but when we walk out these doors it doesn’t seem as a place where death, mourning, crying and pain will be no more, and where God himself will wipe every tear away.
Instead it may feel more like that view that Emerson had that is now long gone. Because that land in Massachusetts that Emerson wrote about is no longer tended fields with stone walls. Why? Well because the children of Miller, Locke and Manning traveled west where farming was far easier! If you go back to those fields that Emerson told us about the land has been reclaimed by brush and trees.
Faith that comes by grace means that God’s kingdom isn’t here yet in any complete way. Rather in the meantime, we live in the hardscrabble with a vision. In this meantime we may want to curl up and wait for the undergrowth to cover us in a canopy, or we move into the unwelcoming terrain and to join in the wiping of the tears.
There’s a story, probably apocryphal, about Igor Stravinsky that illustrates this point. Stravinsky was considered by many the greatest and most versatile composer of the 20th century, but he was also known for writing extremely difficult passages into his works. One time the story goes that he created a violin interlude so formidable that a master violinist declared to Stravinsky that it was impossible to play. “Of course,” Stravinsky replied. “I don’t want the sound of someone playing the passage. I want the sound of someone trying to play it.”
That is what gives you and I hope because by God’s love and grace in places of great need, indeed in life itself, that is the definition of our faithfulness to God’s call, a vision while simultaneously a full awareness of whose and where we are. We are not asked to be successful or effective or even feel blessed and bury our emotions and foreswear our reality, rather we are asked to tend the fields of our rocks and see the wildflower. There is holiness in the now! For no matter where we find ourselves, we can declare, “What a view!” and “For this reason I bow my knees before God ....” Amen.

The "Ark" - 7/15/2018

Based on the optional first lesson 2 Samuel. 

I have been thinking about “stuff and moving” as I vacate my 7 years of accumulation here at Good Shepherd. Having had to move in the past, I began with the best of intentions in May of 2011 --- one day I will have to move. And yet, here I am moving out of an office with seemingly more stuff than when I came.
So, tell me, what is the best way to move? Let's count the ways: pods or containers, u-drive trucks, bus, car, overhead containers, air, ship. But have we ever thought about God moving? More on that later.
If you haven’t noticed, the moving industry is changing before our eyes. It seems like almost every day we hear about new startups that offer easier, cheaper and more innovative ways to move our stuff. Like what Amazon did with the publishing industry and then with retail, and the impact Uber and Lyft are having on the taxicab industry, businesspersons are aiming to disrupt the moving industry as well.
For example, on-demand storage companies like Closetbox and Clutter give people the option to outsource their storage needs versus the traditional self-storage model. These companies will pick up our stuff, take it away, and bring it back when we need it; in other words, our stuff is only a phone call away. There are also on-demand transportation and labor companies that specialize in small moves or delivering furniture bought at a local store or even via Craigslist.
I bring this up not just because I am in the middle of cleaning out my office ---- these seven years of accumulation --- but we hear in our first lesson that King David felt like he had stuff and David felt like he had a moving problem. But what he finally found out is that God is the mover.
First, David had a stuff problem; the people felt they had old holy furniture that needed to be brought out of storage. The Philistines had the Ark of the Covenant which properly belonged to Israel. People felt it wasn't right that foreigners had the Ark in storage. Second, David had a moving problem because he had this holy stuff --- to move. He had to move this Ark from the control of the Philistines to his new Jebusite capital of Jerusalem.
And what happened? David and his people learned that God is not stuff and God is not moved around like stuff.
Before we get to far ahead of ourselves, what is the Ark? This question should probably be addressed, because if there is any story from the Old Testament that people like it is the one about Noah, who builds and ark and saves his family and animals.
However, the English word “Ark” is a one-word translation of a Hebrew concept that describes something that carries something in safety. The ark that is described in our lesson was not a ship but a large trunk, maybe 4 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet -- something like that carried the presence and glory of God found in three important pieces of history and tradition for the Israelites. The Ark was purportedly to have held the original two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments; the rod of Aaron, the miraculous shepherd’s staff used by Aaron the brother of Moses in Egypt during the Exodus; and a golden pot that contained the last piece of manna allowed to survive, the daily bread that came down from heaven that fed the people in the wilderness.
Furthermore, this ark had specific instructions for being moved. It was supposed to be always covered in a certain way with animal skins and a blue cloth, virtually concealed as it was moved from one location to another. It was to be carried by means of two poles threaded through brass rings on either side, as porters might carry a fancy chair for a king. The transportation people entrusted with the job of moving God in the Ark were supposed to be from a certain tribe called Levites and particularly the priestly class.
And like a lot of old family furniture this ark not only had instructions it had a history, it has a past. Not only were the contents important, how it was to be moved, the ark itself was linked to several stories. For example, one famous event happened when the Israelites crossed the Jordan and moved into the land. Just like the early United States, the land was not empty. The Israelites encountered formidable resistance at the ancient city called Jericho. The story goes that the priests carried the Ark around the walled city for a week, and on the seventh day, the walls came down.
By the way, this miracle is also the beginning of the Ark's association with military success and what ultimately led to being captured by the Philistines.
What had happened is that years before today’s lesson, Israel, suffering a defeat at the hands of the Philistines, concluded that their losing was due to the absence of their mascot --- the Ark. The Israelites brought the Ark to battle --- and lost. The Philistines captured the ark and took it along with other treasure as war reparations.
Now, years have passed. The leadership of Israel fell to the last Judge, Samuel and then to their first king Saul and then now to David. David however had more success and over several battles like the one over “Goliath” ultimately defeated the Philistines. David, now King, chose to retrieve the piece now fondly known as the Ark of the Covenant from the Philistines and bring it to his new capital Jerusalem.
Although we don’t have all the details in our lesson today, we have enough. David either forgetting how it was supposed to be moved and/or clueless, chose to put it on a cart like the Philistines had when they moved it. And like many political leaders, David put on some pomp and circumstance with music and dancing. But the cart hit a pothole or something, where one of the movers walking beside the cart, reached out to steady the Ark. That man died. This was a definite buzz kill, and the Ark went no further. Instead it was left where it happened in storage under care for another three months.
David now learned that how do we move God? Very carefully!
So, why bring up this ancient story and what can we learn? Well, as I shared I found the story interesting personally as I leave this congregation and you all continue.
The first important piece that I was reminded from this story, is that like David, we want God's presence with us as we journey through life. It is the reason we build churches, have crosses in our homes and around our necks and put up symbols. David had moved his capital to Jerusalem and David wanted God symbolically to be where he was. The presence of the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem was ceremonially and symbolically significant not only for David’s political power but as a reminder for the people of God’s presence with them.
Likewise, although we may pooh pooh needing stuff to remind us of God’s presence, let us be honest, who doesn't want God to go with them and to be with them in life? Just like we get attached to buildings as a sign of God’s presence with this, likewise as faithful Christians, we are anxious not to make any big decisions or changes in our lives unless we feel God’s presence.
So, we completely understand David's desire to have the Ark moved to Jerusalem, not only for the overt political symbolism it would give him as King, but all of us hope that God will be with us through all the events of our lives. God does not want us to be alone, and we aren't --- yet as much as we pretend otherwise, there are moments when we treat God like an antique piece of inherited furniture from our loved ones with memories of the past. It is for that reason that this congregation struggles with maintaining this large facility.
This leads to another lesson from this event. None of us can presume to speak for God, set God right or move God back into proper safe position. A God who needs our protection is no god at all, and when we do try to do so, then we have assumed God-like duties and placed ourselves as idols.
For example, we often feel as though we need to speak up for God against what we believe are pernicious errors, doctrinal mistakes, cultural misinterpretations and so on. Perhaps there's nothing wrong with this as most people can differentiate between a follower and God. But we should probably use caution when claiming to speak for God. For example, I will deeply miss that where I go to next is not an official reconciling in Christ congregation. As I have learned grudgingly over the years when we as Christians have publicly expressed “all are welcome” but not include acknowledgment and repentance for the centuries of oppression, discrimination and even violence toward people and God’ creation all under the banner of somehow speaking for God, we are hypocrites.
A third lesson is that God is in the details. David learned quickly that there is a right way and a wrong way of doing things. Sometimes, our motives might be pure and our intentions laudable, but the detailed practice leaves something to be desired. We're impatient when patience is needed; we're unkind when kindness would be better; we're stubborn when flexibility is needed; we're more inclined to talk when listening is critical. It is a fine balancing act between details getting in the way of us moving forward. David ignored the details, just like our own political leaders in their desire for political expedience, forget that human beings are not just “details,” and it is up to us to remind our political leaders of that fact.
Another learning from this lesson is that God’s kingdom is not all about us. In the first attempt, David travels with a huge entourage as king; in the second, he's wearing the same robes as the priests. For example, although I deeply respect the fact that my picture is on a wall with others who have served this congregation as pastor, it is but one face among hundreds of people who have shared their time, talent and gifts in this community over the nearly 65 years of this congregations’ history.
A fifth piece I noted in this lesson is that in his second attempt, David was willing to learn and change. David prepares to bring the Ark from storage in another country. In the first attempt it did not work. From that experiment they learned that in fact, not only was it not to be in a cart but the priests were supposed to carry it. Similarly, if there is anything I hope I have tried to model is to be honest and transparent, open in mission and ministry learning from our past as well continuing to live out the grace we have received. David’s first plan failed. But that was not the end of the story. David did not give up. David recognized that this mistake was simply a step on the path.
I suspect there is more we could discuss but I think I have gone on long enough. God, as the ancient philosopher Aristotle noted, is the Unmoved Mover or Prime Mover. God has never been moved; rather it is God who does the moving. As we move out in faith, let us remember that as much as we want signs of God’s presence with us, God is not like a piece of antique furniture. Let us be humble and remember that we don’t speak for God but are vessels of God’s grace. Let us remember to work through the details balancing this endeavor in faith. This is not all about us and we have, much to learn as we keep trying.
We really don't need to move God. Rather, let us be in a frame of mind in which we are willing to let God move us out into this creation where God is moving, Amen.

Living Parables - 6-17-2018

    Sermon preached at Hope Lutheran Church based on the gospel, Mark 4.  Have you ever tried to retell a funny story or joke that before split the sides of your audience --- only to see it fall flat as a pancake the second time around? The same setup, the same characters, the same punch line that left some of my friends holding their sides and wiping their eyes, leave the men’s breakfast yawning as they sip their coffee.
    I don’t know about you, but I have some standard phrases that I can turn to when that happens: “I guess you just had to be there.” “It loses something in translation.” Or the old fall back…. “You just don't get it.”
    But the fact is, storytelling of any sort, amusing sketches or tragic tales, or sharing a joke is an art form. Good storytelling is sensitive to the variety of people listening, the inflections in our voice, the mood of the day, the color of the sky --- they all combine to create a one-time-only atmosphere for the words we speak. A story may bring a tear or a smile at one telling, and yet, the very next audience experiences the same words in a completely different way.
    Today, Mark's gospel tells us that Jesus chose to speak in parables. Over the years that I have been a pastor, some people have shared how they find that very annoying, even a bit dishonest of Jesus. Why didn't Jesus come right out and say what he meant? Why did he leave behind all these cryptic sayings, loaded with innuendo, instead of a crisp code of laws or a stack of essays with titles like “How to Be a Good Disciple,” “An Abundant Life,” “Your best life begins in the morning,” “A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of God” or “Seven Key Features of the Coming Kingdom and What This Means to You?”
    But no. Instead we have this cross-eyed, cryptic, incomplete, awkward, and at times seemingly absurd collection of sayings known as “Jesus'    parables.”
    Somehow Jesus must have missed the memo that a list of rules never changes --- but Jesus knew that rules never adapt. Or Jesus must not have had time sit down at the key board to write essays beautiful and precisely formed, or he realized that in short order essays can feel no longer vital or alive.
Instead Jesus chose to take the fluid format of a story --- a tale that can never quite be told the same way twice, retold in medieval castles, or under African skies --- to keep breathing new life into the Good News. If you still think Jesus would have gotten his points across better with hard and fast rules, try remembering the last time you sat down and really enjoyed reading Leviticus or the first few chapters of Numbers. Maybe a bored Jesus at 12 at another day of Hebrew school thought to himself, “no rules out of my mouth!” Without the ability of story --- Jesus' parables --- engage us and entice us into their world, even God's Word becomes a hard read.
    Thankfully however, by preaching to his followers in parables, Jesus let each listener make the Good News become their own story, their own experience. As we are swept up in the story, we ourselves become part of a new parable --- the parable of our lives. In other words, taken all together, our individual experiences of the kingdom, our personal stories of God's work and witness in our lives, end up creating --- a “new” gospel.
    You see, we are greatly mistaken if we think our tradition, the traditions found at Hope, stems from only four canonical gospels. As well as “The Gospel According to Matthew,” “The Gospel According to Mark,” “The Gospel According to Luke” and “The Gospel According to John,” the church has almost 2,000 years' worth of other gospel books to celebrate. "The Gospel of Augustine," “The Gospel of Martin Luther,” “The Gospel of Thomas Merton,” “The Gospel of John Wesley.” All these “gospels,” these testimonials have remained vital parts of our tradition because of their eternally rechargeable parable power. Because Jesus is all about talking about the mystery of the Kingdom of God (4:11). And, the “Kingdom of God,” is not about going to heaven when you die. It is about living in the “reign of God” right now. It is about the establishment of “the way” ---God's way --- on earth.
    So, all those other gospels may not be quite so well-known, but they work just as persuasively in our lives. How many of us know that the personal parable stories making up “The Gospel According to Grandma,” or “The Gospel According to Aunt Mary,” or “The Gospel According to Pastor Bill,” or “The Gospel According to That Kid at Camp Whose Name I Can't Even Remember,” have affected our lives dramatically?
    The point for today is simple. We constantly need a reminder, “All of us are in the process of writing our own gospels -- our own accounts of experiencing the Good News of the coming kingdom in our midst.” All of us are writing a gospel through the very act of living is part of being a disciple of Christ. It is why Jesus gave the power of the parable to all those listening to his words. Storytelling is one of the most basic practices common to all human communities. Stories connect us to one another, to our ancestors, to our world and to our God. Because according to the author of Mark stories increase and yield “thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” From small beginnings --- even secret beginnings --- the way of God will, inevitably and ultimately, “come to light.”
    That is way as we read, in this week's gospel text, Mark notes that when Jesus spoke to the crowds around him, he “spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it …” Jesus knew that only parable power had the ability to make the Good News of the kingdom a potent reality for our listening ears.
    If you don’t believe me, what chapter did we add to our gospel this week? How did the parables act out in our life witness to the Good News? Do any of these titles remind you of this week's additions to our work in progress? The Parable of the Crabby Boss and the Lutheran Coworker. The Parable of the Kids Who Won't Clean Up Their Rooms and the Mother Who Is Threatening to Ground Them for Life. The Parable of the Flat Tire and the New Suit. The Parable of the School That Doesn't Feel Safe and the Kids Who Must Attend There. The Parable of the Emperor and the children at the border. The Parable of the Empty Cupboard and the Overflowing "Bills to Pay" Slot.
    You see, we are not too worry if these, or the parable stories we experienced this week, didn't seem to have any grand significance, any definitive “gospel” quality to them, as we lived through them. We are not to be concerned that somehow those life parables didn’t seem religious enough? Or with the right words, or the right length.
    Rather, the power of a parable is partly its ability to stand up to scrutiny and self-examination later --- and there to reveal its true meaning, its gospel heart. Because as we need to be reminded repeatedly, Jesus spoke in parables to the crowds. And only later did Jesus explain to his own disciples the kingdom kernel that lived within his stories. Likewise, only later do we find a kernel of the kingdom in our stories through grace.
    So here we are at another week of worship, gathered to praise God, see how fast children grow as we celebrate with them their first communion, give thanks or not for those father figures in our life as well as struggle to hear the still, small voice of God in our world. Meaning, that it is the job of all of us, as Jesus' disciples, to come together and plug into the parable power running through each other's lives. Because we have an inkling to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John --- the gospels of Augustine, Aquinas, Abelard and Avila -- the gospels of Luther, Calvin, Wesley and Edwards --- the gospels of grandpa, our Sunday school teacher, Cousin Emilio and our little sister --- we, as a Christ-body community of faith, work together to discern in what new direction each week's parable power has taken us.
    Our final duty, then? We are to return to the world Monday morning and tell the parables of our lives not because they are pretty, neat rules or fantastic essays, rather it is this way we become living gospels of Jesus Christ. A gospel lived through the sowing of seeds of truth, love, and mercy by words and deeds. Amen.

Clay vessel - 6/3/2018

    Amphorae. They were the mass-market beverage containers of the ancient world --- distinctive, two-handled clay jars used by Greek and Roman merchants to transport wine. Some amphorae were glazed and intricately decorated, intended for use by the upper classes. Most were not, having been fashioned from working-class red clay.
    The typical amphora --- when full --- weighed about 100 pounds. Sailors would stack them by the dozens in the holds of their ships, lacing ropes through the twin handles to stabilize them in rough seas.
    Once the amphora had been delivered to their destination and their contents consumed, no one bothered shipping the empties back to their point of origin. It wasn't economical to do so: amphorae were cheap and plentiful. It was easier just to smash them. For example, when we were in Rome we were shown the famous hill, near the River Tiber, called Monte Testaccio. It's more than 100 feet high and nearly a kilometer in circumference. It's not a natural hill at all. It's an ancient trash heap, composed of the fragments of an estimated nearly 53 million amphorae! That's a lot of wine. That was then.
    Now many of us will remember the role Coke bottles played in the 20th century. Those thick-bottomed, green-glass containers, with their iconic shape, used to be everywhere. A Coke bottle even played a prominent role in a film: the 1980 comedy, The Gods Must Be Crazy. The film is about an indigenous African who spies a Coke bottle falling end over end out of the sky, after a careless aviator tossed it out of his airplane. We know that this is a racist portrayal of an indigenous African, portrayed as knowing nothing of aviation and concludes that the bottle --- an utterly novel object --- must be a gift from the gods. The rest of the movie is about his encounters as this man travels from his home into modern society, seeking to cast the bottle off the edge of the world, thereby returning it to the gods. To this indigenous African, who's never laid eyes on this glass, the Coke bottle is a rare treasure. But to the man who drained it, then discarded it, the object is utterly forgettable.
    Beverages today are far more likely to arrive in cheap, clear plastic bottles and whereas the green-glass Coke bottles at least could be recycled, plastic bottles have become so ubiquitous many are bobbing in the world's oceans and have become an environmental cataclysm-in-the-making. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a huge floating raft of millions of discarded plastic items. Quite apart from their danger to marine life, there are so many of these castoffs concentrated in such a small space, that they can be a hazard to navigation.
    Whether composed of the red clay of the ancient world, the glass of the 20th century or the plastic bottles of the 21st, disposable beverage containers have long been with us. And although we have acted as the container is of little consequence, there is one thing that unites them all, it's the contents that hold the most interest, whether wine, soft drink, water or the gospel.
    In 2 Corinthians 4:7, it's surely a disposable beverage container --- an amphora --- apostle Paul has in mind as he writes, “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”
    Over the years that I have been a pastor, I have found that most of us focus on the treasure. However, I am wondering if we perhaps have been missing some other aspects of Paul’s message.
    First some background. The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. Corinth in present day Greece was a major port in the Roman world whose main reason for existence was its location. It happened to be situated at a crucial point on the Mediterranean. Therefore, undoubtedly the wharves of Corinth's harbor were stacked high with hundreds, even thousands, of amphorae waiting to be loaded onto waiting ships. We can imagine the apostle remembering that distinctive sight as he writes to these Christian Corinthians.
    It's a visual aid they and he knew well because those ancient amphorae held treasure indeed. Not only did it transport grain, but more importantly wine. For the people of the Roman Empire, wine was more than merely a beverage. It was liquid wealth.
Think of the dilemma faced by ancient vineyard owners in a world thirsty for a safe drink. Before sanitation, water for many particularly urban dwellers was risky. Wine and beer were the beverages of choice. However, for winegrowers in particular, their crop was fragile and highly perishable. Grapes couldn't travel far. Today we don't have that problem. Like many other forms of agricultural produce, bunches of grapes can be shipped around the world in refrigerated cargo ships, trucks, rail cars and airplanes. But that wasn't an option for the ancients.
    The solution was to stomp grapes into a pulp, let the juice drip down into collectors and then allowed to ferment. Wine is, of course, perishable, but with its alcohol content it's far less susceptible to spoilage than the original grapes. Now, using the technology of winemaking, coupled with cheap, mass-produced amphorae, landowners made the leap from subsistence farming to agribusiness.
    With that in mind, clay jars holding a treasure is an apt metaphor for Paul as he writes to this small church about how God uses ordinary people to bear, to carry, divine truth, the treasure.
    But why is Paul reminding this church in Corinth about a treasure in disposable jars? Although we don’t have the original letters from the congregation in Corinth that had been sent, it seems that Paul and his helpers have evidently become the target of certain detractors. It was to those detractors that Paul wrote the first letter --- 1 Corinthians.
    Now in 2 Corinthians, those who are slandering Paul appear to differ from those of 1 Corinthians. During the brief interval between the two letters, apparently another group of “false apostles” arrived who were more dangerous than those referred to in 1 Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians, however, those who created problems were intruders from outside the church. These zealous missionaries emphasized Jesus’ miraculous powers and perhaps like within in our Christian communities, these Christians demanded miracles and revelations from Paul to authenticate his ministry as an apostle. It also seems that they also accused Paul of misappropriating offering funds for personal enrichment.
It is to all this that Paul responds. “Not so!” replies Paul. “You've got us all wrong. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake.” (v. 5). “Certainly, I'm the container, the clay jar,” he says to them. “but it is in this that brings to you, Jesus the Lord!”
    In saying this, the apostle Paul strikes a note that is like something he wrote to the Philippians as he struggled to explain himself and his ministry. In chapter 3 of that letter, Paul constructs what could be called his spiritual résumé. Cataloguing his reasons for having “confidence,” Paul recalls his birth into the people of Israel, his distinguished ancestry as a member of the tribe of Benjamin, his exalted status as a Pharisee, his flawless record as a persecutor of heresies (including Christianity), as well as all the progress he made in the pursuit of righteousness. Yet, all that privilege and achievements, Paul maintains, are nothing --- even rubbish to be cast away --- compared to “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Philippians 3:4-8).
    That is repeated in a sense here. The outward form of Paul the apostle --- truly an earthen vessel --- yet likewise carries the good news of Jesus Christ; that's worth paying attention to.
    Intellectually we may understand this but internally this may be a hard thing for most of us to wrap our minds around because we've been so carefully schooled to value ambition and achievement. Ambition is a wonderful thing, but ambition can be a two-edged sword. Ambition can achieve much but it can also test priorities, limits and relationships.
    The second reason Paul’s point is a challenge for us is because we live in an affluent part of the world. We ourselves may not feel wealthy, we may not feel privileged, we may not feel that we have achieved much, but we live in and are part of a culture where all that is measured and of value making it difficult to realize the importance of Paul’s words.
    Rather, what Paul has made clear in 1 Corinthians is that he knew the Corinthian church was primarily poor, marginalized and oppressed but he thanked them nevertheless because they were able to provide an offering for the equally “poor saints” --- Christian Jews --- in Jerusalem.
    So not only does Paul push aside that unless one performs miracles or does wonders make him false. Paul now in 2 Corinthians describes the poor, marginalized and oppressed as partakers of divine riches like himself. And, just like the community in Corinth was largely made up of the marginalized and are suffering oppression, Paul reminds them that they are free in Christ and have been chosen to carry and distribute an unbelievable treasure. So lift your chin high. This is nothing to be ashamed of!
    We also know that is the message because perhaps more than any other book of the New Testament, 2 Corinthians emphasizes human weakness --- especially that of Paul himself --- and God’s solidarity with the weak. For example, it is in 2 Corinthians that Paul admits to having a “thorn in the flesh” and as someone “weak,” but lifted and strengthened by divine grace: “[God] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness’.... for whenever ι am weak, then ι am strong.”
    We are weak -- but holders of divine power. And God’s power manifests itself in history --- not just in Christ and his miracles --- but in liberating justice, salvation, forgiveness, reconciliation and healing --- provisionally in the church, but eventually for all of creation. “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”
    Paul is placing himself squarely into the same boat as the people in that small church in Corinth. To his detractors, Paul says the allure ambition, achievement and privilege mean nothing. Instead Paul, like the community of Corinth, is weak, even disposable but strong in God’s grace.
Moreover, Paul frequently was the victim of slander, injustice, oppression and violence. Just like the widows, slaves, orphans and single women, of the community of Corinth, a wandering foreigner like Paul could not count on relatives’ protection as he traveled. And although today we often hear the Bible cited in support of a traditional family value of a married man and woman that type of nuclear family is virtually nonexistent in the New Testament, where point of fact it is the single life of Jesus and his followers like Paul that is lived.
    So, when Paul talks about the contemporary image of plastic beverage containers, he is not just necessarily talking about us being fragility. Although true in one sense, Paul is more importantly speaking to people like himself, discarded by the world, but with an unbelievable treasure.
    We know the truth. The truth is that most of the people of this world are thrown on to the rubbish heap of this world as disposable. Likewise, we may feel like some discarded plastic bottle thrown on the side of the road, flattened by life. But in Christ, we are trusted, loved and carry a treasure of surpassing value, the love of Jesus Christ. We may be clay, but it is to us the rough, red clay of this world that God chose to fill to the brim. Amen.

Sermon preached at St. John's Lutheran in Marion, Texas as the supply pastor for the local pastor.  Based on the Hebrew Bible text from Isiah.

    Guardians of the Galaxy is a growing movie franchise based on the Marvel Comics of the same name, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios. It first hit the screen in 2014. Vol. 2 appeared almost precisely a year and 21 days ago, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is scheduled for release in 2020. In these films, a team with quasi, semi-impressive superpowers comes together to be guardians of the galaxy.
    I am not going into further details, but I bring it up because today we have our annual liturgical remembrance of a key concept about God, the Trinity. We have Christmas, a day we put aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus, God incarnate. We have Easter, when we remember Christ’s resurrection. And last week we just had Pentecost, fifty days after Easter, when the Holy Spirit blew into the hearts and lives of the first disciples and pushed them out the door of their gathering, a gathering that is the birth of the church.
    We could discuss many aspects of God, but I thought today considering the popularity of the Guardians movies one aspect of God that we are to consider, that God is the real Guardian of the galaxy. This Protector is the ruler of everything, the potentate of innumerable universes filled with galaxies we cannot see, and is more powerful, fearsome and wise than we can imagine. And, based on today's lesson from Isaiah, this Guardian is holy and just --- more holy and just than we can imagine.
    Moreover, this Guardian is triune and thus exists in three forms, each being peculiar and unique and yet each possessing the powers of the other. In a word, this Guardian transcends everything we know or think we know about guardians. A trinity of powers; a unity of personality, a community in one.
    This is the triune deity who stunned Isaiah in our text. The prophet writes, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.”
    If we had millions of dollars we could make a pretty good video game couldn’t we. All the elements are there: A powerful Being whose glory covers “the whole earth,” cool clothes, celestial beings that fly around with six wings, lofty thrones, powerful earthquakes, lots of smoke and a cool name for the all-powerful Being --- “The King, the Lord of Hosts.”
    Now of course, this is not the only place where God is described as the Guardian of the galaxy. But how about we start with the same prophet who had the vision of God as recounted in today's first lesson. Isaiah records the words of the Guardian who says, “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?” Not only is God the Guardian, but this same God created everything that is now guarded.
Moreover, Isaiah says of the Guardian, “All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?” Just think of that with me for a moment, we tend to think of nations as just on our little blue marble spinning around a sun, with borders in sand or along rivers. But just imagine all the galaxies, planets and stars, all that is nothing before God.
    “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.”
    Whatever we may experience in life, have read in our history books, or stood in awe of the pictures from the Hubble telescope, all that is mere one grain of sand, on the largest and longest beach one can imagine, yet, even that is nothing to compare to God.
    If that gets a little overwhelming or as usually happens sounds like we are droning on and on, no wonder that the focus in the Bible and the church moves to the attributes of this Guardian of the galaxies
    The list of God's attributes includes at least the following, in alphabetical order that I have read, heard and used --- you may have others: eternal, good, grace, holy, immanence, immutability, justice, love, mercy, omnipotence, omnipresence, righteousness, self-existence, sovereignty and transcendence. Obviously, if I spent time on each attribute your eyes would be more glazed over than now.
    So, let me pick out just a couple of those attributes for us to ponder this morning: goodness, justice and love. Those three are important in my mind because those are not ones we necessarily hear very much about.

    The Guardian is Good. God is not only good in God’s essential nature but is the source of goodness as well. Consider these verses. In Psalm 34:8 we read, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” The psalmist also declares, “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.” And of course, Jesus reminded the rich, young ruler that if you remember came to him asking “Rabbi, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” To which Jesus answered, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good.”
    What does God’s goodness have to do with us? Well, God is so good that just by understanding the goodness of God, we can forswear the bad stuff we do. This is the apostle Paul's point in Romans: “Do you not realize that God’s goodness is meant to lead you to repentance?”
Why else is the goodness of God an important attribute and again why does it matter to us? Well I don’t know about you, but I wouldn't want God to be an evil tyrant.
    There are so many who believe that God is exactly that. That God is all about judgement and anger. Bring prayer back to schools! Bring commandments back to the front of courthouses! Bring those things and our school shootings will go away. I wish it was that simplistic. All we must do is look at history to sober us up and see that those attempts failed. Just read up about John Calvin and the city of Geneva in present day Switzerland that tried to establish a church led civil society. What do you think happened? Just try to get everyone of Marion to think and even act with justice and peace, at home, within their families much less in this community. I am sure all of you are lovely, gracious people, but….
    Instead, we follow a Good God who draws our hearts to goodness but more importantly, forgives us, so that every time someone screws up in Marion which must happen what once a year…. Our God is good. Everything about our Guardian is good and pleasant. An evil god is by definition or according to reason an inferior god to a super God who is all goodness and as the apostle Paul reminded us, is what leads us to forgiveness and change.
    The Guardian is Just. God can hardly be unfair, even though we may be inclined sometimes to think that God is. Why let people starve in parts of Africa and we throw away food? Why let a hurricane bypass one place and hit another? We don’t know why God doesn’t use God’s awesome power at every beck and call from us, but an unfair God lacks perfection. A perfect God is one who is just and fair. And so, God is.
God is not only justice, but God is the judge! Listen to Abraham pleading with God to save the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” Notice that God is called the Judge of the earth. God is also described as a judge in book about Judges in the Old Testament, “Let the Lord, who is judge, decide today for the Israelites or for the Ammonites.” And in James 5, the same thing: “Do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors!”
    How about us? I don’t know about you, but I like someone who is fair and just. It's a quality that I appreciate in those in life, whether in a church and church council, a parent, a neighbor, a judge, a political leader or someone possessing great wealth. If these people try to be fair, the quality of fairness highly recommends them to me. If they are unfair they are divisive.
    To be unfair is arbitrary, unkind, unreasonable and mean-spirited. No one could like such a God, much less worship such a God. Granted, God's justice is often delayed. Sometimes the wicked seem to prosper. Evil seems to be winning. Despite all our best efforts, the tide of evil continues to march forward. One thing we can safely say is that in the end, evildoers and the wicked will face justice. They will meet the guardian, who is just. This leads to the third attribute.
    The Guardian is Love. This God of the universe does not want anyone to face wrath and justice. “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,” says the author of 2 Peters. Thus, although God is just, and God's justice demands that evildoers receive their just reward, God offers everyone, everyone from those on death row to those who built their wealth on the underpaid, a path to redemption. Just remember Zacchaeus the man who became wealthy on the backs of the poor, who changed at the first sight of God’s grace?
    Because of our guardian, God provided this cross-shaped loophole because God's essential nature is pure, white-hot, all-encompassing, blinding love. God is love. God loves. God loves the world. God loves the natural world. God loves the mountains and lakes and Texas scrub. God loves the meadow and its bluebonnets. God loves the deer and the rabbits. God loves saints and sinners alike. God loves children. God loves us when we're good and when we're bad, when we're happy and when we're sad. In fact, there's no power in the galaxy that can now remember the words of the apostle Paul …. That can separate us from the love of God.
    So, what's not to like and love about this Super Guardian who loves us, is fair with us and who is essentially good? We stand, like Isaiah, in total awe and amazement in that moment when God's incredible power and fearful essence are revealed to us. Like Isaiah, we might say, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a [person] of unclean lips ... yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
    Granted, God can often seem confusing to us. God sometimes God seems testy, capricious, whimsical and moody. Perhaps part of the confusion is generated by our attempts to understand God's nature with our limited intelligence. Yet, even our need for God to be tidy, understandable and rational is a human need. We cannot fit God into that kind of box. God will be testy with Job, have compassion on the inhabitants of Nineveh and forgive someone like David. God will be God.
    But, guess what, the most incredible part is this same guardian of the galaxies desires us to be part of the team. Not as superheroes but just as we are, mutual guardians. In verse 8, we read, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’” Isaiah responded as we, too, should respond: “Here I am; send me.” God then said, "Go and say ..."
    I can’t do it for you. Pastor David can’t do it for you. It is our individual responsibility, but rather than a burden, for God doesn’t need people on God’s team with superpowers, God can do everything and more. Rather God wants us to be part of the team to lift and live out God’s attributes of goodness, fairness and love. Whom shall is send….Here I am; send me. Amen.

"Canopy" - 4/29/2018

    Those who work the land as ranchers, farmers and gardeners have a knowledge base that many of us from more urban backgrounds do not. Sometimes it can be funny like the time my dairy farmer uncle asked a group of visiting school children from the city, “Do you know how we make chocolate milk? We pull the cows tails” to which the children nodded in solemn agreement. Later during the tour, he would show them that all milk comes in various shades of white depending on levels of buttermilk and that chocolate milk comes when chocolate syrup is added. That does not happen at the farm and that pulling is cows tail is not a good idea.
    So, when I was living and working as a volunteer for the United Farm Workers in California, I paid attention to the farm workers who worked day in and day out in the fields and vineyards of central valley.
    One of the things I learned was of the many issues that must be addressed in making good wine one that is frequently overlooked is canopy management.
    The topic is relevant to any discussion that one has about the Gospel of John particularly John 15. As one of my seminary professors suggested about the Gospel “before you read, go work on a farm or ranch.” This was simply the professors point that when we jump into Biblical interpretation of the Gospel of John without agricultural background it may leave readers of passages such as today without some important clues. “He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit” could be read as some type of Texas chainsaw massacre ministry with “hellfire and brimstone.” Or we may read through the lens of privilege and power suggesting that Jesus is engaging in a ministry of possession, “either you have it or you don’t.” Instead, what Jesus is discussing is canopy management for disciples.
    More on that in just a minute, but first some background. These verses are tightly packed with layers of meaning and we do not have time to go through all of it so let me point out several important pieces for our consideration this morning. Our gospel begins with the divine name, ego eimi, which is the Greek form of God's name in Hebrew, YHWH. This is the name if you remember that was given to Moses out of the burning bush, a word with an intriguing and elusive meaning, “I am who I am.”
    So why this “I am” here? This “I am” is repeated frequently in the Gospel of John because the author wants it to be known that God is present in the world and his name is Jesus. Moreover, God --- this “I am” --- is present in ways that are understandable and approachable --- the gate, the door, the good shepherd, the light, and, here, the “true vine.”
    Another motif of course is “the vine.” Now if you have heard about vines before in Bible study and worship that is no accident, as vines and vineyards are important images used over centuries. For instance, the vineyard, can be traced at least to the 8th century BC, as in Isaiah 5:2: “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the vineyard of Israel.”
    We also know from archaeology that the vine was a popular image in the time of Jesus. The Temple in Jerusalem was decorated with the vine theme and during the Roman-Jewish War, AD 66-70, roughly twenty to thirty years after Jesus’ death, the vine image was used on the coins minted by the Jewish rebels. Therefore, when Jesus uses the image of vine, he clearly is playing with a well-known motif.
    Today with that in mind, Jesus focuses on one aspect of the vine and vineyards --- production. Producing fruit is the whole purpose of the community of faith Jesus seems to be suggesting. To produce fruit means for the author of John to follow the way of Jesus. Whoever does not produce fruit, God will “take away.” Now for Christians who like using the imagery of “once saved” this portion of the Gospel of John obviously causes some discomfort.
    But let’s get back to the canopy management this gospel addresses. Let us address the issue of runaway growth. That seems counter intuitive until I did some reading and listened to those who work vineyards. Vines left to themselves will sprawl out all over the place and produce huge canopies of shoots, leaves and branches, and unless that canopy is controlled, the vine won’t yield much fruit or top shelf grapes. For all the greenery, all those leaves suggest that what we’ve got here is a very healthy vine is in fact, it’s all show and no tell.
    Jesus is afraid that the disciples might face this same problem. This community of faith might become all show and no tell. Jesus was not interested in showy disciples any more than Jesus is interested in churches bursting at the seams today. Rather, what Jesus is interested in is fruit --- and not just fruit --- excellent fruit.
    For example, pick up a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and after we sniff the bouquet, swirl it around the glass, examine the claret and perform other tests in our best Frasier and Niles Crane impression, take a sip. Daniel Sogg, of Wine Spectator, says that if you catch a flavor “reminiscent of onion skin and jalapeño peppers,” you’ve just encountered the problem of canopy management. A vine with a huge canopy may be looking good, but it isn’t doing any good to the fruit.
    This reminds me of the BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances. In the tv show there was a matronly woman, by the name of Hyacinth. Her main concern in life is to maintain the illusion that she is well-bred and in touch with the upper crust of British society.
    That’s why when her neighbor drives Hyacinth to her sister’s house in one early episode, she instructs her neighbor to park the car in front of a well-appointed home on one street, and after asserting it is her sister’s home, dashes to the door, then ducks around to the side, climbs a six-foot brick wall in her dress, heels, flowered hat and all, falls to the ground, brushes herself off and marches to her sister’s actual abode --- a rundown apartment building the next street over. Hyacinth according to Jesus is concerned about her “canopy,” the outward show.
    But again, this lesson is not a personal, “we will know you are Christian” image instead, a grapevine is really a community --- many individual branches interconnected and intertwined, but all designed for the sole purpose of bearing fruit together.
    While the individual branches are important, it’s the collective quality of the whole that determines whether the fruit will be labeled as excellent, mediocre or simply sold by the box. God, Jesus is suggesting, like any good winemaker, understands the need to control the canopy.
    So, what does this mean for you and me? Well, the goal of canopy control among the vineyards of California is threefold:
    We are to work on canopy management that makes picking and disease control relatively easy. One problem with a huge covering of branches and large leaves, is that it makes is difficult to see the fruit, hinders good air circulation and creates a problem for the future, getting access to pick the fruit.
    So, one way to read this is that sometimes all that external paraphernalia, rules, accoutrements of the church get in the way --- not of growing the fruit --- but quality and access. Over the centuries churches have sometimes called this legalism. Our conventions, systems and traditions sometimes keep the world from seeing the fruit, and therefore unable to pick the fruit that it cannot see.
    Now just remember Jesus is talking about a community here, not simply individuals. What this reminds us is that we grow in, with and under faithful communities, community is both critical but also one that we need to carefully prune. As we know, the world is full of people searching for the truth, for a sense of meaning for their lives. We have the love of God, by grace through Jesus Christ. The fruit is hanging lush from branches. But that message may be hidden by the very things we think should be the signs of growth, the showy and meaningless appearances of nonessential issues. Jesus called it, in another place using another metaphor, “hiding our light under a bushel basket.” The world doesn’t need shoots, leaves and branches; it needs fruit.
    Another important component of canopy management is how we regulate the size and quality of the fruit. Sogg in commenting on the taste of the wine is telling us that “a huge crop buried under a dense thicket of vegetation translates into lousy wine.” There may be fruit, but God is concerned about the quality of the wine - God wants a superior product.
    What does that mean for us? Perhaps it cuts to core of something I have struggled with loosely called “church growth.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t call the vine to growth, he calls it to fruit. Our mantra ought to be “church fruit.” When God takes the pruning shears to our life, or to our church, it’s not an issue of whether we are growing, but of what we are growing. Of course, there will be some fruit, but the larger issue is the quality of the fruit we are bearing; a sour grape is fruit, but it’s still sour.
    But that leads to another aim in faithful community canopy control, striking a balance between growing leaves and growing fruit. Without shoots, leaves and branches, we can’t have fruit, particularly year after year. We are not people who cannot have a roof over our heads, and particularly here in South Texas some AC. It is within that faith life that the fruit grows. God wants us to get and have a life. God tells us not only to get a faith life, but to get “an abundant life.” But it must be a life under some care, a life that on one hand has some green growth, but also suited to render the fruit of the Spirit.
    Now not to let ourselves completely off the hook, all this is accomplished by “abiding.” We can’t go it alone. Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” God is the one who watches over the whole process. We are to abide in Jesus. If we go it alone, we’ll dry up, become so much dead wood. Sogg concludes that with proper canopy control, a winemaker can produce a wine that is a “friend to food.”
    What Jesus is saying to his disciples is that with proper canopy control, they can produce fruit that is a “friend to the Table” to the altar.
What does that mean. Well, unfortunately for all of us we don’t have all the chapters of John in front of us. Careful readers would notice that chapter 15, our chapter today is a redactional mystery. Jesus, at the end of chapter 14, we are told just “concluded” his farewell discourse, with: “Rise, let us be on our way” (v. 31). However, instead of rising and proceeding on their way, today’s reading begins by recording another of Jesus’ “I Am” monologues that are peculiar to the Fourth Gospel. It is not until chapter 18 that Jesus and his disciples get up and go across the Kidron Valley to the garden.
    So, why say “Rise up…” and not? Is this some type of Colombo moment with Jesus turning around just when ready to leave when “Oh, by the way…” to the guilty party? For me the location of this sudden interjection before rising reminds us of the location of these words, the upper room. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is saying these words around the table of bread and wine before Christ’s betrayal and subsequent trial and crucifixion. In other words, this is a kind of Jack and the Beanstalk loci where the vine represents the connection between creation and God.
    Canopy management or “pruning” is not a massacre or for punishment, but so that the community of Jesus can be even more fruitful. Indeed, Jesus says that the pruning has already been accomplished and that those who remain have “already been cleansed” (v. 3).
    Or to put it into our experience, when we gather around this table we not only get a taste of the fruit, we are “cleansed” --- so that we may go out there and produce even more fruit. As community at the table, tasked with judicious canopy management, we leave the table to share the message of Jesus Christ.
    As people in faithful community it is important to be realistic in our assessment of our broken world, with its hatred and suffering. Yet, there's nothing to be gained, for example, by saying to a mother grieving the loss of her child, “Chin up, things will get better tomorrow.”
On the other hand, we Christians are too quick to condemn and thus rightly are pigeonholed as people who deny the fundamental goodness of all God's creation. We need a healthy balance. As vines forever attached to God by grace, let us be judicious in trimming what needs to be trimmed in our lives and community, yet let us not hide in fear in whom and what we abide trusting in the fruit of the vine. Amen.

Easter Joy - 4/8/2018

Sermon for Sunday, April 8, 2017.  Is there much to laugh or smile about today? We have the unending and dysfunctional American political drama in the White House. We have events all around the world like Central American migrants stuck in limbo trying to reach safety from gangs and violence. Closer to home we may be mourning the death at 35 of a young man we had been praying for, Neal Hudson. And of course our congregation continues the unending struggle of maintaining our older, large campus with scarce dollars. If that alone does not take the smiles off our faces we have our own individual challenges from work, to health, to family to finances.

So, I would not blame anyone, if this morning, if Aristotle, the Greek philosopher was right, and we are all constantly drawn toward a state of happiness, that no one would, on a natural level, be moved to enter this house of sour people. No smile here. No laughing here. There would be no moths coming to this light of sadness.

Yet, we at this one mission outpost we call Good Shepherd are not alone. It seems like we North American Christians whether in our places of worship or in our homes, are wallowing in sadness. It seems like none of us is far from uttering the fateful lyrics of Buck Owens and Roy Clark from the TV show “Hee Haw:” “Gloom, despair, and agony on me; Deep, dark depression, excessive misery; If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all; Gloom, despair, and agony on me.”

This is understandable I suppose. If we view our Christian life as battling the “powers and principalities of this world” a crusade that is not exactly a light-hearted affair. Or if not in battle, we may live with the theological vision that our true happiness cannot be found in this world. Either view opens at least for me, a whole metaphysical discussion on God’s involvement in the world.
Well, be that as it may, whatever the reason, whether a Christian life is a crusade or a creation of a wrathful God, a good proportion of us who identify as Christians in the United States are a dour people and the world is noticing.

Now wait a minute pastor, is not the mirthless nature that has become synonymous with many public expressions of Christianity often a ridiculous stereotype, just think of the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live? Well intended or otherwise, there is a noticeable layer of doom and gloom sprinkled quite liberally on even the most faithful of Christians. For instance, a priest had a chance encounter with Groucho Marx, the noted comedian from last century. The priest extended his hand and said, “I want to thank you for all the joy you've put into this world.” Groucho reportedly shook his hand and shot back: “And I want to thank you for all the joy you've taken out of this world.”

I bring this all because every day forward is to be an upswing from Holy Week, when on Good Friday arguably the lowest point of that week we met the sadness of the cross. That mood changed on Easter, however. You see, today, the first Sunday after Easter was once celebrated as Holy Humor Sunday. In Latin, today was called risus which translates into the English word “laughter” and Paschalis which is “Easter.” Side by side, the words say “Easter laugh.” In the ancient church, practices of happy celebration go back as far as A.D. 385, connecting them to Saint Gregory of Nyssa. Joyful traditions during the Easter season sprang up that celebrated a God who had the last laugh over death.
That solemnity born out of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the solemn approach to the tomb early Easter Sunday was transformed into rejoicing with the news that “Christ is risen!” on Easter morning.

It was understood by the early Christians that the celebration did not cease on Easter, but instead flowed over into the days that followed. Early Christian leaders who celebrated a form of “Easter Laugh” often told jokes and uplifting, lighthearted stories in the days following Easter. Surprise! Jesus is not dead! Jesus Christ is risen! The tomb is empty!

Over the centuries in various places, traditions sprang up including pranks and jokes, to help people lighten up. Long before the Internet / Facebook ice bucket challenge, and before coaches were baptized with a bucket of Gatorade following the championship game, there are even stories of people dumping buckets of water on people --- especially the clergy --- on the first week after Easter. Link
But perhaps this is what caused Pope Clement X to end these practices. Maybe the pope who suffered with gout was doused with water too often or listened to one too many bad jokes coming from the pulpit. Perhaps he'd had like many of us too many depressing days. Or it could have been in reaction of our Protestant forefathers who were not known for jocularity. For whatever reason, by the mid 1600’s Pope Clement X put an end to all this tomfoolery and banned Risus Paschalis.

I wonder though, if we North American Christians need a return to that celebratory traditions. Because we so quickly forget, in the post-resurrection season of Eastertide, we can laugh. Remembering to have a good laugh is not a matter of being unfaithful, rather the last thing we as Christians should want to be seen is as humorless.
Just look at today’s gospel with that perspective in mind. On Easter evening those mirthless disciples are sitting in their root cellar with the trap door closed in fear, in hiding. Then suddenly, someone else is in the room! Do you suppose it's possible that Jesus said “Boo” as he jumped out of the shadows, scaring the living daylights out of his timorous followers? No wonder Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” Peace is exactly what they need, peeled to the ceiling as they were.

Jesus we are then told brought some life into these scarred disciples. Do you suppose the Holy Spirit came with frowns and worry lines? Yet even with the Holy Spirit we see the difficulty in breaking free from fear. We see that played out because Thomas was right to doubt this whole appearance thing not only for the illogical resurrection but consider the mood of those first disciples. Even though they had seen the risen Jesus, and had the Holy Spirit, they could not quite break out of their “gloom, despair and agony on me.” Not only had Thomas missed the first appearance, but the disciples were not providing much of a glimmer. No wonder Thomas struggles with the whole notion because he certainly was not helped by the disciples. Thankfully, Jesus returned this time and several other times challenging not only Thomas, but all the disciples because these words were not to Thomas alone, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Often, we put ourselves in the shoes of these disciples at those Biblical events with serious, sad faces. But another way to view this gospel is that we the church are very much like those first disciples, who are still struggling, more fearful than faithful. And then when a Thomas comes into our midst, someone with reasonable doubts, like a visitor at our worship, instead of a questioning Thomas receiving the reassurance and joy of the faithful, the message of the church is one of fear.

So, I wonder what might our Thomas culture be seeing in all us? In our consumer culture, people are seeking a theology and a church that fits them instead of being “fitted” or transformed by the gospel. For example, charity is often what the world understands and expects of us. Meals are prepared to feed the hungry in the community; shelter given to the homeless or those in dire straits. That fits nicely, do good things without being transformed.

Although charity is a visible reminder of our faith, I wonder if a more basic sign for our day and age is as simple as a laughter. We heard in our first lesson from Acts regarding how that first Christian community interacted. Many of us may focus on the issue of property, that of course is because we live in a first world, wealthy nation. How can that be? How can one share --- property? But, what others have taught us from Christian communities around this world who are not coming from the perspective of wealth, is that an important aspect of this community was that they were of “one heart and soul.” A community that is of one heart and soul not only in tears but in laughter is a community that understands the triumph of the resurrection and enormous power of God. It is a community that understands that the smartest of humans and the most stunning accomplishments of humanity are but foolish child's play for God.

When we consider the great things, God has done for us and the reason we celebrate Easter, laughter and shouts of joy can bubble out of our mouths. God has done great things. God has left us an empty tomb as a punch line to the greatest prank ever played: Jesus rising from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is no joke, so we can imagine God's pleasure, even laughter, when everyone thought death would overcome divine power and love.

We read elsewhere in the Bible that we are to make a joyful noise. What is more joyful than a good knee-slapping, hearty belly laugh? Studies show that a good laugh is good for our health. Yet researchers aren't sure if it's actually the act of laughing that makes people feel better, or if it is having a good sense of humor in life.

Teresa of Avila was correct. That Spanish Carmelite nun from the 1500’s with all her profundity in reaching the depths of the spiritual life, was also renowned for her one liners --- the most famous of which was, “From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, Oh Lord, deliver us.”
Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican friar and immensely influential Christian philosopher from the 12th century, not exactly a lightweight on the life of faith, once remarked that a person who is unable to say or laugh at anything funny was morally unsound. Much, much later, the British author GK Chesterton wrote that the test of a good religion depends on whether one could joke about it.

We should not downplay or honestly face the ups and downs of our lives. We cry with Nathan’s family just like Jesus lamented in the face of the reality of death. Yet let us not forget that Easter points out to us that sadness is not at the heart of divine revelation and, thus, is not at the heart of our ultimate reality. Nor is sadness a sign of Christin community. Laughter is Easter joy. Easter reminds us that Christ is raised and that sin, death and the devil have been vanquished! We celebrate. We laugh, sing and dance.

Meister Eckhart, the German 13th century mystic was right, the reality of God that came in the cross and resurrection is brimming with laughter, a laughter that echoes faintly in every age and behind every moment of sorrow; waiting for the day when it will finally booms forth from between the cracks of sorrow, breaking the awkward silence of the cosmos that groans inward for its redemption. So, let us laugh, or if not laugh at least people let us crack a smile, Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

 

Exit Lines - 3/18/2018

Sermon based on John 12: 20-33

What is the best exit and/or exit line of all time? This past week we have seen a few exits, like Stephen Hawking, the English theoretical physicist and cosmologist who died this past week. He famously wants his exit line to be chiseled into his gravestone, a mathematical theory that black holes aren’t entirely black but instead emit a glow. Another exit and exit line we heard this week was from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who was fired by presidential (twit!) tweet. Tillerson closed his goodbye speech, with praise for his fellow Americans, citing their “devotion to a free and open society,” “acts of kindness to one another,” honesty, and “quiet hard work.”
It will be interesting to see if those exits or exit lines will last the test of time. For example, to draw on recent history (and by recent, I mean the last 50 to 75 years), on November 7, 1962, Richard M. Nixon conceded defeat to the successful candidate for the California governorship, Pat Brown saying, “You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”
Although Nixon -- and much of America -- thought it was his exit and exit line, the media called it his “last press conference,” it was not. In a remarkable comeback, Nixon returned to politics and in 1968 was elected president. Then, on August 8, 1974, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, then-President Nixon resigned from that office. The final words of his speech on that occasion were: “To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.”
We could go but I would like to focus on another exit, corresponding exit lines and its implications found in today’s gospel.
Now most of us focus on one of Jesus’ exits, but when we think about it, the exit on the cross perhaps was the most dramatic wasn’t the only one! Jesus made a habit of taking exits off the stage during his short ministry of three years. For example, Jesus makes an astonishing appearance at the Jordan River where his cousin John is baptizing people. After John baptizes Jesus, Jesus immediately walks off for 40 days into the wilderness.
That is not the only time Jesus would take an exit stage left. Jesus would more than once take a quick exit from crowds to get away, for retreat, for prayer, for time with his disciples, for sleep, for lake excursions. Some more dramatic than others, for example, Jesus left nearly everyone asleep after the drama of the Last Supper to go to Gethsemane to pray. And then of course we have “the big exit.” Jesus died. On a cross. A few brave sympathizers got his body and put it in a tomb. Jesus was dead and entombed. A final exit and his final exit statement?
Well, no. Jesus reappears and spends some more time with his disciples and then exits again with just the soles of his feet to look at. Into the clouds. Poof. Gone. And the Bible says he now sits at the right hand of the Father.
The same goes for exit lines. Jesus had a few of those, too. We might remember the so-called “seven last words” of Christ on the cross that are repeated annually on Good Friday. Or we might remember his post-resurrection exit line recorded as the last words of Matthew's gospel, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
But those were not the only times Jesus had an exit line. Today we have several spoken only days before his death. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.”
Why this exit line, at this time? To rehash, soon after Jesus enters Jerusalem for the Passover festival, some Greeks approach the disciple Philip and say to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Some argue that these “Greeks” were Greek-speaking Jews. That is unlikely. Rather, this generalization as to “Greeks” who came to see Jesus were more than likely, believers in monotheism and conducted their own sacrifices in a manner like that of the Jews. They therefore saw some affinity between themselves and Jews, but they were not Jews themselves. Not being either Jews, they would have been excluded from worship participation in the Temple and from aspects of the festivals.
It is this group who came to Philip from Bethsaida in Galilee, asking, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. What was Jesus’ response? Jesus tells them --- in so many words --- that he will die soon, and then he compares himself to a seed. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Now why these exit lines to Greek monotheists visiting Jerusalem during a festival; a people that more than likely Jesus had never met? Perhaps it could have been that these Greeks grew up with oral versions of Aesop's fables, so they know the power of a simple story to teach a moral lesson. Whatever the case may be, Jesus continued: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
In other words, although death is very close, Jesus tells the disciples and these monotheists that his own death will be a metaphor for understanding how his followers must live every day: they must live by dying. When they do, like a seed in the ground, they will grow and bear fruit.
I suspect most of us can certainly understand the confusion of the Greeks and the disciples. They understood that the dead tend to stay dead. But Jesus is telling them that fruitfulness comes from going into the ground, and a loss of life leads to eternal life. And then he drops this exit line: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Although neither Roman or Jew, more than likely this monotheistic Greek audience along with the disciples saw the cross as a scandalous death and a humiliating defeat. How can it be that this event will not repel people but will draw people to God?
In Jesus’ exit line today, fruitfulness and eternal life are both found in the cross. Both are connected to the power of the cross, a cross that Jesus elsewhere says we must embrace as an instrument of our own metaphorical death. And when we do embrace the cross, we will bear fruit and live. So, the cross, in a sense, is simultaneously exit and entrance --- death and an entrance to a new level or plane of living.
In reflection we may wonder what that might mean for us? What might Jesus mean for us when he said: “those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Over the ages, Christians have pondered these amazing profound and personal exit lines.
For one, Jesus is reminding us that those who love life are those who are attached to the things of this world, perhaps wealth, fame and power. Jesus knows that we cannot take material goods and worldly achievements into the grave.
Let me share an example. In 2016, baseball player Adam LaRoche walked away from a $13 million contract with the Chicago White Sox. He did this because he wanted his son to spend a lot of time with him and the team, and the team's management did not agree. He announced his retirement on Twitter, thanking God for the game of baseball and ending with the hashtag #FamilyFirst. Fellow players responded by commending LaRoche for “standing up for his beliefs.”
LaRoche was quoted as sharing this question: “What do you want written on your tombstone? Do you want 'Adam LaRoche: Gold Glove, batting average, hit so many homers, and has a million dollars in his bank account,' or do you want 'Adam LaRoche: Child of God, with integrity, raised a great family, loving.' Let's be honest: I don't know anybody who wants their stats.”
In other words, for LaRoche he was living --- by dying. He “put to death” his fame and money. In return he planted a seed, possible fruitfulness and meaning by changing course. Now that cynics among us might say that it was easy for him to do this because he already had earned millions and stashed it away. Maybe. Maybe not. And the angry among us aware of the unfairness of this world, a future not knowing what the future would hold for he and his family, mutter “What will happen if his marriage were to fall apart or his children end up in jail or worse, dead?”
This process by the way of coming to terms with “loving their life and losing in and hating their life and keeping it” incidentally is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who died opposing the Nazis regime, was getting at when he talked of “a world come of age.” What he meant was that, in a “world come of age,” we Christians would have opportunities, choices if you will, to become adults. For Bonhoeffer, to become adult was not about Christians having “a child-like faith,” as we engaged with the world, rather it means gladly accepting and gladly taking responsibility for our own life, without recourse to or dominance by any other authority.
But again, what might today’s exit lines from Jesus mean for you and me? What might the cutting edge be for us to demonstrate the value of “putting to death” so that we can live?
Before we jump into a grocery list of self-denial opportunities and important additional consideration can be found in words of RC theologian Gustavo Gutierrez who pointed out the pitfall of individualism in faith; as though the message of the cross is always about one-on-one individual acts. In other words, what might “hate their life in this world” mean for our whole society? What would it mean for us have for example, our structures of injustice, replaced with structures designed to benefit all people. That would impact many of us who are wealthy compared to most of world. What would it mean just in our community, for the city of San Antonio to have systems that would impact some who “love their life in this world?” What would it mean for us in that case when it may impact not only the salaries of CEO’s but our own taxes. Is that living by dying like Adam Roche?
Now I don’t know about you but when I began to ask myself those questions, my first response is “Nah, Jesus really can’t mean that!” Yet, if what we need to “put to death” isn’t soul troubling --- than we would be better than Jesus who we are told was deeply, deeply troubled by the implications. Today’s exit lines to the Greeks were a serious message, and for all of us is a life-long endeavor that is not only personal but across society. Let's follow where “losing and hating and keeping it” leads us further into fruitful service and eternal life. Amen.

Windows of Mercy - 3/4/2018

Sermon from March 4, 2018 based on John 2: 13-22.

Is it that our ancestors were fearful of being alone in a wild and unpredictable world or was the reasons entirely different? I suspect their reasons for creating representations of a plethora of gods and goddesses, whether it was the 200 or some among the Aztec, or the nearly 30 among the Celts, or the 15 among the Norse or the 12 major and thousands more found in local communities across Asia was for the very same reason we create idols. Idols can be anything that takes God’s place in our lives, such as nationalism, possessions, careers, relationships, hobbies, sports, entertainment, goals, greed, addictions, etc. Perhaps our ancestors were simply better at distilling them down into visible representations of anxieties and fears.
    All of us come with a long line of ancient gods and goddesses among our ancestral trees. Not only where their gods and goddesses but among the communities were the all-important oracles. Men and women who were called upon to be mouthpieces; to relay, interpret and provide some clarification, to give voice to these idols. Oracles were considered the human mouthpieces of the gods providing individuals and communities divine guidance concerning religious and moral questions, proper practices in the religious cult, or the interpretation of a strange or foreboding human experiences.
    Idols and their worship is one of the more frequent problems mentioned in the Bible or as 1 Chronicles noted: “For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” Frequently the Hebrew people were criticized not only for reconfiguring gods for local demands but the oracles to which they would visit. Depending on which version of the Bible you use there are over 350 mentions of idols not including their oracles or as the Bible likes to call them, false prophets. We know from archaeology that in both time periods --- during the first and second Temple in Jerusalem --- in homes throughout the land --- people had a small altar with house idols, to represent both male and female gods that they would attend to.
    Now before we get to uppity, and consider how much we have progressed, we need to be sober and reexamine our world and lives. It is not that difficult to trace idol worship throughout history to our nation. In each of my visits to Washington D.C., inevitably, people will enter our national sacred spaces and as if by an on/off switch would lower their voices to whispers as if entering a temple, gaze with awe and contemplate the words chiseled into stone. That is way it is not too difficult to find our idols, our gods and goddess in the 21st century, nor is it too difficult to find our present-day oracles.
    Why bring this up --- that we are not that far removed from idols, our false gods and their oracles --- because for us followers of Jesus we need to realize just how radical the call to monotheism was then --- as it is now. We may get so caught up in our sense of pride in what we voice on a Sunday, one God, in, with and through Jesus Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit --- that we consider anything but as primitive or alien. Is it so culturally acceptable for us in the US to go along with this public one, a flag waving omnipotent being thing that we forget how scandalous rejection of idols and their oracles was in the ancient world as it may be today. We forget that this belief, distilled and detailed in our Exodus passage was so profoundly counter cultural that its repercussions still reverberate today.
    Our smug 21st century American mindset needs to grasp that although worship at the temple at the time of Jesus was ringed with ritual we may find strange, there was to be a profound difference compared to the world around it.
    In the heart of old, ancient Jerusalem was the temple. In the heart of the temple, within its innermost sanctuary, was the “Holy of Holies,” where only one person, the high priest could visit. In the heart of the “Holy of Holies," separated by partitions and curtains sat the ark itself. Of course, the ark of the covenant that housed the tablets of stone with the commandments as the story goes, incised by God’s own power --- was carted off to be melted and destroyed in 587 BC. Although that ark was lost to the sands of time, in the Second Temple the spirit of the ark remained in its essential component, not some refabricated slabs of stone, rather a “mercy seat.”
    The kapporeth or “mercy seat” was a flat slab of gold resting on top of the ark in the first temple and a stone altar in the second. Guarding either end of this slab, and of one piece with it, were the golden cherubim, their faces inward turned toward each other and their wings arching over the mercy seat. Here between the cherubim and over the mercy seat was understood to be the throne, the dwelling of the God of Israel. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement it was on this “mercy seat” that the high priest sprinkled the sacrificial blood for forgiveness.
    Now understand that the cherubim did not reside on the mercy seat. Nor was there an actual throne, rather nowhere was God's presence anywhere portrayed within this “Holy of Holies” or within the temple. All that greeted the high priest was a blank slab with an open space, a void, above or as the former Episcopal Archbishop Rowan Williams called it, “the great speaking absence between the images.”
    In other words, the most sacred space where this one omnipotent being called God, amid the Hebrew people, was empty, but simultaneously filled. Meaning that first Jews or Hebrew stragglers who came out of the hills and from slavery in Egypt had a radical notion; a revelation. That what they carried with them through the wilderness and to which they protected with their lives was a seat with nothing but everything on it. Corresponding to what they carried was this notion, this belief, that a one, omnipotent God was present with them. Centuries later after the establishment of Temple, people would go to Jerusalem to visit God, to make a pilgrimage to find mercy and comfort, was a visit to empty space --- the holy absence and holy silence of the holy space between the cherubim. It is exactly because there was no gilded statue or idol, no gods or goddesses that the Israelites were able to experience the living presence of this one, omnipotent God holiness in their midst.
    With that in mind, just consider this one episode in the life of Jesus, his rampage in the temple as shared in John. Certainly, it was partly a reaction against the intrusions of unholy noise and unholy images into this holy silence. Certainly, it was a reaction against the political and economic climate that separated and denigrated people and preyed on the poor.
    But there was something else as well. We are told that it was during Passover --- a lively affair. The population of Jerusalem would quadruple as people made their pilgrimage to the city for this most important festival of the year. Streets and alleys would be packed with people. The crowds would include soldiers, zealots, families and children, religious fanatics, wonder workers, magicians, hell-raisers, pietists, thieves and animals of several kinds.
    Jesus is described as going directly to the Temple where Jesus makes a “whip of cords” and then we are told “threw out all out of the temple.” The incident is often called “the cleansing of the Temple,” but that is an unfortunate way of phrasing it. Jesus “cleansed” nothing. For a lone figure to throw “all” out of the Temple precincts for example, an area the equivalent of 15 NFL football fields, would either have been impossible or a miracle. Rather the fourth gospel is telling what is called a “theology in narrative form.” This “theology” is that there is a “great speaking absence between the images.”
    The temple site had transformed from a center of spirituality --- a center of otherworldliness --- a center that can lead one to greater silence and greater space for holiness --- into just another place of hustle and bustle. The crush of crowds and commerce threatened to fill in the cracks of holy absences and break this relationship between God and God’s people. Thus, when Jesus overturns a few tables and remarks on their presence, it was not only against an economic system that had been set up to support the wealthy, it was to remind all of the speaking absence in their midst.
    What does this then mean for us 21 centuries later? I believe this realization of what Jesus was doing and why, challenges us to wonder about that holy, that empty, that space in our own lives. Have we absently fallen into our natural inclination for idols, god or goddesses? In other words, what kind of noise have we let into our lives to avoid listening to that “speaking absence?” What imaginings of God --- idols really --- are preventing us from finding the mercy seat of help and healing? Are we to afraid to listen for and be open to God's “speaking absence” in our own lives?
    As Christians, there is not one central, location in this vast universe where God’s holy throne needs occupy empty space to remind us of our relationship with a one, omnipotent God. We have the cross and resurrection to thank for that. Rather, in the “foolishness of the cross” as Paul puts it, Jesus himself became the new temple, the new mercy seat for God's presence, likewise Jesus made it possible for each one of us to be mercy seats. In that transformational event of Jesus’s death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, by grace, Jesus became a “holy place” so that we might each become a holy place. Jesus became the new mercy seat that we might each become a mercy seat. Not only us, but all humanity, all creation, the universe so that the foolishness of the cross --- Emmanuel --- God with us.
    By taking God's “Holy of Holies” to the world, Jesus restored as central God’s desire to be Divine Presence for all people, for all creation. The body of Christ became the Christ-body community profoundly dispersed found in each one of us.
    It sounds deep, but when we begin to understand, it has very real and practical implications. For example, let me share this story shared by Angles Arrien in a chapter called “Walking the Mystical Path with Practical Feet” in the book Nourishing the Soul. She wrote, “Recently I witnessed a moment of deep soulfulness between two strangers. I was at a bus stop, sitting next to a woman reading a newspaper, but I was totally engrossed in the performance of a 14-year-old boy on a skateboard. He had his baseball cap turned around with the bill in the back, and he was skating beautifully and very fast. He buzzed by us once, then twice. When he came by a third time, he accidentally knocked the woman's newspaper out of her hands. She said, “Oh, why don't you grow up!” I watched him glide down to the corner of the block, where he stood talking with his buddy. The two of them kept looking back over their shoulders at the woman. She hesitated for a moment, then rolled up her paper, tucked it under her arm and walked into the street, motioning to him. “Won't you come here?” she called. “I want to talk to you.”
    Very reluctantly, he skated over to her, turned his cap around with the bill in front, and said, “Yeah?” She said, “What I meant to say was that I was afraid that I might get hurt. I apologize for what I did say.” The skateboarders face lit up, and he said, “How cool!”” Ms. Arrien continues, “In that moment, I witnessed what is called in Spanish a milagro pequeno--a small miracle. This small miracle was a holy, healing moment between generations, between two human beings who had just become important strangers to each other. The woman chose to shift the shape of her experience by moving out of reactivity into creativity. This kind of shape shifting is possible when we allow ourselves to speak directly from our souls.”
    That is but one small example of where the holy, empty spaces in our lives becomes a milagro pequeno. A woman for a moment becomes a mercy seat for another. Monotheism, our trust and hope in one, omnipotent God is as radical then as it is today. It counters our idols, our gods and goddesses. By grace, we have received mercy, to share mercy, to be windows as “mercy seats” of God. Amen.

It is not about Mental Illness - 2/18/2018

Second Sermon for Feb. 18, 2018.  I dumped my first sermon after arriving at worship early on the 18th and felt complelled to change the sermon based on the shootings at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida - News

Does character matter? What I mean is does the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual matter? I have been thinking about the most recent school shooting in Florida and the young man who shot and killed men, women and students.

There has been a lot of discussion since the murders on mental illness. And I have been dwelling on that association we have been making because I think it is wrong. I have met people who are mentally ill from the homeless to the tidy, whitey, wealthy. All were diagnosed with mental illness, yet they were also people of character. For example, I had a mentally ill homeless person return lost property and a wealthy business owner who worked hard at hiring those with criminal records --- all signs of character. Could they have gone in some mad delusion purchased or used a military arsenal to shoot and kill the innocent? Perhaps a better question is, could we? Because humanity is far more complex than a simple mental illness to purchase gun which leads to murder analysis.

For example, many in the LGBTQ community have taught me that character is deeper than one’s sexuality or gender. I had been taught that the LGBTQ community had character flaws and that was the reason for who they were. It was simply a matter of choice. It wasn’t until I sat down, listened and begin to have conversations with people from a variety of sexual and gender expressions did I realize, no a person could be for example, lying and deceptive regardless of one’s sexuality and gender. And a person could be of the highest mental and moral character and be somewhere on the sexuality and gender spectrum. Being LGBTQ is not a choice, just as my being a straight, white cisgender male is not a choice, it is who I am, it is my skin as you live in your skin.

Rather, in our ongoing debate around gun control including the availability of military style armaments for non-military purposes, our US constitution, age, mental illness, our American culture, violence, masculinity, power, racism and a host of other issues, we as Christians have an important additional message that is vital to this debate raging in our nation and the problems we have created.

We begin from an anthropological view that the human being in this vast cosmos is created and loved by an omnipotent being --- God, who loves us, forgives by grace, and challenges us to stand up and go that extra mile in forgiveness and love --- a forgiveness and love which goes against our very grain and the cultures that we are part of.

On Ash Wednesday this past week, Message below) the same day as the shooting, I gave a sermon about King David, the extraordinary and exemplary leader in the Old Testament. Tradition would suggest that David was the author of Psalm 51. That Psalm is one among seven that is of lament, a psalm on how deeply one has messed up or how life has unfolded. If true, and someone like King David wrote it, or someone else with a similar deep life experience, how can King David be a man of as mentioned in 1 Samuel, be of “good character” and in the same instance, abuse his power, rape a woman and have her husband murdered. Was King David mentally ill? I suppose we could brush it off as literary storyline, but I think it is truer than we care to admit.

I tried in my message on Ash Wednesday to bring us back to a beginning point as we begin a 40-day journey, about how in this season of Lent, we are challenged to acknowledge and bring to light our deep imperfections, broken relationships, our character flaws, our complete package I would say. In this necessary grounding, we bring all of ourselves forward to this same omnipotent being God and to our community. And at the same time, recognize that this God bestows grace not as a commodity, to be distributed or purchased or earned, but is a fundamental characteristic of God that will culminate in a display on the cross in the person of Jesus Christ.

This is counter intuitive, counter cultural and counter to our very core in that it is just the opposite of what we want as a characteristic of God’s grace. Grace does not come as white Americans like to imagine with guns blazing on a similarly color coded white horse and Stetson to vanquish evil, a marvel hero that brings justice and truth culminating in a final Armageddon with white angels. A simplistic vision just as the view that it all can be traced to a parent, or lack of, or as simple as having children uniformly bow their heads and clasp their hands when school begins.

Rather, this Lenten journey helps us to take stock, listen to ourselves, who we are, the life we have or have not led, and recognize our skin, bones, heart, mind and soul and become comfortable with all that it is and that we are each loved by God. It is from that fundamental platform that we hold on to dear life, getting strength to speak truth to power when needed. That truth to power is that we have a gun problem created, developed by each us of as a nation and people. We are cause and we are the symptom.

As the prophet Nathan spoke to King David, we and none other, must do likewise, and clearly share for example, that we have too many guns designed for the military and too often fall into the wrong hands.  Furthermore we share that message and at the same time extend it with the same grace we have received in love and forgiveness.

Yes, character matters, but for Christians, being children of God, loved and forgiven matters more. Yes, mental illness matters just as does education, poverty, bullying, homophobia, parental skills, racism and a gun culture all matters as does much more. Yet, that is not the basis for our platform in this debate. Our platform as Christians in this and other debates is not the US constitution, not our age, background or experiences, education or our mental, emotional or physical health.

Instead we know that character is a skill set that needs nurturing and although desired, can be as flawed as we are flawed, regardless of our aptitudes, strengths or weaknesses, background, wealth or poverty. Rather we come from the fundamental paradigm that humanity in all its grand and wonderful diversity is loved by a God who from evil’s perspective, never has a smile but always a frown. We know that image to be false, as evil is a lie.
Instead we are God’s joy when we as individuals and as people demonstrate to all that not only am I loved but so are you and that we are created to live in relationship with God and each other. A creation that is full and rich, and that death takes us back into this very God designed creation, as dust to dust. We do a disservice to creation and to God when we live out our lives, opinions and perspectives not on the foundation of God’s grace. We do a disservice when we trust that we do not begin with the paradigm that “neither death, nor life ... nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We do a disservice to our faith when we abandon our fundamental platform in God and exemplify our faith in anything other than telling the truth in love and forgiveness.

Before closing let me share this story published in an article in the Catholic Hearld. “Once I met a woman who had worked for years in fashion and modeling. Unsurprisingly, she was seen in our culture as strikingly attractive. She was accompanied by her teenage daughter who, by contrast, was by the same system and culture unremarkable to look at, maybe even would be said a plain-Jane.

After spending time with them, I began to sense that the mother, whose life had largely revolved around her appearance and how she was seen, seemed to look down on her daughter, perhaps unconsciously, because of her appearance. Her daughter seemed aware of this lack of acceptance and seemed troubled and uncomfortable as she tried to compensate and please her mom in other ways.”

The teenage girl's situation is a strong reminder to us of how important it is for all to understand God’s unconditional acceptance. Unconditional love profoundly and beautifully molds us as human beings. It returns us to God’s true nature, God’s smile.

I could go on, but I think I want to finish with these words from an African-American hymn: “I am tired, I am weak, and I am worn.” True as that may be; to tired to listen to people especially our political leaders; to weak to think of how I can respond to the tyrants of this day and age; and to worn out to do anything. In that state that we may find ourselves, I find a verse in Paul's letter to the Colossians, as a sort of blessing: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (3:17).

Think about the implications of that. Do everything – everything, especially --- when we are tired, weak and worn. Think about what that means not only for us today, but tomorrow and the next? As tired, weak and worn as we are, we have God’s unconditional love and grace to listen to about ourselves and speak the truth in humble service. Let us if anything, share that. Amen

 

Repair Cafe - Ash Wednesday 2/14/2018

Message presented on Ash Wednesday, 2/14/2018 based on Psalm 51: 1-17

It is a well-known fact that we Americans live in a “throwaway” culture. We throw away just about everything.
Granted, not that we haven't noticed. We have been using this expression “throwaway culture” since a magazine called LIFE published an article in 1955 about a “new” phenomenon. “Throwaway Living” the article was called.
Instead of blowing our noses using washable handkerchiefs, we use tissues and throw them away. We diaper babies' and incontinent adults’ bottoms, and then throw them away --- the diapers, not the bottoms. We buy a pair of shoes and throw them away. We buy water packaged in plastic bottles, drink the water -- and throw the bottles away. Almost everything we purchase comes in what some would suggest is excessive packaging which --- is thrown away. We buy small and large appliances and when they break down we buy new ones and throw away the old ones. We buy TVs and throw them away.
Certainly, we try in a mindful way to recycle, but we are a long way from putting a major dent into our throwaway culture.
One reason for this is this systemic cycle we are caught in is that in an era long past, small shops existed to repair items that consumers were loath to throw away. We could get our TVs, toasters, radios and irons repaired for a charge and they were good to go. Just look up on YouTube the old “Andy Griffith Show.” In that show there was Emmett's Fix-It Shop in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina. One of the recurring characters, Emmett Clark would fix clocks, lamps, radios and more. But this fictional town of Mayberry also meant that a small repair shop like Emmett’s could provide a modest income to its owners and employees. Now, we are loath to pay anyone more than a percentage of what it costs to buy new --- “it’s cheaper to buy new.” It is the main reason why for the most part, fix it shops have disappeared and we buy new.
This is what makes an organization called Repair Cafés so interesting. Repair Cafés are free meeting places and they're all about repairing things --- together. At a Repair Café, you'll find tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need on clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, appliances and toys. You'll also may find volunteers with some repair skills in all kinds of fields.
Well what does this all have to do with today? Well, not only do we throw clocks, lamps and diapers, we also throw away our common humanity. Some might say that we too often throw away our souls in pursuit of some elusive dream we hold dear. We cast aside the spiritual component of our lives thinking, perhaps, that we will focus on spirituality later. Then, one morning, we wake up wondering who we are and where we've been and where our life has taken us. Or as it was said eloquently by Beatles legend John Lennon “Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.”
Whatever we want to call or phrase it, we sense down deep that something is wrong. Something is broken. Something is in desperate need of fixing.
In today’s Psalm 51, tradition has it that a man by the name of David was taking his life to God's repair café. David --- this towering and impressive figure of the Old Testament --- according to legend the greatest king in Israel's history, the monarch who reigned at the height of Israel's glory --- what we may forget is that David had also developed a throwaway mentality.
Because of power, he had risen to the point where he could throw away or ignore common sense. For example, he threw away the sanctity of a marriage bond in pursuit of his own impulses. David in one of the most famous episodes of abuse of power, threw away his humanity for a woman by the name of Bathsheba. Not only did he throw away his humanity he also ignored her honor and reputation, all under the pretense of lust and blame the victim excuse “well she was beautiful.” David did not stop there for he threw away a man's life -- the husband, Uriah. We could go on, but you get the picture. David recklessly threw away and abandoned the person God called him to be, the person the ancient Samuel had anointed when David was but a young man tending sheep.
Here in Psalm 51 is a man who is reflecting on his life. A man who recognizes that not only is his life in tatters, he has left a wake of victims. In the words of a prophet who had the tenacity and courage to speak truth to power, he was given a diagnosis. After hearing the mirror raised to his face by Nathan, David acknowledges and accepts who he has become. It's not pretty. And it nauseates him. It should as it should nauseate not only all men of power who harass and abuse, but all of us. This psalm is not about what he said, or she said, due process or not guilty until proven guilty. Rather, David acknowledges that he lied. He raped a woman. He ordered the murder of her husband. He tried to cover up the crime.
One key for us of course as we draw parallels to our own day and age is that David recognizes he needs to be fixed, and so he goes to God, the Weaver of Broken Threads.
David knows a lot about God, and right now the most important thing David knows about God is that God doesn't throw away things, especially all that has been marvelously made. David knows that in the words of another Psalm “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. … He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” That's why he can pray, “Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.”
God will not cast us away from the divine presence. When we feel far from God, it is not because God has moved.
This day, the first day of Lent is that moment when we have a reminder that we are the ones who have moved from God’s visions for us. It could be because we have succumbed to believing in a “throwaway God” in the first place; a God to whom we may listen to when it's convenient, a God to whom we may pray only when we believe we deserve better or that we self-righteously believe a blessing should be in store; a throw away God who is largely irrelevant because we really do not apply the knowledge of God to our day-to-day lives.
However, God does not cast us away. God is in the repair and redemption of creation what God has stunningly made. “For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the LORD” as he said to the prophet Jeremiah. Or to the prophet Joel: “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” Or to the prophet Isaiah, “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
Repair to wholeness. This is what God does. Of course, to frequently we fall into the trip of how much does this all cost, anyway? Well let me remind you as I remind myself, the repair is free, but here is the kicker it comes with an awareness, we need to know that something's amiss. It can be as short as a twitter message to world, “I have hurt people.” There's no point stopping by God's Repair Café just to say, “Hey, I'm good,” and then go on our way.
Notice David's attitude. David knows he needs some treatment. “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”
Acknowledging the problem and our part in it is a key factor, and this psalm is full of it. “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.” David gets even more dramatic, “Indeed, I was born guilty.”
What about those of us who do not acknowledge the problem or blame it on fake news, or our culture. Where is this “alien faith” that Martin Luther spoke about that breaks into our lives like at an infant’s baptism? When will it intercede and create the propensity to acknowledge that they are less than whole and ask for healing?
All of us struggle with the concept that we have a problem. “I am not a murder --- I am better than that!” But that is not the case. The only one free of evil is God. It is certainly true that King David needed the prophet Nathan to tell him the truth as painful as it was for David --- as it was for Nathan. We likewise are commissioned to do the same; we are to hear from those telling us the truth as well as be the Nathan’s to the David’s of this world.
Nonetheless, let's us remind ourselves that no matter how much Psalm 51 speaks to us, or people we know, this repair business is personal. David's remorse was all about his own wholeness, not someone else's.
Submitting to treatment is also important. David asks for specific remedies. David wants the mercy treatment and some blotting done. David also asks for a wash and cleansing session. David wants to do more than a probiotic purge. David wants the complete restoration treatment. For the most important desire is that David wants a new heart, which is the key part of the treatment. The old heart, the old engine, the old nature --- whatever we want to call it --- is from David’s perspective beyond repair. David asks for a replacement. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”
Well, God is all about wholeness for tonight is that simple reminder that God is in the repair business; we're not. We can’t fix David. We can’t fix Donald Trump, Putin, our spouses or our children, we can’t fix anybody really. We can’t even fix ourselves; it can even be dangerous. For example, people stay in abusive relationships believing they can fix the abuser no matter how much we tell them, “No, you can't!”
Instead let us take David’s honesty as a spark to be honest, for as much as we may regret, lament or question, going to God's Repair Café is personal. We may wish we could reach across the table and fix someone else’s problems, but Lent is about our recognition of our own brokenness --- not someone else’s.
So, yes, we begin our observance of Lent with Ash Wednesday. This is a day of penitence, and this is a penitential season. The psalm reading is a penitential psalm, one of seven in the Psalter. And yes, this service can be considered a sort of Repair Café experience. And it is true, we come together to do our private business with God.
But there is one additional small piece only alluded to in our gospel. That is although Jesus calls upon privacy over and against public hypocrisy, you and I can come together for the support and encouragement of others. Because lent is also about community; not to probe but as a balm for each other. God is a great healer. There is nothing and no one God cannot restore to wholeness for we are marvelously made. Amen.

"Wait, Fly and Run" - 2-4-2018

PyeongChang. PyeongChang is a county in South Korea and as you may have seen advertised is the host to the 2018 Winter Olympics. The Olympics will begin this Friday, February 9, and conclude on Sunday, February 25. Almost 100 nations will participate, competing in 102 events. From alpine skiing to speed skating, and from biathlon to ski jumping, athletes will throw themselves down slopes, off ramps and across ice in attempts to be faster, higher and stronger, in line with the official Olympic motto --- Citius, Altius, Fortius --- Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger.”

I suspect that at this very moment, athletes are getting pumped up to put forward their best efforts, while trying to keep things as simple as possible. How they do that of course is all up to each team.

In the last Winter Olympics, for example, the goaltender of Finland's hockey team was asked to reveal his strategy to prepare. “My strategy,” he said, “is to stop the puck.” Makes sense. And the coach of Canada's men's hockey team revealed this secret to their success at the last Olympics with: “The main thing we do to prepare is to race over to McDonald's to get an Egg McMuffin before they shut down for the morning.” I wonder what they will be doing this year as I don’t know if McDonald’s will be available. We may laugh, but Canada won the gold medal in hockey in 2014. Two gold medals, actually -- the men's team and the women's team.
Then of course no training can fully prepare one for everything. Reflecting on her past Olympic performance, a ski crosser from Switzerland gave this concise analysis: “Everything went smoothly until I crashed.” Don't you hate it when that happens?

All that aside, for me one of the more interesting events at the Winter Olympics is the biathlon, a race in which athletes’ cross-country ski through a trail system while stopping to shoot rifles at targets. One reason that it holds my interest is that the event is rooted in my ethnic background. Tradition says that the roots to the biathlon began in Scandinavia to pay respect to the Norse god of skiing and hunting. Although no longer part of Norse mythology the biathlon is still much part of the culture. For example, in Norway, the biathlon is used to promote civilian marksmanship in support of national defense.

Did you notice however, that the prophet Isaiah has his own type of biathlon, but it doesn't include skiing or shooting. Instead, Isaiah promises that “those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary.”

Perhaps you have heard of the IOC, the International Olympic Committee. Well, this passage could be called the IOB, the Isaiah Olympic Biathlon. In Isaiah's Olympics, the biathlon includes flying and running. Participants “shall mount up with wings like eagles” and “run and not be weary.” But the ability to do so is not based on consumption of Egg McMuffins.

As I thought about today and our semiannual meeting after worship I considered what it might mean to enter ourselves into this if we want to carry the metaphor a little longer --- the Isaiah Olympic Biathlon.

First, what struck me is that to participate we need to of all things, wait. Of all the things that Isaiah challenges us to do, waiting is probably the toughest. I don’t know about you, I hate to wait. When I buy a product online, I want it to show up at our doorstep when promised. Likewise, our monthly cooperative ministry discussions, have been as I have mentioned earlier, like walking through molasses.

Isaiah however reminds us that good things come to those who “wait for the LORD.” I thought about that in our case as a congregation. What could “waiting” possibly mean? Well in listening to the various congregational members of these other churches in our cooperative, one possibility could mean that to wait for God means to take a moment, slow down and trust in God's presence. To listen for what God might be saying to us without expecting an answer.

One of the things we did in worship at the retreat for renewal I just returned from can be found in Psalm 46:10. It is a verse that provides a simple meditative exercise that can help us to wait for the Lord. It puts us in touch with the presence of God as we repeat the verse slowly, omitting a word or two with each repetition:
Be still, and know that I am God
Be still, and know that I am.
Be still, and know.
Be still.
Be.

When we slow down, we discover that God is the source of all that is, the great “I AM” referenced in Exodus 3:14. When we wait for the Lord, we are confronted by the deeper questions raised by the prophet Isaiah: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? ... Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is [God] who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers ... who brings princes to naught and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.”

When we wait, according to Isaiah we discover that we can trust that our lives, our church, creation are ultimately in God's hands. Isaiah says that “those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength” and compares us to being like grasshoppers in a field, cared for by the Creator who provides the basis for everything we need for life. A reminder that just as those early churches in Ephesus are crumbling skeletons that is the ultimate future of all our visions. The Trumps of this world have no real power in comparison to God, and their schemes quickly blow away like dust in the wind. “To whom then will you compare me,” asks God, the Holy One, “or who is my equal?” Isaiah is of course being rhetorical because the answer is “No one, of course.” When we wait by faith, we begin with the basic good news that no one compares to God, and no one is God's equal. We can rest in God's presence, and trust God to work for good in our lives and churches.

The next piece is the ability to fly. To “mount up with wings like eagles” does not mean that we will soar through the air like ski jumpers at the Alpensia Ski Jumping Stadium in PyeongChang or like Thor with a helicopter twirling hammer. No, to fly in the Isaiah Olympic Biathlon means that we rise above our earthly perspectives and see the world from the vantage points of “the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.”

What does it mean to see things from these eagle-eye perspectives? The gospel of John offers us this point of view, and it is no accident that John's traditional symbol is the eagle. The author begins his gospel in the preamble by describing Jesus as the Word, the one who was “in the beginning with God,” creating all things. This Word “became flesh and lived among us,” says the author, “and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.”

To mount up with wings like eagles is not to literally fly rather it is see the world from the perspectives of God through Jesus, the one who is full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ offers grace to all people, seeing everyone as friends instead of enemies, but just like there are four gospels, each disciple had a unique experience. Jesus practices hospitality, breaking bread with tax collectors and all who have broken relationships with God, the community and world. This is a reminder that there are no cookie cutter churches, we reflect whom we welcome a perspective that is both grand and limiting. Jesus heals the sick, feeds the hungry and welcomes outcasts --- just like the God of Isaiah. A reminder that just like the various healings in the Gospels what brings us wholeness is as diverse as the diseases of this world.

Ultimately it is Jesus however who “gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless.” It is Jesus who speaks the truth to all people, challenging all of us to break out of our walls and find the kingdom of God in the present. Jesus invites us all to fly with him, and to see the world with these eagle-eye perspectives.

Finally, we are to run. After waiting and flying and seeing the world through the perspectives of Jesus Christ, we can “run and not be weary.” We know that Olympic athletes have been doing a lot preparation for the Winter Games, possibly squats, lunges and weight-lifting. This is demanding physical work, and Isaiah is right to say that “even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted.”

That of course is what is wonderful about waiting, flying and running in God’s grace for God is more interested in our spiritual resilience than any of our physical strengths. The author of the NT book titled Hebrews puts it this way, shadowing these words from Isaiah; God wants us to be able to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” With the stamina that waiting can bring and the perspectives of Jesus Christ, we can run and not be weary, even when we face obstacles such as losses, relationships, traditions and our many moral failures. When we stumble, Jesus picks us up, dusts us off, gives us a pat on our buns, and helps us to start again.

“Winning” if you want to call it that, in the Isaiah Olympic Biathlon is understanding our strength in grace. Accomplishments like living another day without too badly abusing the privilege of faith does not come from making our bodies, and this community of Good Shepherd powerful in strength. From the onset the IOB begins with paradigms based on God’s grace, our unique experiences and learnings, that God cares, that faithful spiritual practices strengthen our patience are virtues, and that Jesus has given us stamina to carry us through.

Of course, it needs to be said, that in Isaiah it really doesn’t matter if we get a gold medal around our neck, or even a silver or bronze. We will not get a thrill from having billions of television viewers watch us stop a puck, ski down a mountain or perform a figure skating jump. Rather, the biathlon that Isaiah reminds each one of us is simultaneously private with public interaction. This public faith are the twin signs of the kingdom manifest expressed in today’s gospel: healing and casting out demons.

Healing of course are simply not technical examples like healing a disease, rather healing means a restoration of all creation through love by God’s grace. Casting out demons of course is far more than a movie exorcism, rather casting out demons means pointing out humbly and with a deep awareness that evil exists whether it is done by a President or our neighbor, or ourselves. And that evil reflects that we do not love God above all things and we do not love neighbor as much as we love ourselves.

These manifest displays of Olympian proportions are for Olympians like you and me and this congregation of Good Shepherd. One in which Isaiah reminds us includes waiting, with the perspectives like eagles with the stamina to run the distance. Amen

Cleaning - 1/7/2018

Sermon for Sunday, January 7, 2018 at the start of the new year.  Based on the gospel, Mark 1: 4-11. 

Are we up to cleaning --- going after those dusty corners and cobwebs, perhaps even going through some of our stuff? Are we up to uncluttering the closets of our hearts and minds on this the first Sunday of a new year?
I have been thinking about cleaning given the mess our home was after the Christmas festivities, you may be like my family wondering if it is time for some extra housecleaning. After all, taking down all those decorations can expose some dirt in places we don't normally see.
In our cleaning, I don’t know about you, but we have been trying to avoid chemicals as our only cleaning option. Does your bathtub look dull and water-spotted after repeated lengthy baths? One way is to juice up a couple of the grapefruits and add four tablespoons of salt and give the bathtub a good rubdown.
Same goes for those brass or chrome fixtures. They will shine with lemon juice and baking soda. Need to scrub down those kitchen counters? A couple of tablespoons of baking soda, a cup of white vinegar and a few drops of eucalyptus oil will do the job.
In fact, baking soda might be the best kept secret cleaning ingredient in the world. I heard of a woman who visits all her new neighbors and gives them a housewarming present of baking soda and duct tape. Purportedly she does this under the premise of what else do you need to take care of a household?
Now of course, if we don’t want to go the natural route there are many chemical options out there which personally speaking we have succumbed to doing more often than I would like to admit. The point is that there are a lot of ways to get stuff clean in the kitchen, bathroom and home.
On this first Sunday of the New Year, it is beneficial to consider our own practices and what doe we mean as Christians regarding deeper cleaning --- getting beyond the surface of our lives. For that we need some expert advice and, fortunately, this week provides us with the expertise of John, perhaps the “original” Mr. Clean. If you don’t believe me, just look at his name over this many centuries --- John ... the Baptizer!
This Sunday, Mark introduces us to John at the beginning of his gospel --- a gospel which the author of Mark announces as though some old nastiness has already been wiped away; “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” It seems to be Mark's way of telling us that the story of Jesus comes with a base assumption that what we are about to hear is the good news for a world stained and dulled by our broken relationship with God.
Mark continues that the first messenger of that good news is John. Mark doesn't give us the detail that Luke does about this strange figure appearing in the desert. There's no mention of a family relationship with Jesus, nor is there much else of John’s back story. Rather, Mark is more concerned with what John has come to do: announce the arrival of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and to prepare people for his coming.
Interestingly, that preparation would involve some opportunities for some deep cleansing action. This cleansing did not happen in a synagogue or bathroom. Rather, John went down to the banks of the Jordan River to instruct people how to get deeply clean in a way that would remove even the most hidden and oldest dirt embedded in their lives.
What intrigued me is that while looking and thinking of this lesson as we cleaned our home, it seems like John has three key tips that will be helpful to us as we engage in some “active cleansing” of our own.
First, I noticed that John uses all-natural ingredients. John's ministry is about as organic as it gets, drawing from the deep roots of Israel's prophets. It's no coincidence that Mark conflates Malachi (3:1) and Isaiah (40:3) in describing John's mission as the “messenger” who will prepare the way and as “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” For the author of Mark, John's mission is that linkage between the stories of Hebrew Bible and the Good News of Jesus.
God is about to do a new thing, John is saying, but it is springing up from the soil of Israel's history. A history of agreeing to a covenant of being God’s representatives to the world --- an “election” as it is sometimes called. This history of a relationship with God however is marked with problems: exile and redemption.
John himself models that history in his own organic dress and diet. His “camel's hair” clothing and leather belt are a visual reminder to the audience of the prophet Elijah, whom many believed would return before the coming of the Messiah. His diet of “locusts and wild honey” is the ultimate combination of natural protein and sugar --- although some scholars suggest that the “locusts” refers to the pods of the carob tree.
John may not have been dressed in white with the scrubbed and sanitized appearance of television commercials' Mr. Clean, but his way of life had the scent of authenticity and his ministry was all about dealing with the deeply ingrained dirt that had clung to Israel since the exile and to humanity since it’s evolutionary steps.
It is also interesting that John uses the most basic natural cleansing ingredient available -- water -- to do the work. But this water doesn't come from just any source. John stands at the banks of the Jordan River, significant because it was the same river that Israel had crossed to enter the Promised Land generations before. John seems to see his ministry as the beginning of a new Exodus, inviting people to enter into a different sort of Promised Land. As Israel had passed through the waters of the Red Sea and then the Jordan, now God's people would again need to pass through water to realize the new future promised by God's coming Messiah.
This leads to the second tip for active cleansing; know what kind of stain are we removing. When it comes to dealing with our human brokenness, we often think of treating the “sins” we commit. We know we've done some less than admirable stuff over the past year and we make resolutions not to do those things again. Unfortunately, that view of sin places us in the same situation as in Jesus’ day where sin had become reduced to legalistic notions about being ritually impure and “dirty” and unworthy of participating in Temple practices.
That however is a fruitless path because when we think of “sin” as simply a laundry list of missteps and mistakes, we miss the real problem that needs to be handled and that's “Sin” with a capital “S.” Biblically speaking, that capital “S” Sin is that broken relationship with God, along with its partner Death, that only a real Savior and Messiah can repair and remove.
I was reminded of what that means during our cold spell. You see, one day many years ago during a cold day in North Dakota, I was in such a rush for school that I neglected to take my gloves. By the time I had walked to school, I had frostbite. Thankfully my teacher knew exactly what to do, yet to this day when it gets cold I feel residues of that frostbite in my hands. Capital “S” sin is a bit like getting frostbite, once we have experienced frostbite we will feel the chill for a long time into the future.
Why did these people come out to see John and seek this sort of deeper cleansing? The personal reasons were probably as diverse as you and me but they all felt the chill of capital S sin. So, the areas we need to re-consider in our lives is the makeup of what we are trying to cleanse. If we don't think through them we will only scratch the surface and fail to get down to the nitty-gritty of the stain. Attacking a rust stain with a brush alone will not do it. Likewise, simply saying we will “forgive” or “love” without thinking through the full ramifications of what forgiveness and love entails, we only scratch the surface.
The third tip I noticed in today’s reading is the need for cleansing with a purpose. John baptized with the power of water, but repentance and forgiveness of sins was just the first step. The one for whom John was preparing would come and baptize “with the Holy Spirit,” for the future. The cleansing John was talking about wasn't just about what had happened in the past, but also what these shiny, fresh and new people, cleansed in the water of baptism, would do in the future.
This “way” we are on has a lot of dimensions to it, but one of the most important is that it prepares us for a daily future in the way of Jesus. Having been released from slavery to capital “S” Sin, and death, we can continue to walk in the life for which we were created from the beginning -- the “abundant life” of people made in the image of God. Baptism “in the Spirit” empowers and enables us to participate with God in God’s redemptive mission for the world, as it did with those first disciples. We not only get to hear and experience the “good news,” we are cleansed and have a purpose as daily “co-creators.”
This is what meant by Jesus own baptism. Jesus was not baptized because he was a “sinner” with a capital “s”, but because Jesus will be the one who leads us on a new Exodus through the water and on to freedom. Committing ourselves to this daily walk enables us to live in that freedom and deal with the symptoms of our brokenness that plague us recognizing that although we have been made clean we are not quite up to where God can fully settle in.
Our daily baptismal remembering incorporates us into the daily cleansing of Messiah's saving work. And it's important that we remember again that dealing with capital "S" Sin requires of us a deeper self-examination and habit changing in ways which we still find ourselves growing. It is like pretending we have a clean bathroom until, we know that we are going to have visitors at which time we really get to work.
John affirmed that the time had come for something new and it was coming. John is the preamble to the breaking in by Jesus into the socio-cultural-political ways of this world. This new way by Jesus advocates for an alternate deeply cleaned direction; a “way” we did not expect, one of compassion, gender equality, non-violence, non-hierarchical social structure, and radical equality. This is a “way” which will and continue to threaten the powers-that-be and will result in Jesus being crushed by his “adversaries.”
As we begin a new year on the way, John the Baptizer reminds us that it is the natural ingredients that do the best work of starting to strip away the grime that builds up. If we only focus through 2018 on avoiding sin, it is an ultimately futile path, because that would mean the only way to have a clean house is not live in it. Instead, God offers us the power through Baptism to recognize, minimize, and heal future brokenness in ourselves and in others as well as engage in that deep cleaning as live on the way. Amen.

Images - 12/31/2017

   Sermon based on Luke 2: 22-40. 

    Christmas is an interesting time for reading scripture. The reason being that for many people across the US, Christmas is the time when we reaffirm but one image --- the Jesus of Luke 2, an innocent little baby. What is not to like?
    What do I mean? Well, as many of us know, in the United States, even though we see little evidence of that in worship, Jesus is incredibly popular like the image of Jesus as a newborn. But it is also true that no two people have the same image. This was most recently pointed out in American Jesus, by Stephen Prothero. He observed that Jesus in the US is a man “nobody hates.” People may dislike the followers --- but Jesus is a good guy like the innocent baby Jesus of Luke 2. Perhaps that is why Christmas is popular.
    It is well known that Americans are producers and consumers of images of Jesus where Jesus functions as a common cultural coin. That is clear if we travel outside of the United States and look in. In the US, as Prothero points out, we have a history of continually making Jesus to resemble current American hero-types. Over the years, we have repacked Jesus, separating him from the creeds, from the Scriptures and even from Christianity itself. That is the basis for the claim that the religion about Jesus and the religion of Jesus are very different things.
    To back up his point, Prothero points to American history where we have created Jesus the “Enlightened Sage” for example. This was the Jesus Thomas Jefferson proposed. When he was president, Jefferson spent a few evenings scissoring out of the gospels all the references to miracles and Jesus’ divinity, ending up with a slim volume he called The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth.
    Another Jesus we have in our history is the “Sweet Savior,” a product of the religious revival of the 19th and early 20th centuries. During that era, the style of preaching changed from dissertations to storytelling, and the life of Jesus became larger-than-life. The call of these preachers was to an intimate walk with this Jesus --- so intimate, that Jesus is a friend whom we could come to know and hang out with but died for you.
    Another version of Jesus in our history in the US is the “Manly Redeemer,” a muscular reaction to the girly-man Sweet Savior. We see this played out in the creation of the YMCA and YWCA; exercise and be like Jesus. The most recent incarnation of the American Jesus is as a “Superstar.” Jesus is an upbeat guy who offers an experiential high that is better than drugs, including being the subject of the rock musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell.
    Additionally, for those of us in the Southwest, we have the image of “Jesus” as “the buen hijo/the good son.” Jesus is seen in the context of his mother, father and family. Since family is the major source of one’s identity and protection in the Latino culture, Jesus is consequently pictured with “respecto” living with “familia.”
    Why bring this all up on this the last Sunday of Christmas on the edge of a new year. Primarily, because of the gospel that I will get into in just a moment, but I was also recently reminded of our propensity to get stuck into images of Jesus and the impact on our faith life by Richard Rohr. In his recent email newsletter, he shared the following, “The word change normally refers to new beginnings. But transformation more often happens not when something new begins but when something old falls apart. The pain of something old falling apart --- disruption and chaos --- invites the soul to listen at a deeper level. It invites and sometimes forces the soul to go to a new place because the old place is not working anymore.”
    As Christians when we feel the pain of something old falling apart, it invites us to listen and enter more deeply into God. In other words, no wonder many churches receive many visitors on Christmas with the image of a newborn Jesus. When we are experiencing change, we would rather stay with that image of an innocent newborn, when what we cherish feels like it is “falling apart” and the disruption and chaos that follows. Unfortunately, however remaining there with a newborn is not seeing the invitation to listen and be open to faith transformation.
    For course, one place to listen is in scripture where in careful reading not only does the word steady the boat but opens our hearts and faith. One place to see that is in today’s reading where Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus are at the temple. As we know from other places, Joseph and Mary are presented as religiously devout. Here that continues with Joseph taking Mary and the baby Jesus to the Temple for “their purification,” although, strictly speaking, the purification ritual was for Mary only. The “purification” of a new mother occurred some 40 days after the birth of a male child, and some 80 days after the birth of a female child. Jesus, however, the first-born male did not need to be “purified.” All Jesus needed was to be dedicated to the Lord, which could be had for the price of five shekels.
    It is at this moment however where the trio encounter Simeon and Anna. Simeon, we are told is a devout lay person who has been looking “forward to the consolation of Israel” --- the Messiah. Anna is identified as prophetess. Neither is a priest. When Simeon sees Jesus, he takes the baby in his arms, and praises God, for Simeon knows that the one he is holding is the One he has been expecting. Anna words are less well detailed other than she began “to speak about the child.”
    Within this short vignette however we get some important pieces of new information about Jesus. One piece to note is the fact that Luke has a lot of elderly people in his infancy narrative. First, there was Zechariah and Elizabeth. Now, there is Simeon and Anna. Why all these old people? Well, because as we know, the elderly are a repository of tradition and story. From that angle, Elizabeth represents Hannah, from the OT, the mother of the prophet Samuel. And Zechariah of course, represents the clueless priests, also part of the tradition. Simeon represents Israel's long wait for the Messiah. Anna represents not only the prophetic tradition, but also its capacity for renewal and ability to do, as Isaiah said, “a new thing.”
    Now the other piece to note is that given that Jesus was still an infant, days old, a skeptic overhearing Simeon and Anna might have thought they were inventing a messiah to fit their own images. But the subsequent life, ministry and death of Jesus proved Simeon and Anna right. Although Jesus is a newborn, we already see that seeds of how Jesus would completely change the vision of who the Messiah was understood to be. Many in that time and place thought the messiah, the promised one from God would be arriving with sword and winnowing fork in hand.
    Neither Simeon or Anna relied on their own hunches about this baby being the promised Messiah. Rather there were two critical things. First, when the gospel writer Luke tells us that Simeon and Anna were “looking forward…,” Luke is saying that these two were steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures. The term “the consolation of Israel” derives from references in the book of Isaiah to God comforting the people by redeeming them.” So both were basing their pronouncement about Jesus on scripture, yet, this leads to the second point, Luke tells us that both were being guided by the Holy Spirit.
    Those two sources of understanding --- the outward one of Scripture and the inward one of God’s inspiration --- still stand today as means to help us change toward transformation, “not when something new begins but when something old falls apart.” So obviously, if we are going to take a razor to the gospels as Jefferson did, or if we are going to buy the latest incarnation of footsteps in the sand of sweet Jesus carrying us when we can’t make it, we are not necessarily on the path of transformation. In today’s gospel, Simeon and Anna are seeing not simply a newborn, but transformation.
    We likewise, are challenged to listen to who Jesus is --- in scripture itself. And in short, the gospels, if we look at them in total, affirm Simeon and Anna: Jesus is the one, who, after he was baptized, lived up to his baptism every day by the way he honored and obeyed the heavenly Father. Jesus is the one who proclaimed the good news of God, preaching repentance and announcing that the kingdom of God had begun. Jesus is the one who was so filled with compassion that though it sometimes seemed to get in the way of his ministry, he still took time and energy to heal the sick. Jesus was the one who embodied the very authority of God, and whose life embroidered the deeds of God on the fabric of human experience. This was so evident that people who heard him commented on it. Jesus was the one who did not shun bad company, but who called them to a place in the kingdom. Jesus is the one who repeatedly withdrew to pray. Jesus is the one in whom his contemporaries recognized had a special connection with God --- a recognition that led Peter to call him “the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Jesus is the one who went to the cross, understanding that in doing so, he was being obedient to the will of God, and was doing something profound for humanity. Jesus is the one who arose victorious over death.
    Those are the things that scripture tells us directly. We may not understand the implications of all that we can say about Jesus from scripture, but those things are enough to help us frame as we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit and to the guide us through the changes we experience.
What might that mean for us --- satisfied with the image of Jesus we have?
    Mark Twain once said, “It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me; it is the parts that I do understand.” As we begin a new calendar year, we might adapt that line of thought to say, “It ain't the missing parts of Jesus' story that bother me; it is the parts that aren't missing!” Transformation, as Richard Rohr reminded us, “happens when the old falls apart.” In fact, it is necessary for our spiritual growth. Simeon held the child in his arms and saw the salvation of Israel. Anna, responded out of praise and spoke about the child. In both Anna and Simeon, we see the seeds of the future. The old image of the messiah was beginning to fall apart.
    Therefore, what painfully needs to be let go for us, and where are we listening to be transformed, so that we can give praise? Are we ready to let go of the image of an innocent baby Jesus?
    What will the year ahead be like? We can't know in advance, but we can imagine already how Jesus will be with us in our ongoing story and transformation. Amen.

Danger! - 12/24/2017

Christmas Eve Sermon based on Luke 2

St. Francis of Assisi, is credited with staging the first one in 1223, so I wonder what would he thinking regarding the countless types and styles we have created in the 21st century? Not only do innumerable churches across North America stage live nativity scenes, but Mary and Joseph are an integral part of the Posada, the traditional Mexican and Central American nighttime journey to a find a place for the pregnant Mary. But, I also wonder how St. Francis would feel about the limitless other versions of the nativity, those souvenir commercial options fueled from that first crèche. What would St. Francis think of a crèche with kittens as Mary, Joseph and Jesus, or the craft version we can make out of large marshmallows and toothpicks.

According to the first biographer of St. Francis, Thomas of Celano, a contemporary of Francis, and the St. Bonaventure’s biography that followed, St. Francis got permission from Pope Honorious III to set up a live manger with hay and two animals --- an ox and an ass--- in a cave in the Italian village of Grecio. St. Francis according to tradition then invited the villagers to come gaze upon the scene while he preached about “the babe of Bethlehem.”

While it is not completely clear that St. Francis originated the idea of the live nativity, this annual staging blossomed in early, medieval Europe. Historian point out that Francis' display, came in the middle of a period when mystery or miracle plays were a popular form of entertainment and education for European laypeople. These plays, originally performed in churches and later performed in town squares, re-enacted Bible stories in vernacular languages. Since church services at the time were performed only in Latin --- which very few understood --- miracle plays were an important way for laypeople to learn scripture.

So, while St. Francis could not have predicted a yellow rubber duck version of the nativity, nevertheless he was trying to get across an important message. One to which we struggle to understand in our 21st century. It is not just a message of a teenage mother, a father with few details, rather it is the incredible message of a human yet God, born in roughest of circumstances.

The obvious struggle is stable story. It is not exactly the kind of place we would want to have a baby and not the kind of crib we would have chosen. We would much prefer the hospital to a cave. We'd rather hear the controlled voice of a doctor, obstetrician, midwife or nurse practitioner than a cacophony of cows mooing, sheep baaing and goats grunting. We'd much prefer a story with a climate-controlled room with a sanitized bassinet than a cattle trough than the one the author of Luke that was likely made of stone, chiseled in the floor, and filled with hay, manure and who knows what else.

Furthermore, in our sanitized 21st century versions, we avoid the fact that having babies has always been a risky business, not only for the child but for the mother as well. The crib as we know it wasn't invented until the 1800s. Before then, infants generally slept with their mothers, which we now know can be dangerous.
Yet, even with all the modern safety improvements we've made, giving birth is still a risky business. Texas, for example, has the highest maternal mortality rate in the US and the US has the highest rate in the developed world. But it was even riskier in the first century. It was a dangerous situation, much more so than we can imagine given our propensity to put troll doll images into the nativity rather than seeing it for what it was --- dangerous.

The irony of this message is however, even if the manger itself was a dangerous situation, even if Mary had more than a 50/50 chance of dying, that is not where the danger in the story lies, rather it is all about the leaky, burpy, vulnerable little baby wrapped in cloths lying within it! It's hard to think of a baby as dangerous --- a two-year-old, maybe, but not a newborn, but that was exactly what was being born. If the nativity had been an episode of the 1960s Lost in Space, the Robot would be telling the young star: “Danger, Will Robinson.” For just eight days after this birth, the old man Simeon would declare the truth at this little child’s dedication in the temple that this infant would be “destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” And, he says to Mary, his mother, “a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”

Those are ominous words about this eight-day old. Then again, this is a very particular baby who has some additional baggage for it was conceived by the Holy Spirit. As the angel had announced to Mary, this child “will be holy; he will be called Son of God” (1:35). In John's gospel, he is “the Word” of God made flesh and who dwelled among us (John 1:14). This baby is God become human.

This is dangerous for two reasons: First, if Jesus is fully divine, fully God, then all other definitions of God are rendered questionable because we like to think of God as being, well, God -- and nothing else! Certainly not human. And, second, if Jesus is fully human, then all other definitions of true humanity are also dubious, because we do not want to burden ourselves with the knowledge that we could be better than we are.

Talk about dangerous! From the very beginning, people have tended to either dispense with gods, manufacture their own and have tended to see “being human” as limitless or limited. For example, we tend to like our gods to be “spiritual” and consign them to a distant sort of heaven where we can keep them at arm's length and not have them interfere with us very much. Likewise, we also tend to hold up our humanity as a default excuse for our brokenness, after all, we're “only human.”

Today, however, we have something else entirely! In this story of an infant Jesus born in a stable in a manager, we are told that God is not only real, God is not unknowable, distant and unconcerned with creation. Instead, we come to find out that the God who created the universe is intimately involved in creation to the point of coming to walk among one infinitesimal sliver of creation one little person.

Talk about perilous because a God who becomes human is a God who must be reckoned with, and that makes this baby dangerous to the way the world normally works. We cannot consign God to heaven alone because God has come to earth. We cannot push God aside as a figment of our imagination, because in this story to which St. Francis wanted acted out for village’s, God has come with a human face.

This is a risky maneuver for God is a God who has entered fully into the human mess, living in poverty, living as a refugee and living with people who have major issues. Moreover, it doesn’t end here in this stable, for when Jesus ages, Jesus begins associating with outcasts, along with the poor, the sick and the broken.

“Danger, Will Robinson!” Jesus provides a human face to a God who calls us to follow him, be like him and do as Jesus does. Jesus provides a human face to a God who has come not only to live but to die for the creation God created. Jesus provides a bedrock of philosophical, moral and ethical guidelines. These guidelines have repercussions for in believing in a God who becomes human not only does it gives a face to God, it also defines what it means to be fully human. In Genesis 1, God makes humans “in God’s own image” and calls this creation “very good.” This is not a skin deep, male, simplistic vision but a God pleased with an evolving creation, which reflects God's own being, character and love.

Therefore, when we go home this evening to a crèche on a bookcase, or drive by a plastic one lit up, remember this small bag of bones who survives. In that small bundle of miracle, we begin a journey in which Jesus showed us what that life was to be like. Jesus revealed what it meant to be fully human and, at the same time, fully indwelt and was one with the Divine into and through death. Jesus isn't merely a perfect icon to admire but an example to follow in how to fully engage one's capacity for relationship with God.

Mary and Joseph survived albeit having to shortly run off as refugees, Jesus survived this beginning as a helpless dependent bundle of flesh. For out of this story of a manger-laid bundle Jesus would one day be dangled above a city street --- not as sterile painted, nativity scene for sale --- but on a cross. Because what began in a manager led to a cross, where we are reconciled to God, given the light of God's Spirit dwelling, to be lived out in our fully human lives reflecting and holding together both the human and the Divine.

This is what began that fateful night in this story, with a man, woman and child. This is both the danger and the opportunity represented in the manger. St. Francis had it right, the nativity is a game changer! Amen.

"Tools for Waiting" - 12/10/2017

Sermon based on 2 Peter.  This past week, I had to call customer service. I hit number 1 on the phone pad and waited. Then there was a voice. “Thank you for waiting. Your call is important to us.” I heard those words, and I knew I was on hold.
    “The waiting is the hardest part,” sang Tom Petty in his hit song with the Heartbreakers in 1981. Back then when Petty wrote the lyrics to his song, it was certainly true that waiting was hard. At least that is what I remember. Imagine, for example, waiting for the doctor with no smartphone and only some outdated magazines to peruse. We would have had no contact with the world beyond the bland, antiseptic, boring room until we were mercifully called back to the examination room where we would wait some more, this time without magazines! No wonder they call us “patients.”
Today, however unlike the dark ages of 1981, we have multiple entertainment options right at our fingertips to keep us occupied while we wait. Besides our smart phones, we even have smart TV’s!
    Yet, despite all our technology, waiting is still hard. We wait at airports; we wait in waiting rooms; we wait in traffic; we wait at the post office; we wait at the bank; we wait for a human when calling customer service. We wait ... and our patience runs thin.
A little planning, however, can make that wait time productive and perhaps even fun. For example, here's a list of things I thought of and have done in the past: I have struck up a conversation with a stranger and learned their story. I have pulled out a book or a note pad. I have worked through my unread emails. I have made other appointments. I have brought postcards with me as well as thank you notes to my friends and family to mail later. I have spent time culling through my phone's photo gallery to delete pictures I don't need.
    Although those are just a few things I have done to help pass the hour or two I am sure you have other suggestions. But what if the wait time is going to be longer -- like, maybe, thousands of years or longer.
    That's the dilemma the early church was facing after Jesus' ascension into heaven. Jesus had promised to return, and many in the church believed that return was imminent. As time passed, however, and as the persecution of Christians intensified, the waiting became the hardest part for the church. In fact, some were beginning to question whether Jesus would return at all.
    That's the situation the writer of 2 Peter addresses. This letter, which is a follow-up to the first letter that bears the name of Peter the apostle, reads more like a theological instruction manual than a typical epistle and for good reason. In the first letter, the writer encourages the church, which is being pressured by external forces, while here in the second letter the author addresses the problems arising from internal sources -- namely, teachers who were skeptical about Jesus' return. This 2nd letter reminds the church that Jesus will, indeed, return as promised to bring justice to complete fruition and finally set aside the continuing complications of evil, ushering in a restored creation, and that the way they conduct themselves as they wait for his return has implications.
    The author of 2nd Peter understands that the waiting is the hardest part, but what the author also reminds us is that what seems like a long, slow waiting period for Christ's return is a gift from God. The Lord is not slow or tardy but like our choices while waiting on hold, time is a gift to allow for us to as the author says to “come to repentance.”
    In other words, we are not to be overly concerned as to when the doctor will call our name, because that time will come like a “thief” and on that day the deeds of all on earth will be “disclosed.” Rather, in the interim (even if it's a long interim), the author asks, “What sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness?” What can we be doing while we wait?
    The short answer for the author is that those who follow Christ should begin living the joy of the future as though it has already arrived. There will be a period of waiting, but it's not to be a passive one in which we, like the disciples at the ascension, keep staring up at the sky concerned what to do or where to go to next. Instead, the author says that there are certain things we should “strive” to do in the interim.
If we were to look closely at the full message of the 2nd letter of Peter, we would discover a list of four if not more things we can do while waiting for the new Advent:
    First, we are to remember the promise of the first Advent --- the first coming. The author opens the letter by reminding his readers of the faith that they received “through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” That opening line is a reminder of the powerful witness to the Incarnation, that Jesus is both God and Savior. Peter and the other disciples were eyewitnesses to the incarnation of God in Christ, remembering the voice of God during the transfiguration proclaiming, "This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” So, as we celebrate the season of “Coming” or advent, it's a chance for us to remember again that God has already come to us in the person of Christ and, in doing so, God has confirmed the truthfulness of God’s promises toward us.
    Second, in this time of waiting, we can grow in the image of Christ. When Jesus returns, the author urges his readers to “be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish.” Now for us in the 21st century we need to be careful with those words because what we may hear are echoes of the European Middle Ages --- roughly the period from the decline of Rome to the reformation --- that period was characterized by feelings of internal control. People felt that they were controlled by forces within themselves, like sin and disease. It was thought that the “spots and blemishes” are something inside of us we need to somehow “cure.”
    Instead the author is reminding us that in fact, we are meant to live like God’s beloved, filled by grace, created in the image of God. “Corruption” then is any thought or action that falls short of God’s desire for us which because of what Christ has done in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, we can once again become “participants of the divine nature.” The author of Peter therefore urges us to make every effort to support our faith in Christ through acting out the virtues of our creation which are goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection and love. Focusing on those things will keep us from being “ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is what the author means by living lives of “holiness and godliness” -- lives that look more and more like Jesus.
    Third, while waiting we are to pay attention to what it is that masters us. As we move through the Advent season, that's a great question to ponder: What is it that controls us? To what have we become a slave? As Bob Dylan once sang, “It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you're goanna have to serve somebody.” Who are we serving?
    Now for those of us in the 21st century who are characterized by desire for our external freedom, who believe that we can use the laws of the universe to be free from being controlled, we believe we are the masters. We can be in control. The great gardens of Europe, for example, are creations of that modern thinking. The gardens express the sense that nature itself can be manipulated and molded --- even controlled --- by human beings. A further sign of that view that we are the masters is racism, homophobia, and sexism. All are signs of control and that the universe must have laws based on skin color, or sex and that we are the masters. So, in this time of waiting, it is an opportunity to once again reconsider, the promise laid out in the first creation story in Genesis, we are not God and that God is present in all. That it is not in mastery but in trust and dependency that we grow.
    Fourth, we are to use our time as we wait wisely. The author of Peter urges his readers to “regard the patience of the Lord as salvation.” In this interim period as we await God’s promise, we can for example, use the time God has given us to share our faith with others. Disciples of Jesus recognize that God has given us time to spread the word, and we need to use that time wisely. In other words, in our daily conversations we might have with people in the waiting room or on the plane are opportunities to have conversations as the Spirit leads, not with all the answers but as members together in human community. As the author says in the first letter, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is in you.” “Defense” in this case, does not mean ready for war, rather able to explain ourselves in love without fear and without instilling fear in others.
    The waiting might be the hardest part of being a Christian, but it's also the most important part. I’m reminded of a scene in the movie “Ironweed” when a homeless woman, played by Meryl Streep, goes into a church to get warm. Looking up at one of the side altars, she said, “I don’t call it sin. I call it decisions.”
    We must act in the world. We make daily decisions. We cannot escape this. Naturally, we will make mistakes. Nonetheless, while we wait on hold, we can curse the insurance company that has put us on hold. We can seek “control.” Or we can live waiting dependent on God because the good news is not about waiting in fear. Rather, God has given us tools and in the wait to bring God’s good news to the world in anticipation of a second Advent. Let's wait well for this time, our time, is a gift. Amen.

Oil of Preparation - 11/12/2017

   Sermon based on Matthew 25: 1-13.  I have been working on a book. The book is not a novel that will grab the reader from the opening line. The book is not one on theology, so profound that it would become an instant classic.
    No, I am working on something perhaps far more important; the book I am working on is a book of passwords. It all started, this past Christmas when I gave my wife a small diary that she uses to store her user names and passwords for all the important internet sites she uses. I bought it for her because she was using her daily calendar for that purpose and would carry it around in her purse. Furthermore, every year she would have to re-write all her passwords and usernames into a new calendar. Now, she has one book that she keeps in a safe place at home but can turn to it, when she forgets or must make a change.
    After giving her the book, I realized that as the old saying goes, what is good for the goose is good for the gander; what is good for a woman is equally good for a man. Not only have I been known to forget my username and password on occasion, but more importantly working on the book is an acknowledgement that if absent, Beth may need access to some of the important websites that we use. Since so much of our banking and bill paying is done online, unless we prepare, we would needlessly face some major challenges accessing the information if one of us was suddenly absent.
    I share that with you because the Gospel of Matthew has been discussing the challenges of absence --- in this case the absence of Jesus. In the parable of the King's Son's wedding found in chapter 22, the King doesn't show up until the wedding hall was already filled with guests. In the parable which directly precedes our lesson this week --- the faithful servant and the unfaithful servant found in chapter 24 --- the problem of absence revolves around the “delay” of the master. With today’s parable it is obvious Jesus was preparing the disciples for his absence, something to which the author of Matthew and we need to consider as well in our day and age.
To help us let us turn to today’s lesson: the parable of the ten bridesmaids. First some context. In a typical wedding of that time, the bridesmaids would     accompany the groom to the home of the bride, then the bridesmaids would accompany the couple to the site of the wedding and banquet. Just imagine a small rural community that --- unless the bride was from a community far away --- was a joyous journey from home to home to banquet all within a block or two.
    With that in mind, we read that Jesus told a parable and said the “…the kingdom of heaven will be like ….” ten bridesmaids who go out to meet the bridegroom. This bridegroom however we are told “was delayed.” The word we translate into delay in English is chronizontos which not only means “delay,” but it also has the sense of lingering. It indicates that the bridegroom was not being forcibly prevented from coming, but rather is overdue of his own choice. The groom is in no big rush. In the meantime, Jesus tells us that the bridesmaids get bored as they wait that no amount of snicker’s bars could help. It gets so long that Jesus tells us that they all fall asleep.
    “But at midnight there was a cry!” Our translation does not convey it exactly because it is bit awkward in English. Roughly the Bible suggests that in the middle of the night there was an inbreaking --- “a behold!” a “TaDa --- the bridegroom!”
    We can just imagine the impact on the household waking up with start, with the scurrying and sudden need to get ready for the trip to the bride’s home. But it is now that we find out what we readers were told earlier, five of the bridesmaids, had brought extra olive oil for their lamps, but five did not --- there are five who are called “wise” and five who are called “foolish.”
    The five without enough oil try to borrow from those who have extra but the ones with extra do not have enough to share because that would leave everyone short. Rather, the five without rush out to find some to buy. How they were going to find a 24-hr. convenience store at this late hour we are not told.
    In the meantime, the five with extra have enough not only to accompany the groom to the bride’s home --- the part of the journey we are never told about --- as well as enough to reach the location of the banquet. The five who by now had either picked up some olive oil or gave up entirely arrive at the banquet, but find wedding party is in full swing, with the doors locked. What we read is reminiscent of another parable where people then call out, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” What is the response from inside? We are told that the bridegroom, now the husband says, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Then, we have an addition whether it is from the bridegroom in the parable or Jesus as a commentary it is not clear: “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day not the hour.”
    How does this parable help us as we live in the absence of the Kingdom? Well we could just go to sleep, because in this parable it doesn’t matter if you are awake or asleep. This parable however challenges us all around the theme of “being prepared.”
    I don’t know about you but if all faith meant was to make sure I had enough oil in a lamp not only is that odd for faith is not so simple is it? Because, faith is not about believing correct thoughts with the right amount of certainty. Rather, faith is about trusting in Jesus, which, in turn, means living in the new reality Jesus teaches --- not status quo, business-as-usual living, but rather living in “the way” of Jesus, in anticipation of God's kingdom.
    All the bridesmaids knew the wedding banquet had not been canceled. All the bridesmaids knew the groom was coming and the bride was waiting. Likewise, living in faith, is trusting and anticipating God’s full restoration affirming for example, the absolute equality and dignity of all people. But this “way of Jesus” means hanging in there being prepared even when it appears that the bridegroom has chosen to delay.
    What does this mean for us? How do we live in the “way of Jesus,” faithfully prepared? I think it is important to return to the ten bridesmaids and who they represent. As you may have noticed, there was no noticeable difference between the wise five and the foolish five. Moreover, they all became weary and took a nap while waiting for the party to begin. The only difference between the women is that some carried a spare vial of olive oil.
    The five without represent the “wisdom of this world--the live-by-what-you-see wisdom.” The five bridesmaids with extra on the other hand, represent the “wisdom of faith,” the wisdom of trusting in God's redemption of the world. The five wise bridesmaids lived in anticipation by taking “vessels of oil” in addition to the oil in their lamps. Interestingly, in some places in the Hebrew scriptures, oil is often a metaphor for good deeds. In other words, since we can’t take an extra vessel of faith around because faith does not come in measurable vials, we live out our faith in the way of Jesus, doing as Jesus would have us do as disciples during the absence. Living out our faith is that same as being equipped during the absence.
    The five foolish bridesmaids on the other hand preferred participating in the established market system --- the status quo of the world --- so when the bridegroom interrupted this business-as-usual by breaking in and making a dramatic arrival, they wind up going to the marketplace to try to buy “faith” when they need it. And when they finally manage to make it back to the wedding celebration? They find the door to the wedding feast closed, to which they holler, “Lord, Lord.” This is reminiscent of another place when Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”
    What about the advice to “watch therefore, for you do not know the day nor the hour?” Again, in chronological time, what we measure either by the moon, atomic clock or our number of birthdays it seems that the Lord is delayed. But for God ANY time is God’s time, even and especially the present moment. That said what else can this parable mean for us, who struggle against our marketplace scarcity mentality --- that everything has a price to be purchased when needed; either one has it or not?
    Timothy Merrill, a Christian author, tells the story of running out of light while visiting Israel with his family. One day, they -- two adults and two little kids -- went out to hike through Hezekiah's Tunnel. Hezekiah’s Tunnel or the Siloam tunnel is a water tunnel that was carved underneath Jerusalem in ancient times. Its name is due to the most common hypothesis of its origin, namely that it dates from the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah in the late 8th and early 7th century BCE and corresponds to the water works mentioned in 2 Kings 20: 20.
    It was rediscovered in the mid 1660’s and has become like many things in Israel an option for tourists. The portion of the tunnel that can be walked is not more than 30 inches wide with a varied height from 10 feet to 5 feet in some places with water came up to your knees unless a spring is flowing at which time the tunnel is closed. Well, Merrill and his family decided to walk through it.
    “Is it safe?” his wife asked the man sitting at a little wood table at the entrance. “Yes, yes, safe,” he said. “Very safe. No problem.” Merrill asked him how long it would take to walk through it. “You walk twenty minutes. No problem,” he said. Merrill gave him some money and received in return four candles, one for each person, not more than a third-inch thick and about five inches long. These candles were to provide light for the 20 minutes it would take to slosh through Hezekiah's Tunnel.
    Merrill retells the tale sharing that the candles illuminated the tunnel for only a few feet ahead and behind. As they felt their way through the tunnel, they sometimes had to stoop slightly as the tunnel shaft was not high enough to accommodate their height. After 10 minutes of wading occasionally hunchbacked through the water, Merrill began to think this trip might take longer than 20 minutes. He decided to blow out his candle, since he was the last one. The youngest child, 7, went first, then his mother, followed by the older child, 10, so he had no trouble following his wife and the boys without his candle lit. Now into 15 minutes of sloshing through the tunnel, following its curves and bouncing against its cold sides, and ducking to avoid bumping their heads, he noticed that Jeanie, his wife, was getting a little edgy. “Are we there yet?”
    After twenty minutes had elapsed, they were still in the tunnel, with no indication that they were close to the end. Twenty-five minutes passed, 30 minutes, and now the candles were just about out. First one candle burnt out, then another. Thirty-five minutes and still walking, Merrill says, “Jeanie's candle was just about gone, and I was about to produce my candle when, at 40 minutes, we felt a rush of cool air and heard the sound of water flowing. This development energized our flagging spirits and we pressed on with fresh zeal. Soon we were at the other side, the end of Hezekiah's Tunnel!”
What interests us however is that Merrill goes on to relate that while he didn't carry an extra candle, as a group they had extra light --- his unlit candle --- in reserve should it be needed. Merrill added that for him the church, a diverse body of people of different sizes, backgrounds, needs and perspectives is the one God has given that has “candlepower” and “candle people” who can help to refuel, rekindle and recharge the soul-lamps of those people whose flame is flickering. The man at the marketplace said 20 minutes. It took at least 40. The man at the marketplace said the candles were sufficient for the journey. They weren't.
    Jesus offers no specific condemnation of the women who fell asleep. They all did. But when the “Tada” moment appeared, when the bells rung, five of the women were candle people and had candle power; the others were not.
    As people of faith, a faith that is not purchased but gifted, do we show and glow? Do we value being the oil of preparation not depending on the marketplace but living the way of Jesus faithfully equipped? Or when our faith is flagging, do we look to each other in the church? Or do we prefer to turn to the marketplace of scarcity to relight our faith we have received as gift? What do we do in the absence? Beth and I are trying to prepare for when one us is not there to keep the candle of our family lit. Let us live in faith in the way of Jesus and let us be the light for others faithfully prepared for the Kingdom of God is at hand. Amen. 

Baiting - 10/22/2017

Sermon based on Matthew 22: 15-22.  Todays’ scripture reminded me about a small piece I heard about from last November in BuzzFeed, an entertainment and social news website. The website reported that Chip and Joanna Gaines, the popular couple who are the stars of the HGTV series Fixer Upper, attend a church that does not support same-sex marriage and views homosexuality as a sin.
The Gaines’s however have never commented on air about their views regarding the LGBT community, same-sex marriage or their faith, and many of the reader responses to the BuzzFeed article took issue with the media company's motives in reporting the story, some describing it as a “witch hunt” or the new mantra, “Fake news” or as some would suggest a “gotcha” question.
The Gaines’s didn't immediately respond until January 2nd of this year when they released some comments in a blog titled “Chip's New Year's Revelation.” In it, Chip said that he and Joanna don't always “see eye to eye,” but added, “If Joanna and I, who are best friends, don't see lots of things the same way --- how on earth do we expect a world of strangers to magically align? The reality is, we may not all get on the same page and I think that's okay.”
Then, alluding to this past Fall’s presidential race, Chip said, “Jo and I refuse to be baited into using our influence in a way that will further harm an already hurting world.” Chip continued to say, “If there is any hope for all of us to move forward, to heal and to grow -- we have got to learn to engage people who are different from us with dignity and with love. ... We care about you for the simple fact that you are a person, our neighbor on planet Earth. It's not about what color your skin is, how much money you have in the bank, your political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender, nationality or faith.”
Chip's response and especially his comment that he and his wife “refuse to be baited into using our influence in a way that will further harm an already hurting world,” we could see as a cynical way to avoid taking a position. However, in my opinion even though I personally disagree with the views and interpretation of scripture of that church they attend, Chip’s response is spot on. For as many of us know there are many social matters about which Christians disagree --- the death penalty, nuclear weapons, guns etc., --- to say nothing of Christians colliding with some of the values of the larger culture like the materialism. These divisions not only among Christians but in our society, makes it way too easy for many of us to be “baited” into deepening the divides in the world today.
Instead as we follow Jesus, it's worth noting that Jesus was a master at handling those “witch hunt, fake news or gotcha” questions that seems to be in the news every day. Today’s gospel event recorded in Matthew is a prime example.
I would begin today’s passage earlier. In Chapter 21 vs. 23, Jesus had been speaking to the “chief priests and elders,” then in vs. 45 Jesus is speaking to the “chief priests and Pharisees.” Now into our 22nd chapter the Herodians are brought into the picture, which means that the tension would have been ratcheted up. The “Herodians” were followers and supporters of Herod Antipas who ruled the regions of Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to AD 39.
What this indicates is that earlier Jesus had been speaking with the religious leadership. Now, we have an added group, representatives of the political leadership. This Herodian group had the power of the sword. Normally, the Pharisees and Herodians would be ideological opponents and would not have been seen together. Here, these divergent groups gather together in their powerful opposition to Jesus, for as we know politics and religion makes strange bedfellows.
The dialogue begins with these two groups, Pharisees and Herodians addressing Jesus as “teacher,” which sounds respectful, though by this time Matthew’s gospel, makes clear that when Jesus is called “teacher” it is only by those who don't follow his message.
The Pharisees and Herodians appear to flatter Jesus by proclaiming him “sincere” but then seem to take some of that away by saying that he cares not for other opinions. The sense of it all seems to be that Jesus is sincere, but does not know what he's gotten himself into. Jesus is in over his head to which these religious and political representatives where happy to inform Jesus.
Now the Pharisees and Herodians spring their trap cornering Jesus into a delicate debate. These two groups launch into an important question of that period, because tax was an important issue in Jerusalem. It touched on the question of how the Jewish people were to relate to their occupying power, the Roman Empire. It was a tricky question on that the religious and political forces in Jerusalem might have thought that a street preacher from Galilee --- the “sticks” --- might not be up to the task of dealing with it.
We also know from other sources, that at the time of Jesus, this “poll tax” was much hated by the people. The zealots, mainly rural anti-Roman terrorists --- or “freedom fighters,” take your pick --- flatly refused to pay it. The common people, the clear majority of whom were poor, sympathized with the zealots on this point.
Is it lawful to pay taxes the “poll tax” to Caesar or not? Which means that if Jesus says that the tax should be paid, he would lose much of his support among the people. On the other hand, if he says the tax should not be paid, the Herodians are right there to arrest him for sedition. Gotcha! By the way, back to the irony of religion and politics being strange bedfellows, because the Pharisees and Herodians, here portrayed as united in their opposition to Jesus, were themselves split on the question of paying the tax. The Pharisees generally, if somewhat tepidly, like the people opposed the tax, while the Herodians, naturally, supported it.
Matthew records that Jesus was “aware” and flatly called them “hypocrites.” Jesus then asks for the coin, a denarius, which was used to pay the tax. This simple action was an exceptionally deft political move. Note that the entire conversation has taken place after Jesus has “entered” the Temple. Coins with Roman images and inscriptions were not allowed in the Temple, so Jesus didn’t have one, but they did!
What's more, this episode takes place on the morning after Jesus had driven the moneychangers out of the Temple. The reason the moneychangers were there in the first place was to change Roman coins that had an image into Temple coins which had no image at all -- at a 50% mark up.
By asking for a coin, Jesus sent the message to the on-looking crowds that he, quite properly, did not possess one of these coins. When the Pharisees/ Herodians team gave him one, they reveal that they did possess such coins, and had them on their person, at that moment, within the sacred precincts!
Driving home his point, Jesus wants to know whose image is on the coin. The word used in Biblical Greek I think is better translated as “image,” not “head.” I feel this is an important detail because by pointing out the “image,” Jesus was referencing the Torah, the first 5 books of the Old Testament that restrict “graven images.” His message is clear: The image of Caesar is an idol. Jesus also asks what inscription was written on the coin, which, in at this period, would have been: “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus.”
By asking for the inscription on the coin in front of the crowd, Jesus exposes the pretensions and pagan ideology not only of the occupying Romans but with those who collaborate, in this case the Pharisees who were tepid in their support as well as the Herodians who were all in.
Then comes the famous saying: “Give, therefore, to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.” To which many people of faith within hearing distance, would know that “the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.” Everything is God's. There are no exceptions. In so saying, Jesus avoided the trap, while at the same time delivering a powerful message about the priorities and values of those who were out to get him. The Pharisees and Herodians can only be “amazed” and leave.
This illustrates one of the potential benefits of how Jesus dealt with some “witch hunt, fake news, gotcha” questions. Jesus could deftly avoid escalating conflict, but also providing an opening for those trying to trap him --- in this case the Pharisees and Herodians --- to reconsider their position. Jesus was teaching at the same time he avoided the trap. This of course is not the only time Jesus was able to avoid the challenges but likewise teach.
Nonetheless let us gets us back for not only is taking the bait an important skill for us, because in our world today, baiting is a very popular technique. This practice shows up every day in our ongoing discussions of religion, politics, social issues and other topics. Friends have parted company because of deep disagreements that could have been bypassed or addressed more civilly had the issue been posed differently or deflected by one of the parties.
One of many places where this practice shows up is in conversations with young people. Michael Bruce, who works with at-risk youth, says that one of the hardest things about working with youth is deciding which questions to answer. Some questions, of course, such as “When is lunch?” are simply seeking information and have no hidden agendas. But other questions, says Bruce, are techniques of power struggle, especially those queries that come in rapid succession or keep being repeated. He says that initiating power struggles is a learned behavior that is often employed by youth who are not aware of what they are doing. Who hasn’t heard something like this: “Can I play video games?” “Not until you have finished your homework.” “I haven't played all week. Can I play and do homework afterward?” “You need to finish your homework first.” “How come you won't let me do anything I like to do?” “You need to finish your homework.” “I don't get it. Why can't I play? Give me one good reason.” “You need to finish your homework and then you can play video games.”
What that means for us is that Jesus' example in these moments suggests two things for us. First, let us model appropriate behavior ourselves. And second, let us try not to take the bait from others. Both are counter cultural and redefine power.
Like any attempt to follow Jesus, some things are easier said than done. We can protest, “Jesus was the Son of God, but I'm a mere mortal.” And when our emotions are running high, it's easy to get hooked and drawn into arguments and power plays that resolve nothing and help no one. Still, attempting to model Jesus is a way of maturing spiritually.
To begin, let us remind ourselves of the underlying premise: because of the gift of grace given by Jesus in his life, death and resurrection to all of us, we are loved. As loved we love others. From that faithful basis, it's worth looking at ourselves especially when we communicate whether we are just looking for information or friendly discussion or whether we're trying to poke a hornet's nest in other people’s lives. When we are uttering religious, social or political pronouncements, our grounding is in God’ love.  As others are grounded in God's love.  From that we know not everyone sees things as we do.
Second, if we recognize that we are the one being baited, even if done unintentionally --- we might try this: make a clear and countering -- but very civil -- claim from the other side. For example, Being a white man and member of the clergy, I get put into this power play, baiting me to join them against others, a lot, “Well, pastor you must agree with me … "because me being white and knowing the Bible" ….” Rather as loved children of God, let us remember what we know to be true, God's grace whereby we have faith as well as God’s diversity; God’s kingdom in that “Good people can differ.” From that premise, let us begin to work ourselves out of the corners we have placed ourselves.
There are times, of course, when it is important to hold our ground and declare our position, but let us begin from our faith; adopted as forgiven, joyful, loved children of God without taking the bait of others hook, line and sinker. In today's text, Jesus modeled for us that practice as well as taught a God's revealing truth: Give to God the things that are God's.

God is not interested in producing “witch hunts, fake news or Gotcha” moments in our lives.  Rather we are to give what we have received from God, we are loved and forgiven in grace.  Joyfully following the example of Christ. Amen

"Let us change our Minds" - 10/1/2017

    Picture the Exxon logo, or the logo for a Greyhound bus. If that is a challenge can you conjure up in your mind the shape and form of a Coca-Cola bottle? What do they have in common? Only one thing that I am aware of: an industrial designer named Raymond Loewy.
Loewy was an immigrant who arrived in Manhattan in 1919, dreaming that New York would be an elegant and stylish place. When he arrived, he was very disappointed. What Loewy found was a grungy product of the industrial age --- “bulky, noisy and complicated.”
    Loewy decided to change things, designing products that ranged from Lucky Strike cigarette packs to International Harvester (IH) tractors. According to a 2015 article, Lowey did “more than almost any person in the 20th century to shape the aesthetic of American culture.”
    For example, during the Kennedy administration, Loewy complained to a friend in the White House that the commander in chief's airplane from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations looked “gaudy.” Determined to improve the presidential plane, he spent several hours on the floor of the Oval Office, cutting up shapes of blue paper along with President Kennedy. Finally, they settled on a design for the nose of the plane that has been in place ever since.
    So, what was Raymond Loewy's guiding principle? Lowey sensed that people are torn between two opposing forces: a curiosity about things that are new and a fear of anything that is too new. As a result, people no matter their background are attracted to what is daring but also instantly comprehensible. Loewy believed that people want things that are “Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable,” a motto which has been shortened to MAYA.
If you don’t believe me, think about how MAYA works in our own lives. I suspect many of us find ourselves drawn to the joy of a new discovery. But at the same time, we want something familiar, because it makes us feel safe. Just imagine the the iPhone by Apple. When it was introduced in 2007, it was a thrilling new discovery and it launched a new era of smartphones. At the same time, it was not too radical for customers to accept from the older clamshell phones. The reason being that the iPhone was familiar enough to people who had been introduced to iPod music players back in 2001. Which meant that over the course of six years, consumers had become accustomed to their distinctive shape, size and design. So, when the iPhone appeared, it was advanced, and yet, because of what had come before, like the Apple iPod, it made the iPhone acceptable. It was Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable. MAYA.
    As I said, Loewy believed that people are torn between a curiosity about new things and a fear of anything too new. I believe this is something Jesus understood, practiced and taught. Today, in the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus asks the chief priests and the elders in response to a challenge, “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” This is a query which put his challengers in a considerable bind. “The baptism of John,” he asks, “From, where was it? From heaven or from humanity?”
    The “chief priests and scribes” correctly perceive their dilemma. If they say that John's baptisms were by the authority of heaven, Jesus will ask why they didn't “believe” John. If they say that John's authority was of human origin, they will aggravate the crowd because “all” regarded John as a prophet. Think of it using the concept of MAYA. The people loved John because his baptism was new and thrilling. In the eyes of Jesus and the people, John's baptism is clearly Most Advanced.
    And yet, if the priests and elders say, “John's baptism is of human origin,” the crowd would have criticized them because John came out of a long line of Hebrew prophets, and his baptism is rooted in religious tradition. Baptism by John very much resembled the Jewish ritual bath the Mikveh. John the Baptist is Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable. The priests and elders likewise are unable to conclude, and they say, “We do not know.”
Jesus is engaging in this debate because the religious leaders are questioning his authority. They want to trip him, trap him and ultimately destroy him. But Jesus like John is both fresh and traditional.
    We see this being displayed again later, when Jesus tells a parable that illustrates his ability to be simultaneously surprising and yet familiar. A man has two sons, and he asks both to work in his vineyard. The first says, “No, I don't think so,” but later he changes his mind and gets to work. The second says, “Sure, I'll go,” but he fails to lift a finger. “Which of the two,” asks Jesus, “did the will of his father?” “Duh,” say the priests and scribes, “the first.”
    “Truly I tell you,” says Jesus, “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” That kind of thinking is MA, Most Advanced. Prostitutes going to heaven ahead of priests? Such a thing is fresh, bold and surprising! But Jesus isn't finished. “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him,” he explains, “but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him.” The way of righteousness --- is entirely traditional and acceptable. Jesus was not explaining a concept that was unfamiliar. Jesus is saying that both he and John are delivering a message that religious leaders should endorse.
    Bold and traditional is what Jesus is all about. The heart of Jesus' argument, is that “authority” is about “trust.” That being the case, Jesus will not tell the chief priests and scribes where he gets his authority since they've already shown that they don't trust anyway. But the marginalized are drawn to Jesus’ message, and they are responding to what is good. They know they can trust Jesus, and therefore Jesus has authority. When they see it, they are responding to it, not only in response to a parable, but in Jesus’ discussion with the religious leaders.
    In his teachings, Jesus offers a surprise but traditional approach to transformation. For example, in his parable of the two sons, Jesus honors the son who changes his mind and goes into the vineyard to work for his father. More important than the son’s initial response is his willingness to turn himself around and go in the right direction. In this way, the tax collectors and prostitutes can be miles ahead of the chief priests and scribes who might be saying the right things but necessarily doing anything about it.
    John the Baptist challenges people to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Jesus follows up with his own invitation to repent (4:17). In both cases, repenting means a change of heart and mind, an about-face, a 180-degree turn.
The audacious message of Jesus is that change is always possible. Our futures are not determined by our choices from the past, whether or own or others. None of us is trapped in the life we are living right now. Like the first son in the parable, we are free to change our mind and serve God. Jesus not only believes we are designed for change, he trusts we can.
    In his intrepid message today, Jesus criticizes the priests and the scribes by saying, “John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him.” By righteousness, Jesus means what we nominally refer to as “right” relationship with God, and “right” relationship with fellow human beings. What is “right” in this case is not based on an obligation. Jesus makes clear when he criticizes the scribes and Pharisees for being hypocrites. “Woe to you,” Jesus says later “for you tithe mint, dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” Righteousness means “right” in that it is a turned relationship grounded in faith in God regardless of who we are or what we have or have not done toward justice and mercy to our brothers and sisters.
    In the early church, James posed the question of what Christians ought to do when they see a brother or sister without clothes or daily food. He asked if it is enough to say to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill.” That is the traditional response. No, a turned relationship means that we do what we can to supply daily needs. Anything else is not “right” righteousness or turned. This is new, but traditional. Jesus would agree with James.
    This is not the only place where Jesus demonstrates that he is both surprising and traditional. Later in Matthew 22, Jesus is asked by one of the Pharisees to identify the greatest commandment in the law. Jesus answers, “‘You shall love the Lord your God [and] you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
    Although this sounds like a new discovery, it is quite familiar and instantly comprehensible. “Love the Lord your God” comes from Deuteronomy 6:5 and “love your neighbor as yourself” is a quotation of Leviticus 19:18. This Jesus love-design is attractive because it is both bold, combining the two into one statement.
I    n a sense, this love-design is like the four chords that lie at the heart of many classic pop songs. In a popular online video called “4 Chords,” the group “Axis of Awesome” cycles through dozens of songs that are built on the same chord progressions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ In a humorous way, they show the similarities between songs as diverse as “Let It Be,” “Don't Stop Believin',” “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” All those songs across genres are built on the same 4 chord progression. Although these songs are built on the same four chords, they sound nothing alike. Each one is bold, in its own way. But we are attracted to them because they are built on the familiar. The same is true for the love commandment of Jesus, which is both new and old at the very same time.
    What about us? Each of us can be audacious in love based on the same love of God. For example, going out these doors and saying to someone “can I tell you about my Christian faith” will be immediately seen as the religious leaders at the time of Jesus, traditional with no authority. Yet, how can we say share that builds trust? Well we have some guidelines we can learn from: Coke was MAYA, New Coke wasn’t. The iPhone was MAYA. Google Glass wasn't. Dove's Real Beauty campaign was MAYA. Protein's Beach Body Ready was neither advanced nor acceptable. French Fries were MAYA. Burger King’s Satisfries wasn’t.
    All though honorable attempts --- they failed, yet all those companies were willing to experiment. We fail to pursue “Courageous” because of fear, relying on our traditions. We fail to embrace “Yet Acceptable” by losing touch with the comfort of people. It's a difficult balance, Loewy knew that and that's Too advanced -- and we're too much of a risk. Just acceptable and we fade to gray --- irrelevant. So, what to do? In our faith and life, we are to do what positive companies do, be willing to experiment.
    I am not speaking about dropping this or adding that if it is as simple as eliminating a lesson or adding a guitar. I am not talking about being attractive enough to get people from other churches. Rather we are told that the tax collectors and prostitutes were receptive, the people on the margins, but Jesus did not expect to encounter those on the margins or Temple or synagogue.
    As Jesus shared, the first son said no, then went to work in the vineyard. What a sharp contrast between this first son, and the chief priests and scribes, and authorities. They were not sorry, did not change their mind, and, even worse, did not “trust” even though the mouthed the right lines. As we saw with John the Baptist, and we will see later with Jesus, those opposed colluded with the powers that killed John the Baptist, did not walk in the “way of justice,” and were opposing God.
    Today’s take away is to always remain wary of where we are in faith caught in tradition, yet sorry for where we have remained. (Personal Examples) Let us be receptive to the Holy Spirit opening to the new, trusting in the grace of God through Jesus Christ, bold in experimentation in the fight for justice. And if we have a few design failures, so be it. Let us continue to move outside our comfort zones, let us make some new contacts, let’s go out of our usual roles and attractive self-images, walk instead of drive, make a friend from another race or class. Let us live ourselves into new ways of thinking, which then seem so right and necessary that we wonder how we could have ever thought in any other way. Amen    .

"Such Problems" - 9/24/2017

    “That is a first world problem.” Have you heard that expression used lately? It is a phrase that has grown with social media over the last twenty years of so. The expression is commonly used to describe what may be irritants for those of us living in developed countries, but for those that are in developing parts of the world are not relevant.
    In plain English, the underlying message of the expression “that is a first world problem” is: “suck it up, you are speaking from a place of privilege.” The phrase “that is a first world problem” is an attempt to place our trivial or minor problems or frustrations in context; that they are coming from a relatively affluent or privileged circumstance especially as contrasted with problems of greater social significance facing people in poor and underdeveloped parts of the world.
Now let’s be clear, getting socked by a hurricane or flood, is not a first world problem. Rather let me give you a taste of some examples of such “first world” irritations found on various social media: “I dislike having to drive four hours to our vacation home.” “The Wi-Fi at the resort was out for four hours.” “There was no almond milk at the breakfast buffet at the Hilton.” “Just had my praline spread confiscated by TSA at Dallas. As far as I'm concerned, the terrorists have now won.” “I really hate having to fly commercial with both ski boots and golf clubs.” “The TV show wasn't in HD.” “I tried to spread cold butter on my toast and the bread ripped.” “My Apple Watch didn't register the correct distance on my 10k run around the park.” “I asked for strawberry Chantilly in my Açai palm nuts and received chocolate instead.” “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.”
    Oops! That last one “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain, doesn't belong in that list, or does it? It's something the apostle Paul had written found in today’s Scripture reading from Philippians. As we will come to discover that sentence from the Apostle Paul does not fit the First-World-problem definition. The Apostle Paul is not writing from minor irritation to the small church in Phillipi.
    Now for me, the only proper response to those minor irritations on that list that I shared is “So Sad, So Bad, you are speaking from privilege!” But, this comment from the Apostle Paul, “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” however, deserves a different response, like “WOW!” Now, we don’t know how the church in Phillipi reacted, but for us it is a punch into our faith gut level. We are to contemplate deeply what the Apostle Paul is suggesting because he sets the bar high for how we should think about living in faith.
    To review why Paul may have written these words, let us remember that the Apostle Paul and his co-workers had founded the church in Philippi some years before this letter was written. Now several years later, when Paul wrote this letter, he was in prison in Rome, and the Philippian Christians were worried about him, knowing that he might be executed for preaching Christ. In fact, they had sent one of their members, Epaphroditus, to Paul with a gift and possibly a letter. As Epaphroditus was preparing to return home, Paul wrote this letter in response to the concerns expressed, so Epaphroditus could carry it to the believers in Philippi.
    In that context, Paul's comment that living was all about Christ and dying was “gain” makes some sense. Essentially, Paul was saying something to the effect of, “Don't worry about me. My life is devoted to Christ, so if being faithful means I must be in chains, so be it. And if they should kill me, well I will receive eternal life and be with Christ forever.” The Message version written by Eugene Peterson paraphrases this text like this: “Everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They didn't shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I'm Christ's messenger; dead, I'm his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can't lose.”
    But think about what Paul’s words might mean in our context here in 21st century United States, in this cacophony of words from political and cultural pundits of what constitutes irritations, what constitutes what is important. Of course, we are not in anything like the Apostle Paul's situation, but his words still challenge us to think about what matters when we discuss living in faith. In fact, that's the implied lesson of anything branded as a First World problem.
It's not really that those irritations like “I had too much food for lunch so now I am tired” do not have some impact, but that, in the larger perspective of life, not only do countless people go hungry every day, those irritations matter less and sometimes hardly at all. That's true whether we live in our culture or in what is termed the “developing world.” For example, Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole reminds us, “All the silly stuff of life doesn't disappear just because you're black and live in a poorer country.”
    Instead when we hear the Apostle Paul’s words, “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain,” there's spiritual value to applying that perspective to how we deal with the challenges and opportunities of life, and how we help or don't help those who are suffering because of the shortages or absences of life's necessities.
The Apostle Paul, in effect, urges us to remember that there's a future review of our lives before God, and there are also crucial days of decision and change in our current existence. The difficulty in choosing between the mocha or Frappuccino, or Bud light vs Miller lite is barely a level-one problem, if a problem at all. Deciding what to do about the needs of a suffering neighbor and the call of Christ are level-10 issues.
    It is interesting that these words come up shortly after the devastation of several natural events, with Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. Now not to diminish that suffering but, sooner or later, we all face personal tragedies --- the bone-crushing depression that follows a marital breakup, the death of a loved one, the self-destructive behavior of one of our children, the terror of life-threatening illness or something else equally weighty. We get to know words like sickness, accident, misfortune, injury, setback, troubles, catastrophe, pain and hurt up close and personally. These are not just problems for those who live in the First World, but the human condition.
    The Apostle Paul's words suggest that not only do we review what are truly irritations, but that we also are to take a faith view, a long-term view in life. For example, in an interview for Clarity magazine, writer Anne Lamott tells of an incident that helped her take a different faith perspective on her life. Also found in her book Traveling Mercies Link) She writes that she was raised to keep all her family secrets and present herself in such a way that people would be either envious or approving. But, she admitted that keeping up a façade like that takes a lot of energy. But one day, Anne visited her friend Pammy who was going through chemotherapy. Anne pointed to the dress she herself was wearing and asked Pammy if it made her look fat. Pammy looked at her and said, “Annie, you just don't have that kind of time.”
    Anne wrote that Pammy's response was so profound, that “it was like I was in a cartoon and somebody conked me over the head. I got it.” Anne goes on to say that Pammy has since died, but Anne says that she still lives by what Pammy said to her that day. Ms. Lamott sums it up this way: “You don't have time to live a lie. You don't have time to get the world to approve of you. You only have the time to become the person you dream of being. You only have the time to clean out your mean and ugly spots, areas that drag you down and hurt other people. You only have the time to accept yourself as you are and start getting a little bit healthier so you can be who God needs you to be. In a way, it's exhilarating to say, ‘This is really who I am, and I'm not going to pretend just because I have the sneaking suspicion I'm not good enough.’ God meets you where you are.”
    Perhaps this is what First World irritations can do for us. Not only can we recognize them for what they are, “most people do not have vacation homes so the fact that it takes you 4 hours to get to yours is not a big deal.” So not only can we put into context First World irritations in ourselves and other people, but in faith we can look at what really matters. That can even help us to see when something we're doing doesn't work. It is then that this fresh perspective of Paul's words can jog us in the right direction. So, when we are tempted to write on Facebook or in note to a friend as someone did that “slow internet is my generation’s Vietnam,” we can put it in perspective. We can say, “The death and sufferings of millions during the Vietnam war does not compare to your inability to see a picture on Instagram. Rather in faith, I can identify where people are suffering today and respond.”
    It may be ironic that we are here assigning to First World problems the ability to help us keep things in perspective, because usually, it's problems at the other end of the scale that help us decide what's important. For example, after the hurricanes hit, invariably the media will find someone who have lost everything they owned, but whose loved ones have all survived, who say, “All that other stuff can be replaced. Our family members are okay. That's all that matters.”
Doesn’t that alone speak to where our lives are, why does it take massive destruction to reorient our lives?
T    he late Ellsworth Kalas, a noted preacher, told of being a guest in Wichita Falls, Texas, about a year after that community had been brutally hit by a tornado in 1979. He was hosted in a new home, where the owner invited him to stand in a certain spot in the front hallway. The man said, “Our old home was on this same location. The storm leveled it to the ground. Everything. I came to see what was left. There in the rubble, at this very spot, was a football. I don't know whose it was or where it came from. I picked it up, looked at it, then kicked it as far as I could. It seemed the right thing to do.” After telling this story, Kalas said,
“It was a wonderfully symbolic act, after life's values had been so mercilessly put to the test.”
    After being brought up short by Paul’s letter to the church in Phillipi, let us pause, wonder what complaints deserve the same kind of “kicking away.” What do we need to release into the ether for what they truly might be, “first world problems?” And in faith kick them away to focus. In the church, by the way we call this “kicking away” --- repentance. That word does not just refer to turning from sin but turning from stuff that really doesn't matter and turning instead to God that does.
    The Apostle Paul's words can help us clarify our priorities. His words call us to ground our experiences in trust in God as well as to build upon our faith given by grace --- toward what God calls us to be. Paul while sitting in prison is expanding the vision of where God is and who God loves. In his lifetime, he has seen his own people dispersed, the Temple in Jerusalem destroyed, problems in the faith communities he had established, shipwrecks and now sitting in prison.
    As people seeking to be renewed in our faith, we are to live within faith not necessarily to add more layers but in trust live faithfully. This involves taking risks that move us out of comfort not just through our minor irritations, but into exploring its dusty corners. The Apostle Paul’s words remind us that it may be “irritating to have a cut on our finger making it difficult to use our cell phones.” For we must deal with some small stuff simply to function in the world, but let us not confuse the small stuff with what other people face around this world, and let us not experience hurricanes to remind us that each day we can devote some of our time and energy towards the things that matter most, both in this life and later in God’s hands. Rather, for we are all alive in faith, like Paul at the limit, curling our toes over the edge, feeling the mist in our throats and fog in our throats. Let us live daily in Christ with the assurance that whether we are alive or dead we belong to Christ. Amen.

Dyad - 9/11/2017

    Sermon Based on Matthew 18: 15-20.  On a recent trip, we were handed one of those electronic key cards for our hotel room. Different than a metal key, we used these keycards by inserting it into a slot above the door handle and pulling it out, kind of like an ATM. More recent models, however, allow us to simply wave the keycard in front of a sensor to produce the cheery green light that seems to say, “Come on in.”
    Although I do not travel as much as I used to, it seems that almost every hotel has gone that direction. I suspect the reason being that electronic keycards offer many advantages over old-fashioned metal keys --- which, when lost, are costly to reproduce. And to replace a lock is even more challenging as is well known here at Good Shepherd. Then, too, I suspect hotel managers worried about possible breaches of security. What if a former guest returned with the metal key he or she had walked off with? The downside with keycards I understand is that sometimes they flat-out don't work. In that case, it's a simple matter for the front desk staff to reprogram or replace the card.
    Keys have been around since ancient times. The oldest example is from Nineveh, the ancient capital of Assyria. The Egyptians had keys. So, did the Greeks, and across many part of Asia. Well-to-do Romans wore their keys on their fingers, like rings, not only for convenience but also as a sort of status symbol, telling the world they had valuables to protect.
    Even Jesus talked about keys. In Matthew 16:13, Jesus promises Peter as the symbol of the budding church, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Later, in verse 18 of today's text, Jesus repeats the promise about binding and loosing, expanding it to the larger church community.
    It is for this reason, that early Christian commentators referred to this authority, to bind and to unfasten or open, as “the power of the keys,” and the name stuck. To this day, the Vatican coat of arms contains a pair of crossed keys surmounted by the papal crown.
    It is helpful to remember that context, the power of the keys as we approach today’s portion of Matthew. This lesson comes in handy whenever the church's life is troubled by conflict. Sadly, this is an all-too-common occurrence. Ever since Cain killed his brother Abel, the children of God have gotten skilled at finding things to hate and distrust and even kill over. Furthermore, it's such a common feature of human life, in fact, that Jesus offers today a larger teaching about conflict resolution than just internal church conflict.
    Think of it, in practical terms, as three separate keys. If we look at today’s lesson from that vantage point, Jesus' model of conflict resolution is a carefully staged process.
    If a person has wronged us, Jesus says, take out Key One: Go to the other person and point out what that one has done wrong. Just the two; the person who offended and the person offended. This encourages honest and direct communication. Sadly, most of our conflicts are not handled in this way. Much of our communication is indirect, as in whispers to third parties, and dishonest, as in malicious gossip.
    And contrary to what some people think, Jesus did not call his followers to be children, but rather adults. Adult communication is to be characterized by responsibility, by having something to say and taking ownership when we say it.
    Going to a person directly does several things: The one who is sinned against will be on the turf of the offender. Meeting them on their ground treats the offender with respect. It allows them the possibility of being able to save face.
If that doesn't work, try another key, Key Two. Take one or two others along with you, and repeat the process. There's a very practical reason for bringing the others along. They can serve as witnesses if Key Two likewise doesn't work. Take witnesses so that “every word” might be verified that the conversation is honest and direct.
    Because, we are going to need those verified words if we pull out Key Three. Using this key, we “tell it to the church,” to our local network. There's still hope the other person will come around, realizing what pain he or she has caused, and repenting for it. But “if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
    Sometimes there's no admission of wrong, no move toward reconciliation, not even when the whole church is calling for it. In such a case, then the Lord's advice is to “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Now, in case that last bit sounds harsh coming from the mouth of Jesus, remember, how was it, again, that Jesus related to Gentiles and tax collectors? Jesus loved them, of course! Jesus loved them unconditionally. Jesus was famous for that. And at this third key, we should not also wonder if Matthew is writing tongue-in-cheek or did this author get a chill down his back if this is the same Matthew the disciple? Because Matthew himself is a good example as a former --- tax collector.
    The goal of the three-key process is reconciliation. But again, there are times when this is humanly impossible. There does come a point when active intervention must cease as humans. Because as many of us know, there's simply no place anywhere for protracted, unresolved conflict; it only festers.
Beyond these three keys, many years ago, I learned that it’s also instructive to read today’s scripture lesson over against another that provides advice for conflict resolution as well. The other passage is Matthew 5:23-24 which reads: “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”
    Notice how, in this second passage, the roles are reversed. In today's passage, from Matthew 18, the person who takes the initiative to go and visit the brother or sister is the person who's been wronged. But in chapter 5, it's different. Jesus says, “If you remember that your brother or sister has something against you ...” We are not the victim this time, but the perpetrator; we have offended. By seeing these two passages side by side, the remarkable thing is that Jesus' advice is pretty much the same for both parties in that whether we are the one who's been wronged, or the one who has done the wrong, our responsibility remains, to swallow our pride, get up and go to our sister or brother, seeking to be reconciled.
    There's none of this, “Why should I make the first move? It wasn't my fault. It's the other person who's got to reach out!” That is how feuds get started. Both sides are absolutely convinced it's the other person's fault. It can go on for years -- generations, even. We're talking Hatfield’s and McCoy’s, here.
However, Jesus' advice in these two passages from Matthew cuts that off. Whether we are the injured party ---chapter 18 --- or whether we are the one who has offended others --- chapter 5 --- Jesus says, “Don't put it off. Just go. Mend the rift. Heal the relationship.” In doing so, we not only offer to the other person a key to profound inner peace in the Lord. We also claim such a key for ourselves.
    Here's another way to look at it. During my college internship when I served under the farm worker ministry of the National Council of Churches for six months with the United Farm Workers in California, to get a sense of an aspect of their work, I sat in on a contract negotiation. On one side of the table was a team including myself, two farm workers and the lead negotiator from the UFW. On the other side of the table sat two representatives of the corporate farm, as well as two lawyers representing the law firm who were the lead negotiators.
    Over the course of three days, back and forth we went over a written, draft contract. Each party would bring up issues as we worked through the document. I remember one heated moment over the number of portable toilets the farm was obligated to provide. The farm wanted to have the number of toilets based on a ratio; the number of workers to the number of portables available. The UFW wanted to include one specifically for women as well. Back and forth it went, until finally we had reached the end of the second day.
    I remember thinking to myself, nothing is going to change, somehow, a third element has got to be introduced. So, before we left for the day, I encouraged the UFW negotiator to include a female farmworker the next day, as all of us there were --- men. I don’t know if it made any difference but thankfully, at the end, the contract had something to the effect that when the numbers of farmworkers reached a numerical threshold, a women’s only portable toilet would be added. In reflection, it seemed like we get caught up with a table full of jigsaw-puzzle pieces somebody just dumped out onto the table. Silently, unwilling to speak, the two begin to examine the pile. Each one sees some pieces that fit together and connects them up. The two combatants bend to their work, as fast as possible creating little clusters of puzzle pieces --- a bit of sky here, a patch of grassy lawn there, the red siding of a barn over there. Eventually, they connect those larger clusters.
But what if, during the process, the two were to get up and start walking around the table, to get a different perspective on the emerging picture --- or maybe to pick up a stray puzzle piece, to see if it belongs to the section they've been working on. Perhaps by including the female farm worker, the dynamics changed.
    In today’s lesson Jesus is reminding us that it makes little sense to speak of “my side” or “your side.” There's only The Puzzle --- and it takes two, working together, to solve it. “Us versus them” transformed into “Us and Us.” It's the only way reconciliation ever happens.
    Most of us are afraid of conflict, and, considering the way conflict is normally handled, it's easy to see why. Unhealthy conflict, the kind characterized by indirect communication, with the constant threat of violence, often undermines and tears down. Healthy conflict, on the other hand, can build up in such a way that relationships are not only restored, but renewed and deepened.
    The goal is always reconciliation motivated by love. The church, Jesus is suggesting, is that “outpost” of that reconciliation. I like the way Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and anti-Nazis activist who died in prison for conspiring to kill Adolf Hitler, was talking about when he referred to this as “a world come of age.” In this “world come of age,” Christians would be known as “the adults.” Christians would act in freedom because of God’s grace, with autonomy while also taking responsibility and modeling love and reconciliation. This “world come of age” is to be a model as a sign to the world of the power of Jesus the Lord to heal wounds and end divisions. Christ has reconciled the world to himself, and now this “ministry of reconciliation” has been given to us, said Paul.
    Notice, that the lesson says that “if two of you agree about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” It goes on to say, “for where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” We often quote that passage in the context of worship and prayer, but if we see those words where these words are found, it is a return to the first key --- two people reaching out at work at the puzzle of reconciliation. Let us be that dyad, let us initiate that first key with another, not only within our community, for it doing so we “come of age” able to unlock and open reconciliation in the world around us. Amen.

Mirror, Mirror - 7/9/2017

    Sermon based on the Romans 7: 15-25a.  Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is a German fairy tale first published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. But unlike other fairy tales that perhaps fade into dust over time, Snow White has grown in popularity. It was already a famous tale when the eponymous Disney animated film appeared in 1937. It has been retold, adapted and revised many, many times, up to and including the recent movie Snow White and the Huntsman in 2012.
    Therefore, I would suspect then that many people are aware of one pivotal scene when the Evil Queen consults with a very special mirror, a magic mirror. The queen does it frequently, by standing before the mirror and asking, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” The fairy tale hinges on that fateful day when the response of the mirror was different and there was a new “fairest” of them all --- but that is another story.
    Rather, I want us to focus on mirrors. In our day and age and from our point of privilege they're ubiquitous. We have conventional mirrors, fun house mirrors, side mirrors, rearview mirrors, pocket mirrors, visor mirrors so we can apply lipstick, rouge or mascara when stuck in traffic, and magnifying mirrors --- better to trim our nose hairs or pluck our eyebrows. We find mirrors in dress shops, hotel rooms and restaurant bathrooms and famously above some people’s beds.
    We must like them, because we have so many of them. And, honestly, they do serve important purposes. For example, not having a rearview mirror or side mirrors mounted on a car is a safety issue. Not checking our appearance before we step out into public could result in an embarrassing moment because, had we checked, we would have noticed the spaghetti noodle clinging to our blouse or shirt.
    But with their omnipresent availability we forget or make assumptions about mirrors and their use compared to those who lived in biblical times. Mirrors in the first century CE were generally made of highly polished metal --- usually bronze, but possibly also copper, silver, or gold. Regardless of the material mirrors then did not have the reflective properties we find so common. It is for that reason that one simple interpretation from the first letter to the Corinthians, we understand what the apostle Paul meant when he commented, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly ...” (13:12).
    But there something other than the quality of the reflection that Paul is referring to for the Greek word translated “dimly” --- or “darkly” in the King James Version --- is ainigma, from which the English word “enigma” is derived. So rather than just thinking of a poor reflection, a better translation maybe for example captured in, J.B. Phillips in The New Testament in Modern English when he renders Paul's comment as, “At present we are [people] looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror.”
    What does that have to do with us today? Well as I mentioned you and I who live in a mirror happy world, may be missing something for which we may need to be mindful; our puzzling reflections in Christ. An issue that Paul once again struggles in today’s second lesson from Romans. We would think that we do not have that problem today, since our mirrors and lives are so much better than the primitive ones in the first century. But it's likely we think that only because we've never seen our reflection in a True Mirror.
    The True Mirror is the patented name for a type of mirror that reflects what you truly look like to others --- that is, not a reversed or “mirror” image, but an authentic view of ourselves. Thus, if you place a book in front of a True Mirror, we would be able to read the title just as if we were looking directly at the book; the letters will not be reversed. Likewise, if we hold our right hand in front of the true mirror, it will appear as our right hand, not a left hand as it would in a traditional mirror.
    Meaning that if we were looking at ourself in a True Mirror, the enigma of the reverse image is removed, and we will see ourselves as we really are, or as Paul put it, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” This might not sound that revolutionary, since photographs and videos also present “forward” images of us, but their static and non-eye-to-eye views tend not to carry the same level of impact. And the fact is, while some people are pleased with what they see in a True Mirror and view it as better connecting their intellectual and emotional selves, others don't like it at all. Paul does not like his image; “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” It is this reflection that Paul is seeing in this True Mirror reflected to him in his life in Christ that Paul is discussing in our second lesson.
    As I said, Paul did not have access to mirrors of the quality we have today, but in Romans 7, he defines himself --- his inner self, that is --- as an enigma from the true mirror of Christ: “I do not understand my own actions.” Then in the ensuing verses, Paul describes a Christ like True Mirror view of himself. And what does he see it's not of one image --- but of two.
    One is the Paul he wants to be --- but isn't; and the other is the Paul he is --- but doesn't want to be. Or as Faust declared in the old German legend, “Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast / And one is striving to forsake its brother.”
    I don’t know what you think of this reflection that Paul sees butt it makes me wonder if the late, great, apostle Paul can be afflicted with these two reflections what chance do we have? That is however what the Christian life is like between what can be and who we are. The American theologian George Hunsinger describes what Paul is reflecting and the paradigm in which all Christians live as a “dialectical tension,” --- a tension which never gets resolved. (Hunsinger, George. "Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year A." The Lectionary Commentary: The Second Readings, Roger E. Van Harn, ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Co., 2001, 65.)
    Let me explain it this way; a dialectic tension is a term to describe a conflict between opposing and contradictory forces. For example, think of a married couple. One prefers things to be predictable; the other person likes novelty. So you have partners who simultaneously desire predictability and spontaneity in their relationships. Each person is reflected in the relationship but then how does a couple work it out? That is the tension. That is what the Apostle Paul is noticing about the Christian life in his letter to the Romans. One the church in Rome noted and one in which we see in ourselves.
    What do we do as we live with these two people in all of us? Paul does not go into too much detail in this chapter but in that light, consider something the late Michael Ivens taught. http://www.theway.org.uk/  Ivens, was a Jesuit priest who taught and wrote widely in the field of spirituality. Ivens noted that there are many people “who appear never to overcome the recurrent insurgence of their own underworld,” but who are nonetheless “deeply Christian.” He further said that “the failure in their lives seems to make a mockery of the promise that no one is tested beyond his [or her] strength.” (Ivens, Michael. "Healing the divided self." The Way, July 1976, 163-75, theway.org.) 
    In terms of dealing with such tensions, Ivens said there are two ways, both of which are faithful in Christina life. He wrote that for Christians we have before us “the resignation in faith that reaches out again and again to the strength offered us in and through the very handicaps we are asked to bear. The other is the attitude ... of intense hope that if we ask for complete healing, we shall not be refused.” He called the first --- the resignation in faith --- as the “spirituality of patience” and the second --- we shall not be refused as the “spirituality of power,” referring to Christ's limitless power.
    How does this observation help us work through these duel reflections that Paul describes? First, the spirituality of patience means that in faithfulness to Christ, we can keep working to overcome what pulls us down. Paul calls this “the sin that dwells within” him. What that means if that if Paul lived today he would be getting therapy, along with Holy Communion and all the other myriad ways of help provided by the church. This spirituality, said Ivens, encourages “people to live without too much anxiety, to look to all that is positive in their lives, to believe themselves loved, to recognize that growth takes place precisely in apparent failure.” Ivens is suggesting that as God is patient with us through Jesus Christ, we are to be patient with ourselves and with others. Not that we shouldn’t be working or asking others to work to improve how we live and work in this world but to be mindful and approach and promote a gospel of healing over time, sometimes even a long, long period of time.
    Now for us Lutherans this is exactly what Martin Luther meant by his comment, “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.” Now that seems strange unless we realize Martin Luther does not mean not to go out and purposely commit sin, but rather to believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly despite the sin in our lives; a dialectic tension in action; a spirituality of patience, as we continue to live not as God wants us to live.
In contrast, the second reflection is the spirituality of power. Iven suggests this views the Christian's relationship with Christ as therapeutic itself --- that is, that a faith connection with Christ is inherently healing, in that there is nothing we can do, but live in that healing. It is what Paul was getting at in the continuation of this discussion in the very next chapter of Romans. In the 8th chapter Paul wrote: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”
    Where these two spiritualities meet of course is that both look to Christ as the ultimate healer. The first looks for that over the long haul; the second looks for it in a more dramatic way through Christ. So when Paul asks rhetorically in today's lesson, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul is setting things up for the answer, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
    Think of it this way. My wife who teaches English as a Second Language talks about an ongoing challenge. Do you correct every mistake that someone makes when they are learning English? If you do that they may get discouraged and abandon learning. On the other hand, if you don’t correct they will never learn. What do you correct and when? One will learn the language, but one needs patience but as one who has learned another language before, there are dramatic moments when something clicks.
    Likewise, we who know God must learn to find within the chaos and darkness inside ourselves the effects of this new life. We need to be patient trusting in that healing, those corrections if you will, come. We should not resign ourselves to the failure part of the cycle and make no attempt to change.
But, at the very same time, we should also realize that, as Ivens put it, “the bewildering undulations of everyday experience are not the ultimate truth about [ourselves]” for Christ brings healing. Recognizing what the healing ministry of Christ has already achieved in us, we can rejoice as well as learn to discern more clearly the ways in which the work of Christ is still going on in our lives, peacefully and patiently --- but wholeheartedly --- yield to that work.
    What do we Christians see reflected when we consider the True Mirror that is Christ himself? Ourselves as new and continuing creations, works of God in constant progress ... loved, day in day out. So the answer to the question we ask “mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest” as Christians we know that it is not us today, or even tomorrow, but in patience know that in Christ’s power it will be us! Amen.

"Just want to be friends" - 6/25/2017

    Sermon based on Matthew 10: 24-39

    Even if we do not know their names or gender, many of us recognize barely 17 years old and the fact that one did a lot of heavy breathing just thinking about the other, the person they were crazy about. One had a driver's license now, and would drive by the house after school, hoping the “gorgeous one” would be outside -- available, even if only for a few moments. If they were, the new driver would pull over and say “Hi,” and nonchalantly pretend that they had just happened to be in the neighborhood.

    Well, one day the driver finally came up with the courage, and resolved to ask the gorgeous one out. The driver had been out on dates before, but this was something new because now they had a sign of maturity --- a driver's license! This was a whole new phase of life where one got to say cool things like “What time shall I pick you up?” Of all the text messages and calls they had made in their life, this was the most momentous question one was making.
The driver doesn't remember at all what the other said or asked the gorgeous one to do, but the driver never forget the response. Four little words: “Let's just be friends.” Four words that were like daggers in the heart. Four words that many hate more than perhaps any other four words in the English language when desire and romance is on the line: “Let's just be friends.”

    The polite rejection may feel like a big, neutered, stuffed animal --- a kind of real-life Barney the Dinosaur. Cute, maybe, but kind of sad. The ultimate irony is that once those words are spoken in a relationship, it becomes a challenge to “just be friends.” Most of us have enough fears and self-doubts that we don't need friends who remind us we're not quite good enough for something deeper.

    I don’t know about you, as dating is no longer part of my life experience since I met my wife over 30 years ago, but I can still remember the struggle where it seemed that doubt handicapped, led to a variety of social afflictions as one of my greatest fears was romantic rejection.

    Today, in a loving relationship, my fears are about different issues and I involve higher stakes. At that time, romantic rejection seemed like a life ending event, but now I have deeper fears --- like the fears Jesus was addressing in today's gospel. Jesus knew that his followers would have to face division and persecution that would be terrifying: They would be hated, tried, beaten, betrayed by loved ones, even executed.

    But what about our fears not based on faith: our families disintegrating and we're helpless to stop it. Our fear of losing our jobs, of being “downsized” or of simply not making enough to make ends meet. What about our fears of being robbed, of someone taking away things we have worked so hard for. And then we have the fear of sickness, of cancer or dementia. And what about the fear of death, our own or that of a loved one.
Though there may be good reasons to fear rejection and loss, in the end today's gospel is telling us our fears whether real or imagined, whether lived in faith or doubt, are ultimately not much more harmful to us than a 17-year-old's experience of romantic rejection. Jesus is challenging us because faith is more than reminding us to “Let us just be friends.”

    With maturity, I believe we begin to recognize that whatever we are afraid of, at the root of these fears is the fear of loss. Every fear we have is grounded in the knowledge that we have something or someone to lose. I can lose the job, the family, the house, my money, my records in a computer crash, my freedom, my fatherhood, my health --- life itself. It is all at stake. Rejection and loss are the basis of our fears. It is into this that Jesus speaks and what that might mean for our lives as disciples.

    First, it is important to remember Matthew was writing around AD 80-85, which means that this is post-war. Matthew is writing following the devastation of the Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-70 when blood ran in the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed. During and after the war, significant numbers of Jewish Palestinian residents were refugees and fled across the Roman empire to escape the siege. Into these refugee communities, Pharisees took the lead in organizing and settling these war-time refugees. With the Temple now destroyed, the local synagogue and rabbis became the focal point of Jewish life.

    It is into this besides displacement that Paul's mission to the gentiles was also having a discernible impact on fledgling Christianity for there were more, more gentile Christians. Those of us in the 21st century we forget how threatening this must have felt to some. Jewish Christianity was steadily losing ground within the larger Christian movement. The split between Jews and followers of Jesus had reached a tipping point at this point in the first century, and tensions between the --- now --- two groups had grown difficult. Fear and anxiety was high.

    “‘So, have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So, do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.’”

    The disciples of Jesus are encouraged not to fear three times in five verses. This is a message for people under siege. This movement cannot be stopped, Jesus tells them. Do not be afraid of the Romans, but do be afraid of evil because evil has the power to destroy both body and “life.”  The one who can “destroy both body and life” --- the devil if you will ---means that the struggle over fear is fundamentally spiritual. Yes, they were enduring political and social oppression. Yes, they were under the boot of Rome. These earthly powers behavior was evil. Yet, shockingly, Jesus’s response provides a different image --- but not of “left behind” violence. Instead, Jesus turns to the sparrow; odd to us relatively affluent urban dwellers. It wasn’t until I lived in Japan did I came to understand what it meant when “sparrows are two for a penny.” It was when I saw a sparrow barbecued on a stick and understood that Jesus was referring to the cheapest edible birds. At the time of Jesus, two sparrows could be bought for less than one-tenth of a drachma, or one-sixteenth of a denarius, almost nothing to us. Yet, “not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Jesus was reminding the disciples that evil may be rampant around us yet, God cared as deeply for us as some of the least expensive food reserved for the poorest of poor.

    From a sparrow, we move to a sword. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth: I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” This is coupled with the words that indicates that all who confess that they are followers of this Jesus, Jesus will likewise confess to God that we are his. In this confession, Matthew ratchets up the tension a notch from the parallel story in Luke. In Luke, Jesus said this will bring “division.” Matthew adds color and force by referring not to “division” but to “a sword,” and, moreover, a sword that is about ready to strike.

    Matthew is not indicating that Jesus is advocating violence, for Jesus is a bringer of peace and non-violent action, and his disciples are to be “peacemakers.” Rather, what is surprising is that Jesus offers no palliative care for this situation and the fear it produces. Indeed, Jesus makes it worse. Faith has come to cut, sever, split the ties between a man and woman, between children and parents.

    This is startling for us who are often swayed by Christian fundamentalists. Because Jesus was never much on “family values.” One's earthly family is not particularly important Jesus will go on to say in chapter 12, because one's true family is the community of Jesus.

    
So, what fears is Jesus really getting at regarding family? The message of Jesus is about being formed by the future rather than the past; Our fear of the future over the comfort of the past. The kingdom of heaven is coming, a kingdom in which all relationships will be equal, not hierarchical, racial, gender specific or based on genes. Traditional power relationships and how they are formed will be upended, Jesus is reminding us, including that of families. Instead, “The first shall be last, and the last first.”

    To be dominated by one's family, is to be dominated by the past. For example, earlier in Matthew we heard of someone who had said he wanted to bury a father before following Jesus. To which, Jesus responded, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” Jesus would not let people be dominated by their past. They are to step out from the former --- its “bondage.” To love one's family “more than me” is to be in love with the past, the “old wineskins” not the future, the “new wine.”

    We could go on but Jesus is inspiring the disciples, and Matthew the community, that despite our many fears, followers can continue to expound the way of Jesus, and follow it but not shy away from the repercussions.

    More broadly speaking taking up the cross means living according to the way taught by Jesus, the master, no matter one's conditions or circumstances. For our time today, following Jesus may not mean being executed on a cross but it is more than “let us be friends.” It may mean trying to live as a Christian in the context of wealth and privilege. That is scary for imagine what the world would be like with a Christ-body assembly that was unafraid of losing and not tied to the past. I recently read a blog titled “Christians: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things”  by Darrell Lackey that put it this way in a variety of questions. For example, he wrote: “If you become upset at the grocery store when you see someone pay for their food with vouchers or food stamps, but you are less upset with the institutional and cultural structures that often create the very need for such help: You are upset about the wrong things.” And another, “If you become upset when hearing that gay marriage is legal or that a transgender person may use the same public restroom as you, but are less upset regarding the hate, violence, and discrimination directed toward such people, often leading to suicide: You are upset about the wrong things.”
As you can see in just those two examples, Lackey is asking us that in this world filled with the evils of sickness, violence, loneliness and oppression, we can be understandably afraid of many things but is it the right things?

    The good news is that, in our fears, Jesus pronounces the very words that free us, “those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” From Jesus, these are words of affirmation, promise and challenge --- the promise of Christ's victory over death, that our fears need not have a hold on us. But a challenge in that it is not the image of a benevolent male figure watching us die, rather a reminder of a strong relationship that surpasses all other relationships.

    Today's gospel reminds us that from the perspective of Christ, there is life beyond paralyzing fears and losses and that in the whole scheme of things and there are always new things of which to be afraid. Instead, Christ offers us the perspective of God's kingdom, and from that perspective, the Kingdom of God broken into our world and lives, we will all realize that being faithful to Christ wherever we meet him in this life is where we find fearless living.
Romantic rejection as a 17-year-old is hard, but however serious our worst fears may seem today, however serious we want to hold on to the past to avoid the future, if we remain faithful to Christ our fears will fade as the kingdom builds like memories of adolescent heartbreak, into insignificance in the joy of eternal life. Amen.

Let us not sit - 6/11/2017

Sermon based on Gospel - Matthew 28: 16-20

    Why and how do you sit? That is not a metaphorical question. You would think that would have an obvious answer, but did you know that the way we sit --- why and how we sit down --- is cultural? Not only does not everyone sit with their buttocks in something called a chair but that the rationale behind our furniture itself can be as diverse as our various cultures.
    I encountered that in my travels. For example, when I lived and worked in Iceland in the early 1980’s I first encountered modern Scandinavian furniture defined by its simplicity, minimalism and functionality --- in other words no reclining, lazy boys. Then I lived and worked in Japan, where the traditional form of sitting is on one’s legs, with your feet tucked under your buttocks on the floor. Although modern Japan has furniture, you will still find many places where sitting on what is called “tatami” a woven reed carpet, is the norm.
    And then there is the obvious, our worship today. Whereas many places of worship have pews, others may have chairs, benches or even no chairs at all. In many Orthodox worship services, we would remain standing and furniture is largely absent. If we were Muslim, there may be chairs for those who cannot bend down, but for most people we would be sitting on the floor.
There is a whole book about our various cultural practices of sitting. It's titled Now I Sit Me Down and it's written by architect Witold Rybczynski (Rib-shin-skee).  Link
    In his book, Rybczynski reviews the history of our practice of sitting. In ancient Greece, chairs were called klismos, had a curved backrest and tapering, out-curved legs which meant that those Greeks reclined more than sat upright. In China during the Song dynasty we find the beginning of sitting upright with the yoke back chair which included one of the earliest uses of lumbar support.
Rybczynski explains that the history of sitting and our furniture is a social history --- the why and how we sit and our furniture is a history of changing manners, attitudes, work and of varying tastes. He even looks toward the future, suggesting we may eventually invent a seat designed not around a television but for browsing on a smartphone.
    Here's the main point for us: Rybczynski says that although there are many forms of sitting and designs for comfort the irony is this --- humans weren’t built to sit. “We are good at walking and running, and we are happy lying down,” he writes. “It is the in-between position that is the problem.” Our physical forms were not designed to sit; sitting is not natural but cultural.
Consider the final verses in Matthew's gospel, that section we usually shorthand as “the Great Commission.” In this passage, Jesus tells his disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Meaning that Jesus is speaking to people that we're not made to sit; we are to be disciples in our natural position of walking and running or lying down in rest. Thinking about that means that for, it is in the in-between position that is the problem.
    Just review the context of today’s words. There's a little comment Matthew includes in the narrative that we sometimes overlook. In Matthew's timeline, when the disciples -- those remaining after the defection and death of Judas --- come to a mountain in Galilee for a rendezvous with the resurrected Jesus, it's the first time they have seen him since they fled at the time of his arrest.
    We tend to mesh Luke and John together and assume that all these post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to be with the disciples in Jerusalem. That is not Matthew’s account. Rather, when the disciples see Jesus in Galilee, it's the first time they've laid eyes on him since before his death. And there Matthew comments, “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”
This is not simply an allusion to doubting Thomas. Instead, in Matthew version, with the resurrected Jesus standing right there in plain sight, some of the men and women who had been with him throughout his ministry doubted. We can imagine that seeing a dead person alive again was so far outside anything that they'd ever known that they perhaps weren't sure whether their eyes were playing tricks on them.
    However, Matthew's comment about their doubt may be deeper than the startling resurrection, in that it applied to the whole experience there on the mountain. Perhaps this doubt extended beyond that moment to his words and how this call could possibly be accomplished for Jesus is telling them to do three very hard things.
    The first hard thing to which we can relate is that Jesus told them to “go and make disciples of all nations.” Think about it. The disciples are told to “go” --- poreuomai in Biblical Greek --- and carries the sense of “being led forward on a journey,” a journey to make disciples of “all the nations;” all --- ethne, all “peoples.”
    Think about to whom Jesus is first telling these words. Think about what they overcame. The world of the disciples was far smaller than the world as we know it. They had no idea of the existence of North and South America, or of the broader universe. They were also limited by first-century modes of travel and communication. Making disciples of “all peoples” must have sounded like an extremely daunting task.
    And far beyond the dimensions of geography, remember these disciples are largely from a small provincial area called Galilee with a latent distrust of foreigners. Distrust of foreigners was common, especially for these men and women who we can assume were not well-traveled. Even today, with our world at our finger tips, many of us have difficulty relating across cultural and geographical boundaries. Intercultural communication is not a well-developed skill on many of our resumes, just look at our well-traveled President. What's more, the disciples had no power base to start from --- unless, of course, you count the Holy Spirit, but Pentecost hadn't happened yet in Matthew. The disciples were not only not wealthy, or privileged, and suspicious of foreigners at the get go, they belonged to an oppressed minority --- the Jews --- within a larger Roman Empire.
    And yet Jesus says to these most unlikely crew: “Go turn the world upside down.” It must have sounded like a monumental --- impossible --- undertaking.
    The second hard thing Jesus told the disciples as they moved, they were to baptize the people of those nations “in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Baptism is not the first step; rather baptism was a sign that something was going on; Baptism was a sign to continue “being led forward on a journey.”
    Perhaps it is because I was a missionary in Japan that I am sensitive to this part of the commission because what Jesus was telling these disciples to do was massive paradigm shift. Remember Jews are monotheists --- believe in one God. In fact, at the time of Jesus, Jews were the first and only monotheists in the world. “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” said the shema.
    Yet, the earliest Christians, all of them Jews, believed that, somehow, they had encountered God in Jesus of Nazareth. How could one express that --- and still be a monotheist? So, Jesus was telling them to share the gospel with strangers, in a language of faith that needed translation into various cultures, languages and traditions in varied complex words and deeds, and to publicly identify themselves as followers of someone who had just been officially declared an outlaw, executed and resurrected and by the way this Jesus is in an enigmatic, radically egalitarian Trinitarian confluence monotheistic God-head.
    We do know that once Pentecost happened, the disciples found greater energy to proclaim the gospel, but as we said, Pentecost hadn't happened yet.
    The third hard thing that we should not rush past is that Jesus told them to teach these new converts --- what? Not to be good Lutherans or Roman Catholics or Pentecostals. According to Matthew Jesus told them “to obey.” This was said before --- even assuming a few of them had the gift of teaching --- a curriculum.
    The gospels hadn't been written yet. The apostle Paul, whose letters would eventually become much of the New Testament, had yet to be converted. The church hadn't been formed yet, doctrines hadn't even begun to be discussed and formulated and the creeds were still a couple hundred years or more in the future. What teaching materials there were included the Hebrew Bible --- our Old Testament --- and the various disciples' memories of what Jesus had said and done while he was with them. They weren’t even worshipping as we understand it yet, although many of the men and women attended a synagogue.
    Yet, they pulled it off --- or at least planted the seeds overcoming their cultural challenges, doubt notwithstanding.
And then there's this: With the passage of time, that commission got passed on. Each generation of Christians has the same “Great Commission,” basically to not remain in our cultural sitting positions whether on the ground, tatami, carpet, modern Scandinavian furniture or pews but to be engaged. Followers are goers, movers, shakers, tellers, proclaimers, explainers, teachers, witnesses and whole lot more.
It shouldn't surprise us that doubt in our cultural unnatural sitting positions may make all this more difficult. But I am wondering if our unnatural sitting positions may be why other things are hard as well. Consider Matthew’s version of the Sermon on the Mount: Love your enemy. Turn the other cheek. Be pure in heart. Rejoice and be glad when people revile you. Go the second mile. Forgive others their trespasses. Don't worry about tomorrow. Do unto others as you would have them do to you. None of those actions can be done from a sitting position.
    Now I lift all this up not to discourage us more than we may be already may be. Rather we need to be honest with how hard living out the faith is in the context of what we may be doing culturally that even makes it more difficult.
    For example, Stan Purdum, author of New Mercies I See (Link) and other books, and a long-time pastor himself, tells of a couple in their 80s who were    members of the first church he pastored and were in good health. Every time Purdum dropped by to visit, he found the wife busy and the husband out back in his woodworking shop, making items he gave away. One time, Purdum commented on their activity level, and the man said, “When my brother retired at 65, he went out on the front porch and sat down. That's where he was most of the time. And within three years, he was dead. I don't think we're made to sit for long."
    Let us be thankful that those men and women who were present when Jesus gave the Great Commission did not let all the doubt prevent them from trying. They were normal, average people who went from whatever cultural position they were in, and followed Jesus' direction. They went, did what they could, and God did the rest.
    Obviously, my point is clear, I think our unnatural position of sitting may make these hard words from Jesus even harder. God created everyone single one of us to be either in rest or in a moving position, stirring in as scattered a direction as those that scattered after Pentecost. Jesus is followed and worshipped in the face of doubt, with the full honesty with the only assurance is that God will be with us. Thank God, we can lie down to rest, but thank God created us to move in all the ways God gives us. So, let us not ignore all that prevents us from what God created us to do and be, but let us not make what we have created our chairs, make it that much harder. Amen.

Drop In - 4/30/2017

"Drop In" Christ Sermon based on Luke 24: 13-35.

I am waiting for my first drone delivery, how about you?  Drones as many of you may know are those mechanical, unmanned, small, helicopter type vehicles that can either be controlled remotely or by robots.  Over the last few years they have exploded on the scene.

Now many of us might associate drones with clandestine operations against ISIS and other terrorist operations.  But, in fact, drones can be, and are, utilized in many other ways, some of which are strictly humanitarian.  In Rwanda, for example rural medical clinics are so isolated that deliveries cannot be made by trucks or motorcycles.  Storage facilities are inadequate for the blood that is required for emergency transfusions, especially during childbirth.  To help, Zipline International, based in San Francisco, has developed an innovative system of blood distribution.[1]  Airplane-style drones now carry blood to these rural clinics.  They save lives by airlifting blood to where it needs to be.  By the end of this year, two drone bases will cover the entire country, which is about the size of Massachusetts.

Here is how it works: After a clinic sends its order for blood via text message, a drone takes off and is guided to its drop site by a GPS system.  Each base has 15 drones and will be responsible for as many as 150 flights to rural health clinics each day.

Zipline believes that this kind of drone delivery system will become a normal part of health care in Rwanda and elsewhere.  The company also wants to begin the delivery of vaccines and medicine for malaria and HIV/AIDS in addition to its blood drops.

Of course, Jesus knew nothing about drones, but if you think about it, Jesus was “drone like” --- during this in between time of fifty days after the resurrection but before his ascension --- in that Jesus seems to drop in from closed rooms to beaches.  After being raised from the dead, the resurrected Christ travels the country and pops up in surprising places, with the range of an airplane-style drone.  But unlike Amazon, in these drop ins, Jesus is totally focused on helping the disciples strengthen and grow as disciples.

For example, not to long ago, on Easter morning, Jesus suddenly appeared to Mary in the garden and said, “Woman, why are you weeping?”[2]  We hear of today’s event when on Easter afternoon, Jesus swooped in on two disciples who are walking the road to Emmaus helping to clarify what they had experienced.[3]  On Easter evening, he appeared to his disciples and shows them his hands and his feet.[4]

A week later, Jesus drops in on Thomas and the other disciples, and appears to the disciples again on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius and cooks a fish breakfast for them.[5]  The apostle Paul tells us that Jesus appears to more than 500 of his followers, then to James, then to all the apostles and finally to Paul himself -- on the road to Damascus.[6]

Jesus goes all over the place, serving people and sharing the good news of his resurrection.  Jesus is of course, not a drone, but is I think drone-like in his ability to reach people everywhere.

But that makes me wonder, how does the risen Christ appear to us today?  And what does Christ “deliver” if we want to carry that image deeper?  Unfortunately, many people focus on just one aspect found in the 2^nd article of the Apostle’s Creed; “and he will come to judge the living and the dead.”  That drone like appearance is not what I mean.  Nor do I mean the risen Christ’s appearance is like a lottery ticket, sometimes you win but almost always lose.

Rather, as we see in today’s gospel the Risen Christ can appear as a stranger to deliver clarity.  The Risen Christ can appear as a guest and delivery opportunities and the Risen Christ can appear as a host and deliver --- himself.

First, we see the Risen Christ as a stranger.  Luke shares with us the story of the walk to Emmaus, were on Easter afternoon two disciples, Cleopas and an unnamed other, are in distress after the death of Jesus.  They're talking about the recent events in Jerusalem and are as desperate for help as a patient in a rural health clinic in Rwanda.  So, Jesus drops in on them, not via a Zipline drone, of course, but in the form of a stranger.  Luke tells us that “Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”[7]

We are then told that these two disciples tell the stranger about Jesus, “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,” condemned to death and crucified.[8]  They report that they were astounded by the women in their group who found the tomb of Jesus empty, and who were told by angels that Jesus was alive (v. 23).  Heads spinning, dazed and confused, the two disciples are not sure what to make of all this.

So, what does Jesus deliver to them?  It is as a stranger that the risen Christ brings clarity.  We are told that “Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the Scriptures.”[9]  It is like Jesus drops in and engages them in a small group Bible study, and helps them to see how all that has happened fits into God's desires since the time of Moses.

That continues today.  Jesus continues to drop in on us today and offer us clarity.  Often, in comes in the form of a stranger, offering us new insights into what God is saying.  Such a perspective is always helpful to us, because, if we study the Bible in isolation, away from people and context, we're going to continue to come to conclusions based on one point of view.

Remember the ways in which white Southern preachers in the 1860s used the Bible to defend slavery?  They pointed to individual passages from Scriptures, which say, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling,” and “Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect.”[10]  These Southerners were Christians who wanted to preserve slavery, and they used a couple of passages of the Bible as justification for their position.

What they needed was a stranger to come to them and point out that what God really wanted was a new creation in which “there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[11]  It took a conversation with devout black believers and white abolitionists, who saw slavery as a sin and a defilement of New Testament values.  We see this repeated as we struggled through an engagement with the LGBTQ community.  Bible study is most valuable when it is done in community, with strangers as well as friends, with as many diverse voices as possible.

As the walk to Emmaus continues, we see as second aspect of the Risen Christ, Jesus drops in on the disciples in the form of a guest.  As this journey nears its conclusion they came to the village to which they were “journeying” but Jesus intends to “journey” beyond the village.  Luke tells us that Jesus walks ahead of them as if he were going on, but the two disciples urge him to be their guest, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.”[12]  If you will notice, Jesus is said to be “with them” three times.  In Luke, this is to suggest that Jesus is emphatically present.  In response, Jesus accepts their invitation and goes in to stay with them.

What does Jesus deliver to them in the form of a guest?  The risen Christ delivers an opportunity to serve.  So often, when we find ourselves feeling desperate and distressed, the best way to experience a lift is to serve.  This might mean offering a hot meal at a shelter, tutoring a struggling student or working on a house for Habitat for Humanity, visiting a person or having guest over.  Back in 2011 a study found that people who volunteered “for selfless reasons, such as helping others, live longer than those who don't lend a helping hand.”[13]

Serving puts us in touch with the resurrected Jesus.  “Come, you that are blessed by my Father,” says Jesus. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. ...  Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”[14]

We then see they third way the risen Christ drops in on the disciples in the village of Emmaus; it is in the form of a host.  It is at the end of the day, when Jesus is at the table with them, where takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to them.  It is then that the disciple’s eyes are opened and they recognize him, Jesus immediately vanishes from their sight, but they are left to say to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us ... while he was opening the Scriptures to us?”[15]  To put it another way:  This meal --- the eucharist where Jesus is host --- remedies an ancient problem.  The long exile of humanity --- the long journey out of Eden --- is over.  The new creation, new life has begun.  This is the 8th meal in Luke's gospel --- the meal of “the new creation.”

What does Jesus deliver in the form of a host?  As a host, Jesus delivers the gift of himself.  In an indescribable mystery, Jesus delivers his presence!  He revealed himself to the two disciples in the breaking of the bread, and he reveals himself to us in the very same way.  When we gather at the Communion table, we are not gathering at a Lutheran, or a Baptist, or a Roman Catholic table.  Instead, it is the Lord's table, the new creation.  Jesus is our host, offering us the gift of himself and promising to nourish us for lives of faithful discipleship as we live out our faith as instigators with Christ of this new creation.  This is a gift that is every bit as life-giving as a container of blood, delivered by drone to a remote African health clinic.

Jesus was present as the risen Christ in three forms to these disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the risen Christ continues to drop in on us today in our journeys.  The risen Christ comes as a stranger, among community helping us to bring clarity to scriptures.  The risen Christ arrives as a guest, giving us opportunities to serve.  And in a mystery as wide and deep as the universe, the risen Christ is a host, revealing the gift of himself in the breaking of the bread strengthening us for our lives of faith in the new creation.

Our challenge is to respond to these surprising deliveries in the same way that the disciples of Emmaus did --- by telling other people what has happened, and how Jesus has been made known, what this restoration and the unfolding of the new creation means.  And as we do this, we will have signed for this delivery and assisted in making it complete.  By doing so we help to save lives.  Amen.

 

[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/05/zipline-drones-rwanda/

[2] John 20:15

[3] v. 27

[4] v. 39

[5] John 20, 21

[6] 1 Corinthians 15, Acts 9

[7] vv. 15-16

[8] v. 19

[9] (v. 27).

[10] Ephesians 6:5, Titus 2:9

[11] Galatians 3:28

[12] vv. 28-29

[13] https://www.yahoo.com/news/people-volunteer-live-longer-study-suggests-115806902.html

[14] Matthew 25:34-35, 40

[15] vv. 30-32

Living Memorials

It's a tragic scene I have seen in many places around the world, so I was not surprised to see it here in South Texas: a roadside cross, bouquets of flowers, perhaps some candles, a stuffed animal or a jersey from the local high school or there's a hand-painted placard with a name and a date, or even a picture.

I drive by and get a mere glance, but I know there was a moment on this highway or road when something horrific happened and a person or persons lost their lives.  Unfortunately, highway deaths and roadside memorials or Descanso from the Spanish word meaning “to rest” are common.  There is a human need to split memory in half: honoring the painful experiences of those who suffered while keeping a memory alive.  Memorials whether at a park, cemetery, or on a roadside assert that this schism cannot be made whole again; grief must be lived with or the memory will fade.

For example, Joyce Keeler knows the pain of losing a loved one in a tragic automobile accident.  Nearly 30 years ago, her son lost his life on a rural road in Delaware.  For Joyce, driving by the site of the accident is still too painful.  She avoids it, even all these years later.

Instead, Joyce goes to the Delaware Highway Memorial Garden at the Smyrna Rest Area near her home because you see, not every state allows roadside memorials.  Instead, among the trees, shrubs and flowering plants, is a pathway lined with memorial bricks that bear the names of those who have lost their lives on the roads of Delaware.  To honor the memory of her son, Joyce sits quietly near the brick that bears his name.

Delaware as well as several other states prohibit roadside memorials because they consider roadside memorials to be a dangerous distraction to drivers, and put those who maintain them in harm's way.  Therefore, in those states, Descanso’s are illegal.  In response to our very human need, some states have implemented sign programs or set aside memorial parks that offer a safer option to mark the site of a crash.  Others have adopted laws limiting the time a memorial can remain on the side of the road or allow the planting of memorial trees at the sites of fatal accidents --- for our very human need to bridge grief with memory.

Why I bring this up is that long ago, a mother lost a son.  It's not likely, however, that she ever went back to the place where he died.  At least we have no record of Mary, the mother of Jesus returning to the site of the crucifixion.  I suspect that Mary did not want to sit by a cross.  I also suspect that the Roman occupation did not allow --- as the State of Texas does not allow --- memorials to be established at the death penalty chamber in Huntsville.

But I wonder during her grief, did she want to erect a memorial?  Did Mary want some place she could visit and just think about her son, a stone bridge from grief and memory?  Did she want to erect a pillar of stones in his memory in his hometown, Nazareth?  Did Mary want to post a sign at the site of some of his most famous miracles?  Did she want his followers to turn the home of Jesus’ good friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus into a shrine or museum in his honor?

After all, humans have a strong desire to build memorials, to leave a mark.  This human need for memorials goes back to the beginning of human evolution just think of the cave paintings in Lascaux, France.  Or think back to the Old Testament, when the patriarch Jacob set up memorials to mark decisive events in his life, as did Joshua after crossing the Jordan.[1]  Surely, the thought crossed Mary’s mind: “How can I remember my son?”

Perhaps, she was there or heard from one of the followers that on the night before her son died, even he, even Jesus had talked about being remembered!  They had been celebrating the annual Passover meal, eating and in fellowship, when, suddenly, Jesus put aside the Passover meal customs, took some bread and gave all the disciples a piece, said a brief prayer of thanks, and then told them to take it and eat it. “This is my body, which is given for you,” he said.  “Do this in remembrance of me.”[2]

But, of course we are only speculating.  Nonetheless, for those who have lost a child, we certainly have a sense of what Mary was feeling.  Even the care Mary received from the “beloved disciple,” John, her son's best friend among the larger set of disciples, could not alleviate the sadness.

While Mary, Jesus' mother, may not have felt like she needed to go to the memorial tomb that first Easter morning, it is recorded in our Gospel that two other Mary’s did so.  Because, the very same instinct that drives people to set up memorials at the site of a crash carried Mary Magdalene, a close disciple of Jesus, and another Mary, traditionally identified as the same woman from a few verses earlier as the mother of James and Joseph, to the tomb early in the morning.

They came not with a handmade cross and flowers, but with oils and spices.  They came to care for the body of the one they followed, the one who loved and accepted them as no one else did.  They came prepared to repeat the journey, as many of us do, when we return to a memorial cemetery to visit the grave of a loved one.  These two Mary’s came prepared to do the only thing they could think of to help them bridge this schism between grief and memory.

At this point you may be wondering --- this is all beside the point, because we know the rest of the story!  The memorial tomb was empty!  Because of Easter, no one would ever need to visit a cross or stop by a stone marked Jesus lies here!  Because of Easter, no one would ever need to erect a pile of stones, set up a memorial or museum in honor of Jesus.  Because of Easter, no one would ever need to maintain a Descanso on Mt. Calvary!  Because of Easter, no one would ever need to plant a garden or plant a tree in the Garden of Gethsemane!

Because of Easter, the Mary’s never get to undo their spice bag for they are greeted by an angel who tells them to so would be waste of their time.  Jesus, the one who was crucified, has been raised from the dead.  A tomb, a stone, is no longer needed, because Jesus has been resurrected.

In their confusion, the Mary’s run to tell others what they have seen and heard.  Along the journey, they are met by none other than the resurrected Jesus, affirming that memorials are no longer necessary.  Instead Jesus instructs them to find the others and tell them to meet him in Galilee.  The one these two thought was in his final resting place is instead on the move.  Jesus is still calling them to follow him.

Today and every day, Easter goes against our very human inclinations, our needs and desires and our experiences and runs counter to every cemetery around the world.  Easter goes in, with and through our human instinct to work through our schisms of memory and grief, and our need to bridge crisis and life-changing events with stones.

We have memorials for countless people and purposes from war heroes to wooden crosses for gun slingers in Tombstone.  We have memorials from personal tattoos to large museums open to the public.  But we do not have and we do not need Easter memorials.  Mary’s son who was dead was --- is in fact --- alive!  He is alive!  The first of all!

Marking places are significant.  Marking life-altering events is an ancient practice.  From Stonehenge to Jacob’s stone pillow after a dream of a staircase between heaven and earth, people want to remember what had happened there, just as the people who place stones upright in countless cultures have done and still do.

Mary A and Mary B went to the tomb of Jesus to mark the spot of grief and memory.  They like us want to remember and honor the those who had so significantly altered the trajectory of their lives.  Likewise, families and friends erect and care for roadside memorials at crash sites to mark the spot where their lives changed in an instant.  We all seek to honor and remember those we have loved.

On Easter, we, too, come to remember the moment when life changed forever --- but we do not come to a Descanso or memorial.  We do not mark Easter with upturned stone or cave painting.  Rather, we come to remember that Jesus, the one who cares for us, who loves and accepts us even when it seems no one else does, has been raised from the dead and has bridged forever this chasm, this schism between death and memory.  Christ is alive!  Death has been defeated.  Life wins!

No memorials are needed --- except one.  Our lives.  By following in grace, we are living “memorials” to and about Easter.  The Apostle Paul wrote to believers in Rome who were following Jesus and reminded them, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect.”[3]

That charge from Paul was not a reminder to join Gold’s Gym.  Rather, for the ancient followers, following Jesus did not end at the cross or at the memorial tomb; they followed Jesus to Galilee --- from their home base, to feed the flock, to baptize and make disciples --- no gardens, buildings or memorials needed or wanted.  We have no need to return to any park, Descanso or cemetery.

We memorialize Easter at work, at school, with our families, in conversation with our friends and in ministry to our communities.  The one who has shown us resurrected life calls us to share that new life with others.  We are to tell others about what God has done in, with and through Jesus for us and to offer as much as we can the same love, grace and healing we have received from God.

To honor, to remember, to bridge the schism between grief and memory in Easter no memorial is needed rather it is to be lived.  Easter is a daily celebration that death has been defeated.  So, how do we remember Easter --- within our lives!  No memorials, tombs or stones needed because what God has done is alive.  Amen.

 

[1] Genesis 28; Joshua 3, 4

[2] Luke 22:19

[3] Romans 12:1-2

Maundy Thursday - 2017

Maundy Thursday Message for 2017.

We remember tonight a diverse assortment of words and deeds from Jesus.  We have the washing of the feet, the first of what became the Eucharist --- the Lord’s Supper as well as various teachings.  Because there is so much, I decided to focus on one moment when Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”[1]

Since we rehearse those words on a frequent basis, I thought I would review just one aspect --- we often confuse what is new.  “That you love one another” is not a new commandment.  There have been many before Jesus and many who came after him who have commanded, advised, encouraged, implored, counseled and even begged us to, “love one another.”  A quote from Gautama Buddha, the ascetic sage who lived sometime between 400 to 600 years before Christ in the Indian subcontinent put it this way, “Love the whole world as a mother loves her child.”   Love one another is not new.

What is novel about Jesus’ commandment is that we are to love one another the way that Jesus loved; “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  Which begs the question: How exactly did Jesus love so that the defining way is love for one another with Jesus as the standard?

Now, I’m sure we can all sing, “They’ll Know We are Christians By Our Love” and leave it at that.  But I’m afraid the warm, fuzzy feelings we may have when we sing that song fall far short of the kind of love Jesus had in mind and exemplified. 

Jesus loved in ways that I am only beginning to understand.  Every time I think I have a handle on it, I learn something new and am challenged to go deeper, and further.  So, it is difficult to put into one succinct example to love as Jesus loved.  We may say it is as simple as to follow the Gospels, but that is simplistic blather.  So, if we must, I suspect we would say Jesus was so open and full of the power of love that is God, that Jesus was able to live his life from birth through death so abundant in love, he had no boundaries or fears.  Which means, that Jesus in today’s passage is praying that more than anything else, those who followed would be so filled.

Perhaps that is what Jesus may have meant when he said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”[2]  Jesus came not like a thief in the night, who violated boundaries with violence, but lived his life so abundantly that boundaries where crossed in love.  Jesus was so open and full of the power of love that is God so that Jesus would not let the powers of darkness --- like treating people and the world like a thief --- stop him from loving and living fully.

Obviously, there are some repercussions to that love as we see described in various places throughout the Gospels.  In fact, Jesus demonstrated one consequence of that love.  Earlier Jesus had washed their feet.  It was a kind of love that was so different from what that the followers expected --- that Peter insisted, “You will never wash my feet.”[3]  In the first place, it is a very personal thing to have someone wash your feet.  Moreover, in that context with a distinct view on what is sacred and not, washing feet was a task that you normally did for yourself, or one that a slave did for you.  It certainly was not something you would expect from your teacher, your mentor, and the one you believed to be the Messiah.  That kind of thing went way beyond the bounds of what Jesus’ disciples would have considered an expression of love.  It is not that much different today.

That is but one of many challenging aspects: the kind of love that Jesus embodied and taught has on one hand respectful boundaries, yet not even doing the work of a slave, and most menial and intimate of tasks is out of bounds.  In other words, no darkness, no power, no fear, not even death can limit this love.  A love so rich and full that even the borderline of death is not limited by this love.

Of course, that Jesus was willing to love without limitations, came at great cost to himself.  And over the centuries individual Christians and the whole Church have had to come to terms with those deep costs as well.

That is a second aspect of this abundant love, Jesus was willing to pay that price to show others this way of love.  Even that is difficult because in our imprecise and varied attempts to follow; we may love and pay the price for that love, but that love is not necessarily clear.  For example, the 1986 movie The Mission comes to mind.  Without recapping the whole plot of the movie, one of the story lines is a missionary Father Gabriel and a former soldier Mendoza, who state their intention out of love, to defend this mission deep in the amazon, alongside the native peoples when the plantation owners and colonists attack.

They are, however, deeply divided on the proper course, and they debate how to respond to the impending military assault.  Father Gabriel believes that violence is a direct crime against God and responds nonviolently.  Mendoza, however, decides to militarily defend the Mission.  Both respond out of their interpretation of love, and their response came at a great cost not only in their lives, but in the deaths of native peoples.  We may come from many different perspectives and backgrounds, so the way of love Jesus commanded us to show one another is multifaceted and as diverse as us as people.  This new commandment to love as Jesus loved in something as profound as washing of feet, is an example of abundant love without violence, fear or boundaries can mean.

Nor should we avoid the fact that Jesus’ love endured the worst that the world and darkness could send his way.  Jesus’ love was for all the world, from the dead and buried, to generations yet to unfold, timeless and bursting free from the grave, and bears witness to the power of love.  Jesus loved so abundantly that this love could not destroyed, not even by the thing we fear the most, death itself.

Jesus has shown us the way.  Not to be afraid of the darkness.  Not to be afraid of living fully.  Not to be afraid of loving extravagantly.  Not to be afraid of the powers of evil.  Not to be afraid of the powers of death. 

Certainly, tonight reminds us that Jesus at the first of those holy meals, couldn’t save himself and he cannot save us from life, for darkness and death are part of life.  Entropy is part of life.  Each of us must walk into the darkness that lies before us.  We can beg God to take the cup from us!  But the darkness will still come.  There are good Fridays for all of us.  We too will have to take up our cross and find ways to follow Jesus into the darkness and beyond, trusting that even though it feels for all the world that God has forsaken us, we will make it beyond the darkness.

The cross that Jesus predicted tonight will not look the same for each of us.  But theses crosses to bear are markers of this abundant love.  Jesus has showed us the way.  So tonight, let us be clear on exactly what is the “new” in the commandment to love one another as I have loved you. 

Let us love as Jesus loved, abundantly as God has loved lavishly.  Amen.

 

 

[1] John 13: 34-35

[2] John 10:10

[3] John 13:8

Frustrations - 3/26/2017

Sermon based on the John 9: 1-41

Life is full of frustrations!  From the minor irritations of losing something to the major problem of continued failure towards our desired goals.  But, as much as we would like to blame others, our frustrations say more about ourselves than we would care to admit.  For example, we need to complete a report before the end of the day but find that we are constantly interrupted.  We can blame others, perhaps their interruptions played a part, yet the frustration of the deadline speaks to our own goals, desires and hopes as well.

Largely the frustrations we experience within ourselves is from two sources --- internal and external.  Our internal sources of frustration usually involve disappointments when we cannot have what we want because of our own individual, real or imagined deficiencies.  It can include lack of confidence or fear of social situations.

The second external cause for frustration can involve conditions outside of ourselves; these sources can be physical, emotional and social.  For example, one of the many sources of frustration in today's world is the anger and irritation caused by our perceptions of time.  When we are stalled in traffic, or on hold on the phone, or in an unproductive meeting, watching our day go by.  We may feel some frustration when we have other things we want to do.

We can of course attempt various solutions like finding a different route if we are stuck in traffic, or turning off our phones to accomplish our work.  There are times however, when all we feel we can do is pull out the words of the Serenity Prayer ... “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

However, knowing the sources of our frustrations, internal and external can be a useful indicator that something is amiss in our lives, like a fever is a sign of internal health issues.  Furthermore, these external and internal cause of frustration can act as a motivator to change.

The reason I thought of our human experience of frustration is because of the conversations we witness as portrayed in the gospel of John's story.  In this lengthy story --- of which I only read the first 7 verses --- I picked out at least three forms of frustration.  I think it is an interesting story because not only do we learn a great deal about the various people engaged with Jesus, but learn about ourselves.

Since, I did not read the whole lesson for you, let me just take a moment to review.  A person is blind from birth.  Most translations have “man blind from birth,” but the Biblical Greek word translated “man” does not specify a gender.  Further, the word does not carry a definite article.  It refers to no specific person, in other words.

In response to a query from the discples, Jesus places a mixture of saliva and dirt on this person’s eyes.  The blind person, their eyes now packed with spittle/mud, does as Jesus said to do --- the person “went and washed.”  How this person did this is difficult to understand unless some helpers were involved.

Anyway, the person returns healed.  We would think the response would have been overwhelming joy by all but that isn’t quite what happens.  Why?  There are several undercurrents.  One is raised by the disciples and had do with the common view then --- as some have now --- that the repercussions for poor choices result from generations before.  In that day and age, a person born with a disability for example --- in this case a person born blind --- was understood to be the result of something wrong the parents had done before the child was born, some sin.  The second undercurrent is that Jesus chose to heal on the sabbath that we will explore about later.

It is out of these issues that we have different responses to this healing.  There are at least three frustrations voiced.  Let’s explore each one as we continue through the story and what it tells us.

The first frustration raised I would call “Nit-Picking.”  For example, anyone who has ever had a child come home from school with a note proclaiming that the notorious lice have once again made an appearance knows all about the phrase “nit-picking.”  Each “nit,” or tiny egg of the louse, must be meticulously combed, picked or pulled from the single strand of hair.  The fact that this procedure must be carried out on a squealing, enraged, probably embarrassed and frustrated six-year-old only makes the task that much more unpleasant.  Their frustration may become our own!  “Why don’t other parents do a better job of checking their child!”

Who were these nitpickers?  After the healing, Pharisees were brought in by the crowd.  Why?  There was the obvious miracle, but as I mentioned, mixing mud on the sabbath was a violation of the Torah, since saliva was considered “unclean.”  In response to the Pharisees, although wary at the questioning, the blind person quickly summarizes what had happened.  In response, the Pharisees are frustrated.  In their frustration, they become nitpickers, noting what is wrong with something and someone rather than what is right.

The frustrated nitpickers in John's story, instead of rejoicing with the person at the miracle of regained sight, can only focus on the possible infringements to the Old Testament.  Perhaps out of their own frustration with what had happened and/or the rules and laws of the Old Testament they nitpick.  And in doing so, any accomplished, frustrated nitpicker can burst any celebratory balloon.  I can just imagine these nitpickers to be the ones at a wedding who would say “The wedding was so beautiful; such a shame the bride was pregnant.”  Or “The remolded sanctuary looks wonderful.  Of course, we'll probably never pay it off!”  Deflating joy, tarnishing triumphs - that's what nitpickers do best out of their own frustrations with the challenges of all that gray --- when rules are muddy --- in life.

The second frustrated moment came very soon after.  The Pharisees could not leave well enough alone, so in a second conversation they call the healed persons parents.  Perhaps there is some mischief afoot!  I would call the “wound-licking.”  Do you remember getting a mosquito bite or a small scratch when we were a kid and then having to listen to our parents' repeated, “now don't pick at it.”  Of course, our parents had to keep telling us because there is something self-destructively fascinating about an open wound.  We are drawn to it, we want to mess with it, re-examine it, pull off the scab a little at a time to see how it is healing.

For example, we recently had to call upon a veterinarian to help us with one of our cats, which entailed not only some minor surgery near it’s anus but also medication.  And as you probably would guess we had to go to ridiculous looking extremes to discourage this self-destructive licking instinct in our cat.  In dogs and cats repetitive, damaging wound-licking can undo in a matter of minutes all the work a vet has put in on a patient for days.  Likewise, out of our frustrations with the wounds, or perhaps out of curiosity, we cannot leave well enough alone.

In John 9:18, these religious leaders cannot leave the situation alone, but return to it, trying to expose some wrongfulness.  These Pharisees do not even realize that the wound they are re-opening is not only the parents experience of giving birth to and raising a child born blind, but the religious leaders own frustration with their own gaping holes and ignorance at this mystery of Jesus and healing.  After identifying the healed person as their child, the parents tell the Pharisees “why get us involved;” the healed person can speak for them self.

The third frustration we see expressed is what historian and author H. G. Wells described in an essay as a tribe of people he called the “Goodness Sakers.”  These were people who stood around saying, “For goodness sake, why doesn't somebody do something.”  Or “For goodness sake, look at what they're doing.”  “Goodness sakers” are those who are frustrated at the actions or inactions of others; nothing is satisfactory.

After getting nothing from the parents, the once-blind one gets dragged in for another inquest.  The questioners can no longer dispute that the person is as identified, nor that the person before them was born blind and is now healed.  Instead, “For goodness sake who did it?  Somebody has performed an illegal healing, and the powers-that-be out of frustration want to get to the bottom of it. 

And what do we do when our frustration gets the better of us?  The Pharisees in John's story haughtily invoke their relationship to Moses as a sign of their superiority.^[1]  “For goodness sake we are out of the family of Moses!”  In response, the healed person, perhaps out of his own frustration at these religious leaders, jabs back at these upright, up-tight self-appointed but frustrated guardians of do-gooding.  The once-blind grows bold.  “I have told you already and you do not hear,” the person says, “Why do you want to hear again?”  The next remark --- “Do you also want to become his disciples?” --- not only tweaks their noses, but implies that the once-blind person now considers himself a follower of Jesus.  

This really torques the religious leaders.  Out of frustration with the state of the world, their neighborhood or their families “goodness-sakers,” become the self-appointed crusaders for the promotion of righteousness.  These frustrated people can be as infuriating and sin-provoking as the people to whom they give advice.

Well, what can we take away from these three examples of witnessed frustration?  As I thought through this story, I realized that I see that in myself.  I don’t always struggle through my frustrations in a healthy way and far too often I am quick to blame others.  I suspect I have been all three this week: a nitpicker, wound licker, and goodness saker.  Which leads me to wonder, what have I missed this week --- in my life --- how have I been blinded by frustration?

What helps from this event is that after this stunning miracle --- a person blind since birth suddenly given sight and what happens --- no one celebrates.  How is that helpful?  Frustrations muddies our vision.  The healed blind person’s neighbors are doubtful, the person’s parents are worried about the religious and legal ramifications, and the religious leaders find the whole episode threatening and foreboding.

Even the healed person is prevented by frustration.  It is not until the healed person himself finally realizes who Jesus is and what his presence means do we get the first signs of joy.  Indeed, when Jesus' identity finally sinks in, the person offers a full body release --- he falls on his knees and worships the “Lord.”[2]  It is only then that Jesus re-enters the story. 

Frustration is human.  It is not something to be cured of for life inevitably has its ups and downs --- its moments of relaxation and times of tension.

Rather, in this story, I am once again drawn to all in life that challenges or impedes recognizing God’s presence.  But it gives me hope in the presence of God by grace in faith through Jesus Christ in water, wine and bread.  It took this healed man some time before Jesus' identity finally sinks in.  So, what can I identify that is muddying my life?  What internal and external frustrations need to break this Lent to allow me to experience joy?  What obstructions do I blame on others and what is my responsibility?  Where I am blind and cannot see?  Amen.

 

 

[1] v. 28

[2] V. 38

Pardon - 3/19/2017

Sermon based on Romans 5: 1-11.  Have you ever wondered whatever happens to the turkeys that the Presidents of the US pardon in November?  Do you know what I am talking about?  Every November right before Thanksgiving are these enormous turkeys for the White House Thanksgiving, but the President pardons them.  What happens next?

Well, their lives are quite short.  “The bird is bred for the table, not for longevity,” said Dean Norton, the director at Mount Vernon, the home of former president George Washington where the turkeys are sent. “Some of the pardoned turkeys have been pretty short lived.”  Compared to domesticated animals, turkeys bred for consumption are usually plump and slaughtered after a period of months, and aren’t expected to live much longer on their own.

I doubt that over the years our various Presidents have included the pardoned turkeys in their official number of those pardoned.  As you may know, article II of the United States Constitution gives the president the power of clemency.  The most commonly used clemency powers are pardon and commutation.  For example, over the course of 8 years, former President Obama issued 1,385 commutations and 212 full pardons.[1]

There is a significant difference between a commutation and a pardon.  According to Wikipedia: “A commutation shortens the sentence of a convicted offender still incarcerated but does not change the fact of the conviction or imply innocence.  While the guilty party may be released from custody or not have to serve out a prison term, all other punishments still apply.  A pardon however, does not signify innocence either, but it does give full legal forgiveness, sets aside any ongoing penalty and restores all civil rights to the person.  The person accepting the pardon, must however, acknowledge, that the crime did take place.”

At this point in time, early in President Trump’s first year as president we do not know if or how many offenders he will commutate or give a full pardon but I suspect he will follow the practice this coming Thanksgiving of pardoning the turkeys who get to live another month or so.

Why should any of that interest us in the season of Lent?  Today’s second lesson, from Romans 5 is one of those key scriptures that is quoted often and will be read again on Trinity Sunday in June.  So, I thought we would spend a few minutes reviewing these verses. 

First, the reason is read on Holy Trinity because found in the space of five verses, this reading mentions God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  We have peace with God (vs. 1).  This peace, as well as access to grace, has come through Jesus Christ (vs. 2).  Moreover, God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (vs. 5).  The Son gives us access to God’s glory and the Spirit pours out God’s love for us.

The reading, however, is something more than a lesson on the Holy Trinity.  It is a bridge between the “What?” of Romans --- Chapters1-4 --- and the “Now What?” of Romans --- Chapters 5-8.  In other words, Chapters 1-4 talks about the who and why of Jesus, whereas 5-8 talks about what difference does it make.

To briefly review, in the first two chapters of Romans, Paul demonstrates the universality of the power of our brokenness from God; both Jews and gentiles have fallen short of the glory of God.  In chapters 3 and 4 of Romans, Paul announces God’s response to humanity’s plight: because of Christ’s righteousness, humanity now stands justified by God’s grace.[2]  This is not something to boast about --- no childlike nah-nah to the people around us --- instead Paul goes on, because “a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.”[3]

But as you have already noticed Romans does not end at the end of chapter 4.   It could have.  Instead Paul continued, because justification is not the religious equivalent of a fairy tale ending, “They lived happily ever after.”  Rather in chapters 5 through 8 of Romans, Paul turns to answering the “Now what?” question.  As he does so, we see that in the world Christ has redeemed, our human brokenness continues to exercise influence and suffering remains so acute that Paul is at pains to say it cannot separate us from God’s love.[4]  According to Romans 5:1-5, the life of the justified is a mix of peace, hope, suffering, and love.

However, over the years that I have been a pastor, I’ve noticed that Paul’s language that we are justified by faith sounds like a foreign language.  So, instead I have at times used the word “pardon.”  “Pardon,” you probably know, is a term that is not unfamiliar as a synonym for divine forgiveness of sin, an action God alone can do.  Like its legal equivalent, divine pardon sets aside the penalty for one's wrongdoing.

But, if you're looking for the word “pardon” in our reading from our second lesson, our reading Romans, you won't find it.  In fact, the word only appears in the Old Testament.  That's not to say that the New Testament writers didn't talk about pardon.  They did, but they used other vocabulary, including but not limited to "forgiveness of sin."

Paul, for example, writing here to the Romans, speaks of believers being “justified by faith.”  And as you may remember, he's talking about our being made right before God by God’s grace through Jesus Christ.  Saying that, Paul was fully aware of the concept “pardon.”  Because the actual word “pardon” received a great deal of attention in the Old Testament something in which Paul was taught.  If you remember, Israel's story depends greatly on the covenant God made with the Israelites as a people, God promised to be their God, and God remained faithful to the covenant even when the people of Israel were not.  Thus, if their life with God was to continue, there had to be some means of restoring the covenantal relationship.  God granted pardon as that means.  Moses, for example, recognized that pardon was indeed the only way for the relationship to continue after great sin on the part of the people.  Like after the golden calf incident in the wilderness, Moses prayed, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord for with us.  Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”  (Exodus 34:9).

That leads us back to the New Testament.  Although the actual word “pardon” does not appear in the New Testament, the gospel of Luke does contain a great pardon story in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son.  If we remember that parable quickly, we might assume that the moment of pardon, the moment of justification, was when the father threw a party to welcome the son who took his inheritance early and came back home.  But that misses the deeper movements of human emotions.

For the prodigal, pardon had to begin in the far country when deep in the pits of his bad decisions and careless living, “he came to himself” and remembered his father's love.[5]  Before the young man could find pardon, he had to confront himself and acknowledge, “I have sinned,” and then he had to return to his father.[6]  And when he did, the prodigal did not receive a commutation, a reduced sentence, which what he thought he would receive, rather the pardon he received was a full one.  He was completely restored to his place in the family, justified and allowed to join the family again, and his father rejoiced.  Or, as Paul put it to the Romans in our reading: “We even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

The second reason I sometimes use the word “pardon” to help explain Romans 5 is for what follows: “And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings,” --- “… boast in our sufferings? --- what does this mean?

Well in comparison, I remember one woman who would quote this Bible verse to me --- “boast in in our sufferings” --- every time she came to tell me that she gave money again to her long struggling son and family.  She had concluded that God had given her an ill-stared son as God’s endurance race for her, and by telling me it was a way for her to boast!

Rather, if we understand this portion from Romans out of the context of pardon knowing what we know about the “what next?” of Chapters 5-8, we see that it takes on a deeper meaning.  Remember those pardoned White House turkey’s?  Their lives did not end at the kitchen counter, rather bred to be meatier, they had a life but short after being pardoned.  But have you ever wondered about those individuals who have either served their time, paid the penalty or had their sentences commuted or even pardoned, what happens next?  What about those over 1,500 men and women who President Obama pardoned or commuted?

They return to their families and/or communities and is it all a bed of roses?  Will they each will now receive a high paying job, easily reconnect to their children and spouses and find a life of comfort.  If any of you have ever had a conversation, served time yourself or know someone who after serving their time, the question becomes --- what next?  Once pardoned, does it really matter what happens next?  Or is different than that?  For example, after the prodigal sons’ party remember there was the matter of the resentful elder son?  As many of you know it is far easier to go back to jail for far too many.

Suffering does not mean it’s God’s gift we need because look --- we will gain endurance, character, hope, and ultimately God’s love.  Instead, Paul continued in Romans beginning with Chapter 5 struggling through this, “now what?”  Now justified by faith, now “pardoned?  How do we live?”

Fortunately, God, like any good parent --- like the father of the prodigal son --- wants us to live in a way that is good for us and representative the forgiveness we have received, the pardon we have received, the justification we have received.  But, it is a struggle.  As Martin Luther wrote in the Small Catechism, for the 5^th petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”  In describing Luther wrote: “We ask God that God would give us all things by grace, for we sin daily and indeed deserve only punishment.  So, on the other hand, we, too, truly want to forgive heartily and do good gladly to those who sin against us.”  Life after being pardoned, justified, is a mix of peace, hope, suffering, and love.  We continue every day pardoned, justified by grace, challenged to integrate our redeemed lives back into this world around us, not only seeking to live pardoned, --- but to live pardoning others.  May God help us and give us longer lives that the pardoned, White House turkeys.  May God help us live out the reality that we are justified by faith.  Amen.

 

[1] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/17/president-obama-has-now-granted-more-commutations-any-president-nations-history

[2] cf. Romans 3:21-26

[3] Romans 3:28

[4] Romans 7 - Romans 8

[5] Luke 15:17

[6] 15:18

Avatar - 3/12/2017

Sermon based on John 3: 1-17.  So, what does your avatar look like?  I suppose it depends on which world you live in 😊.  If you don’t know what I am talking about then let me give you all a refresher.

The word “avatar” is an ancient word originating from Sanskrit --- one of the oldest Indo-European languages where there is substantial written documentation.  The word avatar in Sanskrit means the embodiment of a deity who comes down to Earth.  For example, in the Hindu religious mythology that uses Sanskrit, this may mean a deity from its pantheon of deities who arrives on earth perhaps in the shape of a half man and half fish, or in tortoise or boar form.

In the 1980s the word was picked up by the computer community to mean a computer user’s alter ego, one’s alternative character in cyberspace.  Avatars can be cartoon-y pictures with facial features, clothing, and accessories that allow us to personalize our picture and can be as elaborate as we want.  And as computer gaming and other interactions have grown, avatars give us the chance to represent ourselves from the very simple to the complex that can grow and change with us.

Avatar’s and their modern embodiment is of course not alien language to us Christians, because other than the Hindu faith the only other major religion that has something similar is of course Christianity, in that Jesus Christ is God incarnate. 

We could go on but the reason I bring it us is because today we are privy to an encounter between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus.  Nicodemus is an intriguing character who seemingly leads two lives.  On one hand, he’s a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews, meaning he has his doctrinal eye on the Galilean Jesus.  Any Pharisee with Israel’s best in mind would be cautious toward Jesus at best, and would publicly oppose him at worst.

On the other hand, Nicodemus is privately curious about the rabbi, recognizing that somehow his teachings and works stem from God.  But we could also wonder, how it is that Nicodemus is both curious and publicly opposed.  Does he have an avatar, one or two character masks, while his true self remains hidden?  Well let’s explore this encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus more deeply and see what perhaps may be helpful for us and our faith life in this season of Lent.

Let us begin.  As you may have noticed, the author of the gospel of John does not follow a historical timeline rather the narrator’s purposes are literary, for example, today’s event is preceded by the wedding at Cana, up north in Galilee where Jesus did --- per the narrator --- “the first of his signs.”  Following the wedding in Cana, the fourth gospel tells the story of Jesus driving out the moneychangers in the Temple in Jerusalem back down south during the season of Passover.  Then in a short piece the narrator provides a comment that “many believed” because of “the signs that he was doing.”  Jesus, however, says the narrator “would not entrust himself to them….”[1]

We then have today’s recorded event in an unknown location, perhaps in or around Jerusalem after the Passover season.  Wherever and whenever it is, Nicodemus comes “by night,” which we learn later has two meanings: Nicodemus is appearing at night and he is arriving in a state of darkness.  Nicodemus is not yet able to see.  He is in the dark.  So, in the dark, Nicodemus greets Jesus as “rabbi.”  The title appears respectful.  So far, so good.

The next two words --- “we” and “know” --- however present some problems.  With the use of the first-person plural “we” Nicodemus seems to be speaking on behalf of others, or perhaps even on behalf of the traditional Jewish faith itself.  This of course raises red flags, because we should always be cautious whenever someone comes waving the flag of an anonymous, conspiratorial “we.”  For example, it is no secret why the hacker group the “anonymous” like to use the loose term, “we.”  If Nicodemus has an avatar at this point, it would be the mask of Guy Fawkes, a stylized portrayal of a face with an oversized smile and red cheeks, a wide moustache upturned at both ends, and a thin vertical pointed beard.

We are also told that Nicodemus and his associates “know” that Jesus “is a teacher who has come from God.”  Nicodemus says that this anonymous group for whom he seemingly speaks consider Jesus a teacher from God because “for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”  Now if we had been paying attention up this point, what has happened before this event in John’s rearranged timeline, we would have already heard that Jesus does not have confidence in those who trust in “signs.”

But rather than questioning Nicodemus about “signs,” Jesus pulls out a sharpie and writes all over the avatar of Nicodemus.  First Jesus ignores the conspiratorial, anonymous, “we” and focuses on Nicodemus and says that no one can “see” the “kingdom of God” unless they have been --- “born from above” or “born again” as some of our overt, evangelical Christian friends are exceedingly fond of saying.  Jesus says faith is a matter of revelation, not knowledge --- a new vision of life, rather than merely understanding the old vision better.  It is not simply coming up with a new cheeky avatar for ourselves, or contemplating new ones, but a deeper unveiling --- of who we are.

Nicodemus, however, is unable to think beyond established categories.  Having already exited the womb --- duh Jesus, I have a mom --- he wonders how it is possible for a person to have another birth.  Nicodemus appears rather wooden in his thinking, but manages to ask the obvious question, which was: How?  If what you say is desirable and assuming further that it is possible … how do you do it?

One can only enter the kingdom through “water and spirit,” says Jesus.  Water is as we know is not only connected with nature and earth, but with Baptism as well.  Water knows no obstacle.  Going around, under, and through, as we know from our front parking lot, water always reaches the lowest level.  Water is the pure, great decomposer, ultimately more powerful than any other form of matter, as we say in Baptism cleansing us from our sin.

The wild and free spirit, on the other hand, is airborne, blowing where it wills.  The Spirit has a trajectory.  It's going someplace, though, many times, it's not at all clear where.  The spirit is both creative and chaotic, unpredictable and dangerous, inspiring and irrational --- or as we might call it the Holy Spirit. 

In combination, “water and spirit” is about the decomposition of the old and the generation of the new.  To be born of “water and spirit” taken together, are also interestingly enough archetypal symbols.  For example, for Carl Jung the Swiss psychiatrist, says water is the archetype for the feminine and the wind is the archetype for the masculine.

Moreover, the narrator records Jesus using the pronoun “ek” which simply means literally: out of water and spirit.  Nicodemus had referred to a womb in a concrete way, but Jesus proposes a new birth, born out of, you might say, God's “center,” God's womb, where we are “born from above,” out of the union of the two energizing polarities --- water and spirit.  It’s like Jesus is suggesting to Nicodemus drop whatever avatar you are projecting, begin anew, redeemed to live as God created you to be.  To bolster the point, the fourth gospel seems purposefully to avoid using a gender specific pronoun in this context.  The narrator records Jesus using tis, itself a sign of gender equality, revelation and transformation for both men and women.

Not surprisingly, like all of us Nicodemus continues to misunderstand, but Jesus appears astonished at Nicodemus' cluelessness.  “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?”  The implication seems to be that if Nicodemus really understood faith, what he presumes to signify, even to lead, he should already know this.  

It is at this point that we have a change, as if Nicodemus has gone and we have a passage from a speech of Jesus.  To this point, most of the pronouns had been singular.  In 3:11, they are all plural.  Jesus includes all, disciples, followers, Nicodemus, crowds, whomever.  Apparently, Jesus is speaking, perhaps to those who are intrigued with Jesus, yet unwilling to let go of their avatars in the space we call life, whatever representation one has one of oneself, outside of one’s identity.

Without getting into too much detail, after a somewhat skewed retelling of a story from the Old Testament, Jesus proclaims that he will be “lifted up” a phrase that occurs three times in John.  The one lifted is identified as the “Son of Man.”  The reason this Son of Humanity is “lifted up” is because God unconditionally loves the world, or in Biblical Greek, the cosmos --- the entire universe, the whole creation.  The love of God includes everything in creation --- people, animals, rivers, streams, birds, wheat fields, and even old bottles alongside the road.  No avatars, no masks but as creation as creation.  All of them are included, even God's enemies because even God doesn’t hate God’s enemies.

What happens to Nicodemus.  Well, over time, we know that Nicodemus was changed by his relationship with Christ.  In John 7, Nicodemus is still leading or has two lives.  He doesn’t publicly challenge the notion that a Pharisee could never believe in Jesus, but Nicodemus does defend Jesus’ right to be heard.  But by the end of Jesus’ life, Nicodemus seems to have put aside his avatars.  No longer coming to Jesus at night, Nicodemus in the full light of day anoints and buries the body of Jesus.[2]  Nicodemus has left the web, a web of caution and uncertainty, and has stepped into a true second life as one who believes.  No more avatars, he is himself, fully honestly himself.

What out of this encounter can assist us?  Jesus was telling Nicodemus that his two lives whether hidden or out in the open, those projected images of Pharisee and leader weren’t going to cut it.  Nicodemus did need a second life, or perhaps it would be better to say he needed a new life.  Nicodemus is already leading two lives, as we mentioned.  So, he doesn’t need a second life; he doesn’t need to get a life, or another life.  He needs a new life without masks, without avatars, or projections, as himself loved and beloved in this kingdom of God born out of water and spirit.

In other words, today’s encounter would suggest that not only may there be a lost and lonely world that is trying to escape reality.  But it also means, as we are reborn daily by grace through faith, we are born out of God’s womb each day, visibly changed, out of water and spirit, living as loved and beloved creation bringing God’s kingdom to bear.  Let us this Lent be challenged to re-focus on our new lives in Christ, with the challenge to put aside all we project and hope to project and trust in who God through the incarnation of Jesus Christ has done, reborn daily out of water and spirit.  Amen.

 

[1] 2:24-25

[2] John 19:39-42

Personal Metrics – 8/4/2013

Final sermon in a series on Colossians; this message is based on Colossians 3: 1-11.

Today, we conclude our short study of Colossians. On Sunday July 14^th we began with chapter 1 and reviewed how Paul begins the letter with hugs and kisses, X's and O's. Then on July 21^st we read how Paul moves in the second half of the first chapter to the theme of his letter, that our primary motivation in life is Christ. On July 28^th we read his criticism of the church in Colossae. Paul reminded the Church that Jesus Christ is our primary frame, not other things like human traditions. Finally we turn to day, a portion of his last chapter. Prayer

How many of us know the following about yourselves? The time we awoke today? Our heart rate or blood pressure upon awaking? How many of us can tell me our last cholesterol, glucose or blood sugar number? Or how many of us can share the number of minutes we exercised in the last 24 hours and our maximum heart rate during the exercise? Now, one more: How many of us, if given a chance to consult our records, could answer those questions for this same date one year ago?

There is a good chance that many of us can provide personal data on several of those questions, including the one for info from a year ago. That's partly because medical technology within our life span has made collecting those personal numbers easier. Another reason is with the advent of personal computers, smartphones, pedometers, heart-rate monitors, blood-sugar meters, cyclometers and the like not only simplifies reading our personal numbers but also to maintaining a record of them.

All this has a name; it is called "personal metrics." Personal metrics is the ability to analyze personal data in hope of harvesting better results. Professional athletes have long tracked such things as heart rate, metabolism, diet and other factors to improve their performance. Now, ordinary people can use increasingly use tracking to achieve weight loss, improvements in physical fitness and maintain a health condition and so on.

There are consequences to this personal metrics --- racking up and analyzing every facet of our physical lives --- because the data gathering has become widespread enough that it has birthed a new field. If personal databases are collected, say from 100 people, that can serve as raw data from which researchers can glean fresh understanding of human behaviors, emotional responses, seasonal effects on the population and a host of other yet undiscovered human patterns. As Gary Wolf explained in Wired magazine last year, "If you want new insights into yourself, you harness the power of countless observations of small incidents of change --- incidents that used to vanish without a trace. And if you want to test an idea about human nature in general, you aggregate those sets of individual observations into a population study."

All the repercussions of personal metrics in the 21^st century made me consider Paul's final words to the Christians in Colossae with new eyes. Because I wonder how many of us could answer the question: "How is your faith right now?" using personal data --- personal faith metrics.

Think about it. Tracking our personal metrics can even be applied to our faith. Some people record how many minutes they spend in prayer each day, how many verses of Scripture they read, how much money they contribute or how many answers to personal prayers they can discern. (Prayer Diary) And we can easily imagine an application or "app" for a smartphone that can randomly ping us with the question, "On a scale of 1-10, how is your faith right now?"

Keeping track of personal faith metrics is not new. There was a good reason John Wesley, Charles Wesley and other members of the "Holy Club" at Oxford were ridiculed as "method---ists." Those first followers were made fun of for adherence to "methods" of Bible study and devotion.

However, we have to wonder if "knowing ourselves" is such a good idea? Now let me be clear, that phrase, "know thyself" is not from the Bible — not even from the King James Version! And neither is "to thine own self be true." It's from Hamlet not the Bible. Rather when we read Paul's words today about self-understanding, it means measuring ourselves against God's standards not just for more information.

To say it another way, when Paul urges us to be self-observant, it's for the purpose of taking a moral inventory rather than a psychological one. That is an important distinction. Paul is more interested in helping us understand what makes us sin than what makes us tick. For example, in Lamentations we hear; "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord." The first part of that verse is clearly inward-looking, but the second part tells the purpose of that looking --- so we turn back toward God.

Likewise, in today's final portion of Paul's letter to the Colossians, Paul urges an inward look not so we know more --- but for comparison to the things that can be perceived with an upward look, "where Christ is." "Set your minds on things that are above," Paul says. The author wants us to know ourselves to the degree that we are to identify aspects like "fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed," within ourselves, but only so we can "get rid of all such things." From that suggested list we may rid ourselves, Paul says, because they do not fit with "the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator."

How does this work? Well think about it this way, knowing ourselves, knowing our personal faith metrics is useful when we perceive that we are prone to respond in given ways to certain circumstances. Knowing helps us sometimes override those gut reactions with clear thinking. For example some of us may tend to blame ourselves when things go wrong. Thus with a personal faith metrics when we can ignore our usual reaction and look at what actually happened and not get hooked into unproductive self-blame.

How does this help? As Jeremiah put it, "The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse — who can understand it." The underlying Hebrew word for "devious" derives from the same root as does the name "Jacob." If you remember, Jacob is that guy who cheated his brother out of his birthright by deceiving their elderly, blind father. So our heart, our inner core, has some of that "Jacobean" deviousness. The other word used by Jeremiah "perverse," is not about sexual orientation instead it means "directed away from what is right or good" and "obstinately persisting in an error or fault; wrongly self-willed or stubborn."

Paul however instead of using the word perverse describes this as "whatever in you [that] is earthly." Not that what is earthy is bad, but Paul is concerned that Christians remain clear-eyed and understanding of themselves as they struggle at whatever it is in their lives that direct them away from what is right or good. In fact, the quest for a clear-eyed view of ourselves is an important step in the quest for a right relationship with God and with other people.

It's worth our time and effort to seek to know ourselves down to the bone. It's worth our time to have a personal faith metrics.

But we cannot leave it simply as data. We need not self-understanding but God's salvation. This ties back to the way the Paul began this letter, hugs and kisses, love in Christ, the middle portion of the letter, salvation in Christ as the main component in our lives. And thankfully, God offers all this to us.

Think of this way. Once there was a person who was scrupulous about always wearing their wedding ring. In fact, in 15 years of marriage the person had never taken it off. Never. Not once. It was a personal obsession.

One day however, the person was out walking a dog - a big, lovable, squirrel-chasing mutt. The person stopped to talk with a neighbor, and as they chatted, let the dog's leash hang loosely on the left hand. All of a sudden, the dog spotted a squirrel and took off like a bullet. The leash caught the person's wedding ring and - SNAP! - broke the ring finger.

The finger swelled up around the wedding ring. At the hospital emergency room the doctor announced that she would have to cut off the ring. "Oh, no!" protested the person. "I have NEVER removed my wedding ring. Never. You can't cut it off." "Then you'll lose your finger," said the doctor, quite matter-of-factly.

What is truly important? Is it a perfect record of always wearing a wedding ring, day and night, consistently and flawlessly for the whole of a marriage? No, what mattered was a vital, loving and faithful relationship with a lifelong partner.

So, gather let us gather the data about ourselves, just like it is important to keep track of our cholesterol and blood sugar; all that earthly information. Keep track of the Bible lessons, the prayers we have said if it helps. Let us develop a "personal faith metrics" so that as Paul reminds the Colossians, we can set our minds, have a frame of mind, not on the data of this world, but on the joy of life with Christ, a life in which we are loved and free to enjoy boundless compassion, kindness, love, peace and gratitude. We can do this because all have been given a new and abundant life that is safe and secure and hidden with Christ in God. What matters is not a perfectly flawless record of avoiding stuff that takes us away from Christ --- keeping a ring on our finger or a diary of our prayers. But instead what matters is our vital, loving and faithful relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Wedding Feast – 1/27/2013

    Sermon for January 27, 2013 based on John 2: 1-11.

Have you noticed all these wedding movies? We have had The Hangover, the original and version 2. We have had Bridesmaids. And of course, Wedding Crashers, The Wedding Planner and My Big Fat Greek Wedding- the list goes on.

    Although there seems to be an excess of movies about weddings, if you look at the history of Hollywood it has always had a thing for weddings --- making movies about them, that is. Apparently there is something about the drama of walking down the aisle, the commitment of saying, "I do," the reception, the joining of diverse families and the possible wildness of a party before the nuptials.

    If we have not had enough already, later this year the third installment of The Hangover will hit theaters. For whatever reason a movie centered on three groomsmen who lose track of their about-to-be-married buddy during a drunken bachelor party may be interesting to some, but from my point of view, when it comes to wedding-day antics nobody beats Jesus.

    According to John's gospel Jesus we could say "hijacked" a wedding. By miraculously providing wine for the wedding at Cana, Jesus kicked off a celebration so awesome that it changed the world we live in and is, in fact, still going strong to this day.

    To help us understand what John's gospel means we need to understand that back in the first century, at the time of Jesus, a wedding celebration could be large. Sure, getting married today can cost a small fortune. In fact, according to the folks at EasyFinance.com, the entire cost for a 2012 wedding -- from the engagement ring right on through to the honeymoon suite -- came in on average at just less than $27,000.

    Compare that to Jesus' day when it was possible for a wedding to last an entire week! Certainly not all couples and families went that route; nevertheless a general Jewish custom was a seven day celebration. That's seven days of feasting, drinking, abstaining from work, and enjoying the company of loved ones, all as a way of celebrating and sharing in the couple's joy and family festivity. One has to imagine that it couldn't have come cheap.

    Knowing all this makes what John's gospel tells us about the problem at the wedding in Cana seem all the more pressing. "On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, 'they have no wine.'"

    Not only do we need to understand the dynamics of a wedding in time of Jesus, wine itself held deep practical and spiritual significance for Jewish party goers. Practically, of course, wine did what wine does for us today. It filled the stomach, gladdened the heart and helped the mind drift from matters that might hinder one's effort at a weeklong celebration.

    And spiritually, according to scripture passages like Psalm 104:15 and Proverbs 3:10, wine served as a sign and symbol of the joy and blessing that flow from God's hand into the hearts and lives of God's chosen family. Without wine --- which was the centerpiece of the feast --- the celebration would no doubt come to a grinding halt --- its absence would leave a bitter taste in the mouths of the guests and shame in the heart of the host.

    So at the knowledge, Jesus makes sure the celebration does not cease. Filling six large, stone water jars, Jesus performs his very first miracle, transforming some 150 gallons of water or so into an overflow of top-shelf, aged-to-perfection party wine, according to the unsuspecting father of the bride, "the good stuff." Crisis averted.

    End of story … but have you ever wondered why? Why would Jesus provide wine for this party? Was it simply because of Mary's comment or for some other family reason hidden to us? Actually there are at least four reasons.

    First, this was, as the servants and disciples who witnessed the miracle firsthand no doubt began to surmise, the beginning, the start, the inauguration of a whole new celebration. For the gospel of John, this was the Savior of the world pressing play on a new era in the kingdom of God and sending a message, namely, that all which the wine and wedding signified spiritually and culturally for the Jewish people was now available to be tangibly and fully enjoyed through Jesus, the Christ.

    Today, as in the first century, good wine at a great wedding leads to an undeniable sense of joy. We uncork the chardonnay, hear the music in the background, glance at our partners all dressed up and before you know it, the edge is off, the tie is loose and something in us is saying, "Life isn't that bad." Not long after that you are dancing the "The chicken dance."

    The same is true in our life with Christ … it leads to joy. At least it can. Knowing that through the work of the cross --- the God who confounds us --- who convicts us --- a mystery to us is revealed as one who forgives and is in love with us should take the edge off all of us. Because of Christ, the only thing that really matters -- being right with God -- has been reconciled.

    Second, a good wine and a great wedding induce optimism about the future. It does not matter if we are in day three of a Galilean wedding celebration or in the third hour of our nephew's reception and listening to "A Moment like This" by Kelly Clarkson while the happy couple enjoys their first dance. Something about having a drink in our hands, good food in our stomachs and love before our eyes makes the average person think positive -- at least for a moment -- about the road ahead.

    In God's word, wine and wedding imagery were tied to the hope of eternity. In Isaiah we hear the promise that one day, "...the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear" (Isaiah 25:6). In other words, eternity can be described as a wedding feast to beat all wedding feasts, where God's forgiven people will celebrate their eternal, resurrected life with God -- their love -- in a brand new home. That means we can live hopeful --- through every storm and fight --- through every up and down, knowing that Jesus Christ has fought, won and guaranteed a glorious, feast-filled future for us. In Christ there is every reason to be optimistic about the road ahead.

    Third, good wine and a great wedding have long been triggers to recognizing and relishing in the fact that we are abundantly blessed. Sure we may have bills to worry about and weddings can bring family conflicts to a head, nevertheless weddings stir up a sense that a new couple and all those who celebrate with them are praise filled. When the wine and food flow, when everyone is looking their best and all you see are family and friends who know you and love you, one can't help but feel blessed.

    The fourth lesson is based on the fact that the gospel of John purposely tells us that Jesus filled six stone jars, typically used for the Jewish rites of purification. This is no insignificant detail. These jars would normally be used for the washing of hands and utensils, meeting the need for constant cleanliness as the religious law required. So, by transforming the water of these jars into wine for the party, Jesus is sending a message that the blessings he brings in the most common would meet the deepest of needs. Jesus was sending a message that at his party the wine of his truth from a surprising source would do more than gladden the heart and redden the cheeks, it would do and give the things of an abundant God. It would bring purity, providence and so much more. Those who drink from God would not simply feel joy for a week but would be whole in the things of God for eternity!

    So where does that leave us? Great wine at a good wedding is supposed to have an effect on us; if enjoyed it can leave us feeling joyful, hopeful and abundantly blessed. Yet, if all of this is true, that Jesus has initiated a perpetual wedding party, then why are not more of us walking around with a smile on our faces, our ties loosened up or our high-heels off and in our hands? You know, laid-back and enjoying the party?

    Later in John's gospel, Jesus would make this beautiful statement regarding the reason for his arrival and the purpose of his ministry. "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." Jesus came and crashed the party so that all might live richly, joyfully, hopefully and abundantly. In Christ no one is denied a wedding feast. In response how have we been doing that lately? Have we been walking around as if we are headed to a funeral?

    This week let us all try something different. Let us imagine that we are sitting at a wedding. In fact, imagine that a cherished love one got married --- to an incredible mate. Imagine that the party is paid for in cash, you don't have to do anything except show up and that you are surrounded by those whom you love. Imagine that since it is a Saturday night, there is no worry about the work of tomorrow --- all the more reason to raise your glass and toast the fact that all is right in the world today. It is ours in Jesus Christ.

    May the hangover from the wedding feast initiated at the arrival of Jesus linger over us forever, filling us with more joy, more hope and more abundant blessing than any movie ever could. Amen

Baptismal “Rashomon” – 1/13/2012

    Sermon based on Luke 3: 15-17; 21-22. Over the next several Sundays during this short season of Epiphany, we will be listening to and reviewing those special events in Jesus' life where his presence was especially manifested or made apparent with power. Today, we will be looking at Jesus' baptism as one of those epiphanies, those revelatory moments. Next Sunday, we will be having a special speaker, Katy Steward on the theme of gender diversity at the same time where the gospel will be reminding us that Jesus was not accepted in his own home town. The season follows until February 10^th.

Prayer

    Have you ever heard of the Rashomon effect? It is a term used in psychology to describe the phenomenon that in effect has different people witness to the same event perceive and describe it differently. It is called the Rashomon effect because of a famous Japanese movie that portrays four different people talking about the same event that all witnessed. Sometimes the Rashomon effect makes it hard for example, like police when trying to find out what truly happened, but other times that effect can give us new insight.

    Today, we hear and read Luke's version of the Baptism of Jesus. I do not know about you but every year when I read these events like the Baptism of Jesus retold through four different voices --- the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John --- I am consistently amazed and impressed by the depth that can be found while reading and studying scripture. As you may know there are differences and similarities in Luke's version of the baptism of Jesus compared to the other gospels. In a sense it is the Rashomon effect played out in scripture.

Luke does not mention the place of the baptism. And what happened to John the Baptist? Luke in a literary sense already has John the Baptist in prison at the time that Jesus is baptized. But those are relatively minor compared to Luke's version of the Baptism in two important points; two points that I would like us to consider today.

    Matthew, Mark and John imply that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at the moment of his baptism, apparently when he was still in the water. That is the way this scene is often portrayed in art or illustrations, Jesus standing waist deep in water. John the Baptist standing next to him, pointing at Jesus, as if to say, "This is the one!" or, in the words of the Gospel of John, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!" And above Jesus' head in these scenes are the heavens apart with a descending Holy Spirit.

    But Luke if he was an artist would paint a slightly different portrayal. Luke writes: "When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

    The Holy Spirit does not come upon Jesus as he is being baptized, as the same moment as he is the water! Rather, when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus was praying, then the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove. Compare that to Mark 1.9 where we get a different image: "As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove."

    Why the difference? Is it the Rashomon effect? Luke is often seen more as the historian compared to the other gospels; say compared to the gospel of John. However at this important event in the life of Jesus, as New Testament Professor Fred Craddock puts it: Luke "seems to subordinate history to theology." So what does Luke see in the Baptism of Jesus. Luke's focus is on prayer and community.

    Jesus was at prayer; "And as he was praying." That should not be a surprise because --- perhaps more than the other gospels --- in Luke prayer is central. For example, the ministry of Jesus begins with prayer at the baptism and ends with prayer at the beginning of his suffering at the Mount of Olives. Luke points out that Jesus prays in connection with healing's and before selecting the twelve apostles, and before Jesus teaches his own disciples how to pray. Luke has Jesus praying for Peter and twice from the cross.

    Why is prayer in Luke, compared to the other gospels, associated with the major and minor events in the life of Jesus? This may all seem like an "of course" moment, but in Luke, Jesus uses prayer to help discern the right direction and strengthen him to complete his work. Jesus is in constant dialogue with God before major and minor events.

    This leads to the another unique aspect of the baptism of Jesus in Luke that I indicated earlier. Luke makes a point to remind us all that Jesus is with people --- in community; "When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too." In the other gospels, the important characters are God, Jesus, John the Baptist, water and the Holy Spirit; you get a sense that it was done with no one else around. Luke wants to make clear that at the baptism of Jesus this 'sonship', - this daughtership! - is no exclusive matter. In other words, if Jesus has a relationship to God, then so do the people with Jesus.

    What does this mean for us in the short Bible study? To put this together this emphasis in Luke on prayer and community means that from the moment Jesus began his public ministry it was in prayer; prayer empowered and strengthened Jesus. For example, we see that immediately after Jesus' prayer, Luke tells us in 4:1 "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert." Then again after Jesus is in the wilderness and is tempted by the devil, Luke writes "Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside." Prayer preceded these events.

    This is an important reminder as we begin a new year. In comparison to the other Gospels, Luke wants us to understand that when Jesus took on human flesh --- the incarnation --- Jesus is fully human with the joys and the sorrows, the temptations and limitations that come with being flesh and blood. Luke therefore highlights an important pattern in the life for his disciples; ministry given by God, prayerfully accepted by the people, and fulfilled through the working power of the Holy Spirit. It is in prayer and in community, that Jesus confirms this pattern and finds support from God as Jesus goes through life. Prayer is central.

    This leads to the other aspect of this event --- community. Faith is relational. We need each other living in the life of discipleship. Look again at our event. Although there are some subtle and interesting differences in the gospels on the baptism of Jesus, perhaps because of the Roshomon effect, all the gospels agree that at this event --- the word of God "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased" is a moment when God is in a sense quoting Gods self! Why? The quotation, "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased," is from Isaiah 42. In Isaiah, this person is the one who carries the sins of the whole world on his back. Certainly that is part of it but consider the words, "with you I am well pleased…" What had Jesus done? What kind of person was Jesus that God was so pleased? Up to this consider we have no record that Jesus had done or been anything but a child of God growing in faith. But if you take a moment to remember, Jesus is in community. He grew up in a family as a son of a carpenter --- perhaps taking a vocation as well. He grew up in a small community Nazareth, basically a suburb of Sepphoris --- a large and diverse town. Through it all Jesus was with people… in a community.

    Many of us are baptized … an event that has changed us forever in ways that we continue to discover. If you were to sit down and interview all those present at our baptism's we would get different pictures of the event. Certainly the facts of the event are different for each one of us, but Luke's emphases at the baptism of Jesus --- of prayer and community --- I believe are helpful for our lives today.

Our second lesson reminds us that even when having received the outpouring of God's gifts in baptism, we should not be surprised to see that God's Spirit still awaits with even more wondrous gifts for us. Such is the promise that prayer and community will continue to provide as we accompany and empower each other for what is to come in 2013 and beyond. In prayer, together in community we can move forward, regardless of how we each perceive and witness to God's grace. Amen.

“Stable Time” – 12/23/2012

    Sermon for 4^th Sunday of Advent. What is that? (Pianist plays part of a waltz) Even those of us who are not gifted with an ear for music -- or to be blunt, those of us with a tin ear --- can recognize the signature sounds of a waltz. What gives a waltz its characteristic lilt and lift is the number of musical beats it contains in each measure of music. That most well-known of waltz beats is "3/4 time" -- it has three beats to a measure.

    Let us listen again to the ¾ time waltz. …. You may have also noticed during the second time that the first of the three beats is usually the accented beat, the second two beats softer and unaccented. Thank you Mark.

    From what I have read, the waltz can be traced back to the late 1500's. With roots in simple folk dances, the music reached it height in popularity during the 19th century under the waltz King Johann Strauss. Now nearly a hundred and fifty years later, the waltz continues and can be found in "Tejano" and other genres of music but it has lost a great deal of popularity.

    So why is it no longer as popular? Dancing tastes have changed for one thing but in my opinion … what makes a waltz a waltz also makes a waltz an easily ignored piece of music. Its devotion to that 3/4 beat and the waltz dance step that accompanied it -- step, two, three; step, two, three --- seems to go on and on as if it were some perpetual motion machine --- always in harmony, always predictable, and for that reason it can seem dull and boring.

    What do you think … am I right? Well the reason I bring it up is … is that have you ever noticed that despite our human tendency to blame God for everything bad and hard that happens in our lives and would, we rarely find a reason to accuse God of being predictable or boring? Earthquakes, famine, flood, disease, tragic school shootings and death in general --- or more regularly the everyday tragedies that mar our lives --- bounced checks, burnt dinners, bad relationships, bossy coworkers, broken promises and brawling kids -- are all somehow blamed on God. When people and problems in our lives get too difficult, too big, too messy, too overwhelming, that is when we feel God has abandoned us to the forces of fate, or evil or despair.

    Yet, it is exactly because we have a steady God that we can live through those difficult moments --- it is exactly during our most hectic, harried, hardest moments in life that God's constant presence hovers nearest to us. In other words we have "stable times."

    For Christians, "stable" moments are not those few days when calm seemingly and briefly descends on our world we call Christmas, rather stable times are when we look around and see that as unpredictable, unmanageable and unimaginable as our mess is, God is present.

    If you don't believe me look again at today's events in the Bible. Both Elizabeth and Mary find they are in the center of their own "stable times." At the same time that life has gone completely haywire, God is present and active.

First look at Elizabeth. She is far beyond child-bearing age, yet she finds herself pregnant with a child, a story told before our lesson today. Imagine her overwhelming feelings of joy and anxiety. At last a child to love and … care for! Yet in her old age Elizabeth was going to be expected to take on all the exhilarating but exhausting duties of motherhood. Could she do it? How would she manage? Was she up to it? Her anxiety must have been running high. But the mental state of her young relative Mary must have been even more disheveled.

    Like Elizabeth, Mary, too, was unexpectedly pregnant, also told before today's words. Her betrothed, but not quite yet husband Joseph was understandably confused and upset. Mary also was young and poor and we can assume she had been utterly average in the expectations she had for her life. She had been more than likely anticipating setting up a household with a carpenter ---Joseph. She saw herself establishing a role as wife, and then, hopefully, becoming a mother.

    Instead, Mary has to cope with the astounding visit of an angelic messenger, the shocking realization that she was indeed pregnant, and the stunning news about the identity of this baby she carried.

    Yet both Elizabeth and Mary respond to the revelations and situations these "stable times" present in their lives by fully opening themselves to the divine presence. When these two women come together in today's gospel text, the result is an outpouring of joy and praise for God's startling dull, boring, stable presence in their lives at the same moment when the world is completely turning upside down. Elizabeth feels the vigorous movement of her baby, the "quickening," and is overwhelmed with an insight into Mary's condition that is revealed to her.

    Mary responds to Elizabeth's greeting by delivering one of the most beautiful prayers of praise we have in all of Scripture. The "Magnificat," as Mary's hymn is usually termed --- that we read in between our first and second lesson -- is an astonishing example of unexpected beauty and inspiration emerging when the unpredictable rhythm of a "stable time" washes over her. God takes a simple, humble, young woman and looks "with favor on the lowliness of his servant," transforming and exalting her. Mary becomes "blessed ... among women" --- because she refuses to panic and instead responds to this moment in her life with faith and trust in God's stable care. This is a prediction of the same message we will see on Christmas: There is no stable, no place in our world or in our lives that is too poor, too remote, too outcast, too wild or crazy, or too messy, that a "stable" God cannot be found.

We see in Elizabeth and Mary models and examples of how not to be during times of stress that is fooled into thinking that God cannot draw close to our lives; that all our messiness and the messiness of the world is a sign that God must be absent or irrational. Instead as Mary and Elizabeth point out that is exactly the time that boring old God is most present. It is exactly in those times that we are to pen up to, exalt in, and be willing to let the boring "3/4 time" Spirit of God "do great things" for us.

How can we see stable God in these tumultuous times? Let us briefly turn back to Mary as a teacher. First, Mary modeled humility in answering God's call without doubt or debate. She didn't suggest an alternative, someone else, nor did she say she was not good enough; she humbly accepted this amazing event. And second, Mary modeled a faith in God's wisdom, even though it was not in her plans or according to any plans she had ever heard of. This does not mean that she did not as the Bible says …"ponder" these events "in her heart" which is a tasteful way of saying having a lot of questions, doubts and concerns. Rather in humility and faithfulness she detected God's stable presence and love in her thread of life. She and Elizabeth heard and felt the "waltz" of God in their wombs.

Christmas will be soon upon us. Mary can, in this most difficult of times, sing a song that can be our song in this Advent season as well. As we have prepared for the coming of the Christ Child, now we too can sing in thanksgiving, in celebration, in remembrance, and in proclamation of the baptismal promise made to us that God has come to us. We to can dance to God's "stable" beat. Like Mary, and Elizabeth this is the time for us to indulge in celebratory joy in the promises that come to us in Jesus. Let us raise our voices in a great cry, magnifying our God for these "stable times." Amen.