March 24 -- Third Sunday in Lent

March 17 -- Second Sunday in Lent

Friends in Christ, I’m going to blow your minds with what I’m about to say.  And I can say it with confidence because they’re not my words.  I’m not exactly sure who said this first, but it wasn’t me.  Are you ready?  “The devil is the need to defeat the other.”   [marinate]

Now let me just say right off the bat that I’m not talking about a little healthy competition on the playing field….whether it’s a board game, ice rink, or baseball diamond.  I love to win, to defeat the other, the opposition as much as anybody.  Nothing wrong with sport.  The Olympics and World Cups.  At it’s best, these are wonderful events that comes along every couple of years…intended (not perfect) in an admirable spirit of unity and global peace.  I’m not talking about defeating the other in sports and games.

I’m talking about the way we think, the way we see and relate to each other and the world.  “The devil is the need to defeat the other.”   

Friends in Christ, we have been saturated for 400 years, since the time of the Renaissance at least, with DUALISTIC  thinking.  

We have been taught to evaluate the world by sizing everything up to something else.  And we do it so much we don’t even realize it.  Is it good or bad, is it art or trash, is it holy or is it an abomination, is it brilliant or stupid, is it appropriate or inappropriate?  Dualistic thinking.  We compare so much: my kid’s grades are better or worse than yours, look at the size of my office compared to my high school buddy’s, check out my level of success, or my level of volunteer involvement compared with the one (or a whole church) who calls themselves “Christian” down the street.  Look at what percentage of my income I give.  Guess I’m better!  Or worse.  My level of education, my ability to climb the corporate ladder, make the right investment, to build a better kitchen cabinet, to teach a better lesson, to speak more eloquently, to look more beautiful.  “The devil is the need to defeat the other.”   

Do you know what that really is?  Our ego gets in there and then the devil--the need to defeat the other--goes to work!  Watch for it this week.  Our pride and our greed gets in there and we get attached, attached to stuff.    

Politics in our country: masters at dualistic thinking!

Oops…I just did dualistic thinking…there’s my judgment!  

   

If you’re listening to me, I bet your doing dualistic thinking on me, toward me…right now.  Can’t really help it.  You’re evaluating me:  “Do I like what he’s saying or not, do I like what he’s wearing or not, do I like his tone or his demeanor or not… And we do it throughout worship with our musicians, with our pray-ers, with our readers, with our kids, everyone’s always being evaluated.  Right?  It can be exhausting.  It can wear us down.   [pause] Can there be another way? 

Well our Gospel lesson today gives us some ideas, a glimpse of God, if you will—a glimpse of the one who is above the devil, above the need to defeat the other.  

God presides over us all:  As we bicker in this world and cut one another down, as our ego’s battle it out, as our pride leads us down destructive pathways, our God waits for us.  

Our Gospel lesson today gives us an invitation in this season of Lent to return again to the one who is above the traps, the chains, the blindfolds of dualistic thinking [pause].   

Our Gospel lesson today gives us a glimpse of God, and She’s in the image...of a chicken.  Now don’t go falling into the snares of dualism again, here: hear me out…  (not my words) 

Jesus, we hear in our Gospel today, is longing to gather all the broken world under his wing.  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem...” means so much more than just Jerusalem.  

This image is so powerful—not necessarily because we imagine God as mother chicken, but—because that makes us little chicks.  Our quibbles are like the peeps of little chicks, franticly running about, and Jesus longs to gather us under the warmth of his wing.  New mothers and all caregivers know something about the feel of picking up a frantic, crying child, and literally feeling that child’s body calm down in the embrace, literally feeling that child’s body go from a tensed up state of total agitation and fear…to sleep, with nothing more from the caregiver but physical contact and maybe a little song.  That’s God the mothering hen!  “Loving, mothering God, how might we come to know your presence and your contact in our frantic and fear-filled lives?”  Communion, baptism.

Another way is simply by breathing.  Slow down and breathe.  We need someone to tell us that, don’t we?  Jesus says that to us today:  Slow down and breathe.  

Take any tough issue: Poverty, abortion, war, sexuality and the church, immigration, traditional vs. contemporary music, welfare, health care, gun control — whatever issue gets your blood boiling.  Watch yourself fall into the dualistic traps of judgment, ego, pride, greed, attachment…scurrying around like little chicks.  It’s natural for us all to do that.  [pausing] 

Now watch out for the devil, i.e. the need to defeat the other.  [slowly] And start to breathe. 

One of the ancient Hebrew words for God is YaHWeH.  Our OT lesson today tells us that the Word of “YHWH” comes to Abram in a vision.  But the ancient Hebrews wouldn’t say YHWH, they wouldn’t even write out YHWH fully. They’d just use the just Hebrew consonants equivalent to Y-H-W-H.  

But they really didn’t have to say or write the word for God.  [pause]  YHWH, you see, is the word that requires the least amount of work for even your mouth.  In fact it requires no work for your lips.  Saying God’s name—that is, giving praise and realizing the presence of God in our world, in our lives, in our bodies (over all the dualistic quibbles and peeps of our existence)—is as simple as breathing.  [try it...]  

When we breathe the holy breath with which God has filled us, and through which God abides in us, our ego falls out of the way, the blindfold of our dualism—and all the pride and judgment and attachment that come with it—falls from our eyes.   And in our breathing , in our YHWHing, we start to see with the eyes of God.  Our bodies and souls calm, like a frantic baby being pulled to his mother’s breast.  

But we don’t just go to sleep.  In fact, the opposite.  

The clarity that comes in knowing that we are sheltered and warmed under God’s wing gives us the courage to act with the compassion, justice and peace of Christ — that is the wisdom and the love of God’s own self.  So being gathered under God’s wing actually engages us with the world, but now with clarity and vision, “filled it to the utmost with God” (Luther) in every breath.  And, with the very eyes of Christ, we return to all those difficult issues.  To our lives.  To the brokenness.

We breathe God—calm to our souls, release of our egos—and in so doing we return to the world with lives of service, hope, joy and love.  This is the gift of Lent.  

[Take some minutes to breathe.  Then a bedtime hymn.]

March 10 -- First Sunday in Lent

Do you know who you are? 

This Gospel text is ultimately about Jesus being asked this question by the tempter.  Do you know who you are?  

And we have the opportunity this first Sunday in Lent to reflect on that question, and to hear anew God’s claim on us, in spite of the tempter’s great power.

“Look,” the devil said to Jesus, “with your kind of power you could turn all these stones into bread.  I’ll tell you who you are: you’re hungry.” [pause]

And Jesus was hungry: he hadn’t eaten for forty days, when this happened!  How we can do some pretty destructive things when we’re hungry!  In our family we have a word for how we can get:  HANGRY!  Hungry and angry.  Do you think Jesus was hangry?  He was fully human, we confess in our creed.

[slowly] When we are hungry, we are susceptible to forgetting who we are.  Our immediate desires take over — need food, need protection.  This world’s uncertainty creates a sort of wilderness, where we are hungry.  Our own personal situations can be a sort of barren land.  In this climate of horrific violence that makes us think twice or perhaps even downright terrifies us, just to send our children to school, it’s like we’re crawling through a desert yearning for an oasis of safety.    

How we too can relate to starvation, for not just nutritional security, but also financial security, national security... church and school security!  And how our starvations can make us hangry.  (Recently heard a preacher ask, “What’s holding us captive?”  RAGE, anger.)

And in our rage and in our hunger, the tempter tries to disassemble our identity.  “Do you know who you are?  Here, take control, turn all of these stones in to bread, make all of the kingdoms of world bow down to you, force them to.  Here, let the angels (like a mighty army) back you up, with force, and be at your beckon call.  [whisper] That’s who you are.  That’s what you deserve.”  [pause]

What strikes me about this story of Jesus’ being tempted in the wilderness is that the devil’s voice never sounds that bad.  It’s always subtle — what’s so bad about turning stones into bread when you’re hungry?  What’s so bad about over-padding my bank account and sheltering my children from the scary world?  Nothing, right?  See, hunger starts slowly and grows.  [pause] And when those fears start creeping in, like hunger pains, the tempter moves in and questions our identity, starts taking it apart so slowly we don’t even notice, giving us an answer to the question “Do you know who you are”.  “How about this?” the devil slyly suggests: “You’re entitled.  You deserve all this blessing, unlike all those other sinners, losers, murderers, slackers, Gentiles, unchosen, unblessed ones.  You should get all you have...and more.  Look at all the good things you do.  Go ahead, treat yourself to more:  more money, more security, more food, more pleasure, more things.  It doesn’t hurt.  [pause] Plus you deserve it.”

O we are in a wilderness these 40 days!  The temptation is all around — and it doesn’t end after wilderness time either.  The tempter keeps returning—waits, the text says, for the “opportune time”.  Our identity can be rattled constantly.  We are susceptible to others defining us.  Because frankly saying, “I am a child of God” doesn’t always seem so great, compared to “I am a powerful CEO.  I am the starting QB.  I am a mother.  I am an American.  I am a hard worker, who’s made something of my life.  I am a pastor.  I am a club member, a subscriber, a friend of [this person or that].  I am so connected.  I am home-owner, a world traveller, a college graduate with advanced degrees, a life-long church member, a decorated general, a sister, a survivor...”  All these other titles, drown out the most important one, the most central to our identity.  

Long before all our titles and resumés and descriptions of ourselves—some good, some bad—God described us, God claimed us, with a promise:  “You are my beloved child.”  And long after all the other descriptions and accomplishments and titles fade, God’s blessing and presence and still small voice will remain: “You are my beloved child.”   [pause]

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In 2012, I went to visit my Grandpa Roschke by myself.  Grandpa was slowly and peacefully dying in Colorado Springs, we all knew it and I wanted to see him.  I had flown out, gotten a car, drove out.  Grandma died a few years before, and Grandpa had been been so lonely and sad ever since.  But he always rested in that promise of God’s enduring love and claim on his life — in fact, it was part of Grandpa’s daily vernacular.  

A pastor for over 60 years serving the Lutheran church all over Missouri and Illinois, his largest congregation in Kansas City: 1000‘s of people; his Doctorate in Ministry and Preaching that he earned in Chicago, under the great scholar and author Martin Marty; his large and accomplished family spread out across the country (4 children, 11 grandchildren, great grandchildren); a couple beautiful homes over the years, and finally his dream home with a view of the Rocky Mountains that he built for retirement with his life-long partner, my grandma — when I walked into that little assisted-living apartment, where he’s had recently moved, none of those things were visible.  

None of those titles, those identities, were apparent.  

I actually had to knock on the door a few times and then just let myself in.  Grandpa was taking a nap.  And he was shrunken by age.  I hand’t seen him for a few years, and I couldn’t believe how tiny he looked on that bed.  My strong, funny, vivacious, tough-preaching, hard-working grandpa: curled up, like a child, shriveled by age and life...and a recent stroke.  

I sat in that dark room and watched him sleep for a few minutes before waking him up, and I cried quietly, both tears of sadness and tears of joy.  “Francis Roschke: child of God.”  Always was, always will be.  

And that is the truth for you too.  Look at yourself alone in your bathroom mirror tonight (all through this Lenten season), and say your name, and splash water on your head, and remember that our identities cannot be shaken by the tempter—and all the great temptations of this wilderness world.  For Christ has triumphed over the devil, and even death itself, and therefore we are brought into this eternal relationship with God, where we are forever sealed and marked by the Cross of Christ, and gifted with the Holy Spirit.  And we are named...given a title that will outlast any identity or medal or diploma on the wall.

Here at the beginning of this year’s Lenten journey, do you know who you are?  Today and forever, you are a child of God. 

March 3 -- Transfiguration Sunday

Transfiguration Sunday: the day that Jesus’ face and clothes change right before his disciples’ sleepy eyes.  

I think the “sleepy disciples” image resonates particularly this time of year.  Did you catch that in the story?  Unique to Luke.  Matt & Mk both include an account of the Transfiguration, but it doesn’t say that the disciples were “weighed down with sleep”. (Message translation: “hunched over with sleep” — sleeping in church story :)

Please don’t hear me wrong, sleep is good, a gift from God in other parts of the scripture (when angels come, in Mt).  But in the Gospel of Luke, for Jesus, sleepiness is an opportunity to fall into temptation.  

Congressman Elijah Cummings’ powerful closing words to Michael Cohen just keep sticking with me this week, as I think about this text and about Lent coming, a chance to look at our own individual sleepiness: “You got caught up in it,” he said to Cohen. Sleepiness in Luke is when we get “caught up in it.”

Can think of another time the disciples fall asleep while their with Jesus at a critical time?  [Gethsemane]  And Jesus command in that moment was “Pray—don’t fall asleep—pray, so that you may not be led into temptation.”

Sleepiness in this context is a fuzzy-mindedness.  Foggy brain.  [Anti-transfiguration moment in Costa Rica: “Looks like the inside of my mind up here.”]

--

When I’m slumped over with sleep, I’m grumpy if I you jolt me out of that.  Part of me is glad that wasn’t me on the mountain with Jesus, because I would have really embarrassed myself and snapped, when the bright lights and the 2 Old Testament heroes showed up.  I probably would have barked at them: “Get out of here!”

My fuzzy-mindedness, my being hunched over with sleepiness, and the temptation that can accompany my sleepiness, can lead me to anger and grumpiness.

The disciples, on the other hand, weren’t grumpy, thanks be to God.  They didn’t bark at Jesus or Moses or Elijah, like perhaps I would have.  They were much more like happy-drunks in their sleepiness.  They came to, and “not knowing what they were saying,” the Scripture tells us, blurted out, “Let’s build something and stay here forever!”

And can you blame them?  They are hanging with Jesus, Moses and Elijah.  These are the all-stars...in their faith.  Moses and Elijah?  Now they see Jesus in this whole new light!  And they woke into it — with elation and frenzied processing?  They were star-struck and jolted awake at the same time.  The few experiences I’ve had being star-struck, I said something stupid.  

Peter, James and John were star-struck, sleepy happy-drunk...and away from the world.  That’s the other thing!

Can you blame them for wanting to build and stay up there forever?  They were far away from their hurting, crazy, real world, and they only wanted to hang onto that, and keep cozy/fuzzy forever.  It’s like being nice and warm in your bed—all snug—and even thinking about getting up is daunting.  “Lord, it is good for us to be here.  Let’s build, let’s keep it pristine, let’s capture this glory, and stay.”

But precisely as Peter is rambling like this, a cloud comes over them, a thick fog moves in [just when they thought everything was so clear and beautiful] and they hear a voice: “This is my Son, the Chosen.  Listen to him.”  In other words, God says to the disciples of old and to us today — listen to him, to Jesus, not to your own voices of vanity, celebrating accomplishments, craving safety and security from the world, not to your own fuzzy-mindedness.  Listen to him.    

And suddenly the cloud lifts, and it’s just Jesus...and what’s he doing?  He’s headed back down the mountain, back to the pain and the brokenness, the division, the cruelty, the evil of the world.  No better example of that than the last part of this reading today:  Jesus casts out a demon IMMEDIATELY after this great glorious event.  Listen to him — the one who confronts evil and oppression with love.  [pause]

Here’s the gift of Transfiguration: we a get just a glimpse of God’s glory, and then we get back to work, following the one who confronts evil and oppression with love.  The glory keeps moving.  It’s like that flame that the acolyte carries.  Just a little flare, to remind us, that this work in the trenches is a worthy cause — more than that: it is a divine cause, it’s God’s cause.  Anyone who helped in any way with Hypothermia Shelter this week, I hope, got a glimpse of God’s cause.  Not overwhelming, but just a glimpse, and then we keep moving.  

Sometimes it seems like there’s no difference being made, no hope, no change, no matter.  But our work, your work, people of God, in your everyday lives, is not in vain:  Caring for those who are poor and the sick, caring for those who are hungry, the outsider, the immigrant and refugee, those without a roof this winter; reaching out to support a friend in need, being a loving parent, doing the right thing (even if it’s costly to your reputation or your wallet), staying awake and alert so that you don’t “get caught up in it”.  We don’t live on the mountain top, we live in the valleys — and your living and working in the valley is not in vain…

One of the themes in the Gospel of Luke is that Jesus says it...and then he does it: “Proclaim liberty and release to the captive, stand with the oppressed...here, let me show you…

“And if it doesn’t go well,” earlier in Luke 9, “then shake the dust from your sandals and just keep moving.”  Jesus talked about this when he sent out his disciples, and then he gets chased out of his own hometown.  Just keep moving.  [Dory from Finding Nemo: “Just keep swimming.”] 

      

Today we get a peek at God’s glory, and this week we descend the mountain top into the journey of Lent — 40 days of valley living, coming face to face with our sin and the sin of our world.  And yet we “just keep swimming” in the waters and the promise of our baptism.

Today we get a peek at God’s glory, at this peaceful Christ, who is the true hope and safety of our lives and of the life of this world.  Let us bask this morning in the wonder of his presence, shining among us even today, even in 2019, let us be in silent awe of Christ’s glory [not babbling or happy-drunk with suggestions on how to package and domesticate the moment].  Let’s just be in praise.  The German mystic Rilke: “Praise my dear ones.  Let us disappear into praising.  Nothing belongs to us.”  Let’s just bask in the glimpse.

And when the glimpse is past.  When the cloud of praise lifts, then, O God, give us the courage to follow your Son, the Chosen One, down the rocky path to face this world’s pain and sorrow, to face the sin in our own lives and in our world...but to do so knowing that the glimpse of God that we have today, both in the scripture and in the sacraments, the glimpse of God is only a foretaste of the feast to come, when we shall dwell with all the saints in endless glory.  

Thanks be to God, who goes with us now, who leads us now, into the valleys, who casts out demons, and welcomes the stranger, who loves everyone — even you, even me — this day and always.  AMEN.