May 26 -- Sixth Sunday of Easter

Oh no!  Now Paul has had a vision!  (Remember last week when Peter had a vision—and everything changes?)  What an energetic and open group of people that must have been accompanying Paul, the way Acts 16 is narrated — “When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.”

And so they set sail from Troas, to Samothrace, to Neapolis and from there to Philippi.  That’s their missionary journey.  How’s yours looking this week?  You know you’re all Christ’s missionaries, right?!

From where will you set sail this week, and where will your visions lead you this coming days, weeks, months?  How would you record your missionary journeys?  God’s calling some of us downtown, across the river or the tracks, maybe over borders, and maybe over to visit a friend’s house (or maybe someone who’s definitely not your favorite person) to offer comfort and support…

“During the night, ____ had a vision: there stood a man on the corner of Braddock and Backlick, pleading with her and saying, come over to the city and help us.  And when she had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over into downtown, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to the people there.  We set sail from Bethlehem’s parking lot, and took a straight course to the steps of the U.S. Senate building, which is the leading city in the district.  The following day we went to visit an aging friend who was lonely and from there we continued on…”  Something like that?  

Sound crazy, all this talk of visions?  A little irrational?  Maybe so.  One of the saints of the last congregation I served: Betty C..  Easter finest, we had brass instruments that that Sunday, and everything was intended to be glorious, to blow the roof off.  That’s when I first changed the seats to be in the round a way of surprising, shocking everyone.  It was a shock, I thought, and great symbolism in the Christian community gathering in a circle, equidistant from one another, looking at each other…

Betty, as she appeared to me after the service was unimpressed and un-phased really by any of the shock and awe of Easter fabulous-ness.  She just says to me quietly after the service, pointing over to this overgrown plot of land, “Pastor, I had a vision:  Why don’t we have a garden over there and grow food for hungry people?”

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Before long, we had “set sail” from a clump of dirt and weeds, took a straight course to organizing, and in several months we had crossed over to 12 small plots where fruits and vegetables and herbs grew, 6 fruit trees, 8 families, a girl scout troupe, a preschool class, our Sunday School class, and members of our community, not even affiliated with our worship on Sunday (gasp!) all planting and growing food out in that deserted spot that Betty had re-imagined.  We set sail from a clump of dirt and weeds, and now there’s a garden, a community garden...

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Our reading from Revelation this morning says “the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”  Imagine the healing of the nations, friends in Christ.  It’s gotta start with a vision, with imagination.  If you could paint or draw or write a song about or act that that out—the healing of the nations—how would you do that?  For some, maybe they see the healing of the nations—in their Holy-Spirit-inspired minds’s eye—as a community garden.  

Where will our visions from God take us?    

We set sail from here...wherever “here” is for you.  Sometimes it’s not a pretty place, and we’re game for an adventure.  Other times, it’s very comfortable and beautiful and yet God calls us out of that comfort zone (that tireless Easter image).  

And look what happens to Paul and his companions!  In this story today, they are taken in!  They are taken care of!  Despite the insane risks they take, one vision and they’re off!  But they meet this woman of considerable means named Lydia.  Who offers them safety in a strange land, hospitality and welcome.  Who knew? 

Have you met any Lydias lately?  They are angels among us.  When we risk the missionary journey — whether we’re traveling downtown to help out at a soup kitchen or across the world or across the living room—when we take the risk and make the missionary journey, sometimes we’re met by Lydias — amazing people out there, ready to welcome us in, perhaps even ready to be baptized along the waters’ edge!  [pause]

And when we risk the missionary journey, oftentimes there is trouble too — resistance, threat, loss, pain, sorrow.  

But this is always where God calls us and needs us to go.  To set sail from clumps of dirt and weeds.  

The Rev. Dr. Ben Stewart, preaching prof at LSTC reminds us that we are “earth creatures”, dry clumps of dirt and weeds, but God takes us, and sets us to sail by breathing life into us.  And off we go, into this life, filled with God’s spirit/breath/wind (all the same word in Hebrew (ruach).  And look where we go!  

Where will God’s spirit/wind/breath blow you this week?  

Maybe you’ll meet a Lydia, and maybe you won’t.  But no matter what, friends in Christ, know that you will ultimately be taken in, cared for.  For you are a child of God.

Hear Jesus‘ words again from the Gospel of John: [slow] “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Peace I give to you.”  

We set sail, because when God gives us that holy CPR, we can’t help but live with gusto, live with spirit, live with vision, live like the new Jerusalem has dropped right on top of Fairfax, Virginia.  When God gives us CPR, when God blows into us spirit/wind/breath, we can’t help but live like the Tree of Life is growing right there in our front yards. (If you have a tree or a plant in your front yard, give thanks for it, and let it be a reminder for you of the beautiful passage from Revelation.) Right there in our own house, apartment, townhouse, trailer or cabin are images of the healing of the nations.  Your home, your dwelling place is a place of God’s healing!  That’s what God breathing life into you and me does for us, it turns everything around, it raises the dead, it hydrates the dry ground, it causes fruit to grow...for healing sake.  That’s what happens when God’s vision sets us to sail.

God, through Christ, sets you to sail this day in love and forgiveness, in peace and joy.  

So off we go!  

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Memorial Day Sunday Prayer

We praise you, eternal God, for the devoted sacrifice of your servants who have laid down their lives that we might live. Into your holy keeping we commend them and humbly pray that we, like they, may give generously and never count the cost, asking no reward except the knowledge of your abiding love.

Almighty and everlasting God, whose providence guides your people in diligent service, bless the officers and enlisted women and men of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard as they perform the duties of their calling. Give them not only true love of country but also love of you and an understanding of your love for all people; so that, relying upon your guidance, they may courageously defend our nation from every foe, promote justice, honor, and unity among our people, and be a means of fostering mutual respect and understanding among all peoples of the world; through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord.

Amen.

(adapted from ELW Prayer Book for the Armed Services)

May 19 -- Fifth Sunday of Easter

Grace to you and peace, friends, from our risen savior Jesus Christ. AMEN.

Yesterday at our service for Pat and Ro Frodigh, I reflected a bit on this same Gospel text, so this morning I’m going to look at the first lesson from the book of Acts.
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Peter has a clear understanding of what the right thing to do is.  He’s known his whole life.  Peter was raised by good observant Jewish parents, Peter himself has observed the Jewish laws.  He has, for the most part, eaten and lived and made distinctions appropriately throughout his life.  And then he meets a Jewish rabbi named Jesus, and continues to practice the Jewish customs and rituals. Even after the resurrection.  Peter was Jewish, even as he followed and preached and healed in the name of Jesus.  The name Christian had not really emerged; Peter was still Jewish...just as Jesus was always Jewish.  And that meant practicing certain rules and customs that set Jews apart from the rest of the culture.  What rules and customs do we/you practice that set us/you apart from the rest of the culture?  (Praying at meals, going to church on Sunday, tithing, Ash Wednesday, non-violence?)

For Peter, eating certain foods was forbidden.  It was unclean.  It was against the law.  For it represented a wiping away of distinctions, and blending, an unclean blending and mixing with the culture of the day.  (BTW, I love how the Jews-of-Peter’s-day paid such close attention to what they put into their bodies, not just (or maybe not at all) as a matter of health, but as a matter of religious practice.)

It was all about making distinctions between Jews and Gentiles, between us and them.  And Peter was observant, he was keeping the law...always had.
Imagine, doing something, believing something, one way, the same way, your whole life.  That’s how Peter had practiced/observed...his whole life, the same way.  And he was old!
—
That’s a little background.  And our text in Acts today picks up when the “apostles and believers” — the other insiders — call Peter out:  “We’ve heard that you’ve been going to, talking to, mingling with, DINING with Gentiles!  What’s going on?”  So Peter shares what had happened to him.  That he had had a vision from God…

How many of you have ever had a vision from God, that totally changed the way you thought about something?

It was a couple years ago that I took my Confirmation kids at that time up to camp — a great class of 5 kids — and as you probably know, it’s a great chance to minister alongside other pastors and youth directors...all people that are passionate about the faith development of our kids.  We teach side by side in the mornings with the camp counselors, and then in the afternoon, when the kids are doing the fun camp stuff, we have some time to visit with each other about life and ministry.  I love it, especially as a chance to get to know some older, seasoned pastors from around our church.  Rare experience, to get away, to relax a little bit, and share and enjoy God’s creation, etc…

That summer 2012 I got to know a pastor who I had met once or twice before, but who I really didn’t know that well, other than that he was my best friend Brain’s pastor when he was growing up in Salinas, CA.  I had heard stories second hand through Brian, how wonderful and kind he was.  How much he loved the church, loved music, and cared for the youth of the church all those years.  His name is Wendell Brown.

I thought that he had retired at that time, but that summer, he was apparently serving at Hope Lutheran in Atascadero (central California), a good distance from Salinas.  And he and I got paired together as a teaching team with two counselors, and so we would talk a little about the lessons, and then work and play with the kids.  And one afternoon we’re playing ping-pong together and we get to talking.

As we’re talking about our congregations, and our experiences, at some point, I simply ask him why he had moved from Salinas to Atascadero.   Just a basic chit-chat question, right?  Pastor Wendell Brown responds by saying, “Well, God gave me a vision.”  This old time Lutheran pastor, solid head on his shoulders, solid credentials, a life of solid ministry — I’m sure BLC and any congregation would love Pastor Brown...up until this point.  But he wasn’t ashamed, or forceful about it, but I was asking and he tells me plainly: He had had a vision, and it was from God, and it changed everything.  This dear man’s credibility is getting a little crumbly for me, at this point, but my interest is solid rock.  I gotta hear this, right?  (And BTW he gave me permission to share this story.)    

Apparently Pastor Brown was not beloved by everyone in the Northern California synod over the past 30 years.  I had no idea, but Wendell Brown was a name at Synod Assemblies that  everyone knew meant staunchly anti-gay.  When conversation got heated on the Assembly floor, Wendell Brown was the name at the fore in the Sierra Pacific Synod.  He was the one at the microphone, with tears in his eyes and a bible in his hand, saying, if we accept gay and lesbian pastors into our churches we are breaking with the Bible and breaking with God.

He had had the passion and the certitude of Peter and Paul combined.  He had the Bible study clear in his mind, the certain verses set in stone in his heart, he had the majority of the people on his side (at that time), he was a champion and a warrior, and he wasn’t about to sit back and let his church go down this “liberal” road.

(I actually know a gay pastor from that area, and I’ve since asked him about Wendell Brown, and he shutters just at the thought of the man and what he stood for at assemblies.)

But about 2 years before our meeting in 2012, Wendell Brown went away on a retreat, just he and his wife.  And he started reading, and he started reading scripture.  This man knows the Bible backwards and forwards, but he started reading Acts again, and he read this passage for today, and something started to shake him from the very core, and he had a vision, and he was sure it was from God, and I WISH I could tell you what that vision was.  I’ve been trying to contact him this week to get the details.  What I remember is, his reaction to vision, and the exploding of this text: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane...who was I that I could hinder God?” Peter cries in Acts.  Weeping and weeping was PWB’s response!  This is a good stoic German Lutheran older man.  But he’s melting down before God.  He’s looking back at all the things he’s said and done, and questioning it all.  He’s looking back at scripture and seeing it in a whole new way.  He’s feeling called to go back to his dear congregation, and tell them what’s happened to him...in joyful, post-resurrection, Easter energy — that he’s been wrong about his stance on gay and lesbian pastors and the LGBTQ community in general.  How he had a vision from God, and while he suspected he’d find some resistance back home, he had to go and tell his beloved congregation, no matter what it costs him.

Needless to say, Pastor Wendell Brown loses all kinds of support back at Good Shepherd Lutheran in Salinas.  That’s putting it lightly:  People felt betrayed.  I mean,
people had joined that church — that church had grown by leaps and bounds over the years — because of his previous stance. And now he’s saying something totally different!

You can just imagine the un-doing, the fall out.  But he had no doubt in his mind, that this was what he had to do.  He ended up being edged out of that congregation, which he had served for almost 20 years.  (Long answer to my question, huh?)
—
I was with Brian this week in MN (preaching conference; Brian’s a pastor in SoCal), and we talked about ol’ Pastor Brown again.  Brian added to this and told me that there was a beautiful exchange that took place at his ordination reception, where both Pastor Wendell Brown and Brian’s uncle—who was the gay pastor who had often gone head-to-head with Pastor Brown at synod assemblies—were present!  Apparently at the water, the water cooler (great baptismal image), Pastor Brown: “Do you remember me?”  Uncle Howard: “Yes.”  Pastor Brown:  “I had a vision.  And I am so sorry.  And I am with you now.”

Friends, I’ve never heard a story quite like this.  Where an older, settled, deeply rooted man has a complete change of heart, mind and (I’d say) soul...and the courage to act in life-altering ways in response to that vision.  I leave it to you to determine whether his vision came from God, or from somewhere else.  Personally, I find this to be a modern-day parallel to Peter’s vision...only on a much smaller scale.  Because, frankly, our contemporary controversies in recent decades around human sexuality, pale in comparison with the Jew-Gentile issues with which the apostles were dealing!

Still, sisters and brothers in Christ, know that the Holy Spirit is still working in our lives in this Easter season and always.  Who are we to hinder God?
Know that the Holy Spirit is still working on us, here at BLC, in our individual and communal lives.  Who are we to hinder God?

Pay attention to your dreams and visions.  Know that God is still speaking in our lives, in many and various ways.
This is our God!

A God who’s Gospel shakes down the Law.

A God, whose cup of grace never runs dry,

A God who makes us new day after day, regardless of our age, or our life-long convictions.

A God who carries us through our darkest days, who forgives us our past iniquities, and lifts us up now to be the people that we are called, blessed, baptized and sent to be in this hurting and broken world.

That God “was there to hear your borning cry,” invites us to the water, the table, and goes with us now and always.  AMEN.

May 12 -- Fourth Sunday of Easter, Mothers' Day

It all comes down to love today.  Mothers' Day, the 10th Chapter of John, Tabitha the radical advocate for benevolence raised from the dead, in our first reading:  It all comes down to love.  “My sheep hear my voice,” Jesus says, “I know them and they follow me.”  What a motherly thing to say.   (Heather’s voice)

We follow after that voice and promise of God’s grace, friends in Christ.  We abide in that voice and promise of Jesus as our mothering shepherd.   It’s a close and warm image, right?

But there is a fierceness to that shepherding, mothering love too, one that gets dirt under your fingernails.  Despite the overtones of gentleness, there is a fierceness, a passion for peace imbedded in the warmth, a fiery commitment to holding us close.  More like a mother bear and her cubs: Don’t get between them.   (Kim and Mary)

I was reading again this week about the history of Mother’s Day.  And as you may or may not know – there are really two women whose names are associated with this day’s founding:

Julia Ward Howe, who started a medical clinic for both Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.  She had a fiery commitment to holding everyone close – friend and foe alike!  And her work for peace was a fight.  She was anything but passive; she was a peacemaker (2x).  And her words ring out in her not-so-famous Mother’s Day Proclamation, which I’m afraid is not shared enough on this day.  But here it is, the Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870, by Julia Ward Howe:

Arise, then, women of this day!                 (Tabitha arising)
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:  "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

And then the other woman who is credited with the founding of the day is Anna Jarvis.  She lived a few years later, early 1900’s. Anna Jarvis’ own mother set up a group of women called the Mother’s Day Work Club, a group of women that focused their efforts on clean sanitation systems and health care access for everyone in their communities.  Talk about motherly love that gets dirt, and who knows what else, under your fingernails.  Then Anna Jarvis herself, inspired by her mother’s life of service, petitioned Congress for years to make Mother’s Day a national day.  But almost as soon it was recognized, it became commercialized – flowers and greeting cards – and Anna Jarvis spent her final years campaigning against what the holiday had become.  She was even arrested at one point for “disturbing the peace.”

I mention all that today as I think about my own mother, who in her own way did a bit of disturbing the peace…in the name of peace.  When I was in elementary school in Texas, I was invited to go visit one of my school friends’ family ranch, with a group of other boys.  My mom apparently didn’t ask enough questions about what we were going to do, because I came home with stories about shooting a rifle for the first time.

My mother, who let’s just say is not a member of the NRA, was furious.  She called up my friend’s mother to “discuss” the situation.  And as she tells the story, they had a difference of opinion: The other mother, reportedly, said that she believed young boys ought to know how to handle a weapon so that they can one day defend themselves and their families and their country someday.  (See, a mother’s love is fierce and complicated.)  My mother fiercely responded to her, “Well, Lorraine, Daniel will not be attending any more trips to the ranch.  We are raising peacemakers in our home.”  And then she hung up the phone.  A little dirt under the fingernails?  Motherly love is not clean and simple.

I think about my mother, and all good mothers, as I read about Anna Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe.  And I believe that this motherly fierceness reflects that of God.  God’s love disturbs the peace for the sake of a much deeper peace, the peace that passes all understanding.

God’s love for you crosses boundaries, and dividing lines, makes uncomfortable phone calls, advocates and petitions, protests, proclaims, as Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation, “Let the great human family live in peace.  Let each bear the sacred imprint, not of Cesar, but of God.”  A mother knows of the divine imprint that God has made on God’s children.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, this Mother’s Day, no matter how you experience Mother’s Day (because for some it can be a very painful time for various reasons), sisters and brothers in Christ, God’s love for you is fierce, like a mother bear, with dirt in her claws.  Like a shepherd with wolves’s teethmarks on her staff.  And should anything come between God and you, should peril or sword, or temptations or disease, anxiety, depression or disbelief…should anything come between God and you, then God, like a mother bear, becomes fierce, fierce about keeping you close, fierce about keeping you warm, fierce about making sure that you can abide in that motherly embrace.

God topples the cruel oppressors rod and draws you in like a mother bear draws in her cubs, like Julia Ward Howe, or Anna Jarvis, or my mother.  Let the cry go up from our mothers and all: “We are raising peacemakers in our home!”  God draws us close, forgives us beyond our own ability to forgive, protects us, and teaches us with the fierceness of a mother.  Christ is raising up peacemakers (like Tabitha was raised up)…calling us this day to follow in this way of love, and to hold one another in fierceness and in peace.  To hold one another as friends.

Thanks be to our mothering God, for we abide in Her everlasting arms, this day, and we always will.  It all comes down to love, today.  With God, everyday.  AMEN.

May 5 -- Third Sunday of Easter

Grace to you and peace from Christ who is risen indeed and who greets us with the breath of peace…AMEN.

These texts are amazing!   I’ve been thinking this week: this is kind of text I’d want to have at my funeral!  (Have you ever thought about that?  What are the biblical texts that you want the world to hear and know…) 

This has got to be one of those...and coupled with Saul’s conversion!!?  

Let’s look at this text of Jesus on the beach.  First, I’ve got to show you this: [story, then apron — “Biblically mandated BBQing”]

[Also the story of fish (fresh caught rainbow trout) for breakfast up in the Rocky Mountains!]

This text taps into the best stuff of life: the morning, food, fellowship, the water’s edge, a bbq, and of course Christ sitting right there with us.

—

OK, let’s get into it:  I would call this post-resurrection scene, maybe the title of this sermon “The Undoing”.  

There are multiple layers of “un-doing” happening here.  That is, something that happened before Christ’s death and resurrection is being “undone” now:

For example, there’s the “undoing” of the night meal (the last supper of betrayal).  All the brokenness of the night, the scattering of the disciples that we marked and embodied here at BLC on Maundy Thursday (running out), it’s undone in this scene...with breakfast.

“Come have breakfast,” Jesus says.  What does the psalmist say?  “Weeping spends the night, but joy comes in the morning.” 

Have you ever had a terrible night, but in the morning, as you watch the sun come up, it’s like you can breathe again?

Sometimes a “terrible night” can be literal; usually it’s a metaphor.  Perhaps it’s a whole season or years at a time, maybe its a tragic event, or comment or person that simply haunts you to no end it seems, a voice in your ear that presses down on your whole being.  Failure at night: Peter: “We’ve caught nothing.”  Grief can be a long, terrible night.  Addiction can be a terrible night.  Recovery can be a long, terrible night.  Pent-up-anger and bitterness at the way things have turned out...can “crash at your place” and keep you tossing and turning for way too long.  Weeping, pain, sorrow, anger, fear spends the night. 

But then, the “sun comes up”.  The night is undone.  And that joyful invitation from Jesus:  “Come have breakfast.”  How is Christ inviting you to breakfast this new day?  

First it’s the invitation, the gathering.  The reversal or un-doing of the scattering.  Come back together, i.e. re-member (remember?)…

And then it’s food!  The undoing of hunger.  The undoing or the breaking of the fast.

— 

But there’s more undoing in this text, when we look at Peter.  There’s the undoing of the paralysis of sin…

Despite Peter’s shame about what he’s done.  He still goes to Jesus.  This is so good! 

Peter of course denied Jesus 3 times, remember?  Imagine the shame, the guilt, the burden he’s carrying.  That’s symbolized in this story by him putting his clothes on and jumping into the water.  Did you catch that?  Kind of weird. It says he was naked — naked fishing — but when Jesus invites him to breakfast, he puts his clothes on and Forrest Gumps it into the sea to swim back to Jesus.  

The Gospel of John layers everything with meaning and intention: and the intention here is that we associate Peter’s shame to the shame and embarrassment of Adam and Eve in the Garden.  Remember when they eat the fruit, and suddenly they knew they were naked? And hid themselves?  That’s Peter, putting his clothes on when Jesus finds him.  He’s ashamed of what he’s done!

But!  He goes to Jesus anyway!   And not just gently wanders his way: no, he goes diving into the sea!  So rich!  He swims back to Jesus.

What’s that look like for you?  How might you “swim back to Jesus” these days, friends?  Put the clothes on, cover up if you must, but dive in: crash into the waves, or let the current take you back to the shoreline, back to the meal, the fire, the Christ.

So more undoing.  Even though Peter has shame, it’s not going to stop him.  It’s not going to paralyze him.  

This is an amazing thing too: post-resurrection something happens, and the disciples no long stay locked up or frozen.

Think about that for a second: I mean, these disciples who started out on Easter evening locked behind the closed doors for fear become the radical proclaimers of the Gospel throughout the ancient Mediterranean, risking everything, life and limb to share the good news of Jesus!  What happened?  

What kind of conversion took place?  What switched?  We’re starting to see that with Peter here.  (Paul in the First Lesson.)  The sin is not going to stop them.

I love those stories of coaches and teachers who were labelled “problem kids” when they were younger.  Maybe that’s some of you.  In some ways, it’s all of us: the same ones who drove their coaches and teachers crazy, grow up to become the very best teachers and coaches.  Something happened.  The past, the parameters, the definitions and labels are not going to stop them.  

Christ is calling us out of the boat.  And Peter goes!  Something switched in him.

—

Finally, this undoing happens at the end of our text.  Peter is wearing the sopping wet clothes of his guilt and shame when he comes ashore, but then we have this dialogue.  “Peter do you love me?” Yes.  “Feed my lambs.” “Peter do you love me?” Yes. “Tend my sheep.” “Peter do you love me?” Yes. “Feed my sheep.”  3x.  Do you know the undoing that’s happening there?

Jesus is forgiving Peter’s denial!  Jesus is undoing his guilt.

The resurrected Christ has undone sin and death itself!  So we can lighten up.  Take those cold, soppy, sea-stinky rags off, and have some food, warm yourself, know that you are loved.  And now, go and share that love with others.  

For this forgiveness is for you too.  Thanks be to God, AMEN.