"AMEN! LET'S EAT!"

Martin Luther described the Holy Bible as the "cradle of Christ"...in other words: The Manger.
Not only at the Christmas stable, but all year-round,
God's people are fed at this Holy Cradle.
We are nourished at this Holy Table.
We are watered at this Holy Font.

This blog is a virtual gathering space where sermons from Bethlehem Lutheran Church (ELCA) and conversation around those weekly Scripture texts may be shared.

We use the Revised Common Lectionary so you can see what readings will be coming up, and know that we are joining with Christians around the globe "eating" the same texts each Sunday.

Sunday, December 27, 2020

December 27 -- Put a Fork in Me~It's On! (Christmas 1B)

 Grace to you and peace this Christmas season from God who comes to us in peace, Amen.

Friends, maybe it’s been a while...or never...that you’ve gotten to hear what comes immediately after our famous Christmas story in the gospel of Luke.  There’s even more to Chapter 2!  In the very next verses, baby Jesus is a being taken up to the temple, as was the tradition.  A sacrifice is made in thanksgiving for a newborn healthy child.  (Any healthy babies born this year in your family or in your circle?  Helpful, I think, to be reminded again that the very first move of God’s faithful people, immediately after to a birth, is to sacrifice something.  To let go of something that’s important, to give something significant...as a show of joy and thanksgiving.  The first move, the first verses following.)

This was the custom then, an essential component to the rite of purification of a baby boy.  

And while they were there, they bumped into two old church mice.  One of my favorite preachers and bible scholars the Rev. Dr. Thomas Long said that Anna and Simeon are like “Old Testament characters who lived long enough to make it into the New Testament.”  

...They’re still there, God bless ‘em.


I see two things happening in this text today:
The first is the “sigh of relief”.

Maybe you just experienced a “sigh of relief”...
It can come late on Christmas Day:  All the presents have been opened, the sugar high is turning into a happy low, maybe a mild food coma setting in, wrapping paper still all over the floor, dishes still stacked in the sink — not time for that yet.  No, first a happy sigh of relief, sinking down into your favorite chair.  Feet up.  Maybe you hear children outside playing with their new toys.  Laughing.  Stories.  Maybe a tear of joy has just been wiped.  After seeing family or laughing with friends on a video call.  Exhaustion is certainly a big part of this:  after all the preparations, all the hard work up to this point, all the anxiety and fear, at last, the moment of exhale, the sigh of relief.   The satisfied “ahhh” as you take it all in, like praying ‘thank you’ with your whole body.  My best friend likes to say in those happy moments, feet up, beer in his hand: “Put a fork in me.  I’m done.”

Not everybody has gotten that this year, but I hope you have or will soon.  And today, at least, maybe you can imagine it:  the first thing happening here is Simeon and Anna with that joyful sigh of relief.

“My eyes have seen it at last,” Simeon rejoices and says, “Put a fork in me.  I’m done.”  

After all these years of waiting for fulfillment, longing (Luke says) for the consolation of Israel.  For decades he and the widow Anna had been singing in the minor key: “O come, o come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.”  So had their parents and grandparents.  Centuries of pain and hoping for this day.  It’s been a long Advent season for them.  And now at last he can sing and sigh with major relief: “Joy to the world the Lord is come, let the whole planet receive her king!”  His heart is prepared, plenty of room...YES!  

If you had a good Christmas Day sigh of relief, you’ve had a glimpse of Anna and Simeon’s great exhale.  “Ahhhh…”

And by the way, this is holy activity.  The Holy Spirit rested, Luke says, on these two old church mice.  And their joy, their praise and celebration, their sigh of relief is sacred.  

So is putting your feet up, friends, and giving thanks for all the good things.  It’s not something to feel guilty about or hide, as we can be tempted to do.  Sabbath is one of the 10 Commandments!  BrenĂ© Brown had a great podcast back in October about “Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle.” Burnout is happening because we’re not completing the stress cycle, the biological import of the exhale.  It is literally — in some cases — shedding the stress.  There is salvation in the sigh of relief!  We can’t just jump from one stress to the next without shedding, exhaling, and for God’s people, that purification includes giving, letting go, sacrificing, offering, going up to the temple...and singing.  Sabbath peace and joy is what Simeon & Anna teach us!

And that’s just the first part:

The second thing that I see happening in this text — after the period of joyful exhale, the sacred sigh of relief — next, comes the gearing up for ministry.  That is, the honest acknowledgement that there is always more work to do, and that road is a rocky, narrow trail.  

Go back to the Christmas Day living room scene: there’s stuff to clean up.  There’s stuff to put together.  There’s stuff to put on, and there’s stuff to put away.  There are gifts that that we now get to put to good use or let go of: That’s faithful!  And what a joy there too!  

How will we steward the blessings that we celebrate and give thanks for this season?  

And, like Simeon says, remember that tough times are still before us: “This child is 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 — [even you!] a sword will pierce your own soul...”

The road of the Christian is a long one.  And it’s a grounded one, an earthy one.  We rest AND we get up...and pick up and clean up and carry up and lift up and speak up.  We do the work too.  We face the truth about the world and about ourselves.  A sword shall pierce our own soul too.  This child of peace, will cut  away your false coverings, slice into our lives and expose our hearts to being hurt.  

Following this Jesus, we will be hurt.  You know this already.  [pause]

And yet, this is the Christian journey.  This is the walk with Jesus.  [I used to wear a Cubs hat in sermons and preach about suffering and faith...]  The Christian journey can be like waiting for your team to win it all.  And what do we do in the meantime?  We keep cheering.  We remain faithful.  We keep going...  


Up to the temple, into the peace that passes all human understanding, and then back down the mountain into the world, and back up again.  From the safety and sabbath of the living room, to the open-heart riskiness in the world, and back again.  Exhale, inhale.

The One who the prophets foretold has arrived.  Let us worship him.  And then let us follow him down, and then let us worship him again.  Back and forth.  Inhaling, exhaling.  Christmas into the new year.  God with us always.  Salvation has come.  Emmanuel.  This day and forever.  AMEN. 

Thursday, December 24, 2020

December 24 -- Verticle Nativity (Christmas Eve 2020)

“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given…”

Friends, grace to you and peace this Christmas Eve,

Grace is what we need right now, isn’t it?
And Peace...not peace that the world talks about, but when Christians say “grace and peace,” that’s God stuff.  That’s God’s deep and abiding peace, that resides far beneath the surface...

Some years ago I got to go to Rome in January to study and visit Early Christian sites.  It was thanks to Dad, who’s got a good friend Jim, who’s also a pastor and a passionate scholar on the 1st Century Early Church in Rome.  Jim is always leading trips to Rome, and Dad was always inviting me to join them.  And 5 years ago, I finally did!  The trip was amazing; I’d love to go back someday, I hope you all can go there someday too…(btw, ok to mourn even at Christmas time)  

Anyway, I bring my Rome adventure up again this good evening because Rome in January is absolutely filled with nativity scenes.  

The great Francis of Assisi is credited with the Christmas nativity, assembling manger scenes — whether it’s in-home or in-church, indoor or outdoor, realistic or creative, live or little figurines — any and all...so that children, in particular, could better learn and understand the Christmas story.  

And how true it is!  It’s the classic object lesson!  I wonder how many of you might have had/have a special nativity scene that you got to arrange or watch each year grow in the weeks of Advent.  I know that was formative for me growing up, and something I always looked forward to.  I remember on Christmas Eve the tradition at home of bringing out all the baby Jesus’ that had been hidden all through Advent.  And in church, on Christmas Eve, it was a special honor to begin the service each year with a child in the congregation carrying the precious figurine of the baby Jesus up the aisle and placing it ever so reverently into the manger.  I seem to remember this clink as the porcelain Jesus touched the porcelain manger.  After 4 weeks of joyful Advent waiting, the first true bell of Christmas!  

Anyway back to my trip to Rome in 2015:  There were nativities everywhere, called “presepe”, harkening me back to my childhood joys...and also offering new insights...  

One church that was actually physically connected to the “domus” where we were staying, had this wonderful, dimly lit room off of the sanctuary, and it was just filled with nativity sets, presepi, probably 2 dozen different displays spread around the room, with some choral Christmas music playing from a small speaker.  Open to the public around the clock to enjoy—great for those of us with jet-lag.

They were all such intricate arrangements, way more characters than just the stars of the Christmas pageant!  Figurines were camped out and hidden all through these complex landscapes and creative designs, like vast model train sets:  Grottos and tunnels and tiny lights and flowing water...just tickling the imagination.  

You had to walk around each display in order to see everything.  And often, it was a bit of a challenge to find Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus in the midst of it all.  I think that was intentional.

And some displays were multi-leveled.  

One I remember in particular, told a very clear story to me.  Three levels.  The top level had these armored Roman guards up above, on the top level, standing among white Roman columns; some Roman senator-types lounged on steps around a real fountain bubbling and trickling into a tiny opening…

Then your eye follows the trickle down to the middle level where regular folks are living, it’s a home scene, and a merchant with a cart, and a children playing in the street.  You explore the happy moments and then wonder, wait, where are they?  

The water keeps trickling down to the lowest level and finally you see a tiny baby, a humbly dressed Mary and Joseph, some young shepherds, both male and female, all huddled over the animal feed box.  You had to squint a little bit to see them because there wan’t much lighting down there.  I think had to turn on the flashlight on my phone, but there they were:  

God’s deep and abiding grace and peace, that resides far beneath the surface, levels below the power and glory of the day, even below the beauty and happiness of the neighborhood scenes.

I was so struck by this — clearly: years later...and this year 2020...I’m remembering it — I think in part, because I tend to imagine that holy night, this holy text in Luke 2 on a horizontal plain.  You know, the more characters there are, the wider the frame [nativity in the narthex that took up half the room].  But this was the opposite, it was vertical and narrow, multi-leveled.  Jesus, who the angels above sing about, is born down below:  God’s deep and abiding peace resides far beneath the levels of power and glory, even quaint happiness.  
Friends: that’s way more in line with the Gospel of Luke...the vertical nativity.

Who are the Roman soldiers pressing down on you?  Enforcing peace, more in a “shut up and take it” approach (Pax Romana) leagues away from that divine peace of God, found stories below.  What are the Roman columns in your life, in our world? — the structures that prop up and maintain the status quo, but leave so many buried...buried in debt, or sorrow, or fear?  Hidden at the bottom?  Who are the lounging senators in your life?  Comfortable and jovial, polite, eloquent and smart (in a way), but in their privileged comfort totally oblivious to what’s below, to where the water trickles?  

Jesus loves all of them too, by the way.  Maybe that’s you?  This is land of senators and soldiers, after all.  Jesus comes to be with all of them, with all of us...if we’re feeling pretty comfortable too.  But friends, in Luke’s vertical nativity story, this Jesus comes from the lowest places.  That’s where he sleeps, swaddled and silent.

And the everyday folks in the middle level?  Not rich, not poor, the neighborhoods, the children playing, the marketplace cranking on, the schools and shops and churches, the very real fears and illnesses of the middle level.  Addiction and abuse.  Adultery and anxiety.  Everywhere the water flows.  Jesus gets in there too:
Jesus sits in the homes, eats at the tables, kneels at the bedsides.  And always centers the children.  But comes from beneath.  Born below.  Sleeping on straw.

And made known first to shepherds.  The nightshift.

Friends, [silently] this is our God.  

So deeply imbedded in the underbelly, the gutters below.    Where there’s hardly a drop left.  See, that lower level, is  not just a romanticized Christmas poverty, beautiful in its simplicity: no, it’s dirty down there, it’s bars and brothels, it’s black lives that have endured bloody beatings and bully sticks.  It’s the edges, the places people go when they have no hope, or are where they never had a choice, born by a dumpster, in the stench of an alley, and trying to climb out.  Many of us might have to squint a bit to find this Jesus.  But follow the trickle down.

And be assured that he’s there, that he has arrived, that today is born in the city of David, the nowhere shepherd outpost of Bethlehem…
    That’s where the Shepherd of the World is born!  
The one who guides us to green pastures, and cool waters, where everyone has enough, where healing and redemption abound, where the crooked road is made accessible to all, and the sword of empire and brutality is bent into a gardening tool to plant and feed hungry people.  Where evil and death is conquered at the last, and where forgiveness of sin and new life grows like a tiny sprig from a stump.  This one from below changes everything.  

“Change shall he bring/chains shall he break...his law is love and his gospel is peace…”

This one from the scandalous under-belly spends his ministry in body on earth making level the scenes: turning the vertical into the horizontal!  Flipping the display on its head, rearranging the whole thing, molding a new landscape, where the mighty and glorious are brought down, and the downtrodden are lifted up.  (That was his mother’s song.)  And all may see it together!  (That was Isaiah’s song.)  Jesus sets the characters, even the planets in their places.  And everyone is gathered at the center, in the middle, and included — everyone fed, everyone housed, everyone clothed, and treated with dignity and inoculated with hope and new life.  Including you.

This is our God, from below, with us now.  Changing the entire scene, and offering anew that deep grace and peace...this holy night and always.

[sing] “And you, beneath life’s crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow:
look now for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing;
oh rest beside the weary road
and hear the angels sing.” 

Amen.

Sunday, December 13, 2020

December 13 -- Not the Messiah (Advent 3B 2020)

 Let us pray, drawing words from our Epistle reading today:  “May the God of peace sanctify us entirely...for the one who calls us is faithful.  AMEN.”

Last week we read the message of John the Baptist, as told in the Gospel of Mark.  I didn’t preach on it (I preached on the Isaiah lesson), but I’ll tell you now: the thrust of John the Baptist’s message in Mark is this:  REPENT.  John the Baptist, with Isaiah and Mary and Micah, are Advent prophets.  And we actually get two weeks of two perspectives on John the Baptizer this season...

This week, the Third Sunday of Advent, in the Gospel of John, the word “repent” doesn’t appear at all!  It’s a different thrust completely.  In fact, baptism, in the Gospel of John, has far less to do with REPENTANCE, and everything to do with revealing God’s love, like shining a spotlight on Jesus.  John himself only wishes to “testify” to God’s love.  John certainly baptizes, but he does so for the sole purpose of making Christ known…and in so doing tells us all who he is not—John the baptist is not the Messiah.  If we’re in the Gospel of John, especially, I actually like to call him John the Pointer.

John proclaims, even to us today, that the Messiah position has already been filled.  In other words, God is God, so we don’t have to be.  

I have a friend who was called to a church some years ago – and when she came she was greeted with wide open arms, like she walked on water.  You see, she was highly qualified.  She’ll probably be a bishop one day.  She has the kind of solid theological training, the kind of compassion and passion for God’s people that any congregation would envy.  And this congregation knew it.  You see, the congregation, like many others, had been through years of decline, and so they were very excited to have her with them!  In fact, she actually had somebody refer to her, shortly after she arrived, as “the Messiah” — the one who would save them.  My friend very quickly assured them that that position had already been filled…and that that was good news.

Siblings in Christ, whether we live or whether we die, we belong to God.  Our salvation does not depend on us.  Jesus has already filled the Messiah position.  (That’s good Advent news; that points us to the meaning of Christmas.)  Jesus has filled the Messiah position...and now our job is to be about proclaiming that, like John, giving testament to that good news, shining the spotlight on the manger.  

(As a little bodily preaching prep this week, I brought a new spotlight from home, to shine more light on our weathering manger out front.  It’s another way of pointing.)

John the Baptist teaches us that lesson today.  Our call is to go and do likewise, giving our egos a little reality check, and proclaiming this Advent season, not who we are, but who we are not.  And shining the spotlight, pointing to the Christ, born in Bethlehem.

We do that by our actions.  Francis of Assisi famously said “preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”  How might we proclaim that the Messiah position has already been filled…with our actions?

I heard a story once about a missionary in India.  He had been sent there by a Christian organization in the United States, who was sponsoring him.  And after many years of trying to start a Christian church in a primarily Hindu culture, he finally realized that his missionary attempts weren’t getting any traction.  He called to inform his sponsors of where things were at.  They understood, and plans were made for his return home.  As it turned out his departure date was scheduled for December 26th.  And so he would be there for Christmas Day, on the western coast of India, in the midst of a deeply Hindu people and culture.  The missionary decided he wanted to throw a Christmas party before he left.  So he set up tables and chairs in the center of the marketplace.  Then he took all of his remaining funds from his sponsoring organization, and bought as much rice and bread and milk as he could.  Hundreds of dollars, which is what he had remaining from his years in India, can buy a lot of rice and bread and milk, in that part of the world, at that time.        

It was a wonderful party as you can imagine—a Christian man sharing and eating among the poor in a distant land.  The next day, he packed up his things, and climbed aboard the ship that would eventually bring him home.  

When he arrived back in the United States, his sponsoring organization quickly found out what he had done with the remaining funds.  

They were furious.  “How could you have done that?  It was a failed mission.  And in the end, no one became Christian.  They’re not even Christian!”  The man listened to the board of directors and calmly responded.  “But I am, and it is the Christian story that I am sharing on Christmas Day.” [pause]  Like John the Baptist, he remembered that he was who he was for the sole purpose of making Christ known.  Friends, we are who we are for the sole purpose of making Christ known.


And who is Christ to which we point?  He is the one of whom Isaiah sings: He is the one who brings good news to the oppressed, who binds up the brokenhearted, who proclaims liberty to the captives, the cancellation of debts, gladness instead of morning, life instead of death!  The one to whom John points, the one on whom we shine the spotlight with our lives, is Christ Jesus...who loves justice and peace, who restores all the earth with shoots of green that spring up, who welcomes and includes everyone, who forgives and embraces and feeds and shelters and comforts all...

Siblings in Christ, we are invited again today to reflect and respond to the gift of who we are—forgiven followers, proclaimers, spotlight-shiners, pointers to Jesus...through our words and actions.  
And siblings in Christ, we celebrate this Advent morn who we are not—the Messiah, who is with us now and loves us still, who is faithful and will not ever let us go.  May that peace sanctify us entirely this day and always. AMEN.  

Sunday, December 6, 2020

December 6 -- Isaiah and the Dust-up (Advent 2B)

Grace to you and peace…

Friends in Christ, sometimes my 14-almost-15-year-old M and I get into it.  Sometimes M acts up, does something wrong, and I get angry.  And I give a consequence, a punishment.  And sometimes that consequence is twice as bad as M’s acting up.  I love my son, but I get mad.  I lose my temper as I dole out punishment.  And sometimes, the punishment can go beyond the crime.  And sometimes, it’s H, after the dust from the dust-up has settled, who comes along side us both individually, privately, and helps us work out a consequence that fits and brings us back together...

I’m going to preach on the First Lesson from Isaiah today.

We have to spend some time with Isaiah during Advent.  H is very Isaiah-like in my little real-life illustration...entering the scene, post-dust-up to bring us back together.  

I know I’ve talked a bit about not sentimentalizing (or sanitizing) the nativity — porcelain figures, frozen in perfection on our Christmas shelves and mantles (I read about that in our Advent devotion “Low” on Wednesday evening...)  Maybe a similar thing can happen here with Isaiah’s famous text, because of Handel’s Messiah. (How many got that in your head, when it was read? ...which I love as much as anyone, btw!)  But let’s not miss Isaiah’s grit and context, for the glorious, holiday, royal chorus.  There’s even more to it!...

Isaiah is a prophet of hope in a time of complete chaos and uncertainty, in a time of debilitating trauma, unspeakable loss, total despair...and in an era where God is imagined to have stepped away entirely.   The people have lost their faith: if they know God at all, they have only known and experienced God as an angry judge...doling out punishment.  (Dangerous intro illustration — the only thing I’ve got in common with God, in that case is doling out big consequences.)

You see, Isaiah was written at a time when the exile and captivity was well underway.  Jerusalem has been destroyed.  The entire nation was in the hands of a foreign power, Babylonians then Persians.  Why?  According to the 1st & 2nd Kings (which, btw, we’re studying right now in our Tuesday Bible Study 7p), because the kings of Israel and Judah and all the people of the monarchy have turned away from worshiping God alone.   They’ve adorned the temple with extravagance — called it “God’s house” (in effect, it’s an attempt to domesticate God) — but spent twice as much on their own palaces and homes!  In other words, they’ve built many other temples, and priorities had gotten grossly out of wack.  It’s the successful broker who gives $30,000 at his local place of worship each year (and gets all kinds of accolades for his generosity), but meanwhile is raking in millions in the spiking economic climate, has several homes, vehicles, riches galore. That’s where the monarchy was had gotten.

The kings and their people have again gone after other gods — stockpiles of money, military conquest, material desires...with massive corruption, political division, violence, slavery, adultery, fraud, etc.  Idol worship.  The people had curved inward, as Luther would say, only gazing at, only looking out for themselves...

Remember the OT loop?  God blesses. People mess up.  God gets angry... God’s people done messed up.

And so YHWH has crashed down total calamity — “a double portion,” Isaiah says — on the people.  Not only consequences raining down on them as individuals, but on them as an entire nation! The Babylonian captivity is a worse punishment for their actions than they ever could have imagined.

They once had everything, now they have nothing…but to make it even worse, now they’re in exile!  It’s as if God’s punishment is twice as intense as the crime.  God acknowledges that.  And they are feeling so abandoned by God.

Enter Isaiah.  [I love when the prophets get called: “Uhh...what?  You want me to say something in the middle of this cosmic dust-up?]

Can you imagine Isaiah’s fear and trepidation in all this?  “I’m supposed to step in and speak for this God?  And to a people that are this lost, this out of touch?!”

I mean — let me talk to you, church! — you and I (church people [because you’re here]) we can be on the rocks with God, but still part of the church family, still connected, still praying and singing, and involved...working through our stuff.

But how many of us have ever been in a time in our lives...or know countless people who are in fact currently...so far out of touch with the church, with God, with the community of the faithful — in a certain Babylonian exile.  Not angry at God:  Completely unaware!  Indifferent, out of touch with the idea of a divine savior...not just an brokenness in the church family, a total separation from God.  So far away.  A “double portion” far away!

That’s tapping into the kind of people Isaiah was called to preach to.  (We made a movie in Confirmation about the OT prophets, and S had the description about Isaiah: “Isaiah was someone who was totally normal and boring and broken, but open to God’s call. He was totally imperfect, but willing to go.”)

And when Isaiah starts this passage today by proclaiming “comfort” — TWICE — Comfort, O comfort my people.”  That is powerful response to this double distance away from God.  It is an undoing of the double divide between God and God’s people.  Isaiah’s song is reconciling.  It’s healing...after the dust-up.  It’s more than that it’s bringing back to life what was dead.  This is Gospel business.  This is Jesus stuff!

Isaiah is crying out, “Look! People!  Your God is here!  I know you feel far away, or maybe God’s not even in your consciousness!  But God is here.  And even more than that, your God is good!  Your God makes the crooked places accessible for everyone.  Your God lifts up the downtrodden, welcomes the estranged, forgives the sinner, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, clothes those who are not covered by any blankets of security.  HERE IS YOUR GOD!  Even as the seasons change, even as the cold winter blows in and takes so much away, God doesn’t blow away.  God’s word stands forever!

“Sometimes we have to climb up to a new place to remember this God.  Yes, we have stop our daily hurriedness and frenzy to notice, to see.  But this God is all around you.  This God is with you always.  This God is deeply imbedded in the stuff of our world, in every breath!  And this God loves you.  This God picks you up and carries you…”        

That’s Isaiah.  That’s our Advent prophet today.  John the Baptist goes on to proclaim Isaiah’s song many years later, practically word for word, because it happened again — the people messed up.  The distance, the separation grew.  The people lost God, going after other things.  Yep.  We too.  

And this God is here for us as well.  Even now.  2020, cover of Time: “worst year ever”.  Feel like you’ve gotten a double portion of anguish lately?  A double dose of sorrow, fear, loss?  Isaiah, John the Baptist, Peter, friends, reconnect us to, point us to — not just the God of the Old Testament — but to God’s son Jesus, who is the true bridge across the chasm of our sin and all our mess ups.  They point their bony, old fingers toward the dimly lit stable, where in a manger is shining the hope of the world.  The forgiveness of all our mess ups, hiccups, dust ups.  They point us to Christ — whose arrival we prepare for and celebrate again, whose drawing near is now.  Rest in the assurance of that presence and love.

Here is your God.  Here is love.  Here is peace at last.  This day and always.  AMEN.

Sunday, November 29, 2020

November 29 -- Get Down Here! (Advent 1B)


Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. AMEN.

There are some mixed messages this time of year...for us church people, for us people of the book, for us Advent people:  

On one hand, there seems to be this frantic warning — watch out!  wake up!  — almost like the secular Santa Claus song:  you better watch out, you better be good.  

I can see how that could come to the surface for you, especially in this Gospel reading from Mark.  It’s daunting and even scary:  don’t let Jesus catch you sleeping, be ready.  Like texts this November from Matthew: have your lamps lit, don’t get caught in the fog.

On the other hand, maybe you’ve never been more tired, maybe you’ve never felt more in the fog than this year (“Covid brain,” guilty for not being able to get more done?) — with a global pandemic, literally on our doorsteps, with the election and all it’s ensuing division and acrimony, with the uncertainty of economics and health at home, church, school, society...the messages of Advent peace can be a welcome song, amid all the chaos and fog of 2020.  I know I’ve been writing and talking about Advent in this way — it’s a season of blue, a chance to drop under all the holiday consumption and madness, and reconnect with our center.  YES.  I hope our music is a tone simpler, pared down, “peacefulled down” — centered on God’s coming into the world.  Yes.

So how do we reconcile the seeming chaos and terror of these texts with the grace-filled themes of Advent hope and peace?  Are we to be running around like the sky is falling?  Or breathing deeply, waiting quietly?

I hope you can hold all of this.  Advent is a rich season.

And I think Isaiah, gives us a model.  I think the energy, the dynamism, the passion is a call for us to re-imagine and re-engage our prayer life.  Augustine: “Pray as if it all depends on God.”  How do we lift — anew — what it is we need to God.  “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” Isaiah cries out.  Look at this place, God!  The division and hatred, the anger and distrust, the violence and injustice, the pollution of mind and earth...Get down here, God!  Be among us!  Help us!  Fill this world with your reign of mercy.  Fill us with your love, your truth, your peace, your justice, your hope, your joy!  Fill us with your forgiveness.  Stir up your power and get down here!  

Have you ever just shouted into a pillow, or into a wilderness, or in a church — as a prayer to God?  That’s on the level, I think.  That’s Isaiah, I believe.  Should we try it?   [back off the mic]  Let’s pray:  [Aghhhhhhhhh!!!!]

When we pray this season, with that kind of intensity and tear-filled eyes, and shaky voices, and trembling hearts — vulnerable, exposed, hurting — and then read Jesus in Mark’s Gospel here, this is a rescue (not a threat)!  Not some movie apocalyptic battle scene!...I think that’s getting off track.  This is Jesus hearing our cry, hearing our screams, hearing our Isaiah song...and drawing near.  

God does not ignore us.  God moves in close.  Especially in the most terrifying of moments, especially in the most out-of-the-way inconvenient places, especially in our most vulnerable, exposed, hurting days.  This is our God, this is Jesus descending.  

[quietly] And watch the surprising way, given the magnitude of this world’s pain, watch the surprising way God choses to show up: (you know) as a baby, growing in the belly of an unwed teenager.

I’ve heard it said: “Christians begin with the end in mind.”  Not pie in the sky, but love on the ground.  We begin this new church year with the skies — not all rosy and sweet — no, with the skies being ripped open, the stars falling, earth shaking… all for the sake of Christ descending to be with you.  Through the chaos, comes the grace, you see.  So we hold both images today.  Both frantic and terrifying with the promise of hope and even joy.  

“Pray like it all depends on God,” Augustine said, “and act as if it all depends on you.”  

Knowing, trusting, believing, hoping, crying out in our prayers for God’s presence and reign, we now act/live/breathe very differently:  

We slow down, in our souls.  (“Slow down, dear church.  Slow down and breathe.”) We share our bread.  We house our neighbor.  We love our enemy.  We forgive our friends.  We reach out.  We sing.

I love our gathering hymn.  We sang:

“To us, to all in sorrow and fear, Emmanuel comes asinging.  His humble song is quiet and near, yet fills the earth with it’s ringing.  Music to heal the broken soul and hymns of loving kindness, the thunder of his anthems roll to shatter all hatred and blindness.”

We live in response to the One who heals the broken soul with hymns of loving kindness, shattering all hatred and inability to see our neighbors, the earth, our own bodies.  We live in response to this Christ, who comes to be among us, especially those who are in sorrow and fear.  

Advent is rich with lessons, opportunity, hope and Christ’s unending love.  We wake to that today:  New eyes and ears.  Clean hearts.  Clear voices.  Loving hands.  Open arms.  

Praise be to God.  Amen.

Sunday, November 8, 2020

November 8 -- For God's Sake, Use It! (Pentecost 23A)

AUDIO HERE

Grace to you and peace from God, who comes to us...at an unexpected hour!

God surprises us, gives us what we need to keep our lamps lit, calls us to bring that oil, to pay attention and to be ready.  

This text comes in Matthew, Chapter 25, and it’s part of what’s been called “the final discourses” of Jesus, just outside the city walls of Jerusalem, just before he undergoes the last supper, his trial and his death.   This is part of the last things, the final discourse — this week and the next two Sundays are Jesus’ parting words.  So that adds a thick layer of import...

And what we have here is Jesus warning his disciples: “Be ready...with what I’ve given you. Pay attention.”  The oil is free and available now, if you take it.  If you don’t, you’re going to be — like the Gospel text a few weeks ago — left out in the cold and the darkness.

We’ve had some special Sundays Reformation and All Saints, but 3 weeks back, I talked about the guy who didn’t wear his wedding garment that he had been offered freely at the door, and he gets kicked out (remember that?) — and now this week the bridesmaids who didn’t keep their lamps trimmed and lit with the flasks of oil that were available freely — when we don’t accept or use the gifts of grace, the gift of faith that God gives us freely in our baptisms, then we get left out — in a sense — too!

[pause and slowly]

I have come to realize these how difficult it is to ask for and even more to receive help from another — another family member, another friend, maybe even a stranger.  When an offer to help is right there in our midst, and we just can’t open our hands and receive it — I see this all the time in the church.  “No, no, no, I’m fine…[deflecting] How are you?”

I struggle with it myself.  We’re suppose to be self-sufficient.  Me for mine.  You for yours.  If I’m coming to you, then I’m mooching — that’s what we’ve been taught.  Nobody likes a moocher.  “C’mon!” we say, “take care of yourself!”  

We try to live by that, and so we shy away from letting ourselves be lavished, symbolized by the wedding garment (from the previous weeks’ text) or the lamp oil (in our text today).  We don’t just shy away, sometimes we down-right reject the oil that God so freely gives in order to keep our lamps lit.   

Heather and I have a friend from college who is wildly gifted, musically and theatrically: Rachel.  Singing and acting is her passion.  But when she got married almost 20 years ago now and over the years had two children — all a very important, central parts of her life — that musical theater side of her went to sleep and (without going into it) she suffered in many ways...like having a part of you amputated.  

So Rachel has gotten involved with a small theatre company in her community, and she’s done a handful of shows.  And just as she was breaking back into her passion, Heather and I had a chance to see her perform.  I remember I just had this smile plastered to my face.  There it was: she was doing what she loved and what God gave her...and blessing us all in the process.  Nothing like a great theatre performance.

It’s the oil in the lamp, you see!  A gift she had been freely given.  For some years she wasn’t taking a single flask of oil and using what God had given her — and she was really suffering as a result.  But how engaging a passion and a talent that is God-given, not only betters the world, but completes the individual too!  

Rachel shared with us that she’s able to be a better mother, and spouse, and daughter, and friend — now that she’s — as I’d say here — using the oil, keeping her lamp lit.

What is it for you? [pause]  (That requires paying attention.)  What God-given gift of yours has perhaps fallen asleep, been left out in the cold?

There are many and various ways that God fuels us.  There are so many gifts and talents in this congregation.  In a culture of scarcity — you know, fears that we don’t or won’t have enough — in a culture of scarcity that seems to pervade...if we slow down and just ponder the gifts, talents, skills, assets, abilities of the people in this church we would find more than enough oil “to keep the lamps lit”.  

God gives us the oil; so for God’s sake — and for yours, for ours — use it!  God gives us a wedding garment; so for God’s sake — and for yours — put it on!     

Don’t let your lamps go out when God’s sitting there handing us oil, garments of grace.  Get back into theater!  Get back into volunteering with children or preparing and serving meals in the neighborhood!  Get back into painting, or working in the garden, or writing, or reading classical literature, or traveling, or working in the garage, or spending time with your partner or your children!  


(Another dear friend of mine’s father just died, and he was reflecting on it again — what we often say when we lose a loved-one: so much time wasted on things that don’t matter, at the expense of things that do.)  

What is it that fuels you?  God’s provided the oil!  What is it that keeps your light shining?  Because when your light shines before others, others can see your good works, and all of this fueling and shining activity gives glory to your God heaven!  (this text today, btw, is a direct reference to that passage earlier in Matthew.)  

And how we also get our directions, our orientation, what glory to our God in heaven looks like, from Amos! — not empty ritual, but justice rolling down water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.  God’s provided the fuel, Amen?

Now is the time, for digging back in, as the weather gets colder, and nights get longer, as transitions here in Washington and around the country, perhaps significant transitions in your own life begin, now is the time: buckle down, get to work...  

And so what, btw, if you’ve tried before and failed!  I remember Rachel talking about her first show back: rusty.  So what if we’ve tried and tripped and fallen, even crashed before — that’s kind of the point for us Jesus-people: we stand in need of grace.  There is plenteous redemption, mercy abounds, and there is a community of saints, a choir of faithful watchers and holy ones, cheering us on...you are not alone.  You are loved!

So take a deep breath, wake up, pay attention, and dive back into this good life that God has simply lavished before us.  The feast is ready, there’s plenty of fuel for the party.  And you’re welcomed by God’s open arms.  Don’t reject it, don’t blow it off, or make excuses why it’s not for you, why you’ve got better things to do...

Just open your hands and receive it, friends: God’s love and forgiveness and peace.  

This is grace enfleshed.  This is God’s goodness poured out for you.  The wedding feast is spread, the candles are lit.  Pay attention, it’s all around.   Alleluia.  AMEN.

  

Sunday, November 1, 2020

November 1 -- Crab Cake Saints (All Saints Sunday A)

Invite you to turn to the person you’re in the room with, or text somebody who needs to hear it: “You are a saint of God, and God’s glory and love shines through you.” Now look in a mirror, or put your phone camera on yourself so you can see yourself, make the sign of the cross on your own forehead and say, “You are a saint of God, and God’s glory and love shines through you.” AMEN.

At the core of our Lutheran faith is the idea that we are all made saints in our baptisms.  Have you heard this before?  That we are all saints?  We don’t have to die…or labor in Calcutta to be a saint.  Do you believe that?  Do you believe that you are a saint of God and that God’s glory and love really shines through you?

Couple years ago on November 2, I was hanging out with my friend, Father Peter, and he told me, “You know, today is All Soul’s Day.”  I corrected him: “No, that was yesterday, and we call it All Saints Day?”  At which point he tells us that I was getting All Saints and All Souls day “mixed up.”  The good Father explained that All Saints is the day that we honor…the Saints of the church.  And All Souls, November 2 – or in the Mexican tradition Dia de los Muertos, we honor…everybody else who’s died.  
They’re two different days, separated by a long night.

This is of course all true in the Roman Catholic church’s tradition.  Father schooled me there.  And I actually love and appreciate this tradition, the logic (compartmentalizing), and the intentionality of the celebration in practice (the movie Coco), theologically I like that we get the days mixed up!

This week, I tried to make crab cakes...for the first time(!) — (nailed it btw).  I was thinking about this idea of “getting it all mixed up”.  

You throw in the crab with the breadcrumbs, with the mayo, with the seasonings, with the onions, and Worcester...it’s all mixed up, right?  It all goes into the flame, right?  That’s how it is for us today: we’re folded in, mixed together with the great famous saints of the past, with dearly departed loved ones in our own lives (even those that weren’t so kind and perfect), with those who are still with us...and even we ourselves stand in this rushing current of God’s blessing.  All mixed together on today — All Saints Day.  And I like that more.  Rather than celebrating the crab one day, and the breadcrumbs the next, we’re all lumped together here...

 “You are a saint of God too!”  This is a theme that carries over from Reformation Sunday last week.  This idea sets our doctrines apart from our dear Roman Catholic siblings.  Luther lumped us all together, you see?      
    
Can you believe that God names you “Saint” in your baptism? (“St. Daniel”)

And so, that sermon on the mount, that we hear again today — the designated text for All Saints Day this year — is talking about you!  In baptism, you are made whole, despite all appearances and even experiences to the contrary: you are offered/presented with the realm of heaven in this life, you are comforted, you inherit the earth, you are filled, you receive mercy, you can see God, and you are called a child of God!  You are blessed even as people utter all kinds of evil against you; you are blessed even as people revile you and persecute you.  You are the blessed saints of God, all of you…

…not because of anything you’ve done, but because of what God has done.  All Saints Sunday is a natural extension of Reformation Sunday — it’s perfect that they’re back-to-back Sundays.  You are saved by grace, remember, apart from works (what you’ve done) on account of the faith of Jesus Christ!  This was the passage from Scripture that Luther shared with the world, and it turns us all into saints!  In God’s dying, in the way of Christ on the cross, death has been destroyed, and in Christ’s rising from the dead, we too rise.  We are joined to Christ in the waters of baptism, and so we live—in this life—anew!  (Amen?)

Because of this, yes, we get all “mixed up” with both the Saints that the church has honored traditionally and with all those who have gone before us.  Lutherans are messy…because not only are we mixed up with all the traditional Saints of the Church, we’re also mixed up in sin.  

We don’t need to go into that so much today.  I think we’re pretty good at burying ourselves in our sin and mistakes and brokenness.  But, friends, we’re not just sinners, we’re sinner-SAINTS.  (Guy at wedding two weeks ago:  “I got tired of going to church because I realized they’re all just a bunch of sinners, and I don’t need to go to church to hang out with sinners.”  Wish I had said, “But friend, all those sinners are also saints.  You should go to church and see what that’s about.”)

In a little while we name those in our congregation who have died in recent years.  We honor them today as saints:  But we remember them not for themselves and in themselves (even while that’s very important and meaningful to us in our grief), today we remember them not for themselves and in themselves, we name them and celebrate them today because of what God has done through them.  

Think of all the things that God has done through our beloved saints who have gone before us (your pictures/candles/flowers)  God’s love and glory shone through them, didn’t it?  Even in their worst moments.  

At memorial services, most recent here at Bethlehem for me here was for the Frodighs, we gathered around this font (most recent death was Doug Porter, but we haven’t gathered for his funeral yet), most recent service was for dear Roland and Pat Frodigh, where we heard at the font:  “When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death.  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might live a new life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him a resurrection like his.”  That’s holy scripture, friends.

We trust and believe that we are all given the name saint in our baptism, and sometimes I feel like a broken record saying that, but we sure need to be reminded of it weekly, even daily (as Luther said), because it is so easy to forget.  Some of us can’t even put “Saint” before our name with ease and confidence.  It is so easy (and traditional) to relegate/compartmentalize sainthood, simply to the holier-than-thou...or at least to the dead.  It’s easy to keep it separated in two – All Saints Day and then the Rest-of-Us Days.
 
But this is God’s grace coming at us in these waters, God’s grace coming at us, relentlessly, unapologetically, before many of us can even say a word.  God’s grace crashes down on us and claims us.  Calls us saints from the start...not only at the end!  Promises us eternal life, yes, but God’s grace is so good we are even granted the kingdom/realm of heaven in this life…  That means a flood of comfort when you mourn (that’s not material comfort, it means that when you’ve lost what is most dear to you, only then can you be embraced the One who holds you closest).  God’s grace is so good that we are even granted the inheritance of the earth today, contentment, peace, mercy, a glimpse of God.  God’s grace is so good that you are now called a child of God!  

Of course we’re not perfect, that’s true.  I love Robert Louis Stevenson defines saints as “sinners who never stop trying.”  I’ve got a book that is a proposed calendar for commemorating all those “saints”, for lack of a better word.  Our Roman Catholic siblings have offered so much to God’s church, to us, to me, as they so reverently remember those who have died in the faith.  I think we can only stand to benefit as we peer back into the pages of Christian history.  

Here’s a quote from that book:  ‘When the church praises the saints, it praises God...who has triumphed through them.  Those who are still in the church on earth are supported and encouraged by the fellowship of a throng of witnesses, who fought their way with effort and pain, and who now in the company of the redeemed are watching and supporting the church on earth in its present struggle’”.

Friends in Christ, today we rejoice, for all the blessed saints:  Those who have gone before us, those saints still among us, and those many saints of God…still to come!  “You are a saint of God, and God’s light shines though you.”  Blessed are you.  Blessed are we...for we all stand and often in these days lean on God’s everlasting arms.  AMEN. 

Sunday, October 25, 2020

October 25 -- Bound at the Center (Reformation Sunday 2020)

Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, October 31st 1517.  I first saw that door on October 5th 2012.  I came up to it at night, and it does have that shrine feeling to it.  A silence came over me, a tear welled up: in spite of all the mythology, the hype, the centuries of repristination, the tourism — this was still the place...where it all began!  [pause]

Actually it had begun long before, but this is a monumental scene and today we mark and commemorate this pivotal moment in our church’s history.  The action of nailing up the 95 theses was only at the beginning of Martin Luther’s brave and theologically grounded public, political protests.  He was only 34 years old!  Standing up to the immense and dangerous powers of his day.  (Ooh, I wonder what Luther would say to the powers of our day…I’m sure he’d be railing against all those who oppressed people who are poor and marginalized…some even doing it from behind the thin veneer of religious piety.

And Luther stood up to them — why? — for personal fame and fortune?  To be a big hero in history? For his own glory?  No, Luther stood up, spoke, acted, protested because his “conscience was bound.”  He was compelled by the word of God, by these words that we read again today from Romans and John — “for we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law”…“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

Luther was freed by grace.  
                And so are we, friends.  So are you.

503 years later, we Lutherans — even we Lutherans — can operate like we’re still bound by the letter of the law.  But friends in Christ, we are freed by grace.  (In fact, many scholars point out that it’s not “faith in Jesus,” like most bibles translate.  But more accurately it’s possessive/genative: we are saved by the faith of Jesus…whole ‘nother sermon!  It’s Jesus’ faith — not our own — that saves us!  I mean, it’s all grace...grace upon grace!)

So we go then, to share, to stand up, to tell the story of Jesus and his love, to speak out and protest publicly, and serve our neighbors and those who are poor, and love our enemies, and take care of our own bodies and God’s planet, not because we have to or because we’re supposed to, not because we’re bound by some law to do these things...but because we can’t help ourselves.  This is what grace does to us!  AMEN?!  Our good works are simply a “consequence of God’s grace,” as one of our daily Christ in Our Home devotions put it.  I like to call it eucharistic centripetal force: when we come in contact with this grace we are flung out into the world by a force beyond ourselves, i.e. God’s mercy and love!

A few years ago I had the pleasure of hearing one of our premier Luther scholars in the ELCA, the Rev. Dr. Former-Bishop and now President of GettysburgPhiladelphia’s United Lutheran Seminary Guy Erwin, who talked about the Continuing Reformation.  

One of the pillars of the Protestant Reformation, he reminded us, is that it’s ongoing.  Semper Reformanda.  Always Reforming.  And as he reflected on this ongoing reformation and what the church looks like as we’re moving now into the next 500 years, Dr. Erwin suggested that we be a church that’s “bound-at-the-center, not bound-at-the-edges”.

I loved it!  It reminded me of that image I’ve talked about before of the church as a herd of good cattle, congregating around good water.  We are bound by what we come to the center to receive, not by strict boundaries at the margins.  The edges are fluid and permeable.  God’s people are held together — not by a high wall or an electric fence that makes clear cuts, and defines and divides us from/apart from/even above the rest of the sorry world.  No, our walls and gates are open.  God’s people are held together instead by what’s at the center: the cross, the font, the Holy Book, the healing oil, this welcome table of grace…

Dr. Erwin was suggesting that much of the past 500 years (not all, but much), has been about binding/defining ourselves as church at the edges — who’s in and who’s out.  What if the re-formation continues with a focus instead on God binding us at the center, God leading us, freeing us, God gathering us around good water?

How does the farmer get the livestock to stay together?  By building bigger walls, stricter fences, or simply by offering better water and food?  Grace frees us to tear down the walls that divide us from the world.  

The truth makes us — locked up and set apart? — no, the truth makes us free indeed.  Luther was freed by grace.  And so are we.

So how do we open up our walls, our borders, our fences and gates even more?  Here in this place?  How do we interact with neighbors and strangers, with the world...arms wide open?  

I remember the setting where Dr. Erwin said all these things.  It was in a big hotel conference room:  there are doors all around the edges, and they were open!  He didn’t say it, but I thought it was the exact visual of what he was talking about:  People were coming in and out of the room as he was speaking.  You could hear the murmur of conversations out in the hall.  I guess you could be distracted by it, if you wanted, but what Dr. Guy Erwin was saying was the real draw, it was so good, that most of us weren’t concerned with who was coming in and going out, with who was sitting down and who was getting up to leave.  The edges were permeable, see?  How might we make our walls more permeable, our gates more open?    

I think Facebook is another image of that.  No one’s keeping anyone here.  You are free to sit down, visitors are free to sit down…and by grace we are free to get up and leave!  There’s nothing keeping anyone.  The gift of the church now is that we don’t have that kind of power — which is a false notion anyway.  It breaks my heart when I get a sense that people are serving and participating in congregations because of some holy obligation, or guilt or burden on their shoulders.  You can always pick up on that when people use the word “should”...  Lutherans would never admit to “holy obligation” in those RC words...but sometimes, I know our actions prove otherwise, and we can still bind ourselves by the law.  

Hear these words again, friends in Christ:
We are justified by the faith of Jesus, apart from our works, free from holy obligations prescribed by the law.  This is most certainly true.

The Mighty Fortress doesn’t mean a high wall of rules and regulations about who’s in and who’s out!  

The Mighty Fortress is our God, and our God is everywhere (!) — both in here and out there!  Our God is saving grace, boundless love, peace, joy and forgiveness — not just for you and me, but — for this whole world!  

It’s easy to mis-imagine the mighty fortress, as our church fences, our ecclesiastical border walls.  

This new day, these new years of re-formation that are before us, call us to permeate our borders and re-focus on the center:  the Meal, the Story, the oil of healing and forgiveness, the waters of baptism, and the cross (i.e. God suffering with us in our suffering).

The Reformation continues, friends.  I’ve always thought that when the church falters, we falter from a lack of imagination, and we falter from our slavery to fear.  Martin and Katie Luther stand for the opposition of slavery to fear, they stand up as saints who have gone before us, who point us back to freedom by grace.   Both of them faced incredible fears in their lives, in their time and place...  


Paul’s letter to the Romans and the Gospel of John, call us back to the liberated imaginations that God has given and intended for us.   The movie The Hurricane, which has always been one of my favorites, the main character calls it “transcending”:  
    Denzel Washington portrays the boxer and falsely accused of murder Reuben Hurricane Carter.  From prison he speaks to a young man he’s mentoring about his imprisoned predecessors and contemporaries — Nelson Mandela — and how we must transcend the bars that keep us down.

Romans and John call us back from fear and into freedom — freedom from worrying about what might happen if we fling wide open our doors and windows, freedom to let the Spirit move in our midst without our permission, freedom to let change unfold all around us as we stay centered and held together at this [bowl] well of welcome.

Siblings, friends in Christ, we are freed by grace, and so we go, as God’s church, to love and serve the world, to love our enemies, to welcome the outcast, feed the sick, clothe the naked, accompany the downtrodden, and care for our own bodies and the broken body of this earth.  Let’s go sing the story of God’s love!  
    We are freed by grace. We can’t help ourselves. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

Sunday, October 18, 2020

October 18 -- Giving, God and Grace (Pentecost 20A)

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

This text has been used in all sorts of ways.  
It’s been used by some to argue that we shouldn’t have to pay any taxes.  Can you see why?  Pay no allegiance to Caesar, is what Jesus is saying.

It’s been used by others to argue that we should certainly pay taxes, that this offers us a model of civility in living harmoniously in both the worldly realm and the religious realm.  That’s kind of how Luther used this passage in his time, where people wanted to rebel violently against the powers that were...   

Unfortunately Jesus doesn’t answer the Pharisees’ question about money directly…I believe, mostly because the Pharisees weren’t asking it as a stewardship question on their Pledge Sunday, during their Stewardship Month.  They had different intentions:  they wanted to trap Jesus.  And they knew they could trap him with either answer he gave.

So I’m not sure how directly helpful this text is for Stewardship Sunday.  Jesus isn’t giving us any clear cut answers.  Other places in the Bible he does:  he says very plainly just 2 chapters before this – “go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor...then come, follow me.”  Jesus said much about money in the Gospels.

There’s also that passage in Acts where those who don’t give a percentage of their income are accused of “stealing from God”…which is a continuation of an over-arching theme throughout the OT.  Good thing we don’t read those today, right? ;)  This text today is not so blunt.  Rather it leads us to understanding and insights about offering up money in more indirect…and grace-filled ways.  

In this text, there’s not a straight answer for us on how much to give.  Rather we are offered two things:  
an idea about intentions, and we are led once again to a beautiful conclusion – that all “our” money and stuff is actually God’s.  

First, I think the Gospel story today raises for us the question of intentions when we talk about money.  The Pharisees had intentions when they asked Jesus about money.  As you consider what to write or what not to write on your pledge cards for 2021, what are the intentions behind the questions you might have:  “Why am I being asked to make a financial pledge to this church, again?”  What might the intentions be behind that kind of question?  In other words, what gives birth to your questions about financial stewardship in the church?  Sometimes just our tone of voice can be a give-away for our intentions.  Are our questions born out of mistrust, anger, fear, or a way to trap…like the Pharisees?

Or are our questions around money and what to offer born of something else?  Joy, peace, trust in the abundance of God’s love and grace.  “How might God use me?  How can I make a pledge that is an expression of my thankfulness to God, for all God has given me?”

This question of what to pledge is really a chance to reflect on yourself.  To look in the mirror at yourself, to look at your own life, and to consider God’s blessings, God’s presence in many and various ways.  Maybe that sounds obvious, but pledging once again this year is not about looking at the church and determining whether a larger or smaller sum is appropriate “for the church” for this year.  It’s about looking at yourself and considering God’s grace and abundance in your life.  

I hope you’ve been able to sit with your pledge card, set some time aside, say a prayer of thanksgiving, and then write down your pledge.  (if you need some more specific direction in that – I like to just stick with the biblical model of tithing, 10% of your income, or at least working up to that each year…gives us direction, like a compass)

Pledging at your central place of worship (whether that’s here or elsewhere), during stewardship season, is ultimately a gift for you, not your gift to the church.  

[pause] It is an opportunity for each of us to make a statement about how much we trust in God.
     
Are your intentions and your questions around money and giving born out of distrust and fear, anger or the need to trap or control?   Or are they born out of joy, peace, trust, thanksgiving?  Or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle…wanting to have your questions born out of joy and peace, but feeling stuck in fear and distrust – distrust of institutions or people, maybe even distrust of God – and angry about it all.   Siblings in Christ, God is with us in our bitterness and resentment, in our mistrust and anger.  God is with us, nudging us, holding us, comforting and challenging us…as the Holy Spirit guides us into new realms of joy and thanksgiving.  

You know, I used to say that I hated stewardship time, as a pastor, having to talk about money and giving, how hard that is, and then I’d even drag other pastors in with me and make a blanket statement…but…over the years,  I’ve experienced a sort of evolution in my talking about these things:

It’s a joy to be able to proclaim and bear witness to the fact that your being invited to offer up one of this earthly life’s greatest treasures, your money, is a gift.

This day and this text is a gift, Stewardship Sunday, Jesus talking about “give to Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is God’s”, for it all brings us back to the blessed conclusion …  and prayer we say every Sunday:

We joyfully release what you have first given us — our selves, our time, our money, signs of your gracious love.  Receive them...  

Friends in Christ, it all belongs to God.  All that we have comes from God, belongs to God, and what we offer, with joyful and thankful hearts is a just a faithful token of that fact.  It was all God’s in the first place.  

Giving in this way is all wrapped up in thanksgiving.  I’ll share just one personal story, Heather and I are tithers to whatever church we belong to.  We were taught at an early age how to move the decimal over to figure out what 10% is.  So it’s always been something we’ve practiced.  But when we had a capital campaign at the last church for a building project, we were really worried about how we could give above and beyond the tithe.  I was sweating it.  I wanted to be a model for the congregation, but didn’t have the kinds of funds we needed to impress everyone with a lead gift.  And we had this campaign consultant Phil  down from Seattle, and he just said to me, “Dan, you’re missing the thanksgiving part of this.  Whatever you put down on that pledge card,” he said, “do it with thanksgiving.  Say a prayer of thanksgiving.”  Stewardship is taught, faith is taught, living in thanksgiving — we have to be taught this stuff at some level; it’s not natural.  It’s learned.

And Christ is our teacher, calling us back.  Blessing us richly, loving us unconditionally, still with us now — right here with us in the midst of the election, the violence, the sickness, the sorrow, the fear, the chaos, the confusion — Christ is right here.  May that peace that passes all human understanding keep you, friends, keep your heart and your mind in faith, hope, gratitude and even joy.  AMEN.

Sunday, October 11, 2020

October 11 -- Showing Up (Pentecost 19A)

Micah’s at his second weekend of travel baseball tournaments here in October.  Last week he and Heather were over in Delaware, this week they’re down south.  And I’m reflecting on how much baseball for him — and for us by extension — has changed since he was a Little Leaguer.  You sports families may be able to relate to the evolution we’ve experienced.  I’m thinking about how the coaches, in particular, have changed over the years:

Gone are the days of constant affirmation.  I mean, there’s affirmation when you do a great job, but not when you’re just doing your job.  Gone are the days of cupcakes and box drink apple juice after the game.  Gone are the days of “everybody plays, everywhere on the field.”  Remember those days?  

No, Coach expects his players to “show up” — practice, hustle, pay attention, be out front.  “Bring everything you have to this field,” they say.

In fact, if you don’t “show up,” he’s going to play someone else.  If you’re distracted from the game and not bringing your all, you’re going to sit out.





The king, in Jesus’ parable today, calls the wedding guests to “show up”.  It’s time for a party.  And the king’s pulling out the stops.  Everyone’s paid for, food and drink will abound, the table is set, the candles are lit, the band is cued up, the meal is hot and ready to be served...
                        And nobody shows.  

They all have excuses.  Most of them just have to work.  No time for any frivolous, excessive partying.

Some have a “better” offer, pre-existing plans.  Others just don’t really want to come — I mean, they don’t really know the wedding couple anyway — so they make something up, and bow out with a quick, friendly text.  

[slowly] And then there are others, who might actually like to go, but some voice in their head is telling them they’re not worth it, that they don’t deserve this party. [pause]  They’ve hosted weddings themselves and know how expensive it can be, and so they don’t want to put the king out — they’ve got a bit of a martyr complex, they mean well, but they fail to see value in themselves, and they just can’t let themselves be loved and lavished by the king...  

That’s a little like in the text when some actually seize and kill the king’s servants who are managing the RSVPs.  
It just kills the spirit of the feast.  Have you ever had someone decline a lavish gift you’re excited to give.  And they pass, citing some “oh-not-on-my-account” or “oh-don’t-want-to-put-you-out” excuse?!  It just sucks the spirit of joy and generosity and celebration out of the room.  It’s like killing the king’s servants.  So, those  suffering, martyr-complexed ones decline the invitation too.

In fact, nobody, the text says, who was originally invited “shows up”.  And this infuriates the king:  I should do a little textual analysis here.  Matthew says the king goes out and kills these no shows, burns their city!

Fundamentalists read this clearly as a reference to hell and the fires of damnation...if you don’t “show up” for Jesus.  

Most mainstream scholars look at this in the context of the time Matthew was writing — that this was an obvious reference to the destruction of Jerusalem and the lackadaisical faith of the chosen ones, the insiders, who are squandering the goodness of God.  You have to decide what you think this means.

But anyway, the king’s going to play somebody else, put someone else in to the celebration.  You know, like when the kid on the team who’s biggest and strongest and probably has the most talent, but who’s also had a really bad attitude these days?  Playing only for himself, cutting down his teammates, mouthing off arrogantly...So the good Coach takes that kid out, benches him — he’s not “showing up” — and instead puts in the kid who’s all heart, and might just have enough gumption to turn this game around.  The king’s going to put someone else in because the privilege-round draft picks didn’t “show up”.  Is that so heartless...or is it actually a great move, even loving...for the good of the whole.

So the master’s servants (they’ve been through a lot, haven’t they?) again go out and invite everyone now.  [Gentiles - the Gospel opens up to everyone!]  This is what the kingdom of heaven is compared to, Jesus teaches — A king who invites [pause] everyone.  

[slowly]  The riff-raff is welcome.  Just verses before, Jesus was talking about tax collectors and prostitutes getting into God’s good graces before those puffed-up and self-righteous Pharisees.  This parable is an elaboration on that.  And I hope our baseball real-life metaphor can be helpful too...

“Those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.”  

Here’s what occurred to me this week:  [pause]  We’re the riff-raff.  You’re the riff-raff.

We’re the ones who are left.  We’re the ones who got scooped up by God’s love, and here we are.  We’re the ones who Coach just put into the game.  All heart.  

You’re not a perfect group of churchy people.  I’m not a perfect pastor.  We’re broken.  And jealous and bitter and hungry and sad and lost and struggling and scared.  But here we are, scooped up by God’s love, probably because of one of God’s servants who invited us — maybe that was a parent or grandparent that brought you into the banquet hall long ago.  Or maybe it was a friend or even a stranger.  

But here we are at our Lord’s banquet — candles lit, food and drink abounds!  Here we are: still serving and being served, still feasting, still drinking wine and eating bread, still ingesting and digesting this word of life, this Word of God.  We’re the riff-raff, siblings in Christ.  The good and the bad, all wrapped up into us, all wrapped up into you!  

And God’s gathered us in: “And the wedding hall was filled with guests.”  [pause]

Now what about this guy who gets bounced from the party because he wasn’t wearing his wedding garment?  That’s a whole ‘nother sermon, but let me say this:
 
When God invites us into the banquet, when God calls us onto the field, we ought to bring everything we have...including that free garment of grace that God’s given.  

Those wedding robes in those days were something no one could afford...they were provided by the king at the door of the wedding feast, like worship folders at the beginning of a church service...only way more expensive.  

God’s love and grace is provided freely at the door, before we even sit down, so for God’s sake, put it on!  

Don’t think that you can pass without wearing God’s free garment of love and grace.  This one guy did, and he was thrown into the outer darkness.  How we too can be tossed out, when we choose not to accept God’s offer, God’s robe of forgiveness and peace.  (We pretty much toss ourselves out at that point.)

Here it is, given freely and shed abundantly for you.  This welcome to all, this challenge to both receive it, to give it our all on the field, and to seek to extend that same welcome to everyone else, just like we’ve received from God.  That’s the party.  That’s the game.  That’s the joy.    

This is where we find ourselves these October days, sisters and brothers in Christ.  God’s hospitality is multifaceted and exciting and lavish...and you’re in!  You’re on the team.  You’re on the field.  [pointing] “Play ball.”

Amen.

Sunday, October 4, 2020

October 4 -- Wine Pressing On (Pentecost 18A)

One of the things I really miss during this seemingly endless season of physical isolation from one another — especially in worship — is the Children’s Talk!   I think that’s why Pastor Time children’s messages have been such a priority for me.  There’s this moment I really miss, and can’t replicate virtually and that’s when you’re with children and you need a volunteer.  Teachers know about this too.  You know that moment?  Our kids here at Bethlehem have arms that shoot up in the air before I’m even finished asking, “OK, I need a volunteer, who would like to volunteer?”  Doesn’t matter if its work or fun or a mystery, we have kids who are ready and willing to step up.  Isn’t that a wonderful image.  [imitate] “Ooo, ooo, pick me, pick me!”  I love it.

We have an rich Gospel text before us this day…Because Jesus is looking for good tenants, good stewards…on this Caring for Creation Sunday, on this kick-off of stewardship month, and I know Christ is looking in our direction today.  Jesus identifies the Pharisees and the chief priests (the insiders) as evil tenants, and basically says “If you can’t produce good fruits, then I’m looking for someone who can.”  Could we be the ones Jesus is looking for?  Is Jesus saying, “I need a volunteer.”  Friends, Christ wants to entrust vineyard work to a people who produce good fruit.  And Jesus this moment is looking over in our direction.  Are we willing to be the ones who reach out in the love of Christ…
or simply the recipients of the reaching out?  Because that’s there for us too:

Friends, we are all recipients of the reaching out of Jesus, who rescues us from sin and the power of death.  He is the one in the parable who is killed, he is the stone that the builders rejected, the head cornerstone.  

And today Jesus is looking at us, and asking are you willing to help me reach those who are in need, those who are hurting, those who haven’t yet heard of God’s love and forgiveness, those who are hungry, sick, lonely and lost?  This is a stewardship text, this is an environmental stewardship text.  Are we willing to respond to what God is offering?  

All that we have is on lease from God.  Maybe you hear this all the time, but think about it again today in terms of this vineyard text.  Our Triune God, the cosmic landowner, planted the vineyard (like the text says)—the plants, the trees, the animals, the oceans—God planted everything.  

God built a watchtower—a way to see what’s coming, a way to protect the vineyard, the earth.  That is, the cosmic landowner gave us minds to think and learn and understand and study and see what’s coming, protect the vineyard, protect all that God has planted.  We have the ability to climb up and look out with our intellects.  

Then God built a wine-press—a tool for producing and enabling good things to flow from us and from our hard work.  In other words, it’s not just our minds, God also gave us bodies — hands and feet, voices, and hearts, that press/squeeze out good things for this world.  Think of your bodies as a wine press this day, crushing out good things for this world.  And in so doing, we don’t always stay clean.  Pressing good things out for the world is exhausting and messy.  The wine-press is a great image.  Two ways to press wine back then: 1) giant rocks were fashioned to crush grapes, which took lots of back breaking work, and 2) people stomped on grapes, which was a big mess (like the famous “I Love Lucy” episode).    

Our church body, the ELCA has a signature phrase: “God’s Work, Our Hands” (I’d add “Feet”).  The wine-press…our own bodies, are not ours.  They’re God’s, but the produce comes directly from us.  God leased all these things, all this responsibility to us.  

What if we responded like the kids at the Children’s Talk? “Ooo, ooo, pick me, pick me, Lord!”

But something can happen and often does, even at an early age — we can most definitely loose this enthusiasm and willingness.  Why, what’s happening there?

sometimes it’s because we have other things to do
sometimes we just don’t want to
sometimes we don’t think ourselves good enough/smart enough/eloquent enough/wealthy enough/ connected enough/free enough (too busy)
sometimes it’s an even deeper doubt of ourselves…
sometimes it’s a bitterness, that I’ve already served/done my part: others should...step up/serve/give

Bishop Graham on raising your hand…
Council positions the same way…

Yes, this is a powerful lesson for today…because there have been many distractions, both internally and out there in our crazy/dangerous/divided world.  

These distractions come along, and I wonder if it’s almost like God’s checking to see if we’ll loose track of what we’re all about, of who we are…

I’ve been saying with more confidence lately that I’ve never felt so called as the church of Jesus Christ in the world.  I often feel like the church’s voice (our voice) heard to hear — like a screaming mouse — but what we should be saying and doing has never been clearer to me: just read the Gospel of Matthew:  clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, nurturing the child, welcoming the stranger, proclaiming and practicing forgiveness, mercy, generosity, justice and peace…

Maybe you’ve heard the line “God’s church doesn’t need a mission.  God’s mission needs a church.”  

We can get so caught up in all the drama, the fury, the pettiness, the overwhelming concern for our own selves and our own safety and security — I know of a church right now that is only concerned (my judgement) about their own survival.  Nobody is saying “Pick me, Lord!” They’re bitter and angry and scared and grasping at every little thing they can to stay afloat.  It’s that saddest picture of a church loosing its mission.  My friend is trying to help them see...  

How we can forget this invitation to stewardship and be like the Pharisees and the scribes—how we we can miss this opportunity to respond to God’s goodness—that God is offering us—to be the ones to raise our hands (not just dutifully) but even enthusiastically:  “I’ll go in there, Lord!  Pick me!”

Sisters and brothers in Christ, as broken and imperfect as we might be, we are the church for God’s mission – clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, nurturing the child, welcoming the stranger, proclaiming and practicing forgiveness.  Bethlehem is called to be a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.  And in so many ways we already do!

Ruth’s generosity and kindness…
Mike and Marva’s care for the beauty in the sanctuary...
Ramona’s opening our eyes to racism and white supremacy…and a deeper care for one another...
Tim’s passion for keeping us, for keeping this church safe…
Alison’s gift of music and all her good, hard questions...
Marie’s picking up a phone and checking-in with so many of us during this time of isolation…
Richard’s continued dedication of time and organization and resources to FACETS…and feeding hungry people...
Ann’s witty sense of humor...
John’s hugs...
Kristin...
See the risk here is all the people I’m not naming...right?
But this is just a few Bethlehem wine-pressers, crushing out good things for God’s church and God’s world!

I know that all of you are pressing out good things for God’s world!  We are the church of God’s mission.  AMEN?  

-God knows that none of us are ideal tenants, perfect stewards of everything God has given us.  
-God knows and we know that we’ve fallen short.  
-But look at what God has already done here!  

I love the line in our text for today, “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.”  Look at all the amazing things God has blessed us with here, and wherever you are!  It is amazing in our eyes!  

There is an aspect of biblical stewardship that is often forgotten, and that’s the spirit of joy that accompanies the giving.  (Lucy starting to having fun)

Reaching out, tending the vineyard, this is always hard, messy work…but it is also accompanied by an indescribable joy.  Experiencing joy in sacrificing is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to explain.  I guess it’s like golf, you have to try it to get it:  You just have to try...reading to children, picking up trash on the ground, visiting inmates in prison, signing a percentage of your paycheck over to GOD before you do anything else with it (that’s biblical stewardship), taking extra time from your job to be with your kids who need you, listening to a friend who is grieving, donating time at FACETS or Lamb Center.  Each of these examples of tending the vineyard, are difficult—sometimes literally backbreaking, always messy—but because God smiles at the church accepting the mission, we smile too.  It’s contagious God’s joy becomes our joy.  That’s how it works for us resurrection people of the cross!  Joy abounds, like the joy of children jumping up and down saying, “Pick me, pick me, pick me to light the candle!”  

IN SPITE OF…WE PRESS ON.  That’s how we roll at Bethlehem.  IN SPITE OF…WE PRESS ON. 
God made the wine press.  And we squish out good things for this world.  We press on...

In spite of all that would tear us down, we press on.  In spite of all that would distract us, we press on.  In spite of evil and danger in the world, we press on.  In spite of white supremacy and all the work we have to do to condemn it, in spite of attacks on us and our community, we press on.  In spite of environmental abuse — animal abuse, forest abuse, Chesapeake Bay abuse, air abuse, we press on.  In spite of families breaking apart, we press on.  In spite of ourselves—our own brokenness, selfishness, inabilities, we press on.  We press on in God’s mission because Jesus is there with us, because nothing (not even death itself) can separate us from the love that Christ has for each of us, because God has called us to be the church in mission, because we are soaked in the powerful waters of baptism and will never the same, because we are fed and nourished with the body and blood of Christ’s own self at this table where all are welcome!  

The earth is God’s, the wine press [pointing to you and me] is God’s, and it is amazing in our eyes.  And so we give thanks with our lives.  But we press on because whether we live or whether we die, we belong to God.  AMEN.

Sunday, September 27, 2020

September 27 -- Becoming *Teleios* (Pentecost 17A)

Grace to you and peace from God who creates us from the muddy clay of the earth (I was on the shores of the Chesapeake this week, beautiful muddy earth), from Jesus who bridges us from our primal separation from God because of sin, and from the Holy Spirit, who comforts us when we are afflicted, and who afflicts us when we are comfortable.  Amen.

At first glance this reading might lead us to the simple conclusion and popular aphorism that ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS.  There are two sons.  The father asks them both to go out into the field, one says he’ll go and doesn’t.  The other says he won’t and does.  Jesus makes a model of the latter.  

But, after praying and studying this text, I’m not sure
A-S-L-T-W, is really the lesson here.  



First of all, in my own experience and in the experience of many that I’ve listened too…words sometimes (not always) speak louder than actions.  It’s not pretty or fun to talk about, but the wounds from violent actions (physical abuse) can heal, but the wounds from violent words (emotional/spiritual abuse—insults that cut deep, threats, even just indifference to another’s presence or opinions) sometimes never heal.  So not only is “a.s.l.t.w.” an interpretation of this particular scripture text that I don’t agree with, it’s a saying that I don’t think is even completely accurate.     

So let me share with you a concept that flows through the entire Bible, certainly through the book of Matthew and therefore arches over this passage today...  

Teleios.  The Greek word is teleios.  And it means mature, or complete, or commonly translated as perfect.  Matthew 5:48 (be perfect even as God in heaven is perfect.) or Matthew 19:21 (Jesus said, "If you wish to be perfect go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.")  I think translating teleios as “perfect” gets us headed down the wrong path.  (I’m just full of opinions today, huh?)  “Mature” or “complete” is more like it.  The best way to think about this overarching theme of teleios is to think about it in terms of fruit.  A banana or a pear is teleios — not when it is completely free of blemishes, but  — when it is ready to eat.  When it is ripe.  When it has come to fruition or come full circle.  

So read these texts with that in mind.  “Come to fruition, even as your God in heaven has come to fruition.”  There’s more of a notion of process here, and that’s very important to remember.  

So returning to the two sons, with the concept of teleios—coming to fruition—in mind, let’s look at it again:

Jesus praises the brother who “says no” but “acts yes”…because he is engaged in the process of coming to fruition, he is ripening.  The other brother is not.  The other brother has chosen to reject the opportunity to go out and to work in the vineyard; he has refused the ripening process.  In other words, he has rejected the journey of transformation.

Siblings in Christ, God is calling us this day to engage or perhaps renew our engagement, and enter again into teleios, into the process of coming to fruition as a disciple, a follower of Jesus.  God is calling us into a journey of transformation.

Grace is empty, if the process of discipleship is not evident, if there is a refusal to ripen.  Bonhoeffer called that the “carcass of cheap grace”…If we’re not on the journey of transformation, engaged in the ripening, the coming to fruition, the maturity and completeness, the teleios...then you simply haven’t experienced God’s grace.  The church has failed you.  The pastor has failed you.  When God’s people are saying yes, but acting no, teleios has gone dormant.   

Our Gospel today calls us to the vineyard, to follow Jesus, not just to say that we believe in Jesus.  Our Gospel text for today is about coming full circle.  

One way to illustrate this text is by looking at worship—what we’re in the midst of right now.  Our faith, which is expressed here on Sunday morning, guides us into our week, bringing us to fruition, bringing us full circle.  Worship/Church is more than mere tradition, it’s more than just “what we do/say” on Sunday.

How many of you have ever participated in any sort of theater production?  Been to a dress rehearsal?

You see, worship is a dress rehearsal for Gospel living.  
Think about the purpose of the dress rehearsal:  It solidifies what we already know (lines), introduces something new (costumes), and prepares us for what’s ahead (opening night).  Bringing everything full circle.  

[look the sections at bulletin] Worship too, solidifies what we already know (in the gathering we are reminded and again we receive forgiveness of sins), introduces something new (as together we enter into the Word of God, and new light is shed on our understandings of the saving work of Jesus Christ), and through Bread and Wine, Body and Blood, the waters of the Baptismal font, we are prepared for what’s ahead, we are washed and nourished with heavenly water and food for the journey, the journey of discipleship—we are engaging in the journey of transformation, in teleios...even right now!  

And what follows worship?  What is that Sending all about (“go in peace, remember the poor,” we say today)?  Because we receive forgiveness of sins right at the beginning, flowing from the baptismal font, here in worship, we are able to forgive others during our week.  Coming full circle.  Because there is a proclamation from this Holy Book about God’s love and God’s hope on account of Jesus Christ, we are then enabled to speak words of love and forgiveness. Coming full circle.

Because justice is alive at God’s Holy Table, as all are welcome to the feast of Jesus’ own body, edible grace, then we are empowered to live out that same model of justice and compassion, welcoming and feeding the friend and the stranger alike. Coming full circle.  Because we are sent out with God’s blessing at the end of our worship service, we are filled with the task of sending others, empowering others, inviting others to follow Jesus, calling others back into the love of God…through both our words and our actions. Coming full circle.

We are not a “gathering of eagles around a carcass of cheap grace,” on Sunday mornings.  Worship for us is more than just a going through the motions each week.  Worship is a dress rehearsal for Gospel living, a modeling of God’s very will being done here on earth “as it is in heaven.”  

Here we are caught in the undertow of grace, here we are swept up in the process of coming full circle, in the ripening, in the coming to be the people God has molded us, breathed into us, redeemed us, and filled us anew to be!

You know, I went to some vineyards here in Northern Virginia recently...last week.  It was good to look out over the vineyards (and enjoy a nice blend of grapes), but I was thinking about how could I align even better my own words with my actions.  After all, we’re coming into the stewardship season, the season of giving back with joyful hearts, what God has first given us.  

And I am pondering what I might give up or take on during these days.  Not just discipleship disciplines in Lent: what kinds of faith actions can we put into practice now, in response to the grace that God has first given us?    Let’s make these a faith-moves together.  Let’s do teleios together — might look different for each of us.  Some might give up meat after seeing the impact that consumption has on the planet, others might write letters, others might try tithing, others might volunteer, or protest, or make phone calls to members of this congregation.  Words and actions lining up, you see, I’m pondering this myself, and even if I had something to share I’m not sure I’d want to roll it out here in a sermon in some grand exposition of my faithfulness...I’m praying on it...  

But if I am going to speak about compassion and justice, I have to ask how I might start to act more in that direction.

Pay attention this week to the nudgings of the Spirit, that’s how the Holy Spirit works…quiet ways.

Where is God whispering to you this week, how is that gracious and loving Holy Spirit is afflicting the comfortable areas of your life.  How is God inviting you to have your words and your actions come full circle?  How are you becoming teleios?   Because I have no doubt that God is working on you.
        
As that complicated Holy Spirit continues to nudge you, at the very same time, may God’s loving arms of mercy and peace wrap around you and fill you with all-goodness and grace, even today, even now, and forever more.  AMEN.