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.

March 29 -- Fifth Sunday in Lent

Grace to you and peace from Jesus Christ, who raises the dead. Amen.

What strikes me about this text this time around — we’ve seen this before and there’s so much here — but what strikes me now, is that Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life” not at the end, after Lazarus is all raised and showered and fresh and alive, but when death is stinking and things are at their worst.  

There’s a scene right at the beginning of the next chapter where Jesus is actually sitting at a banquet table with Lazarus and Mary and Martha.  Everyone’s together, food is being served, wine is being poured.  You can easily imagine the good smells and the hearty laughter at the table one chapter past this point.  But that’s not where Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life...everyone who lives in me will never die.”  Jesus says this, at exactly the moment when Lazarus is stone cold dead, 4-stinkin’-days-dead in the tomb, when Martha comes at him in bitterness and blame: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”  (And of course, beneath the anger is always sadness and fear.)  

Friends in Christ, Jesus isn’t just with us in the banquet times — the parties, and the family feasts, and the full sanctuaries — Jesus is with us through it all.  Jesus doesn’t say “I am the resurrection and the life” at the sun-shiny glorious end: he says it right smack in the cloudy-cold-muddy middle.

And we’re in the middle now.  In the cloudy-cold-muddy middle.  Deep in the muddy valley.  Shadows and fears all around.  Slogging through our days.  Anxious and angry.  Sad and afraid.    

We’re right smack in the middle of it, these days.  In this unprecedented season of Lent, this quarantine, this Covid-19 nightmare.  We’ll never forget this time.  But, friends, we have a God who is here with us, in it.

—

And this God, this one Jesus Christ does several things with us, in the cloudy-cold-muddy middle: First of all, Jesus weeps.  

What is that about?!  Especially in the Gospel of John!?  

If you’ve been listening to my interpretations of John’s Gospel over the months, I continually find Jesus to be completely in control, cool and calm.  He loves everyone, but I haven’t seen him lose it before.  After all, Jesus is all divine.  There’s no question about that, according to John.  All these signs, all these miracles (last week: blind man...feeding 5000, walks on water) all these signs all point to his divinity.   

So what’s he cryin’ about!?  He has the power to raise Lazarus! 

If any of us had the power to raise the dead, if I had the power to raise the dead, I’d show up to your house after the  death of your loved one, and I’d be like, “Step aside everyone!  Check this out!”  I don’t think tears would be my issue.  If we had dead-raising powers, we might be serious and stoic, maybe for dramatic effect, but we’d know we had a miracle up our sleeve.  I’m being trite.  Here’s my point:

Jesus, on the other hand, weeps!  Ponder that this week, this long season of quarantine.  I think one could write a doctoral dissertation on this shortest verse in all of Scripture, especially because it’s John’s Gospel, where Jesus is all in control and calm.  I don’t have the answer as to what that’s all about, but I will say:  Jesus weeping points to Divinity also.  

This is not counted as one of the 7 signs, but I think it should be: What kind of a God cries?!  

Ours does.  Tears say, “I’m with you.”  Ever been with a friend when you were really hurting, who didn’t have an answer or any wise words, but just started crying with you?  I’ve never felt so heard, so understood, so accompanied, so embraced.  

Did you see these clips of Hoda on the “TODAY Show”?  Always so professional, so scripted and in control.  This week...after talking with Drew Brees how kindness is also contagious and both saying “We love you” to each other...she just lost it.

And that’s just a tiny glimpse of our God, who so deeply and completely hears, understands, accompanies and loves us.  Maybe that’s what those tears were about...

Christ is here, right smack in the middle of our pain, of our sorrow, of our fear, of our losses, of our anxieties and of our tears.  All this happens — not after the raising and unbinding — but before it, when things really, literally stink!  God is there, present, loving, weeping.  Never felt so embraced.

—

And then, the final sign — the raising of Lazarus is the final sign of the Gospel of John.  The whole second half of the book of John is the Passion narrative.  So this is it, and what a finale this is to (what’s been called) the Book of Signs, the first half of John’s Gospel!

Hearken back to the first sign, when Jesus turned the water to wine back in Chapter 2 of John:  Mary, who was there then and is here at the tomb of Lazarus as well (and will be at the cross), said back at the wedding, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Do you remember that?  She said this to the servants:  “Do whatever he tells you.”  

As Jesus’ seven signs unfold through John’s narrative, Jesus is always giving a command, telling his “sheep” to do something:

whether it’s “fill the jars with water,” or “take up your mat and walk,” or “gather whatever food is left over,” “go wash in the pool of Sent”...and today, “Lazarus, come out!...Unbind him and let him go!”  

Let’s heed Mary’s advice: “Do whatever Jesus tells you.”  Why?  Because when we do what Jesus tells us to do, good things happen…that is, God’s glory is revealed.  When we listen, when we trust, then we see and walk and eat and rise from the dead...and finally understand.

We’re all sheep of the Good Shepherd, remember?  And sometimes we go astray.  And God’s gonna love us and forgive us even when we fail miserably at listening, trusting, seeing and understanding Jesus (that’s the trust of Luke’s Gospel: God’s gonna hold us no matter what)…

But our life becomes abundant when we follow Mary’s advice, and “do whatever Christ tells us to do.”  Today:  Come out!

— 

Not only has Jesus given sight to the blind, health to the sick, food to the hungry, and brought a crazy-good party to the wedding feast in Cana...and to all our feasts and party days over the years, right?!  (In these isolating days, I hope you’re doing some good reflecting and giving thanks for all the blessings of family and community during these days when we’re cut off from that.  I’m going through a lot of pictures and videos of good times.)  Not only has Christ done all this, given us all this, he even raises the dead!

He even brings us through our valleys, through our losses, through our pain, definitely through our tears, through death itself, and gives us life, and life abundant...not just ventilator life, but family and friends and laughter and banquet tables.

This life is ours even now, even in the mud — not just at the Great Feast That is To Come — this “resurrection and life” is ours right now, right smack in the middle.  Right here in our valley of the shadow of death, the Shepherd is with us.  

Now that’s something worth celebrating!  That’s not just a silver lining:  That’s the center.  That’s the center of our gathering.  That’s the center of our faith.  That’s the center of our hope.  That’s the rock in a weary land.  That’s the cross.  

This life abundant, this abiding Jesus, this raising of the dead, this coming out, this rock in a weary land is yours today, 

and through this valley.

and always.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

May 19 -- Fifth Sunday of Easter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A God who’s Gospel shakes down the Law.

A God, whose cup of grace never runs dry,

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

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

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

March 17 -- Second Sunday in Lent

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

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

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

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

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

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

Politics in our country: masters at dualistic thinking!

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

   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 8 -- Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you and peace from Jesus the Christ who calls us outward, sending us into new territories and new adventures — new missions and tasks!  AMEN.

How exciting to be with you, here at last!  Amen?  And yet, what absolutely shocking and so terribly tragic events have accompanied us in these transitional days and weeks!

I couldn’t have chosen a better Scripture text around which we are first gathering than this one (that the lectionary chooses for us) from Mark 6!  This is where the mission together begins in Mark’s Gospel.  Jesus has been impressing everyone on his own until now:  this is where Jesus sends us/disciples out.  And it’s where Jesus reminds us that things might not always go well as we go about the work of spreading the Gospel of God’s grace and peace and healing.  

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One of our daughter Katie’s favorite songs is “Shake it Off” by Taylor Swift.  It’s been out for a number of years and so I remember not too long ago, little Katie jumping around the living room trying to get us all to dance, “Shake it off.”  (Just an image for us…)  Despite all the things going on in our lives, in our world, in the news — little Katie pulled us up to dance. 

Jesus, in a similar way then, is taking us by the hand and calling us in these challenging times: “Shake it off.  Shake it off!  Shake off the dust from your feet when trouble comes your way.  Shake off of the death and the hatred and the fear that is all around, and ‘keep on’ in doing the work to which I have called you.  Just because you’ve been met with vandalism and violence, just because you’ve had windows smashed in, pew seats ripped, hateful-horrific words written on your walls doesn’t mean that you’ve done something wrong,” Christ encourages us, his modern-day disciples.  In fact the opposite: “You are doing something right.  Following me just isn’t all that easy.  Following me and embracing the welcome, love, justice and peace that I desire for you, for this nation, and for this whole world is going to bring with it — always — some serious push back!  So, take a deep breath.  Shake it off.  Join hands — [I love how he pairs up the disciples: we don’t do this alone] — join hands and let’s go,” Jesus says.

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New friends in Christ, God is most definitely here and with us.  The Holy Spirit is swirling around, even as we reel.  God’s still got us.  And Christ still sends us out.  

I’m not saying anything I haven’t seen you all at BLC aren’t doing already.  I have already been so moved, impressed, encouraged, inspired as I’ve already watched you all respond to these recent break-ins and hate crimes.  

I’ve witnessed, first of all, deep sorrow and pain:  In a culture that often bottles up emotions and chokes back tears, I’ve already seen here Christ himself weeping in your midst.  In response to words of hate and harm, come words of love and healing, and tears of longing...for a world where such violence will be no more.  Mark’s gospel describes Jesus laying hands on these who are ill.  It’s that laying on of hands that shows the compassion of Christ, the pain of the cross.  Gashes in the seat cushions ~ gashes in Christ.  As tears of longing and sorrow at “what is” filled this community, it was as if Christ is laying on hands and healing the broken, despite all the other things that were going on… 

Did you catch this in the reading?  It said Jesus could do no deed of power...EXCEPT...to lay his hands on a few and heal them.  Tears at the world’s violence are the laying on Christ’s very hands in healing.  Our tears are cathartic, yes.  But it’s more than that: it’s the breaking in of hope for a world-as-it-should-be...not choking back and settling for the world-as-it-is.

I’ve witnessed your deep sorrow and pain; and I’ve witnessed that you all “show up” despite it:  Christ calls us to be here for one another and for this hurting world...in these days.  

That terrible morning after the last break in, I was amazed at how many just kept arriving and taking it in.  “People just keep showing up,” I whispered to my father-in-law who was here too for the first time.  He’s a retired pastor and has served many congregations—a great mentor to me.  “That’s the sign of a strong church,” he whispered back.  This place is small-but-mighty.  That’s precisely what Jesus needs in his disciples!  Not brute force, but mighty hearts and healing tears.  Not     burly arms and souped-up arsenals, but simply & profoundly robust faith — faith that stands the test of time and terror.  Faith that “shows up”.  God is here among us as we “show up” to make our stand together against the evil and wrong-doing all around us.

Jesus gives his disciples “authority over the unclean spirits” in verse 7.  This is a radically welcoming community, but there is no place for hatred and violence here.  Christ gives us too — as we stand together in solidarity with all our brothers and sisters (both Lutheran and non) — AUTHORITY over the unclean spirits of our time and community.  That is to say: “Unclean spirits!  You have no power over us.”

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Back in seminary — you have to understand: I had been a Biology major as an undergrad so I liked charts and graphs — so as we were studying the Gospel of Mark, I kind of threw my professor for a loop when I decided to graph Jesus’ “power potential” (as I named it) on the y-axis as time passed through the Gospel of Mark on the x-axis.  I did the same thing with the disciples’ “power potential.”

And faithful Christians might have found my results surprising: 

As I had hypothesized, and as I believe the author of Mark intended to communicate: as time passes in Mark, as you read through the Gospel, Jesus’ power potential declines dramatically, and meanwhile, the disciples gain more and more ability, or power potential.  This text today is that critical turning point, where — in a foretaste of what happens on the cross — Jesus is emptying himself in order to fill up his disciples.  In this text, it says Jesus could do no deed of power, and yet by the end of our text, his disciples — that rag-tag gang of busy and broken bodies is “healing, casting out demons and preaching the word of life and love.”

This is our God.  Showing up in weakness, in moments of sorrow and pain, and filling us with potential.  

Friends in Christ, as we look forward to the days, and hopefully many years of life and ministry together here at Bethlehem Lutheran, know that Christ meets us in our most vulnerable times.  These are things we preachers say all the time, but — I don’t know about you, but — aren’t we feeling that far more profoundly in these challenging days?  Christ meets us in our tears and our pain, and fills us with the ability to cast out demons, heal the sick and share God’s love through words and deeds.  This is good news of great joy, and this is our great news this day and forever more...no matter what.

Thanks be to God — who never leaves us; who made us for goodness, and to be together, and to go outward; and who shines brightly even and especially now!  AMEN.

     

HOD - #726 “Light Dawns on a Weary World”