January 10 -- No Small, Sweet Thing (Baptism of Jesus - Epiphany1B 2021)

Friends, I said we’re in the Year of Mark, and
WE. ARE. IN. IT.

The baptism of Jesus is no small, sweet thing.

Baptism has become a bit of a nice, small, sweet thing in our time:  A perfect, new baby is born.  A nice tradition of getting that baby baptized lingers in the family’s DNA.  Church participation might be pretty minimal, but the pastor’s fine with that.  Hey, everyone’s welcome.  Grace abounds, and after all the young parents and everyone knows, “it would mean the world to Grandma” to see her precious little grandchild get baptized, especially given her recent health concerns.  So why not?  It’s a sweet day, the family travels to be there, the pictures by the font are so nice, the little brunch that follows (at least in pre-COVID times)...and then just a year later, everyone pretty much lets that “big” day come and go, maybe a baptismal candle is lit, a card from a sponsor or friend from church arrives in the mail, but that’s about it...and even that can buried as the years pile up.  Because...baptism, in our time, largely has become a nice, small, sweet thing.  

But friends, you need to know that Jesus’ baptism is revolutionary!  The ripping open of the sky and the descending of the Holy Spirit on Jesus — and by extension, on us too...according to our Paul New Testament theology —

“When Paul had laid his hands on them, the
Holy Spirit came upon them” — this Baptism is no small, sweet thing.  It is earth-quaking, heaven-splitting, new-path-setting, irrevocable, re-arranging, re-surrecting, re-creating, re-volutionary action, here and now and in-your-face!

It is chaos losing to order.  
Violence being swamped by peace.
It is racism ending to equality and justice for all.
It is the tyrannical empire of Caesar’s Rome succumbing to Jesus!
It is evil falling to love.
Baptism is death dying to life in Christ.

Welcome to the Year of Mark.  WE. ARE. IN. IT.  Might be the shortest book, but it packs a punch.  Its symbol is the roaring lion.  Clear, sharp, immediate, irreversible and a powerful way to start this already difficult year.  
[catch breath…]

Baptism here is a renunciation of death and the devil.  Biblical scholar Alan Streett says, baptism is letting your subscription to Caesar’s reign of terror expire, it’s “burning your draft card” to Rome’s violent conquest, and proclaiming and embracing an opposite allegiance: God’s new reign of radical justice, compassion and peace.  

When it says the “heavens were torn open,” that Greek word, is powerful and irreversible, according to Markan scholar Don Juel.  God is unleashed on the world.  Welcome to Mark!  God — unleashed on the world!

Frankly this kind of action is a more than most people are willing to sacrifice.  This kind of faith is just too risky.  This kind of divine love and justice is simply too much to get behind...too much at stake.  This baptism of Jesus is too big.  We’d all probably want to shrink it down, put it back in the box (the little bowl-of-a-font), and keep it sweet and sentimental, and a nice excuse to have a small reunion.

And then we have weeks like this...  

And we find ourselves needing more than just a nice, small, sweet, little ritual.  We find ourselves longing for a grounding in hope, a place to make a stand, a position to take, a word to speak.  

And friends in Christ, this Baptism of Jesus holds up — even and especially in the face of violence in our nation’s capital and beyond.  This baptism of Jesus holds up in the face of blatant racism and white privilege.  This baptism of Jesus holds up to fear and the chaos, the uncertainty and the cruelty.  This baptism of Jesus is no small, sweet thing.

Friends in Christ, let’s buckle up for the kind of ministry Jesus has in store for us this Year of Mark, because he’s just come up out of the waters of baptism.  He’s made his stand in the Jordan river.  We are covered in those waters too, so now the trip begins!  

I hope we can stay on board.  Brace yourself for whiplash because the Gospel of Mark moves fast (in chapter 1 alone, Jesus gets baptized, gets tempted in the wilderness, calls the disciples, teaches in the synagogue, casts out demons and heals a leper!  Chapter 1)...I hope we can stay on board because following Jesus gets bumpy down the the muddy roads of the baptized life.  

This will not be easy.  Remaining faithful will not be easy.  There will be confrontation with forces of evil, with chaos, and violence — If the baptism of Jesus is for us too, if like the Ephesians, the Holy Spirit descends on us too, then get ready to make your stand in Jordan and join Christ for the journey.

This is a stand against SATAN (ever heard me talk much about Satan?  Well, I’m trying to channel Markan Christology here!), this is a face-off with Satan is no small, sweet thing — it’s no 3-little-drips of water from a tiny bowl in a peaceful sanctuary, a nice white gown, some cake and some pictures.  No, this discipleship is gonna hurt, it’s gonna leave us bruised, struck down but not destroyed!  “The Gospel of the Lord.”

Friends, are you still with me?  Why’d everybody sign out and log off?  (just kidding—I can’t see who’s here)  Are you still with me?  Are we still together in Christ?  Has the chaos and the terrorism on our own soil, in our own town, has the violence of this season broken us up, torn us down, frightened us away?  Or are we going to get Markan here in 2021?  M-A-R-K-A-N.  Are we going to buckle down and buckle up and journey with Jesus?  

Friends in Christ, here’s the thing about Mark’s Wild Ride:  We’re not just along for the ride...  

As this rich narrative unfolds, as we get jerked and bounced from one scene to the next, Jesus is actually going to pass the reins over to you!  [pause]  That’s the Gospel of Mark.  (Like a scene from an action movie.)  And there it is again: “When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them.”  The Holy Spirit descends on YOU.  SPLISH, SPLASH, is pretty much how it went.  “You are my child; you are my the beloved,” God says to you, “with you I am well pleased.”  

We are emerging from the baptismal waters too.  We are standing in the Jordan river too.  The Holy Spirit is descending on you too.  And now Jesus is calling you aboard.  Here we go.  AMEN.

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.  

January 19 -- Second Sunday after Epiphany

Didn’t we just read about Jesus Baptism in Matthew last week?  Yeah—actually named the entire Sunday last week after it, colored the altar in gold, lit the Christ candle, splashed the kids at the font, read a special prayer...remember?

So why are we reading about it again in John today?!
It’s the year of Matthew after all!  (You guys aren’t feeling my frustration ;)

Friends in Christ, here’s what we need to know about John’s Gospel:  it’s the brightest and highest of all.  It’s too shiny and glorious to have an entire year of John.  We would go blind.  We have to take it in small doses, inserting it from time to time into our 3-year cycle of Matthew, Mark and Luke.  Fascinating book I’m reading* and loving right now looks at the four gospel as a journey of transformation, where Matthew is about facing change, next Mark is about the suffering that comes when we face that change, then John comes third on the journey, and is that moment of coming into glory, clarity and joy.  (Luke-Acts finally is about going back with that clarity of justice, with that joy to the world, it’s the road back to our communities.)  But John is the apex, the mountain top experience.  The bright, shining star.  The epiphany.  Martin Luther called John’s Gospel the eagle because “it soars above the rest”.  It’s too much.  You can’t eat caviar and drink the best campaign every day...

But we’ve got John today! And Christ’s baptism and the calling of his first disciples is so important...
that in case you had any question about who that was who got baptized last week in Matthew, John’s gonna clear it up for us today: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  John the Baptist doesn’t even splash water of Jesus, all he does is point at him and sings a hymn.

My NT professor (she came and preached here at my installation) Dr. Audrey West says in her commentary on this text, "’It is not about me.’ That is the message whenever people in the Fourth Gospel ask John the Baptist who he is.”   In the Gospel of John, I think John the Baptist would be more appropriately called John the Pointer.

And here the radiance that’s almost too bright (just going to slip it in here).  It’s like coming out of a dark cave into a clear, snowy winter’s day:  this Jesus, walking along, is not not just God’s son.  Jesus is God!  Love divine, all loves excelling.  Come down to be among us, to save us and this whole world, to forgive us and this whole world, to love us and this whole world unconditionally!  We have to squint and protect our eyes from that much brilliance.

Baptism is central to the Christian journey.  We have to look at it again today, in John’s telling: even more radiance.  “Lamb of God who takes away sin, who conquers death and the devil, who shines like the sun.”  What a text for our long nights, right?  For any of our seasons of pain and loss and hopelessness.  What a text for this moment.  It’s like January is the season of baptism.  We watched last week talking about Eastern Orthodox, I showed a video in adult ed of Russian Orthodox Christians dunking into icy lake in January to celebrate these texts of Jesus’ baptism, and remember their own baptisms.  Yeah, this is the season of baptism... showered with gifts by the magi, showered with water last week, showered with glory and brilliance and praise from John today.

So what?  What does Jesus’ baptism in John have to do with us?   So what?  What does this have to do with me?

On one hand, nothing.  On the other, everything.

But let’s start with nothing.  On one hand, Jesus baptism has nothing to do with you.  That’s the whole point.

That’s the point Dr. West is making:  For once in your life, in other words, get over yourselves!  

It’s not about you!  (Or me. I hope you know I’m preaching to myself here too.)  John points away from himself and away from everyone else.  Simple.  It’s about Jesus.  Simple.  And yet so profound in our selfie culture, right?  Social media is a great indicator…just scroll through.  If an alien landed here and started scrolling through our Facebook feeds...what a self-focused culture.  Guilty — I take and share selfies all the time:  “Look at me...and whoever else can fit in the frame.”

In a way, this second week of Jesus’ baptism is a second chance to shift the focus away from us.  Often the angle on Jesus’ baptism is: Jesus was baptized therefore you, you, you...You are loved, you too are named child of God, you too are called and sent out — all great and true, but...

...Let’s just bask in the point, today.  The pointing of John the Pointer.  Let’s just worship God — not ourselves — for a minute here this morning.  (“worship”, again, from the OE worth-ship, i.e. what’s worthy of our sacrifices).  We do worship ourselves.  Make sacrifices for ourselves most of the time, if we’re honest, right?  As Mother Teresa said, we draw our circles, our frames, our definitions of family, too tightly.  Me and whoever else can fit in my frame.  We make sacrifices only for that inside, small group.  (By the way, on the other hand, this was one of the most radical things about those early Christian communities: they were way ahead of the curve on drawing wider and wider circles, opening up bigger and bigger, in another era where circles were super tight.)

Today, let’s bask in the point.  The pointing of John the Pointer.

On one hand, this has absolutely nothing to do with us, for a change.  This is about God’s glory and grace shining through.  There’s nothing we can do about it...except give thanks and praise...like John did…more than once.  “Behold the Lamb of God,” he proclaimed one day and the next.  That’s why we sing it over and over, every Sunday at Communion “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world”: to remind ourselves, for one thing — it’s not about me.  (story - Adam’s plane ride: “Well, I believe in myself.”
—
And then on the other hand...when we stop and worship God.  When we look at what John the Pointer is pointing at.  Gaze as the majesty of the the Savior of the world, the forgiver of all our sin, the conquerer of death itself, the very brilliance of God...when we stop and really see this, everything changes.  And suddenly everything is about us.  Everything that the radiance of God in Christ shines upon is our concern.  Every person, every creature, every landscape, every beat of our own heart and of our neighbor’s heart — humans and beyond — all of it is our concern.  All of it is about us.

And Jesus invites us with Andrew and Simon Peter to “come and see”.  On one hand, it’s not about us, and on the other, it’s all about us and the whole cosmos.  Jesus cracks us out of our rusty old frames, and presents us again this day in 2020 a new vision.  An expansive embrace.  A fuller mission.   A cosmic joy.  A more glorious union.  In this broken, sinful, self-centered, cruel, sick and twisted world...this. is. our. call. from Jesus.  today.  We are a part of this radical grace and glory.  “Come and see,” the rabbi says.  So, let’s go.
AMEN.

* Heart and Mind: the Four-Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation, A.J. Shaia, Quadatos, 2019.

December 8 -- Second Sunday of Advent

I don’t know about you, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep Advent as a community of faith and even as a family.  Christmas just gets better and better at encroaching.  Some Christians even believe strongly that that we should just skip Advent, that it’s no longer relevant or “useful”...that we, with the rest of the culture ought to just get on with a 4-week December celebration of Christmas.  And be done with it all the morning of December 26th.

I think we traumatized our own daughter Katie when she was a preschooler (remember this, Katie?): we were pulling down the Advent decorations again that year, which included her nativity, and after she set the whole thing up, she noticed that the baby Jesus was missing.  “Where’s Baby?  Where’s Baby?

I want the baby!”  See, one of our family traditions has been that we don’t put the baby Jesus out in our nativity sets until Christmas Eve.  That all through Advent, we wait and hope and get ready and get excited; that we can’t just have everything we want right when we want it.  We had some tears.  But that’s a discipline I’m not really used to either: waiting.  I get what I want, when I want it...for the most part.  No one’s going to dictate to me that I need to be patient, and wait with hopeful expectation.  

We want Christmas to be here now in our culture, and so we take it, as soon as we want it.

So right off the bat today, all this Christmas stuff all around, makes it really hard to hear the prophet’s call — John the Baptist, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness”.  It’s almost as loud as a whisper with all the holiday things all around us, with all the Christmas carols and bells and parties and cookies and peppermint spiced lattes and...incessant advertising and shopping.  It almost makes John the Baptist, who we try to hear today, seem way out of place, even though he’s been a part of Christian December readings in church since the middle ages, he kind of becomes a ‘buzz kill‘ — talkin’ all crazy...  Like someone unpleasant bursting into our festivities.  How dare he?  “We want the baby!!”

But patience is a virtue.  And John reminds us of that — listening, hoping, expecting, even looking at ourselves and our unhealthy thoughts and patterns — not rushing to angels and shepherds and a baby in a manger just yet.

I imagine the Sundays of Advent as hilltops, like the gentle rolling hills of the Virginia countryside we drove across last week.  The rolling hills of  Advent.  Meeting prophets — Isaiah, Paul and now John the Baptist — who serve as guides on our Advent journey...pointing us to the stable down in the valley, still 16 days off in the distance.

It’s like the difference between driving somewhere and flying: when you drive, you watch the terrain change ever so slowly.  And when you walk even more so.  We as a faithful community, Bethlehem Lutheran Church, part of our greater family the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and even wider the church of Jesus Christ on planet earth, we’re traveling a little slower than the rest of the culture who seems to have boarded the airplane and never looked back (or out the window even), who never experienced the beautiful Advent hill country.

And here’s what we learn today in the hills, in the wilderness:  That this God-with-us, this Emmanuel, this baby who arrives at Christmas, is not all peaches and lullabies.  He’s not all sweet little baby smell.  This God-come-near us is a judge.  An arbitrator.  He will clear the threshing floor, separating the wheat from the chaff.  That’s an image that might not resonate for us suburbanites in 2019, but the wheat farmer used to separate the good wheat from the chaff by “forking it” all, tossing it to the wind, and the good stuff falls back down and the chaff, blows away.
(putting straw in the manger outside this week)

This God-with-us is searching for substance (that in itself is Good News), fruit that’s worthy of repentance.

In this day-in-age, where there is so much chaff blowing around, so much cheapness, shallowness, emptiness, “lite-ness”.  So much deflection.  (I had a conversation with someone this week—one of my favorite teachers/authors actually—who have no time for chaff...cut right to the heart of the matter...ever talked to people like that?  No fluff, even polite formalities.)

She’s like John the Baptist, who talks about a God who looks and longs for substance and sustenance, wholeness and quality.  Wheat.  That’s the image.  “Goes to the heart of it.”

And this Second Sunday of Advent is a chance for us to go there, to slow down, value the journey, don’t race to the destination, celebrate and honor the beautiful hills of Advent, Hear the prophets callin’… Let the prophets’ words marinate with you for a bit...we’ll get to Christmas eventually.  There’s no doubt, but let the prophet’s words soak.

Today again, we pause atop the hill with John the Baptist, out in the wilds, who teaches us and celebrates with us a God who separates out our own chaff from our own wheat.  Our own emptiness and shallowness:  God-in-Christ-Jesus forks that (forks us) and tosses it (tosses us), and lets the Spirit, the wind, separate our stuff out.  And we fall back to the floor, cleared out of all our chaff, our extra stuff, our junk.  Advent is a time of refining.  Of God’s winnowing.  The chaff, “[Christ] will burn with unquenchable fire”!  That’s good news!  For the wheat that we are is deep beauty, deep blessing: “Child of God, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked by the cross”!

God’s winnowing turns us into saints, bless-ed Christ-followers.  And God’s winnowing takes some openness on our part too...

I do have to admit that I love cleaning and de-cluttering during Advent, just separating out, getting rid of all the junk, all the dirt and grime, all the extra.  It’s a way for me to embody the season.  Taking stock.  Clearing up.  Emptying out.  Making room.  How are you making room for Christ to arrive anew?  How are we repenting [metanoia-ing, turning around, 180*], opening up, making space, allowing the Holy Spirit-wind do its “winnowing” on us?  How are you waiting?

Friends in Christ, this is how God speaks to us today, how Jesus invites us, and the Spirit moves in our midst!  This is what John the Baptist proclaims: that we are made new, we are cleared of our sin and our brokenness.  And from this sacred little hilltop, John points us down that bumpy road to a tiny town (that this church is named after) and an even tinier stable and its manger, where we will travel together in these holy weeks, to meet again in the silence and the beauty of the night, this loving and judging wheat farmer God, born to a poor, blue-collar family, who calls us to live justly, to bear fruits of kindness and holiness; who directs us to righteousness, and separates out our sin and our brokenness, our chaff from our wheat, and who sends us even now into the valleys of death in this world to be a flame of hope, to share this Gospel, this good news with everyone.

God is already with us, and still we wait in peace and expectation.  Today, we sit still on the hill with the prophet and marvel anew.  For God is love-come-near, blooming and growing among us.  AMEN.

February 10 -- 5th Sunday after Epiphany

Sisters and brothers in Christ, 

Look at what God can do when we are tired!

What strikes me about this fantastic lesson of Jesus calling his disciples is that he does it in the morning after a sleepless, fruitless, hopeless night!  

Peter was ready to pack up and go home -- no energy, no fish, no hope -- and that’s precisely when Christ shows up, sends him back out, and calls him into new mission fields.

Look at what God can do when we are tired!

At the end of our rope, without direction or energy -- hopeless, fruitless, even sleepless.  That’s precisely when Christ shows up, sends us back out and into new mission.

This is our God.

So what task is God calling you into now?  Us here at BLC?  No matter your age.  No matter your status, no matter how long you’ve been “at this” already.  Now is when Christ appears in your midst and says, “Well, try this: try something new, go deeper” and “Come, follow me”.

Jesus meets us in our grayness, when the clouds are heavy, and the days and the years (and our faces) are long, just as we’re about throw in the towel, give up, sell out, and isolate ourselves from others.  Just as we’re really getting really frustrated with each other or the world around us.  Just as we’re about to close the door and blow out the candle, Jesus says, “Hey, go back out there, go deeper.”

--

This has always been seen as a text about vocation.  Martin Luther taught that we all have a vocation.  And theologian Frederick Buechner said that vocation is a term for that intersection...“where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.” x2  Go deeper, Jesus says.

--

But sometimes our great passions are squelched:  The saddest stories, I think, are the stories of loved ones in my life, who never followed their deep gladness (perhaps their vocations) because someone told them it was stupid, or a waste of time, or too daunting a task for them to ever realize such a goal or a calling.  Had a friend in college who wanted to study marine biology, but her parents wanted her to be practical and study business.  Or another family member who always wanted to be a nurse and take care of sick children, but was even mocked by her husband, saying that her “dream” was too expensive, and she’d never be able to pass the classes.  Passions, deep gladness, even callings: squelched.

--

Friends, Christ finds us, just as he found Peter, in that moment of “squelch”.  Sometimes, it’s our own “shadow voices”, the negative self-talk that crushes us.  Often we squelch ourselves. Peter, I’m sure, was feeling pretty squelched/empty (wonder what he was saying to himself in those wee morning hours), when Christ showed up, told him to try something different, and filled his nets.  Christ is our hope.  Jesus sends us and calls us to try again...even to try something new.

“Try going deeper,” Jesus says.  When we go deeper, we discover even more...and find ourselves on a path that we never dreamed. 

Look at what God can do when we are tired!    

See, and here’s what I both love and hate about this text: 

It’s not just about “following our dreams” -- those might be well and good, or they might be misguided.  No, vocation is about God’s voice.  The word vocation literally means “calling” (from Latin vocare).  So there’s got to be a call-er here.  Someone directing us, nudging us, beckoning us.  “Vocation-ing” us...

So who’s doing the calling?  Our own hearts?  Our parents?  Our legislators and recruiters?  Our friends?  Sometimes God works through these and other people or experiences.   

But ultimately, is is Christ Jesus who calls us out.  And he’s not just saying, “Hey, whatever you want…what ever you need...just follow your passion...” 

Rather, just like in our passage for today, Jesus is asking us to look at something new, to stir -- from our drowsiness, fatigue and even despair -- to tasks and adventures we never even imagined.

It’s not about “following our dreams”; it’s about following God’s dream.  Going deeper.  Discovering and living into God’s dream.  We are called into that profound, challenging, joy-filled -- and at the same time life-threatening -- call to follow Jesus.  We are called into that call.

Catching fish was a little dangerous...catching people?  That is, preaching the Gospel...with our words and more importantly our actions?  Proclaiming release to those who are locked up in all kinds of ways?  Recovery of sight to those who can’t see clearly?  Forgiveness to those who deem themselves unforgivable?…

remember all those things that Jesus laid out in his “Inaugural Address” two Sundays ago?   

Catching fish is a little dangerous, catching people?:  you might wind up face-to-face with the powers, just like John the Baptist…or Jesus himself.  Going deeper is not without risk.  

So who’s in?!  Like Jerry Maguire: “Who’s coming with me?” Jesus “vocations” us.  What strange waters, or strange lands, is Christ calling you into this new week?  This new season?  This new year?

(Peter executed in Rome.  South gate-Appian Way-Quo Vadis...He knew how dangerous it was and yet he went anyway.)

This may be where Christ calls you, even this day! -- into a deeper life, a fuller love, a complete vocation, God’s dream...not just yours.  And in that is the greatest joy!  (Can you imagine if Peter never left his nets?  What he would have missed?)

This is a good day, it is a good week, it is a hopeful moment — even in the midst of our fatigue and even aguish — for, friends, Christ himself stands on the shore of our lives and bids us come and follow, let go, and go even deeper.  

Today is a good day for Christ Jesus stays with us, fills our nets...and loves us into a new and even more expansive vocation.  

Friends, Jesus loves us into God’s dream!  AMEN.  

January 13 -- Baptism of our Lord Sunday

John the Baptist was a truth-teller.

Known any truth-tellers in your life?  I think they tend to be kind of weirdos.  Truth-tellers.  “Awkward” is a truth-teller’s middle name.  Their words sear, but we try to ignore it, or laugh it aside.  Truth-tellers:  Nothin’ to lose, no one to impress.  They often seem a little unhinged.

Now, I don’t mean someone who is cruel with their words...and their cruel words somehow settle into your mind as truth.  I think of all the bullies that say mean stuff that their victims start to believe is true -- that’s not a truth-teller.  That’s a liar, in fact.  

I mean a real truth-teller.  Someone who truly says it like it is.  Sometimes very eloquently.  But often not from a position you’d expect.  Those are always the great movie characters, right?  The trash-man in the movie, who always speaks the true and wise word.  The seemingly crazy, old bag lady.  The blind beggar. The bartender. The child...truth-teller characters.

And it’s often tempting to want to prop up that truth-teller and have them (not you) just give a piece of their mind (i.e. your mind) to the big, mean opponent, or at least one who holds power over you.  Propping them up, puffing them up...

Puffing up a crazy, mouthy, articulate classmate to go after a professor. Tell him! Tell him!  (I’ve done it & had it done to me)

Puffing up a brother or sister to go after a parent.  Tell him!  Tell him!

Provoking a council member, puffing them up to go after the pastor.  Tell him!  Tell him!  Give ‘em a piece of our mind!  

Puffing a legislator up to go after a president.  Tell him!  

Then if the results go bad, if the response is negative, even hostile, well, it’s not your hide.  No one even needs to know you put ‘em up to it…

I guess what I’m saying is that we can take advantage of crazy truth-tellers.  They’re “out there” anyway, so the temptation is: “Well, may as well get them to work for us...or at least entertain us.”

You kind of get the sense that the people in Luke’s gospel, surrounded by the big, mean Pharisees, the Herodians and the Roman empire -- bullies -- opponents, higher-ups, to be sure, more powerful than they, were puffing John up to go after them.  Tell ‘em, John!  Go tell ‘em!

--

But all John does is tell the truth.  He doesn’t incite violence, he tells the truth:  “What should we do?”  Share.  Give a jacket away if you have two.  Give food to anyone who is hungry.  Nothin’ to lose, no one to impress.  And John calls us to share.  He doesn’t fall for the puffing up games people play.  

That’s it, John!!?  You’re not going to rip them a new one!!?  You’re not going to verbally lambast them?  You’re not going to declare war on them?    

“No,” says John, “just share; be kind to one another.  Everyone could use a little more of that.  Be gentle.  Do the right thing.  Be honest and upright in your business dealings.  Don’t extort money from people.  Don’t rip them off.  Don’t cheat...and be happy with what you have…

“And one more thing: [this gets us to our text here] This one Jesus, is it.  I’m going to engrave that into your consciousness by baptizing him.  

[slowly] This one Jesus is the embodiment of truth -- of what I’m challenging you to do: This one Jesus is the embodiment of sharing, of not cheating the poor, of welcoming the outcast and feeding the hungry.  This one Jesus, who I baptize is the embodiment of truth.”  John is a truth-teller and a truth-baptizer.  He baptizes the truth.  The truth is not cruel; the truth is love.

And you know you’re on the right track to truth, when the powers try to shut you up, when you are saying things that sear in their simplicity.  Truth-telling, truth-baptizing got John thrown into prison.  He told the truth about Jesus, and he told the truth about Herod’s adulterous wrong-doing with his brother’s wife.  Everyone else turned a blind eye.  

Ever been in situation where everyone is turning a blind eye, and it takes the innocence of a child or an outsider or a newcomer to say, hey, this is wrong!   (Clergy group: “There’s a lot of ego and competitiveness in this circle.”)

John the Baptist -- John the pointer (if I ever had a pointer dog, I’d want to call him either John or Luther) -- John the baptist simply points to Christ.  The true WWJD prophet.  Don’t extort, cheat, lie, hog the best for yourself.  Truth-teller.  Not mean, not cruel.  Just honest and clear-headed, even if a little “out there”.  Although interestingly, did you notice: doesn’t say anything here in Luke’s gospel about John eating locusts and wild honey, wearing camel’s hair.  Maybe John was a little more main-stream, according to Luke.  

And friends in Christ, John was certainly in the main stream, the river’s main flow, to be sure, when it came time to baptize.  John preached repentance and new life, through baptism.  A changing of ways, the forgiveness of sins.  Through this water!  

You know, ancient teaching has us using cold water for baptism?  Luther missed this.  He warmed the water up for babies.  But baptismal water — especially practiced among our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters — is supposed to be cold.  Stinging.  Because this Christian life is not an easy one.

Shane Claiborne: “My life was great...before I met Jesus (gave everything away, loved my enemies, prayed for bullies…)!”

The truth hurts.  It stings.  These cold waters of baptism make us jump a bit, cringe a bit.  John the Baptist’s long, pointy finger pokes at us and guides us to follow after this one Jesus.  The truth is eerie.  

This one Jesus -- the embodiment of all truth — is already out there sharing.  Already out there in the snow — on January 13, 2019 — Christ is already out there sharing warmth with all who are cold, nourishment with all who are hungry.  This one Jesus — to whom John points and baptizes — this one Jesus — upon which a voice from heaven comes booming down: “this is my Son the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” -- this one  Jesus is the embodiment of John’s truth-telling.

In an age where truth seems to be up for grabs (in a post-truth era), sisters and brothers in Christ, John calls us back, and sends us after Christ.  And in an age where truth seems to be a distant dream, our God — incarnate in Jesus the Christ, who is “already out there” always in and with the world, moving down the path — stops, turns to us, loves us, and beacons us to come and follow, to come and join this way of truth.  This love, this forgiveness, this walk of mercy and grace, this path of love is ours today and always.  For you too, a voice from heaven says, are God’s beloved child!  

Thanks be to God!  AMEN.

July 15 -- Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Sisters and brothers in Christ: grace to you and peace from God who creates us from the clay of the earth, from Jesus who redeems and showers us with mercy and love, and from the Holy Spirit who both comforts and challenges us...and always sends us outward in service to our neighbor.  AMEN.

[whining] “Ah man, we just got started.  And now this?”  Ever gotten going on a project or a job or just a new day and hit a massive speed bump, a real glitch, and stumbled and fallen?

Here we are in Mark’s gospel: Chapter 6.  Last week in the 13 verses that preceded these today, Jesus inaugurates ministry together.  Remember that?  He told the disciples as he sent them out in pairs (no one goes alone): “Take only the basics.  Count on people to welcome you and prepare to receive their hospitality and partnership.  But also, expect resistance.  Shake off the dust from your sandals if you’re not well received. And keep going.  Go!  Be my disciples for the sake of this world, heal the sick, preach the good news, comfort the despairing!” 

And then we have the is interruption, to put it mildly.  What is going on?  “Ah man, we just got started.  And now this?”  Immediately after Jesus has empowered the disciples, this horrific episode takes place in Herod’s palace.  Herod and is wife want John the Baptist dead, but Herod has this fear about John.  But once he’s sunken into a chair belly-stuffed, intoxicated (I imagine), his daughter comes in and dances, old Herod’s fears about John quickly fade into seduction and he offers her “whatever she wants”.  It’s just grimy stuff, at the top echelons of power in Jesus day.  It’s excess and gratuitous and evil. 

Scholars in recent years have named this episode “Herod’s Banquet of Death”.  And it’s contrasted clearly—which is all part of Mark’s narrative arc—against what is immediately after this:  In the very next verses comes, what some have called  “Jesus’ Banquet of Life”...i.e., the feeding of the 5000.  

      “Herod’s Banquet of Death” vs. “Jesus’ Banquet of Life”  

At Herod’s banquet of death, we’re not out in a deserted field, like the feeding of the 5000, we’re in a palace, a lavish banquet hall.  This is where the rich and powerful dine with the king.  A true power lunch, that’s not for the multitude, but a select few.  And there is more than enough for this few.  It’s a feast of excess — excess food, excess drink, excess entertainment, excess space, excess violence.  The select few gorge and imbibe and get entertained as the multitudes starve outside the palace gates, and in the hills and countrysides...  

At Herod’s banquet, women are made to dance and entertain the men.  Women are objects of amusement and pleasure, only to be thrown out with the trash, like greasy paper plates when the pizza party’s over.  Herod’s daughter, it says, pleased him greatly with her dancing...so much so, that in a drunken and reckless state of ecstasy and excess, Herod promises her whatever she wants.  At which point, her evil mother whispers in her ear, “The head of John the Baptist.”

And immediately John is executed and his head is brought in on a platter, like a final course, like a grand finale.  I imagine everyone cheering when the cover of the platter is lifted and John’s head is revealed for the guests to see.  Can’t you just smell the excess -- the sweat, the meat, the death?  This is empire.  

The moral compass has been completely lost to a power-drunk king, and an elite crowd cheers at this retaliatory violence and terror… meanwhile so many others are made to suffer, simply because they are overlooked or not really a concern.  The multitudes of poor and hungry are not Herod’s concern in the least.

The Rev. Dr. Barbara Lundblad asks:  “Is it possible to maintain an empire and feed people who are hungry? [pause] The leftovers of empire have almost always been destruction and death – even in the name of peace and security. There is always enough money for weapons, but never enough to feed those who are hungry. Into such a world, Jesus comes with an alternative vision.”

In the very next verse Mark tells us of Jesus’ Banquet of Life.  This happens, not in palace grandeur, but in the open air — in an open field.  Not lavish but simple.  

In Jesus’ Banquet of Life, everyone is fed; there is enough.  Everyone has enough.  (Do you? Does your neighbor have enough?  What is enough?  Is there bread we can share, like the little boy who shared his loaves and fishes?  These are questions we’re invited to pray about in these days, even and especially here at Bethlehem...where our very name means “House of Bread”.)  In Jesus Banquet of Life, everyone is treated with respect and dignity, men and women, young and old, gay and straight, black and white, immigrant and native, the list goes on...In Jesus Banquet of Life peace and forgiveness, love and justice rule the day, and there is no place for terror and violence.  In Jesus’ Banquet of Love, we trust ultimately in God, not in money or weapons or power or fame.  In Jesus’ Banquet of Love, trust in God always trumps fear.

So what’ll it be for us sisters and brothers in Christ?  Herod’s Banquet of Death or Jesus’ Banquet of Life?  That’s a very Markan question to pose.  Jesus is very clear-cut in Mark.  It’s always this way vs. that.  No fuzzy gray areas: “Well, it’s complicated.”  No!  For Jesus in Mark, it’s either good or evil.  It’s God or the devil.  It’s Jesus’ way or the empire’s way.  It’s bread or weapons.  It’s life or death.  What’ll it be for us, Bethlehem?

Here at Bethlehem, I’m afraid to say, and I’m wondering if you might agree with me: Here in my two weeks already, I’m really sensing, in some ways, death pressing in around us.  Not this extreme, Herodian, debaucherous, banquet of death, but just the attitudes and the fears and the despairs that “death” can bring. 

With all the things that are going on here lately.  With a normal amount of conflict, but conflict nonetheless, in your history here... and now another new pastor.  With steady declines in membership and youth and participation in general: there’s been some mourning over this, I’ve heard.  Others have actually left.  It’s too much for them and they’ve moved on.  

Who doesn’t long for the past if it’s a memory of a better day?  Do you ever feel, with me, like death has been pressing in on Bethlehem Lutheran in Fairfax?    

And of course the rips and tears and broken glass and scratches of hateful words.  There it certainly feels like death, like John the prophet has been taken down and Herod is winning…

--

But sisters and brothers in Christ (not in Herod), sisters and brothers in the Gospel of life (not the shadows of death), sisters and brothers of good (not evil) — God has not abandoned us!  

Death does not have the final say here or anywhere...because of Christ.  Jesus is here [table] in our pain and confusion and terror and decline.  The Holy Spirit moves in our midst and fills us with new breath, and with new bread (not the excessive meat and drink of Herod, but the the bread of life and wine of forgiveness, a feast of love and not terror).  God picks us up as we pick up the pieces, even as we may trip and fall, right out of the gate.  “Ah man, we just got started. Now this?” 

Friends, we have a God who is good, with a peace that endures, a Christ who abides, a Holy Spirit that comforts us when we’re down and challenges us when we’re complacent or paralyzed by fear.  

This is our God.  And our God will grant us, each of us, wisdom and courage for the days ahead, for the new directions we take, for the peace and forgiveness we will practice with each other, and for the love that we are called to share.  That love, peace, forgiveness, courage and wisdom is yours now, through Christ who strengthens us, today and always.  

Welcome to Jesus’ Banquet of Life!  AMEN.