March 7 -- Theological Spring Cleaning (Lent 3B)

Sisters and brothers, siblings and friends in Christ, God is always doing a new thing.  God is always moving us in the direction of change, evolving us toward greater faithfulness, deeper peace, fuller grace.

That’s true in this exciting story as well.  All the Gospels have a story about Jesus in the temple overturning the tables.  But interestingly, this one in the Gospel of John comes right at the beginning of his ministry.  Chapter 2!  Matthew, Mark and Luke all have Jesus driving out the money-changers not until the week before his crucifixion, at the end of his earthly ministry.  It’s part of what fuels the chief priests and scribes’ fire to have him arrested and finally crucified, remember?  But here Jesus does this at the beginning of his 3 year ministry.  What’s happening here?  Did John forget to mention him doing it again a few days before his passion, death and resurrection?  

Whatever conclusion you come to, what is going on here, it’s something different in terms of what this means.  John’s Gospel, as I think I’ve shared before is very different!  

For one thing, Jesus doesn’t show much emotion.  He doesn’t call names — he doesn’t call them “robbers”.  I don’t even think he seems all that angry, like in the other Gospels.  In John, it’s not an indictment on financial corruption, economic inequalities, social injustice.  Jesus just says, “Don’t make this a marketplace.”  In John, it’s always a deeply spiritual matter...which can arrive us at those other issues.  But what’s happening here first is a radical theological spring cleaning and replacement.
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See, the people were used to buying cattle, sheep and doves when they arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover.  That’s what you did as part of the ritual sacrifice, that’s how the people celebrated Passover.  First, they sacrificed by traveling all the way to Jerusalem every year...specifically to the temple, the only place where God was believed to dwell.  And then, when they get there, after walking all those miles, they’d buy an animal to sacrifice.  Like Professor Karoline Lewis said, “You’re not gonna schlep a sheep from Galilee.”  

So everyone was used to seeing this mall of animals, like a farmers market, in the inner walls of the temple.  

And as for the “money changers” — by the way — this very well could have been their livelihood...  I have a friend who used to act out this scene, from the perspective of the money changers:  Jesus knocking over everything: “Man. That’s my dinner tonight, man.  How am I going to feed my family this month.  Who is this guy?” I think his is an interesting commentary on this story in Matthew, Mark and Luke.  That’s a good entry point.  But here in John, Jesus is doing something radically theological (as opposed to political in the other cases).
 

Jesus is throwing out ritual sacrifice.  He is throwing out the idea that you have to buy something to earn God’s favor.  I’d even say, as a Lutheran, he’s throwing out the idea that you have to do something to earn God’s good graces.  Radical theological replacement, you see.  Theological spring cleaning.  Out with old — that is, the old idea that God only lives in the high temple, in the holiest of holies, there in Jerusalem.  Out with the old — that is, the old idea that you have to buy a sheep or a goat or an ox and sacrifice it  in order to get this inaccessible God to notice and bless you (like so many other religions, btw)...  

What’s happening here, already in chapter 2, is that we’re getting to see that God is breaking out, God — i.e. Christ himself — is breaking beyond the walls and the rules of the temple and the tradition.  In fact, Christ himself is the temple now!  There is no one place to go where you can visit God.  God is out there on the road. 

We see again that in John as Jesus just. keeps. moving!  Holiness is everywhere now, not just in temples (or churches).

And because it’s everywhere we’re no longer chained to a checklist of sacrifices and journeys we have to make.  Jesus becomes the temple.  And this temple, that is his body, is nothin’ but love.  Nothing but abundant life and peace and forgiveness and grace!
            Overflowing, all-encompassing holiness.

That’s what we’re offered now.  Here.  Friends in Christ.

When holiness shows up everywhere, when we’re covered by Christ, then we do start to act differently, we do start to see differently, we do start to use our money differently, vote differently, speak differently, serve differently.  We don’t change our ways because there’s some kind of reward at the end!  That’s the old ritual sacrifice transaction:  I’ll give you this, God...so that will will give me that.  

We don’t barter with God!  We already have this reward!

We only respond to God...who through Christ, always acts first in LOVE and generosity.  God always makes the first move, all we can do is respond (great statement of faith!).  Danker: “Jesus did the work, we just get to do church.”

When people are doing cruel things, or when members of the family are clearly burdened — church people, or people that say they’re Christians — it always makes me sad because it’s like they’re reading the Bible but not understanding it.  They’re reading something, and at the same time not seeing/getting/receiving that this God is pouring out love and forgiveness FIRST.  Not after we make some kind of sacrifice or do some kind of ritual or good work to earn this.  
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Dearly departed (regardless of political party) Rep. John Lewis of Georgia:  John Lewis was a Freedom Rider, marched with Dr. King and participated in those famous sit-ins in the Deep South, where he and other African Americans would walk into a diner and just sit quietly, waiting patiently to be served. People would spit on them because they were black, they’d pour hot coffee and syrup on them, call them all kinds of horrible names…

And as John Lewis talked about this and other forms of non-violent resistance he said at the heart of it all was love.  “You have to love your enemies and those who persecute you.”  (I wonder if he was reading Howard Thurman and the Gospel of John too.)

And then he told this story from just a couple years ago, when a former KKK member requested an audience with Lewis because he wanted to apologize.  And with tears in his eyes this now-very-old white man says to the late great John Lewis, “I’m sorry for what I did to you, those many years ago.  My heart was filled with hate.  Not anymore.  Will you accept my apology?”  And John Lewis said, “I accept your apology,” and then reflects calmly in this interview, “See, that’s the power of radical love, the love of Jesus.  It’s the most powerful force in the world, and it has the power to overturn the tables.”
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Friends in Christ, Jesus in the temple, this “cleansing” is breaking us out of old, oppressive, tit-for-tat ways and systems.  And inviting us again — “come and see” — that’s how it begins!  The Holy Spirit is inviting us again down the road of discipleship, down the path of Jesus.  This is a radical theological replacement!  Love not law.  No more burdens or chains.  Freedom is walking the way of compassion and forgiveness.  New life.

This love, grace, mercy and cleansing healing is for you.  It’s right here and now.  Take a deep, Johanine breath today, in this Hallelujah Anyhow Lent: soak it up.  Chew it down, drink it in.  Taste and see that God is great.  Feast on this abundance that Christ offers freely to you today.  The old has been replaced with AGAPE — unconditional love — and so we. have. been. made. new.  Greater faithfulness, deeper peace, fuller grace.  Thanks be to God.  Hallelujah.  AMEN.

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.

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.

September 20 -- From Bitterness to Clean Hearts (Pentecost 16A)

 “Create in us clean hearts, O God, and renew a right spirit within us. Amen.”

Well, pick your analogous story to today’s fabulous, but potentially bitterness-inducing Gospel parable from Jesus:

Let’s say there’s a new hire at work, who comes on board right at the beginning of December.  And when the boss hands out the Christmas bonuses, she gets the same amount as everyone else.

Or...you’ve got the guy who gets a World Series ring, even with only 4 plate appearances with Nationals!  He still gets the exact same ring in October as those guys who showed up for Spring Training, and gave it all for the team day-in-and-day-out!  Happens all the time.

Children jumping contest — but everybody gets a trophy

We’ve had a tactile example this week...of the rain here in DC-Maryland-Virginia region — showering everyone/everything, regardless.   

And in this pandemic, what about all those who have got it better than you.  Who seem to be in a much better place with work, kids, school, time off...fabulous stories, but potentially bitterness inducing?

Or...you don’t need an analogous story: could easily just connect to this same story that Jesus tells today.  Every day, there are day-laborers, ready to work.  Not sure if this exists here but in San Diego, outside of any Home Depot, groups of men (mostly) are hanging out early in the morning with cups of coffee, hoping you might hire them for some yard work or project in the house...  
$20 for the day — that’s the equivalent to one denarius.  $20 — not much for a day’s wage, but it’s enough to feed a family that night at the dinner table — some rice and beans, maybe a small bucket of fried chicken.  So imagine a man doing some major landscape work instead of vineyard work, and he hires guys all through the day, and pays the ones he hires last, right around happy hour, the same wage he pays the guys he hired at 6am.

Any bitterness?  Are you above it?  Are you happy for the late hire-ons,  the shortest jumpers?

When you think of it in terms of providing dinner that night for the worker and his or her family, maybe it’s understood a bit little differently.  Seems to me that’s what the landlord in the parable was thinking.  This tells us about Jesus:

God is certainly interested in everyone having enough to feed their family around the table.  God is certainly interested in the community taking care of one another.  God is certainly compassionate and generous.  That’s what Jesus kicks off this whole story to say the realm of God is like...everyone having what they need, everyone having enough.

Do you hear this story and relate more to the land owner — what’s your first inclination, in terms of your perspective: are you too in a position to hire day laborers?  Or do you relate more to the workers?  Have you been or are you currently in a tight spot where you need to feed your family tonight or can barely eek out rent for this month?

My pastor colleague and friend Cyndi, who has always been an advocate for disability rights, and is in a wheelchair-scooter herself, shared with me that she doesn’t believe the ones who were hired last are lazy.  They just weren’t as physically attractive and able as the big strong ones who were hired first.  [pause]  “This is a disability gospel, you see!” Cyndi exclaims. The late-comers desperately wanted to feed their families too; they wanted to be hired all day too.  But someone else could jump higher, lift more, cut faster — offer more bang for your buck.  

“Are you envious because I’m generous?” the landowner asks the bitter ones.  There’s a perspective that I think we all may be able to share:

We can be envious of others’ blessings — those who seem to be doing better than me.   Family members and friends who seem to be doing better than me.  Co-workers who make more, parents who how have more, neighbors who show more...

As the temperatures drop (here in the mid-Atlantic regions), as the leaves start to change and drop, this is a season, an opportunity for growth and great soul searching.  God is working on you quietly, even with all the noise and energy even chaos all around, God is working on you, whispering:  

“Let go of your bitterness and resentment,” God’s words are deep down in our bones, “Stop worrying about what others are getting, and what you’re not getting.  Do you have enough to eat tonight?  I want everyone to have enough, you see?  And your anger and your bitterness is pulling you down, holding you back from being the fully human being I created you to be.  Let that stuff go, and share and love and enjoy...as I have shared and loved you — generously, freely, and compassionately.  That takes some work, I know,” says God, “but I created you to do this, so I know you’ve got it in you...I know you’ve got that clean heart...and I know I created a holy community for you to support you in this heart-tending work.”  

This is our time, friends in Christ — both to recognize God’s compassion and generosity, where everyone gets what they need, everyone gets enough, everyone gets to feed their families, roof over their head, the medicine they need, the education they need (I guess God gets quickly political here, if we’re paying attention, but if it’s God calling us to it, then food and clothing and health is literally theology).

Yes this is our time, friends in Christ — both to recognize and give thanks for God’s great compassion and generosity, and also this is our time to slow down and recognize God’s great compassion and generosity within ourselves...even and especially if its been buried.  Don’t dig it out — God’s compassion that’s in you — let it rest in you today, let it settle, like a seed in the soil:  God’s compassion grows in you, deep down, in and through us all, finally breaking the surface and bettering the world, offering beauty and food and companionship.  These are the ways God’s love is made known — through us!  In tangible, real ways — food and companionship...  Isn’t it amazing when a new tree you’ve planted turns from from a beautiful little sapling, to an actual source of shade, or a source of food, or a source of beauty...and maybe even into a companion or a friend?

That’s the kind of growth God’s got in store for us, friends in Christ.  

God has planted us, and grows us.  See what’s also happening?  Christ is both planted and planter!  Sheep and shepherd.  God is ultimately the gracious vineyard owner here, bestowing gifts of enough on all of us, no matter what time we arrived!  

Siblings in Christ, we entrust ourselves to God, who loves us, who showers us with blessings, brings us in, calls and sends us out...with enough.  With clean hearts to share our abundance, and this good news of our generous God whose name is Love.

This is a narrow way — recognizing, taking hold, and receiving God’s abundant mercy.  And today we continue down this winding, narrow way...together, singing our praise and thanks for the broadness of God’s generosity all the while.  AMEN.

September 6 -- The Tough Conversations and Jesus

 

Friends in Christ, Christian reconciliation — that is honest and blanketed by prayer — is really hard work.  
        Take some time this week to ponder and pray about your own experiences with reconciliation:

...where it’s failed
...where you’ve parted ways with a sibling or a partner or a parent or a church member or a friend.  
...And where it’s been good?  Reconciliation that has finally come to fruition through time (maybe years) and prayer and tough conversations.  

These five “Matthew 18” verses are probably not what we do best…
It’s a gift to be around people who do this well.  

This poignant lesson is life-giving for us all...when it’s done faithfully.    
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When someone sins, when someone breaks covenant, breaks relationship, breaks trust, breaks the heart, breaks the community...when there is a severing, Jesus says, go to that one in-person and speak to them privately.  What’s been your experience of that, either being the one to go or the one to be approached?

Often nowadays, we use email as an alternative.  And email communicates some different messages, right?  That the recipient is only left to guess…

Maybe it’s saying...
You’ve sinned but, I don’t have time to call you or meet with you in person.  It’s not important enough for me.  
I don’t want to talk to you in person.  I don’t care about you that much.
I don’t do well speaking face-to-face.  And I certainly don’t like it.  I can put my thoughts into writing much better.
I just want to move on.  By writing this down after a glass of wine, and blasting it off to you, then I’ve said my piece, done my part, spoken my truth, and now I’m done.  I don’t even need you to respond.

I had a friend who was a pastor and promoted a practice of email as only a tool for scheduling appointments.  [pause] He broke his own rule all the time (and I know I do too), but it was a very helpful guide:  email as a tool for scheduling the face-to-face...not the venue itself.

And trying to text our way to reconciliation is kind of a trumped up version of all this, I’m afraid.  That’s why we popularly recognize and even joke about the shame and disgust in breaking up with someone by text or email, even by phone.  We know the impact of in-person conversations, and it’s one of the great losses of this COVID time:  in-person conversations are now physically a risk.  So this Gospel lesson just got even tougher.

What does email and texting have to do with our Gospel today?  It is a very down-to-earth, everyday part of how we live out our faith, how we follow Jesus (like how we pray for our lips and our tongue, every word that comes out of our mouth, let’s pray for our fingers too — what we type, the numbers we dial, and the sit-down appointments we make.)  This is everyday, specific stuff...maybe a little too close to home?  

This is again, a wake-up call from God, the “Jesus alarm clock” is ringing again.  Seems like this idea of forgiveness/reconciliation keeps coming up for us Jesus-following people!  
The church is not just a social club where people pay dues, share common interests, and when there’s a disagreement the club either breaks up or dies…

No, the church is the body of Christ.  Different people, from different walks and perspectives, from all over the community and the globe, all come to gather around the manger, the table, the words of Jesus.  Bound together — not by their own will and likes/dislikes, but — by the Holy Spirit.  And today called again to work together, as we move back out into the world.

There’s some housekeeping we always need to do before we go back out into the world.  We need to make our metaphorical beds, wash the dishes, sweep the floors:  Go to the individual, and speak privately.  Do the interior house keeping.  

Talk to one another, when things get tough.  When feelings are hurt.  When there is severing.  [Heather with the neighbor and the truck on Monique Ct.]

I’m spending a lot of time on the first part: go to the individual person who has sinned.  Hold them accountable in Christian, neighbor-love.

As I was pondering this text this week, I had this vision of a congregation that decided to suspend all programing, except for worship, for the explicit purpose of going to one another and doing the deep housekeeping of Christian communication, reconciliation work.  Who would you need to sit down with?  Who might reach out and ask to speak with you [pause] in the church, in your family, in your workplace and your community?
 
Tell the truth, Jesus says.  If that conversation is not enough, then, Jesus says, gather together with others and, in Christian love and honesty, have a larger conversation. And if and when we hear each other, we have regained one another.  There is reconciliation—one of the most beautiful and powerful moments in the human experience.  Reconciliation (talk together again).  [Would love to hear your stories sometime of reconciliations…and I hope you can remember those times in your own lives and celebrate those (times in the church community but in your families, neighborhoods and workplaces, etc.  We could have a Reconciliation Fall Festival.]

But if, after one-on-one conversation and conversation with a larger community if necessary (I’m not talking as much about that because I want to emphasize Part 1, the one-to-one.  And Part 2 is often the jump.  “We 3 or more all think [this] about your actions” is not heard as well if it was never preceded by a one-to-one, right.  Part 2 is important also, but if it skips Part 1 (the one-to-one) it violates the spirit of Holy Community.  

But, when the steps are worked — the one-to-one yields no reconciliation, and after a few have met with the individual and still, that one “refuses to listen,” the third part of Jesus’ life-giving instruction today: when conflict doesn’t result in a reconciliation or a re-gaining, but to only greater anxiety and pain...then Jesus says this: “Let that one be to you as a tax collector or a Gentile.” 

In other words, LET IT GO.  Let that individual go, yes, and there’s a sad and painful process to releasing someone from the community.  But I want to get back to these three words.  Let it go.  Release it to Jesus.  Release the whole situation to God...

This is so important.  How are you doing with letting it go?  That’s a good question to check in with one another on...

Because in addition to so many other social and psychological side-affects of not-letting-it-go, our anger, resentment, bitterness toward a person or at a community has been shown to have physical effects on our bodies—digestive problems, back aches, head aches, sexual dysfunction, ulcers...the stress kills.

Or God forbid, our hanging-on-to-it’s, our not-letting-it-go’s mean that our children or other innocent ones get the brunt of our pent-up, toxic anger and bitterness. 

Let it go, Jesus invites us, let it go.  Not a storming out, “*beep* you, I’m outta here!”, angry “I’m done with it” response, which is more of a cultural norm.  This is a different kind of letting it go, that takes prayer and Christian community and practice, practice.  Just words today, but one exercise is [breathing (grace-peace)]. 

It’s the ultimate question again:  How’s forgiveness going (hfg)?  As we move into a new school year, hfg?  As we move toward the anniversary of 9/11, hfg?  As you think back into the past here at Bethlehem, can’t pretend that they were all perfect years, hfg?  As we chat on the phone with family members and distant friends this afternoon, hfg?

“Let that one be to you as a tax collector or a Gentile.” 

Let it go…because we know how Jesus treats the tax collector and the Gentile. 

Let it go, release it to Jesus, who forgives even and especially the tax collector and the Gentile.  Release that one, and leave them to Jesus, because Christ is at the center of our letting go...when we reach our limits, honest about our frailties.  And despite the distance between yourself and the one you must release to God, we can still love, feel compassion, pray for those who persecute us...when Christ is at the center.  This is the power of God!  Loving and letting go at the very same time…and God gives you that power today!
—
One more thought:  In truth, if we’re honest, we’re all Gentiles, and so Jesus welcoming and forgiving the Gentile becomes all the more poignant.
—
This can be perhaps the most liberating and practical message we’ll hear in a long time:  First, to do the hard work of going directly and lovingly to the person or the issue…and trying in Christian love to reconcile.  If there is reconciliation, “Praise God!”  There is nothing greater.  That’s amazing grace, in flesh and bone.  The lion lies down with the lamb.  And if not, release it, and harness the power of God to continue to love despite wrong-doing, distance, evil and deep sadness.

This is where Jesus calls us, friends: down that rocky road, carrying the cross of direct and healthy and loving communication.  Not avoiding or distancing but meeting our sibling, our parent, our co-worker, our friend, our neighbor in love and longing for reconciliation.  And blanketing the whole process, however it goes, in prayer and trust in God.

Finally, Jesus knows that we cannot ultimately go to the cross, that finally we must lay our crosses down.  “Let go of your cross,” he says to us, “I’ve got it from here.  You’ve done your best.  Let me take it now, your anger, your hurt, your resentment, your bitterness.  Let me take it now, and unbind you, from all that is holding you down.  Let me take it…”

Jesus takes it.

Friends, because of Christ, we are now free, you are now free to love and serve and live.  Now you are unbound in order to be bound.  In order to be bound to this Christian community and to this world in love!

Let us pray:  Teach us, O Lord your life-giving ways.  Help us to meet and talk, and say, and do the right thing, and keep you at the center through it all.  Help us to release what we must into your care, and thank you for taking it from there.  AMEN.

August 16 -- Preaching Up Here, Living Down There (Pentecost 11A)

Especially when our kids were younger than they are now, there were some words in our house that we just didn’t say.  This is still true to some extent, but they’ve learned and understand a lot more now.   But back in the day when they were little…we taught our Micah and Katie that they are words we don’t say under our roof:  We don’t say hate.  “But Daddy other people say ‘hate’ all the time,” Micah questioned, “and my teacher said it’s not a bad word.”  That may be true, Micah, but we don’t use that word.  We don’t say ‘stupid’.  And we don’t say ‘idiot’.  We don’t say ‘shut up’.  And we don’t say ‘fat’, either.  

Somehow, Heather and I in all our parental omniscience from up here came to the conclusion that canceling these words out of our household vocabulary is good thing down there.

The problem is, when we slip.  When I’m watching a Cubs baseball game and blurt out, “Uh, I hate AJ Perzinski!”  When I’m reading the newspaper in the living room, while Katie is doing her homework in the kitchen, and suddenly I completely lose all awareness of where I am, and shout “I can’t believe it!  This guy’s an idiot; I wish he would shut up!  He so stupid, I hate him.”   OK...a bit of hyperbole there.  But you know I slipped up...

And in each of these circumstances we/I then had to engage in the tricky parental activity of explaining ourselves, probably apologizing, maybe making amends or exceptions, but always-always including an affirmation that they’re right, “You’re right, I shouldn’t have said that.”  I said we shouldn’t say those words, and here I am saying them myself...  

Great is your faithfulness to what we said, Micah.  Great is your faithfulness to what we said, Katie.  But here we are: sloshing about.  

It’s one thing to preach it.  It’s something much different to live it.  Good teaching can trickle down from up here.  But great faith sloshes around down there.  

Our Gospel passage today starts out with some great teaching from up here:  Jesus again is crumbling up the Pharisees’ neatly sliced world…this time with a lesson on purity.  It’s not what goes into the mouth that’s unclean.  It’s what comes out of it.  Words.

But Jesus isn’t just teaching us not to swear.
 
Let’s not get too caught up with just bad words like stupid or idiot or fat, and whole bunch of others that unfortunately we all know.  

I’ve known people who “swear like sailors” (some of them are sailors...and have hearts of gold.  [pause]  Their words might be foul but their hearts burn with purity.  Their intentions are compassionate.  Maybe you’ve known people like this too.  While others, proud of their purity and squeaky clean mouths, shoot daggers and explode gossip with their curse-less words.  Sure we should watch our language, but Jesus isn’t teaching us here not to swear.  

He’s teaching about heart surgery.  

The heart, you see, in that culture, was understood to be the source our thoughts and our decisions about how to live in the world.  Jesus is teaching us about slicing away all that harms us and our neighbors and our world.  That’s a good teaching from up there.

But it’s one thing to preach it.  It’s something much different to live it.  The story goes on, in our text today, and it says that Jesus left his pulpit.  He left that place and went away to a different region.  He left the pureness-of-heart-lecture notes on the stand, came down to another region, and this is where it gets sloppy, sloshes around:

A woman approaches, who is not from his tribe.  A strange woman, a Syro-phoenician.  Jesus grew up a neighborhood where such women were despised.

  
They were hated, stupid, idiots who needed to shut up, who were always encroaching on his people – the real chosen Jews, not these half-bred aliens.  Do you see what’s happening here?

And so, Jesus – JESUS, the prince of peace, the one who just got done preaching about purity of heart – calls her a dog:  “It’s not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  A dog!  Do you know how dirty dogs were then?  Not adorable, housebroken, little pooches that we bless when we do the Blessing of the Animals...dogs as glimpses of God.  No, dogs back then were mangy, flee-bitten mutts, that were as irritating as flies.  And calling a person a dog, that as offensive as a white person calling a black person a word that we won’t even print in the paper.  A dog, he calls her.  

It’s one thing to preach it.  It’s something much different to live it.  

What do we do with this text where our precious Jesus himself is falling for the same old racial slurs, the same old arrogance, the same old self-righteousness, the same old divisions, the same old hatred that has plagued generations and cultures throughout history, and still plagues us today?!  Words escalate to threats; and threats to violence; and violence to wars.  There’s nothing new there.

This is a side of Jesus, that many are tempted either to ignore, or rationalize away, or defend…as if the Savior of the world needed saving.  I can’t explain Jesus out of this offense, out of his calling this woman a dog.

But I can share with you what I see happening, ultimately:  [sloppiness, thanks be to God, even if we don’t want sloppiness—and none of us do, we want neat and tidy, clear cut, like the Pharisees, where life is a set of rules to keep and roles to fill.  But the gift is sloppiness.]  I see Jesus, fully Divine and fully human, coming down from on high…to be in the mix of it all.   Good teaching can trickle down from up there.  But great faith sloshes around down here.  It’s one thing to preach it, it’s another thing to live it.

And in this case, God surprises us again, as a Syrophoenician woman, calls Jesus out.   Watch how she responds; not by hitting back; not by going away:  “Yes Lord,” she says, “but even the dogs eat the bread from the master’s table.”  I might be a dog, but I’m still hungry.  I’m broken alright, which is why I need the bread that only you can give.  She doesn’t fight back with hateful words, and she doesn’t back away either.  

She stands up strong and demonstrates faith.  She makes a statement of faith:  Only you, Jesus, offer the bread that I need, the healing that I need, the salvation which you have prepared.

And something must have snapped in Jesus, for immediately his tone changes and then he affirms her.  (Forget the tricky explaining, like when my child catches me using a word that’s off limits—I can’t explain that.)  We’ll just have to jump to the affirmation.  “Woman, great is your faith.” In a way, I’m not sure who’s helping/forgiving/blessing who.  What is clear, is that Jesus is with her.  Not up there.  He’s in the mix, down here as sloppy as it all can.

And that’s the heart of the Gospel.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, it’s not always neat and clean unfortunately, but we have a Christ who gets close, who plunges into the mix.

We have a Christ who kneels down, who takes our hand and we take his.  We have a God who doesn’t stay up there, but who always enters into the sloshiness of life down here.  Good teaching can trickle down from up there.  But great faith sloshes around down here.  

It’s one thing to preach it.  And I pray daily that we can preach a good thing up here, up at the church.  (But we/I don’t always—sometimes the preacher’s words from up here are winded, or fake, or confusing or sometimes just wrong.)  Good teaching and preaching can trickle down from up here.  But the real action is down there, down in our living rooms and kitchens and basements, down in our offices and stores and on the roads.  Great faith is down there, sloshing around.  And man, it sloshes, it’s sloppy, and messy and soggy.   It ain’t easy— this practice of purity of heart, this discipline of choosing words of compassion not violence.  It ain’t easy staying in touch with each other, in relationship with one another and with the stranger and with the world.  It ain’t easy, remaining faithful, coming back, giving ourselves to the rhythms of the church and nudgings of the Spirit.  And as soon as I’m finished preaching up here, I’m right back down there, sloshing around…and thank God we slosh around together.

And thank God we slosh around with Jesus, who enters the sloppiness of this life and stays, maybe even more than we wanted.  Who banters back and forth with us, albeit sometimes a struggle.  Who names and commends our great faith:  “Women, great is your faith.  Men, great is your faith.  All siblings in Christ, great is your faith. Remember that I’m down here with you, and I’ll never leave.”   AMEN.
—

HoD: ‘O God Why Are You Silent’ from the Lament section of our hymnal.  Woman calling Jesus out, asking for what we need.  Great is her faithfulness and ours too as we sing this with our hearts, and demand Christ’s healing in our lives and our world.  And Christ responds.

September 8 -- Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace…from God who creates and connects us, from Jesus who invites and re-connects us, and from the Holy Spirit who challenges and dis-connects us from all that would knock us out of sync with our Triune God.  AMEN.

“Truly I tell you, whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, brother and sister, yes even life itself cannot be my disciple,” Jesus says.  Yikes!  

Let’s get a word out there, that I think might distract us from what Jesus is really trying to say here: “hate”.

Scholar Gene Peterson translates it “refuses to let go of.”  I would put it like this: If anything or anyone is stopping you from being a follower of Jesus—not just a believer or an admirer or a lover of Jesus, but a follower—then we’re called to “reject those relationships, those things, those people as NOT life-giving, not resurrection affirming, not Gospel-centric, justice-seeking, unconditional-love-sharing...” We care called today to let go of all those things and people, just like we reject “sin and the devil, all the forces that defy God,” as we say in baptism.  In other words, if your relationships, your possessions, your daily habits are preventing you from living more fully into that person that God is calling you to be (in Luke = that means part of a faithful community actively practicing mercy and justice), then let the Holy Spirit sever those ties!    

Hear this on many levels; it is not simple.  We are engaged in all kinds of relationships — some with aging and increasingly debilitated parents, some with spouses who are terminally ill, some brothers who drain our resources in their seemingly endless battles with addictions.  Friends that are good and so called “Facebook friends” — that are kind to your face and online, but they’ won’t show up when the going gets tough... Maybe, God forbid, they’d even speak ill of you behind your back.  Think of all the relationships you’re in.  I’m just naming a few examples… 

I wonder if you’ve got members in your own family who are deeply hurtful and cruel to you even though they say they love you?  Are we to sever those ties?

I think the question is, “Are those relationships life giving?  Is that relationship what you believe God is calling you to stay in?  If not, are you able to name it as harmful?”

I heard an NPR interview about a year ago, where a neuroscientist was promoting her new book, about severing ties with family, citing brain research—that the brains of people who were victims of serious and/or chronic emotional and psychological abuse actually had brain damage, destroyed neural pathways and loss of brain cells.  Abuse causes brain damage!  So this scientist was actually promoting the severing of ties with one’s toxic sources, over and against endless attempts to reconcile and accommodate.  Very thought-provoking.

I’m not saying this is Jesus’ call playing out in modern science, but I do think it challenges us to imagine who and what are our “toxic sources.”  And might we simply name them as such?  Can we at least say, this person or this habit or this thing is not life-giving, it’s not orienting me in the direction of God’s call for me, it’s preventing me from picking up the cross and following Jesus, and so I’m going to sever ties with it, with him, with her.  I’m going to let go of that toxicity...

That’s interesting because it’s not unheard-of for people, particularly pastors/priests to name those “toxic sources” precisely as “one’s cross to bear.”  There are cases — and I pray that you’re not one of them, but I know people who have experienced this: a pastor/priest has told women I’ve known who are being abused by their husbands, “Well, we all have our crosses to bear, let me pray for you as you bear yours.”  Bearing a cross has nothing to do with being abused or surviving a toxic relationship.  

Bearing a cross is what happens when we are able to put down those things – and that might just mean to name them as not life-giving (stop rationalizing or justifying or sugar-coating or making excuses, just call them what they are: toxic) – and then, choose instead pick up, to ingest what Christ is offering here.  The cross of discipleship.  We can do this, by the way, only with the help of God and with our community of faith, but we can do this, from all kinds of places…  

See, I’m not just talking about dropping everything and everyone and suddenly, jumping into all kinds of radical global outreach efforts (of course, that would be good...but not sure how many are going to fly to the Bahamas today to help out) – but friends, we can pick our crosses and follow Jesus in all kinds of ways and from all kinds of places:  even as we are homebound, bed-ridden, locked up in prison, or in a hospital:  How?  We can pray fervently for the needs of the world, urge forgiveness and mercy, like Paul did with Philemon.  Paul was in prison, bearing a cross!  We can speak words or write letters of encouragement (Val yesterday).

What if you got a letter from one of our homebound members, just greeting you lovingly and encouraging you to forgive someone who’s wronged you?  What a gift, someone picked up their cross and you were the recipient of their faithfulness to Christ!  

Friends, we can pick up our crosses and follow Jesus, even as our family or professional lives are stretched in every direction.  Name the toxic thing for what it is, offer it up, maybe give it up – but at least name it – and then pray for God to take you and mold you anew. 

God today invites us, in fact demands of us (in Lukan Jesus’ characteristic sharp way), wholeness and authenticity (which means suffering, cross-bearing), and not everybody is willing to go there.  A large crowd was following Jesus, and he wasn’t exactly thrilled with this.   Jesus didn’t want big numbers; he wanted people who were serious followers, willing to lay down their lives for the Gospel.  In short, and in the parlance of our times, Jesus is asking, “ARE YOU FOR REAL?”  

And we say, “Yes, Lord.” (Will you pray with me?)

“We say yes, Lord, to your call to discipleship, but we need your help.  The way of the cross is frightening.  It means sacrificing.  And changing.  Starting over.  And severing some ties.  And forgiving.  That’s some robust activity, God.  And we’ve got a lot of baggage, some that’s just distracting us, and some that actually holding us back from being your disciples to our fullest potential.  Help us God.  Help us shed our baggage, help us sever our ties with all that is harmful to ourselves and to your mission.  

“And thank you for making our wellness a part of your mission.  Thank you for valuing our bodies and our minds.  Thank you for valuing our life.  Thank you for marking us with your cross, calling us your children.  And help us to spread your Good News to others.  Help us to share and be humble.  Give us direction and clarity of vision.  AMEN.”     

August 25 -- Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

[Chloe, submissive, ashamed, cowering at our “No-o-o-o.]

It’s a powerful image this week as we gather around the story of the woman who was bent down, pushed down for 18 years.  

The text says it was a physical ailment, but the people of that time and the many people today too, believe that our physical ailments can be manifestations of much deeper spiritual ailments — stress, pent-up anger, bitterness, shame…

And the way those religious leaders were used doing business, there’s no question in my mind that they spoke to the people in tones similar to how we would sometimes speak to Chloe when she had misbehaved:  “No-o-o-o.”  And that woman cowered physically for 18 long years (half a lifetime for most in those days).  Can you imagine?  

We religious ones — we church people — had better be careful how we speak to those who are not in and of this religious establishment...because that imposition of shame, I’m afraid, is not outdated.  (Pew Research study about a few years ago: top words associated with the word “Christian” — judgmental, hypocritical, anti-gay).  Ever experienced church shaming...if you haven’t been to church in a long time, or don’t believe the right way, or break church rules?  Have the Pharisees ever pressed down on you or someone you know?  (Please don’t ask someone, upon return from a long absence from church: “Where have you been?”)

As soon as we get up on our high horses about church or spirituality or religious practices or the non-religious, and push others down — the one we follow and call Jesus has no time for that.  We see it in our Gospel here.  We can do the same thing with the Sabbath...

There’s an amazing reversal in this Gospel from Luke — very characteristic of Luke.  Holy flipping.  Jesus takes the poor and the lowly, sick and the sorrowing, the outcast and the stranger, the weak and the bent down...and Jesus raises them up, reverses their status.  Think of poor, young Mary; the 10 lepers; the Samaritan.  Jesus takes them and raises them up, does a holy flipping of their place in the community.

And Jesus takes the proud and the strong, the rich and the showy, the arrogant and the judgmental…and he brings them down.  The text today says, “he puts them to shame.”  The one who’s ashamed is lifted up, and the one who is used to shaming others is brought down.

In other words, Jesus has no time for compassion to go by the wayside.  Whenever mercy is not being shown, Jesus steps in.  Our God is a God of mercy and compassion — showering down on us and on this world like an ever-flowing stream.  And woe be to the one who’s getting caught up in judging and shaming others, especially the weak and the lowly, the sick and the forgotten.  It’s like Jesus has this radar for judgmental and powerful types.  And he hones right in on them, and he eats with them, and he teaches them.  He stays with them.  

--

I think we all have our moments in both camps, don’t we?  Sometimes we are pressed down with shame and pain, including in our self-obsession, unable to stand up straight and look around to see our neighbors in need.  (Luther’s definition of sin: self curved inward.)  Can’t see anyone else...

And other times, oh, we can see others just fine: We can see them mis-behaving, we can see them being lazy or irresponsible, or not going to church, or not being Christian enough — basically not being as good of people as we are.  

Yeah, we’re not curved inward, we’re out and up in everyone else’s business.  And failing to take a deeper look at our own lives and souls.  I think we all have moments in both camps.

And that’s where Jesus moves in.  He levels us when we’re full of ourselves, pious, hard-working, little “holier than thou’s”.  He says, “Hey, cool it, let it go, come down here with us.”  

Maybe there’s someone in your life for whom your good judgment on them seems perfectly appropriate, but your anger and frustration with them is so overwhelming, you’re so high up on your horse, you’re so right...That’s when Jesus steps in and says: “Hey, breathe; come down here with me.”  

Jesus brings the temple leaders down, he shames them, and in so doing perhaps there’s even a hidden gift there.  “You guys are getting so obsessed with the law — the Sabbath, in this case — that you’re starting to use it as a weapon.”  Remember: they were only defending the Sabbath.  Nothing wrong with that.  (We’ve just finished a whole book here in Adult Ed, which defends the Sabbath.)  Author talks about it there too, actually:  How we can skew the Sabbath (and actually miss the absolute gift that’s there).  When the keeping the Sabbath becomes a weapon or a burden and not a gift, Christ steps in.  When the Bible is used as a weapon, not a gift, Christ steps in, and says, “Where is mercy, where is compassion, where is the radical welcome I proclaim?”  I wonder if there’s any way Jesus was actually giving a gift to those high-and-mighty religious leaders, even if they failed to see it right away.  And Jesus brings us down too — has no patience for our lack of compassion and mercy-showing toward our neighbor.  Jesus steps in to crush our pride, to lift up those we have hurt, and to restore community.  This text about the woman’s ailment, about the Sabbath, is about restoring community.  (The 10 C’s are about community!)

Thank God.  There is forgiveness for the sinner, for the proud and the arrogant, and the rich, and the nosey; there is forgiveness for the judgmental and the cruel.  Thank God, because I can live up there sometimes.

And there is hope for us when we’re pressed down.  When we’re bent so low by life.  Burdened by sorrow and pain, spiritually crippled, physically pressured, hurting and longing for a better day.  Jesus steps in and gives us healing and peace.  Jesus steps in and calls us, names us, what we are:  “Daughter of Abraham, son of Sarah, child of God, stand up straight.  Look around.  You are set free of what ails you.”  

Jesus comes to you this day, friends in Christ, Jesus arrives in this place in wheat and wine, water and Word, and offers us new life, a new day.  The resurrection is real.  You have been raised up with Christ, buried with him and therefore raised with him — not just after you die, but right now.  God has turned the world on its head, through Christ Jesus!  We are given new life this day, and even you are free of your ailments — free to live in hope, free to live in trust that God is with us, that God forgives us, and that nothing can separate us from the love that God has for us.  We no longer have to shame others or cower (like Chloe) in fear, for we are children of God, released to live as the people that God has molded us to be in this world, for this world.  Alleluia!  AMEN.  

August 18 -- Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

I never cease to be challenged by the divisiveness of Jesus.  On one hand, so much language and imagery about how he’s my friend, our friend, like the old hymn -- “What a friend we have in Jesus.”  I’ve sung this together with the family of faith in their last days, as well as that great Gospel song, “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me…”  It’s wonderful to have a God who is a friend, someone waiting for and walking with us even now.  Someone who takes us by the hand.  But if we who are not yet on our deathbeds, who have (God-willing) plenty of time and health left to share some things on this earth…if we who are actively living, have only a picture of this gentle, sweet Jesus, then we’ve traded our Bibles for just a few of our favorite songs and images!

There was a book few years ago by Kendra Creasy Dean entitled “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church”.  She argues, that our young people, studies are showing, are emerging and drifting away from our churches, with not much more than an image of a God who is simply “nice.”  The fancy term is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  Let’s just call it “Nice God Up in the Sky” religion.  This “Nice God Up In the Sky” religion, as she describes, has made its nest in the hair of Christianity, and is in fact sucking the life out of the church of Jesus Christ, living off of the complicated cross-and-resurrection core of our faith, like a parasite.  If the “Nice God Up in the Sky” religion had a creed, these would be the 5 pillars, acc. to Dean and her colleagues.  See if this sounds familiar:  “1) Sure God exists, whatever, and God watches over us from way above, 2) God wants us to be good and nice and fair like the Bible says.  3) We should also all be happy, and feel good about ourselves.  4) God’s not really involved in our lives, except when we need God to solve a problem.  And 5) if we’re good, when we die, we’ll go to heaven.”  Maybe these ideas don’t sound too off base, but know that Christian theologians, and martyrs, and scholars and saints down through the centuries — would call this creed profane and lazy.  “Nice God Up in the Sky” religion is not scaring our young people away, running for their lives, terrified of the church — there’s really nothing scary about it — it’s just not interesting, it’s not captivating or challenging, it’s not life-giving — it’s boring. It’s slowly but surely “life-draining”...like a parasite. 

I’m afraid, in many ways we could be responsible for teaching this to our kids (I certainly could be guilty as charged) — maybe because “a nice God” teaching is a reaction to the “mean, wrathful God” teaching (like Zeus with a lightning bolt) that some of us grew up with…

But this easy, nice, sweet, friend Jesus preaching-and-teaching is slowly-but-surely eroding the church, rounding out the edges, watering it down, making it harder and harder for us to even hear Jesus’ challenge today.  (I imagine preachers this Sunday — I know some — who are either irritated that this text was coming up again or make jokes about how this is a good week to go on vacation or preach on something different.  I myself joked with Marie, “Good thing so many are traveling right now.  Who wants to hear this text about Jesus bringing a sword?!”)  

But, but friends, Jesus speaks anyway, thank God!      

“What did you expect?”  Jesus asks us today, in less-than-sweet tones.  “Did you expect me to come and affirm your status quo?  Did you expect me bring you just gentle words of encouragement?  Did you expect me to take a look at how you’re treating one another and this earth, how you hoard your money, and your gifts, how you exclude one another and trample one another, how you fail to forgive, how you hurt, and judge, and ridicule, and attack one another, and simply say, well, you’re doing the best you can?  Good for you.”   

Friends in Christ, Jesus loves us too much to let us off the hook that easy, and Jesus is too alive in our world today to stop speaking to us, even if it might be hard for us to hear — with the buzzing nest of “Nice God” religion in our hair.

Just because we might be drifting in these late days in summer, doesn’t mean God is drifting.  Just in case you’re feeling drowsy, or distracted, or lost, or cynical these days…about life, about church, about the world, Jesus does not get drowsy, or distracted, or lost, or cynical — thank God! 

We are shaken to the core by this powerful text, wrenched back to life by a God who is teeming with energy and life, “Did you think I came to bring peace?”  Jesus, for one thing pulls out that “Nice God Up in the Sky” nest, rips it to pieces and sets it ablaze.  Jesus arrives onto our scenes TODAY, and rips us apart from our social circles, our family circles, our cultural circles, our political and economic circles — which can give us some sense of identity and security.  But if those circles fail to align with his agenda, then “wake up!” he cries.  

“My welcome is bigger than you can imagine, my love is wider, my forgiveness wraps around this…universe, my embrace has no end.”

And that’s going to upset a lot of people.  Jesus’ mercy is everlasting, his embrace is all-encompassing, his agenda is to set the captives free, recovery of sight, peace to the oppressed (1^st 12 chapters of Luke!), but what he doesn’t have time for, is those who stand in the way of that mission.  All are forgiven, yes.  Grace abounds, yes.  But if you refuse the path of discipleship — that difficult road of sacrificial giving and loving your enemy — then move aside.  Thank God: Christ’s realm arrives with or without our permission or our participation.  But we are nudged again this week to get on board!  Thank God.

I’ve learned and experienced in my ministry of 13+ years...that the more welcoming we get as a church, the more mission-minded we become, the more justice-seeking we act, the more we get on board — the more we upset.  At one time, it was just welcoming people of different nationalities (Norwegians and Germans mixing) — and divisions formed. Then different skin colors (black and white and brown) — and you know divisions formed.  Then in the 70’s the church worked on welcoming more explicitly women and divorcees into leadership — and divisions formed (and we’re not all the way past these historic struggles).  Now we’re working on welcoming even more explicitly the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual+ communities, and look how that’s going for us, as a church, as a nation.  The more welcoming you get, the more people you upset.  

“Did you think I came to bring peace?  What did you expect?  You know that clouds in the west mean rain…”    

What about caring for and welcoming the undocumented  immigrants into God’s embrace and into our sanctuaries? 

Or people of different socio-economic brackets, ages or abilities? What about people who don’t take care of “our” church?  Or the non-human members of this planetary society?  The more that Christ is understood as “cosmic” (as he is throughout the New Testament btw), the more divisions will ensue.  

And yet, AND YET, the mission goes on, the embrace extends, the compassion and mercy of our God reigns down on us still, and still on all those with whom we share this universe.  And despite the division that will inevitably occur when we join along side the One who first joined along side us, we will be alright.  Even in the division that our welcome may cause, even among ourselves, our congregations, we will be alright.  

We press on, friends in Christ, not because we have an agenda, not because we want to “change the world,” or the church or the city or ourselves.  We press on as Christians because of God’s agenda.  God has an agenda of freedom and grace and justice and mercy and compassion, and that has captivated us.   

That freedom locks us down ironically, it binds us together — and we can’t help but continue to be faithful, to continue in the covenant of our baptisms — that is, living among other faithful ones, hearing and tasting the Word, following Christ out into the world, striving for justice.  

WE-WILL-BE-ALRIGHT, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, following in the shadow of a God who is rich and complex, gentle and provocative, human and divine, so-much-more-than-just-nice-and-far-away, a God who is both peaceful and divisive.  Let us go now, renewed and strengthened, centered and bold.  In Jesus name. AMEN.