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.
—
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.  
—
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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s just the first part:

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

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

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

And, like Simeon says, remember that tough times are still before us: “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed — [even you!] a sword will pierce your own soul...”

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

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

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


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

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

September 13 -- The Country of Forgiving-ness (Pentecost 15A)

I feel like these last weeks of lessons from Matthew have been preparing us for this bombshell today.  

Forgiveness is the ultimate question.  How are you doing with forgiveness, I’ve been asking us all.  How are you doing at forgiving others; and how are you doing at the fact that you have been forgiven by others...and by God?

And just in case we want to just check off this work like another chore on our lists, Jesus blows Peter’s mind:

Peter is looking to check a box or two or twenty.  I say he wants to “one-and-done” forgiveness.  “How many times, Lord?  What form do I fill out, where do I sign?”  But Jesus calls him (and us) to see that forgiveness is not an item on a checklist, but a country.  

Jesus tells Peter not to keep score, but to immigrate to a the land of “forgiving-ness” — that’s what the  77x means.  Seven refers to wholeness, so Seventy-seven is the “wholest wholeness,” a total state of total forgiving-ness.  A new place to live.  Build your life there, Jesus says.  

We live in a tit-for-tat land, where we check items off of lists, payback and pay-up to settle accounts.  It’s hard for us to accept undeserved kindnesses — whether that’s physical gifts or compliments or favors — if someone gives me something, I want to pay it back or pay it forward or pay it off...and not feel like I owe anything to anyone.  It’s programmed deep down there in our protestant-capitalist-dog-eat-dog-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours-work-ethic DNA.  

So it’s really hard to hear this message today.  
It’s really hard to pack up and move.  

Or even to envision this new territory that Jesus and Paul and Joseph in the Old Testament are mapping for us today, this “Commonwealth of Forgiving-ness”!
—
The brothers in that great OT story of reconciliation are still not being honest in their making amends with their brother Joseph — they try to strategize and pull at the heartstrings of Joseph and his long-lost father’s wishes (“Let’s tell him that Dad would want this…”).  

But Joseph, who definitely wasn’t perfect either, has this moment of divine intervention.  There’s no other way to describe it, like all the cases of forgiveness.   God picks Joseph up and puts him on a raft, blows a wind, and Joseph enters into the country of forgiving-ness.  Joseph blazes the trail into this new territory, into Seventy Seven:  “Have no fear, I will provide for you and your little ones.”  
And that, by the way, made it possible for his brothers to get there too.  As they embrace.  “Do not fear, God has made this for good.”  And they weep tears of joy.

Someone’s gotta venture out there, cutting through the strangler vines and thistles of resentment and past grievances and often downright evil.  The brothers, you remember, threw Joseph into a pit, left him to die decades ago.  Joseph gets pulled out by traders passing by who carry him like a commodity to sell in Egypt.  ...Lotta time for a thick forest of anger and resentment to grow.  The weeds of disdain and revenge can take over, especially as Joseph amazingly rises to power and to a position in Egypt to exact payback on any of his past abusers.

But that’s not what happens.  Someone’s gotta blaze the trail, and Joseph was the imperfect candidate God selected.  Someone’s gotta lead the expedition into the new territory.  We can’t just keep living in these swampy forests of anger and keeping tabs and holding onto debts.  
—
You must go there too.  God is picking you up today and sending you — and me.  We should to pack it up, trust God, and head out for Seventy Seven, the Commonwealth of Forgiving-ness.  
Always from the territory of sin and brokenness into the land of healing and wholeness.  

The trail has actually been maintained, by all those imperfect saints who have gone before us...in loving their enemies, in praying for those who persecute them, and forgiving their debtors.
—
This is heaven-come-down-to-earth stuff today. Do you realize that?  “On earth as it is in heaven.”  That’s what the Commonwealth of Forgiving-ness is.   It’s a territory we can inhabit here and now.  Not 7 (like a checklist) but 77 (like a country).  

Can you see it?  Especially as we start to get specific?  

As we talk about racial justice, and environmental justice, and gender justice?  How does heaven come down to earth?  Where is the embrace and the tears of joy, and God making it for good?  As we talk about Democrats and Republicans, and Fox News and MSNBC and families around the table?  And neighbors who annoy?  And leaders who betray and friends who “assume”... Where is the divine intervention?  Where is God putting you on a raft and the Holy Spirit current is carrying you to Seventy Seven?

In the Commonwealth of Forgiving-ness, you don’t have to hang onto the words your friend (or who you thought was your friend) said about you.  In Seventy Seven you can see over those trees.  You can see her as a broken child of God, hurting and in need…

The father who is an abused abuser?  Compassion and prayer blanketing the work of healing, reconciliation and peace.  Seventy Seven is no oasis.  The labor is long and daily, but not without breaks, and not without community.

And in Seventy Seven, your mistakes are completely in God’s loving hands.  You don’t have to carry them or trip over them.  You can work without that extra burden.  The pain you’ve caused others, whether intentionally or unconsciously, is lifted from your shoulders.  

And that feels so good that you invite others to come to this new land too.  And together you build sustainable housing for everyone to move to Seventy Seven.  You bake and harvest and sew and set tables, so that everyone can live in Forgiving-ness.  
—

Paul says it like this, to a community that was struggling to immigrate to Seventy Seven: “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.  So then, whether we live or whether we die, we belong to God.”

Here’s the thing: I’m trying to paint hopefully a picture of a Land called Forgiving-ness, and invite us all there in Christian discipleship.  But what if we can’t get there?   What if we’re stuck?  What if it seems we’ll never get there?  

Friends in Christ, the welcome is always there, it is again today: the Customs gates are always wide open and anyone is free to enter Forgiving-ness at any time.  And many, many faithful ones are going!  

But even if you stay behind, you still belong to the Lord.  You already reside in God’s embrace.  AMEN.

July 12 -- Seeds and Soil and Soaking In (Pentecost 6A)

“But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields.”

I’m thinking this morning about all the different types of soils, of earth we drove past on this trip.

As most of you know, we are on this unprecedented cross-country work-from-the-road adventure.  Over a week now, since we journeyed out from the beautiful East Cost.  And we’ve watched as the landscapes keep changing; we’ve watched the soils change.

From the lush hills of Virginia and Maryland, over the Blue Ridge mountains and down into rich fertile soil of the Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.  Some of that soil has been flooded — in a sense, choked out.  Much of that soil is ideal for this text today, imaged on bulletin covers across the church this morning...

Then we start getting into the prairies, farming gives way to grazing.  As our altitude started increasing, ears popping in the car as we got into Colorado and the Rocky Mountains, we, pine trees growing everywhere: we noticed the soil getting rocky too.  We’ve been here Wyoming for much of this week: with the Crums/Meyers in the southern part of the state, and now up here in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone for the last two days!

Lots of trails.  Where feet tromp down anything trying to grow.  But it’s been dry too: we haven’t seen rain all week.  Dust on our shoes all the time.  It’s all still very rocky mountainous soil.   And as our trip continues, I know we’ll also see some even drier desert soil as we drop down into Utah today, where the rocks are red and the sun burns hot.

Here in the mountains, pine trees and meadow grasses abound.  But in the desert, almost nothing, can take root and grow.

Wow, we’re seeing so many different types of soil!

So I’m thinking this morning as we read our Gospel about seed sown in fertile soil, about all the land we’ve covered, and perhaps you have too at one time or another.  How these many and various lands across the nation, like in Jesus’ parables, can be metaphors for our lives of faith and our reception to the Word of God.

How in your life has God’s Word taken root and grown, like seeds in the fertile soil of America?  And when are times that it’s just not taken root or lasted long?  Too much distraction, too much flooding, too many rocks or bumps, or too much traffic in the busyness of our weeks?

How sometimes God’s word does start to grow, start to change us for the better, start to take root and hold on to us, but then how we can be swept away, almost instantly, by the world’s affairs and concerns.  How often there’s just not enough room or time or patience for God’s redemptive word of grace and peace to take root and grow in our hearts.

—

I’ll be honest: I am sometimes a little wary about the over-zealous in our churches.  More times than not, they get scorched by their own fire for Jesus, and they don’t last long in a church community.  They can get impatient with others who are not as “on fire,” too soon throw their hands up in the air, and be done with the whole thing.  I once knew someone like that in a former congregation.  This person found our church, joined it, got ridiculously involved in every aspect of every ministry it seemed, got frustrated with others, angry and left the church — all in the course of one year.  Farmers understand that healthy plants and crops don’t grow like that; so how can we expect disciples to?

Compare that person — a good person, but fell on rocky soil — with the one who enters a Christian community slowly, carefully, perhaps dubiously, lovingly, seeking understanding and relationship.  Not over-zealous or anxious.  Just showing up again and again.  I’ve known many like this too — many of you from Bethlehem actually.  Sharing life together.  Sharing joys and gathering in sorrowful times too.  I’ve watched, just in my 15 years of ministry, I’ve watched some become stronger more rooted, faithful Christians: better and better students of Scripture, more grounded in the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.  The storms can damage but do not destroy because the roots are deep.  Again, people who are faithful in their presence among God’s people.  Showing up, year after year.  Now that’s where the seed of God’s Word — that is, the Gospel message of God’s forgiveness, grace and love — has “taken” and continues to grow and expand and bear fruit and become stronger for it.  How often we emerge stronger, when faced with adversity!

Jesus’ message this heart-of-summer day, is a call not to be fickle.  Not to blow in the wind, and get reactive and storm out, but to slow down, and let this Good Word work on us, change us, from the inside.  How often do we really stop and let a passage from scripture “soak in” or “take root”?  I’m guilty of this — so often Bible readings can just brush our ears and our intellects, and then we move on, or go back to whatever we were doing before.  It’s hard to let God’s word soak down into our hearts.  (But try taking some real time with Scripture — and see what happens...)

“You are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.  If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you...then God will give life to your mortal bodies.”  What if this word was to soak in?

We can certainly blow this word off, or brush it aside, but this word has the power to take deep root...and save our lives.

Why is it that we let other words that people say to us, damage or even destroy our lives, but we can let a Good Word from God just brush past us?

I bet everyone watching here, wouldn’t have to think very long about the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to/about you.  I bet we could re-call those cruel words pretty quickly.  But the Word of God, which promises us life, which grants us peace and joy and forgiveness of all our wrongdoings, grace, the Word of God — that word, we can almost forget by the time we log out and tune in to something else...

These deep summer days, a new word takes root in us and grows:  God loves you.  Even you!  God forgives you.  Even you!  And God calls you to forgive others — not because you’re an awesome saint necessarily and perfectly capable of forgiving others.  No God calls us to love and forgive others, not in our own names but, in Jesus’ name.  That’s a seed and good word that we have to let sit under the ground and grow over time.  And Christ waters us, the light of God shines on us, and the Spirit blows through our lands (and lives) and connects us so that we don’t stand and grow alone.

Friends, God makes our hearts good soil.  God takes a risk and extravagantly throws out seeds of love, even in your direction this day, on every kind of soil that we’ve seen crossing this beautiful country.  And God makes our hearts good soil.  So that through the work of the Holy Spirit, that seed “takes” and grows in our hearts.  And in time, deeds and words of love and grace then flow from our hands and our mouths, bringing comfort, peace and joy to this hurting and broken world — the very comfort, peace and joy of Christ Jesus!

From God, the Gracious Farmer, to us, once rocky, dry and un-cultivatable soil...because of Christ, who lives and dwells with us this day and forever: now we go out too, and spread widely this Good News.  AMEN.

May 17 -- Paul & Our Many Altars (Easter 6A)

Friends in Christ, if Paul was to wander through your life — your daily routines, where you spent your time and your money, where you made sacrifices: the things that bring you great joy, the things that get you really upset, and the ways you speak — if Paul was to wander down “your street”, stand at the center of your personal “town square” (the Areopagus) — WHAT WOULD HE NOTICE?

The question is not: “Are you/is anyone religious?”  The question is: “In what ways are you extremely religious?”  Everyone worships something.  The word worship, broken down, “worth-ship”.  What’s worthy of your sacrifices?  That’s what we worship.  Lots of people go to church but don’t worship God.  Because God’s not worthy of their sacrifices, the church is not worthy of their sacrifices: traveling the world is what’s truly worthy of their sacrifices.  Clothing or hobbies or housing improvements or sports or fancy alcohol or knives or guns or shoes or concerts or cars or crafts are what’s truly worthy of their sacrifices.  We all have our thing, I think.  What’s your thing?

The best way for Paul to wander down any one of our “streets” is for him to take a look at our credit card statements, right?  Our Amazon (non-essential) recent purchases.  Or however you can track how and where you spend your money.  (I was shocked at how much our family spent on food in this past year’s credit card report — not restaurants but food: organic, locally sourced, healthy food.  It’s more expensive.  We’ve admitted that’s a place we’re willing to make sacrifices.  I guess you could say it’s one of our idols.)  And I won’t even divulge all my non-essential Amazon purchases.  That’s the real “giving record,” right?

That’s where we can see where we really make sacrifices.  I know the whole, “but it’s not just about money when it comes to church” idea.

And that’s true, but so often, I think, we can hide behind that.   So much is about money...  x2 That’s why Jesus talked about money all the time!

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt. 6.21; Lk. 12.34).  What is it that you treasure?  What is it that you protect?  What is it that you make sacrifices for?  Where is your heart?
—
Well, all this was true in the ancient world as well, as Paul walked through the streets of Athens, “Athenians,” he says, “I see how extremely religious you are in every way.”

But there’s something else:
Paul notices that there is an altar to an unknown God.
You see, the people of Athens — like us today — worshipped all kinds of gods.  I think it was more overt then: maybe less shame or denial about it.  They made sacrifices openly to the gods of sports, food, parties, travel, transportation, music, crafts and weather.  (BTW, living in Southern California all those years, I think we really worshipped the weather there.  I mean, people really make sacrifices for that beautiful weather, higher cost of living, etc.  And our observation, leaving that region was all these comments on how much we were going to miss the weather.  How different is that from worshiping an ancient sun god?)  That’s just one of many altars...

But there was this one altar that was unmarked.  It was like the fill-in-the-gap altar — one for everything else.

...and Paul seizes on that image to introduce them to a different kind of God.

See, it actually was in fact a fill-in-the-gap altar:  Like today, the people lived in great fear.  If you didn’t sacrifice to every god out there, if you worship at every altar — the altar of security, the altar of beauty & youth, the altar of war, the altar of food and drink and sport and weather, the altar of work...If you don’t appease every god, then trouble would inevitably befall you.
So just in case you miss one, there was this little “fill-in-the-gap” altar.
 Just in case you forgot about a god or two.  You could sacrifice at the altar of the unknown god.

       Paul seizes on that to draw them into a new understanding...
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See, it’s like, there was “something else.”  The people even knew it.  This way of living and worshiping and making sacrifices at all these altars, this way of being extremely religious was coming up short.

Don’t we see that too?  Do you ever feel that?  All these things we worship, and yet, somehow, it’s never enough?  (We’re having some real time to reflect on these during this shutdown.  During this “great pause” that this global pandemic has forced upon us...)

We’re always pouring more and more out at all these different altars?  And every god, will endlessly take our sacrifices: our money, our time, our devotion, our energy, our whole lives.  But it’s like they’re never appeased.  The gods are never appeased, and they’ll just keep taking…  (Just talking with dear friends about the tolls that stress is taking on our bodies, especially these days — I realize that not everyone is feeling stress right now amid this shut-down, some are even downright bored.  But, for so many, parents of school kids, or toddlers, balancing jobs and work from home, school, family, economic pressures, etc. the frantic pace at which we’re running around our own homes, from altar to altar to altar (it’s like all those altars got crammed into our house)…

Yeah, Paul could say it to us too:  “I see how extremely religious you are in every way!”

And, let me say, if life has had the brakes slammed on, and you’re more in the camp of twiddling your thumbs, staring at the wall, that’s certainly an opportunity for devotion to the many gods to tick up — surfing the shopping websites, buying crazy things in large amounts, consuming food, alcohol, social media, technology, instruments to fill the time.  So many altars!

Paul says it to us too:  “I see how extremely religious you are in every way!”
--
But then there’s this one other little altar.  This little tiny chapel, this insignificant table in the corner.  This silly, old cross.  Laughable really, in the shadow of all the other towering altars.  

Paul seizes on that little altar, and takes that fearful theology (“talk of God”) around that altar — how that has infected Christianity now too:  fearful theology — and fills it with incarnational theology.  God is with us.  This little, tiny, insignificant altar you see here, Paul says, “I proclaim to you that the God who made the world and everything in it, [the God] who is [composer and conductor] of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands…[this God] allotted the times of [our] existence and the boundaries of the places where [we] live, so that [we may] search for God and perhaps grope for [God]...though indeed [God] is not far from each one of us.  For ‘In [God] we live and move and have our being….’”

We don’t grope for God, as if God is some object of our attaining, yet another thing to acquire [“gotta go to church to get some God in my life…”].  No, Paul proclaims here: We are IN God already.  My whole life changed with I started to accept that.  [say it again]

This little, un-named altar is an entry point into experiencing a God that is truly above all other gods!  A God who’s got the whole world — the whole universe — in a loving embrace.  A God in whom we “live and move and have our being.”  A God whose name is love, in Christ Jesus.

This is where Paul takes us...along with his ancient hearers.  Paul preaches of a God who is beyond time and space, who is above all our petty obsessions and weaknesses, who holds us even as we try to appease other gods!

This little Altar, this Book, this Water doesn’t contain God (God doesn’t live, cooped up in here)!  But they do, we confess, carry God.  This little altar, this old book, these drops of water, point us to a God who is loosed in, with, above, below, all around and throughout, under this entire universe!

We cannot encapsulate or domesticate this God of whom Paul speaks!  All we can do is give ourselves up to this holy movement — sacrifice ourselves to what we are already in God’s hands.

...Think of when children are angry and restless in their mother’s arms: there’s no use in trying to overpower her, “Just rest. Just breath. It’s OK.”  Can’t we be like restless children running from altar to altar to altar?  (Paul was once a restless Saul!)

Friends in Christ, we are truly IN Christ.  Not every day do we get to reflect on the all-inclusive, all-loving, all-surrounding embrace of a God in whom “we live and move and have our being.”  Being in Christ is where we find ourselves.  So now all we we can do is enjoy it, take a breath...and go make disciples.  Go invite others into this understanding, into this joyful awareness.  Tell them that we don’t have to make all these other sacrifices at all these other altars!  Go, make disciples by pointing them to the water and the word of life, and this community of love, this communion.  For simply in this following, there is peace.

Peace that is fuller and deeper than any other peace that any idols can offer.  Love divine, all loves excelling!   Jesus calls us away from those other loves, to come and follow, make your sacrifices here, and make disciples.  You are Christ’s witnesses to these things: you have a job to do!  It’s a blessed burden, a labor of love.

Thanks be to God, who holds us and this whole cosmos now...and forever more.  Go spread that Good News.  Breathe.  It’s gonna be ok.  Because at this altar, we celebrate...that... God’s got us.  AMEN.

April 19 -- Second Sunday of Easter (Blessing of the Animals)

Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace, in the name of the Risen Christ.  AMEN.

“If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Verse 23.

In 2010, Sister Sandra Marie Schneiders, professor at the Jesuit School of Theology presented a fascinating insight to a group of scholars on this verse 23.

The idea was that we’ve inserted and assumed a word into our  English translation of vs. 23, and it changes everything:  Schneiders points out that in the Greek, there is no word “sins” the second half.  So an alternative, perhaps more accurate translation would be, “If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven; if you retain any — or ‘hold any fast’, or even ‘embrace any‘ — they are held fast/embraced.”  The second half of verse 23 is about retaining/holding onto people...rather than sins.  The word “sins” is not there in the Greek!

This, she argues — along with Lutheran scholar, the Rev. Dr. Mary Hinkle Shore — that there is not only room for Thomas’ needing proof, it’s far more in line with Jesus’ actions and the over-arching theology of the entire Gospel of John.  “Retaining sins”, holding one’s sin over their head, doesn’t really fit with John’s Gospel, especially with all this peace-breathing that’s happening both before and namely after the resurrection.
--
This text is John’s version of the Great Commission: (In Matthew, it’s “Go ye therefore…”).  But here, in John —
“Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  Then he breathes on them, “Receive the Holy Spirit...

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; and whoever you hold, they are held (whoever you embrace, they are embraced...whoever you love, they are loved).”  That’s Holy Spirit power!  That’s power that’s greater than Pilate and the Roman Empire.  That’s power that’s mightier than all the muscles and ammunition we can even imagine.  That’s power that’s greater than a global pandemic.  That’s power that has room to care for all creation — “whoever you hold, they are held” — that’s Holy Spirit power.  Jesus breathes this on the disciples and on us too, this April 19, 2020!

This is way more in line with John’s Gospel, than “retaining sins”.  Can’t you just hear the echoes of Jesus’ actions back through John?!!

On Good Friday, Jesus offered community to his beloved disciple and his own mother from the cross.  And so Christ’s sermon there, was to go and care for one another from this day forth, to offer beloved community to everyone, love flowing outward, from the cross.  And in the foot washing, on Maundy Thursday, Jesus offers this intimate cleansing and tangible forgiveness to us, and now we’re called, to turn and offer that same cleansing and forgiveness to each other and beyond!  First we receive it from God — that’s our being commissioned “Receive the HS” — then we in turn, and go, and share with the whole world, both physically and virtually.  And it’s all through John, the raising of Lazarus, the woman at the well, the blind man, the feeding of the 5000...all the way back to the beginning of John’s Gospel where “the light shines in the darkness,” and gives life to all people.  Whoever you hold, they are held.

Now post-resurrection — as we wade into this 50-day Easter season, basking in the peace that our Risen Savior breathes on us, even in these strange, terrible, pause-button quarantine days — here it is again:  first we receive from Christ forgiveness and embrace, then we turn and offer it to one another and to this whole world!  CHRIST IS RISEN!  He is risen indeed!!

This is the “in-deed”!  Turning and offering both forgiveness and embrace.

“Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so I send you.  Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; and whoever you hold, they are held (whoever you embrace, they are embraced).”

Who is it that you’re holding?  They are held in Christ.  I’m holding you all in this time, even as we are separated.  Therefore you are held in Christ, because I’m holding you.  I’m holding all those who are sick, all those mourning the death of loved ones, I’m holding God’s creation, the animals and plants.  Therefore they are all held in Christ.  Conversely I’m held in Christ:  I know that you all have been holding me and my family in this time.  Therefore I am held in Christ!  Do you see?  Whoever we hold, God holds.  Holy Spirit power.  (Remember when Jesus said to Pilate, you have no power over me.  Now Pilate has no power over us either.  We’ve received the Holy Spirit, sisters and brothers, friends in Christ!)

Whoever we hold, they are held.  Whoever we embrace, they are embraced...

And whoever we forgive, they receive the very forgiveness of God!  That’s the embrace of the Risen Christ.  Holy Spirit power.

And how all of God’s children need that embrace and forgiveness!  How all of God’s isolated children...from our neighborhoods, from our workplaces, from our schools, from the halls of power to the hall off the living room...in every nation and every language need that embrace and peace and forgiveness that the resurrected Jesus so abundantly breathes.

Christ gives you that same breath this day, that same power to forgive and heal.  In a moment we’ll offer that peace of Christ to each other.  And the symbols are the same there too.  “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  Today is John’s Pentecost.
It isn’t just about shaking hands...which we can’t do now anyway.  Sharing the peace so much, friends: it’s war ending, walls coming down, conflicts forgiven, creation restored, animals blessed, plants blessed, cousins and neighbors blessed, death itself is destroyed! Jesus’ resurrection offers true peace.

If you’re doubting that’s really happening when we share the peace every Sunday, when we offer the peace of Christ with each other…then you’re not much different than the faithful Thomas, who just wanted to see more.

It’s so important to note that it was Thomas, actually, back in John 11:16, who urged the disciples to go on to Bethany, despite the danger: “Thomas said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’”

Where was Thomas on that evening?
Maybe he was already out there, doing the “Sent work,” when Jesus first appeared to the disciples on Easter evening.  I mean, why wasn’t he locked behind the doors in fear?  Maybe he just wanted to see more!  Often the most active are also the most cynical.  But there’s room for that in Jesus’ embrace.
It’s hard to believe that wars end when Pam and Marie give each other a hug here at Bethlehem on a typical Sunday morning.  It’s hard to believe that walls come down when Bob and .  It’s hard to believe walls are coming down as Richard and Alison shake each other’s hands.  There’s no evidence that creation — the air and the water and the soil — is restored, as John and Donna give each other a sweet high five, as they say to each other ‘God’s peace’.  Remember that’s what’s happening when we return to Bethlehem and greet one another in the sharing of the peace.

But “Unless I can see it and touch it, I will not believe that death has been destroyed!” say the Thomas’ among us.  And there’s room for that in Christ’s embrace too.  And now, there’s room for that in our embrace as well, through the Holy Spirit, who finds us and holds us all this day...

Oh, and “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  AMEN.

March 29 -- Fifth Sunday in Lent

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— 

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

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

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

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

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

and through this valley.

and always.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

March 22 -- Fourth Sunday in Lent

So many ways to go here!  We’ve just eaten a banquet of grace-filled, Gospel words...not a Grubhub fast-food leave-it-on-your-doorstep delivery, but our Bible readings this and every Sunday are like a long dining hall table of every kind of food, and family of all generations and from all over the world gathered around, and we pray and feast).  But I’d like to focus on that pool where Jesus tells the blind man to wash: what that meant then, and how this speaks to each of us today.
—
First, Jesus puts mud in his eyes.  I know I’ve spoken before about that great toast that I grew up with: before clinking glasses,  “Here’s mud in your eye!”  That comes from this passage.  “Here’s to seeing things in a new and healthy way!” First Jesus puts mud in his eyes, and then he tells him to go wash off that mud...

This is the 6th sign of Jesus in the Gospel of John.  The 1st you  might remember (anyone know?) is the water-to-wine.  Next Jesus heals the royal official’s son, he heals the paralytic, he feeds the 5000, walks on water.  Then the blind man today.  Then Lazarus.)  All signs point to Jesus’ divinity.
7 signs all together in John.  And it’s no coincidence that there are also 7 days of creation, way back in Genesis.  Jesus is re-creating, re-newing, re-defining, re-freshing the whole creation in these 7 signs.  So, hear these stories and wonders of Jesus in a cosmic, universal context.  They’re always about/symbolizing much more than just one person being healed (or even 5000 being fed) a long time ago...

So today is the 6th sign, right here in the mud of “quarantine”, 40 days, Lent.  Jesus puts mud in the blind man’s eyes and then tells him to “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam (which means Sent).” Go wash in the Sending Waters.

So what does it mean to wash in the Pool of Sent?  In the Sending Bath?  Sounds like a baptismal font to me!  ;)
—
[page/scroll through your worship folder]
See the sections in the box G-W-M-S?
What’s the longest section?  Trick question: Sending...

So again, what does it mean to be washed in the Sending Waters?  In the Pool of Sent (or Siloam)?

The once-blind man’s story gives us some ideas to instruct us for the “longest part of the worship service”:

First of all, being washed in the Sending waters means being healed!  Christ heals us too!  What are your “blind spots”?  Think about that this week.  And know that Jesus puts mud in our eyes too and sends us also past the Sent Pool and out into our lives anew, re-freshed, re-created, re-defined, re-visioning!  Our gathering, even like this, even virtually, around the scripture — ancient words and prayers of Christians who have been backed into corners before — Christ is the mud in our eyes, and then as we pass by those holy waters on the way out  (why we have the font at the back) we have been made new!  Being washed means that we are healed, sisters and brothers, friends in Christ!  We are forgiven and cleaned!

Being washed in “Sent” also means being honest.  “All I know is that once I was blind but now I see.”  Here’s what I know.  Pay attention to your experience.  I feel like 9x out of 10 when a person changes their mind about something (maybe this has happened to you?), it’s not because of a new doctrine that got rammed down their throat; it’s because of an experience:

*All I know is that once I never really cared that deeply for protecting the environment, for example, but then I spent a week in the Rockies hiking and camping…
*All I know is that I was taught that gay people were bad, but then I worked next to Larry…one of the kindest people I know.
*All I know is that I always thought Christians were judgmental and insular and even cruel, and then I came to Bethlehem…

The blind man reminds us to pay attention, and be honest about our experiences, how they affect us, and how they change us.  We could remain unchanged, even with our sight restored… [pause]  But not the blind man: “All I know is that once I was blind, but now I can see.”  For the blind man, everything changes after his sight is restored.

Being washed in the Sending waters also means facing opposition and even aggression calmly.  Did you see how he did that.  He just stuck to his truth calmly, even while the inevitable opposition came on strong.  This breaks with the way it’s “supposed to be,” you see.  The blind man stays calm —and we see — faithful.  He’s not swayed by the fire and fury, the violence of the opposition.

I think that can be so instructive for us these days amid a global pandemic.  Staying calm.  Staying faithful.  Not being swept up in the fire and fury.  Here’s what I know: God is good.  Christ showers us with grace, with new ways of looking at things, with creativity as our vision is radically adjusted, and that the Holy Spirit binds us together and sends us to be hope and joy and peace and grace for one another and for this world...even if we’re doing that from quarantine, from the complicated isolation of this unprecedented, 40-day Lent.

Finally, being washed in Sent means worshipping Jesus...even while others don’t believe or “see”.  Vs. 38:  “He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshiped him.”

On this Fourth Sunday in Lent we too fall down and worship Jesus.  We entrust ourselves to Christ’s mud touch and care and transformative healing and restoration once again.

We give thanks for all that God has done for us — we show that thanksgiving in our tithing and our offerings, and our songs of praise.  ‘Worship’ means worthy.  What is worthy of our sacrifice?  That’s the true object of our worship.  People make sacrifices and put their trust — i.e. people worship — all kinds of things.  The blind man worships Jesus…who loves us, whether we fall down, worship and recognize him or not.
Whether we see it or not.  (Sing with children, “Jesus loves me when I’m good...Jesus loves me when I’m bad…”)

But friends, that gift of new vision is ours this day.  This pool is right over there…We are bathed in those ever-flowing waters of the “Sending”.  And in that, is the peace that passes all human understanding.

That peace is ours this day, and always, in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

July 21 -- Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace…from Jesus, who is with us.  Amen.

Friends in Christ, we are distracted by many things.  Often times when this text comes up or this story is told, we are invited to think about whether we are Mary’s — sitting at the feet of Jesus, or Martha’s — worried and distracted by many things.  [It’s true, we can be both Mary and Martha at different times in our lives.]  But today, for the sake of this sermon, I’m going to just assume that we’re all Martha’s — worried and distracted by many things.  Yes, there’s a little Mary in each one of us too, but in this day-in-age, we are almost programmed to pick up and respond to distractions...  

I’d like to just take a moment and ask you to jot down about 10 things things that are distracting you right now…in this place and in your life.  

Are we relating to Martha yet?  (Distractions in the world, in your life, in the news, in the community...) And how when we’re busy/serving, it’s easy to be judgmental of those who aren’t?  “Huh, must be nice to go on vacation.”  “Huh, maybe someone ought to work a little harder.”  And then Martha pulls a classic triangulation with Jesus.  Do you know what triangulation is?  Concept introduced by Dr. Murray Bowen.  (We see this all the time in the church:  Instead of going directly to the person with whom we’ve got a problem, we go to someone else, and try to rope them into our conflict and get them on our side… For example, if I’ve got a problem with another pastor in the area, instead of talking face-to-face with my brother or sister, I go to the bishop: “Tell him to behave...but don’t tell them..”  Another example: Husband and wife:  She’s very frustrated by her husband’s work habits:  long hours, time away from the children.  But instead of talking to him, she calls her sister, and tells her, but tells her not to say anything because she doesn’t want to damage her relationship with her husband.  Is triangulation a healthy way of communicating?)

Kacy Brown of the Well Counseling Center (just one of many resources out there) suggests some ways to avoid triangulation:  1) Go directly to the person with whom you have the conflict.  2) Avoid trying to draw others in and get them on your side behind the scenes.  3) And try as much as you can to de-triangulate...stay out of triangles.  Encourage others who are venting to you to go directly to the person with whom they have the conflict.  

This little side note on triangulation may be an unintended gift of this gospel text for us today, helping us communicate better with one another and reminding us of some unhealthy pitfalls in our communication styles, to which we’re all susceptible.

So, poor Martha.  Poor you and me.  Not only is she getting nicked just for being busy, but also for being a poor communicator.  Yep.

But here’s where Jesus gives her a gift:  “Martha, Martha, stop, sit down, breathe.”  Rather than getting hooked into the triangle Martha is trying to form, Jesus offers her a path out of bitterness: to stop.  To breathe.  (Probably doesn’t help that he uses her sister as the example, but we do get an image of the human being from Mary...as opposed to the human doing.)   “Stop, sit down, breathe.”

How we too can be distracted by so many things in our lives, in our world, even as we sit here in the sanctuary on Sunday.    How we in the church can be all about church all the time, and yet never truly worship...even when we’re in worship.  

    [conversations about Martha’s bitterness: another distraction from Jesus’ point?]

How is Jesus inviting you to stop, sit down and breathe?

This, Christ says, is the “better part”.  There is so much here that relates to us today.  We are called to listen, more than talk; to watch and wait, rather than run, run, run all the time.

Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: "Divine rest on the seventh day of creation has made clear (a) that YHWH is not a workaholic, (b) that YHWH is not anxious about the full functioning of creation, and (c) that the well-being of creation does not depend on endless work."  

Christ invites us to rest this day.  To stop.  To center.  To listen.  And to know that God is God.  We are human beings, not human doings.  And Christ makes us that this day, Christ redeems us from our incessant doing-ness — making us fully human being.  We are made to sit at Jesus’ feet.  (pillows in the sanctuary)  In our busyness, in our fallen communication styles, in our running around we can almost loose a piece of our humanity, becoming like robots knocking tasks off our lists.  I heard a story recently about “a mother who coached, drove her kids around and volunteered for every school committee.  She was a supermom.  She loved her kids. Thing is, one of the kids [at church youth group], confided in [her pastor] that she hardly ever saw her mom. Her mom was so busy coaching, leading, volunteering ‘for her kids’, she was too busy to spend time with them.  This is a phenomenal lesson for those who are leaders in the church. We can become so obsessed with doing ‘God’s’ work, we lose track of God.” 

But Christ redeems us today.  Our humanity is restored, and we are offered a place and a time to center, and breathe and refocus.  Prayer, listening, centering — it’s precisely when we say we don’t have time for these things, that we know we need them.  It’s not that we shouldn’t serve, of course.  It’s that centering and listening, sitting at the feet of Jesus like 

Mary, must come before the serving so that we don’t loose sight of the vision.  (scrubbing the deck of the ship, but not at the wheel, so the ship crashes)

Jesus speaks gently to you this day.  Calls you by name.  Invites you to slow down for a change.  “There is need of only one thing,” Christ instructs us.  God is love.  In Christ, is our hope.  We are gathered this day back to the center, the ultimate concern.  And here at the center, we are forgiven and we are fed.  The time will come to go and serve.  But not before sitting at Christ’s feet, receiving God’s gifts at the table, the manger, which are poured out for you in abundance.  

God’s forgiveness washes over you in this time.  God’s peace shines upon you.  God’s presence fills every fiber of your being.   And in a moment God’s very body, the bread of life, will fill your body, Christ’s own blood, will co-mingle with yours.  Stop, listen, watch, breath.  Christ’s own gifts are being poured out for you and for many.  There is peace and grace to go around, that never runs dry.  Come and rest, here at the wellspring of hope.  Here at the center.   Here at the feet of Jesus.  AMEN.    

--

Hymn of the Day is “Will you let me be your servant” #659 which might seem counter intuitive to this Gospel text today. But I chose it because of the second half of the first and last verses: “Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.”  ...which may be our greatest challenge: to sit and receive and breathe.

June 16 -- Holy Trinity Sunday

“Praise, my dear ones, let us disappear into praising.  Nothing belongs to us.” (R.M.Rilke) AMEN. 

When I was a boy, growing up, we used to spend some of our summer vacations visiting Grandma and Grandpa Roschke in Kansas City, Missouri.  

And one of my favorite things to do there, I remember, was to go with my brothers and my cousins, to one of the city centers (I think it was downtown)...and play in the jumping fountains.  Ever seen one of these?

We would put our swim suits and Mom would put our sunscreen on in the hot Midwest summer.  And we’d all go down to the jumping fountains, and try to catch the water,  shooting from one pod to the next.  We’d try to figure out the pattern of the jumping fountain, but we never could.  And then after an interval of sporadic jumping water, the whole fountain would just explode with a huge shower!  And then quiet again.

I just remember so much laughing and squealing with glee and holding onto each other (both in teasing and in joy)...  And I remember when you got hit with that water [gasp] how cold and shocking it was (our parents would take pictures of our faces), and at the same time how refreshing it was.  It’s hard to talk about it and not smile…

The memories of that place—from another time in my life—come flooding back this day as I think about the Holy Trinity on this Holy Trinity Sunday, first Sunday after Pentecost, the beginning of what many of our liturgical brothers and sisters call Ordinary Time, what I have called Outside Time or the Green Season.

And it all starts today, on this Father’s Day, with the celebration of the Holy Trinity!  

What can we say of God, the Holy Trinity?

My guess is that pastors everywhere are sheepishly and humbly approaching church pulpits today—or at least they should be—because whenever you talk about the Trinity, you’re always in danger of committing heresy.

This might seem silly to us now: just say what you want to say about God...it’s a free country, right?  What’s the big deal?  In recent years, I haven’t heard a whole lot of synod assemblies arguing about the nature of Christ, and God the Son’s relationship to and with God the Father.  

   

But please remember today, that the early Christians really went to the mat on this stuff.  (Human sexuality and biblical interpretation, positions on war or women’s rights — the things we fight about: nothing compared to those controversies.)  Some wanted to say that there was a pecking order to the Holy Trinity: God the Father, Jesus the Son (who was a little bit less than God the Father) and then Holy Spirit...just like this extra bird or something.

But Athanasius really put the nail in Arius’ theological coffin.  Arius was the one who wanted to say that that God the Father was greater than God the Son.  Remember the Athanasian Creed from the old green hymnal, the LBW?  We used to always say this on Holy Trinity Sunday...

We worship one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons, nor dividing the divine being. For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another. But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty. What the Father is, the Son is, and so is the Holy Spirit.

Uncreated is the Father; uncreated is the Son; uncreated is Spirit.

The Father is infinite; the Son is infinite; the Holy Spirit is infinite.

Eternal is the Father; eternal is the Son; eternal is the Spirit:

And yet there are not three eternal beings, but one who is eternal;

as there are not three uncreated and unlimited beings,

     but one who is uncreated and unlimited.

Almighty is the Father; almighty is the Son; almighty is the Spirit:

And yet there are not three almighty beings, but one who is almighty. 

Still with me?  This Trinity stuff is crazy.  But it should not just be tossed out: “Who cares?”  This is the doctrine we confess, to which we cling, which gives us hope and joy (actually) and is the basis for a rich theological tradition...to which Luther subscribed, and we many, many years later still put on this great outfit called the Trinity/our creeds.  To think that God the Spirit, is equal to God the Father, is equal to God the Son, who we name as Jesus!

Just trying to wrap our head around this, with the words of these ancient creeds, we start to enter into the mystery and the wonder of our God.  That God is not someone we can capture.  Saying these old creeds, while at first for us might seem restricting or limiting or too doctrinal — 

I’d actually encourage you to see these creeds (these fabulous outfits) rather as a threshold—or an entry way—into a wondrous relationship with God and with one another!   Put them on, and let the fun begin.

And so I began with an image of children playing in a jumping fountain — I tried to put words around and onto an experience that I really can’t put words around. [pause] But I hope you could at least catch the joy, even in my meager telling of that time in the jumping fountain…[pause]

...so it is with God:

We like children revel in the majesty of God’s splendor...even in this life, not just in the life hereafter.  Can’t accurately put words on it, exactly.  We laugh and run, we hold each other, sometimes we hurt each other, we are soaked with the waters of our baptism — and sometimes that’s shocking and freezing, but mostly it’s a joy, it is refreshing/renewing.  And we keep coming back to those waters to play, whether we’re 3 or 83... 

One of the newer hymns for Holy Trinity in our red hymnal is called “Come, Join the Dance of Trinity”.  Here is a modern hymn writer, shifting away from an explanation of the mystery of the Trinity—not in a heretical way—but rather imagining us people of God as being interwoven with God, caught up in the “dance” of the Trinity...I would say, reveling in the jumping fountain of our Triune God.  

Like that fountain in Kansas City, we can’t really figure out the pattern of God, but that doesn’t matter.  That’s not our job.  

All we can do is bask in God’s splendor and beauty.  Feel God’s love drench us and chill us, and hold onto one another.  This is life in the swirling, jumping Trinity!  We can’t ever fully put our finger on it.   And so we play and enjoy and try; we are helped today by a poem in Proverbs, a psalm, by Paul, and the Gospel of John, by our prayers and several hymn writers, through the text of our liturgy, and a sermon, and the gift of bread and wine.  

Friends, we are drawn together into the life of our unfathomable, “immortal, invisible God, only wise.” We revel in the mystery, we dance in the Trinity, we are swept up, soaked and filled with joy, as our praises today reach the rafters and our spirits soar in thanksgiving!  

To our Triune God be the glory, forever and ever!  AMEN. AMEN. AMEN.

June 9 -- Pentecost Sunday

It is so hard to do Pentecost again, isn’t it?  I mean, in our ordered, structured, controlled and many ways comfortable lives, our Confession and call to worship — more poetic, today — I think, kind of nailed it:  “So we listen, depart, and return to our ordered existence: we depart with only a little curiosity but not yielding; we return to how it was before, unconvinced but wistful, slightly praying for wind, craving newness, wishing to have it all available to us.”  (Those were the words of pastor, prophet and professor Walter Brueggemann.)

He concludes in that piece: “We pray toward the wind and wait, unconvinced but wistful.”  

With all that we have, why would we even need the Holy Spirit at Pentecost?  Right?  She just messes things up.

I mean the Acts story is kind of entertaining, we’re a little curious, but “shake us loose from lethargy, break the chains of sin asunder for earth’s healing set us free, crumble walls that still divide us, make us one in Christ our Lord” (all from verse 3 of the Hymn of the Day we’re about to sing) — that all sounds nice, but let’s calm down here, people: Pentecost is just a day for wearing red, maybe reading and singing in different languages...earth’s healing? crumbling walls? C’mon, Jesus — that’s too much, that’s too “out there”.  We’d rather remain “unconvinced but wistful.”

It’s hard to do Pentecost, isn’t it?  It’s hard to live Pentecost, and — what we in the church call — the Season after Pentecost.  Starting next week until Advent!  We’d rather just return to our ordered existence, only a little curiosity, but not yielding.

This is our dilemma:  It’s hard to yield.  It’s hard to let the Holy Spirit in, disordering, dismantling.

Couple years ago, I heard a story from a new friend about Emma.  I was at a training event in Chicago and met Jan, Emma’s pastor.  She told me about her larger-than-life little Emma, a 7-year-old member of this start-up congregation in suburban Kansas City.  

They had been gathering for only a few months, and they were just beginning another typical Sunday morning service with red hymnals like ours and synthesized organ on the electric keyboard, gathering at the font for the Invocation, the Call to Worship like we do.  Pastor Jan, offering the opening words in the Confession and Forgiveness.  And suddenly Emma says, “Stop!!”  See, they were worshiping in a storefront and one of the walls of their space was all window, and Emma was watching, and she saw that a new family had just arrived, running late with their baby in a stroller, but trying to be discreet.  Emma went running right through the gathering at the font and burst outside to throw her arms open and say, “Welcome!  We’re so happy that you’re here!  My name’s Emma!  What’s yours?”  (It happened to be a same-gendered couple.)  The congregation can watch this whole drama unfold through the glass, and within seconds, little, energetic Emma bursts back into the sanctuary, with her new friends and announces, a little winded now, “This is Anna and this is Julie, and this is baby Simon. [whew] Now we can start.”

When Pastor Jan told me this story, she ending by saying: “Best Call to Worship ever.”  

Crumbling walls, yes?  The gift of a storefront sanctuary, walls that are windows.  Or no walls at all.  I love when we worship outside in the pavilion, and what a gift it is to gather in a place where outsiders can be easily seen and welcomed in.  We have that too, in many ways, with our large narthex and multiple points of entry.  

This is doing Pentecost, and while it is hard, Christ fills us this day with courage and joy to go, and throw our arms open like Emma.  “Welcome, we’re so glad that you’re here!”

Another true story from the West Coast that happened in one of the congregations out in the desert.  Service was beginning.  It was a more traditional, established church, where people even dress up a bit for worship on Sunday (polo shirts).  And all the usual people were gathering and greeting one another, and in comes a very thin woman — we’ll call her Nora — she’s a white woman, but her tan skin is so dark and leathery that you can barely see the strange tattoos exposed by her tank-top, her hair is frizzy and tangled -- also beaten by the sun.  And her worn-out sandals are barely hanging onto her feet.  

The “greeter” — we’ll call her Joan — who is always the greeter and knows everybody who comes in by name (Joan’s even the type of person who knows personal details about just about every member), Joan sees this wild-haired, poorly dressed, age-worn woman coming in from the parking lot, and she immediately gets both nervous and suspicious.  “Hi...” she says to the visitor with a forced smile.  “Can we help you?”  

“Uh, yeah.” Nora’s starts, with a raspy voice from years of smoking, kind of peering into the past Joan toward the sanctuary, “Where are the service folders?” 

“Um,” Joan stops her.  Kind of looking over her shoulder.  In a hushed whisper, Joan offers some advice: “Maybe you’d be a little more comfortable at the church down the street.”  (Joan knows that St. James Episcopal, just walking distance, down on the corner really “specializes” in homeless ministry.)  “Maybe you’d be a little more comfortable at the church down the street.” 

“The hell I would!” says Nora, “I’m coming in.  I need to be here.”  And in she walks, finds the bulletin herself, takes a place in the one of the middle pews (nobody sits next to her), and proceeds to sing and participate enthusiastically...and off key through the service.  

The people remain nervous and suspicious, watching her out of the corner of their eye during worship. But Nora’s not going anywhere.    

[pause]

[slow] Friends, both Nora and Emma are Pentecost characters.  The Spirit bursts out to welcome the stranger and the outsider, and the Spirit sometimes is the outsider that’s “comin’ in!” “I need to be here,” Holy Spirit says, whether we’re comfortable with her or not.  

It is hard to do Pentecost, when we’re settled and comfortable, but friends in Christ, Pentecost is upon us.  We don’t get a say in it.  We have a God who blows out and blows in, with or without our permission or our parameters.  This God is with us and for us.  This God moves among us — sometimes we’re on board with her; many times, we’re ambivalent at best.  That doesn’t stop the Holy Spirit.  (In Greek and Hebrew the exact same word for spirit means wind or breath too.  Why do you think that is?)  

The Holy Spirit, she is wild: sometimes bubbly like young Emma, sometimes raspy and way off-key like old Nora.  Sometimes gathering us in, sometimes, breaking us out..of old ways and old suspicions.  This Holy Spirit is here in our midst today, and even while it is indeed hard to do Pentecost — to not just stay “wistful and unconvinced” — even while it is indeed hard to do Pentecost and this coming Season after Pentecost, the “What now? Season”...friends, the Spirit stays with us anyway.  The Holy Spirit in all her wildness rests even on our heads, burns our psyches, singes our egos, grants us visions and dreams, enables us to prophesy, that is say things that we would never imagine ourselves to be saying...and in all that, we are made free.  In other words, the Spirit moves us to yield.

She moves us to yield and sends us forth to serve in peace, for we are made free...whether we’re ready for this kind of freedom or not.  Pentecost is upon us.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.