February 28 -- Makes & Never Breaks (Lent 2B)

Grace to you and peace from God who makes and never breaks the covenant with us.  AMEN.

I’m looking this morning at our first lesson from Genesis.

Abraham and Sarah are given new names in the covenant that God makes and never breaks with them.

And we too are given new names in the covenant that God makes with us in holy baptism.  Share with the person in the room with you, or if you’re joining with us, share those special names we were given, no titles, no last names – just our naked and blessed first and middle original names.  For many of us that was the name spoken when we were baptized.

God makes a covenant with us.  And there are always two sides to a covenant.  

What is God’s side of the covenant?

God’s side of the covenant: to do the impossible –
giving Abraham and Sarah a child.  (Can you believe it?)
making this insignificant Iraqi couple the mother and father of today’s 3 major world religions.  Muslims, Christians and Jews all share the same ancestors: Abraham and Sarah! (Can you believe it?)
God’s side of the covenant: to do the impossible –
to forgive you all your sins and grant you newness of life.  
At the beginning of our worship every Sunday: we confess and receive this forgiveness of sins.
    (Can you believe it?)
 

Beloved, God’s word never fails.
The promise rests on grace:
by the saving love of Jesus Christ,
the wisdom and power of God,
your sins are forgiven and God remembers them no more.  Journey in the way of Jesus.  Amen.

Siblings in Christ, God always makes the first move.  Yesterday in confirmation: diagramming sentences...

But what about our side of the covenant?  Wrote a song about it..
“take up our cross and follow Jesus.”
-live among God’s faithful people
-hear the Word, celebrate the Meal
-proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed
-serve all people following Jesus’ example
-strive for Justice and peace in all the earth.
“take up our cross and follow Jesus.”

The cross we bear is the one that was streaked across our foreheads in our baptisms, on Ash Wednesday, whenever we touch water...

The key to both sides of the covenant: faith and trust.
God’s faithfulness.  And our trusting in God’s goodness.

With Luther, and for us as Lutherans, faith is a gift…so the key is really accepting faith/trust in God, which God gives us in baptism.

I can’t think of a better image of trusting in God than the image of offering our money…back to God.  Please, please don’t hear this as a fundraising drive.  I could care less about money-raising right now.  This is a deeply spiritual practice to take our income and lift a percentage of it up to God.  The offering was the original point of worship for the ancient Hebrews.  Abraham will learn this as the story in Genesis continues.  Worship is taking the best of what you have, what God has given you, and offering it up.  In his day, it was his best sheep.  In our day, it’s our money.  The offering is a symbol of trust, at the heart of our worship service, right in the middle, between the Word and the Meal.  Because our money is so important to us.  

A little while back I met with a group of pastors and we sat around and simply shared our own giving stories.  Basically, how do we practice offering our money.  

Where did we get our ideas about that.  
And I was inspired and a little shocked, to be honest –

…shocked because the stories I heard about faithful giving did not come off as pious or pompous they came off as inspiring – our bishop talks about how she kept tithing during a season of her life that was the most difficult, financially.  And she can move us to tears as she reflects on how...it was all about trust in God.  

 You too are examples of a people who have accepted the gift of faith, Bethlehem friends!  God gives us faith in our baptism.  It’s not something we have to earn or grow or manage.  It’s just offered freely to us.  And we turn and offer back to God, in so many ways.   

Lent is a time to reflect again on our tithes and offerings.  It’s one of the pillars of Lent: giving praying fasting.

You are examples of a people who have accepted the gift of faith!  Every time you open your hands and receive the bread and wine, you are opening yourselves to God’s guidance in your lives.  And that is inspiring and shocking too.  It is a symbol of that covenant made new in Christ Jesus who promises us forgiveness and ever-presence.

And here’s the thing:  God never breaks that covenant.  We might fall short, but God never breaks the covenant.  We might change, but God never breaks the covenant.  God always keeps God’s promises.  

God always keeps God’s promises.  And here’s the promise God makes to us on our Lenten journeys:  “I will be with you.  As you seek ways to live more faithfully, I will be with you.  As you continue to struggle to be honest about some wrong directions and decisions you’ve made in your life, I will be with you.  As you struggle to offer back to me,” God says, “what I have first given you, I will be with you.  As you struggle to receive this gift of faith, as you struggle to trust, I will be with you.  As you live out, struggle to live out, the covenant I made with you in your baptism, I will be with you.”  

These Lenten days can be very difficult, if we take them seriously, if we take up our crosses and follow.  To the rest of the world these days are just more busy days, routine days, nothing-special days in our lives (oblivious to the fact that all of this is a gift from God — all of this:  the paint on the wall, the raindrop from heaven, the air in my lungs — is a gift from God).  To the rest of the world these days are just more busy days, shaped by the news headlines and the retail sales.  But to us who struggle to follow Christ, to us who gather to be together and recognize that everything is a gift of God, to us who have opened our hands and received the gift of faith, we have a promise.  “Never will I leave you.  Never will that change.” Jesus assures, “Come, pick up your cross, lose your life today…and find it in me forever.”  AMEN.

February 14 -- That and More (TransfigurationB)

Some of you know I was a youth director before I went to seminary.  And during my time at Holy Trinity in Thousand Oaks, CA working with the junior high kids, a pastor came to serve that church, who I greatly admired.  He was only there for a short time as an interim.  But we know how even short stays with dynamic leaders can be such a gift (I’m thinking of Pastor Elijah here).  This new pastor was so kind to the people of that congregation.  He was very intentional in all of his conversations; he was very good at connecting people with one another; he visited the sick; he met with the youth kids; and he started up a small group program while he was there.  The church grew during his short time.  I knew this man as a kind and loving pastor, truly a shepherding spirit, caring for God’s people, loving them, feeding them with Holy Communion.  He was just so nice.

But the more I listened to his sermons and read his book, I started to realize that he was something more than just a nice, loving pastor.  This man was a prophet for justice and equality for all.  When he preached, it was like the prophet Amos or Isaiah standing in front of us, crying out on behalf of God for peace in our world and for the end of all oppression.  Like Moses, “Let my people go!”  He called us out on our self-centered, white-privileged ways, that fail to extend the same love that we’ve received to the margins: to the immigrant, the stranger, the outcast and the forgotten.  He even talked about justice for the earth and all the creatures of God!  It was the first time I had ever considered that the United States may just be the new Roman Empire, and he reminded us often about Jesus‘ ministry over and against...actually under...the most powerful nation in the world.  We squirmed uncomfortably in our pews, but something cracked me open and I saw him in a new way.   

God is calling us to be more than just a nice place and nice people that gather for worship once a week, he prophesied.  God is calling us to do more than just offer some charity to the poor, offer some generous handouts, down to those who have less.  All these things are good, but God is calling us, he would preach, to be about radical, systemic change, dreaming and risking it all for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, even if it means our lives.  And then he would kindly greet us with a handshake or a hug, always a nice smile, as we came out of the church at the end of our service.   

This pastor I’m talking about is George Johnson...of blessed memory.   He was my friend, he was nice, he was a gentle pastor...but at one point I suddenly started to see him in a new way too.  He was a fiery prophet calling for justice and change, challenging us to risk our lives and be actual disciples, followers of Jesus, not just safe, comfortable believers in Jesus.

As we look at our text today, and as we’ve been looking at the Gospel of Mark in this cold season, I think it can be easy and even tempting to conclude that Jesus is a just prophet for social justice and change.  That’s because he is.  Just like Pastor George was just a kind, loving guy.

Up to this point — Chapter 9 in Mark — Jesus has turned his world on its head with his love and care for the poor and the outcast, with his casting out the demonic systems and illnesses.  Bringing women and children to the center, touching and healing the ritually unclean, the bleeding, the dead, the foreigner.  I mean, he’s advocating truly universal health, education and equality for everyone.  It’s not a detached, complicated, sanitized spirituality with Jesus in the first 9 chapters of Mark.  He’s not hovering, esoterically; he’s rooted and radical and real.  It’s ministry on the ground, and in the trenches — tangible, immediate and welcoming.  Yes?  I’m always amazed how this social justice of Jesus gets suppressed and even denied, many times by Christians themselves, only seeing him as a spiritual savior of individual souls...rather than an incarnate savior of whole communities, particularly, especially those who are oppressed or overlooked.  Mark 1-9 reeks of Jesus’ radical justice agenda.

But, just like good ol’ Pastor George was more than just a nice, sweet pastor — which he was — there was more…

Jesus is more than just a prophet for social justice and radical welcome of the stranger and the outcast — which he is and always will be.  But there’s more...  

And in our text today, a few of the disciples (and us, by the way) get cracked open, and see Jesus in an even larger way.  

This isn’t about getting someone wrong, and suddenly seeing them in a totally new and different way.  (That happens too.)

But this is about getting a person right, but suddenly seeing them in an even more expansive way.  Setting our mind not just on earthly things but even more, on divine things.  

This prophet Jesus (he was such a prophet that some were mistaking him for John the Baptist and Elijah) — this prophet for social justice and change, was even more than that, friends in Christ:

This prophet was God’s own Son.  “Listen to him, listen to his agenda.”  All this stuff he’s been doing, is more than just earthly revolutionary activist-for-change behavior, upturning traditions and challenging assumptions...

(!) This is divine presence come down to be among us...to be for us, and for everyone.  Jesus is God’s Son.  What a way to end this season after Epiphany and move into Lent — with another Epiphany, a divine revealing:  “This is my Son, the Beloved.”  And then a command: “Listen to him.”  

Transfiguration is the mountain top experience of this time of the church year, before we drop down into Lent this week.  

Know that the one you follow, the one who brings children and women to the center, who heals the sick and the demon-possessed, who welcomes the outsider, even if their religion or their appearance is different...know that the one you follow, who calls and empowers the people of his time — and us — to imitate him in this radical business of  — not just donating — but moving aside and faithfully sharing.  Know that that one you follow isn’t just a human prophet for justice.  He’s even more: he’s God’s own Son.  He’s the salvation of the world.  He’s life eternal for you and for all.  He’s love everlasting.  He’s grace and peace that the world cannot give.  He’s freedom and joy.  He’s hope for the future and thanksgiving for the past.  He’s bread and wine, body and blood poured out for you and for...everyone...even the creatures.  He so loves this whole earth, that he gave his whole self away.  
Know that the one who heals the sick and raises the dead raises you too — right now! — from that which holds you down and hold you back from being the beloved child that God has created you to be.  Know that this prophet Jesus, is forgiveness of all your sins, all your self-centered behavior, all your ignorance and shame, and greed and envy.  GONE.  Jesus is God’s Son, not just a social prophet.  And you are made new today because of it!

Your slate has been wiped clean!  And you are being sent back out there, into this Lenten season, into this coming spring, renewed, hopeful, at peace, and ready to serve, pray, fast, and give (just like Jesus did).  

So let’s listen to him, siblings in Christ.  Let’s listen to him.  Let’s hold out our hands, and open our ears and our minds and our hearts, as we move off the icy and foggy mountain top, and listen.  For God’s own son has got something to say and something to give.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

January 24 -- Glitchy Zooms and Demons (After Epiphany 3B)

Friends, grace to you and peace from Jesus the Christ who calls you now.  AMEN.

I thought I had something earlier this week, and then yesterday a small handful of us (along with a few members of 3 other churches) gathered on a glitchy Zoom call and survived our way (and much more) through the entire Gospel of Mark!  

It’s something I like to do every new year with the congregation, at least, whoever is up for a very different kind of Saturday morning: reading the Gospel of the year aloud in its entirety, taking turns chapter by chapter.  And of course this year, it had to be virtual.  Our time “together” started very fragments, by trying to figure out how to hear and see each other.  A flurry of texts to get the meeting code again, computers muted, or not muted, video on, or not able to be on — I think even our most tech-savvy can relate to those days...At one point I as the host got bumped off the call, I thought I lost everyone, a few folks came in after we had started.  Somehow we managed it all.  There are definitely many worse things happening in our nation and our world right now, but to be honest, this felt like a little bit of a virtual storm, out in the sea of ministry.  
 

And then Jesus found us, and called us.

As we got into the chapters, I was again swept up by the narrative of God’s mercy, as different voices among us came through my speakers one way or another.  It was quite beautiful actually and incredibly powerful (pic).  

I shared with a friend yesterday afternoon, that every year, to be honest, I drag into this endeavor at the last minute.  I am deflated at that point where we start reading, all tangle up.  I try to build the event up, in the weeks before, but always when that Saturday morning actually rolls around, I envy everyone who is opting out of this, to be honest, as a small group is climbing with me into the saddle of another gospel reading.  This year was no exception...

And then, every year — every year, the Gospel is enough, the words are enough, more than enough, and I leave the experience always inspired, challenged, filled.  This year was no exception.  

And it’s changed my direction as I preach on this early section from Chapter 1, where Jesus shows up (out of the baptismal waters) and calls the disciples, where Jesus calls you and me.  

The Gospel of Mark is the gospel of exorcisms.  That’s what jumped out at me again and again as we read yesterday. 
 

Jesus — not just in stories where he casts out demons, of which there are many — Jesus is calling out and driving out the evil and the brokenness in the world and in the hearts of people all throughout the Gospel of Mark!  It is the Gospel of exorcisms!

The reading from Jonah today...is God having to send Jonah again.  After that whole dramatic whale episode that I imagine many of us learned in Sunday school — you know, God sends Jonah to Ninevah, he doesn’t want to go, jumps on a ship in the literal opposite direction, asks to be thrown overboard in a fit of guilt, gets swallowed by and lives in the belly of a giant fish for 3 days, then is spit up onto the shore and finally goes to Ninevah.  After all that!  He still doesn’t learn, he doesn’t think the people deserve God’s mercy, he still tries to run from it, and here in our OT text God is sending him again!  All that to say, we, like me in our online reading event yesterday, need God nudging us, calling us, sometimes dragging us, fishing us out from our own nets, and sending us too again and again and again.  

Why?  Because “we are the ones through whom our God is seen and heard.”

And the demons are not just overtly evil actions and intentions...like the terrorists we witnessed rushing up the steps and attacking the capitol on the Day of Epiphany, 3 weeks ago now.  That was pure evil, violence through word and deed...more and more stories of the brutality and sheer hatred are coming out.  The demons are not just that.  Nor are they just cruel words and back-handed comments, vengeful thoughts, secret schadenfruede (you know, the “pleasure derived by another’s misfortune”).  
 

The demons — as I realized in myself — are also our anxiety, our fear, our obsession with perfection, and our distrust that God’s got us now and always.  The demons are many and various and need an entire Gospel narrative to be named and finally cast out by Jesus.  

Yeah, I said perfection!  I want everything (and always want everything) to go perfectly.  Are you like that too, high achievers?  Mending nets that are broken, constantly so that, not only do they work, they also look good, present well, function most efficiently!  Jesus finds us there.  “Hey, follow me instead,” he says.  Let go of those nets.  
—
I am currently in our annual Bishop’s Academy — which is this year of course a Zoom call (for like 5 weeks on Wednesdays) — and we’ve got Dr. Ryan Bonfiglio of Cantler School of Theology — deep-dive-lecturing us on Sabbath.  This week he was reflecting on what it is we need sabbath, i.e. sanctuary, from:
productivity, efficiency, perfection, technology and orthodoxy.  Perfection really jumped out at me.  He talked about one (of 39) of the Old Testament Sabbath prohibitions is driving a hammer...and while that looks pretty easy on the surface to keep, the rabbis have taught for centuries that hammering a nail is clearly symbolic in Jewish tradition of finishing a job well.   

And I don’t know about you, but finishing a job right and well can absolutely possess me.  It can make me crazy.  Make me miss my own children’s needs, right under my nose, make me angry unfairly with my spouse, make me self-medicate, made me sleepless, make me dangerous on the road because of fatigue and distraction.  Make me say and do things that aren’t me, the list goes on...and that’s starting to sound like a demon.  Are these the nets from which Christ’s mercy calls us too, friends?  Perfection?

There’s a lot tangled in those nets: fear, anxiety, and finally that stumbling incompetence at entrust all this to God.  That’s what the deep spirituality of the Offering is, every Sunday.  That’s the disciples and us, dropping those nets and starting to take our first steps behind the Savior.  Try to trust.  Trying to walk free.

The Gospel of Mark is life-saving.  
It happened again yesterday: I thought I was drowning and yet Christ found me.  I thought everything was falling apart, and yet Christ calls us.  

As Amanda Gorman proclaimed from those same capital steps on Wednesday:
We've braved the belly of the beast
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn't always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished

Friends in Christ’s inauguration, in Christ’s call to discipleship, we begin our journey again.  And Jesus is the one who finishes the brokenness, the driving nail: Christ, the one who loves, who forgives, and who saves us all from the demonic nets.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

January 3 -- Love, love, love...John (Christmas 2B)

I’m so glad you’re here this morning, on this Second Sunday of Christmas!  This first Sunday of 2021!

I’d like to re-introduce the Gospel of John by sharing 5 ideas for you to watch for in John’s Gospel from now on…(good day to take notes)

As some of you know, our Sunday readings in church, our “lectionary” is organized into 3 years: Year A, Year B and Year C — Matthew, Mark and Luke, respectively.  We just began the new year of Mark the First Sunday of Advent, November 29th, remember that? New Year’s Day for the church year.  So, most of our Gospel readings this year will be from Mark.  I’m excited to do some comparative study of the Gospels in Bible study this winter and spring season, and so today, at the dawning of a new calendar year, I really wanted to look with you at the Gospel of John!  There is no Year of John...did you catch that?!  Why?  Because John is different.  John is deeply woven into all three lectionary years actually!  We’ll have whole seasons this year where we only read from John’s Gospel.  We’ll be into Mark soon enough and for the whole year, so let’s spend some time with John, starting at the very beginning:  One Johannine (Gospel of John) scholar said that everything you need to know about John is in this first chapter...
You need to understand that the Gospel of John’s on a very different plain, in a different orbit than the other 3 Gospels, and we’re in John world today!

just as a quick overarching image (if helpful) —

        John is like a mystical, French poet…

I don’t believe John wrote the Gospel: he painted it...with vibrant, rich, Parisian colors!  (Anybody ever been to Paris?  It’s so beautiful there, my thought was, “How could anyone not become an iconic artist or poet, living here?” Music, food, art…[mind blown])  And all of these extravagant eccentrics, vivid images and words, only lead us to the most glorious message of unrelenting Divine Love, pointing us faithfully to this one incarnate, Christ Jesus our Savior, the Word made flesh.   Welcome to the ineffable John’s Gospel!  (the center of the labyrinth)

The traditional, medieval image for the Gospel of John is the eagle.  Martin Luther said that John soars the highest in its view of Christ (God’s own self, come down to our pain-filled world).  In the US the eagle’s a symbol of freedom — and that certainly fitting here too, but remember that in the middle ages — the eagle was believed to be the only animal that could look directly at and actually fly to the sun.  The Gospel of John, more any other book in the Bible, describes God’s deep incarnation and love in such extreme, cosmic terms.  It’s too hard to put into words, really.  And so the artists, the musicians, the poets and the dancers among us must be convened.   

John is about experiencing God, not simply talking about God, or telling great stories about Jesus.  Just because you can’t quite describe it with language doesn’t mean you can’t reach it — in fact the opposite: IT REACHES YOU!  That is to know God’s grace and love in John’s Gospel.  It’s one thing to hear the Good News in church, it’s another to be lavished with a delicious meal, a warm bath, a soft robe, a glass of wine, the embrace of a dear friend.  (foot washing, oils, wine, water gushing)  Can you taste it, smell it, feel it?  There is this tactile — incarnational — quality to John’s witness!  And the images always point to extravagant grace, beauty and truth.  God abides, dwells, “moves into the neighborhood”...do you sense this fleshy flesh quality?

It’s pretty cryptic.  Because John was written in the late 1st/early 2nd century, Christians were under persecution, so the community that gathered around this Gospel was small, tightly-knit, deeply spiritual and therefore had lots of “insider” language.  Indeed, Jesus’ statements in John often seem pretty cryptic.  This doesn’t mean John is trying to be exclusive; it’s just that outsiders can’t understand.  One has to be brought in, from darkness of night, from the shadows of ignorance, into the light of truth.  From not knowing to knowing God.  It’s a major theme: knowing God.  “Come and see,” Jesus will say in John.
True for you?  Stories of being brought into the light of understanding?  Not excluded, just didn’t get it: for me, I think of the process of becoming a pastor, parent...

“John’s purpose was to strengthen the community with words that bear eternal life and love” (my New Testament Professor David Rhoads).  The very relationship Jesus has with God — which is intimate, loving, deep — is offered freely for you and me too.  And this changes everything: it is salvific! (x2)  John’s Gospel guides us into this relationship, dripping with abundant life and grace.  

Think Beatles’ song “Love, Love, Love” on both Christmas Day and Good Friday:
Jesus on the cross in John’s Gospel is love, love, love — that’s why we read John on Good Friday.
No infant, baby Jesus stories.  Just radiant light: i.e. grace abounding, love overflowing.  Then we launch into John the Baptist’s pointing (v.19)…

For John’s Gospel everything is sacramental.  Interestingly, there’s no Last Supper, i.e. Passover, in John!  They do share a meal where Jesus “sheds light” and washes their feet the day before the Passover and tells them/us to love one another.  In this way, John opens all creation up to become a cornucopia of images that bear the love and divine mark of God.
Drinking water, talking late at night, celebrating at a wedding, all eating, shepherding, gardening…
Do you see all things as sacred?  Or just churchy stuff?  Do you see the God-made-manifest-in-Jesus overflowing in the cooing of an infant, the well-wishes of Christmas cards from distant family, a walk with your dog, the incredible smell of fresh strawberries, a hot tub, or pain in your belly from laughing until you cry?  All of it sacrament.

Jesus. Is. God.  This truth, one may argue, can be a little more vague in the other Gospels, but John hammers home Christ’s absolute divinity.  And this “God from God, Light from Light” (Nicene Creed) has come to dwell with and love us...even here, even now.

It’s a different kind of Christmas message, it’s not as scratchy and rustic and local as Luke’s version.  John’s Gospel is smooth and ethereal and mysterious like incense or a candle flame or a glorious high-flying eagle, or a sunrise sky.    

And whether you identify with this Gospel or that, it’s all just God’s way of trying to get through to us.  

Don’t appreciate it in John’s cosmic, esoteric terms?  Then how about Luke’s gritty on the ground version of a poor teenage, immigrant, outsider mother; a smelly stable; farmers with calloused hands, sheep herders with alcohol on their breath?  Not that way either?  Too scratchy?  How about the more geo-political dynamics of international rulers and astrologists traversing the great deserts, and resisting the bully, immature, filthy rich King Herod (who liked to put his name on everything) in order to pay homage to the true king with gold, frankincense and myrrh...in Matthew’s Gospel?  Or...let’s learn together this new year about God’s grace, trying to reach us through Mark’s Gospel...  

See all of these are God angling this way and that to get the message across that we are loved and that we are not in this life by ourselves.  God makes a way and gets this grace and peace, and social justice and righteousness, and forgiveness and love through to us.

See it, hear it, feel it, taste it.  Mercy is ours.  Mercy is here.  Love has come.  All we can do, like the shepherds and the wisemen and the “disciples who know” is adore the brilliance that shines in the darkness, the Word that is made flesh.  All we can do is celebrate Christmas in spirit and in truth.  Deep in our hearts, with our whole bodies in how we love and treat one another and God’s earth.  All we can do is praise God.  

My favorite German mystic poet Rilke puts it like this, and I conclude: 
“Praise, my dear ones.  Let us disappear into praising.  Nothing belongs to us.”  

AMEN.

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

Grace to you and peace…

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

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

We have to spend some time with Isaiah during Advent.  H is very Isaiah-like in my little real-life illustration...entering the scene, post-dust-up to bring us back together.  
—
I know I’ve talked a bit about not sentimentalizing (or sanitizing) the nativity — porcelain figures, frozen in perfection on our Christmas shelves and mantles (I read about that in our Advent devotion “Low” on Wednesday evening...)  Maybe a similar thing can happen here with Isaiah’s famous text, because of Handel’s Messiah. (How many got that in your head, when it was read? ...which I love as much as anyone, btw!)  But let’s not miss Isaiah’s grit and context, for the glorious, holiday, royal chorus.  There’s even more to it!...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AUDIO HERE

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

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

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

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

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

[pause and slowly]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

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

Invite you to turn to the person you’re in the room with, or text somebody who needs to hear it: “You are a saint of God, and God’s glory and love shines through you.” Now look in a mirror, or put your phone camera on yourself so you can see yourself, make the sign of the cross on your own forehead and say, “You are a saint of God, and God’s glory and love shines through you.” AMEN.
—
At the core of our Lutheran faith is the idea that we are all made saints in our baptisms.  Have you heard this before?  That we are all saints?  We don’t have to die…or labor in Calcutta to be a saint.  Do you believe that?  Do you believe that you are a saint of God and that God’s glory and love really shines through you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 11 -- Showing Up (Pentecost 19A)

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

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

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

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


—


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

August 30 -- Come, Die With Us (Pentecost 13A)

 Last week Jesus calls Peter “the Rock”.  He lifts him up, promises him the “keys to the kingdom”, says, “upon this rock I’ll build my church.”  Jesus has Peter feeling pretty good, I imagine. This week (only 8 verses later) Jesus calls Peter “Satan.”  What happened?

Peter probably wanted to take his titles and honor and blessings from Christ and just enjoy them (just for a second...just 8 verses, Jesus?); Peter wants to  “take the money and run,” so to speak.  

But then Jesus instructs Peter — and all of us — in the ways of discipleship.  This is a calling — once we acknowledge Christ as the Messiah, once we make our bold statement of faith, like Peter, this is a call — to take up our cross, this is a call to come and die.  Peter wanted to hinder that.  He wanted to block it.  “Say it isn’t so, Lord.”

I wondered about putting “Come Die With Us” on our digital sign out front. [pause]  I wonder how fast this church would grow.  

This Gospel passage from Matthew, that is before us today, is terrible marketing.  It does not make people feel good.  It’s frightening, and confusing and, frankly, not the way most people are going to choose.  “I don’t want to come die with you, Lord.  I want to enjoy the Rock, the church.  I want to enjoy the comfort of being in your presence.  I want to enjoy knowing that my soul is safe with you.  I don’t want to suffer.”

"If any want to become my followers [though],” Jesus said, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake [and for the sake of the Gospel] will find it.”

Christ calls us to give ourselves away for this world. [pause]

How are you, how are we, giving ourselves away for this world?  In a world and a culture that says, “No, protect yourself and your dearest ones!  Don’t give yourself away!  That’s stupid.”   

But Christ bids we come.  We give ourselves up.  And as D. Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ bids we come, he bids we come and die.”

[How am I doing here, btw?  As I wrote this I found myself wanting to add lots of jokes and humor to this passage.  That’s a defense mechanism.  A little sugar coating...to take the edge off.]

How is Christ calling you to lose your life, to give yourself away for the world, to take up your cross and follow him?

It always needs to be said, when we reach this passage each year, about bearing your cross, it needs to be said that your “cross to bear” is never to be the recipient of some sort of abuse.  [pause]  I interject with that, because I’ve heard and met people who say that their pastor or priest told them that they ought to be silent and bear the physical/emotional/spiritual abuse of their spouse or parent or church because that’s simply their “cross to bear”…like “Well, we all have our crosses to bear.”  Being the recipient of abuse is never someone’s cross to bear — for that is not giving yourself away for the world for the sake of the Gospel, that is not being the truest you for the world that God created you to be, and that this world, this community, this family needs you to be.  God didn’t mold us for abuse and violence — not recipients of abuse & violence and not perpetrators of abuse & violence.  Let’s all work to stop that.

Our “cross to bear” is that cross that was traced on our foreheads in our baptisms.  It was traced with oil as a symbol of a sealant.  And it gets traced again with ashes each springtime, at the beginning of Lent.  It is the cross under which we live, and under which we die.  [Do you remember that cross?  Is it still there?  Trace it again, just to make sure you know it’s there.]  
It is that cross that says we belong to Christ — it’s a branding — Christ who we boldly confess as Messiah, along with Peter.  

And having had that cross sealed on our foreheads, having made that bold confession, we now go, into the deep and pain-filled valleys of this life, into the fear, and the storms that rage all around us.  That is, back into our labor — the courtrooms, the newsrooms, the classrooms, operating rooms, the living rooms and dining rooms and bedrooms of our daily lives.  We seek out the places where there is pain, and we go there, to give ourselves away, to be agents of God’s grace.  I had a wise colleague who pointed out when we were struggling together with this text: “You know when God asks us to come and die, you can’t really die just a little bit.  When you die, you die.  It’s all or nothing.”  So when Jesus calls us to come and give our selves away, he’s asking for every part of you!  He doesn’t say, I’ll take your 1:30 minutes each week.  I’ll take whatever you have leftover in your wallet.  I’ll take—if it’s not putting you out too much—your volunteer time for my cause.  Jesus doesn’t say that!  Christ bids we give our whole selves away, that we die to the things of this world.

And maybe that means you need to rethink everything...I don’t want to shy away from that possibility.  Maybe God is calling you, or us, to rethink everything! — to re-shape our whole lives in response to Christ’s call.  That’s really frightening for those of us, who are settled, and on track.  [Dad’s experience in Norway — freedom of not having roots down, no stakes in the ground.]  Maybe God is calling you to rethink and reshape everything in your life.  Maybe it’s time for a brand NEW start, a life that is in line with God’s call to give yourself away.  Dangerous words today, on one hand.  

But I would suspect—and I know—that many of us are not thinking we’re completely off track with God’s purposes for our lives.  I would suspect that many of us have been trying to follow Christ in our daily lives...many for a long time.  

Then I would encourage you to welcome this message as a wake-up call.  Sometimes we sleep through our alarms from God.  Let this be a wake-up, “Hey, where is God calling you to give yourself away in what you do, in where you are, in who you are?”  

The church has failed somehow, I think, in talking about vocation, in talking about “having a calling” as only something pastors or professional church people get.  (Were you taught that somehow?  I hope you weren’t.)  What’s your calling/vocation?

Martin Luther said that every single person has a calling from God...from the maid scrubbing the floor, to the shoemaker.  (Those were Luther’s examples.)  God calls us all to do what we do and do it, as well as we can, for the sake of the world, to the glory of God.  [pause]  Let your dishwashing be a prayer; let your lesson-planning be a psalm; let your tile work, or your lab research or your carpentry or investment baking or your parenting or your caring for a aging parent be a hymn to God’s glory, for the sake of the world.  [pause]

Our work can be very hard — we give ourselves away in it, and today we’re given a booster shot to give ourselves away even more.  Wash dishes for someone else, give away some of your labor or your research, or your craftsmanship.  Do something creative (in the COVID world) to help care for and nurture someone else’s child or aging parent, in addition to your own.  Giving ourselves away for this world, in response to Christ giving himself away for you: this is your cross to bear.

A great task for us all, as Labor Day approaches.  God calls all of us into this holy labor.  Dangerous words today, on one hand.  But on the other hand...

Jesus promises us, that in losing our lives — in giving our lives away for the sake of the other — we actually find our selves and find our lives...

Let’s go find ourselves...for we have been found by Christ, buried with Christ.  We’ve been imbedded in God’s healing and forgiving love all along!  That cross is a tree, you see; that cross of death...is a cross of life.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

August 23 -- A Chip Off the Old Rock (Pentecost 12A)

At the beginning of a new school year, however new that looks this unprecedented school year, at the end of August, beginning of September...it’s time to go back to the basics.  Can’t start a new school year without going back to the basics, reviewing where you came from – your multiplication flashcards, the alphabet, the writer’s handbook, the periodic table, Gray’s Anatomy, in seminary it was the dictionary of theological terms and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.  

Pick your level and your discipline, but you can’t start a new year without remembering where you came from.  And this week, our lectionary texts are practically synched up with the same idea:  We can’t start anew without remembering where we came from.  It’s time to go back to the basics…back to the building rocks.  Molecules and cells.  Letters and grammar.  Numbers and formulas.  Theories and cases.

And today in church:  Who we are and whose we are.  Where we have come from…and then who is this Jesus?

Our first church lesson from Isaiah calls us, especially in times of trial, to “look to the rock from which you were hewn, the quarry from which you were dug.  Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you.”

Siblings in Christ, we are called back to the basics this late date in August: we are called to remember that we all come from the same rock.  What an image:  God shaped us and molded us from a common rock, dug us up and breathed into each of us.  We trace our ancestry of faith back to Abraham and Sarah, back to Adam and Eve, back to the very hands of God.  “Look to the rock from which you were hewn.”  The mighty fortress, who is our God.

How…we…can…forget…that we came from God.  How we can run and hide, and deny and evade.  And joke.  How our memories can be short-term, tracing our ancestry of faith back only one or two generations (back to Pennsylvania or Iowa or Sweden or Puerto Rico or Sierra Leone)…but not hundreds and thousands of generations.  

But let’s get back to the basics today: It is the Living God who chiseled away at our being, and who continues to chisel away at us, who dug us out of the dirt and gave us this holy life, this sacred earth, and who continues to dig us out of the quarry: out of our despair, our guilt, our brokenness and our sorrow.  It is the living God who refashions, remolds us, puts us back together (i.e. remembers), breathes into us new life again, and now, today, sets us free.  It is the living God who set the heavens in their places and filled the seas with creatures.  [We can start sounding like psalmists when we go back and start reflecting on the basics!]

May we be psalmists this week as we begin anew, even if you’re not getting back into the virtual classroom, like our children and teachers will be very soon, may we be like little psalmists singing God’s praises and wondrous deeds with our thoughts and actions.  We have been resuscitated by the living God, brought to life again and now again!
--
And now, having been brought back, this God asks us a question.  “Who do people say that I am?” Jesus probes his followers.

Kind of a timeless question.  People are still talking about Jesus today, saying/writing who he is, or who he is not, or at least who he was.  [Albert Schweitzer] Pick your context and your camp, and off you can go with things to say about Jesus.  I think many, many people in our post-Christendom, post-modern American culture today believe that Jesus was just a prophet, like the disciples said, just a radical activist—who was executed for advocating love of the poor and the outcast, violating Jewish laws and undermining Roman authorities.  Compelling stories, but he lived long ago, and is pretty much irrelevant today, other than being yet another inspirational role model who we could never fully imitate.  [Temple of Self Realization in Malibu]  

Others think he was just a super-nice pastor who wants to be your best friend in spirit.  Not so sure about how radical his activism was, the point of Jesus, some say, is just to have a personal relationship with you.  “I just want to be with you.”  I had some friends that used to call that “Jesus is my boyfriend” theology.  
If you can replace the word “boyfriend” for “Jesus” in your songs or your prayers, and it starts to sound like a love song, you might be in danger of “Jesus is my boyfriend” theology.  “I just want you to be with me, Jesus.  I just want you all to myself, Jesus.  Don’t leave me, Jesus.”  Where, it’s only about a personal relationship.

Meanwhile I had a professor in seminary who really disliked the song, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” because he thought it had misled generations of Christians to shortchange the Church’s confession about who Jesus is.  (Peter didn’t confess Jesus as his friend.)  Of course Jesus is a friend, and I don’t mean to undermine or make light of that relationship.  But as disciples of the One who came to earth to take on our flesh—who ventured through the pain-filled valleys of our existence, offering both life-giving healing and life-changing challenges, who suffered death, not just for his friends but for this whole world, and then rose from the dead to have the last word over death and evil—we must stand and confess a whole lot more than “he’s just my special friend” or just an inspirational figure in history!  Amen?

Friends in Christ, we join with Peter, and confess Jesus as the Messiah, the anointed one—THE ONE, sent from God, AND YET VERY GOD, God from God, Light from Light, True God from true God (as the old Nicene Creed helps give us words for what is beyond words).  

Sisters and brothers in Christ, we join with Peter, and go back to the basics today, as we too confess Jesus, the rock of our salvation, yes friend, yes radical activist for the poor and the outcast, yes Son of the Living God, yes God in the flesh before our eyes in this Word, in this Holy Communion, in these holy waters of Baptism!  In you.  Yes Jesus lived long ago, and yes Jesus lives now.  

Our confession is great, like Peter’s.  And in making this bold confession that we do, do you know what we become?  

A chip of the old block.

A chip off the old block is what we are, people of God!  A chip off the old ROCK.  A chip off the old rock that is God.  We are a chip off of God.  Broken and shared for the sake of the world, that’s what we are: fractured and forgiven, but sent out for many.  [Imperfections on the rock you’re holding? Fractured and forgiven.]

Siblings in Christ, lest we forget who we are and from whence we come:  WE ARE THE CHURCH, THE BODY OF JESUS CHRIST, and we’re about to chip off into this world!  That’s not a bad thing!

Peter’s confession becomes our confession, and so Jesus is beyond just friendly, relevant or inspirational:  Jesus is necessary!  For without him, for us who are of his flock, his disciples, his followers, we have no life…

Without him, we have no life.  Our life is in Christ.  That’s lesson number one, back to the basics.  Except this is more than a lesson, this is a gift!  And this gift is ours for free!  Nothing you can do to earn it, or precede it, for that matter.  All we can do is accept it.  All we can do is put out our hand and receive it.  God’s grace, life in Christ, poured out for you.  Let’s start with that.
—
And so now what?  God’s done the work, given the gift, now we just get to be the church.  And Paul’s letter to the Romans speaks to this and gives us further instruction:  “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.  Don’t be [chiseled, molded into the ways of] this world, but [continue to be chiseled by God], be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.”

Is it God’s will that children go hungry or get separated from loved ones...or is God chiseling away at us when we see that?  That refugees be rejected?  That species go extinct and air polluted, that communities suffer with illness and isolation, that wars drag on?  Is it God’s will that you continue to live in fear, burdened by anger, guilt, sorrow, or resentment?  Or is God chiseling away at us?  Molding us, fashioning us to be a chip of the old block that is God.

Friends in Christ, BACK TO THE BASICS: we are the church, and God is still chiseling.  Still working, still calling us, molding us, still tapping away at this world…

Sculpting a way for peace…the peace that passes all human understanding.  Praise be to Jesus, the Messiah.  AMEN.          

—
Our hymn of the day is “Goodness is Stronger than Evil” — back to the basics, and yet, far from elementary, it’s the heart of our faith, and it carries us.  These words come most directly from the pen of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who cuts through the static, and all the ugliness of apartheid and racism, and gets at the heart of the matter.  The melody comes from a Christian monastic-style community on an island in Scotland called Iona.  A composer in that basic and harsh setting—rocks, wind, sea, sky—set the Archbishop’s powerful words to music for us to sing.