March 14 -- Snakes on a Pole (Lent 4B)

 

Deep into Lent are we, and it’s clear that something is coming, as we gather around the images and stories and lessons for today.  Something is being forecast with our readings for today…particularly this strange OT reading about the Israelites in the wilderness...  

There is a cross coming into view, albeit perhaps fuzzy right now:  Through our lessons, particularly our Old Testament readings these past weeks — the covenant and the rainbow of Noah, the promise to Sarah and Abraham, the 10 commandments, now we’re still in the wilderness of our Lenten journey, it might be foggy, might be rainy, but — a cross is starting to come into view.  We’re not there yet.  Today, it’s this strange, gruesome image of a serpent on a pole…

This OT lesson is worth recounting because it is a snapshot of the entire Old Testament pattern… in Bible Study: “God blesses, people mess up, God gets angry, people repent…”  See that here?  They’re in the wilderness – free at last (God blesses) but complaining and tired, they want to go back.
Moses reminds them of the food and how far God has brought them “we hate the food”, we would rather be back there! (people mess up) God gets angry, sends serpents to bite them.

The people cry out for help. Moses petitions God for the people.  God give them the snake on a pole.  And those who look to it are healed. (God blesses)

It is a curious story.  And it’s in our lectionary because of our Gospel reading.  Because Jesus in the Gospel of John makes a reference to it:  “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Humanity be lifted up.”  Same effect:  Those who look to him are healed.

There is a cross coming into view.  

But let’s stay with the OT story in the wilderness.  Snake’s on a pole.  God getting angry.  I think this story is amazing.  It’s entertaining on one level, in its strangeness.  But I laugh at it mostly because I can totally relate to complaining in the wilderness.  “We hate the food.”  (NRSV: “We detest this miserable food.”)  They of course are referring to manna, the holiest of holy bible food...next to the body and blood of Christ, of course.

Do you ever feel like the Israelites in the wilderness, wanting to go back to the way things used to be?  Sure it wasn’t perfect back then, but at least it was better than this?


If we had a nickel — for every time we heard somebody say (or thought it ourselves): if only we could go back to the way it used to be.  In other words, “We hate the new food.  Why, when I was growing up...”

I laugh when I read this text mostly, I’m afraid, out of discomfort, because it so aptly hits the nail on the head.  “God, why did you bring us to this point?!  We hate it.”
“God why did you bring us to this point in our lives?  WE hate it.  We detest this misery.”

And then all of a sudden…SNAKES!  In a recent poll of “Things We’re Afraid Of,” 36% of Americans list snakes as #1.
—
Any chance those snakes are a gift?  Like a sharp tone in your mother or father’s voice – a sharpness you never heard before, and frankly it hurts.  There’s a bite to it.  

Any chance those snakes are a gift?  When we’re longing for the past, we’re not fully in the present because of that?  But as soon as you’ve got a snake slithering toward you, man, you’re right in the moment!   Your head is pulled right out of the clouds of the past, and all your senses are in tact – adrenaline, reflexes all as sharp as your body is possibly able.  You are alive—that’s what adrenaline junkies are all about.  “Never felt more alive, man!” is what they say.

Any chance those snakes were a gift?  God snaps us out of our natural default position to complain (which we often do from the easy chair), to long for something more (especially when we’re relatively safe and wondering “well, how can we get safer”), our natural default position to get nostalgic about the past, to burrow in to what we know…

God snaps us out of that with a bite, a sting, a harsh tone.  And then with adrenaline pumping, sticking us right smack in the present moment…

…Mercy.  Grace.  Healing comes.  Salvation (salvus).

Sometimes we need that jolt to remind us that God is the one who brought us here, God is the one who has never left us.  And God is the one who will bring us to the promised land.  Sometimes we need that jolt, because we forget.  Ever seem like we say the same thing in church, week after week?  Because we forget (people mess up) that God has brought us here, that God is the one who has never left us, that God will bring us to the promised land at last.  

But there’s a cross coming into view.  For Christians, gotta go past the cross to get to the empty tomb.  

Anyone who’s gone through surgery knows that pain comes before the healing.  (By the way, the serpent on the pole, of course, is the medical symbol.)  Those who look to the serpent will be healed.  It’s not an idol.  If the people think that the snake itself (or the cross itself, for that matter) is the cause of the cure, then it becomes an idol.  But if they look to it as a reminder of the mercy and providence and presence of God, then it becomes a holy symbol.  If they look through the bronze serpent, just as we look through the cross of Christ, then it is healing.  In even and especially the most gruesome and strange symbols—a snake on a pole, a bloody cross—God’s love is poured out, and not just for us, but for all, as John 3 tells us:  “God so loved the cosmos.”    

The cross is coming into view!  It gets harder before it gets easier.  In that truth there is grace, there is relief, there is healing.  There is salvation.  

And even here in the wilderness, friends in Christ, Jesus is our rock.  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 6 -- The Tough Conversations and Jesus

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus takes it.

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

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

August 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.

July 26 -- Baseball and the Realm of Heaven (Pentecost8A)

This year of Major League Baseball has been tough.  Even with the games that are being played now, there’s clearly this cloud over the whole experience, with the empty stands, the canned recordings of crowds cheering, elbow bumps and air high-5s.  I don’t know about you, but I’m concerned for the players’ health.  Beforetimes: the only ones wearing a mask — in the whole stadium — were the catcher and the umpire!

If you’re anything like me, baseball is one of those things that’s down in the bones.  And to not have it, is like a part of me is missing.  Football fans you’ll be feeling my pain soon enough, I’m afraid.  I know it’s a privileged thing to talk about this pain, with so many other things going on.  (And I’m definitely not advocating opening baseball to go back to how it was, pretending like the world hasn’t changed.) I’m just bein’ honest with my grief here: I really miss the game, down in my soul.

So we try to make the best of it.  Some, I know, are trying to look at this year as some kind of building year or sabbath, studying up on the young players with high hopes for next year.  Making the best of this beat-up, half season.

I’ve wondered about a different coping strategy.  I’ve kind of “gone inside my baseball self”, and I’ve slowly been watching my way again through, the great Ken Burns documentary entitled “Baseball”.  Anyone seen it?  It’s 11 episodes, over 2 hours each episode, about the history of the American pastime.  And I love it!  I’ve gotten teared up watching the sections on Jackie Robinson becoming the first African American player to enter the league, Lou Gehrig’s last speech, or interviews of fans and historians recalling their feelings when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.

It’s actually an incredibly rejuvenating and uplifting experience for me.  And in the course of watching these episodes, I continue to come across metaphors, words and images, that are helpful in articulating why baseball means so much to me.  Baseball is like community [yeah!]; it’s about sacrificing one for the good of the whole [yeah!]; it’s like refuge from the world; one commentator in the film said that baseball’s “action is in the absence of action”; it’s about losing – even the greatest hitters are successful only a small percentage of the time; it’s about staying the same, through the turmoil of change; it’s about the past, and it is pastoral.”

I don’t always have the words for why baseball is so special, so ethereal, to me...and I’m reminded how we depend on the help of metaphors and images, words.

In our Gospel text this week, Jesus uses words and images, metaphors to articulate to the people of Matthew’s day—not what baseball is like, but what the realm of heaven is like.  Jesus uses things of this earth to give us an idea of the very things of heaven.

In Matthew’s time, the image of a pearl found in a field was big deal, a net overflowing with fish made a lot of sense – these were things that never happened, but things that people could easily see in their mind’s eye, and so these images had Christ’s listeners sitting up and celebrating, their imaginations coming alive...like a Sunday afternoon at the park for me.

Perhaps those metaphors don’t have quite the same effect for us today?

How would Jesus compare the realm of heaven now?

It’s like a perfectly executed double play, like a Roberto Clemente clutch home run, or a Sandy Koufax strike-out.

Or perhaps the baseball images aren’t effective for you...

What metaphors might Jesus use to reach your ears?  The realm of heaven is like a nap in a hammock after a long and trying meeting.  TROHI like getting a raise.  TROHI like getting the perfect compliment.  TROHI like a cool sip of ice tea in the shade, on a humid, Virginia, summer day.  TROHI like a reconnection with a beloved friend, where you realize that time and distance hasn’t separated you at all.  The realm of heaven is like joining hands with all those you love and singing grace before a great meal.  How we miss that, these days!

Today we stop, wherever we are, and reflect on the Word of God, the word of life (as we say each week about these scriptures).  And we are blessed by a Gospel text that fires images at us, words, almost too quickly to catch them all, “like scenes glimpsed through the windows of a fast-moving train” (BBTaylor).  Mustard seed, yeast, treasure, pearl, net full of fish.

I think Jesus does this on purpose…for the realm of heaven hard to pin down to one image, it’s hard to articulate, like my feelings about baseball.  And so we look to words and images of things that are before us – sunsets and smiles and cool drinks and small victories – to point to things that are beyond us.  No image nails it perfectly: God’s holy and loving reign, come down on earth to us.

But even if our language may come up short and incomplete, we realize that God has put so much right before us.  And it’s so good, in fact, that we can even say that the stuff of earth is like stuff of heaven!
The kingdom of heaven is like…a baseball game…a getting together with friends…a warm quilt…a slice of fresh bread...

Indeed the Realm of God is not to be found in metaphors of lofty places, like golden castles in the south of France, or Crater Lake National Park (!), but what’s striking about what Jesus is doing here is he’s using images that are right in front of us, things that we can all imagine quite clearly: fields and fish, everyday women and men, bread.  Parts of our daily routines, eating, working, getting by, being in nature.  Things here and now.  Those simple things are what the realm of heaven is like!

That strikes me on this journey I’m on with my family, this cross-country, work-from-the-road trip.  You know, lots of friends and family, some of you, have been writing and proclaiming to me on this trip, “You’re in God’s country now” — depending on your roots and preferences and experiences, Colorado is God’s country, Wyoming is God’s country, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, those glorious red rocks and formations of Utah, Crater Lake, some even said no, Nebraska is God’s country :)

But we don’t have to go to those glorious places to get a taste of heaven.  God shows us what heaven is like in simple things, what’s right in front in front of you.
In this holy space and time of worship, from wherever you are sitting, and not just there, where we worship: but all through this holy world!

God’s kingdom is right here for us!  It’s not something that we must build or create, or search for, or drive across the nation to see, it’s already here for you, in your midst.  The kingdom of heaven is in your midst, Jesus keeps saying in the Gospels.  The simple joys: the breath of fresh air, the cool breeze through the trees, the song of the bird, an honest day’s work, the sweat of the brow.  The warmth of this family of faith.  The gift of this day:
Thanks be to God, thy kingdom has come.

May God continue to give us the wisdom to see this realm come, here and now.   May God continue to give us the creativity of language and metaphor to help one another name this kingdom come, and may God give you the peace and the openness of heart to enjoy this realm of heaven starting today, right where you are, and into eternity.  Play ball!  AMEN.

July 19 -- From Star Wars to Barn Dances (Pentecost 7A)

Will you pray with me: God of the harvest—give us your patience, give us your peace, give us your word.  Amen.

I love the Star Wars movies.  I love the special effects, the story, the humor, the characters.  I grew up watching them.  I had the action figures.  You could say I was a big fan.  And I still love Star Wars today.

But like many movies, Star Wars makes the good guys and the bad guys very easily distinguishable.  In case you’re not sure, you can tell who’s good and who’s bad by the color of their uniforms and also by what kind of music is playing when they’re on screen.  [sing the famous Darth Vader tune] It’s pretty easy.  And despite an intergalactic stage, the division between good and evil is pretty simple.  The good guys are here, the bad guys are there.  We are not they, and they are not we.  We are of God, they are of the devil.

But the world, in which we live, is not quite that clear cut, is it?  [pause] Reality is not quite as simple as the Star Wars movies.  God’s world is wonderfully messy…but that means it’s messy.

Many theologians and thinkers through the years have offered alternative, more complicated models to this simplified, Star Wars-like worldview.

Is it possible, theologians have wondered, that every person is both good and bad at the very same time?  Is it possible that good resides in the hearts of evil people.  And that evil resides in the hearts of good people?  And so good people and evil people are suddenly much more difficult to distinguish.

Martin Luther of course talked about this, when he spoke of the Christians’ “sinner-saint” status, that is, those who believe and follow Jesus are both sinners and saints.

Isn’t that confusing?  To think that we are each horribly evil, and at the very same time, very good…for indeed we are all exalted creatures of God’s good creating! (In fact, Imago Dei is the name of the Zoom series our Synod is doing right now!)

And to make it more complicated, sometimes it’s even difficult to differentiate which is the sinful part and which is the saint-ful part in our thoughts and actions.  Evil certainly has a way of disguising itself, getting between and around our good deeds, just like weeds around the wheat. I read a book a some years back called The Seven Deadly Virtues, which was all about just how sneaky evil can be.


Biblical scholars tell us that, interestingly, the kinds of weeds that grew in the wheat fields of the ancient Mediterranean require a very skilled eye to tell which is which as they grow.  So that’s what Jesus was talking about.

In this Gospel text, we are left with an elusive question:

Who is the evil one, the devil, or the children of the evil one?  Can we pin point them, the weeds?  Can we at least point to a group of people or a series of events, and say, “Now there, there is evil,” and be done with it?  Or is it more messy?

With issues as weighty as good and evil, we can find ourselves, like the disciples of old wanting simple answers, crying out, “Explain this to us Jesus, so that we can make sure to be on the good side, on your side, and join your quest to rid the world of the evil ones!”

But Christ surprises us again and again.  And in the search to figure out who the weeds and the wheat are for us today, we might just find ourselves led down new paths…

For we hear this morning that it’s not our job to uproot the weeds, it’s not even our job to help, just like it’s not the servants’ job in the parable.
“Do you want us to go and gather the weeds?” the servants ask.  “No,” says the master, “that’s my responsibility.”

It’s ultimately the job of the Great and Mighty…[wait for it] *surprise* Gardener-Farmer to do the weeding.
Christ, the Gardner-Farmer.

One might even imagine a peaceful tone in his voice as he responds to the servants’ urgency and anxiety to destroy the weeds:

“No [calmly],” the Gardener-Farmer says, “do not gather the weeds; for in gathering them you would uproot the wheat as well.  Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”  After all, this is same teacher, earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, who uttered these challenging but grace-filled words: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”  “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  And — probably the most challenging three words in the entire Bible: “Love your enemies.”

Indeed Matthew is not portraying a teacher who commissions his students to violence and destruction, hunting down and killing weeds, Star Wars-style...or worse.  “No, you leave the weeding to me,” the Gardener-Farmer gently says.

Could it be, siblings in Christ—given our sinner-saint status—that within our very communities and within our very selves we possess the soil where both weeds and wheat might grow?

And with all our worries and fears, with all our temptations and distractions, it’s so easy to get overcome by the weeds.  It’s so easy for the wheat in our hearts, without attention, to be choked out by the weeds of sin that flourish.

The weeds of sin:  self-centeredness, arrogance, apathy, hatred, bitterness, neglect—neglect not only of our neighbors and of the earth, but neglect of our selves, our own bodies. [pause]

The truth is that we can’t do our own weeding.  We need the divine Gardener-Farmer to come and cut back the weeds that grow in our communities and in our hearts.  Good thing Jesus came along.  Good thing Jesus promises to deliver us from evil.  Good thing we continue to follow in the radiance of that promise.  For in trusting, Jesus frees us from the weeds of sin that grow in our hearts.  But that’s not the end of the story!

So often we hear that Jesus liberates us from death, sin and the evil one.  But the Good News is not just about side-stepping sin & death!...
The Good News is that because of this freedom, freedom from death and sin through Christ, we are enabled then to live.  It’s about having LIFE…and we all know that having life is far more glorious than simply not-dying.
It’s about the wheat growing, transforming, and bearing fruit.  In the same way, it’s not just about winning—beating out the bad guys—and then kicking back to gloat.  (Sometimes I think we’re drawn to the graphic imagery of the burning and gnashing of teeth, the fire, destruction, apocalyptic stuff, wipe our brows and say, “Whew, glad that’s not me”…it does sound like a good action movie…it appeals a cultural, insatiable appetite for violence and revenge...even just plain ol’ cut-throat competition: We win, you loose.)  But, no!  There’s more to the parable...

It’s about being alive in Christ!  Such gruesome pictures can distract from what comes next in the text:
*Are you ready?  It’s really exciting. [somewhat sarcastically but seriously]*  Matthew 13:30—The harvester takes the wheat into the barn.  That’s where the parable ends.

But let’s continue the story together.  Can you imagine…
[I’ve always thought that the church suffers — not because of money or not enough pastors or old buildings, but — from a crisis of imagination.]
So let’s imagine what happens next in the parable Jesus tells, let’s add a chapter to the parable (afterall, that would be very biblical):

The harvester of the wheat carries it into the barn, where it undergoes a change, a transformation…and is finally turned into bread to nourish the hungry.  Catch that? — The wheat (with the addition of the right ingredients) becomes bread—it takes on a new form, i.e. new life emerges.  The life we have in Christ, is made new, it takes on a new meaning.  We, as followers of Christ, are taken inside the barn and given special knowledge/ingredients.

There is a separation from the rest of the world, from the field, certainly from the weeds, but what is it that sets us apart, siblings in Christ?  [pause] We are given a glimpse of God’s realm, we get to see what we and the rest of the world have to look forward to!  We get a glimpse of God, a glimpse of grace, a glimpse of divine love, joy, peace.  A glimpse of hope, right smack in the midst of all the ugliness and pain of this world.

And it is in this experience that our lives are transformed.  After all, wheat — which escapes fire — will eventually die out in the field as well.  But the harvester takes the wheat into the barn, where it is transformed, given a new life, a new form, a new purpose.

But that’s not the end of the story either!

Wheat turns to bread, and look what happens when people gather at the table around to eat this new thing, this transformed wheat!  Strangers are welcomed because there’s plenty of good bread to go around, ideas are shared, care is given for those who are going through tough times.  New life emerges again this time in the form of community.   And once the people have eaten the bread, they are strengthened to get up from the table, to go out from the barn where they were sitting together, and to plunge into this messy world with new energy, new hope, planting new wheat fields, inviting more to the table to be fed.  Life, and new life, and new life…this is what “life abundant” means (to borrow from the Gospel of John).

What an powerful and empowering development:  What went into the barn as nothing more than a bundle of wheat, became the center of a party: a barn dance.  What went into the barn as just a bundle of wheat enlivened and strengthened a people for the journey of outreach and service in the world.  Sometimes we need sit together and dance and celebrate inside, right?  And then out we go.  That’s what worship is!

The task of living God’s love is a great one, seeming insurmountable and hopeless at times.  So we continue returning to the barn for sustenance, through communal Word and Sacraments.  And then we leave the barn once again.

We are caught up in a dynamic tension of excitement and patience.  This movement to and from this sacred barn becomes our new life, our new life in Christ.  Fear, hatred, lust after destroying some “enemy” has no place in this new life; the Star Wars-like worldview doesn’t work, for it is the good and gracious Gardener Farmer who does the weeding, not us.

Because of Christ, we are freed from having to pick out the good weeds and the bad weeds in our hearts and in our world...

No, “we just get to do church,” as one of my great mentors Fred Danker (of blessed memory) used to say — dance in the barn, work in the field, back to the barn.
Or as Senator John Lewis (of blessed memory) would say:  We need to “get into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble”...

We just get to live into our baptismal covenants, live among, serve all people, strive for justice and peace and worship together.   I guarantee that gets us into some “good trouble.”
And so in this vision of the barn dance, moving into and away from the barn, the realm of God is being realized “on earth as it is in heaven,” just as we had prayed for it to be…as we do each week inside the barn.  The realm of heaven is coming into view here on earth...for God’s children are shining like the sun, warming and nurturing the world—the field—with life and hope.  That’s you.

Followers of Jesus: The weeds have been removed, the vision has been offered, and those divine arms are open in  gracious invitation:  “Come,” Jesus says, “join the living.  Dance in the barn, plant in the field, shine like the sun.”  AMEN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

December 8 -- Second Sunday of Advent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 16 -- Holy Trinity Sunday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What can we say of God, the Holy Trinity?

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

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

   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

as there are not three uncreated and unlimited beings,

     but one who is uncreated and unlimited.

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

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

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

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

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

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

...so it is with God:

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

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

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

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

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

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