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

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

The baptism of Jesus is no small, sweet thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then we have weeks like this...  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s just the first part:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

December 13 -- Not the Messiah (Advent 3B 2020)

 Let us pray, drawing words from our Epistle reading today:  “May the God of peace sanctify us entirely...for the one who calls us is faithful.  AMEN.”

Last week we read the message of John the Baptist, as told in the Gospel of Mark.  I didn’t preach on it (I preached on the Isaiah lesson), but I’ll tell you now: the thrust of John the Baptist’s message in Mark is this:  REPENT.  John the Baptist, with Isaiah and Mary and Micah, are Advent prophets.  And we actually get two weeks of two perspectives on John the Baptizer this season...

This week, the Third Sunday of Advent, in the Gospel of John, the word “repent” doesn’t appear at all!  It’s a different thrust completely.  In fact, baptism, in the Gospel of John, has far less to do with REPENTANCE, and everything to do with revealing God’s love, like shining a spotlight on Jesus.  John himself only wishes to “testify” to God’s love.  John certainly baptizes, but he does so for the sole purpose of making Christ known…and in so doing tells us all who he is not—John the baptist is not the Messiah.  If we’re in the Gospel of John, especially, I actually like to call him John the Pointer.

John proclaims, even to us today, that the Messiah position has already been filled.  In other words, God is God, so we don’t have to be.  

I have a friend who was called to a church some years ago – and when she came she was greeted with wide open arms, like she walked on water.  You see, she was highly qualified.  She’ll probably be a bishop one day.  She has the kind of solid theological training, the kind of compassion and passion for God’s people that any congregation would envy.  And this congregation knew it.  You see, the congregation, like many others, had been through years of decline, and so they were very excited to have her with them!  In fact, she actually had somebody refer to her, shortly after she arrived, as “the Messiah” — the one who would save them.  My friend very quickly assured them that that position had already been filled…and that that was good news.

Siblings in Christ, whether we live or whether we die, we belong to God.  Our salvation does not depend on us.  Jesus has already filled the Messiah position.  (That’s good Advent news; that points us to the meaning of Christmas.)  Jesus has filled the Messiah position...and now our job is to be about proclaiming that, like John, giving testament to that good news, shining the spotlight on the manger.  

(As a little bodily preaching prep this week, I brought a new spotlight from home, to shine more light on our weathering manger out front.  It’s another way of pointing.)

John the Baptist teaches us that lesson today.  Our call is to go and do likewise, giving our egos a little reality check, and proclaiming this Advent season, not who we are, but who we are not.  And shining the spotlight, pointing to the Christ, born in Bethlehem.

We do that by our actions.  Francis of Assisi famously said “preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”  How might we proclaim that the Messiah position has already been filled…with our actions?

I heard a story once about a missionary in India.  He had been sent there by a Christian organization in the United States, who was sponsoring him.  And after many years of trying to start a Christian church in a primarily Hindu culture, he finally realized that his missionary attempts weren’t getting any traction.  He called to inform his sponsors of where things were at.  They understood, and plans were made for his return home.  As it turned out his departure date was scheduled for December 26th.  And so he would be there for Christmas Day, on the western coast of India, in the midst of a deeply Hindu people and culture.  The missionary decided he wanted to throw a Christmas party before he left.  So he set up tables and chairs in the center of the marketplace.  Then he took all of his remaining funds from his sponsoring organization, and bought as much rice and bread and milk as he could.  Hundreds of dollars, which is what he had remaining from his years in India, can buy a lot of rice and bread and milk, in that part of the world, at that time.        

It was a wonderful party as you can imagine—a Christian man sharing and eating among the poor in a distant land.  The next day, he packed up his things, and climbed aboard the ship that would eventually bring him home.  

When he arrived back in the United States, his sponsoring organization quickly found out what he had done with the remaining funds.  

They were furious.  “How could you have done that?  It was a failed mission.  And in the end, no one became Christian.  They’re not even Christian!”  The man listened to the board of directors and calmly responded.  “But I am, and it is the Christian story that I am sharing on Christmas Day.” [pause]  Like John the Baptist, he remembered that he was who he was for the sole purpose of making Christ known.  Friends, we are who we are for the sole purpose of making Christ known.

And who is Christ to which we point?  He is the one of whom Isaiah sings: He is the one who brings good news to the oppressed, who binds up the brokenhearted, who proclaims liberty to the captives, the cancellation of debts, gladness instead of morning, life instead of death!  The one to whom John points, the one on whom we shine the spotlight with our lives, is Christ Jesus...who loves justice and peace, who restores all the earth with shoots of green that spring up, who welcomes and includes everyone, who forgives and embraces and feeds and shelters and comforts all...

Siblings in Christ, we are invited again today to reflect and respond to the gift of who we are—forgiven followers, proclaimers, spotlight-shiners, pointers to Jesus...through our words and actions.  
And siblings in Christ, we celebrate this Advent morn who we are not—the Messiah, who is with us now and loves us still, who is faithful and will not ever let us go.  May that peace sanctify us entirely this day and always. AMEN.  

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.

  

October 18 -- Giving, God and Grace (Pentecost 20A)

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

This text has been used in all sorts of ways.  
It’s been used by some to argue that we shouldn’t have to pay any taxes.  Can you see why?  Pay no allegiance to Caesar, is what Jesus is saying.

It’s been used by others to argue that we should certainly pay taxes, that this offers us a model of civility in living harmoniously in both the worldly realm and the religious realm.  That’s kind of how Luther used this passage in his time, where people wanted to rebel violently against the powers that were...   

Unfortunately Jesus doesn’t answer the Pharisees’ question about money directly…I believe, mostly because the Pharisees weren’t asking it as a stewardship question on their Pledge Sunday, during their Stewardship Month.  They had different intentions:  they wanted to trap Jesus.  And they knew they could trap him with either answer he gave.

So I’m not sure how directly helpful this text is for Stewardship Sunday.  Jesus isn’t giving us any clear cut answers.  Other places in the Bible he does:  he says very plainly just 2 chapters before this – “go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor...then come, follow me.”  Jesus said much about money in the Gospels.

There’s also that passage in Acts where those who don’t give a percentage of their income are accused of “stealing from God”…which is a continuation of an over-arching theme throughout the OT.  Good thing we don’t read those today, right? ;)  This text today is not so blunt.  Rather it leads us to understanding and insights about offering up money in more indirect…and grace-filled ways.  

In this text, there’s not a straight answer for us on how much to give.  Rather we are offered two things:  
an idea about intentions, and we are led once again to a beautiful conclusion – that all “our” money and stuff is actually God’s.  

First, I think the Gospel story today raises for us the question of intentions when we talk about money.  The Pharisees had intentions when they asked Jesus about money.  As you consider what to write or what not to write on your pledge cards for 2021, what are the intentions behind the questions you might have:  “Why am I being asked to make a financial pledge to this church, again?”  What might the intentions be behind that kind of question?  In other words, what gives birth to your questions about financial stewardship in the church?  Sometimes just our tone of voice can be a give-away for our intentions.  Are our questions born out of mistrust, anger, fear, or a way to trap…like the Pharisees?

Or are our questions around money and what to offer born of something else?  Joy, peace, trust in the abundance of God’s love and grace.  “How might God use me?  How can I make a pledge that is an expression of my thankfulness to God, for all God has given me?”

This question of what to pledge is really a chance to reflect on yourself.  To look in the mirror at yourself, to look at your own life, and to consider God’s blessings, God’s presence in many and various ways.  Maybe that sounds obvious, but pledging once again this year is not about looking at the church and determining whether a larger or smaller sum is appropriate “for the church” for this year.  It’s about looking at yourself and considering God’s grace and abundance in your life.  

I hope you’ve been able to sit with your pledge card, set some time aside, say a prayer of thanksgiving, and then write down your pledge.  (if you need some more specific direction in that – I like to just stick with the biblical model of tithing, 10% of your income, or at least working up to that each year…gives us direction, like a compass)

Pledging at your central place of worship (whether that’s here or elsewhere), during stewardship season, is ultimately a gift for you, not your gift to the church.  

[pause] It is an opportunity for each of us to make a statement about how much we trust in God.
     
Are your intentions and your questions around money and giving born out of distrust and fear, anger or the need to trap or control?   Or are they born out of joy, peace, trust, thanksgiving?  Or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle…wanting to have your questions born out of joy and peace, but feeling stuck in fear and distrust – distrust of institutions or people, maybe even distrust of God – and angry about it all.   Siblings in Christ, God is with us in our bitterness and resentment, in our mistrust and anger.  God is with us, nudging us, holding us, comforting and challenging us…as the Holy Spirit guides us into new realms of joy and thanksgiving.  

You know, I used to say that I hated stewardship time, as a pastor, having to talk about money and giving, how hard that is, and then I’d even drag other pastors in with me and make a blanket statement…but…over the years,  I’ve experienced a sort of evolution in my talking about these things:

It’s a joy to be able to proclaim and bear witness to the fact that your being invited to offer up one of this earthly life’s greatest treasures, your money, is a gift.

This day and this text is a gift, Stewardship Sunday, Jesus talking about “give to Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is God’s”, for it all brings us back to the blessed conclusion …  and prayer we say every Sunday:

We joyfully release what you have first given us — our selves, our time, our money, signs of your gracious love.  Receive them...  

Friends in Christ, it all belongs to God.  All that we have comes from God, belongs to God, and what we offer, with joyful and thankful hearts is a just a faithful token of that fact.  It was all God’s in the first place.  

Giving in this way is all wrapped up in thanksgiving.  I’ll share just one personal story, Heather and I are tithers to whatever church we belong to.  We were taught at an early age how to move the decimal over to figure out what 10% is.  So it’s always been something we’ve practiced.  But when we had a capital campaign at the last church for a building project, we were really worried about how we could give above and beyond the tithe.  I was sweating it.  I wanted to be a model for the congregation, but didn’t have the kinds of funds we needed to impress everyone with a lead gift.  And we had this campaign consultant Phil  down from Seattle, and he just said to me, “Dan, you’re missing the thanksgiving part of this.  Whatever you put down on that pledge card,” he said, “do it with thanksgiving.  Say a prayer of thanksgiving.”  Stewardship is taught, faith is taught, living in thanksgiving — we have to be taught this stuff at some level; it’s not natural.  It’s learned.

And Christ is our teacher, calling us back.  Blessing us richly, loving us unconditionally, still with us now — right here with us in the midst of the election, the violence, the sickness, the sorrow, the fear, the chaos, the confusion — Christ is right here.  May that peace that passes all human understanding keep you, friends, keep your heart and your mind in faith, hope, gratitude and even joy.  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 27 -- Becoming *Teleios* (Pentecost 17A)

Grace to you and peace from God who creates us from the muddy clay of the earth (I was on the shores of the Chesapeake this week, beautiful muddy earth), from Jesus who bridges us from our primal separation from God because of sin, and from the Holy Spirit, who comforts us when we are afflicted, and who afflicts us when we are comfortable.  Amen.

At first glance this reading might lead us to the simple conclusion and popular aphorism that ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS.  There are two sons.  The father asks them both to go out into the field, one says he’ll go and doesn’t.  The other says he won’t and does.  Jesus makes a model of the latter.  

But, after praying and studying this text, I’m not sure
A-S-L-T-W, is really the lesson here.  


First of all, in my own experience and in the experience of many that I’ve listened too…words sometimes (not always) speak louder than actions.  It’s not pretty or fun to talk about, but the wounds from violent actions (physical abuse) can heal, but the wounds from violent words (emotional/spiritual abuse—insults that cut deep, threats, even just indifference to another’s presence or opinions) sometimes never heal.  So not only is “a.s.l.t.w.” an interpretation of this particular scripture text that I don’t agree with, it’s a saying that I don’t think is even completely accurate.     

So let me share with you a concept that flows through the entire Bible, certainly through the book of Matthew and therefore arches over this passage today...  

Teleios.  The Greek word is teleios.  And it means mature, or complete, or commonly translated as perfect.  Matthew 5:48 (be perfect even as God in heaven is perfect.) or Matthew 19:21 (Jesus said, "If you wish to be perfect go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.")  I think translating teleios as “perfect” gets us headed down the wrong path.  (I’m just full of opinions today, huh?)  “Mature” or “complete” is more like it.  The best way to think about this overarching theme of teleios is to think about it in terms of fruit.  A banana or a pear is teleios — not when it is completely free of blemishes, but  — when it is ready to eat.  When it is ripe.  When it has come to fruition or come full circle.  

So read these texts with that in mind.  “Come to fruition, even as your God in heaven has come to fruition.”  There’s more of a notion of process here, and that’s very important to remember.  

So returning to the two sons, with the concept of teleios—coming to fruition—in mind, let’s look at it again:

Jesus praises the brother who “says no” but “acts yes”…because he is engaged in the process of coming to fruition, he is ripening.  The other brother is not.  The other brother has chosen to reject the opportunity to go out and to work in the vineyard; he has refused the ripening process.  In other words, he has rejected the journey of transformation.

Siblings in Christ, God is calling us this day to engage or perhaps renew our engagement, and enter again into teleios, into the process of coming to fruition as a disciple, a follower of Jesus.  God is calling us into a journey of transformation.

Grace is empty, if the process of discipleship is not evident, if there is a refusal to ripen.  Bonhoeffer called that the “carcass of cheap grace”…If we’re not on the journey of transformation, engaged in the ripening, the coming to fruition, the maturity and completeness, the teleios...then you simply haven’t experienced God’s grace.  The church has failed you.  The pastor has failed you.  When God’s people are saying yes, but acting no, teleios has gone dormant.   

Our Gospel today calls us to the vineyard, to follow Jesus, not just to say that we believe in Jesus.  Our Gospel text for today is about coming full circle.  

One way to illustrate this text is by looking at worship—what we’re in the midst of right now.  Our faith, which is expressed here on Sunday morning, guides us into our week, bringing us to fruition, bringing us full circle.  Worship/Church is more than mere tradition, it’s more than just “what we do/say” on Sunday.

How many of you have ever participated in any sort of theater production?  Been to a dress rehearsal?

You see, worship is a dress rehearsal for Gospel living.  
Think about the purpose of the dress rehearsal:  It solidifies what we already know (lines), introduces something new (costumes), and prepares us for what’s ahead (opening night).  Bringing everything full circle.  

[look the sections at bulletin] Worship too, solidifies what we already know (in the gathering we are reminded and again we receive forgiveness of sins), introduces something new (as together we enter into the Word of God, and new light is shed on our understandings of the saving work of Jesus Christ), and through Bread and Wine, Body and Blood, the waters of the Baptismal font, we are prepared for what’s ahead, we are washed and nourished with heavenly water and food for the journey, the journey of discipleship—we are engaging in the journey of transformation, in teleios...even right now!  

And what follows worship?  What is that Sending all about (“go in peace, remember the poor,” we say today)?  Because we receive forgiveness of sins right at the beginning, flowing from the baptismal font, here in worship, we are able to forgive others during our week.  Coming full circle.  Because there is a proclamation from this Holy Book about God’s love and God’s hope on account of Jesus Christ, we are then enabled to speak words of love and forgiveness. Coming full circle.

Because justice is alive at God’s Holy Table, as all are welcome to the feast of Jesus’ own body, edible grace, then we are empowered to live out that same model of justice and compassion, welcoming and feeding the friend and the stranger alike. Coming full circle.  Because we are sent out with God’s blessing at the end of our worship service, we are filled with the task of sending others, empowering others, inviting others to follow Jesus, calling others back into the love of God…through both our words and our actions. Coming full circle.

We are not a “gathering of eagles around a carcass of cheap grace,” on Sunday mornings.  Worship for us is more than just a going through the motions each week.  Worship is a dress rehearsal for Gospel living, a modeling of God’s very will being done here on earth “as it is in heaven.”  

Here we are caught in the undertow of grace, here we are swept up in the process of coming full circle, in the ripening, in the coming to be the people God has molded us, breathed into us, redeemed us, and filled us anew to be!

You know, I went to some vineyards here in Northern Virginia recently...last week.  It was good to look out over the vineyards (and enjoy a nice blend of grapes), but I was thinking about how could I align even better my own words with my actions.  After all, we’re coming into the stewardship season, the season of giving back with joyful hearts, what God has first given us.  

And I am pondering what I might give up or take on during these days.  Not just discipleship disciplines in Lent: what kinds of faith actions can we put into practice now, in response to the grace that God has first given us?    Let’s make these a faith-moves together.  Let’s do teleios together — might look different for each of us.  Some might give up meat after seeing the impact that consumption has on the planet, others might write letters, others might try tithing, others might volunteer, or protest, or make phone calls to members of this congregation.  Words and actions lining up, you see, I’m pondering this myself, and even if I had something to share I’m not sure I’d want to roll it out here in a sermon in some grand exposition of my faithfulness...I’m praying on it...  

But if I am going to speak about compassion and justice, I have to ask how I might start to act more in that direction.

Pay attention this week to the nudgings of the Spirit, that’s how the Holy Spirit works…quiet ways.

Where is God whispering to you this week, how is that gracious and loving Holy Spirit is afflicting the comfortable areas of your life.  How is God inviting you to have your words and your actions come full circle?  How are you becoming teleios?   Because I have no doubt that God is working on you.
        
As that complicated Holy Spirit continues to nudge you, at the very same time, may God’s loving arms of mercy and peace wrap around you and fill you with all-goodness and grace, even today, even now, and forever more.  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.

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.