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

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

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

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

just as a quick overarching image (if helpful) —

        John is like a mystical, French poet…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AMEN.

December 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.  

June 28 -- ELCAirB&B Hospitality (After Pentecost 4A)

Whoever welcomes you, welcomes Jesus.

I’ve had this dream since the pre- and for a post-COVID world...of setting up a system of Lutherans around the country, who would be on a list of open homes for fellow traveling ELCA Lutherans.  The connection would be through the churches.  Part of a congregations’ annual report to the national church offices would be reporting the number of open B&B households in that congregation.  We could call it Lutheran-Couch-Surfers-of-America, or something.  The Friendly Lutheran Hostel Network or ELCAirB&B?

Wouldn’t that be wonderful if anywhere you traveled, you had a great place to stay?  Not great because of the free wi-fi or continental breakfast, but great because you would always be housed by friends, even if they were strangers at first.

I actually believe this already exists (just unofficially), because I’ve tried it a number of times, and it’s amazing!  I’ve called up a number of churches over the years in the towns and cities I’m traveling through, and I just ask.  I usually start small and ask if I can stay in the church building.  I’ll explain my connection to the larger church, talk about my travel plans, and that I’m just looking for a place to stay, wondering if I could just put a sleeping bag in their youth room, or even crash on a pew.  I’ve done this solo, and we done this as a little family-of-4.

And in the course of that request and new connection, I’d get to meet the pastor, about 2 or 3 other members, see another Lutheran church, their bulletin boards and offices and landscapes and sanctuary — I’ve done this in Louisville, Kentucky, Atlanta, GA, Amarillo, TX.  One time we called a church in El Paso, TX, and that time, the pastor just invited us over to her house for the night.  Single woman in her 50’s, just opened the door for us and even gave us dinner (and breakfast)…and even put out some toys on the living room floor that she brought home from the church nursery.  Yet another time, the pastor simply put us in touch with an amazing family, (who is still on our Christmas card list) in Durango, Colorado.  Micah and Katie were little at the time, and this family had 2 sweet high school-aged daughters who were so excited to host little kids, they made up little Mickey and Minnie mouse beds in the basement and even had a box of legos and crayons on each of their pillows!  The Holiday Inn had nothing on our Lutheran Hospitality Network!  And of course our hosts always just laugh in our faces if (or when) we ask if we could give them a little money for their trouble...they laugh because it sounds as silly as relatives asking if they can pay you to stay at your house overnight.

Jesus says today in the Gospel: “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.”  So put yourself in a position to be welcomed, right!  That way people can meet Jesus.
Do you think our hosts met Jesus through our showing up, road weary, cranky kids, flustered passers through?

We have a text before us that is about hospitality.

It turns out that my idea of a safe-homes-network is not new at all:  It’s a very tame version actually of the type of hospitality that is always offered throughout the Middle East, both in ancient Jesus days and even today!  It’s deeply imbedded in Middle Eastern culture to open your door and offer food, drink, and lodging to total strangers.  I’m talking about offering hospitality just among Lutherans, like a little club.  But has anyone ever been exposed to Middle Eastern hospitality?  It extends way beyond religious, ethnic, national and cultural boundaries!

I had a colleague once, who’s passionate about Palestine and taking people to the Holy Land.  He’s traveled by himself all over the Middle East, and on one of his first trips there, I remember he told us this story about how his lodging plans fell through at the very last minute...I mean the day before his flight over.

So a friend of a friend gave him an email, and he contacted a total stranger a day before he was set to arrive from the United States, and asked if could stay just for a night or two while he figured out what he was going to do.  Can you imagine?

And this family, lets him — a total stranger — ~25 years old, big, white guy with a bushy blond beard and a thick upper-Midwestern build to go with his accent, into their home and demanded that he be their guest for his entire stay in the Holy Land, about 2 months!  The town where they lived was a little town called Bethlehem.  No joke.  And he later but very quickly learned that this wasn’t just some crazy, nice family:  this kind of welcome toward strangers is cultural.  He felt all special and lucky at first—“I really struck gold here”—until he realized that anyone would be treated this way.  He was sure that if we were traveling unarmed and vulnerable, we would all be afforded the same kind of treatment, regardless of our religion or anything else, if we just asked.

There’s a certain vulnerability in just asking though.

There’s a blog online that I like to look at around Epiphany in January, when we reflect on the Journey of the magi — the three wise men, as they’re popularly conceived.   And this blog is about these three modern-day-Americans who literally traveled the ancient Fertile Crescent by camelback about 10 years ago — from Bagdad to Bethlehem.  They started in September and got there at Christmas time.  Their pictures are astounding, but it’s the really same story about hospitality as my friend who studied in Bethlehem.

Here’s a quote from one of the travelers:  “It is almost absurd, sitting in these peoples' homes and sharing lunch with them, being offered a bed for the night, and their brotherhood. This is Iraq, and if they are the enemy, who needs friends?”

“Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.  Whoever offers just a cup of cold water…”

Sisters and brothers, friends in Christ, we have such wonderful opportunities before us all the time — even now — to both give and receive hospitality, even as simple as giving/receiving a cup of cold water.  That might look a little different in a COVID-world, so we now have to think about what the COVID-world’s equivalent is, but the opportunity to “offer a cup of cold water, a bed for the night, some shade” is there as much as it ever was.  Jesus invites us again today to be on both sides, to expose ourselves to both sides, of hospitality.  Discipleship is not one-sided — have you noticed that?  We’re always saying Jesus sends the disciples out to be welcomers...here again he sends them/us to be  welcomed.  When was the last time you were welcomed by a stranger?

I counted this morning: if you come into Bethlehem Lutheran here in Fairfax, right now, and are looking around you will see the word “WELCOME” at least six times (in six different places) before you even step into this sanctuary.  That’s wonderful!  And hopefully on a Sunday morning, a visitor will hear that word many more times from us.  (printed 6+ times in worship folder too)

But we also need to allow ourselves to be welcomed.

Ministry is really all about welcome, isn’t it?  Both sides of welcome, though.  Being a follower of Jesus is really about hospitality—both sides of hospitality.  We are called both to welcome and to be welcomed.  (It’s always a blessed exercise in humility to pick up the phone and ask for a bed for the night, for a cup of cold water; it’s tough to expose ourselves to hospitality.)

But when hospitality happens, Christ is there.  That’s what’s at the heart:  Christ is moving in and with and around and between both welcomer and welcomed; Christ was working in and with and around and between both that wonderful church family in Durango and me and my family, as we crashed for the night; Christ is alive in and with and around and between both the Palestinians of Bethlehem and my friend; Christ was breathing, in and with and around and between both the modern-day-3-American-wise men and every one of their hosts across the Middle East desert.

And Christ is there every time you show up — on either side — of even the smallest act of hospitality: a cup of cold water, a welcoming post, kind note in the comments column, an offer (or an acceptance) of a gift or a bite to eat or a spare bed, or a coat, or a respectful nod.

And I am thinking at the moment, Bethlehem family, that we need to work on being welcomed way more than we do on welcoming others.  I think it’s tougher for lots of us to be received, than to be in the “driver’s seat” receiving others — you know what I mean?  It’s way harder, on one hand, to ask “Would you host/welcome me?” than it is to say, “Of course I will.”  But on the other hand, this is good news, because accepting the kindness of strangers, simply opening your hands and receiving hospitality, is actually way less work on our part.  All you have to do is show up, ask.  We need to work on doing less work.  Can I maybe get an Amen?

“What can we do?” is the question we keep wrestling with in our White Fragility conversations.  I know I wrote it myself, “White people, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”  What can we do?  Maybe some of what we can do is “expose ourselves to being welcomed”?  There’s a real vulnerability in that.  Receive hospitality, when it comes our way, even ask for it: “Would you welcome me?”  What would that look like?  “Would you host me?”

It’s a deeply biblical and theological question too, friends:  
“Would you welcome me?  Would you host me?” — to open ourselves to welcome, to accept the love and grace of another.  This is deeply Christian.

Work on doing less work, hard workers.  And instead — just receive the very grace and hospitality, the very welcome of God.

Faith itself is a work-less gift, it cannot be earned or acquired, it can only be received, symbolized in the splashing of the baptismal water.  All you can do is accept the welcome that God has for you.  Nothing you can do to earn it.

Friends, when there is welcome, when there is grace, there is God.  AMEN.

February 9 -- Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Friends in Christ, grace to you and peace.

In today’s Gospel text, Jesus tells his disciples in “Sermon on the Mount PART TWO” that they are salt and light.  Salt, by the way, was a Hebrew symbol of covenant, of God’s promise: preservative and flavor enhancer.  One of my favorite translations of the Bible, The Message by Eugene Peterson of blessed memory, puts it like this:  “You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth…You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors of the world.”  What does it mean to you, that you bring out the God-flavors of this life, you bring out the God-colors of this world?

As we prepare again to host the Hypothermia Shelter here at Bethlehem in 2 weeks, you know that’s another opportunity to bring out the God-flavors and God-colors of this earth, right?

This past week, we signed on, because we’re a Reconciling in Christ Congregation, to walk in the DC Pride Parade in June.  You know that’s an opportunity to bring out the God-flavors and God-colors of this world, right?

Chili cook-off and bingo last night…

Listen for implicit salt and light language in our New Member Welcome in just a little bit...

You bring out the God-flavors and God-colors of this earth, you are salt and the light, in what you do at work, what you say to strangers, how you treat people in restaurants and in the airport and on the road, how you post on the internet.  Friends in Christ...YOU are the salt of the earth, the rays of hope and community for this hurting world.  You preserve God’s covenant and enhance this earthly walk.

Saw the movie Just Mercy this week (thanks to the nudgings of Sister Ramona).  It’s based on the true story of Bryan Stevenson who graduated from Harvard and moved down to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned on Death Row, who couldn’t afford proper representation, and had all the cards stacked against them because of the color of their skin.  In the face of so much blatant racism, and its ugly trail of cruelty.  Talk about salt and light!  Hope in the face of despair and the endless struggle for justice and truth.  Hope and the community stood as a beacon in that movie.

Being salt & light has so much to do with HOPE & COMMUNITY.

Because why would Christ call us flavor enhancers and covenant enjoyers and hope bringers and then hide us?  Why would Christ name us lights, and then put a bushel over our heads and hide us?  Being salt and light has a lot to do with HOPE and COMMUNITY!   [sing it] “Hide us under a bushel? No!  God’s going to let us shine.”  God says today, to all sisters and brothers in Christ that we are the light of the world, we bring out the God-colors in this world.  You reflect God in your words and actions, even in your just-being, for all to see.

Do you believe that?  We say this to our kids, in an attempt to get them to behave themselves.  “Now remember, you represent our congregation and our God, you reflect on all of us at BLC.”  We say it to our children.  But what about the rest of us?  Do you believe that you reflect God!?

It’s easy to be humble here, Lutherans:  “No, not me, I don’t reflect God.  I wish I did, but I’m nothing like [this person].”

Let’s entertain our humility for a moment.  Think about who is that other person?  Who do you seeing bringing out the God-flavors and God-colors through their words and actions?  (with us still or dearly departed) Do you have a person like that in your mind?

Anybody mention anybody in this congregation?  We can bring out the God-colors in each other, we reflect God to each other in different times...

(I want to just encourage you, to write a letter or a thank you card to whoever it is that has helped/is helping to bring out the God-colors, or the God-flavors in your life.  Who has helped make your faith 3-dimensional?  Maybe that person has since died or is somehow inaccessible…but perhaps then think of another person you do know, and write them a note this week…because they are God’s gift to you — God’s salt and light.)

But now,  let’s get back to you, humble people…
For if they have reflected God on you, now you definitely reflect God to the world.  For now Christ has shined his eternal light of hope on you, plus you’ve had that same light shined on you by an esteemed faith partner.  You are the salt of the earth, most definitely, you are the light of the world.

...Not even necessarily because I think you bring out God-colors, God-flavors.  I’m saying this because Jesus says it.  I try to preach what Jesus says, not what I think.  This is not my opinion, this is God’s fact, Christ’s truth: YOU REFLECT GOD, bringing out divine flavors and colors that cheer up this planet!  We are living embodiments of God’s hope and community for this world.

Friends, Jesus says it’s already so:  you’re the light of the world, the salt of the earth...
And Christ calls us to it anew again today. Christ has called you, to keep shining brightly.  Not in a showy of flashy way.  Not in a self-righteous way.

But to keep sharing God with this world—keep showing God to this planet, keep pointing to hope and community—keep drawing out the covenant, lifting up the promise of grace, enhancing the flavor of the Incarnation, illuminating the radical embrace of the Divine...through your actions.  “Let your lights shine bright, people of God!”

A light is warm and inviting, not excluding.  A city on a hill, which Jesus talks about in our Gospel, is not meant to be over and against the world; it’s a place that all can see.  It’s recognizable not for its own glory and good, but for the good of the world.  It has many entrances.  A city on a hill is a place where everyone knows they will be safe and welcomed and loved and accepted and fed and washed and empowered.

Here is that place!  Bethlehem Lutheran Church.

Because of Christ, Bethlehem is that place.  We are that city that Jesus is talking about...see the city is not a literal city, namely Jerusalem, any more!  “The city of God” is extending beyond  the confines of one ancient group, breaking out into the world – we are one of many in this city of God’s mercy – not for our own good and glory, but for the good of the world.  We are that people, a light shining bright, salt that enhances.

And we are safe here, so we go now to be safety for others.  We are fed here, and so we go now to feed others.  We are washed here, forgiven and renewed here, and so we go to wash, forgive and renew others.

And we are loved here…
Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

January 19 -- Second Sunday after Epiphany

Didn’t we just read about Jesus Baptism in Matthew last week?  Yeah—actually named the entire Sunday last week after it, colored the altar in gold, lit the Christ candle, splashed the kids at the font, read a special prayer...remember?

So why are we reading about it again in John today?!
It’s the year of Matthew after all!  (You guys aren’t feeling my frustration ;)

Friends in Christ, here’s what we need to know about John’s Gospel:  it’s the brightest and highest of all.  It’s too shiny and glorious to have an entire year of John.  We would go blind.  We have to take it in small doses, inserting it from time to time into our 3-year cycle of Matthew, Mark and Luke.  Fascinating book I’m reading* and loving right now looks at the four gospel as a journey of transformation, where Matthew is about facing change, next Mark is about the suffering that comes when we face that change, then John comes third on the journey, and is that moment of coming into glory, clarity and joy.  (Luke-Acts finally is about going back with that clarity of justice, with that joy to the world, it’s the road back to our communities.)  But John is the apex, the mountain top experience.  The bright, shining star.  The epiphany.  Martin Luther called John’s Gospel the eagle because “it soars above the rest”.  It’s too much.  You can’t eat caviar and drink the best campaign every day...

But we’ve got John today! And Christ’s baptism and the calling of his first disciples is so important...
that in case you had any question about who that was who got baptized last week in Matthew, John’s gonna clear it up for us today: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  John the Baptist doesn’t even splash water of Jesus, all he does is point at him and sings a hymn.

My NT professor (she came and preached here at my installation) Dr. Audrey West says in her commentary on this text, "’It is not about me.’ That is the message whenever people in the Fourth Gospel ask John the Baptist who he is.”   In the Gospel of John, I think John the Baptist would be more appropriately called John the Pointer.

And here the radiance that’s almost too bright (just going to slip it in here).  It’s like coming out of a dark cave into a clear, snowy winter’s day:  this Jesus, walking along, is not not just God’s son.  Jesus is God!  Love divine, all loves excelling.  Come down to be among us, to save us and this whole world, to forgive us and this whole world, to love us and this whole world unconditionally!  We have to squint and protect our eyes from that much brilliance.

Baptism is central to the Christian journey.  We have to look at it again today, in John’s telling: even more radiance.  “Lamb of God who takes away sin, who conquers death and the devil, who shines like the sun.”  What a text for our long nights, right?  For any of our seasons of pain and loss and hopelessness.  What a text for this moment.  It’s like January is the season of baptism.  We watched last week talking about Eastern Orthodox, I showed a video in adult ed of Russian Orthodox Christians dunking into icy lake in January to celebrate these texts of Jesus’ baptism, and remember their own baptisms.  Yeah, this is the season of baptism... showered with gifts by the magi, showered with water last week, showered with glory and brilliance and praise from John today.

So what?  What does Jesus’ baptism in John have to do with us?   So what?  What does this have to do with me?

On one hand, nothing.  On the other, everything.

But let’s start with nothing.  On one hand, Jesus baptism has nothing to do with you.  That’s the whole point.

That’s the point Dr. West is making:  For once in your life, in other words, get over yourselves!  

It’s not about you!  (Or me. I hope you know I’m preaching to myself here too.)  John points away from himself and away from everyone else.  Simple.  It’s about Jesus.  Simple.  And yet so profound in our selfie culture, right?  Social media is a great indicator…just scroll through.  If an alien landed here and started scrolling through our Facebook feeds...what a self-focused culture.  Guilty — I take and share selfies all the time:  “Look at me...and whoever else can fit in the frame.”

In a way, this second week of Jesus’ baptism is a second chance to shift the focus away from us.  Often the angle on Jesus’ baptism is: Jesus was baptized therefore you, you, you...You are loved, you too are named child of God, you too are called and sent out — all great and true, but...

...Let’s just bask in the point, today.  The pointing of John the Pointer.  Let’s just worship God — not ourselves — for a minute here this morning.  (“worship”, again, from the OE worth-ship, i.e. what’s worthy of our sacrifices).  We do worship ourselves.  Make sacrifices for ourselves most of the time, if we’re honest, right?  As Mother Teresa said, we draw our circles, our frames, our definitions of family, too tightly.  Me and whoever else can fit in my frame.  We make sacrifices only for that inside, small group.  (By the way, on the other hand, this was one of the most radical things about those early Christian communities: they were way ahead of the curve on drawing wider and wider circles, opening up bigger and bigger, in another era where circles were super tight.)

Today, let’s bask in the point.  The pointing of John the Pointer.

On one hand, this has absolutely nothing to do with us, for a change.  This is about God’s glory and grace shining through.  There’s nothing we can do about it...except give thanks and praise...like John did…more than once.  “Behold the Lamb of God,” he proclaimed one day and the next.  That’s why we sing it over and over, every Sunday at Communion “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world”: to remind ourselves, for one thing — it’s not about me.  (story - Adam’s plane ride: “Well, I believe in myself.”
—
And then on the other hand...when we stop and worship God.  When we look at what John the Pointer is pointing at.  Gaze as the majesty of the the Savior of the world, the forgiver of all our sin, the conquerer of death itself, the very brilliance of God...when we stop and really see this, everything changes.  And suddenly everything is about us.  Everything that the radiance of God in Christ shines upon is our concern.  Every person, every creature, every landscape, every beat of our own heart and of our neighbor’s heart — humans and beyond — all of it is our concern.  All of it is about us.

And Jesus invites us with Andrew and Simon Peter to “come and see”.  On one hand, it’s not about us, and on the other, it’s all about us and the whole cosmos.  Jesus cracks us out of our rusty old frames, and presents us again this day in 2020 a new vision.  An expansive embrace.  A fuller mission.   A cosmic joy.  A more glorious union.  In this broken, sinful, self-centered, cruel, sick and twisted world...this. is. our. call. from Jesus.  today.  We are a part of this radical grace and glory.  “Come and see,” the rabbi says.  So, let’s go.
AMEN.

* Heart and Mind: the Four-Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation, A.J. Shaia, Quadatos, 2019.

May 19 -- Fifth Sunday of Easter

Grace to you and peace, friends, from our risen savior Jesus Christ. AMEN.

Yesterday at our service for Pat and Ro Frodigh, I reflected a bit on this same Gospel text, so this morning I’m going to look at the first lesson from the book of Acts.
—
Peter has a clear understanding of what the right thing to do is.  He’s known his whole life.  Peter was raised by good observant Jewish parents, Peter himself has observed the Jewish laws.  He has, for the most part, eaten and lived and made distinctions appropriately throughout his life.  And then he meets a Jewish rabbi named Jesus, and continues to practice the Jewish customs and rituals. Even after the resurrection.  Peter was Jewish, even as he followed and preached and healed in the name of Jesus.  The name Christian had not really emerged; Peter was still Jewish...just as Jesus was always Jewish.  And that meant practicing certain rules and customs that set Jews apart from the rest of the culture.  What rules and customs do we/you practice that set us/you apart from the rest of the culture?  (Praying at meals, going to church on Sunday, tithing, Ash Wednesday, non-violence?)

For Peter, eating certain foods was forbidden.  It was unclean.  It was against the law.  For it represented a wiping away of distinctions, and blending, an unclean blending and mixing with the culture of the day.  (BTW, I love how the Jews-of-Peter’s-day paid such close attention to what they put into their bodies, not just (or maybe not at all) as a matter of health, but as a matter of religious practice.)

It was all about making distinctions between Jews and Gentiles, between us and them.  And Peter was observant, he was keeping the law...always had.
Imagine, doing something, believing something, one way, the same way, your whole life.  That’s how Peter had practiced/observed...his whole life, the same way.  And he was old!
—
That’s a little background.  And our text in Acts today picks up when the “apostles and believers” — the other insiders — call Peter out:  “We’ve heard that you’ve been going to, talking to, mingling with, DINING with Gentiles!  What’s going on?”  So Peter shares what had happened to him.  That he had had a vision from God…

How many of you have ever had a vision from God, that totally changed the way you thought about something?

It was a couple years ago that I took my Confirmation kids at that time up to camp — a great class of 5 kids — and as you probably know, it’s a great chance to minister alongside other pastors and youth directors...all people that are passionate about the faith development of our kids.  We teach side by side in the mornings with the camp counselors, and then in the afternoon, when the kids are doing the fun camp stuff, we have some time to visit with each other about life and ministry.  I love it, especially as a chance to get to know some older, seasoned pastors from around our church.  Rare experience, to get away, to relax a little bit, and share and enjoy God’s creation, etc…

That summer 2012 I got to know a pastor who I had met once or twice before, but who I really didn’t know that well, other than that he was my best friend Brain’s pastor when he was growing up in Salinas, CA.  I had heard stories second hand through Brian, how wonderful and kind he was.  How much he loved the church, loved music, and cared for the youth of the church all those years.  His name is Wendell Brown.

I thought that he had retired at that time, but that summer, he was apparently serving at Hope Lutheran in Atascadero (central California), a good distance from Salinas.  And he and I got paired together as a teaching team with two counselors, and so we would talk a little about the lessons, and then work and play with the kids.  And one afternoon we’re playing ping-pong together and we get to talking.

As we’re talking about our congregations, and our experiences, at some point, I simply ask him why he had moved from Salinas to Atascadero.   Just a basic chit-chat question, right?  Pastor Wendell Brown responds by saying, “Well, God gave me a vision.”  This old time Lutheran pastor, solid head on his shoulders, solid credentials, a life of solid ministry — I’m sure BLC and any congregation would love Pastor Brown...up until this point.  But he wasn’t ashamed, or forceful about it, but I was asking and he tells me plainly: He had had a vision, and it was from God, and it changed everything.  This dear man’s credibility is getting a little crumbly for me, at this point, but my interest is solid rock.  I gotta hear this, right?  (And BTW he gave me permission to share this story.)    

Apparently Pastor Brown was not beloved by everyone in the Northern California synod over the past 30 years.  I had no idea, but Wendell Brown was a name at Synod Assemblies that  everyone knew meant staunchly anti-gay.  When conversation got heated on the Assembly floor, Wendell Brown was the name at the fore in the Sierra Pacific Synod.  He was the one at the microphone, with tears in his eyes and a bible in his hand, saying, if we accept gay and lesbian pastors into our churches we are breaking with the Bible and breaking with God.

He had had the passion and the certitude of Peter and Paul combined.  He had the Bible study clear in his mind, the certain verses set in stone in his heart, he had the majority of the people on his side (at that time), he was a champion and a warrior, and he wasn’t about to sit back and let his church go down this “liberal” road.

(I actually know a gay pastor from that area, and I’ve since asked him about Wendell Brown, and he shutters just at the thought of the man and what he stood for at assemblies.)

But about 2 years before our meeting in 2012, Wendell Brown went away on a retreat, just he and his wife.  And he started reading, and he started reading scripture.  This man knows the Bible backwards and forwards, but he started reading Acts again, and he read this passage for today, and something started to shake him from the very core, and he had a vision, and he was sure it was from God, and I WISH I could tell you what that vision was.  I’ve been trying to contact him this week to get the details.  What I remember is, his reaction to vision, and the exploding of this text: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane...who was I that I could hinder God?” Peter cries in Acts.  Weeping and weeping was PWB’s response!  This is a good stoic German Lutheran older man.  But he’s melting down before God.  He’s looking back at all the things he’s said and done, and questioning it all.  He’s looking back at scripture and seeing it in a whole new way.  He’s feeling called to go back to his dear congregation, and tell them what’s happened to him...in joyful, post-resurrection, Easter energy — that he’s been wrong about his stance on gay and lesbian pastors and the LGBTQ community in general.  How he had a vision from God, and while he suspected he’d find some resistance back home, he had to go and tell his beloved congregation, no matter what it costs him.

Needless to say, Pastor Wendell Brown loses all kinds of support back at Good Shepherd Lutheran in Salinas.  That’s putting it lightly:  People felt betrayed.  I mean,
people had joined that church — that church had grown by leaps and bounds over the years — because of his previous stance. And now he’s saying something totally different!

You can just imagine the un-doing, the fall out.  But he had no doubt in his mind, that this was what he had to do.  He ended up being edged out of that congregation, which he had served for almost 20 years.  (Long answer to my question, huh?)
—
I was with Brian this week in MN (preaching conference; Brian’s a pastor in SoCal), and we talked about ol’ Pastor Brown again.  Brian added to this and told me that there was a beautiful exchange that took place at his ordination reception, where both Pastor Wendell Brown and Brian’s uncle—who was the gay pastor who had often gone head-to-head with Pastor Brown at synod assemblies—were present!  Apparently at the water, the water cooler (great baptismal image), Pastor Brown: “Do you remember me?”  Uncle Howard: “Yes.”  Pastor Brown:  “I had a vision.  And I am so sorry.  And I am with you now.”

Friends, I’ve never heard a story quite like this.  Where an older, settled, deeply rooted man has a complete change of heart, mind and (I’d say) soul...and the courage to act in life-altering ways in response to that vision.  I leave it to you to determine whether his vision came from God, or from somewhere else.  Personally, I find this to be a modern-day parallel to Peter’s vision...only on a much smaller scale.  Because, frankly, our contemporary controversies in recent decades around human sexuality, pale in comparison with the Jew-Gentile issues with which the apostles were dealing!

Still, sisters and brothers in Christ, know that the Holy Spirit is still working in our lives in this Easter season and always.  Who are we to hinder God?
Know that the Holy Spirit is still working on us, here at BLC, in our individual and communal lives.  Who are we to hinder God?

Pay attention to your dreams and visions.  Know that God is still speaking in our lives, in many and various ways.
This is our God!

A God who’s Gospel shakes down the Law.

A God, whose cup of grace never runs dry,

A God who makes us new day after day, regardless of our age, or our life-long convictions.

A God who carries us through our darkest days, who forgives us our past iniquities, and lifts us up now to be the people that we are called, blessed, baptized and sent to be in this hurting and broken world.

That God “was there to hear your borning cry,” invites us to the water, the table, and goes with us now and always.  AMEN.

January 27 -- 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

If I made you close your eyes and read you passages from all 4 Gospels (the first 4 books of the New Testament)—Matthew, Mark, Luke & John—you would almost always be able to pick out which book was Luke because it would mention so frequently the Spirit.  (This week’s Gospel text starts out “Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returns to Galilee…”  Jesus has been in the wilderness, he’s coming home after the Spirit drove him, tempted for 40 days by Satan.)    

The Holy Spirit figures into Luke’s Gospel more than any other Gospel, and twice as much as Matthew and John (larger books).  (Come read Luke with us on Saturday!)  You see, the different Gospels have different agendas, and one of Luke’s main agendas is to proclaim the work of the Spirit, in Christ’s life, and then that same author, Luke, goes on to write the book of Acts, where the Spirit figures into our lives too, not just Christ’s, but the life of the church (the Spirit is Christ’s gift to the church) — many words are spoken and deeds are done by everyday Christians, because they are “filled with the power of the Spirit”.  (Martin Luther King, Jr. was just an average man, actually.  But filled with the power of the Spirit, he said and did great things.)  How does the Holy Spirit figure into your life and into your being?  Specifically, how does the Spirit “fill” you?

Imagine a man rowing a little boat wildly at sea: a metaphor for our lives (think of all we do, rowing, rowing, rowing, even while we’re exhausted).  And now envision that man putting up a sail, and letting the wind fill that sail, putting his oars back in the boat, off he skips across the water…[p] Spirit’s driving.

Heather and I have a friend from college, SH, who’s a pilot...and he also loves to sail and surf.  And one time he was describing to me in beautiful detail that moment that he never gets tired of when he flies: when the wind lifts the plane off the ground at take-off.  If you’ve ever flown, you’ve probably felt that too…[that moment], when you no longer belong to the ground...and you’re taken by the wind.  Shin pointed out that it’s the same kind of moment in sailing and surfing too…

The word spirit in Greek and in Hebrew is the same word for wind and breath: pneuma in Greek / ruach (f.) in Hebrew.

The Holy Spirit fills us like wind in our sails and allows us to move in ways and into places we never could have...by our own rowing.  

So how does that “flesh out” for you?  [p]

--

Well, in Jesus’ case, filled with the Holy Spirit, he faces temptation in the wilderness (first 13 verses of Chapter 4), and then he faces, perhaps even more impressive...his hometown crowd.  For a prophet, it’s hard to return home and get any kind of serious audience.  Everybody just sees you as this innocuous kid.  Has anyone ever taken the wind out of your sails when they told everyone that they knew you when you were a teenager?  That’s what the hometown crowd can do.  There’s great power in that.  You can have power over a person when you say, “I knew him/her/you when…”  

Jesus is only about 30 years old here (dismissive of young Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez...) But he’s got something to say, in spite of the power that his hometown crowd might have over him.  And he says it.  Come back next week (for Part 2 of Jesus’ Homecoming) to hear how they respond, but here’s what he says...here’s Jesus’ Inaugural Speech agenda:

He lays out our priorities for the new term.  And it’s aggressive.  These are not gentle suggestions, or sweet promises for after we die!

This is what Jesus comes to do in the world now, with real people, in real time.  I tend to want to spiritualize this list, but I’m convinced that Jesus in the Gospel of Luke would chastise me heartily for sugar-coating and making excuses.  Here’s Christ’s agenda!  He declares war on my ease and comfort, on my unwillingness to change and take risks.  If the Gospel of John’s all grace overflowing like gallons of wine, then the Gospel of Luke is Spirit-fire.  

Here’s God’s holy-righteous, fiery, Spirit-borne agenda:  To bring good news to the poor.  (What would that be?  What would good news to the poor mean, someone without a paycheck and no back-up?)  To proclaim release to the captives.  (I’ve known people who worked as officers in prison system: I wonder how they hear that?  Know anyone who’s locked up?)  Recovery of sight to the blind (sounds the least controversial, the most innocuous, for us...until Christ tells me that I’m the one who’s blind, and when my sight recovers, by the power of the Holy Spirit, there are people and situations that I will suddenly see that need healing). To let the oppressed go free (in case you didn’t get it the first time) and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor!

This is an offensively economic reference.  The Year of the Lord’s Favor comes from Leviticus, and it’s the idea that every seven years is to be a Year of Jubilee, where every person and every nation is to forgive the debts owed to them.  The Lord’s prayer, which comes right out of the Gospels, actually says, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”  The Lord’s prayer is inherently economic...and therefore problematic.  Because incurring and collecting debt is the way our system works.  Yet Christ is inaugurating something radically different!  

And all this is all because he is filled with the Holy Spirit.     

Friends in Christ, that same Spirit fills you this day!  [p] 

It lifts you and me to say, do and imagine things that we never thought possible.  It’s that moment where we no longer belong to the ground.  We are taken by the Spirit, by the wind, and we are lifted.  There’s a moment as the spirit-filled body of Christ, where we no longer speak our own minds, but rather speak the mind of Christ!  We’re taken by the Spirit, you see.

My own mind usually suggests caution and retribution...but we are of one mind in Christ, so loving our enemy is Spirit-borne.  That’s not me rowing wildly alone.  I can’t love my enemy by myself, but with the community and the Spirit, I sail.  

My own mind might suggest shrewd financial dealings that always benefit me and the people closest to me...but we are of one mind in Christ, so we share our wealth freely and joyfully.  That’s not me panting breathlessly on the sea, wondering how I’m going to make it.  I can’t give generously by myself, but with the community and the Spirit, I sail.

My own mind might suggest isolation, cut-off, from the messiness of the city, of civilization, of community that are naturally not perfect, to say the least.  It’s cleaner to just go it alone.  “Let me just paddle here!  And you paddle over there!”  [p] We can’t live faithfully together, on our own accord.  We can’t do church on our own accord.  We’ll tear each other down, break up.  But with the Holy Spirit, we sail.  We lift upwards, we trust, we hold each other, and we soar.  

With the Spirit, we hear the Gospel, and our sight is restored.  

With the Spirit, friends in Christ, we are set free, even if that makes us uncomfortable!  We are set free.

Praise the one who frees us, this day and every day.  Praise the one who brings light to a weary world.  That light is ours, and it’s ours to share!  AMEN.          

January 20 -- 2nd Sunday after Ephiphany

Our scripture reading today starts by saying “On the third day” — “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana.”  Let’s think about Third Day Events here.  I suppose John’s suggesting that the first two days occurred in Chapter 1 because we’re just starting Chapter 2.  But with John, there’s always more to it:  The Third Day is a connection here at the beginning of this book to the resurrection that takes place at the end of this book.  The Third Day is when life conquers death.

And we hear that this is the first of Jesus’ signs.  There are 7 signs of Jesus in John’s Gospel.  This is the first.  It’s like those puzzles that reveal a little bit at a time, or a spotlight that shines on just a little part of a greater whole.  Not until all the pieces, all the lights are shined will Jesus be fully revealed.  But this is the first!  And man, this one is exciting!  So god that we can call it a Third Day Event, a life-conquering-death event.

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Unexpected extravagance is almost unacceptable for us.

Have you ever been lavished with goodness and you really have a hard time accepting it?  This is a tough text for us Lutherans...who don’t always act like Lutherans!  I mean, if we’re honest, we can be reluctant if not totally rejecting of the extravagant grace and abundance that is ours.  We tend more to just point to our theology, not dive into it.  “No, no, no,” we say humbly (and even selfless-ly, “You go ahead,” we think to ourselves, “make sure someone else gets the extravagance, the grace.  Not me.”  (I just heard someone say that this week, when offered a gracious gift.)  Sometimes being in a position of sacrificing, even suffering, is preferable to having extravagance heaped upon you.  If you’re resonating with this kind of struggle, this is the text for you!    

It’s kind of like struggling to let someone else pay for the whole meal at a restaurant, even if paying yourself could be a hardship.  I suspect a lot of this is going on right now with kindnesses being extended to government employees affected deeply by the shutdown.  

(Now, not everyone struggles with letting others pay.  Some are happy to let others pay for their food and drink...and this text is for you too...if that describes you).  

But how about you who always cover themselves — and take care of others too — so graciously and extravagantly?  Can you accept another covering you?   Grace, symbolized by wine here in this text, comes flowing in such ridiculous amounts of abundance here!

(150 gallons!  I personally translate wine images into beer: that’s 10 giant kegs!  1 keg at a wedding is too much! 10??!!!  It’s definitely not needed!) 

But here it is: Wine overflowing — this is our first glimpse of Jesus’ glory in John.  One scholar talked about this miracle as thing of “dissonance”*.  It’s not only a surprise, it’s actually a little disturbing.  There shouldn’t be that much wine, right?  That’s scandalous (which literally means a “stumbling block”)!  Exactly.  Paul says Christ is a stumbling block.  Some simply can’t get past certain things about grace to fully accept this God-with-us, this Word that becomes flesh and dwells among us!  It’s hard to hear, it’s dissonant, this much goodness.  NO!  “You’ve got to earn it, earn it,” our little Western, Protestant-work-ethic brains are crying out.  [pause] But there is this part of our hearts, maybe even our whole bodies, that is whispering (maybe shamefully), “Would be fun though…”

You see, John’s Gospel again and again challenges the mind, threatens and seeks to annihilate the shameful voices in our heads, the “you’ve gotta earn it”, [slowly] and instead draws us into extravagance!  That’s what grace really is.  It’s totally undeserved and overflowing, Third Day stuff.  We have a hard time with that.

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OK, the six 20-30 gallon jars?  Let’s talk about that:  Everything is symbolic in John.  Six jars represent the old religion.  The old way of doing things, even the old way of celebrating.  They’re water jars for religious purification! Did you get that?  That’s like taking our holy things here in order to have a party?  

Can you imagine grabbing [this chalice] for a wedding party you’re going to on Saturday night?

Jesus is consecrating the new by using the old.  He’s taking the holy and using it for the everyday, and in that way making the everyday holy.  

For Jesus in John, everything becomes holy!  Everything becomes “a sacrament”!  Jesus is blowing up religious tradition, and by that I don’t mean destroying it: I mean more literally blowing up [wider and wider, bigger and bigger] — YES, this is holy, but so is this and this and this and this!

(“We’re already in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.” Fr. Richard Rohr)

Walking your dog and picking up after her in the rain is sacramental.  Scrubbing the gunk off of the dinner plates as you listen to a music or talk with your high schooler is sacramental.   Going to the dentist and sharing your plans for the MLK holiday is sacramental.  Having a drink with a friend,  getting a massage, laughing together in a boardroom meeting, reading a bedtime story to a toddler, watching a game, flying to Atlanta, shopping for fruits and vegetables...you see?  It just goes on and on!  Everything is holy now!  And this doesn’t diminish the church sanctuary, it opens it up and makes it relevant and enfleshed!   Grace overflowing, pouring out 150 ridiculous gallons, more and more!

When you think about when you’ve most felt God’s presence in your life, which we have to ask ourselves often when studying the Gospel of John.  Don’t just think about the toughest of times — when you/your loved one was sick or death was at hand, but somehow you knew God’s deep, abiding, very real presence.  Don’t just think about the dark times when God was truly there for you.  Those are definitely true moments of God’s presence…

But today reminds us that God is with us in the absolute overflowing grace-filled, joy-filled, love-filled, laughter-filled, beer-and-wine-filled, food-filled, family-and-friends-filled, glorious-nature-filled highlights ... the very best that this life and this world has to offer, too.  Third Day Events!

I think of my brother and sister-in-law's wedding in Ireland in 2009.  That was a Third Day Event for me.  Family and friends — new and old —  gathered together in an area that seemed like the edge of the world.  For days (in the rain — didn’t matter) we too celebrated a wedding, toured around, sat by the fire, laughed and laughed, ate and drank, and danced and sang, and told stories and celebrated life and love, and joy and peace.

And when you experience those things, you want to share them with others.  You want others to have Third Day Events too, you long for everyone to be so blessed...you just can’t help yourself from feeling that way...That’s the power of a Third Day Event…

Let me conclude by calling our attention to Jesus’ mother:  We should follow her lead and approach Jesus pleading, “They have no wine.” In other words, we should come to Jesus and tell him what to do too: We pray for other people.  We don’t just hoard all this abundant, overflowing grace for ourselves.  We can’t!  We don’t just revel in Jesus’ presence and then go home, forgetting what we’ve experienced at the party.  That’s not a Third Day Event.  No, we accept this absolute wonder and joy, we swim in it -- laugh and eat and sing and drink and dance.  We party with Jesus, and we also, even during the party, like his mother, plead with Jesus for the sake of others: “They have no wine.”  Let’s try that now: let us pray...

“Loving God, give to others the grace that we have received so abundantly now.  Blow open the old ways that come up empty.  And fill us and this whole world with newness, with joy and mercy and unity and peace.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  AMEN.”

* New Interpreters Bible, “John”, Gail O’Day

January 6 -- Epiphany Sunday

Highly quoted author, speaker and consultant in Lutheran circles, Peter Steinke (writes a great book called Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times), has noted the root of the word “disaster”.  Do you know what that word literally means?

It comes from the negative Latin “dis” (connoting not being able to do something, or a lack of something) and “aster” (star).  So literally a disaster is when you have no star to follow.  Fascinating, isn’t it?!  

So ancient sailors, loosing their way at sea in the fog and the clouds — no star to follow.  That’s a literal dis-aster.

Contrast that to this day’s text of the journey of the Magi. (btw, the text doesn’t say how many magi there were, just that there were 3 gifts, so artists have always assumed that 3 wise men went with those 3 gifts, but there could have been a hundred star-following wise women and men and their children all hiking through the sands from the East…) The point is, they had a star to follow, and they did.

Disaster is when we have no star to follow.  Problem is, there are lots of stars in the sky. [pause]

Which star are you (at least) tempted to follow this new year?  Is it the star of fame and glory?  The rock star?  The pop star?  The sports stars or military stars?  The political stars?  The gold stars of school and accomplishments?  Perhaps the shooting stars…like the housing/stock markets?  

It’s hard to find the star of Bethlehem amid all the competing stars.  

But here’s a clue:  STOP LOOKING UP.  [pause] For Christ always comes to us from underneath—from where you’d least expect—from the manger, from the shepherds, from the poor, from earthly stuff like wheat, grapes, and water.  From broken and flawed people, hurting congregations, tragic situations, from simple every-day moments amid hectic schedules and frightening seasons.  The magi, the text says, bowed down, to pay him homage.  Bow down, look around on the floor of our world, to find the Christ child.  Look to Bethlehem, that is, the most out-of-the-way, insignificant, underneath, little town.  And that’s where the star, the light of Christ, stops and stays.

This is such a wonderful story.  Because it has cosmic implications.  This love and presence of Christ, that comes from below, has the ability to move the stars!  To call people from all corners of the earth to gather, to praise, and then to go home by a different road: changed.

It means God’s love for you, calls you, as far off in a distant land as you might be—as downtrodden, or hopeless or sick or afraid as you might be.  God’s light, albeit hard to see at times, God’s star rises in the east—the bright morning star—symbolic of hope and a new day—Christ Jesus’ star rises in the east and lights your way this new year of 2019, this new year of life that God has given us!  (I see this as a year of healing here at BLC!)

The same star that world leaders saw, “Three Kings” as the songs and art pieces go, world leaders, the wealthy and powerful and wise—the same star that guided them, that came to them, and lit their path, comes to you and guides you…even today.  That’s how dear you are to God.  Not forgotten in some far-off land, but forgiven...and guided.  

What a gift that Bethlehem star, that eastern star in the sky is for us!  God’s love for you moves stars!  

And so in response — not because we have to — but because we can’t help it: in response, we bring our gifts — our gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  (What is that for you?  What are our treasures?)  And then, looking down, bowing down, kneeling down, we pay him homage.  How can we do that with our lives?  What can we bring?  How can we serve and give and trust evermore in this Christ child?

For we need not dwell in dis-aster.  For we have a star to follow!  A star of love, a star of life, a star of hope, a star of healing, and a star of forgiveness.  

Sisters and brothers in Christ, we too have been changed, by this star.  So changed, so transformed that we are about to pray for people beyond just those we like and love.  Prayers of intercession: have you noticed our ‘rubrics’ for the prayers of the people (p.14): “Having received the Word of God’s relentless grace and faithfulness, we can’t help but turn outward and pray for others.  The love of Christ compels us.”) Our prayers — and not just our prayers: our words and actions, our ministries here at BLC — aren’t just focused inward, it’s not just about us and “our” building and “our” people and our success and our failures, right?!  No, we can’t help — having received this relentless grace — we can’t help but reach outward to people and situations far from our own, even if those are people and situations right here in our neighborhood.  We can’t but turn outward to people from far-away lands (like the magi in the story).  

We even pray for our enemies.  For the “Herods” of our government and our world.  [pause] That’s how transformative this Christ light is!  

We have been changed, by this star.  So changed, so transformed that we have hope, in the midst of winter darkness.  We have a way, and that way is Christ, and that way is Love, and that way reaches beyond borders and oceans.  

Even when the world comes crashing down around us, God’s people, looking down, not gazing up, looking down at this earth, God’s people find the hurting, the oppressed, the sick and the lost, and there with them is Christ.  “A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  That’s how changed we are!  [Rome, Isola Tiberina, Hospital Island]

We have been changed, by this star!  So changed that we go home now by another road.  So changed that we “gonna lay down our sword and shield, down by the riverside” as the old spiritual goes.  We’re gonna “hammer our tanks and our guns into stethoscopes and gardening tools”...to modernize Isaiah’s vision of hope.  We are so changed that now we practice peace (not just pray for it, we practice it).  We’re not going back to Herod now, the road of violence is not our road.  We’re going home by a different way.  

For God has given us a star.  We are free of dis-aster, sisters and brothers in Christ, for we have a star.  And in that star is the hope, and the salvation, of this whole universe.  And in that star is your freedom and everlasting life.  For in this star is peace.  TBTG.  AMEN.