November 29 -- Get Down Here! (Advent 1B)

Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. AMEN.

There are some mixed messages this time of year...for us church people, for us people of the book, for us Advent people:  

On one hand, there seems to be this frantic warning — watch out!  wake up!  — almost like the secular Santa Claus song:  you better watch out, you better be good.  

I can see how that could come to the surface for you, especially in this Gospel reading from Mark.  It’s daunting and even scary:  don’t let Jesus catch you sleeping, be ready.  Like texts this November from Matthew: have your lamps lit, don’t get caught in the fog.

On the other hand, maybe you’ve never been more tired, maybe you’ve never felt more in the fog than this year (“Covid brain,” guilty for not being able to get more done?) — with a global pandemic, literally on our doorsteps, with the election and all it’s ensuing division and acrimony, with the uncertainty of economics and health at home, church, school, society...the messages of Advent peace can be a welcome song, amid all the chaos and fog of 2020.  I know I’ve been writing and talking about Advent in this way — it’s a season of blue, a chance to drop under all the holiday consumption and madness, and reconnect with our center.  YES.  I hope our music is a tone simpler, pared down, “peacefulled down” — centered on God’s coming into the world.  Yes.

So how do we reconcile the seeming chaos and terror of these texts with the grace-filled themes of Advent hope and peace?  Are we to be running around like the sky is falling?  Or breathing deeply, waiting quietly?

I hope you can hold all of this.  Advent is a rich season.

And I think Isaiah, gives us a model.  I think the energy, the dynamism, the passion is a call for us to re-imagine and re-engage our prayer life.  Augustine: “Pray as if it all depends on God.”  How do we lift — anew — what it is we need to God.  “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” Isaiah cries out.  Look at this place, God!  The division and hatred, the anger and distrust, the violence and injustice, the pollution of mind and earth...Get down here, God!  Be among us!  Help us!  Fill this world with your reign of mercy.  Fill us with your love, your truth, your peace, your justice, your hope, your joy!  Fill us with your forgiveness.  Stir up your power and get down here!  

Have you ever just shouted into a pillow, or into a wilderness, or in a church — as a prayer to God?  That’s on the level, I think.  That’s Isaiah, I believe.  Should we try it?   [back off the mic]  Let’s pray:  [Aghhhhhhhhh!!!!]

When we pray this season, with that kind of intensity and tear-filled eyes, and shaky voices, and trembling hearts — vulnerable, exposed, hurting — and then read Jesus in Mark’s Gospel here, this is a rescue (not a threat)!  Not some movie apocalyptic battle scene!...I think that’s getting off track.  This is Jesus hearing our cry, hearing our screams, hearing our Isaiah song...and drawing near.  

God does not ignore us.  God moves in close.  Especially in the most terrifying of moments, especially in the most out-of-the-way inconvenient places, especially in our most vulnerable, exposed, hurting days.  This is our God, this is Jesus descending.  

[quietly] And watch the surprising way, given the magnitude of this world’s pain, watch the surprising way God choses to show up: (you know) as a baby, growing in the belly of an unwed teenager.

I’ve heard it said: “Christians begin with the end in mind.”  Not pie in the sky, but love on the ground.  We begin this new church year with the skies — not all rosy and sweet — no, with the skies being ripped open, the stars falling, earth shaking… all for the sake of Christ descending to be with you.  Through the chaos, comes the grace, you see.  So we hold both images today.  Both frantic and terrifying with the promise of hope and even joy.  

“Pray like it all depends on God,” Augustine said, “and act as if it all depends on you.”  

Knowing, trusting, believing, hoping, crying out in our prayers for God’s presence and reign, we now act/live/breathe very differently:  

We slow down, in our souls.  (“Slow down, dear church.  Slow down and breathe.”) We share our bread.  We house our neighbor.  We love our enemy.  We forgive our friends.  We reach out.  We sing.

I love our gathering hymn.  We sang:

“To us, to all in sorrow and fear, Emmanuel comes asinging.  His humble song is quiet and near, yet fills the earth with it’s ringing.  Music to heal the broken soul and hymns of loving kindness, the thunder of his anthems roll to shatter all hatred and blindness.”

We live in response to the One who heals the broken soul with hymns of loving kindness, shattering all hatred and inability to see our neighbors, the earth, our own bodies.  We live in response to this Christ, who comes to be among us, especially those who are in sorrow and fear.  

Advent is rich with lessons, opportunity, hope and Christ’s unending love.  We wake to that today:  New eyes and ears.  Clean hearts.  Clear voices.  Loving hands.  Open arms.  

Praise be to God.  Amen.

November 17 -- Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

Sisters and brothers in Christ,

Today’s Gospel, today’s good news is for the tired believers.

It’s for those of us who are a little bit, and especially for those of us who are very tired, and frightened about what the future holds.  (If that’s not you, say a prayer of thanksgiving, and come stand with those who are tired and afraid.)  This is a text for those who look around and see a world that has abandoned the teachings of Jesus and the prophets.  The text I just read, said “you will be hated by all because of my name.”  Maybe that’s true for Christians today in some places, but mostly in our culture, I think the contemporary version of this is not that we will be hatred but rather just treated with apathy or ignorance or misinterpretation, which in some ways is worse.  If you’re hated, then at least your argument has got traction, it’s getting under someone’s skin.  But if you’re ignored, well then you don’t even have a place [“benign”].  Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel once said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy.”

Do you ever feel totally insignificant or ignored?  Without a place, a voice?  Not even given the affirmation of a counter-argument.  Just brushed off – perhaps by the culture, perhaps by our leaders and law makers, always by the weather, perhaps by the church, perhaps by your family or friends? “You will be irrelevant because of my name,” Jesus might say to us today.  (If that’s not you...)

Today’s Gospel message is for the tired followers of Jesus among us…feeling unimportant and hopeless…like our work and our words are in vain, and the ship is going down.  “Why bother?  What’s the point?  Who cares?”

This Gospel is for those of us who can feel ourselves being sucked into all that apathy, ignorance and misinterpretation flying all around us, like a hurricane.

It’s easy to just give ourselves to those Category 5, gale-force, hurricane winds of this culture—“take care of yourself, it’s all about you, cover your assets, [whispering] they are not your problem, protect yourself, security, security, personal security, draw your circle of family tight and neat, don’t worry about anyone else but you and yours…’cause the ship is going down.”  Watch for those subtexts in all the holiday ads that are already well on their way in our culture…these messages whipping by us like wind...and sometimes much more impactful than that.

I grew up on the Gulf Coast and, like many of you, have been in a few hurricanes.  I’ve got this image in my head this week of “Christians in a hurricane” when I look at this text:

Christians in a hurricane, can you imagine?  Christians, like any creature, would seek cover during a hurricane.  But then, as they wait for the storm to pass, they toil away together in a safe place—maybe a basement of a church, maybe its a community center or someone’s home.  They would be together and working away during the storm … knitting, quilting, assembling packets, cooking, planning their strategy for reaching out very soon, assisting one another with words of comfort, bandages, hugs and long conversations.  Maybe even laughter and games as the trees bend and branches fall outside.  Can you envision it?  Small teams would even venture out into the storm to gather in those who could not find shelter.  They would risk their lives for a stranger.  And when they returned with a cold, wet, lost child or an elderly adult, all would be greeted at the door and ushered in with blankets and bowls of tomato soup and plates of grilled cheese.  And a cot with a pillow.  Can you see it, in your mind’s eye?

The hurricane pounds, and the Christians wait and work.  And then a time would come for worship.  They would gather in a dark place underground.  No electricity, but that doesn’t matter.  They’d pray and sing anyway.  They’d read scripture by candlelight – they’d hardly have to look for passages about earlier believers riding out storms, lights shining in darkness, life overcoming death, peace in times of chaos...because they’d already know them by heart.  And they’d hang on every word from that Holy Book.  And then they’d eat — Christians in a hurricane – they’d break and eat the body of life, the blood of forgiveness, Christ would fill them – and they would be satisfied…with all physical evidence to the contrary.

Today’s text is about hunkering down together.  Patiently working.  Lovingly watching .  Thoughtfully reaching out.  Faithfully hoping.  Christians in a hurricane.
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The Gospel of Luke is written by the same author as the book of Acts.  And commentaries reminded us that this text, especially the bits about the hardship that’s coming—the imprisonment, the ridicule, the persecution—is of course a foreshadowing of exactly what happens in Acts.

One of these events in the book of Acts:  there’s a story of Paul traveling by sea with his comrades and they are terrified because they’re caught in a storm...but Paul speaks to them:
“I urge you now to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship…'Do not be afraid…God has granted safety to all those who are sailing with you.'  So keep up your courage.” (Acts 27:22-25)

“The ship is going down, and you’ll be OK,” Jesus says to his disciples.   Jesus is unimpressed in this text by the temple, by the building, by the ship.  Bricks and stones and fancy cargo, will all go down.

But you will be OK.  In one sentence, Jesus says, “you will be betrayed and some even put to death,” and in the very next, “but not a hair on year head will perish.”  Malachi: “The sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”  Psalmist: “Sorrow spends the night, but...”

This is a text about hunkering down, faithfully enduring.  “By your endurance you will gain your [souls],” Jesus says.  psuche—mind, sanity, calmness.  Our Buddhist sisters and brothers teach: “Chop wood, carry water.”  Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians:  “Do not weary in doing what is right.”  Hunker down: chop wood, carry water, wash, bake, stitch, weed.  One of the great quotes attributed to Martin Luther: “If I knew the world would end tomorrow, I’d plant an apple tree today.”  

Hunkering down, sisters and brothers in Christ, patiently doing what is right.  And we do it, not alone, we endure with all tangible evidence to the contrary, we endure in the glorious company of all the saints—who we celebrated a few weeks ago and each time we gather—we endure together and we endure with Christ.  To the tired followers of Jesus, hear his words again.  “My peace be with you,” he says, even as nation rises against nation, even as nation rises against itself, earthquakes from within and without, hurricanes pounding, Christians don’t deny the realities.  They ground themselves in an even deeper reality:  Christ’s peace is present, enfleshed and moving among us—that peace never leaves us.

And because of that peace of Christ, which passes all human understanding, everything turns, everything changes, and we are filled anew...to love and share and trust and live.
Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

November 18 -- 26th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace…

Take a moment and turn to your neighbor and describe to her or him the most impressive building in which you’ve ever been in your life – doesn’t have to be religious, but it could be.  Perhaps a cathedral, perhaps an athletic stadium or a building in DC, perhaps a skyscraper or a castle.  Think about it for a moment, and then tell your neighbor…

[share some responses. Wrigley Field, Castle Church]

Well maybe you had to think about what the most impressive building you’ve ever seen is, but for the people of Jesus’ time and place, this would not have been an interesting question, because everybody knew:  It was the temple in Jerusalem.  

And in our Gospel text, as some of the disciples are admiring that temple – “What large stones, and what large buildings” –  Jesus prophesies:  “See these stones?  See this temple, see that cathedral, that stadium, that mall, that skyscraper, that castle?  Not a stone will be left on stone.”  In other words, all earthly things will eventually deteriorate and waste away…as glorious as they may be right now.  “But my body,” Jesus says to us today, “will rise up through the ashes.”  

Friends, Christ speaks to us today about ultimate things—the end of the world, the end or our lives—and thank God for it.  The world will end.  Our lives will end.  But Christ will rise up through the ashes to take us with him, to shower the ruined world, the dead and all creation with compassion and righteousness. Christ will rise up through the ashes, the crumbled buildings and wasted empires, to rule all in all.

  

Come, this morning, sisters and brothers in Christ, receive the comfort of God in the midst of our fears and tears. 

Do you ever worry about the world coming to an end?  You wouldn’t be alone.  It seems like no matter what era/period/administration/chapter we’re in, someone is always able to relate to these texts about nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, natural disasters...  Whether the halls of power are dominated by Democrats some years or Republicans other years, there’s always that voice:  “Uh oh, this is the end.”  With fires and hurricanes and blizzards and for decades now, mass shootings.  Maybe the fears and tears come from whatever political party is not currently in power.  Or maybe it’s on our tv sets or radios or computer screens.  Or maybe that voice is in our own heads, when we read passages like this (of which there are a few in Scripture), that we say to ourselves: “Uh oh, the end is at hand.”

But here’s what’s at the heart of our readings today, friends in Christ:  Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to God!  That’s actually from the book of Romans, but it’s at heart of today too.  Come, you who are scared about the end of the world or the end of the church or the end of your life!  Come, you who are terrified about what’s going on now or what might be next.  Come—all are welcome in this place—and receive the comfort of God this day—offered to us in Bread and Wine, Word and Water.  The comfort and presence of our God: the antidote to all our fears and tears!  Our places of worship—i.e. our stadiums and shopping malls, and amazon.com and FB—will one day be gone!  Those are the places where we sure can put our trust, our joy, our money and our time.  (Not us Lutherans though, right?)  

Maybe our beloved places of worship—our churches, where Christianity is studied, preached and practiced—feel like they’re slipping away these days.  “Nobody cares anymore,” I hear.  I don’t happen to believe this actually (I actually see our post-Christendom challenges as a refiner’s fire moment), but I’ve been wrong before; and sometimes we forget that everything we have, is actually God’s, and it can be gone even in the blink of an eye.  

But even if we were to lose everything, sisters and brothers who follow Jesus, remember that Christ rises up through the ashes to save us, to heal us, to redeem us, and to comfort us.  Can we trust that promise?  Can we open our hands to receive that gift freely given in Christ Jesus?

The Church is not a building, the church is the body of Christ.  The Church is you.  But not just you, it’s the generations and generations that came before you and me.  And it’s the generations and generations that, thanks be to God, will follow.  The church of Jesus Christ will live forever, wherever 2 or 3 are gathered, wherever the word is preached and the sacraments are administered.  It’s OK: God’s got this.

What if this structure was all to fall down?  That’s worth asking with our text today.  What if this beautiful building was reduced to a pile of ashes along Little River Turnpike?  Would Bethlehem Lutheran Church still exist?  Would you still have a church home?  According to the children’s song, it would: “I am the church.”

Christ rises up through the ashes.  Our God lives, not confined to buildings and rituals (which rise and fall), but our God lives…among us (prof who threw the Bible against the wall), in us, around us…as we seek ways to love and care for each other and this frightened world. 

Let our reading from Hebrews guide us this day and always: Let’s wait for God by caring for each other.   Let us lift one another up… let’s “provoke one another to love and good deeds.”  Let us be the church together.  Let us wait for God by reaching out.  (Luther’s apple tree quote.)

Sisters and brothers in Christ, someday it will all end—maybe tomorrow, maybe light years from now—but remember this day and always that whether you live or whether you die, whether this world lives or whether it dies, WE BELONG TO CHRIST.  May that strong Word, that enduring promise, that unshakeable truth be your comfort in all you do.

Let’s read together our HOD #327.  

God, our help in ages past, help us to trust in you now.  In the midst of our joy, in the midst of our fears and tears, help us to trust in you now.  We give you thanks for the gift of your Son, who rises up through the ashes, and leads us on our journeys.  Continue to hold us together, strengthen our hearts, and assure us of your promise, forgiveness and all embracing love, this day and for evermore.  AMEN.