August 2 -- Goin' Fishin' (Pentecost 9A)

Thankful and in our prayers, congregations with whom we've connected in July...

-Lutheran congregations across the Black Hills, SD

-Zion Lutheran in Oregon City, OR
-Klamath Lutheran in Klamath Falls, OR
-Shepherd of the Mountains Lutheran in Jackson, WY
-Grace Lutheran in Omaha, NE

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Grace and peace to you this day.

3 points I’d like to make, in light of this Gospel text:

1) Disciples wanted to send the crowds away.  But Jesus held them together. 

Disciples wanted to keep it simple and neat, but how “keeping it simple and neat” can breakdown community and attempt to edge out God’s compassion. 

This is a text about God’s compassion, God’s justice…where ALL are fed.  All are clothed, all are housed, all are safe and have security.  This includes those who have to wait in the back of the line — in Jesus’ day women and children, in our day black lives, and any who are unfairly discriminated against because of their status or the color of their skin... 

I’ve been wondering this week, as Congress argues again, what God’s stimulus plan would look like... What would God’s health care coverage and education plan would look like?

If we bring something back from the text for our world today, I think we have to look at how Jesus overflows with compassion: All ate and were fed, and there were 12 baskets left over.

Furthermore on this first point: Jesus calls the disciples to that work.  Can’t help but think of John Lewis’ final words, “marching orders,” repeated throughout his funeral service this week:  keep moving.  “You give them something to eat.”  People are hungry.  People are tired.  People are discriminated against. People are hurting.  You do something about it, keep moving, Jesus says…

2) The disciples didn’t think there was enough.  But Jesus turned that which was offered into more than enough.

You know, I don’t like it when biblical scholars and preachers “explain away” or de-mystify the miracles of Jesus (Jesus walking on water/shore).  Rather than scientific analysis, I’d rather focus on what these stories teach us about Jesus and about us... 

That being said, one explanation that I’ve heard about this miracle of the loaves and fish, which I do like…is that the bit that was offered by someone for whom that was all they had —  5 loaves and 2 fish — was such an inspiration to all, that everyone began to gladly share, and suddenly blessings abound.  Loaves and fish abound, and there are even leftovers!

It’s a common phenomenon in congregations, when it comes to offering and tithing, that often it is those with less income who give a greater percentage, like the little one who offered all he had…entrusting it to God, to be blessed, broken and shared (miraculously, in abundance) with the whole.

That’s what offering is!   

Siblings in Christ — I read some years back that when a congregation calls a pastor, one of the things they’re doing is sending that person to the biblical text each week to “fish” — to fish out a word from God for the people.  “What say you, Preacher?  What can you find, a word from the Lord?  Any fish for us this week?”  Well, in my “fishing” this week, I find this text to be calling us to give and keep giving—not just the fraction that we think we can afford.  We are called us to give all we have to God’s work.   It’s all

God’s anyway, isn’t it? 

Jennifer at SVLC saying a prayer and writing the first check of the month to Synod, the church’s tithe.  Whatever we bring to Jesus, let’s take a deep breath of thanksgiving and say a prayer (like p.)...

And may the 5 loaves and 2 fish not inspire us to share our leftovers [pause].  Let’s let Christ deal with those 12 baskets of leftovers.  May God’s Word invigorate us today to bring all we have, lay it in Christ’s hands so that he may bless it, break it and share it with a hungry and hurting world.

With the abundance, Jesus feeds us too!  ALL ARE FED means you and me – we don’t just empty are pockets and go home hungry and bitter.  In this amazing story, messy-spirit-filled-children-screaming-old-people-dancing-everyone-singing-everyone fed-community-in-Christ is the result!  Amen?   ALL ARE FED, you and me included!

3) The disciples want to send them away, but Jesus even feeds the disciples! 

Jesus forms us all into one body, through sharing.  The disciples don’t think there’s enough, but Jesus makes sure everyone is fed, including them, including us!

Friends, we are fed this day—even if and especially when we’re tired, depressed, lost, confused, lonely, wrapped up in conflict, stressed about money, grieving our losses, losing our hope—Jesus doesn’t send us away empty... 

He sends us away fed! 

That’s what what I fished out for this day.  May God take this bit of fish, bless it, break it and share it.  For Christ is the bread of life.  TBTG.  AMEN. 

April 12 -- Resurrection of our Lord (Easter Sunday)

They came looking, and he wasn’t there.  They’re told to go to Galilee...and the risen Jesus meets them, meets us, en route!

Grace to you and peace this Easter morning from our risen Jesus Christ who rocks the earth, appears before us en route, whose feet we grab onto, who we worship and praise, right where we are, with both great fear and joy, who raises us with him, and tells us to go to Galilee!  AMEN.

What’s this business in the text with Galilee on Easter morning?  Where is Galilee?  Jesus says I’ll meet you in Galilee. Galilee was the region (not a city or town) the area (like NoVa or the DMV or SoCal or the Hill Country or the Blue Ridge or up North or down South) it’s where Jesus and all the disciples were “from”.  Galilee is where Jesus came up, where he called the disciples, where he preached the sermon on the mount, where he fished, where he ate, and rested, and healed, and worked and played….Galilee was where they were all from...

Mary and Mary were looking for his body, dead in the tomb, but Jesus was alive and well and headed to the Galilee.
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What’s your Galilee?  Where are you from?

I don’t mean, necessarily, the town of your birth or your childhood.  That would mean Houston is my Galilee (or the fjords of Norway).  I mean more like the region of mind and heart where you’re from, where you work, where you eat, where you sleep and fish and make friends...
Where do you live?

Where’d you come from?  Go back there.  Go back to that region of mind and landscape of heart.  Go back to that place.  Be there...because...“There,” the angel says, “you will see Jesus.”  Go back to where you came from...

Go back to your basement office, back to your Zoom meetings, back to the baking tray, back to driver’s seat, back to that project you were working on, back to the keyboard, back to the yard work, back to the news headlines, back to caring for your children and parents, back to retirement, back to school; go back to where you came from.  Only now, Easter people, you will see Jesus there!  Right there in your home, right there where you’re from.

I think we’ve all come from a place of great sorrow, frustration, even incredible pain lately.  Maybe you’re coming from boredom these endless quarantine days.  Maybe you’re coming from a place of being overwhelmed.  Stress takes its toll on the body: for some, more stress than ever.
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This Easter Gospel ironically sends us back there.  The resurrection doesn’t just take all the bad stuff away.  Remember: Galilee isn’t all peaceful rolling hills; there’s lots of sorrow, grief and pain back there in Galilee!  Had some friends visit Galilee a few years ago: there’s blood shed in those valleys.  It’s a place drenched in sorrow.  But go back there, the angel says.  Don’t run from it.  Don’t ignore it or push your grief or frustration away, or bury it, or keep it locked up in the tombs of your hearts and souls.  Go back there.  Only now...[slowly] you’ll see Jesus there.  “That’s what he promised. Remember?” the angel says.

Maybe you’ve come here today from a place of loneliness…
or worry about the future or regret about the past or overwhelming anger.  Sisters and brothers, friends in Christ, Jesus has already gone ahead of us to those Galilees, and will meet us there!  So you can go back there now too.  We no longer have to hide from those things that bring us down, even those things that drive us into the grave!
Because Christ is alive, because Christ has conquered death and the grave, now we can even go there, face our Galilees, and find Christ right in the midst of them!

Those brave women in the story (interesting — that the men in the story froze, they became like dead men, scared to death) but the women followed the angel’s directions, even though they were scared too — says they were filled first with great fear and then joy.  In other words, they were humble, honest (Lent) and hopeful.  Humbly and honestly, filled with both fear and joy, go to your Galilee.

Let’s not be like the men in this story — frozen, scared to death — let’s be like the women: humble, honest and hopeful.

We go now from this Easter morning — this first sun rising of 50 days of Easter mornings, 7 weeks of the Easter season, friends! — with both fear and joy, humbly, honestly, hopefully.

Only now when you go to Galilee, you will also see Jesus there.  Jesus right in the midst of the pain, Jesus right in the midst of our worry, Jesus right in the midst of our regret or our anger.  Jesus right in the midst of what we thought was total isolation, even death.  Because of the resurrection, because he shakes the cosmos, rocks the earth and rises from the tomb, because he lives eternal, because “thine is the glory, risen conquering Son” and he has promised never to leave us, we never have to “go there” [pause] to “Galilee” alone.

The resurrection doesn’t promise a painless, sorrow-less happily ever after, just rainbows and Easter egg candy all the day long, all our earthly lives long.  No, what the resurrection of Jesus Christ means is that we never have to go through all that alone...even and especially death itself.

And we never have to consider ourselves unloved or unforgivable ever again.
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Let’s go share that Good News with our lives!  The angel and Jesus don’t just tell the women to go to Galilee: they both add another command: “go...and tell”!  How about we share this Good News too, not just make it our little secret (shhh...Jesus Christ is risen, and we never have to go it alone again, but don’t tell anyone.)  No, our lives now tell the story — that Jesus through his life, death and resurrection gives us, all of us, forgiveness without end, love and hope with out boundaries, mercy overflowing, peace beyond all human understanding, life abundant and joy...even and especially now, amid a global pandemic, pain and fear and sorrow all around, death on our doorstep perhaps now more than ever — and still we sing:

“Al-le-luya, Christ is arisen! Bright is the dawning of the Lord’s day: (love v3) Gather disciples in the *evening* suddenly Christ your Lord appears: ‘Look it is I, your wounded Savior. Peace be with you and do not fear.”

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Parker Palmer in his book Let Your Life Speak has a chapter entitled “Back to the World” where he talks about leadership not as egocentric and immodest, loud out front, self-serving leadership but rather...leadership = being who God has made you to be.  He says: “If it is true that we are made for community, then leadership is everyone’s vocation...even I,” he writes, “a person unfit to be president of anything...have come to understand that for better or worse, I lead by word and deed simply because I am here doing what I do.  If you are also here, doing what you do, then you also exercise leadership.”  Let your life speak.

Go back to Galilee...and tell everyone “Christ is risen” with your life, with your words and deeds, with your being who God has made you to be.  How would you specifically say with your life, with your doing what you do, that “Christ is risen indeed”?

Go to Galilee, the angel says. There you’ll see Jesus, and, hey, tell others with your life.
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And then the surprise (it gets even better!): OK, we’re go back, got it, be who God made us, got it.  They hadn’t even started that long journey, and as they’re just starting on their way, as they are en route, Jesus meets them already and says, “Greetings!”

And the women worship him.  (That’s what we’re doing this morning.)  Here in this place Jesus is finding us en route, on our way back to our Galilees!

I want to ask you to write about and talk at the dinner table or post your answer to this question (take some time with it this week, this new, 7-week season of Easter)

“Where in your Galilee did you see the risen Christ today?”
Write that somewhere in your house.  Answer that every day.
Where did Jesus interrupt you en route?...and say ‘Greetings!’

Friends, with both fear and joy, I proclaim to you that Jesus is with us, through thick and thin.  It’s interesting: only in Luke’s Gospel does Jesus ascend at the end, up into the clouds.  All the other Gospels, Jesus never leaves the earth...Jesus stays right here.  And today in Matthew, Jesus keeps his feet planted firmly on the ground, and specifically in “Galilee”.  I love that scene of the women grabbing his feet and worshiping him, worshipping Jesus, grabbing onto to his firmly earth-planted feet, not lifting up into the clouds, and no longer elevated and nailed to a cross, Jesus is down here with them, us, you.

And sisters and brothers, friends in Christ, Jesus has also gone ahead of us, not ahead, up, up into the clouds, but ahead, across the land into the Galilees of our every day lives.
The Gospel gets local.  Jesus who is named Emmanuel, which means God-with-us at the very beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, stays true to his name in the very last chapter, where he says, in Galilee, “Lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.”

Christ is alive, and the the only place he’s going now is right back into our realities, right back into our everyday lives, right back to Galilee.  Alleluia!  Amen.

January 26 -- Third Sunday after Epiphany

I’m afraid that the quick (immediate) response of Andrew and Peter, James and John is more a feature of Matthew the Gospel writer than what might have actually happened.

Matthew’s text says they “immediately” left their nets and followed Jesus…they just dropped it all, which is both inspiring and intimidating when we put ourselves into the text.

Sometimes I wonder if it was more complicated than that.  Some archeological evidence is helping to confirm my wonder:  You see, fishing was big business, although I’ve always tended to think of fishing as a lower class job, stinky and for people without much in that time, archeologists and historians are showing us that fishing was actually quite lucrative.  Because of the Roman Empire’s presence there were trade channels throughout the Mediterranean and so a fisherman was actually quite connected and well paid.  So much so that it was not uncommon to become the family business…like the Zebedee and Sons Fishing Co. we hear about here today.

If fishing was just stinky low-wage labor, I think it would be much easier to follow Jesus...

Just like if we didn’t have anything, if we hated our jobs, if our families and friendships were unimportant, and if all our stuff — our homes, our valuables, our positions, our inside-industry connections — didn’t matter to us, sure we could drop the nets and follow Jesus too!

But as it turns out, I have many things.  We all do, in this context.  Many nets, many fish, many relationships, many dollars, and many-a-healthy day left.  Many blessings. [pause]  Maybe I should title the first part of this sermon “When Our Blessings Become Our Excuses.”
So many excuses...that frankly make me want to believe it was easier for the disciples because they didn’t have all the things I have.  If they did, they never would have risked it all.  “It was easier for them; they were just fishermen.”

But maybe I’m kidding myself.  To leave behind their livelihoods and their connections to “follow Jesus” in a political and economic climate as harsh as the ancient Mediterranean world was just as frightening and risky – if not more – than it would be today.
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What are your nets, friends in Christ?  What are your excuses, blessings that you’re unwilling to yield?  What do you need to drop in order to hear Christ’s loving invitation more fully?   Doesn’t have to be just physical things...Do you have obsessions that are getting in the way?  Relationships that are unhealthy and “tangle-some”?  Anger at something someone did to you, that’s pulling you under?  Anger at God?  What stuff is holding you back from letting go and following this One who proclaims, “Repent, for the realm of God is here & now!”?

Let’s engage a little more: Type, write down and answer this question (p28 is blank).  It’s one thing to say you believe in Jesus, but what is it that’s keeping you these days from following Jesus, i.e. what are your “nets”?

That’s a private question, and rather than dropping them immediately, or bringing them up front or burning them symbolically right now, take those “nets” home.  Live with that which is entangling you a little bit longer.  Hopefully you’ve named it; that’s good.  Now live with it, for a bit more.  Acknowledge that “nets” can be a companion – probably been with you for a long while.  Even our unhealthy habits – our anger, our over-consuming, our destructive relationships – can become friends because they’re what we know.

But in time, maybe later today, maybe later this week or in a month, maybe during Lent, start to let go of those, start to put down those nets.  God will give us/you the strength.

“Nets” — I wonder about the nets the disciples were carrying, even after they left their physical nets.  What were their doubts, their fears, their anger, their child-hood wounds...  even after they got on the road with Jesus?  We can engage this text on many levels...

But the bottom line is that Christ calls us.

Jesus calls you from the safety of your nets, from the security of your boats.  Jesus calls you from your blessings...and your burdens and pains, and invites you, invites us — commands us, actually — to plunge into the deeper waters and rockier roads of ministry.  All that we do is ministry: as we work in the office, as we parent our children, as we drive our cars, and as bake our bread.  All is ministry, and Christ is calling each of us deeper.  That’s why you’re here today: because Christ has a call for you.  (If you were dragged here by your mom, then that’s God working through her :)

And sisters and brothers in Christ, while this plunging deeper talk may sound difficult and frightening, and it is certainly risky, this is God’s gift to us today.  This is God’s love and God’s grace at work in many and mysterious ways.

God is offering us a richer life in following Jesus.   Following Jesus looks different for each of us; and the specificity becomes clearer as we start let go of all the baggage, all the nets.)   But I trust it looks something like ‘deeper connections,’ as we plunge into Christ’s call —
deeper connections with our neighbors, with the earth, with our own bodies.  All, such a gift!  This is salvation, in fact!

God is offering us our integrity and our health in this summons.  (The word salvation, of course, comes from salvus which is all about wholeness and health of body, mind and spirit.)

So many of us live divided lives.  Hidden secrets, immense baggage from past experiences.  And we tend to pad that pain with stuff, we tend to busy our lives so much that don’t have to hear Christ’s command, Christ’s beckoning:  “Drop that stuff.  And follow me, Marie, Kate, Richard, John.   Let’s go fish for people.  We’re going to plunge into the world, and find lost, lonely, stuck, angry, sad, hopeless people.  We’re going to pull them out from the depths of despair, from death itself, and into the radiance of God’s grace and mercy.  How ‘bout it?  That’s the kind of fishing we’re going to do now…

“And I am here with you,” Jesus assures us, “as you leave your abundance and your pain, your lucrative busy-ness and all the noise in your lives, your determination to be secure, I am here,” Jesus says, “holding you and calling you this day to come and follow me.”

The road will be rocky.  The seas will be choppy.  But when we are held in the arms of Christ, there is true peace—the peace that passes all understanding.  That peace is yours...even today...even now...even before you drop anything and decide to follow.

But let’s let go of those nets.  That’s the gift.  God’s got you and Christ’s peace pours down on you...this day and forever.  AMEN.