December 6 -- Isaiah and the Dust-up (Advent 2B)

Grace to you and peace…

Friends in Christ, sometimes my 14-almost-15-year-old M and I get into it.  Sometimes M acts up, does something wrong, and I get angry.  And I give a consequence, a punishment.  And sometimes that consequence is twice as bad as M’s acting up.  I love my son, but I get mad.  I lose my temper as I dole out punishment.  And sometimes, the punishment can go beyond the crime.  And sometimes, it’s H, after the dust from the dust-up has settled, who comes along side us both individually, privately, and helps us work out a consequence that fits and brings us back together...

I’m going to preach on the First Lesson from Isaiah today.

We have to spend some time with Isaiah during Advent.  H is very Isaiah-like in my little real-life illustration...entering the scene, post-dust-up to bring us back together.  
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I know I’ve talked a bit about not sentimentalizing (or sanitizing) the nativity — porcelain figures, frozen in perfection on our Christmas shelves and mantles (I read about that in our Advent devotion “Low” on Wednesday evening...)  Maybe a similar thing can happen here with Isaiah’s famous text, because of Handel’s Messiah. (How many got that in your head, when it was read? ...which I love as much as anyone, btw!)  But let’s not miss Isaiah’s grit and context, for the glorious, holiday, royal chorus.  There’s even more to it!...

Isaiah is a prophet of hope in a time of complete chaos and uncertainty, in a time of debilitating trauma, unspeakable loss, total despair...and in an era where God is imagined to have stepped away entirely.   The people have lost their faith: if they know God at all, they have only known and experienced God as an angry judge...doling out punishment.  (Dangerous intro illustration — the only thing I’ve got in common with God, in that case is doling out big consequences.)

You see, Isaiah was written at a time when the exile and captivity was well underway.  Jerusalem has been destroyed.  The entire nation was in the hands of a foreign power, Babylonians then Persians.  Why?  According to the 1st & 2nd Kings (which, btw, we’re studying right now in our Tuesday Bible Study 7p), because the kings of Israel and Judah and all the people of the monarchy have turned away from worshiping God alone.   They’ve adorned the temple with extravagance — called it “God’s house” (in effect, it’s an attempt to domesticate God) — but spent twice as much on their own palaces and homes!  In other words, they’ve built many other temples, and priorities had gotten grossly out of wack.  It’s the successful broker who gives $30,000 at his local place of worship each year (and gets all kinds of accolades for his generosity), but meanwhile is raking in millions in the spiking economic climate, has several homes, vehicles, riches galore. That’s where the monarchy was had gotten.

The kings and their people have again gone after other gods — stockpiles of money, military conquest, material desires...with massive corruption, political division, violence, slavery, adultery, fraud, etc.  Idol worship.  The people had curved inward, as Luther would say, only gazing at, only looking out for themselves...

Remember the OT loop?  God blesses. People mess up.  God gets angry... God’s people done messed up.

And so YHWH has crashed down total calamity — “a double portion,” Isaiah says — on the people.  Not only consequences raining down on them as individuals, but on them as an entire nation! The Babylonian captivity is a worse punishment for their actions than they ever could have imagined.

They once had everything, now they have nothing…but to make it even worse, now they’re in exile!  It’s as if God’s punishment is twice as intense as the crime.  God acknowledges that.  And they are feeling so abandoned by God.

Enter Isaiah.  [I love when the prophets get called: “Uhh...what?  You want me to say something in the middle of this cosmic dust-up?]

Can you imagine Isaiah’s fear and trepidation in all this?  “I’m supposed to step in and speak for this God?  And to a people that are this lost, this out of touch?!”

I mean — let me talk to you, church! — you and I (church people [because you’re here]) we can be on the rocks with God, but still part of the church family, still connected, still praying and singing, and involved...working through our stuff.

But how many of us have ever been in a time in our lives...or know countless people who are in fact currently...so far out of touch with the church, with God, with the community of the faithful — in a certain Babylonian exile.  Not angry at God:  Completely unaware!  Indifferent, out of touch with the idea of a divine savior...not just an brokenness in the church family, a total separation from God.  So far away.  A “double portion” far away!

That’s tapping into the kind of people Isaiah was called to preach to.  (We made a movie in Confirmation about the OT prophets, and S had the description about Isaiah: “Isaiah was someone who was totally normal and boring and broken, but open to God’s call. He was totally imperfect, but willing to go.”)

And when Isaiah starts this passage today by proclaiming “comfort” — TWICE — Comfort, O comfort my people.”  That is powerful response to this double distance away from God.  It is an undoing of the double divide between God and God’s people.  Isaiah’s song is reconciling.  It’s healing...after the dust-up.  It’s more than that it’s bringing back to life what was dead.  This is Gospel business.  This is Jesus stuff!

Isaiah is crying out, “Look! People!  Your God is here!  I know you feel far away, or maybe God’s not even in your consciousness!  But God is here.  And even more than that, your God is good!  Your God makes the crooked places accessible for everyone.  Your God lifts up the downtrodden, welcomes the estranged, forgives the sinner, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, clothes those who are not covered by any blankets of security.  HERE IS YOUR GOD!  Even as the seasons change, even as the cold winter blows in and takes so much away, God doesn’t blow away.  God’s word stands forever!

“Sometimes we have to climb up to a new place to remember this God.  Yes, we have stop our daily hurriedness and frenzy to notice, to see.  But this God is all around you.  This God is with you always.  This God is deeply imbedded in the stuff of our world, in every breath!  And this God loves you.  This God picks you up and carries you…”        

That’s Isaiah.  That’s our Advent prophet today.  John the Baptist goes on to proclaim Isaiah’s song many years later, practically word for word, because it happened again — the people messed up.  The distance, the separation grew.  The people lost God, going after other things.  Yep.  We too.  

And this God is here for us as well.  Even now.  2020, cover of Time: “worst year ever”.  Feel like you’ve gotten a double portion of anguish lately?  A double dose of sorrow, fear, loss?  Isaiah, John the Baptist, Peter, friends, reconnect us to, point us to — not just the God of the Old Testament — but to God’s son Jesus, who is the true bridge across the chasm of our sin and all our mess ups.  They point their bony, old fingers toward the dimly lit stable, where in a manger is shining the hope of the world.  The forgiveness of all our mess ups, hiccups, dust ups.  They point us to Christ — whose arrival we prepare for and celebrate again, whose drawing near is now.  Rest in the assurance of that presence and love.

Here is your God.  Here is love.  Here is peace at last.  This day and always.  AMEN.

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.

October 25 -- Bound at the Center (Reformation Sunday 2020)

Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, October 31st 1517.  I first saw that door on October 5th 2012.  I came up to it at night, and it does have that shrine feeling to it.  A silence came over me, a tear welled up: in spite of all the mythology, the hype, the centuries of repristination, the tourism — this was still the place...where it all began!  [pause]

Actually it had begun long before, but this is a monumental scene and today we mark and commemorate this pivotal moment in our church’s history.  The action of nailing up the 95 theses was only at the beginning of Martin Luther’s brave and theologically grounded public, political protests.  He was only 34 years old!  Standing up to the immense and dangerous powers of his day.  (Ooh, I wonder what Luther would say to the powers of our day…I’m sure he’d be railing against all those who oppressed people who are poor and marginalized…some even doing it from behind the thin veneer of religious piety.

And Luther stood up to them — why? — for personal fame and fortune?  To be a big hero in history? For his own glory?  No, Luther stood up, spoke, acted, protested because his “conscience was bound.”  He was compelled by the word of God, by these words that we read again today from Romans and John — “for we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law”…“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

Luther was freed by grace.  
                And so are we, friends.  So are you.

503 years later, we Lutherans — even we Lutherans — can operate like we’re still bound by the letter of the law.  But friends in Christ, we are freed by grace.  (In fact, many scholars point out that it’s not “faith in Jesus,” like most bibles translate.  But more accurately it’s possessive/genative: we are saved by the faith of Jesus…whole ‘nother sermon!  It’s Jesus’ faith — not our own — that saves us!  I mean, it’s all grace...grace upon grace!)

So we go then, to share, to stand up, to tell the story of Jesus and his love, to speak out and protest publicly, and serve our neighbors and those who are poor, and love our enemies, and take care of our own bodies and God’s planet, not because we have to or because we’re supposed to, not because we’re bound by some law to do these things...but because we can’t help ourselves.  This is what grace does to us!  AMEN?!  Our good works are simply a “consequence of God’s grace,” as one of our daily Christ in Our Home devotions put it.  I like to call it eucharistic centripetal force: when we come in contact with this grace we are flung out into the world by a force beyond ourselves, i.e. God’s mercy and love!
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A few years ago I had the pleasure of hearing one of our premier Luther scholars in the ELCA, the Rev. Dr. Former-Bishop and now President of GettysburgPhiladelphia’s United Lutheran Seminary Guy Erwin, who talked about the Continuing Reformation.  

One of the pillars of the Protestant Reformation, he reminded us, is that it’s ongoing.  Semper Reformanda.  Always Reforming.  And as he reflected on this ongoing reformation and what the church looks like as we’re moving now into the next 500 years, Dr. Erwin suggested that we be a church that’s “bound-at-the-center, not bound-at-the-edges”.

I loved it!  It reminded me of that image I’ve talked about before of the church as a herd of good cattle, congregating around good water.  We are bound by what we come to the center to receive, not by strict boundaries at the margins.  The edges are fluid and permeable.  God’s people are held together — not by a high wall or an electric fence that makes clear cuts, and defines and divides us from/apart from/even above the rest of the sorry world.  No, our walls and gates are open.  God’s people are held together instead by what’s at the center: the cross, the font, the Holy Book, the healing oil, this welcome table of grace…

Dr. Erwin was suggesting that much of the past 500 years (not all, but much), has been about binding/defining ourselves as church at the edges — who’s in and who’s out.  What if the re-formation continues with a focus instead on God binding us at the center, God leading us, freeing us, God gathering us around good water?

How does the farmer get the livestock to stay together?  By building bigger walls, stricter fences, or simply by offering better water and food?  Grace frees us to tear down the walls that divide us from the world.  

The truth makes us — locked up and set apart? — no, the truth makes us free indeed.  Luther was freed by grace.  And so are we.

So how do we open up our walls, our borders, our fences and gates even more?  Here in this place?  How do we interact with neighbors and strangers, with the world...arms wide open?  
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I remember the setting where Dr. Erwin said all these things.  It was in a big hotel conference room:  there are doors all around the edges, and they were open!  He didn’t say it, but I thought it was the exact visual of what he was talking about:  People were coming in and out of the room as he was speaking.  You could hear the murmur of conversations out in the hall.  I guess you could be distracted by it, if you wanted, but what Dr. Guy Erwin was saying was the real draw, it was so good, that most of us weren’t concerned with who was coming in and going out, with who was sitting down and who was getting up to leave.  The edges were permeable, see?  How might we make our walls more permeable, our gates more open?    

I think Facebook is another image of that.  No one’s keeping anyone here.  You are free to sit down, visitors are free to sit down…and by grace we are free to get up and leave!  There’s nothing keeping anyone.  The gift of the church now is that we don’t have that kind of power — which is a false notion anyway.  It breaks my heart when I get a sense that people are serving and participating in congregations because of some holy obligation, or guilt or burden on their shoulders.  You can always pick up on that when people use the word “should”...  Lutherans would never admit to “holy obligation” in those RC words...but sometimes, I know our actions prove otherwise, and we can still bind ourselves by the law.  

Hear these words again, friends in Christ:
We are justified by the faith of Jesus, apart from our works, free from holy obligations prescribed by the law.  This is most certainly true.

The Mighty Fortress doesn’t mean a high wall of rules and regulations about who’s in and who’s out!  

The Mighty Fortress is our God, and our God is everywhere (!) — both in here and out there!  Our God is saving grace, boundless love, peace, joy and forgiveness — not just for you and me, but — for this whole world!  

It’s easy to mis-imagine the mighty fortress, as our church fences, our ecclesiastical border walls.  

This new day, these new years of re-formation that are before us, call us to permeate our borders and re-focus on the center:  the Meal, the Story, the oil of healing and forgiveness, the waters of baptism, and the cross (i.e. God suffering with us in our suffering).

The Reformation continues, friends.  I’ve always thought that when the church falters, we falter from a lack of imagination, and we falter from our slavery to fear.  Martin and Katie Luther stand for the opposition of slavery to fear, they stand up as saints who have gone before us, who point us back to freedom by grace.   Both of them faced incredible fears in their lives, in their time and place...  


Paul’s letter to the Romans and the Gospel of John, call us back to the liberated imaginations that God has given and intended for us.   The movie The Hurricane, which has always been one of my favorites, the main character calls it “transcending”:  
    Denzel Washington portrays the boxer and falsely accused of murder Reuben Hurricane Carter.  From prison he speaks to a young man he’s mentoring about his imprisoned predecessors and contemporaries — Nelson Mandela — and how we must transcend the bars that keep us down.

Romans and John call us back from fear and into freedom — freedom from worrying about what might happen if we fling wide open our doors and windows, freedom to let the Spirit move in our midst without our permission, freedom to let change unfold all around us as we stay centered and held together at this [bowl] well of welcome.

Siblings, friends in Christ, we are freed by grace, and so we go, as God’s church, to love and serve the world, to love our enemies, to welcome the outcast, feed the sick, clothe the naked, accompany the downtrodden, and care for our own bodies and the broken body of this earth.  Let’s go sing the story of God’s love!  
    We are freed by grace. We can’t help ourselves. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

October 11 -- Showing Up (Pentecost 19A)

Micah’s at his second weekend of travel baseball tournaments here in October.  Last week he and Heather were over in Delaware, this week they’re down south.  And I’m reflecting on how much baseball for him — and for us by extension — has changed since he was a Little Leaguer.  You sports families may be able to relate to the evolution we’ve experienced.  I’m thinking about how the coaches, in particular, have changed over the years:

Gone are the days of constant affirmation.  I mean, there’s affirmation when you do a great job, but not when you’re just doing your job.  Gone are the days of cupcakes and box drink apple juice after the game.  Gone are the days of “everybody plays, everywhere on the field.”  Remember those days?  

No, Coach expects his players to “show up” — practice, hustle, pay attention, be out front.  “Bring everything you have to this field,” they say.

In fact, if you don’t “show up,” he’s going to play someone else.  If you’re distracted from the game and not bringing your all, you’re going to sit out.


—


The king, in Jesus’ parable today, calls the wedding guests to “show up”.  It’s time for a party.  And the king’s pulling out the stops.  Everyone’s paid for, food and drink will abound, the table is set, the candles are lit, the band is cued up, the meal is hot and ready to be served...
                        And nobody shows.  

They all have excuses.  Most of them just have to work.  No time for any frivolous, excessive partying.

Some have a “better” offer, pre-existing plans.  Others just don’t really want to come — I mean, they don’t really know the wedding couple anyway — so they make something up, and bow out with a quick, friendly text.  

[slowly] And then there are others, who might actually like to go, but some voice in their head is telling them they’re not worth it, that they don’t deserve this party. [pause]  They’ve hosted weddings themselves and know how expensive it can be, and so they don’t want to put the king out — they’ve got a bit of a martyr complex, they mean well, but they fail to see value in themselves, and they just can’t let themselves be loved and lavished by the king...  

That’s a little like in the text when some actually seize and kill the king’s servants who are managing the RSVPs.  
It just kills the spirit of the feast.  Have you ever had someone decline a lavish gift you’re excited to give.  And they pass, citing some “oh-not-on-my-account” or “oh-don’t-want-to-put-you-out” excuse?!  It just sucks the spirit of joy and generosity and celebration out of the room.  It’s like killing the king’s servants.  So, those  suffering, martyr-complexed ones decline the invitation too.

In fact, nobody, the text says, who was originally invited “shows up”.  And this infuriates the king:  I should do a little textual analysis here.  Matthew says the king goes out and kills these no shows, burns their city!

Fundamentalists read this clearly as a reference to hell and the fires of damnation...if you don’t “show up” for Jesus.  

Most mainstream scholars look at this in the context of the time Matthew was writing — that this was an obvious reference to the destruction of Jerusalem and the lackadaisical faith of the chosen ones, the insiders, who are squandering the goodness of God.  You have to decide what you think this means.

But anyway, the king’s going to play somebody else, put someone else in to the celebration.  You know, like when the kid on the team who’s biggest and strongest and probably has the most talent, but who’s also had a really bad attitude these days?  Playing only for himself, cutting down his teammates, mouthing off arrogantly...So the good Coach takes that kid out, benches him — he’s not “showing up” — and instead puts in the kid who’s all heart, and might just have enough gumption to turn this game around.  The king’s going to put someone else in because the privilege-round draft picks didn’t “show up”.  Is that so heartless...or is it actually a great move, even loving...for the good of the whole.

So the master’s servants (they’ve been through a lot, haven’t they?) again go out and invite everyone now.  [Gentiles - the Gospel opens up to everyone!]  This is what the kingdom of heaven is compared to, Jesus teaches — A king who invites [pause] everyone.  

[slowly]  The riff-raff is welcome.  Just verses before, Jesus was talking about tax collectors and prostitutes getting into God’s good graces before those puffed-up and self-righteous Pharisees.  This parable is an elaboration on that.  And I hope our baseball real-life metaphor can be helpful too...

“Those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.”  

Here’s what occurred to me this week:  [pause]  We’re the riff-raff.  You’re the riff-raff.

We’re the ones who are left.  We’re the ones who got scooped up by God’s love, and here we are.  We’re the ones who Coach just put into the game.  All heart.  

You’re not a perfect group of churchy people.  I’m not a perfect pastor.  We’re broken.  And jealous and bitter and hungry and sad and lost and struggling and scared.  But here we are, scooped up by God’s love, probably because of one of God’s servants who invited us — maybe that was a parent or grandparent that brought you into the banquet hall long ago.  Or maybe it was a friend or even a stranger.  

But here we are at our Lord’s banquet — candles lit, food and drink abounds!  Here we are: still serving and being served, still feasting, still drinking wine and eating bread, still ingesting and digesting this word of life, this Word of God.  We’re the riff-raff, siblings in Christ.  The good and the bad, all wrapped up into us, all wrapped up into you!  

And God’s gathered us in: “And the wedding hall was filled with guests.”  [pause]

Now what about this guy who gets bounced from the party because he wasn’t wearing his wedding garment?  That’s a whole ‘nother sermon, but let me say this:
 
When God invites us into the banquet, when God calls us onto the field, we ought to bring everything we have...including that free garment of grace that God’s given.  

Those wedding robes in those days were something no one could afford...they were provided by the king at the door of the wedding feast, like worship folders at the beginning of a church service...only way more expensive.  

God’s love and grace is provided freely at the door, before we even sit down, so for God’s sake, put it on!  

Don’t think that you can pass without wearing God’s free garment of love and grace.  This one guy did, and he was thrown into the outer darkness.  How we too can be tossed out, when we choose not to accept God’s offer, God’s robe of forgiveness and peace.  (We pretty much toss ourselves out at that point.)

Here it is, given freely and shed abundantly for you.  This welcome to all, this challenge to both receive it, to give it our all on the field, and to seek to extend that same welcome to everyone else, just like we’ve received from God.  That’s the party.  That’s the game.  That’s the joy.    

This is where we find ourselves these October days, sisters and brothers in Christ.  God’s hospitality is multifaceted and exciting and lavish...and you’re in!  You’re on the team.  You’re on the field.  [pointing] “Play ball.”

Amen.

October 4 -- Wine Pressing On (Pentecost 18A)

One of the things I really miss during this seemingly endless season of physical isolation from one another — especially in worship — is the Children’s Talk!   I think that’s why Pastor Time children’s messages have been such a priority for me.  There’s this moment I really miss, and can’t replicate virtually and that’s when you’re with children and you need a volunteer.  Teachers know about this too.  You know that moment?  Our kids here at Bethlehem have arms that shoot up in the air before I’m even finished asking, “OK, I need a volunteer, who would like to volunteer?”  Doesn’t matter if its work or fun or a mystery, we have kids who are ready and willing to step up.  Isn’t that a wonderful image.  [imitate] “Ooo, ooo, pick me, pick me!”  I love it.

We have an rich Gospel text before us this day…Because Jesus is looking for good tenants, good stewards…on this Caring for Creation Sunday, on this kick-off of stewardship month, and I know Christ is looking in our direction today.  Jesus identifies the Pharisees and the chief priests (the insiders) as evil tenants, and basically says “If you can’t produce good fruits, then I’m looking for someone who can.”  Could we be the ones Jesus is looking for?  Is Jesus saying, “I need a volunteer.”  Friends, Christ wants to entrust vineyard work to a people who produce good fruit.  And Jesus this moment is looking over in our direction.  Are we willing to be the ones who reach out in the love of Christ…
or simply the recipients of the reaching out?  Because that’s there for us too:

Friends, we are all recipients of the reaching out of Jesus, who rescues us from sin and the power of death.  He is the one in the parable who is killed, he is the stone that the builders rejected, the head cornerstone.  

And today Jesus is looking at us, and asking are you willing to help me reach those who are in need, those who are hurting, those who haven’t yet heard of God’s love and forgiveness, those who are hungry, sick, lonely and lost?  This is a stewardship text, this is an environmental stewardship text.  Are we willing to respond to what God is offering?  

All that we have is on lease from God.  Maybe you hear this all the time, but think about it again today in terms of this vineyard text.  Our Triune God, the cosmic landowner, planted the vineyard (like the text says)—the plants, the trees, the animals, the oceans—God planted everything.  

God built a watchtower—a way to see what’s coming, a way to protect the vineyard, the earth.  That is, the cosmic landowner gave us minds to think and learn and understand and study and see what’s coming, protect the vineyard, protect all that God has planted.  We have the ability to climb up and look out with our intellects.  

Then God built a wine-press—a tool for producing and enabling good things to flow from us and from our hard work.  In other words, it’s not just our minds, God also gave us bodies — hands and feet, voices, and hearts, that press/squeeze out good things for this world.  Think of your bodies as a wine press this day, crushing out good things for this world.  And in so doing, we don’t always stay clean.  Pressing good things out for the world is exhausting and messy.  The wine-press is a great image.  Two ways to press wine back then: 1) giant rocks were fashioned to crush grapes, which took lots of back breaking work, and 2) people stomped on grapes, which was a big mess (like the famous “I Love Lucy” episode).    

Our church body, the ELCA has a signature phrase: “God’s Work, Our Hands” (I’d add “Feet”).  The wine-press…our own bodies, are not ours.  They’re God’s, but the produce comes directly from us.  God leased all these things, all this responsibility to us.  

What if we responded like the kids at the Children’s Talk? “Ooo, ooo, pick me, pick me, Lord!”

But something can happen and often does, even at an early age — we can most definitely loose this enthusiasm and willingness.  Why, what’s happening there?

sometimes it’s because we have other things to do
sometimes we just don’t want to
sometimes we don’t think ourselves good enough/smart enough/eloquent enough/wealthy enough/ connected enough/free enough (too busy)
sometimes it’s an even deeper doubt of ourselves…
sometimes it’s a bitterness, that I’ve already served/done my part: others should...step up/serve/give

Bishop Graham on raising your hand…
Council positions the same way…

Yes, this is a powerful lesson for today…because there have been many distractions, both internally and out there in our crazy/dangerous/divided world.  

These distractions come along, and I wonder if it’s almost like God’s checking to see if we’ll loose track of what we’re all about, of who we are…

I’ve been saying with more confidence lately that I’ve never felt so called as the church of Jesus Christ in the world.  I often feel like the church’s voice (our voice) heard to hear — like a screaming mouse — but what we should be saying and doing has never been clearer to me: just read the Gospel of Matthew:  clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, nurturing the child, welcoming the stranger, proclaiming and practicing forgiveness, mercy, generosity, justice and peace…

Maybe you’ve heard the line “God’s church doesn’t need a mission.  God’s mission needs a church.”  

We can get so caught up in all the drama, the fury, the pettiness, the overwhelming concern for our own selves and our own safety and security — I know of a church right now that is only concerned (my judgement) about their own survival.  Nobody is saying “Pick me, Lord!” They’re bitter and angry and scared and grasping at every little thing they can to stay afloat.  It’s that saddest picture of a church loosing its mission.  My friend is trying to help them see...  

How we can forget this invitation to stewardship and be like the Pharisees and the scribes—how we we can miss this opportunity to respond to God’s goodness—that God is offering us—to be the ones to raise our hands (not just dutifully) but even enthusiastically:  “I’ll go in there, Lord!  Pick me!”

Sisters and brothers in Christ, as broken and imperfect as we might be, we are the church for God’s mission – clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, nurturing the child, welcoming the stranger, proclaiming and practicing forgiveness.  Bethlehem is called to be a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.  And in so many ways we already do!

Ruth’s generosity and kindness…
Mike and Marva’s care for the beauty in the sanctuary...
Ramona’s opening our eyes to racism and white supremacy…and a deeper care for one another...
Tim’s passion for keeping us, for keeping this church safe…
Alison’s gift of music and all her good, hard questions...
Marie’s picking up a phone and checking-in with so many of us during this time of isolation…
Richard’s continued dedication of time and organization and resources to FACETS…and feeding hungry people...
Ann’s witty sense of humor...
John’s hugs...
Kristin...
See the risk here is all the people I’m not naming...right?
But this is just a few Bethlehem wine-pressers, crushing out good things for God’s church and God’s world!

I know that all of you are pressing out good things for God’s world!  We are the church of God’s mission.  AMEN?  

-God knows that none of us are ideal tenants, perfect stewards of everything God has given us.  
-God knows and we know that we’ve fallen short.  
-But look at what God has already done here!  

I love the line in our text for today, “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.”  Look at all the amazing things God has blessed us with here, and wherever you are!  It is amazing in our eyes!  

There is an aspect of biblical stewardship that is often forgotten, and that’s the spirit of joy that accompanies the giving.  (Lucy starting to having fun)

Reaching out, tending the vineyard, this is always hard, messy work…but it is also accompanied by an indescribable joy.  Experiencing joy in sacrificing is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to explain.  I guess it’s like golf, you have to try it to get it:  You just have to try...reading to children, picking up trash on the ground, visiting inmates in prison, signing a percentage of your paycheck over to GOD before you do anything else with it (that’s biblical stewardship), taking extra time from your job to be with your kids who need you, listening to a friend who is grieving, donating time at FACETS or Lamb Center.  Each of these examples of tending the vineyard, are difficult—sometimes literally backbreaking, always messy—but because God smiles at the church accepting the mission, we smile too.  It’s contagious God’s joy becomes our joy.  That’s how it works for us resurrection people of the cross!  Joy abounds, like the joy of children jumping up and down saying, “Pick me, pick me, pick me to light the candle!”  

IN SPITE OF…WE PRESS ON.  That’s how we roll at Bethlehem.  IN SPITE OF…WE PRESS ON. 
God made the wine press.  And we squish out good things for this world.  We press on...

In spite of all that would tear us down, we press on.  In spite of all that would distract us, we press on.  In spite of evil and danger in the world, we press on.  In spite of white supremacy and all the work we have to do to condemn it, in spite of attacks on us and our community, we press on.  In spite of environmental abuse — animal abuse, forest abuse, Chesapeake Bay abuse, air abuse, we press on.  In spite of families breaking apart, we press on.  In spite of ourselves—our own brokenness, selfishness, inabilities, we press on.  We press on in God’s mission because Jesus is there with us, because nothing (not even death itself) can separate us from the love that Christ has for each of us, because God has called us to be the church in mission, because we are soaked in the powerful waters of baptism and will never the same, because we are fed and nourished with the body and blood of Christ’s own self at this table where all are welcome!  

The earth is God’s, the wine press [pointing to you and me] is God’s, and it is amazing in our eyes.  And so we give thanks with our lives.  But we press on because whether we live or whether we die, we belong to God.  AMEN.

September 27 -- Becoming *Teleios* (Pentecost 17A)

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September 13 -- The Country of Forgiving-ness (Pentecost 15A)

I feel like these last weeks of lessons from Matthew have been preparing us for this bombshell today.  

Forgiveness is the ultimate question.  How are you doing with forgiveness, I’ve been asking us all.  How are you doing at forgiving others; and how are you doing at the fact that you have been forgiven by others...and by God?

And just in case we want to just check off this work like another chore on our lists, Jesus blows Peter’s mind:

Peter is looking to check a box or two or twenty.  I say he wants to “one-and-done” forgiveness.  “How many times, Lord?  What form do I fill out, where do I sign?”  But Jesus calls him (and us) to see that forgiveness is not an item on a checklist, but a country.  

Jesus tells Peter not to keep score, but to immigrate to a the land of “forgiving-ness” — that’s what the  77x means.  Seven refers to wholeness, so Seventy-seven is the “wholest wholeness,” a total state of total forgiving-ness.  A new place to live.  Build your life there, Jesus says.  

We live in a tit-for-tat land, where we check items off of lists, payback and pay-up to settle accounts.  It’s hard for us to accept undeserved kindnesses — whether that’s physical gifts or compliments or favors — if someone gives me something, I want to pay it back or pay it forward or pay it off...and not feel like I owe anything to anyone.  It’s programmed deep down there in our protestant-capitalist-dog-eat-dog-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours-work-ethic DNA.  

So it’s really hard to hear this message today.  
It’s really hard to pack up and move.  

Or even to envision this new territory that Jesus and Paul and Joseph in the Old Testament are mapping for us today, this “Commonwealth of Forgiving-ness”!
—
The brothers in that great OT story of reconciliation are still not being honest in their making amends with their brother Joseph — they try to strategize and pull at the heartstrings of Joseph and his long-lost father’s wishes (“Let’s tell him that Dad would want this…”).  

But Joseph, who definitely wasn’t perfect either, has this moment of divine intervention.  There’s no other way to describe it, like all the cases of forgiveness.   God picks Joseph up and puts him on a raft, blows a wind, and Joseph enters into the country of forgiving-ness.  Joseph blazes the trail into this new territory, into Seventy Seven:  “Have no fear, I will provide for you and your little ones.”  
And that, by the way, made it possible for his brothers to get there too.  As they embrace.  “Do not fear, God has made this for good.”  And they weep tears of joy.

Someone’s gotta venture out there, cutting through the strangler vines and thistles of resentment and past grievances and often downright evil.  The brothers, you remember, threw Joseph into a pit, left him to die decades ago.  Joseph gets pulled out by traders passing by who carry him like a commodity to sell in Egypt.  ...Lotta time for a thick forest of anger and resentment to grow.  The weeds of disdain and revenge can take over, especially as Joseph amazingly rises to power and to a position in Egypt to exact payback on any of his past abusers.

But that’s not what happens.  Someone’s gotta blaze the trail, and Joseph was the imperfect candidate God selected.  Someone’s gotta lead the expedition into the new territory.  We can’t just keep living in these swampy forests of anger and keeping tabs and holding onto debts.  
—
You must go there too.  God is picking you up today and sending you — and me.  We should to pack it up, trust God, and head out for Seventy Seven, the Commonwealth of Forgiving-ness.  
Always from the territory of sin and brokenness into the land of healing and wholeness.  

The trail has actually been maintained, by all those imperfect saints who have gone before us...in loving their enemies, in praying for those who persecute them, and forgiving their debtors.
—
This is heaven-come-down-to-earth stuff today. Do you realize that?  “On earth as it is in heaven.”  That’s what the Commonwealth of Forgiving-ness is.   It’s a territory we can inhabit here and now.  Not 7 (like a checklist) but 77 (like a country).  

Can you see it?  Especially as we start to get specific?  

As we talk about racial justice, and environmental justice, and gender justice?  How does heaven come down to earth?  Where is the embrace and the tears of joy, and God making it for good?  As we talk about Democrats and Republicans, and Fox News and MSNBC and families around the table?  And neighbors who annoy?  And leaders who betray and friends who “assume”... Where is the divine intervention?  Where is God putting you on a raft and the Holy Spirit current is carrying you to Seventy Seven?

In the Commonwealth of Forgiving-ness, you don’t have to hang onto the words your friend (or who you thought was your friend) said about you.  In Seventy Seven you can see over those trees.  You can see her as a broken child of God, hurting and in need…

The father who is an abused abuser?  Compassion and prayer blanketing the work of healing, reconciliation and peace.  Seventy Seven is no oasis.  The labor is long and daily, but not without breaks, and not without community.

And in Seventy Seven, your mistakes are completely in God’s loving hands.  You don’t have to carry them or trip over them.  You can work without that extra burden.  The pain you’ve caused others, whether intentionally or unconsciously, is lifted from your shoulders.  

And that feels so good that you invite others to come to this new land too.  And together you build sustainable housing for everyone to move to Seventy Seven.  You bake and harvest and sew and set tables, so that everyone can live in Forgiving-ness.  
—

Paul says it like this, to a community that was struggling to immigrate to Seventy Seven: “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.  So then, whether we live or whether we die, we belong to God.”

Here’s the thing: I’m trying to paint hopefully a picture of a Land called Forgiving-ness, and invite us all there in Christian discipleship.  But what if we can’t get there?   What if we’re stuck?  What if it seems we’ll never get there?  

Friends in Christ, the welcome is always there, it is again today: the Customs gates are always wide open and anyone is free to enter Forgiving-ness at any time.  And many, many faithful ones are going!  

But even if you stay behind, you still belong to the Lord.  You already reside in God’s embrace.  AMEN.

August 16 -- Preaching Up Here, Living Down There (Pentecost 11A)

Especially when our kids were younger than they are now, there were some words in our house that we just didn’t say.  This is still true to some extent, but they’ve learned and understand a lot more now.   But back in the day when they were little…we taught our Micah and Katie that they are words we don’t say under our roof:  We don’t say hate.  “But Daddy other people say ‘hate’ all the time,” Micah questioned, “and my teacher said it’s not a bad word.”  That may be true, Micah, but we don’t use that word.  We don’t say ‘stupid’.  And we don’t say ‘idiot’.  We don’t say ‘shut up’.  And we don’t say ‘fat’, either.  

Somehow, Heather and I in all our parental omniscience from up here came to the conclusion that canceling these words out of our household vocabulary is good thing down there.

The problem is, when we slip.  When I’m watching a Cubs baseball game and blurt out, “Uh, I hate AJ Perzinski!”  When I’m reading the newspaper in the living room, while Katie is doing her homework in the kitchen, and suddenly I completely lose all awareness of where I am, and shout “I can’t believe it!  This guy’s an idiot; I wish he would shut up!  He so stupid, I hate him.”   OK...a bit of hyperbole there.  But you know I slipped up...

And in each of these circumstances we/I then had to engage in the tricky parental activity of explaining ourselves, probably apologizing, maybe making amends or exceptions, but always-always including an affirmation that they’re right, “You’re right, I shouldn’t have said that.”  I said we shouldn’t say those words, and here I am saying them myself...  

Great is your faithfulness to what we said, Micah.  Great is your faithfulness to what we said, Katie.  But here we are: sloshing about.  

It’s one thing to preach it.  It’s something much different to live it.  Good teaching can trickle down from up here.  But great faith sloshes around down there.  

Our Gospel passage today starts out with some great teaching from up here:  Jesus again is crumbling up the Pharisees’ neatly sliced world…this time with a lesson on purity.  It’s not what goes into the mouth that’s unclean.  It’s what comes out of it.  Words.

But Jesus isn’t just teaching us not to swear.
 
Let’s not get too caught up with just bad words like stupid or idiot or fat, and whole bunch of others that unfortunately we all know.  

I’ve known people who “swear like sailors” (some of them are sailors...and have hearts of gold.  [pause]  Their words might be foul but their hearts burn with purity.  Their intentions are compassionate.  Maybe you’ve known people like this too.  While others, proud of their purity and squeaky clean mouths, shoot daggers and explode gossip with their curse-less words.  Sure we should watch our language, but Jesus isn’t teaching us here not to swear.  

He’s teaching about heart surgery.  

The heart, you see, in that culture, was understood to be the source our thoughts and our decisions about how to live in the world.  Jesus is teaching us about slicing away all that harms us and our neighbors and our world.  That’s a good teaching from up there.

But it’s one thing to preach it.  It’s something much different to live it.  The story goes on, in our text today, and it says that Jesus left his pulpit.  He left that place and went away to a different region.  He left the pureness-of-heart-lecture notes on the stand, came down to another region, and this is where it gets sloppy, sloshes around:

A woman approaches, who is not from his tribe.  A strange woman, a Syro-phoenician.  Jesus grew up a neighborhood where such women were despised.

  
They were hated, stupid, idiots who needed to shut up, who were always encroaching on his people – the real chosen Jews, not these half-bred aliens.  Do you see what’s happening here?

And so, Jesus – JESUS, the prince of peace, the one who just got done preaching about purity of heart – calls her a dog:  “It’s not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  A dog!  Do you know how dirty dogs were then?  Not adorable, housebroken, little pooches that we bless when we do the Blessing of the Animals...dogs as glimpses of God.  No, dogs back then were mangy, flee-bitten mutts, that were as irritating as flies.  And calling a person a dog, that as offensive as a white person calling a black person a word that we won’t even print in the paper.  A dog, he calls her.  

It’s one thing to preach it.  It’s something much different to live it.  

What do we do with this text where our precious Jesus himself is falling for the same old racial slurs, the same old arrogance, the same old self-righteousness, the same old divisions, the same old hatred that has plagued generations and cultures throughout history, and still plagues us today?!  Words escalate to threats; and threats to violence; and violence to wars.  There’s nothing new there.

This is a side of Jesus, that many are tempted either to ignore, or rationalize away, or defend…as if the Savior of the world needed saving.  I can’t explain Jesus out of this offense, out of his calling this woman a dog.

But I can share with you what I see happening, ultimately:  [sloppiness, thanks be to God, even if we don’t want sloppiness—and none of us do, we want neat and tidy, clear cut, like the Pharisees, where life is a set of rules to keep and roles to fill.  But the gift is sloppiness.]  I see Jesus, fully Divine and fully human, coming down from on high…to be in the mix of it all.   Good teaching can trickle down from up there.  But great faith sloshes around down here.  It’s one thing to preach it, it’s another thing to live it.

And in this case, God surprises us again, as a Syrophoenician woman, calls Jesus out.   Watch how she responds; not by hitting back; not by going away:  “Yes Lord,” she says, “but even the dogs eat the bread from the master’s table.”  I might be a dog, but I’m still hungry.  I’m broken alright, which is why I need the bread that only you can give.  She doesn’t fight back with hateful words, and she doesn’t back away either.  

She stands up strong and demonstrates faith.  She makes a statement of faith:  Only you, Jesus, offer the bread that I need, the healing that I need, the salvation which you have prepared.

And something must have snapped in Jesus, for immediately his tone changes and then he affirms her.  (Forget the tricky explaining, like when my child catches me using a word that’s off limits—I can’t explain that.)  We’ll just have to jump to the affirmation.  “Woman, great is your faith.” In a way, I’m not sure who’s helping/forgiving/blessing who.  What is clear, is that Jesus is with her.  Not up there.  He’s in the mix, down here as sloppy as it all can.

And that’s the heart of the Gospel.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, it’s not always neat and clean unfortunately, but we have a Christ who gets close, who plunges into the mix.

We have a Christ who kneels down, who takes our hand and we take his.  We have a God who doesn’t stay up there, but who always enters into the sloshiness of life down here.  Good teaching can trickle down from up there.  But great faith sloshes around down here.  

It’s one thing to preach it.  And I pray daily that we can preach a good thing up here, up at the church.  (But we/I don’t always—sometimes the preacher’s words from up here are winded, or fake, or confusing or sometimes just wrong.)  Good teaching and preaching can trickle down from up here.  But the real action is down there, down in our living rooms and kitchens and basements, down in our offices and stores and on the roads.  Great faith is down there, sloshing around.  And man, it sloshes, it’s sloppy, and messy and soggy.   It ain’t easy— this practice of purity of heart, this discipline of choosing words of compassion not violence.  It ain’t easy staying in touch with each other, in relationship with one another and with the stranger and with the world.  It ain’t easy, remaining faithful, coming back, giving ourselves to the rhythms of the church and nudgings of the Spirit.  And as soon as I’m finished preaching up here, I’m right back down there, sloshing around…and thank God we slosh around together.

And thank God we slosh around with Jesus, who enters the sloppiness of this life and stays, maybe even more than we wanted.  Who banters back and forth with us, albeit sometimes a struggle.  Who names and commends our great faith:  “Women, great is your faith.  Men, great is your faith.  All siblings in Christ, great is your faith. Remember that I’m down here with you, and I’ll never leave.”   AMEN.
—

HoD: ‘O God Why Are You Silent’ from the Lament section of our hymnal.  Woman calling Jesus out, asking for what we need.  Great is her faithfulness and ours too as we sing this with our hearts, and demand Christ’s healing in our lives and our world.  And Christ responds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

March 29 -- Fifth Sunday in Lent

Grace to you and peace from Jesus Christ, who raises the dead. Amen.

What strikes me about this text this time around — we’ve seen this before and there’s so much here — but what strikes me now, is that Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life” not at the end, after Lazarus is all raised and showered and fresh and alive, but when death is stinking and things are at their worst.  

There’s a scene right at the beginning of the next chapter where Jesus is actually sitting at a banquet table with Lazarus and Mary and Martha.  Everyone’s together, food is being served, wine is being poured.  You can easily imagine the good smells and the hearty laughter at the table one chapter past this point.  But that’s not where Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life...everyone who lives in me will never die.”  Jesus says this, at exactly the moment when Lazarus is stone cold dead, 4-stinkin’-days-dead in the tomb, when Martha comes at him in bitterness and blame: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”  (And of course, beneath the anger is always sadness and fear.)  

Friends in Christ, Jesus isn’t just with us in the banquet times — the parties, and the family feasts, and the full sanctuaries — Jesus is with us through it all.  Jesus doesn’t say “I am the resurrection and the life” at the sun-shiny glorious end: he says it right smack in the cloudy-cold-muddy middle.

And we’re in the middle now.  In the cloudy-cold-muddy middle.  Deep in the muddy valley.  Shadows and fears all around.  Slogging through our days.  Anxious and angry.  Sad and afraid.    

We’re right smack in the middle of it, these days.  In this unprecedented season of Lent, this quarantine, this Covid-19 nightmare.  We’ll never forget this time.  But, friends, we have a God who is here with us, in it.

—

And this God, this one Jesus Christ does several things with us, in the cloudy-cold-muddy middle: First of all, Jesus weeps.  

What is that about?!  Especially in the Gospel of John!?  

If you’ve been listening to my interpretations of John’s Gospel over the months, I continually find Jesus to be completely in control, cool and calm.  He loves everyone, but I haven’t seen him lose it before.  After all, Jesus is all divine.  There’s no question about that, according to John.  All these signs, all these miracles (last week: blind man...feeding 5000, walks on water) all these signs all point to his divinity.   

So what’s he cryin’ about!?  He has the power to raise Lazarus! 

If any of us had the power to raise the dead, if I had the power to raise the dead, I’d show up to your house after the  death of your loved one, and I’d be like, “Step aside everyone!  Check this out!”  I don’t think tears would be my issue.  If we had dead-raising powers, we might be serious and stoic, maybe for dramatic effect, but we’d know we had a miracle up our sleeve.  I’m being trite.  Here’s my point:

Jesus, on the other hand, weeps!  Ponder that this week, this long season of quarantine.  I think one could write a doctoral dissertation on this shortest verse in all of Scripture, especially because it’s John’s Gospel, where Jesus is all in control and calm.  I don’t have the answer as to what that’s all about, but I will say:  Jesus weeping points to Divinity also.  

This is not counted as one of the 7 signs, but I think it should be: What kind of a God cries?!  

Ours does.  Tears say, “I’m with you.”  Ever been with a friend when you were really hurting, who didn’t have an answer or any wise words, but just started crying with you?  I’ve never felt so heard, so understood, so accompanied, so embraced.  

Did you see these clips of Hoda on the “TODAY Show”?  Always so professional, so scripted and in control.  This week...after talking with Drew Brees how kindness is also contagious and both saying “We love you” to each other...she just lost it.

And that’s just a tiny glimpse of our God, who so deeply and completely hears, understands, accompanies and loves us.  Maybe that’s what those tears were about...

Christ is here, right smack in the middle of our pain, of our sorrow, of our fear, of our losses, of our anxieties and of our tears.  All this happens — not after the raising and unbinding — but before it, when things really, literally stink!  God is there, present, loving, weeping.  Never felt so embraced.

—

And then, the final sign — the raising of Lazarus is the final sign of the Gospel of John.  The whole second half of the book of John is the Passion narrative.  So this is it, and what a finale this is to (what’s been called) the Book of Signs, the first half of John’s Gospel!

Hearken back to the first sign, when Jesus turned the water to wine back in Chapter 2 of John:  Mary, who was there then and is here at the tomb of Lazarus as well (and will be at the cross), said back at the wedding, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Do you remember that?  She said this to the servants:  “Do whatever he tells you.”  

As Jesus’ seven signs unfold through John’s narrative, Jesus is always giving a command, telling his “sheep” to do something:

whether it’s “fill the jars with water,” or “take up your mat and walk,” or “gather whatever food is left over,” “go wash in the pool of Sent”...and today, “Lazarus, come out!...Unbind him and let him go!”  

Let’s heed Mary’s advice: “Do whatever Jesus tells you.”  Why?  Because when we do what Jesus tells us to do, good things happen…that is, God’s glory is revealed.  When we listen, when we trust, then we see and walk and eat and rise from the dead...and finally understand.

We’re all sheep of the Good Shepherd, remember?  And sometimes we go astray.  And God’s gonna love us and forgive us even when we fail miserably at listening, trusting, seeing and understanding Jesus (that’s the trust of Luke’s Gospel: God’s gonna hold us no matter what)…

But our life becomes abundant when we follow Mary’s advice, and “do whatever Christ tells us to do.”  Today:  Come out!

— 

Not only has Jesus given sight to the blind, health to the sick, food to the hungry, and brought a crazy-good party to the wedding feast in Cana...and to all our feasts and party days over the years, right?!  (In these isolating days, I hope you’re doing some good reflecting and giving thanks for all the blessings of family and community during these days when we’re cut off from that.  I’m going through a lot of pictures and videos of good times.)  Not only has Christ done all this, given us all this, he even raises the dead!

He even brings us through our valleys, through our losses, through our pain, definitely through our tears, through death itself, and gives us life, and life abundant...not just ventilator life, but family and friends and laughter and banquet tables.

This life is ours even now, even in the mud — not just at the Great Feast That is To Come — this “resurrection and life” is ours right now, right smack in the middle.  Right here in our valley of the shadow of death, the Shepherd is with us.  

Now that’s something worth celebrating!  That’s not just a silver lining:  That’s the center.  That’s the center of our gathering.  That’s the center of our faith.  That’s the center of our hope.  That’s the rock in a weary land.  That’s the cross.  

This life abundant, this abiding Jesus, this raising of the dead, this coming out, this rock in a weary land is yours today, 

and through this valley.

and always.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

March 22 -- Fourth Sunday in Lent

So many ways to go here!  We’ve just eaten a banquet of grace-filled, Gospel words...not a Grubhub fast-food leave-it-on-your-doorstep delivery, but our Bible readings this and every Sunday are like a long dining hall table of every kind of food, and family of all generations and from all over the world gathered around, and we pray and feast).  But I’d like to focus on that pool where Jesus tells the blind man to wash: what that meant then, and how this speaks to each of us today.
—
First, Jesus puts mud in his eyes.  I know I’ve spoken before about that great toast that I grew up with: before clinking glasses,  “Here’s mud in your eye!”  That comes from this passage.  “Here’s to seeing things in a new and healthy way!” First Jesus puts mud in his eyes, and then he tells him to go wash off that mud...

This is the 6th sign of Jesus in the Gospel of John.  The 1st you  might remember (anyone know?) is the water-to-wine.  Next Jesus heals the royal official’s son, he heals the paralytic, he feeds the 5000, walks on water.  Then the blind man today.  Then Lazarus.)  All signs point to Jesus’ divinity.
7 signs all together in John.  And it’s no coincidence that there are also 7 days of creation, way back in Genesis.  Jesus is re-creating, re-newing, re-defining, re-freshing the whole creation in these 7 signs.  So, hear these stories and wonders of Jesus in a cosmic, universal context.  They’re always about/symbolizing much more than just one person being healed (or even 5000 being fed) a long time ago...

So today is the 6th sign, right here in the mud of “quarantine”, 40 days, Lent.  Jesus puts mud in the blind man’s eyes and then tells him to “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam (which means Sent).” Go wash in the Sending Waters.

So what does it mean to wash in the Pool of Sent?  In the Sending Bath?  Sounds like a baptismal font to me!  ;)
—
[page/scroll through your worship folder]
See the sections in the box G-W-M-S?
What’s the longest section?  Trick question: Sending...

So again, what does it mean to be washed in the Sending Waters?  In the Pool of Sent (or Siloam)?

The once-blind man’s story gives us some ideas to instruct us for the “longest part of the worship service”:

First of all, being washed in the Sending waters means being healed!  Christ heals us too!  What are your “blind spots”?  Think about that this week.  And know that Jesus puts mud in our eyes too and sends us also past the Sent Pool and out into our lives anew, re-freshed, re-created, re-defined, re-visioning!  Our gathering, even like this, even virtually, around the scripture — ancient words and prayers of Christians who have been backed into corners before — Christ is the mud in our eyes, and then as we pass by those holy waters on the way out  (why we have the font at the back) we have been made new!  Being washed means that we are healed, sisters and brothers, friends in Christ!  We are forgiven and cleaned!

Being washed in “Sent” also means being honest.  “All I know is that once I was blind but now I see.”  Here’s what I know.  Pay attention to your experience.  I feel like 9x out of 10 when a person changes their mind about something (maybe this has happened to you?), it’s not because of a new doctrine that got rammed down their throat; it’s because of an experience:

*All I know is that once I never really cared that deeply for protecting the environment, for example, but then I spent a week in the Rockies hiking and camping…
*All I know is that I was taught that gay people were bad, but then I worked next to Larry…one of the kindest people I know.
*All I know is that I always thought Christians were judgmental and insular and even cruel, and then I came to Bethlehem…

The blind man reminds us to pay attention, and be honest about our experiences, how they affect us, and how they change us.  We could remain unchanged, even with our sight restored… [pause]  But not the blind man: “All I know is that once I was blind, but now I can see.”  For the blind man, everything changes after his sight is restored.

Being washed in the Sending waters also means facing opposition and even aggression calmly.  Did you see how he did that.  He just stuck to his truth calmly, even while the inevitable opposition came on strong.  This breaks with the way it’s “supposed to be,” you see.  The blind man stays calm —and we see — faithful.  He’s not swayed by the fire and fury, the violence of the opposition.

I think that can be so instructive for us these days amid a global pandemic.  Staying calm.  Staying faithful.  Not being swept up in the fire and fury.  Here’s what I know: God is good.  Christ showers us with grace, with new ways of looking at things, with creativity as our vision is radically adjusted, and that the Holy Spirit binds us together and sends us to be hope and joy and peace and grace for one another and for this world...even if we’re doing that from quarantine, from the complicated isolation of this unprecedented, 40-day Lent.

Finally, being washed in Sent means worshipping Jesus...even while others don’t believe or “see”.  Vs. 38:  “He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshiped him.”

On this Fourth Sunday in Lent we too fall down and worship Jesus.  We entrust ourselves to Christ’s mud touch and care and transformative healing and restoration once again.

We give thanks for all that God has done for us — we show that thanksgiving in our tithing and our offerings, and our songs of praise.  ‘Worship’ means worthy.  What is worthy of our sacrifice?  That’s the true object of our worship.  People make sacrifices and put their trust — i.e. people worship — all kinds of things.  The blind man worships Jesus…who loves us, whether we fall down, worship and recognize him or not.
Whether we see it or not.  (Sing with children, “Jesus loves me when I’m good...Jesus loves me when I’m bad…”)

But friends, that gift of new vision is ours this day.  This pool is right over there…We are bathed in those ever-flowing waters of the “Sending”.  And in that, is the peace that passes all human understanding.

That peace is ours this day, and always, in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

March 15 -- Third Sunday in Lent (virtual church)

Thoughts before worship:

Friends in Christ, grace to you and peace.

Welcome to Bethlehem — 

like the old children’s song: 

"I am the church! You are the church! We are the church together! All who follow Jesus, all around the world!  Yes, we're the church together!

"The church is not a building; the church is not a steeple;
the church is not a resting place; the church is a people."

What a strange, eerie, surreal, anxiety-inducing season this is, that the most loving thing we could do is stay away from each other, call regular gatherings of God’s people off, and stay home.

None of us thought last Sunday was our last worship together in body for some time, but here we are, and we’re all feeling our way through this…

But we are not cancelling worship.  

Still we worship, still we gather albeit not in the way and under the circumstances we ever wanted — moment to find our bulletin, find a Bible…and a bowl of water.

Offer some reflections on our faith tradition as we begin (and as you search for the bulletin at BLCLife.org)…

Friends, God promises never to leave us — Lo, I am with you always, Jesus says. 

Rome: Early Church sneaking around giving, helping and worshiping...maybe this is the new “underground” worship? 

Early Christians believed that the world was literally going to end any minute now.  Despite that, Paul and countless others urged kindness, humility, gentleness, hard work and trust in God...all in response to God's first loving us!  When everyone else was hoarding and obsessed with defending only themselves, Christians were sneaking around sharing bread and caring for the sick. 

In Martin Luther's 16th century "Treatise on The Plague," he wrote about taking care of both our neighbors and ourselves.  He allegedly proclaimed: "Even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I'd still plant my apple tree today."  That's a resurrection statement.  What's our "resurrection statement" even in these Lenten days? 

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus told his disciples to be "wise as serpents" (10:16).  Read, study, pray, work and strive for wisdom.  Or in the words of the prophet Micah: "Do justice, love mercy and walk shrewdly with our God" (6:8).  Taking precaution and doing self-care is faithful too.     

Jesus also talked about caring for "the least of these" (Matthew 25:30).  Those on the margins will be affected the most.

Finally, the Bible says 67 times, "Do not be afraid."  Even amid terror and violence, even amid disease, persecution and despair.  We faithfully embrace this strong word again.

Let’s begin.  Using the same service.  But perhaps the ancient words hit us differently, given our current situation.

Prayers of Intercession, were adapted from our friends at Faith Lutheran in Arlington and from the ELCA website.

Sermon:

“Come and see the One who knows everything about me...and loves me anyway.”  

Last week, we heard from John’s Gospel of the conversation with a man under the cover of deep darkness, and of the grace that those moments can offer.  Today, we hear of a conversation with Jesus at the polar opposite time of day: at noon.  The sun is the highest and the hottest.  The light is the greatest.  

Last week, Jesus met a man at the center of power, at the center of temple life in the ancient Jewish world, a Pharisee, a man with a name: Nicodemus...and by night.  Today, Jesus meets a woman on the edge, on the fringe, a Samaritan, who doesn’t even worship at the temple in Jerusalem.  And her name is not even mentioned...and this is by day.

It’s a wonderful and very stark contrast from last week’s Gospel to this week’s.  Christ is in both places...and all places.  And always “staying” (abiding)!  

Honesty is a powerful theme in these Chapters 3 & 4 of John.  Jesus’ conversation today with the Samaritan woman draws us right into this theme and others: honesty, changing of ways, even beliefs, place of worship, letting go and moving out...

--

The woman at the well has, for years, been assumed to be a prostitute or a harlot, even as we have no concrete evidence that this is the case.  Some have assumed that since she has had 5 husbands, that it must be her fault and she gets around.  But in recent years, many scholars and theologians have wondered and asserted differently.  Maybe she’s lost 5 husbands, to disease or war.  Or, in that day in age, a man could permissibly divorce and literally throw his wife out for just about any reason...often for not bearing children.  

And being cast out, especially again and again, made a woman ritually unclean to the whole community.  One scholar was even so bold as to state: “Jesus is not slut-shaming this woman, so let’s not ever understand this passage in that way again.  She doesn’t disgust us; she inspires us with her witness in bringing her whole community out to meet this Jesus.”  

...but it starts with her being an outcast.  That’s why she’s at the well by herself, at the least favorable time of day.  If we had to draw water from wells in the Middle East, we’d probably all want to go in the morning or the evening when it was cooler.  She’s been cast out of the comfortable times and circles of people.  She’s been relegated to noon-time.

And this woman was hurting.  No question.  She could have been grieving, she could have been physically battered and bruised.  And even if promiscuity or a certain sexual recklessness was part of her story — which many of us can relate to today, that is, being careless and hurtful to our own bodies and others) — even if it was that, well, she no doubt had a painful story.  And she no doubt was living afraid.

She was “at the edge”.  A nameless woman, a Samaritan, and divorced and chewed up -- the imagery of “other” couldn’t be more blunt for the first hearers of John’s Gospel.  It always helps, when we’re talking about Samaritans, to think of who your Samaritan is today...in other words who makes your blood boil -- who is it that you can’t stomach…

it’s always helpful when we talk about Samaritans to draw our own lines, honestly (and deeply personally), and remember that Jesus is always there on the other side too, on the other side of the divisions that we make among ourselves...talking with the 5x-divorced, Samaritan woman.  

--

And the site of this extra-ordinary meeting is this ancient well, Jacob’s well, a place still supplying water, just as it did centuries ago for Jacob and his flocks!  Since the 4^th century this has been one of the KEY baptismal texts for Christians.  Many baptismal fonts in Europe and the Middle East, Northern Africa (and in some of our churches too) are designed to resemble a well.  There is still water coming from the well: this is the place where Jesus meets us.  There is still water coming from the well.

Jesus reaches out to this woman—and to all who are on the outside and hurting, all whose histories are messy and painful—and Christ offers healing, peace, truth and love.

“Come and see the One who knows everything about me...and loves me anyway!” she proclaims.

Just as there is grace in the darkness—as we were reminded last week—there is incredible grace and hope in bringing things to light...in bringing our stuff out into the open before Christ.  

It starts in the dark, down deep in the soil, as the Spirit nudges us and stirs us, to be honest, and what a catharsis when it comes out.  Growth happens.  A new chapter begins — letting go of the past, moving outward into God’s future.  Out of the deep, peaceful darkness (Nicodemus) certain things come to light (the woman at the well).  Ah, the Gospel of John is rich!

Every Sunday (Luther even encourages daily) we offer our confession, splashed by the well waters of eternal life, and receive God’s mercy.  It’s like “we’ve had 5 husbands.” We confess not just our sin but also our pain and sorrow: “Lord, we are grieving and hurting and scared and anxious; call us back to you.  We’ve had 5 husbands.  

Forgive us for what we’ve done wrong — for the things for which we must take responsibility.  Comfort us in our pain and sorrow and fear — in the things over which we have no control.  Draw us to you, as you point us back out (not inward) to be your people to the strange and the strangers.”

--

And, I’ve just gotta point out and love the scene of Jesus talking with a person who is so vastly different.  (My Grandpa Hanske’s like this — he loves just chatting with strangers, and he’s genuinely interested.)  Jesus meets and talks in the midst of difference... consider as you’re interacting online this week.

--

Finally, final movement of the story: this woman goes back to her community from whom she’s estranged, and in a twist, actually leads them out!  She goes and opens their eyes to see in a new way. 

Our call here, our vocation, is to be like this woman at the well.  We meet Jesus in worship, in this unlikely place, in this unimaginable situation, at this water well, and then we go and call others, “Come and see the One who knows everything about me...and loves me anyway!”

There is still water coming from the well.  Forgiveness, new life, hope for a broken world.  Living water gushes and cleanses us now and nourishes us for faithfulness in the days ahead.  Jesus meets us and sees us plainly again this day, all our faults and blemishes, all our pains and sorrows, clear in the light of this day...and loves us anyway.  

Now that’s worth re-posting, that’s worth sharing!  Thanks be to God.  Amen.   

Prayers of intercession:

As we gather together and separately in our homes, let us pray for the church, the earth, the world, and all in need, responding to each petition with the words “Your mercy is great.”

Gathered in the mystery of our baptism, O God, we pray 

for Christians around the globe keeping Lent 

for Christians who must stop holding on-site services, 

for all church-sponsored hospitals and clinics 

for our congregation

...

Hear us, faithful God: 

Your mercy is great

. 

Facing global climate change, we pray 

for animals and plants with threatened habitats 

for waters that are polluted 

for areas that suffer from climate-based drought

...

Hear us, creator God: 

Your mercy is great. 

Facing violence throughout the world, we pray 

for the United Nations and all efforts toward world peace 

for all who serve in their nation’s armed forces 

for the people of Venezuela, 

Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen 

for those maimed by war and terrorism 

for displaced families and all refugees

for traumatized children

...

Hear us, sovereign God: 

Your mercy is great. 

Facing the coronavirus, we pray 

for the thousands who have contracted the virus

for those who anxiously await test results

for all who are quarantined or stranded away from home 

for those who have lost their employment 

for those who are fearful 

for children who have no school 

for health professionals

who tirelessly work to care for others

for medical researchers 

for the CDC and World Health Organization 

for adequate and wise governmental policies

...

Hear us, benevolent God: 

Your mercy is great. 

Remembering all the sick, we pray 

for all who today will die 

for those who are hospitalized 

for those who have no access to medical care 

for those whom we remember before you now: 

Hear us, compassionate God: 

Your mercy is great. 

God of living water, mend the hearts of those who grieve broken relationships, whether by conflict, abuse, divorce, or death. Draw near to all who are afraid. Assure those questioning your presence in the midst of doubt or suffering. 

Hear us, O God.

Your mercy is great.

God of living water, renew us in the promises of baptism. Join us together in worship, fellowship, and sharing your good news. Embolden us—even now—to serve others and to work for justice and peace. 

Hear us, O God.

Your mercy is great.

God of living water, we thank you for those who endured suffering and who now boast in your eternal glory.

We offer our thanks for the lives of those who have died.  As they abide in your everlasting arms, may your comfort and peace be upon all who grieve.  Pour your Holy Spirit into our hearts and give us peace as we live in the hope of our salvation. 

Hear us, O God.

Your mercy is great.

We offer the prayers of our hearts to you (and feel free to post prayer requests):

Hear us, loving God: 

Your mercy is great. 

Into your hands, God of loving might, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. 

Amen