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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s just the first part:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

November 1 -- Crab Cake Saints (All Saints Sunday A)

Invite you to turn to the person you’re in the room with, or text somebody who needs to hear it: “You are a saint of God, and God’s glory and love shines through you.” Now look in a mirror, or put your phone camera on yourself so you can see yourself, make the sign of the cross on your own forehead and say, “You are a saint of God, and God’s glory and love shines through you.” AMEN.
—
At the core of our Lutheran faith is the idea that we are all made saints in our baptisms.  Have you heard this before?  That we are all saints?  We don’t have to die…or labor in Calcutta to be a saint.  Do you believe that?  Do you believe that you are a saint of God and that God’s glory and love really shines through you?

Couple years ago on November 2, I was hanging out with my friend, Father Peter, and he told me, “You know, today is All Soul’s Day.”  I corrected him: “No, that was yesterday, and we call it All Saints Day?”  At which point he tells us that I was getting All Saints and All Souls day “mixed up.”  The good Father explained that All Saints is the day that we honor…the Saints of the church.  And All Souls, November 2 – or in the Mexican tradition Dia de los Muertos, we honor…everybody else who’s died.  
They’re two different days, separated by a long night.

This is of course all true in the Roman Catholic church’s tradition.  Father schooled me there.  And I actually love and appreciate this tradition, the logic (compartmentalizing), and the intentionality of the celebration in practice (the movie Coco), theologically I like that we get the days mixed up!

This week, I tried to make crab cakes...for the first time(!) — (nailed it btw).  I was thinking about this idea of “getting it all mixed up”.  

You throw in the crab with the breadcrumbs, with the mayo, with the seasonings, with the onions, and Worcester...it’s all mixed up, right?  It all goes into the flame, right?  That’s how it is for us today: we’re folded in, mixed together with the great famous saints of the past, with dearly departed loved ones in our own lives (even those that weren’t so kind and perfect), with those who are still with us...and even we ourselves stand in this rushing current of God’s blessing.  All mixed together on today — All Saints Day.  And I like that more.  Rather than celebrating the crab one day, and the breadcrumbs the next, we’re all lumped together here...

 “You are a saint of God too!”  This is a theme that carries over from Reformation Sunday last week.  This idea sets our doctrines apart from our dear Roman Catholic siblings.  Luther lumped us all together, you see?      
    
Can you believe that God names you “Saint” in your baptism? (“St. Daniel”)

And so, that sermon on the mount, that we hear again today — the designated text for All Saints Day this year — is talking about you!  In baptism, you are made whole, despite all appearances and even experiences to the contrary: you are offered/presented with the realm of heaven in this life, you are comforted, you inherit the earth, you are filled, you receive mercy, you can see God, and you are called a child of God!  You are blessed even as people utter all kinds of evil against you; you are blessed even as people revile you and persecute you.  You are the blessed saints of God, all of you…

…not because of anything you’ve done, but because of what God has done.  All Saints Sunday is a natural extension of Reformation Sunday — it’s perfect that they’re back-to-back Sundays.  You are saved by grace, remember, apart from works (what you’ve done) on account of the faith of Jesus Christ!  This was the passage from Scripture that Luther shared with the world, and it turns us all into saints!  In God’s dying, in the way of Christ on the cross, death has been destroyed, and in Christ’s rising from the dead, we too rise.  We are joined to Christ in the waters of baptism, and so we live—in this life—anew!  (Amen?)

Because of this, yes, we get all “mixed up” with both the Saints that the church has honored traditionally and with all those who have gone before us.  Lutherans are messy…because not only are we mixed up with all the traditional Saints of the Church, we’re also mixed up in sin.  

We don’t need to go into that so much today.  I think we’re pretty good at burying ourselves in our sin and mistakes and brokenness.  But, friends, we’re not just sinners, we’re sinner-SAINTS.  (Guy at wedding two weeks ago:  “I got tired of going to church because I realized they’re all just a bunch of sinners, and I don’t need to go to church to hang out with sinners.”  Wish I had said, “But friend, all those sinners are also saints.  You should go to church and see what that’s about.”)

In a little while we name those in our congregation who have died in recent years.  We honor them today as saints:  But we remember them not for themselves and in themselves (even while that’s very important and meaningful to us in our grief), today we remember them not for themselves and in themselves, we name them and celebrate them today because of what God has done through them.  

Think of all the things that God has done through our beloved saints who have gone before us (your pictures/candles/flowers)  God’s love and glory shone through them, didn’t it?  Even in their worst moments.  

At memorial services, most recent here at Bethlehem for me here was for the Frodighs, we gathered around this font (most recent death was Doug Porter, but we haven’t gathered for his funeral yet), most recent service was for dear Roland and Pat Frodigh, where we heard at the font:  “When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death.  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might live a new life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him a resurrection like his.”  That’s holy scripture, friends.

We trust and believe that we are all given the name saint in our baptism, and sometimes I feel like a broken record saying that, but we sure need to be reminded of it weekly, even daily (as Luther said), because it is so easy to forget.  Some of us can’t even put “Saint” before our name with ease and confidence.  It is so easy (and traditional) to relegate/compartmentalize sainthood, simply to the holier-than-thou...or at least to the dead.  It’s easy to keep it separated in two – All Saints Day and then the Rest-of-Us Days.
 
But this is God’s grace coming at us in these waters, God’s grace coming at us, relentlessly, unapologetically, before many of us can even say a word.  God’s grace crashes down on us and claims us.  Calls us saints from the start...not only at the end!  Promises us eternal life, yes, but God’s grace is so good we are even granted the kingdom/realm of heaven in this life…  That means a flood of comfort when you mourn (that’s not material comfort, it means that when you’ve lost what is most dear to you, only then can you be embraced the One who holds you closest).  God’s grace is so good that we are even granted the inheritance of the earth today, contentment, peace, mercy, a glimpse of God.  God’s grace is so good that you are now called a child of God!  

Of course we’re not perfect, that’s true.  I love Robert Louis Stevenson defines saints as “sinners who never stop trying.”  I’ve got a book that is a proposed calendar for commemorating all those “saints”, for lack of a better word.  Our Roman Catholic siblings have offered so much to God’s church, to us, to me, as they so reverently remember those who have died in the faith.  I think we can only stand to benefit as we peer back into the pages of Christian history.  

Here’s a quote from that book:  ‘When the church praises the saints, it praises God...who has triumphed through them.  Those who are still in the church on earth are supported and encouraged by the fellowship of a throng of witnesses, who fought their way with effort and pain, and who now in the company of the redeemed are watching and supporting the church on earth in its present struggle’”.

Friends in Christ, today we rejoice, for all the blessed saints:  Those who have gone before us, those saints still among us, and those many saints of God…still to come!  “You are a saint of God, and God’s light shines though you.”  Blessed are you.  Blessed are we...for we all stand and often in these days lean on God’s everlasting arms.  AMEN. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 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.