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!
—
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?  
—
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 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 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.

February 2 -- Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Grace to you and peace…

Friends in Christ, today Jesus climbs up onto the mountain and teaches us all.  Today we have some of the core lessons of the Christian life brought to us “pow, pow, pow” in three of the most powerful, most central readings in the entire Bible.  Micah, Paul, Jesus.  It’s almost too much to handle.
Micah’s famous passage:  “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk [shrewdly] with your God.”  This is why we named our son Micah.

The theme of shrewdness/wisdom ultimately being about doing justice and loving kindness is carried over in Paul.  Paul talks about the wisdom of the world, the shrewdness of the world vs. the wisdom and shrewdness of God.  This text of Paul’s becomes one of Martin Luther’s main focal points as he discusses, what he calls, “the theology of the cross.”  Luther contrasts the “theology of the cross” to the “theology of glory”.  [Lutheran Handbook, and center page on “How to become a Theologian of the Cross” – read points 1 & 3]

This leads us right up the mountain, to find Jesus preaching, the Sermon on the Mount…where Jesus takes his listeners “next level.”  You want to follow me?  You want to be elevated with me up here on this mountain?  Well then, get ready for some surprises, Jesus says to us today.  Because Jesus continues on the themes that the prophet Micah and Paul set forth – that faithful discipleship has nothing to do with showy offerings, or popularity, or success, or the world’s wisdom.  In other words, the mountain top, is the last place you’ll find Jesus and his blessings.  Blessedness is down in the valley, on the plain, in the everyday.  Blessedness is shed upon the suffering, in the sermon on the mount – the lowly, the poor in spirit, the meek.  Jesus is not the king of the mountain; he’s the shepherd of the valley.  And his followers act in a similar way.  This is a radical idea.

It’s a topsy-turvy message again today.  The world would expect Christ, or any deity, to reign supreme – like a super-hero with giant muscles and awesome weapons, and servants, and enemies underfoot.  Conquering hero, like Mel Gibson or Russell Crowe, these characters that once were underdogs, but then overcame all the odds and now are just awesome and all the girls are screaming for them and they know how to fly jump motorcycles and shoot guns with precision and sword fight and do back-flips, bomb a football 70 yards...

...I know not everyone liked him (to say the least) but do you remember how cool President Obama was?  Swagger, calm, carried himself with poise and...just so cool.  Friends in Christ, Jesus is anything but cool.  Sorry.  Jesus is anything but cool, powerful, and smooth.

Seriously, if you want to step into these lessons of Scripture, think of a loser—a modern-day loser.  No muscles, probably clumsy.  Definitely not cool: “Despised and rejected.”  How quickly we forget that!

 Douglas John Hall’s  quote…
“How could we have been listening to the Scriptures all these centuries and still be surprised and chagrined by the humiliation of Christendom? How could we have honored texts like the Beatitudes
and yet formed in our collective mind the assumption that Christian faith would be credible only if it were popular, numerically superior, and respected universally?

"How could we have been contemplating the ‘despised and rejected’ figure at the center of this faith for two millennia and come away with the belief that his body, far from being despised and rejected, ought to be universally approved and embraced?”

It is a topsy-turvy message!  I hope you’re a little offended here, a little scandalized.  Going “next level” means flipping everything on its head.  For to suggest that Jesus is a loser is a winning statement.  [back to Lutheran Handbook, read point 4]
  
This is radical stuff!  And Jesus is just giving us a preview of what is to come, as he inaugurates his ministry with this Sermon on the Mount, lifting up all those who seem insignificant and silly to everyone else.

This is Jesus’ State of the Union address:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted.”  

Sisters and brothers in Christ, whether we find ourselves in these categories or not, this is Good News.  Because it means that we and the rest of this world will never be abandoned by God, will never stop being blessed by God.  There’s no way that God can ever disappear.  If Jesus is casting blessings on the least of these in our midst—sometimes that’s you, sometimes it’s not—
but if Jesus is casting blessings-upon-blessings all the way down the least of these, then we know we’re always covered by God’s love — ALL of us.

For in the moment when we too feel despised and rejected, clumsy, with no swagger, no muscles, no voice, no smile – Christ is right there.  In the moment when we feel lost and forsaken, alone or confused, Christ is right there too.  At the moment we feel so unforgivable, so broken or poor in spirit, Christ is there.  We find Jesus abiding, not on the red carpet, or at the 50-yard line (seems like we’re witnessing all the power and money in the world today) . . . but at the cross – foolishness to the power-hungry and awesome, “but to us who are being saved,” Paul writes, “it is the power of God.”

These words of Scripture this morning—do not frighten us or dis-engage us, sisters and brothers in Christ.  These words of Scripture send us off this mountain, this good place, where we can be together and encounter the living God.  These words send us down, into the world, with new hope and new life.  They shape us and mold us for forgiveness, for blessedness, and for faithfulness – for going to the next level, that is the gutters, the sad places, the cold places, the ugly places – bringing and doing and being justice, loving kindness, and walking wisely with God…this day and always.

Let’s go.

AMEN.

October 27 -- Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace from God who is with us.  AMEN.

I give thanks for this day.  And I give thanks that you are here with me to celebrate it.  This is the first day of the week, the only day we all come together.  And it does us well, in light of this Gospel text to stop and think about what we’re doing here together…and what we’re not doing.

What we’re trying not to do, as students of Jesus, is we’re trying not to be like the Pharisee.  Of all texts to wrap up our stewardship month.  I had to laugh when I read this.  I suppose we could look at this when we’re discerning how and what to pledge to the church in 2020, and justify ourselves by saying look at how Jesus paints the tither.  But I’m pretty sure that would be to miss the point. 

As we reflect and give thanks this morning at church, we don’t want to be like the Pharisee because the Pharisee had no genuine repentance and was full of pretentious piety.  (just look at the posture difference on your worship folder cover)  He might have gathered around the font with us at the beginning of the service, and said what we say: 

“We confess that we have failed to live as your disciples…”  But he wouldn’t have really meant it.  He would have secretly chuckled at the part that alludes to how “we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.”  “Well, I have,” he would have thought looking at all of us, “I’ve done a better job of loving my neighbors than all of these people.”  Then he’d start listing all the ways in his head—and they might very well be good ways:  maybe this past week the Pharisee called and went to visit some of our homebound members, not because the pastor was out of town, but just because that was the right thing to do.  Maybe this past week the Pharisee attended a fundraiser at Lamb Center here in Fairfax and gave all kinds of money to the organization that shelters the downtrodden.  

Maybe at work this week, the Pharisee noticed a colleague in the work room who looked unusually sad.  So instead of having lunch with his buddies, like he usually does, he made the sacrifice and went over to check-in with someone who really appreciated and needed the attention as they were going through a major period of grief in their life.  And then he would even call to mind his graciousness on the road, how he let several people cut in while he was merging onto the beltway and people were sneaking in after he had been waiting patiently in line.  

“Never even honked at them,” the Pharisee would secretly be patting himself on the back.  “Love my neighbors as myself?” “Check,” he thinks, “and frankly, I don’t know what I couldn’t have done this past week to do that!” 

(And none of this is verbalized, btw; on the surface, we all love the Pharisee because he’s such a generous, upstanding, kind citizen and member of the church.  No, this dialogue is only in his head and heart.)

Then he would have rolled his eyes as the rest of us confess that we have not been faithful stewards of God’s creation, and “we have feasted with friends and but ignored strangers.”  

“First of all,” he might think, “I’ve given all kinds of handouts to strangers this week, and when it comes to God’s creation, well I’ve recycled and more.  If it means giving a little to animal adoption agencies, check.  If it means picking up trash on the ground when I see it, well, every time I take a walk, I bring a trash bag and pick up trash.  And I drive a Prius.  Hard to see how this really applies to me...it reminds me how others around here need to do way more though”…says the Pharisee standing with us.  “Steward creation?  Done.  Share with the poor and needy?  Yep.”  Says the Pharisee. 

You know, it’s almost as the Pharisee has no need for God.

But we, like the tax collector, on the other hand, are much different.  [pause]  We, like the tax collector, stand around this baptismal font again today, and remember that we’re not as great as the Pharisee.  We, like the tax collector, take this morning to pause again and remember that we’re still coming up short when it comes to our work and our thoughts and our hearts.  We’re still standing in the need of prayer.  We, like the tax collector, have made many mistakes this past week.  We’ve had some unclean and unloving thoughts.  We’ve neglected the grieving among us, the lonely among us, the poor among us.  Haven’t been faithful stewards of the planet or the church or the poor.   

And even while God doesn’t smile at our brokenness, even while God’s heart is saddened by any of our reckless or selfish behaviors, even while a tear rolls down God’s cheek because of our carelessness toward others and the planet itself…God pulls us in this day.  God pulls us in together like a soft, warm mother with big arms—all of us here, even that Pharisee—and here God holds us for a bit.  Can we just let ourselves be held for a moment this morning?…because that’s what we’re doing here.

Now if you’re anything like me, you don’t want to accept and fluffy stuff.  Any love.  I caught myself this week dodging a compliment, which is a verbal form of being pulled in and loved.  I’ve got intimacy issues with God — I don’t always believe that I’m loved.  I believe that you are.  That’s easy for me to say.  But me?  Maybe you’re like me with this fluffy stuff?  We’re a tough, surviving people, and all this talk of mercy and love doesn’t always register.  I’m preaching to myself too: God pulls us in, sisters and brothers in Christ!  God pulls you in like a mother bear.  (a very Luther-an struggle)

I give thanks for this day, like I give thanks when I’m with family or friends I haven’t seen for a long time, and we’re just about to eat a meal but first we sing.  My family always used to sing around the dinner table, and often we’d sing: “Oh Lord, everybody’s home.”

I give thanks this day that “everybody’s home,” we’re all home, wrapped in the arms and held closely to the bosom of God.    (Psalm 84)

God pulls us in this morning in all our brokenness, in all our self-centeredness, in all our fear and anger and bitterness, in all our pain and sorrow, God pull us all in.  And in our humility at God’s awesome power, in our honesty about our own shortcomings, like the sinful-but-repentant tax-collector—we are exalted.  “Those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  

Acknowledging humbly that there’s still work to be done on us, our journey is not complete.  We’ve got more to meet and welcome, more to offer, more to serve, more to do, more to be.  But we know, us tax collectors (unlike the Pharisee), that even as our time is not yet finished, we know that God’s mercy washes us, refreshes us.  That’s what it means to be exalted.

In our genuine repentance, re-formation, we are watered, like the rain waters the forests and fields today, we are watered for faithfulness.  Gathered and sent.  Gathered and sent.  We go down justified, like the text says.  We go down from this place, from this temple, fed and nourished, watered and warm—ready to serve, ready to love.

The humble will be exalted and so we are…and we are held close, thanks be to God.  AMEN.

October 20 -- Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Two parts of this reading that I really want to hone in on:
“Pray always. Do not lose heart” & “Will God find faith on earth?”  In other words, I think the lesson here is that those who have faith on earth are those who 1) pray always and 2) do not lose heart.

About 7 ago we took a two-week trip back to my hometown of Houston, TX.  We drove.  I-10.  20hrs13min.

So at first glance, I think I can resonate with the way Jesus describes that judge and that widow who kept continually crying out.  Micah and Katie, you can imagine, gave us a few vivid images from the back seat of continually crying out.  (For the most part they were great.)  But on those long days across the West Texas desert, one might have heard in the Roschke car: “Dad, can I have some more.  Why not, why not?  Mom, Katie’s bothering me.  Dad, Micah took my Uni.”  And of course the ever popular, “Are we there yet?”  There were moments :)

Jesus tells us about a widow who kept coming and asking and pleading and crying, too.  But she was after more than candy and rest stops and ‘getting even’ with her sibling.  She was after true justice.  “Grant me justice against my opponent,” was her passionate plea.  And the widow, it helps to remember, in ancient Mediterranean culture, was a symbol, everyone knew, of injustice, of the edge of society, of the poor.  For the widows, in those days, had no one to advocate for them, to represent them in court, or in life.  So she has to advocate for herself.  And Jesus tells us this parable to teach us something about our need to pray and not lose heart.

The widow was not just a whiner in the backseat who needed a quick fix.  The widow was caught at the bottom of a system in which it seemed she had no hope at all of changing.  The widow was not a little kid who needed a snack (sometimes our prayers can be like that).  The widow is the woman whose people have had to sit at the back of the bus her whole life...but stays in the fight. (pause) The widow is man who has been denied by the church that he loves his entire life because something about him is different...but keeps praying and working fervently for change.  (pause)  The widow is the teenager who just can’t get a break — born with two strikes against him, brought up in a violent home, caught up in a dangerous neighborhood, no choice but to attend grossly underfunded schools, where teachers are trying but are cynical...but keeps hanging on.

The widow is anyone who has endured hardship for a long time, and yet does not lose heart.  And Jesus uses this searing images to teach us a lesson about prayer:  Sometimes prayer doesn’t happen on our knees, with our hands folded.  Sometimes prayer means getting up, uncrossing our hands, and advocating...for ourselves or even for others.
 
   “Lord, grant me (grant us all, grant this whole world) justice.”

Well, we made it, thanks be to God, safely to Houston, on that trip now almost 7 years ago.  And while we were there, we went to the church where I grew up; the church where I was confirmed; the church that sent me their newsletter the whole time I was in college, even though I usually tossed it in the recycle, this was the church that made sure I knew they were still there and loved me; this was the church that put me and my dear friend both through seminary, full gift, because they too, like this community believed in raising up leaders for the church.  What a gift that church gave...that I get to be your pastor, un-crippled by tuition debt (and Linda went on to serve as the secretary for the entire ELCA).  That Sunday we visited that church — where I was ordained, where probably about two dozen clergy (many of whom had watched me grow up) turned out in their robes and their grey hair to put their hands on me as the stole was placed upon my shoulders.  


I could have told you about any number of road trips that we have taken as a family, where there was some whining in the back seat, but I wanted to tell you about the one to Houston, because that Sunday we went back to that church, and like lots of churches in the middle of fall, with a Houston Texans football game looming that afternoon, with everyone busy with life, the sanctuary of that dear church felt a little empty.  Some apologized to us, I remember that Sunday, that there weren’t as many people there anymore.  But what got me were the ones who still were.  Alice Chadwell, Ron Seimers, Marylyn Healy, Kurt Nelson, Sam and Barbara Skjonsby, Howard and Judy Bolt, the whole Jansen family, their little kids now in high school and college — all still there, and Mary Teslow.  Older folks, and not so old folks.  Still. Showing. Up.

(I’m still talking about praying always and not losing heart, btw.)        

Every Sunday between services, they serve a breakfast at Salem out of their little, run-down old kitchen, that was brand new when I was growing up.  And the people still gather every Sunday between services to study the Bible — two big groups.  One of the church council members was leading the study that I went to, and he started with a simple, beautiful prayer: “Thank you, God, for this day full of grace.”  And together the dozen or so people joined in discussing II Corinthians.  Nothing flashy really about it.

I was nearly moved to tears as they bickered a little bit with one another in the bible study, they seemed to be irritating each other a little with their same old comments.  But they were all still there!  I know many of their stories — lost jobs, lost spouses, lost children.  In many ways, like so many this was yet another congregation of “widows”.  Nothing flashy. But they were still there.

The worship service was OK, I guess.  My dad preached.  Nothing flashy really about it.  But the people gathered.  And they prayed, they prayed for themselves, they prayed for others.  When Christ comes, will he find faith on earth?  I think so, in churches like that, and in churches like this.  (pause)

I hope painting a picture of another small church that’s far away helps us see what’s right here under our noses — people gathering, nothing flashy, week after week, year after year, decade after decade.  Showing up for one another.  Sure, irritating each other at times, but never giving up, never losing heart, supporting one another through good times and bad.  You can tell those same stories here, or wherever you’re from….because this isn’t about us.  It’s about God.  God is faithful and has not abandoned us, and is made known through bread, wine, water and the community of the faithful!

Jesus’ story tells us that this cruel, unjust, self-centered judge granted that widow justice.  And his point is that if that selfish judge did it, then how much more will God do it?!  We just have to open our eyes and see it, right under our noses...see through the hardship and the bickering/whining, and the strikes that are against us.  God sees through all that and has found faith on earth, friends.

Praying and not losing heart is about seeing the things that are right under our noses, and sticking for the long haul.  “Thank you God, for this day FULL of grace.”

It’s yours, it’s ours — this good grace — and it’s meant to be shared.  Bask in that grace again this day, sisters and brothers in Christ, and then pass it on!  God’s mercy and gracious judgement, Christ’s joy and peace is here to stay.  AMEN.

October 13 -- Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace…from God who creates us, from Jesus who has mercy and heals us, and from the Holy Spirit who challenges us, and moves among us now.  AMEN.

ON THE WAY TO JERUSALEM…our gospel passage starts out…Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem.  But then he encounters a group – and pay attention to directionality in scripture – was the group on the way to Jerusalem too?  Probably not.  The movement of the people in this story makes a cross!  This directionality (where people we going) – has always been a part of our experience.  People making crosses—coming this way, going that…

We make crosses all the time today, as we encounter one another, as we encounter difference.   Every intersection is a cross.  Just think how many crosses you’ve made this past week…

It’s true physically, of course, and on other levels as well.  Making crosses all the time, in our conversations and our actions, making crosses across the earth…Jesus makes a cross, in our text today, with 10 lepers, and with us — a cross of healing, salvation (from the Latin for healing).  Jesus makes a cross of peace.

Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, and he encounters this group of lepers, who keep their distance but, knowing who he is—“Jesus, Master,” they say—they cry out to Jesus to have mercy on them.

Interesting – they don’t ask to be healed, even though that’s what we all assume they want.  Interesting their words are simply—well, the same words we say at the beginning of every service.  When we encounter the living God, “Kyrie (Master), eleison…”

And Jesus immediately sends them to the priest.  He doesn’t invite them along his way to Jerusalem.  He simply sends them to a priest.  I imagine, that they were invited to keep moving in the same direction.  Almost like they just asked someone for directions.  Jesus give them some directions, some instructions.  “Go and show yourself to the priests.” And they do:  they’re desperate, they’ll do anything to be rid of this state of rejection anywhere they go.

And AS they go, having encountered the healing presence of the Living Christ, “they were made clean”!  [keep telling the story…only one comes back…]  Only “the tithe”, only one tenth, came back.

Did this one who came back…did his directionality merge with Jesus’ directionality?  Jesus invites him to get up and go “his” way, but did “his” way become Jesus’ way?  Did he go a new direction from that day on?   [+ the directionality in this story when we “cross” ourselves, ending in the center]

--

Friends in Christ, Jesus has mercy on us too, showers, showers “our ways” with mercy.  “I’m going this way, God!” and yet, Christ still chooses to shower that way that we seem to think is ours, with mercy, love and forgiveness:  WE are made clean too.

When we cross paths with the salvific power of Christ (every Sunday!)...when the healing power of Jesus crosses over us, everything can change.  Everyone receives mercy, but like the one tenth leper, our directionality can even get “dialed in” with God’s directionality, as we come back to the center, as we come back and give thanks.  The healing is much larger and more mysterious than simply the sores going away!  Jesus took the sores away from everyone, everyone gets mercy, but only one was “made well”, only one was made whole, only one was faithful.  [+ going back]

Many in the world have been made free of sores — free of major physical illnesses, free of oppression, free of blatant injustice and discrimination on the level of a leper, free of financial hardship, and social alienation.  Maybe you fit into that?  “I’ve got it pretty good.”  

Think of all those people, many of us fit into that category: how we too can seem (on the world’s surface) to be in a good place — plenty or at least enough material goods, and security and even happiness:  and yet are we whole?  We’re all clean, but are we “well”?  Has our faith made us well, has our joyful thanksgiving made us well?  How we can give God the credit for our being in such a prosperous state, much like how I’m sure the other nine went and told everyone who performed that miracle…“God blessed me, God freed me of my disease, God gave me all this!” they will tell others.  The sores are gone, but are they healed, made whole, are they well?  

You see, the wholeness, the healing, the full salvus that God offers us is wrapped up in this directionality idea.  When our directionality is re-calibrated, and joyful thanksgiving turns us back to the center where we fall at Christ’s feet, dialing into God’s movement, maybe even heading now with Jesus to Jerusalem — then we’re really in for the good stuff.   The wholeness.  That doesn’t always mean fun stuff, but in that sacrifice, in that giving praise, in that offering, that tenth, in that devotion to the one who cures us from our dis-ease, in that morphing of our directionality, because of our encounter with the Living God, our faith makes us well…[get this!]...for our faith becomes the very faith of Christ!  (Our newly installed Bishop Leila Ortiz said yesterday, there’s such a difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus...she diagnoses the church’s condition this way, impacting our programs and our budgets and our staffing and our structures...)  When Christ crosses our paths, knowing Jesus, everything changes.

--

Finally, I have to say this as we study, “Honoring our Neighbor’s Faith” — Notice how Jesus treats those of another faith and culture, the Samaritans: he treats them with love and longing, not with contempt or condemnation.  Theologian and pastor Barbara Brown Taylor talks about this passage as the quintessential story for doing inter-faith dialogue.  For those who would not join Jesus on the journey, Jesus doesn’t spew hatred and curses on them.  With Jesus in Scripture, it’s always a peaceful crossing, albeit a crossing of love and longing.  If Jesus gets ever gets angry in Scripture, it’s always with his own people, for their lack of faithfulness.  There’s absolutely no biblical evidence that Jesus hated people of other faiths.  Some theologians even read this passage as Jesus regarding another’s faith as being salvific in its own way!  Go your way, your faith (whatever that faith is—Buddhist, Hindu, Islam, Christian) has saved you.   

However we read this, we must pick up Jesus’ reverence and love for those who are different.  I mean, he takes their sores away!  All of the lepers, all of the foreigners.

In the end, aren’t we all?  Aren’t we all lepers, outsiders, beggars as Luther said on his deathbed?  Aren’t we all foreigners?  Foreign, alienated from God’s path, because of our sinfulness and self-centeredness?  Aren’t we all coming to Jesus, begging for mercy, crying out for wholeness?  

And sisters and brother in Christ, in the end Jesus does offer us healing, offer us life.  We are changed and forever changed in our encounter with the living Christ.  We encounter the living Christ in this place, in the healing waters of baptism, in the life-givng meal of Holy Communion, in the  laying on of hands in our prayers for healing today, in this community that we share with one in our eating & drinking Christ together, in our singing and praying, in our caring for one another and our side-by-side reaching out beyond ourselves.  Jesus loves us and longs for us in whatever our directionality was, and today Jesus invites into his directionality.  

Friends, having been made clean today, may that trust and faith to journey now with Christ be yours, this day and into eternity.  AMEN.

September 22 -- Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

[“I did not see that coming” story]

Jesus throws us a curve ball today.  “I did not see that coming!”  What would you do if you had someone working under you canceling debts, cooking the books, and overspending for personal gain?  You’d fire ‘em, right?  And yet Jesus tells a stories where the crooked manager gets commended, where the reckless and selfish son gets a party thrown for him (just before this story).  

Jesus is a flips everything.  He sucks us in—we’re rooting for the owner to deal justly with this scoundrel—and then he flips everything on us...in this curious story about wealth and poverty.  How can you be trusted, how can you deal with heavenly things, if you can’t even deal with a little dirty money, with a little street ball?

Jesus, for some reason favors the poor, the dishonest, and the outcast…(but especially the poor) in the gospel of Luke.  And this is one more instance where mercy wins the day.  Mercy even over fairness.  Mercy...and shrewdness!

I was trying to think up a modern-day parable to match this one.  And here we are at the beginning of a new semester, and George Mason University right down the street, “the largest, most diverse and fastest-growing university in Virginia”—so I’m thinking about college debt, and the president of GMU, Anne Holton, former Secretary of Education for state.  She’s not exactly the owner, but let’s just say…  And some clever guy over in the business office, collecting tuition from students, gets caught embezzling some of those funds.

I did some quick sloppy numbers based on their website — tuition, room, board, other expenses, I got about $28,000...for one year at George Mason!  

And so this sly fox in the business, financial aid office gets canned.  But they make the mistake, unlike most businesses, of not making him collect him things and leave immediately.  And before Anne Holton and the rest of the school can catch up with him, he starts...forgiving student tuitions and debts!  He cuts this student’s tuition in half, that one he drops 20%, another one he cuts 40%…on his way out the door!

Messed up, right?!

In Jesus‘ story, he is commended.  Why?  Because he acted shrewdly and made friends (with the poor).  Maybe those students will end up being wealthy doctors and lawyers and take him and his family in one day.  He didn’t burn bridges at the end of his job with GMU; he built new ones.  And President Holton, in Jesus’ story, praises him for that.

This story ought to have us scratching our heads and squirming (and chuckling).  What in the world is Jesus up to?!  

Is Jesus saying we should be dishonest in our business practices?  That we should steal and lie and cheat?  I think that’s what we want to see.  I think we all have that urge to cut corners, and if a story Jesus tells gives us license, then all the better for us.

I don’t think this is what Jesus is saying at all.  And I don’t believe Luke’s first hearers thought that either.  Jesus was a master of storytelling, and he had the people on the edge of their seats, laughing, catching all the irony and nuance.  If you walk away thinking Jesus is telling us to be dishonest in business (to “keep on keeping on”, “that’s the way the world works”), then, I think, you’re missing the point completely.  
Eugene Petersen’s translation helps us understand.  He translates key verses like this: “Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens.  Constantly alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits.  I want you to be smart in the same way — but for what is right — using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, not just complacently getting by on good behavior.” (vss. 8-9)

Jesus is saying two things: 1) be clever and 2) take care of the poor.  Do what you can with whatever you have.  Use what you have...use the contacts or connections that you have...to make the world better.  Don’t just robotically go through the motions on the straight and narrow, under the radar; take risks, build community, forgive debts, call people on their stuff, and make friends with the poor.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Jesus is obsessed with talking about wealth and poverty.  (Dave Cross pointed out in our devotions last week in Council that Jesus talks more about money than just about anything else!)  

Today Jesus says, “You cannot serve God and wealth.”  Give it away.  The poor are going to have to vouch for you in the great hereafter, they’re going to have to write you a letter of recommendation for the Great Feast-That-Is-to-Come.  How are we doing at taking care of the poor?  If we’re not squirming now, we’ll be squirming next week when we hear about the rich man and Lazarus!

So the dishonest manager in the story, forgives massive amounts of debts owed to his former company, right?  He forgives the olive farmer and the wheat farmer, 50%, 20%.  Do you know how that slashing of debt would have affected those farmers‘ communities and families?  Cultural anthropologists and archeologists read this story and tell us that those farmers would have gone back home and thrown a huge party to celebrate that kind of debt reduction...kind of like if your college debt was cut in half — so $28G x 4 = 112,000 for 4 years — that’s $56,000 you don’t have to pay!

This is our God:  Crazy.  Bad with money.  Bad at business.  But rich in love and mercy and forgiveness.  Some commentators say this is Jesus — that dishonest manager is Jesus — cutting our debts, forgiving our sins.  Lord’s Prayer in the Gospel of Luke: we’ve sanitized with our translation, but the Lord’s Prayer is about finances…  “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  

Give forgiveness of debt a try again this week, friends.  Maybe it’s not financial forgiveness that you’re in a position to give.  (Maybe it is.)  But maybe someone owe’s you an apology.  And you’re waiting for it.  It would be appropriate, but they’re not coming forward.  Give forgiveness a try this week.  Just let it go — not by going up to them and telling them, “You owe me an apology, but I’m going to let it slide.”   No, just let it go.  Forgive them.  Get on with gratitude.  Don’t think about what is owed to you, but rather what you’re thankful for!  

This is what our God has done for us, friends in Christ:  Slashed our debts, forgiven our sins, and commended us.  Every single one of us has a burden of debt/shame/guilt/sin/brokenness/bitterness, and today that’s forgiven.  That’s our God — bad at business, but rich in love, overflowing with faithfulness.  

And fun.  Our God is fun.

“I did not see that coming.”       

AMEN. 

July 14 -- Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace and peace from Jesus the Christ, who loves us and calls us to love our neighbors. Amen.

I want to start with the idea of the Parable of the Good Muslim.  I’ve imagined this before in sermons on this very familiar text, where I invited folks to compare the Samaritan for the people listening to Jesus to a Muslim for us listening to this parable today.  The Parable of the Good Muslim.

I don’t think that’s fair or honest now.  Maybe for some of us, Islam does not make our blood boil.  Muslims certainly get a bad rep in the larger culture still, but maybe you don’t actually hate Muslims.  I don’t.  Maybe you, have friends or family members or co-workers who are Muslims.  The individual Muslims I’ve known have been awesome — funny, faithful, friendly, forgiving.  That’s not the attitude to have when listening to Jesus’ story.  “Hey, the Samaritans I’ve known have been great.”  No one in Jesus‘ audience would have said that.

So the way to really get at the story fairly and honestly today, the way to put yourself into Jesus‘ audience today, one commentator has suggested, is to ask the question, “What person would you rather die in the ditch than be rescued by?”

Jesus was trying to elicit groans from his hearers.  Maybe the Muslim example does work for you, but if you remember, Jesus and his disciples have just been rejected themselves by Samaritans.  (I haven’t ever received personally an unwelcome, rejecting word or gesture from a Muslim I’ve known.)  Jesus and his disciples had just been rejected…by Samaritans.  It was chapter 9: “They did not receive Jesus because he had his face set for Jerusalem.” And it angered his disciples James and John so much that they wanted to punish those Samaritans with a violent revenge.  But Jesus rebuked his disciples and just kept moving on peacefully.

So — that is to say — Jesus is not just picking some person out there that some people despise, but others are actually friends with so can’t relate.  Jesus is using a personal — and in his case a collective — example that is going to elicit audible groans.   

(He was also, btw, doing a twist on a punchline:  See, the trio is supposed to be a priest, a Levi, and a scribe.  [Probably a scribe listening.]  So everyone’s expecting the scribe to be the one to stop — almost an “I know, I know a priest doesn’t, a Levi doesn’t, but the scribe does.”  He’s the example and that’s how we should be.  But Jesus twists the punchline.)  

Jesus is really catching the people off guard and scandalizing them with an offensive example at the same time.  There would have been audible gasps in that crowd.  What’s so bad about Samaritans?  (GS law, lunch group) But Samaritans were the Jews in the Northern Kingdom who were not taken into Babylonian captivity, who didn’t experience the exile, who didn’t know what real suffering means, and what it means to remain a faithful Jew all those years.  The Judean Jews thought the Samaritan Jews were polluted by the other cultures that had come into the territory while they were gone in captivity.  

In other words, we’re talking about family that’s deeply estranged here.  They’re all descendants of Abraham and Sarah, but are now seeing themselves as arch-enemy siblings.  

Who is that for you?  Who would you rather die in a ditch than see that person coming to help you?  [pause]

Maybe, like in the story here, that’s a member of your own family.  Maybe die-rather-than-being-rescued-by-that-one is a little hyperbolic (as story tellers tend to be), but you get the idea, don’t you? 

I think it’s no coincidence that the very next story is about a family conflict.  Here it is again:  constantly in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches something...and then we see it played out.  First he tells a story and then a real life example.  The very next real-life event after the famous Good Samaritan story (next week’s text), is the two sisters Mary and Martha.  [paraphrase]

Now, I can’t quite imagine that they (and particularly Martha) were so at odds with each other that they’d rather die than be rescued by the other.  But there is definitely some deep resentment on Martha’s part (at least), right?  Almost like the Judean Jew toward the Samaritan Jew resentment: “She doesn’t know what it means to work and suffer,” Martha is complaining to Jesus.

And that’s were we can really touch down into this text.  (Who are you complaining to Jesus about?)  First an extreme lesson, and then a tangible, down-in-our-guts, incarnated example.  

The whole Gospel of Luke is about Jesus ushering in a society with mercy, including and climaxing with Jesus’ work on the cross and the resurrection.  All mercy.  He’s always over and against hard heartedness, bitterness, resentment, anger, fear.  It’s one story/event after the next about Jesus ushering in mercy.  

And these two episodes today are no exception.  The Samaritan shows mercy.  (But did you notice the man, when Jesus asks, “Now which of these three was the neighbor?” couldn’t even say the word?  He couldn’t even say ‘Samaritan’.  He just said, “The one who showed mercy.”)

Anyway, the Good Samaritan is a story about mercy, and not just of the hated Samaritan’s mercy, but calling us the hearers to mercy...to giving a second look to those we deem enemies, even and especially those opponents who are closest and most visceral to us.  And just to drive it home, it’s followed by a real-life example:  A sister.  A brother.  A parent.  A child.  A former best friend.  A  next door neighbor.  A co-worker.  A church member.  We’re talking not about some big enemy “out there”, but about a family member, a real person who makes your stomach turn, who makes you tense up, or keeps you awake at night.  How about giving that one a second look.  Who do you need to give a second look to, who is that person in your life — you’ve been so backed up with anger, fear, resentment, bitterness toward?  That’s your neighbor.

That’s where our new journey begins, friends in Christ.  With a groan.  And a challenge.  And a call to honesty…and mercy.  Christ calls us always to mercy, peace and grace.  

Christ offers us that mercy, peace and grace, even if we have wronged those around us in some way — those locally and immediately, like our sisters or brothers or neighbors...and those broadly, indirectly and globally.  Even if, even though we have fallen short.  This amazing grace and mercy is for us too.

And Christ walks with us as we continue to seek new ways of extending that grace and mercy to all those we meet here and out on our roads.  Thanks be to God, that we don’t do this hard work of Christian love alone.  We do it together, and Christ is right there with in our midst.  AMEN.

July 7 -- Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace….well maybe…  :)
Jesus sends us out like lambs out into the midst of wolves!

That’s us he’s talking about!  When it says he sends “the 70” out, scholars are pretty clear that’s referring to all humanity.  Everyone is sent!  (I haven’t preached Luke’s Gospel since Lent, but remember that Luke is very interested in the Gospel of Christ radiating out, locally then globally, from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria...and to the ends of the earth.)

So how do you feel about that?!  Being the ones Jesus sends?

Ever wonder, like I do: What are we you doing, listening to and following after this Jesus?  I published that question in the newsletter this week, with my email asking for responses and got like 0!  :)   Uhhhh.  What are we doing following after Jesus, sends us, like lambs into the midst of wolves?

Why do you follow?  It’s good, in these hot humid days to ask what this is all about?  And to stop and take in the fact that Jesus asks us to go into some pretty terribly risky situations.  I love how he says (vs.2-3), “Go on YOUR way.”  My way?  My way is always the a easier way.  The most calculated, safest way.  The path of least resistance.  Jesus is telling us that we’ll most likely be rejected, even eaten up here!

I’m amazed Christianity is as strong as it is!  Aren’t you?  I mean, this faith stuff is not for the faint-hearted.

When tragedy strikes (my 42 year old friend from seminary’s husband died suddenly and mysteriously last week), when disease creeps in, when friends abandon/even betray you, when marriages fall apart, why do you keep following after this Jesus?
And then, at the core of this passage, like so many in the Gospel of Luke, is the call to stand up to the forces of evil in this world.  It’s not just rah, rah hang in there passage.  It’s not just about survival as lambs among wolves.  At the core of this mission Jesus gives to us (the 70) is the call to get face to face with the powers of this world and proclaiming a bold NO to the ways and means that hurt people and earth itself.

When you embrace, preach and live the peace of Christ (that we’ll share in a moment), ironically, you actually create conflict!  When the powers of this world are threatened, by a higher vision of Divine peace, the peace of Christ — where all are included, all are fed, housed, clothed, welcomed, educated — the powers start to get very disturbed, the dragons start to wake up and snarl and try to squelch the disturbance.  (Mother Theresa: feed hungry =saint; ask why there is hunger = communist)

See, everything in Luke is tying back to Jesus‘ inaugural address that we shared together back in January, where the poor have good news brought to them, the captives go free, debts are forgiven, the year of the Lord’s favor.  Luke, remember, I often like to call it: the Mercy Book.  When you start talking mercy, especially to strangers in power, like where Jesus sends us — out there! — you’ve got another thing coming.

Wait, wolves?!!!
Where is the Good News for us in that, friends?

Well, I believe it’s in the journey!  See, Jesus says it over and over, and it’s still really hard to get, but I’ll say it again (even to myself):  The kingdom of God is here!   It’s right here (at hand, upon us!  (candidacy essays: “I want to usher in the kingdom.”)
Our Creator God is already with us.  Christ is right by our side.  The Holy Spirit is moving all around in this sanctuary and in your home and your car and your office or classroom!  Out on the open road.  It’s in the journey!

Do you know the kinds of adventures you’ll have when you risk the call that Christ has for you here?  Don’t wait any longer.  Have the conversation that needs to be had.  Make the change in your life that will lead to deeper faith.  Let the investment go that’s been tying you down.  This is Christ calling us.  Sending you.  And do you know the kinds of fellow travelers you’ll meet?  The kinds of joys you’ll share, even amid the great struggles and pains?   The kingdom of God is here!  Now.  It’s all part of it.

I’m afraid I’m not making sense.
Church stories…
I have a friend who’s been the pastor of small church.  Opportunities for growth and renewal keep knocking on their door...literally but he cannot for the life of him get the congregation to trust God and open that door.  It would revitalize the whole ministry, but they are so stuck on protecting their building and their traditions.  He told me the other day, “It’s like there’s no room for God in there.  It’s like the Spirit is locked up in a cage, like a bird.”  The divine is crowded out by fear of the unknown.  And they just can’t take that step.

Meanwhile, here’s another church I knew in San Diego a few years back: They were literally dying.  Maybe that’s what it takes: my friend’s congregation wasn’t quite at that point yet.)  Anyway, Calvary Lutheran (aptly named in the moment) came together to have that really tough meeting about closing the doors.  It was a younger member of the church who stood up, faced with the realities of budget and staffing shortages, that said, “Well, if we’re going to die, let’s die serving.”  The whole congregation agreed.  This became their rally cry.  And with that they opened up a food pantry in their underserved neighborhood, where in a couple months and with some miraculous grants that came through they started feeding literally hundreds of families a week!   More than one of the more popular organizations downtown.  They just quietly kept feeding people — the whole congregation, not just a few dedicated members.  It became their whole identity.  Suddenly they weren’t worried as much about all they didn’t have.  Their whole perspective changed.  They heeded the call that Christ had for them all along.  And in that came true peace.

And it’s not romantic, it’s not like all their problems were solved and the church grew and recovered by leaps and bounds.  The renewal came in the paradigm shift, the radical re-envisioning of what it means to follow Jesus.

These are the kinds of adventures we have as we risk the call that Christ has for us.  The kingdom of God is not something far off, someday down the line — it’s right here, now (even as we’re dying)!

I love when babies scream during a baptism.  Well, I don’t love it, but I see a powerful reminder every time it happens:  this Christian life is not an easy one.  We should all shed a few tears.  It’s lambs-amid-wolves business.  And yet in this same crazy commission, Jesus talks about peace, true peace.  Finding and knowing God’s peace, right where you are.  Not moving around from place to place, always in search of a better deal, or more comfort or tastier food.  Right?  He says, “Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide.”
So here we go.  Jesus told them to go, and so they went.  And God stays with them.  God stays with you, this day and always.  AMEN.

March 31 -- Fourth Sunday in Lent

Sisters and brothers in Christ, I’m going to liken every single one of you/us here today…to the older brother. 

Usually, I’d have you put yourself into these Bible stories.  Who do you identify with?  Which characters words or predicaments best fit your current situation?  But today I’m going to tell you: You’re the older brother.  Why?  Because every single one of you is here at church.  Good for you :)

Now maybe there have certainly been times in your life when you’ve identified more with the reckless younger brother.  I’m sure many of us can relate to the father as well.  (Although — we are reminded by theologians that none of us can truly be the merciful parent in this story.  Ultimately — and the point of the story is — only God can be that.  Even if you’ve rejoiced at a child’s homecoming or struggled through the pain of a loved one’s reckless behavior, as this parable goes, only God...)

No, today, you’re the older brother.  Because you’re here.  And because we can all relate to bitterness.  Hard-heartedness.  Hard, diligent work through the years.  Doing the right thing.  And wanting everything to be fair.  Because there’s a word we all need to hear from our God again this day: mercy.

--

Quick recap of the famous story.  Little brother, “brattily,” demands his share of the family inheritance.  Goes out -- goes far from home -- and blows it.  Until he arrives at this scene with the pigs.  Couldn’t be any lower than that, especially, remember, for a Jewish audience: Swine are unclean, defiled creatures.  He’s hit rock bottom.  

But there in the pig pen, he comes up with a plan.  “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worth to be called you son; treat me like one of you hired hands.‘  So he sets off…”  

Note: there is no sign of or word for “repentance” here!  The Greek word for repentance metanoia that we’ve seen before in Luke’s gospel -- nope.  The closest we get is that it says, “When he came to himself…” Lots of great discussion on what that means.  (from “sobered up” to “discovered who he was”)

I’m convinced, especially given the two parables that precede this one -- the lost sheep (stupid) and the lost coin (dead, inanimate) that that son is pretty much in those categories...plus he’s un-repentant and maybe even preparing to manipulate his father all over again.  “Here’s what I’ll do:  I’ll say this to my father…”  He rehearses his lines, like an addict, says what he needs to say to get his next hit.  He’s a reckless, self-centered, lost, worthless son.  That’s the image Jesus is so vividly painting in this story.  (Love that painting in my office, but John August Swanson’s depiction of the prodigal son is way too beautiful.)  This kid is lazy, dangerous trash.

And that’s intentional build-up for the rest of us who are far from lazy, dangerous trash.  We haven’t gotten to us yet.  Maybe you have been in the pig pen, but you’re here now.  You’re the oldest son today. 

So I don’t even have to tell you to “imagine” the father lavishing mercy on this deadbeat, mooching, manipulative, robbing younger brother.  Yeah -- you know, one commentator reminded me that the fatted calf, the ring, the robe all the stuff the father gave that youngest son was actually the inherited property of the older son’s, right?  The whole story starts with “Father, give me my share of the inheritance…”  So, everything else belonged to the older brother.    

I mean, there is so much here for that older brother to be  bitter about!  Think of all the bitterness that you’ve carried in your life, friends in Christ.  That’s the whole project this Lent season here in the shadow of the cross -- to acknowledge the bitterness, the hard-heartedness, we bear, and to bring it forward and leave it at the altar, at the cross.  

Ever been jealous when an act of compassion was directed at someone (or a group of people) you didn’t think deserved it...AT ALL.  “Why should they get that -- they haven’t done anything to deserve it!”:  

“Why should my deadbeat sister, my lazy brother, my mean neighbor, my late-arriving co-worker, my corner-cutting employees, those other members of this church (or this Lutheran family, or this Christian faith), that other side of our community -- why should any of those robbing, cheating, lazy, ungrateful, dishonest, manipulative, spoiled other people (Samaritans) get the fatted calf slaughtered for them, get a party thrown in their honor…when I haven’t even gotten so much as a small goat?!”

Lord, it is hard to be gracious.  Like God is gracious and merciful. 

I think this is really a story about the lost older son.  We know know where this is going with the youngest, by the time we get to the third story.  First it’s the lost, dumb sheep.  Then it’s the lost, dead, inanimate coin.  So we know what’s going to happen to the prodigal son.  He’s going to be found!  They all get parties thrown for them!  The real gift and twist of this third story, for us today, is the way the father treats the oldest.

And this what God says to us too, dutiful people-in-Church:

“You are always with me.  And all that is mine is yours.”

Let that soak in these days:  

We are always with God.  God has always got us-always had us-always will.  Since you were in your mother’s womb, God has held you in love, grace, mercy and peace!  

“And all that I have is yours.” God has entrusted everything, this whole earth, to us.  God’s just handed it over to us, to manage it as we will, to care for it.  The planet is our family farm.  God’s entrusted it to us.  (This is stewardship, btw.)

“But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life.  He was lost and has been found.”

Friends in Christ, God invites us out of our hard-heartedness, for we too can get lost in that.  Christ calls us out of our bitterness — pay attention to when you’re feeling bitter this week — and instead God calls us, like the father in the story, to celebrate and rejoice.  Come join the party!  

This grace is amazing, which means it’s for everyone:  it is for the healing of the nations, the breaking down of barriers that divide, the joining hands and joining hearts of sisters and brothers who are different and even at odds.  

This grace is amazing which means it’s for everyone: it is for you and for me — the lost and the lonely, the broken and the bitter, the angry and the afraid.  

This grace is for all.  Thanks be to God.  We have been found.  AMEN.