March 7 -- Theological Spring Cleaning (Lent 3B)

Sisters and brothers, siblings and friends in Christ, God is always doing a new thing.  God is always moving us in the direction of change, evolving us toward greater faithfulness, deeper peace, fuller grace.

That’s true in this exciting story as well.  All the Gospels have a story about Jesus in the temple overturning the tables.  But interestingly, this one in the Gospel of John comes right at the beginning of his ministry.  Chapter 2!  Matthew, Mark and Luke all have Jesus driving out the money-changers not until the week before his crucifixion, at the end of his earthly ministry.  It’s part of what fuels the chief priests and scribes’ fire to have him arrested and finally crucified, remember?  But here Jesus does this at the beginning of his 3 year ministry.  What’s happening here?  Did John forget to mention him doing it again a few days before his passion, death and resurrection?  

Whatever conclusion you come to, what is going on here, it’s something different in terms of what this means.  John’s Gospel, as I think I’ve shared before is very different!  

For one thing, Jesus doesn’t show much emotion.  He doesn’t call names — he doesn’t call them “robbers”.  I don’t even think he seems all that angry, like in the other Gospels.  In John, it’s not an indictment on financial corruption, economic inequalities, social injustice.  Jesus just says, “Don’t make this a marketplace.”  In John, it’s always a deeply spiritual matter...which can arrive us at those other issues.  But what’s happening here first is a radical theological spring cleaning and replacement.
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See, the people were used to buying cattle, sheep and doves when they arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover.  That’s what you did as part of the ritual sacrifice, that’s how the people celebrated Passover.  First, they sacrificed by traveling all the way to Jerusalem every year...specifically to the temple, the only place where God was believed to dwell.  And then, when they get there, after walking all those miles, they’d buy an animal to sacrifice.  Like Professor Karoline Lewis said, “You’re not gonna schlep a sheep from Galilee.”  

So everyone was used to seeing this mall of animals, like a farmers market, in the inner walls of the temple.  

And as for the “money changers” — by the way — this very well could have been their livelihood...  I have a friend who used to act out this scene, from the perspective of the money changers:  Jesus knocking over everything: “Man. That’s my dinner tonight, man.  How am I going to feed my family this month.  Who is this guy?” I think his is an interesting commentary on this story in Matthew, Mark and Luke.  That’s a good entry point.  But here in John, Jesus is doing something radically theological (as opposed to political in the other cases).
 

Jesus is throwing out ritual sacrifice.  He is throwing out the idea that you have to buy something to earn God’s favor.  I’d even say, as a Lutheran, he’s throwing out the idea that you have to do something to earn God’s good graces.  Radical theological replacement, you see.  Theological spring cleaning.  Out with old — that is, the old idea that God only lives in the high temple, in the holiest of holies, there in Jerusalem.  Out with the old — that is, the old idea that you have to buy a sheep or a goat or an ox and sacrifice it  in order to get this inaccessible God to notice and bless you (like so many other religions, btw)...  

What’s happening here, already in chapter 2, is that we’re getting to see that God is breaking out, God — i.e. Christ himself — is breaking beyond the walls and the rules of the temple and the tradition.  In fact, Christ himself is the temple now!  There is no one place to go where you can visit God.  God is out there on the road. 

We see again that in John as Jesus just. keeps. moving!  Holiness is everywhere now, not just in temples (or churches).

And because it’s everywhere we’re no longer chained to a checklist of sacrifices and journeys we have to make.  Jesus becomes the temple.  And this temple, that is his body, is nothin’ but love.  Nothing but abundant life and peace and forgiveness and grace!
            Overflowing, all-encompassing holiness.

That’s what we’re offered now.  Here.  Friends in Christ.

When holiness shows up everywhere, when we’re covered by Christ, then we do start to act differently, we do start to see differently, we do start to use our money differently, vote differently, speak differently, serve differently.  We don’t change our ways because there’s some kind of reward at the end!  That’s the old ritual sacrifice transaction:  I’ll give you this, God...so that will will give me that.  

We don’t barter with God!  We already have this reward!

We only respond to God...who through Christ, always acts first in LOVE and generosity.  God always makes the first move, all we can do is respond (great statement of faith!).  Danker: “Jesus did the work, we just get to do church.”

When people are doing cruel things, or when members of the family are clearly burdened — church people, or people that say they’re Christians — it always makes me sad because it’s like they’re reading the Bible but not understanding it.  They’re reading something, and at the same time not seeing/getting/receiving that this God is pouring out love and forgiveness FIRST.  Not after we make some kind of sacrifice or do some kind of ritual or good work to earn this.  
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Dearly departed (regardless of political party) Rep. John Lewis of Georgia:  John Lewis was a Freedom Rider, marched with Dr. King and participated in those famous sit-ins in the Deep South, where he and other African Americans would walk into a diner and just sit quietly, waiting patiently to be served. People would spit on them because they were black, they’d pour hot coffee and syrup on them, call them all kinds of horrible names…

And as John Lewis talked about this and other forms of non-violent resistance he said at the heart of it all was love.  “You have to love your enemies and those who persecute you.”  (I wonder if he was reading Howard Thurman and the Gospel of John too.)

And then he told this story from just a couple years ago, when a former KKK member requested an audience with Lewis because he wanted to apologize.  And with tears in his eyes this now-very-old white man says to the late great John Lewis, “I’m sorry for what I did to you, those many years ago.  My heart was filled with hate.  Not anymore.  Will you accept my apology?”  And John Lewis said, “I accept your apology,” and then reflects calmly in this interview, “See, that’s the power of radical love, the love of Jesus.  It’s the most powerful force in the world, and it has the power to overturn the tables.”
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Friends in Christ, Jesus in the temple, this “cleansing” is breaking us out of old, oppressive, tit-for-tat ways and systems.  And inviting us again — “come and see” — that’s how it begins!  The Holy Spirit is inviting us again down the road of discipleship, down the path of Jesus.  This is a radical theological replacement!  Love not law.  No more burdens or chains.  Freedom is walking the way of compassion and forgiveness.  New life.

This love, grace, mercy and cleansing healing is for you.  It’s right here and now.  Take a deep, Johanine breath today, in this Hallelujah Anyhow Lent: soak it up.  Chew it down, drink it in.  Taste and see that God is great.  Feast on this abundance that Christ offers freely to you today.  The old has been replaced with AGAPE — unconditional love — and so we. have. been. made. new.  Greater faithfulness, deeper peace, fuller grace.  Thanks be to God.  Hallelujah.  AMEN.

February 28 -- Makes & Never Breaks (Lent 2B)

Grace to you and peace from God who makes and never breaks the covenant with us.  AMEN.

I’m looking this morning at our first lesson from Genesis.

Abraham and Sarah are given new names in the covenant that God makes and never breaks with them.

And we too are given new names in the covenant that God makes with us in holy baptism.  Share with the person in the room with you, or if you’re joining with us, share those special names we were given, no titles, no last names – just our naked and blessed first and middle original names.  For many of us that was the name spoken when we were baptized.

God makes a covenant with us.  And there are always two sides to a covenant.  

What is God’s side of the covenant?

God’s side of the covenant: to do the impossible –
giving Abraham and Sarah a child.  (Can you believe it?)
making this insignificant Iraqi couple the mother and father of today’s 3 major world religions.  Muslims, Christians and Jews all share the same ancestors: Abraham and Sarah! (Can you believe it?)
God’s side of the covenant: to do the impossible –
to forgive you all your sins and grant you newness of life.  
At the beginning of our worship every Sunday: we confess and receive this forgiveness of sins.
    (Can you believe it?)
 

Beloved, God’s word never fails.
The promise rests on grace:
by the saving love of Jesus Christ,
the wisdom and power of God,
your sins are forgiven and God remembers them no more.  Journey in the way of Jesus.  Amen.

Siblings in Christ, God always makes the first move.  Yesterday in confirmation: diagramming sentences...

But what about our side of the covenant?  Wrote a song about it..
“take up our cross and follow Jesus.”
-live among God’s faithful people
-hear the Word, celebrate the Meal
-proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed
-serve all people following Jesus’ example
-strive for Justice and peace in all the earth.
“take up our cross and follow Jesus.”

The cross we bear is the one that was streaked across our foreheads in our baptisms, on Ash Wednesday, whenever we touch water...

The key to both sides of the covenant: faith and trust.
God’s faithfulness.  And our trusting in God’s goodness.

With Luther, and for us as Lutherans, faith is a gift…so the key is really accepting faith/trust in God, which God gives us in baptism.

I can’t think of a better image of trusting in God than the image of offering our money…back to God.  Please, please don’t hear this as a fundraising drive.  I could care less about money-raising right now.  This is a deeply spiritual practice to take our income and lift a percentage of it up to God.  The offering was the original point of worship for the ancient Hebrews.  Abraham will learn this as the story in Genesis continues.  Worship is taking the best of what you have, what God has given you, and offering it up.  In his day, it was his best sheep.  In our day, it’s our money.  The offering is a symbol of trust, at the heart of our worship service, right in the middle, between the Word and the Meal.  Because our money is so important to us.  

A little while back I met with a group of pastors and we sat around and simply shared our own giving stories.  Basically, how do we practice offering our money.  

Where did we get our ideas about that.  
And I was inspired and a little shocked, to be honest –

…shocked because the stories I heard about faithful giving did not come off as pious or pompous they came off as inspiring – our bishop talks about how she kept tithing during a season of her life that was the most difficult, financially.  And she can move us to tears as she reflects on how...it was all about trust in God.  

 You too are examples of a people who have accepted the gift of faith, Bethlehem friends!  God gives us faith in our baptism.  It’s not something we have to earn or grow or manage.  It’s just offered freely to us.  And we turn and offer back to God, in so many ways.   

Lent is a time to reflect again on our tithes and offerings.  It’s one of the pillars of Lent: giving praying fasting.

You are examples of a people who have accepted the gift of faith!  Every time you open your hands and receive the bread and wine, you are opening yourselves to God’s guidance in your lives.  And that is inspiring and shocking too.  It is a symbol of that covenant made new in Christ Jesus who promises us forgiveness and ever-presence.

And here’s the thing:  God never breaks that covenant.  We might fall short, but God never breaks the covenant.  We might change, but God never breaks the covenant.  God always keeps God’s promises.  

God always keeps God’s promises.  And here’s the promise God makes to us on our Lenten journeys:  “I will be with you.  As you seek ways to live more faithfully, I will be with you.  As you continue to struggle to be honest about some wrong directions and decisions you’ve made in your life, I will be with you.  As you struggle to offer back to me,” God says, “what I have first given you, I will be with you.  As you struggle to receive this gift of faith, as you struggle to trust, I will be with you.  As you live out, struggle to live out, the covenant I made with you in your baptism, I will be with you.”  

These Lenten days can be very difficult, if we take them seriously, if we take up our crosses and follow.  To the rest of the world these days are just more busy days, routine days, nothing-special days in our lives (oblivious to the fact that all of this is a gift from God — all of this:  the paint on the wall, the raindrop from heaven, the air in my lungs — is a gift from God).  To the rest of the world these days are just more busy days, shaped by the news headlines and the retail sales.  But to us who struggle to follow Christ, to us who gather to be together and recognize that everything is a gift of God, to us who have opened our hands and received the gift of faith, we have a promise.  “Never will I leave you.  Never will that change.” Jesus assures, “Come, pick up your cross, lose your life today…and find it in me forever.”  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.

September 20 -- From Bitterness to Clean Hearts (Pentecost 16A)

 “Create in us clean hearts, O God, and renew a right spirit within us. Amen.”

Well, pick your analogous story to today’s fabulous, but potentially bitterness-inducing Gospel parable from Jesus:

Let’s say there’s a new hire at work, who comes on board right at the beginning of December.  And when the boss hands out the Christmas bonuses, she gets the same amount as everyone else.

Or...you’ve got the guy who gets a World Series ring, even with only 4 plate appearances with Nationals!  He still gets the exact same ring in October as those guys who showed up for Spring Training, and gave it all for the team day-in-and-day-out!  Happens all the time.

Children jumping contest — but everybody gets a trophy

We’ve had a tactile example this week...of the rain here in DC-Maryland-Virginia region — showering everyone/everything, regardless.   

And in this pandemic, what about all those who have got it better than you.  Who seem to be in a much better place with work, kids, school, time off...fabulous stories, but potentially bitterness inducing?

Or...you don’t need an analogous story: could easily just connect to this same story that Jesus tells today.  Every day, there are day-laborers, ready to work.  Not sure if this exists here but in San Diego, outside of any Home Depot, groups of men (mostly) are hanging out early in the morning with cups of coffee, hoping you might hire them for some yard work or project in the house...  
$20 for the day — that’s the equivalent to one denarius.  $20 — not much for a day’s wage, but it’s enough to feed a family that night at the dinner table — some rice and beans, maybe a small bucket of fried chicken.  So imagine a man doing some major landscape work instead of vineyard work, and he hires guys all through the day, and pays the ones he hires last, right around happy hour, the same wage he pays the guys he hired at 6am.

Any bitterness?  Are you above it?  Are you happy for the late hire-ons,  the shortest jumpers?

When you think of it in terms of providing dinner that night for the worker and his or her family, maybe it’s understood a bit little differently.  Seems to me that’s what the landlord in the parable was thinking.  This tells us about Jesus:

God is certainly interested in everyone having enough to feed their family around the table.  God is certainly interested in the community taking care of one another.  God is certainly compassionate and generous.  That’s what Jesus kicks off this whole story to say the realm of God is like...everyone having what they need, everyone having enough.

Do you hear this story and relate more to the land owner — what’s your first inclination, in terms of your perspective: are you too in a position to hire day laborers?  Or do you relate more to the workers?  Have you been or are you currently in a tight spot where you need to feed your family tonight or can barely eek out rent for this month?

My pastor colleague and friend Cyndi, who has always been an advocate for disability rights, and is in a wheelchair-scooter herself, shared with me that she doesn’t believe the ones who were hired last are lazy.  They just weren’t as physically attractive and able as the big strong ones who were hired first.  [pause]  “This is a disability gospel, you see!” Cyndi exclaims. The late-comers desperately wanted to feed their families too; they wanted to be hired all day too.  But someone else could jump higher, lift more, cut faster — offer more bang for your buck.  

“Are you envious because I’m generous?” the landowner asks the bitter ones.  There’s a perspective that I think we all may be able to share:

We can be envious of others’ blessings — those who seem to be doing better than me.   Family members and friends who seem to be doing better than me.  Co-workers who make more, parents who how have more, neighbors who show more...

As the temperatures drop (here in the mid-Atlantic regions), as the leaves start to change and drop, this is a season, an opportunity for growth and great soul searching.  God is working on you quietly, even with all the noise and energy even chaos all around, God is working on you, whispering:  

“Let go of your bitterness and resentment,” God’s words are deep down in our bones, “Stop worrying about what others are getting, and what you’re not getting.  Do you have enough to eat tonight?  I want everyone to have enough, you see?  And your anger and your bitterness is pulling you down, holding you back from being the fully human being I created you to be.  Let that stuff go, and share and love and enjoy...as I have shared and loved you — generously, freely, and compassionately.  That takes some work, I know,” says God, “but I created you to do this, so I know you’ve got it in you...I know you’ve got that clean heart...and I know I created a holy community for you to support you in this heart-tending work.”  

This is our time, friends in Christ — both to recognize God’s compassion and generosity, where everyone gets what they need, everyone gets enough, everyone gets to feed their families, roof over their head, the medicine they need, the education they need (I guess God gets quickly political here, if we’re paying attention, but if it’s God calling us to it, then food and clothing and health is literally theology).

Yes this is our time, friends in Christ — both to recognize and give thanks for God’s great compassion and generosity, and also this is our time to slow down and recognize God’s great compassion and generosity within ourselves...even and especially if its been buried.  Don’t dig it out — God’s compassion that’s in you — let it rest in you today, let it settle, like a seed in the soil:  God’s compassion grows in you, deep down, in and through us all, finally breaking the surface and bettering the world, offering beauty and food and companionship.  These are the ways God’s love is made known — through us!  In tangible, real ways — food and companionship...  Isn’t it amazing when a new tree you’ve planted turns from from a beautiful little sapling, to an actual source of shade, or a source of food, or a source of beauty...and maybe even into a companion or a friend?

That’s the kind of growth God’s got in store for us, friends in Christ.  

God has planted us, and grows us.  See what’s also happening?  Christ is both planted and planter!  Sheep and shepherd.  God is ultimately the gracious vineyard owner here, bestowing gifts of enough on all of us, no matter what time we arrived!  

Siblings in Christ, we entrust ourselves to God, who loves us, who showers us with blessings, brings us in, calls and sends us out...with enough.  With clean hearts to share our abundance, and this good news of our generous God whose name is Love.

This is a narrow way — recognizing, taking hold, and receiving God’s abundant mercy.  And today we continue down this winding, narrow way...together, singing our praise and thanks for the broadness of God’s generosity all the while.  AMEN.

August 30 -- Come, Die With Us (Pentecost 13A)

 Last week Jesus calls Peter “the Rock”.  He lifts him up, promises him the “keys to the kingdom”, says, “upon this rock I’ll build my church.”  Jesus has Peter feeling pretty good, I imagine. This week (only 8 verses later) Jesus calls Peter “Satan.”  What happened?

Peter probably wanted to take his titles and honor and blessings from Christ and just enjoy them (just for a second...just 8 verses, Jesus?); Peter wants to  “take the money and run,” so to speak.  

But then Jesus instructs Peter — and all of us — in the ways of discipleship.  This is a calling — once we acknowledge Christ as the Messiah, once we make our bold statement of faith, like Peter, this is a call — to take up our cross, this is a call to come and die.  Peter wanted to hinder that.  He wanted to block it.  “Say it isn’t so, Lord.”

I wondered about putting “Come Die With Us” on our digital sign out front. [pause]  I wonder how fast this church would grow.  

This Gospel passage from Matthew, that is before us today, is terrible marketing.  It does not make people feel good.  It’s frightening, and confusing and, frankly, not the way most people are going to choose.  “I don’t want to come die with you, Lord.  I want to enjoy the Rock, the church.  I want to enjoy the comfort of being in your presence.  I want to enjoy knowing that my soul is safe with you.  I don’t want to suffer.”

"If any want to become my followers [though],” Jesus said, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake [and for the sake of the Gospel] will find it.”

Christ calls us to give ourselves away for this world. [pause]

How are you, how are we, giving ourselves away for this world?  In a world and a culture that says, “No, protect yourself and your dearest ones!  Don’t give yourself away!  That’s stupid.”   

But Christ bids we come.  We give ourselves up.  And as D. Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ bids we come, he bids we come and die.”

[How am I doing here, btw?  As I wrote this I found myself wanting to add lots of jokes and humor to this passage.  That’s a defense mechanism.  A little sugar coating...to take the edge off.]

How is Christ calling you to lose your life, to give yourself away for the world, to take up your cross and follow him?

It always needs to be said, when we reach this passage each year, about bearing your cross, it needs to be said that your “cross to bear” is never to be the recipient of some sort of abuse.  [pause]  I interject with that, because I’ve heard and met people who say that their pastor or priest told them that they ought to be silent and bear the physical/emotional/spiritual abuse of their spouse or parent or church because that’s simply their “cross to bear”…like “Well, we all have our crosses to bear.”  Being the recipient of abuse is never someone’s cross to bear — for that is not giving yourself away for the world for the sake of the Gospel, that is not being the truest you for the world that God created you to be, and that this world, this community, this family needs you to be.  God didn’t mold us for abuse and violence — not recipients of abuse & violence and not perpetrators of abuse & violence.  Let’s all work to stop that.

Our “cross to bear” is that cross that was traced on our foreheads in our baptisms.  It was traced with oil as a symbol of a sealant.  And it gets traced again with ashes each springtime, at the beginning of Lent.  It is the cross under which we live, and under which we die.  [Do you remember that cross?  Is it still there?  Trace it again, just to make sure you know it’s there.]  
It is that cross that says we belong to Christ — it’s a branding — Christ who we boldly confess as Messiah, along with Peter.  

And having had that cross sealed on our foreheads, having made that bold confession, we now go, into the deep and pain-filled valleys of this life, into the fear, and the storms that rage all around us.  That is, back into our labor — the courtrooms, the newsrooms, the classrooms, operating rooms, the living rooms and dining rooms and bedrooms of our daily lives.  We seek out the places where there is pain, and we go there, to give ourselves away, to be agents of God’s grace.  I had a wise colleague who pointed out when we were struggling together with this text: “You know when God asks us to come and die, you can’t really die just a little bit.  When you die, you die.  It’s all or nothing.”  So when Jesus calls us to come and give our selves away, he’s asking for every part of you!  He doesn’t say, I’ll take your 1:30 minutes each week.  I’ll take whatever you have leftover in your wallet.  I’ll take—if it’s not putting you out too much—your volunteer time for my cause.  Jesus doesn’t say that!  Christ bids we give our whole selves away, that we die to the things of this world.

And maybe that means you need to rethink everything...I don’t want to shy away from that possibility.  Maybe God is calling you, or us, to rethink everything! — to re-shape our whole lives in response to Christ’s call.  That’s really frightening for those of us, who are settled, and on track.  [Dad’s experience in Norway — freedom of not having roots down, no stakes in the ground.]  Maybe God is calling you to rethink and reshape everything in your life.  Maybe it’s time for a brand NEW start, a life that is in line with God’s call to give yourself away.  Dangerous words today, on one hand.  

But I would suspect—and I know—that many of us are not thinking we’re completely off track with God’s purposes for our lives.  I would suspect that many of us have been trying to follow Christ in our daily lives...many for a long time.  

Then I would encourage you to welcome this message as a wake-up call.  Sometimes we sleep through our alarms from God.  Let this be a wake-up, “Hey, where is God calling you to give yourself away in what you do, in where you are, in who you are?”  

The church has failed somehow, I think, in talking about vocation, in talking about “having a calling” as only something pastors or professional church people get.  (Were you taught that somehow?  I hope you weren’t.)  What’s your calling/vocation?

Martin Luther said that every single person has a calling from God...from the maid scrubbing the floor, to the shoemaker.  (Those were Luther’s examples.)  God calls us all to do what we do and do it, as well as we can, for the sake of the world, to the glory of God.  [pause]  Let your dishwashing be a prayer; let your lesson-planning be a psalm; let your tile work, or your lab research or your carpentry or investment baking or your parenting or your caring for a aging parent be a hymn to God’s glory, for the sake of the world.  [pause]

Our work can be very hard — we give ourselves away in it, and today we’re given a booster shot to give ourselves away even more.  Wash dishes for someone else, give away some of your labor or your research, or your craftsmanship.  Do something creative (in the COVID world) to help care for and nurture someone else’s child or aging parent, in addition to your own.  Giving ourselves away for this world, in response to Christ giving himself away for you: this is your cross to bear.

A great task for us all, as Labor Day approaches.  God calls all of us into this holy labor.  Dangerous words today, on one hand.  But on the other hand...

Jesus promises us, that in losing our lives — in giving our lives away for the sake of the other — we actually find our selves and find our lives...

Let’s go find ourselves...for we have been found by Christ, buried with Christ.  We’ve been imbedded in God’s healing and forgiving love all along!  That cross is a tree, you see; that cross of death...is a cross of life.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

May 17 -- Paul & Our Many Altars (Easter 6A)

Friends in Christ, if Paul was to wander through your life — your daily routines, where you spent your time and your money, where you made sacrifices: the things that bring you great joy, the things that get you really upset, and the ways you speak — if Paul was to wander down “your street”, stand at the center of your personal “town square” (the Areopagus) — WHAT WOULD HE NOTICE?

The question is not: “Are you/is anyone religious?”  The question is: “In what ways are you extremely religious?”  Everyone worships something.  The word worship, broken down, “worth-ship”.  What’s worthy of your sacrifices?  That’s what we worship.  Lots of people go to church but don’t worship God.  Because God’s not worthy of their sacrifices, the church is not worthy of their sacrifices: traveling the world is what’s truly worthy of their sacrifices.  Clothing or hobbies or housing improvements or sports or fancy alcohol or knives or guns or shoes or concerts or cars or crafts are what’s truly worthy of their sacrifices.  We all have our thing, I think.  What’s your thing?

The best way for Paul to wander down any one of our “streets” is for him to take a look at our credit card statements, right?  Our Amazon (non-essential) recent purchases.  Or however you can track how and where you spend your money.  (I was shocked at how much our family spent on food in this past year’s credit card report — not restaurants but food: organic, locally sourced, healthy food.  It’s more expensive.  We’ve admitted that’s a place we’re willing to make sacrifices.  I guess you could say it’s one of our idols.)  And I won’t even divulge all my non-essential Amazon purchases.  That’s the real “giving record,” right?

That’s where we can see where we really make sacrifices.  I know the whole, “but it’s not just about money when it comes to church” idea.

And that’s true, but so often, I think, we can hide behind that.   So much is about money...  x2 That’s why Jesus talked about money all the time!

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt. 6.21; Lk. 12.34).  What is it that you treasure?  What is it that you protect?  What is it that you make sacrifices for?  Where is your heart?
—
Well, all this was true in the ancient world as well, as Paul walked through the streets of Athens, “Athenians,” he says, “I see how extremely religious you are in every way.”

But there’s something else:
Paul notices that there is an altar to an unknown God.
You see, the people of Athens — like us today — worshipped all kinds of gods.  I think it was more overt then: maybe less shame or denial about it.  They made sacrifices openly to the gods of sports, food, parties, travel, transportation, music, crafts and weather.  (BTW, living in Southern California all those years, I think we really worshipped the weather there.  I mean, people really make sacrifices for that beautiful weather, higher cost of living, etc.  And our observation, leaving that region was all these comments on how much we were going to miss the weather.  How different is that from worshiping an ancient sun god?)  That’s just one of many altars...

But there was this one altar that was unmarked.  It was like the fill-in-the-gap altar — one for everything else.

...and Paul seizes on that image to introduce them to a different kind of God.

See, it actually was in fact a fill-in-the-gap altar:  Like today, the people lived in great fear.  If you didn’t sacrifice to every god out there, if you worship at every altar — the altar of security, the altar of beauty & youth, the altar of war, the altar of food and drink and sport and weather, the altar of work...If you don’t appease every god, then trouble would inevitably befall you.
So just in case you miss one, there was this little “fill-in-the-gap” altar.
 Just in case you forgot about a god or two.  You could sacrifice at the altar of the unknown god.

       Paul seizes on that to draw them into a new understanding...
--
See, it’s like, there was “something else.”  The people even knew it.  This way of living and worshiping and making sacrifices at all these altars, this way of being extremely religious was coming up short.

Don’t we see that too?  Do you ever feel that?  All these things we worship, and yet, somehow, it’s never enough?  (We’re having some real time to reflect on these during this shutdown.  During this “great pause” that this global pandemic has forced upon us...)

We’re always pouring more and more out at all these different altars?  And every god, will endlessly take our sacrifices: our money, our time, our devotion, our energy, our whole lives.  But it’s like they’re never appeased.  The gods are never appeased, and they’ll just keep taking…  (Just talking with dear friends about the tolls that stress is taking on our bodies, especially these days — I realize that not everyone is feeling stress right now amid this shut-down, some are even downright bored.  But, for so many, parents of school kids, or toddlers, balancing jobs and work from home, school, family, economic pressures, etc. the frantic pace at which we’re running around our own homes, from altar to altar to altar (it’s like all those altars got crammed into our house)…

Yeah, Paul could say it to us too:  “I see how extremely religious you are in every way!”

And, let me say, if life has had the brakes slammed on, and you’re more in the camp of twiddling your thumbs, staring at the wall, that’s certainly an opportunity for devotion to the many gods to tick up — surfing the shopping websites, buying crazy things in large amounts, consuming food, alcohol, social media, technology, instruments to fill the time.  So many altars!

Paul says it to us too:  “I see how extremely religious you are in every way!”
--
But then there’s this one other little altar.  This little tiny chapel, this insignificant table in the corner.  This silly, old cross.  Laughable really, in the shadow of all the other towering altars.  

Paul seizes on that little altar, and takes that fearful theology (“talk of God”) around that altar — how that has infected Christianity now too:  fearful theology — and fills it with incarnational theology.  God is with us.  This little, tiny, insignificant altar you see here, Paul says, “I proclaim to you that the God who made the world and everything in it, [the God] who is [composer and conductor] of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands…[this God] allotted the times of [our] existence and the boundaries of the places where [we] live, so that [we may] search for God and perhaps grope for [God]...though indeed [God] is not far from each one of us.  For ‘In [God] we live and move and have our being….’”

We don’t grope for God, as if God is some object of our attaining, yet another thing to acquire [“gotta go to church to get some God in my life…”].  No, Paul proclaims here: We are IN God already.  My whole life changed with I started to accept that.  [say it again]

This little, un-named altar is an entry point into experiencing a God that is truly above all other gods!  A God who’s got the whole world — the whole universe — in a loving embrace.  A God in whom we “live and move and have our being.”  A God whose name is love, in Christ Jesus.

This is where Paul takes us...along with his ancient hearers.  Paul preaches of a God who is beyond time and space, who is above all our petty obsessions and weaknesses, who holds us even as we try to appease other gods!

This little Altar, this Book, this Water doesn’t contain God (God doesn’t live, cooped up in here)!  But they do, we confess, carry God.  This little altar, this old book, these drops of water, point us to a God who is loosed in, with, above, below, all around and throughout, under this entire universe!

We cannot encapsulate or domesticate this God of whom Paul speaks!  All we can do is give ourselves up to this holy movement — sacrifice ourselves to what we are already in God’s hands.

...Think of when children are angry and restless in their mother’s arms: there’s no use in trying to overpower her, “Just rest. Just breath. It’s OK.”  Can’t we be like restless children running from altar to altar to altar?  (Paul was once a restless Saul!)

Friends in Christ, we are truly IN Christ.  Not every day do we get to reflect on the all-inclusive, all-loving, all-surrounding embrace of a God in whom “we live and move and have our being.”  Being in Christ is where we find ourselves.  So now all we we can do is enjoy it, take a breath...and go make disciples.  Go invite others into this understanding, into this joyful awareness.  Tell them that we don’t have to make all these other sacrifices at all these other altars!  Go, make disciples by pointing them to the water and the word of life, and this community of love, this communion.  For simply in this following, there is peace.

Peace that is fuller and deeper than any other peace that any idols can offer.  Love divine, all loves excelling!   Jesus calls us away from those other loves, to come and follow, make your sacrifices here, and make disciples.  You are Christ’s witnesses to these things: you have a job to do!  It’s a blessed burden, a labor of love.

Thanks be to God, who holds us and this whole cosmos now...and forever more.  Go spread that Good News.  Breathe.  It’s gonna be ok.  Because at this altar, we celebrate...that... God’s got us.  AMEN.

May 3 -- Fourth Sunday of Easter

March 1 -- First Sunday in Lent

Grace to you and peace from Jesus Christ in this season of Lent.  AMEN.

The First Sunday in Lent every year begins with the retelling of the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness... lest we take Lent too lightly.  This gives us a morning, maybe even a whole week, to pause again and consider “the devil.”

Does anyone even believe in Satan anymore?  In many ways, the devil’s been reduced to a Halloween costume.  I marvel each year in October when suddenly we see images, adults and even little children dressed up like the devil: Red pitchforks, and pointy tails and horns.  It’s as if Halloween is the only time the devil comes out, and it’s all just pretend and trying to be funny (or sexy) at that.  Either this, or we’ve assigned all evil in the world to certain people like the Adolf Hitlers or Osama bin Ladens.  (I remember some assigning Barrack Obama with these descriptions only a few years ago...and I’ve certainly heard Trump called the devil).  It’s as if we’re trying to compartmentalize the devil and control Satan by assigning the label “evil” to specific individuals or a group or class or even race of people.
—
But the devil really comes out during Lent, when we head like Jesus “into the wilds.”  This season of Lent is a time for weeding.  And when you weed, as any gardener knows, you can’t just pick off the prickly leaves and vines that you see on the surface and call it good.  You can’t just point to a person who’s committed war crimes or violated ethical codes or humanitarian laws, destroy that person...and then go back to sleep.  We’ve got to dig deep into the soil of our own hearts, where the roots of evil have a strong hold.  We’ve got a lot of work to do in the garden, we’ve got a lot of work to do in the wilderness.  Be assured, friends in Christ, that the devil is real.

Temptation is all around.  But we’ve got a strong Word to contend against the devil.
—
How interesting that these temptation stories today are not temptations to murder, or any other big obvious sins.  Neither Jesus, nor Eve and Adam were handed a sword or a get-away-car.  (Do you know what I’m sayin’?)  If that were the case, we’d probably be much more able to resist temptation.  But the tempter is far more subtle...what’s wrong with a little piece of fruit?  It’s healthy, right?
—
Let me break these three temptations in Matthew’s Gospel down for us (as scholars have done for me): Jesus was tempted by wealth, security, and power.  And we are tempted by wealth, security, and power.

The first temptation is wealth -- bread.  See there’s nothing wrong with bread, there’s nothing wrong with wealth if we’re careful.  But how easily wealth/money can become the center of our worlds.  Our treasure.  Which is where Jesus said, “There will your heart be also.”  Too much bread is the sin.  Too much wealth is the sin.  Turn these stones into bread, the devil said.  But Jesus: “One does not live by wealth alone, but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God.”  Let us too cling fast to the strong Word of God this Lenten season.  Let’s keep going for more insight into that strong Word.

The second temptation is security.  Nothing wrong with security.  Who doesn’t want to have a roof over their head, clothes to keep them warm, shelter for their family and their communities.  But when we become so obsessed with security...we loose sight of what is most important.  Like a weed, those roots run deep and can take over, and always at first, subtly.

[story: Bethel Lutheran adopting “Risk Taking” as a biblically-based congregational value.]  There’s nothing in scripture that lifts up the virtues of being secure.  Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, Jesus, Paul...where?  And yet it’s our first priority so much of the time.

How we are tempted to dump ourselves and our resources down to the angels of security below.  Safety nets! “Do not test God,” Jesus says.  “Do not let your lust for perfect, peaceful security and comfort come between you and God who is out there among the poor and the neglected, and calling us to leave our nets, to take risks and follow Jesus!

“Use your head,” Jesus says. “Be shrewd, but leave your nets.”  God doesn’t minister to us.  We serve God and minister our gifts — our time, talents and treasures — in compassionate ways, by sharing our bread, reaching out to the poor.  Lent is the season to pull up the weeds that grip our hearts, that hold us from the inside.  Oh, the devil is real.  [Wish I had a James Earl Jones voice ;) ]

Finally, the third temptation is power.  So subtle.  So tricky.  Nothing wrong with being in control, right?  Having people under you?  Having people do what you say.  We’ve got a number of managers and bosses in this congregation.  Someone’s gotta call the shots, right?  But again this can be abused.  Power for power’s sake.  I used to love House of Cards on Netflix (Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright) — a whole show about power for power’s sake.  Kevin Spacey turns hauntingly to the camera all the time and whispers, truly devilishly, that it’s not about money for him — it’s all about power.  And that speaks to a deep desire for us as humans.  And it’s not just overt shows of power.  How we can try to manipulate things behind the scenes, especially if access is power is not granted or assumed immediately or by the culture.

When we make ourselves god, when we put ourselves at the center, we turn away from God.  This is what the tree in the Garden of Eden was all about:  Shall we trust in God, or not?  Shall we trust ourselves?  That was the temptation.  It’s still the temptation.

Welcome to Lent, friends in Christ.  Do the hard work of introspection these 40 days.  Do the hard work of weeding in the garden of your hearts.  Work the steps, commit to the journey.  In this walk is life.  And Jesus meets us in our struggle, in our stumbling and getting back up, in our time with the devil, our time of honest reckoning.  This is a hard time — coming face-to-face with God and the powers of temptation, but it is good.  And Christ will bring us through.

Will you pray with me?
God give us the power to resist the allures, the subtleties of Satan, in this wilderness journey of Lent.  Give us the courage to trust in you.  Weed out our sinfulness, cleanse our hearts, and walk with us now.  Keep us always steadfast in your Word.  And continue to love us...as you always have.  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.

September 29 -- Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

About 12 years ago, a member of the first congregation I served gave Heather and I an car!  Actually it was an old, giant, green Dodge conversion van with plush bucket seats, and a back bench that turned into a bed with the push of a button.  Heather and I would never buy a car like this.  But the they were planning to get rid of it, offered it to the other pastor, and he told them to give it to us.  At the time it had less than only 90,000 miles.  It had tons of space for a little family who loves to take driving vacations… So we agreed.  It’s was a wonderful vehicle, for the most part.  We got lots of great use out of it – drove it all the way to South Dakota and Texas and another trip to Colorado.  But as you might imagine, the old van started to show its age.  Different things would break, and stop working — like the gas dial, just dropped one day to a permanent E.  Cruise control, one time, just decided to give up out on an open road in West Texas.  And one day, when I pulled into the driveway of our house in San Diego, this little black handle t-shaped handle just broke off of the shaft.  It had the words “Emergency Brake” indented in white.  

Today’s Gospel text is the story of Lazarus and the rich man.  Reminds me a little of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol.  The scrooge and the poor, and the similar idea of a radical reversal of fortunes in the afterlife.  Remember Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s old partner visiting him and warning him of the chains of punishment for his self-centered, money-hungry actions?  Except, unlike Scrooge, there’s no mercy for the rich man in this story.  He fails to share his wealth, and that’s that.  The poor man goes to heaven and rich man, well, he doesn’t reach heaven.  Kind of a harsh story at first glance, especially as we proclaim a God of grace and love and mercy…
I can see some of you looking at me wondering what in the world any of this has to do with an emergency brake…

And the answer is easy.  Stories like these are emergency brakes.  Prophets like Amos and Timothy who we read today are like emergency brakes.  (go home and read them again)  They can stop us from going out of control, from breaking the emergency brake!  
These lessons can stop us from losing the ability to hold back, slow down, from losing the ability to remember whose we are, and who God is!  

We come to church to use our emergency brakes – starting always at the baptismal font, being challenged by this Word, being fed by the body of Christ at this manger-table.  We’re not just passively being reminded of something nice, we are actively taking part in God’s gifts.  The image and the sounds of emergency brakes are much more graphic – the screeching, grinding, snapping; much more vivid than just a gentle, passive reception of the Word of God, Word of Life.  Friends, we can go out of control when we reject God’s gifts, when the brake breaks!

And among God’s gifts is the stark message that we need to come to a halt, pull back…and remember that God is God.  Every Sunday we say the Lord’s Prayer.  “Our Father in heaven” – bold statement of faith, Luther reminds us – that God is above all.  God is God, not us.  Stories like these, bold admonitions like these, emergency brakes like these, grinding halts, are not threats but gifts, even if they are a little abrasive and graphic.

The gift of this Gospel text, the grinding, is that God wants desperately to release you from the clutch of greed, from the “death grip” of fear.  God longs to free us from our things, our desires, our fears, and our money.  Remember Jesus’ mourning over the rich man?  “How hard it is,” he says, “for the rich.”  Friends in Christ, God frees us from sin and death, from eternal damnation through gift of grace, but how God longs, as well, to free us now from the grip we have on our things, money, stuff, desires.  

Our earthly things give us some sense of security [pause], but in the end these are just things, just money, that will finally rust and decay.   [pause]

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about talking about tithing this week.  When I say tithing, I mean taking 10% of my income and “giving it up to God,” which biblically means offering it to wherever I worship regularly.  I lost sleep this week and worried my heart over a stewardship and wondering about just asking everyone to start tithing [period]—

Not to consider tithing, or to increase a percentage point or two in your giving this year (with the hopes of maybe doing it again next year, if you can).  That’s usually the option that’s presented during stewardship season, and I think you know that is certainly an option.  But I’ve been thinking about asking everyone to just go the whole nine yards, in your pledging!  I really wish I was preaching this sermon in a different congregation, or that a different pastor was here saying this…because for a pastor to preach about tithing is his/her home church can be perceived as the pastor campaigning for more funds, even more money for himself or herself.  (I’ve wondered if it might be a good idea to do some pulpit swaps during October.)

Please, please don’t hear this as fundraising.  Please don’t hear that I’m asking you to tithe so that we can pay the bills.  Please don’t be another one of those worshippers that tells their friends this week, that they’re not coming back to this church because all we do is ask for money.  Because, I’m not, asking for money.  [slowly]  Offering 10% at your home worshipping community, with no strings attached, is a deeply spiritual and worshipful practice.  The whole definition of worship is “offering” – offering our whole selves up to God.  This is the emergency break.  The grinding, pulling back.    

We’re not just passively being reminded of something nice at church, we are actively taking part in God’s gifts.  (Worship prof: every worship service is preparing us for death.)  Our money is so important to us.  We withhold it and send messages with it all the time, even in our churches.  But so often we forget that it was never ours in the first place.  One pastor, when asked if she was a tither, responded, “Yes, I am because then I know I’m getting 10% of my spending right.”  Friends in Christ, followers of Christ, let’s tithe together, let’s talk about it together, and then let’s pray for the faithfulness to celebrate as we watch our surplus flows right out of these doors, serving the needs of the community and the world, Lazarus’ at our gates – there are so many.  (our HOD: “Called by worship to your service, forth in your dear name we go, to the child, the youth, the aged, love in living deeds to show.”)  

There’s a story of Ivan the Terrible, the medieval Russian conqueror, who had his troops baptized with their swords in the air.  We can sure do that with our wallets, our credit cards, our investment portfolios.  “Maybe I’ll drop a few dollars in this baptismal water, but that’s it.  I’ll just give in other ways.”  Maybe we should have a ceremony later this month where we bless and even throw a little baptismal water our wallets, water stains on the leather…
The truth is, we can all tithe.  Studies actually show that the more faithful tithers usually have the lowest incomes, more able to entrust themselves to God, I guess?  “How hard it will be for the rich,” Jesus says to us.
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I like to try in my preaching to approximate the mood and the tone of whatever lesson I’m preaching on.  And I pray that I’m doing that here, that I am being faithful to this text in a season of stewardship.  Jesus is calling us out.  Calling us to a grinding halt. And while at first glance, it seems a threat or a burden, ultimately this is a gift.  Tithing is a gift not a burden (not a gift to the church, it’s a gift to you!).  The gift of this text the gift of sacrificial, first-fruits giving…[pause] is joy and peace, freedom from what we think is ours.  (“we joyfully release…”)  The gift is a surrender to a loving God who promises to hold us always, like Lazarus, to wrap us in loving arms, and to take us home.  God forgives us constantly, and our worship, that is our offering ourselves to God, is a way to acknowledge that we accept God’s embrace, God’s love and forgiveness.    May that grinding grace go with us now, protecting us, enlivening us, and freeing us to live generously and confidently in this world and always.  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. 

September 1 -- Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Jesus says when you go to a banquet or a dinner party, don’t sit at the best spot, take the path of humility.

Well frankly, I find such command hard to strike a chord for us at here Bethlehem.  Because we at Bethlehem are mostly coming from backgrounds, steeped in the virtues of modesty, humility, if-you-can’t-say-something-nice-don’t-say-anything-at-all, the virtues of self-sacrifice, never pushing your way to the front.   

“After you, please.”  — “Oh no, I’m OK.  Thank you.  How are you?” — “No, no, no.  You first, I insist.” — It’s how I was raised, as a little boy, and I imagine (and have noticed), in general, it’s been even more intensified for little girls.  Soft-spokenness is esteemed.  It’s even seen as a virtue.     

In fact, I would even venture to say that asserting oneself too much in lots of circles would really be looked down upon.  Making bold requests, or offering your solid, unbiased opinion, or speaking out of turn.  You can do that here in our midst, because no one will stop you — everybody wants to be nice — but many of us probably won’t look favorably on it, might even talk about you behind your back afterwards.  Right?  “Wasn’t he pushy?”

So when “YOU FIRST” is about the only thing many of us Christians are assertive about, wouldn’t it seem we’ve got this Gospel lesson covered?  Of course we’d give up the best seat...  Is there really a guiding word here for us?  Can we check this Gospel lesson off the list? “Yep, got it covered.”

As I was reflecting on this with some colleagues, however, a wise friend pointed out, “But isn’t our modesty/humility, and willingness to flip the conversation or the attention so quickly on another, a way of taking the place of honor?” 

Because by letting ourselves be passed over, we are essentially saying, “I don’t need any help.”  Let all the eyes go on to the poor, the lame, the blind -- the misfits -- not on me.  “I DON’T NEED ANYONE’S HELP.   Let others be vulnerable.  I’ll sit right here, thank you very much.”  Could we be placing ourselves in a place of honor when we say that?  When we assert our independence and tell everyone ‘I don’t need your/any help’?  

Friends in Christ, this is a text again about hospitality and community formation, on all kinds of levels.  Welcoming the stranger among us, and welcoming us among our strangeness.  There is an important place for you at this banquet!  And for everyone!...

The truth is, the reign of God looks a lot more like the Department of Motor Vehicles than our congregations.  Everybody’s there!  What did Martin Luther King, Jr. say?  “Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week.”  We are called always to extend God’s wide welcome to everyone we meet.  Jesus couldn’t be more explicit here.  

We are invited again today into Jesus’ radical (last week I said) “holy flipping.”  That’s very Lukan: Jesus is always flipping things around, changing perspectives.  Bringing the haughty and the rich down, and raising up the poor, sick, bent over, outcasts.  The last first, the first last.  In fact, let’s just try something, as a way of getting into this text a bit…  

New perspective!  You probably sit where you do because it’s the best seat in the house...for you.  And now you’ve given that up for the opposite.  Worship in your new seat for the rest of the service today.  And in your processing afterwards, while your having lunch with family or driving home, the question is not “Did you like it, the different perspective today?” but rather “What do you notice from your new place?”  

Today we have again a glimpse of God’s original intention of radical diversity.  And of course that includes you, that includes us.  God’s welcome most definitely includes you, but not just you and me and all those who look and dress and live and worship like we do:  It also those who look, and dress, and live and worship very differently.  God always includes the outsiders.  For God, diversity, strangeness, difference is not a problem that creeps into our neighborhoods and our churches.  It’s God’s original intention!  Look at the creation story or the Pentecost event, when the church was born:  

     God creates a bunch of creatures, gathers a bunch of people, blesses ‘em, promises to stay with ‘em, and frees ‘em to go -- it happens in Genesis, in Acts, and it happens today.  

Our farmers and scientists warn us of the dangers of mono-cultures and extol the virtues of cross-pollinating.  That’s what this text is really all about: CROSS-POLLINATING!  Mixing it up.

Yeah! The reign of God is like a lush and colorful garden with all kinds of different smells, bees moving from here to there.  The top seat to the low seat to the middle seat -- seating doesn’t even matter.  What matters is all the mixing, the learning from one another’s different perspectives, the celebrating, and welcoming.  AND EATING.  (just a glimpse of that on Friday’s Summer Pictures and Stories!) God’s banquet is a feast of rich foods and drinks.  Laughter, children, stories, and songs, and dessert.  Do you see?!  Cross-pollinating.  CROSS pollinating.  CROSS pollinating.  

This is the moment of our church body, by the way.  The ELCA. We are starting to break down as a mono-(bi-tri-)cultural church.  And we are in fact starting to cross-pollinate.  The ELCA publishes an African American hymnal -- did you know that?   We’ve got one in Spanish too!   We’ve got a joint declaration of justification with our Roman Catholic siblings, we’ve got the Call to Common Mission with Episcopalians, pulpit and table sharing, agreements and joint statements and ongoing dialogues with Methodists, Presbyterians, Moravians, interfaith dialogues and relationships and education materials committed to honoring our Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu neighbors.  Mixing, mingling, cross-pollinating...not because diversity is some PC goal for the future, that’s the original state of God’s creation way back at the beginning!  And isn’t it interesting, as we do this, how the ELCA’s budget and head count is shrinking? Similar dynamic on a smaller scale too, right?  Many have reached their limit of cross-pollinating.  “OK, with that group — I WILL NOT come along.”  We all do this.  We all reach our limit.  Where can the conversation stop for you?  And where is God nudging you to grow?  Could that be Jesus asking you to take a different seat?  (for some, that’s letting yourself be served!)  A new perspective?  God’s welcome and embrace is always larger than ours...And friends, God’s mission goes on, despite our cut-offs, and limits.  The welcome of God extends always, with or without our participation or permission.      

This is tough work.  Hospitality is tricky — it’s tricky just with our friends and family.  It’s a lot of work cross-pollinating, learning to live with strangers.  But it’s right work.  It’s good.  

Friends in Christ, let’s keep working together as a community of faith at our hospitality.  Let’s stick together as we reach out, struggling to give that person — who is the most challenging for you — a top seat at the table...because like it or not, God already has!  And God gives you a place too.  Thanks be to God for new perspectives, new opportunities both to serve...and to be served (for those of us who might glory in our upstanding humility).  Today’s a new day of grace!  So let’s celebrate: let’s eat, let’s party, let’s sing!  The banquet is here and now!  AMEN.

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HoD — ‘Vamos todos al banquete’  #523 — English or Spanish