November 8 -- For God's Sake, Use It! (Pentecost 23A)

AUDIO HERE

Grace to you and peace from God, who comes to us...at an unexpected hour!

God surprises us, gives us what we need to keep our lamps lit, calls us to bring that oil, to pay attention and to be ready.  

This text comes in Matthew, Chapter 25, and it’s part of what’s been called “the final discourses” of Jesus, just outside the city walls of Jerusalem, just before he undergoes the last supper, his trial and his death.   This is part of the last things, the final discourse — this week and the next two Sundays are Jesus’ parting words.  So that adds a thick layer of import...

And what we have here is Jesus warning his disciples: “Be ready...with what I’ve given you. Pay attention.”  The oil is free and available now, if you take it.  If you don’t, you’re going to be — like the Gospel text a few weeks ago — left out in the cold and the darkness.

We’ve had some special Sundays Reformation and All Saints, but 3 weeks back, I talked about the guy who didn’t wear his wedding garment that he had been offered freely at the door, and he gets kicked out (remember that?) — and now this week the bridesmaids who didn’t keep their lamps trimmed and lit with the flasks of oil that were available freely — when we don’t accept or use the gifts of grace, the gift of faith that God gives us freely in our baptisms, then we get left out — in a sense — too!

[pause and slowly]

I have come to realize these how difficult it is to ask for and even more to receive help from another — another family member, another friend, maybe even a stranger.  When an offer to help is right there in our midst, and we just can’t open our hands and receive it — I see this all the time in the church.  “No, no, no, I’m fine…[deflecting] How are you?”

I struggle with it myself.  We’re suppose to be self-sufficient.  Me for mine.  You for yours.  If I’m coming to you, then I’m mooching — that’s what we’ve been taught.  Nobody likes a moocher.  “C’mon!” we say, “take care of yourself!”  

We try to live by that, and so we shy away from letting ourselves be lavished, symbolized by the wedding garment (from the previous weeks’ text) or the lamp oil (in our text today).  We don’t just shy away, sometimes we down-right reject the oil that God so freely gives in order to keep our lamps lit.   

Heather and I have a friend from college who is wildly gifted, musically and theatrically: Rachel.  Singing and acting is her passion.  But when she got married almost 20 years ago now and over the years had two children — all a very important, central parts of her life — that musical theater side of her went to sleep and (without going into it) she suffered in many ways...like having a part of you amputated.  

So Rachel has gotten involved with a small theatre company in her community, and she’s done a handful of shows.  And just as she was breaking back into her passion, Heather and I had a chance to see her perform.  I remember I just had this smile plastered to my face.  There it was: she was doing what she loved and what God gave her...and blessing us all in the process.  Nothing like a great theatre performance.

It’s the oil in the lamp, you see!  A gift she had been freely given.  For some years she wasn’t taking a single flask of oil and using what God had given her — and she was really suffering as a result.  But how engaging a passion and a talent that is God-given, not only betters the world, but completes the individual too!  

Rachel shared with us that she’s able to be a better mother, and spouse, and daughter, and friend — now that she’s — as I’d say here — using the oil, keeping her lamp lit.

What is it for you? [pause]  (That requires paying attention.)  What God-given gift of yours has perhaps fallen asleep, been left out in the cold?

There are many and various ways that God fuels us.  There are so many gifts and talents in this congregation.  In a culture of scarcity — you know, fears that we don’t or won’t have enough — in a culture of scarcity that seems to pervade...if we slow down and just ponder the gifts, talents, skills, assets, abilities of the people in this church we would find more than enough oil “to keep the lamps lit”.  

God gives us the oil; so for God’s sake — and for yours, for ours — use it!  God gives us a wedding garment; so for God’s sake — and for yours — put it on!     

Don’t let your lamps go out when God’s sitting there handing us oil, garments of grace.  Get back into theater!  Get back into volunteering with children or preparing and serving meals in the neighborhood!  Get back into painting, or working in the garden, or writing, or reading classical literature, or traveling, or working in the garage, or spending time with your partner or your children!  

(Another dear friend of mine’s father just died, and he was reflecting on it again — what we often say when we lose a loved-one: so much time wasted on things that don’t matter, at the expense of things that do.)  

What is it that fuels you?  God’s provided the oil!  What is it that keeps your light shining?  Because when your light shines before others, others can see your good works, and all of this fueling and shining activity gives glory to your God heaven!  (this text today, btw, is a direct reference to that passage earlier in Matthew.)  

And how we also get our directions, our orientation, what glory to our God in heaven looks like, from Amos! — not empty ritual, but justice rolling down water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.  God’s provided the fuel, Amen?

Now is the time, for digging back in, as the weather gets colder, and nights get longer, as transitions here in Washington and around the country, perhaps significant transitions in your own life begin, now is the time: buckle down, get to work...  

And so what, btw, if you’ve tried before and failed!  I remember Rachel talking about her first show back: rusty.  So what if we’ve tried and tripped and fallen, even crashed before — that’s kind of the point for us Jesus-people: we stand in need of grace.  There is plenteous redemption, mercy abounds, and there is a community of saints, a choir of faithful watchers and holy ones, cheering us on...you are not alone.  You are loved!

So take a deep breath, wake up, pay attention, and dive back into this good life that God has simply lavished before us.  The feast is ready, there’s plenty of fuel for the party.  And you’re welcomed by God’s open arms.  Don’t reject it, don’t blow it off, or make excuses why it’s not for you, why you’ve got better things to do...

Just open your hands and receive it, friends: God’s love and forgiveness and peace.  

This is grace enfleshed.  This is God’s goodness poured out for you.  The wedding feast is spread, the candles are lit.  Pay attention, it’s all around.   Alleluia.  AMEN.

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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