February 14 -- That and More (TransfigurationB)

Some of you know I was a youth director before I went to seminary.  And during my time at Holy Trinity in Thousand Oaks, CA working with the junior high kids, a pastor came to serve that church, who I greatly admired.  He was only there for a short time as an interim.  But we know how even short stays with dynamic leaders can be such a gift (I’m thinking of Pastor Elijah here).  This new pastor was so kind to the people of that congregation.  He was very intentional in all of his conversations; he was very good at connecting people with one another; he visited the sick; he met with the youth kids; and he started up a small group program while he was there.  The church grew during his short time.  I knew this man as a kind and loving pastor, truly a shepherding spirit, caring for God’s people, loving them, feeding them with Holy Communion.  He was just so nice.

But the more I listened to his sermons and read his book, I started to realize that he was something more than just a nice, loving pastor.  This man was a prophet for justice and equality for all.  When he preached, it was like the prophet Amos or Isaiah standing in front of us, crying out on behalf of God for peace in our world and for the end of all oppression.  Like Moses, “Let my people go!”  He called us out on our self-centered, white-privileged ways, that fail to extend the same love that we’ve received to the margins: to the immigrant, the stranger, the outcast and the forgotten.  He even talked about justice for the earth and all the creatures of God!  It was the first time I had ever considered that the United States may just be the new Roman Empire, and he reminded us often about Jesus‘ ministry over and against...actually under...the most powerful nation in the world.  We squirmed uncomfortably in our pews, but something cracked me open and I saw him in a new way.   

God is calling us to be more than just a nice place and nice people that gather for worship once a week, he prophesied.  God is calling us to do more than just offer some charity to the poor, offer some generous handouts, down to those who have less.  All these things are good, but God is calling us, he would preach, to be about radical, systemic change, dreaming and risking it all for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, even if it means our lives.  And then he would kindly greet us with a handshake or a hug, always a nice smile, as we came out of the church at the end of our service.   

This pastor I’m talking about is George Johnson...of blessed memory.   He was my friend, he was nice, he was a gentle pastor...but at one point I suddenly started to see him in a new way too.  He was a fiery prophet calling for justice and change, challenging us to risk our lives and be actual disciples, followers of Jesus, not just safe, comfortable believers in Jesus.

As we look at our text today, and as we’ve been looking at the Gospel of Mark in this cold season, I think it can be easy and even tempting to conclude that Jesus is a just prophet for social justice and change.  That’s because he is.  Just like Pastor George was just a kind, loving guy.

Up to this point — Chapter 9 in Mark — Jesus has turned his world on its head with his love and care for the poor and the outcast, with his casting out the demonic systems and illnesses.  Bringing women and children to the center, touching and healing the ritually unclean, the bleeding, the dead, the foreigner.  I mean, he’s advocating truly universal health, education and equality for everyone.  It’s not a detached, complicated, sanitized spirituality with Jesus in the first 9 chapters of Mark.  He’s not hovering, esoterically; he’s rooted and radical and real.  It’s ministry on the ground, and in the trenches — tangible, immediate and welcoming.  Yes?  I’m always amazed how this social justice of Jesus gets suppressed and even denied, many times by Christians themselves, only seeing him as a spiritual savior of individual souls...rather than an incarnate savior of whole communities, particularly, especially those who are oppressed or overlooked.  Mark 1-9 reeks of Jesus’ radical justice agenda.

But, just like good ol’ Pastor George was more than just a nice, sweet pastor — which he was — there was more…

Jesus is more than just a prophet for social justice and radical welcome of the stranger and the outcast — which he is and always will be.  But there’s more...  

And in our text today, a few of the disciples (and us, by the way) get cracked open, and see Jesus in an even larger way.  

This isn’t about getting someone wrong, and suddenly seeing them in a totally new and different way.  (That happens too.)

But this is about getting a person right, but suddenly seeing them in an even more expansive way.  Setting our mind not just on earthly things but even more, on divine things.  

This prophet Jesus (he was such a prophet that some were mistaking him for John the Baptist and Elijah) — this prophet for social justice and change, was even more than that, friends in Christ:

This prophet was God’s own Son.  “Listen to him, listen to his agenda.”  All this stuff he’s been doing, is more than just earthly revolutionary activist-for-change behavior, upturning traditions and challenging assumptions...

(!) This is divine presence come down to be among us...to be for us, and for everyone.  Jesus is God’s Son.  What a way to end this season after Epiphany and move into Lent — with another Epiphany, a divine revealing:  “This is my Son, the Beloved.”  And then a command: “Listen to him.”  

Transfiguration is the mountain top experience of this time of the church year, before we drop down into Lent this week.  

Know that the one you follow, the one who brings children and women to the center, who heals the sick and the demon-possessed, who welcomes the outsider, even if their religion or their appearance is different...know that the one you follow, who calls and empowers the people of his time — and us — to imitate him in this radical business of  — not just donating — but moving aside and faithfully sharing.  Know that that one you follow isn’t just a human prophet for justice.  He’s even more: he’s God’s own Son.  He’s the salvation of the world.  He’s life eternal for you and for all.  He’s love everlasting.  He’s grace and peace that the world cannot give.  He’s freedom and joy.  He’s hope for the future and thanksgiving for the past.  He’s bread and wine, body and blood poured out for you and for...everyone...even the creatures.  He so loves this whole earth, that he gave his whole self away.  
Know that the one who heals the sick and raises the dead raises you too — right now! — from that which holds you down and hold you back from being the beloved child that God has created you to be.  Know that this prophet Jesus, is forgiveness of all your sins, all your self-centered behavior, all your ignorance and shame, and greed and envy.  GONE.  Jesus is God’s Son, not just a social prophet.  And you are made new today because of it!

Your slate has been wiped clean!  And you are being sent back out there, into this Lenten season, into this coming spring, renewed, hopeful, at peace, and ready to serve, pray, fast, and give (just like Jesus did).  

So let’s listen to him, siblings in Christ.  Let’s listen to him.  Let’s hold out our hands, and open our ears and our minds and our hearts, as we move off the icy and foggy mountain top, and listen.  For God’s own son has got something to say and something to give.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

February 7 -- The Jesus Injection (After Epiphany 5B)

Mark’s Gospel is coming at us at high speed — different stories piling up like the snow outside today.  Now, it’s taken us two months to read the whole first chapter of Mark, and we took a week here and there to dip into the Gospel of John and Luke, but just stop and consider for a moment how much and how quickly everything has happened up to this point:

In the very first verses, John first appears on the scene to preach repentance, to baptize and to “prepare the way!” for Jesus.  That lasts about 6 verses.  Then enter Jesus – no birth stories in Mark, no little boy in the temple, just grown up Jesus, ready to go/ready to rock.  And it all starts with a sky-ripping baptism.  That lasts about 3 verses, and then the gut-wrenching temptation in the wilderness.  Matthew and Luke take almost 15 verses to describe what happened to Jesus there; Mark does it in 2.  Then Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee, calls some disciples, and some patterns begin to emerge.  Moving in and out of the synagogue, he preaches and heals, preaching and healing.  We almost settle into a rhythm of this in the book of Mark, and preaching and healing almost become synonymous, and where they happen is not as important as the fact that there is a healthy flow and balance to Jesus’ movement in and out of the worship space (nice reminder for us today).  Whether Jesus is preaching or healing, the end result is that life and health are not just proclaimed gently but injected, like a life-saving shot (in Mark’s almost abrasive style), freely granted, over and against death and all those demonic forces that keep us down.  This just keeps happening, keep watching for it in this Year of Mark.  And let that good message become a part of your movement in and out of your worship space, following the example of Jesus.

“The life and health injection” is certainly the theme on a number of levels in our lesson today.
 
Here in the text, Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law.  She doesn’t even have a name.  (It’s not the first time this happens to women in the Bible.  There are countless nameless women who teach us…and that’s the case here.)  Now, I wonder if perhaps you had, like many who read this text today, an immediate and very natural and appropriate reaction when Simon’s mother-in-law is healed by Jesus.  Did you catch what the first thing she does after is?   It said Jesus took her by the hand lifted her up…the fever leaves her…and she began serving them.  You almost get this impression, that the disciples are like, “Hey Jesus, can you fix her because we’re getting hungry in here?”  At first glance, it’s almost like she’s a victim of Jesus’ healing.  

And all that might be true.  But I do think it puts a modern lens on the story.  That’s OK.  That’s what we do.  And I think we should always read with critical lenses around gender roles, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and on...

But don’t miss also some of Mark’s major themes that are emerging, even in this first chapter...namely casting out demons and bread/feeding/eating.

Jesus is constantly trying to teach his male disciples about serving and caring for one another.  Emptying themselves of ego, pride, bluster; and instead embodying love, compassion, service and justice for all.  And Simon’s mother-in-law gets that immediately.  Jesus is constantly trying to get the disciples to respond to the life and health he is injecting.  (We’ll see that they’re not getting it as the Gospel goes on.)  It’s almost like they’ve got a high tolerance to the Jesus injection.  Like the vaccine doesn’t take.  But Simon’s mother-in-law is immediately impacted by Jesus’ life-giving shot.  He takes her by the hand, and “it takes.”  

How’s your immunity to Jesus’ life-giving power?  Is the shot only 50% effective?  Is it taking?  You know, those of us who have been around church for years, who have heard this language about grace and forgiveness ad nauseum, week in and week out — we have a tough task, because I imagine we’ve got a pretty high tolerance to the Jesus injection too.  To hear Sunday after Sunday “How vast is God’s grace, through the power and promise of Christ Jesus our sins + are washed away,” “God gave us a gift to set us free, when the waters were poured down on you and me...”, “the peace of Christ be with you always,” again and again...means we’re in danger of producing some pretty potent antibodies to Jesus’ life-giving power and healing.  So were the disciples.  I couldn’t help but laugh thinking about vs. 36-37, where Simon and the others find Jesus and say, “Hey, everyone’s looking for you.”  Hey, you do it, Jesus.  All these people need help, and they go get Jesus.  Great lesson for us – “You do it pastor, you do it church council, you do it bishop, you do it Mr. President, you do it Congress, you do it doctors, you do it teachers, you do it...everyone’s looking for you.”  All these people need help, and like the disciples, maybe we have the tendency to go get the guru to help them.  (It occurs to me :) we don’t say, “Go in peace, and find somebody else to serve.”)

Well, Jesus complies with their request here, actually.  That’s because we’re still in chapter 1.  The further we get into Mark, the more we get the sense that Jesus is constantly injecting this life-giving power into his disciples — it’s going to take a couple shots — they keep resisting, it doesn’t take right away...  
But Simon’s mother-in-law gets it immediately.  She serves.  It is a fore-glimpse of our ministry in Christ.  She is our teacher.  Immediately, she began to serve them.  (Yes I think there’s some sexism built-in.  Always is.  But don’t miss the transformation, the “immediately”, the fact that Jesus’ healing took.)

The life-giving power of Jesus is what we speak of at the end of our worship:  Go in peace, and serve.  That’s not just some catchy little thing to say at the end, and it’s not code for “Good news, this church thing is finally over now you can go home, go back to your life unchanged” – “Go in peace and serve the Lord” means, injected with God’s life-giving power, injected with healing, injected with Christ-light, injected with the promise of divine presence, injected with a peaceful assurance that the whole world is—in fact—in God’s hands despite all the turbulence (that’s the peace that passes all understanding), injected with Jesus himself in the holy waters of the font, bread and wine, injected with grace, GO NOW and share it with others, GO NOW and serve immediately...like Simon’s mother-in-law.  

Jesus injects us again today with life and health over and against the powers that hold us down.  Jesus raises us from our fevered state so that we too might get it, and serve in response.  
And maybe part of that injection is finding quiet space too.  Maybe Sabbath is part of the injection.  This is a rich text today.  It’s not just go work your brains out for the other.  We also see our lord resting, amen?  Vs. 35: “In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus went away to a deserted place to pray.” He’s doing that all the time by the way.  As I hand-wrote this passage this week, I had this thought:  “Wait a second, there were still more people that needed healing!  He wasn’t finished!  Jesus himself is going off to a deserted place to pray?”  

Friends part of the injection is taking the moments we need, the downtime we need — Jesus is modeling it — the prayer time we need.  What a gift the snow can be: it slows us down.  It’s like a reminder from God: “Hey, take a quiet place.”  Jesus is always silencing the demons.  Maybe that’s the voices in our heads that never stop — anxiety about the future, traumatic voices from our past, the good and noble things we feel we have to do, the cries from all the people that need us — can you sense a certain FEVER?  But Jesus models for us going a way for a bit, re-calibrating, praying.  That too, friends, is Christ taking us by the hand, like he did with Simon’s mother-in-law, and lifting us up.  That’s the snow day, everybody needs a snow day...no matter your climate.  It makes the fever go away, you see?

This is our God: Lifting us up, healing us, showing us how to slow down, and calling us, from sabbath, back into Gospel action — back and forth, working for justice, offering peace, living in hope, and sharing God’s joy with this world.  This is our God, friends: sheltering us and holding us in the palm of her hand, this day and always.  

                    Thanks be to God.  Amen.



 

December 24 -- Christmas Eve 2019

Henry Ward Beecher wrote: “Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry [one] above others for [their] own solitary glory. [One] is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of [their] own.”  

I got that — not from being a student of Henry Ward Beecher — but from the book and the movie Wonder, which has enthusiastically made the rounds in our household, a few years ago, and watched it together again this past year.  And what a Christmas message it is!  (Check out Wonder in these Twelve Days of Christmas, if you haven’t already.  It’s a way to really get into the ‘incarnation celebration’ we have before us.)

“Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry [one] above others for [their] own solitary glory. [One] is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of [their] own.”

Grace to you and peace from Jesus who comes to us this holy night in peace.  AMEN.

It is perhaps the hardest thing in the world, dealing with a bully.  I’m thinking more about bullies these days, have encountered the story Wonder...but also reflecting on our lives and our world...  

I’ve had a few experiences myself, one in high school that I’ll never forget.  The visceral feelings come back even now, just thinking about it: heart racing, sweat beading down, ready for anything and nothing at the same time — not sure if our stand-off was going to end in fists swinging, and blood dripping, or what.  He was way bigger and stronger than I was, had this threatening smirk, big ol’ biceps, veins sticking out…But he was making fun of a friend of mine in the weight room, and something in me kind of snapped.  And I couldn’t take it anymore and stay quiet.  I mouthed off back at him.    

And probably, fortunately it ended the way it should have, anti-climactically, with a coach breaking up our heated stare-down.  But I didn’t sleep well that night, and I fretted about that bully for a long time after, even while nothing ever happened again.  

Bullies are tough, on one hand:  They can really eat you up, physically for sure, but I think the other wounds they inflict can last even longer:  They can embarrass you, get others laughing at you too.  They can make you cry just with their quick words, or a mean picture that they draw.  And how bullies can go to town on social media...  Here’s probably the worst: bullies can even make you turn on yourself — start to cut yourself down, make you laugh along with everyone...at yourself.  

--

If you’ve never been bullied, praise God.  

But the Christmas story is for anyone who’s been bullied.  

I recently asked my kids once how they deal with bullies and bad dreams in these tough times...and one of the things Katie said was “stay calm and let an angel help you.”  (Maybe that coach was the angel, in my case: kept things from getting worse?)  This Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke is for anyone who’s been bullied, anyone who’s been haunted by cruelty. 

The shepherds in the field were pretty beat up, bullied, haunted by a cruel world — hearts pounding with anxiety about how they’d get their next meal, paycheck, or rent paid.  Ready for anything and nothing at the same time.  Shepherding was not an easy life.  They were on the edges.  They were nobodies.  But an angel came, and they stayed calm, and they let that angel help.  

Micah — when I asked him once how he deals with bullies — said that both laughing and singing helps.  (few years ago)  He also said, “Remember and give thanks for your family.”  

Do you see all these components in our Christmas celebration here at church this evening...as we gather, and try to stay calm, even as stresses creep in all the time, even as bullies can haunt? As we pause to reflect on the multitude of angels who have come to our aid over the years?  Friends, family members, coaches, mentors, spiritual guides, rainbows, dogs, authors and actors, teachers, nurses — so many angels.  As we gather at the manger of the one “whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own”?  Jesus the Christ.   In this holy place, under perhaps stressful conditions, laughing and singing help, and we give thanks for our family of faith too.  

God’s strength is not made manifest in the big-bully muscles of world leaders or cool-kid group ringleaders, not in the mean words or the name-calling, not in threatening smirks or frightening stare-downs, and certainly not in fists flying.  No, God’s divine power is instead made manifest this holy night... in a baby.  In peace.  (I got to hold a little baby again on Sunday for a baptism!  Couldn’t imagine anything farther from a bully.)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out: “God is in the manger!”  

How do you feel about that?  In this season we also reflect on John’s Gospel, where we find and confess this Jesus is God, not just God’s son.  One God, three persons.  God is in the manger.  

The word becomes flesh and dwells among us!  This almighty God has humbled, shrunk, all the way down to become the child of a poor refugee couple, born in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere!  A stable, a manger.  Revealed first to bullied and scared shepherds.  

This God in the manger is strength that “carries up hearts”.  Christ.  Is.  Born.  To you.  For you.  In you.

Let’s laugh, let’s sing, let’s let angels help us, let’s stay calm and kind, and let’s share this Good News with everyone:  God carries up, lifts up our hearts, for God is here today.  

Will you pray with me:

He came down

to earth from heaven

who is God and Lord of all.

And his shelter was a stable

and his cradle was a stall

with the poor and mean and lowly

lived on earth our Savior holy.

AMEN.

January 20 -- 2nd Sunday after Ephiphany

Our scripture reading today starts by saying “On the third day” — “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana.”  Let’s think about Third Day Events here.  I suppose John’s suggesting that the first two days occurred in Chapter 1 because we’re just starting Chapter 2.  But with John, there’s always more to it:  The Third Day is a connection here at the beginning of this book to the resurrection that takes place at the end of this book.  The Third Day is when life conquers death.

And we hear that this is the first of Jesus’ signs.  There are 7 signs of Jesus in John’s Gospel.  This is the first.  It’s like those puzzles that reveal a little bit at a time, or a spotlight that shines on just a little part of a greater whole.  Not until all the pieces, all the lights are shined will Jesus be fully revealed.  But this is the first!  And man, this one is exciting!  So god that we can call it a Third Day Event, a life-conquering-death event.

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Unexpected extravagance is almost unacceptable for us.

Have you ever been lavished with goodness and you really have a hard time accepting it?  This is a tough text for us Lutherans...who don’t always act like Lutherans!  I mean, if we’re honest, we can be reluctant if not totally rejecting of the extravagant grace and abundance that is ours.  We tend more to just point to our theology, not dive into it.  “No, no, no,” we say humbly (and even selfless-ly, “You go ahead,” we think to ourselves, “make sure someone else gets the extravagance, the grace.  Not me.”  (I just heard someone say that this week, when offered a gracious gift.)  Sometimes being in a position of sacrificing, even suffering, is preferable to having extravagance heaped upon you.  If you’re resonating with this kind of struggle, this is the text for you!    

It’s kind of like struggling to let someone else pay for the whole meal at a restaurant, even if paying yourself could be a hardship.  I suspect a lot of this is going on right now with kindnesses being extended to government employees affected deeply by the shutdown.  

(Now, not everyone struggles with letting others pay.  Some are happy to let others pay for their food and drink...and this text is for you too...if that describes you).  

But how about you who always cover themselves — and take care of others too — so graciously and extravagantly?  Can you accept another covering you?   Grace, symbolized by wine here in this text, comes flowing in such ridiculous amounts of abundance here!

(150 gallons!  I personally translate wine images into beer: that’s 10 giant kegs!  1 keg at a wedding is too much! 10??!!!  It’s definitely not needed!) 

But here it is: Wine overflowing — this is our first glimpse of Jesus’ glory in John.  One scholar talked about this miracle as thing of “dissonance”*.  It’s not only a surprise, it’s actually a little disturbing.  There shouldn’t be that much wine, right?  That’s scandalous (which literally means a “stumbling block”)!  Exactly.  Paul says Christ is a stumbling block.  Some simply can’t get past certain things about grace to fully accept this God-with-us, this Word that becomes flesh and dwells among us!  It’s hard to hear, it’s dissonant, this much goodness.  NO!  “You’ve got to earn it, earn it,” our little Western, Protestant-work-ethic brains are crying out.  [pause] But there is this part of our hearts, maybe even our whole bodies, that is whispering (maybe shamefully), “Would be fun though…”

You see, John’s Gospel again and again challenges the mind, threatens and seeks to annihilate the shameful voices in our heads, the “you’ve gotta earn it”, [slowly] and instead draws us into extravagance!  That’s what grace really is.  It’s totally undeserved and overflowing, Third Day stuff.  We have a hard time with that.

—

OK, the six 20-30 gallon jars?  Let’s talk about that:  Everything is symbolic in John.  Six jars represent the old religion.  The old way of doing things, even the old way of celebrating.  They’re water jars for religious purification! Did you get that?  That’s like taking our holy things here in order to have a party?  

Can you imagine grabbing [this chalice] for a wedding party you’re going to on Saturday night?

Jesus is consecrating the new by using the old.  He’s taking the holy and using it for the everyday, and in that way making the everyday holy.  

For Jesus in John, everything becomes holy!  Everything becomes “a sacrament”!  Jesus is blowing up religious tradition, and by that I don’t mean destroying it: I mean more literally blowing up [wider and wider, bigger and bigger] — YES, this is holy, but so is this and this and this and this!

(“We’re already in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.” Fr. Richard Rohr)

Walking your dog and picking up after her in the rain is sacramental.  Scrubbing the gunk off of the dinner plates as you listen to a music or talk with your high schooler is sacramental.   Going to the dentist and sharing your plans for the MLK holiday is sacramental.  Having a drink with a friend,  getting a massage, laughing together in a boardroom meeting, reading a bedtime story to a toddler, watching a game, flying to Atlanta, shopping for fruits and vegetables...you see?  It just goes on and on!  Everything is holy now!  And this doesn’t diminish the church sanctuary, it opens it up and makes it relevant and enfleshed!   Grace overflowing, pouring out 150 ridiculous gallons, more and more!

When you think about when you’ve most felt God’s presence in your life, which we have to ask ourselves often when studying the Gospel of John.  Don’t just think about the toughest of times — when you/your loved one was sick or death was at hand, but somehow you knew God’s deep, abiding, very real presence.  Don’t just think about the dark times when God was truly there for you.  Those are definitely true moments of God’s presence…

But today reminds us that God is with us in the absolute overflowing grace-filled, joy-filled, love-filled, laughter-filled, beer-and-wine-filled, food-filled, family-and-friends-filled, glorious-nature-filled highlights ... the very best that this life and this world has to offer, too.  Third Day Events!

I think of my brother and sister-in-law's wedding in Ireland in 2009.  That was a Third Day Event for me.  Family and friends — new and old —  gathered together in an area that seemed like the edge of the world.  For days (in the rain — didn’t matter) we too celebrated a wedding, toured around, sat by the fire, laughed and laughed, ate and drank, and danced and sang, and told stories and celebrated life and love, and joy and peace.

And when you experience those things, you want to share them with others.  You want others to have Third Day Events too, you long for everyone to be so blessed...you just can’t help yourself from feeling that way...That’s the power of a Third Day Event…

Let me conclude by calling our attention to Jesus’ mother:  We should follow her lead and approach Jesus pleading, “They have no wine.” In other words, we should come to Jesus and tell him what to do too: We pray for other people.  We don’t just hoard all this abundant, overflowing grace for ourselves.  We can’t!  We don’t just revel in Jesus’ presence and then go home, forgetting what we’ve experienced at the party.  That’s not a Third Day Event.  No, we accept this absolute wonder and joy, we swim in it -- laugh and eat and sing and drink and dance.  We party with Jesus, and we also, even during the party, like his mother, plead with Jesus for the sake of others: “They have no wine.”  Let’s try that now: let us pray...

“Loving God, give to others the grace that we have received so abundantly now.  Blow open the old ways that come up empty.  And fill us and this whole world with newness, with joy and mercy and unity and peace.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  AMEN.”

* New Interpreters Bible, “John”, Gail O’Day

January 13 -- Baptism of our Lord Sunday

John the Baptist was a truth-teller.

Known any truth-tellers in your life?  I think they tend to be kind of weirdos.  Truth-tellers.  “Awkward” is a truth-teller’s middle name.  Their words sear, but we try to ignore it, or laugh it aside.  Truth-tellers:  Nothin’ to lose, no one to impress.  They often seem a little unhinged.

Now, I don’t mean someone who is cruel with their words...and their cruel words somehow settle into your mind as truth.  I think of all the bullies that say mean stuff that their victims start to believe is true -- that’s not a truth-teller.  That’s a liar, in fact.  

I mean a real truth-teller.  Someone who truly says it like it is.  Sometimes very eloquently.  But often not from a position you’d expect.  Those are always the great movie characters, right?  The trash-man in the movie, who always speaks the true and wise word.  The seemingly crazy, old bag lady.  The blind beggar. The bartender. The child...truth-teller characters.

And it’s often tempting to want to prop up that truth-teller and have them (not you) just give a piece of their mind (i.e. your mind) to the big, mean opponent, or at least one who holds power over you.  Propping them up, puffing them up...

Puffing up a crazy, mouthy, articulate classmate to go after a professor. Tell him! Tell him!  (I’ve done it & had it done to me)

Puffing up a brother or sister to go after a parent.  Tell him!  Tell him!

Provoking a council member, puffing them up to go after the pastor.  Tell him!  Tell him!  Give ‘em a piece of our mind!  

Puffing a legislator up to go after a president.  Tell him!  

Then if the results go bad, if the response is negative, even hostile, well, it’s not your hide.  No one even needs to know you put ‘em up to it…

I guess what I’m saying is that we can take advantage of crazy truth-tellers.  They’re “out there” anyway, so the temptation is: “Well, may as well get them to work for us...or at least entertain us.”

You kind of get the sense that the people in Luke’s gospel, surrounded by the big, mean Pharisees, the Herodians and the Roman empire -- bullies -- opponents, higher-ups, to be sure, more powerful than they, were puffing John up to go after them.  Tell ‘em, John!  Go tell ‘em!

--

But all John does is tell the truth.  He doesn’t incite violence, he tells the truth:  “What should we do?”  Share.  Give a jacket away if you have two.  Give food to anyone who is hungry.  Nothin’ to lose, no one to impress.  And John calls us to share.  He doesn’t fall for the puffing up games people play.  

That’s it, John!!?  You’re not going to rip them a new one!!?  You’re not going to verbally lambast them?  You’re not going to declare war on them?    

“No,” says John, “just share; be kind to one another.  Everyone could use a little more of that.  Be gentle.  Do the right thing.  Be honest and upright in your business dealings.  Don’t extort money from people.  Don’t rip them off.  Don’t cheat...and be happy with what you have…

“And one more thing: [this gets us to our text here] This one Jesus, is it.  I’m going to engrave that into your consciousness by baptizing him.  

[slowly] This one Jesus is the embodiment of truth -- of what I’m challenging you to do: This one Jesus is the embodiment of sharing, of not cheating the poor, of welcoming the outcast and feeding the hungry.  This one Jesus, who I baptize is the embodiment of truth.”  John is a truth-teller and a truth-baptizer.  He baptizes the truth.  The truth is not cruel; the truth is love.

And you know you’re on the right track to truth, when the powers try to shut you up, when you are saying things that sear in their simplicity.  Truth-telling, truth-baptizing got John thrown into prison.  He told the truth about Jesus, and he told the truth about Herod’s adulterous wrong-doing with his brother’s wife.  Everyone else turned a blind eye.  

Ever been in situation where everyone is turning a blind eye, and it takes the innocence of a child or an outsider or a newcomer to say, hey, this is wrong!   (Clergy group: “There’s a lot of ego and competitiveness in this circle.”)

John the Baptist -- John the pointer (if I ever had a pointer dog, I’d want to call him either John or Luther) -- John the baptist simply points to Christ.  The true WWJD prophet.  Don’t extort, cheat, lie, hog the best for yourself.  Truth-teller.  Not mean, not cruel.  Just honest and clear-headed, even if a little “out there”.  Although interestingly, did you notice: doesn’t say anything here in Luke’s gospel about John eating locusts and wild honey, wearing camel’s hair.  Maybe John was a little more main-stream, according to Luke.  

And friends in Christ, John was certainly in the main stream, the river’s main flow, to be sure, when it came time to baptize.  John preached repentance and new life, through baptism.  A changing of ways, the forgiveness of sins.  Through this water!  

You know, ancient teaching has us using cold water for baptism?  Luther missed this.  He warmed the water up for babies.  But baptismal water — especially practiced among our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters — is supposed to be cold.  Stinging.  Because this Christian life is not an easy one.

Shane Claiborne: “My life was great...before I met Jesus (gave everything away, loved my enemies, prayed for bullies…)!”

The truth hurts.  It stings.  These cold waters of baptism make us jump a bit, cringe a bit.  John the Baptist’s long, pointy finger pokes at us and guides us to follow after this one Jesus.  The truth is eerie.  

This one Jesus -- the embodiment of all truth — is already out there sharing.  Already out there in the snow — on January 13, 2019 — Christ is already out there sharing warmth with all who are cold, nourishment with all who are hungry.  This one Jesus — to whom John points and baptizes — this one Jesus — upon which a voice from heaven comes booming down: “this is my Son the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” -- this one  Jesus is the embodiment of John’s truth-telling.

In an age where truth seems to be up for grabs (in a post-truth era), sisters and brothers in Christ, John calls us back, and sends us after Christ.  And in an age where truth seems to be a distant dream, our God — incarnate in Jesus the Christ, who is “already out there” always in and with the world, moving down the path — stops, turns to us, loves us, and beacons us to come and follow, to come and join this way of truth.  This love, this forgiveness, this walk of mercy and grace, this path of love is ours today and always.  For you too, a voice from heaven says, are God’s beloved child!  

Thanks be to God!  AMEN.

January 6 -- Epiphany Sunday

Highly quoted author, speaker and consultant in Lutheran circles, Peter Steinke (writes a great book called Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times), has noted the root of the word “disaster”.  Do you know what that word literally means?

It comes from the negative Latin “dis” (connoting not being able to do something, or a lack of something) and “aster” (star).  So literally a disaster is when you have no star to follow.  Fascinating, isn’t it?!  

So ancient sailors, loosing their way at sea in the fog and the clouds — no star to follow.  That’s a literal dis-aster.

Contrast that to this day’s text of the journey of the Magi. (btw, the text doesn’t say how many magi there were, just that there were 3 gifts, so artists have always assumed that 3 wise men went with those 3 gifts, but there could have been a hundred star-following wise women and men and their children all hiking through the sands from the East…) The point is, they had a star to follow, and they did.

Disaster is when we have no star to follow.  Problem is, there are lots of stars in the sky. [pause]

Which star are you (at least) tempted to follow this new year?  Is it the star of fame and glory?  The rock star?  The pop star?  The sports stars or military stars?  The political stars?  The gold stars of school and accomplishments?  Perhaps the shooting stars…like the housing/stock markets?  

It’s hard to find the star of Bethlehem amid all the competing stars.  

But here’s a clue:  STOP LOOKING UP.  [pause] For Christ always comes to us from underneath—from where you’d least expect—from the manger, from the shepherds, from the poor, from earthly stuff like wheat, grapes, and water.  From broken and flawed people, hurting congregations, tragic situations, from simple every-day moments amid hectic schedules and frightening seasons.  The magi, the text says, bowed down, to pay him homage.  Bow down, look around on the floor of our world, to find the Christ child.  Look to Bethlehem, that is, the most out-of-the-way, insignificant, underneath, little town.  And that’s where the star, the light of Christ, stops and stays.

This is such a wonderful story.  Because it has cosmic implications.  This love and presence of Christ, that comes from below, has the ability to move the stars!  To call people from all corners of the earth to gather, to praise, and then to go home by a different road: changed.

It means God’s love for you, calls you, as far off in a distant land as you might be—as downtrodden, or hopeless or sick or afraid as you might be.  God’s light, albeit hard to see at times, God’s star rises in the east—the bright morning star—symbolic of hope and a new day—Christ Jesus’ star rises in the east and lights your way this new year of 2019, this new year of life that God has given us!  (I see this as a year of healing here at BLC!)

The same star that world leaders saw, “Three Kings” as the songs and art pieces go, world leaders, the wealthy and powerful and wise—the same star that guided them, that came to them, and lit their path, comes to you and guides you…even today.  That’s how dear you are to God.  Not forgotten in some far-off land, but forgiven...and guided.  

What a gift that Bethlehem star, that eastern star in the sky is for us!  God’s love for you moves stars!  

And so in response — not because we have to — but because we can’t help it: in response, we bring our gifts — our gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  (What is that for you?  What are our treasures?)  And then, looking down, bowing down, kneeling down, we pay him homage.  How can we do that with our lives?  What can we bring?  How can we serve and give and trust evermore in this Christ child?

For we need not dwell in dis-aster.  For we have a star to follow!  A star of love, a star of life, a star of hope, a star of healing, and a star of forgiveness.  

Sisters and brothers in Christ, we too have been changed, by this star.  So changed, so transformed that we are about to pray for people beyond just those we like and love.  Prayers of intercession: have you noticed our ‘rubrics’ for the prayers of the people (p.14): “Having received the Word of God’s relentless grace and faithfulness, we can’t help but turn outward and pray for others.  The love of Christ compels us.”) Our prayers — and not just our prayers: our words and actions, our ministries here at BLC — aren’t just focused inward, it’s not just about us and “our” building and “our” people and our success and our failures, right?!  No, we can’t help — having received this relentless grace — we can’t help but reach outward to people and situations far from our own, even if those are people and situations right here in our neighborhood.  We can’t but turn outward to people from far-away lands (like the magi in the story).  

We even pray for our enemies.  For the “Herods” of our government and our world.  [pause] That’s how transformative this Christ light is!  

We have been changed, by this star.  So changed, so transformed that we have hope, in the midst of winter darkness.  We have a way, and that way is Christ, and that way is Love, and that way reaches beyond borders and oceans.  

Even when the world comes crashing down around us, God’s people, looking down, not gazing up, looking down at this earth, God’s people find the hurting, the oppressed, the sick and the lost, and there with them is Christ.  “A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  That’s how changed we are!  [Rome, Isola Tiberina, Hospital Island]

We have been changed, by this star!  So changed that we go home now by another road.  So changed that we “gonna lay down our sword and shield, down by the riverside” as the old spiritual goes.  We’re gonna “hammer our tanks and our guns into stethoscopes and gardening tools”...to modernize Isaiah’s vision of hope.  We are so changed that now we practice peace (not just pray for it, we practice it).  We’re not going back to Herod now, the road of violence is not our road.  We’re going home by a different way.  

For God has given us a star.  We are free of dis-aster, sisters and brothers in Christ, for we have a star.  And in that star is the hope, and the salvation, of this whole universe.  And in that star is your freedom and everlasting life.  For in this star is peace.  TBTG.  AMEN.

   

December 30 -- First Sunday of Christmas

If a child asked you what the word incarnate means, what would you tell them?  Take a moment...turn to your neighbor and give them an answer to this question:  What does incarnate mean?

[Willing to share?]

Today, on this 1^st (and only) Sunday of Christmas, this 6th Day of Christmas, we have have the Christmas story and more, according to the Gospel of John.  (It’s better than 6 geese a-laying.)  It’s not the Christmas story we hear (and see) on Christmas Eve, from Luke, with the Gospel of Luke’s agenda -- Luke emphasizes God siding with the poor, and the left behind (young Mary, scrappy shepherds), God even becoming poor.  And it doesn’t have Matthew’s emphasis, with the wise men from the East: Emmanuel/God-with-us moving stars and world leaders to bring gifts from great distances, over and against the powers of the day.  No, John’s Christmas story (more abstract and cosmic) -- the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us -- emphasizes God becoming Jesus, it emphasizes the divinity of Christ.  There is no question, according to John that not only is Jesus God’s Son, but Jesus is God.  Wrap your head around that!  You can’t.  The mystery of the Divine, the unexplainable, becomes flesh and lives among us.  [ta-da]  Gospel of John.

Anyone remember that old song “Puttin’ on the Ritz”?  That song says...“If you're blue and you don't know where to go to — Why don't you go where fashion sits,
Puttin' on the ritz.”  (maybe some of you for NewYears’/Xmas)

But here with the Gospel of John and incarnation, it’s different… “If you're blue and you don't know where to go to

Then God comes close, and breathes our breath
Puttin' on our flesh.”

Incarnate literally means “in-flesh”.  God moves into our midst, and not just into our neighborhood (like a quiet neighbor that leaves us alone), but into our bones (like a circulatory system -- quietly giving us life), breathing our breath. The Divine, the mystery of the Triune God, imbedded right into our skin, right our flesh!  

Is that kind of creepy, or do you like the idea?  Either way, it is our truth:  God is deeply with us, sisters and brothers in Christ, according to John’s Christmas story....which, btw, also tells us that this has been the reality since the beginning.  For John, the Christmas story, and Jesus himself, is there at the very beginning.  Genesis is the Christmas story.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word...[pause] was God.  God’s been there all along, and God is Jesus.  

So what does this mean?  This abstract concept?  Who cares, right?  It’s great that some poet in 100AD thinks that Jesus is God and God is Jesus and this Jesus/God moves into our being and even into our flesh...but how does that shake out in our everyday lives?

Well for one thing, it reminds us that God is no longer confined to somewhere up there or somewhere, long ago.  (“long ago, galaxy far, far away”)  I don’t like it when people talk about God living way up there in heaven...as if God doesn’t live right here, right now.  When I hear that, I wonder, did you ever read the Christmas story?  God becomes flesh, and dwells among us.  Only at the end of the Gospel of Luke do we have the story that Jesus ascends up to heaven, and that happens almost in sync with the Pentecost experience, where the Spirit of God, blows into and through the people...another version of  “God comes close and breaths our breath, puttin’ on our flesh”.  God gets specific.  God puts on your flesh.

On one hand it’s abstract, but on the other God’s presence and love couldn’t be more concrete, imbedded into our everyday flesh and bones, our everyday lives.  Embedded into our everyday water, and everyday bread.  The everyday fruit from the vine.  

Thank God for this refresher in incarnational theology! Because it’s easy -- even today in 2018 (almost 2019) -- still to separate out nicely and neatly body and spirit.  The body is earthly, the spirit is heavenly.  But John’s Gospel, and our Lutheran faith upon which it is based, mixes all that up!  Christ incarnate and dwelling among us means that the earthly and the heavenly come together; that the body and the spirit are joined -- not just to be flashy and cool, not just to make new year’s fireworks and pizazz -- no, but for our sake, God does this: God joins heaven and earth, as the Divine chooses to live among us, right smack into our broken, dried out, bitter, cracked or covered up skin.  It means that God, in fact, was and is the one in the manger, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said.  God in the manger, the feeding trough, the slop bucket of our lives.  God is right there with us, in it and through it.  That’s where it all connects.  [Ahh...]

So even in our pain, God sits and stays with us?  Even if no one else does?  Ahh.  So even in our stresses about this new year, even though everyone’s talking about hope and joy and happiness and starting over, but really I’m freaking out and have no idea what might be coming next, or how I’m going to make it, God is with me?  Ahhh, so even when I feel so ashamed about things that I’ve done in the past, or even things I’m doing right now, God hasn’t left me?  Ahh. 

Friends, this is a hard time:  recovering from the holidays, paying off the debts, a government shut-down has got us all anxious.  And then we’re all amping up for another round, a new year, working off the Christmas pound.  Trying to make resolutions and claim new habits...it can all be overwhelming.  

There can be quite a wake from disasters and tragedies that have happened in December (that was a hard month too).  And yet God refuses to go back into the box with the nativity figurines.  God chooses to stay right beside you -- imbedded/incarnated love, living in the fiber of your being.  Ahh.  

God gets specific.  This is the gift, once again, of the Christ-child who shines in the darkness.  

We’re about to sing “In the Bleak Midwinter” which I think names where some of us—maybe many of us—are: cold and concerned.  God finds us wherever we are in this December-January turnover time.  God breaks into this world, into our lives...and even into our breath and our bones!  And, friends, there’s nothing we can do about it!  God loves you, whether you like it or not!  (Tell that to someone this week.)  All we can do, in this bleak midwinter, is open our hands and receive this most precious gift:

Salvation.  It is ours through this incarnated Jesus Christ who is God.  Thanks be to God, dwelling right here with us this very moment...and forever.  God is here to stay.  AMEN.