March 24 -- Third Sunday in Lent

March 17 -- Second Sunday in Lent

Friends in Christ, I’m going to blow your minds with what I’m about to say.  And I can say it with confidence because they’re not my words.  I’m not exactly sure who said this first, but it wasn’t me.  Are you ready?  “The devil is the need to defeat the other.”   [marinate]

Now let me just say right off the bat that I’m not talking about a little healthy competition on the playing field….whether it’s a board game, ice rink, or baseball diamond.  I love to win, to defeat the other, the opposition as much as anybody.  Nothing wrong with sport.  The Olympics and World Cups.  At it’s best, these are wonderful events that comes along every couple of years…intended (not perfect) in an admirable spirit of unity and global peace.  I’m not talking about defeating the other in sports and games.

I’m talking about the way we think, the way we see and relate to each other and the world.  “The devil is the need to defeat the other.”   

Friends in Christ, we have been saturated for 400 years, since the time of the Renaissance at least, with DUALISTIC  thinking.  

We have been taught to evaluate the world by sizing everything up to something else.  And we do it so much we don’t even realize it.  Is it good or bad, is it art or trash, is it holy or is it an abomination, is it brilliant or stupid, is it appropriate or inappropriate?  Dualistic thinking.  We compare so much: my kid’s grades are better or worse than yours, look at the size of my office compared to my high school buddy’s, check out my level of success, or my level of volunteer involvement compared with the one (or a whole church) who calls themselves “Christian” down the street.  Look at what percentage of my income I give.  Guess I’m better!  Or worse.  My level of education, my ability to climb the corporate ladder, make the right investment, to build a better kitchen cabinet, to teach a better lesson, to speak more eloquently, to look more beautiful.  “The devil is the need to defeat the other.”   

Do you know what that really is?  Our ego gets in there and then the devil--the need to defeat the other--goes to work!  Watch for it this week.  Our pride and our greed gets in there and we get attached, attached to stuff.    

Politics in our country: masters at dualistic thinking!

Oops…I just did dualistic thinking…there’s my judgment!  

   

If you’re listening to me, I bet your doing dualistic thinking on me, toward me…right now.  Can’t really help it.  You’re evaluating me:  “Do I like what he’s saying or not, do I like what he’s wearing or not, do I like his tone or his demeanor or not… And we do it throughout worship with our musicians, with our pray-ers, with our readers, with our kids, everyone’s always being evaluated.  Right?  It can be exhausting.  It can wear us down.   [pause] Can there be another way? 

Well our Gospel lesson today gives us some ideas, a glimpse of God, if you will—a glimpse of the one who is above the devil, above the need to defeat the other.  

God presides over us all:  As we bicker in this world and cut one another down, as our ego’s battle it out, as our pride leads us down destructive pathways, our God waits for us.  

Our Gospel lesson today gives us an invitation in this season of Lent to return again to the one who is above the traps, the chains, the blindfolds of dualistic thinking [pause].   

Our Gospel lesson today gives us a glimpse of God, and She’s in the image...of a chicken.  Now don’t go falling into the snares of dualism again, here: hear me out…  (not my words) 

Jesus, we hear in our Gospel today, is longing to gather all the broken world under his wing.  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem...” means so much more than just Jerusalem.  

This image is so powerful—not necessarily because we imagine God as mother chicken, but—because that makes us little chicks.  Our quibbles are like the peeps of little chicks, franticly running about, and Jesus longs to gather us under the warmth of his wing.  New mothers and all caregivers know something about the feel of picking up a frantic, crying child, and literally feeling that child’s body calm down in the embrace, literally feeling that child’s body go from a tensed up state of total agitation and fear…to sleep, with nothing more from the caregiver but physical contact and maybe a little song.  That’s God the mothering hen!  “Loving, mothering God, how might we come to know your presence and your contact in our frantic and fear-filled lives?”  Communion, baptism.

Another way is simply by breathing.  Slow down and breathe.  We need someone to tell us that, don’t we?  Jesus says that to us today:  Slow down and breathe.  

Take any tough issue: Poverty, abortion, war, sexuality and the church, immigration, traditional vs. contemporary music, welfare, health care, gun control — whatever issue gets your blood boiling.  Watch yourself fall into the dualistic traps of judgment, ego, pride, greed, attachment…scurrying around like little chicks.  It’s natural for us all to do that.  [pausing] 

Now watch out for the devil, i.e. the need to defeat the other.  [slowly] And start to breathe. 

One of the ancient Hebrew words for God is YaHWeH.  Our OT lesson today tells us that the Word of “YHWH” comes to Abram in a vision.  But the ancient Hebrews wouldn’t say YHWH, they wouldn’t even write out YHWH fully. They’d just use the just Hebrew consonants equivalent to Y-H-W-H.  

But they really didn’t have to say or write the word for God.  [pause]  YHWH, you see, is the word that requires the least amount of work for even your mouth.  In fact it requires no work for your lips.  Saying God’s name—that is, giving praise and realizing the presence of God in our world, in our lives, in our bodies (over all the dualistic quibbles and peeps of our existence)—is as simple as breathing.  [try it...]  

When we breathe the holy breath with which God has filled us, and through which God abides in us, our ego falls out of the way, the blindfold of our dualism—and all the pride and judgment and attachment that come with it—falls from our eyes.   And in our breathing , in our YHWHing, we start to see with the eyes of God.  Our bodies and souls calm, like a frantic baby being pulled to his mother’s breast.  

But we don’t just go to sleep.  In fact, the opposite.  

The clarity that comes in knowing that we are sheltered and warmed under God’s wing gives us the courage to act with the compassion, justice and peace of Christ — that is the wisdom and the love of God’s own self.  So being gathered under God’s wing actually engages us with the world, but now with clarity and vision, “filled it to the utmost with God” (Luther) in every breath.  And, with the very eyes of Christ, we return to all those difficult issues.  To our lives.  To the brokenness.

We breathe God—calm to our souls, release of our egos—and in so doing we return to the world with lives of service, hope, joy and love.  This is the gift of Lent.  

[Take some minutes to breathe.  Then a bedtime hymn.]

March 10 -- First Sunday in Lent

Do you know who you are? 

This Gospel text is ultimately about Jesus being asked this question by the tempter.  Do you know who you are?  

And we have the opportunity this first Sunday in Lent to reflect on that question, and to hear anew God’s claim on us, in spite of the tempter’s great power.

“Look,” the devil said to Jesus, “with your kind of power you could turn all these stones into bread.  I’ll tell you who you are: you’re hungry.” [pause]

And Jesus was hungry: he hadn’t eaten for forty days, when this happened!  How we can do some pretty destructive things when we’re hungry!  In our family we have a word for how we can get:  HANGRY!  Hungry and angry.  Do you think Jesus was hangry?  He was fully human, we confess in our creed.

[slowly] When we are hungry, we are susceptible to forgetting who we are.  Our immediate desires take over — need food, need protection.  This world’s uncertainty creates a sort of wilderness, where we are hungry.  Our own personal situations can be a sort of barren land.  In this climate of horrific violence that makes us think twice or perhaps even downright terrifies us, just to send our children to school, it’s like we’re crawling through a desert yearning for an oasis of safety.    

How we too can relate to starvation, for not just nutritional security, but also financial security, national security... church and school security!  And how our starvations can make us hangry.  (Recently heard a preacher ask, “What’s holding us captive?”  RAGE, anger.)

And in our rage and in our hunger, the tempter tries to disassemble our identity.  “Do you know who you are?  Here, take control, turn all of these stones in to bread, make all of the kingdoms of world bow down to you, force them to.  Here, let the angels (like a mighty army) back you up, with force, and be at your beckon call.  [whisper] That’s who you are.  That’s what you deserve.”  [pause]

What strikes me about this story of Jesus’ being tempted in the wilderness is that the devil’s voice never sounds that bad.  It’s always subtle — what’s so bad about turning stones into bread when you’re hungry?  What’s so bad about over-padding my bank account and sheltering my children from the scary world?  Nothing, right?  See, hunger starts slowly and grows.  [pause] And when those fears start creeping in, like hunger pains, the tempter moves in and questions our identity, starts taking it apart so slowly we don’t even notice, giving us an answer to the question “Do you know who you are”.  “How about this?” the devil slyly suggests: “You’re entitled.  You deserve all this blessing, unlike all those other sinners, losers, murderers, slackers, Gentiles, unchosen, unblessed ones.  You should get all you have...and more.  Look at all the good things you do.  Go ahead, treat yourself to more:  more money, more security, more food, more pleasure, more things.  It doesn’t hurt.  [pause] Plus you deserve it.”

O we are in a wilderness these 40 days!  The temptation is all around — and it doesn’t end after wilderness time either.  The tempter keeps returning—waits, the text says, for the “opportune time”.  Our identity can be rattled constantly.  We are susceptible to others defining us.  Because frankly saying, “I am a child of God” doesn’t always seem so great, compared to “I am a powerful CEO.  I am the starting QB.  I am a mother.  I am an American.  I am a hard worker, who’s made something of my life.  I am a pastor.  I am a club member, a subscriber, a friend of [this person or that].  I am so connected.  I am home-owner, a world traveller, a college graduate with advanced degrees, a life-long church member, a decorated general, a sister, a survivor...”  All these other titles, drown out the most important one, the most central to our identity.  

Long before all our titles and resumés and descriptions of ourselves—some good, some bad—God described us, God claimed us, with a promise:  “You are my beloved child.”  And long after all the other descriptions and accomplishments and titles fade, God’s blessing and presence and still small voice will remain: “You are my beloved child.”   [pause]

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In 2012, I went to visit my Grandpa Roschke by myself.  Grandpa was slowly and peacefully dying in Colorado Springs, we all knew it and I wanted to see him.  I had flown out, gotten a car, drove out.  Grandma died a few years before, and Grandpa had been been so lonely and sad ever since.  But he always rested in that promise of God’s enduring love and claim on his life — in fact, it was part of Grandpa’s daily vernacular.  

A pastor for over 60 years serving the Lutheran church all over Missouri and Illinois, his largest congregation in Kansas City: 1000‘s of people; his Doctorate in Ministry and Preaching that he earned in Chicago, under the great scholar and author Martin Marty; his large and accomplished family spread out across the country (4 children, 11 grandchildren, great grandchildren); a couple beautiful homes over the years, and finally his dream home with a view of the Rocky Mountains that he built for retirement with his life-long partner, my grandma — when I walked into that little assisted-living apartment, where he’s had recently moved, none of those things were visible.  

None of those titles, those identities, were apparent.  

I actually had to knock on the door a few times and then just let myself in.  Grandpa was taking a nap.  And he was shrunken by age.  I hand’t seen him for a few years, and I couldn’t believe how tiny he looked on that bed.  My strong, funny, vivacious, tough-preaching, hard-working grandpa: curled up, like a child, shriveled by age and life...and a recent stroke.  

I sat in that dark room and watched him sleep for a few minutes before waking him up, and I cried quietly, both tears of sadness and tears of joy.  “Francis Roschke: child of God.”  Always was, always will be.  

And that is the truth for you too.  Look at yourself alone in your bathroom mirror tonight (all through this Lenten season), and say your name, and splash water on your head, and remember that our identities cannot be shaken by the tempter—and all the great temptations of this wilderness world.  For Christ has triumphed over the devil, and even death itself, and therefore we are brought into this eternal relationship with God, where we are forever sealed and marked by the Cross of Christ, and gifted with the Holy Spirit.  And we are named...given a title that will outlast any identity or medal or diploma on the wall.

Here at the beginning of this year’s Lenten journey, do you know who you are?  Today and forever, you are a child of God. 

March 3 -- Transfiguration Sunday

Transfiguration Sunday: the day that Jesus’ face and clothes change right before his disciples’ sleepy eyes.  

I think the “sleepy disciples” image resonates particularly this time of year.  Did you catch that in the story?  Unique to Luke.  Matt & Mk both include an account of the Transfiguration, but it doesn’t say that the disciples were “weighed down with sleep”. (Message translation: “hunched over with sleep” — sleeping in church story :)

Please don’t hear me wrong, sleep is good, a gift from God in other parts of the scripture (when angels come, in Mt).  But in the Gospel of Luke, for Jesus, sleepiness is an opportunity to fall into temptation.  

Congressman Elijah Cummings’ powerful closing words to Michael Cohen just keep sticking with me this week, as I think about this text and about Lent coming, a chance to look at our own individual sleepiness: “You got caught up in it,” he said to Cohen. Sleepiness in Luke is when we get “caught up in it.”

Can think of another time the disciples fall asleep while their with Jesus at a critical time?  [Gethsemane]  And Jesus command in that moment was “Pray—don’t fall asleep—pray, so that you may not be led into temptation.”

Sleepiness in this context is a fuzzy-mindedness.  Foggy brain.  [Anti-transfiguration moment in Costa Rica: “Looks like the inside of my mind up here.”]

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When I’m slumped over with sleep, I’m grumpy if I you jolt me out of that.  Part of me is glad that wasn’t me on the mountain with Jesus, because I would have really embarrassed myself and snapped, when the bright lights and the 2 Old Testament heroes showed up.  I probably would have barked at them: “Get out of here!”

My fuzzy-mindedness, my being hunched over with sleepiness, and the temptation that can accompany my sleepiness, can lead me to anger and grumpiness.

The disciples, on the other hand, weren’t grumpy, thanks be to God.  They didn’t bark at Jesus or Moses or Elijah, like perhaps I would have.  They were much more like happy-drunks in their sleepiness.  They came to, and “not knowing what they were saying,” the Scripture tells us, blurted out, “Let’s build something and stay here forever!”

And can you blame them?  They are hanging with Jesus, Moses and Elijah.  These are the all-stars...in their faith.  Moses and Elijah?  Now they see Jesus in this whole new light!  And they woke into it — with elation and frenzied processing?  They were star-struck and jolted awake at the same time.  The few experiences I’ve had being star-struck, I said something stupid.  

Peter, James and John were star-struck, sleepy happy-drunk...and away from the world.  That’s the other thing!

Can you blame them for wanting to build and stay up there forever?  They were far away from their hurting, crazy, real world, and they only wanted to hang onto that, and keep cozy/fuzzy forever.  It’s like being nice and warm in your bed—all snug—and even thinking about getting up is daunting.  “Lord, it is good for us to be here.  Let’s build, let’s keep it pristine, let’s capture this glory, and stay.”

But precisely as Peter is rambling like this, a cloud comes over them, a thick fog moves in [just when they thought everything was so clear and beautiful] and they hear a voice: “This is my Son, the Chosen.  Listen to him.”  In other words, God says to the disciples of old and to us today — listen to him, to Jesus, not to your own voices of vanity, celebrating accomplishments, craving safety and security from the world, not to your own fuzzy-mindedness.  Listen to him.    

And suddenly the cloud lifts, and it’s just Jesus...and what’s he doing?  He’s headed back down the mountain, back to the pain and the brokenness, the division, the cruelty, the evil of the world.  No better example of that than the last part of this reading today:  Jesus casts out a demon IMMEDIATELY after this great glorious event.  Listen to him — the one who confronts evil and oppression with love.  [pause]

Here’s the gift of Transfiguration: we a get just a glimpse of God’s glory, and then we get back to work, following the one who confronts evil and oppression with love.  The glory keeps moving.  It’s like that flame that the acolyte carries.  Just a little flare, to remind us, that this work in the trenches is a worthy cause — more than that: it is a divine cause, it’s God’s cause.  Anyone who helped in any way with Hypothermia Shelter this week, I hope, got a glimpse of God’s cause.  Not overwhelming, but just a glimpse, and then we keep moving.  

Sometimes it seems like there’s no difference being made, no hope, no change, no matter.  But our work, your work, people of God, in your everyday lives, is not in vain:  Caring for those who are poor and the sick, caring for those who are hungry, the outsider, the immigrant and refugee, those without a roof this winter; reaching out to support a friend in need, being a loving parent, doing the right thing (even if it’s costly to your reputation or your wallet), staying awake and alert so that you don’t “get caught up in it”.  We don’t live on the mountain top, we live in the valleys — and your living and working in the valley is not in vain…

One of the themes in the Gospel of Luke is that Jesus says it...and then he does it: “Proclaim liberty and release to the captive, stand with the oppressed...here, let me show you…

“And if it doesn’t go well,” earlier in Luke 9, “then shake the dust from your sandals and just keep moving.”  Jesus talked about this when he sent out his disciples, and then he gets chased out of his own hometown.  Just keep moving.  [Dory from Finding Nemo: “Just keep swimming.”] 

      

Today we get a peek at God’s glory, and this week we descend the mountain top into the journey of Lent — 40 days of valley living, coming face to face with our sin and the sin of our world.  And yet we “just keep swimming” in the waters and the promise of our baptism.

Today we get a peek at God’s glory, at this peaceful Christ, who is the true hope and safety of our lives and of the life of this world.  Let us bask this morning in the wonder of his presence, shining among us even today, even in 2019, let us be in silent awe of Christ’s glory [not babbling or happy-drunk with suggestions on how to package and domesticate the moment].  Let’s just be in praise.  The German mystic Rilke: “Praise my dear ones.  Let us disappear into praising.  Nothing belongs to us.”  Let’s just bask in the glimpse.

And when the glimpse is past.  When the cloud of praise lifts, then, O God, give us the courage to follow your Son, the Chosen One, down the rocky path to face this world’s pain and sorrow, to face the sin in our own lives and in our world...but to do so knowing that the glimpse of God that we have today, both in the scripture and in the sacraments, the glimpse of God is only a foretaste of the feast to come, when we shall dwell with all the saints in endless glory.  

Thanks be to God, who goes with us now, who leads us now, into the valleys, who casts out demons, and welcomes the stranger, who loves everyone — even you, even me — this day and always.  AMEN.

February 24 -- Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

Ugh.  “So I guess we’re supposed to love our enemies this week,” I caught myself complaining to Marie in the office a few days ago.  Anyone else feeling the burden of this?

How are you doing at loving your enemies?  I mean, I prefer to do exactly the opposite: either hate them, or just be indifferent to them.  As Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel said:  “The opposite of love is not hate but indifference.”  Yeah, I prefer to do those: either hate my enemies or just not pay attention to them.  Definitely not love them.  

How are you doing with this?  

And then, just to pile it on, we’re reminded that “enemies” are not just some people far away, or even in our own neighborhoods that we just really don’t like…  With this first lesson that Kate read, about Joseph and his brothers, we are reminded that “enemies” could just be in our own family.  It’s probably the greatest, specific reconciliation story in the Bible.  Family members who have wronged you, ex-friends,  ex-lovers, ex-partners or co-workers, people that we see all the time, live with or around — these can be the hardest to love, because there’s history there.  There’s deep pain there.  There’s stories.  It’s not just a faceless body with a weapon from another country far away: It’s a face that might even look like yours,  with an apron or a briefcase, or an iPhone or a remote control.  Enemies could be those very people that reside under the same roof, or those under roofs in homes that you’ve been visiting for decades…

Ugh.  So I guess we’re supposed to love them?  Forgive them, Jesus says?  “Be kind to the ungrateful and the wicked”?!

How?! I’ll remind you again, like last week, Jesus is not talking here to a random “everyone”.  If that were the case, this would indeed seem like a disconnected and onerous, even impossible, task:  Loving our enemies.  

No, again, Jesus is talking to those who have already heard and seen...

And, friends in Christ, we are a people who have already heard and seen!  (And so this is actually possible, this can be done.)

We are the insiders, the ones who gather around this Word.  I was hoping for a smaller crowd today as an illustration: not because everyone’s not welcome here, but because not everyone understands gets this: [whisper] loving your enemies is a blessing.  

With love is liberation.  How many of you have ever let go of a grievance during the “sharing of the peace” in church on just a regular old Sunday like this?  “Sharing the peace” has turned into more of an intermission in some churches, like a 7^th inning stretch, a chance to just say hi to people around you, see if they got your email this week, ask how they’re doing.  Right?!

But our worship scholars tell us that it’s far more than that.  When we say, as we will again today, “The peace of Christ be with you always...and also with you.”  It’s the embodiment of conflicts forgiven!  Why do we blanket that with a bunch of quick check-in and Good-to-see-you’s!?  (I’ll tell you why!…:)

I had a worship professor in seminary, who encouraged us to just shake the hands around you.  Don’t go trying to shake everyone’s hand and visit with people...at this point.  That’s for before and after worship.  During the week.  Yes dig in and talk and care for one another, he said.  In fact, he said, if “sharing the peace” is the only time you shake hands and talk briefly, there’s a problem.  

Instead, he lectured us, the hand shake or the kiss is powerfully symbolic, just a few hands and cheeks is fine...because this sharing of the peace is the end of war!  

It’s walls coming down!  It’s hatred and bitterness and anger melting away like the snow this week!  It’s peace spreading across the church and across our bodies and across this world like a blanket!  The symbol is so powerful.  It may be my favorite and least favorite moment in the worship service...at the same time.  Because I prefer to hang on to my grudges and bitternesses.  They’re like old friends.  People who have wronged me should pay for that…not be forgiven.

But, friends, remember, this instruction is for the those who have already seen and heard of Jesus and his love.  This is the advanced class, part of a larger sermon, the one that started blessed are you who are poor, remember?  Blessed are those who live their lives as a celebration of Divine mercy!

What does a life lived in celebration of God’s Divine love, mercy and forgiveness look like?  [pause] What if you went out this week and said, “I’m going to live my life this week as a celebration of God’s Divine love, mercy and forgiveness!”  What would look different?  What would sound different?  Would people notice that you’ve come in contact with something strange?  Because you have!!

This instruction is not normal.  (Feel free to walk out at any time.)  In fact, I’m amazed we have as many as we do in the Christian family!  We live in a world that punishes enemies, not reconciles and forgives them.  We live in a world that rewards good behavior and shames bad, at least that’s what our cultures say and tend to think.  I mean, how many want to see Donald Trump go down?  Or how many relished Hillary Clinton looking like a deer in the headlights when she messed up and then lost!  We don’t love our enemies.  We despise them, we wish them the worst.  Our blood boils when they don’t get what they deserve, and we throw parties when they do.  

And yet here Jesus is, talking to his disciples, about reflecting Love Divine!    

Friends, this is another tough one.  Welcome again to the Year of Luke, the year of healing.  A year of taking stock.  Slowing down.  Gathering ourselves.  Sticking together in faith.  And praying:  we can’t do this work without prayer.  God’s gotta get in there.  Mix with us — what did the text say?  “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.”  I love that!  God’s gotta get in there, and God does, friends in Christ.  God is with us in this task.  God has always been with us.  Prayer is the intentional inviting God who’s already there...

Yes, we are the ones who bear witness to this Love.  We are the ones who have already heard and seen.  We are the ones who have eaten and drunk Christ’s body and blood.  We are the ones who have tasted!  We know that this one Jesus blesses us in our weakness, picks us up in our brokenness, feeds us in our hungriest moment, forgives us when we’re at our absolute worst, waits with us in our anger and loves us despite it all!  We know, friends, we’ve tasted this bread, we’ve seen this body, we’ve heard this song, we’ve journeyed this path.

So this is God reminding us again today, that’s all.  This is God showing up once more to call us back.  To snap us out of our funks and wake us when our faithfulness starts to drift off a little...or a lot.  [remembering]  “Oh, yeah!”  

“That’s right!”  — really our only response.  I know this already.  Help me/us, God to live your love more fully, to ingest it ever more deeply and to share it more widely and freely.  

For this is the cup that never runs dry!  Thanks be to God!  AMEN.      

February 17 -- 6th Sunday after Epiphany

Friends, today we have Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain.  Mount?  That’s Matthew.  In Luke, we are told very clearly, very “plainly” that Jesus “came down...and stood on a level place.”  Such great vertical imagery in Luke: Jesus comes down and looks up!  What’s the symbolism there?  Seems to me that the vertical movement [+], the geography matches the content...

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And he’s really talking to his disciples, in the midst of the crowd.  That’s interesting too.  He’s not trying to preach to everyone in the world here.  Everyone in the world is welcome to listen and follow Jesus.  But here in Luke, Jesus is addressing his disciples, the text says.  That is, this those who follow him.  I would say then, Jesus is addressing us, the church, those who don’t just want to adore him or watch him from the sidelines, but rather, us who follow him, who try to do what he does.    

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And he’s not condemning the rich people of the world here, in these “woe to you who are rich” — I wonder if that might be hard for us to hear sometimes, as one of the wealthiest countries and even counties in the world.  He’s not condemning the world’s rich here.  He’s talking to his disciples, I’d say, to the church, the insiders.  As theologian and professor Eduard Schweizer points out, it’s still early in his ministry:  Jesus is issuing to his disciples “a call to action”.  

“Hey, this is what it means to follow me: not that.”  Let the “riches thing” go.  This is a path of humility and suffering, he preaches to his disciples.  It’s a path of less and not more.  It’s a path of valleys and plains not mountain peaks.  [It’s Charlottesville not Monticello...]  

And in this letting go, that Jesus is always calling us into, in this path of less not more, in this journey fraught with suffering, in this way of the cross, there is ultimately joy...even now, Jesus preaches to his people…not just after we die.

Another word for blessed — makarios in the Greek — is simply “happy”.  Try reading it that way:  Happy are you who are poor, hungry, laughed at…     What?!!

When we you let go of our stuff, of our grip, there’s more room for God.  There’s joy.  Mother Theresa: “God cannot fill what’s already full.”  Have you ever given something away or given something up, that you thought would be a real pain to let go of, but you actually felt better when you went through with it?  Travel guru Rick Steves says about packing for a trip: “No ever returns from a big trip, and says, ‘Man, that was great, but you know, I wish I had packed more stuff.’”  No, going lighter, letting go, giving up, surrendering to God actually yields a surprising joy.  

Confirmation kids and picking up trash:  “Hey, this is fun!”  

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Now, let’s also be aware, there are pitfalls in this text:  This is not to say that we don’t have to worry about the poor, because according to Jesus here, they’re all happy and blessed.  I hope you know that.  And going down that road is a reflection on us more than it is about God.  This Plain Sermon isn’t a commentary on poverty and spinning it out in a pious light.   There’s nothing romantic, beautiful or happy about poverty and systemic injustice — these are monsters that we Jesus-followers are called to confront, to name and work to alleviate and eradicate .  It’s a separate sermon, and a constant theme in Luke to see that Jesus is always against injustice and on the side of people who are poor and on the outside.  

But, this Sermon on the Plain is about us, today.  

And it’s about God, through Christ, again surprising us with joy.  Jesus is inviting us today, yet again, to let go, to give up our ways and follow instead after his way.  This is a call to action. 

So, how will you do that this week, and into this still new year?  How will you do that?  :)  Not how will you recruit or point your finger at what others should and could do.  (Sometimes there’s a tendency, for me anyway, to think quickly who else needs to hear this message… :)

What does the way of humility and mercy look like for you?  Lent is coming friends.  What do you need to let go of, in order to be in and enjoy this blessed state of poverty, hunger, exclusion and defamation that Christ is describing here? [pause]

Well, think about it like this:  What is it that weighs you down?  Or what are you protecting or hanging onto the tightest?

Dad has shared with me about his time serving as pastor to a congregation in Norway over 40 years ago...and how different that was from being at the center of the Missouri Synod conflicts back in the 1970’s:  See, in St. Louis, there was so much money and so much power tied up there at the center of the conflict.  Who was going to get whole buildings, if/when the church broke apart?  Where would all the investments go?  Who would benefit and who would be made to suffer for their actions?  Everyone was clinging on so tightly, you see?  Grasping for survival, everyone was staking their territory. Dad talks about roots: Roots can be a beautiful image, but they can also render us un-move-able, stubborn—great, oak stakes in the ground, where joy can start to drain away, because the whole focus becomes about protecting the institution, that great immovable oak.  It was a bitter time back then, in the church, and especially, in his experience, in St. Louis.

But in Norway, where I was born, it was a community of ex-patriots, a Americans far from home, just trying to be a faithful community of Christ.  Strangers in a strange land: Texans in the Arctic Circle, to be specific.  There were no stakes, no roots, no territories to protect.  There was no jockeying for power and position.  They were a mix of denominations: Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans.  In a way, they were poor and hungry, laughed at by their friends and family.  See?  And with that poverty came this freedom.  They were free to try different things, to learn from each other’s traditions, from the cultures around them, to let go and to trust, to get back to the basics of the Christian faith.  Dad talks about those years fondly, as you can tell…That icy Norwegian air, was fresh air and joyful.

I guess that’s an example of the church (of all things) becoming what we cling too in a desperate way, weighing us down.  What would it look like  for you to “let go”?  As opposed to that posture of gripping in a protective, frightened, even angry way...

That’s the symbol, btw, during Offering when the acolyte lifts up the plate.  And puts it on the altar.  Here we are God!  All of what we have is yours!  We give you thanks and praise you!  Take us now—in all our brokenness and blessing—and use us... 

And God does...and God calls us bless-ed.

Do you hear Christ’s call to action here, friends?  Can you sense the graciousness?  Not from a lofty place, but actually from a seated position...Jesus looks up at them.  On the plain.  

Can you sense the joy, the fuller life that is being offered to the insiders, that is his disciples, that his church, that is you and me?  This is what it looks like to follow!  

And it’s nothing for the fainthearted or the immobile oaks.  “Let go, put down your nets, those things you used to hang on to, and join me,” Christ beckons, “down this way of mercy and humility...and in this way you will find joy!”  

Friends, this is what it looks like to be planted instead by the water, as the prophet Jeremiah poetically describes.  Supple, moving.  The church always in procession, not static.  

My favorite chapter in Taoist literature: 

We are born gentle and weak.

At death we are stiff and unyielding.

Green plants are tender and filled with sap.

At their death they are withered and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.

The stiff and unyielding will snap in the wind.

The soft and weak will bend and prevail. (Chapter 76)

Friends in Christ, God comes down to offer us life.  

It’s ours for the receiving, it’s ours to open our hands and en-joy.  It’s ours for free...and for freedom, this day and always, into eternity.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.  

February 10 -- 5th Sunday after Epiphany

Sisters and brothers in Christ, 

Look at what God can do when we are tired!

What strikes me about this fantastic lesson of Jesus calling his disciples is that he does it in the morning after a sleepless, fruitless, hopeless night!  

Peter was ready to pack up and go home -- no energy, no fish, no hope -- and that’s precisely when Christ shows up, sends him back out, and calls him into new mission fields.

Look at what God can do when we are tired!

At the end of our rope, without direction or energy -- hopeless, fruitless, even sleepless.  That’s precisely when Christ shows up, sends us back out and into new mission.

This is our God.

So what task is God calling you into now?  Us here at BLC?  No matter your age.  No matter your status, no matter how long you’ve been “at this” already.  Now is when Christ appears in your midst and says, “Well, try this: try something new, go deeper” and “Come, follow me”.

Jesus meets us in our grayness, when the clouds are heavy, and the days and the years (and our faces) are long, just as we’re about throw in the towel, give up, sell out, and isolate ourselves from others.  Just as we’re really getting really frustrated with each other or the world around us.  Just as we’re about to close the door and blow out the candle, Jesus says, “Hey, go back out there, go deeper.”

--

This has always been seen as a text about vocation.  Martin Luther taught that we all have a vocation.  And theologian Frederick Buechner said that vocation is a term for that intersection...“where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.” x2  Go deeper, Jesus says.

--

But sometimes our great passions are squelched:  The saddest stories, I think, are the stories of loved ones in my life, who never followed their deep gladness (perhaps their vocations) because someone told them it was stupid, or a waste of time, or too daunting a task for them to ever realize such a goal or a calling.  Had a friend in college who wanted to study marine biology, but her parents wanted her to be practical and study business.  Or another family member who always wanted to be a nurse and take care of sick children, but was even mocked by her husband, saying that her “dream” was too expensive, and she’d never be able to pass the classes.  Passions, deep gladness, even callings: squelched.

--

Friends, Christ finds us, just as he found Peter, in that moment of “squelch”.  Sometimes, it’s our own “shadow voices”, the negative self-talk that crushes us.  Often we squelch ourselves. Peter, I’m sure, was feeling pretty squelched/empty (wonder what he was saying to himself in those wee morning hours), when Christ showed up, told him to try something different, and filled his nets.  Christ is our hope.  Jesus sends us and calls us to try again...even to try something new.

“Try going deeper,” Jesus says.  When we go deeper, we discover even more...and find ourselves on a path that we never dreamed. 

Look at what God can do when we are tired!    

See, and here’s what I both love and hate about this text: 

It’s not just about “following our dreams” -- those might be well and good, or they might be misguided.  No, vocation is about God’s voice.  The word vocation literally means “calling” (from Latin vocare).  So there’s got to be a call-er here.  Someone directing us, nudging us, beckoning us.  “Vocation-ing” us...

So who’s doing the calling?  Our own hearts?  Our parents?  Our legislators and recruiters?  Our friends?  Sometimes God works through these and other people or experiences.   

But ultimately, is is Christ Jesus who calls us out.  And he’s not just saying, “Hey, whatever you want…what ever you need...just follow your passion...” 

Rather, just like in our passage for today, Jesus is asking us to look at something new, to stir -- from our drowsiness, fatigue and even despair -- to tasks and adventures we never even imagined.

It’s not about “following our dreams”; it’s about following God’s dream.  Going deeper.  Discovering and living into God’s dream.  We are called into that profound, challenging, joy-filled -- and at the same time life-threatening -- call to follow Jesus.  We are called into that call.

Catching fish was a little dangerous...catching people?  That is, preaching the Gospel...with our words and more importantly our actions?  Proclaiming release to those who are locked up in all kinds of ways?  Recovery of sight to those who can’t see clearly?  Forgiveness to those who deem themselves unforgivable?…

remember all those things that Jesus laid out in his “Inaugural Address” two Sundays ago?   

Catching fish is a little dangerous, catching people?:  you might wind up face-to-face with the powers, just like John the Baptist…or Jesus himself.  Going deeper is not without risk.  

So who’s in?!  Like Jerry Maguire: “Who’s coming with me?” Jesus “vocations” us.  What strange waters, or strange lands, is Christ calling you into this new week?  This new season?  This new year?

(Peter executed in Rome.  South gate-Appian Way-Quo Vadis...He knew how dangerous it was and yet he went anyway.)

This may be where Christ calls you, even this day! -- into a deeper life, a fuller love, a complete vocation, God’s dream...not just yours.  And in that is the greatest joy!  (Can you imagine if Peter never left his nets?  What he would have missed?)

This is a good day, it is a good week, it is a hopeful moment — even in the midst of our fatigue and even aguish — for, friends, Christ himself stands on the shore of our lives and bids us come and follow, let go, and go even deeper.  

Today is a good day for Christ Jesus stays with us, fills our nets...and loves us into a new and even more expansive vocation.  

Friends, Jesus loves us into God’s dream!  AMEN.