The Power of Standing Still

Sermon: Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

2008-07-07T06:50:00.000-07:00

Edgebrook Lutheran Church

July 6, 2008

Eighth Day after Pentecost

Matthew 11:16–19, 25–30

¹⁶But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
¹⁷'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.'
¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon'; ¹⁹the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds."
²⁵At that time Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; ²⁶yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
²⁸Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Good News: We are yoked with God.

Watch for the Cue

Ok, we're going to try this. I'm going to give you a cue, and we'll see how you respond.

Marco (Polo)

773-202-(LUNA)

Hey Chicago, whaddya say? (Cubs are goin to win today)

All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel. The monkey thought it was a joke, (pop goes the weasel)

Cues. We live in a "cue" society; our advertisement industry banks on it. You didn't know that you needed that prescription medicine, but you should probably ask your doctor about it. You didn't know that you needed that new car, the one given at Christmas with big bow on it, but it turns out you do. Jingles, catch phrases, they are intended to cue us into something that we need but didn't know, that we desire but don't realize.

In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus is talking about cues. These aren't the jingles and the catch phrases of today, these are good cues. And he's talking to the Pharisees about how they don't recognize the cues of God, even though they're right there in front of them. They want Jesus to play their own games, they want John the Baptist to play their own games, but Jesus is saying that God has a different game in mind. And he uses the example of children's games, much like Marco Polo or Pop Goes the Weasel.

Children would sit in the market place while they're parents would shop or do business, and they'd play games. Two very popular games were "Wedding" and "Funeral". I remember my brothers and I playing "Cops and Robbers," or "School," or "Space Travelers" much the same way. If it's a marriage game, you start singing. And the Pharisees were singing, but, as Jesus points out, John the Baptist didn't want to play.

John was yelling about repentance, and the kingdom of God. He wore rags and ate strange food, not the kind of stuff you'd bring to a wedding.

You see, the Pharisees wanted something different out of John the Baptist, they wanted John to fit into their own mold. He wouldn't play, so they called him a demon.

And, likewise, Jesus was a little too outgoing for the Pharisees. He ate with sinners, partied at weddings, he cavorted with the lowliest in society. The Pharisees wanted to play funeral with Jesus, they wanted him to be more serious than he was willing to be, they wanted him to fit into their own mold of what a Rabbi, a Messiah was supposed to be.

Ironically, they did end up playing funeral with Jesus in a very real way.

Jesus says to the Pharisees, "You are like children playing a game, and you get mad when we don't play," because you cannot give God cues and expect God to play your games.

And we still do that, sometimes, as well. We still expect God sometimes to follow our cues, to play our games.

God doesn't play.

But in this passage, God is giving us cues. God is giving us a different framework, a different game to play in the work and person of Jesus Christ.

This last part of this section, this final part, where Jesus says,

"²⁸Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

This is the cue that God is giving to us.

You know, just as often as we expect God to play our games, I think we spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out if God is giving us cues for how to conduct our actions, how to move to the next station in life.

I remember hearing about how Oprah once was about to get on a plane and there was some delay and they wouldn't get out that night. She went back home to return the next morning. In the meantime, a huge storm came up, and when Oprah arrived back home, her basement was flooded. As she sat on her stage, she told her audience that she thought God had caused the delay so she could go home and sump-pump her basement.

Now, on the outside, that seems like an ok thing to conjecture. But if I was one of those passengers on the plane, and I thought God had delayed my vacation, my visit to see my grandparents, or a funeral, or a baptism, or anything so that Oprah could sump-pump her basement, I'd be pretty ticked off.

You see, I'm pretty convinced that the cues we get from God are 90 percent in hind-sight. I can't say that it wasn't God that caused that airplane to fail, but I can't find the ability to utter the words that it was.

But today God is giving us, giving you, giving those Pharisees, and those disciples, giving the world an unmistakeable cue. And it is not game, it is life.

God is telling you that you are yoked to God. And not just yoked to God in Christ, but this yoke is unlike any other yoke you've ever experienced.

See, a lot of us are yoked.

We're yoked to success. We're yoked to drugs, sex, violence, charity, good works, self-righteousness, workaholism, alcoholism…tons of yokes to be under.

But God's yoke is different.

Jesus describes this yoke as being "easy". That is not really a great translation. The godly life, the Christian life, is never "easy," at least not in our modern conceptions of the word. The word "easy" is better translated as "well suited."

My yoke is "well suited."

On a bright June day, I sat with Larry and his family in hospital room 603 at Northwestern Medical Center. Larry would not live the night. He had been unresponsive for days, and the family had made the difficult but loving decision to remove life support.

As they gathered, family and friends, cousins and children, they told me stories about Larry. I didn't know Larry, never shook his hand, but I held his hand. I didn't know Larry, never heard him laugh, but I heard his children laugh as they told stories about his life.

Larry would not make it through the night.

I stayed with the family for much of the day. As my shift was changing, we prayed and I left them, and I walked outside.

And as I walked outside, I observed people going about their day, laughing and smiling. The birds were chirping, the cars were honking, and I wanted to go up to them all and shake them.

"Don't you know whats going on upstairs? There is a family that is about to go through a difficult, life-changing event. A father, brother, son, is about to die tonight, and here you are laughing, and chirping, and honking. Don't you know?!"

But then I thought back to my time with the family. How we had talked about God and faith, about the promises found in the good news that God is with us, even in death. About the good news that Jesus has promised eternal life.

And, somehow, that burden was lightened, if just a bit. It wasn't easy. Lord, it never is. But it's true. The hope, the promise that God has given, the cue that God has given in the person of Jesus Christ: that God is with us, in life, death, and everywhere in between, was well suited.

It was well suited for life.

You see, I don't know that we can always tell when God is giving us an individualized, specialized, situational cue, not until hind-sight. But if there is one cue that I see in writing, one cue that I see plain as day, one cue that is life giving: it is that we are walking with God through this life, yoked with the Christ no matter what ground of life we're tilling. Just as Christ moved past death into true life, we live with that promise as well. No matter what storms may come, whether it be weddings or funerals, drugs or self-righteousness, self-doubt or sump-pumps, we walk yoked with Christ, a yoke that is well suited to deal with them all.

Take the cue: you are yoked with Christ, and this is freeing news!

So, lets try one more cue, a cue that speaks to this life giving word:

Christ is risen! (Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia).

Amen.

Sermon: Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

2008-07-07T06:47:00.000-07:00

Edgebrook Lutheran Church

June 22, 2008

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 10:24-39

²⁴A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; ²⁵it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!
²⁶So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
³²Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
³⁴Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
³⁵For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
³⁶and one's foes will be members of one's own household.
³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Good News: God, through Jesus, has erased all fear.

Do Not Fear. Follow.

This is a strange June, my friends.

Last week I was eating a Whopper at Burger King with my nephews, which is a big deal because Rhonda and I make it a point not to each fast food. But the nephews wanted it, and far be it from me to displace their view of me as the uncle who is fun, so of course we stop off there to eat.

And as I’m eating this Whopper, something doesn’t taste quite right. You see, in my younger days, I was a Whopper connoisseur. I ate them bi-weekly. I can still remember the taste. But this didn’t taste right.

And I opened the burger and realized that there was, indeed, no tomato on my burger. The salmonella outbreak had taken its toll and it totally affected the taste. I somehow found the will to finish the burger, but I was reminded of a Laurie Colwin quote that rang true at that moment:

“A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.”

Luckily, we’re getting our violins back.

And for much of the past two weeks, we’ve all been glued to the reports of our neighbors to the West and North, Iowa, Wisconsin, border Illinois, hoping and praying for safety, even as we see the rivers well up to the point that the banks overflow, and the river borders are no longer sand and shore, but homes and businesses.

Our prayers and our support are still with them as we pray for receding waters.

And to go along with our strange June, today, we have a very strange text.

It mentions demons and swords, crosses and dissention.

^“and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

This is the only mention of the cross that Jesus has in Matthew before his actual crucifixion, and so we have to try to get at the heart of what Jesus is saying here.

You see, Jesus is not advocating that we go looking for crosses. Sometimes I think there is this idea among Christians that anything hard, or anything troubling is a “cross to bear.”

Sometimes I think we see any burden as a “cross to bear.” That’s simply not the case.

A difficult decision is not a cross. Taking children to school, or Sunday School, going to church, putting up with an annoying friend who dominates your time. Those are not crosses. And I think our strange June has made that abundantly clear to us. My scheduling conflicts are nothing compared to losing my house, my land, a family member or friend in a flood.

And suffering in general is not a cross. Illness, sickness, disease, these are not crosses. They are moments where God’s grace works wonders, they are moments where God can work and move in and through us. But I cannot, in good pastoral conscience, tell my brother or my sister suffering with AIDs, suffering from malnutrition, suffering from even glaucoma or hypertension, that that is their “cross to bear.”

And when we equate those to the cross of Christ, we cheapen that event. We cheapen that grace.

You see crosses are those things in our life that we run into when we follow Jesus Christ, and God’s work through him. Crosses are those things we run into when are faced with the reality of suffering, not in ourselves, but in the world, in others. Crosses are redemptive pieces of machinery.

You see, we don’t go looking for crosses because, in our life crosses will come looking for us.

And when we face a cross in our lifetime, we have a decision. We can pick it up and follow Christ, knowing exactly there it leads.

Or we can turn away.

Pastor Heidi Neumark, in her memoir Breathing Space, speaks of crosses. The memoir is full of crosses.

In one particularly moving entry, she speaks about going to see a woman named Ruby. Ruby comes to the food pantry of the Transfiguration Lutheran Church, where Heidi is called, and Heidi has only seen her there a couple of times. Ruby is not a member of the church. She doesn’t attend services. But Heidi goes to see her.

She knocks on the door, and after a moment or two of shuffling behind it, Ruby opens it up. And the place is a mess. There are no lights on because the power has been shut off. There is old food and clothes everywhere, and a small toddler in dirty clothes is seated on the floor. Ruby has struggled with abusive relationships, with crack, with a daughter who won’t go to school because her clothes are too ratty and wrinkled, to an apartment infested with rats to the point that they gnaw on the mattresses at night. And, most recently, Ruby has been diagnosed with HIV.

Now, these are not crosses for Ruby to bear. And think about it. If Ruby were to die on any of these crosses, from abuse or crack, from HIV or infestation, where would the redemption be?

No. You see, the one being faced with the cross at this moment is Heidi.

Is you and me.

Heidi followed Christ, the Christ that says, “Love your neighbors as yourselves.” The Christ that says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And in following Christ she has found herself at this cross.

What will she do? What will she do?

Now, believe it or not, Heidi has options. When faced with this dilemma, we’re torn I’m sure. Helping Ruby out could be a serious investment of time and money, could be a serious investment of sweat equity, and could be impossible.

Or, Heidi can continue to visit with Ruby, and at the end of their exchange, simply walk away. Perhaps visit another day.

So what do they do? They pray. And, believe me, prayer is the first thing to do when faced with a cross. After all, what did Jesus do when faced with his cross. He went up to the garden of Gethsemene and prayed for a way out. He prayed that there might be another way. There wasn’t in that case.

You see, when we follow the footsteps of Jesus, when we follow the commands that say, “Love your neighbor, embrace your enemy.” When we do those things that God has said are important in this life, we’re going to find crosses.

So, do we pick them up, or pass them by?

Well, I think the answer is that sometimes we pick them up, and sometimes we pass them by.

And that’s OK. It’s OK because, well, if we’re following in the path of Christ, crosses will appear at our feet all the time, every day. And folks, we can’t pick them all up by ourselves. We simply can’t. Even Jesus says we can’t. At the beginning of this section of Matthew he says, “The disciple is not above the teacher, the servant above the master.”

We are not gods. We cannot be crucified on every cross that is out there.

But then again, we are commanded to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. There are some crosses we simply can’t pass by. And so we are commanded to do so in following Christ. It is our vocation to do so. It is our calling.

But what happens when we do?

What happens when we pick up a cross?

Well, Jesus lays it out for us. You see, the disciples who were following Jesus thought he would be bringing military and political peace to the world. But Jesus says that disciples shouldn’t expect peace. In fact, if you teach and preach, if you reach out as Jesus did, you should not expect peace, but a sword.

Yes, a sword.

And you should expect to be called names. “Beelzebul” is the word used here. It literally, in Hebrew means, “Lord of the flies.” Expect to be called King or Queen of the dung-heap, it says.

And you can expect family discourse. Because, you see, sometimes following Christ puts us at odds with others, even our families. We live in a world that calls us to be greedy, to put people in a hierarchical order, to degrade some while lifting up others. But Christ calls us to be giving, to turn hierarchy on it’s head, to uplift all even if it means taking a lower place yourself. And that’s not going to sit well with everyone, even in families. Mothers will disagree with mother-in-laws, fathers with sons. There is dissention on the way of the cross.

But there’s Good News.

You see, the love of God that calls us to reach out to others, calls us to take up our crosses. But we don’t do it alone. We do it with God’s help.

Throughout this section of Matthew, Jesus continually reminds the disciples, reminds us that we are not to be afraid of this path.

“Do not fear.” You see, the work of Jesus has freed us from fear. The work of the Messiah has freed us from those things that hold us back from doing the work of God in this world.

Do not fear if people call you crazy for picking up the cross of that neglected child in your neighborhood, the one who is violent and mischievous, but also hungry. Jesus was once called crazy.

Do not fear the financial loss of taking some time out to work for the Red Cross in flooded parts of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota. God calls us to care for our neighbors and is working in and through that effort.

Do not fear the derisive looks that some in this world will give you when you stand up against racism, sexism, homophobia, and greed. Do not fear their jokes, their snide remarks behind your back. Jesus is standing there with you, taking up that cross with you. They might be able to cut you with a sword of words, or even real swords sometimes, but they cannot touch your real self, your true self, the self that God knows. That is God’s!

Do not fear. Follow.

The hymn of the day today called The Summons, and is speaks to following Christ, no matter what crosses it leads to. The fourth verse is especially poignant:

“Will you love the you you hide, if I but call your name? Will you quell the fear inside, and never be the same. Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around? Through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?”

Do not fear, quell that fear inside. In following God we are standing with God against those things that threaten the world, against those swords that cut. And do not be afraid of those swords. God has promised that swords will be plowshares, that violence will not be the end of us. In following Christ, in picking up a cross, we can reshape this world with God’s help.

And yes, we are only a few. There are few people who pick up crosses, and the swords of this world are many and great. But in the face of such things, I am reminded of the poetic words of Tennessee Williams “The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”

So lets not fear, lets follow. We’ll find crosses, lets pick them up. Jesus has laid it all out for us: there will be swords, there will be slander, there will be tough patches on this journey with Christ. But God walks with us, walks this path beside. God tells us not to fear, for what do we fear when God is near? With God’s help, we violets can break those mountain rocks.

The last verse of that hymn The Summons says it well:

“Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name. Let me turn and follow you and never be the same. In your company I’ll go where you love and footsteps show. Thus I’ll move, and live, and grow in you and you in me.”

Do not fear. God has erased all fear. Follow.

Sermon: Third Sunday after Pentecost 6.1.08

2008-06-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

Timothy Brown

Edgebrook Lutheran Church

June 1, 2008

Third Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 7:21–29

²¹Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. ²²On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' ²³Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'
²⁴Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. ²⁵The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. ²⁶And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell — and great was its fall!"
²⁸Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, ²⁹for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

Foundations

The robber stepped into the bank and said, “Alright, this is a stick up!”

He told the teller in front of him, “Alright, give me all your money!”

The teller did so, and when he was done he asked her, “Did you see my face?”

The teller nodded sheepishly, and so the robber locked her in the bank vault that couldn’t be easily opened.

Then the robber turned to the lady behind him and said, “Did you see my face?” The woman said, “Uh-huh. But my husband did!”

Now, you have to wonder about that relationship. What is that based on?

Today’s gospel message is about relationships. As much as it sounds like it’s about architecture, it’s actually about relationships. Our relationship to God.

And how to describe our relationship to God, our interaction with the Divine? One of the most Godly relationships that I’ve ever witnessed, and I use that term Godly not to describe the moral or ethical character, but rather the simple interaction. One of the most Godly relationships that I’ve ever witnessed was between Tim and Josh.

As I looked over my list of campers, I scanned their profiles for anything that I might have to keep in mind for the week. And there they were: Tim and Josh. Both from the same town, but this was Tim’s first time at camp. Josh had been here before. In fact, Josh had been coming to camp ever since he was in fourth grade. Now an eighth grader, this would probably be his last year.

And Josh was a sweet kid who lived with epilepsy. His medical condition caused him quite a bit of anxiety, and so it’s even a wonder that Josh ever made it through camp at all because his anxiety issues made it difficult for him to be ok with not knowing what was happening next.

A car drove up, and out stepped Josh: tall and gangly, rail thin. Behind him was the new camper, Tim, Josh’s exact opposite: shorter, rounder. They gave their parents a hug, and came tromping over to the cabin. They made their beds and got settled as we waited for more campers.

And then I heard it. It started as a small tear down the cheek and soon became a full fledged heaving, sobbing mess. It was Tim’s first time away from home; that can be scary. The moment Tim started crying, Josh went over and sat down right next to him and put his arm around him.

“It’ll be ok, Tim. We’re going to have tons of fun swimming, rock climbing, hiking, kayaking. Camp is great! You’re going to love it here.”

And I stood back in amazement. Tim was young, energetic, athletic. He was a perfect fit for our camp. Josh was thin, on constant medication. He wasn’t even able to do some of the things he mentioned to Tim. He couldn’t go for extended hikes. He couldn’t rock-climb. And here he was, totally selfless, totally absorbed with nothing but comforting and supporting Tim.

Later on in the week our camping group did go on an extended hike. Half way through our journey, Josh doubled over. I saw the signs right away: he was going to seize. We moved the campers away from him to the side, and Tim and I knelt over him. And Tim did the most amazing thing: he cradled Josh’s head in his lap and sat with him, stroking his head. “It’s ok,” he said. “It’s ok.”

As Josh moved between seizes, we were finally able to transport him out of the woods. The whole time, Tim sat with him, stroked his head, and reassured him that everything was going to be alright. He had no other concern, totally selfless, totally absorbed with nothing but comforting and supporting Josh.

To make it through camp, Tim and Josh were each other’s sure foundation; unmoving, unfaltering, unchanging.

In today’s gospel Jesus says to his disciples, says to us: “Be wise. Build your entire life on a solid foundation. When the winds blow, when storm surges, you need solid ground. I am that ground, I am that foundation.”

You see, God wants us to build our lives on a foundation that will last in a world where things don’t last.

Sometimes we build our lives on financial success. Pastor Stephen Crotts, author and campus pastor in North Carolina, tells of one time when he went to visit a parishioner who had just suffered a major financial setback.

He writes:

I once visited a man who had just suffered a drastic financial setback. Crushed from the economic loss the man cried, "Everything is gone! Gone! It's all lost!" Without hesitation, I said, "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that your wife is dead." The man looked up at me in alarm. "My wife?" I continued, "And I'm doubly sad to hear that you have lost your children!" "My children?" the man whispered. "And, oh, how it pains me to learn you've lost your character, your church, your friends, and your God, Christ!" The man protested, saying he'd lost none of those things I'd mentioned. "But I thought you said you'd lost everything!"

After all, money can buy a bed, but not sleep; books, but not wisdom; a harlot, but not love; food, but not appetite; sin's pleasures, but not salvation's peace. It can buy a house, but not a home; medicine, but not health; notoriety, but not character.

You see that person, although he had not really lost everything, had built his foundation on his fortune.

Sometimes we build our lives solely on the foundation of others. And, let me be clear, we need others in our lives as our rocks, as our solid grounds. But even others falter and fail. I remember a friend of mine hat built his faith on his pastor. His pastor shepherded a congregation of thousands, and my friend was faithful as long as that pastor was faithful. And then it came out that the pastor had embezzled millions. My friend’s world, his faith, came tumbling down in one fell swoop.

Sometimes we build our lives solely on ourselves. And this, my friends, is most often the case. We are beautiful and good. We are wonderfully made, each one of us, in the image of God with unique gifts and abilities. But even we fail ourselves sometimes. As Paul says, “All sin and fall short of the glory of God.” As good and as beautiful as we are, sin continues to creep in our lives, and we even betray ourselves, doing what we wish we did not, doing what we desire not to.

Even we are shifting sand.

But God is not. God in Jesus has shown us that, through every trial and tribulation, through every joy and elation, God is nearby. Near enough as bread and wine, water and word. Near enough as the shoulder or lap of a friend. Near enough as Tim was to Josh.

To make it through life, Jesus is our sure foundation.

God is not going to throw you in a bank vault; God is not going to throw you away. God wants you to call, to build your house upon the love of the cross, the love shown to you through Jesus Christ. Use nails of joy, 2x4’s of peace, and a roof of assurance to build your life on the God who continues to meet you, no matter what storms are brewing. The God who comforts you when you weep, who walks with you in joys, and who rests your head on a lap of grace when we seize at last.

Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hid myself in thee.

May the Rock of Ages be your sure foundation today and every day.

Amen.

Sermon: Ascension Sunday 5.4.08

2008-05-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

Edgebrook Lutheran Church

May 4, 2008

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 1:1–11

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning ²until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. ³After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. ⁴While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me; ⁵for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
⁶So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" ⁷He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." ⁹When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

What are we, then, to do?

Can I get a witness?

I said, can I get a witness?

You know, on the South Side where I live, that question gets a slightly different response. Our Lutheran brothers and sisters on the South Side shout “Amen!” or “Yes you can.”

Most of the time, if you were to ask me, “Can I get a witness?” I’d probably say, “What for? Are we going to court?”

But I think that Jesus in today’s Acts reading probably yelled that out at some point as he was ascending into heaven. I mean, Luke doesn’t record it in there, but I think he probably said, “Can I get a witness?” sometime in there.

Because that’s what we’re left with: witnesses.

Today we celebrate the ascension of our Lord. Not much is known about Jesus ascension, and even Luke isn’t really clear on what’s going on. What we do know is that Jesus was with his disciples for 40 days after his resurrection, and then he didn’t show up in the bodily presence anymore. Instead, he spoke of this new way that God was going to be with people, in the paraclete, the Advocate, the Ruah that we spoke of last week. The Holy Spirit.

And today we find these disciples, having been promised the Holy Spirit, having been promised that Jesus would come back again, and they’re staring up into heaven waiting for it to come as if it’s going to happen right now, right away.

And I bet, I bet for a moment there they wondered what they were to do next. I bet, I bet for a moment there, they had a twinge of sadness because this experience with God that they’d been having through the person of Jesus had come to an end.

And how to express that?

Shel Silverstein, at the end of his book of poetry “Where the Sidewalk Ends” has one final poem that reads:

“I went to find the pot of gold

That’s waiting where the rainbow ends.

I searched and searched and searched and searched

And searched and searched and then

There it was, deep in the grass

Under an old and twisty bough

It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine at last…

What do I search for now?”

“What do I search for now?” is probably just the question that those disciples were asking themselves as they stared off into space.

And the only thing that brings them back to reality, that brings them back to action from staring up at heaven are these two people that show up in dazzling clothes.

“What are you doing looking up at heaven? He’ll come back; he promised. The Holy Spirit will come upon you; he promised. But now, there’s work to be done!”

Now, there’s work to be done.

You see, the experience that they had with God, the experiences that we have with God through the gift of the Holy Spirit is not some pot of gold to be found at the end of a spiritual journey. The experience is the journey.

And that is why we don’t stop with just the Gospels in our New Testament texts. The experiences with God continued even after Jesus was no longer bodily present. And so, what are the disciples to do now that Jesus is not bodily present, what are we to do now that Jesus is not bodily present?

Well, we’re not supposed to just stand around looking up at space, waiting for it to happen again. That, according to these two people in dazzling clothes, these two “new people” as the Greek literally calls them reminds the disciples, and reminds us.

We’re about to leave the season of Easter. We’re about to head into spring. We’re about to have life slow down just a little bit. It won’t be the same.

But listen to these people in dazzling white: the work is not done. God’s spirit, God’s indwelling presence is still here, and so our encounters with God continue to happen.

And we can’t be silent about that. We can’t be silent about our experiences with God, our experiences with the God made known in Jesus Christ.

We need to be witnesses! God has made God’s self known to us, and so we need to be witnesses to the fact that God is at work in this world bringing salvation in the here and now.

So, what does it mean to be a witness?

James Mulholland, a Quaker minster, writes in his book “If Grace is True” about one of his first sermons as a preacher. It was at an inner city mission. He says,

“I watched about fifty men, many mentally ill or drunk, herded into a dingy chapel. They mumbled the words to a familiar hymn, yawned through the prayers, and seemed oblivious to the words I’d labored over so carefully. I pleaded with them to accept Christ and experience his grace. No one responded. Afterward, I turned to one of the workers and said, “Well, that was hopeless.”

Then the worker smiled back at him and said, “I used to be one of them.”

Who was the witness there? A witness is the one who says, “The world is ending? Oh, yeah, I used to think that. I’m all alone in this world? Oh yeah, I used to believe that. There is no God, we’re water and some trace elements? Oh yeah, I used to hold on to that. But then…

But then God spoke to me in Scripture. But then the Holy Spirit stirred me to faith. But then I realized that the breath of God moves through humanity like a wind over grass. But then I was baptized into the faith, held by a God, sealed by the Holy Spirit, marked with the cross of Christ forever.

When we have church, when we witness to the encounter that God has had upon us, “I used to be one of them” is not an unfamiliar response. God changes things yet today, and so we cannot keep looking to heaven waiting for eventual salvation, for as those “new people” in dazzling clothes remind us, there is so much salvation to be witnessed to here around us.

So, can I get a witness?

Amen.

Sermon: 6th Sunday after Easter 4.27.08

2008-05-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

Edgebrook Lutheran Church

April 27, 2008

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Gospel John 14:15–21

⁵If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
¹⁸I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

You Promised

Every summer during college I worked as a camp counselor. The camp was named “Kirchenwald” which means “church in the woods.” At the end of each camping week, the entire camp would play a game called Capture the Flag. It was a great game because the whole camp, from second graders to high schoolers, would play. We would split the camp into two teams, and each take a field to defend our flag. I would assemble the team on my field together and attempt to make some strategies. We did, after all, want to win.

At the end of one of these strategic sessions one week, a fourth grader said, “Tim, I think we should pray that the Holy Spirit enter our shoes so we can run faster than the other team!” I looked down at little Sarah and said, “Sarah, God doesn’t work that way.” She looked right up at me and said, “Well it’s a good thing you’re not God or we’d never win!”

And she’s right, of course. It is a good thing I’m not God. It is a good thing that God is more complicated than the small box that I tried to put God in when talking to Sarah.

Today we receive a promise, we receive a reminder, that God is complicated, more complicated than you and I can possibly imagine. This is not means for alarm. This is not means for despair. This is means for glory. You see, we glory that God is complicated in word and deed, in action and structure, because that too is a reminder that God is at work in ways we don't understand. And today is just an example of that.

In today's gospel message we have Jesus finishing the speech that he started last week. It a speech of "final things." If you'll remember, last week Jesus reminded his disciples, and therefore us, that he is "the way, the truth, and the life." Today he tells them something new.

In this last half of the speech, he makes a different statement.

In this last half of that speech, that speech he gives them right before he is going to eat dinner with them, be arrested, be crucified, and rise again. In this last half of the speech that he gives before they are going to get a complete shock: the death of their rabbi. Before they are going to get a complete upheaval of their life's trajectory. In this speech, before he leaves them for the cross of Golgotha, he gives them a promise.

"The Father will give you another Advocate to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth."

The Spirit of truth. The Advocate.

Or, as we say, the Holy Spirit. God's indwelling nature in creation, in humanity, in this world. God's emotional side, as I like to say it. That side of God that nudges us, pushes us, protects, and yes, advocates for us. Jesus promises his disciples that he will send his "indwelling spirit" to be not only with them, but in them.

In us.

As good Lutherans, we beg the question, What does this mean?

Well, you must know that this emotional side of God, this Spirit of indwelling is not new to Scripture. Jesus is not introducing a new idea to the disciples, although I'm not sure they recognized that.

You see, in Old Testament scripture, this Spirit of truth, this Advocate, this indwelling spirit of God is mentioned quite a bit. Her name is Ruah. Yes, that's right, it's a she. Ruah, God's Ruah , God's wisdom is a "she" because Hebrew is a gendered language, and Ruah, which actually means "breathe" in Hebrew, is feminine. Now, in Greek it's Paraclete, which is neither feminine or masculine, and in Latin its Spiritus which is definitely masculine. So, you see, the switch from feminine to masculine in speaking about God is not original to the text. God's Spirit was originally thought of as Ruah, as she that indwells.

And so Jesus is promising that, although it may look like he's gone, God is not. Although it may look like there is no light in this world, there is. The Ruah, the Paraclete, the Spirit of God is with them.

But how will they know? How will we know that the spirit of God is with us? Because, I think this is one part of the tradition that I think we take for granted…or don't take at all.

Do we look for the Holy Spirit, the Ruah of God, the breathe of God working in our world? In our creation? Do we look for the Advocate?

Perhaps we do, but it's hard. It's hard to tell what is breathe of God and what is just wind. It's hard to tell what is the Spirit of God and what, as my grandmother used to say, is just "indigestion."

It was early in the morning on July 4^th of last year when my beeper went off. I rolled over on the small bed that the hospital provided for me. ED, my beeper said. So I called down to the Emergency Room Department.

"Hi Father, you're needed down here right away, please." I glanced at my watch, it was 4:28 am. "Give me five minutes," I muttered. "Ok, please be quick."

So I put on my collar, grabbed my Bible, and headed toward the elevators.

As the doors opened, and walked down the Northwestern hallway, the ED was as busy as I'd ever seen it. July 4^th. A lot of accidents. I entered trauma one, pulled back the curtain, and saw a young man, my age, lying on the stretcher. His mother was weeping uncontrollably over his cold body, his father rubbing her shoulders. There were sisters and brothers, about four siblings, crowded around the bed.

When I entered, the mother looked up and she said, "Padre, Padre, pardone, pardone." She only spoke Spanish, and my Spanish was not enough to communicate fully. But the sister translated, and I knew what I had to do.

I went over to the sink, drew some water, blessed the water, and joined the family around the young man. I blessed his head with a cross, blessed his hands with a cross, and there, under those harsh lights of the trauma room, we all said good bye to this young man. This young man who, just hours before was splashing in Lake Michigan, jumping off his father's boat. One flip too many in those early morning hours, and he hit his head on the side as he jumped.

And here we were, saying goodbye, commending him and the family around to God's care, to God's comfort. As we were praying and going through the liturgy, nurses and EMT's came in and joined our circle. One nurse held the mother in her arms. An EMT wrapped his arm around the youngest sibling there, rubbing her shoulder, and we all prayed and cried together.

Afterwards I went up to the chapel at the hospital. It was dark. I was alone in there. And I let God have it. Where was the God that could still the waters? Where was the God that could part the sea? Where was the God who promised the Advocate, who promised protection, to that young man down there? To that mother, who's only words she could mutter when she saw me was, "forgive him. Forgive him!"

Where was God there?

And then I sat, exhausted. And I remembered the nurse, holding the mother in her arms. I remembered the EMT, a large burly guy, rubbing the shoulder of that young sibling. I remembered the water, that blessed water, that baptismal water, running over the head and the hands of the young man as a sign that he, still, and especially now, was a child of God.

And I that’s when I experience Ruah. I saw the Advocate. I saw the great helper, the comforter, the promised one to be with us. It was a glimpse. It was in the form of a love that moved past the emergency room to cut to the heart of the pain there. And it was God.

You see, Jesus is about to leave his disciples. Jesus is about to die, and I have no doubt that those disciples were going to go back and curse God, shake their fists in the air, and say, "You promised!"

You promised.

And so, here, today, before any of that happens, Jesus promises them that, no matter what it looks like, God is with them, indwelling, moving, shaking, advocating, helping. Breathing in them, with them, and for them.

And I think there was good reason for this promise now, because, even when we try to look for God's Spirit, God's breathe working in this world, we often come up questioning what we are seeing. It is only later, only in the aftermath, only in the resurrection period and afterward, that we remember where God was.

And so Jesus gives his disciples, gives us, the promise before hand. It's given so that we can trust that God is present, God is working, God is indwelling in us despite what it might look like around us. It's a promise that will carry us through those times, that will carry us through those hours of darkness, of loneliness, those hours when we look up at the cross and say, "You promised!"

It's given to those disciples, to us, to be our comforter and our advocate because it is only later that we can see it.

God the Spirit is at work in our world, is at work in us. We may not see it now, but I bet we'll see it in retrospect. I bet we'll see it later. So lets trust it now, and look for it later.

Amen.

Sermon: The Fifth Sunday in Easter 4.20.08

2008-04-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

John 14:1-14

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴And you know the way to the place where I am going." ⁵Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" ⁶Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
⁸Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." ⁹Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? ¹⁰Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. ¹²Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

Ego Ami

Today Jesus makes quite a bold claim for us in this Gospel reading from John:

"I am the way, the truth, and the life."

What a bold claim, the "ego ami," that phrase the John associates with Jesus so much, connecting Jesus to God at the burning bush in Exodus. "I am that I am" God says there. "Ego ami" Jesus says here.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life."

But do we approach it that way? Do we approach our faith, our religion, our quest to seek the "otherness" of God allowing God in Jesus to speak first, to make this claim of pathway, truth, and life first?

Author A.J. Jacobs wrote a memoir entitled, "My Year of Living Biblically" in which he attempts to follow all of the laws from the New and Old Testaments for an entire year. Now, Jacobs himself comes from a Jewish family, but he is a marginal participator in religion at best. High festival days receive some attention, but he never goes to temple and readily admits so.

But in his year of living Biblically, he begins to see his life transformed by the practices that he picks up. He prays three times a day and, although it's uncomfortable, and although he's not even sure what he's praying to, he finds that the practice itself is beneficial, regular, spiritual, in fact. And he even starts to have moments, glimpses, and times when he begins to believe in God, he begins to believe that there is more out there than just atoms that change over time, but an actual God who is changing them.

n this journey with faith, he has many advisors and spiritual helpers that he consults on a regular basis. One is his best friend's father, who just happens to be a retired Lutheran pastor.

One day they're sitting down to eat and he says to the pastor, "You know, this practice has been a really great experience. I feel healthier, I feel less cynical, I feel…faithful. Perhaps I should take up religion just because it's better for me and better for my children."

The pastor sips his coffee slowly, takes a swig, and puts it back down. And then he looks A.J. in the eye and says, "I don't think that's a very good reason to believe. Belief in God should come from somewhere more…organic."

Faith in God should come from somewhere more organic. You see, as much as I agree with A.J. that faith is good for our bodies as well as our souls, good for our minds as well as our hearts, belief cannot come when we place ourselves first in the equation. In the end I always agree with that pastor

Have you ever been talking with someone, telling them a story about what happened to you, a really pivotal, exciting story, and you end it and the first words out of their mouth, "Oh yeah? I've got a better one, guess what happened to me…"

Or you've had that relationship, that friend that always takes and takes and takes, and never gives. They suck the life out of you, every living breath to the point where the relationship breaks, you can't take it anymore.

You see, those conversations don't work, one party always goes away jaded. Those relationships don't work because one party always ends up having enough of it.

So why do we think it will work with our faith life? Why do we think that we can look up to God and say to God, "Ego Ami" I am the important party in this relationship. What are you going to give me? What are you going to do for me? What am I going to get out of following your way, your truth, your life?

Faith has to be more organic than that. It has to come from the roots of history, experience, of being. It has to come allowing God in Jesus to speak the word first. It has to come by allowing God to be God, allowing Jesus to be God. It has to come by hearing Jesus say, Ego Ami! And us not trying to refute it.

And we do refute it. Unfortunately we refute it too often, and we don't like to hear that. We don't like to be convicted of that, but it's true. I mean, look at today. Earth Day. We've had to set up an entire day of consciousness to remind us that we live on Earth and should take care of it.

And why did we do that? Because we've looked at the Earth, this habitat that God has given us, and have said "Ego Ami". I am the Lord of this Earth. I can rape, pillage, and plunder it like I want. I can deforest it until it's nothing but an arid wasteland. I don't have to let the fields lie fallow every seven years. I don't have kill animals ethically, "Ego Ami" I am the god of creation.

But we are not Lord's of the earth, su ei, you are the Lord of the Earth, I am just a steward.

And that is the humility with which I think we need to re-approach faith, religion, and our quest for the "otherness" of God. We come here each week first and foremost to worship God. Yes we receive blessing here. Yes we receive spiritual food here. But first and foremost God speaks to us here, Ego Ami, I am that I am. Jesus speaks to us here, Ego Ami, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And as a church, that is our mission and our goal. You know, as you search around church websites, both Lutheran and non-Lutheran, I often see a button the home page that I just despise. The button is often entitled, "What we offer." And I know it means well, but, my God, if I click on it and it doesn't say "a relationship with God in Jesus Christ" it's off the mark.

We must have God in Jesus as first and foremost in our programming, in our worship offerings, in all that we do here, God must speak the first word! Ego Ami! And we must speak only secondarily, Su ei, you are God and because you are God we seek you, we desire you, we want our children and grandchildren to know you, to love you, to be healed by and in you.

Su ei.

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Given to us that we might believe, that we might be in relationship with God. But given to us first by God and for that, my friends, we give praise to God, we worship God, we adore God.

So come, Jesus is speaking a word, "Ego Ami" I Am. We follow that voice and not our own. Amen.

As Spring and Easter Converge...

2008-03-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

"Long, long, long ago;
Way before this winter's snow
First fell upon these weathered fields;
I used to sit and watch and feel
And dream of how the spring would be,
When through the winter's stormy sea
She'd raise her green and growing head,
Her warmth would resurrect the dead.

Long before this winter's snow
I dreamt of this day's sunny glow
And thought somehow my pain would pass
With winter's pain, and peace like grass
Would simply grow. The pain's not gone
It's still as cold and hard and long
As lonely pain has ever been,
It cuts so deep and far within.

Long before this winter's snow
I ran from pain, looked high and low
For some fast way to get around
Its hurt and cold. I'd have found,
If I had looked at what was there,
That things don't follow fast or fair.
That life goes on, and times do change,
And grass does grow despite life's pains.

Long before this winter's snow
I though that this day's sunny glow,
The smiling children and growing things
And flowers bright were brought by spring
Now, I know the sun does shine,
That children smile, and from the dark, cold, grime
A flower comes. It groans, yet sings,
And through its pain, its peace begins.
-"Resurrection" by Mary Ann Bernard

Sermon: Great Easter Vigil at Sunrise

2008-03-23T06:03:00.001-07:00

John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ²So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." ³Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰Then the disciples returned to their homes.
¹¹But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹²and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." ¹⁴When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." ¹⁶Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). ¹⁷Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Live Boldly

“O what a beautiful morning, O what a beautiful day. I’ve got a beautiful feelin,’ everything’s going God’s way.”

They sang that song every morning on the trail when I was riding with the cattle through Eastern Ohio. Those ranch-hands always thought it was funny to wake us up in that way, even though we were miles away from Oklahoma, and while mildly annoying so early in the morning, I can’t imagine another morning where it would be more appropriate.

Easter morning! It’s an exciting time. It’s a time when we can really exclaim, really celebrate in fullness that God has kept the promise, that God has taken away death’s sting, that God has moved past death into a new life.

And it is exciting! Exciting enough to wake up before the sun, to show even the sun, even all of creation, that this day is worth getting up early for, worth celebrating even in the darkness before dawn.

Because that is, after all, when all of this began. John’s Gospel puts Mary coming very early in the morning to the tomb. She comes “in darkness,” as the text says, “to look at the tomb.” Now that word “look” is very deceiving in the English. In the Greek it’s much better.

You see, in the Greek it is clear that Mary isn’t coming just to “look” at the tomb, she’s coming to “study” the tomb, to contemplate it, to meditate on it, to dissect it mentally. In the early morning, in the darkness of the morning, even in the darkness of her faith (after all, her Rabbi has just been murdered), she comes to study what has happened.

She comes in the darkness to study her faith.

And why are you all here? Well, that’s kind of an unfair question, as we know the end of the story. But really, we should be here to study our faith, to dissect, to meditate, to contemplate the tomb. Because, it is in coming in that way that we are truly surprised again.

And Mary is surprised. So surprised, in fact, that she doesn’t have time to meditate and study the tomb. The whole place is in shambles! The stone is rolled away, the body is missing; its all gone. She has come in quiet to dissect, and the quiet morning turns into a whirlwind of activity.

And she runs to the other disciples, and they run to see the tomb as well. They also find things in shambles, but quickly make their exit. After all, they don’t want to be accused of stealing the body. They had to get out of there.

But not Mary. No. Mary stays. The Gospel of John has Mary staying by the tomb. She is going to study the tomb, like she first set out to do. And so she sits and she cries by the tomb. These are tears that probably would have come whether or not the tomb was empty, because she is doubly grieved now. Not only did they kill her Rabbi, they’ve now taken his body. And so she sits at this grave in the middle of a garden, and weeps as she studies.

But this is not the first time there has been weeping in a garden. In the book of Genesis, we find God in the garden, weeping with Adam and Eve as they have first sinned. Weeping because creation can no longer be innocent. Weeping because the relationship between humanity and the creator had been torn asunder. But instead of a tomb stone, a flaming sword would close this tomb.

And even the night before there was weeping in the garden, as Jesus sat at Gethsemane, wondering what was going to happen next. Crying because all was about to fall apart. And as those soldiers approached with flaming torches, Jesus knew that his relationship with his disciples would be torn asunder, as they all fled and Peter denied him.

It seems that gardens and crying go together. So when we find Mary weeping in the garden, with her plans to meditate, to contemplate, to peacefully grieve over her Rabbi, her Master, her Jesus torn asunder, we should not be surprised.

But then enters the Gardner.

In John, Mary is sitting by the tomb, and Jesus comes up behind her. But Mary doesn’t know it’s him. She thinks it’s the Gardner. Mary mistakes Jesus for the Gardner and says to him, “Please sir, if you’ve taken the body, tell me where it is.” She actually asks him if he’s taken the body. Oh, how funny. How funny! Because you see, Jesus is the Gardner and he has taken the body! It is him.

But Mary doesn’t know it until.

But Mary doesn’t know it until he calls her name.

All Jesus says is “Mary.”

All he has to say is her name.

And in that calling, in mentioning Mary’s name, in calling Mary by her name, every relationship that was torn asunder is suddenly mended.

The fall in Eden, the betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane, the death on the cross, the strained relationship of humanity as a whole, with us, with our own strained relationships are suddenly mended with the love of God. Because God knows our name, just as he knows Mary’s name, and calls to us past death into a new life.

And Mary, who had come to weep, who had come to meditate on death, is now raised to new life.

And imagine it, an actual raising. I can imagine Mary sitting, weeping, and turning. Jesus calls her by name and she can’t help it, can’t help but get up. Can’t help but rise from where she is to run and meet the God who knows her by name, who has called her from her tears of sadness into tears of joy.

She can’t help it! That’s God’s way!

And she can’t keep it to herself either, she must tell the other disciples. And she is bursting with the news. You can tell because, when she meets the other disciples the only words she can utter are, “I have seen the Lord!”

Bursting, just bursting with the news of God. In the resurrection of Christ, she too has risen to a new life. A life of proclamation, not of tears. A life of contemplating how God moved from death to life, not how everything died before her eyes.

And that is the way of God this morning. That is what we celebrate in such a grand fashion this morning. We celebrate the ultimate bursting of God, bursting from that tomb, the grace of God, which has overflowed in our lives to repair what is torn asunder.

And we are no stranger to weeping in gardens. We’ve wept in the gardens of life all too often. Over relationships torn asunder. Over dreams long buried. Over friends and loved ones.

But on this day. On this day we are reminded that Jesus Christ has beaten death, has repaired the irreparable, that God is working God’s way! On this day we are reminded that we are also raised with Jesus Christ, and with Mary, from that place and brought into a new understanding, a new meditation, a new garden of Eden where we are called by name and loved just the same.

And at hearing this, we cannot help, we cannot help but burst with the news. We cannot help but live! Truly live! Truly live as Christ truly lived on that fateful Sunday morning.

And what does it mean to truly live? I think Mary gives us a great example. It means that we run to share what we have seen and heard about God.

But how? There is another image I want to give you this morning as well.

There is a story about St. Francis. Later in his ministry with the poorest of poor, it is said he walked up to an almond tree in the dead of winter and spoke to it. He said to the tree, “Speak to me about God.”

And it is said that the tree immediately began to bloom.

In the dead of winter, it began to bloom.

Easter is here to remind us that to speak about God means to bloom, to burst, with the news of aliveness. Even in the deadest of winter, even in the gloomiest of tombs, Easter reminds us once again that God is blooming! And that we are blooming!

So, people of God, this morning know that everything is going God’s way. So live boldly! And go, bloom for the world, telling others, bursting with joy, that Jesus Christ is living again! Amen.

Sermon: Palm Sunday 3.16.08

2008-03-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Matthew 21:1–11

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. ³If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately." ⁴This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
⁵"Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; ⁷they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. ⁸A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
"Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
¹⁰When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?" ¹¹The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."

What Revolution?

You know, to many folks, even some sitting here today, what we just did is pretty unusual. Comical, even. And I have a feeling it would have been slightly comical to those people in Jerusalem who were standing by the side of that road, watching this event happen some two thousand years ago.

Here comes this great processional! Rider and steed, attendants and arms, marching through the city streets to pomp and fanfare. Only, the processional isn’t that great. It’s a rider and donkey. There are attendants, but they aren’t robed in shiny armor, they don’t carry huge blades, spears, and pilates like the Roman soldiers of Pilate.

No, they’re a pretty sad lot walking into Jerusalem that day. Simple robes. Simple donkey. Simple announcement. No trumpets. No fanfare. No show of military or political power. Just…simple.

But that’s precisely the point.

You know, there are some scholars out there who think that this whole parade, this procession of palms, was actually a purposeful political joke Jesus was playing on the Roman government. You see, when a Roman governor or senator, or anyone with power, entered a city, they would often make a spectacle of it.

They would ride in on a grand steed, often a white steed, robed in armor and full cape. They would have attendants and servants flanking them, and going before and after, shouting out their name and calling attention to them. “Look! Here comes the great Herod.” Or “Look! Here comes the great Pilate, prelate of his majesty Ceaser!” And people would flock to the road to watch the procession. It was free entertainment.

So imagine the shock, imagine the surprise, imagine, even, the comical scene of Jesus astride a donkey entering the city. Except, this time, Jesus doesn’t come in the name of a Roman official, he doesn’t come in the name of some taxing politician, Jesus comes in the name of the Lord! Jesus comes in the name of the God who called David, their ancestor, to kingship. That same God who now calls Jesus to kingship. Kingship in spite of the rule of Herod, in spite of the rule of Pilate, in spite of the rule of Ceaser himself!

And the people, at first coming to see this comical scene, this person who comes in the name of the Lord, this man who comes not on a steed, but a donkey, not with a procession, but with a ragtag group of blue-collar workers, now start to wonder if this is actually it. They see the signs. They start to wonder if this is the beginning the revolution, the beginning of the new Zion.

And it is. But not as they want it to be. But not as they expect it to be. Jesus will be not just a revolutionary political figure, not just a revolutionary religious leader. Jesus will be the revolutionary God that they sought to know.

But, it will all happen in the shadows. It will all happen in that hidden way that God works. It will all happen in the opposite of how you think it should be.

You know, God works in mystery. God works in opposites. Here, as Lutherans, we truly believe this. Explain how a man riding in to town on a donkey is king, when there are tons of actual kings with actual power riding in on actual steeds every other week. Explain how the death of a 160 lb Jewish guy on a cross is actually the pivotal hinge that will change the trajectory of the world. Explain how God would give up power to die in solidarity with humanity, just so we could move past death to true life.

It can only be explained in paradox and mystery. It can only be explained in stating the fact that God is at work, as a weaver at a loom, stitching the lives of the world thread by thread. And individually, the threads don’t look like much, but there is a wonderful tapestry of salvation being woven.

Today we celebrate a thread of that tapestry, Jesus’ triumphant, if mysterious, if even comical, ride into Jerusalem, showing without a doubt, that God is not about white horses and armor clad guards, but about humility and greenery, about Hosannas and mystery.

As we head into holy week, let us take a look at our own lives. Are we about the things of God? Are we about humility and greenery, Hosannas and Alleluias? Do we look for God in the paradoxes, the mysteries of life? Or are we banking on white steeds and feats of power?

The Good News is, God in Jesus works in mystery. And the man who humbly rides on a donkey, is the powerful God who is beginning a revolution: the revolution of our hearts, of our minds, of our being to be united in God’s love.

The revolution of creation being brought back into relationship with God once again.

And that, my friends, is a revolution worth getting behind. That, my friends, is a revolution that will draw you in, as God’s love is shown this week in paradox, in opposites, in mystery. That, my friends, is truly good news.

Amen.

Sermon: 2nd Sunday in Lent

2008-02-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

Genesis 12:1-4a

Romans 4:1-5,13-17

John 3:1-17

Re-Hearing the Promise

I had this sermon all worked out before I saw the flickering lights.

I had this sermon all worked out, all prepared. The background of each of the texts, the historical context laid out plain for you to hear. To appreciate. To use as a guide.

I had this sermon all worked out, all prepared, before I saw the flickering lights.

They were lights that flickered about 65 miles west of hear on Thursday night.

Valentines day.

We were listening intently to the radio as we drove to the restaurant. We listened intently to it after dinner as well.

On 780, on 91.5. And when we got home, on ABC, CBS, Fox. There it was. Those flickering lights.

You see, to dig at the heart of texts, you need to know the historical context. To hear a text as it was first heard, it is important to know that Genesis was written by at least five writers, most probably royal court scribes. It is important to know that Paul was writing to a church in the midst of a schism in Rome, the Jewish-Christians and the Gentile-Christians fighting amongst themselves.

And it is important to know that the Gospel of John was written somewhere around 96 AD, almost 66 years after Jesus died.

These are important things to know to get at the heart of a text, to hear the heart of a text.

But on Valentines Day, I think it is safe to say that our hearts were not into knowing about 66 AD, or the Yawhist redaction of Genesis, or the impetus to Paul's letter to Rome.

Our hearts were in DeKalb, 65 miles west of here. Our hearts still are, in many ways.

And so, I had to relook at these texts. I had to revision them, re-hear them with my heart in DeKalb. After all, the historical context of a work is all well and good, it helps my mind to know many things. But how am I to go out of here working with my hands and my heart if these scripture readings don't speak to OUR context. To OUR hearts, in DeKalb.

And they do speak to it.

Because, as I re-read these text from that vantage point, I heard something that I didn't hear before. I re-heard the promise.

The first two readings are reminders for us again that God is in the blessing business. Hearing both about Abram, and about Paul, you will be reminded that God is faithful to us, bringing about blessing not because we have done what we were supposed to do, but because God remains God! And God blesses. And even as I would like to give you more on these two readings, I can't this morning. I can't because we must move forward to the Gospel. In these times, the Gospel is paramount, the Gospel must be heard, the Gospel is what truly speaks in these times.

In today's Gospel you will hear these words:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

You know those words. They've been written on our minds from the days of Catechism, from our earliest years. But they speak powerfully today.

They speak powerfully today because, as I heard Matt Lauer say on the "Today Show" Friday morning, "The massacre at NIU is a sign of the times." And I disagree.

That killing is not the sign of the times, but that cross is the sign of the times. Trucks and cars with that cross were the ones cleaning up the mess. Candles, flickering lights, shaped in that shape were standing vigil on Thursday night and Friday night, and even today.

That, people of God, is the sign that we must look to in these times because it is the sign of the times.

You know, those words of John 3:16 and 17 are spoken to us, yes. But in the book of John, they are spoken to a man named Nicodemus. Now, Nicodemus is a smart man. He's a Jewish leader, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Counsel, but he is confused. We know he is confused because John says he "comes to Jesus in darkness." This darkness is not only a time of day. It is also an indicator into his spiritual sense. He's spiritually "in the dark."

And so what does Jesus do? Jesus tells him about the ways of God. You see, Nicodemus thinks he knows the ways of God. He sees Jesus healing people, doing miracles, all sorts of great things and immediately assumes that these are the ways that you can tell if someone is from God. But Jesus flips his ideas.

"To know the ways of God," Jesus says, "you must be born from above." Literally, that phrase "from above" in Greek is "anewthay" simply meaning "again." "To know the ways of God, you must be born again," he says. You must let go of the natural ways that you think you know the ways of God, and look at them from a different perspective- the perspective of someone who has simply heard the promise and received it. The perspective of someone who has been baptized, the promise that God loves us even though we have yet to do one thing.

Now, this is important for us to hear today. It's very easy for us to believe that God is blessing us when we can see good things happening. It's very easy for us to believe in God as miracle upon miracle comes our way.

But what about now? We come in darkness, like Nicodemus. We come confused. This is no blessing. 65 miles west of here on Valentines Day hearts were ripped from their homes. No blessing. There may be blessings in the aftermath, there may be blessings in the cleanup, in the inevitable coming together of the community. But that act was no blessing, and God was not in that act.

And, so what we need to hear again is that reminder that physical signs are not the ways of God. Despite what the physical reality may present us, God's promise still stands. God's blessing stands, even now because God has been to see death before, and God has come out the other side.

For God so loved the world that God stood with us in our darkest days of death, that God broke the chains that death has around our necks, that God rose from the grave even as God promises the blessing of a resurrection. God gives eternal life, even today. That is the gospel, and that is what we need to rehear again today.

Condemnation, destruction, these are not what God has in store for creation, despite what it might seem. And therefore they should not be what we as a people are about. Instead, God has in store for us new life. A new life found in the promise we hear in the waters at baptism.

Therefore, people of God, as Moses raised the bronze serpent in the desert to provide healing for those dying of poison, look now upon the Son of Man risen on the cross, risen from the tomb, risen in our hearts and our hands as we reach out to those students and families in DeKalb.

The good news is that God stands with us in the face of death, and stands with us as we rise from our tombs.

And that promise, that promise that God continues to bless us, even as we see things fall around us. That promise that God has been here before, been at the footstep of death on this cross before us, and has promised a resurrection on the other side of that.

That promise, that blessing, that cross…that empty tomb. That is the sign of the times. Hear it again today.

Amen.

Sermon: Third Sunday after Epiphany

2008-01-27T11:10:00.000-08:00

¹²Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. ¹³He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, ¹⁴so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
¹⁵"Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles —
¹⁶the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned."
¹⁷From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
¹⁸As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen. ¹⁹And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." ²⁰Immediately they left their nets and followed him. ²¹As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. ²²Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
²³Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Good News: God continues to call.

The Calling

“You have come down to the lakeshore seeking neither the wise nor the wealthy, but only asking for me to follow…”

(“We are called to act with Justice. We are called to love tenderly. We are called to serve one another. To walk humbly with God.”)

We’re going to sing those words in a minute; words that repaint the picture we have in today’s gospel and place us in the role of Peter and Andrew, James and John.

The calling, Jesus crying out for those fisherman to follow him on this journey he was to take.

They are unlikely candidates, by the way. I mean, think about it, why did Jesus call these folks? Why fisherman when he could have called orators, or politicians, or Jewish priests, or philosophers, or book keepers. Why did he choose, as his first disciples, to call fisherman?

I don’t think it was because of the great analogy between snagging fish with a hook and snagging God’s people with the gospel. After all, there’s no indication that any of these guys are any good at speaking. In fact, as we get to know Peter more and more, it turns out that he’s a rather brash guy who seems to annoy people more than attract them.

So why fisherman? Why them as the first; why them as the inner-circle?

I think I know. I think I know because, well, I spent a lot of time in a boat fishing when I was younger.

When I was a little boy living in Toledo, my father would wake me and my brothers up early on some summer mornings. We’re talking early early. For young boys, waking up at 4:30 is not something to be proud of or lauded over. But my father would wake us up and say, “Let’s go get the big one”

And we knew we were fishing. We’d don our old jeans and ratty sweatshirts. We’d grab our little reels from the garage, my younger brother had a reel with Snoopy on it, and we’d pile in the Chevette toward the lake.

My father would stop by the bait shack off the road and buy a bucket of dirt. My brothers and I would sit in the car and wipe sleep from our eyes. Then we’d all pile out, get into the tin row boat that was barely big enough for the four of us, and he’d paddle us out into the lake.

And we’d sit.

We’d sit with our lures in the water, secretly hoping we’d catch a big one. And we’d talk. Dad would tell us stories. We’d tell him about school, or karate, or what we wanted to do on vacation.

And we’d sit.

We’d sit until four in the afternoon, until our little bodies could no longer take the sun, until the crusts that we’d throw to the fish ran out, and we’d just sit. We never caught the big one. Sure, we caught little Sunny’s, blue-gills, occasional small mouth bass. But we never caught the big one.

But what we did catch was the stories. What we did catch was the time spent together. What we did catch was the experience of knowing, first hand, that our father loved us and wanted to spend time with us. What we caught was love.

But we would have missed it had we not stuck with the fishing. If we would have gotten frustrated with the time of day, frustrated that the fish weren’t biting, if we had grumbled about the stories, if we would have let our own agendas get in the way, we would have missed out on that time.

But people who fish know that we aren’t working in a normal time frame. It takes patience, it takes a hearty resolve, it takes conversation, and it takes a willing heart to do that work. And even though we didn’t catch the big one, we caught something much more precious. We caught love.

I think Jesus called these fishermen, the first people called, because he knew that it would take a fisherman’s attitude to walk that walk with him. It would take time, and at times it would seem pointless. It would take conversation, even though the stories wouldn’t always make sense right away. And it would take a willing heart, willing to stick with it, knowing that, at the end of the day, it would be worth it.

That is the call that Peter and Andrew, James and John answered. Jesus needed those who would stick through it to the end.

Jesus needed to call people who would last through thick and thin, who would survive the storm of the raging waters of Galilee. Who would survive being touched by lepers, who wouldn’t feel shame in hanging around with prostitutes and tax collectors, people that others thought were shameful and dirty. God needed those first disciples to be people who could stand in the shadow of the cross, see their rabbi, their mentor, their God crucified, and still come back to grace the door of the empty tomb.

God needed disciples who would stick with it and people who fish stick with it.

That is why we have to hear this call again today, this story in today’s gospel to wake us up in the early hours of this Sunday morning to come and sit here with each other. To come here to experience the love of God again because we know that when we get out of this pew here today, when we step back on shore from this boat right here that we’re in, the story continues, the call hasn’t stopped.

Are you fishers? No, let me rephrase that. You, Edgebrook Lutheran Church, ARE fishers. How do I know? Because you’ve been called. You’ve been called at your baptism. You’ve been called here today in this gospel lesson. You’ve been called through that nagging movement in your guts that tells you that poverty, homelessness, that violence, and war, that loneliness and despair are not the way that God wants us to be in this world!

And here you experience the opposite of those things! Here you experience a place where people greet each other. Here you experience a world where everyone has enough food at this table, where we sing songs instead of fight wars, where no one is alone because we’re all in this boat together. That is, by the way, why we celebrate the cycles of the church year. You know, starting with Advent and the birth, moving straight through Epiphany to Lent with the death, and then to glorious Easter with the rising. And then we spend a long six months in Pentecost, that time where the disciples told others about the birth, the death, and the rising.

Here you hear the call, and here you catch a glimpse of that story that God has in store for all of us. And that’s the good news about being fishers: God is calling you, wanting you, talking to you. You have a relationship with a God who loves you and wants you to be that person to share that love, in actions and words, with others.

But we must stick with it. We must be the fisher disciples, who despite the ups and downs of life, despite the ups and downs of even church life, can stay through the storm to tell others of the cross and the empty tomb, those symbols of hope that tell us that God has another way for us to be and live for each other. Those things that show us how God loves us, even past death into new life.

Today we have the congregational meeting, an important meeting where we decide, once again this year, to sit with Jesus in the boat, listening to this story of love, knowing that we must go and share that story, sit in other boats and tell the story to others.

Dear people, God is calling to you again today. Follow Jesus to the cross, to the tomb, and back again, both as a people and as a church. God has called you to show others that there is a different way of living with one another, a salvation that, as Jesus reminds us, is close at hand!

Oh, and don’t worry if you “don’t catch the big one.” If you don’t eradicate poverty in one swift stroke, if you don’t get a million people to come to church to hear God’s story. We’re not on a time crunch here; we’re fishing. Stick with it and, if nothing else, you’ll be caught in God’s love.

But I look out there and think: If God in Jesus has called us, if we are fishers as God has named us, God’s going to do a lot more through us. More than we can ever imagine.

So come, God’s calling out, the Good News must be spread. Let’s go fishing.

Amen.

Sermon-First Sunday of Christmas

2008-01-02T07:49:00.000-08:00

Edgebrook Lutheran Church

First Sunday of Christmas

Matthew 2:13-23

¹³Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." ¹⁴Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."
¹⁶When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. ¹⁷Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
¹⁸"A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."
¹⁹When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ²⁰Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead. ²¹Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. ²²But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. ²³There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."

Be Not Afraid

The midnight flight to Egypt.

Matthew does a superb job at crafting a story that will require telling. In the first two chapters of his Gospel message there are angels, an illegitimate birth, visions, and now violence.

Joseph, having been warned in a dream, takes flight to Egypt with Mary and his newborn son.

Herod, having been told by the Magi about the birth of what he believes to be a rival king, makes a violent raid on Bethlehem, killing any male two years or younger in the attempts at preventing this king prodigy from ever growing to take his place.

And what is Joseph’s motivation for his saving act? Trust. Trust in the God that desires to save.

And what is Herod’s motivation for his bloody act? Fear. Fear that someone will take his political status. Fear that someone will unseat him. Fear that he will lose power.

Joseph trusts; Herod fears.

And Herod’s fear has bloody consequences. This text is known as the “slaughter of the innocents.” It is the text that clearly shows what happens when fear and power collide. It is the text that shows what happens when those in power make decisions out of fear, instead of trust.

Innocent people die. In this case, in many cases around the world, those innocents are children.

I’m thinking of Uganda, where children are kidnapped at night and drafted into the guerrilla army because the guerrilla’s fear that they will not be able to continue fighting if they don’t have a young, ready crop of children who know how to shoot a gun.

I’m thinking of those haunting scenes in the movie Schindler’s List, where the children are hiding in pianos, under mattresses, and in outhouses to keep from being sent to the work camps.

I’m thinking of the children in this country who die of hunger. Yes, in America, children die of hunger. 1 in 28 people in America don’t have enough food for the day. And why? Because our politicians are on the stumps trying to scare up our votes by mentioning 9/11, Islamic extremism, and other bogeymen instead of addressing hunger and poverty.

Yes, when people are trying to get into power, when people are afraid of losing power, they act out of fear and often times there are bloody consequences, and we have a similar reaction to Rachel in today’s reading: we cry over those lost.

You know, this section on Rachel is an interesting one, and often overlooked. Look back at it with me now. It says:

"A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."

This text is from Jeremiah 31. It was originally written in Jeremiah as a response to the people of Israel being destroyed by Babylon, and many Israelites were taken from their homes, including many children, and made to work as slaves in Babylon. Because of this, Jeremiah says that Rachel weeps for her children because they were destroyed by Babylon, who feared that Israel would align itself with other nations and destroy Babylon.

The Jewish tradition has an interesting take on this verse. The Jewish tradition has stories known as the Midrash. The Midrash are really stories about stories. In this instance, God allows Babylon to take over Israel because Israel was led by kings who didn’t do God’s work. But God is none-the-less sad about it. So God goes to Abraham and says, “Come weep with me over the loss of Israel.” But Abraham refuses, saying that he’s already done what God has asked of him, and so God should have mercy on Israel for Abraham’s sake. So God asks Isaac to come and weep with him, but Isaac refuses, saying that God should have compassion on God’s people for his sake because he was almost killed for God. So God turns to Moses, and says, “Moses, will you weep with me for Israel?” But Moses also refuses, reminding God of how faithful he had been in leading people through the desert. And so he encourages God to be merciful to Israel for all the good that Moses has done.

But God is silent in responding to all of them. So finally, God goes to Rachel. Rachel, who had to give her husband to her sister. Rachel, who has not held a grudge against her sister because she trusted God’s plan. Rachel, who had to live her life as second best for what seemed to be God’s plan, will come and weep with God, but asks God to love God’s people as he promised, giving up his pride as Rachel gave up her pride. You see, Rachel will come and weep with God because Rachel knows that God is not going to let Israel alone. Even when it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, God is still working to save humanity because God does not work out of fear, God does not work out of pride.

And so Rachel, in this Midrash, reminds God of who God is. God is trustworthy. God is a savior. God is greater than those tears and so, yes, Rachel and God cry over Israel as Babylon takes over, but those tears are muffled by another crying. It is the crying that was heard that Christmas morning as the Christ, God’s response to Rachel, is heard in the night.

You see, there are those in this world who combine power with fear and expect us to do the same. There are those in this world who would want to control us, our children, the poor, the marginalized with fear because they are afraid, like Herod was afraid. And so they use power and intimidation to do awful things that result in children suffering in Uganda, people dying in the Holocaust, or children dying of malnutrition and treatable disease in our own country because our dollars are going to fight fears instead of fight hunger and poverty.

But then there are those like Rachel, those like Joseph. Those who know that God is working behind the scenes, and therefore is working to bring about God’s saving work in this world. You see, the good news of God this Christmas is that Rachel’s tears and Herod’s fears are not the end of the story. The Christ-child is. The child who fought power by being powerless. The child that fought fear by being the God who does not fear. The child that would save us from Sin and death so that we can bring life to those in Uganda, on our streets, or anywhere in this world because we know that God does not operate out of fear, but out of love and trust.

If you want to see contrasting examples of kingship, just look at the Christ child and Herod. Herod looks powerful, but is powerless to his own fear. He acts out of it and blood is the result. The Christ child looks powerless, but is powerful in love. He acts out of that love, and our salvation is the result.

In this New Year, people of God, there may be times when we cry like Rachel because of the Herod’s of this world. But God is working, and so we trust like Rachel, we trust like Joseph, and we spread the good news that God is not working in fear, but is working in love to bring salvation again this New Year.

Sermon 12.9.07

2007-12-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

For the season of Advent, the church has decided to do something slightly different. Instead of the sermon coming after the Gospel, we've brought the sermon to the beginning of the readings; to set them up. That way, the readings become the sermon. The texts for this past week were Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-13, and Matthew 3:1-12

Three Spirits

This morning you are going to be introduced to three spirits: A spirit from the past, a spirit of the present, and a spirit who will point us forward, towards the future. In hearing these spirits, your mind and your consciousness will be taken away from this place. This ceiling will open up to reveal the annals of time spread out before you. And there you will be placed in the annals of time along this vast tapestry that is laid out before you. Your guides will be arriving shortly; they will stand over there, and over here. They will read for you these visions and paint those pictures. But first, but first before we travel, let me lay out the terrain for you so that you can walk it carefully. After all, these spirits do not visit for just any reason. They visit to point out to you those points in the history of the world’s salvation, the history of your salvation.

So come, allow the ceiling of your mind and your heart open as the picture is painted.

In our first reading you will go back, far back in time to 700 BC, to encounter a Spirit from the past. It is the spirit of hope. In glimpsing this spirit of hope, you’ll see Isaiah, a curious prophet and advisor. He’s the first of three prophets to write under the name “Isaiah,” and has served under king after king in Judah, and none have done what they’ve promised to do. None of those kings have done what they were expected to do. Each king has somehow alienated and isolated Judah from the powerful nations that surround them, or has given Judah over to be a slave-state for more powerful kings with powerless gods. Every action by a king brings them farther and farther from God and God’s holy plan for them, and they are on the cusp of destruction.

So what does Isaiah do, spurred on by this spirit of hope? Isaiah begins to see visions. Isaiah begins to dream dreams. He dreams of things that are not yet, but can be with the power of God. He dreams of a king, a perfect king, who does not rule with a sword in one hand and a bag of gold in the other. He dreams of a king who does not bend a knee at the power of surrounding armies, but bends a knee to scoop up a poor child or a bleating lamb.

“Imagine that this place is laid desolate,” Isaiah says, “and God has cut down every king that we’ve ever known. And we are left, like the stump of a tree that was once mighty. The stump of Jesse, our great-grandfather. Even then and there, God will revive our hope. A twig will spring forth from that dead stump, a king unlike these other kings we’ve had! He won’t rule with a sword around his waist, but with righteousness! He won’t lead with ideas that will line his own pocket, but will lead with ideas that will help the poor. This king will bring peace to this land, scarred by war. Peace that is so lasting, that is so pervasive, that even the animals will feel it! Our children will not die of snake bites. Our goats will not be killed by wolves. Harmony. Equality. Wisdom. These will be the hallmarks of this king’s reign.”

The spirit of hope will lead us to this vision of Isaiah; you’ll hear it in full in a few moments. But take a moment now to ponder what this might look like in our own war scarred world, today. No longer would our children die of drugs that snakes have sold them on the streets. No longer would the animals die because their habitats are poisoned or destroyed. No longer will our leaders and leaders around the world search out tax codes, practice business ethics, and advocate for laws that line their own pockets, but will watch for the vulnerable and poor. No longer will they lobby for war after war, killing our children, wives, husbands, friends, neighbors. Peace. Harmony. Equality. Wisdom. Righteousness. These will be the marks of the land, like a new branch rising from the stump of a world that continues to poison itself.

What would this spirit of hope mean for us today? What would this spirit of hope mean for us this Christmas?

But we can’t stay here, we must move one. Enter the spirit of unity to show us a glimpse of the present. This spirit lets us take a glimpse at a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome. Oh, don’t write this off yet, this is a glimpse of the present. You see, this church in Rome, they were fighting amongst themselves. Some of the members were Jewish-Christians who wanted to follow the laws of the Torah to the letter. Circumcision! Dietary laws! Specific worship practices! True followers of God adhere strictly to the law and all others are outsiders!

And then there were the other members of the church, the Gentile-Christians. They didn’t know the Torah. They weren’t circumcised. Their worship practices were different then those Jerusalem reverencing Jewish-Christians. This church was ready to split down the middle!

And in enters Paul, guided by the spirit of unity. Watch him write furiously as he attempts to squelch an argument from afar. “Come now,” he instructs the church, “the Torah is written for instruction, but is primarily provided to point us to the hope that is in Christ. Therefore, do not deride each other, but welcome each other. We are all seeking the same thing: closeness to the God who shows us love in Jesus. Jesus welcomed all, Gentile and Jew, and seeks that we might be one in him. These divisions over the Torah and the law are not helpful, and distract us from our true purpose: to believe in God and act on that belief to serve one another.”

The spirit of unity will lead us to this vision from Paul’s letter, and in a few moments you’ll hear it in full. But let’s take a minute to ponder what this would mean for our own church, here. These divisions that Paul writes about are not too far off from our own divisions in the church today. Christians fighting over which parts of Scripture to follow. Who to allow in worship and to communion. Whether traditional worship is preferable to contemporary worship. These fights are found in our own church, here, as well. Perhaps we could use a personalized letter from Paul today to remind us, under the spirit of unity, that focusing on these fights will distract us from our true purpose: to love God and act on that love in service.

What would this spirit of unity mean for us today? What would this spirit of unity mean for us this Christmas?

Ah, but we can’t stay here. We must move on to the strangest of all the visions, to a glimpse of the future. Here we find the spirit of promise showing us an eccentric man. He’s barely wearing anything: just some hide and leather. He eats what he finds on the earth, mostly locust and honey. He is the spitting image of the prophet Elijah, and many people think that he might be Elijah come back from the dead. But, although he speaks like Elijah, dresses like Elijah, and eats like Elijah, he is actually John the Baptist.

We find John the Baptist at the outset of Jesus’ ministry. He is an unusual character in the story of Christ’s work. He is actually a rival of Jesus for attention; John had many followers. You can see him down there by the Jordan, by that river of life for the people in that land, and he is commanding a large and diverse audience.

“You brood of vipers!” he yells, “who warned you that God was coming? Who told you to come and repent of your Sin? I am not God, I am just a messenger of God. I baptize you with water, the lifeblood of our physical lives, but God is coming! And God will baptize you with righteousness that will come like a fire upon your spirits, and it will burn a righteous fire within you to purge Sin.”

I can tell, this vision disturbs you. So close to Christmas, where our thoughts are of a baby and silent night, the spirit of promise shows you a vision of a man yelling about repentance and fire. But this vision is brought to us to refocus us this Christmas. You see, this vision reminds us that not only did God come in the baby in a manger, but God continues to come. God will come again once and for all with the spirit of hope seen in Isaiah, with the spirit of unity heard written by Paul to the Romans, to fulfill the promise that John the Baptist reminds us of today.

God is coming. God is coming to us in ways we don’t expect: like the peaceful leader who shows mercy instead of anger; like the great unifier who throws out those things that divide us; like the little baby, born in a stable; like the green shoot the springs out of what we thought was a dead stump. God is coming this Christmas to you, and to me, to this world. And John, speaking with venom of fire, is here to remind us of this.

Ah, but we cannot stay here. We must rush back to those pews, regain our sense of where we are. But the spirit of promise has led us here for a reason, so lets consider, if only for a moment, what John the Baptist’s message might mean for us today. If we hear again that God is coming, what do we do? Do we repent, as John encourages us to do? Do we daily remind ourselves that we belong to God, and are not gods ourselves? You know, in this season of Christmas, where we can whip out a credit card and buy whatever our hearts desire. Where we can fulfill the wishes of those around us with a gift. Where we can pass by someone hungry on the street, only to walk into a Starbucks and spend $4 on a coffee, it is easy to feel like a god. And so, as we hear this strange man yelling from the river of life, as we hear this promise for the future, a future where God comes to meet us in unexpected ways with hope and unity, how do we respond?

We respond by hearing the Word of God again. We respond by reminding ourselves that we are not gods, and we repent of our selfish ways. We respond by hoping and working for peace, by working for unity, by living in the promise that God speaks to us in the Word today.

You’ve seen three glimpses today of the past, present, and the future. You’ve been led by the spirit of hope that you’ll hear in Isaiah, the spirit of unity that you’ll hear in Romans, and the spirit of promise that you’ll hear in Matthew.

Hear these words in a new way this Christmas season: the hope, unity, and promise of a God who continues to come and will come again. And then, go, and live in that hope, in that unity, in that promise.

Amen.

What is Truth?

2007-11-28T11:43:00.000-08:00

I dove into the Gospel of John today. Well, I'll be more honest, I was pushed into the Gospel of John today. During this time of waiting, of anticipation, of longing, I expected to read excerpts from Isaiah, Matthew, Mark, or Luke. That's what I expected. But I should have known that, while Advent is a time of waiting, anticipation, and longing, it is most assuredly a time of surprises.

And so, John was the Gospel read from today.

More specifically, John 18, the story of Jesus' trial before Pilate. This is a funny text to read in the dawn of Advent because its almost like fast-forwarding the movie during the opening credits to the climactic push leading to the story's hinge. But, on the flip side, this is Jesus' soliloquy about his king-dom being of another kingdom. And, so, I guess on this cold Advent day it is fitting, albeit funny, to read of Jesus' own struggle with kingship even as we wait again for God to formally reclaim this kingdom here.

This passage left me at a place of unease. I have read this John passage every year on Good Friday (so have you, you just may not realize it), and my reading for today ended at verse 37 with Jesus saying, "I have come to testify to the truth."

And that's where it ended. Silence.

In my mind I heard the echo of Pilate's wonderful response, a response that I would ask, "What is truth?" But there was no satisfying question to Jesus' statement in today's reading. Yet, the question was asked in my mind as I read through it. It was an immediate reaction.

So, here at Advent, I'll echo Pilate in response to the waiting period that we now are in. What is truth? Are we waiting and waiting for a king that will never come? Or are our wick trimming and candle keeping actions for a reason.

I think the truth is that wick trimming and candle burning are reason enough on their own, as we must have light in this world until the Light returns. And the light will return, in one way or another, that is promised.

And so, we wait and we struggle with what it means to be citizens of a kingdom that is not yet realized. We struggle with Jesus in John 18, even as we wait for the Advent now.

Let us cut our quick and light our sparks. The truth is, God is coming again in one way or another, and although we struggle with it, we do not struggle alone-Christ struggles with us.

See you in church,
VT...

On End Times and Verbs for God

2007-11-20T12:40:00.000-08:00

As we come to the end of the church year our thoughts turn to the end of time. Why? Because the natural cycle of things demands that we do. All created things have an end.

And so, now, as our thoughts turn to the end time, so do our verbs for God. Specifically, we make the decision as to whether God at the end times is Savior or Destroyer. Is God the willing participant in the end of times, or the saving grace found when time ends.

I choose the latter.

I choose the latter in the face of those who pray for the end. I choose the latter in the face of those who claim the "reckoning" to be coming, who claim the destruction of the world is God's plan.

"Fools," I say. "Have you not seen? Have you not heard? Remember the angels, the first time God came. Not with cries or shouts of death, but with the cries of a baby, the cry of life."

But, its not always easy to call God Savior. It's not always easy to see life in this world.

Walter Brueggemann speaks to this in his prayer "You are known in hiddenness." It reads:

God hidden from us in your myriad verbs,
we confess you where we do not see you:
in healings,
in emancipations,
in feedings,
in forgiveness,
in many ways of newness.
We do not see you, but we dare to name you
by our best names-
we name you father and mother,
we make you lord and saviour,
we praise you giver and lover.
In our daring naming of you and in our very glimpsing,
we know you are beyond us
unutterable,
hidden,
refusing all our manufactured labels.
You are known in hiddenness,
powerful in suffering,
whole in woundedness
and we are yours...all of us...gladly. Amen.

See you in church,
VT...

On Visions of Light, Prayer, and Song

2007-11-13T15:02:00.000-08:00

My faith looks up to thee
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Savior divine!
Now hear me while I pray,
Take all my guilt away,
O let me from this day
Be wholly thine!

So went my prayer today. I had read about St. Ignatius having strange and amazing visions from meditating on the phrase: "I am a sinner...I am a sinner..." Far from being a kick to the ground, somehow this phrase became a comfort for me. It first exposes the truth: I am a sinner. It then exposes the hope: In prayer comes that confession, and thus, that absolution. This led to the next wonderful verse.

May thy rich grace impart
Strength to my fainting heart,
My zeal inspire;
As thou has died for me,
O may my love to thee
Pure, warm, and changeless be,
A living fire!

A living fire. As I sat in contemplation I envisioned my form falling under a light intense and bright. My form remained, by the "accidents" were changed. And then, beams from my fingers, as small beacons of light for some wayward ship somewhere. I had become a flame-head, one of those Pentecost survivors. It may sound strange, but this was the vision.

While life's dark maze I tread,
And griefs around me spread,
Be thou my guide;
Bid darkness turn to day,
Wipe sorrow's tears away,
Nor let me ever stray
From thee aside.

And the vision was through, but somehow it lingered in the air. I felt re-energized after a day that was quite taxing. It was as if my guide was made apparent in that beaming light. Christ himself, taken away those things that had weighed me down, that Sin that I confessed to holding onto. No longer was the day weighty, but now was wait-y. That is, I was waiting for the next event. No longer with dread, but with anticipation. No longer with a heavy heart, but now with a heart of joy, with a heart that longed to be plucked again.

When ends life's transient dream,
When death's cold, sullen stream
Shall o'er me roll;
Blest Savior, then, in love,
Fear and distrust remove;
O bear me safe above,
A ransomed soul! Amen.

My new prayer: that when I fall asleep for the last time on this earth, a surprise like the one I experienced today be waiting for me behind those eye-lids. A surprise of life, re-energizing grace, and beacons of light to take this wayward ship home.

Amen.

See you in church,
VT...

The hymn verses from "My Faith Looks Up to Thee" by Raymond Palmer

On the Mass and Sweet Communion...

2007-11-08T08:15:00.000-08:00

It was mostly empty when I walked in. And, truth to say, it was mostly empty (as far as people go) when I walked out. But it was full of other things, despite the empty air. It was full of peace and love.

"Welcome! Welcome!" She was almost yelling at me. Dorothy was obviously late in her years of life, and her hearing was slowly slipping. But she was the first to greet me so enthusiastically in a long time at church. It was a Wednesday morning, and I had decided to walk down to the small Episcopal church down the street for Wednesday morning Mass.

"Welcome! Welcome!"

And the Mass began. There were nine of us there, including the pastor. But church happened. It was all spoken, but our hearts sang. It was mostly quiet, but the room was filled with the sound of rushing air, the Spirit of God hovering over those baptismal waters.

A bold word was spoken by the elderly priest. "One day this congregation is going to wake up!" he said. "One day we will be the missionaries that God intends of us, to have others know that God loves them. They can hear that here. They will hear that here!" he prophesied. And I believe him. The people believed him, and took it upon their brow, their arms, their hands...they held that Word, the law and gospel rightly intermixed. They prayed it and played with it.

And we ate. A small round of bread. A small dunk of wine. A small sacrifice for a small congregation. But a large sacrifice for the large Church universal.

And we ate again, afterward. The other members there shuffled me and my friend into the fellowship hall. The table there was set. Real china coffee mugs. Piping hot coffee cake laid out on the table. They handed me the knife, invited me to dive in and divide the cake for everyone assembled. And I took the honor and did so, knowing that it was a mark of hospitality to invite the guest to carve the main course.

And the fellowship made a continuous movement, from the sanctuary to the hall. The conversation continued from the Mass to the small breakfast, and the Spirit followed right along with us. Or was it leading us?

I suspect it was leading us.

See you in church,
VT...

Sermon: All Saints Sunday

2007-11-05T07:47:00.000-08:00

Luke 6:20-31

²⁰Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
"Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹"Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
"Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
²²Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. ²³Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
²⁴"But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
²⁵"Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
"Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
²⁶Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
²⁷But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. ²⁹If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. ³⁰Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. ³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Blessed

I held my nephew in my arms as he pointed to the end of the aisle. He wanted to go see great-grandma again.

So we walked up the aisle, him being four and me being twenty-four, and we leaned over the casket.

“Is that great-grandma?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said as I nodded.

“Can I touch her?” he asked.

“Sure. With one finger.” I said.

And so I leaned over so that my nephew, my four year old nephew, could begin to learn about the cycles of life.

He gently touched her hand. Then he looked up at me with big brown eyes and asked again, “Is that great-grandma?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Mama said grandma is in heaven,” he said.

“Yes,” and I nodded again.

Then he looked back at me with those eyes and asked, “Then, is this heaven?”

And I hugged him close and whispered, “Not yet. Not yet.”

Not yet.

All Saints Day reminds us that this world is not heaven. Not yet.

All Saints Day is twenty-four hours of emotion. Strong emotion. And if its not twenty-four hours of emotion for you today, it will be one day because, well, we will all one day celebrate a saint’s life on All Saints.

And it’s such a mixed bag! At one time we give thanks for a person’s life, for their example, for their joys, and even for those small habits of theirs that become endearing over time.

And at the same time, we wish there was no All Saints Day at all. We wish there was no need for an All Saints Day because here, on this day, we are reminded that we live in an imperfect world. A world that, while good and vibrant and full of life, still experiences pain. Still experiences death.

And that is not surprise to us. All things have cycles; our life revolves around the seasons. Even the Christian life, the Christian calendar revolves around seasons. In four short weeks we will be in Advent, the beginning of the Christian calendar. Which means that here, now, we are in the twilight of our season, celebrating All Saints Day.

And even though it is no surprise to us that life has seasons, that we, as part of the created order still experience those seasons, including death, we long for that day when there will be no need for All Saints Day. We long for that day when we won’t commemorate those who have gone before us because, well, they’ll be right next to us. They’ll be with us. Or, rather, we’ll be with them, along with the whole of creation in that new Zion, that new holy place of God’s being.

And we wait fervently for that day. We cry out for that day. We shout out for that day. And we catch a glimpse of that day and the promises it holds in today’s gospel.

In today’s gospel, known as Jesus’ “Sermon on the Plain” because he is standing on a plain in Luke when giving it, we hear once again that we are a blessed creation.

Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.

"Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
"Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.

All of those “you” statements are plural. Jesus is blessing us as a group, as a creation, and giving us promises of life. This poverty that many feel will not be forever. This hunger will not always afflict our bellies. Our eyes will not always flow with tears. The season will change, God has promised that.

It is a promise that is both for the here, and also for the not yet. In the here and now, today, we are to give to the poor, feed the hungry, and wipe the tears of those in pain. In doing so we bless those we comfort, we fulfill that prophecy for today. And likewise, there will be a time when we are in need, when we are hungry, when our tears need to be wiped away and someone, through the grace and love of God, will fulfill that prophecy for us.

And this is what that final piece of this verse is referring to. The “golden rule,” as it has come to be known. It is that piece that encourages us to feed the hungry, give to the poor, and provide for the sad and the weary because there will be a day when we are in their place and will long for food, comfort, and gifts of grace.

But these blessings, these words from Jesus also contain a promise for the not yet, for the tomorrow of creation. God has blessed us through the promise that, when the creation’s tears are no longer consolable, when we have run our course, when we are the saints for whom others celebrate this day for, there is a surprise yet to come.

Even then, even in death, even in that place where darkness seems to have the final say, God promises to feed us, provide for our needs, cause us to laugh, to sing, to dance, to praise, to love. Our cheeks will never again have to turn; our eyes will never well up for feelings of loss. We’ll not have enemies; we’ll not fear others from stealing our possessions because God will be all we have, and all we need.

That day, even that day, contains the promise of life, contains the blessings that we hear today.

And ultimately, we follow the “golden rule,” not simply because we want others’ help on that day when we are hungry, or poor, or weary and crying. But because it is the way that God deals with us. This God, whose love is so radical as to come and stand with us, to come and experience the darkness of death with us, is one that promises us life even as Jesus was resurrected.

This God is the same one who blesses us with the kingdom, with heavenly food, with grace-filled laughter, even as Jesus burst from that tomb to expose death for what it is: an empty hole that only holds some rags and a few angels who tell us the good news once again. Death, like that tomb, is empty.

Death causes us to cry. Yes. It causes us to tear our clothes, yell at God for forsaking us as we bring oils, and flowers, and heavy hearts to those tombs that still dot our lives. Yes. But the blessing still stands, and death is ultimately the bed clothes of old lying in an empty tomb where the gardener tends the living flowers outside because there is no one inside.

Here, on All Saints Day, we give thanks for those loved ones, those ones we have held close, those ones we continue to hold close. We give thanks for their example. We give thanks for their mission. We give thanks for their love.

But more than that, we give thanks to the God who promises that there are surprises still to be had, blessings still to be given; both here in the today and in the tomorrow. God has promised throughout time and space to never abandon us, even in the darkest hour. God has promised that all tombs will one day be empty, and we will stand face to face with each other and our God who keeps true to the blessings given. Who keeps true to the promises given.

This world is not heaven. Not yet. And All Saints Day is a mixed bag, yes. But God has promised that this mixed bag we experience now will be only one thing eventually: everlasting life.

Amen.

Sermon: Reformation Sunday

2007-10-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

This sermon is read between two people: one in front of the congregation and one hidden.

10.28.07

John 8:31-36

³¹Then Jesus said to the Judeans who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." ³³They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?"
³⁴Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. ³⁵The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. ³⁶So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Good News: God in Jesus makes us free

The Reformation Dance

Voice: Here we go; another Reformation sermon…

VT: Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation

Speak your mind against them and face excommunication

Nail your thesis to the door, lets have a Reformation!

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Voice: Ugh. I don’t like that song….

VT: Pretty great song, isn’t it? Its for laughs of course, most of those lyrics don’t apply anymore.

Voice: None of them do…

VT: But don’t forget why we’re here today. We’re here to celebrate the Reformation, an event that took place more than 500 years ago. It’s like a drop in the water that ripples out to today. Today, we still feel the effects of the Reformation.

Voice: Ok, I’ve got to cut in here…Hello? Is anyone listening?

VT: Hello? God, is that you?

Voice: Not what you were expecting?

VT: Well…

Voice: Never mind, I am who I am. What was that stuff about the Reformation that you were saying? I was there, remember.

VT: Oh yeah. Well, I was just saying that we’re here today to celebrate the Reformation, an event that, like a drop in a pool of water, has ripples that continue to affect us…

Voice: Very dramatic. Seriously, though, the Reformation was not just an event, it is an ongoing process. It would be wrong to say that you just celebrate the Reformation; it would be better to say that you celebrate Reformation, the continual reforming of the church into the people of God.

VT: But we must not forget the past! Remember what Jesus said in today’s Gospel. He tells the Judeans that God has freed them, and they say, “We’ve never been slaves to anyone.” But they had. They had forgotten their past. God freed them from slavery in Egypt…

Voice: It is true. We must never forget the past, and those hearers of my word back then had forgotten their heritage. But freedom doesn’t come in remembering the promises of the past, God’s freedom comes in hearing the promises for the future.

VT: Yes, the promise for the future. The truth! And the truth is that Luther had it right…

Voice: Nice try. There you are again, living in the past. The truth is that the word of God frees people from having to have it right. The word of God, the promise of God, is that you are loved because you are Gods, not because you have it right, or of what you do.

VT: Ah, exactly. That’s why Luther was so mad when people thought they had to give money to buy salvation.

Voice: Right. He was mad because salvation is not something you can buy; it’s something that only God can give. Something God did give in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

VT: So, why do we celebrate the Reformation, then, if it’s something that happened in the past.

Voice: Because the promise still stands and God continues to speak. The truth is, the freeing truth is, that God loves you and will stop at nothing to show you that. Throughout time, throughout space, you are continually being called to stay true to that love and accept it for what it is: a free gift from God. The Word continues to call you to that truth.

VT: The Word of Scripture, and the Word that we see in the person of Jesus.

Voice: Yes, especially in Jesus. Jesus is the Word made flesh; is truth, is light, is salvation. Read those words found in John again.

VT: If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

Voice: Yes, that is the truth of the Reformation, that event back in 1517, and more importantly is the truth of the re-forming that continues to happen today. The church must live in the Word, God’s grace seen through Jesus.

VT: Because God’s grace is truly freeing. We fill our lives with things that we think will be allow us freedom: money, power, addictions, control, guilt. But God’s love, the selfless love found in Jesus is truly freeing. But how?

Voice: Because, in God’s love we learn that money, power, addictions, control, and guilt are only useful if the world is running the show. But God’s in control, not the world. That’s why the people of God are free to love everyone, because there is no need to put others down to get ahead. That’s why the people of God are free to give of their time, money, and resources, because we don’t need to stockpile and be greedy. Greed only weighs people down. That’s why God’s people don’t need to seek out power and control over other people because they know that God desires that people be free to love and serve each other.

VT: And the Reformation should continually remind us that we need to guard against falling into the traps of power, greed, and control.

Voice: Yes. God frees people, and the church, from having to have those things. Those things are Sin at work in the world, and God has freed people from Sin.

VT: The Reformation is not so much an event to be celebrated, although it was an event and we do give thanks for it. But it is more a process to be reviewed and renewed. A promise to re-form ourselves around the Word of God alone, the Grace of God alone, and Faith in God alone.

Voice: I’m glad that I could have this conversation with you all.

VT: Yeah, thanks for the interruption.

Voice: That’s what I do best: interrupt lives to give love. You might say that I re-form your lives into my love.

VT: Amen.

On Humility and Statue Carving

2007-10-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

Humility is on the docket today. But first, a quote.

"When I carve a statue, it is very simple. I merely cut away the pieces that don't belong there and the statue itself presently comes into view. It was there all the time." -Gutzom Borglum

This is humility. The statue was not created, it was simply unearthed. I like that imagery, and I like that train of thought. It lets me off the hook, at least partially. Nothing I will do will be totally original, for the design has existed from long before my time.

This is not predestination, mind you. This is re-destination. The returning to where you began. In all things I will simply return to where I began: in the hands of a God who continues to hold me, even as I unearth those things in me, in others, in this world that were always there all along. And as long as I'm in those hands, the credit is not mine. It is ours: God's, mine, and the statue's.

I like things in threes.

See you in church, you humble created creators,
VT...

Though Fires Rage...

2007-10-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

Southern California is a mess. I see it on the news. I see it on satellite imaging. I see it on the faces of people who are displaced. Tragic doesn't begin to describe it as people are once again huddled into a stadium. They lately seem to be used more for temporary housing then for sporting events.

What are we to make of this fire? What are we to say to those who lose everything when this sign of progress, this sign of human achievement, becomes a sign of human despair? We were promised never to be destroyed again by water. That much we know. But what about fire? What about those other elements. What about those things that come from our own hand. Will they destroy us?

Even here there is hope. We run to God, as the Psalmist writes in 46. Fire can't destroy those walls. But what about the meantime? It's in the meantime we live. It's in the meantime we pray that, though the earth give way and mountains fall into the sea, we will not fear because there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.

I leave you with a word from our brother Peterson:

Huge cloud fists assault
The blue exposed bare midriff of sky:
The firmament doubles up in pain.
Lightnings rip and thunders shout;
Mother nature's children quarrel.
And then, as suddenly as it began,
It's over. Noah's heirs, perceptions
Cleansed, look out on the disarmed world
At ease and ozone fragrant. Still waters.
What barometric shift
Rearranged these ferocities
Into a peace-pulsating rainbow
Sign? My enemy turns his other
Cheek; I drop my guard. A mirror
Lake reflects the filtered colors;
Breeze-stirred pine trees quietly sing.

See you in church,
VT...

Sermon: Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

2007-10-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

October 21, 2007

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 18: 1-8

The Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them, and yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Good News: God desires to be in relationship with us

Take Time to Hear God Sneeze

It was still. Very very still. The only sound that I could hear was the continuous trickle of the baptismal font the kept flowing into the pool of water below. The floor was stone. The windows were high. And yet, it wasn’t cold. It was comforting, comfortable. And there I sat, simply being in the Presence. Simply being with God. My mind wandered from thing to thing as I sat. Sometimes I closed my eyes. Sometimes I kept them open. I could see no one else as I sat there, in the dark of that sanctuary, and just listened to my heartbeat. Listened to God, enjoying the relationship that comes with having a God who desires to be personal.

And then I heard a sneeze.

It startled me from my meditation and I looked around. I couldn’t see anyone. It was dark. I couldn’t hear anyone either; not a sound. And for a moment, for a split second, I thought to myself, “Perhaps God has a cold.”

Of course not.

But being in the Presence there, not seeing or hearing anything but that sneeze, I slightly wondered.

Today we have a parable about coming to God and being in the Presence. Jesus encourages his disciples to come to God in prayer often and without getting discouraged. In many of the parables found in Luke, one person is supposed to be us, and the other person is supposed to be God. But this one is different. You see, this judge is not supposed to be seen as God.

In this parable, this judge is the opposite of God.

How do we know? Look back again at those first few lines. Go ahead, turn back. Jesus says, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.”

“Neither feared God nor had respect for people.”

This is not God; this is the anti-god. God has respect for creation. God has so much respect for creation, that God came down in the person of Jesus to stand with creation against evil and sin, to obliterate and save God’s people as was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This judge who somehow, probably by deceit, became the judge of people without respecting them, is not to be seen as God.

Another way we know that this judge is not God is because this judge is egotistical. Look at his reason for granting the widow’s pleas. It is not because he actually wants to help the widow; it is because he wants to get the woman off his back, to get her to leave him alone. His actions are for his own well-being, not hers.

No, this judge is not supposed to be God and we should not make the mistake of seeing him as God.

So what does this parable say, then, about God and specifically with respect to prayer?

This parable tells us that God is everything this judge is not. See, Jesus is setting up the anti-model. He is saying that, if this judge who cares nothing for others and who is totally consumed with himself will grant this woman’s request, how much more then will God, who is totally consumed with creation and salvation listen to the requests of the ones God loves? Especially the requests for justice in this world toward the disenfranchised of God’s people.

And so we pray as Jesus instructs us, not because if we badger God enough God will listen, but because God wants to listen to us! God desires to be with us, to be near us, to be in relationship with us, and that happens through prayer.

And so, the question is now not, “Will God listen?” Jesus already answered that. The question is now, “Will we pray?”

Will we pray? Will you pray? When the Son of Man comes, will he find people in faithful prayer?

Carlo Carretto, an author and brother in the Catholic Order of the Little Brothers of Jesus wrote a fantastic book on prayer and the need for prayer in the late 70’s. The title of the book is The God Who Comes, and in it he writes about his own struggles with prayer. His struggles are not so much in finding time to pray himself, but in finding ways to convince others, even his Catholic brothers and sisters, to find time to pray.

On one side of the aisle he finds people who don’t believe that God listens because they don’t see their requests come to pass. I would say these people expect God to be an ATM machine, conveniently dispensing requests each time we go to God in prayer.

On the other side of the aisle he finds people who don’t have time to pray because they are too busy doing work in the world, even good work in the world to help humanity. They see God in the face of others, and therefore spend all their time helping others, and no time praying.

So why pray? Why pray when it seems sometimes that God is not listening? Why pray when it seems that there is too much work to do in this world, too much help to give, and prayer is time spent sitting when we can be doing?

Why pray?

We pray, as Carlo points out, because we have a personal God who desires to be in relationship with us. If we don’t pray we are not searching for that personal relationship with God. If we don’t stay with long hours in order to know God, to talk to God, to study with God and understand God then, little by little, we start to forget God. Our memory of God weakens and we no longer will recognize God in the day to day, hour to hour life that we lead.

Carlo uses this analogy: “A person calls their spouse to tell them, “I’m sorry, this evening I’ll be coming home late because I’ve got so much work!” There is nothing wrong with this. But if it is the thousandth time that this same call is made, and they have not seen each other in weeks on excuse of work, or busyness, or frustration, then it is more serious because it becomes more and more clear that, if they love each other, they are not acting on it.

If they love each other, they are not acting on it.

God loves you, and we see that so clearly through Jesus. God loves us enough to come to be with us, to promise to always be with us. We have a God who desires to act on that love, to meet you in conversation, to hear about your struggles, your hopes, your fears, your desires. We have a God who longs to speak to you about these things, speaking through the Word, through the sacraments, through the voice of other people.

And we, as people who love God, must tap into that relationship intentionally. Because God desires to be with us, God gives us the permission to call upon God with our thoughts and concerns. And God does not have an answering machine, but listens in the real time.

But what about those excuses? What if we tire from prayer because it seems like it gets us no where? To that I would ask, “ What are you expecting?” Are you expecting a relationship with God, or expecting God to do what you ask? If we expect God to simply do what we ask we become the judge in today’s parable, egocentric. Relationships involve give and take, work and effort.

And what about the other excuse? That there is too much to do in this world to take time for prayer? To that I would ask, how long do you think you can keep doing good works without plugging into the force that drives our good deeds? We cannot keep doing the good work of this world without knowing why we do it. We do it because God has given us love and asked us to extend that love to others. If we lose touch with that loving relationship, it will be hard to do that loving work for others.

God loves you and desires to be in relationship with you. Prayer is a way to center yourself around that love, around that relationship; to let it flow in you, through you, into your thoughts, words, and deeds. And pray without ceasing because God is working in this world to bring justice and peace. Perhaps, through prayer, we can better see how God can use us to be the answer to that prayer.

So, as we have a God who desires to be with us, who came in the form of Jesus to demonstrate the desire, I encourage you to go this week and pray without ceasing. It will change your days. Perhaps, just perhaps, you will hear God sneeze. Perhaps you will hear more. Amen.

Sermon: Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost

2007-10-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

October 14, 2007

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

Good News: Jesus restores us to the community

Tandem Stories

There were ten lepers living in the town. Nine were Jewish. One was a Samaritan.

There were ten lepers living in the town. Nine were Jewish, one was a Samaritan, and everywhere they went they would have to yell, “Unclean! Unclean!” They would yell “unclean” to warn those around them. They would yell, “unclean” to allow people time to move out of there way. No one could touch them, according to Jewish law, because their skin was infected.

Infected with what, you ask? We don’t know. Leprosy is a horrible disease in its own right, but when the term “leper” is used in Scripture, it is not just referring to leprosy. It is referring to a wide range of skin diseases and, back at that time, one skin disease was suspected as being as harmful as the rest.

And so there were ten lepers living in that town, nine were Jewish, one was a Samaritan, and they yelled “Unclean!” because, all things being equal, they were unclean to the population that surrounded them.

But when they saw Jesus. But when they saw Jesus they didn’t yell, “Unclean!” I wonder why. Why did they not yell unclean, why did they not warn Jesus of their disease?

We don’t know. What we do know is that, instead of yelling, “Unclean!” they yelled, “Mercy!”

Mercy.

Michelle was a woman who lived in town. I can’t say that Michelle was a friend; I didn’t really know her that well. But I can say that we all knew Michelle, and the majority of people felt that Michelle was unclean.

Michelle had been kicked out of the community that she had been with. She had been kicked out because they found out about her. They found out about her life, what she did, who she really was.

They found out the Michelle had at one time been someone else, and the change was visible. She didn’t look the same. She didn’t talk the same. She didn’t walk the same. And all of these visible signs let everyone know that she was different. All of these visible signs let everyone know that Michelle was, well, in the eyes of many, “unclean.”

But she showed up at church one day. She showed up at church one day seeking mercy. She showed up at church one day seeking the body of Christ, to taste it, hold it, to be held by it, by the hands of the people gathered there.

What would they do?

Ten lepers lived in that town, nine of them Jewish, one a Samaritan. They called out “Mercy” to the body of Christ, the physical body of Jesus standing before them.

And Jesus shows mercy. Jesus tells them to show themselves to the priests, and as they went to do so, they were healed. Healed from their leprosy. Healed from the judgments of others. Healed from those marks that were a signal to everyone that they were unclean. And once they showed themselves to the priests, they would be labeled clean again. They would be able to enter back into society. They would be able to resume their lives in their community once again.

All except one.

You see, the nine Jewish lepers would reenter society. They would be accepted back once they showed themselves to the priest. They would be labeled as clean again.

But not the Samaritan. It would do no good for the Samaritan to go the priest because the priest would not label him clean. He was a Samaritan. He was unclean to them by his very nature, it didn’t matter how spotless his skin was.

Michelle showed up at church that day. She showed up seeking mercy. But she was not spotless in the eyes of the church people there. And they shunned her, telling her that no matter how many times she returned, they would not accept her. They actually told her this.

So she walked down the street to another church. And I saw her walk in. I saw her take a seat at the back.

As Jesus was standing there on the road, the Samaritan came back. He came back because it didn’t matter if he showed himself to the priest. That priest would not label him clean. He had to show himself to the Great High Priest, to Jesus. Jesus, who could heal his leprosy, was also the only one who could heal the division that was erected between people.

Did Jesus say it was bad he was a Samaritan and heal him from that? No. That would be ridiculous. The sin was not that he was a Samaritan, the sin was the wall, the division, the anger, jealousy, and racism that existed between the Jewish people and the Samaritans. And so he comes back, praising God for healing his leprosy, and he receives something else as well.

Jesus breaks down the wall of racism between the communities. How? He talks to him. He speaks to him, sets him up as an example, an example of faithfulness for the Jewish people that had gathered around him, those disciples, and tells him the truth “He is well.”

He is well in the eyes of God, and therefore should be well in the eyes of those around him. Jesus restores him in front of the community, engages him as an example of faith.

Jesus broke down the wall between those communities.

Michelle came in and sat at the back. I watched her sit down. You could tell there was a difference in her; she was not the same as those sitting around me. Even my young eyes could tell.

But I saw her sing with vigor the hymns that day. I saw her smile during the children’s choir. I saw her cry during the prayers. And I saw her shake hands with the people around her at the peace. And they shook hands. And they shook hands. People were delighted to see her. She had come to give thanks to God, and so it did not matter in that place that she looked different, or acted different, walked and talked different. She had come to see the Great High Priest, to hear again how God has restored humanity, cured our sin and our diseases, and so she was welcome. She was an example of faithfulness.

And there, in the midst of the body of Christ that day, I saw a barrier come crumbling down. Not everyone was comfortable with Michelle being there. She did walk differently. She did talk differently. But the fact that the Great High Priest was the one she came to praise was good enough for them, and the road to changing hearts and minds was opened that day.

You see, there are communities still today that society sees as “unclean.” There are people still today that have been rejected by people, even Christian people, for who they are, what they look like, the way they act, and the way the dress. They come to the body of Christ seeking what we all seek: mercy, healing, and wholeness.

And God provides it. God provides it at this table. God provides it in this water. God provides it through the Word. And we come to hear it once again and give thanks. And as we come to hear it, to give thanks, we must be mindful that communities exist out there who are our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, our friends, that need to be included in this healing and wholeness because God in Jesus has told us that those walls that we erect to separate ourselves are not godly walls, they are walls of sinfulness.

When I talked to Michelle about her story, she told me of her faith and her love for God, and how she sought a community that would allow her to be part of it. She found it in the body of Christ that said to her, as Christ says to the lepers, “God loves you. You have come here in faith to give thanks to God for that love. Your faith has made you well.”

Ten lepers lived in that town, nine were Jewish, one was a Samaritan. And Christ broke down those barriers that lay between them, healing them not only of their leprosy, but also of their judgments. And God sets us free from our barriers and judgments as well. Let us go, now, and be that restorative body of Christ, as we have been restored. Amen.

On Proud Princes

2007-10-10T13:45:00.000-07:00

The feast of St. Francis. This is an unusual time in the life of the church, the Feast of St. Francis. At my home congregation, animals were brought in to worship with us on this feast day. A parrot alongside a cat. A gerbil alongside a fish. And dog, after dog, after dog. The dogs sometimes joined in on the hymns. That was nice and noisy.

I like the Feast of St. Francis because it reminds us that we are not alone in this world. And that we are not the creators of this world. Luther was very mindful of this. In preaching on the first article of the Apostle's Creed, he writes:

"Everything that exists is comprehended in that little word "creator." Therefore, everything you have, however small it may be, remember this when you say "creator," even if you set great store by it. Do not let us think that we have created ourselves, as the proud princes do."

It is good to remember our limitedness, if only to enable us to seek the vastness of God. That vastness is seen in creation and it's wild diversity; its ever-changing diversity. God, our creator, continues to create. Thank you, St. Francis, for reminding us.

Our pet blessing is this Sunday at 2:00 on the east side of the church. Bring animals great and small, giving thanks for God's creations.

See you in church,
VT...

Sermon excerpt can be found in "Ten Sermons on the Catechism" (1528) Luther's Works 51, 162-163.

Sermon: Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost

2007-10-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

October 7, 2007
19^th Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 17:5-10

⁵The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" ⁶The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.
⁷Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'? ⁸Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? ⁹Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? ¹⁰So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"

Tossing Mulberry Trees

Part of my family have traced themselves back to Scotland. This brought me much amusement when I was younger, because I’d seen the movies “Braveheart” and “Rob Roy” and believed that in some way I was watching some of my great ancestors on screen. And early on I became fascinated by Scottish Highland games where men and women (yes, women played too) with arms the size of tree trunks would perform these feats of strength and skill.

The hammer throw, the stone toss (which is akin to the shot put of today), and especially the caber toss. The caber toss was my favorite to watch. These burly Scotts would pick up a huge tree at its base, run, and toss it out into the open air where it would fly end-over-end. The point is to have your caber do a 360 degree revolution, and land facing away from you as if pointing to 12 as the hand of some great and giant clock.

It’s a fascinating game. And I always wanted to caber toss, but didn’t think I could ever do it. My legs aren’t that big, my arms aren’t that big, and my Scottish accent makes a mockery of the language. I can’t do it.

When I read today’s gospel message, it reminded me of the caber toss. Jesus says to his disciples that faith the size of a mustard seed can cause a Mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea. Immediately I thought of the caber toss, this burly Scott grabbing the Mulberry Tree and hurdling it end-over-end into the sea of Galilee, disrupting some unsuspecting fish as it lands upright, roots sinking deep into the sand.

But then I read the verse again. And I realized that Jesus never mentioned the faithful person touching the tree. Jesus only mentioned the faithful person speaking to the tree. At the sound of the faithful’s voice, that tree would uproot itself and plant itself in the sea. That sounds even more impossible than caber tossing. Not only are the arms and the legs not strong enough for this feat, but the voice is lacking as well. No one’s voice can make such a thing happen. No ones except God’s. We look at this text and we say, “Speak to the tree and make it move? We can’t”

But perhaps we need to approach this gospel text from another angle. Perhaps we need to approach this gospel text not from the angle of “we can’t,” but from the angle of “we haven’t.”

This gospel text comes on the heels of some very harsh words from Jesus to the disciples. Before this text, what we didn’t read, Jesus warns the disciples of not leading young people of the faith astray. If they do that, it would be better to throw them into the sea with a concrete block around their neck. At hearing this, the disciples immediately cry out, “Increase our faith!”

“Increase our faith.” Why? The implication is that a small faith will lead others astray. A small faith will not profess God correctly, a small faith will not spread the Good News effectively. The implication is that the disciples believe their faith is too small, too inadequate, too little for them to even begin to utter a word to anyone, and so, before they are going to start telling people about God, before they are going to start feeding the poor in the expectation that hunger will be no more, before they are going to start throwing down idols and power structures in the hopes that God’s reign will be recognized, they need more faith.

They believe that the size of their faith correlates to their effectiveness and Jesus tells them it just ain’t so.

“Faith?” Jesus says. “Faith? Faith of the smallest measure can just speak things into happening. Impossible things. It’s not faith you need, it’s fidelity. It’s faithfulness, that is, faith put into action.”

And then Jesus tells them a story. In that story he in effect says, “Faithfulness is what you need. Faithfulness is not found in the master lording over a servant, being in control of everything. Faithfulness is found in a servant doing the work expected of them. And at the end of the day, do they expect to be the master? No, they simply expect that they have done what they were asked to do. This is what faithfulness is, do what is expected of you.”

You see, the disciples wanted control. They wanted to be in the driver’s seat. They wanted to make sure that, before they acted they would know the outcome, and so they say, “Increase our faith!” Increase our faith to the point that we would be in control, that we would know what was going to happen.

That kind of thinking works in economic policy. That kind of thinking works in the financial world. But in the world of the church, in the world of faithfulness, that kind of thinking only causes inaction.

If the disciples had waited until all their ducks were in a row, until they felt they had “faith enough” to succeed at their mission, we might all be somewhere else today reading a different scripture.

You see, the good news is that it’s not the size of the faith that makes things possible, but the size of the God behind the faith that makes things possible. The disciples needed to act on the faith of God, not on their faith in God. This God, who speaks things into being, who speaks the impossible, who asks us to love our God and love our neighbors as ourselves, to love justice, show mercy, and walk humbly with God. This God who’s love is big enough to give to everyone, who’s faith is big enough cause trees to move, to cause cosmos to swirl, to cause babies to be encircled in the waters of baptism as a sign of love, this is the God we serve.

And we are to go and act in faithfulness, in service to this God, not because we think that we will somehow be greater because of it, but because God and God’s purpose for humanity is greater to begin with. That is why we faithfully feed those who are hungry because we know God can take hunger, that mulberry tree of hunger, and drown it in the waters of baptism through that faithfulness. That is why we faithfully clothe the naked because we know that God can take poverty, that mulberry tree of poverty, and drown it in the waters of baptism and raise people to new life through that faithfulness.

So how are we, at Edgebrook Lutheran Church in the fall of 2007 going to act in faithfulness? Must we wait until we have the budget to ensure all our ministries and projects? Must we wait until

You know, I was in a wedding a few years ago as a groomsman. The groom gave us all a gift, this small paper-weight etched here. The words on it say, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail.” I like this saying, it’s both challenging and affirming. But if I waited to do anything until I knew it was a sure bet, I’d stay in bed all day.

But I don’t, we don’t, because we know that it’s not the size of the faith that makes things happen, it’s not the quality of assurance that makes things happen, but it’s the size and quality of the God behind the faith that makes things happen. And this is a God who does not fail.

So how are we, at Edgebrook Lutheran Church in the fall of 2007 going to act in faithfulness? Must we wait until we have the budget to ensure all our ministries and projects? Must we wait until we have the right numbers, the right pastors, the greatest amount of faith? Or will we act in faithfulness because God has asked us to. Will we act in faithfulness because God has promised, has covenanted with us, to name us, claim us, and never let us go?

When I would look at those caber tossers, I would be amazed. But I always thought that I’d never be able to toss a caber myself: my arms aren’t strong enough, my legs aren’t strong enough, and I’m not built for that type of sport. But, then again, I’ve never tried it. What would I do if I new I could not fail? I would probably start tossing mulberry trees into the sea.

There is ministry to be done, and we must act in faithfulness for a God who loves us, supports us, and has a better vision for humanity, for this world. We may not be in control, but that’s ok. God is. So let’s start tossing mulberry trees into the sea. Amen.

On Kierkegaard and Boredom

2007-10-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

Today I've been tripping through my latest essay of Kierkegaard, "Either/Or: A Fragment of Life." To say that I love it would be to understate the fact. I am in love with this reading. And its not so much just the reading, but also the time spent reading, the freedom to read, the whole work of it all.

And it is work.

It is work to find time in your day to sit and read. And not just read, digest. To eat a piece of work, and upon finishing the given section, to taste your fingers. To ruminate on it. That is work; work often neglected.

Every so often I find this work ironic as well. Take today's snippet, for instance. I cannot in one sitting digest this piece of work, and so I trip through it. That is, I take small but frequent trips through it, taking it one section at a time. Today's reading was the very first few pages with the topic being: Boredom. Here Kierkegaard provides (as tongue-in-cheek) a proof that boredom is the root of all evil. The proof could be summarized this way: Boredom led God to Adam, Adam to Eve, Adam and Eve to Children, Children to population, population to Babel, and Babel to widespread population, widespread population to widespread boredom. Circle completed and begun again.

Obviously said with true conviction and a wink.

But it was the last part of this piece where irony pierced me to the chair. Kierkegaard writes,

"There are men who have an extraordinary talent for transforming everything into a matter of business, whose whole life is business, who fall in love, marry, listen to a joke, and admire a picture with the same industrious zeal with which they labor during business hours. The Latin proverb, otium est pulvinar diaboli (Idleness is the devil's pillow), is true enough, but the devil gets no time to lay his head on this pillow when one is not bored."

And I laughed because I had only an hour before said to myself, "It is time to work at some Kierkegaard." I was not taking time out for Kierkegaard, I was infusing him into my work schedule.

Oh to be bored and therefore read Kierkegaard out of boredom! But would I still digest it if bored? I hope so. But why take the chance?

And why give evil the chance to sleep?

Ah, back to work.

See you in church,
VT...

Festival of St. Michael and All Angels Sermon

2007-10-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

September 30, 2007

John 1:47-51

⁴⁷When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" ⁴⁸Nathanael asked him, "Where did you get to know me?" Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you." ⁴⁹Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" ⁵⁰Jesus answered, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these." ⁵¹And he said to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

Fear Not

You know, it must be very scary to be in the presence of angels. You know it must be scary because every Biblical account where an angel makes themselves known to the person they are addressing, they always begin with some statement of not “Be not afraid!” or “Fear not!” If an angel were to visit me in this way they’d probably have to say something like, “Stop crouching behind that desk and don’t try to run away!” Because, I’m pretty sure that that would be my first instinct.

Our reading today in Daniel is no different. The angel touches him and says, “Do not fear…” And we all know the angel Gabriel’s beautiful poetry spoken to Mary at their initial greeting, and then to the shepherd’s on that fateful night. “Do not be afraid, for I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people…”

Yes, it must be scary to be in the presence of an angel. Scary and awe-inspiring.

But before we get too caught up on what it means to be in the presence of angels, even on this feast day of St. Michael and All Angels, let us calm ourselves, even as we know the angels surround us. Too much of what we hear about angels today revolves around them being the benevolent caretakers of people. “Touched by an Angel” or “Angel’s in the Outfield” or even depictions like this small icon have really tainted what these creations of God truly are. They are disembodied messengers. They have no form until they speak the word of God. Angels are simply messengers of God. That is, they are the vessel that carries God’s message to the world. And so we call them “Angel” a derivative of the Greek “Angelos” which means “message carrier.”

Angels are not so much creatures with arms, legs, and feet, but God’s messages to humanity put in form, and forms humanity would recognize. And because they are God’s word in form they are scary and awe-inspiring; God’s Word makes things come alive, God’s message makes things happen.

In Genesis God spoke light into being. In baptism and communion, God’s word makes water, bread, and wine means of grace, ways that God comes to touch us. God’s word spoken in Mary created a savior, and in Revelation, God’s word spoken to evil in the presence of the created order of the cosmos puts evil under foot.

And God’s word to humanity is God’s promise of love. Love shown in God’s ultimate Word, Jesus Christ.

The promises of God make things happen. And that is why we celebrate Michael and All Angels, because angels remind us that God is still speaking in our world.

And how does God speak?

In our gospel reading today we get a picture of it. In the verses before John 1:17, which we didn’t read, we find Nathaniel sitting under a fig tree. Phillip calls him to come see this new preacher in town, this new guy named Jesus who is from Nazareth. Then Nathaniel makes a crack about Nazareth, saying that nothing good could come from there.

But he takes this journey with Phillip, and that’s where we pick up our gospel reading for today. Jesus takes a look at Nathaniel, still far off, and calls out his name and says that he is a “true Israelite.” “Israelite” is a Hebrew word meaning, “God sustains” or “God preserves.” Jesus names Nathaniel for who he is, one preserved by God.

This is the first way that God speaks to us: God names us for who we are. We are God’s, the people that God sustains.

And at this naming an amazing change comes over Nathaniel. This man who had been skeptical of this Jesus character, who had been reluctant to follow Phillip to see him, now makes the bold proclamation, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

Jesus names Nathaniel, and Nathaniel gives a statement of faith. The Word of God is spoken to Nathaniel, and Nathaniel is then able to speak the Word of God.

Make no mistake about it; this is not just a simple exchange. This passage of John is testament to the fact that God’s Word has power. It allowed Nathaniel to speak truth, it allows us to speak truth, it allows us to give a profession of faith. It moved Nathaniel past his reluctance to follow Jesus. And God’s word spoken to us today does the same thing. It moves us past our reluctance, past our doubts, to truly claim that Jesus is God come down to be with us.

And there is more. Jesus says, “You think that is something? If you hang around me, you’ll see more. You’ll see angels from heaven bringing messages upon me. You’ll see more of the word of God to come.”

In that, Jesus, the Word of God claimed Nathaniel. It told him that this journey he was about to embark on would be one where Nathaniel would see more of the word of God.

The Word of God not only names us, it claims us. It says that we are followers of God, radically loved, radically accepted, and that we have a radical purpose.

And Nathaniel did just that. He followed Jesus, named by the word of God, claimed by the message of God, to tell others God’s word.

And just as Nathaniel was able to proclaim the Word of God upon being named and claimed, we too are able, called to proclaim the Word of God because we have been named and claimed. In baptism we are formally named, we are identified children of a God who continues to speak through revelation, whose messages continue to call us to love, good works, acceptance, and peace. As radically loved people of God we are given the purpose to extend that radical love to others. We are called to bear the word of God’s claiming love to others.

But it’s difficult.

It’s difficult to do in a world that doesn’t always want to hear the radical good news. It’s hard to do in a world that would rather look for angels because they are fascinating and mysterious, than hear the message that angels proclaim. That’s hard to do in a world where greed, envy, starvation, and poverty are not seen as the evil that Michael and the other bearers of God’s world have come to destroy, but merely facts of life.

It’s hard to do, and so sometimes we are timid, ashamed, afraid, or unsure of doing it, of proclaiming that message, of speaking to the evil in this world. Sometimes we feel like we just want to crouch behind a desk or run away.

But God’s message is still there. The hosts of angelic choirs are still singing to us, still encouraging us, still chanting to us.

The angelic choirs are still telling us, “Fear Not.”

Fear not, even though this world is difficult. Fear not, even though greed continues to thrive and exist. Fear not, even though poverty and hunger continue to ravage. The word of God in action speaks against these worldly evils, the Word of God in action can overcome these devils, these serpents and tread them underfoot.

Fear Not! When you are facing the burden that you think you can’t overcome, that barrier, that addiction, that disease. Fear Not! Because tidings of great joy have come to bear upon our ears, our hearts, our lips, unto us is born a savior who takes away those barriers that keep us from joining that celestial army in fighting against these things. We have been named by the God who continues to speak, whose Word continues to work in this world, who will not let us go, who will continue to love us as we struggle to speak the Word of God in this world.

So fear not.

On this day, the Festival of St. Michael and All Angels, we once again remind ourselves that God is at work in the world in ways that we do not always see. Heavenly messengers continue to move with heavenly messages that continue to name us as children of God, and claim us as people sustained and preserved by God. On this day we once again muster up the courage to hear the angels tell us to “fear not” in the face of a difficult world, because God in Jesus has crushed underfoot those things that prevent us from speaking truth.

God continues to speak through angels, through the Word, and through you and me.

So, let us join the company of angels in giving praise to God here this morning. Surely they match our voices and rejoice as we rejoice. And then, let’s go from this place, joining that company of angels in speaking God’s word and doing God’s work in a world that desperately needs to know that God has freed them from the power of evil, sin, and death. Amen.

Thy Will Be Done

2007-09-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Eugene Peterson's The Contemplative Pastor for the second time. Again I paused at his question, "Is growth a decision?" And I especially paused at his mention of the will in that decision. He recalls how his own will was "broken" in his younger years, a necessary part of growing up in that time and place, a parenting requirement for his parent's generation.

And then he goes on to tell of how he was encouraged to use his will to fend off the temptations of the time, "the world, flesh, and devil." These two contradictions, the breaking and the utilizing, are puzzling to him. They are puzzling to me.

This intersection of contradiction has seen many travelers. Augustine and Luther, most notably, but also Kierkegaard, Anselm, Ignatius, Julian of Norwich, and even Origen. And Peterson. And me.

The will, this thing that I was told defies God, is also this tool that I am supposed to use as a stick of defense against those things that defy God. Either one notion is correct, and not the other, or both are mistaken.

Be that as it may, I continue to move, live, and breathe. I am not in the habit of breaking wills anymore, nor am I in the habit of using it as a weapon. I have adopted a much different habit, the habit of prayer. Prayer allows me to take a step back from my will, look at it, taste it again for the first time, touch it, squish it, prod it, poke it. Prayer allows me to analyze it.

And my analysis?

There is no conclusion. And so I resign, and taking an old stance of two thousand years, I simply can only say, "thy will be done."

In morning devotion I read Peterson in tandem with this prayer by Walter Brueggemann, as is my habit. They sing in harmony.

We are takers

You are the giver of all good things.
Al good things are sent from heaven above,
rain and sun,
day and night,
justice and righteousness,
bread to the eater and
seed to the sower,
peace to the old,
energy to the young,
joy to the babes.
We are takers, who take from you,
day by day, daily bread,
taking all we need as you supply,
taking in gratitude and wonder and joy.
And then taking more,
taking more than we need,
taking more than you give us,
taking from our sisters and brother,
taking from the poor and the weak,
taking because we are frightened, and so greedy,
taking because we are anxious, and so fearful,
taking because we are driven, and so uncaring.
Give us peace beyond our fear, and so end our greed.
Give us well-being beyond our anxiety, and so end our fear.
Give us abundance beyond our drivenness,
and so end our uncaring.
Turn our taking into giving...since we are in your giving image:
Make us giving like you,
giving gladly and not taking,
giving in abundance, not taking,
giving in joy, not taking,
giving as he gave himself up for us all,
giving, never taking. Amen.

See you in church,
VT...

Prayer taken from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth by Walter Brueggemann.

Sermon: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2007-09-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

September 16, 2007

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 15:1-10

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."
³So he told them this parable: ⁴Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
⁸Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

The Passionate God

You know, there’s a story, it’s an old story, about a woman who lived in a small town. Everyone in town knew of this woman, but no body really knew her. They knew where she lived, sometimes they’d see her out on her porch, but nobody ever saw her around town. She was never spotted at the grocery store, she was never seen at the gas pump, and she was noticeably absent from the town’s major attraction: the local town baseball games that everyone went to.

One day a call came in to the local paper that the woman had died. The editor picked up the call and, seeing as it was a small town paper with a small town staff, he went to work on her Obituary that would run that week because he was also the Obituary writer.

As he sat down to pen what he would write about her life, he realized that he knew nothing about her. So he did some investigative work, going from house to house on her block, to the local church, to the local hospital clinic, anywhere that he thought he might find information. He didn’t come up with much.

He found out that she never married, never had children, didn’t have any siblings, never went to the hospital, never went to the movies, never went to church, and that, basically no one knew anything about her.

In a last ditch effort to find out information on her, he went to the graveyard where she was to be buried. He stopped in at the engraver who was to mark her headstone to see what he was going to write. He found the engraver sitting there scratching his head. He had no idea what to write. They were both stumped.

Feeling fed up with the whole situation, the editor went back to his office. The engraver had agreed to write on the grave marker whatever was put in the obituary, and the editor had decided that he was going to pass this assignment off to the next writer he found in the hall.

Sure enough, here comes down the hall Cal Hopkins, the sports writer. He passes the assignment sheet off to Cal the sports writer and says, “Good luck.”

The next day Cal ran the sports column and had a feature debut in the Obituaries as well. The obituary, and the grave stone, are reported to read:

Here lies Nancy Jones

In life she knew no terrors

She lived alone

She stayed at home

No bats, no runs, no errors.

Now, I don’t think that story is true, but if it is true, I think its very sad. It’s sad not only because no one reached out to that woman, but also sad because it gives the appearance that the woman had no passions in her life.

Passion. Passions drive our lives, sometimes for the best, sometimes for the worst. I know some Packer and Bears fans who are practically devoid of all other topics of conversation, and can’t stand to be in each other’s presence because their football allegiance is so passionate it consumes them. That’s passion.

I’ve met Polar Bear Club members who love to jump into icy Lake Michigan in January because they love the rush it gives them. They have a passion for that feeling.

And sometimes are passions are not on what they should be. Sometimes our passions lead us down sinful paths, lead us away from the godly life that we are called to exhibit. Sometimes our passions cause us to leave the sheepfold, prompting us to make golden calves out of our passions.

Folks, humans are creatures of passion, both good and bad; passion is something we can identify with.

But what about today’s Gospel lesson? Can we identify with today’s shepherd who searches for the sheep, or the woman who lost a coin? I don’t think we can, if we really think about it.

I mean, consider this. This shepherd loses a sheep, first of all indicating that he may not be a great shepherd. But if that’s not all, he leaves the rest of his sheep to search out this other one. Where does he leave them? Not penned up, not secure, but wandering about in the field. What if when he’s away, another sheep runs off or a wolf comes prowling? Foolish shepherd.

Or what about this woman? She loses one of ten coins, and then spends all her time and precious oil trying to find it. And when she does, what does she do? She throws a party! She invites her friends and neighbors to celebrate with her! I mean, think about it. She spends all this time searching for this little coin, and then when she finds it, she spends tons of money celebrating it. Sounds to me like that’s pretty foolish.

Even as passionate as we are, today’s Gospel reading goes far beyond what we would consider reasonable. Just as it is hard to imagine someone with no passion in their lives, I find it just as hard to imagine someone with this much passion.

But that is precisely the point. No one has that much passion, that much foolishness, but God. God is the one who is ultimately passionate, ultimately foolish when it comes to us.

God is passionate for people.

There are tons of depictions of God being a Shepherd. Stained glass windows and Bible covers are full of them, usually with that one lost sheep around his shoulders. It’s a beautiful image. But I love it even more that Jesus compares God to this woman who looks for the lost coin, and I wish there were more depictions in stained glass and Bibles of that. It’s refreshing to have a feminine example for God, but it’s even more refreshing to have such an extravagant example. The utter extravagance of this woman, to search for a coin, and then spend tons of coins on a party once she finds it is something I can’t get over.

But that is exactly what Jesus is saying here. He is saying, “God’s passion for us is like the woman who searches high and low for a coin, and then is so happy about it, no expense is spared in celebrating it being found.”

We call that foolish; Jesus calls it Godly. We call that extravagant; Jesus calls it love.

And it’s a love that comes to us. Notice how this story isn’t about the coin coming back to the woman, or the sheep finding its way back into the fold. It’s about the woman and the shepherd going, searching, seeking out what is lost. God’s love comes out to touch us, not the other way around, and the party the ensues is a party for the cosmos, that which is beyond our comprehension.

This conception of God, as one who is passionate for people, is a conception that defies our normal ideas about God. We often want to make God stoic, solid, perfect, unyielding. We often want to make God like that golden calf in today’s first reading.

But Jesus is saying that that is not what God is like at all. God is dynamic, God is moving, God is reaching out, searching out, ever ready to take on the journey to find us, love us, be with us. Even though our passions sometimes take us from God, God’s passion for us goes the distance and bridges that gap.

It is no wonder that the word used for God’s Spirit in the Old Testament is the same word that is used for “breath.” Ruah, the spirit of God, that thing this breathed into our bodies and out of our bodies, is fluid, moving, ever present and ever seeking.

Our God is a dynamic, moving, and extravagant God when it comes to being with humanity. That is passion.

So, I ask you today, how has God been extravagant in reaching out to you? How has God’s love been extravagant this past week? Look for sings this week of God’s extravagant love; perhaps I’ll ask you about it next week, or perhaps someone sitting next to you will.

God has a passion for us that is beyond our comprehension, a love that reaches out to us even though it might seem foolish to do so.

We are passionate people, but God is extravagantly passionate. Thanks be to God for God’s passion. Amen.

On Grace

2007-09-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

Romans 8:1
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

"Why" and "Who" are therefore the relevant questions that follow this passage from Romans. Why is there no condemnation for those in Christ, and who are in Christ? In an attempt to answer this, we turn to brother Martin who writes:

Between grace and gift there is this difference: grace actually means God's favor, or the good will which in himself he bears toward us, by which he is disposed to give us Christ and to pour into us the Holy Spirit with his gifts. The gifts and the Spirit increase in us every day, but they are not yet perfect for there remain in us the sin that rebel against the Spirit. Nevertheless grace does so much that we are accounted completely righteous before God. For his grace is not divided or parceled out, as are the gifts, but takes us completely into favor for the sake of Christ our Intercessor and Mediator. And because of this, the gifts are begun in us.

So, "Why?" Because of Jesus Christ. And, "Who?" All people of God. Perhaps grace is larger and more fluid than the golden calf that we make it.

See you in church,
VT...

Writing from "Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans" (1522) LW 35, 369-370

Sermon 15th Sunday after Pentecost

2007-09-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

September 9, 2007

15^th Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 14:25-33

Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, ²⁶Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. ²⁷Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, ³⁰saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' ³¹Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³²If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. ³³So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

(This sermon was given while holding an infant who would be baptized later in the service, and was a conversation between me and the boy.)

The Cost

Gavin, this is such a great day for you. It’s an exciting day that, while you may not remember it, you’ll always feel it…you’ll always know it.

But Gavin, as one who is about to take on the mantle of “disciple,” I have a question for you: What does it cost? What does it cost to be a disciple of Christ? Does it cost at all?

Now, I know it’s silly to ask you that, you can’t answer. So I’m going to answer my question for you: Yes, it costs. But what does it cost?

A friend of mine from college went to visit a new church over Easter break one year, and I remember him telling me about it. It was a smaller, new church that had just started up. It met in a movie theatre, with the pastor standing in front of that big screen as different things were projected on it: music lyrics, pictures to go with the sermon, contact information, all sorts of things.

I asked him how it went and he said, “It wasn’t a very good worship experience.” I asked him why and he said, “Well, it was Easter Sunday and they didn’t even mention the Resurrection. The sermon wasn’t well thought out and tried too hard to be hip. The music, although fast and loud, was kind of theologically shallow.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess you probably won’t go back there.” “I don’t know,” he replied, “I might.” I was puzzled. “Why would you go back if the service wasn’t very worshipful for you?” I asked. “Well, they took down my name and address, and sent me a box of donuts the next day. It might be worth it for the free donuts.”

I think this is sometimes what we think the cost of a Christian life is today. We just might have to sit through a bad sermon, knowing that there are donuts after church. We might have to delay our Sunday morning coffee until after services. We have almost a consumer view of Christianity, where we pick and choose, weigh benefits and detriments.

Or worse yet, I think some of us don’t think there is a cost at all. We’re like those who were disciples all too willing to be involved with Palm Sunday, but who wouldn’t stick around for Good Friday. They think this Christian life is only about waving palm branches, shouting Hosanna’s, eating donuts after service, and going home.

But that’s not what being a disciple of Christ is all about.

It’s all about God and God’s never ending love for us. It’s all about the reign of God, God envisioning a new world, a new way of living with each other. It’s all about the cross and the empty tomb, that place where God says to us, “It’s too costly for me not to be in communion with you.” Where God comes down to touch us, break those chains, that bondage that sin has on the world, and bring us to a new way of living with God and each other.

And the Christian life is also about doing the work of God in the world, of being the voice of God for the voiceless to the powers that oppress God’s people. That is also part of this Christian life. That part is our response to the empty tomb, to God’s yes to humanity.

You know, in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is really asking his disciple’s, “Are you ready? Are you ready for the cost of following me?”

Because, Gavin, Jesus knew what would happen once he entered that city. He knew that this ministry that he’d been doing: battling greed by giving to the poor, healing the sick even though it broke the rules, eating with beggars and harlots even though it was against the hierarchy of the time, battling sexism by instructing women in the Torah, battling racism by engaging the Samaritan woman. He knew that this ministry was going to put him on trial. Sure, they began with Palm Sunday. But when they figured out that Jesus wasn’t going to use power to overturn the government, but rather was going to use peace and acts of goodness, they rejected him, and Good Friday came all too quickly. And so here, before they get there, he asks his disciples, “Are you ready? Are you ready for the costs of following me? God loves this world so much that it is too costly not to do these things, so are you ready?”

And the disciples weren’t ready. They weren’t ready to keep vigil with him in the garden, they weren’t ready to get arrested with him; they weren’t ready for Good Friday. Their answer was, in effect, “No. It’s too costly.”

But they didn’t know the rest of the story. They didn’t know that Good Friday would not be the final word of God, the final work of God. Good Friday was God breaking the power of death and sin once and for all, but the disciples didn’t know that, couldn’t know that until Easter morn. And on Easter morn a different reality was begun, where we heard God’s final, “Yes. You are too precious to me, too costly to me to not be healed, and fed, and given worth, and given love, to be saved from this sin.” And God’s final “yes” is the best news of our lives. God did what those disciples, what humanity could not do: God came in solidarity with God’s people, broke the chains of sin, and rose from the grave to tell us about it. That is a resounding “Yes” that God has a new way of living and being with us, and that we should have a new way of living and being with each other.

So, I ask again, is it costly to be a disciple today? The uncomfortable answer is, it should be. It should be because there are people who still live under the power of greed, and hunger, and sexism, and racism, and all other “isms” that oppress this world. When we speak to the racism of today, to the sexism of today, to the fact that the sick go unhealed, that the hungry go unfed, that greed still runs our society, there are costs.There are still some in this world today who do not want to hear it, who reinforce those caste systems, those systems of oppression, and who will want to crucify us for speaking in such a way, for healing in such a way.

We’ll be put on trial. Not a formal trial, mind you, but a trial of the streets, a trial of people’s judgments and opinions.

When you are on trial, remember God’s yes to stand in solidarity with God’s creation, God’s Easter morning, empty tomb “Yes.” Its an affirmation that continues to say, “Yes, even when people don’t want to hear the reign of God has come; Yes, even when this world might leave us behind as we fight those things which oppress this world; Yes, even if we are left friendless, without possessions, without anything but a crossbeam, God is still working in the world to bring us to Easter morn!

God is always saying yes when the powers of this world say no, God is always throwing off those systems of violence and hatred that work in our world.

We know the end of the story, God’s final “yes” to the whole of humanity, and that’s why we must speak against these powers in the world. It’s part of being a disciple of Christ. It’s part of knowing what God in Christ has done for humanity. It’s our response to God’s love, God’s “Yes” to us.

You know, we don’t have to hate our families, give up all our possessions, and carry a crossbeam to be a disciple of Christ. But we do have to face the cost, the cost of speaking as Jesus did, loving as Jesus did, healing and feeding and being with each other as Jesus did. Some won’t want to hear it. Some won’t want to give up greed and power and corruption. Some will want to put us on trial and hand us a cross beam in return for our loved ones, family, dignity, and possessions.

But remember the good news, God in Christ has brought a new reign that cannot be silenced and must be proclaimed, even if its costly. The very stones would cry it out were we not to speak it. It’s a reign where power is not in oppression but in humility. Where the power is not in greed, but in sharing bread and wine. Where the power is not in the disciples’ answers or our answers, but only in God’s “yes” to us.

Amen.

On Secrets and Movies About Them...

2007-09-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

(Being a post of a different sort, this follows in the footsteps of Paul who often interjected little opinions and asides in his work.)

We rented "The Lives of Others" the night before last. It's a chilling foreign film about West Berlin in the early 80's before the wall came tumbling down. Its not for kids; they would definitely be bored. And, thats not to say that many adults might be bored as well as this movie is slow. But, there's a method to it's gait.

Dark, dreary, full of dull browns, grays, and boxy VW's, this movie is worth the depressing atmosphere as it explores the paranoia that comes with constant surveillance, with knowing that there are people out to get you just because you are who you are.

You struggle with the characters as they struggle with oppression: the government officer who becomes disillusioned with the spy network's ethics, the writer who can no longer write plays that reinforce the oppression around him, and the actress who desperately wants to work, but knows that it comes at a price. This movie evokes a number of emotions in the watcher, with gratefulness that this is no longer the reality on one end, and paranoia that this may indeed be the reality at the other.

And what is our reality? Perhaps this film is meant to make us question our own secrets today. Are we as secretive as we hope we are? In our homes? In our bathrooms? In our offices? Or is there a chink in this armor that we think we have?

I hope you enjoy. If not, don't blame the reviewer, blame West Berlin.

See you in church,
VT...

Sermon: 14th Sunday After Pentecost

2007-09-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

September 2, 2007

14^th Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 14:1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

Bring Your Milking Stool

I love the first song that we sang this morning: “Let Us Go Now .” Vamos Todos is the Spanish title, and the original title. Just like a book that is turned into a movie, the English translation of this song just doesn’t seem to do it justice. “Let us go now, to the banquet, to the feast of the universe. The table’s set and a place is waiting, come everyone with their gifts to share.” It’s beautiful in English, don’t get me wrong. But the Spanish includes a little phrase that I think is so important for understanding the underlying radical meaning of this song.

The Spanish version doesn’t just say that the table is set and a place it waiting. It tells you to bring your stool. The word taburete is translated as “stool,” and it’s not like a bar stool or even a bench stool. Taburetes are little stools, ones that you would use for sitting close to the ground, like when you milk a cow or a goat. Taburetes are lowly stools and so when this song talks about the feast being ready and a place waiting, it’s telling you to leave your cushy BARCO loungers at home, to forget your Adirondack chairs…to forget your thrones. All you need to bring is your taburete, your milking stool, because that’s what we’ll be sitting on at the feast of creation, the feast of the universe.

And what might this feast of creation, this feast of the universe look like? Jesus gives us a glimpse of it in today’s gospel reading. In advising the Pharisees on how they should conduct themselves, he’s not just giving them sage advice on how to appear humble at a dinner party. Jesus is painting a picture for those Pharisees, and for us here.

Imagine yourself at a dinner party. Imagine you show up, and all the guests are just standing around the table. Where will you sit? Naturally, I think most of us would want to sit by our friends, or sit next to someone who seemed interesting and might strike up good conversation. If you attended a dinner party in ancient Palestine, you would probably try to sit close to the host because it was a visible sign that you were friends, and that you were important. This kind of seating arrangement still takes place today in some circles of society, and definitely is still present in politics.

But for most of us here today, I think most of us would just try to sit where we could have a nice conversation. That would mean, though, that even as you would look for someone interesting to talk to, many of us would also try to avoid sitting next to a number of people. We would probably try to avoid sitting next to that person who is boring, who won’t talk, or who won’t let you talk. What about that person who smells funny, who has bad table manners, who is uneducated, or who is too educated? What about the person who is gay, who is promiscuous, who is a pagan, or who is too religious? What about those who are a different ethnicity, a different gender, who drink too much, or who don’t drink enough. What about your ex-girlfriend, ex-boyfriend, ex-wife or ex-husband. Or what about your current wife or husband? Would you sit next to them, or look for someone different to talk to?

Yes, at today’s dinner parties, at today’s feasts, we don’t always try to jockey for the seat closest to the host, but we are no less picky about where we sit. Humans are picky, and we’re not always picky for the right reasons. I think we could all probably nod our head in agreement saying that we’d rather not sit next to some of those people I just mentioned. Likewise, I think we could all probably nod our head in agreement that we are some of those people I just mentioned, and would be offended, hurt, angry, or confused at the thought that some people would intentionally not choose to sit next to us at a dinner party.

We are a picky people, even though we long to be picked.

And this, this pickiness is at the heart of what Jesus is saying to us today. Why are we so picky when it comes to who we eat with? Because eating is where fellowship is had, and we want to be able to choose who we associate with. We want to be associated with those who sit at the head of the table, not with those at the foot. And so we are picky, and prideful.

But Jesus gives us a glimpse of a new table, a new kingdom. It’s that place where pickiness and pride have no place at the table because they get in the way of fellowship, they get in the way of the healing purpose of the kingdom, the wholeness-restoring purpose of God’s kingdom. It’s that place where when you find yourself at the foot of the table, you also find yourself at the head; and if you find yourself at the head of the table, you also find yourself at the foot. Why? Because at this table, at God’s table, there is no head and no foot; there are only places for little milking stools to fit.

You know, another reason why I love this song Vamos Todos that we sang this morning is because it’s familiar to me. This summer I spent a week in Mexico with a group of High Schoolers from across the United States. We were there on an immersion trip, which meant we stayed with the people in Mexico City, worked with the people, and learned the challenges facing them, hearing it from their own mouths.

One family I visited with lived in a place called Las Estacion, which basically translates into “The Station.” The name is a reference to the old railway tracks that crisscross the ground on which this settlement sits. It’s a squatter settlement. The people that live there have no right to the land; it’s just where they happened to end up.

At Las Estacion I walked down a short, steep embankment and ducked into a small cinder-block house to meet a woman named Refugio and her family. She lived there with her sons Moises and Danielle, her daughter Flora, and she welcomed us into this cramped space with a wide smile and open arms. She pulled out some small plastic chairs for us to sit on, and she took a seat on her taburete, her low stool. She used the stool for her work, which was to pick hominy corn and separate it from the hard nub at its base so the fleshy part could be used in Sopas. She made basically 20 pesos, or two dollars a day for doing this.

I don’t speak much Spanish, and Refugio didn’t speak any English, and so we stumbled through conversation with a translator. She told me and the six High Schoolers with me about her struggles with the government, with her job. Her son Moises couldn’t find work and had to pick up a new job every day to earn anything. Her two younger children wanted to continue in school, they loved math, but they would have to stop in two years because High School was too expensive.

I sat there and spoke about my own family, as did the other students, and we basically shared our life stories together. There was no meal of food for us to eat there, although I’m sure Refugio would have whipped up something should we have asked, but there was a feast: a feast of openness, of life stories, of fears and hopes. We sat and talked there for close to an hour, hugging before we walked back out into the hot sun.

As we walked out of “Las Estacion,” our hearts burned within us just like those two disciples walking to Emmaus after they encountered Christ along the way. We had encountered Christ that day in the hospitality, in the fellowship of that woman who sat on her taburete. And as a result of the encounter the students began to open up in a new way. One admitted that they were nervous and were afraid they wouldn’t know what to say walking into that dark house. Another student admitted that they were afraid that they would feel guilty being in there with her family that had to little by our standards, but that they felt empowered and blessed now by her generosity. And I realized, at that moment, that we had just had a taste of the kingdom. Our anxieties were wiped away, the chronic fear present when we consider the prospect of taking a place that might be uncomfortable, that might stretch us, that might place us next someone we wouldn’t ordinarily choose was healed in that encounter.

Would I have sat down next to Refugio at a dinner party? I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t have: we didn’t speak the same language, we came from different worlds, and her poverty worked at a place of guilt within me. But now, having tasted that kingdom, having tasted what it feels like to sit on a taburete, that place where hospitality and wholeness come before position, where the meal and the fellowship is more important than honor and pride, I think I’d seek her out.

We’re a picky people. But the good news is that Jesus has envisioned, has created a kingdom where it doesn’t matter who you are because whose you are provides the place at a table with no head and no foot. You are Gods. You are God’s beloved, God’s child, one of God’s gifts to this world. And as you look around this room, knowing that about yourself, you’ll begin to see that image of God, that Imago Dei in the others that have come to this feast. So it doesn’t matter where you sit because wherever you sit, you’ll be sitting next to a child of God, a special creation. You may not speak the same language, you may not like the same movies, you may not even like each other, but you are God’s, and that is reason enough to feast at this table, this table low to the ground where we all take our seats on milking stools, where we all have the lowest, and therefore the highest, position.

So, when you attend a party, take a seat on your taburete, feast at the table of God’s grace and be surprised by the child of God sitting next to you. God in Christ has made each of us important, each of us unique, each of us to sit on taburetes. You may just find your heart burning within you as you enjoy the hospitality of another’s presence, unexpected as it is. And, as you know, you are welcome here at this table of grace, joining Christ as he sits on his own taburete, a taste of the feast to come. Amen.

To Ponder a Point

2007-08-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

For today a short entry to ponder; merely a point. It's the period at the end of a sentence, the head of a pin. But it's the head of a pin upon which a whole universe of thought lives, thrives, and swirls.

James B. Nelson writes:

"God's invitations to change our lives seldom come in the gentle wrappings of a nice Hallmark card. More frequently they come in confrontations with our own deformities, assaults from which we recoil and want to run. But it is only when we face them honestly that we recognize the open arms of the wounded Holy One."

See you in church,
VT...

Quote from James B. Nelson's work Thirst: God and the Alcoholic Experience. A book to have, a book to recommend.

Sermon: 13th Sunday after Pentecost

2007-08-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

13^th Sunday after Pentecost

August 26^th, 2007

Luke 13:10–17

¹⁰Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. ¹¹And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. ¹²When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." ¹³When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

¹⁴But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." ¹⁵But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? ¹⁶And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" ¹⁷When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

That’s Life

“That's life, that's what all the people say.
You're riding high in April,
Shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune,
When I'm back on top, back on top in June.

I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stompin' on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down,
'Cause this fine ol' world it keeps spinning around”

This old Frank Sinatra tune might be the soundtrack to the opening part of this Gospel. This bent woman comes walking past the synagogue and the Pharisee takes a look at her and says, “That’s life…” It’s the Sabbath, after all. A day of rest, not a day of healing. But Jesus, no, Jesus has a different view of life, a different view of the Sabbath day, and he’s out to show that Pharisee what it is.

I love that we’re reading Luke this year because Luke is a master theologian. In his gospel we find more acts of physical healing than any of the other accounts. This is part of the reason why many think Luke was a physician. But I say that Luke is a physician of the soul more than the body, because when he gives an example of a physical healing in relationship to the body, he is also commenting on our spiritual relationship with God as well.

Take today’s gospel for instance. Jesus is teaching inside the temple, going through the scriptures with the gathered men. And Luke sets this scene up so perfectly, enter stage right, just outside the synagogue door, a woman who is bent and could not stand up straight. She’s not coming to Jesus for healing, she’s probably just walking by.

But you see, Jesus knows that what is preached in the synagogue must have legs in the world. And so he goes out of the synagogue, because women couldn’t learn with the men in the synagogue, and puts his hands on the woman. She immediately stands straight up and begins praising God.

And what happens? The Pharisees get mad. They like, as old Franky said, “stompin’ on people’s dreams.” It seems they don’t want the teaching in the temple to be applied on the street, at least not on the Sabbath. You see, that Pharisees thought the Sabbath was a day only for learning, it was a day only for sitting and listening and arguing. And so the Pharisee goes out to the assembled people, out to this crowd gathered around this woman who is now standing straight, praising God, and tells them, “Alright, that’s a freebe. But if the rest of you want to be healed, our office hours are Sunday through Friday. Saturdays, the Sabbath, we are closed for healings.” And I can imagine the outrage. I can imagine the people grumbling. And, just as clearly, I can imagine the Pharisee turning back to the people and saying, “That’s life! You may be down and out on Saturday, but you can always come on Sunday. Pull yourselves together, it’s the rules, and we must follow the rules.”

And Jesus takes the rules and stands them on their head. He points to the Pharisee as says, “You will untie your donkey for them to drink on the Sabbath. You will give them what is necessary for them to live, and yet you deny these people that very life sustaining food that you give your pets?” And then he points to the woman and says, “This is a daughter of Abraham! Your own bloodline. And yet you will not give her the same decency that you give your donkey, your ass?”

Now, I don’t mean to swear here from the pulpit, let alone in church, but that double entendre is so fitting, and it’s exactly the point that Jesus is making. The Pharisee was concerned about the rules; the rules for him dictated who was in, who was out, who got healed, and who stayed bent. But Jesus says, in effect, “What else is the time of God for than providing the healing that humanity needs? Forget the “rules.” When the rules prevent healing, prevent wholeness, we need to forget them, especially on the Sabbath!”

How slow we are to be merciful and use “the rules” as the excuse.

And, are we so quick to forget how God has bent the rules for us? It’s probably been years since you all have had catechism, so I’ll give you a quick refresher course. Luther’s explanation of the Third Article of the creed is helpful here. It says:

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

Now comes, Luther’s favorite line, “What does this mean.” You see, we affirm that these are not just words compiled together, but a meaningful statement of faith. So, what does this mean?

I believe I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him;

You cannot, by your own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ. I can’t either. Sounds to me like we’re all a bunch of spiritually bent people, walking outside the holiness of God. Sounds like we’re a lot like that woman, unable to stand in front of God, unable to even come close to God because our sin prevents us. We have not followed the rule to love God as we should, love our neighbor as we should, and so we’re an un-curably bent people.

But the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.

The Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel. God has come out of the place of teaching with the word, just as Christ left that synagogue to hit the streets. You have been enlightened with gifts and kept in true faith by the God who comes to meet you.

Even as the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.

So we’re not alone in this. God’s call is for everyone to be healed, especially on the Sabbath.

Let’s finish this out, now.

In which Christian Church God daily and richly forgives all sins to me and all believers, and will at the Last Day raise up me and all the dead, and give unto me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.

You see, Luke is pointing out that we are all bent in front of the holiness of God, just as that woman was bent. And God in Christ has come out to us, reached out with that crucified hand, that hand with the nail mark clearly visible, to allow us to stand up straight in the presence of God. We can’t do it on our own, so Christ is sent to stand in solidarity with us. We are all spiritually bent. Here, on this holy day of the week, we learn, feel, hear, and see that. And it is also here where we come to be touched by Christ again, to confess that we are sinful, and stand straight before God again.

Every prayer, every prayer that we say here in this congregation is an admission of sin. When we pray for protection for our service men and women, we are confessing that we live and act in a society that hurts each other. When we pray for the homeless and the hungry, we admit that we do not always live in a way that provides for our neighbors. We come here bent on the Sabbath, and hear once again that God in Jesus has straightened us out, that the rules have been broken, that our sins are forgiven without our payment.

And so, what do we do? Do we, then, go out like that Pharisee and point out the ways that others are bent in this world? Do we go and hold the rules over people, withholding our healing hands that must do God’s work because the “rules of society” don’t allow it?

God in Christ has broken the rules for us. And so we must consider what our response to that is. Do we further push people who need healing, who need help, to the sides because “the rules” won’t let us help? Or do we provide healing, solace, wholeness back to humanity as Christ has done for us? This is the Christian dilemma, and one we must actively face. How will you, then, go out this day, knowing what Christ has done for you, begin to heal this world and the people of this world?

You know, Frank is right, sometimes we’re riding high in April and shot down in May. But that’s not life. That’s this world. Christ coming to meet us where we are, as bent and broken people, allowing us to stand up and praise God. Christ coming to restore us so that we can be instruments, tools, people that restore others. Now that’s life!

Amen.

A Crisis of Faith

2007-08-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

Today's Chicago Sun-Times has an article on Mother Teresa's "crisis of faith," as uncovered in some of her letters, reflections, and writings. When published comprehensively, this work is supposed to give us a surprising and frank look at this blessed soul's theological reflection and personal struggles. Indeed, Mother Teresa is said to write about the "dryness, darkness, loneliness, and torture" that she felt, even as she did her work amongst the poor. She questions God's fidelity, and even at points is said to question God's reality.

This work may ruffle some feathers, as many don't want to think of their religious leaders enduring a crisis of faith. But is this altogether surprising? How many among us, even the holiest amongst us, has not questioned God's fidelity? Even the Psalmist writes:

My God, my God,
Why have your forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me,
From the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day,
But you do not answer;
And by night,
But find no rest.*

These words, echoed by Jesus on the cross in both Matthew and Mark, give voice to the very deepest feelings of loneliness, dryness, and abandonment. Even Christ, God incarnate, felt abandoned. Therefore, we should be surprised when even the holiest amongst us does not have a crisis of faith. This comes with the territory as the desert of this world sometimes feels unendingly parched as we trip on stones that will not turn into bread, and rocks that will not gush forth water. A crisis of faith is nothing to laugh at, but is not necessarily destructive and nothing new.

Even now, some in this congregation might be feeling a faith crisis, as we wait, listen, and pray for news on our senior pastor's surgery. And even as our anxiety grows, so do our cries: God, do not forsake us in this time!

And God will not; God does not. Even the Psalmist, in their crisis of faith, ends proclaiming:

All you offspring of Jacob,
Glorify God;
Stand in awe of God,
All you offspring of Israel!
For God did not despise
Or abhor the affliction
Of the afflicted;
God did not hide God's face
From me,
But heard when I cried.*

God hears our cries, and even though we might be in crisis, God is not. God continues to stand with us, wait with us, listen with us, even when we feel we are held between moments of time, held in that limbo that is anxiety and uncertainty. And resolution is on the horizon, faith is waiting for us again. The voice that once cried "dryness, darkness, loneliness, and torture" is also the voice that said, "Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."

Continue to pray, continue to listen, be faithful in small things, God is active.

See you in church,
VT...

*Psalm 22, NRSV

Let it Go

2007-08-21T09:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I helped new neighbors move into their apartment. On the third floor. No elevator. Imagine my great joy upon seeing their heirloom wardrobe, begging me to clasp one of its awkward, sharp corners as our foursome carried it's wooden frame and empty womb up those flights of stairs. Even empty, it weighed a ton.

Yesterday brought once again that dreaded feeling of "too much." I looked around our small apartment and realized that our apartment was, indeed, obese with things that we continue to cling to, some of it for aesthetic reasons and others for functional reasons. But there is another category altogether that much of our extra possessional weight falls under: "no discernible reason."

Eastern religious masters, in their sage wisdom, are adept at practicing "un-attachment." The wisdom behind this practice lies in its underlying caution: things that you own will begin to own you.

Yet this practice is not purely Eastern, but should also be a Christian practice as well. Indeed, the first commandment "You shall have no other gods before me" is a call to un-attach ourselves from all that clouds us from keeping God as central in our lives. And it stands to reason that the more obese our homes, wallets, and belts get, the less room there is for God in our lives.

Even as Ecclesiastes reminds us that "For everything there is a season," we must constantly remind ourselves that many of our possessions may be out of season. And this may just mean that it is time to "throw away stones," as that wise author notes. And stones come in many shapes: couches, clothes, memories that continue to do evil to us, and food that can be eaten another day. So many stones.

How is your life obese?

I leave you with a poem by Eugene Peterson:

Blessed are the poor in spirit
A beech tree in winter, white
Intricacies unconcealed
Against sky blue and billowed
Clouds, carries in his emptiness
Ripeness: sap ready to rise
On signal, buds alert to burst
To leaf. And then after a season
Of summer a lean ring to remember
The lush fulfilled promises.
Empty again in wise poverty
That lets the reaching branches stretch
A millimeter more towards heaven,
The bole expand ever so slightly
And push roots into the firm
Foundation, lucky to be leafless:
Deciduous reminder to let it go.

Let it go...

See you in church,
VT...

Sermon Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

2007-08-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

August 19, 2007

12^th Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 12:49-56
I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
father against son
and son against father,
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

What Time is It?

What time is it? This is the question that Jesus leaves his disciples with in today’s reading, and consequently, leaves us pondering as well. Today’s reading is not the common fare that we are used to hearing from our Prince of Peace. Indeed, this passage in Luke seems like something that might come from the lips of a street preacher, which is exactly what Jesus was in those early days in Palestine.

Today we see Jesus wearing his prophecy hat, echoing the words of Micah, of John the Baptist, of Elijah, of those great forebears that startled the sleeping followers of God from their slumber. Like a noisy alarm clock, Jesus calls out, “What time is it? Don’t you see the signs? Can’t you feel the fire that is forming, the divisions to come?”

Fire. Another one of those touchy subjects, at least for those early hearers of the word. In not so many years after Jesus’ death, Emperor Nero will take power and decimate the early Christian population with fire. Nero would take Christians, put them on a pole, and burn them, the flames giving light to his after-dinner parties. The great fire of 64 AD would burn in Rome for 6 days as Nero looked on, rumored to be singing and dancing on his balcony. His damage control tactic was to blame it on the Christians, who at that time were mostly slaves and the poor working class, causing further persecution to come upon them. Can you imagine being an early Christian hearing this account in Luke?

When Jesus says he has come to bring fire to the Earth, do not think that this is just some passing imagery for those early hearers, this is serious stuff! Those early Christians would think back to those persecutions. They knew fire to be oppressive. That gets your attention.

How do we hear it today? Our images of fire are probably quite different, but no less scary. We probably envision planes crashing into tall buildings, or brush and forest fires ravishing homes in the mountains of California and the flatlands of Florida. We also probably see, even when we close our eyes, those pictures of civilian and military victims destroyed or severely burned in car-bomb explosions, IED detonations, and other bombings. These images, too, get our attention.

And so when Jesus says, “I have come to bring fire,” this naturally makes us ask, as it did for those ancient hearers of these words in Luke, “What time is it? Is this a new time of persecution? Is this a new time of war? Is Jesus advocating for these things?”

But fire for use in war, fire as a tool of oppression is not Jesus’ point at all. Indeed, his use of fire is in the vein of holy fire. It is the pillar of fire that led the Israelites through the desert, the fire that burned the altar of Elijah in front of the Baal priests. It is the fire that touched the lips of Zechariah, purifying him before the birth of John the Baptist, it is the fire that would dance upon the heads of those disciples, huddled in that upper room for fear of the authorities. Jesus is the fire of God breaking into our darkened world. It is not the fire of oppression, but the fire of freedom. It is not the fire of war, but the candle of peace. It is not the fire that is all-consuming, but a fire that burns the chaff and harvests the wheat. This is Jesus, the fire of God. That, too, should get your attention.

You know, I was flipping through the channels the other morning as I was putting my shoes on for church. I stopped on a channel where a familiar preacher at a stadium church was advising his congregation that “the end is near.” He said that God’s fire of justice was going to wipe out the earth, that the wars in Iraq and the Holy Land were proofs, signs of the time. Mounting tensions with North Korea, current military disagreements with Russia, and our standoff with Iran were clear signs that God was ushering in the end of time, and that we needed to be ready.

I sat there with one shoe on and one shoe off and thought about those early Christians hearing this passage of Luke, and I laughed to myself.

If you’ll remember, they thought the exact same thing. And the end did not come.

Two thousand years ago the fear of ultimate destruction was on the hearts and minds of those Christians, just as it is on the hearts and minds of many today, including those congregation members listening to that pastor who needs to do more homework. You see, the fire of God is not to bring about the end times. If anyone is going to destroy us, it will be us! The fire of God in Christ is the sign, the beginning of a new time. Christ is God burning Word breaking into a world that, while hungering for God’s presence, also rejects God.

Our world, our hearts, hunger for God’s presence, yet we reject God. We hunger for God’s justice in the world, but argue over how it will be done and who will do it. We hunger for mercy from God, yet bite and strike back when we are given the opportunity to be merciful. When Jesus speaks about causing division, this is what he is referring to. When you take the fire of God seriously, when you take Christ and Christ’s radical call for love seriously, there is going to be argument.

In our world we can see some of these divisions clearly.

We, as Christians, take seriously: “Blessed are the poor for they have the kingdom of God.” The world today says: “Make as much money as you can because it gives power.”

We, as Christians, take seriously: “Put your light on a lamp-stand so that those who enter may see.” The world today says: “Don’t wear your faith on your sleeve.”

We, as Christians, take seriously: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you.” The world today says: “Revenge and war will lead to peace.”

Even in circles of Christians we find division. This past week at the Churchwide Assembly I witnessed Christians taking Christ seriously. As we listened, prayed, sang, and voted, we tried to take Christ’s call to discipleship seriously, discerning where the fire of God was leading us. And yes, there were divisions. Many divisions. Pastor against voting member, Bishop against pastor, parent against child.

But this is what happens when you take Christ seriously. And we live trusting that God’s word in Christ will bring us back around the table, back around the fire of his love shown in bread and wine, water and word, to heal those divisions. God in Christ has set your heart ablaze, not with all the right answers, but with a desire to be with God. So turn, be baptized, and follow that pillar of fire through this desert of a world.

Do you not see the signs? As we take God seriously, even as divisions form and families pit themselves against one another, we must remember that the fire of God is not for destruction, not for the end of things. The fire of God brings a new beginning.

So what time is it? It’s time to see that new beginning here in our hearts, here in this church, here in this world. It is a place where money does not rule, where power does not dominate, it is a place where we are served by God and serve one another. This is the change that the fire of God brings. Sure, divisions will happen as we take God’s work in Christ seriously; it will not be easy navigating this path. But the fire of God dances above our heads, reminding us what time it is. It’s our sign. It is time for a new beginning, God’s new beginning. Amen.

On Life and Existentialism

2007-08-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

Soren Kierkegaard, that beautifully tortured soul, writes in his journal reflection of 1835:

"How bewildering the contemplation of life often is when seen in all its richness, when we look at the astonishing variety of ability and disposition, from the man who has grown so inwardly familiar with God that like John of old he may be said to lie upon the divine breast, to the man who in his bestial brutality misunderstands and wants to misunderstand all the deeper emotions, from the man who sees through the historical process with the eyes of a lynx and almost dares to set the hour, to him for whom even the simplest thing is difficult; or else we realize the inequality of rank and position, at one moment enviously feeling the lack of what has been given to others, at another time with a thankful melancholy seeing how much has been given to us which has been denied to others-and then a cold philosophy tries to explain it all from pre-existence and does not see it as the unending pageantry of life with its motley play of colors and its infinite variety."

How incredibly accurate and true. Though we long for simple explanation, we cannot only be people of prose, but people who use imagination, song, and poetry to speak to the congregation, to the friend, to the lover about God. We must be, as Eugene Peterson says, an "Apocalyptic Poet" to our hearers, speaking into being the dynamic truth of life. Cold philosophy will explain how something is. But only poetry, music, and song explain what it is. God speaks to us in poetry, a great example for speaking to each other.

See you in church,
VT...

Kierkegaard quote taken from A Kierkegaard Anthology edited by Robert Bretall. Peterson quote from his work The Contemplative Pastor.

Not Peace, but a Sword...and then Peace

2007-08-14T07:44:00.000-07:00

Having just attended the Churchwide Assembly, I find it fitting that this week's lection is Luke 12:49-56. The beginning verses of this reading are haunting and violent.

^"49I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!"

Not the usual fare that we are so accustomed to having from our Prince of Peace. Yet, after this Churchwide Assembly, I see so much of the truth of this verse, and do not think it is a coincidence that it falls where it does.

At the Assembly the ELCA took a position on a number of items, from HIV/AIDs to investment in Palestine. Yet, all that we continue to talk about is sex. Sex is the topic of conversation that seriously divided those in attendance, as we sought to make a statement that was Christ-centered and just for humanity.

And the fire came. I saw it.

I saw it on the tongues of those at the microphones, adamantly speaking in favor of their particular position. I saw it on the heads of those voting members as they sought to discern where God is leading the church anew.

And I saw the votes aflame as they shown on the board for all to see. Truly, this day, the work of Christ had brought a sword to the church, as the votes were near evenly split.

And then I saw the fire again, this time in worship. It was after the vote as a thousand members on both sides of that sword gathered together around the flame of a candle, around the flame of the Word, around the flame of an impassioned God present for a weary and distraught people.

And suddenly that sword cut through our hearts. It cut us to the core as we worshiped together, eating and drinking the things of God. And those divisions that were before were no more around that table where all were welcomed. Our hard hearts once again split by the God who continues to show up to burn the chaff and harvest the wheat.

Being a Lutheran Christian is not easy. Indeed, divisions will arise as we continue to discern where God in Christ is calling us to move. But Christ knew this, God knows this, and we must realize this. The Prince of Peace can heal such divisions.

I leave you with a prayer by Walter Brueggemann that I picked up this morning. It seems like an appropriate prayer for today.

"God sovereign and generous,
Who commands the rise and the fall of nations,
who calls and has chosen many peoples,
who weeps when they harm each other,
who haunts every local culture-including ours-
with your will for well-being
who draws close to the powerless and
surprises with power via weakness
You are the one whom we praise in astonishment,
we adore in gladness
we thank in gratitude...
for who you are,
for what you do,
for how you hope.
Look with mercy on us this day,
on all the churches we serve and love,
on all the people we name,
on all the communities so fragile in which
we are embedded.
Look with your mercy, and we will obey you all the day long.
In the name of Jesus who obeyed fully, Amen.

See you in church,
VT...

Prayer taken from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth by Walter Brueggemann.

The Summer Dance

2007-08-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

"And so they linked their hands and danced
'round in circles and in rows
And so the journey of the night descends
when all the shades are gone."

It was a summer ritual. In my college years camp could not come soon enough. To be with nature: forests, water, birds in the morning, crickets at dusk. It was a time when my daily routine was set by the sun, not by my appointment book. There were games to play, rivers to paddle, rocks to climb, and children to amaze with stories and legendary feats of wonder.

The camp that became home to me is named Kirchenwald, "church in the woods." And that is what we did there in the woods: we had church. We gathered every day around the things of God with fellowship, adventure, stories about God's faithfulness to God's people, and the service that comes when we depend on each other for the daily things of life.

And Saturday would come too fast. The campers would hug us, hug each other, promise to be back in a year, and drive off with parents in tow. The camp would be quiet. We, counselors, would stay. We would grill and sit, chat and dance, until dusk. We would relish the time off, and yet relish the anticipation we felt for the next day, Sunday, when we would encounter God again in the faces of new campers.

And what did our campers leave with? A sense of creation, an experience of living off the earth and trusting God's people. And, of course, a garland of memories that evidenced the life of a child in the presence of God.

"A garland gay we bring you here
And at your door we stand
Here's a sprout, well budded out
The work of our Lord's hand."

Where is this place for me today? Do I celebrate the summer work of God, with it's solar appointment book and fellowship opportunities? I try with marginal success, yet the dance continues to draw me in as I wear that garland of memories every year, dancing through the night into the day.

"We've been rambling all the night
and sometime of this day
Now returning back again
we bring a garland gay."

See you in church,
VT...

The lyrics are from Loreena McKennitt's song "Mummer's Dance."

On Futility and Flightless Fowl

2007-07-27T12:46:00.001-07:00

Sometimes this is the day's activity.

See you in church,
VT...

Subversiveness

2007-07-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

I am convinced of it. He has convinced me. Eugene Peterson has convinced me that pastors, above all else, must be subversive. And the subversive tool? Words.

"Words are the real work of the world-prayer words with God, parable words with men and
women. The behind-the-scenes work of creativity by word and sacrament, by parable and
prayer, subverts the seduced world. The pastor's real work is what Ivan Illich calls 'shadow
work'-the work nobody gets paid for and few notice but what makes a world of salvation:
meaning and value and purpose, a world of love and hope and faith-in short, the kingdom of
God."

In his work, The Contemplative Pastor, Peterson describes how the pastor's faculties must be focused on the act of subversion; how she works through the world against the world and it's seductions.

And we are seduced by the things of this world.

At its heart this subversive journey is neither some Arthurian quest for morality, nor an attempt to conform the world to a dogmatic belief system. It is exactly the opposite. It is that quest which banks on the reality of a different place where systems and moral judgments are replaced with love, hope, forgiveness, and grace, and seeks to act according to those standards.

Oh, to be seduced by those things!

And so we use the tools of the trade, confident that the seduction is already beginning.

See you in church,
VT...

Where Has He Gone?

2007-07-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin, and John...

The ending verse of Dion's timeless song "Abraham, Martin, and John" is a compelling one. When I was a little boy I used to imagine these four men (I wasn't quite sure who they were) walking on some green pasture towards a sunset. Today I imagine them differently. Today I imagine them walking over a hilly street, on a march for freedom, independence, equality, and human rights.

I watched the movie "Bobby" last night, and I have to say that I was quite impressed. Having grown up in an era more than a decade after the events depicted, I could still relate to the struggles presented. The Latino busboy who has to work a double without a choice, the black cook who continues to "play the game" with his white employer because he sees it as the only way he can play, the two young men who decide to do drugs rather than work because it helps them escape their world full of racial tension and war, all of these images are still particularly relevant for today.

And then there is Bobby. Bobby is to be the character, the voice, the person who will lift these people into a new reality as president. He is to be, as the cook Edward Robinson scribes on the wall kitchen wall in reference to Jose, the "Once and Future King," full of compassion, grace, and humility.

He is to be...

And we are all aware of how the story ends, thrusting the Ambassador Hotel into infamy. The '68 election became just another election where the wars: racial, political, and international, raged on.

Last night I was trying to think of a presidential candidate in today's field that generates as much hope, confidence, as much change as RFK did. No matter which side of the political spectrum you find yourself on, you cannot deny that the man was engaging and full of promise. Today I see a political vacuum where political hope used to be.

"Bobby" is not a movie for everyone; indeed, sometimes it was tedious. But it spoke to me in a way that I didn't expect it to. Give it a try and see if you don't find yourself wanting the hope that the people, waiting for RFK to arrive, held on to.

Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free
Some day soon, it's gonna be one day

One day it will be.

See you in church,
VT...

Sermon: 8th Sunday after Pentecost

2007-07-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 10^th Chapter:

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

The Gospel of the Lord

http://www.louisglanzman.com/martha.html

The Power of Standing Still

I was unendingly perturbed with the isles of baking products before me. The store was closing in less than thirty minutes, and there were still plenty of items we had to get before we could go home. Baking soda? Check. Baking cocoa? Check. Blueberry muffin mix? Where did they keep that mix? I was about to seriously lose my temper with a box of brownies when I heard the sound just beside me. It was an unnatural noise to my ear just then; it interrupted my train of thought.

"Happy Easter!" came the small voice.

And suddenly, I was aware of myself again. Standing in the middle of the grocery store in my clerical collar on, having worked 12 hours already on that Good Friday. We were on our way home from services very late, and I was tired, and there was this petite little girl who barely came up to my waist smiling up at me. She had a dotted sun-dress on with a little hat, and I looked down very surprise, almost unable to speak.

"Happy Easter!" she said again.

"Happy Easter!" I responded. "I like your dress."

She smiled, giggled, and skipped back to her parents who had been waiting and watching from the end of the isle as this little girl, who had obviously asked to come over to me, had greeted a pastor in the appropriate way. In the middle of a grocery store. At night after a Good Friday service when he was about to lose his temper with baked goods.

That little girl brought me back to where I was, back to who I was, that night. I had forgotten. In the middle of the busyness of that day, I had forgotten who I was and what my purpose was. What the purpose of that day was. I never thought that my agreeing to bring baked goods to the Easter Vigil the next night would consume my Good Friday to the point that I missed the emotions of the night. Standing there in that baked goods isle, my thoughts were not with the crucified savior, but with my own preoccupations. I was so full of anxiety that I missed the emptiness of the night; emptiness that I surely needed if I was to experience the fullness of Easter morn. That young girl brought me back indeed, from busying myself to death into a new, reflective and aware life.

In our gospel message today Jesus brings Martha back from busying herself to death into new life. I sympathize with Martha, I truly do. I'm a host to the end, wanting to bend over backwards so that guests are comfortable. Martha no doubt was simply trying to ensure that Jesus and the rest of his entourage were comfortable. We often think of this as a simple exchange between Jesus, Mary, and Martha, but we must remember that Jesus had many people traveling with him, over 80 other guests by some estimates. Martha was caught unawares, and had much to do to keep everyone happy!

Artist Louis Glanzman has created a wonderful depiction of Martha that I enjoy. It has her dressed beautifully with a head scarf and golden necklace, and she has her hands on her hips as if she is saying to Jesus, "Are you just gonna let Mary sit there?" much like I was in the store with my hands on my hips thinking, "If I don't find these muffins, someone is gonna pay..." But if lasts week's message of the Good Samaritan was an example of taking care of a guest’s bodily needs, how to act when we are host to our neighbor, today’s message is the compliment of that: Today we see how to take care of our guest’s spiritual needs, and how to be a guest in the presence of God.

The hospitality in today’s story is one shown equally by Jesus and by Mary. Today we see that it does no good to invite a stranger, loved one, and neighbor, anyone into our home if you do not listen to them and attend to their heart's desire for interaction. Martha presumed she knew what Jesus needed and went about getting it done, but it seems Mary didn't know. She didn't know what Jesus needed, and she ultimately didn't know what she herself needed, and so she sat to listen to her Rabbi. This was at the same time risky and rude. Rude because there were a number of guests in the house that needed tending to, and Martha was doing it all herself.

It was risky because her culture did not allow her to sit there, with the men, and listen to a teacher of the Torah. Early rabbinic scholars have suggested that it would be better to burn the Torah than teach it to women, as they were not allowed to sit in the temple and discuss the law. But Mary chose to stay and sit, to learn from her guest. This is probably part of the reason Martha came and demanded that Jesus send her to help in the other room: it was scandalous for her to sit there, to listen, and to learn. But if there is one thing we know about Jesus, he was not afraid of a little scandal. No, in fact, when Martha confronts him, Jesus confronts her own situation, noting that she is "distracted by many things,” pulled in a million directions, and missing the main distraction, or rather, the main attraction of the day.

You see, I think that Jesus was trying to say to her, "Martha, you're so busy right now that you just don't get it. When you are in my presence, I am the host. You are pulled in so many directions trying to make me comfortable that you are refusing to be in my presence, allowing yourself to be comforted. Mary gets it; she sees that I am the only distraction that should be here today. I can't keep her from me, what about you?"

And what about you? Are we so consumed in the busyness of our lives that we can't sit down for a moment to allow God to be our host? That’s one of the reasons we're here today, isn't it, to be in the presence of God. So why do our thoughts clutter us in? Why do we rush to the other rooms of our mind even while our bodies sit here? It's scandalous for us to sit and not do anything, we must plan and plan and plan. We must go and do and rush. But Jesus invites us today to think about what we need internally as well as externally. When we are in the presence of God, God gives us the power of standing still.

That phrase, "The power of standing still" is an important one. It’s used by Robert Frost in his poem "The Master Speed." Frost’s poem is about the love of marriage, and he describes married people as having the power to stand still. It’s a paradox because we don’t often consider standing still to require much power. But in our busy lives where we are constantly told to move and to go, it takes the ultimate power, a power that only God can give, to sit, listen, and learn from the Word of God.

Here, today, God invites us to marry ourselves into the presence of Christ, to sit and receive as guest what Jesus provides as host. Let this table here, this communion you are about to receive, be your own "Happy Easter!" you're own wake up call that reminds you who you are what you are about. Every week this meal should be that wake up call that takes you from busying yourself to death into a new, reflective and aware life.

So, as Jesus probably would have said to Martha, "Don't just do something, stand there!" God gives us the desire to move, but also gives us the space to sit and just be with God; both are equally important, and just as we should not miss the opportunity to tend to our neighbor’s needs, we should not miss the opportunity to be the guest of our Lord, listening and learning. It’s scandalous to be still in the busy world, and we cannot always be still, but God invites us to be scandalous and listen. The Good News is that God invites us to be guests today. And it is only in being the guest of God that we truly can learn how to be hosts to others. Amen.

The Master Speed-Robert Frost

2007-07-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite poems by Frost, a paradox of imagery. My favorite line, and one that I think describes marriage so completely, is "the power of standing still." A complete marriage is the one that has achieved the power of standing still. The mundane becomes the extraordinary, the old is continually given purpose and meaning as the two of you share the old together: old time, old china, old rituals. In that sharing, new life is given. Here is the poem for your consideration and enjoyment.

The Master Speed
By Robert Frost

No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have a speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will.
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still—
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.

Off and Running

2007-07-19T07:56:00.002-07:00

This is my first foray into the blogging world. Must we be original? Yes. And no, of course. My hope is that this will serve as a useful place for posting thoughts, articles, poems, and other bits of information to interested congregation members (and other interested parties, should they appear).
Pax,
VT