Sermon for Sunday, October 30

Reformation Sunday

Scripture: John 8:31-36

I remember being a confirmation student, in 7th grade, when I first heard about Martin Luther, reformer of the church.  Around Reformation Sunday, we watched the old black and white Martin Luther movie, and my dad, who was my pastor and teacher, explained how Luther back in the 1500s in Germany nailed 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church.  Luther’s written declaration in defiance of the Roman Catholic Church of the time was highly controversial, exposing the corruption of the church, to the point that Luther went into hiding at Wartburg Castle for his safety.  Pope Leo X and Emperor Charles V demanded at the Diet of Worms, basically a holy trial, that Luther recant his writings.  Luther refused saying that his conscience was bound by the will of God, that he could not and would not renounce any of his writings.  “Here I stand; I can do no other,” he famously stated.  As a teenager, what amazed me was the controversy surrounding something purely theological.  Sure, elections (by the way, everyone, please vote), immigration, the size of the federal government, taxes, universal health care, abortion.  I get it.  These are controversial topics.  But grace?  Luther declared, simply, that the people of God were saved by God’s grace, and controversy ensued.  My 14-year-old brain could not compute a world where grace led to upset in the life of Martin Luther, in the church, in the world.

Perhaps, neither can we.  For Luther’s declaration, one which threatened his life, one which drug him before the pope and the emperor, meant that the people of his day, the people of our day, the people of every age need not earn, work for, or any other way labor for salvation.  Instead, Luther insisted, we are saved by God’s grace.  Not works.  Not repentance.  Not even by a declaration of faith.  Just the free, undeserved, unmerited favor of God.  It was this declaration that led to Luther’s excommunication, to his fame, and to the reformation of the church.  It was this declaration that changed the world, that changed the course of human history.  You may think I am exaggerating, but historians both inside and outside the church agree on this point—that Martin Luther left an indelible mark on the world.  And it was all because of grace.

The free, undeserved, unmerited favor of God is our namesake, the center of the Lutheran theological tradition, and the primary practice of a life of faith.  We first received God’s grace in holy baptism, grace  that frees us from the power of sin, death, and evil.  We receive God’s grace in holy communion each Sunday, grace that provides forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation.  We receive God’s grace in the word of God proclaimed, a word that guides our lives.  We receive God’s grace in community, in bonds of love, in relationships that transcend difference and slights and mistakes.  We are not always our best selves, but in this community, we give each other second and third and even fourth chances.  Because we have been shown grace, we are people of grace.   

I hope you know that we, the people of Grace Lutheran Church, are witnesses of God’s grace to our sister congregations in the Grand Canyon Synod of the ELCA, to the congregations of various denominations who partner with us in ministry, to the member institutions of the Hance Park Conservancy which surround the park, and to our community at large.  And what I mean is, people know the grace of God because of our communal witness.  For we—together—have stumbled, and I do mean stumbled, into a way of being that is loving and gracious.  I know sometimes it doesn’t feel like this way of being together as God’s people is particularly successful or loving or gracious.  When the roof is leaking and the A/V doesn’t work.  When the west parking meter takes a full five minutes to process a charge and we are still picking up cigarette butts from the flower beds.  When we are replacing sprinkler heads on the north lawn again and the lift in the sanctuary is stuck again because someone forced the door closed. 

Ha!  Life at Grace is not perfect, not by a long shot, and neither are we perfect.  But what I will carry in my heart from these twelve years at Grace is how we showed up for each other to mourn the death and celebrate the lives of the saints and how we prayed for each other at prayer retreats.  How we showed up in the church kitchen to serve biscuits and gravy, to serve GLOW meals, to prepare heat respite lunches, to fill Food Angel boxes.  How we showed up en masse to serve Oktoberfest brats and to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.  How we showed up for Ministry Nights and council meetings.  How we gathered for GLOW—to eat together and celebrate birthdays, to engage in civil dialogue and story circles, to study scripture and sing What A Fellowship, What A Joy Divine.  How we got lost together on the Oregon mission trip, served—and walked--together all over Manhattan and DC, not to mention weeks of Campformation, lock-ins, and confirmation classes.  How we danced and sang and crafted together during Vacation Bible School and performed Christmas programs donned in angel wings and robes.  How we traveled together by plane, party bus, city bus, school bus, and boat on our way to and from Holden Village.  How we sang Holden Evening Prayer together during Lent and washed each other’s feet on Maundy Thursdays.  Even how we argued and disagreed, how we triangulated and gossiped, how we made huge mistakes—but by the grace of God forgave each other and learned new ways of communicating.  There are really so many memories that no sharing could do them justice, but most of all, I will carry in my heart how we showed up for worship—to put our faith in motion, to pray for each other, to sing, to share the peace, to receive in bread and wine the body and blood of Christ.  All the times we showed up and served in countless ways, all the hours we have spent here together, it wasn’t because we were earning points with God.  Rather, what we have encountered at Grace is the grace of God poured out, a grace that frees us, just like Jesus says in today’s gospel, a grace that upsets our lives, the church, and the world in all the good ways.

As we go into our daily lives, at work or school, at the library or the grocery store, in our neighborhoods or among our families, God’s grace isn’t just the name of this church, and it isn’t just the central doctrine of the Lutheran tradition.  God’s grace is what we share when we forgive, when we serve, when we care about people for no other reason than we just care about people.  God’s grace, that we have received many times over, is our gift to share with a world that struggles right now to love each other, to even talk to each other.  So, on this Reformation Sunday, we celebrate God’s great love for us and all creation, a love and grace that, when shared, upsets our lives, the church, and the world in all the right ways.  For that, may we proclaim: Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, October 23

Day of the Church Year: 20th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Luke 18:9-14

Our Jesus story today involves two Jewish men at prayer, two men of distinctly different social statuses, two men who have very different opinions of themselves.  One of them believes himself to be unfettered by sin, the other languishing in it.  One of them praises God that he is not a sinner like his neighbor while the other simply hopes that God is merciful.  At the story’s conclusion, Jesus commends the humble man and declares him justified.  For, Jesus says, all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted. 

Most of the time, I’m doing something to follow Jesus.  I’m serving or praying or studying.  But exercising humility?  I’m not sure what to do because practicing humility for the sake of practicing humility is a spiritual trap.

Perhaps snippets from my own inner monologue will sound familiar to you.

“Ooh, I am so annoyed by that person’s arrogance.  Thank goodness I’m humble.”  OR

“That person has so much to learn.  I can’t believe they are saying x about x topic which I know so much more about.”

Assuming my inner monologue is not unique to me, how do we exercise humility?  Exercising humility can trap us because--

The way of humility is not devolving into low self-esteem or putting ourselves down.

The way of humility is not celebrating the tax collector and thereby also looking down at the Pharisee which would, ironically, be the very thing for which Jesus criticizes the Pharisee. 

The way of humility is not strategically being humble in order to be exalted.

In my numerous readings of this Jesus story, however, I noticed for the first time the word “justified.”  At the story’s conclusion, Jesus declares: the tax collector went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee.  For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.  And then, the story started to open up.  Because haven’t we all sought self-justification at some time?

This past week while participating in a large group conversation about ministry, a pastor raised a question about how to work with someone who accused them of doing something the pastor did not do.  The accusing person was apparently grieving, in the midst of a difficult time in their life, and was not in the healthiest mindset, thus the random accusation.  Two people responded to the question, and I was struck by their differing responses, both from professionals in their fields.  One of the respondents advised my colleague to reason with the person, to offer a new perspective on the situation, to share reasons why the accusation was false.  The other respondent, someone skilled in communication, said: I would just apologize. 

We probably all know the pull of self-justification like the first respondent.  That moment when someone accuses us of something we did not actually do.  That moment when we feel overcome by guilt.  That moment when someone tells us they feel sad or hurt or angry about something we actually did.  That moment we discover we did not fulfill others’ unspoken expectations.  We rush to defend ourselves.  Right?  “I didn’t do it.”  OR “Here’s why I did it.”  OR “You’re so sensitive.”  OR “You didn’t tell me what you wanted.  What do you expect?” We seek to justify ourselves, to justify our actions.  And not just to other people but to God and to ourselves.  To not defend ourselves in situations like these feels like people getting away with murder, right?  There’s no justice in that.  We feel this strong pull to change the other person’s view of us—or even to change God’s view of us—or change our view of ourselves.  We want to justify ourselves.

While stewing over the topic of humility, I wondered: does anyone actually let go of self-justification and exercise humility?  God is good because, yesterday morning, God granted me a wonderful brunch with a 19 year old friend.  She is finding out how difficult the workaday world can be, how tricky it can be to navigate relationships with co-workers.  A particular co-worker offers up jabs my friend politely calls “unnecessary.”  But my friend tells me her co-worker is going through a difficult time having just moved to Arizona after getting a divorce.  Her co-worker is adjusting to a new city in a new work environment without the support of her family and friends after what was likely a tumultuous separation.  My friend said to me: I just try not to listen to what she says about me because I know it’s not true.  And my friend carries on, doing her job, and even supporting her co-worker.    

At the heart of the Lutheran theological tradition, don’t go to sleep, this is actually relevant!  At the heart of the Lutheran theological tradition lies what is called the doctrine of justification.  This is not a doctrine about how we, the people of God, make ourselves right before God.  It’s not a doctrine about how we make ourselves right in the view of other people.  No, the central doctrine of the Lutheran theological tradition says that we are justified by God’s grace.  By God’s grace.  No one else is involved in our justification, not us, not our hurt neighbor, not our grieving co-worker, just God.  Turns out, there is no need for us to justify ourselves before God, before others, or before ourselves because God has already done so.  Whether we are the arrogant Pharisee or the humble tax collector, God’s grace justifies us.  And for that, we can say: Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

Sermon for Sunday, October 9

The year I turned 23, I prayed regularly with folks at the shelter where I worked on the west side of Chicago.  Everyone who lived at the shelter was healing from a broken bone or a recent surgery or was living with a chronic illness like HIV.  Nearly everyone was new to sobriety from crack and walking that difficult, daily walk.  I was a middle class little white girl who had encountered few challenges in life up to that point, raised in a small Minnesota town by my still happily married parents and afforded every opportunity for growth and learning.  At the dinner table in our house, we spoke most nights about the challenges people in our community faced and about how we could be good neighbors but not really about how privileged we were or how blessed we were.  To be honest, when I first started working at the shelter, I saw our residents only as people bowed down by struggle and hardship, as people of sorrow who had encountered countless setbacks and hard knocks.  …and then I began praying with people.  To my utter astonishment, the vast majority of people’s prayers began this way: Thank you, God, for waking me up this morning.  Thank you for giving me strength in my arms and legs that I can stand up and walk.  Yes, people prayed for mended bones and restored relationships with family, but far more than anything, people thanked God.  People thanked God for a safe place to sleep, for health care, for food every day.  In all my 23 years of being a Christian, it had never occurred to me to thank God for strength in my arms and legs, for waking me up in the morning.  All along, God had been waking me up in the morning and giving me strength in my arms and legs.  All along, God had been providing for me in extraordinary ways, but I had never noticed. 

In our Jesus story today, ten people with leprosy call out to Jesus for mercy.  In the ancient world, leprosy caused physical pain as well as emotional pain for people with leprosy were marginalized and shunned, even by family.  In this way, leprosy was both a social illness and a physical one.  When these ten call out to Jesus for mercy, he tells them to go show themselves to the priests, a necessary act of ritual cleansing.  They go, and on their way, they are healed.  One comes back, a Samaritan, someone marginalized and shunned by the Jewish community not only because of the leprosy but because of their religious and cultural background.  This one, only one, comes back to thank Jesus and to praise God.  The other nine don’t, but this one recognizes the gift of their healing and their restoration to community.  And Jesus commends him, saying, “Your faith has made you well.”        

Today, this Samaritan teaches us that gratitude is to recognize the abundant gifts of God.

The story, it seems, everywhere is that leaders are corrupt, the world harsh and mean, the brokenness overwhelming.  According to every news source.  According to the stories we tell about our own lives.  There is truth in these stories; of course there is.  Still, God is good, and love and hope abound.  God wakes us up every morning to a new day, and even when those we love do not wake to the new day with us, still, there is gift to behold.  Maybe gratitude for God’s gifts seems too gentle, too joyous, a ridiculous focus in the midst of devastating climate change and nuclear tension, in the midst of our own illnesses and challenges related to housing or employment or a million other things.  But how do we solve these problems?  How do we get up from under all that might weigh us down?  How do we move forward when stuck between a rock and a hard place?  Will we push against the ocean and scream until we are red in the face, or will we first give thanks for all that God has done and is doing and will do?  Will we name with raw astonishment the grace of God in this moment?  Or as poet Linda Pastan writes in her poem entitled Imaginary Conversation:

You tell me to live each day

As if it were my last.  This is in the kitchen

Where before coffee I complain

Of the day ahead—that obstacle race

Of minutes and hours,

Grocery stores and doctors.

But why the last?  I ask.  Why not

Live each day as if it were the first—

All raw astonishment, Eve rubbing

Her eyes awake that first morning,

The sun coming up

Like an ingenue in the east?

You grind the coffee

With the small roar of a mind

Trying to clear itself.  I set

The table, glance out the window

Where dew has baptized every

Living surface.

Not even the real, gritty challenges of this life can erase the grace of God poured out for us.  Like Eve on that first morning, we can rub our eyes and look around with raw astonishment at all that God has done.  Like the Samaritan, we can thank Jesus and praise God when we recognize what God’s been up to in our lives.  Like the people of God gathered at that west-side shelter, we can rise each morning and say, “Thank you, God, for waking me up this morning!”  With eyes of faith, we see not only our challenges and our struggles but God’s grace poured out everywhere.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, October 2

Day of the Church Year: 17th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Luke 17:5-10

We have probably all been there sometime in our lives.  The alarm goes off bright and early.  We set it the night before so we could exercise.  We had read and heard and been told by our doctor that exercise is good for us, the silver bullet in terms of health and well-being.  We have listened to friends and neighbors and family members say in the midst of difficulty, “At least I have my health.”  We agree that we want to care for our health.  We want to live to see our grandchildren graduate from high school.  We want to enjoy retirement.  Or simply, we want to feel good.  Yet when the alarm goes off bright and early, we press snooze and convince ourselves that it’s quite alright to skip exercising today.  Exercise is easier in theory than practice.

As Jesus followers, we have probably all been there.  A co-worker or a family member, a neighbor or another church member wrongs us.  As Jesus followers, we know forgiveness is what Jesus teaches.  For years, we have listened to sermons on forgiving others seventy times seven times.  We have advised others, perhaps our children, to forgive those who hurt them.  We have read and seen stories of radical forgiveness, how powerful it is when a survivor forgives a perpetrator of violence.  But when someone wrongs us, all of those good intentions to forgive now seem impossible, unjust, and even silly.  Forgiveness is easier in theory than in practice.

Just prior to today’s Jesus teaching, the apostles—the twelve who are normally called the disciples in Matthew, Mark, and John but apostles in Luke—receive instruction about forgiveness.  It’s a seldom read passage where Jesus says: “If the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”  It’s directly after these words that the apostles cry out “Increase our faith!”  It’s only after they hear these very specific instructions about how to put their faith in motion that the apostles cry out, “Increase our faith!”  Apparently, they do not believe they possess enough faith to forgive someone seven times a day.  Jesus waxes eloquent about faith the size of a mustard seed yet doesn’t seem to respond to their request.  Instead, he reminds them, strangely, of the common master-slave dynamic of the first century.  Is a slave thanked for doing what is commanded?  No, of course not.  Per Jesus’ command, the apostles should then confess: “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!” 

Instead of Jesus saying, “Yes, apostles, you are right.  You need more faith.  Here ya go,” instead of Jesus just handing over faith like a wrapped gift, Jesus extols the apostles to do what he has commanded.  To forgive the same person seven times a day.  To also care for and enter into relationship with those most vulnerable as we heard in last week’s parable.  To welcome sinners and eat with them.  To pick up their cross and follow Jesus.  To practice humility.  To witness Jesus’ ministry and to go and do likewise.  In doing what Jesus commands, their faith will increase.  

For faith is practice, not theory.  We might feel short on faith.  We might be filled with doubt.  We might have lots of questions.  We might wonder if we have the right answers about God.  We might be preoccupied with what we believe in our heads about God.  But today, Jesus indicates that faith is practice, not theory.  And our faith grows when we practice the acts of one who follows Jesus.  Faith is not handed to us like a wrapped gift but is born in us through practice—and honestly, quite often through struggle. 

At GLOW, Grace Lutheran On Wednesdays, this fall, we are reading poetry alongside scripture, and this past week, we read the poem “Fear” by Kahlil Gibran and read the story of Jesus walking on the water and Peter trying to walk on the water from Matthew.  One of the messages of the poem is how we must face our fears just like Peter faced his fear by getting out of the boat.  In our discussion of fear and courage, Cecil talked about the first time he had to face a particular fear.  He said, the next time he encountered a fear of that same magnitude, facing it was easier than it had been the first time.  That as he faced his fears again and again, his capacity to face his fears also increased. 

I think the same is true of faith…and of exercise.  😊 Once we get started, once we practice forgiveness, once we get serving, once we begin to love others regardless, forgiveness, service, and love become easier.  Once we get up and exercise three days a week every week for three months, suddenly, it’s not so hard.  Thanks be to God!  Faith is not something God plants in our hearts in Holy Baptism only for it to remain there un-practiced all the days of our lives.  The mustard seed of faith God gifts us begins with childlike trust in the grace and love of God but grows as we put our faith in motion.  Without the nurture of action, faith can stagnate.  When we cry out, “Increase our faith!” Jesus says, “Follow me.” 

If today we, like the apostles, worry that our faith is not enough, rest assured, we have already received a mustard seed of faith in baptism.  Now, we go and follow Jesus.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, September 25

Day of the Church Year: 16th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Luke 16:19-31

In the early 1990s, Chip had a 4 year old daughter and a subscription to one of the news magazines, Time or Newsweek.  On the cover of one of the issues appeared an emaciated child, a child clearly experiencing malnourishment and hunger, the headline about the famine in Somalia.  In considering this image, Chip’s daughter asked a question.  The question could have been: Why is this child hungry? Or what can I do to help this child? Or perhaps an adult question like: What systems or natural disasters are creating widespread hunger in Somalia?  But what Chip’s 4 year old daughter asked her dad was: What’s her name?  What’s the name of the child who’s hungry?

The most challenging aspect of Jesus’ parable today is that it’s so clear.  Excruciating in its irony and simplicity, Jesus teaches his disciples as well as the Pharisees gathered round the ethic of love.  Lazarus lays at the gate of the rich man’s home while the rich man wears purple and fine linen, signs of his great wealth, and feasts sumptuously every day.  Both men die, Lazarus joining Father Abraham, the rich man entering Hades.  In the torment of Hades, the rich man calls on Father Abraham to send Lazarus to him with water, that he might cool his tongue.  Even in the afterlife, the rich man believes Lazarus is there to serve him which Father Abraham quickly shuts down.  In concern for his family, the rich man then requests that Lazarus be sent to the rich man’s family to warn them of what is to come for those who ignore vulnerable people.  Again, Father Abraham declines and says his family can listen to Moses and the prophets who consistently articulated the necessity of caring for those who are vulnerable.  The rich man protests saying, if someone comes back from the dead, they will listen.  And Abraham declares in a moment of foreshadowing, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” 

Because Jesus’ parable is apocalyptic in nature, not meant to be taken literally, Jesus speaks not of how to avoid an afterlife in Hades or how to hold a conversation with someone in heaven while in hell.  No.  Rather, Jesus speaks of love, the greatest of all the commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  This greatest commandment can be paralyzing.  How do we truly love God, love our neighbor, love ourselves in a world troubled by so many disasters and injustices all at once?  In the deep and stormy sea of our world’s problems lies people, people in Ukraine and Pakistan, people in south Phoenix and Scottsdale, people next door and people camping on deserted lots.  People who got up this morning and saw the sun, heard the birds chirp and felt the breeze on their skin.  People who get hungry and thirsty, who fall in love and yearn to contribute to the common good.  People who make mistakes and are caught in systems beyond their control.  People shaped by the cultures and religions and families into which they were born.  We are also these people.  While love requires action systemic and political, and while our neighbors live near and far, including strangers we will never meet, certainly, our neighbors include the people who lay right in our path, like Lazarus laid at the gate of the rich man. 

Jesus’ apocalyptic parable does not provide instruction about afterlife or salvation but about how we live here, now.  Just as all apocalyptic tales do, this one reveals a truth still relevant two thousand years later: that a joyous life is full of relationships.  Not acts of charity but knowing our neighbor and being known, listening to them and being listened to, helping and being helped, knowing their name and having ours known as well. 

Did you notice that the rich man knows the name of Lazarus—but that the rich man has no name in this parable?  Surely, we might think, if the rich man knows the name of the vulnerable man lying at his gate, he has loved the man as the law commands.  Yet apparently, the rich man did not introduce himself.  He did not allow himself to be known by someone he may have believed was beneath him.

A few years ago, I remember struggling with this particular lesson: of how to love others in personal, specific ways.  So I asked a friend who excels in this area how he loves people in particular.  My friend said: When I meet someone new, no matter the context, no matter the person, I offer my hand, introduce myself, and open my heart to them.  People will respond however they want, and we have no control over that.  But I offer my hand, introduce myself, and open my heart to them.

When we follow God’s command to love God, neighbor, and self, when we risk entering relationship, it’s not only the other person who gets to be loved.  We get to be loved too.  When we learn the name of the person in our path, we get to share ours too.  This is the good news: love is not just a command to us but a promise for us.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, September 11

Day of the Church Year: 14th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Luke 15:1-10

In the 1980s when my dad was serving as pastor in a congregation in a small northwestern Minnesota town, a woodworker in the congregation made him a sign that read “Sinners Only.”  Delighted, my father put it up in his office and in the office of the next church he served and in the next.  Today, it sits in the office of my parents’ home.  Every time someone walked in the door of my dad’s office, this sign would greet them.  Sinners Only. 

We Lutherans are a bit gloomy about human nature compared to other Christians.  Martin Luther, whose writings and ministry ground the Lutheran tradition, was a rare combination of pessimist and optimist.  A reformer who believed in the capacity of God’s people to change and grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.  And an opinionated, gut-troubled cynic totally convicted by God’s law and convinced of his unworthiness before God.  Upon reading the Apostle Paul’s letters to the Christians in Rome and Galatia, Luther concluded that we are bound to sin and cannot free ourselves, that no matter how hard we try, humans will never be perfect, that we will never fulfill the law of God, at least not on our own.

This would have been news to the Pharisees and scribes in today’s Jesus story.  For they are keen to fulfill the law, to rigorously observe the letter of the law, to come as close to perfect as humanly possible—and they consider perfection possible.  As ancient Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees and scribes rigorously debate and study Old Testament law.  I’m sure it seems natural to them, therefore, when they look at the wide swath of humanity in their communities, that they categorize certain people as sinners.  Indeed, all four gospels use the word “sinners” to describe groups of people usually loved by Jesus but despised and stigmatized by others.  Some sinners live with chronic illness or disability, medical conditions seen in that historical moment as a result of sin.  Some sinners work as prostitutes.  Some sinners are demon-ridden or fail to follow the sabbath or commit adultery.  The Pharisees and the scribes are, quite decidedly, not sinners, wink wink.  The gospel writer Luke tells us that tax collectors and sinners are coming to listen to Jesus, and the Pharisees and scribes grumble about Jesus, saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  Nice people, religious people, good people do not share meals with sinners and certainly do not open their lives to sinners.  So Jesus’ true blue nature is neither nice nor religious nor good, at least according to the Pharisees and scribes.

We, of course, hold a different view.  Jesus is our paragon of niceness, religion, and goodness.  And the lesson here is obvious, right?: to be like Jesus, we welcome sinners and eat with them.  To be like Jesus, we go to specific places where sinners gather, maybe bars or strip clubs or Grace Lutheran Church and we dare to sit at tables with sinners and eat, a sign of acceptance.  We dare to sit down and listen to and love people who are not perfect, whose lives are full of contradictions, whose intentions are not always pure.  Wait now.  That’s all of us.  Right?  Aren’t all of our lives full of contradictions?  Can any of us claim to have pure intentions all the time?  Are any of us perfect?  Sinners Only in the church, right?

Really, the joke’s on the Pharisees and the scribes.  The possibility does not enter their minds that they could be the sinners Jesus welcomes, that Jesus comes to heal and free them, that Jesus comes to forgive them.  But the irony is not lost on us.  When Jesus tells the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, the crowds gathered around aren’t really lost.  Maybe that’s the story others tell them, but the reality is different: the crowds know they are in need.  They are following Jesus for that reason.  They are hanging on his words.  They are eager to learn and be fed, to be forgiven and healed.  And because they know they need healing, they are not lost.  But the Pharisees and scribes, the ones who think they’re perfect, the ones who cannot be convinced of their need, they are like the lost sheep and the lost coin, the ones God scurries after in wild pursuit.  Of course, Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them, with us, with all of us sinners—the ones who know we are sinners and the ones who are lost in our own self-righteousness and judgment. 

This story today is meant for the Pharisees and the scribes, not for the crowds of vulnerable people who follow Jesus all over the Galilean countryside.  And this story today is meant for those of us who, when we read about the lost sheep, assume it’s somebody else. 

But doesn’t Jesus command us, through this story, to go and rescue that lost sheep and to sweep and find that lost coin?  We so easily read ourselves into stories where Jesus proclaims God’s saving love and rescue.  We so easily cast ourselves in the role of savior when, really, the savior is always Jesus.  When we mistake our role as savior, we risk pitying those we encounter.  We risk seeing those we help as less than us.  We risk inflating our own egos.  Jesus calls us to serve all people, following his example, and calls us to strive for justice and peace in all the earth, but we do so alongside our community working together for the sake of the common good, cognizant that we too have needs we are trying to meet.

Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them.  Thank God!  Because around here, it’s Sinners Only.  And as Jesus tells the Pharisees and scribes, God will go after us even on our worst day and carry us home.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, September 4

Day of the Church Year: 13th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Luke 14:25-33

In my college years and even in seminary, I battled and debated and struggled with ideas.  The doctrine of justification, atonement theology, Christology, the study of Jesus’ relationship to God.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  How do we reconcile contradictions in scripture?  Who is God, really, and what did Jesus actually say and do?  These were just a few of the questions and topics that constantly floated through my brain.  They were incredibly important to me, and I did not hesitate to raise my hand in class to question my professors and classmates.  I eagerly debated my friends and family on, well, nearly any topic.  And when I told my sister that I was going to seminary to be a pastor, she said, “Really?  You’re too opinionated to be a pastor.”  What we believe, the ideas we embrace, the doctrines of the church have been the focus of most Christians since at least the fourth century.  That is to say, many Christians have pursued getting our beliefs right, figuring out the truth, and discerning what is accurate about God, Jesus, and scripture as the substance of what it means to be Christian.  You may say: Well, of course.  I don’t dispute the importance of studying scripture, of discussing doctrine, of questioning assumptions.  In fact, I highly encourage it.  Come and discuss Sexuality and the Bible at Theology Pub tonight at 6 pm at Arizona Wilderness!  Or come to GLOW on Wednesday nights beginning September 14.  Or join Grace Time Bible Study in the North Room each Sunday at 10 am beginning next Sunday.  Ideas are important.  But our faith, what it means to be a Christian, what it looks like to follow Jesus cannot be entirely summed up in a creed or a statement of faith.  The ideas to which we intellectually consent are only half of discipleship.

For today, Jesus calls the large crowds who travel with him to be his disciples.  And while the cost of discipleship is high, it doesn’t actually involve ideas.  Discipleship involves action.  To be clear, Jesus speaks of discipleship, not of salvation.  If salvation is all we seek, we can rest assured in the grace of God.  But if we seek to follow Jesus, to be his disciples, then, everything is required.  Hating family, hating life, carrying the cross, giving up all our possessions.  When Jesus speaks of hating here, he uses it as all those around him did at the time: as a rhetorical contrast between hate and love.  Jesus is not advocating intense hostility toward family and life but rather challenging his listeners to a singular commitment, allegiance, and love of him.  When Jesus speaks of giving up all possessions, he speaks not just of material possessions but all things for which we plan and work and negotiate—that we might not let anything sway us from our commitment to Jesus and the life to which he calls us.  This call is not about ideas alone but about action.

Of course, we know this.  Some of us have gone through confirmation and affirmed our baptismal promises in the Lutheran church.  I did when I was 15 years old.  After two or three years of study, affirming our baptismal promises involves standing up before the community of faith and saying: Yep!  I’m going to follow Jesus now.  And we commit ourselves to action, five actions, specifically.  They are: living among God’s faithful people, hearing the word of God and sharing in the Lord’s supper, proclaiming the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, serving all people, following the example of Jesus, and striving for justice and peace in all the earth.  These are actions.  Not ideas.  At affirmation of baptism, we say yes to living in Christian community meaning building relationships with others in community, to showing up for worship on Sunday morning, to shining the light of Christ in all we say and do, to serving others in small and large ways, maybe by volunteering here at church or going out of our way to care for people in our daily work, to striving, actually, for justice and peace in the world, maybe through advocating at the state capitol, writing our legislators, or learning about and practicing nonviolent communication.  These actions reveal us to be disciples of Jesus. 

We are already beloved children of God. 

We are already siblings in Christ through the sacrament of Holy Baptism.

We are already part of the Grace community since we are in this room (or connected via Facebook live) right now.

We may even believe that God exists, that Jesus is the Son of God, and that the Spirit actively guides us in our daily lives.

But discipleship is more than any of these things.  Discipleship is an every day act, an every day series of acts, an every day practice of forgiveness and generosity, nonviolence and justice seeking.  Discipleship involves showing grace to ourselves and others when we and they make mistakes (so we get lots of practice in discipleship).  Discipleship involves serving others and not simply our own interests.

Can we do it?  Jesus makes a good point—of course, he makes a good point—when he addresses the crowd in our scripture today.  The one who builds a tower would do well to estimate the cost and be assured she has enough resources to see it to completion.  The king who wages war would do well to determine the possibility of success before sending his troops into battle.  Can we follow Jesus?  Can we bring this calling to completion?  Discipleship is hard.  Forgiveness and generosity, nonviolence and justice seeking, showing grace and serving others is hard.  Because it’s counter-cultural.  Because it demands our growth.  Because we inevitably encounter challenges.  Can we do it?

Jesus doesn’t address this in the short portion of scripture we read today, but the answer to the question might, actually, be no.  We can’t do it, at least not alone.  But we aren’t alone.  We are called into community, a community who supports and uplifts us.  We are filled with and led by the Spirit of God.  We are loved beyond measure.  I think the relevant question today is not Can we follow Jesus but rather Do we want to?  Do we want to follow Jesus into forgiveness and generosity, nonviolence and justice seeking, showing grace and serving others?  Do we want to live this joyous life of love?  Because if we do want to follow, by the grace of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the encouragement of this gathered community, we can.  And for that, we say: Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, August 21

Day of the Church Year: 11th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Luke 13:10-17

The leader of the synagogue is not wrong. Work is not permitted on the sabbath. There are six whole days on which work may be done, but work is not permitted on God’s holy day of rest. And Jesus knows. Jesus, like all the faithful Jews gathered around him, knows the Ten Commandments, one of which reads: Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. Jesus, far more than any one of us, honors scripture, honors God’s law, honors what is right and good. But today, on the sabbath, Jesus sees a woman bound by a spinal condition that leaves her back bent and unable to straighten, a condition that likely causes pain and trouble breathing, frustration and isolation. When Jesus does the spiritual, ethical calculation of right and wrong, good and bad, instead of telling the woman to find him tomorrow when the sabbath has ended, he frees her then and there. The leader of the synagogue is not wrong. Jesus breaks God’s own law. In order to show the woman grace and to free her from her ailment.

I feel this story deep in my bones. This story and others like it challenge me, plague me, make my life messy. For I’m a rule-follower and a boundaries-lover. I like clarity and absolutes with crisp edges on my ethical standards. I like to understand and follow the spirit of the law, and here, God’s sabbath law is partly about honoring God and also partly about God wanting us to care for and love ourselves, to ensure we get the rest we need so that we can care for and love our neighbor. The law Jesus breaks is not arbitrary. It is law meant to provide a boundary that leads to health and wholeness, not only for the ones who observe it but for all creation. Jesus, too, needs rest in order to do his ministry. To follow this law means no work, for Jesus no healings and no miracles, for us no work phone calls, no work text messages, no work emails on the sabbath. It means no stopping by for a quick second to do this one little thing. That’s how I love my boundaries: clear and absolute with crisp edges.

But, but, in this story, Jesus reveals something that makes me very uncomfortable, that life is messy, not clear and absolute. And this story is not just about the sabbath. It’s about God’s law—and even civic law—and how we assess its relevance in the face of human need and especially human suffering.

At this point in my sermon writing process, I got stuck.  Because, while the law is clear, grace is messy.  Not Grace the church but grace the theological concept of undeserved favor.  I guess Grace Lutheran Church is also messy.  Grace cannot be codified in law or fit into a policy.  Grace resides in a gray area.  Not all decisions, not all circumstances, not all ethical questions are messy, unclear, or gray; indeed, the law of God is right and good.  Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.  But when faced with human need and especially human suffering, sometimes, what is truly right and good alters.   

Several years ago, someone in our community called to let me know they were in the hospital.  As I usually do, I got in my car and drove to the hospital to see them.  People told me that this person wasn’t really sick, that they just wanted attention, that they had problems but that illness wasn’t one of them.  I went anyway.  When I arrived at the hospital, the person in question was laying in the hospital bed hooked up to IVs and looking very much like every other person I had ever visited in the hospital.  During the course of our conversation, they described to me the various struggles they were having, struggles having nothing to do with their health.  Finally, in lowered voice, they revealed to me that the reason for which they were admitted to the hospital wasn’t true.  They were perfectly healthy.  I felt duped.  I felt stupid.  I felt betrayed.  This person called on me and on numerous medical professions in the hour of their supposed physical distress, but they were, actually, fine.  “I can’t believe I went to the hospital,” I said to a friend.  “I feel so stupid.  People told me this person was fine, but I went anyway.”  My wise friend responded, “They’re not fine.  Someone who would feign illness in order to get help is in distress.  And now, they know you care about them.  If you have to choose between being right and being loving, don’t you choose loving?”

Yes, I choose loving.  But it’s not that easy all the time. 

Fortunately for us, in today’s story, Jesus does not end the story commanding his disciples, the leader of the synagogue, or the crowd gathered in the synagogue to “go and do likewise” in showing grace or making that choice between being right and being loving.  Instead, Jesus simply breaks the sabbath to show grace.  Instead, he points out one situation where the leader of the synagogue himself does the same and calls him on his hypocrisy for, of course, we each of us break laws in order to show grace sometimes.  Instead, Jesus acknowledges that life is messy and teaches God is gracious, that God sees us in the particularity of our lives, sees the distress we are in even if no one else does.  And God cares for us enough to break even God’s own law.  That’s it.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.    

Sermon for Sunday, August 7

Day of the Church Year: 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

There’s a phrase in Latin ex nihilo that means “out of nothing,” usually referring to creation out of nothing. God creates ex nihilo, out of nothing. Today, the writer of Hebrews chronicles the ex nihilo faith of the ancients.

In the manner of the Old Testament, Genesis chapter 11 includes a genealogy, describing the lineage of a man named Abram and a woman name Sarai whose names would later be changed to Abraham and Sarah. At the end of chapter 11, we learn nothing of them but their family ties and their home region, and boom, chapter 12 opens: “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’” The writer of Genesis tells us in the very next verse: “So Abram went.” Ex nihilo, out of nothing, Abram and Sarai go! With no prior revelation of God, with no years of faith formation, with nothing but the word of God, Abram and Sarai go leave their country, their kindred, their father’s house as God commands.

Similarly at the conclusion of the book of Genesis, Joseph comes into a seat of power in Egypt, relocating his whole family there. As the book of Exodus opens, however, the new pharaoh, the new king, does not remember Joseph and his family and enslaves them and their descendants—for 400 years. 400 years into their enslavement, a child named Moses is born, saved from death by the courageous midwives Shiprah and Puah, placed in a basket upon the water by his terrified mother, drawn from the water by pharaoh’s daughter, raised in pharaoh’s home meaning he is not raised within the religious tradition of his people. As an adult, Moses flees from Egypt. While herding sheep in the desert wilderness, Moses sees on a mountain a strange burning bush whose leaves are not consumed. God speaks to Moses from the bush and sends him back to Egypt to free God’s people from slavery. Ex nihilo, out of nothing, Moses goes! With no prior revelation of God, with no years of faith formation, with nothing but the word of God, Moses goes.

It is this ex nihilo faith that the writer of Hebrews commends today. For according to Hebrews, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Faith, by its very definition, stands on hope. Not evidence. Not data. Not certainty. Hope.

I used to be certain.

I used to be certain that God existed, that scripture offered up black and white ethical guidelines, that the doctrines of the church reflected the laws of the universe.

I used to be certain.

Then, I went to college and was formed by serving at Bible camps, worked at a shelter and moved to the south side of Chicago to go to seminary. I learned about the world, met and learned from unforeseen challenges, listened to stories of life that sounded to my ears like they happened in a foreign country, not in the US, so far removed were they from my own experiences. In all this, I prayed daily and studied scripture, served as a hospital chaplain, earned a Master of Divinity degree, and led worship in college, in churches, hospitals, around campfires, at the shelter, at Holden Village, and in my seminary chapel.

And I was no longer certain. Instead, I had and have faith. I live with an assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen. I don’t know anymore if God exists, but I hope that God does. I have faith that God does. I have faith that the power of love trumps the power of sin, death, and evil. I have faith that the resurrection of Jesus means new life is possible even in a world filled with injustice, illness, death, hate, indifference.

The irony of faith is that it doesn’t increase with knowledge or practice. It has an ex nihilo quality. We don’t study our way into faith. We can study our way into greater understanding of biblical story, of church doctrine, of Christian tradition. We can practice our way into following Jesus just as we do nearly every Sunday during Faith in Motion and by the myriad ways we serve and love the world. But as some Christian leaders say, faith is “caught” more than “taught.” The reason the writer of Hebrews tells stories of the ancients, like Abram, Sarai, and Moses, is not to teach us their stories but to inspire us by their stories, to inspire by their faith.

Now, Grace Lutheran Church, maybe I haven’t told you before, but I tell others on the regular: You, dear people, make me believe in God. Your lives, the ways I see you live with courage and love, the ways I see you give of yourselves for the sake of others, your lives inspire faith in me. My convictions about a gracious God are not entirely unseen. For I see God’s grace at work in you and in our life together.

And it’s not just your faith that inspires me but the faith of so many who have come before us. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is known as the “Roll of the Faithful,” lifting up the heroes of scripture, the kings and prophets and, mostly, the ordinary people assured of things hoped for, convicted of things not seen. The writer of Hebrews brings the Roll of the Faithful to a beautiful conclusion: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” All the faithful who came before us, all the faithful who surround us today spur us on for lives of faith and hope. Especially here on Sunday mornings, because we read and study scripture, because we share our own witness in this place, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. And thanks be to God! Because, some days, faith and hope are in short supply. We can’t teach each other faith and hope, but we can sure catch it as we sing and pray, share the peace and receive Christ’s body and blood together.

Who are on your Roll of the Faith-full? Whose faith has inspired you and why? Let us name them and share just a sentence or two about their impact in our lives—that we may all be inspired by their faith and hope.

We lift up names and stories.

Let us pray. We give you thanks, O God, for these faithful whose faith and hope have inspired us for lives of faith and hope. Ever lift us up by this great cloud of witnesses that we might run with perseverance the race set before us. And all God’s people said: Amen!

Sermon for Sunday, July 24

Day of the Church Year: 7th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Luke 11:1-13

Probably ten years ago, I remember detailing to a friend the worries of my heart, the complex problems I could not resolve.  I remember asking: What should I do?  How do I solve this?  My friend, also a Jesus-follower, asked: Have you prayed about it?  It was the perfect face-palm moment.  Because I hadn’t!  It hadn’t even occurred to me to pray!  I went and prayed immediately.  And of course, a solution emerged.

Similarly, towards the end of our recent soul journey to Holden Village, after waiting three hours at the boat dock, the boat taking us from the Holden boat dock to the small town of Chelan, Washington finally arrived.  Its lateness meant, after our boat ride, we missed the particular city bus meant to bring us from Chelan to Wenatchee, a larger city where we would stay the night.  We heaved our luggage to the bus stop and investigated the bus schedule.  Another bus would come soon, it told us.  We waited...and waited.  That part of Washington was under a heat warning that day with temperatures in the upper 90s.  We discovered places of shade and sat down.  I could feel our remaining energy drain from us.  Finally, I called out: Friends, let’s gather and pray.  Everyone wearily walked into my general vicinity, and I asked for a volunteer to keep their eyes open during the prayer in case our bus arrived.  I believe Hannah volunteered.  I began praying: “Gracious God, we are tired, and we pray for the bus, that it would come soon.”  Literally, right at that moment, Hannah cried out, “It’s the bus!”  We gratefully entered the air conditioned bus, sat down, and learned that our bus driver was in training and thus driving slower than his experienced co-workers. 

Likewise, just a couple days ago, someone was telling me about their housing search.  In this tight housing market, locating an apartment in her price range was challenging enough, without geographically restricting her search.  However, she really wanted to be in a particular neighborhood so that her daughter could walk to school.  She told me that, each day, she prayed very specifically that she would find an apartment in that particular neighborhood.  And lo and behold, she discovered an apartment right across the street from the school, an apartment in which she and her daughter are now living. 

Today, Jesus teaches the disciples to pray-what we now call the Lord’s Prayer.  He teaches the disciples to call out to God in their need.  He teaches the disciples that God responds to prayer like a loving parent or thoughtful friend.  Jesus instructs them: Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.

We could probably all tell stories about times we prayed and God responded in the way we hoped.  But Jesus’ teaching leads me to wonder: What about those times I have asked and the solution or desire or need has not been fulfilled?  What about the times I have searched and not found, the times I have knocked and the door has not been opened?  What about the times when it appears that God does not respond?  There is much suffering in our world.  Certainly, we are asking, searching, knocking.  What about that?

In my wondering, one thing I think about is that scene from the movie Bruce Almighty.  If you haven’t seen it, Bruce, played by Jim Carey, complains bitterly to God, so God decides to bestow all of God’s power on Bruce.  God, played by Morgan Freeman, takes a vacation.  At first, Bruce is delighted.  Look at everything he can do!  All the power he has!  The way he can benefit his own life!  After a while, though, the shine of being God dulls, and practical problems emerge.  In one scene, Bruce has to figure out how to answer prayers.  After trying various strategies for managing millions of prayers that constantly accumulate, he decides to streamline prayers into emails and responds to all of them at the same time.  “Yes” is his answer to every prayer.  Chaos ensues for many people win the lottery, each receiving $12.  Weather patterns shift, and strange tides cause “natural” disasters.  Athletic events end in ties because everyone prayed for their team to win. 

In this humorous way, “Bruce Almighty” helps us consider the impact of our needs and desires upon others.  If God were to answer all prayers in the ways for which we hoped, life would be far from perfect—not just for us but for all creation.  Sometimes, when we pray for things, we get in our own way, creating our own stumbling blocks even as God continues to work in our lives.  And sometimes, we pray for outcomes or events about which we do not know all the relevant details.  In fact, even when we pray for our own lives, sometimes, we don’t know what’s best for us.  But God does.  God knows what’s best for us and best for the world.  And we can only assume that God provides in ways that truly benefit us and all creation. 

Still, we cry out to God for healing, for comfort, for peace.  For what possible reason would God fail to answer our prayers as we hope in these situations?   

I don’t know. 

What I do know is that, when Jesus teaches the disciples about prayer, he assures them of a loving reception.  He instructs the disciples to call God abba, an Aramaic word best translated as “daddy.”  Jesus illustrates the grace of God with a little story about a friend who gets up in the middle of the night to provide bread for another friend.  He reminds the disciples that, if an earthly father cares for his children in the most mundane ways, how much more does our heavenly father care for us?  I don’t know why God appears to answer some prayers and not others, but I trust that God loves us. 

Perhaps God answers in ways we don’t understand, in ways we cannot yet perceive, in ways we’ll look back and see and go: Oh, yeah, yeah, I get it now.  Then again, perhaps not.  But, just as Jesus instructs, we go ahead and ask and search and knock anyway.  Even if we can’t understand everything about prayer, we trust that God hears us.  Even when we can’t understand what God does or why, we trust that God our abba, our friend, our heavenly father loves us.  Even with our questions, we call out to God in whose kingdom and power and glory we rest.  For that we can say: Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, July 17

Day of the Church Year: 6th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Luke 10:38-42   

For years, I thought I wasn’t a spiritual person, and I sometimes still struggle with this.  People of faith, including some of you, talk about beginning the day with prayer, spending time with God in silence, coffee in hand.  With devotionals like Our Daily Bread or Christ in Our Home at the ready, you spend time in reflection every day.  Maybe you’re part of the weekly prayer group or you diligently read and study scripture at home.  Maybe you listen to music and praise God.  Maybe you enjoy sharing your faith with others.  Perhaps you draw or paint, sculpt or make pottery and listen to God through art creation.  Perhaps you go hiking, spend time in nature, and hear God’s voice in the birds, in the wind through the trees, or maybe from the pool.  Friends, I have to be honest.  You all amaze me.  I do not do these things.  I pray for you all, to be sure, in a popcorn fashion throughout the day, and I study the Bible as part of this job that I love.  But structured spiritual disciplines—with time set aside to nurture my relationship with God—are not my jam.       

I hope you’re not offended or shocked though I understand if you are.  Like I said, for years, I wasn’t sure I could call myself a Christian or a spiritual person without claiming at least one of these spiritual disciplines.  But several years ago, I learned through a continuing education class that people’s spiritualities vary, and the instructor introduced a spirituality wheel with four primary spiritual types.  My type is an activist spirituality, one where I hear God speak and see God work in the doing, in the action.  Faith in Motion is my jam.

I share this because, today, we read a story about two women, Mary and Martha.  Martha welcomes Jesus into her home.  Martha’s sister Mary is also there and sits at Jesus’ feet to listen to him while Martha prepares the meal and attends to her many tasks.  Upset, Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her.  But Jesus says, “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.” 

In the two thousand years between Martha hosting Jesus in her home and today, countless sermons on this story have revealed a host of assumptions about spirituality.

That Mary is lazy because she doesn’t help her sister with the household tasks—and at the same time...

That Mary is more devoted to Jesus because she sits at his feet and listens to him

That Mary is a better spiritual model than Martha

That Martha is less devoted to Jesus because she attends to the tasks of hosting

That Jesus is chastising Martha for attending to her tasks and teaching her that, in that moment, she should be sitting at his feet         

Despite these assumptions, Jesus never actually says any of these things.  Instead, he calls out Martha’s worry and distraction and invites her to focus and be at peace.  Jesus notes that Mary has chosen the better part, but there is no indication of what exactly the “better part” is.  We don’t really know. 

What we do know is that, at this point in Jesus’ ministry, he has set his face to Jerusalem which means he is traveling.  What we do know is that Jesus depends on the hospitality of those he meets along the way.  What we do know is that all of us need to eat and a place to lay our heads, including Jesus.  Jesus is not chastising Martha for preparing a meal and assuring he has a place to sleep that night.  Instead, what he calls out is her worry and distraction. 

Jesus’ gentle corrective seems not at all to do with Martha’s actions per se but with a shedding of worry and distraction.  Jesus invites Martha to focus, to be at peace in the midst of her tasks.  And these are not simply tasks but the welcome of Jesus into her home, one of the most profound ministries of the church then and now, the ministry of hospitality.  Martha engages in a ministry of hospitality just as Mary engages in devoted listening.  Martha’s jam is Faith in Motion while Mary prefers early morning prayer and scripture study, coffee in hand.

Whatever our spirituality type, however we meet God, Jesus invites us to shed our worry and distraction, invites us to focus and be at peace.  This week with the help of Andrews Refrigeration, our friend Martin, Discount Locksmith, Evalyn, Devalyn, and a host of heat respite volunteers, Ksea and I battled non-functional refrigerators, freezers, an ice machine, parking meters, and an air conditioning unit.  There were many tasks, many, many tasks, tasks that left me worried and distracted.  These tasks are part of the ministry we share, providing meals and cool space for our community at heat respite, at worship, at pancake breakfast, for the community groups who use our space.  Though I understood these tasks are part of the ministry we share, until I reread this story, I was worried and distracted by all the loose ends, all the challenges of this week, and the challenges yet to come.  Similarly, you may be worried and distracted by all that needs to be done, by what you see and hear on the news, by the challenges in your own personal life, but Jesus invites us to focus, to be at peace, and in so doing, to hear Jesus speak.  There is no need to worry or be distracted.  In the midst of all that needs to be done, as we face whatever comes our way, as we put our faith in motion, Jesus is still speaking.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, July 3

Day of the Church Year: 4th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

In the gospel of Luke, the work of the kingdom of God is carried out by the many instead of by only the twelve disciples. Jesus appoints and sends out people to cure the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God come near, all with a message of peace armed with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Even when the people of a particular town reject those appointed to minister, Jesus commands them to simply shake the dust off their feet, proclaim the nearness of God’s kingdom, and go and come in peace. Regardless of the town, whether or not the people of the town graciously receive these ministers, the kingdom of God comes near.

This week, last week, watching or listening to the news, I suspect it wasn’t just me who wondered: Where is the kingdom of God in all this mess? The deep polarization, the significant decisions made by the Supreme Court, the continuing war in Ukraine and violence in countless places across the world, the overall crabbiness of humans right now. Even the mess right in front of us, the bills we need to pay, the difficult relationships, the worries about health and safety. Where is the kingdom of God in all this mess?

Upon returning from the Holden Village soul journey this week, someone involved in a conflict during heat respite came to the church office asking if she could still be part of the heat respite program. Since I hadn’t been here and had only heard about the situation, I asked her to describe what had happened. As she described what clearly had been a difficult day for her, behind her anger and frustration appeared her sadness and hurt and humiliation. The urge to point out her wrongs rushed through me, but the Holy Spirit calmed me down. At the conclusion of her story, led by the Holy Spirit, the first thing I said was: I am so sorry you feel sad and hurt and humiliated. We also discussed the problematic behavior and how it would never happen again, and I went to find Ksea to make sure we were all on the same page. With tears in her eyes, she apologized, and they shook hands. Getting up from our seats, she commented: “It’s good to talk it through!” And a gentleness filled the room. The kingdom of God come near!

On our way back from Holden Village, the group of soul journeyers, including myself, were in the tiny Wenatchee, Washington airport. We had just gone through security and were waiting to board at gate #2. Eartha, one of our group members, came and told me that a woman, I’ll call her Susan, also waiting at gate #2 had seen Eartha’s tee shirt that read “Grace Lutheran Church Soul Journey 2022.” Susan had approached Eartha to say that she had been baptized at Grace Lutheran Church in Wenatchee. We had actually stayed overnight at Grace Lutheran Church in Wenatchee, and Eartha is amazing in her ability to connect with strangers. So of course friendly conversation ensued. Later when Eartha came up to me, she shared that Susan was nervous about flying and suggested that we go over and offer to pray with her. So we did. Susan was, indeed, nervous, quite nervous about flying, we learned. Listening to her share, we also met her son and learned about her life. She didn’t want to pray then and there, but when we told her we would be on the same flight and assured her we would keep her in prayers on this and her next flight to Anchorage, she beamed and, with deep relief in her voice, thanked us. The kingdom of God come near!

It occurs to me that the kingdom of God comes near most often when I listen, when I don’t open my mouth, when I keep myself from making everything about me. At the same time, especially this week, I am not pleased with the unjust systems of our world, and the only way our systems will change is if we speak and act for the common good—and not simply listen. I’m not quite sure how to reconcile that. But while we anticipate the fullness of God’s kingdom breaking forth, it breaks open among us in glimpses of light, in moments of gentleness. While God’s kingdom will certainly come in all grandeur one day, the kingdom of God isn’t always grand. Sometimes, it’s quiet. Sometimes, it’s gentle. Sometimes, it’s behind the scenes.

The seventy whom Jesus sent out—some of them went to towns where they were rejected. Like us, ancient Jesus-followers lived with conflict and division and injustice. Regardless of where they went or who they met, Jesus commanded them to come and go with a message of peace and the kingdom of God come near. The way they came and went, the proclamation of good news regardless, the message of peace indiscriminately shared, the way of being Jesus-followers, this itself revealed the kingdom of God.

In this present age, at this moment in our nation, I wonder if screaming louder, posting voluminously on social media, and even unfriending people who disagree with us—whether on Facebook or in real life, I wonder if this is what God calls us to do. I doubt it. I doubt it because, today, Jesus instructs his followers, when confronted with people who reject them, to shake the dust off their feet, to wish them peace, to proclaim the kingdom of God come near, all while armed with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Today, Jesus instructs his followers in gentleness, in a way of non-violence, love, and peace. Not everyone is going to love us. Not everyone is going to agree with us. Not everyone is going to work for the common good. But we can love them anyway, wish them peace anyway, proclaim the kingdom of God come near in their lives anyway. And when we do, there, the kingdom of God appears among us.

Dr. King once said: It is no longer a choice between violence and non violence in this world. It is non-violence or non-existence. Ironically, Dr. King, Jesus, and others who practiced non-violence were killed. It is a striking truth, that violence can be tolerated but that love is dangerous. Dr. King and Jesus, they were never going to hurt anyone, yet they were killed...because non-violence, love, peace, these are the forces that change the world. They are “soul force” as Dr. King taught. And confronted with the soul force that changes unjust systems, the people who desired the status quo ended the lives of those who practiced non-violence, love, and peace.

We, the Jesus-followers of 2022, we are gathered by Jesus and sent out to counter force with soul force, to practice non-violence and love, to proclaim peace and the kingdom of God come near. In the granular details of our lives, with strangers at grocery stores and libraries, among the Grace community, with our family, friends, and co-workers, while advocating for systemic change that we might seek and find the common good. Then and there, the kingdom of God comes near! Thanks be to God! Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, June 12

Day of the Church Year: Holy Trinity C2022

Scripture Passage: John 16:12-15

We are not God.  That much, we understand.  By our own power, we do not create the heavens and the earth.  By our own power, we do not lift up the valleys and bring low the mountains.  By our own power, we do not raise the dead, heal the sick, and still the storms. 

We are not God.  We cannot take in the full complexity of truth.  We cannot understand all mysteries and all knowledge.  We see as yet through a mirror dimly. 

We are not God.  Sometimes, we are wrong.  Many times, we stumble.  At all times, we are limited.  We are not God.

And because we are not, on this Sunday when we lift up the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, I have wondered: what does the trinity have to do with us? 

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the theological declaration that we worship one God who shows up in three “persons,” usually named Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or simply God, Jesus, Spirit.  Ever since this doctrine’s inception in the fourth century of the common era, more than sixteen hundred years ago, preachers have attempted to explain the Holy Trinity through clever metaphor, but dear friends in Christ, let’s just stop doing that.  No matter how deeply we plumb the depths of this mystery, we will not reach its bottom.  Given that, I more urgently wonder: what does the trinity have to do with us? 

Fortunately, God has my back and at least partially addressed my question through a sermon I heard just yesterday.  Rev. Louise Johnson who serves as the Executive for Administration at the ELCA Churchwide Office in Chicago joined us at the Grand Canyon Synod Assembly this past Friday and Saturday.  During synod assembly worship, Rev. Johnson preached on a passage from the gospel of John, part of the same conversation captured in today’s reading, where Philip, one of the disciples, tells Jesus he wants to see the Father.  Jesus, in response, basically, tells him: I’m standing right in front of you, Philip.  And when I am no longer with you, I will be IN you through the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Rev. Johnson proclaimed the good news of the Spirit recruiting us to join the dance of the trinity. 

In John chapters 13 through 17 in Jesus’ final long conversation with the disciples, Jesus makes as clear as clear can be—and as muddy as mud can be at the same time—that Jesus and the Father are one in a way we cannot untangle.  To make matters more complicated, when Jesus no longer lives on earth, he promises, he will send the Holy Spirit, a promise fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit showed up as divine wind, fire, and language.  Furthermore, Jesus says in our passage today: The Spirit will take what is mine—meaning Jesus’--and declare it to you—to the disciples and, by extension, to us, followers of Jesus today. 

We are not God, but the Holy Spirit invites us, recruits us, compels us to join the dance of the trinity.  In this post-ascension, post-Pentecost world, where we have been filled with the Holy Spirit, where we are now the body of Christ raised up for the world, God compels us to join the dance.  The dance of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  In one of my favorite Holy Trinity hymns, the hymn writer Robert Leach has the people of God sing:

Come, join the dance of Trinity

before all worlds begun—

the interweaving of the Three,

the Father, Spirit, Son.

The universe of space and time

did not arise by chance,

but as the Three, in love and hope,

made room within their dance.

We do not and cannot understand the mystery that is the triune God, but we know how to dance—how to use our hands to do God’s work.  We cannot prove or adequately explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity, but we know its moves of serving meals, of advocating for justice, of studying scripture and praying, of knitting prayer shawls, of stewarding the church property that we might care for our neighbors and neighborhood in a whole host of ways.  And while we yet see in a mirror dimly, we recognize the Spirit’s dance in us, through us, among us. 

The Spirit compels us to join the dance of the trinity, to join hands, to step in time, to move with others to love, to establish justice, to form community in a culture more and more isolated and polarized. 

Today, we say farewell to Margie Betz, a long-time member of Grace, who will be leaving us for a year as she assists her family elsewhere.  While she is gone, Margie’s voice will echo in my head in a whole variety of life situations for Margie is ever declaring possibilities possible “with God’s help.”  With God’s help, we will discern the best choices in our lives and in the world.  With God’s help, we will have the strength to do what we feel called to do.  With God’s help, we will move through illness and grief and suffering to healing and new life.  We do not meet these challenges alone for we are drawn by the Holy Spirit into the dance of the trinity, and it is a dance.

Another long-time member of Grace, Esther Robbins, loved to dance.  Though Esther died several years ago now, I will always remember how, into her 80s, she took classes at the Arthur Murray dance studio at Indian School and 12th Street.  Each week, she attended dance parties where she practiced her moves.  For decades, she competed and won prizes for her graceful moves in high heels.  After suffering a stroke and moving into a memory care unit, Esther’s dance instructor came to her—so they could dance the cha-cha, the waltz, the tango.  I’m not kidding.  I personally observed Esther dancing a tango after her stroke with the guidance of her instructor—in her room in the memory care unit.  Prior to her stroke, at Esther’s urging and invitation, I too found my way to the Arthur Murray dance studio for those weekly dance parties.  As someone desperately uncoordinated, I was more than a little intimated by the smooth moves of all the seasoned dancers.  But here’s what I learned about dancing and what I observed also in Esther’s dancing lessons post-stroke: if we have a good partner, we can dance.  Even if we don’t know the moves or have forgotten them.  Even when we get confused.  Even if we go right when we are meant to go left.  Our experienced dance partner will get us back on track and lead us, in the most tangible ways, to the next step. 

Today, we are compelled to join the dance of the trinity, to join with God in God’s work, and thanks be to God, we have a good partner.  God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with whom we dance leads us to love, to establish justice, to form community.  We’re not always going to know the next step.  The school shootings make that clear; we don’t know for sure what the next step is. That’s okay.  The Holy Spirit will take us in their arms and lead us through it all.  With God’s help, we will find our way to love, to justice, to community.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for May 29

Day of the Church Year: 7th Sunday of Easter

Scripture Passage: John 17:20-26

In today’s Jesus story, Jesus prays.  The exact mechanics of Jesus praying is unclear for, in the gospel of John, Jesus and God are one and the same.  Regardless, Jesus prays, and in the portion of his prayer we read today, he prays for the unity of those who will come to follow him.  He prays that our unity will testify to God and God’s work in the world.  He prays that we will be so united that our oneness would be similar to the ontological oneness of Jesus and God. 

What do we think?  Was Jesus’ prayer answered—or not?  Are we one?

Nearly everywhere we look, one group of people is at odds with another.  Facebook friends “unfriended” because of political views abound.  The tension in some families is palpable around holiday tables.  Violence, including last week’s school shooting in Texas but unfortunately not limited to it, reveals our callous disregard for human life.  We are quick to complain about others but slow to talk with people with whom we disagree to try and understand their perspective.  Segregating ourselves to spaces where we pretty much agree with everyone around us is definitely in style.  As if disagreeing were a problem.

Believe me.  Hearing myself say those words—as if disagreeing were a problem—my mind automatically jumps to the variety of social issues where I would—in a different venue—argue passionately for one side and staunchly defend the importance and accuracy of my viewpoint.  Because the opposing viewpoint endangers the safety of others, from my perspective.  Because the opposing viewpoint leads to devastating health or social outcomes—and the data proves it.  Because Jesus speaks with clarity on issue x or y.   

I am so convinced that I am right and those on the other side are wrong, and we know it’s not just me who thinks this way.  The people of this nation have long held disparate views on a whole slew of issues, but we seem to have reached a new moment of polarization.  A moment when we are convinced that some others are evil.  A moment when we are shocked and dismayed by the views others hold. 

Still, it’s not simply political and social views that lead to disintegration of community.  Among Lutheran clergy, there is an inside joke about conflict in congregations caused by choosing the color of the church carpet.  As in, when a church is renovated or redecorated.  Honestly, it’s such a trope for conflict among Lutheran pastors that, when I came to preach here as part of the interview process, walked into the sanctuary, and heard that the carpet had been replaced in the year 2000 and would likely not need to be replaced again any time I soon, I gave silent thanks to God and thought: Phew!  Not that we have escaped conflict by any means, but the color of the carpet has not been the trigger. 

At our spring prayer retreat where we explored the theme Life Together, we discussed conflict.  One of my questions for everyone was: What causes conflict?  And the first answer was: Emotions.  Can I get an Amen?  For while choosing the color of the carpet is the standard bearer of church conflict, it is really the emotional aspects of that process gone unrecognized that lead to problems.  We all carry around with us histories, full histories of joys and sorrows, victories and challenges, trauma and support.  Layered on top of that are daily stressors and perhaps unhealthy coping mechanisms as well as practices that bring peace and circles of support.  When we step into a conversation or a meeting while our difficult histories and daily stressors are leading the charge inside us, nothing good comes from that.  We so easily hurt others, so easily raise our voice, so easily speak critically when we are not intending to do so.  Or if we are the target of someone else’s emotion-driven words at these moments, we often shut down instead of investigating the reasons for such unwarranted criticism, instead of remaining open and compassionate to our conversation partner who is clearly struggling.  To put it bluntly, it’s a hot mess!  

Whether dealing with political or social differences or personal, emotional attacks, we often don’t want and can’t imagine a world where we are one with “them.”  Or we feel pushed out of community,  flattened by criticism, and simply want to escape, to escape from being “one” with those who have hurt us.

Thankfully, we don’t have a choice.  For God has made us one.  God has gone ahead without asking us and made us one.  One people, one body, one fabric of humanity.  As Christians, we are bound to one another through the sacrament of Holy Baptism, forever tied up together in mystical union.  As the Apostle Paul writes, we are one body with various gifts, some of us weak, some of us strong, but all essential to the body.  Not only that, as descendants of Adam and Eve, as members of the human family created by God, we all come from the same God-shaped mold, all created in the image of God. 

We are one. 

We are.  One. 

Maybe you don’t want to be one with me.  Maybe I don’t want to be one with you.  Maybe a group of people does not care to be one with another group.  Maybe a nation does not care to be one with other nations.  But there it is, unavoidable and tender, our shared humanity.

Twentieth century poet Audre Lorde wrote in her brilliant book of essays entitled Sister Outsider: “It is easier to be angry than to hurt.  Anger is what I do best.  It is easier to be furious than to be yearning.”  I suspect, given our presence here today, given our presence in various aspects of Grace community life, that most of us are yearning, perhaps for connection with God, connection with others, for hope, for ways to serve, to be one with others, to know we are not alone.

Our yearning leads us here, despite the challenges of living in community together, a community that is not and will never be perfect.  Our yearning leads us to the table, Christ’s table where Christ is host, a table where his own body is broken and blood poured out.  At this table of Holy Communion, we are one.  We share this meal as a family gathered around a holiday table, perhaps with histories of disagreements, perhaps with resentments yet still one family.

Today, Jesus prays for us, that we may be completely one.  And the joy of Christ’s resurrected life on this seventh Sunday in Easter is that, regardless of all the ways we live out our messy human-ness, we are one in Christ, one people, one body, one fabric of humanity.  Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

Sermon for Sunday, May 22

Day of the Church Year: 6th Sunday of Easter

Scripture Passage: John 5:1-9

Today, Jesus encounters a man who has been ill for 38 years lying near a pool believed to bring healing, the pool called Bethzatha in Jerusalem.  In the presence of many people afflicted with various illnesses, people presumably abandoned by family, Jesus asks the man a striking question: Do you want to be made well? 

Jesus asks because the man has been ill for 38 years.  The man will later tell Jesus that he has no one to put him into the pool, that while he painstakingly makes his own way to the pool, someone else steps down ahead of him. 

But the man has been ill for 38 years.  In the ancient world, 38 years is a lifetime, actually.  In 38 years, the man has not been able to persuade a single person to help him into the pool?  In 38 years, though difficult, the man has not made it there himself—as he indicates he can though with some trouble? 

Now, we know Jesus.  We know he is compassionate.  We know he loves this man.  Jesus does not view this man with pity.  Jesus also does not lament an indifferent world that has failed to help this man.  Jesus asks the man: Do you want to be made well?  Because in the worldview of this man and all those who are lying near the pool Bethzatha, getting into the pool will bring healing.  So if the man wants to be made well, it is within his grasp.

As usual, I think Jesus is brilliant here.  A decade ago, I would listen to people’s stories, stories of wrongs done to them, afflictions endured, slights received.  I would listen to people’s stories of trauma, significant trauma, challenges raw and real, complex problems not easily solved.  As a younger pastor, I assumed people wanted me to help them solve their problems.  After all, they came and told them to me.  I would get so confused when I would offer up handy solutions to their problems, solutions they could put in motion right there in my office, and people would decline.  I vividly remember the day someone who was telling me their problems got increasingly agitated as I made one reasonable suggestion after another.  Finally, guided by the Holy Spirit, I asked them: Do you want to solve this problem?  No, they said.  I don’t.  I just want you to listen. 

Similarly, just a few days ago, after listening to someone talk about a difficulty for which they had devised a workable solution, I asked if they would like to come into the office and make the phone call that would be the first step in executing their plan.  No, they said, looking a bit abashed.  They went on to say: I know what I need to do, but I’m not ready to do it. 

Just because someone appears to be struggling, ailing, in need doesn’t mean they want to be made well, doesn’t mean we want to be made well.  Maybe our vision of what “wellness” is is different than other people’s.  Maybe we’re not ready for change.  Maybe change is scarier than the current situation.  Maybe we in some way strangely benefit from our struggle.  Maybe we assume we are not capable of being healed—or that we don’t deserve it.

When Jesus asks the question, the man responds but fails to answer Jesus’ question.  The man does not tell Jesus if he wants to be well, and I wonder if it’s because he assumes he won’t be, no matter what he does.  I wonder this because I too am prone to this type of thinking.

Over twenty years ago now, I was admitted to the hospital, my first and so far only time.  I was in my last year of college, and I was terrified.  Terrified as my symptoms began, while I contemplated going to the hospital, on the drive to the hospital, in the ER as the nurse started an IV, when they eventually moved me into a room.  I was terrified because I didn’t know yet that, when we are sick, usually, we heal.  Especially when we’re 22 and not facing a chronic illness.  I was terrified because I assumed I would live with my symptoms forever.  I assumed that every condition was a chronic condition.  In fact, I was discharged 6 hours later because my symptoms had resolved.  My body healed.  I was surprised.

Jesus tells the man to pick up his mat and walk.  Which must have surprised him after 38 years of illness.  After a lifetime, this man could still be healed. 

In what aspects of our lives do we assume healing is no longer possible?  Perhaps we have been alienated from member of our family.  Perhaps we have been living out unhealthy communication patterns we learned in childhood.  Perhaps we have lived with addiction for decades.  Perhaps there’s always been this thing we can’t shake, maybe a lack of compassion for ourselves, a particular fear, something that lives under our skin constantly and leaves us anxious.  In these aspects of our lives, we can get scared if someone asks: Do you want to be made well?  Because what happens if we seek healing and it fails?  What happens if we seek healing and it works?  Our lives will change.

Jesus shares good news today, that even after 38 years of illness, we can stand, pick up our mats, and walk.  By the grace of God, we can be made well.  It’s some tricky good news because we well know that not every illness or condition is healed.  We know that chronic illness, including chronic mental illness, is real.  And even acute illness leaves scars.  We know that the trauma some of us have endured means our emotional lives are a tangle.  We know that the complex truths of our lives require complex healing.  It’s not simple.  But if we are wondering today if healing is possible, the answer is yes.  If we are wondering if healing is possible after a lifetime of illness, trauma, and challenge, the answer is yes.

Just as Jesus says to the man waiting 38 years by the pool Bethzatha, so I say to you: Stand, pick up your mat and walk.  By the grace of God, healing is possible.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, April 24

Day of the Church Year: 2nd Sunday of Easter

Scripture Passage: John 20:19-31

In John’s gospel, Mary Magdalene travels to Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning and discovers the stone rolled away from the entrance.  She runs to tell Peter and another disciple who go to the tomb to investigate and find only the linen wrappings.  The gospel writer John tells us they “believe” but that they then simply go home.  Quite anticlimactically, after discovering Jesus’ empty tomb, John 20:10 reads: “Then the disciples returned to their homes.”  That’s it.  There’s a longer, better story involving Mary Magdalene, but the next time the disciples enter the picture is in today’s reading, John 20:19-31.  It’s Easter evening, and they’re not rejoicing.  They’re not sharing the good news of Jesus’ resurrection with anyone.  They’re not making plans for a post-resurrection life with Jesus.  No.  They are literally locked in their meeting house for fear of the Judeans.  Now, there are good reasons for this.  Jesus is a convicted criminal, and they are known followers of his.  Jesus’ body is missing, and they would be suspect of stealing the body to make false claims of resurrection.  Though Peter and another disciple quote-unquote believe Jesus is raised from the dead, note that they only rejoice once they see him in the flesh, specifically his hands and side, casting doubt on their faith.  Whatever their reasons, the doors of the disciples’ meeting house are locked.  Thanks be to God locks on doors are no match for Jesus.  Suddenly, Jesus appears among them, says “Peace be with you,” shows them his hands and side, sends them out, and breathes the Holy Spirit upon them.  Usually, on this Sunday, the so-called Doubting Thomas steals the show.  He’s not there when Jesus shows up on Easter evening and doesn’t believe his friends when they tell him Jesus has been raised from the dead. But notice that a week later, when Thomas is with the rest of the disciples, even though Jesus had shared with them his peace, sent them out, and given them the Holy Spirit the week before, they are still shut up in their meeting house.  Still.  The gospel of John will continue for another chapter, but in none of what remains do the disciples share the good news of Jesus’ resurrection with anyone outside their own small group.  Even though Jesus shares his peace with them, even though Jesus sends them out, even though they have received the Holy Spirit.   

At risk of being too sarcastic for preaching, I wonder: has the 21st century American church learned from and emulated the disciples all too well on this point?  Have we, the church at large, shut and even locked our doors and failed to share the good news of Christ? 

Our third guiding principle here at Grace, Share the good news of Christ, probably makes most of us slightly uncomfortable for in a highly secular age, what does this really mean?  Is Jesus calling us to stand on street corners and shout: Christ is risen?  If we did that, I wonder if anyone would shout back: Christ is risen indeed!  Is Jesus calling us to knock on the doors of our neighbors and hand them Grace brochures and invite them to church?  Is Jesus calling us to buy billboard space and fill it with messages like: God is good-all the time.  All the time-God is good?  These questions make us laugh, make us wonder, make us uncomfortable.  We, the church, have handled evangelism strategies with tongs, carefully crafting programs where we share the good news of Christ in ways alien to us, acts of evangelism we wouldn’t normally do.  I think we are as confounded as the disciples by the resurrection of Jesus.  I think we’re not sure what we’re proclaiming.  I think we’re unclear as to what, exactly, we’re doing at church at all.  Just like the disciples, we have received the peace of Christ which passes understanding.  We have received the Holy Spirit in baptism.  We are sent out each Sunday: “Go in peace.  Share the good news” to which we respond: Thanks be to God!  But how do we actually do this, and what are we actually saying?

In a book entitled Breathing Spaces, Lutheran pastor Heidi Neumark writes about ministry at Transfiguration Lutheran Church in the south Bronx, her first call out of seminary in the 1980s.  When she first came to serve there, each Sunday, the ushers would unlock the church doors and let in those who had traveled to the south Bronx to attend worship.  Once all the members were accounted for, they would re-lock the doors and begin worship.  They would literally lock the doors for the people of Transfiguration were scared of the people who lived in the neighborhood.  As happens in many communities, as the neighborhood around Transfiguration changed, members of the church moved out but were still coming to worship on Sunday mornings.  No one from the neighborhood joined this worshiping community...for obvious reasons.  They couldn’t get in!  When Pastor Heidi came, she unlocked the front doors of the church, propped them open, and gradually, children from the neighborhood began to congregate there.  When some of them wanted to paint a mural on the church doors, she enthusiastically agreed.  Opening the doors led to a transfigured ministry—and a transfigured neighborhood.  The church eventually welcomed in people from the neighborhood, built a vibrant community, and, through partnerships, built affordable housing there in the south Bronx.   

Sharing the good news of Christ need not be a street corner, brochure-giving, billboard-involved task. It can be but doesn’t necessarily need to be.  Here at Grace, we have literally unlocked and opened our doors every summer for the past 17 summers for heat respite, and this has led to new avenues for building community.  Among those who seek relief from the heat in Hope Hall.  Among us who make up the core volunteers for respite.  Among ministry partner groups who come to serve a meal.  Among service providers who become friends of the congregation.  Beyond the daily table prayer, there is nothing explicitly religious about heat respite, but providing hospitality for and building community among those seeking relief from the heat shares the good news of Christ without us saying a word.

As our neighborhood changes around us, I wonder how else we might open our doors.  In an outreach coordinator interview a couple weeks ago, when asked how she had heard about the position, a candidate commented that she had passed the church many times and wondered if we were open.  Which gave me and Solveig pause.  Perhaps it was a fleeting comment, and of course, she could have googled us and answered her own question.  But as the image of the disciples huddled together in their meeting house behind closed doors flashes by us this morning, I do wonder: are we open to our community, especially as it changes?  If we are, to whom might we open our doors?  Perhaps our neighbor arts institutions, schools, coffee shops, and apartment-dwellers?  If we are, who might we call to ask: how can we help?  How can we be good neighbors?

These are not rhetorical questions.  Christ is risen and has sent us out.  Out of our locked buildings, out with the peace of Christ to share, out and empowered by the Holy Spirit.  As we, as you personally engage with anyone in our community, please ask: how can Grace help?  How can we be good neighbors?  This past Friday, when I met someone at a coffee shop on Roosevelt, the barista was telling us the city will not pick up recycling at their location.  I imagine there is a reason, and I hope it’s a good one.  But I gave her my card and said: I’m the pastor of the church up the alley.  Maybe we could help? 

Christ is risen, and the news is too good to shut and lock our doors.  So say it with me: Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Amen.

Easter Sermon

Day of the Church Year: Easter Sunday

Scripture Passage: Luke 24:1-12

On the first day of the week, the women travel to Jesus’ tomb.  They had watched where Jesus’ body had been laid on Friday, had rested on the sabbath, Saturday, and now, they return to the tomb with spices for his body.  Surprisingly, the stone is rolled away and Jesus’ body nowhere to be found.  Suddenly, two men in dazzling clothes appear and ask: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here—but has risen.”  Because they are dressed in dazzling clothes, we assume the men are angels, messengers of God, sent to proclaim this most important news.  The women come to the tomb because that is where they had seen Jesus’ body laid.  The women come to the tomb because they assume that the dead stay dead.  The women come to the tomb because they wish to honor their friend and teacher.  At first, the women don’t remember what Jesus had shared—that he would be handed over to sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise from the dead.  So, of course, they come to the tomb looking for Jesus.  Of course, they come looking not for the living but for the dead.  Of course, this seems obvious, but it leads me to wonder: are we looking for the dead too or for the living?

This morning, Easter Sunday, anticipating perhaps a celebratory lunch after worship, a day of lilies and joy, a day of eggs hunted and candy eaten, are we looking for the dead or the living?  Are we looking for a savior of old, limited to the pages of the Bible, for all intents and purposes dead in the pages of history or are we looking for a living, breathing, creative force of love and justice in a world torn apart by hatred and indifference?  The men in dazzling clothes ask the women: why do you look for the living among the dead? Because they know: Jesus is risen.  Jesus is living.  And the women are not going to find the living Jesus in the tomb. 

This past week, in reflecting on the Easter story, a seminary professor shared about a time she traveled to the Holy Land, to Israel and Palestine, the land of Jesus, a pilgrimage many people of faith take to see what Jesus saw, to walk where Jesus walked, to understand more clearly the biblical context.  Her husband was talking with their eldest son about her trip, and her son asked: Why?  Why is mom going to the Holy Land?  Her husband was confused.  For a family rooted in the church, their son knew the obvious answer to that question.  “Well, you know, Jesus” her husband told their son.  And then her son made an equally obvious observation: “Tell her he’s not there.”  Tell her the risen Christ is not there anymore.

If we are seeking the risen Christ, where in this war-torn, natural disaster bearing, climate changing, violence-loving world will we find him?  Our lack of clear answers to life’s most difficult questions may lead us to assume that, actually, seeking a risen savior is fruitless, even today, even on Easter.  Instead of a risen savior, perhaps the best we can hope for is a religious tradition that grounds us in an ethical way of life.  Instead of a risen savior, perhaps the best we can hope for is a Sunday morning tradition that brings structure and order to our lives.  Instead of a risen savior, perhaps the best we can hope for is a tradition that helps give meaning to our days.  But dear friends, Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!  And as valuable as an ethical way of life, a Sunday morning tradition, and meaning in this life are, we have reason to hope for more.  We have reason to hope for a living, breathing, creative force of love and justice, a force beyond any one of us.  We have reason to hope that what the women heard is true: Jesus is not here—but has risen. 

One of the most perplexing tasks in my life is to explain to people I’ve just met why I love Grace Lutheran Church.  Especially to people who aren’t keen on religion.  Me either, I say!  Heavens, the church at large has not followed Jesus very well.  But to my new friends, I describe our small congregation, an always-shifting, never perfect, “isle of misfit toys,” to quote Brian Flatgard.  Individually, we are simply people, invested in our own agendas and purposes, struggling with our own challenges.  Individually, you all are lovely, but individually, we are not all that extraordinary.  Together, though, something happens, something I don’t quite understand.  I guess this is the point.  The risen Christ happens.  Somehow, in a way that eludes explanation, when we get together, something far more than any one of us can be or do happens.  And the more people who join us in this being and doing, the more that happens.  The risen Christ shows up as a living, breathing, creative force of love and justice that makes heat respite possible every summer and pancake breakfast possible every week.  The risen Christ shows up in relationships built across lines that would seem to divide.  The risen Christ shows up to make many ministries possible, to provide the funding for a building nearly a hundred years old that is forever breaking.  The risen Christ grow bonds between Grace and the other congregations that worship here and Trunk Space that lifts up the community through music and the Montessori preschool where children learn and grow.  The risen Christ gives us the courage to ask how we will respond to the changes in our neighborhood and how we will serve all those of downtown Phoenix.  The risen Christ shows up in the gathered community where we do God’s work with our hands.  We are the living, breathing creative force of love and justice, not individually but in community. 

Poet Marge Piercy reflects in her poem The Low Road on the loneliness and powerlessness of one person acting alone.  But two people, three, four, six are a delegation, a committee, a wedge.  She goes on:
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more. 

We are the risen Christ two thousand years after the resurrection, after the ascension, after the day of Pentecost, after the rise and fall of empires, after wars and pandemics.  We are the risen Christ, the people of God gathered to do God’s work with our hands.  Are we looking for the dead or for the living?  The resurrection of Christ calls us to join our hands and hearts with the hands and hearts of others—to be a living, breathing, creative force of love and justice.  Before his death and resurrection, before healing and forgiving sin, before feeding people and performing miracles, before preaching and teaching, Jesus gathered a community, the disciples.  He gathered the women and, according to the gospel of Luke, a group of 70 whom he sent out to work in his name.  Today, Christ gathers us to do God’s work with our hands that We might be the risen Christ.  Today, we look for the living, and indeed, Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Amen.

Good Friday Sermon

Day of the Church Year: Good Friday

Scripture Passage: John 19

Jesus dies an unjust death.  Throughout the gospel of John, the Judean people, especially the Judean leaders, seek Jesus’ death for Jesus does and says things that dispute their own authority, that raise questions about their religious answers, that tell a different story about the world.  Most significantly, Jesus announces his identity as Son of God, a capital offense in the Roman Empire.  Finally, when Jesus stands before Pilate who is empowered by the Roman Empire to free him or put him to death, Pilate succumbs to the crowds even though he finds Jesus innocent.  Perhaps we would have listened with an open heart to Jesus.  If we were Pilate, perhaps we would have followed our conscience and not given in to political pressure.  When others were shouting “Crucify him,” perhaps we would have protested.  Perhaps. 

But we yet live in an unjust world, an unjust world, sadly, of our own making.  A world where some more than others encounter roadblocks in employment and education, housing and healthcare, the criminal justice system perhaps more than any other system.  A world where some more than others are vulnerable to abuse and disrespect.  A world where some more than others experience hardship and violence.  On Good Friday, we remember that Jesus was one of those who did.  Who encountered roadblocks, who was vulnerable to abuse and disrespect, who experienced hardship and violence.  Jesus was one of the people who, like our neighbors or perhaps we ourselves today, is trapped by the sins of the world.  According to John’s gospel, Jesus did not have to die in order to forgive sin for he forgave sin during his life.  But Jesus’ death was caused by sin, by the short-sightedness of the Judean people, by the Roman empire’s abuse of power, by an ethic of violence and punishment. 

On this Good Friday, we mourn the death of Jesus.  And on this Good Friday, we mourn the death of all those who, like Jesus, are caught in unjust systems. 

You may know that, whenever possible, usually on a monthly basis, we remember those who have died on the streets of Phoenix during a brief Community Memorial Service on Facebook live.  A few days ago, I received the list of names of community members who died during January, February, and March.  When I opened the excel documents, I realized new information had been added to the lists: the reason for death and the place of death for each person.  While some of our community members died of illness while in a hospital or someone else’s residence, the reasons for death hit me suddenly and with great force: Suicide.  Drug Overdose.  Homicide. Traffic accident.  And even more so, the places of death: Sidewalk.  Desert area.  Parking lot.  Canal.  Alley.  Dumpster.  Each person, caught in unjust systems, usually caught not just for a brief moment of their life but time and time again resulting in temporary or chronic homelessness.  Each person, abandoned by family, sometimes by friends, and certainly abandoned by society but not abandoned by God.  Each person a beloved child of God, each person a friend to someone, each person an artist or musician, skilled worker or volunteer, perhaps a member of the Grace community, and so we lift up each name and give thanks to God for the lives of the saints.  Each person, we ourselves, are not alone and not forgotten.   

Jesus dies an unjust death in an unjust world, and we know what that’s like.  And God knows what that’s like.  In the crucifixion of Jesus, we see a God unafraid of pain and suffering, unafraid of the fullness of the human experience.  For Jesus’ death proclaims good news with an edge: that God is willing to enter into the crucible of crucifixion, into pain and suffering, into the fullness of the human experience—to be with us in our humanity and then to transform the suffering and injustice of the world.  For Christ’s presence with us in suffering is what transforms the suffering of the world.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.        

Maundy Thursday Sermon

Day of the Church Year: Maundy Thursday

Scripture Passage: John 13:1-17, 31b-35

In a poem entitled Fear, poet Kahlil Gibran writes:

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

Tonight, we read the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.  This act of foot washing, when it is below Jesus’ social rank to kneel at the feet of others, when the disciples’ feet really are dirty, strikes me as mundane, totally practical, even silly when performed by the son of God.  Perhaps more than any other day of the church year, though, Maundy Thursday encapsulates the call of a Jesus-follower: to love, to give over our lives to love.  Not prestige, not wealth, not comfort, not even excellence.  Love.  When Jesus lays down the towel, he gives the disciples a new commandment: to love one another as he loves them.  That this teaching follows on the heels of foot washing implies that, for Jesus, to wash feet is to love.   

Tonight, we wash one another’s feet, but we don’t really-wash one another’s feet.  For us, it is a ritual act, a symbol of love, but for Jesus and his disciples, washing feet is an everyday, household act.  For us, the equivalent might be a friend, partner, or neighbor buying our groceries when we are sick, throwing a load of laundry into the washer when we are too exhausted to do it ourselves, listening to us over the phone or coffee about a particularly bad day, or picking up our kids from school when we are stuck in meetings.  These are acts of love, nothing but mundane and practical love.  These are not beautiful acts or creative ones, not elaborate gifts or an extravagant party.  Love can involve beauty and creativity, elaborate gifts and extravagant parties, but tonight, Jesus teaches the disciples that, fundamentally, love is mundane and practical.  And the problem is, this just doesn’t feel like enough to give our lives over to mundane and practical tasks for the sake of loving our families, our neighbor, and the stranger.  For we risk losing ourselves.  We risk invisibility for these are not acts of heroes.  As Kahlil Gibran writes, the river trembles with fear for it believes it will disappear into the ocean. 

But when we give ourselves over to love, to mundane and practical, humble and tender acts, we don’t disappear.  Instead, we enter Love, capital L, the love of God bigger than any one of us.  We become part of the way God loves the world. 

And so, dear friends, those seemingly insignificant acts of making meals and watching children, of monetary gifts that aid refugees around the world, of church leadership and service, of daily work that serves the common good, of service to neighbors known and unknown in countless ways, these mundane and practical acts become the way God loves the world. 

Tonight, we remember how Jesus gave his life over to love.  He was one person who washed the feet of his twelve friends.  He was one person who fed people and healed them, one person who taught and preached, one person who befriended tax collectors and sinners and proclaimed forgiveness.  He lived and died and was raised two thousand years ago, and we never met him.  Yet we know intimately the love of Jesus for us, poured out in mundane and practical, humble and tender, even extravagant acts of love.  For the love of Jesus did not stop upon his death but continues through the disciples whom he taught, in word and certainly in deed, to love one another as he loved them.  A love that continues in Jesus-followers of every age.  We wash feet; we give our lives over to love.  We need not fear disappearing in acts of love; rather, we become part of the way God loves the world.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, April 3

Day of the Church Year: 5th Sunday of Lent

Scripture Passage: John 12:1-8

Jesus will die.  Sooner rather than later.  The very next day after our gospel reading, Jesus will enter Jerusalem where crowds will hail him as king with palm branches.  But today, Jesus sits at the table with Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead.  Lazarus will one day die again, but for now, he is at the table reminding his dinner guest and the readers of John’s gospel that Jesus will die.  And because Jesus will die, Mary anoints his feet with pure nard, a costly oil, and wipes them with her hair.  At a time and place when bodies were left to decompose naturally, relatives and friends would commonly anoint the body of their loved one with perfume, oil, or spices at the time of burial.  A last ritual to honor the loved one.  A last act of love.  And especially here, an act of intimacy with a dear friend as Mary wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair.  

Judas Iscariot, the disciple who will eventually betray Jesus, questions Mary’s use of the nard for it is costly.  Wouldn’t it be better to sell this oil and give the money to the poor? He asks.  But the gospel writer John lets his readers in on a secret: that Judas keeps the common purse, steals from it, and does not care about the poor.  Perhaps Judas’ question makes sense to us.  Perhaps we think he raises a good point.  But Judas’ motive in asking the question is not pure.  And Jesus agrees with Mary, that her act is appropriate for he will die.  Sooner rather than later.  In the remaining time she has to honor him, she does so—with great love.

Three years ago, we gathered on Wednesdays in Lent to discuss death.  I don’t know if you remember, if you were here, but I recall hospital chaplain AmarAtma saying that death teaches us how to live.  In walking with countless families through many kinds of death—sudden and unexpected, gentle and accepted, chaotic and filled with questions—in walking with all these families, AmarAtma saw clearly that the greatest gift of death was clarity about life: about what and who matter, about how this precious little time should or could be spent.  To speak of death is almost anathema in our culture where we rarely acknowledge death even when to do so would be prudent.  When a relative, a friend, a neighbor, or we ourselves are diagnosed with cancer or another condition that compromises not only our quality of life but perhaps its quantity, we take comfort in focusing on the daily fight, the small wins and losses, the sweetness of ordinary moments.  Leaving the possibility of death unspoken seems gracious. Likewise, the suffering of the world and the death that accompanies it is so difficult to watch in Ukraine and Syria, in Afghanistan and Congo, on our own streets and in our own homes, senseless and horrific violence.  Perhaps it is understandable that we avoid death, that we turn away from the news. 

Yet death teaches us how to live—and Jesus’ death in particular.  Mary does not avoid death.  In anticipating Jesus’ death, she learns from it, learns what matters, and she honors Jesus, loves Jesus, provides the tiny bit of comfort she can to the One who knows everything that will happen. 

Sometimes, while playing a game or getting to know new people, we are asked questions like: If you knew you only had three months to live, what would you do?  Would you live differently than you are right now?  These questions clarify for us what matters, and so, most of us, in response to these questions, list things we are not currently doing but things we would do were we to know the time of our death: spending more time with people we love, forgiving someone who wronged us, discovering something new in the world, sharing words of appreciation or affection we currently hold back, working for justice or giving of ourselves in ways we’ve been scared to or just never thought we had the time for. 

Or as poet Mary Oliver writes in her poem The Summer Day:

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

I have often wondered how it is that the disciples left everything and followed Jesus.  I have wondered if they were foolish or naive.  I have wondered about the women who left their families, who defied social norms, who risked alienation to travel with Jesus and provide for him.  Who does that?  Who leaves home and family and employment to fish for people, to travel without particular destination, following a man who preaches and teaches, heals and feeds, befriends and forgives sin?  And it occurs to me this week that perhaps, in their particular historical moment, under Roman occupation, with lifespans short and life itself gritty and hard, perhaps they understood with greater clarity than we do in the relative security of our digital, scientific age the urgency of now.  For death was not a distant reality, relegated to hospitals or hospice homes, but a commonplace event in homes, in city streets, part of the general cultural milieu.  The disciples and Mary, they knew death as a constant companion, and so they knew, also, the urgency of now.

Just yesterday, I heard on the news that President Biden signed into law this past week legislation that names lynching a federal hate crime.  The legislation bears the name of Emmett Till who was tragically lynched in 1955.  Though, apparently, 46 states and the district of Columbia stipulate lynching as a hate crime in their state law, it is astonishing to me that it took this long to pass a federal law of this nature.  And I am reminded that the death of Emmett Till was not safely relegated to a hospital or hospice home.  Rather, he and the many who came before him and after him lived and still live in the urgency of now, in the knowledge that life is short and for some, shorter than others, due to hatred and bigotry.  In 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King spoke of the fierce urgency of now, an urgency that led many to acts of civil disobedience, to active non-violence, to questioning the norms of culture.  In the wake of this action, Congress passed the 1964 and 1968 civil rights acts, and our whole culture began to shift.   

On the eve of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, after hearing Jesus talk about his own death in that city, Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with pure nard and wipes them with her hair.  Judas’ implied accusation of waste might seem relevant to us, but Jesus responds: You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.  Indeed.  Every day of Jesus’ life was filled with preaching and teaching, healing and feeding, befriending and forgiving the sins of the poor.  Every day.  “The poor” of whom Judas speaks are the very people who follow Jesus, who crowd around to be healed, who are vulnerable to acts of violence from the Roman Empire.  Jesus’ words do not release Judas and the disciples from service to and love for all those who are part of their community; rather, Jesus’ words confirm the necessity of their continued ministry—even beyond his death. 

Everything dies at last and too soon, including Jesus.  With Jesus’ one wild and precious life, he preached and taught, healed and cured, fed people and ate with them, forgave and befriended them.  And as for us, what is it we plan to do with our one wild and precious life?  Dr. King and many others embraced non-violence and advocated for change.  Archbishop Oscar Romero spoke of the disappearances and torture of his people and loved them.  The disciples left everything to fish for people.  Mary honored and loved Jesus by anointing his feet.  What will we do?  Amen.