Sermon for Sunday, March 20

Day of the Church Year: 3rd Sunday of Lent

Scripture Passage: Luke 13:1-9

Maybe we’ve been there.  We are driving down the freeway or perhaps a county highway somewhere far from Phoenix.  We are driving just a bit faster than the speed limit, within an acceptable range, we think.  In our rearview mirror, we see another vehicle barreling towards us, traveling faster even than we are.  Both cars are driving over the speed limit, but that guy is going way faster and should really slow down.  He could hurt someone.  The second vehicle passes us on the left and continues on to the horizon.  A few minutes later, again in our rearview mirror, we see a vehicle, traveling fast enough to overtake us, and pretty soon, we hear the siren.  The police pull us over, ask for our license and registration, ask if we know how fast we were driving.  Whether or not we say it to the officer, we are probably thinking: But look how fast the other guy was going!

Is it fair that the person who passed us going 80 miles per hour in a 65 mile an hour zone didn’t get pulled over—but we did while going 75 in a 65?  Maybe; we were still driving over the speed limit.  On the other hand, maybe not.  That both drivers were not stopped is unfair.  But life isn’t fair.  We cannot control what others do, cannot control systems, cannot control the laws of the universe.  We cannot control disasters, and we cannot control God.  Many of our life circumstances are shaped by people or forces for which we are not personally responsible—our family system into which we are simply born, the systems of our culture that privilege some and not others, geo-political events much larger than us, disasters caused by weather, misunderstandings of physics, shoddy work, or a complex combination of causes.  While it may be tempting to believe that God rewards or punishes us based on the rightness or wrongness of our choices, on our sin or righteousness, today, Jesus addresses the fairness and unfairness of life not through a lens of morality but through the lens of consequence.

Jesus tells short stories of unfair, horrible, violent deaths of Galileans and a parable about a fig tree to illustrate the control we do have: the power to repent—which means turning around or changing our minds—and the power to produce good fruit, to seek justice and righteousness, to act with grace and love.  In an unfair world, we do get to choose something, and that something is how we respond to what happens to us.   

At first glance, these tangled verses of Luke chapter 13 seem to make no sense, so I invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 13:1-9 to follow along.  Jesus uses two examples from current events of his day to make his point.  First, apparently, the Roman Empire killed Jews from Galilee and then mingled their blood with the animal blood used in ritual sacrifice in the temple—which would have dishonored the temple sacrifice in a most grievous way.  Second, in a different piece of news, eighteen people died when the tower of Siloam unexpectedly fell, an unforeseen error of construction or design.  In both circumstances, Jesus asks a rhetorical question: Were these people who died worse sinners than anyone else?   No.  God wasn’t punishing them because they sinned.  From what Jesus says about the circumstances, these deaths were entirely unrelated to the sin or righteousness of the victims.  And even more than that, God is not the one who caused their deaths.  But, Jesus says, unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.  How did they perish?  What were their deaths like?   Unexpectedly, suddenly, horrifically.  Also: shameful with the mingling of blood and dishonorable.  In other words, their deaths were unfair.

Jesus then pivots to a parable about a fruitless, defunct fig tree.  When the owner of the fig tree sees his fruitless tree, he tells the gardener to cut it down.  But the gardener advocates for the tree, asks for another year to fertilize it and dig around it.  Perhaps the tree got stuck in a sun-less spot.  Perhaps the gardener failed to sufficiently water it.  Perhaps the gardener forgot to prune it.  The owner agrees.  With intention and planning, if the tree still does not produce fruit a year later, then, the gardener will cut it down.  The death of the fig tree won’t be unexpected, sudden, or unfair.  After a year of opportunity to produce fruit, whatever happens is fair, gracious even.   

Though tangled with his use of mixed metaphors, Jesus offers a vision of a God who extends grace, who does not operate unexpectedly, suddenly, shamefully, or dishonorably.  God provides opportunity and space for growth, for fruit to emerge.  

Lent brings opportunity and space for growth, for good fruit to emerge—for Lent is a season of repentance.  That’s why we traditionally choose a practice during Lent, something to give up or something to add, that helps us grow and deepen our relationship with God, and by extension, our relationships with God’s people.  There is so much in this life we cannot control, so much that is unfair, but God has given us the capacity to repent and produce fruit, regardless of our circumstances. 

Remember our experience on the highway?  Our desire to justify driving over the speed limit, to contest a speeding ticket, simply because someone else was driving faster?  Jesus’ call to repentance means the unfair circumstances that complicate our lives don’t excuse our indifference and arrogance, greed and hard-heartedness, disregard for our neighbor and the earth.   

For sure, Jesus’ words today are among his hardest.  Genuine repentance is hard work.  Repentance not couched in defense of our behaviors.  Repentance despite wrongs done to us.  Yet our God-given capacity for repentance is gift.  If you want to know freedom, try repentance!  When defending ourselves, when trying to wiggle our way out of a ticket, when lashing out because we have endured injustice, we feel bound.  Bound by our pain, our ego, our pride.  By contrast, repentance leads to life, to good fruit—but is one of those things we must first try in order to appreciate. 

Years ago, I was called out by a member of the Grace community.  She told me something about myself that I stalwartly denied, not just once but several times, something that hurt her.  One day, she held my eye and told me again.  This time, instead of internally defending myself, instead of justifying my behavior to her, instead of making excuses, instead of denying what was plainly true, I said, “You’re right, and I don’t know why I do that.”  It was a hard minute followed by years of freedom, friends.  Today, I’m an apologist for repentance.  God has given us a capacity for repentance, not because God is cruel and unjust but because God is gracious and seeks abundant life for us. 

On a day of difficult scripture, I pray the gospel is heard: A way of freedom, life, and good fruit, repentance is God’s gift to us.  Perhaps with trepidation or reluctance, perhaps with joy and while laughing at ourselves, we can say: Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

Sermon for Sunday, March 13

Day of the Church Year: 2nd Sunday in Lent

Scripture Passage: Luke 13:31-35

Jesus is busy.  By the time the thirteenth chapter of Luke rolls around, Jesus has healed people and cast out demons, fed people and attended dinner parties, forgiven sin and taught parable after parable to the crowds.  Jesus has called disciples and visited Mary and Martha, spent time in prayer and sent out seventy followers to cure the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God come near.  And that’s only by chapter 13; more is still to come.  But at this juncture, when the Pharisees warn Jesus that he should flee for King Herod wishes to kill him, instead of shying away from further ministry, Jesus says: Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. In other words, Jesus says: Nothing is going to stop me from doing what I’m called to do, not even the threat of death. 

It’s obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: we’re not Jesus.  When we encounter threats to our lives, that tends to stop us in our tracks.  We get scared.  We reconsider.  When we encounter speedbumps as we live out what we believe God is calling us to do, we slow down.  We wonder if we heard God correctly.  We might even abandon a plan.  When we encounter difficulty in this life, whether broken relationships, addiction, or illness, we might consider giving up.  We might succumb to despair.  At the very least, we will take a moment and breathe and get a hug.  But the good news is that death and evil, sin and injustice don’t stop Jesus in his tracks.  When told Herod wishes to kill him, Jesus continues to do ministry.  Chapter 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 and 18 are packed full of parables.  In chapter 19, Jesus meets Zacchaeus, forgives his sin, and goes to his house that day.  And later in chapter 19, Jesus enters Jerusalem, the city that kills its prophets.  Even in Jerusalem, Jesus continues to teach and cleanses the temple of moneychangers, creating a scene, and sits across from the temple and predicts its destruction.  Nothing will stop Jesus from doing what he came to do: to cast out demons, to heal, to proclaim the kingdom of God come near. 

Our world right now is full of change and destruction, challenge and despair, personally, communally, globally.  We might be faint of heart, but our God is not.  When Jesus hears threats of his own death, he continues right on, and when our world is full to the brim of war and natural disaster, ecological crisis and hunger, when our lives are visited by grief and disease, economic challenge and spiritual emptiness, the God we know in Jesus is not overcome.  God continues to work among us, to establish bonds of love, to untangle conflict, to bring about just peace, to gather us in community for the sake of the world God loves.    

This week, the hymn “Lord of the Dance” inspired me; it is written as if sung by Jesus.  I invite you to listen along as I sing the verses and to then join me on the chorus once you hear it a time or two.     

I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
I came down from Heaven and I danced on Earth At Bethlehem I had my birth.

Dance then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He!

I danced for the scribe and the pharisee
They would not dance, they wouldn't follow me
So I danced for the fishermen James and John
They come with me and the Dance went on:

Dance then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He!

I danced on the Sabbath and cured the lame
The holy people, they said it was a shame!
They whipped and stripped and then hung me high
Left me there on a cross to die!

Dance then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He!

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body and they thought I'd gone
But I am the Dance and I still go on!

Dance then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He!

They cut me down but I leap up high
I am the Life that will never never die!
I live in you if you live in Me
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!

Dance then, wherever you may be
For I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He!

Even on a Friday when the sky turned black, even with the devil on his back, even buried, Jesus cries: I am the Dance and I still go on!  In today’s gospel, Jesus says he will continue to cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow and then finish his work on the third day, on the day of Easter, on the day of risen life.  For Jesus is the life that will never never die.  And friends in Christ, Jesus says: I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be, I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said He!

The Dance that still goes on, even on Good Friday, that’s the Dance Jesus leads us in, the Dance of love and hope, the Dance of justice-seeking and peace-keeping.  When we encounter the difficulties of this life, the real, gritty, I-don’t-know-what-I’m-going-to-do difficulties, we are not left to our own devices on the dance floor.  Jesus is not overcome but continues to dance and leads us, wherever we may be.  For he is the Dance, and he still goes on!  Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

Sermon for Sunday, February 27

Day of the Church Year: Transfiguration of Christ C

Scripture Passage: Luke 9:28-43a

On the mountaintop with Peter, James, and John, Jesus is transfigured before them.  Prophets Moses and Elijah, long dead, appear with him.  Peter, James, and John stand in God’s glory, desire to set up camp on the mountaintop, and are enveloped by the cloud from which God speaks, saying: This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!  While Jesus’ transfiguration is long on mystery and short on clarity, it seems to confirm Jesus is God’s Son, Jesus is a prophet in the line of Moses and Elijah, and the shining light of transfiguration is God’s glory, God’s greatness revealed. 

And then, they come down the mountain.  They come down to reality, the gritty, messy world of first century Israel.  They come down and meet a crowd, and from the crowd, a man cries out to Jesus.  The man’s son convulses and shrieks, and the disciples cannot cast out what the man assumes is an unclean spirit.  Jesus calls for the boy, rebukes the spirit, heals him, and returns the boy to his father.  And, as the gospel writer Luke tells us: all were astounded at the greatness of God.

Mystical spiritual experiences can lull us into a type of spirituality limited to the mountaintop, to the quiet retreat, to the extraordinary.  Those mystical spiritual experiences are wonderful, and I’ve had plenty of them: prayer retreats and mission trips, Cursillo and Tirosh weekends, Holden Village trips and seminary-required retreats, working at Lutheran Bible Camps and attending Lutheran Campformation.  Profound spiritual experiences that have shaped my life.  Experiences that reveal the glory, the greatness of God.  Times of insight, connection, and joy.

As meaningful as those times have been—and they really have been, God’s glory is not revealed just in those extraordinary experiences but in the everyday, the mundane, even the messy.  When Jesus, Peter, James, and John come down the mountain, amidst the chaos of a crowd, a boy is healed, a father relieved and grateful, a family’s reputation restored, community connections healed.  For in first century Israel, an unclean spirit is a mark of shame and results in disconnection.  Healing, then, is the glory and greatness of God revealed.  But how easily we read past this story, just one healing story among so many in the gospels, just one mundane example of God’s greatness.  We usually literally read past this story for the verses that contain this story are “optional” according to the Revised Common Lectionary for this day in the church year.  At least to my knowledge, today is the first time in 11 years we have read this story in worship. 

This week, I spoke with someone who told me about a profound spiritual experience they had, a 10 day silent meditation retreat in a quiet, beautiful spot in northern California.  A decade ago, this retreat provided clarity of purpose, strategies for daily living, and meaning for this person’s life, clearly a mountaintop experience.  Though not Christian, this person articulated something akin to glory—the glory of the universe—revealed through their many hours of silent meditation.  Fascinated by their story, I asked at its conclusion: So, do you practice meditation now?  Surely, I thought, after such a powerful experience at this retreat, this person would have begun a daily meditation practice that continues to keep them grounded.  But, no.  No, they don’t.  Even though the meditation was so helpful to you? I clarified.  No.  

The person whose life was changed by the 10 day silent meditation retreat is like all the rest of us and, indeed, like Peter, James, and John.  When we bump against the glory and greatness of God revealed in mystical, transfiguring ways, we are grateful.  We don’t want to leave.  But when we return to the world we’ve always known, the world of demands and expectations, the world of bills and taxes, the world of news and rush hour traffic, we do not expect to see God’s glory and greatness revealed.  And cultivating an openness to God’s glory and greatness revealed in the mundane is a tough sell.

So, I want to tell you: God is at work everywhere, every day, in every realm of this life.  We don’t need to go to the mountaintop to see God’s glory and greatness revealed.  All those meaningful spiritual experiences I’ve had, yes, they were wonderful.  But you know where I see God at work in the chaos of daily life?  At GLOW, Grace Lutheran On Wednesdays, which is coming back March 9!  Join us for, probably, a soup supper at 5:30 out in the breezeway followed by mid-week Lenten worship.  If you’d like to help make GLOW happen, please talk with me.  At GLOW, we connect over a meal and then open our hearts to one another in civil dialogue or Bible study, in story circles or, in this case, mid-week Lenten worship.

I see God’s glory and greatness revealed...At Grace council meetings!  I’m with Renee on this one.  (For those who may not know her, Renee has served on the council for several years.)  Council meetings are a spiritual experience, where we discern how God is calling us at Grace Lutheran Church.

I see God’s glory and greatness revealed...While listening to you!  When I sit in your living room or you sit at the table in my office and talk about ife, about what you see God doing, about your questions and struggles and joys, I feel deeply honored to receive your story.  God’s greatness is evident in your trust, your faith, your sharing.

I see God’s glory and greatness revealed...In the beauty of creation!  There is something about the light here in Phoenix that I love, especially in the morning and evening.  The light astonishes and delights me in a way I can fully describe, a tip-off that God is showing off.  Or as Alice Walker puts on the lips of her character Shug in the novel The Color Purple, “More than anything, God loves admiration.  [God’s] not vain, just wanting to share a good thing.  I think it pisses God off it you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” 

And that’s the trouble, I think, with God’s glory, God’s greatness.  Our heads might be in the clouds, on the mountaintop, looking for God to come and be with us there, speak to us, show Godself to us.  All the while, God reveals God’s greatness in so many different ways right in front of us.  In the color purple, in the monthly meeting, in the weekly meal and worship. 

The hymn Be Thou My Vision comes to us from 10th century Ireland and reads: Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart.  Naught be all else to me save that thou art.  Thou my best thought by day and by night.  Waking or sleeping thy presence my light.

Be Thou My Vision is a prayer that God would so invade our eyes and the eyes of our hearts that we might see with clarity what God does, who God is, God’s greatness revealed in the everyday.  When we get to the mountaintop and see God’s glory revealed, we can with ancestors of faith shout out: glory, hallelujah!  But in the meantime, when we walk by the color purple in a field somewhere, be thou our vision, O Lord of our hearts.  Your presence is our light.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, February 20

Day of the Church Year: 7th Sunday after Epiphany

Scripture Passage: Luke 6:27-38

Mahatma Gandhi led the Indian independence movement in the first half of the 20th century, a non-violent movement that inspired the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King to lead, alongside many others, a non-violent civil rights movement here in the US.  Mired in cultures where to stand up for justice routinely included violence, both Gandhi and King turned to the teaching of Jesus, this teaching of Jesus.  Gathered with a crowd on a plain, Jesus teaches love for enemies, good for those who hate us, blessing for those who curse us, prayer for those who abuse us.  Sure, Jesus says, even sinners do good to those who do good to them.  Sure, Jesus admits, even sinners love those who love them.  But those who follow me will love even those who hate them. 

Maybe this feels like wishful thinking, an unreasonable command from Jesus, perhaps even a bit naive.  Clouded by the distance of two thousand years and a different culture, we may not realize that Jesus preaches and teaches, heals and forgives sin within throwing distance of Roman soldiers.  Israel is occupied in the first century.  When Jesus teaches the disciples and all who gather on the plain that day, when he implores them to love their enemies and do good to those who hate them, he is not speaking hypothetically.  He knows who hates him. 

And we, the people of goodwill in this room and those joining by Facebook live, we have probably endured our own measure of discrimination or persecution, misunderstanding or judgment.  We have probably encountered people who don’t listen, who make snap judgments, who struggle to forgive when we make mistakes.  We have maybe bumped up against an unjust system—and people working within that system—that make life harder for us.  These circumstances are terribly unfair and not at all okay and evidence of the deep work our culture at large needs to do to create more just systems and a more loving world.  AND, Jesus teaches us today, the ways we have been treated do not determine how we treat others.

At this point, I invited people to put their faith in motion by considering their physical boundaries, things like how much space we need between us and another person, whether or not we are comfortable shaking hands or hugging people during a pandemic, and similar physical boundaries. Considering our physical boundaries first helps us think about emotional boundaries in a similar way. Emotional boundaries are not about the other person but instead about what we need to keep ourselves safe and healthy, not a judgment of anyone else’s behavior. Good emotional boundaries also help us love people regardless of how they treat us.

When we keep our physical boundaries, when someone moves too close, we just move back.  When someone offers their hand for a handshake and we don’t want to shake it, we simply say so.

Our emotional boundaries are usually less clear.  Instead of keeping our emotional boundaries intact, others’ words and actions can eat at us, can erode our loving intentions.  If our intention is to love, we love people regardless of what they say or do.  But it’s tricky because keeping emotional boundaries often feels harsh to the other person or difficult for us because we are not defending ourselves.

An example of when a boundary kept might feel harsh to another person: If there is someone in our lives who is using a substance, for instance, and we have asked them to not spend time with us when they are using that substance, keeping an emotional boundary involves leaving the space or inviting that person to leave the space if the person shows up using the substance.  Keeping the boundary does not diminish our care for the person. 

Another example: A teenager yells at their parent: I hate you!  Perhaps the parent has set rules the teenager doesn’t like.  Perhaps the teenager is just having a bad day.  The parent still makes sure the kid is clothed, fed, gets to school, gets to do the things that bring them life to the best of the parent’s ability.  The parent is practicing emotional boundaries, still loving their child despite their child’s alleged hatred. 

An example most clearly related to today’s gospel: Someone accuses me of something that, from my perspective, I did not do.  When the person accuses me of x, maybe they are yelling and clearly very upset.  From my perspective, the person is misunderstanding an action I took or creating a narrative about my reason for a particular action that they have not discussed with me—so they don’t actually know my reason.  This could be a friend who feels slighted by something I said—but does not tell me they feel hurt and why they feel hurt.  This could be someone here at Grace who has a concern, does not discuss their concern with me, and instead makes assumptions and then lashes out.  Instead of yelling, instead of defending myself, I ask the person: What’s going on?  How are you doing? 

When faced by our so-called enemies, by those who persecute or abuse or do us harm, are we hurt?  Angry?  Feel guilty?  Sad?  Absolutely.  None of us seek such persecution or abuse, and probably all of us know that feeling rising up in us to defend ourselves.  No matter how wildly inaccurate someone’s accusations may be, no matter how clearly manipulative their words may be, we probably all know the feeling of wanting to shout: Na-ah!  That’s not true!  We have probably all wanted to punch somebody at sometime.  But to do so means that the other person has a hold on us, that we have let them destroy our boundaries. 

Jesus teaches us today: love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you.  Jesus continues with profound instruction, the details of which we do not have time to explore today, but in verse 35, he shares the reason, the reason for these extraordinary commands.

“For God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”  God is kind to us.  When we are the person crossing God’s boundary.  When we are the child who says to God: I hate you!  When we are the Jesus-follower who doesn’t understand why God did what God did and assumes the worst.  When we are the neighbor who fails to respect others’ boundaries.  Then, God is kind to us.  We may be ungrateful; we may be wicked.  But God is good, and God is loving.  And nothing we say or do will ever change God’s love for us.  So, Jesus commands us, his followers, to love others the way God loves us, and even to the ungrateful and the wicked, God is kind.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, February 13

Day of the Church Year: 6th Sunday after Epiphany

Scripture Passage: Luke 6:17-26

Our Jesus story today comes from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, but at the very end of the gospel of Luke, on Easter Sunday, the day Jesus rises from the dead, the women who had all along accompanied Jesus in his ministry travel to his tomb. When they are told by two men in dazzling clothes that Jesus is risen, the women run to tell the disciples. All but Peter believe theirs is an “idle tale.” The disciples have spent at least a year with Jesus, traveling with him as he healed people, listening to his teaching and preaching, getting the inside scoop on his miracles and parables, and even they don’t get it in the end. Their confusion is understandable. For, as one theologian asks, if the dead can’t even stay dead, what is there to count on?

And so, today, when Jesus preaches his first sermon in the gospel of Luke, the sermon on the plain, to the crowd gathered, including the disciples, no wonder it doesn’t make sense. Particularly in the gospel of Luke, Jesus preaches an upsidedown kingdom and an upsidedown vision of human community. In a kingdom where the dead don’t stay dead, people living in poverty, people who hunger, and people who weep know the blessing of God. In a kingdom where the dead don’t stay dead, people who are rich, full, and laughing are told to “pay attention,” which is a more accurate translation of “woe to you” in the original Greek. At first glance, we too may believe Jesus’ upsidedown vision is an idle tale, one less believable even than a God who becomes flesh, lives among us, is crucified, and raised from the dead.

I can believe Jesus is raised from the dead but not his blessings and woes!

We assume Jesus is just playin’. He can’t really be serious.

If we have been hungry, we know the pain.

If we have been or are currently poor, we know it’s a struggle.

If we have mourned or are currently mourning, we know it’s hard to get out of bed.

How is it that the kingdom of God belongs to us who are hungry and poor and mourning?

Conversely, if we are full, we are satisfied.

If we are rich, we have few material worries.

If we are laughing, we are at ease.

Why is it that Jesus calls us who are rich, full, and laughing to pay attention?

Isn’t the Sermon on the Plain an idle tale?

I thought so. I sometimes still wonder. Suffering is not romantic. It’s not pretty or glossy. Poverty, hunger, and grief are raw, real, and gritty.

When I was 22, I worked for a year at a shelter on the west side of Chicago. Going to work each day was like looking at the world upsidedown. A couple times a week, I would lead a morning devotional time called Morning Prayer. Most days, I would open up the prayer time, and people would pray aloud for those who were still on the street, for other folks at the shelter, for the world at large. Almost every person’s prayer would begin with words of gratitude for the day, for God having woken them up, for strength in their arms and legs. One day, I had the great idea of encouraging people to pray for themselves. After all, every resident of the shelter had no permanent housing and was healing from an injury or illness. Nearly every person had yet to find a job and was healing from active addiction. Many people were struggling with mental health concerns on top of everything else. Of course, everyone would want to pray for themselves; they were in such great need, I thought. But when I invited the group to pray for themselves that day, a silence descended on the room. Finally, one woman spoke up, and she said, “Miss Sarah, I feel like God has already answered all my prayers.”

I suspect the awareness of her need opened her up to the blessing of God. I suspect all of us more easily grasp the gifts of God in our lives when we do not take them granted. But when we are rich, full, and laughing, we are at risk of missing what God is doing in us and in the world, so “pay attention,” Jesus says.

This past week, I attended the downtown poetry slam at the Latino Cultural Center. A small crowd of us gathered to give our complete attention to the 20 and 30-something year old poets who stood at a microphone and shared their original work. In a complete reversal of our culture, not a cell phone could be seen among the audience, so focused was our attention on the pouring out of emotion and experience by the brave poets. The poems they shared told stories of addiction, abuse, body-shaming, racism, unrequited love. Each poet spoke of times of need, desperate need, words that drove to the heart of despair and isolation and brokenness. Yet, strangely, every poem revealed resilience and hope and even joy too. Well-turned phrases of deepest truth elicited supportive snaps, and as each poet left the stage, we burst into applause. In between sets, we flocked to the poets to bask in their light and courage and hope. As brilliant poet Adrienne Rich entitled one poem, these poets were “diving into the wreck” of their lives and paying greatest attention to the blessings in the midst of despair.

In a right-side-up world, we see those who are rich, full, and laughing as blessed, and that’s true, they, we are. We’re blessed by God. God loves us. God is at work in our lives. But we who are poor, hungry, and weeping are blessed too. God loves us too. God is at work in our lives too. And we know it. When we are poor, hungry, and weeping, we know it. We know God is at work. And so blessed are us who are poor and hungry and weeping for ours is the kingdom of God. Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, January 30

Day of the Church Year: 4th Sunday after Epiphany

Scripture Passage: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

After twelve chapters of instruction by the Apostle Paul to the Christians in Corinth, after twelve chapters of helping them untangle the knots in their community, after assuring them the Holy Spirit empowers them with gifts meant to be used for the common good, Paul concludes the chapter with these words: And I will show you a still more excellent way. 

Chapter 13 then opens: If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

More than wisdom or knowledge, more than generosity or faithfulness, love is the still more excellent way, the essence of the Christian life, the commandment to end all commandments.  For Paul echos Jesus who taught that the first commandment was to love God and the second to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul invites the Corinthians to love with patience and kindness, without jealousy or arrogance, to love in action.    

Just a couple months ago, long-time Grace member Alice Schilling died.  I had the honor of being her pastor for 11 years, and every Sunday, she would greet me at the end of worship with a smile and a hug and an assurance that she was doing great.  I assume she didn’t always agree with me, but I always knew I was loved by Alice.  I remember once when I went to cheer on her grandson Sammy at a basketball game, and after the game, the kids on his team gathered around Alice as she congratulated them and hugged them.  I later learned she was like a grandmother to all those kids, sewing names on jerseys, showing up at all their games.  At Alice’s celebration of life, as Sara and Leiana and other grandchildren stepped up to the lectern, one after another, they assured us who were gathered that, indeed, they were the favorite grandchild.  For though she didn’t always like what they chose to do, Alice supported them in their endeavors, showed up for their games and concerts, listened to them, received them into her arms at difficult times with no questions asked.  Alice loved in such a way that everyone thought they were her favorite.

Who has loved you?  Perhaps a parent or grandparent, a friend or co-worker, a neighbor or church member, a teacher or coach.  Please turn to someone sitting near you, share the name of one person who loves you, and one way they show you they love you.

People took time to share about someone who loves them and one way that person shows them they love them.

As we consider Paul’s words today, the still more excellent way of love, the admonition to love, do not be weighed down by the command to love.  Do not be burdened.  Instead, remember those who have loved you despite all your shenanigans and all your imperfections, those who have rejoiced with you at times of triumph and sat with you as you cried.  Remember those who have given of themselves that you might have life and have it abundantly.  It’s not just our family members and our friends.  It’s our teachers and coaches, health care professionals and scientists.  It’s our public servants: police officers and military personnel, elected officials and all who make the lights go on and the water pour out of the tap.  It’s those who volunteer across our culture to show compassion in countless ways.  It’s the artists and poets and musicians who create beauty to inspire us and the farmers and gardeners—and those who drive the trucks and stock the grocery store shelves—who nurture life so that we may eat.  It’s the church community that shows up for us and prays for us and has nurtured us such that we can hear the word of God today.  We look divided right now in our world; we really do.  But thanks be to God love is an action, not just a feeling.  And by the looks of it, love actually is all around.  And we, despite ourselves, love one another too.

When we remember the love all around us, we want to join that still more excellent way.  We want to be bowled over by the Holy Spirit that leads us into love, that nudges us to love, that compels us to love.  We want to be part of what God is doing all over the world, in every home, in every city, in every nation.  God’s agape love, the love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, God’s agape love is all around this world, sprouting forth among us despite our jealous, boastful, arrogant selves.  What at first appears to be an impossible dream, the agape love of 1 Corinthians 13, turns out to be all around.  We who struggle to love realize that we participate in God’s loving work every day, with every way that we contribute to the common good, both paid and unpaid, with every word of encouragement, with every prayer, by even showing up this morning to help nurture the faith of someone else by our presence. 

Without love, we are nothing.  But friends, we are loved, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we do love.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, January 23

Day of the Church Year: 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

Scripture Passage: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

You are the body of Christ, the Apostle Paul writes, and individually members of it.  In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word “you” here is plural, not singular.  The Apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, who established Christian churches throughout the known world of the first century, who more than any other person is responsible for the flourishing of the Christian faith, writes that we-collectively-are the body of Christ.  Paul writes to the Christian church in Corinth that, even two thousand years ago, was pulled apart by a spirit of individualism.

As just one example among several in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, some of the Corinthian Christians want to eat meat sacrificed to idols.  Now, these Christians know that the idols are false, that the sacrifice is meaningless, that the meat is simply food to satiate hunger.  Paul affirms: “We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.”  However, other members of the Corinthian church struggle to understand this.  Corinth is a cosmopolitan city in Greece, and many who join the Christian community there had engaged, like nearly everyone else, in sacrifices to what they now consider idols.  In seeking to follow Jesus, eating meat sacrificed to idols causes them to stumble for they are still growing in faith, still finding the way of Jesus.  And so, a controversy arises in the Corinthian church.  The Christians who wish to eat meat without any risk to their faith believe it is their individual right to do so, but according to the Apostle Paul, individual rights or personal freedoms are secondary to the good of the whole.  Paul strongly advises them, therefore, to refrain from eating meat sacrificed to idols—not because eating such meat is profane but because eating the meat disregards the needs of others.

You-plural-are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

A wild imagination is not required to see how Paul’s writing might be relevant to us today.  Just because something doesn’t personally, directly impact us doesn’t mean it’s not important.  As Paul writes in today’s reading, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”  For us, the freedom to eat meat sacrificed to idols no longer tops the list of individual rights we may assert.  But we well know the individual freedoms we assert on a daily basis, and we can also easily bring to mind accommodations we make for others that are not relevant to our own lives.  We may not need handicap parking spaces or sturdy railings alongside stairs, but we certainly know others who do.  We may be healthy, free from chronic illness, and have access to high-quality medical care, all of which may lead us to a sense of freedom with Covid-19 restrictions, but we know this is not true for everyone.  We are privileged to live in virtually the only place in the United States that does not annually experience life-threatening weather events exacerbated by climate change, with the exception of extreme heat, but how we steward the land on which we live still impacts watersheds and animals, other people right now and fairly soon in the future we ourselves.  We may not be a teacher or have a student in the local school system, but how we support our young people—or not—in their education impacts us and all those we love because those children will one day be the scientists, doctors, business owners, artists, and leaders we need for a healthy society.  We may believe we are too busy to nurture community whether at church or in our neighborhood, too busy to show up for our friends, too busy to serve others which nurtures a compassionate society, too busy to concern ourselves with public policy and voting, and we are free to do that.  But that also means community, whether church, neighborhood, and even nation, disintegrates for us all. 

In our individualistic culture, I think the common good gets a bad rap—as if caring deeply about the world beyond ourselves and the ones we intimately love were an altruistic endeavor filled with sacrifice, pain, and deprivation.  Friends, nothing could be further from the truth, at least in my experience!  Why do I love Grace?  Love this nation?  Love my neighborhood?  Seeking the common good with the gifts the Holy Spirit has poured out on us brings us into relationship with so many people and all creation.  We learn, and we grow.  We lift up others and are lifted up.  When we fall, many reach out to catch us.  When we rejoice, many rejoice with us and increase our joy.  When we use our time to serve, to help out another, we gain perhaps more than the person we assisted.  When we live in community with one another instead of isolating ourselves, we end up being blessed by connection—and so do others.    

This is the way God created us—to live in community.  And according to Paul, this is why God gave us gifts at all—to seek the common good.  We are the body of Christ and individually members of it.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, January 16

Jesus’ first miracle or “sign” in the gospel of John has always confused me.  Every other sign in the gospel of John or miracle in Matthew, Mark, and Luke are signs and miracles of healing, casting out demons, raising people from the dead, providing food for hungry people, walking on water and calming storms to showcase the glory of God, or telling people the truth about themselves, truth that leads to spiritual growth.  These signs and miracles are practical, or they lead those who witness them to say to Jesus: Truly, you are the son of God!  The signs and miracles of Jesus meet real, raw human needs.  And you know me: I dig that about Jesus.  That God comes to Earth in the flesh and gets God’s hands dirty, really, actually dirty is about the most compelling thing I could ever say about God.  God shows up to do the dirty work, not just the lofty spiritual stuff-though the spiritual tasks of providing hope and forgiveness and grace are by no means unimportant.  But Jesus’ first sign in the gospel of John is changing water into wine at a wedding. 

Jesus, Jesus’ mother Mary, and the disciples are guests at a wedding in Cana, a city in the region of Galilee.  Mid-wedding, Mary notes to Jesus: “They have no wine.”  Implying she wants him to do something about it.  Jesus dismisses her statement, but later, he tells the servants to fill six large stone jars with water and to then serve it to the chief steward.  When the chief steward receives it, he consumes the finest of wines and goes to the groom with some astonishment about the quality of wine held back until mid-party.  The story concludes with the gospel writer lifting up the glory of God revealed in Jesus changing water into wine.  There are lots of interesting theological questions to ask about this story: What is Mary’s role in identifying Jesus’ life purpose?  How does Jesus know when it is “time” to reveal who he is?  But mostly, what I want to know is: Why bother, Jesus?  Why bother spending your miraculous, spiritual capital on changing water into wine at a wedding?  Is that really important?

My answer to that question is, clearly, no.  Ha!  But since Jesus decided to go ahead and spend that miraculous, spiritual capital on changing water into wine and since Jesus is God in the flesh, I feel confident that I’m wrong.  But it’s taken me years to accept what nearly every biblical scholar will tell you about the wedding at Cana: Jesus changes water into wine because he came to bring life, abundant life, and what is more full of life than a joyous wedding, the union of two families, the love of two people? 

Nearly twenty years ago, I completed my summer unit of clinical pastoral education at Banner University Medical Center, then called Good Sam.  For twelve weeks Monday through Friday, I rode the Valley Metro commuter bus from east Mesa to Good Sam.  Five days a week, I visited at least 10 patients per day as a chaplain, attended deaths, prayed with people, and talked with them about their big, theological questions as they laid in their hospital beds.  I slept at the hospital in the on-call room two nights a week and responded to trauma calls and codes.  Part of my job was to call the family members of trauma room patients to let them know their loved one was in the hospital after, usually, some ghastly accident.  I did things that scared me that I had never done before and then got good at them.  In the world of seminary, clinical pastoral education is generally seen as bootcamp for pastors.  Hard.  Stressful.  A slog you just have to get through.  All the chaplains on staff that summer got to choose their units for regular visiting, and I specifically chose, among others, the post-partum units since I knew I would not be a mother and would need to understand the experience of mothers.  Instead of visiting to discuss big, theological questions, I visited just to congratulate the new moms, to offer a blessing for the baby, to listen to their stories of birth, and sometimes to listen to their fears—though few needed or wanted to share those.  Of all the hard things of that summer, this was the most difficult—for me—to simply be present for joy.  At the end of the twelve weeks, my supervisor noted the same in my evaluation.  She wrote: “This posed Sarah’s greatest challenge—how to celebrate blessing without having to work and struggle for it.  She found herself in the middle of grace filled moments that asked nothing from her except the openness to recognize and celebrate it.” 

When Jesus changes water into wine, the story does not end with an admonition to have faith or trust or believe or go and tell the good news.  The disciples do not sit in wonder, and the crowds are not confused.  At the end of this story, people are kicking back, drinking wine, eating good food, building relationships, celebrating family alliances.  People are celebrating for Jesus comes to bring life, abundant life. 

As noted by a commentator this week, abundant life is more than mere existence or survival and certainly more than an abundance of material things.  And what I had to learn and am still learning is that abundant life is not just the product of a long, deep struggle or even a life of joyous service but also the grace God provides without us doing anything.  The abundant life Jesus comes to share at the wedding in Cana is simply gift; he too enjoys a good party! 

For us who are tired by the world, perhaps this is the time, after all we have endured, after all the work we have done, after all the loss we have suffered, perhaps this is the time to hear my supervisor’s words: “This poses our greatest challenge—how to celebrate blessing without having to work and struggle for it.  We find ourselves in the middle of grace filled moments that ask nothing from us except the openness to recognize and celebrate it.”  Even with a world gone wrong in so many ways, Jesus still comes to bring abundant life in ordinary moments.  A sweet child who hugs our legs, an orange cat that curls up under our grapefruit tree, a courteous driver who waits and lets us onto a traffic-filled street, a truly helpful customer service representative, a friend who calls just to see how we’re doing.  I suspect we have, to some extent, shut ourselves off from grace filled moments because we are exhausted.  But actually, grace still abounds.  Here, for you, for each one of us—if we but open ourselves to recognize and celebrate it.  This week, Jesus changes water into wine—just to celebrate, just to bring abundant life, just because grace abounds—then and now.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Christmas Eve

Day of the Church Year: Christmas Eve

Scripture Passage: Luke 2:1-20

Tonight, I’m in awe of the shepherds.  While to us Mary and Joseph are the shining stars of the Christmas play, a young couple who have been immortalized in countless pieces of art, played by teenagers and adults dressed in cotton robes and head dresses, while to us Mary and Joseph are household names, to the common people of Israel two thousand years ago, Mary and Joseph are no one.  On that dark, silent night, Mary gives birth in a town not her own, with Joseph and perhaps the local midwife at her side.  Children are always a precious gift but this one named Jesus more vulnerable than most with unmarried parents hounded by scandal and born in the elements.  No family, no friends surround the holy family.  But when the angel appears to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night and tells them: “Good news!  A savior has come!  ...and the savior is a baby,” they don’t seem to flinch.  They go and see the baby, the baby savior.  A baby savior?  The strangeness of the good news does not deter the shepherds.  These hopeful shepherds go and see.

Tonight, I want to travel with the shepherds as they move with haste across the countryside.  Their hope, their excitement, their joy.  As they go, they already know a bit about what they’ll find.  The angel tells them the savior lies in a manger, a feeding trough for animals.  Though the messiah, the one meant to liberate humanity from all that binds us, the one who will defy death and evil and sin, this one lies in a manger, not even a bed, perhaps 21 inches from head to toe.  Whatever they find in the manger astounds them for they go and tell the news of a savior born.  They return to glorify and praise God for what they discover in the manger.  Isn’t it just a baby?

The shepherds live in an occupied Israel with soldiers on the streets.

The shepherds live hand to mouth, hunger and poverty common among the ancient people.

The shepherds live in an age of instability, uncertainty, and violence we struggle to imagine in the 21st century.

The shepherds, along with all the ancient Jews, are eager to receive the messiah, the one sent by God, from the line of David.

But it’s safe to say a baby in a manger is not what they expect to end Roman occupation, hunger and poverty, violence and instability.

But they go anyway.

They go anyway when they hear the news from the angel.

They trust that there might be a different way.

They trust that God might work in ways they’ve never considered, in ways they don’t yet understand.

They go and then they tell and then they praise God.

To us, the good news of Christmas might seem obvious.  Jesus is born!  But the shepherds don’t yet know what will happen, and they will have to wait 30 years to find out, long enough that, by the time Jesus calls disciples, all of these shepherds will be gone.  Yet the shepherds exhibit profound hope—that there might be a different way through the injustice and violence, hunger and poverty of their world, that God might be entering the world in a form they could not have anticipated. 

For us, it’s been a year.  Of highs and a lot of lows.  A year of division and injustice.  A year that began with an insurrection at the capitol.  A continued year of pandemic.  A year of natural disaster and refugee crisis in Afghanistan and at the Poland-Belarus border.  A year of violence.  For many of us, a year of illness and isolation and feeling not quite stable and grounded.  It’s not just been a year of some highs and many lows; the world has changed.  Most of us probably haven’t gotten our bearings.  We may still be wondering when all this will end instead of accepting the change that is happening throughout not just our country but around the world. 

Dear friends in Christ, on this dark, silent night, in a rapidly changing world, God is making a way, a new way, a way for hope and peace, joy and love.  God is making a way into this world, perhaps a way God has never made before.  The world is different, but God is still at work.  The world, our lives, even the church is changing profoundly, but we are people of hope and peace, joy and love.  God is doing something new even now, this moment, making a way out of what looks to us like no way.  We don’t know what is to come, but we know God is here with us because God entered the world in Jesus.  So let’s travel with the shepherds as they move with haste across the countryside.  Let’s go and see what God is doing.  Let’s spread the good news—of hope and peace, joy and love. 

On this strange and unsettling Christmas, a baby savior still brings joy to the world and hope for a new way.  Against all the odds, let’s go and see what God is doing—and then tell the world.  Merry Christmas!  Merry Christmas!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, December 19

Day of the Church Year: 4th Sunday of Advent

Scripture Passage: Luke 1:39-55

Seemingly out of the blue, the angel Gabriel visits a young, unmarried Jewish woman named Mary and announces she will bear a son named Jesus, a son who will be called the Son of the Most High, a child who will be Son of God.  Despite the real danger for Mary, being pregnant but not married at this moment in history, Mary responds to the angel Gabriel: Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.  Mary then rushes to the home of her cousin, Elizabeth.  The child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy at the sound of Mary’s greeting for the child Elizabeth will bear will be John the Baptist.  Elizabeth identifies Mary as the mother of her Lord.  Mary then rejoices in God who looks with favor on lowly servants, who humbles the proud, who brings down the powerful from their thrones, who fills those who hunger, who empties those who are wealthy, who keeps promises from generation to generation. 

In this last Sunday of Advent, we hear how God enters the world, and though Mary expects a son of the Most High, a humbler story could not be told.  Though filled with danger for Mary, a more joyous story could not be told.  Though Mary has every reason to question and doubt this strange experience she has with angel Gabriel, she rejoices in God doing a totally new thing-through her!  Instead of stubbornly holding onto her own dreams and plans for her life, she gives her life over to the call of God.  And somehow, she recognizes that by doing so, she enters into a life not of drudgery and pain but a life of joy and abundance—to be chosen by God to contribute to the world in this particular and very special way. 

We are living in a strange time.  In some ways, we have returned to quote-unquote normal even though Covid-19 continues to spread through our community, our nation, and the world.  There is also something very strange going on with the US economy—incredible inflation, a hot job market with so many job openings that many businesses cannot function as desired, and at least here in Phoenix, sky-rocketing rents and home prices.  The economy and the pandemic have only contributed to our own personal questions and challenges and struggles.  The sense of not knowing what will happen is thick.  Truth be told, we actually never knew what the future held, but I think, prior to January 2020, we deluded ourselves more successfully than we can now.  I imagine some of us--maybe many of us--find ourselves asking existential questions in this strange in-between place: now that the world has changed, what should I do?  What am I here for?  What is the meaning of all this?  And maybe most urgently: Will this ever end?  This is the most adventy-Advent we’ve probably ever experienced.  The expectation, the waiting, the holding of our collective breath.  In the big picture of our lives right now, the scandal of God entering human life through the humble Mary is maybe the least of our worries, the most grounding thing we’ve heard this week, the least scandalous thing we’ve heard in a while.  But her acceptance of God’s call to bear Jesus and her joy in the midst of a very strange situation might be illuminating for us today. 

For while the story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, her eventual pregnancy, and even the birth of Jesus seem commonplace to us, her actual experience of all these events must have been very strange, very disorienting.  It’s hard to imagine how that conversation went with her parents, with Joseph, with the village women.  One day, she was doing the things every woman her age in that place did; the next day, she was to bear the Son of God.  When she rushes to the home of Elizabeth who calls her “the mother of my Lord,” Mary rejoices.  She rejoices.  In a dizzying reorientation of her life, she rejoices—and gives her life over to the call of God.

In my home hangs a piece of art someone who is part of the Grace community gave me a few years ago.  The words printed there inspired for me this Advent poem that, I think, reflects the joy of Mary.

No one has ever become poor by giving.

I puzzle over these words

taking them literally.

Surely, if we give enough,

we reach the end

of our finite resources.

Yet we give more than money

and need more than money.

The oft-repeated lie

of this and many cultures is:

Money is all you need.

But my friend taught me,

my friend who is poor in cash but rich in love,

“It’s just money.”

There is more.

Jesus tells us:

We do not live by bread alone.

Perhaps he meant the eternal,

but I mean love.

We do not become poor by giving.

Somehow, we grow rich

in love, in joy, in purpose.

The oft-repeated lie

isolates

isolates

isolates

until, stripped bare, the one

who had always received

has nothing

and no one.

No one has ever become poor by giving.

So, give your life away.

Give and give and give.

Even in poverty, you will know abundance.

Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, December 12

Day of the Church Year: 3rd Sunday of Advent

Scripture Passage: Luke 3:7-18

John the Baptist tells the crowd, the tax collectors, the soldiers not to rest on their laurels, not to trust only in their heritage, not to assume they are entitled to God’s favor.  Bear fruits worthy of repentance, he warns, for trees that do not bear fruit will be cut down.  John’s declaration in metaphor is fiery enough without explicitly stating his warning.  The crowd, the tax collectors, the soldiers get it, so they ask him: What then should we do?

Repentance is one of those words we bandy about in Christian circles.  When I hear the word “repentance,” what comes to mind for me is Sunday morning worship, the quiet as we consider our sins during confession, the time when I remember how I have fallen short, the space where I feel sad or ashamed or guilty.  While feeling sorry may be part of the process of repentance, it is not the whole of it.  In Greek, the word metanoia, that we translate as “repentance,” means literally turning around.  We have done this here at Grace before.  We have stood and faced the front of the worship space and then repented, turned and faced the back of the worship space.  If we were to walk, we would walk in the opposite direction.  That is repentance, turning around, heading the opposite direction.  And the crowds, the tax collectors, the soldiers appear to understand so intuitively John’s use of the word metanoia that they ask: What then should we do?  Because they know that repentance is not just about remembering their sin and feeling sorry.  They know that repentance includes action. 

I want to be clear: feeling guilt or shame is not repentance.  You may be familiar with the work of social work researcher Brene Brown who, in part, studies shame; her work is all over the internet.  She distinguishes between guilt and shame this way.  Guilt is: I did something bad.  Shame is: I am something bad.  Guilt is focus on action.  Shame is focus on self.  Guilt is usually adaptive; that is, it helps us see what we’ve done and what we want to do differently.  Shame, on the other hand, can destroy us because we believe that, at our core, we are defective.  If shame has gotten a hold of you, hear the good news: you are a good tree.  At our root, we are all good trees.  (Haha)  Jesus will tell us so in the Sermon on the Plain a few chapters later.  Regardless, neither guilt nor shame are repentance.  Feeling badly either about ourselves or about our actions is not repentance.  Repentance is an action that seeks the answer to the very question the crowds, the tax collectors, the soldiers ask: What then should we do? 

By the grace of God, I can now identity when I am in the middle of a shame-storm and can offer myself compassion, which is the antidote to shame, by the way.  That’s a handy tip.  Compassion is the antidote to shame.  But guilt, guilt and I are old friends.  The most mundane example may also be the most vivid and the most common.  I speak of our email inbox, friends.  Perhaps, for you, it’s your voicemail or your to-do list on your refrigerator.  For me, it’s my email inbox.  I have a strict rule about my inbox, no more than 30 emails in my inbox.  I have an elaborate and effective filing system, but in my inbox, there’s usually at least one email, maybe two, that I just / can’t / fully / answer.  It sits there, day after day, sometimes week after week.  To be perfectly honest, the oldest email in my inbox currently is from January 2020.  That was before the pandemic started.  That was a long time ago.  I read and responded to the email initially, of course, but I kept it in my inbox because it requires further action.  And I haven’t taken the action yet.  Obviously, it’s not urgent, but every time I open my email, there it is.  Oh, the guilt, the nagging-at-the-edge-of-my-mind-guilt.  I would like to be a person who doesn’t wait nearly two years to fully answer an email. 

I suspect that, for many of us, there are aspects of our lives a bit like that two year old email just sitting in my inbox.  We don’t want it there anymore.  We bury it under whatever we can so that we don’t have to face it. Whatever the thing is, an unhealthy habit, a grudge, a secret or a lie, we feel guilty about it.  The thing, the unanswered email, is just sitting there.  We feel badly.  We don’t quite know what to do about it.  Because we have felt stuck, ashamed, tangled up in it for so long. 

Later in the gospel of Luke, we’ll hear the story of Zacchaeus.  Perhaps you remember the song about this wee little man, and please join me if you do:

Zacchaeus was a wee, little man,
And a wee, little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree,
For the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the Savior passed that way,
He looked up in the tree,

(Spoken) And he said, "Zaccheus, you come down,"

For I'm going to your house today.
For I'm going to your house today.

As chief tax collector, Zacchaeus charges those from whom he gathers taxes more than the state requires and pockets the rest.  When Jesus tells him to come down from the tree, when Jesus tells him that he will go to Zacchaeus’ home, Zacchaeus reveals a weight of shame and guilt in his life: his financial exploitation of the people.  To Jesus, he declares he will give half of his possessions to the poor and give back four-fold to anyone he has defrauded.  Repentance frees Zacchaeus. 

Repentance frees us.  When we actually take the action that resolves the problem, when we do the thing that needs to be done, when we repent, we are freed.  The email answered, the unhealthy habit discussed with our doctor, the grudge forgiven, the secret shared, the lie confessed, relationships repaired across the board.  Repentance, taking the action that heads us in the opposite direction, is at once both what God requires and the good news God declares.  Bear fruits worthy of repentance, John the Baptist cries.  Not as a threat but as a promise.

What then should we do?  John the Baptist points the crowd in the direction of generosity, points the tax collectors in the direction of honesty, points the soldiers in the direction of integrity.  And John points everyone in the direction of Jesus, the One who is to come.  Fundamentally, Jesus comes to free us, and so, John paves the way for the One who will douse all our shame with compassion and rouse us to a life of love and service that wakes us from the slumber of inaction...or unanswered emails.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, December 5

Day of the Church Year: 2nd Sunday of Advent

Scripture Passage: Luke 3:1-6

Not to Emperor Tiberius

Not to Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea

Not to Herod, ruler of Galilee

Not to Philip, ruler of Ituraea and Trachonitis

Not to Lysanias, ruler of Abilene

Not to Annas or Caiaphus, the high priests

When the word of God appears in first century Israel, it does not come to the high and mighty, and it does not come to the temple in Jerusalem or to any palace or to any hall of power.  The word of God comes to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.  John enters the wilderness because that is where God drives him, a wilderness of danger and uncertainty, of scarce food and water, of loneliness and isolation.  The word of God comes to John in the wilderness, and he preaches from Isaiah 40 anticipating the coming of Jesus: Prepare the way of the Lord.  Make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

For me as a preacher, John the Baptist is a very difficult biblical character because he was a real person.  He lived two thousand years ago, a relative of Jesus, a man called by God to prepare the way of the Lord.  But this highly unconventional, locust-eating, truth-telling, wilderness living man would, in our culture, would be deemed crazy, not worth listening to, and be systematically marginalized—even by religious people.  Honestly.  Every Advent, I truly wrestle with this question about who I listen to, who I consider authoritative in speaking God’s word, and then wonder who might be called by God to share the word of the Lord here and now—and whether they are someone I ignored while walking along the street one day. 

The gospel writer Luke clearly intends to make this very point: that the word of God is going to come to us in ways we don’t expect.  The people who gathered in the wilderness with John, remember: they didn’t go to the temple in Jerusalem or even their local synagogue to hear the word of God.  They went to the most dangerous place in first century Israel, the wilderness, to listen to a man who had no credentials preach from the prophet Isaiah.  Where will we hear the word of God today?  Dare I say it might not be in church.  It might not be from a preacher.  It might not come from someone whose authority rests in a system.  Instead, we might hear the word of God from someone who meets us where we are, from a partner or neighbor, from a coworker or a Grace community member, from a stranger on the street.  We might hear the word of God from places in our culture we thought profane or unseemly.    

There’s no resolution for me in Advent.  That the word of God comes to John in the wilderness instead of coming to the high priests in the temple confuses the heck out of me—but also gives me hope because it suggests that God speaks to us where we are.  If we’re here at church, God speaks in song and prayer, in the reading of scripture and the sacraments, in the gathered community.  If we’re elsewhere, God meets us there somehow.  I can’t tell you how exactly.  I don’t know.  But if the word of God came to John in the wilderness, the word of God will also meet us there—in whatever wilderness we find ourselves.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.  

Sermon for Advent Vespers

On Sunday evening, November 28, Grace joined St. Mary’s Basilica, the closest Roman Catholic parish, for their evening Advent Vespers. Pastor Sarah preached.

Day of the Church Year: 1st Sunday in Advent

Scripture Passage: Philippians 4:4-8

Tonight, we hear the Apostle Paul’s words to the Christians in Philippi, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”  These are bold words, for Paul, for the Philippians, for us.  Paul was in prison at the time he wrote this letter to the Philippians, and the Philippians, though Roman citizens, still risked persecution for their identity as Jesus-followers.  We, in this second year of pandemic, live in the midst of what feels like a topsy-turvy world: a strange labor market, rising inflation, a migrant crisis, escalating climate change, surging Covid-19 case numbers, and division within our country, our workplaces, our families.  Paul’s bold words invite us not to worry, to bring our requests to God in prayer, to do so with thanksgiving.  If we read the rest of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we see he does not dismiss the real-life difficulties of his day.  He acknowledges illness, imprisonment, division, and still, he encourages the Philippians: do not worry, but let your requests be made known to God with thanksgiving. 

When we live in the muck such as the whole world is in this moment on November 28, 2021, it is tempting to think that, when things get back to normal, we won’t worry and we will once again practice gratitude.  When we are grieving the loss of a loved one, it is tempting to think that, when we get over it and move on, we won’t worry and will once again be grateful.  When we or a beloved family member is suddenly ill, it is tempting to think that, when we get better, we won’t worry and will once again be thankful.  When we are feeling off balance and out of sorts for a whole variety of reasons, it is tempting to think that, when we get back on track, we won’t worry and will return to a life of thanksgiving before God.  Friends, this, right now, is life.  This is not a moment out of time but life itself.  If we wait until life returns to “normal,” until we can get our bearings, until some pre-determined moment when all will be well again in order to let go and live with gratitude, we will be waiting a long time.  This, right now, is the moment of thanksgiving.  In the mess, in the muck, in all that is wrong. 

This past Wednesday evening, people of faith from different traditions gathered at Grace to give thanks to God at a community Thanksgiving Eve worship.  During worship, those who gathered were invited to write down a person or opportunity or blessing for which they were grateful.  In the mess, in the muck, in all that is wrong, this is what some of those who gathered wrote:

I am grateful that my son survived his terrible accident and that he has found a partner.

Families: both church and our own

new opportunities

family and friends, health, Grace Lutheran Church, a dear one’s sobriety

for everyone who has stood by me thru everything

God’s kindness through others

for all the opportunities I have

challenging and meaningful work

the cool night air and doors open for all God’s beloved

our freedom, our healthcare experts, handling life on life’s terms

grateful for my family, my faith, my life

I am grateful for the opportunity to serve

beloved community

For what do you give thanks to God?  I invite you to offer up silent thanks now. 

In the mess, in the muck, in all that is wrong, do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.  The Apostle Paul concludes: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon from Sunday, November 28

Day of the Church Year: 1st Sunday of Advent

Scripture Passage: Luke 21:25-36

When I first bought my house, Brian very kindly offered me cuttings of bamboo from his yard.  My front and backyards were bare canvasses in need of shade for myself and the chickens.  So, I accepted the cuttings and excitedly planted them in a strategic spot on the east side of my house where the sun shined too brightly through the windows on summer mornings.  At first, I worried about the bamboo, watched it expectantly, and carefully watered it.  With surprise and delight, I watched the bamboo cuttings grow thick, green leaves on a stalk so strong and tall that, in just a few months, the bamboo hit the eaves of my house—which didn’t work for me—because it looked messy.  I was sad when I decided to take a set of large clippers and chop them down.  At the time, I pondered asking Brian for more cuttings and setting them in a better spot.  But wouldn’t ya know?  That bamboo came back!  With a vengeance!  I had to dig it out by the roots to stop it from growing in the small space between my east-facing windows and the chicken coop and decided to transplant a few cuttings to the northwest corner of my yard where they could grow freely without hitting a building.  Again, I wondered if the plant would survive its move, but I shouldn’t have worried.  My patch of bamboo has now survived multiple choppings, choppings nearly down to the ground.  Six weeks ago at its most recent chopping, the bamboo was, I’m not kidding, at least twelve feet tall and those few bamboo cuttings now an area six feet by six feet.  I now know the mystery and the miracle of this stand of bamboo.  It’s always going to come back.  For even now, stalks of new, thick, green leaves are poking through the mulch in my backyard in an area six feet by six feet. 

Every morning for the last few weeks, the words of Jeremiah’s prophecy and Isaiah’s prophecy have come to mind as I’ve watered the garden in the backyard and glimpsed my patch of growing bamboo.  From Isaiah 11: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”  From today’s prophecy from Jeremiah: “In those days and in that time, I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David.”  The words from Isaiah begin a vision of the peaceful kingdom brought about by the coming messiah, a messiah during whose reign a wolf will lie down with a lamb and a leopard with a kid.  The words from Jeremiah promise justice and righteousness after a devastating Babylonian exile in the form of righteous Branch, capital B Branch.  In the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah, the Israelites wait for God to send a messiah who will bring justice and righteousness.  They wait for a shoot to come from the stump of Jesse, a branch to spring up for David.  David is, of course, King David, the most celebrated king of Israel, the most triumphant, the beloved of God, the one who loved God with deep devotion, and Jesse is the father of David.  The ancient Jews assume the messiah will come from the line of Jesse and David even if they have to wait.  And they do wait...even though it looks like all has been lost, even though it looks like this is the end of the road for the people Israel.  They wait for the 39 years of the Babylonian exile.  They wait through spiritual, cultural, physical agony.  They wait for a shoot, for a branch to grow up out of the stump of Jesse. 

The Babylonian exile ends after 39 years.  The ancient Jews held captive in Babylon return to Israel.  They begin to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, the one destroyed by the Babylonians.  After the devastation of the exile, however, the leaders of Israel return to their old ways even though God had warned of the consequences of injustice and empty worship practices.  After years of deprivation and grief, instead of embracing justice and righteousness, the leaders of Israel—in true, human form—exploit those in poverty and forget about widows and orphans whose care is the very definition of justice according to the prophets.  Meanwhile, the people wait to be surprised by a shoot from the stump of Jesse, by a branch sprung up for David. 

This Advent as we are mired in our own mix of injustice and unrighteousness, in a world of greedy and self-focused leaders, in communities languishing from a still-continuing pandemic and all its effects, we too wait to be surprised by God.  We too wait for racial injustice to end, for our leaders to work together for the sake of the common good, for compassion and goodwill for all people who flee their countries as a result of political persecution and economic strife.  Every Advent, we wait for the coming of the Christ child with a curious suspension of time.  We know Christ has come already and changed the world forevermore.  Still, we wait with bated breath for the coming of Christ who will execute justice and righteousness. 

The difference between us and the ancient people of Israel is that we believe the messiah has already come and that the messiah’s kingdom of justice and righteousness has already been established.  We wait, yes, for that kingdom’s flourishing, but the surprise on this first Sunday in Advent is that Christ’s coming two thousand years ago, his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and finally the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on us means we live already in Christ’s kingdom of justice and righteousness. We wait, yes, and we also act as agents of Christ’s kingdom come this Advent.  In a world that has already received the messiah, we are the green shoots from the stump of Jesse, the branch sprung up for David, we the body of Christ in the world.  Not me, not you individually, but we the body of Christ together.  We the body of Christ welcome strangers and feed anyone who’s hungry.  We the body of Christ advocate for those who are vulnerable and pray for one another and the world.  We the body of Christ build community in a world that is more and more divided.  We the body of Christ contemplate how to best use what power and influence we have for the sake of our vulnerable neighbors.  We wait, yes, and we also act with justice and righteousness, in some large but mostly small ways, like a green shoot growing from a stump.  Christ and his kingdom of justice and righteousness has come and is come and will come and come soon.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, November 21

Day of the Church Year: Christ the King Sunday

Scripture Passage: John 18:33-37

Jesus is in the halls of power.  In a Roman-occupied Israel, in the city of Jerusalem, in the headquarters of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, after being handed over by the Jewish leaders, Jesus is on trial.  And the way it looks to Pilate, Jesus won’t give a straight answer.  In a Roman occupied Israel, it is treason to say you are a king—for no one is king but the emperor—which is why Pilate asks Jesus if he is king of the Jews.  After Jesus’ evasion, Pilate follows up: so you are a king?  But Jesus only implies assent and speaks of a kingdom not from this world.  Herein lies the difference between king and kingdom according to Pilate and king and kingdom according to Jesus.  Jesus cannot accept the premise of the question.  Jesus cannot accept the premise of “king,” “kingdom,” or power that would lead others to fight for his freedom in this moment when he will surely be put to death.  For Jesus’ kingdom is radically different than that of the Roman Empire, of every empire, of every age, including ours. 

On this Christ the King Sunday, I long for a world where Christ will sit on a throne and use all the power at his disposal to create a just and peaceful world, one where compassion and forgiveness reign.  But what I learn from Jesus this morning is that we cannot simply switch out the leaders of this world and put in Jesus.  We cannot dethrone our presidents, prime ministers, and dictators and put Jesus in their place.  We cannot call upon the name of God in halls of power here and now because the kingdoms of this age look nothing like Jesus’ kingdom.  For starters, Jesus’ coronation as king is, in the gospel of John, literally his crucifixion.  In John 19, Roman soldiers place a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head and afix a sign above him meant to mock him that reads: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.  In his life, Jesus heals people, feeds people, washes their feet, befriends them.  He forgives sin, frees people from bondage of many types, and restores people to their communities.  In the course of his life, Jesus’ love for people so aggravates those in power that they kill him.  Jesus is not looking to throw the emperor off the throne because Jesus is opposed, fundamentally, to how that power is amassed and preserved.  He is healing people, feeding people, washing their feet, befriending them.  He is forgiving sin, freeing people from bondage, and restoring communities.  In Jesus’ kingdom, it doesn’t get better than that.  That’s his reign. 

Two weeks ago, those going on next summer’s soul journey to Holden Village gathered for our first team-building event.  Among many other decisions, we composed a covenant to which we are holding one another accountable, things like “respect boundaries” and “no simmering in bitterness; communicate with love.”  As with all human covenants, we put in writing the consequence for dishonoring the covenant.  For our 2019 soul journey to Holden Village, Alison created a dunce cap to be worn by anyone who broke the covenant which was then followed by an apology to the whole group and a group hug.  Two weeks ago when we gathered and discussed the consequence of dishonoring the covenant, we laughed as we remembered the dunce cap...but then we talked about how shaming that is, how punitive, how it would have the very opposite effect of restoring community.  We wondered if this was really what we were about as Christians.  We talked about how someone who dishonors the covenant would probably be hurting, in need of compassion, in need of love and understanding.  So we decided that, instead of the dunce cap, this time, Alison and Charlie would create a LOVE button to be worn by the person who dishonors the covenant.  When they wear it, one of the soul journeyers commented, when they wear it, the LOVE button will remind us that person needs more love.  And of course, because accountability is necessary, an apology to the group and a group hug will follow. 

In Jesus’ kingdom which is jumbled up in this present age, we participate in our own and others’ healing, feed people, wash people’s feet, and befriend them.  We love our enemies and even our families, and we forgive each other as many as seventy times seven.  We shroud people not with dunce caps but with LOVE buttons that remind us that while accountability is necessary, punishment is not.  Love is the way of Christ’s kingdom.  It doesn’t get better than that. 

Yet we may still be wondering...shouldn’t Christ’s reign lead to a prosperous church?  Shouldn’t God’s kingdom come in such a way that no one could mistake Christ’s reign?  Why aren’t churches enormous and wealthy and leading the way in culture?  How can Christ be king and yet his reign be so humble?  These are questions for Christ the King Sunday.  As much as I would love for churches to be bursting at the seams with people who want to hear the good news of Jesus and then follow him, I suspect the good news of Jesus is too challenging to be popular.  And even if it were, the way Jesus lived and died and rose again, the way that Jesus healed and fed, washed and befriended, forgave and restored, leads me to believe that Christ’s reign is far more humble than our dreams of wealth, success, and prestige. 

Christ the King Sunday is full to the brim with paradox.  Christ is king, but his coronation is on the cross.  If we keep participating in our own and others’ healing, if we keep feeding people and washing their feet, befriending them and forgiving them and loving them, we may indeed stumble into the kingdom of God.  A kingdom where we know the power of God in love, where a lamb who is slain sits upon the throne.  Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

Sermon for Sunday, November 14

Day of the Church Year: 25th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Mark 13:1-8

As a Washington Post subscriber, on any given day, I can open my Washington Post app, read the headlines, and click on any article that interests me.  But to tell you the truth, compared to the number of headlines I scan on a daily basis, I don’t very often read full articles.  On a typical day, I read only two, maybe four full articles.  At times, I have clicked on an article ready to be shocked and appalled—because of the shocking and appalling headline--only to read to the end of the article, understand the fuller story, and then be shocked and appalled by the misleading headline.  I’ve learned that headlines can’t tell the whole story, can’t share multiple perspectives, and fairly routinely reveal the bias of their authors, reveal what the author wants its readers to feel about a particular event or situation, instead of just sharing the facts of the event or situation.  A headline can’t give me context, can’t share nuance, can’t capture more than one small piece of a larger story.  Yet so often, I and probably many of us read only the headlines.

I suspect this headline-only reading happens not just as we scroll through social media posts or our news outlet of choice.  Certainly in our culture at large and even within the church, we approach some aspects of our religious tradition with the same limited reading, glancing at the headline, never clicking on the full article to learn in greater depth.  There is perhaps no other topic within Christianity that gets Jesus-followers to read only headlines and no articles as what we call the quote unquote end times. 

Today, Jesus sits outside the temple in Jerusalem with the disciples, and they are awed by the majesty, the beauty, the grandeur of the stonework.  A building and an institution so immense and so important in the lives of first-century Jews, the temple in Jerusalem  would have been considered unshakeable, but Jesus tells the disciples, to their astonishment, that not one stone will be left upon another.  All will be thrown down.  The temple will be destroyed.  When they ask for more details, Jesus speaks of wars and rumors of wars, of earthquakes and famines, of nation against nation, of kingdom against kingdom.  But Jesus says, the end is still to come.  In other words, all these devastating events are not the end.  In fact, today’s passage ends with Jesus’ words: This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. 

If we were to click on the full article here, I think we’d first read that Jesus shares about the destruction of the temple with the disciples in around 30 of the common era but that the temple really was destroyed in the Roman-Jewish war—and right around the time the gospel of Mark was written in 70 of the common era.  All the devastating events he lists are events the people of his day experienced—and that humanity in every age has endured in some fashion.  Not only that.  When Jesus continues to teach them in the rest of Mark 13, he describes how the disciples are going to be persecuted because they follow him, persecution that really did happen.  If the headline of today’s passage reads “Jesus describes the end times,” towards the bottom of the article, the reporter might say: “Given the historical accuracy of Jesus’ words, his predictions may not indicate end time conditions, but instead reveal first-century historical conditions.” 

There’s no doubt that the early Christians were not apocalyptic bunch.  They expected the end of the world, God’s kingdom come, Jesus’ return at every moment.  The Apostle Paul fully expected to meet Jesus face to face in his lifetime.  Needless to say, at least whatever they expected to happen didn’t and hasn’t yet.  Christians for the past two thousand years have taken wild stabs at predicting Jesus’ return.  I say “wild stabs” because there is no clearer message about the end times in scripture than the fact that we will know neither the day nor the hour of Jesus’ return and God’s kingdom come.  Some Christians believe that deliberately creating devastating conditions will bring about Jesus’ return and the coming of God’s kingdom, but I am honestly not sure what scripture passages cause people to come to that belief. 

The photo that would sit beneath this headline: “Jesus describes the end times” is filled with fire, wounded people, fragmented earth.  It’s not a pretty sight.  The photo would catch anyone’s eye—and scare them.  Perhaps the caption would quote the book of Revelation about a beast and destruction. 

But, again, if we click on the full article of Mark 13 in the larger context of scripture, we read about events common to the human experience, events that had happened in biblical times many times—famines, earthquakes, wars.  We read about persecution, the context for all of the New Testament writings.  Each one of the New Testament writers knew the uncertainty and risk of being a Jesus-follower in the Roman Empire.  Jesus was crucified by the Roman Empire.  If that’s who you’re following, it does not bode well for you.  In Mark 13, Jesus is not describing the end times so much as the times to come for the disciples, the latter half of the first century.  He specifically says: The end is still to come for these are just the beginning of the birth pangs.  Or in other words, when devastating events happen, the end has not come, but when the end does come, it is not a death but a birth. 

That’s why reading the full article is important today.  We hear scary stories of the end times, and we forget that when God’s kingdom comes and Jesus returns, we enter into God’s new heaven and new earth, where mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  Or as the great theologian John Lennon once said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.”  So fear not; the unrest of our days, the injustices, the suffering are just the beginning of the birth pangs, the passage to new life.  Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

Sermon for Sunday, November 7

Day of the Church Year: All Saints Sunday

Scripture Passage: John 11:32-44

They all gather for the funeral.  Weeping, consoling, present.  Mary, Martha, and all who knew and loved Lazarus.  Jesus loved Lazarus too, and he weeps for him.  Or perhaps Jesus weeps because the community is sad and grieving, and he too is part of the community.  By the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus is good and dead.  Four days dead.  Long enough that, at least according to the custom of the time, the body had finally released the spirit on the third day.  At that point, there is no miracle, no magical cure, no mistaken assessment of Lazarus’ condition.  Lazarus is dead.  His body is in the tomb—and has been for four days.  He is wrapped up in cloth as was done, and the stench of his body fills the cave.  Lazarus is dead. 

Two thousand years later, we are more sure than ever when people we love have died.  Quite often at the time of death, the loved one’s blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen level are all clinically measured.  Quite often, the person we love is surrounded by us, family and friends and community, listening for each breath as it comes, slower, even more slowly, yet more slowly still.  Sometimes, death comes suddenly, violently, with the full force of a gut punch, certain and devastating.  The one we love is dead.

Two thousand years ago and today, when someone we love dies, we are shocked, sad, angry, grateful for the beautiful life of the person we love.  Turning to God, we may echo the words of Mary: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  Lord, if you have been here, my father, my mother, my sister, my partner, my child would not have died.  We understand Mary’s words.  We get it.  We want miracles too.  But death comes to all who live.  We will all die, really and truly.  Death is not a mirage even for those claimed and loved by God.  Even when Jesus is crucified, he dies, really and truly, and is dead until the third day, long enough even to release his spirit as the ancient custom dictated. 

When Jesus comes to weep with the community at the death of Lazarus on day four, no one expects a miracle.  No one gets their hopes up.  No one pleads for Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead.  Mary and Martha see only a dead end at this point, only an acceptance of what comes to all people.  ...but that’s not what Jesus sees.  Jesus comes to show people the glory of God, the power of God to bring life in the midst of death, the ridiculous hope we have in God.

I don’t know why God raised Lazarus but doesn’t raise others.  But what I learn from this story is that what appear to be dead ends to us are not necessarily dead ends to God.  And there are so many dead ends we face.  Not just death but ends of marriages, friendships, family relationships.  Ends of jobs and educational programs.  Bankruptcy and desperate measures of all kinds.  So-called dead-end jobs and dead ends in solutions to our health problems.  We may feel unredeemable, lost, at our wit’s end.  We may have come not only to the end of our rope but to the end of our hope. 

When Jesus tells the community gathered with Mary and Martha to take away the stone from the entrance to Lazarus’ tomb, how ridiculous he must have sounded.  Martha tells him: He has been dead four days.  Or in other words: It’s over, Jesus.     

I wonder how often we say those words in prayer, in exasperation, in hopelessness.  It’s over, Jesus.  Not that this deters Jesus.  He goes on to cry with a loud voice: Lazarus, come out!  And Lazarus does. 

This week, when Sheila and I were discussing All Saints Sunday, Sheila summed it up best: “Nothing is the end until I say so.”  Nothing is the end until God says so.  In our relationships, in all manner of personal struggles, in the ways we contribute to the common good, in our community here at Grace, in a nation polarized, in life and death, nothing is the end until God says so.  Until that point, hope abounds for even when Lazarus was dead four days, he still came out when Jesus called.  Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

Sermon for Sunday, October 31

Day of the Church Year: Reformation Sunday

Scripture Passage: John 8:31-38

In the 15 years I have served as a pastor, I have been hesitant to encourage people to tell the truth.  Perhaps you think this strange because, of course, people who value integrity generally consider truth telling a key strategy for integrity.  I do. But telling the truth, knowing the truth, hearing the truth can be quite hard, and sometimes, we don’t want to live with the consequences of the truth.  There is practical truth: this happened, he said this, she said this, on this day and time.  Especially in this present moment, when we gather such truth from social media and news articles and opinion pieces—whose rigor in verifying information varies, shall we say, this type of truth can be difficult to discern.  There is scientific truth: over the course of decades or even centuries, we come to learn through experiment and study our best understanding of the laws of the universe—and expect that, as our knowledge grows, scientific truth will change.  There is emotional truth: how we feel, why we do what we do, truth that changes sometimes moment to moment.  There is theological truth: who and what God is, truth that is deep and wide, truth we cannot fully comprehend.  Telling the truth, knowing the truth, hearing the truth seems simple, but so many of us don’t like hearing the truth if the truth doesn’t square with the story we’ve been telling ourselves—about our childhoods, about why we made the choices we did, about whose fault or responsibility something really is.  Most of us would probably defend not telling the truth if it involves information we believe would hurt other people.  Instead, we tell so-called white lies to avoid hurting others, because we assume others can’t handle the truth, or maybe just because we don’t want to be uncomfortable.  We may even avoid certain truths and keep them hidden long-term, afraid of what would happen if we spoke of them. 

Years ago, I sat with a large family at a long table in a restaurant on a day of celebration.  The men in the family sat at one end of the table, the women at the other.  Gathered at my end of the table were several sisters, all in their late 40s to early 60s, along with their daughters.  I don’t recall what started the conversation, but at one point, one of the sisters commented about how their father had assaulted her.  And one by one, these women turned to each other saying: You too?  Yeah, me too.  You were assaulted?  I watched and listened in awe as these sisters spoke the truth they had been silently carrying with them since their childhood, three or four or even five decades before.  They had never spoken of these offenses before, even to each other, until that moment.  Each of these sisters knew the truth of her own assault, but until they shared it, none of these sisters knew the larger truth: that the assault was not their fault, that their father’s actions could not take away their dignity, that they did not deserve or in any way provoke such acts.  Most of all, telling the truth revealed to them that, all along, they had not been alone. 

Truth is tricky.  In the case of this family, telling the truth about the acts of their father brought deeper connection and freedom to these women, but of course, we could probably all tell stories of truth told awry.  How and when we tell, the reason we tell, who we tell...these are not insignificant details.  Thus, why I have hesitated encouraging people to tell the truth. 

Yet every Reformation Sunday, we hear Jesus’ words from the gospel of John: If you continue in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.  Jesus shares these words with the Jewish leaders, and they are flummoxed.  They quite humorously respond: We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”  Remember that the Jewish people were literally enslaved by the Pharaoh of Egypt for 400 years during the time of the biblical book Exodus, and the Jewish people were held captive hundreds of years later by the Babylonians.  Responding to Jesus this way, it seems that the Jewish leaders no longer spoke amongst themselves of these difficult eras in their common history.  Perhaps they didn’t want to remember the shame of their ancestors’ enslavement even though it was no fault of their ancestors.  Perhaps speaking of themselves as descendants of slaves didn’t square with the stories they told themselves about who they were.  Perhaps they felt uneasy about how the ancient Jewish people began intermarrying with the enemy Babylonians, so they avoided the subject altogether.  Whatever their reason, the Jewish leaders apparently don’t recall that their ancestors had indeed been enslaved, and Jesus implies that they still are--enslaved.  For they don’t remember their enslavement—or how God freed them in the Exodus and comforted them at the end of the Babylonian Exile.  The truth, no matter how complex, Jesus says, makes you free.        

In 1517 when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg castle church, he had decided to tell the truth.  As a monk in the Roman Catholic Church, Luther had devoted himself to the traditions of the church, to the scriptures, to the pope.  Perhaps we imagine Luther a gleeful reformer, joyously pointing out the indiscretions of his colleagues and superiors, proclaiming the truth of corruption with full confidence.  That would come later, actually; Luther became quite verbose and vivid in his critique of the Roman Catholic Church.  But prior to 1517, Luther was sad.  He couldn’t make sense of his church telling lies in order to exploit the common people of Germany, in order to make money for the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  The truth Luther uncovered in a sadly corrupt church brought freedom for him—to praise God for God’s grace in his sins, to preach and lead worship and read Scripture in German, instead of in Latin, to sing God’s praise joyously in hymnody, to serve God’s people humbly.  Luther’s discovery of the truth of God’s grace freed the people too, the people who had been enslaved to notions of purgatory and indulgences, people who had feared eternal damnation if they failed in their religious requirements, people who trembled at the consequences of their sins.  Luther’s discovery of the truth of God’s grace brought freedom even to the Roman Catholic Church itself.  One part of the Reformation story we Lutherans rarely tell is that, eventually, the Roman Catholic Church went through its own reformation. 

Truth is tricky.  Telling the truth sometimes leads to reformation, sometimes to pain, but Jesus teaches: If you continue in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, October 24

Day of the Church Year: 22nd Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Mark 10:46-52

For weeks, we have read stories of Jesus’ disciples and would-be followers who don’t get it.  Stories of people who say they want to follow Jesus but can’t stomach the way of Jesus.  Stories about the challenges of following Jesus...James and John telling Jesus they want to sit at his right and left hand in his glory, Jesus telling a rich man to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor—something the rich man doesn’t want to do, and Jesus warning the disciples about being stumbling blocks to others. 

And then, today, while Jesus is walking along the way, on his way to Jerusalem, a man who is blind, who begs for money and thus his survival, who hears that Jesus is passing by, cries out to him.  Because Jesus is surrounded by a crowd, Bartimaeus yells a couple of times: Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.  The disciples, along with members of the crowd, shush Bartimaeus, but Jesus says: Call him here!  The disciples deliver Jesus’ message to Bartimaeus, and when Bartimaeus stands before Jesus, Jesus asks him: What do you want me to do for you?  Bartimaeus wants to see.  Jesus declares: “Your faith has made you well.”  Immediately, he sees and follows Jesus on the way. 

The irony of the story is that Bartimaeus sees, truly sees who Jesus is.  He sees that Jesus is the Son of David, the one in the line of the greatest king of Israel.  When called by Jesus and his disciples, he throws off his cloak, his most valuable possession, springs up, and comes to Jesus.  The rich man went away sad when Jesus told him to give up his possessions, but Bartimaeus doesn’t give a second thought to his most valuable possession.  Though physically blind, Bartimaeus springs up and comes to Jesus, so strong is the call.  And when Jesus restores the vision of Bartimaeus, without being invited, without being commanded, Bartimaeus follows Jesus.  Finally, after weeks of confusion and challenge, here we have the picture of a follower, a disciple, a person of faith.  Bartimaeus. 

Perhaps you have not heard this story before.  I’m sure I’ve read it at least once, but to tell you the truth, I was surprised when I turned to the lectionary this week and found this story.  I quickly skimmed it and thought: Who is this?  Have I ever read this before?  The lectionary is the series of biblical passages we read in worship along with many other Christian communities around the world.  Usually, the fourth Sunday in October is Reformation Sunday, and we would normally read the special Reformation lectionary readings.  But this year, we get 5 Sundays in October with Reformation Sunday the fifth Sunday instead of the fourth.  Thus, we haven’t read this story in worship for several years.  All of this to say: Bartimaeus is unknown to us just as he is unknown by Jesus and the disciples.  In the gospel of Mark, the disciples and would-be followers of Jesus consistently misunderstand Jesus, are challenged by the radical nature of Jesus’ teaching, and turn away instead of continuing to follow him.  But Bartimaeus, a man blind and poor and unknown is the picture of discipleship, one who follows immediately, throwing off whatever impedes him, overcoming challenges like the grumpy, noisy crowd.  Bartimaeus sees Jesus for who he is and follows.   

The gospel of Mark has always amused me in this way.  In the gospel of Mark, the people Jesus commends are consistently the ones the disciples tell Jesus not to talk to, the people the disciples tell Jesus to avoid: Bartimaeus, the Syro-Phoenician woman, the woman who touches the hem of his robe whose long-time hemorrhage ceases.  These are the people who have faith, according to Jesus.  These are the unworthy people, according to the disciples. 

You don’t need me to stand here and tell you that categories of worthy and unworthy simply do not apply to people.  You know.  The crowd and the disciples shush Bartimaeus, but Jesus hears him cry out, calls him, even declares he is healed by his faith.  Jesus does the same with the Syro-Phoenician woman and with the woman who touches his cloak and is healed of her hemorrhage.  The point is not that these people are more worthy because they have faith.  The point is not that they are greater than all the others who struggled to understand Jesus’ message.  The point is not even that Bartimaeus and others see Jesus for who he is while many cannot or do not.  The point is that all types of people follow Jesus.  We come from different nations, different races and ethnicities.  We come, women and men and transgender.  We come straight and queer.  We come from different socio-economic classes and with different experiences in education and employment.  We come from various parts of the political spectrum.  We come with a wide variety of life experiences.  We come from different Christian and maybe even non-Christian traditions.  We come certain about God, with questions for God, or maybe not even sure there is a God.  All types of people follow Jesus, and the only one who calls us to follow Jesus is Jesus.  The only one who decides if we are welcome on his way is Jesus.  And I gotta tell ya: It appears that, according to Jesus, categories of worthy and unworthy simply do not apply to people.  If the last four weeks of lectionary readings teach us nothing else, it’s that Jesus calls us to follow—if we are living with a disability or in poverty like Bartimaeus, if we are wealthy like the rich man, if we are confused and greedy for power like the disciples, if we unintentionally create stumbling blocks for others.  Whatever we’ve got goin’ on, whatever obstacles stand in our way, Jesus hears us, sees us, and calls us.  Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

Sermon for Sunday, October 17

Day of the Church Year: 21st Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Mark 10:35-45

My senior year of high school, I along with three other seniors, were voted Most Likely To Succeed.  In my small Minnesota high school, all of the people who were voted into various categories, categories like Most Artistic, Funniest, Best Car, were photographed for the school yearbook.  Traditionally, the students who were voted Most Likely To Succeed headed down to the school cafeteria kitchen, put on hairnets and plastic gloves, and pretended to wash dishes for the photo shoot.  I was on the yearbook staff, and I remember chuckling at what I thought at the time was an ironic and humorous photo—people washing dishes as people who have succeeded.  (It’s so horrible, I know.)  So, as per usual, the four of us who were voted Most Likely To Succeed made our way to the school cafeteria kitchen and were just looking around for props when one of the women who had worked in the cafeteria for decades greeted us and asked what we were doing in the kitchen.  As we stood looking at her and wondering how to respond, it was one of those moments of realization, shame, and remorse.  We mumbled something about the yearbook photo, and she asked us, quite rightly, “Do you realize how disrespectful that is—to imply that people who serve school lunch and wash dishes have not succeeded?”  We quickly put away our props, walked out of the kitchen, and took the photo in the boardroom where the school board met. 

I still cringe when I think about this episode, 24 years later.  I grew up in a family where we prioritized service above all things.  My parents were actively resettling refugees, serving on the food shelf and public library boards, and helping in many and various ways in our church community.  My dad served as pastor of our church, my mom a social worker in DSC and then in a women’s domestic violence shelter.  Still, I didn’t get it.  I didn’t get that service lies at the heart of a Christian life and is its glory, whether that’s volunteering or in our daily work.  The women who served in our school cafeteria got up every morning to ensure that the large portion of students in my school who qualified for free and reduced lunch also got to eat breakfast—in order to be ready for a day of learning.  These women who served in our school cafeteria were indispensable members of the school staff who made learning possible and helped prevent malnourishment among the student body.

In today’s Jesus story, James and John request: Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.  Which is just humorous to start off with.  Jesus plays along.  What is it you want me to do for you? He asks.  They want to sit one at his right hand and one at his left in his glory.  Their bravado in making this request makes me laugh.  They think they can drink the cup Jesus drinks and be baptized with the baptism of Jesus too.  Jesus tells them the right to sit at his left and right is not his to grant and then teaches them: Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  “Glory” in Jesus’ eyes is not power, prestige, or honor.  “Glory” is serving, caring for another, humility. 

And we know it, right?  When we have spent an hour or a morning or a lifetime serving others, we love it.  Thinking back on the youth and young adult mission trips of years past, what we loved were not the sights we saw so much as the service projects we completed.  Sure, we went to a Broadway show in New York City, but what we loved was volunteering at the needle exchange.  Sure, we saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the Smithsonian in DC, but what we loved was DC Central Kitchen, chopping vegetables.  Sure, we got to freeze in our unheated cabins in an Oregon June, but what we loved was getting our hands dirty in the community garden and pulling apart used computers for recycling.                    

The joyous high points of our lives are often not the moments of power and prestige and honor but the moments of service and love.  In our families, caring for young children, raising the next generation.  In our jobs when we get to contribute to our community or to the lives of particular people.  In our volunteering at heat respite or caring for this property or assisting with worship leadership or making breakfast on a Sunday morning.  We may or may not receive adulation for our service, commendation from our boss, or appreciation from our families.  We may or may not be recognized for how we contribute to the common good.  I know that, I for one, have failed at times to recognize all the people who make the Grace community what it is.  You all pour out your hearts for this place, for each other in so many different ways. 

The deep irony of James and John’s request is that the height of Jesus’ glory lies not in gathering a crowd to hear a parable or in performing miracles.  The height of Jesus’ glory are the hours he spends on the cross.  Jesus spends at least the last year of his life teaching and preaching, healing and casting out demons, befriending and feeding, declaring: The kingdom of God has come near!  And because he does, because he subtly defies the emperor, because he challenges the social structures, because he not does avoid association with anyone for any reason, he is killed.  Despite pressure to stop loving people, to stop challenging an unjust system, Jesus continues and is killed.  His crucifixion and death are the height of his glory, a radical identification with those who mattered least in his society, a willingness to continue his mission despite the risks, an unconditional love for all humanity. 

Friends, if we want to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in his glory, we don’t ascend to high, powerful places.  Instead, we wash our hands, put on plastic gloves, and feed one another.  We use whatever gifts and skills we have to contribute to our community.  We forgive each other, and we love each other even when it’s hard.  The glory Jesus has to offer is a life of service and love, a willingness to continue to follow the call of God even when it’s risky.  But that’s the glory that brings true joy.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.