The GLOW Show: Following Jesus with Pastor Kari

During the season of Epiphany, we hear Jesus’ call to follow him. On The GLOW Show, we are hearing from Lutheran pastors in the Phoenix area about what is means to follow Jesus. This week, Pastor Kari Williamson from St. Andrew Lutheran Church shares her reflections. Enjoy!

The GLOW Show: Following Jesus with Pastor Karn

During the season of Epiphany, we read stories of Jesus calling disciples to follow him. On The GLOW Show, Pastor Sarah is inviting Lutheran pastors from around Phoenix to share how they follow Jesus in their daily lives. This week, Pastor Sarah is joined by Pastor Karn Carroll from Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Phoenix. Enjoy!

Sermon for Sunday, January 24

Mark 1:14-20

When we read that Simon and Andrew, James and John cast their nets into the Sea of Galilee to catch fish, we in our 21st century understanding of fishing probably glide right past these descriptive words and form instead a mental image of fishermen standing on a dock with fishing rods and reels, of men in hats sitting contentedly in boats waiting for fish to bite, of fly fishermen in tall boots standing in a flowing river.  By contrast, Simon and Andrew, James and John stand on the shore or get in boats, yes, but armed with nets, nets they cast into the sea.  Fish small enough to wriggle through the mesh of the nets swim on their way while larger fish remain caught inside.  In the gospel of Matthew, you may recall that Jesus tells a parable about the kingdom of God, how the kingdom is like a net thrown into the sea that catches fish of every kind.  Fishing by casting nets does not allow the fisher-person to discriminate.  Contrary to a lure strategy with rod and reel that aims for only certain fish, a cast net captures fish of (almost) every kind.  The small ones get through; it’s not a perfect metaphor.  Jesus, Simon and Andrew, James and John were as thoroughly immersed in their contemporary culture as we are in ours, so when Jesus calls them to follow him and promises he will make them fish for people, he is not alluding to a rod and reel, lure-driven strategy of fishing for certain people.  In a culture where fishing means casting nets, Jesus promises they will cast nets for people, dredging up people of every kind. 

My whole life, I have heard many people of goodwill articulate strategies for luring certain people into the church.  The intent behind such strategies is completely understandable as we seek to maintain our institutions.  I too feel the pull of luring younger people, wealthier people, people who fit our definitions of vibrant and healthy into the congregations that make up the ELCA and into Grace specifically.  But this week, as I hear Jesus call Simon and Andrew, James and John into a ministry of casting nets, our lure-based strategies turn sour.  For they are not really consistent with Jesus’ vision of community.  We know this not simply because of Jesus’ words here in Mark chapter one but because of the wide swath of people included in Jesus’ own community.  Fishermen and tax collectors, common, everyday people, both healthy and sick, faithful Jews and even Gentiles, crowds of hungry and hurting people.  Jesus dines not just with Zacchaeus the tax collector but with Simon the Pharisee.  Nicodemus, a Pharisee, comes to Jesus at night, and religious authorities of every stripe gather close enough to hear Jesus’ teaching—and complain about his disobedient miracles and disreputable friends.  Jesus casts nets in his ministry, teaches his disciples to cast nets, and calls us to also cast nets. 

When we cast nets and invite people at large to join our community, people of every kind surface.  We have a tendency, me along with the rest of us, to consider some people a good catch and others people we would rather throw back into the sea.  You know what I mean.  We would rather throw back those who are difficult, needy, and struggling for reasons we judge.  We would rather throw back those who think differently than us.  We would rather pass particular people onto some other community, a community more like them.  Quite frankly, when we gather in certain people, we don’t even consider them part of our community even when they are here day in, day out or week in, week out. 

Probably the trickiest part of Jesus’ mission for us to understand, for me personally to understand, is that Jesus neither pities people nor discounts them.  In the church at large, we have seen some people as members of our church and other people as those to whom we bring the good news of Christ in many and various forms: food, water, clothing, visits in prison.  We are the “real” members while others are simply recipients of our goodwill, of our “mission.”  Some of us give while others receive...and never shall the two share in genuine community, giving and receiving freely between them, loving one another.  This, my beloved friends in Christ, this is a false dichotomy.  Jesus calls people of every kind to follow him.  Jesus empowers people of every kind for ministry akin to his.  Jesus loves people of every kind—just as they are.  In today’s story from the gospel of Mark, Jesus calls fishermen to stand at his side, to be his closest, most intimate friends, to assist him in proclaiming and revealing the good news of God.  He finds them worthy of sharing his ministry.  These smelly, backwater fishermen are as “real” members of the church as any group of life-long Lutherans.

We are here, part of the church and part of the Grace community specifically, because someone cast a net, and we surfaced.  The question of the day is: Who or what brought you to church for the first time?  To read the community’s reflections, go to the Facebook live stream worship feed from Sunday, January 24.  Someone brought us or invited us, perhaps a parent or grandparent, maybe a neighbor or coworker.  Someone built a website we found.  Someone held an event here that led us to come to worship.  Maybe the Spirit of God worked in ways that go beyond human action.  Someone cast a net, and we surfaced.  We belong here, in God’s church, just as everyone else does.  God has given us to each other to love and serve and share life.  We are people of every kind, called to follow the One who casts nets and gathers us all in.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

The GLOW Show: Following Jesus with Pastor Brent

During the season of Epiphany, we read stories of Jesus calling people to follow him. On The GLOW Show, we hear from Phoenix area Lutheran pastors about what it means for them to follow Jesus. Today, Pastor Brent Maxwell who serves Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Paradise Valley joins us. Enjoy!

Sermon for Sunday, January 17

John 1:43-51

This week, I wrote a whole sermon and then deleted it on Saturday afternoon.  I wrote a sermon about coming and seeing Jesus—just as Philip invites Nathanael in our gospel story.  I wrote a sermon asking us: Can anything good come out of the pandemic? to mirror Nathanael’s question: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?  Yes and yes.  But upon further reflection, I don’t think that’s the question this gospel story from John invites us to consider. 

Because we two thousand years later get to read the gospel of John in its entirety, we know it opens with these majestic words: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And the word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.  Right from the start, we know that Jesus is the Word of God incarnate.  But the people whom Jesus gathers to follow him circa 30 of the common era, they do not have the benefit of a Bible to read.  Seemingly out of the blue, Jesus travels to Galilee and recruits Philip to follow him.  Then, Philip finds Nathanael and reports that he has found the one about whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.  Why Philip declares Jesus the fulfillment of the law and prophets is really not clear as Jesus has done nothing this early in the gospel to warrant such praise.  Wary of Jesus’ sketchy hometown, since that’s all Nathanael knows of Jesus, Nathanael asks: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?  It is then that Philip says: Come and see, and Nathanael does come and see.  Nathanael meets the man Jesus and after just a quick exchange declares Jesus the Son of God. 

Who is this One Philip invites Nathanael to come and see?  The further we read through the story, the more titles pile on: “him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote,” Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth, Rabbi, Son of God, King of Israel, Son of Man.  Titles of honor and glory, privilege and prestige, with the one exception of son of Joseph from Nazareth.  We gospel-readers two thousand years later know that these aren’t the only titles Jesus can claim.  Jesus is the Word of God incarnate, the light of the world, God in the flesh.  Jesus is God, according to the gospel of John, and throughout the gospel, Jesus speaks with an authority that can only be God’s own authority.  Despite the majestic portrait John paints of Jesus, the portrait is complex because Jesus is not simply God but a man, the son of Joseph.  More than any of the other three gospels, the gospel of John lifts up the crucifixion of Jesus as the moment of deepest significance.  A deeply human moment of suffering and pain.  A moment when God enters fully into the suffering of all humanity.  This is the One Philip invites Nathanael to see...even if he himself doesn’t yet understand what it means. 

The question of the day is: How are you feeling about the pandemic as we end month number 10?  To see the community’s reflections, go to the Facebook live stream of worship on Sunday, January 17.  In month ten of this pandemic and its accompanying recession, coupled with political tension and an intensified call for racial justice, we are tired.  Parents are tired of trying to balance child care and work.  Students are tired of screens.  Folks on the street are tired of no place to be.  Many are tired of isolation.  We are tired of being scared and taking precautions.  In these frightening and exhausting and continually unprecedented days, we may wonder when God is going to show up.  We may lift up our voices with the people of old crying out: How long, oh Lord?  We may feel abandoned by God.  On the other hand, we may be focusing on the bright spots: vaccine roll out, economic stimulus checks in the mail, dramatically lower carbon emissions this year, the care of family and friends when we are struggling, random acts of kindness from strangers.  Whether we feel stuck, isolated, and afraid OR hopeful, energized, and empowered to make positive change, we probably all would like to see Jesus revealed as a glorious savior, a divine superhero, a mighty king who boldly ends the transmission of Covid-19, puts our economy to rights, unites the whole people of this country for the sake of the common good, and establishes justice.  Yet I am struck this morning by John’s portrait of Jesus, a God-man who comes not to triumph but to suffer.  

Jesus comes not to triumph but to suffer—because of God’s desire to so deeply enter into the human experience with us.  Yes, of course, Jesus ultimately triumphs, but according to the gospel of John, first and foremost, Jesus, the God-man, comes to be with us whatever life is like for us.  Jesus is here in these difficult days even when they do not contain a shred of hope.  Jesus is here in celebratory days when we are filled with hope.  God comes to be with us, however we are, whatever is going on, not to change our lives through miraculous works necessarily but simply to be with us.  This may not feel like enough, a God incarnate, a God who comes simply to be with us, but in our most difficult moments, we know that the only thing that makes anything better is this: to know we are not alone.  And indeed, we are not.  Come and see Jesus. 

Come, get up, lift up your heads, see.  Throw off the lethargy of these days.  Rub the dreariness from your eyes.  Look around you and pay attention.  We are not alone in this world.  When you forget or when you struggle to trust God’s presence with us, come here to Grace.  I’m not kidding.  Show up here and see that God is with us, that God has not abandoned us, that God is walking this difficult road with us.  Day after day, I am grateful that I get to be here, to see the ways God works among us, to hear your stories of hope and also sadness.  Somehow, in a way I do not entirely understand, God makes God’s presence known here.  Come and see.  Jesus is here.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.