The GLOW Show: Theological ABCs on Free Will

During fall 2021, we explore Theological ABCs from a Lutheran perspective! Each week, we define and discuss the words that shape our faith and their meanings. Today, we lift up F for FREE WILL and explore with the help of Reformer of the Church Martin Luther circa 16th century Germany. Enjoy!

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.

The GLOW Show: Theological ABCs on Forgiveness

During fall 2021, we explore Theological ABCs from a Lutheran perspective! Each week, we define and discuss the words that shape our faith and their meanings. Today, we lift up F for FORGIVENESS with the help of Pastor Beth Gallen. Enjoy!

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.  

Christmas Vacation

The Church office will be closed from December 25 until January 2. During this time, we will not offer daily outreach, Food Angel boxes, or Grace Room clothing/hygiene distribution.

Pastor Sarah will also be on vacation from December 25 until January 1. In case of pastoral emergency, please contact Pastor Kristin Rice at 608-317-8112; Pastor Kristin serves All Saints Lutheran Church in north Phoenix and is happy to be with you if needed.

The GLOW Show: Theological ABCs on Faith

During fall 2021, we explore Theological ABCs from a Lutheran perspective! Each week, we define and discuss the words that shape our faith and their meanings. Today, we lift up F and explore FAITH with Grace member Ursula Osburn. Enjoy!