Category Archives: Sermon

Wild and Holy is Our God (Sermon)

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Advent 2
Ezekiel 37:1-14
            God is wild and holy, untamed by our efforts to tame, contain, or fully understand. The book of Ezekiel reveals some of the nature of a wild and holy God. The prophet Ezekiel speaks to the people of Israel as they are in exile in Babylon. He is among the first deportation from Israel and is still there as two generations of children have been born on Babylonian soil.
            Ezekiel rails against Israel’s idolatry (worshipping of other gods) and failure to trust in the covenant God has made with them. He receives and presents visions of God’s holiness that pursues Israel in a chariot, seeking to overtake them, even as God’s people flee to other paths.
            Ezekiel notes the unfaithfulness of the people again and again. In almost the same breath, he pours forth promises from the Lord that the covenant will still be upheld from the Lord’s end. That God will not fail to keep God’s word is the refrain of the fiercesome song that is the book of this prophet.
            In chapter 33, Ezekiel gets word from a refugee from Jerusalem. The temple has fallen. The place where God was believed to reside was now a pile of rubble. What does that mean for where God is now? How can God act without a base of operations? What will become of those who called themselves people of God?
            Now you will see, Ezekiel says. Now you will understand God’s faithfulness, God’s holiness, God’s way of being in the world and beyond. And so we come to the vision described in chapter 37. Up to this point, Ezekiel has been describing the destruction and pain of the Israelites in Babylon and scattered throughout Egypt and along the trade routes of Northern Africa and toward India.
            The scene we see at the beginning of 37 is a battlefield. In ancient (and not so ancient) tradition, the victors did not bury the bodies of the defeated. Those who lost in battle and who lost their lives were left where they fell. Presumably the victors carried any living off into slavery or also slew them on the spot. The dead lay out, under the hot sun, as carrion for all predators, including the birds of prey. The bones would have been picked clean and then sun-bleached. The battlefield, with its dry, gruesome memorial, would have been a testament to the strength of the victors.
            So we are talking about a scene of death. Nothing living. Nothing even rotting. Just death. Yet nothing is too dead for God. Nothing is beyond God’s ability to restore life and bring wholeness. Nothing is past where God can heal and bring peace.
            This is the vision and message that God brings to Ezekiel to tell the people who are prepared to abandon all hope. God doesn’t need a base camp. God is wild and free and able to bring life out of death.
            For we who are Easter people, that God brings life out of death is a refrain we are almost too used to hearing. Yet, that was not the case in this time period. The people of Israel, at this time, did not have a fully developed embrace of resurrection. It was not part of their religious faith or understanding. Thus, this vision was ASTOUNDING. God would bring dead things back to life… God would restore life to Israel… a life of promise and possibility… enfleshed, muscled, and filled with breath, with the Spirit.
            Why does God do this? We would be quick to say because of grace. Others would say it is for the sake of God’s reputation. I don’t think it is grace or because God is worried about what people think.  Instead, this vision is a revelation, like so many from Scripture, about the fundamental nature of God. God is a God of revelation, resurrection, and reformation. Not just in Babylon, not just in 15thcentury Germany, not just in the person of Jesus (though especially in the person of Jesus), but in all times and all places.
            God brings life out of death… creation out of a void… light out of darkness in all times and all places. This is who and what God is about. That is the essence of the wild and holy nature of God. What we might declare dry, life pours out of – by the hand of God. What we would declare dead lives- by the hand of God. What we would declare unchangeable is recreated- by the hand of God.
            There is nothing that is too dead for the God who has called us, named us, and claimed us. Not society, not creation, not the church, not anything in our lives. Thus, we are called to look- look for real signs of life, look for the shoots of promise growing, look for springs of hope pouring forth. We too, like the Israelites, must avoid the idolatry of resignation, of impatience, of lack of eager anticipation. What in your life, in your neighborhood, in the world needs resurrection? What is the vision God is giving you of flesh on that skeleton, of breath in that body, of movement in what was previously still?
            Many centuries ago, Advent lasted until Epiphany. It was much more clearly a season marked by prayer and anticipation of God’s promises in Christ. Slowly, as Christmas became a bigger celebration, Advent became smaller. It was still a marker to think about Christ coming again, but as that became intertwined with anticipating the celebration of Jesus’ birth… Advent became somewhat secondary.
            However, Advent is the season to speak to dry bones. Advent is the season that speaks to God’s wild holiness. Advent is the season that says we are engaged in a mystery- a mystery which we cannot fully understand or resolve, but in which we are called to full participation.
            If you are here, if you can hear my voice, if you are reading this… you, like Ezekiel, are called to speak to dry bones- whatever they might be in your life. Declare that the very nature of God is to restore life to what seems dead. Speak firmly that nothing, nothing is too dead for God. The very hope we have in the Christ we await is the clearest revelation of that truth: nothing is too dead for resurrection. God is wild and holy, untamed by our efforts to tame, contain, or fully understand.
Thanks be to God.
Amen. 

I AM is Enough (Sermon 9/29)

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Exodus 2:23-25; 3:10-15; 4:10-17
            When I was graduating from college, I accepted a position to be the deputy news director of KNOM radio in Nome, Alaska- (KNOM, Yours for Western Alaska). I took this position over offers in for positions in England and in Boston. At the time, it seemed like God had given me many choices and I got to choose from several great options.
            Moving to Nome led to loving Alaska. Loving Alaska led to meeting and dating Rob. Marrying Rob led to staying in Alaska. Staying in Alaska led to restricting where I was available for call. Restricting meant that I was available to come here. Coming here meant that we learned to live with and love each other. Living with one another means that I was here to do the premarital counseling for Joyce and Bryan, preach at their wedding, pray during their medical emergencies, frustrate Bryan by my softball ineptitude, have the privilege of baptizing their children.
            All of those things, ostensibly, became possible when I said yes to KNOM. Some doors opened and others closed (some temporarily and some permanently). I was thinking about that this week as I looked at the verses we have from Exodus. The Israelites- the descendants of Abraham and Sarah- are in Egypt. When God made promises to Abraham and then, later, to Jacob, the covenant included the flourishing of generations, the strength to be a blessing to others, and the gift of land. God promised people, presence, and place.
            When Exodus begins, the Israelites are not where they are supposed to be. After Joseph’s brothers (Jacob’s sons) sold him into slavery, he eventually became a very successful assistant to the Pharaoh. In a time of famine, Joseph had overseen the storage of enough food to sustain Egypt and their neighbors. Thus, the Israelites were among those who arrived to eat and multiply through Joseph’s resourcefulness (inspired by God).
            Thus, generations after generations were born in Egypt until there arose a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. This Pharaoh looked at the numerous people who were NOT “his” people and, thus, enslaved them. While I am in no way trying to blame the victims of slavery here, part of the problem is that the Israelites never returned to the place in which God had covenanted to bless them. They grew comfortable in Egypt and didn’t go back to Israel- the land that was their inheritance and insurance.
            So when Moses is in Midian (having fled a murder charge in Egypt), God speaks to him from a flaming bush. Consider the character of God in this story. God doesn’t surround Moses with flames. God doesn’t pin Moses down so he has to listen. The bush burns, but is not consumed. Moses can’t help but get closer to investigate and then God speaks to him. This reveals God’s compelling, but not coercive nature. When considering what God can do and does, it is hard to look away.
            Moses tries to resist. Five times he has a great excuse for why he can’t do what God asks- Moses is a nobody, he’s not eloquent, he doesn’t want to go, he’s afraid, he doesn’t know God’s name. Moses wants a sign, a signal, he can use when he goes to people so they know that he’s really from God. He wants a badge or a number- Moses, God’s Moses, Agent 001.
            Instead, God says, “I am who I am. Tell the people ‘I am has sent me.’” What kind of name is “I am”? God goes on to tell Moses, “You can remind them that I am the God of their ancestor- Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel.” Presumably, the Israelites will recognize God’s call through Moses’ words and respond. They need to get back to where they’re supposed to be- to the place of covenant and blessing. It’s not that God is not with them in Egypt or even that God is not blessing them in Egypt, but the specific promises of God to them involve being back in the land of their ancestors.
            This is the good news for Dottie, and for all of us who are children of God. The font is the place of promise- God’s covenant of welcoming, of redeeming, of presence, people, and promise. The font isn’t the source of these promises- it is the reminder and the refresher.
            When we are baptized, we come into a new life- a life that is united with Jesus’s own death and resurrection. It is in Jesus that God clarified the “I am”. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “I am the light of the world.” “I am the bread of life and the living water.” “I am the Good Shepherd.” Jesus is God enfleshed. Jesus as the Christ reveals to us the nature of God.
            The God who is revealed in Jesus is love. God is not sometimes loving or usually loving. God is love. This is the love that is. Love that says “I am”. Love, that through baptism, says, “Dottie, I am with you. I am in you. I am wherever you go. I am not letting you go. I am always with you. I am never leaving you alone. I am guiding you.”
            The God who attracts, the God who knows what Moses is capable of, the God who is made known to us in Jesus… this God says, “I am.” And, though we long to have that be a longer sentence… it is still complete in those two words. And “I am” is enough. It is enough to know that God is. It would be enough to know that God had blessed our ancestors. It would be enough to know how God had spoken through prophets. It would be enough to know that God had come among as Jesus. It would be enough to know that God had resurrected once.
            But we do not live in a God who says, “I am done.” God says to Moses, to Dottie, to all the baptized, and to all creation, “I am.” That’s an identity we can’t escape. That’s a bush that burns, but is not consumed. It is a reality that weaves in and out of what we perceive to be our choices (KNOM, Rob, LCOH), but in truth is the guiding hand of the Spirit and the power of God at work in the world, moving us to where we need to be.
            “I am” is enough. It is enough of a name to know, to call upon, and to be claimed by… For because of “I am”, we are.
Amen. 

Notes on Jacob

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(These notes were my “back-up” reflection for Sunday 9/22/13. God delivered a much more intense word in reality. The audio is in this post.)

Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17
            For me, the stories of Genesis begin to feel “real” when Jacob appears on the scene. I understand Abraham as the “Father-of-many” and father of our faith. I sympathize with Isaac- in the binding, in the grief of the death of his parents, etc. However, Jacob- wrestling within the womb, grasping all he can, wanting more than he can define clearly, and prepared to do anything to get it- Jacob is a truly fleshed-out character, a human being, a person who makes the Scriptures pop and sing. After all, why would this ancestor be included, with his cheating and tricky ways, except that through him, we understand (like many generations before us) that God is no respecter of persons.
            Jacob comes out of the womb clinging to Esau’s heel and spends the rest of his childhood trying to overtake him. An oracle is revealed to his mother, Rebekah, there were two nations in her womb and the younger would overtake the older. Whether this provokes her later actions or gives her an excuse for what she does, Rebekah doesn’t hold back from helping Jacob grab onto what’s not his.
            Of course, Esau doesn’t help. He is very willing to give into his human desires, too. A birthright, his right to inherit all his father’s material property, for a lentil stew- is this the decision of a model older sibling? Of course, we grieve for Esau when he loses out on Isaac’s blessing. This is not a mere “bless you, my child”- but a powerful blessing that conveys with it the covenantal relationship between God and Abraham that will now be passed to Jacob. God’s words brought this into being and Isaac’s words pass it to Jacob. He cannot withdraw these words once spoken.
            Jacob has to flee so that Esau will not kill him. He has both the birthright (his father’s property) and the blessing of an elder son, but he is afraid and alone. He sleeps on a rock- probably terrified for his life for the first time ever. In his exhaustion, he has a vision of heaven and God speaks to him.
            Jacob is granted the one thing he cannot grab for himself- God’s blessing. God shows him a glimpse of heaven and speaks to Jacob of what is to come. Jacob will own the land on which he currently sleeps. He will have many children. God’s own legacy will spread out through Jacob.
            And it does. It is neither Abraham nor Isaac who receive the name “Israel”. It is not Sarah or Rebekah who give birth to the man who will save the Hebrew people from starvation- it is one of the wives of Jacob. The people of Israel are named through Jacob. The 12 tribes of the nation come through Jacob. Much of the identity of what it meant to be an Israelite comes through Jacob- a man who wrestled that blessing from God.
            The story of Jacob tells us that God is in places we do not expect, as Jacob found out when he slept in the desert. More importantly, God is present in people we do not expect and God is using them in ways we do not expect. Additionally, God’s blessing is not something we can grasp for ourselves. No one is keeping it from us and we are not earning it through good behavior. It is God’s to give freely and God does so, through the power of the Living Word.
Amen. 

Sacrifice (Sermon 9/15/13)

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Genesis 21:1-3; 22:1-14
            Sacrifice.
            The life of faith is one of sacrifice. That’s the truth of it. Sacrifice on the part of God and sacrifice on the part of those who trust God, who want to trust God, who work to trust God.
            Sacrifice.
            Frankly, in a religious system that requires those who believe to tell others- sacrifice is among the LEAST appealing words. No one sings, “I love to tell the story. It is fierce and gory/ To tell the old, old story/ of Abr’m and his son.” We are squeamish at the songs that are about blood, about sacrifice, about giving up all our things, about the less- than- stellar human rights record of the church and its equally dull historical response to evil.
            Sacrifice.
            It is also difficult to realize that even reading Scripture requires sacrifice. There are things that cannot all be true when we read Scripture as a whole. We all generally have a habit of considering certain stories more relevant than others. In so doing, we sacrifice what we don’t want to think about or what seems unimportant to what we prefer or seems more significant to us.
            Which brings us to the story of the testing of Abraham and the binding of Isaac. This is a terrible story, a horrific story, and, in general, the number one story cited by atheists as a proof for the rejection of God. What kind of God would do this?
            And I’m confronted with a dilemma- do I defend God (is God’s reputation mine to defend)? Do I laud Abraham? Do I give Isaac or Sarah a voice that’s otherwise not recorded in the scripture? And I have a very small amount of time, so I will be sacrificing many things I’d like to say.
            This story requires sacrifice from us. We can choose to sacrifice from among many things, but there are three main choices that we will lay upon the altar and prepare to offer up and away from us. We must either sacrifice the idea that this story is a historical fact or we must sacrifice the idea of a God who does not test through trauma or we sacrifice the idea of God’s perfect foreknowledge, that God knows what we will do before we do it.            
            The first sacrifice that we may make is the idea that all Scripture is a historical fact. The stories of Genesis and early Exodus, in particular, were first written down when the people of Israel were in exile. Some had been told for generations and generations, but others were organized during exile to give strength to the people. A particular story may not have actually occurred, but still contained an important truth that supported the life of the people who are doing the telling.
            Israel was likely alone among its neighboring nations in not practicing child sacrifice. Other groups of people may also specifically have had a practice of sacrificing the first fruits of all things- plants, animals, and children. Israel needed story, an explanation, for the way they did things- sparing the firstborn children, refusing to kill their infants. The story of the binding of Isaac reveals a way that could have happened- God set up a situation to make it clear to Abraham that child sacrifice was NOT the things were to be done.
            Maybe.
If this story is told during the exile- in Babylon or elsewhere- the people of Israel need to make sense of what’s happening to them and where God is in it. They perceive themselves to be the beloved of God, the firstborn of God’s plan, the vessels of God’s promises. They may be on the sacrificial altar of exile, but God will not let them be destroyed. Provisions will be made. Israel will not perish and the consolation story, the reminder tale, the encouraging word is a story going as far back as Abraham. God tested, but did not allow the beloved and longed- for son of Father-of-Many (which is what Abraham means) to die in the test.
If either of these constructions makes more sense to us than the idea that God would test Abraham in this way. Or that the man who argued on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah wouldn’t speak up for his son. If either of these reasons for the story is more acceptable, we have sacrificed the idea of historical fact (for this specific scripture reading) for a transmission of cultural truth.
Several years ago, I was meeting with some of the parents of children who attend our preschool (the kids do, not the parents). We met because a preschool family- two parents and two little girls- had died in a small plane crash. I met with people to talk about their own grief and to help them know how to discuss this with their children. We had a long talk about where God might be in such a tragedy and what we could know and what we didn’t know. At the end of a good conversation, just before we prayed, one woman said, “I don’t know. I believe God does these things sometimes to test our faith.”
I just looked at her, thinking, “If God feels the need to kill a whole family just to test our faith, then I’m out. I’m done. No more.” What I said was, “Hmm… well, let’s pray.” Maybe we look at this story and we think, “This is not the word of the Lord for me. I can’t believe in a God who tests through trauma. I have come to trust that God may stretch me and push me and even hit me upside the head sometimes. However, a God that kills children, a God that would even suggest it, a God that creates and uses horrible and traumatic situations to bolster faith, which is supposed to be a gift- I can’t believe in that God. I won’t.”
Perhaps we read this story and we have to either sacrifice the idea of a God who wouldn’t test through trauma (meaning God did and God does). Or we trust that God tempers our faith, but the wretched things that happen in life are not a result of God’s desire to see us be more faithful. They are the result of our choice (sometimes), the choices of others (sometimes), and the forces that oppose God. If God tests through trauma, then God wants Syrian civilians to die. God expects great faith to come from 8 and 9 year-old girls who are given in marriage to 40-year-old men in Yemen. God is building enormous trust through the inequality and inhumanity that is our criminal justice system.
If we want to accept that this story is factual and significant to Scripture as a real event, we must accept that God made Abraham righteous, but also tested the limits of that righteousness. That if God will test through trauma one time, God would, could, and does do it again. Is that a sacrifice you’re willing to make, a belief you’re willing to accept? Because holding that to be true will prove to sacrifice a certain peace of mind about God’s will in which we’ve usually found peace.
The last, and hardest, sacrifice we might make with this story is the notion that divine foreknowledge is perfect. Maybe God knows the arc of how things will work out, but does not always know how we will respond. God made a series of very serious covenants with Abraham- promises that involved generations, land, and blessings. God didn’t make these promises to just anyone and maybe it was time be sure the choice was a good one. Before Isaac gets to the age of reproducing, before the generations really get rolling, before Abraham tries to pass Sarah off as his sister again (as he did twice before), God needs to be sure that Abraham is truly faithful, is trusting, and is worthy of the work God intends to do through him. And God tests because God does not know for sure.
How does that sit with you- the idea that God does not know what we will do before we do it? This is the ultimate definition of free will- that we are faced with a myriad of choices and responses to God’s actions (God always moves first). When human actions occur, God responds- using the Spirit to bring about good. If God already knows what we will do, then why would God be involved in the world at all now? God can retreat, sit on God’s lounge chair, and relax until whatever time it is that Jesus will return. If we sacrifice the idea that God has perfect foreknowledge, we are received, instead, into a relationship with an active and responsive God.
I haven’t explained the story of the binding of Isaac. I haven’t said a firm statement about why it’s there or what it means. I can’t. We come to this story and it does require sacrifice of us. We must either embrace it as a story with truth, but not facts. Or we must believe in a God who tests through trauma, among other things. Or we have to let go of the idea that God has predestined and knows every action. 
This story requires a sacrifice, but so does all faithful living. We must sacrifice the idea that we can save ourselves, that we are in control, that our goodness brings redemption, that sanctification (becoming more holy) happens through our willpower. We must sacrifice the idea that we can fully know and, in the ashes of that surrender, the peace that passes our understand can and does bloom.
We have welcomed Jax into a life that is mysterious, frustrating, and powerfully hopeful. And it’s full of sacrifices, starting with God’s own willingness to create, to be involved, to walk among us, and to pour out the Spirit in blessing and guidance.
Sacrifice.
            The life of faithfulness is one of sacrifice. That’s the truth of it. Sacrifice on the part of God and sacrifice on the part of those who trust God, who want to trust God, who work to trust God.
            Amen. 

Understanding Martha: We’re Doing it Wrong

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Pentecost 9 (Year C)
21 July 2013
Genesis 18:1-10a; Luke 10:38-42
            With this cartoon in mind, I think that the common interpretation of this story might have been wrong for several hundred years. Each story in Scripture has three contexts, all of which we are relying on the Holy Spirit and God’s gift of reason to help us interpret. With today’s gospel reading, we have to determine what was happening when the actual event occurred, why the writer thought it was important to include over nearly fifty years later, and what God is saying to us today with regard to the story.
         When Jesus first came to Bethany and stayed with Martha and Mary, he already knows them. They are friends of his. Martha is apparently the older sister, since the house is listed as hers. Maybe there is some sibling rivalry between Mary and Martha (younger and older) or maybe Martha has always done most of the work. Regardless, Martha has begun the culturally appropriate tasks of preparing her home to host a guest (or several) and Mary is not helping. When Martha complains about her burden, Jesus tells her Mary has made a different choice.
         The implication of Jesus’ words is that what Mary has chosen is more important that what Martha has chosen. It doesn’t mean that Jesus doesn’t understand that dinner has to get made, but that Martha shouldn’t be consumed with what has to be done, but should instead focus on who she’s hosting. Having Jesus present means that the focus isn’t on what you can do for him, but what he does for you. Mary is learning from him, hearing his radical teaching,… she is actually paying attention to who their guest is, as opposed to what has to be done for a guest. Even when we hear this story this way, most of us still have a lot of sympathy for Martha and what it takes to get things done. We are able to understand, however briefly, what Jesus is saying about Mary.
         When Luke is writing sometime in the 70s A.D./C.E., the early church is struggling with what to say about the role of women. Are they able to sit and learn with men? Do they have the capacity? Is it appropriate? When Luke includes this story in that context, it is a rebuke to those who believe women are better suited to the tasks of hospitality at the edges of the early church, rather than the work of discipleship through learning (and maybe teaching!). Luke’s story makes the space for people to hear Jesus say that a woman learning is right and proper and even part of their duties as his followers. Luke understands the importance of hospitality and the work of the community, but it is not to be done solely by women to the exclusion of their ability to participate otherwise in the life of the community.
         When we hear that interpretation, we are a little more able to understand the meaning and the layers of the story. Furthermore, in that context, we are able to see how wrong later church interpretation has been around this story. How many years have Marthas- people who are on the go or active or who get things done- been denigrated instead of Marys- people who want to sit, perhaps let someone else do things, and who learn well in traditional classroom settings? How many women have felt frustrated and hurt by this story? How many women have been told that they can learn, but then they can’t teach? How many men feel frustrated by this as well, but left out because the parable mostly seems to be about women?
         And, in all this, what if we’ve been very, very, very wrong about what the parable means for us in our time? The following saints have their feast days in the coming week (among others): Macrina (early church monastic and teacher), Margaret of Antioch (martyr), Mary Magdalene, Bridget of Sweden (mystic), James the apostle, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman, Bach, Handel, and Henry Purcell. None of these were content with sitting, but all worked… all were active in their faith- even in doubt- to the glory of God.
         Every single one of those people probably related more to Martha of Bethany than to her sister, Mary. By venerating Mary over Martha all these years, the church has mistakenly promoted the idea that orthodoxy (right thinking/teaching) will always trump orthopraxy (right practice). Jesus never expected anyone to sit at his feet forever, but to learn and to go out into the world- knowing he’s with them!
         The gift of the Holy Spirit is not so we can continue to brood over Scripture, waiting and hoping for complete clarity. If we understand anything at all, it is that the love of Christ compels us to go out into the world and live- asking God to help and guide us. We are called to the hospitality of Martha, without her worry, knowing that we will be hosting Jesus everywhere we go. We will be encountered by Christ in the store and the school, in music and in art, in knitting and in running, in cooking and in shopping, in study and in action.
         The lives of the saints teach us that the church has been carried forward not merely by Marys, but primarily by Marthas. Marthas who have learned that Jesus is for them as well. Marthas who cannot be still, but learn on the go and on the move. Marthas who appreciate the call of hospitality, but also know whom they are hosting and Who is hosting them. Marthas who compose, teach, learn, make, and wait on the Lord.
         Mary and Martha of Bethany… we’ve been thinking about them all wrong. The grace of God is for both doers and thinkers, for teachers and students, for active learners and introspective ponderers. The grace of God is for all of them. For all of us. And so is the work of the kingdom. Amen. 

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

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Pentecost 8 (Year C)
14 July 2013
Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Luke 10:25-37
Last night, as I was trying to get the baby to go to sleep, I heard the verdict in George Zimmerman’s trial. He was found not guilty of murder in the second degree. Last March, Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in an altercation. Zimmerman suspected Martin of trespassing or other wrongdoing and pursued him (against police advice and warning). They got into a fight and Zimmerman had a gun and used it.
Who was the neighbor?
             In 1973, a psychological experiment was conducted at Princeton Theological Seminary. Students were told they were in a study on religious education. They completed surveys about their own religious thoughts. Then they were given a task- to either talk about seminary jobs or to talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan. They were told to give the talk in another building. Some were told they had plenty of time, but others were told they were already late.
On the way to the other building, they passed a man moaning and calling for help. Regardless of their speech topic, students who thought they were late stopped 10% of the time. Only 10%. Those who thought they had plenty of time stopped 63 % of the time. Overall, 40% of the students offered some help to the victim.
Who was the neighbor?
The parable of the merciful Samaritan isn’t just a story with the upshot of being nice. It is not something we get to do when we have time (Princeton study) or when people are not frightening to us (Zimmerman/Martin story). It is the way we are supposed to live our lives. It is the essence of the commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself
When I say the word commandment, we all get a little indigestion. A commandment sounds like something we know we should keep and at which we expect ourselves to fail. Well, what if we came to understand it in a different way? What if we came to hear those words as a blessing: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.
These words are a blessing, a gift from God, when we understand them to be one of the ways God is revealed to us through the Holy Spirit. It is not drudgery, not a task that we can ignore because we have received grace, not something we can wait on until we have time or money or both. To love God and to love our neighbor is God’s gift for this moment and every moment.
            We have lost the sense that the author of Deuteronomy is trying to impart: Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.
            In ancient Israel, the sea represents chaos and fear. In the passage, God’s commandments toward a just society, neighbor love, and worship life are neither stored in heaven nor far away in hell. You don’t have to extra pious to hear them or receive them. You don’t have to have an arduous journey or send an adventurer to retrieve them. The commandments are part of God’s blessing. Do we work for the blessing or does it come to us through Jesus Christ? Just as we aren’t striving for grace, we aren’t working for God’s laws. They are written all over us with the grace of God… and, just like the grace that we only begin to understand as we rely on it, the commandments begin to reveal our freedom as we follow them.
            My great-uncle, my paternal grandfather’s brother, died last month. My dad saw Uncle Max a week before he died and Max told him this story:
Sometime in the ’50s, Uncle Max and Cousin JE Dunlap went to Fayetteville to help JE’s sister on some project, maybe a move or building a porch. On the way home by way of Raeford, they came upon a couple of teenage Indian (Native American) boys selling watermelons. They stopped and discussed the virtue and price for a few moments before JE remarked what a nice farm it was and if they owned it, angling toward an invitation to come bird hunt. One of the boys said, “Mister, these watermelons are the only thing we have in this world.” Max and JE bought them out without further negotiation.
Who was the neighbor?
            In a movie, an interaction between two white men in their 30s and two teenage Native American boys would not look like this. Yet, this is the story. And who is the neighbor? The neighbor is the person we stop to help and the neighbor is the person from whom we are willing to accept help.
            The commandments of God and the story of the neighbor who showed mercy aren’t merely about “being nice” or even “doing the right thing”. They are about the nearness of God, the nearness of grace in our hands and our mouths. Every. Single. Day.
            You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.  It is both a commandment and a blessing. It opens us to the closeness of grace and the ways God uses us. When we trust in the blessing (not burden) of this commandment, God helps us to see how we can help those around us. We learn to trust our neighbors and we are more clearly involved in how God’s kingdom comes.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.  Fewer young black men will end up dead or in prison. Fewer trials will end with verdicts that frustrate and disappoint and seem far from justice.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.  Sometimes you end up with a bill at a hotel on the road to Jericho. Sometimes you end up with a bunch of watermelons. Sometimes someone pays your bill or buys all your watermelons. But “the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe”. And it is a blessing.
Amen. 

Lord’s Prayer: Fourth Petition

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Give us this day our daily bread.
Hundreds of millions of people pray the Lord’s Prayer today. Tens of millions will pray it tomorrow. We all say it.
We all say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Millions of people say this and yet there are still hungry people. There are people who do not have enough. People who are unable to make ends meet. People who will go to bed tonight with growling stomachs. Children who will go without eating because they depend on the school lunch program for a meal each day and now it’s summer.
Most of us have enough. In fact, most of us have more than enough. And most of us are not hungry right now, unless we happened to skip breakfast today.
And yet we pray, Give us this day our daily bread.
We pray it and we pray in concert with all people around the world. It is not Give me or Give my family. It is Give us. We are praying with people who believe like us, who are living faithfully in God’s promises… we are praying with people who believe like us on behalf of everyone.
To pray for daily bread for all people and to expect the fulfillment of that petition is to take seriously three things.
1.    That you were serious about the 2nd and 3rd petitions (Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven).
2.     That you understand that God has not predestined some people for suffering.
3.    That you believe everything any of us have is a gift from God.
These three things, along with the Holy Spirit, combine to create a different kind of hunger than one for food. In Matthew, Jesus teaches this prayer in the context of the Sermon on the Mount- a long set of lessons about how to live faithfully. Hunger is mentioned more specifically in the Beatitudes- the series of specific instructions for holy living- living into Thy kingdom come…
Here Jesus says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.
God does not desire that anyone should be hunger- should have that feeling of hollow emptiness- should want for anything. Therefore, those who have enough, who have more than enough, should be hungering to share, hungering to improve the circumstances of those around them, hungering for justice for all people, hungering that no one should feel separated from God because of essentials they do not have.
Give us this day our daily bread is not an empty prayer. Or it shouldn’t be. With so many people praying it and expecting that Jesus would not have us pray falsely or without hope of answer, we have to seriously ask ourselves what gets in the way of this prayer being answered.
Those of us with enough to eat who will not be hungry for long today, if at all, are called (called!) to specifically hunger and thirst, to crave, something better. And in that craving, we are supposed to be moved to be a part of how God answers that prayer.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Everyone hungers until all are fed.
If we dare to ask for it, we must dare to act on it. Amen.  

Lord’s Prayer: Second and Third Petitions

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Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
What is the Kingdom of God?
Jesus gives many descriptions of the kingdom, particularly through his parables. While some of his stories are metaphors beyond our understanding, some are very clear in their explanations. Whether or not we want to accept his message about the expansiveness of the kingdom or its openness is a different story.  In particular, the kingdom is a place of welcome, no tears, no dying, growth in mind and spirit, forgiveness, justice, and inclusion.
What is heaven like? Specifically, how is heaven different from earth?
In the most specific sense, given our knowns, unknowns, and unknown unknowns, heaven is the place [right now] where God’s kingdom, Christ’s reign, the Spirit’s effects, are all fully realized. It is the place of the healing of the nations, the river of life, where death and sin have no power.
However, since we are not yet there… more correctly, since we are here, we have purpose here. Jesus specifically says, according to Matthew, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And, according to Luke, the kingdom of heaven is within you. Thus, we are not talking about an abstract place, but a reality that is both here and now. A place apart from sin and death is at hand and within you… at this moment.
If the kingdom of heaven is among us… what would that look like?
I know a couple people who do not like the song we sang earlier and will finish after the homily. They don’t like the line, “I abandon my small boat” because they like their boats. They enjoy the experience of God they feel on their boats- in creation, in harvesting, in solitude, in family time. All of us have things like that… if not specifically a boat. No one wants to sing- I abandon my garden, my hiking boots, my dog’s leash…
The song isn’t about leaving behind pursuits that we love- per se. It’s about discipleship. It is about understanding that when Jesus spoke to the disciples, the fishing disciples, they left what they knew- essentially all that they knew- and followed him. We are called to the same kind of following. To let go of our insistence on perfect knowledge before action, on total agreement before prayer, on hours of study before acceptance… we are called into faithful living as a way of trusting that God’s kingdom is at hand and within us.
When we pray for God’s kingdom to come- what are we asking for? Are we prepared to have it come through us?
In the Large Catechism, Martin Luther writes about the second petition: But just as the name of God is in itself holy, and we pray nevertheless that it be holy among us, so also His kingdom comes of itself, without our prayer, yet we pray nevertheless that it may come to us, that is, prevail among us and with us, so that we may be a part of those among whom His name is hallowed and His kingdom prospers.
God’s kingdom will come, possibly despite our efforts and still- more possibly- through us. By trusting in God and the truth and power of the kingdom, we are more open, more ready for the Spirit to use us in the work of defeating death and sin here and now- being a part of the kingdom of heaven at hand. But there is no limit to whom God may use to bring about the kingdom.
In his 5/22/13 homily, Pope Francis said: “The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”… We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”
Through Jesus, we trust that God is committed to creation and re-creation, to redemption and to perfecting, to wooing and to receiving, to welcoming and to reassuring. The Holy Spirit does all of that and more, through all kind of people. We who believe… we who are living through faithful action and trust… we are more ready to see how God is at work in all things (or we are supposed to be).
We are bold to pray…
This is why we say we are “bold to pray the way our Savior taught us”. When we say, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven”, we are asking to be part of the work that we trust God is doing in creation, in the world around us right now! It is not a pray that God do what God needs to do and we look forward to the results.
It is a prayer of power. A prayer that God’s will- to see an end to the destruction and separation of death and sin- would take effect in us and all around us and that we would be a part of how that happens. If we are not willing to be active participants in that work, if we do not believe it is possible, if we are not sure that God can do it… then we are not praying boldly. Our prayer is weak tea- at best.
Jesus is the pioneer of our faith (Hebrews). He teaches us to pray in this way because what we are asking for is not only possible, but is a reality within God and God’s work in the world.  The kingdom… a kingdom of life, light, and love… is at hand. It is a kingdom that welcomes all people, including us. And it is a kingdom within us, through Christ, and moving out of us by the Spirit.  Praying to be included in how heaven is experienced on earth is the privilege of our faith. Being included in God’s kingdom work is the freedom we have received through being saved by grace- God’s grace in Jesus the Christ.
Amen.