Category Archives: Sermon

Lord’s Prayer: First Petition (+ Holy Trinity)

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I wrote this to be read by our congregational president when I was out sick on Holy Trinity Sunday, which also marked the start of our Lord’s Prayer sermon series. 
I am not with you because I am at home, sick. The illness is not a mystery. It is just something that I am waiting to finish. Being sick is a little like a puzzle. With enough information, we can solve the puzzle and, usually, things work out.
Of course, we know situations where people were sick and did not get well in the way we had hoped. Nevertheless, we almost always pursue the solution- the full solution, the answers to all our questions. No stones are left unturned. Questions are answered. Puzzles are solved.
We like solutions. There is hardly anything more aggravating than not being able to fix something or know an answer. In this room, right now, with the human knowledge plus the technological benefit of smart phones- there are many questions that could be answered, many problems that could be solved. Facts and figures and history and science- at our fingertips, in our minds, remembered and recorded.
Yet, there are two mysteries that remain here with us- two things we cannot solve, two puzzles that specifically do not have solutions. We cannot adequately explain the Trinity- the idea of one God with three expressions. And we cannot explain prayer.
Even if I were here in front of you, I could not solve these puzzles for you. And, frankly, Megan would probably rather be sick herself than to have to attempt it. The thing is… these are not problems. They do not need to be solved. The work of faith is learning to live both with God’s expansive nature and with the command to pray.
Oh, we do want to solve these mysteries. There are all kinds of object lessons about the Trinity- a three-note chord, an apple (skin, flesh, and seeds), water (ice, liquid, vapor). Ultimately, though, we cannot explain anything adequately. The faithful thing to do, then, is to stop trying. Stop trying to make sense of the Trinity. Stop trying to adhere to a specific kind of orthodoxy that will make it neat and clean.
Rest in the messiness of a God who is both Parent and Child, both enfleshed and ineffable, both eternal and resurrected, who knows all things and also experiences a thousand years like a day. God is bigger than we can imagine and yet we keep thinking we can solve God- like a Rubic’s cube. If we get all the colors lined up, then God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- will make sense, will be solved!
We do the same thing with prayer- except that we worry about getting it right. So much depends, we think, on being able to do it correctly, on solving the prayer problem, that we hardly notice when we’re praying all the time. We focus on the “how” and we forget the “who”.
            Jesus teaches disciples to pray, in Matthew’s gospel, by beginning, “Our Father in heaven, holy is your name.” God’s name is holy because it is the name upon which we can call for all things- for healing, in distress, in joy, for hope, for help. We begin by calling on the name of God because we can ask things of this name (and in this name) that cannot come from anyone or anything else.
            Yet, when people tell me they have a hard time praying, often they are concerned about “getting it wrong”. We want to have all our ducks in a row because, surely, if we pray in the right way, we will receive the thing for which we are asking. And that, right there, is the tough mystery of prayer. The part we want to solve. It is hard accept that a God who has made us, who has lived as one of us, and who sighs with us in prayer is present and at work in all things, even when our experience is bleak and dark.
            If things are not improving (in the way we expect), then God must not be listening (so we think) and if God is not listening (according to us), then we must be doing it wrong (it stands to reason). We are able to do so much, so quickly now and to know so many things… waiting with mystery is hard. What is hard is uncomfortable and what is uncomfortable is to be avoided. No one ever says, “Let’s go to the park with the hard benches! I love how uncomfortable we are there.”
            Part of living in faith, in trusting God, is learning to be consoled by the mystery of God’s relationship to God’s ownself (as Father, Son, and Spirit) and the mystery of God’s relationship to us- as we experience it through prayer- our prayers with words and our prayers with actions. God is bigger than our knowledge, than our imaginations, than our dreams. We cannot solve the mystery of God. That actually is good news. A puzzle has a solution. A riddle has an answer. But God, God is forever- and we live and rest, not through our own doing, in that eternity- even when we do not understand it.
Amen. 

Whose Blueprint

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I strongly recommend the sound file of this sermon (at the bottom) to you , as it has the transitions missing in the text. 

Easter 7 (Narrative Lectionary, Year C)
12 May 2013
Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29
What bewitches us?
            We are (all) easily distracted (or seduced) by things that are not important. How many times have you lost an hour or three to television or to the Internet and ended up feeling guilty about that time? Very few of us have had that same experience in prayer or devotional time. Yet, false piety can be equally bewitching. We are not called to live lives of sequestered prayer and study, but prayer and devotion in word and deed. Our prayers are in how we live, how we use our time and talents, how we reveal our trust in God’s grace.
            The Galatians were “bewitched” by false teachers who continued to emphasize the necessity of fulfilling all of the laws of Judaism in order to be assured of God’s blessing through Christ. Paul rejects this notion. The law was and is important for those who were born into it, he says. However, God is bringing others into the good news of freedom in Jesus Christ. Their right-ness with God comes through Jesus’ faithfulness alone- not through anything that they are able to do to merit that grace or favor.
What do commercials/ads tell us is important?
            We are all subjected to advertizing- both subtle and overt- that says we are not yet what we could be. We can be stronger, faster, more beautiful, smarter, more useful, more clever, a better parent/neighbor/child/spouse… with just one more product, one more item, one more thing. That final thing will give us what we’ve been missing to have a perfect life. Until we get it and we find that we are still lacking. In addition to exacerbating and exploiting our fears, commercials reveal a poor system of creation- where the only way a person can succeed is if someone else fails. In the commercialized and commodified system, people become the means to our achievements- not through support and mutual aid, but because we can climb over them in our race to the top. 
How can we live into God’s grace in our lives?
            Faithful living seems daunting when we understand it to be a system of perfect and perfected belief. The Spirit tries to draw us away from that idea- into an understanding that the life of faith is one of trust in God’s promises and actions. Neither our belief system nor our actions save us or even get God “right”, but we trust in God’s work of justifying us through Christ. Furthermore, our trust is not in the on-going act of justification (being made right), but in the completed action of justification. It’s not something God is doing that God could decide to stop. Bringing the world into right relationship through Jesus Christ is something that God has already done. It is finished. (Heard that phrase before?)
            Thus, we are being helped by the Spirit to understand that justification, to accept that right-ness, to live into the trust that God’s on-going work of creation and healing serves to help understand what God has already done. Not to earn it. Not to complete it. But to come to see ourselves and everyone around us through the light of Jesus.
Blueprint
            This is a blueprint of a proposed remodel/addition to this church dated May 1969. There is a note on it from 1977 saying that this proposal was never used. Yet we’ve saved it. We have saved proposed changes to a building that no long exists as it did forty-four (44) years ago.
            Why do we still have it? Some of you would say it is because we never throw anything away. I suspect that for years, people said, “We might use it. It might be useful. Don’t throw it away just yet.”
            Even as the building changed and changed again, we still held on to an old idea, an old picture, a possibility- even though it wouldn’t work.
            This is what so many of us do when it comes to grace. We keep our old blueprint. We say: Yes, we are clothed in Christ. Yes, we are new creations. Yes, we have been made right with God through God’s own actions. But we want to keep this blueprint… We want to hold on to our notions of how the world works… We are afraid… and we might need a fallback plan- in case God doesn’t come through.
            Don’t raise your hand. Has anyone thought that before? It sounds so terrible when I say it out loud, but it is what so many of us do. We trust that grace is true, but we want to hold on to our blueprint- our way of seeing the world, just in case.
Bewitched by our illusion of control
            We are bewitched by our illusions of control. When my grandmother died, the rabbi for the funeral home (who didn’t really know her), spoke very briefly at her funeral service. I am sure he meant to be comforting and inclusive when he talked about remembering her and her legacy and then said, “Whatever God there is or isn’t…” I thought, “What?!? Whatever God there is or isn’t…” It is one thing to be cautious about the actions one attributes to God, but it’s another thing entirely to straddle the fence at a time of proclamation.
            I called another pastor after the service and complained, “Who says that? I could do better than that.” The pastor laughed and said, “Sure you could, but more importantly, God does better than that.”
            We have been called, through the Spirit, into lives of proclamation- lives that say “God is”, lives that are lived without fear, lives that are carried forward because of what God has already done.
            When we hold onto our blueprints- our maps and attempts to say that we might need our own power later- we are living lives that say, “Whatever God there is or isn’t…” When we refuse to listen to the siren song of the commercial world or the whisper of the forces that oppose God, when we swallow our fears and live by trusting in God’s grace… we are living like Abraham and Sarah.
            When we trust that we are not defined by our work, our race, our abilities, our body types, our mental state, our family’s achievements, our church’s size, our ability to pray… when we trust that we are defined by Christ and Christ alone… then we have the courage to welcome all people, to care for our neighbors, to work for change in our community, to appreciate creation.
Trust is not about fully comprehending and explaining a formula or creed. It is about prayerful and devotional living- without fear- through confidence in what God has finished in Jesus Christ.
            The promise we have inherited is not that there may or may not be a God who may or may not be working on something for the future. The promise we have inherited is that God who knows all things, who made all things, who has saved all things has included us in that salvation through Jesus the Christ. It is on the authority of this promise that we throw out our plans and live into God’s blueprint- an outline that has remodeled us all into the image of Christ. 


The Boundaries of Grace

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5 Easter
Narrative Lectionary, Year C

Acts 15:1-17
            The disciples are determining the purpose of their congregation. Is it to make Gentiles (Greek, Roman, any non-Jewish believer) into Jews? Or is it to take people of all stripes who are prepared to act in the name of Jesus and to move forward and out in faith? The purpose might seem clear to us, but it was as fraught a discussion as we occasionally find in congregations and in denominations today. This is the first synod assembly (so to speak) recorded in the early church and they have real issues on their hands.
            They have to determine the boundaries of God’s grace and the marks of the recipients of that grace. They are trying to respect the traditions and history of those gathered, history that is part of how God’s work and presence in the world has been revealed.  The disciples are also trying to understand the exponential pace at which the Spirit is bringing people into faith.            
            In this critical time, they are trying to determine how to tell who is included and what is required of those who say they believe? Should they be brought into the community of faith via circumcision, the sign of one of God’s earlier covenants with Israel? Are there dietary restrictions or certain worship rites? How will the new believers show their dedication to the Way of Jesus?
            How do we know who has received God’s grace? If there are no visible physical markers, perhaps there are markers in one’s life. Surely a person who is especially blessed has received God’s grace. After all, we hear that phrase, “There, but for the grace of God, go I” applied to people for whom we have sympathy, who are struggling in some way. When the nuance of that phrase is unpacked, it reveals that if God’s grace has kept us from a certain circumstance, then any unfortunate suffering soul is clearly without God’s grace. There, but for the grace of God… implies that there are places and people that are without God’s grace. And we can tell because of how they are suffering.
            The family that can’t receive food stamps (SNAP) because they are a few dollars over the income limit… The woman or man who makes the choice to sell sex because it seems easier than other options… The person who gets hurt or killed on a trail you’ve hiked many times… The person who gets caught in a bad spot that you went through only minutes before… The person who took the flight that crashed, but you just missed… The person who dies from suicide, a desperation you’ve felt before… The person who dies from complications of a surgery that you sailed through…
            There, but for the grace of God… except were any of these people without God’s grace? Would we dare, would we presume to say that God did not care about these people? That God’s Spirit was withdrawn from them? That they were forsaken? Either the grace of God is open and expansive and all-encompassing… or God is capricious and malevolent and extends mercy to a select few (who can live into very exacting standards).
            We want to believe the former- in a gracious God. And yet we live in a world that acts on the latter premise- that God’s favor is spotty. If it was expansive, why would there be suffering in the world? And then the worst of both beliefs- that God’s grace is for all, but you have to reach a state by pulling yourself to it.
This is precisely the problem that Peter points out in Acts, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers.  And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
            We are specifically warned against testing God’s grace through judging our neighbors circumstances. Specifically warned against believing that a person’s struggling, suffering, pain, or despair is reflective of God’s opinion of them. There is only one way to show that we are not testing the grace of God. We trust in grace and so we act upon it. God’s work in our hands… God’s grace in our actions… God’s mercy in our words and deeds.
            By trusting in God’s faithfulness, as revealed in Jesus, we are brought into the same river of faithful action that swept up the first disciples. The grace of God extends to all, Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. In the community of the Way of Jesus, here and elsewhere, we preach the love of God for all and we practice it with one another. Then we carry it out to the world that wants to believe that physical health, financial well-being, and mental stability are the obvious markers of God’s grace, when any of these things may fail. There, but for the grace of God… goes no one. Surely a God who would go to the lengths of coming into the world as person to teach and to heal and then to be resurrected… surely that God desires that all people should experience the light of grace.
            The purpose of this assembly is steep ourselves in the faithfulness of God, to absorb trust and hope and then to stride out- refreshed by Word and water, community and communion. Strengthened, we set to the work of revealing that no one is outside of God’s grace. We feed, we clothe, we advocate, we listen, we invite, we pray.
            If we are not doing these things, then we are testing God. We are testing whether God’s grace is sufficient for all people. We are hoarding the gifts we have received and waiting to see what the Lord will do. God does not fail tests. God will not fail our neighbor, but we can shortchange ourselves in responding to God’s invitation and being frontline witnesses to the way that God’s grace makes all things new.
            The purpose of the church is to bring people together into the Way of Jesus and then to live that Way in the world. The inclusion of Gentiles, as they were, into the community of the faithful was a revolution we cannot comprehend. The Spirit does not stop its work of reformation and renewal, of provocation and invitation. The grace of God is on the move and disciples, then and now, are called to be at the frontlines of the work of boundary expansion.
Amen.

Washed and Fed for the World

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Easter 4 (Narrative Lectionary, Year C)
21 April 2013
Acts 8:26-39
The Holy Spirit does not hold to geographic boundaries. The Spirit does not hold to racial lines or ethnic markers. The Spirit does not detour to avoid the people we’d prefer not to see, not to hear, not to sit beside, or have included in our gathering. In the passage from Acts 8, that person is the Ethiopian eunuch. A eunuch is a man who does not have functioning testicles- either because they did not develop or because he has been maimed. A eunuch’s ability to reproduce has either withered on the vine or been pruned.
A eunuch is still a Jew, but may have been excluded from the assembly. Thus, for the purposes of temple life and worship, a eunuch is a man who is essentially a woman. And women don’t get to offer sacrifices. They don’t have standing. One’s blessings come through one’s husband and one’s ability to be receptive to his offerings, so to speak. (This is just awkward for everyone, but this eunuch is important. So stay with me.) A eunuch cannot fulfill the “actions of a man”(so to speak), so he does not get the privileges of being a man… including gathering in the assembly of the faithful. (Deut. 23:1)
Now, in your reading of Isaiah, you may recall a little song about eunuchs with a different tune. The prophet writes: Let no foreigner who is bound to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.” And let no eunuch complain,“ I am only a dry tree.” The prophet goes on to say that God will give a memorial better than children to faithful eunuchs, to faithful people. It might have served for God to mention that in one or two other places, since repetition is one of the main ways we learn, but sometimes I think God says to us, “How many times do I have to tell you this stuff?” (Isaiah 56:3)
            The Ethiopian eunuch is a servant in the queen’s court, chosen for that valued position because of his sexual safety. He will not overthrow the government because he cannot have children to continue his line, so (presumably) it would not be worth it. He obviously understands himself to be Jewish because he has traveled to Jerusalem for worship, for worship in the community that may not receive him. He goes to be present with people who are, mostly, of much lower social status than he is as a royal servant. The man has his own chariot and copies of Scripture. Even Peter doesn’t have that!
            Now consider this: how badly would you have to want to worship to travel hundreds of miles to go to a place that wouldn’t receive you to worship a God whose people have conspired to exclude you from the fullness of community? How much would you have to crave sacramental life to be enriched by just being close to it, much less participating? How much would you have to desire to know more about God’s salvation, which might not include you, to be reading a scroll of Isaiah on a bumpy chariot ride back to your home country? Does anyone here have that much desire? Is anyone here willing to allow the Spirit to be that powerful in his or her lives?
            And Philip appears- running alongside the chariot. Philip, who has been assigned to be a part of the food distribution in the Jerusalem meeting houses, is now speaking to someone who might as well be from the ends of the earth. Philip says, “Do you know what you’re reading?” and then goes on Isaiah’s servant song in the light of Jesus Christ. When Isaiah wrote it, it was understood in to apply to God’s servant Israel and Israel’s people. The Spirit’s interpretive expansion helped the early followers of Jesus to understand him (and their own call) as the servant who suffers for the sake of God’s work in the world.
            Moved by this interpretation, moved by this Bible study, the Ethiopian eunuch stops the chariot and says, “Here is water. What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He is so transformed by hearing Philip’s discourse on Jesus that he cannot wait to be included in the community through God’s promise in water and word. Baptism will change his allegiance, and his alliances, but it will be worth it because he will be drawn, clearly, into the story of God that the Spirit has been whispering in his ear.
            Does anyone here desire baptism that much? Does anyone long to revisit their baptism? Have you held yourself back from just splashing your face in the font- to remember, to clear your vision, to wake you up to your life reorientation in Christ? We trust that God loves and uses people who are not baptized, but in the Christian community it is the marker of beginning and belonging. It is a moment we can revisit again and again- a moment when the salvation we work out with fear and trembling became tangible. We are supposed to crave this moment- remembering it and desiring it for all around us.
Along with holy communion, the baptismal font give us a different lens for seeing ourselves, the people around us, and the people who we encounter outside of these doors- the same expanding circles of Spirit-inclusion that are in the Acts reading (the people in Jerusalem, the people in Judea, the people in Samaria, the people in Ethiopia and beyond). These sacraments, two places where we are assured of Christ’s presence, make us citizens in the kingdom of God with work to do right now. Part of that work is sharing the message that is implicit in these acts of communal washing and eating together- the message that all people are children of God.
When the world says, “racial minority”, we say “child of God.”
When the world says, “sexually suspect”, we say “child of God.”
When the world says, “illegal immigrant”, we say “child of God.”
When the world says, “homeless by choice”, we say “child of God.”
When the world says, “Palestinian or Israeli”, we say “child of God.”
When the world says, “mentally ill”, we say “child of God.”
When the world says, “terrorist”, we say “child of God.”
            The naming of our people, our friends and our enemies, as children of God puts us in the position to do the work of Christ. Work of feeding. Work of peace-making. Work of creating equality. Work of ensuring justice. The work of making God’s presence real by revealing that presence through the actions of God’s people. I am not saying we make God real through our right actions. I am saying that who God is becomes understandable through the clear actions of the people who call themselves people of God.
            In a world full of terror, natural disasters, and preventable human tragedies, there are people who crave good news. There are people who need advocates, though they may be in the wrong. There are people who are certain that they will never belong to the community of God- but they read the story anyway. In a world with this kind of longing, how do you account for the hope that is within you? Do we dare to cheapen God’s grace by assuming that the font and the table exist merely to assure us of God’s affection for us?
            These are dangerous places. They change the way we see the world and the way we see all children of God. We should approach these places with trembling- longing for the truth of their promises and afraid of what faithful participation will lead us into doing?
            The Holy Spirit does not hold to geographic boundaries. The Spirit does not hold to racial lines or ethnic markers. The Spirit does not detour to avoid the people we’d prefer not to see, not to hear, not to sit beside, or have included in our gathering.  And the Spirit does not, cannot, will not, pass by you. 
Amen.

Dying For and Dying To (Sermon, Easter 3)

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Acts 6:1-14, 7:44-60
            Once there was a church full of people who loved Jesus and who tried to love one another. They had the best of intentions in all they did, in worship and in serving others. They even hosted a food pantry of sorts with fresh food that was passed out so that all could eat and be satisfied.
            Of course, behind the scenes, things were less rosy. There were some who wished that church could be the way it always was. Too many changes made them upset. They felt that the congregation needed to slow down, heed what had always worked, and focus on their community.
            There were others who felt that innovation was needed, that the church needed to be more open and outward-focused. These people were interested in different styles of worship and new areas of service. They struggled with how slowly things seemed to change and were frustrated by their inability to change everything all at once.
            Then the leaders wanted to help, but were stretched in too many directions. Not all the homebound were being visited, not everyone who needed help was being seen, and when the leaders focused more on administrative tasks- the worship suffered. The community struggled to get things done, to get things right, and to get along with one another.
            This description, of course, is of the church in early Acts. The Christians who were from Jewish backgrounds had memories of the temple worship and a sense of tradition. They were the ones who had always “belonged” and they felt that honoring those traditions was critical to the future of the community that followed Jesus. The Hellenists, Gentile Christian who spoke Greek, were newer to the community, but were equal contributors. They showed up and volunteered and were truly dedicated. They felt that in return for their dedication- their families and relatives should receive the same considerations (like being a part of the distribution of goods).
            The apostles and leaders in the community wanted to be dedicated to teaching and preaching about Jesus, but when they get caught up in the other workings of the community- they aren’t able to study and pray in a way that leads to effective leadership. In order to remedy that situation, they divide up some of the tasks. In particular, seven men are appointed to head up the food distribution- the passing out of goods that everyone has brought together for the good of the order.
            Stephen is one of those seven. He is assigned to distribute food, but he cannot refrain from preaching as he does it. Instead of just handing out the bread and the fruit, he talks about why they are doing this and the motivation behind their community living. He makes some people very angry by pointing out how they are still ignoring the work of God in the world, just as people have done since the world’s beginning. He offends the wrong people and they kill him. He dies for and in the Lord. (And he does so with Saul looking on and approving.)
            Despite the struggles and divisions in the early church over all kinds of things, the Holy Spirit continued to work through them so that people continued to be brought to the faith. Yes, more of them died. Many more were killed for their faithful actions. It had little to with what they believed and lots to do with what they were willing to do to be a part of God’s work of justice and peace in their towns and cities. In order to live out the way of discipleship, some died for the faith and some died to their ideas of the faith.
            Everyone who decided to follow the way of Jesus had to let go of certain ideas, certain convictions, certain assumptions about the world, about other people, about life in community. They had to die- to perish the thoughts- so that the new life of Christ could grow in them. That new life comes with a lot of extra growth that needs much room.
           The community of Christ today is called to the same new life. What are we willing to die to so that the community of Christ will grow? Do we have the conviction of Stephen to continue to talk of Christ, even when it’s not officially our job and when it makes others angry? Are we willing to let go of the way things have always been so that things may become the way God is shaping them to be?
            What would you give up to see new people learning about the love and life in God? What about our life in Christ would you die for and what should you die to?
            We cannot expect that the God of renewal and reformation intends for the church to remain the same. We cannot hope that the Spirit of fire and water will leave things unaltered and unaffected by time and circumstance. We dare not rest on the idea that the Christ of healing and justice will allow us to sit back and organize our creeds while the world struggles in darkness.
            The life of faith is a life of action. A life of action has seasons of growth and seasons of dying. What in this community, in the larger church, in each of our lives is dying so that God’s new growth can spring forth?
            Despite the divisions, the arguments, and the deep grief over change, the early church worked forward in the Spirit to keep the way of life in Jesus the Christ alive and changing their world. We are called to no less of a life of action in discipleship. In fact, we are called to the very same life of healing, sharing, and working for justice. And the very same Spirit is at work in us… carrying us through deaths (of people, of ideas, of traditions) and bringing forth new and abundant life.
Amen.  

This sermon was inspired by this blog post by Jan Edmiston: http://www.ecclesio.com/2013/03/a-risky-invitation-jan-edmiston/. I’ve been thinking about this since I first read it- weeks ago. 

Miracles, Not Magic

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Easter 1: Luke 24:1-12
            Who is missing in the gospel reading?
            Jesus…
            Where is he?
            How do you know?
            Where are the disciples? Not at the tomb.
 (Despite Jesus having told them.)
            The women go to the tomb and there are two men there, messengers, who tell them that Jesus is risen. That he is living- no longer entombed, but alive and out and about…
            They go back to tell the disciples what happened and the disciples shout, “Hallelujah” and build a church.  The disciples immediately fall to their knees and thank God. The disciples immediately get out a scroll and begin to put together the Apostles’ Creed.
            Or… instead… the disciples… the people who knew Jesus best, who knew best what he’d said, who’d loved him and had been praying for the events of the last three days to NOT be true. They said the women were full of … baloney. The English translators protect us from the weight of the Greek. It’s not that the disciples thought it was an idle tale… It is that they thought the women were crazy, delirious, insane and were feeding them a line of sugar.
            How is it that the disciples did not believe them? And, lest you hurry to defend Peter, some of the early translations of Luke don’t have verse 12. Many just end with “to them, it was b… an idle tale.”
            If the disciples were not able to believe right away, why do we expect that of ourselves?  Faith in the resurrection… of Jesus and of ourselves in Christ… faith in the resurrection is not magic. It’s a miracle.
            We who still feel the sting of death… who see pain the world… who wrestle with injustice… that we would believe in the resurrection is truly a miracle. That the church would last is a miracle. That people who sometimes are so aggravated with each other can embrace and say, “Peace be with you.” It’s a miracle.
That someone who watched their spouse struggle and die after a long illness can find love again… Miracle.
That someone can get out of bed again after the death of a child… Miracle.
That a child can be born one month, two months, three months, four months early and live and be well… Miracle.
That people in this room right now have survived cancer, divorce, miscarriages, broken hearts, heart attacks, major surgeries, deployments, discrimination, betrayal, unemployment, loss… and yet you are here… believing that forgiveness is possible, that hope is strong, that resurrection is true… Miracle.
            We are here now because eventually what seemed like an idle tale… became clearer, more obvious, more trustworthy, more inspiring, more believable. What is true is true… whether or not we believe it- however, sometimes we have to grow into that belief. We have to experience the miracle for ourselves. And it is a slow process.
            Easter is a season- not a day. We have to wrestle with the idle tale… test it… and keep our eyes open for where God is encountering us. Jesus was not in the tomb that first Easter. We do not know where he was until later that evening. But he was somewhere. He was then as he is now… encountering people in acts of kindness, acts of grace, acts of mercy… things are small miracles in themselves.
            You see, for God… a God that is all-powerful, all-loving, a God that is forgiving and merciful… raising Jesus from the dead was nothing. That is not hard. Helping us to believe in it… that’s work. That is the work that only God can do. Faith is a gift that only God can give. And that we would act on that faith… that we would show kindness… mercy… forgiveness… that work in us could only happen through the Holy Spirit.
            It is because of God’s work in helping us to believe in resurrection… of the body, of relationships, of creation… that we are able to work for justice, for healing, for equality, for release of captives, and for peace among people. It is because of God’s work in helping us believe that we are here today… doing things that look crazy… but are meaningful because of what we have been helped to understand is true. True today and forever. Miraculous today and forever.
            What if you don’t believe or you struggle with believing or even you sometimes wonder just a little? Does it mean God isn’t at work in you- that God hasn’t given you faith? Do you think God is done with you? The disciples… pillars in the faith… had to wrestle with what seemed like an idle tale. And Jesus met them, each in different ways, with forgiveness and healing. And, Jesus does no less with each of us as we live out our life’s Easter season in learning the truth of God’s work in the world.
            Faith in the work of God isn’t magic and it isn’t easy. It is a miracle and it is work. To make a body disappear- any magician can do that. To bring a body to life again- we know some ways that happens. To bring a body to life as a sign of hope and forgiveness, of renewal and future expectation, and to help people trust in that resurrection… that’s a miracle. The miracle of grace. The miracle of Easter.
Christ is risen.
He is risen, indeed. 
            

A Powerful Thirst

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After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said, “I thirst”. John 19:28
        
        
         One of the hardest things to hear as a pastor is that someone has stopped eating and drinking. A person who stops eating, but will still take a little fluid is going to die, but still may have time. Once a person refuses fluid or no longer is awake enough to drink anything, we know that they will soon die. Being thirsty, wanting to quench that dryness, is a sign of life, a sign of being. We can go a while without food, but we cannot survive for long without liquid.
            When Jesus says, “I thirst”- we know that he is still alive. That Jesus, his body that is both human and divine, still has longing and need. He receives sour wine to drink, something that was foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures. Does that quench his need? Are his dry lips moistened? Is his aching throat soothed? Does he still thirst?
            What is Jesus thirsty for? Does he just want some water? Possibly. Probably. But he also has Living Water, as he told the woman at the well. The source of Living Water likely has a deeper thirst for more than just H20.
            On that cross, Jesus looked out at the crowd and saw deep needs- things about which he’d preached, circumstances he’d repaired, a creation that longed to be reunited with God, but was unable to keep up its end. Jesus saw all of this and he thirsted… he longed for justice, for peace, for wholeness in community, for grace and mercy among neighbors, for healing in families, for a reformation of the religious system.
            His spirit thirsted for wholeness in the world, just as his body longed for liquid thirsted for water or cool wine. This is how we know that he was still alive and that he is alive among us still because he thirsts. Our own thirsting is how we know that we are alive… alive in Christ.
            Not just our longing for water, but our longing for peace in our world, for justice in government, for equality among people, for a desire to honor tradition and to support innovation. We are to thirst for these things because that longing is part of what it means to be living in faith.
            To that thirst- the powers of the world will offer sour wine- discrimination based on race, sexual orientation or experience, gender, religious expression, ability, resources, or age. There is the sour wine of “deserve”, of “should”, of “not one of us”. All these things are sour wine… wine that humiliates and denigrates, that does not quench the thirst of the body or of the soul for the goodness of the kingdom of God.
            The Spirit has pure, clear Living Water… the power of Christ… to quench these thirsts, but who is the cup? Who can satisfy these longings? The person who carries the Living Water in the cup of their skills and their calling. If we are not thirsting with Christ, we are close to dying. To thirst is to be alive. Feeling and seeking to quench the thirst of the world is to be alive in Christ.
            Christ in our neighbor… our homeless neighbor, our gay neighbor, our neighbor of another color or race, our atheist neighbor, our fundamentalist neighbor, our neighbor without healthcare, our neighbor with a deployed spouse, our widowed neighbor, our neighbor with an unintended pregnancy, our neighbor in a wheelchair, our neighbor with a mental illness… Christ in that neighbor says to you… I thirst. 

Blessed is the One (Sermon)

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Palm Sunday/ Feast Day of Oscar Romero
Luke 19:29-44
            So what does an assassinated Roman Catholic Archbishop have to do with Palm Sunday? It’s a good question. At the start of Holy Week, we are in a position for deep and serious reflection. On the one hand, we can enter this week with a misplaced sense of re-enactment- the idea that we are re-living the events of a certain week almost two thousand years ago.
            Sometimes the re-enactment is what we need. To re-imagine the sights, sounds, and smells. To place ourselves in Jerusalem and feel the strain of oppressed people. Sometimes that memory is what we need.
            However, there is another way to consider this week. It functions like a compass for our faith. The events of this week are our true North- they give us a sense of direction, a re-orientation to the landmarks of our faith. They put us on the right path.
            That is where our focus should be, even in the midst of re-imagining and re-enacting. Palms in our hands, we are poised to be re-acquainted with the direction of our faith and its purpose. The events that are coming are not meant to overwhelm us with sadness or even a sense of unworthiness. The events of this week are meant to overwhelm us with the way that light overcomes darkness, that life overcomes death, that the forces that oppose God do not win the battle or the war.
            When Oscar Romero became archbishop, he was appointed to that position, in part, because it was believed that his conservatism would keep him from siding with the poor who were rising up against the government. Both sides of this fight believed that he would not be involved. However, he watched a close friend get killed (shot) for trying to help the poor farmers and laborers, to end their oppression. Romero then realized that he could not remain silent. His understanding of Jesus meant that he had to speak out. He even worked to get his sermons on the radio for all to hear, sermons which frequently sided with the oppressed and called for the soldiers to end the killing of their brothers and sisters.
            Archbishop Romero spoke frequently that he knew he would eventually be killed, but he could not abandon the work to which God had called him, work of siding with the poor of El Salvador, work of giving voice to the voiceless. This is the work for which he was killed.
            That may not be the call for all of us, but each of do have a call- a call to carry the message of Jesus into the world And it is likely not something that makes us comfortable. It may not be as easy as we would hope. Nevertheless, our call into gospel living is clear… loving our neighbor, forgiving seventy times and then some, showing mercy to our enemies, working to end injustice against the poor and the disadvantaged, championing the cause of peace, and sharing what we have with all those around us.
            It’s tough work and it can be awkward, but that is why we are here- in Holy Week- pointed toward the events of feasting, betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection.. We do not journey through this week to come out on the other side, relieved. We are on this trek of re-orientation so that we can be re-energized, knowing that we have been made right with God… and daring to go into the world proclaiming that death does not win.
            The call of today is not only the cry of “Hosanna”. It is also, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” That one is the one who carries the God’s light into the world. On that first journey, it was a colt carried Jesus, the light of the world. The disciples were told to find the colt and to say, “The Lord has need of it.” As we look now for a way to carry light into the world, I say, “The Lord has need of you.”
            The Lord has need of you… to proclaim the significance of this week… to get ready for Easter joy… to live into a faith in resurrection… to trust in God’s presence as you live courageously into your calling. In our Wednesday night soup suppers, we have been talking about what it means to be church and what the future of this church is.
            The church is a place where we learn, together, how to live and how to die in Christ. That is the reason we exist. We learn and we live out what it means to be alive in Christ… now and forever. And this week, starting today… this week is our study week, our brush-up week, our re-focusing… because the other 51 weeks of the year are our exam.
            We are poised now, palms in hand, to revisit the journey to the cross and then to the empty tomb. We are resetting our faith compass and we are preparing for the work to which we are called. In the words of Oscar Romero, ““If we are worth anything, it is not because we have more money or more talent, or more human qualities. Insofar as we are worth anything, it is because we are grafted on to Christ’s life, his cross and resurrection. That is a person’s measure.”
            This is the grace we have received. And it’s not for nothing. It is so that we can carry Christ into the world. The Lord has need of you.
            Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna.
Amen. 

That’s Not An Answer

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Luke 13:1-9, 31-35
             Why do bad things happen to good people? Conversely, why do good things happen to people who seem evil? Why should a murderer have joy? Why should a gracious person experience deep grief? This is the question Jesus is confronted with in today’s reading. People want to know why God allowed the faithful Galileans to be killed.
            Jesus responds by asking if the people who were killed in the accidental falling of a tower were worse sinners and deserved to die. The questions that are being raised go all the way back to Job and beyond. We want to know why there is suffering in the world. We want to know why it comes to us and to those we love and to those we deem innocent.
            So, Jesus, ever helpful, answers these deep, heartfelt questions with a parable (everyone’s favorite). He speaks of a fig tree that is not producing fruit and the desire of the owner of the garden to cut it down, presumably to make space for a tree that will produce. The gardener gets the life of the tree extended by promising to rededicate effort to its growth for one more year.
            It is tempting to make a metaphor or an allegory out of this parable. To say that we are the tree(s), God is the owner, and Jesus is the gardener- bargaining for more time for us to produce fruit. However, that scenario pits the Father and the Son against each other, instead of seeing them work together out of love for all creation.
            Jesus does not say why bad things happen; he skips right over that question. We want the world to make sense- for bad things to happen to “bad” people or for bad things to happen as a direct correlation to bad actions. It is not so. God is in the center of all events, but not the immediate cause of all that happens. God is present in all pain and suffering, but not at the root of these things. Human freedom and freedom in the created order can, unfortunately, lead to pain and sadness. (What is freedom in the created order? It means that some things happen like the growth of cancer cells or natural disasters or freak accidents.)

            Knowing that God is present in all things, but not the cause of all situations, Jesus does not answer the questions that we ask, but instead gives us the direction and information that we need to know and to remember. Through the parable of the fig tree, Jesus reminds us that pain will happen to everyone. Everyone will experience loss. Everyone will make a bad decision and experience consequences, sometimes negative and sometimes not. Everyone will (most likely) die. And everyone will experience God’s judgment.
            Jesus is reminding his hearers- then and now- that there are things we do something about and things we cannot. For the fig tree, and for us, fruitlessness is not inevitable. Through the Holy Spirit, God is constantly shaping us… using the events that happen to us and around us to bring forth good things for our neighbors, our communities, our families, and… even for ourselves.
            God is with us as we weather life’s experiences, but then helps us to grow into the producers that we have the potential to be. When we reflect on God’s grace, then, we have to ask ourselves if and how we are producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These things grow in us, by God’s help, and we are called to use them to mend the wounds in the world that are caused by bad choices, by poor use of freedom, by accidents, by the forces that oppose God and God’s good work.
            Instead of clearing up the mysteries of the ages, Jesus tells us that we are the answer to someone’s question. We are the answer to someone’s pain, to someone else’s inability to make ends meet, someone’s call for help, to the needs for justice, peace, and healing. Jesus reminds his disciples, his hearers, and those who would deride him that we can still produce this fruit without having all our questions answered.
            This is what it means to live in faith and to live together faithfully. Our life of faith is living together and living in the world until the time when we have all the answers, but the questions no longer matter. We are not brought together, we are not given faith, we are not believing for the answers. We are together, granted faith, and believing with the questions.
            Which does mean that we may become exasperated, on occasion with Jesus, with God, with the Spirit. We may yell. We may rend our clothing. But the difference between living in faith with doubt and not believing is revealed at the end of today’s reading. We can be with Herod, with the religious officials, with the people who demand answers or refuse reason, with those who reject Jesus. Or we can stand with Jesus, with the One who Saves, and say that we do not know all that we will know, but we know enough now, we trust enough now… to continue forward. We can say that we have received enough grace to sustain us into the next step. We can share with one another enough confidence that God is continuing to shape us, feed us, and nurture us into the producers of the fruits of the Spirit that the world so desperately needs.
            Jesus reminds us that, on this side of heaven, pain and death are going to happen. Judgment, God’s decisions toward us, is also inevitable. However, these things- separation, loss, and death- do not mean division from God. And they most assuredly do not mean inevitable unfruitfulness. The good news of God in Jesus the Christ is that God continues to use us for good, whether we know it or not. The world is changed through each of us, for Christ’s own sake. And we are gifted with the opportunities to be participants in God’s grace and creativity. We become co-workers and co-creators through the power of the Spirit.
            The Lenten season reminds us that the time to join with Jesus is now. We do so, invited by the grace we have already known. The promise of God in Christ to continue working in us so that we might bear fruit is the deepest measure of God’s grace. And while that grace does not answer all our questions, it helps us to live with our questions. The consolation of today’s reading is that we can live with questions and still live in faith.  

No Next Time

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Luke 10:25-37
            The parable of the Good Samaritan is a summer story. I do not mean that it happens in the summer, though it might, but that we usually get it in the summer. Well, into the Pentecost season, we hear this familiar parable. However, now we are hearing it where it comes in the gospel- at the start of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. He and the disciples have just left a Samaritan village, where they were not well-received, and they are now on the journey that will end where? (At the cross)
            Why are they traveling to Jerusalem? Is it so that they can be near the temple for Passover? Is it so that Jesus can confront the religious authorities and bring about revolution as the Messiah? The journey begin far off, but with each encounter and each parable- Jesus and the men and women traveling with him get closer to Jerusalem and the events of betrayal and crucifixion.
            Here’s a question, though, for the start of their journey. Is what happens in Jerusalem inevitable? Does Jesus haveto be crucified? Does the purpose of his time in the flesh on earth culminate in the events of one dark Friday? If we believe that people have free will, given to us by God, then Jesus does not have to end up crucified. People could choose to recognize the Messiah, they could heed to urging of the Holy Spirit, they could be open to God’s work in the world. But in anger and fear, in rigidity to their expectations, in a desire to control God, many people will stand and say, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
            Were there enough people to resist that? Maybe, but where were they? Many people who are in that Jerusalem courtyard believe they are good people. They believe they are people doing the right thing. Yet, when we look at it (and perhaps when others on the periphery looked at the crowd), we think they are very wrong. How could they think they were right to crucify Jesus?
            Where did they go wrong? Is it possible that the events in that courtyard start on the road to Jericho? Does denying Jesus in a story where well-intentioned people pass by a man dying in a ditch after having been robbed and beaten? The people who pass by have good reasons, you know. In the story, there are two people who pass by. Ostensibly, the priest and the Levite have very particular reasons for not stopping. If they touch blood or a dead body, they will be ritually unclean for a certain amount of time and, therefore, unable to perform their religious duties. It could have been a trap, set by the robbers, to gain additional victims from those who stop to render aid. The men may have been in a great hurry and trusted that any one of many others on a busy road would stop to help.
            Jesus offers these two examples because those listening to his story would have understood the religious reasons, but also known that carrying for others is supposed to trump religious minutiae. Then Jesus drops his bombshell for big effect, a Samaritan- one who is outside the laws of Moses and, thus, presumably outside the affections of God- is the one who does the right thing. A Samaritan is the one who genuinely has good reason not to stop and help a Jew, but who abandons all else, offers aid, and promises to return. (Speaking of, can you think of someone else unexpected who abandons their position, offers gracious aid, and promises to return?)
            One can always find a reason not to help. It’s just this time- when I’m so busy, when I’m not sure what to say, when things are tight, when I don’t want people to know how I feel about this, when I’m afraid… There are always good reasons for not acting this time (or ever), but are they good enough?
            The trouble with thinking that your reasons are good or that you’ve done enough is that the world keeps moving, the powers that oppose God keep working, and eventually… not stopping for someone, not speaking up, not heeding the Spirit’s urging… leads to standing in a courtyard with a crowd who are yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” We wonder, “How did we get here?” and we tell ourselves it happened because Jesus came to die.
            But if he didn’t. If his death is the result of people’s actions, when did it start? It started when people wanted to pinpoint who deserves care, who deserves neighbor love… and who can be left in the ditch. It starts when people want to point out who “deserves help” and who made their own bed. It starts when there is a line drawn between people for any reason- for race, color, creed, habit, affection, or location.
            The Levite and the priest probably told themselves that they would stop next time. Next time. There’s always a next time. That’s one of the problems that Lent brings before us. Putting off caring for your neighbor, speaking up against injustice, making God a priority brings us right to the foot of the cross. In Lent, there is no next time. There is now.
            Now is the time. Now is when you stop. Now is when you call. Now is when you write. Now is when you reach out, stand up, speak to, lift high… There are no good reasons not to do so.
            The Lenten reminder that there is no next time is rooted in what we know is coming- not the death, but the resurrection. This is the season in which we reflect on what it means to be people whose decisions are not final. We like to think that the world hinges on what we do. Yet, all of history is in God’s own hands. “Crucify him” was not the last word, resurrection is. There is no next time because we are not waiting to receive God’s grace. It has already been poured out for us and on us. If we have already received, why should we wait to give?
            Recognizing Jesus as the one who saves the world does not wait for Easter. It doesn’t wait until we have more time, a better physique, or more money. It doesn’t wait until we are confronted with a clean-cut, sanitary, comfortable moral decision. Recognizing Jesus as the one who saves and is alive in us and in our neighbor… happens right now… with people all around us… all kinds of bodies, all kinds of needs, all kinds of grace.
            The road of the decision to crucify starts when people give small reasons for ignoring the needs of people in front of them and promise, “Next time.” God never says, “Next time” to us. Thus, it’s not a response that we should give to God.
Amen.