Walking in the Light of God for the Next 500 Years

Reformation 10-29-17

(Video of my sermon here, sorry for the terrible angle)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Did you all know that the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation is this year? Haha, of course you did. And actually, this is exactly what we are celebrating today – that five hundred years ago on October 31^st, 1517, a monk and professor at Wittenberg University nailed a sheet of paper to the church door and the world would never be the same. What was on the piece of paper, you ask, that was so radical that we still are feeling the ripples down through the ages to this day? It was 95 thoughts on the practice of the time of selling something called Indulgences. Hmm… sounds pretty boring and irrelevant to our lives right now, 500 years later… or it is?

Now, bear with me for just a little bit before our eyes roll back into our heads from Church History Bored. The church at the time of Luther created an elaborate system of forgiveness. You sinned, you went to confession, then you could take communion and be forgiven. But Luther noticed a big shift when indulgences came along. Fewer and fewer people were interested in confession and seeking ACTUAL repentance. Instead, they bought indulgences, a piece of paper that forgave you. Imagine, or just a few coins, you had a “permission slip for any sin” - past, present, future… for yourself or any of your loved one.

If the 1500s had commercials, Luther might have seen one like this – Having problems shopping for a perfect Christmas gift for “hard to shop for family members”? Look no further! Introducing “Indulgences!” Forgiveness of any sin, any time! No expiration dates! No strings attached! Transferable AND portable! The perfect medieval stocking stuffer – yours for only a few of your hard-earned coins!

This sounds completely ridiculous, because it is. Ridiculous, and exploitative, since it not only played on people’s fears about hell, but the money was also for an extravagant papal building project in faraway Rome. Indulgences gave people permission to trust in a piece of paper rather than on the grace of God.

Enter Luther, a hammer, 95 theses, and a church door.

Martin Luther had to remind us that there NO WAY we can buy our way into God’s good graces. We are in bondage to sin, and cannot free ourselves. But this grace has already been given to us, free of charge. Grace is not for sale, at any price.

The repercussions of Luther’s ideas have reverberating throughout the centuries, and throughout the world. At the Lutheran World Federation 12^th Assembly I attended and preached at in May, every one of the sub themes related to something being “not for sale.” “Creation, not for sale…” “Human beings, not for sale….” And “Salvation, not for sale.”

Dr. Monica Melanchton

On the day of “Salvation, not for sale,” presenter Dr. Monica Melanchton from India shared that the 95 theses affirmed human dignity. She told us that “the selling of indulgences reduces the believer to a mere consumer of religious goods.” Dr. Melanchton reminded us that salvation is not an abstract theological concept, or a commodity to be bought and sold, or even hoarded and then given away by Westerners to 3^rd world countries.

Dr. Melanchton shared a poem I won’t soon forget, told from the perspective of a woman in India who survives starvation and experiences the love of God as food in a famine-stricken area. The poem goes, “I can hope to live one day more, for you made God come to me as 200 grams of gruel… Now I know what you are speaking about, for God so loved the world … every noon through you.”

In the poem, no one bought the starving woman an indulgence. No one told her “our thoughts are prayers are with you” and then stood by to watch her starve. God became incarnate to her through 200 grams of gruel, and the hands that provided her that food every day at noon. God becomes incarnate through these works of mercy. God becomes incarnate as we gather together in the breaking of the bread, then going out into the world to share that bread with others in need.

We are saved by grace through faith given to us by a generous God. But we cannot make Grace into a new kind of indulgence, giving us permission NOT to follow God’s call into the world to do acts of mercy. Not so that we may earn our way into heaven – which we can never do – but because “God loves the world…. THROUGH US.”

Martin Luther’s Thesis #42 reads, “Christian are to be taught that the pope does not intend that the buying of indulgences should in any way be compared with works of mercy.” Followed by #43: “Christians are to be taught that the one who gives to a poor person or lends to the needy does a better deed than if a person acquires indulgences.” Still think that the 95 theses are dusty old relics?

The ELCA has a tagline that goes “God’s work, our hands.” God used our hands this weekend when we packed meals for Feed My Starving Children – which, by the way, I think Martin Luther would have loved the fact that we celebrated the Reformation through acts of mercy rather than yet another brat fry or German fest (not that there is anything wrong with them). But perhaps a better use of our celebration would be to let God use our hands, and also to acknowledge that the work of the Reformation that continues around the world.

Turning over our check to FMSC (Second in amount to Merck Insurance!)

FMSC Meal Packing Event

The Lutheran World Federation was clear last May in it’s world-wide commitments in working for justice for the environment and for women, and to reform the church in a way that is “Global, Ecumenical, and Ongoing.  So, for the LWF to have gathered for the 12^th assembly in Namibia - a place that has seen its fair share of hardship, colonialism, and apartheid - was a pretty big deal.

During the Global Commemoration service during the assembly, Bishop Zephania Kameeta preached to the ten thousand Lutherans  from all over the world on this very text. Here in today’s reading, the Jewish people aren’t the “bad guys” – they are simply voicing a question that we all would have asked Jesus – “what do you mean, that we are not free?”

As Americans, WE have never been under the heavy yoke of colonialism or apartheid as places like Namibia have experienced….oh wait… Except that we HAVE. But having thrown off OUR English overlords, we have become a colonial power, imposing our way of life wherever we go. And we have created our own version of apartheid in the form of racism - more subtle, but no less evil in nature.

As Bishop Kameeta preached: “All this can be true that we are not slaves of anyone, but we certainly can be slaves of ourselves.”

Even in our celebration of the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, we can easily become enslaved to the rosy picture of our past. We have become enslaved to our privilege as Americans, we have become enslaved to our whiteness, we have become enslaved to our heritage and the temptation to drive into the future while looking into the rearview mirror.

I’ll be honest, one of the things I was most looking forward to about the Global Commemoration service in Namibia was to sing “A Mighty Fortress” AKA the “Lutheran Theme Song” with ten thousand Lutherans from around the world. I was totally anticipating all the goosebumps, and feeling absolutely swept away in wonder…. And I was absolutely disappointed. Somehow my section in the stadium got completely lost and we ended up singing the last verse twice. So much for a transcendent experience.

… Except, I DID have EXACTLY the experience I was EXPECTING… at the END of the Global Commemoration service… when ten thousand Lutherans from all the world sang the South African hymn “We are Marching in the Light of God.” It was like an out of body experience. It was a moment beyond time, beyond sight, beyond language or thought. In that moment, together, we were Africans, Europeans, Asians, Middle Easterners, North and South Americans – TOGETHER, the body of Christ, one family of God.  In that moment, I got to see what the kingdom of God looked like, felt light, SOUNDED like. 

It looked like diversity, sounded like harmony, and felt like unity.

As one, with our beautiful harmonies ringing to heaven, we proclaimed to one another that the Reformation will live on in us… that we will march together, sing together, pray together, proclaim freedom together, all while being sustained by the light and love of God.

When we continue to walk in the light of God, as Bishop Kameeta said, “the amazing Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the over the top love of God, and the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit will be with all of us.”

May this be our prayer for the next 500 years. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Empire in the Temple, "Me Too" in the Church

Sermon 10-22-17

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and our lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

A few years ago, NPR ran a program from the BBC that was called "The history of the world in 100 objects." One of the episode featured a gold coin from India from 1500 years ago. This coin does what coins have done for thousands of years - tell all who handle them that their ruler enjoys the special favor of heaven, or even that he himself was a god. Every day, with every transaction, you would get that constant reminder of who was REALLY in charge of your life. Which, by the way was NOT YOU.

Isn’t it funny, though, that 2000 years later, we are still put faces of men on our money – they may not be kings, but they are men still loom large, and are revered as almost god-like in our American consciousness - George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ben Franklin, and the newly remembered and made re-famous Alexander Hamilton…. the Scottish immigrant that American forgot until the recent smash hit hip-hop musical bearing his name came along.

And hopefully one of these years we will be able to add the face of a woman on one of these bills, and we too can join the ranks of other countries with women on currency, such as the likes of Syria, Mexico, The Philippians, Cameroon, among many others. I pray someday the plans to put the face of Harriet Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill will come to fruition. Not only did she free hundreds of slaves through the Underground Railroad, but she planned and lead a raid to free slaves against plantation owners along the Combahee River. This was the first military operation executed by an American woman, who was both black and a former slave, who could not read or write, who was only 5 feet tall. Is there any doubt that we need to get this woman on the twenty-dollar bill, STAT?

The face on currency clearly reflect the values of those in power. At the time of Jesus, Israel was a nation under the thumb of the oppressive and expansive Roman Empire… and trust me, it was a REALLY BIG THUMB. So, it was a matter of course that the Romans used their currency to remind the Jewish people who was boss.

In response, Jewish leaders found themselves in one of a few different factions with varying degrees of complicity and resistance to the Roman Empire. Two are named in our text today, one is familiar to us - the Pharisees – the religious leaders with no love for Rome but tended to keep their heads down to keep their positions. We don’t know a lot about the Herodians, except that they obviously supported Herod, the ruler appointed by far-away Rome. Different groups with different perspectives, brought together by their mutual dislike of Jesus. As the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

This encounter happens almost immediately after Jesus told that really difficult parable last week, the one about the king hosting a banquet, murdering the invited guest who blew him off, and then throwing out the guy caught without a wedding robe…. The Pharisees were quickly catching on that Jesus was talking about them, and saying things that would upset the delicate balance of survival. So Jesus had to go.

Together, these two groups devised a question with NO RIGHT ANSWER. “Is it lawful to pay taxes?” If Jesus says yes, then he would be validating the Roman oppression, which would probably anger his supporters and go against his message. But if he says NOT to pay, he could be in deep trouble with the Romans.

But Jesus was on to them. He had them bring in a coin, and they give him one with the emperor’s face imprinted on it… which is hilarious because they are currently having this little chat IN THE TEMPLE…. And Roman currency of any kind was banned from being used IN THE TEMPLE. That’s why they are MONEY CHANGERS that Jesus throws out of the temple another time.

“You hypocrites,” Jesus says, seeing straight through their load of baloney. “Give to the empire what belongs to the empire….” Yes, go Jesus, really stick it to those snakes in the grass!

Then Jesus follows that zinger with - “And give to God what is God’s” …… yeah…. That one kinda deflates our balloon a little bit, doesn’t it?

If you remember the Sesame Street song from when you were a kid, or your kids were little, “One of these things is not like the other…” This is not a one-to-one ratio here, kiddos. Jesus’ fuzzy math here bring us up short. Just what does belong to the empire? And what does belong to God?

The second question is both incredibly easy and incredibly hard. What belongs to God? A better question to ask might be, what DOES NOT belong to God? Everything we have and everything we are belongs to God. As a fellow pastor quipped, “If you give God what is God’s, then Caesar is one broke joker.”

But we live in a world where we cannot seem to escape the Empire and all that comes with it. By empire here I am not referring to the Roman empire, but from the forces in the world that govern our lives and our time, the machinations that trap us in systems of oppression and oppressing one another. We too are the ones caught with coins of the empire in the temple of the Lord. Wherever we go, we can’t escape being part of the system, or being on some level complicit in the empire and all that it represents.

Every time I hand over a bill with George Washington or Andrew Jackson on it, I am participating in this system. The coffee I love some much at Starbucks was probably harvested by people not being paid a living wage. The inexpensive dress I want to buy was almost certainly made in a sweatshop in Bangladesh or Honduras.

What I do with my money matters, and it sends a signal to the rest of the world what my values are. It is my hope that at least most of the time I am using this money – God’s money – for things that align with God’s Kingdom rather than the Empire of the world.

There sure are a lot of little things we can do so that God’s money can do some good through our hands. We can buy fair trade coffee and chocolate, especially with the big holiday Reforma-ahem-Halloween coming up. We can purchase clothes second hand from local thrift stores that benefit others. We can hold back on self-centered purchases and instead donate to good causes. We can even learn to balance our budgets and so that we are able to be generous tithers to this congregation and all its missions. We can give the Empire back all the bad stuff it has given us, and instead give back to God what belongs to God.

WE bear the IMAGE of GOD, and bear the title of “beloved child of God,” when we were marked on our foreheads with the cross of Christ when we were baptized. I bear the image of God, and you bear the image of God, and both you and are worthy of love and respect, and deserve being treated as such.

You may have notices something happening during this last week around the internet, a phrase that has caught the attention of the nation – “Me Too.” The hashtag conversation was created by Tarana Burke, program director for Brooklyn-based Girls for Gender Equity, empower young women of color. “Me Too” began to share with the world the stories of countless women worldwide. Nearly every female friend and colleagues shared a variation of this on the Facebook status: “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”

The sad truth is that even the church isnot exempt from needing to have this conversation. A little bit or a lot of Empire is in the Temple. But the Gospel truth is that God chooses to stand with the victims and the survivors and the justice warriors, in the ultimate act of “Me Too,” by sending his son Jesus into the world of Empire. Completely divested of his power, Jesus showed us God wants nothing to do with the kind of power we seek. Instead, God is about finding the lost, giving hope to the hopeless, claiming each and every one of us as loved Children of God, members of the Family of God across time and space.

When we forget that we bear the image of God, we forget our humanity. We forget that all of us belong to God, and we must treat one another – AND OURSELVES – accordingly. We are reminded every time we see a baptism or take communion. We are reminded every time we look in the mirror. And we will be reminded today - as we welcome new mission partners as part of this community, we will all have the opportunity to come forward to be blessed, to be re-marked, and to re-member “God’s endless mercy and love for you.”

And, taking our cue from Harriet Tubman, today we remember that when one of us who bears the image of God is not free, none of us, are. THAT is our work, as the image bearers of God - to free the oppressed, to believe the stories of the harassed, and to work for justice for ALL of God’s family….until every voice CAN be lifted up in song, making heaven and earth ring with the harmonies of liberty, freedom, and peace. Amen.

Our hymn of the day was "Lift Every Voice and Sing"

Wearing Jesus

Sermon 10-15-17

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

This week a card to the church (not from any of you), addressed to the family of Cora Lindquest, a former member who recently died and had her funeral service here. The card was sent to Family of God at OUR address though… We couldn’t open it to see what it was, but we could only send it on to one of her surviving family members.  

But did you know that reading most of the New Testament is like reading someone else’s mail? Most of those titles with the strange names are actually names of the towns and cities where early Christian communities sprang. Apostles like Paul, Peter, and others wrote to these growing communities to share wisdom, correct wayward teaching, express thanks, and sometimes chew them out of something was going really off the rails. For the last few weeks we have been hearing one of Paul’s letters to the church in Philippi in modern day Greece. Paul was not writing to just one individual, as we tend to do now, but he wrote to the whole community, expecting it to be read out loud to the whole church.  And the church at Philippi saved his letter, copied and shared it, and handed it down through the ages, so that WE get to benefit from someone else’s mail.

Today we hear from the end of Paul’s letter, as he sends his personal greetings or instructions to specific people. Paul gives a shout out to two women leaders in the church of Philippi, Euodia and Syntyche, who were having some sort of significant disagreement.

Mary: Listen up, guys...

These two women leaders had worked alongside Paul in the past, and he urges them now to put into practice their unity in Christ. That Paul calls them by name as co-workers in the Gospel is worth mentioning. At a time that women were viewed and treated as property, having no voice and few rights, these small gatherings of Jesus-followers were calling women to prominent leadership roles. Some were fellow-missionaries with their husbands, like Aquila and his wife Priscilla. Some women led house churches, while other women financially supported them, like Junia, Lydia, and Phoebe. After all, it was Mary Magdalene who first preached the good news of the resurrection of Jesus to the rest of the disciples.

The presence of Euodia and Syntyche in this letter, though brief, reveals the early church’s dedication to Jesus’ message of radical unity, hospitality, and inclusion. All people have value, including women. All are welcome to be co-workers in the Gospel with Paul along his journey – men, women, slaves, Jews and Gentiles.

Paul then picks up on another theme that he has repeated over and other again many times in this letter -rejoicing in the Lord. Rejoice ALWAYS, he says to the Philippians, and also to us. Rejoice in the Lord. Not just when things are going well. Not just when the sun is shining and you’re having a good day. But ALWAYS.

Really Paul? Always? Are you sure? Surely this guy must have an awesome life to be able to say such things. But then we remember that over the course of his ministry, Paul was often chased out of town, beaten, arrested, and as he writes this letter he is currently facing jail time for preaching the gospel. This man has very little in his life to give thanks for. And yet, he still does. Constantly. Perhaps even somewhat annoyingly.

Hmm, maybe digging into Paul is not giving us the easy way out from thinking about hard things this morning. Paul is making us ask some hard questions -  Just what IS true, what IS honorable, what is just, pleasing, commendable, and worthy of praise? that he is mentioning in his letter? There is only one I can think of who completely fits that description, and that is Jesus.

All through his letter, Paul suggests these things: Think about how Christ is life, and death is gain (1.:21). Think about living your life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ (1:27). Think about how to make the call of Christ your own, just as Jesus has made you his own (3:13). Think about the way that Jesus emptied himself and became obedient even to the point of death, even death on a cross, to show the glory of God and claim you as his own (2:11).

Now after you have thought about all these things, Paul adds: now “Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me…” In other words, it’s not enough to hear the words, sing the hymns, and think about Jesus occasionally on days that aren’t Sunday. Like Euodia and Syntyche, it is now time for us to put into practice having the mind of Christ by living into our baptismal call as children of God, brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. And, as Euodia and Syntyche found, this is not always easy and almost never fun.

In my last congregation, as the myself or my pastor colleague hoisted the newly baptized youngster around the sanctuary –which my former colleague would do “Lion King Style” – we would sing “you have put on Christ, in him you have been baptized.” When many of us were baptized, we were wearing a white gown to represent that we are now clothed in the grace, eternal life, and love that Jesus has promised to give us. In fact, in THIS congregation, it is our tradition to give a little white garment to the newly baptized just for this reason. In baptism, we are welcomed to God’s victory feast over death and the grave, which we receive a foretaste of whenever we celebrate Holy Communion.  In our baptisms, we are now invited to that feast, the biggest party in the universe, and there is a special place for us waiting for us at the Lord’s Table. But with that special place also comes that special garb that we wear.

You might be familiar with the TV series “What Not to Wear.” I admit, it’s a guilty pleasure of mine. Or you might watch award shows like the Emmys and the Grammys and hear the female actors be constantly bombarded with the question, “Who are you wearing?” When really, they should also be asked about, you know, their actual acting careers.

Don't be this guy.

You’ve all seen those black t-shirts that LOOK like the cartoon character version of a tuxedo? Imagine showing up for a wedding wearing on of those shirts. Yeah, that’s probably not going to go over very well.

In the parable for today, that feast in described as a wedding feast, or a wedding reception. God is described as a king with a son – presumably Jesus - who is getting married. But nothing is said about who the bride is. Many scholars over the centuries have written that the bride of Christ is the us, the church. Martin Luther took this idea and ran with is. You know that old joke about marriage that says, “what’s yours in mine, and what’s mine is ours”?

So what do WE bring to the relationship? Honestly, not much at all. Sin, brokenness, pettiness, fear, hate, selfishness, and shame – not what we would exactly consider assets.

What does Jesus bring to the relationship? Everything. Life, resurrection, freedom, love, joy…. Jesus gets all that WE have and all that HE has becomes ours in our baptisms, when we “put on Christ” and all that he has given us. Maybe not in a literal white garment, but in the way we carry ourselves in the world. The world is watching.

This morning while scrolling through Facebook during breakfast, I came across this article on NBS news about a girl in Indiana who was denied her first communion… because of what she wanted to wear. Instead of a fancy white dress, she wanted to wear a nice, classy white suit. The administrators at her Catholic school in Indiana told her she had a choice – wear a dress, or to receive her first communion separate from her the rest of her classmates and friends. This girl and her family ended up leaving the school, hurt and confused. But I highly doubt that Jesus would have turned her away just because she wanted to wear white pants to her first communion. Why should we?

Scholar and professor Karoline Lewis writes “What not to wear? Complacency, conformity, and any kind of garb that is content with the way things are. What should we wear, so that the whole of the world can see who we are and what we are about? The kind of compassion, birthed by God’s own righteousness, that cannot, anymore, leave things the way they are.”

What NOT to wear? Hate, fear, prejudice, a spirit of scarcity.

What SHOULD we wear? Love. Kindness. Gentleness. Acceptance. Generosity.

In short, we should be “wearing” everything that Jesus has so generously given to all of us. Amen.

Out of the Hustle and into the Holy

Sermon 10-8-17

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Last summer, I got an email from Augsburg Fortress to submit a brief review of a book that was NOT in our Reformation Popup book store, Dr. David Lose’s newest book, Making Sense of Martin Luther. (can be purchased by clicking HERE) As if we didn’t have enough books about Martin Luther floating around out there this year! But, here is another one, this one from one of my former professors. Dr. Lose has written other books in this series, the Making Sense series, writing blogs, known for his creative and memorable preaching, and most recently as the former president of the Lutheran seminary at Philadelphia, now part of United Lutheran Seminary. I of course jumped at the chance to write a review – after all, Dr. Lose was one of my preaching professors while I was a student at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis Minnesota. And how often does the student get the chance of “evaluating” one of their former professors”?

A few weeks ago, I got my complimentary copy of the book I reviewed, and I was surprised to discover that my review is listed among some pretty well-known people in the Lutheran word. Claire Burkat, the bishop of the South Eastern Pennsylvania synod - our own synod -  also gave a review, as did Dr. Timothy Wengert, who is a highly regarded Luther scholar and translator of Luther’s the Small Catechism, among other of Luther’s works.

So here I am, listed at the bottom of the group, Lydia Posselt, pastor, Family of God Lutheran Church, Buckingham, PA, right above Dr. Loses’ own very impressive resume.  

But I have a confession to make. I didn’t read the whole book before I wrote the review. They sent it to me in its entirety in a word document and gave me less than a week, which was while I was on vacation with my family. I have read other books by Dr. Lose, and after about a chapter and a half, I was confident that I could write three sentences to recommend this book. After all, I was not being asked to write a ten-page paper!

But compared to some of the people on this list, I feel like a bit of a slacker. I haven’t published any books. I feel accomplished when I even FINISH READING a book. I’m not a Bishop. I don’t know very much German. Yes, I won the Lutheran Word Federation preaching contest and went to Namibia, which was AWESOME, but some days that feels to me more like dumb luck than something actually earned. Yes, I get to put that “on my resume” and people will be impressed by that. And yes, I both love and hate the attention that it brings. When I was interviewed for in my college alma mater magazine, one of the questions was “Now that you’ve won this contest, what’s next?”

That question stopped me dead. What do you mean “what’s next”? Isn’t it enough for the time being that I accomplished this one thing? Will I be viewed as a slacker or as undeserving if I DON’T have big plans? Will people think that my career has peaked early and that is all downhill from here? Gosh I hope not!

None of us are immune to the hamster wheel of impressing, the hustle for worthiness we feel compelled to preform or else. We wonder if we have done enough, or are enough, to be loved and valued for ourselves. We trot out the best parts of our lives make ourselves feel worthy of love, while the “less acceptable” parts stay hidden. Shame researcher Brene Brown talks a lot about this, and she says, “we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don’t fit with who we think we’re supposed to be, …and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving.”

The apostle Paul knew this hustle very well. He writes to church in Philippi describing his impressive credentials. HE has a resume that would be the envy of Linked In. He was Hebrew of Hebrews, his parents did all the right things, and he had risen to a prestigious position among the Pharisees, and had made a name for himself persecuted early Christians so much so that his former name – Saul – was notorious among Jesus’ followers.

But then, something unexpected happened. Jesus called Saul – now called Paul – to do a complete 180 and follow Jesus instead. So Paul renounced everything, even his name, if it got in the way from following the call of Jesus. Paul tore down his diplomas and flushed them down the toilet, then threw all his plagues and trophies in the garbage. The only thing that matters on his resume – and ours – is our righteousness comes from GOD, and not from anything that we do or accomplish.

After all, this is one of the legacies of the Reformation, since Martin Luther himself was also very familiar with the “hustle for holiness.” He was a “monk among monks,” if you will, constantly striving to better himself, and spending hours and hours in the confessional, much to the annoyance of the person he was confessing to! Luther felt the harder he tried to be holy and acceptable to God, the more he felt lacking. Anxious and feeling trapped, Luther could not find a way out. But, as it turns out, Dr. Lose writes in his book, “a way out finds him.” (pg. 25)

We can TRY to hustle for God’s favor. We can TRY to push God out and tell God, “no thanks, I’ve got this whole righteousness thing.” We can TRY to “out-religion” God on our own resumes by only presenting the “acceptable” parts of ourselves and denying the messy bits.

But God is “determined to come DOWN to us, to meet us where we are.” “…The biblical witness places its faith not in our ability to earn God’s favor but in God’s promise to GIVE us God’s good favor,” (pg. 45) writes Dr. Lose. We don’t do anything – we are given worth and love as a gift from God. No more hustling, no more perfecting or performing. God gives us everything, including being called God’s beloved child… including being called by Jesus to be his hands and feet in the world. And so, Paul encourages the Philippians – AND US – to make this call our own, just as Jesus has made us his.

So, if everything has been given to me by God – righteousness, faith, the power of the resurrection from the dead, the prize of our call from Jesus – that it is entirely a gift and not of my own doing… The next question is how will I take care of this amazing gift? How will I be a good steward of God’s generosity? How will I be a good tenant of the things given to me by God?

Jesus told today’s parable about bad tenants as a negative example, and his intention was to trap the religions leaders in their hypocrisy – and they fell right in. The chief priests and the elders were so concerned about building their own resumes to impress God, so much so that they completely missed the son of God in flesh and blood who sat right in front of them. But even THEY got a chance to learn and to listen from Jesus himself! …. Even though, in the end, they decided to turn Jesus’s parable from story into a prediction.

Their goal was to keep their vision intact, a vision of an accounting God who desires us to hustle and preform for our worth. Thus, they were compared to the tenants of a vineyard, wanting control of the vineyard for themselves.

What’s our goal as the church, followers of Jesus, Family of God? Now that we know that the only thing that matters on our resume is the righteousness that comes from God, what then will OUR goal be? God has given us a vineyard to tend. How will we care for it?

Will our goal become to keep hustling and preforming and expecting others to do the same? Will we try to save ourselves by our own means with impress “church resumes”? Will we try to try to jazz ourselves up into something we are not? Will we work to try to get back to a time before, where all things looked successful and rosy – at least on the surface?

Or will our goal be to strain forward, as Paul did, forgetting what lies behind? Will we too press on in following Jesus’s call to serve a world that is in desperate need of some good news right now?

My hope is that we as a church will be a forward-looking church, remembering the parts of the past that are helpful but not fixating on the parts that hold us back.

The 500th anniversary of the Reformation is important not just because it shows us where we have been. It also inspires us to where we can GO in the NEXT 500 years.  Who knows what the legacy of the reformation will look like in the next 5, 50, or 500 years? One thing for sure though, is that God has new and exciting things in store for us before we hit the thousandth anniversary.

Until then, God has called us to be here in THIS place at THIS time for a reason. What are we supposed to be doing here in this part of the vineyard called Buckingham? What parts of our resume are not helpful, and what parts help us build on the works that Jesus has begun in us?

We have a lot of things going for us - generous hunger ministries coming out of our ears. We have a building that is available to groups in the community like home schools, girl scouts, and AA. We share so much out of our big generous hearts the abundance that God has already given us.

So give yourselves a little pat on the back… and now give yourselves a BIG PUSH! There is much left to do, but together, with Jesus as our cornerstone and anchor, we don’t need anything on our resumes other than what God has already done for us. Amen.

When Jesus says yes

Sermon 10-1-17

Grace and peace to you from God our father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, Amen.

Wouldn’t it be awesome… if life came with an instruction manual? It would simply be amazing, wouldn’t it - if every morning, we could get out of bed and immediately reach for our handy instruction manual, perhaps the one entitled:

“Instructions on how to fit in, have everybody like you, and always be happy!” Which might go something like this:

Step 1, breathe.

Step 2, greet the day, smile and say: "Good Morning, Buckingham!"

Skipping ahead, Step 9, eat a complete breakfast with all the special people in your life.

Obey all traffic signs and regulations. Enjoy popular music. Drop off dry cleaning before noon, read the headlines, don't forget to smile. Always root for the local sports team. Go, sports team! And my personal favorite, drink overpriced coffee!

I of course am quoting from the LEGO movie from a few years ago. In this LEGO world, there are instruction manuals for everything. Everyone obeys the rules of the President Business; no one is out of line or acts out of the ordinary; and so, this happy society is rewarded for obeying all the instructions by being part of a safe, homogeneous, and predictable, existence.

Kids see this world as fun because of all the LEGOs, but adults might look on this world with just a little bit of envy. This seems like a really good deal, doesn’t it? Until we realize that “President Business” in the movie is not a nice guy looking out for the common good.

We all live under some sort of authority, whether we are aware of it or not. Some kinds are obvious – traffic laws, taxes, phone contracts, TSA travel regulations.... Some of the authorities we live under are less noticeable – sports and school schedules, the desire to be liked or to be successful, the dream of “having it all,” the drive for bigger and better. But, much like the LEGO people, we have been very well trained. We all know how to navigate the rules of this world, both consciously and unconsciously. We know what scripts to recite and what patterns to follow, from TV commercials and online ads, from newspaper fliers, from the billboards we see every day on the turnpike or the train, from what we see from our neighbors and classmates, from the conversations and interactions we have with our family and friends.

And for some of us, following the rules WORKS. Because we were born the right color or the right gender or in the right country to the right family, we have everything going for us. Following the rules of the world comes much easier for us than for many others. But one wrong move, one misstep in following the instructions, and we will find ourselves with those people, on the outside looking in. In the “Instructions on how to fit in, have everybody like you, and always be happy” there is no room for failure.

But, rules are rules, I guess. And when they DO work for us, it can be hard to change them. According to the instruction manual the world has ingrained in us, those people are those people for a reason.  We who have done everything right, like those have worked in the vineyard from dawn until dusk, we DESERVE to be first in the kingdom of this world, and perhaps also in the Kingdom of God.

And so when someone comes along and upsets those rules, who hangs out with the wrong people and heals the blind, who rides into town on a donkey in an impromptu parade and kicks the money changers out of the temple, when this guy named Jesus comes to town and does all that, those of us who are good rule-followers might get a little uncomfortable.

Such a person is, at best, a bit loony, or at worst, very, very dangerous. Because this person reminds us that the rules of the world are harsh taskmasters. He reminds us that we follow all the rules in the instruction manual to a tee and still be feel alone and unhappy.  

He reminds us that we are as broken and hopeless as THOSE people seem to be, the tax collectors and prostitutes, as single welfare moms and corrupt politicians.

And these are exactly the kinds of people Jesus chooses to hang out with.

There is another kingdom that we are citizens of, a kingdom with another kind of authority. This kind of authority is the complete opposite of what authority means in this world. This kind of authority does not fill itself up with power, but instead empties itself. This kind of authority does not build itself up or use its power for exploitation, but is instead humble. This kind of authority does not command obedience on pain of death, but instead is the essence of true obedience, even to the point of self-sacrificial death, even death on an instrument of torture.

This is the authority of God, shown to us in Jesus.

This week I saw a quote floating around on Facebook: “Jesus is God’s Selfie.”

Way back in the day, before selfies and cell phones and before photography even, this preacher named Paul wanted to capture in a nutshell who and what Jesus was. So, he quoted a hymn early Christians were singing at the time, which for him would have been as familiar as Amazing Grace or A Mighty Fortress. He quoted this hymn because it gets to the heart in two verses who Jesus is and what he has done for us - because this is the kind of stuff that is really hard for us to wrap our minds around. It just doesn’t make sense to us: Power in humility? Authority in self-emptying? Divinity in the form of a slave? Whaaaaaat?

And if Jesus is the kind of ruler in this kind of kingdom, what it looks like to live under this kind of authority REALLY makes no sense to the world. And yet, it is a beauty, wondrous, holy, and yes, awesome thing. This is not a kingdom where rules completely go out the window. This, however, IS a kingdom where the rule of the realm is love, condensed and concentrated into the living, dying, and rising of Jesus.

When the going gets tough for Jesus, Instead of pleading for his life or arguing or trying to prove his claims of divinity to the religious authorities, Jesus set his face toward the cross and fulfilled the will of his father.

And later, Instead of scolding his disciples for abandoning him at the cross, Jesus give them a great charge: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

And in this text for today, instead of arguing with the smarty pants religious authorities of his day, Jesus told them a story instead – about a man with two sons and two different responses to his charge for them to “Go.”

Our vineyard, where Jesus commands us to go and work, could be far away among those “all nations.” More likely, though, our vineyards are the school we attend, the team we play on, our place of work, the people we watch football with, the highways we drive. Sometimes our vineyard is right in our own homes with our own families.

And the work that we do there is not always easy to figure out. God has not left us with a book of easy-to-follow instructions on “how to successfully make disciples of all nations 100% of the time.” In fact, we may not want to go into the vineyard at all! It’s so hard, and I’m not very good at it, and what can I even do, anyway?

WE were created to be JESUS’S SELFIES - you, and you and you, and me. We are made in the image of God, chosen an anointed in our baptisms, sons and daughter of God, and then called out into the vineyard. We don’t get an instruction manual, but we do get the Body of Christ, the family of God. God is always at work turning us into God’s people, turning bad news into good news, turning “nos” into “yesses.” And whether today is a yes day or a no day, at the end of the day we are still God’s sons and daughters.

As a wise woman named Beyoncé once said, “When Jesus say yes…. Nobody can say no.” Thanks be to God. Amen.