Searching for Jesus

 Wednesday 12-30-20

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Have you ever noticed that the rest of the world seems to forget about Christmas by about… 5 pm Christmas Day? All the decorations come down – and depressingly, the Valentine’s day candy is already out in the stores! Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the sheep, and even baby Jesus in the manger go back in the box to wait for next year… why we twiddle our thumbs and wonder how to pass this weird time between Christmas and New Year’s.

I mean, what IS time right now anyway? Jesus has gone from being a baby to 12 years old in a matter of days! Not quite a child but not yet grown up – and definitely too young to be wandering off by himself. Can you imagine what Mary and Joseph must have been feeling when they realized that they had left their son behind in Jerusalem? This is before text messaging, GPS, or the Amber Alert. To them, Jesus was truly lost, maybe even forever. 

Jerusalem is a huge city to get lost in – Mary and Joseph spent three whole days searching for him, probably panicking the whole time. When they found him in the temple, can you image the relief that flooded through them as they realized that he was safe? Joy and anger mixed together filled Mary as she admonished her son – “How dare you do that to us?!? We were so worried!” 

But Jesus’ answer blew them all away. “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I would be in my Father’s house?” 

Driving up and down the freeway back and forth between Pennsylvania and Virginia these last few months, one billboard in particular caught my eye – It says “Concerned? JESUS (in all caps) can be trusted.” This makes me want to ask – can he though? He sneaks away from his parents as a tween and he grows up to cause trouble as an adult. And, it seems as though we constantly have to “find” him! Has anyone ever asked you if you’ve “found Jesus?” This makes searching for Jesus seem like a world-wide game of “Where’s Waldo.” It doesn’t seem fair - Can Jesus be trusted when he seems to constantly wander off, and is always in need of being “found”?

Even worse, it seems like when we need Jesus the most, when we desperately need comfort and hope, that’s when he seems the farthest away. Where IS Jesus during a year like 2020, not to mention during all the regular times our hearts get broken, such as the death of a loved one or news of an illness or layoff or other trouble? Where IS Jesus when life gets tough?

A ball of light will drop and the world calls it the New Year. We make resolutions and later break them. We make plans and have visions of the future that don’t always turn out as we expect them to. As my favorite evening prayer puts it – we are called to ventures we don’t know the ending to, paths yet to be trod, and we don’t know where we’re going.

But no matter where the dawning of 2021 finds you, whether on the main road you imagined, off the beaten path, seemingly lost on a detour, stuck in a rut or in the ditch, dawn will come and the light of risen Christ will shine upon you.

At Christmas we celebrate the arrival of Jesus, the of hope in our lives. He isn’t hiding, like in a game of hide-and-seek, behind the couch with the dust bunnies. He didn’t jump out the tomb that resurrection morning, never to be seen again. He wants us to find him. That is the exact reason why Jesus clothed himself in love so that we would recognize him, by becoming a human being – a tiny helpless baby – to live a life of love, finally ending in a loving act of sacrifice. 

How better to show us God’s love than to become one of us and to tell us in the flesh, to be born “in the usual way”? How better to show us that we are children of God than to meet us face to face, in all our smiles and tears, in our joys and sadness, in our hopes and fears. There was no better way to wrap us up in love than to come as a present, wrapped like one of us.  This love has been in front of us the whole time, wrapped in the form of a baby, almost completely unnoticed.

This gift of love that he has given us, in coming as one of us, surprised humanity so much that we didn’t see it for what it was. God gave to us everything– life and love and freedom and hope and peace - before we even knew that we needed it.

While we are searching so hard something to give us peace and hope in a troubled world, Jesus find us and holds us tight. We too become all wrapped up in the amazing and all-encompassing love of God, not just during the Christmas season, but on every day of our lives. So then let everything we do, be it singing carols or getting ready for a new year, be done in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus, who finds us when WE are lost.  Amen.

 

 

Xmas 2020: "When Love is Found"

 

Christmas Eve 2020

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.

I have some very good friends who, during Advent, watch every single version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. That’s right, its’s Scrooge, Scrooge, Scrooge, all December long. However, there is only one version of “A Christmas Carol” that is in my person Christmas movie repertoire - “Jim Henson’s the Muppet Christmas Carol.”

Most of you probably know the basic details of the original story – three Christmas Ghosts visit greedy and selfish Ebenezer Scrooge and teach him how to find the love he has lost. In this version, Michael Kane plays human Ebenezer Scrooge, surrounded the rest of the Muppets perfectly filling the roles, with Kermit as Bob Cratchet, the Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens narrating the tale, helped by his sidekick, Rizzo the Rat, as Himself. 

As kids, my siblings and I practically wore out our VHS copy of this movie. Fast forward in both years and technology, and thanks to the magic of streaming services, new generations can enjoy what gave me so much happiness as a kid. With one caveat.

The first time I streamed this movie as an adult, something was missing. About halfway through the movie, the Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge the Christmas party where he met Belle, and it was love at first sight. Dissolve to a snowy landscape, a few years later, with the young couple discussing Scrooge’s desire to delay their wedding for yet another year.

In the streaming version, the movie cuts to Belle walking away when she realizes that Scrooge no longer loves her as much as he loves the idea of running a successful business. But I pause the movie and play the missing song that I remember from my childhood, a song that later movie editors decided was “too adult” and “too boring” for kids. This is Belle’s song, “When Love is Gone.”

The movie still makes sense without it…. But when “When Love is Gone” is GONE, we miss the actual transformation from Ebenezer Scrooge - the man - to THE Ebenezer Scrooge. Belle turns to him, tears streaming down her face, to say, “be careful or you may regret the choice you make someday.” And in that moment, he DOES have a choice – he can acknowledge the weight of his mistakes and try to make amends… or he can let his heart shrivel up, so he doesn’t have to feel the pain anymore. We all know what Ebenezer chooses.

I know lots of kids used this song it as a snack break or bathroom break, or pressed the Fast Forward button - and was it my favorite song THEN when I was a kid? No way. But now that I am an adult, I know that this song was simply waiting for me, to be there I needed it. It was like it was waiting to be found. It’s the song for when you’re watching nostalgic movies in your apartment by yourself, that first Christmas alone – post break up, post-divorce, post death of a loved one, post coming out or post transitioning. This year too, it is the song we didn’t know we might need for 2020 – watching Belle break up with Ebenezer, and sing about how her dreams of their future life being dashed – on Christmas eve no less – we’re right there with you!

Tonight we recall how, all those many centuries ago, another young couple had their wedding plans up-ended – not by slow business growth, but instead by angels, and a surprise pregnancy, by compulsory travel, a census, and taxes, and by the lack of room at the inn. Not at all the circumstances in which any parent wants their first-born child to arrive. Their feet ached, they were dusty and tired, frustrated that no one would make way for a woman in in active labor, uncomfortable with straw poking Mary as she pushed, and despairing that they only had rags and a cow feeding trough to put baby Jesus in.

When Martin Luther preached about Christmas, he relished describing the real and gritty details to his shocked parishioners: to a crowd picturing a sanitized version of the Nativity story (even in the 1500s) Luther would say “Who showed the poor girl what to do? She had never had a baby before…. It must have gone straight to her heart that she was so abandoned. She was flesh and blood, and must have felt miserable – and Joseph too – that she was left in this way, all alone, with no one to help… her eyes were moist even though she was happy.” *(Martin Luther's Christmas Book p. 32)

Every year, Christmas arrives with the lights and food and the songs and the gifts… But Christmas also comes with labor pains, loneliness, and in tears – both joyful and sad. Everyone remembers that one year they had “that Christmas” – the Christmas where everything went wrong. Grandma in the hospital, the kids got the bad stomach bug, travel plans were cancelled because of a big snowstorm.

It’s just that for 2020, we are ALL having THAT year….at the same time! And Christmas is right in the middle of the worst of it. Like Mary and Joseph on the night that Jesus was born - We too are tired, and worried, and making do with a bad situation.

In the year 2020, few good things DID happen, including one Christmas miracle. The original the lost song “When Love is Gone” WAS FOUND! When the song was cut, the original film was lost, and now, in my opinion at least, this movie gets another chance be whole again, not unlike our Ebenezer Scrooge.

When Scrooge wakes up in his own bed on Christmas morning, having been visited by those three spirits, he gets another chance to be whole again, as well. The ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future have been successful in their quest – Ebenezer has transformed back, from Scrooge to man, full of repentance and compassion and love.

For unknown reasons, he is no longer able to reconcile with Belle. But he wastes no time seeking forgiveness and reconciliation with other people in his life, – his cheery nephew Fred, and his dedicated employee, Bob Cratchit, who  he had spent so much time pushing away He gives Bob a raise, pledges a generous donation to a homeless charity, and hosts a grand Christmas dinner, involving a huge turkey bigger than Tiny Tim.

Scrooge celebrates because is no longer lost; he was found. Among the food and his friends, Scrooge begins to sing with the melody of “When Love is Gone,” but instead with new words, and is joined by a chorus of new-found family - “the Love we FOUND, the love we FOUND, we carry with us, so we’re never quite alone.”

We’re not alone in being alone right now, we’re not alone in feeling lost and numb and trying to survive until the new year arrives. Though we may feel quite lost at the moment, we haven’t lost love, or lost Jesus, or lost Christmas this year. Christmas is not gone just because we cannot gather together as we used to, and light candles and sing in a dark sanctuary or gather and eat with all of our loved ones, or even if your gifts have not even arrived, or have gotten lost in the mail.

Jesus was born into just such a moment. Jesus – Son of God, Prince of Peace - arrives to unprepared and scared parents, and by visited first by rag-tag shepherds to be found in a manger, and later, out-of-town foreign dignitaries. He grew up, and found himself to be Public Enemy Number one, because he dared to show the love of God to those who the rest of the world considered lost. And at another time when Evil seemed to reign, when death seem to win, and all seemed lost… three days later, love was found again in the darkness of an empty tomb, having defeated the power of death itself. THOSE angels on THAT day said the women at the empty tomb – “why do you search for the living among the dead? You won’t find him HERE.”

Christmas looks different this year. But it isn’t lost. It isn’t dead. We can find it in the very places it always already always lived. In you. In your heart. In your home. In your actions and words. In generosity and selflessness. In welcoming the stranger. In caring for the sick and reaching out to the lonely. In upending the expectations of the world.

Do not search for Christmas here… because you’ve already found it. It was never lost. It was never gone. Because Love has been with you the whole time. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

 

A Good Beginning

 Sermon 12-6-20

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.

You gotta love the Gospel of Mark. Straight and to the point. The “No fuss, no muss” gospel. The OTHER gospels of Matthew and Luke begin with versions of Jesus’s birth story. John starts with a Big Cosmic Poem, Genesis style. Mark? BOOM - We’re off and running from the get-go at a breakneck speed, and we never really get a chance to catch our breath through the rest of this Mark year.

You might even say …. If Mark were a song from a Disney movie, it would be that song from the animated version of Mulan, the one that goes - “Let’s get down to business!”

Now, if you are a child of the 80s and 90s like me, I apologize for getting that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. If you did NOT absolutely LOVE this movie as a kid – even seeing it the theatres, as I did - let me refresh your memory. 

Mulan is the only child of a wounded war hero living in retirement in rural China, when an enemy threatens to bring the country to war, thus one man from each family is conscripted into the army. Mulan disguises herself as a boy to take her father’s place and shows up for her first day of Boot Camp, tiny magic dragon sidekick in tow. As she interacts with other characters and begins to train… things are not going well. Out of frustration, the general of the army breaks into song, Disney-style, to start the epic training montage.

“Let’s get down to business!” the general shouts as Mulan and her friends continue to fail miserably, and it seems Mulan’s military career is going to end as quickly as it began. Just as she is about to give up, Mulan solves an apparently impossible task in surprising way… which foreshadows how she uses her determination and creativity to later save China at the end of the movie. But, no spoilers!

It doesn’t matter if we’re watching a movie, listening to a catchy song, or reading the Gospel of Mark – we know that beginnings are important. They set the tone, and give us clues for what is to come. Beginnings give us a heads up for what to expect. And for Mark – it is to expect the unexpected.

In THIS telling of Jesus’ beginning, there are no sheep or shepherds, no angels or manger, no Joseph and Mary… not even a baby Jesus in sight. Mark gets right down to business, to usher in adult Jesus…… but first…  we get John the Baptist! Our first unexpected nativity hero, that big hairy bug-eating character that mysteriously appears to prelude the already grown up Jesus… who won’t even show up … until NEXT week.

In a way, this is John the Baptist’s training montage. He’s out there in the wilderness, shouting at the crowds, hearing confessions, absolving sins, and baptizing people in the river. If Mark were a Disney musical, John’s song might go something like – “Let’s get down the business…. To prepare the way! Did they send me sinners, when I asked for saints? You're the crookedest bunch I ever met, but you can bet before we're through: People, I’ll … certainly… baptize you!” …Something like that.

And people came. They came in large crowds – imagine that! – not to the city square or palaces of power, but out to the desert, in the middle of a barren land, isolated from everything. They come out, to see a preacher in strange garments, who packed a bug lunch, and tell them all the bad things they ever did, and to be dunked in the churning, sandy water of the Jordan river. Not exactly where we would expect to find the beginning of the Jesus story.

In a way, it feels very 2020 to listen to Mark this year. Maybe not the crowd part, but the isolated, “in the wilderness part.” Much of 2020 has felt like wandering in a wilderness, lost and not knowing our way around, scraping up resources to survive, lonely and uncomfortable. Not at all what we are used to. Perhaps at times in our own lives, we have felt as though we were in our own personal wildernesses, but this year – we’re all here, and there is a crowd of us wandering and lost, wondering where God is.

There are plenty of wilderness experiences that show up in the Bible too, beside this one populated by John the Baptist. Hagar fled and nearly despaired here in the wilderness. The Israelites wander for 40 years here before entering the promised land. Elijah rested under a broom tree here. Jesus will later be tempted here. Every time, Wilderness is a place of testing and of struggle…

But it is also a place where God is sure to show up. It’s where stories begin, and lives are changed. It’s where hope is planted, and where it – eventually – blooms. It’s where crooked and difficult paths are made clear and put to rights.

And sure enough, Mark alerts us in his beginning, of what is to come – Get ready, because ready or not, God is going to show up right here in the wilderness. In the isolation and the suffering. Not in the well-worth paths, but in the uncharted, difficult terrain of life, where the only way to go is forward.

We can’t go back to the way things used to be, and yet, we’re still unsure of the way through the wilderness we find ourselves in, even now, all these months later. Right now, we’re still not quite sure exactly what God is getting us ready for. We’re probably not “ready” in the sense that we’re not what others’ might consider “successful” or “thriving” … especially in this hot mess that we have called the year of our Lord 2020.  Forget writing that novel or picking up a new hobby. Forget getting a live tree or even decorating at all. For some of us merely surviving this holiday season will be a huge accomplishment.

Reay or not, Jesus arrives anyway, without decorations or live Christmas trees. Jesus did not wait until the world was “ready” in order to arrive. Jesus worked with what he had – and began his ministry at just the right time, and used just the right people to make it happen – in this case, a loud hairy preacher man in the desert, and later on, men and women who were beautifully flawed and beloved.

Jesus will arrive, not when we’re ready, but when Jesus is needed, right here and now in our wilderness. He begins his work in us, not waiting to use us when we are finally “ready” - he’s going to use as we are, beautifully flawed and beloved.

A good beginning can happen any time…. in December, in the middle of Advent, in the middle of the pandemic. Things often get started in the wilderness. We are ready as we are, where we are, and any time is a good time to begin. Likewise, we, like John, are called and drawn into “getting down to business.” … the Advent business.

We CAN’T sit on our hands and wait until WE think we are “ready” to “Get down to business…. The Advent business begins with us now, where sin, death, and suffering are defeated…. We are about the business of defeating the inequality and injustice that oppress us. The business of leveling out the uneven paths, the business of confessing and repenting of sins, where forgiveness flows, where peace rules nations and families. And there is no time like the present to begin, even if we don’t know where exactly this journey will take us. It may even take us to places like Vienna, Virginia.

I began my time with you as one of your pastors earlier this week. Perhaps this is not the beginning we expected when God began this work with all of us many months ago, not getting to meet all of you in the way we all thought. In a way, not unlike in Mark, I’m appearing in the wilderness with you, midstream, with my midwestern accent and my Philly habits, 9 months into a pandemic, weeks before a Christmas like we’ve never had before, and all ways this season has made us feel lost and afraid.

But, as the Holy Spirit is at work in Mark - ready or not, here we are. Together, we can continue to figure out what it means to forging a new path through this wilderness, side by side. Together, we can, and we WILL, get down do business, the business of pointing to where Jesus is showing up… and now is a GREAT time to begin. Thanks be to God. Amen.  

With Good Courage

 11-15-20 

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.

There is probably only one thing as challenging as having a tough text to preach on as your first sermon – having a tough text to preach on for the last one.

Way back at the beginning of Matthew, Jesus gives his inaugural address, which we also call “The sermon on the mount.” I don’t know if you all remember, when I started here at Family of God, we had just entered into the year of Matthew, with all those “fun” – meaning hard – texts from this Sermon on the Mount, about being salt and light, about murder and divorce, and turning the other cheek – getting into the deep end of our faith which is hard enough when you are jumping into a brand new pool.

Fast forward to the end of Jesus’ ministry – this parable comes days before the Last Supper and the crucifixion - and Jesus’s tone has changed a bit.  He might sound a little on edge here because Jesus knows where he’s headed – in just a few more chapters, Jesus will be leaving them. Jesus felt a strong sense of urgency, knowing he was running out of time.

This story we just heard comes directly on the heels of last week’s tale of the kingdom of heaven being like 10 bridesmaids waiting in the dark for the groom to arrive for the wedding reception with oil lamps. This too is another story that both makes us uncomfortable, but perhaps also confuses us by referencing things we don’t encounter in our everyday lives –  things like slaves and slave owners, and gigantic coins called Talents that were worth about 15-20 years’ salary at minimum wage – so… a good chunk of money.  

But there are plenty of things about this parable that ARE familiar – absentee landlords or managers, the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, unfair division of resources, the fear of being at the whims of those in power, and the misery of being alone in the outer darkness.

In a year where many of us feel like we have nothing left to give, and even what little security we do have feels on the brink of being taken away, I believe that God is less like the absentee master than thousands of years of theologians may want us to think. THIS year… THIS parable makes me wonder… perhaps God is actually present with slave in the outer darkness. After all, not long after Jesus told this parable, he was cast out, rejected by those who held power, had everything taken away from him, nailed to a cross, and mourned by the faithful women who never left his side. The third slave made an impossible and controversial choice, a choice that we still don’t fully understand. This year espe3cially it feels as though there is no right choices, and at any moment we may face the “outer darkness,” if we are not already there.

We do know one thing - Jesus had the courage to make the hard choices, trusting that God is in control of the outcome. Therefore, as we navigate the challenging future we have before us, we know that we are doing the best we can, and God is with us no matter what.

A favorite prayer I have prayed often, which is found in our hymnal, is known as “The Servant’s Prayer." It goes: “O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Hopefully we do travel the journey of this life “with good courage” knowing that the hand of God is leading the way, and the love of God keeps us going, like an ever present companion. The path twists and turns, it goes through scary and beautiful places. But no matter where it may take us, we are going to be ok.

I have been taking down the wall art I’d hung up to get ready for moving to the next venture that God has called me to. One is a picture that hung in my office, a gift from another goodbye, of baby Moses in his basket of reeds, rescued by the princess of Egypt. Another is a cross made out of broken ceramics put together with wise women, as we embraced our brokenness together and made something new and beautiful out of the broken pieces.

Another is a quote from C. S. Lewis, painted on wood reclaimed from the scrap pile, which says, “Courage, dear heart.” It’s a quote from one of the Narnia books, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The crew of the ship “The Dawn Treader” are lost in a magical cloud of darkness, and all despair of ever finding the way out. Then a white albatross flies overhead, whispers a message of hope – “Courage dear heart, and then flies away, leads the way out.

Take courage, dear heart, on all the paths the God takes you. Courage, dear heart, when you are tempted to bury your wonderful gifts of generosity and kindness. Courage, dear heart, as we all go forth into these ventures with unknown endings, knowing that God holds us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Lit for Jesus

 11-8-20

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.

No one likes waiting. But we certainly did a lot of it this week – waiting in lines, waiting for news, waiting for colors on a map. Emotions were – and are – high. Some of us spent this week stress-eating or binging on Netflix shows. While I waited with everyone else, I read book called “Embodied: Clergy Women and the Solidarity of a Mothering God” written by an ELCA clergy mom. She had no idea that anyone would be reading her book during such a waiting moment when I read some of her wise advice: “Conventional wisdom invites us to count silently to ten before responding in emotionally fraught scenarios.” Perhaps waiting can be an opportunity for growth and self-examination, no matter how uncomfortable is feels.

Both wise and foolish bridesmaids were waiting ….waiting for the arrival of the bridegroom and the coming wedding celebration. Both wise and foolish bridesmaids fell asleep, since the bridegroom was taking SO LONG.

I wonder if the “wise” bridesmaids had been in this position before. Perhaps this was familiar to them, and they knew what to expect. They might have known that the night might be long, they might have known what it’s like to run out of oil. Perhaps they had been foolish bridesmaids in the past, and this time were ready for the long dark night ahead.

But shouldn’t this elicit some compassion toward the foolish bridesmaids on the part of the wise? Maybe not, given that the foolish bridesmaids demanded – “GIVE US some of your oil!”

The foolish bridesmaids are foolish not just because they didn’t come ready for a long night, but also because they DEMANDED that their more prepared sisters cough up some of their hard-earned and hard -won wisdom, I mean, oil. The foolish wanted a quick fix, and easy solution, with no work or suffering or accountability on their part.

The foolish bridesmaids were foolish because they didn’t stay in the dark. They didn’t trust the light of the other bridesmaids to carry them all through the night. They didn’t acknowledge their lack and ask for grace, but instead gave up, seeking a fast cure rather than trust in the other’s light, and in the love of the approaching bridegroom.

It’s been a tough week as well, tougher than most… and that’s saying something for 2020, after more than eight months of a pandemic. Today you might feel like ready and prepared to face whatever is next. Or you might feel foolish and unprepared, like your lamp is flickering and about to go out, and you too are panicking and wondering, why won’t Jesus just come and rescue us already????

We’re in the “in-between time,” waiting in a twilight world between two dawns. The world as we knew it is over, but we don’t quite know what the new world will be like.

Listen to the wise bridesmaids. We are not giving up. We won’t be distracted. We are not searching for a quick fix. We are in this for the long haul, folks, and we are in this TOGETHER. The going might be tough. The way might be hard to see. Our lamps might threaten to go out on us. And Jesus might take his sweet time showing up.

However. It seems that the kingdom of God is not a group project. If another “so called” member of the body of Christ demands your oil just because they couldn’t be bothered to do the work themselves… do not share. You have these words from Jesus himself – never ever bring half of your blazing, amazing self to the party.

Likewise, if you have not done the work… if you are not actually ready to show up for our siblings in Christ who are on fire doing God’s work of justice right now… DO NOT DEMAND FOR THEIR OIL. Do not challenge or argue the basic, human, God-given rights of others, when your rights have never been challenged, argued, or called into question. When we demand that are siblings show up as half of themselves for our comfort, we are no better than the foolish bridesmaids, shut out of the party.

To make it through this waiting time in one piece, together, as the body of Christ, we’re going to need all-hands-on-deck, and honor every single gift that God has given us. And that might mean, rather than diminishing others for our own needs and desires, to instead embrace basking in the blazing, beautiful light of others as they lead the way into God’s amazing party for all.

We’re still sitting in the night, but we can see and trust that the dawn is coming. Our siblings in Christ are lighting the way – Our black, native, latine, trans, immigrant, queer, women, no-binary members of our family. They are lit with the flames of justice, and our job is to let them show us the way to the fulfillment of God’s kingdom here on earth. A party where we are ALL invited. Thanks be to God, amen.

Sinners and Saints of God's Redeeming

 All Saints Sermon 11-1-20

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

How many of you remember when you were baptized? If you were a baby, and DON’T remember, let me remind you what happened that day. In the service of baptism, we are publicly acknowledging the fact God loves you and has chosen you to be his beloved child. If you were a baby, your parents promised to raise you so that you could live into this reality, both with their help and with God’s help. You would be welcomed into the company of God’s saints.

The truth is, we’re still going to mess up. Being a saint, a beloved child of God, does not mean that we are going to be perfect and nice all the time. That is not the Lutheran understanding of a saint – we don’t believe you have to be extra holy or perform miracles to qualify. We ALL are saints.

But… We’re still going to get frustrated at our kids or grandkids. we’re still going to want yell at people in traffic or for not wearing a mask. We’re still going to screw up our relationships and spend our money on things we don’t need and make judgments about people who are different from us.

But this is why Jesus didn’t just skip ahead to the cross to get to the “dying and rising for us part,” though that part is SUPER important, of course. Jesus knows that we need help, he knew we can’t do it alone. That’s why he walked around for three years saying stuff like “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Stuff that really is pretty obvious, but is actually really hard to do.

Martin Luther was on to something when he described our both-at-the-same-time realities like this – we are both 100% sinner and 100% saint, at the very same time. A few years ago at a conference in Philly I attended, one of the presenters greeted us this way… “Good morning saints…” (meager response) “Good morning sinners.” (robust response). Yes, and it went EXACTLY like that!!

THESE are the saints –those who don’t have it all together, those who carry heavy burdens with no one to help them, those who do good deeds behind the scenes with no notice, those who are lonely and ignored, those who humble themselves and serve others. Jesus calls THESE people saints. And I am sure that we can all find ourselves somewhere on this list.

God loves you. And God chose you as a beloved child of God. A sinner yes. But also, a saint.

At the end of every funeral service, we hear these words: “Into your hands, merciful God, we commend your servant. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive them into the arms of your mercy…. And into the glorious company of the saints in light.”

We lost many of our beloved saints this year, members of our community who we loved and valued. Where each and every one of them prefect in every single way? Certainly not. Were they still God’s saints? Absolutely yet. And Someday, we will too will join the saints who have gone before us, and rest in the arms of God’s mercy as we are laid to rest in the presence of our loved once. Today we remember them, and today we remember that promise. We are sinners redeemed by God, and saints of God’s own flock. Thanks be to God, amen.

"Taskmaster" Reformation Sunday

  Reformation Sunday Sermon 10-25-20

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

Imagine if I were to climb into the pulpit today, and find a sealed envelope, containing at task to perform, from Martin Luther himself. 

(Opens envelope) “Reformation Sunday Challenge: You task is to preach a sermon that, to the best of your ability, integrates interpretations of the Bible readings with modern day relevance, in way that makes meaning and connections in people’s lives, and expands their understanding of God, their faith, their community, and themselves. You have ten to 15 minutes. Your time starts NOW.”

Sometime last this summer, we began watching newish British show called Taskmaster. 5 comedians are set ridiculous tasks performed under pressure, using creative and funny solutions, competing for points that are given by the highly subjective “Taskmaster.” These tasks range from – do something that will look impressive in reverse, eat as much watermelon as you can in 1 minute, or make the “best” noise.  The person with the most points at the end of each show wins that episode, and the winner of the most points at the end of the season is the Task Master Champion.

Some things are easy to judge – after all, you can measure how much watermelon is left, for example – but…. What constitutes the “best” noise? As you can imagine, the main gag of the show is navigating the mostly arbitrary whims of the draconian “Taskmaster.”

To our modern sensibilities, the world that Martin Luther lived in may seem equally nonsensical, most demonstrated by the confusing hierarchy, doctrines, and practices of the church at that time… especially on how a person “gets to heaven.” Earning indulgences – ways to shave years off of purgatory - must have felt a little bit like trying to earn points and navigate the nearly impossible tasks. Only this was very much not comedy. It was real life - a matter of life, death, the afterlife, and eternal damnation. And that set the stage for a monk named Martin Luther to call out this abuse of power of the church as a “real life Taskmaster” and to share his 95 objections this arbitrary “point system.” Which paved the way for us to be here today, over five centuries later.

And 15 centuries before Martin Luther, the taskmasters and gatekeepers of this point system in another form were very alive and well. In this and the previous chapter in Matthew, Jesus had been tested relentlessly, supervised by the religious leaders of his day. Last week we heard Jesus give a wise answer to a very tricky question about paying taxes. But apparently the religious leaders had one more demand up their sleeves.

With this newest question, the religious leaders would be able to gauge where the very core of Jesus’s teaching lies. “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” they demand to know. Who are you, really? What do you stand for? Answer us! Your time starts now!

As usual, and in a way very much consistent with Taskmaster the show, Jesus didn’t quite stay in the parameters he was given. Jesus did not reply with just one commandment, as they had asked, but instead two.  Apparently Jesus preferred a kind of both-and situation… which became a pretty solidly Lutheran idea a few centuries later. 

Jesus knew his Torah. He knew that loving God is intimately tied to loving your neighbor, and trying to separate one from the other is like trying to separate rice suspended in a jar of honey – part of an actual task in the show. Jesus said, “On THESE TWO commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, every single letter of the law and every single word out of the mouths of the prophets are supported by these two commandments. Without them, the Old Testament, and the New Testament for that matter, would fall in a heap on the floor, useless, like a coat without a hook. 

But love is a complicated word. Just what kind of love is Jesus talking about here? There are many kinds to choose from. I love watching TaskMaster…  I love my cats… AND I love my family. Is love what we see on the big screen, like Love Actually? Is what we experience like a Taylor Swift song or more like “Love Hurts”?

The people of Jesus’ time knew about a dozen words for “love” – it’s hard to fathom so much meaning in our one little word, L-O-V-E. Trying to define love as we know and experience it is like trying to figure out the best way to impress the Mayor of Chesham, which was an actual task on Taskmaster.  

Most of the time, we think of love as a strong emotion attached to someone who is dear to us. We all certainly know what love feels like, whether you have experienced love for a parent, a child, a spouse, or a dear friend. But love is more than just what we feel, - it’s what we do to show that love, sometimes at great personal cost to ourselves. Perhaps you know a parent who has given up a career to care for an ill child, or a friend who struggles day to day caring for an aging parent.

Loving the Lord our God with our entire heart, soul, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves not in impossible task judged by a tyrannical Taskmaster.  Jesus did not come to be human among us to give us more rules to follow, on top all the regular challenges that life brings. Jesus did not come even to narrow down the rules to just the “really important ones.” Jesus did not come to give us the minimum requirement of getting into heaven – Love God and Love your Neighbor – because that is a pretty big ask.

This is a task that takes a lifetime to complete, and but you won’t have to do it alone. This is actually a “Team Task,” and here are your companions, present with us virtually, literally a “cloud” of witnesses. And beyond this place, our siblings of faith in different countries are following the same path. And even beyond this time, the saints have walked this path before us, loving God and one another, are present as well, cheering us on.

This is a strange and wondrous life that Jesus has called us to. It may not take us to foreign countries or encounter other cultures… but this invitation might just push you to do things that will test you in the name of love. Things that may seem impossible, but given creativity and vision, could turn out pretty surprising and amazing. But then again, love is pretty amazing, as Jesus has shown us – love arriving in the form a helpless child, healing for the sick, feeding the hungry, and advocating for the vulnerable, defending the poor and lifting up the weak. This love looks like a cross. This love looks like an empty tomb.

Now, this love looks like us. This love, is our task. We are the hands and feet of Jesus, called to show God’s love to the world. Are we up the task? I think we are…

Just a few minutes ago, I had a task to perform. Now it’s your turn. This one is from Jesus:

(Opens second envelope): “People of God: You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You have… the rest of your life. Your time starts… Now!” Thanks be to God, amen.

Coins and Crown Tickets

 10-18-20

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.

Nine years ago this fall, I visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island for the first time. After trekking all the way to Battery Park in New York City, waiting in line to get tickets, waiting in line to get on the ferry, waiting in line to get off the ferry, waiting in line to get through security…. It was only much later that it became clear – coming from the New Jersey side would have been much faster – there were almost no lines on that side!

In the famous great hall on Ellis Island is a stairway called the Stairs of Separation, which is divided into three sections – going to New Jersey, going to New York, and going to be detailed, maybe quarantined after failing the infamous health check.  I was surprised to learn that only steerage passengers arriving in the United States were subjected to the health check. Those with the money to upgrade to second class could skip over Ellis Island entirely!

Surely, over a hundred years later, things of this nature no longer happen… right? Imagine my surprise to learn that, at the Statue of Liberty, the purchase of the pricey Crown Tickets (to go all the way up to the top) allowed you to skip the rest of the line waiting to go through security at the statue and go right to the front.  Apparently no matter what era you live in – money talks.

Israel was a nation under the thumb of the oppressive and expansive Roman Empire… So, it was a matter of course that the Romans used their currency to remind the Jewish people who was boss. Currency that had the faces of Roman emperors on them, emperors who the Romans considered to also be gods. If you recall, this is in direct opposition to two dearly held beliefs of the Jewish faith – you shall have no other gods, and you shall make no grave images… (Remember that one from a few weeks ago?). But in order to function in society as a Roman occupied area, using these blasphemous Roman coins were compulsory.

In response, Jewish leaders found themselves in one of a few different factions with varying degrees of complicity or resistance to the Roman Empire. Of the two that 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 retain their positions. We don’t know a lot about the other group – the Herodians -  except that they 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 Pharisees were quickly catching on that Jesus was talking about them, and saying things that would upset the delicate balance of survival. They had to figure out how to get rid of Jesus, and they decided to try to trick him into making a fatal mistake.

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 paying, he could be in deep trouble with the Romans.

But Jesus was on to them. He had them bring in a coin, which they did- 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, for the reasons that I mentioned before. The Roman money needed to be changed… or exchanged… for the acceptable temple-approved coins… which could ONLY happen in one place: the temple. And we all know what tends to happen then there is a monopoly, or when a commodity is in high demand. Exchange rates are high, hurting the poor and most vulnerable worshipers… which sets the stage for Jesus flipping tables and running these money changer out of the temple in just a few chapters. 

Jesus sees straight through their load of baloney. We are filled with glee when Jesus retorts: “You hypocrites, Give to the empire what belongs to the empire….” But are a bit dismayed when he follows it up with - “And give to God what is God’s.” Just what does belong to the empire? And what does belong to God?

A better question to ask might be, what DOES NOT belong to God? Nothing. Because everything we have and everything we are belongs to God.

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. 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.

Like a coin bears the image and title of the Empire, 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 I are worthy of love and respect, and deserve being treated as such.

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. 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.

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.

As Pastor Meta Herrick Carlson writes in a poem about playing bills in her book “Ordinary Blessings:” “Each… payment [is] …. A testament to comfort and control, values and grit, need and greed, and inherent responsibility to ourselves, the vulnerable, future generations, and all of creation. May we consume with care, pay what is right, challenge power with justice until everyone can pay with dignity.”

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 where the profits benefit others. We can hold back on unnecessary purchases and instead donate to good causes we are passionate about. 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: Everything. Our money, our possessions, our time, ourselves.

Nothing is too much or too little. We are enough. We belong to God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

"Say Yes to how Jesus Dressed"

 

Sermon 10-11-20

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.

Who would have guessed that, based on how 2020 was going, we would have a total of six baptisms this year? One of the things that I miss about not being able to do baptisms with the whole congregation present in person is carrying the baby around to say hi to all of her new siblings in Christ. In my first call congregation, my pastor colleague would hoist the newly baptized youngster around the sanctuary “Lion King Style” – we would sing “you have put on Christ, in him you have been baptized. Alleluia, alleluia.” And every time, I would marvel at his upper arm strength. 

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 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 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.” 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. Or even the show, “Say Yes to the Dress.” In preparing for a wedding, one of the big ticket items is THE BIG WHITE DRESS. Choosing THE DRESS. Finding the necessary accessorize for THE DRESS. On the big day, revealing THE DRESS. Everyone admiring THE DRESS.

In the parable for today, that feast in described as a wedding feast, or a wedding reception. God is compared to a king with a son who is getting married. Some scholars had said that the groom is Jesus, and the bride is the church. Martin Luther took this idea and ran with it – calling this “the happy exchange” or “the blessed exchange.” Even though we forget that a marriage is not JUST about the dress, or even the wedding itself, but really it is about two people linking everything they have – economically, emotionally, personally…. To be part of a partnership for the long haul.

 You know that funny saying about marriage that goes, “what’s yours in mine, and what’s mine is ours”? So, in this “blessed exchange,” what do WE bring to the relationship between Jesus and us? Honestly, not very much at all…. And what we DO bring is mostly not good. 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…. There is a reason it’s called the Blessed exchange. WE are the ones getting blessed. When we are chosen and named as beloved in our baptisms, at that moment Jesus gets all that WE have and all that HE has becomes ours, when we “put on Christ” and all that he has given us. Maybe not in a literal garment, but in the way we carry ourselves in the world.

A few weeks ago, in a Facebook group I’m in that’s called “Things they didn’t teach us in seminary,” a clergy person from another denomination posted about something interested that happened to him at a baptism he had just done. He asked, “What does a pastor say when a family shows up in church for a baptism and the grandfather tells you that the beautiful christening gown the baby is wearing (and the family has used for generations) was made by a family slave in 1836?”

I mean, what DO you say in the face of SUCH an intense dichotomy – the very white gown that is intended to represent our union with Christ gifted and clothed with free and abundant life is at the same time an item created under conditions that are the exact antitheses of this freedom – chattel slavery in the United States and the denial of human dignity toward another person. Honestly, it made my brain explode and took my breath away. I did not envy this pastor once bit.

I simply cannot fathom that, upon this baptized person’s deathbed in seventy, eighty, or ninety years from now, this child of God would be refused welcoming into God’s eternal rest because of the fraught history of his or her baptismal garment. I don’t believe that, based on what the baby was wearing, that their baptism can and would be invalidated.

However. At one point during our baptismal liturgy we do ask the parents and sponsors of the child being baptized to publically profess their faith… which does include a renunciation of certain things: the devil and all the forces that defy God, all the powers of this word that rebel against God, and the ways of sin that draw us from God. You all know that I love to bring up the fact that this part of our baptism liturgy comes from the ancient Christian right of exorcism – casting out and banishing evil forces in our midst. And don’t think it’s a stretch to say that chattel slavery is evil, and must be renounced…. Rather than taken pride in as a source of family history… ESPCIALLYALLY to co-opt something as symbolic as a baptismal garment on an infant.

It is also easy to take the high ground here, and be affronted at the apparent fragrant callousness and hypocrisy in this family… and maybe even this pastor. But….  How are WE doing at turning our backs on the forces of this world that defy, rebel, and draw us away from God? For example, do you know WHO you are wearing right now? When was the last time you checked the labels on your favorite T-shirt to see where the sweatshop was located that created it? Almost everything we wear was created by people across the ocean working for pennies a day in virtual slavery. Fast Fashion is an evil plague that destroys economies and ecosystems, and yet, there is almost no option to except it’s reach – almost all of our clothes are made this way.

And this is not even to mention the food we eat, the cars we drive, the hygiene products we use, the electronics we buy. Everything is tainted. We are all tainted. God has good reason not to let any of us “into heaven” for any and all of these reason alone.

However… do we really believe that God would do this? That God would toss one of God’s guests out into the cold, bound hand and foot, just because the guest was wearing the wrong thing? I don’t believe so.

Then if God isn’t the king… who is? And if Jesus isn’t the son or the groom in the story… what if Jesus is the ejected wedding guest?

“Come Lord Jesus, be our Guest” is a common table prayer that I grew up with. But what happens when Jesus does show up for you… but also refuses to play by the rules of power, privilege, and authority that we are used to and take for granted as the “way things are”… ? How are we going to react when Jesus instead, takes off his robe, takes up a towel, and tries to wash our feet and the feet of our neighbor? Let me give you a hint. It didn’t go very well for Jesus on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. But Jesus did it anyway. And so we are to as well.

As theologian Debie Thomas shares: “May we choose affliction over apathy, even when it costs us a spot in the palace.  May we refuse sham banquets while our cities burn and our streets run with blood.”

To wear the robe of Jesus – to fully embrace our baptismal promises, also means taking off the garments and trappings of the world. Hate, fear, a spirit of scarcity, privilege.

What SHOULD we wear? Love. Kindness. Generosity. Empathy. Justice. Mercy.

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

Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let THESE gifts, to us be blessed. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

"How Hard is it to Not Murder?"

 

Sermon 10-4-20

(I'm in a different location because of connection issues)

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.  

Imagine the topic of conversation between Moses and God, just after Moses presented the 10 Commandments to the people. God asks, how are things going? Moses replies, “Good! We’re working on the commandments… how hard is it to not murder?” God follows up by reminding Moses that God also told them not to depict God in any earthly form ... you know, so people wouldn’t get something silly in our heads about God looking like an old white man with a big beard… so, “Make no graven images.” Horrified and confused, Moses replies, didn’t you mean “make ….Caucasian images?”

This was actually a TikTokvideo made by Lutheran Pastor Emmy Kegler, playing off a recent trend to depict heavenly conversations where God clearly said one thing and someone else – an angel, the devil, Moses - misunderstands and ends up doing exact opposite of what God actually wants. For example, God wants the dinosaurs to be more muscular – “meatier” – and the angel hears “meteor.” Pastor Kegler’s TikTok is also a commentary on these videos themselves, because in almost all of the others, God is depicted with…. a big white beard.

I bet you never thought something as serious as the 10 commandments would become such a great subject of fun irreverent fun on a social media app. However, God actually “started it” the 10 commandments with a pun in Hebrew! I have heard it “loosely translated” as “I am Yahweh and not of these other Yahoos are allowed to be more important than me.”

I for one did not learn that in confirmation class…. Even though confirmation class was probably the last time most of us studied the 10 commandments for any length of time. How many of you memorized the Small Catechism in confirmation? I have a confession to make – I didn’t memorize it until my second year of seminary … its hard! You could tell when the second year seminary students were about to have their final exam when you them wandering glassy-eyed around campus, muttering to themselves “The first Commandment: You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We are to fear, love and trust god about all things…”

I think that many of us, myself included, can tick off most of the 10 commandments and think “well, this week I didn’t murder anyone, I didn’t rob a bank, I didn’t sass off to my mom, and I haven’t wrongfully used the Lord’s name. All things considered, I think I’m actually doing pretty well.”

Let me tell you a little secret. The Ten Commandments were not given to us to make us holier people. God gave us the Ten Commandments in order to minimize the damage I could do against my neighbor, especially in Commandments four through ten.

Old Testament Guru Walter Brueggemann explains that Commandments 4-10 “all attest to a different kind of community in which others …. Are an end and not means, not threats to be killed, not objects to be exploited….” (Preaching the Old Testament, P. 57)

As God led God’s people out of bondage into freedom, God realized that the people needed to learn a new way to live. All too familiar was their old way of life – the damaging power structure, the constant need to consume, the tireless economy of productivity, and the endless tasks of Pharaoh. New patterns of free living must be learned in order to become a DIFFERENT kind of community. In this community – God’s community – you are not just responsible for yourself, but also accountable for the good of your neighbor. And how you treat your neighbor is a direct reflection of your relationship with God. 

Moses joked with God, “How hard is it do not murder?” Not so fast, Moses. well, as it turns out, it is actually much harder than it seems. In Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, Luther provided clarifications for each of the commandments. For the 5^th commandment, “you shall not murder,” Luther writes: “We are to fear and love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbors, but instead help and support them in all life’s needs.”

As with each commandment, it is not enough to simply refrain from doing something bad. Keeping the 5^th commandment, for example, is NOT about NOT killing, pardon the double negative. Truly keeping the 5^th commandment as Luther adds, also means living together in unity and helping our neighbors out when they are in need. 

Just when we thought that one was in the bag! That rascally Luther, reminding us that living as God’s people is not just about doing the bare minimum!

This is something the people of God have struggled to get right since the 10 Commandments first existed - The people at the bottom of Mount Saini didn’t always – or even often – get it right. The people who eventually followed Jesus didn’t get it right. We don’t get it right.

Even religious authorities and leaders don’t always get it right. We are currently neck deep in the middle of some tough parables – Thanks Matthew! – and this one is certainly a doozy. This one especially has a long history in being used as justification for anti-Semitic violence… even murder, through events like the Holocaust – this parable proves that Jesus thinks violence and murder is ok, right?  Well, actually, when Jesus asked the religious elite – pastors and theologians of his day – what the landowner should do to the evil tenants… it is the PASTORS and THEOLOGIANS who say – “the king should put those terrible people to a miserable death!”

And Jesus NEVER condones violence and murder. Not for one hot second. Instead, perhaps for that very answer, Jesus basically says “don’t you guys read the Bible? Did you hear what just came out of your mouth? You, who claim to intimately know the will of God? You have just cast God in your own image, and you couldn’t be more wrong.”

God is not a king or Pharaoh who tosses people aside and murders on a whim. God is not a harsh task master of productivity or a strict arbiter of rules. God does not glorify violence. And when we cast God in this way – making God in images we are familiar with – exclusively in the image of power, hierarchy, authority in the guise of old bearded Caucasian men… God gets ANGRY and HURT when we do this. Just as God is angry and hurt when we meet God with violence – in the ways we continually are creating violence against those who bear the image of God… our neighbors.

We create violence against one another in all kinds of ways– physical, mental, emotional, systemic, institutional, and environmental. We do horrible things to one another out of fear, and injuries fester and poison our relationships. But God never meets violence with more violence. God never meets our violence with more violence. God does not act like us…. God does not look like us….. and yet, God’s image can be found in the likes of ALL Of us.

Who is God then? God is love. And God created us to love. Jesus is the love of God with skin on, literally love fleshed out. And WE are the love of God with skin on. Love asks us for our words and our deeds to be life-giving, not life-limiting. And, ironically, these Ten Commandments God gave us help us to live into this more fully.

We – together - are called to be part of a different kind of community - the kingdom of God, where we all find welcome, where we all are made whole. This community defies time and space, spans political parties and world views, resists racial and economic divides. A community that doesn’t just refrain from doing harm, but instead intentionally acts for the good of our neighbors. That is the body of Christ, the kingdom of God, which we are all part of. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Funeral Sermon

 Funeral Sermon for Dennis Fly

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.

A couple of summers ago, we planned a special service where members of Family of God could vote for their favorite hymns, and the “winners” would be sing and heard one of the Sundays in August.. I joked that everyone should write their name on their ballot, so that we knew people only voted once. As it turns out, this is how I discovered that Denny voted…. three times...and each time for different hymns (even though some of them do overlap!). Some of his voting selections were used in the prelude and postlude for today’s service.

Denny’s approach to voting for his favorite hymns – enthusiastically all-in - reveals the kind of person Denny was. That man never seemed to slow down, not for one second, all through the course of his life. He was a force of nature. No one and nothing could stop him – not from planning and building what seems like 90 percent of this church building, not from popping in on a weekday to fix something wrong with the carpet, not from having connections to nearly every single person worth knowing within a 10 mile radius.

While nothing could stop his spirit, we all know that the breakneck-pace of his life often took a toll on his body… and often his relationships. And many time it felt like no sooner had he conquered one hurtle, only to be faced with another, and knocked off his feet – sometimes literally – once again. Here was a man who looked suffering and hardship in the face many times… and it showed. Denny was stubborn. He had opinions. He had been hurt and let down, over and over and over again. And somehow he kept going, sometimes in ways that took my breath away.

Whenever I talked to Denny this past summer what he said frustrated him the most was just sitting on his “cotton-picking back doing nothing,” not able to be at home, not being able to take care of and look after Sandee. Looking at those same four walls of that room for the past six months probably made him long for the rooms he wanted to be – at home with the people he loved and those who loved him. If possible, making a latte.

While Denny spent his life building – building walls and rooms and homes, mostly for other people – Jesus was preparing a room and a home for Denny. While Denny was building the pews and furniture … and the CROSS in THIS very room, Jesus was preparing a place for him.

As Denny described, he was once assisting during worship, when after the service his mother asked him why there was no cross above the altar. The next week, his mother suddenly passed away. As Denny sought a way to honor his mother’s memory, weeks and months passed, and the beginning of the season of Advent brought inspiration – a star in the shape of a cross, the like Star of Bethlehem. But the Star Cross seemed to need something… So, from a restoration project his parents had helped with, wood from an oak barn received new life in the shape of a larger cross.

In Denny’s own words, he described this special cross this way: “The Star enlightening the Shepherds and Wise Men, to come to witness the Birth of Our lord Jesus, the Christ Child, then a space in time reflecting the life and work of Jesus, and following to the heavy cross being carried by Christ to his Crucifixion and death and then after 3 days, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!” with an exclamation point.

When Jesus was eating his last meal with his followers, in that upper room just before Jesus’ death, his disciples were worried about what the future would hold. Jesus reassures them, for his is going to prepare a place for them. In God’s house, there are lots of room, he tells them. Not only will there be a place prepared for them, but Jesus himself is going to lead them there.

Jesus’ promise is not just for his disciples at the time Jesus walked this earth, but it is for all people at all times. This promise was present for Denny during his life and in his death. This promise is for you, right here and now. Jesus always makes a way, and makes room for us, just as Jesus prepared a place for Denny, after a lifetime of preparing places for others.

We cannot prevent setbacks, but we aren’t alone in our struggles and grief. We cannot defeat the power of death over us, but Jesus can. And Jesus did, by dying on the cross and rising again. Jesus took the sting out of death. He overpowered it, conquering it with the power of his love. Even though those we love still leave us, we trust that in sharing in Christ’s death, we also share in Christ’s resurrection.

This same God who promised to walk with Denny through his hills and valleys is the same loving God who promises to walk with US through our own valleys of shadow and grief. God does not let us tread this sorrowful path alone. Our loving God sent his son Jesus to travel this path ahead of us and with us, so that we may someday join him in sharing eternal life with God, as Denny done before us.

Today, in this hour of sadness and grief, we commit beloved father, grandfather, and friend Denny to the care of God, the author of his life. Though this earthly song has now ended, the song of his legacy plays on. The music of his life is now joined with the heavenly chorus. I believe that we might hear him singing, with the heavenly host, the words of one of his favorite hymns,

God’s word forever shall abide, no thanks to those who fear it. 

For God fights by our side, with weapons of the spirit.  

Were they to take our house, goods, honor, child, or spouse,

thou life be wrenched away, they cannot with the day: The Kingdom’s ours forever.

We are God’s forever. Denny is God’s forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.