Eldad, Medad, and You-dad

 9-26-21

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 past Tuesday night, 5 members and staff from this congregation were recognized at the annual Vienna Mayor’s Volunteer Reception, for their tireless work during this summer’s Liberty Amendment’s month. Though it made for a very long night - about one hundred and fifty people were recognized that night - I was so impressed with many of the other volunteers and the community efforts they were being recognized for. Dozens of volunteers raised money for food and supplies for people in need during this pandemic, and I lost track of how much money they raised to help.

I did notice something interesting. Very few congregations were overtly recognized. That could mean a couple things - that congregations in our area are not helping the community (which I don’t think is true). It could mean that the people in the pews are going outside their congregations and finding opportunities to help, which could be very true.

As it might turn out, people of faith don’t have the corner market on caring for our neighbors. Now, we COULD find this as reason to be dismayed, and wonder why so few of these honorees seemed part of organized congregations. Like Joshua, when he saw that Eldad and Medad were prophesying in the camp, even though they were outside of the tent when the spirit of the Lord rested on the other seventy sent to give Moses a hand. 

Instead of being miffed, Moses seems relieved! The more the merrier! He seems very glad for help with this group of people who were SO caught up in nostalgia that they only remembered the food of Egypt, and selectively forgot the fact that they had been ENSLAVED. I wonder how many years, months, or even weeks it took for them to overlook that critical memory in favor of all the cucumbers, leeks, and garlic.  

It’s been over 18 months of our own type of wilderness experience. We’re wandering in this uncharted pandemic maze, hoping that something good will eventually come out of it on the other side, but also longing for what was before. But was everything about the “before times” really “working”? DO we only remember the “cucumbers, melons, and leeks” part, while having selective amnesia about being trapped by endless busy schedules, constant programming, long commutes and bad traffic? 

In the brief moment of normalcy that was the month of July, I heard more than one person lamenting that they no longer knew how they kept up with the pace of life that was in the “before times.” But at the same time, we still long for what used to be familiar, even if it was not life-giving. 

I wonder what Eldad and Medad were saying to the hangry people complaining to Moses in the wilderness. We know that they were prophesying, which does not mean they were telling the future. The job of Both First Testament and modern prophets is point to where God is at work, to say hard truths, and to stand up to where we are actively working against God’s kingdom, whether that means refusing what God provides (like Manna) or by keeping control on who can and who cannot be a prophet of God. 

Every week when we say the Lord’s Prayer, we pray “your kingdom come,” that God’s kingdom would arrive on earth in its fullness. Martin Luther explains the meaning in this way: “in fact, God’s kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us.” When we pray this, we must ask ourselves, am I hindering or helping the coming of God’s kingdom? 

We say “God’s work, our hands” but still use those hands to harm. Same with feet that cause us to wander us away from the path of the Gospel. The same with eyes that too often look backward to the past, or fixate on a future with only certain people given access to God’s love… Well, Jesus has some harsh and very uncomfortable words to say about these wayward body parts, didn’t he? 

Well… the Body of Christ might in fact BE MORE WHOLE… if we are a little more intolerant of the intolerant, willing to cut them off for the sake of the rest of the body… especially for the sake of those who are vulnerable, for children, for those who are not believed when they seek justice, and those who are disempowered. 

This is a huge task, and not one that one person can do on their own, even if they are Moses. We need as much help as we can get. We need every Moses, Miriam, Joshua, Eldad, and Medad, to renounce and call out everything that tries to pull us away from God’s kingdom. 

As a congregation participating in a baptism, before we get to the Apostle’s creed, we do some “renouncing” together. We renounce the powers that defy God and the ways of the world that draw us from God. Then, we witness where God IS and work - calling a new child of God into the family, and claiming them as both beloved and called to the work of God’s kingdom. Through anointing of oil and the sign of the cross on the baptized child’s forehead. Through a lit candle, to remind us of the light of Christ. And, in one old Catholic tradition, a piece of salt was placed on the lips of the baptized child - the child was to be seasoned with the word of God, to join the ranks of the other prophets in the past and present.

With this salty taste on our lips, we the baptized go out as fellow prophets, to do what salt does - draw out the flavor that is already there. Salt doesn’t stay in the shaker; salt is meant to be shared. It means pouring yourself out for the sake of others. It means telling people about what God has done for us in our lives. 

And while being salt doesn’t make us perfect people, God will work through each and every one of us. In fact, God will even work through people that we wouldn’t have ever dreamed that God would use, those who might be “outside” of our group. It may make us mad, like it did for Joshua and later for the disciples. But whoever is not against Jesus’s message of love and inclusion for all of God’s children, is FOR Jesus and is contributing to the arrival of God’s kingdom.

I like to think that Eldad and Medad were a bit salty in the name of God, to remind the people that God brought them out of bondage in Egypt into freedom. God WAS providing them with food - manna - and leading them to a life that would be full of abundance. I hope you have some Eldads and Medads in your life, who are prophetically pointing out for you where God is at work. I also hope that you can be Eldad and Medad for others, to help bring out the flavor of hope and love. Today, God says: “I’ve called you ALL to be my salty, prophetic people! I’ve called you to be like Eldad and Medad. YOU and YOU and YOU and YOU!” (dad!) Thanks be to God. Amen.

"God's Work, Our Lives"

 Sermon from 9-12-21 “God’s Work, Our lives”

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.

It’s been cute seeing all the “first day of school” pictures on Facebook for the last few weeks! Everyone is wearing new clothes, new masks, new backpacks. We’re coming into a new season, there are new classes and schools to attend, new initiatives at work, new routines at home… but also still navigating a lot of uncertainty: Is my child safe at school? When will my child be eligible for the vaccine? Will there be a new Covid variant later this year? 

We try to put our best foot forward… But a few weeks from now, those clothes won’t be AS new… crayons will break… the pens will leak... the notebooks get lost, or messy with juice spills and dog drool… piles of dishes, laundry, and homework threaten to overwhelm. 

We have the best plans and make the best preparations… but usually life throws us a curveball – or two – and things don’t always turn out as nice as we imagined. Life can feel like a pop quiz that we haven’t studied for. 

This particular passage we just heard is smack dab in the middle of the Gospel of Mark, where the luster of following Jesus is perhaps wearing off for the disciples. Jesus decided to check their progress with a little surprise midterm exam, with JUST TWO QUESTIONS. Question 1 is: “who do other people say that I am?” Peter nails it - THE MESSIAH! Ding, ding! Gold star,  Peter!

But there is a SECOND question to this exam, and this one is an ESSAY - “who do YOU say that I am?”

But then… Peter doesn’t quit when he’s ahead. Peter says: “Now look here, Jesus. You’ve got this Messiah thing all wrong.” To which Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan.” Oops. 

We tend to be so hard on poor Peter, probably because Peter is us. We would all prefer to live at the beginning of the story where everything is still shiny and new; or to skip all the way to the end, where everything is nicely wrapped up. 

But we don’t live our daily lives there, at the beginning… or even at the end of the story. We live in the middle, that awkward place where we don’t know what’s going on, but the novelty has long worn off, and we’re just tired. In fact, I have heard our feelings right now described as “languishing” and I think that’s accurate. All our preparations and good intentions are out the window, and honestly we have no idea if this whole mess is going to turn out OK or not, and we are exhausted by the wondering. 

The good news is that to be a follower of Jesus, we don’t have to have it “all together.” We don’t have to wait until our lives look like the perfect dorm room in that slick and new IKEA catalog.

But… the flip side is that following Jesus is not a path OUT of the awkward middle part of the story, either, as Peter thought. Peter saw Jesus as a ticket right INTO power and prestige, to rival the Roman Caesars in authority and might. But that’s not what Jesus is about. Jesus calls us to a path that he himself followed: living his whole life for the sake of others, even to the detriment of himself.  

This very weekend – known in the ELCA as “God’s Work, Our Hands Day,” but also as the 20th anniversary of 9/11, is kind of an accurate mish mash that is perfect for the middle of our story. So many of you came out this weekend, sporting your Emmanuel shirts, ready to give some time to care for our little corner of the planet here in Vienna. And today, also acknowledge how worn out and in need of healing we and the community are...  plus we recognize the world-shaking, life altering tragedy that occurred not all that far from here twenty years ago yesterday. 

We remember all the people who lost their lives that day, and also admire the special type of courage and sacrifice it takes for so many people to put the lives of so many others ahead of their own. For some, it meant the end of their lives, like for those on Flight 93 and many first responders in New York. For some, it meant opening up hearts and homes to seven thousand stranded strangers from all over the world, as it did for the people of the tiny town of Gander, Newfoundland. 

Serving, healing, remembering - this is the work that God is up to, and the work that God is calling us to do in this still very awkward middle time. Who would have thought that we would be entering a third program year of navigating hybrid and online learning as our youth get sent off into something we haven’t gotten a handle on yet? Who would have thought, 20 years after 9/11, we rightly wonder how the last 20 years could have gone differently.  

I saw an unattributed quote floating around Facebook - “Grief is a journey with three stages - the beginning, the middle, and the rest of your life.” Our world has shifted around us so often in our lifetimes, and there is no roadmap for what we have yet to face. We’re going to make mistakes, prioritize the wrong things, and fall flat on our faces, epically and often, not unlike Peter. 

But Jesus did not reject Peter. When Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan,” he’s telling Peter to get behind him IN ORDER TO BETTER FOLLOW HIM. Like, stay in your lane, Peter, and let me lead. 

Letting Jesus lead will feel awkward sometimes, and some of the things we hold dear might end up looking a little different… or have died away only to be resurrected into something new. If we’re ready to do this, we better buckle up because the way is going to be anything but boring. 

You may lose the sure ground under you, but you will gain your life. You may win a cross, but death will lose its sting. You may lose your life as you know it, but Jesus has won the victory over the grave. Because it is our hands and our lives, but it is God’s work to do. Thanks be to God, amen. 

Hand Washing, Schmigadoon, and the 8th Commandment

 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.

Bye-bye, Summer of Bread! It’s time to get back to Mark. And what a doozie it is to get back to - on the surface it may seem like the Pharisees have a legitimate complaint to bring against Jesus and his followers – it IS kind of gross not to wash your hands before you eat. Especially now, after 18 months of a pandemic where, at least at the beginning, we obsessed about disinfecting EVERYTHING - hands, packages and mail, food from the store, hymnals, library books…. maybe we all went overboard, but at least it’s better safe than sorry, and in the end, no real harm done, really. 

But… Palestine 2000 years ago had never heard of germ theory, disinfectant, or vaccines. What, then, is it about this behavior that has gotten the Pharisees bent out of shape? At the risk of oversimplifying, they took issue, not with the lack of cleanliness, but the disregard of long-respected traditions. 

In a world full of trauma, violence, and regular upheaval, at their core Pharisees are a group within Judaism making sense of their Jewish identity in a situation that is hostile to them. They are rightly concerned with questions of identity, and they choose to live out their faith through a clear - though very lengthy - list of purity codes. And really, we can’t fault them for this. Who wouldn’t want specific answers to the question - how in the world do I live out my faith in this “bananas” world?

One way to do this IS to follow a specific code of morality. This reminds me of the ridiculous but awesome miniseries/musical that just came out called Shmigadoon on Apple TV. If you are a fan of big bombastic mid century musicals, this is right up your alley. Schmigadoon is a magical small town that regularly bursts into song, and is pretty much run by the pastor’s wife, played by none other than Kristin Chenoweth. Two newcomers from the outside world cause delightfully predictable chaos, and the pastor’s wife is not happy.  In a big epic musical number, she calls out all the bad things that would happen with the coming changes brought by the new people. By the end of the song, she is running for mayor, to set things right again - back to the way they were. 

To the Pharisees, this newcomer Jesus person might be trying to break down a social order that SEEMED to work well enough. Jesus was causing change, upsetting the delicate balance they had worked so hard to establish, which really was a matter of life or death. They are extremely concerned at the breaking down of the identity they had worked hard to maintain as a people, and rightly so. 

But Jesus is concerned too - concerned that rules for rules sake - even good rules, might do more harm than good. What was once meant to help now harms. What was once meant to include has been used to exclude, that means missing the point of what it means to be God’s people. 

Rules are good… until they are not. Rules are helpful, until they harm. This most recent Afghan refugee crisis is a very relevant example. 

A few years ago, I read a book from Spark house called “Dialogues on the Refugee Crisis,” and learned a thing or two about the many RULES that exist for refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates it takes 2 years from initial screening to resettlement – 3 years or more to unite families. All refugees here are expected to repay the resettlement cost within 4 years, and the first bill comes six months after their arrival. 

Recently in a webinar from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, I learned that now, the refugees who land here from Afghanistan are on “Humanitarian Parole,” and will not have access to normal safety nets that are available to others in the pre-citizen ship process. They get 90 days of help from the government… then that’s it. That’s three months…. three months to learn to navigate a language and culture, three months to get a job, three months to get through a horrendous, life changing trauma, and figure out how to achieve what we claim as the American Dream.

On the flip side, one one of the many non-profit organizations that are helping resettle Afghan refugees are reporting that over forty thousand people have signed up to help. Churches are filling up with donations before they even advertise. I heard on NPR an Afghan restaurant in DC has already filled up its basement with donations. 

We also have to remember that we’ve been here before. Where I grew up and around other parts of the Midwest is the home of a large Hmong population, brought to the United States for their help in the Vietnam War. Before they settled here, they were landless people who didn’t have any physical acreage to call home. Unfortunately, unless you’re an Olympian like Suni Lee, the Hmong people are still treated with suspicion and distrust, rather than gratitude for how they helped our country, their new home. 

In our own lives, we are guided by that something you may have heard of - the Ten Commandments? Believe it or not, they were not given to us to make us into super holy people. Instead, they are to strengthen relationships and community. God gave us the Ten Commandments in order to minimize the damage we could do against our neighbors. 

Some of the Ten Commandments appear pretty “easy” to follow - killing, stealing… but others are sneaky. Like the 8th commandment, the one I argue might actually be the hardest.  “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Seems simple enough on the surface, right? Until we read Luther’s explanation, which goes: “We do not tell lies … or slander our neighbor…. Instead, we are to come to their defense… and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.”

My thoughts, words, and actions don't always reflect this, especially based around behaviors that I deem to be impolite, unhealthy, or peculiar.  Perhaps the Pharisees, like us, were not interpreting the actions of Jesus’ disciples in the best possible light, and THAT is what was upsetting to Jesus. They focused on the rule not being followed as the most important thing. Jesus focused on feeding hungry people as the most important thing. 

The Pastor’s wife in the magical singing town of Schmigadoon condemned the newcomers in her town with damnation, but these newcomers ended up giving her a chance at salvation. When she was overcome with the changes happening around her, they didn’t drive her out with a closed first, but instead extended an opened hand. And she and all the Schmidadoonians join in singing the final number, saying: “This is how we change, reimagine, rearrange. See ourselves through others eyes…  This is how we grow.”

This is how we grow - with Jesus. We reimagine what a new future might hold, even though that thought might be frightening. We may not feel prepared at the rearranging and reordering of our priorities, but we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to keep pushing the boundaries of compassion, especially for those who have been pushed to the outside. Jesus shows us the way of compassion with constant self examination and reassessment - seeing ourselves through others eyes, and seeing others stories through our own eyes. 

Our journey with Jesus does not end when the final note of the closing number fades and the curtain falls. But we can take the advice of the fictitious singing nondescript midwest town, as the last line in their musical - “What the future holds, we just don’t know, but there’s hope for all, and we call it, Schmigadoon!”

What the future holds, we just don’t know, but there’s hope for all…. and we call it…. YOU, body of Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.