Jesus and Open Carry

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.

If you are a fan of the reality TV show Queer Eye – as I am – you may have noticed that the first episode of this new season (which is set in Philly, by the way) features an ELCA pastor. If you are NOT familiar with this show, I’ll clue you in. Five Fabulous gay men travel the country “making over” people’s lives. The council members of Atonement Lutheran in Fishtown nominated their beloved pastor, and last summer Pastor Noah spent a week being showered with love. Seriously, get  the free promotional month of Netflix and watch it as soon as you can… and get ready to cry.

But actually I want to focus on the 2nd episode in this season. Rianna is an African American businesswoman who lives in Norristown. Over three years ago she had started her own dog grooming business, but she was barely staying afloat amid many challenges. In typical Queer Eye fashion, the Fab 5 gave her a wardrobe, provided business know-how, and of course, outfitted her with a brand new “Doggy Grooming Mobile Vehicle.”

As an African American business woman in this country, Rianna was less likely to have access to the resources necessary to make her business successful by herself – it is well-documented that persons of color have less access and fewer resources at their disposal, whether we’re talking small business loans, generational wealth, or access to knowledge and role models. In other words, in this country, based on the color of her skin, she has been given fewer things in her “bag” to travel this road we call life than a white person who is the same age and born in the same location.

We like to think that when we are born, we all start out equal. After all, every one of us arrive into this work with literally “nothing.” But in reality, we all inherit things – the skin color of our parents, a particular economic status, generational trauma… all which can help or hinder us in our path in life. It’s not unlike being given a bag for the beach but not having sunscreen, or shoes to protect your feet from the hot sand – without being provided some basic necessary things, you are not going to be ready for your summer beach vacation.

Of course, life is not quite the same as enjoying some time “down the shore” as they say.  Right now, we are we at the beginning of the summer season, when normally we would all disperse to the four winds and we wouldn’t see some of you until September. But we are also at the start of a new season in the Church year. This is “Ordinary Time,” or the “Time after Pentecost.” – or the Big Long Green Season. The season of major events – Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, is behind us, and the weeks of counting the seemingly hundreds of Sundays after Pentecost has begun.

We have jumped back into the middle of the Gospel of Matthew, back to the start of Jesus’ ministry in Palestine. Jesus realize that this whole “Preaching the Gospel” thing is bigger than just one person can do, so he calls on the twelve disciples and gives them their marching orders.

Jesus given them detailed instructions on what to DO, but not on what to PACK. Or rather, he is very specific on what NOT to pack. All the disciples going out were to enter each town exactly the same: no bag, no change of close, no money, no extra snacks… instead of being the “Fab 5” (as much as I love them), the disciples were to be the RECIPIENTS of grace, not just providers or suppliers of it. Life is not a one way street, and a person can and should both give and receive with our God-given humility. An empty bag reminded the disciples of that as they traveled.

But it’s not just “summer season” or just “the season after Pentecost.” We have also entered into another type of season…its Pride Month… but also a season of tragedy and lament, especially for the ELCA. On June 17th, 2015, five years ago, we remember and lament that a white man attended a Bible study at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He opened fire and killed nine people, including their pastor, Clementa C. Pinckney. Reverend Pinckney had graduated with his masters of divinity from an ELCA seminary with a friend of mine. And the shooter, Dylan Roof, a self-admitted white supremacist, had been brought up in an ELCA church.

Two days after June 17^th, on June 19^th is a holiday called Juneteenth. Before President Lincoln signed the emancipation Proclamation, it was legal for human beings to be enslaved on southern plantations, generating wealth for free for their white owners. However, in yet another perversion of justice, the news of their freedom took two and a half years to reach many of these enslaved human beings. They did not find out until June 19^th, 1865.

Tragically, every year (both before and since) has brought more violence around this time: The shooting at the Pulse in Orlando, being just one example. As I went back to all my sermons for the last five years, ever time I have mentioned Dylann Roof and the martyred Emmanuel 9, I have always mentioned some other tragic event that just happened. Why are we like this? Why do we have this legacy we have inherited,  where we say our baptismal vows out of one side of our mouths .....and raise up and teach Dylann Roofs with the other side?

We certainly have a long way to go in our own journeys as disciples following Jesus’s directions. And the way seems overwhelming at times. But once we listen to Jesus and follow his packing list, I think we may find the way to be a little easier. We have to do more unpacking than packing. So, we leave behind our fear, our hate, our apathy, our white privilege, our need to be needed. When we let go of those things, we’ll find that our hands are empty… and open. THIS is the type of “open carry” that Jesus approves of and calls us to duplicate.

WE CARRY OPEN HANDS, so that we can reach out to our neighbors in welcome: our black neighbor, our white neighbor, our police neighbor and our military neighbor, or Jewish and our Muslim neighbor. Our brothers and our sisters, transgender, straight, gay, rich, poor, citizen, and immigrant neighbor.

WE CARRY one another, so that we never have to carry our burdens alone. And through it all, GOD CARRIES US. Always. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Saint and Sinner, Ash and Starlight

10 -27 – 19 – Reformation Sunday 

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by the Power of the Holy spirit, amen.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that it feels like nearly everyone I know is writing a book… It turns out that the upside is invitations to participate in a LOT of book launch teams – which usually means getting to read advance e-book copies! One such book was the launched “Holy Disunity” by Presbyterian Pastor Layton Williams, which I highly recommend, partly because I’m convinced that she’s a Lutheran in secret.

In her book, Pastor Williams shares a Jewish teaching called “the two pockets.” Imagine you have 2 pockets, each with a slip of paper in it. One paper says, “I am but dust and ashes.” The other one says, “for my sake, the universe was created.” Williams reflects, we “live somewhere in the midst of being both dust and ash, and once for whom the universe was created,” (56)  This reminded me very much of Luther’s theology of “Simul Eustice Et Peccator” – I am simultaneously saint and sinner… both at the same time. I am both a beloved child of God and a broken imperfect person in need of being forgiven.

In each chapter of Williams’ book, she explores this “Simul” of how such unlikely gifts as Difference, Tension, Doubt, and Uncertainty separate us, how these gifts show up in the Bible, and finally how each of these gifts can ultimately save us and lead us to a more true unity.

This Reformation, we are going to take a page out of the book of this Presbyterian, and add our own chapter, which we will call: “The Gift of Reformation” – How reformations separates us, where reforming shows up in the Bible, specifically in the readings we hear every Reformation Sunday, and how reformation can save – or free us – for unity in Jesus’ name.

How can something that we as Lutherans hold so dear – The protestant Reformation – also be something that separates us? The truth is, the legacy of Martin Luther and the Reformation is complicated. The same can be true of our Lutheran heritage – something that we can cling to and frees us, but also is filled with evil acts we would rather forget about.

 When Martin Luther set out to nail his 95 theses to that church door in Wittenberg five hundred and two years ago, “The protestant reformation” was not his end goal. He did not want to separate from the Catholic Church, but instead reform from within. But nothing ever really goes according to our plans … especially if other people are involved… and especially when the plans involve change and giving up power. The long-term fallout on Luther’s actions (and some of his more controversial writings against Jewish people and minorities) caused centuries-long religious wars, and it has been argued, the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime. 

And spoiler alert – church splits didn’t start OR stop with the Reformation. Five hundred years BEFORE Martin Luther, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox church split. And after Luther, we split separated further into the denominations we are more familiar with today – Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Baptists, etc. And even Lutherans separate all the time – even AFTER the merger of the ELCA happened, other groups have split of and become their own entities for one reason or another. And the ELCA itself is far from unified.

He may not have known what was to come, but Martin Luther felt he was following in a very long tradition of reforming our faith that comes from the Bible itself… all the way back to the Old Testament. The audience that heard the words of the Prophet Jeremiah were in desperate need of a word of renewal, hope, and reformation. The people of Israel at that time were in exile, scattered, and had suffered so much loss and were facing so much uncertainty. The royal line of King David was broken, their temple in Jerusalem was broken, and their covenant with God had been broken. Just as they wondered if God would abandon them, comes the word from Jeremiah – a new covenant was coming, one written not on dead stones that can be broken, but on their hearts – dynamic and beating with life.

As Lutheran Christians, we see the embodiment of this new covenant in Jesus, and in this particular instance, remember that Jesus is talking to Jewish people who already believed in him! They were not conveniently forgetting the centuries of suffering under the rule of foreign powers. Every year at the Passover they retold and remembered the story of going from slavery in Egypt to freedom. Their declaration to Jesus is an act of defiance that says, even though we have been under the yoke of others, we are only beholden to God. Then Jesus challenges them to take that same defiance and apply it to their own lives – to the sin and brokenness of the human condition that challenges all of us. Jesus teaches that we are beloved children of God, but broken people of dust and ash, ruled by our fearful and sinful natures… and there is nothing that we can do to earn God’s love…. A daring, reforming idea that got him into a lot of trouble, and led to his crucifixion.

In Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul is seeking to clarify and interpret the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and what they mean for us – in reforming previous ideas about what “makes us right with God.” Paul reminds us that it’s not about what we do. It’s about what JESUS did.  Jesus died for the sake of the world, to stand in defiance of those who would hoard God’s love for themselves, to redeem his beloved children of ash and starlight… so that sin and death do not have the last word – resurrection does. New life DOES. Jesus DOES.

And thousands of years after, Martin Luther took these ideas and ran with them. Luther loved the book of Romans, and this passage specifically helped to change the course of his life. From the life and writings of one person in Germany, to us here today, in twenty-first century Pennsylvania. And it’s not just us, bearing Luther’s legacy in a Lutheran church in North America… this reforming work of the church in ongoing and spreading – as I saw so well when I went to Namibia and met Lutherans from all over the world – Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Canada, and Guyana…. sometimes even gathered as one over coffee, the third Lutheran Sacraments.

The road that has gotten us there is fraught, but and we are still far from unified in being “of one mind in Christ Jesus” as Paul wrote in another letter. But we are getting there. If one amazing Presbyterian pastor weren’t enough… In the words of another Presbyterian, who wrote a beautiful book of prayers called “Ash and Starlight,” she writes “… freedom sometimes comes in one, glorious breakthrough … More often, freedom comes through a muddy trail run …weaving and winding, not always moving forward….” . Just as we go in search of this freedom, [Jesus says]“You are already free. Now live into that truth.” (49-50).

The gift of the reformation is that it’s not over. Jesus is still freeing us from sin, death, and brokenness of life that holds us captive. Jesus is still sending us out into the world to serve our neighbor who are in need … especially those who are different or with whom we disagree. Jesus is still setting us free from our fear. Jesus is still leading us to constantly be re-making ourselves … even if that means sometimes separating for a time. Sometimes Jesus is still peaking, even if it’s through someone who is not Lutheran. The church is still reforming, and we are still figuring out what this freedom means for us. And sometimes Jesus is every using us saints and sinners to do God’s freeing work.

We have already been made free by Jesus, and there is nothing we can do to earn it – that is the revelation that Martin Luther had all those hundreds of years ago. And that nothing will stand in the way to access the love of God. Just as Jesus was a living person, with a body made of ash and starlight, just like ours, arriving as a baby in a manger show us God’s love in the flesh … our faith is alive, still being made new in every moment, as we are made new people every single day, without fail.

Not death, not sin, not powers or principalities of this world, not our own fear and limitations, can stand it the way. Not even WE can stand in the way of this reforming work begun in Jesus… Which we do all the time. It’s that whole “same time sinner and saint” thing. Despite our urge to fight and divide, Jesus is still forging the way to freedom…. For all. And we’re invited along for the ride. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Dishonest Servant's Playbook

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

How many of you have played “The Game of Life”? If it’s been a while, you may remember that you start out with a car, a pink or blue peg, and ten thousand dollars in the bank - just like real life, right? As your little car travels along the game board, you go to college, start a career, get married, have kids, buy a house… The goal is to drive your little car with your little family and live your little life until you retire, the winner being the one who retires with the most money – like real life!

Once you understand all the rules, playing “The Game of Life” is pretty straightforward. Living the game of “Real Life,” however, is not quite so easy. Not everyone starts off in life with such a head start of a car and money in the bank, perhaps in the form of generational wealth. Real life is messy and confusing and complicated and strange… and very much like the parable that Jesus tells to his disciples that we heard just a few moments ago!

Now, when it comes to what readings we hear in church every Sunday, there is a pre-set order of game play. We always read from the Old Testament, the New Testament, a Psalm, and one of the Gospels, based on traditions that go back centuries, and span denominations. They are not chosen at random or based on what the Pastor feels like saying on a Sunday. Certain texts come up during certain parts of the church year, following a three-year cycle called the lectionary.  Like a game, there is counting and rules to follow. 

Today this text, though, feels more like landing on a “skip a turn” space, or as if we rolled a one when we needed anything but. Though, there is something sort of refreshing about the honesty and creativity of this steward that I can’t help liking despite myself. I find myself rooting for this guy. Like any good anti – hero like Deadpool or that guy on House of Cards, the steward boldly breaks the fourth wall and lets us in on how he intends to scheme himself out of this jam, his brilliant plan being to us his access to swindle his boss out of EVEN MORE MONEY…. But this time not the benefit of himself only.

After everything that the steward pulls, the rich master was actually impressed, perhaps because this is the same way that the rich man likely made his wealth. Just like now, there are only a few ways to get above the poverty line, and most of them involve an unfair advantage, or downright dishonestly. As it was then, it still is now – in THIS world, money talks, it is money who is king, demands our devotion, and makes the rules that govern our daily lives. 

Rules like: Whoever holds the money holds the power. That your worth is based on what and how much you can buy, how big your house is or what school you can afford to send your children too. To spend rather than saving or giving.  Money rules: it dictates our time, consumes our thoughts, and demands our loyalty.

And so, when we slip into this kind of bondage, and follow this script money lays out for us, what is our reward? How do we know if we’ve “won” at the game? Like in the game of life, the one with the most money at the end wins.

But perhaps even more amazing of all – JESUS applauds the steward too! Really, Jesus? Should we really this guy as our model? Yes! As Jesus also points out, when life is over and it’s time to enter into our eternal, rather than retirement, homes, and where is the money? Well, it’s gone, because “you can’t take it with you”! So how are we going to use it while we are still “In the Game”?

Both God and money demand your life. But which master would you rather serve? The truth is, we can’t play the game by both sets of rules. We cannot serve both. We cannot belong to both… and keep our sanity and integrity.

We are not doomed to follow these rules of the Money, that, in the end, cheat us out of life and in fact give us nothing. There is another king to follow, another set of rules for us to live by. This Jesus came to tell us that God’s Kingdom rules are the alternative.

D

We are citizens of the Kingdom of God who are living in the Kingdom of Money at the moment. Which makes life confusing and complicated. All the playing pieces look the same. But we are called to play by different rules and to have a different strategy, because our goal is not the same. Our goal is not to win. Our goal is to follow Jesus. Which will probably lead us to run afoul of the rules of money’s game.

My personal theory is that Jesus liked the roguish steward because he was the type of guy that Jesus tended to hang out with. Jesus was often accused of eating with sinners, scandalous women, and shady characters – and this steward fits right in. He knew how to cleverly and creatively play by the rules of his world. According to The Message translation Luke 16 reads “streetwise people… are on constant alert, looking for angles… using adversity to stimulate… creative survival…. You cannot serve God and the Bank.”

And so, that’s why I think that Jesus wants us to take a page out of the steward’s playbook of creative survival: when things get tough, DON’T give up. Find the alternative endings. Find those angles and exploit them for the good of the kingdom. Be alert to new opportunities. Create your own way when the world gives you no way.

And WHEN – not IF – we fail, we can get right back up, dust ourselves off, remind ourselves that we are baptized and beloved children of God, and every day is a new day. This is how we live, because we know that life is not really a game we manipulate, and we cannot simply strategize our way into the kingdom of God. There are no “winners” and “losers,” because we are both… and neither.

You can and will lose to money and the bank, but you can never lose the love of God. Jesus won a place for us in the kingdom already, by not playing by the world’s rules. In fact, you could say he cheated. He “won” the game by losing – losing any opportunity to gain worldly possessions, power, or status… even losing his very life, and ultimately, cheating death. All to prove that we cannot win our way to God.  The game has already been won, because there is no game. Not anymore.

Though we no longer have to play by money’s rules, we what we do with our money still very much matters. And so too, along the way, we ask ourselves, how can we as people of God flip the scrip, “cheat” at the game, and make our money SERVE US as WE continue to be called to SERVE GOD?

How can we counter-scam establishments that rip-off the environment and vulnerable people? By shopping small, local, and …. Or not at all. By chucking expensive coffee systems and business that hurt the environment, and spend that money on fair trade coffee or local establishments that foster community. By investing in relationships rather than fancy gimmicks and flashy facades.

How do we cheat institutions that get away with perpetuating injustice in the form of discrimination? By taking a page out of the steward’s book, and using his own resources, access, and privilege to help other people who were being unfairly treated by the rules of the game.

Be faithful even in the little things. Be good stewards of and take care of what has been given to you by God… that is, everything, including our lives. Be a slave to God and serve one another, rather than serving the demands of the bank.

We are still on the game board, far from the finish line. The game of life has already been won for us, true, but in the meantime, we still make choices and roll the dice – with both good and bad rolls. Along the way, Jesus challenges us to turn to the Dishonest Steward’s playbook, finding angles, keeping alert, keeping our wits about us, creatively surviving, until we reach the finish. Game on. Amen.

Saints and Sinners, Lost and Found

9-15-19 Kick Off Sunday

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 few months ago, I went to 5 Below North Wales to find some glowsticks for our campfire, when two women approached me, asked if I “believed in the female images of God.” I bet you could imagine how that went. After about 5 minutes I could tell they were tired hearing me go on and on, so I gave them my card … and big surprise, I haven’t heard from them yet!

We know in our hearts that God is neither male or female (or black or white), but let’s admit it – our language still tends to skew to the male pronoun when we talk about God, and out of habit, even I slip up sometimes. We speak and we imagine from the perspective we are familiar with. While the Bible was inspired by God and written by men of faith (mostly because women weren’t educated at the time), they were still bound by their own experiences. Even Jesus was sometimes! … as you may have noticed last week, when the stories he told were from the perspective of kings, armies, business owners, and construction workers.

But every once in a while, language describing God from female perspectives peaks through, to remind us that if we have been created in God’s image – male AND female – God has attributes of both. God is a nurturing mother who gives birth (Deut. 32:18) and nurses us, her children (Isaiah 49:15), God is a seamstress (Gen. 3:21) also a knitter (Psalm 139) and a baker (Matthew). During this year of Luke, we hear that God looks for us like a woman looking for a lost coin (15:8-10) as we heard today, and Jesus describes himself as a hen who wants to gather us like chicks (13:34).

The Gospel of Luke is also full of these descriptions, and is also populated with bold women who are faithful follows of Jesus – Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, the women at the empty tomb, just to name a few. We are blessed to be part of a denomination where the gifts of women are recognized, where they can serve at the highest levels, including our presiding bishop. But as I said at the banquet at the ELCA churchwide assembly, the night we celebrated the ordination of women no matter what race or who they love, we have not “arrived” yet. We still have a long way to go.

If we had truly arrived, these 50 years after the first white heterosexual woman was ordained in one of the predecessors to the ELCA, then THIS book would never have needed to be written.  I read this book earlier this year when it was fresh from the publisher. It comes from the perspective of someone called to ministry who is from one of the “lost” groups,” and by its title “One CoinFound” you can probably tell that it draws heavily from the “lost” stories we hear today.

Author and pastor Emmy Kegler grew up Episcopalian, is now a Lutheran pastor. This book is her story about how she as a queer woman pastor grew to fall in love with the very same scriptures that many Christians have used against her throughout her life. Perhaps not surprisingly, Kegler was always deeply drawn to the story of all the “Losts” in Luke, - lost sheep, coin, culminating in the Lost/ Prodigal son.

She reflects on the nature of sheep and of coins, saying that sheep tend to wander, but usually for good reason … hunger, thirst, exhaustion, fear (of predators). But what is the coin’s excuse? Kegler writes, “the funny thing about coins is that they can’t get lost by themselves” … “Coins get lost because their owners aren’t careful….” And when coins get lost, they tend to their shine (and their perceived value), which makes them even more difficult to locate.

But is God the one who loses us? With every story Jesus tells, and with every image we use to talk about the kingdom of God, there is a “yes” and there is a “no.” God is LIKE a knitter, but God does not actually take up knitting needles to make a scarf. Our limited human language can only tell so much of infinite truth of who God is, and we often reach out to more tangible things to anchor us, for better or worse. Emmy reminds us that “We experience God through our experience of others…” but is also careful to clearly say, “God has never been careless with us, but those who claim to speak for God have.” Church leaders, not God, cause some of the most vulnerable sheet to be lost - to be disregarded and left to get dusty like the coin or starved for love like the sheep.

Pastor Kegler experienced this so painfully in her own life, as growing up she struggled to reconcile the revelation that she both gay and a Christian, and how the people of deep faith around her, who she though loved her, could reject her because of it.

In the fall of Pastor Kegler’s senior year of high school, 2 years after starting to attend “Watermark” (a non-denominational youth centric church in Minneapolis), a preacher in training came from a nearby seminary to rail against same sex relationships. Traumatized and triggered by his hateful words, she left the sanctuary to collect herself. Her “friends” followed her, pressuring her to “repent” of the way God had created her. That night, the people Kegler though were her friends turned on her, and she saw their true colors. She never went back to that church or those people.

Years later, on a Sunday morning during worship in the chapel of a Lutheran college, Pastor Kegler was unwillingly pressed into service to help distribute communion. When someone handed her a plate with the bread, she panicked. She tried to hand it back to one of the campus pastors, telling him, “I can’t serve, I’m not trained.” He asked her if she knew what to say, she responded without thinking, “the body of Christ, given for you.” He handed the plate back to her and said, “there you go, you’ve been trained.” In that moment, and in every moment of love shown to her since, Kegler was truly found. Now, she is happily married, a pastor in the heart of Lutheran country – St. Paul MN, a published author, and sough-after speaker and preacher.

I think we can all see why, when Kegler describes God hitching up her skirts to get down and dirty on the floor to search for lost coins like her. “God has taken up a broom and cleared each corner, untucked and re-tucked each sheet and quilt, turned over pitcher after pitcher to see where we have landed.”

Our own found stories probably look a little bit different form Emmy Kegler’s, and may not seem worthy of publishing as a memoir, or at least not as “interesting.” But I think all of us have experience what it means to be hungry for something – for empathy, for acceptance, for someone to see our worth, for someone to love us for all of our flaws and brokenness, and the disappointment we feel when our deepest needs are not met by the people we thought cared about us. Most of us, I believe, HAVE  felt the sting of rejection when those who seem to have everything – power, influence, comfort, privilege – sneer at you and judge you when you leave the “correct path” they have laid out for you, using some misguided  interpretation of God’s words.

Listen closely here to the words of Jesus, then. How then can we stand in the way of Jesus, when he very clearly stands in for the shepherd who abandoned the ninety-nine sheep to find the lost one, and the woman who stayed up late into the night to find her coin that had gone missing? The body of Christ is not complete until all of us are found in God and loved with dignity by those of us who call ourselves Christian. And yes, that might not just include feeding them…. But eating WITH them, at the same table, side by side, elbow to elbow, with Jesus.

Perhaps we don’t have a lot of tax-collectors floating around anymore, but we all encounter people that we grumble at we deem “undeserving,” and want to begrudge a seat at the table. The good news is that Jesus eats with sinners…. And its good news BECAUSE WE are sinners. The repercussions of some sins might be more obvious than others.  But all are given a spot next to Jesus. All of us are, in the words of the commendation at the end of our funeral service, we are “sheep if [God's] own fold, [lambs] of [God's] own flock, [sinners] of [God's] own redeeming.”

One of the last things that Rachel Held Evans wrote before she died this spring, was write the introduction to this book, One Coin Found. Evans words ring achingly true in light of her sudden death, when exhorts us readers to remember that “you …  are immeasurably beloved by God, …with the help of the great communion of saints, …. you… will always and ever be found.”

Nothing can separate us form the love of God. In life, and in death, we are loved, and we are known, and we are found. Because God will stop at nothing to gather those who are lost. Now it’s our turn, to tuck up our own skirts, find the broom, and join in the search with that great communion of saints… and sinners. Thanks be to God. Amen.

"What Does It Mean for Women to Proclaim the Gospel?" ELCA CWA 2019

"What does it mean for women to proclaim the gospel?"

I was asked to be one of three speaks at the banquet celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women, 40th anniversary for women of color, and 10th for LGBTQIA+ no barriers at the 2019 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Milwaukee. I spoke first, with the prompt given above.  Sadly, this event was not live-streamed. 

As many wiser women before me have said – none of us would be here, proclaiming the Gospel, WITHOUT women. Without women, there would be neither filled womb nor witnesses at the empty tomb. Women paved the way for Jesus’s ministry with their feet, their money, and with their voices.  Many along the way have tried to silence those voices, both then and now, by telling us we are not good enough or smart enough or tough enough to hack it out there in ministry. But we don’t listen. We won’t be silent.

When the preaching contest for the Lutheran World Federation Assembly went live, I could have listened to the other voices out there, saying: I would never be good enough to actually be chosen. I didn’t listen, and I entered anyway. Because I knew that if I really believed that a woman should be up in that pulpit, I had to put some skin in the game. I had to have some faith that God was calling a woman to do it, and that woman might be me. And my voice seemed more important than ever, once I arrived at that Assembly of global Lutherans, because almost a fifth of the member churches of the Lutheran World federation still do not allow women to proclaim from the pulpit. But. I. Did. And I did it because of all of my women mentors who have blazed the trail ahead of me and nurtured me, and I did it for all the women who will come after. 

When a woman preaches the gospel, God is not calling her DESPITE her higher-pitched voice… but BECAUSE HER voice – whatever octave - NEEDS to be heard. When a woman preaches the Gospel, God is not using her regardless of the chance that it might be “that time of the month” …. But BECAUSE all blood is holy is the source of all life, including hers. When a woman preaches the Gospel, God is not sending her in SPITE of what people might be saying about her ambition or anger or “bossy-ness” but BECAUSE she is passionate for justice, has true leadership qualities, and gets stuff done.

We all know why Jesus REALLY came as a man – not because of something inherently male in the perfect nature of God, but because of something imperfect in how we treat one another. Every time a woman proclaims, she is affirming God’s desire to smash the patriarchy.

When a woman proclaims the Gospel… she puts herself on the line, so that little girls and little boys Can see the face of God through her and hear the love of God through her. When a woman proclaims the Gospel, she breaks the stained-glass ceiling, also pulls to freedom all the women coming after her. When a woman proclaims the gospel, her words can live on in the mouths of other women preachers – and men preachers too.

Someday the sun will rise on a Sunday morning with no more “firsts” to overcome, no more stained-glass ceilings to break - We’re not there yet. But every woman who preaches brings us one day closer. Thanks be to God! 

Baptism and Betty Rendón

5-26-19

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.

If you haven’t already noticed by now, today’s theme is baptism, Baptism, Baptism!!!! All access baptism, all baptism, all the time!!

And you might have noticed that all through the Easter Season, we have begun each service at the font, with a thanksgiving for baptism. And THIS particular service is just FULL of baptism, between our readings for this morning, not to mention and ACTUAL BAPTISM… and not just ONE but TWO new members of the Family of God both here at this church and becoming our siblings in Christ in the sacrament of Holy Baptism!

The sacraments are where the God’s presence intersect our lives. We Lutherans have …. How many sacraments? (Two) Excellent! We “only” have two because our “Recipe” for a sacrament has two parts: a word or promise from Jesus, and a physical item. Do you remember what the other sacrament we celebrate is? (Holy Communion) That’s right! And for Holy Communion, Jesus said this IS my body and blood, given for you… and the physical item is …. (Bread and Wine). For baptism, Jesus said in Matthew, Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…. And I will be with you.” And the physical item is…. (water) of course.

Holy Communion is what sustains us on this, often difficult, journey of our Christian life… which all begins at Baptism, the welcome into God’s family, into the life Christian community, as we heard with the story of Lydia.

 I love this story, and not just because we happen to share the same name. Lydia is an extraordinary woman. In some footnotes of history, she is known as “the first European convert” because of where she lived… but she SHOULD be known for so much more. We are limited by what the text tells us about her… but even these few details make her amazing. She was definitely a worshiper of God, likely a Macedonian Greek living in Roman town, which already makes her unusual. She ran her own business in purple cloth, a commodity so difficult and expensive to make that only the very rich could afford it.

In charge of her household, she took the initiative to invite Paul and Silas into her home, after “her” entire household had been baptized. This would have included extended family – aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and grandkids …. also, servants, slaves, and perhaps some of her employees. There is even a chance that Lydia may have been a slave herself at one point in her life. In the ancient world, the common practice was to name your slaves after their country of origin, and Lydia was actually a kingdom in Western Asian Minor, part of modern Turkey.

We can’t know for sure, but it still neat to think about the journey of this faithful women, perhaps from slave to business owner to worshiper of God to baptized follower of Jesus… and eventually the home base of the Christian church in her region which helped to launch the church in Philippi… the community that Paul wrote to in his letter to the Philippians. We have Philippians because of Lydia! All because she – an outsider, prayed next to a river, listened to a preacher, and was baptized.

In baptism, live are forever changed – we are healed, we are made whole, and we become part of the family of God…. No matter what age, social standing, gender identity or sexual orientation, citizenship status, or credit score. All are welcome in the waters of baptism.

This welcoming has just been made real to both Dawn and Stephen this morning, as they were welcomed to THIS Family of God, part of the family of God of all times and in all places. We made promises to walk with them in their baptismal journeys, until, like Kyle in a few weeks, they can claim their faith as their own. But ultimately, we are reminded, every time we see water, of all the ways we are given life… Luther suggests that we recall our baptisms every time we wash our face. And we also remember the promises that GOD has made to US. Not a promise that, once we are baptized, our lives will become all daisies and unicorns. But a promise that we will never have to live this baptismal calling alone.

I want to tell you about a Lutheran Pastor who has been in the news lately, whose life has been very difficult in the last few days and is about to get worse. Pastor Betty Rendón, used to work part-time at Emaus Lutheran Church in Racine, Wisconsin, until she was arrested by ICE on May 8^th.  She fled from Colombia to the US 15 years ago because of violence in her neighborhood and earned her M.Div in Chicago and was appointed by the Bishop of Milwaukee to serve church in Wisconsin until she could become a legal resident, at which point she could be ordained in the ELCA. She, her husband, her daughter, and her granddaughter were dragged from their home in the early hours, still in their pajamas, and later, because the ICE officers failed to secure her home, her house was burglarized. Betty is scheduled to be deported back to Colombia this upcoming week.  

But she is not alone. Pastors and parishioners have been praying for her, calling there representatives on her behalf, and holding vigil at the detention center she is being held at. And her bishop, Paul Erikson, and our presiding Bishop, Elizabeth Eaton have spoken out on her behalf. But it might not be enough to stir the right people to act rightly. But we have to try, and we wait to see if what we have done has been enough. Unfortunately, Betty has had no contact with the outside world, not knowing that she is being fought for and prayed for, and she probably feels completely alone, like the man from our Gospel reading.

This man, waiting, imprisoned by his illness, alone, and friendless, did not expect a man to come along and to ask him an extremely impertinent question – do you want to be made well? OF COURSE, he wants to be made well! He just can’t GET to the healing…. And so, the healing comes to HIM. Jesus tells him to pick up his mat and walk…. And he DOES. No magical waters required.

Another man was also told by Jesus to “take up his mat and walk,” as described in a sermon by Otis Moss III, which I heard at the Festival of Homiletics in Minnesota over a week ago. Pastor Moss reminded us of how important our mats are in the healing process – in both stories the men are healed, but they are commanded to carry their mats along with them – the mats become a reminder – a marker - of who they once were, how far they have come, and who is the one who has done the healing.

Of course, we don’t have physical mats to carry around, as these healed men did. But we do carry a mark, an unseen one, that remains with us after our baptisms to remind us of our identities as baptized and beloved children of God. After Dawn and Stephen were baptized, I drew the sign of the cross on their foreheads, and forever they will be marked as belonging to God. That mark will always be there, and it is still on YOUR foreheads too.  And it will change you forever, like it changed the course of Lydia’s life…. And the lives of those who were baptized as a result of her legacy of hospitality.

We are a people who go through our days both marked by the cross, and still carrying our mats. We are healed, but not made perfect, beloved, but we will still have to navigate the complications of this world. But our baptism mean that we will navigate our daily realities differently. Like the healed man, we carry our mats proudly, unashamed of letting others know that we need God’s help sometimes… dare I say it, even TELLING people about our encounters with Jesus! I like to think that carrying our own mats also gives us compassion to help others carry their own.

And like Lydia, we open our homes and our lives and our buildings and maybe even our country to help further spread this Jesus movement, open to where the Spirit might be leading. So that no one is made to feel abandoned and alone.

I can’t wait to see where God takes Stephen and Dawn as they start their baptismal journeys. But no matter what, how easy or how hard, we all will be with them, and helping them along the way. And God is with us too. Thanks be to God. Amen.