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.

The Fruit that Nobody Wants

6-30-19

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.

Almost 2 years ago was the 500th anniversary of the Reformation – remember that? -  and Lutherans around the world pulled out all the stops to celebrate. Including the Lutheran World Federation, a worldwide communion of Lutheran denominations like the ELCA. Fortunately for the LWF, they were scheduled to hold their assembly the exact same year as this famous anniversary. Part of the festivities included a preaching contest where a young adult pastor – in this case, yours truly - would be invited to preach during the closing worship of the LWF assembly. That’s how I got an all- expense paid trip to hang out with Lutherans from all over the world in the capitol city of Namibia.

The theme for the whole week of the assembly was “Liberated by God’s Grace.” And text chosen for the closing worship was Galatians 5, which we heard just a few minutes ago. The Fruit of the Spirit passage one of the “Bible greatest hits” if you will, ranking nearly as familiar as “The Lord is my Shepherd,” “Love is patient,” “For God so love ed the world,” “Be strong and courageous.” In fact, in our triple classroom we have artwork that has the Fruit of the Spirit written on it! This text gets around. And for a reason.

As I shared in my sermon at the closing worship of that amazing week, “Fruit of the Spirit” was the theme for VBS at my home congregation when I was in 5^th grade. For THAT closing worship service at the end of that week, my class decided to put on a skit wearing T-shirts with each fruit listed. I remember I got to wear the shirt with “Gentleness” on it. What I ALSO remember clearly is that NO ONE in my class wanted to wear the shirt that said “SELF-CONTROL.” I still remember the look on Karin Weidemeyer’s face when she reluctantly agreed, though I don’t blame her for being annoyed about it.

Because we get it. Self-control was not as “cool” as love, joy, and peace. To describe someone as being “self-controlled” is not complement we give our friends And honestly, I never pray for God to make me more self-controlled. Self-control seems to be the opposite of freedom.  And frankly, just not any fun at all.

Why do I need to control my SELF? I like to think that my SELF tends to be pretty decent and generally steers me right, at least about 90% of the time. But as Paul very well knew, when we think that way, we could not be more wrong.

The truth is, when I let my SELF guide my day to day life, I am NOT very loving, joy-filled, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, or particularly faithful. When my SELF is at the lead, I march in the wrong kind of parade, to the tunes of buying more stuff, acting unkindly, being afraid of my neighbor, and generally being too concerned about myself to see there are some very real needs out there in the world.

These devious tunes lead us into captivity while disguised as “freedom.” We cry to God, “You’re not the boss of me,” but we find that our selves have led us down a road that leaves us vulnerable: to broken relationships, bad choices, selfishness, suffering and shame. We are in bondage and cannot free ourselves. We are captive, like the legend of the Pied Piper - captive in a parade that marches us toward death in body, mind, and spirit.

There IS another tune calling us, another parade that we are invited to, another parade where we belong and find our home. Jesus frees us from the parade of death, to be part of his parade of life. Not so that my SELF can my ruler – instead, Jesus frees me FROM my SELF. I no longer belong to my Self, limited by my flaws, imperfections, blind spots, and fears. In addition, I no longer belong to the WORLD, who would have me believe that I am not enough, and that certain types of people are not enough. Instead, I belong to Christ, and YOU belong to Christ, and together, we are called to march in the parade led by the Holy Spirit.

And THIS is a parade that is going some amazing place – the destination or result (or fruit if you will) will lead us to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, AND self-control. But not for our own benefit alone. This is not a purely inward journey, in order to become extra-holy super-people. THIS parade leads us OUT into the world, out to our neighbors, where the fruits of our freedom in Christ are given away to others. This kind of fruit is not to be hoarded or stored up for our own benefit. Just like we can’t grow this fruit by ourselves without being connected to the “Jesus Parade,” we don’t get to keep the fruit that we grow in the Spirit.

A great devotional or prayer life, will-power of steel, and excellent self-control aren’t going to get this parade where it needs to go. It will still be hard to hear the marching tune of the “Jesus parade,” once we say, “thanks be to God” and shuffle out of this sanctuary to the organ postlude to coffee and treats. The tunes of the world are very loud, and sometimes they don’t even wait to the end of the postlude turn up their deceptive soundtrack.

During one of the weekly Bible studies I used to attend with other Lutheran pastors, one of us joked that the response “I will and I asked God to help me,” we say when we install pastors and lay leaders should be instead “I won’t, and I ask God to help me.” As Paul says elsewhere in the New Testament, the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak. But thank God WE are not steering the parade on our own. Guided by the Spirit, we are marching exactly where we are needed, straight into a world that is suffering and in pain.

Probably this parade is not headed where we would have expected, but it is going exactly where we are most needed. We are marching toward into a future we can’t clearly see yet but includes the healing of the nations, the reconciling of differences, the inclusion of the excluded, and the freedom of those who have so long been in bondage, including ourselves.

At the beginning of that week with the Lutheran World Federation in Namibia, we were each given a Makalani nut, hand-carved by a Namibian artist. It seemed fitting, especially since a nut is not all that different from fruit. A nut is a kind of seed, that is ready with potential of new life, and fruit is mostly just the sweet edible stuff that covers a seed, that helps get a seed from point A to point B, - where it is needed, where it can find fertile soil in order to grow into something new.

At the end of our time together in Namibia, we were asked to ponder how we were going to share the fruits of our time with our churches and contexts back home. Though the LWF assembly is long over, as is the 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis to that Wittenberg church door,  the Reformation is not. We are looking toward the next 500 years of being Lutheran.

The Reformation lives on, here at Family of God.  It lives on in the Southeast Pennsylvania synod. It lives on in the ELCA. It lives on in Namibia, and in the Lutheran World Federation around the world. And it lives on in you too.

One of the ways that we as a congregation, synod, and ELCA look to the future is through dreams, hopes, vision, and imagination. For those of us who did not get an opportunity to participate in our family chats, I invite you to find me after worship and take the card, and write down the seed of your own hopes and dreams for the present and future of Family of God. Even if you already participated, if you have more to add, I welcome you to write something else too, which we pray will hopefully bear good fruit, with the help of one another, and the Holy Spirit. We won’t and we asked God to help and guide us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hurry Up and No Waiting

Grace to you and peace from God our father and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ, amen.

A few weeks ago, I shared with you about the Global Reformation service I attended in Windhoek, Namibia. Along with the thousand Lutherans from around the world there for the Lutheran World Federation Assembly, about nine thousand other Lutherans from all around Africa came by the bus loads. They had warned us ahead of time that this service was expected to be about 4 hours long… and they were pretty accurate.

That day was full of Hurry up and Wait, as my mom calls it. Hurry up and wait to get to the busses on time… only to go through security before you get on. Hurry up to get on the bus… only to sit and wait for all the buses to be full before all leaving together in a bus caravan. Hurry up to get in the stadium to be seated… to wait for the Namibian President to arrive in state. And don’t even ask me about how the distribution of communion went. It was beautiful, holy chaos, that’s all I will say about it.

Though we were only half way through the service after we were done with communion, we all had already been awake for hours and hours, sitting – under tents, fortunately, but still outside on a warm day – and most of us were hungry. Actually, by this time, I think many of us were quickly reaching the state of mind that is now called “Hangry.” Which of course is the combination of hungry… and angry.

Soon the volunteers began passing out boxed lunches down the rows. I was sitting with some other Americans, and we hungrily waited as they drew closer … and closer… to our row… only watch them be delayed. A clearly upset white man had accosted the African volunteer, wanting his food sooner rather than later. The volunteer very patiently told the man that she would get to him, if only he would sit back down. Like the rest of us.

Finally, we got our boxes, opened them up, to find a boiled hot dog, a buttered dinner roll, a bag of chips and a muffin. No Ketchup, mustard, relish, nada. Just a dog and a roll.

As we received our boxes, a pastor from one of the Namibian churches greeted us from the pulpit and welcomed us in the name of Jesus. She said, “When you receive guests into your house, you feed then whatever you have in your kitchen. This is what we have in our kitchen. It’s not fancy. But it’s what we have ‘from our kitchen.’ You are welcome guests, and we are glad to have you.”

At the then of Jesus’ long pep talk to his followers as they are about to go out on his behalf, Jesus reminds his disciples of what it means to welcome and be welcomed. Whoever welcomes the one who comes in Jesus’ name welcomes Jesus. And whoever welcomes Jesus welcomes God. And whoever gives even a plain hot dog on a buttered roll to one of these little one in the name of Jesus will not lose their reward.

I learned a lot about rolling with the hot dogs that came my way on this trip. There were so many parts of this experience that were beyond my control – more accurately the whole experience was a wild ride where I could only buckle up and hang on. I was smartly prepared as much as I could be – snacks, water, extra tissues, and so on - but for the most part I as a disciple of Jesus was often called on to graciously accept what I was handed. But doing that is not easy, is it?

It’s much harder to be a guest than it is to be a host, if you think about it. Yes, when you host someone at your house overnight, you have the inconvenience of having someone else using your towels and eating your food. But you know what’s in the kitchen and have control of what’s coming out of it. But as a guest, you sleep on someone else’s pillows and drink from someone else’ cups. You eat what comes out of someone else’ kitchen.

We as followers of Jesus may find ourselves in kitchens pretty different from ours. And it’s going to feel really uncomfortable. Like a pair of old shoes that we have outgrown, and it’s time to get some new ones.

The followers of Jesus found themselves traveling during a very uncertain time. They didn’t know if or when they would be welcomed or rejected. We, as disciples of Jesus live in some uncertain times as well.

As our country turns 241, there are citizens of our own nation, even of our own Lutheran denomination, who don’t know if, and when, they will be welcomed or rejected by the country they belong to or the denomination they love.

When I was in Namibia, often the only American or even the only white person in the room, this thought crossed my mind– “The great great, great, great grandparents of people in my country could have enslaved some of the great great, great, great grandparents of some of the people in this room.”

African American Seminary Student Lenny Duncan, in addition to studying to be a Lutheran pastor, created a documentary called “Do Black Churches Matter in the ELCA?” Now, why would he have to even ask such a question? Because the ELCA is the whitest denomination in the United States,according to the Pew Research Center. Even the MORMONS are more racially diverse than we are.

So, do black churches matter in the ELCA? When Mr. Duncan posed this question to our Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, she replied – “[Black churches] matter to God, and therefore they should matter to us, but we don’t treat them that way.” Certain people don’t have access to our kitchens, and we are not willing to go to theirs.

When this happens, we lose a part of who we are. Without the mutual love and support of ALL of our diverse members – black, white, straight, gay, trans, rich, poor, differently abled, young, old - the body of Christ is incomplete. The outcast and the stranger bear the image of God’s face. But when we sing the hymn, as we did this morning, “all are welcome,” do we truly mean it? Do we extend the welcome that we ourselves have received from Jesus?

In Jesus’s kitchen, all are welcomed, and all are fed around his banquet table. From his kitchen, we are given “nothing fancy,” just some bread and wine, everyday things that are easy to find. And yet, in this simple meal we are given life… we are given welcome…. and we are given a new kind of family. We are given the body and blood of Jesus, a body that was broken so that humanity might be made whole, and blood that was shed so that someday treat one another as blood kin. This is what keeps us going, so that we may continue the work that Jesus started, of building houses “where all are named… where all God’s children dare to seek to dream God’s reign anew.” (from the hymn All Are Welcome)

This reign, this kingdom is God’s kitchen, and we are welcome to it. As Benedictine monastic Father Daniel Homan wrote in a book that is aptly titled Radical Hospitality, “…we are all guests, we are all travelers, we are all a little lost, and we are all looking for a place to rest awhile…. God is the host, but God also becomes the guest we received in others.” (xxxvi) 

When we welcome others, we welcome God, as God has welcomed us.  This is a welcome that is relentless in pursuit of us, in pursuit for love, peace, and justice in this world that God has created. Nothing will get in the way of God’s radical welcome in God’s kingdom. Not our own prejudices and biases, not institutional racism or white privilege, not travel bans or walls - not even sin, human brokenness, and death can stand in the way.

There is no Hurry Up and Wait in the kingdom of God. This radial welcome is knocking on our door right now, and won’t leave us alone, like the worst kind of houseguest – respecting no boundaries we put up or excuses we make. Always getting in our faces. Always pushing us out and making us uncomfortable. Making demands on us we don’t always want to fulfill. And we will find ourselves doing things we don’t normally do, things we never expected we would be doing. Like eating hot dogs in Namibia. Like helping to welcome those who are homeless on a cold night. Like welcoming more than 30 rambunctious kids from the neighborhood through our doors for a week of VBS.

There is no Hurry Up and Wait in the kingdom of God. The welcome of the kingdom is right here, right now. We are being called out of our comfort zones and into other people’s kitchens. We are being called to eat the hot dogs of hospitality, in whatever form they come. Amen.

"In the Beginning"

6-11-17, Trinity Sunday

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.

True love’s kiss broke the curse…the queen of the magical kingdom brought peace to the land… and they all lived happily ever after… the End!

No, I’m not accidentally starting with the last page of my sermon. It’s just that most of our readings for today are either beginnings or endings – the beginning of Genesis, and the end of Matthew. We tend to remember good beginnings and endings of things, don’t we? books, movies, classic fairy tales. And at the end of the very best stories, the ones that stay with us, we love how the messy bits are all woven together to a satisfying resolution. And they all lived happily ever after.

How things begin is almost as important as how things end… we tend to remember those, too. And it’s not just the famous fairy tales we keep telling our kids and grand kids. Our stories begin in those familiar ways too, with, “On the night that you were born…” or “This is how Grandma and Grandpa met…” or even the story that started ALL our stories, “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth.”

This creation story from Genesis we just heard is probably a familiar one to many of you, with seven days of creation each in order, and the repeated refrain which we said together “and God say that it was good.” I got to hear a creation story from Namibia, which you’ll hear has some striking similarities to the one we just heard from Genesis.  

(The following story has a lot of .... and [ ] because I shorted it a bit and edited it for clarity)

“On [the] first day, Njambi Karunga, [which means] “Giving God” called the first ancestors from the trunk of the omumborombonga tree. One by one, they stepped from the sacred tree.”

“Mukuru and Kaman-garunga, the first tate (pronounced "tah-tay" and means daddy) and mama, stepped from the tree. Then…. the first tate and mama of every tribe on earth [stepped from the tree]. On [the] first day, Njambi Karunga also called out the first tate and mama of cattle. The first tate and mama of kudu. Of lions and leopards. Of wildebeest and baboons. On first day, the first tate and mama of every living thing stepped from the omumborombonga tree.”

“[The] First day was darker than a night with no stars or moon. All the ancestors hugged the omumborombonga tree and each other so they wouldn’t get lost in the darkness. The first tate of Berg-Damara made a fire. That made the first tate and mama of lions, kudus, giraffes, and other wild animals run away. But it was hard to see, even with the fire, so [Giving God] sent light. For the first time, the ancestors saw each other and the animals that stayed.”

“When the first ancestors saw the animals, they chose which ones they wanted. Mukuru and Kaman-garunga chose wisely… They chose cattle!” …

 “That’s why we give the ancestors milk – to thank them for giving us life, and for choosing cattle. And to thank them for talking to [Giving God] for us. When we give the ancestors milk at the holy fire, they know we remember them and we remember [our Giving God]. They know if we forget them, we will forget [our Giving God called] Njambi Karunga. And we will lose who we are.”

We all can experience God through the stories we tell. And we also experience God through the things that God has created.

After all, who has NOT at one time or another felt inspired or awestruck by something out in God’s creation – whether it’s a gorgeous sunset, walking around the lake at the park in the spring, visiting the mountains or the ocean, seeing a swath of stars in the sky on a dark night…. I spent plenty of nights at the Lutheran Bible Camp that I worked at during my college summers in evening worship at the lake shore, singing praises to God as amazing colors filled the sky. Church is a place where we worship God, and it does not have to be limited to a building. After all, Martin Luther once wrote, “God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”

There is a car in my apartment parking lot with a bumper sticker on the back of it that says, “Nature is my church.” Every time I see this bumper sticker, I wonder. If this is true of whoever owns this car, why is this sticker on a VW Bug and not on a hybrid or electric car? But then again, I am not doing so hot at treating his or her “church” very well either. We may not always think about nature as our “church,” but I think we would never treat THIS building in the same way as we have tended to treat our environment, God’s creation.

The bumper sticker, the creation story from Namibia, and our familiar one in Genesis tell us something about the GOD we worship. These stories reveal that our God is a creative God who makes space for and cares for creation. We are welcome, and we are loved by the one who created us, whether we were created out of dirt, or created from a tree.

These stories also tell us something about ourselves, too. We were made in God’s image, male AND female, both together. Not just one or the other. But everyone, men, women, people of all races and ethnicities and cultures, WE ALL are God’s image, and we are all part of the creation story, not separate from it. We are to care for creation, not use it up and throw it away.

On the label of the package of some carved wooden animals I bought in Namibia, on one side it said “Animals of Africa.” On the other, it said “Please take special care of our animals, or soon there won’t be any real ones left.” This was written in English, and it was meant for people like me, a tourist and foreigner, overly dependent on fossil fuels, and far away from the consequences of how much I use up and throw away every day. People like me who have lost my way and are trying to find it again by doing little things like recycling and reducing my car trips.

Even when we do lose our way – and we will - God refuses to be a far-off God, and Jesus is proof of that. The beginning of the Gospel of John says THIS about JESUS: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….  All things came into being through him…What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Jesus came to us as God in a way that we can see and talk to and experience and touch. Jesus healed people when they suffered physically, he fed them real bread when they were hungry, he ate and drank with people who were on the margins, experiencing all the things that humans do. Even death.

So when Jesus tells us, after he is raised, at the end the Gospel of Matthew, “I will be with you always.” – we know that this means that in all things we experience, God will be with us. In our beginnings and in our endings, and all the unpredictable plot twists in between, Jesus will be with us.

We may not always live “happily ever after” like in the fairy tales. But in fact, we have something better than a fairy tale ending – the assurance that no matter where our stories take us, Jesus promises to be with us through all the chapters, good and bad, to the end of the age.

If you flip all the way to the very end of the Bible, at the end of the book of Revelation, we only have another beginning: “Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.” 

Jesus is WITH YOU. Jesus comes to us, in the form of the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit.  From Genesis to Revelation, Jesus is with us, here in church, and out there in the world. Jesus does not tell his disciples to bunker down somewhere. We’re supposed to get out there and change the world. And so, what we have taken for an ending in the Gospel of Matthew is actually a beginning, a “once upon a time” in disguise. Surprise! Talk about an ending with a twist!

Well, this is the end of the sermon. But it’s NOT the end of the story. It is, after all, yet another new beginning. Where the worship service ends, your story picks up.

So, what’s that going to mean for YOUR story?  What is your next chapter going to be like?

Get ready, because it begins RIGHT NOW! Amen!

Wade in the Waters of Pentecost

Grace to you and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ, the over-the-top love of God, and the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit, amen.

The invocation I just said was from Zephania Kameeta, one of the Lutheran Bishops of Namibia, spoken to us at the beginning of the sermon he preached on May 14^th in Sam Nujoma stadium with 10,000 Lutherans from all over Africa and the world.  Beforehand we were told that the entire service that Sunday morning would be about 4 hours long. I wish I were kidding. I wish THEY were kidding! But they were pretty right on the money with that estimation.

Me and the Bishop of Hong Kong

It was very long, but it was very awesome. There was the usual sermon, scripture, and big holy amazing confusion of Holy Communion. In addition, Lutherans from the 7 regions of the Lutheran World Federation gave testimony to the mixed bag of the Lutheran legacy around the world, how we have been simultaneously saint and sinner over the centuries. There was also a time of sharing with the youth and young adults in the LWF. And the singing. Lots and lots of singing. We sang hymns and songs from just about every continent that day, and even a few that some of us Americans were familiar with. I saw surprised that we sang Wade in the Water. But not surprised to sing A Mighty Fortress. You can’t have a commemoration of the Reformation without singing A Mighty Fortress!

But in addition to the old Lutherans favorites, we learned NEW favorite songs over the week, songs that came from all corners of the globe, like the Namibian ones we learned to day. The songs we learned seemed to cross cultures and unite language differences.

Take this hymn, originally written in Farsi by Roozbeh Najar-nejad, called Con Rizad. In English, the words go,

As the rain of your spirit pours out, over my desert heart,

gardens spring from wilderness and flowers bloom with your touch.

A surprise healing comes near, I’m renewed, fully alive.

A new song flows from my lips, and its sound counters my fear.

My success found in his name, all the dry places made green,

and the green busting with flowers.

It might seem a little weird to talk about water on Pentecost Sunday, when most of the time we hear about the tongues of flame on the disciples and the fire of the Holy Spirit that burns within us. But there are plenty of times that water is associated with the Holy Spirit too, and we heard plenty of references today – Jesus talking about living water from the Holy Spirit, and Paul saying we drink of one spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to live as much as we need H2O.

The Middle East is a place of dry desert, as I saw as I walked off my plane in Qatar into the 100-degree heat. Jesus lived in a different part of the Middle East, one just as dry back then as it is now. Thirst was an ever-present companion as Jesus traveled the hot and dusty roads of Palestine. And it was just as true when Jesus visited the annual Festival of Booths in Jerusalem. The last day of this festival included ceremonies around water and praying for rain, so Jesus’ call to the thirsty makes sense. And just 3 chapters before this, in John 4, Jesus spoke to the woman at the well as she drew water for herself in the thirstiest part of the day – and Jesus tells her then: “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”  If you remember back to Lent, this woman’s dry life suddenly burst into bloom as a new song filled her lips and drowned her fear, just like in the hymn in Farsi, sung centuries later.

Namibia too is mostly desert. In fact, the Namib desert, from where Namibia gets its name, is the oldest desert in Africa. Almost nothing grows there, and the few plants there survive on the fog that rolls in off the ocean each morning and condenses into a few drops of precious water. Almost right next door to the Namib desert is yet another desert – the Kalahari! I’m sorry to say, the real Kalahari is pretty much the opposite of an indoor water park!

May is the dry season in Namibia, moving toward fall, with cooler mornings and evenings. There was a drought going on, but in the hotel and conference center, we were fairly isolated from life out in the city of Windhoek the capital city, where the drought was real. For us, we took showers, brushed our teeth, drank coffee or tea, and filled our water bottles, like at home.

We can have water whenever we need it.  We turn on the tap, run to the store, grab some out of the fridge without thinking. We buy a bottle of water, drink it, then throw away the bottle when we’re done. We throw things away then we are done with them, or when they are inconvenient for us. But water, and our planet, is too precious to treat this way.

One of the daily themes was “Creation not for sale.” Martin Kopp from France told us, “All creation groans under the weight of imbalance, overuse, and misuse…As people of faith, we are called to live in right relationship to creation and not exhaust it.”

Creation belongs to God, and was given to all of us, at it is not for sale.

During the week we learned that our drinking water, renewed daily in large containers used to fill our reusable water bottles, had been donated to us fresh every day from a local. At no cost. Absolutely free.

This precious gift in our coffee, tea, in the water we drank, every single day came from the Namibian soil. It’s part of me now, and it’s also part of you now too. As I have been exhaling in this room, you are breathing part of what I exhaled, and have taken part of Namibia into you too. It’s part of you now. This water unites all of us.

Living water, the one spirit we all drink in our baptisms, makes our desert hearts bloom and drowns our fear. This water makes us grow so that we can bear fruit for the world, growing like trees planted and tended by Jesus. But not fruit we get to keep. We thirsty people are quenched for the sake of others, to bear fruit that we will be giving away.

There isn’t a lot of fruit native to Namibia. But Makalani nuts are plentiful, and come from a tree native to Namibia. Each of us were give a nut, hand carved with the theme for the week by a local artisan from Windhoek, to wear during the assembly. We worshiped together among trees in the cool of the morning and evening in a huge tent set up in the parking lot of the hotel, planted to shade the cars that were normally there. Trees, in the middle of a parking lot, in the middle of a desert country, suddenly found itself in the middle of a thousand Lutherans.

We who were gathered that week weren’t Cretans, Medes, and Elamites, but there were representations of us from the modern-day Middle East, parts of Asia, Rome and most of Europe, North and South America, Australia, and Indonesia. We spoke as many languages as the disciples at Pentecost did, and more.  We were united in the language of the Spirit, in song and in worship, in the bread and in the wine, all together sheltered under the tree of the cross.

We are the legacy of the disciples on the day of Pentecost, by the very fact that WE ARE STILL HERE. We are still here – now, in THIS place -  thousands of years after them, on foreign soil, speaking a language that didn’t even exist yet.

The Spirit poured out on us leads us to see visions and dream dreams, and draws us forward into a future we can’t quite see yet. The waters swirling around us seem dark and scary, but here is exactly where we are called to be – wading in the water, as the old African American spiritual challenges us. By way, thousands of Africans sang that song during the Global Commemorations, singing with the voices of another century and another continent. Wade, in the water, Children, the song goes. God’s gonna trouble the water. God’s gonna lead us into that future.

As we wade, we ask the Holy Spirit to be with us, along with Namibians, Indonesians, Germans, Bolivians, Tanzanians, Canadians, Koreans, Swedes, Americans, Pennsylvanians. Today and every day, we have need of you. Come Holy Spirit, come to be in us. Amen.

LWF Assembly Sermon

Coffee: International Third Lutheran Sacrament

I wrote this for our quarterly e-newsletter, summer 2017 edition: There is a joke among Lutherans that coffee is the Third Lutheran Sacrament (after Baptism and Holy Communion). Though I was a life-long Lutheran, I did not begin to drink coffee until I had an 8 AM Hebrew class in Seminary five days a week. After that, I was hooked! So one of my concerns in traveling to the 12th Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation in Namibia was of course - what will the coffee situation would be? I needn't have worried. At least four times a day the assembly had a coffee and tea break, with hospitable hotel staff setting out hundreds of coffee cups and saucers for jet-lagged participants such as myself. We conversed over our coffee. That is how I met bishops and pastors from Canada, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Hong Kong, and Guyana. Every day in the Omatala "Gathering" tent, women from Ethiopia shared a special coffee ceremony in the "Katie Luther Corner" every day at 2 PM. Extra-strong coffee was served to us in special cups with a generous helping of sugar by Haregewyn Moges Kidanewold, director of Gudina Fumsa Training Centre in the Evangelical Ethiopian Church. She made us feel connected to this special part of the Ethiopian culture. Because we are ALL part of the body of Christ together, Lutherans and Christians from all parts of the world.   The next time you partake in the Third Lutheran Sacrament, whether coffee or tea, I encourage  you to think about our connections to one another. Do I know where in the world my coffee came from? Who harvested it, and were they fairly paid? Did I grab my coffee while on the go, or am I able to use my coffee break time to make connections with friends, co-workers, or even strangers? Especially over the summer as we disperse in all directions, we can still remember that we are all connected to this same family of God, no matter where we may find ourselves - working, at the beach, with family, traveling, or drinking coffee. Safe travels this summer and enjoy your coffee!               Yours in Christ, Reverend Lydia Posselt

In the International Fishbowl

As I went through security at the airport in Namibia to come home, one of the security people checking our bags through the X-ray machine quipped "Say hi to Trump for me!" I tried not to betray how mortified I felt. "I'd rather not!" I blurted out before I could stop myself. He looked aghast. Was that rude of me to say? (Probably true.) Or was he surprised that he had found a non-Trump supporting American? (Definitely true.)

It's easy to forget that our own fraught political situation is not just something we have to put up with every day. This is a new age of instant news, and people from all over the world get to watch us and judge us for what goes on in our country.

 At the 12th Assembly, I suddenly found myself in the midst of conversions - very uncomfortable conversations - about what was going on in the United States. And just about all of them mentioned Trump by name. I was not expecting to be called on the carpet for some of the actions of my country.

I realized very quickly that by participating in this event, I got to experience something that is very rare for people in my country. I was often in a room, sitting at a table, or in a small group conversation with people from all over the world, in which I was the only person present from my own country.

On the one hand, in the US it is far to easy to only see what effects us immediately, when there is literally a whole world out there with different problems and issues. At the same time, people NOTICE what is currently happening in the United States. And I found it to be very uncomfortable sometimes in conversation. One night, at the welcome reception hosted by the President of Namibia, I talked for a while with a pastor from Sweden who knew very well what was going on in the Unites States. But this conversation, which happened on my first night in Namibia, was only the beginning.

During one of the presentations on the day with the theme "Creation Not For Sale," Pastor Monica Villareal, of Flint Mich, shared about the Flint water crisis. For many of us, this is not "new" news, though it is of course unforgivable that this crisis is still going on. But for the international community, this was NEWS. People sat up and took notice. What? Something like this was happening in the UNITED STATES of all places?

But that wasn't the last of the discomfort for that morning. During the plenary, the presenter shared this slide:

I felt my face get really hot, and the rest of my body went ice cold. Though cleverly generalized, we all knew EXACTLY what this slide was about. I wanted my chair to swallow me. THIS is what intellectual people and world-famouspresenters from other countries think of us, folks. And they are not wrong. 

Pastor Monica Villareal, when asked a question that named the elephant in the room (at least for me), gave a very articulate and diplomatic response, and made it clear that not all Lutherans in the United States voted for or supports the present regime. A few minutes later, it a small group I was part of, with people from Zimbabwe, Russia, and parts of Germany and Norway, one of the German participants pointedly asked me to go further into the situation of Lutherans and current United States politics. I attempted to explain that our churches are deeply divided and contain people on all sides, though many pastors find themselves leaning toward social justice concerns, and thus tend to be more left-leaning. She seemed visibly relieved by my answer. 

The world is watching us. They see what's going on, how we treat our own. 

In the international politics that go on (Yes, even Lutherans have politics, even at the international leve1), I learned that there was discussion of combining the North American region (which just has the ELCA and the ELCIC) with the South American region. But if that came to pass, we (the US) could never host a regional gathering. 

Think about that. There is no way everyone could get visas to come, given our current political climate. And there is also no way that the United States could EVER host a Lutheran World Federation Assembly. Most of the attendees would not be allowed entrance into the country. 

For me, that was a sobering thought. For as "forward" we (the ELCA) are on some things like women's ordination, racism, gender justice, GLBTQI support (or at least trying to be) we have a lot of work ahead of us. 

God's Name on Us

5-28-17

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

I apologize in advance for the next few months or so, if many of my sermon illustrations come from the Lutheran World Federation Assembly in Namibia. It’s kind of amazing how much can happen in just a week and a half. Anyway, last week I talked about helping during one of the evening communion services. After communion was distributed, I came back to my seat, where I had left my bag and my worship book, only to find my bag had been moved and my book was gone.

I wasn’t as annoyed about losing my seat as I was losing my worship book. They had only printed so many books in each language to save on paper and costs. English materials were snatched up quickly and hard to come by, which would be a problem for me, being mono-lingual. I tried not to let myself spend most of the rest of the service feeling irritated and sad that my book had been taken, at a Christian conference, no less. Something of MINE had been taken from me. It was very hard to focus on the rest of the service, I’m sad to say. And when I did get another worship book – I scrawled my name on the back in huge letters like a kindergartner as a deterrent. This book is MINE, and no one was going to be tempted to take it from me. That is perhaps not a very Christian attitude to have, either.

 

Like the “men of Galilee,” focusing on staring up at the sky where Jesus had just ascended into heaven – when all the women present had probably already left to get to work being these witnesses – I was missing the point. I had forgotten that earlier in the service together we had spoken these words together during the opening liturgy, words like: Reconciliation, the gift from God. Wholeness, the gift from God. You don’t need a worship book when you have these words on your heart and a neighbor to share their book with you.

On our last Sunday in the season of Easter, as we wait to celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost next week, we again find ourselves in the Gospel of John.  Jesus is still with the disciples on the night of the last supper, the night he was betrayed, looking forward to his suffering and death. During this last meal with his closest friends, where Jesus tries to both explain his upcoming absence and prepare his disciples for it, Jesus prays for them, and lets them overhear.

He doesn’t say - hold that thought, I’ll be right back, and then go off on his own. He doesn’t close his eyes and pray silently. He prays – out loud – in the middle of their conversation – so that they are able to hear him as he prays. This prayer is not private. Jesus WANTS us to overhear.

And during his prayer, he reminds those of us who are listening of two things – the first, which he mentions last, in typical Johnish “Yoda-like” fashion, is that those of us who follow Jesus belong to God, and God calls us his. The second thing, which Jesus mentions first, is the reminder that eternal life is not just about what happens to us when we die. It’s about knowing who we belong to (which is God) and knowing the one whom God sent (which is Jesus). Eternal life is about living into the fact that God calls you “mine.”

Two different Pixar movies come to mind – one that shows us what being claimed by God IS, and one that shows us what it is NOT. God calling us God’s own is NOT like those really annoying seagulls in Finding Nemo - you know, the ones who say to everything in their line of sight MINE. MINE. MINE.  Which is a familiar refrain for many nieces, nephews, and grandkids we all know and love. Only, we never seem to grow out of this phase. As we grow up, we continue claiming and hoarding what we see as MINE. MINE. MINE. The earth – mine. Stuff – mine. Other people -  mine too, to treat as I see fit.

But God does not see US that way. Instead, God’s claim on us is more like in the movie Toy Story, where the boy Andy loves his toys so much that he writes his name on the bottom of their feet. That way, if they are ever lost, everyone knows who they belong to. Andy, however, did NOT know that his toys were alive and sometimes looked at the bottom of their feet for encouragement when they experienced their own toy version of “dark night of the soul.”

I showed a clip from Toy Story at a youth event once, and shared that Andy’s care for his toys is like the love God has for US, and the promise that WE belong to God. The theme for the event, ironically enough was “MINE,” which was written in big letters on the event T-shirt. Later I found out that some of the girls from another church had taken a sharpie and written “God” on the bottom of their feet. As silly as that sounds, I realized they GOT IT. They GOT that God calls them his own and has claimed them and has promised to be with them. They wanted to remember this in a way that made sense to them in that moment. Even if their parents might have been less than thrilled.

So what if WE all lived as if “God” was written with a sharpie on the bottoms of our feet? What might our lives look like? Would they look any different?

This promise – that God has written “MINE” on us – is both a gift and a charge. God is going to be with us no matter what. But it also means that God might ask us to go places that we wouldn’t normally go, places that might frighten or surprise us. We are not just HIS. We are to be HIS witnesses.

On the night before his death, we hear how Jesus prays for the protection of all who belong to him, knowing that they will be called to some pretty scary and surprising places. And again, in the days before the Holy Spirit arrives on Pentecost, Jesus tells his disciples that they will be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all of Judea, and Samaria, and to all the ends of the earth.” For us, that might mean to be his witnesses in Buckingham, Bucks County, and the greater Philadelphia area, and even beyond, in places that feel foreign or outside of our comfort zone.

A witness tells others what he or she has seen. We, as Jesus’ followers, are his witnesses in all that we say and do. And this is definitely a daunting task. And I can at least say for myself that many times I am not a very good witness. At the worship service that day I felt more outraged over my missing worship book than the fact that other countries that are devastated by our global addiction to fossil fuels, or the women and children around the world who go missing each day to be trafficked. I have not been a very good witness lately.

In fact, sometimes I feel that I am what they call on Law and Order a “hostile” witness. When a witness is not cooperating in the way the lawyers expect, they often ask the judge in a very serious tone: “your honor, permission to treat the witness as hostile.”

Fortunately for us, Jesus will never treat us as hostile witnesses, even though we often DO let him down in our witnessing. Too often we forget that belonging to God is a life-long calling. Too often we forget that the mark of the cross on our foreheads given to us in baptism is always there. When the pastor said the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” God was writing on you a big ol’ M-I-N-E.

Today is the seventh Sunday of Easter.  It’s also Memorial Day Weekend, and all too soon summer will be upon us, with all the many directions that summer takes us – sports camps, vacations at the shore, trips, family reunions and obligations – and it’s gonna feel like these things OWN you. It’s gonna feel like you are at their mercy, that you belong to the busy-ness of your schedule, and there is nothing you can do about it. Or is there?

God doesn’t take a summer vacation from claiming you as a beloved child. We NEVER stop belonging to God, and we don’t stop being his witnesses, even if we many find ourselves in some pretty scattered places in the next few weeks. Because you can bet that if Jesus says you will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth, Jesus is going to be with you, opening our hearts and minds, no matter our destination - whether it is the next continent, just the next county, or even just next door. AMEN.