Judged and Labeled by God

 

Sermon 8-16-20 

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

Though Ryan won’t remember much of anything that happened on her baptism day, I still sort of feel like I still ought to apologize for Jesus here. I’m just afraid that he might not be making a good first impression. This is considered one of Jesus’ many “hard sayings.” It goes right along with Jesus’ teaching on plucking out our right eye if causes us to sin… saying he wants us to hate our parents for the sake of the Gospel… saying he came “not bringing peace but a sword,” … saying “the camel going through the eye of a needle” will have a better chance of being saved than a rich person. Yup, these are all Jesus’ words.

And here, we have a couple of whoppers like the blind leading the blind, what comes from the heart is what ruins a person, and finally, Jesus seeming to ignore this woman clearly in need, and then calling her a dog. Yikes, Jesus. Not a good look.

So much ink has been spilled over the centuries to explain, soften, or justify what Jesus says and does to this woman, and I don’t think any of them are completely satisfying. Maybe we need to look for a crumb, or rather, a trail of crumbs, that just might lead us to a destination that makes sense to us.

Every woman in every time and place who has spoken up and spoken out has always been judged harshly - and this Canaanite woman is no exception. She was, after all, judged and labeled as an outsider in nearly every possible way – Canaanite, poor, single mother of an ill child, who was a girl, and she was loud and demanding.  

While this woman was labeled and judged by the world, she judged rightly the correct label for Jesus.  She called him Lord and Son of David while the religious leaders of Jesus’ own people despised and rejected him. She knelt before him and engaged in spirited dialogue with him, while his own disciples seem to almost constantly wander about with their mouths hanging open in surprise.

She knew what Jesus was capable of, and was not afraid to fight to get it, for her daughter’s sake. Even if it meant facing a tired and judg-y savior. She knew that in the end, he would not and could not go against his nature. She knew he would do the right thing – that he would “throw her a bone,” so to speak. And she was right. And I think that’s why he called her faith great.

I wonder if Jesus ever thought about this woman and her great faith again. I especially wonder if he thought about her on that dark Passover night, as he prepared to face his passion and death.

I wonder if Jesus remembered her words about the crumbs and the dogs as he blessed the bread and broke it, and watched the crumbs from the broken pieces fall from the table.

I wonder if Jesus remembered and missed her persistent faith and intelligent repartee as he looked at the confused and surprised faces of his disciples, who would soon abandon, deny, and betray him, sitting at the table with him instead.

During his ministry on earth, Jesus began the work of breaking down boundaries and destroying the labels we give one another. In his death, Jesus is our Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And in his resurrection, we all are reborn and relabeled as children of God. We, as gentiles and foreigners in God’s original promises, are not left to be satisfied with the crumbs from the table. We have been adopted as children in the waters of baptism, and given a place at the table forever.

And God is continually adding extenders to the family table. And just when we think that the table is full and can’t possibly be stretched out any farther without completely collapsing, God keeps pushing.

Sometimes we are pushing outward WITH God, participating in the mission we share as baptized children of God, bearing God’s creative and redeeming word of love to ALL the world. Other times, we find ourselves pushing the other way, telling God that the table has gone far enough and surely there is no room at the table for THOSE people we label as “unworthy.”

Hanging above the dining room table at my grandma’s house is a poem copied out in fancy calligraphy letters by my uncle when he was a kid. It’s hung there as long as I can remember, and to this day it’s still my grandma’s favorite poem. It goes like this:

I dreamt death came the other night and Heaven’s gate swung wide.

An angel with a halo bright ushered me inside.

And there! To my astonishment stood folks I’d judged and labeled

As “quite unfit”, “of little worth”, and “spiritually disabled”.

Indignant words rose to my lips but never were set free,

For every face showed stunned surprise --Not one expected me!

Imagine, if you will, your own arrival at the so-called Pearly Gates, waiting in line to get checked in by one of the saints. You take a glance around and are astonished at the diversity of people with you in line. You strike up a conversation with some people around you, and when they ask you what congregation you belonged to back on earth, you proudly respond “Family of God Lutheran Church in Buckingham PA”!

What do you expect their reaction to be? Will their face light up, having heard about how we prioritized the community, and went above and beyond for the people around us in need, sharing our assets to benefit and to help one another, even in a pandemic?

 Or will they remember a congregation that paid more attention to our weeds… but didn’t seek to weed out racism? Will they remember a church that is literally on the doorstep of New Hope… and yet, are reluctant to consider becoming Reconciling in Christ? … Will then remember a church that would privilege “rent” and budget bottom lines over existing relationships with community groups who use our building?

What if, on that day, someone from AA or from the Classical Conversations group showed stunned surprised that members of our congregation somehow made “it into heaven”?

The good news is, Jesus DOES expects you at the table. And he also expects all “those people” we judge and label as “quite unfit and of little worth” to be there too. Jesus really, really meant it when he gave his disciples his marching orders at the very end of Matthew’s gospel: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of ALL NATIONS, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

And that’s exactly what we are going to do today. Ryan Elizabeth will be labeled as a child of God, welcomed with open arms into this community of faith, where No Label has barred her from being gathered into the body of Christ – not gender identity or sexual orientation or nationality or economic status or anything else that threatens to divide us. This is an exciting day, and we of course are eager to welcome her as a new member of this congregation. But… are we the type of congregation that she will take pride in being a part of as she grows up? Or will she feel like she will have to apologize for the actions and inactions of this congregation in the face of a world that is in desperate need for a crumb of hope right now? Will she have to remind her congregation of their identity - just as this Canaanite woman reminded Jesus of his? 

Ryan will be marked by the same sign of the cross that we all have – labeled as loved and belonging to God, and called to share signs of that love with the whole world. In the economy of God, there is always enough to go around. Let’s make sure that THIS – the body of Christ -  is the label that we will be remembered for. Together, as Christ’s body here on earth, even though we are dispersed, let’s show the world more than a crumb. Let’s show them Jesus. Amen.

Baptism of our Lord and Ourselves

1-19-20

I did something a little bit differently for this sermon - I walked everyone though the baptism liturgy and talked about each part, much like I did last year for A - "Affirmation of Baptism" during our "Season of Baptism" during  the season Epiphany last year. 

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

Last year, Series on baptism do you remember? B – Born Anew, A -Affirmed, P- EmPowered, T- Trust, I – Inspire, S – Serve, M- Multiply

Baptize infants/ kids vs. “Believer’s Baptism”

The reason we baptize babies - symbolizes that we do nothing to earn God’s love

Part 2: Rite of “Confirmation = Affirmation of Baptism (we can affirm this all the time, not just when we’re in the 9th or 10th grade)

P. 227 - Go through Baptism service 

Opening prayer - Big ticket words - Water/word/ death/ resurrection / saints

Presentation: Parents present, or if older, they can answer for themselves (consent)

Go through each promise

TO LIVE WITH (HIM/HER/THEM) AMONG GOD’S FAITHFUL PEOPLE, Be part of a faith community

(HIM/HER/THEM) TO THE WORD OF GOD AND THE HOLY SUPPER – bring them to church!

TEACH (HIM/HER/THEM) THE LORD’S PRAYER, THE CREED, AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, (Self-explanatory)

PLACE IN (HIS/HER/THEM) HANDS THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, AND NURTURE (HIM/HER) IN FAITH AND PRAYER, (pretty obvious)

SO THAT YOUR CHILD MAY LEARN AND TRUST GOD, PROCLAIM CHRIST THROUGH WORD AND DEED, CARE FOR OTHERS AND THE WORLD GOD MADE, AND WORK FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE. DO YOU PROMISE TO HELP YOUR CHILD GROW IN THE CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE?

Parents promise, sponsors promise, then WE all as a community promise (we need all of us!!) You are all responsible for each other.

Profession of Faith = early rite of Exorcism. Greek “Eckballo” to cast out, like throw a ball (renounce = turn your back on, cast out)

If you were to add things to “turn our backs on,” what would they be? What specifically “defies” or “rebels” against God? What other things might you add to the list? I would offer adding:

-         Fear and scarcity thinking

-         Too much consuming / big retail

-         Institutional racism and individual discrimination

-         Sexism, gender-based violence, toxic masculinity

-         Unjust economic systems (to name a few)

Creed = What we turn toward/ what we DO profess (can’t just be against things)

Trinitarian Creed – father son Holy Spirit (3 “no,” 3 “yes”)

Thanksgiving at the Font

-         “Flood Prayer” written by Martin Luther

-         Reviews the “Highlights of “salvation history” – the “big times” that God has saved God’s people, ending with Jesus

Actual Baptism: “sprinkling”

Where did we get baptism? John the Baptist, who we have been hearing about a lot! but also the end of Matthew – Command from Jesus to baptize in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit (the promise is that Jesus is with us until the end of the age)

Some traditions are (like ours) give the kid a white robe = made into a new person, and given new life in Christ, related to why pastors traditionally will wear a white robe, called an “Alb” (though it’s optional)

We say, “WE belong to Christ, in whom we have been baptized”

Prayer: same prayer that is later said over confirmands – Holy Spirit

Oil and Cross –oil from  old historical ritual from the tradition of anointing for special purpose - Kings, prophets, Jesus when he was on his way to Jerusalem

-         That cross may be invisible, but it never goes away! It’s always with us!

Candle: the light of Christ that is within us

-         Can and should light on our baptism anniversaries

-         Is where birthday candles come from

Congregational welcome! (Move on into service)

Martin Luther’s small catechism wrote “What gifts or benefits does baptism grant? It brings about forgiveness of sins, redeems from death and the devil, and give eternal salvation to all who believe it….”

An example of what it looks like to live our baptisms – MLK Jr.

Tomorrow we will affirm the life of MLK and all the gifts he had… working for justice and preaching good news to the oppressed – and to accept the cost of doing so, which for MLK was his life.

That was a walk through baptism, which is not just one day – it marks us our whole lives as belonging to God. Which is something of great value that we can take with us in our everyday lives, to walk through the world knowing that we are worthy and loved, and empowered to tell others that they are worthy and loved by God too. Thanks be to God, amen.

Everyone Got Confirmed Today

6-9-19 Pentecost/ Confirmation

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 years ago, one of my cousins told me that her daughter, Dana (named changed to protect the innocent), would be starting Confirmation class that fall. I of course shared with Dana herself how excited I was for her… to which Dana kind of looked confused and said, “what is the big deal about Confirmation, anyway?”

Well… boy was she ever talking to the right person to answer that question! She obviously completely forgotten that I was a pastor and was likely not prepared for the rather in-depth answer that I ended up giving her. Poor girl. She give over it though, tolerably well.

So, what IS the big deal about confirmation? And why is it happening today, on Pentecost? Well, almost 10 months ago, we embarked on this experiential and experiential fast-track confirmation adventure, and so here we are, at the culmination – not graduation- of this journey together.

We celebrate Pentecost because it ushers in a new phase and a new direction in the Jesus movement. Much like the rites of baptism and confirmation also signal new beginnings. At Pentecost, the followers of Jesus were given the gift of the Holy Spirit, a constant presence that both comforts and challenges us in our life in Christ. When a person is baptized, that person is forever marked by God’s claim on them as beloved children. At Confirmation, or more correctly known as “Affirmation of Baptism,” the baptized person claims and affirms this faith as their own, like a page break between sections of a book– ending one chapter and beginning another, like any good coming of age story.

I once did a baptism and a confirmation in one worship service, and it was quite an experience… because we were able to see within the span of the same hour, both of these markers of faith, of where our faith live begins, and where our faith can really take off and become our own. It also made the service a little on the long side, but it was totally worth it.

We didn’t get quite the same kind of turn around, but just a few weeks ago we got to participate in the baptism of Stephen and Dawn, and now we are here to witness and support Kyle Campbell’s confirmation. In both of these blessed occasions, it has truly been a group effort on our parts, especially and visibly so for Kyle – we have all participated in his confirmation year, whether it was attending the Eat Pray Learn dinners to explore the Bible, writing your own faith statement to go along with his in the bulletin, taking the Big Conformation Test, or writing your own sermon notes.

As we all know VERY WELL, it’s not just parents who make promises at baptism. We all make promises to every child that is baptized in our font. Remember that part where the pastor says, “Do you promise to support this child and pray for them in their new life in Christ?” we all say, “We do, and we ask God to help us”?

And we make that promise to every child that enters our doors on Sunday morning, regardless of where they have been baptized. It’s been said by some that our youth are “the future of the church.” In reality, they are the church NOW, part of the body of Christ NOW and participating in the mission that we all share NOW. And sometimes we will spectacularly fail in how we try to support and engage our young people, but the important things is that we keep trying and don’t give up. And occasionally, it turns out really, really well.  And I think that this is one of those times.

There are no grades in Confirmation, but if there were, I would give all of you a big A!! WELL DONE, everyone! I kind of feel like we should ALL get confirmed today. But we would run out of robes and corsages, probably.

Fortunately for those of us who are not Kyle, we all can affirm our baptisms every moment of our lives. Just as we can remember our own baptisms every day, we can choose to affirm our baptisms whenever we are able. Not necessarily with confirmation robe and cake, but in our daily interactions and the ordinary tasks we do. And by telling the story of why we continue to drag ourselves out the door every week for worship, long after we’ve been confirmed ourselves.

When we were baptized, we were welcomed into a community of believers who seek to follow the “follow the example of Jesus.” A community that was fully born, commissioned, and sent out when the Holy Spirit alighted on that small group in that shut away room in Acts 2. A community that continued to this day, in this time and in this place. The Holy Spirit showed up that day and has not stopped moving since.

After all, Pentecost is probably the most underrated of Christian Holy Days. Sure, Jesus would not have arrived on the scene if not for Christmas, and Christmas it totally pointless without Easter…. But without Pentecost, Christianity would have remained a very minor Jewish group. But after Jesus ascended to the Father, along came the Holy Spirit, and got the disciples out of the room, out the door, and into the world.

You might have imagined, based on this response alone, that instead of lighting a fire on their HEADS, instead the Holy Spirit lit a fire under their behinds!! At least, by the way they were acting – so excited and animated at such an early hour, that the rest of the population of Jerusalem thought they must have been drunk. As one friend told me she was going to title her sermon today, “It’s 9 O’Clock Somewhere!”

We don’t always seem to be this animated when we are out in the world, affirming our baptisms. At least, it’s not quite to this extent, here, at somewhere around 10 in the morning, Eastern Standard Time. So, in the words of my cousin’s kid, “just what is the big deal, anyway?”  

As we learned in our series on Baptism this last winter, it’s a big deal because in our baptism we are Born anew, Affirmed, Empowered to Trust in God, who Inspires us to Serve our Neighbor and Multiply this Love. That’s kind of a big deal. That is the kind of life we are called to affirm, celebrate, and embody. Which is a pretty tall order.

As I shared in my sermon in Namibia, the response “I will and I asked God to help me,” we say when we affirm our baptisms, should be instead “I won’t, and I ask God to help me.” We won’t always be able, or willing, to do it, nor will we we always do it successfully, but that’s where the Holy Spirit comes in. With the help of God. With flames on our heads…. Or sometimes flames under our butts. And THAT is something that we can affirm. Thanks be to God, Amen.

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.

Multiply Love

2-24-19 

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.

We made it. We are at the end of the time after Epiphany, at the end of our Season of Baptism. Next week is Transfiguration Sunday, or aka Day-Glo Jesus Sunday, and the week after that starts Lent! Between last Epiphany and Today we covered a lot of ground, haven’t week? Let’s see if we all remember way back to January, and all of our letters… B = Born From Above…. A = Affirmed …. P = Empowered…. T = Trust… I = Inspired….. S = Serve….

Very good! And today we finish with M = which is for Multiply! BY the way, in the back of the bulletin each week, did anyone find where the letters where listed every week, including the one that Sunday?... It was buried like a little seed for you to discover. And today, that seed has grown and now blooms in our last word in BAPTISM, multiply.

Not a word you usually hear in a sermon, at least not mine. How many of you loved doing math in school? How many of you hated it? I was one of those kids who was good at math, but I didn’t enjoy it. But for many kids – and adults still – math is scary. Apparently, it’s more common than you think for a story making the news when a kid calls 911 over his math homework.  

Math seems like magic – it seems like: you get it, or you don’t. There are rules that we follow but we don’t always understand them. On an NPR segment about math that I heard in the car recently, Alex Stern from WHYY shared how her dad helped her learn the multiplication times table. He had flashcards, and together they would sit on the couch and practice. The one’s that she solved correctly, she didn’t have to practice, but the ones she struggled with went into a “let’s do it again” pile.

Not many of us face times tables or flash cards every day… but I think that most of us are familiar with another kind of multiplication. This one happens during many of our interactions with one another – strangers, family, friends, co-workers, people at church. I’m talking about one-upmanship.

We’ve all been in a situation where we have shared sad news with a “friend,” and they have responded with “Oh, well, you think THAT’S bad? Let me tell you about….”  Or you share some good news, and this person has to share something that is EVEN BETTER.

We’ve all be in situations where we feel like someone has hurt us in some way, and all we want to do is make them feel the same as WE feel… and maybe we also want them to feel a little bit worse. Not only have we all seen this happen on a personal scale, but we see it play out across the world daily in the news – one group of people harms another, communication breaks down, and the tension and violence of the situation escalates… or you could say, multiplies.

A friend told me about a study where human participants are (gently) pushed by a robot, then the humans are asked to push the robots back with the same amount of force THEY felt. And, without exception, the people pushed back on the robots with about 10% more force than was actually used on THEM. That means, if I push you, and you push me back with what you THINK is “getting even” with me, it will really be 10% harder….and then I will push back with 10% more… and the spiral of violence gets out of control. In other words, getting even is never actually getting even.

Kindness begets kindness, violence begetting violence. How do we get over this gut instinct of ours, our reflex to mirror back what has been done to us? psychologists call “mirroring” or “complimentary behavior.” This is the script that we are far more familiar with – you’re mean, so I’m mean back.  Sometimes, though, the script DOES get flipped, and someone responds to harm with kindness, and that feels like a miracle.

In another podcast, I heard the story of a man with a gun who interrupted a dinner party demanding money from the guests. Instead, they offered him a glass of wine and cheese, and after eating, the would-be thief asked for a hug, said he was sorry, and left.

Amazing, right? Or is it?

What Jesus is proposing in his continuation his Sermon on the Plain, would be categorized by these same psychologists as “non-complimentary behavior.” And it’s extremely hard to do. In this part of his sermon, Jesus “ups the ante” for people who would follow him - Don’t just mirror the good that you have received – flip the script on hostility, break the cycle of escalating violence, multiply love instead of hate. This is a new and uncomfortable kind of ethics Jesus is proposing, and we tend to resist it.

It's a nice thought... but it's not enough
to "just get along."

I seem captions on Facebook all the time that say things like, “I don't care [who you are]. If you're nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Simple as that!” That sure sounds nice, but it is not actually revolutionary or loving. It’s actually perpetuating behavior we already are prone to – the mirroring thing - and Jesus here is making it very clear that this is NOT ENOUGH. Jesus does not say, wait for someone to be nice to do in order to be nice back. Instead, he says “DO unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Do “nice” FIRST. Respond with love.

But at the same time, not very many of us are going to find ourselves at a dinner party about to be robbed at gunpoint. We might not ever face someone demanding our coat. But some of us HAVE been cursed at, abused, harmed physically and emotionally. Some of us have been taken advantage of. Does this give a pass to everyone who has done us harm?

The preachers throughout the ages who have said so are wrong. Love is not enabling. Forgiveness is not being a doormat. Sometimes “non-complimentary behavior” is not passivity, but to leave a situation, or to ask for help.

Jesus is speaking primarily to people who have some agency in these situations – they have a coat and a shirt to give. They have goods to lend. If they are getting slapped, in Jesus’s time, turning the cheek to the others side was a demand to be slapped as an equal with the open palm, rather than the back of the hand, as was used for women and slaves.

But what does Jesus say about those who ARE powerless? What does Jesus have to say to those who are women, children, slaves, servants… people who have NO power in any situation? Jesus says that they deserve love, non-judgement, and help from people who DO have something to give, with no expectation of return. Because we ALL deserve love, non-judgment, and help when we need it.

Jesus charged his disciples with the Great Commission at the end of Matthew, to “Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” And so, his disciples, few in number, preached and taught and healed and baptized in a world filled with the never-ending cycles of hate and fear…. And we are the results of how this kingdom is multiplied in the face of these odds, by our very presence. And so, we too are commissioned in OUR baptisms to do the same. To share the radical ethics of God’s kingdom, to break the cycle of escalating violence and hate, to plant the seeds of the Gospel wherever we go, and to the expand the Family of God beyond these walls.

As one of my pastor friend reflected, after she also heard the story of the gunman and the dinner party: "Love looks like inviting our enemies to join the celebration, handing them a glass of wine (or a cup of grape juice) and a hunk of bread, saying 'This is Christ's body and blood, broken and poured out for you.'"

This is Kingdom Math we’re called to do: Water plus a promise equals baptism. 

Bread and wine equal the presence of Jesus.

We are 100% sinner and 100% saint at the same time. 

we subtract our egos and add love to the world, divide our sorrows and multiply our communities of faith. Thanks be to God. Amen.

S is for Service, and an actual Baptism!

2-17-19

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.

On this day, in the middle of our Season of Baptism we welcomed Michael into Family of God, and also into the ENTIRE family of God in all of space and time. We welcomed him into the community of all faithful people who have gone on before, and into the community of Christ which makes us one.

But little Michael was born into an imperfect and unhappy world. I’m sure that if Michael's parents would have had a say in what kind of environment their son would grow up in, this would not have been their first choice. Michael is held captive by this world, by his own body’s limitations, bound by time, whose steady march will cause both joy and pain in his life. His world, his peers, his friends, his family, even his body will betray her someday. But through his baptism, God has promised to never leave his side.

The Bible is brimming with stories where God has delivered on this promise in both small and big ways…. Often involving water in some way. When God sent a flood to the whole world, God saved Noah and his family, and promised to never do it again.

When the enslaved Israelites cried out under their heavy chains, God heard them, liberated them, and brought them to safety through the waters of the Red Sea.

When the prophet Jonah lamented his lot in the belly of that big fish, God heard him too from under the waters.

In the Jordan River, God revealed to all of creation that Jesus is God’s beloved son, sent to save us.

And God is here with us now and is especially present in this holy moment we call baptism. When the waters were poured over Michael’s head, his old self: bound by the limitations and constraints of this world, was washed away. He then rose up the waters as a new person, claimed by God as a beloved child, no longer held captive by the chains of the world he has been born into. The forces of evil in this world was rejected and sent packing. The traps, chains, shackles, and locks of the world will be broken open. Michael is now free. But free to do what? That’s what our next letter will tell us.

We are nearly to the end of our series on baptism, and have gotten all the way to S, which stands for Serve. In our Baptisms, we are Born Anew, Affirmed by God, Empowered by the Holy Spirit, called to trust God and, today with S, serve our neighbor. You’ll have to come back next week to find out what the last letter stands for!

Martin Luther was reputed to have said something like, “God does not need our good works…. but our neighbor does” (Wingren, Luther on Vocation, 10). And so, we serve our neighbors, not because we need to prove our worth, or earn our way into eternal life, but because our neighbors need us, and Jesus himself modeled this as a way of life.

This is the year we hear from the Gospel of Luke, and you may have been surprised at how familiar this passage feels. It SOUNDS a LOT like the part of the Sermon on the Mount we call the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew. Similar… but just a little bit off. For one thing, Jesus HERE is speaking on a plain, not from a mountain … “Jesus came down with them….to a level place…. And Jesus looked up at his disciples” when he started speaking.

The next thing you might have noticed is that there are some WOES that go along with the blessings… and even these blessings looked a bit different. Blessed are the poor. Full Stop. Not poor in spirit, like in Matthew. And blessed are the hungry. Full Stop. Not those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. In Luke, Jesus is blessing those who work 3 part-time jobs and still can’t afford health care. Blessed are the people who are hungry because their SNAP benefits were withheld because of the government shutdown. Jesus is saying, blessed are the ACTUAL poor and the ACTUAL hungry.

For those who were listening, this was bonkers! Their minds were exploding. Their whole lives, they were told, that the RICH, the powerful, the nobility, and the insiders were blessed. The world was clearly divided into Haves and Have Notes, into Blessed and Blessed-Nots. And the people listening were clearly the Blessed Nots – the sick, the foreigners, the demon-possessed, those in needing to hear the good news… plus Jesus’ own inner circle, filled with rough-neck fishermen, a despised tax collector, a political extremist, and the man who would one day betray him to his death. All being healed, and all listening to a radical message of reversal and inclusion, when the rest of the world excludes clearly excluded them.

What Jesus has listed in his Woes, clearly seem to be blessings by the rest of the world’s standards. Really, come on… who WOULDN’T WANT to be rich instead of poor, be full instead of hungry, laugh instead of weep, and have people speak well of you? But what if all these things do not actually give us life… but instead give us death. What if we have been sneakily trapped by them, tricked into thinking these things will make us secure and keep us comfortable? Because what if all these things actually BLIND us and BIND us? – BLIND us to God’s presence, and BIND us into being possessed BY them.

For all our seeking after security, we are still insecure. For all our comfort in our possessions, we may find they possess us.

Earlier in today’s service, during Michael’s baptism, we “renounced” a few things before we said the Apostles Creed together. We renounced - or turned our back on - the forces in the world that defy God, rebel against God, and draw us from God. It’s a neat throwback to ancient rituals of exorcism, where harmful evil spirits were cast out, and the person suffering was freed.  

For most of us, we are not possessed by actual evil spirits. Instead, we are possessed by institutions that give benefits to some and harms others. Many of us are possessed by the demons of fear, white privilege, homophobia, sexism, transphobia, agism, able-ism, shame, violence, xenophobia, and others. These demons cause us to act in ways that are harmful to the body of Christ.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ““As long as there is poverty in the world, I can never be rich… as long as diseases are rampant … I can never be totally healthy.... I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be…”  As we heard from earlier in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, if one part of the Body of Christ suffers, we all do. When one of us is denied our human dignity, we all are.

We have been baptized into the Body of Christ – freed from the demons of fear and the powers of the world which seek to keep us bound. We have been freed from the belief that there is a finite amount of God’s love and grace in the world. We have been freed to serve our neighbor who might be struggling with poverty, hunger, and injustice.

We can serve our neighbor by giving away the power we HAVE been given – or use that power to lift those who have been dis-empowered. We can serve our neighbors by giving them coats in the winter, and also by asking why some people can’t afford such a basic need. We can serve our neighbor by feeding them, and also by advocating for them so they no longer struggle to afford food. We can serve our neighbor by comforting those who weep, and also by removing the stigma of mental illness.

To be clear, We don’t serve others because they have NOT been blessed by God … we’re doing it because they HAVE. But because all of us have been created by a loving God. We are blessed because we are loved. And woe to any of us who forget that – about other people, AND about ourselves. Thanks be to God. Amen.

I is for Inspired to Talk about Things We Don't Normally Talk About In Church.

Content warning: This sermon contains references to sex, sexual violence, abortion, and purity culture. 

Sermon 2-10-19

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.

The good news is that we are over half way through our season of baptism! We’ve covered a lot of ground so far, so let’s do a quick review of all the letters we’ve done:

B = Born anew, A = Affirmed, P = EmPowered, T = Trust.

Today is… Inspired. I thought of the word Inspired way before I read Rachel Held Even’s great new book about the Bible by the verysame name. I will be using it heavily during Lent for our “Eat, Pray, Learn” series on the Bible every Thursday night. In her book, Evans writes about the Bible’s inception –it did not fall out of the sky in perfectly complete English. The Bible was actually written by imperfect people over a period of centuries, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is inspired, or “pneustros”, a Greek word meaning “God breathed.”

Evens explains, “Inspiration….  is rooted in the imagery of divine breath, the eternal rhythm of inhale and exhale… Inspiration is not some disembodied ethereal voice dictating words or notes…. It’s a collaborative process… [and] God is still breathing. The Bible is both inspired and inspiring.” (xxiii)

In the beginning, God soared on the wind over the raging waters of creation… and breathed creation into being by saying the words, “let there be life…” At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the first followers of Jesus in a great rush of wind and mysterious tongues of flame. Jesus the son of God came to earth as a person with a body – with lungs, a windpipe, and a diaphragm, and used his breath to tell people the good news, teach about the kingdom of God, to cast out demons, and to heal.

When God breathes and speaks… stuff happens. That’s inspiration… IN – SPIRE… IN – SPIRIT…. The spirit of God dwells in us, gives us life, and creation responds.

Imagine, at that lakeshore, Peter and his fellow fishermen huffing and puffing, out of breath as they ended a long and unproductive night of fishing – exhausted – literally with their breath drained out. Along comes Jesus, who tells them to go into the deep waters and try again. They do, somewhat reluctantly, but then are shocked at the size of their catch – so big, their boat starts to sink from the weight of all that fish!

At this miracle before their very eyes, Peter makes a correct assumption – this man must be from God. When Jesus commands, stuff happens. But this realization terrifies Peter. Jesus is holy. Peter is not. Sacred does not mix with profane. Pure does not mix with impure. Jesus should not be hanging out with Peter, or Jesus will get tarnished by association. Surely, this man of God wants nothing to do with a sinner like Peter.

This makes me wonder – what kind of sinner was Peter? We are given exactly zero details. Was he a gambler, did he drink to much, was he a compulsive liar, did he steal, was he a murderer? We have no idea.

And yet, just a few chapters later, in Luke chapter 7, we meet another person who is ALSO deeply regretful of her past sins, like Peter. Jesus is at a dinner party, and a woman described as “living a sinful life” prostrates herself at Jesus’ feet, sobbing. The hosts of the party are aghast. They agree with Peter – Jesus should not hang out with “sinful” people!

I would like to point out that nothing is said about the woman’s sin either. And yet, in many commentaries and sermons throughout the centuries, this WOMAN was describes as having a sinful SEXUAL past, and Peter is not saddled with this stigma AT ALL. That is a big problem… and says more about US than it does about Peter or this woman.

If you follow the news, you may have noticed that Lutheran Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber has made the news again. She just published a book called Shameless: A SexualReformation, where she lays out a new kind of sexual ethic within Christianity, based on grace, that is inspired by Luther himself. If each one of us was created with a body that is infused by the breath of God, our bodies are created good. Her manifesto challenges the prevailing notion that sex is a dangerous and terrible thing outside of heterosexual marriage, but WITHIN THAT TINY CORRAL it’s great!! But the experience of many faithful Christians tells us this is a one-size-fits all approach does severe damage to those who do not fit this mold.

Uncomfortable yet? Bolz-Weber takes on all kinds of topics in her book we don’t normally talk about in the church – sex, abortion, pleasure, pastors who are transgender, birth control, and body-shaming. But her book is also filled with things that we DO talk about in church… stewardship, holiness, purity, grace, creation, sin, and the Bible. She is very clear on one point though: purity is not the same as holiness, and for two long the church has conflated the two.

She reminds us that purity is the separation FROM something, and there is no way that any kind of purity system makes us holy and worthy of God’s love. Not the purity codes of Leviticus, nor the purity codes of books like“I Kissed Dating Goodbye” and the “True Love Waits” movement. Purity of any kind does not make us Holy… Jesus does. Over and over again Jesus is extending grace and holiness into places and to people that others deem to be “impure.”

Because the truth is, no one is really “pure” in any form. We have all been tainted in some way or another by the sin and brokenness and realness of the world. Life is complicated – a mixture of both good and bad, sin and holiness, imperfect people doing the will of a perfect God to the best of their ability.

But when institutions perpetuate to vulnerable people that certain actions are beyond even God’s redemption, this flies in the face of who our God has revealed Godself to be.

You may have heard a couple of other things in the news lately. The state of New York recently passed a law to decriminalize legal abortions after 24 weeks performed by medical professionals when it has been determined that either the woman’s life is in imminent danger, or the fetus has no chance of survival beyond birth. 24 weeks is the “magic number” because that is the point in a woman’s pregnancy that a fetus can likely physically live outside of the womb. This has been a struggle for many Christians, because of our mandate in the 10 commandments, “though shalt not murder.” Which seems self-explanatory.  As Luther explains: “We are to fear and love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbors, but instead help and support them in all of life’s needs.” 

But life is complex, and so is the magic moment of when life begins. When is that, exactly? At conception? At 24 weeks when the fetus is “viable,” .... when a fetus can feel pain?  The Bible is not actually clear on this. In fact, In the ancient rabbinic tradition, life begins at birth, when a baby takes his or her first breath. That is when they believed that the soul entered the body. And before 1968, that is when conservative evangelical Christians agrees. It’s not until after the 1960s that the Pro-life movement even got started.

Nadia Bolz-Weber in her book writes about her own experience with abortion. According to her: “There are so many varied experiences of conception and pregnancy. Some of us long to conceive and never do; some of us have babies we did not want, some of us miscarried babies we desperately wanted…. There are many ways to view the issue and remain faithful.” 

But I think that everyone can agree on one thing, related to something ELSE that has just come up in the news: when a religious institution looks the other way as their leaders take advantage of female adherents and then force them to have abortions, and yet single-mindedly promotes Pro-life as one of its most cherished tenants, this is a level of hypocrisy that Jesus would have no problem vocally opposing – loudly and vehemently.

Nadia writes: “Jesus kept violating the boundaries of decency to get to the people on the other side of that boundary, who had been wounded by it….. the motherless, the sex workers, the victims, and the victimizers.”… and here I would add, fishermen. Jesus “cared about real holiness, the connection between the human and divine, the unity of sinners, the coming together of that which was formerly set apart.” (28)

In our baptisms, we are both set apart for the holy calling of God’s kingdom, and united with our fellow saints and sinners in living out this calling in a complicated world. The breath of God is present in each of us, enlivening and inspiring us. This cannot be diminished or removed, no matter how hard our fellow humans try. Thanks be to God. Amen.