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.

Jesus Leaks

Sermon 7-1-18

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

This past week, over thirty thousand ELCA youth gathered in Houston for their Youth Gathering, which happens every three years in different cities around the country. During this week, they learned together, worshiped together, and served their neighbor together. If you haven’t already, go and watch the videos of the nightly speakers, they are amazing. 

But in the days and weeks before the Youth gathering, my Facebook feed was flooded with the travel preparations questions of my pastor friends, on how to be ready for everything: from minor injuries, sunburn, dehydration, Hangry-ness, and boredom. As you can imagine, that’s a lot to stuff to try to pack in one bag. Like putting too many toppings on your sandwich… with things falling everywhere when you try to take a bite.

The gospel of Mark, which we are reading through this summer, LOVES to pack too much into his sandwiches. You may have noticed during the reading that there is a story within a story here – a story sandwich – where story A is interrupted by Story B, then we hear the end of Story A again. For a short Gospel, Mark packs a lot in his sandwiches.

I remember packing my bag the last time I went to the Youth Gathering 3 years ago in Detroit. A friend who was a Youth Gathering Novice asked us what not-obvious things she would need. My suggestion is something that you will not normally here in a sermon AND related to today’s healing story. I told here there is one thing I ALWAYS bring on a youth trip: menstrual products. Yes, I’m talking about pads and tampons.

Are you uncomfortable yet? We should be, because we pretty much avoid this topic at all costs. Even the translators shy away from it, using the euphemism “hemorrhaging.” Which is just a fancier way of saying “on the rag,” “Aunt Flow was visiting,” or, according to one study… about 5,000OTHER slang terms for saying “period” around the world. I bet you REALLY wish you had stayed in bed today.

Are we uncomfortable yet? OUR discomfort is nothing compared to what this woman was going through. And I am not just talking about the pain that must have been horrible from having a period for twelve straight years. For the Jewish people thousands of years ago, “that time of the month” wasn’t just inconvenient and awkward. There were strict rules in the Old Testament saying what you could and could not do at this time. Bear with me as we get a little “Levitical” for a moment.

Back then, when a woman is menstruating, she is considered “unclean” for seven days. Everything she touches, including people, becomes unclean too. And everyone who touches what SHE touches becomes unclean. Imagine what that does to your family life and social life. Fortunately, when that time of the month is over, she takes a ritual bath and becomes “clean” again (Lev. 15) and resume regular life. … But what do you think would happen if “that time of the month” never stopped? No one would want to be near you. No one would want to touch you. Sooner or later, you would be completely alone.

I should explain that the terms “unclean” does not equal dirty or messy. The ancient Israelites divided everything into two categories: “Holy” or “ordinary,” “Divine” or “earthly” and heaven forbid that the two should be mixed. Blood was believed to be the source of life (Lev. 17) – they didn’t have any biology classes back then – and that is one reason keeping kosher does not involve eating any blood. Blood is holy, and so you do not eat it.

But women have blood monthly - and do not die – and that does not fit nicely into these categories. So, these women during this time were “unclean” – a dangerous mix of holy and human, and the ancient Israelites dealt with this by ritual separation once a month.  

Fast forward a few thousand years, and these rules still applied. And pile on the prevailing medical ideas stated that healthy bodies were balanced, controlled, strong, and dry. And this woman, with her bleeding, was none of those things. (from the article "The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34" by Candida Moss, JBL 129, no. 3 (2010) 507-519)

Her cultured viewed her (apparently incurable) condition to be a disability. Everyone in her life up to this point seemed to fail her. Her family had abandoned her, her doctors had taken her money and left her with no cure, and her religion had no place for her. And so, cut off and alone, she came to Jesus – to what she might have thought was her last hope.

She came to him in secret, because she had no reason NOT to believe that Jesus, would fail her too, as all the other men in her life had up until that point. She had no reason NOT to think that, once she knew what she was, Jesus would reject her and cast her off too. Surely, he would not notice a small touch on his clothes. Because that’s also all she thought she was worth.

Well, Jesus DID notice…. He felt the power go out of him, in an action that he could not control. Jesus ‘s body leaked power, just as the woman’s body leaked blood. Blood that represents divine power and the gift of potential life. Jesus… power…. Blood…. Life…. Is it really a stretch to say that in this moment Jesus felt what it’s like to have a period? I don’t think it’s much of a stretch at all.

I honestly don’t remember a lot of sermons… my own and other people’s. But I do remember the first time I heard this idea, at a conference through an organization I’m a member of called Young Clergywomen International. An episcopal pastor who would become a friend preached a sermon on this very text and this very thought just blew me away.

Because if this is REALLY TRUE… Jesus has also experienced something that is such a central aspect to what it means to have a female body. Jesus has experienced the very thing that biological women spend at least 25 percent of their lives worrying over, preparing for, having discomfort due to, and using precious resources over. And Jesus knows what it’s like struggle with having other people have agency and power over your body.

In other words, Jesus knows what a period feels like – and that sounds totally weird to us. Because he body of Jesus is not safe – Jesus is leaking power all over the place and ruining our perfectly ordered and controlled lives. Jesus is breaking down the boundaries between earthly and holy, between sacred and ordinary. Between men and women. Between black and white and brown. Between the Haves and the Have-nots. And things GET. MESSY. When this happens. And we don’t like it AT ALL.

The ancient Israelites tried to control this boundary by shutting their women away. But WE in our technological and “egalitarian” societies are not much better. Yes, the technologies of pads and tampons are awesome to help make one quarter of the normal lives of female bodies less challenging. But we can do better. The stigma is still there, and injustices are still happening. Pennsylvania is one of ONLY 9 states in the US that DOES NOT TAX menstrual products…. Let me say that again: 41 states TAXES things like tampons, but does not tax dandruff shampoo, candy bars, and Viagra. This is called the “Pink Tax,” where products that women and biologically female bodies NEED to do normal human daily things … if TANG is not taxed, neither should be tampons.

And beyond this, some people still suffer in silence from illnesses related to menstruation and reproductive health, isolated by embarrassment, being ignored, or being taken advantage of.

So… Jesus WAS a dude. But more importantly, Jesus was a human being, who encompassed ALL of our humanity: the messy parts, the embarrassing parts, the holy parts, the parts that contribute to new life. And the truth is, Jesus’ maleness didn’t heal her… her faith, and the power of God healed her.

Jesus’ own body crossed represented the crossing of borders, the pouring out for the sake of others, and contaminating others with the love of God. In short, Jesus leaks…. He leaks God’s love all over the place, and as followers of Jesus, we are called to do the same. This includes working for justice for ALL bodies, including women’s bodies, and especially vulnerable bodies.

Youth at the gathering did this by putting together two thousand toiletry kits for women escaping human trafficking. But we don’t have to travel half way a cross the country to be with 30,000 of our closest friends to do it. Right here, right now, we can ask ourselves – how are we contributing to menstruation justice?

Like this story having too much to talk about in one sermon, there is too much do for one person. But we can do something… like work to end the pink tax or donate toward organizations to help women and girls around the world.

We are the body OF Christ. I can’t put it better than to borrow the words from the newest ELCA draft social statement on “women and justice.” In this draft, people smarter than me have written:

“As this church seeks to value the bodies of all people and recognize that we depend upon one another, we will not dominate or politicize other people but respect them, promote their health and well-being, and suffer and rejoice together as we strive for justice for all bodies.  …We must continue the task of embracing our unity and diversity so we welcome and uplift people of every sex and gender—indeed, every body—in our work together as the Body of Christ in the world.”

To that we can roll up our sleeves and say, we can do it. Thanks be to God. Amen.

All Saints Sermon - Out of the Tomb

All Saints, Nov. 1st, 2015

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

Two weeks ago, on our way to the cheese factory to stock up on cheese curds, my sister, my mom, and I first made a stop at the cemetery.  My grandpa - my dad’s dad, who died two years ago last September – is buried there next to the church I grew up in, and I go “visit” him and Grandma in there every time I’m in Wisconsin.

Myron Wittmann, saint

In the very same cemetery is the grave of the father of a friend and pastor here in New Jersey. And that very day we went to the cemetery, my friend’s wife texted to ask if I would go to his father’s grave too. I let her know I found his headstone, and she replied that the thought of me being meant a great deal to them.

Just a few days before that, on a clear and sunny 48 degree day, my brother and his now wife said their vows in that very same church. They made their marriage promise surrounded by those of us present, and also surrounded by the cloud of witnesses of family members who have died, including my grandma and grandpa, buried just yards away.

Loma Jean and Raymond Posselt, saints

Some of the stones in the cemetery, like my friends’ father and my grandpa’s, are fairly recent additions, with fresh stones and fresh grief. Others were buried so long ago the headstones are leaning and the writing unreadable. Regardless, these stones stand as reminders to what we have lost. They stand to mark the place where the earth swallowed up Grandpa, and we would see him no more. They stand as witness to our grief which also swallows us whole.

Raymond Posselt, saint

When you last heard many of today’s texts, you might have been in grief’s grip as you and your family stood graveside. Perhaps you still have yet to emerge from under that grief’s heavy shroud. For many of us, we wonder, along with Mary and Martha, where Jesus is when our loved ones have died and all we are able do is sit at the tomb and weep.

This episode in the Gospel of John began with Mary and Martha sending word to their dear friend Jesus that their brother Lazarus is ill. They assume, as we all would, that being friends with Jesus might also come with the “benefits” of miraculous healing. So they must have expected him to show up in a hurry. 

But by the time Jesus arrives, he was four days late for the funeral. Mary and Martha are still grieving, and surrounded by supporters When they hear that Jesus has arrived into town, Martha got up and met him, while Mary stayed behind.

The very first words out of her mouth were “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And later, when Mary confronts Jesus, she echoes Martha, and doesn’t even know it – “Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died.”

“Lord, if you had been there…”

We can all join in with Mary and Martha here, and ask where Jesus was… when the chemo stopped working, or when your parents got divorced, when your spouse lost their job, when your son became addicted to drugs or any number of things that happen to us. Lord, where were you when we were swallowed up by grief, loneliness, anxiety, depression, or regret? Lord, where are you, it’s been four day… four weeks… four years… four decades….?

Well, Jesus finally DID show up for Martha and Mary. And when leveled with this hurtful accusation, Jesus did not try to ignore their hurt feelings, make excuses for his delay, or leave in a huff, blaming their lack of faith.

Instead, Jesus wept.

Not just a couple of tears, hurriedly and discreetly dabbed away. This was some full-on sobbing – the completely consuming, can’t breathe, knocking you to the floor, eyes streaming, entire tissue box necessary type of crying. The type of crying when the grief is so immediate, so raw, so painful that it simply has to get out, no matter who is around or what people might think.

And this was JESUS… doing…the crying. In public. In front of Mary and Martha and all the others who were present.

Which made them all wonder – if Jesus cared about Lazarus so much, WHY the DELAY? What about the OTHER healings? Why did Jesus goof up Lazarus?

But, ignoring all that, Jesus, still full of emotion and grief, goes to the tomb where Lazarus lay. No to mourn and grieve, but instead to confront death head-on. And we know what happened next. Jesus – 1, Death - 0

This would not be the last time that Jesus and Death go toe-to-toe. In fact, in John, the raising of Lazarus is the last straw and sets into motion the events that lead to Jesus’ own death: his arrest, trial, suffering, his crucifixion, and burial in a borrowed tomb.

It seemed to everyone present that even Jesus could not escape being swallowed up by death. And a stone was rolled into place as a reminder and witness. Those who sealed Jesus’ tomb may have remembered Lazarus, and perhaps thought to themselves, “Maybe the one raised that Lazarus guy could have kept HIMSELF from dying. But I guess not.” Point, set, match. Death wins.

Three days later, another Mary came to his tomb to mourn. But she found there a surprise waiting for her: a tomb without a stone and a grave without a body. Death, so used to swallowing up people, had instead found itself swallowed up by Jesus, just as Isaiah said– he will destroy the shroud over all the peoples, and the sheet over all the nations, and he will even swallow up death forever. The way things were has been turned upside down. All things are being made new.

Like with his friends Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, Jesus does not stand by to watch our grief from a distance. Jesus, the one who cried, is the one who wipes away our tears. Jesus, the one who died, is the one who removes the bitterness of death to instead promise us a rich feast and an end to separation, grief, and pain.

Jesus, the one who rose, knows what the inside of a tomb looks like. He knows what it like to be inside whatever kind of tomb we may find ourselves in, swallowed up by death, grief, illness, and suffering.

But Jesus is also outside the tomb, ordering the removal of the stone, and calling us by name to “Come out!”

This is what it means to be called a saint on this day, All Saints Sunday. To be a saint is to be called out of death to be part of God’s abundant life, right here and right now. To be a saint means being surrounded by the great crowd of the faithful who have gone before us into the glorious feast that God promises us.

To be a saint does NOT mean being extra holy, or pure, or having an immaculate life. There is nothing we can do to earn our way into sainthood. Rather, being a saint means living and trusting this notion that God loves us like crazy, and would even swallow up death for us so that we might have life. Living this way might leave us a bit dinged up from time to time, left over from our stints in the tomb. But that never stops Jesus from calling our name, to get out of the tomb and to follow him on the way.

Being a saint also means joining Jesus at the promised banquet with Grandma and Grandpa, those who have died in the last year, Lazarus, Mary and Martha… but also with other flawed, imperfect, and perhaps “unacceptable” people that didn’t expect to be there, with their own cracks and scars and tales of tombs to share. And who knows, they might be just as surprised to see US there, too.

But before we get there, between now and then, Jesus continues to show up, wipe tears from our faces, and call us forth from our tombs. And we continue to remember the saints who are no longer with us, who have gone ahead of us. And we remember that the title of saint is a gift, to all who have been in one kind of tomb or another, to all who cling to Jesus as he calls us forth into life and makes all things new. AMEN.

"Come Thou Font of Every Blessing" verse according to pics at Cross Roads Camp

Here I raise my Ebenezer....

Hither by thy help I've come.

And I hope by thy good pleasure...

Safely to arrive at home.

Grandpa's Last Gift

As an ordained minister, I have the blessed and humbling privilege to witness important and personal moments in the lives of families, some of whom I barely know (some of whom I get to know well). Some of these moments are so raw and so personal that no other person would ever be invited to see such a moment, not in a million years. And yet, here I am, invited to pray with families as their loved ones are dying, as people struggle with illness and recovery, and other times to join in celebrating the union of two people in matrimony (which I did for the first time last weekend!).

But is one thing to be the (mostly) calm, gentle minister in their midst and then go home to my own whole and unsuffering life, and it is quite another when trauma hits on a personal level. Last month my Grandpa had a massive stroke that left him paralyzed and unable to speak or swallow. It should have taken him the moment it struck, but by some blessed design, my grandpa was able to spend twelve days saying goodbye to his very extensive family. I was able to fly back to Wisconsin and spend five precious days with him and with my family.

The greatest gifts that my grandpa gave to me were those days I was able to be at his bedside, holding his hand, reading to him from his devotional, laughing about favorite memories, reading to him some of my past sermons about the farm. Being with someone who is dying is both holy and disconcerting, and a gift I was able to share with my family is what I had learned over the course of my seminary education and eighteen months of ministry. But it was Grandpa who did the teaching this time, teaching us how to hold his hand and not let go, teaching us how to understand what he wanted to say to us with his eyes, teaching us what a life well lived looks like, teaching us how to die well.

Every grief is different and the same. Having experienced this grief of mine has made me a more compassionate and aware human being, though it is still painful. But that is also where we tend to find that God is most visible, leaning on our family and friends for support through the tough times. And that's what transforms them into something beautiful.

A Bent-Over Prayer

Found on the internet:

Banish the bent-over spirits:

memory of red guilt or
a long-ago foolish choice:
wrong marriage or
bitter divorce;
small crimes or
little legal brutalities;
a legion of torment
of additions.
Sexual abuse, manipulation,
domestic violence;
losses of mind, sight,
hearing, mobility,
self-doubt or
its grand mirror—
grandiosity.

Banish the bent-over spirits:

and good things, too:
obsessions now that
began healthy and
twisted a whole life;
professional demands,
creative dreams;
caring for an
ailing, aging parent,
proud-pushing an achieving child;
beautiful homes
shopped to sparkling,
beautiful bodies
jogged-starved to thin;
even church-work
where faith eats
its children.

Banish the bent-over spirits.

My shoulders sink,
and my spine curls
under the weight, while
my eyes turn in until
I cannot recognize
the one who heals.
See me here,
and call me, Christ.
Lay your hands on
the human meaning
beneath distortion.
In spite of a world
that disciplines healing,
in spite of people
who do not want
others well,
say the words
that set me free—

that I may straighten into praise.

from An Improbable Gift of Blessing: Prayers to Nurture the Spirit 
by Maren C. Tirabassi and Joan Jordan Grant

God the Peace Warrior

A preface: It's the reality of preaching that sometimes what you have prepared during the week just isn't going to fit come Sunday, especially when something major happens, either in the life of the community or the outer world. What I had already prepared just didn't seem to fit with what I was feeling this last weekend, and I know that there were people who needed to hear some words of hope about the death of those kids. So this is my "Saturday afternoon special."

During Sunday morning worship it felt like everything we did, every song we sang and word we spoke as a congregation had taken on a special meaning. Everything we did had taken on this weightiness, a deepness that felt like what we were doing was a matter of life and death (which it is, really). And in the end, it was deeply cathartic and healing, like something evil had been flushed from the air and we could now lift up our heads without fearing what we would see. 

Anyway, here is what God used me to say: 

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

Today it’s hard to feel like celebrating. The Christmas lights are still going up, the cheerful holiday music is still playing, and the malls are still as packed as ever at this time of year. And yet, open any newspaper or log-in to any social media site and you cannot escape the horrible details of what happened two days ago in that school in Connecticut.  The festive holiday carols seem to turn bitter in our mouths as we think about the families for whom this Christmas will be unthinkably heartbreaking.

Every death is tragic and a cause for sadness by family and friends. The death of a child is especially agonizing.  But the death of children as victims of a senseless and violent act is nearly incomprehensible.

This tragedy rattles us to the very marrow of our trust in God; it penetrates to the very core of who we believe our God to be. It causes us to ask ourselves, how could a truly good God allow such a thing to happen to the most innocent and helpless among us?

There are no easy answers to be found. For countless centuries, we have been hurting and killing one another even as we have tried to understand why. And for just as long we have wondered why God doesn’t just get completely fed up with us and either turn us into do-gooder robots or completely leave us alone to destroy one another. Apparently God refuses to do either, and our best guesses can never adequately explain why.

But there is one thing we do know, one thing that we profess even in the midst of intense suffering and even despair - we cling to the hope that the Lord is near and is in our midst. And this is how we can rejoice even in the midst of tragedy. This is why we can still light our third candle, the joy candle, in our Advent wreath today.

In less than two weeks’ time, we will celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Lord and savior. On Christmas Eve we will be singing “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright,” and “joy to the world.” Truth be told, though, the world that Jesus was born into was not very joyful at all. The moments of calmness and brightness were few and far between. By this time the people of Israel had been under the subjugation of one empire or another for hundreds of years. Israel’s latest oppressors, the Roman Empire, enforced peace by their military might, and generally treated them as second-class citizens in their own country. Any other child born the same night as Jesus had a short and harsh life to look forward to, and that’s only if they succeeded in keeping their head down and doing what they were told. If they didn't, the punishment was brutal and fatal.

Things had not improved much by the time Jesus had grown up. The people still prayed that their messiah would come and deliver them from their bitter existence, to mightily kick the Romans out of their land and establish a great kingdom of their own. But I imagine that they were getting very tired of waiting by now. God had seemed to be silent for so long, they must have begun to wonder if God had indeed forgotten them. Then enter John the Baptist, stage right.

It’s not hard to see why the people began to think that John the Baptist might be their man, with his booming voice and fearless truth-telling. I would probably never be brave enough to begin a sermon: “You children of snakes!” But John had no fear. He was not afraid to call out the religious authorities on their hypocrisy. He was also not afraid to call out the immorality of those in power – and it is his critique of King Herod that lands him in prison and leads to his beheading later on.

John was not afraid because he knew that the Lord was near, and was in their very midst. When the people began to hope that John was the Messiah they had been hoping for, he immediately set them straight. John told them – you think what I’M doing is radical and life-changing? Just you wait! I’m only the warm-up act. The one coming after me is the main event, and because of him, EVERYTHING is going to change!

Fast forward two thousand years, and how much has really changed? For all of our modern marvels of technology, our breakthroughs in science, our fast travel and even faster means of communication, are we better off now? In many ways, yes, our lives have vastly improved compared to those in the past. But instead of being a slave to Caesar, we find ourselves slaves to consumerism. Instead of short lives of hardship, we are slowing dying of excess.  Instead of physical isolation and separation, we now hide from ourselves and others inside our computers. And with all our technological prowess, we have also found more efficient and elaborate ways to hurt one another. In all this time, we have not really changed.

But in all this time, God has not changed either. And that’s a good thing. The faithfulness, the love, and the goodness of the Lord toward God’s people have remained the same, today, tomorrow, and always. The Lord is always near to us, and our God is always in our midst, even in the midst of pain and suffering. ESPECIALLY in the midst of pain and suffering.

 God has always been in the thick of it with us. No amount of misery, no amount of self-destructive tendencies, no amount of violence could ever make God turn away from us. No life is too broken, no sorrow is too deep, no death is too tragic for God to be near.  

To cut a young life short in such a violent way is a wrong beyond imagining. It is upsetting and infuriating. Be angry. Yes, even be angry at God. Shake your fists at the heavens and yell, even. “God, how could this happen?” But cling even tighter to the hope in the nearness of God, even if you are barely holding on by your fingertips. And hope even more boldly that violence cannot and will not triumph forever.

In the words of the prophet Zephaniah, our Lord is a warrior, but not one who wins victory for himself alone. Our Lord is a warrior, but one who saves the lame and gathers the outcast and makes them part of the community. Our Lord is a warrior who takes away shame, and restores, and renews. Our Lord is a warrior who does not use weapons or force, but instead reveals himself to us in the form of a helpless baby to show us that oppression and violence are unacceptable. Our Lord is a warrior of peace.

And this indeed is cause for rejoicing.

Though songs of praise may stick in our throats today, Zephaniah says that God sings for us even when find we cannot. Disasters can and will still come, but we do not need to fear them. A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

At this time and in all times, I pray that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen. 

I promise this blog will not just be my sermons, but for now, here is my latest...

Feb. 12

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

My internship year was spent in a Minnesota town called Owatonna, just an hour south of Minneapolis. This town was doing pretty good compared to the dying towns around it. But I heard an interesting story one day, relating to the famed Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, a big town about 45 minutes away. Apparently way back when the Mayo brothers were scouting for sites to build their clinic, Owatonna was on their short list. But, as it turned out, Owatonna didn’t want any sort of clinic to be there. The reason? Too many sick people around. I mean, if you think about it, who wants to attract sick people to your town?

What Owatonna didn’t know at the time was how health care would truly become an industry. A world-class hospital like Mayo would attract more than just people who need medical attention. It attracted restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, housing developments, malls, conference centers, and more. It’s almost single-handedly keeping Rochester from becoming like some of the other dying towns around it. People come from all over the country come to the Mayo Clinic to be treated by some of the very best doctors of our day. If anyone can heal all your ills, Mayo can.

Unless it can’t.

Naaman, the mighty warrior, had access to the best doctors in his country that money and power can buy, but his embarrassing illness still wouldn’t go away. What is described here as leprosy could have been any number of skin diseases, but the fact remains – this famous and successful army general had something like a really bad, unsightly rash that could not be cured. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger had contracted a stubborn case of the chicken pox, and you might have something close to this situation.

The king that Naaman served would stop at nothing to get his favorite general healed, sending a small fortune to the king of Israel to sweeten the deal. And Naaman practically brought a parade with him when he arrived at Elisha’s house, loaded with gifts as well. It’s not too hard to translate this into modern times, with rehab centers reserved for the rich and famous, expensive cutting-edge treatments on a moment’s notice, and the smartest specialists on the planet on speed-dial.

But most people don’t have access to those kinds of resources. The person with leprosy in our Gospel story certainly didn’t. He wasn’t a prominent or powerful person by any means. He was just a regular guy with a terrible skin disease, which actually made him worse than a “nobody.” It made him “unclean,” which basically means not only is his skin ailment contagious, but also his disgrace as well.

Nobody wants this kind of person around, do they? So people like this man with leprosy tended to live on the outside, looking in – outside of cities and market places, outside places of worship, outside of any kind of communal life.

Who are these people today? I don’t think the list has changed that much in two thousand years. Then, like now, those who are “healthy” do not want to be around those who are “sick.” “They” shouldn’t have to be seen. They can all go to Mayo Clinic – that’s great – as long as they are not in our day to day lives. Our obsession with the appearance of health and vigor alienates those who do not measure up. So, too often, we end up treating them like non-people.

But our God is in the business of healing and wholeness. While the Mayo Clinics of his day failed the man with leprosy, Jesus did not. Though he was in the middle of a preaching tour, Jesus stopped and listened with compassion to the request of a sick and lonely man.

That day Jesus saw more than just a man with leprosy, a leper, an outcast, a disgrace. He was more than just a stubborn medical mystery to be cured. To Jesus, he had name and a face and a history of suffering a mile long. Jesus saw him. Jesus touched him. And Jesus made him whole again.

You see, most of us don’t wear our terminal illness on the outside. Most of us don’t go about our day to day activities with a medical chart around our necks. But if we did, they might say things like: lonely, consumed with worry for aging parents, miscarried, lost my job, failing grades in school, recently divorced, the list goes on. We could all use a trip to the Mayo Clinic of the mind, body, AND spirit.  But would they welcome us there? Would we find the help we need?

We think that this list becomes who we are. You may think that there is no way a person in your situation could ever find healing and wholeness. There is just too much pain to ever find healing, too much hurt, to many broken promises or relationships to even imagine it. The wound is just too gaping and fresh. The leprosy is just too widespread. We’re just not eligible, we say; we have a pre-existing condition. We tend to think we belong on the outside, looking in.

I don’t think the man with leprosy got that memo. What in the world was he thinking? To have the audacity to approach Jesus and ask for healing so boldly? Who does he think he is, Naaman or something?

Both men with leprosy got the healing that they sought after. How ironic is it, though, that the powerful Naaman never got a glimpse of the face of the prophet who healed him, but this poor nameless man got the attention and the healing touch of Jesus. But that’s how God tends to work – humbling the strong and mighty, seeing the invisible, hearing the silenced, and touching the contagious.

God is in the business of healing and wholeness. Rich or poor, American citizen or not, married or single or somewhere in between, God is not afraid of staring our sickness straight in the face. In this cosmic staring contest, God will never blink. God is willing to go places we don’t even want to go ourselves. While we are still afraid to ask, God says to us: “I DO CHOOSE!”

But this choosing and this healing may not look entirely like healing to us. Naaman and the other nameless man seem to have gotten off easy. Their healing involved a curing of their visible illness. Other types of healing take years for the wound to knit closed and for the scars to begin to fade, both inside and outside. And sometimes, healing looks like dying.

Let’s go back to another experience I had while I was on internship, this time, at a hospice center, not worlds away from the Mayo Clinic. Mary was a saint of the congregation, but I had only known her for a few months before her health took a turn for the worse. She was going fast – barely conscious, barely able to hear. But in her life she loved taking communion, and when she was still able to speak she would ask for it. So one morning, a few days before her death, I found myself in her hospice room, practically shouting the words of institution at her. Only for a moment did I think it strange and wonder what the staff might think. But I wanted her to hear as well as see the healing presence of Christ there in that room with us. And after, I sat with her in silence, holding her hand. She seemed to like that too.

Jesus said to this man in the beginnings of his ministry, “I do choose.” And Jesus said it again with his death on the cross, “I do choose.” And again three days later, when the stone rolled away, revealing an empty tomb, “I do choose.”

God is in the business of healing and wholeness. God will never overcharge you or turn you away. God has chosen, and he has chosen you. So come to him and be made clean. Amen.