Follow the Leader

Philippians 2, 2-24-16

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Christ the rock of our salvation. Amen.

Have you sent your hand-written letter yet? Last week we were encouraged and challenged to send a hand-written letter to someone who is important to us. If you have, let us know about it, and if you haven’t, it’s not too late.

We talked about hand-written notes last week because we are reading through Paul’s letter to the Christian community at Philippi. But instead of being a federal offence like it is now, reading Paul’s letters to the churches he planted are somewhat like blog posts or community bulletin boards - regarding specific people and situations, but also for the general benefit of the whole community.

Philippians 2, which we heard tonight, comes at the end of the “warm up” that was the beginning of his letter, and now he is ready to play hardball, to dive head-first into his message to the Philippians about unity and humility, obedience and submission. Which are pretty good things to think about in Lent.

It’s not as clear from this letter what ARE some of the concerns at this congregation – because frankly, ALL churches have issues of one kind or another – but some have guessed that Paul was addressing questions about leadership and community looks like. Paul at the beginning of chapter 2 makes it very clear what kind of leadership practices would give him joy– being humble, practicing unity, and sharing the mind of Christ.

Starting at verse 5, Paul beautifully integrates into his letter what is considered to be one of the very first hymns of the Christian church, called the Christ Hymn.  He uses this hymn to more fully explain the kind of leader that Jesus was – who could have exploited his divine status to the fullest, but instead used his form of God to become the form of a human person. The ruler of the universe became like a slave, a human being under the dominion of inward passions and exterior forces. 

The point that Paul is trying to get across to his people, and to us, is that THIS is the kind of power that we should be trying to imitate. The self-sacrificing, self-emptying obedient role that was so counter-cultural then, and is so counter-cultural still. For the divine form to take on human form, for the exalted to be completely obedient, for the immortal to take on mortality and death – especially to be subjected to a death that was reserved for slaves and criminals, is pretty hard to wrap our minds around - even now, after these words have been read and re-read for nearly two thousand years. 

THIS is the kind of obedience that Paul expects us to have as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus – to have Jesus’s same mind about what the form of true and eternal strength and power takes. The form of an empty vessel. The form of a slave. The form of human weakness, subject to the power of death. The form of death, even death on a cross.

And this Lord, this Christ, this Jesus is the one we are supposed to imitate. Not in the way that we sometimes think about the word “imitation,” meaning “fake” or “artificial,” like comparing Cheese Wiz to the real stuff. Rather, he means imitation like Simon Says or follow the leader, only grown-up style.

This is a daunting task. But to show that all hope is not lost, Paul lifts up examples of people he knows attempting to follow where Jesus leads. There is Timothy, his loyal and young companion, and there is Epaphroditus, who struggled through illness. Paul also included himself in that list of examples, but makes sure that we know that he is making himself an offering to God for the sake of the faith of the community at Philippi.

We can’t follow these greats in the faith by ourselves, pulling our own bootstraps.  That’s why Paul reminds his readers that it is God who is at work in us, as he writes in verse 13. But there ARE things he suggests that we CAN do (and AVOID doing), with the help of God – to avoid complaining and arguing with one another, to seek out and hang on to the word of life. These are things we do together and act out the salvation that Jesus has already given to us.

Our salvation is not just what happens to us beyond our death, but also in living in the here and now. And Paul exhorts all of us, not just the individual person “you,” but rather the collective group “you” - as they might say south of here “Y’All” or “All Y’all.”  Or, “Yous guys,” nearer to where I come from. We are not in this alone, following Jesus and shining out by ourselves. We are all shining Jesus’ light together, as one.

When I worked at the Lutheran camp in Wisconsin, I would use verse 14 and 15 on our late night camp-out hikes in the woods. I would make my cabin of eight teenaged girls march out into the clearing with me, read these two verses, and turn off the flashlight. In the darkness, they would look up and see the stars, and go, “whoaaa.”

There is a whole lot of darkness in the world, both in Paul’s time and in ours. The way that Jesus leads us through that darkness is going to make us shine like those little pinpricks of light in the heavens. If we were alone, it wouldn’t make much of a different. But there are quite a few of us, shining the light of Jesus in a dark world. We may not be imprisoned for it, like Paul. But we’re gonna get noticed. We’re gonna be wondered at, and thought to be weird or backwards or misled. But it is Jesus who is shining out in us and leading us, to the glory of God our father. 

Peter and the Messy Middle

Sermon from 9-13-15

Grace to you and peace from God our father and from our lord and savior Jesus the Christ, Amen.

I really enjoyed seeing all the “first day of school” pictures on Facebook! Everyone dressed in their brand new clothes with their new backpacks filled with fresh notebooks, pens, pencils, and crayons. Just a few weeks ago, stores were filled with sales of schools supplies and full to the brim with all the college dorm essentials. Futons, pillows, lamps, crates, mirrors, rugs, bean bag chairs, matching sheet sets, everything you see in the “perfect dorm room” pictures can be yours at your local Target!

Not real life, so much.

But in a few weeks, those clothes won’t be so new, the crayons might be broken, the pens leaking, the notebooks lost or chewed by the dog, the futon legs snapped, the rugs get dirty, and no one but you really cares about the cool design on your duvet. (That’s the fancy Target word for comforter.) In the meantime, real life happens.

Often we begin each fall like a second New Year. There are new classes and schools to attend, new initiatives at work, new routines at home. We try to put our best foot forward, strategizing for how to be a better student, better parent or grandparent, a better teacher, a better leader and role model at work and at home. We have the best plans and make the best preparations…

… And we usually end up falling flat on our faces.

… Like Peter.

Though we are at the very beginning of the academic and program year, in this morning’s gospel we find ourselves in the very middle of things. The disciples have been following Jesus around for about half of the book of Mark by now. They’ve seen Jesus heal people, walk on water, and feed thousands. They’ve heard him preach the good news and tell stories about the Kingdom of God. They’ve seen him defy the religious authorities and risk everything to share the good news. And now we’re halfway through the Gospel of Mark, halfway through Discipleship 101 if you will, and Jesus decided to check their progress with a little surprise midterm exam. “After I’ve done all this,” Jesus asks them, “who do other people say that I am?”

To this, some of them respond with “option A,” a return of John the Baptist, who had at this point been beheaded by Herod for his subversive preaching. Other disciples go with option B - Elijah, considered by many the greatest prophet. And still others respond with option C, always a safe bet, one of the other prophets, which, you know, covers the rest of the bases.

Ok, so Jesus started out with an easy one. It was basically an opinion poll. Now it’s time for Jesus to see how much the disciples have been paying attention in the last eight chapters. Time for the second, and most important question: “But who do YOU say that I am?”

Which option will they pick? Option A, John the Baptist? B, Elijah, or C, one of the prophets?
It is Peter, oh our favorite disciple Peter, who is somehow able to see right through Jesus’s little quiz. Peter goes right for option D, hidden in plain sight for this entire gospel.

“You … you are the Messiah!” Peter answers.

Ding ding! We have a winner! Confetti! Balloons! That’s right, Jesus IS the messiah! The one to save Israel! The one who has been foretold! Way to go Peter!

And then… Oh Peter. Peter, Peter, Peter. You couldn’t stop there, could you? Perhaps inflated with actually getting something right, Peter then proceeds to tell Jesus HOW to be the Messiah.

“Now look here, Jesus. You are the Messiah, and that has nothing to do with all that other stuff you just told us. There will be none of that SUFFERING stuff, none of that REJECTION stuff, and ESPECIALLY none of that DYING stuff! Haven’t you read the scriptures, Jesus? The Messiah is supposed to ride into town on a big white horse and show these Romans who’s boss! No, no, Jesus. You’ve got this Messiah thing all wrong.”

To which Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan.”

Ouch.

We tend to be so hard on poor Peter, but we’ve all been there too, wanting to choose the cleaned-up version of Jesus. “Surely Jesus did not REALLY mean for us to welcome those people.” “Surely Jesus doesn’t REALLY mean for us to take up AN ACTUAL cross.” “Surely Jesus doesn’t REALLY mean for us to LOSE OUR LIVES for him, like actually die, right?” Right????

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

But we don’t live our daily lives there, at the beginning or at the end of the story. We live in the middle.  And the middle is messy. And what totally stinks is that there is no way to skip it or fast forward ourselves through it. (See Brene Brown's new book Rising Strong).

The middle is the dark place where you don’t know what’s going on, and nothing makes sense, and no matter how hard you try you can’t seem to make any headway. All your excellent preparations and your good intentions don’t count for anything, and honestly you have no idea if this whole mess is going to turn out OK or not, and it feels like you must be the only one stuck down here, face down in the dust.

But you’re not alone down there. The mess in the middle is exactly where Jesus chooses to be.

The good news is that to be a follower of Jesus, we don’t have to have it “all together.” We don’t have to wait until we’ve picked ourselves up after a fall. We don’t have to wait until our schedules get less crazy. We don’t have to wait until our lives look more like the perfect dorm room in the Target catalog.

 But the flip side is that following Jesus is not a path OUT of the messy middle, either, like Peter thought. Peter saw Jesus as a ticket OUT of oppression and right INTO the seat of power for some payback. But that is not the road that Jesus walks, and it is not the road that Jesus calls us to. The road that Jesus calls us to is one he himself followed to it’s very end: the road of self-denial for the sake of others, the road of losing oneself for another’s gain, the road that looks to the world like a road of shame and weakness, everything we all would much rather avoid. A road that leads to a cross.

Following Jesus may lead us directly through the valley of the shadow of death, but in truth, we could not have a better guide than the one who has walked this road BEFORE us, and who continues to walk this road WITH us. Even when, ESPECIALLY WHEN we fall flat on our faces.

Peter took a chance, opened his big mouth, and had a big fat fail. For every step forward on this road, he seems to take a step backward. And Jesus had to know that this would not be the last time that Peter, and the rest of the disciples, would fail Jesus, big time. But still, Jesus does not reject Peter. In fact, when Jesus says “Get behind me, Satan,” he’s telling Peter – not to leave - but to get behind him IN ORDER TO BETTER FOLLOW HIM. Get back in the line, Peter. You can’t follow someone if you are not letting them actually lead.

If we say we follow Jesus, if we, along with Peter, say that Jesus is the Messiah, Lord, and Savior - are we really ready to let Jesus do his job?

Because if we are, we better buckle up because this road is going to be anything but boring. You may lose the world but you will gain your life. You may win a cross but death will lose its sting. You may lose your life but you but Jesus has won the victory over the grave.

So let’s get ready… to fall flat on our faces. Who’s with me? Can I get an AMEN?

"There is nothing here"... Except everything.

Sermon from 8-9-15

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

Cross Roads

I love camp. I love everything about camp: The singing, the campfires, being out in nature, making new friends, having new experiences. At the Lutheran camp in Wisconsin that I worked at, and at Cross Roads Camp up in Califon, there are also the worship songs, the skits about Jesus, and reading God’s word out in nature. I actually went up to Cross Roads on Thursday to see camp in all its camp glory, and it was AWESOME. Kids of all different ages, sizes, colors, and athletic ability were playing games and running around having fun, singing songs, and basically being the Kingdom of God right here on earth.

Pine Lake Camp Staff '06

But camp life isn’t always fun and games. Being on the camp staff was fun, but it also came with responsibilities. One of these less than fun aspects was instilling in campers the importance of the “Buddy Board.” In addition to lifeguards, the Buddy Board is how Pine Lake Camp in Wisconsin kept swimming campers safe. Every camper got a number, and when they swam in Pine Lake, their number and their buddy’s number were put together on the board. They didn’t have to be attached at the hip for the entire swimming time, but when the lifeguard called for a “Buddy Check,” you found your buddy and waited patiently until everyone was accounted for.

During staff training, we would do drills for in the event of a buddy having gone missing. And we all hoped and prayed that we would never hear the “lost camper” alarm sound across camp. I can still feel the rush of dread during those times – fortunately they were FEW - that it was not a drill. And also fortunately, during those summers, it was always a camper who had wandered away from the beach and NEGLECTED to “check out” of the Buddy Board.

There were always those weeks where the “lost camper” alarm went off more than once, or when campers were otherwise challenging, or when counselors were causing drama, or when lice broke out, or when your campout got rained out, or the whole camp lost power in a thunderstorm. There are always those weeks you want to throw up your hands and give up. Very much like in life - Real life sets in, life reminds you how difficult it is, and “these weeks” become months or even years. It makes us want to throw in the towel, and pack it in, run away and crawl into a hole to make it stop.

Like Elijah. Here was a prophet who couldn’t catch a break. He is doing amazing work in Israel in the name of the Lord – miraculously providing food for the widow at Zarephath then reviving her son, then confronting the priests of a false god in a dramatic showdown, and even ending a long drought. But through everything, the people in power constantly chased him and wanted to kill him. And.  He. Just. Can’t take it anymore. He was dried up, burned out, emotionally drained, sick with dread, burdened with the fear he carried. So he pretty much crawls into a hole and tells God he wants to die. He even falls asleep out of his sheer exhaustion.

We’ve all been there too, right? We’ve come to the end of our rope, dried up, burned out, emotionally drained, sick with dread, terribly burdened with the fear we are carrying. When was the last time you wanted to get away from it all, to tell God and everyone else to leave you alone because You. Were. Just. Done. Was it … six months ago? Last week? Yesterday? Five minutes ago?

Elijah, like us, was a guy who just couldn’t catch a break. Because instead of granting his request, God sent a messenger with food to sustain him and words to encourage him. There, under the tree of Elijah’s despair, is water and warm cakes freshly baked on hot stones. Hmmm that sounds so good right now, doesn’t it? And here we also have the first ever mention of something like an energy bar, because these cakes sustained Elijah for 40 days and 40 nights, so that he could hear the next message that God had in store for him.

By artist He Qi

Elijah was a recipient of God’s buddy system. Just when it looked like Elijah was on his own, left high and dry by the Almighty; just when it looked like it was time to sound the “Lost God” alarm, God came through. And I’m guessing that every single one of you have your own “under the broom tree” experience too: Where everything looked bleak and dark, but somehow, someone came through for you, or help showed up for you in an expected way. A word of encouragement to get you through. Food that comes out of nowhere just when you needed it.

God tells and shows us, over and over again, that you will never be left on the Buddy Board without a buddy.

This is what Jesus is trying to get across to his listeners as we overhear his conversation in our latest installment of the “Summer of Bread” Sundays. God does not stop at sending messengers with delicious hot cakes. For us, God pulls out all the stops. God stops at nothing to make sure that no one is abandoned, that no one is left behind, that no one who seeks God is cast away and left hungry. God goes the distance, by sending down God’s own son, so that each one of us can be Jesus’ “plus one” at heavenly feast.

As Psalm 34 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Hmm those words might sound a little familiar. Every Sunday, all across the country and the world, pastors stand before their communities of faith and welcome all to the Lord’s table in the name of Christ to share a taste of the feast to come. And many of them, including myself, choose to say these very words from this very psalm. It is not just the bit of bread and the sip of wine that you taste when you come forward for communion every Sunday. It is the very goodness of God you are receiving, over and over again, keeping us going while we are still under the broom tree with Elijah.

But like with Elijah, being the recipient of this great gift of sustaining life from God comes with a charge. Elijah’s journey continued, as does ours. We eat, and then we rise.

The theme for our week in Detroit with thirty thousand other Lutheran youth was “Rise Up.” The “theme song,” written by none other than the Lutheran hip hop artist Dave Sherer A.K.A. AGAPE – I bet you didn’t know we had a Lutheran Hip Hop artist, did you? – the lyrics go, “We will rise up like the sun, led by the Risen One.” We will certainly rise because Jesus is risen. But this also means that we are to imitate Christ in other ways as well. As the letter to the Ephesians encourages this congregation and US, to imitate God, we are all reminded that “… we are all members of one another.”

We are all part of the buddy system. We’re all together on the Buddy Board. And sometimes we have fallen down on the job. We have lost a few along the way. There are people all around us that have collapsed underneath their own broom trees. There are some right here in our own county who have fallen behind or have been lost.

Right now our country is in the middle of some very difficult conversation about race and racism. Many, myself included, have to keep being reminded of our own tendency to believe the messages of the world that tell us that certain types of people SHOULD be left behind, abandoned, forgotten, or go hungry, because they inherently deserve it. I have to be reminded, rather, to imitate Christ, to “not make room for the devil” as Ephesians put it, and to remember that – the risen Christ has raised me up, fed me and sustained me, and I am called to do the same. I have to be reminded that when I raise someone up, WE. ALL. RISE. UP…. TOGETHER. Like we are one big loaf of bread.

BUT. There are definitely days I don’t do this. And that can put me right back under the broom tree, burned out, overwhelmed, despairing. But that is also right where God is, if you remember, insisting that we eat something for the journey ahead. So come, taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good. Amen. 

Week 5, July 22nd

Week 5  -   Wednesday,  July 22

Say a prayer before your meal. Then read aloud the background introduction and text, followed by one or more of the discussion questions.

Introduction: The “hard saying” that offends Jesus’ disciples is his claim that his followers must eat his flesh and drink his blood, knowing how odd this sounds. Peter, on the other hand, knows something about the scarcity of living, gracious words.

John 6: 63, 66-68

”It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” 

1. Why might some of the disciples turn away from Jesus?  You may wish to explore the text just prior to this reading (John 6:52-58, also see last week’s reading). 

*2. Peter says to Jesus, "Lord, to whom can we go?"  Who can you turn to for help?

3.  The text, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." is used in our weekly liturgy (setting one, pg. 102) just prior to the reading of the Gospel.  Why do you think the authors of our liturgy chose to use this biblical quote at that moment in worship? 

4. Peter gives Jesus the title, "The Holy One of God."  Why?  What does this title indicate about who Jesus is?

*indicates questions that might be suitable for younger children

Week 4, July 15th

Week 4  -   Wednesday, July 15

Say a prayer before your meal. Then read aloud the background introduction and text, followed by one or more of the discussion questions.

Introduction: In these verses, when he calls his disciples to partake of his body and blood, Jesus makes a connection that would not be understood until after his death, in light of the church’s celebration of Holy Communion.

John 6:51, 56- 58

[Jesus said] “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. … Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

1. Jesus uses an unusual word for “eat” in these verses. It means chew, gnaw, or munch. Why do you think he uses such strange language? What is he trying to accomplish?

2. Do these verses speak about the Lord’s Supper? If they do, what are they saying? If they are not about the Lord’s Supper, what could Jesus mean by them?

3. “You are what you eat.” What does this old adage mean for those who gather around the Lord’s Table on Sunday?

4. *There are five senses: hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch. How many do we use at the Lord’s Supper? What are some other names for the Lord’s Supper?

*indicates questions that might be suitable for younger children

My favorite fan mail

I got a few bits of fan mail for writing devotions for "Christ in our Home." Mine were June 1-15. A couple were emails, and I even got a letter. The letter made me laugh to much, and made me so thankful. A women in Wisconsin wrote:

"...they had such an impression on me the way you wrote, I felt like I was talking to a long time good friend."

My other favorite is an email I got. I'll include the devotions she references for context.

Saturday, June 13

2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17

"Keep Going "

For the love of Christ urges us on… v14

The way is lonely, your legs are aching, your breath comes raggedly and hurts in your lungs, the road is uphill, and your throat is parched. Every fiber of your being wants desperately to give up, throw in the towel, admit defeat, to just STOP already.  But you see something in the distance - a person waving by the wayside. As you get closer you hear that he’s calling out, but you can’t yet understand what he’s saying. When you approach, his words become clear: “You can do this! I believe in you! I love you!” Why should you listen to this lone voice among all the negative ones, both within your head and without? Because the man from which they come has traveled this journey before you, all the way to the end, and has returned in order to be part of yours. You can still hear these words echoing in your mind long after you have passed him. In fact, it sounds like he is right next to you, running along beside you, urging you on when you stagger and your steps lag. “I am with you! You can do this! I love you!” You are able to hold your head up and see the other runners around you, encouraged by the same voice, traveling the same path. And so you are able to keep going, knowing that Jesus is waiting for you at the end of your journey as well. 

She wrote:

Hello Pastor Lydia,
      My friend and I took a 5 - day road trip from California to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to run a Half Marathon together.  I took my Christ in Our Home devotional along with me to read each morning before we started out our long days of driving.  I wanted to let you know how God perfectly timed and orchestrated your devotional for the a.m. of our race, Saturday, June 13th.  Both my friend and I had been extremely anxious about our run, as it was in high altitude, 6000+ feet, and I had been suffering from a tentative knee injury.  So you can imagine how encouraging it was to read your "Keep Going" title for that day, with Paul's scriptures from 2nd Cor. 5!*:) happy  The second paragraph, "But in the distance you see a person waving by the side of the road.  As you get closer, you hear that he's calling out to you:  'You can do this!  I believe in you!' I love you!'...... was so perfect, as we were encouraged by volunteers handing out water, etc. every 3 miles or so, and it reminded me that Jesus was jogging each step along with us throughout the race.  
    Both of us finished the race and got our medals for completing it.  Your words, God's presence and our faith, as we ran along a beautiful trail experiencing God's creation and majesty, made it a day we will always remember.
     I just wanted to write and let you know how uplifting, the words and devotional you planned so many months ago, would be of so much encouragement to 2 Lutheran middle age women, taking the challenge of doing this 1/2 marathon together in "God's country" so many months later!  God is good! May God continue to bless you in your devotional writings and in your ministry!


I feel so blessed and so humbled to have had such a cool opportunity to reach so many people across the country!

Summer of Bread, week 3!

Week 3   -   Wednesday,  July 8

Say a prayer before your meal. You can use one of the prayers on the last page. Then read aloud the background introduction and text, followed by one or more of the discussion questions.

Introduction:  After feeding more than 5,000 people in the wilderness (see week 1 reading), Jesus teaches them regarding the true significance of this remarkable sign.

John 6:41-44

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.”

1. *Why, when, and what do you complain about? Does complaining ever help? How do you think God regards our complaints?

2. When you know something about a person’s background (eg., his parents), how does that influence what you think about that person?

3. Does God “draw” some and not others? What help does the Gospel writer give? See John 12:32.

4. In verses 44-47, what does Jesus promise for now and in the future?

5. *Tell about your favorite teacher. Why is he/she your favorite?

*indicates questions that might be suitable for younger children

Summer of Bread, Week 2!

Week 2  -   Wednesday,  July 1

    

Say a prayer before your meal. You can use one of the prayers on the last page. Then read aloud the background introduction and text, followed by one or more of the discussion questions.

Introduction: Many of the 5,000 Jesus fed in the wilderness continued to follow Jesus. Jesus challenges them to consider the real nature of why they are following him.

John 6: 28 – 35

So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

1. What do you remember about the story of the manna in the wilderness? (If you need to, see Exodus 16:1-16 for help). How do you think you would react if you had been there?

2. *What do we need to grow big and strong? How does Jesus help us to grow? How can we help each other grow?

3. When has God given you something that you really needed in a way you didn’t expect?

4. Can people be hungry and thirsty for something other than food or water? What are you hungry and thirsty for?

5. *Think about people who are regularly hungry and thirsty. How can you pray for them or use your God-given gifts to help them this week?

*indicates questions that might be suitable for younger children

"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.

Lent is....

Lent is… letting God defragmenting your hard drive.

At the beginning of Lent, I usually have the best of intentions. I don’t normally give something up, but I try to add something to my devotional live. This year it was a nice resource put out by Augsburg Fortress, a little devotional on Romans that fits in your pocket. And, like most years, my use of it has been hit or miss.

But that’s ok. Because Lent is like letting God defragment your hard drive.

When my seminary Luther tweeted “Lent is….”, encouraging people to fill in the blank, I thought I was pretty clever at coming up with this one. I didn’t expect that God would actually listen to me and make me eat my words this Lent.

Defragmenting a hard drive, if you recall, is the process of getting rid of the unnecessary junk in your computer and rearranging the programs to fill in the gaps more neatly, kind of like arranging your bookshelves by height and size so that they fit better. Now when we defragment computers it takes an hour or two, maybe more if it’s been a while. Beau once told me that he defragmented his computer way back when, and it took it an entire week. AN ENTIRE WEEK. Seven days of defragmenting. Can you imagine? What would we do nowadays without a computer for an entire week??? Thank goodness the process is sooo much faster now!

But defragmenting life is still a much longer process. And letting God defragment your personal hard drive takes an entire Lent, if not longer. For the past few weeks, and really for the last five months since moving to Trenton, God has been trying to teach me what is really necessary and what things might fit better in my life if rearranged a bit. Sometimes I’m a good student, sometimes I’m not. But I’m still learning a lot. I’m learning that it is possible to be a one car family even with both of our crazy schedules. I’m learning that a few sewing skills and some creativity can go a long way when it comes to saving money. I’m learning that when God rips down the detailed map of where you thought your life would go, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a whole wide universe behind it.

But that’s pretty much Lent in a nutshell. God taking our fragments and putting them back together to make a whole that is much better than the cobbled-together mess we’ve come up with; God making something beautiful out of the mess. 

This liturgical art is made from sea glass and broken IKEA plates, reconstructed and used at "Baby Pastor School" 

Lent Meditation 4-2

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Time.
Days,
hours,
minutes,
seconds,
marching,
on and on,
continuing
into
eternity.

Time. Sometimes, when you’re having a good time, or you’re “in the zone,” and hours or an entire day can pass in the blink of an eye, leaving you wonder “where did the time go?” Other times, minutes can seem like hours, and time can stretch out so that it feels like an eternity.

During these forty days of Lent, we are deliberately stretching out time, so that we are spending six weeks dwelling in the last twenty-four hours of Jesus life. The night began in celebration, with Jesus celebrating the Passover with his twelve disciples. They broke bread and shared a cup of wine. But that celebration was bittersweet with the knowledge that one of Jesus’s own closest friends would betray him and the rest would abandon him in his hour of greatest trials. To prepare himself for the night ahead, Jesus prays and asked his disciples to pray with him, but they their eyes and hearts are too heavy for them.

As the darkness deepened, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, and taken away to be secretly tried by the religious authorities. After a sham trial, they decide that Jesus deserves death, and they will hand him over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. In the meantime, Peter has denied Jesus three times as the rooster crowed, just as Jesus predicted.

And now it is morning, but this time, morning does not bring hope of a new day. Today, Friday, Jesus is taken by the religious leaders to Pilate in order to carry out his death sentence. In Matthew’s gospel, we skip entirely the trip to Herod the puppet king, colluding with the Roman occupiers. No, in Matthew Jesus is sent straight to the source of political power in the region, Pontius Pilate.

At the time of Jesus, Israel was again an occupied territory, second-class citizens in their own country. So the religious leaders were not allowed to carry out death sentences. That was the job of the Romans, and they were very good at it. IF, that is, they could make Jesus seem dangerous to Roman rule. Rome could care less about some internal religious dispute. But if Jesus were really a threat to the government, Jesus would be taken care of. So the religious elite imagined charges that would get Pilate’s attention – that Jesus claimed to be king of the Jews.

This was not the first time, though, that Jesus had been called “king of the Jews.” Long before this, back at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, a group of wise men from the East arrived in Jerusalem, and starting asking “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” This terrified the entire city of Jerusalem, and with good reason. One does not simply go around claiming to look for the King of the Jews. At this time, there can only be one king of the Jews, and his name is Caesar. It’s no wonder that Herod went to such lengths to try to kill this child. What is the death of one child when the peace of an entire nation is at stake?

And so, all these years later, the question at hand really has not changed all that much – what is the death of one man when fate of an entire nation is possibly at stake?

Jesus, who seems so harmless to us – welcoming children, talking to women, feeding people, healing the blind and the lame. What could be so wrong with that? Isn’t Jesus the kind of guy you want to have hanging around? Not really, at least, not if you are part of the religious elite, and not if you are the empire of Rome. This Jesus was drawing too many people, and attracting too much attention. This Jesus had to go, even if it had to come from witness tampering and massaging of the truth.

But the great irony is that Jesus is actually guilty of the trumped up charges against him. Jesus really is the King of the Jews. He is the messiah, the chosen one, the son of man seated at the right hand of power, coming on the clouds of heaven. Christ is not Jesus’ last name, it’s his title. It means the one who is anointed.  It means the one who is selected and set apart by God to rule. It means king.

But Jesus is not just a regular old king, like the brutal and cruel Caesars and Pilates of this world, set apart above and beyond the people they rule over. Jesus is not a king that comes with armies and weapons to vanquish his enemies. Jesus came to be a king WITH his people, to rule them by example, his example of self-giving love. His is a kingdom that conquers by peace. He is a king that rules by dying.

But before Jesus is to die, the soldiers under Pilate must put on a show of strength before this condemned and tortured man. These soldiers are under the impression that they are mocking Jesus when one takes off his own robe to create a sham of a cape and another braided a pitiful crown out of thorns and a third pulled up a tall weed for a scepter. But the truth is, Jesus was never the kind of king to wear gold and jewels and fine robes. What they put on Jesus is just what a suffering servant-king ought to wear – not trappings of power and might, but badges of pain and suffering.

There is one last item that the Christ will wear before that Friday is over, one last garment that this King will put on for our sakes. That is the shroud of death. And a tomb shall be his royal palace.

Because even kings die. No ruler, no emperor, no king, no matter how powerful, has ever defeated the power of death. But then again, Jesus isn’t just a
regular
old
king,
is he?

Come and Die

Lent Reflection 3-12-14

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer, Amen.

I recently infiltrated a Bible study event hosted by the South East Pennsylvania Synod. And by infiltrated I mean I heard about it from a pastor friend in that synod and dutifully sent in my registration indicating my lunch preference. But the reason I went is because one of my seminary professors would be speaking, Dr. David Lose, professor, author, theologian, and blogger, and I guess you might go as far as to say I’m a bit of a groupie.

Everything he said that day I had heard before in his classes and lectures, but being on this side of ordination, actually being a pastor, I heard his words with new ears. I felt like I “got” what he was saying in a way that I hadn’t before.

This story that we have begun retelling tonight is a story that you also have probably heard before, maybe even many times. But right now, at this moment, during this season of Lent, you are in a different place than you were the last time you heard it. And though Jesus words don’t change from year to year, the meaning we find in them grows and changes, like a living thing.

One thing that never changes about Jesus is his funny way of bringing out both the best and worst in the people around him. For those who have experienced the healing and restoring power of Jesus, this man is someone we try, however haltingly, to imitate. For those who have a stake in the status quo, who want so badly to hold on to the darkness that is so familiar, Jesus must be rejected, even destroyed. In these old familiar stories, it’s pretty easy to identify who’s who. But this becomes much harder as we living in the middle of our own story. And sometimes, we are both kinds of people at the same time.

 Our story begins this night at a party, which is as good a place as any for some drama, I guess. This gathering too is infiltrated by an unexpected guest – a “Jesus groupie” if you will. We don’t know who this woman is or where she came from – we only know that she is driven by one purpose, and one purpose only, to give Jesus a beautiful gift – a jar full of very expensive perfume, likely the most valuable thing she owned. This woman was the only one who did not abandon Jesus that night. Hers was the last kind act that Jesus experienced on that long night of suffering. She is the first of many faithful women who remained by Jesus’ side during his passion. And because of that, Jesus praises her, even though history does not even remember her name.

But on this night, up is down, and down is up. Just after the woman gives her costly gift, Judas sells his loyalty to Jesus at the cost of thirty pieces of silver. Judas, who was an invited guest to Jesus’ inner circle, is the one who betrays Jesus, while the nameless party-crashing woman is the one who gives Jesus comfort on the eve of his suffering. Jesus is again revealing both the very best and the very worst in us.

Most of the time, though, we are not all-out betraying Jesus as Judas did, but neither are we so eager to be as self-giving like this woman. Most of the time, we fall somewhere in between the two. We skirt around the edges of the path Jesus calls us to, professing our unending loyalty like Peter while at the same time sorrowfully wondering about our own unfaithfulness. We don’t want to betray Jesus, but at the same time, we are reluctant join Peter in his promise: “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.” We all know how that worked out for Peter, but could any of us truly say we would have acted any different that night?
Human beings are hard-wired for self-preservation. If anything, we are really, really good at avoiding death at all costs. Death, even if it is not a physical death, is frightening, disrupting, and upsetting. It causes fear and pain. And that is exactly where Jesus is headed. That is exactly where Jesus calls us to follow him.

As German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote: “When Christ calls [a person], he bids him come and die.” That’s not a very happy thought. But in a way, that’s what Lent is all about - clearing out all the stuff that we’ve let clutter up our lives, all the things that in the end  aren’t really worth holding on to, but all the same, we are afraid to let go of.

When we follow Jesus’ call, our selfishness and greed are put to death. Our brokenness and separations are put to death. Our fear of the unknown is put to death. The darkness in our hearts is put to death. Even our death is put to death when Jesus calls us sinners to follow him.

Even as Jesus is face to face with his own suffering and death, Jesus gathers twelve very imperfect disciples to share in his last meal. He shares with them bread and wine, his body and blood, knowing full well that in just a few hours they will be scattered like frightened sheep and one will betray him. And yet, Jesus promises them that he will see them again, after he is raised, and he will go before them to Galilee, just as he went before us into death so that we, too, could have a share in death’s defeat.

But before that glorious resurrection dawn is a night as dark as death. Before the celebration of Jesus raised is the remembrance of Jesus betrayed and abandoned, of his body broken and blood poured out for many, for us, his imperfect disciples. During Lent we live inside story, as we are gathered together, sing hymns together, pray together, sit in silence together, waiting together in hope for that coming dawn to shine on us.

Amen.

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.

Faith and Social Media (my two cents)

This was my article for our June newsletter.

In April, I attended a workshop held at Crossroads camp about engaging young adults in ministry. Now, you may be thinking, “But Pastor Lydia, YOU are in that category, right? Shouldn’t you naturally KNOW how to minister to your peers?” The trust is, I am rather an anomaly in my generation. While my confirmation class was the largest in my home church’s history (17), almost none of my fellow confirmands has been to church since. But it is also true that, like the rest of my generation (called “Millennials” by many social physiologists) I grew up navigating technologies that were unheard of even in my parent’s generation. 

We are living in a historic moment, where technology is exploding all around us and the world is changing faster than we can keep up with it. Where in the world is God in the mists of Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Pintrest, Pandora, iPhones, texting, and Twitter? 

I recently heard a story about two shoe salesmen who traveled to Africa during its colonial era. The first salesman, depressed that the local people went barefoot, wrote home “Bad news. No one here wears any shoes.” The second scribbled his letter home in excitement: “Great news! NO ONE here has shoes!” This story comes from a fantastic TED talk given by Benjamin Zander (click HERE), which can be found on the TED website (TED talks are short, interesting talks given by experts and creative people around the world), Though Zander‘s talk is about classical music, this story he used has much to say about the world that the church finds itself in today.

We can look around us in dismay and think about those “darn kids” on their phones all the time, or we can wonder along with them about how to use what is available to us to connect TO people. It is true, technology can be an isolating distraction, but it is also a powerful tool that connects and engages people. This workshop I attended opened my eyes to the awesome potential at our fingertips, and the possibilities for ministry with people of all ages. For example, I post my sermons on my blog: 

www.likealutheran.blogspot.com and I’ve been trying out Twitter and Instagram.

 God has endowed us with creativity, curiosity, and the desire for connection. I hope that you will be exploring, trying, failing, testing, wondering, and discovering along with me, and that we can all find ways to grow in our faith together.