Faith for the Long Haul

11-12-17

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

Think about all the weddings you have been to all through the years. Each wedding is very different, but each wedding was also the same –they seem to be a continuous game of “Hurry Up and Wait.”

Hurry up and Wait for the service to start. …to greet the bride and groom after. Waiting to take pictures. … for cocktail hour to be over and dinner to begin. … for dancing, and then the cutting of the cake. All that waiting makes for a long night!

Another thing that’s true about weddings – the unexpected always happens. When I preformed my brother’s wedding two years ago, a bee got stuck my very hairsprayed hair right before the service! Fortunately, no bees or hair were harmed, and the rest of the service happened without incident! Another time, at my former congregation, one of the bridesmaids was in desperate need of a safety pin, which fortunately we had in the sacristy.

I’ve been a bridesmaid a couple of times too. Like weddings, there is something that all bridesmaid’s dresses seem have in common, no matter what the style. Almost none of them have pockets.

If you are a woman, you know the struggle. If you are a man, prepare to be enlightened. Do you ever wonder why women carry around gigantic purses and occasionally ask you to hold them for us? It’s because clothing manufactures have decided that pockets big enough to hold something useful like a cell phone, don’t look good on women’s clothing. So many of us make do with purses to carry everything we need, just in case.

Have you ever played that game at baby showers or bridal showers called Purse Bingo? It’s the one where you’re asked to dig through your purse to find strange or random items that you might be carrying around in there…. Like floss, socks, a screwdriver, extra batteries, or extra lamp oil.

Just kidding about the last one. But I wonder, if all of the bridesmaids in Jesus’s parable today had a purse, or at least bridesmaids’ dresses with pockets, would the story have gone any differently?

This is a really tough story to hear, most especially because Jesus starts out with “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this….” But Jesus, I have so many questions! Why do the “wise” bridesmaids seem so mean? What happens to the foolish bridesmaids? Is Jesus the bridegroom, and the wedding banquet, is that heaven?

And to top it all off, I find this parable hard to jive with what I know and believe to be true about Jesus and his message of love and grace. What happened to - share with our neighbors in need? Or welcoming people who are outsiders?

And who are we supposed to be in the parable? Are we wise bridesmaids or are we foolish bridesmaids? And maybe our answer will change tomorrow, and change again the day after. Today you could might feel like ready and prepared to face whatever life throws at you… and other days you might feel foolish and unprepared, like your lamp is flickering dangerously low and about to go out, and you too are panicking and desperate to keep the darkness at bay…. wondering, why won’t Jesus just come and rescue us already????

Both wise and foolish bridesmaids were waiting in the dark, waiting for the arrival of the bridegroom and the coming wedding celebration. Both wise and foolish bridesmaids fell asleep, since the bridegroom was taking SO LONG.

I wonder if the wise bridesmaids had been in this position before. Perhaps this was familiar to them, and they knew what to expect. They might have known that the night might be long and dark, they might have known what it’s like to run out of oil. Perhaps they had been foolish bridesmaids in the past, and came this time ready for the long dark night ahead.

But shouldn’t this elicit some compassion toward the foolish on the part of the wise? Perhaps not, given the demand that the foolish bridesmaids make – “GIVE US some of your oil!”

Whoa, hold on here. No “please and thank you,” no acknowledgement that they “done messed up,” and didn’t show up prepared. The foolish bridesmaids are foolish not just because they didn’t come ready for a long night, but also because they DEMANDED that their more prepared sisters cough up some of their hard-earned and hard -won wisdom, I mean, oil. The foolish wanted a quick fix, and easy solution, with no accountability on their part.

No one WANTS to sit in the DARK as the night falls. Just look at how much light we put in our lives, especially now that it gets dark out so early in the evening, it seems. No one wants to sit in the “dark night of our souls” sometimes, where things are unclear and uncertain, and the way forward is clouded, relief is nowhere in sight, and joy seems to have run far, far away. But sitting in the dark, your lamp about to go out, waiting for SOMETHING, ANYTHING…. is a place we ALL have been. Probably multiple times by now. The people we love hurt us. The bodies we have been given fall apart and fail us. The things in our lives we though were constant and secure, crumble around us. If there is an easy way to get some light in our lives, let’s do it, drop everything and go after it, spend any amount of money to buy it…. anything but sit in the dark waiting for Jesus.

The foolish bridesmaids were not foolish because they weren’t ready. The foolish bridesmaids were foolish because they didn’t stay in the dark. They didn’t trust the light of the other bridesmaids to carry them through the night. They didn’t acknowledge their lack and ask for help, but instead gave up, seeking a quick fix rather than trust in the other’s light and the love of the approaching bridegroom. They didn’t trust that nothing, not even the deepest point of the night, can stop the bridegroom from arriving.

So here WE are, waiting in the dark, maybe almost asleep, tired out from waiting, maybe with our wicks burning dangerously low. We’re in the “in-between time,” waiting in a twilight world between two dawns – the first being the birth of a baby two thousand years ago to a teenage mom in occupied territory in the Middle East. And the second? Presumably that’s the one that all of us bridesmaids are still waiting for, which is the final victory feast over death and the grave. It’s like the worst invitation to a wedding EVER. We don’t know WHEN or WHERE or HOW it’s happening… only that it WILL.

That doesn’t mean it’s nap time. To make it through this waiting time in one piece, together, as the body of Christ, we’re going to need all-hands-on-deck, and pool together every single gift that God has given us. For some of is that may mean giving a portion of what we earn or increasing our offering to the church, to do the holy and humble work of keeping the lights on so that our building may continue to be a ministry to the community - being of use to groups like AA, NA, Al. Anon, Girl Scouts, Civil Air Patrol, and the homeschool group. For others, it may come as a calling to serve on one of the committees that help KEEPS our ministries going. For others, it may mean giving time for service projects. For still others, we may be called to offer our talents and passions for justice, for the good of this community.

How do we want to be a part of God’s kingdom here on earth for the next 500 years? Are we going to be a church that falls asleep on the job? Are we going to up and leave, and let our lights go out in a world that needs us? Or are we going to work together, even though the way might be dark, working to keep our lights shining for Jesus and his work for justice, reconciliation, and an end to every kind of violence for all God’s children?

On this day that we make our commitments to something as seeming small and inconsequential as a church budget, we ask ourselves …. how are we going to be actively waiting… together… to build up this community and our world in the name of Jesus, the one we place our trust in?

Speaking of being prepared, I would like us to take a moment to reflect on what you have written or want to write on your leaf that you received this morning. This is not a binding contract, of course. And we are not limited to one thing. But I would like us to sit for just a minute and think about what we want to write on our leaves, which will soon join other leaves on our little offering tree here.

(Here is where we filled out our leaves)

In a few minutes we’ll be handing in our pledge cards, and also hanging our leaves on this little tree here. This is an act of daring, holy hope. This is an act that says, we are not just willing to wait for Jesus to arrive for us, but we are willing to help make that happen in this church, in the community, and in our world.

We are not giving up. We won’t be distracted. We are not searching for a quick fix. We are in this for the long haul, folks, and we are in this TOGETHER. The going might be tough. The way might be hard to see. Our lamps might threaten to go out on us. And Jesus might take his sweet time showing up.

But we have each other to sit in the shadows, waiting for the dawn together. We have the call of our baptisms to wake us from the sleep of despair and complacency. We have the body and blood of Christ to sustain us as we work. And we do have Jesus, who always comes out to meet us. Amen.

All Sinners and Saints Day

All Saints 11-5-17

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

Do you have a favorite show that you MUST WATCH and you just CANNOT MISS an EPISODE? Stranger Things, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones…? Anyone? Well, I used to be totally addicted to a show called Once Upon a Time. Every Sunday at 8 PM, the TV had better be turned to that station OR ELSE. Don’t talk to me, don’t ask me anything, don’t make any loud noises, don’t even look at me for that whole hour.

Once Upon a Time is pretty much what it sounds like …. a Disney fairytale for adults. And who didn’t like Disney movies growing up? Princesses that were beautiful and compassionate, princes that were brave and dashing, and all the woodland creatures who were available to help you with basic household chores. What’s not to love? We just had Halloween, and I’m sure you had your fair share of Cindrellas, Elsas, Moanas, knocking at your door.

This show, Once Upon a Time, keeps to the spirit of that classic fairytale structure – a baby, a princess by birth, the product of true love, is sent out into the world as the only hope to save her people, who are under wicked queen’s curse. But the twist is that THIS princess grows up in “the real world” - with cars and computers rather than magic and fairy dust. And as a result, she has a hard time coming to terms with her enchanted past.

But we all know that life is way more complicated than what happens in a fairytale. At some point, we put away the gowns and crowns and magic wands. We grow up, and realize that we were not secretly born a princess or a prince, and that we are not called to embark on a thrilling quest to save the kingdom.

Or are we?

If we truly outgrow fantasy, why is it then, that we are so drawn to “rags to riches” stories? Not just in fairytales, but also in our movies, shows, and books? Why were we so caught up in stories of people who started out with nothing and now are wildly famous and successful? Could it be that we can’t help thinking “maybe, just maybe, this could be me”? That I really might have what it takes to be a “hero” in my own story? That, as Belle from Beauty and the Beast laments, there must be more than this provincial life?”

As it turns out, we have our own kind of “heroes” in our Christian tradition, don’t we? We typically call them “saints.” That is kind of a loaded word, thought. What does the word “saint” really mean?  Who are the people we tend to call “Saints”? Someone who is kind and compassionate? Wholly devoted to God? A bit stuffy, who doesn’t like to have fun? Someone who makes you feel kind of like an inferior Christian in comparison?

In some traditions, “Saint” is like a special title with a lot of criteria to “qualify” in order to have that special title. I’m not sure what they all are, but I know that it involves miracles and many, many good deeds over the course of a lifetime. The point is, it’s very hard to get to be THIS KIND of saint.

For us, in the Lutheran church there is just one thing necessary to being a saint. Do you want to know what it is? Do you? I hope you do, because I’m going to tell you anyway. Ok, here it is… The one thing necessary to being a saint is… Jesus.

Yup. You heard me right. Jesus is the one thing that you need in order to be a saint. And because of Jesus, we have ALL been made saints. Not the “holier than thou” kind of saint that is unattainable for most people. But instead, the kind of saint to is a forgiven and redeemed child of God.

So let’s forget about those Disney movies for a minute.  Let’s forget about all the things you think that you think make up a truly “saintly” person. You have been called to be a saint. I want you all, right now, to turn to your neighbor and say to each other, “You are a saint…”

Because the most amazing story ever told is actually true: each and every one of you was chosen at birth to be something extraordinary: a beloved child of God. As we heard from the first letter of John, “see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God… beloved, we are God’s children now.”

NOW. Right now. Not when you have all your ducks in a row, when your life is order and no longer sin… but now, every day you’ve already lived and every day that you are GOING to live. How? Not by doing miracles or X number of good deeds over the course of your life…. Not by being a super human. But by being baptized.

How many of you remember when you were baptized? … anyone? If you were a baby, and DON’T remember, let me remind you what happened that day. In the service of baptism, we are publicly acknowledging the fact God loves you and has chosen you to be his beloved child. If you were a baby, your parents promised to raise you so that you could live into this reality, both with their help and with God’s help.

In the show, Once Upon a Time, the baby princess grows up, and finally comes to terms with her birthright, and she is finally able to break the curse that holds her people captive. But that is not the end of the show – it’s only the end of season one. In season two she struggles with the implications of who she is, and tries with mixed results to live into her calling, not just as “savior” to her people, but also as a daughter - and a mother. And she doesn’t always get it right.

The truth is, we’re still going to mess up. Being a saint, a beloved child of God, does not mean that we are going to be perfect and nice all the time. We’re still going to get frustrated at our kids or grandkids We’re still going to yell at people in traffic (which I admit I do far too often). We’re still going to screw up our relationships and spend our money on things we don’t need and make judgments about people who are different from us.

But this is why Jesus didn’t just skip ahead to the cross to get to the “dying and rising for us part,” though that part is SUPER important, of course. Jesus knows that we need help, he knew we can’t do it alone. That’s why he walked around for three years with a crew of young, clueless blue-collar, working-class guys, saying stuff like “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Stuff that really is pretty obvious but is actually really hard to do.

Martin Luther was on to something when he described our both-at-the-same-time realities like this – we are both 100% sinner and 100% saint at the same time. Last night, at a conference in Philly I was at, one of the presenters greeted us this way… “Good morning saints…” (meager response) “Good morning sinners.” (robust response). Yes, and it went EXACTLY like that!!

So, should we dress up half like an angel and half like a devil to remind ourselves of this? 

Sure, if you really wanted too… but you probably shouldn’t. Instead, let’s look again at Matthew 5, the Beatitudes. You may remember that we have heard this text recently, about 9 months ago to be exact… actually it was my first official sermon here at Family of God. I remember reflecting on the fact that this was my inaugural sermon here, just as this text was also Jesus’s inaugural sermon in Matthew, a section of the longer we call “The Sermon on the Mount.” And the first part of this sermon is dedicated to exactly WHO are blessed… and spoilers, it’s not who we think they are.

THESE are the blessed ones –those who don’t have it all together, those who are bullied, dispirited, or fleeing their homes as refugees, those who are grieving, those who hunger and thirst for the common good, those who are merciful and compassionate, those who work for peace and reconciliation, those who have a single-minded devotion to God’s kingdom, those who don’t back down from working for justice, even when they are misunderstood and challenged. Jesus calls THESE people blessed. And I am sure that we can all find ourselves somewhere on this list.

God loves you. And God chose you. You are a beloved child of God. A sinner yes. But also, a saint.

At the end of every funeral service, we hear these word: “Into your hands, merciful God, we commend your servant. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive them into the arms of your mercy…. And into the glorious company of the saints in light.”

We have loved ones who are already there, with the saints in light. But we aren’t there yet. We’re still mourning… we are still poor in spirit…we are still starving for justice and righteousness in our world… we are still working for peace … We still seek to treat the word with mercy and gentleness where the world seems to lack it so much. But Jesus sees us. Jesus walks with us. Jesus calls us his saints – right here, right now -  and Jesus calls us blessed. Amen. 

Walking in the Light of God for the Next 500 Years

Reformation 10-29-17

(Video of my sermon here, sorry for the terrible angle)

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

Did you all know that the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation is this year? Haha, of course you did. And actually, this is exactly what we are celebrating today – that five hundred years ago on October 31^st, 1517, a monk and professor at Wittenberg University nailed a sheet of paper to the church door and the world would never be the same. What was on the piece of paper, you ask, that was so radical that we still are feeling the ripples down through the ages to this day? It was 95 thoughts on the practice of the time of selling something called Indulgences. Hmm… sounds pretty boring and irrelevant to our lives right now, 500 years later… or it is?

Now, bear with me for just a little bit before our eyes roll back into our heads from Church History Bored. The church at the time of Luther created an elaborate system of forgiveness. You sinned, you went to confession, then you could take communion and be forgiven. But Luther noticed a big shift when indulgences came along. Fewer and fewer people were interested in confession and seeking ACTUAL repentance. Instead, they bought indulgences, a piece of paper that forgave you. Imagine, or just a few coins, you had a “permission slip for any sin” - past, present, future… for yourself or any of your loved one.

If the 1500s had commercials, Luther might have seen one like this – Having problems shopping for a perfect Christmas gift for “hard to shop for family members”? Look no further! Introducing “Indulgences!” Forgiveness of any sin, any time! No expiration dates! No strings attached! Transferable AND portable! The perfect medieval stocking stuffer – yours for only a few of your hard-earned coins!

This sounds completely ridiculous, because it is. Ridiculous, and exploitative, since it not only played on people’s fears about hell, but the money was also for an extravagant papal building project in faraway Rome. Indulgences gave people permission to trust in a piece of paper rather than on the grace of God.

Enter Luther, a hammer, 95 theses, and a church door.

Martin Luther had to remind us that there NO WAY we can buy our way into God’s good graces. We are in bondage to sin, and cannot free ourselves. But this grace has already been given to us, free of charge. Grace is not for sale, at any price.

The repercussions of Luther’s ideas have reverberating throughout the centuries, and throughout the world. At the Lutheran World Federation 12^th Assembly I attended and preached at in May, every one of the sub themes related to something being “not for sale.” “Creation, not for sale…” “Human beings, not for sale….” And “Salvation, not for sale.”

Dr. Monica Melanchton

On the day of “Salvation, not for sale,” presenter Dr. Monica Melanchton from India shared that the 95 theses affirmed human dignity. She told us that “the selling of indulgences reduces the believer to a mere consumer of religious goods.” Dr. Melanchton reminded us that salvation is not an abstract theological concept, or a commodity to be bought and sold, or even hoarded and then given away by Westerners to 3^rd world countries.

Dr. Melanchton shared a poem I won’t soon forget, told from the perspective of a woman in India who survives starvation and experiences the love of God as food in a famine-stricken area. The poem goes, “I can hope to live one day more, for you made God come to me as 200 grams of gruel… Now I know what you are speaking about, for God so loved the world … every noon through you.”

In the poem, no one bought the starving woman an indulgence. No one told her “our thoughts are prayers are with you” and then stood by to watch her starve. God became incarnate to her through 200 grams of gruel, and the hands that provided her that food every day at noon. God becomes incarnate through these works of mercy. God becomes incarnate as we gather together in the breaking of the bread, then going out into the world to share that bread with others in need.

We are saved by grace through faith given to us by a generous God. But we cannot make Grace into a new kind of indulgence, giving us permission NOT to follow God’s call into the world to do acts of mercy. Not so that we may earn our way into heaven – which we can never do – but because “God loves the world…. THROUGH US.”

Martin Luther’s Thesis #42 reads, “Christian are to be taught that the pope does not intend that the buying of indulgences should in any way be compared with works of mercy.” Followed by #43: “Christians are to be taught that the one who gives to a poor person or lends to the needy does a better deed than if a person acquires indulgences.” Still think that the 95 theses are dusty old relics?

The ELCA has a tagline that goes “God’s work, our hands.” God used our hands this weekend when we packed meals for Feed My Starving Children – which, by the way, I think Martin Luther would have loved the fact that we celebrated the Reformation through acts of mercy rather than yet another brat fry or German fest (not that there is anything wrong with them). But perhaps a better use of our celebration would be to let God use our hands, and also to acknowledge that the work of the Reformation that continues around the world.

Turning over our check to FMSC (Second in amount to Merck Insurance!)

FMSC Meal Packing Event

The Lutheran World Federation was clear last May in it’s world-wide commitments in working for justice for the environment and for women, and to reform the church in a way that is “Global, Ecumenical, and Ongoing.  So, for the LWF to have gathered for the 12^th assembly in Namibia - a place that has seen its fair share of hardship, colonialism, and apartheid - was a pretty big deal.

During the Global Commemoration service during the assembly, Bishop Zephania Kameeta preached to the ten thousand Lutherans  from all over the world on this very text. Here in today’s reading, the Jewish people aren’t the “bad guys” – they are simply voicing a question that we all would have asked Jesus – “what do you mean, that we are not free?”

As Americans, WE have never been under the heavy yoke of colonialism or apartheid as places like Namibia have experienced….oh wait… Except that we HAVE. But having thrown off OUR English overlords, we have become a colonial power, imposing our way of life wherever we go. And we have created our own version of apartheid in the form of racism - more subtle, but no less evil in nature.

As Bishop Kameeta preached: “All this can be true that we are not slaves of anyone, but we certainly can be slaves of ourselves.”

Even in our celebration of the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, we can easily become enslaved to the rosy picture of our past. We have become enslaved to our privilege as Americans, we have become enslaved to our whiteness, we have become enslaved to our heritage and the temptation to drive into the future while looking into the rearview mirror.

I’ll be honest, one of the things I was most looking forward to about the Global Commemoration service in Namibia was to sing “A Mighty Fortress” AKA the “Lutheran Theme Song” with ten thousand Lutherans from around the world. I was totally anticipating all the goosebumps, and feeling absolutely swept away in wonder…. And I was absolutely disappointed. Somehow my section in the stadium got completely lost and we ended up singing the last verse twice. So much for a transcendent experience.

… Except, I DID have EXACTLY the experience I was EXPECTING… at the END of the Global Commemoration service… when ten thousand Lutherans from all the world sang the South African hymn “We are Marching in the Light of God.” It was like an out of body experience. It was a moment beyond time, beyond sight, beyond language or thought. In that moment, together, we were Africans, Europeans, Asians, Middle Easterners, North and South Americans – TOGETHER, the body of Christ, one family of God.  In that moment, I got to see what the kingdom of God looked like, felt light, SOUNDED like. 

It looked like diversity, sounded like harmony, and felt like unity.

As one, with our beautiful harmonies ringing to heaven, we proclaimed to one another that the Reformation will live on in us… that we will march together, sing together, pray together, proclaim freedom together, all while being sustained by the light and love of God.

When we continue to walk in the light of God, as Bishop Kameeta said, “the amazing Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the over the top love of God, and the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit will be with all of us.”

May this be our prayer for the next 500 years. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Empire in the Temple, "Me Too" in the Church

Sermon 10-22-17

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

A few years ago, NPR ran a program from the BBC that was called "The history of the world in 100 objects." One of the episode featured a gold coin from India from 1500 years ago. This coin does what coins have done for thousands of years - tell all who handle them that their ruler enjoys the special favor of heaven, or even that he himself was a god. Every day, with every transaction, you would get that constant reminder of who was REALLY in charge of your life. Which, by the way was NOT YOU.

Isn’t it funny, though, that 2000 years later, we are still put faces of men on our money – they may not be kings, but they are men still loom large, and are revered as almost god-like in our American consciousness - George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ben Franklin, and the newly remembered and made re-famous Alexander Hamilton…. the Scottish immigrant that American forgot until the recent smash hit hip-hop musical bearing his name came along.

And hopefully one of these years we will be able to add the face of a woman on one of these bills, and we too can join the ranks of other countries with women on currency, such as the likes of Syria, Mexico, The Philippians, Cameroon, among many others. I pray someday the plans to put the face of Harriet Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill will come to fruition. Not only did she free hundreds of slaves through the Underground Railroad, but she planned and lead a raid to free slaves against plantation owners along the Combahee River. This was the first military operation executed by an American woman, who was both black and a former slave, who could not read or write, who was only 5 feet tall. Is there any doubt that we need to get this woman on the twenty-dollar bill, STAT?

The face on currency clearly reflect the values of those in power. At the time of Jesus, Israel was a nation under the thumb of the oppressive and expansive Roman Empire… and trust me, it was a REALLY BIG THUMB. So, it was a matter of course that the Romans used their currency to remind the Jewish people who was boss.

In response, Jewish leaders found themselves in one of a few different factions with varying degrees of complicity and resistance to the Roman Empire. Two are named in our text today, one is familiar to us - the Pharisees – the religious leaders with no love for Rome but tended to keep their heads down to keep their positions. We don’t know a lot about the Herodians, except that they obviously supported Herod, the ruler appointed by far-away Rome. Different groups with different perspectives, brought together by their mutual dislike of Jesus. As the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

This encounter happens almost immediately after Jesus told that really difficult parable last week, the one about the king hosting a banquet, murdering the invited guest who blew him off, and then throwing out the guy caught without a wedding robe…. The Pharisees were quickly catching on that Jesus was talking about them, and saying things that would upset the delicate balance of survival. So Jesus had to go.

Together, these two groups devised a question with NO RIGHT ANSWER. “Is it lawful to pay taxes?” If Jesus says yes, then he would be validating the Roman oppression, which would probably anger his supporters and go against his message. But if he says NOT to pay, he could be in deep trouble with the Romans.

But Jesus was on to them. He had them bring in a coin, and they give him one with the emperor’s face imprinted on it… which is hilarious because they are currently having this little chat IN THE TEMPLE…. And Roman currency of any kind was banned from being used IN THE TEMPLE. That’s why they are MONEY CHANGERS that Jesus throws out of the temple another time.

“You hypocrites,” Jesus says, seeing straight through their load of baloney. “Give to the empire what belongs to the empire….” Yes, go Jesus, really stick it to those snakes in the grass!

Then Jesus follows that zinger with - “And give to God what is God’s” …… yeah…. That one kinda deflates our balloon a little bit, doesn’t it?

If you remember the Sesame Street song from when you were a kid, or your kids were little, “One of these things is not like the other…” This is not a one-to-one ratio here, kiddos. Jesus’ fuzzy math here bring us up short. Just what does belong to the empire? And what does belong to God?

The second question is both incredibly easy and incredibly hard. What belongs to God? A better question to ask might be, what DOES NOT belong to God? Everything we have and everything we are belongs to God. As a fellow pastor quipped, “If you give God what is God’s, then Caesar is one broke joker.”

But we live in a world where we cannot seem to escape the Empire and all that comes with it. By empire here I am not referring to the Roman empire, but from the forces in the world that govern our lives and our time, the machinations that trap us in systems of oppression and oppressing one another. We too are the ones caught with coins of the empire in the temple of the Lord. Wherever we go, we can’t escape being part of the system, or being on some level complicit in the empire and all that it represents.

Every time I hand over a bill with George Washington or Andrew Jackson on it, I am participating in this system. The coffee I love some much at Starbucks was probably harvested by people not being paid a living wage. The inexpensive dress I want to buy was almost certainly made in a sweatshop in Bangladesh or Honduras.

What I do with my money matters, and it sends a signal to the rest of the world what my values are. It is my hope that at least most of the time I am using this money – God’s money – for things that align with God’s Kingdom rather than the Empire of the world.

There sure are a lot of little things we can do so that God’s money can do some good through our hands. We can buy fair trade coffee and chocolate, especially with the big holiday Reforma-ahem-Halloween coming up. We can purchase clothes second hand from local thrift stores that benefit others. We can hold back on self-centered purchases and instead donate to good causes. We can even learn to balance our budgets and so that we are able to be generous tithers to this congregation and all its missions. We can give the Empire back all the bad stuff it has given us, and instead give back to God what belongs to God.

WE bear the IMAGE of GOD, and bear the title of “beloved child of God,” when we were marked on our foreheads with the cross of Christ when we were baptized. I bear the image of God, and you bear the image of God, and both you and are worthy of love and respect, and deserve being treated as such.

You may have notices something happening during this last week around the internet, a phrase that has caught the attention of the nation – “Me Too.” The hashtag conversation was created by Tarana Burke, program director for Brooklyn-based Girls for Gender Equity, empower young women of color. “Me Too” began to share with the world the stories of countless women worldwide. Nearly every female friend and colleagues shared a variation of this on the Facebook status: “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”

The sad truth is that even the church isnot exempt from needing to have this conversation. A little bit or a lot of Empire is in the Temple. But the Gospel truth is that God chooses to stand with the victims and the survivors and the justice warriors, in the ultimate act of “Me Too,” by sending his son Jesus into the world of Empire. Completely divested of his power, Jesus showed us God wants nothing to do with the kind of power we seek. Instead, God is about finding the lost, giving hope to the hopeless, claiming each and every one of us as loved Children of God, members of the Family of God across time and space.

When we forget that we bear the image of God, we forget our humanity. We forget that all of us belong to God, and we must treat one another – AND OURSELVES – accordingly. We are reminded every time we see a baptism or take communion. We are reminded every time we look in the mirror. And we will be reminded today - as we welcome new mission partners as part of this community, we will all have the opportunity to come forward to be blessed, to be re-marked, and to re-member “God’s endless mercy and love for you.”

And, taking our cue from Harriet Tubman, today we remember that when one of us who bears the image of God is not free, none of us, are. THAT is our work, as the image bearers of God - to free the oppressed, to believe the stories of the harassed, and to work for justice for ALL of God’s family….until every voice CAN be lifted up in song, making heaven and earth ring with the harmonies of liberty, freedom, and peace. Amen.

Our hymn of the day was "Lift Every Voice and Sing"

Wearing Jesus

Sermon 10-15-17

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 week a card to the church (not from any of you), addressed to the family of Cora Lindquest, a former member who recently died and had her funeral service here. The card was sent to Family of God at OUR address though… We couldn’t open it to see what it was, but we could only send it on to one of her surviving family members.  

But did you know that reading most of the New Testament is like reading someone else’s mail? Most of those titles with the strange names are actually names of the towns and cities where early Christian communities sprang. Apostles like Paul, Peter, and others wrote to these growing communities to share wisdom, correct wayward teaching, express thanks, and sometimes chew them out of something was going really off the rails. For the last few weeks we have been hearing one of Paul’s letters to the church in Philippi in modern day Greece. Paul was not writing to just one individual, as we tend to do now, but he wrote to the whole community, expecting it to be read out loud to the whole church.  And the church at Philippi saved his letter, copied and shared it, and handed it down through the ages, so that WE get to benefit from someone else’s mail.

Today we hear from the end of Paul’s letter, as he sends his personal greetings or instructions to specific people. Paul gives a shout out to two women leaders in the church of Philippi, Euodia and Syntyche, who were having some sort of significant disagreement.

Mary: Listen up, guys...

These two women leaders had worked alongside Paul in the past, and he urges them now to put into practice their unity in Christ. That Paul calls them by name as co-workers in the Gospel is worth mentioning. At a time that women were viewed and treated as property, having no voice and few rights, these small gatherings of Jesus-followers were calling women to prominent leadership roles. Some were fellow-missionaries with their husbands, like Aquila and his wife Priscilla. Some women led house churches, while other women financially supported them, like Junia, Lydia, and Phoebe. After all, it was Mary Magdalene who first preached the good news of the resurrection of Jesus to the rest of the disciples.

The presence of Euodia and Syntyche in this letter, though brief, reveals the early church’s dedication to Jesus’ message of radical unity, hospitality, and inclusion. All people have value, including women. All are welcome to be co-workers in the Gospel with Paul along his journey – men, women, slaves, Jews and Gentiles.

Paul then picks up on another theme that he has repeated over and other again many times in this letter -rejoicing in the Lord. Rejoice ALWAYS, he says to the Philippians, and also to us. Rejoice in the Lord. Not just when things are going well. Not just when the sun is shining and you’re having a good day. But ALWAYS.

Really Paul? Always? Are you sure? Surely this guy must have an awesome life to be able to say such things. But then we remember that over the course of his ministry, Paul was often chased out of town, beaten, arrested, and as he writes this letter he is currently facing jail time for preaching the gospel. This man has very little in his life to give thanks for. And yet, he still does. Constantly. Perhaps even somewhat annoyingly.

Hmm, maybe digging into Paul is not giving us the easy way out from thinking about hard things this morning. Paul is making us ask some hard questions -  Just what IS true, what IS honorable, what is just, pleasing, commendable, and worthy of praise? that he is mentioning in his letter? There is only one I can think of who completely fits that description, and that is Jesus.

All through his letter, Paul suggests these things: Think about how Christ is life, and death is gain (1.:21). Think about living your life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ (1:27). Think about how to make the call of Christ your own, just as Jesus has made you his own (3:13). Think about the way that Jesus emptied himself and became obedient even to the point of death, even death on a cross, to show the glory of God and claim you as his own (2:11).

Now after you have thought about all these things, Paul adds: now “Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me…” In other words, it’s not enough to hear the words, sing the hymns, and think about Jesus occasionally on days that aren’t Sunday. Like Euodia and Syntyche, it is now time for us to put into practice having the mind of Christ by living into our baptismal call as children of God, brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. And, as Euodia and Syntyche found, this is not always easy and almost never fun.

In my last congregation, as the myself or my pastor colleague hoisted the newly baptized youngster around the sanctuary –which my former colleague would do “Lion King Style” – we would sing “you have put on Christ, in him you have been baptized.” When many of us were baptized, we were wearing a white gown to represent that we are now clothed in the grace, eternal life, and love that Jesus has promised to give us. In fact, in THIS congregation, it is our tradition to give a little white garment to the newly baptized just for this reason. In baptism, we are welcomed to God’s victory feast over death and the grave, which we receive a foretaste of whenever we celebrate Holy Communion.  In our baptisms, we are now invited to that feast, the biggest party in the universe, and there is a special place for us waiting for us at the Lord’s Table. But with that special place also comes that special garb that we wear.

You might be familiar with the TV series “What Not to Wear.” I admit, it’s a guilty pleasure of mine. Or you might watch award shows like the Emmys and the Grammys and hear the female actors be constantly bombarded with the question, “Who are you wearing?” When really, they should also be asked about, you know, their actual acting careers.

Don't be this guy.

You’ve all seen those black t-shirts that LOOK like the cartoon character version of a tuxedo? Imagine showing up for a wedding wearing on of those shirts. Yeah, that’s probably not going to go over very well.

In the parable for today, that feast in described as a wedding feast, or a wedding reception. God is described as a king with a son – presumably Jesus - who is getting married. But nothing is said about who the bride is. Many scholars over the centuries have written that the bride of Christ is the us, the church. Martin Luther took this idea and ran with is. You know that old joke about marriage that says, “what’s yours in mine, and what’s mine is ours”?

So what do WE bring to the relationship? Honestly, not much at all. Sin, brokenness, pettiness, fear, hate, selfishness, and shame – not what we would exactly consider assets.

What does Jesus bring to the relationship? Everything. Life, resurrection, freedom, love, joy…. Jesus gets all that WE have and all that HE has becomes ours in our baptisms, when we “put on Christ” and all that he has given us. Maybe not in a literal white garment, but in the way we carry ourselves in the world. The world is watching.

This morning while scrolling through Facebook during breakfast, I came across this article on NBS news about a girl in Indiana who was denied her first communion… because of what she wanted to wear. Instead of a fancy white dress, she wanted to wear a nice, classy white suit. The administrators at her Catholic school in Indiana told her she had a choice – wear a dress, or to receive her first communion separate from her the rest of her classmates and friends. This girl and her family ended up leaving the school, hurt and confused. But I highly doubt that Jesus would have turned her away just because she wanted to wear white pants to her first communion. Why should we?

Scholar and professor Karoline Lewis writes “What not to wear? Complacency, conformity, and any kind of garb that is content with the way things are. What should we wear, so that the whole of the world can see who we are and what we are about? The kind of compassion, birthed by God’s own righteousness, that cannot, anymore, leave things the way they are.”

What NOT to wear? Hate, fear, prejudice, a spirit of scarcity.

What SHOULD we wear? Love. Kindness. Gentleness. Acceptance. Generosity.

In short, we should be “wearing” everything that Jesus has so generously given to all of us. Amen.

Out of the Hustle and into the Holy

Sermon 10-8-17

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

Last summer, I got an email from Augsburg Fortress to submit a brief review of a book that was NOT in our Reformation Popup book store, Dr. David Lose’s newest book, Making Sense of Martin Luther. (can be purchased by clicking HERE) As if we didn’t have enough books about Martin Luther floating around out there this year! But, here is another one, this one from one of my former professors. Dr. Lose has written other books in this series, the Making Sense series, writing blogs, known for his creative and memorable preaching, and most recently as the former president of the Lutheran seminary at Philadelphia, now part of United Lutheran Seminary. I of course jumped at the chance to write a review – after all, Dr. Lose was one of my preaching professors while I was a student at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis Minnesota. And how often does the student get the chance of “evaluating” one of their former professors”?

A few weeks ago, I got my complimentary copy of the book I reviewed, and I was surprised to discover that my review is listed among some pretty well-known people in the Lutheran word. Claire Burkat, the bishop of the South Eastern Pennsylvania synod - our own synod -  also gave a review, as did Dr. Timothy Wengert, who is a highly regarded Luther scholar and translator of Luther’s the Small Catechism, among other of Luther’s works.

So here I am, listed at the bottom of the group, Lydia Posselt, pastor, Family of God Lutheran Church, Buckingham, PA, right above Dr. Loses’ own very impressive resume.  

But I have a confession to make. I didn’t read the whole book before I wrote the review. They sent it to me in its entirety in a word document and gave me less than a week, which was while I was on vacation with my family. I have read other books by Dr. Lose, and after about a chapter and a half, I was confident that I could write three sentences to recommend this book. After all, I was not being asked to write a ten-page paper!

But compared to some of the people on this list, I feel like a bit of a slacker. I haven’t published any books. I feel accomplished when I even FINISH READING a book. I’m not a Bishop. I don’t know very much German. Yes, I won the Lutheran Word Federation preaching contest and went to Namibia, which was AWESOME, but some days that feels to me more like dumb luck than something actually earned. Yes, I get to put that “on my resume” and people will be impressed by that. And yes, I both love and hate the attention that it brings. When I was interviewed for in my college alma mater magazine, one of the questions was “Now that you’ve won this contest, what’s next?”

That question stopped me dead. What do you mean “what’s next”? Isn’t it enough for the time being that I accomplished this one thing? Will I be viewed as a slacker or as undeserving if I DON’T have big plans? Will people think that my career has peaked early and that is all downhill from here? Gosh I hope not!

None of us are immune to the hamster wheel of impressing, the hustle for worthiness we feel compelled to preform or else. We wonder if we have done enough, or are enough, to be loved and valued for ourselves. We trot out the best parts of our lives make ourselves feel worthy of love, while the “less acceptable” parts stay hidden. Shame researcher Brene Brown talks a lot about this, and she says, “we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don’t fit with who we think we’re supposed to be, …and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving.”

The apostle Paul knew this hustle very well. He writes to church in Philippi describing his impressive credentials. HE has a resume that would be the envy of Linked In. He was Hebrew of Hebrews, his parents did all the right things, and he had risen to a prestigious position among the Pharisees, and had made a name for himself persecuted early Christians so much so that his former name – Saul – was notorious among Jesus’ followers.

But then, something unexpected happened. Jesus called Saul – now called Paul – to do a complete 180 and follow Jesus instead. So Paul renounced everything, even his name, if it got in the way from following the call of Jesus. Paul tore down his diplomas and flushed them down the toilet, then threw all his plagues and trophies in the garbage. The only thing that matters on his resume – and ours – is our righteousness comes from GOD, and not from anything that we do or accomplish.

After all, this is one of the legacies of the Reformation, since Martin Luther himself was also very familiar with the “hustle for holiness.” He was a “monk among monks,” if you will, constantly striving to better himself, and spending hours and hours in the confessional, much to the annoyance of the person he was confessing to! Luther felt the harder he tried to be holy and acceptable to God, the more he felt lacking. Anxious and feeling trapped, Luther could not find a way out. But, as it turns out, Dr. Lose writes in his book, “a way out finds him.” (pg. 25)

We can TRY to hustle for God’s favor. We can TRY to push God out and tell God, “no thanks, I’ve got this whole righteousness thing.” We can TRY to “out-religion” God on our own resumes by only presenting the “acceptable” parts of ourselves and denying the messy bits.

But God is “determined to come DOWN to us, to meet us where we are.” “…The biblical witness places its faith not in our ability to earn God’s favor but in God’s promise to GIVE us God’s good favor,” (pg. 45) writes Dr. Lose. We don’t do anything – we are given worth and love as a gift from God. No more hustling, no more perfecting or performing. God gives us everything, including being called God’s beloved child… including being called by Jesus to be his hands and feet in the world. And so, Paul encourages the Philippians – AND US – to make this call our own, just as Jesus has made us his.

So, if everything has been given to me by God – righteousness, faith, the power of the resurrection from the dead, the prize of our call from Jesus – that it is entirely a gift and not of my own doing… The next question is how will I take care of this amazing gift? How will I be a good steward of God’s generosity? How will I be a good tenant of the things given to me by God?

Jesus told today’s parable about bad tenants as a negative example, and his intention was to trap the religions leaders in their hypocrisy – and they fell right in. The chief priests and the elders were so concerned about building their own resumes to impress God, so much so that they completely missed the son of God in flesh and blood who sat right in front of them. But even THEY got a chance to learn and to listen from Jesus himself! …. Even though, in the end, they decided to turn Jesus’s parable from story into a prediction.

Their goal was to keep their vision intact, a vision of an accounting God who desires us to hustle and preform for our worth. Thus, they were compared to the tenants of a vineyard, wanting control of the vineyard for themselves.

What’s our goal as the church, followers of Jesus, Family of God? Now that we know that the only thing that matters on our resume is the righteousness that comes from God, what then will OUR goal be? God has given us a vineyard to tend. How will we care for it?

Will our goal become to keep hustling and preforming and expecting others to do the same? Will we try to save ourselves by our own means with impress “church resumes”? Will we try to try to jazz ourselves up into something we are not? Will we work to try to get back to a time before, where all things looked successful and rosy – at least on the surface?

Or will our goal be to strain forward, as Paul did, forgetting what lies behind? Will we too press on in following Jesus’s call to serve a world that is in desperate need of some good news right now?

My hope is that we as a church will be a forward-looking church, remembering the parts of the past that are helpful but not fixating on the parts that hold us back.

The 500th anniversary of the Reformation is important not just because it shows us where we have been. It also inspires us to where we can GO in the NEXT 500 years.  Who knows what the legacy of the reformation will look like in the next 5, 50, or 500 years? One thing for sure though, is that God has new and exciting things in store for us before we hit the thousandth anniversary.

Until then, God has called us to be here in THIS place at THIS time for a reason. What are we supposed to be doing here in this part of the vineyard called Buckingham? What parts of our resume are not helpful, and what parts help us build on the works that Jesus has begun in us?

We have a lot of things going for us - generous hunger ministries coming out of our ears. We have a building that is available to groups in the community like home schools, girl scouts, and AA. We share so much out of our big generous hearts the abundance that God has already given us.

So give yourselves a little pat on the back… and now give yourselves a BIG PUSH! There is much left to do, but together, with Jesus as our cornerstone and anchor, we don’t need anything on our resumes other than what God has already done for us. Amen.