Jesus is Not Special

3-3-19

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

One Saturday when I was in middle school, my youth group carpooled out to Devils Lake State Park, about an hour north of Madison. It was a gorgeous fall day as we trekked up and down the hills around Devil’s Lake and enjoying the spectacular view. After a while, though, I noticed that my knees were starting to feel sore – not from going UP the steep hills, but more from going DOWN them. This is apparently a common phenomenon among people who do a lot of climbing – it often takes MORE energy to get DOWN a mountain than to go UP… and sometimes climbers get into trouble when they use up ALL their energy on the way UP, and don’t have enough strength to get back down again.

It’s sort of a wonder, then, that Jesus came down the mountain at all. After all, who would not want to just hang out with Moses and Elijah, with just your 3 closest friends, and keep your clothes dazzling white when you lived in a dusty climate WAY before TIDE was invented. Jesus COULD have taken Peter’s suggestion of building some tents for Moses and Elijah too, so they would be tempted to stick around for an extended camping vacation. It sounds like heaven for an introvert like me. Just set up shop and make people come to YOU. Especially knowing what would happen to Jesus after he came down.

But if Jesus HAD stayed up there on the mountain forever here in Chapter 9, where would that leave the rest of us? Sure, Jesus would remain shiny and nice, flanked by the Big-League Prophets and Peter, James, and John. But then, Jesus would never have taught us the Lord’s prayer, which doesn’t happen until chapter 11. Jesus would not have taught his parables about God’s kingdom. Jesus would never have healed the sick and blessed children or encountered Zacchaeus “the wee little man.” Jesus would not have his last supper, and he would not have suffered, died, and risen again.

We can’t live up on the mountain, and neither can Jesus. Jesus obviously did come down the mountain, the very next day, and just in time too.  Almost immediately from the crowd that was following Jesus, a father comes forward begging for help. It sounds to our modern ears that his son is suffering from some kind of epileptic fit. Whatever the cause, this helpless child is suffering, and no on else but Jesus can help.

As Jesus approached the boy, the illness cast the poor kid down to the ground yet again, which must have been terrifying to witness. But Jesus got closer, and so his pristine, dazzling white clothes became covered in the dust that the convulsing boy must have invariably kicked up. And, both still covered in that dust, Jesus healed the child and gave him back to his father, who I’m sure was too overjoyed to notice all the dirt. His boy was whole again, and that’s all that mattered. I’m sure that father was glad Jesus came down the mountain.

Peter didn’t want Jesus to come down the mountain. Perhaps he was afraid that Jesus’s shiny special-ness might wear off if he didn’t stay up there. But what Peter didn’t know yet is that Jesus is for everyday use, not just for special occasions. He didn’t know yet that Jesus was serious about getting involved with the messiness of being human, and that meant getting a little bit dusty sometimes… and other times it meant staining his face with tears or even bleeding from a cross. But this is how we know that the love of God is real – real love gets dirty. Real love gets shabby and threadbare from use.

In that favorite children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit, the stuffed toy that became so well-loved by his boy that all his fur rubbed of, his whiskers fell out, and his lovely brown coat had faded to a dull grey. This boy too became sick, and the velveteen rabbit stayed by his side as he got well again.

But when the boy was better, all his things – which were thought to be “germy” - were packed up to be thrown away, including the rabbit. As the rabbit sat out with the rest of the garbage that night, The Nursery-Magic fairy came to visit him. The rabbit’s scruffy and well-worn appearance proved that the boy had loved him very much. Love had already made the toy rabbit real to the boy… and so the fairy simply completed the process of becoming real by changing the toy rabbit into a real one.

I love what the Skin Horse says to the velveteen rabbit early in the “becoming real” process: “Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you…You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily…  or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off… and you get … very shabby. But these things don't matter at all.”

Being real is being a little rough around the edges, a little dusty and mundane. Because that is where we live MOST of the moments of our lives – up the mountain but also down it. 

As some of my United Methodist women clergy friends wrote in a devotional (We Pray With Her), “Life has those big, beautiful moments, but mostly it’s made up of mundane things…  The good news is that God is in the business of making mundane things holy.” (page 65) Another friend said to me, “Jesus is not birthday cake… Jesus is our daily bread.”

Jesus is not special and doesn’t have to be put away up on a mountain to be kept safe to be used only on special occasions, like breakable fine china. Jesus also uses very “non-special” things for his work. Water and a promise become the means we are called beloved Children of God in our baptisms. Ordinary bread and wine become the means we are welcomed and fed by Jesus’s presence so that we don’t lose the strength to keep going down the mountain and survive and thrive in this dusty world. Jesus is with us every moment, in the breaking of bread, in the dust and in our tears, in our sweat as we work for justice.

We are about to embark on the season of Lent, which begins on Wednesday with a smudge of ash on our foreheads and a reminder that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Jesus gets down there in the dust of life, and next week he’ll be spending 40 days in the dust of a barren wilderness. But we’ll take more about that next week.

For now, Jesus is both up on the mountain, shiny and savoring the glory of his identity of be the Beloved of his Father, before descending into the dust that makes up our daily realities. Jesus is up there on the mountain, but Jesus is also down here on the flat places as well – as he preached last week in his sermon on the plain. He is down here where real love gets a bit messy, and love might get revealed in the ordinary things, hidden in plain sight.

One of my favorite poems is called “To be of Use,” and part of it goes like this:

“The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.”

Real Love is not about the big birthday parties or cakes you got on your birthday – you saw their love every time your parents kissed your booboos better, or changed your diaper, or taught you how to tie your shoe. Real Love is not about the vows that you made on your wedding day in a white dress or immaculate tux, but it’s every time you said “I love you” before leaving the house, every time your spouse folded the laundry or loaded the dishwasher. Real Love is being present in all the little moments, not just the big ones. Real Love was made to be… useful. And it was made to be used OFTEN… every moment of every day.

This means that we might get a little dinged up on this journey called life. When follow Jesus’ example, WE are likely going to get dusty, smudged, faded, or even broken. Like one of our communion chalices – it came apart right at the seam. But we glued it back together, and we will be using it again. Jesus does the same – healing our broken and loved-off bits, so that we can continue to be vessels of the Real Love of God in the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Jesus Leaks

Sermon 7-1-18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Real Jesus, Real Life.

Sermon 4-29-18

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

Today is a very special day. This is the day that we will be welcoming Nate Karpinski to the Lord’s table for the very first time, along with his family, and all of you, members of Family of God. Do you remember your first communion experience?

Do any of you remember what your first communion classes were like? I asked some of you this question one night during Nate’s experimental first communion classes, which happened on Thursday nights during Lent at Panera Bread. Since Nate his age taking the first communion class, we invited all ages to participate in this eating and learning event, which I think everybody got a kick out of. I think many of us had a variation of the typical classroom experience, with memorizing and a lot of Bible reading. Fun fact: apparently during one of MY first communion classes, I rattled off the entire words of institution verbatim, which is when my mom tells me SHE knew I was destined to be a pastor.

What do you remember about the day of your first communion? What it in this church? …or at another church? How many of you wore a white dress or a fancy suit? Were you in second grade, or fifth grade, or a teenager being confirmed too? Did you bring your extended family with you?

No matter when or where or how you received communion for the first time, the important thing is that you DID… and that Jesus showed up.

During a First Communion Sunday at a church I previously served, an early teen looked at me with wide eyes as I poured communion wine from the pouring chalice into his little cup during communion. He asked in an incredulous whisper…. “is this real wine?” By some miracle I didn’t laugh out loud, but only nodded. Yes, this is real wine. Yes, this is real Jesus.

Over a month ago it was Easter. Yes, wow, times really flies! And during the week before Easter, which we call Holy Week, we remember on Thursday night the first time that Jesus instated Holy Communion. While eating his last meal before he was to be crucified, he passed a loaf of bread and a cup of wine to a room full of his closest friends one last time… and told them “This is my body… this is my blood.” These “friends” though, in just a few hours, would betray him, deny him, and abandon him before Jesus drew his last breath on the cross on Good Friday. That Thursday was THE first communion… much like today will be Nate’s first communion, surrounded by other Followers of Jesus – US…. People who ALSO betray, deny, and abandon Jesus… plenty of times.

So, Nate…you are in good company. You too will be surrounded by sinners like me and all of those gathered here. As our funeral commendation goes for those who have died in the faith… “Sheep of God’s own flock… sinners of God’s own redeeming.”

When Nate… and each of us… were baptized in the Family of God – not necessarily this church, but maybe so… but I mean God’s family of faith existing in all times and in all places… when we were baptized, we were claimed by God as beloved children, welcomed into the fold. But as we grow up, life… gets complicated. We graduate from high school and college, face a world full of tough choices, and find ourselves unable to extricate ourselves from institutions and cultural norms that are inherently racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, xenophobic, and otherwise harmful to other members of the Body of Christ. We sin, both knowingly and unknowingly. We fall, and we fail. We hurt one another, and we hurt creation. We fall victim to the lie we tell ourselves – that I contain multitudes, that I can/ and should/ have it “all,” than I can do all things by myself and all my own strength.

When Jesus told his disciples on that night, the night he was betrayed, his disciple still believed the lie too. They still believed, even after three years of hearing Jesus teach, witness Jesus working signs and miracles, hearing Jesus minister to the outcast and the outsider. Even after all that, they were still waiting for Jesus to arrive in majesty, to right all the wrongs in a blaze of glaze of glory and establish a kingdom (with them in power too of course).

But in just a few hours they would fall away… Judas would hand Jesus over to the religious police by a kiss of friendship…. Peter would deny Jesus not once but three different times… and the rest of his disciples would run away and hid, leaving only the faithful women to stand at the feet of the cross to mourn the death of their hope and dreams for a revolution.

They couldn’t do it. They tried to be faithful on their own strength and failed miserably.

Which we all do. They couldn’t do it on their own, because none of us can. What usually happens to a branch when it falls off of the tree, like during one of those big snowstorms we have a few months ago? It stops growing. It no longer produces leaves or flowers or fruit. But the branches that are still connected to the trees? Have you notices how beautiful all the blooms are becoming? They cannot bloom…. Or grow fruit or seeds, unless they are connected to the trunk.

Which is why Jesus created a way for us to be connected to him.  We cannot grow, or bloom, or create fruit, or makes seeds, without the sustaining and life-giving power that comes from Jesus. This is the power of God’s love for us, which comes from the weekly gathering around the Lord’s Table, to receive a small bit of bread and just a little bit of wine. Every week we hear the words “The body of Christ, given FOR YOU… the blood of Christ, shed FOR YOU.” Jesus lived, died, and rose again FOR YOU.

As Lutherans, we are both remember what Jesus said and did for us…AND we celebrate that Jesus is ACTUALLY HERE, in the earthly elements of bread and wine. Jesus is present in REAL things… things that week can see and touch. The waters of baptism welcome us into God’s family… and the bread and wine of Holy Communion connect us to Jesus …. And it connects us to one another, to all people of faith, through all times and all places.

We have tried to explain it… but words fail us. But we do believe: This is real bread. This is real wine. This is real Jesus. This is real connection. And this is real sustenance for the journey ahead.

So whether this is the first time you are experiencing Holy Communion… the fiftieth time… or the five-hundredth time… you are welcome to receive strength for your week. There is a place for you here, at the Lord’s table. As you come to the table today – even though we don’t partake around the table per se - I welcome you to be extra aware of what’s happening, as if you were experiencing it for the first time.

When you come forward, whether you are accompanied by your own immediate family, or you come forward alone, know that you are NEVER alone … you are surrounded by your family here, and beyond these walls. As you reach out your hand to receive the bread, be aware of how in need we are of the love and grace that Jesus offers us… and when we reach for Jesus, he will never leave our hands empty for long. As the wafer is places in your hand – just a very small taste of what God has given us – you will hear the words “The body of Christ, given for you.”

And as you take the wafer and dip it into the wine, remember that Jesus is the vine that we are connected to, who give us this life, just as blood that courses though our bodies carries what we need to all part of our bodies. Through “the blood of Christ, shed for you…”, through the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf, we too are made part of Jesus’s Easter victory over the power of death.

And lastly, as we walk back to our place in our favorite pew, we know that we won’t be staying there for long. After we have received this gift – for the first, fiftieth, or five-hundredth time – we are sent out into the world to bear fruit… fruit of love in a world that is very lacking in love right now. Thanks be to God, amen.

"Attitude Adjustment"

Sermon 10-9-16

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

When my siblings and I were kids and sassed off to my mom – which naturally I never participated in – she would tell us that we needed an “attitude adjustment.”

Kids have active imaginations, and so I would always picture that getting an “attitude adjustment” was similar to going to the chiropractor to get a back “adjustment” when your back is out of whack. Only, in this case, it would be my sassy attitude that needed a little adjusting.

In English, we use the word attitude a lot of different way – including but not limited to sassing off to one’s parents. An attitude can be an outlook, feeling, or position in regard to anything - person, thing, opinion, you name it. An attitude is a way that we see and interact with the world.  Sometimes our attitudes can help us perceive what’s in front of us more clearly, like wearing glasses. Sometimes, though, our attitudes are more like wearing the wrong prescription.

I bet my mom would have loved it if shaping up my attitude were as easy as going to the chiropractor or eye doctor. I can imagine she would have wished to adjust my attitude into something more parentally thankful, something more like, say, an “attitude of gratitude.”

I first heard about having an “attitude of gratitude” during my internship year in seminary serving a gigantic church in Minnesota. This church had money, resources, and connections to do amazing things like staging a drama series during Lent, creating their own bulletin art, and, in this case, commissioning a locally famous folk singer to write a brand new song based on that year’s stewardship theme of “Attitude of Gratitude.”

On the Stewardship kick-off Sunday, the folk singer unveiled the new theme song, which we sang it in all the services…. And then, it was never heard from again. It disappeared, at least for the rest of THAT year, as if it didn’t exist. All that production and effort…kind of…seemed wasted. Was an ‘attitude of gratitude’ truly instilled in that congregation? I honestly don’t know. As our own stewardship season quickly approaches, though, we can ask ourselves these same questions – though without the commissioned theme song. Would we describe ourselves as having an “attitude of gratitude’?  Do our attitudes perhaps need a little “adjusting”?   

One example of a pretty dramatic attitude adjustment is the story of Naaman, a famous war general, who also suffered from a painful and embarrassing skin disease. In the missing verses in today’s Old Testament reading, Naaman shows up on the doorstep of the King of Israel with a letter from his own king asking for healing, and accompanied by a giant parade: truckloads of gold, silver and fine clothes. After the initial mix up, Naaman parks his impressive motorcade, along with his warhorses and battle chariots, in the correct place -  in front of the Prophet Elisha’s humble little hut, who would be the one to do the actually healing.

How Naaman EXPECTED to be healed by Elisha included a dramatic appearance, loud shouting, and an impressive hand waving. Well, Naaman was very disappointed that what he got was a messenger and the command to bathe in a creek. He almost left without being cured, thanks to his pride, because he forgot that being healed was more important than HOW the healing happens. He needed a bit of an attitude adjustment, and a little prodding from his servant, to take hold of the healing that was offered him in this much less dramatic form.

None of this would have happened without the attitude of gratitude of the little slave girl from Israel, who sets this whole story in motion. Even though she was young, a girl, and a slave forced to serve her captors, her attitude of gratitude changed the lives of those around her.

Paul, while he was in chains, imprisoned in jail, wrote letters out of his own attitude of gratitude, and so we too are able to hear his encouraging words to people like Timothy. Paul had a dramatic “attitude adjustment” of his own– going from having once been one of the most ardent persecutors of Jesus’s followers to turning into one himself. Paul would not stop following Jesus, even though his attitude of gratitude eventually cost him his reputation, his freedom, and later his life.

An attitude of gratitude is also what set apart the 10^th of the 10 lepers that Jesus healed on his way to Jerusalem. It’s also likely why this text is often used at Thanksgiving services, and the reason I chose to use it when it was my turn to preach at our community thanksgiving service a few years ago. The service that year was at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Hightstown, and I was certainly grateful to have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as an ordained woman pastor to be able to preach there. And I even mentioned Pope Frances!

That evening I also shared an experience I had after doing a memorial service for a woman who I had never met who had no church home. Weeks later I was sent a large gift basket of fancy Harry and David goodies with my address misspelled and from a sender I didn’t recognize. It turned out it was this woman’s family, this group of “church outsiders,” who were showing their thanks in the only way they could think of, by sending a gift basket to someone they had only met once, but in thanks for an experience that obviously had meant a great deal to them.

These ten lepers, cultural outsiders living in the border country, had never met Jesus before, but had probably heard of him. Since they were forced to be separated from their community because of their skin condition, their healing would mean they would all be restored to their friends and families and greater community of faith. All, except for one. The Samaritan. He would be an outsider no matter what condition his skin was in.  

And yet, Luke’s point is to show us that, though all ten were healed with no strings attached, there was something different about the Samaritan.  There was something about his attitude that set him apart. He had an attitude of Gratitude.

From his example, we learn that an attitude isn’t JUST a mental orientation we have toward something. An attitude can also be a physical position or posture of our body to express an action or emotion. The Samaritan used his body, which was just made whole, to praise God. He stopped in his tracks, turned back, and bowed down in an attitude of thanks before the one who healed him. He had seen what the others did not – that in Jesus, God had come near to him, had made him whole, and had welcomed him into a community where he would never be considered an outsider ever again.

That community is the kingdom of God, where we all find welcome, where we all are made whole. This community defies time and space, spans political parties and differences, resists racial and economic divides, and crosses the chasms that separate us from one another, chasms caused by fear and hate.

Jesus heals these lepers while he was on his way turn death on its head, to turn outsiders into insiders, to turn his arms being spread in posture of shame and death into a gesture of welcome and embrace, by opening his arms to all of us.  And so, having been rejected by his own, Jesus gave of himself, even his own life, so that the rejected could always find a home with him.

As Paul wrote, Jesus’s attitude on the cross reveals to us the truly generously nature of God - to be faithful to us, even when we are in need of an attitude adjustment. 

Later on his journey to the cross, on his last night with his disciples who would later prove less than faithful, Jesus broke bread with them in his own version of a thanksgiving feast. Only this feast does not include turkey and cranberry sauce. Instead Jesus gave himself– his body, his blood, and the promise of his presence.  This kind of thanksgiving is one we celebrate not just once a year, but every week.

Every week, like the Samaritan leper, we live out our “attitude of gratitude” in what we do with our bodies, giving thanks to God by standing shoulder to shoulder with friends, neighbors, family, acquaintances, strangers, outsiders, all the people of God… Together with arms reaching, hands raised ready to receive what we have been promised, the greatest gift of all – the gift that never disappoints - the sustaining presence of Jesus.

And so what if this was the “attitude of gratitude” that we took out into the world with us, arms raised NOT to receive but instead to give? And to give what? And what have we to offer the world? We go out bearing to the world the very presence of Jesus, the one who makes us whole and goes with us on our way. Thanks be to God! Amen. 

Jesus, Last One Picked

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

Do you remember when you first walked into this this sanctuary after we moved all the chairs around? I bet the very first thing you thought was, “where is ‘MY seat? Where am I going to sit NOW?” Maybe your next thought was, “gosh it looks like there are a lot MORE front row seats now! Yippee!” But, I’m guessing that’s probably NOT what your next thought was.

But think about the last time you were a visitor in a new space. You walk in and stand awkwardly in the doorway, wondering where it’s “safe” to sit, who it is acceptable to sit with, and whether or not anyone wants you to sit with them. So you chose a spot and pray that someone will actually talk to you, or at least not notice you if you decide to sit in a corner all by yourself.

It’s the dreaded high school cafeteria, all over again. All these years later, we can be taken right back there – is everyone staring at me? Is what I’m wearing ok? What if no one talks to me?

When I was in high school, there was a Christian band I really liked called Superchick. The first song on their album called “Last one picked” – which is how we all felt sometimes - goes like this: “High school is like the state of the nation. Some people never change after graduation, believing any light you shine makes theirs lesser. They have to prove to everyone that theirs is better.”

And after graduation, you slowly realize that it still matters what you wear and where you live, who you’re friends with and what you watch. There will always be someone with better grades than you, with a bigger house or better spouse or nicer vacations or smarter kids or newer gadgets. We may think that we leave prom court and popularity contests behind us the minute that diploma hits our hands, but the mindset that is ”high school” is never something we actually get to leave behind us. Even after we graduate, there are still jocks, nerds, popular kids, winners, and losers, and the “last ones picked.”

…If I were to ask you to pick someone, anyone from now back through history, to invite over for dinner, how many of you would pick “Jesus”? Anybody? My next question would be… “Are you really SURE about that?” Jesus would LOVE to be invited over to your house, I’m sure…. But then he would probably say some really challenging things… AND THEN he would probably want to bring over some of his friends… sort of like in the vein of that well-known children’s book – “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” Jesus’s story might go something like– If you give Jesus an invitation, he’s going to want to bring his friends along….

Illustrator Daniel Erlander drew a picture of this exact thing: A person is praying and says to Jesus, “Why is it that whenever I ask Jesus to come into my life, he always bring his friends?” And standing next to Jesus are people who are poor, hungry, in wheelchairs, and whose skin is darker than ours.

Are we REALLY SURE we would want to pick Jesus to come over for dinner?

I think that the leader of the Pharisees must have been asking himself this exact same question. You may be wondering why Jesus was over at the house of a Pharisee in the first place. Weren’t they enemies? Well, not exactly. True, they often went toe-to-toe. But the Pharisees were the ones who were keeping the Jewish traditions alive in a very uncertain and violent world. They were not the “bad guys.” But they sometimes got too carried away with keeping all the rules.

Somehow Jesus was invited into the life of this leader of the Pharisees. And of course, one of these “friends” of Jesus shows up at the party. In the verses we didn’t hear from today, Jesus heals a man suffering from unsightly swelling caused by excessive water retention. This healing happens on the Sabbath, AGAIN, so Jesus again is in hot water. So they watch Jesus closely, to see what other trouble he decides to stir up.

And in perfect Jesus style, Jesus flips the script and is also watching THEM. He sees these men – because after all only men were invited- and observes them jockey for position at the table, desperate to NOT be the “last one picked.”

Here Jesus is addressing how we are to act when we are both GUESTS and when we are HOSTS. But he is not simply being “Miss Manners.” He is actually proposing a way that is a complete reversal of the way we are used to things: Don’t sit in the places of honor. Instead, take the lowest place for yourself. When you give a party, invite those people who would never get an invitation, like the “last ones picked” by the world. Because that’s who God invites to the table.

We are GUESTS at God’s banquet, not the hosts. We are NOT in charge of the seating arrangement or the guest list. But we still try our darndest to keep some people out of the banquet, when they have clearly been invited and picked by Jesus.

 I remember participating in a cross cultural class based in Chicago where we learned about some of the diverse contexts and great ministries happening in the city. I stayed with a host family – friends of a good friend of mine, and I was happy to hear about a homeless ministry that their church was a part of. Their church would host homeless people in their building overnight in their gym one night a week, and provide them a meal. Their night was Saturday. So Saturday night, I got to help serve the meal and talk to a few of the people staying there that night.

The next morning, when I went to my friend’s church for worship, I walked through their gym to get to the sanctuary, where only the smell of bleach revealed that just a few hours before a dozen people had spent the night there. Not a single person who stayed the night stuck around for worship. I later learned at as a term of being part of this ministry, the council has stipulated that ALL SIGNS of the previous night MUST BE long gone by morning worship. Of COURSE these people were “welcome” to stay for worship…. But not surprisingly NO ONE ever came.

On the flip side, someone like the Pope has plenty of reasons to be very strict about who he gets to spend his time with. But just last April, Pope Francis invited some very special guests over for lunch. Not anyone famous like Desmond Tutu or President Obama. He invited refugee families from Syria to eat with him. Then he let their children sit with him as they showed him pictures they had drawn, both of their harrowing escape from Syria, but also of their hopes for a better life.

These homeless people are Jesus’ friends. The Syrian refugee children are Jesus’s friends too. People like them not only get to tag along when we invite Jesus into our lives, but they are also given seats of honor at God’s table.

And you know what? WE are Jesus’s friends too. We have a seat at the table, too. Because at some point in our lives we have been made to feel like the “last one picked” by the rest of the world too.

As shame researcher Brene Brown has written, we all “hustle for our worthiness” by putting on a stellar PR campaign about ourselves, including only the good or “acceptable” parts, the parts that would get us good seats in the High School cafeteria. But I think many of us long for a place where we can be loved and accepted: flaws, rough edges, and all.   

When Pastor and author Nadia Boltz Weber began a church in Colorado, she writes about how she baffled at how many “socially broken” people showed up to her church – sexual abuse survivors, paraplegics, and many others, not exactly “people like her.” Then she realized she WAS attracting HER “kind of people” – broken, self-conscious, and needy, because we are ALL broken in some way. We are all broken, beautiful, and loved by God. Nadia realized Jesus SEES all the parts of ourselves we try to hide from others, the parts we don’t put on Facebook, and those parts are welcome.

As a high schooler, I always felt welcome at my church. My church youth group only attracted youth like me, those who never had any plans on a Friday night. But the adults never wondered where the “cool kids” were. They were just happy I was there, and nurtured and cared about me.

I recently went to a women’s clergy conference in Boston. There were a hundred and ten of us. I knew five before I got there. But every time I sat at a table, I was sitting – not with strangers I just met and wondering if they liked me or not – I was sitting with people who were already friends, friends that I just haven’t met yet. Because we all knew that we were there together to support each other as fellow women following God’s call.

Imagine that the Lord’s Table is the exact opposite of a table in your high school cafeteria. The Lord’s Table is where, instead of being “the last one picked,” you have been specifically invited by Jesus. A table where, instead of wondering where it’s safe to sit, you find you have a place next to Jesus… though you may be surprised who ELSE gets to sit next to Jesus.

We don’t have to earn our place there, or try to hustle and social climb our way in. The invitation is already ours - along with all of Jesus’s ‘friends’ who get come along - the homeless along with suburbanites, minorities along with the privileged, those who are gay and transgender next to those who are straight, single moms and dad next to nuclear families, the “losers” and “last picks” of the world next to “first picks” and “winners.” All gathered together at the big beautiful party that God is hosting. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Doubting Disciples Sunday (BTW, that's us.)

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

I still remember the April fool’s joke I played on my poor Mom one year, while I was on internship in Minnesota. I called her up and left her a message that one of my cats had surprised us all by having a litter of adorable calico kittens, that looked just like her. And my mom totally bought it.

"Not funny, 'Mom'."

And that isn’t even the funniest part. My Mom had completely forgotten that I had called her about taking Patches to the vet… to be fixed… earlier that week. I told her all about how funny the cat looked after being shaved, and about how I had to watch her for a few hours after while she was still a bit loopy from the anesthetic. All just the week before. How soon my Mom forgot!

But, to be fair, she hasn’t forgotten that story since then. When I asked her permission to share it, my mom told me she still has the voicemail I left her about it. This was back in 2010.

I can’t rub it in TOO much, because we’ve all been there, though, including me. How soon we can all forget what we have just seen and heard.

It is one week after Easter. It’s only been one week since we heard the account from Luke of the women finding an empty tomb where they expected to find the body of Jesus. It’s only been one week since we stood around in the memorial garden, rubbing our hands together in the early light of dawn, busting out the first “He is risens” and “alleluias.” It’s only been one week since the kids waved the Alleluia sheets in this place newly adorned in white and lilies, while Mike cranked the Easter hymns on organ up to 11. That was only one week ago, people. But how soon we forget what we’ve seen and heard.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like it’s been an entire month since Easter. Probably because after Easter, I still had to go grocery shopping, pay the rent, figure out life, and deal with a world that seems to get scarier by the day.

But the world out there is perhaps is not as scary as we might think it is. Trying to figure out what to do with this whole resurrection thing – now THAT is actually a whole lot scarier. Because that means I actually have to leave the tomb. And I for one kind of like it here. It’s darkness is familiar to me, and I don’t really like change. And I’m SURE I’m the only one here that applies to. In some ways, Lent may feel more natural to us, or at least closer to our real-life experiences – wandering around in the wilderness, waiting in the in-between, longing for a life that has been promised, but perhaps hasn’t yet arrived.

But what has been promised to us HAS ALREADY COME. One week ago. Lent is OVER, and Easter is HERE. All seven weeks of it. That’s right folks. We have six more weeks of the Easter season left to go, six more weeks until the Holy Spirit arrives at Pentecost, six more weeks to figure out what in the world does it mean for us to be called out of our tombs by our resurrected Lord who bears the scars of death on his body. And THAT, my friends, scares me to death.

But perhaps if I had actually been there. Perhaps if I had actually seen what had happened, this resurrection business might be a little easier to wrap my head around. Don’t you think that might be true for you as well?

It seems that it might have been the case for Thomas. Poor, poor, Thomas, forever to be saddled with the nickname “doubting.” He gets such a bad reputation. We can’t really blame him for his reaction to the other 10 disciples. If I were him, I might think that the rest of them were playing some cruel version of an April Fool’s joke concocted while I was out.

But I want to make the case that Thomas is not actually the most egregious doubter in this resurrection account. The true doubters are the other 10 disciples.

Earlier that day, according to the gospel of John, Mary Magdalene had gone to the tomb of Jesus, only to find the stone rolled away. And later, after Peter and the other disciple had corroborated her story and went home, Mary encountered the risen Jesus while she was still weeping outside the tomb. Their Lord was alive! He had risen from the dead! And what do you think happened next? Did they start running around, telling people the good news? NOPE. On Easter evening, they locked themselves in a room. How soon they had forgotten what they had seen and heard.

And so that is where Jesus found them, when they were all together, except for Thomas, locked in a room out of fear. That is where Jesus found them, when he burst INTO their locked room, just has he had burst OUT of the tomb.

But that in itself does not make them into doubters “worse” than Thomas.  It is instead what they do next. After other ten disciples saw Jesus for themselves, a week later - one week after Easter – where did Jesus find them? Take a look in verse 26. Again they were in the house. And again THE DOORS WHERE SHUT. Yet again, they were sealed up in their old familiar tombs out of fear. And so Jesus had to bust in YET AGAIN.

How soon they had forgotten what they had seen and heard… only one week before.

So really, this day would more accurately be called “Doubting Disciples” Sunday. And the accusing finger is also pointed right at us. Because really, WE would be right there along with them, barring the door and bolting the locks, just one week after Easter.

Not just to keep the scary world OUT. But perhaps to keep Jesus out as well.

Because our locked rooms and our dark tombs are comfortable and familiar. Resurrection and new life means that change is a-comin’, which is super scary.

But we have seen and heard what Jesus does with sealed tombs and locked doors. We have seen and heard what Jesus does with the bonds of sin, with the sting of death, and the captivity of the grave. So let’s not forget so soon what we have seen and heard.

The Good News of Easter, which is just as true today as it was a week ago, is that Jesus has busted open the stone of your tomb like it as if it were nothing; he has ploughed through the doors of your locked rooms as if they were butter. He stands in the doorway, reaching out to take your hand, showing you the marks of the crucifixion that still remain his body. And he calls you, as he did to Lazarus, while standing outside of that dead man’s tomb, calling to him, “Lazarus, come out!”

And Lazarus came out of his tomb.

Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” and then calls us forth like Lazarus. Come out of the tomb. Come out of the locked room. Now, it’s time to leave.

It’s time to leave, because we do not belong in dark tombs and locked rooms. It’s time to leave, because we are being drawn out to the new life that is not IN HERE, but OUT THERE. It’s time to leave, because the one who calls us out has also been marked by the scars of death, as we all have in our various ways.

Fortunately Peter, our favorite open-mouth-insert-foot disciple, and the rest of the apostles DO eventually get out of the locked room. In Acts, Peter testifies before the high priest about Jesus, saying “We are witnesses to these things.” Because it was time to leave the locked room. It was time to get out, and be sent out.

As God has sent Jesus, so Jesus sent Peter, Thomas, Mary, the other women, and the rest of the apostles to live in light of the resurrection, to leave the locked room, and to remember what they had seen and heard. And as God sent Jesus, so Jesus sends all of US to do the same. To share what WE’VE seen and heard. To, in the words of Farmer-Poet Wendell Barry, to “practice resurrection.” To be like Jesus and call others out from THEIR dark tombs and locked rooms.

Walking through walls optional.

Amen.