The Best Advent Ever?

12-11-22

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.

How is your Advent going? Are you going to finish strong, or did everything go off the rails starting the afternoon of the first Sunday in Advent? Are you behind on your Aldi Chocolate Advent Calendar? These texts for this 3rd week in Advent aren’t exactly helping foster any Christmas spirit- There is still no sign of Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, manger, or anything resembling the Christmas story. Instead, here’s John the Baptist, again!

This week, though, he is no longer “the preacher on fire” in the desert. Instead, John has been thrown in prison for his bold words. Last week John described righteous judging and fiery smiting… which by this point in Matthew’s gospel Jesus is NOT doing. So it’s no wonder that John sends people to ask Jesus, “are YOU the one who is to come? … or is it someone else?”  I wonder if John was just a little bit disappointed in the kind of savior Jesus is turning out to be. 

Disappointment is just par for the course around Christmas time, though, right? Though we DO get disappointed all the time, this is the time of year we may feel it most. This so-called “most wonderful time of the year” is instead full of family being difficult, friends letting us down, opportunities not panning out, the weather being iffy at best…not to mention the wreck that the world seems to be in at the moment, with the Triple Pandemic, violence on the rise, inflation is still a thing… Maybe we should just forget any hope of Christmas 2022 being anywhere close to “normal.”

And last, but not least, we can’t let God off the hook for being a disappointment. Think about all the “if-onlys” and “what-ifs,” even of just the past year – where you had wished that God would have acted more like a savior, both in your own lives and in the world in general. 

And so, we wonder along with John - is THIS the savior we’ve been waiting for?

The savior we WERE given came as a helpless baby, born to a teenage mother far away from home. He grew up to become a homeless healer and preacher and got on the wrong side of the people in power. Jesus disappointed John the Baptist, Jesus disappointed his family, he disappointed his own followers, and he died, disappointing the hopes of a nation waiting for God to act.

And in dying, Jesus was again a disappointment… This time, disappointing death itself. Because dead people are supposed to stay dead, after all. And - spoiler alert - Jesus did NOT stay dead. 

Today, though, Jesus asked the crowds what they had expected to see when they went out to the desert to see John the Baptist. What they got was the opposite of a man in soft robes – they got a man who lived his convictions with every ounce of his being – even down to his diet and wardrobe. 

Today we could also ask ourselves: What do WE expect this Advent season? Are we expecting a Christmas to arrive that is as lovely as sort of pre-2020 ideal, as pristine as most of our nativity sets? As lovely as they are, most of them depict the holy family well-rested, composed, and ironically enough, draped in soft robes.

But that is dead wrong. God is not just found in the perfect glittery Christmas cards and the Hallmark family channel movies. God is not just found among palaces with soft robes. Instead, here is our God, who sticks by us, no matter what, every year, through all the good and bad Christmases alike.  Here is our God, born to us as a tiny helpless infant, who probably had plenty of blow outs and days where he refused to nap. Here is our God, who died and rose again for you, even when you disappoint yourself and others. 

As we continue our march toward Christmas, we can remember some wise words shared by Pastor Sarah Scherschligt, Pastor of Peace Lutheran in Alexandria, who wrote a facebook post nearly every day for a year and a half during the height of Covid. She actually compiled her work into a book called “God Holds You.” Now available on Amazon! Makes a great Christmas gift! On December 23rd, 2020, Pastor Sarah wrote this: 

I always imagine on Christmas Eve, after everyone has gone to sleep, there's a …  moment…  in which God does something small and powerful and unstoppable. And it doesn't depend on us at all.

We can’t know exactly where the next year will take us. But we can know where God is in all the happenings in our lives. God is right here, in the beginnings and the endings, in the disappointments, and the busy-ness, in the starting strong and in the fizzling out, in the dying and in the rising. Our God is right here: in the arrival of our savior Jesus, in the manger, on the cross, at the table. In the bread and wine. And in the face of one another. Things that are small, but powerful, and unstoppable. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Queendom of God

 Grace to you and peace from the one who is and was and who is to come, and from Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, by the power of the holy spirit, Amen. 

Today is known as Christ the King Sunday, or alternatively as Reign of Christ Sunday. In the liturgical calendar, today ends the church year, which does feel a little weird being right before Thanksgiving. It also feels strange, because we live in a world where a lot of countries are ruled by presidents and prime ministers… and so to speak of Christ as our king seems a bit out of touch.

In our gospel reading, on this Christ the King Sunday we sort of HAVE time traveled – all the way to Good Friday, where we overhear the conversation between Pilate and Jesus after Jesus’ arrest. As the Roman ruler of Jesus’s occupied homeland, Pilate had probably seen it all - rebellions, uprisings, messiahs, unrest, violence…. 

But even he had to be surprised when confronted by this defenseless man who claimed to be a king. Jesus had no throne, no mansion, no wealth, no political influence, no generals, and no crown. The night before this conversation, on Maundy Thursday, all his “loyal” followers had all fled (or at least all the men had). And today, Jesus is alone, arrested and beaten up and looking the worse for wear… yet calmly having a repartee with Pilate about kingship and kingdoms.

Pilate is clearly flabbergasted… and we should be too. We all recognize, as Pilate did, that traditional power - I should specify as male patriarchal power - looks a particular way. And Jesus DOES NOT fit the bill. He never fought a single battle; he didn’t flaunt wealth or command influence: he wasn’t angry or loud or violent or “macho.”

Jesus refuses to fit into the toxicity masculine ruler narrative - Jesus’s birth was witnessed by lowly shepherds and his first crib was an animal feeding trough full of hay and cow drool. His conquering campaign involved wandering around teaching and feeding, hanging out with homeless and sick people. He was crowned with thorns and his coronation was his torture and death, and his throne is a cross.

THIS is why it IS important that Jesus was a man… NOT because God has imbued cis men with something special that women, transgender, and nonbinary people do not have. It’s because giving up power is EXPECTED by women in the patriarchy… but it is an aberration, even an abomination for men to do the same. Men don’t DO that in a regular kingdom. But apparently, GOD DOES. 

We don’t need another kingdom of violence. We don’t need any more Kingdoms, period. What else should we call God’s reign, then? A “Queendom” perhaps?

This idea comes from a fabulous book I just read called “Thy Queendom Come” by Kyndall Rae Rothaus. She’s a Baptist preacher and author who co-founded an ecumenical preaching conference designed to elevate those on the margins. She called it “Nevertheless, She Preached.” This event was created out of the recognition that most preaching conferences are dominated by white male preachers, and she knew that we, the church, can do better than that. 

In her book, Kyndall Rothaus wonders if Christ’s reign is better understood as a “queendom” rather than as a kingdom. Are our ideas we associate with the word kingdom too tainted by hierarchy and patriarchy to be useful in understanding the true upside-down reality that Christ ushers in? Rothhaus asserts that yes, the word “Kingdom” IS too compromised to be useful. Which is why she uses the word “Queendom” instead. This is not a realm where women dominate instead of men – that still falls into the old hierarchical way of thinking. But instead, in a Queendom, power is shared and decentralized. There is no head of the table in God’s Queendom. God’s table is round.

If the word “Queendom” is still a bit too potent a word for you, some have used the word KIN-dom, K-I-N, to better describe this reign, emphasizing that we are all family. No matter what we call it, Jesus did not organize a coup, storm the castle, and replace himself as the new, though much kinder, king. He instead got to work on leveling the playing field, giving up all the power and privilege that was due to him as the Son of God, in order to model for us, his followers, how we are to live. 

This does feel like a scary reversal if you happen to be in the group that previously enjoyed the byproducts of power and privilege. Centering other voices in this kingdom, queendom,  or KIN-dom - feels like suppression to those who are used to having the floor ALL the time. But that’s not silencing, but instead sharing - it’s what justice looks like in God’s reality.  Liberation is not a pie, where giving out one piece means less for others. It’s more like the number Pi - it never runs ends.

Pilate is clearly confused and uncomfortable coming face to face with this idea… as were Jesus’ own male disciples the night before, on Maundy Thursday. Jesus demonstrated the meaning of sharing power by literally stripping down, making himself vulnerable, taking the lowest social position and doing the most demeaning job imaginable - washing the disciples feet. Jesus still washed all the feet… the feet of those who would later run away, deny him, abandon him, and betray him, as had played out by the time Jesus and Pilate had this conversation about kings, kingdoms, power, and truth. 

As a friend of mine reminded me, “[God] is The very Truth of existence and The Reality Upon Whom all reality stands.” Our reality does not stand upon able-ism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, tribalism, white supremacy, discrimination or structural inequities. 

THOSE realties stand directly against GOD’s reality - justice, mercy, abundance, acceptance, forgiveness, sacrifice, welcome… LOVE. And so, as citizens of God’s Queendom/ Kin-dom, we cannot and do not STAND FOR them when they rear their ugly head in our midst, in our laws, in our courtrooms, in our classrooms, and in our congregations. We call out and we speak out the truth - the ways of Pilate, of intimidation and violence and reliance on weapons and taking another’s life at will is never sanctioned by God. 

Today we may be disheartened that this Queendom feels farther from us than ever, as the Bishop of the Greater Milwaukee Synod wrote in a statement released yesterday: “God’s vision for our world, one in which love conquers evil and peace triumphs over fear, may seem more distant today, but ... it still has the power to shape and guide us all.” 

At the close of this liturgical year and as Advent is set to begin, we wait for the arrival of this vision; and we act to participate in this arrival by stepping up  - or stepping out of the way - for others as necessary. As Kyndall Rothhaus concludes in her book “They Queendom Come,” she reminds us that “this is [God’s] queendom, where the power and the glory are shared.” (137) Thanks be to God, amen. 

Mini Sabbatical/ "Reading Week"

During the week of Feb. 3 - 9th I did a "Reading Week" tiny sabbatical to catch up on the pile of reading that has been building up over the last few months. I went to a variety of different place to read, including Cross Roads Camp, the local library, and Princeton Seminary Library. What a fun week it was to absorb all this wisdom. I didn't pick any particular theme, but it seems that the theme picked me: all of these books really emphasized the power of relationship - with people we love (and have lost), with people who are different from us, between us, God, and our money, and with ourselves. 

The God who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong by Karen Gonzales5 stars. This book is also part memoir, part theological grounding and reminder that both the tenants of our belief and our holy scriptures calls us to see the image of God in immigrants. Though the author herself is from Guatemala, this book feels so relevant in the midst of the ELCA sanctuary conversations, the travel bans, and the recent report of the murders of people deported to El Salvador. This book gives a human face and human stories to a complex issues, and challenges us to fulfill our call as followers of Jesus to see what God sees - our beloved humanity in all people.

 Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others by Barbara Brown Taylor5 stars. This book really does live up to the hype. Loved it. As a pastor I too often get stuck in a Lutheran silo, so it's really nice to get any perspective outside of that.... It also resonated in a lot of my cross-cultural experiences. I especially appreciated the chapters about Jewish faith and Islamic faith.

 Love Big: The Power of Revolutionary Relationships to Change the World, by Rozella Haydee White5 stars. Part memoir, part call to action, this book was both a quick read but a deep one, to the point and complex, deeply Lutheran without some of that insider language that creeps in, inspirational and challenging. So much of this book feels alive and relevant it's hard to pick one thing. I appreciated her thoughts on how we search for love in the wrong places, and also her experiences working for and walking away from the ELCA machinations. 

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, 

by Caitlyn DoughtyFive stars. Though Doughty never says much about faith or pastors, I appreciate her honest take on death and the importance of ritual and making meaning around it. Pastors are "death professionals" too, and anything we can do to help make meaning and normalize grief helps us be better at pastoral care. This trip around the world shows that it's not about WHAT we do as we honor our loved ones, it's that we should remember with intention and love, and not avoid the conversation. PS, do you have a death plan yet? 

Contagious Generosity: Creating a Culture of Giving in your Church, by Chris Willard and Jim Sheppard  I would give this one 3.5 stars. It has some GREAT insight about shifting congregational cultures, developing tools and capacities, and some necessary come-to-Jesus advice. I will probably use it in my congregation. However.... ALL the quotes and ALL the examples were from male pastors in multi-pastor congregations (I have never heard of a stewardship pastor!) The theology is evangelism- adjacent. There's also a lot of references to the crash of '08. If the author would make a new addition just without all the dudes, I'd give it 4 or 4.5. A fast but good read (just skip all the dudes).

Saints and Sinners, Lost and Found

9-15-19 Kick Off Sunday

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

A few months ago, I went to 5 Below North Wales to find some glowsticks for our campfire, when two women approached me, asked if I “believed in the female images of God.” I bet you could imagine how that went. After about 5 minutes I could tell they were tired hearing me go on and on, so I gave them my card … and big surprise, I haven’t heard from them yet!

We know in our hearts that God is neither male or female (or black or white), but let’s admit it – our language still tends to skew to the male pronoun when we talk about God, and out of habit, even I slip up sometimes. We speak and we imagine from the perspective we are familiar with. While the Bible was inspired by God and written by men of faith (mostly because women weren’t educated at the time), they were still bound by their own experiences. Even Jesus was sometimes! … as you may have noticed last week, when the stories he told were from the perspective of kings, armies, business owners, and construction workers.

But every once in a while, language describing God from female perspectives peaks through, to remind us that if we have been created in God’s image – male AND female – God has attributes of both. God is a nurturing mother who gives birth (Deut. 32:18) and nurses us, her children (Isaiah 49:15), God is a seamstress (Gen. 3:21) also a knitter (Psalm 139) and a baker (Matthew). During this year of Luke, we hear that God looks for us like a woman looking for a lost coin (15:8-10) as we heard today, and Jesus describes himself as a hen who wants to gather us like chicks (13:34).

The Gospel of Luke is also full of these descriptions, and is also populated with bold women who are faithful follows of Jesus – Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, the women at the empty tomb, just to name a few. We are blessed to be part of a denomination where the gifts of women are recognized, where they can serve at the highest levels, including our presiding bishop. But as I said at the banquet at the ELCA churchwide assembly, the night we celebrated the ordination of women no matter what race or who they love, we have not “arrived” yet. We still have a long way to go.

If we had truly arrived, these 50 years after the first white heterosexual woman was ordained in one of the predecessors to the ELCA, then THIS book would never have needed to be written.  I read this book earlier this year when it was fresh from the publisher. It comes from the perspective of someone called to ministry who is from one of the “lost” groups,” and by its title “One CoinFound” you can probably tell that it draws heavily from the “lost” stories we hear today.

Author and pastor Emmy Kegler grew up Episcopalian, is now a Lutheran pastor. This book is her story about how she as a queer woman pastor grew to fall in love with the very same scriptures that many Christians have used against her throughout her life. Perhaps not surprisingly, Kegler was always deeply drawn to the story of all the “Losts” in Luke, - lost sheep, coin, culminating in the Lost/ Prodigal son.

She reflects on the nature of sheep and of coins, saying that sheep tend to wander, but usually for good reason … hunger, thirst, exhaustion, fear (of predators). But what is the coin’s excuse? Kegler writes, “the funny thing about coins is that they can’t get lost by themselves” … “Coins get lost because their owners aren’t careful….” And when coins get lost, they tend to their shine (and their perceived value), which makes them even more difficult to locate.

But is God the one who loses us? With every story Jesus tells, and with every image we use to talk about the kingdom of God, there is a “yes” and there is a “no.” God is LIKE a knitter, but God does not actually take up knitting needles to make a scarf. Our limited human language can only tell so much of infinite truth of who God is, and we often reach out to more tangible things to anchor us, for better or worse. Emmy reminds us that “We experience God through our experience of others…” but is also careful to clearly say, “God has never been careless with us, but those who claim to speak for God have.” Church leaders, not God, cause some of the most vulnerable sheet to be lost - to be disregarded and left to get dusty like the coin or starved for love like the sheep.

Pastor Kegler experienced this so painfully in her own life, as growing up she struggled to reconcile the revelation that she both gay and a Christian, and how the people of deep faith around her, who she though loved her, could reject her because of it.

In the fall of Pastor Kegler’s senior year of high school, 2 years after starting to attend “Watermark” (a non-denominational youth centric church in Minneapolis), a preacher in training came from a nearby seminary to rail against same sex relationships. Traumatized and triggered by his hateful words, she left the sanctuary to collect herself. Her “friends” followed her, pressuring her to “repent” of the way God had created her. That night, the people Kegler though were her friends turned on her, and she saw their true colors. She never went back to that church or those people.

Years later, on a Sunday morning during worship in the chapel of a Lutheran college, Pastor Kegler was unwillingly pressed into service to help distribute communion. When someone handed her a plate with the bread, she panicked. She tried to hand it back to one of the campus pastors, telling him, “I can’t serve, I’m not trained.” He asked her if she knew what to say, she responded without thinking, “the body of Christ, given for you.” He handed the plate back to her and said, “there you go, you’ve been trained.” In that moment, and in every moment of love shown to her since, Kegler was truly found. Now, she is happily married, a pastor in the heart of Lutheran country – St. Paul MN, a published author, and sough-after speaker and preacher.

I think we can all see why, when Kegler describes God hitching up her skirts to get down and dirty on the floor to search for lost coins like her. “God has taken up a broom and cleared each corner, untucked and re-tucked each sheet and quilt, turned over pitcher after pitcher to see where we have landed.”

Our own found stories probably look a little bit different form Emmy Kegler’s, and may not seem worthy of publishing as a memoir, or at least not as “interesting.” But I think all of us have experience what it means to be hungry for something – for empathy, for acceptance, for someone to see our worth, for someone to love us for all of our flaws and brokenness, and the disappointment we feel when our deepest needs are not met by the people we thought cared about us. Most of us, I believe, HAVE  felt the sting of rejection when those who seem to have everything – power, influence, comfort, privilege – sneer at you and judge you when you leave the “correct path” they have laid out for you, using some misguided  interpretation of God’s words.

Listen closely here to the words of Jesus, then. How then can we stand in the way of Jesus, when he very clearly stands in for the shepherd who abandoned the ninety-nine sheep to find the lost one, and the woman who stayed up late into the night to find her coin that had gone missing? The body of Christ is not complete until all of us are found in God and loved with dignity by those of us who call ourselves Christian. And yes, that might not just include feeding them…. But eating WITH them, at the same table, side by side, elbow to elbow, with Jesus.

Perhaps we don’t have a lot of tax-collectors floating around anymore, but we all encounter people that we grumble at we deem “undeserving,” and want to begrudge a seat at the table. The good news is that Jesus eats with sinners…. And its good news BECAUSE WE are sinners. The repercussions of some sins might be more obvious than others.  But all are given a spot next to Jesus. All of us are, in the words of the commendation at the end of our funeral service, we are “sheep if [God's] own fold, [lambs] of [God's] own flock, [sinners] of [God's] own redeeming.”

One of the last things that Rachel Held Evans wrote before she died this spring, was write the introduction to this book, One Coin Found. Evans words ring achingly true in light of her sudden death, when exhorts us readers to remember that “you …  are immeasurably beloved by God, …with the help of the great communion of saints, …. you… will always and ever be found.”

Nothing can separate us form the love of God. In life, and in death, we are loved, and we are known, and we are found. Because God will stop at nothing to gather those who are lost. Now it’s our turn, to tuck up our own skirts, find the broom, and join in the search with that great communion of saints… and sinners. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Life in Narnia

Sermon 6-24-18

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.

Why did Jesus cross the road? (To get to the other side…. sorry that was kind of a bad joke) Well, that’s ok, it’s more of a story than a joke anyway… and Jesus’ disciples didn’t think it was very funny either. And it wasn’t a very funny thing that happened to them in the middle of the lake, on their way to the other side.

I used to live in an in-between, middle, magical place… called Central Jersey. You may have heard of it… very recently, if you are a fan of Stephen Colbert. The new governor made news for something that New Jersey-ians have known since forever: Central Jersey exists. It’s different from both North and South Jersey, and neither want to claim it. It’s a strange place of both Eagles and Giants fans, where I didn’t quite know whether to listen to NPR from New York or Philly (so I listened to both). It was described most recently as the “Narnia” of New Jersey – a place not everyone is convinced is real.

But I believe in Narnia…and I loved those books growing up. The first one I read as a kid, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” written by C. S. Lewis, tells the story of four ordinary kids who stumble upon this magical land of talking animals. The kids’ home in London is not safe, so they seek asylum from their eccentric Uncle, who owns the wardrobe in question.  

Inside, they find an entire country permanently blanketed by snow.  An evil Witch had forced everyone to live in a permanent winter, with never any Christmas. Now THAT’S mean!! Though honestly, after a few days this week, snow might have felt pretty nice.

The witch, however, is not the rightful ruler of Narnia – that’s Aslan, of course, a fearsome talking lion. The trouble is, no one has seen Aslan for a hundred years. And some of the Narnians are - understandably - wondering whether Aslan still cares about them, or even if he still exists. And this is where the human children enter the story.

Jesus too liked to tell stories, and if you remember he had just finished telling some tales of his own, in the form of parables. Last week we heard two short ones about seeds and mustard plants. Afterwards, Jesus decided it was time to go across the lake. Even though it WAS getting pretty dark, they left anyway, headed right for the country of the Gerasenes, an area full of people who were not at all like them. And they were not exactly eager to go there, either.

And to make matters worse, a big storm came along while they were in the middle of the lake. The wind and rain and waves beat down on their little boat - they were going to end up at the bottom of the lake for sure! In all their panic, trying to keep the boat from sinking, they remembered they had Jesus! But wait, where WAS he?

Um... excuse us, Jesus...

Oh, that’s right. Jesus was sound asleep in the back of the boat…. on a cushion. A CUSHION. Not cool, Jesus. Not cool.

I’ve never experienced a storm while at sea. And until I moved to Jersey, I had also never experienced a hurricane before. Give me raging thunderstorms or even tornadoes – I have experienced plenty of both growing up in the Midwest. But hurricanes? Hurricane Irene seven years ago was my very first. It ended up not being so bad, of course, but when it is 3 am and the weather channel is telling you to take cover because there are tornadoes forming INSIDE OF THE HURRICANE, things seem pretty serious.

Hurricane Irene happened only weeks after moving to New Jersey from seminary in Minneapolis that summer. I had recently moved, which did not go exactly smoothly either – the furniture was a week late, some my stuff arrived bent or broken, one of the cats couldn’t keep food down, and now Hurricane Irene. Welcome to New Jersey!

And yet, by the time the tornado warnings had expired that night, and I crawled back to bed, I wasn’t nearly as worried as I had been. Because while I sat on the floor in the closet, with the wind howling and the rain pounding outside… my two cats did not seem the least bit concerned.

"Excuse me... I AM NOT A SCARDY CAT"

Now, my cats are big wimps. One of them, Patches, will hide under the couch during a regular thunderstorm, like she did just this last week.

And yet, both of the cats seemed more concerned about what I was doing in the closet than what was happening outside. They poked their head in, like they were wondering what I was doing in there… and then wandered away to other night interests. And somehow that put me somewhat at ease. If these two scardy-cats weren’t overly worried about the scary weather outside, then maybe I didn’t have to be either. Maybe, just maybe, it would be ok.

  

In the midst of that storm on the lake, it may have seemed to the disciples that Jesus was asleep on the job. But Jesus didn’t stay asleep once his frightened disciples called out to him. No – when they called to Jesus, Jesus came to their rescue and calmed the storm. 

Similarly, Aslan, true king of Narnia, didn’t forget his people, either. Sightings of him increased as the witch’s power waned, and winter started to lose its grip. But the children visiting Narnia were very nervous when they heard that Aslan wanted to meet them. Seeing a lion in a zoo is one thing. Meeting Aslan the lion face to face would be very different. 

Before meeting Aslan, one of the children naturally consulted his new friend the talking beaver and asked, “Is he… quite safe?” 

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”  

That didn’t automatically take away the children’s fear when they did eventually meet Aslan. But they took comfort that Aslan had a plan to save everyone. Good would (eventually) triumph over evil. Though that doesn’t mean it would be smooth sailing before the victory was complete.

We often get the idea into our heads that once we become followers of Jesus, our lives will be all bubbles and lattes– all of our questions will be answered, and all of our doubts will be put to rest. That the storms of our lives will cease to rage, and it will be nothing but calm seas from here on out. Alas, this is not the case. Just look at the lives of Jesus’ closest followers. This storm was NOTHING compared to what they would face as they brought the message of Jesus out into the world. For sharing this love, they were often attacked, put in jail, and even killed for their trouble. Just look again at Paul’s list in our 2^nd Corinthians reading – we will face, afflictions, hardships, calamities, and more.

But that didn’t stop them. They kept going, and they kept rowing.

Since that first year in New Jersey, I’ve been through plenty of other storms, some of them really, really rough. Plenty of times I feared that the wind would knock me over, that the waves would swamp me… that surely, I would go down while Jesus seemed to be taking a nap. But Jesus was never really asleep on the job. Whenever I called out, about to go under, Jesus answered, often in the form of small but precious acts of love shown to me by friends and family. And on THIS side of past storms, I can say NOW – Jesus was with me the whole time.

The same is true for all of us – in our call to follow Jesus, we have left the safety of the shore, and often find ourselves out of our depth in unknown waters. Storms are still going to crop up. It won’t always be smooth sailing. We are in the middle of the story still – maybe right in the middle of some storms ourselves - when the way forward is still dark and unknown, and we will often be afraid.

The same is true for our own little “boat” we call Family of God. There are plenty of storms for us to face along our way where Jesus calls us. We aren’t always sure what’s waiting for us, both over the next wave or when we arrive on the other, unknown shore.

Sometimes we will be afraid. Sometimes we will feel small, ignored, and powerless.

But we do know, that no matter when, even though life is not always safe… God is good. We know that we are loved and cared for. And Jesus is with us always. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Sunday After Easter: Storybook Sunday!!!

Sermon 4-8-18

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.

For us, Easter happened one full week ago. A lot has happened in a week, hasn’t it? You probably have eaten the rest of you Easter candy, wrapped up spring break, and have gone back to our “regular scheduled” lives… probably wishing for spring to come. Meanwhile, here in the church, it is the Second Sunday of Easter… that’s right, Easter is not just a day – it’s season that is seven weeks long. A week after Easter, WE are still wearing white, and we are still shouting ALLELUIA!!

A week may have passed for us in “real time,” but for the disciples, Jesus shows up here for the first time during the first part of the original Easter day. So, where did Jesus find them on the evening that he had risen from the dead? On the highways and byways of Judea, spreading the good news?

Nope. In a secure room with the door locked.

And a week later, when they had eight whole days to live into the glorious experience that Jesus had appeared to them and had sent his blessing with them… surely THEN they were out and about, sharing the good news…. NOW… right?

Nope, locked up again.

The disciples might have heard and believed what the women had to say about the empty tomb… but did they believe and understand that Jesus was giving them his peace… so that they could be SENT OUT, just like Jesus has been SENT OUT to spread the good news that is the undying love of God for all people?

It's the second Sunday of Easter. What are we going to do? What would that look like? What COULD that look like?

Let’s try something a little different that what we normally do. I am going to tell you a story about another young woman who went out on a mission to share something amazing with others.

This story is from a book called ….. Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett.  

….

The archduke wanted to keep the yarn away, locked up, only for himself, didn’t he? But Annabelle wanted to share it. And because she kept sharing it, the yarn keeps growing until it covers everything. I wonder… will it eventually reach across the sea and cover the archduke’s castle? I would like to think that eventually it does. Everybody gets a sweater (or hat) … and I would like to think that even the Archduke finally gets one.

Because we all have a little bit of the Archduke in us. But even though we try to keep the love of God “safe” for our own keeping in locked rooms- out of fear, out of self-centeredness, out of desire for control – like the beautiful yarn, this resurrected life won’t be contained. It won’t be confined for one person, in a locked box. It won’t be contained in one single Easter morning, either. New life is going to get out, to spill over into seven whole weeks and beyond. New life is going to cover you like a multi-colored sweater in a grey world.

Are you ready to get out your knitting needles? I hope so. Because new life and extra yarn are coming our way. Thanks be to God. 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.

Packing Light for Your Journey

Sermon 10-11-2015

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

When was the last time you took a trip? Think for a moment about what you usually pack.

Is there something that you usually pack too much of?  Shoes, clothes, maps, electronics?

So, confession time. I tend to pack way to many books. For example, in preparing to travel to be with my family in Wisconsin to celebrate my brother’s wedding, this is what I’m thinking about bringing with me.

Rising Strong…. I can’t put it down, so good, but I’m almost finished….

Accidental Saints… Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber’s newest book, can’t wait to start it.

Jane Eyre – rereading this old favorite

Texts from Jane Eyre… when I want something a little lighter than 18^th century romance on the gloomy English moors…

Complete Psalms – modern translation, try to read a psalm every night…

RISE UP Bible…

A book on writing that my friend recommended to me…

A novel that Karen Repka lent to me that I haven’t started…

Seriously these are all books that I have sitting next to my bed. Because I never REALLY know EXACTLY what mood I will be in and what book that will require.  And though I probably won’t bring ALL of these with me, I will still probably pack MORE than I need, and will end up regretting it when I am dragging my luggage across country.

Speaking of luggage, when I was a camp counselor back in Wisconsin, we had to pack everything we needed for an entire summer and make it easy to take to a different cabin every week.

Some of these campers we had, though, in packing for one week rivaled what we counselors brought for the entire summer. Curling irons, , hair dryers, running shoes, baseball cards, sugary snacks, both girls AND boys were sometimes guilty of this …and I can’t even imagine what camp counselors of today have to deal with - iPhones, iPads, tablets, and all kinds of electronics.

I think we might be surprised at how few things we need when we are focused on what is right in front of us – making new friends at camp, or spending time with family, noticing what’s happening on this journey we call life, rather than worrying about what to pack in order to be ready for whatever might be around the corner.

Jesus was setting out in a journey. Maybe he was in the middle of packing, though I can imagine that Jesus probably packed pretty light. Perhaps he was just stepping out the door of the house he was staying, or had just left the city limits. In any case, he was not long on his trip when a man runs up to stop him. And the last thing Jesus must have wanted was to deal with more questions.  

In a graphic novel version of the Gospel of Mark, the rich man is actually carrying everything he owns on his back – toasters, bowling balls, golf clubs, a swimming pool, a couch, flat screen TVs, signs of the “good life.” As he talks to Jesus, he is literally sinking into the sand under the weight of all his stuff while he asks Jesus his burning question. 

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” What an odd question. That’s like me asking my parents, what must I do in order to be your daughter? Or my cats, if they could talk, asking me what must we do in order to belong to you? Or perhaps like Syrian refugees might say to all the countries that refuse to give them asylum: what must we do in order to be treated like human beings?

These refugees shouldn’t have to ask this question. They already are human beings and deserve to being treated as such. My cats already belong to me. I am my parents’ daughter.

What do you do to earn an inheritance? What an odd question. Because the answer is simple: nothing. YOU YOURSELF do absolutely nothing to receive any kind of inheritance that you have coming to you. The only criteria is that you are yourself, the receiver, the child to whom your benefactor is leaving their legacy.

So what then, can we do to inherit eternal life? It is to be who you are. It is to be a child of God.

THIS is the inheritance that we all have received at our baptisms, as we were washed with water and with promises from God. At that moment, we were claimed as God’s own beloved children and received God’s mark as belonging to God forever. And nothing can ever change that, not success or failure, not perfection or mistakes, not wealth or poverty or anywhere in between.

But BEING a child of God also means we pack for this journey we call life in a particular way, and we travel together on this road in a particular way.  

We, as beloved children of God, are called to follow Jesus, and as we have heard in the last few weeks, this call to discipleship really hard. Following Jesus means that we take up our cross. Following Jesus means that whoever will be first must be last. Following Jesus means welcoming the vulnerable and undesirable among us. And sometimes, following Jesus means letting go of what causes us to sink.

This is not what the rest of the world wants us to do AT ALL. According to this country and this culture – the more you earn and the more you can buy, the more you are worth. And the more stuff we have, the more prepared we feel we are for whatever this scary world throws our way. “I need this, and this, and this, just in case.” Those most prepared, with the most stuff, are admired and revered. And that means we need to get more stuff. And this is how our possessions come to possess US.

We try to buy our way out of our fear of the unknown.  It is must easier to calm our anxiety with a few more things than it is to trust in a vague eternal something that can’t be bought or earned. It is much easier to try to fill the empty void in our hearts with stuff than it is to put our trust in a man who the world never understood.

In the world’s eye, this Jesus was a loser – hung out with working class guys, never owned a house, or much of anything for that matter. No clothing lines or fancy buildings were named after him. He was a poor peasant from the wrong side of the tracks who DIDN’T “pull himself up by his own bootstraps,” get rich, and write a book. He died at the hands of his enemies without fighting back, leaving no earthly possessions, and left his disciples – who abandoned him - with no legacy to speak of.  

No legacy to speak of, that is, except the promise that eternal life is ours. And the promise that Jesus will be with us to lead us there. Even if we are still possessed by our possessions. Even if it’s like getting a camel through the eye of a needle.

Does this seem impossible? Perhaps. But God has never let the impossible stand in the way before. The losers of this world are actually winners in God’s kingdom? Impossible. The poorest and the least served first at the heavenly banquet? Impossible! The refugee and the stranger given premier status? Impossible. Giving up everything which results in receiving even more? Impossible! Death? Defeated? Impossible. Eternal life is really ours? Impossible!

For us, if we were to try to do all this on our own, it WOULD be impossible. But we were created by a God who laughs at impossible things. A God who welcomes rich people into heaven but gives poor people a place of honor. A God who gives the powerful a place, but not the place of honor. A God who demands everything of us while at the same time freely gives us everything. For us, this would indeed be impossible. But for God, the possibilities are endless. AMEN.