Jesus and Open Carry

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

If you are a fan of the reality TV show Queer Eye – as I am – you may have noticed that the first episode of this new season (which is set in Philly, by the way) features an ELCA pastor. If you are NOT familiar with this show, I’ll clue you in. Five Fabulous gay men travel the country “making over” people’s lives. The council members of Atonement Lutheran in Fishtown nominated their beloved pastor, and last summer Pastor Noah spent a week being showered with love. Seriously, get  the free promotional month of Netflix and watch it as soon as you can… and get ready to cry.

But actually I want to focus on the 2nd episode in this season. Rianna is an African American businesswoman who lives in Norristown. Over three years ago she had started her own dog grooming business, but she was barely staying afloat amid many challenges. In typical Queer Eye fashion, the Fab 5 gave her a wardrobe, provided business know-how, and of course, outfitted her with a brand new “Doggy Grooming Mobile Vehicle.”

As an African American business woman in this country, Rianna was less likely to have access to the resources necessary to make her business successful by herself – it is well-documented that persons of color have less access and fewer resources at their disposal, whether we’re talking small business loans, generational wealth, or access to knowledge and role models. In other words, in this country, based on the color of her skin, she has been given fewer things in her “bag” to travel this road we call life than a white person who is the same age and born in the same location.

We like to think that when we are born, we all start out equal. After all, every one of us arrive into this work with literally “nothing.” But in reality, we all inherit things – the skin color of our parents, a particular economic status, generational trauma… all which can help or hinder us in our path in life. It’s not unlike being given a bag for the beach but not having sunscreen, or shoes to protect your feet from the hot sand – without being provided some basic necessary things, you are not going to be ready for your summer beach vacation.

Of course, life is not quite the same as enjoying some time “down the shore” as they say.  Right now, we are we at the beginning of the summer season, when normally we would all disperse to the four winds and we wouldn’t see some of you until September. But we are also at the start of a new season in the Church year. This is “Ordinary Time,” or the “Time after Pentecost.” – or the Big Long Green Season. The season of major events – Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, is behind us, and the weeks of counting the seemingly hundreds of Sundays after Pentecost has begun.

We have jumped back into the middle of the Gospel of Matthew, back to the start of Jesus’ ministry in Palestine. Jesus realize that this whole “Preaching the Gospel” thing is bigger than just one person can do, so he calls on the twelve disciples and gives them their marching orders.

Jesus given them detailed instructions on what to DO, but not on what to PACK. Or rather, he is very specific on what NOT to pack. All the disciples going out were to enter each town exactly the same: no bag, no change of close, no money, no extra snacks… instead of being the “Fab 5” (as much as I love them), the disciples were to be the RECIPIENTS of grace, not just providers or suppliers of it. Life is not a one way street, and a person can and should both give and receive with our God-given humility. An empty bag reminded the disciples of that as they traveled.

But it’s not just “summer season” or just “the season after Pentecost.” We have also entered into another type of season…its Pride Month… but also a season of tragedy and lament, especially for the ELCA. On June 17th, 2015, five years ago, we remember and lament that a white man attended a Bible study at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He opened fire and killed nine people, including their pastor, Clementa C. Pinckney. Reverend Pinckney had graduated with his masters of divinity from an ELCA seminary with a friend of mine. And the shooter, Dylan Roof, a self-admitted white supremacist, had been brought up in an ELCA church.

Two days after June 17^th, on June 19^th is a holiday called Juneteenth. Before President Lincoln signed the emancipation Proclamation, it was legal for human beings to be enslaved on southern plantations, generating wealth for free for their white owners. However, in yet another perversion of justice, the news of their freedom took two and a half years to reach many of these enslaved human beings. They did not find out until June 19^th, 1865.

Tragically, every year (both before and since) has brought more violence around this time: The shooting at the Pulse in Orlando, being just one example. As I went back to all my sermons for the last five years, ever time I have mentioned Dylann Roof and the martyred Emmanuel 9, I have always mentioned some other tragic event that just happened. Why are we like this? Why do we have this legacy we have inherited,  where we say our baptismal vows out of one side of our mouths .....and raise up and teach Dylann Roofs with the other side?

We certainly have a long way to go in our own journeys as disciples following Jesus’s directions. And the way seems overwhelming at times. But once we listen to Jesus and follow his packing list, I think we may find the way to be a little easier. We have to do more unpacking than packing. So, we leave behind our fear, our hate, our apathy, our white privilege, our need to be needed. When we let go of those things, we’ll find that our hands are empty… and open. THIS is the type of “open carry” that Jesus approves of and calls us to duplicate.

WE CARRY OPEN HANDS, so that we can reach out to our neighbors in welcome: our black neighbor, our white neighbor, our police neighbor and our military neighbor, or Jewish and our Muslim neighbor. Our brothers and our sisters, transgender, straight, gay, rich, poor, citizen, and immigrant neighbor.

WE CARRY one another, so that we never have to carry our burdens alone. And through it all, GOD CARRIES US. Always. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Easter Expectations: Not Here

Easter Sermon 4-21-19

(The resurrection story from Luke was read at the beginning of the service, then at the Gospel we read the Road to Emmaus) 

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.

What are you expecting this morning, on Easter morning, 2019?

Where you expecting that, after wandering in the wilderness of Lent, you would come out on the other side, to rise this Easter morning completely refreshed, restored, and renewed? But life doesn’t exactly work out in the way we expect it to, does it? I mean, did any of you really expect to wake up, come to Easter Sunday service, thinking the pastor would have purple hair? Probably not.

But then again, I’ve done a lot of expecting over the years, as I’m sure many of you have.  And for me, reality has more often than not fallen far short of those expectations. And, like many of you, I woke up in the darkness of this morning to the very real, very present realities of pain, brokenness, and suffering in our world and in our lives. Our lives are still in the same mess that they were in yesterday. We still find ourselves buried in dark tombs, or walking down the roads of our lives, perplexed at what is happening around us. Death and violence surround us.

And yet…. here we are, on Easter morning, I’m here. You’re here. Life is poking up out of the ground all around us here. And Easter morning has arrived here, and it DOES change things - just not in the ways we expect.

Really, this whole week tells the story of the unexpected: How Jesus was welcomed into town with a parade at the beginning of the week and being nailed to cross by the end of it. How Jesus shared his last meal with the very people who would betray him, deny him, and run away as Jesus was arrested, tried, mocked, and beaten before being nailed to a cross. Jesus, King of the universe, was hastily laid in a borrowed tomb.  

The women came to that place of death very early in the morning,  with some expectations of their own. They expected to be alone with their grief. They expected to find the body of their beloved Jesus, so that they could care for him one last time by anointing his body with spices, as was their custom. They expected to find death in a place OF death, as we all would.

But instead, the women found the stone sealing his tomb had been rolled away. Instead, the women found a grave with no body. Instead, the women found two men with a question for them: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” What the women found was the stunning revelation that Jesus was not there. He has risen.

And then the women remembered. They remembered what Jesus had been saying all along. They remembered that he must be betrayed, abandoned, and handed over to be crucified, and three days later he would rise again. And then the women proclaimed. They returned to the remaining eleven disciples and all the rest of Jesus’s followers and told them the amazing and unexpected sight they had just witnessed.

On Thursday we remembered the night in which Jesus was betrayed, and Jesus’ command to us to eat of his body and drink of his blood, in remembrance of him. And these women did just that, on that first Easter morning. These women remembered, and then they proclaimed.

They were the first to share the GOOD WORD, that death no longer has the LAST WORD. Death has been swallowed up in victory, Christ’s victory, the victory of life over death, in all its many forms, calling us out from inside of all of the dark tombs we may find ourselves in. We who have been buried in the darkness of tombs have also been buried with Jesus in our baptisms, as Paul wrote. And that means that we will be united with Jesus in his resurrection. And it begins now, this very morning. New life sprouts up out of the empty shell of death, right now.

The Apostle Paul asks, “Death, where is your sting?”  And we know the answer. - NOT. HERE!

And along with the women that first Easter morning, in this place of death, we wonder, “Where is Jesus?”  - NOT. HERE!!

Why do we look for the living among the dead? We expect to find death in a place of death, but Jesus has done the unexpected. He has risen from the dead. He IS NOT HERE. 

He WAS there in the tomb with us, but he is not here any longer. Instead, he has gone on ahead of us, to meet up us out there on the dusty roads we travel. And he has won the victory for us, so that we who have been buried in our own tombs with Jesus may be raised in his glorious resurrection, now and in the life to come.

Awesome. Well. That sound great… but what about tonight, when we are in the throes of a baked ham and chocolate bunny hangover? What about tomorrow, when we have to go back to work or school, or back to our regularly scheduled, “pretty average at best” lives? What can we really expect from the resurrection out there?

Two disciples were traveling from Jerusalem to Emmaus on Easter afternoon, wondering the same thing. I like to think they were husband and wife, debriefing the crazy 3-day weekend they just had… when Jesus appears to them, hidden in plain sight. Jesus asked about what they were discussing, and they gladly shared with him the whole perplexing story. So, Jesus told THEM the whole of GOD’S story, from start to finish. Then THESE two followers of Jesus REMEMBERED Jesus’ message of welcome and took it to heart – they invited him to share a meal and their Air B-n-B for the night.

It wasn’t until Jesus blessed and broke the bread – HELLO holy communion? Then they KNEW that this was JESUS! And so they RAN – 7 WHOLE MILES all the way BACK to Jerusalem, that same night, just to tell the story to the other disciples of what they had seen – The Risen Jesus!!!!

What would make you run seven miles in the dark? Would it be for something that you didn’t expect? That must have been some “holy heartburn.”

How has Jesus shown up in unexpected ways along on your dusty highways and byways? I bet he has. He certainly has for me.

Three years ago, the last time we read from the Gospel of Luke at Easter, I drove early in the morning to my former church’s Easter Sunrise worship, held in their memorial garden.  It was still dark out, and my divorce had been official for six weeks by then – the same number of weeks that is in Lent. I wasn’t expecting to feel one iota of joy that Easter morning. As I drove in the pre-dawn, deserted New Jersey streets, a song from Panic! At the Disco came on, from a CD a dear friend had given me with a special playlist she had picked out. When the words of the song, “All you sinners stand up, sing Hallelujah.” came blaring over my car speakers, somehow, at that moment, I knew everything was going to be ok. And I could sing the rest of the Hallelujahs that day and mean it.

Now, was my life a piece of cake after that? No way. But I didn’t expect it to be. The very next week my dad was in the hospital back in Wisconsin and I took a last-minute flight to see him before his successful quintuple bypass, and to help him recover. But it was ok. Because I was ok. Because Jesus shows up when you least expect him to. It was true for the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and it was true for me. I remembered. And now, like the women and the tomb, and the couple on the road, I have told you my story. Now it’s your turn.  

What were you expecting this morning, on Easter 2019? Where you expecting to find Jesus here, in church? Because he IS NOT HERE…. At least he is not in this building on a permanent basis. He’s out THERE – he is out there on the road with you… he is wherever there is breading of bread. And sometimes that even happens here in church. Hallelujah. Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

Thanks be to God, Amen.  

He is NOT HERE.

Easter Sunday Sunrise, 3-27-16

St. Paul Memorial Garden

Luke 24:1-12

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

Taken by Mike Schmidt

What are you expecting this morning, on Easter morning, 2016?

What were you expecting, as you got up early to come to our memorial garden on this slightly chilly morning – though could be worse – to stand in your coats for half an hour to sing some songs, hear some scripture, and perhaps pray, like me, that your coffee would hurry up and kick in any time now?

What are you expecting, here, this particular morning, on Easter, 2016?

Where you expecting that, after wandering around in the wilderness of Lent, you would come out on the other side, to rise this Easter morning completely refreshed, restored, and renewed? I don’t know about you, but I was. Or at least, I was kind of hoping that’s how it would work. But life doesn’t exactly work out in the way we expect it to, does it?  

But then again, I’ve done a lot of expecting over the years, as I’m sure many of you have.  And for me, reality has more often than not fallen far short of those expectations. And, like many of you, I woke up in the darkness of this morning to the very real, very present realities of pain, brokenness, and suffering in our world and in our lives. Our lives are still in the same mess that they were in yesterday. We still find ourselves buried in dark tombs.

And yet…. here we are, on Easter morning, rubbing our hands together to keep them warm in a garden where many of our loved ones have been laid to rest. I’m here. You’re here. Life is poking up out of the ground all around us here. And Easter morning has arrived here, and it DOES change things - just not in the ways we expect.

Really, this whole week tells the story of the unexpected: How Jesus was welcomed into town with a parade at the beginning of the week, and being nailed to cross by the end of it.

How Jesus shared his last meal with his disciples, the very ones who would betray him, deny him, and stand silently by as Jesus was arrested, tried, mocked, and beaten before being nailed to a cross.

How a Roman soldier praises God and confesses that Jesus was an innocent man, while his own disciples are silent.

How Jesus, King of the universe, was hastily laid in a borrowed tomb, a place ruled by death, much like we are in right now, on this early morning.

The women also came to a place of death very early in the morning, where someone THEY dearly loved had been buried. They expected the worst, of course. They expected to be alone with their grief. They expected to find the body of their beloved Jesus, so that they could care for him one last time by anointing his body with spices, as was their custom. They expected to find death in a place OF death, as we all would.

But instead, the women found the stone sealing his tomb had been rolled away. Instead, the women found a grave with no body. Instead, the women found two men wearing clothes that flashed like lightning, with a question for them: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” What the women found was the stunning revelation that Jesus was not there.

He has risen.

And then the women remembered. They remembered what Jesus had been saying all along. They remembered that he must be betrayed, abandoned, and handed over to be crucified. And three days later he would rise again.

And then the women proclaimed. They returned to the remaining eleven disciples and all the rest of Jesus’s followers and told them the amazing and unexpected sight they had just witnessed. These women expected to find death, but instead became the first witnesses to the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.

On Thursday we remembered the night in which Jesus was betrayed, and Jesus’ command to us to eat of his body and drink of his blood, in remembrance of him. And Paul reminded us that as often as we do this, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. And these women did just that, on that first Easter morning. These women remembered, and then they proclaimed, becoming the very first preachers of the Gospel to their fellow disciples.

They were the first to share the GOOD WORD, that death no longer has the LAST WORD. Death has been swallowed up in victory, Christ’s victory, the victory of life over death, in all its many forms, calling us out from inside of all of the dark tombs we may find ourselves in.

In a place where we expected to find more death, we instead find that Jesus is gone, that death has been buried forever. We who have been buried in the darkness of tombs have also been buried with Jesus in our baptisms, as Paul wrote. And that means that we will be united with Jesus in his resurrection. And it begins now, this very morning. New life sprouts up out of the empty shell of death, right now. As one Easter hymn reminds and proclaims, 

“NOW, the green blade rises from the buried grain, 

Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain; 

Love lives again, that with the dead has been. 

Love is come again like wheat arising green.” (ELW 379)

In this very place where we have buried our loved ones and laid them to rest, we heard Paul ask, “Death, where is your sting?”  And we know the answer. - NOT. HERE!

And along with the women that first Easter morning, in this place of death, we wonder, “Where is Jesus?”  - NOT. HERE!!

Why do we look for the living among the dead? We expect to find death in a place of death, but Jesus has done the unexpected. He has risen from the dead. He IS NOT HERE. 

He WAS here, but he is not here any longer. Instead, Jesus has vacated the tomb and allowed some women to be his spokespeople. He has gone on ahead of us, to meet up us out there on the dusty roads we travel. And he has won the victory for us, so that we who have been buried in our own tombs with Jesus may be raised in his glorious resurrection, now and in the life to come.

What were you expecting this morning, here in the garden, on Easter 2016?

Whatever your expectations where, Jesus always exceeds them.

Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

Amen.  

Inside Out

Ash Wednesday 2016

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Lent really snuck up on us this year, didn’t it? It seems like just yesterday we were taking down Christmas decorations. And then the next thing we know, we turn around and whoa, it’s suddenly Ash Wednesday.

As Christian mystic Henri Nouwen once wrote, “I am certainly not ready for Lent yet….Lent seems like an unwelcome guest. I could have used a few more weeks to get ready for this season of repentance, prayer, and preparation for the death and resurrection of Jesus.”

I agree with Henri Nouwen here.  I could have used a few more weeks, too - I’m not “ready” for Ash Wednesday. I’m not ready to take a hard look at where I fall short. I’m not ready to wear ashes on my head and to remember that I will die someday and be dust. I’m not ready to take a close look at my unclean heart. I’m not ready to let go of the things in my life that I should let die. I’m not ready to go into the wilderness, even if it is with Jesus at my side.

But ready or not, Lent arrives. Just like life. Ready or not, life happens. Like Lent, life arrives like an unwelcome guest. We go about our days and regular routines and whoa - suddenly our lives have been interrupted our own personal Ash Wednesdays, when we become marked by death, grief, and pain. When we are suddenly not the person we were before, but aren’t yet the person we will be on the other side of the wilderness.

As Lent sneaks up on us, like a thief in the night, the rest of the world is ramping up to celebrate a holiday full of red hearts, flowers and chocolate gifts, and the celebration of romantic love.

Don’t get me wrong. Love is great. It’s is amazing and powerful and SHOULD be celebrated a little bit more in this world that seems to be LACKING so much love right now. God is love. God created us to love one another. And as Mr. Rogers, Presbyterian Minister and children’s television host, was known to sing on his show – “there are many ways to say ‘I love you’.” And it’s true. There are as many ways to show love to one another as there are people on this earth. 

However, what Mr. Rogers did not add, is that too often there just as many ways to HURT one another. And by now, we have had thousands of generations of practice at it, and have thought of every way under the sun to cause one another pain.

Even this holiday of love coming up is not immune. According to legend, Valentine’s Day is the saint day – or death day – of Saint Valentine, who was thought to have performed weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry, and also ministering to persecuted Christians. The story goes that he wrote a letter before he was executed and signed it with “Your Valentine.” This was no cute note with candy decorated with hearts. This was a heart-wrenching letter written by a man marked for death.  

And so weirdly, his holiday has become famous for being full of everything shiny, red, and heart shaped. Of course, we all know that love and other feelings don’t originate in our actual, real life hearts. But our hearts can feel like they are swelling with affection or love. Our hearts can ache with compassion and empathy, or with longing or loneliness. Our hearts can sting from being hurt. Our hearts can get bruised. Our hearts can even get broken.

What is the state of your heart right now, on this Ash Wednesday? If you were to take a moment and take stock of what kind of condition your heart is in at the moment, what would you find? 

I’m guessing, if you are human and have lived on this planet for more than a few minutes, your heart is not pristine red, shiny, or intact like the decorations. No, I would imagine that our hearts are actually fairly dusty and dirty from disappointments and mistakes. Marked and scarred by wounds from the past. Broken and crushed by the suddenness of life happening to us.

We have a saying that we “put our hearts into” things that we care deeply about. Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew is specifically talking about physical treasures. Our homes and our cars and our things, the trappings of middle class suburban life in America, and the stuff that we buy to fill the empty void we sometimes feel in our hearts. But I think that anything, be it physical or not, that we put our whole hearts into becomes a treasure to us. Treasures that consume us.

Treasures like things that get damaged or become increasingly expensive to own. Jobs that don’t last. Relationships that don’t pan out, activities and plans that go nowhere, dreams of how life is “supposed to be” that become all-consuming to the exclusion of anything else

We love what we shouldn’t. We cling to what will consume us. We possess what eventually will possess us. We revere that which will in the end ruin us. We are careening down a path that will lead to our destruction, and most of us are speeding down that way on auto pilot.

Just the other day, I was driving home from church, on auto pilot, when I was startled by seeing break lights up ahead. Sure enough, the road I had driving on a thousand times was blocked off, and I suddenly had to take stock of where I was, and figure out how to get back on the right road to make it home.

Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, is kind of like that. Ready or not, it’s time to take note of the brake lights and orange cones, so that we can take stock of our dusty, sore hearts. And what we often find what we don’t want to find. We find that our sinful and broken human states, have scarred our hearts. We find that, like St. Valentine, we are marked by death. But God uses a mark of death in order to claim us for new life.

One meaning of Lent is “to lengthen,” like the daylight hours in the coming spring, that hopefully will arrive someday soon.  The purpose of Lent is to makes US “long” for this new life –We long for right spirits that love what will not leave us dusty or damaged. We long to stop causing and receiving heartbreak.  We long to be out of the darkness and we long for the return of the light. We long for hearts that are clean so that we can love as God has called us to love. We long to be able to store up treasures not of this world but treasures worthy of heaven, love and justice and mercy and forgiveness.

God does not leave us in our dusty, heartsick state. God does not abandon us to the wilderness of our own misguided treasures. God does not cast our dirty hearts aside and throw us away to be discarded. God reaches out to us, arms out-stretched, ready to give our hearts a good scrubbing. Ready or not, Lent then is the detour God leads us on through that cleaning process.

And so we wear the sign of the cross in ashes on the outside to remind ourselves of the work that God is enacting on the INSIDE Of us. The confessing our sins. The embracing of our brokenness. The naming of our grief and disappointments. And this the slow and painful process of the transforming of our dusty and broken hearts into clean ones, better able to love the other dusty and dirty hearts out there in our lives and in the rest of the world.  

That transformation probably takes more than forty days. But forty days is a good start.

It helps us to remember that at the end of these long, dark forty days, or however long our particular transformation may take, at the end of this journey there is hope -  

Forgiveness is waiting.

Hearts are washed clean.

Light is growing stronger.  

Love shines through darkness.

Easter is coming.

Ready or not, LIFE IS emerging from death. Amen.  

God's Catchy Tune

12-20-2015

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

Finally! We made it. We FINALLY get hear something that remotely resembles the familiar Christmas story.  After four longs weeks, we get Bethlehem. Mary. Babies. And we FINALLY get to bask in the gentle pre-Christmas glow of this visit between these two pregnant women, literally swelling with emotion, like a scene straight out of a musical. Mary, right on cue, even bursts into song.

But unfortunately we’ve come in part-way through a musical we all THINK we know by heart. We saw the title of this number, read the words, “Mary,” “Child,” “Womb,” “Mother,” and “Blessed,” and we just know we’re going to get a tear-jerking scene fit for the best of the Hallmark channel, or at least something set in soft light and nice music to gently usher us into Christmas.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but SPOILER ALERT! Forget the songs you’ve been singing along to on the radio - “Silent Night,” “O Christmas Tree,” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”! Buckle up, buttercup, because we’re still in ADVENT, and the heavens are about to be shaken  (ADVENT 1), the ax is poised at the foot of the trees (ADVENT 3), and the mountains are a’coming down (ADVENT 2).

This song of Mary’s is not just a pretty song, it’s not just tender blessing that Elizabeth offers, and it’s not just cute baby bumps these women are sporting. This blessing is for a woman who should be ashamed. Those babies will grow up to change that world. And that song describes how God is going to change that world through reversals and revolution, through hormones and the Holy Spirit. In the ultimate SPOILER ALERT, this song gives a way God’s entire plot.

But first, we have to go back to the prequel, if you will, the start of Luke 1, to Mary’s relatives Elizabeth and her priest husband Zechariah, a good couple who tried and failed their entire lives to start a family. One day, though, as Zechariah was taking his turn doing priestly things in the temple…in the exact spot and to the exact type of person where you might exact God to show up… God does. An angel appears. Zechariah is terrified. The angel says, “Fear not….Elizabeth will have a son.” Zach asks for proof. And for that he is struck mute - very unfortunate thing in his profession. But the pregnancy the angel foretells does come to pass, and Elizabeth will be the mother of John the Baptist, who will announce the coming of the Lord by baptizing people out in the wilderness.

Anyway, fast forward 6 months. A poor young girl, probably her early teens, living in a town in the middle of nowhere, Hicks-ville. It was the LAST spot and the LAST person we might expect God to make things happen… and yet, God does. An angel appears. Mary is terrified. The angel says “Fear not…. You will have a son.” Mary is confused, but believes. And she is given proof – her older relative Elizabeth is pregnant.

Which is where we find Mary today, entering the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth - these two pregnant prophets, wondering what in the world God is up to in their lives. These are smart women; they know how the world works. Mary questions the angel, perhaps from knowing that such a “sign of God’s favor” as a fatherless pregnancy will cause her to become an embarrassment to her family and to her fiancé Joseph. That this would likely be a stigma that would follow her and her son for their whole lives.  That for HER - an impoverished unwed teenage mother from the wrong side of the tracks - to be chosen to bear the Son of the Most High doesn’t makes sense.

Mary knows very well the song that the world would rather sing: The powerful rule from their thrones of influence and wealth. The full get more and the hungry get less. Might makes right; and more guns means more safety. Mercy is for the weak, and blessings are for the famous and successful. THIS is the song that makes sense to our world.  This is the song that we hear sung to us ALL. THE. TIME, the moment we enter a mall or turn on the TV.

And yet, here Mary is, radially trusting God’s promise that don’t make sense. Here she is, singing away in her praise to God. Singing even though she is thrust into the epic struggle between good and evil.  But she knows how the story ends. Spoiler alert –Good wins. GOD wins.

No spoilers of the new one!

This very weekend millions of people – including myself - will see a film that continues a story that began with a poor young man from a planet in the sticks who is DESTINED to bring down an empire that spans an ENTIRE GALAXY. This young man is quite literally catapulted from the quiet existence he had always known into the middle of an epic struggle between the powers of good and evil. And he does this as a follower of the Force - which embraces the way KNOWLEDGE, PEACE, and NON-VIOLENCE. Sound familiar?

"I will not fight."

In the end, the mighty Galactic Empire is toppled, not by brute force or superior firepower, but by the weak rising up over the strong. By the triumph of teamwork and friendship over power and intimidation. By Luke Skywalker laying down his weapon in the final fight with infamous Darth Vader, and vowing not to fight anymore.  By instead singing a different kind of song altogether.

The first chords of this song were heard at the creation of the world, and variations have been heard echoing in the ears of God’s people ever since. A song that Mary gives words to, words that set the stage for the ministry of the child who is growing in her womb, “a long time ago in a Galilee far, far away.”

This is a song that is picked up by Zechariah when he is finally able to speak, and then by the heavenly host that announces the good news of Jesus’s birth to an unsuspecting audience of shepherds. A song that grows and takes shape over the course of Jesus’ life, in his preferential treatment to those considered weak and lowly by those strong and in power. A song that crescendos on a Friday in the presence of cross, then holds its breath in pregnant anticipation in a long, three-day silent pause.

A pause that was ended by the deafening crash of a sealed tomb bursting open.

*the entire alto section really did get totally lost once...

This song still persists, even now, in this musical number with no beginning and no end, and no spectators. That’s right, this is a musical like the annual Princeton Chapel Messiah Sing-A-Long, where the audience members ARE the participants. This is God’s song, and no one is left sitting on the bench, and if the entire Alto section gets lost,* oh well, you just keep going and find your way back into the song when you can.

Because we will get lost and lose track of the song; we will find it difficult to hear it over the other songs clamoring for our attention. Because we will find ourselves starting instead to sing along with the songs that the rest of the world would have us sing. Especially when we are feeling powerless, that life is out of our control.  Especially now at this time of year, in the busy-ness, stress, and the emotions that come with the holiday season. Especially now, with so much in the news that would give us cause for fear and worry. So at these times, we ask ourselves, “Which song am I singing along to right now?”

Am I singing along with the dominant culture to the tune of fear, hate, and scarcity?

Or am I singing along with Mary? Do we dare sing with her about how God has blessed the lowly and powerless, about how God has and will continue to bring down the mighty, and fill the hungry? About how God has done and will continue to do great things for us and through us?

We do. We do dare join in to this grand participatory musical, where all our different voices and roles have a part and a place. We dare, along with Mary, in our different ways, in sharing the good news in the ordinary moments and rejoicing with every fiber of our being in our God who has looked on us with favor. We dare, and we do so together, with Jesus to lead us. So let’s practice doing just that. Let’s practice making Mary’s words our words too, so we can take the song God is singing in our hearts to a world that is dying to hear it. Amen.  

(And for the hymn of the day we sang a version of the Magnificat) 

"Jesus is coming... Look up!"

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

Nothing gets us in the “Christmas spirit” like talking about the end of the world.

Every once in a while, I notice a car (normally the one I happen to be behind going 5 under the speed limit) that has a bumper sticker that says, “Jesus is coming – look busy.” I’m not sure how exactly I’m supposed to be “looking busy” at least while I’m driving. Definitely not by texting, that’s for sure. I wonder if this means we should have some “holy busy work” at the ready. That way, when Jesus arrives, like an absentee boss, he won’t think we’re a bunch of slackers.

Were you ready for Jesus the last time he was supposed to come? Three years ago, when we last heard these words in the lectionary cycle, it was December 2012 - the month the world was actually supposed to end, according to some. It didn’t – at least not that I noticed.

While the end of the world failed to happen on a global scale, the end of the world did happen in December 2012, for the parents of children who attended Sandy Hook Elementary. For that community, what they had previously believed about the safety of their loved ones was shaken and came crashing down around them, as the rest of the nation watched with alarm and grief.

And here we are, three years later, with Jesus yet again seeming to be quoting right out of the news. There is plenty for the nations of the world to be in distress about right now, plenty of confusion, chaos, and fear: Paris, refugees from Syria, ISIS, tension between countries and races, airplanes being shot at, people being shot at… just to name a few of the events in the recent news.  So much pain, so much fear, so much suffering has happened just the last few weeks.

So much so, it might cause us to question whether or not these are the very signs Jesus was talking about. Should we be getting ready for the end? Should we “look busy”? Or should we duck and cover? Perhaps keeping our heads down and stockpiling things for “just in case” might be a better way to get ready than “looking busy,” at least by how Jesus describes the end.

Which leads us to wonder in the meantime, whether the end comes and Jesus returns, in the midst of all hell breaking loose right now, we wonder, where is God?

In the midst of all this, in the middle of the meantime, a voice speaks. A voice with a word of hope. This voice, echoing down through all the turbulent eras of the world, is a voice that tells us that this is not how things are always going to be. Another kind of future is on our way to us – not our future, but God’s future, where we will live not as part of the kingdoms of this earth, but as part of God’s kingdom. Another kind of future has always been and is already breaking in.

During another time of great upheaval in human history, the prophet Jeremiah shared this word to a broken people. The people of Israel were conquered by a foreign nation and forcibly became refugees in a strange land. Defeated, defenseless, and dejected, they might have given up on God and given in to their fear. Would they continue to believe that God would still be present in the chaos? Would God be faithful to the promises God made to their ancestors? How long would they have to wait for this coming day that Jeremiah describes?

Some things never change, I guess. We fast forward to the first followers of Jesus hearing these words written by Luke. When Luke was writing, Jerusalem had yet again been destroyed, this time by the Romans. The temple was gone, the city devastated, countless people were dead, and their world was unrecognizable. As if the sun had stopped shining and the stars had fallen out of the sky. 

Which left the early followers of Jesus wondering, can God still show up, even after all this? Is God’s kingdom still near, will God be able to break in to all the darkness that surrounds them?

If this is the kind of thing that Jesus isn’t going to save us from, it’s no wonder we could rather not hear it, and instead skip over Advent completely, and get right to Christmas carols and peppermint lattes. Especially when the things we hear in church on this first Sunday in Advent has nothing to do with Mary, Joseph, angels or birth announcements, or baby Jesus anyway. It seems like WE are the ones who have skipped over the Christmas story entirely, and jumped right ahead to what sounds like the end of the world.

But I will let you in on a little secret. In Advent, time refuses to behave properly. From the past we find hope for the future, and the future becomes the “now.”

During the season of Advent, Jesus comes to us as a baby and as a grown man. He is on a cross and he is raised. He came, he is here, and he will come again, but we don’t know just when and how until he shows up. Maybe tomorrow, two years, or two thousand years from now. And at the same time, Jesus shows up all the time. His kingdom will come, and at the same time his kingdom IS ALREADY HERE among us.

From Jeremiah to Jerusalem to Jersey, God has given God’s people a head’s up, to lift our heads and look up, that from the dead stump of tragedy, a branch is going to spring up, to show us that despite all the chaos and the fear and the pain, God is still going to SHOW UP. Even when all hell breaks loose. While the rest of the world is telling us to duck and cover, or look busy, Jesus says to stand up and look. Because otherwise we might miss where Jesus and the kingdom are breaking into our world RIGHT NOW.  Look up, your redemption is drawing near.

In these dark days of violence and fear, this is where I have seen the kingdom coming near to us:  In two teenage Syrian refugees who are helping the homeless in Seattle. In my friend and other white allies who are keeping the vigil for justice with Black Lives Matter movement in Minneapolis.  In this past month, the Rescue mission of Trenton made it into the Guinness World Record for most clothing donated to people in need. On Tuesday night our youth served a thanksgiving meal at Hightstown Methodist for those who needed a hot meal. In our own generosity in Christmas gifts for kids through RISE and the Tree of Hope for Hightstown Head start, and in our financial support of the ministries of the greater church and the ELCA.

And in most unlikely places, even in the full-on advent of the Christmas shopping season, there is plenty of opportunities to witness the kingdom come. We can continue to be grateful for what we have, beyond just sharing what we are thankful for around the table last Thursday. We can remember the humanity in a cashier who had to work all weekend. We can make choices in our purchases that honors the work and gives the worker a far wage. Your family might even choose to forgo the gift-go-round all together and instead opt for giving to your favorite charity. I might even choose to be courteous of the slow car ahead of me, even if they have that bumper sticker that says “Jesus is coming, look busy!” All these things, and more, are signs of the kingdom of God arriving, even in all the Christmas frenzy. Imagine that.

I’m going to let you in on another secret, one that is perhaps not so secret. Every Sunday when we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we are looking toward a time where God’s justice and mercy will reign supreme. When there is no more racism, sexism, classism of any kind, where fear and war and violence and greed and death no longer rule us. And every time we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we are allowing ourselves to be open to being part of that coming. And not just by “looking busy,” but by being busy bringing in God’s kingdom.

Until God’s kingdom comes in its fullness, and Jesus does come riding in on the clouds, we wait and we hope and we be God’s lights shining in a very dark world. We don’t know what the world will bring to us around the next corner or in the next news cycle. But we can keep our heads up knowing God is going to show up. Jesus is coming… so look up! Your redemption is near. AMEN. 

All Saints Sermon - Out of the Tomb

All Saints, Nov. 1st, 2015

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

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

Myron Wittmann, saint

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

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

Loma Jean and Raymond Posselt, saints

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

Raymond Posselt, saint

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

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

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

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

“Lord, if you had been there…”

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

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

Instead, Jesus wept.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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