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Sermon 1-3-21

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

Hey it’s 2021! We made it! This year, more than most, we have we been looking forward to starting something new - though I think our “new years resolutions” might look a bit different than normal – like “move to the other side of the room,” “put on something besides sweatpants” and “less screen time.”

Beginnings give us hope. Maybe it’s the reason we return over an over again to hear our favorite stories, with their recognizable first lines: “Once upon a time” and “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” “It was a dark and stormy night.”

What about this one? “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”

And so, began the greatest story of all time, a story could not be contained on just one book or just one lifetime. It is a story that starts at the very beginning and tells of a God who created a world that was good and full of life, and God wanted to share it with us. Even though we tend to mess things up. Again, and again and again. So God decided to begin a new chapter to the story. And this one also began with “in the beginning.”

In an example of divinely sanctioned plagiarism, this is how the gospel of John chooses to tell us the Christmas story. There are no angels or shepherds or censuses or managers or even Mary and Joseph, or even a birth. Instead, John takes us back to the dawn of time, to tell Jesus’ origin story like a dramatic crane shot that zooms out and out and out until you can see all of creation: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

And so, God’s word became flesh and living among us. The Word made a home with us. The Word landed in your neighborhood and moved in next door. The Word arrived at a new address - A living, breathing, Christmas card – with a message of love from our maker, arriving just in time in just the right place.

Having just moved myself, I feel like learning a new address, navigating mail forwarding, and getting your mail right is always an adventure – especially this year! And then there is always having to deal with getting mail addressed to some of the previous inhabitants.

When I lived in NJ, I got Christmas cards two years in a row from one particular family I didn’t know. Both times, the card had my correct address, but the recipients were Moe, Marc, and Justin, with no last name. Did Moe, Marc, and Justin forget to update their friends and family about their new living situation? Or did they not want to be found? I’ll never know. I just felt sad that, for two years in a row, I returned the cards with my own personal, though not very Christmas-y, message added: return to sender.

Our address, when written correctly and kept up to date, tells others where we call home. It’s an amazing system we use to receive everything from Christmas cards to ads to Amazon packages safely in a timely manner – at least, most of the time. And when we move, we usually leave a forwarding address to point the way to where we can now be found, which is exactly what I did when I recently moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia.

Certainly, the words that I read a moment ago from the Gospel of John is more beautifully written than the loveliest hallmark card. It is the first line of the most amazing story ever told. But it seems to me that it is also an address - not only an address of a physical location, but also an address in the span of cosmic time. This is not an address you could punch into your GPS and find the most direct route. This is an address that takes you back to the very beginning, to the Source, to where everything started. 

It was through words that God spoke our world into being at the very beginning. “Let there be light,” were God’s first words into the darkness. And there was light. And it was good. Then God really got going: “Let there be water and land and plants and animals and the moon and the sun and people!” And God saw that the world that had been created was VERY good, very good indeed. And the Word of God has been on the move ever since. 

God didn’t stop speaking after the universe was formed. Through human history God has been communicating to us, through ordinary people called to speak extraordinary words: through Abraham, Moses, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, and countless more, …. All like letters from God delivered through the mouths of so many who have gone before us. Though sometimes the message didn’t always get through as intended.

But in these days and in these times, God speaks to us by a Son, born in a particular place and in a particular time, giftwrapped for us in rags. We celebrate that the Word didn’t just pop in for a quick visit. The Word didn’t plan an overnight trip just to see how things are going. The Word didn’t have to be up early in the morning beat the traffic home.

On Christmas Day, over a week ago, we celebrate when God moved to a new permanent address. The Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word set up shop and decided to stay.

The tracking number of this very special gift was first revealed to a poor, young, small-town girl in Nazareth. Gabriel informed her that a “shipping label has been created by the Holy Spirit; it is currently en route to womb.” Mary shared the good news with her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, who confirmed that the package was on its way. Then, Mary and Joseph faced their own shipping challenges as they made their way to Bethlehem. When they rested with the animals, they thought they had been rerouted or even gone off course, but were exactly where they needed to be.

The shepherds found him first, at 100 Manger Way, Nowhere’s Ville. It was not very hard to find since they had gotten their directions from the finest heavenly host GPS: “to you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is the messiah, the Lord.” These shepherds, poor and nomadic themselves, were surprised to see that the Word of God packs light. No carry-ons or checked luggage, no U-Hauls or moving vans for Jesus. They found just a wrinkled little baby resting in an animal feeding trough.

Some thirty years later, John the Baptist came on the scene, assuring the world that the Word of God had indeed moved into their very midst. Some people thought that John himself was the one who they were looking for, but John assured them he was just the delivery man. Any confusion was finally cleared up at Jesus’ baptism, when a voice came from heaven said – “you are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Quite the delivery confirmation.

And for three more years, the word of God walked and talked, taught and healed and fed, and proclaimed his message of the kingdom of God, until, like a gift we don’t understand, the world tossed him aside for something else they liked better. God gave us the greatest and most wondrous gift imaginable, a perfect reflection of Godself.

What we didn’t count on was that this love was going to mess up our ideas about God and love itself. So, after all this work on God’s part, and on the part of all the prophets, in delivering this gift, we often act as though we want to send the gift back. We would rather say search for the gift recipe and write on the box “Return to Sender. This is not really what we wanted. You must have the wrong address.” 

But God has already spoken. The delivery was already made, and there is no going back what that was before. A new beginning arrived, and it is very good indeed! In the year one AND in the year 2021. Thanks be to God, amen.

 

 

 

Searching for Jesus

 Wednesday 12-30-20

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Have you ever noticed that the rest of the world seems to forget about Christmas by about… 5 pm Christmas Day? All the decorations come down – and depressingly, the Valentine’s day candy is already out in the stores! Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the sheep, and even baby Jesus in the manger go back in the box to wait for next year… why we twiddle our thumbs and wonder how to pass this weird time between Christmas and New Year’s.

I mean, what IS time right now anyway? Jesus has gone from being a baby to 12 years old in a matter of days! Not quite a child but not yet grown up – and definitely too young to be wandering off by himself. Can you imagine what Mary and Joseph must have been feeling when they realized that they had left their son behind in Jerusalem? This is before text messaging, GPS, or the Amber Alert. To them, Jesus was truly lost, maybe even forever. 

Jerusalem is a huge city to get lost in – Mary and Joseph spent three whole days searching for him, probably panicking the whole time. When they found him in the temple, can you image the relief that flooded through them as they realized that he was safe? Joy and anger mixed together filled Mary as she admonished her son – “How dare you do that to us?!? We were so worried!” 

But Jesus’ answer blew them all away. “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I would be in my Father’s house?” 

Driving up and down the freeway back and forth between Pennsylvania and Virginia these last few months, one billboard in particular caught my eye – It says “Concerned? JESUS (in all caps) can be trusted.” This makes me want to ask – can he though? He sneaks away from his parents as a tween and he grows up to cause trouble as an adult. And, it seems as though we constantly have to “find” him! Has anyone ever asked you if you’ve “found Jesus?” This makes searching for Jesus seem like a world-wide game of “Where’s Waldo.” It doesn’t seem fair - Can Jesus be trusted when he seems to constantly wander off, and is always in need of being “found”?

Even worse, it seems like when we need Jesus the most, when we desperately need comfort and hope, that’s when he seems the farthest away. Where IS Jesus during a year like 2020, not to mention during all the regular times our hearts get broken, such as the death of a loved one or news of an illness or layoff or other trouble? Where IS Jesus when life gets tough?

A ball of light will drop and the world calls it the New Year. We make resolutions and later break them. We make plans and have visions of the future that don’t always turn out as we expect them to. As my favorite evening prayer puts it – we are called to ventures we don’t know the ending to, paths yet to be trod, and we don’t know where we’re going.

But no matter where the dawning of 2021 finds you, whether on the main road you imagined, off the beaten path, seemingly lost on a detour, stuck in a rut or in the ditch, dawn will come and the light of risen Christ will shine upon you.

At Christmas we celebrate the arrival of Jesus, the of hope in our lives. He isn’t hiding, like in a game of hide-and-seek, behind the couch with the dust bunnies. He didn’t jump out the tomb that resurrection morning, never to be seen again. He wants us to find him. That is the exact reason why Jesus clothed himself in love so that we would recognize him, by becoming a human being – a tiny helpless baby – to live a life of love, finally ending in a loving act of sacrifice. 

How better to show us God’s love than to become one of us and to tell us in the flesh, to be born “in the usual way”? How better to show us that we are children of God than to meet us face to face, in all our smiles and tears, in our joys and sadness, in our hopes and fears. There was no better way to wrap us up in love than to come as a present, wrapped like one of us.  This love has been in front of us the whole time, wrapped in the form of a baby, almost completely unnoticed.

This gift of love that he has given us, in coming as one of us, surprised humanity so much that we didn’t see it for what it was. God gave to us everything– life and love and freedom and hope and peace - before we even knew that we needed it.

While we are searching so hard something to give us peace and hope in a troubled world, Jesus find us and holds us tight. We too become all wrapped up in the amazing and all-encompassing love of God, not just during the Christmas season, but on every day of our lives. So then let everything we do, be it singing carols or getting ready for a new year, be done in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus, who finds us when WE are lost.  Amen.

 

 

LWF Assembly Sermon

"Joy to the world, the Lord has come.... back!!!!"

Easter Sunday 4-16-17

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

Merry Christmas! ….  “Joy to the world, the Lord has come… Back!”

“Hark the Herald Angels sing! Glory to the resurrected king!”

“Oh come all ye faithful… to the empty tomb.”

Well, I haven’t actually lost my marbles, though this week I probably came close, between Holy Week prep and my first ever Easter here, and also planning a surprise trip to Namibia! So, ya know, not all THAT much going on this week!

This is the most special day of the most special week of the Christian calendar. On Palm Sunday, just one week ago, Jesus entered Jerusalem in a festive parade. On Thursday, we gathered around the Lord’s table to remember the night that Jesus ate his last meal surrounded by his closes friends – friends who would later go on to deny, betray, and completely abandon him. And on the Friday that we call Good, we heard the rest of the story of Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion, and death, as darkness fell inside a tomb sealed with a stone.

But today, “It’s beginning to look a lot like.. Easter!” Because, after all, today we remember how we received the Best. Gift. Ever.

When I went Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, I attended a downtown church that drew members from the white retired social justice involved crowd and those who were born in West Africa. One year, Easters fell really early, and as we sang our Alleluias, we saw snow starting to fall outside, in big fluffy, Christmas-card-worthy flakes. It seriously felt like Christmas morning, made me want to sing some “Joy to the World” rather than “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.”

After all, Christmas is the holiday that most of us say is our favorite. There aren’t too many “count downs” to Easter Sunday, unless you are a big church nerd like me. Though, we still try to make Easter into a cute holiday, like Christmas, and cover up talk of tombs and death by crucifixion with chocolate and bunnies. Babies are much easier to deal with than crosses anyway. And don’t get me started on CHOCOLATE Crosses. Bah Humbug!

So why not just skip Easter and celebrate another Christmas? If one Christmas is good, two are better! Right? All the same elements are already there: we have an angel who announces good news of great joy to some unsuspecting people – shepherds, women – both pretty far down on the social latter.  Mary the mother of Jesus is there too, as “the other Mary,” at least according to many scholars. The angel tells them to “fear not.” Then the women GO to SEE what the angel has told them. (go to Bethlehem) “Come and see the empty tomb…”  And Lo and behold – they find Jesus, just as the angel said. And you know what? SNOW is even mentioned today – the clothing of the angel is described as being as white as snow! “I’m dreaming of a white… Easter!”

Oh yes, I almost forgot. At both Christmas and Easter, someone is also trying to kill Jesus. You probably forgot about that part of the Christmas story. King Herod attempted to kill baby Jesus when he heard about him from the Wise Men, and Herod tried to put the kabosh on Jesus’ potential political career at its start. (kill motion) Try putting THAT on a Hallmark Christmas card.

Jesus obviously escaped death as a baby, but it looked like here it finally caught up to him. The Roman government, in partnership with the Judean leadership in power, thought they had finally gotten rid of this troublemaker. They even put his grave under surveillance, so that his followers could not steal the body and claim resurrection. But we just heard how about how that plan failed BIG TIME.

This is what Jesus had been saying his whole ministry. Over and over Jesus told his disciples, that he “must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Mtt 16:21) That third day, that’s TODAY. But where are his disciples? We haven’t heard from them since Friday. The only people who showed up, the only people who believed the word of Jesus, were the WOMEN.

Dorothy Sayers wrote that women “were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross,” and I would add that they were first again to witness the resurrection. Women were the first preachers of the good news. The men, the soldiers at the tomb didn’t stand a chance. They came to “work” that morning expecting the cushy job of guarding a dead body. The women came to see a dead body, hoping and believing that they would be disappointed. Then boom. Resurrection happened.  Same event, totally different reactions.

Just imagine for a moment these big, tough men with weapons at the ready fainting dead away like proverbial Victorian ladies at the sight of ONE SINGLE MEASLY angel. One. Not even a heavenly host. Just one was all it took to pass out from fear. But for these women, they were not overcome by fear, because they already expected to see the impossible. For them, believing was seeing.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all be so overcome by fear of the darkness around us that we miss out where new life is happening. There is so much fear and so much TO FEAR in the world – racism, sexism, violence, war, bombing, homophobia, fear of our neighbors, of refugees, and strangers – so many things that would set us to shaking in our boots and fainting dead away in dismay.

But what if we looked at the darkness around us with resurrection eyes, like these women. Preacher and writer Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “...new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb.” What if we could hear through our fear, and see in the dark? What if believing is seeing? What if Easter is Christmas? What if Christmas is Easter?

At Christmas, we often call Jesus Immanuel, which means “God with us.” Remember that great Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come Immanuel?” “And ransom captive Israel, who mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.” Well, Immanuel IS HERE and Immanuel has ransomed us, so that mourning and death and exile are no longer our reality.

Maybe Easter feels like Christmas because the two are bookends of the same story –which is the story of God birthing light out of darkness, life out of death, resurrection out of Good Friday. This story is also OUR story. Easter is the culmination, the completion, the last note in the final movement of the symphony, the nail in the coffin for death. Birth, death, resurrection – you can’t have Easter without Christmas, but without Easter, Christmas is more like a gift of a pair of socks rather than a BMW.

At Easter, Jesus give us the greatest gift of all – not chocolate crosses, but eternal life with God, made possible by Jesus defeating the REAL cross, it’s power of sin, death, and the grave. Jesus’ resurrection is OUR resurrection too, and THIS is why it is GOOD NEWS. Because this gift is FOR US. It is FOR YOU.

Last week I went with a friend to hear Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony #2. During the final movement, two soloists and a choir accompanied the orchestra, and sang these words, translated from German:  

O Sorrow, all-penetrating! I have been wrested away from you!
O Death, all-conquering! Now you are conquered!
I shall die, so as to live! What you have conquered Will bear you to God.
O believe, my heart, oh believe…
Tremble no more! Prepare yourself to live!

The disciples hid, and the soldiers fainted, but the women took a page out of the shepherds’ book and MADE HASTE, skedaddling out of that tome so fast that they crash headlong into the risen Jesus. 

Because Jesus lives, we live too. We live, not to hide away or be paralyzed by fear, but to boldly put one foot in front of the other, knowing that Jesus, Immanuel goes with us, and sometimes lets us crash head on into resurrection without realizing it. Immanual comes with us, so that we may live.

“Joy to the world, the Lord has come back!”

Christ is Risen!
(He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!)

Thanks be to God! Amen. 

Good, not Great

Good Friday 2017

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

For nearly every great person of history who is no longer alive today, remembering the time and place of their death is a vital part of telling their story. Especially if that person was cut down in the prime of their life while working for the cause of justice and reconciliation. What biography of Abraham Lincoln would be complete without mentioning the tragic night at Ford’s Theater? What account of Martin Luther King Jr would be worth its salt if did not include a chapter set on that hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee? And, though Malala is still alive, any future biography of hers will surely include her nearly successful assassination while fearlessly crusading for education for women in her native country of Pakistan.

But we can safely say that no other death in human history is as important as the death of a Palestinian Jewish peasant who lived in relative obscurity and died on a cross over twenty centuries ago. At the time, he was nothing more than another failed messiah, yet another victim of senseless violence in the name of the Empire of Rome. Here is a man who claimed to be a king, and look at what those in power did to him.

The area of Judea and Galilee at the time of Jesus were already under the thumb of about a half a dozen successive empires by now. Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and now Romans, with a few minor empires scattered in between, with hardly a break. Oppression and subjugation were old hat to the Jewish people. They groaned from one generation to the next, longing for deliverance, looking for the day when the Messiah, the holy one, anointed by God, would take up the cause and forever send all empires packing.

And Jesus, at least for a while, seemed to be shaping up to be a pretty decent contender for the title of Messiah. He healed people of their illnesses, cast out demons, miraculously fed people, flouted all authority, whether governmental or religious. True, he also had some disturbing quirks like eating with sinners and hanging out with women and children and talking too much about the kingdom of God. But as long as he kicks out the Roman Empire, much can be forgiven.

And this week also started out so well –  On Palm Sunday, we heard how the people crowded around and showed their support in the “Jesus parade,” as Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, the headquarters of power in the region, presumably to take it by storm and finally route the Roman oppression.

But that didn’t happen. Almost a week later, Jesus is hanging on a cross, not sitting on a throne. Almost a week later, there is no revolution, no overthrow of the oppressive government of Rome, no political victory. He is failure in the eyes of the Jewish leadership. A failure in the eyes of history, presumably doomed to obscurity, yet another failed king.

But Jesus didn’t come to be a great king of history. He wasn’t born to be prince over an earthly realm. He wasn’t born to be great. He was born be good. He was born, lived, and died to show that the goodness of God is for all people, not just the rich, not just the righteous, not just the powerful. And that is why we call today Good Friday. Jesus chose what was good for the entire world, even though it led to his death.

While Jesus was still in the garden, praying that this cup of suffering would be taken from him, Jesus still had a few options left open to him. He could have called on his disciples to fight for him – one would already chop off an ear, why not try to do more? Or he could sneak out of the garden and become a hermit. He could have called one those legions of angels to his aid and proven beyond a doubt who he really is. He could have struck an agreement with the religious authorities and worked to reform the religious institutions from the inside.

But Jesus did none of those things. He didn’t fight, or hide, or amaze, or bargain. He decided to obey God, even unto death. He decided to die. He decided to choose us.

Just a few weeks ago we heard about Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, where Jesus says the most famous line in all of scripture, the most quoted Bible verse ever: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Jesus was talking about this moment. He was talking about his death. He was talking about the cross. Here is that man, that moment, that cross.

The cross was not always one of them most recognized symbols of our faith. The Roman Empire used it as a symbol of intimidation, a deterrent, a sign that reads clear as day “This is what happens when you go up against the “powers that be.” You WILL LOSE.”

 On this Friday that is called Good, though, the symbol of an instrument of torture and humiliation and death is transformed. It becomes a symbol of life and repurposed as the sign by which God wants to be known in the world. It is transformed into a sign of a divine love that holds nothing back.

Today on the Friday we call Good, we remember that we worship this suffering God, and we follow this crucified man. Jesus shows us that God is willing to take on the worst the world has to offer, to experience it in a human body that can feel pain and can bleed and can die. Jesus is willing to take on the worst that WE have to offer – our selfishness, our fear, the broken mess we’ve made of our lives – to transform that too into something beautiful and precious and to be repurposed – chosen - as beloved children of God.

Even when the night has fallen, all hope seems lost, and it looks like the darkness will win in the Fridays of our lives - death cannot win, not forever. We cling to hope. We cling to the cross. And we wait for the light that shines in the darkness. We wait for the Sunday we know is coming. Amen. 

Living Water for a Parched Life

3-19-17

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

Today we again find ourselves reading from the Gospel of John and meeting a very memorable character along the way. Last week we met Nicodemus, a prominent religious leader a powerful Jewish group called the Pharisees. This week we meet a woman with no name, a member of the wrong religion and ethnic group, a person who the disciples would never want to be seen with. And yet, we see Jesus do something shocking. He talks to her.

Lately I have been reading a great novel called “Wonder” by R J Palacio. It’s about a memorable character named August who was born with a severe face deformity. When we meet him, at age 10, he has endured many surgeries, and has been homeschooled by his mom. Until now. August enters directly into the anxiety of middle school, you all remember what that’s like! Only August faces his peers with the added disadvantage of a face that causes people to stare, making him a person that no one seems to want to be friends with.  

On his first day, he enters the cafeteria with his lunch, looking for an empty table and praying to be left in peace. But after he sits down, someone joins him. Her name is Summer, and together they decide that the only people who can sit at their table are other people who have names that are associated with warm weather – you know, like Summer and August. This conversation is seemingly about nothing important, but there is something else going on beneath the surface. Wonder of wonders, on his first day of school, August makes a friend.

by Chinese artist He Qi

The Gospel of John also has a lot going on underneath the surface. And today is no exception, with Jesus and his surprising encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. Surprising because it was not acceptable for respectable men to talk with women unless they accompanied by their husband, brother, or other male relative. And yet, Jesus strikes up a conversation.

She was also a Samaritan, “strike two” against her, since Jews did not interact with Samaritans, because of a long history of bad blood. Samaritans were related to the Jewish people but had intermarried with other groups and worshiped God in different ways. 

If that were not enough, this woman has a third strike against her in being married 5 times and living with a man who was not her husband.

Was this woman sexually immoral, promiscuous, or “loose,” as centuries of male theologians and preachers have led us to believe? Or was she actually more of a loser in her own culture and society? This woman lived before no-fault divorce. She lived before women could vote, or have jobs outside the home, or control their own bank accounts, or have much say at all over their own lives. We can never really know what her life was like, but there are other options besides being “loose” woman. She could have been widowed five times and now considered cursed. She could have been unable to have children and so cast off by each husband through divorce. Perhaps she lived with the sixth man because, by then, no one else would take her in and take care of her, since she would not be allowed any kind of job to support herself on her own.

In any case, she was judged by the other people in her community, so much so that she would prefer to carry her heavy water jar in the heat of the day – alone - rather than face the whispers and stares of the other women who came when it was much cooler, in the morning of evening. By doing so, she could avoid the shame of knowing no one wanted to associate with her. But even that didn’t help. She is still being whispered about and stared at, two thousand years later, by preachers and theologians who continue to hang the label of “loose” on this woman like a scarlet letter.

When this woman came to the well that day, she was not just physically thirsty, but emotionally and spiritually parched too. Her relationships have failed her; her culture has failed her; and historians and preachers throughout the ages have failed her. She might have wondered if God had failed her too. Her world had become a harsh desert of shame. 

So the last thing she expected that day was to have a conversation with the savior of the world. The last thing she expected was to be a part of the longest theological discussions with Jesus in any of the Gospels. The last thing she expected was to be offered living water to quench her parched life.

To Jesus, she is not defined by her past, what she has or hasn’t done; she is not defined by who she’s with; she is not defined by gender or race or creed. To Jesus, she is a thirsty person in need of living water.

To Jesus, WE are not defined by our past, or by what we’ve done or haven’t done, or by who we’re with or our race or gender or if we believe the “right” way. To Jesus, WE are thirsty people in need of living water.

Jesus didn’t offer this woman living water once she’d gotten her life “straightened out” into something more socially acceptable. He offered her living water at her moment of greatest need.

Likewise, Jesus won’t wait to give US living water once we’ve gotten our lives all in order, because, frankly, that’s never going to happen. We’re too weighed down by the past, or too overwhelmed by the present, or too afraid of the future. We desperately need Jesus and the living water he provides.

That living water is a relationship with Jesus and a place in the community that Jesus has been called to save. It is a gift that will never expire, a well that will never run dry, a light that never goes out. And WE, just as we are, are invited to be part of this community, this family.

You are enough. You are loved. You have a place here in the family of God. That is news that the world desperately needs right now. That’s exactly where Jesus meets us, at the deep well of our need, and offers to us something way better than anything else out there. And that’s also exactly when Jesus turns us into bubblers.

Now, what’s a bubbler? Its what people like me from Wisconsin call “drinking fountains.” A bubbler does what it sounds like – water bubbles up out of it for us to drink. That’s what living water does, too. It bubbles up in you, sometimes quietly, sometimes with gusto, and always spilling out onto the people around you. This is the joy that Jesus gives us, that he called us as his beloved children and followers, and THEN send us OUT into the world to splash other people.

And that’s exactly what happened to this outcast Samaritan woman. She leaves her water jar at the well in her haste to tell others about this man who just might, maybe be the Messiah, the savior of the world. She became an evangelist, a preacher for her community. In fact, she converted her entire town! All because she left her jar at the well and splashed the entire town with living water.

The Samaritan woman didn’t have all the answers. But instead of being paralyzed by confusion like Nicodemus last week, this woman invited people to wonder with her. She invited everyone she knew to meet Jesus for themselves.

Like the woman at the well, we are invited to lay down our empty jars, so that we can be filled with living water. Like the woman at the well, we become the vessels Jesus needs to carry this water to a very thirsty world. Like the woman at the well, we all get to be bubblers by sharing the living water from Jesus.

That’s right – we may not be back in middle school, but I’m giving out homework.  

Tell one person this week about where Jesus has met you at your well and gave you the living water to sustain you. I

t can be someone you know well, or it can be someone you don’t know. 

Be a bubbler during coffee hour. 

Be a bubbler in ACME to a cashier having a hard day. 

Be a bubbler at the dinner table with your kids or grandkids.

The world needs us. It’s time to be bubblers for Jesus. Amen.

Transfiguration: Where the Magic Happens

2-26-17 - Transfiguration Sunday

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

Sometimes the Bible can be pretty gosh darn weird. Every year, at the end of the season of Epiphany, and on the brink of the season of Lent, we get this strange little story told in three of the four Gospels where Jesus - literally - lights up brighter than the Griswold’s house at Christmas.

But perhaps it’s not quite as weird as we may think. After all, the season of Epiphany is all about light shining in the darkness. It began with the shining of a star high up in the sky, which led distant wise men to a child with the face of God, who would grow up to be the king and savior of all. So, it kind of makes sense that Epiphany ends with that same child, now all grown up, whose clothes and face and whole being are shining dazzlingly bright, high up on a mountaintop, also chilling with Moses and Elijah.

But we seem to have skipped a few bits. In the last few weeks we had been making our way through the Sermon on the Mount, in the 5^th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, and today we find ourselves in the 17^th, just over half way through the gospel! What did we miss? What happened in the meantime? And how did Jesus get up on the mountain and start glowing like a lightbulb?

Jesus and his disciples were in the region of Caesarea Philippi, which is way on the north end of Israel, close to modern day Syria and Lebanon. Six days previously, Jesus had a very important conversation with his disciples, a literal “come to Jesus moment,” where he drops the news of the real reason that he is on his way to the capital, Jerusalem. He is not going there as a conqueror. He is going there to die. And Peter – Jesus’ most famous disciple – his reaction was to say, “no way Jesus, stop talking like that. That can’t possibly be true! Messiahs don’t DO that!”

It is then little wonder that Peter says what he does up on that mountain. He wants to avoid what Jesus said is just on the horizon. Peter wants the “heavenly Jesus” not the “Crucified Jesus.” But what Peter must learn is that to have “Heavenly Jesus” in all his resurrected glory, Jesus must first die.

The Transfiguration of Jesus is just about the midpoint on the Gospel of Matthew. It’s what in stories we call “the point of no return,” that moment when you realize that you can’t turn back, but to go forward seems almost too scary or unknown to bear. In the words of a poem by Catholic mystic John O’Donohue: (from his poem "In the Interim")

“The path you took to get here has washed out;

the way forward is still concealed from you."

This kind of moment smacks you in the face, and you realize that life will never be the same going forward, and yet this moment is so new that you can’t yet conceive of what life will look like tomorrow, or next week, or ten years from now. You have crossed a threshold that you can’t uncross. You are no longer even the same person you were just a minute ago. From now on, everything is different.

This is the reality of change, and it feels very uncomfortable, like we are being pulled in two different directions at the same time. As Lutheran preacher and seminary professor (happened to be one of mine) Karoline Lewis describes change, it is “by definition… a simultaneous holding on of what was and a looking toward the hope of what can be. …”

Holding on to what lay behind us…. While at the same time being pulled into a future that we can’t see yet… as someone who has had my life pretty recently upended, change even for a great reason can make me feel like that Mr. Stretch toy from when I was a kid. Big change, even when it’s good, can still feel new and awkward and still brings complex emotions – grief and loss for what is no longer, mixed with excitement and anxiety for what is to come.

Like the transfiguration story from the Gospel of Matthew, we too are in the middle of our own stories. Brene Brown, the writer and shame researcher famous for her vulnerability TED talk, reminds us that in order to be integrated and wholehearted people, we need to own our own stories, which includes the really messy middle bits (from her book Rising Strong). The parts where the road behind is washed out and we don’t yet know where we are going.

Peter, unfortunately, had not yet heard of Brene Brown, so he had a little trouble. He, like many of us in the middle of our stories, tried to find a much more comfortable way to move through his story, to avoid all the messy dying stuff, which Messiahs aren’t even supposed to do anyway. Peter of course, wanted to skip that part of the story and get on to the glory part. And we can’t blame him. We try to build tents in our own way to delay or cope with change, or to try to make permanent what is only meant to be a temporary phase. Too often we get stuck right along with Peter, trying to move forward into the future, while at the same time driving down the road and using the rear-view mirror to navigate! It’s not going to work out well.

It certainly didn’t work so well for Peter. This is where he ends up at the end of Lent: during Holy Week, he is all talk and no follow through, denying Jesus three times, and abandoning Jesus like all the rest during Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion.

And yet, even after Peter refused to accept that Jesus was going to be a Crucified Messiah, even though Peter all too often opened his mouth only to insert his own foot, even though Peter would turn his back on Jesus, Jesus still chose him. Jesus still invited him up the mountain. And I think that gives the rest of us hope.

We may not always “get” where Jesus is leading us. But Jesus calls us to be present with him in the transitional, transfiguration, threshold moments, even when we would do anything we can to stay on the mountain rather than go back down.

Much like Peter, one of my favorite characters from the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis is also someone who acts a bit thoughtlessly, makes mistakes, often misses the big picture, and yet is still sent on a journey that will save all of Narnia. Her adventure also begins on a mountain top, too, and she is also told to listen. Her name is Jill, and Aslan the king of Narnia –  a talking lion and a thinly veiled representation of God – gives her this advice before she sets off down the mountain:  

“Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly. I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind…. Remember the signs. Nothing else matters.”

Just like Jill, and just like Peter, we don’t know exactly what is waiting for us down the mountain after our transfiguration moments. Or perhaps, we feel that the air is already thick with stress and distractions, or we have already lost our way down the mountain and missed the signs. We don’t want to be in the messy middle of the story, we’d rather be at the end. This is not where we wanted to go, but this is exactly where Jesus is calling us. Not back into the past, or back to the mountain top. But forward, and downhill, into the messy middle.

The messy middle is where life is happening, and Brene Brown says it’s also “where the magic happens.” We can’t go around change, we can only go through it, day by day, until we get to the other side. And there we will find another threshold moment, and then another. Much like Family of God has done in the past, worshiping in one place then another, then another… until building a permanent home… but your work was not over, there are more thresholds to be crossed and middles to muddle through as best we can.

Most of the time, when change happens, we don’t feel completely ready. Peter certainly wasn’t and we never will be. But we don’t have to be “ready.” We just need to listen to the voice at the top of the mountain. This voice is telling us to listen to Jesus. And what does Jesus then say to Peter and the other two disciples in their fear and awe of the moment? Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.”

The rest of John O’Donohue’s poem goes like this:

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground, that you might come free from all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here in your mind…

We hold our confidence in being rooted in our past while at the same time being planted in the soil of our new future. We hold our confidence in this slow and hard process because we know how the story ends – Jesus went to Jerusalem to die, but he also went there to LIVE.  

And because Jesus lives, WE LIVE too. We live here, on the threshold and on the mountain and in the messy middle and in the magic. We live here, rooted in the resurrection. We live here, and we are not afraid. Amen.

Out of the Box

2-19-17

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

A few weeks ago, I watched this video going around Facebook, created by a Danish television channel. It begins by different groups of people walking into a room and each group standing in a separate box marked out on the floor. Everyone was looking around a little nervously when the voiceover to the video begins to narrate: “It’s easy to put people in boxes. There’s us. And there’s them.”

“The high earners. And those just getting by. Those we trust. And those we avoid. There’s the people new to the country. And those who have always been here. The people from the countryside. And those who have never seen a cow. The religious. And the confident. There are those we share something with. And those we don’t share something with.”

Next, someone with a clipboard steps forward to ask questions and invite people to come out of their boxes, sort of like a getting-to-know-you game I’ve played many times at camp. Suddenly these very different groups mingle and reform into new groups. They become groups of people who were the class clown, those who are stepparents, those who believe in life after death. Those who have been bullied, and those who have bullied others.  The video ends with every member of every group out of their boxes and gathered together as ONE GROUP, as all the people who love their country, Denmark. The video ends with this thought: “So maybe there’s more that brings us together than we think.”

One person’s reaction to this video was “we all have the same color blood.” Unfortunately, this is not the natural mode that we operate in. Walking down the street, seeing someone who looks differently or acts differently from us, our brains automatically jump to the easy and simple conclusions and puts that person in a box. As the video shows us, it’s much harder to remind ourselves of our common humanity.

It’s human to fear what we don’t understand. And it’s also very human to lash out when we feel that we or the people that we love have been hurt. Because the truth us, part of being human is that we WILL hurt one another, whether on purpose or by accident. 

In today’s word, Jesus might preach these words to us – “You have heard it said on many a bumper sticker ‘Don’t get mad, get even.’ But I say to you, ‘Love the people who have hurt you, and even pray for their well-being’.”

Tell me to do something – anything – else, Jesus. Anything but THAT. Tell me that God is on my side when people make me angry. Tell me to be kind to my enemies… once I have subdued them. Tell me to ask for extra forgiveness after I’ve exacted my revenge. Tell me to do anything at all to my enemies, except to love them. Because I DON’T WANT TO. 

Because deep down in my heart of hearts, if I am really honest with myself, I don’t think that my enemies deserve my love…. And I don’t think they deserve God’s love either. Because how can God love people “like that”?

We are not alone in this sentiment. The disciples must have listened to this part of the Sermon on the Mount with growing horror and outrage. Because on the surface it looks like giving in and giving up to their oppressive Roman overlords. Some of the disciples wanted to FIGHT, to set up a new political system here on earth with Jesus as the one in charge, to turn the tables on the Romans to drive them out.

What Jesus proposed seems like becoming a doormat. And that is not what Jesus is proposing at all. Jesus won’t FIGHT or take FLIGHT, but instead, shows us “a third way.” A way that breaks the mold and breaks the cycle of violence, and publicly exposes and names injustice. The way of non-violent resistance. Jesus shows his disciples how to assert their own dignity as beloved children of God and not allow themselves to be put in a box by others.

Jesus is absolutely NOT talking about domestic violence or abuse here. He is not leading a Christian marriage seminar. He is talking to a people who have been systematically oppressed by people in power, and those people in power have created laws and systems to keep their power in place by degrading the humanity of an entire people. In Jesus’ time, it was legal for a Roman soldier to conscript a Jewish man to carry his 60 pound bag of gear for one mile – and one mile only - when they were on the move. So, you know, they were at least nice about their oppression, or something, because there were punishments for soldiers who abused this rule. Imagine then, the reaction of a Roman soldier when a Jewish man kept going into a second mile, and the poor soldier is running after to get him to stop! Who is in control now?

Similarly, if someone struck you on the right cheek, that doesn’t mean they are left handed. That means that they hit you with the back of their hand, which was a kind of blow reserved for people who were considered beneath you – women, slaves, servants, children, anyone lower on the social strata. If you were to turn your face so that you could also be struck on the LEFT, they would be forced to use their palm, which was reserved for striking an equal. By turning your cheek, you are telling them that not only are you refusing to hit them back in revenge, at the same time you are forcing them to treat you as an equal, a fellow human being.

Sometimes turning the other cheek means leaving a relationship. Sometimes turning the other cheek means a police report and a restraining order. Sometimes turning the other cheek means getting out of a situation, because then you are acknowledging that you are human being with wants and needs, a human being that deserves to live a life that free from violence and fear. As we all do.

But Jesus - being Jesus - also flips the tables back on US. Just as we are called to refuse to stay in the boxes that others put us in, we are not to put other people in boxes, either. And according to Jesus, that means loving our enemies and praying for those who threaten us.

The enemies of Jesus’ disciples were pretty obvious and pretty brutal – the Roman government and those in power who colluded with them. In our time and place, I think the people who are truly our enemies are much less obvious, but just as powerful.

Our enemies are not our opposites, as many would like us to believe. Our world does not have to be about white verses black, men verses women verses transgendered people, gay verses straight, Christian verses Muslim. I happen to think that our true enemies right now are those who want us to view those people as our enemies. They want us to stay in our boxes, to fear those who are in other boxes, and to continue to operate out of hate and fear. But we all know, because we can see it on the news and all around us, that this keeps us stuck. Hate creates more hate, and fear creates more fear. It’s a cycle we can’t break by acting in the same way.

The Reverent Doctor Martin Luther King Jr, who was a champion of non-violent resistance during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, once said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Love gets us out of the box, even though we would rather put that love back IN the box. But we all know what God does with boxes. When love had every dignity taken away, when love was violently murdered on a cross, when love was sealed a way in a dark tomb, when death thought it had won the day… Jesus broke out of that tomb, broke free from the chains of death, to show us that the darkness cannot and will not win.

Love is busting out of the tomb all over the place. Jesus calls us our boxes to see that there is “more that brings us together than we think.”

Just this last week, in the Los Angeles area nearly two hundred thousand people were told to evacuate because of a hole in a local dam. Sikh temples all over the area opened their buildings to give the evacuees shelter, food, and supplies, just five years after a tragic shooting happened in a Sikh Temple in my home state of Wisconsin. The Sikh community in California opened their doors to complete strangers, because they were in need. They had every reason to say no. But they said yes. “We all have the same color blood.”

 Love knows no bounds and destroys every box we try to create. Thanks be to God. AMEN. 

You are Salt and Light!

2-5-17

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

As I was putting my call sermon from December 4^th and my sermon from last week on my online blog, I realized that though these sermons were almost two months apart, I talked about Dietrich Bonhoeffer both times. And, at the risk sounding like I am totally uncreative, I thought it would be a good idea to mention him AGAIN, in order to share with you who he was and why I have quoted him so much in the past and probably will in the future.  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor in the 1930s who preached, wrote, and was a leader against the Third Reich, and the Nazis did all they could to prevent him from speaking out. At one point Bonhoeffer escaped to the United States, and could have lived here permanently, out of harm’s way. But he could not stay away from his people. So he bravely came back to Germany, and not long after was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazis. He was executed just days before his prison camp was liberated by Allied forces.

About a year ago a Catholic acquaintance heard me preach on Bonhoeffer and he was shocked: “What? He’s Lutheran?” he said, “I assumed he was Catholic.” Nope. The Catholics get plenty of cool people… like Mother Teresa and Stephen Colbert. But WE get Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer is OURS!

Lutherans don’t have saints the same way Catholics do, but we still lift up models and heroes of the faith that show us how to live as disciples of Jesus during challenging times.

There is still plenty to learn about being a disciple. The Sermon on the Mount keeps going and Jesus is still preaching. In fact, his sermon goes on for about two more chapters, and we’re going to get a pretty solid chunk of it in the next few weeks before Lent starts.

“Previously in The Sermon on the Mount”: Jesus flipped the expectations of the world upside down by telling us who is really blessed in God’s kingdom – the poor in spirit, the outcast, the mourning, those hungry for righteousness, those who work for justice and peace. 

Bonhoeffer knew what it was like to be blessed by Jesus as he was hungry and thirsty for righteousness, as he mourned for the state of his nation, as he was reviled and persecuted by those who sought to silence the message of the Gospel. Bonhoeffer also how to live as salt and light, and how hard that would be in a world that would rather make that light stay hidden.  

Speaking of things that are hidden, February is not just “Valentine’s Day Awareness month,” or “Super Bowl Month.” February is also Black History Month, a fact that seems to get buried underneath all the red hearts and guacamole.

If you haven’t already seen the movie Hidden Figures, after fellowship time, drive over to the Regal Cinema or the theater of your choice and catch the next matinee, you’ll probably make the 12:25 showing. Hidden Figures is based on a book that tells the story of three African American women who worked for NASA in the 1960s. I’m going to let that fact sink in for a moment. Black women, working in math and science, in the 1960s.

When a fellow colleague asked Mary Johnson, one of these amazing women, “If you were a white man, would you wish to be an engineer?” Mary answered, “I wouldn’t have to. I’d already be one.”

I don’t think it’s spoiling the movie to reveal that these women were the true “hidden figures.” At every turn, they were minimized, ignored, feared, misunderstood, and excluded. But at every challenge, the minds of these women shone out as they did their patriotic duty to safely launch John Glenn into orbit. They could not help but shine as the brilliant women that they ARE, pioneers and heroes in their own right. It’s pretty awesome that we can learn about the amazing stories of these hidden figures by watching points of light projected on a giant screen.

It is a property of light to shine. Light can’t NOT be itself. It can’t NOT shine. Light doesn’t have to TRY to be light. Salt doesn’t have to WORK AT being salt. They just are. Light doesn’t second-guess itself or worry about what the other photons will think if they shine. Salt doesn’t strive for the perfect work-life balance before deciding that it has the time to be salty. Salt flavors, light shines. It’s what they do.

Jesus said, “You are salt and light.” The end, end of story. We just are.

But that also means, if we are the light, we can no longer remain hidden, even if we wanted too. Light shines - the Body of Christ is seen in the world. It’s who we are. If we follow Jesus, we won’t be able to help ourselves. It’s going to get us noticed by people whose notice we may not want.  But this light is also going to make us see things that we might rather not see.

If you look into bright light for long enough, a shadowy image of that light will stay in your retinas for a few minutes. And on the flip side, if we look into darkness for too long, our eyes can adjust to the lower levels of light, if the sun sets slowly enough or we wait long enough in the dark.

The world seems like a pretty dark place right now for many of us. But after a while we can convince ourselves that it really isn’t all THAT dark after all, especially when certain aspects of the darkness don’t affect us ALL that much.

But many of our brothers and sisters have been plunged into darkness and despair. Those who are misunderstood, feared, vilified because of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality are suffering in the darkness. Their struggles are unseen, unnoticed, or deemed as unimportant. And there are many in the world who would like the darkness, and want to keep it that way. The darkness may be scary, but perhaps even scarier is how comfortable the darkness can become to us.

The beginning of the Gospel of John states that “A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5) That light is the arrival of Jesus, who came to defeat darkness and the power of evil, and to the world who God is.

With Jesus, the mask comes off, and we get to see the love of God in action. Like Clarke Kent taking off those fake glasses that were never really fooling anyone anyway, revealing a real flesh and blood superhero who came to save the world. But not by flying and jumping higher or running faster than anybody else. Instead, he saved the world by becoming a normal, regular, everyday human being. A human being who could experience pain and sadness and grief and even death. A human being who was also God’s son, who died and rose again so that we might live, too.

So when Jesus says we are blessed, we’d better pay attention.

So when Jesus says we are salt and light, we’d better listen up.

So when Jesus says it’s time to assemble the super heroes and super heroines, we’d better be ready to saddle up.

We belong to a real-life league of heroes, one who don’t wear capes or have secret identities. WE, actually, wear our identities on our sleeves, in plain sight, for all to seen.

Admission to this league of heroes isn’t reserved for the fast, strong, or superior. We belong to this league because we are God’s beloved children. We don’t consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer a hero of the faith because he was perfect, supernaturally brave, or above making mistakes. He’s a hero because Jesus trusted him to be who he was called to be – salt and light until the day he died.

We are light and salt for the world. The darkness will only get darker until we decide that we are going to BE who we ARE. Like beacons of light, we reveal the injustice of the world, which would rather work undisturbed hidden in a cloak of darkness. We shine to say to our brothers and sisters, “I see you, I see what’s happening to you, and I’m NOT ok with it.” 

Like salt, we are the spice of the world that brings out the flavor of love and kindness that already exists out there, which the world has chosen to forget or is too afraid to show.

The world is watching, and people are going to notice. The world is going to try and prevent us from being who we are.

A little salt and a little light go a long way. Just a little light in the darkness, shining wherever you are, can make a big difference. You don’t have to be the next Dietrich Bonhoeffer. You just have to be the next YOU. Child of God, salt of the earth, light of the world. Amen.