Gatekeeping the Gospel

9-30-18

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

It’s hard to be a kid these days. First you arrive fresh from the warm space of your mother’s womb into a cold and blinding world full of strangers. And it just goes downhill from there. Then it’s learning to walk and learning the word “no,” getting bumps and scrapes and growing pains, and before you know it, you’re begging your folks to get you an iPhone 26 and to borrow the keys to the car. And then, it’s time to look for colleges. And on and on and on.

Jesus really loves kids. Just read the Gospel of Mark – it seems that every other story involves a child, whether Jesus is healing them or welcoming them. And it’s not just the cute and cuddly ones that he likes. Jesus is always healing the sick ones, the ones who are deathly ill or possessed by demons. He loves the well-behaved ones and the untamed ones, the ones that throw tantrums, and I think he has a special place in his heart for the ones who are always asking questions, unlike the disciples did last week. And this week picks up right where we left off from last week. In fact, technically Jesus has not yet put down the little child that he was holding from a week ago. And the “little ones” he is talking about could be either new to the life of faith OR little innocent children. Either way, there is a lot at stake in how we live our lives to model discipleship. Especially when Jesus’s followers make rules about who gets to speak for God and who doesn’t.

A few weeks ago, I participated in a special project of an Episcopal pastor colleague of mine, who was realizing her dream of making a full-length education film about church. But in order to do this, she needed some pew sitters! So, I volunteer a few hours one Saturday to pretend to be Episcopalian.

There are so many books to navigate!

We had an actual worship service, including communion and a sermon. My friend preached a sermon that she had already given, weeks prior, during that Infamous Summer of Bread. Remember that? You thought we were done talking about bread didn’t you!

She told a story about how orphaned children during WWII were taken care of in refugee camps, where they could receive enough food and care, and be kept safe. But theses traumatized kids could not sleep at night, no matter how well they were cared for. Someone had the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to take with them to bed, so that when they woke up in the middle of the night, they would be reminded that they were fed that day, and they would be fed tomorrow too.

Setting up the shots...

Ironically, the very same text that my friend preached on was the text for one of the weeks I was NOT preaching this summer… so I had already heard a sermon on these very readings…. And in fact, the preacher I heard this summer shared THAT EXACT SAME STORY in HIS sermon as my friend had in hers. However, to be honest, when my friend told that story, it me in a totally different way than when I heard it previously, and I think I know why.

The first time I heard about the kids and the bread, it was from a pastor in a Lutheran denomination that only recognizes the ordination of straight men. I observed his story, but I didn’t really hear it – though he was speaking my language and the sound system was working fine. And yet, his very presence was a stumbling block to me and my ability to hear the good news from him.

To me, this pastor represented a branch of our Christian tradition that has silenced women and continues to silence women and other groups. This branch of the church has sought to gatekeep the Gospel, in rejecting that certain types of people can speak for God.

Astonishingly, and kind of frighteningly to me, this congregation has THOUSANDS of members. When he called up that children for his children’s sermon during the children’s sermon, at least 30 boys and girls came forward. I wondered at the stumbling blocks that this pastor was putting before half of his congregation, what he would say within earshot of these little ones. I know for a fact that HE would never tell the girls that THEY TOO could be pastors.

Professor and writer Karoline Lewis writes: “When we place stumbling blocks in the paths of those trying to answer God’s call …  we are effectively silencing them.”

And this silencing and tripping up began right from the start, pretty much. Jesus’ disciple John said to him, with the child still in Jesus’ arms: “Teacher, we saw SOMEONE ELSE… who is NOT US or LIKE US, doing good work in your name. And we told them to stop, because they are not approved by us.” These are words that were said within earshot of this child. And if Jesus would not have intervened, this child might have grown up thinking that only certain people can do the work of God, and only under certain circumstances. Does this sound like the message that Jesus has been trying to teach for the last 9 chapters of Mark?

Instead, Jesus reminds his disciples, this child, and us, that whoever is not against us is for us. Which is a word that is sorely needed in our world today. Whoever is not against Jesus’s message of love and inclusion for all of God’s children, is FOR Jesus and is contributing to the arrival of God’s kingdom.

The second petition of the Lord’s Prayer is “your kingdom come.” – meaning God’s kingdom. Martin Luther explains that the meaning in this way: “in fact, God’s kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us.” Daily we must ask ourselves, am I hindering of helping the coming of God’s kingdom? How do we prevent ourselves from becoming stumbling blocks to the younger ones in the faith, the ones who look up to us as role models in our walk following Jesus? And how do we keep from making this mistake fresh, through the ages?

I heard of an interesting example of this from a pastor colleague – how one man is trying to prevent the past repeating itself by creating his own literal stumbling blocks. An artist in Germany that has been laying thousands of small brass bricks in streets in German cities, and in Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Norway and Ukraine. Each brick is labeled with the name and date of death of a Holocaust victim outside their last known address. Locals and tourists alike will occasionally get tripped up on the bricks, called Stolperstein, or literally "stumbling stones.” The big Holocaust museums are important, but you can choose to not go to them. But you really can’t avoid the past when you stub your toe on it.  Walking down the street on your normal day, “suddenly they are there... at your feet.”

This effort has been fairy controversial, but the artist Guenther Demnig persists, because, as he says, “we must keep the memory alive, and learn from our history, so that it doesn’t happen again.” Maybe history doesn’t repeat itself, as Mark Twain is thought to have said, but it just might rhyme.

We stand by and watch as “our hands” keep harming these little ones, until we have the boldness in Jesus’ name renounce them, as we renounce the powers of evil in our baptismal liturgy. Same with feet that are taking us away from the path of the Gospel. The same with eyes that too often look backward to the past, or toward a future with only certain people given access to God’s love… Jesus says the harsh words that they must be removed. 

Because the Body of Christ might in fact BE MORE WHOLE… if we are a little more intolerant of the intolerant, the closed-off, and the scarcity-minded… willing to cut them off for the sake of the rest of the body… especially for the sake of those who are vulnerable, for children, for those who are not believed when they seek justice, and those who are powerless and helpless.

A verse we heard from Psalm 19 is one spoken before many-a sermon or homily. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” And, I might be so bold to add to this prayer, “May the words of our mouths, and the meditation of our hearts, AND the actions of our hands, feet, and EYES… be acceptable to you, O Lord.” May this be our prayer always. AMEN.

"Everything I Need to Know about Discipleship I learned in Kindergarten"

Sermon 9-23-18

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

Robert Fulghum wrote a book called “All I really need to know I learned about in kindergarten” which you have probably seen on posters all over schools and offices. You probably have heard of at least some of these “lessons” he shares: 

1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don't hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don't take things that aren't yours.
7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody. …

12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. …

I can tell by your reactions that these were lessons that most of us learned we were kids…. and then we promptly forget them as adults. Think for a minute about ones like: “share everything” …“clean up your own mess” ….“Play fair” …“Take a nap.” Anybody do these lately? Not so much. I fact, I would dare to say that the value system that we teach our children is the exact opposite that of how we live our adult lives. Share everything? We’re not so good at that. Clean up your own mess? Have you seen the news lately? Take a nap? No way – who has the TIME?

As we grow older, the lessons we learned as kids get un-learned and driven out of us.  Including our curiosity, and our tendency to ask TONS of questions. My sister used to babysitter a girl named Sophie who constantly asked, “what’s that? What’s that?” FOR EVERYTHING she saw and encountered!!! To us, it got really old, but after all she was a four-year-old trying to figure out this confusing and contradictory world, seeking information from us Know It All Adults.

Perhaps if the disciples would have benefited from having someone like Sophie along that day when Jesus talked about his death and resurrection a second time.  .. because they sure didn’t seem to get it the first time! They might have been inspired by a few of her “what’s that’s” and would have asked Jesus: Just who is the son of man? Who will betray him? Why will he be killed? And perhaps most importantly: how can someone come back alive after they have died?

But, sadly, Sophie was not with them, and they were too afraid, too embarrassed, and too cautious to ask Jesus what he meant. So instead of asking questions, they had a heated discussion about something they THOUGHT they understood – the ranking in the final line up. When Jesus comes into his Messiah-ship, in power and glory, who was going to be the “next” greatest in the line up? Peter? John? James? And who would be the unlucky guy to be in 12^th place?

But after their heated discussion, once Jesus asked them what they were arguing about…. Guilty silence… not unlike the silence that falls when your own children are up to something they know they know is not right. And the disciples are shamed into silence like naughty children, knowing on some level at least, that Jesus would not approve of haggling over who deserved the #1 spot.

Jesus, after all, has made it clear he is more interested being in spot number #12… or even lower than that. And he illustrated his point by bringing forward a child, whose worth to society at the time was even less than that of a slave, and he equates welcoming such a one to welcoming the very Creator of the Universe.

Even though now things are very different for children compared to Jesus’ time, it’s still not easy to be a kid. They don’t have a lot of say in what they eat, wear, where they live, or where they go to school. Kids can’t drive or earn a living – they are dependent on their parents and caregivers for everything. So, kids are still very vulnerable, even now. And it is with the vulnerable that Jesus has chosen to be, over and over again. Therefore: how we treat the most vulnerable among us is how we welcome Jesus in our midst.

And honestly, we as a society don’t seem to be having a very good “welcoming” track record … at least in how we have treated “other people’s” children. Let me give you an example from when I lived in New Jersey. The Trenton school district and the West Windsor school district are less than a dozen miles apart from one another, and they could not be more different educational experiences. In Trenton, the students suffered for years in asbestos-filled buildings that were literally falling apart around them. In West Windsor, each student started their freshman year with a Chrome Book. What accounted for this difference? School district funding is based on property taxes… and because people who live under the poverty line are less likely to own homes, much less likely for those to be the multi-million-dollar houses near Princeton… and so kids in one area are forced to inherit a cycle of poverty … in the same state that boasts some of the highest national incomes. I wish New Jersey was an exception, but they are closer to norm than we like to admit.

And we in the church don’t always do so well either. Floating around the internet for a while was a picture of a card one family received in a church they visited. The card addressed to parents with children, presumably to be given when kids are being a little wiggly or noisy, read: “… in order to allow those seated near you to engage in the message, please enjoy the remainder of the service in our lobby. An usher will assist you.” Not the most welcoming statement. I highly doubt this family went back to that church. I certainly wouldn’t. Many of my friends reacted by saying, “I would take my family into the lobby alright… but then keep going out the door and into my car.” And yet, this is closer to what is normal behavior in our churches than perhaps we would like to admit.

A pastor in another synod shared a recent experience she had of her council setting her congregational staff family leave policy. Now granted, as a nation, we are the very worst in all the “industrialized nations” with our average of 6 – 12 weeks unpaid leave. That particular church however, just approved TWO WEEKS parental leave. TWO WEEKS. What does that say about the priorities of this congregation to protect tiny newborn babies, and their parents, including the possibility that their mother might have had a C section, which is major surgery? .. or even welcoming adopted or foster children into families? And yet, this is closer to the normal attitude in churches than we would care to admit.

How we welcome those who are considered least says a lot about how we welcome Jesus. Martin Luther once said that Christ lives in each of us, and that we are all “Little Christs.” The good that we do is Jesus working in us. And we are to love, welcome, and value one another as children of God because of this. Not from pity, or deserving it from anything we have done or accomplished, or because we are deemed to be successful or trustworthy… but because we belong to Jesus as God’s children.

Jesus welcomes this child on her own terms, and not on her future value. He doesn’t welcome this child into his presence before the disciples and say – “welcome this child because she is the future of the church.” Or “Welcome this child because she’ll have a family and bring in more kids.” Or “Welcome this child, as long as she behaves in church.” Or “Welcome this child – as long as she stays quiet about how she ‘may or may not’ have been harmed by people in power.”

Instead, Jesus said, “Welcome this child because when you welcome her, you welcome me. And when you welcome me, you welcome the very presence of God in your midst.” Welcome her questions, her curiosity, her wonder, and her wiggles. Welcome her, believe her, stand up for her, especially when no one else is standing up for her. This is especially important in the face of those who CLAIM that they follow Jesus, and then do the opposite.  

It’s amazing that God can take an unimportant, overlooked child, and exalt her as the standard for discipleship. God takes our expectations and then does the opposite – treating the first as last and the last as first, much to our dismay and confusion. But this is more normal behavior for God than we care to admit.

God can also choose a rag-tag bunch of fishermen and generally clueless dudes and make them into passionate preachers and teachers of the message of Jesus.

God can use a tool of cruel and unusual punishment – the cross - and refashion it into a symbol of life and hope for millions for centuries. And God can use YOU, with all your strengths and all your weaknesses and with all your questions, as a vehicle to bring in the Kingdom of God by showing this radical welcome to all people… perhaps helped by all the lessons we learned as kids, like sharing, and holding hands and sticking together. … though naps are optional. Amen.

Kick Off Sunday: Are We Ready to Fail Big with Jesus?

Sermon from 9-16-18

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

I really enjoyed seeing all the “first day of school” pictures on Facebook for the last few weeks! Everyone dressed in their brand-new clothes, new shoes, wearing their new backpacks – some of which we just blessed! - filled with fresh notebooks, pens, pencils, and crayons. And just a few short weeks ago, stores were filled with schools supplies and all the college dorm essentials… everything you see in the “perfect dorm room” pictures can be yours at your local Target or Bed Bath Beyond!

my "1st day of school" pic

We’re coming into a new season, there are new classes and schools to attend, new initiatives at work, new routines at home. We try to put our best foot forward…  often, new clothes, new haircut, and new supplies help us feel like we can tackle whatever the new academic year can throw at us, right?

But a few weeks from now, those clothes won’t be AS new, crayons break, the pens leak, the notebooks get lost, or messy with juice spills and dog drool… the futon mattress has a rip, the rugs get dirty, and even though you just got those fancy new sheets and duvet – that’s fancy IKEA speak for comforter – you still have to do the laundry every couple of weeks.

Real life always seems to get to get in the way of our visions for these nice, neat, new beginnings, doesn’t it?  We have the best plans and make the best preparations… but usually life throws us a curveball – or two – and things don’t always turn out as nice as we imagined.

Though WE are at the very beginning of our program year, in this morning’s gospel we find ourselves in the very middle of things. The disciples have been following Jesus around for about half of the book of Mark by now. They’ve seen Jesus do some AMAZING things -  heal people, walk on water, and feed thousands. They’ve heard him preach the good news and tell stories about the Kingdom of God. They’ve seen him defy the religious authorities and risk everything to share the good news. And now we’re halfway through Discipleship 101 if you will, and Jesus decided to check their progress with a little surprise midterm exam, with JUST TWO QUESTIONS. Question 1 is: “who do other people say that I am?”

Interestingly, this is kind of a multiple-choice question. Some of them respond with “option A,” a return of John the Baptist, who had at this point been beheaded by Herod for his subversive preaching.

Other disciples go with option B - Elijah, considered by many the greatest prophet.  And still others respond with option C - always a safe bet – “one of the other prophets,” which, you know, covers the rest of the bases.

Ok, so Jesus started out with an easy one, since this is actually an opinion poll, and any answer is technically right. But there is a SECOND question to this exam, and this one is an ESSAY. The moment has arrived for Jesus to see how much the disciples have been paying attention in the last eight chapters.

Question number two is: “who do YOU say that I am?”

Which option will they pick? Option A, John the Baptist? B, Elijah, or C, one of the prophets? Or something else? Well, you should know the answer to that one! What did Peter say? (THE MESSIAH!)

Ding, ding! We have a winner! Confetti! Balloons! That’s right, Jesus IS the messiah! The one to save Israel! The one who has been foretold! High five, way to go Peter!

And then… Peter kept talking. Perhaps inflated with actually getting something right, Peter then goes beyond the scope of the exam and tries to BE the teacher and tell Jesus HOW to be the Messiah.

Peter says: “Now look here, Jesus. You are the Messiah, and that has nothing to do with all that other stuff you just told us. There will be none of that SUFFERING stuff, none of that REJECTION stuff, and ESPECIALLY none of that DYING stuff! Don’t you know our traditions, Jesus? The Messiah is supposed to ride into town on a big white horse and show these Romans who’s boss! No, no, Jesus. You’ve got this Messiah thing all wrong.”

To which Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan.” Basically, Peter, got a big fat “F” on his midterm.

We tend to be so hard on poor Peter, but we’ve all been there too, wanting to choose the cleaned-up version of Jesus. “Surely Jesus did not REALLY mean for us to welcome ALL people.” “Surely Jesus doesn’t REALLY mean for us to suffer and take up AN ACTUAL cross.” “Surely Jesus doesn’t REALLY mean for us to LOSE OUR LIVES for him, like actually die, right?” Right????

We tend to be so hard on poor Peter, probably because Peter is us. We would all prefer to live at the beginning of the story where everything is still shiny and new; or to skip all the way to the end, where everything is nicely wrapped up.

But we don’t live our daily lives there, at the beginning… or at the end of the story. We live in the middle.  And the middle is messy. And it totally stinks that there is no way to skip it or fast forward ourselves through it.

The middle is the shadowy place where you don’t know what’s going on, and nothing makes sense, and no matter how hard you try you can’t seem to make any headway. All your excellent preparations and your good intentions don’t count for anything, and honestly you have no idea if this whole mess is going to turn out OK or not, and it feels like you must be the only one stuck down here.

But you’re not alone down there. The mess in the middle is exactly where Jesus chooses to be.

Brene Brown, "Rising Strong"

The good news is that to be a follower of Jesus, we don’t have to have it “all together.” We don’t have to wait until we’ve picked ourselves up after a fall. We don’t have to wait until our schedules get less crazy. We don’t have to wait until our lives look more like the perfect dorm room in the newest IKEA catalog.

But the flip side is that following Jesus is not a path OUT of the messy middle, either, like Peter thought. Peter saw Jesus as a ticket right INTO the seat of power for some payback. But that is not the road that Jesus walks, and it is not the road that Jesus calls us to. The road that Jesus calls us to is one he himself followed to its very end: the road of self-denial for the sake of others, the road of losing oneself for another’s gain, the road that looks to the world like a road of shame and weakness, everything we all would much rather avoid.

Following Jesus may lead us directly through the valley of the shadow of death, but in truth, we could not have a better guide than the one who has walked this road BEFORE us, and who continues to walk this road WITH us. Even when, ESPECIALLY WHEN we fall flat on our faces.

Peter took a chance, opened his big mouth, and had a big fat fail. And Jesus had to know that this would not be the last time that Peter, and the rest of the disciples, would fail Jesus, big time. You may have heard that story about the rooster crowing? Another of Peter’s least shining moments.

But still, Jesus does not reject Peter. In fact, when Jesus says “Get behind me, Satan,” he’s telling Peter – not to leave - but to get behind him IN ORDER TO BETTER FOLLOW HIM. Get back in the line…. Stay in your lane, get out of the pilot’s seat. You can’t follow someone if you are not letting them, you know, LEAD.

In fact, good for Peter! He failed BIG… but at the same time he also got it right. Have you ever heard of something called a “Failure resume”? it’s exactly what it sounds like – a record of all the things that did not go well.

This year, while I HOPE that we aren’t going to do a LOT of failing… there are going to be plenty of things that are just going to fall flat, or even fail spectacularly. Not every one of my hair-brained ideas are going to get off the ground. Not everything we try is going to go well. But I want us to try. I want us to have a big fat Failure Resume. It’s going to be messy sometimes, and by the end, some of the things we hold dear might look a little different… or have died and resurrected into something new. But we won’t know until we embrace the middle, and lean into the chance that we might make mistakes and fail big.

So, let’s get ready to kick off a great year of … falling flat on our faces. Who’s ready to fail with Jesus? (let’s try that again!) See, we are already getting the hang of learning from where we fall! Thanks be to God, amen.

"Lord in Your Mercy... We Are the Prayer"

Sermon 9-9-18

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

I’m sad to say it: Vacation is officially over. It’s time to come home from the beach, to come down from the mountains, get OFF the boat, or to leave the city. It’s time to get back to our regularly scheduled lives, with school and work and dance lessons and football practice. … on a day like today, it’s easy to feel that way, with it feeling more like late October than early September! In fact, every year at my college, we sang “Earth and All Stars” at our opening convocation, so that song to me REALLY feels like summer is over and its time to get back to business!

Anyway, summer vacation, rest, and time away IS a good thing, and even Jesus tried to take a vacation once. Up until now the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has been healing, feeding, and teaching almost non-stop. Plenty of people are impressed by his deeds, but there are also plenty of other people, mostly in those power and authority – like Herod and the Pharisees - who have interrogated, criticized, and rejected Jesus at nearly every turn. I don’t blame him for wanting to get away to clear his head, to a quiet place where no one would find him. So, he went to the beach-side city of Tyre - perhaps he wanted to spend some time alone “down the shore.”

But despite his best efforts, someone found him anyway. A local woman, who wasn’t Jewish, desperately needed Jesus’ help.  Her poor little daughter was ill, overcome by an unclean spirit. Perhaps this woman had heard that Jesus has cast out demons. Or perhaps someone had told her that Jesus was a healer. Whatever she heard about Jesus, she went to that house that day, determined to seek her daughter’s relief. She got on her knees and begged him to help her daughter. And even when Jesus gave her a hard time, she did not give up. She clung to her hope that Jesus could do something about her daughter’s suffering.

She could have stayed home and continued to pray for healing. But instead she jumped at the chance to lay her prayers directly at the feet of someone who could do something about it. And she was not about to leave until her prayers were answered, even if that meant just getting crumbs from the Bread of Life.

Jesus is not often impressed, but he sure was here. He was moved by her persistence. Up until now, Jesus had been ministering to his own people, followers of his own religion, in his own native country. But it was this woman from modern-day Syria who signaled to Jesus that it was time to think outside the box, time to break down all the barriers, to take this message on the road to serve a wider audience.

And now Jesus is on the move. Vacation time is over, and now it’s really time to get to work. He left the area, but he didn’t go back home, at least not yet. Along the way he met some people with a friend in need. They banded together to get Jesus to help their friend who was deaf and could not speak. Jesus listened to their plea, and just like in Isaiah, the ears of the deaf were unstopped, and the tongue of a once-silenced person was now able to sing for joy. Because his friends cared enough about him to bring him to Jesus, this man’s life was changed.

Both stories may seem very different – a woman with a daughter verses a man who was deaf. But both stories show us living examples of embodied intercessory prayer. Every Sunday during our service we pause to pray for the church, the world, and for everybody who needs help. We call them the “prayers of the people,” or “the prayers of intercession.” It’s the part where when we hear words like “Lord, in your mercy,” we say, “hear our prayer.” Every week, we come to Jesus, and ask Jesus to provide for our friends and family, placing their needs at Jesus’ feet – like the stories we heard today… though perhaps not quite so literally.

While I was searching through my usual resources for inspiration for today’s children’s sermon, I stumbled across something for us “big people” too. One resource hit the nail on the head: “People seem to be coming to Jesus for several different reasons, but they all have one thing in common – they have faith that Jesus can do something about it…  People come who are sick, or who need guidance, or food, or just need to be loved. This story is interesting because the two people that Jesus heals didn’t even bring themselves to Jesus – in fact, one person doesn’t even show up! Family and friends are showing up at Jesus’ feet to get help for the people that they love.”

This mom and these friends showed up for the people that they loved. And Jesus listened and acted. But what happens when we don’t always have a “physical” Jesus to track down and persistently bother about the people we love?

Jeff is so kind to model the shirts for us!

The ELCA has a tagline – you might have heard it before. “God’s work, Our hands.” Our commitment as Lutherans and as people of faith is to be the agents of God’s kingdom here on earth. When I say “we are siblings in the body of Christ” every Sunday, I mean that we are committed to being God’s hands and feet in the world – hands to help and heal, feet to go where we are needed to tell of God’s love for all people.

Our worship does not end with our Prayer of Intercession. Before we leave, we pass the peace, collect our offerings, and share in the Lord’s Supper, then get sent out. When our worship is over, and we disperse into the world, we do not just say, “Go in peace and act like if nothing happened here today, Thanks be to God!” … even though all too often that is often how we live. No, when we leave here today and every Sunday before and hereafter, we “go in peace to SERVE the Lord, thanks be to God!”

And how do we serve the Lord? By showing up for others just as Jesus did – showing up for the grieving, the hopeless, the voiceless, the poor, the weak, and the dying. We fill the ears of Jesus with our cries against injustice, and to lay the burdens of ourselves and others at Jesus’ feet. We do it because we believe that Jesus is going to do something about it.

Now, our prayers may not be answered in in the way that we expect them to be. I’m sure the man who had been deaf was not expecting a wet willy, nor did the Syrophoenician woman expect her daughter’s healer to be crabby. And neither of them expected Jesus to ORDER them to keep quiet about what he had done. But you can’t keep good news like that under wraps for long – it’s like saying “Here is your check for winning the lottery, but don’t tell anyone that you’ve won." That's not going to happen!

The woman from the first story had a great point – there are so many crumbs left over from the meal that they get all over and start to fall off the table. There is enough Jesus to go around. So much so that this abundant love is going to spill over at some point.

Because when Jesus shows up in your life, and you experience this abundant love for yourself, you’re not going to be able to stop talking about it. In order for us, gathered here today, to hear about what Jesus did for the Syrophoenician woman so long ago, she must have told somebody about it. 

When Jesus shows up in your life, you’re not going to be able to stop yourself from doing something about it. Because sometimes, God uses YOU to answer someone else’s prayer. No heroics are required, just doing the little things with great love, as Mother Teresa once said. A thank you note, a smile, talking to someone who is lonely, sharing your lunch with a fellow student, and starting your year off with kindness.

As you are getting back into the swing of things, whether it’s back to work or school or getting your kids to soccer practice on time, know that God never takes a vacation. No matter what you ask, no matter when or how often you ask it, or for whom, our God never stops listening. We just have to make sure WE never take a vacation from bringing the needs of others to Jesus, and then showing up for others as answers to prayers too. Amen.

Our Pharisee Hearts

Sermon 9-2-18

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

Bye-bye, Summer of Bread, and the Gospel of John. It was nice to spend some time doing a deep dive on Jesus statement “I AM the bread of life….” But now it’s time to get back to Mark. One of the last things we heard from Mark was that cheerful little story about a flashback to the beheading of John the Baptist, included because King Herod thought Jesus was John the Baptist 2.0.

Herod was not the only who was getting nervous about Jesus. The Pharisees too were taking notice of Jesus’s shenanigans and were eager to find fault. On the surface it may seem like the Pharisees have a legitimate complaint – it IS kind of gross not to wash your hands before you eat, especially in this climate which is hot, windy, and dusty. What, then, is it about this behavior that has gotten them bent out of shape.... hit the roof... foaming at the mouth... drive them up the wall.... blow a gasket - you the picture.

I think you got it that the Pharisees were upset. But if you are NOT a native English speaker, most of those phrases I just said sound strange. But we all take idioms for granted, Now the reverse is equally true, that there are plenty of phrases in other languages that don’t translate directly either…. And things get REALLY fun when phrases in English get translated to another language, then back to English. For example, in Star Wars, “Jedi council,” translated into Mandarin Chinese, and BACK into English, is “The Presbyterian Church.” 

We’re going into a bit of a cultural deep dive, because we need to remember in reading these texts, that they are written in another language, on another continent, and two thousand years ago.

Earlier in the summer and in Mark, Jesus healed a woman who had a bleeding issue for twelve years. Not only had her illness been uncomfortable and embarrassing, she was also shunned from her community for being ritually unclean, which had nothing to do with germs or dirt. 

Similarly, the Pharisees took issue, not with the lack of cleanliness of some of the disciples, but their disregard of the purity codes and traditions that the Pharisees hold so dear. Pharisee means, “pure”, they were like a denomination within Judaism. Like their name sounds, they believed that everyone and everything is holy…  as long as you followed EVERY SINGLE ONE of the purity codes …all six-hundred of them! In this case then, handwashing is not about avoiding germs; it’s about following a tradition that makes a meal holy, pure, and worthy of consumption. And similarly, the person who eats it will become or remain holy, pure, and worthy of love. To put it simply – unclean food, and behaviors, make for unclean people. And following these rules – whatever they may be – are what gets us there.

And not surprisingly, Jesus doesn’t buy this one bit. Not because Jesus is anti-Jewish, nor is he replacing Judaism with Christianity – instead, Jesus has in his sights the evil that lies in every human heart to twist God’s commands into things that hat bully and exclude.

How many of you remember any of the 10 commandments? Any of them, shout them out…

By the way you can download Luther’s Small Catechism for both Apple and Android phones… anyway, THESE are the ten Big Ones that God deemed important enough to write on stone (by the way, Jesus isn’t getting ride of THOSE commandments). Which commandment do you think is the hardest for YOU to follow? Haha, no one wants to shout THAT one out!

 I’ll tell you MINE. I struggle so much with the 8^th Commandment: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Seems simple enough on the surface, right? Until we read Luther’s explanation, which goes: “We do not tell lies … betray or slander our neighbor…. Instead we are to come to their defense… and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.”

Let me tell you a little secret. The Ten Commandments were not given to us to make me holier as a person. God gave us the Ten Commandments in order to minimize the damage I could do against my neighbor, especially Commandments four through ten.

Because most of the time, I think I am more like a Pharisee than I care to admit.  I find myself tempted to fall into an “all or nothing” mentality with my fellow human beings, especially based around behaviors that I deem to be impolite, unhealthy, or peculiar. I am quick to judge, and I need a little help in the translation…. So that I interpret what they do in the best possible light. And sometimes this begins at home, and I am going to give you an example from where I grew up.

In Appleton WI, the largest city near my parents, is admittedly not very diverse, especially compared to the Philadelphia area. However, Appleton has an unusually high percentage of a group of Hmong people, from the country of Laos in South East Asia. Growing up, I heard all the usually “truths” that are also “true” of every refugee group out there: 

“They refuse to speak English – why don’t they just learn?” 

“The government give them these big cars and they don’t even pay taxes.” “

They won’t become citizens like the rest of us.”

I didn’t meet a person who was Hmong until I did my Clinical Pastoral Education at a hospital in St. Paul Minnesota. A patient of Hmong descent was suffering from the complications of a heart attack, but his family was convinced that this patient’s uncle had curses him. I did my best to pray with the family until their pastor arrived – yes, you heard right, this family were also devoted Christians.

After this, I did a little research: the Hmong people were a nationless group living in countries all around Asia, and no country actually wanted them around. During the Vietnam war, many Hmong people helped the United States, and in return, we resettled a large portion in various places around the country, including Appleton WI. In return… we treat them with suspicion and distrust – not unlike their counties of origin, it seems like.

More recently, I read through the book (Dialogues on the Refugee Crisis) that the Adult Ed class will be starting in a few weeks and I just want to share a few things about what I read – without giving too much of it away! According to this book, there are so many RULES that refugees coming into this country are required to navigate, besides the cultural ones once they get here. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that it takes 2 years for refugees to move from initial screening to resettlement here – and the process takes 3 years or more to unite families. Less than 1 percent of refugees worldwide are resettled – less than 1 percent. All refugees are expected to repay the resettlement within 4 years, and the first bill comes six months after their arrival.

I’ll only give you one more statistic to chew on, I promise. In 2016, the Hmong population of Appleton was 6 percent. That same year, the percent of people in Appleton who are full US citizens was 97 percent. If I know how to do math correctly, that means that no less than half of the Hmong population are already US citizens, and I would guess that the number is probably higher than that. Maybe, just maybe, they have paid off their resettlement loans, are paying their taxes, and are being successful enough that they can afford a nice car for their families to enjoy.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” because we all harbor in our hearts the fear and dislike of the other. But the truth is, there is no “other.” There is no “them.” There is only “us.” Jesus is reminding us of what God has already commanded – to love one another - and Jesus of course lives that love out in its ultimate fullness – facing head-on the evil intentions of our hearts and refusing to let them win. He stands up to our Pharisee hearts and does not back down or give up, even when it is difficult for us to hear and understand. Jesus won’t give up on us, and we don’t give up on one another, even when its hard for us to understand too, and we need a little bit of translating. Thanks be to God, Amen.

Bread, Betrayal, and the Great British Baking Show

8-26-18

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

Welcome to the last Sunday in our Summer of bread, where, if you have been sticking with us, we have now read through ALL of John chapter 6 (we added the last 2 verses to the Gospel reading)! We have almost made it through the summer of Bread!! I bet you thought that I couldn’t get out one more bread sermon…. well, we’ll have to see if this one is delicious or maybe a little half-baked.

Last week I told you about what makes bread, bread - it makes a journey that includes a fascinating cycle of life, death, to life again when we eat it. One of the things I mentioned is the reason behind fresh bread’s gooiness (from a TED talk last week) is made in part by yeast sweating and burping. Uhh, gross! Did Jesus and his followers think about this when Jesus told them “I am the bread of life?” Perhaps not. But we do know that in the original language of the Bible, Jesus chooses a word for “eat” with a very interesting meaning. When Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood….” He uses a word for “eat” that more specifically means “chew on, gnaw, munch,” or even “crunch.” … not unlike how cows chew on their cud.

I honestly don’t know what’s weirder: eating the sweat and burps from yeast… or thinking about munching or gnawing on Jesus.

So, because the beginning of John 6 was quite a few weeks ago, we are going to make like a cow, and chew on all that has happened since we began the summer of Bread.

Chapter 6 began with Jesus feeding more than five thousand people with just five loaves and two fish, with lots of leftovers. The crowd really liked the free meal and followed Jesus, wanting to know more. Jesus reveals to them that HE is the bread of life, better than the manna that their ancestors ate in the wilderness after God freed them from captivity in Egypt hundreds of years before. This is a hard claim to swallow and many questioned his recipe to eternal life. Jesus rises to the occasion and reveals that he is the bread of life. Today we heard that some turned away, because this was too big a bite for them to chew, but others decided to stick around to see what Jesus means by “those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”

This is STILL a hard teaching, and it hasn’t gotten any easier to understand, even after two thousand years’ worth of ink has been spilled on the subject. It’s tempting to explain away, skip over, or say that Jesus does not mean it literally. 

And by this time of the Summer of Bread, many preachers by now have given up taking about and thinking about “bread and Jesus” for so many Sundays in a row. But not us. Not today. We are going to keep on, to stay the course. Because I promise you, this will NOT be the last time that we talk about bread, Jesus, confusion, and betrayal.

Every week during worship, we hear Jesus says similar words to that in John 6. In the words of institution, we remember that “In the night that Jesus was betrayed…” Jesus shared with his disciples a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, and declared that these were his body and blood, given and shed for them. It is the last night he spent with his disciples before he would be arrested, tortured, and hung on a cross to die.

Right before Easter every year, we commemorate this night on Maundy Thursday, during Holy Week. Holy week seems about a million years ago by now, doesn’t it? Half a year later, we are reminded yet again that Jesus shared his last meal with people who would later deny him like Peter, betray him like Judas, and turn their backs on him like the rest of the disciples.

And here, long before that night, Jesus is here with them, giving the words of spirit and eternal life to these knuckleheads. Because that is what the death… and LIFE of Jesus was all about… THIS Is the good news of Jesus Christ: that while we are still lost, broken, oblivious, ashamed… Jesus arrives to us and gives us everything that he IS and HAS, so that we may have life, abundantly and eternally. And Jesus does this despite … or maybe even BECAUSE Jesus knows that we are going to deny him like Peter, betray him like Judas, and turn our backs on him like the rest of the disciples.

But Jesus never give up. Even in the darkest nights of betrayal. Even here, faced with rejection and misunderstanding, Jesus keeps loving, feeding, and sharing. He never stops saying the words of spirit and life, even as some of his disciples admitted defeat and walked away. Because it IS going to be a challenge to keep going for the long haul.

You thought that 5 weeks in John 6 and Jesus talking about bread was a tough slog? How long do you think it feels while waiting for justice to be fulfilled while we who have privilege deny, betray, and abandon our neighbor?

 How do you think that the leaders and participants of the Civil Rights movement felt during the months and years of bus boycotts and freedom rides? How long did the two thousand years feel before women could be ordained as pastors? (And how long before all women in every tradition can be ordained?) How long did those years feel to same-gender couples before marriage equality granted marriage justice to all couples?

What are five weeks of bread compared to their time of hardship? I admit that when some of my colleagues complain about the overabundance of bread these weeks – which to me sounds similar to the complaining of the people in the desert– When I hear their complaints, I wonder (perhaps uncharitably) if they should perhaps find a different calling. Because if you struggle to find things to say for five weeks about how Jesus sustains us during one of our most holy rituals, how are you going to feel after five YEARS… or five DECADES?

Because Jesus will never stop being bread, even after the Summer of Bread is over. And we will also never stop being called to BE bread for other people. Jesus never gives up being bread for us… and we are not supposed to stop either, even when the road is a long and we often mess up along the way.

A baked Alaska, apparently.

One of my favorite shows to binge-watch on Netflix is The Great British Baking Show. Any other fans? Has anyone ever made “Baked Alaskan”? Me neither. All I know is that it involves ice cream and cake. During one of the hottest days of the summer, the cake of one contestant got melted beyond repair, and in frustration he threw his cake into the garbage can. And since he didn’t have enough time to bake another one, when it was his turn, he had nothing to show the judges. At the end of the show, the contestant who had thrown away his Baked Alaska was eliminated from the show that week. Would he have stayed on if he had allowed his poor melted cake to be judged? We can never know.

But we do know that God has way more grace than a baking show judge. But I like to think that there is a difference between giving up and walking away from what Jesus has to say, and showing up with Jesus even when we don’t understand and sometimes feel uncomfortable by what he says… and when we royally screw up when trying to follow these hard teachings. But we keep trying, even when the baked Alaska melts or we are just SO DONE taking about bread, already!

We keep going, because Jesus keeps feeding us with words infused with spirit and life. 

We keep going, because Jesus keeps giving us everything that he has, ever week, in the form of a bit of bread and a taste of wine. 

We keep going, because Jesus is always the bread of life, even when it’s not the “Summer of Bread.” 

We keep going, because Jesus is always with us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

God's Bread, Our Hands.

Sermon 8-19-18

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.

Goodness, Jesus. Enough with the bread already. We get it, ok? Jesus…. Bread. Jesus, bread. Jesus-bread. Bread is super boring and super basic… or is it? How many of you have actually made bread? Like, handmade, not in your bread-maker? And even for those of you who have, do you any of you know how bread WORKS? Do you understand the art and the science that goes into this food that has been part of our diets for thousands of years?

After church today, I can drive to any grocery store and buy any kind of bread imaginable – super white bread, whole-wheat bread, honey wheat, 9 grain, pita, rye, sourdough, Italian, French, poppy seed - you name it, they probably have it. I can make my selection, go home, and enjoy it instantly, no waiting for mixing, rising, baking, or cooling. In no other time in the history of the world has this been possible.

If you or your children ever made communion bread as part of the youth group, you might remember a little of how that bread was made. (And we did just talk about it during our children’s message.) You saw the ingredients come together. You felt the flour on your hands as you kneaded the dough. You heard laughter as we all tried – and failed - to keep the mess to a minimum. And then in the oven it goes, and out pops some of the most delicious bread ever.

But how does bread… bread? Have you ever thought about how it is that power from a crushed plant, plus water, plus a fungus could be so delicious? It’s pretty wild. Bread is actually alive, then dies, then lives, then dies again, so that WE can live. Bread is a food of resurrection. (This TED talk is where I learned all the following about bread)

Bread begins as a plant we call wheat growing tall and strong, creating seeds, which over the course of thousands of years, has learned to graciously release these seeds for us to use. Wheat seeds, if you remember from your sixth-grade science class, are potential life. Some of these seeds we do indeed save and plant in the next growing season. But the rest go into making our bread.

The wheat was alive, and the seed is potential life, but then, what do we do to the seeds to make the flour? … we crush it. Pulverize it. Take away any possibility for sprouting and growing. A seed is not dead, but flour is.

BUT THEN … we combine the flour with water and yeast… and it becomes alive again. As the yeast grows, it actually burps... and sweats…. I know, gross, right? …making the bread rise up and taste good. Kinda icky, but oh so delicious. This is how bread becomes a living thing once again – when it is a dough colony of yeasty goodness.

And then, we put in in the oven. The heat makes the dough solid, and the crust crispy, and the ingredients bond… but it also kills the living yeast. So, what comes out of the oven is no longer alive in any way. Bread is dead. No seeds, no yeast, no life. Just… bread.

But then… we eat it. We gather around a table with our families and friends, where we laugh, we cry, and we eat. Bread was alive, then dead, then alive, then dead, then once again alive. Bread comes alive, in us and through us. Bread truly is a food of resurrection. It is perhaps little wonder that Jesus used bread so often to talk about himself.

The men and women who were listening to Jesus that day could not have told you about all the reasons that bread is bread. They just knew. They knew it, deep down in their bodies. They knew because they experienced it. The women knew, with their sweat and their aching arms – crushing wheat, kneading dough, serving bread to feed their families. The men knew with their sweat and their aching arms from harvesting these very seeds, the beginning of bread. They experienced with their bodies that bread is more than bread, and eating is more than eating.

A woman named Sara Miles experienced this too. She might be the last person that we would expect to see in any church: atheist and skeptic, world traveling war correspondent, lesbian, single mom. But one day, for no reason she could articulate at the time, Sarah Miles walked into St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco, California, and received Holy Communion for the very first time.

And it changed her life. She describes that moment when she ate the bread and drank the wine, as “Jesus happened to her.” From that moment on, Jesus had lodged into her, like a crumb in her teeth, refusing leave. She went home that day shocked and confused at what happened. But she did know one thing, she knew it deep in her body: she wanted that bread again. And again. And again.

We have this saying: we are what we eat. When we eat bread, we eat death and resurrection and our bodies continue to live. And when we eat Jesus, we are eating Jesus’ death and resurrection, and we continue to live, through Jesus.

If you recall, all those weeks ago when we first started the “bread of life” part of the summer, the first part of the when story Jesus took five loaves and two fish and fed more than five thousand people. That’s about twice the population of New Hope. Before Jesus SAID, “I AM the bread of life….” he fed people actual loaves of bread. And then later on, Jesus said “Take and eat: this is my body, given for you…. This is my blood, shed for you.”

This is what kept Sara Miles coming back, week after week, to receive the body and blood of Jesus. She later joined St. Gregory’s, got baptized, and became an active member on the congregation, eventually helping to serve communion herself. Then she started a hugely successful food pantry, attracting hundreds of people who were homeless to the church during every week, which became very controversial within the congregation. But along the way, she – a recent convert – realized something that sometimes takes years to figure out. She writes in her book about this entire experience, “The point of church isn’t to get people to come to church… [it’s] to feed them, so they can go out and, you know, be Jesus.” (p. 267)

When we consume bread, we grow healthy and strong, ready for the day. When we consume Jesus, we are also strengthened for the journey of following Jesus and … and we actually become more like him. And so, we are able to “BE Jesus” … for one another.

This life we receive keeps us coming back for more, week after week. The rest of the week tries to defeat us and deplete us. This is not an easy road, to follow in Jesus’ footsteps when the rest of the world around us would rather seek success or being comfortable or having more stuff. It so hard to fight against the impulse to eat the much more palatable and easy fast food of numbness and isolation. This kind of food, the fast, easy kind, may full us up for a time, but it will not sustain us. It will not give us life that is abundant and lasting.

It may seem mind-numbingly repetitive to keep talking about Jesus and bread, but perhaps the reason we are spending so much time on it is that it takes a lifetime to literally and figuratively CHEW ON all that Jesus is and teaches. We may learn during first communion “instruction” at various ages, but we are never going to completely understand it. We can only experience it. God is with us in a way that we can see and touch and smell and taste in Jesus. And through us, other people are able to see and hear and touch Jesus.

Of course, we don’t actually turn into food of course… but we, especially here at Family of God, do a lot in helping alleviate hunger. For example, in just a few short weeks, we are going to raise some money and pack some meals for some kids around the world through an organization called Feed My Starving Children. And, we are going to be looking stylish in these T shirts with our church name on them and stick out like bright loaves of bread. On the front is the ELCA “tag line,” “God’s work, our hands.” We are going to help kids around the world with get nourishing and live-giving food to eat. We are going to be Jesus’ hands in the world, feeding the vulnerable, all because we are given the strength in our own lives from the very body of Christ…. so that WE can BE the Body of Christ.

Look at these snazzy shirts!

We are what we eat. God’s work, our hands. One bread, one body. Thanks be to God. Amen.