Resurrection in Locked Rooms

4-19-20

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

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! Lent is OVER, and Easter is HERE. All seven weeks of it. That’s right folks. We have six more weeks of the Easter season left to go. It’s the Sunday after Easter, and what about the world has changed? Anything? It’s after Easter, but some days the world feels more like it is still Good Friday. Yes, Jesus has been raised from the dead – and hallelujah for that! – But what, exactly has that gotten us?

I don’t know about you, but I feel like it’s been an entire month since Easter. Probably because after Easter, we were well into our fifth week of social distancing, waiting and wondering when or even life as we know it will ever resume, and knowing it will look different when we do. Not unlike the disciples, one week after the very first Easter morning, the second Sunday after Easter… AKA “Doubting Thomas Sunday.”

Poor, poor, Thomas, forever to be saddled with the nickname “doubting.” He gets such a bad reputation. We can’t really blame him for his reaction to the other 10 disciples. If I were him, I might think that the rest of them were playing some cruel version of an April Fool’s joke while I was out. But Thomas is not actually the most egregious doubter in this resurrection account. The true doubters are the other 10 disciples.

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

After the FIRST Easter, on the very evening that Jesus had been raised from the dead and appeared to Mary, the disciples actually WERE of one heart and one soul. But not the heart and soul we are supposed to emulate, a heart of love and a soul of generosity. They were united in fear, and of one soul in the desire to hide. So, they locked the door. They were still afraid.  It was after Easter – but the disciples were still stuck in Good Friday.

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

Perhaps a better game plan for Jesus would have been to go and find some new disciples, for heaven sakes! But he didn’t. The evening after he was raised, he showed up in the very locked room that they had hidden themselves away in. Their fear had locked them IN, but it could not keep Jesus OUT.

But after other ten disciples saw Jesus for themselves, a week later - one week after Easter – where did Jesus find them? Yet again, they were sealed up in their old familiar tombs out of fear. And so, Jesus had to bust in YET AGAIN.

I think this year we understand the disciples just a little bit more. We are all in our own homes, physically distant from one another, because of some very real fears. We have sealed ourselves off from one another to keep each other safe from spreading a contagious illness, it does not buffer us from the very real fear we might feel about the unknown. We can wear masks and social distance as much as we can, but it doesn’t always completely protect those we love from getting sick ... and it certainly doesn’t protect us from things like job loss, loneliness, and depression.

So we ask ourselves: What’s now? What is the way forward? How do we walk through these uncertain, fearful times? How will we be living our lives now? Questions that I’m sure the disciples themselves were facing in that locked room.

In her book, “Learning to Walk in the Dark,” (which we will be reading together as a congregation) Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “We are all so busy constructing zones of safety that keep breaking down….. We keep thinking that the problem is out there, in the things that scare us: dark nights, dark thoughts, dark guests, dark emotions. If we could just defend ourselves better against those things, we think, then surely we would feel more solid and secure…..” And we are just as scared here in our locked rooms as we are about the scary things that wait for us outside of them. Nowhere seems safe, and we are trapped in the locked rooms of our own fear, immobile and isolated, fearing that there is no way out and no way forward.

But, we have seen and heard what Jesus does with sealed tombs and locked doors. We have seen and heard what Jesus does with the bonds of sin, with the sting of death, and the captivity of the fear.

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

As Barbara Brown Taylor also writes in her book about the darkness in our lives:  “...new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.” Fortunately, Peter, Mary, Thomas, and the rest of the apostles DO eventually get out of the locked room. And someday we too, will be able to leave our locked rooms, and we can still witness to what God was up to in our lives even as we were social distancing and under quarantine. New life begins here, shut away, but it doesn’t stay there. Nothing can hold it at bay and keep it from transforming our lives forever.  

The way forward is unknown, but it also well-tread. Thomas has walked this way before, as has the other 10 disciples, and Mary Magdalene, and the other women at the tomb. Together, we learn to walk in the dark, knowing that we are not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Between Two Easters

4-12-20 Easter

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.

Ten “Holy Weeks” ago, while I was on internship in southern Minnesota, I found myself on Holy Saturday in the empty sanctuary of the church, helping to set up a giant paper mache empty tomb with the stone rolled away. As the intern pastor, I had underestimated the importance of this…. Thing… as part of the Holy Week observance of this congregation. Or at least, I had underestimated how important it was to my internship supervisor. So, I did as I was told, and in ten minutes time helped him set up this plywood monstrosity that seemed to necessary to his Holy Week experience.

Under normal circumstances, we all have our “favorite” traditions about Holy Week and Easter – the candles in the Tenebrae, the stripping of the altar, unburying the Alleluia, seeing all the kids come up for the children’s sermon, getting dressed up in our Easter best, ready to celebrate… then go home to eat a bug ham and too much chocolate.

Today, Easter 2020, it’s hard to feel like celebrating. The joyful “alleluias” can easily feel bitter in our mouths as we think about the families for whom this Easter will be full of death rather than life. Instead of stripping the altar on Maundy Thursday, we have been stripped of all the trappings and traditions we have added to this day.

This experience rattles us to the very marrow of our trust in God; it penetrates to the very core of who we believe our God to be. It causes us to ask ourselves, how could a truly good God allow this to happen? There are no easy answers to be found, not even on Easter.

During the very first Holy Week, the disciples had been through a lot in the previous few days and had no answers either. Their beloved leader, teacher, and friend had been arrested and cruelly killed while they had all fled. Now they were hiding – at home - in fear, waiting, watching, praying….. Waiting for discovery perhaps? Watching for whatever might happen next? Praying for a miracle?

And then there was this thing, about an empty tomb and some folded up grave linens. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early in the morning and got the shock of her life – she discovered the stone had been rolled away. While Peter and the other disciple went back home puzzled, she stuck around. So she was the first person to encounter the risen Jesus – even though she didn’t recognize him (was he wearing a mask?) and he didn’t let her touch him – apparently he was practicing social distancing.

These years later, we may wonder at how long it takes for them to “get it” – Jesus is raised! Empty grave! Tada! Party time!  But we have the luxury of knowing the end of this story. Throughout these three days, as we commemorate the last days of Jesus’ earthly ministry, we do so knowing the ending. We know that the end of this story is a triumphant one – Jesus rises from the dead and the power of death is defeated for all time. The good guys win. So why aren’t the disciples living like it?

We know that through Christ’s death and resurrection, our sins have been forgiven and we are new people. But we don’t always live like this. We know that death has been defeated. But we still live in fear of it. We know that Jesus has conquered evil for all time. But there is still so much suffering and sadness  in this world.

It is so hard to live as Easter People, because we don’t know the end of our own story. We are living in the in-between, now more than ever, remaining in our homes behind closed doors, waiting for a miracle. We are the characters in the middle of God’s story, overwhelmed by our circumstances, consumed by conflicts, and persecuted by adversaries.  In every chapter and in every paragraph, we cry out to God, “Is there a plot here?” In this way, we are no different from the disciples. We thought God had come to fix everything. Make our lives better. To end the suffering. To make sure that no one ever had to die again.

During the first Holy Week, the people still prayed that their messiah would come and deliver them from their bitter existence, to mightily kick the Romans out of their land and establish a great kingdom of their own. But I imagine that they were getting very tired of waiting. God had seemed to be silent for so long, they must have begun to wonder if God had indeed forgotten them.

Fast forward two thousand years, and how much has really changed? For all of our modern marvels of technology, our breakthroughs in science, our fast travel and even faster means of communication, are we better off now? In many ways, yes, our lives have vastly improved compared to those in the past. With all our technological prowess, there are so many ways that we can remain connected during this time. But it also means that we have found more efficient and elaborate ways to hurt one another, and make the vulnerable even more at risk. In all this time, we have not really changed.

But in all this time, God has not changed either. And that’s a good thing. The faithfulness, the love, and the goodness of the Lord toward God’s people have remained the same, today, tomorrow, and always – and nowhere is it more apparent than in Jesus’s rising from the dead.

Truth be told, will we really feel like saying – Alleluia- when our lives seem like on long Good Friday that never ends. We are in uncharted territory, which feels both uncomfortable and scary. But, for over two thousand years, Good Friday has always been followed by Easter.  

The church may be empty today, on Easter 2020. The church is empty, but so is the tomb. Easter arrives, even when we are hidden away in our homes. Not unlike how Christmas arrived in Whoville, despite the Grinch’s theft of all the precious "who-trappings." This year there will be no Easter lilies, or gimmicky children’s sermon, or plywood paper mache tombs…. And yet, even so, Easter morning has arrived. It’s here. We made it. We’re still standing.

While at the same time we celebrate Easter 2020, we look to another Easter – and Easter when this pandemic is over, the dust settling, and we can attempt to find a new normal. And we long for the final Easter, when we are welcomed into the arms of Jesus, when illness, suffering, and death will be no more.

In the meantime, we Lutherans do what we do best – live into the nuance of living somewhere between “once upon a time” and “happily ever after,” somewhere between the first Easter and the Last Easter. And in between those two points in time are still a million possibilities to be lived. Some good, some bad, all holy.

Pastor Meta Herrick Carlson wrote a book of poems and meditations called “Ordinary Blessings.” And in her poem called “False Choices,” she writes, “Draw me to the mysteries of an ever-expanding universe, a redemption that is already and not yet, a God who is bending time and space … we are resuscitated wild and holy, wherever death and life blur… Surely, we are made for more than two dimensions and the simple chronology of life!” (70-1)

Though songs of praise and alleluias may stick in our throats today……  that’s ok. Disasters can and will still come, but we do not need to fear them. Jesus is the plot. Jesus is the meaning. Jesus is there, in the prayer, in the waiting, in the watching for what is to come. We may not know what the end of this next chapter might bring for us, but GOD IS THE ONE WHO WROTE THE BOOK. And God loves us so much that God just HAD to “spoil” the ending for us:

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed, ALLELUIA! Amen.

Our Good Friday Zoom Tenebrae worship

Good Friday: Grasping and Remembering

GOOD FRIDAY 4-10-20

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Thursday night began in celebration, with Jesus celebrating the Passover with his twelve disciples. They broke bread and shared a cup of wine. But that celebration was bittersweet with the knowledge that one of Jesus’s own closest friends would betray him and the rest would abandon him in his hour of greatest trials.

As the darkness deepened, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, and taken away to be secretly tried by the religious authorities, who falsely try him and hand him over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. In the meantime, Peter has denied Jesus three times as the rooster crowed, just as Jesus predicted.

Today, Friday, Jesus is taken by the religious leaders to Pilate in order to carry out his death sentence.

But before Jesus is to die, the Roman soldiers under Pilate must put on a show of strength. These soldiers are under the impression that they are mocking Jesus when one takes off his own robe to create a sham of a cape, and another braided a pitiful crown out of thorns, and a third pulled up a tall weed for a scepter. But the truth is, Jesus was never the kind of king to wear gold and jewels and fine robes.

What they put on Jesus is just what a suffering servant-king ought to wear – not trappings of power and might, but badges of pain and suffering. There is one last item that the Christ will wear before that Friday is over, one last garment that this King will put on for our sakes. That is the shroud of death. And his royal palace shall be a stone tomb.

In many ways we may feel like we are waiting in the darkness of a tomb – a tomb of social distancing, made necessary by a virus that is causing real harm to the people we love. In many ways, the only thing we can do is wait with the disciples – huddles just out of sight somewhere, wondering what is coming next.

Pastor Meta Herrick Carlson wrote a book of poems and prayers for the ordinary moments in life, and I think one of her meditations speaks to this moment, both on that first Good Friday and this Good Friday. In her poem called “For Rock Bottom,” she writes with words that clearly resonate to all of us now” “I am separated from friends and neighbors…. My eyes have adjusted to the grim confines of this grave, and I could give up, but even here my hands grasp at the darkness in search of the God who claims to care …. I have nothing but time and will wait for you to remember me.” (128-9)

In less than three days’ time, we will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, our Lord and savior. On Easter we will be singing “Alleluia.” Truth be told, will we really feel like saying that, when our lives seem like on long Good Friday that never ends…. Where it feels like we have nothing but time to grope around in the dark?

But there is one thing we do know, one thing that we profess even in the midst of intense suffering and even despair - we cling to the hope that the Lord is near and is in our midst…. ESPECIALLY in the midst of pain and suffering, which Jesus has experience and knows well. 

God has always been in the thick of it with us. No amount of misery, no amount of isolation and physical distance, no amount of fear could ever make God turn away from us. No life is too broken, no loneliness is too deep, no death is too tragic for God to be near. Jesus walked that path ahead of us, and now he leads the way, as we walk this difficult Good Friday path with no clear Easter ending date. We walk, knowing and trusting and hoping and feeling and remembering… that Easter WILL arrive. Thanks be to God, amen.

A Holy Week - And a King - We don't Expect

4-5-20- Palm Sunday

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

Sometimes, when you’re having a good time, or you’re “in the zone,” and hours or an entire day can pass in the blink of an eye. Other times, time can stretch out and feels like an eternity. Especially when you are at home, social distancing - an hour may feel forever, or you may collapse into bed every night wondering where the day went, and we can’t stand the thought of doing the exact same thing tomorrow.

During these forty days of Lent, we are deliberately stretching out time, so that we are spending six weeks with our eyes on the cross. And now we are here, the beginning of Holy Week, starting with today, Palm Sunday.

It all began with such high hopes, when Jesus entered Jerusalem in a parade, palm leaves flying. It’s no wonder – for the people have seen some pretty amazing things from Jesus in the last three years. Jesus has healed people with skin diseases and people who were paralyzed. Jesus has calmed storms and cast out demons. Jesus has feed thousands and told story after story about the amazing love God has for his wayward people. So they shouted “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” Hosana – save us! But these are dangerous words, especially when this country is under occupation by a ruling force that is both powerful and swift to punishment.

The people wanted this Jesus to be a king to rise up and send the Romans packing. Those backed by Roman power and authority feared that this Jesus would rally enough support to be a threat. Later on this week, Jesus will pay the price, and be labeled as a failed king by his enemies.

This was not the first time, though, that Jesus had been called a king. Long before this, back at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, a group of wise men from the East arrived in Jerusalem, and asking “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” This terrified the entire city of Jerusalem, and with good reason. Then, as now, there can only be one king, and his name is Caesar. So, when Jesus was arrested, the religious elite imagined charges that would get the Roman’s attention – that Jesus claimed to be a king.

Jesus, who seems so harmless to us – welcoming children, talking to women, feeding people, healing the blind and the infirm. But the great irony is that Jesus is actually guilty of the trumped-up charges against him. Jesus really IS the King. “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name, it’s his title. It means the one who is anointed, selected and set apart by God, to rule as king.

But Jesus is not just a regular old king, like the brutal and cruel Caesars of this world, set apart above and beyond the people they rule over. Jesus is not a king that comes with armies and weapons to vanquish his enemies. Jesus came to be a king WITH his people, to rule them by example of self-giving love. His is a kingdom that conquers by peace, rather than the violence and death that SEEMS to win by taking Jesus’s life. Death seems like the only option to shut Jesus up. After all, even kings die. No ruler, no emperor, no king, no matter how powerful, has ever defeated the power of death. But then again, Jesus isn’t just a regular old, king, is he?

And this is not going to be a regular old Holy Week, is it? This is a Holy Week for the history books, and years from now our children and grandchildren will ask us – what was it like, in 2020, when there was no palms and no parade and no in-person gatherings at all?

I admit, this year I had such high hopes. I really wanted to try Dinner Church for Maundy Thursday, and I was excited to have an even bigger turn out for our Noon Five Senses Good Friday service than the forty we had last year. I think we could say that we would all love for Jesus to rise up and send the virus packing. Hosanna – save us! We could really use it right now.

But this isn’t the first time that unexpected circumstances have stretched us and challenged us, and it’s not the last time that Jesus is going to show up in ways we didn’t expect. So this year, instead of a parade around the church to usher in Holy Week, we stay home to protect our vulnerable neighbors and keep it safe for all the medical staff and essential workers who are working hard to heal the people who are sick. They are the real, unseen heroes, putting themselves on the line, who are working hard and so doing are showing us the way of Jesus. And so, the least we can do is help them – by staying home, by not stashing away toilet paper….. but also for advocating for fair pay and compensation for those left vulnerable.

This is not the Holy Week we’re expecting, just as Jesus is not the king we expect. Jesus may not be the king we want, but he is exactly the kind of King we need. Because no matter what happens, Jesus is here.

This week is what the forty days of Lent have been leading up to. We are about to enter a week where time is more than just seconds ticking by on a clock. Where the cross - an instrument of torture and intimidation - becomes the means through which we are saved. Where our sacred and meaningful rituals have been temporarily stripped away from us… but our faith remains. Jesus remains. And, as the Roman officials and Jesus’s enemies found out the hard way at the end of this week – Jesus is NOT going anywhere. Thanks bet to God. Amen.   

God at Work in the Waiting

3-29-20

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.

In 2012, after being a pastor for just shy of a full year in New Jersey, I was on deck to preach on November 4^th, less than a week after Hurricane Sandy. That Sunday, the church had no heat or light - and no printed bulletin either - but both services that morning were packed. It was All Saints Sunday, and this very text – Jesus raising Lazarus from death – was the gospel of the day then too. During worship, we sat in the natural light of the sanctuary, coats still on, after having Sunday School and adult forum by candlelight. Earlier that week, I remember waiting impatiently for the power to come back on – sort of like when that big storm went through here last year, and all those trees came down.  

Then, as we are now, we were all waiting for life to return to “normal… though for many of us, the “normal” may be long in coming, and may look very different than it did before.

We all know what waiting is like. Waiting for things to change, waiting for the suffering to pass, waiting with a hope that life will someday be better and that our distress will be a just memory.

Sometimes, our waiting is rewarded. The power comes back on. The baby is delivered safely. A potential employer calls and wants a second interview. But sometimes we wait, and we wait… and we seem to wait in vain. Either nothing happens at all, or worse… the thing we fear the most takes place.

Lazarus, Jesus’ friend, was not just sick. He was dying. And his sisters Mary and Martha knew that his only hope was for Jesus to come and heal him on the double. They sent word to Jesus, urging him to come quickly. Then they waited. And waited. And waited some more… until it was too late.

When Jesus finally arrived, Lazarus has been dead and buried for FOUR DAYS. There was no mistaking it for a coma. There was no chance of a sudden recovery. The memorial service was long over, and the luncheon leftovers all eaten.  In fact, the smell of death and decay had already set in – which is not something that we in twenty first century north America have much experience with. But it was a normal – though final – part of mourning the loss of our loved ones.

In her latest book, Mortician Caitlyn Doughty reports that one of the questions that she is often asked in her talks with kids about death is the question: “Can you describe the smell of a dead body?” Doughty writes that the smell of decay – which we imagine the sisters referring to – is not evident unless the person has been dead for several days, which Lazarus had. It seemed that Jesus had lost his chance to heal Lazarus – he was beyond saving.

Caitlin Doughty also wrote something interesting in her 2019 book that seems particularly timely. In this same chapter, she shares about Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, who, in the mid-1800s, noticed that new mothers who were treated by midwives fared better than those who were treated by trainee doctors. Why would that be? The trainee doctors also had contact with people who had died… and handwashing was not a common practice yet. Dr Semmelwies came to see that contact between the two was dangerous for the women in labor.  “So, Semmelweis issued a mandate that hands must be washed between the two activities. And it worked!” Not such a big wonder to us now.  But he was proven right when “Rates of infection dropped from one in ten to one in a hundred within the first few months. Unfortunately, the finding was rejected by much of the medical establishment of the time.” (164)

Why? Because for doctors, “hospital odor” – or the smell that would have come from Lazarus – was a sign of prestige.  To put it crassly: Handwashing was resisted in the medical community at the time because “[this] smell was a badge of honor they had no intention of removing.” Not even for the safety of other people… specifically new mothers. How things have changed! Or have they?

Mary and Martha knew what this smell coming from the tomb meant, and it was both natural and also good news. It meant that it was too late for Jesus to arrive and save him. Mary and Martha had resigned themselves to the fact that they will never see their brother Lazarus again in this lifetime. Their waiting and their hope in Jesus seem to have been in vain.  

Then suddenly, they heard that Jesus is just outside of town, that he just heard the news of Lazarus’ death. Martha heard first and dashed out to confront him. She is the first to say what is also on Mary’s lips, which we heard a moment ago: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Mary and Martha thought that Jesus’ job was to PREVENT bad things from ever happening. Jesus was supposed to come and SAVE their brother from having to die – well, really just postponing the inevitable. Jesus was supposed to heal Lazarus BEFORE his illness became fatal. We may fault them for their “lack of faith,” – after all, this is JESUS we’re talking about…. But again, after all… WE know the end of Lazarus’s story.

But we do not know the end of our own. We join with Mary and Martha, in asking their question:  Where WERE you, Jesus, when Lazarus breathed his last? And likewise, Jesus - where were you when this pandemic started? Where were you when people we know started getting sick, some of them seriously, some of the to the point of death? Where were you, Jesus… when you seem to show up much too late to do any good?

Jesus, amid his own tears of grief, went to the place of Lazarus’ burial. And in front of the giant stone shutting the cave where Lazarus lay, Jesus said, “Take that stone away.” Undeterred by the heavy stone, by the four-day-old grave, the reluctance of the sisters, the heckling of the crowd, unaffected even by the smell coming from Lazarus’ decaying body, Jesus called forth: “Lazarus! COME OUT!” And Lazarus… CAME OUT. Wrappings, and smell, and all.

With Jesus, death … leads… to life. In Jesus, we trust that, even in the midst of grief and suffering and death, Jesus IS present, and he is also working through us to bring about new life. He knows death all too well, including how it smells. But no grave could hold him; no stone could keep him in. And so we hope: even when we are filled with fear, and don’t yet see a way forward, as we wait for a new kind of normal.

Eight years ago, I preached in a chilly sanctuary full of people, and today I’m in a warm but empty sanctuary. And while I would never desire to repeat that experience, I can say that I have learned a few things from Hurricane Sandy. I have learned that a time of crisis really does reveal who people are at their core. I have seen God can and does use the compassion and generosity of people in times like these, and I hope you have seen these moments too, among the fear and the grief. And I encourage you to share these moments with one another. Where have you seen God at work in all of this?

Things are going to be challenging for a while longer yet – how long? We’re not sure. But we wait, with Mary, with Martha, and with Lazarus, knowing that our waiting is not in vain. The tomb will be opened, and we WILL be called forth, and unbound, to new and abundant life, alongside Jesus. Thanks be to God. AMEN.

Welcomed both Inside and Out

3-22- 20 
(This sermon was also livestreamed on Family of God Lutheran's facebook page) 

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.

My friend Beth Wartick, a Lutheran Pastor in Iowa – shout out to her, though she’s probably live streaming her own service - Besides being an awesome pastor, she has written for the Living Lutheran magazine, which is pretty awesome. She writes that she remembers when she was ten, and her mom told her the story of bringing her– Beth - to worship, only to be brought up short by another member who insisted that, because of how Beth was borm, God MUST BE punishing one or both of them. Punishment for what, you might ask? You see, Beth was born with one arm.

In her article, Pastor Beth reflects – “When congregations never talk about disability, it sends the message to people with disabilities and their loved ones that they don’t really matter to the church. And when congregations talk about disability thoughtlessly or unkindly, it sends another message—that people with disabilities aren’t really welcome.”

We are good at making judgments about what’s on the outside – skin color, biological gender, cultural values or economic status, weight, height, athletic ability, physical differences or visible disabilities. What happens when we perceive people as their whole selves instead?

In reading her article, I appreciated Pastor Beth’s reflection on being both “a lifelong Lutheran and a lifelong person with person with a disability,” and the call to the church to welcome both identities. She writes: “… Every member of the body of Christ has the responsibility and power to make every other member welcomed and included. “

In this really long reading from the Gospel of John you just heard, we get to experience a pretty clear mode of how NOT to do this.

Jesus and his disciples walked the road, when they met a man born blind. When the disciples saw this man, they instantly judged him and his parents as sinners, much like the people at Beth’s parents’ church. In the minds of the people in his community, his disability was an outward sign of someone’s sin, which was a common idea, both then and now. What is the parents’ sin, the man’s sin, the sin of one of his ancestors? It JUST HAD to be one of them who was at fault.

But Jesus refused to participate in this blaming and shaming. Instead, Jesus saw the man with more than just his eyes. He saw him through the eyes of God and viewed him as a child of God, worthy of love, instead of judgment and rejection. Jesus saw this man in need, separated from his community, and healed him. This is what Jesus is in the habit of doing – finding people who are on the outside.

And yet, even when this man who was born blind is now visually un-impaired, he is still on the outside. It’s almost funny, that after this man is healed, everyone in his life plays “pass the buck” with him. It’s as if once his “identifier” – being blind – is gone, he has no other identity in his community to speak of. They never saw him as a whole person – they only saw him as impaired, as someone to be pitied.

When his identity is taken out of that neat little box he had been placed in, people don’t know what to do! Their label for then man is gone, so he doesn’t make sense in their worldview anymore. It’s like they are grabbing at straws - accusing everyone of anything they can think of – the man is a sinner, his parents are sinners, Jesus is a sinner, this man must be Jesus’ disciple, back to this man must be a sinner…. And the man is driven out, back to the outside of his community.

While the man is again on the outside… Jesus AGAIN finds him. After Jesus gives him his sight, Jesus give the man something even better – agency… identity…. Empowerment. The man believed. And the man worshiped. But only once Jesus said, “…. You have seen him… AND the one SPEAKING with you is he.” Jesus went back to the sense that the man knew the best – hearing.

Jesus healed a lot of people, but he didn’t “cure” or “fix” everyone who could not see. But Jesus did come to wake us up and tune us in, to a new kind of reality. One where we are found and chosen by Jesus. A reality where no one thing defines who we are in our entirety. This reality is God’s reality, and it’s easy for us to miss if we’re not looking for it.

Those of us who drive on a regular basis know about something called “blind spots.” The first time you merge into another lane only to be honked at by another vehicle right there in your blind spot is a time you don’t soon forget.

Something looms so large in our minds that it pretty much blocks out everything else. Right now for most of us, that “big thing” blocking our view of the world is the Covid-19 virus and our world being on varying levels of hiatus and lock-down. Many of us have been putting in extra hours to keep everyone safe, or to construct a whole new way of doing things, including new ways of being the church.

Being safe, being healthy, washing our hands, buying toilet paper, staying up to date on the news… all these things we’re focusing on right now are not bad things. But when these things get in the way of fully being children of God by creating anxiety, inequality, and panic, we should probably scale back or reassess.  When we allow our desire for security to take over our lives, we miss the point of being part of God’s kingdom.  We box ourselves in by creating a world that is comfortable, yes, but is devoid of growth, risk, challenge, and even joy and love. Just as we box other people in when we only pay attention to what’s on the outside. But, to live in a box is not where God has called us to be – it is not who we are.

Unfortunately, many of us are sort of literally in a kind of box that we need to stay in, in order to remain safe, or in order to keep others safe. But even so, every single day, nearly every single moment, God breaks into our lives in surprising ways, providing us opportunities to respond to Jesus invitation. Right now, I am speaking to you in your phone or through your computer (hopefully!).  As I have been making phone calls to some of you, I hear that you are making calls to one another, checking in. This is the body of Christ at work! Keep it up! We are about keeping people included, even if we can’t see them in person.

This is a new kind of normal, not one that we had expected or anticipated…. Or are even properly prepared for, really. And some of us may feel off-kilter, at least I know that I do! Not unlike the man from this gospel:  this man’s entire existence had been turned utterly upside down… though he faced questions on all sides, by everyone he ever knew … he stuck with his gut, and stated what he DID know… “IF this man is not from God, he could do nothing.”

God IS doing something, all right. We might not be able to see what God is up to at every moment, with all of our fears and anxieties looming large. But we’re still here. The church is not what goes on in this building. The church is NOT the building. The church is you. Every week I say “Welcome, there is a place for you here.” But for the time being at least, that is going to change. Not the welcome part, but the “here” part. From now on, perhaps we should say, “Welcome, there is a place for you… with us. Wherever that ‘here’ may be for you.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

Living Water for Challenging Times

3-15- 20

(I also streamed this live on our church FB page) 

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.

Nearly 8 years ago, the theme for Cokesbury’s VBS program was called “Everywhere Fun Fair.” Not one of their best or most memorable, but the theme of being a neighbor to all of God’s children, even across countries and continents, is still a pretty solid theme.  That fall though, an event happened that was MUCH MORE memorable: Hurricane Sandy. Just after the power went out the evening of the storm, I shared leftovers with my Jewish downstairs neighbor. When the storm subsided, the apartment complex was still without power. Four days later, when power was finally restored, my neighbor went out of his way to call a coworker of his to tell a mutual friend to tell me that power was back on when I wasn’t home to witness it. That was VERY neighborly of him!

Jesus’ call for us to be neighbors isn’t just for kids during vacation Bibles school, or only in dire circumstances for natural disasters when the power is out, or even now, as we face a lot of unknowns surrounding the increasing stress that the spread of the Coronavirus is bringing. Jesus’ call to be neighbors is a call for everyone, everywhere, every day. Karen Gonzalez, author of the book, The God who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong, reflects: “I had never realized how much the scriptures tell the stories of people who began as strangers and then became a part of the family of God.” And we certainly heard a perfect example of what living this out means from our reading from the Gospel of John…

Jesus had never met this woman before. They began their encounter as total strangers… At this time, the common practice was “social distancing,” but not for hygienic reasons. One of my seminary professors, Dr. Karoline Lewis, is a John scholar, and this is one of her favorite story in her favorite gospel. She writes: “Jesus shares is true self with the last person on the face of the planet whom people would have thought God could love… Not to the disciples. Not to the religious elite. Not to those in power….. [but he reveals his true self to] This woman. This Samaritan. [A woman] with no name, no credibility, no respect.”

And yet… SHE is the one chosen by Jesus. She is a person whom the world sees as fallen and sinful, though she is never described by or treated by Jesus that way.

Karen Gonzalez also reflects on this encounter: “Jesus reveals his identity as Messiah to this unnamed woman, and she is the first to spread the Gospel to her own people.” After her surprising conversation with Jesus, the woman departs joyfully – practically running - even leaving her water container behind at the well. Jesus transforms her life, her view of herself, even her calling. But she remains both a Samaritan and a woman. John shares with us – pointedly in fact – her gender and her ethnicity for a reason. Her social status is an integral part of this story, not happenstance or an afterthought.

In fact, her encounter with Jesus remakes her – through this conversation, her identity and purpose are found anew, and she sets out on a journey to share her powerful encounter with other people. But not in a way that makes her gender and her ethnicity submerged, changed, or covered up. It is because she is a woman, and because she is Samaritan, that she can become an emissary, or missionary, to her people. Who she is, and where she is from, is fundamental to HER story. Her testimony – “he told me everything I have ever done!” – tells us that she experiences being deeply known and loved by Jesus, just as she is. And this changes the course of her entire life.

The story of the woman at the well deeply affected Karen Gonzalez, who came to the United States from Guatemala as a child. For a long time, Gonzales believed that to be “Christian” was to shut away or even shed the parts of herself that made her different from “American Christians” – being a woman, being from Guatemala, being an immigrant, being a multi-cultural person. But, thanks to exploring the story of the Samaritan woman, and seeing herself in this woman’s encounter with Jesus as a whole person, Gonzalez now firmly trusts Jesus’ accepting her, in all her intersections, in all her “God-Authored Complexities” – as a Latina, Guatemalan, immigrant, and woman. Gonzales was able to say “yes” to her whole self, as a beloved child of God, because Jesus says “yes,” to all of her SELF.

The woman at the well is part of a long line and long tradition of biblical women who said an wholehearted “Yes” to the difficult call of God on their lives  – women like  Hagar, Vashti, Esther, Ruth, Mary mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Junia, Phoebe, and the woman at the well, just to name a few - some of the VERY few women in the Bible we get to hear from. These words we hear from the woman at the well are part of only 14,000 words that are spoken by women in the entire Bible.

This may sound like a lot, but all of the words that women speak in the Bible can be read out loud in less than 2 hours. For reference, the Gospel of John would also take about 2 hours to read out loud. To read the whole Bible out loud take almost 72 hours…. That’s three days straight. But ALL the words of women would be completed during a round trip to and from Philly on a good day.  And so, the mission work that this woman is doing on behalf of Jesus takes on even more importance. Every word she says, to Jesus, and to her people, take on even greater significance. Especially when HER sermon – which was extremely effective, was just one sentence long – “he has told me everything I have ever done!” That’s all the missionary training this woman needed – a conversation with Jesus.

When you hear the word “mission,” we think about traveling to faraway places, not people in our own backyard.  Maybe as a youth you’ve been on a “mission trip” to another part of the country, or possibly your family have been on a work camp trip, or sponsor a child through an organization, or raise money for world hunger. These are very worthy means to spread God’s message of love and can enrich our own faith communities in many ways.

However, “mission” is not necessarily something that happens far away.  Being “a missionary” is no longer the special ministry of a dedicated few. We are ALL missionaries for the gospel, here in our very own Buckingham and Bucks County. There are people right here, in our own community, who need a word of hope in their lives…. Especially right now. They are probably right in front of you: your neighbors, coworkers, customers, and even friends and family members.

Trust me, you don’t need a specialized degree in ministry to be a messenger of the gospel.  The woman at the well didn’t. Jesus gave her everything she needed. Just as she did, you can simply let your words and actions do the talking – by going out of your way to help another in need, by comforting those who mourn, taking care of those who are sick or lonely, by carefully using your God-given resources, by taking the time to read the Bible or pray as a family, remaining calm when the world around us wants to increase our panic-buying of toilet paper. Our mission is to speak a word of hope when its hard to find some calm to hang on to, to point to the person – Jesus – to keeps us going in times like these.

Living out your life with faith can be a powerful witness to others.  And others WILL take notice. You may be asked questions. That’s ok – don’t feel that you need the “right” words to tell people of how the love of Jesus changed your life. Like the women at the well, just speak from your heart and the Holy Spirit will do the rest.

This is God’s mission, after all. Our part in that mission, every day, but especially during times of stress and uncertainty, is sometimes to also let our actions be message – in being a neighbor by caring for our neighbors near AND far. We are about to leave this place for perhaps an undetermined about of time. This week has proven that we never really know what the next day will bring. But we will always remain connected – as neighbors – through our love for one another. We, like the woman at the well, can leave our jar behind knowing that Jesus is our living water, and will sustain us. So, when someone asks you – using the appropriate amount of social distancing, of course – what is getting you through this difficult time? We, along with this woman, can say, “Jesus.” Thanks be to God. Amen.