Everything this is to Know about God in One Sermon! (JK)

Sermon 5-27-18 Trinity Sunday

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.

It’s that time of year again, when our weekends from now until the end of July are suddenly booked with graduations and their celebrations. Cake… and cards, and cake, and poster boards full of pictures and awards, and cake, and signing yearbooks, and…. Cake. Seven years ago, around this time, I was among the graduates across the country receiving one sort of diploma or another. I and my seminary classmates, however, had the onerous distinction of receiving our master’s degrees. But not just ANY kind of Master’s degree. Upon receiving our hoods and diplomas, we became…. Masters of Divinity…. !

(With heavy sarcasm) After four years of study, I now know everything about God, including - but not limited to: how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, whether or not our pets go to heaven, why bad things happen to good people, why GOOD things happen to BAD people, and most importantly, what WAS God thinking when he created mosquitoes and ticks?

Seriously though, there are just some aspects of our Christians faith that seem to allude easy answers. And it just so happens that today, on Holy Trinity Sunday, we celebrate one of the most perplexing parts of our Christian faith. Libraries full of books and papers have been written about the Trinity. Scholars and theologians have dedicated their lives to parsing out and trying to pin down exactly what it means that we believe in a three-in-one, one-in-three kind of God. The Trinity it is the kind of thing that makes your head hurt if you think about it for too long. And we all know, summer is NOT for thinking!

This is why I feel for Nicodemus from our Gospel reading; because our friend Nick here doesn’t always “get it” either. Nicodemus is a learned man, a prominent and respected leader in his community, probably with a very deep and mature faith. Nick is no novice. This guy knows his Torah. And he STILL has a hard time grasping what Jesus had to say about the kingdom of God. Poor confused Nick can only throw up his hands and give voice to what we ALL are thinking: “How can these things be?”

With every fiber of our being, we want our mysteries to be defined. We seek know the unknowable and to measure the un-measureable. We are driven to explore the height and depths of the earth because we don’t like seeing blank spots on the map. Similarly, we persist in plumbing the depths of faith – because if we can get a handle on God, then perhaps the confusing world that we live in might actually make sense.

So, we end up coming up with some strange ideas about God being a Trinity. Perhaps you’ve heard of a few of these: The Trinity is like an apple. The Trinity is like H2O water, ice, and steam. The Trinity is like a four-leaf clover. The Trinity is like how I am a daughter, a sister, a pastor, and a friend. Really, reallyweird stuff if you think about it too much.

All these strange ideas we’ve come up with are just ways we try to answer the important questions that have plagued humankind for centuries: Who is God? And how do we see God at work in the world? 

The many writers of the scriptures have spent their lives wrestling with those very questions. For the prophet Isaiah, he experienced God as a larger-than-life being on a throne. For the Apostle Paul, who wrote letters, including this one to the Roman Christians, his experience of the power of God literally blinded him while on his way to persecute followers of Jesus. And Nicodemus is seeing but not comprehending as he stares the true answer to “who is God?” right in the face.

Though their experiences are very different, they have one thing in common. To them, God was not an apple, water, or a four-leaf clover. God was a Someone whom they encountered, who met them face to face and wanted a relationship with them. And these people are never quite the same every again. Our encounters with God change us.

While imagining God in Trinitarian form may be helpful, you can’t have a relationship with a doctrine or set of beliefs. God does not desire to remain an idea or belief or theological construct in the mind of us, his children. How can we know this? Because God so loved the world – so loved us – that he gave to us a way by which we can know him, deeply and directly. For God so loved the world that God gave us Love Incarnate: Jesus.

In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God swept away the curtain of mystery once and for all. No longer do we have to grope around in the dark for bits and fragments of the divine. In Jesus, the light of God has shown out in the darkness. In Jesus, God came to us in a way we can understand. In Jesus, we all have become “Masters” of divinity because Jesus reveals to everyone the very essence of “who God is.”

Who is God? God is love.

This time of year is also wedding season in addition to graduation season, isn’t it? How many of you got up early to watch the royal wedding last weekend? If you haven’t already, go listen to Anglican Archbishop Michael Curry’s wedding sermon. Bishop Curry described the power in the love of God, as the source of our being and the guide for our lives. He reminded the bride and groom… and all of us who were tuning in around the world… that Jesus started this revolutionary movement grounded in the unconditional love of God, which has the power to save the world.

… “For God so loved the world that God sent his only son” …to reveal to us a loving and forgiving God who wants to be in a relationship with us. This is what we know: Jesus came to us in a way that we would find most relatable – in a body that could laugh and cry, teach and embrace, heal and feel pain. Jesus is our brother, because we both share the same loving Father. Jesus is our Lord because he calls us to emulate the life that he lived here on earth – an existence of love and sacrifice. And Jesus is our savior because of his final victory over the forces of sin and death through his death and resurrection.

But we can know all we think there is to know about God and still completely miss the boat. Like Nicodemus. But Jesus didn’t not throw his hands up in frustration and end the conversation at the first sign of confusion. No – Jesus patiently teaches on, determined to get his message across.

I suppose we should give poor Nick some credit, because he had enough wisdom to know that there was something different about this Jesus. So, Nick took a chance and arranged this secret meeting that would forever change him.

Our friend Nick may not have fully absorbed the significance of his encounter with Jesus, even when confronted by “John’s greatest hit” John 3:16. But we do know that he WAS changed by his experience with Jesus that night. Because Nick pops up again at the END of the Gospel of John, at Jesus’ trial before the Jewish council. In fact, he was the only naysayer in their otherwise unanimous “guilty” verdict. And later on, John writes that Nicodemus helped Joseph of Arimathea give Jesus a respectful burial when his body had been taken down from the cross. He is not quite the man that he used to be. And we too, when we encounter the Risen Jesus, are never quite the same afterwards.

Jesus didn’t walk this earth to answer every question we’ve ever had about God. God is still at work in the world in ways we cannot yet understand. The wind of the Spirit will blow where it will, and carry us with it. But we can’t go wrong with Jesus as our trailblazer and navigator.

Are you ready for all the awesome things that the God who created you has in store for you?

Are you ready for THE Master of Divinity to take your hand and guide you down the paths of your life?

Are you ready for the Holy Spirit to lead you into freedom from fear into a spirit of love for the world?

This is not graduation. This is only the beginning. Oh, the places you’ll go (with the help of our Trinity God).

You better buckle up, Buttercup, because it’s going to be one exciting ride - or should I say a “three-in-one” - exciting ride. Thanks be to God. Amen. AMEN.

The Spirit who Calls and Reminds

Pentecost: 5-20-18

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

You may have noticed that time within the church doesn’t quite follow the same rules as time OUTSIDE the church. We don’t start celebrating Christmas until December 24^th. Some years we slather ash crosses on people’s foreheads on Valentine’s Day if it falls on Ash Wednesday. Easter is not just a day, but it is a season, seven weeks long. We can skip years of Jesus’ life between Sundays, and we can spend weeks talking about what happened on one single night.

Just today even, we get the story of the arrival of the Holy Spirit in a totally weird order. Because we’ve been reading through Acts as our first reading, we heard FIRST about the actual arrival of the Holy Spirit, with the wind and the flames and the languages and the confusion, which hopefully you followed along with what the choir sang. Then, in our second reading, we get the apostle Paul’s take on the continuing works of the Holy Spirit. Last, but not least, our Gospel reading takes us all the way BACK to Maundy Thursday, the night Jesus was betrayed… to hear how Jesus gives his disciples the first announcement that the Holy Spirit would be arriving. Kind of a little bit backwards.

But, here we are. Still back at Maundy Thursday. The night where so much happened, because Jesus knew he had so little time left with his disciples before he would be betrayed, arrested, tortured, and put to death on a cross. Jesus knew that, even after his resurrection, his time as a bodily presence here on earth was limited. Jesus knew that, after he left, the disciples would be facing some new and scary things.

When Jesus was at his lowest point, and his disciples were about to be at THEIR lowest point very soon as they abandoned Jesus and fled from the religious authorities out of fear at Jesus’s upcoming arrest… as Jesus was about to leave, Jesus gives them hope. He gives them something… someONE to hold on to.

Jesus was leaving… but Someone was coming to be at their side when life gets scary and unfamiliar. Jesus was leaving…. But Someone was coming would lead the way into the abundant life and exciting future that God was calling them to.

I think most of us have experienced what its like to say goodbye to someone we love, whether that means they have died…. we are separated from them by distance …or the relationship has ruptured through some other means. It is something that most adults, and many children even, deal with while growing up. And I think in the last few years we’ve been blessed by children’s movies that have not shied away from dealing with the hard stuff, like grief and loss. I’m thinking of movies like UP, Inside Out, Coco, and one of my personal favorites, Moana.

Moana is the daughter of the village chief on an island in the Pacific Ocean. While most of her people are more than happy with their land-based life, Moana yearns for more, and … big shocker… doesn’t quite fit in. Only her grandmother seems to understand her connection with the big scary ocean… And when her grandmother dies in relation to a mysterious plague that is affecting her island, Moana is devastated. She sets out onto the big ocean on a quest to set things right, facing challenges with the help of cute animal sidekicks. At one point the odds seem so great, and the hardships seem so insurmountable, that Moana is on the verge of giving up, turning her little boat around, and going back to her island. She holds her oar out over the ocean to begin her way home… but she hesitates. Her grandmother’s spirit appears behind her, and… you guessed it… her grandmother starts to sing.

Her grandmother’s spirit sings to her to remind her WHO she is: Moana is the daughter of the chief, who loves the sea and her people, descended from world travelers. But her grandmother’s spirit also reminds Moana how she is strong enough to overcome the journey ahead. Her grandmother says, “Sometimes the world seems against you. The journey may leave a scar. But scars can heal - and reveal- just where you are. The people you love will change you.  The things you have learned will guide you.”

As the music swells, Moana sees a vision of her ancestors speeding past her small boat, leading the way forward into the dark and unknown path to where Moana is called to go. Moana turns to her grandmother and says: “I will carry you here in my heart, you'll remind me That come what may, I know the way.” The next moment all is dark and quiet around her, and she is alone… but not really.

Moana needed this reminder…. The disciples needed this reminder…. And we need this reminder… we are NOT alone. We have the Holy Spirit to be present with us when Jesus is not. We have the Holy Spirit to remind us that we belong to God. We have the Holy Spirit to remind us that we are not alone when we follow the path that Jesus has called us to.

We are not alone, because we can’t walk this path on our own. The disciples tried, and failed, until the outpouring of the Spirit happened on Pentecost. Every week we say the Apostles Creed, which ends with “I believe in the Holy Spirit…” which Martin Luther explains in this way: “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in the true faith.” 

This is pretty much just a fancy way to say: when we rely on our own smarts and strength we often miss the boat on following Jesus’s way. It is the Holy Spirit who pushes us out the door, gives us the tools we need, keeps us doing the right things, and of course reminds us that we are loved. And so, we are empowered to love others, as Jesus has done… as agents of the holy spirit, to remind OTHERS that they are loved by God, and to treat them accordingly.

There are so many voices out there telling people that they are not loved, they are not worthy, they are not valued for whatever reason. Sometimes these voices are loud, scary, and occasionally in our own backyard. On Tuesday afternoon, as school let out at Central Bucks West High School, to men stood outside the school with signs, shouting these very lies to the students as they exited the school at the end of the day. Their signs were a “warning” to the following list of people, warning them to “Obey Jesus or Hellfire.” The list included: witches, liars, Muslims, drunks, ankle biters, “homos,” sissies, and the Pope. 

Photos of these signs were taken by a student at the school and was posted in a community Facebook group I am a part of, and it was reported that students were frightened and dismayed by this display.

By that evening, counter protest had been organized for the following day. People from all over the Doylestown community came out with signs to stand in the rain to show their love to the students: old men and women, children, students, pastors, business people, community organizers… to hold signs that said things like: “CB West we love, Value, and Support you.” Standing together, we said: hate doesn’t win. These other people do not represent the Jesus that I believe in. Together, we stood out there in the rain as bus loads and car loads of teens honked their horns and cheered in appreciation for what we were doing… and by the way…These OTHER people didn’t even show up again… I like to think that a shower of rain and downpour of LOVE was just TOO MUCH FOR THEM to handle. 

Photo from Rise Up Doylestown FB page

After all, as one of my college religion professors Dr. Judith Jones once said, “How can anyone who truly knows Jesus… use doctrinal error to justify violent or hateful treatment of another human being?”

The answer to that is, they wouldn’t, and they won’t. Because we carry the Spirit with us, and the Spirit reminds us of who we are, and therefore we know the way.

This way will have some low moments occasionally… or a lot. Sometimes we may find ourselves feeling our very discouraged and disheartened, ready to turn back, like Moana was. Sometimes the journey does leave a scar. But we are not doing this alone. We have the Holy Spirit… and we have each other. And our job together is to remind each other that we are loved, valued, and worthy, no matter what.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Oy and Joy

5-6-18

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

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “Joy”? Perhaps you think of the character from the Pixar movie a few years ago called “Inside Out.” Joy, along with Disgust, Sadness, Fear, and Anger, are personified emotions inside the head of an eleven-year-old girl named Riley. According to the movie, Joy is a blue-haired, green dress wearing person of unlimited optimism and the voice of Amy Poehler. And honestly sometimes she just seems kind of annoyingly upbeat.

But is that what being joyful really looks like?  How would you describe what Joy is to you? Would you say something like this….?

Joy is… spending time with the people you love, like having dinner with the whole family around the table.

Joy is… working at a job that pays the bills AND provides a sense of meaning… or getting accepted into your dream school or program.

Joy is… hearing a child call your name for the first time.

Joy is… a cat on your lap with a good book and a cup of tea or coffee on a rainy day (like today!).

Sometimes joy is… just getting the laundry finished, or getting a good nights sleep!

Joy is… also my sister’s middle name. We used to tease her about it sometimes when we were kids, and some days say that she should have been named “Katie Not-A-Joy” instead. I hope she might have forgiven us by now. Perhaps if we had grown up on the East Coast, surrounded by so many of our Jewish brothers and sisters, we could have teased her by calling her “Katie Oy.”

The world around us, especially lately, seems to contain so much more “Oy” than “Joy.” Just yesterday, Hawaii experienced historic earthquakes and volcanic activity, and in the last few weeks other things have happened like increased violence and unrest in Syria, superstorms in India, local train derailments, and the sudden bombardment of political candidate leaflets in our mailboxes telling us what is bad about the other candidates running.

This is not to mention the personal tragedies and struggles we each experience every day – depression, fear, betrayal, worry, pain, abandonment, and illness, just to name a few. Exhaustion rules, event-crammed calendars reign, and energy recedes ever faster. Just what IS joy in a life full of all these troubles?

“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus told his disciples. He said this back in John chapter 14, at the start of his goodbye speech, his “last lecture” if you will, on the night that he was betrayed.  He had a lot to say about joy and love, and the disciples desperately needed to hear it - since this would be just hours before they would scatter in fear, abandoning Jesus to be arrested, falsely tried, and sentenced to die by crucifixion. On such a night, talking about love and joy seem terribly out of place.

Love and joy seem terrible out of place when your rabbi and teacher says things like he’s leaving you, and that the world will hate you in his name. Love and joy seem nowhere to be found when Jesus tells you that the greatest love, which he commands you to emulate, possibly might mean laying down your life.

Is Joy just a “churchy” word that we use to decorate Christmas ornaments and hear in grand Easter hymns? Or is there a possibility that Jesus might be on to something, that joy can also be found in the everyday, mixed up together in the pain and troubles of the world?

In the movie Inside Out, as I mentioned a moment ago, Sadness and Joy find themselves on an adventure inside of the brain of a girl named Riley to save some of her most beloved memories. You could not have had a worse pairing of heroes, really. Sort of like those mismatched roommate comedies! At every turn, Joy is frustrated by Sadness’s… Well, sadness. Joy refuses to believe that Sadness can teach her something about experiencing joy … that is, until… Joy finds herself trapped in a dark place called The Memory Dump. There, Joy discovers that our most joyful memories only got that way because sadness was part of them too. She learned that even in a dark and sad place, she can find joy, that joy can come from even the saddest nights.

This is the joy that Jesus has given to us, the kind of joy the world cannot give. Joy is… that on the darkest night that Jesus ever had, the savior of the world chooses to break bread with US - rich AND poor, the power-full AND the power-less, with the healthy AND the sick, with insiders AND with outsiders, with men AND women, old AND young children.

Joy is…that Jesus chose to be his disciples a rag-tag band of perfectly flawed human beings, though they be betrayers, deniers, and abandoners.

Joy is…that Jesus chooses US to be his disciples too, also flawed and imperfect human beings.

Joy is… being chosen as children of God, and through us our faith is conquering the world in a revolution of peace and love and understanding.

Joy is… having your sermon interrupted by the Holy Spirit and with a crazy, loud, spontaneous baptism of a whole bunch of people, as we heard that Peter experienced in our first reading. Or, as what happened last week right here, joy is also getting your sermon interrupted by our littlest disciples showing off their artwork in the new word they learned, “abide.”

Joy is… the fact that our synod, the South Eastern Pennsylvania Synod is one of the most diverse synods of the ELCA.  Joy is that our synod assembly, which happened this last weekend, contained 17% voting delegates who are people of color, and that together we made history by electing the first ever African American female bishop in the entire ELCA. 

Joy is … seeing the beautiful image of God in the faces of people of all faiths, races, cultures, languages, and sexual orientations.

Joy is… just when you thought that death had won, joy is that NEW LIFE HAPPENS.

Our joy… is not complete without Jesus.

It may have appeared a little odd to still be back to the night that Jesus was betrayed during the celebratory season of Easter. But we know that you cannot have one without experiencing the other. New life cannot happen apart from death. Resurrection cannot happen without crucifixion. Easter cannot happen without Good Friday. Joy cannot exist apart from being open to the possibility of pain. Love cannot endure without anything less than everything you have.

The reason that we have no need for troubled hearts in this troubled world and in our troubled lives is not because Jesus makes the lives of his followers into cupcakes and lattes. Just look at the lives of Peter, Mary Magdalene, Paul, and the rest. Their preaching of the joy of Jesus brought them prison, ridicule, and persecution. Nor does Jesus call us to willfully ignore the troubling realities of the world around us, or when tragedy strikes in our lives.

Instead, we know and trust that, as the psalmist says, “Weeping may linger for a night, but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5) Or put another way, by the musical Les Mis, “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” 

Welcome to a new dawn and a new day. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Real Jesus, Real Life.

Sermon 4-29-18

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

Today is a very special day. This is the day that we will be welcoming Nate Karpinski to the Lord’s table for the very first time, along with his family, and all of you, members of Family of God. Do you remember your first communion experience?

Do any of you remember what your first communion classes were like? I asked some of you this question one night during Nate’s experimental first communion classes, which happened on Thursday nights during Lent at Panera Bread. Since Nate his age taking the first communion class, we invited all ages to participate in this eating and learning event, which I think everybody got a kick out of. I think many of us had a variation of the typical classroom experience, with memorizing and a lot of Bible reading. Fun fact: apparently during one of MY first communion classes, I rattled off the entire words of institution verbatim, which is when my mom tells me SHE knew I was destined to be a pastor.

What do you remember about the day of your first communion? What it in this church? …or at another church? How many of you wore a white dress or a fancy suit? Were you in second grade, or fifth grade, or a teenager being confirmed too? Did you bring your extended family with you?

No matter when or where or how you received communion for the first time, the important thing is that you DID… and that Jesus showed up.

During a First Communion Sunday at a church I previously served, an early teen looked at me with wide eyes as I poured communion wine from the pouring chalice into his little cup during communion. He asked in an incredulous whisper…. “is this real wine?” By some miracle I didn’t laugh out loud, but only nodded. Yes, this is real wine. Yes, this is real Jesus.

Over a month ago it was Easter. Yes, wow, times really flies! And during the week before Easter, which we call Holy Week, we remember on Thursday night the first time that Jesus instated Holy Communion. While eating his last meal before he was to be crucified, he passed a loaf of bread and a cup of wine to a room full of his closest friends one last time… and told them “This is my body… this is my blood.” These “friends” though, in just a few hours, would betray him, deny him, and abandon him before Jesus drew his last breath on the cross on Good Friday. That Thursday was THE first communion… much like today will be Nate’s first communion, surrounded by other Followers of Jesus – US…. People who ALSO betray, deny, and abandon Jesus… plenty of times.

So, Nate…you are in good company. You too will be surrounded by sinners like me and all of those gathered here. As our funeral commendation goes for those who have died in the faith… “Sheep of God’s own flock… sinners of God’s own redeeming.”

When Nate… and each of us… were baptized in the Family of God – not necessarily this church, but maybe so… but I mean God’s family of faith existing in all times and in all places… when we were baptized, we were claimed by God as beloved children, welcomed into the fold. But as we grow up, life… gets complicated. We graduate from high school and college, face a world full of tough choices, and find ourselves unable to extricate ourselves from institutions and cultural norms that are inherently racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, xenophobic, and otherwise harmful to other members of the Body of Christ. We sin, both knowingly and unknowingly. We fall, and we fail. We hurt one another, and we hurt creation. We fall victim to the lie we tell ourselves – that I contain multitudes, that I can/ and should/ have it “all,” than I can do all things by myself and all my own strength.

When Jesus told his disciples on that night, the night he was betrayed, his disciple still believed the lie too. They still believed, even after three years of hearing Jesus teach, witness Jesus working signs and miracles, hearing Jesus minister to the outcast and the outsider. Even after all that, they were still waiting for Jesus to arrive in majesty, to right all the wrongs in a blaze of glaze of glory and establish a kingdom (with them in power too of course).

But in just a few hours they would fall away… Judas would hand Jesus over to the religious police by a kiss of friendship…. Peter would deny Jesus not once but three different times… and the rest of his disciples would run away and hid, leaving only the faithful women to stand at the feet of the cross to mourn the death of their hope and dreams for a revolution.

They couldn’t do it. They tried to be faithful on their own strength and failed miserably.

Which we all do. They couldn’t do it on their own, because none of us can. What usually happens to a branch when it falls off of the tree, like during one of those big snowstorms we have a few months ago? It stops growing. It no longer produces leaves or flowers or fruit. But the branches that are still connected to the trees? Have you notices how beautiful all the blooms are becoming? They cannot bloom…. Or grow fruit or seeds, unless they are connected to the trunk.

Which is why Jesus created a way for us to be connected to him.  We cannot grow, or bloom, or create fruit, or makes seeds, without the sustaining and life-giving power that comes from Jesus. This is the power of God’s love for us, which comes from the weekly gathering around the Lord’s Table, to receive a small bit of bread and just a little bit of wine. Every week we hear the words “The body of Christ, given FOR YOU… the blood of Christ, shed FOR YOU.” Jesus lived, died, and rose again FOR YOU.

As Lutherans, we are both remember what Jesus said and did for us…AND we celebrate that Jesus is ACTUALLY HERE, in the earthly elements of bread and wine. Jesus is present in REAL things… things that week can see and touch. The waters of baptism welcome us into God’s family… and the bread and wine of Holy Communion connect us to Jesus …. And it connects us to one another, to all people of faith, through all times and all places.

We have tried to explain it… but words fail us. But we do believe: This is real bread. This is real wine. This is real Jesus. This is real connection. And this is real sustenance for the journey ahead.

So whether this is the first time you are experiencing Holy Communion… the fiftieth time… or the five-hundredth time… you are welcome to receive strength for your week. There is a place for you here, at the Lord’s table. As you come to the table today – even though we don’t partake around the table per se - I welcome you to be extra aware of what’s happening, as if you were experiencing it for the first time.

When you come forward, whether you are accompanied by your own immediate family, or you come forward alone, know that you are NEVER alone … you are surrounded by your family here, and beyond these walls. As you reach out your hand to receive the bread, be aware of how in need we are of the love and grace that Jesus offers us… and when we reach for Jesus, he will never leave our hands empty for long. As the wafer is places in your hand – just a very small taste of what God has given us – you will hear the words “The body of Christ, given for you.”

And as you take the wafer and dip it into the wine, remember that Jesus is the vine that we are connected to, who give us this life, just as blood that courses though our bodies carries what we need to all part of our bodies. Through “the blood of Christ, shed for you…”, through the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf, we too are made part of Jesus’s Easter victory over the power of death.

And lastly, as we walk back to our place in our favorite pew, we know that we won’t be staying there for long. After we have received this gift – for the first, fiftieth, or five-hundredth time – we are sent out into the world to bear fruit… fruit of love in a world that is very lacking in love right now. Thanks be to God, amen.

Good Shepherds, Bad Jokes

Sermon 4-22-18

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.

To be honest, I don’t know anything about sheep. But I do know a thing or two about cows. When I was a kid, I would love to help my dad let the cows out of the barn so that that they could spent a little bit of time each day outside. If sheep aren’t known for being too smart… Cows are most definitely creatures of habit. They know when it’s time to go outside into the cow yard, and they know when it’s time to come back inside to eat –and they know when you are LATE: they are always waiting in a big crowd by the door to be let in, especially on a cold or rainy day. 

Believe it or not, cows also know where to go once inside the barn. Every cow has its own spot and usually they go right to it, no problem. Unless of course there is a new cow that doesn’t know where she’s supposed to go. Sometimes the new cow will stand in a stantion that is already taken, and the cow that belongs there will stand there confused. Hmm… I have heard that at OTHER churches something similar happens when someone sits in someone else’s favorite pew… but that NEVER happens HERE, right???

I think that sheep tend to act the same way as cows do. They tend to follow whoever is in leading, putting a kind of blind trust whoever is at the front. If that person is kind and cares for the flock, he or she will lead the sheep to good pasture, clean water, and shelter. If that person does not care about the sheep, then the herd is in a load of trouble.

We are not unfamiliar with the second kind of shepherd - we hear about them all too often these days. Just open any newspaper or online news blog any day of the week, and you’ll see nothing but: CEOs embezzled from companies, or senators made secret deals, or the chairs of foundations lying about illegal activity... And so on, and so on.

We like to think that our leaders know what they are doing and have our best interests in mind when they make decisions that affect us. But perhaps this is our cow-nature talking.

Everyone you know is going to let you down at some point. Everyone you put your trust in is going to betray you. Maybe not today. And maybe not even on purpose. But it will happen, sooner or later.

I hate to say it, but even I will let you down sometimes. Four years of seminary doesn’t purge us of all our flaws. I didn’t get a “perfect pastor chip” at my ordination. I am trying my best to love and serve this community as one of its shepherds, but I’m not going to “get it right” every time.  Church leaders can make mistakes, just like everyone else. And often those times can feel even worse than when other kinds of leaders let us down.

There is one shepherd who claims to never lead us astray. He is the Good Shepherd; a shepherd so good that he would give everything, even lay down his own life for those who belong to him.  But Jesus talks a big game… But how can we sort out reality from campaign promises? What about when things go really wrong – how is God our Good Shepherd then?

Long ago, a writer of the psalms once wrote: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

 Most of the time, we hear the 23^rd Psalm read at funerals. It is a beautiful psalm, a favorite for good reason. But this psalm is intended, not as a metaphor for death, but as a snapshot of life – of what life is like under the care of our Good Shepherd. Yes, death is a valley through which we all must pass. Before that, however, there are plenty of other valleys… there are plenty of enemies to face during this lifetime.

What good is the Good Shepherd if being part of his flock still means still experiencing things like … getting a cancer diagnosis? … filing for divorce…. Infertility…. Losing your spouse….  being unable to find full time employment… struggling with addiction….? What good is a Good Shepherd if some people recover and some don’t? What good is a Good Shepherd if some people bounce back and others can’t catch a break? What good is a Good Shepherd who still can’t prevent bad things from happening?

This is exactly what Kate Bowler wrestles with in a book she published recently that was featured on NPR. The book is called “EverythingHappens for a Reason and Other Lies I have Loved.” Here was a woman who seemed to have everything: married in her twenties, a baby in her thirties, won a job at her alma mater right out of graduate school – seriously, who does that?? … But then in 2015, she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer that had metastasized to her entire body. Her book is her journey to reconcile our convoluted ideas about how we think God SHOULD act in our lives and how God actually does work, as she comes to terms with what life looks like living with a terminal diagnosis.

Kate talks about this in an interview with Terry Gross, where she says “… I really had to rethink what trust and hope looks like if I'm just living scan to scan….” She wonders, “what does it mean to experience … proximity to God or a sense of faithfulness without actually thinking that my life is supposed to be better because of it?”

“What, then, is the point of it all?” Is the big question she is trying to answer.

Spoiler alert – sort of - The point is that at the end of the book, she is not cured of her cancer. But she is made whole, in a way. The point not to be good so that good things will happen to us… but to see the good that is already there all around us. The point of it all is to love and be loved... The point is that while she is here, she will raise a son who “will know the pain of the world but all will be better for it.” Along this journey, she learned, that trust looks a lot like love.

There will still be dark valleys in this life, and evil will still be ever present and waiting in the shadows. Bad things will still happen to us and to our loved ones. There are still terrible injustices going on in the world right now. But we shall have no fear in the face of such evil. We belong to the fold of the Good Shepherd. Our enemies will still be present, sometimes surrounding us. But we will not be anxious about what will happen to us, because the presence of our Good Shepherd will never leave us.

As the Psalmist says, our beloved shepherd-turned-gracious-host prepares a celebration banquet in our honor, and our cup of life is never to be found empty. Our Good Shepherd DID lay down his life for us, his sheep, on Good Friday, and he picked his life right back up again on Easter Sunday.  When the wolves come – and they will – Jesus will be ready to do what it takes to keep us with him, no matter what.

And when we follow such a shepherd, when we hear his voice and obey it, we may find ourselves laying down our lives for the sake of others. Not necessarily physically dying, but instead dying to our egos and our desire to follow trendier shepherds with more palatable promises. …Dying to the idea that our lives are supposed to turn out a certain way if we do certain things and follow certain rules… dying to our dedication in going along with the herd mentality.

When we belong to the herd of the Lord, we do not have to fear where the paths may take us for the sake of others. Since we belong to the flock of God, we do not have to fear what happens to us DURING this life or what comes AFTER it. Our lives – and our deaths – are in God’s hands. We are loved. And we are not alone.

The road ahead of us may look kind of dim and hard to navigate, and our map may seem outdated and of no use to us…. We may have discovered that, as a church, our “spot” in people’s lives has been “taken” by other thing… sports, the arts, work, family. Let’s not be that cow that waits for something else to move and change… if you’ll forgive the bad pun, but let’s be the herd that gets “MOOving”… following the voice of our good shepherd to the abundant life that God has in store for us. And THAT, I think we might find, will be UDDERLY life-giving and full of love. Amen.

The Sunday After Easter: Storybook Sunday!!!

Sermon 4-8-18

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

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

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

Nope. In a secure room with the door locked.

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

Nope, locked up again.

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

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

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

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

….

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

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

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

April Fools: God is Dead Serious About Life

4-1-18 Easter Sunday (reading from Mark)

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

Did you noticed something odd about the end of the gospel reading? Take a closer look at it. Did you hear the end and think… “wait, Pastor Lydia, that CAN’T be where the reading ends? Surely there must be some mistake! Are you pulling an April Fool’s joke on us?”

I promise you it’s not a mistake, and I’m not playing an April Fool’s joke. This is EXACTLY how our most original version of the Gospel of Mark ends: “They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” THE END. Mic drop.

…..WHAT???????

If it’s not a mistake in the bulletin… and I’m NOT an April fool’s joke on all of you…. then, what is going on here? Is Mark pulling the biggest April Fool’s joke ever…. A joke so big that it ended up in the BIBLE??? Now THAT would be pretty epic, wouldn’t it? It would certainly be one of the best April Fool’sjokes in all of history… right up there with the 1976 planetary alignment that claimed to briefly reduce Earth’s gravity, the Swedish Spaghetti Tree Hoax, and the left-handed Whopper.

I can see the headlines now… “Earliest Copy of the Gospel of Mark Found…. Gospel ends with... “Haha, just kidding you guys.  You should have seen your FACES!!!”

But no. We just have THIS ending. No post-resurrection Jesus. No telling of the good news. No big resurrection appearances, walking through walls, or any kind of nice, neat resolution.

What a big letdown. “You mean…. I got out of bed…. all dressed up in my Easter best…. Got myself to church, with all the flowers and alleluias…. For this???” Worst ending ever.

Well, you’re not wrong. It IS the worst ending ever… if you’re in with the devil. It IS the worst ending ever… if you’re on the side of injustice and domination. It is the worst ending ever if you think that death has won… because … the joke really IS on you.

Because April Fools! Christ is RISEN!! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)

In fact, Jesus’ life was just one big joke on the expectations of the world. Just a few short months ago, we were singing “Joy to the World” and welcoming Jesus as a baby at Christmas. It’s not hard to imagine how Jesus’ birth announcement went down - With the angel surprising Mary, and saying something to the effect of: “Yo, Mary, I know you you’re a virgin, and you’re not married, but hey – you’re going to get pregnant and give birth, to the son of God no less!” With Mary looking around, going, “Yeah right, get real…. Am I on Candid Camera?” Most likely Joseph also hoped that the angel was joking when he got eventually the news.

And when Mary went into labor, they both probably thought it was a cruel trick of fate, since they were traveling and there were no vacancies in Bethlehem that night. And then wondered why the angels had sent the first news that the son of God had been born, to shepherds on the night shift, and not… you know, actual important people.

The wise men must have felt the same way later, as they arrived at the king’s palace in the capitol Jerusalem – “what do you mean, King Herod, that the newborn king isn’t HERE? Surely you must be joking.” And later, once they were on the right track, how foolish it must have felt for them to arrive all in state with fine gifts… to a humble house with a poor peasant toddler and his mom.

And when Jesus grew up, he kept at these antics.  Who would Jesus call to be in his inner circle of followers? The educated, the powerful, the wealthy? April Fools! It’s fishermen, tax collectors, and working stiffs who flunked out of rabbi school!

And who does the Son of God choose to spend most of his time with? Statesmen, rabbis, priests, and other people with power and influence? Nope again – Jesus hangs out mostly with the sick, with women and children – healing, feeding, and teaching people that the love of God is for ALL… not just for some. April Fools!

Are you sensing a pattern here?

But there were some in power who thought this was not funny anymore, that the joke had gone too far. It might have been cute and amusing at first – the nobody from nowhere preaching about God’s love to the outcast and hopeless - but joke needed to end. So, they chose to end the life of the jokester who was causing all this ruckus in the first place.

That last week of Jesus’ life we call Holy Week, which began last week with Palm Sunday, must have felt like one big nightmarish April Fool’s joke on Jesus’s disciples. It started well - after they came into Jerusalem on Sunday to a parade - but the week took an unexpected turn on Thursday. That night, Jesus passes around bread and wine and says strange things like “This is my body, and this is my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” The disciples wait for Jesus to say, “That’s bananas! April Fools!” But it never comes. Because Jesus is not fooling around here, not with the forgiveness of sins.

After supper, Jesus tells them that one will betray him, and the rest will deny and abandon him. Again, the disciples protest that this too, must be a joke. Only Jesus is not fooling here, either – not with facing betrayal and suffering.

And perhaps, even when Jesus was dying on the cross on Good Friday, the women disciples who DID remain with him must have thought – “This is GOD’S SON. … surely Jesus will come down from the cross in a great show of his power … surely an angel army will come to the rescue…. Surely this has to be a joke, because Jesus can’t possibly have meant it when he told us that he was going to die.” Only, Jesus wasn’t fooling this time… especially not this time, especially not with facing death and the grave.

So, for these same women, to have arrived at the tomb early that Sunday morning, only to find that – April Fools! Jesus is not dead, but alive! – it must have seemed too good to be true. They must have thought someone was playing a trick on THEM. Their joy at the news utterly terrified them… and so they said nothing to anyone.   

….

Or did they?

April Fools!

The Gospel of Mark would not exist if these women had not – eventually – told someone. We would not have a New Testament of they had not – eventually – shared with Peter and the rest of the disciples. WE WOULD NOT BE HERE today, Easter Sunday, April Fool’s Day 2018, if they had not – eventually – shared the good news.

God DID play the best trick of all time… on death, the devil, and the powers of evil.

April Fools, death doesn’t have the last word anymore!

April Fools, the powers of evil and might in the world are going to LOSE!

April Fools, the king of the universe gave us his life so that we may be delivered from death and the grave!

April Fools, new life is happening everywhere we look! Even when we least expect it. ESPECIALLY when we least expect it.

And we WILL see him, in places where we expect to see sadness and death… like after a Good Friday service, when one of the thorns from our “Sights, Sounds, and Smells of Good Friday Service” … was discovered to have a small bud on it. April fools, new life is happening!

This last week we SAW, HEARD, and TASTED how the Lord is good. Today, and every day to come, we will HEAR and SEE the goodness of this new life coming into our lives.

But the joke is on US if we think that the story actually ENDS here, at the conclusion of Mark’ Gospel. God’s story… OUR story, does not. It keeps going. Life happens. 

Resurrection happens. And not JUST TODAY either… April Fools! Easter isn’t just a day, it is a season. 50 days long in fact… much longer than the season of Lent. As it turns out, God is dead serious about life.

Christ is Risen! (He is risen…)

Thanks be to God! Amen.