Saint and Sinner, Ash and Starlight

10 -27 – 19 – Reformation Sunday 

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

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that it feels like nearly everyone I know is writing a book… It turns out that the upside is invitations to participate in a LOT of book launch teams – which usually means getting to read advance e-book copies! One such book was the launched “Holy Disunity” by Presbyterian Pastor Layton Williams, which I highly recommend, partly because I’m convinced that she’s a Lutheran in secret.

In her book, Pastor Williams shares a Jewish teaching called “the two pockets.” Imagine you have 2 pockets, each with a slip of paper in it. One paper says, “I am but dust and ashes.” The other one says, “for my sake, the universe was created.” Williams reflects, we “live somewhere in the midst of being both dust and ash, and once for whom the universe was created,” (56)  This reminded me very much of Luther’s theology of “Simul Eustice Et Peccator” – I am simultaneously saint and sinner… both at the same time. I am both a beloved child of God and a broken imperfect person in need of being forgiven.

In each chapter of Williams’ book, she explores this “Simul” of how such unlikely gifts as Difference, Tension, Doubt, and Uncertainty separate us, how these gifts show up in the Bible, and finally how each of these gifts can ultimately save us and lead us to a more true unity.

This Reformation, we are going to take a page out of the book of this Presbyterian, and add our own chapter, which we will call: “The Gift of Reformation” – How reformations separates us, where reforming shows up in the Bible, specifically in the readings we hear every Reformation Sunday, and how reformation can save – or free us – for unity in Jesus’ name.

How can something that we as Lutherans hold so dear – The protestant Reformation – also be something that separates us? The truth is, the legacy of Martin Luther and the Reformation is complicated. The same can be true of our Lutheran heritage – something that we can cling to and frees us, but also is filled with evil acts we would rather forget about.

 When Martin Luther set out to nail his 95 theses to that church door in Wittenberg five hundred and two years ago, “The protestant reformation” was not his end goal. He did not want to separate from the Catholic Church, but instead reform from within. But nothing ever really goes according to our plans … especially if other people are involved… and especially when the plans involve change and giving up power. The long-term fallout on Luther’s actions (and some of his more controversial writings against Jewish people and minorities) caused centuries-long religious wars, and it has been argued, the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime. 

And spoiler alert – church splits didn’t start OR stop with the Reformation. Five hundred years BEFORE Martin Luther, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox church split. And after Luther, we split separated further into the denominations we are more familiar with today – Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Baptists, etc. And even Lutherans separate all the time – even AFTER the merger of the ELCA happened, other groups have split of and become their own entities for one reason or another. And the ELCA itself is far from unified.

He may not have known what was to come, but Martin Luther felt he was following in a very long tradition of reforming our faith that comes from the Bible itself… all the way back to the Old Testament. The audience that heard the words of the Prophet Jeremiah were in desperate need of a word of renewal, hope, and reformation. The people of Israel at that time were in exile, scattered, and had suffered so much loss and were facing so much uncertainty. The royal line of King David was broken, their temple in Jerusalem was broken, and their covenant with God had been broken. Just as they wondered if God would abandon them, comes the word from Jeremiah – a new covenant was coming, one written not on dead stones that can be broken, but on their hearts – dynamic and beating with life.

As Lutheran Christians, we see the embodiment of this new covenant in Jesus, and in this particular instance, remember that Jesus is talking to Jewish people who already believed in him! They were not conveniently forgetting the centuries of suffering under the rule of foreign powers. Every year at the Passover they retold and remembered the story of going from slavery in Egypt to freedom. Their declaration to Jesus is an act of defiance that says, even though we have been under the yoke of others, we are only beholden to God. Then Jesus challenges them to take that same defiance and apply it to their own lives – to the sin and brokenness of the human condition that challenges all of us. Jesus teaches that we are beloved children of God, but broken people of dust and ash, ruled by our fearful and sinful natures… and there is nothing that we can do to earn God’s love…. A daring, reforming idea that got him into a lot of trouble, and led to his crucifixion.

In Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul is seeking to clarify and interpret the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and what they mean for us – in reforming previous ideas about what “makes us right with God.” Paul reminds us that it’s not about what we do. It’s about what JESUS did.  Jesus died for the sake of the world, to stand in defiance of those who would hoard God’s love for themselves, to redeem his beloved children of ash and starlight… so that sin and death do not have the last word – resurrection does. New life DOES. Jesus DOES.

And thousands of years after, Martin Luther took these ideas and ran with them. Luther loved the book of Romans, and this passage specifically helped to change the course of his life. From the life and writings of one person in Germany, to us here today, in twenty-first century Pennsylvania. And it’s not just us, bearing Luther’s legacy in a Lutheran church in North America… this reforming work of the church in ongoing and spreading – as I saw so well when I went to Namibia and met Lutherans from all over the world – Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Canada, and Guyana…. sometimes even gathered as one over coffee, the third Lutheran Sacraments.

The road that has gotten us there is fraught, but and we are still far from unified in being “of one mind in Christ Jesus” as Paul wrote in another letter. But we are getting there. If one amazing Presbyterian pastor weren’t enough… In the words of another Presbyterian, who wrote a beautiful book of prayers called “Ash and Starlight,” she writes “… freedom sometimes comes in one, glorious breakthrough … More often, freedom comes through a muddy trail run …weaving and winding, not always moving forward….” . Just as we go in search of this freedom, [Jesus says]“You are already free. Now live into that truth.” (49-50).

The gift of the reformation is that it’s not over. Jesus is still freeing us from sin, death, and brokenness of life that holds us captive. Jesus is still sending us out into the world to serve our neighbor who are in need … especially those who are different or with whom we disagree. Jesus is still setting us free from our fear. Jesus is still leading us to constantly be re-making ourselves … even if that means sometimes separating for a time. Sometimes Jesus is still peaking, even if it’s through someone who is not Lutheran. The church is still reforming, and we are still figuring out what this freedom means for us. And sometimes Jesus is every using us saints and sinners to do God’s freeing work.

We have already been made free by Jesus, and there is nothing we can do to earn it – that is the revelation that Martin Luther had all those hundreds of years ago. And that nothing will stand in the way to access the love of God. Just as Jesus was a living person, with a body made of ash and starlight, just like ours, arriving as a baby in a manger show us God’s love in the flesh … our faith is alive, still being made new in every moment, as we are made new people every single day, without fail.

Not death, not sin, not powers or principalities of this world, not our own fear and limitations, can stand it the way. Not even WE can stand in the way of this reforming work begun in Jesus… Which we do all the time. It’s that whole “same time sinner and saint” thing. Despite our urge to fight and divide, Jesus is still forging the way to freedom…. For all. And we’re invited along for the ride. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Practice makes Persistent Faith

10-20-19

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.

On my way to church this week I’ve noticed another church’s changeable sign said “progress, not perfection.” Perhaps you also passed it this week. Seeing it made me wonder how the widow in today’s reading would have reacted to that sign. Personally, I would like to substitute one or two other “p” words…. Persistence, or practice.

I’m sure many of you have heard the phrase, “Practice makes perfect.” How many times did you hear as a kid, “keep up with the French horn – it won’t be long now until you master ‘Hot Cross Buns’!” Or – “Keep working on that jump shot – before you know it, the NBA will come knocking… and give you a great scholarship!”

At first it might seem all fun and games, but in reality, practice is hard to do. It involves hard work, mental effort, and sometimes some sweat, dedication to the task at hand, and maybe more than just a little persistence.

“Practice” and “Faith” are two words you down often hear uttered in the same breath. Sometimes we think of faith as something that we already have, an object we possess, or we don’t (or don’t have enough of) – once we have it, we can put it up on the shelf for safekeeping, and dust it off every Sunday – or so.  

What if faith was like a muscle? Our muscles can get stronger with frequent use, or they can weaken and become atrophied – still there, but just barely. How in the world can our “faith muscles” keep us going on the rough roads of life when we never flex them or nourish them to make them stronger? We practice our faith.

Not in a “practice makes perfect” way, or even a “progress, not perfection” way.  –We know that one achieves perfection. And sometimes, “progress” – whatever that means - also seems impossible to achieve. Instead, we can rediscover prayerful practices that have deep roots in our Christian heritage: forgiveness, hospitality, using our money wisely and faithfully, singing the story of our faith sharing in the Lord’s supper, daily dwelling in scripture, marching for justice on the street.

Practicing our faith is not a requirement. It’s our privilege. We GET to explore our relationship with God, most immediately in two ways that we hold as vitally important to our Christian faith that help us identify ourselves as beloved Children of God.

You might remember, as our First Communion Students learned yesterday, there are two sacred rituals we as Lutheran Christian hold dear: And they are_________: Baptism and Holy Communion! We call them “sacraments,” and we learn from Lutheran Pastor Dan Erlander, “We believe these sacraments heal hearts, create faith, and bestow freedom.”

Making Communion Bread!

Over the last year, between the Season of Baptism in Epiphany and first communion, you should all be able to remember what the parts are to a sacrament, right? If not, we can poll our communicants – A command from ______, a physical ________, and a promise – of forgiveness of sins or that Jesus will be with us always. In baptism, God is present with us in the water and the claim that we are God’s beloved Children forever. In Holy Communion, Jesus promises to sustain us in this journey we call life, which can sometimes be difficult, no matter what our age.

I had communion instruction and my first communion when I was in the fifth grade – mostly because that is the typical age of first communion classes in the Midwest.  I remember using one of these classes, I was able to recite the words of institution from memory. My mom tells me that this was the moment that SHE knew I was going to be a pastor!

To be honest, I was a bit shocked when I learned that first communion in SECOND is a fairly standard practice in parts of the East Coast. Early in my first call in New Jersey, I remember thinking - "that seems a little young. Are second graders really ready to take communion?" But then again, is anyone really "ready enough" to take communion? Does anyone understand 100% this mystery of faith, all of the time?  

It's not about state of mind, it's about state of Grace, brought to you by the very body and blood of Christ. Second grade, fourth grade, sixth grade - We're all sinners together, after all - young, old, church dorks and athletes, rich and poor. Communion is not something we perfect, it’s something that we participate in over and over again – like a practice – because I don’t know about you, but I need as much Jesus as I can get!

We don’t have to understand it. In fact, most days we won’t be able to wrap our minds around it. But we believe it, trust it, and grasp it tightly and do not let go. We reach out our hands and accept it – the body of Christ, broken for you; the blood of Christ, shed for you. Again and again and again. Week in and week out, keeping us going.

Just this last week, a colleague and friend of mine from seminary was on vacation with her family. She shared an amazing experience of the church at its best, persisting in the face of adversity for the gospel of love and justice… she described her experience as “standing on holy ground.” While visiting her family, my friend attends a tiny ELA congregation. The congregation is all that remained in the ELCA when the rest of the congregation voted to leave in rejection of the ELCA's inclusive stance on human sexuality in 2009.” They worship in a building that appears to have once been a dentist’s office. “This little flock of faithful ones has faced struggles: of finance, of membership, of pastoral availability.” Since their previous pastor died, “they've relied on lay-led worship and supply preachers when possible.”

A week before, she contacted them to make sure that they were still there, in the same place, and offered herself to preside at communion as well. They responded with an immediate yes on her offer, and asked her to lead the whole service. Normally, she like many pastors probably would not be eager to lead worship while on vacation, but she knew the struggles of this community, and their hardship in getting pulpit supply. So she led worship. She preached “about a God who audaciously heals and saves even before we have a chance to show our gratitude” – this was last week’s text, so I hope that sounded familiar.

She distributed “cross-marked wafers into fifteen different hands,” as many members openly wept out of joy. Then she was thanked, “about fifteen times, for presiding at the communion table, by people whose souls had been hungry and were now filled.”

This is the church at its’ best – a community persisting with purpose. This was a church with everything against it, but they were determined to stay open and active, to remain a tiny but potent beacon of justice with the rest of their congregation left them to choose division over love. This church is living out their baptismal calling to “work for justice and peace,” and embody the love of Christ by living out the promise of Jesus to be present to us and to all people in the bread and in the wine, at the table that Jesus himself set for ALL people. They were practicing what they preached – with persistence.

The parable that Jesus told his disciples while on their way to Jerusalem is often called “The Persistent widow.” In the Message translation of this parable, Jesus says, “…How much of this kind of persistent faith with the son of Humanity find on the earth when he returns?” If my friend’s visit to that church is any indication, Jesus just might find some pockets the people of God practicing persistent faith.

Faith is a journey, not a destination. Faith is not a rule book; it’s a relationship. Faith is not static; it’s a way of life. It’s a path we navigate daily. The end result we are reaching for is not perfection, or even “progress”; but instead, we follow the path set before us and traveled on by Jesus – sustained by his body and blood and presence. We put into practice what we have learned and received.

We will stumble, and we will fall and fail sometimes – or even often. But ultimately our faith is in a God who will pick us back up again and walk along side us, encouraging us to explore and to grow.  As Pastor Erlander tells us, “...when we flounder or fail, we trust that the table will always be set.” And we will always have a place there. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Thanksgiving, thanks-doing

10-13-19

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

I could easily see the scene described the beginning of our old testament reading this type of plot play out well in the show “Downton Abbey”, with all the “upstairs, downstairs” drama between the “staff” and the powerful people they serve: a slave girl, captured and owned by powerful people in a foreign land, confides important information to her mistress, the wife of a very powerful general, who was suffering from an embarrassing illness, and taking advice from his wife to seek out help from a foreign power and a foreign god.

In the missing verses in today’s Old Testament reading, Naaman shows up on the doorstep of the King of Israel with a letter from his own king asking for healing, and accompanied by a giant parade with all the pomp and circumstance: truckloads of gold, silver and fine clothes. After the initial mix up, Naaman parks his impressive motorcade, along with his warhorses and battle chariots, in the correct place - in front of the small hut belonging to the Prophet Elisha, who would be the one to do the actually healing.

How Naaman EXPECTED to be healed by Elisha included a dramatic appearance, loud shouting, and an impressive hand waving. Well, Naaman was very disappointed that what he got was a messenger and the command to bathe in a creek. He almost left without being cured, thanks to his pride, because he forgot that being healed was more important than HOW the healing happens.

But the point of this story, of course, that in the midst of all the drama, this man is washed and made whole again, thankful for all that God has done for him. No magic water or fancy jazz hands or flashy incantations necessary. God also breaks into the lives of us “ordinary folk,” in ways less dramatic perhaps but no less miraculous.

Years ago, while I was serving in New Jersey, I once received a huge Harry and David’s gourmet gift basket from a mystery address. Never before had I known that things like chocolate covered popcorn could taste like manna from heaven. Well, never before had I ever heard of Harry and David’s. I googled the company, found their website, and felt my eyes pop out when I saw the price of the gift basket I had been sent.

Weeks before I got the gift basket, the local funeral home had called at the request of a local family, unconnected to a congregation, who desired to have their beloved “Meredith” given a Christian memorial service and burial. And they wanted a minister. And they wanted to do it at that church. Ok, well, since the minister of the church they wanted to have it had a scheduling conflict, I did the service, and then did not give it another thought, until this amazing gift basket showed up.  

The family of this woman felt the need to show me gratitude after the fact, for doing a service for a woman that I had never met. From people that I had only met once, probably for the sum total of an hour and a half. From a family that for all I knew had rarely darkened the door of a church, at least not until the day of this person’s funeral. From people that I have not seen since or heard of since, except for that “Thank you” gift basket. This family, a “foreigner” to the church, gave thanks to God in the only way they knew how – in sending a nice gift to the church which sheltered them in their time of grief. It was like a mini thanksgiving.

Fun fact: Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in Canada. We Americans forget that we did not invent the concept of giving thanks. We may indeed be blamed for pairing it to turkey, stuffing, parades, November, and football. As long as humankind has wondered at the mystery that is a seed growing and bearing fruit that we harvest at this time of year, we have been giving thanks.

And even though fewer and fewer of us these days actually work the land from which our food comes from, like clockwork, every fall as the leaves change and the air grows cold, we still have the urge to take stock of the blessings we have been given, and then give back to God and to others out of our gratitude.  Like next week when we bring up an extra helping of canned goods to be donate to the Doylestown Food Pantry. We give to others, because God has given everything to us, even though we have not earned it or deserved it.

This story, from Luke’s gospel, interestingly enough, is one of the texts most often chosen for thanksgiving worship services. When these lepers, outcasts in their community, hoped that their petition would be answered in being cured of the disease that separated them from the rest of society. Their prayer request was answered, but most of them forgot that there are other kinds of prayer besides intercessory prayer, or asking for help. One former leper, a Samaritan, remembered and returned to give God a prayer of thanksgiving.

“Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner” – said to Jesus by the 10 lepers, is one of the oldest prayers we have. Even though we continually ask for God’s mercy, we already have it. But do we really see it? Are we paying attention in the normalcy of everyday lives, attending school, going to the grocery store, or the dentist office, or in our daily commutes?

A typical commute here in the environs of Philadelphia might look something like this: I get in my car in the morning , more than likely running late for something… and there is usually some sort of road construction that makes me even later. I turn on NPR while I wait, and hear the shocking news of a crisis in the world and I almost miss my turn. I’m at a stoplight when my phone rings, and the car behind beeps because the light turned green exactly one nanosecond ago and I haven’t moved.

Driving while distracted may be life-threatening. But praising and thanking God on a Sunday morning while distracted might just be “heart-threatening.” How many times during worship, while singing “Alleluia” – which means “Praise God” or the “holy, holy, holy,” which is also praising God for who God is -  are we actually thinking things like: am I prepared for my meeting tomorrow? Did I remember to get milk?

Praising God with our whole hearts is hard to do. But that’s why we do it together, as a WHOLE COMMUNITY of faith. When we sing or pray together, and watch the plate full of our offering lifted in our midst, witness the gifts of bread and wine given and shed for us, we can SEE right in front of us so much to be grateful for. We see and are thankful that God has been so gracious to us, even though we certainly do not deserve it.

Remember the story of “The Ugly Duckling”? This duckling grew up thinking he was ugly by duck-standards, when he was actually “normal” by swan standards. He couldn’t help the fact of who he was at his very core – a beautiful swan in a world of average ducks.

According to Paul, Jesus can’t deny who he is either, even when it causes him to get into serious trouble.  He loves people, because God is love. Jesus loves people, even when it’s considered unpopular, amoral, or even dangerous. He loves people, even when it gets ugly. And it certainly got ugly. But Jesus has seen ALL our ugly and loves us anyway, because that is who he is, and who he has shown God to be: faithful even when we are faithless. I hope the Timothy remembered that, and I hope we all can, too, not just on surrounded by turkey on Thanksgiving, or on Sunday morning, but every single day of our lives. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Mustard Seed Deposit

10-6-19

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.

When my friend’s daughter was four, she expressed her desire for world travel. She went on and on about places she would like to see. To gently dissuade her excitement, her dad, my friend, told her that trips cost a lot of money.

“But why can’t we just go get the money?” She asked.

“Because money doesn’t work like that,” Her dad said.

She thought about this for a moment. And then, smiling at her own genius, she responded: “I know where we can get the money to go! We can go to the money store!”

….. If only it were that easy!

But if there WERE such a thing as “the money store,” I would hope that right next door would be a something called “the faith store.”

For all the times that we give the disciples a hard time for being clueless – and this happens A LOT, if you read through any of the Gospels - But I think I’m actually with them on this one. For them, following Jesus was a daily reality, where they constantly heard Jesus saying very difficult things, like: “Take up your cross and follow me. Count the cost. I bring not peace to the earth, but division. No one can serve both God and wealth.”

Yikes, Jesus. This kind of life that Jesus has called his disciples to (which by the way includes us too!) is hard. It’s uncomfortable. And it’s doesn’t always feel “good.”

So, the disciples for once acknowledged their own feelings of inadequacy. They were self-aware enough to question if they truly had what it takes to live such a life. They counted the cost and felt that their faith-account might be running a little short of the necessary funds. And they are smart enough to go right to the source in order to request a faith-deposit. After all, it might not be a bad idea to put a little faith in reserve – you never know when you’re going to go through a tough time and might need that little extra faith surplus.

Now, of course we all know that faith is not a tangible thing that can be measured. Have you ever seen a faith scale? Do you measure it on pounds or in grams? Can you count how much you have? Does it have volume? Can you put the excess in storage? Can you make a faith withdrawal or deposit? Of course not.

And yet, the first thought that crosses my mind when I encounter a difficult challenge or something is not going my way, is this: I must not have enough faith. If I had enough faith, OF COURSE this would be much easier. If I had enough faith, I wouldn’t feel so anxious. If I had enough faith, I would be able to see what the heck God is up to at this time in my life.

Because more is better, right? I remember a cell phone company commercial where that that random lone adult in the kindergarten classroom asks the kids, “who thinks more is better than less?” They all of course raise their hands. When asked why, one girl responded, “when you really like it, we want more!” Because if 4G is good, then 5G is better! Likewise, what could be better than more faith? So, if faith the size of a teeny tiny mustard seed can make a tree jump into the ocean, what amazing things could the faith of a walnut… or a baseball…or a pumpkin do?

Except that… Faith a gift we have been given, by the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. We cannot by our own understanding or strength believe more or have more faith. We don’t go down to the “Faith Store” when we run low. More faith is not better faith, because we can’t INCREASE it its amount, as the disciples seem to think that Jesus is able to do. But faith IS a verb, at least it’s being used as a verb by the disciples in the original language Luke was written in. When our faith IS active, we can see when it is at work.

In life’s small actions, faith is made visible. And that tiny seed of faith is enough, because your tiny seed of faith and my tiny seed of faith and all of our tiny seeds of faith combined can really add up to something amazing – a whole field full of …. mustard plants.

It’s ironic that in the United States the wild mustard plant is considered a noxious weed. It’s edible, but not very tasty. When I was a kid, as a family we spent so many hot hours out in the alfalfa fields, dragging 5-gallon buckets behind us filled with the weeds we pulled out.  If we didn’t pull them out in time, the mustard would go to seed - as we yanked the mustard plants from the dirt, flurries of tiny yellow seeds fell like snow to the ground, hundreds of them from each single plant. And each of those tiny seeds promised that NEXT summer, a fully formed mustard plant would be ready for us.

Somewhere along the line, a stubborn little mustard seed of faith got lodged in you, ready sprout.  Perhaps, like Timothy, our own Loises and Eunices planted the faith in us. And even before that, before even time itself, this gift of faith had already been given, and it was just waiting to be revealed through the death and resurrection of the one in whom we have planted our faith, Jesus Christ. No trip to the “faith store” necessary. Like a tiny seed, faith is just waiting to be activated.

When we activate our faith, when we put it to work, things happen…. Unexpected things. Jesus refused to grant the request of the disciples to increase their faith… because they ALREADY had enough faith to do amazing things. Like uproot mulberry trees.

What are mulberry trees we face that we can cause to be planted in the sea? What amazing things could we do with our mustard seed faith?

Perhaps even something we dreamed about together during our “Family Chats” this summer might actually come to fruition, thanks to our mustard seed faith …. Things like being “Inclusive of all,” “Partnering with other churches and organizations,” making “more use of our building,” infusing energy into worship,” ”Become a community hub for service projects,” “Sunday school classrooms filled to the brim,” becoming the ‘Go-To’ Lutheran church in this area,” “more advocacy,” “becoming more welcoming to the LGBTQIA community,” “making our presence known to a wider community”….

These are all exciting ideas, and fantastic seeds that we can plant.  To do all this, and more, we don’t need MORE faith … because we already have Jesus. Everything we need to do these things, we already have, right here. And the time is now to make these things happen to start putting our faith to work to start planting.

But it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take work, commitment, action, and a little bit of trust. Working faith might just get a little dirty. We might make some mistakes along the way – scratch that, we WILL make some mistakes. And then we get up and dust ourselves off and keep going. We keep working. We put on our aprons and serve. We see what needs to be done, and we do it.

We’ve done it before, and we WILL do it again, because God has planted the seeds necessary, right here in this congregation. As long as we have a building, roofs will need to be replaced, rooms updated, equipment repaired. And though this is a thankless, never-ending task, we do it because we as a church have chosen to be a congregation rooted in this community.

On October 6^th, 1974, a few brave souls took a leap of faith, and signed the charter paper that hangs in the parlor. Forty-five years ago, Family of God as a community of faith was born, and God has been nothing but faithful ever since. This means we need to be good stewards of the gifts that God has given us, and continues to give us, including our building. If we are going follow Jesus in this way, we need to do it well and faithfully, with our hands, feet, resources, expertise, energy, time, and location.

To do the thankless tasks with great joy, we already have everything we need, including all the faith necessary. It’s not our faith that needs to be increased… it’s the transformation from noun into verb that needs to be completed. We don’t need a trip to the Faith Store or make a deposit in the Faith bank. No loans or deposit slip necessary. We have blank check of faith, and Jesus hands us the pen. … Where should we start? The choice is ours to make. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Trentons and Princetons

9-29-19

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.

As we all know, fall doesn’t just bring us Decorative Gourds and Pumpkin spice lattes. Fall also brings us… road construction.

While I was an associate pastor in New Jersey, my commute to my church almost doubled because of a particular bridge that needed to be updated and fixed…. This process took at least three months. Thanks NJ DOT! I eventually found a slightly shorter detour, one that took me passed an area of Windsor Township that I don’t normally go. The houses were large and fancy, and the yards were manicured within an inch of their lives. One house, though, stood out among the McMansions. THIS house had a heavy-duty fence around its stylish grounds and had not one but TWO impressive wrought iron gates, flanked by stylized concrete walls.

I even stopped one Sunday morning on my way to church to snap a picture when my colleague Jim was preaching on this very text – trying to do it in a hurry without looking suspicious about it! I could see the headlines – Pastor Caught Skulking around Rich Person’s House, Claims She Only Wanted A Sermon Illustration on Jesus’s Parable of “the Rich Man and Lazarus.”

That house was located less than 10 miles from where I lived in Trenton at the time. Both Trenton and Windsor were in the same county, but they might as well be on different planets. Within the span of time it takes to cook a pizza, you could drive from the poorest areas in New Jersey – Trenton – to some of the richest – Princeton, and it’s suburbs like Windsor, where this particular gate was located. Everyday, when I drove to my congregation, I passed both homeless people outside of abandoned houses, and million-dollar home with kids on the soccer fields with gleaming new Nikes. Sometime it felt like cultural whiplash. All in the span of less than 10 miles. 

For the rich man, he did not have to travel 10 miles to experience his own cultural whiplash. He merely had to walk 10 steps outside of his very door to find sitting at his own fine gate a man named Lazarus. While the rich man feasted, Lazarus longed for the scraps and half-eaten bits left in the garbage. Even the dogs pitied Lazarus.

Pastor and Songwriter Bryan Odeen wrote a song about this story called “Across the chasm.” Pastor Odeen describes these two men like this - “One man feels the comfort, the other feels the rain. One with the means change things, the other with the scars.” In other words, two men who could not be more opposite.

In this instance, as in the case between Trenton and Princeton, ten steps might as well be ten miles, and ten miles might as well be ten light years. The Gate between them becomes an uncrossable chasm, one that the rich man cannot – or will not – cross.

As Jesus’s parable goes, both men died right around the same time. One could imagine that they most likely died of different things – Lazarus from complications due to lack of medical care, poverty, and starvation, the Rich man perhaps from gout or heart disease or diabetes. After they died, however, both men found an interesting reversal in their fortunes. 

Before death, the theme of Rich man’s life was Hakuna Matata – no worries for the rest of your days… a problem free philosophy, because really DID have nothing to worry about.  Everything was handed to him, every need anticipated.  After death – well, it was a different story. In the parable, the rich man found himself to be suddenly lacking, while his closest neighbor Lazarus is seated at the place of honor by Abraham's side.

But here is the thing - even in death the rich man still doesn't see Lazarus as a person, but only as a means to an end - a way to gain relief from HIS OWN suffering, or a way to protect his brothers from future torment… with no regard for what it might cost Lazarus.

And perhaps the most shocking thing of all here is that we learn that the rich man knew Lazarus’ name ALL ALONG. He knew his name…. and did nothing to help Lazarus while they were alive. While the rich man might not have caused Lazarus’s poverty, his hunger, or his sores… he still stood by and did nothing.

People from Princeton, New Jersey were not driving into Trenton in the middle of the night and stealing from people there in order to make them poor. People from Princeton were not damaging buildings or taking away people’s homes to make them homeless. But people from Princeton WERE benefiting from a system that privileged things like home ownership, high property taxes, the color of their skin, and access to an abundance of resources. And people from the surrounding area did and do stand by and watch Trenton crumble under the weight of poverty, lack of resources, the sores of homelessness, and the general attitude of “don’t go there, that’s a bad place.” Route One became the inaccessible gate and the uncrossable chasm between the Haves and the Have nots, the Rich and the Lazaruses.

But this is not the only place in this country where this is happening. It happens everywhere, including in our own neighborhoods.  The fifth commandment is being broken everywhere. That’s the one that says, you shall not kill. Which, on the surface seems like one of the “easy” no brainer ones. But nothing could be further from the truth, in the case of Princeton and Trenton, the rich man and Lazarus, you, me, and the parts of our cities we separate from.

Martin Luther brought being a follower of God to the next level in his explanation of the fifth commandment “Thou Shalt not Kill,” … by saying “We are to fear and love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbors, but instead help and support them in all life’s needs.”

We might not actively harm the people at our very own gates…. But we benefit from systems that privilege some kind of people above others. It’s not just enough to NOT murder our neighbor. We break the fifth commandment when we aren’t active in helping them as well.

As we sometimes say in our time of Confession that we “We have sinned…  in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done AND by what we have left undone. We have not loved… our neighbors has ourselves.” We use others as a means to an end, and do not see or acknowledge the full humanity of the Lazarusus in our own lives. We have become too familiar with the brokenness and have chosen the comfort of no longer seeing it. We are in bondage to sin, and cannot free ourselves.

The refrain that Pastor Bryan Odeen sings in his song repeat these words: “Across the chasm we see the other side…. the broken and divine. Both of them beloved, both are sore and tried. If only in their life, they crossed the great divide.”

In this life, the gate can be unbolted, and the chasm between us is crossable. There is someone who shows us the way across this chasm, who bridges the gap himself, and he is the one telling this story. We hear that this particular parable has an uncertain ending, but we can be certain of how Gospel of Luke ends. Yes, Luke ends with “people crucifying Jesus because they could not abide a God who…” bridges the chasm and “joins us in our humanness and promises to stay.” The Gospel of Luke ends with Jesus rising from the dead… despite when we, like the brothers of the rich man, might refuse to see it. Even when we refuse to see people who are ten miles … or ten steps away. Even when we allow sin to get in the way of our seeing the humanity of others.

The cross is God’s defeat of everything that separates us from God, and on another. There is no more gate separating us. There is no more chasm to cross. As Pastor Dan Erlander writes, “Our death and our life are no part of Christ’s own dying and rising. We are no longer alone.”

We – together - are called to be part of a new kind of community, a community is the kingdom of God, where we all find welcome, where we all are made whole. This community defies time and space, spans political parties and world views, resists racial and economic divides, and crosses the chasms that separate us from one another, chasms caused by fear and hate and bondage to sin. A community that doesn’t just refrain from doing harm, but instead intentionally acts for the good of our neighbors, whether they are ten feet or ten miles or ten hours away. Because I don’t think the chasm is as big as we think – at least, not anymore. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Dishonest Servant's Playbook

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.

How many of you have played “The Game of Life”? If it’s been a while, you may remember that you start out with a car, a pink or blue peg, and ten thousand dollars in the bank - just like real life, right? As your little car travels along the game board, you go to college, start a career, get married, have kids, buy a house… The goal is to drive your little car with your little family and live your little life until you retire, the winner being the one who retires with the most money – like real life!

Once you understand all the rules, playing “The Game of Life” is pretty straightforward. Living the game of “Real Life,” however, is not quite so easy. Not everyone starts off in life with such a head start of a car and money in the bank, perhaps in the form of generational wealth. Real life is messy and confusing and complicated and strange… and very much like the parable that Jesus tells to his disciples that we heard just a few moments ago!

Now, when it comes to what readings we hear in church every Sunday, there is a pre-set order of game play. We always read from the Old Testament, the New Testament, a Psalm, and one of the Gospels, based on traditions that go back centuries, and span denominations. They are not chosen at random or based on what the Pastor feels like saying on a Sunday. Certain texts come up during certain parts of the church year, following a three-year cycle called the lectionary.  Like a game, there is counting and rules to follow. 

Today this text, though, feels more like landing on a “skip a turn” space, or as if we rolled a one when we needed anything but. Though, there is something sort of refreshing about the honesty and creativity of this steward that I can’t help liking despite myself. I find myself rooting for this guy. Like any good anti – hero like Deadpool or that guy on House of Cards, the steward boldly breaks the fourth wall and lets us in on how he intends to scheme himself out of this jam, his brilliant plan being to us his access to swindle his boss out of EVEN MORE MONEY…. But this time not the benefit of himself only.

After everything that the steward pulls, the rich master was actually impressed, perhaps because this is the same way that the rich man likely made his wealth. Just like now, there are only a few ways to get above the poverty line, and most of them involve an unfair advantage, or downright dishonestly. As it was then, it still is now – in THIS world, money talks, it is money who is king, demands our devotion, and makes the rules that govern our daily lives. 

Rules like: Whoever holds the money holds the power. That your worth is based on what and how much you can buy, how big your house is or what school you can afford to send your children too. To spend rather than saving or giving.  Money rules: it dictates our time, consumes our thoughts, and demands our loyalty.

And so, when we slip into this kind of bondage, and follow this script money lays out for us, what is our reward? How do we know if we’ve “won” at the game? Like in the game of life, the one with the most money at the end wins.

But perhaps even more amazing of all – JESUS applauds the steward too! Really, Jesus? Should we really this guy as our model? Yes! As Jesus also points out, when life is over and it’s time to enter into our eternal, rather than retirement, homes, and where is the money? Well, it’s gone, because “you can’t take it with you”! So how are we going to use it while we are still “In the Game”?

Both God and money demand your life. But which master would you rather serve? The truth is, we can’t play the game by both sets of rules. We cannot serve both. We cannot belong to both… and keep our sanity and integrity.

We are not doomed to follow these rules of the Money, that, in the end, cheat us out of life and in fact give us nothing. There is another king to follow, another set of rules for us to live by. This Jesus came to tell us that God’s Kingdom rules are the alternative.

D

We are citizens of the Kingdom of God who are living in the Kingdom of Money at the moment. Which makes life confusing and complicated. All the playing pieces look the same. But we are called to play by different rules and to have a different strategy, because our goal is not the same. Our goal is not to win. Our goal is to follow Jesus. Which will probably lead us to run afoul of the rules of money’s game.

My personal theory is that Jesus liked the roguish steward because he was the type of guy that Jesus tended to hang out with. Jesus was often accused of eating with sinners, scandalous women, and shady characters – and this steward fits right in. He knew how to cleverly and creatively play by the rules of his world. According to The Message translation Luke 16 reads “streetwise people… are on constant alert, looking for angles… using adversity to stimulate… creative survival…. You cannot serve God and the Bank.”

And so, that’s why I think that Jesus wants us to take a page out of the steward’s playbook of creative survival: when things get tough, DON’T give up. Find the alternative endings. Find those angles and exploit them for the good of the kingdom. Be alert to new opportunities. Create your own way when the world gives you no way.

And WHEN – not IF – we fail, we can get right back up, dust ourselves off, remind ourselves that we are baptized and beloved children of God, and every day is a new day. This is how we live, because we know that life is not really a game we manipulate, and we cannot simply strategize our way into the kingdom of God. There are no “winners” and “losers,” because we are both… and neither.

You can and will lose to money and the bank, but you can never lose the love of God. Jesus won a place for us in the kingdom already, by not playing by the world’s rules. In fact, you could say he cheated. He “won” the game by losing – losing any opportunity to gain worldly possessions, power, or status… even losing his very life, and ultimately, cheating death. All to prove that we cannot win our way to God.  The game has already been won, because there is no game. Not anymore.

Though we no longer have to play by money’s rules, we what we do with our money still very much matters. And so too, along the way, we ask ourselves, how can we as people of God flip the scrip, “cheat” at the game, and make our money SERVE US as WE continue to be called to SERVE GOD?

How can we counter-scam establishments that rip-off the environment and vulnerable people? By shopping small, local, and …. Or not at all. By chucking expensive coffee systems and business that hurt the environment, and spend that money on fair trade coffee or local establishments that foster community. By investing in relationships rather than fancy gimmicks and flashy facades.

How do we cheat institutions that get away with perpetuating injustice in the form of discrimination? By taking a page out of the steward’s book, and using his own resources, access, and privilege to help other people who were being unfairly treated by the rules of the game.

Be faithful even in the little things. Be good stewards of and take care of what has been given to you by God… that is, everything, including our lives. Be a slave to God and serve one another, rather than serving the demands of the bank.

We are still on the game board, far from the finish line. The game of life has already been won for us, true, but in the meantime, we still make choices and roll the dice – with both good and bad rolls. Along the way, Jesus challenges us to turn to the Dishonest Steward’s playbook, finding angles, keeping alert, keeping our wits about us, creatively surviving, until we reach the finish. Game on. Amen.

Saints and Sinners, Lost and Found

9-15-19 Kick Off 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.

A few months ago, I went to 5 Below North Wales to find some glowsticks for our campfire, when two women approached me, asked if I “believed in the female images of God.” I bet you could imagine how that went. After about 5 minutes I could tell they were tired hearing me go on and on, so I gave them my card … and big surprise, I haven’t heard from them yet!

We know in our hearts that God is neither male or female (or black or white), but let’s admit it – our language still tends to skew to the male pronoun when we talk about God, and out of habit, even I slip up sometimes. We speak and we imagine from the perspective we are familiar with. While the Bible was inspired by God and written by men of faith (mostly because women weren’t educated at the time), they were still bound by their own experiences. Even Jesus was sometimes! … as you may have noticed last week, when the stories he told were from the perspective of kings, armies, business owners, and construction workers.

But every once in a while, language describing God from female perspectives peaks through, to remind us that if we have been created in God’s image – male AND female – God has attributes of both. God is a nurturing mother who gives birth (Deut. 32:18) and nurses us, her children (Isaiah 49:15), God is a seamstress (Gen. 3:21) also a knitter (Psalm 139) and a baker (Matthew). During this year of Luke, we hear that God looks for us like a woman looking for a lost coin (15:8-10) as we heard today, and Jesus describes himself as a hen who wants to gather us like chicks (13:34).

The Gospel of Luke is also full of these descriptions, and is also populated with bold women who are faithful follows of Jesus – Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, the women at the empty tomb, just to name a few. We are blessed to be part of a denomination where the gifts of women are recognized, where they can serve at the highest levels, including our presiding bishop. But as I said at the banquet at the ELCA churchwide assembly, the night we celebrated the ordination of women no matter what race or who they love, we have not “arrived” yet. We still have a long way to go.

If we had truly arrived, these 50 years after the first white heterosexual woman was ordained in one of the predecessors to the ELCA, then THIS book would never have needed to be written.  I read this book earlier this year when it was fresh from the publisher. It comes from the perspective of someone called to ministry who is from one of the “lost” groups,” and by its title “One CoinFound” you can probably tell that it draws heavily from the “lost” stories we hear today.

Author and pastor Emmy Kegler grew up Episcopalian, is now a Lutheran pastor. This book is her story about how she as a queer woman pastor grew to fall in love with the very same scriptures that many Christians have used against her throughout her life. Perhaps not surprisingly, Kegler was always deeply drawn to the story of all the “Losts” in Luke, - lost sheep, coin, culminating in the Lost/ Prodigal son.

She reflects on the nature of sheep and of coins, saying that sheep tend to wander, but usually for good reason … hunger, thirst, exhaustion, fear (of predators). But what is the coin’s excuse? Kegler writes, “the funny thing about coins is that they can’t get lost by themselves” … “Coins get lost because their owners aren’t careful….” And when coins get lost, they tend to their shine (and their perceived value), which makes them even more difficult to locate.

But is God the one who loses us? With every story Jesus tells, and with every image we use to talk about the kingdom of God, there is a “yes” and there is a “no.” God is LIKE a knitter, but God does not actually take up knitting needles to make a scarf. Our limited human language can only tell so much of infinite truth of who God is, and we often reach out to more tangible things to anchor us, for better or worse. Emmy reminds us that “We experience God through our experience of others…” but is also careful to clearly say, “God has never been careless with us, but those who claim to speak for God have.” Church leaders, not God, cause some of the most vulnerable sheet to be lost - to be disregarded and left to get dusty like the coin or starved for love like the sheep.

Pastor Kegler experienced this so painfully in her own life, as growing up she struggled to reconcile the revelation that she both gay and a Christian, and how the people of deep faith around her, who she though loved her, could reject her because of it.

In the fall of Pastor Kegler’s senior year of high school, 2 years after starting to attend “Watermark” (a non-denominational youth centric church in Minneapolis), a preacher in training came from a nearby seminary to rail against same sex relationships. Traumatized and triggered by his hateful words, she left the sanctuary to collect herself. Her “friends” followed her, pressuring her to “repent” of the way God had created her. That night, the people Kegler though were her friends turned on her, and she saw their true colors. She never went back to that church or those people.

Years later, on a Sunday morning during worship in the chapel of a Lutheran college, Pastor Kegler was unwillingly pressed into service to help distribute communion. When someone handed her a plate with the bread, she panicked. She tried to hand it back to one of the campus pastors, telling him, “I can’t serve, I’m not trained.” He asked her if she knew what to say, she responded without thinking, “the body of Christ, given for you.” He handed the plate back to her and said, “there you go, you’ve been trained.” In that moment, and in every moment of love shown to her since, Kegler was truly found. Now, she is happily married, a pastor in the heart of Lutheran country – St. Paul MN, a published author, and sough-after speaker and preacher.

I think we can all see why, when Kegler describes God hitching up her skirts to get down and dirty on the floor to search for lost coins like her. “God has taken up a broom and cleared each corner, untucked and re-tucked each sheet and quilt, turned over pitcher after pitcher to see where we have landed.”

Our own found stories probably look a little bit different form Emmy Kegler’s, and may not seem worthy of publishing as a memoir, or at least not as “interesting.” But I think all of us have experience what it means to be hungry for something – for empathy, for acceptance, for someone to see our worth, for someone to love us for all of our flaws and brokenness, and the disappointment we feel when our deepest needs are not met by the people we thought cared about us. Most of us, I believe, HAVE  felt the sting of rejection when those who seem to have everything – power, influence, comfort, privilege – sneer at you and judge you when you leave the “correct path” they have laid out for you, using some misguided  interpretation of God’s words.

Listen closely here to the words of Jesus, then. How then can we stand in the way of Jesus, when he very clearly stands in for the shepherd who abandoned the ninety-nine sheep to find the lost one, and the woman who stayed up late into the night to find her coin that had gone missing? The body of Christ is not complete until all of us are found in God and loved with dignity by those of us who call ourselves Christian. And yes, that might not just include feeding them…. But eating WITH them, at the same table, side by side, elbow to elbow, with Jesus.

Perhaps we don’t have a lot of tax-collectors floating around anymore, but we all encounter people that we grumble at we deem “undeserving,” and want to begrudge a seat at the table. The good news is that Jesus eats with sinners…. And its good news BECAUSE WE are sinners. The repercussions of some sins might be more obvious than others.  But all are given a spot next to Jesus. All of us are, in the words of the commendation at the end of our funeral service, we are “sheep if [God's] own fold, [lambs] of [God's] own flock, [sinners] of [God's] own redeeming.”

One of the last things that Rachel Held Evans wrote before she died this spring, was write the introduction to this book, One Coin Found. Evans words ring achingly true in light of her sudden death, when exhorts us readers to remember that “you …  are immeasurably beloved by God, …with the help of the great communion of saints, …. you… will always and ever be found.”

Nothing can separate us form the love of God. In life, and in death, we are loved, and we are known, and we are found. Because God will stop at nothing to gather those who are lost. Now it’s our turn, to tuck up our own skirts, find the broom, and join in the search with that great communion of saints… and sinners. Thanks be to God. Amen.