Go with God's Authority

 9-27-20

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

We all live under some sort of authority, whether we are aware of it or not. Some kinds are obvious – traffic laws, taxes, phone contracts, mortgage and loan agreements, state and local mask mandates. Some of the systems we comply with are less noticeable – who bullies and gets bullied on social media, who is more likely to speak in a zoom meeting, how much the same house is appraised for based on the perceived skin color of the owner, among others.

We have been very well trained. We all know how to navigate the rules of this world, both consciously and unconsciously. We know what scripts to recite and what patterns to follow, from what we see in TV commercials and online ads, from newspaper fliers, from what we see from our neighbors and classmates, from the conversations and interactions we have with our family and friends.

And for some of us, following the rules WORKS. Because some of us were born the right color or with the right biology, or in the right country to the right family. Following the rules of the world comes much easier for some than for others. This is what is called “privilege.” We didn’t earn it or do anything special to deserve it. But it is the air we breathe.

But one wrong move, one misstep, and we will find ourselves with those people, on the outside looking in. There is no room for failure. There is no room for nuance. When a white female Methodist pastor in the Midwest is outspoken for justice, her bishop reserves the right to fire her without recourse. This particular pastor will find out later this week if she will be fired, effective immediately, just because she said “Black Lives Matter” in a sermon.

But, rules are rules, I guess. (heavy sarcasm) 

And when they DO work for us, it can be hard to change them. Those people are those people for a reason...right? We who have done everything right, like those have worked in the vineyard from dawn until dusk from last week, we feel we DESERVE to be first in the kingdom of this world, and perhaps also in the Kingdom of God, don’t we?

How dare this Midwestern pastor take a stand on something that is so clearly at the heart of the Gospels? Like, where does SHE get off, living into what it means to follow a first-century Palestinian Jewish man? … a man who had the audacity to hang out with the wrong people and heals the blind, who rides into town on a donkey in an impromptu parade and kicks the economy of the empire in the teeth… like does she even KNOW who Jesus IS and what he PREACHED?

It turns out she does. And that is making the authorities over her uncomfortable.

Jesus makes us uncomfortable because he reminds us that we are as broken and hopeless as THOSE people seem to be, the tax collectors and sex workers, and people left behind by a broken health care system. These are exactly the kinds of people Jesus chooses to hang out with. He reminds us that we can follow all the “rules” to a tee and still be on the wrong side of history.  

Jesus makes us uncomfortable because he reminds us that there is another kingdom out there, a kingdom with a very different kind of authority. This is the authority of God, shown to us in Jesus.  To live under this kind of authority REALLY makes no sense to the world. This is not a kingdom where rules completely go out the window. This is a kingdom where the rule of the realm is love, condensed and concentrated into the living, dying, and rising of Jesus.

At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gave his followers a great charge: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… and I WILL BE WITH YOU.”

And in this text for today, instead of arguing with the smarty pants religious authorities of his day, Jesus told them a story instead – about a man with two sons and two different responses to his charge for them to “Go.”

Our vineyard, where Jesus commands us to go and work, could be far away among those “all nations.” More likely, though, our vineyards are the zoom classrooms we attend, our place of work, the people we sit in the yard with, who we attend worship with and greet in the comment section, and drive on the same highways with. Sometimes our vineyard is right in our own homes with our own families, especially now that many activities are taking place online.

And the work that we do there is not always easy to figure out. God has not left us with a book of easy-to-follow instructions on “how to successfully make disciples of all nations 100% of the time.” In fact, we may not want to go into the vineyard at all! It’s so hard, and I’m not very good at it, and what can I even do, anyway? Especially now, with a pandemic on! We’ve never done this before!

The good news is that we are not alone in this work – we have the whole church on earth, past, present, and future.

The bad news is, the church in a human institution.  Seventeen centuries ago when the church suddenly found itself with authority instead of being on the margins, we lost a potent opportunity. Instead of showing the world a different kind of power and authority, the kind of servant heart exhibited by Jesus, the church instead chose to tread the path of hierarchy and supremacy, copying what already existed in the world. In other words, the institutional church told Jesus “Yes,”… but then we didn’t follow through.

But it is not too late. There is hope for us. While we cannot undo the wrongs of the past, we CAN and SHOULD stop them from happening in the present. We can confront injustices in the name of Christ. As a church, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can be a servant to those in need and a witness to where the Spirit is at work the world.

As I learned from the board retreat of LAMPa this week, this year is the 500^th anniversary of the most revolutionary essay that Martin Luther wrote called “The Freedom of a Christian.” In this essay, Luther writes about how we as Christians are “perfectly free…. subject to none.” BUT ALSO:  Christians are “perfectly dutiful servant[s] of all, subject of all.”

Luther wrote: "Christian[s] … do not live in themselves but in Christ and their neighbor, or else they are not Christian," "They live in Christ through faith and in the neighbor through love. Through faith they are caught up beyond themselves into God; likewise through love they fall down beneath themselves into the neighbor — remaining nevertheless always in God and God's love."

We don’t serve the world. We don’t serve the economy. We don’t serve institutions, even if it is the church. We serve Jesus, and we do that be serving our neighbor. We serve our neighbors Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Jacob Blake, the trans teen kicked out of their home by their parents, the foster child that who has never known a home, Savanna and other the indigenous and native women who have gone missing, singles moms who use SNAP, the two-hundred thousand people who have contracted and died from Covid-19, including members of this congregation. How are we serving them?

These people were made in the image of God… just as we are made in the image of God. We are chosen and anointed in our baptisms and then we are called out – under God’s authority - into the vineyard where the work of justice is always taking place. God is always at work in turning us into God’s people. God is always turning bad news into good news…. God is always turning “nos” into “yesses.” And whether today is a yes day or a no day, at the end of the day we are still God’s children. God still says YES to us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Purple Blob of God's Love

 9-20-20 

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

You may remember that I might have mentioned Pine Lake Lutheran Camp in Waupaca Wisconsin… once or twice before. They, like many camps across the country, have suspended normal camp, and instead need to support themselves in creative ways, such as offering individual all those empty cabins to families for some vacation time. And when I heard Pine Lake was doing the same, we jumped at the chance to support this place that had been integral to my own call as a pastor. As we walked around the camp, I fondly remembered the songs, games, evening campfires, and funny skits we would do as a staff, especially one of my favorites, the Purple Blob skit.

It goes something like this – a single person goes to the front, pretending to carry a large purple blob with both arms. They narrate how much the LOVE big purple blob. In succession, various individuals enter, chat, and ask to have some of the blob. When the blob-carrier refuses, their friend goes away sad, and each time, the blob gets smaller, until eventually the blob is small enough to fit in the palm of their hand. Terrified their beloved blob will disappear, the person decides to try something different: to share. All the same people come back through, one by one, this time given some of the blob, which is shown to get bigger, and bigger by how wide everyone’s arms are. At the very end, unable to contain the blob any longer, the Big Purple Blob is tossed into the audience.

This skit is both bad math….  AND good Lutheran doctrine. One of our core Lutheran tenants is idea that we are at the same time both sinner and saint. The fancy Latin way to say this is simil iustus et peccator. One hundred percent sinner in desperate need of God’s grace. And one hundred percent saint saved by that grace in our baptisms. One hundred percent AND one hundred percent.  You might remember that I talked about it this spring over Facebook live…. Only 6 months but feeling like a million years ago.

This is Purple Blob Math… God’s math. It is math that doesn’t make sense to us and the world that we live in. And there are other examples of God’s math, adapted from a post a friend of mine shared on Facebook:

Jesus equals = One whole human nature + one whole divine nature

1 + 1 + 1 = 1 (that’s the Trinity, by the way – Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three in one and one in three at the same time)

This one is from two weeks ago:  where 2 or more are gathered (or “n”) always equals another guy (Jesus) is there or “n” + 1.

One sheep (greater than sign, or more important than) ninety-nine sheep. Also, one coin is greater than 9 coins.

God's love (minus) love that you give away = MORE of God’s love than what we had to start with…. Like with the Purple Blob of God’s Love.

And then from this week we get a couple of whopping examples of “Purple Blob Math.” Twelve hours of work equals one day's wages… but then one hour of work ALSO equals one day's wages! One twelfth equals to twelve-twelfths!  The last will be first, and the first will be last! This is certainly some “purple blob math”!

Perhaps then it is not so surprising that Jesus used stories and not math as a teaching tool over the course of his ministry. I’ve shared before how these stories are called “parables,” which comes from a word that means “to cast alongside,” “Consider A by considering B.” These parables of Jesus are often hard to swallow, because they resist easy comparisons. They are not really analogies or allegories, where one thing clearly stands in – or equals, if you will – another thing. They are vignettes and snippets, combining elements of real life, both a shorthand of things we find familiar. Until everything familiar gets upended…which also happens to be one of Jesus’s favorite things to do.

Like the original owner of the purple blob believed at the start of the skit, we live in a culture that convinces us that scarcity is the name of the game. If you have more, that means that I have less. We are constantly looking at what our neighbor has and compared to what we lack. If we see our neighbor being blessed in some way, we are tempted to feel resentful and left out.  If another group gets something that we thought only belonged to us, we feel less valued. So they hang on to what little they do have with a vengeance…. But they may find, like the kid in the skit, the purple blob gets smaller and smaller when we live that way.

There is even an acronym for this that is floating around social media: FOMO. Fear Of Missing Out – the anxiety that comes with missed opportunities that often happens when we are preoccupied with what other people are doing. Much like the workers who labored all day, as they complained against the others who worked fewer hours but got the same about of pay. Instead of being satisfied that the vineyard owner gave ALL of them a fair daily wage, some peeked over the shoulder of the other workers, and felt cheated. They feared that they missed out on something that they imagine COULD have been MORE, and belittling the generosity of the employer, instead of realizing that what THEY have is enough.

Right now many people are treating some lives as less important, invisible in our society, but they matter to God, and they should matter to us. With our actions, the church can say, “these people matter too, and they are enough.” Because we know that it won’t make us matter LESS in God’s eyes. Until we all ACT like ALL lives really are precious, loved, and worthy, we HAVE to lift up Black lives, Trans lives, Homeless lives, and the lives of the most vulnerable among us.

Some things should not be considered a zero-sum game. Love… equality… freedom … “mattering”…. Saying one person matters does not mean that other people matter less. It just means that some people are being treated as mattering less and we are bringing it to everyone’s attention, so that we can take corrective action together and right the injustices in our world. Until we live in a world where all lives are treated the same, we who have privilege and voice must speak up.

At the end of the day, we all need to eat, whether we worked one hour or twelve…. Or none at all. And we all get the same amount of God’s love – all of it – not that we have done anything to deserve it. We each get an infinite amount of God’s love, and there is still an infinite amount left over. If you haven’t noticed, big purple blog math is Grace… another deeply cherished Lutheran idea. Grace is God’s purple blob math in a nutshell.

The world doesn’t want us to live by God’s math, aka grace. And the sinner-ness in all of us doesn’t want to live by this math either. But that is what our baptisms are for – a place where we begin to live by the purple blob math of God’s grace.

We were baptized once, though we also need to repent and remember our baptisms daily. We were baptized with water that wasn’t just plain water, but is also infused with the Holy Spirit and a promise. At every moment, we are both our old sinful selves and our new baptized selves. Baptism is a kind of death – to sin – so that we may have life – raised as Jesus was raised from the dead. We were born once, but in baptism, we are reborn as children of God, marked by the cross of Christ on our foreheads… invisible…. Part of a larger whole and not to be kept to yourself…. Like the big purple blob that is the body of Christ, meant to be shared with the world.

It’s everywhere, and we cannot escape this grace. Thanks be to God, and big purple blog math. Amen.

God's Heart, Our Heart: Virtual Rally Day 2020

 Sermon 9-13-20

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

Our Rally Day today looks just a little bit different than it normally does – a year ago in the parlor, adult education class was popping in a new DVD into the TV, the Pray-ground was stocked with new crayons, and the pews were re-populated with summer tans, fresh haircuts, and lots of backpacks to be blessed.

Even if you are no longer a student ourselves at the moment, we all remember what it was like to go to school for the first day of a new year, at least in the pre-pandemic times. We remember how excited or nervous we felt, the night before when we fretted over our outfit and set out our backpack will all our supplies – new pencils and pens, empty notebooks and folders to be filled with knowledge, calculators and rulers and crayons and highlighters.

Dealing with newness and change can make us anxious. And now, we have the added layer of trying to figure out how to navigate a new school year in the middle of a pandemic. Zoom, Canvas, Google Classrooms, Microsoft Teams, emails, hybrid learning, mask, and social distancing – in some ways, we are being taught a new way to BE taught. We are learning a new way to learn.

Teaching is also one of Jesus’s favorite things to do… especially when the lesson that we have to learn will surprise us. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches A LOT, and this week we hear yet another snippet of one of his longer lesson that take up most of chapter 18. Last week, Jesus taught how sin is handled in the community.  But much before that, at the beginning of chapter 18, the disciples ask Jesus “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” Jesus, probably rolling his eyes, bring in a child and says “…unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

But Peter seems to be hung up on verse 15 from last week – “If another member of the church sins against you…” Peter seems to be less interested in the reconciliation that forgiveness would bring, and more interested in how many times he will have to put up with other people sinning. So, Jesus told a story.

The first slave if you recall, owed ten thousand talents, which is pretty much like saying ‘A jillion dollars” - an amount that no person could POSSIBLY work off in their entire lifetimes. The other slave, if you remember, owed the first one va very tiny amount by comparison. But the first slave does not forgive this small amount, even after his enormous debt is forgiven. He did not forgive as he was forgiven.

I want to admit here the discomfort I have with Jesus telling a story that involves slavery, where Jesus doesn’t acknowledge the injustice of slavery. It is true that Jesus used what was commonplace in his parables, the stuff of daily life – growing crops, raising livestock, cooking meals, family relationships – and at that time, slavery WAS a given part of everyday life. Even Jesus’s own people were semi-enslaved themselves, in a kind of “vassal” or serf system, so they may not batten an eyelash about weighted terms like “King” and “slave.”

The people listening to Jesus’s story in real time didn’t hear it in a vacuum… and neither do we. WE hear these words with very different ears, and cannot escape how the institution of slavery has been baked into the legacy of this nation, and is the cause of deep-seated injustice that is playing itself out in our daily news headlines.

In the wake of everything that has happened this past summer, myself and so of my pastor colleagues have been reading books by people of color about anti-racism work. One of the best books I read so far is called “Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation” by Latasha Morrison. We’ll be starting to read and discuss it as a congregation later this month, and I hope you join us. This book weaves together our Christians ideals of faith, confession, and forgiveness to the hard and uncomfortable work of seeing and healing the deep racial divides in our country.

A powerful moment in this book comes when Morrison visits a very special “Plantation turned Museum.” Whitney Plantation, a once-operational slave camp and farm, now honestly bears witness to “the history of slave ownership in the South and to honor the slaves who once live [there]” (71). When she visited, Morrison was the only African American present in a tour group of people of European descent, including the young white tour guide.

Along the tour, Morrison received the name of a man who had actually live there – Albert Patterson – and later each tour participate was invited to ring the plantation bell in honor of the name they were given. The ringing of that bell pierced her heart and soul… ringing out in the past, present, and future. Through the sound of the bell, through her conflicting emotions and resistance and hurt, the Holy Spirit called Morrison to this work of racial reconciliation.

Later in this book, Morrison writes: “...only when we make space for our emotions, when we’ve honestly evaluated them, can we move into true Christlike forgiveness.” (108)

Unfortunately, we are not Jesus. For many of us, we don’t even have to get to the seventy-seventh time to find this hard or even impossible. Sometimes, one sin against us is all it takes for us to get stuck – and here we’re are talking a “BIG SIN.” Betrayal of trust, assault, spreading a lie, bullying or meanness, destruction of property, infidelity, violence, threats…. Some of us have lived through some very difficult hurts perpetrated against us by other people, sometimes even the people we love.

Does this also mean that if someone sins against me, for any reason, I should do like the song from “Frozen” and “Let it Go?” Even seventy-seven times? This can easily be interpreted as the opposite being just as true – “If I do not forgive those who sin against me, God will not forgive me.”

One of my seminary professors, Dr. Craig Koester, shared this helpful insight: " Forgiveness is not acceptance of the past. . . Forgiveness is the declaration that the past will not define the future. . .” But maybe today is not that day. Maybe today the past is far too present. Maybe you are on your seventy-eighth go-round with a loved one. Jesus tells us to forgive from the heart….. what happens when our hearts have been so destroyed that we just don’t have enough pieces left to be ABLE to forgive?

Only God is in charge of when that moment of forgiveness happens… if it is a single moment at all. Most of the time, it is a series of little moments. One day, you are mad, hurt, and betrayed, and the next day you are still mad, hurt, and betrayed…. But twenty days, a hundred days, a thousand and twenty days, or a bajillion days later, you may find that the anger and hurt are no longer there. It no longer has you in its grip.

There is no time frame for forgiveness. There is no heart that is too broken to be healed. You can’t keep track, and you can’t rush it. Forgiveness can’t be counted toward, only journeyed through, felt when given a healthy space, and built, piece by piece.

Every week we say together in the Apostles Creed, “I believe in (among other things) the forgiveness of sins.” And, as we heard Jesus tell us last week, “…if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Jesus is among us, when we gather to believe in the forgiveness of sins, even when we can’t ACTUALLY FORGIVE YET.

Together we believe in forgiveness, even when we can’t do it yet. Together, we are all Children of God, gathered together here to forgive, encourage, challenge, and love one another. Together, we will stumble and fall sometimes, but we have one another to lift us up, dust us off, and get us back on our feet, dusty heart and all. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Origin Stories and Superpowers

 Sermon 8-30-2020

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.

Every superhero has origin story. Some of my favorite superheroes and heroines were born with their special powers, like Wonder Woman, Black Panther, and Luke Skywalker. Others - such as Captain Marvel, Spider Man, and Harry Potter - got them in all kinds of unexpected ways. And still others were simply chosen to save the world, like the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

You might be surprised to hear that we are part of a very special league of super heroes, right here in real life. Part of my origin story is growing up in a group of other baptized super hero people, being nurtured and encouraged in my faith by my family and other caring adults, and working at a Bible Camp in Wisconsin. 

Your origin story is probably different. But we were all chosen in the same way: We all had our forehead splashed with water three times, surrounded by others who pledged to help us on our journey. Then we were sealed with the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ forever. It is a cross that we all carry with us, present every moment of our lives. That is OUR shared origin story.

As we wrap up our 90 Day Bible Challenge today – congratulation! – I hope that you noticed some of the really cool “origin stories” of our favorite Bible Heroes and heroines. The devotion of Ruth. The perseverance of Esther. The dreams of Joseph. The strange call stories of the prophets. The conversion of Paul. And today… we heard how Moses got going with his mission to free his people, directly from God, via a shrub that was on fire!

You could also say, in our reading from the Gospel of Matthew, that the origin story of the Christian church began here. Jesus is with his disciples in Caesarea Philippi, a Roman town full temples to every deity under the sun. It is here that Jesus asks the hundred-thousand-dollar question – Who do YOU say that I am? The disciples take a stab at it, but only Peter got it right – “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” Good job. Peter!

Though we heard those words a week ago in our time… only days, hours, or even minutes elapsed before Peter … then puts his foot in his mouth. Peter, thinking he’s on a roll, says: “God forbid it, Lord!” “That’s not how it’s going to be when YOU are in charge! Suffering and death? You’ve got to be kidding!”

News flash Peter: Jesus wasn’t kidding. Jesus is NOT here to set up his own kingdom made in the image of the world, with power, glory, and might. But…. Peter is also not alone in his hasty judgement about the kind of Kingdom that Jesus is bringing. We often have trouble understanding God’s kingdom when we encounter it, too

We are surrounded by messages of the Kingdom of Might – M-I-G-H.T…where power comes from influence and affluence. Those who have it, flaunt it. Those who don’t have it, want it. And the easiest way to get it is to hang out with the powerful people – and hope you get some of it by association. This is, by the way, what Peter is trying to do with Jesus, and is also why he freaks out when Jesus reveals this is NOT the kind of kingdom he’s ushering into being. After all, who WANTS to be in the inner circle of THAT kind of King? Who wants suffering as part of their origin story?

These messages have become the water we swim in - so totally ingrained in how we live that we don’t notice. It is even built into the very fabric of this country. We are taught our origin story as a nation is one of a scrappy band of settlers who valiantly wrestled their rights and freedoms out of the clutches of the most powerful empire in the world. But is that the whole story?  

We don’t have a time machine… but we do have a show from 2004 called Colonial House (found on Amazon Prime and YouTube), an entertaining blend of historical documentary and just good, juicy reality TV. Two dozen people committed to living in the back country of coastal Maine for four months, in an approximation of how a settlement would have operated in 1628. That’s right – no electricity, running water, or privacy.

Instead of the pure and simple utopia that many of the contestants expected, these “settlers” quickly came face to face with the harsh realities that shaped our early days as a nation, besides the daily struggle to survive.

From the very start, religious intolerance, strict social classes and power struggles, homophobia, the never-ending focus on productivity and output, land-theft from native people, rigid gender roles, and racial tension were very uncomfortably present in our national identity. The realization that the “Origin Story” of our country is not simple or spotless was an eye-opening moment for many on this show – and those of us who watched to the show, too.

Some of us are waking up to threads of a story we didn’t know had been woven into our fabric since the beginning, while others have been awake this whole time, seeing our past play out again, and again, and again, the cycle of violence against the bodies of our black and brown siblings, which turn into rage, blame, and more violence, most lately in my home state of Wisconsin, which is so much part of my own origin story.

In the middle of all the memes and rhetoric, I wonder if in this moment, Jesus is saying to us: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take 7 bullets in the back, and follow me. For those who want to save their life will find it looted, and those who loot their own lives, for my sake, will find life.

The source of Jesus’ power - the power of God – is found in vulnerability. It is strength found in weakness. It is might found in non-violence. It is gaining the whole world by throwing our entire lives away. It is following in the footsteps of Jesus, who was called to die for our sake, so that we may die to ourselves for the sake of others.

This is Jesus’s superpower: Resurrection. And it becomes our superpower too: The broken being made whole. Hate turning into love. Death transformed to new life.  Jesus transforming the cross as an instrument of death into a symbol of hope, the symbol that all of us baptized superheroes carry on our foreheads. Invisible, like a secret superhero identity, but still always present.

Only our secret superhero identities are supposed to be public. We are meant to follow Jesus, to carry our crosses, in a way that others can see. Sometimes, like Moses, we are called to work for the liberation of an entire oppressed people. Sometimes, like Moses, we put our bodies on the line and into harm’s way. Sometimes, like Moses, we are sent to speak truth to power.

Moses’s origin story may have involved a supernatural shrub on fire. But his origin story is similar to our own – God calls us by name. And even in the face of all the questions we have, God reveals to us God’s own name – a God who is Faithful, a god who Liberates, the God who Is and Was and ever will be with us.

In our baptisms, we have died to our old selves, and we rise up as part of a new family in Christ. And so, as God’s superheroes, we are sent into the world as a chip off the old boulder…to follow Jesus’ lead. As the affirmation of baptism (or confirmation) liturgy goes, we are called “to follow the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” In the face of these big tasks, we as a church respond, “We do and we will, and we ask God to help us.”

In the words of Black Panther: "It is time to show the outside world who we are."

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

"Like the Bold Women: Do the Next Right Thing"

Sermon 8-23-20

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

One of the curious side effects of being under lockdown this spring is having a little extra time to try new things….. in my case, I downloaded TikTok. I was surprised and pleased to find a substantial subset of TikTok dedicated to … retelling stories in the Old Testament in 90 second snippets. Just grab a bathrobe and put a towel over your head, and boom – you too can be a TikTok star while playing Abraham, Sarah, Moses, David, and others! Who knew so many of the Gen Z generation was so biblical literate and creative!

(This TikTok by fellow ELCA pastor is probably the best one for today!)

We can’t help ourselves – no matter what the new technology came along, be it written word, the codex, the printing press, radio, television, the internet, email, youtube, facebook, TikTok…. We retell these ancient stories in these new mediums, because if we don’t know our stories, then we don’t know who we are.

If you, like me, are making your way through the 90 Day Bible Challenge, you notice that most of the Old Testament – yes, even most of the New Testament too – is a remix or retelling of a few important moments in the history of God’s people. Arguably, the most important one is the Exodus – the liberation of God’s people from slavery to freedom. Moses – later the hero and liberator of God’s people – when he first shows up here, he is nothing more than a tiny, helpless baby in need of the actions of some strong, bold, defiant women.

This story almost begins like our familiar and favorite fairy tales –Once Upon a Time, in the faraway Kingdom of Egypt, King Evil McBad-Guy came to power. He oppressed and enslaved God’s favored people in an almost Cinderella-like way. They were forced into slavery, making bricks and building monuments to honor the power of the evil king, for hundreds of year, with no end in sight. Who will come to save them? A super human super hero? As it turns out, it was the women who got salvation and liberation started.

These brave and bold women didn’t leave to go on an epic quest, fight a dragon, or win a great battle against a powerful army. These women did small things – small acts of great defiance. And by these small acts, they began the work of interrupting great power run amok and toppling an oppressive regime in order to pave the way of the salvation and liberation of their people.

The work of deliverance began… with two women who delivered babies. Shiphrah and Puah may not be considered with in “the same league” as other “Disney Princess / Bible Heroines” like Sarah, Rebekah, Mary, but I think they should be. The same goes for Moses’ mom. And Moses’s sister. And for Pharaoh’s daughter, even though only some of these women are given names in the story.

Individually, their act might not have added up to much, at a moment in history that must have felt like there was no way forward. But, in the face of these difficult times, Shiphrah and Puah let the baby boys live, and used Pharaoh’s already racist believe against him to get away with it. They refused to do the dirty work of this evil king.

Next, a woman got married, had a baby boy, and hid him. Not a huge deal, right – what’s one kid saved out of the rest of the boy children of her fellow moms? And when she couldn’t hide him any longer, this fierce mamma didn’t give up fighting to give her son his best chance, even when everything seemed hopeless.

When Pharaoh’s daughter – an actual princess - found the basket floating in the river, her heart had compassion for this one tiny baby born of slaves, and used what little power she had at her disposal to save this one slave child.

In a brilliant twist, the baby’s sister saw her chance, and spoke up at just the right moment. She had been watching everything, and she was ready. And so, her mother was given back her son for a brief time, assured that he would survive and thrive. Together, each woman took her part to do the next thing necessary. Through all these tiny actions, these women midwifed the birth of the deliverance of God’s people.

We know the end of THIS story – Moses grows up, leads God’s people out of slavery, parts the Red Sea, delivers the 10 Commandments, and ushers the people into the Promised Land after 40 years in the wilderness. 

But, we don’t know the end of our own stories, and we know that life is not a fairy tale, especially now, when we are facing some dark times, and anticipating things to get harder before they get better. But sometimes we forget that there are plenty of moments in fairy tales themselves when the way forward seems impossible.

Early during the first Coronavirus lockdown, Disney Plus released the movie Frozen 2 to be available for streaming earlier than anticipated. So we watched it one night, and some parts definitely exceeded our expectations. In a particularly dark and frightening moment, Princess Anna of Arendelle literally finds herself at rock bottom – laying on the floor of a cave, having just experienced  heartbreaking loss. “I've seen dark before, But not like this,” she sings as she slowly picks herself up off the ground, puts her bag over her shoulder, and makes her way out of the cave, continuing to sing: “This grief has a gravity, it pulls me down. But a tiny voice whispers in my mind: "You are lost, hope is gone, but you must go on. And do the next right thing"

Remember, this is “just a children’s movie,” populated with magical characters including a talking snowman and a fire gecko. But it’s also more than that. I would hope that our children – and their parents - who watch this movie might realize that life can be tough even for a Disney Princess… but this Disney princess can also show us the way through – that to be strong is accepting and working through our grief. We too can take the next step and the next breath even though we don’t yet know where it is leading us, and to take a stand where it is necessary, even when you feel powerless. To do the Next Right thing. And then do the NEXT right thing. And the next.

Sometimes we will get it Really Right – as Simon Peter did – for once! - When Jesus asked the twelve disciples “Who do you say the Son of Man is?” Simon Peter even gets a new name – Peter, Petros, literally meaning Rock. He got the answer right this time, even though he often – along with the other male disciples – tend to bumble around pretty cluelessly. Which is more like how I feel most days, especially right now.

We are in good company as we figure this out. We are not alone in trying to live in the tough stuff. We have Shiphrah and Puah to be our models, we have Moses’ mom and sister, we have Pharaoh’s daughter.

If you have been reading along as we wrap up our 90 Day Bible Challenge, I hope that you have found LOTS of people to be models on our way along the journey – Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael, Rebekah, Tamar, Abigail, Rahab, Elijah, Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalene, and many, many more. No one was perfect. But they all did their part, in taking the next step, in doing their part in the “next right thing,” in continuing God’s Great Story.

We aren’t perfect either, and we can’t guarantee every step we take will be perfect. But we take our cue especially from these bold women, and take our place next to them as fellow midwives, witnessing the contractions of our liberation in the process of being born, as we speak. We do what we can, as we wait to take the next step, to write the next chapter, to do the Next Right Thing for our neighbors…. In continuing God’s Great Story.

Thanks be to God, amen.

Judged and Labeled by God

 

Sermon 8-16-20 

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

Though Ryan won’t remember much of anything that happened on her baptism day, I still sort of feel like I still ought to apologize for Jesus here. I’m just afraid that he might not be making a good first impression. This is considered one of Jesus’ many “hard sayings.” It goes right along with Jesus’ teaching on plucking out our right eye if causes us to sin… saying he wants us to hate our parents for the sake of the Gospel… saying he came “not bringing peace but a sword,” … saying “the camel going through the eye of a needle” will have a better chance of being saved than a rich person. Yup, these are all Jesus’ words.

And here, we have a couple of whoppers like the blind leading the blind, what comes from the heart is what ruins a person, and finally, Jesus seeming to ignore this woman clearly in need, and then calling her a dog. Yikes, Jesus. Not a good look.

So much ink has been spilled over the centuries to explain, soften, or justify what Jesus says and does to this woman, and I don’t think any of them are completely satisfying. Maybe we need to look for a crumb, or rather, a trail of crumbs, that just might lead us to a destination that makes sense to us.

Every woman in every time and place who has spoken up and spoken out has always been judged harshly - and this Canaanite woman is no exception. She was, after all, judged and labeled as an outsider in nearly every possible way – Canaanite, poor, single mother of an ill child, who was a girl, and she was loud and demanding.  

While this woman was labeled and judged by the world, she judged rightly the correct label for Jesus.  She called him Lord and Son of David while the religious leaders of Jesus’ own people despised and rejected him. She knelt before him and engaged in spirited dialogue with him, while his own disciples seem to almost constantly wander about with their mouths hanging open in surprise.

She knew what Jesus was capable of, and was not afraid to fight to get it, for her daughter’s sake. Even if it meant facing a tired and judg-y savior. She knew that in the end, he would not and could not go against his nature. She knew he would do the right thing – that he would “throw her a bone,” so to speak. And she was right. And I think that’s why he called her faith great.

I wonder if Jesus ever thought about this woman and her great faith again. I especially wonder if he thought about her on that dark Passover night, as he prepared to face his passion and death.

I wonder if Jesus remembered her words about the crumbs and the dogs as he blessed the bread and broke it, and watched the crumbs from the broken pieces fall from the table.

I wonder if Jesus remembered and missed her persistent faith and intelligent repartee as he looked at the confused and surprised faces of his disciples, who would soon abandon, deny, and betray him, sitting at the table with him instead.

During his ministry on earth, Jesus began the work of breaking down boundaries and destroying the labels we give one another. In his death, Jesus is our Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And in his resurrection, we all are reborn and relabeled as children of God. We, as gentiles and foreigners in God’s original promises, are not left to be satisfied with the crumbs from the table. We have been adopted as children in the waters of baptism, and given a place at the table forever.

And God is continually adding extenders to the family table. And just when we think that the table is full and can’t possibly be stretched out any farther without completely collapsing, God keeps pushing.

Sometimes we are pushing outward WITH God, participating in the mission we share as baptized children of God, bearing God’s creative and redeeming word of love to ALL the world. Other times, we find ourselves pushing the other way, telling God that the table has gone far enough and surely there is no room at the table for THOSE people we label as “unworthy.”

Hanging above the dining room table at my grandma’s house is a poem copied out in fancy calligraphy letters by my uncle when he was a kid. It’s hung there as long as I can remember, and to this day it’s still my grandma’s favorite poem. It goes like this:

I dreamt death came the other night and Heaven’s gate swung wide.

An angel with a halo bright ushered me inside.

And there! To my astonishment stood folks I’d judged and labeled

As “quite unfit”, “of little worth”, and “spiritually disabled”.

Indignant words rose to my lips but never were set free,

For every face showed stunned surprise --Not one expected me!

Imagine, if you will, your own arrival at the so-called Pearly Gates, waiting in line to get checked in by one of the saints. You take a glance around and are astonished at the diversity of people with you in line. You strike up a conversation with some people around you, and when they ask you what congregation you belonged to back on earth, you proudly respond “Family of God Lutheran Church in Buckingham PA”!

What do you expect their reaction to be? Will their face light up, having heard about how we prioritized the community, and went above and beyond for the people around us in need, sharing our assets to benefit and to help one another, even in a pandemic?

 Or will they remember a congregation that paid more attention to our weeds… but didn’t seek to weed out racism? Will they remember a church that is literally on the doorstep of New Hope… and yet, are reluctant to consider becoming Reconciling in Christ? … Will then remember a church that would privilege “rent” and budget bottom lines over existing relationships with community groups who use our building?

What if, on that day, someone from AA or from the Classical Conversations group showed stunned surprised that members of our congregation somehow made “it into heaven”?

The good news is, Jesus DOES expects you at the table. And he also expects all “those people” we judge and label as “quite unfit and of little worth” to be there too. Jesus really, really meant it when he gave his disciples his marching orders at the very end of Matthew’s gospel: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of ALL NATIONS, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

And that’s exactly what we are going to do today. Ryan Elizabeth will be labeled as a child of God, welcomed with open arms into this community of faith, where No Label has barred her from being gathered into the body of Christ – not gender identity or sexual orientation or nationality or economic status or anything else that threatens to divide us. This is an exciting day, and we of course are eager to welcome her as a new member of this congregation. But… are we the type of congregation that she will take pride in being a part of as she grows up? Or will she feel like she will have to apologize for the actions and inactions of this congregation in the face of a world that is in desperate need for a crumb of hope right now? Will she have to remind her congregation of their identity - just as this Canaanite woman reminded Jesus of his? 

Ryan will be marked by the same sign of the cross that we all have – labeled as loved and belonging to God, and called to share signs of that love with the whole world. In the economy of God, there is always enough to go around. Let’s make sure that THIS – the body of Christ -  is the label that we will be remembered for. Together, as Christ’s body here on earth, even though we are dispersed, let’s show the world more than a crumb. Let’s show them Jesus. Amen.

Storms and Shark Fins

 Sermon 8-9-2020

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

Did you know that something really exciting is happening today? It’s Shark Week! Thought it’s not quite as exciting as having 4 baptisms all in one day, as we are having in just an hour from now. For the uninitiated, Shark Week an entire week on the Discovery Channel dedicated to the beauty, power, and general awesomeness of all sharks - mini sharks, super-fast sharks, deep sea sharks, sharks with whip tails, great whites, even sharks that glow in the dark. We are in awe of them, and rightly so, because they possess a power that we can’t tame, control, or even fully understand. Unfortunately though, we have a tendency to fear what we cannot tame - a tendency that Stephen Spielberg banked on in his classic summer blockbuster, Jaws!

You all know the plot – Big White Shark terrorizing Beach Resort Town. The sheriff fights to keep people safe… AND with the local mayor, who puts the economy above the lives of his people.

The first time we see the shark up close, huge teeth and all, the sheriff is tossing fish bits from the back of a boat piloted by a crusty sea captain…. He turns around, and finds himself face to tooth with the jaws of… well, Jaws. Here is where we get one of the most remembered lines in movie history - the sheriff realizing that “we’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Now, the Sea of Galilee is no Atlantic Ocean, but there is definitely something that makes us nervous about what we can’t see below. And to make matters worse, danger lies both below and above the surface – in how large bodies of water react to the weather ABOVE the water. Wild wind, driving rain, huge waves, and low visibility caused by storms are even more dangerous when all that protects you is a tiny fishing boat.

We definitely don’t need a lot of imagination to place ourselves in the boat with the disciples,  after what happened this past week with the Tropical Storm EEs-EYE-EE-Ahs (“meess a clean this”).  And to add terror on top of utter terror, out of the storm, the disciples see – not a shark fin, but something almost as scary - a man! Walking on water!

Jesus walking toward them through the wind and the waves might as well been a shark fin, based on their reaction. It’s easy to judge their slowness and disbelief, since these men had just seen Jesus feed twenty thousand people with just a little bread and a few fish. Jesus had already showed himself to be master of storms by calming one seven chapters before this in the Gospel of Matthew. It is natural to believe that, had we been in their place, we might have been quicker on the uptake to realize that this was Jesus, a shark, or a ghost, or insert any scary monster here.  

But despite our active imaginations, we were not actually there, drenched in water and battered by the wind, literally being tormented by the crashing waves in a small fishing boat, probably wondering by now why in the world Jesus isn’t there to calm the storm, like that other time. By the time Jesus DOES show up in this storm, it’s nearly morning, and these poor guys were most likely in the brink of complete exhaustion from the enormous physical and mental energy it takes to NOT sink.

However, though we weren’t there, in living on the east coast, most of us do have a story or two about living through a big storm that came through these parts. Hurricane Irene, Superstorm Sandy, Tropical Storm EEEs-EYE-EE-As, not to mention the mid-winter Nor’easters and the feet of snow they bring.

But there are others storms that don’t need moisture, wind, and the ocean to form. These are the storms that damage the heart: The hurricane-force winds of hopelessness that knock you down. Every day coming like another wave, of grief pounding and pounding your fragile little boat, making you wonder if the next wave will be the one to cause you to sink? And all the while, the constant rain of stress, or disappointments, or depression beating down on you, mingling with your own tears, blinding you from being able to see what’s ahead.

Maybe your “storm” is called Hurricane Covid. Or Superstorm Grief. Or Tropical Storm Depression, or Anxiety. The storms might not show to the world any external damage. But we can feel the devastation all the same. And we too are exhausted from the enormous physical and mental energy it takes NOT to sink.

Being following Jesus did not stop the storm for Peter and the rest that day. The winds still came and the wave still crashed, and the land and the dawn seemed so far away. Obeying a command from Jesus’s own lisps did not prevent Peter from going under. Peter took a leap of faith, but he still began to sink into the waves.

The people we love still get Covid….hospital roofs get ripped off, putting small children in danger… power goes out for days at a time… we lose our jobs and health benefits… we lose touch with someone because of an addiction or a toxic relationship… perhaps we are in the middle of fraught family systems (like Joseph was) with siblings or family members who are preventing us from flourishing as human beings.

We feel so unprepared for what life throws at us, once we experience the violence of the storm… or the teeth and jaws of the sharks that seem to be chasing our little vessel… It certainly makes us want to go in search of a bigger boat. But there is no boat big enough to protect us and those we love from what we fear. But we have something better than a boat. 

The mighty winds and waves of the storm DID not and COULD not prevent Jesus from coming to the aid of his followers in that little bitty boat, because no storm can stop Jesus.

When the disciples were so frightened that they thought Jesus was a ghost, Jesus said, “take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”  When the raging storms of OUR lives are so frightening to us that we see specters instead of a helping hand, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.”

If you have been reading along in our 90 Day Bible Challenge you may notice that God tells us to “Fear not” and don’t be afraid” an awful lot. God isn’t telling us that we shouldn’t be scared of what’s happening around us. I think God is trying to tell us that we should not fear that God is not going to show up in the midst of it. Courage and bravery isn’t the absence of fear – it’s looking the storm in the face, staring down those big scary jaws, and not letting them stop us from doing the right thing.

When we listen to the wind, and reason out how inadequate we are, how much we are failures and nobodies and unlovable, how our boat is nowhere near up to the task… Jesus reaches out his hand and catches US, just as Jesus caught Peter.

The good news is that we don’t have to abandon the boat in order to be brave. Sometimes it’s enough to carve out a few minutes to hear a word from God. Sometimes, it’s knowing the difference between our own storms and someone else who is trying to give us theirs. Sometimes even navigating our daily lives in this new world can feel as difficult as walking on water.

But one thing remains the same. Jesus is not going to let us sink, no matter what storms try to get in the way. No “bigger boat” is necessary. The winds will subside, the rain will dry up, and the waves will calm, and there will be Jesus. Thanks be to God. Amen.