Pocket Sized Pastor*

As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

Mark 13:1-8

My sermon from the 26th Sunday after Pentecost (November 17, 2024) on Mark 13:1-8.

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There are many different ways we read the Bible. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s one way of paying attention to these sacred words that matter more to us than any other. We, for example, might imagine this library of books as a repository of holy words we use to gain eternal life. Or we might consider the Bible as a rulebook that defines what is good and what is not. Maybe, to us, the Bible is a devotion inviting us into a deeper relationship with our God. Or we might treat God’s story as a kind of answer book for questions we can’t easily put into words. The ways we read scripture shape how we use the Bible in our everyday lives. And I’ll admit that, for me, how I read the Bible is by, first, sitting with those who experienced these events – or heard these words – for the very first time. That’s why my sermons often invite us to sit alongside Peter, John, Mary Magdalene, Salome, and all the unnamed people in the crowd as they experienced what it was like for the kingdom of God to come near. I find that a lot of spiritual fruit can be discovered when we hold all the wonder, confusion, doubt, excitement, sorry, and joy that was very real whenever Jesus preached, taught, or made a difference in someone’s life. Usually, when I approach today’s reading from the gospel according to Mark, I invite us to linger over how over-the-top this moment in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem must have been for Jesus’ friends. In Jesus’ day, the place where God promised to be was one of the largest religious complexes in the world. King Herod had, decades before, initiated a renovation project that doubled its size. The Temple was covered with large columns, gigantic stones, expansive courtyards, and colorful murals meant to reflect the glory and majesty of God. The spiritual energy, awe, and wonder of the physical space must have been overwhelming for this rag-tag group of disciples who mostly came from small villages around the Sea of Galilee. Jesus and his friends were surrounded by a magnificent place filled with pilgrims who traveled from all over the Mediterranean Sea to celebrate the Passover with all of God’s people. And it was then, among all the physical and spiritual signs of power and strength when Jesus proclaimed it would all come tumbling down. The weirdness of that moment is something we should sit with and ponder. But we can also choose to sit with those who – forty years later – were the first to hear Mark’s version of Jesus’ life and realized they were living on the other side when all those big stones were rubble on the ground. 

Now Mark’s version of Jesus’ life didn’t appear during – or immediately after – Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. The book that eventually became part of our Bible didn’t show up until around 35-40 years after the Cross. Before the year 70 or so, Jesus’ story was primarily shared through people with first-person accounts of Jesus or who knew people who knew Jesus. The small Christian communities scattered throughout the Mediterranean shared letters, sermons, oral testimony, and a small collection of writings on scrolls that were mostly just a list of things Jesus said. But as the initial generation of Jesus’ disciples began to pass away, the community decided they needed a more orderly narrative of what Jesus’ story was all about. Those putting together these different sources into the gospels had a slightly different perspective than the first disciples since they knew how Jesus’ story turned out. Yet they also had lived through a variety of experiences that made Jesus’ words seem too real. In the year 66, Jewish groups around the Sea of Galilee began an armed revolution against Roman rule. The movement quickly spread throughout the region and they achieved some initial success. Rome, though, refused to walk away and mobilized their military might to confine the revolutionaries in a series of isolated fortifications and the city of Jerusalem itself. After nearly four years of armed struggle, Jerusalem was finally put under siege. Those within its walls, though, began to fight among themselves. The war became a kind of civil war that hastened the collapse of the city. The Romans burned the city, sold the survivors into slavery, and paraded some of the holiest relics from within the Temple through the streets of Rome itself. The disciples, when they first heard Jesus speak, couldn’t imagine how the sacred place would ever be torn down. And yet those who first heard Mark’s version of Jesus’ life knew what it was like to live on the other side of whatever we consciously – or unconsciously – put our trust in. 

Now the experience of finding ourselves on the other side of the end is something some of us know too well. We, for example, might not have realized how much our identity was defined by our job until we were told we were no longer needed. There might be a medical diagnosis that interrupted, permanently, the promises we made to ourselves, our loved ones, and the future we expected to find. And when things grew hard, difficult, confusing, or made us feel like we’re left behind – we might chase after whatever strength and power that make us feel as if we’re on the so-called “winning” side. It’s not easy living in the world after what we’ve built comes to an end. And we might not always have the mental, emotional, or spiritual tools to process the role we played in what happened to us and to our world. We try, as best we can, to hold onto whatever gives us hope. But hope isn’t always easy to see when the foundation we built our future on comes completely undone. Jesus’ words, though, weren’t only for the disciples who first heard him speak inside the Temple. He wasn’t merely trying to make a prediction that would later reveal how true his words always were. Jesus was, I think, pointing to what we can always trust in whenever hope feels far away. When we put our trust into a future that resembles what the world imagines is great and strong, we miss noticing the future God has already entrusted you with. When God claimed you as God’s own through baptism, you were brought into God’s future. You were given a promise that you were part of what God is doing in the world. That promise, though, does not mean life won’t be full of all kinds of joys, sorrow, happiness and tears. Nor does it absolve us of the responsibility to follow God’s call to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Rather, it was a promise that instead of putting our trust in what we build or grab, we can always trust the future we have with our God. Life has a habit of undoing the pillars we build our lives on. Our own strength, intelligence,  passion, and even our sense of self will often waver because being human can be very hard. Yet God promises that we are worth more than what we’ve done; worth more than what has been done to us; and worth more than all the ways we are led astray by false promises of might, comfort, greatness, and power over those around us. Our future will never be as secure as we want it to be. But when we lean onto the eternal commitment God has already made to each of us, we get to discover how God’s future is already being lived out today. Rather than assuming that what comes next depends on how imperfect, fragile, and sinful we are; we can trust that we have a God who, through the Cross, has already shown how the future we try to build has already been rewritten by the One who promises to be with us – forever. 

Amen.

As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Mark 12:38-44

My sermon from the 25th Sunday after Pentecost (November 10, 2024) on Mark 12:38-44.

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So I’m going to start this sermon sounding like an old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn even though the worst offenders of what I’m describing are old enough to have kids – and grandkids – of their own. There was a time, not that long ago, when only one or maybe two screens were on at any time in the house. If our parents, kids, or roommates ended up grabbing the tv remote first, we had to watch whatever they wanted to watch no matter how often we whined or complained. Sometimes we might choose to look at a book, read a newspaper, or walk out of the room if the story on the screen wasn’t our cup of tea. But it wasn’t long before we were peering over the top of the page or standing in the doorway to see what was going on. This is how we discovered our favorite teams for sports we didn’t even know existed and how some of our favorite movies were created decades before we were born. When other people showed us the stories that interested them, there was a good chance that we’d suddenly become a fan. Even though the story on the screen wasn’t what we picked, it was healthy to have our likes challenged and expanded by something new. But today, even when there is only one big screen in the house, most of us are sitting in front of it with a smaller screen in our hand. We might be aware of what’s going on out there but we choose to give our attention to whatever story is brewing through the text message, websites, podcasts, social media, and video taking over our phones. These stories, supported, curated, and shaped by an algorithm that cares more about clicks than truth, can wrap us up in a bubble of our own creation. Rather than having to be inconvenienced by other people’s stories, we choose to sit with the one that fits whatever we imagine life to be. And while the amount of information and stuff at our fingertips feels endless, the story we choose to focus on is actually pretty small. This smallness impacts how we engage with God and with one another. And as we see in our reading today from the gospel according to Mark, sometimes the most holy thing we can do is remember how God’s story is always bigger than our own. 

Jesus was in the city of Jerusalem, filling his time with a lot of conversations between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Since the festival of Passover was near, the Temple was full of rabbis, itinerant preachers, priests, and other religious leaders preaching to the pilgrims visiting the holy city. Jesus was doing what people expected him to do and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t the only one complaining about the scribes. Yet we have to be careful to not reduce Jesus’ words as meant for only the so-called “elites.” Even when we don’t see ourselves in the people he is talking to, his words are also meant for us. And so when I patiently sat and listened to what those scribes did, I was struck by how small their world actually is. They were, according to Jesus, people with a lot. They had money, fancy clothing, and knew exactly what to pray. They were the ones with the resources, fame, and sense of security that we want when things are hard. But even though they had everything, what they chased after was pretty small. They acted as if life was a zero-sum game where there’s only so much mercy, comfort, and grace to go around. They wanted to always be on top and so they sought out other people’s attention, respect, and power. They wanted people to notice them and so they fought for the best seats in the synagogue and in the marketplace. And since there was only so much attention or money or food or resources in the world, they would consume whatever they could get their hands on. They had everything and yet they lived as if the world was so small they had to fight, struggle, and devour everything around them. The story they chose to tell was one where there’s never enough. And yet God, through a widow, promised that there always is. 

We don’t know much about the widow Jesus saw. We have no idea how old she was or where she even came from. There wasn’t even an assumption that she, before she made her offering, had ever heard Jesus speak. But when she stood in line to give her gift to God, her two small copper coins – worth about a penny – showed how big she trusted her story actually was. Compared to some in the line, her gift had no practical value. And if she had asked any of us what she should give, we’d tell her to take care of her bills and other responsibilities first. The widow, though, lived first hand in a world that treated her as very small. She was defined by the loss of a relationship and the rest of the world rarely gave her the support, opportunities, and care she needed to thrive. In a zero-sum kind of life, she came out on the bottom. But instead of choosing to live in the smallness of the story others created for her, she believed she was already part of the story God chose to tell. Her generosity was rooted by living in a story that wasn’t defined by scarcity, fear, and worry. And while she knew what it was like to be consumed, she chose to live in a different story rooted in God’s holy hope. 

Now there’s a risk when it comes to focusing on only one story. We have a habit of letting these one set of words, traditions, images, videos, and commentary define which stories have value and which ones we ignore. The more we focus on one story, we end up being consumed by the news, media, podcasts, social media, group texts, group chats, and websites that only consist of one specific point of view. When we choose that kind of story, we make our world incredibly small. And since it’s a world that is too small for all of us, we treat everyone and everything as part of a zero-sum game that not everyone will survive. But when we live that small, we miss noticing what our God has already been up to in the world. We forget how God’s story chose to take on the smallness of our story through an incarnation that experienced all the joy, hardships, and pain life can bring. God, in Jesus, chose to focus on our story as a way to bear witness to how big God’s story of peace, love, and mercy truly is. Jesus, over and over again, pushed people to see life as more than a game since God, through the generous gift of creation itself, made enough for us all. We are the ones who choose to keep people’s stories small and we assume that God act’s like us too. But if God’s story was that small, there wouldn’t be a place within God’s story for any of us at all. Yet God, through the gift of baptism, has already promised that you are part of what God is doing in the world. And so if God’s story is big enough to include even someone like you, then we have the responsibility to make sure that our story is just as big too. 

Amen. 

²⁸ One of the scribes came near and heard [Jesus and the Sadducees] disputing with one another, and seeing that [Jesus] answered them well he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰ you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” ³² Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; ³³ and ‘to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” ³⁴ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Mark 12:28-34

My sermon from All Saints’ Sunday (November 3, 2024) on Mark 12:28-34.

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Today’s reading from the gospel according to Mark is a bit different from what we’ve been listening to over the last few weeks. Jesus’s friends had, since Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah way back in chapter 8, been trying to figure out what this meant for them and for their community. They assumed the Messiah would, in a very tangible way, rewrite the religious, political, and social reality of their world. And yet Jesus, who had the power to cure the sick, feed thousands with a few loaves of bread, and even control the weather, couldn’t stop mentioning his own death and humiliation. Jesus’ words didn’t match their expectations of the power they felt entitled to as part of Jesus’ inner circle. This ongoing internal argument about their place within the kingdom of God continued for several chapters while Jesus took his final steps towards Jerusalem. They were busy arguing about which one of them was the greatest while Jesus kept inviting them to recognize those who we always push aside. These internal arguments about the nature community continued until they crossed into the city of Jerusalem at the start of chapter 11. Once there, in the heart of the city where God promised to be, the focus of the story shifted to what happens when God’s kingdom comes near. A series of contested and sometimes heated conversations between Jesus and various religious and political leaders took place in various places around the city. And among those he regularly argued with was a group of unnamed people Mark only described as “scribes.” 

In Jesus’ day, only a small percentage of the population were literate yet writing was a skill that everyone needed. An entire industry came into being where people were paid to read and write. Scribes were necessary to write and share the proclamations made by those in power and to transcribe all decisions made in the local courts. Scribes were needed to maintain, preserve, and copy all the sacred texts that shaped religious life since the printing press hadn’t been invented yet. Scribes could be found in every marketplace who would, for a fee, write a letter to your family who lived on the other side  of the empire. And when your family sent you a letter, that scribe – also for a fee – was available to read what you couldn’t. A scribe was basically a librarian, teacher, postal carrier, court transcriber, notary, and contract drafter all rolled into one. And since scribes were always close to those in power, scribes were the ones it was okay to complain about. They were, through Jesus’ story, identified as a kind of villain or foil to what Jesus was up to. Yet here, in chapter 12, we meet a scribe who is anything but. This scribe reminded me a bit of my kids who, while eavesdropping, can’t help but add to the conversation. After listening to the back and forth Jesus had with the various leaders, the scribe felt compelled to ask a question of their own. And instead of asking about something personal – such as what they needed to do to inherit eternal life – this scribe wondered, in an almost abstract kind of way, about which commandment was the source for everything that comes next. 

Now we Christians have often had a rather complicated history with the commandments. There are times when we take them literally and then seriously and then metaphorically all at the same time. We’ll use these commandments as a kind of weapon to beat over the heads of those we disagree with. But we’ll also, in the same breath, pretend they only partially matter whenever someone holds us accountable to them. We often treat and act as if the commandments – the ten big ones and the hundreds of others scattered within the first few books of our Bible – are either a list of rules or a mantra that can inform the life we choose to live. Yet for Jesus and the scribe, the commandments were primarily seen – and identified as a gift from God. They were given by the One who had, centuries before, freed their people from slavery in Egypt. After hundreds of years of not having power over their own lives and their own bodies, the Isrealites found themselves at a loss of what it meant to live together. And so God, in response, sent Moses down a mountainside with a description of what it looks like when God’s kingdom is near. The scribe, I think, wasn’t merely trying to get the opinion from an argumentative rabbi of which commandment they liked better than the rest. The scribe was looking for that one thing – that one word or phrase or idea or belief that serves as the gift that carries us through. It’s the kind of question we might have asked ourselves during moments full of anxiety and fear. We long to hold onto that one thing which can bring us a sense of peace, comfort, security, and hope. When our life is swirling in chaos, what we seek is that tangible assurance that what we’re experiencing today won’t be the limit of what tomorrow might be. What the scribe wanted to hear about the gift they can hold onto when the life they’re living  comes undone. 

And so Jesus, in response, did something a bit strange. He doesn’t give the scribe one commandment. He instead crafted and shaped them into two. Jesus’ words resemble what other rabbis and religious leaders at the time were saying when they were asked to summarize the commandments from God. Yet what made his words different was how he proclaimed that these two were really one and the same. Rather than reducing these words into that one that might fix, reform, or change whatever we’re going through, Jesus invited us to look to God – and to one another – all at the same time. What we need for the lives we live isn’t a mantra or a phrase or even a word that can guide us through. What we truly need – and what we are given – are people who reflect the fullness of who our God chooses to be. We have a God who chooses to show up; to live our human life; to love and serve and welcome and include and to not let our limits be the limit of our God. The One who is with us knows what it’s like to cry at the tomb of a friend and to be on the other side of all kinds of relationships that come to an end. We have a God who knows what it’s like to be taken care of even by those who don’t always get it right. And this love that we receive from the One who knows us, sees us, and created us isn’t a gift meant to be received from God alone. It’s also embodied through those saints God connects us to. They are always exactly who they are – people with their own imperfections; people who commit mistakes; people who don’t always get everything right. Yet through their care and support and time and hope – reveal to us what happens when God’s kingdom comes near. They’re the ones who made sacrifices for us, who were able to say “I’m sorry,” and who believed in us even when we didn’t believe in ourselves. These saints were the ones who made God’s love tangible and real in our lives when they were filled with all kinds of chaos and fear. They weren’t meant to be perfect people but they did reflect the perfect love of the One who is always for us. Jesus’ summary of the commandments wasn’t HIs attempt to reduce them to that one word or phrase we can cling to when life gets hard. Rather, he was reminding us that when we we have nothing left to hold on to – our God and the saints God sends us – will the one who, through love, grace, kindness, and their willingness to simply be with us through whatever might come – they will be the ones who will carry us through. 

Amen.

⁴⁶ As [Jesus] and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. ⁴⁷ When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁸ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁹ Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” ⁵⁰ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. ⁵¹ Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” ⁵² Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way

Mark 10:46-52

My sermon from Reformation Sunday (October 27, 2024) on Mark 10:46-52.

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So earlier this week I decided it was time to reseal my asphalt driveway. This work, while necessary, isn’t my favorite because I always end up covered in black goo. Growing up, I didn’t know resealing driveways wasn’t a thing since all the ones in my neighborhood in Colorado were made out of concrete. But when I moved to Northern NJ, I was soon staying up way too late watching videos on Youtube about how to maintain my driveway. The people in these videos told me all the rules they assumed I needed to learn to do this job right. And so once I felt like I might be able to pull this project off, I headed to the store. Whenever I work on any kind of project, I know that knowing what I’m supposed to do and actually doing it are two entirely separate things. Not every rule I learned would fit my particular context. It was vital for me to stay flexible, using what I learned as a baseline that I could bend to meet my goal. And as we see in our reading today from the gospel according to Mark, Jesus and his followers often bent the spoken and unspoken rules to make sure that God’s love always rules. 

Now when Jesus and his friends left the city of Jericho, several spoken and unspoken societal rules were lived out. There was, for example, a rule about which side of the road they should walk on when they left the city and another rule telling those begging for money and food where they should sit. Those who needed this kind of help were supposed to be visible but not so visible that they couldn’t be easily ignored. Giving money and support to those who don’t have enough has always been a godly thing. Yet the spoken and unspoken rules about how that worked was determined by those who gave rather than those who received. It was expected those who needed help would wait for others to come to them without any fuss and outrage. And once they did receive some money, they were required to show incredible grace and gratitude to those who saw them. Those who followed these rules were seen as those who deserved help while those who didn’t were considered unworthy of any grace others might give. And so when Jesus, the One who could help, left Jericho, it was assumed he would decide who deserved his help and who didn’t. Bartimaeus, though, wouldn’t let these rules get in the way. Rather than wait for Jesus, he made a scene which shocked those around him. Bartimaeus knew what he was supposed to do but chose to bend those spoken and unspoken rules so he might have access to the kind of life he hoped to live.

Now today is Reformation Sunday when we, as a community, remember how Lutheran Christianity started because a monk who was also a university professor decided to bend a few rules about what it means to be faithful. After noticing how some of our thoughts about faith treated God in a very transactional way, this monk posted 95 thoughts about God on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. The church door, at the time, served as a public bulletin board and was a way professors communicated with those in the community about what they’d like to talk about. Nailing these thoughts to the door was expected but Martin Luther bent the rules by doing the strange thing of mailing a copy to the local archbishop. That archbishop recognized how revolutionary Luther’s thoughts were and so forwarded them to the Pope for his review. Luther’s story is one we might know – yet the Reformation was, and continues to be, full of people bending our rules so God’s love rules instead. And some of these faithful people included women who, during the Reformation, bent the rules so God’s grace could freely flow. One of those women was Marguerite de Navarre, queen of Navarre, who was also the older sister to the king of France. Her upbringing was a bit unusual because she received the same kind of education as her brother. Marguerite was known throughout the 1500s as a talented negotiator who used the spoken and unspoken cultural rules of her time to resolve wars between empires. When she became aware of the Reformation, reading lots of works and writing letters to all kinds of theologians, she used her wealth and status to offer refuge to those who were persecuted for their religious beliefs. Marguerite didn’t let the rules about womanhood or class get in the way of letting others discover the grace God already had for them.

Another Reformation-era woman who made a difference was Olympia Morata. Her life was, tragically, cut short – not letting her to embrace the incredibly rare and surprising opportunity to be a  woman teaching at a local university. When she was in her late teens, her faith in Christ blossomed, serving as a firm foundation for her even during those times when she, along with her husband, were imprisoned for their protestant beliefs. While in prison, her health was damaged but her faith grew and she even wrote in Greek a popular devotional book all about the psalms. Olympia wouldn’t let our rules about living the faith be the limit of what living with faith might be. She was, in her own way, a bit of a firecracker Olympia which is a word that could also describe another woman from the Reformation, Argula von Grumbach, a noblewoman from Bavaria. She refused to stay in the background, regularly publicly challenging theologians, nobles, the learned, and unlearned for the sake of the gospel. Arugula and Luther would occasionally write to one another with him eventually publicly her as always “making a valiant fight with great spirit, boldness of speech and knowledge of Christ.” She, like all these women and countless others known and unknown, knew what was expected of them. But they wouldn’t let these rules limit how God’s love changes the lives we get to live. 

Now when Bartimaeus called to Jesus, Jesus didn’t follow the usual spoken and unspoken rules. He, instead, called him over and refused to make any presumptions. Jesus didn’t assume he knew best by offering Bartimaeus money, food, or even giving him sight. Jesus simply asks – letting the one who needed help in the words of Pastor Meghan Murphy-Gill, have “the audacity to cry out for mercy—and then shout it even louder when everyone around him is telling him to keep his mouth shut.” Bartimaeus wouldn’t let our rules stop him from asking for help. And when Jesus saw Bartimaeus, he wouldn’t let our spoken and unspoken rules stop him from paying attention and listening to the one crying out in need. I’ll admit we don’t always get the answer to our prayers like Bartimeaus did nor do we necessarily have the wealth and resources like Marguerite, Olympia, and Arugula to make a faithful difference in the world. But we shouldn’t assume that our social and cultural rules are the limit of what love can, or should, do. The rule Jesus invites us to recognize is how God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness always matters. Now what that might look like in our daily lives can’t be easily discovered by watching a few how-to videos on Youtube. But when we let ourselves have the flexibility to know what the rules are and how God might be bending them in small and big ways, we’re doing more than being good. We’re also acknowledging how, in Jesus, God has already bent the rules of our lives by making sure imperfect people like us can, should, and will be part of what God is doing in the world. Jesus will always live out those holy rules that have a habit of bending the rules we pretend are divine and true. And if Jesus is willing to bend the rules to make sure we’re included, we can also reform all those rules we create that get in the way of letting God’s love thrive. 

Amen. 

Article about these, and other Reformation women, is by Valerie Abraham and is located here: https://romanroadspress.com/2015/10/5-women-of-reformation/

³⁵ James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” ³⁶ And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” ³⁷ And they said to him, “Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” ³⁸ But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” ³⁹ They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized you will be baptized, ⁴⁰ but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to appoint, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

⁴¹ When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴² So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³ But it is not so among you; instead, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:35-45

My sermon from the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost (October 20, 2024) on Mark 10:35-45.

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So one of the things I find pretty fascinating is how human the disciples get to be. On one level, their mistakes, doubts, and questions serve as a pretty vivid counter example to who Jesus is. Yet it’s also surprising so many of the disciples’ L’s were recorded in our holy scripture. Leaders, religious and otherwise, surround themselves with people who reflect who these leaders are. And while some might claim those around them are the smartest and best at what they do, these followers are often selected for their loyalty and ability to help win whatever kind of contest the leader is in. These lieutenants might seem to us to be a tad relatable since they carry enough pose, polish, authenticity, and performative humility to help us imagine what we would be like in such a privileged position. And it would be great if those next to the leader were as strong, powerful, persuasive, and successful as we imagine they should be. But – over and over again, those following Jesus don’t seem to get what – or who – he is. These apostles and friends, some named and others who remain nameless, had the Son of God physically and literally in front of them. Yet they, for whatever reason, rarely heard what he actually said. We might, I think, based on what these disciples said and did assume God wants to push us beyond our humanity and into something a bit more holy and divine. But I wonder if the reason why their faults, mistakes, what they get right and what they get wrong, were actively included in our faith story was to let us know how we will not be the limit of what being faithfully human can be about. 

Now getting Jesus wrong has been a major theme in Mark over the last few weeks. Even after Peter, way back in chapter 8, identified Jesus as the One who would reshape and redefine our relationship with God and with one another – Peter couldn’t help but then immediately accuse Jesus of lying when Jesus shared how his story would turn out. Everytime Jesus described how people would respond when God’s kingdom came near, the disciples assumed the One who could calm storms was simply wrong. And so, after Jesus once again told the disciples about his death and resurrection in the verses right before the ones we just heard, James and John acted as if they weren’t listening at all. Their behavior reminds me of all those times when we’re talking to our kids or our significant other or maybe a friend and, after revealing something deep and heavy, they respond with something else entirely. When that happens, it’s usually a sign those we were talking to were so focused on their own stuff, they couldn’t hear us at all. What they wanted was an opportunity to talk rather than listen. As a person who has been on both sides of this experience, I know how exhausting it can be to not be heard. And yet Jesus chose in that moment to not get angry, upset, or reveal any of the exasperation he felt. He, instead, simply listened – and heard all the assumptions and expectations that were holding James and John back. These disciples, like most of their friends, wanted Jesus to initiate a kind of political kingdom that would use miracles and acts of excessive power to establish a new Empire rivaling Rome itself. They saw in Jesus’ ability to manipulate the natural and supernatural world the kind of power they wanted to stay close too. And the disciples had, just a few chapters earlier, experienced that power first hand since Jesus empowered them to do restorative acts full of love, justice, and mercy. I wonder if this little taste of having control over the cosmos blocked them from hearing Jesus when he talked about those moments when it seemed as if others had power over him. Now the reasons why they chose to focus on this kind of power were probably shaped by feelings of nostalgia, fear, insecurity, and maybe even a little grief since they no longer had what they once had. But everything they said seemed grounded in a desire to fight for their place in the world and with their God. Rather than exploring what it means to be a part of what God is up to, they sought to prove their worth to not only themselves but also lay claim to the kind of power they felt entitled to. It was the way of life that chooses to see everything as a kind of competition we must fight for our place in. And since this worldview imagines everything as a kind of fight, what we chase after is the power over others since we know how powerless we actually are. If we’ve ever found ourselves facing a scary medical diagnosis, lost job, a wasted opportunity, a broken relationship, or even the simple experience of growing old – it’s truly frightening how little we actually control. So we, in response, do whatever we can to hold onto – or at least not lose – the power we think we have. What we want is the ability to move others rather than be moved by them which is why the other disciples heard what John and James did, what they were really angry about was how those two had asked first. The disciples knew Jesus had said something but they couldn’t hear him because what they wanted was the power to move others like Jesus could move the clouds, the earth, and the entire spiritual world. 

And so Jesus, who could feed thousands with a few loaves of bread, asked John and James to think less about how divine they thought they needed to be and focus more on how human they could be instead. Jesus wondered if they had the power, the sense of duty, and could embrace the responsibility of being as powerless as he would be on the Cross. Their immediate response to Jesus implies, I think, they assumed Jesus was asking if they were capable of exercising the kind of power they had manifested from Jesus in the past. But what Jesus, I think, was pointing to was if they would be able to live through those moments when we realize just how fragile, vulnerable, and imperfect we truly are. Rather than chasing after the kind of power that, for us, will always be temporary, could Jesus’ friends imagine a way of being in the world where we valued and cherished our createdness. Instead of competing for power, could we recognize the power God has already given us to listen, care, pray, and be for one another? Jesus wasn’t, I think, encouraging them to look for joy in suffering or justify the ways we abuse power in our relationships, our families, and our world. He was, rather, encouraging them to not let their experience as humans be the limit of how human they can be. When we choose to focus on how Jesus used power rather than the act of power itself, we uncover just how human we get to be. We might not have the power to calm the storm but we can show up, care, and listen to those whose lives are a storm all in themselves. And when we live like this, we’re not trying to have power over one another but rather being a powerful presence through the powerlessness that comes with life. It takes quite a leap of faith to live like this since it requires us to push aside our desire to win by assuming that when it comes to winning the ultimate challenge, Jesus has already won it for all. When it comes to being human, there’s nothing we need to win since God didn’t let our experience of being human be the limit of what God’s love will do. God, instead, showed us how God’s power writes a new chapter for our lives and for our world. The Ls we take are magnified when we chase after a power that always assumes there isn’t enough stuff, joy, and grace for all to live and love like they could. Yet Jesus, through the Cross, showed how being for each other is the kind of human God created us to be. 

Amen.

As [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not defraud. Honor your father and mother.’ ” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Mark 10:17-31

My sermon from the 21st Sunday after Pentecost (October 13, 2024) on Mark 10:17-31.

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So as the candidacy coordinator of the New Jersey Synod. I, along with the Bishop and the Candidacy committee, journey with people discerning if God wants them to serve as a pastor or deacon in the church. My primary responsibility is to keep track of the paperwork as they move through a process that can take up to six years. It’s always exciting to be with these diverse individuals from many different backgrounds who believe that Jesus matters. And once they’re granted entrance into the process, each candidate takes a unique path that involves earning a graduate degree, working as a chaplain, and serving as an intern in a congregation, while also living out their vocations as parents, spouses, grandparents, employees, and more. The work they do is often difficult since they need to unwind their prior thoughts about God and discover a more fuller picture of what the life of faith is all about. So one of the metaphors I’ve used to describe this work is by inviting each candidate to build a kind of spiritual house that informs their identity as an ordained leader in the church. But every once in a while, the person entering the candidacy process has already been ordained in another flavor of Christianity. Rather than asking them to build their spiritual home from scratch, these leaders tend to go through a kind of renovation that involves putting up a metaphorical and spiritual scaffolding around the life they’ve already lived. These temporary and imaginary structures of wood and metal provide a platform for these folks to futz, fix, and reshape their own assumptions, expectations, and views of Christian faith so they are better rooted in what makes Lutheran Christianity distinctive and cool. It would be easy to act as if only those ordained or who had grown up in other flavors of Christianity should do this kind of work. But I think all of us would benefit from a little time recognizing how our spiritual homes need some renovation too. Not everything we consider to be part of the faith is truly faithful. And when we listen to Jesus loving people by telling them to give all their wealth and money to those without enough, we’re not always sure how to integrate Jesus’ words into the homes we’ve already built. 

Now when Jesus says something hard, I like to climb up my own spiritual scaffolding to find the spot where my thoughts, fears, anxiety, and worry about money and faith meet. I tend to think that at this point in my life, I approach the concept and reality of wealth in a rational and constructive way. But the truth is that regardless of how wise, common-sense, or intelligent we think we are, wealth is something we don’t handle in a spiritually healthy way. Wealth is defined through the experiences we had growing up as well as influenced by a culture where the display of all kinds of financial excess are very important. In Jesus’ day, more than 90% of all people lived at a subsistence level which meant that having a comfortable place to lay your head and knowing where your next meal was coming from was basically an incredible wealth in itself. But here in Woodcliff Lake, surrounded by million dollar homes that some purchased this week while others bought those same homes for a fraction of the price decades ago, we don’t always realize how wealthy we truly are. It’s much easier for us to recognize what we don’t have since there’s always that one neighbor posting on social media pictures of their new car, their new vacation home, or their next over-the-top vacation. It’s also become almost second nature to complain about how expensive things are rather than admitting we’re keeping up with everything or maybe even doing better than we did in the past. We’re very good at not recognizing our own spending while, at the same time, paying way too much attention to what others do. That’s why, I think, so much of our Christian tradition has spent their energy managing Jesus’ words rather than fully integrating them into what a life of faith can be. Rather than hearing Jesus, we act as if the young man couldn’t possibly be good so Jesus was simply calling his bluff. Or since there’s always someone who is richer, we pretend as if Jesus’ words were really only meant for those who we don’t think deserve their wealth in the first place. And if we’re feeling a bit more spirited, we might partner with Peter and name all we’ve given up to receive some kind of material or spiritual payoff from the divine. Now – I want to be clear that I’m not trying to minimize how devastating not having access to money or wealth can be. Losing a job, receiving a life-changing medical diagnosis, losing ourselves to addiction, or having to feed our family with the help of a food pantry can not only derail our lives; it can also fill us with incredible shame. Some of us know exactly what that is like and we shouldn’t let potential fears and worries dismiss those very real experiences. But when we choose to manage Jesus’ words rather than carry them up onto our spiritual scaffolding, then our view of Jesus and faith becomes distorted. Wealth has a habit, for better or worse, of being how we define who wins and who doesn’t. We can, in the same breath, demonize those who we think have too much while praising others who have much since we think they’re on our side. We use wealth as a kind of tool to validate who wins since money pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is limited to whatever money someone makes. And even though we say God is impartial towards all, we assume God is obsessed with winning as we are. The young man has to be some kind of loser or Jesus wouldn’t have said what he said. So we do our best to give the problem of Jesus’ words a faithless answer rather than taking them up our spiritual scaffolding to reflect, wonder, and sit with what it all might mean. 

Leaving Jesus’ words in today’s reading as an open-ended story can make us feel pretty uncomfortable. Yet Rev. Sarah Wilson, in a commentary about this passage, noted how the open-endedness might be the point of it all. “We have no idea what became of the rich young man [since he] simply vanished from the scene. Maybe he got more tight-fisted as he aged. Maybe he even gave up trying to keep the law since it was all rendered useless in the face of his greed. Or maybe he was in the crowd at the foot of the cross, or a hearer on the day of Pentecost; [or[ maybe he became an unsung evangelist” that this church in Woodcliff Lake could trace its ancestry to. Letting the rich young man’s story stay open reminds us how renovating our spiritual home is what a life with faith looks like. Each of us knows how much – or how little – we give. We carry our own histories with wealth, poverty, wants, and needs informing what we trust as being enough. Our time with Jesus – in worship, through His story in the Bible, and with His presence in every aspect of our daily life – is the foundation and what we use to reform the life we get to live. And when we recognize how our faith isn’t already finished and complete, we aren’t downplaying the life and peace and struggle and work that comes with following Christ. We are, instead, living with the One who the world tried to put last but who, through the Cross, made everyone first. Struggling with wealth, money, what to give, and how to live in a world where wealth defines so much of who we are is something we’ll always struggle with. But when we trust that Jesus is on our spiritual scaffolding with us, the limits of this life will be overcomed by the limitless of the One who knows how priceless you already are. 

Amen.

[Jesus and his friends] left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him, and, as was his custom, he again taught them.

Some, testing him, asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

People were bringing children to him in order that he might touch them, and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Mark 10:1-16

My sermon from the 20th Sunday after Pentecost (October 6, 2024) on Mark 10:1-16.

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A few weeks ago, a thread on comic book twitter wondered why we read superhero comics in the first place. Superheroes have been around since the 1930s and spending time with these fictional characters in spandex can be a fun mental escape from a world where life can feel very complicated and small. For some comic book fans, superheroes remind them of how they felt as kids – with a bit of nostalgia providing fuel for an imagination where everything is possible. Others, however, form such an intense relationship with these characters that they feel a sense of ownership over these characters they didn’t create. For these kinds of fans, the time, energy, and money they invested in these characters give them say over what these cape wearing drawings say and do. They have, over time, created a certain kind of lore and mythology for these characters in their heads that become the only box they’re allowed to operate in. If a creator or publisher tries to take these fictional characters in a different direction or act as if new people might want to read these comics too, these fans don’t simply move on and accept that not everything is made for them. They, instead, post, rage, and bully these creators that can include physical threats. Those who act this way claim they’re saying these characters from those who don’t know or respect them like they should. But the truth is that these fans lack the courage, imagination, or care to trust these characters as being more than the boxes they’d put them in. Trying to box things or people in isn’t something people only do with pop culture media we consume. It’s also something we often try to do to the people around us. Today’s reading from the gospel according to Mark is one of those moments when people tried to box Jesus in and he, in response, simply told them: “no.” 

Now before we get into the meat of Jesus’ words, we need to remember where we are in the story. We know, based on what we heard last week, that the disciples were struggling finding a box to put the Messiah in. Jesus, realizing their struggle as well as their own doubts about their place within the kingdom of God, invited a little child to be at the center of their conversation. This child, who could give them nothing of material or social value, was just as important to what Jesus was up to as these disciples who had been present at every miracle Jesus had done. Those following Jesus had a responsibility to notice who God is for and how God is for them too. So after pushing against the ways the disciples were trying to box Jesus in, Jesus’ next stop across the Jordan River involved someone in the crowd attempting to box him in too. We’re told that he was asked a question by someone trying to test him. But I don’t think this test was, necessarily, only about trying to get Jesus to share the so-called right answer. It was, rather, an attempt to see which box Jesus fit in since the different flavors of Judaism at the time thought about divorce in diverse ways. Those around Jesus were aware of what he could do and how some of what taught agreed with some while upsetting others. He was a religious leader people, including the disciples, struggled to connect to their own thoughts and expectations about God, faith, and life in the world. They had created their own kinds of spiritual boxes full of different teachings, sayings, and theological reflections that gave them a sense of ownership over what living faithfully might mean. These mental boxes not only made them feel like they got God but also gave them tools they could use to engage with whatever Jesus said and did. Their understandings would serve as a way to celebrate or push back against what Jesus was up to. But when we’ve already decided what God will say, it’s nearly impossible to truly listen to what God actually says. Jesus refused to be put into the boxes created by those who followed and challenged him. Instead, he shaped his words about divorce through the lens of what immediately happened before – and after this section. If we pull Jesus’ words out of context, we’re left with a saying that we then try to fit into whatever boxes about marriage and love and relationships we’ve created. But when we leave scripture in scripture, we see how Jesus’ care for the vulnerable was at the heart of what he shared. In the ancient world, and even today, divorce can disproportionately impact some more than others. Women, and often children, are left without the financial, social, and cultural security they need to thrive. Men, in Jesus’ time, were the ones who decided how long a marriage would be. And when we see the people next to us as expendable in any way, then their humanity becomes lost in whatever value we try to extract from them. Jesus’ throwback to the Genesis story isn’t focusing on the length of the relationships we have but rather that our identity rests in the image of God we were made in. Jesus is not interested in hypothetical conversations about the relationships we dream in our head. He cares about real people living lives that are often complicated, joyful, difficult, full of sadness, and bliss. The relationships we have aren’t usually easy to box into any single mold or experience. But when we see one another as those who bear the image of God – we do more than simply treat each other with a little more respect. We also begin to see just how big, inclusive, loving, supportive, and caring we – because of Jesus – get to be. 

Relationships, though, are hard and they won’t always last. Choosing to be with – and for – one another rarely resembles whatever Romcom, Hallmark Movie, comic book, or fantasy we try to box everyone of our relationships into. Relationships often require us to be vulnerable, to admit our mistakes, to own our failings, and to journey with people who will never fit every one of our expectations. Being together requires us to let go of those boxes we put all our trust in so we can really connect to the person we’re actually with. This kind of work is difficult and there are times when the most holy thing we can do is to end a relationship that is not letting us – or the one we’re with – be who God has made them to be. This doesn’t mean, however, that relationships should be seen as expendable since no person, in Jesus’ eyes, ever are. We should be committed to one another – in our marriages, friendships, and communities as Jesus is committed to us. We are called to see one another as Jesus sees us – worthy of love, connection, and life that includes those around us since we all carry with us the image of God. And when we find ourselves trying to box people into our own expectations or letting their, or our, vulnerabilities serve as a reason for us to push them aside, Jesus reminds us of our commitment to those who can’t give us anything of value since he, immediately after these words about relationships, included and blessed the little children around them. When we recognize the image of God within those around us and that people are more than simply what they give or create, we begin to discover how Jesus always pushes us beyond whatever box we try to put faith in. We won’t get every relationship right and even when divorce is the most life-giving thing to do, what happens next can be complicated and complex. Yet the One who sees you, values you, and is with you  promises that the boxes we try to put ourselves, our loved ones, and our God in – won’t be the limit of who we, through Jesus, get to be.

Amen. 

³⁸ John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.” ³⁹ But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. ⁴⁰ Whoever is not against us is for us. ⁴¹ For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.
⁴² “If any of you cause one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. ⁴³ If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.⁴⁵ And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. ⁴⁷ And if your eye causes you to sin, have tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸ where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.
⁴⁹ “For everyone will be salted with fire. ⁵⁰ Salt is good, but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Mark 9:38-50

My sermon from the 19th Sunday after Pentecost (September 29, 2024) on Mark 9:38-50.

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So it’s the fourth week of the new NFL season and football fans all over the country are wondering: what went wrong? Teams that were supposed to be at the top of their divisions look terrible while the teams that were written off are full of new life. The headlines I read this week included words such as “awful,” “terrible,” “hopeless,” and even “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Now as a life-long Denver Bronco fan, I’m very much a “Bo-liever,” hoping this season will reverse all the heartbreak we’ve recently gone through. But being a fan isn’t easy since fandom is full of all kinds of incredible highs, sad lows, and way too many cultural expectations. Fans are, it seems, required to complain about their teams with way more passion and energy than they’re ever allowed to use when their teams win. And so-called real fans can only call themselves that when they lived through times when everything went horribly wrong. Every fandom comes with its own subculture, history, in-jokes, and memes that take way too long to learn. But once we’re in – we gain, in return, an incredible sense of connection and belonging. Fandom, though, isn’t always healthy since far too many of us let wins and losses influence how we treat one another. We let these people who we will, most likely, never meet, shape how we care in the world. Being a fan can draw us into a community that will encourage us to cry in public with either tears of joy or sadness. Yet fans can also be very particular about is allowed to be a part of the community. We, who have no personal stake in what happens on the field, will publicly debate who is, and who isn’t, allowed to wear the overpriced jersey we bought at the mall. Using our own experiences and our own ego as the decider for who is, and who isn’t, a fan has been around since sports were invented thousands of years ago. And in our reading today from the gospel according to Mark, Jesus told the disciples that when it comes to the body of Christ, we’re not the ones who get to gatekeep what God is doing in the world. 

Now before we dive into what we just heard, we need to remember what happened at the start of chapter 9. This section began with Jesus’ transfiguration – when stood on a mountain top with a few of his disciples and looked exactly like the Messiah his disciples expected him to be. Then, after being lit up with all the special effects the Son of God should have, Jesus came down the mountain to heal a child possessed by some kind of evil power. To the disciples, it looked like Jesus was claiming who they imagined him to be. But he kept talking about a Cross they didn’t think could possibly come. This disconnect between what they saw and what they heard filled the disciples with all kinds of wonder and doubt. But rather than talking to Jesus about what was stirring in their hearts, they decided to argue among themselves about which one of them was the greatest. On one level, this argument was very silly since the original GOAT (greatest of all time) was literally in front of them. Yet the disconnect they felt made them question their own place within the kingdom of God. They were, by this point, already known as “the Twelve:” those who had been with Jesus since the beginning. They had seen him cast out demons, cured the sick, and fed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread. The Twelve were the ones who stayed even when Jesus’ words were hard and assumed their place among the hierarchy of Jesus’ community was relatively secure. But as the number of folks following Jesus began to grow, they were worried their status within the community might diminish. Jesus, I think, recognized the insecurity at the heart of their argument. And so, while they talked, he invited a little child to join them in the center of the room. Jesus picked the child up, held the little one in his arms, and told the disciples that His community included even little kids like these. This pronouncement caught the disciples off guard since children, in Jesus’ day, weren’t valued very much. Kids were loved by their parents and their families – but their status in the wider culture was very different. Being a child in the ancient world was hard since kids were vulnerable, needed to be taken care of, and didn’t always survive. And when archeologists survey tombstones across the Mediterranean Sea, some depict kids as young as four engaged in hard labor like mining and farming. People were often defined by their economic and social value which meant kids, except for those in the ruling elite, were treated as a kind of drain on the wider society. And it’s in this cultural context when Jesus told the disciples that the one who was vulnerable; who needed to be cared for; and who couldn’t give them anything of value – that one mattered just as much as they did. This, I think, triggered something in John, revealing his insecurity about his own place within the kingdom of God. If Jesus let those we push aside as well as random people who didn’t follow them be like Him in word and deed, then the Twelve felt as if they had no real identity within the community of God. They assumed the only way they would stay special is if they served as the gatekeepers for who was, and who wasn’t, allowed to follow them. And so Jesus, after listening and while still holding that little child, look at the disciples and, in a very firm way, simply told them: “no.”

His words, at first glance, might make us feel a bit uncomfortable since “hell” and “unquenchable fire” don’t feel very Jesusy. But the disciples were so worried about their place within the hierarchy of God, they weren’t able to see how God’s power isn’t for its own sake. Using our status, our wealth, or our perceived importance to further our own position in the world rather than to help the vulnerable and forgotten is antithetical to the kingdom of God. God’s community isn’t defined by the powerful miracles we see. Rather, God chooses to define Jesus’ family by the people who offer even strangers something as small as a cup of water. A cup of water isn’t as flashy as casting out demons or turning water into wine. Yet that small gift is also an essential gift to the one who is in need of care and love. It’s not the cup that Jesus is trying to highlight. Rather, his focus was on how we are called to learn each other’s story, history, wants, and needs. We get to see each other as God sees us and to bring relief to those we might not see in the first place. This power is something all of us, at any age, can do because we are already part of God’s holy family too. Jesus has chosen us to reflect his welcoming and hope-filled love through the lives we live. We are called to do more than create stumbling blocks for those around us. We get to listen; to heal; to care; to realize all the ways we get this Jesus thing wrong and to accept accountability when we hurt those around us. Instead of making this Jesus thing all about us, we get to embrace the opportunity God has given us to pray, sing, worship, serve, and love not only those who we are fans of but also those who God connects us to. And we do this not because we are called to be the gatekeepers of the divine but because Jesus is our gate – the one who has already opened the way to what God’s love has, can, and will do in our lives and in our world. 

Amen.

Who is wise and knowledgeable among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be arrogant and lie about the truth. This is not wisdom that comes down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

James 3:13-4:3,7-8a

My sermon from the 18th Sunday after Pentecost (September 22, 2024) on James 3:13-4:3,7-8a.

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One of the things I did while living in New York City that I had never done before, nor done since, was join a gym. I am not the most athletic person in the world so I knew I needed a little help to make sure I actually used my membership. So I chose to make myself attend a weekly fitness class but one that wouldn’t ask me to do too much. The class I picked was pilates – specifically the version that doesn’t use any machines. We would use our own bodies to be the resistance that could increase our flexibility, balance, and stability. Pilates was invented in the 1930s by a guy literally named Joseph Pilates. He came up with a series of movements and breathing exercises that feels a lot like yoga. I attended the class for a while but none of the so-called health benefits stuck with me. However, one idea from that class that still lingers is how it taught me how to pay attention to my core. Growing up, coaches, gym teachers, and even the director for my high school marching band would tell me to focus on my core. Yet exactly what that was – and how to tend to it – wasn’t always described. My core seemed to constantly change depending on whatever sport or activity I was doing. As a kid, I focused on what I could see results from – such as marching in formation across a football field or trying to get a lacrosse ball into a goal. But now that I’m older, paying attention to my core – the foundation that supports how I live in the world – is something I take a bit more seriously. Wondering, pondering, and recognizing the core of who we are isn’t only about what is physical; it also includes our emotional, mental, and spiritual health too. And in our reading today from the letter of James, we’re given a kind of Jesus-centric routine we can use to discover the God who is already with you. 

Now over the last few weeks, James’ answer to the question – what does a faithful person look like, act like, and be like? – hasn’t been the most positive. His focus has mostly been on what it shouldn’t look like instead. For James, our fears, insecurities, the mistakes we make, the words we use, and how others experience us often reveals what we truly believe. And this belief isn’t merely merely bits of information we keep in our head or a series of religious statements we choose to agree with. Rather belief is what we trust when everything else comes undone. Belief, then, is at the center – the core – of who we are. And I like to imagine this core as containing all the thoughts, feelings, experiences, history, and those bits about ourselves we understand and even those parts that we do. It’s all of this that fuels what we do in the world and why we talk before we listen or remain silent when we should speak up. It’s our core that shows partiality towards those who we want to be rather than caring for those who need the gifts God has first given us. And while it would be one thing if our core only impacted ourselves, James knows that what we do, say, and even post makes a difference to those around us. James names this kind of core identity as the “wisdom of the world” which uses our own understanding of power, generosity, abundance, and our fears as the fuel for what we do. This kind of wisdom is, on its own, pretty small – choosing to see things as we want them to be rather than as what God knows they can be. What we need is something outside of us which can stretch us away from our ways and into Gods. 

And that thing, for James, is known as “wisdom from above.” It’s a word, a voice, a grace, an experience from the divine that makes an impact in our here and now. James described this wisdom with several attributes, identifying this wisdom as pure which – as imperfect people – ends up being hard for us to describe and see. Yet James, in an unexpected way, also sees God’s wisdom as being very gentle. I often experience wisdom as a kind of corrective, countering what we imagine to be right and true. Wisdom reminds us of the fullness of our story, using our traditions as a way to ground us through whatever change might come. Wisdom, then, can be fiery and harsh, especially if it uses fear as a way to hold us to what it believes to be true. But the kind of wisdom James imagines is bigger than a word to constrain us. Wisdom from above will, and does, change our core. It is a kind of outside presence that, in the words of Pastor Casey Sigmon, is a “nodding, listening, [and] asking those self-awakening questions that help [us] to hear the wisdom of God [already at] the core of [our] being.” This presence isn’t coercive, manipulative, nor does it bully us. Rather, it opens us to see how we get to make peace, beauty, and abundance real in our world. It’s this wisdom that allows us to yield, to pause, and to listen with a kind of non-judgmental curiosity that sees the image of God in those around us. The wisdom from above is full of mercy – showing others what love, joy, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control can look like in the world. And it’s this wisdom we get to listen to since, because of our baptism and through the gift of faith, the God who lived like us to show us what life can be – is already at the core of who we are. 

Now knowing how to care for our core isn’t always easy which is why James hints at a routine anyone can follow. We are invited to draw near to the God who has already drawn near to us. It’s natural to think that since Jesus has made us a part of his body, his family, and his community through baptism and faith – we shouldn’t need to draw near to him since he’s already here. Yet we also know that Jesus’ presence doesn’t mean we get to be anything but human. We’ll never, in this life, fully expand our imagination to see what our life with our God can truly be about. We will regularly speak before we listen; rage before we accept responsibility; and ask others to forgive us before we forgive them. What we need is something outside of us – like a community of like minded imperfect people who, with a word, a Spirit, and a bit of time and energy – to help all of us strengthen the core of love that’s already here. This is one of the reasons why we are connected by something more than simply the bonds of friendship, family, or even physical proximity. It’s why we worship, pray, sing, confess the truth of who we are and how our God is so much bigger than we can possibly be. When we draw near to each other we are drawn near to God since Jesus is already in the core of the person next to us. By making the time and the commitment to support one another through the good times and the bad, we are doing more than exercising who we get to be. We’re also exorcizing from ourselves and our community the anger, the hatred, the selfishness, and lack of imagination that keeps us away from each other and our God. 

Amen.