Author: MASadmin

¹ On the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] went to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. ² They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they went in they did not find the body. ⁴ While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵ The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. ⁶ Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷ that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again.” ⁸ Then they remembered his words, ⁹ and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰ Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹ But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹² But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Luke 24:1-12

My sermon from Easter Sunday (April 20, 2025) on Luke 24:1-12.

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I want to start today’s sermon with a question: what’s your favorite moment from a book, movie, comicbook, or video game when everything suddenly turns for the better? I’m not really thinking about the climax to the story or that one scene revealing what the entire movie was all about. Rather, at that moment when it appears as if our heroes are about to be completely overwhelmed, a sound, a movement, and word turns everything around. Now as a lifelong nerd, many of my favorite stories include those kinds of moments. For example, it’s when Captain America tightens his shield for one more go at the villain Thanos but then suddenly hears in his ear, the Falcon say: “on your left.” Or it’s what we feel when during the last Lord of the Rings movie, when a horn blows announcing that the horse riders from Rohan have arrived to face off against the armies of Mordor as they rampage through the city of Minas Tirith. Or it’s what our heart does when we’re turning the page after the villains known as the Hellfire club have finally defeated the X-men and left Wolverine for dead only to see him emerge across several panels saying “you’ve taken yer best shot. Now it’s my turn.” It doesn’t matter if we’re watching this story for the first time or for the hundredth – these are the moments that catch our breath and cause a few tears to form in the corner of our eyes. JRR Tolkein, who wrote the Lords of the Rings, actually gave this phenomenon a name – calling it an “eucatastrophe.” An eucatastrophe is exactly what it sounds like – the opposite of a catastrophe. It’s that moment when our world seems like it’s about to collapse but then something happens and we realize our world might actually become what it’s meant to be instead. 

But what makes the eucatastrophe of Easter morning so strange is that, unlike the movies, it wasn’t immediately seen or believed. We can usually tell something good is about to take place in the stories we read because our hearts start to feel as if they’re being lifted out of our chest. This doesn’t mean that the struggle, pain, or suffering is finally over. Rather, we realize what’s been and what will be is about to become something more. Hope, in essence, becomes real, serving as the fuel needed for all the living that there’s still left to do. When the eucatastrophe comes into view, we and the characters within the story have basically the same kind of experience. But when the women, as we heard in our reading from the gospel of Luke, showed up at Jesus’ tomb, their excitement was rather dull and muted. The stone covering the doorway they couldn’t move had been rolled away and the body they expected to find wasn’t there. Yet when two angels let them know what God was up to, the joy we expected to hear was instead filled with confusion, fear, and even disbelief. Jesus’ friends, some who had been with him since he had walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, had experienced quite the emotional roller coaster over a few short days. When they first arrived in the city of Jerusalem, they had the courage to wave palm branches in the air as a way to publicly proclaim Jesus as a king. They did this while the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, along with a legion of soldiers, entered the city at the same exact time. Their protest of who was actually in charge felt, in comparison, pretty small but Jesus’ friends had already seen him show what the kingdom of God is all about. His power, his wisdom, his willingness to welcome those we push away had made his disciples feel as if they finally belonged. Yet when Judas, only a few days later, sold Jesus out and led a detachment of soldiers and police to arrest him, the excitement of disciples completely changed. They assumed that the One who could calm storms with only a word would easily overwhelm the storm of violence and suffering caused by those who favored tyranny and greed. Jesus, though, was soon consumed by all the forces gathered against him and many of his friends fled from sight. Others, though, bore witness to the ongoing catastrophe that was upending Jesus’ life and their own. They had expected the Son of God to transform their lives into something new. But when the stone was finally rolled over the door to His tomb, it seemed as if every one of their hopes and dreams was sealed up inside. 

So that might be why, when the women arrived at the tomb carrying the spices necessary to complete the burial rituals practiced by their community, it took time to process what that moment might be. The catastrophe they lived – was no longer where they expected it to be. And while their hearts and their souls tried to comprehend the breaking of each one of their expectations, the angels spoke into their confusion by reminding them of the other kind of living they had already done too. Their experience of being known and being valued; of being loved and being included; of participating in the abundant life that comes when it’s full of mercy, justice, forgiveness, and hope – that was the reminder that our catastrophes do not define what our lives will ultimately be about. The God who made friends; the Son who listened, laughed, and cried; and the Jesus who experienced the many ways we try to end every story – has already written, and will keep writing, a new story instead. We, in general, are much more used to catastrophes rather eucatastrophes. What regularly catches our breath and unsettles our heart isn’t always joy. We know what it’s like to have our dreams end and our regrets grow. And while we often spend the earliest parts of our lives longing for a joyous turn into a future filled with opportunities, comfort, and peace; the turn we want when we’re older is a return to what has been. Life has a habit of overwhelming us with a diagnosis, an accident, a lost job, a tragedy, a broken relationship, and even sometimes convincing us to create an environment where only certain kinds of people are celebrated and included. The future we often work to build is one lacking the imagination to fully recognize what God’s love will always do. The women, when they came back from the tomb, did more than simply listen to what the angels said and notice what their experiences told them. They also had the courage to tell those living in a catastrophe that a new story was written for them. And while the stories we re-watch over and over again include these announcements that something good is on its way, the turn these women shared had already begun. While the world slept and those who pedal in fear went back to their homes thinking they had won, the next chapter in our story was written. It was a word that didn’t depend on what we saw, what we heard, what we did, or even what we believed. Rather, God acted because God’s love refused to do anything less. The eucatastrophe of Easter isn’t announcing that this story is over. Rather, it’s a holy proclamation that your story has only just begun. And while our lives are often full of all kinds of joys and sorrows, hopes and dreams, catastrophes and days when we’re just trying to make it to tomorrow, the Jesus who still lives; the Jesus who loves; and the Jesus who has promised to always be with you – is the One who will carry you into your new chapter filled with hope, mercy, and light. 

Amen.

My reflection from the 7:30 pm worship for Good Friday (April 18, 2025) on Luke 22:14—23:56.

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I want to take a second before we head into the final part of Luke’s version of the passion of Christ, to not try and make this moment understandable. Before we reach back into all the sermons we’ve heard, the books we’ve read, and the youtube videos we’ve watched wondering what makes this Friday good – we can first bear witness to the strangeness of it. We can sit with everything that was said, with everything that was done, while imagining all the sounds, the feelings, and even the smells. We can stand alongside Peter while he pretends to be something he’s not and we can be honest that shouting “crucify him” isn’t something only other people would say. The harsh sun, the burning torches, the crack of the whip, and the sound of the Cross digging into the earth as it was dragged on the ground – there’s a lot of life happening in this very heart-rending story. Our explanations can often be so stuck in the clouds they forget that real people filled with real emotions were walking through this story not sure what might come next. Letting the passion of Jesus’ life be a real moment of life is one of the ways we discover who our God chooses to be. And if the maker of the universe is willing to feel sweat streaming down the forehead and the voices of those who assume they knew what God was always up to – then maybe – just maybe – there’s something meaningful about the life we get to live too. 

Now a part of what it means to live this life is choosing just how much integrity will be a part of it. We can miss seeing that integrity in Jesus’ own story if we focus too much on what made Jesus different and unique. The story of Christmas, the miracles, the healings, and Easter Sunday can reduce Jesus to being a kind of game piece or secret code following a rather abstract set of instructions. Yet this Jesus who could calm storms with a word, was also a Jesus who knew what it was like to say “that’s not fair” when playing with his siblings. Jesus had been bullied and cherished, valued and pushed aside. He woke up early to watch the sunrise and embraced the cosmic silence that comes in the evening when each star twinkles into view. The Jesus who went to the Cross was also the Jesus who knew how full living life is meant to be. And while the Son of God could have gone on this journey alone, he formed relationships with those who never truly understood what he was supposed to be. Jesus didn’t go through the motions of a plan in an abstract way that ignored what he was a part of. Instead, he lived – and showed us what it means to be truly present in a world God truly loves. The kingdom of God would never be limited by what we assume such a kingdom might be. And while everyone – including his disciples – surrounded him with betrayal, denial, mockery, and cruelty – Jesus showed what integrity looks like by never giving up on those who often give up on themselves. 

There are glimpses, though, that Jesus’ relationships bore fruit, grounding the integrity of others in big and small ways. We’ll hear about the women who had followed Jesus from the beginning and provided for his ministry – keeping watch from the distance. Their time with Jesus must have provided them a sense of purpose and hope as they participated in what God was up to. And yet, when Jesus was caught up in a moment where everything just kept happening to him, the power these women felt was reduced to powerlessness. As they watched, they did their best to come up with some explanation that made sense and might change what they could see was about to come. But none of their words were big enough to hold everything Jesus – and they – were going through. In that moment, the only thing they could do was simply be. Their witness seemed to be the only thing that remained true once the sun started to darken and all the religious officials, world leaders, and military officers returned to what they believed the world was meant to be. Yet in the silence will emerge someone else with the integrity to simply do what they can. He doesn’t try to explain away the Cross or act as if Jesus’ death wasn’t really the end of his life. Joseph of Arimathea, instead, simply chose to keep living and became the burial process. His integrity towards living became an invitation for those from far away to maybe get closer and see where their friend, their teacher, the one who refused to give up on them – was going to be laid. And while they could have let Jesus’ death be the end of the story, they chose instead to live through the Sabbath and see what the next morning might bring.

My 12 noon reflection from Good Friday (April 18, 2025) on the Passion of Christ according to Luke.

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We’re sitting, at this moment, in a space that wasn’t always a chapel. It has, over the years, served a variety of purposes and will, this upcoming Monday, be transformed into a linen closet for our Trash and Treasure sale. When CLC first started in 1959, this was the main sanctuary and it evolved into a meeting space, a Sunday School classroom, and now a chapel used for all kinds of worship events. Everything in this space is designed to be movable – from the chairs to the altar to the plant by the window. Yet one of the things we don’t move – besides the painting of the Cross – are these papery stars hanging above us. Now, if I remember correctly, they were placed there by Darleen Castellano a year or two before COVID struck. She wanted to decorate this space for a Christmas pageant that was being put on by our Sunday School kids. It was, I think, the first worshipful thing we did here and the stars were only supposed to be there for a day. But since then, they’ve become a kind of witness to all kinds of things happening in this space. They’ve seen kids play games, watch people browse for hours over knick knacks and throw pillows, and listened to way too many extra long phone calls I sometimes have while pacing about. Yet they’ve also played their own role in helping to reflect the light just right when I recorded worship here during COVID. These stars have been a witness to a lot – and today we are like these stars – bearing witness to just how human we truly are. 

And I wonder if, on this Good Friday, being a witness is all we’re meant to be. It’ll always be strange to call this part of Jesus’ life good since most of it is about how awful we can sometimes be. The One who hung every star in the night sky was also hung on the Cross. And while there are theories and ideas and explanations and all kinds of words to shape why this moment matters, the mystery of what God’s love is all about will never be contained by anything we say. Over and over again, God chooses to be with those who rarely have an imagination big enough to see ourselves, our neighbors, and our world with the grace that God gives us every day. We all have been a witness to situations and experiences where love can’t be found. And we all, in our own way, struggle to accept the ways we try to limit what goodness should do. We’ve seen and we continue to see how care and welcome and presence and hope are, for some, commodities not meant to be shared. We choose to make ourselves the center of everyone’s story because we can’t imagine any other story might be just as meaningful too. We know what it’s like to see each other at our best but there’s also all those actions, words, sins of omission, and long silences that have made life way more harder than it needs to be. But wherever we do our best to get in the way of our God, God makes a new way where hope and love will always shine. 

Kayla Craig, in a poem about Good Friday, wondered how we could take this gift and move it into the lives we actually live. How could what Jesus did show up in the life of our kids, our family, and our friends? She hoped that everyone – the young, the old, those who believe, and even those who don’t might recognize the great love Jesus already has for them. And as we live through this Good Friday that pushes into the Easter that has already begun, she invites us to “…know a way that chooses mercy

when faced with an enemy,

A way that chooses

Sacrifice instead of comfort,

A way that chooses 

Healing instead of violence,

A way that choose 

Loud love instead of hidden hate,

A way that opens…hearts

Instead of closes them shut.” 

A way that always remembers, a way that always bears witness, a way that lights our world no matter the darkness we’re living through. 

Amen. 

¹ Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ² The devil had already decided that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper ³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, ⁴ got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. ⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” ⁷ Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” ⁸ Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” ⁹ Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” ¹⁰ Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
  ¹² After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Very truly, I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. ¹⁷ If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”
  ^31b “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³² If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. ³³ Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

My sermon from Maundy Thursday (April 17, 2025) on John 13:1-17, 31b-35.

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The summer after my first year in seminary, I was part of a small group of other clergy-in-training who worked for ten weeks as a chaplain at a hospital in Manhattan. It was our responsibility to provide pastoral care to people regardless of their religious beliefs who found themselves going through all kinds of medical experiences. Some had been admitted for a simple overnight observation because their doctors noticed something on a recent scan while others needed the ICU to become their home. The hope was that we could provide a little comfort and care for those who were going through stuff they never planned for. Yet the primary goal of this work was for seminarians to realize the parts of themselves that stopped them from being the kind of people God has called them to be. People who are living through a crisis respond to their situation in a variety of ways. And while their feelings of anger, frustration, confusion, grief, and sorrow are completely normal, those who are around them might not know what they should say or do. Watching someone express really difficult emotions can bring up, for us, old experiences and feelings we’ve never properly processed. We end up falling into old patterns of behavior, sometimes completely unconsciously, because we’ve lived through our own experiences of anger, sorrow, and fear. If, for example, we had a parent who yelled in ways we never understood, a patient raging at God for the diagnosis they just received, might cause us to unconsciously act as if we were a frightened eight-year-old child. Recognizing what triggers us is one of the ways we learn how to be for each other. And the feedback mechanism my group used to learn that about one another is by presenting a transcript, each week, of one of our visits that maybe didn’t go so well. Sharing within a group setting is never easy because others could easily see the many different ways we failed to hear what the other person was trying to say. Our assumptions and expectations made it incredibly difficult to bring comfort to those who needed to know they were valued and loved. And in tonight’s reading, when Jesus gathered his own small group of friends together, he pushed them to move beyond what they knew and into the new future that was already on its way. 

Now the word we use to describe this worship – Maundy Thursday – comes from the Latin word, mandatum. Mandatum, at its core, simply means “commandment” which Jesus called his friends to embrace at the end of the reading. Jesus and those around him were in the city of Jerusalem – preparing for the festival of Passover. They spent their time talking and eating and teaching and preaching within the Holy Temple and in the marketplaces. The disciples expected this holy festival to be a little different since Jesus had a history of causing trouble whenever he visited the city during some kind of holy event. He had, in prior years, tossed out the money changers who changed currency into the type that could be used for religious offerings in the Temple while stampeding the animals used for sacrifices into the marketplace. Healing people on the sabbath, arguing with other religious leaders, and getting in the way while folks participated in some of the holiest moments of their lives was a real part of Jesus’ ministry. His reputation as being a kind of destabilizing force while large numbers of people flooded into the city was one of the main reasons why he became a target for the Roman Empire. This should have made the disciples a little afraid of being associated with someone who seemed to be such a problem. Yet the power Jesus expressed gave them a kind of self-assurance and confidence. They expected that Jesus would, during his stay in the city, escalate what he had done in the past. And they wanted to make sure they were there so they could receive whatever power, authority, and opportunity Jesus would dish out to those who truly followed them. They didn’t know exactly what Jesus was up to but they felt like it had to be pretty spectacular. And if Jesus was already willing to toss merchants out of the Temple, he could be ready to even push out all the Roman soldiers who were patrolling the city. 

That assumption was one of the things stopping the disciples from hearing what Jesus was trying to say. His friends couldn’t imagine that what they assumed was faithful, holy, and true might be anything but. Their world – and our world – often acts as if there’s only so much love, hope, or blessings to go around and so power is defined by those who can get others to do their will. We assume everything, including life itself, is painfully limited so we need to hold tight onto whatever we have. Grace, hope, mercy, empathy, and even love are always in short supply. And if someone else has access to what we want, they’re denying it to us. The future, from this point of view, is bounded by a sense of scarcity that can only celebrate violence and pain. What the disciples needed, then, was an opportunity for a different kind of feedback that would break through the assumptions weighing down their souls. And so Jesus, during the Last Supper, did exactly that. He wouldn’t do what they expected him to do because God’s future will never be limited by our own. This caused the disciples to feel scared, worried, uncomfortable, and completely anxious since the future Jesus was painting didn’t match the one in their heads. Jesus could have decided that their expectations would be what kept them from experiencing the fullness of the kingdom of God. But what he did instead was to remind them of the promise at the heart of who they are – that God knows them, that God loves them, and that Jesus will carry them into God’s future no matter what came next. Moving through our expectations and into God’s promise is a life-long project we’ll never get exactly right. The responsibility that comes with following Jesus often includes being held accountable for the ways we let scarcity, anger, and fear shape our lives instead. We assume that we already know what goodness and faith are meant to look like. Yet God has a habit of troubling our expectations so that we can grow into the people God knows we can be. And when we don’t know what to do or say or be in the world, we can lean onto the commandment that Jesus embodied through the life he’s already given for you. We can love each other; we can listen to one another; we can have the courage to show mercy and care even when no one else does. We can act as if God’s future is already here and because we are the ones Jesus gathers together around his table, we get to be the imperfect vessels of God’s holy grace for our friends, our neighbors, and our world. 

Amen.

After he had said this, [Jesus] went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. Now as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Luke 19:28-40

My sermon from Palm/Passion Sunday (April 13, 2025) on Luke 19:28-40.

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A few weeks ago, I described in my sermon a leak in the church office. Water had poured down the wall with the window overlooking the door into the church and made quite a mess. The water eventually stopped dripping and Tom, Brian, Jim, Martin, and the rest of our property team did an amazing job drying everything out. The leak, though, was a big problem because we didn’t know what caused it. Our first theory was that there was something wrong with the roof or maybe the gutter since the water came in during a storm. But when several more storms blew through and the office stayed dry, the mystery deepened. What we needed to do was anxiously wait for the leak to reappear so our property team could keep doing what they do well – making sure this place stays welcoming, warm, and safe so God’s love can keep making an impact here in Woodcliff Lake. So we waited. And we waited. And then waited some more, not quite sure when the water would return. But roughly 2 weeks ago, the director of Meals on Wheels sent me a picture early one morning showing how water was flowing on the outside – and the inside – of the church office wall. This was the big moment we were waiting for and I’m entirely grateful for how all the time, energy, and effort our team put in to fix what was impacting this community. But when they found out what had caused this big, disruptive, expensive, and exhausting moment here at the church, it was from a tiny hole I could barely see. 

And that hole was in this – a piece of copper pipe from the rooms above our church office. This pipe is pretty solid, thick, and often filled with hot water radiating the heat keeping our rooms warm and comfortable. The process of warming the water and moving it through the building can cause these pipes to vibrate and shake, making a noise we can sometimes hear. And it’s that noise that might have been why someone used a metal screw to keep this pipe firmly in place. But when the screw was installed, it either dented the metal or rubbed against it. Every time the pipe would vibrate with warm water, it rubbed against the sharp metal edge of the screw. It took years but, eventually, a very tiny hole appeared and water began to drip out. The hole, though, never stopped the heat upstairs from working and the water remained mostly unseen, hiding inside walls and insulation. Yet its impact was very real since the tiny drips dug out a three foot hole in the rock and concrete foundation underneath the church office wall. The water would also travel along different beams from one side of the building to the other, dripping along one of the walls in our Opsal fellowship hall. This pipe was so corroded, it’s obvious the leak has been for longer than I’ve even been here. And while the big moment of water pouring out of the wall led to its discovery, it was the little everyday drips that made a deeper impact. 

Today is, in its own way, a very big day. It’s the beginning of the holiest week of the church year and a day when we publically welcome little Emma (at the 10:30 am worship) into the body of Christ. We started this day waving palm branches in the air and we’ll close while sitting in the very full silence of Jesus’ tomb. Life in this place is very busy and a bunch of folks have traveled – or will travel – to spend some very holy moments together. Holy Week is extremely big – but it’s a week when this bigness isn’t, I think, only meant for itself. All the music, the singing, the baptismal party, and the fun some of our kids will have over Spring break – these are the kinds of moments we live for. Yet I’ve often found it’s the little moments – the everyday moments – that actually reveal who our God truly is. When we choose kindness rather than anger; when we pray rather than act as if our lives only depend on ourselves; and when we commit ourselves to being for each other as much as God is already committed to you – it’s the drip-drip-drip of God’s holy love that changes our lives and our world. That doesn’t mean the big stuff doesn’t matter or that these big moments won’t end up taking up all our time, energy, and effort. But when we act as if chasing after big moments is what life with our God is all about, we forget how the big thing Jesus did is why we can make all our little moments full of care, mercy, welcome, and love. The fullness of Jesus’ life – his birth, his teaching, his care, his entrance into Jerusalem, his death on the Cross, and his rising from the tomb – what God has already done is why we can do the big thing of not only welcoming little Emma but also the little things of listening, supporting, and being together. It’s knowing, and trusting, that God has written a new chapter of hope for you that holds all our big moments and little moments together. And while the drip-drip-drip of all kinds things can become a large nuisance we wish we didn’t have to live through, the drip-drip-drip of the water poured over us during our baptism is what propels us into a new future where every little moment is a holy moment revealing God’s love for us and for the world. 

Amen.

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

John 12:1-8

My sermon from the Fifth Sunday in Lent (April 6, 2025) on John 12:1-8.

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I want to start today’s sermon with a question: what’s your go-to meal when you’re stressed and don’t have the energy to decide what to eat? The meal I’m thinking about isn’t one you get delivered or order at a fast food place. It’s what you consume when all you can do is eat over your sink. It might be a bowl of cereal, some apples and crackers, or an entire family-sized box of macaroni and cheese. My go-to in these situations has always been an entire party bag of Tostitos corn chips with – or without – salsa. It’s difficult to call these experiences meals at all since they’re mostly about finding fuel to carry us through. The stress we’re feeling might be a good kind of stress – such as being the primary point person for a multi-family vacation filled with way too many kids under the age of 12. But I’ve found that when we eat this way, we’re doing so because life has become way too hard. What we need during those kinds of moments is some kind of intervention reminding us that today isn’t all that’s meant to be. And in our reading today from the gospel according to John, we sit with Jesus at a moment in life when the anxiety, worry, and fear that causes us to eat over the sink was something he and his friends were living through.

Now one of the things I do when we get a reading from the Bible that is a story is to put that text back into scripture itself. I want to know what came before and after this part of God’s story. Jesus, in John’s version of Jesus’ life, visited the city of Jerusalem during Passover for three years in a row. And when he visited the city, he often caused problems for those visiting the marketplaces and the Holy Temple. The city during this holy festival tripled in size which made Jesus’ actions frustrating to everyone in charge. And while we often think of Jesus as a peaceful leader, he regularly pushed back against those – including his own disciples – who got in the way of His way of love, welcome, and care. It was during his round about third journey towards the holy city to commemorate a moment of liberation in a meal when two sisters let him know that their brother, Lazarus was ill. Jesus, in the chapter right before what we just heard, went to see them but by the time he got there, Lazarus had died. In one of John’s most vivid descriptions of what happens when God’s kingdom comes near, Mary and Martha were completely honest about their frustration, anger, and confusion with God while God’s Son sat next to the tomb and cried. When Jesus, in response to the fullness of the life we live, decided to write a new chapter for his friend Lazarus, those in power decided it was finally time to deal with this traveling preacher from Galilee. Jesus’ willingness to share a meal with all kinds of people annoyed those who wanted to control who had value and who had worth. There were also some, including his disciples, who believed Jesus would soon reestablish the ancient kingdom of Israel itself. Jesus would then be the excuse the Roman Empire would use to violently crack down on the Jewish people. Jesus and his friends heard what was up and so quickly relocated to a town on the edge of the wilderness. Their time there was fairly uneventful but I imagine laying low, finding a place to stay and enough food to eat was pretty hard. That, along with the knowledge those in charge were trying to kill them, tainted every meal with all kinds of anxiety. It’s difficult to taste the food and enjoy one another’s company when terror, confusion, and fear are also sitting there at the table. The disciples hoped their time out there would turn down the heat on them. Those in the city, though, knew how dangerous Jesus’ return would be. Folks expected him to take a year off from his usual shenanigans at Passover. But when the holy festival day drew near, Jesus left the unsettled safety at the edge of the wilderness to return to the village of Bethany which was only 2 miles from the Holy Temple.

Now when he showed up, Lazarus’ home was pretty busy. The influx of pilgrims heading towards Jerusalem had filled the roadways and marketplaces with hundreds of people. Martha, Mary, and everyone in their village were doing their everyday things while preparing for a holiday filled with meals. When Jesus and his large entourage showed up, Martha and her team paused everything to welcome him. This was, I think, the first time Jesus had seen Lazarus since he raised him from the dead. And while the joy of that moment lingered in the air, fear, anxiety, and worry surged into that space too. The mixture of emotions at that table – the eating with the one who had died and the one who others wanted to die – would have been a lot. The stress of that moment, even if they were relatively safe, would have matched what we feel when we’re eating over the sink. Yet in the midst of a vibe that mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted everyone in that space, Mary took a bottle of costly oil and poured it over Jesus’ feet. We don’t know where the bottle came from or why Mary had such an expensive item in the first place. But I wonder if the nard was originally purchased to anoint their brother’s body just a few weeks before. Once she opened the bottle, the smell in the house would have filled every nook and cranny. Lazarus, her sisters, and the disciples would have been instantly brought back to what had been – and how, in the midst of the sorrow, life would still be found. The promise at the heart of Jesus’ words and mission would have wrapped itself around all the fear and anxiety they carried with them. Nothing about Mary’s actions ignored the current moment or pretended as if things weren’t scary as they truly were. Yet Jesus’ presence – and Mary’s trust – refused to let what they carried be the limit of what their tomorrow would be. Those at the table could have let everything around them, especially the anxiety imposed by those in power and with authority, be the focus of their life. But what Jesus chose to do was to have a holy meal with those he loved. Jesus, whose public ministry was running out of time, took time to tend to those whose worry and fear would grow in the days and weeks ahead. And when Judas tried to revitalize the anxiety sitting at their table, Jesus’ response wasn’t meant to be an excuse we use to limit the support we offer to those in need. The smells Mary put into the air were, instead, a reminder that no matter what we’re living through, living out love and hope is something we can always do. Now what that love looks like, though, will always vary since there are times when eating dinner over the sink is all we can do. But when we feel as if right now is what the rest of our life might always be, we can trust the One who’s already claimed us as His own has written a new chapter we’ll get to live through. The sights, sounds, and experiences that make life hard are not the stuff we’re meant to push aside or ignore. Rather, the Jesus who lived our life and went through the Cross has already shown us what our future is meant to be. It’s this holy love from God which will guide us even when eating at the sink feels like the only thing we can do. And while that love was made tangible through Mary’s actions while Jesus sat around Lazarus’ table nearly 2000 years ago, I trust – and believe – that God’s love surrounds you right now – and wants you to know you will make it through.

Amen.

¹ At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.² [Jesus] asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?³ No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. ⁴ Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? ⁵ No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.”
  ⁶ Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷ So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ ⁸ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹ If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

Luke 13:1-9

My sermon from the Third Sunday in Lent (March 23, 2025) on Luke 13:1-9.

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One of the ways our faith is manifested in the world is through ordinary things – which is sort of amazing and strange all at the same time. We expect the divine to be a bit over-the-top, the kind of miracles that defy the laws of physics while bringing us an other-worldly sense of calm and peace. When we enter a holy place and feel that warm spiritual hug around our shoulders, we remember we are already part of something so much bigger than ourselves. I think it’s pretty reasonable to expect the Creator of Everything to show up every once in a while to break through the sameness of our every day while also pushing us through our anxiety and fear. But when we actually get down to doing the god-stuff in worship, in bible study, or whenever we gather as part of the Christ, what we use is the ordinary stuff of words and voices, pauses and silences, and a little bread and drink to embody who our God is. The Jesus we meet in the gospels often does the kind of big stuff we want for our lives – especially when things feel really hard. Yet our God has a habit of showing up in very ordinary things, even as every day as a tree, to point to what life with our God can be. 

Now finding fig trees in our area isn’t an everyday thing. But when Jesus journeyed through Israel, Galilee, Syria, and beyond nearly 2000 years ago, the fig tree was a very ordinary thing. These trees were outside people’s doors, hanging out in cities, and cultivated in large orchards. A fig tree could provide shade from the noon day sun to a weary traveler and its fruit was nourishing to those who were hungry and thirsty. Fig trees and their fruit were literally everywhere and, over time, began to show up as a symbolic image throughout our Bible. In commentary about today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, Professor Peter Hawkins showed me just how often fig trees appear in our sacred scripture. “In the opening of Genesis the fig [tree] grows in Eden’s lush garden along with ‘every tree that is good to the sight and good for food.’” The fig tree is meant to be climbed, sat under, and its fruit eaten while the tree of knowledge of good and evil which was right next door, was to be avoided. When Adam and Eve ate what they shouldn’t and experienced shame for the very first time, they used the leaves from the tree that cared for them to cover their bodies. The abundance of the fig tree represented what the kingdom of God is meant to be about. And we should imagine the great feasts described in the prophets as a sign of God’s grace as one covered in grapes, wine, pomegranates, and figs. This vivid description of what love can be extended even in the passionate intimacy described in the Song of Songs which used the fruit from the fig tree as the “harbinger [for new life] and … unabashed love.” The flourishing of the fig tree represents, I think, God’s imagination for what life should be. And since God imagines it, we should consider that the baseline for what is ordinary in all of creation. But we also know how often we let things other than grace, mercy, and care flourish instead. So when the community assumed that their strength, might, and what they assumed they were entitled to would keep them safe, the prophet Joel used the image of a fig tree stripped of its bark as a sign of how life-less that way of being truly is. The ordinary stuff of life is simply what a fig tree does. And while we often want that kind of flourishing only for ourselves or those like us, the prophet Micah imagined a more holy future where “all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.” When we realize the myriad of ways a fig tree connects to its environment and how accessible its fruit is meant to be – we get a glimpse of how God’s ordinary is what makes our world, and our lives, thrive. 

This, though, can make the story Jesus told a bit difficult to follow if we choose to identify the landowner as the only stand-in for God. We expect the one who owns the land and the trees should have a vision, a will, a plan for what those trees should do. A fig tree that fails to bear fruit is a tree refusing to be what it’s meant to be. And a tree that isn’t efficient or productive or good or whatever terminology we use to define its value and worth – is a tree we can justify being tossed aside. This way of thinking, though, is pretty dangerous especially if we then make the claim that those who didn’t understand God in the first place have already had their year – their chance – to get it right. The fruit they were meant to grow should reflect the curated kind of life that includes what we believe flourishing looks like. And while we might say that flourishing with faith includes a little bit of kindness, some patience, and an appropriate care that covers ourselves, our family, and then our neighbors in that exact order – the fruit we often elevate is, instead, selfishness and fear, anger and grievance, and a demand for others to show us the kind of grace we will never share with them. We assume we know what a fig tree looks like and what a fig tree looks is what thriving is all about. But a fig tree is more than what it looks; a fig tree is, in God’s eyes, primarily defined by what it does. And so rather than seeing God as only a landowner casting a vision of what we are supposed to be; it’s possible we’re the landowner who needs a gardener to show us what life can be. The God who made the fig tree, the earth, the air, and the water it relies on is the same God who chooses to be the gardener too. And the kind of care Jesus described is the same kind of care Jesus invites us to share too. Now we might not be able to grow leaves and provide shade from the sun at high noon but we can invite a stranger inside, turn on the AC, and give them a cup of cool water that reflects the fullness of who we declared our God to be. We can, through the gifts God has given us – the talent to listen; to pray; to show up; to wonder; to dream; and to see the Christ in everyone – to use these gifts as the fruit that feeds those around us. That doesn’t mean we’ll always get this right since our ego, our lack of imagination, and our assumptions about what the “good” life truly is often becomes the fruit that harms those who God loves. But when we trust that what’s ordinary to God is what makes us, through baptism and faith, as the extraordinary bearers of God’s love into the world, we move beyond seeing ourselves as landlords but as trees and gardeners for the world. God didn’t simply create the world; God also lives in it. And the acts that are ordinary to God – such as mercy, care, support, and love – is how we grow into our own identity as the very ordinary people that live out the kingdom of God. 

Amen.

¹After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” ²But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” ⁴But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” ⁵He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” ⁶And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

⁷Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” ⁸But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other, but he did not cut the birds in two. ¹¹And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹²As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
¹⁷When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.”

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18

My sermon from the Second Sunday in Lent (March 16, 2025) on Genesis 15:1-12,17-18.

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What do you do with your phone when you’re watching a movie or a tv show? 

Now I’m assuming most of us keep it relatively hidden when we’re out in public. But when we’re home, there’s a good chance that when the big screen is on, our little one is too. It’s possible we’re spending that moment looking up the name of the actor on the big screen that looks very familiar. Yet there’s also a pretty good chance we’re mostly responding to the texts, posts, and whatever else we receive from our friends who are doing the exact same thing. The phenomenon of splitting our attention in this way is called “the second screen experience” but I wonder if we’ve been doing something like this forever. I’m sure that even in Abram’s day, people assumed splitting their attention was perfectly fine as they tried to do what they needed to do in a world that often consumes all the time that we have. Now after a long day at work and after taking care of everything life has thrown our way, binge watching a show while sitting on the couch can be exactly what we need. But while that story on the big screen washes over us, the ads, the tweets, the images, and the group chats in our hand devour our focus, attention, and shift our view of the world and our lives. We assume we can keep track of a lot of things at once and that it wouldn’t impact what we think or feel. Yet in today’s first reading from the book of Genesis, we witnessed God change Abram’s focus so that he could live into the future God was already bringing about. 

Abram’s story – whose name will eventually be changed to Abraham – is one I need to relearn every time he shows up in the three year cycle of readings we use for worship. We first met him just in chapter 12 when he was, according to the Bible, 75 years old and living in modern day Iraq. God called Abram and told him to leave all he knew behind and become a nomad in what is now Israel and Palestine. His initial household was small, just a few family members and some flocks of goats and sheep. But it wasn’t too long before his wealth grew and he was treated as his own kind of kingdom full of animals, workers, and slaves. As a nomad, he regularly negotiated with the cities, villages, and kingdoms in the area over access to water, grazing land, and emergency relief during a famine. The politics would sometimes turn violent and his household would become an army all on its own. In the chapter immediately before this one, Abram led a military campaign to rescue his nephew Lot  from an alliance of city states and kings. And after routing his opponents, their camp, resources, and gold was up for the taking. But instead of grabbing it, he left it behind so that no one could say his wealth came from anyone but God. Refusing to hoard what we believe we deserve or earned was as counter-cultural in Abram’s day as it is in ours. Yet it was his way, I think, trying to keep his attention off his own strength and onto God alone. We shouldn’t assume, however, that Abram was full of faith, righteousness, and counted his blessings everyday. Even after things had gone his way, he couldn’t help but complain. 

And his complaint seems odd since God has been his strength and shield. But, in the words of Professor Timothy McNinch, “our world is generally more individualistic than the world of ancient Israel. For them, the only wealth that mattered was the kind that could stay with the family in perpetuity. Without children, Abram ask[ed] God to explain why he should trust in God” at all. This doesn’t mean Abram didn’t have other options when it came to choosing his family since he could (and would) impregnate his slaves against their will as well as appoint other heirs. We shouldn’t give him a pass for what he did nor act as if someone’s chosen family can’t be more holy and faithful than one that shares flesh and blood. Abram’s attention, however, seemed entirely focused on his Sarai becoming a very specific kind of mom. And since God’s call to them came when they were fairly old, it was perfectly reasonable for Abram to question whether their future would be anything else. So God, in response, reset Abram’s attention. God pushed Abram out of his own head, got him to touch grass, and then looked up into the night sky. And what he saw was something we can’t see since all the light pollution limits the limitlessness of the stars. The heavens for Abram sparkled and shimmered with a countless number of lights, inviting Abram to see how his lack of a future would become an endless one. This nomad who had everything but assumed it was nothing would even receive the property he could only pass through. This was God’s way of pushing Abram’s attention to embrace what he would never see in his own lifetime. And while we’re told the wonder and awe inspired Abram to believe, he still had the courage to be who he always was. The doubt Abram articulated didn’t mean he wasn’t faithful. Rather, what he wanted was something tangible, something physical, some kind of experience to help him cling to the unknowable future. God could, at that moment, have asked why Abram’s attention was on human things rather than divine things. But God chose to build the experience Abram needed. What they did is, to us, a bit strange since we don’t typically arrange bloody carcasses split in two in the form of a gauntlet whenever we sign a contract for a house or to start a job. That ritual, though, was pretty common when people, communities, or nations in Abram’s day signed a covenant – a list of shared promises – together. God called on Abram to find the animals, slaughter them, and even shoo the vultures away if they tried to sneak a quick meal. But when Abram expected for him and God – the two parties in this covenant – to walk through the gauntlet to signify their commitment to each other, God – manifested as smoke and fire – went through on their own. Abram participated in the promise but God was the one who unilaterally solidified it. No longer would Abram’s attention and focus be only on what he could do. Instead, the God who acted, the God who promised, the God of everything would be the One to lead him through. 

This doesn’t mean, however, that Abram’s attention for the rest of his story was always on God. A lot of what follows included his focus being way too small and scattered. He was often too focused on his own needs, wants, fears, and expectations. But whenever his vision became too small, God pushed him towards the future God was already bringing about. That future wasn’t Abram’s responsibility to create but it was one he was called to live into. Now the struggle for our attention and our focus is as relevant today as it was in Abram’s day. And what we choose to pay attention to while we constantly split our attention actually shapes our lives in ways we don’t always realize. When we give others the opportunity to push us into a future that isn’t as abundant or as welcoming or as vast as the diverse kaleidoscope of stars and planets that make up our night sky, we fail to embrace our responsibility to keep our eyes on the One whose arms on the Cross were open to us – and to all. The future God is building is a future where everyone gets to be their own kind of Abram: invited to trust and to believe while able to doubt and question. This attention keeping is more than just remembering to say our prayers or saying grace before our meals. It’s knowing that the future doesn’t depend on us and choosing to live, today, as if God’s future is always true. And when we do this well, our own attention will shift away from what we consume and more towards what God chooses to focus on: which is you and your family, your friends and our communities, the poor, the young, the old, the unwanted, the marginalize, and those the rest of us try to hide or despise. When we keep our attention focused on God, on the Cross, and on what God is up to, we’re doing more being faithful Christians. We’re also showing everyone how shifting our attention from what consumes us and towards what gives us life is what we get to do with our God. 

Amen.