Category: Faith

[Jesus said:] “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Luke 21:25-36

My sermon from First Sunday of Advent (November 28, 2021) on Luke 21:25-36.

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So on Tuesday, I loaded up my minivan with all the potatoes, squash, apples, and oranges you donated to our annual harvest altar and delivered it to Tri-Boro Food Pantry. Now I, for some unknown reason, assumed the pantry would be pretty quiet that morning. The big Thanksgiving meal distribution had already happened and the volunteers, I figured, would be focused on the future. Due to the increased need in our area, the pantry pre-packs all the bags of groceries they distribute. Janelle and the rest of the team work really hard to make sure the 100+ families that rely on the pantry all receive similar things. Rarely do people donate 100 of an item to the pantry so it takes a lot of advance planning to take what’s donated and turn it into something families can use. The pantry actually has a notebook filled with lists prepared weeks in advance detailing what food goes in what bag. This kind of work helps the distribution of food go smoothly while also allowing the opportunity for volunteers to get to know the clients and if they need anything special. By working on the food people will need in the future, the pantry limits the kind of chaos that can happen when people have to wait in line in a parking lot. When I arrived on Tuesday, the pantry was working perfectly. As the clients arrived, the volunteers knew exactly what to do and it was awesome seeing how they made sure everyone had what they needed. Their work serving others went without a hitch. But since it was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, chaos reigned in different ways. Car after car kept showing up, each one filled with people donating turkeys and hams and veggies and snacks and paper goods of all kinds. There was me bringing in hundreds of pounds of produce and also half-a-dozen SUVs filled with canned goods from Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley. There were cars from local businesses and schools dropping off all the items they raised during their Thanksgiving food drives. And since many who donated were visiting the pantry for the very first time, it was a bit of a mess. All we could do was get the food inside and the volunteers would spend their future figuring out how best to use these gifts. The season of Thanksgiving is a time when people are very generous but during the week of Thanksgiving, the gifts given to the pantry don’t usually end up on people’s tables in November. Instead, they are a kind of down payment on the future, delivered by people in the present, who gathered these items during their immediate past. Yet these kinds of gifts are amazing because people always need more than one meal. Last Tuesday morning, I saw how the future impacted the present while holding true to the full story of the past. And that’s a strange way to experience this moment but it is, I think, what the season of Advent is all about. 

In today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, the future is everywhere. We’re told there will be signs causing people to fear what is coming upon the world and that the powers of the heavens will be shaken. People will see the Son coming on a cloud in glory and even when the earth and heavens disappear, Jesus’ words never will. Throughout this passage, the verbs point to the future – and paying attention to the verbs is one way we interpret scripture. This future orientation helps us to unpack Jesus’ words but to do that well we also need to pay attention to his present and his past. Jesus, at this point in the story, was near the end of his earthly ministry and he knew it. He tried, for quite awhile, to prepare the disciples for what was coming next. They, however, didn’t get how someone with so much power could lose to a few people wielding swords. Jesus, over and over again, showed them that people in power do not respond well when God’s love shows up. God’s love often serves as a disruptive event because it refuses to let our comfort come at the expense of others. Jesus, in his own way, was a chaos making agent because he confronted people’s present reality in a way that upended their future. In the words of Audrey West, Jesus knew his presence forces us to question who the future actually belonged to. And so that’s why Jesus brought up the future because who we are today is shaped by what we imagine our tomorrow to be. 

Now that call to think about tomorrow is one that’s still relevant today because we often fight and kill and defraud and threaten and make the lives of others hard because we’re trying to hold onto a future that can easily be undone. We want to be comfortable. We want to be in charge. We want certain moments to last forever and we don’t always want change to come. We hold onto the future we imagine and we become our kind of chaos making agent trying to make that vision come true. But the story of Jesus is the story of how God chooses, over and over again, to disrupt the chaos we create so that a different kind of future breaks through. That’s why, in the story of ancient Israel, God always showed up and why, in the story of Jesus, he entered the human story with a mother who was poor and gave birth next to animals. And when those in power did all they could to keep the status quo, Jesus’ story continued through the Cross. God’s story is a future oriented story where wholeness, hope, mercy, and love is at the center of it all. And everytime we cling to only one kind of future, God breaks through to say that everything will change. 

Now that’s scary because the future is always scary. We don’t know exactly what will happen next but we do know what it’s like when the future we planned for is completely undone. That’s why, I think, why we fight so hard to bring about a certain kind of future. We know how unexpected life can be and we seek a kind of security that will carry us through. Which is why, I think, Jesus made sure that the future oriented verbs in today’s text also told the story of what God had already done. The kingdom of God coming near is more than just a future where no one ever needs to visit a food pantry again. It’s also a descriptor of what people experienced when Jesus showed up. He showed how healing and care, wholeness and hope, should be the power that shapes everyone’s future. His presence made an impact on people who suddenly had a story of how God’s love made a difference in their past. Advent, then, is more than a countdown to a Christmas that is historical and made a bit nostalgic. It’s, instead, an invitation to rethink today by looking forward to how God’s promises become real in our lives. Advent is a way of life that notices how we, through baptism and faith, have already been drawn into the story of Jesus. And since Jesus has been made real in our past, we, as the body of Christ, get to bring the kingdom of God to all those near us. We, the ones who struggle against God’s future, are called to  bring wholeness and healing into the lives of others so that their future will be different. The Advent season is a strange season because we’re looking forward to the future while counting down to the Christmas that’s already happened in the past. Yet when we focus on what’s coming, we get to change what today is all about. We know that chaos is a part of life and our future will never be as secure and comfortable as we would like. Yet through it all, we belong to God and we have a Savior who will never let us go. So I invite you this Advent season to look to the future. Look towards what God’s kingdom is all about. And when your future ends up being completely disrupted by the unplanned chaos of today, hold close to the promise that God’s future is already on its way because Christmas has come, Easter is real, and we are part of every bit of Jesus’ story – forever. 

Amen.

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.” Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”

2 Samuel 11:1-15

My sermon from the 10th Sunday after Pentecost (July 25, 2021) on 2 Samuel 11:1-15.

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You might have noticed that our gospel reading today wasn’t from the gospel according to Mark. Instead, we side-hopped into the sixth chapter of John which we’ll be in for the next five weeks. This chapter is known as the “bread of life” because Jesus fed five thousand people with a few loaves and fishes and then kept saying he was bread. So these readings will be really exciting if you’re a bird. And since this is our Christmas in July Sunday, you would be totally excused if you spent the rest of the day humming a song about swans, geese, calling birds, french hens, turtle doves, and a partridge hounding you for this gluten-based treasure. But today is also a day that needs our creativity because we’re being asked to do a lot. We need to, somehow, integrate the songs of Christmas with a book from the Bible we haven’t spent much recent time in, And we also are sitting with King David’s sexual assault on Bathsheba. None of this is easy and if you’re not able to listen to this sermon right now, you have my permission to do what’s right for you. And one practice we might try to help us discern where we spiritually are right now is to create some breathing-space for our mind and our soul. So before we do anything else and dwell deeper in this complicated moment, let’s take a moment to just rest. 

 But how do you rest during worship, especially if you’re sitting in hard wooden pews or at home trying to get your kids to stop hitting each other while I speak through a microphone not everyone can put on mute? Worship needs us to do a little work. We need to be fully present, either virtually or in-person, while singing, praying, reading, tasting, and listening. And even if we’re not paying attention to everything happening around us, we often come to worship with our mind still buzzing about an argument or an experience we had earlier in the week. Worship gives us a chance to spiritually recharge but that doesn’t mean it’s always restful. So we need to learn how to do that: to make time to rest our minds and our bodies. If we don’t, our creativity and our lives suffer because we weren’t designed to just keep going. We need tob reathe or, in the words of Rev. Kirk Byron Jones, create what he calls: “peace pockets.” He models these mental respites by following rules laid out by Mary Oliver. These periods of time are when he’s “not-thinking, not-remembering, and not-wanting.” This resting can be physical, like taking a nap or making sure your phone is not the first and last thing you see during the day. This resting can also be mental, like taking twenty minutes to look out a window, light a candle, or take a walk. And if you can’t find a moment of silence, you’re invited to make the noise around you into white-noise: changing your focus so that sound of restless children or heavy traffic or lawnmowers becomes an indistinct buzz that loses all meaning. We don’t always have the luxury of resting as deeply as we can. But I hope each of us will realize we can make rest happen. So let’s practice that together. Let’s rest. If it’s helpful, take a deep breath and exhale out all the worries, anxieties, and struggles you carried with you into this space today. Turn your head and look at a window or zone out while staring at the back of a pew. Just…rest because your creative spirit and your life needs it. 

Now, in a perfect world, you would rest multiple times a day. And that rest would bring you a bit of peace that would lead to an experience of clarity that would help you see what’s right in front of you. I know we haven’t really rested long enough for this to happen so if you want mentally turn my voice into white noise while I keep talking, I won’t take offense. Yet I did want to share something I saw in our readings today that came to me after I rested. The crowd that came to Jesus was a crowd full of people in need. They were the culturally unclean; the people the rest of us believed deserved everything that had happened to them. The status quo did everything it could to leave these behind. But when Jesus chose otherwise, making sure each one had more than enough to eat, the crowd tasted something new. They experienced a creative use of power that didn’t try to dominate them. Instead, it included them. It listened to their cries; their concerns; their fears; and their hopes. And it made each person in the crowd feel like they belong; like they matter; like their life had meaning. God’s love did more than just feed them. Jesus’ presence created a new kind of community that even included the unwelcomed. This experience of power was new, exciting, and different because it fed life rather than say one life was more valued than the other. And it was a power, in a weird way, that seemed to ask for very little because it was too busy being for the people who had no power in the first place. It was a power that gave their lives a bit more meaning and it was willing to give everything to help the most vulnerable thrive. 

So when the crowd finally found themselves being part of a community they never had before, they tried to make Jesus a king. Yet Jesus knew our experience and understanding of power was  still a bit too self-centered. Instead of seeing power as a gift meant to be given away, we choose to hold onto power as tight as we can. And we look for leaders willing to fight instead of leaders willing to be for others. King David, while at the pinnacle of his power, sent his army away to do the work he no longer needed to do. And instead, he chose to assault Bathsheba because he knew she couldn’t say no. But when she told the truth of her story, his commitment to power ended up causing more violence, with Uriah hand delivering the order that would kill him and his entire battalion. Everytime we do what we can to hold onto the power we think we have, the creative spark of life meant for all is dimmed by our own hands. Yet the God who claimed us in our baptism, who gifted us faith, and who chooses not to give up on us when we give up on God, refused to be held captive to these creative limitations. God, instead, chose to be born. God chose to need love. God chose to be vulnerable and to reach out to all we make vulnerable too. God chose to be for others while we hold closely to ourselves. And even when God’s love was strung up on a Cross, Jesus’ arms still remained opened to all. 

And so that’s, I think, why we need to make time to rest and to help others rest too. A good nap does more than make us feel good; it helps us see the new life God is inviting us to live. Our present is not the end of God’s story. Rather, it is merely the raw materials God is busy transforming into a new reality. The king of kings, whose first crib was a food dish for farm animals, is more than just our Lord. He also came to trigger our imagination to notice that power can be about so much more. And if Jesus Christ can be for us, then we can learn how to nurture our creative spirit through rest so that we can be for others too.

Then [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Mark 8:31-38

My sermon from First Sunday in Lent (February 28, 2021) on Mark 8:31-38.

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One of the easiest ways to cause a problem in your relationship is to speak up in a very public setting. For example, let’s say you’re out with friends and everyone was having fun. One of your friends made a light hearted comment and then you, without thinking, turned that comment into a joke at their expense. Or maybe your coworker was telling a story but left out something that’s a little embarrassing. That little detail had no bearing on the outcome of the story but you couldn’t help to speak up and reveal what they didn’t want you to share. Or maybe you and your loved one were having an argument. It was simmering for a while and it wasn’t resolved. You were starting to feel a little bit resentful and while staying up way too late scrolling through social media, you made a post, turning your private conflict into one that’s now very public. Not everything in our relationships is designed for public consumption. And I know, personally, how easy it is to create drama by inadvertently crossing that line. We don’t always mean to call attention to our friends in a way that makes them defensive. But it’s sometimes easier doing that than telling them, “we need to talk.” What we need to do is own up to the truth that these kinds of one-on-one conversations are really hard. They aren’t always easy but they can be the one thing we’re supposed to do. So I wonder if Peter, in our reading today from the gospel according to Mark, was trying to do a hard thing. I know he usually gets a bad wrap when we read this passage because it takes a certain amount of gumption to messiah-splain to the Son of God. Yet if Peter really wanted to call out Jesus in an unintentional or difficult way, I imagine he would have done so in front of all the disciples. Instead Peter waited for an opportunity to pull Jesus aside and say, “hey, we need to talk.” Peter did the hard thing – and Jesus responded by doing everything you’re not supposed to do when tending to a relationship. 

Now before we go too deep into Jesus’ actions, it’s important to set the stage of what’s happening in our reading. Jesus and his followers were approaching the city of Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea was founded by Herod the Great’s son – Herod Philip – and his kingdom included parts of Galilee, Syria, and Jordan. Caesarea Philippi became the administrative center of his little empire which is why he named it after himself. But Herod Philip also decided to use the name of the city to flatter the person who gave him his power. Caesarea was named after Caesar – aka the Roman Emperor. Herod Philip ruled the area because the Roman Empire, which controlled the region, let him rule. Without their authority and power, Herod was nothing. So he filled the city with Roman imagery, Roman statues, and they even built a temple honoring the Roman Emperors outside the city. As Jesus and his disciples neared this very Roman looking city, Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah. Peter’s confession was more than just a theological or spiritual statement. It was also a political one – because if Jesus is Lord – that means the Emperor – and those who supported him – were not. By saying Jesus was the Messiah, Peter was proclaiming that the structure of power in our world was about to change. Jesus’ ministry wasn’t only only about taking care of people’s souls; he was also going to take care of their bodies, their ideologies, and the ways they live with one another. Jesus’ good news for the poor was literally that – good news for the marginalized; the pushed aside; and those without power. But any good news for them was also anything but for those who enjoyed power in the here and now. Peter couldn’t wait to see God’s compassion for the marginalized realized in his lifetime. But when Jesus started talking about suffering, pain, and this…thing used by the Roman Empire to maintain their power and control – Peter felt compelled to say to Jesus: “hey, we need to talk.” Peter wasn’t being malicious but he couldn’t imagine God’s love bringing about a kind of conflict where the Empire, rather than Jesus, would win. 

Now, I don’t know what Peter expected when he pulled Jesus aside – but he probably didn’t plan for his private conversation to become very public. Not only did Jesus bring their conversation back to the disciples – he then included the entire crowd. In fact, we’re still reading about Jesus calling Peter “Satan” 2000 years later – which is usually not really a great way to keep a relationship with each other. Peter, after witnessing Jesus’ fame grow and after experiencing Jesus’ power, assumed Jesus would install himself into a position of authority that held power over others. Jesus would become a kind of benevolent emperor – a kinder version of the type of ruler they had all grown up with. But Jesus, as the Son of God, didn’t need to be installed in to power. He already had it. The difference, however, was that he wasn’t interested in what we imagine power to be all about. What he wanted – what he practiced – and what he taught – was a power with others and one that would heal the world. It’s why he ate meals with sinners and hung out with the poor rather than the rich. It’s why he healed people on the sabbath – not letting people suffer even one day more. And it’s why he wouldn’t allow the maintaining of the status quo interfere with the giving – and sharing – of life. In the words of Ira Digger, “Mark is saying that the Son of God will not dial down his ministry to spare his own life, or even to ease his suffering. His commitment to the healing of humanity literally knows no limits.” The power Jesus lived out was a power meant to help others – regardless of their social status, their identities, their genders, their ages, or their wealth – to thrive. His mission in the world was, by default, going to disrupt the world. And so that’s why the world’s response to that kind of disruption – is always the Cross. 

Now it’s a bit strange to talk about Jesus’ ministry of healing in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. I know too many people who’ve been infected by COVID-19 in just the last few weeks. If there’s anything I want right now, it’s Jesus’ healing of the world. But I’m also mindful of how I want that healing to just be a return to how things were. We all want this disruption to end but that doesn’t mean we’re always open to the kind of disruption Jesus’ healing actually brings. We want a return to normal but Jesus was never in the business of letting things remain the same. God always comes to us in love and that’s why we try to resist it. We want Jesus to move in our world but only on our terms. We are fine with God’s love as long as we don’t have to give up our ideas of freedom, of power, of position, or our points of view. We’re okay with Jesus as long as Jesus doesn’t ask us and our  communities to change too much. And we assume that good news can only be good if it caters to us. Yet God won’t let us get in the way of a love and a hope and a way of being in the world that lets God be God and lets let’s life, not the Cross, be what we share with all. There is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus – and that means we are called to give up ways we resist what God is doing in our world. We need to give up limiting who deserves love and who doesn’t; we need to give up limiting our attention to only people who are like us; we need to give up the ways our social status and power requires others to make adjustments for us; and we need to lean into relationships with all people instead of only a chosen few. We need – in a way – to be like Peter and Jesus. We need to refuse to give up on one another. Because even when Peter thought Jesus got it wrong and when Jesus called out Peter for all time – they doubled down their commitment to each other. Even when we get our relationship wrong; even when we say something we shouldn’t; and even when something private becomes way too public; we can commit ourselves to being Jesus’ good news in our world. And this is something we can do because in your baptism, in your faith, and in this very moment – Jesus has already made the promise to never give up on you. 

Amen. 

²⁷ Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him ²⁸ and asked him a question: “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman and died childless; ³⁰ then the second ³¹ and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. ³² Finally the woman also died. ³³ In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, ³⁵ but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. ³⁶ Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. ³⁷ And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ³⁸ Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.”

Luke 20: 27-40 (NRSVUE)

My sermon from the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost on Luke 20: 27-40.

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What was the last argument you started in bad faith? 

Now we’re probably pretty good at noticing when someone starts an argument with us in bad faith. They begin by first expressing a point of view or a position they don’t actually believe. Or maybe they’re just trolling, antagonizing us while pretending they’re trying to have a real conversation. Or maybe they’re assuming they’re the only expert in the room – so they’ll never listen to you or anyone else’s point of view. An argument in bad faith is never an attempt at an honest conversation because it’s all about undermining the validity of another person’s point of view. So it’s not hard to notice those moments when no one listens to us. But I’m not sure if we’re always willing to admit those times when our behavior stops us from listening too. So what was the last argument you started when you knew you weren’t going to listen? What was it that made you feel in the right and what convinced you that everyone else was wrong? What, in that moment, were your feeling and thinking? And once you have that experience firmly in your mind, hold onto it. Savor it. Then go back to the start of today’s passage from the gospel according to Luke. Because everything you experienced in your bad-faith moment was exactly what some of the Saduccees brought with them when they chose to argue with Jesus. 

Now the Saduccees themselves were a bit mysterious because we don’t really know too much about them. From what we can tell, they were a movement within the Jewish community who had, by the time of Jesus, become overseers of the Temple in Jerusalem. Many of the rich and politically powerful were also Saduccees and they, as a group, were closely connected to the what the Roman Empire said and did. When the Temple was destroyed in the year 70, the Saduccees basically disappeared from the historical record – so it’s difficult to reconstruct what they said about their faith. We think their theological viewpoint was defined by an intense focus on the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and that they sort of ignored the rest. This narrowing of what they considered to be holy scripture meant that some of the things we take for granted as Christians, like the resurrection of the dead, of heaven, and even the after-life, were things the Saduccees didn’t really believe in. For them, in the words of John Senior, “all of the goodness life [had] to offer – love, justice, peace, abundance, and happiness – [was] experienced within its horizon.” Life could only be made meaningful within the limited boundaries of our time on earth. And once death came, that was it. The hard boundary between life and death was firm. Whatever the afterlife – the place of Sheoul – was going to be – would be separate, distinct, and filled with a kind of meaninglessness that would have no impact on our life today. Life was bookended by that meaninglessness – and so the handful of years people lived on earth was really the limit of what life could possibly be. 

So when the Sadducees came to Jesus, they showed up in bad faith. They did not believe in an afterlife or a resurrection as the Pharisees and Jesus taught. They asked Jesus to solve a riddle – one they imagined would show how absurd the so-called future life might be. Now, in the centuries before Jesus’ birth, several cultures – including Ancient Israel – practiced what was called Levirate marriage. Levirate marriage was designed to preserve and ensure the continuation of a family or tribe. When the culturally defined male leader of a family or tribe died, the brothers and other male descendants were called to mary that leader’s widow – and, hopefully, create heirs that would continue the former leader’s legal legacy. Those heirs were needed to make sure that the so-called social norms that governed things like inheriting land, passing on wealth, and preserving the family’s name, would work. On one level, a levirate marriage offered a kind of grace because the widow of that male leader needed the protection of a male family member. She couldn’t, according to same cultural norms, really work, keep wealth, or provide financially for herself or her family. Once her husband died, she could be easily forgotten and forced to live in extreme poverty. A levirate marriage would ensure her survival while letting the family name continue. But this arrangement, while filled with a little grace, was also a problem because it was rooted in patriarchy. The widow in this system had no agency of her own and her survival depended on which males she belonged to. Since she couldn’t generate her own wealth or pass on her own family name, there was no real way she could say “no” to marrying her dead husband’s brother. She was trapped in a way of life that granted her a little grace while denying her the grace of personhood. So when the Sadduccees told Jesus their riddle, they didn’t bother giving her a name. She, like other women caught up in the levirate marriage system, was defined by the male society said she belonged to. We never learn her backstory. We have no idea where she came from. All we learn is that she’s made a widow seven times before she died. And when some of the Sadduccees asked who she would be in the afterlife, they assumed that the grace she was given in this world would be enough. She had survived while wrapped up in a system that would always keep her nameless. So the Saduccees wondered to whom, in death, would she belong? But Jesus answered that she would continue to be who she already was: she is, and always will be, a child of God. 

Jesus chose not to ignore or run past the Sadducees bad-faith argument. Instead, he pushed through, pointing to the limitless grace of a limitless God. The Sadducees assumed that the contours of this life, what they experienced personally, was the only thing that gave us meaning. Any point of view, experience, or reality that challenged what they assumed to be true needed to be confronted in good or bad faith. Yet Jesus knew and gave witness to a new reality where our eternal relationship with God was the primary definition of who we are. We are not defined only by the little bits of grace our culture or our neighbors give us. We are worth more because God chooses to never let us go. There is no hard boundary between life and death that will ever stop God from loving us. And there’s more than one experience, point of view, or way of life that God uses to show us our true meaning in God. The Sadducees wanted Jesus to fall into a trap because they believed life was limited. But Jesus, instead, showed them how our limitless relationship with God can guide our so-called limited life right now. Since we are wrapped up in this grace that will not end, we can – with God’s help – make that grace feel bigger in our world today. We can turn those small moments of grace in our culture and neighborhood into more fuller of examples of God’s everlasting love, by breakdowning all the systems, ideologies, and points of view that undermine someone else’s sense of personhood. Because we, like Moses and Abraham, Issac and Jacob – and even the unnamed woman in the Sadducees’ riddle – we have a God who is a God of the living. And that God wants you, me, and everyone else to know what it’s truly like to live.

Amen.

Now[Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing

Luke 13:10-17

My sermon from the 11th Sunday After Pentecost (August 25, 2019) on Luke 13:10-17.

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So when Kate and I got married, I knew our life together would have its share of joys. Some of that joy was exactly what I expected – like the birth of our children , the various adventures we’ve been on, and what it’s like growing older together. But there was one joy that showed up at the beginning of our marriage that I didn’t expect to be as special as it was. And that’s because when we married, I regained grandparents. Growing up, I only knew one of my grandparents and he died when I was in high school. I still remember everything about him – like how he loved going to mass, got a kick out of watching the Phillies play, and how he always bought polo shirts at garage sales but only when they had other people’s names stitched on them. My grandfather would then, when he met someone new, introduce himself with the name on the shirt. I still miss him and I know I always will. But it was neat to marry into a family with a set of grandparents that let me call them Grampy and Grammy. They were wonderful, salt of the earth kind of folks, with their own personalities, quirks, and humor. They were also devout Christians and they had a habit of including the entire family into their religious rituals. That meant they gave me the same yearly devotional calendar everyone received on Christmas. But it also meant that, even before we were married, they included me in their prayer life. It’s hard to describe what it was like to know that Grammy prayed for me. But knowing that she did, I think, changed me. I knew, even on the weeks when I was too tired or sad or angry to pray, God still heard someone else say my name. I was worthy of prayer and on some days, that grace made all the difference. 

Now, during August, we participated in a prayer experiment here at church. Every Sunday, you wrote your name on a piece of green paper and dropped it in the baptismal font. You later took a card from the font and we invited you to include that person in your personal prayers. Sometimes, you knew exactly what the other person needed. Other times, all you had was their name. You might have struggled to figure out how to pray for them because saying their name didn’t feel like it was enough. Praying for others can be awkward – but, this time, when you prayed, someone else was praying for you. I wonder what that felt like. I wonder if this experiment moved you in some way. And I’d like for us to take a few moments to talk to each other about it. Even if you didn’t have a chance to participate in our prayer experiment, I want you to remember a time when you were prayed for by name. Let’s break off into groups of 3 or 4 people, and let’s talk about what it was like to pray for someone else and what it felt like to know that someone prayed for you.

Break into groups. And then, after you wrap up and see if people share – move to the gospel.

Now as we talk about our experiences of being prayed for, I find myself wondering about the prayer life of the woman in today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke. Scripture doesn’t tell us much about who she was but that doesn’t mean we can’t use our imagination to flesh out her story. I’m sure she prayed the same prayers we do. She asked God to make her well. But as the years went on, I bet her prayers changed. She knew she wasn’t getting better so she might have asked God to teach her the right prayers to say that might fix her. Yet, when that didn’t seem to work, she hoped that God would at least grant her a few moments of relief and peace. Her prayer life, I imagine, was strong. And I bet there were others who prayed for her. 

I say that because this story takes place in a synagogue. There was an entire community that knew her. And this community took their job as being faithful – pretty seriously. We see that in the actions of the synagogue’s leader. They valued the sabbath and wanted to make sure it was available for everyone. We tend to imagine the sabbath as being a day when people don’t work; as if it’s meant to be empty. But it really isn’t. The sabbath was also a day when everyone, including slaves and farm animals, had their productivity interrupted by a God who told them to just stop. The sabbath was designed as a day to pull us out from the busyness of the week and remind us that God is present with us all. The leader in this story wanted to “preserve a positive aspect of their…faith…[so] they set up rules” to protect it. But our desire to protect what is important can sometimes cause us to miss why it’s important in the first place. The woman coming to the synagogue wasn’t doing work and she wasn’t asking for a work to help her. She needed grace. And that’s what Jesus gave her. Because “if it was permissible to untie animals and let them drink, [it certainly] should be permissible to untie a woman from her bondage.” The Sabbath isn’t meant to be a day defined by its emptiness of work. It’s also a day, according to Jesus, designed for the giving of grace. That grace can be as dramatic as healing someone through the gifts God has given us. But it can also be as small as naming someone in your prayers. There will be times when our prayer will feel like it’s work. We will find ourselves adding a reminder on our phone to tell us it’s time to pray. We might think this need for a reminder shows that we’re not praying correctly. And we’ll be worried that our prayers are not doing any good because so little seems to change. Those moments are completely normal and they’re a sign that we should pray, anyways. Because, as we heard from those around us, being prayed for actually makes a difference. And since Jesus is already part of your life, you can be like him, by giving grace to others through your ability to pray. 

Amen.

[Jesus said:] “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

Luke 12:49-56

My sermon from the 10th Sunday After Pentecost (August 18, 2019) on Luke 12:49-56.

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Today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke isn’t typically one of our favorites. I haven’t met too many people who have these words written on a piece of reclaimed wood that is now hanging in their family room. It’s a bit hard for us, I think, to connect the Jesus who was born in a manger with the one we hear today. We remember that at Jesus’ birth, the angels told the shepherds to “not be afraid.” Yet here he is, pointing to fire. 1600 years ago, Ambrose, the Bishop of Milian, wrote “are we to believe that [Jesus] has commanded discord within families? …How does [this Jesus] say, ‘My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you,” if he has come to separate [children] from [parents] and [parents] from [children]…” For a long time, the church has struggled with passages like this one. We’ve tended to ignore them, push them aside, or only use them as a tool to attack those we disagree with. But when it comes to our practice of faith, especially in our families and in our churches, we prefer a Jesus who is softer and more gentle. We want our Jesus to unite us, to overcome the divisions of our world, since we’ve seen how he invited even little children to come close to him. Yet the Jesus depicted in today’s text seems to almost relish splitting families apart. I’ll admit this isn’t the Jesus I turn to in my own devotions and prayers. And when I do see someone use these verses, they tend to weaponize them as a way to justify their own lust for power, control, and violence. It’s not hard to be comfortable with a fire-bringing Jesus when you assume you’re not the one who’s getting burned. So how do we reconcile the Jesus who brings us peace with the one who also burns?

Now, when verses like this show up, my first step is to admit everything that I’m feeling. I name my discomfort, accept my hesitation, and put my Bible aside as I go find something in my kitchen to eat as a distraction from my general distaste. Once I’ve eaten one or a dozen cookies, I then get back to work. I highlight the verses I don’t like and I try to put them back into context. Because one of the most dangerous things we can do is pull a verse or two out of the Bible and wave it around, removed from all the other words God connected them to. Yet chapter 12 in Luke is tricky. Luke, it seems, took many different sayings of Jesus and sort of haphazardly placed them one after another. We don’t really have the full story of why Jesus said what he did. All we do know is that at some point during Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, he spoke these words. So when the immediate context, the words around these problematic verses, does not help – that’s when I take a step back and see how these verses fit into the entire story Luke was telling. And to do that, we need to journey back to the beginning of Luke’s version of Jesus’ life and ministry. We need to return to the shores of the Jordan River – when John the Baptist prepared the way for the Lord – and go back even further, to those moments before Jesus was even born.

Now, in the beginning, Luke showed how Zechariah – John the Baptist’s father; Mary, Jesus’ mother; and John the Baptist himself – told us who Jesus was meant to be. Jesus is the one who will scatter the proud, bring the powerful down from their thrones, and fill the hungry with good things. He will shed a light on those hidden in shadow, overturn every oppressor, and transform our self-centered lives and communities into something new. Jesus will, according to John the Baptist, baptize us with water and fire – a fire meant to refine us as if we’re a piece of metal in a blacksmith shop that’s being transformed into Jesus’ own image. Jesus, through us, will make sure that the poor receive good news; that all captives are released; and that all who are oppressed by our greed and our fears will finally be freed. The fire Jesus brings is a fire Jesus gives to us – to the baptized – so that we, through Jesus, can shift our priorities away from ourselves and instead towards God. The Jesus we know and love promised to bring us peace and hope. Yet the peace Jesus brings is not a peace that always plays nicely with the world because good news for the poor is not necessarily good news for the rest of us. Jesus’ words in today’s text doesn’t contradict the more gentle Jesus we prefer. Rather, his words reveal just how serious it is for Jesus to be in our world. The peace, love, forgiveness, and justice Jesus brings means that our priorities, our goals, and what we think is right – sometimes needs to be transformed into what is actually God’s will. Jesus knows that this kind of transformation isn’t always easy. But it is essential – because Jesus’ presence in your life is meant to do something. His grace, his words, and his love refines you into who God knows you can be. Yet that fire can, and does, sometimes hurt – because its fuel is the truth about ourselves and our world that we don’t always want to see.

When we come across a Jesus we don’t like, we should resist every attempt to make him more comfortable. We shouldn’t ignore him, downplay him, or use him to attack other people. Because when we ignore the uncomfortable Jesus, we push aside the responsibilities Jesus gave us for our lives. When we were baptized, we were baptized not only with water – but with His fire. That fire was meant to refine us, to transform us, so that we can see the world more fully. Jesus’ fire lets us be honest about the ways we divide ourselves from each other, the ways we fail to love and serve one another, and how we often act as if there’s never just enough…so we horde everything for ourselves. We tend to act as if the words spoken at the beginning of Luke’s version of Jesus’ story – about a topsy turvey world where power over is replaced by power with; where freedom from is replaced by freedom for; and one where a love that is passive is, instead, made active – we act as if those words of fire were extinguished by the more gentle Jesus we prefer. Yet that true fire – the fire that reveals the world as it truly is and the one that transforms it into what God knows it can be – that fire Jesus brought is, through the Cross, already kindled and it still, through your baptism, burns within each of you. The love and care we give to each other does form relationships that can bridge over what divides us. Yet those bridges will create their own divisions because the world still struggles to accept God’s priorities of love, grace, and mercy as its own. But even though divisions still exist in our world, that doesn’t mean we are called to somehow stop being who God made us to be. We are a community filled with people rooted in love, grounded in forgiveness, filled with mercy, and one that is called to offer grace before it gives anything else. Because the fire Jesus spoke about is already burning. And we are called to be refined by its flame so that God’s priorities, rather than our own, always rules.

Amen.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Luke 12:32-40

My sermon from the 9th Sunday after Pentecost (August 11, 2019) on Luke 12:32-40.

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What did Jesus talk about the most during his three year long ministry from the Sea of Galilee to Jerusalem? Now, we know Jesus talked about a lot of things. The four gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – are filled with his quotes, conversations, and teachings. Some of those conversations are found in only one of those books while others can be found in up to 3 of them. Scholars have argued that before the four gospels were written, a document was passed around that was just a long list of things Jesus said. Because Jesus was a talker – and what he talked about was varied and vast. So as you reflect on every piece of Jesus’ story that you remember and on every biblical book that you’ve read, what do you think Jesus spent the most time talking about? 

Now, if you said the kingdom of God, then congratulations – you’re correct. The thing Jesus talked about more than anything else during his three year long ministry was about what happens when the kingdom of God comes near. The kingdom of God wasn’t, according to Jesus, something that matches what we imagine a kingdom to be – like a nation or a country with a capital city, borders, political leaders, and the like. Since God holds the entire universe in God’s own hands – if the kingdom of God was just a place, then we’d already know we’re a part of it. Yet God’s kingdom is, according to Jesus, something more: God’s kingdom is really a way of life. It shows up in the relationships and interactions we have with each other. And it’s when the very systems and structures that support our life are reconfigured and re-ordered, so that, in the words of Rev. Matthew Skinner, our whole new reality “[reflects] God’s intentions [for] human flourishing.” God’s kingdom was personified and given flesh in the person of Jesus – who showed us what happens when God’s kingdom comes near: the poor are raised up, the sick are healed, the unwelcomed are included, the hungry are fed, and the brokenness of life is resurrected into something new. God’s kingdom, for Jesus, was always something that was lived out which is why it’s sometimes, so hard to see. God’s kingdom shows up every day – through the big and small interactions we have with one another. 

So now that we know what Jesus talked about the most during his ministry, can you imagine what was number 2 on his list? I’d like to believe that what Jesus talked about after the kingdom of God was some kind of how-to guide so that we could integrate his words into our everyday life. We know that showing love, mercy, and forgiveness can sometimes be really hard – which is why Jesus, several times, reaffirmed our call to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. God’s kingdom is reflected in how we treat, care, and value those we know and those we don’t. So I want the number two thing that Jesus talked about the most to be something that I can use. And the annoying thing is that Jesus gave us exactly that. What Jesus talked about the most after the kingdom of God was about our money and our wealth. 

Today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, in its first two lines, gives us the number 1 and number 2 thing that Jesus talked about the most. Jesus re-affirmed that God wanted God’s kingdom to “take root in the real, lived experiences” of those who followed Him. When we love, serve, and honor the dignity of others like Jesus did, we gain a sense of purpose and joy in our lives. This purpose is rooted in a generosity that begins first in God but is translated through our work and our hands. God’s kingdom, according to Jesus, is built on generosity which why, I think, Jesus spent so much time talking about one of the primary ways we show generosity – through the choices we make when it comes to our money. This is, according to Jesus, part of his how-to guide when it comes to God’s kingdom. After reaffirming that God’s promise of the kingdom is given to those wrapped up in the body of Christ, Jesus told them to “sell your possessions and give alms.” That isn’t the most easy command to follow so we might latch onto the fact that Jesus didn’t say that we should sell all our possessions, giving us an out when we look at all the things we possibly own. But when we spend our time trying to make Jesus’ words easier for us, we miss noticing what he has to say about being generous. The command to sell our possessions and give alms is intimately connected to Jesus’ statement in verse 34. How we spend our money ends up shaping “our [will] and [our] ways of thinking.” If we spend our money only on ourselves, we end up falling into a cycle where we, and no-one else, becomes the focus of it all. Yet when we give to those in need, we can train our mind and our heart to see our neighbors and our world in a new way. When we give, we experience more than just a warm feeling that we’ve done something good. We actually, without realizing it, end up meeting God. Because, as articulated in another gospel, what we do to the least of these – to the poor, to the marginalized, and to those who are truly oppressed – we do Jesus himself. The act of giving is one of the tools we can use to help ourselves see that God is already all around us. 

Yet God’s generosity doesn’t end with money. The almsgiving Jesus had in mind was more than just donating our excess funds to those in need. Generosity, according to Jesus, should be at the core of everything we do and be reflected in all our relationships and interactions. There are other things we can be generous about. There are sacrifices we can make – other kinds of possessions and advantages we can sell – so that all people, friends and strangers, can flourish. This kingdom of God way of life admits and names the inequities and indifference in our world and chooses not to accept that as the status quo. We choose to be generous because God’s kingdom is different from our own. The choices we make when it comes to our money shapes and forms who we are. Yet we already have a different model and experience of life that should do that shaping, instead. We have, through our baptism, our faith, and through the body and blood of Jesus we share each and every week, the promise and the reality that God’s kingdom has already come near. Jesus’s generosity towards us is what shapes, informs, and redefines everything that we do. So We are invited to embrace that generosity – to integrate that part of God’s kingdom into every interaction of our lives – so that our will, our soul, our minds, and even our hearts discover a new treasure where love, mercy, and grace always shines. 

Amen. 
Quotes: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4142