Category: Faith

Seek: Jesus’s Yoke

I’ve never worn a physical yoke but I have carried intangible ones that were very real. When Jesus talks about yokes in this passage from Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30, he uses an agricultural image people in his crowd knew. A yoke is a heavy piece of wood used to connect two oxen side-by-side at the shoulders. Yokes were used in specific circumstances. One of the oxen would be experienced and well trained. They knew how to pull a plow or a heavy load. The other oxen in the yoke would be inexperienced. They were young and new to plowing. They wouldn’t know what’s expected of them. By teaming up an experienced ox with one who needs help, the farmer could plow their field and train their oxen at the same time. The oxen would do the hard work to prepare the field for planting, together. The old soil and plants from the year before would be plowed over and turned up. The new soil, once fertilized and filled with seeds, would grow a delicious crop. Without a yoke, the inexperienced oxen could never create a crop that would feed others. The yoke made that ox a creature that gives life.

As a baptized Christian, you are yoked. You might not feel it, physically, but you are connected to Jesus right now. As Shelley Best writes, “Through faith, we are partnered with Jesus and taught how to balance and maneuver what is at hand, with the help of one who transforms our deepest desires into passion for God’s just and merciful reign in the world.*” The gift of faith connects us to the One who knows us better than we know ourselves. We are bound to a Jesus who helps us to live in sync with him. This work isn’t easy. This work challenges who we are and what we know. And this work can feel like our trust in God is growing or fading or both, at the same time. There will be times when the heavy load we’re pulling feels like it’s impossible to carry on our own. But we are not alone. We are connected with Jesus. And we need to “trust Jesus to help us carry our load and find rest.”

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 5th Sunday After Pentecost, 7/9/2017.

* Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew Volume 1. Page 299-301.

Grow in Faith

Do you want to grow closer to God? Today’s passage from Matthew 10:40-42 is an answer to that question.

For the last three weeks, Jesus has been giving instructions to his disciples. Jesus’ work needs workers and the disciples are his hands and feet in the world. What Jesus did during his life on earth will be the disciples’ mission as well. They will bring good news to the poor, which might not be good news to the rich. The disciples will eat meals with the people society says not to. The disciples will advocate for healing and wholeness in a world that fights hard to deny wholeness to everyone. The disciples will preach, teach, and do. The work will be hard but it’s necessary, vital, and life-giving to those who do it.

Jesus’ final words of instruction are these 3 verses from Matthew 10. They are words centered in hospitality. Hospitality is more than inviting someone into your home. Hospitality means we need to be willing to be a guest in someone else’s home too. Hospitality is as simple as offering a cup of cold water to a thirsty child and as complicated as going into the home of an enemy and showing them love and compassion. We want to control how we practice hospitality. We want to decide who we invite into our home and whose home we are invited into. But Jesus breaks control in this passage. When it comes to being God’s people, we don’t get to chose who we show hospitality to. We are called to invite all people into our spaces and to go into the spaces of every other person too. When we do this, we are doing more than just being kind or compassion. We are actively engaged with God. We are actively living with God. We are actively welcoming God. It’s through hospitality that we discover just what it’s like to follow a God who created our world and who lived in it as a guest to show us what God’s love actually looks like.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 4th Sunday After Pentecost, 7/2/2017.

Set Free: Romans & Lutherans & 1776

Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:12-23

My sermon from 4th Sunday after Pentecost (July 2, 2017) on Romans 6:12-23. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

****************************

It’s Sunday, January 21, 1776 and a Lutheran pastor named Peter Muhlenberg is preparing himself for worship. Now, I imagine he did what most pastors do before service starts. He walked through the sanctuary, making sure everything was in order. He looked in the mirror, making sure his clergy uniform was on straight. And then as people arrived at his church in Woodstock, Virginia, I’m sure Peter greeted them and asked how they were. I wonder if the people he talked to noticed how Peter…was probably a little nervous. Or if they realized his clothes didn’t seem to hang on his body like they normally did. I wonder if any of them knew how different this Sunday would be.

When worship started, the candles were lit. The words of confessions and forgiveness and the prayers of the day were said. And then Pastor Peter Muhlenberg started to read verses from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die… We know thethse verses because we hear them at funerals. So I imagine the people in Peter’s pews knew these verses too. But when Peter got to the end of the passage, saying a time for war and a time for peace, he stopped speaking. He looked out from his pulpit at the people in the pews and then, with a dramatic flourish, announced “and this is the time for war.” Peter removed his pastor’s uniform to reveal the military uniform of a colonel in Virginia’s militia. He left the pulpit, walked out the main church doors, and went off to fight in the American revolution.

Now, that’s a pretty dramatic story, isn’t it? A Lutheran pastor gave up his calling in the most dramatic way possible to fight in the American revolution. This is a great story for this kind of weekend, when we will spend time launching fireworks, singing patriotic songs, and wearing American flags on our socks. It’s also a great story because it shows how this son of a German immigrant, in a time when people like Ben Franklin considered Germans to be aliens, to be people unwilling to lose their native language and culture and become true “Americans,” – this story shows how Lutherans could, and would, embrace the war for independence. Peter Muhlenberg’s story is a fun story…and it’s probably just that – a story. We don’t hear about this event until a great-nephew, decades after Peter’s death, writes it down. Peter probably never dramatically left his church in the middle of worship but he did serve in the American revolution, retiring with the rank of Major General. He fought at Brandywine, Germantown, and Yorktown. And after the war he served in the very first Congress as a representative from Pennsylvania – and was there when another Lutheran Pastor turned politician, Peter’s younger brother Frederick, became the first Speaker of the House.

If you look closely at our collective history, the founding generation of the United States is filled with Lutherans. Native-born Lutherans and immigrants served, fought, and died for the American revolution. But that concern about Lutherans and their commitment to the United States, took generations to finally disappear. As a faith tradition rooted in immigrant communities, Lutherans were suspect. The early stories about their commitment and service to the founding of this nation disappeared. Time and again, people wondered if Lutherans truly belonged. In the 20th century, when World War 1 broke out, Lutherans started putting American flags in their sanctuaries to show our collective commitment to the country we call home. And even as Lutherans served bravely and admirably in the American armed forces in World War 2, the Lutheran seminary in Columbia, South Carolina had to tear down buildings to prove their loyalty to their country. As Lutherans living in the 21st century, we might never have experience others questioning our loyalty to the United States. But we are, through our shared heritage, connected to a history where the Lutheran and American identity were not always seen as compatible. The flag in our sanctuary does more than just honor all who served bravely for their country or celebrate the founders of this nation like Peter Muhlenberg. The flag also connects us to the generations of Lutherans who felt they need to prove to others who they truly are.
And that need to prove who we are…is right there, in our reading from Romans today. Two weeks ago, I shared how Paul was writing to a community that didn’t know him. They wanted to know what kind of Christ-follower he truly was. Last week, we heard how the Roman community struggled with their own identity. As a people who saw themselves as slaves to their passions – to lust and anger and the desires that caused them personal suffering – they looked to Jesus as a way to better their lives and fix who they were. By participating in the Jewish practices that Jesus did, the Romans thought they could break their cycle of bad behavior and become people God actually loved. The community embraced their identity as Romans trying to solve a Roman problem and saw Jesus and his Jewish rituals as a way to discover a new way of life. By following Jesus, their feelings of lust would end. By following Jesus, the world would treat them better. By trying this Jesus thing, they would become the best Romans they could possibly be. Following Jesus, they thought, would make them better at being the Romans they knew themselves to be. But Paul looks at this community and challenges them. They are not only Romans. They are not just Gentiles who happened to meet God. They are baptized. They know Christ. When the waters of baptism covered their heads, their old ways of looking at the world were buried. When they stood up, with that same water dripping off their faces, they entered a new reality. Even though they were still who they were before they were baptized, with the same bodies and hair and eyes and thoughts – they now were something more. Their old way of looking at the world, asking what God could give them to make them better Roman, is no longer their priority. They have new questions to ask. They have a new point of view to live into. This connection with Jesus is not about what we can get from God. Rather it’s about what God, through us, can give the world. Because, with just a few drops of water and God’s word of promise, we were changed. Even if we were just a child, a baby who couldn’t even walk, we were connected in a very public way with a Jesus who did more than just die for us. He also lives with us, right now, too. He helps us, through words of encouragement, through moments of insight, and through the he brings into our lives, to refine us into people who change the questions we are asking. Instead of asking how others can be like us, Jesus invites us to discover how we can give others the gifts of love and service. Instead of spending time asking about other people’s’ identity, Jesus helps us focus on what it means for us to be identified with Jesus Christ. As human beings, our old questions will never truly die. We will still struggle with concerns that focus on ourselves rather than others. We will still need our own version of flags in our sanctuaries to prove to others and ourselves that, no matter our race or sexuality or ethnicity or beliefs or gender that we, and even those who are different from us, still belong. We are still broken human beings. We are still people who don’t always get things right. Yet, in our baptism, Jesus invites us into something more. We have been given a new identity. We get to ask new and loving questions. And because of who Jesus is and what Jesus did, we are finally set free to be the true Christians God calls us to be.

Amen.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

How Can We? A sermon on Jesus among the Romans

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:1-11

My sermon from 3rd Sunday after Pentecost (June 25, 2017) on Romans 6:1-11. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

****************************

On Wednesday, my cat Finn started to act strangely. Now, I haven’t had Finn for a while and he’s still, technically, a kitten. He’s still developing his normal rhythm of life and I’m still figuring out who he is. But on Wednesday, I knew something was slightly off. He wasn’t in pain or meowing or not eating. He still playfully lashed out at anyone’s feet when they walked by. But something was different and we were concerned. So I did what I always do when a healthcare issue shows up in my life. I googled it. As a child of the internet, looking up things online is….just what I do. When I get a slight cold, I google the symptoms. When my kids ask a question about the world, I flip open my phone. So when Finn started to act strangely, I did what I always do: I looked for a solution. I tried to get a sense of what was going on. And everything I read told me to take him to the vet. So that’s what I did. And now we’re trying to force feed liquid antibiotics to a cat, which is just as easy as it sounds. On Wednesday, I had a problem. My furry family and I sought a solution. The internet helped us use a wide variety of sources to find a way to deal with this situation in our lives. And this approach to problem solving is not too different from what the community in Rome was doing when Paul’s letter first arrived.

Now, we don’t know much about the early Christian community in Rome. We don’t know who brought them them gospel or how many different people taught them about Jesus. But we do know the community was mostly made up of Gentiles, of non-Jews, who probably felt like the normal Roman way of life wasn’t giving them all they needed. Instead, they sought a new way to deal with their problems and that led them to a Jewish way of life. During Jesus’ day, the Jewish faith was growing. There were Romans who believed in God. They found meaning and value in practicing the Jewish food laws, in worshiping God, and saw in the Bible tricks and tips to help them manage their lives. The Jewish way of life, an approach to living modeled by Jesus himself since he is Jewish, was that outside source of information that seemed to solve a problem these Romans had. And that problems was the passions.

So what are the passions? We usually identify them as emotions, appetites, and feelings. We might give them names like lust or sorrow, anxiety or fear. Passions are the feelings and experiences that make us feel as if we are getting in our own way when it comes to living our authentic lives. And in ancient-Greco Roman thought, personal suffering was rooted in these passions. One of the goals of life, then, is to, somehow, master these passions. Instead of being controlled by lust, we tame it. Instead of letting melancholy keep us in sorrows, we overcome it. In a very mind over matter kind of way, living well means developing habits that turn us into being an active participant in all areas of our life. Now we have to step back and realize that this kind of living was only available to a select few. If you were a slave, you couldn’t do this because you didn’t have the agency or the independence to stop anyone from acting on you. And if you were a woman, the patriarchy and wider culture already saw you as weak and it was assumed you would never master human nature. Yet, overall, this idea about mastering the passions was a cultural ideal that impacted all areas of life. Living well, then, was a kind of dying. Life was about doing the hard work necessary to kill off these passions that dominate us. And for some Romans, the Jewish way of life seemed to provide a way to tame these passions. By following the rules, ethics, and behaviors taught in the Books of Moses and modeled by the lives of David and the prophets, the good life – as Roman culture defined it – could be reached. Part of the appeal of Judaism, including this Jesus-based sect inside the city of Rome, were these rules for life that this faith offered. Jesus himself seemed to offer a way to master the passions. But this early Roman community also thought something else. They imagined that mastering their passions was the only way they could make themselves acceptable to God. It was almost as if following Jesus was some kind of self-help program that, once completed, would give them a gold star on their report card from God. And without that gold star, without proving their own worth and value, God would shut them out. This is a type of Christian faith that acts as if we have the power to somehow convince God to fall in love with us. We can, with the right program or habits or life hacks or by entering the right search words into google, we can learn the tricks we need to do to secure our relationship with God. This way of thinking believes that our hope for finding meaning and value in our lives depends only on us. And Paul calls this way of thinking, this way of living, sin. Because the story of Jesus doesn’t show us the tricks we need to do to somehow convince God to finally care about us. The story of Jesus is about a God who loves us so much, that even death itself can’t separate us from God. Life isn’t about dying to our passions. Life with Christ is realizing how, through our baptism, we’ve already died. The old self that tries to chase after God is missing the fact that God already has us. The sin that thinks we can somehow fix our relationship with God is stopping us from seeing how Jesus has already done that work. As followers of Jesus, we’re more than just human beings. We’re more than just a bucket full of appetites, emotions, and feelings. We are the body of Christ. We are part of Jesus. And that’s means you are a beloved child of God – and that changes everything.

I don’t think Paul would have disliked using Google to find out what’s wrong with a cat. Nor do I think he would have been against us trying to figure out how we can better ourselves. When it comes to being more fully who we are, God has given us so many ways to find health and wholeness. Counselors and therapists, life coaches and spiritual directors, are not to be shunned nor are we to consider people who use them as somehow worth less than us. The stigma against mental illness and seeking help is something every Christian is called to fight against. Everyone should have the health resources they need to seek help when they need it and not feel like the church or society or even God will think less of them. The journey of self-betterment can help us grow into being who God calls us to be. But there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. And our journey towards becoming better versions of ourselves starts with what Jesus has already done. Jesus has already died for you. Jesus has already called you as part of God’s holy family. You’re already worth more than you can possibly know.

So life isn’t about chasing after God. Life is about living and knowing that God already has us.

Amen.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

A New Family

This is the second week in a row when the gospel reading (Matthew 10:24-39) mentioned families. Last week on Father’s Day, brothers, fathers, and children turned against each other. This week, daughters are turning against mothers and mother-in-laws. The two readings are from Jesus’ instruction to his disciples before he sends them to do his work. Jesus tells his followers that this journey will not be easy. Jesus’ followers will not always be welcomed and loved. The message they are bringing will challenge and confuse the wider Greco-Roman culture. There’s something about Jesus changes the bonds we have with each other. And sometimes, the bonds inside our own families will break.

This message doesn’t seem to jive with the message we also hear in Jesus’ words today. Jesus tells his followers that God cherishes them. God knows each of them in a real and authentic way. These words are filled with a theme of inclusion and welcome. Through their relationship with Jesus, the disciples are brought into a new family. This family is centered around a Jesus who will live and die for each of them. The people included in this Jesus-generated family are not perfect. Nor can each individual invite themselves into this group. Instead, Jesus calls them by name and loves them because that’s what God does. God is creating a new family while the bonds of other families fall apart.

We have many examples in our lives of broken families. Entire communities know what it’s like to be abandoned. Too many friends of mine have been kicked out of their families for coming out as LGBT. Others have watched as broken promises, abuse, and addiction have destroyed the trust and love we believe all families should practice. When Matthew wrote down these words from Jesus around the year 75 C.E. (A.D.), the Christian community was very small. New converts to the faith were sometimes disowned by their families and friends. The experience Jesus described here is an experience the author of Matthew knew well. It’s also an experience that is still too common today. Yet Jesus’ word promises a new family that has, at its center, someone who will never break a promise of fidelity, love, and trust. This family is centered around someone who doesn’t call the perfect to be his friends. He doesn’t leave space at the table for only those who act and think and look like he does. Jesus points to a bond and love from God that transcends the bonds of human family. And this bond, even when threatened with the Cross, will not be broken.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 3rd Sunday After Pentecost, 6/25/2017.

Mansion in a living room: a funeral homily.

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:1-6

I’ve never shared a funeral reflection in a living room before. Usually, when I’m sharing these kinds of thoughts, I’m in a funeral home or at a church or standing next to a grave. I’m not usually preaching in a space like this. But I’m glad I am because this space….is filled with Dorothy. This is the building where she spent her nights. This is the town she called home. And this is the place where she created memories with you – memories she cherished and memories you will carry with you forever. We are in a place where Dorothy did a lot of living. And we should be here. We should be sharing our memories of her, here. We should be telling each other our joys and our sorrows, here. We should, ina sense, live in this space like she did. By sharing even these sad moments together, we are making this space a real living room. So It’s good for us to be here. It’s good for us to share how Dorothy made a difference in our lives. And it’s important that Robert and Jean picked this gospel reading from John. Because, in our reading, Jesus is also in a room filled with people who loved him. They had done a lot of living together. So Jesus makes a promise to his friends and to us – the living and love we share will continue, no matter what.

Today’s reading from John is the start of Jesus’ Farewell discourse. It’s called that because that’s exactly what is. It’s sort of like John’s version of the last supper. Jesus and his friends are in a room. They shared a large meal together. They’re starting to get comfortable and they’re wondering what’s going to happen next. But before they could decide what to do, Jesus does something unexpected. He washes their feet. Now, this action confuses Jesus’ friends because, in their world, only slaves wash people’s feet. Jesus, as their teacher and leader isn’t supposed to act like a slave. He isn’t supposed to serve in this way. But Jesus does. And then he keeps serving them by launching into a long speech that lasts 3 whole chapters. Because, in the gospel according to John, Jesus is always in control. He’s always one step ahead of his friends and his enemies. Jesus knows how his life, and his death, will play out. But he also knows that the disciples aren’t him. They have a vision of the future that doesn’t match what God is about to do. So – Jesus talks. He uses his words to say farewell but he isn’t saying goodbye. He’s promising his friends that the love they share, this relationship that binds them together, won’t be broken by what comes next. The death Jesus experiences – a death his friends will see and feel – won’t be the final word. There’s so much more in store for all of them.

So the discourse begins with this image of a giant building full of many rooms. We’re using an older translation of the Bible today so the words house and mansions brings to mind big giant spaces, like those new homes developers build on Ridge Road or by the high school when they tear down older homes and build something gigantic to replace it. But a better translation of our reading today wouldn’t include the words mansions or rooms. It would instead say dwelling places. Jesus isn’t building a castle in heaven full of palaces that his followers can live in. Jesus is telling those who know him, those whom he has called by name, that what matters most is the relationship he has with them. What’s important is how much he cares and loves them. And since love and care are verbs, the word mansion or house isn’t enough. Instead, we need dwelling places because dwelling places are lived in. They’re the kind of places where the dishes in the sink might stay an extra day because company is over and the conversation about the most recent book we’ve read is just too good to break away from. A dwelling place is filled with memories and laughter, joys and even tears. A dwelling place, in other words, is a living room where stories are created and shared and is a place where God’s promise of life and love, in the end, conquers all.

Dorothy, from what you all have shared, lived. This place was truly her dwelling place, her living room. The way she lived will continue to ripple outwards, through the memories you share, and into the new memories you create in the living rooms of your own. We are blessed because Dorothy blessed us. We are blessed because Dorothy loved. And we know that everything that made Dorothy who she is – is now basking in the eternal light of our glorious Lord, forever and ever.

Amen.

A sermon on John 14:1-6 at a memorial service held in a living room on 6/17/2017.

Work

Jesus’ ministry and the church takes work and workers. This is one of the take aways from our reading in Matthew 9:35-10:23 today. At this point in Jesus’ career, Jesus is doing what Jesus does. He preaches, teaches, and heals. He shares a vision of God’s kingdom that includes tax collectors and others typically kicked out of holy places. He eats meals with people he shouldn’t. Jesus is being Jesus. And Jesus, in our verses today, compels his followers to do the same.

The apostles’ mission is an outgrowth of Jesus’ own ministry. Jesus visits new places and tells his followers to do the same. Jesus tells his followers to share God’s message of love and hope using the same words he uses. Jesus’ followers are called to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons. And Jesus’ followers are told to provide this physical and spiritual care for free. A follower of Jesus doesn’t act only to benefit themselves. They are told to give freely and abundantly because that’s what Jesus does too. In the words of Colin Yuckman of Duke Divinity School, “To be sent by Jesus is, in some sense, to be sent as Jesus.” Jesus is training his followers on how they can be his disciples. When people encounter us, they are encountering and experiencing Jesus Christ and we need to act accordingly.

This encounter with Jesus Christ is an unexpected mission God invites us to share. It’s also a mission that is not easy to do. An invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to live a different way. An invitation to live in God’s kingdom means we need to realize the hard truths about the brokenness of the world around us. An invitation to live as Jesus is an invitation to recognize the ways we push ourselves and others away from God. Jesus decides that people like us can, through the help of the Holy Spirit, show others Jesus Christ. This seems like a daunting task. It can make us feel afraid. But, like we heard last week, we don’t do this job alone because Jesus is with us to the end of the age.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 2nd Sunday After Pentecost, 6/18/2017.

The Right Time: Promise, Hope, and Faith

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Romans 5:1-8

My sermon from 2nd Sunday after Pentecost (June 18, 2017) on Romans 5:1-80. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

****************************

Yesterday, around noon, I was sitting at my dining room table, putting the finishing touches on a funeral sermon I would share a few hours later. When I was done, I gathered my things and headed out the door. And that’s when I noticed…the rain. By the time I was halfway down the block, it was pouring. This..wasn’t good because the funeral service I was about to lead was taking place outdoors in our Memorial Garden. When I finally got to church, I stood in the narthex, looked out the front doors, and did all I could to make the rain stop. I said a prayer. I stared intently at the sky, hoping the seriousness of my face would convince the clouds to back off for a little bit. But nothing I did worked. The rain kept falling. I then decided to move the service inside, hoping we could by some time, and give the skies another 15 minutes to clear out before we would bury ashes in the ground. We started the service, read the lessons, said our prayers, and the rain kept falling. Now I know it’s a bit presumptuous to act like yesterday’s rainstorm was specifically designed to interfere with what I wanted to do. But the rain came at the exact right time to upend the plans I made. If the clouds had stayed away for just one more hour, the service would have gone on without a hitch. But instead, the right time for the funeral was also the right time for the rain to fall.

Our reading today from the book of Romans mentions this…idea of the right time. Now, we call Romans the book of Romans but it’s really a letter. Paul is writing to a group of people in the city of Rome who believe in Jesus. We don’t know when this community was founded or who was first to bring Jesus there. Yet by the time Paul is planting churches all over the Eastern Mediterranean, a church in Rome had already been formed. Paul is hoping to visit this community and he introduces himself with a very long letter. The community in Rome seems to have some…concerns about who Paul is and what he’s teaching. They want to know more about what the gospel means to him. We sometimes make this long letter to the Romans seem like it’s Paul’s great attempt to put all his experiences of Jesus and faith and the church into a neat, cohesive, and coherent package that should be easy to understand. But I don’t think that’s Paul’s goal. He’s not trying to talk about Jesus as if Jesus is…some kind of fancy thought experiment, something we only have to keep in our heads. Paul isn’t hoping that the community in Rome will hear his words and then start nodding their heads in agreement. Instead, Paul is trying make Jesus happen to them. He’s trying to convey an experience that touches the core of all who hear it. Paul, using the only thing he has at that moment to share Jesus, uses a scroll and a pen to plant seeds of faith in those who hear it. And this faith doesn’t start by understanding an idea or a concept. This faith begins with a promise. In Christ, God has claimed you. In Christ, God has shown how much God loves you. In Christ, you are given a gift of faith that’s always in awe because the creator of everything has decided that this is the right time for you to know how much you matter. And you matter not because you are perfect or because you always do the right thing. You matter because God has created you. And that’s…enough. In a society that still makes up rules about who has value and who does not, God promises that even those society views as valueless are seen and noticed by God. The values of our society and of our culture are not the limit to the values God has. Everyone’s value is grounded in the relationship God starts with them and not the other way around. This promise God makes is a promise of hope. Because when your hope is rooted in God, it’s a hope no one can take away from you.

What Paul is doing in these short verses from Romans is to invite the community to live that promise out loud. This hope-filled promise begins in a God who sees them, knows them, values them, and won’t leave them on their own. This kind of hope isn’t wishful thinking or one that is so abstract and heady that we leave it out there, on the horizon, knowing we’ll never see if fulfilled so it never inspires us to live a different way. The hope that Paul sees is certain and sure and true. And it’s hope that knows God acts. In the words of Elizabeth Shively, “what God will do for the believer in Christ is grounded on what God has done.” God didn’t wait for us to be perfect before Jesus visited us. Jesus didn’t wait for us to understand everything he said before Jesus claimed us as his own. The God who acts is a God who doesn’t wait for us to catch-up. Instead, the God who acts is a God who comes to us first. Because the right time for God to meet us is always at our beginning. And God keeps coming to us over and over again because we need a lot of new beginnings. We need God to give us new eyes to see the world as it truly is. We need God to give us new hearts so we can love each other as much as God loves us. We need God to break the bonds of injustice that keep systems of oppression firmly in control. And we need God to keep giving us this hope that the God who has acted in Jesus won’t let upended plans get in the way of what God is about to do.

For people who are claimed by God, the trick to living your faith out loud isn’t trying to wait for the right time or right situation or right feeling to hit you before you start living. The trick is to always live in God’s love and hope and promise – even when the rain of sorrows, anxieties, fears, and hardships fall. Faith doesn’t mean that sorrows won’t come. Faith doesn’t mean that we never will be anxious. Instead, faith means that in spite of what comes, we live and act and believe that the future God has planned will actually come. And faith trusts this because Jesus has already come. Jesus has already called you by name. And once Jesus knows you, there’s nothing in this world that can push that promise away.

Amen.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download