Category: Sermons

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

Luke 15:1-3,11b-32

My sermon from the Fourth Sunday in Lent (March 27, 2022) on uke 15:1-3,11b-32.

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There’s a brain teaser, a kind of probability puzzle, known as the Monty Hall problem. It’s named after the former host of the old game show Let’s Make a Deal. The puzzle begins by imagining there’s three doors in front of you. Behind one of the doors is a new car and behind the others are goats. You don’t know where the car or the goats are but a game show host does. The first thing you get to do is pick a door you think the car is behind. The host then opens a different door to reveal a goat behind it. You’re left with two doors – one you picked and one you didn’t. The host then asks you a question: do you want to stick with the door you’ve picked or do you want to switch? 

I was thinking about this puzzle while reflecting on our reading today from the gospel according to Luke. It’s a story you might have heard before and it’s usually known as the parable of the prodigal son. Prodigal is one of those words we don’t use very often. It means “to be wasteful and recklessly extravagant.” That’s a pretty good description for the younger son because he’s reckless throughout the story. At the very beginning, he asked his very alive father to pretend he was dead and give the younger son an inheritance. The younger son then traveled to a far off country and spent every penny they had. We get the sense the younger son didn’t care about their future or, at least, chose not to be prepared for whatever might come next. And so, when the money ran out during a crisis he couldn’t control, he survived by working with animals the Jewish community considered unclean. This is a kind of parable that invites us to add our own personal motivations into the story because we can be just as reckless. The dopamine hit we receive through pleasure, entertainment, and what we think success looks like, is often easier to deal with than the sadness, struggle, anger, and frustration that comes through the relationships that make up everyday life. The more we chase after the things we think will make us happy, the more we lose touch with what might actually bring us joy. We soon find ourselves trying to fill a kind of emptiness that no amount of recklessness can ever truly fill.

But the prodigal son isn’t the only person in the story. There’s also two other main characters we could focus on. There is, for example, the generous parent who kept looking towards the horizon, waiting for their child to return. In fact, Jesus sort of makes this the title of the story by opening it with the line “there was a man who had two sons.” We know nothing about his relationship with his children before the story began. Yet it’s not hard to realize how difficult it must have been when his child asked for him to be dead. The father didn’t have to honor his request but he chose to do so, which isn’t typically how the story goes. Usually, the first born son was the one who received most of everything for their inheritance since it was their responsibility to maintain the family’s story into the future. But our Bible has a habit of making the unexpected child favored. Younger siblings such as Jacob, Joseph, David, and those who weren’t even sons, like the daughters of Zelophehad, help us expand our vision of what God’s kingdom is all about. Maybe the father knew these stories and that’s why he fulfilled the unexpected request from his son. Yet I wonder if there’s more to the story because there’s a moment in it when the father wasn’t really as loving as they could have possibly been. When the younger son returned, the father didn’t immediately send someone to tell his older brother what happened. Instead, the older son found out when he came home to a party he wasn’t originally invited to. This older brother is the third character we could focus on. And his response to everything is very relatable because it’s full of anger, frustration, and a kind of exhaustion that comes when you’re the responsible one while everyone else acts up. When the younger son returned, the father organized a giant wedding feast that caused everyone else’s work to stop. But the older brother only learned of it when he came to the other side of the door. I imagine his mind raced through all the things he had already picked as part of his life story. He had never acted like his father was dead and he had lived with his family as they dealt with the emotional, spiritual, and financial consequences that came with a brother who decided their family wasn’t family anymore. These three characters give us three choices on what we could focus on. But for me, at least, I’m drawn to the older brother who ends the story standing outside that door. He has the opportunity to switch away from his previous choice and do the one thing he hasn’t yet done in the story. He could open the door, see his brother, interact with them, and enter into a new future big enough to transform all of them into something more. 

Now the solution to the Monty Hall problem can be full of math but, at its simplest form, the answer is a bit counterintuitive.  Our instinct is that, once the host revealed a goat, we have a 1 in 2 chance of finding the car because there’s two doors unopened. Switching, we think, won’t improve our odds. But the truth is that we should switch because, by revealing a goat, the host has changed the story. When we first picked a door, we created two subsets with one holding the door we picked and the other the doors we didn’t pick. There’s a 1 in 3 chance the car is in the subset of doors we picked but there’s a 2 in 3 chance it’s in the other group. When the host revealed a goat, they added new information into the subset of doors we didn’t pick. The 2 in 3 chance for those 2 doors didn’t change but we suddenly know which one of them doesn’t hold the car. Your best bet is to switch because a new story has already begun. We can choose to be like the older brother – sticking with the choices we’ve already made because that’s how we want our life to be. But when he got to that door, the party was already raging. That party didn’t come into being because the family was perfect with a father who always knew how to love in every possible situation. The family in our story is a bit dysfunctional which means they couldn’t have pulled this off on their own. What they needed was a gift of grace that would remind them of the generosity at the heart of love. This grace is a gift given to us through baptism and through faith. It helps us do basic things like waking up in the morning and worshiping in any way that we can. This grace brings us through the everyday bits of our everyday lives. And it also welcomes us back even when we, through recklessness or apathy, ignore the God who has already claimed us as God’s own. The story of the prodigal son is a story of embracing grace. This grace is big enough to help us confess our sins, seek forgiveness, and keep us ready to welcome the unexpected people God will bring into our midst. This grace helps us get over ourselves even when we feel we’ve done everything right. And this grace is what helps us grow in love because generosity isn’t for us alone. We get to make a choice to switch away from acting as if grace is only for those we deem worthy and we can, instead, open a new door where the grace we’re given becomes the grace we share. 

Amen. 

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Luke 13:1-9

My sermon from the Third Sunday in Lent (March 20, 2022) on Luke 13:1-9.

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Why was a fig tree in a vineyard? 

Now that might not have been the first question that came to mind while you listened to today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke. This text is difficult because it begins with suffering. A group of people came to Jesus with news about the Roman governor slaughtering Galileans during a recent religious ritual. Jesus responded by reminding them of another recent event when a tower collapsed, possibly during an earthquake. We don’t know much about these two events because these are the only words we have about them. Yet we’re not unfamiliar with this kind of suffering because we see it whenever we turn on the tv or look at our phones. It’s not always easy making sense of suffering. And figuring out why suffering happens is really hard. When we try to make meaning out of that kind of misery, we sometimes focus on those who were harmed. We act as if suffering cannot be meaningless and so those impacted by it must have contributed to it in some way. When the people came to Jesus with news about the slaughter of those who were worshiping God, their attempt at making sense of what made no sense led them to act as if the victims caused God to remove God’s love from them. Jesus listened to the news they brought and heard the anxiety, worry, and fear in their words. They wanted  something to help make sense of the world. So Jesus shared with them a parable – a short story – that doesn’t really make much sense on its own. 

Now I’ve never grown a fig tree but an old friend of mine in Astoria, Queens had one in the backyard of their building. The yard wasn’t very large but it had a little patio, some grass, and a lone fig tree all by itself. The tree had been there for a long time and every year, my friend would invite us over to pick fresh figs. The whole yard wasn’t well maintained and I don’t think the owner bothered to take care of it. Yet fresh figs came every year and it seemed strange to have this one plant all by itself. But I recently learned fig trees tend to be loners. They’re self-pollinating which means they don’t need multiple plants right next to each other for them to form fruit. A few versions of fig trees have really aggressive roots which means they don’t play well with others. They need a lot of sun and elbow room so that they can breathe. Fig trees are fairly robust, only needing a few inches of compost, a tiny bit of fertilizer, and rainwater from the sky to grow to their full potential. And when their environment is halfway decent, it can take anywhere from three to five years for a fig tree to mature and grow ripe fruit. We don’t see many fig trees here in Northern New Jersey but the people who first heard this story saw them everyday. They knew fig trees were loners and that it was normal for a tree to need more than 3 years to mature. A vineyard full of grapes and fig trees flourishing in a field were completely normal things. But a fig tree in the center of a vineyard wasn’t. Something about this parable wasn’t quite right. So how do we make sense out of a story that makes no sense? 

Now one thing we might try to do is figure out which character in Jesus’ story we’re supposed to relate to. But I wonder if we could, instead, simply pause and let the whole scene sink in. We have in front of us a vineyard where life was meant to grow. Not everything in the vineyard made complete sense but that doesn’t mean life wasn’t possible. Everything is owned by a landowner who’s impatient, anxious, worried, and consumed by an unmet expectation. And the fig tree at the center of it all still needed time to fully mature. Yet when the landowner came to see the tree, their first response was to let it burn. The fig tree, in a sense, shouldn’t be there but I wonder if maybe that fig tree had some other purpose that the landowner couldn’t see. Maybe it was meant to grow, to endure, and to provide shade for those who worked in the vineyard. Maybe it wasn’t there to be consumed by others and just needed an opportunity to live. In a vineyard that doesn’t always make sense and that others sometimes want to burn, here was a fig tree with a chance to become something new. And while there was a landowner threatening violence, there was also a gardener willing to nurture everything into more. 

One of my issues with life is that it doesn’t always make sense. We exist in a world where things happen and we sometimes never know the reasons why. We live in an interconnected world filled with people who have their own stories and histories. We often act as if we move through the world on our own but we’re not actually isolated from one another. We live in our own version of a vineyard that is often off kilter and with more than one thing amiss. We do the best we can to control what we can yet no amount of fertilizer or compost can make everything grow the way we wish. There’s always a storm brewing over the horizon and the rain, sun, and so many other things remain outside our control. Life is full of mysteries and it doesn’t always make sense. And while our desire to make meaning out of the misery might encourage us to blame victims for the violence that happened to them, we can choose to do something else. We can take a step back, look at the entire picture, and name those who choose violence rather than mercy. We can identify the real victims instead of those who embrace their own kind of victimhood. We can choose to not let people, including ourselves, off the hook for the suffering we cause. And when we are victims, we can know that it wasn’t our fault. There are moments in our lives when others choose to cause us fear but there are other times when something like an earthquake will cause us to wonder if God’s love is real. I wish we lived in a world without suffering and I think God wants that too. Yet when God saw the suffering that is part of our story, God chose to live through that suffering too. We, in Christ and with Christ, do not go through our lives alone. We have with us a gardener, who is here to nurture us through. That doesn’t mean things won’t be hard or that we won’t suffer. But it does mean that the story of suffering doesn’t have to be the limit to all there is. In a world full of vineyards and fig trees growing together, we can step back and embrace a different kind of life that does not ask us to lie, or fear, or harm each other. We can, instead, see how we are nurtured; notice how we are loved; pay attention to the suffering of others; and let their pain break open our hearts. We can cry and mourn and rage and wonder why God and ourselves let these kinds of things happen. We can notice how this mystery is a part of our lives and how the gift of grace, through word, prayers, song, kindness, support, reconciliation, repentance, and even the Lord’s supper, promises to carry us through. We can look at the moment we’re in and simply live because we have with us the One who will make us more. 

Amen.

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Luke 13:31-35

My sermon from the Second Sunday in Lent (March 13, 2022) on Luke 13:31-35.

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A couple of years ago, I was leaving the church office through the door facing Pascack Road when I noticed something through the window. I had already pushed the push bar all the way down but I stopped before I opened the door. Sitting at the top of the steps was something small and fuzzy. It had two large pointy ears, a small pointed black nose, two deep eyes, and fur colored red, gray, and orange. I stopped in my tracks and stayed perfectly still. And when the little baby fox started to sniff around, I knew it had no idea I was there. The little guy – or gal – looked like a stuffed animal that had come to life. It was small, fluffy, adorable, and just waiting to be hugged. The fox explored the area for about ten minutes before walking away. And while I almost went “awww,” I also knew one of its parents had to be nearby. The next day, at about the same time, I was heading out the same door when I spotted something that made me stop. Sitting at the top of the steps was an adult fox staring at me. We don’t see many foxes out here in suburban New Jersey but the reservoir across the street provides a place for them to live. Foxes are predators, spending their days hunting rabbits, birds, and mice. But every once in a while, a fox will attack a pet or even a person. Foxes can be quite handsome but they’re also sly, cunning, clever, and we imagine them to be pretty untrustworthy. We even have a proverb about not letting the fox guard the henhouse. Foxes hunt and kill because that’s what they’re designed to do. And in our reading from the gospel according to Luke, a group of Pharisees go out of their way to tell Jesus that a “fox is after you.” 

Now we might wonder why the Pharisees told Jesus that King Herod was after him. Our Bible often describes the relationship between the Pharisees and Jesus to be pretty conflicted. In the decades after Jesus’ death, the writers of scripture used the Pharisees as a foil to Jesus. Yet the Pharisees were, when Jesus began his public ministry, just one of the many different flavors of Judaism. Their religious leaders were known as Rabbis which is what Jesus’ followers called him too. Jesus was engaged in an active conversation with other faithful Jewish people about God’s call for their lives. The Pharisees weren’t the ones who had political power and while they might have disagreed with Jesus about certain things, we also have plenty of stories where Jesus and the Pharisees shared a meal with each other. The motivation behind those meals is sometimes up for debate but I wonder if their relationship to each other is similar to our relationships with different flavors of Christianity. Being a Lutheran Christian is a bit different than, say, being a Roman Catholic Christian or a Coptic Christian. And while we do have a history of fighting against each other – using an unholy amount of war, oppression, and violence – there are moments when we chose to be for each other. Today’s story seems, to me at least, to be a moment when a group of Pharisees chose to be “for” Jesus. That doesn’t mean they followed him or that Jesus followed them. But I think they saw in each other a kind of faithfulness that, while different, could be respected. The Pharisees weren’t big fans of King Herod because he helped oppress the Jewish community. He had political power because Rome gave him that power. He, and the rest of his family, used force and violence to stay in control. And even when he was glitzed out in the finest clothing and following the religious traditions of his people, Herod often chose to rule by fear. He was a fox, always ready to hunt. 

So when the Pharisees said “Herod was near,” they were, I think, truly afraid. They were afraid for Jesus, for those who followed Jesus, and for themselves. Herod wouldn’t discriminate against who got caught up in the violence he caused. The Pharisees knew Heord could attack at any time and for any reason. Herod wanted those around him to feel as if there was a fox sitting on their front steps watching everything they do. And when you live in that kind of environment, it’s difficult to live life to the fullest because there’s this fear overshadowing you. It’s a fear that makes us second guess who we are, what we say, and what we do. It’s a fear that doesn’t let us be authentically who we are because we’re scared everything could be taken away. It’s a fear that makes every moment uncomfortable, drawing our focus and energy away from the life God wants us to live. This kind of fear is a powerful motivator which is why some create their own fake fear to further their own agenda. Yet there are those who spend every moment of every day making sure what they say and do doesn’t lead to violence. That kind of life is exhausting because you never know exactly when the fear will be realized. It’s a fear that is sometimes hidden within families that no one else sees and it’s a fear I see lived out among my friends and colleagues with kids who are trans as they gather together piles and piles of documents to show that their kid is really their kid. At any time, their greatest fear can become realized because of the choices others make. Foxes can be anywhere but I’m not sure if God designed us to cause others that kind of fear. 

Which is why, I think, Jesus responded in the way he did. He didn’t tell the Pharisees they shouldn’t be afraid or that they should choose faith over fear. He didn’t brush aside what Herod could do or invite everyone to run and hide. Instead, he named Herod as the fox he was and gave them a message to share. Jesus told them to tell his story and the life he chose to live. He was going to keep being Jesus: casting out demons, curing the sick, and bringing wholeness to those in need. He was going to center the stories of those who lived in fear because of the actions of others. Jesus was going to bring good news to everyone in harm’s way even though he was well aware of what we do when God’s love shows up. He wasn’t going to let the lies we tell and the fears we spread limit his story. Instead, in the words of Rev. Jennifer Moland-Kovash, Jesus said: “Go and tell that fox that I’m busy – bringing good news to those who need it, being the hands and feet of God in this world. Go and tell that fox that I’ve got better things to do in this world than huddle in the corner waiting to die. God and tell that fox we’re busy living, but when the time comes, we’ll [always] be under the wings of Jesus.” Jesus doesn’t let the fox center their story at the expense of those longing for God’s love. And that’s because, through baptism and faith, we all have a new story to tell. We live in a world full of foxes yet we don’t have to be one or let foxes tell us who we are. Instead, we get to live into the promises of God and do the living God wants us to do. The good news we bring into the world is that something other than this is possible. That doesn’t mean things won’t be hard or we’ll never be afraid. But we can, together, decenter our fears and embrace the new life we’ve already been given. Jesus has already gathered us under his wings so we, with him and through him, get to do the living God wants us to do. 

Amen. 

²¹ Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²² All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” ²³ He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ ” ²⁴ And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵ But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land, ²⁶ yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷ There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹ They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. ³⁰ But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Luke 4:21-30

My sermon from the 4th Sunday after Epiphany (January 30, 2022) on Luke 4:21-30.

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So last weekend was a really amazing weekend for football. Every game was close, exciting, and required a last minute field goal. My favorite articles this week were full of quotes from Kansas City Chiefs fans who chose to leave Arrowhead stadium when there was only 13 seconds left in the fourth quarter. If you’re a fan of one of those teams that played or will play today, I’m happy for you. But if you’re a fan of another team, you might have spent this last week wondering how yours will stack up twice a year against Patrick Mahomes now that he’s entered his final form. As a devoted fan of the Denver Broncos, I have no idea how we’re going to win in the future. But I’m hopeful the team can figure it out and they started that process this week by hiring a new coach. Now, I’m getting used to the fact that, every two or three years, the Broncos fire their head coach and go find a new one. A good coach is hard to find and I don’t know all the details of what it takes for that to happen. But the whole process, from the outside, can be a bit frustrating because it feels like the same small group of people are interviewed every year. It seems like most have been a coach on each other’s staff and the whole adage – it’s not what you know but who you know – is on full display. On some level, it makes sense to hire people you already know because, in theory, you understand their strengths, weaknesses, and how they work. Yet when the same group of people keep hiring each other, a kind of bubble forms where their conversations, thoughts, expectations, and points of view reinforce the status quo. And once we’re in a bubble, our world becomes really small. This kind of network of relationships can be a life-giving place where we experience love, care, wholeness, and a sense of purpose. But when our network stays small, we end up limiting who we are because we act as if we already know what we can become. 

Today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke is a continuation of what we heard last week. Jesus had just started his ministry and was wandering in and out of the towns around the sea of Galilee. He made a pit stop in the town he grew up in, taking the opportunity to see his folks, do his laundry, and eat his mother’s food. He wasn’t in Nazareth for very long but Jesus, being Jewish, made sure to head to the synagogue on the sabbath day. When he walked through the door, I imagine people nodded their heads and came over to say hello. The community knew about his travels and they wanted to ask about his mom, his siblings, and what life was like being on the road. He was among the people he grew up with and that included his friends, his classmates, his neighbors, and everyone who had their own story about interacting with Jesus. They had, over the years, attended each other’s weddings, helped build each other’s homes, and brought their version of a 1st century casserole when a neighbor was in need. As neighbors in a small town, they created their own small network of people who had invested time, energy, and care for each other. They were their own kind of community and Jesus was a part of them. So when they handed him a scroll containing words from the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus was simply their Jesus. And after he announced he would be the one who’d make the oppressed go free, give sight to the blind, help all captives be released, and bring good news specifically to the poor, the community was amazed. Their Jesus was becoming a big deal and they turned to each other to speak. 

Now our story  records one thing they shared but I imagine that wasn’t the only thing they said. They already knew Jesus was doing new things and they got excited about what that might mean for them. In a world where who you know matters a lot, having a miracle worker in your in-group would be pretty awesome. We don’t know exactly what the community thought Jesus might do but they were excited about the possibilities. Their minds raced because they knew Jesus before he was cool. They assumed he would stay close to his friends and offer them the good news they specifically wanted. Yet what Jesus had in mind was a bit bigger than anything they expected. The good news he was bringing into the world wasn’t meant only for them. It was meant for everyone – which meant his words and his ministry were going to be a bit complicated. The good news one group wants to hear might not be the good news others need. Yet God’s love is always God’s love – and it works to constantly expand our imaginations about what is possible in our world. It moves us to break through the bubbles we build because the limitations we place on our relationships will not limit the work of our God. When we stay primarily focused only on the people around us, our imagination becomes a bit stagnant since the stories we share, the situations we find ourselves in, and our assumptions about what it means to live well in the world remains the same. It’s difficult to be new when we can’t see new and we sometimes don’t even realize how limited we are. We need a gentle or not so gentle nudge from Jesus to show our bubbles are not the limit of what it means to be with God. There is always more and that more is going to build bridges through, around, and over the walls we build that keep our relationships small. 

Now those kinds of relationships are never easy because what works among one group of people might not work with someone else. We have to grow in how we communicate with each other and that requires learning each other’s history, values, hopes, and dreams. This work invites us to listen to stories that might challenge who we know ourselves to be. And it expands our sense of what good news actually is because what’s good for a Bronco fan might not be what the Rams need when they take the field this afternoon. The good news of God is a very particular kind of news because it speaks to who we are right now. It challenges us in ways that require us to love and serve and see the world differently while giving us hope that God’s promises are actually true. The limits we place on what’s possible with God are limits that God will always break through. And that’s because by the very nature of our baptism – of our being brought into this body of Christ that includes people from all places, all walks of life, all genders, all nationalities, and even from different time periods – we are already connected to a web of relationships that can never be small. We are part of an inclusive and expansive in-group that breaks through every smaller in-group we set up that invites us to do one one hardest and yet most essential things we can do in our lives. And that’s to just love. Love the people we’re with. Love the people who know us and who claim us as their own. Love the people we don’t know and those who God brings into our lives. And when we feel the urge to keep our network of relationships small, we need to let the limitlessness of God’s love show us how big God’s kingdom actually is. Now we’re always going to have our own in-groups. And it’s okay to have our own network of people that nourishes our body, mind, and spirit. Yet these networks are not meant to be the limit of our relationships because the Son of God connects us to so much more. We can, through love, keep ourselves and our communities open to the possibility we can change and grow. And even though we can’t fully know what that growth will look like, the Jesus who has made us part of his network of relationships will be there to carry us through. 

Amen. 

¹All the people [of Israel] gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. ²Accordingly, Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. ³He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. ⁵And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people, and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. ⁸So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

⁹And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. 

¹⁰Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord, and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

My sermon from the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany (January 23, 2022) on Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10.

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One of the neat things, I think, about the incarnation – about God’s decision to enter the entirety of our human story by being a real human being – is how it invites us to pay attention to the physical nature of our lives and our world. We are not just a series of thoughts floating around in our heads. We are embodied, moving through a world filled with things to touch, smell, taste, see, and hear. This  physicalness is a big part of our lived story and it’s also a big part of God’s story too. One way we engage deeper with our Bible is by remembering how these stories happened in places filled with dirt, buildings, trees, grass, sand, rocks, animals, and people. The words in our Bible are more than just bits of ink on a piece of paper or shaded pixels on a screen. They show us where God’s story is lived out. 

And that physicalness, I think, is a big part of our first reading from the book of Nehemiah. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were originally one story that was eventually split in two. And they give us a kind of spiritual reflection unpacking what happened in Jerusalem once the Jewish community returned. In the year 586 BCE, the Babylonian empire destroyed Jerusalem and forced most of its surviving population to live hundreds of miles away along the banks of the Euphrates river. For roughly 70 years the community lived in exile and had to learn what it meant to be Jewish without access to their promised land. During their time away, they began to give the Hebrew Bible its shape. Their story – from the book of Genesis through the Prophets – was collected, edited, and written down on scrolls. This process involved a lot of listening, reading, reflecting, prayer, and negotiations over what to include. They clung tightly to promises given to Abraham and to how God rescued them from slavery in Egypt. They celebrated every commandment, every covenant, and the glory they saw in the Davidic kingdom. And when things went wrong, they noticed their God was with them even when their hope was gone. 

Now when the Persians destroyed the Babylonian Empire, they allowed the Jewish community to return to Jerusalem. Some chose to stay where they were while others packed up their belongings and headed west. When they arrived in their former capital city, what they found was a lot of work. Jerusalem was in ruins and the Temple – the place God promised to be – was a pile of rubble. The old rules about who lived where and who owned what no longer applied because those who weren’t exiled had made new lives for themselves in the place where the kings of Judea once ruled. Those who returned knew things had changed but after spending an entire lifetime listening to stories of the city’s greatness, they had a vision in their heads of what the city of Jerusalem was all about. Yet when what remained of the city first came into view, their expectations ran headfirst into their reality. Everything had changed and their hard work had just begun. 

So when the community gathered at the Water Gate, they were doing two things. First, they were celebrating the holy day that would eventually become known as Rosh Hashanah. Second, they chose to also acknowledge that, roughly 65 years since their initial return from exile, the city walls were finally complete. Jerusalem was beginning to look like the city they held within their hearts and they could, in a tangible way, express their faith through an early version of the Torah in their City of David. I can’t help but think that, while standing and listening to God’s story in that physical place, some felt as if things were finally returning to normal. As they closed their eyes, it seemed as if they had gone back to that moment before all this stuff happened. But when they opened their eyes and truly saw what was all around them, they wept because they realized they couldn’t go back. Change had happened. And in the words of Rev. Katie Hines-Shah, “maybe… [they couldn’t] return to [their] normal after all.” 

Now Nehemiah doesn’t tell us exactly why the people wept. But on this Sunday as we return to in-person worship after a few weeks away, I see their weeping as a response to the loss of our so-called normal. We all had our vision of what the church and our lives would be like when this pandemic was finally over. And last summer and fall, it looked like our normal might finally return. But then the uncertainty of this pandemic required us to step away from in-person worship again. And while each of us has been impacted by this current stage of the pandemic in different ways, what I saw and heard and personally experienced was a kind of exhaustion manifesting itself as sadness, tears, anger, frustration, and a desire to just pretend as if we’re already moved on. It’s hard to not be really tired right now. And it’s exhausting being a parent or a grandparent or a caregiver or a teacher or nurse or a doctor or just a plain human being in this moment. Many of our actions and in-actions have been shaped by a longing and a grief for this return to normal. Yet there are days when our weeping and mourning seem to be the entirety of what this new normal is all about. We still don’t know what the future will bring but we do know there’s no going back to the way things were. Everything has changed and it’s okay to stop pretending that it hasn’t. 

Yet, as we hear in our words from Nehemiah, “this day is holy to the Lord your God.” This day – not the one that happened in the past or the one we hope for the future – is holy. And that’s because God doesn’t wait for the city to be rebuilt, repaired, and returned to its former glory before God chooses to re-enter the story. God didn’t despise the Jewish community because things had changed. God didn’t shy away from them because they were gathering and celebrating and doing things a bit differently than before. God was with them in their new ways of being in the world because God had always been with them – even when they were exiled to a place far from their physical and spiritual home. And when it came time to hear God’s story, the bits that were shared came from the Torah – the first five books of the Bible that do not focus on the community’s time in the promised land. It’s a story that’s a little incomplete because it ends before they get to the place where they are going. The story ends with the community still wandering but trusting that God was about to carry them into a new kind of future. The narrative within the Torah wraps up long before the story of the community ends. And that’s because God knew that they had a future and had way more life to live. 

So that means, that even during this time which will never again look like our past, we get to celebrate the goodness of our God because God has already declared we belong. Our story is still not complete but we are completely in our God because, through baptism and faith, we are part of God’s future. That doesn’t mean that today won’t be hard. But it does invite us to trust that what’s changed won’t change the promises of our God. We can, together, use this moment to make sure that our worship, our prayers, and our lives embody the physical presence of the God who is always with us. We will move into God’s future because God’s future is already moving through us. 

Amen. 

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
  And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
  As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
  So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people.

John 3:7-18

My sermon from Third Sunday of Advent (December 12, 2021) on Luke 3:7-18.

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A few days after Thanksgiving, a strange knocking was heard throughout Allen Dale Elementary School in Oregon. It didn’t sound like the normal kind of knocking; rather, it was more like a peck. There’d be a peck at the door of one classroom and then, a moment later, a peck at the window of another. At first, no one knew what was going on but then someone saw what was making the noise. There was a crow going from classroom to classroom, knocking and pecking and peering through the windows. Now if you’ve ever been an elementary school student or a teacher, you know a crow knocking on the window is going to disrupt your entire day. There’s something very Edgar Allen Poe-ish about a crow systematically checking out each classroom. I’m pretty sure the school didn’t have a plan on how to deal with a crow knocking on the window so they called the state police and a wildlife officer came out. They noticed the crow wasn’t being very aggressive and it was being kind to the kids. It gently landed on their heads and, since crows can learn words like a parrot can, it asked them “what’s up?” The crow also knew a lot of swear words which made it even more endearing to the children. The whole experience was very fun, very weird and very disruptive. And no one ever in that school expected to find themselves in a kinder version of Poe’s poem The Raven. Yet the weirdness made them feel as if the the bird was searching for something. And that energy – including the breaking of expectations and the longing for something different – is, I think, present in our reading centered on John the Baptist. He, like the crow, was a bit wild but he wasn’t, I think, the unexpected part of the story. Instead, what’s really strange is why certain kinds of people with certain kinds of power were asking him: “what should we do?” 

Now during this season when our wider community is busy counting down to Christmas, the church is busy living into Christmas’ future. Today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke takes place roughly 30 years after Jesus’ birth when a man named John was preaching in the wilderness. Unlike our popular imagination today, the Bible doesn’t treat the wilderness as a pristine place meant to be some kind of national park. The wilderness, instead, is a place full of unexpected things we can’t control. And that’s where John decided to make his home. To us, that might seem odd because we usually don’t plant roots in a place full of the unexpected. But 2000 years ago, the wilderness was exactly the place where prophets were expected to live. A prophet was a person who had encountered the divine and was given a message to share. Sometimes a prophet was a royal official, serving as an advisor to the king. Yet most of the words of prophets recorded in our Bible come from folks the authorities didn’t like. These prophets lived on the margins and told those in power that they had failed to take care of the most vulnerable among them. These prophets felt compelled to afflict those who were comfortable and bring comfort to the afflicted. That’s why so many prophets ended up in prison. By the time of Jesus, people had certain expectations for what a prophet looked like and what they did. And when they heard that John was out in an untamed place with untamed hair eating bugs and saying things King Herod didn’t like – that fit into everyone one of their preconceived notions about what a messenger from God was all about. People expected John the Baptist to be exactly who he was. He fit into every culturally defined bucket of a prophet that they had. And so when he started name calling, people knew that was just part of his job. Yet what I find to be most surprising about this whole story is that the tax collectors and soldiers listened to his words. Both those groups were expected to live their lives in certain ways. Tax collectors made their living by taking more money than the government requested. The government used contractors to collect the money and those contractors were allowed to charge more than the government wanted. Soldiers were empowered by the state to use violence and the threat of violence to keep their employers in charge. Soldiers often weren’t paid well on purpose. When they took money from the people near their base, the local populace disliked them and that made them even more loyal to whoever employed them. Both groups lived within a system that encouraged folks to take advantage of the other. And in the world they called home, that was seen as the only way to live. 

Now we never actually learn why the tax collectors listened to John nor do we see the soldiers following his commands. All we hear is the word of God meant for them. And instead of telling them to worship God in a certain place or to say the right kind of prayers or to look at all the excess their extortion had earned them and give a bit of it away – John invited them to step into a new kind of life that would be willing to give half of everything they had so that others could thrive. That’s a very wacky thing for John to say especially to those empowered to take things from others. If the tax collector or the soldier changed how they lived, they would no longer fit into their world’s expectations. That would make them dangerous to the system that required them to operate in a certain way. And once they chose to no longer make their home in that kind of system, they would invite everyone to examine how they’ve been empowered culturally or politically or financially to impose their wills on others. That kind of work requires us to see the world as it truly is while also using our imagination to see what the world could actually be. To do that well, we need to rethink, reevaluate, and revisit the expectations at the heart of who we are. That sounds pretty daunting but Jesus knows we can do that. You, through your baptism and your faith, are already rooted in the One who came to give life to our world. Jesus’ very presence gives us a series of new expectations for what life can be. And instead of asking others to do our will, we get to unpack what it means that Jesus’s first bed on earth was a manger and that he was killed via the method the Romans reserved for those who challenged the status quo. It takes a bit of time and effort and lots of prayer to unpack a tiny bit of what that might mean. Yet when we do that, we begin to create a new home in this world that believes God’s kingdom has come near. 

Now the crow I talked about at the beginning of this sermon was different because they had been rescued when they were very young and raised by a person. It’s presence among the human community changed how it lived in the world. But not everyone was thrilled with a foul-mouthed crow hanging around the neighborhood. So, over thanksgiving, someone took the bird and donated it to an animal sanctuary. The sanctuary took it in but the crow knew that wasn’t their home. It got out as soon as it could and flew around the neighborhood. As luck would have it, it recognized a kid their human knew. The crow followed them to school and started pecking on doors to get their attention. The crow was looking for it’s home – that place where it was loved. And maybe that’s what John’s words were all about. He invited those with power to create a new home outside of the expectations of the world. They didn’t need to use violence to gain their sense of security. They could reexamine everything and live in such a way that love, rather than fear, would carry them through. John’s invitation to those tax collectors is also an invitation to us. You are already loved and valued and because of Christ, you’re already home. You get to see the world differently and not be limited by the expectations the world places on you. Instead, you get to proclaim that the expectation of living in, with, and sharing God’s love can be everything that this world needs. 

Amen.

[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.