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Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Matthew 22:15-22

My sermon from the 20th Sunday after Pentecost (October 18, 2020) on Matthew 22:15-22.

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So on Friday, as I tried to get my kids out the door and on their way to school, I made the mistake of checking the app their teachers use to communicate with parents. Now I knew I did not have time to do anything special because the rush out the door is always hard enough. But – I looked at my notifications anyway and there, in big letters, was a simple request for money. The school was hosting a fundraiser to support a charity our church knows very well – Josephine’s Garden – which helps children and families who are dealing with cancer. Each child was asked to bring in $2 dollars and I knew this was something my family could and should support. Yet this was a problem because I didn’t have any dollar bills to give because physically carrying cash is something I don’t do very often. One of the changes that’s been sped up in our community by the pandemic has been a decline in the use of physical cash to pay for things. Here at church, half of your financial gifts are received electronically and the rest is given via paper checks. Very few physical bills are left in our offering plate each week. And that reflects my own lifestyle as well. If I had to open my wallet and describe the thing I use to buy goods and services, I would show you a piece of plastic with the words “use of this card is subject to cardmember agreement” written on it. Some of you, if asked to do the same, might even show off a specific app on your phone. Money is important in our society and we make a ton of decisions based solely on how much money we will receive. But money as a tangible object – as something we look at, hold, and feel, is becoming less and less of a thing in our lives. But on Friday, physical money was what I needed. And I had 3 minutes to get 4 $1 dollar bills to my kids before they headed out the door. 

Today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew is about money. Money and wealth was the number two thing Jesus talked about – second only to the kingdom of God. Jesus and his first followers, although rarely described as having money, relied on it – and Matthew tells us they were supported financially by women. Jesus knew that our view of money and how we use it lets others know who we really are. And so Jesus had to talk about money because we let money define not only our humanity but also who we know God to be. This story from Matthew is a continuation of a conversation we’ve been listening to for weeks. It began with Jesus going to the Temple – a physical place where God promised to be. Jesus, as he entered that holy site, got angry and he physically threw tables, while chasing out merchants who were selling the animals necessary for religious rituals and also the moneychangers who exchanged one kind of currency for another. Over the next several days, Jesus returned to the Temple to preach and teach. A small crowd gathered around him and his actions drew the attention of the spiritual and political leaders in Jerusalem. Those leaders came to Jesus and they asked him a question: they wondered by what authority he was doing all the things he did. Jesus, as we heard a few weeks ago, almost immediately responded by asking a question. The leaders heard the question – and they hesitated to answer. That delay sort of became a defining characteristic of the back and forth between Jesus and those leaders. Their hesitation and their unwillingness to answer that question shaped Jesus’ ongoing response to them. He shared with them parables – short stories designed to get them to think and to respond. He told them about two sons who were told to go work in a farmer’s field; and about tenants who tried to steal the land they were working on. Jesus even described a wedding banquet where a king invited random people to celebrate the party with him. During each story, Jesus poked and prodded the political and religious leaders by asking them questions. He wanted to hear what was on the tip of their tongues because he knew that our first answer sometimes reveals the truth about who we actually are. And after every question, the leaders immediately responded – showing that the lives we live don’t always match what we think our lives are actually about. 

So when the leaders, once again, tried to get Jesus to say something that would endanger his life or discredit his teachings, Jesus didn’t change how he operated. He asked for a coin and those who he was talking to immediately produced it. The Roman Empire who occupied what was once the kingdom of Israel required everyone to pay taxes. And those taxes needed to be paid  in Roman money which was actual physical coin. On each coin was the image of the emperor who made it and it was full of symbols illustrating their power and might. The coin given to Jesus while he was in the Temple might have described the emperor as divine, as a son of the gods, and bore the image of the Emperor, someday, ruling the world. People needed that coin to pay the tax and so when Jesus asked for it, they already had it. The leaders who asked Jesus that question weren’t interested in an answer that might change how they lived their lives. Instead, they were looking for an answer that might have cost Jesus his. So Jesus turned their question around – and he invited them to take a hard look at the lives they were already living. 

Jesus’ parables are sometimes weird, absurd, and might be a bit difficult to understand. But they are often a mirror – asking us to take a real good look at who we truly are. And, for me, that’s what today’s parable is all about. Money is always more than just money because how we view, handle, and spend it reflects our values, experiences, and who we know God to be. The coin Jesus physically touched represented everything the Roman Empire stood for. It embodied a sense of entitlement that imagined that the entire world belonged to them. Power, wealth, and even mercy was a tool to be used against others for the attainment of that goal. The life imagined by that coin was a life that didn’t have much room for the kingdom of God. So instead of only looking at the coin he was given, Jesus held up a mirror so that we could take a look at ourselves. Because we too, like that coin, bear an image and the image we carry is the image of God. We were, through God’s handiwork, made to reflect everything that God represents. And as the baptized and faithful members of the body of Christ, we get to bring Jesus into every interaction that we have. You are not only beautifully and wonderfully made just as you are – you are also called to be imitators of the Lord because Jesus has already claimed you as his own. You are priceless in the eyes of God because Christ died for you. And since you are worth everything to God, we get to live our lives in a way that makes God’s love tangible and real. 

Now, in the future, I hope Victoria will let me know how this passage sounds when the physical form of money becomes a relic of the past. But even when the tooth fairy starts sending money for loose teeth via Venmo and our teachers make fundraising requests via Apple Pay, the question about how we live our life still remains. Do we choose to live through the lens of dollars and cents or do we trust that we are actually loved and that our world truly belongs to God? Today, through the gift of baptism, Victoria has been gifted a new life that will let her live out her answer to that question because she will not face the trials of this world alone. Instead she, like all of us, has been given a Savior who will show her what God’s kingdom is all about. And when Jesus holds a mirror in front of her, letting her everything that makes her – her – I pray that she’ll also see the eternal promise that was given to her today – because Jesus is already part of her – and through His love, she will always be with God. 

Amen.

[Jesus said:] ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
   and it is amazing in our eyes”? 
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Matthew 21:33-46

My sermon from the 18th Sunday after Pentecost (October 4, 2020) on Matthew 21:23-32.

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So, I dunno about you but I’ve felt pretty worn out all week. I’m not sleeping as much as I want to and I’m not really looking forward to the report from my phone that tells me how long I was staring at it this week. Some of my tiredness comes from a good place because we’re restarting Sunday School, Confirmation Classes, and we’ll soon be blessing animals. But my heart is also feeling heavy because there’s a lot we’re not doing as well. The first week of October has become, over the last few years, that time when things really kick into high gear here at the church. By now, we should be amazed at how many pounds of food our Genesis Garden has grown, been singing at two different services in our sanctuary, and looking forward to sharing God’s love in new ways with our neighbors. In fact, last year on this Sunday, we were in the sanctuary celebrating our 60 years of ministry here in Northern New Jersey. We filled the sanctuary with people and music, showing that God’s gifts of kindness and grace have helped us spread the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone around us. October has been the start to our faith-filled movement towards Christmas and beyond. Yet, this week – with all the busyness of everyday life and a pandemic that is always with us – being made real in the hospitalization of the President and flare ups occurring in nearby schools – I’m mourning because it feels as if we’re being held back. Sometimes my sermons and the messages I give to all of God’s children aren’t meant only for you; they’re also meant for me. And if I’m honest, I’ve felt sort of empty this week. 

Now, while writing this sermon, I’ve already said a bunch of prayers and ate way too many snacks. I tried to take a quick nap but my brain couldn’t stop thinking – and so I did a tiny thing for the Tri-Boro Food Pantry before continuing with my work. There is, however, another thing I do when I’m feeling empty but still have this responsibility to share God’s love through words. I like to go to my bookshelf and look for other people’s words. But the words I look for are a bit specific. They tend to be a little technical, a little dry, and they’re a good fit for a classroom or a lecture-hall. I mentally go to a place where I can nerd out and learn more about the Bible. So I’m going to do that now. We’re going to learn a bit more about Jesus’ parables – in a technical way – because the one what we just read in the gospel according to Matthew isn’t always the easiest one to listen to or to hear.

Jesus was, like other Jewish religious teachers, a storyteller. He, in his preaching and teaching, told little stories that had a beginning, a middle, and an end. They often included elements that were relatable, allowing the listener to be drawn in and imagine themselves as part of the story. But each one was also a little weird, filled with reversals, contradictions, inversions, and actual loss. Jesus told complex stories meant to tug on us, forcing us to wonder if they actually matter to our everyday lives. Jesus’ parables invite us to wrestle with them because they embody a truth about our experience with God. When we encounter Jesus, we’re also experiencing God’s kingdom come near. And in the words of Richard Lischer, “[parables] are messages that activate the secrets of the kingdom. They are the kingdom breaking into speech. Because to some degree the kingdom is realized, that is, present among us…” When we spend time with Jesus listening to the stories he told, we are actually experiencing the kingdom of God. And every emotion, feeling, and thought, that shows up when we’re listening to Jesus – that’s also our experience of meeting God. 

Now parables have traditionally been separated into different types and scholars have argued whether they should be classified based on theological content, literary form, or social setting. These classifications systems are not perfect because they invite us to assume that Jesus’ words can be placed in a box, losing their power and sense of oddeness. “Jesus used parables to confront and convict his generation…” since “the kingdom he proclaimed was not an idea but a force intended to move his hearers from an old way of life to a radically new one.” When it comes to parables, we’re to ask: what did it mean for those who first heard it 2000 years ago and what does it mean for us, right now? That is hard to classify but one classification that, I think, helps with today’s parable is seeing it as an allegory. An allegory is an ancient way of communication that “[pointed] away from the story or parable toward ‘other values’” that lie outside the story.” An allegory forces those listening to make connections and see that the story is pointing towards something else. When the people around Jesus heard him utter these words recorded in Matthew within the Temple, they would have recognized all the characters that were represented. The vineyard was an ancient symbol for the people of Israel and the landowner was God. The tenants were the religious and spiritual leaders Jesus was in conflict with. And the ones sent to them were the prophets who were often rejected and pushed aside. Finally, the owner’s son was Jesus – and the judgment declared by the religious leaders was a judgment they leveled on themselves. The ones who first heard this parable would have recognized this back-and-forth as an internal dialogue within the Jewish community. But for centuries, Christians have used this parable in an antisemitic way by claiming that the relationship Christians have with God replaces the relationship God has with those who are Jewish. Not only is that wrong, it’s also dangerous because it encourages violence and hatred. Jesus was and is Jewish – and God, in the words of Sally Brown, has “a relentless dedication to Israel.” When we simplify the meaning of this parable so that we can feel special at the expense of someone else, we’re choosing to run away from the kingdom of God and back into the kingdom of ourselves. As followers of Christ, we do not get to do that. Instead, we look for the weird, for the unsettling, and for the words that convict us – because Jesus’ parables are also meant to carry us towards something new. 

So what might that new thing be? What can this parable bring us when we’re tired, worn out, and feeling empty? This parable is filled with language that can lead to hatred and is pretty violent. What thing in this allegory can give each one of us life? Well – I was struck by another insight from Sally Brown. She wrote specifically about the owner of the vineyard wondering: “who would keep sending servant after servant, when one after the other they come back bruised and broken, or not at all?” The violence within the parable – which is surrounded by the threat of violence to Jesus himself – draws our attention to the action of the tenants who act out that violence. But there’s another person in this story who also acts and although violence is threatened, they never actually do it. The only thing the landowner did in the story was to claim people as their own, to build something for them to tend to, and to send them messengers over and over again. The landowner never sent an army or gave the Son an armed escort. Instead, the landowner just acted “with unquenchable hope and almost unthinkable mercy. Surely judgement will come one day; but mercy hopes beyond hope for change.” Even when you are worn down, Jesus comes to you – again and again. It doesn’t matter if there are times when you’re not really that faithful and you’ve put a few barriers up against the kingdom of God. Jesus still comes to you because , in your baptism and in your faith, he has claimed you as his own. There will be days when you are empty; when the trauma of the world will make you feel listless and uncertain; and there will be days – maybe even months or years – when you will not see Jesus clearly. But like the landowner in this story, Jesus will never stop coming to you. Because even when you feel alone – you are not. Jesus is with you. Jesus is guiding you. Jesus loves you. And through him, the vineyard of your life will one day be in full bloom. 

Amen.

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, 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 will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Matthew 16:21-28 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 12th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 30, 2020).

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The story of Jesus that we carry within us is usually a hodgepodge of different scenes we see in the Bible. For example, during Christmas, we celebrate angels, shepherds, and magi from the east and put them into one coherent story. But there is no one text in our Bible that has the angels, shepherds, and magi all in the place. Instead, the Christmas story we hold in our hearts is composed of different scenes from different books that make up the narrative of Jesus’ life on earth. That narrative, then, is our creation – rooted in the Bible but doesn’t exactly match with what’s written. Now I don’t consider that a bad thing. No one vision of Jesus’ life – either according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John – can be more “true” than the others. They give us a different kind of encounter with Jesus that, when pulled together, gives us a fuller picture of what God’s love is all about. It’s like if the people in our lives wanted to describe our story. The words used by our siblings, our parents, and our grandchildren wouldn’t always be the same. And it’s where those differences intersected, when we get a deeper sense of who we are. God gave us multiple encounters of Jesus in our Bibles so that we can experience him in a multi-dimensional way. And that’s important because one of those differences in Jesus’ story matters to our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew. But to see that difference, we need to go further along in Jesus’ story, to when Jesus was betrayed by his friend, arrested, and told by those in power to walk and carry the Cross.

Now this part of Jesus’ story is usually reserved for Good Friday. After the governing authorities pronounced Jesus guilty, they forced Jesus to walk through the city and head up a small hill just outside the city’s walls. The Romans, worried that this so-called revolutionary might lead a riot when the city was full of religious pilgrims, forced Jesus to carry the device that would kill him. In our wider Christian tradition, there’s a prayer service called the stations of the Cross – that describes the traditions around Jesus’ long walk. He wept, he cried, and he reached out to some in the crowd. But this walk to the hill known as the place of the skull – is not the same in all four gospels. In the words of Edith Humphrey, while quoting C.S. Lewis, “in John’s gospel, Jesus bears his own cross. He is the only one who does not cling to his prerogative as God – ‘the representative Die-er of the Universe.’” But in the other three gospels, including Matthew, a previously unknown character from the island of Cyrene named Simon, was forced to pick up Jesus’ cross and carry it to the hill. Matthew doesn’t give us any more information about his part in the story. All we know is that Simon lost the privilege of watching Jesus’ story unfold from a distance. He became an active participant in what God was up to in the world. It’s as if, for Matthew, we don’t get the luxury of letting Jesus go to the Cross on his own. The work he does is work only he can do. But we don’t get to run away from those pieces of wood. Jesus’ willingness to experience every part of life – including death – means that we have to, too. We don’t get to run from life. Instead, we get to live through it. And as we do, through our baptism and through our faith, we participate in what Jesus is already doing in the world. In a word, we get to love – because the Cross is our story too. 

So when Jesus says – take up your Cross – he’s not zeroing in on the things that annoy you about yourself. He’s also not saying that your illness, pain, or disability is something that you have to overcome before you get to know his love. You are wonderfully and beautifully made – worth every dignity and every grace. Suffering doesn’t define what’s loved and what’s not. Rather, the love God has for you – is what holds you when the pain gets to be too much. The Cross we are called to raise up, to hold and to carry on our shoulders, is a Cross that always leads to new life. But when that life happens to look a little bit like the one we already know – Jesus promises that it’s different because it’s filled with a holy presence that refuses to let our world – and ourselves – be declared as anything but loved. 

And that love looks a lot like the love described in Paul’s letter to the Christian community in Rome. It’s a love that isn’t a noun but rather a verb; one that moves and breathes through our life, impacting everything that we do. It’s a love that isn’t afraid to do hard things or one that waits for everyone else to do the work first. The love we’re given is a love that gets its hands dirty in the life we actually live. Jesus isn’t interested in the life we project to others – that one that looks good on Christmas cards, social media, or one that has fireworks at the end of the day. Jesus is much more interested in loving you – as you are – especially when you are feeling alone. Because those moments are the nuanced moments of our lives. They’re the places where different perspectives and understanding collide – revealing deeper truth about ourselves. It’s in those places where we admit the ways we are broken – and that we’re not as strong as we want others to think we are. It’s there where we, instead, own our vulnerabilities, admit our fears, and realize that we’re too quick to categorize our enemies. Our list of enemies usually are not recorded in some real- life version of the Mean Girl’s “Burn Book.” But if we find ourselves nodding along to posts in our social media feeds or segments on cable news that use quotation marks around the names other people call themselves, that spend all their time focused on the hypocrisy of others, who claim that we’re always on the winning side, and who feed us fear at the expense of hope – then we’ve already identified who are enemies are. It’s in those nuanced places where we see how small we want love to actually be. We have no problem with a love that exists for us and for our friends – but the love of God is just too big. And it has to be – because it’s love that says even you – with your small vision of love – is worth everything to God. And since you are worth that much, we get to love others as much as God loves us. 

That kind of love isn’t easy. And it’s often a love we don’t want to give. We’re told to welcome strangers – and we’re not allowed to limit what that welcome can mean. We’re also told to share in all joys and in all pain  – which will require us to sit and listen to stories that might reveal how we might have been part of the problem. We’re told to not show off our power but to use what we have so that all – including those we don’t want to associate with – can thrive. And if that’s not hard enough – we’re also called to provide a feast for our enemies regardless of how they first treat us. This kind of love is a love that knows Crosses are real. It’s a love that admits that suffering, hardship, and sadness are a very real part of life. But when the brokenness of this world becomes a little too real, the love of Christ that feeds our souls is a love that isn’t afraid to make the sacrifices needed for hope to reign. We, as individuals, are people with unique stories, experiences, and realities. There is no one perspective or point of view about who we are that sum up the mysterious nuanced corners of our lives. But it’s in those corners, I think, where Jesus’ story intersects with our own. And when it does, we get to pick up the Cross – not to save the world – but to love it more deeply because Christ has already come. He’s already lived, died, and was raised – because your life is worth nothing less. And since your life is worth so much – we get to love just as much – and to work for the benefit of all. Or, to sum up the call of love described by Paul, we get to lose what we think life is to instead live the new life that Christ has already given to us. 

Amen.

“A disciple is not above the teacher nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

“So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.^[a] Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

“Everyone, therefore, who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven, but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Matthew 10:24-39 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 4th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (June 21, 2020) on Matthew 10:24-39.

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This reading from the gospel according to Matthew  – is a bit weird. And I think it’s okay to say that. On a day when some of us will be celebrating Father’s Day, we just heard Jesus talk about sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, turning against each other. We’re also two days from the celebration of Juneteeth –   a holiday marking the moment when enslaved African-Americans in Texas received word that the victorious Union army had declared them free. The legacy of slavery and the impact of racism in our country is being contested almost daily in protests all over the country – and yet we hear Jesus use the language of master and slave which sounds different for us today. It’s also a bit odd to hear the word Beelzebub – which I’m pretty sure I’m mispronouncing. And finally the words Jesus used to describe himself – as one who doesn’t bring peace but, instead, a sword – doesn’t really match the Prince of Peace that we celebrate on Christmas. So what do we do with this collection of sayings that might leave us feeling unsettled and confused? 

Well – the first thing we should do, I think, is to acknowledge the weirdness. The Bible isn’t always going to make us feel comfortable. The Bible is a collection of words from God that actually does something to us. And part of that doing is going to make us feel weird. We’re going to be uncomfortable. We’re going to feel convicted by the text in some ways. Part of our job as followers of Jesus is to be honest about what Jesus’ words are doing to us. We can say that his words about familial bonds troubles us or that we’re confused by what he means about taking up the Cross and following him. We can also admit that it’s more than just one word or phrase in the text that’s making us feel this way. It could be that our lives, caught up in whatever we’re experiencing, is struggling to see the good news Jesus brings. We’re supposed to share with ourselves and others when following Jesus is hard. And we shouldn’t just ignore what we’re feeling or try and hide behind a different text that sounds a bit nicer. 

Instead, we can use what we’re experiencing as a way to enter the text in a deeper way. If we’re struggling with Jesus’ words – there’s a good chance Jesus’ first followers struggled with those words too. The weirdness we’re feeling invites us to put Jesus’ words back into context – into the narrative of Matthew itself – while also wondering how these words would have sounded to the early disciples. These sayings from Jesus, that sound a bit disjointed and maybe like they don’t really go together, are a continuation of the message Jesus began last week. Jesus gathered together his imperfect disciples – the ones who would eventually deny him, betray him, and abandon him on the Cross – to go out, and do the things Jesus did. They would tell others about Jesus while living out what it means for God’s kingdom to come near. They would heal anyone in need; cast out every demon that fosters pain and suffering at the expense of connection and love; and they would offer hope to all who feel hopeless. Jesus’ knew that their mission wouldn’t be easy. Too often, we are suspicious and threatened by the call to live and love out loud because it forces us to admit that what we’re doing now isn’t always right. The status quo is not God’s kingdom. Rather, it’s just something that we’re used to. We’ve learned, over time, how to at least exist in this specific moment in time. But living for this moment does not mean we’re living for God’s moment. And so there’s a cost that comes with following Jesus – and today’s words give voice to what that cost might look like. 

And what I see in this passage is tension. The family relationships described in verses 35 through 37 are pretty specific. They reflect words shared by the prophet Micah and they name the core relationships at the center of what a family looked like in the ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman world. The ideal back then wasn’t the nuclear family we idealize now. Families were more extensive and the family’s health was seen as the foundation necessary for a good life. Jesus’ words pierced the cultural realities that people used to define who they are. And he didn’t need a real sword to do that. All he needed was his presence; his actions; and his words. Jesus doesn’t come into our life to merely pat ourselves on the back as we keep living the life we’ve always lived. His relationship with us is too busy transforming us – shifting our priorities and our vision of who we are. It’s a transformation that names sin and how we live as if our own point of view is the true center of the universe. It’s a transformation that shows us that there is a God and we’re not it. Jesus gives us a new life where God can be at the center of who we are. It’s a life that we’ll never fully reach during our time on Earth. But it is a vision we get to live into – a tension we embrace – because Jesus is here – and the world is changing because he’s already a part of it.

And it’s changing not because we are perfect or wonderful or always on the right side of history. It’s changing because God just loves. We often read this passage, especially the warning about loving father and mother more than God, as a description of what our priorities should be. We end up creating for ourselves a hierarchy of love – where our love is doled out based on a descending list. As we sketch out what this hierarchy should look like, we put God at the top – and then, as we move down the page, we add children and spouses – parents and families – cousins and best friends – and then maybe a catch-all term for everyone else in the world. But what does that hierarchy of love actually look like? How do we put it into practice? We could define that love through what we do – making each level of hierarchy a reference to what we might do for them. For the stuff near the top, we might choose to listen to them, support them, and offer them a place to stay in their time of need. They would get our love first – while the others, near the bottom, would get whatever we had left over. But if God is at the top – have you done for God what you have already done for your parents, for your children, for your friends, and even your neighbors down the street? 

In the words of Lewis Donelson, “hierarchies of love work only on paper.” Because an absolute expression of love – is just love. Love can be expressed in different ways – but love, as God wants us to love, isn’t always quantifiable. Love is love is love. “[And] when we love our [children; our parents; or our chosen family], we love them absolutely. We do not rank them on a descending list.” The love we express in our relationships – that kind of love that isn’t a transaction but rather an expression of wholeness and hope – that love is at the heart of who God is – and that is the love we are called to share with the world. 

Following Jesus isn’t easy because it asks us to lean into a love that doesn’t just change other people’s lives; it also changes our own. It’s a love that admits hard truths; it’s a love that knows our sin; and it’s a love that will show us we were wrong. The love of God and path of Jesus challenges the status quo – including our understanding of family, community, and who is valued and who is not. And this challenge is going to make it hard to love like God wants us too. But – we are called to make our reverent, life-giving, and loving best guess in everything that we do because we’re not doing this on our own. We have, with us and for us, a God who knows every strand of hair we have – or had – on our head. And this same God, in Jesus, went to the Cross to show us what a love that does not end. Jesus has already changed the world because he lived in it; he died for it; and he now lives again through a body that includes even us. We get to do the hard work of following Jesus because he doesn’t have a hierarchy of love. Instead, he just loves – and that love already includes me and you. 

Amen.

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff, for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

“I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Sibling will betray sibling to death and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in this town, flee to the next, for truly I tell you, you will not have finished going through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

Matthew 9:35—10:23

My sermon from the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost (June 14, 2020) on Matthew 9:35—10:23.

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In 1863, a new kind of ad started appearing in newspapers across the country. The ads were simple – boxes of text, submitted by people who either paid to have them published or relied on the generosity of the publishers to print them. These ads showed up in newspapers across the country, including The Christian Record, The Colored Tennessean, The New Orleans Republican, and The Washington Times. And these news ads started to appear while the Civil War was still raging across the Eastern United States. The recent signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the movements of the Union Army, had led to a number of formerly enslaved African-Americans creating new lives in refugee camps and in places far from where they were formerly enslaved. They carried with them the scars and the memories of what their life used to be like. So some began putting ads in newspapers seeking information about where their family members were. In 2017, a project called “Last Seen” was put together by Vanderbilt University and Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia. Their goal was to digitize and transcribe these kinds of newspaper ads. They first looked at ads from six newspapers and, over a 45 year period, they found over 900 people looking for their family and friends. That number grew as more newspapers were looked at. After a year, the project ended with over 3500 ads in its database. The ads were published from 1863 through the early 1900s. And some of them are pretty heartbreaking to read. One ad from 1866 reads: “Mrs. Elizabeth Williams, who now resides in Marysville, California was formerly owned together with her children, vis: Lydia, William, Allen and Parker, by one John Petty, who lived about six miles from the town of Woodbury, Franklin County, Tennessee. At the time she was the wife of Sandy Rucker, and was familiarly known as Betsy – sometimes called Betsy Petty. About twenty-five years ago, the mother was sold to Mr. Marshal Stroud, by whom, some twelve or fourteen years later, she was, for the second time since purchased by him, taken to Arkansas. She has never seen the above named children since. Any information given concerning them, however, will be gratefully received by one whose love for her children survives the bitterness and hardship of many long years spent in slavery.”

We sometimes imagine that the Civil War was a long time ago. But these ads appeared during the same century many of us were born in and during the lives of our grandparents and parents. Slavery was a system where African-Americans did not have a say in the violence that was done to their bodies and to their relationships. It was designed to destroy families; to obliterate people’s histories; and to break apart every relationship a person had. Slavery was a system of violence that assaulted every part of a person’s heart, will, and soul. Yet individuals and communities refused to let what happened to them – a violence that was legal, constitutional, and supported by those in authority – to have the final say in who they were. Instead, they chose to reach out; to hold onto their histories; and to always be truthful about what happened to them while not letting that evil be the end of their story.

Today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew is pretty harsh. It describes a world that is oppressive and scary. We hear Jesus talk about wolves, acts of betrayal, family members turning against each other, and other acts of violence. We might want to act as if Jesus is only talking about the so-called “other’ – to people who don’t look or sound like us. But Jesus was busy describing communities that disciples knew and were already a part of. They were going to visit towns filled with people who spoke their language, who looked like them, ate like them, and who worshipped in the Temple like they did. And Jesus was calling them to go out into the world and do the very things Jesus was already doing.

Yet we know that these disciples weren’t always the most faithful, the most generous, or the most holy. And sometimes they were really bad at following Jesus. For example, Peter would eventually deny even knowing Jesus while Judas would be the one who turned Jesus in to the authorities. The tax collectors in their group had a different relationship with these communities because their job made them close with the Romans who occupied and controlled the land. Their profession needed that Empire to continue – while Simon the Cananaean, was probably a zealot – a revolutionary who did everything he could to make the Roman occupation end. The disciples were a ragtag group of people who were not perfect, fully faithful, or without doubts. Yet they were the ones Jesus called and made part of his mission in the world. The truth about who the disciples were – the fullness of their imperfect story – was not the final determinant of who they were. Instead, they would proclaim that the kingdom of heaven was near. They would cure the sick; raise the dead; and cast out every kind of demon. The disciples would embody and live out a different truth that knew that God’s love for the world was made tangible in the presence of Jesus. And that Jesus would, in the end, be at the heart of who they were.
But the truth about Jesus is also an opportunity for us to admit the truths about us and our world. It’s why, on this Sunday, we’re remembering the Emanuel 9 – who chose to proclaim and surround themselves with God’s word while offering hospitality to the one who killed them. It’s why we remember that their killer grew up in an ELCA church, attended Sunday School, Confirmation Classes, and heard sermons on our call to love our neighbors as ourselves. And yet he still made white supremacy the primary story of his life. It’s why we can be honest that we live in a society where racism is real and that African-Americans continue to be denied opportunities because of the color of their skin. That reality is documented in countless statistics, from wealth inequality to incarceration rates to even health outcomes. This racism shows up in unexpected places – like healthcare of mothers – and how black women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. It doesn’t matter how rich or educated these women are. If they are black, their outcomes are worse – because of old racist attitudes about standards for pain and healthcare that still exist. These attitudes don’t just appear in thin air. They are passed down and taught through our culture and the stories we choose to tell. We, as a community, say that certain stories matter more than others – and we see that in our retelling of the Civil War. Growing up, the stories I heard centered on battles, soldiers, generals, and the so-called notion of “states rights.”

I never heard about the ads from formerly enslaved people who showed us how slavery did everything it could to destroy who they were. We choose to focus on the people we put onto pedestals – rather than on the violent institution of slavery which, through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movements, and even today – still impacts people, communities, churches, and our nation. I wonder what our communities would be like today if we had chosen stories that focused more truly on this harder truth.

Yet – even though this hard truth is part of who we are – it’s not the only truth about what we can become. Because, as we hear in our reading today, Jesus reminds his disciples that God’s kingdom has come. God, through Jesus, is already in our world – telling a new story centered in justice, reconciliation, and love. In our baptism, and in our faith, we are connected to Jesus who is already moving in our world and giving us a different truth that should be at the center of our story. He also promises to equip us so that we can admit hard truths that will impact our view of ourselves, our families, and our communities. And that truth-telling lets us be bearers of peace into troubled communities that are sick and full of all kinds of demons. Through Jesus, we get to be Jesus to all kinds of people. And we do this not because we are perfect, wonderful, and always faithful. Rather, we do this because we are Jesus’ disciples – imperfect people that proclaim that life can be experienced in a different way.

Out of the 3594 ads listed on “Last Seen,” only 16 describe reunions that happened. In one of those announcements, a daughter who was one month old when her mother was sold to someone else, found her almost 31 years later. I don’t know if that story of reconnection was normal or very unique. But I know we can, together, choose to live as if reconciliation, hope, and love is what God’s kingdom is all about. Jesus is already active in our world, offering a perfect love that we struggle with. Yet we get to live as if God’s kingdom is here – and that God’s truth is actually true. Together, we proclaim that God is present; that the Spirit is active in the world; and that Jesus has already been among us, showing us the truth about who we are, and yet, through the Cross, saving us from ourselves. Jesus has already chosen you to be part of his ragtag and imperfect team meant to bring love, mercy, and hope into the world. This is a mission we‘re already a part of. It’s a mission Jesus is already living out. It requires us to name and express hard truths that will trouble us. Yet those hard truths will help us see a more righteous truth – that God loves you; that God loves your neighbor; that God loves the world – and those truths are ones we can truly live out.

Amen.

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:
“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
    humble and mounted on a donkey,
        and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Matthew 21:1-11 (NRSVue)

My sermon from Palm & Passion Sunday (April 5, 2020) on Matthew 21:1-11.

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I don’t usually include props in my sermon but since you’re zoomed in right now, I figured today could be a little different. Before I sat here, I stopped by our church’s utility closet to pick something up. A utility closet is where we store stuff that we use at the church to make sure it stays clean and safe. And our closet is, thanks to the Property Committee, really well organized. It’s full of extension cords, paint rollers, screwdrivers, screws, paper towels, and this – toilet paper. Now toilet paper has been in the news recently because everyone seems to be buying it and no store seems to have it. A few nights ago, someone posted in one of my town’s many facebook groups that the local grocery store had just put out a pallet full of toilet paper. People, of course, were excited and they quickly shared their excitement by leaving comments on the post. Some people thanked the person who shared and then headed to the store. Others made jokes and posted funny pictures. Still more left comments lamenting our current situation. And then there additional people wondering why so many people were hoarding toilet paper that they didn’t need. Those last comments are one of the stories we’ve been telling ourselves constantly over this last month. When we go to the store and see barren shelves, we wonder what it is that other people are doing and why there’s nothing there for us. Toilet paper has, in many ways, become a symbol of the moment we’re living in right now. There are pizza shops where, when you order a pizza, they give you a roll of toilet paper. And there are jokes all over the internet where toilet paper has become like another form of currency. Every time a roll of TP shows up in a store or online, it’s not long before the story about other people hoarding supplies pops up. But – I’m not sure if the story about TP is really the story we’re telling. Because the shortage we see at stores is because our wider story has changed. We’re now spending most of our time at home and we no longer need our offices or schools to be stocked full of paper products. The companies that kept those places full of what they needed were not designed to cater to the ways we live at home. Rarely, if ever, is a roll of toilet paper in someone’s home the size of a hubcap. Yet that’s the standard size we see in offices, buildings, and at school. The paper companies that serve business and schools usually do not serve the consumers at home. So when we made the choice to stay at home because we wanted to keep other people safe, what changed was our entire story. The system we use to keep our stores stocked with all kinds of paper products was not designed for the story we’re currently living in. 

One of the things that struck me about today’s story from the gospel according to Matthew is the very last question that we hear. As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the entire city wondered out loud: “who is this?” This moment is unique to Matthew and it hints at his vision of this moment being sort of this large and over-the-top kind of moment. The passage began with Jesus doing a slightly excessive thing, and asking for 2 animals to be brought to him rather than just one. And then, as he rode the donkey into the city, a large crowd led the way. People climbed trees to break off branches so they could wave them in the air. And still more took off their cloaks and jackets, throwing them onto the dirt road, so that no dust could be kicked up and obscure this over-the-top sort of moment. The crowds that surrounded Jesus kept shouting the words “Hosanna” and named Jesus as the son of David – and the one who comes in the name of the Lord. In Matthew’s version of this story, Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem is anything but quiet. The crowd is large and the shouts even larger. News about his arrival quickly floods the city and overwhelms whatever else was going on. No longer was the city of Jerusalem preoccupied by its everyday story. Jesus’ arrival changed that. Instead, the city seethed in confession by the arrival of this person and this movement that came from somewhere else. And Matthew lets the entire city speak out loud – as it wonders just who this Jesus is. 

That question – who is Jesus – has been our question this entire season of Lent. Each week, we’ve spent time during the sermon thinking about that moment when Jesus felt very real to us. Using that moment as the source of our faith story, we’ve been working on how to share that story with others. And we did that by finishing a series of sentences. We started by setting the stage for our story with the sentence: “Once upon a time there was…” We then kept our story going by describing a part of what our normal life was life by finishing the sentence “And every day…” But then Jesus showed up – and we noticed it right away or only saw it later, when we looked back at our life and realized that Jesus had been a part of it for a very long time. So we then added to our faith story by finishing the sentence “Until one day…” “And because of that…” our life shifted and changed. Last week, we described how that change sort of climaxed in our lives by finishing the sentence “Until finally…” Yet we know that the climax of the story isn’t the end of it. Rather, it’s the start of a new moment in our lives when the story that we tell becomes fully part of who we are. This pandemic that we’re living through wasn’t one that any of us planned for. We didn’t want it to come. We didn’t want it to impact Bergen County, our friends, our neighbors, and even ourselves as much as it has. We, together, have no idea when it will end. And we’re not sure when we’ll be able to go to the store again and be greeted by a mountain of toilet paper that we can freely buy. There’s a lot to our current story that we don’t know. But – there’s something we can add to that story by focusing on the question the city shouted out in today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew. When the city asked the question, they actually received an answer. And though the answer stated in the Bible is important – what I’m more struck by is who it is that does the answering. It’s not just the disciples who answer who Jesus is. Nor is it only specific people – those who knew him his entire life, or those he healed, or those he fed with a few loaves of bread and fishes. Rather, it’s the crowd – the entire crowd – that gets to answer. That crowd wasn’t made up of only one kind of person. It was diverse – filled with people of all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of experiences. Each one of them, if you asked them who Jesus was, would have given different answers based on their personal experiences of Jesus Christ. Yet, together, their stories pointed to a wider story – that Jesus was someone who made a difference in their lives. The Jesus who came to us in our baptism, in our faith, and in that moment that we’re trying to share right now – is still here. He’s still with you. And he’s still an active part of your life as you learn to live into this new story of pandemic, barren shelves, and looking for rolls of toilet paper. So as we finish this Lenten series on telling our story – I invite you to reflect on what your life was like after Jesus was real to you. What new story did you find yourself living out? And then finish this sentence: “And ever since then…” 

Amen.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. ² He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished. ³ The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” ⁴ But he answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

⁵ Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, ⁶ saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
    and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
⁷ Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”

⁸ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, ⁹ and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
    and serve only him.’ ”
¹¹ Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Matthew 4:1-11 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the First Sunday in Lent, (March 1, 2020) on Matthew 4:1-11.

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One of the quirks of today’s story from the gospel according to Matthew is that we never hear why the devil chose this moment to tempt Jesus. There’s no flashback scene showing us the many ways the devil and Jesus didn’t get along. And there aren’t even a few words giving us insight into the devil’s planning for this moment. All we know is that after Jesus was baptized, God’s Spirit led him into the wilderness. Now, if we were writing this story, we might want to make the characters’ motivation more explicit. We could, for example, start our version of the story before the world was even made – and include some great battle between good and evil. Jesus and the devil would, at some point, stare at each other and then fight, sharing a few one-liners that would make any Marvel Superhero Movie proud. After the initial fight, we would then see the devil always lurking in the background. But we would also try to make it clear why the devil went after Jesus as an adult instead of, say, when Jesus was 9 or 10. We would make each temptation connected to the back Jesus and the devil both shared and each one would feel more personal and deadly than the last. I’m pretty sure that if we were the ones telling this story, we would use way more words than Matthew did. Because telling stories and making them come alive for others is actually hard. Storytelling is something that we can all do but it’s a skill that takes time for us to develop. And one of the core elements in storytelling – focusing on what’s central – isn’t always an easy thing to suss out. 

So that makes me wonder, what do you think is central in this temptation of Jesus story? Now, I plan to share what I think is central but before that, I want you to answer that question for yourself. If you had to make this story real for someone else – where would your focus be? 

[pause]

Now, if you didn’t come up with an answer, that’s okay. Because, like I said, storytelling is hard.  And there’s a lot of things in this story about Jesus that we could make the center. It would be helpful if we had a model for storytelling that we could easily use to re-tell this Jesus story. Lucky for us, we see storytelling at work everyday. And some of these storytellers, we pay lots of money to watch their movies, buy their t-shirts, and own their toys. One of those kinds of storytellers that’s popular in my house is the animation studio Pixar. Since 1995, they’ve made some of the most popular movies in the world including Cars, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Coco. Their use of computer animation is pretty unique and defines their signature styles. But they also have a pattern they follow when it comes to telling their stories. And this method of storytelling that is what makes their movies about what toys do when we’re not looking or what jobs the monsters in our closets have – actually work. From what I’ve been told, their format follows a basic six part outline. It begins with: “Once upon a time there was…” They then expand their  initial environment by adding “And every day…” But then something happens and they move into “Until one day…” The story then cycles through its ups and downs by repeating the phrase “And because of that…” over and over again. Eventually, the story then moves towards a resolution with “Until finally…” The story ends not with “and happily ever after,” but it sets up for a sequel with: “And ever since then…” This six part outline of telling a story is something we’ll spend time doing during Lent. And since today is the First Sunday in Lent, let’s focus on that first part: “Once upon a time there was…” 

Because that opening, I think, is what sets the tone for what’s central in the story. It helps reveal the characters, the setting, and gives hints at what’s possible. Today’s reading from Matthew isn’t at the start of the book but the devil, I think, knows what’s central to the entire story. And the tempter revealed why he reached out to Jesus now by repeating the same phrase at the start of the first two temptations. Although it’s possible to act as if the tempter was asking a real question when they said “if you are the Son of God,” I find the tempter’s words in that moment to be way more sarcastic. The tempter knew who Jesus was because, right before this moment, Jesus was publicly identified by God as God’s Son during baptism. That declaration wasn’t hidden and it wasn’t meant only for the crowd gathered around Jesus that day.  It was a word that made Jesus the center of the world’s story – and so, in response, the forces that wanted to be at the center instead, had to respond. The temptations, I don’t think, were not the central element of this story. Rather, it was Jesus himself. The tempter wanted to challenge Jesus’ own self-understanding. By poking at his very identity, the tempter was hoping Jesus would stumble. Instead of keeping himself at the center of the story, the tempter tried to make personal desires, a sense of self-importance, and the lust of power and control, be that focus instead. The devil knew Jesus’ story would end if there was anything else that stood at its center. But Jesus, instead, refused to let anything else stand in the place where he belonged. 

Yet I’m pretty sure we’re all familiar with what it’s like to live lives where isn’t always at the center. We can get so wrapped up in the busyness of our lives that we end up giving permission to something else to define the heart of who we are. This shifting away from Jesus is something we can choose to do – but this shift also happens without our being aware it has. It sort of sneaks up on us and we find ourselves living lives where self-interest, personal desires, and power over others defines the choices we make as individuals and as a community. Instead of living in love, we live in fear. Instead of taking a risk and showing mercy, we ignore those in need. Instead of staying open to the diversity within the body of Christ and in our world, we close ranks around those who already think, believe, and act like we do. We think Jesus is at the center of our story – but we end up putting our trust, focus, and identity into everything else. 

Today’s story, I think, is less about avoiding temptation and more about keeping Jesus at the center of our story. It’s the belief that the story of who we are cannot be fully told unless the Jesus who claimed us in baptism and in faith is part of the story we tell. And we need to learn – and relearn – how to tell it. Our faith story is exactly that – our own. It doesn’t have to be as big and wild as a Pixar movie to be meaningful and true. Instead, it just needs to be ours – honest, authentic, and that names the moments when Jesus felt present and when he didn’t. Our faith story, as we grow, will change and evolve. But by telling the story, we give witness to the truth that Jesus refuses to give up on us, no no matter how many other things we make central. So, this Lent, let’s learn how to re-tell your faith story. Think about your faith and that moment when Jesus became real to you. It could start with a parent, a grandparent, or yourself. It could involve a specific place, a specific time of your life, or a specific experience you had. Start thinking about who Jesus is to you – and let’s have the Pixar model of storytelling help you tell your Jesus story. And we can start by using that space in the back of the bulletin by my reflection to finish that sentence: “Once upon a time there was…”

Amen. 

²⁰ So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. ²¹ For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

6 As we work together with him, we entreat you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. ² For he says,
“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
    and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”

Look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation! ³ We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, ⁴ but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: in great endurance, afflictions, hardships, calamities, ⁵ beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; ⁶ in purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, ⁷ truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; ⁸ in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors and yet are true, ⁹ as unknown and yet are well known, as dying and look—we are alive, as punished and yet not killed, ¹⁰ as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything.

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 (NRSVue)

My sermon from Ash Wednesday (February 26, 20202) on 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10.

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When I read the Bible for myself, I read it assuming it was written seriously. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t parts of the Bible that are absurd, silly, shocking, or funny. But in my head, I imagine that when the words for the Bible were first written down, the physical act of writing happened in a reverent and serious way. The original authors who recorded or wrote these words probably didn’t know they were crafting scripture that would last thousands of years but I think they must have known they were writing something holy and important. When I read the Bible, I assume the reverence I bring to the text is something the original authors experienced too.

But my assumption is just that: an assumption. And sometimes a text comes along like tonight’s reading from 2 Corinthians that needs more than just reverence. The text needs passion and energy and a little theatrics because that’s probably how Paul composed this text nearly 2000 years ago. He was caught up in a pattern of writing letters back and forth with a Christian community he founded in the Greek city of Corinth. From what we can tell, Paul had established a shop in Corinth’s marketplace as a kind of leather worker. As people came to his shop to place orders for the different things he could make, he talked to them and eventually shared who he knew Jesus to be. Through persistence, grace, and a lot of help from the Holy Spirit, a group of maybe two dozen people started gathering together for worship and prayer. Paul stayed maybe 18 months before moving on to a new city. But his relationship to the Corinthian community continued. And it wasn’t long before the community started to split into different cliques. People argued about who had the right understanding of Jesus and they started valuing people based on the amount of spiritual gifts they had. These disagreements got so intense that people stopped worshipping together and they kept only to their friends. As these splits grew, someone finally wrote to Paul asking for his thoughts. We don’t have the letters that were written to Paul but we do have Paul’s responses – and they were eventually arranged into what we know as First and Second Corinthians. These two books were his actual responses to actual people trying to figure out what it actually means to follow Jesus Christ, together. Paul didn’t think he was writing the Bible. Instead, he was addressing people who were trying to embody the grace God had already given them.

And since this grace was embodied, we should see Paul’s words in this letter as embodied too. Because he didn’t physically put these words on paper or vellum. Instead, he probably hired a scribe to write down these words as he said them. So instead of imagining Paul, a Jewish scholar sitting in a quiet room, writing a letter in the most reverent way possible; it’s better to see Paul speaking and how he became more animated as he spoke. He was, most likely, walking around the room and gesturing wildly with his hands. And when he got to the middle of verse 2, he exploded with energy because he knew what it was like to hold onto hope even in the middle of hopeless moments. We can almost hear him speaking faster and faster as he connected so many different and competing experiences with one another. His words rolled off the tongue because he was giving voice to what his life with Jesus was all about. It wasn’t a life that was easy or simple or that focused on his being comfortable. Rather, it was a life that lived into everything it was given because it trusted in a promise: a promise that our life is not evaluated only by our health, wealth, age, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, social class, or any of those things we use to keep our communities apart. Rather, our value is defined by God – and God loves you.

But God doesn’t only love the best version of you or the version of you that’s always reverent all the time. God loves all of you – including the parts that are over-the-top, passionate, and full of theatrics. God loves the parts of you that you do not like; the parts that don’t work like they should; and all those things that you push off to tomorrow when they really should be taken care of today. God’s love isn’t reserved for the best version of who God wants us to be. God loves you. And it’s a love that makes a difference in the world – and in you.
Because for our sake, God moved into this world. And in a verse Paul might have rushed through as he geared up for the high energy of verse 2 and beyond, Paul revealed what his experience of Jesus was all about. He knew Jesus as a gift – a gift of love because God came to us. This gift wasn’t something Paul earned after he was already the faithful person God wanted him to be. Rather, Jesus came to him as love incarnate first because that’s just what Jesus does. This love isn’t meant only for our comfort or to make us feel better about ourselves. Rather, God’s love comes with an energy, passion, and theatrics of all its own. Jesus moves us into a new reality where the love we receive becomes the love we give. And this love, like Jesus’ himself, knows no bounds.

The love God gives us is a love that is always honest about who we are. It doesn’t run away from our faults, our fears, and the ways we don’t love each other like we should. It doesn’t ignore the ways we, as a community, sometimes limit who we offer love too – holding back from those who might not act, or think, or carry themselves in the ways we think they should. This love also doesn’t ignore the ways our wider community- the neighborhoods, towns, state, and nation we call home – acts as if this love from God is, someone, limited. We have no problem saying that Jesus’ love is for us but then we act as if God’s love stops there, letting us remain as we are instead of seeing how God’s love transforms us into something more.

Which is why, I think, we celebrate events like Ash Wednesday. It’s why we will use ashes in just a few minutes to remind us exactly who we are. Yet we are also different because we are marked by the sign of the cross. We do these things, as a community, so that we can help one another realize that Jesus has inserted himself into our lives, helping us be the more generous, more inclusive, more compassionate, more merciful, and more loving people God knows we can be. The love we feel and the love we give is not only for our own personal benefit but it’s also meant to be, like Jesus, a gift given for the world. There will be times when we’ll need to be reverent, serious, and all that those words means. But there are other moments when the love we give needs to be animated and full of energy. We are not the keepers of God’s love. We are the ones called to give that love away. And so tonight, as we remember the whole truth about who we are – we will also remember the new truth that God’s love says about us. And how, through Jesus, God’s love is made visible in our reverent and not-so-reverent lives.

Amen.

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵ People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:13-20 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 5th Sunday after Epiphany (February 9, 2020) on Matthew 5:13-20.

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So I want to start today’s sermon by highlighting something I’ve been doing these last few weeks that’s sort of grown into an unintentional sermon series. Two weeks ago, I asked all of us to imagine different superheroes and the places that made them who they are. We talked about Batman and the City of Gotham, Superman and Metropolis, and even Black Panther and Wakanda. Those places shaped those superheroes were and we are shaped by our places too. Last week, I started by asking all of us to imagine just how loud the Temple in Jerusalem would have been when Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus engaged in some of the rituals of their Jewish identity. Our expectation that holy sites should be serene and quiet probably didn’t match the actual experience of worshippers in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Instead, the noise and bustle of the Temple pointed to the life that God’s presence brought to God’s people. And so today, I’d like us to – once again – use our faithful imagination as we engage with this text from the gospel according to Matthew. But instead of asking you to imagine being a piece of salt or being an actual city on a hill, I want to point out what I think our imagination does for us when we let it encounter the Bible. When we engage our imagination, the possibilities of where the text will take us is practically endless. The words, rather than ourselves, take the lead and we don’t assume that we already know what this passage is all about. We don’t limit the text to only be moral instruction or so-called life lessons or even details about what we’re supposed to believe. Instead, we let the Word of God meet us as we are right now. And instead of working on the text, our point of view shifts and we see how the text, and God, has already been working on us.

So let’s take a second to shift our mental gears and engage our imaginative ones. I’m going to re-read verse 13: “[Jesus said] You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” I don’t know if that verse sounded different to you than it did before. But I find that when I use my faithful imagination, I’m able to ask questions I might not have been brave enough to ask before. Usually, when we read this verse, we assume Jesus knows a lot about what salt can do. And so he must have known that salt could, while walking around the sea of Galilee, lose its taste. Yet our imagination might be emboldened to wonder if Jesus got this little snapple fact wrong. Because salt, which is just sodium chloride, can’t actually lose its saltiness. If it does, it’s no longer salt and it couldn’t be thrown onto the ground. Some have argued that the salt Jesus was referring to was of poor quality, mixed with dirt and sand and could, after time, lose its taste. But it’s also just as plausible that Jesus was maybe purposefully describing something impossible but used words that invited us deeper into his story. It’s kind of like when someone tells you something that, at first, seems completely reasonable but then later, when you actually think about it, makes you go “what?” The absurdity we didn’t see at first ends up pulling us in. And we wonder where Jesus is taking us next.

Now the transition from salt to light to city to lamp is a little jumbled but there’s an opening here that fits our use of faithful imagination. We shouldn’t only focus on visualizing ourselves to be lit up like a lighthouse, seeing ourselves as a revealing symbol to the world. Instead, we can narrow the vision for our imagination by zooming in on the bushel basket. The bushel basket Jesus had in mind was probably made out either wood or reeds woven tightly together. It would have been used regularly to collect fruits, grain, and other agricultural products and it probably wasn’t entire air-tight or fully sealed. The bushel basket was a tool that didn’t need to be perfect to get its job done. And it also wasn’t designed to be around lamps. In Jesus’ day, if you wanted light to shine without the help of the sun, you had to light something on fire. The lamps Jesus probably had in mind were little oil lamps with a wick burning an open flame. Putting a dry and wooden bushel basket over a lamp would, most likely, burn the basket up. The ordinary beauty of a lampstand lighting up an entire house does not erase the absurdity in the first half of Jesus’ words. That weirdness is right there in the text and we’re not, I think, supposed to smooth out what Jesus said. Rather, these moments might be a sign that we are witnessing Jesus’ faithful imagination at work – an imagination that reconfigures and transforms the world through God’s absurd and loving grace.

Because it takes a special kind of imagination to wonder if salt could lose its saltiness and if an easily flammable basket could cover a burning flame. An imagination that is comfortable with those kinds of absurdities is one that’s also capable of reimaging us. Instead of letting us lean into our default settings of “comfort, conformity, and complacency,” God’s holy imagination invites us to see how our actions and our inactions always have an impact. Too often we let our fears, worries, and our unwillingness to admit our wrongs, limit our imagination and what we think is possible in the world. This is manifested in the many ways we ask others to show us grace while we give them none. And how we are quick to label other people’s stories, identities, and experiences as absurd because we can’t imagine how their lives are connected to our own. We often act as if the limits we place on our own imagination come from God. Yet, as we see in our reading today, the God who has already re-imagined you as being the light of the world will not be limited by what we think that means.

Instead, God will continue to do absurd things, like giving us the grace to expand our faithful imagination. Because it’s that kind of imagination that, I think, helps us trust that the promises God made to other people God also made to us. The impossibility of salt losing its saltiness means that you, as the salt of the earth, will not lose God’s promises too. And since a flammable bushel basket will only burn brighter when it meets the lamp of God, your identity as the light of the world is a gift God has already given to you. These declarations from God are not given to us in response to something that we do. Nor are they merely affirmations of what we’re already doing. Instead, the promises of God are gifts, re-imagining us into the people God wants us to be. It’s a re-imagining that expands our limits of what it means to show mercy, to give grace, and to love. It’s a re-imagining that expands our capacity to say we’re sorry, to seek justice, and to see what we can do so that others might thrive. And it’s a re-imagining that helps us expand the imaginations of others too. As little Henry is about to hear shortly in his own public welcome into the body of Christ – we are here to let the light of God’s grace shine in all that we say and do. And that light – a promise of love, a promise of mercy, and promise that you are already part of God’s holy and life giving imagination – is a gift that we are called to freely give.

Amen.