Pentecost 13/ Lectionary 22

A sermon preached at Peace Lutheran Church, Spring Hill, TN
August 30, 2009
Pentecost 13
Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

True Story - you can't make stuff like this up. Charlotte, NC. Man bought a box of very expensive cigars. He protected his investment by taking out an insurance policy on the cigars. He insured them against; "decay, spoilage, theft and FIRE."

In the next few weeks he proceeded to smoke all of the cigars in the box.

THEN - he filed a claim with his insurance company, stating that the cigars were lost in a series of small - - -fires.

Of course, the insurance company rejected the claim, which ended up in civil court.
Even though the man admitted smoking the cigars, he won the case because, . . ."the company declared the cigars insurable property, and did insure them against fire, and the Company failed to specify what sort of fire was excluded, therefore the claim is legitimate." The man collected $15,000.

As he was leaving the courthouse, the man was arrested and charged with 24 counts of arson.

After all, he had confessed to setting ". . . the series of small fires . ." which had
caused his loss of property. He was convicted and sentenced to 24 months in jail and was fined $24,000.

Ever since God handed Moses the Ten Commandments on top of the mountain, we human beings have had a long standing debate concerning the letter and the spirit of the law. Both our text and my little cigar story point out the danger of following the letter of the LAW as a way of violating its intent.

As we think about the Gospel lesson, it is important for us to remember that Jesus was a Jew, an observant Jew, a Jew who treasured the Law of God. Jesus took the Pharisees to task for following the letter of the law while ignoring its spirit.

We Christians tend to forget that the Law was given to the children of Israel as a gift, not a burden. Thomas Cahill, in his wonderful book The Gifts of the Jews, reminds us of that fact;
. . . in the prescriptions of Jewish Law we cannot but note a presumption that all people, even slaves, are human and that all human lives are sacred.

This was something new, something unheard of in the ancient world, something that had not been seen in other religions or other codes of law. Jewish Law was a gift to the Jews and to the world; a gift to remind us that our lives are sacred and so are the lives of everyone else.

The problem that Jesus confronts in this text is that the Pharisees chose to obey the rules without remembering the relationships that lie beneath the rules.

If we are honest, we will admit that this is sometimes true of us as well.

We make religious rules that are intended to help us live together as Godly people.
Then, over time, we forget that the rules are there to help us, not to hurt us, in our relationships with each other in the community of Christ.

It's been a while since I was over at the Car Collectors Museum in Nashville. There used to be a 1918 Dodge Touring Car on display there. Its little placard told an interesting story.

In 1918, the father of Albert Hillyard bought this car for $785. In 1921, Albert and his brother got into an argument over who got to drive the car into town on Saturday Night. Their father drove the car into the garage and shut the door. There the car remained until found 38 years later, covered with dirt and chicken manure, with only 1800 miles on the Odometer."

I've thought about Mr. Hillyard and his Dodge touring Car many times over the years. He attempted to heal the breach between his children by making a rule when what was needed was reconciliation.

Papa Hillyard said, Okay, neither one of you gets too drive it!

but I'm willing to bet that the boys just went on to argue about something else, and then about something else, and then about something else. The car wasn't the problem. The problem was the jealousy and strife that lived in that family and in those brother's hearts.

So it is with all of us. Since our problem lies within our hearts the healing must also start there.

Jesus calls us to understand that it's not about the rules; it's about the relationships; the relationship between us and God; and the relationships between us and each other.

That's why Jesus says that, the things that come out are what defile.
And later for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.

Along these lines, St. Augustine said that, there is a hole in our hearts that only God can fill and also that our hearts are restless O Lord, until they rest in thee.

No amount of rules and regulations and guidelines can change our hearts. Only Gad can do that. Only God's Spirit can move us that way. Only the Cross of Christ; the broken body and spilt blood of Jesus can break our hearts enough that we will let the love of God in to change and reshape us.

Believe it or not, my first real job besides working on the farm with my family was as a daycare worker. I worked at the Community School for People Under Six in
Chapel Hill NC. Besides supervising the playground and changing diapers and serving lunch I had the great pleasure of watching Sesame Street every afternoon from four to five o'clock. Seriously, it was a great pleasure; I really liked it.

One night recently I saw a documentary on the making of Sesame Street.
Someone asked the producer about the reaction of the child actors to working with the Muppets, who are, after all, puppets with a human being crouched on the floor holding them up with one arm.

The producer said the kids don't pay any attention to the humans; they just talk to the Muppets. In fact, he said, there was one child who saw BIG BIRD take off his top half and an actor step out.

The child stared and then yelled to his mother: MOM, MOM, do you think Big Bird knows he has a man inside?

The goal of the Law is to remind us that we have a human being inside, in our hearts, in our souls, in our center of being; in that part of us that makes us something other than a thinking animal.

It is also to remind us that other people have that hidden humanity, that heart, soul, mind; that center that belongs to God, as well.

Our calling is to remember that broken center in our dealings with each other.

It is our calling to remember that we are called to transcend the rules in the name of love.

It is our calling to remember that not only did Jesus die for us, but Jesus died for everybody so that we could all be reconciled to God and to one another.

It is our calling to spread this gracious Good News throughout the world, beginning with our own hearts.

Amen and amen.

lectionary 20, Pentecost 11

It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe. (John 6:63b-64)

Again this week I have no place to preach but I have a couple of "anecdotes?" "illustrations?" "whatevers?" Here goes.

In her preface to the American edition of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves," (a surprisingly funny book about punctuation) Lynne Truss writes:

By far the oddest and most demoralizing response to my book, however, took place at a bookshop event in Piccadilly. It is a story that, if nothing else, proves the truth of that depressing adage about taking a horse to water. I was signing copies of my book when a rather bedraggled woman came up and said, despairingly, "Oh, I'd love to learn about punctuation." Spotting a sure thing (you know how it is), I said with a little laugh, "Then this is the book for you, madam!" I believe my pen actually hovered above the dedication page, as I waited for her to tell me her name.

"No, I mean it," she insisted -- as if I had disagreed with her. "I really would love to know how to do it. I mean, I did learn it at school, but I've forgotten it now, and it's awful. I put all my commas in the wrong place, and as for the apostrophe . . .!" I nodded, still smiling. This all seemed familiar enough. "So, shall I sign it to anyone in particular?" I said. "And I'm a teacher," she went on. "And I'm quite ashamed really, not knowing about grammar and all that; so I'd love to know about punctuation, but the trouble is, there's just nowhere you can turn, is there?"

This was quite unsettling. She shrugged, defeated, and I hoped she would go away. I said again that the book really did explain many basic things about punctuation; she said again that the basic things of punctuation were exactly what nobody was ever prepared to explain to an adult person. . . .

. . .Throughout the encounter, I kept smiling at her and nodding at the book, but she never took the hint. In the end, thank goodness, she slid away, leaving me to put my coat over my head and scream.
(Eats, Shoots and Leaves Lynne Truss, Gotham Books, 2003, pp. xxi-xxii)

About 15 years ago my family moved to Nashville. We lived in a three room apartment on a hill above a strip mall with a grocery store. Friday night was family night and we went to the grocery to pick out items for home made pizza and desert. This was pre-Blockbuster and the grocery store had a video section where the boys and I picked out the evening's entertainment.

One night I noticed the World War I epic "All quiet on the Western Front," shelved among the WESTERNS. I helpfully took it off the shelf and carried it up to the bored teen-ager at the counter and said, "It's an understandable mistake, but this movie isn't a western. It's about WWI and should be shelved among the dramas." And the kid took it from me and said, "Thank you very much," and placed it under the counter.

The next Friday night, and the next, and the next, this little scenario played itself out. After the third time I gave up thinking anything would change. I continued to do it for the somewhat perverse pleasure of it and as an experiment to see if anything ever would change. After 15 months we bought a house and changed grocery stores. And All Quiet on the Western Front was still nestled among the John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies.

Biblical lost and foundness

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted in a while. this is because I haven't preached in a couple of weeks, nor will I for a couple more weeks. So I am posting this article I wrote for the synod e-news, apropos of nothing exactly and everything in general.

"Biblical Lost and Foundness"

Back in March I lost my Bible. Well not really a Bible; a New Testament with Psalms. Black, about the size of a Reader's Digest magazine, held together with clear shipping tape on the pages and Duck tape on the spine, it has gone everywhere with me since 1993. Hospital rooms and Confirmation Camp; airplane rides and hotel rooms; Oxford University for Summer School of Theology and Moody's Funeral Home for my daddy's funeral; where I was it was there with me.

And then it was gone. Disappeared, vanished into thin air, or so it seemed. I had been on a two-day road trip in East Tennessee: great food from the ladies at Salem in Parrotsville as I met with the area Holston Heritage clergy, a visit to an ailing retired pastor and his wife, a meeting with Good Shepherd, Morristown and then a meeting with the council at Christ, Fairfield Glade, and then a drive through the night to home.

The next morning I sat in my home office and reached in my briefcase to get it to look up Sunday's lessons and IT WASN'T THERE. A massive hunt ensued. Dumped out the briefcase, turned out my suit coat pockets, searched the trunk and under the seats of the car. Nothing. Called all the places I'd been. I asked them to look around for it. Good Shepherd, Morristown had located my pocket edition ELW (which I could have easily lived without) but no Bible. The search reminded me of the shepherd and search for the Lost Sheep or, more exactly, the housewife searching for the Lost Coin. (Luke 15:3-10)

I did all I could. Finally I gave it up. It's not like I didn't have other Bibles, I have a whole shelf full of them. (Eighteen to be exact; I just counted.) But there was something personal about this Bible. Over the years it had become a physical symbol, almost a sacrament, of my faith life and personal struggles, and now it was gone.

I moved on as they say. I bought another small Bible to fit in my briefcase and my pocket. It's a little thicker because it has the Old Testament, but there are other reasons why it's just not the same. It's new, it's unmarked, it's a stranger; not an enemy but not yet a friend.

This experience has helped me be more sympathetic with people who resist change in the church. I confess I have often been identified as the agent of change is some congregations, "and not in a good way," as my son would say. People have resisted, some have gotten angry. They have grown attached to the old ways as I had grown attached to my old Bible. People don't adjust overnight, it takes time.

But we do change, don't we? We do adjust. We learn to cope with new realities. Because we understand that within the new wrappings is the old Gospel; just as a new and unfamiliar Bible contained the same precious words that were in my old one.

And once I had learned that lesson, God gave me my old Bible back. Donna Hoglund from Christ Church in Fairfield Glade was straightening up the library there and found it on a shelf. Someone had found it on the table where I left it and had shelved it with the other Bibles. She emailed me and then mailed it to me, and it's back in my briefcase. Thank you, Donna. And thank you, God, for old gifts in new and exciting wrappings.

Pentecost 7, Lectionary 16; July 19, 2009

PENTECOST 7, LECTIONARY 16

(This one is not exactly old and not exactly new. it's half one old one, a dash of another old one and about 40 % new.)

A sermon preached at St. James Lutheran Church, Greeneville, Tennessee.

TEXTS: Mark 6:30-34, 53 -56

TITLE: He Had Compassion

I used to love watching the TV Show Evening Shade.
It starred Burt Reynolds as a small town football coach in Arkansas.

One night the coach's two small children were leaning out the upstairs window, looking at the stars.

Little boy: I'm glad I've got you guys. It sure would be lonely without you.

Little girl: Remember Sunday School.

Boy: Remember Sunday School? What do you mean by that? Oh, yeah. You mean how God is always here so we're never alone.

Girl: Yeah, that's what I mean.

Boy: Well, I know that's right, but sometimes I just need somebody with some skin on 'em.

I think most of us know how he feels. The world can be a difficult and dangerous and lonely place.

And as comforting as it is to believe in a God in Heaven who loves us and cares about us and has a plan for our lives; sometimes you just need somebody to talk to who will talk back.

That's why the people flocked to Jesus. Sure there were those who had heard about his miracles and just wanted to see a good show.

And there were those who were there just because everybody else was there. Friday Night football in Hayesville. Listen to women talk about church and teen-agers talk about who's dating whom.

One night the Methodist preacher told me where to sit. He said, "This is the section for the real fans. The other people are just here because everybody else in town is here."

So there were the thrill seekers and the crowd seekers, but there were also the God seekers, those who had heard about Jesus; had heard about his words and his actions and had come to catch a glimpse of the Holy.

Now, Jesus and the apostles had been really busy and really needed a break. So Jesus said, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while."

They were going on retreat, on vacation, on holiday.

But it was not to be. By the time they got where they were going, a crowd had gathered.

Jesus looked at them and weighed his own and his companions' weariness against something he saw in the faces turned up at him, in the eyes of the crowd.

What was it that swayed Jesus to give up the plan to rest? I think he looked at them and saw their hunger.

Not a hunger for food, but a hunger for companionship, a hunger for community, a hunger for love, a hunger for God.

Verse 34 says, "he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd."

Compassion literally means "to feel with."

Jesus felt compassion for them because he had felt what they were feeling.

After Jesus’ Baptism, the Spirit drove him into the Wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.

There he learned what it feels like to be abandoned, deserted, alone in the universe.

He also learned what one does and does not need in a time like that.

One of his temptations was to feed the world by turning stone into bread.

There in the wilderness, Jesus realized that fixing every human hurt was not to be his mission.

People didn't need a Superman jumping to their rescue.

People needed to know that God was in the world with them, not off in heaven above and beyond them.

People needed to know that God cared, and that God wanted them to care, and to act with caring as well.

So, there in the desert, Jesus came to a momentous decision; he would purposely withhold his power, restrain himself.

Throughout his ministry opportunities for healings came to Jesus, but he didn’t go looking for them. Every time he worked a miracle it happened because of those three little words:

HE HAD COMPASSION

It’s interesting to me how many people don’t believe that, don’t believe that God is love, that God is forgiving and kind and merciful.

Too many people in the world believe that God is anxious to send us all to Hell, that God has plans to send Holy Warriors to Earth in to wipe out the evil doers in a grand final battle.

And if you don’t think a lot of people believe that, check out the popularity of the Left Behind series of novels.

That HE HAD COMPASSION, is the most important thing we can say about Jesus, and about God.

In the midst of a world in which everyone is afraid of their own shadows, and, if they believe in God at all they believe God to be either remote and uncaring, or cruel and vindictive; we in the church have been called to witness to the fact that HE HAD COMPASSION.

Brothers and Sisters, we live today in a world full of fear and war. We are afraid of rising gas prices, we are afraid of failing health care systems, we are afraid of immigration and disease and forest fires and drought and drugs, and, and, and . . .

It has been a long time since I have seen this country, and indeed the world, so depressed and sad and frightened and on edge about the future.

And into this bog of sadness and sorrow, we the church are called to imitate our Lord and find ways to break into the cycle of fear and violence with words and acts of hope and assurance, words and acts of compassion and healing.

Now, that is a mighty tall order isn’t it? What can one little church do? What can one little Christian do? In the face of all this hurt and pain, who am I?

Those must have been the sorts of questions a little Albanian nun asked herself over 50 years ago when she found herself in Calcutta, one of the worst and most hopeless places in the world.

And what she decided to do was to do what Jesus did in our story, she had compassion on the ones right in front of her. She dealt with the need she was given and did what she could.

She began to pick up the dying beggars off the streets of Calcutta and to give them a decent place to die. That was it.

She washed their wounds and their bottoms, she cleaned their sheets and their latrines.

She fed them, and bathed them and turned them on their pallets when no one else would touch them.

She had compassion, one dying person at a time.


We are called to have compassion, to preach compassion, to teach compassion, to live compassion.

We are called to break whatever rules and taboos and cultural barriers necessary to let the world know

God is not harsh,

God is not out to get them,

God is not punishing them for their sins,

God is Love,

God is steadfast, everlasting, never-ending love.

God is reaching out into the midst of our fear of death with an offer of life, of life eternal.

HE HAD COMPASSION.

He had compassion then, and he has compassion now.

Open up your hearts.

Let God love you.

Open up your arms.

And show God’s love to the world.

AMEN AND AMEN

PENTECOST 6 / LECTIONARY 15 /JULY 12, 2009

Pentecost 6, Lectionary 15
July 12, 2009
A sermon preached at the installation of the Rev. Janet Volk as pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church, Gatlinburg, TN

Texts: Amos 7: 7-15; Ephesians 1: 3-14; Mark 6:14-29

When I became an Assistant to the bishop, I realized that a lot of my preaching would be on ceremonial occasions; installations, dedications, anniversaries, etc.

I also realized that it would be possible, and easy, to write a really good generic sermon for each of those occasions; an installation sermon, a dedication sermon, etc.

But I perversely decided that I would not do that. I was determined to write a new sermon each week as I had been doing for over thirty years. I decided that whatever the occasion, if I was preaching on Sunday morning, I would preach on the appointed texts.

After reading the lessons for today, I almost changed my mind, for this week at least.

Pastor Volk; at first glance the lesson to be learned from Amos is: try to avoid getting run out of town, and the lesson from the Gospel is: try not to lose your head.

As I read these lessons a line from Mark's Gospel leapt out at me:

Verse 20: "When he (Herod) heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him."

That line reminded me of the installation service, where I ask the congregation if they will receive Pastor Volk as a "steward of the mysteries of God."

Perplexity and stewards of mysteries. It doesn't sound like normal Lutheran language does it.

We are the champions of Systematic Theology, of organizing our thoughts on the faith in clear statements that people can memorize and know.

Look in the back of the Evangelical Lutheran Worship book; there we have Theology for Children, the Small Catechism.

Look at this. This is Theology for Adults; this is the book of Lutheran Confessions, called the Book of Concord.

Seriously, if you want to be perplexed and mystified, just plunge into that one night over a hot cup of tea. Strong tea, I would suggest.

Now a lot of people get impatient with discussions of religion that plunge into mystery, that are somewhat perplexing and confusing.

We all hanker for things to be simple. I used to joke about writing a book called "Christianity for Dummies," until I saw one in a store. It was selling very well.

We want that "old time religion," which the songs says, was "good enough for Paul and Silas, so it's good enough for me."

Well, there was nothing simple about the "old time religion" of Paul. A serious look at the complex ideas and reasoning in our lesson from Ephesians will show us that.

(Read bits and pieces of Ephesians with quizzically raised eyebrows)

Part of the calling of the pastor is to risk inviting congregations out of their comfort zones,

to dare to share with them the whole counsel of God,

to ask them to grow up beyond a childish Sunday School Faith into a mature adult Faith.

Like Amos in our first lesson, Pastor Volk has been called by God to preach to God's people.

And like King Jeroboam, sometimes the things God calls her to say will not be to our liking.

And like King Jeroboam and his priest Amaziah, we might be tempted to claim the church as our place, not God's place, and claim the right to tell the preacher what to say.

For that is what happened to Amos. He spoke the truth and nobody wanted to hear it. So the priest told Amos to go way, and then, in verse 13 said this, "never again prophecy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the temple of the kingdom."

We all have to be careful on this point. This is God's house, this is God's sanctuary, this is God's temple, this is God's church. It's not your church, it's not Pastor Volk's church, it's not my church, it's not Bishop Gordy's Church, it's not the ELCA's church; it is God's Church.

In a few minutes I'm going to ask Pastor Volk if she will promise to preach and teach according to the scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. You, people of God, are to hold her to that promise and to question her when you're not sure she's doing that.

But you are also to remember it is not her calling to tickle your ears with pleasant things you want to hear; it is her calling to rightly divide the word of truth and challenge you to grow in your faith and godly actions.

Which leads us to John the Baptist losing his head?

The reason John was in jail is mentioned in the text, but it's like trying to follow the story line of a soap opera. It can get a little confusing. So let me break it down for you.

King Herod here is not the same King Herod who was around when Jesus was born. That was his Daddy, Herod the Great. This is Herod Antipas.

He was, by all accounts, not much of a man or a ruler. And this royal family's bedding and marrying habits were unconventional and messy to say the least. It really was a soap opera.

Herod Antipas had married his brother's wife. This wouldn't have been so bad, except that his brother was still living and Herod forced him to divorce Herodias so he could marry her.

And the daughter who does the dancing? Jewish historian Josephus tells us her name was Salome. She was the Herod's niece and his wife's daughter and she ended up marrying his brother, her uncle. Sounds like a bad redneck joke, doesn't it.

Into the midst of this comes John the Baptist. He surveys the whole mess and calls Herod out on issues of morality and leadership. He points out to Herod where he has failed to be a good leader to the people, both politically and in his personal life.

Herod's reaction is interesting. He has John arrested and put in jail; but protects him from his wife's revenge. She is really mad and wants John dead; but Herod is a little afraid of him.

What if he is Elijah? What if Herod does need to repent? What if God is displeased with the way Herod is leading his life?

Herod is a perplexed seeker, a dabbler in the mysteries of God. He believes just enough to keep him awake at night but not enough to change his way of living.

All too often, we are like Herod. We keep holy things in the basement of our lives; we're not willing to throw them out, but we're not really sure what to do with them. We live our lives without paying a lot of attention to the holy, to the call of God on our lives because we are perplexed as to how taking that stuff seriously might challenge us to be different than we are.

And truth be told, most of us are happy with the way we are and don't want to change; because if we really wanted to, we would.

It is Pastor Volk's calling among us to so proclaim to us the good news of Jesus Christ that we are inspired to bring our holy things up out of the basement and place them in the center of our living space.

It is her calling to speak to us the wonderful love of God in Jesus the Christ that we will repent and turn and seek to follow God's way with our entire body, mind and spirit.

It is her calling to show us in word and deed what it means to live a life centered on the Kingdom of God and not the Kingdom of self.

And it is our calling to support her in her efforts; to pray for her, to listen to her, to talk with her, to work with her, to the end that God's church, God's temple, God's sanctuary may show to all of Gatlinburg God's unending love in Christ.

Amen and amen.

PENTECOST 5, LECTIONARY 14, JULY 5, 2009

PENTECOST 5 (LECTIONARY 14)
July 5, 2009

A Sermon preached at the Installation of the Rev. Sandy Niiler as transition pastor at Christ Lutheran Church, Cullman, AL.

TEXTS: Ezekiel 2:1-5, II Cor. 12:2-10, Mark 6:1-13

TITLE: When is a Loss a Win?

My younger son is an athlete. He played a lot of ball on a lot of teams in the last 20 years. T-Ball and baseball, soccer and football. And basketball; lots and lots of basketball.

He played on some good teams and some bad teams. He played on a High School State Champion and for a team that won only four games. Sometimes he was an All-Star; just as often he was all bench.

I learned my most important lesson as a "sports Dad" when Joseph was still playing coach pitch baseball. They weren't a very good team, losing a lot more often than they won.

They were seven years old, and most of them had the attention span of a gnat. They spent more time jostling and picking on each other than paying attention to what was happening on the field.

After the game was over, as they lined up to shake hands with the other team, I would hear the boys ask the coach, "Did we win? Did we win?"

If the coach said YES they would cheer, if the coach said NO they would kick the ground. And after that they would ask, "What's for snack?"

As a society, as adults, we are obsessed with winning and losing, with success and failure, with bottom lines and final scores. Our attitude was summed up years ago by football Coach Vince Lombardi when he said, "Winning isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing!"

This is Alabama. You know what I'm talking about. Football coaches had better be the best and win the most or they're history. In North Carolina, it's all about basketball but it's the same way; win big or be gone!

As a nation, we have returned to the days of the gladiators, except in a more humane form; we don't kill the losers on American Idol and a host of other competitive "reality shows."

Sometimes, in this age of Political Correctness, we try to deal with this problem by eliminating the concept of competition and the rating of performance.

A few years ago the KUDZU comic strip had a cartoon on church league Softball.
The Rev., pastor of Bypass Baptist, tells his teen-age protégé, "I hate playing the Unitarians. They want to change the rules."

"Which ones, Rev."

"Well, for example, instead of three strikes and you're out they want to make it three strikes and you're special!"

When my older son was in Cub Scouts, he participated in the Pine Box Derby.
At the contest they crowned one champion. The district director told the boys,
"Don't forget, you're all winners."

On the way home David looked at me and said, "If we're all winners why don't we all get to go to the state contest? And why didn't we all get a big trophy instead of this stupid ribbon?" Good questions. Kids know the difference between winning and losing. They just don't think it's the end of the world like we adults do.

We can't deal with the issues of winning or losing, success or failure, by pretending it doesn't matter or by redefining the rules so that nobody loses.

We can only deal with winning and losing by putting success and failure into perspective and redefining the after the fact importance of our wins and losses.

We must learn to discern WHEN A LOSS IS A WIN.

Each of the lessons we read from the Bible deals with someone in the midst of a losing situation. We encounter these people at a time of very real and painful failure in their lives.

And their losses, their failures, go beyond competition and games.
Their failures are failures at life, failures at their vocation, failures in health, and failures in faith.

EZEKIEL: the prophet to whom no one would listen.

PAUL THE APOSTLE: the healer who could not heal himself.

JESUS: Hometown Miracle Man who could work no miracles at home.

Each of them learned a valuable lesson from their failure.

Each of them learned how to know WHEN A LOSS IS A WIN.

EZEKIEL - Ezekiel's story begins like all good prophet stories:
- the people are acting like total pagans
- they have turned their backs on God and Godly ways
- God decides to send a prophet to straighten them out
- Chapter 1 - Ezekiel has a vision
- Chapter 2 - God begins to speak to Ezekiel
Vs. 1 and 2 - Listen up, I want to talk to you
Vs. 3 and 4 - my people are rebellious, I want you to tell them

SO FAR SO GOOD, AND SO NORMAL. This is how it works with God and
prophets and the people of Israel in the Bible.

- then, in verse 5 - God says a strange thing: "Whether you succeed or not, win or lose, is not the issue. The important thing is that they hear the truth; that they know that "there has been a prophet among them."

As it happens, the people didn't listen, and God sent them into exile, and the people rewarded Ezekiel for this preaching by treating him very shabbily.
By all external measures, Ezekiel failed and failed miserably. But Ezekiel's loss was a win; because he a faithful to the truth. When Ezekiel was finished, the people knew there had been a prophet among them.

PAUL - Nobody knows what Paul's "thorn in the flesh was," but that is not important. What really matters is that Paul prayed very hard and very long and very faithfully for this thorn to be removed and it wasn't.

Paul lost the struggle for victory over a physical problem, and this loss created for him a spiritual problem, a crisis of faith.

This failure to pray himself out of this physical problem led him to question his faith. It was an experience that could have shattered his trust in God, but instead it humbled him and strengthened his faith in God. Paul's thorn in the flesh was a LOSS THAT TURNED INTO A WIN.

The paradoxical nature of Christianity is that:
- faith does not remove obstacles; it sustains us as we climb them,
- faith does not protect us from pain; it teaches us to live with it,
- faith does not eliminate Death; it teaches us not to fear it.

A LOSS IS A WIN if our faith is deepened and our ability to survive adversity is strengthened and we learn to trust more completely in the grace and love of God.

JESUS - The story of Jesus returning home to preach occurs early in his ministry.
Up until now, Jesus' version of Brother Love's Traveling Salvation show and Tent Revival had been a roaring success.

Immediately before this he had raised Jairus' daughter from the dead and healed the woman with the flow of blood.

The first five chapters of Mark are filled with healing stories and reports of huge crowds of people coming to hear Jesus preach.

So, he takes it on home to Nazareth; and falls flat on his face.

Verse 3 - They didn't just not like him; they "took offense at him."

Verse 5 - and somehow, their resentment resulted in his inability to perform
miracles and other healings.

Verse 6 - contains one of the most human portraits of Jesus in the Gospels;
"He was amazed at their unbelief." Jesus just couldn't believe their lack
of belief. He was stunned, left with his mouth hanging open.

Jesus learned a hard lesson; that there was a limit to his power; it was limited by the people's unwillingness to receive it.

Thirty-two years ago I served my first year as a pastor in a tiny Methodist Church in the North Carolina countryside. I was not very successful. My supervising Pastor, Dr. Nick Grant, told me, "Son, you can't minister to people who don't want to be ministered to."

That day in Nazareth, Jesus had a LOSS THAT WAS A WIN. From it he learned the limits to his power.

He learned you can control what you say, you cannot control what people hear.
He learned you can control what you do, you cannot control how people respond.
He learned you can control how you show your love,
you cannot control how people receive it.

Pastor Niiler, as you assume your duties here today, please remember that like Ezekiel, you have been called here to speak the truth. When you do that, it is a win.

Pastor Niiler, please remember that like Paul, you have been called here to do your best and to let God do the rest.

Pastor Niiler, please remember that even Jesus had his bad days, and you will too, and that you are called here to love these people, not to fix them.

And people of God, it is your calling to learn from your recent past about the limits of human ability to control the way things turn out. Your call today is face the future with confidence, trusting God to lead you through. AMEN AND AMEN

Pentecost 4, Lectionary 13, june 28, 2009

A sermon preached at the installation of Pastor Marie Hatcher as transition pastor at Christ Lutheran Church, Nashville, TN

PENTECOST 4 JUNE 28, 2009
LESSONS: Lamentations 3:22-33, Ps. 30, II Corinthians8: 7-15, Mark 5:21-43

Of Faith and Fear

For a few years National Geographic carried a regular feature called Zip Code USA,
in which they focus on the place and people within a particular Zip Code.

In June of 2006, it was 27030, my home town, Mt. Airy, NC.
The article focused mainly on the Bunker twins, Eng and Chang "Siamese" twins, made famous by PT Barnum. When they retired, they settled in Mt. Airy and raised families.

As an aside the article mentioned the local custom of radio obituaries.

Now, for years I have told a story about the "Moody's Obituary Column of the Air,"

The story I have told has to do with eating breakfast at my Grandparents' house.
We all lived on the same farm, in houses about a quarter of a mile apart.
I spent one or two nights a week at my grandparents' house, which was good because instead of cereal I got bacon and biscuits for breakfast, but which was bad because I had to sit very still and eat very quietly so that Grandpa could listen to the "Moody Obituary Column of the Air."

It always began with eerie organ music, then a deep, deep voice said,
WILLARD JONES, OF ROUTE 3 LOWGAP, PASSED AWAY LAST EVENING AT NORTHERN SURRY HOSPITAL. HE WAS 72. A LONG-TIME EMPLOYEE OF BALLARD MILLS, MR. JONES WAS A HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL REFEREE, A RURITAN, AND A MEMBER OF GOODE CREEK CHURCH OF CHRIST. SERVICES WILL BE AT THE CHURCH, TUESDAY AT 1 PM, ELDER EZEKIEL PUTNAM PRESIDING.

And so it went through 5 or 6 names.
Now, over time, I developed the notion that the voice on the radio was the voice of God. Who else would know all that stuff about all those people?

And I further decided that the purpose of the obituaries was to warn the rest of us to straighten up and fly right.

After all, didn't Jesus say that he would come like a thief in the night, and weren't these death stories the first thing we heard in the morning?

So I ate my breakfast in trembling silence, and went out into my day trying to be as circumspect as possible.

One day, my Daddy dropped me off at Elmer Timmons' barber shop to get a haircut while he went to town on business. I liked Elmer's. It was a small concrete building in the corner of his yard. He had lots of Boys Life Magazines and Superman comic books, and always gave us suckers.

I also liked Elmer because his name was a lot like mine. I went in and called out "Hey Elmer!" and Elmer replied, "Hey Delmer!"

There was someone in the chair, so I started reading, when suddenly, my blood ran cold, my heart almost stopped, I couldn't breath, because God had spoken, not three feet away from me, and God said,

SAY ELMER, COULD YOU TAKE A LITTLE MORE OFF THE EARS, AND LEAVE A BIT MORE FOR ME TO COMB OVER, THAT BALD SPOT SEEMS TO BE GETTING BIGGER.

And I did what any reasonable, impressionable, imaginative, fundamentalist 6 year old would have done. I ran to the bathroom, turned out the light, locked the door and hid under the sink. (It took quite a bit of gentle coaxing and promises of candy to get me out of that bathroom, where Elmer did the best he could to explain the concept of radio announcer to me)

In our Gospel lesson, I was struck by the words FEAR and FAITH.

After the woman with the flow of blood touched Jesus and he stopped and asked who touched him etc, it says she "came in fear and trembling, fell down before him and told him the whole truth. He (Jesus) said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well."

In the wrap-around story of Jairus' daughter, at this point , the text says, "some people came from the leader's house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" But Jesus says to the man, "Do not fear, only believe (have faith)."

As demonstrated by the story of the obituaries, when I was a child I had a lot of faith, I also had a lot of fear. My faith was faith in the reality of God, not any sort of trust in the goodness or compassion of God. And my fear was rooted in a fear of the power of that real but vengeful God I had conjured up from Sunday School and Fundamentalist preaching and comic books and horror movies and God knows what else.

As I have grown older, faith and fear have remained in dynamic tension in my life. Just as my faith has matured and become more sophisticated, my fears have grown less generalized and more realistic.

But they are still there as they are for all of us. All of us fear things: terrorism, avian flu, economic collapse, earthquake, fire and flood, to name a few.

And the last few years have shown us that our fears are realistic and founded in reality, not fantasy as were mine. And the question is, as we face these realistic fears, where do we place our faith, our assurance and hope for the future? In money and its accumulation and clout? In armies and governments and secret agents?

The scriptures call us to trust in God, a thing much easier said than done.
Lamentations reminds us "that the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, (God's) mercies never come to an end." and then goes on to talk about those times when one feels abandoned by God, a realistic look at faith in the face of fear.

The Psalm repeats this theme, as in "then you hid your face, and I was filled with fear" but also cries out, "O Lord, My God, I will give you thanks forever." And our lesson from 2 Corinthians reminds us not to hoard our money in time of other's need, but to share our resources with the needy, trusting in God to provide for us through them in our time of need. Generosity is an act of faith overcoming fear.

Christ Lutheran Church is in the midst of its own uncertain times.
A long pastorate has come to an end. As we all know, there was some disagreement and lack of peace and harmony in the last year or so. The question is: are you going to face the future with FEAR or FAITH?

Are you going to reach out to one another the way the woman in the story reached out to Jesus for comfort and healing? Remember; the church, we, you and I, are the body of Christ, and we have God's spirit and healing power flowing through us. ARE WE GOING TO FACE THE FUTURE WITH FEAR OR FAITH?

Today we install Pastor Hatcher as your transition Pastor, it will be a major part of her calling to lead you forward in facing your fears with faith; faith in God and faith in each other as God's People, Christ's Church, Christ's BODY in the world. A body that is called this day both to be healed and to be a healer in the world.

Christ Church, I ask you: ARE YOU GOING INTO GOD'S FUTURE WITH FEAR OR FAITH?
amen and amen.

Pentecost 2/Lectionary 11, June 14, 2009

Pentecost 2/ Lectionary 11 June 14, 2009
Text: Mark 4:26-34
(A sermon preached at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Nashville, TN on the occasion of the Installation of Transition Pastor Gretchen Person and the Dedication of the Dahlinger Fellowship Hall.)

Today's Gospel lesson is the sort of text you might expect an old farm boy like me to really get into. Plowing ground, planting seeds, watching 'em grow, Good stuff, right?

Well, truth is, I wasn't much of a farmer; just never really had any interest in it.

I mean, I could do the work and did it well. It just didn't excite me; I really didn't care very much one way or the other.

Frankly, I found the whole business - well, boring. It took too long; it was too unpredictable; too uncontrollable; too frustrating.

Plow the ground, put in the fertilizer, plant the seed, chop out the weeds, and wait, and wait and wait, and pray and pray and pray.

Pray for rain; pray it doesn't hail, pray for the rain to stop, pray for it to warm up, pray for it to cool off.

While you're praying, you need to be spraying; spray for bugs, spray for weeds; praying and spraying for weeks on end.

And, after all that; it's out of the farmer's hands anyway.

No matter how hard you try, sometimes it doesn't work.

Most of the time; it's too hot or too cold or too wet or too dry or prices are too high or too low.

If it's a good year, everybody has a good year and there's an oversupply of the crop and prices are too low.

If it's a bad year; everybody has a bad year and supply is down and prices are high, but you don't have anything to sell.

In the end, there was too much luck involved for me to be a farmer. I wasn't a very good farmer because I didn't have the right disposition

I'm not patient enough. I'm not comfortable with the fact that success ultimately lay in the hands of fate, or the weather, or God; depending on how you looked at it.

So, you can see, this text from Mark about farming really bothers and challenges me.

If the Kingdom of God really is like farming, like sowing seed and being patient;

or like the text from Ezekiel about planting sprigs and waiting for trees to grow;

well, I'm probably in trouble. Reading this text reminds me that the same things that made me a lousy farmer also work against me as a pastor and a Christian.

I worry too much and I want to be in control and I don't trust God enough. There, I said it and I feel better for it.

There is a difficult lesson her for those of us who have a hard time letting go and letting things take their natural, God-given course.

Jesus says to us that we are to plant the seed and let God worry about the growth.

Jesus says we are not responsible for making the church grow.

We are not responsible for making sure everybody "gets saved."

We are not responsible for making the Kingdom of God a smashing success.

Our job, our responsibility is planting the seed and reaping the harvest.

GOD IS RESPONSIBLE FOR GROWTH!

Faith is often defined as trust, and in this case, faith is trusting that the things we do for God will turn out right, in God's way, in God's time.

Faith is keeping on with the work of the Gospel and trusting that in God's own time the crop will grow, even if we never live to see it.

Faith is, in part, letting go of our control over the results.

We live in a world in which people afraid of losing control; or more correctly, of letting someone or something else control their fate.

We have been taught that in order to succeed one must have a goal - after all, as Yogi Berra said, if you don't know where you're going, you might end up somewhere else.

We have been taught that in order to succeed one must have a plan - a well-defined outcome and strategies for achieving it.

I hesitate to point out that most of the folks who taught us these things were the business leaders and financial geniuses who got us into our current economic mess.

Jesus teaches us that the Kingdom of God; the work of Grace and Mercy and Compassion and peace with Justice in the world; works with a totally different outline.

These parables remind us that we are called to do the work; indeed we are called to do the work to the best of our ability; but they also remind us that the ultimate purpose and outcome of this work is not in our hands but in God's. Which is, I assure you, a reality that is both frustrating and reassuring.

It is frustrating to those of us who don't like to wait, who like to be in charge and in control of our own fate and destiny, who like to see progress being made, who like to be able to measure and calibrate and control.

But it is also reassuring and liberating to know that in God's eyes success is not judged by the size of the harvest but by the faithfulness in sowing seeds.

These are reassuring and liberating words for Pr. Person today.

As she is installed as your transition Pastor, she is assured that she is not personally and perpetually responsible for the success and future of this church. She has a defined role to play for a limited amount of time. She has seeds to sow here, a sprig to plant. Hers is to do that faithfully; how it turns out is up to God.

These are reassuring and liberating words for the congregation, both individually and collectively. You are assured that your calling is to be a faithful, honest active member of the parish, sowing seeds of love and grace in world. Yours is to do that faithfully; how it turns out is up to God.

Some 15 years ago those of us who were Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on West End Avenue entered into a discernment process to discover what God's will for us as a community might be.

We studied and prayed and talked and studied and prayed some more. We sought to discern what our mission was and then we tried to figure out what we needed to do to best fulfill that mission. Selling, moving, building seemed to us what we were called to do.

Today, with the dedication of the Fellowship Hall, we complete one part of that vision, but it would be unwise to judge success or failure at this juncture.

We came out here and planted seeds in this field, a cedar sprig on a mountain top. What it can or will be has not yet been revealed, but of one thing we can be assured, God has not finished the work God began in us.

There's a favorite story in my family about my Grandfather, Reid Chilton, who was just absolutely crazy about playing baseball. He lived with his uncle, a Primitive Baptist preacher who didn't hold with the foolishness of ball playing. One day he knew Grandpa had a baseball game, so he put him to working sowing field peas in the cornfield, where they would grow up using the cornstalks as a stake.

Grandpa knew he didn't have time to plant that whole bucket of peas and ride his mule over to Mount Airy for the ball game. Suddenly, he came upon a burned out stump in the middle of the field. He quickly looked around, saw no one was looking, dumped that whole bucket of peas in the stump and covered them with dirt.

He ran out of the field, showed the good reverend his empty bucket and rode off to play ball. Things were fine until a few weeks later when Uncle Arrington was cultivating the field and came upon a stump over-flowing with pea vines!

I see Holy Trinity like that stump just before the eruption of growth; the seeds have been planted, the ground has been cultivated, the fertilizer has been put in. You have done and continue to do your work. Our calling today is to keep working and to trust that God is still working
in and through us to grow the Kingdom.

Amen and Amen.

Pentecost, 2009

PENTECOST SUNDAY, May 31, 2009

A sermon preached at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Andrews, NC on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of Pr. George Simmons’ ordination.

Text: Acts 2:1-21

A few years ago, USA Today ran a story about the Connie T. Maxwell Home in Greenwood SC in its Life section.

The article told about how the Baptists of the state had started the home as an orphanage and as times changed had adapted to serving children in any sort of need.

They had an interview with the director, a cheerful but harried woman, who told heart-breaking stories of the children’s lives before they were brought to Connie T. Maxwell.

The reporter asked how she, and the other staff, cope with such constant stress and pain in others.

The director smiled and said that you had to keep a sense of humor and perspective. She showed the writer a file in her desk where she kept an anonymous collection of cute, poignant or funny things the children had said.

The director said, “Whenever I get over-whelmed, I just open this drawer and read a few of these and I feel better.”

USA Today printed several of the things the kids said. My favorite is this, from a 9 year old boy:

Germs, germs germs, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That’s all I ever hear about around here and I ain’t never seen either one of them.

That young boy sums up a problem that Jesus addresses in our Gospel Lesson, or at least in the section of the Gospel of John in which our little 2 verse Gospel Lesson is found.

It is Maundy Thursday and Jesus is in the midst of trying to explain everything to his disciples before he leaves. I’m not so sure they’re getting it, and neither is Jesus.

He realizes that when he’s gone, they’ll be like the little boy, hearing and talking about Jesus without ever seeing him. So Jesus promises an answer, a solution to this Never Seeing Jesus problem. THE HOLY SPIRIT.

In our text he calls it the COUNSELOR and THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, but it’s the Holy Spirit he’s talking about.

I think probably the disciples heard that and looked at each other quizzically and nodded like they understood when they really didn’t and then promptly forgot what he said.

We are all familiar with this; it’s what we all do when our husband or wife or boss or teacher or other significant other tells us things we don’t understand and don’t care enough about to ask for clarification.

So, they kind of forgot about it, and then the crucifixion and the resurrection and the hiding out and then the resurrection appearances of Jesus’ popping in and out of their lives for a few weeks happened and then the ascension, with Jesus’ floating off into heaven happened, and in midst of all that, who could remember a little uncomprehended promise about a Counselor; I mean, really?

So, here they were minding their own insignificant little Messianic Christian storefront cult business, singing hymns and praying and still hiding out from the Authorities when whoosh, Jesus’ promise comes gloriously true.

Noise, wind, fire, voices shouting, movement, out of control religious excitement; of one thing we can be absolutely certain; the first church was definitely NOT Lutheran!

The church was born in answer to the problem of talking about Jesus without being able to see him. Germs, germs, germs, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That’s all I hear about around here and I ain’t never seen either one of them.

Though I understand what that young man was talking about, I would beg to differ.
He saw Jesus every day in the very existence of that home, built and supported by the Church. He saw Jesus every day in the people who bathed, fed, disciplined, taught and loved him.

The church is the place and the people where Jesus is not just talked about but is shown to the world. It is not by accident that the New Testament constantly refers to the church as THE BODY OF CHRIST.

Too often we think of the church in personal terms, in terms of what am I getting out of it, of how am I being fed, of how are my needs being met, etc.

To think that is to mis-understand the nature of the church.

The Church is mentioned in the third article of the Creed, the part devoted to the Holy Spirit. That is because the church is a work of the Holy Spirit in the world.

Luther’s explanation of this part of the creed says that the church is:

“called, gathered, enlightened, made holy and sent”

The Holy Spirit is active in the church calling the world to God. We each of us have been called here by the spirit, we have been gathered together not just for convenience sake

(not because talking to a lot of people at once is more efficient than talking one on one or because we need more voices to make the hymns sound better, or the more people we have the better we can pay the pastor)

No, we are gathered because it is the nature of human beings to need each other, to need to learn with and from each other, to learn to support and care for each other.

It is in the midst of the gathered community that we become truly HOLY, not perfect, not ideal, not without problem or moral struggles and flaws, but HOLY, devoted to God and aware of God’s presence in us and in others and in the world.

And it is as we have been gathered and enlightened and made holy that we realize that we have not been made those things for ourselves and for our own benefit and for our own personal growth, but for the world.

We realize that we have been gathered so that we might be sent, sent into a world that needs love, that needs care, that needs compassion, that needs to see Jesus in the midst of the toxic germs of modern life.

In his book RED LETTER CHRISTIANS, Tony Campolo tells of sitting down to dinner in a restaurant in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Seated next to the front window, he looked up from his plate to discover three little boys with their faces pressed against the window, staring at his plate full of food.

The waiter came by and pulled down the shade, “Don’t let them bother you, enjoy your meal.” (Campolo, RED LETTER CHRISTIANS, P. 24)

There is a world just outside these walls that is starving for what God has to offer them. And the question is: are we going to pull the shade? Or are we going to get up and go deal with them?

We have been called, gathered, enlightened, made holy and SENT, sent into the world to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the lonely and down hearted, to be available to people in need wherever we might find them.

Now, one might ask, what does this have to do with the 40th anniversary of Pr. George Simmons’ ordination to the Gospel Ministry?

And my answer is that Pr. Simmons is a living example of what I’m talking about.

I don’t need to give you a list of the things George is involved in in the community. Just name it, he’s in it. Everybody in town knows George, and more importantly they know George is good, they know George is compassionate and they know George is there representing Jesus and the Church.

Over 40 years ago George answered the call to ministry. He gathered with others also called at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary where they were more or less enlightened and made holy. And from there he was sent. Sent out to congregations in Richfield and Greensboro and Rocky Mount and Andrews NC.

Sent out to preach the word with tongues of fire, sent out to show the love of God to all comers, sent out to enlighten and make holy those whom the Holy Spirit has called and gathered together. Sent to lift up the shade on the world’s need, sent to lead us out to serve the world.

George on behalf of the ELCA, the North Carolina Synod, Saint Andrews Church and my personal family, let me say thank you, good and faithful servant, thank you.

Amen and amen.

Easter 7, May 24, 2009

I wrote this one three years ago. I can't really improve upon it. I preached it at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Family in Highlands, NC in 2006. I'll preach it at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity in Elberton GA this week.

Easter 7, May 28, 2006
Texts: Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; I John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19
Secular Context: Memorial Day weekend

“they do not belong to the world. . . .As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

For most of us, Memorial Day is simply the excuse for the first long weekend of the summer; a chance to take a little trip, to get a head start on being in a summertime sort of mood. Go to the beach or the lake, grill out and chill out.

A few years ago, a writer in the Nashville paper complained that churches don’t celebrate Memorial Day anymore, by which he meant, I presume, the playing of patriotic music, etc. A pastor wrote back saying that the Church has a higher agenda than a secular holiday, that the church is obligated to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ above all else.

I found myself agreeing with each of them. As the son of a man who served and suffered in Europe in WWII and as the nephew of a man who died in the Pacific at the age of 19 fighting the Japanese, I too lament our turning a “Holy-Day” intended to show respect for their sacrifice into an excuse for a long week end.

On the other hand, the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ can not take second place to any other agenda in the life of the church. And, I kept thinking about Jesus’ words in our Gospel lesson, about not being of the world, but being sent to the world.

How can we talk about this subject in the church without either dishonoring the dead or glorifying war?

True story. Small Southern town. Town Council asked a young
architect and landscape artist to crate a Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial out of a narrow vacant lot downtown.

He landscaped the lot into a grassy knoll with winding walkways, flower beds and park benches. He created a “triptych” monument, moderately sized, out of local granite. On the two side panels were listed the locals who had served and died in Vietnam. In the center he designed an etching of one weary soldier carrying a wounded buddy on his shoulders. It was cruciform without being a cross. It was meant to evoke service and sacrifice and “no greater love”.

The Town Council approved and applauded everything but the etching. They didn’t like it. It was “defeatist”, and “negative”; not “upbeat” and “positive”. So that got a stone cutter at the quarry to etch in the scene of raising the flay at Iwo Jima instead. They even painted the Red, White and Blue on the Flag.

Wrong symbol from the wrong war, but that didn’t matter to them. American honor was all that mattered.


That story can serve as a parable of our ambiguous attitudes toward war. On the one hand, we lament the loss of life, we honestly mourn those of our families and communities who died, we carry a deep sorrow for their pain and suffering. We mean it. We are not hypocrites.

But, on the other hand, we sometimes get carried away with our pride in America’s military might, with its “win-loss” record if you will. By replacing the cruciform symbol of service, sacrifice and suffering with one of victory and triumph, the town council said to the Vietnam Veterans,

We want to remember that you served and that some of you died. We just don’t want to remember that you, we, lost and that we shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

As Christians, we must always shy away from the glorification of war. War is mean, nasty and ugly. It is the result of the failure of humanity to settle issues of economics and ethnic tensions peacefully. War is the eruption of our inherent sinfulness on a national and global scale. War occurs when Pride and Materialism and Greed and Hatred of the Other overcome the Divine call to peace with justice. For Christians, War comes when we forget that we are not of this world, but are sent into this world by the Prince of Peace, to spread the Gospel of Peace.

Memorial Day is an opportunity to prayerfully remember those who have suffered and died because of the world’s inability to live love and justice on an international scale.

One of my childhood pastor’s explained Original Sin this way:

Original Sin means that there is something in us that just can’t wait to mess up a good thing.

The longer I live, the more right he seems. At the beginning of the 20th Century, much was written about how the World was on the cusp of its greatest Golden Age. Science, Technology, Learning were leaping ahead at a record pace. The end of war and disease and poverty were practically in sight, or so it was thought.

A look back at the last 100 years shows a much different picture. We have seen 2 world wars, the rise of totalitarian governments, the use of weapons of mass destruction, new diseases and behaviour related health problems. We are trying to destroy the earth and sea and all that is in them. What happened? Well we did. We, the human race. We, all of us. Original Sin erupted and continues to erupt in our persistent proclivity for messing up a good thing.

What we do on Memorial Day is weep for those who lost their innocence and perhaps their lives in the service of their country.

My Daddy lived until he was 80. Until he went to the hospital a week or so before he died, he lived in the house he was born in.

The only time he spent any real time away from there was when he was in Europe in WWII. He never told us much about it. Until the last year of his life, and then in bits and pieces. Buddies who were there and then blown up, little French and German children stepping on mines or begging for food. As I sat at that kitchen table, listening to him talk, coffee cup in one hand and cigarette in the other, I began to understand his years of staring into the distance, the emotional distance, the stoic devotion to duty.

And as he began to weep, his 80 year old shoulders going up and down, as he cried for someone named Willie from Oklahoma, I cried for Willie and Daddy and millions of others, American and English and French, Korean and Vietnamese and Iraqi and Afghan and all those caught up in the senselessness and pain.

On Memorial Day, we remember and weep and commit ourselves anew to going into the world with the light and love of Christ.


Amen and amen.

Peace,

Delmo

Building Dedication, non-Lectionary texts

The Three pastors mentioned in the middle of this sermon are Middle Tennessee Lutheran pastors who served their respective churches 30 to 40 years.

Building Dedication, Christ Lutheran, Clarksville, TN
Sunday Afternoon, May 17, 2009
Texts: I Chronicles 29:10, 14-16; Psalm 84; Hebrews 11:13-16; Luke 9:57-58
Title: COMMENCEMENT

My younger son graduated from college yesterday morning. Got an honors degree in English and a minimum wage job writing for a weekly paper. Graduated yesterday, starts work tomorrow; probably sleeping off the celebration today. It’s all good.

His graduation marks a milestone, a red-letter date, in our family. For his mother and me it feels a bit like crossing the finish line of a marathon that started twenty-six years ago when his older brother was born.

But of course, it’s not really over, is it? About a year ago I was talking, complaining really, to my mother about something one of my supposedly bright and mature sons had done and then called me about.

I whined, “Don’t they ever grow up?” And my eighty year old Mama said, “You’re talking to me aren’t you.”

Anyway, I went to commencement yesterday at Brevard College. Commencement is, of course, a strange word for what feels to most people like an ending. After all to “commence” is to start, to begin, to get going. Not to finish. So why is it that people “finish” college by “commencing?”

Could it be that to finish one thing is to begin another? To finish one’s education is to begin one’s career. To finish one’s courtship is to begin one’s marriage. To finish a meal is to begin . . . the dishes.

(the trouble with preaching is that sometimes metaphors break down all over the place; but you get the idea.)

We have gathered here this afternoon to celebrate the finishing of one thing and the beginning of another.

You have finished the building. Let everyone say YAAA!
You don’t have to move AGAIN! Let everyone say WAHOO!

Yes you’ve finished the building and stopped moving around town, but are you through, finished, with your journey with Jesus?

Have you completed the race, the marathon of discipleship?

Is this church ready to sit back and relax and enjoy its retirement?

I don’t think so. Like my son, I think I’ll give you a night to celebrate and a day to sleep it off, then it’s time to get up, get going and get to work in the Vineyard of the Lord.

Our Gospel lesson for this service begins with the words “On the road.”

The New Revised Standard Version says, “As they were going along the road,” which shows that they were not stopped on the road, they were moving down the road.

This chapter 9 is the beginning of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. For the next 9 chapters Jesus is on the road, on a journey, on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the cross.

One thing is for certain; no one can accuse Jesus of false advertizing. When someone said, “I’ll follow you anywhere,”

Jesus was blunt in pointing out that this would not be an easy trip. To follow him was to be a journey into homelessness and discomfort.

Immediately after our text, two others come to Jesus with similar excitement, but also with excuses.

They say, “I’ll follow you anywhere, but first let me, bury my father, say good-bye.”

Jesus is somewhat ruthless in telling them to let the dead bury the dead, to leave home behind, get on the bus or get out of the way, it’s time to finish that old life, it’s time to commence the new life.

WE are on a journey with Jesus. Sometimes it is a physical journey, a relocation journey.

I went to my 30th High School reunion a, um, few years ago. And I got the award for having moved the most, for having lived the most places.

That had to do with the nomadic nature of pastoral ministry. Though some people like Richard Smith at Trinity, Tullahoma or Paul Frank at St. Timothy’s, Hendersonville or Eric Pearson at St. Andrews, Franklin are blessed with spending many years in one place, most of us in the pastorate find ourselves journeying for Jesus.

But just because you don’t move around a lot doesn’t mean you are not on spiritual pilgrimage.

My father died in the house he was born in and lived on and worked on that same plot of ground for 80 years and I never knew anyone whose mind and heart were more active in seeking out new things and new directions.

We, all of us, are on a journey with Jesus. We are going from the old Adam to the New Creature in Christ; from who we were to whom God is calling us to be.

We have this day marked out and blessed those things God has provided to assist us and move us along on this journey.

The Baptismal Font, where we are washed and cleansed and set on our feet and to which we return for forgiveness and renewal on a regular basis.

As Martin Luther said, “We are born again each morning,” when we remind ourselves we have been baptized, we have been forgiven, we have been filled with the Holy Spirit, we have been sent out into the world to share the love of God in Christ.

The Pulpit, where God’s word is read and proclaimed to us. Where Christ is made present in our hearing and in our hearts and lives, where the preacher is given both the freedom and the responsibility to Preach Christ and Him Crucified.

The Altar, the Table, where Christ is made present in the Bread and the Wine, where his life is poured out for and into our lives, where we receive nourishment for the journey.

How can anyone stay away from this table if you know what is offered to you here?
God from God, light from light, true God from true God, broken and shed FOR YOU, freely given FOR YOU, here for the taking FOR YOU.

What we do here today is dedicate this place to be a stopping place, a hospice, an inn, a shrine, for people on a journey with Jesus.

A place to catch your breath, to wash your soul, to take some nourishment, to reflect with fellow travelers about where you’ve been and where you’re going, a place to hear about what comes next down the road, to receive encouragement to keep going or permission to stop and rest a while.

We are on this journey because the Bible teaches us this world is not our true home. We all came from God and we spend our lives on a journey back to where we came from.

The French Priest and Scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin put it like this:

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Our human experience is one of pilgrimage, of journey. Sometimes the journey is physical, often it is mental, always it is spiritual.
The church is the community of those on a journey with Jesus, those who are “called, gathered, enlightened and made holy” as the Small Catechism puts it.

We are called out of the world into the church. It is in the Church Community that we are gathered and enlightened and made holy so that we may be sent back into the world to do God’s work in God’s name.

You have been called and gathered and enlightened and made somewhat holy. Are you ready to commence? Ready to be sent out in God’s name? Let the church say Amen.

May 3, 2009, Easter 4, The Good Shepherd

The Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 3, 2009

Texts: Psalm 23, John 10:11-18

“The Shepherd of the Sheep”

Will Rogers said that the only thing he knew about politics was what he read in the papers.

I find myself with an even greater handicap, the only thing I know about Sheep and Shepherds I read in a Bible Commentary.

I know more about mules than I want to know. We had two when I was growing up and we used them in raising tobacco.

I know a lot about cows. We had one that we milked by hand, and my uncle had a dairy next door.

I even know a considerable amount about hogs having helped my wife’s father with his for several years.

But again, I don’t know anything about Sheep and Shepherds, except what I read in the Commentaries.

Now here’s an interesting thing that occurred to me this week.

Bible commentaries are written by Biblical scholars,
who learned what they know from an older generation of Biblical Scholars, who learned from an even older generation of Biblical Scholars, so . . .

I began to wonder how far back you have to go until you find
a Biblical Scholar who actually, really, personally, experientially
knew anything about Sheep and Shepherds.

These reflections lead me to two very comforting conclusions:

1) Most preachers don’t know any more about Sheep or Shepherds than I do.

2) The text isn’t about Sheep and Shepherds anyway.

The shepherd was a very powerful image in Israel.

For much of their history, they were a nomadic people dependent upon their sheep. Because of this, sheep imagery was very important,

The King of Israel was often referred to as the Shepherd of Israel, harkening all the way back to King David, the traditional author of Psalm 23, who is The King by whom all kings were measured, and who began life as a shepherd boy.

The ancient kings of Israel were seen to be different from the kings of the nations around them, in that they were seen not as divine themselves, but as human beings who represented God on earth and ruled in his name.

The idea was that God had placed the responsibility for the nation in their hands. The kingdom was not theirs, it was God’s and they were to take care of God’s kingdom in God’s name and with God’s help.

A story that North Carolina’s Lutheran Bishop, Leonard Bolick, likes to tell is illustrative here.

A pastor organized a Holy Land Tour. While in Israel, he was the chaplain and tour guide. One day the group made a bus trip from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.

Along the way the Pastor told the group how they would see many sheep and shepherds and to think about how Jesus was the Good Shepherd and how shepherds always went in front of the sheep leading them; he never went behind, beating or pushing or shoving them.

Along the way, the bus had to stop in the road for a herd of sheep to pass. The good reverend was shocked to see a man with a stick beating and cajoling and pushing and shoving the sheep along. He got off the bus and confronted the man,

“Look here, everything I’ve read says the shepherd leads the sheep with love, doesn’t come from behind beating and pushing.”

“That’s true,” the man said, “but I’m not a shepherd, I’m a butcher.”

A true king, a true leader of Israel, was a shepherd, not a butcher. The kings and priests and prophets of Israel were given the responsibility for taking care of GOD’S Flock.

And, as the Historical parts of the Hebrew Scriptures tell us, they often failed at this task; there were many bad kings, lousy priests and false prophets.

When Jesus compares himself to a shepherd, it’s not really a farm image; it’s more a religious and political one.

The important TRUTH he is speaking is that whereas the previous leaders had been poor or incomplete or unfaithful leaders, or, to use the language of the text: “hired hands” who “leave the sheep and run away,”

Jesus lays claim to being “the good shepherd,” who “lays down his life for the sheep.”

In other words, Jesus is saying, “In the past, God gave the responsibility for the people of God over to the Kings of the country and the Priests of the Temple and the Prophets of Israel, but now God has given over that responsibility to me, Jesus of Nazareth.”

And the sheep know the true shepherd, they know my voice, Jesus says.

During the Palestinian uprising of the late 1980s, a village near Bethlehem refused to pay its taxes, maintaining to do so would be to finance the Israeli war machine that was oppressing them. In response, the Israeli commander confiscated all the farm animals in the village, confining them in a large, barbed-wire pasture.

A woman came to the commander to ask for her sheep back. She said that since her husband was dead, they were her only livelihood and she had several children to provide for. The commander shrugged and pointed at the pasture and said, not kindly, that to fulfill her request would be impossible, he had no way of knowing which sheep were hers.

She bargained, “If I can find my sheep, can I have them?” and the commander agreed. The gate was opened and the woman went into the pasture with her small son. Out of his pocket he took a small reed flute and began to play it; all over the field, heads began to top up. Soon, the young boy and his mother walked down the road, still playing the flute, followed by 25 happy sheep.

We are Christians, the people of God, because God’s voice has gotten through the static of our hectic, noisy, modern lives.

We are Christians because the “still, small voice,” of God has slipped in underneath the busyness of our existence and tugged at the apron strings of our hearts, getting our attention and moving our souls.

Christianity is not so much a matter of believing certain things as it is of hearing that voice and trusting it with your life.

Throughout my years in the ministry, I have had some people speak some very kind words to me about my preaching, and I have no false modesty, I appreciate the praise.

But I always hoped and prayed that people realized that the voice they heard was not my voice, it was the voice of the shepherd speaking through me.

It’s the same voice that speaks through the Scriptures and through the liturgy and through the hymnody and through the Choir Anthems.

It is the voice of deep crying out to deep, of Christ’s spirit seeking out our spirits and calling us to come into the presence of the lover of our souls.

The hearing of the Shepherd’s voice is the difficult part of this. Just hearing the voice is not enough. Only 25 sheep out of the hundreds in the pasture lifted their heads and followed when the young man played his flute.

Those of us who gather here on Sunday mornings have in one way or another heard and recognized the voice of our Master, our Saviour, our Lord.

Some of us are more sure than others, some of us hear it more clearly and distinctly than others, but all of us have heard it; that is why we are here.

And, to various degrees, we have all put ourselves into the hands of that Shepherd; we have trusted Him with our souls and our lives. We feel secure in the promise that we will not be “snatched away,” by the wolf.

The one question that remains is what are we to do about that voice here and now, in this time and in this place.

In order to follow the voice of the Shepherd, we are to follow him and do what he did. Not just Pastors, but all of us. That is the true meaning of Luther’s idea of the “priesthood of believers.”

We, the church, are the shepherds, and the hurting, lonely, lost people of the world are God’s scattered sheep. And we are called to go out to them with the Voice of the Shepherd, calling them home, calling them home to God, calling them home to safety, calling them home to love.

We are the voice of Christ in the world. What people know of God’s law, they learn from us; what people know of God’s forgiveness, they hear from us; what people know of God’s love, they experience from us.

Too often, we fail to appreciate how important we are, each and every one of us, to God’s work in the world. We fail to realize that Christ our shepherd has placed us in a position to shepherd others and will carry us through.

Gladys Aylward, missionary to China, shy, quiet woman working in an orphanage in the 1930’s. When the Japanese invaded, she was forced to flee, but she would not leave without her flock, a hundred children. With only one assistant, she led them out walking over the mountains to Free China.

Gladys grappled with despair many times in her journey, and after one cold sleepless night, she cried and wept and said, over and over, “I can’t do it, we won’t make it.”

A 13-year-old girl reminded Gladys of their much-loved Bible story of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.

Aylward, threw up her hands and wailed, “But I’m not Moses!”

And the girl replied, “Of course not, but God is still God!”

God is still God for us as well.

What is the Voice of Christ calling you to do today?

Will you answer? Will you follow?

Amen and amen.

Third Sunday of Easter, April 26, 2009

A Sermon preached at Faith Lutheran Church at Tellico Village, Tennessee

The Third Sunday of Easter, April 26, 2009
Text: Luke 24:36-48

The Rev. Ravi Zacharias grew up in India. His family were long time Anglicans, what we call Episcopalians in this country. After High School his family moved to Canada where he went to college. His first career was a hotel chef; he later went to Bible College and became an evangelist.

In one of his books he tells of how much he liked the book The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. Bunyan was a tinker in England in the 1600’s. He was also a street preacher. He spent a lot of time in jail because he was a street preacher in a time in England when it was illegal to preach anything but official Church of England doctrine in official Church of England pulpits.

During one of his stints in jail, John Bunyan sat down to write a story an allegory, about a man named Christian’s journey through life. This barely educated working man ended up writing one of the classics of western literature.

Pr. Zacharias had long been fond of Bunyan’s book and when he spent a year on sabbatical studying at Cambridge University, one of the first things he did was take a short bus ride out to the town of Bedford where Bunyan lived. The town of Bedford had done Bunyan proud. There was a life-size statue in the middle of town and a large, elaborate museum dedicated to Bunyan life and work.

Zacharias had a wonderful day exploring the museum, ending with buying presents for family and friends in the gift shop. By the check-out counter there was a large display of various editions of The Pilgrim’s Progress. Zacharias chatted for a while with the woman behind the counter. Yes, she was from Bedford. Yes the museum was quite nice and drew a lot of visitors to the town. Yes, she had volunteered at the gift shop for many years.

Then the pastor asked, “What is your favorite part of the book?” She looked at the books and then looked back at Ravi, “Oh, I’ve never read it. It’s quite old, don’t you know, and quite peculiar.”

Zacharias was stunned. How could it be that the woman working at the Bunyan museum had never read the one book Bunyan was famous for, The Pilgrim’s Progress.

And, being a preacher, Zacharias also thought, “Is that how we are in the church? We’re here. We’re doing our duty. We bow in the direction of Christianity. But have we failed to pay attention to the story? Do we know why we’re here? And do we know what God has called us to do?”

British Bishop and New Testament Scholar Tom Wright say:

“People often ask me, ‘What after all is the point of Jesus dying and rising again? It’s no doubt very nice for him to be alive again, but what does it have to do with the rest of us?’ ”

What indeed? What is the point of the story of Jesus and why are we here?

Are we here because it’s the tradition in which we were raised? Because church is a part of the civic fabric of our lives and we would feel a little lost without it. Why, exactly have we formed this new community called a church and set apart this space in which to get together and sing strange songs while hearing short speeches and eating a meal that isn’t actually a meal, more like a snack, really.

What is it all about? Why are we here? Is it because we’re all from somewhere else and are a little lonely for a taste, a touch of home, and a Lutheran Church is a part of home? Is that it?

Three verses in our Gospel lesson are there specifically to tell us why we’re here.

Verse 46: and he said to them, “Thus it is written, the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,

Verse 47: and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem,

Verse 48: you are witnesses of these things.

Three short verses; in English, a mere 50 words; yet they contain our reason for being and our call to action.

First of all: IT IS WRITTEN. Luke wants the early church, and us, to know that what happened to Jesus was not a random act of ugliness; another in a long series of cruelties and indignities that powerful and corrupt people have foisted upon the weak, the innocent and the good.

Jesus life, suffering, death and resurrection were a part of God’s long term plan to deal with the very human problems of sin, evil, hatred, discord, and death.

Bishop Wright points out that the basic human condition is that the history of the world is one long litany of bad things people as individuals and as communities and as nations have done to each other.

And all our attempts to bring an end to these bad things flounder on our very human sense of righteousness. Just look at what happened at the United Nations on Monday. The President of Iran accusing Israel of Racism and delegates of other countries walking out and the United States boycotting the whole thing. It is a scene played out all over the world

Wright says,

“Each one claims that they have the right to the moral high ground and must be allowed redress, revenge, satisfaction.”

The only way forward is the way of the Christ, the way of the cross. Jesus came and lived among us and showed us that the one who had the most right, the best claim, to revenge, to redress, to satisfaction chose to go another way. God, in Christ, turned away from revenge and embraced justice; turned away from our death and through his own death gave us life.

Verse 47 – REPENTANCE AND FORGIVESNESS OF SIN MUST BE PROCLAIMED TO ALL NATIONS
This is the world’s only hope, our only way out of the continual cycle of offense and revenge, of insult and retaliation, of wrong piled upon wrong in a deadly version of the children’s game “King of the Hill.”

The only way to bring an end to the nations’ battling is through living out the Gospel call for repentance and forgiveness.

Very often, we read this is a private and individual way. If I, DELMER, repent of MY sins, then God will forgive ME, DELMER, of MY sins. That’s one way to hear it, but not the only or the best way.

What about; WE must ALL repent of OUR wrongful ways, OUR destructive paths, OUR vengeful hearts.

WE are ALL called to turn from ways that lead to death, and WE are ALL called to turn to and follow ways that lead to NEWNESS of LIFE.

And WE are ALL encouraged (?), no commanded, to forgive the sins of OTHERS, to seek reconciliation instead of revenge, to look for life in the valley of the shadow of death.

And what are we doing here?

That’s in VERSE 48: YOU ARE WITNESSES OF THESE THINGS

We are here to be reminded of the story, to continually turn from death to life, to receive forgiveness and learn how to give forgiveness, to support one another in our witnessing in the world, to gather strength from the meal and the community, and to organize our efforts.

As Luther puts it in the Small Catechism, “We are called, gathered, empowered and sent,” by the Holy Spirit into the streets with the message of God’s amazing Grace.

Today, as we set apart this place as the worship space for a community dedicated to the message of new life, we are aware that this place is primarily a Funeral Home.

Some might find that ironic, I find it fitting and more than a little inspirational. The Bible itself reminds us that “in the midst of death we are in life,” and what better place to week after week witness to God’s power over all the things in this world that threaten us with death.

Christ is Risen,
Christ is Risen Indeed, Alleluia.

And we are his witnesses!

Amen and man.

Ravi Zacharias in “Jesus Among Other Gods” pp. 75-76

Tom Wright: “Luke for Everyone” pp. 300-301

Easter II - NRCL Gospel for April 19, 2009

A sermon preached at the South Dakota Synod Pastor's Conference on April 14 and at St. John's Lutheran Church, Atlanta, Georgia, April 19

The Second Sunday of Easter

Text: John 20:19-31

I was driving back to the church after a hospital visit one wintry afternoon about 30 years ago.

The sun was shining bright and directly into my eyes. I turned left at a lonely country intersection and BAM!

My little Datsun was slammed into by a large delivery truck doing 60 miles an hour.

He hit me right behind the back door and the car spun round and round like a top,

then WHAM! I stopped, wedged into the ditch on the side of the road.

Every window in the car was broken, the steering wheel was broken, the seat was broken.

My head was in the backseat, passenger side and my feet were under the steering wheel and I couldn’t breathe.
I literally COULD NOT BREATHE. That truck knocked the wind out of me.

The wreck was witnessed by one of my parishioners, Kitty Hightower. She ran to my car and leaned in the broken window. “Pastor, Pastor, are you all right?”

Well no, I wasn’t all right. I couldn’t breathe. There was no air in my lungs and I didn’t seem to be able to get any in there.

I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t even move; I just stared at her with my mouth open.

Kitty started crying, and then started screaming to the men rushing over from the country store, “He’s dead, He’s dead. Oh my God, the Pastor’s dead!”

Which is, I assure you, a peculiar thing to have screamed in your ear when you are indeed very much alive.

After what seemed like an eternity I was able to get a bit of air into my lungs and was able to lift a hand and touch Kitty on the shoulder;

which, in retrospect, was not the best thing to do, seeing as how she thought I was dead and all.

When I touched her on the shoulder, she jerked her head up and looked at me with real terror in her eyes.

Finally, I squeezed out the words, “It’s alright Kitty, I’m not dead.”

It was an odd thing to find myself in that position; the one who had been hurt comforting the onlooker.

But that is the position in which we find Jesus in our Gospel
lesson; the one who was hurt bringing solace to the witnesses.

On the Evening of that first Easter, the disciples were meeting in a room, probably the same room in which they had held their Passover.

They had the door shut, bolted, locked.
They were frightened.
They could not get their bearings.
They could not breathe.

They had given up everything to follow Jesus, and this is not how they expected things to turn out.

Just a week ago, on Palm Sunday, they had entered the city with such gigantically high hope, and now this.

This, this, disaster.
This, this, craziness.
This, this, car crash of an ending.
Indeed, they had the wind knocked out of them.

And on that first Easter evening, Jesus the Christ came to the disciples in that locked and airless room and breathed new life into them.

At one time or another all of us are like the disciples were on that first Easter evening.

We too have had the wind knocked out of us.

Some of us gathered here have lost loved ones unexpectedly,

some of us are struggling with the diagnosis of a long-term illness in the family,

some of us have had job losses,

some of us have lost economic security,

some of us have failed to get that promotion (or that call)
we had hoped for,
our children haven’t worked out the way we hoped,
our marriages are hurting.

All of us have had the wind knocked out of us, sometime; probably sometime lately.

Believe you me, in times like those, the big picture fades away and all your energy is centered on surviving, on breathing, on taking one more precious breathe,
and anything other than present personal experience becomes difficult to believe in or focus on.

Writing in Christianity Today, Tim Stafford talks about an object lesson Pastor Stephen Bilynski uses with his confirmation class.

He comes to the very first class with a jar full of jelly beans and asks the class to guess how many are in the jar. He writes all their estimates on the board.

Then he asks the boys and girls to name their favorite songs and he lists those on the board.

Finally the class counts the beans to see who was closest to right. Then Pastor Steve points to the list of songs and asks, “And which one of these is closest to being right?”

And of course the students protest that there is no right answer; that a person’s favorite song is purely a matter of taste and circumstance; purely personal preference. (Which would, I suppose, explain my predilection for Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale.”)

At this point, Pr. Steve comes to the point of the entire exercise: “When you decide what to believe about God, is that more like guessing the number of beans, or more like choosing your favorite song”

In the article, Pastor Steve says he has done this numerous times over the last 20 years, and always, always, the answer, from teen-agers and from adults, is the same:

“Choosing what to believe about God is like choosing one’s favorite song.”

In modern America, we have transferred faith from the realm of fact to the world of feelings; what my friend Tom Ridenhour, Jr. calls the triumph of Schliermacher.

And the problem with that is, we seldom feel like believing.

Or more accurately, those personal experiences that would convince us to believe in God are few and far between, practically non-existent; and those things that would cause us to disbelieve, that knock the wind out of us, are much louder, persistent and frequent.


This is why what Jesus did in that room with those disciples is so important to us. Jesus reminded them where he came from “Just as the Father sent me,” and then he reminded them where they were going, “So I send you!”

Then he filled them with the Holy Spirit the way God the Creator filled the lungs of Adam and Eve with the very air we breathe, the wind that gives us life.

Lastly, he reminded them what their calling was, what they were being sent out filled with the Holy Spirit to do “Forgive sins.”

All this says to us that whether God loves us or not is NOT dependent on whether we’re feeling the love or not.

It is dependent upon God’s choice to love us; a choice God made and will never undo.

Whether God is involved in our lives is not dependent upon whether or not our grand plans and schemes for ourselves or for God are working out or not;

God’s involvement in our lives is again God’s choice, a choice Gad has already made and will not unmake.

All the disciples, Thomas and the others, had an advantage we do not and will not have; they got to see the Risen Lord.

But we have an advantage they did not; we have seen the fact that the Church and the Gospel are still going strong 2000 years later; again, not because of us, but because of God.

Amen and amen.