The Second Sunday of Easter
March 30, 2008
Text: John 20:19-31
I remember the first time I “went away.” It was 1972 and I was going away to college. My family is pretty low-key about things like this and there was no special dinner or anything like that. If I remember correctly, I milked the cow as usual that morning, worked in the field with Daddy until noon, then we went to the house for “dinner.” (On a southern farm, it’s always “dinner.” Lunch is something you eat in the cafeteria at school.) I took a shower, loaded my box of books and my clothes hamper full of clothes in the back seat of the car and drove the hour and a half down to Guilford College.
But, I did receive a few “going away” presents. Daddy handed me $10, the first time I remember him giving me money that was not payment for work performed. Mama gave me a couple of shirts she got on sale at JC Penney. And my cousin Julia (an English teacher0 and her husband Sam (a librarian) gave me a Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. I spent the money on gas and wore out the shirts but I still have the dictionary sitting on my bookshelves.
The best going away presents serve two purposes. One, they are a link to the past. And second, they propel us into the future. Every time I look up a word in that old dictionary, I remember Julia and Sam’s encouragement of my goal of getting a college education; and that dictionary, in its own small way, helped me to achieve that goal.
Today’s Gospel Lesson is about “Going Away Presents” But in this case, the gift-giving is done in reverse; the one going away gives the presents.
As the disciples gathered in their hide-away room, they were a very disturbed, confused and fearful community. The events of the last week had overwhelmed them, their brains and their bodies were on emotional overload.
The Bible says they were full of fear. The Greek word here is phobon, from which we get the English word PHOBIA. A phobia is an irrational and unthinking fear, emotional terror. These people were afraid of their own shadows, they were seeing monsters in the closets and boogie bears under their beds. Well, not exactly irrational and unthinking. Their world had turned upside down and inside out. They had left their families and their jobs, their lives and their livelihoods to follow this charismatic healer/preacher. And now this glorious revolution had come to a screeching halt, the wheels had come off the Kingdom of God parade, the movement had collapsed, all was in disarray.
If you want to know what they looked like, just think about the TV images of a favored team in the NCAA basketball tournament that loses. While the winners jump around and celebrate, the losers huddle on the bench, all their hopes and dreams smashed. They sit perfectly still, staring out in space. Or they hide their faces under towels, not wishing to weep on National TV.
The Gospel March had come to an inglorious, confusing, disarrayed halt. Their season was over, and Jesus’ team was left fearful, confused, inept and clueless, groping for a way to make sense of it all. And Jesus, the Risen Christ, came into that locked room with “going away presents.” He brought to them the things they needed to recover and go forward. He brought them Peace, Purpose and Provisions.
1) PEACE
Jesus comes to them in the midst of their fear and the first words out of his mouth are “Peace be with you.” This greeting is very important and he repeats it three times in our lesson. In Hebrew, Peace is “Shalom” – and means “completeness, welfare, health.”(1) It is a state in which everything is as it should be. In Greek, Peace is “Eirene” – which in this case means, “harmonized relationships between God and (humanity).”2
Jesus comes into the midst of these most “unharmonic” and incomplete folks, and gives them the gift of being at peace with themselves and the world. This Peace is a most mysterious thing, for it is not tied to nor dependant upon external circumstances; it is not linked to how well you’re doing in your job or how well you’re getting along with your family or how much money you have in your savings account or how well your retirement fund is doing in the stock market.
Paul calls it, “the Peace that passes all understanding.” It is a peace that descends upon on our hearts and spirits as a gift from God.
This Peace is at the core of our Christian worship. Turn to p. 98 in the Red Book, The ELW. This is the standard Communion service. The first three prayers of the Kyrie start with “in Peace . . .” Look at p. 106, between the prayers and the Communion, we pass the Peace. Look at p. 113, the Post-Communion Canticle, “Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace. . . “ P. 114, the Blessing, “”The Lord look upon you with favor and give you Peace.” P. 115, the dismissals, all four of them, “go in Peace, go in Peace, go in Peace, go in Peace.” What are we, a bunch of old Hippies? No. It is vital that we understand the source of the peace that we are praying and passing and singing.
It is not OUR peace, not our love, not our goodwill, not our friendliness, not our serenity; in those moments we are sharing with one another the Peace that Christ has given to us.
2) PURPOSE
After Jesus has comforted the disciples, after he has calmed their fears with His peace, Jesus give these directionless people a PURPOSE, a reason to keep on going. In verse 21 he says, “As the father has sent me, even so I send you.”
Jesus knows that they think that the mission has ended with his death, but he proclaims to them that it has only just begun. Dietrich Bonheoffer was a German Lutheran pastor who worked against Hitler. He was arrested and imprisoned and eventually hanged. As he was led out of his cell to go to the gallows, Pr. Bonheoffer said to his cellmates and friends, “I know to you this seems like the end of life, but to me it is just the beginning.”
When Jesus tells his disciples that he is sending them, he is saying to them, “I know that you thought the Kingdom of God movement was over, but I’m here to tell you it is just beginning.”
Jesus comes to this disheartened and directionless group and gives them a reason for living. He defines for them a purpose, lays out for them their future, puts in front of them their mission. When Jesus shows them his wounds, it is not just a way of identifying himself, not just a way of proving to them that it really is him. NO! In showing them his wounds, his scars, Jesus is telling them who they are, and who they are to be.
Suddenly, things he said begin to make sense. Things like “take up YOUR cross,” and “losing one’s life for the Gospel,” things that seemed so peculiar when he said them, begin to shout out their meaning as the disciples stare at his wounds. “Now I get it,” they think. “Now I understand. We are called to serve the world, to live for the world, to die for the world if necessary, because that’s what Jesus did.” Jesus come into their midst and gives them Peace and gives them a purpose and lastly, he gave them
3) PROVISION
I have preached, not this sermon but this outline, a couple of times in the last 20 years and I used to make point three POWER, but I’ve done a lot of thinking about that, and I think PROVISION is better. Verse 22 says, He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.”
God provides what is needed to fulfill the purposes God has given us. That is not the same thing as giving us power. It means that God will work through our sometimes feeble efforts to accomplish God’s will in the world. This is demonstrated by Christ on the Cross, which was not an exercise of power, but a demonstration of humility and obedience and faith. God’s promise is to fill us with the Holy Spirit, to provide for us that which we need to do what we are called to do.
Look at Peter. On Good Friday we read about how Peter fearfully denied Jesus three times, scared to death of a serving girl. In today’s lesson from Acts we see Peter preaching on the streets of Jerusalem, afraid of no one.
Look at these disciples, huddled behind closed doors. And look at Church history, where of the 12 disciples who became known as the Apostles, the “Sent Ones,” only one died a natural death. The rest went to the corners of the known world, preaching the Gospel, and were tortured and executed for their efforts.
What made the difference? What changed them? The Risen Christ breathes on them the Holy Spirit, provides them with the faith and courage to live a life devoted to God’s will and way in the world.
The Risen Christ comes to us today. Comes into our locked rooms filled with fear and confused, comes to us with the words and promises he had for the disciples.
Jesus comes and calms our fears with God’s peace.
Jesus comes and channels our lives to God’s purpose.
Jesus comes and charges our hearts with God’s Spirit.
Thanks be to God, Amen.
1 and 2 – Vines Expository Dictionary
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Easter sunday, 2008
Easter Sunday
Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 28:1-10
“They put him to death on a tree, BUT GOD raised him” (Acts 10:39b-40a)
Those words,” but God”, are the church’s only good answer to the troubles and trials the world offers.
A few months ago there was a TV documentary tracing the personal lives of some of the world’s religious leaders.
There were intimate looks at the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope the Dalai Lama, the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, the President of the Southern Baptist Convention and The Rev. Mark Hanson, Bishop of the ELCA and President of the Lutheran World federation.
One of the most moving parts of the show was when Mark Hanson sat at his kitchen table and in measured, flat Midwestern tones, talked about his family’s struggles with his son’s drug addiction.
He said that the most difficult day of his life was the day he left his 14 year old son at a treatment center; feeling as if he had failed as a parent; not knowing if this would work, not knowing if he had lost his son forever; not knowing what else to do.
He then talked about how faith had carried him through when nothing else would. It was for the Hanson family, a deeply personal “but God” moment.
Trying to reason our way through grief and loss, trying to make sense of the senseless, trying to convince a world gone crazy with the desire for more of everything and anything that that desire is deadly of both body and soul; these things are, at the end of the day, pointless.
There is no reason which can assuage our grief, there is no sense to be made of the raging evil we see around us, there is no way to divert the addicted and bloated from seeking their fix, be it oil or drugs. The only answer we have to offer to these things, (that Luther summed up as Sin, Death and the Devil), is those two words, “but God!”
Beginning with Adam and Eve and the Apple, the Devil tempts, people Sin, Death ensues, and God intervenes with another chance.
It is the golden thread running through the Bible; this story of God’s redeeming and forgiving love, this story of God’s willingness to act in response to the world’s evil. This story summed up in the words “but God.”
At Easter we celebrate the ultimate “but God” moment, the raising of Jesus from the tomb.
It is both the proof and the promise of our faith. It reminds us of what God HAS done in the past while promising to us what God will do in the future.
On Friday, the “world”; Luther’s trilogy of “Sin, Death and the Devil” had done its best to do its worst to Jesus.
Good Friday appeared to be a complete victory for those forces of destruction which assail all of us, Evil had reared its ugly head and roared; and Good had stood by idly and done nothing.
When Mary went to the tomb, she went in deep sadness and despair, she went into a place of coldness and death, she went to a place with no hope and no happiness, she went to prepare a body for burial, she went to put Jesus in his grave.
But when she got there, she discovered that things had changed, the tomb was empty, the body was missing, and angels were lurking about. Mary had come upon the greatest “but God” moment of all.
Our lives are full of difficulty. Tornados and hurricanes come, friends die, wars drag on, relatives get sick, jobs don’t pan out,
politicians and teachers and yes, even preachers, turn out to be less than they seem. All of life is subject to the painful realities of decline and decay.
But Easter reminds us that the church has an answer and that answer is “but God”. But - - God’s love, but - God’s forgiveness, but - God’s power, but - God’s calling, but - God’s actions in the world.
Easter is more than a promise of life beyond the grave, of happiness in heaven with our loved ones. Easter is a promise that life is good now, Easter is a promise that God’s power is active in this moment, in all place, in all lives. Easter tells us that our eternal life begins now and goes with us through death into God’s future.
Easter tells us that to whatever may happen to us in this world there is an answer, and that answer is ”but God.”
The world says, “Seek success and glory and material well-being above all else,” but God says; “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you.”
The world says, “It’s a dog eat dog world, it’s a rat race. It’s every man (person) for him or her self,” but God says, “ Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The world says, ”Find your self, your bliss. Do that thing which makes you feel most fulfilled.” But God says, “You shall love the LORD your God, with all your heart, mind and soul; and the second is just like it; love your neighbor as yourself.”
The World says, “Stave off death at whatever cost. The worst thing that can happen is to die and any action that you take to avoid death is good.” But God says, “Those who would save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel will save it.”
The world’s way leads to the death; death of the soul and eventually the death of the body, with no hope for tomorrow and no joy for today. But God’s way leads to life, both now and forever; life full of the joy of loving and serving God loving and serving neighbor with reckless abandon and total trust in God’s will and way.
Life is full of difficulty, disease and death, but God is full of life, and so are we, because Christ is risen, He is risen indeed!
Amen and amen.
Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 28:1-10
“They put him to death on a tree, BUT GOD raised him” (Acts 10:39b-40a)
Those words,” but God”, are the church’s only good answer to the troubles and trials the world offers.
A few months ago there was a TV documentary tracing the personal lives of some of the world’s religious leaders.
There were intimate looks at the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope the Dalai Lama, the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, the President of the Southern Baptist Convention and The Rev. Mark Hanson, Bishop of the ELCA and President of the Lutheran World federation.
One of the most moving parts of the show was when Mark Hanson sat at his kitchen table and in measured, flat Midwestern tones, talked about his family’s struggles with his son’s drug addiction.
He said that the most difficult day of his life was the day he left his 14 year old son at a treatment center; feeling as if he had failed as a parent; not knowing if this would work, not knowing if he had lost his son forever; not knowing what else to do.
He then talked about how faith had carried him through when nothing else would. It was for the Hanson family, a deeply personal “but God” moment.
Trying to reason our way through grief and loss, trying to make sense of the senseless, trying to convince a world gone crazy with the desire for more of everything and anything that that desire is deadly of both body and soul; these things are, at the end of the day, pointless.
There is no reason which can assuage our grief, there is no sense to be made of the raging evil we see around us, there is no way to divert the addicted and bloated from seeking their fix, be it oil or drugs. The only answer we have to offer to these things, (that Luther summed up as Sin, Death and the Devil), is those two words, “but God!”
Beginning with Adam and Eve and the Apple, the Devil tempts, people Sin, Death ensues, and God intervenes with another chance.
It is the golden thread running through the Bible; this story of God’s redeeming and forgiving love, this story of God’s willingness to act in response to the world’s evil. This story summed up in the words “but God.”
At Easter we celebrate the ultimate “but God” moment, the raising of Jesus from the tomb.
It is both the proof and the promise of our faith. It reminds us of what God HAS done in the past while promising to us what God will do in the future.
On Friday, the “world”; Luther’s trilogy of “Sin, Death and the Devil” had done its best to do its worst to Jesus.
Good Friday appeared to be a complete victory for those forces of destruction which assail all of us, Evil had reared its ugly head and roared; and Good had stood by idly and done nothing.
When Mary went to the tomb, she went in deep sadness and despair, she went into a place of coldness and death, she went to a place with no hope and no happiness, she went to prepare a body for burial, she went to put Jesus in his grave.
But when she got there, she discovered that things had changed, the tomb was empty, the body was missing, and angels were lurking about. Mary had come upon the greatest “but God” moment of all.
Our lives are full of difficulty. Tornados and hurricanes come, friends die, wars drag on, relatives get sick, jobs don’t pan out,
politicians and teachers and yes, even preachers, turn out to be less than they seem. All of life is subject to the painful realities of decline and decay.
But Easter reminds us that the church has an answer and that answer is “but God”. But - - God’s love, but - God’s forgiveness, but - God’s power, but - God’s calling, but - God’s actions in the world.
Easter is more than a promise of life beyond the grave, of happiness in heaven with our loved ones. Easter is a promise that life is good now, Easter is a promise that God’s power is active in this moment, in all place, in all lives. Easter tells us that our eternal life begins now and goes with us through death into God’s future.
Easter tells us that to whatever may happen to us in this world there is an answer, and that answer is ”but God.”
The world says, “Seek success and glory and material well-being above all else,” but God says; “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you.”
The world says, “It’s a dog eat dog world, it’s a rat race. It’s every man (person) for him or her self,” but God says, “ Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The world says, ”Find your self, your bliss. Do that thing which makes you feel most fulfilled.” But God says, “You shall love the LORD your God, with all your heart, mind and soul; and the second is just like it; love your neighbor as yourself.”
The World says, “Stave off death at whatever cost. The worst thing that can happen is to die and any action that you take to avoid death is good.” But God says, “Those who would save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel will save it.”
The world’s way leads to the death; death of the soul and eventually the death of the body, with no hope for tomorrow and no joy for today. But God’s way leads to life, both now and forever; life full of the joy of loving and serving God loving and serving neighbor with reckless abandon and total trust in God’s will and way.
Life is full of difficulty, disease and death, but God is full of life, and so are we, because Christ is risen, He is risen indeed!
Amen and amen.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion, March 16, 2008
Palm Sunday
March 16, 2008
Texts: Matthew 21:1-11, Matthew 27:11-54
A few years ago, when I was a pastor in Nashville, TN, one of my parishioners, a young woman who had recently moved to Nashville from somewhere in the Midwest, dropped by my office for a chat about her love life, or rather about the lack there-of.
She brought along a personal ad she had seen in the Nashville Scene, a free weekly newspaper. She wanted to know what I thought. She was planning to write one like it.
Why she asked me, I don’t know. The last time I had a date with someone I was not married to, I was still too young to buy beer. I got married when I was 20 years old.
Anyway, the ad read like this:
VERY WANTED: 30-ish drummer in rockabilly band like the Billygoats, with a romantic spirit, professional career, blue eyes, Episcopal.
Is it just me, or does that seem a bit too specific?
As I was meditating on the events of Palm Sunday and Holy week, I began to think about how much those folks who welcomed Jesus with shouts of Hosanna resemble those folks who place overly specific and optimistic ads in the personals section.
Both sets of folks are setting themselves up for a fall. The romantic ones because their dreamed of knight in shining armor (or rockabilly Episcopal drummer with blue eyes) is unlikely to exist; and the religious ones because the Messiah they’re looking for isn’t the Messiah they are likely to get.
When the folk welcomed Jesus that long ago morning, they gave him a hero’s welcome, they lauded him in the same way they would a Military or Political leader.
They saw him as someone who remove the heavy Roman boot from the backs of their necks, they applauded him as someone who could lead a revolt against the Evil Empire, someone who would lead them to freedom.
And Jesus disappointed them. He was not 6 feet plus, with abs of steel.
He rode into town on a baby donkey, not a warhorse. He went to pray at the temple; not to protest at the palace. Jesus did not turn out to be their idea of a Savior.
And by Friday, the joyous shouts of “Hosanna, Hosanna,” had turned into derisive and blood thirsty cries of “Crucify Him, Crucify Him!”
What happened? As the week wore on and Jesus taught day after day in the temple, it became more and more clear, first to Judas, and then to many others, that Jesus was NOT the Messiah they had wanted.
What they failed to realize was that he WAS the Messiah they needed.
Several years ago, an American, a Lutheran, was vacationing in a small fishing village in Denmark. On Sunday, he attended services in the ancient village church, which dated back almost a thousand years. He went early so as to see everything. Though he did not understand the language, the service was understandable to him in its outline and its actions. The flow of the service, the standing and kneeling, etc were consistent with his church back home. Except for one thing.
At the beginning of the service, everyone who came in stopped halfway down the aisle and turning to the right, bowed in the direction of the blank wall. Everybody, no exceptions. When the choir and the pastor came in, they too stopped and bowed to the blank wall.
After the service, the visitor stood outside and talked to a few folks who knew English and eventually he asked them about the practice of bowing to the blank wall. And they all said, “We don’t know, we’ve always done that.’’ he asked the pastor, who said, “I don’t know. They were doing that when I came and I saw no reason to stop them.”The pastor did promise to find out and write the visitor.
A few months later he received a letter from the Danish pastor. When the church was built, around the year 1150 AD, there had been a mural of the Madonna and Child painted on that spot on the wall.
At the time of the Reformation, when the Danish church went from Catholic to Lutheran, the mural had been painted over and the people were instructed to stop bowing to the Wall. HAH! Good Luck on that one Pastor! The people had ignored a long line of Ministers telling them to stop bowing to the wall, until the clergy had given up, and eventually the people and the pastors all bowed to wall and all forgot why.
It seems to me that we modern Christians are like the good people of the Danish village. The image of the Real Jesus has been obscured by time and cultural shifts and preacherly reinterpretation.
Over the years we’ve been told Jesus is this, Jesus is that, Jesus is the other thing, until the Real Jesus is hard to see and impossible to know.
And yet, we still come, we still worship, we still bow in front of that which we only barely comprehend. That is a miracle of faith.
We’re not sure who this Jesus really is, but there is something about His life and teaching and witness and death and promise of life again that keeps drawing us back to the Wall of worship, back to the place where we bow and pray and hope and look hard to see God in our lives.
That’s what Holy Week is all about. It is a time to look for Jesus. To look for Jesus in the Scriptures, to look for Jesus in the events of the last week of his life, to look and see what he was all about.
It is a time to look for Jesus in Prayer. To meditate upon his call to follow him, to pray with him His Upper room Prayer for love and unity among all God’s people.
It is a time to look for Jesus in worship, to join the community on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, to receive again His command that we love one another, to witness once again his death upon the cross.
Most of all, Holy Week is a time for us to look for Jesus in our lives.
To see the Real Jesus, Luther said, we must look to the Cross.
For there, Jesus died for us.
There Jesus revealed what God is really like.
There we discover the God who suffers and dies for a sinful but beloved humanity.
There on the Cross, Christ calls us to follow,
Calls us to take up our cross and serve and suffer for the world,
Calls us to trust God’s love now and forever.
Amen.
March 16, 2008
Texts: Matthew 21:1-11, Matthew 27:11-54
A few years ago, when I was a pastor in Nashville, TN, one of my parishioners, a young woman who had recently moved to Nashville from somewhere in the Midwest, dropped by my office for a chat about her love life, or rather about the lack there-of.
She brought along a personal ad she had seen in the Nashville Scene, a free weekly newspaper. She wanted to know what I thought. She was planning to write one like it.
Why she asked me, I don’t know. The last time I had a date with someone I was not married to, I was still too young to buy beer. I got married when I was 20 years old.
Anyway, the ad read like this:
VERY WANTED: 30-ish drummer in rockabilly band like the Billygoats, with a romantic spirit, professional career, blue eyes, Episcopal.
Is it just me, or does that seem a bit too specific?
As I was meditating on the events of Palm Sunday and Holy week, I began to think about how much those folks who welcomed Jesus with shouts of Hosanna resemble those folks who place overly specific and optimistic ads in the personals section.
Both sets of folks are setting themselves up for a fall. The romantic ones because their dreamed of knight in shining armor (or rockabilly Episcopal drummer with blue eyes) is unlikely to exist; and the religious ones because the Messiah they’re looking for isn’t the Messiah they are likely to get.
When the folk welcomed Jesus that long ago morning, they gave him a hero’s welcome, they lauded him in the same way they would a Military or Political leader.
They saw him as someone who remove the heavy Roman boot from the backs of their necks, they applauded him as someone who could lead a revolt against the Evil Empire, someone who would lead them to freedom.
And Jesus disappointed them. He was not 6 feet plus, with abs of steel.
He rode into town on a baby donkey, not a warhorse. He went to pray at the temple; not to protest at the palace. Jesus did not turn out to be their idea of a Savior.
And by Friday, the joyous shouts of “Hosanna, Hosanna,” had turned into derisive and blood thirsty cries of “Crucify Him, Crucify Him!”
What happened? As the week wore on and Jesus taught day after day in the temple, it became more and more clear, first to Judas, and then to many others, that Jesus was NOT the Messiah they had wanted.
What they failed to realize was that he WAS the Messiah they needed.
Several years ago, an American, a Lutheran, was vacationing in a small fishing village in Denmark. On Sunday, he attended services in the ancient village church, which dated back almost a thousand years. He went early so as to see everything. Though he did not understand the language, the service was understandable to him in its outline and its actions. The flow of the service, the standing and kneeling, etc were consistent with his church back home. Except for one thing.
At the beginning of the service, everyone who came in stopped halfway down the aisle and turning to the right, bowed in the direction of the blank wall. Everybody, no exceptions. When the choir and the pastor came in, they too stopped and bowed to the blank wall.
After the service, the visitor stood outside and talked to a few folks who knew English and eventually he asked them about the practice of bowing to the blank wall. And they all said, “We don’t know, we’ve always done that.’’ he asked the pastor, who said, “I don’t know. They were doing that when I came and I saw no reason to stop them.”The pastor did promise to find out and write the visitor.
A few months later he received a letter from the Danish pastor. When the church was built, around the year 1150 AD, there had been a mural of the Madonna and Child painted on that spot on the wall.
At the time of the Reformation, when the Danish church went from Catholic to Lutheran, the mural had been painted over and the people were instructed to stop bowing to the Wall. HAH! Good Luck on that one Pastor! The people had ignored a long line of Ministers telling them to stop bowing to the wall, until the clergy had given up, and eventually the people and the pastors all bowed to wall and all forgot why.
It seems to me that we modern Christians are like the good people of the Danish village. The image of the Real Jesus has been obscured by time and cultural shifts and preacherly reinterpretation.
Over the years we’ve been told Jesus is this, Jesus is that, Jesus is the other thing, until the Real Jesus is hard to see and impossible to know.
And yet, we still come, we still worship, we still bow in front of that which we only barely comprehend. That is a miracle of faith.
We’re not sure who this Jesus really is, but there is something about His life and teaching and witness and death and promise of life again that keeps drawing us back to the Wall of worship, back to the place where we bow and pray and hope and look hard to see God in our lives.
That’s what Holy Week is all about. It is a time to look for Jesus. To look for Jesus in the Scriptures, to look for Jesus in the events of the last week of his life, to look and see what he was all about.
It is a time to look for Jesus in Prayer. To meditate upon his call to follow him, to pray with him His Upper room Prayer for love and unity among all God’s people.
It is a time to look for Jesus in worship, to join the community on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, to receive again His command that we love one another, to witness once again his death upon the cross.
Most of all, Holy Week is a time for us to look for Jesus in our lives.
To see the Real Jesus, Luther said, we must look to the Cross.
For there, Jesus died for us.
There Jesus revealed what God is really like.
There we discover the God who suffers and dies for a sinful but beloved humanity.
There on the Cross, Christ calls us to follow,
Calls us to take up our cross and serve and suffer for the world,
Calls us to trust God’s love now and forever.
Amen.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Lent V - March 9, 2008
THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT March 9, 2008
Texts: Ezekiel 37:1-14, Romans 8:6-11, John 11:1-45
(It may be foolhardy to attempt to preach a somewhat serious sermon while standing here before you with a purple tinged Mohawk, but I am going to try, none-the-less. What’s that they say, “Fools rush in?”)
Ten minutes after you’re dead, where will you be?
That was the VERY first line of the VERY first sermon preached by a young Anglican Priest in his VERY first parish.
James Insight graduated with a Bachelor of Theology from a well respected British University and was immediately assigned as an associate at an old city parish.
It was the 1950’s and his education had been heavy on academics and very light on practical matters like worship, preaching and visiting the sick. He really didn’t know HOW to write a sermon.
The Monday he arrived, the senior pastor went on “holiday,” leaving him to take the morning service the following Sunday.
In his mail that first Monday, Father Insight found an advertisement for a sermon service which promised to send him, for a modest fee, a fresh sermon every week, written by a “veteran” preacher, and based on the week’s Gospel lesson.
They helpfully included a “sample” sermon, already printed out and ready to preach.
The young Rev. virtuously wadded it up and threw it in the trash-can.
All week he struggled to find time to write a sermon as well as struggling with the fact that he really didn’t know how.
Finally, on Saturday night, he plunged into the trash can, recovered the trial sermon, smoothed it out, and promised himself, “just this once.”
Ten minutes after you’re dead, where will you be?
That was the first line of that pre-written sermon.
It certainly caught the congregation’s attention. As a sermon, it was not full of mercy, but it was mercifully short, and the young preacher received appreciative mumbles at the door.
Not wanting to overwork the young minister, the senior pastor had lined up another preacher for Evening Prayer. It was a classmate of the new Vicar, a man who had been the star of the class, who took all the prizes in Greek and Hebrew and theology.
Father Insight led the service and then settled down to hear his classmate preach what he expected to be a
fine sermon.
The guest preacher ascended the pulpit, fiddled with his notes, adjusted his vestments, pulled his glasses down to the end of his nose and, glaring over them at the congregation, bellowed,
Ten minutes after you’re dead, where will you be?”
As the young vicar squirmed in his chancel pew, the guest preacher proceeded to preach the exact same sermon, with the exact same gestures, that he himself had preached that morning.
after that horrid experience, he resolved to always write his own sermons. They might be bad, but they would be his.
But, the question is an important one, isn’t it? Where will we be ten minutes after we’re dead?
What does life after death hold for us? Is this all there is, or is there something more to follow?
And, if there is, what difference does it make?
Is the promise of life after death just pie in the sky, bye-and-bye?
Or, does an awareness of God’s power to overcome death make a difference in how we live our lives? Here. And now.
Each of our Scripture lessons deals with these matters of life and death and life eternal.
Ezekiel looks out over a valley of dry bones and hears God ask:
Son of man, can these bones live?
St. Paul writes to the church in Rome and says:
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
And the Gospel Lesson is the story of the raising of Lazarus, a story containing much talk of life and death, and the startling sign of Jesus bringing a dead man back to the world of the living.
Lazarus is the one man who could have told us much about what effect a second chance at life might have.
Unfortunately, the Bible is mostly silent about what happened to Lazarus after he walked out of the tomb, merely noting his presence at dinner with Jesus 6 days before the Passover.
All of us are familiar with stories of near death experiences. The long tunnel of light and a comforting presence at the end have become a part of popular culture, including being in an episode of the Simpsons.
Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard joked about one of his many heart surgeries by saying that he himself had seen a strange light at the end of a long tunnel.
He said he realized he had gone to Georgia Heaven when a strong voice said, “Attention K-mart shoppers, our Blue Light Special is. . . “
In 1821, a boy was born into a well-to-do St. Petersburg, Russia family. After graduation from the Imperial Military Academy, the young man found that he was more interested in writing than fighting, and so he became a journalist and a novelist, writing about the life of the well-to-do in Czarist Russia.
He also spent much time discussing politics with other young writers, whiling away the afternoons in bars and cafes; filling the time with coffee and communism, rum and revolution.
Czar Nikolas the First quickly learned of the young radicals group and decided to teach them a lesson.
He had them arrested and tried and sentenced them to death by firing squad. They were dressed in White death gowns and led to a public square where the military detail awaited them.
Blind-folded, dressed in burial clothes, hands bound tightly behind their backs, they were paraded before a jeering crowd, and then tied to posts.
The order “ready, aim” was shouted. The rifles were cocked and . . . at just that moment a horseman rode up with a message from the Czar: sentence was to be commuted to four years hard labor.
Fyodor Dostoevsky never fully recovered from this experience. He had peered into the jaws of death and from that moment life became for him precious beyond calculation.
“Now my life will change,” he said, “I shall be born again in a new form.”
In his life after that there were two signs of that profound born again-ness.
One was faith in Christ. As he boarded the convict train for Siberia, a devout woman handed him a New Testament, the only book allowed in prison.
He read the Gospels over and over again while he was in prison and emerged with an unshakable confidence and belief in Christ.
The other was that he came out of prison a different type of writer. His naive views on the inherent goodness of humanity were shattered on the hard rock of the gigantic evil he found in his cellmates.
Yet, over time, he glimpsed the image of God in even the lowest of prisoners. He came to believe that only through BEING LOVED is a human being capable of love.
Out of this transition came his great and moving novels of sin and repentance, forgiveness and grace:
Crime and Punishment
The Brothers Karamasov
The Idiot.
Because we baptize infants by sprinkling and pouring in the Lutheran Church, we sometimes miss one of the great messages of Baptism, a message fully evident in the immersing, the dunking, of an adult convert completely beneath the water. In Baptism we “die and rise with Christ.” Listen to the words of the Funeral service:
When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life.” (ELW, p. 280)
That we too might live a new life. The message of the Gospel is that ten minutes after we’re dead we will be safe in the arms of God’s love. Our most important death has already taken place, our death to sin and the devil.
We live each day as new creatures in Christ and death no longer holds any threat for us.
Poet/priest John Donne said, Death be not proud. Why should death not be proud? Because Death cannot win, indeed, death has already lost.
Our calling today is to live each day as persons for whom death holds no fear,
as messengers of the unbelievable Good news that God’s love is more powerful than anything this world can do to us,
we are called to spread the word that Dry bones can indeed live:
Prophecy to the bones, People! Prophecy to the bones!
amen and amen.
Texts: Ezekiel 37:1-14, Romans 8:6-11, John 11:1-45
(It may be foolhardy to attempt to preach a somewhat serious sermon while standing here before you with a purple tinged Mohawk, but I am going to try, none-the-less. What’s that they say, “Fools rush in?”)
Ten minutes after you’re dead, where will you be?
That was the VERY first line of the VERY first sermon preached by a young Anglican Priest in his VERY first parish.
James Insight graduated with a Bachelor of Theology from a well respected British University and was immediately assigned as an associate at an old city parish.
It was the 1950’s and his education had been heavy on academics and very light on practical matters like worship, preaching and visiting the sick. He really didn’t know HOW to write a sermon.
The Monday he arrived, the senior pastor went on “holiday,” leaving him to take the morning service the following Sunday.
In his mail that first Monday, Father Insight found an advertisement for a sermon service which promised to send him, for a modest fee, a fresh sermon every week, written by a “veteran” preacher, and based on the week’s Gospel lesson.
They helpfully included a “sample” sermon, already printed out and ready to preach.
The young Rev. virtuously wadded it up and threw it in the trash-can.
All week he struggled to find time to write a sermon as well as struggling with the fact that he really didn’t know how.
Finally, on Saturday night, he plunged into the trash can, recovered the trial sermon, smoothed it out, and promised himself, “just this once.”
Ten minutes after you’re dead, where will you be?
That was the first line of that pre-written sermon.
It certainly caught the congregation’s attention. As a sermon, it was not full of mercy, but it was mercifully short, and the young preacher received appreciative mumbles at the door.
Not wanting to overwork the young minister, the senior pastor had lined up another preacher for Evening Prayer. It was a classmate of the new Vicar, a man who had been the star of the class, who took all the prizes in Greek and Hebrew and theology.
Father Insight led the service and then settled down to hear his classmate preach what he expected to be a
fine sermon.
The guest preacher ascended the pulpit, fiddled with his notes, adjusted his vestments, pulled his glasses down to the end of his nose and, glaring over them at the congregation, bellowed,
Ten minutes after you’re dead, where will you be?”
As the young vicar squirmed in his chancel pew, the guest preacher proceeded to preach the exact same sermon, with the exact same gestures, that he himself had preached that morning.
after that horrid experience, he resolved to always write his own sermons. They might be bad, but they would be his.
But, the question is an important one, isn’t it? Where will we be ten minutes after we’re dead?
What does life after death hold for us? Is this all there is, or is there something more to follow?
And, if there is, what difference does it make?
Is the promise of life after death just pie in the sky, bye-and-bye?
Or, does an awareness of God’s power to overcome death make a difference in how we live our lives? Here. And now.
Each of our Scripture lessons deals with these matters of life and death and life eternal.
Ezekiel looks out over a valley of dry bones and hears God ask:
Son of man, can these bones live?
St. Paul writes to the church in Rome and says:
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
And the Gospel Lesson is the story of the raising of Lazarus, a story containing much talk of life and death, and the startling sign of Jesus bringing a dead man back to the world of the living.
Lazarus is the one man who could have told us much about what effect a second chance at life might have.
Unfortunately, the Bible is mostly silent about what happened to Lazarus after he walked out of the tomb, merely noting his presence at dinner with Jesus 6 days before the Passover.
All of us are familiar with stories of near death experiences. The long tunnel of light and a comforting presence at the end have become a part of popular culture, including being in an episode of the Simpsons.
Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard joked about one of his many heart surgeries by saying that he himself had seen a strange light at the end of a long tunnel.
He said he realized he had gone to Georgia Heaven when a strong voice said, “Attention K-mart shoppers, our Blue Light Special is. . . “
In 1821, a boy was born into a well-to-do St. Petersburg, Russia family. After graduation from the Imperial Military Academy, the young man found that he was more interested in writing than fighting, and so he became a journalist and a novelist, writing about the life of the well-to-do in Czarist Russia.
He also spent much time discussing politics with other young writers, whiling away the afternoons in bars and cafes; filling the time with coffee and communism, rum and revolution.
Czar Nikolas the First quickly learned of the young radicals group and decided to teach them a lesson.
He had them arrested and tried and sentenced them to death by firing squad. They were dressed in White death gowns and led to a public square where the military detail awaited them.
Blind-folded, dressed in burial clothes, hands bound tightly behind their backs, they were paraded before a jeering crowd, and then tied to posts.
The order “ready, aim” was shouted. The rifles were cocked and . . . at just that moment a horseman rode up with a message from the Czar: sentence was to be commuted to four years hard labor.
Fyodor Dostoevsky never fully recovered from this experience. He had peered into the jaws of death and from that moment life became for him precious beyond calculation.
“Now my life will change,” he said, “I shall be born again in a new form.”
In his life after that there were two signs of that profound born again-ness.
One was faith in Christ. As he boarded the convict train for Siberia, a devout woman handed him a New Testament, the only book allowed in prison.
He read the Gospels over and over again while he was in prison and emerged with an unshakable confidence and belief in Christ.
The other was that he came out of prison a different type of writer. His naive views on the inherent goodness of humanity were shattered on the hard rock of the gigantic evil he found in his cellmates.
Yet, over time, he glimpsed the image of God in even the lowest of prisoners. He came to believe that only through BEING LOVED is a human being capable of love.
Out of this transition came his great and moving novels of sin and repentance, forgiveness and grace:
Crime and Punishment
The Brothers Karamasov
The Idiot.
Because we baptize infants by sprinkling and pouring in the Lutheran Church, we sometimes miss one of the great messages of Baptism, a message fully evident in the immersing, the dunking, of an adult convert completely beneath the water. In Baptism we “die and rise with Christ.” Listen to the words of the Funeral service:
When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life.” (ELW, p. 280)
That we too might live a new life. The message of the Gospel is that ten minutes after we’re dead we will be safe in the arms of God’s love. Our most important death has already taken place, our death to sin and the devil.
We live each day as new creatures in Christ and death no longer holds any threat for us.
Poet/priest John Donne said, Death be not proud. Why should death not be proud? Because Death cannot win, indeed, death has already lost.
Our calling today is to live each day as persons for whom death holds no fear,
as messengers of the unbelievable Good news that God’s love is more powerful than anything this world can do to us,
we are called to spread the word that Dry bones can indeed live:
Prophecy to the bones, People! Prophecy to the bones!
amen and amen.
Friday, February 29, 2008
The Fourth Sunday in Lent; March 2, 2008
The Fourth Sunday in Lent March 2, 2008
Texts: John 9:1-41
Our Gospel lesson is a long story with many twists and turns; which is why I let you sit down while I read it to you.
It is a story that requires us to pay close attention to the double meaning of words.
It is also a story that reminds us that God looks at the world very differently than we do.
The story follows a fairly simple outline:
1- 1-7 – Jesus heals a man born blind
2– 8-12 – The neighbors are puzzled and ask questions.
3– 13–17 - The Pharisees are puzzled and ask questions.
4- 18-23 – The parents are puzzled and are asked questions and bail on their son.
5-24-34- The Pharisees ask more questions, the man gives the best answers he can.
The Pharisees get mad.
6- 35-41- The man and Jesus talk. Jesus gives answers. Sort of.
In the midst of this simple story, lots of questions are raised, questions about the ways of God, questions about sin and punishment, questions about Good and Evil.
Mostly questions about Jesus; Who is he? Is he Good? Is he Evil? Is he the Devil?
Is he the Messiah?
The story starts with Jesus seeing a man born blind and the disciples asking a, well, a stupid question.
At least it seems stupid to us, but it made perfect sense to them. They believed in a first century version of instant Karma, of direct punishment for sins. As the saying goes, “Somebody’s gotta pay!
The man was born blind, so it’s obvious his blindness is God’s punishment for some sin. But whose? Did the parents get a blind son as punishment for some sin of their own? Or is the man being punished for some cosmic sin committed in the spirit world?
This was a common belief at the time of Jesus. It is the result of a belief in a completely and totally fair and just God. And we fall victim to this sort of thinking all the time.“What did I do to deserve this?” we whine when something inconvenient happens to us; as if God sits in heaven with a sin-o-meter, keeping track of our misdeeds and meting out demerits for Sacred Honor Code violations.
But, it doesn’t work that way, which is a good thing for us. Because if we really were directly punished for our sins, we’d all be a lot worse off than we are; me especially.
Jesus says that neither the man nor his parents are to blame, then he heals him; with mud and spit and a wash in the spring, all the while talking about being the light of the world and being about God’s work.
Then the cycle of questioning begins.
First the neighbors. And we have to admit, we’d be as amazed and confused and puzzled as they. He looks like the man born blind, but, but, this guy can see; how could that happen?
I’ve cleared this illustration with Norman. We’re all used to seeing Norman Whitesell rambling around here in his electric wheel chair, doing the children’s sermon, taking communion, singing with the trio, chairing committee meetings etc.
His being in the wheelchair has become normal for us. What if Norman just walked in here one day? We would be all kinds of shocked wouldn’t we? Who is this? What happened? It can’t be?
The Blind man kept saying. “It’s me. It’s really me.”And they kept saying, but HOW?
And the man told the simple unvarnished truth, without interpretation;
“This man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”
Next it was the Pharisees turn, the religious right wing, those who were so certain they were right that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees, those who had created a strict understanding of how God works in the world, and no little miracle was going to change their understanding of God.
They were convinced that God had set up the world so that:
1) sinners can not do miracles.
2) working on the Sabbath is a sin.
3) healing is work.
4) Jesus healed/worked on the Sabbath.
5) Therefore Jesus was a sinner, and
6) Therefore, Jesus could not work a miracle.
The whole discussion with the Pharisees and his parents and the Pharisees again, from verse 13 to verse 34, revolves around these issues; and I do mean revolves.
The discussion goes around in circles as the man who once was blind sticks to his straight story about his healing; no interpretation, no elaboration. In the old TV show Dragnet style, he gives, “just the facts.”
I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.
And the Pharisees can’t take it. What has happened has broken their model for how God works.
Jesus does things that they consider sin, and sinners can’t work miracles and yet this man claims Jesus healed him. Does not Compute! Does not compute!
In a recent issue of Ministry magazine, Margaret Shuster, a professor at Fuller Seminary in California say, “Some of us, . . .know too little about the seeming contrariness of God . . .” (Ministry, March 2008, p.11) I like that, “the seeming contrariness of God.”
We don’t like it when God gets contrary, do we? We like God to color between the lines, to follow the speed limit and stay in the right lane.
And the Bible shows us a God who likes to speed, who can sometimes barely keep it between the ditches, who not only does not color between the lines; it sometimes appears that God doesn’t even know that the lines are there.
If we try to see God and God’s activity in the world as limited by our ability to figure out how God could or should behave, we have created, in the words of bible translator JB Phillips, a “God who is too small.”
If you think you have God figured out, you are like the poster my wife used to have up over her desk when we were in college. It showed a grumpy looking Gorilla with its hands over its ears and its eyes closed. The caption read,
DON’T CONFUSE ME WITH THE FACTS
I’VE ALREADY MADE UP MY MIND!
That was the Pharisees, they had already made up their minds. Though the neighbors and the parents swore that this man had been born blind, though it was obvious that he could now see, though it testified over and over that Jesus had done it, they couldn’t accept it; it did not fit their preconceived and thought out plan of how God works in the world. And so, they got mad and threw the man out.
Now we turn to the last paragraph, where John shows us the man born blind having a conversation with Jesus. Jesus reveals his identity as the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of Man. And the man born blind confesses his faith saying, “Lord, I believe!” Then John shows Jesus explaining what has just happened. Listen carefully:
I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.
John is using the two meaning of sight and blindness here. Physical sight and spiritual awareness, and is making it clear to the Pharisees that they are the truly blind people in the story.
When my boys were little, I taught myself a phrase to say when they goofed up, as kids are always going to do. Instead of yelling or fussing when they made a mess or broke something or got into a fight, I tried to always say, "Okay, what have we learned from this?"
It’s a good question to ask about this story, what have we learned from this?
1) We have learned that life is not exactly fair. We are not directly punished for our sins and we are not directly rewarded for our good deeds; which, for most of us, is a good deal; since our sins generally outweigh our good deeds.
2) We have learned that, in the words of the old Ray Stevens song, Everything Is Beautiful: "There is none so blind as he who will not see."
The Pharisees refused to recognize that Jesus was a good man, a healer, perhaps a prophet, maybe the Messiah; because he did not fit their system. The question for us is simple: what truth about God have we failed to see because it does not fit with the way we want to see the world.
3) We have learned that the Bible teaches Jesus as more than a good man, a teacher of moral truth, an insightful interpreter of human nature. We have learned that the Bible teaches that Jesus is The Son of Man, the Christ, the Messiah, the Light of the world. That he came into this world to open our eyes to the truth about God and love and sin and forgiveness.
4) And we have learned that our calling is to be like the man born blind. We are called to tell the simple, clear unvarnished truth about how Jesus has touched and changed our lives. Nothing More and nothing Less.
We are called to say, One thing I know, that though I was blind,now I see.
Amen and Amen.
Texts: John 9:1-41
Our Gospel lesson is a long story with many twists and turns; which is why I let you sit down while I read it to you.
It is a story that requires us to pay close attention to the double meaning of words.
It is also a story that reminds us that God looks at the world very differently than we do.
The story follows a fairly simple outline:
1- 1-7 – Jesus heals a man born blind
2– 8-12 – The neighbors are puzzled and ask questions.
3– 13–17 - The Pharisees are puzzled and ask questions.
4- 18-23 – The parents are puzzled and are asked questions and bail on their son.
5-24-34- The Pharisees ask more questions, the man gives the best answers he can.
The Pharisees get mad.
6- 35-41- The man and Jesus talk. Jesus gives answers. Sort of.
In the midst of this simple story, lots of questions are raised, questions about the ways of God, questions about sin and punishment, questions about Good and Evil.
Mostly questions about Jesus; Who is he? Is he Good? Is he Evil? Is he the Devil?
Is he the Messiah?
The story starts with Jesus seeing a man born blind and the disciples asking a, well, a stupid question.
At least it seems stupid to us, but it made perfect sense to them. They believed in a first century version of instant Karma, of direct punishment for sins. As the saying goes, “Somebody’s gotta pay!
The man was born blind, so it’s obvious his blindness is God’s punishment for some sin. But whose? Did the parents get a blind son as punishment for some sin of their own? Or is the man being punished for some cosmic sin committed in the spirit world?
This was a common belief at the time of Jesus. It is the result of a belief in a completely and totally fair and just God. And we fall victim to this sort of thinking all the time.“What did I do to deserve this?” we whine when something inconvenient happens to us; as if God sits in heaven with a sin-o-meter, keeping track of our misdeeds and meting out demerits for Sacred Honor Code violations.
But, it doesn’t work that way, which is a good thing for us. Because if we really were directly punished for our sins, we’d all be a lot worse off than we are; me especially.
Jesus says that neither the man nor his parents are to blame, then he heals him; with mud and spit and a wash in the spring, all the while talking about being the light of the world and being about God’s work.
Then the cycle of questioning begins.
First the neighbors. And we have to admit, we’d be as amazed and confused and puzzled as they. He looks like the man born blind, but, but, this guy can see; how could that happen?
I’ve cleared this illustration with Norman. We’re all used to seeing Norman Whitesell rambling around here in his electric wheel chair, doing the children’s sermon, taking communion, singing with the trio, chairing committee meetings etc.
His being in the wheelchair has become normal for us. What if Norman just walked in here one day? We would be all kinds of shocked wouldn’t we? Who is this? What happened? It can’t be?
The Blind man kept saying. “It’s me. It’s really me.”And they kept saying, but HOW?
And the man told the simple unvarnished truth, without interpretation;
“This man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”
Next it was the Pharisees turn, the religious right wing, those who were so certain they were right that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees, those who had created a strict understanding of how God works in the world, and no little miracle was going to change their understanding of God.
They were convinced that God had set up the world so that:
1) sinners can not do miracles.
2) working on the Sabbath is a sin.
3) healing is work.
4) Jesus healed/worked on the Sabbath.
5) Therefore Jesus was a sinner, and
6) Therefore, Jesus could not work a miracle.
The whole discussion with the Pharisees and his parents and the Pharisees again, from verse 13 to verse 34, revolves around these issues; and I do mean revolves.
The discussion goes around in circles as the man who once was blind sticks to his straight story about his healing; no interpretation, no elaboration. In the old TV show Dragnet style, he gives, “just the facts.”
I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.
And the Pharisees can’t take it. What has happened has broken their model for how God works.
Jesus does things that they consider sin, and sinners can’t work miracles and yet this man claims Jesus healed him. Does not Compute! Does not compute!
In a recent issue of Ministry magazine, Margaret Shuster, a professor at Fuller Seminary in California say, “Some of us, . . .know too little about the seeming contrariness of God . . .” (Ministry, March 2008, p.11) I like that, “the seeming contrariness of God.”
We don’t like it when God gets contrary, do we? We like God to color between the lines, to follow the speed limit and stay in the right lane.
And the Bible shows us a God who likes to speed, who can sometimes barely keep it between the ditches, who not only does not color between the lines; it sometimes appears that God doesn’t even know that the lines are there.
If we try to see God and God’s activity in the world as limited by our ability to figure out how God could or should behave, we have created, in the words of bible translator JB Phillips, a “God who is too small.”
If you think you have God figured out, you are like the poster my wife used to have up over her desk when we were in college. It showed a grumpy looking Gorilla with its hands over its ears and its eyes closed. The caption read,
DON’T CONFUSE ME WITH THE FACTS
I’VE ALREADY MADE UP MY MIND!
That was the Pharisees, they had already made up their minds. Though the neighbors and the parents swore that this man had been born blind, though it was obvious that he could now see, though it testified over and over that Jesus had done it, they couldn’t accept it; it did not fit their preconceived and thought out plan of how God works in the world. And so, they got mad and threw the man out.
Now we turn to the last paragraph, where John shows us the man born blind having a conversation with Jesus. Jesus reveals his identity as the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of Man. And the man born blind confesses his faith saying, “Lord, I believe!” Then John shows Jesus explaining what has just happened. Listen carefully:
I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.
John is using the two meaning of sight and blindness here. Physical sight and spiritual awareness, and is making it clear to the Pharisees that they are the truly blind people in the story.
When my boys were little, I taught myself a phrase to say when they goofed up, as kids are always going to do. Instead of yelling or fussing when they made a mess or broke something or got into a fight, I tried to always say, "Okay, what have we learned from this?"
It’s a good question to ask about this story, what have we learned from this?
1) We have learned that life is not exactly fair. We are not directly punished for our sins and we are not directly rewarded for our good deeds; which, for most of us, is a good deal; since our sins generally outweigh our good deeds.
2) We have learned that, in the words of the old Ray Stevens song, Everything Is Beautiful: "There is none so blind as he who will not see."
The Pharisees refused to recognize that Jesus was a good man, a healer, perhaps a prophet, maybe the Messiah; because he did not fit their system. The question for us is simple: what truth about God have we failed to see because it does not fit with the way we want to see the world.
3) We have learned that the Bible teaches Jesus as more than a good man, a teacher of moral truth, an insightful interpreter of human nature. We have learned that the Bible teaches that Jesus is The Son of Man, the Christ, the Messiah, the Light of the world. That he came into this world to open our eyes to the truth about God and love and sin and forgiveness.
4) And we have learned that our calling is to be like the man born blind. We are called to tell the simple, clear unvarnished truth about how Jesus has touched and changed our lives. Nothing More and nothing Less.
We are called to say, One thing I know, that though I was blind,now I see.
Amen and Amen.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Third Sunday in Lent
THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT
February 24, 2008
Text: John 4:5-42
It was in 1978, 30 years ago, that the Lutheran Book of Worship, the LBW, the infamous “Green Book,” was published and introduced into Lutheran congregations.
One of the “new things” that the Green Book introduced was the passing of the peace. This was not met with, um, universal enthusiasm shall we say, amongst traditionally stoic and reserved German Lutherans in the South.
While I was in seminary in SC in the early 1980’s, I remember reading in the Synod’s Newsletter about one pastor’s experience teaching his congregation about passing the peace.
He had written a newsletter article about it, preached a sermon about it, finally the fateful day came when he turned from the Altar and said to the congregation, in what he hoped was a warm and encouraging voice,
“The Lord be with you!” “And also with you.” came the mumbled, almost hushed, reply.
Stepping bravely out of his appointed place in the chancel, the pastor went forward to the front row to shake the hand of the woman there and greet her with words of peace.
She was someone he barely knew, who only came at Christmas and Easter and who always slipped out during the last hymn.
The moment his hand touched the hand the elderly woman tentatively held out, her face crumbled, her eyes flowed with tears and she fled the building by a side door.
It was all the pastor could do to finish the service, and as soon as possible he drove to her house to check on her.
She politely ushered him into the “front room,” and told him, “I’m so sorry I made such a scene. It’s hard to explain. You see pastor, since my husband died 5 years ago; you’re the first person who has touched me.”
There are many people in the world today who are yearning to be touched, looking for someone to reach out to them, to make contact with them.
Ours is a world full of hurting, lonely, scared and scarred folk, needing to be touched and healed.
In our Gospel lesson today, we read the story of a time when Jesus touched a life.
It is a story that calls us to the ministry of touching the lives of others with the love and concern of Christ.
It was not easy for Jesus to touch the Samaritan woman’s life. He had to overcome, or simply ignore, many societal and cultural barriers to do it.
He was a Jew – she was a Samaritan.
He was a man – she was a woman.
He was a Rabbi – she was a woman of suspect moral character.
Yet, here was Jesus,
a religious leader,
alone in a lonely place;
not only speaking to her
but holding a long conversation with her, someone he was not supposed
to even make contact with.
And yet, Jesus found a way to touch
and transform her life.
Jews considered Samaritans to be racially impure,
a mongrel race, half Jew and half Barbarian.
The Samaritans were the descendants of the lower class people left behind when the rich and educated and powerful leaders of Israel had been carted off in bondage to Babylon.
The ancestors of the Samaritans had inter-married with the non-Jews living in the area and had tried to keep the faith alive the best way they could without a temple or priesthood, passing on the Torah in oral fashion and worshipping at outdoor altars on mountaintops.
When the Jews returned from Babylon years later, they wouldn’t let the Samaritans help with the rebuilding of the Temple, indeed wouldn’t have anything to do with the Samaritans at all.
So the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Girizim. Eventually, tensions between the groups erupted and an Israeli army destroyed the Samaritan temple, leaving them to worship on the lonely mountaintop.
Jesus was a Jew – she was a Samaritan;
they should ignore each other. But there’s more.
Even if she had been Jewish, the encounter would have been suspect, because many Jews believed that men should not speak to women in public.
The most strict Rabbis advised that men should not speak to their own wives in public.
There was even a group of devout Pharisees who were nicknamed the “black-and-blues,’ because they walked around in public with their eyes closed to avoid seeing a woman and kept running into things.
BUT Jesus ignored all this, and at mid-day, while sitting alone at a well, he asked her for a drink of water.
Nothing extraordinary, nothing stupendous or profound, just a drink of water.
And she could not have been more surprised if he had asked her to fly.
What was said between them was much less important than the fact that he spoke to her, he carried on a conversation with her, he treated her like a person worth knowing.
He treated her with respect, he treated her,
A SAMARITAN WOMAN!!!,
like someone who was acceptable,
like someone who was touchable.
He touched her life in that conversation.
He talked to her about important things;
about God and life and worship and love.
And most importantly, he did not condemn her as others had done.
Rather, he offered her an opportunity to change her life.
He offered her the Living Water of God’s Love.
He did not argue with her about the relative merits of Jewish and Samaritan ways of worshipping the same God.
Rather he shared with her his love for that God and his certainty that without Spirit and Truth, no worship was true.
He touched her – by going where she was.
He touched her – by ignoring societal barriers that
separated them.
He touched her – by letting her know that he cared about her, he accepted her, he loved her.
There’s an interesting little note in verse 28:
“Then the woman left her water jar and went . . .”
Several years ago in Nashville I heard Dr. John Fairless, now of First Baptist Church in Gainesville, FL, preach a sermon on that one line. “She left her water jar. . . “
His point was this; The Water Jar, and carrying it to the well alone in the middle of the day when all the other women went to the well together in the early morning, was a sign of her shame, of her old life of being a nobody.
When she went back to town without it, it became a symbol that she was leaving that old life behind and starting a new direction full of new possibilities.
What is your water jar?
What is it you have been carrying around that you need to put down?
What burden do you need to lay aside and abandon in order to more fully follow Christ?
I invite you to do that today.
Why don’t you leave your burden here,
never to be picked up again?
Trade in your burden, your restriction, your limits, your fears and shames and sorrows.
Lay them on the altar, and pick up Christ.
Pick up Christ’s love,
Christ’s acceptance,
Christ’s encouragement.
Trade in your water jar, your burden, your pain, your sorrow,
trade it in for a drink of that Living Water that only Christ can give.
Amen and Amen.
February 24, 2008
Text: John 4:5-42
It was in 1978, 30 years ago, that the Lutheran Book of Worship, the LBW, the infamous “Green Book,” was published and introduced into Lutheran congregations.
One of the “new things” that the Green Book introduced was the passing of the peace. This was not met with, um, universal enthusiasm shall we say, amongst traditionally stoic and reserved German Lutherans in the South.
While I was in seminary in SC in the early 1980’s, I remember reading in the Synod’s Newsletter about one pastor’s experience teaching his congregation about passing the peace.
He had written a newsletter article about it, preached a sermon about it, finally the fateful day came when he turned from the Altar and said to the congregation, in what he hoped was a warm and encouraging voice,
“The Lord be with you!” “And also with you.” came the mumbled, almost hushed, reply.
Stepping bravely out of his appointed place in the chancel, the pastor went forward to the front row to shake the hand of the woman there and greet her with words of peace.
She was someone he barely knew, who only came at Christmas and Easter and who always slipped out during the last hymn.
The moment his hand touched the hand the elderly woman tentatively held out, her face crumbled, her eyes flowed with tears and she fled the building by a side door.
It was all the pastor could do to finish the service, and as soon as possible he drove to her house to check on her.
She politely ushered him into the “front room,” and told him, “I’m so sorry I made such a scene. It’s hard to explain. You see pastor, since my husband died 5 years ago; you’re the first person who has touched me.”
There are many people in the world today who are yearning to be touched, looking for someone to reach out to them, to make contact with them.
Ours is a world full of hurting, lonely, scared and scarred folk, needing to be touched and healed.
In our Gospel lesson today, we read the story of a time when Jesus touched a life.
It is a story that calls us to the ministry of touching the lives of others with the love and concern of Christ.
It was not easy for Jesus to touch the Samaritan woman’s life. He had to overcome, or simply ignore, many societal and cultural barriers to do it.
He was a Jew – she was a Samaritan.
He was a man – she was a woman.
He was a Rabbi – she was a woman of suspect moral character.
Yet, here was Jesus,
a religious leader,
alone in a lonely place;
not only speaking to her
but holding a long conversation with her, someone he was not supposed
to even make contact with.
And yet, Jesus found a way to touch
and transform her life.
Jews considered Samaritans to be racially impure,
a mongrel race, half Jew and half Barbarian.
The Samaritans were the descendants of the lower class people left behind when the rich and educated and powerful leaders of Israel had been carted off in bondage to Babylon.
The ancestors of the Samaritans had inter-married with the non-Jews living in the area and had tried to keep the faith alive the best way they could without a temple or priesthood, passing on the Torah in oral fashion and worshipping at outdoor altars on mountaintops.
When the Jews returned from Babylon years later, they wouldn’t let the Samaritans help with the rebuilding of the Temple, indeed wouldn’t have anything to do with the Samaritans at all.
So the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Girizim. Eventually, tensions between the groups erupted and an Israeli army destroyed the Samaritan temple, leaving them to worship on the lonely mountaintop.
Jesus was a Jew – she was a Samaritan;
they should ignore each other. But there’s more.
Even if she had been Jewish, the encounter would have been suspect, because many Jews believed that men should not speak to women in public.
The most strict Rabbis advised that men should not speak to their own wives in public.
There was even a group of devout Pharisees who were nicknamed the “black-and-blues,’ because they walked around in public with their eyes closed to avoid seeing a woman and kept running into things.
BUT Jesus ignored all this, and at mid-day, while sitting alone at a well, he asked her for a drink of water.
Nothing extraordinary, nothing stupendous or profound, just a drink of water.
And she could not have been more surprised if he had asked her to fly.
What was said between them was much less important than the fact that he spoke to her, he carried on a conversation with her, he treated her like a person worth knowing.
He treated her with respect, he treated her,
A SAMARITAN WOMAN!!!,
like someone who was acceptable,
like someone who was touchable.
He touched her life in that conversation.
He talked to her about important things;
about God and life and worship and love.
And most importantly, he did not condemn her as others had done.
Rather, he offered her an opportunity to change her life.
He offered her the Living Water of God’s Love.
He did not argue with her about the relative merits of Jewish and Samaritan ways of worshipping the same God.
Rather he shared with her his love for that God and his certainty that without Spirit and Truth, no worship was true.
He touched her – by going where she was.
He touched her – by ignoring societal barriers that
separated them.
He touched her – by letting her know that he cared about her, he accepted her, he loved her.
There’s an interesting little note in verse 28:
“Then the woman left her water jar and went . . .”
Several years ago in Nashville I heard Dr. John Fairless, now of First Baptist Church in Gainesville, FL, preach a sermon on that one line. “She left her water jar. . . “
His point was this; The Water Jar, and carrying it to the well alone in the middle of the day when all the other women went to the well together in the early morning, was a sign of her shame, of her old life of being a nobody.
When she went back to town without it, it became a symbol that she was leaving that old life behind and starting a new direction full of new possibilities.
What is your water jar?
What is it you have been carrying around that you need to put down?
What burden do you need to lay aside and abandon in order to more fully follow Christ?
I invite you to do that today.
Why don’t you leave your burden here,
never to be picked up again?
Trade in your burden, your restriction, your limits, your fears and shames and sorrows.
Lay them on the altar, and pick up Christ.
Pick up Christ’s love,
Christ’s acceptance,
Christ’s encouragement.
Trade in your water jar, your burden, your pain, your sorrow,
trade it in for a drink of that Living Water that only Christ can give.
Amen and Amen.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Second Sunday in Lent
The Second Sunday in Lent
Feb. 17, 2008
Texts: Genesis 12:1-4a, Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, John 3:1-17
Did you ever hear of a man named Harvey Pinick? A lot of golfers have. He wrote a best seller called Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book. There’s an interesting story about that.
Harvey Pinick was born in 1905. He started his golf career caddying at the Austin, Texas Country Club. He pretty much stayed there his whole life, moving up to golf pro and teacher.
In the 1920’s, Harvey bought a Red spiral notebook and began jotting down teaching notes, humorous stories and homespun philosophy derived from teaching and playing golf with all sorts of people. He never intended to show the book to anyone, he was going to give it to his son, someday.
In 1991, when he was 86 years old, Harvey showed the book to a writer he knew and ask him if it was worth publishing. The man took it, read it, and told him yes. The writer called Harvey’s house one day and talked to Harvey’s wife. He left a message that Simon and Schuster had agreed to an advance of $90,000.
A week or so later the writer saw Harvey at the golf course. Harvey seemed nervous and upset.After hemming and hawing a while, Harvey spit out what was bothering him. With all his medical bills and his limited income, Harvey just couldn’t see anyway he could come up with the 90 thousand to get the book published.
The writer stared at Harvey for a while and then burst out laughing. “Look Harvey, you don’t pay them, they pay YOU. You don’t give 90 thousand; you get 90 thousand.
Many of us are like Harvey Pinick. We think our relationship with God is about what we have to pay God, about what we can do to make God accept our work. But it’s really the other way around. God wants to give us the free gift of his Son, of his love. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
We Lutherans are pretty good at saying the right words about this relationship, we learned them in Confirmation Class, we hear them over and over in good Lutheran Sermons, we do know how to say the words:
Justification by Grace through Faith,
Justification by Grace through Faith.
It’s our mantra, our slogan, our holy chant, our rallying cry.
But do we believe it? Not so much with our heads and with our words, but deep in our hearts and in our souls and in our emotions? Do we know that God has saved us because God loves us? Do we know that it’s about what God has given us; not what we have given God?
It seems to me that all too often we have higher entry level standards than God. It is the basic human condition that in every area of life that time after time we seek to prove that we are good enough or smart enough or faithful enough or diligent enough or beautiful enough or holy enough to deserve the love we receive from God.
And the reality is that none of us is any of those things enough to have even earned the love of our parents or our children or our partners of our friends; much less earning and deserving the love of the Creator of the Universe.
The most important thing that can happen in any relationship is that you figure out that the other person just loves you. You didn’t earn that, it just happened, it’s a mystery. Parents love their children, children love their parents, husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends love each other just because they do.
The second most important thing that can happen in a relationship is that you figure out that love can die if it is abused or taken for granted. But, if love is embraced and nurtured, it will never die.
People do not earn each other’s love, they accept and receive and care for each other’s love and in that warm caring space, love grows stronger and more enduring.
The same is true of God’s love for us and our love for God. We do not earn God’s love. We do not merit God’s love.
We are not so lovely and good that God looks down upon the earth and says, “Oh look at that one! There’s a beautiful holy person, I’ll love her!” And none of us is so ugly and sinful that God says, “Look at that disgusting person, I’ll turn my back on him!”
God made all of us and God loves all of us. There is nothing we did to create that reality and there is nothing we can do to change it. God is love and God loves you and God loves me.
We did not create it and we cannot change it, but we can either live in God’s love or we can ignore it; we can choose to embrace God’s love or we can choose to abuse it by taking it for granted.
Our readings from Genesis and Romans refer to the story of the calling of Abram and Sarai; they were called to leave the land of their birth, Ur of the Chaldees and to go wherever God sends them.
The Bible says nothing about God seeing something special in these two people that made God pick them; God just did. We don’t know; Abram and Sarai may not have been God’s first choice. God may have been going around the Middle East calling people for years, but nobody else listened. Who knows; maybe Abram and Sarai were at the bottom of God’s list, not the top.
But, they were the ones who said yes to God’s call. They heard the promise of love and blessing and responded by placing their trust in God and following where they were led.
That’s what justification by grace through faith really means; hearing God’s call, feeling God’s love and embracing God’s grace and allowing our lives to be changed, altered by God’s very real presence in us.
I want to ask you something this morning. Have you allowed God to love you? Have you taken the time to sit quietly with your soul and look honestly at your life and then say to God, “This is me. This is who I am, this is what I’ve done and I know it’s not enough, but it is all I’ve got.”?
I’m not talking about the so-called sinner’s prayer, or “getting saved,” or any of that.
I’m talking about allowing God’s love to embrace you fully and completely.
I’m talking about putting aside any notions that you’re not good enough or complete enough or you don’t believe enough or do enough.
I’m talking about sitting still and looking at Jesus lifted up on the cross and realizing that the magnitude and completeness of God’s love for you is beyond belief or comprehension.
I’m talking about opening your heart to the love God has for you. Have you done it? Won’t you do it?
amen and amen.
Feb. 17, 2008
Texts: Genesis 12:1-4a, Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, John 3:1-17
Did you ever hear of a man named Harvey Pinick? A lot of golfers have. He wrote a best seller called Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book. There’s an interesting story about that.
Harvey Pinick was born in 1905. He started his golf career caddying at the Austin, Texas Country Club. He pretty much stayed there his whole life, moving up to golf pro and teacher.
In the 1920’s, Harvey bought a Red spiral notebook and began jotting down teaching notes, humorous stories and homespun philosophy derived from teaching and playing golf with all sorts of people. He never intended to show the book to anyone, he was going to give it to his son, someday.
In 1991, when he was 86 years old, Harvey showed the book to a writer he knew and ask him if it was worth publishing. The man took it, read it, and told him yes. The writer called Harvey’s house one day and talked to Harvey’s wife. He left a message that Simon and Schuster had agreed to an advance of $90,000.
A week or so later the writer saw Harvey at the golf course. Harvey seemed nervous and upset.After hemming and hawing a while, Harvey spit out what was bothering him. With all his medical bills and his limited income, Harvey just couldn’t see anyway he could come up with the 90 thousand to get the book published.
The writer stared at Harvey for a while and then burst out laughing. “Look Harvey, you don’t pay them, they pay YOU. You don’t give 90 thousand; you get 90 thousand.
Many of us are like Harvey Pinick. We think our relationship with God is about what we have to pay God, about what we can do to make God accept our work. But it’s really the other way around. God wants to give us the free gift of his Son, of his love. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
We Lutherans are pretty good at saying the right words about this relationship, we learned them in Confirmation Class, we hear them over and over in good Lutheran Sermons, we do know how to say the words:
Justification by Grace through Faith,
Justification by Grace through Faith.
It’s our mantra, our slogan, our holy chant, our rallying cry.
But do we believe it? Not so much with our heads and with our words, but deep in our hearts and in our souls and in our emotions? Do we know that God has saved us because God loves us? Do we know that it’s about what God has given us; not what we have given God?
It seems to me that all too often we have higher entry level standards than God. It is the basic human condition that in every area of life that time after time we seek to prove that we are good enough or smart enough or faithful enough or diligent enough or beautiful enough or holy enough to deserve the love we receive from God.
And the reality is that none of us is any of those things enough to have even earned the love of our parents or our children or our partners of our friends; much less earning and deserving the love of the Creator of the Universe.
The most important thing that can happen in any relationship is that you figure out that the other person just loves you. You didn’t earn that, it just happened, it’s a mystery. Parents love their children, children love their parents, husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends love each other just because they do.
The second most important thing that can happen in a relationship is that you figure out that love can die if it is abused or taken for granted. But, if love is embraced and nurtured, it will never die.
People do not earn each other’s love, they accept and receive and care for each other’s love and in that warm caring space, love grows stronger and more enduring.
The same is true of God’s love for us and our love for God. We do not earn God’s love. We do not merit God’s love.
We are not so lovely and good that God looks down upon the earth and says, “Oh look at that one! There’s a beautiful holy person, I’ll love her!” And none of us is so ugly and sinful that God says, “Look at that disgusting person, I’ll turn my back on him!”
God made all of us and God loves all of us. There is nothing we did to create that reality and there is nothing we can do to change it. God is love and God loves you and God loves me.
We did not create it and we cannot change it, but we can either live in God’s love or we can ignore it; we can choose to embrace God’s love or we can choose to abuse it by taking it for granted.
Our readings from Genesis and Romans refer to the story of the calling of Abram and Sarai; they were called to leave the land of their birth, Ur of the Chaldees and to go wherever God sends them.
The Bible says nothing about God seeing something special in these two people that made God pick them; God just did. We don’t know; Abram and Sarai may not have been God’s first choice. God may have been going around the Middle East calling people for years, but nobody else listened. Who knows; maybe Abram and Sarai were at the bottom of God’s list, not the top.
But, they were the ones who said yes to God’s call. They heard the promise of love and blessing and responded by placing their trust in God and following where they were led.
That’s what justification by grace through faith really means; hearing God’s call, feeling God’s love and embracing God’s grace and allowing our lives to be changed, altered by God’s very real presence in us.
I want to ask you something this morning. Have you allowed God to love you? Have you taken the time to sit quietly with your soul and look honestly at your life and then say to God, “This is me. This is who I am, this is what I’ve done and I know it’s not enough, but it is all I’ve got.”?
I’m not talking about the so-called sinner’s prayer, or “getting saved,” or any of that.
I’m talking about allowing God’s love to embrace you fully and completely.
I’m talking about putting aside any notions that you’re not good enough or complete enough or you don’t believe enough or do enough.
I’m talking about sitting still and looking at Jesus lifted up on the cross and realizing that the magnitude and completeness of God’s love for you is beyond belief or comprehension.
I’m talking about opening your heart to the love God has for you. Have you done it? Won’t you do it?
amen and amen.
Friday, February 08, 2008
First Sunday in Lent
FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
February 10, 2008
Texts: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:17
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11
A few years ago, a young man I know found himself embroiled in a heated argument in a college biology class. Much to his surprise, everyone else in the class believed in what is called “young earth creationism;” that the earth is only 6000 years old, etc. He was arguing for what is called “intelligent design,” that God created the universe millions of years ago and is in control of the creative process, and that Genesis is a theological work, not a scientific textbook.
In the midst of the classroom discussion, with scientific and philosophical arguments being thrown up by both sides, one young woman stood up, pointed at the young man and said, indignantly, “If you believe that, how can you call yourself a Christian?” He smiled a little smile and said, “I don’t call myself a Christian. I’m a Lutheran.” His answer totally befuddled her.
“If you believe that, how can you call yourself a Christian?” “If you are the son of God . . .?” Questions of identity are important. Knowing “who you are,” as a person is the most important step in knowing how it is that you are to behave.
Several years ago someone gave me a tee-shirt that I absolutely loved. I wore it so much I wore it out. Just the other day, I was dusting the furniture and found its remnants in the rag box. It read:
“To do is to be” – PLATO
“To be is to do” – DESCARTES
“Dobedobedo” - SINATRA
What we do, how be behave, what we believe; is a large part of how others define us. Pastor, teacher, housewife, student, musician, funny, quiet, aggressive, talkative, etc.
And, how we define ourselves goes a long way toward defining how we behave. It is, at times, a chicken and the egg question. Which came first? Am I a Pastor because I do pastoral things; or do I do pastoral things because I am a Pastor?
The biblical position is that we act out of our identity; that who we believe ourselves to be is the determining factor in what we choose to do.
Have you ever noticed that when someone behaves in an outrageous, or improper or, most often, horribly RUDE manner, the first thing people say is: “Well, just who do you think you are?”
That is the right question. Who we think we are shapes our behavior.
And the Devil knows this. That is why he challenges Jesus on the point of identity in today’s Gospel lesson. The key to understanding the story of the temptations lies in THREE little words: IF YOU ARE.
In the last verse of Chapter Three, following Jesus’ baptism, a voice comes from heaven and says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
And here, three verses later, the devil says, “If you are the Son of God.”
Jesus is given the opportunity to make his own way as the Son of God;
He is given the opportunity to win popularity by turning stones into bread, feeding the masses and feeding his ego at the same time,
He is given the opportunity to achieve great fame by throwing himself off the temple and showing himself to be God’s Chosen One by letting the angels catch him.
He is given the opportunity to achieve great power by worshipping the devil and turning his back on trusting God to provide.
These temptations invite Jesus to imitate the Emperors in Rome who secured power by giving the people free food and free entertainment, winning their favor with bread and circuses.
The temptations with which Jesus was faced are the very ones we, you and I, fall victim to on a regular, I would almost say, a daily basis. In little subtle ways we seek popularity or power or possessions as a way of hedging our bets against the uncertainty of the world.
After all, we live in an age in which terrorists strap on bombs and blow up innocent people, stock markets plunge and housing prices fall, where wars rage and tornados strike and cars suddenly slide off the road into ditches.
A little control over our own lives and a bit of money securely invested, what’s wrong with that?
It comes down to a matter of faith, of trust, of belief and confidence in the promises of God to love and care for us through out all of life’s trials and temptations.
The problem is that each of the things the Devil wanted Jesus to do as the Son of God was selfish, and self-serving and ultimately self-glorifying. And Jesus rejected them because being centered on self is inconsistent with being the Christ, the Beloved, the Son of God, the one sent to save others.
It was during the forty days in the wilderness that Jesus struggled with what it meant to be the Son of God. When he became clear about that identity, he came out of the wilderness, and began to preach the Kingdom of God and to perform mighty acts of healing and exorcism. In the forty days in the wilderness, Jesus found out who he was and came forth ready to behave in accord with his identity.
When Jesus knew who he was, the question of what he was to do was already answered. To be the Christ, the Son of God, laid out for him a path to follow, a way of being in the world that led to certain things to do. Preaching. Healing. Confronting Evil.
Throughout these forty days of Lent we are called to contemplate the life of Jesus, his path of service and obedience to God, his living out his identity as the Son of God.
As we do that, we must ask ourselves some identity questions, personally and congregationally. Who am I? Who am I, really? And what is God calling me to do? Who are we? Who are we, really? And what is God calling us to do?
Not too long ago I turned on the TV to watch a ballgame and caught the tail end of a court-room drama. Two lawyers, one white, one black, were sitting in a book lined office, having a drink and discussing the just ended case. The Black lawyer said, “I used to think I was a lawyer who happened to be Black. Now I feel more like a Black man who happens to be a lawyer.” A question of identity that will shape his life and work.
Who am I? Am I a lawyer, or doctor, or policeman, or office manager, or teacher, or truck-driver or nurse, or retiree who happens to be a Christian?
Or am I a Christian; who happens to be a lawyer or doctor or policeman, etc.
It is an important question, and the answer will shape your life.
Likewise, as a congregation, as a community, we struggle with identity questions. Who are we, really? Are we a gathering of like-minded people, a little Lutheran enclave in Northeast Guilford County? If so, then the things we do should be designed to take care of ourselves.
Or are we a people whom God has called together to be the Body of Christ, as Luther says in the Small Catechism: Called, gathered, empowered and sent?
Called to be a Christian, gathered around Word and Sacrament, Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Sent into the world to spread the Love of God.
If that is who we are (and I believe it is) then the things we do will be designed to care for others.
Jesus spent forty days in the Wilderness struggling with the question of identity, struggling to discover what it meant to be the Son of God.
Throughout the forty days of Lent, we are called to do the same. We must ask ourselves, If we are the beloved children of God, what is God calling us to do?
Friedens Church; just WHO do you think you are?
Amen and amen.
February 10, 2008
Texts: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:17
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11
A few years ago, a young man I know found himself embroiled in a heated argument in a college biology class. Much to his surprise, everyone else in the class believed in what is called “young earth creationism;” that the earth is only 6000 years old, etc. He was arguing for what is called “intelligent design,” that God created the universe millions of years ago and is in control of the creative process, and that Genesis is a theological work, not a scientific textbook.
In the midst of the classroom discussion, with scientific and philosophical arguments being thrown up by both sides, one young woman stood up, pointed at the young man and said, indignantly, “If you believe that, how can you call yourself a Christian?” He smiled a little smile and said, “I don’t call myself a Christian. I’m a Lutheran.” His answer totally befuddled her.
“If you believe that, how can you call yourself a Christian?” “If you are the son of God . . .?” Questions of identity are important. Knowing “who you are,” as a person is the most important step in knowing how it is that you are to behave.
Several years ago someone gave me a tee-shirt that I absolutely loved. I wore it so much I wore it out. Just the other day, I was dusting the furniture and found its remnants in the rag box. It read:
“To do is to be” – PLATO
“To be is to do” – DESCARTES
“Dobedobedo” - SINATRA
What we do, how be behave, what we believe; is a large part of how others define us. Pastor, teacher, housewife, student, musician, funny, quiet, aggressive, talkative, etc.
And, how we define ourselves goes a long way toward defining how we behave. It is, at times, a chicken and the egg question. Which came first? Am I a Pastor because I do pastoral things; or do I do pastoral things because I am a Pastor?
The biblical position is that we act out of our identity; that who we believe ourselves to be is the determining factor in what we choose to do.
Have you ever noticed that when someone behaves in an outrageous, or improper or, most often, horribly RUDE manner, the first thing people say is: “Well, just who do you think you are?”
That is the right question. Who we think we are shapes our behavior.
And the Devil knows this. That is why he challenges Jesus on the point of identity in today’s Gospel lesson. The key to understanding the story of the temptations lies in THREE little words: IF YOU ARE.
In the last verse of Chapter Three, following Jesus’ baptism, a voice comes from heaven and says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
And here, three verses later, the devil says, “If you are the Son of God.”
Jesus is given the opportunity to make his own way as the Son of God;
He is given the opportunity to win popularity by turning stones into bread, feeding the masses and feeding his ego at the same time,
He is given the opportunity to achieve great fame by throwing himself off the temple and showing himself to be God’s Chosen One by letting the angels catch him.
He is given the opportunity to achieve great power by worshipping the devil and turning his back on trusting God to provide.
These temptations invite Jesus to imitate the Emperors in Rome who secured power by giving the people free food and free entertainment, winning their favor with bread and circuses.
The temptations with which Jesus was faced are the very ones we, you and I, fall victim to on a regular, I would almost say, a daily basis. In little subtle ways we seek popularity or power or possessions as a way of hedging our bets against the uncertainty of the world.
After all, we live in an age in which terrorists strap on bombs and blow up innocent people, stock markets plunge and housing prices fall, where wars rage and tornados strike and cars suddenly slide off the road into ditches.
A little control over our own lives and a bit of money securely invested, what’s wrong with that?
It comes down to a matter of faith, of trust, of belief and confidence in the promises of God to love and care for us through out all of life’s trials and temptations.
The problem is that each of the things the Devil wanted Jesus to do as the Son of God was selfish, and self-serving and ultimately self-glorifying. And Jesus rejected them because being centered on self is inconsistent with being the Christ, the Beloved, the Son of God, the one sent to save others.
It was during the forty days in the wilderness that Jesus struggled with what it meant to be the Son of God. When he became clear about that identity, he came out of the wilderness, and began to preach the Kingdom of God and to perform mighty acts of healing and exorcism. In the forty days in the wilderness, Jesus found out who he was and came forth ready to behave in accord with his identity.
When Jesus knew who he was, the question of what he was to do was already answered. To be the Christ, the Son of God, laid out for him a path to follow, a way of being in the world that led to certain things to do. Preaching. Healing. Confronting Evil.
Throughout these forty days of Lent we are called to contemplate the life of Jesus, his path of service and obedience to God, his living out his identity as the Son of God.
As we do that, we must ask ourselves some identity questions, personally and congregationally. Who am I? Who am I, really? And what is God calling me to do? Who are we? Who are we, really? And what is God calling us to do?
Not too long ago I turned on the TV to watch a ballgame and caught the tail end of a court-room drama. Two lawyers, one white, one black, were sitting in a book lined office, having a drink and discussing the just ended case. The Black lawyer said, “I used to think I was a lawyer who happened to be Black. Now I feel more like a Black man who happens to be a lawyer.” A question of identity that will shape his life and work.
Who am I? Am I a lawyer, or doctor, or policeman, or office manager, or teacher, or truck-driver or nurse, or retiree who happens to be a Christian?
Or am I a Christian; who happens to be a lawyer or doctor or policeman, etc.
It is an important question, and the answer will shape your life.
Likewise, as a congregation, as a community, we struggle with identity questions. Who are we, really? Are we a gathering of like-minded people, a little Lutheran enclave in Northeast Guilford County? If so, then the things we do should be designed to take care of ourselves.
Or are we a people whom God has called together to be the Body of Christ, as Luther says in the Small Catechism: Called, gathered, empowered and sent?
Called to be a Christian, gathered around Word and Sacrament, Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Sent into the world to spread the Love of God.
If that is who we are (and I believe it is) then the things we do will be designed to care for others.
Jesus spent forty days in the Wilderness struggling with the question of identity, struggling to discover what it meant to be the Son of God.
Throughout the forty days of Lent, we are called to do the same. We must ask ourselves, If we are the beloved children of God, what is God calling us to do?
Friedens Church; just WHO do you think you are?
Amen and amen.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Transfiguration SUNDAY: February 18, 2007
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD
Matthew 17:1-9
Peanuts Cartoon:
Linus and Charlie Brown are lying on their backs on the pitcher’s mound, staring up at the clouds in the sky.
Charlie Brown says, Linus, do you ever see anything in the clouds?”
Linus: Well, yes Charlie Brown, I do. For instance, that one over there bears a striking resemblance to Michelangelo’s depiction of the Creation on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
And that one, there over the school, looks like a map of Scandinavia, see; there’s Denmark and Sweden.
And that one there looks like a helix. Do you ever see anything Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: Well, I was going to say a Ducky and a horsey but I changed my mind.
Every time I am confronted with a Biblical story like the
TRANSFIGURATION, I feel a bit like Charlie Brown;
compared to the religious experiences of others,
the things I have seen are simple and plain.
My personal religious experience contains no bright flashes or red-hot emotions,
no defining moments of transcending clarity or poetic,
mystical exuberance.
No, my religious experience tends toward the mundane and the ordinary: reading the Bible, family prayers, Church on Sunday, familiar hymns.
I have no frame of reference with which to begin to try to understand what happened to Jesus and his Disciples on top of that mountain.
The experience is completely and totally foreign to me.
And yet, there is something within it that tugs at my heart, that pulls at my soul, that preys on my mind.
There are two ways to approach a story like this: one is the rational, analytical, scientific approach.
The other is as a child, with eyes attuned to seeing mystery and magic.
Soren Kirkegaard told a parable about this:
Two young people, one a German girl, the other an English boy. They met on the coast of France, they conversed in high school French.
After returning to their respective homes, the girl wrote the boy a passionate letter; in German; which he did not know.
First, he laboriously translated it, using grammar books and dictionaries and lexicons.
But, he did not stop there. He then put aside the intellectual work and read the letter for what it was;
a love letter from a girl; a love letter aimed at his heart, not at his head.
So it is with the Bible, with Holy Scripture, with the written Word of God.
While we must not turn off our brains in looking at a story like this,
we cannot stop at the rational level, we must remember to read the Bible for what it is; a love letter aimed at the human heart.
Matthew wrote this story to touch our hearts, to let us know something important about the love of God for us.
Many of us here learned to read using the Dick and Jane books. You remember:
See Dick. See Dick go. Hear Jane. Hear Jane talk. Go Dick go. Go see Jane. etc.
One way of looking at, listening to, the story of the Transfiguration is through the eyes of a child, through the simple words of See – Hear - Go.
1) What did they see?
A) We must remember that this was a vision, a thing
SEEN! So the important question is not what actually
happened, what factually occurred.
The important question is what did the Disciples
Report that they saw; what was revealed to them.
B) So, again what did they see?
i) They saw light and clouds which are ancient
symbols of God’s presence; remember the
Exodus through the desert, God lead the
Children of Israel with a Cloud by Day and
a fire, a light, by night.
They saw God’s Presence and Guidance
ON Jesus.
ii) They saw Moses and Elijah.
In Jewish tradition: Moses = Law
Elijah = Prophets
In Jewish Tradition, both Moses and
Elijah were to return before the Messiah,
this signals Jesus as the Messiah.
They give Him their blessing and then
the disciples see Jesus’ alone:
this shows that Jesus completes,
fulfills, the Law and the Prophets.
2) What did they hear?
i) They heard divine speech silencing human speech
vs. 5 – while he was still speeaking
ii) they heard a command to listen to Jesus
vs. 5 – listen to him
iii) they heard from Jesus the Gospel words:
vs. 7 - get up and do NOT be afraid!
3) Through the eyes of Peter, James and John
we have seen the vision, we have heard the voices
How are we called to respond?
Where are we to go?
i) First we are called to the mountain:
Not to blinding lights and booming voices
But to time apart with Christ,
We are called to “Take Time to be Holy,”
as the old Gospel Hymn says,
We are called to look at Christ with awe
and hope and love, we are called to listen
to his commands to love one another with
body, mind and soul.
ii) second,
we are called off the mountain and into life.
Like Peter, we want to stay on a Spiritual High
but we can’t stay, we have to go back down
to where life is lived for real.
For it is down here, and out there, in our
homes and schools and jobs and communities
in the mundane, ordinary,
“so-called” real world
that real faith is lived out.
CONCLUSION:
When we lived in a suburb of Atlanta, our boys were small and Deborah was a stay at home Mom. Our home was on a cul-de-sac and we had lots of outdoor play space:
A porch all across the front, a basketball goal, a huge garage dedicated to toys, front yard baseball diamond.
We were the place to be for the 4-8 year old set.
One day, I was putting together a large wooden Jungle Gym we had ordered, Swing, slide, tree-house, climbing bars combination.
Of course the area kids were all hanging around watching, waiting for me to finish, anxiously asking, are you done yet.
I am not naturally gifted in construction. Though I can read and follow instructions, but it was a long process for me, and I messed up several times and was constantly confused and frustrated.
Many times during that long afternoon and evening I wanted to express my frustration verbally with some well-chosen Anglo-Saxon verbiage or to throw a few things about; but, my audience of children prevented me, as well it should have.
That afternoon reminded me that what I say and do in the midst of life’s dailiness is more important than what I say or do on the mountain-top of religious experience.
Don’t misunderstand me; this is not about not cussing, it’s about living your faith in the real world in which you live most of your life.
That is where we live our faith,
that is where we shine the light of Christ,
Because that is where that it is needed most,
And that is where God has sent us.
Amen and Amen.
Matthew 17:1-9
Peanuts Cartoon:
Linus and Charlie Brown are lying on their backs on the pitcher’s mound, staring up at the clouds in the sky.
Charlie Brown says, Linus, do you ever see anything in the clouds?”
Linus: Well, yes Charlie Brown, I do. For instance, that one over there bears a striking resemblance to Michelangelo’s depiction of the Creation on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
And that one, there over the school, looks like a map of Scandinavia, see; there’s Denmark and Sweden.
And that one there looks like a helix. Do you ever see anything Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: Well, I was going to say a Ducky and a horsey but I changed my mind.
Every time I am confronted with a Biblical story like the
TRANSFIGURATION, I feel a bit like Charlie Brown;
compared to the religious experiences of others,
the things I have seen are simple and plain.
My personal religious experience contains no bright flashes or red-hot emotions,
no defining moments of transcending clarity or poetic,
mystical exuberance.
No, my religious experience tends toward the mundane and the ordinary: reading the Bible, family prayers, Church on Sunday, familiar hymns.
I have no frame of reference with which to begin to try to understand what happened to Jesus and his Disciples on top of that mountain.
The experience is completely and totally foreign to me.
And yet, there is something within it that tugs at my heart, that pulls at my soul, that preys on my mind.
There are two ways to approach a story like this: one is the rational, analytical, scientific approach.
The other is as a child, with eyes attuned to seeing mystery and magic.
Soren Kirkegaard told a parable about this:
Two young people, one a German girl, the other an English boy. They met on the coast of France, they conversed in high school French.
After returning to their respective homes, the girl wrote the boy a passionate letter; in German; which he did not know.
First, he laboriously translated it, using grammar books and dictionaries and lexicons.
But, he did not stop there. He then put aside the intellectual work and read the letter for what it was;
a love letter from a girl; a love letter aimed at his heart, not at his head.
So it is with the Bible, with Holy Scripture, with the written Word of God.
While we must not turn off our brains in looking at a story like this,
we cannot stop at the rational level, we must remember to read the Bible for what it is; a love letter aimed at the human heart.
Matthew wrote this story to touch our hearts, to let us know something important about the love of God for us.
Many of us here learned to read using the Dick and Jane books. You remember:
See Dick. See Dick go. Hear Jane. Hear Jane talk. Go Dick go. Go see Jane. etc.
One way of looking at, listening to, the story of the Transfiguration is through the eyes of a child, through the simple words of See – Hear - Go.
1) What did they see?
A) We must remember that this was a vision, a thing
SEEN! So the important question is not what actually
happened, what factually occurred.
The important question is what did the Disciples
Report that they saw; what was revealed to them.
B) So, again what did they see?
i) They saw light and clouds which are ancient
symbols of God’s presence; remember the
Exodus through the desert, God lead the
Children of Israel with a Cloud by Day and
a fire, a light, by night.
They saw God’s Presence and Guidance
ON Jesus.
ii) They saw Moses and Elijah.
In Jewish tradition: Moses = Law
Elijah = Prophets
In Jewish Tradition, both Moses and
Elijah were to return before the Messiah,
this signals Jesus as the Messiah.
They give Him their blessing and then
the disciples see Jesus’ alone:
this shows that Jesus completes,
fulfills, the Law and the Prophets.
2) What did they hear?
i) They heard divine speech silencing human speech
vs. 5 – while he was still speeaking
ii) they heard a command to listen to Jesus
vs. 5 – listen to him
iii) they heard from Jesus the Gospel words:
vs. 7 - get up and do NOT be afraid!
3) Through the eyes of Peter, James and John
we have seen the vision, we have heard the voices
How are we called to respond?
Where are we to go?
i) First we are called to the mountain:
Not to blinding lights and booming voices
But to time apart with Christ,
We are called to “Take Time to be Holy,”
as the old Gospel Hymn says,
We are called to look at Christ with awe
and hope and love, we are called to listen
to his commands to love one another with
body, mind and soul.
ii) second,
we are called off the mountain and into life.
Like Peter, we want to stay on a Spiritual High
but we can’t stay, we have to go back down
to where life is lived for real.
For it is down here, and out there, in our
homes and schools and jobs and communities
in the mundane, ordinary,
“so-called” real world
that real faith is lived out.
CONCLUSION:
When we lived in a suburb of Atlanta, our boys were small and Deborah was a stay at home Mom. Our home was on a cul-de-sac and we had lots of outdoor play space:
A porch all across the front, a basketball goal, a huge garage dedicated to toys, front yard baseball diamond.
We were the place to be for the 4-8 year old set.
One day, I was putting together a large wooden Jungle Gym we had ordered, Swing, slide, tree-house, climbing bars combination.
Of course the area kids were all hanging around watching, waiting for me to finish, anxiously asking, are you done yet.
I am not naturally gifted in construction. Though I can read and follow instructions, but it was a long process for me, and I messed up several times and was constantly confused and frustrated.
Many times during that long afternoon and evening I wanted to express my frustration verbally with some well-chosen Anglo-Saxon verbiage or to throw a few things about; but, my audience of children prevented me, as well it should have.
That afternoon reminded me that what I say and do in the midst of life’s dailiness is more important than what I say or do on the mountain-top of religious experience.
Don’t misunderstand me; this is not about not cussing, it’s about living your faith in the real world in which you live most of your life.
That is where we live our faith,
that is where we shine the light of Christ,
Because that is where that it is needed most,
And that is where God has sent us.
Amen and Amen.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Epiphany III,
Epiphany 3 January 27, 2008
Texts: Isaiah 9:1-4,
I Corinthians 1:10-18,
Matthew 4:12-23
Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American on the Supreme Court.
Here is a story he often included in his speeches around the country:
There were two sisters. They had lived with their parents and brothers and sisters in a dilapidated old house since their birth. Time went on, theirs brothers and sisters married and moved out, their parents died; the sisters remained.
Sometime in their mid-forties they had a big falling out; such a big falling out that they stopped speaking to each other. They were too stubborn for either one to leave the little house, so they continued living there together.
A chalk line divided the bed room into two halves. The chalk divided all the rooms in the house, so that the sisters could come and go and get her own meals without trespassing on her sister’s space. In the stillness of the night, each could hear the other breathing and snoring.
This went on for many, many years; then one night one sister got up to go to the bathroom and fell, breaking her hip. Her sister heard her scream and scooted across the chalk line to her side. She called for help, then sat in the floor and held her sister while waiting for the ambulance.
Sometime, in the midst of the darkness and the pain, the words I’M SORRY and I LOVE YOU were exchanged. In the midst of broken-ness, healing had taken place.
Justice Marshall always ended that story by saying: The legal system can force open doors, and even, sometimes, knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me. Bridge building. It’s a good name for the ministry of healing that is the church.
As we look at the world’s continued darkness; its wars and disease and ignorance and prejudice and violence, we can see that at the root of most of this is our disconnectedness; our alienation from God, from each other, and most of all form our true selves.
It is the lack of genuine, open, trusting, loving community in the world that causes most of our problems, or makes them worse.
The church is called to a simple ministry in the midst of the world’s darkness and disconnection; we are called to shine the light of God into the world and to pull the world’s disparate peoples into one community: the people of God.
This calling has never made much sense to the world. It looks like a quixotic quest, a nonsense proposition. The world operates by a different set of rules.
Perhaps it’s not exactly cut-throat, dog-eat-dog out there; but it certainly is look out for #1 and know who your friends are and you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
Ever since Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee and called out Simon Peter and James and John, the Sons of Zebedee; those who were left behind have felt that those who went were foolish.
Even Jesus had family problems in this regard. Our Gospel lesson says he left the tiny village of Nazareth and moved, made his home, settled in the larger, more exciting town of Capernaum. It was kind of like moving from Gibsonville to Chapel Hill.
Over in Chapter 12 we read that his family back in Nazareth started hearing things about what Jesus was saying and doing up in “the cities” and “his Mama and them” went to take him home because they thought he had embarrassed the family enough.
As Paul puts it in our Second Lesson: “The message of the Cross is foolishness . . .”
It is interesting to note the Paul says this in a letter to a congregation that is in the midst of a huge church fight. Their fight in the Church in Corinth had to do with which Pastor they liked best.
I’m one of Paul’s people; I’m one of Cephas’ people, I’m one of Apollo’s people; and for the hyper self-righteous people, “H’mp, I belong to Christ.” Thank God, we never get that silly around here . . . do we?
And Paul’s remedy for all this infighting and fussing and back-biting was the foolishness of the cross, the ridiculousness of the Gospel story. He calls upon the Corinthians to remember the highly unlikely and paradoxical way that God chose to save the world.
This is also the highly unlikely and paradoxical way God calls upon us to behave in the world; as God’s ambassadors and healing-agents and bridge-builders between cultures and peoples.
That is the task which we have been given, that the exactly who we have been called to be. WE are called to respond to God’s act of building a bridge of love to us by turning and building bridges of love to others.
We are called to build bridges of forgiveness and vulnerability and risk-taking, bridges that are cobbled together with the little crosses of suffering we bear for one another each and every day.
Bridges laid down across the great chasms of division and distrust, fear and hatred that afflict and terrorize our world. Bridges that seek to bring all those who have lived in great darkness into the even greater light of God’s love.
Back in the 1980’s there was a man named Larry Trapp living in Lincoln, Nebraska. His name was doubly ironic; he was a man trapped in his own hatred and trapped in his own body. Larry Trapp was suffering from a fatal disease and was confined to a wheel chair; he was nearly blind, he was also the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska. He truly was a man trapped in darkness.
Larry Trapp became obsessed with driving Michael Weisser out of town. Weisser is Jewish; he is the cantor of the Lincoln Synagogue. Trapp barraged the Weisser home with hate mail, at home and on the job. He made incessant threatening phone calls, he organized demonstrations, He did everything he could to make life a living hell for Michael Weisser and his family.
Cantor Weisser and his family were truly intimidated and scared. He had a wife and children, he wanted to protect them. But Michael Weisser was also a man who was unwilling to let another person’s hate prevent him from showing love. So he started calling Larry Trapp’s home, always getting the answering machine. So, he always left a message. He said, “This is Michael Weisser. I’d like to talk to you. I want to know why you’re doing this to me.”
Finally, one day, Larry Trapp answered the phone, screaming and cursing and threatening, “WHAT DO YOU WANT? YOU’RE HARASSING ME!”
And Michael Weisser said, “I Know you have a hard time getting around and can’t drive, and I was wondering if you might need a ride to the grocery store or something?” After a very long stunned silence, Larry Trapp quietly replied, “Uh, no, I’ve got that covered, but thanks for asking.”
Larry and Michael kept talking by phone. After a while, Larry Trapp started going over to the Jewish Cantor’s house for dinner, they became friends, and when it became apparent he had no where else to go, the Weisser family invited Larry to move in with them. And he did, dying there in Michael’s arms a few months later.
Somewhere along the way Larry Trapp left the KKK. He spent his last time on earth spreading a message of love in a world of hate; Larry Trapp became an apostle to Klansmen and other hate groups; trying to get them to see the great light of love and forgiveness he had seen and experienced. (TIME Feb. 17, 1992)
We are called to a ministry healing, a ministry of building bridges of love and forgiveness between people, a ministry of shining the light of God’s love on all people. Are we ready to embrace this ministry? Are we prepared to let the light of Christ shine through us? Are we willing to reach out to the world with the foolishness of the cross?
Amen and amen.
Texts: Isaiah 9:1-4,
I Corinthians 1:10-18,
Matthew 4:12-23
Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American on the Supreme Court.
Here is a story he often included in his speeches around the country:
There were two sisters. They had lived with their parents and brothers and sisters in a dilapidated old house since their birth. Time went on, theirs brothers and sisters married and moved out, their parents died; the sisters remained.
Sometime in their mid-forties they had a big falling out; such a big falling out that they stopped speaking to each other. They were too stubborn for either one to leave the little house, so they continued living there together.
A chalk line divided the bed room into two halves. The chalk divided all the rooms in the house, so that the sisters could come and go and get her own meals without trespassing on her sister’s space. In the stillness of the night, each could hear the other breathing and snoring.
This went on for many, many years; then one night one sister got up to go to the bathroom and fell, breaking her hip. Her sister heard her scream and scooted across the chalk line to her side. She called for help, then sat in the floor and held her sister while waiting for the ambulance.
Sometime, in the midst of the darkness and the pain, the words I’M SORRY and I LOVE YOU were exchanged. In the midst of broken-ness, healing had taken place.
Justice Marshall always ended that story by saying: The legal system can force open doors, and even, sometimes, knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me. Bridge building. It’s a good name for the ministry of healing that is the church.
As we look at the world’s continued darkness; its wars and disease and ignorance and prejudice and violence, we can see that at the root of most of this is our disconnectedness; our alienation from God, from each other, and most of all form our true selves.
It is the lack of genuine, open, trusting, loving community in the world that causes most of our problems, or makes them worse.
The church is called to a simple ministry in the midst of the world’s darkness and disconnection; we are called to shine the light of God into the world and to pull the world’s disparate peoples into one community: the people of God.
This calling has never made much sense to the world. It looks like a quixotic quest, a nonsense proposition. The world operates by a different set of rules.
Perhaps it’s not exactly cut-throat, dog-eat-dog out there; but it certainly is look out for #1 and know who your friends are and you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
Ever since Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee and called out Simon Peter and James and John, the Sons of Zebedee; those who were left behind have felt that those who went were foolish.
Even Jesus had family problems in this regard. Our Gospel lesson says he left the tiny village of Nazareth and moved, made his home, settled in the larger, more exciting town of Capernaum. It was kind of like moving from Gibsonville to Chapel Hill.
Over in Chapter 12 we read that his family back in Nazareth started hearing things about what Jesus was saying and doing up in “the cities” and “his Mama and them” went to take him home because they thought he had embarrassed the family enough.
As Paul puts it in our Second Lesson: “The message of the Cross is foolishness . . .”
It is interesting to note the Paul says this in a letter to a congregation that is in the midst of a huge church fight. Their fight in the Church in Corinth had to do with which Pastor they liked best.
I’m one of Paul’s people; I’m one of Cephas’ people, I’m one of Apollo’s people; and for the hyper self-righteous people, “H’mp, I belong to Christ.” Thank God, we never get that silly around here . . . do we?
And Paul’s remedy for all this infighting and fussing and back-biting was the foolishness of the cross, the ridiculousness of the Gospel story. He calls upon the Corinthians to remember the highly unlikely and paradoxical way that God chose to save the world.
This is also the highly unlikely and paradoxical way God calls upon us to behave in the world; as God’s ambassadors and healing-agents and bridge-builders between cultures and peoples.
That is the task which we have been given, that the exactly who we have been called to be. WE are called to respond to God’s act of building a bridge of love to us by turning and building bridges of love to others.
We are called to build bridges of forgiveness and vulnerability and risk-taking, bridges that are cobbled together with the little crosses of suffering we bear for one another each and every day.
Bridges laid down across the great chasms of division and distrust, fear and hatred that afflict and terrorize our world. Bridges that seek to bring all those who have lived in great darkness into the even greater light of God’s love.
Back in the 1980’s there was a man named Larry Trapp living in Lincoln, Nebraska. His name was doubly ironic; he was a man trapped in his own hatred and trapped in his own body. Larry Trapp was suffering from a fatal disease and was confined to a wheel chair; he was nearly blind, he was also the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska. He truly was a man trapped in darkness.
Larry Trapp became obsessed with driving Michael Weisser out of town. Weisser is Jewish; he is the cantor of the Lincoln Synagogue. Trapp barraged the Weisser home with hate mail, at home and on the job. He made incessant threatening phone calls, he organized demonstrations, He did everything he could to make life a living hell for Michael Weisser and his family.
Cantor Weisser and his family were truly intimidated and scared. He had a wife and children, he wanted to protect them. But Michael Weisser was also a man who was unwilling to let another person’s hate prevent him from showing love. So he started calling Larry Trapp’s home, always getting the answering machine. So, he always left a message. He said, “This is Michael Weisser. I’d like to talk to you. I want to know why you’re doing this to me.”
Finally, one day, Larry Trapp answered the phone, screaming and cursing and threatening, “WHAT DO YOU WANT? YOU’RE HARASSING ME!”
And Michael Weisser said, “I Know you have a hard time getting around and can’t drive, and I was wondering if you might need a ride to the grocery store or something?” After a very long stunned silence, Larry Trapp quietly replied, “Uh, no, I’ve got that covered, but thanks for asking.”
Larry and Michael kept talking by phone. After a while, Larry Trapp started going over to the Jewish Cantor’s house for dinner, they became friends, and when it became apparent he had no where else to go, the Weisser family invited Larry to move in with them. And he did, dying there in Michael’s arms a few months later.
Somewhere along the way Larry Trapp left the KKK. He spent his last time on earth spreading a message of love in a world of hate; Larry Trapp became an apostle to Klansmen and other hate groups; trying to get them to see the great light of love and forgiveness he had seen and experienced. (TIME Feb. 17, 1992)
We are called to a ministry healing, a ministry of building bridges of love and forgiveness between people, a ministry of shining the light of God’s love on all people. Are we ready to embrace this ministry? Are we prepared to let the light of Christ shine through us? Are we willing to reach out to the world with the foolishness of the cross?
Amen and amen.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Epiphany 2,
EPIPHANY 2 January 20, 2008
Isaiah 49:1-7, John 1:29-42
Her name was Mrs. Gammons. I don’t remember her first name, but I do remember her:
she was my Sunday School teacher.
Mrs. Gammons was a shy, quiet, reserved woman. With her graying hair done up in a stiff, 60’s updo, and wearing a simple gray or blue dress, she looked a lot like Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show.
I don’t believe I ever heard her say more than two or three words outside her Sunday School class. She taught the “Intermediate Boys,” which, in our little mountain church,
was a fancy name for a class of all males from the time they learned to read until they went to High School, roughly 6 to 12.
Our tiny classroom was in the damp church basement with two old wooden pews
and a broken table. There were heating pipes running just barely over our heads and water would occasionally seep in and puddle in the floor.
Mrs. Gammons suffered patiently the indignities heaped upon her by a rather uninterested
and unruly gang of farm boys. We hid stray cats and dogs under her desk and threw tiny spit-balls into her hair when had her back turned to write on the board.
And, miracle of miracles, week after week, she came back to try again.
She had no particular talent for the job,
she had never read a book on Christian Education
she had never been to a teacher’s workshop.
She just came in each week and took the roll,
Putting a Gold Star beside our name for:
Attendance,
Bible brought,
Offering given,
and Memory Verse learned.
After the paperwork was completed, the lesson began. First we read the scripture out of our personal brought from home Bibles. (Baptists take their own Bibles to church. The first time I went to a Lutheran Church, Holy Trinity in Chapel Hill when I was in college, I took my Black Bible with my name in Gold on the front. The usher took one look at me and said, “You’re not Lutheran, are you?”)
We read the scripture, then paragraph by paragraph we would take turns reading the lesson outloud. Mrs. Gammons would help us with the hard words and at the end of each paragraph she would sum up the meaning and ask us if we had any questions. We never did.
This went on for 45 minutes or so, and then we were done, mercifully for us, and I imagine for her. But sometimes we finished early, before the bell, and she would just stare at us with the look of someone who wished to be someplace, any place, else.
She would look up at the ceiling, as if by wishing she could make the bell ring, then she would look at us, and sigh, and THEN:
She would sigh again, and begin haltingly, in her gentle soft voice; to tell us about Jesus.
She told us about how much he meant in her life, about what a loving, kind, gentle and comforting presence He had been for her in times of hurt and sorrow.
She talked about how Jesus challenges us, dares us, leads us and helps us to be better people; better in how we treat others, and better in how we treat ourselves.
This was during the 60’s and while many others in our community were saying extremely hateful and racist things, she told us that Jesus loved black people as much as he loved us and that we ought to love black people to and treat them right.
She said that Jesus lived forgiveness and taught forgiveness and that since Jesus had forgiven our mistakes and sins, that we ought to forgive the mistakes and sins of others.
And somehow, not really knowing how or when it happened, when my time in Mrs. Gammons class was over, I discovered that I was in love with Jesus, a love that has never left me in the 40 years since.
In seminary I learned a lot of things I never learned in Sunday School, but I never had to unlearn anything I learned from her. It’s all true.
Mrs. Gammons was my JOHN THE BAPTIST!
She was the one who pointed at Jesus and said,
“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the Sin of the world!”
Mrs. Gammons was my Andrew, bringing me to Jesus and saying, “He’s the One!”
Mrs. Gammons was the one who brought me to Christ!
All of us are called to be witnesses. Very often we make it more difficult than it really it is, this witnessing business.
It’s mostly a matter of pointing at Jesus and saying, “He’s the One!” We do not need any special knowledge or special training to do that.
My Daddy had a well-known penchant for silly jokes. Why did the Chicken cross the road? Type jokes. Here’s one of his better ones:
A traveling salesman pulls into a small town and asks a little boy; DO YOU KNOW WHERE JOHNSON’S FEED AND SEED IS?
Nope!
DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE FARMERS COOPERATIVE EXCHANGE IS?
Nope.
DO YOU KNOW WHERE WILSON’S GENERAL STORE IS?
Nope.
BOY, YOU DON’T KNOW MUCH DO YOU?
Little boy: “Well, I know one thing you don’t know. I know I ain’t lost!”
Above and beyond everything else the church is called to know one thing and to do one thing.
We are called to know and love God in Christ, and we are called to bring others into that circle of love.
That is our purpose for being, it is the reason for our existence, it is the end to which we work, it is our mission, it is our ministry, it is our calling.
Like the Israelites in our lesson from Isaiah, we are beckoned by God to be a LIGHT to the nations.
It is too light, too small, to tiny, a thing that we should just talk about Christ and our faith among ourselves, we must share Christ with the World.
It is our calling to be like John, pointing to Christ as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
It is our calling to be like Saint Andrew, bringing our friends to meet Jesus.
It is our calling to be like Mrs. Gammons, telling others about our love for Jesus.
AMEN AND AMEN
Isaiah 49:1-7, John 1:29-42
Her name was Mrs. Gammons. I don’t remember her first name, but I do remember her:
she was my Sunday School teacher.
Mrs. Gammons was a shy, quiet, reserved woman. With her graying hair done up in a stiff, 60’s updo, and wearing a simple gray or blue dress, she looked a lot like Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show.
I don’t believe I ever heard her say more than two or three words outside her Sunday School class. She taught the “Intermediate Boys,” which, in our little mountain church,
was a fancy name for a class of all males from the time they learned to read until they went to High School, roughly 6 to 12.
Our tiny classroom was in the damp church basement with two old wooden pews
and a broken table. There were heating pipes running just barely over our heads and water would occasionally seep in and puddle in the floor.
Mrs. Gammons suffered patiently the indignities heaped upon her by a rather uninterested
and unruly gang of farm boys. We hid stray cats and dogs under her desk and threw tiny spit-balls into her hair when had her back turned to write on the board.
And, miracle of miracles, week after week, she came back to try again.
She had no particular talent for the job,
she had never read a book on Christian Education
she had never been to a teacher’s workshop.
She just came in each week and took the roll,
Putting a Gold Star beside our name for:
Attendance,
Bible brought,
Offering given,
and Memory Verse learned.
After the paperwork was completed, the lesson began. First we read the scripture out of our personal brought from home Bibles. (Baptists take their own Bibles to church. The first time I went to a Lutheran Church, Holy Trinity in Chapel Hill when I was in college, I took my Black Bible with my name in Gold on the front. The usher took one look at me and said, “You’re not Lutheran, are you?”)
We read the scripture, then paragraph by paragraph we would take turns reading the lesson outloud. Mrs. Gammons would help us with the hard words and at the end of each paragraph she would sum up the meaning and ask us if we had any questions. We never did.
This went on for 45 minutes or so, and then we were done, mercifully for us, and I imagine for her. But sometimes we finished early, before the bell, and she would just stare at us with the look of someone who wished to be someplace, any place, else.
She would look up at the ceiling, as if by wishing she could make the bell ring, then she would look at us, and sigh, and THEN:
She would sigh again, and begin haltingly, in her gentle soft voice; to tell us about Jesus.
She told us about how much he meant in her life, about what a loving, kind, gentle and comforting presence He had been for her in times of hurt and sorrow.
She talked about how Jesus challenges us, dares us, leads us and helps us to be better people; better in how we treat others, and better in how we treat ourselves.
This was during the 60’s and while many others in our community were saying extremely hateful and racist things, she told us that Jesus loved black people as much as he loved us and that we ought to love black people to and treat them right.
She said that Jesus lived forgiveness and taught forgiveness and that since Jesus had forgiven our mistakes and sins, that we ought to forgive the mistakes and sins of others.
And somehow, not really knowing how or when it happened, when my time in Mrs. Gammons class was over, I discovered that I was in love with Jesus, a love that has never left me in the 40 years since.
In seminary I learned a lot of things I never learned in Sunday School, but I never had to unlearn anything I learned from her. It’s all true.
Mrs. Gammons was my JOHN THE BAPTIST!
She was the one who pointed at Jesus and said,
“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the Sin of the world!”
Mrs. Gammons was my Andrew, bringing me to Jesus and saying, “He’s the One!”
Mrs. Gammons was the one who brought me to Christ!
All of us are called to be witnesses. Very often we make it more difficult than it really it is, this witnessing business.
It’s mostly a matter of pointing at Jesus and saying, “He’s the One!” We do not need any special knowledge or special training to do that.
My Daddy had a well-known penchant for silly jokes. Why did the Chicken cross the road? Type jokes. Here’s one of his better ones:
A traveling salesman pulls into a small town and asks a little boy; DO YOU KNOW WHERE JOHNSON’S FEED AND SEED IS?
Nope!
DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE FARMERS COOPERATIVE EXCHANGE IS?
Nope.
DO YOU KNOW WHERE WILSON’S GENERAL STORE IS?
Nope.
BOY, YOU DON’T KNOW MUCH DO YOU?
Little boy: “Well, I know one thing you don’t know. I know I ain’t lost!”
Above and beyond everything else the church is called to know one thing and to do one thing.
We are called to know and love God in Christ, and we are called to bring others into that circle of love.
That is our purpose for being, it is the reason for our existence, it is the end to which we work, it is our mission, it is our ministry, it is our calling.
Like the Israelites in our lesson from Isaiah, we are beckoned by God to be a LIGHT to the nations.
It is too light, too small, to tiny, a thing that we should just talk about Christ and our faith among ourselves, we must share Christ with the World.
It is our calling to be like John, pointing to Christ as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
It is our calling to be like Saint Andrew, bringing our friends to meet Jesus.
It is our calling to be like Mrs. Gammons, telling others about our love for Jesus.
AMEN AND AMEN
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
The Baptism of Our Lord, January 13, 2008
The Baptism of Our Lord January 13, 2008
Text: Matthew 3:13-17
Title: On the Baptism of Jesus
I have lost count of the baptisms I have done. Most of them have been; well, ordinary’s not the word I’m looking for. No Baptism is ordinary, at least not to the one being baptized or to his or her loved ones. But, most of the Baptisms I have done have been regular. That’s it, regular. In the church, on Sunday morning, with vestments and sponsors and pictures, etc. etc. After thirty years of baptisms, I sort of remember most of them, but I couldn’t make a list or call up all the names.
A few years ago I went to preach Homecoming at a Church in NC I pastored years ago. After the worship service, I reconnected with the family of a man I’ll call Jimmy. One Sunday years ago, Jimmy’s Grandmother came to see me in my office. She said,
“Pastor, I have a grandson named Jimmy. You’ve never met him. He’s 32. He ran away from home at 13. He’s led a bad life. He’s come to stay with me now. He’s dying. He has a brain tumor and there’s nothing they can do. He wanted to know if you would come and talk to him.” I said of course. She said, there’s not much time. I said I would come after lunch, and so I did. She took me into the living room, introduced me to Jimmy and left us alone.
He looked like an emaciated Hell’s Angel; jeans, black tee-shirt, leather jacket, dirty ball cap perched on his chemo-bald head. A little boy trying to act tough, I thought.
He wanted to “get right with God” before he died, he said. He was pulling in every spiritual tradition he could think of. He wanted to make confession and get absolution like a Catholic; get saved and baptized by immersion like a Baptist, and get the Holy Spirit like a Pentecostal. I told him I would do the best I could; the Confession/Absolution and the Baptism I was sure I could do, the Spirit thing was up to God. I guess when you’re staring death in the face, you don’t want to leave any salvific stone unturned.
He started talking and talked for a couple of hours. Remember, he had run way to join the circus at 13, he had spent almost 20 years in carnivals and county fairs and amusement parks. Of the Ten Commandments, there was only one he had not broken, and frankly, that was not from lack of trying. His story was hard for me to hear;
I never worked so hard at listening in my life.
His sins were real, not imagined; his guilt was deserved, not imposed. There was nothing exciting or interesting or titillating about his sins; they were the ordinary products of lust and desire and a real disregard for the welfare or rights of others. Here was the real character; A SINNER!
And it was not humanly easy for me to pronounce forgiveness on his wasted life. He had no time for a true amendment of his life, no time to make restitution or do penance, no time for me to see if his change of heart was genuine. There was no point in corrective therapy, no time for behavior adjustment plans, no purpose to be served in berating him.
There was only time for the working of the Gospel: for Repentance and Forgiveness, for Baptism and Grace, for Death and the Promise of New Life.
So, I stifled my impulse toward either judgment or comfort and followed the ritual in the Lutheran Book of Worship for Individual Confession and Forgiveness. I heard his confession, I decided it was genuine, I pronounced forgiveness.
And we set a time and place for his baptism: the next day at 1:00 PM; in his uncle’s above ground swimming pool.
When I drove up the next day, the “community of faith” had already gathered. Jimmy’s relatives were standing on one side of the pool: stout, plain, sturdy, good country church-going people. Jimmy’s friends were on the other side: loud, brassy, somewhat sleazy bikers and carnies of questionable taste and character. They had all come together to to see Jimmy get baptized.
I went into the water first, Jimmy followed. I said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” and dunked him under the water. He came us sputtering and cussing and said That water’s cold. And, on impulse, I said, oops, looks like that one didn’t take” and dunked him again, much to the delight of all around.
The second time he came up, he grinned and held his tongue, hugged me, and then pulled me under. It was a good baptism.
Today we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord. People often ask, Why did Jesus need to be baptized? John preached a baptism for Repentance, Jesus was sinless, what did he have to repent of? He wasn’t like Jimmy, in need of being washed clean of his sins. It is a good question.
Some people answer it by talking about the other things Baptism is and does: It was Jesus’ ordination to ministry. It was his anointing as the Saviour. It was the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. Yes, it was all those things, but it seems to me that those answers avoid the question rather than answer it.
John’s Baptism WAS a baptism of repentance and our text shows that John was the first to ask the obvious question. Verse 14: “Do you come to me (for Baptism?)” In verse 15 Jesus gives his answer: it is necessary for me “to fulfill all righteousness.” To fulfill all righteousness means “to do all things necessary to fulfill my calling from God.”
Jesus was called and sent of God to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, the Saviour of the World.To do that, Jesus had to “take on the sins of the world.” When Jesus stepped into the river Jordan to be baptized by John, he began the process of taking on the sins of the world, a process that was completed on the cross. As the Nicene Creed says, he came down from heaven “For us and for our salvation.” The beginning and end of Jesus’ ministry was the taking on of the sins of the world, in his baptism and on the cross.
When Jesus was baptized, he stepped into the water covered with sin, the sins of the world, my sins, your sins,Jimmy’s sins.
Please turn to page 280 in the Red book, the ELW. Top of the page, upper left hand corner. It’s the Funeral Service. Notice it says there “Thanksgiving for Baptism.” Pray with me:
When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
In Christ’s Baptism he was baptized into our sins, just as we were baptized into his death. And as he was raised from the grave, we too have been released from sin and death. That day in the swimming pool, Jesus took on the many, many sins of Jimmy; and at the same time, Jimmy took on new life in Christ.
I believe this is most certainly true. So much so, that two weeks later at Jimmy’s funeral, I was confident in proclaiming his presence with Christ in Paradise. For, if Jimmy’s not there, then the Gospel’s not true, and none of us has any hope.
The Gospel is that our sins have been forgiven. our death has been overcome, our hope has been restored,our future has been promised.
Thanks be to God, Amen.
Text: Matthew 3:13-17
Title: On the Baptism of Jesus
I have lost count of the baptisms I have done. Most of them have been; well, ordinary’s not the word I’m looking for. No Baptism is ordinary, at least not to the one being baptized or to his or her loved ones. But, most of the Baptisms I have done have been regular. That’s it, regular. In the church, on Sunday morning, with vestments and sponsors and pictures, etc. etc. After thirty years of baptisms, I sort of remember most of them, but I couldn’t make a list or call up all the names.
A few years ago I went to preach Homecoming at a Church in NC I pastored years ago. After the worship service, I reconnected with the family of a man I’ll call Jimmy. One Sunday years ago, Jimmy’s Grandmother came to see me in my office. She said,
“Pastor, I have a grandson named Jimmy. You’ve never met him. He’s 32. He ran away from home at 13. He’s led a bad life. He’s come to stay with me now. He’s dying. He has a brain tumor and there’s nothing they can do. He wanted to know if you would come and talk to him.” I said of course. She said, there’s not much time. I said I would come after lunch, and so I did. She took me into the living room, introduced me to Jimmy and left us alone.
He looked like an emaciated Hell’s Angel; jeans, black tee-shirt, leather jacket, dirty ball cap perched on his chemo-bald head. A little boy trying to act tough, I thought.
He wanted to “get right with God” before he died, he said. He was pulling in every spiritual tradition he could think of. He wanted to make confession and get absolution like a Catholic; get saved and baptized by immersion like a Baptist, and get the Holy Spirit like a Pentecostal. I told him I would do the best I could; the Confession/Absolution and the Baptism I was sure I could do, the Spirit thing was up to God. I guess when you’re staring death in the face, you don’t want to leave any salvific stone unturned.
He started talking and talked for a couple of hours. Remember, he had run way to join the circus at 13, he had spent almost 20 years in carnivals and county fairs and amusement parks. Of the Ten Commandments, there was only one he had not broken, and frankly, that was not from lack of trying. His story was hard for me to hear;
I never worked so hard at listening in my life.
His sins were real, not imagined; his guilt was deserved, not imposed. There was nothing exciting or interesting or titillating about his sins; they were the ordinary products of lust and desire and a real disregard for the welfare or rights of others. Here was the real character; A SINNER!
And it was not humanly easy for me to pronounce forgiveness on his wasted life. He had no time for a true amendment of his life, no time to make restitution or do penance, no time for me to see if his change of heart was genuine. There was no point in corrective therapy, no time for behavior adjustment plans, no purpose to be served in berating him.
There was only time for the working of the Gospel: for Repentance and Forgiveness, for Baptism and Grace, for Death and the Promise of New Life.
So, I stifled my impulse toward either judgment or comfort and followed the ritual in the Lutheran Book of Worship for Individual Confession and Forgiveness. I heard his confession, I decided it was genuine, I pronounced forgiveness.
And we set a time and place for his baptism: the next day at 1:00 PM; in his uncle’s above ground swimming pool.
When I drove up the next day, the “community of faith” had already gathered. Jimmy’s relatives were standing on one side of the pool: stout, plain, sturdy, good country church-going people. Jimmy’s friends were on the other side: loud, brassy, somewhat sleazy bikers and carnies of questionable taste and character. They had all come together to to see Jimmy get baptized.
I went into the water first, Jimmy followed. I said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” and dunked him under the water. He came us sputtering and cussing and said That water’s cold. And, on impulse, I said, oops, looks like that one didn’t take” and dunked him again, much to the delight of all around.
The second time he came up, he grinned and held his tongue, hugged me, and then pulled me under. It was a good baptism.
Today we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord. People often ask, Why did Jesus need to be baptized? John preached a baptism for Repentance, Jesus was sinless, what did he have to repent of? He wasn’t like Jimmy, in need of being washed clean of his sins. It is a good question.
Some people answer it by talking about the other things Baptism is and does: It was Jesus’ ordination to ministry. It was his anointing as the Saviour. It was the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. Yes, it was all those things, but it seems to me that those answers avoid the question rather than answer it.
John’s Baptism WAS a baptism of repentance and our text shows that John was the first to ask the obvious question. Verse 14: “Do you come to me (for Baptism?)” In verse 15 Jesus gives his answer: it is necessary for me “to fulfill all righteousness.” To fulfill all righteousness means “to do all things necessary to fulfill my calling from God.”
Jesus was called and sent of God to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, the Saviour of the World.To do that, Jesus had to “take on the sins of the world.” When Jesus stepped into the river Jordan to be baptized by John, he began the process of taking on the sins of the world, a process that was completed on the cross. As the Nicene Creed says, he came down from heaven “For us and for our salvation.” The beginning and end of Jesus’ ministry was the taking on of the sins of the world, in his baptism and on the cross.
When Jesus was baptized, he stepped into the water covered with sin, the sins of the world, my sins, your sins,Jimmy’s sins.
Please turn to page 280 in the Red book, the ELW. Top of the page, upper left hand corner. It’s the Funeral Service. Notice it says there “Thanksgiving for Baptism.” Pray with me:
When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
In Christ’s Baptism he was baptized into our sins, just as we were baptized into his death. And as he was raised from the grave, we too have been released from sin and death. That day in the swimming pool, Jesus took on the many, many sins of Jimmy; and at the same time, Jimmy took on new life in Christ.
I believe this is most certainly true. So much so, that two weeks later at Jimmy’s funeral, I was confident in proclaiming his presence with Christ in Paradise. For, if Jimmy’s not there, then the Gospel’s not true, and none of us has any hope.
The Gospel is that our sins have been forgiven. our death has been overcome, our hope has been restored,our future has been promised.
Thanks be to God, Amen.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Christmas Eve Sermon
Christmas Eve, 2007
“The Cross and Christmas”
A couple of weeks ago, on a Thursday afternoon, I went down to Twin Lakes retirement center to hear the Choir sing. There are quite a number of Friedens’ members who sing in that choir, and I couldn’t help but notice that most of them were in the front row. Does the Director put you there so that she can keep an eye on you?
It was a good show. They did well. Some of the staff participated and they did a great job also.They did a very hilarious version of “I ain’t getting nuttin’ for Christmas.” Do you know the song? A little boy sings about all the mischief he’s been in, and then the chorus goes:“I ain’t getting nuttin’ for Christmas, ‘cuz I ain’t been nuttin’ but bad”
After I finished laughing, I started thinking and realized that while that line sums up a lot of our thinking about how God works, it’s just not true. Indeed, it is the exact opposite of the Gospel truth of this night; it is because we “ain’t been nuttin’ but bad” that we have received the one gift we needed, which is Jesus Christ Our Lord.
Not just or primarily us as individuals, but us as the human race, us as humanity, As the Bible says, God so love the World, the Cosmos, that he sent his only beloved Son.
It’s not so much that we are individually evil, it’s that the world is in a mess, and needs to find its way out. The first Christmas came at a time of political and social unrest. Israel was once again a conquered country, living under the domination of the Romans, ruled by King Herod, a cruel, cruel man.
When Christ came, there was hunger and social injustice and war raged upon innocents, all in the name of such things as Truth and Justice and National Security. Then as now, the old values had become skewed and obscured and unrecognizable, and no one knew whom they could trust.
And into such a world God sent his Son.
The message then and the message now is that we are not alone in the midst of the world’s evil, Though we, collectively, ain’t been nuttin’ but Bad, we’re still getin’ something for Christmas.
God has come to us in the midst of our distress. In the middle of our loneliness and despair, God has sent us a sign of his love. Into a world filled with hopelessness, God comes to us in the hopeful form of new life and new birth.
Back in the 1960’s, a Methodist Minister I know graduated from the Seminary at Drew University in New Jersey and was sent to his first church, near a little farm town down east of Raleigh, NC.
In July, he had his first funeral. In seminary they told him that they should sing whatever the family requested, and so he asked the widow what song she wanted, she said, “He liked Silver Bells. He always said he wanted Silver Bells sung at his funeral.” So my friend swallowed hard and said we can do that.
So it was that on a blistering hot day in July, in a little country Church without Air Conditioning, the choir stood up at a funeral and sang, Silver Bells, Ding a Ling, it’s Christmas time in the city.
My friend said he would never forget the confused look on the faces of the congregation as the choir sang verse after verse of Silver Bells at a funeral. As the minister led the procession across the street into the cemetery, the widow caught up with him and whispered, You know Pastor, I was wrong. It wasn’t Silver Bells he wanted. It was “When they ring those Golden Bells for you and me.”
Christ came to be a beacon of light in a dark world, Christ came to show us love in the midst of hatred and strife. Christ came to bring life in the midst of death. Which is why it is not such a bad idea to sing Christmas songs at funerals.
It is a reminder to us that Christ did not come to be cute, Christ came to die. Just as the Cross looms over our Altar, the cross hovers over the manger of the Christ Child.
Christ did not come so that we can have parties and give gifts.
Christ did not come, to reward us for being good, but to save us from being bad.
Christ came to show us the love and care of God in the midst of a deadly and dangerous world.
Christ came to show us how to live and how to die.
Christ came to die upon the cross for us, to save us from sin, death and the devil.
Realizing that, we are ready to celebrate with somber joy and reverent jubilation:
Silver Bells, Ring-a-ling, it’s Christmas time in the city.
I’m getting’ sumethin’ for Christmas, even though I been nuttin’ but bad.
For unto us a child is born, who is Christ the LORD.
Amen and amen.
“The Cross and Christmas”
A couple of weeks ago, on a Thursday afternoon, I went down to Twin Lakes retirement center to hear the Choir sing. There are quite a number of Friedens’ members who sing in that choir, and I couldn’t help but notice that most of them were in the front row. Does the Director put you there so that she can keep an eye on you?
It was a good show. They did well. Some of the staff participated and they did a great job also.They did a very hilarious version of “I ain’t getting nuttin’ for Christmas.” Do you know the song? A little boy sings about all the mischief he’s been in, and then the chorus goes:“I ain’t getting nuttin’ for Christmas, ‘cuz I ain’t been nuttin’ but bad”
After I finished laughing, I started thinking and realized that while that line sums up a lot of our thinking about how God works, it’s just not true. Indeed, it is the exact opposite of the Gospel truth of this night; it is because we “ain’t been nuttin’ but bad” that we have received the one gift we needed, which is Jesus Christ Our Lord.
Not just or primarily us as individuals, but us as the human race, us as humanity, As the Bible says, God so love the World, the Cosmos, that he sent his only beloved Son.
It’s not so much that we are individually evil, it’s that the world is in a mess, and needs to find its way out. The first Christmas came at a time of political and social unrest. Israel was once again a conquered country, living under the domination of the Romans, ruled by King Herod, a cruel, cruel man.
When Christ came, there was hunger and social injustice and war raged upon innocents, all in the name of such things as Truth and Justice and National Security. Then as now, the old values had become skewed and obscured and unrecognizable, and no one knew whom they could trust.
And into such a world God sent his Son.
The message then and the message now is that we are not alone in the midst of the world’s evil, Though we, collectively, ain’t been nuttin’ but Bad, we’re still getin’ something for Christmas.
God has come to us in the midst of our distress. In the middle of our loneliness and despair, God has sent us a sign of his love. Into a world filled with hopelessness, God comes to us in the hopeful form of new life and new birth.
Back in the 1960’s, a Methodist Minister I know graduated from the Seminary at Drew University in New Jersey and was sent to his first church, near a little farm town down east of Raleigh, NC.
In July, he had his first funeral. In seminary they told him that they should sing whatever the family requested, and so he asked the widow what song she wanted, she said, “He liked Silver Bells. He always said he wanted Silver Bells sung at his funeral.” So my friend swallowed hard and said we can do that.
So it was that on a blistering hot day in July, in a little country Church without Air Conditioning, the choir stood up at a funeral and sang, Silver Bells, Ding a Ling, it’s Christmas time in the city.
My friend said he would never forget the confused look on the faces of the congregation as the choir sang verse after verse of Silver Bells at a funeral. As the minister led the procession across the street into the cemetery, the widow caught up with him and whispered, You know Pastor, I was wrong. It wasn’t Silver Bells he wanted. It was “When they ring those Golden Bells for you and me.”
Christ came to be a beacon of light in a dark world, Christ came to show us love in the midst of hatred and strife. Christ came to bring life in the midst of death. Which is why it is not such a bad idea to sing Christmas songs at funerals.
It is a reminder to us that Christ did not come to be cute, Christ came to die. Just as the Cross looms over our Altar, the cross hovers over the manger of the Christ Child.
Christ did not come so that we can have parties and give gifts.
Christ did not come, to reward us for being good, but to save us from being bad.
Christ came to show us the love and care of God in the midst of a deadly and dangerous world.
Christ came to show us how to live and how to die.
Christ came to die upon the cross for us, to save us from sin, death and the devil.
Realizing that, we are ready to celebrate with somber joy and reverent jubilation:
Silver Bells, Ring-a-ling, it’s Christmas time in the city.
I’m getting’ sumethin’ for Christmas, even though I been nuttin’ but bad.
For unto us a child is born, who is Christ the LORD.
Amen and amen.
A Christmas Story
A few years ago, when I was pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran in Nashville, I went to a Christmas party in our neighborhood. She was Jewish, he was Unitarian, their son was in second grade with our son. We met at PTA. It was only a day or two before Christmas and I had been out and about visiting and taking Home Communion and I came late and wearing my dog collar.
As we settled down to dinner, I found that I had been seated next to "Gramps," just arrived from his home in Israel for the holidays. Spotting my collar he asked in what sounded to me like a British accent, "C of E?" I shook my head no and said "Lutheran." "Pity," he said, "I have a soft spot in my heart for C of E chaps. Got me through a bit of a rough patch once."
Then he told us this story:
He had been raised in South Africa, as he put it "in a pub." His father ran a series of taverns in mining towns and the family lived "above the store, as it were." Though they were Jewish, they weren't at all religious. He said that from the age of 8 or 9 he spent most of his time in the pub with his Dad, serving drinks and learning to play piano by ear; ballads and drinking songs mostly.
When WWII came along, he volunteered for the British Army. When they asked his religion, he thought a minute. They stamped religious affiliation on the dag tags. For Jews, they put a Star of David. The last thing he wanted was to be captured by Jew-hating Nazis with a Star of David around his neck, so he said "I'm C of E, (Church of England)."
He was captured, somewhere in Italy I think. They were in a facility that had a piano, and he occasionally played when they were allowed recreation time.
On Christmas Eve, two guards came to get him, along with a German Chaplain, who told him in English, "We're allowing a captured C of E Priest to hold Christmas Eve communion service, and we know you're C of E and that you play the piano, so we want you to play for the service.
He thought, O my God, I'm caught, for he knew no Christian songs, no Christmas carols and he couldn't read music, he played by ear.
When he got to the makeshift chapel, he managed to convey his problem to the C of E chaplain, who caught on quickly and asked for a quick rundown of songs the man did know. The priest must of done some rapid meter calculations in his head,
for he would announce a hymn and then say, "and our pianist will play one verse so that we can remember the tune,"
and some how the crowd caught on too, and sang Christmas carols to whatever tune the Priest and piano-man had figured would fit.
And other than thinking the English had odd taste in Church music, the Germans never had a clue.
"And so," my dinner partner summed up, "I have a soft spot in my heart for the C of E and it's clergy. And every year I send a contribution to the Anglican Church in Jerusalem. and I keep Christmas, thanking God for the Christians."
Peace,
Delmer
As we settled down to dinner, I found that I had been seated next to "Gramps," just arrived from his home in Israel for the holidays. Spotting my collar he asked in what sounded to me like a British accent, "C of E?" I shook my head no and said "Lutheran." "Pity," he said, "I have a soft spot in my heart for C of E chaps. Got me through a bit of a rough patch once."
Then he told us this story:
He had been raised in South Africa, as he put it "in a pub." His father ran a series of taverns in mining towns and the family lived "above the store, as it were." Though they were Jewish, they weren't at all religious. He said that from the age of 8 or 9 he spent most of his time in the pub with his Dad, serving drinks and learning to play piano by ear; ballads and drinking songs mostly.
When WWII came along, he volunteered for the British Army. When they asked his religion, he thought a minute. They stamped religious affiliation on the dag tags. For Jews, they put a Star of David. The last thing he wanted was to be captured by Jew-hating Nazis with a Star of David around his neck, so he said "I'm C of E, (Church of England)."
He was captured, somewhere in Italy I think. They were in a facility that had a piano, and he occasionally played when they were allowed recreation time.
On Christmas Eve, two guards came to get him, along with a German Chaplain, who told him in English, "We're allowing a captured C of E Priest to hold Christmas Eve communion service, and we know you're C of E and that you play the piano, so we want you to play for the service.
He thought, O my God, I'm caught, for he knew no Christian songs, no Christmas carols and he couldn't read music, he played by ear.
When he got to the makeshift chapel, he managed to convey his problem to the C of E chaplain, who caught on quickly and asked for a quick rundown of songs the man did know. The priest must of done some rapid meter calculations in his head,
for he would announce a hymn and then say, "and our pianist will play one verse so that we can remember the tune,"
and some how the crowd caught on too, and sang Christmas carols to whatever tune the Priest and piano-man had figured would fit.
And other than thinking the English had odd taste in Church music, the Germans never had a clue.
"And so," my dinner partner summed up, "I have a soft spot in my heart for the C of E and it's clergy. And every year I send a contribution to the Anglican Church in Jerusalem. and I keep Christmas, thanking God for the Christians."
Peace,
Delmer
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Advent IV
THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT
Dec. 23, 2007
Text: Matthew 1:18-25
TITLE: The True Meaning of Christmas
The other day, I got up early, made a pot of coffee and settled down to my early morning ritual; watching Gunsmoke on TVLand. It was a “Christmas” episode.
The story went something like this: A pleasant and good-hearted ne’er do well got fired from the orphanage for drinking on the job. He then told off the stern, old-maid headmistress for not celebrating Christmas for the “kiddies.”
As usual, things got a bit complicated and everybody in Dodge got involved but finally there was a Christmas Party for the children at the Long Branch Saloon and everybody once again and just in time learned the TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS!
While watching the show, I remembered a lot of TV shows and stories from my youth that followed the same plot; which was perfected by Charles Dickens in his classic “A Christmas Carol.” There Ebenezer Scrooge gets to learn what? The true Meaning of Christmas.
A few years ago John Grisham wrote a book that became a movie starring Tim Allen. It was called Skipping Christmas, and the main character gets cheap and selfish, but eventually learns, what? The True Meaning of Christmas.
Now, here’s a good question. What, exactly, is this True Meaning of Christmas everyone has so energetically been learning? I hate to say it, but I don’t think it’s the same meaning that Matthew and Luke had in mind when they wrote about the shepherds and wisemen and angels and animals and the strange doings in Bethlehem of Judea.
No, the True Meaning of Christmas as proposed
in these modern times has something to do with these ideas:
1) it is more blessed to give than to receive
2) we should be nice to everybody
3) having lots of stuff won’t make you happy,
only loving relationships will make you
truly rich and happy.
All these are admirable sentiments, but they are not unique to Christianity and they are not even remotely close to what the writers of the Gospels wanted to tell us about the birth of Christ.
What we usually do is pick bits and pieces of the Biblical story to “proof text” and “prop up” these ideas. Let’s see: the wisemen brought gifts so we should give, the angels sang something about “good will to all people” so wed should love everybody and King Herod was rich and miserable and Mary and Joseph were poor but proud, so there you go.
I’m sorry folks, but giving and niceness and a mild rejection of materialism are not the True Meaning of Christmas.
That meaning is found in one little word that occurs in two of our lessons for today: Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23 both refer to Immanuel, God is with us.
That is the true meaning of Christmas. Emmanuel, God IS with us. Not God WAS with us, long ago and far away. Not God will be with us, pie in the sky, by and by. But present tense, here and now, in this time and in this place, Emmanuel, God IS with us.
Not only God IS, but hear clearly, God is WITH us.
Not God beyond us. Not God a way off there somewhere, remote and removed from our everyday lives. Sometimes we like to keep God at arm’s length, we like to keep the holy tied up in the church, like a lovely Christmas present; nicely wrapped and tied with a bow, carefully stashed beneath the tree, but having nothing to do with our daily and ordinary lives. We have God and church and Christ neatly cordoned off into an inoffensive corner of our lives. We may think we have kept God from interfering in the way we live our lives, but that won’t do, Emmanuel, God is with us, won’t allow it. Emmanuel refuses to stay in the corner, Emmanuel insists on messing around in our lives, Emmanuel is God WITH us.
Nor is it God beneath us. Some people treat God and Godly things as an interesting subject for observation and study. They are charmed by the Christmas stories; they find it interesting how the church adopted the approximate date of the winter solstice as a date for Christ’s mass, the day when the SUN begins to return to life. OH, THE IMAGERY IS SO FASCINATING. And then, of course, there are all the parallels with the pagan mystery cults; and of course Handel’s Messiah is such a lovely piece of music. Why Christianity is just embedded in the very fabric of Western Civilization, etc. etc.
But Emmanuel, God is with us, will not allow this. Emmanuel is not God beneath us, nor God beneath our microscope, as some sort of object for our curiosity or admiration. NO, Emmanuel is God with us, God in our midst, God in our lives.
I must warn you to be careful how much you study Godly things, for god is very sneaky, and in the midst of your study you may find yourself drawn into relationship with the one who IS; for God is not beneath us; God is WITH us and works continuously to draw all things into the Divine Presence.
God is not beyond us, God is not beneath us, and God is not between us. There is way too much religious strife in this world, way too much “God is on my side and against you!” Emmanuel, God is WITH us, came to all people, not just the people like us, or the people we like. God is WITH us, not between us. Emmanuel brings us together, does not push us apart.
For the true meaning of Christmas is this: In a mystery too deep for words, too profound for theologians, too irrational for philosophers and too unproveable for scientists; God’s love dictated that God enter in to humanity and be with us, all of us, to share in our joy and sorrow, our triumphs and tragedies, our fears and our faith, our life and our death.
And so, the story goes, it happened one night, long ago, in the city of David, that a child was born whose name was Emmanuel, God is with us.
And the Gospel for today is God is STILL with us and will be with us forever and ever, amen.
Dec. 23, 2007
Text: Matthew 1:18-25
TITLE: The True Meaning of Christmas
The other day, I got up early, made a pot of coffee and settled down to my early morning ritual; watching Gunsmoke on TVLand. It was a “Christmas” episode.
The story went something like this: A pleasant and good-hearted ne’er do well got fired from the orphanage for drinking on the job. He then told off the stern, old-maid headmistress for not celebrating Christmas for the “kiddies.”
As usual, things got a bit complicated and everybody in Dodge got involved but finally there was a Christmas Party for the children at the Long Branch Saloon and everybody once again and just in time learned the TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS!
While watching the show, I remembered a lot of TV shows and stories from my youth that followed the same plot; which was perfected by Charles Dickens in his classic “A Christmas Carol.” There Ebenezer Scrooge gets to learn what? The true Meaning of Christmas.
A few years ago John Grisham wrote a book that became a movie starring Tim Allen. It was called Skipping Christmas, and the main character gets cheap and selfish, but eventually learns, what? The True Meaning of Christmas.
Now, here’s a good question. What, exactly, is this True Meaning of Christmas everyone has so energetically been learning? I hate to say it, but I don’t think it’s the same meaning that Matthew and Luke had in mind when they wrote about the shepherds and wisemen and angels and animals and the strange doings in Bethlehem of Judea.
No, the True Meaning of Christmas as proposed
in these modern times has something to do with these ideas:
1) it is more blessed to give than to receive
2) we should be nice to everybody
3) having lots of stuff won’t make you happy,
only loving relationships will make you
truly rich and happy.
All these are admirable sentiments, but they are not unique to Christianity and they are not even remotely close to what the writers of the Gospels wanted to tell us about the birth of Christ.
What we usually do is pick bits and pieces of the Biblical story to “proof text” and “prop up” these ideas. Let’s see: the wisemen brought gifts so we should give, the angels sang something about “good will to all people” so wed should love everybody and King Herod was rich and miserable and Mary and Joseph were poor but proud, so there you go.
I’m sorry folks, but giving and niceness and a mild rejection of materialism are not the True Meaning of Christmas.
That meaning is found in one little word that occurs in two of our lessons for today: Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23 both refer to Immanuel, God is with us.
That is the true meaning of Christmas. Emmanuel, God IS with us. Not God WAS with us, long ago and far away. Not God will be with us, pie in the sky, by and by. But present tense, here and now, in this time and in this place, Emmanuel, God IS with us.
Not only God IS, but hear clearly, God is WITH us.
Not God beyond us. Not God a way off there somewhere, remote and removed from our everyday lives. Sometimes we like to keep God at arm’s length, we like to keep the holy tied up in the church, like a lovely Christmas present; nicely wrapped and tied with a bow, carefully stashed beneath the tree, but having nothing to do with our daily and ordinary lives. We have God and church and Christ neatly cordoned off into an inoffensive corner of our lives. We may think we have kept God from interfering in the way we live our lives, but that won’t do, Emmanuel, God is with us, won’t allow it. Emmanuel refuses to stay in the corner, Emmanuel insists on messing around in our lives, Emmanuel is God WITH us.
Nor is it God beneath us. Some people treat God and Godly things as an interesting subject for observation and study. They are charmed by the Christmas stories; they find it interesting how the church adopted the approximate date of the winter solstice as a date for Christ’s mass, the day when the SUN begins to return to life. OH, THE IMAGERY IS SO FASCINATING. And then, of course, there are all the parallels with the pagan mystery cults; and of course Handel’s Messiah is such a lovely piece of music. Why Christianity is just embedded in the very fabric of Western Civilization, etc. etc.
But Emmanuel, God is with us, will not allow this. Emmanuel is not God beneath us, nor God beneath our microscope, as some sort of object for our curiosity or admiration. NO, Emmanuel is God with us, God in our midst, God in our lives.
I must warn you to be careful how much you study Godly things, for god is very sneaky, and in the midst of your study you may find yourself drawn into relationship with the one who IS; for God is not beneath us; God is WITH us and works continuously to draw all things into the Divine Presence.
God is not beyond us, God is not beneath us, and God is not between us. There is way too much religious strife in this world, way too much “God is on my side and against you!” Emmanuel, God is WITH us, came to all people, not just the people like us, or the people we like. God is WITH us, not between us. Emmanuel brings us together, does not push us apart.
For the true meaning of Christmas is this: In a mystery too deep for words, too profound for theologians, too irrational for philosophers and too unproveable for scientists; God’s love dictated that God enter in to humanity and be with us, all of us, to share in our joy and sorrow, our triumphs and tragedies, our fears and our faith, our life and our death.
And so, the story goes, it happened one night, long ago, in the city of David, that a child was born whose name was Emmanuel, God is with us.
And the Gospel for today is God is STILL with us and will be with us forever and ever, amen.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
"Songs of Salvation"
“Songs of Salvation”
a brief homily for Lessons and Carols service.
The world’s celebration of the Nativity of Christ is surrounded by Song.
No secular artist puts out a Thanksgiving CD or an Easter Album, but almost everybody tries to “cash in” on Christmas, either with new songs or old favorites. Christmas songs fill the Malls and Stores and Radio playlists from early November until Dec. 25. And the question arises: What is it about Christmas that causes the heart
to sing?
It was like that from the beginning. In Luke’s Gospel: Mary responds to the Annunciation with what we call The Magnificat, Zechariah celebrates the birth of his son John (to be called the Baptist) with a song that points to the birth of another child, the Coming One. Of course the angels sing to the shepherds on the night of Christ’s birth and at the dedication of the child old Simeon sees the baby and bursts into praise.
Again, what is it about Christmas that causes us to sing?
We have lots of good Easter Hymns, but the non-Church world is much more likely to know “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” than “Thine Is the Glory.” But not so with Christmas Carols. Almost everybody can sing at least one verse of “Away In a Manger” or “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and can recognize the tune of a dozen more. Is it just the vast exposure on Radio and TV, or is there something about the Birth of the Christ Child that makes us want to sing?
A Couple of things occur to me.
First: the only really appropriate response to mystery is adoration, and what better way to adore than to sing.
The story that we celebrate at Christmas is a “something more” mystery. Underneath all the theological baggage and argumentation there is this for all of us: life can be very ordinary and difficult and painful and short and depressing. The birth of a child as the Son of God, a message from beyond that God does love us after all, that this world is not “all there is,” that Peace and Love and Joy are real and are really important and are really possible is a message we all need to hear.
So even those who have their doubts about God, and Jesus and the Church, will themselves to believe in the “something more” that Christmas represents to them: the potential for good in a cold and lonely world. And that Mysterious possibility is something to sing about.
Second; for those of us who receive the story as a true story, a story about how the God of the universe let go of all the trappings and power of Heaven to come and be born in a stable, taking on as the Eucharistic prayer says, “our nature and our lot,” that too is a mystery beyond words. We cannot comprehend a love that big and that deep and that complete, and when ordinary words fail us, we, like Mary and Zechariah and Simeon and the angels; burst into song, for we have no other choice.
Amen.
a brief homily for Lessons and Carols service.
The world’s celebration of the Nativity of Christ is surrounded by Song.
No secular artist puts out a Thanksgiving CD or an Easter Album, but almost everybody tries to “cash in” on Christmas, either with new songs or old favorites. Christmas songs fill the Malls and Stores and Radio playlists from early November until Dec. 25. And the question arises: What is it about Christmas that causes the heart
to sing?
It was like that from the beginning. In Luke’s Gospel: Mary responds to the Annunciation with what we call The Magnificat, Zechariah celebrates the birth of his son John (to be called the Baptist) with a song that points to the birth of another child, the Coming One. Of course the angels sing to the shepherds on the night of Christ’s birth and at the dedication of the child old Simeon sees the baby and bursts into praise.
Again, what is it about Christmas that causes us to sing?
We have lots of good Easter Hymns, but the non-Church world is much more likely to know “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” than “Thine Is the Glory.” But not so with Christmas Carols. Almost everybody can sing at least one verse of “Away In a Manger” or “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and can recognize the tune of a dozen more. Is it just the vast exposure on Radio and TV, or is there something about the Birth of the Christ Child that makes us want to sing?
A Couple of things occur to me.
First: the only really appropriate response to mystery is adoration, and what better way to adore than to sing.
The story that we celebrate at Christmas is a “something more” mystery. Underneath all the theological baggage and argumentation there is this for all of us: life can be very ordinary and difficult and painful and short and depressing. The birth of a child as the Son of God, a message from beyond that God does love us after all, that this world is not “all there is,” that Peace and Love and Joy are real and are really important and are really possible is a message we all need to hear.
So even those who have their doubts about God, and Jesus and the Church, will themselves to believe in the “something more” that Christmas represents to them: the potential for good in a cold and lonely world. And that Mysterious possibility is something to sing about.
Second; for those of us who receive the story as a true story, a story about how the God of the universe let go of all the trappings and power of Heaven to come and be born in a stable, taking on as the Eucharistic prayer says, “our nature and our lot,” that too is a mystery beyond words. We cannot comprehend a love that big and that deep and that complete, and when ordinary words fail us, we, like Mary and Zechariah and Simeon and the angels; burst into song, for we have no other choice.
Amen.
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