Prayer Request

Not a sermon, not a random thought, just a request for your prayers if you happen to stop by this way. My grandfather, Earl, has been in the hospital for nearly a week & is not doing so well these past few days. He's got some issue with his lungs, perhaps TB (which may have been dormant for who knows how long, and perhaps brought out of dormancy due to steroids he's been on due to another medical issue - he's had a lot of issues lately) - they are not sure & can't do the needed tests b/c his oxygen levels are not good.

So, please lift him up if you get a chance. We will appreciate it.

February 1, 2009

Jesus Casts Out Unclean Spirits

Mark 1:21-28

Epiphany 4 – February 1, 2009

It was just your typical sabbath day in Capernaum. This week, as in every week, the town's faithful gathered – to worship, to pray, to hear God's word spoken and explained to them. They came, some of them wishing for a little more sleep perhaps, some dragging reluctant kids or spouses in tow. They came because it was tradition. They came because it was part of the routine. They came because they were expected to be there. But I bet none of them came expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen.

But on that sabbath day someone new was there. Jesus & his disciples came from out of town, came to the synagogue because it was part of their tradition too. But then, Jesus began to teach – and not just any old teaching, the way the scribes had always taught. Jesus taught in a new way, speaking with his own authority, making the scriptures come alive, waking people up and drawing them in to the living word of God, who was standing in front of them.

But not everyone was happy with this turn events, for just then, a man stands up and starts making a commotion, disrupting everyone and everything, crying out: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!”
This was a man, Mark tells us, with an “unclean” spirit. We don't know if this was the 1st time he had darkened the door of the synagogue, or if he was there every week with everyone. Mark doesn't tell us whether or not people knew something was “off” with this man, or if he had been able to hide his condition from curious eyes. All we know is that when he came face to face with Jesus, the spirit within him cried out. Coming into the presence of God's Holy One, the unclean spirit was revealed.

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, & come out of him!” Jesus commands the unclean spirit to leave. There is no place for an unclean spirit among the people of God. And the spirit does leave – but what I hadn't really noticed, what was pointed out to me by one of my colleagues this week, is that the spirit doesn't give up without a fight. No, the unclean spirit is stubborn. It resists Jesus' authority; it comes out alright, but it does so reluctantly, crying out with a loud voice, convulsing the man. It was dramatic and physical, this casting-out.

I have to admit, I don't spend much time thinking about unclean spirits. & I imagine that most of you don't either. We generally don't put much stock in the idea of a spirit world or possession. Yet as I thought about it this week, I realized how many unclean spirits fill our world. True, we don't call them by that name, but our world is filled with systems of injustice and violence, oppression and greed, -isms and intolerances, attitudes and actions that possess us and our society. They are the unclean spirits of racism and sexism and homophobia and discrimination in its hundreds of forms. They are the insidious powers of evil that would take us over, that keep us from being or becoming who God created us to be, that create unnecessary divisions among us and turn us from God. Whether we recognize these things among us or not, they exist. Sometimes they are obvious & sometimes they remain hidden, beneath the surface. But when they come face to face with the Holy One of God, they are revealed for what they are. And when they are confronted with the authority of Christ, they resist coming out, just like the spirit in this story. We don't have to look far back in our American history. Just think about the struggles for justice and equality for all of God's people we have seen in the past 100 years, & it become obvious. It was a struggle because there were unclean spirits at work among us, and unclean spirits always resist Christ's call to be silent & come out. In fear, people & groups have cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”

Well, the simple answer to that is “yes”. When it comes to the unclean spirits of this world, the systemic injustices, the institutionalized or individual patterns of discrimination, Jesus does come to destroy them. He comes to cast them out. And Jesus has the power and authority to cast them out because at the heart of it all, he has come to renew and restore, to heal and to save, & unclean spirits get in the way of that. The man with the unclean spirit needed to have that spirit banished, because as long as it was with him, he would have been unclean himself, cut off from his family, cut off from his community. But casting out the spirit, Jesus cleansed the man and set him free. In casting out the spirit, Jesus gave the man new life. Hope was reborn.

And it wasn't just that one man who was touched by Jesus' act that day. The whole community was impacted. Mark tells us they were all amazed. They were just plain blown away, because here in Jesus, they saw that something new was going on. Brand new possibilities were suddenly available, because there in the synagogue that day, they witnessed a man who has the authority to change lives, to make people whole again! And if that was possible for the man with the unclean spirit, that must mean it was possible for them too! If Jesus could given even that man new life, he must be able to do it for them too!

They are so astounded by what had happened that they cannot keep it to themselves – and so Jesus' fame grows. Word spreads throughout all Galilee, drawing more and more lives into the presence of the Holy One of God, lives touched with hope and the promise that Jesus can heal and renew and restore.

And so it is with us and with our world. When Jesus comes among us, he confronts those unclean spirits that linger in our hearts and in our culture. He confronts them and he casts them out, because they are not from God. And we do not have to be resistant or fearful, because when Jesus casts out unclean spirits, it is always so that we might be made whole. It is always so we might be healed. It is always so we might be drawn every closer to God and grow into God's vision of how the world is to be, a place where human divisions based on race or gender or class cease to be, a place where all are valued and loved because they are children of God.

And when this happens among us, in the community of faith, when we see the authority of Christ working to change lives, when people are healed and restored, we know that it is possible not just for a chosen few, but even for us, and for all people! Jesus' power and authority to transform lives is amazing! And all of us need that healing touch – so let's not keep this good news to ourselves. May Jesus' fame spread among us and to all we know, so that all may know the healing and new life that he brings.
Amen.

January 25, 2009

Following Jesus Brings New Purpose to Life
Mark 1:14-20/Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Epiphany 3 – January 25, 2009
Annual Meeting

Before I begin this morning, I'd like to ask you all to bend back a little bit, and look up. Go ahead,
look up at the roof that covers us. What do you see? What does it look like to you?

I did that one day, just kind of laid back on a pew & looked up for a while & thought about that ceiling, which was designed, as so many churches over the centuries have been, to look like the inside of a boat, an upside-down boat, but a boat nonetheless. It's why we call the part of the church where the pews are the nave – nave, Navy, boats – you get it? The cover of our bulletin today got me thinking about that - the church as a boat, and why the church uses that image so often, and of these stories we have today, both from the gospel and from the Old Testament about certain men and boats, and the way that God called them, and the ways that they responded.

All of these men, Jonah and then centuries later 2 sets of brothers, Andrew & Simon (better known as Peter) & James & John, receive a call. Unexpectedly, in the middle of their busy lives, while they were hard at work & minding their own business, a call comes. For Jonah, it was the word of God that came to him, not once, but twice, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, & proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” For the 4 disciples that Mark's gospel tells us about, the call came directly from Jesus who came to them, who sought them out and said, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

Two different calls to do two different things, but what strikes me about both of these stories, what they seem to have in common, is that when the call comes, it's hard. Answering God's call is difficult, because answering God's call on your life always seems to mean leaving things behind. For the disciples, following Jesus means leaving behind their work, their source of income. Simon & Andrew just drop their nets there in the water & come. It means leaving behind their families – James & John left their father Zebedee behind in the boat with just the hired men. It means leaving behind safety and security – they didn't know what they were getting into, but you can bet that everybody around knew that John had just been arrested, & here comes Jesus with a similar message, asking them to join up. For the disciples, answering God's call meant leaving all of these things behind, to follow a stranger just because he said, “Follow me.”

And then we have Jonah, who also got a call from God. It was a call to travel many miles, straight into the heart of enemy territory to carry God's word of judgment, God's warning that Nineveh was about to be destroyed! Oh, Jonah heard God's call the first time, but he knew that obeying the call would mean leaving behind not only his comfort and his safety as he traveled and as he entered into this hostile place with this fearsome message, but it would also mean leaving behind his old prejudices, his old preconceived notions of just who God loved, who God was looking out for. Jonah didn't want to give those evil Nineveh-ites a chance to repent, because he knew God would forgive them if they did, and he didn't want that! He wanted them to get what was coming to them, after all their nation had done to Israel. And so, Jonah went the other way. He went in the complete opposite direction, climbing on board a boat that would take him about as far away from Nineveh as he could get. But you know the story, how God caused a great storm, and Jonah was tossed overboard, and God saved him by sending a great fish to swallow him (not our 1st choice of salvation methods, but salvation nonetheless!), where he stayed for 3 days until the fish spit him out on shore, and the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time – right where we came in this morning. And so Jonah finally answers the call – but even then, he is reluctant and resentful.

Two different calls, two very different responses. One group goes “immediately”, dropping their nets, waving good-bye to their families – they don't hesitate, they just follow. The other resists, and evades, and finally responds, but goes off dragging his feet.

It seems to me that when God calls us to follow, we have a choice between these two different responses. We can obey quickly, dropping everything & leaving our safe, secure boat behind, or we can run the other direction, looking for the first boat out of town, trying to run from God, unwilling to go where God has called us to go.

As we sit here this morning, in the safety of our little upside-down boat, I wonder what we will do when we hear God's call. Not just as individuals, but as a congregation. Because when Jesus calls his disciples, it is never a call to be comfortable – it is always a call to change. It is a call to leave our nets and our boats behind so that we can follow him. It is a call to trust him, even though we don't know what will happen next. But that's hard for us to do! No one likes change; no one wants to step out into the unknown.

Yet I feel God is calling us to take that step, to follow into the future, to explore new opportunities, to try new things as we seek to reach out to our community with the good news of God's love. If the church isn't doing that, it risks becoming just a social club, instead of a place where disciples are gathered and formed and sent into the world!

And I know that some of those changes will be uncomfortable. Even trying a new musical setting to our liturgy makes us squirm a bit. But if we don't take a risk, if we don't get out of the boat & follow, oh the joy we will miss. Because even though Jesus' call always means leaving some things behind, Jesus never leaves us with nothing. He always brings something new in its place! We see that with the disciples – he called them to leave their jobs as fishermen behind, but he gives their lives a new focus, a new purpose. Come, follow me, he says, & I'll take your old skills and put them to new use! You'll still be fishing, but now you'll be fishing for people!

That's the amazing thing. When Jesus calls us, as challenging as it may be at times, that call is also an invitation to be part of what God is doing in the world! God has a vision for the future of all of creation, a dream for what the world will one day be, when in Christ everything will be made new, when grieving will be no more and peace will reign. It's the day that all creation is longing for, the day we hope and pray for and look forward to, when God's will will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We pray for that every time we pray the Lord's Prayer. And God is inviting us to be a part of making that happen. As individuals and as a congregation, God wants us to use our gifts and skills in new ways, to be part of bringing God's kingdom near now, in our everyday lives, just as those first disciples did.

But we do have a choice: to respond joyfully or to resist the call. The reality is, to borrow from the book Living Lutheran: “God is gonna do what God is gonna do. The only question is, are we gonna be part of it or not?” I say we drop our nets, get out of this boat and follow, and see where God will lead us next! Amen.

January 18, 2009

Jesus Finds Us So We Can Go Find Others

John 1:43-51

Epiphany 2 – January 18, 2009

Way back in the fall of 2003, I had just started my first term at seminary. And while I was adjusting to a new life in a new place, readjusting to life as a student, about 2 weeks into the term, a new friend invited me to go out with her and a few other people to explore our new city & blow off some steam. I agreed, eager to just relax and enjoy myself, but little did I know how that one night would change my life.

Because, you see, that's the night I met my husband, Andy. Well, that's not entirely true, because Trinity Lutheran Seminary is a small school, & Andy & I had already met. But we'd never had a chance to talk before. Within minutes though, we were finishing each other's sentences, laughing at the same things, discovering thing after thing that we had in common. I won't say it was love at first site, but sparks were flying & I knew that there was something special going on.

And so, when the night was over, what did I do? I rushed straight to my dorm room & picked up the phone. It was probably almost 2 in the morning, but I couldn't stop myself from calling up my best friend to tell him all about this man I had met. I was so full of excitement and anticipation – there was something special about this one, and I had to share my feelings, I had to let somebody know NOW or I felt like I was gonna explode!

Philip experienced something similar when he met Jesus for the first time John tells us that Jesus had come into the region of Galilee, and there he found Philip. And Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” That's it, nothing more, at least nothing that the author of John tells us about. And we don't know what went on in those moments, but somehow, Philip knew that there is something special about this one. He's way more sure than I was after my first conversation with Andy! Philip knows that this man Jesus is the one! This is the one they've all be waiting for! This is the Messiah, the one sent to save them! And Philip can't keep it to himself! Just like a person falling in love, Philip rushes off to tell his friend Nathanael the good news!

“We have found him! We've found the one Moses wrote about in the law, the one the prophets were talking about! We've found him – it's Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth!”

And then we have Nathanael's response. It must have hit excited Philip like a bucket of cold water. As enthused as Philip is, Nathanael is the opposite. He is cool, and questioning, and skeptical. “He's from where?! Nazareth? You've gotta be kiddin' me! Can anything good come from there?”

It's the very type of reaction that most of us fear when it comes to talking about our faith. The world around us is filled with people who are hurting, people who feel hopeless, people who are looking for somewhere to turn, a meaning for it all beyond themselves. And those of us who know we have been found by Jesus (and if you're not in that category, don't worry, we'll get to that too...) - those of us who know Jesus has found us, who know that this man is something special, who know that this Jesus is the One, the one who has changed us, the one who sets us free – well, all too often, we're afraid to say anything to the people we meet who we know need the love of Jesus. We are afraid – that the Nathanaels of the world will ridicule us or reject us or just meet our enthusiasm with skepticism. Because we know that so many in our world do not trust religion, do not trust the church either as an institution or as the individual people who represent it (sometimes for good reason), we know we may face questions like the one Nathanael asked: Can anything good come from religion? Can anything good come from the church? Can anything good come from following Jesus?

Or maybe you are here this morning feeling more like a Nathanael than a Philip. Maybe you've never had the experience of finding the one who has found you, like Philip did. Maybe don't really know this Jesus we keep talking about or have a hard time believing that he was sent here to earth by God to find you, so that you could know how much you are loved. Maybe you are wondering why you even bothered to come here today, asking along with Nathanael, “Can anything good come from this?”

If that sounds like you, then to you I say what Philip said to Nathanael. “Come & see.” Three little words, but an invitation with the power to change your life. Come & see. Come with your questions, with your doubts, with your skepticism. Come, even though you're not sure why, come and see Jesus for yourself. Come here to this church or some other church and experience God's love among God's people, hear it in the word of God spoken in the Bible, feel it in the music that we sing and the food that we share!

And don't stop there! Come & see Jesus & bring him all that you are. You don't have to have all the answers, you don't have to be sure before you come – Jesus is okay with that. See how he reacted to Nathanael? In all of this 1st chapter of John, this is the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone. To the one who has questions and curiosity, the one who is most uncertain, Jesus gives the most time. And Nathanael is amazed, because Jesus seems to know him, to really know him. Hear the promise Jesus speaks to him, and to us – “You will see greater things than these! You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Jesus is the one who brings God's kingdom near, he is the one who makes God known to us all, the God of mercy and forgiveness and love. Come and see for yourself & then hear him say, “Follow me!”

And you too, Philips, hear Jesus' call to you, “follow me!” Follow him & fall in love all over again. Follow him & get to know him, spend time with him in worship and prayer and reading your Bible, because that love can only grow deeper with time. Let yourself be found by him again, and then go, like Philip, and find others. Find someone who needs to be found & share the good news that you have been found by the One gives meaning to live, the One who changes everything. It's simple. Just invite them to come and see.

Amen.