Tuesday, December 21, 2010
December 19, 2010 - 4th Sunday in Advent
Christmas is a tricky time.
On the one hand, we have the twinkling of Christmas lights, the fresh smell of Christmas trees (or pine-scented candles that help us pretend we have a real tree), the sweetness of Christmas cookies, the anticipation of being with loved ones, far and near, the sounds of the seasonal music that we love (even if we are quite sick of it by the time Christmas comes and goes). We have all of these things, the sights and scents and sounds of Christmas, that evoke warmth and joy and contentment. Aaahhh.
But other hand, this time of year rarely lives up to the hype that comes with it. The Christmas season is built up, created out of our memories, our fantasies, colored with our nostalgia of Christmases past seeping into Christmas present. We have a sense of what Christmas is supposed to be like – even if we know that is almost never is whatever we think about what it is supposed to be. Think about the song White Christmas: "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know..."
There's a wistfulness to that song, an underlying longing that we all can recognize and relate to, a desire of our lives today to match up with the lives we used to know, Christmas the way we used to know; our lives the way we used to know.
At this time of year especially, we feel the pangs of discontent, that twinge of sadness a bit more intensely, tied up in our desire for peace and harmony – in our world, our families, our inner lives. We find ourselves wishing that the puzzle pieces of our lives would fall back into place. And we feel it even more keenly at this time of year when maybe life isn't working out quite as we had planned, when the dreams we dreamed once upon a time haven't come true; as we face the reality that they might never come true...
It's something Joseph would have related to. We meet him this morning in Matthew's gospel, and he has come to a turning point in his life. He had planned out his life in one direction, and suddenly, he finds that he's on a different trajectory, headed places he never would have imagined, through situations he never thought about facing. We don't know all that much about Joseph. He never speaks a word in the Bible; he just has a silent, supporting role, but we can guess that he was much like any other person, that he was looking forward to starting a new life with his betrothed, Mary. It's easy to imagine that he was excited about bringing her to live with him as his wife, and anticipating what their life together would bring - a home, a family, a career. Faithful, righteous Joseph, who doesn't quite know what to do when Mary turns up pregnant, and Joseph knows for a fact that this baby ain't his! So now what? Which way to turn? As he stands here at the crossroads, realizing that his plans and hopes and dreams will never come to fruition, when he recognizes life as it was will never again be like the life he used to know...
It's a tough place to be. But it's just then that something amazing happens! God sends a messenger, an angel to Joseph while he's asleep & dreaming. The angel comes to Joseph in his confusion and sorrow over what might have been and says, “Do not be afraid...” Have you ever noticed that angels always say that whenever they show up? “Do not be afraid...”
“Do not be afraid...” because while this may not have been your plan, it's part of God's plan. “Do not be afraid...” because even though it may seem like your world the way you wanted it to be is ending, God is making a new beginning. “Do not be afraid...” because the Holy Spirit is working in Mary and through you to bring a savior into the world, the one you will name Jesus, which means, “God saves.”
“Do not be afraid...” because in this baby who will be born is the fulfillment of all that God has been doing since the dawn of time to heal humankind, to make it whole. In this child, creation will be restored, and all of those longings, those brief glimpses you get once in a while about how life really could be, of how the world really should be – in Jesus, they will be made a reality, because in him, you will see that God is with us.
In the middle of the turmoil of his life, God sent an angel with this message - “Do not be afraid – God is with us,” and this indeed was good news for Joseph, not just now when he has found out his fiancée is pregnant, but it's good news for all the days that lie ahead – because even once Joseph marries Mary, even once Jesus is born, it won't all be smooth sailing for him and his family. The road ahead holds its own drama and danger – shepherds intruding in the middle of the night to see his new son, wise men bearing unexpected gifts, a hurried escape into the foreign land of Egypt, fleeing from the jealous wrath of King Herod. It will be years before Joseph's life will settle down and look even remotely like the life he used to know. But through it all, Joseph can cling to the words of the angel: “Do not be afraid...” - God is with us.
These words are good news for us too, as we face the uncertainties of our own world, as we stand here this Christmas season, looking behind to what we thought our lives would be and ahead to the reality of what our lives will be. Good news because whatever it is that we are facing – financial difficulties, health problems, faltering relationships, old aches and fresh wounds – whatever burdens you carry with you this morning, the angel says to us along with Joseph – God is with us. God is with us in this child once born, the one who lived and died and rose again; God made human, dwelling among us, filled with grace and mercy and love, sent to reassure us over and over again that no matter what we face in this life, we are never, ever alone. We are cared for and tended by Jesus, who saves, by Emmanuel, God-with-us.
This is amazing good news – and this is our story to tell. It is the gift we bring to a hurting, questioning world this season, a world that is longing for some good news. God sent Joseph an angel, a messenger. Through the words of scripture, God speaks to us with that same message – Do not be afraid, I am with you. And now God sends us forth as messengers too. May our mouths be filled with the words of angels this Christmas season and always: Do not be afraid. God is with us.
Amen.
December 12, 2010 - 3rd Sunday in Advent
When I was a kid growing up out in the country of rural Pennsylvania, my parents taught me a very important lesson about crossing the street, 1 most of you probably heard growing up too. When you get ready to cross the road, before you do anything else, you stop, look, and listen. Stop, of course, so you wouldn't rush out into on-coming traffic; look - both ways- so you could see if there was a car coming either direction; and listen - very important where I lived- I told you we lived just past the crest of a hill, and you couldn't see what was coming from the one direction, so you had to pay attention to hear if something was coming. (People flew up & down our road, even though the speed limit was technically 45 miles an hour)
Stop, Look, and Listen - 3 things you had to do to make sure you knew if something was coming or not.
Stop, Look, and Listen - a good reminder of what is happening in today's gospel lesson, and how important it is if we're going to know that something's coming.
See, John the baptizer was stopped. When we first met him here in Matthew's gospel, just last week, John was out in the wilderness, and he was on the move. He was on fire, alive with energy and urgency, summoning people to prepare the way of the Lord, to repent for the kingdom of heaven was near. John was a man of action, baptizing sinners in the Jordan, the symbol of a new life, a fresh start. Back then, John was eager, excited, impatient for the one who would come after him, the one who would come with an ax in one hand, and a winnowing fork in the other, ready to cut down any dead, fruitless wood and burn up any chaff with unquenchable fire.
But that was then, and this is now, and now John is stopped. Literally - he's been arrested. Thrown in prison. Closed in by the walls around him. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Nothing but time to think. To wonder. To question. To doubt. See, he's heard what Jesus has been doing - and there's nothing in the rumors about Jesus chopping down worthless trees, nothing about separating the righteous from the unrighteous. John had had great expectations for this one who was coming after him, but Jesus doesn't seem to fit the bill. He's nothing like what John thought he would be. Jesus' ministry is more about planting, not chopping down, more about welcoming and including that separating out. John expected him to come with the blazing fire of judgment in his eyes, yet Jesus seems more interested in healing, restoring, loving. And didn't Isaiah talk somewhere else about the Lord's anointed proclaiming liberty to the captives and release to the prisoner? (yep, that's in chapter 61 & Jesus claimed it for himself in Luke when he read it in the temple). And yet here John still sits in jail. So he sends his followers out with this question, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"
Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? Maybe John's question finds an echo in our lives, in our experiences. Maybe we find ourselves stopped with him this morning, this Advent season, caught in our own little prisons of stress or busyness or anxiety. Backed into a corner by the burdens we carry with us. Caged by our cares and concerns. That cancer diagnosis. The strain of caring for a loved one whose health is failing. That job you lost months ago with no sign of another on the horizon. Your child who you know you raised to know better, but who can't seem to do better & just makes one bad decision after another. That addiction you can't conquer. The relationship that once held so much love and joy and now seems on the verge of imploding. And in the midst of all of these things, with responsibilities and deadlines and to-do lists, we may come to a stop, filled with questions about this one we follow, asking with John, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Are you the real deal or not? Because if you are, Jesus, why aren't you doing anything? Why haven't you fixed it yet? What are you waiting for? Can I really count on you, or is it time that I looked elsewhere for help? Serious questions for this time of year, when we like to pretend that life should be about lighter matters - cookies and shopping and celebrations... yet this shadow remains.
But it's okay, if we find ourselves stopped in the hubbub of the season - because it is only when we stop that we can really look and listen - to see what Jesus is doing and hear his words to us.
It's what Jesus said to John's disciples - Go and tell John what you hear and see. Listen. Look. See what's happening right before your eyes! “...the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” John had one set of expectations about how the Messiah would change the world, but Jesus has his own plan. Jesus doesn't come with eyes blazing, full of anger and wrath. He comes bringing love and hope and the promise of wholeness. The change he brings starts not at the global level, it starts one-on-one. It's not about temporal power, he's not coming to take over the world. This is about eternal transformation. When Jesus comes into the world, people are changed. They are healed. They are set free. One by one. It's got a ripple effect. One life touches another and another and another, spreading from person to person. It may be slow and gradual; it may be almost instantaneous, like those videos on YouTube that go viral & before you know it everyone's seen it & who can say why... But when Jesus comes, that's the evidence that he's come, that he's the One: people are changed – and changed people change the world.
See, Jesus doesn't always come in the ways that we expect. (He usually doesn't do what we expect, actually!) But that doesn't mean he's not at work in the world. Stop. Look. Listen. Where do we see him and hear him? He's there whenever and wherever lives are being changed, whenever and wherever people are given a chance to start again. Jesus is there in the countless food pantries and soup kitchens that feed the hungry. He's there in the Salvation Army bell ringer, collecting money for those who are struggling. He's there in the respite care provider and the live-in companion aide. Jesus is even here in this place, living in you, in us, reaching out to help someone in need through the Giving Tree or Christmas-at-Sea. He's here in the Word and the Water and the Wine, giving himself to us so that we might give ourselves to others. Because Jesus has brought light into our darkness, hope into the situations that hold us down. He has changed us. And as changed people, we are set free to change the world with the love and hope and healing we ourselves have known. So this week, stop, look, and listen for Jesus. Look with new eyes. Listen with new ears to see what Jesus is doing in your life and in the world. And when you see him and hear him, do what Jesus told John's disciples to do: go and tell someone else. Because that's how it works: one person sharing the good news with another – and you may be the one God will use to let them know that in Jesus, there is hope. In Jesus they can be set free.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
December 5, 2010 - 2nd Sunday of Advent
One of my favorite books from when I was a kid was The Monster at the End of this Book, starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover. It's a fun book – Grover talks to you the whole way through. You open it up to the 1st page, and Grover, it seems, has seen the title. And poor old Grover is in a panic – because there's a monster at the end of this book, and there's no way that Grover wants to meet that monster. So he spends the whole book trying to convince you, the reader, not to keep going. He pleads, he cajoles, and when that doesn't work, Grover tries to keep you from getting to the end of the book by setting up obstacles: he ties the pages together, he builds a brick wall – hoping you won't be strong enough to turn the pages, because every page brings the end of the book nearer, and there is a monster at the end of this book!
We come to this second Sunday of Advent, and as we always do (there's a pattern to these Sundays of Advent every year) – we hear John the Baptizer out in the wilderness, crying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!... Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” But we're a lot like Grover. Because when we hear what John has to say to the Pharisees and Sadducees, how the one who is coming after John the Baptizer will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, how he comes with a winnowing fork in his hand to clear the threshing floor and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire, we get nervous. We get afraid. We get anxious. Like Grover, we're pretty sure we don't want to meet what waits for us as the end of this book. So we hear the call to prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight, but instead, we set up obstacles & road blocks. Instead of clearing the way so that Jesus can come to us more quickly, we do whatever we can to slow him down. It reminds me of this past spring, when Andy & I were driving around Oceanside after that big wind and rain storm. You remember that – the one that knocked out the power and blew down trees and made a big mess. We were there a day or 2 after the storm, doing some errands, and for whatever reason, we thought it would be easier or faster to go down side streets, rather than fighting traffic on Long Beach Road – but every way we wanted to go was blocked off. We wanted to turn right – we had to turn left. We wanted to go straight, we had to turn. All because of downed trees and barricades. No one had prepared a way for us; our paths were not straight – and it took us forever to get where we were going.
And I was wondering how often we do that to Jesus, however unintentionally. We fill our lives with the roadblocks of busy-ness, detours for distractions, sinkholes of sin. The closer Jesus gets to the monster at end of this book, the more we try to stop him, afraid we will be destroyed by what he finds there.
It's hard for us to face ourselves a lot of the time, to admit where we have gone astray, to confess our sins in the presence of God and of one another. It's not something we do very often, if at all. Sure, we do the confession of sins ever week at the beginning of worship. But it's a pretty generic thing - “Most merciful God, we confess that we are captive to sin, and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone... (ELW)” And it's good to confess together – but we never really put any specific sins into words – we don't name particular thoughts, words, or deeds. We don't confess exactly what it is that we have done or left undone, at least not out loud, not so anyone else can hear. I was trying to imagine what that scene in the river would have looked like – if the crowds coming to confess got to whisper their sins for John's hearing alone, or if they had to stand there in the river and name their sins for all to hear. Either way, it's a scary thought – because to name them out loud makes it more real. It forces us to take responsibility, to consider what it would really look like to actually repent, to change our lives, to let Jesus go ahead and separate the wheat from the chaff of our lives.
Confessing our sins is never easy. Repenting and preparing the way of the Lord go hand in hand, and so it's no wonder that we set up roadblocks. As hard as that can be, as frightened as we are about what we'll find at the end of our book, no matter how hard we try to keep Jesus away, the good news is that Jesus always finds a way to get to us. Nothing we do can keep him from coming to us – not to burn us up, but to save us from ourselves, to transform us. The Message translation of the Bible puts it this way: The main character in this drama—compared to him I'm a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He's going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives.”
That's what Jesus comes to do – to give us kingdom life, to stir up the Holy Spirit. And what a relief when he does, when we remember the water of our baptism pouring over us, cleaning us, washing our sins away, bringing new life within us, a fresh start, a chance to begin again - so that we don't have to be afraid of what the end of the book holds. Because at the end of the story, there is only Jesus, and he comes to set us free. Thanks be to God. Amen.
November 28, 2010 - 1st Sunday of Advent
Get Ready – Jesus is Coming
Advent 1 – November 28, 2010
“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming,” Jesus says. “Be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Keep awake – be ready. Important words to hear as we enter this new church year, as we begin Advent – a season of waiting and watching and getting ready for Christ to come – not as he did a long time ago in a manger far, far away, but as our triumphant King returning to judge the world. Keep awake; be ready! Important words, because it's easy to get sleepy, to start nodding off, to get distracted when you've been waiting, to forget what you are supposed to be getting ready for.
Jesus gives the disciples these examples of normal, everyday people caught up in the normal, everyday routines of their lives, just doing what everyone does. He points to the days of Noah, when people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. He tells of 2 men working in the field, 2 women grinding meal together– nothing special about them. There's a home owner, caught off guard by the thief who breaks into his house.
Jesus tells the disciples these as cautionary tales – not because anyone is doing anything inherently wrong. There's nothing bad or evil about eating and drinking, marrying or working. You can't exactly blame the owner of the house for not knowing the thief's schedule. No, Jesus tells these stories to remind the disciples of how easy it is to fall asleep, to lose focus, to get so caught up in the things of this world that they lose sight of what is eternal. For those first disciples, and for the early church who first read these words from Matthew's gospel, the temptation was to forget who and what they were waiting for, and how they were supposed to live in the meantime, and if they did that, it would be a good bet that they would not be ready when Jesus came. So Jesus tells them these stories to warn them too, because when Jesus comes again, there won't be a warning. (Bus story – Aunt's house vs. our house – have to be outside, ready & waiting - can't see the bus coming from where I lived; now chance to scurry around at the last minute.) Jesus will come unexpectedly, unpredictably. There won't be a chance to get ready at the last minute, so they need to stay alert, they need to prepare for whenever Jesus will arrive.
On this first Sunday of Advent, Jesus' words come calling to us too, calling to us across the centuries: “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming... be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” How easy it is for us to fall asleep, and not just because of the tryptophan from all that Thanksgiving turkey. No, Jesus is talking about our spiritual sleepiness, the temptation we face in our busy lives, with our busy schedules, to forget that there is something – Someone!- beyond our day-to-day lives; something – Someone!- more important than our to-do lists. Even in this season when so much of the world & our lives remind us that Christmas is coming, it's easy to prepare for Christmas and forget about getting ready for Christ. With everything else there is for us to remember, it can be easy to forget who & what we're waiting for, or that we're even supposed to be waiting and watching at all. We forget to be on the lookout for Jesus coming into our world, here and now, forget that we're supposed to be ready whenever he comes.
So, knowing that tendency toward forgetfulness, the 1st Sunday of each Advent brings us one of these gospel stories that startles us out of that spiritual sleepiness with their mysterious talk of the end of time, that splash of cold water, chosen to jolt us awake. Here in Matthew's gospel, tales of floods & people being taken & left behind, and thieves breaking in in the night – none of them the most comforting images, but they get our attention. And we are blessed to get this reminder every year, to hear Christ's call to keep awake and be ready – because we need it! Ready or not, Jesus is coming, at an unexpected, unpredictable hour – but he is coming.
And that's good news, even though we can be scared by the underlying tone of judgment. For those first disciples in the early church, living in the midst of struggle and persecution, the promise that Jesus was coming, however unexpectedly, to judge the world and set it right was a promise filled with hope. It was a promise that God had not abandoned them, that God had not forgotten them or their world. It was a promise that God didn't enter the world once as a baby and then leave forever, but that the same Jesus would come again. It is a promise of presence. And knowing this changed everything. It filled them with anticipation, even as they went about their normal lives, as they ate and worked and married and slept. It gave them eyes to look for the extraordinary presence of God in the midst of their ordinary routines. That is what it means to keep awake, to be ready – it is to be on the lookout, to seek what Christ is already doing in the world & to join in, even as they wait for him to fulfill the promise to come again.
Jesus is coming. It is a promise for us too – and an invitation – an invitation to reorient our lives – to center them around the Coming One. And this is one way to think of what it might look like to keep awake and be ready. Waiting for Jesus' return is kind of like having a baby. Kind of, because you have a better idea of when a baby will arrive – even if you don't know the day or the hour, you know that you have about 40 weeks to prepare. And that's what you do. Andy and I spent all sorts of time getting ready – painting the room, buying & putting together furniture, picking out car seats and strollers and high chairs and toys and books and all of the many many things these tiny creatures need. We went to breastfeeding class and childbirth preparation classes. We toured the hospital – not the hospital we ended up delivering at, but still... We went to the doctor on an ever-increasing basis, we picked out names, we read the books so we would know what to expect while we were expecting. We tried to get ready at work – the closer I got to my due date, the more things I had to arrange for my time away – coverage pastors, and making sure our congregational leaders knew who to call & when, the last flurry of visits before maternity leave. And in the midst of all that, life still went on... we went to work as usual, did the laundry, shopped for groceries, did the dishes, took care of our dog and cats. Just because I was pregnant didn't mean that I sat around and only did pregnant woman things.
We can take a lesson from that. Waiting for Jesus is a lot like waiting for a baby... because it's an active waiting. There are things to be done, ways that we can be getting ready, ways that we can be a part of what Jesus is already up to in the world by reaching out to the world around us, we can keep that focus. Keeping awake and being ready doesn't mean that we have to go sit on a mountain somewhere to pray and watch the clouds and just basically suspend our normal lives. Being ready means being faithful to what God has already called us, in the places God has called us to, in our different roles – as parents and children, spouses or singletons or widows or widowers, students, workers, friends, neighbors – but to put Jesus at the heart of your life, to follow through on that commitment we talked about last week – the one where Jesus comes to have first place in everything. And we do it all with expectation, with urgency – we know the due date is getting closer; any day could be the day. As we wait for Jesus we know that any day could be the day that we meet him finally face to face. And that will not be an end, but instead, a new beginning. It could even be today. May we be ready to meet him with joy and anticipation, whenever he may come.
Amen.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
November 21, 2010 - Christ the King Sunday
So let's talk stewardship. Today is what we call “Commitment Sunday” after all. It's the day when we as a church ask our members to make a financial commitment, to write down and turn in a pledge card of what you'll give over the course of the coming year. It's something I hope you've thought about, talked to your significant others about, prayed with God about. It's an important decision – I often say that looking at what we do with “our” money is like taking our spiritual pulse. It's not the only vital sign, but it can often shed some light on where we are in our relationship with God. So we ask you to do this every year, not just for the money or so we'll have an idea how to budget, but as an opportunity to check in with God about where we are. Are we growing in trust? Are we holding something back? We should give our pledge for the year some serious thought, because it's more than just a number of a piece of paper.
Of course, stewardship isn't only about money. We'll talk about that some in this sermon, but money not the only thing God entrusts to our care. We see that in the second lesson we heard this morning. Paul's letter to the Colossian Christians contains this beautiful prayer and a poetic description of who Jesus Christ is: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him, all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him.” Everything in all of creation is Christ's – created in him and through him and for him. Which means that it all belongs to him. Now at an abstract level, that idea doesn't bother us too much. In fact, it sounds pretty good – but it seems pretty far removed from us, to say that everything belongs to Jesus, that nothing we have belongs ultimately to us, that God has just given it to us to manage, to take care of – that's great as a general concept, but it's easy to act like it doesn't have much to do with our lives here and now. It's easy to pretend that it doesn't have anything to do with the particulars of our lives. But then we hear what Paul says a few verses later – that Christ is the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
First place in everything. That phrase really got me this week. It kept coming back to me. Christ is supposed to have first place in everything. And I wondered, what would that look like? What would it mean for Christ to have first place in everything? What would it mean for Christ to have first place in my life?
That question, for me, is at the heart of the whole idea of stewardship. It starts with recognizing that everything we have belongs to God, that nothing we have is really ours, but just entrusted to us by God. And being good stewards of all of God's gifts means using those things the way that God wants us to. And that means putting Jesus first. It means having Jesus at the center of our lives instead of hanging around the edges. It means making him our first priority. And honestly, if we did that, if Christ really did have first place in our lives, a lot of things would have to change.
Putting Christ first would show in our calendars – in the way that we spend our time. It might mean spending less time watching TV or messing around on Facebook and more time caring for and serving others. It could mean shifting our activities and events – skipping Sunday morning soccer practice or trips to the beach and coming to worship instead. Maybe it would mean rearranging our schedules so that we actually take the time to read the Bible and pray.
Putting Christ first would show in our relationships too. We would be slower to anger, quicker to listen, quicker to forgive. We'd carry around fewer grudges, less bitterness, less regret. We'd treat each other as the beloved children of God that we each are, extending kindness and compassion and mercy, mixing it with honesty and accountability, learning to speak the truth in love.
If Christ were first in our lives, it would show in our wallets and our bank statements. If Christ is first in our lives, it will change the way we spend our money. And I'm not just talking about how much you give away to the church or to other charities. The biblical model for financial stewardship is a tithe – giving 10% of your income to God's work in the world – and I hope that you'll grow toward that – it can open up new ways of trusting God to provide. Giving an offering can be an easy first step – giving an offering to the church is a fairly straightforward transaction; we can measure it. But God still cares what we do with that other 90%, so being good stewards of our finances means thinking about where we spend that money and what we spend it on. We could give 10 or 15 or 20 percent of our income to the church, but if we're spending the rest in ways that harm people or the planet, if we're engaged in mindless consumerism we're not being faithful stewards. Black Friday's this week, the Christmas spending spree is upon us. Do the things we buy and where we buy them and how they're made and by whom help or hurt those involved in their production? Are we willing to sacrifice the well-being of our global neighbors in order to save a buck on our end? Or are we willing to make some sacrifices of our own – to live more simply so that others may simply live, as the bumper sticker puts it?
This whole “Jesus having first place in everything” gets to be pretty complicated when you start thinking about what that really means, how far-reaching “everything” is, how completely it will change us – if we'll let it. And let's face it, in most aspects of our lives, Jesus isn't even a distant second. He's blocked by our selfishness, our laziness, our inattention to his call.
But thanks be to God that Jesus doesn't wait for us to get our act together. Part of following Jesus means taking that leap of faith & making a commitment – not just with our finances, but with our whole lives, our whole heart & soul – to put Christ first in everything we say and think and do, even though we'll never be able to do it completely. But we try anyway, because the One who asks us for everything gives us everything in return, not just ourselves, our time, and our possessions – Jesus gives us himself, crucified on the cross and raised from the grave. Through him, God “has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son...” This King we serve redeems us, forgives us, reconciles us. He is worthy of the commitment he asks, today and everyday. May we make that commitment without reserve and give thanks joyfully – and may our lives that reflect that thanksgiving as we learn to put him first in everything.
Amen.
November 14, 2010 - Pentecost + 25
I'm going to play Captain Obvious this morning and say buildings are important to us. There's a practical reason for that of course – they protect us from the extremes of the weather, they give us a place to keep our stuff. But it's more than that, right? One building is not the same as the next. We get emotionally attached to certain buildings – to our homes or the homes of our families and friends, to our churches, sometimes even to where we work or where we go to school. Because buildings are so much more than just bricks or wood or stone. Important stuff happens in them. They hold our memories, and they are filled with our hopes for the future. They represent safety, security, stability.
The people with Jesus in the gospel today had a similar relationship with the temple. They point out its beauty and majesty as they walk through the temple with Jesus. And no wonder – it was built to impress, built to last. It was huge, built out of enormous stones cut precisely to fit perfectly on top of each other. The temple was massive, built on a deep foundation, and reaching up to the sky. It was solid. It felt permanent. But people weren't emotionally attached to the temple just because of its physical structure – it was because of all it represented. The memories and hopes and dreams of the people of Israel were housed there, yes, but even more than that, the temple was the place where God was. In all its glory, the temple was a symbol of God's protection, a sign of God's presence among them, a place that would always stand, because God was there.
So imagine how shocking it was to hear Jesus say that this same temple wouldn't last, that not one stone would be left upon another. If something as solid as the temple couldn't stand the test of time, what could? And Jesus goes on to list all of these other scary predictions: wars, natural disasters, deadly diseases; arrests and persecution and betrayal at the hands of your closest family and friends.
Bad enough to hear Jesus say that this is what was coming, but Luke's first readers, the people this gospel was originally written down for, they were living it out. Read Acts (which is like Luke, part 2, written by the same author), and you see all of these things coming to pass; and even the temple, that most permanent looking of buildings, it was destroyed by the Romans. Gone. And they were left with questions, filled with uncertainty. What do we do now, when all the things we thought would last, that we thought were secure, have crumbled around our feet?
We know that feeling. We have, all of us, put our trust in things that seemed solid, things that offer the promise of a bright, stable future. We build our lives around these things – marriages, friendships, careers, homes, retirement accounts, all the things that make for a good life. And when everything falls into place, when everything is going well, we see them as Jesus' listeners saw the temple: signs of God's blessings and love.
But what do we do when things start to fall apart, when the things we have placed our trust in are destroyed and crumbling around us and we stand in the wreckage? When a young wife and mother loses her husband unexpectedly to a heart attack? When a tragic, senseless accident changes everything in an instant? When the unemployment runs out or the stock market drops and takes your financial security with it? What do we do with the suffering caused by earthquakes or floods or deadly diseases? What do we do when our trust is shaken, when it seems like the world is about to come to an end?
Jesus says that these things will give us an opportunity to testify. And that doesn't seem so great; I think we'd rather skip those opportunities and have everything go along the way it was before. But it's not as though God causes hard times to come just to push us into giving a witness to our faith. And what Jesus is talking about isn't making up some silver lining, or making believe that everything is okay when it's not. Jesus never asks us to pretend things are okay when they're not. There is real pain in each of our lives. We face genuine disappointments and challenges and tragedies. And following Jesus doesn't mean that that's all gonna go away. It doesn't mean that we are going to be protected from difficulty. But when Jesus says that our hard times will give us a chance to testify, it's because there's something deeper going on, something stronger than our struggles.
It's what the disciples did testify to every chance they got – that despite our troubles, Jesus never leaves us. Jesus is always with us. It's a promise that's kind of hidden, kind of subtle in this reading – when Jesus says that he will give his people words & wisdom to speak – but if he's there to guide our words, it means he's there. He's present with us, in and through all of the hardships we face, no matter what they may be. He never leaves us to face our burdens alone.
That is what we are called to testify to – that even in our darkest times, Jesus is there. That was the steadfast witness the disciples gave: that Christ was always with them, that the love of God knows no end. In everything they did, they always pointed back to the God who was at work in the world, especially in those places where the need is the greatest, bringing healing where there is hurt, hope where there is despair, light where there is darkness.
It's not always easy to do. It can be a challenge to look at our situations and to see and feel God at work. But if we look, if we dare to seek Jesus, we are sure to find him, to feel him - through the support of our friends and family, through the strength that comes when we need it most, through the peace that passes understanding. It is a call to trust God's never-ending love for us, to believe that no matter what we are facing, we don't face it alone. And that is the only thing that enables us to endure. We can't do it on our own strength, but only when we lean on the one who holds us fast. When the whole world seems like it's crumbling look for Jesus, because he's there. All other things will fade away, but Jesus' love endures. That is the good news, so don't be shy. Talk about it. Testify! Someone else needs to hear it too.
Amen.
Maternity Leave
From September 26 - November 7, I was out on maternity leave - hence, no sermons here from that time.
September 19, 2010 - Pentecost + 17
“Once upon a time,” Jesus says, “there was a rich man. And it comes to his attention that his senior manager has not been doing such a good job – that he's been squandering the rich man's property. Well, understandably, this doesn't make the rich man happy, so he calls the manager into his office, and says, 'that's enough! You can't work for me anymore – go get the books together so I'm up to speed – and then it's out the door with you.”
Well, of course, the manager isn't quite prepared for that. In this economy, & what with being fired and all, he knows he's not likely to find another upper-level management job. He knows he's not cut out for a manual labor/blue-collar kind of job – and he is too proud to beg... In no time, he's gonna be out on the street with no way to make a decent living. So he comes up with a plan – he calls together the people who owe the CEO money – and he takes their debts and he cuts them down in size, hoping that when word gets out about what happened, they'll think kindly of him, that they'll remember that he did them a favor financially, and welcome him into their homes, give him a meal, maybe let him sleep on the couch for a little while til he can get back on his feet again...
And while his motives aren't pure, we can understand. We're with Jesus as he tells this story this far. So were his listeners, probably – the disciples who Luke tells us up front were there, but also the Pharisees, who he tells us a few verses after the reading ends were listening too.
But then Jesus goes on – and nothing happens like what we would expect... we, like the listeners of Jesus' day, expect that something dramatic will happen, that the rich man will blow his top, that he'll bring the law down on the manager for squandering even more of his $, for cooking the books. We expect the dishonest man to get called on the carpet & condemned for his dishonesty. But instead, the rich man commends the manager for his shrewdness; and Jesus seems to hold him up as an example to follow - “make friends for yourself by means of dishonest wealth, so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”
And we all just kind of do a double-take at Jesus. Wha??? Did he just say what I thought he said? No, can't be... It goes against our sense of right and wrong, of fair & unfair, of what is ethical, of what doing the right thing is. We get offended by this story of someone getting ahead or at least protecting himself by less than above-board means. This parable doesn't make much sense to us, based on our understanding of who Jesus is and what he expects from us – and unfortunately, there's not a follow-up where Jesus pulls the disciples aside and tells them what it means, like there are with some parables. So we're left to wrestle and struggle with what's going on here, thoughts going in circles about how we might understand what Jesus was trying to say to us and his 1st century audience. And I have to tell you, none of the things I've come up with or read about seem to quite do it. There's no easy answer to what this gospel lesson means; it's not a black & white morality play.
But I was thinking that how we understand this story and what we think about the manager have a lot to do with perspective, a lot to do with who we identify with in what Jesus is telling us. Do we put ourselves in the place of the rich man who seemingly just got ripped off? Are we the dishonest manager? Or are we in the place of the debtors who just caught a big break? Is the rich man completely innocent himself? We'll think differently about the manager's actions depending on what we think about the rich man and his debtors.
I was thinking about how we could possibly ever root for the manager and what he does, and the story of Robin Hood came to mind. Whether you envision him as Kevin Costner in the movie from the 1990s or as a cartoon fox in the Disney version or have some other mental picture all together, clearly Robin Hood was someone who made friends by means of dishonest wealth. He took money that didn't belong to him and gave it away. That's not right or fair; it's not ethical from a pure perspective of right & wrong. But we cheer for him anyway – because Robin Hood steals from the rich to give to the poor. He undercuts an unfair, unjust oppressive system, and helps people who are really in need. And the common folk love him for it. Robin Hood isn't the bad guy, the rich guy is. Robin Hood's the hero! Unless you happen to be the rich person he's stealing from. That changes everything, doesn't it?
And that's where I come back into the gospel. Because how we understand this story depends on who we think we are in it, and who we think Jesus is too. We might want to think that Jesus is the rich man, commending us as managers to do some underhanded stuff, which leaves us where we started. But I think there's another way to look at it. Maybe in this story, Jesus is the manager. And that leaves us as either the rich man or the debtors... When we identify with the rich man, there's a piece of us that gets all up in arms that what the manager does isn't right or fair. It's not fair to take these debts and forgive huge portions of them. We want people to pay what they owe, and who is this manager to say they don't have to? But imagine yourself for a minute in the place of the debtors, who in that ancient world economy were probably more like the oppressed, disadvantaged poor of the Robin Hood story than we might realize, caught in a system that would never let them rise above where they were now, that would always hold them down, hold them captive to what they owed. And imagine your joy and relief, imagine the burden that would be lifted if you suddenly found that your debts were forgiven. Set free! Released, even though you didn't do anything to deserve it!
That's where I find myself in the story today. I know it doesn't fit exactly with the story Jesus told. The manager forgives their debts only in part, and then mainly for his own selfish needs and motivation. But he does it whether they deserve it or not.
And that's what Jesus does. Knowing how much we owe, how deep the debt of our sin is, Jesus calls us to him, and says, “You, what do you owe? Well, take your bill, sit down, and make it zero.” In one fell swoop, not out of selfishness, or corruption, or his own need, but out of pure love, Jesus zeroes our debt. He cancels our sin. It doesn't quite make sense, but that's what Jesus does. It's unexpected, it's undeserved, and it's a gift that's open to all! Thanks be to God!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
September 12 - Pentecost + 16
One beautiful spring day when I was in kindergarten, my class took a trip to this little local place that was designed just for kids. You know the kind of place I'm talking about. This one was called Fairyland Forest, and it lived up to its name. It was complete with scenes straight out of Mother Goose, different nursery rhymes and fairy tales brought to life, and a petting zoo to boot! It's long-since gone out of business, and most of that field trip is a hazy memory, but one thing sticks out... I remember being in one of these little nursery rhyme scenes (you could go into the houses) and looking around and realizing that I didn't recognize anything or anyone. Somehow, whether it was because I was lolly-gagging around looking at something, or just thought I could catch up with the group in a minute, whatever it was, when I came out, my whole group – classmates, teachers, volunteer parents – everybody was gone. Out of sight. I was all alone. I knew where I was, but even so, I. Was. Lost. I was confused and scared and worried – what would happen if I didn't find my group? Did they even know I was missing? How would I get home? Who would take care of me? It's a scary experience to be lost.
In the gospel story from today, Jesus talks about some things that get lost. He's got a crowd of people standing around listening to him. On one hand, he's got the tax collectors and sinners who can't get enough of what Jesus has to say, and on the other, he's got a bunch of Pharisees and scribes muttering and complaining about the kind of company Jesus is keeping. And so he tells these parables about a lost sheep and a lost coin and about the way the people responsible for them – the shepherd and the woman – search and search until they find them. He doesn't say too much about what the lost sheep and the lost coin go through. The sheep may not even realize that it's gotten lost & the coin definitely doesn't have a clue – but we know that Jesus isn't talking about literal sheep & literal coins. He's talking about lost people.
Now because of the 2 crowds he's talking to, and because the story is so familiar to many of us, and because he ends his parables talking about sinners repenting, we usually think lost people = sinners. And so we may put ourselves in the position of the Pharisees and the scribes, who can only see the lost as people who are different than us, people who got themselves into their own mess, who made their bed and now they'll have to lie in it. But if we only think about sin, we may miss seeing the lost-ness that is in each of us. Because being a lost sheep or a lost coin isn't just about being a sinner or not. We all feel lost sometimes... like a kid in the department store or on the school field trip who didn't mean to get lost, who didn't mean to get separated from everyone else – but that's how lost feels. Lost is that feeling of separation and isolation and aloneness. It's that place of confusion and anxiety and uncertainty, of not knowing where to turn next or if anybody has even realized that you are missing.
And we've all felt that, even when we're standing still, but the world around us twists and turns. Many of us felt that way watching the events of 9/11 unfold 9 years ago... lost in confusion, lost in grief, lost in fear, lost in anger; lost in the uncertainty of what would happen next and what had just happened. But it doesn't take a tragedy on a national or global scale to plunge us into lost-ness. It happens much closer to home – when we lose a job, or lay awake nights worrying about how we're going to keep the house or pay the bills; when the doctor calls and says they found cancer, or when your kid calls to say they're in jail, or when your ex sues you for custody. All of these things, well, they just turn our world upside down. We come out of the house and look around and wonder where everyone else went, and who's going to take care of you, if you'll ever find your way home again.
Lost and alone is no way to feel. But it's a powerful feeling – it sticks with you, just like my trip to Fairyland Forest all those years ago, even though I wasn't even “lost” for very long. But you know, as scary as that was, I don't think I even had time to cry that day, because about the same time I realized that I was lost, my teacher noticed that I was missing too – and Mrs. VanDerwen came right back to find me. What a relief to see her walking across the way, straight for me – as glad to find me as I was to be found.
In the end, you know, these parables aren't really so much about the one lost sheep and the one lost coin. They're not really about the 99 un-lost sheep and the 9 un-lost coins either. When Jesus tells these parables, all of the focus, all of the attention, all of the action is on the shepherd, who, first of all, notices! that one of his 100 sheep is missing. Only 1 is gone, but the shepherd sees that it's missing. And then, when he sees it's gone, goes to crazy lengths to go find it again. Jesus asks, “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” Well, probably not too many of us – we wouldn't be inclined to leave the 99 behind in the wilderness, risking their safety and our livelihood, to go look for 1 measly sheep, at least not til we put the other 99 safely in their pen. Yet that's just what the shepherd does.
Jesus' other parable puts all the focus on the actions of the woman looking for her coin. Of course, we'd look too if we lost 10% of our savings, a whole day's wages... but how many of us would throw a party after we found it – inviting the whole neighborhood to a shebang that probably cost way more than that one silver coin was worth to begin with?! It's too lavish, over-the-top!
It's beyond what we would expect any human being to do. But these parables aren't about us – they point us back to the heart of God, to what God is like, to what God is doing. And they remind us – and boy do we need reminding – that no matter how lost we feel, no matter how lost we may actually be, God knows. God knew we were lost before we even realized it ourselves, and God sent Jesus to find us. Jesus is like the shepherd, who will risk anything to find one lost sheep. Jesus is like the woman who searches and hunts and looks and will stop at nothing to find that one lost coin. Jesus is the one who thinks each and every lost person is worth finding – and just when we start to wonder if we'll ever find our way home again, we see Jesus walking across the way, straight for us, as glad to find us as we are to be found... And so he does what only Jesus can do – he throws a great big party for every single one who is found – a party that starts here on earth and reaches to heaven, a party that's open to everyone. “Rejoice with me!” Jesus says! Everyone's invited – scribes and Pharisees, tax collectors and sinners, lost and found alike. The table is set, the meal is prepared – come join the feast and celebrate and give thanks to Jesus who never stops looking for us. Amen.
September 1/5 - Pentecost + 15
Today's gospel lesson is hard; it's demanding
We join Jesus as he is traveling around
& large crowds are with him;
crowds that likely have mixed motivations; compromised commitments.
Jesus was the equivalent of a rock star/celebrity:
healing, teaching, holding his own in religious debates,
offering words of hope, deliverance,
but also of challenge (to those in power & authority).
People were traveling w/ him for lot of reasons
– curiosity, desire for healing, just to be close to celebrity,
some probably even wanted to be honest-to-goodness disciples.
But before they sign on the dotted line – Jesus wants to make sure they've read the fine print.
He wants them to know what they're in for.
He lays out vision/requirements of discipleship.
The words that are hard for us to hear, as hard as they would've been for the crowd:
If you don't hate mom & dad, spouse & kids, brothers & sisters,
& even your life itself,
you cannot be my disciple.
If you don't carry the cross & follow me,
you cannot be my disciple.
If you do not give up all of your possessions,
you cannot become my disciple.
I don't think you'd find this in “How to Win Friends and Influence People”...
But Jesus knows that following him won't be easy,
because following him will mean traveling down the same road he's traveling.
And they don't know where this road is headed yet,
but Jesus does;
and we do too.
Jesus has set his face to go to Jerusalem
– he's been on the way there since all the way back in chapter 9.
His road twists & turns, but that is the ultimate destination.
Already he has had to leave behind his family, his hometown, his familiar life, any possessions he may have had.
And when he gets to Jerusalem,
he will pick up his cross and carry it to the end,
giving up his life for us & for the whole world...
Yes, Jesus knows how much traveling this road will cost him,
and what it will cost us if we would become his disciples.
True discipleship is demanding;
it requires 100% of who we are and what we have;
there's no part-time position for a would-be disciple of Jesus.
It is a complete and all-consuming commitment.
And we know none of us is up to the task.
No matter how hard we try, other commitments will edge their way in
& compete for 1st place in our hearts and in our lives.
But Jesus knows it too.
And no matter what we do or fail to do,
Jesus commits completely to us.
He holds nothing back.
He gives it all.
And when we choose the way of Jesus,
when we make a commitment to him to follow
wherever he leads and whatever it costs,
he walks with us
and helps us every day, every hour, every minute, every second
to shape our lives around his and renew our commitment again & again.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
August 25/29 - Pentecost + 14
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Mysterious, marvelous chocolate factory
5 golden tickets to tour + lifetime supply of chocolate
As expected, tickets go to those w/ $ & resources to buy candy bars in mass quantities & up odds of finding ticket
With 1 exception
Charlie, poor kid,
Lives with his mom, 4 bed-ridden grandparents (in same bed!);
struggle financially;
socially – doesn't fit in, laughed at b/c he can't take part in Wonka-mania (only 2 candy bars throughout contest)
Day of the big tour comes
– and although all 5 have tickets,
entrance is secured,
you see them pushing & shoving for position
– Nevermind that they're all gonna get the same tour,
all have equal access,
they want to go in 1st!
Same behavior throughout the tour, selfishness, greed, etc.
We witness same kind of behavior all around us -
waiting for a plane;
in line at grocery store;
driving on the road;
camping out for tickets; or best spot in line the day after Thanksgiving.
Reveals our desire to be 1st;
We place ourselves over others,
as though our time or money was more valuable or important than someone else's.
Selfishness & greed play out all around us
– corporate decisions that play hard & fast w/ ethics & legality
– and excuse selves b/c what they want is more important than others;
than what is right;
than what is fair.
We put our needs, our desires 1st,
A sign & symptom of our underlying human nature,
our sinful selves.
Not new – to fictional world of Willy Wonka or our 21st C society –
Jesus points it out in gospel too.
The setting is the sabbath dinner, thrown by leader of the Pharisees.
Everyone there knows there's a place for them,
that there's food enough
– yet like kids in Willy Wonka,
when it comes time to sit down,
racing for position,
for best seat in the house.
It's about connections,
who sits next to who,
networking,
proving to everyone else where you rank in the order of things.
You see it in the guest list too:
Pharisee invites the elite,
the important,
the influential,
the powerful,
the wealthy
– the people who have something to offer in return,
maybe an invitation to the next big dinner party,
a chance to meet someone else who might give you a leg up.
Both are about “what's in in for me” mentality
Jesus calls them – guests & host – on it.
To the guests, he says,
"Try to exalt yourself, you'll be humbled;
humble yourself, you will be exalted."
To the host, "Are you giving something in order to get something? Looking for a payback? That's not the way it's supposed to be."
Back to Willy Wonka & kids on the tour.
We see Jesus' words in action:
4 selfish kids get humbled 1 by 1 – result of their own behavior.
They have this amazing opportunity given to them,
the tour, the lifetime supply of chocolate, this once-in-a-lifetime event
– and they blow it, because they want more.
All except for Charlie
– poor, downtrodden Charlie –
who was just happy to be there,
looking w/ eyes of wonder, amazement, surprise at this marvelous, magical world;
who knew he didn't have any reason to expect or deserve to be there;
not worried about anyone else, just thankful for what he's been given,
And who comes to find out at the end that it's even better than he dreamed!
Willy Wonka wants him to come and live with him,
to learn from him,
to take over from him when he's gone
– to do what he would do,
to care for the Oompa Loompas,
to continue his amazing vision
We tend to act like the other four kids, but God created us to be Charlies!
We are all invited to this amazing chocolate factory t
hat is the Kingdom of God,
where nothing is quite as it seems,
it's not what we expect,
but beyond our wildest imaginations and dreams.
We may think we are entitled
– but over time, we come to realize that we are recipients of a tremendous gift
– one we can't earn (who we know, $, IQ, car, house, job, achievements),
one we can't really deserve
– but invited still to come and live in the Kingdom of God,
to walk with Jesus, who says, “it's all yours, Charlie!
I want you to learn from me,
to do things my way,
to share this amazing gift with others..."
Because in God's kingdom, there aren't just 5 golden tickets.
There's an infinite supply – enough for everyone!
And because we know our place is already secure
& that there is enough for everyone,
we don't have to hoard them
or push & shove for 1st in line.
We live with Jesus,
who hands us a Golden Ticket and then a handful more
and tells us to go give Golden Tickets to everyone we meet
– to invite everyone to a world that isn't just pure imagination,
but is God's amazing vision for what will be,
where everyone is included,
and there are no bad seats
– because every seat in God's kingdom is the best seat in the house.
And at this meal,
the host comes and serves us,
not just candy & chocolate,
but his very self,
his body & blood,
given for us,
at the table where there is always room for one more.
And so we go, sent to the Charlies of the world,
the ones Jesus says can't possibly repay
– the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
the homeless, the mentally ill, the convicted criminal,
Anyone who feels like an outcast
– anyone who stands outside looking at the chocolate factory,
longing to come in and see what's inside,
wondering if there's a place for them...
Jesus sends us to them with a Golden Ticket
and this message,
"Come on in!
Jesus himself invites you.
He's reserved a place just for you
– and guess what? It's the best seat in the house!
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
August 18/22 - Pentecost + 13
Old Testament reading & Gospel linked by idea of sabbath
what people can/can't; should/shouldn't do
Leader of synagogue has a strong sense of what sabbath was for
– a letter of the law kind of guy,
And law says,
Remember the sabbath day & keep it holy;
The law says,
it is a day set aside for God – so you shall rest & do no work.
Strict rules around this – what constituted work, what was allowable.
Not to observe it properly was a big no-no.
Then there were the people of Israel Isaiah speaks of.
Again, they understood the letter of the law.
They followed it in form,
felt that they were fulfilling their religious requirements
– but clearly not!
God accuses them of trampling the sabbath,
pursuing their own interests on God's holy day,
going their own ways,
serving their own interests
& pursuing their own affairs
which is not just to say they did as they pleased,
but that others were hurt in the process
– they weren't attending to the needs of the hungry and afflicted.
The deeper meaning of sabbath was lost for both the leader & the Israelites...
the idea of sabbath as gift;
as an opportunity for rest, renewal, restoration of relationship
- 1st & foremost w/ God,
and secondly w/ each other.
2 ditches
Sabbath/Sunday as dour day of obligation
(ex. Puritans – no work, but no fun either!);
pure religious obligation that becomes a burden.
Going to church is one thing,
but to set aside an entire day as holy,
as centered on God;
a day when we deliberately disconnect in large part from the world
& deliberately seek to reconnect w/ God – yikes!
Alien, foreign concept.
We tend to fall in the other ditch
– where the sabbath
(Sunday for most Christians)
is just like any other day
– Go to church (maybe)
and then we pursue our own interests & own affairs
- running errands,
- going shopping,
- cleaning up the house,
- finishing homework that's due 1st thing Monday morning
– and we tend to head into the week almost as stressed and overwhelmed
as we ended it on Friday (if you have a Monday -Friday kind of job!)
But sabbath isn't supposed to be either of those things.
It's not a joyless day of boredom & obligation,
nor is it a day just like all other days w/ a little God sprinkled in.
God intends sabbath to be a gift,
a day of being set free,
of being restored.
Gospel shows us one clear example:
Crippled woman,
who came to synagogue on the sabbath for who knows what reason
– her own sense of religious obligation, routine, companionship, inspiration?
But not expecting to meet Jesus;
not expecting him to pick her out of the crowd & call her over;
not expecting him to say,
“Woman, you are set free from your ailment”
and yet feeling it happen as he spoke the words,
as he laid his hands on her,
immediately able to do what she hasn't done for 18 years
– stand up straight,
able to look at the world around her from a new perspective,
not having to crane her neck to see up,
not tied to looking at the ground, at people's feet,
but being able to look at them face-to-face
and immediately praising God,
recognizing that this is what sabbath is for
– for connecting with God,
for acknowledging the One who set her free,
to rejoice with the community gathered around her
as they joined in prayer and praise and worship
for the wonderful things Jesus was doing
– esp. this wonderful thing,
this amazing healing that happened right before their eyes!
That's really at the heart of the sabbath
– it is a gift from God to us,
a chance to rest
(an obligation, actually);
an invitation to trust God more than ourselves
– that God can & will guide & provide for our needs
even if we take a time-out from “doing” once a week
(which is part of what was going on in the Isaiah reading);
an opportunity to remember together
all of the ways that God has and will set us free
from all the things that bind us, that hold us down
– whether they are physical or spiritual or relational;
a chance to celebrate &
to share God's promise of deliverance with all that we meet,
so that together,
we might recognize & acknowledge the One who does all this
and rejoice together,
praising and worshiping God,
and so be drawn back into restored relationships with God and with each other...
Amen.
August 11/15 - Mary, Mother of Our Lord
Fan of music
earliest memories are of singing
as a baby
Sesame Street records that told a story, that invited us in – to sing along, to dance, to laugh, to imagine we were there with them, that we were a part of whatever was going on
So it makes some sense that I would like musicals.
The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Singing in the Rain – where the story is told through song & dance
know some spoken quotes, but can sing whole songs
But not everyone likes musicals – they require a certain willing suspension of disbelief.
Really, who responds to a situation by bursting out with song out of nowhere? And dancing too!
Everything flows naturally – song, dance, countermelody, everyone knows what to do; People don't do that in real life.
But that's kinda what happens here in the gospel -
Mary meets angel Gabriel, who tells her she's gonna have the Son of God, the one who will be the savior of his people.
And Mary, young, teenage, unwed Mary, says, “Okay! Sounds good to me!”
& off she goes to visit relative Elizabeth
and Mary, well she does what anyone of us would do -
she starts to sing!
Luke says, “and Mary said...”, so maybe she herself did not actually start to sing
says this amazing poem that has since been set to music countless numbers of times; it's been used in evening prayer for centuries
have it memorized from the Holden Evening Prayer version -
“My soul proclaims your greatness, oh God,
and my spirit rejoices in you.
You have looked with love on your servant here & blessed me all my life through...”
And like much good music in my life, it has sunk down in me.
It reverberates long after I stop singing it
It echoes; It wells up; It sings itself within my heart and my mind
Like those Sesame street records of old, like the musicals I have come to know & love, it has taken up residence within me; it invites me in – to sing, to pray, to enter into Mary's story & hear it, to sing it as my own
It does it the way all good music does
without my even really noticing it
I know the words, but I don't give them much thought
Except once in a while
like when they show up in the lectionary
and I read them instead of singing along
and I realize again that these words of Mary are not just a song of praise
they are a song of sedition
they are words that could get a young, teenaged, unwed mother-to-be killed
Because this is not just a song between a young woman & her God
It is not just a song about their personal relationship
This is not just a song that gives thanks to God for doing great things for Mary,
for looking on his lowly servant with favor & blessing her
Mary goes on to sing this song of a God who turns the world upside-down
God shows strength with his arm
God scatters the proud
God has brought down the powerful & lifted up the lowly
God has filled the hungry, but has sent the rich away – empty.
This is not a sentimental little song you'd find printed on the inside of a Hallmark card
This is a protest song!
This is a song against the powers that be!
Sing these words in the midst of an oppressive regime,
and you're likely to find yourself accused of treason or rebellion or worse!
And read the words to this ancient Christian anthem
even in a democratic nation proud of its unalienable right to free speech
and you might start to get a little uncomfortable.
Not because you are worried that you'll be hauled off to jail
or accused of stirring up rebellion,
but because you start to wonder whose side God is really on
because you get to thinking about who the proud are in this world
who the powerful are
who the rich are
And it might dawn on you
citizen of the most powerful country of the world
resident in the richest nation on the planet
as it stands here near the beginning of the 21st century
after the birth of this savior we have so longed for,
and you start to realize that the people Mary is singing about God overturning
are people like
us.
This colossal role reversal that she celebrates –
that the church has celebrated down through the centuries –
that Christians have celebrated in the millennia since Luke 1st wrote this gospel down –
This is a role reversal that will upend not just those people we choose
It's a role reversal that will upend us too.
It'll pull the rug out from under our feet.
It'll take away our certainty about all of those things we have used to make us feel confident
to make us feel secure
to make us feel safe.
This song,
springing forth from the mouth of a young, teenaged, unwed mother-to-be,
sings of the end to life as we know it.
But it sings of a new beginning
The beginning
Of life as God has intended it to be since the beginning of time
Where the valleys are filled and the mountains are made low
Where the crooked are made straight and the rough ways smooth
A new beginning
Where the hungry are fed
And the lowly are lifted up
Where the imbalances and injustices of our world are made right
And it starts here & now
as God chooses the young, the insignificant, the vulnerable
to bear the only Son of God,
to bring forth the Savior of the world,
and she breaks forth in song
Reminding herself, reminding us of what God has done
and is doing
and has promised to do
in a world that needs to be –
not turned upside down –
but finally, amazingly
turned right-side up
through the grace and love of God
entering the world
in lowliness
in poverty
but in great,
unending love.
May this be the song of our hearts
It is calling for us to enter the story
and make it our own.
Amen.
August 4/8 - Pentecost + 11
"Jesus is coming – look busy!" bumper sticker
Reminds me of elementary school –
teacher leaving the room for whatever mysterious reason;
no teacher's aides;
leaving us w/ instructions to work on something productive
– reading assignment or math worksheet or spelling words
We'd start off okay – but the longer she was gone, the more we lost focus
→ we'd start to whisper & talk & giggle
& then if she was gone even longer – some sort of fun & games
– fairly harmless, up out of our seats, etc...
If we were smart, we'd post a lookout to stand at the door & watch for the teacher's return – and when she'd come - it was “the teacher is coming!”
and we'd scurry back to our seats,
trying to look busy,
like all along we'd been doing what she told us to do
– b/c we didn't want to get in trouble
Sense of this in the gospel reading
We could read it that way - “Jesus is coming – look busy!”
Jesus says to early disciples,
“be dressed for action & have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return... so they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks”
Maybe not so hard for the 1st disciples as Jesus says this – he's still w/ them
And just like teacher leaving the room
– easy to keep focus at first;
easy to remember what he had told them,
to live a new life,
to do the kinds of things that he had done,
to focus on being ready for his return.
And they expected him to return right away, any day now.
But by the time the author of Luke collected these stories & wrote them down,
it'd been a while since Jesus had died & risen & ascended to God's presence,
and it got harder and harder for the early church to know exactly what they should do;
how to act & live as they waited – maybe he wasn't coming back!
Harder to be dressed for action, to keep the lamps lit, to stay awake & alert
And if it was hard for them
– how hard is it for us, 2000+ years later,
to have a sense that Jesus is coming back
& that he's left us “homework” to do while he's gone
And who wants to do homework anyway?
I was thinking & wondering
– what if we really believed & lived as though Jesus could come back at any moment
– today or tomorrow or next week or next month
- what would be different about how we live our lives?
- What would we change?
- How would our church be different?
- Where would we (individuals/church) put our focus? Our time? Our energy?
It's not about fear or threat.
Right at the beginning of this lesson, Jesus says to his listeners
– to us –
“Do not be afraid...”
Do not be afraid,
for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom...
And that kingdom is what we are waiting for
Jesus talked a lot about it coming near – yet it's not quite here yet
Already but not yet.
Jesus inaugurated it
– he ushered it in, but it's not here in its its fullness yet.
But the kingdom of God is something to celebrate,
not something to fear!
Kingdom of God = rule or reign of God;
it's the place where God's will is done.
Our call while we wait for Jesus to come
is to be dressed for action that helps to bring God's kingdom near -
where the hungry are fed,
the stranger welcomed,
the hurting are healed,
the poor lifted up...
(you've heard this from me before!)
It's the place where it's not so scary
to think about selling our possessions
and giving alms to those in need,
because we know all of our needs will be taken care of.
That's what we are getting ready for
– that's the way we are called to live now,
to practice now -
So when Jesus comes, we will know we've been part of the preparation
and we won't have to worry about looking busy,
even though he comes unexpectedly,
because we've been waiting and working with him all along.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
July 28/August 1 - Pentecost + 10
House Hunters TV show
Shows people – a couple, a family, a single person starting out – all looking for a new home
lay out where they're coming from, what they are looking for, then follows them on the hunt
Almost everyone looking for a bigger place – more bedrooms, bigger garage, more closet space, bigger yard – b/c they need more room to hold all of their stuff!
Andy & I watch b/c it's fun to see all the houses & try to guess what they'll pick; but also b/c we can relate
We know the feeling of wanting more space
We have a good-sized house next door – yet we have grown to fill the space – and now we feel like we're running out of room, esp. with a baby on the way
Maybe you know the feeling? Stuff squirreled away in the attic, basement, garage, closets; stuff in boxes from our last move (3 years ago!), stuff we got for our wedding (5 years ago!) that we've never used
Know I'm not alone
self-storage units; shows, books, websites abound about how to declutter, how to organize our lives – it's a multi-million dollar industry
And go look behind the curtain in the Auditorium (Harvest Festival donations)
& just like in Wizard of Oz, you'll see the truth revealed:
we have more stuff than we know what to do with
Not a new problem
Jesus told our story 2 millenia ago in this parable
the story of a rich man who one year had a phenomenal year
a bumper crop
a crop that was beyond anything he'd ever seen (or else his barns would've been big enough already)
a crop so abundant that he didn't know what to do w/ all of it
Surrounded by so much that he says, “what should I do? I don't have space for it all!”
Solution: build bigger barns (the ancient equivalent to renting a storage unit)
Now, he says to himself, I'll have enough room for everything; I'll have plenty for the future – it's early retirement for him! He's set for life
Except something is missing – his whole thought process centers around himself: What should I do? I will do this. I will tear down my barns; I will build bigger ones – I, I, I...
fooled into thinking that life is about his stuff; that his stuff will secure his future
That's really the problem – not that we have so much stuff (although we could certainly stand to get rid of a lot of it – and we'd probably never even notice!)
- but it's what our stuff stands for.
Think our stuff will give meaning to our lives,
will grant us security or status or significance
and we know it isn't true;
We know our stuff won't make or keep us happy.
But stuff is seductive, it's sneaky
- & we keep falling prey to the idea that bigger is better,
that more is better.
And then Jesus comes along & reminds us that it isn't true
Tells us that there is another option
“Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions,” Jesus says.
Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions...
and in this reminder, we hear an echo of something Jesus said somewhere else:
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (Jn 10:10)
He came to give us abundant life
– and then tells us that's not the same as having an abundance of stuff...
Jesus has been teaching about abundant life all along the way,
even as he is headed to Jerusalem and the cross –
you didn't forget that that's where this is all headed, did you?
Abundant life that comes through things like
loving God with heart, mind, soul, strength,
and our neighbor as ourselves;
like putting aside distractions and anxiety and choosing the better part;
like centering our lives in prayer;
learning to come to God with everything we need, big & small,
learning to depend on God as our loving parent
It's these types of things that make for a life rich toward God,
a life that becomes filled – abundantly – with more than just stuff
but with the deeper, simpler stuff of life – God, relationships, time
Jesus came to give us an abundant life; let's not let our stuff get in our way.
Amen.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
July 21 & 25, 2010 - Pentecost + 9
“Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples”
The disciples want to learn how to pray.
There was a Jewish custom of learning set prayers for prayer in AM & PM & meals,
Prayers they learned by heart;
John the Baptizer may have taught his followers such a prayer or prayers.
Disciples have watched Jesus praying & want what he has.
They want, perhaps, for Jesus to give them a set prayer,
which of course is how we have come to view & use the Lord's prayer.
Maybe they were looking for the magic words,
the “Open Sesame” that would open the way into God's presence.
They want to know how prayer works; how to make prayer work.
We too may want to learn how to pray,
to know how it works; how to make it work -
to feel like our prayers are effective, that they get God's attention.
We want the magic formula that will convince God to help us.
Lord's prayer gives us a model – but I wish Jesus would have stopped there
Verses 5-13 give us some problems.
They make me wrestle with Jesus.
They maybe give us some wrong ideas about what prayer is all about.
1st Story
the 2 neighbors – 1 in need of bread (us) & 1 in bed who doesn't want to get up
But even if the 1 in bed won't get up b/c of the friendship, will finally get up & give the other neighbor what he needs b/c he is persistent.
(The most persistent neighbor I know is Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, who knocks on the door until his neighbor Penny lets him in, because she knows he won't go away otherwise.)
2nd part – Ask, search, knock = receive, find, open door
“for everyone who asks...,” Jesus says.
But that's not always how it works.
We don't always get what we ask for,
and I'm not just talking about the “frivolous” stuff – lottery or team winning,
but the deeper, more important, serious stuff of life – healing, safety, reconciliation
And yet people die too young, or remain in abusive situations; Evil-doers don't always get caught and stopped...
And we either wonder if God is not to be trusted, if God is not reliable; or we blame ourselves – questioning if we didn't pray persistently enough or ask loudly enough or have enough faith or seek in the right places, etc. - as if God only answers prayers when nagged long enough.
But we need to look deeper, explore a bit more.
Because even more important than the “how” of prayer
is understanding the “who” of prayer
– understanding who it is we are praying to;
and that's really what Jesus teaches here.
Lord's prayer aren't magic words.
They aren't the secret formula to getting to God's heart.
They're a good model.
They give us words when we don't have any.
But this prayer goes beyond that to tell us about who we are praying to:
FATHER, the word that tells us about relationship,
which makes all the other words possible,
not just in the Lord's Prayer, but in every prayer.
Jesus prayed, "Abba" - a word that means something more like Daddy or Papa -
that close, trusting relationship of a little child and their loving parent.
Jesus wants us to understand that when we pray,
we are not making requests of a distant diplomat or an impersonal judge
– but someone who loves us, who cares for us,
who watches out for us & wants what's best for us
and not just b/c we nag...
We misunderstand the story.
We think it's about the persistence of the one asking,
as if the result depends on the asker, not the one being asked.
In the culture of the time, hospitality was a matter of honor.
It was unthinkable that 1st friend wouldn't provide for surprise guest,
but even more unthinkable that friend 2 wouldn't get up and help him
because he would lose honor, lose status, lose reputation.
Just as unthinkable that God wouldn't help us – and this isn't a 1:1 thing.
Jesus isn't saying that God is like the neighbor doing things out of obligation or pride.
He's saying, "Imagine! If a neighbor would do it just for pride, how much more would God do it – out of love & concern for our needs..."
Just like a father who knows how to give good gifts
– God isn't trying to trick us when we ask for the things that we need
– if we ask for a fish, God won't pull the rug out from under us & give us a snake,
or a scorpion in place of an egg
If human parents, with all of their faults and failings,
do the best they can to do right by their children,
God is even more so!
This is what Jesus is trying to help the disciples & us understand
– that God is more reliable than a next door neighbor helping out of obligation;
God is more loving than the most loving human parent you can imagine.
That's who we pray to...
Part of prayer will always be a mystery.
Lots of our deepest, most earnest prayers won't be answered
the way we think they should, the way we desperately want them to,
And we won't always know why.
But this we do know:
God wants us to pray (Jesus says, "Ask!")
& God listens when we do.
So we pray with confidence,
not because we have the magic words,
not because we understand how prayer works
but because we trust the One we pray to,
who loves us more than we can ever imagine.
Amen.
July 14, 2010 - Pentecost + 8
I was away on Sunday, July 18, but here for our worship on Wednesday, 7/14. Rather than preach a traditional sermon, we had a discussion about the gospel, about the many distractions that we encounter when we try to spend intentional time focused on our relationship with God/Jesus/Holy Spirit.
So here are some thoughts & questions to encourage you to join the discussion...
Read the story (Luke 10:38-42, linked above)
Spend a few minutes in silence to listen to what stands out about the story, what God is saying to you through it
What is it like to sit and listen
How often do we do this in our lives (daily or weekly)?
What kind of distractions do we have?
(Internal - our own thoughts, concerns, to-do lists, etc.
External - Outside distractions - TV, radio, Internet, other people)
Experiences when someone hasn't given you their full attention
Times when we have done this to others
The difference when we are fully present – what happens for us, for the other, for the relationship?
Balance between doing & being
Need to be able to get things done
But need to take time
– intentionally, deliberately –
to be with God
– to read, pray, worship, listen;
to be attended to & give our attention
When have we been able to do this?
What circumstances make it easier to take/make this time?
Gospel as an invitation to a mini-sabbath;
a chance to rest, to just be, to enjoy Jesus' company
Jesus wants to spend time with us
So take some of that time now in silence and see what he has to say...
July 11, 2010 - Pentecost + 7
Neighbor:
State Farm (Like a good neighbor...)
Sesame Street (who are the people in your neighborhood?)
Mr. Rogers - invited everyone, every day to be his neighbor
– “I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you; I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you... Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor?”
So welcoming & accepting; no requirements to be his neighbor, just accept the invitation.
Such a contrast to the lawyer in the gospel,
who comes to Jesus asking, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
student of the Law, God's law written down in the Hebrew Scriptures – so Jesus asks him – what does the Law say about it? How do you understand it?
Lawyer knows his stuff; comes back /w the right answer: Love the Lord your God... & your neighbor as yourself.
But the lawyer is not like Mr. Rogers; he's not accepting all comers
– he wants to know “Who is my neighbor?”
Loving neighbor is hard work; you have to be selective
hoping for a clear, finite, definitive answer – perhaps geographical (the people next door) or based on religion; the people who look, act, dress, believe the same as you
We can understand this question
I love Mr. Rogers, but he lived in TV land, after all,
kind of a little fairy tale, Land of Make Believe world.
And taking everybody as your neighbor, loving everyone as yourself is a lot to ask, a big responsibility.
So we try to narrow down the playing field a little bit
because we have enough to do w/ work & family & home
& we want to have some time for fun, hobbies, etc.
and if we start seeing everyone as our neighbor, we won't ever have time to do anything else...
Parable reminds us of what we should do.
We know that priest & Levite should know what to do.
They of all people should know what it means to love God & your neighbor,
& yet they just walk right on by.
And we know we are guilty of the same thing.
We know that there are times we see someone in need and just pass by on the other side, look the other way at the intersection where the person looking for food or work is standing right next to us.
And we feel guilty about it – sometimes anyway.
This parable forces us to confront the fact that most of the time, most of us aren't very good neighbors to people in need
.
But perhaps that's the twist in this parable that Jesus tells.
Parables always have something surprising, shocking about them.
Lawyer not supposed to identify w/ priest or Levite or Samaritan – but w/ the man who fell into the hands of robbers...
to see himself as the one who is in need,
the one who has to accept help from the last person he ever would have wanted or expected to receive help from –
a Samaritan, someone different, someone “other”,
but someone who is like Mr. Rogers – and just doesn't care about any of that stuff
– someone who just sees another person in need and is willing to go out of his way to help.
Maybe we too, are supposed to put ourselves in the place of the one who is hurt,
who is wounded, who is desperate for help
because at one time or another, in one way or another, we have all been there
– or we will be;
those times we feel like the world has chewed us up & spit us out,
when life has beaten us down and left us lying there with no one who cares.
But there is someone who cares!
Jesus is our neighbor, who sees us & is moved w/ pity,
who comes to us & bandages our wounds,
and takes us to a place of rest and healing,
commits to take care of us, who takes responsibility for our well-being,
who offers us mercy whether we deserve it or not.
This parable isn't so much about guilting us into loving our neighbor as it is about seeing how we have already received that love.
And it is then that Jesus says to us, “Go and do likewise.”
May we give as we have received.
Amen.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
July 4, 2010 - Pentecost + 6
Jesus Sends to Good News Straight to Your Door
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Pentecost + 6, June 30 & July 4, 2010
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Pentecost + 6, June 30 & July 4, 2010
Door-to-door sales experience?
Wouldn't want to do it –
Knocking on strangers' doors
trying to sell something they don't want or need
Politely/not-so-politely turned down
Just doesn't appeal to me
Sounds like what Jesus is telling his followers to do
Appoints 70 to go 2x2 into various towns & places
Everywhere he planned to go himself
And basically to go door-to-door; cold calls
No bag, no sandals, no lolly-gagging or chit-chatting along the way
Just Go, go to the town & knock on someone's door
& enter wherever they'll have you come in
and declare peace
and then stay there!
Eat their food, drink their drink
Cure their sick
& tell them the kingdom has come near
Except it won't always happen that way
not everyone will welcome them, not everyone will be happy to see them
So not to stick their foot in the door to gain entrance
but to move on
but still – remind them that God's kingdom has come near.
Not a job I'd sign up for
not knowing what kind of reception you'll get
Yet Jesus calls all of his followers to do something like that
appoints all of us to go share the good news
to tell others of what God has done in Jesus
How Jesus came to heal, to teach, to preach;
to show us God's love for us; to live it;
to die for it; for us
But not too many of us really feel up to the task
We feel inadequate, nervous, unprepared
Unsure of ourselves, afraid of the risk
afraid of rejection
B/c we all know how people feel about door-to-door salesman
or Jehovah's Witnesses
or Mormons
or the random preacher on the street
We don't want to be lumped in that same group
We don't want to intrude on others lives
Except that's not what all door-to-door salesmen are like
When I was a kid
back when people did sell stuff door-to-door
there were some who came (Raleigh guy, Schwann's man)
it was a highlight of my day
they brought new & interesting things
they brought things we needed
things we wanted (ice cream!) right to our door
sometimes even before we knew we needed it!
How cool is that?!
To get to bring something people need,
that brings pleasure & joy,
right to their front door?!
Kind of what I see going on in gospel
B/c Jesus sends his followers out to bring something the world needs,
something that will bring them joy
– right to their front door, before they even know that they need it!
Sends them out to make a difference
To bring peace into conflict (& all peace means)
To offer healing in the midst of pain
To bring hope of new life
& it doesn't just happen by them showing up at the front door
It happens when they go inside & stay a while
When they eat and drink together
When they listen and talk
and build relationships
Bringing w/ them the Kingdom of God
Where people are valued and welcomed and
invited to become a part of something bigger than themselves
It's what Jesus is calling us to do
Not necessarily to go door-to-door, making cold calls & trying to sell people something
But to be a part of peoples' lives
to build relationships
To speak God's peace to people and families and situations in turmoil
To bring the promise of God's healing
To offer the light of hope in a dark world
that needs to know
that God's kingdom has come near
That there is a place for everyone in God's family
That there is good news waiting – and it's as close as their front door.
May we find joy in the telling.
Amen.
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