Today we continue our look at things you can learn in church in just one day. The day in question was last Sunday, October 27th. In our last post we talked about Sunday School. We move to worship in this post.
The 27th was Reformation Sunday, the day when we honor the folks who have reformed our church throughout the ages. In Lutheran churches this is normally accompanied by selections from Martin Luther and his grand, old German hymns plus some cheerleading for being Lutheran. This year we decided to mix it up a little bit, talking instead about the theological reforms gifted to us from the Latin American church of the 20th century. Not only was this a different flavor, it allowed us to define our church as still reforming, in the growth process instead of the end-product of it.
Obviously it would be impossible to cover multiple centuries of Latin American development in a single sermon (or blog post). Instead we took a broad sweep across history that led to a couple of key theological inspirations in the 1940's and 1950's.
Latin America contained some of the world's oldest cultures...amazing, brutal, heirs to all the good and ill of humanity. When explorers from Spanish-speaking nations discovered and then colonized Latin America they ran into, conquered, and transformed these indigenous cultures. As was true of most European-indigenous culture clashes, two themes ended up dominating:
1. Those native folks were sitting on top of tons of natural resources.
2. The natives had not heard of Jesus Christ or his Gospel.
In the colonization environment, these two themes intertwined. Missionaries and "civilized" folks brought religious and cultural reform to the indigenous people, changing their society. Establishing a European religious and cultural framework paved the way for European access to the economic resources of the region.
We can debate all day whether such missionary impulses were right or wrong, helpful or destructive. No matter what we decide, it still happened. The end result of this religious-societal-economic chemistry was a strong strain of Catholicism throughout Latin America, Catholicism which tended to value authority and upholding the status quo, including that dominant (and in some ways exploitative) economic and social framework.
In the mid-20th century several theologians re-examined the assumptions under which their church had operated for centuries. Latin America continued to be heavily influenced by church authority and the will of a few privileged folks over and against the poor masses who labored for them. In most circles the authority of the church and will of the economically privileged were assumed to be congruent, if not exactly the same. The wealthy promoted and supported the church. The church upheld the system that made gathering such wealth easy. The relationship was cozy. Few outside of it had the means or status to cry against it. What right or standing would a poor, uneducated person have to challenge the church?
In response to this situation a courageous group of theologians bucked the trend. Their collective movement would come to be known as "Liberation Theology". As with the history, we can only hope to give an oversimplified summary here, but basically Liberation Theology asserted that God did not exist to make us comfortable in the world, but to set us free from everything that oppresses us. God's work does not confirm us as much as it transforms us from death into life.
This transformation centers around the notion of justice. The world judges by certain criteria. Rich and powerful folks are favored, poor folks are despised. God loves all his children, rich or poor. God does not look on the imbalance between powerful and oppressed folks and smile. Rather he moves to correct it, lifting up his children who have been short changed and calling down the ones who have benefited by oppressing others. Folks looked upon wealthy men and a correspondingly wealthy church and said, "God favors them!" These theologians argued that God was actually working harder for the folks who had been left out in the cold by this system. If you wanted to see Jesus at work, you needed to pay less attention to the gold and more attention to the folks crying out for help and the folks without hope.
In the traditional system, church membership meant going along with the flow. The church existed, in part, to support the dominant culture which in turn would support it. The goal of a good church-goer was to make as few waves as possible. Political and economic concerns had little to do with faith. Liberation Theology argued that the church should not confirm inequity, but fight it. Faith was only lip service unless it also resulted in working for justice and true peace in the world. Faith mandated political and economic action. If you saw someone suffering you were supposed to approach them and try to fix the inequity...not because those people were inherently entitled but because that's where God was at work and that's what he was doing.
A necessary extension of this theology: a church is not validated just by existing as an institution. Its spirit is shown most truly by the work it does in the world. No longer is something right just because it benefits the church. Rather the church itself serves a greater right, the will and word of Our Lord.
Practicality mandated that the people the church should pay most attention to (and respect) were the people who gave the most to it...allowed it to exist. This ended up being the rich. More money equals more influence in the church and being credited with a closer connection to God. Liberation Theology stood this on its ear. It claimed that if we wanted to find God most clearly at work, we shouldn't look towards the people who seemed most blessed by the world's standards. Rather we should seek out those who needed God most...by definition those who were doing without. Poverty was not holier than wealth, but if a father had six children doing quite well and one going hungry, he was going to devote his energy to feeding the hungry one before he feasted at the table of the other six.
No theology gives a complete picture of God, but Latin American Liberation Theology exposed many practical weaknesses in the church tradition. The theologians who risked their reputation, standing, and in some cases their lives to bring it to us gave us a great gift...shaking us out of our complacency and our complicit alliance with the ways of the world that appeared to benefit us. They helped us to see that in the name of serving God and preserving his church, we were actually steering farther and farther away from him.
We don't have to look far to see how our own churches and the dominant American culture became aligned whether or not that was in accordance with God's teachings. We, too, suffer the temptation to go along in order to benefit ourselves. We find it inconvenient to immerse ourselves in, and be led by the needs of, the poor and oppressed instead of staying comfortably in the world of the privileged. We'd rather have a church where everybody gets along, where folks don't make waves, where we don't have to fight (or do) much out in the world, and where "peace" is defined as the absence of talk about justice instead of the end result of fighting for it. We're good with the church as long as it doesn't disturb the rest of our life much.
Liberation Theology has a message for us as well. The things we are trying to embrace and preserve end up empty. God is headed in another direction than we instinctively want to go. Even today, half a century later, it remains a wake-up call for the church of the Reformation...a church which hates to contemplate that it might still be reforming. How have we worked for justice? Have we taken a stand for those outcast, impoverished, slighted and disadvantaged? If not, are we really doing the work of the Lord who ate with sinners or are we doing our own work and appending God's name to it in order to justify ourselves?
Another thing to think about and learn from just one day in church!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Showing posts with label Sermon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sermon. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Faithful Endurance
This Sunday's gospel reading came from Luke 18: 1-8. It centered around an interesting parable...
Problem #1: We're not used to hearing stories with unjust people as the main character in the Bible, especially when that story appears to justify nagging.
We have to remember here that the point of any parable is not contained in the story itself. A parable points to a message beyond itself. The parable of the sower is not about farmers and birds, but about how God's word hits us. This parable is not about grumpy judges and persistent widows. The Bible tells us what it's about before word one: always talking to God and never losing heart.
The unjust judge doesn't really exist. You can tell he's a caricature by the way he's described: neither fearing God nor caring what people think. He's the most darn dastardly judge there's ever been. If this were a Western movie he'd be wearing a black hat. He even describes himself this way! "I am Black Bart, the judge who neither fears God nor respects other human beings! Mwahahahahaaaa!"
The widow doesn't exist either. All we know about her is that she is a widow, which means she's probably poor, neglected, of little standing. We have no idea of the merits of her court case. Her adversary isn't named. She just calls him "my adversary". We do know that she won't stop asking the judge for justice no matter what. She bothers him day and night to get whatever she's in desperate need of.
Neither character is the center of the story. Rather the judge's conclusion is. He doesn't care about her, about her case, about justice at all. He just wants to get her off his back. So he grants her request, if nothing else to hush her up! This dispensing of justice by the Worst Judge in the World is the main act, the tipping point of the story.
The message here gets explained by Jesus himself. If the worst black-hatted guy in the world will grant justice to a woman of no standing just because she needs it enough to keep asking (to not give up) won't God grant his children justice as well? After all God is the best being in the universe, not the worst. If even the lowest common denominator person does this, how much more will God?
Problem #2: At first glance the story appears to say, "Ask for anything you want and you'll get it, just as long as you ask every day!"
This bugs us even more than the first. Each of us has a story of wanting a pony more than anything else in the world when we were little, of asking and asking, but never getting it. Broken hearts, getting sick, people dying, and a hundred other things all appear to give the lie to this story. We're tempted to be cynical or to express our anger by saying, "I didn't get what I needed, Jesus! None of this is true. If you really cared you would have helped me!"
Really, though, this isn't a parable about getting everything you want. This is a story about what happens precisely when you don't get everything you want...when those prayers appear to go unanswered.
Lots of people say--or at least imply--that faith is about winning. If you get rich, stay healthy, appear to live a charmed life then God has blessed you. That's his job, to make you happy. That's the "reward" you earn for your "faith". Plenty of churches and individuals trade on this message. "We have the super secret way to get God to bless you! You can be a winner too!"
Faith isn't about winning. We know this because none of us wins! Nobody gets out of this life alive. Nobody gets out of this life without getting hurt really badly either. From that first broken heart to the last goodbye, the world seems to be in the business of emptying us out and roughing us up. No amount of money or distraction will let us avoid that reality.
In the theological sense, none of us remains sinless throughout our lives. It's impossible. If we claim it, we're fibbing. Jesus Christ died on the cross not for the winners, but the losers...those destined to perish without him. That's all of us.
Faith isn't about winning. Faith is what happens when you lose. Jesus defines faith at the end of this gospel by asking how much he'll find on earth. But he's not asking how many winning, holy-seeming people with charmed lives he'll find. He's asking how many people he'll find who haven't given up despite their hardships. He's not asking how many people he'll find whose prayers have been answered; he's asking how many people he'll find with enough trust and courage to ask anyway even if they thing they're not getting a response.
This gospel reading isn't for the magically charmed, the holier-than-everybody. It's for everybody who has cried out in the night with a problem impossible to solve. It's for everybody who's mourned something that's never coming back this side of heaven. It's for everybody who's ever looked at themselves and seen a flawed, unworthy person...anything less than beautiful. The message is simple: hang on. God is coming. And he will deliver justice. He will uplift you. It's real and it's yours. There will be a life of peace, love, and joy for us and for our loved ones. Nothing will stain that life, nothing bad will remain, and it will never, ever end. We will get glimpses of it in earthly joy and earthly justice, but even those are only temporary reflections. Justice is on its way. Truth will prevail. Love conquers all. None of that is in doubt. The only question is whether we'll remember to believe in that promise...whether our hope for a brighter day will endure and whether we'll remember to keep asking for it to come.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”Many folks, upon reading this, are troubled by two things:
Problem #1: We're not used to hearing stories with unjust people as the main character in the Bible, especially when that story appears to justify nagging.
We have to remember here that the point of any parable is not contained in the story itself. A parable points to a message beyond itself. The parable of the sower is not about farmers and birds, but about how God's word hits us. This parable is not about grumpy judges and persistent widows. The Bible tells us what it's about before word one: always talking to God and never losing heart.
The unjust judge doesn't really exist. You can tell he's a caricature by the way he's described: neither fearing God nor caring what people think. He's the most darn dastardly judge there's ever been. If this were a Western movie he'd be wearing a black hat. He even describes himself this way! "I am Black Bart, the judge who neither fears God nor respects other human beings! Mwahahahahaaaa!"
The widow doesn't exist either. All we know about her is that she is a widow, which means she's probably poor, neglected, of little standing. We have no idea of the merits of her court case. Her adversary isn't named. She just calls him "my adversary". We do know that she won't stop asking the judge for justice no matter what. She bothers him day and night to get whatever she's in desperate need of.
Neither character is the center of the story. Rather the judge's conclusion is. He doesn't care about her, about her case, about justice at all. He just wants to get her off his back. So he grants her request, if nothing else to hush her up! This dispensing of justice by the Worst Judge in the World is the main act, the tipping point of the story.
The message here gets explained by Jesus himself. If the worst black-hatted guy in the world will grant justice to a woman of no standing just because she needs it enough to keep asking (to not give up) won't God grant his children justice as well? After all God is the best being in the universe, not the worst. If even the lowest common denominator person does this, how much more will God?
Problem #2: At first glance the story appears to say, "Ask for anything you want and you'll get it, just as long as you ask every day!"
This bugs us even more than the first. Each of us has a story of wanting a pony more than anything else in the world when we were little, of asking and asking, but never getting it. Broken hearts, getting sick, people dying, and a hundred other things all appear to give the lie to this story. We're tempted to be cynical or to express our anger by saying, "I didn't get what I needed, Jesus! None of this is true. If you really cared you would have helped me!"
Really, though, this isn't a parable about getting everything you want. This is a story about what happens precisely when you don't get everything you want...when those prayers appear to go unanswered.
Lots of people say--or at least imply--that faith is about winning. If you get rich, stay healthy, appear to live a charmed life then God has blessed you. That's his job, to make you happy. That's the "reward" you earn for your "faith". Plenty of churches and individuals trade on this message. "We have the super secret way to get God to bless you! You can be a winner too!"
Faith isn't about winning. We know this because none of us wins! Nobody gets out of this life alive. Nobody gets out of this life without getting hurt really badly either. From that first broken heart to the last goodbye, the world seems to be in the business of emptying us out and roughing us up. No amount of money or distraction will let us avoid that reality.
In the theological sense, none of us remains sinless throughout our lives. It's impossible. If we claim it, we're fibbing. Jesus Christ died on the cross not for the winners, but the losers...those destined to perish without him. That's all of us.
Faith isn't about winning. Faith is what happens when you lose. Jesus defines faith at the end of this gospel by asking how much he'll find on earth. But he's not asking how many winning, holy-seeming people with charmed lives he'll find. He's asking how many people he'll find who haven't given up despite their hardships. He's not asking how many people he'll find whose prayers have been answered; he's asking how many people he'll find with enough trust and courage to ask anyway even if they thing they're not getting a response.
This gospel reading isn't for the magically charmed, the holier-than-everybody. It's for everybody who has cried out in the night with a problem impossible to solve. It's for everybody who's mourned something that's never coming back this side of heaven. It's for everybody who's ever looked at themselves and seen a flawed, unworthy person...anything less than beautiful. The message is simple: hang on. God is coming. And he will deliver justice. He will uplift you. It's real and it's yours. There will be a life of peace, love, and joy for us and for our loved ones. Nothing will stain that life, nothing bad will remain, and it will never, ever end. We will get glimpses of it in earthly joy and earthly justice, but even those are only temporary reflections. Justice is on its way. Truth will prevail. Love conquers all. None of that is in doubt. The only question is whether we'll remember to believe in that promise...whether our hope for a brighter day will endure and whether we'll remember to keep asking for it to come.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, April 29, 2013
Monday Morning Sermon: Final Instructions from Jesus
The Gospel this Sunday came from John 13: 31-35
On Sunday we asked folks to remember the first time their parents left them alone in the house. Jesus isn't ever going to leave his followers but the situation is analogous because one phase of his ministry--the most visible part--is coming to an end and the next phase is about to begin. That phase will include his crucifixion, resurrection, and the ascension into heaven. He's not leaving his followers but they're about to take on far more responsibility for the house!
Before your parents left you for the first time they went over a detailed set of instructions, right? "Remember to feed the dog, turn off the stove, call me if you go anywhere, and NO PARTIES!" The order and content may vary depending on your parents, but one thing's for sure: whatever they thought was most important they said last, right as they were going out the door. It doesn't matter if they had told you seven times before. "NO PARTIES!" made one more return as they were ducking into the car.
This gospel reading is the equivalent of Jesus' last instructions to the kids. And what did he say just as he was throwing his suitcase in the trunk? "Here's my command. Love one another just as I have loved you. This is how everybody will know you are my followers."
That's it! So simple! And yet it's every bit as important to God as "turn the stove off" was to your parents. Without this there's no security, continuity, responsibility, family life...in some ways no life at all.
It's funny how many ways people try to follow God. There are as many flavors of faith as there are stars in the sky. But Jesus' Big Instruction provides the litmus test for them all.
If understanding God were simple the Bible would only be a few pages long. We'd have a handy set of definitions and instructions and that would be it. It's nowhere near that clear. That's no accident! The Bible provides enough space and access points for millions and millions of people to find God's relationship with them. Those people have different opinions, follow different rules, operate in different environments. None of them are completely right. Few are completely wrong either. Everybody operates in ambiguity.
The test of faith isn't what you believe, it's how you use what you believe. We're thrown into conflict with each other not to prove who was right or wrong, but to see what we'll fall back on when we can't figure out who's right and wrong. Will we retreat into enemy camps, lobbing theological shells at each other, creating enemies and scorched earth all around us in God's name? Or, in the midst of these moments of confusion, will we opt to love? This is what God is watching for, not who got it right, but who loved the most even when they might have gotten it wrong.
None of us can be God. Jesus knew this when he told his disciples, "Where I go you cannot follow." We could not make the sacrifice he did, nor would it mean the same thing if we tried. There was only one Jesus. But this one thing we can do: we can love in his name. And when we do this, we become like Jesus in every way that matters. Even if we never walk on water or heal a leper, we have performed the act that stood at the root of his ministry, at the root of his very identity. Loving people echoes the act of Our Savior in their lives. Nothing else can substitute. If we do this, we have fulfilled our faith. If not we have no hope of doing so.
Return now to the moment when your parents left you in the house. Yes, they said, "NO PARTIES!" seven times, including in the last second in which they saw you. But for most of us that wasn't the absolute last thing they said, was it? After all the instructions and admonitions, after working through all the worry and fear, what did they really say last?
"I love you."
Maybe they understood more than we thought, even if we did throw that party anyway.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
On Sunday we asked folks to remember the first time their parents left them alone in the house. Jesus isn't ever going to leave his followers but the situation is analogous because one phase of his ministry--the most visible part--is coming to an end and the next phase is about to begin. That phase will include his crucifixion, resurrection, and the ascension into heaven. He's not leaving his followers but they're about to take on far more responsibility for the house!
Before your parents left you for the first time they went over a detailed set of instructions, right? "Remember to feed the dog, turn off the stove, call me if you go anywhere, and NO PARTIES!" The order and content may vary depending on your parents, but one thing's for sure: whatever they thought was most important they said last, right as they were going out the door. It doesn't matter if they had told you seven times before. "NO PARTIES!" made one more return as they were ducking into the car.
This gospel reading is the equivalent of Jesus' last instructions to the kids. And what did he say just as he was throwing his suitcase in the trunk? "Here's my command. Love one another just as I have loved you. This is how everybody will know you are my followers."
That's it! So simple! And yet it's every bit as important to God as "turn the stove off" was to your parents. Without this there's no security, continuity, responsibility, family life...in some ways no life at all.
It's funny how many ways people try to follow God. There are as many flavors of faith as there are stars in the sky. But Jesus' Big Instruction provides the litmus test for them all.
If understanding God were simple the Bible would only be a few pages long. We'd have a handy set of definitions and instructions and that would be it. It's nowhere near that clear. That's no accident! The Bible provides enough space and access points for millions and millions of people to find God's relationship with them. Those people have different opinions, follow different rules, operate in different environments. None of them are completely right. Few are completely wrong either. Everybody operates in ambiguity.
The test of faith isn't what you believe, it's how you use what you believe. We're thrown into conflict with each other not to prove who was right or wrong, but to see what we'll fall back on when we can't figure out who's right and wrong. Will we retreat into enemy camps, lobbing theological shells at each other, creating enemies and scorched earth all around us in God's name? Or, in the midst of these moments of confusion, will we opt to love? This is what God is watching for, not who got it right, but who loved the most even when they might have gotten it wrong.
None of us can be God. Jesus knew this when he told his disciples, "Where I go you cannot follow." We could not make the sacrifice he did, nor would it mean the same thing if we tried. There was only one Jesus. But this one thing we can do: we can love in his name. And when we do this, we become like Jesus in every way that matters. Even if we never walk on water or heal a leper, we have performed the act that stood at the root of his ministry, at the root of his very identity. Loving people echoes the act of Our Savior in their lives. Nothing else can substitute. If we do this, we have fulfilled our faith. If not we have no hope of doing so.
Return now to the moment when your parents left you in the house. Yes, they said, "NO PARTIES!" seven times, including in the last second in which they saw you. But for most of us that wasn't the absolute last thing they said, was it? After all the instructions and admonitions, after working through all the worry and fear, what did they really say last?
"I love you."
Maybe they understood more than we thought, even if we did throw that party anyway.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Monday Morning Sermon: Letting People Love
This Sunday's gospel came from John, Chapter 12:
But the Bible makes clear that Judas' objection wasn't based on any greater concerns, just on his own needs. He wanted the perfume sold so he could take the money. Things didn't go his way. He didn't benefit. So he complained about a woman doing the best she could to love Jesus.
That unfortunate impulse remains with us today. People show their love for God in many different ways. During the sermon I related a former trend in church which I found puzzling: liturgical dance. This little craze swept through a church I attended before I became a pastor. People would get up, turn on music, and dance in white dresses with streamers. I didn't get it. It seemed like a waste of time to me. Why couldn't that five minutes been spent in prayer or service or singing another hymn?
Being older and wiser I now understand that the Spirit was working through those dancers. They were expressing their gifts, trying to send a Godly message to us. This was their moment to show how God's Spirit moved them. I was just too dense and self-centered to see it. I was Judas.
Today I would probably appreciate liturgical dance a lot more. If somebody wanted to do it in our church the answer would be, YES!!! It'd be exciting, touching, moving...if nothing else for the sake of the dancers sharing their love.
But then again, I've learned one of the lessons of this gospel. You have to let people love Jesus the way they're going to love Jesus. The world doesn't need your judgment as much as your support. Just because you don't understand the way a person expresses their love for God doesn't make it bad. Maybe God likes it! Not being God yourself, you can never be sure.
Besides, you'll get your chance to love your way too. As Jesus says, "You will always have the poor among you." You'll be able to do what you want. Just make room for others to do the same.
Don't stand in the way of love and its many forms. When you do, you become like Judas...robbing something that's supposed to be for the good of the world, turning it inwards for your own, selfish benefit. Let people dance. Let perfume be spilled. Sing those crazy songs that other people enjoy even if it's not your style. Learn to appreciate God through someone else's eyes and expressions. That way he gets bigger and bigger, filling up more of your world as you discover new ways to love him.
'
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”In a sense Judas was right, or at least understandable, in objecting to this ostentatious display. Not only was that perfume costly, Mary was touching Jesus intimately. Wiping his feet with her hair? Really? I don't know about you, but that hasn't happened at many dinner parties I've attended! The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume and the glow of this daring act.
But the Bible makes clear that Judas' objection wasn't based on any greater concerns, just on his own needs. He wanted the perfume sold so he could take the money. Things didn't go his way. He didn't benefit. So he complained about a woman doing the best she could to love Jesus.
That unfortunate impulse remains with us today. People show their love for God in many different ways. During the sermon I related a former trend in church which I found puzzling: liturgical dance. This little craze swept through a church I attended before I became a pastor. People would get up, turn on music, and dance in white dresses with streamers. I didn't get it. It seemed like a waste of time to me. Why couldn't that five minutes been spent in prayer or service or singing another hymn?
Being older and wiser I now understand that the Spirit was working through those dancers. They were expressing their gifts, trying to send a Godly message to us. This was their moment to show how God's Spirit moved them. I was just too dense and self-centered to see it. I was Judas.
Today I would probably appreciate liturgical dance a lot more. If somebody wanted to do it in our church the answer would be, YES!!! It'd be exciting, touching, moving...if nothing else for the sake of the dancers sharing their love.
But then again, I've learned one of the lessons of this gospel. You have to let people love Jesus the way they're going to love Jesus. The world doesn't need your judgment as much as your support. Just because you don't understand the way a person expresses their love for God doesn't make it bad. Maybe God likes it! Not being God yourself, you can never be sure.
Besides, you'll get your chance to love your way too. As Jesus says, "You will always have the poor among you." You'll be able to do what you want. Just make room for others to do the same.
Don't stand in the way of love and its many forms. When you do, you become like Judas...robbing something that's supposed to be for the good of the world, turning it inwards for your own, selfish benefit. Let people dance. Let perfume be spilled. Sing those crazy songs that other people enjoy even if it's not your style. Learn to appreciate God through someone else's eyes and expressions. That way he gets bigger and bigger, filling up more of your world as you discover new ways to love him.
'
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Monday Morning Sermon: Life Isn't Fair
This Sunday's gospel was the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke, Chapter 15. We'll print it at the end of this post if you care to read it. I think most are familiar with it.
A father has two sons. The eldest serves him in everything. The younger is rebellious, insulting his father, taking dad's money and leaving home. He spends it all in dissolute living and returns home a pauper. Instead of chastising him the father rushes out to greet him, embraces him, puts a ring and a robe on him, and throws a huge party. The elder son is upset, for he has stayed faithful and yet it seems his father is happier over the lost, rebellious son returning than the faithful son who stayed. The father assures his first son that he loves him and that all that belongs to the father belongs to him. But that doesn't stop dad from rejoicing over the son who was lost and now is found, who was dead but has come back to life.
It's worth noting that this story sprang from a question posed by the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. They were upset that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners...people who weren't as good and pure as they. These esteemed and upright members of the community were the elder son in the story. They couldn't understand why Jesus was partying with the rebellious people.
We can all empathize with that feeling. It's no fun when you feel like you have followed the rules and somebody else hasn't yet that other person gets rewarded. It angers the inner fourth-grader in all of us. (Kids that age are usually hyper-concerned with rules and following them.) If we were standing there watching Jesus pay attention to people besides us we'd probably be saying, "What about meeeeee???" too. "I went to church services! I gave to your ministries! I went to Bible Study! Why are you going to their house to dinner and not mine?"
Jesus turns to the Pharisees and says the same thing the father says to his eldest son in the story. "I love ya, kid, but life's not fair."
We've all been told this at one time or another. When our sister gets a more expensive Christmas present than we do, when another kids gets chosen for a special honor at school we feel we've earned, when somebody else gets the bigger piece of birthday cake an adult comes along and tells us, "Life's not fair." What they really mean is, "Hush!" It's a dismissive statement.
Not so when Jesus says it. "Life's not fair" is an expansive statement when it comes from him. To us it means, "You didn't get something good and someone else did. There wasn't enough for everybody." From him it means, "You get something good and so does someone else. There's more than enough for all!"
Life's not fair. We don't get what we deserve. This is a good thing. Since we're mistaken, blind, lost sinners--just like the younger son in the story--we actually deserve condemnation and death. We're not fit to stand before a perfect and holy God, let alone live with him in heaven. Instead of passing that sentence upon us, Jesus brings us grace and life. We don't get what we deserve, we get something better!
This is supposed to be the pattern for our lives and for our church. When we become like the Pharisees, denying God's grace to people because we don't feel they measure up, we lose the very thing that makes our faith distinctive. The whole world will tell you that you only get what you earn (except when you don't, and then "life's not fair"). Only faith tells you that your destiny is more. When we attempt to be "fair" by worldly standards--favoring some over others based on how long they've been with us, how smart they seem, what good people they are--we abandon the central message of the faith we're claiming to uphold.
Life's not fair! It's so much MORE than fair. And thank goodness for that! Spreading this message to the world--showing it through word and action--should be our purpose every day as we follow Christ.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
A father has two sons. The eldest serves him in everything. The younger is rebellious, insulting his father, taking dad's money and leaving home. He spends it all in dissolute living and returns home a pauper. Instead of chastising him the father rushes out to greet him, embraces him, puts a ring and a robe on him, and throws a huge party. The elder son is upset, for he has stayed faithful and yet it seems his father is happier over the lost, rebellious son returning than the faithful son who stayed. The father assures his first son that he loves him and that all that belongs to the father belongs to him. But that doesn't stop dad from rejoicing over the son who was lost and now is found, who was dead but has come back to life.
It's worth noting that this story sprang from a question posed by the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. They were upset that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners...people who weren't as good and pure as they. These esteemed and upright members of the community were the elder son in the story. They couldn't understand why Jesus was partying with the rebellious people.
We can all empathize with that feeling. It's no fun when you feel like you have followed the rules and somebody else hasn't yet that other person gets rewarded. It angers the inner fourth-grader in all of us. (Kids that age are usually hyper-concerned with rules and following them.) If we were standing there watching Jesus pay attention to people besides us we'd probably be saying, "What about meeeeee???" too. "I went to church services! I gave to your ministries! I went to Bible Study! Why are you going to their house to dinner and not mine?"
Jesus turns to the Pharisees and says the same thing the father says to his eldest son in the story. "I love ya, kid, but life's not fair."
We've all been told this at one time or another. When our sister gets a more expensive Christmas present than we do, when another kids gets chosen for a special honor at school we feel we've earned, when somebody else gets the bigger piece of birthday cake an adult comes along and tells us, "Life's not fair." What they really mean is, "Hush!" It's a dismissive statement.
Not so when Jesus says it. "Life's not fair" is an expansive statement when it comes from him. To us it means, "You didn't get something good and someone else did. There wasn't enough for everybody." From him it means, "You get something good and so does someone else. There's more than enough for all!"
Life's not fair. We don't get what we deserve. This is a good thing. Since we're mistaken, blind, lost sinners--just like the younger son in the story--we actually deserve condemnation and death. We're not fit to stand before a perfect and holy God, let alone live with him in heaven. Instead of passing that sentence upon us, Jesus brings us grace and life. We don't get what we deserve, we get something better!
This is supposed to be the pattern for our lives and for our church. When we become like the Pharisees, denying God's grace to people because we don't feel they measure up, we lose the very thing that makes our faith distinctive. The whole world will tell you that you only get what you earn (except when you don't, and then "life's not fair"). Only faith tells you that your destiny is more. When we attempt to be "fair" by worldly standards--favoring some over others based on how long they've been with us, how smart they seem, what good people they are--we abandon the central message of the faith we're claiming to uphold.
Life's not fair! It's so much MORE than fair. And thank goodness for that! Spreading this message to the world--showing it through word and action--should be our purpose every day as we follow Christ.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Monday Morning Sermon: Coping With Tragedy
This week's sermon text came courtesy of the Gospel of Luke, the 13th chapter:
It wasn't any different in Jesus' time. Maybe you wouldn't hear about things that happened thousands of miles away but this gospel shows us two tragedies within earshot of Jesus and his followers. Governor Pilate had slaughtered some Galileans at their worship and a tower had fallen in Jerusalem, killing 18.
I can empathize with the "buzz" Jesus heard in response to these events. Both 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina happened a day before regularly scheduled church meetings. Naturally they were the topic of discussion the next day. Inevitably as people shared their thoughts one or two folks would come up with, "Well, [insert place of tragedy here] was full of wicked people and America isn't following God anymore so maybe this was his punishment. We need to wake up!" They weren't alone, of course. Every time something bad happens some crackpot preacher with access to a microphone and a sensation-seeking media audience gets up and claims the same thing, in essence turning the deaths of other people into an opportunity to say, "See?!? I was right!!!" As if God would slaughter his children so you can get an ego stroke. These "preachers" are idiots. They mislead all who hear them, give birth to (and permission for) evil and lies spoken in God's name, and no matter what kind of label they try to put on their "faith" they lure people away from God, not towards him. Being able to quote scripture is no big trick. It's how you use it that matters.
As I said on Sunday, I was a younger and more polite Pastor Boy back then so we all worked through that conversation about whether God sent a hurricane to destroy a town because of Mardi Gras parades. What I probably should have done as soon as someone suggested God wiped out towns with sinners in them is to dive under the table and reach for a helmet. Because guess what? Everybody sitting around the table that day was a sinner...some worse than anybody knew, others worse than even they knew.
That's exactly what Jesus pointed out to people in this gospel.
There's a backwards way to read this scripture and a right one. Unless you're careful you're going to fall into the backwards way. It assumes that yes, those people whom Pilate slaughtered and on whom the tower fell were punished by God. When Jesus says, "Unless you repent, you too will perish" confirms for this listener that God smites evil folks and they had better be good lest the next storm hit them. To interpret the lesson this way we have to ignore that verse 2 begins with Jesus questioning the listener's assumption that these events were divine retribution and verse 5 flat out tells them, "No!" Then again, people who want to scare you into their way of thinking don't have much trouble ignoring parts of scripture that are inconvenient to their opinion.
Instead of confirming the assertion that disasters are God's retribution on sinners, Jesus is using the "Judge not, lest ye be judged" principle here. "You have judged those people more wicked than you and said God struck them down because of it. Well, you are all sinners. If God really acts like you say he does, YOU better be afraid!"
The only thing that allows people to make claims of divine retribution is the certainty that the disaster won't strike them. When you hear, "God sent the hurricane to punish the wicked" you should also hear, "And I don't judge myself wicked therefore hurricanes will never strike my home, Amen." Do you see what's going on there? That isn't an assertion of faith, it's the same old human response we started this explanation with. "I'm afraid. I need to feel secure. I'm checking the locks to make sure no hurricanes come here." Except instead owning that fear and dealing with it they're denying it, trying to foist off the whole thing on God. Saying, "I am sad in the face of this tragedy...it makes me feel scared and insecure and I'm worried this could happen to me or people I love," would be honest. It would allow us to come together to talk about how we all feel. But that admission also leaves the speaker vulnerable. It's much easier to say, "This was God's Will because of wickedness and I am not that bad so I am not afraid of it happening to me." Unfortunately this denial leaves us in the same place as the bad preacher, claiming that God killed other people to show how good we are.
We are all God's children whether we know it or not. God hears, "God sent the hurricane to punish the wicked" just like a parent would hear, "Dad killed my brother Jimmy because he was bad and I was good". That's horrible...unimaginable. It would also make Dad very angry at the kid who dared to utter it.
The fig tree parable at the end of the gospel confirms this. Some people read God as the guy who wants to chop down the tree, eager to smite all of us for our wrongdoing. That's backwards. The tree-choppers in this story are actually the same people who came to Jesus talking about God's retribution on the Galileans and the tower victims. They are so quick to condemn their brothers and sisters whom they perceive as wicked and fruitless. They say that the gardener should just chop the tree down, which is just what they perceived happening with these tragedies. "God should just wipe out those wicked people!" How does the gardener respond to this? "Wait! Have patience. The tree needs more tending. Let me care for it more. If it never ends up bearing fruit then you may be right, but we haven't spent enough time or TLC on it to make that determination yet." That's God's response: not smiting, but love and care.
This also guides our Christian response to tragedy. Our role when sad things happen isn't to sit and worry about ourselves. Nor is our role to protect ourselves, denying our fear and the possibility of anything bad happening to us. Least of all should our role be cloaking our human fears and frailties behind the cover of divine retribution. Instead we are called to do what God does: response in the kindest, most loving, most patient and helpful way possible. Compassion and empathy are the fruits of God's Spirit, not distance and judgment. This is true in the best of times, even more so in the worst.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”Tragedy evokes many responses from us: sadness, empathy, fear, the desire to protect ourselves, the need for warmth and security, the tendency to "check the locks" and make sure everything around us is under control. Some of these responses are more graceful and some less, but all are natural. Modern technology and quick communication exposes us to more tragic events than any previous generation ever had to endure so we've all had practice responding in all of these ways...most of us within the last year or so. Our entire country ran this gamut of emotions after the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, for instance.
It wasn't any different in Jesus' time. Maybe you wouldn't hear about things that happened thousands of miles away but this gospel shows us two tragedies within earshot of Jesus and his followers. Governor Pilate had slaughtered some Galileans at their worship and a tower had fallen in Jerusalem, killing 18.
I can empathize with the "buzz" Jesus heard in response to these events. Both 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina happened a day before regularly scheduled church meetings. Naturally they were the topic of discussion the next day. Inevitably as people shared their thoughts one or two folks would come up with, "Well, [insert place of tragedy here] was full of wicked people and America isn't following God anymore so maybe this was his punishment. We need to wake up!" They weren't alone, of course. Every time something bad happens some crackpot preacher with access to a microphone and a sensation-seeking media audience gets up and claims the same thing, in essence turning the deaths of other people into an opportunity to say, "See?!? I was right!!!" As if God would slaughter his children so you can get an ego stroke. These "preachers" are idiots. They mislead all who hear them, give birth to (and permission for) evil and lies spoken in God's name, and no matter what kind of label they try to put on their "faith" they lure people away from God, not towards him. Being able to quote scripture is no big trick. It's how you use it that matters.
As I said on Sunday, I was a younger and more polite Pastor Boy back then so we all worked through that conversation about whether God sent a hurricane to destroy a town because of Mardi Gras parades. What I probably should have done as soon as someone suggested God wiped out towns with sinners in them is to dive under the table and reach for a helmet. Because guess what? Everybody sitting around the table that day was a sinner...some worse than anybody knew, others worse than even they knew.
That's exactly what Jesus pointed out to people in this gospel.
There's a backwards way to read this scripture and a right one. Unless you're careful you're going to fall into the backwards way. It assumes that yes, those people whom Pilate slaughtered and on whom the tower fell were punished by God. When Jesus says, "Unless you repent, you too will perish" confirms for this listener that God smites evil folks and they had better be good lest the next storm hit them. To interpret the lesson this way we have to ignore that verse 2 begins with Jesus questioning the listener's assumption that these events were divine retribution and verse 5 flat out tells them, "No!" Then again, people who want to scare you into their way of thinking don't have much trouble ignoring parts of scripture that are inconvenient to their opinion.
Instead of confirming the assertion that disasters are God's retribution on sinners, Jesus is using the "Judge not, lest ye be judged" principle here. "You have judged those people more wicked than you and said God struck them down because of it. Well, you are all sinners. If God really acts like you say he does, YOU better be afraid!"
The only thing that allows people to make claims of divine retribution is the certainty that the disaster won't strike them. When you hear, "God sent the hurricane to punish the wicked" you should also hear, "And I don't judge myself wicked therefore hurricanes will never strike my home, Amen." Do you see what's going on there? That isn't an assertion of faith, it's the same old human response we started this explanation with. "I'm afraid. I need to feel secure. I'm checking the locks to make sure no hurricanes come here." Except instead owning that fear and dealing with it they're denying it, trying to foist off the whole thing on God. Saying, "I am sad in the face of this tragedy...it makes me feel scared and insecure and I'm worried this could happen to me or people I love," would be honest. It would allow us to come together to talk about how we all feel. But that admission also leaves the speaker vulnerable. It's much easier to say, "This was God's Will because of wickedness and I am not that bad so I am not afraid of it happening to me." Unfortunately this denial leaves us in the same place as the bad preacher, claiming that God killed other people to show how good we are.
We are all God's children whether we know it or not. God hears, "God sent the hurricane to punish the wicked" just like a parent would hear, "Dad killed my brother Jimmy because he was bad and I was good". That's horrible...unimaginable. It would also make Dad very angry at the kid who dared to utter it.
The fig tree parable at the end of the gospel confirms this. Some people read God as the guy who wants to chop down the tree, eager to smite all of us for our wrongdoing. That's backwards. The tree-choppers in this story are actually the same people who came to Jesus talking about God's retribution on the Galileans and the tower victims. They are so quick to condemn their brothers and sisters whom they perceive as wicked and fruitless. They say that the gardener should just chop the tree down, which is just what they perceived happening with these tragedies. "God should just wipe out those wicked people!" How does the gardener respond to this? "Wait! Have patience. The tree needs more tending. Let me care for it more. If it never ends up bearing fruit then you may be right, but we haven't spent enough time or TLC on it to make that determination yet." That's God's response: not smiting, but love and care.
This also guides our Christian response to tragedy. Our role when sad things happen isn't to sit and worry about ourselves. Nor is our role to protect ourselves, denying our fear and the possibility of anything bad happening to us. Least of all should our role be cloaking our human fears and frailties behind the cover of divine retribution. Instead we are called to do what God does: response in the kindest, most loving, most patient and helpful way possible. Compassion and empathy are the fruits of God's Spirit, not distance and judgment. This is true in the best of times, even more so in the worst.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, February 25, 2013
Monday Morning Sermon: God's Desire
The text for the Second Sunday of Lent came from the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Luke:
The key line here is Jesus' expression of passion for his people. "Jerusalem, how often I have longer to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."
From the beginning of all things, from Adam and Eve through Abraham, Moses and the Israelites, kings David and Solomon, God's will has been the same. His singular purpose has been to bring goodness to his children: love, grace, beauty, peace. How he has longed to gather us! That will never change.
But look in this gospel. Jesus is surrounded by people and things opposed to that mission. King Herod, the Pharisees (don't be fooled by their "helpful" warning, they wanted rid of him), demons, sickness, even the people of Jerusalem who should have been the most shining examples of all. Everyone and everything resisted, fleeing from the goodness that God intended.
It's easy to see this happening in the historical gospel. It's harder to realize this gospel being replayed in our own lives. We are so busy nowadays. Our days, moments, lives are filled with a series of never-ending priorities: school, work, sports, chores, hobbies, TV shows, parental responsibilities, and so on. We have more things to do than any generation ever has. Even our leisure moments are timed, regimented, scripted.
Each of these things brings its own definition of goodness: winning a ball game, completing a chore, getting an "A". The more time and passion we invest into the activity the more its definition of goodness defines our lives. Fewer of us mess with an overarching, reasoned concept of goodness anymore. Instead our definition of "good" is "getting all my stuff done in acceptable fashion". "I had a good day" means "I got things done and didn't mess up too badly."
Running through a hundred different things in a day we also serve a hundred different definitions of goodness. None of them are completely good. For every winning ball club there has to be a losing one. With each game completed another looms on the horizon. We cannot find complete goodness through any of our activities. But we settled for a hundred incomplete versions stacked on top of each other and call that good...if nothing else through quantity. If you can't get a nutritious, delicious meal a hundred snack baggies consumed hurriedly will still make you full, right?
Where is the room for God here? I wonder what kind of reception he'd get if he showed up personally in the middle of our chaos? Likely we'd welcome him until he offered a definition of good that came into conflict with whatever one we were pursuing at the moment. Then we'd treat him like the Pharisees did. "Hey Jesus, go ahead and take off. I'm kind of busy here..."
One can imagine God standing among all of us and saying, "Genesee, Genesee, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing!" When even the good things in life distract you more from true goodness, what's left except to shed tears and mourn.
The Lenten season is important as a time of reflection. We stop, slow down, admit our inadequacies, admit that we can't even see true goodness on our own, let alone know and embrace it. Our vision is bent towards other things. We lament this along with Jesus and we pray fervently that he would guide us into goodness...not ours, but his. We ask him to chase his chicks anyway, even as we continue to scurry around the barnyard without a clue. We pray that his holy wings enfold us and keep us safe, not just from the world but from our own desires.
Take a moment to do exactly that today. Pray that God will lead you towards real, complete goodness and help you to show that goodness to others. Pray that he will break your life and its habits even as he broke the power of possession and sickness among those ancient people. They pray that he will remake it in his image, leading you onward to salvation through his grace.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
31 At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.”
32 He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ 33 In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!
34 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 35 Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
The key line here is Jesus' expression of passion for his people. "Jerusalem, how often I have longer to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."
From the beginning of all things, from Adam and Eve through Abraham, Moses and the Israelites, kings David and Solomon, God's will has been the same. His singular purpose has been to bring goodness to his children: love, grace, beauty, peace. How he has longed to gather us! That will never change.
But look in this gospel. Jesus is surrounded by people and things opposed to that mission. King Herod, the Pharisees (don't be fooled by their "helpful" warning, they wanted rid of him), demons, sickness, even the people of Jerusalem who should have been the most shining examples of all. Everyone and everything resisted, fleeing from the goodness that God intended.
It's easy to see this happening in the historical gospel. It's harder to realize this gospel being replayed in our own lives. We are so busy nowadays. Our days, moments, lives are filled with a series of never-ending priorities: school, work, sports, chores, hobbies, TV shows, parental responsibilities, and so on. We have more things to do than any generation ever has. Even our leisure moments are timed, regimented, scripted.
Each of these things brings its own definition of goodness: winning a ball game, completing a chore, getting an "A". The more time and passion we invest into the activity the more its definition of goodness defines our lives. Fewer of us mess with an overarching, reasoned concept of goodness anymore. Instead our definition of "good" is "getting all my stuff done in acceptable fashion". "I had a good day" means "I got things done and didn't mess up too badly."
Running through a hundred different things in a day we also serve a hundred different definitions of goodness. None of them are completely good. For every winning ball club there has to be a losing one. With each game completed another looms on the horizon. We cannot find complete goodness through any of our activities. But we settled for a hundred incomplete versions stacked on top of each other and call that good...if nothing else through quantity. If you can't get a nutritious, delicious meal a hundred snack baggies consumed hurriedly will still make you full, right?
Where is the room for God here? I wonder what kind of reception he'd get if he showed up personally in the middle of our chaos? Likely we'd welcome him until he offered a definition of good that came into conflict with whatever one we were pursuing at the moment. Then we'd treat him like the Pharisees did. "Hey Jesus, go ahead and take off. I'm kind of busy here..."
One can imagine God standing among all of us and saying, "Genesee, Genesee, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing!" When even the good things in life distract you more from true goodness, what's left except to shed tears and mourn.
The Lenten season is important as a time of reflection. We stop, slow down, admit our inadequacies, admit that we can't even see true goodness on our own, let alone know and embrace it. Our vision is bent towards other things. We lament this along with Jesus and we pray fervently that he would guide us into goodness...not ours, but his. We ask him to chase his chicks anyway, even as we continue to scurry around the barnyard without a clue. We pray that his holy wings enfold us and keep us safe, not just from the world but from our own desires.
Take a moment to do exactly that today. Pray that God will lead you towards real, complete goodness and help you to show that goodness to others. Pray that he will break your life and its habits even as he broke the power of possession and sickness among those ancient people. They pray that he will remake it in his image, leading you onward to salvation through his grace.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Wednesday Afternoon Sermon: The Temptations
This week's sermon discussion is coming later than normal due to the festivities over the weekend. The text for the First Sunday in Lent came from Luke 4 as the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness:
This story isn't hard to understand but it's pretty hard to identify with personally. We get that Jesus resisted the devil but we tend to view this as a historical event...just something that happened to him. Most of us don't have experience turning stones into bread or being offered the kingship of the world.
This event was historically and theologically significant. Nobody before or since has ever been able to resist the devil as Jesus did. All of us have slipped up. All of us have sinned. These verses define God as God. They show why Jesus was able to give his innocent life to break the power of death and sin when all of our guilty lives together wouldn't suffice. But they also contain a personal, hopeful element...a connection between us and God and not just a distinction. That connection comes precisely in the human-ness of the temptations the devil put before Jesus. The devil knew just where to strike, at the heart of our fears and the desire to keep ourselves strong and safe instead of relying on God. We hear echoes of these temptations every day, just as if the devil himself were whispering in our ear.
The first temptation was to turn stones into bread. What was the reminder here? "Jesus, you're hungry. You're empty. Nobody is feeding you. Do something about it or you're going to gnaw your insides out until you perish."
The world tells us we're empty every day. Every commercial starts with this premise. You're inadequate. You're broken. Something's missing. The right toothpaste or deodorant or spaghetti sauce will fill up that void! We learn this language from an early age. How many Disney movies have you seen where the young heroine did not have her problems solved when Prince Charming arrived at the door? We spend our lives looking for things to stuff into the empty place: items to buy, houses to move into, people to love, money to accumulate, shows to watch. None of these things are bad in themselves. Most are good! That's why we hope they'll fill the emptiness for us. But none ever do. No matter how many things you throw into that empty spot, it seems to swallow them all. You eat a banana, you're hungry again the next day. Your husband gives you a good birthday gift but then Valentine's Day is just around the corner. You bought the toothpaste and your teeth are shiny, but now they tell you that you need the body spray. You're never done.
"Turn these stones into bread" is not much different than "Turn this cash into a new truck". How long does that really satisfy you? How long will the voice be quiet until it starts whispering that you're empty again?
The second temptation was to bow down before the devil and receive dominion over the world. The message: "You're powerless. Things don't go your way. That's bad. Seize control, order it the way you wish. Then and only then will you be happy."
How often do we fall prey to this voice? The world is out of control. We get reminders every day. Prices are too high. Trains and planes don't run when we want them to. The evening news bombards us with unexpected and tragic developments from all over the world. Kids are unruly, today's music stinks, you can't get a good deli sandwich anymore because it's all pre-processed stuff, and taxes stink.
If only we ran the world things would be better. We'd order that everything be convenient, cheap, high quality. We'd stop the conflicts, outlaw the wrong-doing, lower the tax rate, bring back decent music!
Of course we don't have the power to rule the world, but we can rule our world. We acknowledge all the turmoil outside of our close-knit circle lives but we'll be damned if anybody's going to tell us how to spend our money, raise our families, disagree with our politics. In our houses, families, communities, we rule. We keep it the way we want it. If something doesn't fit and we can't change it, we just draw our circle small enough to exclude it.
This is effective, but is it good? Does it really solve things? I don't know if you've ever experienced a family where just one person got their way in all things at all times but in my estimation those situations don't turn out well. They don't tend to foster love or growth. Those who come through that kind of experience usually end up worse, not better. Ditto for town politics, school groups, churches, and so on.
When the world whispers, "You are powerless" our instinctive response is to grab as much control over as many things as possible and hold on at all costs. This generally takes us away from goodness instead of towards it, snuffing out life and love instead of helping them flourish.
The third temptation was for Jesus to cast himself off the temple roof to prove that God loved him and would take care of him. In this we hear the most insidious, tempting message of all: "You are alone. Nobody understands you. Nobody cares about you. Nobody loves you."
Who among us has not heard this voice at one time or another? It's at the root of every self-harming escape you can name: drug and alcohol abuse, ill-planned promiscuity, sabotaging otherwise healthy relationships, an endless list of others. "Nobody cares about me. I'll do this thing to show how hurt and wretched I am. Perhaps then somebody will pay attention and I'll get the love I need. If not at least I will have proved how wretched I am, so I'll end up right either way." For most of us this ends up in mild self-destructive behavior, making the wrong choices when we know better. Sometimes it ends up devastating lives, families, entire communities.
Humans can endure and prosper through almost anything. If you don't believe me, ask yourself why anybody lives in North Dakota. Being alone--not occasionally as a relaxing break but truly, utterly alone--is the one condition humans can't abide. (See also: Genesis 2:18 "The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”) That makes this whisper, this fear, very powerful. We're liable to grasp at anything to avoid it or to distract ourselves from it.
Ironically, our responses to this fear end up isolating us even more. We tend towards cynicism, self-protection. "If you don't look out for yourself nobody will. You can't love others until you love yourself first. Whatever it takes to get ahead in life is justified." All of these try to answer that insidious whisper. If we live by these tenets, we end up more alone than when we started.
Every solution we come up with to any of these temptations only make the evil worse. That's why the devil found humanity such a delightful playground before Jesus stepped in and messed things up. Jesus changed the course of our destiny through a couple of simple affirmations:
Bingo. Done. The devil and all his temptations are overcome in that moment.
The devil wins when we try to argue right and wrong with him, whether that's if the garden fruit will make us like God or if this toothpaste or that will make our teeth shinier and bring us true happiness. The devil loses when we say, "You may be completely right, but it still doesn't change things." That's all Jesus did in the wilderness. Go back and read Luke 4 again and see if you don't hear it. Then look at your temptations and distinguish between the things you think will make you happier/safer/more in control right now and the things that will truly be good for you and the world.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
This story isn't hard to understand but it's pretty hard to identify with personally. We get that Jesus resisted the devil but we tend to view this as a historical event...just something that happened to him. Most of us don't have experience turning stones into bread or being offered the kingship of the world.
This event was historically and theologically significant. Nobody before or since has ever been able to resist the devil as Jesus did. All of us have slipped up. All of us have sinned. These verses define God as God. They show why Jesus was able to give his innocent life to break the power of death and sin when all of our guilty lives together wouldn't suffice. But they also contain a personal, hopeful element...a connection between us and God and not just a distinction. That connection comes precisely in the human-ness of the temptations the devil put before Jesus. The devil knew just where to strike, at the heart of our fears and the desire to keep ourselves strong and safe instead of relying on God. We hear echoes of these temptations every day, just as if the devil himself were whispering in our ear.
The first temptation was to turn stones into bread. What was the reminder here? "Jesus, you're hungry. You're empty. Nobody is feeding you. Do something about it or you're going to gnaw your insides out until you perish."
The world tells us we're empty every day. Every commercial starts with this premise. You're inadequate. You're broken. Something's missing. The right toothpaste or deodorant or spaghetti sauce will fill up that void! We learn this language from an early age. How many Disney movies have you seen where the young heroine did not have her problems solved when Prince Charming arrived at the door? We spend our lives looking for things to stuff into the empty place: items to buy, houses to move into, people to love, money to accumulate, shows to watch. None of these things are bad in themselves. Most are good! That's why we hope they'll fill the emptiness for us. But none ever do. No matter how many things you throw into that empty spot, it seems to swallow them all. You eat a banana, you're hungry again the next day. Your husband gives you a good birthday gift but then Valentine's Day is just around the corner. You bought the toothpaste and your teeth are shiny, but now they tell you that you need the body spray. You're never done.
"Turn these stones into bread" is not much different than "Turn this cash into a new truck". How long does that really satisfy you? How long will the voice be quiet until it starts whispering that you're empty again?
The second temptation was to bow down before the devil and receive dominion over the world. The message: "You're powerless. Things don't go your way. That's bad. Seize control, order it the way you wish. Then and only then will you be happy."
How often do we fall prey to this voice? The world is out of control. We get reminders every day. Prices are too high. Trains and planes don't run when we want them to. The evening news bombards us with unexpected and tragic developments from all over the world. Kids are unruly, today's music stinks, you can't get a good deli sandwich anymore because it's all pre-processed stuff, and taxes stink.
If only we ran the world things would be better. We'd order that everything be convenient, cheap, high quality. We'd stop the conflicts, outlaw the wrong-doing, lower the tax rate, bring back decent music!
Of course we don't have the power to rule the world, but we can rule our world. We acknowledge all the turmoil outside of our close-knit circle lives but we'll be damned if anybody's going to tell us how to spend our money, raise our families, disagree with our politics. In our houses, families, communities, we rule. We keep it the way we want it. If something doesn't fit and we can't change it, we just draw our circle small enough to exclude it.
This is effective, but is it good? Does it really solve things? I don't know if you've ever experienced a family where just one person got their way in all things at all times but in my estimation those situations don't turn out well. They don't tend to foster love or growth. Those who come through that kind of experience usually end up worse, not better. Ditto for town politics, school groups, churches, and so on.
When the world whispers, "You are powerless" our instinctive response is to grab as much control over as many things as possible and hold on at all costs. This generally takes us away from goodness instead of towards it, snuffing out life and love instead of helping them flourish.
The third temptation was for Jesus to cast himself off the temple roof to prove that God loved him and would take care of him. In this we hear the most insidious, tempting message of all: "You are alone. Nobody understands you. Nobody cares about you. Nobody loves you."
Who among us has not heard this voice at one time or another? It's at the root of every self-harming escape you can name: drug and alcohol abuse, ill-planned promiscuity, sabotaging otherwise healthy relationships, an endless list of others. "Nobody cares about me. I'll do this thing to show how hurt and wretched I am. Perhaps then somebody will pay attention and I'll get the love I need. If not at least I will have proved how wretched I am, so I'll end up right either way." For most of us this ends up in mild self-destructive behavior, making the wrong choices when we know better. Sometimes it ends up devastating lives, families, entire communities.
Humans can endure and prosper through almost anything. If you don't believe me, ask yourself why anybody lives in North Dakota. Being alone--not occasionally as a relaxing break but truly, utterly alone--is the one condition humans can't abide. (See also: Genesis 2:18 "The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”) That makes this whisper, this fear, very powerful. We're liable to grasp at anything to avoid it or to distract ourselves from it.
Ironically, our responses to this fear end up isolating us even more. We tend towards cynicism, self-protection. "If you don't look out for yourself nobody will. You can't love others until you love yourself first. Whatever it takes to get ahead in life is justified." All of these try to answer that insidious whisper. If we live by these tenets, we end up more alone than when we started.
Every solution we come up with to any of these temptations only make the evil worse. That's why the devil found humanity such a delightful playground before Jesus stepped in and messed things up. Jesus changed the course of our destiny through a couple of simple affirmations:
- I am putting love of others before my own need.
- I will not let any fear or anything that happens to me overcome that.
- I will set aside the voices that tell me this will end in my doom. If I'm going to die anyway, I might as well die doing something wonderful in love rather than dying in fear trying to preserve myself. Fearing something doesn't change it but love transforms even the darkest things into light.
- I will trust that God will walk with me, provide for me, and save me. This will give me confidence that I don't have to do it myself, allowing me to stick to 1, 2, and 3.
Bingo. Done. The devil and all his temptations are overcome in that moment.
The devil wins when we try to argue right and wrong with him, whether that's if the garden fruit will make us like God or if this toothpaste or that will make our teeth shinier and bring us true happiness. The devil loses when we say, "You may be completely right, but it still doesn't change things." That's all Jesus did in the wilderness. Go back and read Luke 4 again and see if you don't hear it. Then look at your temptations and distinguish between the things you think will make you happier/safer/more in control right now and the things that will truly be good for you and the world.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Monday Morning Sermon: The Power of Love
The text for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany was the conclusion of the story from Luke 4 which we discussed fully last week. In this second installment the people of Nazareth, Jesus' hometown, responded to his claim that he was the fulfillment of scripture and prophecy by trying to throw him off a cliff. Having talked about the end of the story a week ago, we were free to explore the ramification of the second reading for the day on these proceedings. That text was 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13.
Not coincidentally, these verses from Corinthians also show what the people of Nazareth lacked, causing them to miss the Messiah in their rush to throw him off their hill.
We could talk about the intricacies of love all day. (Hint: It's not really a mushy emotion. That can be part of love but it's neither the most enduring nor the most powerful part. We see the strongest parts of love as we act it out even when we don't feel mushy and gushy towards the recipient.) But for our purposes in the sermon we distilled it down to a couple of basics.
Love means seeing the best in people and then holding on to that definition of them no matter what. We're always in a hurry to look for flaws, thinking that this will protect us from harm and make us stronger. Since everyone and everything on earth is imperfect we always find what we seek. This path does not lead to love, though. More often it leads to a life of loneliness and fear in which we never learn to trust others. This lack causes us to miss the beauty in each other and life.
Everybody you know will let you down in one way or another. Everybody you know also has amazing qualities. Love means holding onto the latter while forgiving the former as much and as often as possible. Love means seeing people through God's eyes, viewing neighbors as his beautiful, beloved children whether they happen to be acting like it at the moment or not. When you see the best in people--interpreting their words charitably instead of harshly, explaining their actions in the kindest possible way, welcoming them instead of suspecting them--you will naturally convey love. As Paul says, this takes patience, kindness, and a heaping dose of self-discipline.
But this approach to life also holds great rewards. When you see people in the best possible way and depend on them to be their best possible selves, they tend to live up to that. (Note that we said depend and not expect. "Expect" conveys the message that you're not something and need to conform to someone's standards in order to become it. "Depend" means you are already something which is meaningful and important to the people around you. "I expect you to be good" is far different than "I depend on you to be good".) Love is contagious. People love to be defined by it. When you see the good in people they start seeing it too. They act on it more often, which fills your environment with more good things. This goodness makes love even easier and begets yet more goodness. The simple act of holding on to the best view of your neighbors eventually changes your whole world.
If there's a secret to happy marriages, raising your kids well, having a great youth group or Bible Study in church, enjoying friendships, creating good working relationships, this is it. This is why we welcome every person who comes into our church with open arms. We start from moment one seeing and assuming the best in them, showing them love. We invite them to co-create with us, drawing inspiration from them as they draw from us, each of us seeing Christ in the other. This defines not only our individual relationships but our community. This is God's Spirit at work in a web of trust and Christ-colored glasses.
The people of Nazareth did not approach Jesus this way. They should have. They knew him better than anyone. Not seeing him in the best possible light led them straight into darkness. That's the way it goes, I'm afraid. There's no neutral in faith. Either trust or suspicion will eventually win out in your life. When you trust and love you see God everywhere. When you don't you can't see him anywhere, even if he shows up right in front of your eyes and holds up a sign.
I'm afraid the people of Nazareth weren't very patient or kind with Jesus. If you read Luke 4: 21-30 you'll actually find that they quickly turned envious, boastful, proud, disparaging, angry, and rude, leaving no room for God to work in their midst. Instead of shaking our heads and wondering how they could do that, we need to remember Christ's reminder that as we do to the least of the people in our lives, so we do to him. We re-enact this scene every day. We're led towards it inevitably the moment we start seeing less than the best in folks around us...the moment we turn away from love.
Let this be a reminder to all of us in all of our many relationships. When Christ shows up among us and says, "Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing" (probably in the form of a little kid showing off a glitter-filled craft project in our fellowship hall or a stranger looking to us in need) may we be able to respond with celebration instead of hurrying to cast him out because he dared to challenge our perceptions and comfort.
We're always looking for new and interesting questions to talk about, so if you have any send them in to the e-mail address below!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.These words are famous, of course, having been read at most every wedding since weddings were invented. That's appropriate, as they describe aptly the kind of self-sacrificing love a couple needs to make it through the rigors of matrimony. But in a way it's unfortunate that we've heard these passages so often in that context. They weren't intended to apply to weddings alone. Limiting our understanding of love to the bond between spouses also lets us duck responsibility for practicing it everywhere else. But Paul wrote these words to an entire community, not just paired couples within it. They weren't confined to two people. They were meant to be the bedrock of our life, the lens through which we view all of our actions and all the people those actions affect.
Not coincidentally, these verses from Corinthians also show what the people of Nazareth lacked, causing them to miss the Messiah in their rush to throw him off their hill.
We could talk about the intricacies of love all day. (Hint: It's not really a mushy emotion. That can be part of love but it's neither the most enduring nor the most powerful part. We see the strongest parts of love as we act it out even when we don't feel mushy and gushy towards the recipient.) But for our purposes in the sermon we distilled it down to a couple of basics.
Love means seeing the best in people and then holding on to that definition of them no matter what. We're always in a hurry to look for flaws, thinking that this will protect us from harm and make us stronger. Since everyone and everything on earth is imperfect we always find what we seek. This path does not lead to love, though. More often it leads to a life of loneliness and fear in which we never learn to trust others. This lack causes us to miss the beauty in each other and life.
Everybody you know will let you down in one way or another. Everybody you know also has amazing qualities. Love means holding onto the latter while forgiving the former as much and as often as possible. Love means seeing people through God's eyes, viewing neighbors as his beautiful, beloved children whether they happen to be acting like it at the moment or not. When you see the best in people--interpreting their words charitably instead of harshly, explaining their actions in the kindest possible way, welcoming them instead of suspecting them--you will naturally convey love. As Paul says, this takes patience, kindness, and a heaping dose of self-discipline.
But this approach to life also holds great rewards. When you see people in the best possible way and depend on them to be their best possible selves, they tend to live up to that. (Note that we said depend and not expect. "Expect" conveys the message that you're not something and need to conform to someone's standards in order to become it. "Depend" means you are already something which is meaningful and important to the people around you. "I expect you to be good" is far different than "I depend on you to be good".) Love is contagious. People love to be defined by it. When you see the good in people they start seeing it too. They act on it more often, which fills your environment with more good things. This goodness makes love even easier and begets yet more goodness. The simple act of holding on to the best view of your neighbors eventually changes your whole world.
If there's a secret to happy marriages, raising your kids well, having a great youth group or Bible Study in church, enjoying friendships, creating good working relationships, this is it. This is why we welcome every person who comes into our church with open arms. We start from moment one seeing and assuming the best in them, showing them love. We invite them to co-create with us, drawing inspiration from them as they draw from us, each of us seeing Christ in the other. This defines not only our individual relationships but our community. This is God's Spirit at work in a web of trust and Christ-colored glasses.
The people of Nazareth did not approach Jesus this way. They should have. They knew him better than anyone. Not seeing him in the best possible light led them straight into darkness. That's the way it goes, I'm afraid. There's no neutral in faith. Either trust or suspicion will eventually win out in your life. When you trust and love you see God everywhere. When you don't you can't see him anywhere, even if he shows up right in front of your eyes and holds up a sign.
I'm afraid the people of Nazareth weren't very patient or kind with Jesus. If you read Luke 4: 21-30 you'll actually find that they quickly turned envious, boastful, proud, disparaging, angry, and rude, leaving no room for God to work in their midst. Instead of shaking our heads and wondering how they could do that, we need to remember Christ's reminder that as we do to the least of the people in our lives, so we do to him. We re-enact this scene every day. We're led towards it inevitably the moment we start seeing less than the best in folks around us...the moment we turn away from love.
Let this be a reminder to all of us in all of our many relationships. When Christ shows up among us and says, "Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing" (probably in the form of a little kid showing off a glitter-filled craft project in our fellowship hall or a stranger looking to us in need) may we be able to respond with celebration instead of hurrying to cast him out because he dared to challenge our perceptions and comfort.
We're always looking for new and interesting questions to talk about, so if you have any send them in to the e-mail address below!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, January 28, 2013
Monday Morning Sermon: Hearing the Call
This week brought us the Third Sunday after Epiphany as well as our Annual Meeting in which we shared the first fruits of our vision process. We're going to talk a bunch more about that vision as the week progresses but we'll begin where we always begin--where we began our vision too--with scripture. The gospel text this Sunday came from Luke 4:
Except we didn't hear the rest of the story. The rest of Luke 4 tells us how Jesus' friends and neighbors in Nazareth refused to listen when he spoke plainly. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked. When he scolded them by reminding them that the great prophets Elijah and Elisha--from their own history--weren't sent to the hometown folks but to foreigners in Sidon and Syria, the people of Nazareth got so angry that they drove him out of town and tried to toss him off a cliff. (The ancient equivalent of de-friending someone.)
How could they miss it??? Jesus was right in front of them! They knew him better than anyone, as he had grown up among them!
Those who have participated in our Thursday-night class on Lutheran basics will know the answer. The world tells you that you see and understand, then you have faith. In reality you have faith, then you see and understand.
Those Nazareth folks weren't ready to hear the scripture, let alone see its fulfillment. They were probably just fine with God as long as God stayed in his accustomed place. Come to the Synagogue on the Sabbath, hear a few things, be good people, then go back to real life. That was the pattern. When God leaped off that page and into their lives they weren't ready. They couldn't see him. They wouldn't hear him. They had a carpenter's son in front of them and that's all they wanted to see. They refused anything else.
They're not alone, of course. We instinctively feel the same way about God. Keep him in church and keep the church mostly the same and we're happy. When God steps beyond his accustomed boundaries, calls us to something different than we expect, we get nervous, annoyed. Sometimes we'd sooner toss him off a cliff than follow him.
But God doesn't settle for remaining in a book or a church, any more than Jesus settled for being the carpenter's kid and not the Messiah. He comes into our lives and disrupts them. He insists on uplifting the poor, un-free, oppressed, blind, and disadvantaged because we are those people. In the process he calls us to do the same for each other, which means dealing with people and issues we'd rather leave be. But that's not our calling.
We have begun a calling to a new mission at the Genesee Lutheran Parish. It's a calling of faith and service. It can't be proven, nor our fears over it resolved. Like Jesus standing before us, it can only be believed in and trusted.
Join us this week as we talk about that vision together. Bring your questions and thoughts. Also realize that this vision stems from scripture and the ways in which the Word of God intersects the people in our community. We have a holy calling. That calling will involve thought, work, and plenty of steps to fulfill. Pack up and get ready for the journey, then travel along with us as we begin its first steps.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.What an amazing proclamation from Jesus! "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." How often does God tip his hand like that? How many of us have wished that God would just come to us, speak plainly, tell us what we need to hear? Right here, in this gospel story, he did it! Yaaaaayyyyyy!
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Except we didn't hear the rest of the story. The rest of Luke 4 tells us how Jesus' friends and neighbors in Nazareth refused to listen when he spoke plainly. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked. When he scolded them by reminding them that the great prophets Elijah and Elisha--from their own history--weren't sent to the hometown folks but to foreigners in Sidon and Syria, the people of Nazareth got so angry that they drove him out of town and tried to toss him off a cliff. (The ancient equivalent of de-friending someone.)
How could they miss it??? Jesus was right in front of them! They knew him better than anyone, as he had grown up among them!
Those who have participated in our Thursday-night class on Lutheran basics will know the answer. The world tells you that you see and understand, then you have faith. In reality you have faith, then you see and understand.
Those Nazareth folks weren't ready to hear the scripture, let alone see its fulfillment. They were probably just fine with God as long as God stayed in his accustomed place. Come to the Synagogue on the Sabbath, hear a few things, be good people, then go back to real life. That was the pattern. When God leaped off that page and into their lives they weren't ready. They couldn't see him. They wouldn't hear him. They had a carpenter's son in front of them and that's all they wanted to see. They refused anything else.
They're not alone, of course. We instinctively feel the same way about God. Keep him in church and keep the church mostly the same and we're happy. When God steps beyond his accustomed boundaries, calls us to something different than we expect, we get nervous, annoyed. Sometimes we'd sooner toss him off a cliff than follow him.
But God doesn't settle for remaining in a book or a church, any more than Jesus settled for being the carpenter's kid and not the Messiah. He comes into our lives and disrupts them. He insists on uplifting the poor, un-free, oppressed, blind, and disadvantaged because we are those people. In the process he calls us to do the same for each other, which means dealing with people and issues we'd rather leave be. But that's not our calling.
We have begun a calling to a new mission at the Genesee Lutheran Parish. It's a calling of faith and service. It can't be proven, nor our fears over it resolved. Like Jesus standing before us, it can only be believed in and trusted.
Join us this week as we talk about that vision together. Bring your questions and thoughts. Also realize that this vision stems from scripture and the ways in which the Word of God intersects the people in our community. We have a holy calling. That calling will involve thought, work, and plenty of steps to fulfill. Pack up and get ready for the journey, then travel along with us as we begin its first steps.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, January 21, 2013
Monday Morning Sermon: Miracles of Transformation
Our sermon text for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany was the first 11 verses of John, Chapter 2:
On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.
Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.On Sunday we talked about how important this text is for our church at this particular time, with our Annual Meeting/Potluck coming up next Sunday following worship. If you know anything about the Gospel of John (as opposed to his friends Matthew, Mark, and Luke) you'll know that what actually happens is less than half the story. John is all about what events symbolize and mean. An otherwise simple story about a wedding being saved by the miracle of water to win carries plenty of significance for us today.
You know John is starting out big when the event happens "on the third day". On the third day of what, exactly? He doesn't say specifically--likely the week--but it hardly matters. You just need to remember that other thing that happened on the third day: Jesus rising again to announce our salvation and a new beginning. Jesus' first miracle--this wedding event--is the sign of a new creation, a new time, the beginning of the world changing.
We, too, stand at that time as a church. We've spent the last few years gathering energy and confidence, getting to know each other, exploring the Spirit. We've done well, I think. But it's time to start looking forward instead of just backwards or inwards. We have this energy, creativity, this wonderful, percolating community. What are we to do? This is our third day.
If we shy away from that journey in favor of staying safe--slinking away from the wedding, so to speak--we'll not be able to preserve what we've discovered. Turned inwards, that energy dissipates. It becomes more about us as individuals--our generation of church members or whatever--than it does about the space between us and the ideas and service that happen in that place. In scientific terms, the potential energy of of church needs to become kinetic energy, expended in service to God and community.
But note that Jesus' first miracle didn't begin with a bang. It began with an, "Awwwww...we're out of wine." Every change happens this way. We perceive a need, a lack, and we have a choice how to act. Like the Israelites in their wilderness journey we can complain or we can move.
The natural response to the shortcoming at the Cana wedding would have been grumbling. Wine prices are too high, nobody can get enough anymore. The steward should have planned better. The bridegroom is too cheap. The bride invited too many people. We deal with life's imperfections by finding someone to blame for them and then moving on.
Instead Mary and the servants called upon God and laid out their issue. He said, "Trust me and fill up those jars." Then he made it better. We are called to see shortcomings in our life--individual or communal--as an opportunity and/or challenge. Otherwise we never see God's miracles even when they occur. They're drown out by the chorus of moans. (17 kids, most of which aren't associated with our church, show up for an impromptu youth event, for instance, and we complain about the snow tracked onto the entryway carpet. And so on.) Shortcomings aren't a cause for complaint, they're a sign we need to move.
And notice that the move in John's gospel here is forward, not backwards. The jars in which Jesus worked his miracle were meant for a specific purpose: the ritual of transformation. That was set in stone...literally! (The jars were stone, you see. Ha ha? Never mind.) Jesus did his thing and all of a sudden they became the world's biggest wine decanters. How in the world did they even pour the stuff anyway? Did they have to get wooden buckets? Something else to complain about, I suppose...
Our human instinct tells us to look backwards for answers. Whenever creativity is called for in a church setting the first answers our of our mouths always involve, "Well, we used to..." That's great, actually! We used to do many wonderful things! But the implication of this kind of answer is that our former community had nothing to do with the people participating in it, its time, its culture, the surrounding circumstances. The whole reason things used to be good was this awesome trick we used to employ, some program or method which made everything perfect just because it existed.
Obviously this was not the case. Those "used to" ideas really were great...probably the best ideas possible at the time. It's not like newfangled ideas are automatically better. They're just different. And they're different because all of those other factors--people, relationships, culture, needs, circumstances--are also different. Programs and ideas don't work because they're magical or even right. They work because they fit with the environment in which they operate. Something that was absolutely proper--ideal, even--30 or 10 or 5 years ago may not be right anymore. That's why we're called to look forward in our vision, considering our goals and who we're serving today instead of looking backwards at all the successes we used to have in a completely different environment.
There was nothing wrong with those stone jars, nor with the ritual of purification. It was just time to put them to a new use.
What's more, this new thing turned the expectations of the world upside-down. Note the steward saying, "Everybody serves the good wine first, then the inferior when the palate is dulled, but you've done it backwards!" This was probably not a real practice. Likely it's in the story to make this very point. If you just go by your own expectations or those of your society you will not be led to the same place that trust in God will lead you. In fact sometimes trust in God means doing the opposite of what "makes sense".
Naturally all of this evokes fear and nervousness in us. And for good reason! These miracles are not without cost. If the transformation into WINE--foreshadowing Jesus' own blood poured out on the cross and through communion--isn't enough for you, note his response to Mary's request: "My hour has not yet come." When John says, "my hour" he means his death, his crucifixion. Note the famous prayer in John 17 which begins, "Father, the hour has come..." The very next thing that happened to him was his arrest.
The emphasis in his statement here falls on the "yet". He knows his hour is coming. He knows these steps forward lead into sacrifice and cost greater than anyone could imagine. That's what moving forward means and that's why we fear it. But he also knows that this is God's calling. To refuse the miracle in order to keep himself feeling safe and secure would be unthinkable, a retreat into a slow, inertial death in order to avoid the sacrifice that leads to new life. So Jesus follows God, pays the cost, takes the chance, performs the miracle.
Plenty of churches end up like those Olympic show horses, running just fine until they get to the bar they have to jump. Then they balk, shy away, and their rider goes flying. Sometimes we'd rather get God off our back (and out of our church) than change. This will not do. Yes, steps forward involve cost and sacrifice...sometimes great sacrifice. But they're not optional if we're to fulfill our calling. We, too, pay the cost, take the chance, follow God, and live out the miracle.
We do this because we know how the story ends. This particular story in John ends with the wedding going on, not just with a few cups of wine but with somewhere around 150 gallons of the best wine imaginable! THAT is a party! God gives us more than we ever anticipated. We also know that Jesus' own story didn't end in death but in life everlasting and the redemption of the world. That's the ironic thing about the show horse refusing to jump. The other side of the bar holds wonders so great as to make this side look like a wilderness desert. Being human, we're always tempted to hold onto the desert we know instead of finding the lush valley we can only see through trust. But that's a temptation we must resist.
It's time to run. It's time to jump. It's time to journey onward to our next incarnation of the promised land in Genesee. The annual meeting begins after worship next Sunday. There will be a potluck and plenty of news and excitement. Please come and begin to explore your part in the next big thing at the Genesee Lutheran Parish. See you there!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Sermon: Baptism of Our Lord
This Sunday brought the celebration of the Baptism of Our Lord. The gospel reading came from Luke, Chapter 3:
Remembering Jesus' baptism, we also recalled the baptismal gifts each of us receives from God. We highlighted three.
God forgives our sins through baptism.
The most immediate gift of baptism is also its most important, at least in this life. Baptism washes away our sins. Though the waters of baptism touch us for only a moment, the cleansing continues through our entire lives. Each time sin touches us--a sin we've committed, a sin others have perpetrated on us, or just the general sin of the world--that baptismal water washes it away. We turn to God to forgiveness and the answer is already a huge, "YES!"
So much of what we learn about God early in life is a variation on, "Be good so God will love you." Baptism is the ultimate cure for that mistaken lesson. Baptism is an admission that we can't be good on our own, without God. We come to the font to be drowned. We leave the font a new, clean person. That story of drowning and rising repeats again and again throughout our lives. We don't drown ourselves. We'd never have the courage to do so. The old, fearful, sinful self would always hang on to one last scrap of life. Neither do we raise ourselves, for we haven't the power. Instead God works this miracle upon us.
This forgiveness also affects how we see and forgive each other. The world says we should treat other people as they treat us. Baptism allows us to be stronger than that, treating other people as God would treat them: forgiving them as we have been forgiven, being open and honest with them as God has been open and honest with us.
God gives us eternal life.
With forgiveness of sins comes life eternal, for the only thing keeping us from living forever is our sin. Here again our traditional lessons fail us. Most of us have been taught that eternal life only starts after we die. It actually starts the moment we're baptized and continues on through aging, death, and beyond. We are citizens of heaven right now. God's grace and life are in us right now. We are the most amazing, powerful, beautiful people...right now.
Granted we don't always remember this, nor do we always act like it. Understanding this, you understand the power of sin. Sin doesn't beat goodness. Sin makes good people forget who they are. Sin tempts us to regard our inheritance as nothing, to chase things that look better.
Knowing that, you also understand the fight we engage in on this earth. The cosmic battle between good and evil isn't fought with weapons and armor. The cosmic battle is the people of heaven fighting every day to see God's goodness in themselves, in their neighbors, and to bring it out in the world as well even when sin and circumstance tell them something different.
So many people think the battle with evil means going out and vanquishing something, defeating other people. That's not eternal life. That's just more death. The battle with evil means going out and uplifting people, loving them with every fiber of your being, doing good no matter what may come. That's the difference eternal life makes. It's a difference enacted not just after death, but every day of our lives.
When people come to church we don't put them through an inquisition about their history, lifestyle, theology, philosophy, or what have you. I don't have all of those things perfect in my life and you don't either. The only question we ask can be boiled down to, "Will you fight this battle with us? Will you hold onto goodness and love no matter what?" It's couched in more subtle terms, but it's there in every sermon, every class, every interaction.
God makes us his family.
Cleansed and set on the path of eternal goodness, we are made family with each other. This doesn't happen through biology, being blood relations. Nor does it happen in the more modern sense of having common interests or beliefs. We're made family because we're on the same walk together, bearing a name and a Spirit given by the same Lord who loves us all the same infinite amount. Our lives may be radically different but our last name, "Child of God", is the same. We find the same flaws and annoyances in each other that we do in any other folks. But we also find the waters of baptism washing those away, the light of eternal life shining from hearts and eyes. In this we find comfort, hope, reassurance, and an ever-renewed call to mission. We are made one by a love big enough to encompass everything and everyone.
Give thanks for the gifts God has shown you--and continues to show you--through your baptism. Remember it every day and share its fruits with the world!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with[b] water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” 18 And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Remembering Jesus' baptism, we also recalled the baptismal gifts each of us receives from God. We highlighted three.
God forgives our sins through baptism.
The most immediate gift of baptism is also its most important, at least in this life. Baptism washes away our sins. Though the waters of baptism touch us for only a moment, the cleansing continues through our entire lives. Each time sin touches us--a sin we've committed, a sin others have perpetrated on us, or just the general sin of the world--that baptismal water washes it away. We turn to God to forgiveness and the answer is already a huge, "YES!"
So much of what we learn about God early in life is a variation on, "Be good so God will love you." Baptism is the ultimate cure for that mistaken lesson. Baptism is an admission that we can't be good on our own, without God. We come to the font to be drowned. We leave the font a new, clean person. That story of drowning and rising repeats again and again throughout our lives. We don't drown ourselves. We'd never have the courage to do so. The old, fearful, sinful self would always hang on to one last scrap of life. Neither do we raise ourselves, for we haven't the power. Instead God works this miracle upon us.
This forgiveness also affects how we see and forgive each other. The world says we should treat other people as they treat us. Baptism allows us to be stronger than that, treating other people as God would treat them: forgiving them as we have been forgiven, being open and honest with them as God has been open and honest with us.
God gives us eternal life.
With forgiveness of sins comes life eternal, for the only thing keeping us from living forever is our sin. Here again our traditional lessons fail us. Most of us have been taught that eternal life only starts after we die. It actually starts the moment we're baptized and continues on through aging, death, and beyond. We are citizens of heaven right now. God's grace and life are in us right now. We are the most amazing, powerful, beautiful people...right now.
Granted we don't always remember this, nor do we always act like it. Understanding this, you understand the power of sin. Sin doesn't beat goodness. Sin makes good people forget who they are. Sin tempts us to regard our inheritance as nothing, to chase things that look better.
Knowing that, you also understand the fight we engage in on this earth. The cosmic battle between good and evil isn't fought with weapons and armor. The cosmic battle is the people of heaven fighting every day to see God's goodness in themselves, in their neighbors, and to bring it out in the world as well even when sin and circumstance tell them something different.
So many people think the battle with evil means going out and vanquishing something, defeating other people. That's not eternal life. That's just more death. The battle with evil means going out and uplifting people, loving them with every fiber of your being, doing good no matter what may come. That's the difference eternal life makes. It's a difference enacted not just after death, but every day of our lives.
When people come to church we don't put them through an inquisition about their history, lifestyle, theology, philosophy, or what have you. I don't have all of those things perfect in my life and you don't either. The only question we ask can be boiled down to, "Will you fight this battle with us? Will you hold onto goodness and love no matter what?" It's couched in more subtle terms, but it's there in every sermon, every class, every interaction.
God makes us his family.
Cleansed and set on the path of eternal goodness, we are made family with each other. This doesn't happen through biology, being blood relations. Nor does it happen in the more modern sense of having common interests or beliefs. We're made family because we're on the same walk together, bearing a name and a Spirit given by the same Lord who loves us all the same infinite amount. Our lives may be radically different but our last name, "Child of God", is the same. We find the same flaws and annoyances in each other that we do in any other folks. But we also find the waters of baptism washing those away, the light of eternal life shining from hearts and eyes. In this we find comfort, hope, reassurance, and an ever-renewed call to mission. We are made one by a love big enough to encompass everything and everyone.
Give thanks for the gifts God has shown you--and continues to show you--through your baptism. Remember it every day and share its fruits with the world!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, January 7, 2013
Tuesday Morning Sermon: The Epiphany Star
This Sunday's gospel came from the second chapter of Matthew. It told the Epiphany story, the tale of the wise men from the East visiting King Herod of Jerusalem and finding the baby Jesus, following a star to pay him homage.
The rest of the story in the verses following is quite sad. Herod, furious that he's been outwitted by the Magi, orders all boys in Bethlehem 2 years of age and younger killed. Jesus' first welcome into this world came from cows and shepherds. His second greeting was genocide. Only a quick flight to Egypt let him escape...until he turned 30. Then he was hunted once again and eventually killed.
We're familiar with, and accepting of, the story of the Magi themselves. It's part of our Christmas pageant. Everybody knows "We Three Kings". The gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh foreshadow our own Christmas gifts of Hello Kitties, Hot Wheels, and iPads. We're less sanguine about Herod, his kin, and their pronouncements. We skip over that part of the story, never answering the clear and resounding question: WHY?
Why in the world would Herod and the people of Jerusalem, upon hearing news of the long-awaited Messiah, be disturbed (frightened)? Why did they react the way they did?
The obvious answer, for Herod anyway, is that any new king threatened his power. Heavy weighs the crown, as they say. Kingship is only good if you can hold it. Any number of people, including some of his closest family, would have been more than happy to depose Herod and take his place. Between internal schemers and having to answer to the ruling Romans, Herod's lofty perch must have seemed quite tenuous. Now news of a new king arrives? No matter who sent him--even God himself--this guy has to go! He threatens the structure. He confuses the issue. He makes everything unsafe, at least by conventional definition.
Therefore it's not surprising that Herod reacted the way he did. Eliminate the threat! Preserve life as you know it. Stay in control, keeping your eye on the outcome you desire and not letting anything get in your way. Is this not the very definition of strength?
The historical event is disturbing enough. The sad lesson here, though, is that the gospel reveals far more than just history. It shows us something about us, about our relationship with God and the world, that isn't pretty.
As we've mentioned several times before, most of us draw the circles of our lives very small. Especially in this day and age when technology has given us power and choice over nearly everything, we only associate with the people and things we select. Once upon a time we had to listen to 82 songs on the radio before the one we were waiting for came on. Now it's 99 cents at a downloading service and the exact song is on our .mp3 player, repeated to our heart's content. We never have to hear anything else. Once upon a time we had to socialize in groups, often of semi-random makeup. Our familiar friends would bring their annoying spouses and distant cousins to dinner parties. Now we have Facebook friends, private messaging, and the rest of the world on "ignore". What purpose do the walls of our houses have, let alone the slats of our fences, except to define who is in our inner circle and who is out, what is ours and what is beyond our concern?
We allow people and things into our lives based on three criteria:
1. That which we can control.
2. That which we love and/or are interested in enough that it appeals to us despite our lack of control over it.
3. Things we've gotten used to over time so that we don't feel the need to control them, as they don't threaten our basic way of life.
Consider your spouse or anyone you've had a long-term relationship with. Serious reflection will probably tell you that at different times they've fit into all three of these categories. When you first met them you had to decide if you were compatible, which is another way of asking if the edges of their life fit with the edges of yours well enough that getting together wouldn't disturb you in a way beyond your control or desire. After a while you progressed to Category 2, wherein you discovered that you loved the person enough to find their differences and faults appealing in an odd way. After 10 years of marriage that changed and you once again found those faults annoying, but by this time you've become so used to them that they don't threaten to spin you out of control anymore. When you pick up dirty socks off the floor for the 632nd time you just sigh, you don't run in fear. You'll never change this, but it's not going to change you either. Had those dirty socks been a prominent feature of Stage 1 of your relationship, however, you probably never would have gotten married!
Most everybody and everything in our lives goes through this process. If at any point something doesn't fit--if the changes are too great or the differences too dramatic--we simply leave and find something else more acceptable. We shop at a different store. We attend a different church. We get some new Facebook friends. Welcome to modern life.
Here's the problem: God doesn't fit any of these stages. God can't be controlled. God doesn't always do things in ways that we expect or that appeal to us, ways that leave our lives untouched and bother-free. And God won't settle for us getting used to him, packing him away in our little, closed lives. Instead his whole purpose is to open up our lives, to transform them, to transform us. God's grace doesn't await our convenience. God's grace shakes the world in a most inconvenient way, revealing how little of it we've seen and understood so far.
Knowing God is like having the most amazing, annoying friend ever...the kind that shows up on your doorstep without warning and says, "We're going to that new Guatemalan restaurant that just opened!"
"But I had spaghetti warming on the stove."
"Well turn it off! My car's running!"
"Wow," you say. But also, "WOW!!!" You know? That's God.
The question is, how will we react when God sends us a message unexpectedly? How do you respond when your child says, "I'm not going to Law School, I want to be an artist"? How about when your spouse says, "We've been married 20 years and I've always had this dream. I know it's going to change our lives, but I want to pursue it"? Sometimes best friends say, "I feel very differently about this issue than you." Other times you read a passage in scripture that you have a hard time agreeing with, or meet somebody in church you just don't get along with.
We know how Herod and the people of Jerusalem would react. "No, son, you're going to Law School. Too bad, honey, we can't disrupt the family. Goodbye, best friend, I'm going to find someone who agrees with my point of view. I don't care if the Bible says this, I make up my own mind. And by the way, I'm finding a different church because I can't stand that person." They would view these things only through the lens of their own comfort, prerogatives, privilege, plans, and will. Too often that's what we do too.
You know what we're supposed to see instead? The Epiphany Star, taking us on an wholly unexpected journey. It's hard to see such inconvenient things as a message from God, let alone a guiding light from him. It would be much nicer if he only spoke to us in ways we could easily accept. But then we'd never move.
Our reaction to the unexpected, inconvenient, and even (from our view) occasionally wrong-headed is not supposed to be, "No! Stop! Get this out of my sight!" Rather it's, "Grab the frankincense and camels, honey. We're going on another journey." (Memorize that phrase now, those of you who have teenagers.) As annoying and sometimes traumatic as these journeys can be, they're the only way our lives grow beyond our own stunted vision and self-will. They're also the only way we ever get to see and understand the Messiah who, in the end, is too large and glorious to be contained in the static understanding of any individual.
God is sending your Epiphany star in many ways every day. Do you see and do you follow or are you in the business of shutting out, shutting down, and killing off anything that's going to change the life to which you have grown accustomed?
Our life's journey ultimately leads to the Messiah. The only question is whether we'll walk it with eyes open, enjoying and marveling at the strange and lovely trip, or whether we'll shut our eyes tight and deny we're taking it at all. Which world will you walk in, the safe and confining one you create for yourself or the glorious, infinite, and somewhat scary one into which God is calling you?
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
The rest of the story in the verses following is quite sad. Herod, furious that he's been outwitted by the Magi, orders all boys in Bethlehem 2 years of age and younger killed. Jesus' first welcome into this world came from cows and shepherds. His second greeting was genocide. Only a quick flight to Egypt let him escape...until he turned 30. Then he was hunted once again and eventually killed.
We're familiar with, and accepting of, the story of the Magi themselves. It's part of our Christmas pageant. Everybody knows "We Three Kings". The gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh foreshadow our own Christmas gifts of Hello Kitties, Hot Wheels, and iPads. We're less sanguine about Herod, his kin, and their pronouncements. We skip over that part of the story, never answering the clear and resounding question: WHY?
Why in the world would Herod and the people of Jerusalem, upon hearing news of the long-awaited Messiah, be disturbed (frightened)? Why did they react the way they did?
The obvious answer, for Herod anyway, is that any new king threatened his power. Heavy weighs the crown, as they say. Kingship is only good if you can hold it. Any number of people, including some of his closest family, would have been more than happy to depose Herod and take his place. Between internal schemers and having to answer to the ruling Romans, Herod's lofty perch must have seemed quite tenuous. Now news of a new king arrives? No matter who sent him--even God himself--this guy has to go! He threatens the structure. He confuses the issue. He makes everything unsafe, at least by conventional definition.
Therefore it's not surprising that Herod reacted the way he did. Eliminate the threat! Preserve life as you know it. Stay in control, keeping your eye on the outcome you desire and not letting anything get in your way. Is this not the very definition of strength?
The historical event is disturbing enough. The sad lesson here, though, is that the gospel reveals far more than just history. It shows us something about us, about our relationship with God and the world, that isn't pretty.
As we've mentioned several times before, most of us draw the circles of our lives very small. Especially in this day and age when technology has given us power and choice over nearly everything, we only associate with the people and things we select. Once upon a time we had to listen to 82 songs on the radio before the one we were waiting for came on. Now it's 99 cents at a downloading service and the exact song is on our .mp3 player, repeated to our heart's content. We never have to hear anything else. Once upon a time we had to socialize in groups, often of semi-random makeup. Our familiar friends would bring their annoying spouses and distant cousins to dinner parties. Now we have Facebook friends, private messaging, and the rest of the world on "ignore". What purpose do the walls of our houses have, let alone the slats of our fences, except to define who is in our inner circle and who is out, what is ours and what is beyond our concern?
We allow people and things into our lives based on three criteria:
1. That which we can control.
2. That which we love and/or are interested in enough that it appeals to us despite our lack of control over it.
3. Things we've gotten used to over time so that we don't feel the need to control them, as they don't threaten our basic way of life.
Consider your spouse or anyone you've had a long-term relationship with. Serious reflection will probably tell you that at different times they've fit into all three of these categories. When you first met them you had to decide if you were compatible, which is another way of asking if the edges of their life fit with the edges of yours well enough that getting together wouldn't disturb you in a way beyond your control or desire. After a while you progressed to Category 2, wherein you discovered that you loved the person enough to find their differences and faults appealing in an odd way. After 10 years of marriage that changed and you once again found those faults annoying, but by this time you've become so used to them that they don't threaten to spin you out of control anymore. When you pick up dirty socks off the floor for the 632nd time you just sigh, you don't run in fear. You'll never change this, but it's not going to change you either. Had those dirty socks been a prominent feature of Stage 1 of your relationship, however, you probably never would have gotten married!
Most everybody and everything in our lives goes through this process. If at any point something doesn't fit--if the changes are too great or the differences too dramatic--we simply leave and find something else more acceptable. We shop at a different store. We attend a different church. We get some new Facebook friends. Welcome to modern life.
Here's the problem: God doesn't fit any of these stages. God can't be controlled. God doesn't always do things in ways that we expect or that appeal to us, ways that leave our lives untouched and bother-free. And God won't settle for us getting used to him, packing him away in our little, closed lives. Instead his whole purpose is to open up our lives, to transform them, to transform us. God's grace doesn't await our convenience. God's grace shakes the world in a most inconvenient way, revealing how little of it we've seen and understood so far.
Knowing God is like having the most amazing, annoying friend ever...the kind that shows up on your doorstep without warning and says, "We're going to that new Guatemalan restaurant that just opened!"
"But I had spaghetti warming on the stove."
"Well turn it off! My car's running!"
"Wow," you say. But also, "WOW!!!" You know? That's God.
The question is, how will we react when God sends us a message unexpectedly? How do you respond when your child says, "I'm not going to Law School, I want to be an artist"? How about when your spouse says, "We've been married 20 years and I've always had this dream. I know it's going to change our lives, but I want to pursue it"? Sometimes best friends say, "I feel very differently about this issue than you." Other times you read a passage in scripture that you have a hard time agreeing with, or meet somebody in church you just don't get along with.
We know how Herod and the people of Jerusalem would react. "No, son, you're going to Law School. Too bad, honey, we can't disrupt the family. Goodbye, best friend, I'm going to find someone who agrees with my point of view. I don't care if the Bible says this, I make up my own mind. And by the way, I'm finding a different church because I can't stand that person." They would view these things only through the lens of their own comfort, prerogatives, privilege, plans, and will. Too often that's what we do too.
You know what we're supposed to see instead? The Epiphany Star, taking us on an wholly unexpected journey. It's hard to see such inconvenient things as a message from God, let alone a guiding light from him. It would be much nicer if he only spoke to us in ways we could easily accept. But then we'd never move.
Our reaction to the unexpected, inconvenient, and even (from our view) occasionally wrong-headed is not supposed to be, "No! Stop! Get this out of my sight!" Rather it's, "Grab the frankincense and camels, honey. We're going on another journey." (Memorize that phrase now, those of you who have teenagers.) As annoying and sometimes traumatic as these journeys can be, they're the only way our lives grow beyond our own stunted vision and self-will. They're also the only way we ever get to see and understand the Messiah who, in the end, is too large and glorious to be contained in the static understanding of any individual.
God is sending your Epiphany star in many ways every day. Do you see and do you follow or are you in the business of shutting out, shutting down, and killing off anything that's going to change the life to which you have grown accustomed?
Our life's journey ultimately leads to the Messiah. The only question is whether we'll walk it with eyes open, enjoying and marveling at the strange and lovely trip, or whether we'll shut our eyes tight and deny we're taking it at all. Which world will you walk in, the safe and confining one you create for yourself or the glorious, infinite, and somewhat scary one into which God is calling you?
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, October 1, 2012
Rock and Roll Sunday Text
We didn't have a "normal" sermon on Rock and Roll Sunday. Rather members of our congregation introduced each song with an explanation of our church and faith which the song then talked about. Since those words weren't written down anywhere (and since this served as our sermon) I'm reprinting them here. Hopefully this is a pretty good statement of what we believe, how we relate to each other and God.
Keep in mind there's supposed to be a song between each paragraph, so this isn't a seamless essay. Take a deep breath and count to three before reading each successive paragraph and you'll get the idea.
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Each song this morning has a lesson, something we affirm about God and our service to him. The very first affirmation is that God welcomes and loves all of us. You may be used to churches drawing lines between people. We believe God draws us together rather than tearing us apart, accomplishing good through our collective work. You are welcome here! Let’s celebrate!
We’re able to welcome all kinds of people in God’s name because we realize we don’t have all the answers. Too many faith communities try to center around being “right”. We understand that we can’t be. We’re constantly called to learn new things about God but we never reach the point where we know it all. Since I don’t have all the right answers and you don’t either, we settle for asking good questions and figuring it out together, putting up with the occasional wrongness about each other so we can see the greater good.
Our admission that we’re “Stuck in the Middle” of all this without the right answers, unable to find our way home by ourselves, drives us to depend on God. We know we can’t be perfect. We know we can’t earn our salvation. Instead we depend on Jesus Christ, the Savior who gave himself for us, to guide us and bring us home. We don’t view God’s love as a reward, earned only by the few who are worthy. Instead we hold to First John 1:8 which says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” God’s love comes to the people who need it most. We’re not good people saving ourselves, we’re God’s people, saved by the cross.
We’ve made some bold claims about God: that he welcomes us, loves us, saves us, even as mixed up as we are sometimes. How do we know this? This message is found in the Bible. God’s Word is the center of our worship life and faith. It guides us as we make daily decisions. It urges us to live different lives than we would have if we were left to our own instincts. It is God’s gift to the world: the story of his Son and his salvation.
The central story of the Bible is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God’s Son lived among us, transforming us in a startling way. John, Chapter 3 puts it well: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Jesus redeemed us by becoming one of us, even suffering death so he could break its power. When death tried to break Jesus as it had broken every other human being, Christ was stronger. Christ broke death instead and emerged out the other side, living forever. In doing so Our Lord transformed death into the gateway to new life, turning the moment of our worst loss and fear into our greatest assurance. Experiencing death in common with us made Jesus our brother. Overcoming it for our sake made him our Savior.
The Bible tells us Jesus became our Lord, holding power even over death itself. He became the savior of sinners, redeemer of all of those the world had previously despised. He became God of the poor, the lame, the blind and maimed, the outcast, the foreigner, people of all genders and races. He extended his love to all those whom society considered less able and less worthy. He made clear that God loves all his children. That’s the message we proclaim today. God loves us all and everyone we meet!
Just because God loves us all doesn’t mean we rest on our laurels, perfect and satisfied with ourselves. God didn’t save us just so we could be smug and self-congratulatory. We still remember how far we have to go before we fully realize God’s gifts to us, how much we have to strive daily to be worthy of the name that God has pinned on us: “My Child”. We are always on the move as individuals and as a church: moving, growing, being refined by God’s spirit at work within and around us. We’re meant to learn something new about God every day, which means every day gets better and better as our old instincts melt away and God’s new Spirit emerges.
Just like we don’t sit still with our faith, God doesn’t either. He comes to us daily: refreshing, inspiring, and strengthening. One of the most important ways he comes to us is through communion, his body and blood together with bread and wine which we will share together today. We now join together in prayer and sharing the meal Our Lord has prepared for us.
Having heard the story of God’s love, his salvation for even the poorest and least worthy among us, his invitation to love and live at peace with each other, what is there left but to celebrate? In the end that’s what we’re here for: to enjoy God’s gifts, each other, and the wonderful opportunities that the Holy Spirit puts before us every day to love our neighbor, serve each other, and make the world a better place.
Now we come to the end of our worship time together, but the beginning of the great feast of joy that will last our whole lives long and even beyond. “Come, eat, enjoy!” God says, and we respond with gratitude. We’re all called to spread this good news, the message of welcome and redemption, hope and love, salvation and transforming grace to the whole world. Our words, actions, and lives are not just our own. They belong to God and everyone whom God calls us to serve. We’ve been called, sanctified, and filled with rejoicing! Let us go in peace and serve the Lord!!!
Thanks be to God!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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