Stranded in Iowa

What is freedom?

2012-03-03T09:22:00.000-08:00

Sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury

Sunday Worship, The King's School, Canterbury.

In 1939, the young German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was in New York, exploring whether he should stay there as pastor to the German emigrants in the city and considering a string of invitations to lecture in the United States. He had made himself deeply unpopular with the German regime, making broadcasts critical of Hitler and running a secret training institution for pastors in Germany who could not accept the way that the Nazi state was trying to control the Church.

But, after a draining inner struggle, he decided to sail back to Germany. In July 1939, after just over a month in New York, he left – knowing that he was returning to a situation of extreme danger. Six years later, he was dead, executed for treason in a concentration camp, leaving behind him one of the greatest treasure of modern Christianity in the shape of the letters he wrote to family and close friends from prison. He had left behind the chance of freedom as most of us would understand it and plunged into a complex and risky world, getting involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler, living as a double agent, daily facing the prospect of arrest, torture and death.

But freedom was one of the things he most often wrote about. In a famous poem he wrote in July 1944, he sketched out what he thought was involved in real freedom – discipline, action, suffering and death. Not quite what we associate with the word – but with these reflections, he takes us into the heart of what it is for someone to be lastingly free.

The freedom he is interested in is the freedom to do what you know you have to do. The society you live in will give you all sorts of messages about what you should be doing, and, far more difficult, your own longings and preferences will push you in various directions. You have to watch your own passions and feelings and test them carefully, and then you have to have the courage to act. When you act, you take risks. You seemingly become less free. But what is really happening is that you are handing over your freedom to God and saying, ‘I’ve done what I had to; now it’s over to you.’ Freedom, he says, is ‘perfected in glory’ when it’s handed over to God. And this finds its climax in the moment of death, when we step forward to discover what has been hidden all along – the eternal freedom of God, underlying everything we have thought and done.

It’s a tough and uncompromising picture. But at the end of Bonhoeffer’s journey as he sketches it in this poem is a vision of the joy that can only come when you discover that you are at last in tune with reality, God’s reality. Everything else, the stories you tell yourself, the pictures of yourself that you enjoy thinking about, the efforts to make yourself acceptable – all this falls short of reality. ‘The truth will make you free’, says Jesus; and that is what sustains Bonhoeffer in his prison. It’s really very like what Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes – ‘Blessed are the poor, those who are hungry for justice, those who make peace’; these are the people who have got in touch with what eternally matters, with God’s reality. These are the free people, because they have been liberated from all the fictions, great and small, that keep us locked into our anxieties and ambitions. These are people who are not afraid to die because they have discovered what supremely matters and are willing to hand over everything to God.

There is no forcing of others to accept your vision. It’s simply about being detached enough from what makes you comfortable to be able to live out what it takes to show the kind of God that God is, to live in tune with God’s freedom, which is always a freedom that makes other people free and gives them joy in the reality, the truth, that is God’s life.

It takes time. Bonhoeffer wrote a little guide for students when he ran his college for pastors in which he explains why they need to give time each day to silent meditation on the Bible. ‘God claims our time for this service’, he wrote; ‘God needed time before he came to us in Christ. He needs time to come into my heart for my salvation.’ Each day we try to open ourselves up to being transformed by this meditation: ‘we want to rise from meditation different from what we were when we sat down to it.’

Some religious people talk about letting the surface of our minds settle so that it can truly reflect God, like a still pool. As Bonhoeffer’s life and death make clear, this is not some sort of refusal of the world; it is rather the only way we can ever act in the world so as to change it effectively because we open the way to God’s own activity – through us, but not just through us. Looking quietly at all the clutter that prevents us from seeing ourselves honestly, looking quietly at the ways in which the world we live in muffles the truth and so frustrates the search for justice and love – this isn’t a luxury. This is how the truth makes us free. Not free to do what we fancy at any given moment, but free to be real, to be truthful, to be ‘in the truth’, as the New Testament puts it. After all, what other sort of freedom is finally worth having? It may cost us everything we thought we needed to hang on to; but – as the history of Christ’s journey to the cross and the resurrection makes clear – the end of the story is a fulfilment, a homecoming, for which we can never find adequate words. It’s the freedom to be what we most deeply are.

First Sunday in Lent

2012-02-26T15:21:00.003-08:00

Lent 1B—February 26, 2012

Mark 1:9-15

“And the Spirit immediately droveJesus out into the wilderness.” The Greek word in that sentencethat is translated “drove” is ekballo. Do you know what itmeans to ekballo something? [Throw some balls out into thecongregation.] Ek means “out;” ballo means “tothrow.” So we should say, “the Spirit immediately threw Jesus outinto the wilderness.”

There’s more. That word ekballotypically implies some force, more of a fastball than a gentle lob.Now if you were to say, “That doesn’t sound like a very nicething for the Spirit to do, hurling the Son of God out into thewilderness like a fast ball,” you’d be right. As Barbara BrownTaylor says, this Spirit is no gentle dove, meek and mild; it hastalons, claws.

The wilderness is not a nice place, notat all what we imagine when we think about hiking in the wilderness.The wilderness in the Bible is the place where robbers, demons, andwild animals live. One is bound to be confronted by something outthere. Mark spares us the details of Jesus’ temptation, saying onlythat he was tempted by Satan (satan means “the tester”)and threatened by wild beasts. In other words, Mark leaves thedetails open to our imagination, perhaps so that we can picture ourown demons out there in the wilderness with Jesus.

Mark says that the testing of Jesusgoes on for 40 days. That number ought to ring a bell for you. Let’suse our new pew Bibles to look up a few instances where that number40 is significant in the scriptures.

First turn back to Genesis 7, page 7 inthe very front. There we read about the Great Flood. Look at verse 4.How many days does God say the flood will last? Yes, 40 days and 40nights. Good times or bad times, the Flood? What do you think? I’dsay pretty bad.

Now turn to 1 Kings 19 (page 404). Thisis right after the prophet Elijah has discredited and then killed theprophets of Baal, and Queen Jezebel, who really liked the herprophets of Baal because they consistently told her just what shewanted to hear, has vowed to hunt Elijah down and kill him. So Elijahflees for how long? [See verse 8.] Forty days and 40 nights. Goodtimes or bad times, running for your life?

Let’s go back to Numbers, chapter 32,on page 190. After God had led the people out of slavery in Egypt,they wandered, because of their faithlessness, for how many years inthe wilderness? Look at verse 13. Again the answer is 40, 40 years. Agood 40 years or a bad 40 years? In many ways, not so great.

Mark is no dummy. He’s doing all thison purpose. In telling us that Jesus was tested in the wilderness for40 days and 40 nights, he wants us to remember all these otherforties. As we think about all these events that took place inintervals of 40, we see that each involved testing, temptation,danger, and doubt. In all of these stories, God’s promise toprotect, provide, sustain, and ultimately save from the time oftrial, is the only thing the people have to go on. They must trustGod’s promise. At the beginning of Mark’s gospel, we see Jesus inthe same peril as all people of faith of all times. During hiswilderness time, all he has to go on is the promise of God. All hehas to trust is that voice he had just heard at his baptism, saying,“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Will Jesus trust that voice? Will thepromise that he is beloved of God be enough to sustain him during histime of trial? Yes. Perhaps it is enough to sustain us during ourtimes of trial—to remember the voice that spoke over you when youwere baptized. “You are my son. You are my daughter. Beloved. Withyou I am well pleased.” Perhaps that is enough to sustain us in ourtimes of trial.

But Mark has another point: there isnothing about being claimed by God as God’s beloved child thatprotects you from trial and testing. The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t go“spare us from the time of trial,” but rather “save us from thetime of trial.” In other words, it is simply assumed that there will betimes of trial and testing. There will be times of trial, not simplybecause bad things happen to good people, but specifically becausefaith leads us into the wilderness. Faith leads us into thewilderness. The same Spirit that gives us faith also pushes us outinto times of trial and testing.

Let me be clear. I do NOT mean that theSpirit gives you cancer just to test your faith, to see how strongyour ability is to trust God. Yes, you can grow in your faith throughsuch an experience. You can come to know and to trust God in new waysthrough a tragedy like serious illness.

What I mean in saying that faith leadsus into times of trial and testing, is that as a person of faith youfind your commitments, your priorities, your sense of purpose in lifetested and tried. I know that as I have grown in faith over theyears, I have become more frequently tested by questions like, “Issimply not being bad, or all that bad, what faith is about?” Or,“What about my wealth [because I am wealthy by any meaningfulglobal standard]. What am I to do with my wealth?” In these kindsof ways, faith makes life more difficult, sort of like trying tosleep in the desert with rocks underneath your sleeping bag. Everyonce in awhile you roll over and, “Ouch!”

But once you are grasped by the Spiritthat gives you faith, the same Spirit sometimes pitches you out intothat place of trial and testing. If it were easy, I suppose Jesuswould have said something other than “Take up your cross and followme.”

William Willimon, back when he was Deanof the Chapel at Duke University, invited some students over forlunch one Sunday after church. As they were sitting out on his deck,one student remarked what a lovely home he had. He thanked her.Another commented on the lovely setting in the woods. Then anotherstudent, somewhat timidly, asked, “Dr. Willimon, are you bothered,as a preacher, to be living in such a nice home? How have you thoughtthrough that?” And Willimon said to himself, “Now I’mremembering why I really didn’t want you students snooping aroundover here!”

To take your faith seriously, though,is to be thrown out into the midst of these kinds of difficultquestions. When the chips are down, whom do I really trust? Wheredoes my loyalty lie? Is there agreement between what I say I believeand how I live my life? What do I see when I scan my checkbook orcredit card statement? What would Jesus think about what I do with mywealth? What do I really treasure in life? Is it enough for me simplyto be not that bad a person, or is God calling me somehow to be moreactively engaged in the world for good?

Questions, questions, that try and testus, call us to face our demons, cause us sometimes to sleeprestlessly -- questions that, if we dare to take them seriously, putus in some personal peril.

And yet, paradoxically, in thewilderness there is also security. Because God is there with us. Godprovides an ark to carry Noah and the other creatures to safety, foodthat miraculously sustains Elijah for 40 day and nights, manna in thedesert, a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night tolead the Israelites toward the Promised Land, and angels to helpJesus through his wilderness time.

I wish the wilderness upon you thisLent.^¹As you struggle with the beasts and demons -- the questions -- thattest you during these 40 days and 40 nights, may you also become moreaware of God’s protecting, providing, and guiding presence in yourlife. And may you grow to trust more and more God’s promise, not tospare you, but to save you from the time of trial.

1 I think Barbara Brown Taylor says that somewhere, but I don’t remember where. Let’s give her credit; it sounds like something she would say.

A poem for Lent

2012-02-24T18:28:00.000-08:00

In Hardwood Groves

by Robert Frost

The same leaves over and over again!
They fall from giving shade above
To make one texture of faded brown
And fit the earth like a leather glove.

Before the leaves can mount again
To fill the trees with another shade,
They must go down past things coming up.
They must go down into the dark decayed.

They must be pierced by flowers and put
Beneath the feet of dancing flowers.
However it is in some other world
I know that this is the way in ours.

The Transfiguration

2012-02-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

TransfigurationB―February 19, 2012

Mark9:2-8

Mostof us have had at least one thing that we would call a mountaintopexperience: our wedding day, the birth of a child, maybe a spiritualexperience in worship or at church camp. But the dynamic always goeslike this: the intense experience comes to an end and we must comedown the mountainside, for we live 99.9% of our lives in the valleyor on the plain of the ordinary.

Surelythe transfiguration of Jesus is the mother of all mountaintopexperiences. Here on this high, holy place Peter, James, and John aretaken up into an amazing vision that leaves them with no doubts aboutwho Jesus is. Jesus himself is filled with the radiance of the divineas his “clothes become dazzling white, such as no one on earthcould bleach them,” and a holy, dazzling light illumines themountaintop.

Thenthe three disciples see and hear Elijah and Moses, the two greatestfigures from the past, confirming that Jesus is, indeed, thelong-awaited Messiah of Israel. And, as if all this were not enough,we then hear the voice of God rumbling from the clouds, “This is mySon, the Beloved, listen to him!” Who could argue with that?

Alittle background info helps us better appreciate what’s going onhere. Many faithful Jews expected that the great prophet Elijah mightreturn to earth as a forerunner of the Messiah, partly because of hisblazing ascent into heaven that we heard about in the first reading.Another popular expectation was that Moses might be the great figureof the past to appear alongside the Messiah.

Peterunderstands the signs. Not one but bothElijah and Moses appear with Jesus on the mountaintop. That can meanonly one thing: Jesus is the real deal, and the kingdom of God hascome down to earth. Ka-zam!

AndI think Peter saw this as his great moment. He and his colleaguesmust have been brought up the mountainside into the presence of theglory of the Lord, as the kingdom comes in its fullness, becauseJesus wanted to give them important jobs in the kingdom. Surely theyare about to receive senior management positions in the new worldorder!

Peter’sattitude becomes clear when we look closely at his response. He wantsto set up three “dwellings” on the mountaintop. In Greek the wordmeans “tent.” If you look back at Leviticus, there’s a storythat takes place around the tentof meeting in the wilderness. The tent of meeting was the place ofGod’s presence among the people, also called the tabernacle.

Inthis story in Leviticus, Moses is in need of help in governing thepeople. So God instructs Moses to gather seventy elders around thetent of meeting. A cloudappears over the tent, and God takes some of the Spirit that restsupon Moses and distributes it among the seventy, inducting them intooffice. They become bureaucrats, senior management, who will assistMoses in his leadership of Israel.

Ithink Peter imagines that the same kind of induction ceremony isabout to take place for himself and James and John here on themountaintop in the presence of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. All thesigns are aligned. They’re never going down the mountain back tothe “real” world. The reign of God with all its glory is here andnow, Peter thinks, and he is about to take his rightful place amongthe high-ranking officials of the kingdom.

Butthere are some flaws in Peter’s logic, aren’t there? We who cansee the rest of the story know that it is not the mountaintop thatmost clearly manifests God's glory, but the cross. The cross is thetrue manifestation, the fullest revelation of the heart and purposeof God. Jesus came not to be served, like a king, but to serve, togive his life on behalf of many. Peter doesn't get that yet. Hethinks this is it, the final chapter, up on top of the mountain.

Andwe know he’s also premature in assuming that God's kingdom iscoming immediately in its fullness. As one of my teachers used tosay, Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom is athand, not yet inhand, which is a critical distinction. The kingdom is near, notalready here. For the time being, history marches on; opposition toGod's will remains strong; sin, death, and the devil continue to holdsway over us; and our call to serve the neighbor and struggle againstthe powers of darkness is urgent. Now is not the time to lallygag onthe mountaintop awaiting our just reward. Now is the time to throwourselves full-force into the servant ministry to which Jesus beckonsus.

Whenthe voice from heaven declares, “This is my Son, the Beloved,” italso adds, “Listen to him!” In Hebrew the word means both“listen” and “obey,” much like when we ask our children tolisten to us, we hope that they will also do what we are asking. Thevoice from heaven is calling us to listen to Jesus, who, just beforegoing up the mountain, said, “If any want to become my followers,let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Thevoice from heaven is calling us to obeyJesus by following him down from the mountaintop back into the “real”world where the kingdom has not yet come in its fullness―where thecreation is still broken and afflicted―and to take up again theservant ministry that Jesus embodied. Ours is not to be the way ofglory but the way of the cross, the way of self-giving love pouredout generously for the good of others. Or maybe it is a way of glory,but only if we understand it as “glory through service.”ⁱ

Itseems fitting that we go from this celebration of the Transfigurationup on the mountaintop right down into the valley of Lent that beginsWednesday with its solemn reminder of reality: “Remember that youare dust and to dust you shall return.” From the glorious heightswe are summoned back down to the ash-smudged world where, though weconfess in faith that the kingdom is at hand, we see all too clearlythat it is not in hand, not yet here in its fullness.

Notyet here for the one billion people in the world who are hungry everyday. Not yet here for children who get one healthy meal a day atschool but go hungry at night and over the weekend and school breaks.Not yet here for the child who dies every 45 seconds from malaria.Not yet here for the 40 million who suffer from HIV/AIDS. Not yethere for those whose lives are shattered by warfare and violence inplaces like Syria and Afghanistan and Iraq. Not yet here for ourfriends on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the poorest county inAmerica. Not yet here for our neighbors in Windsor Heights andUrbandale who must turn in desperation to the Food Pantry for help insecuring the most basic needs of human life.

Notyet here where loved ones are afflicted with cancer. Not yet herewhere marriages fall apart. Not yet here where children get sick,friends lose jobs, loved ones die. Not yet here for those whostruggle with loneliness and despair and addiction and hopelessness.Not yet here for those who wonder if life here is a life worthliving.

But“here” is where we are. “Here” is where we live, not on themountaintop but in the valley and on the plain. And “here” iswhere we’re needed. The need is urgent. The time is now -- not timeto worry about who will hold high office in the kingdom, but time tolisten and obey. Time to listen and obey the one who says, “If anywant to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take uptheir cross and follow me.”

ihttp://www.christiancentury.org/article/2012-01/sunday-february-19-2012

Does the church have a future?

2012-02-17T09:46:00.001-08:00

5th Sunday after Epiphany

2012-02-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 5B—February 5, 2012

Mark 1:29-39

If you are a regular around here, you’ve probably heard that I am a pretty avid bicyclist and have done a little bit of competitive riding over the years. I’m not very good, actually, but I do enjoy the challenge and find that having at least one competitive event on the calendar gives me a goal to shoot for and keeps me motivated to train appropriately. Like running a marathon, you can’t do a bike race without conditioning your body over time in a disciplined way.

This little book is one of the tools I use at this time of year when typically slippery roads and cold weather keep you doing most of your riding indoors on a stationary trainer. It’s a book of many different indoor workouts that target different muscle groups and systems. It’s a very useful tool. It keeps me on track. It gives me feedback on how I’m doing. It motivates me. It encourages an intentional approach that keeps me from spinning my wheels in vain and systematically prepares me for the rigors of bike racing.

In today’s gospel reading we see Jesus doing some rigorous work. Right after he leaves his hometown synagogue, he goes to the house of Simon Peter. Simon’s mother in-law is seriously ill with a fever. Fevers oftentimes were fatal in the ancient world. Jesus goes right to work and heals her.

Next we see people gathering around the door of the house—a lot of people. Mark says that the entire town turned up. They brought to Jesus people who were sick and afflicted by many different kinds of demons. In the ancient world most problems that a person could have were attributed to demons or evil spirits. So imagine people coming to Jesus who suffer from a whole range of maladies that we might call sickness, disease, mental illness, personality disorders, etc.

And we see Jesus roll up his sleeves and get to work healing these broken human beings. It only makes sense. In his sermon back in the synagogue, Jesus proclaimed that God’s kingdom was near, and when God’s reign comes near, that means God’s desire for the world prevails. People are healed, raised up from various kinds of death to new life.

They are restored to community, because in biblical times disease isolated a person from the community. Healing is for the well-being of the individual and for the good of the whole community. Jesus is putting people’s lives back together and drawing the life of the community back together. This is what happens when God’s kingdom comes near.

I imagine this as rather a chaotic scene—so many people with so many afflictions. If the mouthy demon we met last week in the synagogue was typical, we can imagine that the spirits put up quite a fight for Jesus. I’m sure he was bone-tired by the end of that evening.

So what happens next is a bit of a surprise. I’d expect to find Jesus sleeping in after such a hard night’s work. But instead, we find him sneaking away in the wee hours of the morning as everyone else sleeps. He is trying to get away, seeking a place of solitude where he can spend time in prayer.

When we look at the larger picture, we see that this is not the exception for Jesus, but rather the norm. At crucial points in his ministry he withdraws to a place by himself for prayer. I expect he contemplated the scriptures, which he would have known by heart. I expect he listened to God’s Word as a kind of game plan, if you will, to guide him in the work that God was calling him to do. The Word of God has always called faithful servants of God out of themselves to live generously on behalf of others. And that’s precisely the kind of life we see embodied in Jesus—a life lived generously so that others might be healed and communities be restored to wholeness.

I imagine Jesus was drawn into these times of prayer because he needed to be nourished by conversation with God, and that can only happen when he steps away from his work intentionally. The time away from his work, in other words, is precisely for the sake of his work. When his time of solitude, contemplation, and prayer comes to an end, he is propelled back out into the world that needs him. So at the end of today’s gospel reading we see Jesus moving on to do his work in the next town and village.

The Gospel of Mark is quite clear that we, as followers of Jesus, are called to follow in the way that he showed us; that is, the way of self-giving love for the good of others. We are called to this generous way of living through which God’s kingdom of love breaks out around us, bringing healing and new life to individuals and communities.

But I don’t think this is our natural inclination. If it were, we wouldn’t receive so many solicitations from charitable organizations. Indeed, charities wouldn’t need to exist because we would all just sort of spontaneously care for the sick, the suffering, the poor, the hungry. If it were our second nature, we wouldn’t need to be asked and motivated to help others.

But we do need to be asked and motivated. We need to keep the kingdom game plan in hand. And the game plan isn’t in a little book like this [training book]. It is in this book [the Bible]. And we need to be disciplined about consulting it in quietness and prayer, apart from our work, so that we may return to our work with a renewed sense of what we are to be about as God’s faithful servants in our daily lives.

The church has a plan for keeping us in touch with the play book. It’s called worship. When we worship we gather around the Word of God, read, expounded upon, prayed, and enacted. Worship reminds us of who we are and what we are about. Worshipping regularly is part of an intentional, disciplined way of following Jesus—taking time out from our daily work so that we may return to it with a renewed sense of who we are what we are about.

And the church has another plan for keeping us in touch with “the play book,” and it’s called the daily lectionary. “Lectio” means “to read.” So a daily lectionary is simply a plan for reading the Bible every day. We have one right here in the back of ELW, and if you stick with it for three years, you will read a decent chunk of the Bible.

As part of our vision for what we want to be about as a faith community, one of our four focus areas calls us to be intentional in faith formation and spiritual practices: in other words, how do we stick to the game plan that God has in mind for us?

As you’ve no doubt heard, we are going to be placing Bibles in the pews in a couple of weeks. They won’t be there just for decoration. We are going to use them regularly in worship to improve our ability to navigate within the scriptures. During the season of Lent, which begins February 22, we are going to provide you with a page that you can stick in your Bible at home, that lists all the daily Bible readings. I want to encourage you strongly to adopt of the practice of daily scripture reading as one of your Lenten disciplines this year.

During worship at 7:00 on Wednesday evenings during Lent, Pastor Robin or I will lead a mini-Bible study that will prepare you to hear the scripture readings for the coming Sunday. Then on Sunday, I will lead a Bible study during the forum time focusing on the passion narratives in the gospels, and Pastor Robin will lead a Bible study group that meets during the week.

Bibles, Bible study, encouragement and support from your pastors -- why are we doing all this? Why are we bothering to make faith formation and spiritual practices part of the vision of our life together? Well, have you ever noticed that the words “disciple” and “discipline” are related? Disciples are disciplined followers of God’s way in the world. What God gives us—life and salvation—is pure gift. How we choose to respond to that gift requires intentionality and discipline. So take time out from your daily work to find a quiet place by yourself with your Bible in hand. You will find it a very useful tool for keeping yourself on track, giving you feedback on how you’re doing, and motivating you. And it may even keep you from spinning your wheels in vain.

Spiritual but not religious

2012-02-04T19:42:00.000-08:00

I appreciate this post by my friend and colleague, the Rev. Dwight DuBois, director of the Center for Renewal at Grand View University.

http://centerforrenewal.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/a-false-dichotomy-spiritual-but-not-religious/

Sermon for Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

2012-01-22T12:24:00.000-08:00

This is the sermon I preached at Windsor Presbyterian as we were privileged to hear the pastors of Windsor Presbyterian and Windsor United Methodist Churches at our services this weekend at WHLC. Click here for a brief history of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity -- geii.org

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – Sunday, January 22, 2012

1 Corinthians 15:51-58

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has been celebrated annuallysince 1908 and is now coordinated by the World Council of Churchesand the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity.Each year a theme is chosen that comes from a biblical text. When Ifirst heard this year's theme, “We will all be changed by thevictory of our Lord Jesus Christ,” which comes from Paul's firstletter to the Corinthians, I thought, “Huh.” Like many of youperhaps, these words from 1 Corinthians come to mind in the contextof funerals. Indeed, it is one of the passages that we Lutherans atleast read regularly at the graveside.

And for good reason, right? Paul speaks in this passage of a bodilyresurrection. Our physical bodies are not insignificant to the Godwho made them. So important, so beloved, are these bodies that theCreator who formed them out of the dust of the earth will raise themup to eternal life. How mind boggling is that? As the great Germantheologian Jurgen Moltmann once said, not one thing that the Creatormade is ultimately lost to God. God so loves every single thing thatGod has made that all things will be raised up in the end to eternallife in God. What an amazing thought! And that is the conviction thatthe church has tried to preserve and teach in the Apostles' Creed,where we confess our belief in the resurrection of the body.

But there is more than a bodily resurrection, says Paul. It is not amatter simply of our physical bodies being revived, returned to theirformer living condition. We will all be changed, says Paul –transformed. What we were is part of the picture ofresurrection life, but we will also be transformed into somethingthat we cannot yet even imagine. There is both continuity and aradical discontinuity: continuity with who and what we are now, butalso a profound difference in whatever and whomever we are to becomein eternal life. Eternal life is not simply more of this life, but atransformed kind of life that is radically new and different.

For me the bottom line of what Paul is saying is this: transformationis not optional. Change is the only way to get from death to newlife.

Tell me if you've heard this joke. How many Lutherans does it take tochange a light bulb? Change?! Lutherans don't change! Of course, youall have heard this joke with “Presbyterian” substituted for“Lutheran,” right? It's a joke we all tell on ourselves in ourchurches because none of us really likes change all that much.

We may not like or always welcome change, but the truth is that thechurch has changed right out from under us. I could bring in awheelbarrow load of articles, research papers, and scholarly tomesabout the changing religious landscape of America in the late-20thand early-21st centuries, and so could your pastor, of course. Thissubstantial body of research, though, does not offer us wheelbarrowloads of positive news, but rather facts like this:

Those who do participate in a faith community consider themselves to be “active” members if they attend worship once a month.
From 2005 to 2010 (note that's a period of only five years!), worship attendance in 40% of congregations fell 2%. In 31% of congregations, worship attendance declined by 10%.
More than one in four congregations have fewer than 50 people in worship every week.
Overall the median worship attendance for all congregations regardless of size (so the really large churches are included in this statistic), dropped from 130 to 108 in the last decade.
If we look only at mainline churches (congregations like yours and mine), the drop is even more profound. From 2000 to 2010, our average attendance dropped from 179 to 73, a decrease of 41% in ten years!
This same pattern is reflected in white evangelical and racial or ethnic congregations as well as old line Protestant congregations, just not to the same degree (yet).
The fastest growing segment of the American religious population are the “nones,” that is, those who are not members of any faith community.
The lower your age and the higher your level of education, the less likely you are to go to church.¹

Of course, declining numbers in worship attendance and membershipoftentimes – not always, but frequently – translates into fewerresources for ministry, fewer people offering their gifts of time,talent, and treasure.

I know all of this can sound so academic, as we picture pie chartsand bar graphs in some sociologist's research paper. But if you areold enough to have adult children or grandchildren and think abouttheir religious practices, oftentimes we see these mega shifts inattitudes and practices reflected in our own families.

All this can be a little depressing. I confess that as a religiousleader, this kind of demographic data gives me pause and occasionallyinduces sleepless nights. In some ways, it feels kind of like death.In some ways, I guess, it is death, at least death of thechurch as it once was.

And yet I am in no way ready to have a funeral for the church. On mybetter days, I am profoundly optimistic as I realize that it's notabout us, it's about God. Whatever future God has in mind for thechurch, I am absolutely confident that God is in control of it, notus. And why do we bother to be church anyway? Why do we bother togather as church? Why do we bother to live as followers of Jesus? Isit not because we believe in a God who brings life from death? Webelieve in a God who is in the business of resurrecting dead bodiesand transforming them into something radically new that none of uscan imagine from our perspective in the present.

So perhaps Paul's dynamic of earthly body and resurrection body,continuity and discontinuity, can say something to us about thefuture of the church.

Whatever we end up being in the future, there will certainly becontinuity with what we have been in the past. Look at what we aredoing today as an example. Both here and in my congregation threeblocks down the street, the faithful are gathered around the Word,hearing a biblical sermon, confessing a common faith in a historiccreed or similar words, singing songs of faith, and sometimes sharingthe meal of Jesus's ongoing presence. There is and always will be inthe church a continuity that extends through our forebears in thefaith of every generation all the way back to Jesus himself. Doingthese things that we do when we gather is how we know that we are thechurch.

But if Paul's analogy of death and resurrection pertains at all tothe church, whatever we will become is going to happen only throughchange and transformation, not through revivifying the church as itwas at some moment in the past. We can expect to be changed, to betransformed, solely by the power and the grace of God, into whateveris to come.

I don't have a crystal ball, but I do have some hopes and dreams aswe live into the future church that is emerging.

I hope that as congregations we will find the grace to let go ofthose things we are no longer able to do well on our own (perhapsbecause of declining resources) and explore ways of sharing the giftsof others. Wouldn't it be interesting to think about the things eachof our communities does really well and is passionate about, and thenimagine how we might share our best gifts with one another? Oh, wow!You guys have a really great bereavement ministry. We could reallyuse that for our people who are experiencing loss. You all do areally good job with Vacation Bible School! How could we share thatministry with our kids and grand kids? Wow! You have a fantasticBible study program. You know, that's exactly the kind of thing thatwe could benefit from. Wouldn't it be interesting to think about thethings we are really good at and passionate about – to assess thegifts and strengths that God has given each of our communities –and then think about how we might share them for the good of oneanother?

And wouldn't it be interesting to think about the needs of thisneighborhood, in which God has placed us for some reason, andthink about a way of making a difference that none of us is strongenough, or has enough resources, to do alone? God doesn't call us todo things that we don't already have the gifts to do, but maybe wehave gifts together that we don't have alone.

The only transformation that happens in the twinkling of an eye willbe the one that God works at the end of time. In the meantime, weknow that meaningful change never comes overnight. And so dedicationand patience is required of us. Perhaps the greatest gift we can giveone another is the gift of mutual support. How can we speak words ofcomfort and hope to one another during this great sea change that isrocking the church in our time? How can we find ways to exhort,encourage, and uphold one another as we run the uphill race that isset before us?

There is a prayer in our Lutheran tradition that I dearly love. Itcomes from our service of Morning Prayer. More and more, I find it tobe my daily prayer as I ponder the future that God has in mind forthe church.

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which wecannot see the ending, by paths yet untrodden, through perilsunknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing wherewe go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supportingus; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

As we walk the path of change and transformation that lies before us,I pray that we will be willing to share the journey together,confident that “we shall all be changed by the victory of our LordJesus Christ.”

1 http ://www .healthychurch .org /doorpost /enews -january -2012?page =2

Technology, literalism sometimes override mystery and beauty

2012-01-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

A nice thoughtful article, with which I tend to agree.

It is possible to talk all the mystery away, and when the mystery is gone, so too is our experience of sacredness, prayerfulness, and awe.

Sermon for the Epiphany

2012-01-09T18:51:00.000-08:00

The Epiphany of Our Lord (transferred)/January 8, 2012
Matthew 2:1-12

Matthew is the only gospel writer to tell this story of the Three Mystery Guys from Somewhere in the far East. He calls them magi, but nobody knows for sure what that means or even how many of them there were. Magi is the plural form of the word, so there could have been three, thirty-three, or a hundred and three. We don't really know.

So who were these mystery men? Sometimes we call them “wise men,” which is a little too generic. Sometimes we call them “kings,” which is incorrect. They were not kings. (Sorry. The Christmas carol is wrong on this point.) Sometimes we call them “astrologers,” which is partially correct.

The magi seem to have been high-ranking religious and political advisors to the rulers of the Persian empire (roughly equivalent to modern day Iran and Iraq). Some speculate that they may even have been Kurds. They were well-known as astrologers. In ancient times everybody assumed that the movements of the stars and planets had spiritual significance, and the magi were famous for their ability to interpret heavenly signs. They were also well-known interpreters of dreams and generally regarded as exceedingly wise. So the song should go: “We three wise astrologer-dream interpreters from Kurdistan are . . .” (I’m probably not going to talk you into that, though, am I?)

Anyways, you can see their significance in Matthew’s story. If a new star were to appear in the night sky, signifying an event of great importance, the magi would be just the guys to notice it. Of course it’s also through dream interpretation that they are warned to return to their country by an alternate route because King Herod has murder on his mind. (We know that Herod doesn’t really want to go and worship Jesus. He wants to go and kill him.)

These visitors from the far east are significant in another way. The Persians were known for their centuries-old resistance to Western imperialism. They had a reputation throughout the ancient world for holding out against conquerors from the West like Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, and now in Jesus’ time, the Roman Empire. In fact, at the very same time that the Romans were battling against the Jewish revolt in Palestine and ruling with an iron fist, they were being forced to make concessions in Persia.

Well, so what? It’s just ancient history to us. Interesting maybe. But these were current events for Matthew and his audience. When Matthew says “magi” all this stuff would have come to mind for them. Magi from the East come and submit themselves to Jesus and proclaim him as king. Here in this little babe is the true King of Kings, recognized even by the proud, fiercely independent, wise men from the East.

For Matthew the visit of the magi proclaims the true significance of the birth of Christ. Here is something greater than Herod. Here is something greater than Caesar. Here is something greater than all empires. Here is the true king, who, above all kings and above all things, is worthy to be worshiped.

And that is precisely what the magi have come to do. That is their only mission: to worship Christ the newborn king. They kneel and pay him homage, offering their finest gifts fit for royalty.

In placing this story at the outset of his gospel, Matthew is saying, if even these great magi from the East come and worship Christ, so should you―so should all. That is the only appropriate response to the appearance of the King of kings. Matthew then reinforces this point throughout his gospel. This same word that he uses to describe the magi kneeling and worshipping Jesus, he uses again and again to depict the appropriate response to Christ.

A few examples:

From Chapter 8: “There was a leper who came to him and knelt before him [same word], saying, ‘Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.’”

From Chapter 9: “Suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, ‘My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.’”

From Chapter 14: After Jesus stills the storm on the Sea of Galilee, Matthew says, “those in the boat worshiped him.”

From Chapter 15: A Canaanite woman “came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’”

Then at the end of the gospel, paralleling the magi’s response at the beginning of the gospel and all the faithful responses we’ve seen throughout the gospel, the disciples, encountering the risen Christ for the first time, “came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.”

And the very last act of the disciples in Matthew’s gospel is described like this: “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but,” adds Matthew, “some doubted.” Doubt and worship apparently are not mutually exclusive. Here we see some of the disciples doing both in the same breath. Matthew’s point is very clear: the most appropriate response to encountering Christ is to bow down and worship him.

The first question in the Westminster Catechism, used in the Reformed tradition, is, “What is the chief end of man?” It then answers, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Isn't that Matthew's point? Our chief end, our main purpose in life, is to glorify, to praise, to worship God. Worship is the most important thing we do in life.

Why do we come together as an assembly every week? Not to be entertained. Not to be pleased by a particular style or atmosphere or ethos of worship. Not even to get something out of it (though if we do, that’s an added benefit). We come to worship every week to worship. Period. And we do so because that is the only gift we can offer in response to God’s gift of Christ, God’s Word of hope and healing made flesh in the world.

Though the magi’s fine gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh suggest that we should offer the finest gifts that we can muster in worship, the “quality” of the worship experience is at least secondary. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we should worship poorly. I am saying that the most important thing in the end is simply showing up. The main point is to be here doing this rather than to be somewhere else doing something else.

Because, you see, as for the magi of old, our choice to show up, our choice to come and bow down before Christ the King, is a tangible expression of our allegiance amidst all the competing gods and powers that rule our lives. We may not call them Herod or Caesar, but we know well the things that control us, and we tend to pay them much more homage than they deserve. Seeing worship as not just one wholesome activity among many options but as the thing -- our highest duty and joy in life -- is freedom, at least for a day, at least for an hour, from the other powers that hold sway over us.

Epiphany comes with a promise and a challenge. Christ is born, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, hope for all this hurting world. Are we ready now to come on bended knee and offer him our worship and praise?

Epiphany Reclaimed

2012-01-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

It's true that we don't often celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany because, as a dated festival (it always occurs on January 6), it usually falls on a weekday. We decided to go ahead and celebrate one of the great festivals of the church year anyway on the weekend of January 7-8. The calendar says that it should be the Baptism of our Lord this Sunday, but in the Eastern Church, there is a tradition of connecting the epiphany and the baptism of Jesus -- so we're in good company!

Here's a nice article I ran across about how our celebration of Christmas is incomplete without the Epiphany. If you are interested in learning more about this festival and its significance, there are many resources on the web.

Los Tres Reyes: Did We Miss a Holiday?

Sermon for Christmas Eve

2011-12-26T15:17:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve B 2011
Luke 2:1-20

A Facebook friend’s status recently said, “6 days of work - 52 hours - 2 Christmas parties - shopping - wrapping - not nearly enough sleep. I think the song should be ‘It's the Most Exhausting Time of the Year.’”

I expect she is not alone in finding this an exhausting time of the year. I know that when I have asked the customary polite question “How are you?” in the last week, it has been met more than once with a weary look and a sigh and an exasperated “I am so not ready for Christmas!”

I know that I am not ready for Christmas this year, at least in a spiritual sense. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is because I stink at Advent. Yes, there is this four-week season of preparation called Advent. It’s meant to be a quiet time, a reflective and penitential season, an opportunity to take stock of one’s faith and life. It is also the start of a new church year and so a particularly appropriate time to begin a new spiritual practice or dust off a familiar one.

At the start of this new year and in preparation for the coming of Christ, I resolve to be more intentional about my prayer life and regular reading of scripture. But then somehow it gets to be the second week of Advent, and I notice that the bookmark in my devotional book is still on the first week of Advent. And so, with a healthy does of Lutheran guilt, I scramble to catch up. But then all of a sudden it’s week four of Advent and my bookmark seems to be languishing back in week three. And then it’s Christmas. Blew it again!

But here we are, all of us, sitting in church on Christmas Eve. Whether we are ready or not, Christmas is here. The Savior is born as unwrapped gifts sit at home on the kitchen table and the last batch of cookies burns in the oven. Christmas is like that. It comes whether you’re prepared for it or not.

Christmas is like that. Shepherds in the field going about their nightly routine. Trying hard to stay awake and make sure that no harm comes to the animals in their care. Eyes alert for expected things like a lamb straying from its mother or a wolf circling the flock.

And then with no warning, out of the dark blue of the night sky, a dazzling flash of otherworldly brilliance and angelic voices singing the birth of a Savior, the Messiah, the Lord. Ready or not, Christmas bursts in upon this ordinary nighttime scene taking the unprepared, unsuspecting shepherds completely by surprise.

Mary travels with Joseph to his ancestral home for the most mundane of purposes: to be registered so that government can tax them. Joseph’s relatives have no room for the young couple at their place because there are so many other family members in town for the census. The inn is full because people’s homes are full, and the stable was probably full to the walls too. People slept wherever they could find room.

A barn is hardly a suitable place for a very pregnant woman to spend the night; the animals’ feed trough hardly the best place to lay a new born infant. Surely Mary and Joseph had hoped to be better prepared for the birth of their son. But babies are like that. Whether we are ready to receive them in the best possible way or not, they burst into the world without concern for our timetables or conditions.

Christmas is like that. Whether you are ready or not, the Savior reveals himself to you this night. In the Word proclaimed, in the meal shared, Jesus, the Savior, is born for you right here, right now.

Your mind may be elsewhere. Your heart may be focused on other things. You may be distracted by all the preparations you were not able to accomplish in time or things that need to be done yet tonight or early tomorrow morning. Perhaps you are weary from traveling or worn out from walking a difficult path through life. Maybe you are not ready to face Christmas without a loved one. Maybe you are in no mood to celebrate without a job. Maybe the stress of the season has turned you into a real Grinch. Maybe the implausibility of it all, or the hypocrisy of the secular celebration of Christmas, has hardened your heart like Scrooge. Or maybe, like your pastor, your spiritual readiness leaves something to be desired.

But know this: whether you are prepared or not, whether the conditions of your life are optimal, whether the timing is right, whether you can believe it or not, God is here. God is born into this world, this place, this time for you.

Are you ready for Christmas? I guess that’s kind of beside the point. A child is born. Our Savior is here. Come, let us adore him.

Should Christianity re-invent itself by going retro?

2011-12-13T21:51:00.000-08:00

Short, but right on.

The world needs to see concrete examples of a generous-spirited, intellectually alive, spiritually profound, interfaith sensitive, scientifically open, socially engaged Christianity. And the good news is that there are writers, church leaders and congregations across the theological spectrum giving this voice and face.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/should-christianity-re-invent-itself-by-going-retro/2011/12/12/gIQAP3X3pO_blog.html

Sermon for Third Sunday of Advent

2011-12-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

Advent 3B -- December 11, 2011
Isaiah 61:1–4, 8–11; John 1: 6–8, 19–28

I was riding my bike one day . . . all good stories begin like that! I was riding my bike one day this week. Yes, it was in the low to mid-20s. When it’s that cold, you can see about this much of me [eyes only] peaking out of multiple layers of clothing. I was riding along the western edge of Ankeny about 10 to 15 minutes north of our home on a road I travel frequently. All of a sudden I noticed the figure of a man ahead crossing the road in my direction. He looked clearly like he wanted me to stop so that he could talk to me.

As I got closer, I heard him say, “Can you help me?” I stopped, pretty much in the middle of the road, luckily a road with no traffic on it. He said again, “Can you help me? I’m homeless.” You might expect to hear those words spoken on the streets of a big city, or maybe even in downtown Des Moines. This is not, however, what you expect to hear in Ankeny, standing within spitting distance of several large homes on big lots easily in the half to three-quarter million dollar range. This is not where you expect to encounter the homeless. But things have changed, haven’t they?

He was a young man, in his twenties, I’d guess. He had on a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up -- like I said, it was cold -- no gloves. He looked honest. Sometimes there’s a flicker of doubt. Not with this guy, he was telling the truth. I knew it.

I was quiet as I pondered what to do, then offered him the only suggestion I could think of. I gave him directions to the nearest church, knowing that he would have to walk a mile and-a-half or two to get there, and not knowing if anyone there would be able to help him. He said, “OK,” and started walking.

As I set off in the opposite direction, I immediately began to internally assess the quality of my response. I don’t carry a wallet when I ride, so I couldn’t have given him cash. I didn’t have my cell phone with me, so there was no way for me to call the police to see if they might give him a ride to a shelter. I was too far away from my own home for him to follow me there, and even if that had been possible, it wouldn’t have been the safest thing to do. Even though all of these statements were true, I still felt like they were in a way excuses for not helping him, ways of keeping this homeless young man and his problems at arms length, so that I didn’t have to deal with him.

We all have our ways of keeping the truth at arms length. It strikes me that this is the strategy of the Pharisees in reacting to John. They want to keep him safely in some categories that they can understand and, therefore, control. Who does this wannabe prophet think he is?

“Are you the Messiah?” they ask sarcastically. I think we need to hear this not as a serious question on their part, but as a rhetorical one that expects the answer “no.” John obliges: “I am not the Messiah.”

"What then? Are you Elijah?" Some expected the prophet Elijah to return before the Messiah, so this is a logical question, but I still hear sarcasm in their voices. “I am not,” said John.

“Are you the prophet?” Another reasonable question, for some thought a great prophet might arise in the days before the Messiah appeared. “No,” John answered.

“Then who are you? Let us have an answer. What do you have to say for yourself?” And John said,
"I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
'Make straight the way of the Lord,'"
as the prophet Isaiah said.”

But the way of the Lord means a new way, not necessarily the way the Pharisees had in mind. The way of the Lord means the Lord’s way, not necessarily our way. And we too have our strategies for keeping the truth at arms length.

John understands himself to be a voice, like that of the prophet Isaiah, pointing to the coming of the Lord’s way, a different way thinking, a new way of being. “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,” cries Isaiah, “because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners.”
Isaiah and John both point to the coming of the Lord’s way, a way that is good news for the oppressed, healing for the brokenhearted, freedom for captives.

But right away I feel my strategy kicking in for keeping this truth at arms length. Like a good priest and Levite I ask, “But what does this really mean?” And I analyze the text in terms of its socio-historical setting and its context within the book of Isaiah. And I tell myself, indeed I would teach you in a Bible study on this text, that Isaiah’s words are spoken to his people toward the end of their exile in Babylon. After being defeated by their enemy and taken into captivity for a long time in a foreign land, finally they are being allowed to return home, finally they about to be set free. Good news for those ancient people!

But where am I, where are you, in that way of hearing the text? Does our study of it, our attempts to understand it intellectually, become simply another strategy for keeping its truth at arms length, so that we may continue undisturbed in our familiar way and not have to step onto the highway of our Lord, a way that calls us to repentance, to a new way of thinking, relating, seeing -- a new way of being in the world -- a way that is good news for today’s oppressed, healing for today’s brokenhearted, freedom for those who are captive now?

What if God means for us to hear this word in first person terms, addressed directly to each of us, today? What if the Spirit of the Lord God is upon you? What if you are anointed by the LORD? What if you are sent to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to those who are captive? Captive to what? To hunger? To homelessness? Poverty? Despair?

What if you are called as a witness to testify to the light? How do you point to the light that is coming into the world to drive the darkness away not someday but even here, even now? Are you willing to be bumped off your path, diverted from your way onto the way of the Lord?

Things have changed when you encounter homeless ones on the streets of Ankeny. When people who have never been hungry before overwhelm our local food pantries, we know that things have changed. What never changes is the clarity of our call to bring good news to the hurting, to witness to the light who is coming into the world. May God give us wisdom to know God’s purpose for us, and openness to hear God’s will, that we may bear witness to the light and prepare the way of the Lord.

Advent calls for change

2011-12-10T08:49:00.001-08:00

A nice reflection by Dianne Bergant on how Advent calls us to discover our need to change, as individuals and communities.

The Third Sunday of Advent invites us into a world of reversals, a world where the captives are freed, where the hungry are filled and where the rich are sent away empty.

http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=2650

Rational functionalism

2011-12-06T19:42:00.001-08:00

Is our desire to "fix what's wrong" keeping us from focusing on the important question: "What is God calling us to be and to do?"

Many denominations, churches, pastors, and members have become mired in a series of worthless arguments in their attempt to diagnose why mainstream denominations and churches are in decline . . . In the rationally functional church, the focus is on maintaining the institution, not on creating experiences through which God can be encountered and experienced in our midst.

http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=9828

Spiritual Discernment

2011-12-03T12:10:00.001-08:00

What's the difference between strategic planning and spiritual discernment in the life of a congregation? This article does a good job of delineating. Click on the provocative title to read.

Why Strategic Planning for Churches Wastes Your Time

Less is more

2011-11-29T19:04:00.001-08:00

I recently re-read one of the best books I have ever read, Barbara Brown Taylor's When God is Silent. She was greatly influenced by Fred Craddock, so I expect it was thinking of Craddock that brought her book to mind. Though Taylor reflects on the craft of preaching, most of what she says has much broader implications. For instance, in arguing for economy in preaching, she says:

Another reason to craft shorter sermons is to leave more room for other elements of worship. The way many of our services are designed, the spotlight is on the preacher, with sometimes disastrous results for congregational life and the preacher's own sense of importance. On what grounds is a sermon more essential to the salvation of souls than public reading of scripture, corporate prayers, or the recital of the church's faith in psalms and hymns? In a world drowning in noise, what could be more redemptive than a few moments of hallowed silence? Different churches have different customs, and I have heard forty-minute sermons I wished would never end. On the whole, however, I believe many of us do more honor to the Word of God by saying less instead of more.

Food for thought.

Interview with a great preacher

2011-11-29T07:00:00.001-08:00

In my sermon for the First Sunday of Advent I referred to Fred Craddock, who is one of the most influential preachers and teachers of preaching of our time. A friend posted the following interview with Craddock on Facebook. It is worth the read.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/27/us/craddock-profile/index.html

Sermon for First Sunday of Advent

2011-11-27T12:22:00.001-08:00

Advent 1B―November 27, 2011
Isaiah 64:1-9

Impatience is a frequent theme in my household, and though I would like to blame the youngest member of the family for being the most impatient of us, that would be less than fair. Many illustrations come to mind, but to spare any of us acute embarrassment, I will just say this: the phrase, “___________, you need to stop what you’re doing, slow down, and listen,” is, or could be, uttered frequently. I expect that such words are spoken not only in our home. And I expect that they, in fact, say something central about human experience: we do not like to wait.

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” This is a desperate prayer, an impatient cry. The prophet Isaiah is in no mood for waiting.

When Israel returned from exile in Babylon, what they found was a catastrophic mess and little reason to be hopeful. Jerusalem, including the magnificent temple, lay in ruins. The devastation of their beloved city was beyond anything they had imagined. The task of rebuilding seemed impossible.

As these first exiles return, they are dismayed and discouraged. The hope that had filled their hearts in anticipation of homecoming is now dashed to bits and overwhelmed by doubt and lament. “O God, that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence―as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil.”

Isaiah prays for God to be present―right here, right now―in some way as obvious as mountains shaking, as clear as fire making water boil, in some way so obvious that even Israel's enemies would notice. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” is the prayer of those who long for God, but cannot see or hear God. It is the prayer of a people for whom God is absent.

Do you know how that feels? Have you ever prayed and felt like God was not listening? Have you ever stood beside a hurting loved one and prayed for God's help, but felt like God was far away? Have you sometimes prayed, “O God, tear open the heavens and come down”—come and be present now in some obvious way!

Maybe you are surprised that anyone in the Bible ever prayed like that. Maybe you thought it was only you. Sometimes we get the impression that people in the Bible sort of had God on speed dial. All they had to do was punch a button and God was there.

Sometimes for some people there seem to be moments of sudden insight, where everything becomes crystal clear in a flash. St. Paul's experience on the Damascus Road, for instance, where the Spirit knocked him off his horse, and immediately he saw the light. Our relationship with God would be ever so much easier if things were always that clear to us.

Isaiah once had an experience like that. When he was a young man praying in the temple one day, it was like the clouds parted and he saw straight up into heaven―saw God sitting on a throne, heard God speaking clearly to him.

But not in today's reading. That moment of blinding insight was long ago. Now Isaiah is an old man returning from exile with his people―returning to their ruined city, their ruined temple, their ruined way of life. Standing in the rubble of the temple, in the ruins of a lost faith, Isaiah cries out with no more patience to spare, “O God, that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”

That usually does not happen, though, does it? When we cry out during those times of God's absence, we do not usually experience God tearing open the heavens and coming in some loud, dramatic way. Usually we have to wait, and wait some more, and pay attention closely for signs of God's return. And when God does speak, it is usually more of a whisper than a shout.

Fred Craddock, one of the greatest preachers of our time, once confessed, “My problem with God has been God's timidity, God's quietness.” What a shock to hear such a great spokesperson for God admit his own struggle with God's silence. But if it is true for him, maybe it is true for us as well.

Craddock thinks we can be thrown off by the way the Bible narrates events in Technicolor with Dolby THX surround sound. He means, for instance, how Luke dramatically tells us that God struck King Herod dead on the spot and his body was immediately consumed by worms. History, however, tells us that Herod died of the gout.

Or how the Exodus story depicts God drowning the chariots of Egypt in the raging sea. Egyptian historians, however, who were meticulous about recording things in great detail, never mention such an event. Maybe to the casual onlooker it was a matter of chariots getting bogged down in the mud, as the Hebrew people narrowly escaped. But to the eyes of faith looking back years hence from the promised land, it was a matter of God stepping in dramatically and rescuing the people from slavery.

You know how it is when preachers sort of overstate a point in order to get people's attention? Well, maybe it's like that with the Bible. The voice of God which was more like a whisper in the first place is later reported as a great shout. In Galatians, Paul tells us about his own conversion story in very muted tones, in contrast to the dramatic horse-tipping scene depicted in Acts.

Or remember the story in John's gospel where Jesus hears the voice of God speaking clear as a bell from heaven, but others standing by think they hear thunder? What sounded so clearly like the voice of God to Jesus sounded to bystanders like the rumbles of a distant storm.

If we can conclude anything about the presence of God surely it is this: rarely is God present in ways that are obvious. As William Willimon says: “in my experience God speaks most often through whispers, not shouts. God is found in the shadows, rather than blinding light. And sometimes the whispers are very low whispers, and sometimes the shadows are very dark.”

We modern folk are rarely free from the blare of TV, the internet, iPods, and smart phones. With the burgeoning of all things mobile, almost everyone has a screen in his hand or earbuds in her ears most of the time. If God is not prone to shout, surely we cannot expect to hear God’s whisper above the din of our multi-tasking and hyper-connectivity.

So maybe this is why the church, in her great wisdom, gives us this quiet time of Advent in the weeks before Christmas. If we are going to hear the song of the angels, we must first learn to be quiet.

And maybe, even more so, Advent is meant to be a kind of rehearsal for those seasons when we must wait upon God, those seasons―sometimes short, sometimes long―when God is absent. May Advent teach us to wait. May Advent tune our ears to listen. May Advent encourage us in times of absence to stay alert for signs of God's return.

And perhaps Advent can even help us to hear God’s whisper, which seems to be how God chooses to speak until that day when the stars begin to fall.

Sermon for Christ the King

2011-11-22T10:47:00.001-08:00

Christ the King A—November 20, 2012
Matthew 25:31-46

Feed the hungry. Give something to drink to those who are thirsty. Welcome the stranger. Clothe the naked. Take care of the sick. Visit the imprisoned. We do not need Jesus to tell us to do these things. We do not need to be Christian to do these things. We simply know in our hearts and our minds that it is right to take care of those who are hurting, vulnerable, and in desperate need.

We do not need Jesus to tell us that we are in this thing called life together. Despite all the lies that our culture tells us about the value of independence, we know that we really cannot go it alone. We know that life in our communities and on this planet is like a piece of tightly woven fabric. If you pull a thread in one spot, it vibrates throughout the whole piece. If a tear develops and is not mended, the threads begin to unravel, the tear grows, and eventually the whole garment falls apart. We do not need Jesus to tell us that it is a good idea to mend the tears in the fabric of life. It is simply common sense.

The ethicist Peter Singer, for example, comes to the very commonsense conclusion that every person is obligated – his word, not mine – to give away about ten percent of his or her wealth to help those in need. He arrives at this conclusion without reference to any religious principles. (I don't know, in fact, whether he is a believer of any sort.) He simply does the math and concludes that if those who have a good quality of life would share about ten percent of what they have, the quality of life for those who lack the basics of life would be dramatically improved. Again, this is a simple, commonsense conclusion for Singer, not deep spirituality or complex theology.

We can read in The Des Moines Register that demand at area food pantries is up over 80% from a year ago and conclude easily that there is a growing hunger problem right in our community. We can read about the the record numbers crowding Central Iowa Shelter and Services every night or living under bridges a stone's throw from all the economic vitality of downtown Des Moines and conclude that we have growing problem of homelessness. We can read The Lutheran magazine or the Bread for the World newsletter, or maybe listen to NPR or the BBC, or watch the nightly news and see that millions and millions of people with whom we share this planet are living in the very conditions Jesus names: hunger, thirst, poverty, and powerlessness. And it's a commonsense enough conclusion that we ought to do something to mend those tears before the whole garment of life unravels. We do not need Jesus to teach us this commonsense wisdom.

So what is this parable about then? If we don’t need Jesus to tell us that we ought to care for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned, then what do we need him to do?

First of all, we need him to remind us that we will one day be judged on the quality of our life together. We need him to remind us because not many of us believe it. Even though we confess in the creed every week that “He will come again to judge the living and the dead,” do we really believe it? Do we really think that we will be judged by some authority greater than ourselves and by some standard other than what I personally think is right or wrong? Maybe we need this parable of judgement that we hear on this Christ the King Sunday to remind us, at least once a year, that there is a truth beyond my own truth, a reign to come beyond my own sovereignty – a reminder that Jesus is king, and we are not.

And thank God for that, right? Is this not good news that there is a standard of justice higher than what we humans can manage? Is it not good news that one day justice will prevail over injustice? Certainly it is good news for those who are poor now, good news for those who are hungry now, good news for all those whom our sense of justice and fairness overlooks, good news that Jesus sees those who suffer want living alongside those who live in excess and one day will return to set this gross unbalance right.

And yet if you are persuaded to take the possibility of judgment seriously, don’t you also start to get a bit anxious? God's justice may be good news for the poor, but what kind of news will it be for us who are rich by any objective global standard? And the criteria by which Jesus judges are so specific: not was I pious and devout or did I believe all the right things, but did I care for the poor, and the hungry, and the powerless. Am I a sheep, or a goat? I like what Jesus has to say about the sheep, but what he says about the goats makes me kind of nervous.

This is when we need Jesus to do something more than remind us of the coming judgment. We need him to remind us who the Judge will be. We need him to remind us that he is our judge.

And who is he exactly? Here we are in Chapter 25, near the end of Matthew’s Gospel from which we have been reading almost every Sunday for an entire year. We've have had the whole previous 24 chapters to get to know what this Jesus is like. Who is this Jesus whom we’ve come to know?

Is he not the one who hangs out with sinners and outcasts? Is he not the one who forgives sins? Is he not the one who promises a place in his Father’s kingdom for all, the righteous and the unrighteous alike?

And is he not the one who will go forward from Chapter 25 into Chapter 26 and be murdered, and then come back and forgive the very people who rejected and killed him?

What kind of Judge, then, do we expect this Jesus to be? The one who loved us enough to die for us, who returned to us, even after we had betrayed him, and forgave us – this One is Judge. This Jesus, who came to love us beyond all reason, is the one who will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Jesus reminds us that we will be judged. Jesus reminds us that he will be our judge. Now we need him to remind us of just one thing more. We need him to remind us where we can find him now.

For it seems that our Savior and Lord and merciful judge is not content merely to hand out in heaven simply waiting for us to show up. Listen to this Jesus, who says, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Where is this Jesus to be found? He couldn’t tell us more plainly. Until the Day of Judgment, he lives in the brokenness of the world, in precisely those places where the fabric of life is frayed and torn.

Of course common sense tells us that we should care for those who are in desperate need. We don’t need Jesus to tell us that, and we don’t need to be Christian to do it. But as followers of Jesus we have a motivation that goes far beyond common sense. We know that these are the places and the faces where we meet our Lord. To follow Jesus means to get up and go where he is. Thank God he has told us so clearly where to look.

The Church's Desert Time

2011-11-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

A fine interview with Bishop Griswold, who offers much food for thought.

“There’s an arrogance and a self-confidence that is shattered by things falling apart,” said Griswold, former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. But beneath the church’s many challenges is an invitation to deeper wisdom, a hidden grace that leads to new insight, wisdom and resurrection.

http://www.faithandleadership.com/qa/frank-griswold-maybe-the-desert-time?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=headline&utm_campaign=FL_feature

Immanuel Lutheran Rose Window

2011-11-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

A nice story about generosity and the power of beauty in worship spaces.

http://www.gazettechicago.com/index/2011/11/first-immanuel-lutheran-regains-former-beauty-through-rose-window/

The Digital Bible

2011-10-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

It is interesting that during a time of rapidly declining church participation, downloads of digital bibles are booming. This article also has a couple of interesting things to say about the use of digital technology in churches.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/10/screen-savers.html

Theology Matters

2011-10-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

Theology and White Noise

Theologians often misrepresent the Gospel and the church. Take the recent writings of Rob Bell, for instance.

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Theology-and-White-Noise-Frederick-Schmidt-10-25-2011?offset=0&max=1

The Mouth House of God

2011-10-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with a parishioner recently that reminded me of the importance of listening in church. She remarked on how over the course of time she had on many occasions heard just the word that she needed to hear in a particular circumstance. It may have been a word of hope and comfort during a time of struggle, a word of encouragement, a word that offered clarity or helped to put life's competing priorities in perspective. These good words came from different sources: a prayer, a hymn, a scripture reading, a sermon, a newsletter article, a blurb in the bulletin. Whatever the source, this was God's Word going out of God's self to accomplish something in this person's life.

Luther calls the church “the mouth house of God.” It is the place where God speaks, the community where God takes on human flesh and speaks through human mouths. The implications of this are astonishing: if you want to hear God (yes, GOD) speak, come to church! You will hear God speaking through the scriptures read. You will hear God speaking in the music of psalms and hymns. You will hear God speaking as prayers and thanksgivings are offered. You will hear God speaking in the words of a pastor's sermon.

You may even hear God speaking through non-verbal words: children bringing forward their creative offerings, a symbol on a banner, artwork in the bulletin or hymnal, an image projected on a screen, a wordless melody played on an instrument, a loaf of bread broken, a cup uplifted, a hand extended with a greeting of peace.

Of course, it won't all communicate all the time, but sometimes you will hear just the good word that you need to hear, because God is speaking always. Even in a service where you hated every song, got distracted by a cobweb or spot on the carpet, couldn't believe how disorganized the preacher was that day, or could not relate to even one scripture reading, God was still speaking. Did you hear it? Did you miss what God was trying to say to you? How hard were you listening?

God never speaks through perfect people. God speaks through you and me, just like God chose long ago to speak through our fallible, broken ancestors who wrote the sacred scriptures. God fashions the mouth house of God out of the bricks and mortar of our flesh and bone, our failings and foibles, so that words of faith, hope, comfort, and encouragement may ring out on our lips.

God is speaking whenever the community gathers around the Word. Are we listening?

Christians are made, not born

2011-10-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

Today we used the "From Earth to Hand to Heart" liturgy, described as follows:

A service of thanks for the sustenance and abundance that comes from the earth, the bread that feeds us physically and spiritually, and our response to those gifts by caring for the earth and feeding the hungry both with food and spreading the Word of God.

That meant a break from the lectionary, something we rarely do, so if you were looking for a sermon on Matthew 22:15-22, come back in three years! Instead, I offered this homily that is more generally on the theme of living generously in response to God's grace. Next week is Consecration Sunday. I hope you are planning to join in this celebration of God's generosity.

18th Sunday after Pentecost

From Earth to Hand to Heart

“Christians are made, not born.” So said Tertullian, one of the early great theologians of the church, who lived along the coast of North Africa at the turn of the 3rd century. “Christians are made, not born.” What he meant is that there are no inborn Christian virtues. Nothing about being a follower of Jesus comes naturally for us. So much of what the church is about, then, is taking what does come naturally for us and reshaping it in the light of Jesus.i

Take, for example, the virtue of generosity. In our culture what comes naturally are words like “mine,” “I earned it,” and “I deserve it.” What is inborn in us is the instinct to hold on tight to what we think is ours. The open-handed generosity that is Christianity is not natural for us. It’s a learned behavior.ii

I will always remember a story told by Pastor Kurt Nordby, who was one of the assistants to our former Bishop, Phil Hougen. After Kurt's grandfather died, family members were going through his stuff and found a mortgage note on the family farm from the time of the Great Depression. Family members were shocked and confused by this discovery, because the farm had been in the family for generations and paid for for longer than anybody could remember. But eventually the picture came together for them. They realized that their grandfather had taken out a mortgage on the farm during the Depression and told no one about it, so that he could continue to make his regular offering to his church.

That kind of behavior ain’t natural, folks. It’s a learned behavior.

Did you know that over 20% of the budget of this congregation is spent on people who aren’t here? About 17% is earmarked for mission support; that is, support for the ministries of the larger church that we share with our synod and churchwide partners in mission. Another almost 3% is targeted for groups that serve vulnerable and hurting populations right here in the local community. And then there’s stuff spread all across the budget that also is focused on doing ministry beyond the walls of the congregation.

In a world where many congregations aim to reach a level of 10% of their budget designated for benevolence, this kind of behavior isn’t natural. It’s a learned behavior, a habit acquired over time that becomes a disciplined way of living. (And you know, of course, that the words “discipline” and “disciple” are connected.)

The disciplined practice of our congregation is a witness that can teach us as individual disciples. We have all heard the challenge to grow in our own personal giving up to a level of 10% of our household income, then possibly even beyond that for people who are able. Setting aside 10% of what we have as an offering (a tithe) is a biblical concept and a spiritual practice, and -- you guessed it -- not a particularly natural way for humans to behave. It is our instinct to hold on tightly to everything we have in fear of an uncertain future. Letting go and giving generously, trusting that we can live on 90% of what God provides, is a behavior that has to be learned.

Beth and I have been married for 23 years, believe it or not! We certainly did not start our marriage as tithers. It took us a few years to grow into this unnatural behavior. But now that we have been doing it for many years, we can testify that this unnatural behavior now seems quite normal for us.

I’ve probably shared before that the largest check the Olkiewiczes write every month after the mortgage payment is our check to Windsor Heights Lutheran Church. And we can’t really imagine it being any other way. Why? Not because we’re so good or so great, but simply because we have been schooled over time by our experiences in church.

Christians are made, not born. Christians are made by what we see, and hear, and learn in this place and from the witness of other Christians. Church takes our inborn natures and natural tendencies and reforms them in the light of Christ, and we find ourselves doing all kinds of strange things like letting go rather than hanging on, trusting rather than controlling.

The unnatural becomes more natural as church schools us in a new way of life. Discipleship -- disciplined following of Jesus -- is a learned behavior, not a natural one. Christians are made, disciples are formed, week by week, as Jesus teaches us when we gather. And that’s the danger of setting foot in this place: Jesus is going to teach you stuff when you come here -- stuff that you don’t learn in school, stuff than you don’t learn in the workplace, stuff that you don’t discover on your own, stuff that seems sometimes counterintuitive and unnatural, weird stuff that cuts across the grain of conventional wisdom.

What unnatural, counterintuitive truths the church teaches us! That what we have came to us, not by our own labor, but as the gift of God. That what we’re privileged to have we hold not just for ourselves but in trust for those who come after us. That we have responsibility not only for ourselves and our own families but for others, even strangers. That none of us is a self-made person. That we are all truly equal and inextricably connected, from the greatest of us to the least of us, dependent upon one another’s care.iii

No wonder Tertullian said that Christians are made, not born. And no wonder that the Sunday offering is the most counter-cultural, challenging act of worship. For it reveals more than anything else we do in this place whom we trust, whom we worship, and what we’ve learned in the school of grace.

ihttp://willimon.blogspot.com/2011/10/unnatural-gratitude.html

iiIbid.

iiiIbid.

Carrie Newcomer: Writing from the spiritual well | Faith & Leadership

2011-10-12T12:54:00.000-07:00

What a nice interview, lifting up the importance of silence and the holiness of the ordinary.

Carrie Newcomer: Writing from the spiritual well | Faith & Leadership:

'via Blog this'

Measuring congregational effectiveness

2011-10-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

This way of thinking is starting to emerge throughout the church. What would it look like if we measured the life of WHLC around these kinds of standards?

COMMENTARY: Better ways to measure churches by Bishop Joe Pennel - Oct 4, 2011

A Love Song for the Vineyard

2011-10-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

A thought-provoking read on and creative approach to the Song of the Vineyard from Isaiah by Luther Seminary's Professor Fred Gaiser

LUTHER SEMINARY CHAPEL, 10 OCTOBER 2002

TEXT: ISAIAH 5:1-7 (PENTECOST 20– SERIES A)

PREACHER: FREDERICK J. GAISER

A LOVE SONG FOR THE VINEYARD

(Tune: Home on the Range)

It’s a love song I’d sing,

And salvation I’d bring

To my people, beloved andstrong;

But, can’t do what I would,

For I made them for good,

And somehow they got it allwrong.

Home,home, please come home,

There’sdeath where you’ve chosen to roam.

Istand and I knock. Can’t you hear thedread clock

Tickingtock-tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock?

They were meant to bear fruit,

But they pillage and loot.

They’re a vineyard that’s grownold and wild.

So I’ll prune and I’ll cut,

And the door I will shut

To my dwelling, though they aremy child.

Let me set forth my case,

Lest you think that my face

Just turns this way and that wayfor sport.

No, Redeemer’s my name;

Steadfast love is my game.

I seek life; I am not Voldemort.

So I planted and tilled—

All their enemies killed—

Not so nice, I confess, butdeserved.

I gave them a land,

Their expansion I planned,

And their lives, above all, Ipreserved.

Did I act out of greed?

Is there something I need?

For myself? Not one thing, I am God!

Well, maybe their love,

Or, as I watched from above,

Some concern for the earth—notso odd.

But they squabbled and fought,

Did not loveas they ought.

They could have done well ifthey would.

I expected a crop;

What I got was a flop,

And a cow’s would have smeltjust as good.

So, I’ll plow up their field;

I will decrease their yield.

What wasfertile will now become rocks.

I will lay their land waste;

I will do it in haste,

Habitat forjust jackal and fox.

I can sense your surprise;

You thought I was one of thoseguys

Who would never turn out to be judge.

But for judges there’s place

Midst this sad human race;

For no judges, no justice, nonudge.

And should you complain:

Death is more of a pain

Than a“nudge.” “It’s more like aknife!”

Let me hasten to say,

Death is with you to stay.

I just want even it to servelife.

So,home, home, please come home,

There’sdeath where you’ve chosen to roam.

Istand and I knock. Can’t you hear thedread clock

Tickingtock-tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock?

Now, lest you think, “Wow,

That was then, this is now.

I’m sure glad that thatTestament’s Old!”

I want to make clear

That you are so dear

To me, I’ll judge you too!You’ve been told!

You have heard me sing “them,”

Perhapsthinking “Amen.

They just got their deserts,after all.”

But I’ll give you a clue:

You must substitute “you”;

For now, you are the people Icall.

If you think they had a land

That was pleasant and grand,

Look around and see what you’vebeen given.

Wealth like yours is unknown;

Fat and lazy you’ve grown.

You’re quite sure that you’reworthy of heaven.

So I sing you my song,

For you too get it wrong,

Yourpriorities quite out of whack.

It’s not plowshares but swords

That getgreatest rewards,

And tight ends take home gold bythe sack.

“But not me,” you retort,

“I’m not one of that sort

Withembarrassing wealth out the ears.”

But have you one suit,

And another toboot?

Then the Mount Sermon should bring you tears!

You need never say no

To a glass of Merlot,

And you put fine perfumes inyour bath;

Lay up treasures on earth,

But they’ll only give birth

To a harvest ofdark grapes of wrath.

So, what should I do?

Send my Son down to you?

But would he not suffer the fate

Of all others who dare

To suggest you should care

For the beggars who stand at thegate?

They’re there, don’t you see?

More, in them, please see me–

Standing, knocking, and waitingfor bread–

While you play and you pray

In your nonchalant way,

Doing littleto see that they’re fed.

But I’ve plighted my troth

To come there where the moth

And the rust havetheir way with all things.

They will have at me too,

When I enter your stew,

But I love you, ride home on mywings.

It’s a love song I’d sing,

And salvation I’d bring.

I will never give up my refrain,

For it’slife that I seek

For the strongand the meek.

Won’t you please come in out ofthe rain?

Home,home, please come home,

There’sdeath where you’ve chosen to roam.

Istand and I knock. Can’t you hear thatdread clock

Ticking tock, tickingtock-tick-tick-tock?

16th Sunday after Pentecost

2011-10-03T19:27:00.000-07:00

Lectionary 27A/16th Sunday after Pentecost
October 2, 2011
Isaiah 5:1-7

A number of years ago I attended a hunger banquet at a church here in Des Moines sponsored by their youth group. As guests entered the fellowship hall, we each drew a number from a basket and then went to a table labelled with that number. Some who drew one particular number were seated not at a table but on the floor.

After everyone had taken their places, a small group of people sitting at only one of the tables was served a rather substantial meal: salad, some kind of meat, potatoes, peas, water and coffee or tea, and finally dessert. These were the fortunate ones.

Next those seated at a number of tables, with more people crammed around each, were served a very different menu: rice instead of meat, peas, and a cup of tea. The next group, the largest in the room, was served a much smaller portion of rice, no peas, and a cup of water. The last group, seated on the floor, received nothing.

After the “meal” several youth talked about the problem of world hunger and explained that the room had been arranged to reflect how food and other basic resources are distributed in our world: a very few have an abundance, very many have little or nothing. Needless to say, shock and surprise was the point of the evening. It was meant to be an attention grabber.

The prophet Isaiah’s song of the vineyard is meant to be an attention grabber as well. It begins as an innocuous-sounding love song: “Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard.” OK, it may be a little weird to sing a love song to a vineyard, but it does get our attention. It draws us in and makes us wonder where this song is headed.

“My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines.” Wow! This guy must really like his vineyard. He carefully picks all the rocks from the ground and plants the choicest of vines. He certainly lavishes a lot of time and energy on his planting.

“He built a watchtower in the midst of it,” we hear, “and hewed out a wine vat in it.” Rather than a little shack, he builds a watchtower for those who will guard his precious vines from predators, an inordinate amount of care and attention. And then in a great sense of hopefulness he sets up a wine press right there in the vineyard in anticipation of a beautiful crop.

But, alas, rather than good grapes, the vineyard yields sour grapes. “Aw! Poor guy,” we sympathize. “He did everything he could have, devoting such care and attention to his vineyard, and he gets nothing out of it. Bummer!”

Farmers, of course, do lament a bad crop. A failed crop can mean hard times to follow. Yet as the song continues, we begin to suspect that something more than that is at stake.

“And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah,” begins the next verse. Oh, we realize this song is addressed to a particular people, residents of Jerusalem and Judah, God’s chosen people. “What more was there to do for my vineyard [i.e, for you, Jerusalem and Judah] that I have not done in it? When I expected it [i.e., you] to yield grapes, why did it [i.e., you] yield wild grapes?” Uh-oh. This innocent love song is rapidly sharpening its point. This vineyard is nobody’s hobby farm but a metaphor for God’s people, and the question about the vineyard’s failure to bear fruit really is a question put to God’s chosen ones: Why have you not born fruit?

“And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard,” the song presses on. “I will remove its hedge and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns.” The vineyard owner threatens to walk away and let nature take its course on his beloved vineyard. I mean, we can hardly blame him. He was more than generous with his time and attention and care. His frustration and disappointment are understandable.

Then, as if we still really had any doubt at this point, the owner of the vineyard is clearly identified: “I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.” Who can command the rains to cease but God? And should any listener still not get it, these words at the end make everything clear: “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry.” The song ends with a chilling play on words in Hebrew: God expected justice (mishpat), but saw bloodshed (mishpah); righteousness (zedekah), but heard a cry (ze-akah).

So there you have it. The indictment is stinging and complete. God has lavished grace upon grace on Israel, guiding them from slavery in Egypt, through the perilous years of wandering in the wilderness, to peace and prosperity in the Promised Land. God’s lavish care should lead to transformed lives, but instead God hears the lost, the last, and the least cry out in anguish. God sees blood on the hands of the corrupt and powerful elite, who have amassed wealth for themselves and turned a deaf ear to the cries of the poor. Rather than enough for all, many in Jerusalem and Judah starve while the few wallow in excess. And, the prophet asks, should we not expect God to be at the least bitterly disappointed in his beloved vineyard’s failure to bear good fruit?

Some of you probably saw the headline in last Sunday’s Des Moines Register: “Record 393,624 Received Food Aid in August.” That is a record for number of people receiving some form of food assistance in a month. The article goes on to detail the increase in demand at food banks across the state. As we learned in last week’s forum, requests at the DMARC Food Pantries have risen 66% in the last year.

Yesterday we visited our local Windsor Heights-Urbandale Food Pantry with one of our confirmation classes. Our member Ellen Graham, who volunteers there every week, can bear first-person testimony to that increase in demand. She talked about the growing number of decent-looking cars that pull up, and the decently dressed people who get out and come in and sit down in the office and just start to cry because they have never been in a position to need help before. People come to the food pantries because they are desperate.

Globally, we know that the picture of our world continues to be much like that illustrated in a hunger banquet: a few have a lot, many have little, some have nothing. Around the world one in every six persons is hungry. Surely we should not expect God to be less than bitterly disappointed when so many of his beloved hunger for the basics of life, when his beloved vineyard fails to bear the fruit of justice and righteousness.

Fr. John Donahue, a Catholic priest and biblical scholar, sums it up provocatively when he says, “Today’s readings re-enact on a divine scale the age-old mystery of total love given to another that should blossom forth in bountiful fruit, but that, when refused or abused, unravels in destructive tragedy. The Gospel calls on Christians today to think of themselves as gifted tenants of God’s vineyard, while warning them of the consequences of neglect. It may be the season for the church to review its agricultural practices.”

Indeed, especially in these times, it is the season for each of us to review our agricultural practices. How are you responding to God’s lavish grace? How are you using your gifts to tend God’s vineyard? May each of us use the gifts we have received to bear fruit in caring for the lost, the least, and the last among us.

Why Youth Leave the Church

2011-09-29T20:51:00.000-07:00

Here are links to two interesting articles about a major study on why young Christians leave the church after age 15. To what extent do you think the main factors are manifested in our community?

http://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/528-six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church

http://www.christianpost.com/news/study-why-young-christians-leave-the-church-56722/

Luther Rehabilitated?

2011-09-26T18:42:00.000-07:00

The relationship between modern day Catholics and Lutherans continues to unfold:

Luther rehabilitated? Catholics and Protestants disagree

14th Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

Lectionary 25A—September 18, 2011
Jonah 3:10-4:11/Matthew 20:1-16

If you are a fan of short sermons, the prophet Jonah is the preacher for you. He proclaims what has to be the shortest sermon ever recorded: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” That's it! Short and sweet. No time even to glance at your watch.

All the more amazing is how effective his sermon is. No sooner are the words out of Jonah's mouth, and we hear that the people believe God, proclaim a fast, and from the greatest to the least of them, put on sackcloth, a sign of repentance. When God saw this massive sign of a true change of heart, God changed God's mind and did not inflict the intended consequences for their sinful ways.

And Jonah, in a word, is ticked off! He did not want to give the people of Nineveh an opportunity to repent in the first place, and now cannot stand it that God has chosen to show mercy to them.

That’s an odd attitude for a prophet to have, you say. True, but don’t forget that Nineveh was Israel's great enemy. When Jonah first receives the command to warn the Ninevites to turn from their wicked ways, he can't believe his ears and runs away. It's while he was on the lam from God' call, that he got pitched overboard and swallowed by the whale.

And you remember how that story goes. God commands the whale to spit Jonah up on the beach and says, “You can't run away from me, Jonah. Get up and be on your way to Nineveh!” Only when he recognizes that he doesn't really have anything to say about it, does Jonah venture about a third of the way across that vast city and proclaim his brief sermon in a whisper.

And the entire city (even the animals, we're told!) repents en masse, and Israel’s mortal enemy is spared. It's just not fair! It's too easy! Are you kidding me?! The prophet can’t bear it.

And so we come upon him in today's reading pouting, getting downright angry with God: “O LORD!” he cries, “Isn’t this exactly what I was afraid of? That's why I got on the boat and beat it as far away from Nineveh as I could get. I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. So now just shoot me and put me out of my misery! I can't take it, watching all these Ninevites celebrate your mercy!” The truth is, Jonah would rather see his enemy dead than redeemed.

He seems to think that he knows better than God how to dispense mercy -- who's deserving and who's not. He seems to forget that he and his people, Israel, have been the beneficiaries of God's abundant mercy and asked only to share it in kind. That is a theme that runs throughout the Bible: recipients of God's mercy are asked to pass it on. “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful,” Jesus says as he commands his followers to love their enemies. And you remember last week’s gospel story where the one forgiven profusely was expected to show mercy to his fellow worker.

We tend to heap scorn upon Jonah -- hypocrite! But really we need to look upon him with sympathy, because he is meant to be a mirror held up to ourselves. He embodies our tendency to be an impediment to the flow of God's mercy rather than a conduit. We don't really want God's mercy to be extended much beyond the walls of our own community, or our own family, or our own group. We would prefer to see our enemy defeated than redeemed. We don't want God handing out mercy willy-nilly to the undeserving or the latecomers. Those deathbed, eleventh hour repentances just rankle us. We don't want God's mercy to flow too freely, too easily. The story of Jonah poses one great big question for us: just how hard do we think it is supposed to be to receive God's mercy?

Martin Luther is someone who had a really hard time receiving God's mercy. As our 7th and 8th grade confirmation youth could tell you, Luther, as a novice monk, was incredibly preoccupied with his own sinfulness and unworthiness. He feared that he could never confess every sin and never do enough truly to repent of his sins. In the re:form video that we watched in confirmation two weeks ago, Luther goes into the confessional and says, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was 30 seconds ago . . .”

One day, the story goes, Luther, in Rome on a pilgrimage, was slowly and painfully ascending the steps of St. Peter's on his knees. On each step he said the required prayer and then bent low to kiss the step. No divine mercy for slackers! If you want to be forgiven you've got to work at it and prove to God that you really deserve it.

But part way up Luther suddenly stood upright on his two feet and laughed aloud, a great belly laugh, as he saw the absurdity of what he was doing, but even more the absurdity of what he believed. How could he believe that God's mercy was that hard to come by? Is not the God revealed in the scriptures a God who is, indeed, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love? That is the constant refrain that runs throughout the Bible from the very first page to the very last -- at the heart of the universe is a God who is gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love. So I imagine the monk Luther, who was also a professor of biblical studies, slapping his forehead as he exclaimed, “Oh, yeah! How could I have missed it? It's been there all along!”

If it is true that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, just how hard is it supposed to be to receive God's mercy? At the beginning of the service every week, the pastor says something like, “As a called and ordained minister of the church of Christ, and by his authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins.” Pastor Robin and I are merely declaring what is already there for you, freely given by God with no prerequisites: the entire forgiveness of all your sins. And how hard do you have to work to receive that gift? It's simply there for you to receive as you believe.

Our God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Sometimes we do struggle, like Luther, to take it to heart. In a world where we like to think that everything we have we've earned for ourselves, it's tempting to think that we need to earn God's favor too. We have a hard time taking to heart that God's mercy really is a free gift to each of us. We can be more demanding judges of ourselves than God is. Stand up and laugh at yourself, friends, a great belly laugh! Everything really doesn't depend upon you.

But even more often, we struggle, like Jonah, with the desire to be demanding judges of others. We think we know better than God who deserves mercy and who does not. So we should notice that at the end of the story, Jonah is still not very happy. He's still pouting, still angry with God. What good did it do him to be so jealous of God's mercy?

About as much good as it does us to be jealous of God’s mercy. As in today’s parable of the vineyard, God’s only got one thing to give -- God’s love and mercy -- and gives it equally to all. Since it is not our commodity to dispense, perhaps it's better for us to pray to become more willing conduits through which God's love may flow freely into the world. Let’s get up and be on our way -- even to Nineveh!

David Brooks - "If It Feels Right . . ."

2011-09-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

For decades, writers from different perspectives have been warning about the erosion of shared moral frameworks and the rise of an easygoing moral individualism.

Read on here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/opinion/if-it-feels-right.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

13th Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-11T21:26:00.000-07:00

Lectionary 24A/13th Sunday after Pentecost—September 11, 2011
Matthew 18:21-35

Last week’s gospel reading was about forgiveness. It went something like this: God is persistent in forgiving us, so that’s how we are with each other—persistent in forgiving. I suppose we might really like the part about God being persistent, but not so much the part about us being persistent, because forgiveness is hard.

Sometimes true forgiveness, from the heart, is impossible, isn’t it? Our media has been inundated with talk and images of the tragedy of September 11 ten years ago today. For those who lost loved ones on that day, we might imagine that forgiveness of the terrorists is difficult. For those who have lost loved ones in the wars that have followed in the wake of that awful day, we might imagine that forgiveness of the enemy is difficult. My point is that we don’t have to look far to see examples of how forgiving is, indeed, hard and maybe even sometimes impossible for us.

Maybe that’s one point of the parable Jesus tells Peter. After Jesus talked about the importance of keeping open many opportunities for forgiveness and reconciliation to take place between estranged members of the church, Peter now asks, “Lord, if another member sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Peter has caught on to what Jesus is saying about the need to be persistent in forgiving. The rule of thumb in Judaism at the time was that you ought to try to forgive someone three times, so Peter thinks he is being quite generous. Surely seven times, over twice the rule of thumb, is persistent and gracious enough.

“Nope,” says Jesus, “not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times,” or, as the Greek can and probably should be translated, “seventy times seven times”—in other words, 490 times! Jesus is saying, “Don’t count, Peter! Just keep it up.” Surely even if we wanted to keep track of how many times we tried to forgive someone, we would lose count long before we got to 490.

Now remember that Peter is meant to represent us. He is the prototypical follower of Jesus, and we see in his struggles with Jesus’ way our own struggles with Jesus’ way. If Peter wants to set limits on forgiveness, even at a generous seven times, it must be that we also tend to set limits on forgiveness.

“Remember, Peter, this is what God is like,” says Jesus. This is how God forgives. God is like a farmer who went to settle accounts with his field hands and discovered that one of them owed him a really enormous debt: 10,000 talents!

You need to know that a talent was the largest unit of monetary measurement that could be imagined at that time. Many historians estimate that one talent was worth something like 15 years wages for the average worker. Take your annual salary and multiply it by 15 to get an idea of what one talent would be worth in our dollars. Then multiply that by 10,000, because the guy in the parable owes his master 10,000 talents or about 150,000 years worth of income.

So what’s the point? Obviously that this debt is unimaginable and totally un-payable. The indebted field hand could never dream of paying it off. It’s sheer desperation that make him plead, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” Uh-uh. No way. Not ever gonna happen. But “out of pity for him [the same word means “compassion,” “empathy”—not just feeling sorry for him but being deeply moved by his plight], the landowner released him and forgave him the debt.”

Do you see how inconceivable it is, then, for the man for whom so much has been forgiven to go out and immediately throttle a coworker and demand payment of a fairly small debt? A hundred denarii is about one-third of a year’s income -- not a trifling debt, but not un-payable either. It just doesn’t make any sense. Surely mercy should beget mercy.

But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, for whatever reason, forgiveness is impossible. What other explanation could there be for the man’s behavior? There is absolutely no rational way to account for it. We look at him and think, “Who could be so absolutely hard-hearted as to be unmoved, unchanged, after receiving such great forgiveness?” We can only conclude that somehow forgiveness is impossible for him.

Jesus began the parable by saying that it is a picture of the kingdom of God, but so quickly it degenerates into a picture of our reality. The worker’s inability to forgive reminds us of what life in the real world can be like for us. Sometimes, no matter how much we know that we ought to forgive, we just can’t bring ourselves to do it. It’s not in our nature. Being cheated on by a spouse, double-crossed by a friend, abused – can’t do it; sometimes we just cannot find it in our hearts to forgive, even though we know that we should.

I’m afraid I don’t know for sure where the parable takes us from here. The landowner is super ticked off by the unforgiving behavior of the one whom he has forgiven so lavishly and has him thrown into debtor’s prison. Is this how God is with us? Is God’s forgiveness of us contingent upon our forgiving of others? Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors?

I don’t know, but I’m going to suggest this: perhaps if the parable helps me to realize my own inability to forgive, then at the same time it can help me to appreciate the immensity of God’s forgiveness.

If for me some sins are unforgivable, what does it mean to see a God for whom no sin is unforgivable, a God who can forgive ten thousand talents worth of debt, a God who can and does forgive a debt that is beyond our ability to measure or even to imagine. Such mercy is truly beyond counting—beyond seven, beyond seventy-seven, beyond seventy times seven. Perhaps the parable is pointing us toward a God whose very nature is to have pity, compassion, empathy that leads to forgiveness of all sins, all debts—a God in whom all things can somehow be reconciled.

Given the gross sins of humanity, not just in the last ten years, but throughout the history of this world, I’m not sure any lesser mercy would be adequate -- adequate to the size of our debt. Only a God abounding in mercy and steadfast love beyond imagining, beyond any quantifying, is a God in whom we can hope -- the only God in whom we can hope to have a future beyond the brokenness of our present condition.

So the parable at the very least offers perspective. In the face of the debt God freely forgives, how large really are those debts to one another that God calls us to forgive?

A few years ago in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin’s mom asked him to take out the trash. “What’s in it for me?” Calvin asks. His mom replies, “Your father and I will feed, clothe, shelter, and care for you for 18 years.” In the next frame we see Calvin hauling out the trash as he mutters, “I hate it when she puts things in perspective!”

Perspective. When it comes to forgiveness, maybe the numbers game is one we really don’t want to play. God has done much for us. How large really are those debts to one another that God calls us to forgive?

And the truth is, most of us are not often called to forgive a terrorist or a murderer. Instead we’re asked to be persistent in forgiving the ones with whom we live everyday, across the street, across the desk, across the kitchen table. Rather than focusing on forgiveness in the abstract, let us focus on simply taking out our own trash and leave the forgiveness of unimaginable debts to God.

Nadia Bolz-Weber: Entering the stream of the faithful

2011-08-31T13:54:00.000-07:00

This is simply a must-read article, which is, in part, an eloquent testimony to the value of our Lutheran witness in the world. If any WHLC folks are interested in discussing it, let me know.

Nadia Bolz-Weber: Entering the stream of the faithful

Why certainty about God is overrated

2011-08-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

A good short interview with one of the leading lights in the field of science and religion. How can the faith community cultivate an atmosphere in which people are comfortable asking their questions?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-08-28/Why-certainty-about-God-is-overrated/50166464/1

11th Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-28T13:24:00.001-07:00

Lectionary 22A/11th Sunday after Pentecost -- August 28, 2011
Romans 12:9-21

In case you hadn’t noticed, school has started pretty much everywhere in our area. Ankeny, where Bennett goes to school, has already completed two full weeks! His teacher warned that first week that the children might be quite tired in the evenings because they were starting the year with so much testing and assessment to determine where all the kids stood. So, in recognition of the start of the school year, and in sympathy with all of our younger members who have had their brains tested out in recent days, let’s begin with a quiz. Fear not; no parishioners will be left behind. Ready?

It’s a quiz to see what we know about Paul’s letter to the Romans, which we have been reading bit by bit as the second lesson in recent weeks.

Question #1 (Don’t worry. They’re all multiple choice.) -- In chapters 1-11 of Romans, Paul argues that the Christian receives a new ____________ as the gift of God.
a. car
b. hairstyle
c. pony
d. identity.

The answer is “d.” Paul argues that the believer receives a radical new identity in baptism as the gift of God.

Question #2 -- This new identity means that the Christian ____________.

a. is free from the ultimate destructive power of sin
b. is free from the power of death
c. is safe in God
d. has a future secure in God
e. all of the above

The correct answer is “e.” In Christ, God sets you free from the destructive power of sin, death, or anything else that could separate you from the love of God. (Romans 8:35-39 -- "nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.") And so, you are safe in God. You have an unshakable future in God.

Question #3 -- At the beginning of Chapter 12 (last week’s reading), Paul says that in response to so great a gift from God (the gift of this radical new identity), we respond by ____________.

a. ignoring it
b. going on vacation
c. patting ourselves on the back
d. offering ourselves (i.e., all that we have and all that we are) in love for others and for God’s world

The correct answer, of course, is “d.” In response to such an immense gift from God, we offer our lives in thanksgiving, sharing from all the many gifts God has given us to love and serve the neighbor. We give ourselves away in love for the good of God’s world, grateful for Jesus giving himself in love for the sake of the whole creation. I ran across a phrase somewhere once that puts it this way: “Love is the unflagging standard of our behavior [as Christians].”

I especially like that word “standard” because of its multiple meanings. A standard is a measure, a norm, or a model. Love, then, is the measure/norm/model for Christian life. But a standard is also one of those flags carried on a pole in a parade or a procession. The standard-bearer is the guy who carries the standard in the parade for all to see. In this sense, then, saying that love is the standard of Christian behavior means that love is the visible identifier by which the world recognizes Christians as Christian. What does the world see when it looks at Christian behavior? What does your neighbor or your coworker see when he or she looks at your behavior? “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love” goes the old song. And it is true.

Paul spent the first eleven chapters of his letter to the Romans leading up to this conclusion that love is the unflagging standard of Christian behavior. He will spend the remaining five chapters offering concrete, specific examples of what that love looks like, not only for first century Romans but for twenty-first century Iowans. In other words, he doesn’t simply say, “OK, you all. Love more!” Instead he exhorts us to specific behaviors that are the hallmarks of Christian love. Depending upon how you count, there are at least 30 imperatives in this passage.

“Let love be genuine,” he begins, and it’s sort of a summary of all the rest. Love others genuinely, authentically. If you’re just making it up, if you’re doing it grudgingly and out of a sense of obligation, it’s not in the spirit of giving thanks for the grace you have received. That’s not to say that love isn’t hard work, that loving especially the unlovable doesn’t require dedication, persistence, and even a sense of duty. But getting out of bed in the morning and asking “Whom do I have to love today?” represents a very different way of looking at the world than the question “Whom do I get to love today?” It is a difference in attitude and motivation. Let your motivation for loving others be genuine, exhorts Paul.

A couple of phrases later, he says, “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” The word that Paul uses here for “hospitality” literally means “love of strangers.” Love of strangers is a hallmark of Christian love. We welcome outsiders/strangers into the Christian community not out of obligation -- “We have to take them in;” nor out of fear -- “If we don’t take in new members we’re gonna die!”; but in love -- genuine, authentic love -- our response to the grace we have received. Our welcome of strangers embodies God’s welcome of us, who estranged and dying, received the gift of God’s mercy. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us” [while we were yet strangers/outsiders God accepted us], says Paul earlier in Romans (5:8). How we welcome strangers as a community embodies how we have been welcomed by God.

This is a very different way of thinking about how we encounter others in the church community and in our daily lives. We ask not “what can the other do for me?”, which is to see other people as assets or tools to be used for my gain. And we ask not “what can the other do to me?”, which is to see other people as potential threats to be feared and contained. Rather we ask ourselves “what does it mean for me to love the person standing in front of me genuinely and authentically?” It is a very different orientation to our relationships with others, but if we have a radical new identity in baptism, then it makes sense that we have a radical new way of being to go along with it.

Then Paul says “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” Surely he sounds a lot like Jesus, who says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44), and “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:28). Jesus’ words ring in the background of what Paul is saying, a sure clue that to love genuinely is to love as Jesus loved, a love that extended even to his enemies. I don’t suppose we can say this often enough: love of the enemy is a hallmark of Christian love, one of those visible identifiers by which the world knows that Christians are Christian.

For the sake of time, let me simply list off a few more of those 30-some exhortations in this passage: hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good, show honor to all, be zealous in serving, persistent in faith, weep with those who weep, live in harmony with one another, do not be haughty, do not claim to be wiser than you are, do not repay evil for evil, live peaceably with all.

What would life look like if Christians really did these things? What would life look like if we freely and frequently lived out of the new identity we have received in baptism? What would life look like if we tried daily to set aside the old self and to live as the new persons God has created us in Christ to be?

“This is simply not how the world seems to work most of the time,” you say. Yes. But it is simply how Christians are called to live -- as standard-bearers of God’s love. Let us carry our flag boldly, so the world may see a different way to work.

The Decline of Religion in America

2011-08-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

Here are two articles about recently published studies of trends in religion. Mark Chaves of Duke, author of the first study, is one of the major figures in the sociology of religion. Both articles are well worth reading.

Do these findings suggest reasons for despair or optimism? Perhaps a little of both.

http://www.chron.com/news/article/Duke-prof-American-s-religious-faith-waning-2133835.php

http://www.newswise.com/articles/less-educated-americans-turning-their-backs-on-religion

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

Lectionary 20A—August 14, 2002
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 15:(10-20) 21-28

Jesus’ behavior is offensive, inexcusable, and embarrassing. This is not the Jesus I like to like who insults the Canaanite woman and rebuffs her desperate cry for help. So much for gentle Jesus meek and mild. So much for Jesus as the incarnation of divine compassion. What on earth is going on in this disturbing story?

I suppose we could spare Jesus by shifting blame to the disciples. Lord knows, they deserve it. They have shown themselves consistently to be hard hearted and confused. When Jesus looks at Peter in the first half of today’s reading and exclaims, “Are you still without understanding?” we’re not exactly surprised by the criticism.

But to the woman for a moment. Notice that she’s called a Canaanite. Not only is she a woman (strike one), and an outsider (strike two), but a Canaanite, an enemy. Remember that Israel’s first enemies were the Canaanites. The first war they had to fight as a people in order to possess the Promised Land was against the Canaanites. Strike three against this woman.

First of all, women did not approach men in public, let alone publicly harass a rabbi like Jesus. Secondly, Jews didn’t bother to give the time of day to a gentile, a foreigner. Thirdly, the Canaanite woman is one of Israel’s age-old enemies. Three strikes. She’s out. So the disciples begin to chant, “Send her away,” repeatedly.

Yes, repeatedly. The form of the verb used here in Greek implies repeated action, ongoing action. The disciples keep up a chorus of shouting, “Send her away!”

So let’s blame the disciples. As we’ve seen in recent weeks, they’re not too bright. “Explain this parable to us, Jesus. We don’t get it. Your words are hard to understand. Don’t you realize that you’re upsetting the Pharisees, Jesus?” There’s just a lot they don’t get yet, especially about the radical breadth of God’s mercy. So it’s no surprise that they are are ready to send the woman packing.

But it’s not so simple, right? Because Jesus also rejects her. “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” he says. Ouch! On one level, it would be an insult to call any person a “dog,” but Jesus’s barb is even sharper than that. In his day this was a derogatory term for Canaanites, “Canaanite dogs.” Jesus, you see, chooses his words carefully.

He also adopts a very patronizing attitude toward the woman, using the diminutive form of the word for dog. In other words, he’s calling her not a stray dog or a wild dog, but a little dog, a puppy impetuously trying to snatch the family's food from the table. Bad dog! No, no. Ouch, indeed!

Jesus is masterful in using his sharp wit and verbal skills to cut his opponents down to size (a skill that was highly prized in that culture, by the way). We love it when Jesus trains both barrels at the bad guys, like the Pharisees, and let’s them have it, because they deserve it. Again and again he cuts their hypocrisy to shreds. But what about this woman who is simply interceding in desperation on behalf of her tormented daughter? Clearly she does not deserve the treatment she receives from Jesus or his band of followers. It’s quite a puzzle.

Can this be the same Jesus who said earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest”? Can this be the same Jesus who found a way to feed the multitudes because he had compassion for them?

We can try a little harder to get Jesus off the hook. Maybe he’s just testing the woman’s faith to see if she’s really serious. Maybe the human Jesus is having a bad day, his patience worn thin by people constantly demanding something from him. Maybe here at the midpoint of the Matthew’s story, Jesus is still struggling to discern his call. Has God really sent him to liberate the gentiles as well as his own people Israel? Maybe there is a little wiggle room here and there, but I’m not sure I am persuaded. I still find myself expecting more from Jesus and wondering why whatever point he’s trying to make has to be made at the woman’s expense. I come away from this story with far more questions than answers.

Yes, she is asking for a lot. Surely there were more than enough sick and suffering children in Israel. Does she realize that she is asking the Messiah of Israel to bestow upon her gifts that rightly belong to his people, gifts to which she has no legitimate claim?

But she simply won’t give it up, which also is scandalous according to the rules of that culture. She should have known her place, before a man and before a rabbi. She should have known when to quit. Actually, she should have known better than to ask in the first place. But, not only does she have enough chutzpah to go and ask in the first place, she also refuses to be sent away by anyone, not by those disciples, and not even by the master himself.

“Have mercy on me!” she cries “Send her away!” the disciples cry. “Have mercy on me!” she persists. “I wasn’t sent for people like her,” Jesus says. “Have mercy on me!” she persists. “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she still persists, “yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table. Have mercy on me.” Finally Jesus says, “Woman, great is your faith.”

I still have many questions, and this isn’t ever going to be one of my favorite Bible stories, but I am struck by the woman’s persistence, which Jesus recognizes as true faith. We need to realize that ancient people did not define faith, as we do, as an intellectual conviction or belief about something. Rather, they defined faith as commitment and loyalty to a person or a cause no matter what. So the Canaanite woman is the epitome of faith. She is persistent--she is committed to Jesus--despite the many discouraging factors that should have sent her scurrying away. Woman, great is your faith, indeed. The real shock of the story is that it is this outsider who shows faith greater than that of the lost sheep of Israel.

I once had a senior colleague who was famous for his favorite expression, “Hang in there.” We would hear it at least once a day, probably more often, much to our chagrin. “Can’t he think of anything else to say?” we’d quip to one another. But we loved him, and he meant well. And he meant, I think, more than I appreciated at the time.

Don’t you sometimes feel rebuffed by God? Hang in there. Don’t you sometimes feel like you have been sent away with your request unanswered? Hang in there. Doesn’t God’s activity in the world, or apparent lack thereof, give you pause at times? Hang in there. Do you sometimes have lots of questions and few answers? Hang in there. Don’t you get angry with God at times? Hang in there. Don’t you sometimes get discouraged with the slow-to-get-it, begrudging-of-God’s-mercy band of disciples that we have come to call “the church”? Hang in there.

Be persistent. Keep on asking your questions. Keep on praying your prayers. Keep on listening to Jesus. Keep on loving the neighbor, even when the neighbor is hard to love, maybe even when the neighbor is an enemy. And hang in there. That’s what it means to have faith.

Selling Our Souls

2011-08-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

An insightful and challenging article -- Selling Our Souls: of Idolatry and iPhones

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-31T07:57:00.000-07:00

Lectionary 18A—July 31, 2011
Matthew 14:13-21

I love this summer! I mean not this particular summer (which has been unusually hot, humid, and gross). I mean the summer of the Gospel of Matthew. You remember how this works, right? One year we read mostly from Matthew, the next year the Gospel of Mark, the next Luke, and we hear John in Lent and Easter of all three years. And then we repeat and go through the three-year cycle again. So this is the year of Matthew, and I love the selections from Matthew’s gospel that we hear over the summer months.

I love this summer, because week after week Matthew tosses out these vivid little stories about the kingdom of God, trying to give us glimpse after glimpse after glimpse of what God is up to in the world, hoping that eventually we will take it to heart -- that the good news will finally break through our hard hearts and take root in our rocky ground, and we will begin to see it as really GOOD news.

I have no idea what Pastor Robin preached about last week as I was blissfully on vacation masquerading as a pagan, but I’ll bet you remember the gospel reading and its five little gems about the kingdom.

The kingdom’s like a mustard seed, said Jesus first. The tiniest of seeds (and mustard seeds are really, really tiny) grows improbably into a large tree. Big results from a tiny beginning -- quite a surprise.

God’s kingdom is like a little pinch of yeast that leavens a whole fifty pounds of flour -- a surprisingly large effect for such a small agent.

The kingdom is a pure gift, Jesus goes on to say, like a treasure hidden in a field. You don’t know how that gift got there, but once you discover it, you go and sell everything and come back and buy that field, because you’ll do anything to inherit that treasure. Or like that pearl merchant who one day out of the blue stumbles upon the pearl of his dreams, the kingdom is pure gift that pops up unexpectedly in surprising places.

Finally last week, Jesus said that God’s kingdom is like a net dragging through the sea gathering in all people—saint and sinner, rich and poor, people of all sorts and colors and creeds—all sucked into the eternal embrace of God, whether they choose to be loved or not.

And now this week this string of one kingdom parable after another culminates with the story of an amazing meal. You’ll not be surprsied to hear that the most common image in all of scripture for the kingdom of God is a banquet. Matthew knows what he’s doing here. If you’re talking about God’s reign, you end with the story of a banquet where all are welcome and there’s more than enough to share.

You would never guess that’s where we are headed when the story begins, though. Those disciples that we’ve also been talking about in recent weeks! Here they go again! “Jesus, it’s getting late and we really ought to get these people on the road, so that they can find something for themselves to eat.” Wow! What insight into the power and the nature of their Teacher.

“They don’t need to go,” says Jesus. “You give them something to eat.” Did the disciples laugh out loud, I wonder? “Ha! Good one, Jesus. Right . . . we’ll just rustle something up from these five loaves of bread and two stinky little fish that we found in our cooler.”

But after listening to all these parables that say “the kingdom of God is like . . .” you’re not really surprised, are you, that this is another mustard-seed moment? From the meager supplies that the disciples cough up, Jesus somehow pulls off a banquet for a zillion people. Matthew says that 5,000 men, not counting the women and children, ate. In other words, the number who were fed was much greater than 5,000—maybe as much as three or four times that -- which is the Bible’s way of saying “a zillion,” more people than you can imagine. All from five loaves and two fish. And here comes the punch line: there were leftovers! Twelve extra baskets full, one for each of the doubtful, pragmatic disciples.

The whole thing really is sort of a joke on the disciples and their practical plan for making the best of a bad situation. Let’s get all these people going so they can buy food for themselves. It’s the perennial human solution to problems: role up your sleeves and get to work. Manage the details. Try harder. Fend for yourself. I mean, what else can we do?

But Jesus says, “No, I’ll provide. No need to fend for yourselves. I’ll take care of everything. It’s on me.” And of course his actions mean to say, “This is what God is like. God will provide. God will take care of everything. Relax, folks. No need to fend for yourselves. It doesn’t all depend upon you.” As Luther says in his explanation of the Lord’s Prayer in the Small Catechism, the kingdom will come, indeed, even without us praying for it, even without us trying. The future depends upon God. It doesn’t depend upon us.

There’s one sweet little detail that Matthew adds to the story to make that point. When Jesus instructs the crowd to sit down on the grass before feeding them, the Greek word for “grass” that Matthew uses also means “fodder”—the stuff that livestock eats. And then in the phrase, “All ate and were filled,” the word translated “they were filled” applies also to the feeding of livestock. You see what he’s suggesting? We are as dependent upon God’s care as animals on the farm are dependent upon the farmer’s care. First century Palestine was an agrarian society. They would have gotten the point.

Animals know who feeds them, yes? When our dog is hungry, he pounces repeatedly at his bowl, crashing into it with his front paws, which sends the bowl careening noisily across the basement floor. Pounce, slide, crash, clatter! Pounce, slide, crash, bang! He just keeps batting his bowl around the basement like a big stainless steel hockey puck until we get the point. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t do this just for fun when we’re not around. Rather he does it when his people are in the room, because he knows who feeds him.

My point is not to suggest that we are like dogs or cattle in our relationship to God. That is neither a very flattering picture of us or of God. But the story does challenge us to reflect: Do we recognize our dependence upon God, or do we think that everything really does depend upon us? Who provides the food in the story? Jesus. How much did people have to pay for it? Nothing. How hard did people have to work to earn it? They had to plop down on the grass. How likely did it seem that a free banquet was in the cards at the beginning of the story? Like your odds of winning the Power Ball would be better.

God is like this. God does the unexpected. God brings us to life through death, precisely that point when all our good works and good intentions and great accomplishments go into the ground with us and are reduced to nothing. God does all this for free, whether we deserve it or not, whether we’ve earned it or not, whether we think it’s fair or not, whether it seems plausible or not -- because God is like that. It really is all about grace -- God’s grace. And that’s why the good news really is good.

So relax. The only thing you need to be really clear about is who provides the food.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

Lectionary 16A/5th Sunday after Pentecost -- July 17, 2011

Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43

The side-by-side existence of good and evil is a problem that has long puzzled philosophers and theologians. Take Lucy and Linus, for instance, from the comic strip Peanuts. One day Lucy was explaining to her little brother that he, like all human beings, had the forces of good and evil at work within himself. With a wrinkled brow Linus looks down at his stomach and says, “I can feel them in there fighting.”

How can the good and the bad, wheat and weeds in the language of Jesus’ parable, flourish side-by-side? As you remember from last week, parables are always about God, so the main thing we need to be about is asking what God is up to in this story. God the Sower continues to sow the garden of the kingdom. Last week we heard Jesus’ take on the puzzle of why not all the seed that God sows bears fruit. This week there’s a little different twist. God the sower keeps on sowing good seed, but an enemy sneaks into the field at night and sows weeds among the wheat. “So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.”

A quick look at any commentary will tell you that the word Matthew uses here in Greek refers to darnel or cockle, a noxious weed that is plentiful in Israel. The tricky thing about darnel is that it looks exactly like wheat as it’s growing, and you can’t tell the two apart until they are full-grown. Then the ears of the wheat plant are heavy and droop, but the ears of the darnel stand straight up. Keep this in mind as we continue: it is really hard, practically impossible in fact, to distinguish between the weeds and the wheat.

When the workers in the field notice the weeds growing alongside the wheat, their first reaction is to question--that is, blame--the sower. “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” The master assures his servants that he did, indeed, sow good seed. The weeds are the work of a sneaky enemy.

When they hear this they are immediately zealous to go out into the field and start ripping up the enemy’s handiwork. But the master wisely cautions against it. In trying to root out the weeds, they would pull up the wheat too. Even if they could manage to tell the weeds from the wheat--and remember how nearly impossible that would be--the roots are all intertwined below the soil. Running into the field and yanking out weeds by the fistful would do more damage to the crop than letting the weeds grow.

This is a complex problem, but the master has a solution: leave the weeds alone and let them grow alongside the wheat. At the harvest his reapers, who are apparently different workers than the ones who are zealous to get rid of the weeds right now, will collect the weeds and burn them in the oven and gather the wheat into the master’s barn.

Notice two things: the servants who are worried about the weeds are advised to wait patiently, and they are reminded that dealing with the weeds is not their job.

Just like last week, Jesus has been telling his parable to the crowds, but later that day the disciples, understood here as the inner circle, ask Jesus to explain the parable to them. He does so in straightforward terms: “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.” Every element in the story is accounted for except one: Jesus doesn’t say who the servants represent.

Perhaps the servants represent the disciples. Or, more likely I’d say, they represent all who hear the parable and ponder Jesus’ words. In other words, you should feel free to see yourself as one of the servants who is worried about weeds. Because don’t we all sometimes wonder why God allows the good and the bad to flourish side by side? Don’t we sometimes blame God for the presence of weeds in the world? Don’t we sometimes feel like taking matters into our own hands and rooting out the evil in our midst? But if the parable says anything clearly it is this: that’s not our job. Judging wheat from weeds is angel work, which is the Bible’s way of saying, divine, not human, work. Judging is God’s work, not ours.

And a good thing too. Given the difficulty of telling weeds from wheat, we are likely to get it wrong. Consider the track record of “Rocky” and his band of “loyal” disciples as we explored it last week. The disciples in Matthew’s gospel aren’t exactly the Keystone Kops, but they are usually the last to “get it”--the last to take to heart how expansive God’s grace really is--and the least likely to be faithful. These are not the folks I would want to have on the bench judging whether I am weed or wheat. Given their track record, they have a high probability of getting it wrong.

And, of course, their journey is meant to represent our faith journey. We are frequently confused and hard of heart. No matter how long we sit at Jesus’ feet, we fall back to our default position of wanting to put ourselves in the judge’s seat. We are every bit as human as the disciples in the gospels, and that keeps us from judging rightly. Thank God it’s God’s work, not ours.

Looking in from the outside, one might conclude that church people really don’t get that sometimes, don’t really take to heart that judgment is God’s work, not ours. So often those who have been alienated from the church say it’s because “Church people are SO judgmental!” And for good reason. They experience how we can whip ourselves into a weeding frenzy, certain that we know a weed when we see one, and that we know equally well how best to deal with them.

Most of us can think of congregations or denominations where the whole crop has been damaged because of some who are zealous to root out those who do not agree with “the correct” interpretation of scripture, or a certain practice or position or stand on an issue. And some Christians are quite zealous to say who’s in and who’s out, who’s saved and who’s bound for hell--usually people who belong to a different church or practice a different faith. Whether such judgment is focused within the church or without, it does serious damage to the church, to our credibility, to our mission in the world.

Jesus makes it clear that we simply are not qualified to judge who’s “in” and who’s “out.” In fact, God’s judgment about such things will surprise many of us. “Truly I tell you,” says Jesus, “the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” Surprise, surprise! And again he says, “I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” Surprise, surprise. No wonder he also says, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.”

Thank God it is not up to us to judge! Leave the weeding to angels, so that we can get on with the work of disciples: proclaiming, in what we say and how we live, the unconditional love of an extravagantly generous God, whose reign draws near in ever surprising ways.

--------------------------------

See Pastor Elisabeth Johnson’s commentary at http://www.workingpreacher.org. She offers helpful insights into how Jesus’ teaching on “stumbling blocks” (skandalon) might relate to this parable.

Church is for Losers

2011-07-16T06:03:00.000-07:00

Just read the article. It's the best thing I've seen in awhile.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/features/26050-is-your-church-too-cool

4th Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-10T15:46:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 8A -- July 10, 2011
Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23

So why don’t some people respond to the gospel? Isn’t that the question that comes to mind when you hear the parable of the sower? Listen! A sower went out to sow. Since all parables are about God, the sower must be God.The seed that God sows falls on different kinds of soils and only bears fruit in good soil. So why aren’t some people who hear good soil? Why don’t they respond to the gospel and bear good fruit? It’s easy to get a little self-righteous at this point in the summer. Here we are in church. Where’s everybody else? We must be good soil because we’re here in church on a Saturday/Sunday in July rather than on the golf course! Why haven’t others responded like we have? What’s their problem anyway?

Whether or not that’s how you feel (and of course I’m being more than a little facetious), I’m pretty sure this is what the disciples were thinking. “Jesus, we’ve left everything to follow you. We walked away from our boats, our jobs. We left behind our families to follow you when you called. Why haven’t others done that? Why haven’t others responded to your word like we have? Why does there seem to be so much rocky ground around here that your word can’t crack? How come there’s not more good receptive soil like us, your loyal disciples?”

OK, let’s think about that for a moment. Let’s start with the leader of these loyal disciples, Peter. Anybody remember what his name means? Rock. Petros in Greek, Cephas in Aramaic, both mean “rock.” Peter is a rock, or maybe we should cal him “Rocky.” Now, setting aside all images of Sylvester Stalone and thinking about what this might suggest in the context of a parable about rocky soil, if the leader of the disciples is named Rocky, could it be that the disciples themselves are the rocky ground that Jesus is talking about?

Let’s think for another moment or two about the disciples’ journey with Jesus. It is true that back in Chapter 4 of Matthew’s Gospel, the disciples left their work and their families when Jesus invited them to follow him. But then they disappear into the background for the rest of Chapter 4, all of Chapters 5, 6, and 7, and most of Chapter 8. During this whole time the focus is on Jesus teaching, helping, healing, and proclaiming the good news of the nearness of God’s kingdom, and we don’t see the disciples do a thing—other than to follow Jesus around. And we don’t hear them say a single word until the very end of Chapter 8.

And then what happens? Well, Jesus gets into a boat, and the disciples say to themselves, “Well, he’s getting into a boat. I guess maybe we should too.” So they climb in and head out onto the Sea of Galilee. And after they’ve been out there awhile, a huge storm blows up, and their tiny boat is on the verge of getting swamped. And the disciples cry out, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” So the very first words of the disciples in the Gospel of Matthew are: “Ahhhhhh!!!!” Jesus gets up, stills the storm, and the disciples are amazed. “What sort of man is this,” they exclaim, “that even the winds and the sea obey him?”

What do you mean, “What sort of man is this?” They’ve been following Jesus around for almost five chapters, watching him cast out demons and heal the sick, and hearing him proclaim that things are going to be radically different because God’s reign is breaking into our world, and all they can say is, “Hey, who is this guy, anyway?!” Looks like pretty rocky terrain to me.

Now a bunch of time has passed, and the disciples have seen Jesus do a bunch more things—like feeding thousands of people with one loaf of bread and a couple of tiny fish. Then in Chapter 14 they’re out in a boat again, all by themselves. Oh, boy! You guessed it. Another storm blows up and tosses their little boat around all night, and they’re scared witless. Close to morning they see someone who looks just like Jesus walking towards them on the sea. And they say . . . “It’s a ghost!” [At this point we can only shake our heads.]

“No, it is I; do not be afraid,” says Jesus. When Peter sees that it does, indeed, look like Jesus, he says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” So Jesus says, “OK, come on out of the boat.” Peter jumps over the edge of the boat and starts walking toward Jesus on the sea, until he notices the wind and the waves and becomes afraid and starts to sink—well, like a rock. As he’s going down he cries out, “Lord, save me!”, the very first words that the disciples had spoken way back in Chapter 8. Immediately Jesus reaches out, grabs Rocky, and says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Fast forward to the end of Chapter 26. In the intervening chapters, the disciples have, of course, witnessed Jesus do many more incredible things. But now he has been arrested and put on trial, and a worried Peter is standing outside in the courtyard wringing his hands by the fire. A serving girl comes up and says, “Hey, haven’t I seen you with this guy Jesus?” And Peter says, “Who, me? You must have me mixed up with somebody else.” Rocky, indeed.

One more story about the loyal disciples. It’s Easter evening. A few of the women went to the tomb that morning, and you know what happened. There’s an earthquake. An angel appears, rolls back the stone, sits on top of it, and says, “Don’t be afraid. He’s not here. God raised him from the dead. Go tell his disciples.”

The women do as they have been commanded, and the disciples head out to Galilee and climb the mountain as Jesus had asked. And sure enough, there he is—risen from the grave. Surely of all the incredible things they had seen and heard this was the greatest, God victorious over the power of death. Surely this one they had to take to heart. But what does the story say? “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” Surprise, surprise! There they are, some of them at least, at the end of the story, pretty much where they began. Not even the risen Jesus standing in their midst can break through the rocky soil.

Why do some people hear the good news and respond to it, and others do not? One thing we can conclude from looking at the story of the disciples is that disciples don’t really have any business asking that question. Their story is a story of rocky ground and hardened hearts that can’t see Jesus for who he really is even when he is standing at the end of their very own noses. Rather than “Why are they not responding?” the question the parable of the sower puts to all disciples is “How are you hearing and responding to the good news? How are you bearing fruit because the power of sin and death is defeated and the kingdom of God is on the way?”

Our stories are stories of rocky ground and hardened hearts that oftentimes have a hard time recognizing Jesus in this troubled world that shows so few signs of the coming reign of God. Trials and tribulations fall upon us and harden our hearts. Faith somedays looks naive in comparison to more realistic world views, and our hearts grow hard. People sometimes mock us for professing to have faith, let alone trying to live by it, and our hearts become hard. Seasons of grief flood our lives and threaten to drown us, and we begin to wonder if our faith is good for anything, and our hearts harden. Sometimes we get so consumed by our own agendas and priorities that Jesus becomes something of a nuisance—who has time for worship, for prayer, for acts of mercy and kindness and generosity, for a way of life that costs us something?—and our hearts set up hard as rock.

But remember, parables are always about God. And what is God up to in the parable of the sower? Sowing. And the Sower keeps on sowing, and sowing, and sowing until by the gracious power of God the seed breaks open the rocky ground and sinks into our hardened hearts and something there begins to grow -- faith, hope, love. And, even in spite of ourselves and mostly because of God’s persistence, we bear fruit -- thirty-fold, sixty-fold, even a hundred-fold. Let anyone with hears to hear listen.

—Thanks to Richard Jensen and William Willimon for various ideas that shaped this sermon. See Jensen's sermon on the Markan version here -- http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/jensen_4512.htm.

Why do we give money to the church?

2011-07-04T20:49:00.000-07:00

A good response to that question by Lutheran theologian Craig Satterlee:

http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=9684

Holy Trinity

2011-06-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Holy Trinity -- June 19, 2011
Matthew 28:16-20

Many possibilities come to mind as I ponder where a sermon on Trinity Sunday might go, some good and some not so good. I’ve done the not so good ones before, the sort of thing where you attempt to illumine the mystery of the triune God, Three-in-One and One-in-Three, by using the old liquid, gas, solid analogy. Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the junior high physics lesson, even as I confess to having stooped to such lameness in the past.

The problem with such analogies is that they fall into an ancient heresy called modalism: the idea that God is one God who manifests God’s self in different modes--sometimes Father, sometimes Spirit, sometimes Son. But that’s not at all what the church has meant in talking about a triune God--that God is sometimes this, another time that, and at other times something else. What the church teaches about the Trinity is that God is always and at the same time three distinct persons--Father, Son, and Spirit--yet somehow one God.

The idea really is relationship. What we are stretching the bounds of language and logic to claim is that God in God’s self exists as relationship. When we say that God is love we don’t mean simply that God is a loving divine being, but that God is love. God is love itself within God’s being. Love always requires a subject--someone to do the loving--and an object--someone to receive the loving, and vice versa. In other words, love can only happen in a relationship of persons who love each other. Such is the nature of our God. God is love: a community of loving persons.

So are we making sense?! I don’t know actually how you find words to describe such things, and yet we’re humans who can’t make sense of anything except by using words, so we have to find ways--albeit limited ways--to speak of God as essentially relational.

Try this idea on for size. A couple of years ago I heard Dr. Craig Nessan, who teaches at Wartburg Seminary. He offered an image of the Trinity that grabbed my attention and is worth sharing. He said that the Trinity shows us that we have a God who is relentless in mission. What did he mean by that: God is relentless in mission; in other words, God is relentless in going out of God’s self to do something in the universe? That’s what mission means, right? If you’re on a mission, you leave home and go out into the world to accomplish something.

The mission of the first person of the Trinity, God the Father, the Parent/Creator, is to go out and make a world to love. Why do you exist? Because God wanted somebody to love. Why do birds, and beagles, and pine trees, and lilies of the valley exist? Because God wanted a world to love. In creation God is on a mission out of God’s self into a world to love. So first of all, we see the creation as an expression of God’s restless, missional nature, God’s desire to go out of God’s self in love toward the other.

The mission of the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, is to restore to right relationship a creation that had become alienated from its Creator through sin. The loving God could not bear to let that alienation prevail. Instead God went on a mission in person, becoming incarnate in a human creature, to heal the broken relationship between creation and Creator. The manger and the cross are places along the way of God’s loving mission to the world.

The mission of the third person of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit, is God going out of God’s self in love for us every moment of every day of our lives. The Holy Spirit is the power of God that gives us faith, announces to us the forgiveness of sins, and enables us to meet God regularly in the common elements of water, bread, and wine.

The Trinity shows us a God who always has been and always will be on a loving mission to the world. As Pastor Daniel Erlander says in one of his books, “God is on a mission to mend the broken universe.” Our God is restlessly and relentlessly in mission.

Today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew is called “The Great Commission.” Do you hear the word “mission” in there? A co-mission is a mission we’re sent on together. Our mission as the church, as followers of Jesus, is a co-mission we share together, but even more so, a co-mission we share with God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As followers of Jesus, we are called into God’s mission in the world.

“Go and make disciples of all nations,” says the Risen Christ to his disciples, his followers. “Those of you who are my followers leave home, leave Jerusalem, and go out into all the nations--all the world--to accomplish something, to accomplish God’s loving purpose for the world by baptizing, by preaching, by teaching, by loving the neighbor.” Don’t you hear in that commission God’s restless, relentless push out into all the world in love? And don’t you hear the invitation for you to join the surge and ride the wave that continuously washes the whole creation in God’s love?

The mission we have as the church is God’s mission. It is what God is doing every Sunday in worship. Every Sunday God is on a mission to us—forgiving, healing, restoring, lifting up us. And it is what God is seeking to do in sending us into the world each week. Every week we are sent out to take up our part in God’s great mission of loving the world. We go out from this place to be God’s forgiving, healing, restoring, lifting-up presence in the world.

That is why as we are in this process of thinking about our future as a congregation, we have been asking ourselves missional questions. How is God calling us into God’s mission in the world, making best use of the gifts God has already given us?

So we are focusing on spiritual practices that form us a faithful disciples of Jesus--scripture reading, prayer, learning, worship, generosity--ancient faith practices that equip us to share God’s mission in the world.

And we are focusing on daily discipleship, on how God calls each of us to serve, support, and nurture others in our daily roles as parent, child, caregiver, neighbor, worker, volunteer, however you spend your time each day. This is where God’s mission is happening. How are you called to take up the co-mission in daily life?

And we are focusing on the call to serve the neighborhood as a congregation. God has placed Windsor Heights Lutheran Church in a city and in a neighborhood surrounded by real people with a real need to know that God is on a mission of love to them. How will we go out of ourselves as a congregation to meet the needs of our neighbors?

And we are focusing on how our facilities might best serve a missional purpose. When the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70, I’m convinced that God was trying to teach people of faith that buildings have a purpose only when then support God’s outward mission into the world. If a building exists unto itself and merely for its own gleaming glory, it is destined to fall into a heap of rubble. So we are asking ourselves how our building can serve missional purposes by equipping faithful disciples to take up God’s mission in daily life and serving the needs of the neighbors God has given us.

God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--is on a mission to mend the broken universe, across the galaxy and across the street. May the Spirit stir in us a restlessness that inspires us to take up anew our part in this Great Co-Mission for the sake of the world that God loves.

Scarcity vs. Abundance

2011-06-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Interesting comments from one of the greatest living biblical theologians. Do you live in scarcity mode or abundance mode? Click the link below to read:

Brueggemann points to a food fight in Scripture

Day of Pentecost

2011-06-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

Pentecost Year A - June 12, 2011
Acts 2:1-21

A pastor colleague once lamented that a family in his congregation had left for another church which they were certain was “Spirit-filled.” “How did they know?” I wondered. How could they be sure that the Spirit was in one place but not the other? What were the telling signs of the Spirit’s presence?

As you might detect from my tone, I have a problem with this kind of language, common as it is, that suggests that the Spirit is present when and where I say the Spirit is present -- that the realness of the Spirit is somehow dependent upon my ability to feel or discern it. It makes me wonder just who’s in control of God’s Spirit anyway? Me or God?

I guess it’s my “Lutheranness” coming out, and I have to tell you that it’s connected particularly to what we as Lutherans believe about baptism. As you know, Lutherans stubbornly insist on baptizing infants. Of course we baptize older persons who desire it and have never been baptized. But, in keeping with the great tradition of Christian practice stretching back to the earliest times, we insist on baptizing persons when they are young and helpless, unable to speak for themselves, dependent upon others to feed and care for them, and must be carried to the font in someone else’s arms rather than come under their own power. Why? Precisely to emphasize that it is not our choice but God’s. It is God who chooses us, not we who choose God. It is God who pours out the Spirit when God will, not when we will it, or are able to feel it, or ready to receive it.

How do you know if you have the Spirit? Because you feel it? Because you manifest certain signs and symptoms? Luther says if you want to know for sure that you have the Spirit, look at your baptismal certificate, or light the candle you received on the day you were baptized, or ask someone who was there like a parent or a sponsor, or make the sign of the cross with which you were marked on the day of your baptism, and remember that on that day God poured out upon you the Holy Spirit as a gift. And know that you still have the irrevocable gift of the Spirit, even on those days and in those times when you cannot feel it -- even on those days when you don’t feel particularly holy, or worthy, or chosen, or called, or fervent, or special.

This isn’t just a Lutheran thing, you know. As I said, it’s a conviction we hold within the broad stream of Christian teaching. William Willimon, a great preacher and bishop in the United Methodist Church, once said in a sermon, “Too often we present the Christian life as something that we do, something that we think or feel. We talk about our search for God, our commitment to Christ, our attempts to get closer to God. Yet in scripture, the story tends to be the other way around. In Christ, God is searching for us, God is committed to us, God is attempting to get close to us. As is said in scripture: we love because God first loved us.”

Back in the day when we learned to diagram sentences in school (remember those days when we actually learned grammar in grammar school?), we developed the ability to identify the parts of a sentence. I’m sure some of you can still do it. Take a simple sentence, say, “God loves you.” The subject of the sentence is? (God.) The verb of the sentence is? (Loves.) The object of the sentence is? (You.) God is the subject, the doer of the action. That action is loving. The object or recipient of the action is you. Simple.

Equally “simple” in a world of sometimes complex theological thought is this: if you were to pick one phrase that sums up the whole of what God reveals to us about God’s self in all the scriptures and in the person of Jesus, it is this: God loves us. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Indeed, it does, from beginning to end. God love us -- subject, verb, object. Period. To be sure, the Bible also talks about us loving God, but always in response to God first loving us. Or to put it another way, our choosing to follow God is always in response to God first choosing us.

Baptism merely practices what the scriptures teach (what Jesus taught). That is why very early on the church instituted the practice of infant baptism. Baptism embodies what Jesus teaches: God, the subject, loves us, the objects of God’s love. Every time you see a helpless little one carried to the font, be reminded that this is how it is between God and you. God seeks you. God loves you. God creates a relationship with you. Nothing will keep you from the love of God, not your own reluctance, or lack of understanding, or inability to feel or discern God’s presence. Nothing will ever be able to separate you from the love of God precisely because it is God who breaks through all barriers to love you.

That’s what Pentecost is about: God smashing through barriers to love the world that God fashioned and redeemed. The story from Acts tells us that “God-fearing Jews from every nation of the world” were converging on Jerusalem for Pentecost, a pilgrimage festival that occurred 50 days after Passover. “Every nation under heaven,” says the author, is represented: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, etc. It is an all-inclusive list that is meant to represent all the peoples of the world at that time.

A band of about 120 followers of Jesus were constantly together in prayer in the days following his resurrection, gathered in an upper room. Suddenly, a sound like a violent rush of wind and visions of tongues like fire fell upon them and “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them.” In a miracle of communication, “each one [of all these people gathered from all the nations of the earth] heard the believers speaking in the native language of each.” The crowd exclaims, “How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own languages!”

That’s the miracle of Pentecost, the miracle of God indiscriminately pouring out God’s love for all people, for all creatures, for the whole creation. The inclusiveness of God’s love breaks through any and all barriers: language, race, social group, economics, gender, ethnicity. God’s desire to love us smashes through our own personal barriers: faithlessness, laziness, sin, doubt, despair. There is nothing in heaven or on earth that can ever get in the way of God loving you and claiming you as a beloved child.

That is the miracle of Pentecost: the good news that the story is, in fact, the other way around, just the opposite of what we expect. In the Risen Christ, God is searching for you, God is committed to you, God is attempting to get close to you. God is the subject. You are the object. Love is the verb. And there is most definitely a period at the end of that sentence.

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

2011-05-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

Easter 6A - May 29, 2011
John 14:15-21

Even though the Spirit plays an important role in the Christian life, you probably haven’t heard too many sermons on the topic. Though I can think of a handful of reasons why that is so, the main reason is probably that it is just difficult to talk about Spirit. I mean, have you ever seen the Spirit? The re:form videos we’ve been watching this year on Akaloo Wednesdays consistently depict the Holy Spirit as a cute little ghost wearing sunglasses. Is that ruh-eely what the Spirit looks like? I doubt it. And I guess that’s what makes preaching - or for that matter even talking - about the Holy Spirit so difficult. We don’t know what the Spirit looks like.

Or do we? Well . . . no we don’t. Let’s just get that out of the way up front. Nobody knows exactly what the Spirit looks like. And yet we do get two really helpful clues in today’s gospel reading that, taken together, give us a fairly decent picture of what the Spirit might look like.

First of all, the gospel-writer John says the Holy Spirit looks like an Advocate. Some translations of the Bible used the word Paraclete instead. “Well that helps a lot!” you say. “So many things come to mind when I hear the word ‘Paraclete.’” Actually, Advocate is good because that is what the original Greek word, parakletos, means. It’s a term for someone who is called to your side as a source of help. In a court, for example, a parakletos is your lawyer, someone who advocates for you before the judge.

In our times we use the word “advocate” also to describe someone who takes your side and comes to your aid, maybe in the court system, or an educational institution, or some other setting. We also speak of advocacy as the work of pressing law makers to take certain actions. And in those situations the advocate is typically advocating for those who don’t have much of a voice in the system, like the poor, children, or the hungry.

So the Holy Spirit looks like an Advocate - like someone who stands up for you when you need it; one who speaks on your behalf; one who lends you a hand, takes your side, and won’t desert you when the going gets rough. That’s kind of a helpful picture.

The second clue is this: the Holy Spirit looks like Jesus. Did you hear it when Jesus said that the Spirit is “another advocate.” That’s because Jesus was the first advocate. And just as Jesus, the Word made flesh, abided with us in his earthly life, so the Spirit will continue to abide with us. If we read on in John’s gospel, we hear that the Spirit, abiding with us, will remind us of what Jesus taught and did. The Spirit, then, keeps on hanging out with us, mediating Jesus’ presence to us, and fulfilling Jesus’ promise that he would not leave us orphaned.

Put Clue #1 and Clue #2 together and we might say this: the Holy Spirit is an advocate who looks a whole lot like Jesus. [Most of what I’m saying here, incidentally, comes from David Lose, who teaches at Luther Seminary.] David goes on to say that we have in fact seen the Holy Spirit lots of times. We see the Spirit whenever someone stands up for another; whenever someone acts like Jesus; whenever someone bears the love of Christ for another. Whenever and wherever that happens, we have seen the Holy Spirit.

Even though I kind of like that cute little ghost with the sunglasses, it turns out that the Holy Spirit really looks more like you, and even like me, and like any of us when we do the things that Jesus does. No wonder Jesus says of the Spirit, “you know him.” We all know him or her, Mr. or Ms. Spirit, because we all know people who do Jesus-like stuff.

The Spirit sometimes looks like someone who wears one of these (a hard hat) and uses one of these (a hammer). Haven’t you seen people doing Jesus-like stuff with hammers and nails? Rebuilding homes after tornadoes or floods have struck. Building affordable homes for low-income families (like we all have the opportunity to do next Saturday on the Habitat for Humanity work day).

The Spirit sometimes looks like someone who wears one of these (a stethoscope) and uses one of these (a blood pressure device). I don’t like it when my doctor uses one of these, actually, because I have white coat syndrome and my blood pressure is always higher than it should be when he takes it. But he’s trying to take good care of me, make sure I stay healthy, so that I can continue to be productive and enjoy life. I have a friend who is in medical school who will be taking one of these (and maybe even one of these) and going to Tanzania in the fall to do medical work on behalf of some of the poorest people on the planet. Looks sort of like the Spirit to me.

The Spirit sometimes looks like someone who uses one of these (a computer). Well, don’t we all anymore? Whether you are processing mortgage payments at Wells Fargo, or writing programs that make these things run or do something useful or fun, or using one of these to manage a small business or a non-profit, or to check out your granddaughter’s Facebook page because you are interested in her life, or email your grandson to tell him you love him, you have the opportunity to do Jesus-like stuff with it - to be one who supports, encourages, comforts, helps others. You know, you can even use one of these to learn about legislative issues and email your senators and representatives as an advocate for those who don’t have a voice, those who are easy to forget, those who are the most vulnerable in our world. Any one of us, sitting behind one of these, can look a whole lot like the Spirit.

In fact, the Spirit sometimes - well all the time, really - looks like this [hold up mirror]. Whenever you stand up for another; whenever you act like Jesus; whenever you bear the love of Christ to another you look just like the Holy Spirit. Whenever you do any of those things, Jesus, through the Spirit and in YOU, is in the room, in the world, living, abiding with us, doing the stuff that Jesus does. Think about how cool that is! Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is present in the world in real, concrete ways when you do Jesus-like stuff. And keep on thinking about how the Holy Spirit is at work in you and through you for us and for all the world that God loves so much.

Four Marks of the Church

2011-05-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

This will appear in the June-July edition of The Window (WHLC's newsletter).

I returned recently from the National Workshop on Christian Unity and the annual meeting of the Lutheran Ecumenical Representatives Network. I want to lift up just one aspect of the experience for you, a Bible study led by Dr. Mark Allan Powell from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, OH.

Dr. Powell enumerated four marks of the church mentioned in the Gospel of Luke and Acts (also written by the same author as Luke) and suggested that they should guide us as we think about the life of the church today. The four marks are:

1—Fellowship. Believers in the post-resurrection community gathered daily for the breaking of the bread, an obvious reference to the Lord’s Supper (Acts 2:46). Food insecurity was common in first century Palestine, and most people ate only one meal a day. When Christians broke bread together daily, they were sharing their most precious resource: food. In a world where people were hungry, everyone got to eat, and in such sharing believers experienced the presence of the risen Christ.

2—Teaching. Luke-Acts shows teaching as a major hallmark of the community. Jesus himself needed to be taught, sitting at the feet of the rabbis in the temple as a child (Luke 2:41-52). Jesus teaches more in Luke’s gospel than any other. During the 40 days after the resurrection, he is continuously teaching his followers. The church, then and now, is a community of “people who know that they don’t know,” said Powell. There is always more to know, so the church is a community of ongoing questioning and learning.

3—Sharing. Members of the church in Acts shared all things is common (Acts 2:44). A hallmark of the Christian community is that no one owns anything. Believers in Acts saw rightly that all things belong to God—our bodies, time, money, possessions. The church is not a community of owners, but a community of stewards that asks how we can use the gifts God has given us to advance God’s mission in the world.

4—Prayer and Worship. Jesus prays more in Luke’s gospel than any other. In Acts the community is continuously at prayer (Acts 2:46). This example should remind us that Sunday is the Lord’s Day, the day to praise God who is worthy to be praised. The only way we can fail in what we do on Sunday is if God is not honored. Worship is not about pleasing me but honoring God. So why should I go to church even if (I feel) I don’t get anything out of it?

To worship God (who is good to you).
For the sake of the other people who get more out of it if you are there (yes, believe it or not, every part of the body is important).
Because you actually do get something out of it—maybe not an emotional charge every time, but you hear the Word of God and receive the body and blood of Christ, and that is not nothing!

Fellowship. Teaching. Sharing. Worship. Four marks of the church. How are we doing at making these essential characteristics the hallmarks of our congregation?

See you in church.

Pastor Chris

Biding God's Time

2011-05-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

I am back to using the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church as my resource for daily prayer (which I like for a variety of reasons that I won't discuss here). Today is the day the church commemorates Augustine, the first archbishop of Canterbury. In the collect commemorating Augustine, we find this line: "we pray that all whom you call and send may do your will, and bide your time, and see your glory."

We use the phrase "to bide one's time," meaning to wait quietly for an opportunity to do something else. I like the idea of biding God's time, waiting quietly - prayerfully - to do that which God will call us to do. In a busy world, biding time is seen as a luxury. What if it is a necessity if we are to discern that good work to which God calls us?

May we use our time well, because really it is God's time, given to us to use for a purpose.

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter

2011-05-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

Easter 3A―May 8, 2011
Luke 24:13-35

I don’t like to share stories about Bennett too much from the pulpit anymore, now that he is old enough to know when he’s being talked about. So I share the following with his permission.

We were having breakfast one beautiful spring morning, during the Easter season, when Bennett looked up from his toast and asked, “Daddy, where’s Jesus?” I have to admit that I was kind of pleased with the theological depth of my son's question. “Good job remembering what Easter is all about, Bennett” I said. “You remembered that Jesus isn't in the tomb anymore.

“But, Daddy,” he replied. “If Jesus is alive, how come I don't see his feet anywhere?”

This was the phase, you see, when things needed to have feet in order to be really present. Thunder, for example, wasn’t a problem. Thunder, Bennett informed us one stormy night, can’t come inside the house because it doesn’t have feet. Ah, so the real question is where is Jesus if he’s not in the tomb? Does Jesus have feet in our world?

That is the question on the road to Emmaus. It is Easter evening, and two disciples are walking along the road to the little village called Emmaus a few miles from Jerusalem. One is named Cleopas. Ever heard of Cleopas before? Of course you haven’t. He's not mentioned anywhere in any gospel but here. He is one of the anonymous followers of Jesus.

The other disciple isn't even named. I think this is done on purpose by the gospel writer Luke. I think he leaves the other disciple unnamed precisely so that you can fill your name into the blank. He or she is sort of an Every Disciple. So here we have you and another largely anonymous disciple walking along the road of post-resurrection life. You know that one of the metaphors the early Christians chose for the Jesus movement was “the way” or “the road.” As we walk the way of following Jesus, we ask, Where is Jesus?

You and Cleopas are clearly confused. You have heard the report of some church ladies who found the tomb empty and shared a strange tale of a vision of an angel who told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead. But if he has been raised, where is he? Why hasn't anyone seen him? In Luke’s gospel, you see, no one has seen the risen Lord yet, only an empty tomb.

Not recognizing the “stranger” who comes alongside you on the way, you share your struggles with him. When you’re done talking, Jesus replies, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared.” And “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpret[s] to [you] the things about himself in all the scriptures.”

In all the scriptures. As we learned in the recent Bible study downstairs between services, Martin Luther says that the scriptures are like a manger that bears Christ to us. Luther did not mean only the New Testament, but all the whole Bible. Even those things written hundreds of years before Jesus bear witness to him. All the scriptures witness to God's great love for the world, a love supremely evident in Christ. So Luther says we read both testaments looking for Christ. “What builds up Christ in us?” Luther asks. That is the lens that guides a Lutheran reading of scripture.

So, where's Jesus? He’s in the Bible, from beginning to end. That's why scripture is so important to Christian practice. It is at the center of our worship. We hear a rich selection of readings from the Bible, “old” and new testaments, every week. The sermon is a biblical sermon, connected to the scriptures for the day. The words we say, the songs we sing, the things we do, and the very pattern of worship itself are all biblical.

And the scriptures are at the heart of daily life and devotion. That's why we have been trying pretty hard to encourage you to dwell in the Word to some extent every day by pondering the daily Bible readings linked on our website or in the E-Weekly, or perhaps within a devotional booklet like Christ in our Home, which we always have out in the narthex. The scriptures are central to our lives because we meet Jesus there. Our Lord is revealed to us in all the scriptures. It's where he joins us as we walk this post-resurrection road. It’s one of the places where Jesus has feet.

It is one of the places. Did you notice how as you and Cleopas come into Emmaus, a familiar scene unfolds. You gather around a table to share a meal. “Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to [you]. Then [your] eyes were opened, and [you] recognized him.” Yes, another place where Jesus has feet is around this table, where he breaks the bread of life and shares it with us. He meets us here in this place, at this meal, every time we gather to share it.

As Lutherans, along with many Christians, we confess that Jesus is really and truly present in the Lord's Supper. It is not merely a remembering, a memorial of events that happened way back when, but a remembering that makes those events real for us gathered here and now. We take Jesus at his word when he says, “This is my body.” We take him at his word when he says, “This is my blood.” We trust what he promises - “this is for you, for the forgiveness of sins - even though we don't understand how it is possible.

Jesus comes to us and offers us new life in Holy Communion, and we stretch out our hands and receive the gift. Lutherans don't have altar calls, or so we hear. Really? We actually have a weekly altar call as you are called to step forward and accept the gift of new life that our Lord offers again and again.

Jesus has feet around this table. He is revealed here. But then in a way, he vanishes, as he vanished from the table at Emmaus, not to leave us but to lead us on to the next place where he appears. After he has filled us with good things at the table, he sends us out to meet him in the world where we live. We who have been fed by the bread of life are asked to go and share the bread of life with others.

That theme really underlies this whole story of Jesus walking alongside, or accompanying, the two disciples. The word “accompany,” like “companionship” or “companion,” has the Latin word for “bread” at its heart, pane. Com means “with. Pane means “bread.” Companionship or accompaniment, means sharing bread with another.

Sharing the bread of life with another. That is the meaning and purpose of life for those who follow Jesus on the way. Having eaten our fill at the table, we go and share bread with with others. Accompanying someone through a painful or dangerous time. Sitting with someone in the surgery waiting room. Walking with companions, like homeless or hungry brothers and sisters. Showing up at a funeral or visitation just to be there, just to be present, to walk with the hurting ones. There are many ways to accompany, many ways that you can share the bread of life with others.

Where's Jesus in this post-resurrection world? We don’t have to worry about finding his footprints because we know so clearly where to look: in the Word, around the table, and every day as we share our bread with one another. May our hearts burn within as Jesus reveals himself to us on the way.

Easter Sermon

2011-04-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

Easter Day A - April 24, 2011

Matthew 28:1-10

As you know, there are four gospels that our ancestors in the faith decided to put into the collection of sacred writings that we call the Bible. Those gospels go by the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There are other gospel-like writings, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter, that our forebears decided were not particularly worth passing on to future generations. But that is a topic for another day and a different setting.

My point for today is that the four gospels we do have in the Bible all offer different accounts of the resurrection. Those who put the Bible together for us long ago decided to let them stand side-by-side with their inconsistencies and contradictions. I expect they thought we could handle it as thinking Christians. And it is a reminder that though the Bible is to be taken seriously, it is not meant to be taken literally.[1]

Since we do take the Bible seriously, we take these differences seriously as well. We ask why they matter. Why did each gospel writer emphasize different aspects of the resurrection? What was the truth about resurrection that each was trying to communicate to us?

So today as we hear the resurrection story from Matthew’s gospel, ask yourself these questions: Who are the main characters in the story? What happens to them at the tomb? And then what do they do in response to what they experience there?

Mary Magdalene and another woman named Mary come to the tomb at sunrise. Unlike the other gospel writers, Matthew does not tell us what their purpose is. All the other followers of Jesus deserted him at the foot of the cross and ran away. They are in hiding. But not the two Marys. They are the most faithful followers of Jesus, who come perhaps to grieve, to wail and lament, to express their grief publicly while the other disciples cower at home.

Whatever their purpose in coming, what they encounter next is clearly not at all what they expected. Suddenly the earth shakes and quakes again, as it had at the time of Jesus’ death. An angel descends from heaven. His appearance is like lightning, his clothing a blinding white. Single-handedly he rolls away a stone that should take about 20 able-bodied men to move. “For fear of him” the well-armed soldiers guarding the tomb faint and fall over like dead men. The two Marys are, naturally, terrified.

Then we hear, on the lips of this divine messenger - if divine messengers clothed in lightning actually have lips - the first words of the Easter proclamation. Not “he is risen!” Not “he is not here.” But “Do not be afraid.” That, according to Matthew, is the first word of Easter: “Do not be afraid.”

Ah, remember? There’s fear aplenty in Matthew’s gospel, especially in recent events. In fear, the disciples run away after Jesus is arrested. In fear, Peter denies that he knows Jesus. In fear, Pilate hands over Jesus to the bloodthirsty crowd to keep them from rioting. In fear, the security detail guarding the cross trembles as the earth quakes at Jesus' death. In fear, the chief priests and Pharisees persuade Pilate to have the tomb heavily guarded. In fear, Pilate says, “Here's your guard of soldiers; go, make the tomb as secure as you can.” Everyone is afraid of something as the sun sets on Good Friday.

And so, the first word of Easter is, “Do not be afraid.” Then, the messenger continues, “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” And then the faithful Marys are given a command to go quickly and tell the other disciples. And because they are the faithful ones, they go and do as they have been commanded.

But notice this one detail that only Matthew of the four gospel writers provides. He tells us that the women “left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy.” With fear and great joy. Even in their joy at seeing the tomb empty, these two most faithful ones are still affected by fear. But - and perhaps this is the truth of resurrection that Matthew wants us to know - they go anyway. The faithful Marys go, despite their fear, and share the news that they have been asked to tell.

I remember a number of years ago a Bible study came across my desk entitled, Being Christian in a World of Fear. Now this was pre-9/11, pre-global terrorism, pre-wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, pre-Great Recession, pre-upheaval in the Middle East and much of Africa, long before the turmoil and uncertainty that seem to mark our days. Even then I remember thinking, is there some other kind of world in which to be Christian? Is there some place we can go on this planet, somewhere we can make our home in human experience, where we must not attempt to live faithfully face-to-face with our fears?

I've seen it so often, even in people in their ninth or tenth decade of life. Faithful ones born and reared in the faith. Faithful ones who lived all those years in trust and hope. They come to the end of life, and often say that they are not afraid to die. And that is a great confession of faith. But still, at the same time, you sense that the struggle with death goes on deep within, despite their words. Fear of death, fear of the unknown, surges up irrepressibly.

It reminds me of a scene from the Martin Scorcese film The Last Temptation of Christ. Jesus comes to the tomb of his good friend, Lazarus, who had died. The stone is rolled away and a great stench of rotting flesh wafts out. Jesus falls down on his knees at the dark entrance to the tomb and begins to pray. “Lazarus, come out,” he commands. Nothing. Dead silence. “Lazarus, come out,” he commands again. Still nothing but a long silence.

Then abruptly an arm shoots out of the tomb, its hand blackened and disfigured by death. Jesus, wide-eyed, grasps onto that gruesome hand and begins to tug upward, but all of the sudden the hand jerks and pulls Jesus forward, and he tumbles into the darkness of the grave. All is silent again as we stare at the opaque entrance to the tomb, hanging in suspense, wondering who has prevailed in the struggle. Has death drug Lazarus and Jesus back down into its home? After a tense moment, Jesus emerges through the dark doorway hauling Lazarus into the light of day.

I imagine a similar moment of suspense as the two faithful Marys stand at the entrance of Jesus’ tomb, terrified by the angel’s blinding presence and fear of the unknown, with so much hanging in the balance. Will they go away in fear and say nothing to anyone, as the women in Mark’s gospel do? Or will they go and share the news, despite their fear, in faithfulness to the commission they have received? Matthew testifies that they go.

Being Christian in a world of fear. Is there any other kind of world in which to be Christian? Fear of death. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of an uncertain future. Fear of failure. Fear of getting yanked into nothingness by death’s strong arm. Easter is staged in a cemetery, because this is where we live: face-to-face with death, face-to-face with our fears.

So notice one more detail of Matthew’s resurrection story. The faithful Marys go, despite their fear, to share the good news as they have been commanded. And it is in their obedient going forth that they run face-to-face into the Risen One. As they turn from the cemetery and go, Jesus is there. Perhaps Matthew thinks this is how it is for all faithful ones, that faithful women and men of all times and places encounter the power of resurrection when we turn our backs on the cemetery, turn away from death, walk away from our fears and go to share the good news as we have been commanded.

Truly we are the characters in this story. Whatever our purpose in coming here this morning, we are met by an empty tomb, we are given an urgent message to carry, and we are pointed away from the cemetery toward a world that desperately needs to hear what we now have to say.

“Do not be afraid” - the first word of Easter. May it be the word by which we live in a world of fear, the message our lives proclaim.

[1]From the sermon “Busy, busy, busy,” by Lilian Daniel at faithandleadership.com.

A Life-Size Jesus

2011-04-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

I loved this reflection. Our entertainment culture idolizes the power of celebrity and wants to turn Jesus into a larger-than-life rock star. Maybe not.

A good read as we head toward the Three Days:

Larger than life, or not - By Marshall Scott

The Future of Religion?

2011-04-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a very intriguing piece from the Omaha World-Herald about a planned tri-faith campus there, the site of a church, a temple, and a mosque. Could this be the future of the church?

Omaha: Interfaith Capital?

Fifth Sunday in Lent

2011-04-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

Lent 5A - April 10, 2011
Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45

I have a photo on my desk of a woman in her mid-40s, bending down so that her head is level with that of a young Tanzania boy. A big smile radiates from her face that, especially for those who knew her, communicated the joy that was her most essential trait. That photo was taken on a trip to our companion diocese in Tanzania that was a life-changing experience for Julie during the time she served as Vice President of the Southeastern Iowa Synod.

You maybe notice that I have lapsed into past tense language about Julie. It’s because she died a couple of years ago, far too young at age 48, after a short but intense battle with a very aggressive cancer.

One encounters illness and death a lot as a pastor, so there is not much about the death and dying process that shocks or surprises me anymore. Julie’s death, however, was an exception, because when I stood at the open casket prior to her funeral, I honestly could not recognize the body of my friend. Her shape and form had been so ravaged, so broken down and destroyed, by the cancer that she was no longer physically recognizable as Julie. It was, frankly, a chilling moment. Who could believe that she had come to this, and in so short a time? Who could look upon these broken bones and decaying flesh and find it in his heart to hope?

“Mortal, can these bones live?” I doubt Ezekiel could have managed a “yes” if his life depended upon it. Before his eyes stretches a vast valley floor covered with the remains of the long dead, their bones so dried up and broken that there could be no hope of life. The ancients believed that life was in the marrow of the bones. After baking in this infernal desert oven for who knows how long, there was no marrow, no life, to be found in these bones. Any hope of that had dried up long ago.

Ezekiel stands in the spirit on the site of a great battle, where the bodies of the fallen were left long ago by the enemy to rot in the sun. The Assyrian empire had overrun Israel and carried off her leading citizens, including the priest Ezekiel, into exile. Ezekiel envisions Israel, fallen and in captivity, as this vast field of dry, lifeless bones. Who could imagine God's own chosen people coming to this? Who could look upon this pile of broken bones and find it in his heart to hope?

“Mortal,” asks the spirit of God, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel has no reason for optimism. His honest answer would be “no.” Yet his response leaves the door open at least a crack: “O Lord GOD, you know.” He does not leap to a “Yes!” He does not whitewash the reality of Israel's brokenness. It was too close, too familiar, for him to do that. He does not hold back his grief over the death of his people and his despair for their future. But somehow he refuses to limit God. “O Lord GOD, you know.” He refuses to cut out the possibility that God, and only God, could do a new thing, even though such a thing is entirely beyond Ezekiel's imagining.

Is it possible that sometimes hope means simply refusing to limit God's power to do a new thing, even when such a thing is entirely beyond our power to imagine?

Who could imagine a beloved brother restored to life? It is such a familiar scene: illness, death, burial, tears and sobs. The grieving sisters. The friends and neighbors gathered around in support. In the midst of such a common scene of grief, who could imagine Lazarus raised from the dead?

Certainly not Martha, who accuses, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died . . . but you weren’t.” Not Mary, who also says, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died,” and then breaks down and weeps because Jesus is, indeed, too late. Not the friends and neighbors, who say, “Surely he who opened the eyes of the blind man could have kept Lazarus from dying . . . if only he’d been here . . . but now it’s too late.” Too late. Too dead. In the tomb too long. Who could look upon such realities and find it in his or her heart to hope?

Who could have imagined Lazarus, dead four days, his flesh already stinking from decomposition, bound head to foot like a mummy, arms held firmly to his side, legs bound together, his head completely wrapped in strips of cloth . . . who could have imagined Lazarus hopping and shuffling out of the tomb?

We are sometimes tempted to think that it must have been easier for those present that day to believe in God's power to do a new thing. They saw Lazarus raised from the dead. And when has any of us seen a dead person raised to life? The story even says that some of those “who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.” We have never seen such a thing.

But we forget that Lazarus had to die again, and his family and friends were plunged back into the same need of trusting in things that cannot be seen, imaging the unimaginable, joining Ezekiel's tentative confession of faith in face of the question, Can these bones live?: “O Lord GOD, only you know.”

Every few years an article will appear arguing from a medical perspective that Lazarus, or Jesus for that matter, was not really raised from the dead. Instead he merely collapsed, went into what we would call a coma, and was resuscitated after several days.

Well, that clearly is not what John had in mind in writing down this story. He emphasizes that Lazarus had been dead for four days. People in those times believed that the soul hovered near the body for a day or two following death, but not for four days. In other words, John is trying to remove any doubt that Lazarus was anything but really and truly dead as a doornail. It was too late for Jesus to show up. Lazarus was too dead to be helped. Martha and Mary were right to weep.

And that’s also why John tells the story. Not to say, “Here is an intellectual problem for you to work out,” or “Here's a mystery of human physiology for future generations to unravel with their advanced knowledge.” “Or maybe the Discovery Channel will do a special on it: Mysteries of Lazarus’ Tomb Unveiled!”

Instead John tells the story to encourage his community, who, at least a generation after Jesus, is wondering if he really meant it. Did Jesus really mean it when he said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Really? Then how come we keep on dying? And for two millennia plus, we've kept on dying with no end in sight. Did Jesus really mean what he promised? Mortal, can these bones live?

As Sandra Schneiders says eloquently in her study of the story of Lazarus, “Eternal life conquers death without abolishing it . . . We are not asked not to weep, but only not to despair.”

Is it possible that sometimes hope means “simply” refusing to give in to despair, refusing to limit God's power to do a new thing, even when such a thing is entirely beyond our power to imagine? Even a tentative confession of faith, uttered in the smallest voice, may be enough to overcome despair. Can theses bones live? O Lord GOD, you know.

Sometimes that’s all we can muster, to say with an honest shrug, “God only knows.” And sometimes that’s enough to call hope.

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent

2011-03-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Lent 3A—March 27, 2011
Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95

“If God is so good, why are there suffering people in other countries?” I can’t count the number of times that question has been posed by students in confirmation classes over the years. With the natural disasters that have rocked our planet in the last year, from Haiti up to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster currently underway in Japan, many of us could easily find that question on our lips: “If God is so good, why are there so many suffering people in other countries?”

It is an important question, but of course it needs to be broadened a bit. If God is so good, why are there suffering people also in our own country, our own state, and our own city? If God is so good, why do so many people in our world experience poverty, violence, disease, hunger, and injustice? If God is so good, why do people die from tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, and natural disasters of various sorts that strike all the way from faraway countries and continents down to our own individual communities and households? Why me, O God? Why my spouse, my child? If God is so good, why is life not always so good for God’s children?

“If you are so good, God, why did you haul us all the way out here into the wilderness? To kill us and our children and livestock with thirst? Is the LORD among us or not?” That’s the question plainly on the table in today’s reading from Exodus.

We are in roughly week two of the post-Exodus experience. You remember the broad outline of the story: the plagues, the Passover, the dramatic procession through the Red Sea with the Egyptian chariots in hot pursuit. God had intervened dramatically to save the people from slavery and to set them on the path toward freedom and a new life.

And now in the wilderness, God continues to be visibly present among the people, going before them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen anything like that—such tangible evidence of God’s presence in my midst. And God is providing directly for the people’s needs, sending quail into their camp mysteriously at night and covering the ground with a sort of white Wonderbread called “manna” each morning. God does not so obviously supply my daily food. We have to shop for it at Hy-Vee, Dahl’s, or Fareway.

It just seems that “Where’s God?” should not have been exactly the first question on Israel’s lips, surrounded as they were by all these incredible, tangible signs of God’s presence. And yet just two weeks out of Egypt, as soon as they get thirsty, they are quarreling with God and testing God, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”

If you were to fast-forward in your Bible to the book of Numbers, which takes place forty years later, you would find an episode that is almost an exact replica of this episode in Exodus. The people are again short on water, and again they are quarreling with God and testing God, asking, “Is the LORD among us or not?” The difference this time around is that after 40 years of grumbling, God is sick of it and bans Moses, their leader, and the present generation of Israelites from entering the Promised Land. Their descendants will possess the land, but the generation that persistently refused to trust God’s presence and goodness and promise will not experience what it means to rest in the Promised Land.

It seems that this story may just be trying to warn us that there could be implications to how one chooses to answer the question, “Is the LORD among us or not?”

That’s how the author of Psalm 95 interprets these events at Massah and Meribah (Massah means Test; Meribah means Quarrel). Remember that the psalms are like hymns, so you need to imagine the people singing Psalm 95 in worship, probably in the temple in Jerusalem, many years after later generations had been living in the Promised Land.

The first stanza of this hymn invites the people to praise God: “Come, let us sing to the LORD, let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.” It’s a call to praise.

Then the psalm offers some reasons why God is worthy to be praised: God made the earth and the sea. God called Israel and made them the people of God.

But then the psalm offers a stern warning: “Harden not your hearts, as your forebears did in the wilderness, at Meribah, and on that day at Massah, when they tempted me. They put me to the test, though they had seen my works. Forty years long I detested that generation and said, ‘This people are wayward in their hearts; they do not know my ways.’ So I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter into my rest.’” Sounds like a rather clear warning to me: harden not your hearts—don’t be stubbornly persistent in refusing to trust God, as your forebears did in the wilderness.

I struggle some—quite a bit actually—with this warning, because I wonder if it is possible for us to heed it. Is it possible to be human and not question God’s presence and goodness? Is it possible for us to live through our own personal suffering and in the face of the larger problems of poverty, hunger, violence, and injustice and not ask, “Is the LORD among us or not?” The psalm’s warning seems a little unfair. Who can blame us for questioning God? Can we really push God so far that we are barred from resting in the promised land?

It’s a tension that these passages from Exodus and the Psalms won’t resolve. On the one hand, the Exodus story suggests that questioning God’s presence and goodness during wilderness times is an unavoidable part of the faith journey. The people are complaining and testing God from week two of the journey all the way through the fortieth year. The glow of salvation did not last long.

At the start of their journey, all the way through, and still at the end, they are asking, “Is the LORD among us or not?” This suggests to me that questioning and struggling with God is simply a part of being in relationship with God, part of our faith journey. People of faith in times of trouble and perplexity will always ask, “Is the LORD among us or not?” Perhaps caring enough to ask the question is itself a sign of faith.

But on the other hand, neither the story from Exodus nor the psalm backs off on the warning: harden not your hearts as the people did at Meribah and Massah. There is a danger in stubbornly refusing to trust in God’s presence and goodness. And that danger specifically is an inability to experience “rest” in the land of promise. By stubbornly refusing to trust God, we bar ourselves from experiencing the rest—the peace, the shalom—that comes through trusting in the presence and goodness and promise of God.

Ralph Klein, now retired from teaching Old Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, once said, “While there is no sin so large that God cannot forgive it, God always loves us with the condition, or at least the expectation, that God’s grace and kindness will lead to transformation in our lives.” God’s grace is not conditional, but God’s unconditional grace does establish some conditions for people of faith.

As people loved and redeemed by the grace of God, our lives can be transformed even in the present. We can know peace even in the midst of trials and tribulations and life’s darkest and hardest questions. We can experience rest in the promised land to the extent that we are willing to trust the presence and goodness of God through our wilderness journeys. Though, as Luther insisted, faith itself is a gift, we can, it seems, stubbornly refuse to accept it.

“Is the LORD among us or not?” Certainly there is nothing wrong in asking the question. What makes all the difference is how you choose to answer it.

Sick as "hell" of Rob Bell

2011-03-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

Does anybody other than recovering evangelicals and the media really care about what Rob Bell has to say about anything? I, for one, am sick of the theological perspective that Bell is now critiquing being assumed by the media to be "Christianity." Perhaps I should be glad that evangelicals now have someone other than C.S. Lewis to read.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703818204576206470219029478.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The Substance of Our Hope

2011-03-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

This article from the Alban Institute in excellent. I share the author's convictions about the signs of hopefulness for the church. This is getting immediately emailed to all members of the Windsor Heights Lutheran Church congregation council.

WHAT IS THE SUBSTANCE OF OUR HOPE by Carol Howard Merritt

Happy Spring Break

2011-03-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

Here is my sermon for the First Sunday of Spring Break . . . uh, I mean, the First Sunday in Lent. I hope it is good news for you wherever you are this week.

Lent 1A—March 13, 2011

Matthew 4:1-11

Does the beginning of today’s gospel reading bother you at all? It goes by pretty quickly and we can miss it, but listen again: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Did you hear it? Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit; that is, by the Spirit of God. So it seems it was God’s idea to have Jesus tested by the devil. I don’t know about you, but I think that does bother me a bit. Why must Jesus undergo this kind of testing?

Clearly the gospel-writer Matthew wants us to see the testing of Jesus against the background of the testing of Israel long ago. If this were a stage production, there would be shadowy images of Israel’s wilderness wanderings flickering across the backdrop as Jesus undergoes his testing in the foreground.

Let me remind you how the Spirit of God led the people out of slavery in Egypt and right into the wilderness, where they were tested for 40 years. Specifically, it was their willingness to trust God that was tested--to rely upon God for food, for water, for guidance. Israel was tested in the wilderness; Jesus is tested in the wilderness. Israel was tested for 40 years; Jesus is tested for 40 days. Surely you see the parallels.

The story of Israel’s wilderness wanderings is told in the book of Deuteronomy. As Jesus quotes scripture in his responses to the devil, he quotes Deuteronomy, further making a connection between his own testing and the testing of his ancestors in the wilderness long ago. So what is that all about?

Well, Jesus has just been baptized. You remember how in that story when Jesus comes up out of the waters, a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” a clear statement of Jesus’ identity. This is the question that the devil is going to press. “So, you’re the Son of God. Then prove it.” Notice how each of his tests begins with the words, “If you are the Son of God . . .”

In Hebrew the devil’s name is Satan. A satan is a tester. That is the devil’s only function here: to test the claimed identity of the Son of God. “Did God really say that? Well, we’ll see what kind of Son this Jesus is.”

The first test involves food. We’re told that Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness and “was famished.” Well, duh! If I hadn’t eaten anything for 40 days, I know I’d be hungry! So the devil’s first test naturally involves food. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

Jesus answers, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Nice comeback, Jesus, with a quote from Deuteronomy 8, which just happens to be the story of manna in the wilderness. You remember how the people had to trust God to provide this funky food from heaven for them out there in the desert, and how they grumbled and complained about it and failed to trust God. Will the Son of God also fail to trust? No, where Israel failed, Jesus persists in trusting God, clinging to his identity as a child of God.

Test Number Two: the devil whisks Jesus up to the pinnacle of the temple. You couldn’t find a more public, more visible place than that. If Jesus fails here, the whole world’s going to see it.

And the Tester says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written [God] will command his angels concerning you [and] on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”

Jesus responds with the words of Deuteronomy 6: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Yes, these words again are taken from another wilderness test that the Israelites failed. And again Jesus, unlike his ancestors in the wilderness, refuses to put God to the test. He persists in trusting God, clinging to his identity as a child of God.

Test Number Three: having whiffed twice, the devil takes one more swing. He takes Jesus up to the top of a high mountain with a view of all the kingdoms of the world, and offers to give everything to Jesus if only he will bow down and worship the devil. This would be the confusion of Adam and Eve, the confusion of the people in the wilderness, the all-too-human propensity to confuse a lie with the truth, to trust an empty promise, to worship an inadequate object of devotion. Where Israel failed, where Adam and Eve failed, where we fail, Jesus passes the test. He persists in trusting God, clinging to his identity as a child of God.

You’ve got to love Jesus’ response to the devil. The New Revised Standard Version states it with sort of a rhetorical flourish, “Away with you, Satan!” But the Greek says simply, “Go away.” Who’s strong enough to brush off the devil with one little word like that? “Go away! Get outta here!” Only Jesus, of course. His final quote is again from Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

The devil leaves now because he is out of a job. Jesus has passed all the tests. The devil has nothing else to throw at him. There’s nothing left for the Tester to do.

So back to my first question: why does Jesus need to be tested in this way? The great Russian novelist Dostoyevsky said this: “If every copy of the Bible were destroyed, and we had only the single page which tells the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, if would be enough.” Really? Enough for what?

Enough, perhaps, to help us through our times of trial and testing, knowing that we are not alone but Jesus is with us. Jesus has been there and done that. Because he was tested, he knows what it is like for us to be tested. He knows what it is like to contend with the devils and demons of life. He knows what it is like to have your identity as a child of God challenged. He knows what it is like to be confused about the truth. He knows what it is like to have your faith in God put on trial. Because he has been there and continues to be with us, he can save us from the time of trial.

For Jesus won the contest with the devil. Where Israel failed, Jesus passed the test. Where Adam and Eve fell, Jesus walked away upright and left the devil without a job. Jesus is the only one strong enough to brush off the devil with a simple word: “Go away.”

As you struggle against your devils and demons--as we all must--the trials and tests of your life, remember, dear child of God, that you are not alone. And remember that the one who is with you is the same one who has already defeated the power of evil. Surely Martin Luther got it right when he penned his famous hymn:

Though devils all the world shall fill,

All eager to devour us,

We tremble not, we fear no ill,

They shall not overpow’r us.

This world’s prince may still

Scowl fierce as he will,

He can harm us none,

He’s judged; the deed is done;

One little word can fell him.

Thanks be to God for the one Word, the true Word, that knocks the devil into the unemployment line and assures us that, with Christ, the victory is ours.

The Modesty Manifesto

2011-03-11T19:20:00.000-08:00

I was struck by David Brooks' piece on the the problem of excessive self-esteem, especially in the shadow of Ash Wednesday, when we were called to repent of our failure to live in right relationship with God and with one another. I remember when it was considered almost a sin for preachers not to be sensitive enough to how people with low self-esteem hear Jesus' call to "deny the self" and live for the good of others. Surely times have changed.

The Modesty Manifesto