Setting Our Face

1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. 4 You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

16 Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy,drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:1-6, 13-25 NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave himself for our sins, so he could deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. To God be the glory forever and always! Amen.

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up," we read in our Gospel today, “[Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem.” 

Jesus set his face to Jerusalem. There is a single-mindedness of purpose here in the ninth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, a chapter that begins what is often called the “traveling texts.” Ten full chapters. Nearly half of Luke’s Gospel.  Why so much space to get to Jerusalem?

If one reads through these chapters as we will in the coming weeks, it is immediately apparent that these are teachings texts.  Texts for intensive disciple-training. Jesus knows his time with the disciples is limited. He knows that soon they will arrive in Jerusalem and he will be arrested, crucified and die at the hands of the people. And so, he has turned not only his body, but his entire being towards Jerusalem, focused both on what is to come and on what he must do in preparing the disciples for once they arrive. There is a single-mindedness of purpose shown here by Jesus. Forward-looking to Jerusalem and even beyond Jerusalem, to the very ends of the earth. 

Jesus set his face forward.

Have you set your face forward, too, with the same single-mindedness of purpose as Christ?

Over these past five weeks, we’ve been immersed in our Galatians readings, texts that tell us how we have been freed from the law. That we have been freed from the law for freedom. In verse 1 of chapter 5: “For freedom Christ has set us free.” The law no longer matters. The law no longer counts. 

And what does count? Well, we read in verse 6: “...the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”

This is, in a way, the irony of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It is the irony of their freedom--the irony of ours, as well.  We have been freed from the law to do the work of faith which is, in fact, the work of the law. No, it’s not works such as circumcision, food laws, or the like. But, it is the work of living out the ethical core and central command of the law: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In freeing us, Christ has released us from our own bondage to sin, not so that we might be self-indulgent, but that through love we might become slaves to our neighbors, slaves to one another. 

The Tree is Life is an epic film by producer Terence Malik that centers around a Texas family in the 1950s. It follows the life journey of the oldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile an internal emotional conflict caused by the two completely different ways of living taught by his parents--the way of nature or the way of grace. Let’s watch the opening scene. 

This struggle of the oldest son is our struggle. It is a struggle laid out in this beginning scene--between the way of nature, or as Paul names it, the way of the flesh, versus the way of grace, or the way of the Spirit.

The way of nature, or the way of the flesh, is the way of self-indulgence. It is a way of living produced by selfish motives, where “I” comes before “we.” It is exemplified by behaviors that Paul lists in verses 19-21 of our text: things like, doing whatever feels good, hate, fighting, losing your temper, group rivalry, jealousy, and the like.

Living in the way of the flesh cheapens the gift of grace given to us by God in Christ.

The other way, the way of grace, or of the Spirit, stands in complete opposition to the way of the flesh. It is a way of living that is exemplified by selflessness, where “we” comes before “I.” It is a way of love that is characterized by service to others, where one’s selfishness has been crucified and replaced with the fruits of the Spirit in verses 22:23: love, joy, peace, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control--the fruits of living in the way of the Spirit. 

The way of the Spirit is the way of discipleship.

Have you set your face forward? Or, better yet, how have you set your face forward? 

Is your face set forward with the single-mindedness of purpose that comes out of living in the Spirit? Or is it set forward with a focus on living out the selfish desires of your flesh? 

In verse 16 of the NRSV translation of our text, we read that we should live by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of the flesh. It’s a both/and proposition. Do one and don’t do the other.

A better translation of this verse, though, is this: “I say be guided by the Spirit and you won’t carry out your selfish desires.” Here’s it’s a cause-and-effect proposition. If we are guided by the Spirit, if we live in the way of the Spirit, then we won’t carry out our selfish desires. We will become less and less guided by the flesh and more and more guided by the Spirit.  

Is this easy? To follow in the way of Jesus? No, it isn’t. It isn’t easy to love when the world says hate. It isn’t easy to show self-control when the world says do whatever feels good. To speak peace when the world screams fight. To be faithful when the world throws idol after idol our way.

But, this way--the way of grace, the way of the Spirit--is the way of the kingdom of God. It is the way of Christ and the way to which Christ calls us: to deny ourselves, to take up his cross daily, and to follow him. 

It is the way of freedom. A way where we are, as Luther wrote, a servant to none and a servant to all. It is the way to life.

So, set your face forward. Set your face in freedom toward Jerusalem and to the ends of the earth, walking in the way of the Spirit--the way of life, the way of the kingdom of God.

Amen.

Preached at Chatfield Lutheran Church - 6th Sunday after Pentecost (June 26, 2016)

Texts: Galatians 5:1-6, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62.

Radical Struggle

Galatians 2:15-21 (NRSV). 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. 17 But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; 20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.


Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

I want to talk today about struggle. About the struggle to be radical. As people of God, about our struggle to be followers of a radical Gospel.

I bet I already know what you’re thinking.  This intern. More specifically, this intern who has spent nearly all of her adult life in California. Right? This kind of stuff--this radical stuff--well, it will never fly here in Minnesota. Right?

So, humor me a little this morning. Allow me to explain how I came to this topic.  And in the process of my explanation, I’m going to break a primary rule of preaching, one that my preaching professor hammered into us. This is the rule to never exhibit one’s exalted knowledge of Greek in a sermon.

Since I figure I don’t have much of an exalted knowledge of Greek, it’s not a huge concern. So, I’m going to break the rule.

I want you to consider three words in our Galatians text today.   Here they are: πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.  

This phrase, or some version of it, shows up three times in the seven verses of today’s reading from Galatians. The phrase shows up twice in verse 16. Whenever a word or a phrase shows up several times in a verse or a series of verses, well, that’s like a red flag waving at you.  It’s something to take note of.  

If you take the words one by one, the translation seems pretty simple. The first word of this phrase mean “faith.” The second and third words mean “Jesus Christ.” Simple, right? It’s not. Because how the words are translated and used in a sentence can make a huge difference, just as in English. So, it’s really not so simple. But, I’ll get to that in a minute or so.

Up until this point in his letter to the Galatian churches, Paul has laid out the facts. He’s like an attorney. He’s put forward the story of what happened--the narrative of facts that have established his authority as an apostle of Christ and his basis for ministering to the Gentiles. 

But, here. Here in verses 15-21, in our reading today--and, specifically, in verse 16--Paul lays out his main point. This is his thesis statement. It is the heart of his letter. It’s also the heart of his theology. And, coincidence or not, it is here, in verse 16, where this Greek phrase--πίστεωςἸησοῦ Χριστοῦ--appears twice.

Each week, as I’m preparing to write my sermon, it’s always my practice to read the appointed text for the day in several different translations.  I usually start in the New Revised Standard Version--the NRSV--which is the translation we usually use in worship. I also always read it in the Common English Bible translation--the CEB--which is a new translation that I like a lot.  I’ll also read it in a few other translations. 

Why do I do this? It’s because I want to see and to compare the decisions that translators have made in interpreting the texts.  Translators make decisions when they are translating. They interpret.  As a preacher, I also make decisions in interpretation. And as believers and hearers of God’s Word, well, you make interpretation decisions, too. 

So, imagine my surprise when I read our Galatians text for today in both the NRSV and the CEB. I’ve put the texts side-by-side in today’s bulletin for you, so that you, too, can see the differences. I’d call your attention, especially, to verse 16 and the phrases in bold. These phrases are the translators’ interpretations of the three Greek words I mentioned earlier.  

Do you see the difference? One version--the NRSV--translates the three word Greek phrase as “faith in Christ.” The CEB translates it as “faithfulness of Christ.”

That's a big difference. My first reaction to this--coming from my very Lutheran framework of belief and understanding--was that this newer translation had to be wrong. So, I researched the phrase. And I found out that the phrase is, indeed, ambiguous and can be translated either way.

At first, I thought that this newer translation might have the potential to challenge my Lutheran belief system, and yours, too. My own understanding of justification--that we are saved by grace, through faith, and not by works. So, I initially intended to play it safe today. To use the NRSV--the translation that seemed to fit best within my Lutheran framework.

But the other translation continued to nag at me all week.  I couldn’t get it out of my mind. All week long, I wrestled with it.  

Have you ever had something like that happen to you? Had a phrase from Scripture stick in your mind and keep bugging you? Have someone come into your life and upset your routine, maybe challenge your belief system a little, and know that you should, perhaps, pay attention to them, yet who you can't wait to get rid of so you can get back to normalcy? Have you ever struggled with playing it safe instead of being radical?

A few years ago in my church in Pasadena, we experienced this. For several years we had professed and believed that we were a hospitable congregation, welcoming all people. And, for the most part, we were.

Yet, we had a problem with the homeless population. They liked to camp out overnight on the church property.  Usually, if we gave them a little cash or let them use the phone or internet, or allowed them to stay overnight, well, eventually, they would move on. 

But, then, Monica and Vern arrived. (I’ve changed their names.) They lived in a beat up, broken down van--a van that they had parked at the edge of our parking lot. Eventually, we figured they would move on as so many others had. So, we were polite. And helpful. And hopeful that they would eventually leave.

But, they didn’t leave. In fact, they started to push themselves into our congregation. When we opened up on Sunday morning, Vern was right there to help set up tables for morning fellowship. Both of them began coming to Sunday morning Bible study.  Monica asked if she could sing in the choir. And on and on. They just continued to push their way into our congregation.

Now, mind you, most congregations would be thrilled with newcomers like this. How often do we proclaim our openness to visitors and our desire for them to become a part of us? How thrilled we would be if newcomers wanted to immediately become so involved!

Well, to be truthful, we weren’t really all that thrilled. We weren’t thrilled because Monica and Vern were so different from us. For one thing, they were homeless. For another, well, they didn’t have regular access to showers and so, sometimes, they smelled a little. Sometimes, they smelled a lot. They didn’t always say or do the “right” things. They didn’t fit into our norm. Into our small-minded, closed-hearted norm of what our church should look like.

And, so, we struggled with being radical people. With being followers of a radical Gospel that teaches us that each one of us is enough and is good enough, that God has done it all for us and for every person--that there is nothing we need do to be made righteous, but that we simply accept the gift of faith and the freedom that comes with it.  That we are all good enough for God's grace.

That’s what my struggle was this week with this text. It was a reminder for me that everything I have--justification, faith, salvation--that the whole shebang comes from God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ on the cross.  It takes all of the authority and power away from me and places it solely into God’s hands. It is nothing that I do. It’s the difference between law and gospel. It’s the difference between good works and grace.  It’s also the heart of my Lutheran understanding, expressed in Luther’s explanation to the Third Article: “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him…”

This new translation that I was so fearful of, that I tried to push away, in fact, reminded me of and further deepened my own Lutheran understanding of grace.

So, when you struggle with those new things, whether they are words from Scripture or things or people that just won’t go away, consider that, perhaps, God is at work in them. That, just as God was at work in the Pharisee-sinner question of today’s gospel lesson, or the Gentile-Jewish challenges of Paul’s world, or the grace and good works struggles of Luther’s time--consider, just consider that in these perceived challenges to your belief system or the status quo, God may be, in truth, at work in them to further transform you and me and the entire world. 

Wrestle with them. Allow God to challenge you. Live into the struggle to be radical. To step outside the norm of this congregation or the status quo of our society. I promise you that, just as I was transformed, as my Pasadena congregation was transformed and, yes, as Monica and Vern were transformed, you, too, will be transformed through the grace and authority of our God. 

May our sovereign God so grant it. Amen.

Preached Sunday, June 12, 2016, at Chatfield Lutheran Church (ELCA).
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Year C).
Texts: Galatians 2:15-21, Psalm 32, Luke 7:36-8:3.

Being Enough

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. 

I am astonished! I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel! I am astonished!

With these stunning words, the Apostle Paul begins his letter to the churches in Galatia.  These are harsh words. Harsh words from an apostle who, in writing another similar letter to a divided congregation at Corinth, begins with these words,  “I thank my God always for you…”

I am astonished! 

So, what is going on here, within the churches in Galatia, an area we would understand as present-day Turkey? What is going on in the churches that are some of the earliest founded by Paul and Barnabus, a result of Paul’s first missionary journey around the mid-1st century? And why on earth does Paul seem so angry with them?

Over the next six weeks, Pastor Mark and I will delve into these questions and more. We will be working our way through this letter to the churches in Galatia, a letter often called the Magna Carta on Christian freedom, a letter directed to congregations made up of both Jewish believers and Gentile believers.

So, some background. 

As I already said, Paul likely founded these churches on his first missionary journey--a journey that lasted from 2-3 years and that consisted of moving from city to city, planting new congregations. In each location, Paul would preach the Good News--that simple, yet radical, Gospel alluded to in the opening words of his letter, the same words I opened today’s sermon with, words that speak of the freedom we have as believers--a freedom that comes as a result of God’s grace through Christ’s sacrifice.

Now this freedom wasn’t always easy for the early believers to accept. After all, consider that many of the early believers were Jewish--people who had been taught from early on that freedom came only from keeping the law.  So, as the Gospel spread outside the Jewish community--as it was shared with Gentiles, with non-Jews who had not grown up with this same belief system--well, tension arose between the two groups. The Jewish Christians believed that the Gentile Christians should conform to the Jewish way of Christianity. This meant, at a minimum, that believers were required to keep the Sabbath and for male believers, in particular, it meant circumcision.

This dispute between the Jewish understanding of the Gospel and the Gentile understanding of the Gospel was not just isolated to the churches in Galatia. It was also an issue that arose in Antioch a few years later, when Paul confronted Peter over his teaching of Jewish conformity.  Because of the dispute, the congregation there in Antioch sent Paul and Barnabus and others to Jerusalem, to bring this issue to the leaders of the church and, for once and for all, to resolve the issue.  The meeting was what we understand from the book of Acts as the Jerusalem Council.  It was at this meeting that the Council--this group of church leaders--ultimately and unanimously decided that Gentile Christians would not be subject to Jewish law and traditions.

Yet, as is so often the case, the controversy wasn’t easily left behind. After the Jerusalem Council and even after Paul had visited the Galatian churches a second time, word came to him that a group of likely overzealous Jewish Christians had visited these churches and had challenged both Paul’s authority as an apostle and the Gospel he had preached. They claimed that, because Paul had not journeyed with Christ as one of the early apostles, he lacked their same authority. As a result, they also challenged Paul’s Gospel message--a message of freedom from conformity to the law, the Good News of freedom given to us in grace by God through Christ’s death and resurrection. 

This letter, then, is Paul’s response. This letter, a writing that was so influential for Luther in understanding Christian freedom, is Paul’s defense. It is a defense of both his apostolic authority and a defense of the radical and freeing message of the Gospel that he preached.

This is the background story for Galatians, this letter we’ll be studying over the next few weeks.

So, the question this morning is what does this story from nearly 2,000 years ago mean for us here today? As Christians in the year 2016, we know this stuff backwards and forwards. We know that we have been given this precious gift of freedom by God through the saving act of Jesus on the cross.  We are Lutherans, after all! Grace is our middle name!

But, do we know it? Do we really know it? Do we truly know and accept it deep within ourselves?

I think not. At least not fully. 

Within ourselves and in our congregations we may say we are free, but we don’t fully believe it.  We still believe in conforming to the law. We neither trust that God has made us fully free nor do we believe it about others.  How else can we explain our incessant drive to become better, to be more knowledgeable, to be greater experts in whatever, to become the best we can be and expect everyone else to conform to our own set of expectations, to cram our lives and our schedules so full of stuff and noise that we can’t even begin to hear God’s call to us and God’s message to us that we are enough? We are enough. We are enough just as we are. 

It was just two years ago this spring that I applied to become a candidate for ministry in the ELCA.  It was not a decision that came easy. It was not a call that I fully believed I had been given even at the time I submitted my application. You see, I grew up in a church where women were not allowed to be pastors. I know some of you here come from a similar background.

Even though, in my early 20’s I transferred my membership to a denomination that ordained women pastors, I was still not really free of that deep-seeded understanding. So, even though deep down I knew that God was calling me to ministry, I ran from that call. Keeping myself so busy with life as a single parent, working two jobs, going to school--that I simply closed my heart and my mind to it.  I refused to hear God calling me. Even in my first year of candidacy, even after I’d taken that first, risky step into the unknown, I still wasn’t free of the belief that I was not enough for this work. 

It was only last year, in my second year of candidacy, that I began to believe that, just maybe, I was enough. That just maybe this was what God was calling me to do. It came in my chaplaincy training. It was there, in the midst of my fellow trainees--this group of misfits that, included a Roman Catholic woman trying to determine her call in the midst of the patriarchal church that she loved, a Mormon chaplain trying to figure out his own call from God in the midst of a culture that viewed him and his church as on the fringe, a Lutheran fire fighter seeking to overcome years of abuse from his father, a young Lutheran man trying to find his own identity as a pastor apart from that of his older, med-school bound sister, and a former Southern Baptist minister who had left the ministry, burned out and wondering whether this was what God was really calling him to do. It was there, in this group of misfits, in this group of broken people struggling to find and live out God’s call to ministry in the midst of a broken world. It was there that my group and I began to understand that we were enough. 

You and I. We are enough. In God’s eyes there is nothing--good or bad--that will change how God sees us or how much God loves us.  Through one act. Through the sole act of Christ dying on the cross, our sovereign God has broken into our lives and freed us. Freed us from the weight of sin. Freed us from being bound up by the law. Freed us to fully be who God has called us to be whatever that may be. This is the radical Gospel that Paul preached and that he defends in his letter to the churches of Galatia and, yes, to us today. 

I am astonished by it. I hope and pray that you are, too.

Amen.

Preached May 29, 2016, at Chatfield Lutheran Church.

Children of the Wind

I’m a child of the wind. 

There’s a lot of wind here in southeastern Minnesota, much more than I expected and much more, it seems, than I experienced last year in St. Paul.  But, as a native of South Dakota, I have to make the claim that you really don’t know wind until you've lived west of the Missouri River in that state. 

Growing up, wind was an everyday experience for us. A good wind day mean that there were gentle breezes in the 10-12 mph category.  A bad wind day mean that those gentle breezes turned into gale force winds, in the 50-60 mph category, sometimes even higher.  Winter wind chill temperatures were brutal.  Spring and fall were always gusty, blowing leaves and dust all over the place.  And summer winds almost always blew in an afternoon thunderstorm.  

Those days that were good wind days--well, they were magnificent.  As a little girl, I remember walking in our pastures in the summertime, feeling the gentle breeze, which brought cool relief from days that could be very hot and humid. They also carried the wonderful smell of prairie grasses to my nose--a sweet, rather exotic smell that, if I closed my eyes right now, I could still smell it in my imagination.  It was there, in our pasture filled with prairie grasses and tickled with gentle breezes that I felt one with God and all creation.  Thinking about those experiences takes me to this day to a place of deep peace.  

Yet, that same gentle breeze can turn into something that feels terrifying or risky or unexpected, can’t it?  I've experienced that many times throughout my life living through many a tornado watch, eyeing a few that have come dangerously close, praying that they would switch direction. Driving 200 miles in the midst of a winter blizzard, guiding my mother as she drove in near-zero visibility by opening my door ever so slightly to watch the lines painted on the highway.  As an adult, I’ve stood close to the edges of cliffs as a hard wind blew off the ocean, taking a risk and leaning into it with the full knowledge that if the wind should stop suddenly I might easily go over the edge.  Flying kites over the years with my son, confident in my own abilities until suddenly with little warning, the wind would send my kite crashing to the ground.  

Yes, even with its contradictory nature, I’m a child of the wind.

So, imagine my delight when, in my first years of seminary, I learned that the word in scripture used for the Spirit means wind and, even, breath of God.  It seemed fitting somehow.  That the Holy Spirit--this mysterious third person of the Godhead, this unseen presence sent by God into the world that appears in the most unexpected places, this Comforter that both reminds us of what God has said and continues to teach us about God, this Advocate through whom God has claimed us as God’s own and has formed us into the body of Christ--well, it seems only fitting that this Holy Spirit should be characterized as wind derived from God's breath.  That natural, contradictory, unexpected force that, for me, can mean both deep peace and unexpected danger or risk.  As John writes in the third chapter of his gospel, “God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes.  You hear her sound, but you don’t know where she comes from or where she is going.”

Perhaps that is what is most unsettling about the Holy Spirit.  It seems fairly easy to understand and categorize God the Father as creator and loving parent.  It seems easier to understand and categorize God the Son as redeemer and savior of the world.  But, it is really hard to easily understand and categorize the Holy Spirit, isn’t it?  This Being who works in the water of baptism and the bread and wine of communion to bring us to faith, to forgive our sin, and to bring us into community with one another.  This Breath who speaks through the words of Scripture to us in our own language to further reveal who God is.  This Person who shows up when we least expect her and most need her through the kind words of a stranger, the supportive words of a Stephen Minister, or the challenging words of a close friend.  This Unseen Force who nudges us to act as we seek to “walk our talk” in our daily lives instead of just on Sunday mornings.  And who works on the hearts of people, pushing them to give out of their abundance to pledge amounts high above expectations for a building expansion to better serve their community.  This Spirit Wind who, in one moment, carries us peacefully like a kite in the blue sky and who, in the very next, pushes us forward, into new and sometimes terrifying places. And who continues to weave newness into the fabric of our lives and the world and all creation.  This is the Holy Spirit.

And we are all her children.  Children of the Wind. Children of the Holy Spirit.  

So, let us pray then. Using the words of Walter Brueggemann, let us pray that the Holy Spirit might continue to come--to work in us and in our world. 

We name you wind, power, force, and then,
    imaginatively, "Third Person."
We name you and you blow...
    blow hard,
    blow cold,
    blow hot,
    blow strong,
    blow gentle,
    blow new...
Blowing the world out of nothing to abundance,
blowing the church out of despair to new life,
blowing little David from shepherd boy to messiah,
blowing to make things new that never were.
    So blow this day, wind,
        blow here and there, power,
        blow even us, force,
Rush us beyond ourselves,
Rush us beyond our hopes,
Rush us beyond our fears, until we enact your newness in the world.
    Come, come spirit.  Amen.


Preached May 15, 2016, at Chatfield Lutheran Church.  The prayer is by Walter Brueggemann in his collection entitled Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 167.)

Choose Love

When Judas was gone, Jesus said, "Now the Human One has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify the Human One in himself and will glorify him immediately. Little children, I'm with you for a little while longer. You will look for me--but, just as I told the Jewish leaders, I also tell you now--'Where I'm going, you can't come.'

I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other. (John 13:31-35 CEB)

Love. That's our main topic today. Love.

Isn't love what the resurrection is all about? It seems so simple, doesn't it? Resurrection is love. Love is resurrection. No matter how you slice it, when you are talking Christ's resurrection, you are talking love.

And, today, in our lessons for this fifth Sunday of Easter, we are not only talking love. We are being told to "choose love."

If I were to go around this room today and ask you whether or not you choose love, I would dare say that everyone of you would answer, "Yes."  "Absolutely, positively, yes!" This is a warm, loving congregation. It is who we are. Besides, after all, who wouldn't choose love?

But, do we? Choosing love can be really hard. Choosing love can make us vulnerable. It can feel like we're taking too much of a chance sometimes, can't it? It can expose us to the possibility that our love might not be reciprocated. It might be a waste of our time, especially if we give it expecting something in return and don't get anything back. Choosing love can hurt, especially if the person we want to love doesn't see us as worthy of their love.

Yet, if we are truly the resurrection people we claim to be...if we, as the church, truly seek to be a partner with the Spirit at work in our world making all things new, then the only right choice for us is love. Our only choice is to be on the side of God and to be part of God's new creation and to choose love.

And, if we truly choose love, then our only other choice is to turn toward God and away from the influence of the world. To be in the world, but not of the world. To work toward a new way of living, a "new heaven and a new earth." Toward a place where God will come down and dwell with us.  A place transformed by God into something fully beyond our wildest imagination. To work toward the new Jerusalem instead of the global empire in which we currently life.

This new Jerusalem spoken of in our Revelation text today isn't some eternal place up in the heavens paved with golden streets. Unlike most of what we've heard in contemporary culture, this isn't a rapture; this new Jerusalem isn't a place for us to escape to from our current world--a place away from this messed up world to which God will rescue us.

No.  This new Jerusalem that God is creating is right here, right now. It's happening in our presence. In this very moment. Here and now the Spirit is at work in our world, creating a new world where every human being and all of creation might experience the joy and goodness and fullness of God's love.

And our job, as the church, is to walk alongside the Spirit--to partner with God in ways that allow God's power and Christ's love to be experienced in the world. Our job is to be involved in making God's dream come true in this world. Our job is to choose love.

But, once again, it's not easy to choose love, is it? To treat all people with love? To treat people as if they are no different from us, regardless of race or religion or class or gender or age or sexual orientation or political persuasion. It's not always easy to set aside the biases and prejudices that are so deeply ingrained in us, is it? Or to even recognize that we have bias and prejudice in the first place.

It's hard for us today. It was hard for the early church, too.  Look at our Acts reading. Hear the Jerusalem council grilling Peter as to why he was baptizing those Gentiles--those unclean Gentiles. It is hard for all of us, past and present to choose love.

This past week, as I drove home from my vacation in Texas, I listened to an audiobook. The name of the book was "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." I've wanted to read it for a long time, so I decided I would use my driving time efficiently and listen to it instead.

In it, the author Malcolm Gladwell, presents research on what is called the "adaptive unconscious." Our adaptive unconscious is our ability to use limited information from a very brief experience to come to a rapid conclusion--like when you reach a quick, gut-level decision about something or someone. He argues that a decision like this--one reached quickly and with limited data--is often better than one that is reached with much more information or a longer period of time.

Yet, there is also a dark side to our adaptive unconscious. Prejudices and biases operate at this same level, even in someone who doesn't consciously exhibit such behavior. To test whether or not one has unconscious bias, readers of his book are invited to take a test on a Harvard University website.

So, when I got home on Tuesday, I took one of several possible tests--a test to measure any implicit bias I might have toward African-Americans.

Now keep in mind that, although I grew up in very white South Dakota, our ranch was situated between two reservations--the Cheyenne and the Sioux. In Los Angeles, I lived in a very diverse area. Within 10-12 blocks from my house lived immigrants from Korea, El Salvador, the Philippines, Mexico, as well as African-Americans. There was a large Muslim mosque only a few blocks from my house and a Jewish temple within a quarter of a mile.

For ten years, I worked for an organization with a leadership that was predominantly African-American. For many years, I worked with undocumented workers, primarily from Mexico and Central America. I worked for three years along the Texas-Mexico border. I have many close friends who are Hispanic and Filipino and African American.

So, although I knew I might have some unconscious bias, I thought my test results might be okay.

Well, I was stunned!  The data compiled from my test suggested a "strong automatic preference for European American compared to African American." It was the highest level of unconscious bias possible on the test.

You see, it is hard to "choose love." Even when we consciously do choose it, trying to treat others with dignity and respect and as no different from us, our unconscious biases and prejudices creep in.  "Them." "Those people." "They." Not "us" or "we."

The only way for us to begin to put an end to making "us and them" distinctions is to begin to recognize and admit our biases and their impact on our relationships with those who are different from us. Racism, sexism, classism, ageism, heterosexism, and other biased behaviors and thinking are not godly. They are motivated by fear of the other and not by a love of humanity. They are not the result of choosing love.

And, yet, in spite of us...in spite of even our unconscious bias and prejudice, God continues to work in our world. God, who created this world and all living and life-giving things in it, continues to disrupt and overturn the walls and the barriers we create between each other or any bias and prejudice we may have.

"See, I am making all things new." This is our promise. It is a promise that is trustworthy and true. It is a promise for a new world--a world where God will dwell among us, where God will wipe every tear away, where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. And where those who are thirsty will receive water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Let us working alongside the Holy Spirit, then. Let us seek to overcome our unconscious biases and prejudices.  Let us choose love.

Amen.

Preached April 24, 2016, at Chatfield Lutheran Church.

Drumstick Ice Cream Cones

John 20:19-31 (NRSV). When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.


Welcome to this Sunday, April 3rd, only 2 days after April Fool's Day. One day isn't enough, is it? For me, one day of jokes just isn't enough. You see, in my family, we didn't celebrate just one day. I come from a family of people who love to laugh and play practical jokes on each other.  So, that first day of April often dragged into three, frequently a week and, sometimes, up to a full month.  One of us would play a joke on another which led to the need to reciprocate and on and on and on.

So, today it just seemed right to play an April Fool’s joke on you.  It also seemed right because, in my home parish in Pasadena, this Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter is always celebrated as Holy Hilarity Sunday.  A Sunday where we are invited to bring jokes -- respectful jokes, of course -- to share, and to laugh with each other.

Celebrating laughter on this second Easter Sunday is actually a long and very rich tradition in the church.  There is much history of congregations celebrating this day, sharing jokes and fun stories and engaging in pranks on each other.  The tradition comes from some of the church’s early theologians, where they reflected on Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as a huge practical joke that God played on Satan.   They called it the risus paschalis, meaning the Easter laugh. 

And, so, it seems very appropriate today for us to laugh.  For us to celebrate the joy of Easter in a fun way the week after we’ve celebrated it in a glorious way.  To mix faith and humor and to stir both deeply into our lives so that we might live more fully into being and sharing ourselves as people of the resurrection.

I think God must have an amazing sense of humor.  After all, look at the characters, in the Bible and here in this congregation, who God has gathered together as his people.  From those in the Hebrew scripture, to the disciples of Jesus, to us here today, God has a way of finding very imperfect people and forming and shaping all of us into people very well-suited to do the Church’s work--the work of sharing the good news of that Easter resurrection.

Notice that I used the word “imperfect.”  Often, I think that we get this notion in our heads that, in order to share the Gospel, you must have led a perfect life.  That, to be called, one must have lived in a way that is completely faithful and above reproach.  Well, I, for one, know better than that.  And all one needs to do to further disprove that theory is to look at the characters--the imperfect characters--in our reading today.

Let’s look at the disciples.  That first Easter morning, we know that Mary, after discovering that the gardener was, in fact, Jesus, runs back to the disciples and announces to them that she had seen the Lord.  And, then, proceeded to share with them everything Jesus had said.   

And, their response?  Well, they hid!  They went behind closed doors and hid because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities.  Why?  The story doesn’t say.  Perhaps they thought they might be accused of stealing Jesus’ body so they could start rumors of his resurrection.  Or perhaps they were afraid to rejoice publicly--to show joy over Jesus’ resurrection and incur the wrath of the authorities.  Whatever it was, they were afraid and they hid.  And, my guess was that, as they hid away, there was not much laughing.  Until, of course, Jesus appeared and showed them the marks of his resurrection.  Only then were they filled with joy.  Only then did they actually come of out of their own tomb of fear and truly enter into the resurrection.

And, then, there’s Thomas.  Oh, poor Thomas.  You see, I kind of get Thomas.  He was the realistic one, wasn’t he?  He was evidence-driven.  He wanted proof.  He wanted facts.  "Prove it to me."  (Aren’t we all a little bit like him?  How do I know God exists?  Why would God allow something like that to happen?  We are always looking for the proof, for the facts, for the answers.) And, then, just like with the disciples, Jesus appears.  And tells Thomas to put his finger in his hands and his hands into his side.  Here, Thomas!  Here’s your proof!  

And Thomas, without even having to put his fingers into the nail holes or into the sword slice in Jesus’ side--without touching the actual proof, he gets it.  He gets Jesus’ resurrection and immediately confesses, “My Lord and my God!”  Out of his tomb of doubt and into the resurrection.

Aren’t we so like Thomas and the rest of the disciples?  You see, I think sometimes the immensity of the resurrection is way too much for us to fully grasp.  That it’s way too big for us to truly understand.  And so, piece by piece.  Bit by bit.  Just like with the disciples, Christ comes into our presence and, little by little, we enter into the resurrection, into our own resurrection from fear and doubt.

In February of 2008, my sister was dying.  She had fought cancer over a lifetime, but had reached a point where she was tired of fighting.  She was ready to die.  Ready to be reunited with Christ.  Over the six months that she was in and out of the hospital, I urged her on.  In the midst of my own fear and doubt at losing her and what life would be like without her, I urged her to continue to fight.  

When she made the decision to come home to my house on hospice, I was devastated.  But, I was also determined that those last days would be the best for her.  So, I asked her what she wanted to eat, what her favorite foods were.  All she wanted were Drumstick ice cream cones.  

Over the next 7 days, friends and family came to visit, to gather around her and cry and laugh and share stories of amazing memories we had together.  And all the while, we ate Drumstick ice cream comes--4 boxes of Drumstick ice cream cones to be exact!  In that week--in the sharing of stories and ice cream, I experienced Christ’s presence.  And my own resurrection.  A resurrection out of my own tomb of fear and doubt and into the hope and joy of the resurrection with the knowledge that, no matter what, Christ would continue to be present with me.

You see fear and doubt and joy and gladness often walk hand-in-hand with each other.  All we have to do is open the Psalms to see this.  Yet, in their midst, our resurrected Lord is present, welcoming us into a new life, a resurrected life.  A life of joy and laughter, a life of love and freedom, a life of peace and wholeness, a life together with him as part of the body of Christ.  That, my friends, is the joy of the resurrection.  That is the basis for our laughter.  

And that is the reason that it is we, and not death or the devil, who ultimately have the last laugh! 

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Preached on Sunday, April 3, 2016, at Chatfield Lutheran Church.

Cicada Shells

John 20:1-18 (NRSV).  Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.  So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.  The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.  Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb.  He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.  Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes. 

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you had laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord;" and she told them that he has said these things to her.


You can’t imagine what we had been through. Jesus was dead.  Crucified.  The worst of deaths physically, like hanging on the end of a rope for hours.  The worst of deaths--personally, socially.   For the worst of criminals, the outcast of society, tarred and feathered, Letter A on your dress for adultery, crucify him, you fraud, you cancer on society.  

And we had put all our eggs in that one basket.  Jesus.  Especially me.  It was I who said.  You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  I was the leader, or at least one of the leaders.   The kingdom of God was at hand.  But now.  Well, the future was cut off.  DEAD.

And then Mary Magdalene came on the third day.  We were still sleeping in our beds.  There’s some sense of comfort in sleeping in, and she came to me and John and said some grave robbers have taken the body.    But let me tell you about Mary M. There was something about her. She could see into Jesus' eyes and know him. More than any of us, she knew his compassion, his forgiveness. She knew how "alive" he was. And the boldness of her devotion---well, it out shown ours last Friday. We ran. she stayed.

But now this crazy story- grave robbers- she was a woman, right, and so by definition, not be trusted to have accurate recall of events.  We all know there is a reason that women were not allowed to be witnesses in the court. Mary M really loved Jesus.  He had totally turned her life around, and so, I’m sure her emotions clouded her --- rationality. 

Nevertheless, we loved her too and well, we humored her.

Ah, Peter. Yes, well, Peter and I have an interesting relationship.  He often called me Mary M., just to distinguish me from all of the other Mary’s.  I was the Mary who Jesus had healed from seven demons.  After that happened, well, I and several other women followed Jesus and the rest of the disciples and helped take care of them. 

In another time, we would have been considered their equals. Yet, in that time, we kept our place. But, with Jesus.  Well, with Jesus it was different. There never seemed to be a distinction.  In fact, at times, it seemed as though Jesus and I were closer to each other than he was with the others--with the male disciples. We were very close. 

On that horrible day, when he was dying on the cross, I was there along with his mother and only a few others.  I was there and witnessed life draining out of his body.  His very life...

But, back to the story...that morning it was dark when I went to the tomb.   There had not been time before sundown on Friday--the start of the Sabbath--to anoint his body.  (This was something we women did.  We never anointed men when they were alive--only when they were dead.)  So, that morning, I went there in the dark to finish what we should have done before Jesus was placed in the tomb. 

I arrived there just before the dawn.  You know that time of day, when the light is just beginning to break through the darkness.  It’s such a hopeful moment.  Yet, when I arrived at the tomb, I was stunned.  It was open! The stone had been rolled away! 

My first thought was grave robbers.  (They were becoming a big problem.  They would steal valuables buried with the bodies.)  I was heartsick.  I immediately turned around and ran back to get the disciples--well, to get Peter and John.  I trusted them.

Well, we ran.  John got there first,  and lo and behold, Mary M was right.  The tomb was empty,  John got there first, but he stayed at the opening, but I rushed right in.  No surprise to you who know me.  But it was a strange site for grave robbers.

Let me compare it to cicada shells.  You know those cicadas. The 17-year locusts that come out of the ground.   As a kid I would go through the woods and collect those shells they would leave behind.  I liked them because they were evidence that a miracle had occurred. They looked dead, but they were just shells. Everyone one of them had a neat slit down its back, where the living creature inside of it had escaped, pulling new legs, new eyes, new wings out of that dry brown body and taking flight.  At night I could hear their high song in the trees.   If you asked them, I’ll bet none of them could tell you where they left their old clothes.

How like Peter, a man, to use a cicada as an example!  Me, well, I might have used a butterfly--that beautiful creature that emerges from this brown, dingy cocoon.  Cicada shells.  Oh, Peter (shaking her head).

But that is what we found in that tomb.  Two piles of old clothes.  Mary didn’t even see it.  She was crying--too emotional.  She just saw the wide-open tomb and ran for us.  “The body is stolen”-   Grave robbers. 

Only why would grave robbers have bothered to undress him first?  When I went in, I saw the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head was rolled up in a place by itself.  Why go to that trouble if you’re stealing the body?

Me, emotional?  Well, maybe. 

Finally, he admits it.  He WAS emotional.  We were ALL emotional.  Over the past few days we had witnessed our beloved Jesus tortured and mocked and, finally, crucified on the cross.  We were devastated.  And, on top of that, we were terrified.  Why do you think I went to the tomb in the dark?  We were afraid that we would be next. 

None of it was making any sense.

Because, at that point, all we saw was the empty tomb. All we saw was a cicada shell. Really, we saw nothing, but emptiness and absence.    It was a pretty fragile beginning.  A mighty fragile beginning for a religion that has lasted 2000 years.  Resurrection had to be more than an empty cicada shell, empty grave clothes and empty tomb.

As hard as it is for me to accept it, it seems that the rest of the story belongs to Mary.  Thanks be to God for Mary M! 

At the time, Peter and John didn’t know that I had quietly followed them back to the tomb.  I followed them to see what they would find.  They first saw ME when they came out of the tomb and I was there crying.  After they returned home, I looked inside.  What I saw then might have knocked someone else to their knees.  There were two angels.  Dazzling white.  Dazzling bright.  Yet, it’s as if I didn’t even notice their presence.  My focus--my ENTIRE focus--was on the fact that Jesus’ body was gone.  Gone!

They, then, spoke to me, and asked me why I was weeping.  I told them why.  Could they have even known how devastated I was?  How grave robbers had taken the most precious thing, the only thing we still had--the body of our Lord and Savior?  Why would they do something like that?

I turned to leave. As I did, well, there was this man standing there.  He looked like a gardener.  It seemed right to assume this.  After all, Jesus’ tomb WAS in a garden. 

He, too, asked me why I was crying?  (Why is everyone so focused on the fact that I was crying?  Really!)  So, I was a little irritated when I told him.  When, I accused him, really, of stealing Jesus body.  I don’t think I actually believed he had taken it.  I was just so emotional.  And, then, he said my name.  Mary.  When he called me by my name, by my own name, by my very own personal name, well, then, I knew.  I knew it was him.  He was alive.  Jesus was alive! 

I said, “Rabbouni.”  (This means teacher, it’s a title used by students speaking to their rabbi.)  In that very moment, when he called me by my own name, I knew his voice and I knew I was being called--called into a new kind of relationship.  That I was being called as his apostle.  Called to share the news--to tell the others that he was alive!  And that’s what I did. I was the first to tell them that Jesus had risen!

He had outgrown his cocoon (smiles at Mary), which was too small a focus for the resurrection. The risen One had people to see and things to do. The resurrection starts with the cry of grief, an empty place, but it’s all about a familiar voice.  It’s tiny… like the fingers of a newborn. Seemingly insignificant.. Like the grain that lands in the clam’s open mouth.  Often overlooked...like a gardener.  

What happened in the tomb was entirely between Jesus and God.  For the rest of us-- for you, resurrection, new life, really began the moment the gardener said “Mary.” 

When that happened...when the crucified and risen Jesus called me by my name, well, I could feel God’s love poured into me--God’s unending, infinite love.  It’s the same for all of us--when we hear the voice of boundless love speak to our loneliness, when we hear the voice of overflowing comfort speak to our hidden hurts, when we hear the voice of soaring challenge speak to our meaninglessness and busyness, when we hear the voice of abundant life speak into our cocoons of grief, fear, anxiety, illness, depression, and addiction---when we hear God’s voice speak to us, well, that’s when the resurrection begins for each one of us. 

Whatever it is that causes you to want to curl up in bed in a fetal position and hope it all goes away.  Whatever it is, whether it’s the threat of terrorism, fear-mongering leaders, overwhelming busyness, fractured relationships.  Whatever it is. 

Today.  This day.  This Easter day we are offered more than cicada or cocoon shells, more than an empty tomb.  Our crucified and risen Lord comes to us in our baptism, calls us each by name and claims us as his own. (Walk to baptismal font.) “You are my child.  You, my beloved, are sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with my cross forever.

And in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, our crucified and risen Lord calls us each by name and offers life and promise.  (Walk to altar.)  This is my life, my loves.  My deepest desire is to give it to you.  Take and eat.  Take and drink.  This is all I have, given and shed for you. 

Called by name. Given in love.  For you.

Amen. (Said together.)

(Preached on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016, with Pastor Mark Docken.)