A Declaration of Possibility

Sometimes we fall into patterns of speaking for God. We’re sure we know what God wants and what God needs, what God will and won’t do. This affects who we hear popular Scripture verses- we’ve heard it before-we know. Mary’s words are well known. But today let’s slow down and let God speak anew, and hear them in the midst of the bigger story. In Samuel, we hear people are sure God needs a special house, the best that money can buy, no expense to be spared to make the place where God meets us perfect. This is the top priority. We need to make this happen for God to be here in the right way. But what do we hear from God?

“Who is that really about? YOU’RE GOING TO TELL ME KNOW WHAT IS NECESSARY FOR ME? TELL ME WHAT I NEED AND WHEN TO SHOW UP? I COMMAND THE VERY FORCES OF NATURE AND EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU HAVE AT YOUR DISPOSAL. You live in MY shadow. Remember how this equation works.”

In a different way this happened for Zechariah, a priest who was sure he knew what God was about. His story happens just before Mary’s. He’s in the temple, in the holy of holies, a place that MAYBE in their lifetime a priest would get one shot to being the one who enters there. Each year they drew lots for who could enter. This year, it was Zechariah. But If it’d been by popular vote, it wouldn’t have been him. Because he and Elizabeth never had any children. Years passed, prayers seemed unanswered. What was wrong with them, people asked? They must be out of favor with God. So I wonder if it felt like odd for him-go in and offer the usual worship in the usual way at the usual time with the usual trappings. He knows how this goes, what’s expected. It’s supposed to be most sacred space, but when you look around, it’s empty-just fading smoke of the incense and silence. No visible new possibilities. And maybe you’re not sure if God REALLY IS here. But then the angel Gabriel shows up. Now when you’re in THE place where you say God dwells, it shouldn’t surprise you that God’s messenger appears. But when you’ve been going through the motions all these years, maybe that’s asking a lot. When Gabriel reveals that FINALLY Elizabeth is going to have a child, chosen to receive God’s grace, Zechariah asks a question. HOW CAN I BE SURE THAT WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME IS REAL? How will I know? After a lifetime of dedicated worship he has a crisis of faith. “If I can’t comprehend it, it must not be true.” Zechariah offers a proclamation of impossibility.

When we wrestle with our doubts, fears and questions, sometimes we too try to predetermine God’s plan and make God manageable. But as we try to make God be our size, it’s usually too small. And what we long for we never find. We’re sure we know and don’t expect God to throw us a curve ball. When what we want shows up in unexpected ways it can throw us. We wonder whether it’s real. How can we be sure? We need proof. Because we’ve got God figured out. And certain things are just NOT possible. Certain things seem too big to be changed. These are the places where we have a crisis of faith- where our proclamation of impossibility overshadows us. Whatever is troubling you and giving you no peace, whatever is overshadowing you- don’t be afraid! Hear again the story of Mary.

Gabriel, God's angel of revelation was sent by God to a tiny, insignificant place to a young woman engaged to be married to a man named Joseph. She was probably 12 or 13 years old and certainly too young to know much- her name was Mary. Coming to her, the angel said- Greetings, gracified girl! You’ve been chosen to receive God's grace. The Lord is with you!"

Mary was awfully confused, even troubled by his words and began to wonder what kind of greeting this was. What did it mean? The angel said- "Listen! You will become pregnant and will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus. His name will mean "God saves!"This one, he will be Great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor, David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end!" This will begin to happen NOW.

As hard as never expecting change is, THIS is radically life altering stuff. But Mary doesn’t ask, “How can I be sure that what you’re saying is true?” or how CAN this be? Mary said - How WILL this be?

She starts from a very different perspective.

And it’s not about whether it will happen but how. Her question isn’t about whether she thinks it’s possible.

She focuses on God’s power.

The angel replied, "the Holy Spirit will come and the power and glorious presence of God will overshadow you.”

God will overshadow you.

As I pondered these words, I’m struck by how small Mary is at this moment.

And she grasps her smallness and its impossibility.

But she also grasps what the priests in Samuel don’t get until God bellows and what Zechariah and older, wiser men dismiss.

She gets the equation. God is unfathomably large. And she proclaims this greatness.

Her very life was threatened by this news but she proclaimed God’s greatness in the face of confusion.

That’s more than accepting the words she hears, she’s trusting who God is and what God can and will do.

And she then hears of God’s rhema.

Rhema is a Greek word that can mean “word”, or “thing.” But it can also mean enactment. None of God’s rhema will be impossible.

This is a proclamation of possibility. God’s possibility.

None of God's words, will be impossible.

None of the things promised will be unable to happen

None of what God enacts into being will fail.

These words move fear into hope and re-establish the equation. God has chosen to act with favor. Not because of who Mary or any of us are. We’re favored because God says so. This is God’s word for us too. And our response shouldn’t be “how will we know?”

We called to live in faith and say-may what you will be so, Lord. Trusting in God’s power but also God’s reasons- that every action of the God who overshadows us is about grace. We too are “gracified.”

We receive this grace from a God who isn’t distant, but reaching out and acting toward us in love. Choosing to be more fully known in the center of our world and struggles, and reminding us God’s power overshadows all our fears and doubts. Giving us faith to believe it is so even when it looks different than we expect.

This is what Jesus brings into all of our places of longing and wonder.

Peace and life, hope and joy to us.

Not just words, but God’ possibility happening TO US.

  

Let it be according to your will O Lord!

AMEN

Light I can scarcely hold

I confess this is kind of an odd ramble as I am preparing for the overwhelming and breathtaking task of proclaiming the event and the meaning of the nativity of our Lord. I am in awe.

There are lots of things that take my breath away each day as I fathom the fact that I am an ordained pastor. I wonder at times how it can be that I, of all people, get to lead God's people in worship. That I, of all people, proclaim God's words of grace and mercy, forgiveness and love. That I, of all people, am given the task of reminding us of why God matters and how God matters, and how some things we think matter really aren't as important to God as we think.

But there are other places that take my breath away because I get to proclaim God as the light in the wilderness, in the darkness and in the storm. In visits and phone calls, in the hospital, at funerals, and in so many wilderness places. And each time I do so I remember my own places of wilderness and darkness and storm. And a light I can scarcely hold.

One of the experiences that I had way back in CPE was that people always wanted to show me their scars. I would come back and speak of this and be met with bewilderment from my team. You're not all seeing this? No- just you, they'd say somewhat gratefully. In the rest of my time as a chaplain and now in parish ministry this continues. Let me show you my scars, my wounds, my true self. I am never sure why I am trusted in this way, except that it feels beyond me. Like the way some people tell me my eyes are beautiful in these moments. Or that they are bright or piercing. And I know it is not me they see. It really is not me they see.

Last week I led a Blue Christmas service which was a new experience for our parish and though I have been to one before, a new experience for me. There was a time where people could come forward and light candles in the shadow of a less than perfect cross, or say or leave a paper with the name of a loved one. And then be anointed for healing, and wrapped in the embrace of a prayer shawl. Tears, hugs, words of grace and light.


I made an odd decision, for me. I decided after all of the thoughtful planning of the worship space and the worship itself, that I would not write a homily ahead of time. I would see who was there and speak by the Spirit from that moment. As people came, and more than I expected, I looked and saw those who had lost loved ones to cancer, perinatal loss, chronic conditions, and a family who recently began the scorched earth journey that accompanies a suicide. And I realized that hard as those experiences are, I had also been in each of those places. Places where we wonder what to pray for- comfort or release, places of no answers, only questions. Places where others' discomfort and questions leave us even more unsettled. Places where we want to pray but our words end up in piles on the floor. Places where we look for the light but in truth can't see it.
I remember part of what I said, but most of it was too ethereal an experience for me. I sat with all of my losses and all of the others. In the meditative spaces I felt in awe of the colossal task of naming losses and claiming the light of Christ.
But afterwards, in our fellowship time, I again heard about the beauty of the light of the space and about the piercing light in my eyes. It takes my breath away.

How it is that God uses me for this purpose is a mystery of faith that I feel too clumsy to hold.

Lately as one who wears a collar, the needs where I am are so profound. Too profound some days for me. But as I have dared to ask others for things they likely would not do or give, as I look people in the eyes, for the sake of the overburdened, the answers have been "yes." This too seems too precious a consequence for me to be handling and I can be afraid of it.

In the gospel of Luke all of the opening messages delivered from God begin with an angel saying- "Don't be afraid" or "fear not" depending upon your reading. Until the incarnation.
And then everywhere Jesus goes where people are unsettled, in the wildernesses and darkness, and storm- the words "fear not" can also be translated- "Stop fearing." And we can- because Jesus is here. This is the message I have the privilege of bearing. "You can stop fearing- Look! Jesus is here with us."

As we prepare to hear again a story that's thousands of years old and that we're sure we know by heart, maybe our heart needs to begin to grasp again just how profound this message is- in all those places that seem ready to overwhelm us. To see that the tears, the embraces, the anointing, the prayers, the words, the meal all bring this grace of  "God with us" in a way perhaps we feel too clumsy to receive and to share, but where we're given the light to hold anyway. By the grace of God , we get the light to hold and to share.
Christ, be our light.

Fireweed stories

I‘d like you to close your bulletins and look at the picture on the front cover. Years ago, driving through Canada, we saw acres of trees that had been ravaged by forest fire. A once proud and beautiful stand of evergreens, reduced to charred remains.  It was hard to imagine it before the fire, in the reality of the present. It seemed lost forever.  Then we came around the bend and interspersed in some of the skeletons of trees were flashes of pink. Exuberant spiky flowers defiantly poking their heads out from among the devastation. They’re called fireweed. It’s the first plant to show up in the aftermath of forest fires. Popping up in places where it seems nothing could grow. Here and there. When people see fireweed they can believe that the forest can still have life.  It turns out that what fireweed does to the soil where it grows is to restore it so other things can grow too. I was sharing this story at the meeting of the Reading Lutheran Parish Bible study, a funny thing happened. As I talked about it, others started smiling and began sharing stories of seeing the flowers of fireweed in Montana, in Alaska, and other places. Hope in hard places. Stories that shared joy. You’ve gotta love a God that gives us fireweed, and stories of hope and restoration. This is the theme of our lessons this day. God’s promise of restoration and new life and reasons to rejoice!   But these passages also speak to remembering that it hasn’t always been joyful. Our rejoicing is shaped by coming out of places of devastation, into God’s hope and restoration and promise. The power of God’s promises ,on any given day, can be easier or harder to see.

One way we hold onto believing in God’s promises is to share our stories of rejoicing, of seeing the fireweed, if you will. Since I’ve come here I’ve heard these stories in visiting our homebound. Of people being orphaned and sent away to a place for people like you. Of going off to serve your country in war and coming home with only half of one hand and another 70 plus years to live that way. Hard desolate places to recover from. These are a just couple stories of God’s people here, people who went on to lead lives that shared joy. People drawn here by the promise of restoration, new life, and a home. God’s promises gave them gladness instead of mourning, and they could wear that mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They connected with this message and each other. I’ve seen the pictures of these lives, heard these stories of rejoicing in God’s work!

But it’s different now, right? Here in the land of Act 47, where we hope to be delivered out of bankruptcy, but know we still come out to a mess. Rejoice?? We feel older and more tired, our health is failing, the money is gone, that life is a thing of the past. Rejoice? Like the people of Israel, it’s not how we hoped in this land. We’re not just poor in spirit, we’re staring at a physical reality that’s downright depressing some days. Rejoice? Easier said than done.

Maybe it’s hard to imagine restoration and re-building when it’s easier to see what looks more like wreckage than life. A world where we’re surrounded by a world of “instant” products that lead us to want a big event, but God gives us fireweed. Just little flashes. Real restoration takes time.


True, we know the good news of Jesus Christ- we know more than the people of Isaiah did. The one everyone was waiting for has come. He has a name: Jesus. But fuller restoration takes time. God’s revelation has begun in Jesus Christ, but it’s a story of ongoing transformation. Not always found in big obvious events. And yet perhaps we can remember the birth we’ll celebrate was like this too- In the middle of the darkness, to immigrants of little consequence in a backwater place where most did not see or know. John tells us, there’s one in our midst who we do not know. Perhaps like those in Bethlehem, our lack of knowledge comes because we’re not looking in the places where God’s signs show up.

Real restoration happens in lots of little ways. Our ‘fireweed stories” proclaim God’s promise and work in these ways in the meantime. Like God’s people of old, recalling God’s work seen encourages us to look for and expect to see this now. Not just in some ultimately glorious day, but in little flashes we should rejoice in now! God’s church didn’t grow in one big event. It was lots of little flashes of life. Sometimes bright but also sometimes faint. But ever present. And this is the how people here testified to each other, to you, about Christ. You helped each other believe there was life beyond the devastation of a World War world, and other dark places. Pastor Radcliffe was one who helped people see this possibility. He was an amazing servant of God. But he wasn’t the only one. The people of this place told the story too. And the world that emerged revolved not around them but around God at work in this place. As great as any of these people have been, the real message has never been about them. Their words and lives testified to the light and life of the One greater than all of us. This is the gospel for us.


We help each other see the life and light of Christ when we rejoice in stories of our history that help us believe that we can still see these unexpected flashes of God at work. So I come to testify to this light and life here. In the child who comes and wants to light the candles and prays she is tall enough, telling her friends to come and see brings rejoicing! The homebound person who stills calls others to brighten their day even when she can’t leave her apartment brings light! The person who delivered flowers to the hospital to a woman, but who never knew that that woman cried tears of joy because she remembered God hadn’t left her alone and forgotten, brought hope! The person who brings a man transitioning from prison to testify that there is life and a home here brings restoration! I could go on and on- everyday I see this. Glimpses of Christ. I see it and rejoice! It transforms me each day! Look around you, where have you seen God at work? Rejoice, be transformed and testify to the power of the One whose promise of light and life and restoration lives on. AMEN

Good News From the Wilderness

It’s that time of year. Time for my favorite Christmas special -“Merry Christmas Charlie Brown.” Charlie Brown’s directing the school Christmas pageant, but no one’s listening. Everyone’s caught up in details, of their costumes, who got the bigger part, their naturally curly hair. They’re distracted. They don’t seem to get it’s really all about. Here in the neighborhood lots of houses remind me of the show’s depiction of Snoopy’s doghouse with the lights and the blowup Santas and the head bobbing lit reindeer. Mind you, I’m not being judgmental- I love the lights too. But as I listen to people in their decorating, I hear that we race to get out more and more decorations to cheer us up. And some people don’t put them all up at once so their neighbor can’t outdo them. It happens in church too- we need bigger and better stuff to get the party started, and it’s not enough, we need more. NOW. Charlie Brown’s high hopes leave him disillusioned and then we hear Linus’ simple speech on an empty stage that brings good news that another strand of Christmas lights can’t. He walks alone onto the empty stage, with his blanket, stands in a single spotlight, recounting the opening of the Gospel of Luke we’ve all come to know, in response to Charlie Brown’s question of “what’s the true meaning of Christmas?”

 Like Charlie Brown I wonder- I wonder if we lose sight that we’re not focusing on what really matters. Even with the Christmas story. Even the other Gospels give us what we’ve come to expect about the story of Jesus in the buildup to Christmas. The Gospel of Mark is well… a little under-whelming. It’s not the “more” we need to “get us in the holiday mood.”  You can’t decorate with the Gospel of Mark. There are no shepherds in the fields, or three kings from afar. No guiding star. No manger scene with cows and the donkey. No heavenly chorus in the skies. No little baby for us to cuddle.  We get Jesus in his 30’s, beginning his ministry with an opening line so sparse we can simply rattle it off as the necessary intro to get the story moving: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” In the face of all of the buildup in commercial Christmas, and even the other gospels, when we hear the words in Mark it feels like someone suddenly pulled the plug on the lights and we’re left with a deflated blow up Santa in a heap on the ground. And at the end of commercial Christmas decoration season that’s all we’ll have when we pull the plug.  There has to be something more.

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ” feels a little sparse. Maybe we could simply leap over these words, and at least get to John the Baptist in his funky camel hair outfit, and those locusts. What IF in this first of the gospels shared with the early believers, we don’t hear all the flashy stuff because it could distract us from THE thing?

The opening words are a statement of faith about God’s good news that shaped the whole Gospel of Mark. To force us to see that what it’s all about is that Jesus’ arrival is how God’s good news happens and Jesus is God’s good news happening. Good news! Mark talks about good news a lot. So today we’re going to learn a little Greek- euangelion. It means “good news!” This is the beginning word and it’s where words like “evangelism” and the “evangelical” come from. Something to think about when we get worried that people see “evangelical” in our name as the Evangelical Lutheran Church and wonder if we’re THOSE kind of Christians. Buried under all the other meanings- the real way the gospel means it, evangelical Christians are: followers of Christ who bear the good news.


Marks’ gospel says, “This is how the good news of what happened in Jesus started, before we even knew what was happening.” Then the people listening heard words of the prophets they knew well- including Isaiah- Remember what Isaiah said?” He said there’d be good news! 23 times. It must really be true.


Quoting Isaiah means that NOW is when hopes and dreams are being fulfilled. We’re not just telling a story again and longing. God’s bringing something more powerful NOW. Even John the Baptist’s clothing says this. Ever wonder why he’s the guy wearing the camel skin and belt? Early listeners would have known- He’s dressed like Elijah, one of THE prophets!” A little Bible trivia. The point is-God’s plan for salvation really IS breaking forth NOW. And it’s good news!




The good news is Jesus Christ. The REAL story is always about “the good news of Jesus Christ.” And we should really call Him “Jesus the Christ.” Because Christ isn’t just a name, Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name, it’s a title. it’s how Jesus carries out the good news. “Christ” means “anointed by God, chosen for this purpose-to free, redeem and save us. Jesus is this, but it won’t look like we expect. Because God loves us enough that we don’t just get another baby born, or another prophet, or another great man. We get God with skin. This is the story of how Jesus= the good news. Jesus embodies the same love God showed when God led Israel out of exile and wilderness to freedom and life. But better! Jesus=salvation.


And we need to be prepared for this new reality.


John the baptizer says make the way straight and we hear about repentance. What he’s saying is “radically reorient your focus around the truth of Jesus the Christ.” We don’t get tips for surviving in the wilderness, but how to be brought out of it and into life. Open up, prepare, clear out the distractions and make room for this good news to enter.


Wherever your wilderness places are, the ones you’re trying to feed in some other way, maybe even another strand of lights-hear the good news! God is near. Jesus says, “turn back and believe this good news!” “Respond to this good news, it gives life! “ And don’t just hold onto it. Jesus will tell all who listen and follow-“this good news must be preached to all nations, lived and proclaimed to the whole world!” And it’s just beginning!


We’re not just hearing a story, we’re in it! Part of God’s ongoing good news, as those baptized not only by water but the Holy Spirit. Called to channel our energy around God’s vision.


Last Sunday was one example. For those far from home, far from familiar faces, life can feel like a wilderness existence. God and community seem distant. When God’s love breaks through, it’s good news! God’s good news and love will come to those who receive the 45 bags we prepared last Sunday. We shared good news with the homebound, stressed out college kids and people serving in real wildernesses in military deployment. Those gifts will proclaim Christ-life, love, hope and “salvation from the wilderness.”


When we do these things, we’re getting a little evangelical. We really are THOSE kind of Christians- who speak and live the good news of Jesus the Christ. But we’re not focusing on what WE do, but what God in Christ has done and is doing. God doesn’t need us to spruce it up. Instead God wants to re-shape our lives around the only and ultimate fact we need. That in “the beginning of the good news, of Jesus, the Christ, the anointed and our Savior- God acted.”


And God is still acting. This is the real meaning of it all. And it’s the real power that brings us back from our wilderness places and the message we share with others in theirs. We’re caught up in the middle of God’s unending and loving plan for salvation. It’s a power that goes on and on. That’s not just good news, it’s the best news. AMEN

Finding the Story of Hope

This past week, on Tuesday, a woman and her 8 yr old set up a tent in the parking lot of one of the Big stores. It was them against the world, waiting for the opening of Black Friday sales. The ad had a really great teaser price for a toy everyone wants but only a couple will get. Hundreds of people lined up in hope even though it’s dangerous to be first in line, with crowd stampedes in stores, or this year someone decided to pepper spray everyone who might get the toy first. Every year we hear about people actively committed, vigilant, waiting for the clerk to come and open the door, so they can get the thing they hope will make it all better, til the next fad. We all tell their stories. And every year we hear stories about nailing down the timeline for the fate of the world. I think it’s no surprise there are more predictions this year- we’re increasingly disheartened and nervous in the world. This week brought another Mayan calendar discovery. We anticipate these stories, sharing the news that at least will distract us from our lives. But our time isn’t unique. It was a troubled and confused world Jesus was born into. A world hoping that something or someone powerful would come make it better.


Today we begin the season of Advent which places us at odds with our world. While everyone’s hoping to get the right stuff that will bring happiness, we’re called to focus in a different way and to tell a different story. To light a candle and tell God’s story. Calling to God- Stir up your power and Come! This candle tells the story of hope. We remember the waiting- what happens that leads to Jesus’ birth. But also what happens after Jesus’ death. In the midst of the season of manufactured joy, today’s gospel speaks Jesus’ last words to the disciples before the cross- Stay awake and aware. Stay focused. But how can we? In an onslaught of ads telling us to buy happiness, and people telling us we should because all this God stuff is just a pipedream? Now more than ever maybe we identify not only with the gospel, but with the words of Isaiah – as people who feel alienated, stunned by their experience, who tell God-“Hey, no one is speaking your name. No one takes hold of you, Lord. Don’t be mad at us, it’s hard to be in this place.”

And this is the point of Jesus’ words to the disciples. They’re intended to be words of hope, because God knows the world we live in. But, lots of people look at today’s gospel and get frustrated. We still want hope in the form of a real timeline. Instead we get planets and weather and a fig tree. So people try to look for signs, or hidden meaning and then lump it together with Armageddon and power. Next thing you know it’s negative and frightening and judgmental. Words of hope become words of fear as we cringe and wonder about what we see. Then “Keep awake” sounds like we need a 5 Hour Energy Drink, and if we do fall asleep, it better be at the right time. But remember these words of Jesus to the disciples are words of hope. If we begin reading just two verses earlier, I think it helps us frame our perspective. Jesus tells them and tells us:

“There’ll be lots of fake prophets and fake saviors.” He’s preparing his followers for the world after the cross. People struggling to know the real truth about Jesus and God’s vision. Where so many things will be said and done in Jesus’ name we’d need help to clarify and preserve the truth. People will rise up against the powers that be, then claim this revolt would usher in the return of Christ- Lots of misunderstandings. So Jesus says “keep focused on what you can rely on- My words. Focus your belief and actions on what is real.” We all face those times when we say, “We’re looking for you, Jesus but we can’t see you. Where are you? Is our hope real? We’re surrounded by unbelieving, sinful people.” The generation we hear of, I think is made up of all the people living on earth til the return of Christ, of those who won’t believe, who will hurt others, and bring destruction. Who will sidetrack us with predictions of what we can’t know-use up our energy that could better be spent elsewhere. Or who tell us that none of that matters, so do what you feel ‘cause it’s all temporary. All of this can lead us away from our focus- what it means that Christ was born AND died AND has risen AND will return. This is what we as disciples have been given to preach and teach about as we make disciples. So Jesus reminds, “When I return it will be unmistakable. But you can’t know the time or compel it. Lots of people will tell you otherwise- But stay focused and resist this, and the fear it brings. Live in my hope.”

How do we live in this hope when we need something to hold onto? We tell God’s story in the birth of Jesus.

In Advent we remember and celebrate the birth, how God has acted in this promise that speaks hope. We remember the waiting and then the joy. But we also tell God’s story in the Cross. We aren’t just remembering “Baby Jesus,” but Christ of the Cross. God acted in this promise too, in waiting and then joy. We wait for the return of a Crucified and Risen Christ where there will then be joy. The ongoing story of God fulfilling promises, bringing hope. Telling this story we can live in hope that God is still at work. Then keeping awake isn’t about looking for predictions but proclaiming God’s power, focused on God’s Word for us. There will be times we confess, “Lord, we couldn’t see you and we stopped speaking your name, we stopped taking hold of you. “ But the stories remind us that then God really does take us and form us anew, we’re not forsaken. The distance from the resurrection to God’s ultimate promise is unknown but when we gather and tell the story, we share Christ with us, for ourselves and for other.

And so we tell the story again- We light the darkness and remember what God has already done and hold onto where God is going. Yes, Baby Jesus in the manger matters, but the real reason we have hope is also about everywhere Jesus goes after the manger- fulfilling God’s hope and salvation. While lots of other people and ideas will come and go, these are the words that are constant. That give us hope so can again call, “Stir up your power, Lord and COME! “ And believe.

AMEN

Meeting our Master in Neediness

As the new girl in town I was blessed to preach the Thanksgiving Eve ecumenical service- what a blessing!


I’d like to start out by asking a question: How many of you are planning on flinging yourself on the ground, with your face in the dust as the way of saying thank you tomorrow at your Thanksgiving meal? Any takers? No, me either. It’s not exactly our way of giving thanks. It doesn’t seem like us. Yet in a lot of ways we’ve made being thankful fit our needs. From turning to Hallmark to find the right words for us to funding research to show being thankful is worth it. Studies show that being thankful improves our health, and relationships, and business success. So we can feel good. And Lord you know we’re busy,it’s hard to find time to be thankful. So we hope it’s OK to offer perfunctory words to a God who’s just pleased we say thanks, who just wants a minute of our time. Right?




The leper’s response is fundamentally different, profound and worshipful. Heartfelt. Many of us will say thanks tomorrow, many of us have a usual prayer. I confess I too am not agonizing over the prayer nearly as long as the preparations for the meal. We’ve been busy trying to outdo ourselves. Making sure we get it right. Have the meal at a time that allows me to go to yours AND the other side of the family too. To do the expected things. But we are hurrying to meet our schedule and of course, football. With the table groaning with the weight of the food and we remember Wait! Someone should say grace, but Hurry up while it’s all hot. Hurry before it conflicts with our scheduled lives. When I was gorwing up I remember years when grace sounded like this: “Blessusolordforthesethygiftswhichweareabouttoreceivethroughyour bountyinchristsnameamen.” 48 years of living have shown me a few Thanksgivings like that. Thanks that’s not too deep or needy.




The lepers were needy. That’s not a word we like. We don’t like to think about neediness. Their community was built on neediness. The disease they had in common drew them together. But all of the really important relationships had been cut off. Then they meet Jesus, who tells them it’s all changing and go and do what restores you. Seeing the priests would restore them to community and more importantly, from God’s perspective, to worship. But I wonder was their first thought was about being glad to worship in the temple or about their other rights and privileges-to eat and drink and socialize? I’m not sure, but for nine former lepers, they could now wake up and say the expected morning prayer of thanks they used to:” I give you thanks God, that I am not one of THEM!” I’m chosen.

For nine this works.

But for the tenth, the Samaritan, he’s one of those people the other nine will resume giving thanks they are NOT. Going back to this status quo doesn’t work. Going back to the way it was is still being left out. Going home meant picking up the same old labels, limits, violence and prejudice. It would after all, be expected. To stand with a different idea would take more than faith in the status quo. Yet, he’s been healed by a man who should never have had anything to do with him even if he weren’t a leper. So who would do this? And why? It must mean something more. Who is this man for whom distinctions don’t matter? It has to be about something more that liberates and restores in a larger way than the status quo. That’s not just healing that’s salvation. He ponders this I think because what Jesus does and brings forth is a game changer.


For most of us being able to gather together and eat tomorrow is expected, not a game changer. Most of us will thank God for blessings of loved ones and family and the mashed potatoes. I doubt we’ll sit down and speak of our neediness and of being saved from the status quo by Christ. I doubt we’ll sit down to dinner and think about THAT when we say the words of thanks we call “grace.”

That would be a real leap of faith. Our holiday of Thanksgiving began after a gut wrenching time in this country, nail-biting existence. A community galvanized by fundamental neediness who realized the status quo had not been enough. That was true in the later 1700’s and again in 1863 when Abraham Lincolnn issued the proclamation on our bulletins. But that’s all been co-opted in our world, both on the official day and in daily living. But turn on the news again today and see than in this world, this country and this city as we look at the collapse of the status quos and people’s general dis-ease today, perhaps we really are called to stop and ponder more deeply.

It really is about something more. What happens in the Gospel BEFORE this story of the ten lepers is that the disciples have asked Jesus to increase their faith. Not to give them faith, but to deepen it.


Jesus first asks them if a servant should be thanked for getting his master a meal. “Of course not!

The servant is just doing his job.” Doing what is expected. That’s not a deep concept.

This is when we hear of Jesus and the ten lepers. Nine saw they were healed and responded with what was expected. The tenth, responded with deeper faith, beyond his condition, with insight into a glimpse of the power of Christ. He wasn’t just healed, he was saved. Which is not about fixing our status quo, or keeping it. The key to understanding how Jesus is about more than this is the word the lepers call him- “Master.” Every time we hear it, something profound happens. Throughout the Gospel of Luke, when someone cries out Master, here is what happens:

When we’ve tried every strategy, used all of our energy, and all of our time, we’re exhausted and we think there is nothing more to be expected-. “Master!” And Jesus tells the skeptical – “try again. Put in the net the way I say” It defies our methods, but the result is beyond comprehension. When things seem dangerously choppy, and perilous, and we feel alone in the churning and uncertainty-“Master!” Out of chaos, Jesus stills the storm. When we think something is too big to be changed, too overwhelming to be reversed, and there is nothing we can do“ Master!” And Jesus brings healing. When we think we know how the world is structured-our Master brings reversal. None of these seem easy or possible and by our hand they are not. That’s right- they’re NOT. This is what the words from our reading from Deuteronomy tell us. No matter how much intellect, or desire or strength we have. Saying “Thank you for ourselves and our status quo” isn’t deepening faith. It’s about seeing ourselves in our neediness and where Jesus meets us. We are all needy.


It takes strength to see our neediness and to respond with more than complacency or civic gratitude. It’s a challenge to see God as Master and go beyond approaching God superficially. But this is where Jesus calls us go- deeper into our hearts. To seek greater understanding of who Jesus is. Jesus is the Master. This is blessing and it’s a challenge because this gospel, this good news, will call us to do more than decry the systems that cause oppression and pain. And calls us to do more than brag about how those problems don't happen in our neighborhood, or in our churches. To see that they do. And to turn to the Master for guidance to do something about it. This gospel calls us to worship and live lives of praise that respond in true recognition of the needs of all us and to respond in true gratitude for God’s power and reversal. It’s a distinct and new way of living. That begins with the realization that only in faith and through Jesus Christ can our world receive what we really need.


To hold in our hearts this profound truth-Our Master changes lives. This is worthy of our thanks and praise!

It’s a struggle to follow Christ in the face of a culture built upon industry and ingenuity as the source and where people tell us systems can’t be changed. Grasping the in-breaking of Christ allows us to proclaim that that there’s no chance for growth and new life if all we are about is token thanks and falling back on our systems. Instead to embrace and proclaim this we really will need the Master. Thanks be to God this is where Jesus meets us, in our need, just like the lepers. Tomorrow when you gather may your heartfelt thanks to the Master be a prayer rooted in this grace.


I close with a prayer for all of us from the Masai people in Tanzania. Let us pray:

For your blessing we thank you, God: faith in you.


Increase it we beg, so that we no longer doubt.

Drive out our miserliness, so that we do not refuse you anything.

Increase our faith, for the sake of those without faith.

Make us instruments of your faith, for those with only a little.

Fill our bodies with your faith, our bodies that work for you all our days.

Help us to avoid the enemies of our faith, or to overcome them.

You are with us in confrontations, this we believe.

In your hands we place ourselves and are secure.

Make haste to enter our hearts, make haste.

Amen.

“Make us Instruments of your Faith” from An African Prayer Book, by

Desmond Tutu, p.  94.

Words for Beginning Being Bound Together

Another one of the September sermons- sorry they are out of order. This was the first sermon I preached as the newly called pastor on September 4, 2011. My goal was to connect this week's sermon to the followibg week which was September 11th. At the end of the two weeks, we incorporated the Litany for Healing and Forgiveness which allowed us to begin important work together while honoring emotions of the transition :


Here we are on our first “official” Sunday together in ministry. God has bound us together. This is exactly the sense of binding of the community that Matthew is speaking of. Both this week’s lesson and next week’s offer us teaching that fits together as we hear God’s words about living as a bound community of believers amongst ourselves and in the world. As we wrestle with the desire to have community, to be with others, we also know that community can be a funny thing. It seems so simple to say we’re all here because of the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t really want to take my first Sunday with you to talk about “cutting loose.” But I know that in our collective lives together it doesn’t take long for us to be on different pages about what it means to be God’s people and how the community should act. Somewhere along the line, though God has brought us together, we will find ourselves at odds. Yet being those who follow Jesus’ words about fellowship challenges us to a new discipline of caring for each other even when we are injured or offended, and being trained to binding and loosing ourselves to repent and to forgive through Christ. Since our journey is just beginning I’m not aware of any tension between us. This may be the best time to talk about how we might respond- a time when we are not feeling tense.


In every community, there will be occasions for tension. Perhaps in times when God is challenging us in new ways that test our limits, or places where we have to wrestle with what faithful living will mean. Moments when we are asking ourselves. “What do we hold onto and what do we let go?” In these moments, there will be potential for conflict. Just saying that word can make us uncomfortable. In our lesson, Jesus speaks of those places we need to address sin, repentance, and reconciliation. Conflict is not sin. Conflict in and of itself is simply that co-existence of two ideas that are not in agreement. Conflict is not sin.

Our responses to conflict however often are. Today we hear Jesus’ teaching on the notion of how to resolve the pain that behaviors cause in the community. And the starting point to keep in mind is that everything each of us does affects our community. This is countercultural. Our world says “Have it your way.” Jesus calls us to consider that what we do and say is about more than our individual wills. Then we’re called to live out our life in relationships with God and each other in all of the messiness. And to always strive to reconcile. When someone feels wronged we’re encouraged to embrace a series of steps. But first, here is what we do not hear-


We do not hear, "when you are wronged, talk about it with others while excluding the person who has caused the hurt."


We do not hear, "ignore what has happened."


We do not hear, "try to solve it for someone else using the indirect model. "


None of these leads to reconciliation.


Reconciliation is about our collective and perpetual re-establishing of community as the Body of Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, Life Together, notes that being the Body of Christ means not only being with those whom we consider devout and earnest and worthy, but also with those who are decidedly the OTHER- those with whom we don’t want to be community. Reaching out, drawing back together and binding these as well. Walk toward that person, and if your own words do not bring reconciliation, take other believers to be there as the witness of what God desires. Even in the worst case scenario where we find ourselves unable to reconnect, the words we hear next have a different meaning and focus than our world would give. “Treat that person as a tax collector, or a Gentile.” These are negative labels. The world would interpret this to say,”cut that person loose. Kick them off of the island, walk away and don’t look back.” But Jesus says, this person is now your mission- you'll have to start over from scratch, confront him or her with the need for repentance, and offer again God's forgiving love" . As one of my seminary professors has said, this approach doesn't deny the reality of sin or minimize the differences we actually have, but it does remind us as Christians, that our core principle is unity based on God's love, not exclusion based on someone else's sin.


The three steps of Jesus teaching are about helping the person who feels wronged to be directly connected to a process of re-connecting, repentance and forgiveness. And while repentance is a necessary component, its goal is not about wanting to wield the hammer of divine law, but to open up the possibility of divine forgiveness to those who Jesus called the lost sheep worth going to the ends of the earth to restore. SO while in our life together we may at times need to let go of ideas, we are not asked to let go of people. We’re told to banish the strife, wounding and pain that lead to death, by naming it and then breaking open God’s grace in its place. We have been brought out of death into life through grace, to be God’s instruments of this grace for God’s ultimate purpose-proclaiming salvation and bringing love.


In all of our living together the center of our existence when we are gathered is not ourselves, but Christ. Christ redeemed us, delivered from our sin, and called us to faith and eternal life. Christ continues to be the center and the mediator of our lives. Christ is the only way we can live in peace. And centered in Christ is the only way we stay bound to each other in the life God intends. Christ is who we meet in prayer to be our guide for all our days.


When we gather in His name, in prayer and community, THERE is the power of God’s love for our lives and our world. When we can acknowledge that this love is what we have in common, it might not only be a good step for us in our life together a community of believers, it is indeed what we will need to work for a more peaceable and just world for all. AMEN






(seminary professor quote: Rick Carlson)