Who Are We Kidding? It's Not Someone Else's World, It's Ours

If only we could say we didn’t sin, the Lamb of God wouldn’t be nearly so busy. But we do. It’s been said that a preacher should preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. But with all of the news of this past week, rarely have I wanted to get rid of that paper, and TV and internet so quickly as events in our world are spiraling.

Paul Raushenbush writes, ‘there’s a sense of despair and disbelief that the world can unravel this fast and anger at our (powerlessness).  But we are not powerless and this is not “happening to us.” We as the human race are doing this to ourselves. These are not natural disasters or “acts of God” – these events are just us, humans, having completely lost our humanity- warring, hurting and killing each other- intentionally or unintentionally, through direct assault or indifference or neglect.” We have forgotten that we belong to one another, we are connected, we are brother and sisters, and that we need each other.

He suggests its time to take back the power- in keeping with today’s reading – it’s time to turn up the light.

We hear in I John- This is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you- God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him and yet keep on walking in the darkness we are lying and not practicing God’s truth.

But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light- we have fellowship with one another and with God, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned- we make a liar of God and his word is not in us. That’s pretty heavy.

Thanks be to God that we know that in spite of our failings our salvation is assured and our sin removed!

That’s not God’s only concern- Because we are part of God’s community, and what is happening in the world is our concern because it is God’s. And the news is not the sin of some other world, but ours.

 The opening line of the gospel last week spoke of the Word that created all things in the beginning. And then I John shifted the focus to the “Word of life” as the Christian message. This life finds its beginning in the incarnation- Jesus is God in a body. The point of the message is to create “koinonia” often translated as fellowship. But it’s more. My Greek professor in seminary said it is a “Participatory partnership.” The word God speaks is an embodied love. That love and mercy are shown through us- our speech, and action and presence.

That is authentic faith and authentic community. And that means that what happens around us is not some other person’s world, but ours. And we are saved to participate in making known God’s work for the world. That Christ who died for our sins- died not only for our sins, but for the whole world, promising that darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

It’s too late to bring back the innocent lives lost in the Middle East but it’s not too late to get serious about real peace, and to stop the killing that is happening now. And shine the true light.

It’s too late to save the lives of those lost on that disastrous Malaysian Airlines flight- but we can insist that this is unacceptable and not let it be a springboard for further violence and hatred. Shine the true light.

It’s too late to spare the victims of death and destruction in Honduras and around the world who have lost their lives- but it is never too late to advocate for peace and to provide life for those children who long to be whole and not fractured. Shine the true light.

Because if we say we are in a participatory partnership with God, yet walk in darkness, we are lying and not doing the truth. There is a contradiction between saying we are partnered with God and God’s kingdom yet living in ways that contradict that relationship. We’re kidding ourselves. There’s a contradiction between saying we love God but conveying a lack of love by what we say and do. We can say we care, but what do we do to embody that love and participate in that partnership?

It’s hard to know exactly what to do in these times, but we need to continue to insist upon the possibility of peace and light, starting with our own hearts. We can give to the ELCA earmarked for the church in the Holy Land to keep those schools I read about in Bishop Eaton’s letter-open. And we can pray.

You already heard the letter of our Bishop in response to the escalation of conflict and bloodshed in the Middle East. It might seem too big or far away but we can pray for peace and wellbeing for Israelis and Palestinians and to refuse to accept that war is inevitable or hate is natural. We could pray for God to empower us for peace. We can pray that while we are indignant at the loss of life that we not be swept into a rage calling for revenge. And since I’ve said it several times now that we could pray, let’s take a moment and do that… Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We continue to watch with horror at events in the Ukraine. At the beginning of Lent, our Bishop wrote that she “watched with dismay, along with the rest of the world, as tensions rise and peace is jeopardized in Ukraine. Recent dangerous developments in the Crimean region of the country put the lives of many innocent people at risk, and threaten peace and security far beyond that region of the world.” Now we see more.  We could pray for all of those involved -- whether governments, movements or individuals -- to repent of aggression and violence, and turn instead to the way of peace through dialogue. That wisdom, peace and justice to prevail. And pray for those who are grieving losses because of this aggression.  And we can pray for the world’s church leaders including the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches.  So let’s take another moment of silence and pray…Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

This past week Bishop Mike Rinehart of the Texas Louisiana Synod and others traveled to Texas to the border to learn what’s going on in the surge of unaccompanied minor children. Bishop Rinehart shared that the misinformation about unaccompanied minors is staggering. News of the surge of 60,000 unaccompanied minors since last fall makes people think that border crossings are up. In fact border crossings are down, way down. Border crossings in the 80s and 90s were over 1.5 million. Now only 420,000. So what’s going on?

Violence in Central America is on the rise. Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world. Jennifer K. Harbury is an attorney in Texas. She’s a first generation Jew, the daughter of a man who came to the US to rebuild a shattered life. Fortunately, her father’s boat was not turned away like the SS St. Louis, when European Jews were seeking asylum in the US. After the Holocaust, the US promised, never again will we turn away asylum seekers. If we send these children home we send them to die.

Harbury housed a refugee from Honduras. At 13, the gangs told this refugee he had to join or be murdered. He refused and they beat him nearly to death. A year later they came back again with the same demand. After refusing they ran him over with a car. His mother gave him $30 and told him to go north. Hitchhiking on trains he made it to Mexico, where he was kidnapped and held for ransom. Escaping, he crossed the river and was picked up by US Border Patrol. He was treated poorly in a harsh detention facility until the local sherriff stepped in. In time he was settled with a foster family, but after a month he was picked up by immigration. Harbury now meets him through a glass window in jail, fighting to bring him home. When the issues are in real live flesh before us- it brings the truth home.

Rhinehart writes, “Look into their eyes. These are not cartels smuggling drugs across the border. These are children seeking asylum. They’ve been battered and mistreated. Who, with a heart, could deny them protection? The Gospels tell us that Jesus was once a refugee, who crossed the border into Egypt fleeing for life under the threat of violence by Herod. Jesus welcomed children into his arms when the disciples wanted to turn them away, saying, “What you do to the least of these, you do unto me.” And told stories like the Good Samaritan, in which a victim is shown kindness by a stranger. Fear teaches us the lie of seeing others as enemies. Love in Christ shows the truth and teaches us to embrace strangers, even enemies.

The good news is that churches are partnering through Catholic Charities, Baptist churches, Lutheran Social Services and people who seem to understand the problem better than the mainstream media.

Unaccompanied minors journey a week to 2 1/2 months. Some were mistreated on this trip. Once they present themselves, border patrol has 72 hours to process them. If possible they are repatriated. If not, border patrol gets them into a transitional facility, like the one operated by Lutheran Social Services. Thank God for our church’s response. This surge has overtaxed facilities, but Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is currently helping connect close to 100 generous families every day to programs around the country who are seeking loving placements for the children and youth they serve.

Some people suggest that these children are running drugs. Border patrol told us this is not the case. Drugs are being run by Mexican cartels, not from children seeking asylum from Central America. These children are not running from border patrol. They are running to border patrol and presenting themselves as refugees and asylum-seekers wondering if there room in the inn? I believe so.

This is a challenge now caused by an escalation of violence and poverty in Central America. And hopefully funds will be made available. But what can we do?  We can learn, we can advocate, we can give to Lutheran Disaster Response.

And we can pray- for the children, for their families, for the border patrol, for the communities affected here and in Central America, for our government, and for compassion in our hearts. We could pray that while the throng of children trying to come here is overwhelming that we might be guided by God’s love to see this as a humanitarian concern. That as we have before we have offered a haven to those fleeing darkness and fear and ask God to help us set aside our own fears and bring peace and empower us to live out the gospel.

Let us take a moment now…Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We’re called to tending and mending of relationships. It starts with being honest about damage that’s been done while saying that what has happened does not determine the future. A future that has been blocked by something that has damaged a relationship can be opened up by the word that offers release and a new relationship.

This is what God in Christ offers us- this is the true light for the darkness of our world. This is the word that breaks the pattern.

God knows real people will not always act this way- no matter how truthful the gospel is, we are all capable of kidding ourselves, capable of believing nothing new is possible, so why start. But Jesus didn’t die for us to continuing living the world’s lies. Easter is God’s refusal to leave the world in a lurch. This is the message we hear and can embody- that God promises to reclaim us and everyone else. Our prayers matter, our voices matter, our resources matter.

Let us pray- Lord, empower us to be faithful in embodying your love and your word for the sake of your world. Amen

 

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This week, I am indebted to Bishop Mike Rinehart's reflection upon time at the border, as well as the fine work of Working Preacher and Rev. Dr. Rick Carlson for his translation of "koinonia"

 

 

 

Abundant Love for Real Sheep

Today’s affectionately named Good Shepherd Sunday. Here in the city, it’s hard to get the whole shepherd thing. But where I’m from, just down the road you could see the sheep in fields-they start out cute lambs, but by the time they’re sheared, they’re kind of a mess. We might think of sheep as looking like THIS:

but in reality, it’s more like this:

 

Sheep take a lot of work, keeping them in the right place, cutting off all that wool. It takes dogs, fences, sticks, and for shearing, you gotta sit on them, and hold their feet together to keep them there. It’s anything but a perfect and fluffy experience because real sheep aren’t perfect- they’re smelly, with muddy, matted wool, and hard to hold onto. One pastor tells the story of being a little girl helping her grandparents at shearing. Her job was to sit on the sheep, hold it down. But it starts to struggle. She jumps up and this top-heavy sheep wobbles away. As her grandparents are yelling, she throws up her hands and says, “But it WANTED to move” To which they said- “What do you think YOU’RE there for?”  Real sheep are imperfect and wired for struggle. Shepherding means responding to the real needs of the sheep, not the ones they think they want. The Lord is our shepherd.

Psalm 23 tells us this, and I think it's kind of a shame we often only say it in times of dying, when it is so much about life. The kind of life Jesus came to bring- abundant life. Jesus as the good shepherd comes not only to lay down his life. He tells us we are not perfect either. But in God’s eyes, we’re enough. David Lose says- Jesus doesn't die in order to make some kind of payment to God or to satisfy God's wrath or to pay the penalty for sin. Jesus, in John's Gospel, is the One who comes to make the invisible God visible and the unapproachable God real to real people. And to reveal that God loves us and whole world, no matter what. To tell us we are already beloved. We are enough. Worthy in God’s eyes of receiving God’s abundance. The Lord is my shepherd. So I lack nothing.  That’s all there is to say, right?  

Do you really feel that abundance?

I think if we did, we wouldn’t struggle so much. I think the overflowing amount of slogans, infomercials and books about how to "have it all" says alot. That many of us feel incomplete, that it's not enough. This whole abundance thing is hard to believe. Brene Brown suggests that we struggle to believe in God’s abundant love for us, perhaps because to accept this abundance, we’d have to first acknowledge our vulnerability. There is a big difference between perfect and enough.

Today we sang the kids’ song “I just wanna be a sheep”- it’s cute and upbeat, but if we sang what we really think, it might sound more like this: “I just wanna be a creature that is utterly dependent upon someone more powerful than me to care for me because most days I don’t have a clue.” We can spend so much of ourselves struggling to overcome and get enough of whatever it is we think we need. But it’s never enough. So keep trying and end up trapped like that sheep in the mud, in a pattern of living that doesn’t give us abundance or life. And leaves us feeling alone. We want to be THIS sheep,



deep down we know we are THAT sheep.  





In fact we are a whole flock of THAT.

Instinct says, we can’t let that show.
But then we never really know if others love us or who we’re pretending to be. But we fear that by revealing ourselves and others might reject us, or run away.  So we keep running away, chasing ideas, caught in the mire of blaming others, or denial. Yeah,…we’re THOSE sheep. Yet, to gain what we most deeply want, we need to be vulnerable to this deepest fear.

To even begin to be that vulnerable we need lean into realizing that our fears are met by… our shepherd- The Lord is our shepherd. So walk with me in the good news! Let’s journey into God’s abundance here and now- that the psalmist speaks of, abundant life Jesus offers.  Words that declare God knows we are THAT SHEEP but we are worthy. And God provides- even though we’re not sure it’s right. Provides lots of abundance we might overlook.

God tells us to lie down- gives us rest. Do we take it? Or are we too busy scampering off to things we think we need to do, or expect us to do, so we can feel good? Can we accept God’s rest? Some of us need more rest than we used to. God wants us to rest, be cared for and be well. The Lord is our shepherd- we don’t have to self-shepherd.  

We’re taken to green pastures- places where we can eat good things, not just scrappy stuff. God wants us to eat well. Can we be fed? Or do we run off to things that cannot feed us but that we think we want?

We’re led to still water- We’re often drawn to places where the waters are raging, caught in places we don’t want to be. The Lord wants to lead us back to places that are peaceful and bring life. Where we can relax and be our real selves. The Lord wants to shepherd us away from things that take our lives away. To lead us in the right paths to what we really need. This is God’s deepest desire. Sometimes this means holding us back when we’re trying to squirm away, and sometimes keeping us from being distracted by what someone else is doing we think we need to fix. To trust that the LORD is the shepherd- we’re not. So let God show the path.

There will be places of the darkest shadows but there God comforts our nerves, reassuring us we can keep going because the Lord is with us. Ready to beat back things that hurt us, ready to nudge, push, even prod us to where we should go.

To do all that for even one of us, God works really hard! But the Lord is my shepherd, and yours and yours. The Lord is our shepherd, and labors to comfort and to give all of us this abundance. Even when we choose the fast food of life rather than sitting with the Lord at this feast. Even though we tend to take off and have to be brought back, over and over again, God keeps laboring, cleaning us up, restoring, blessing. And it’s all done because God loves the real us. With the deepest love that does more than follow.

Psalm 23 is often translated as saying goodness and mercy will follow us. But God’s love PURSUES us. While we chase so many things, God is chasing US- this is why Christ came, and laid it all on the line. Pursuing us even though we are THAT sheep. Because while we are “imperfect and wired for struggle,” in God’s eyes we are worthy of love and belonging already for all our days. We can’t ask for more than that, can we?

Our shepherd wants to help us accept who we really are- imperfect yet loved and guide us to be the flock who “gets” its identity. Dwelling together in Christ, supporting and embracing our vulnerability AND this abundant life.  Believing in a God of abundant love will open up believing in abundant life. So maybe we should start inviting people to come and be imperfect but worthy with us. Stop struggling- “Come as you are, eat, drink, relax, there’s plenty, it’s for you. Come see the God who loves like this.” It’s too long for a slogan but I am sure it's more than enough for a life.                                                                                                                               

Love Like This

Over the years I’ve come to realize I am not a good care receiver. I like to be a care giver. It’s hard to let someone do things for me. Many of us have been teachers, secretaries, managers, nurses, parents-lots of ways we’re used to caring for and serving others. We feel good when we care for others. We feel useful. But letting someone else care for US? Not so much. Good caregivers are often lousy care receivers. Sound familiar?

So I wonder- as we struggle to let others do loving things for us, how much are we willing to let Jesus love us? Jesus says love others as I have loved you. But how easy is it to let Jesus get close and love us- the real “us”?

I think the answer to this question affects how we will then love-which has me rethinking this whole foot-washing thing. In some churches tonite is the night for re-enacting not only the Last Supper, but the washing of feet. I was asked again last night- are you going to do foot washing? After all, in the Gospel of John we hear nothing about the meal we call communion, no words of “do this in remembrance of me.” We hear about washing feet. There’s been lots of division in the church over communion, but perhaps not surprisingly no such heated debates about washing feet.  As I was asked about washing feet with cringing faces, there was relief when I said “no.”
We get a little up in arms about the whole foot washing thing. Peter is indignant too, though we hear he is indignant about having his feet washed mainly because he thinks it’s beneath Jesus, this act of bowing down, and doing the work of the lowliest slave. This breach of social standards is shocking. It’s embarrassing to have Jesus on his knees, washing off the grime, and the dust of animals, taking off and laying down robes that will only again be removed when he lays down his life and is crucified.

Jesus washing feet. It was a part of a social custom, but while it’s not a common practice today, I think our feelings about foot-washing still tell us something about Jesus and ourselves. I confess I’ve never been a fan of the practice, but in one congregation I served, I realized there was no way out. I spent hours getting my feet ready for the big reveal-making sure my feet looked OK-which of course ironically reveals something about me.

From talking to some of you, I know I’m not alone. Unless its summer and we’re the flip-flop wearing kind, our feet are usually hidden. Perhaps they’re not our most attractive feature. Yet, one writer suggests that our feet are perhaps an indicator of our real selves. Long after we start out with cute, pink baby toes, our feet develop crooked toes, corns, calluses, discolored toenails, cracked skin, bunions. Centuries later, and in spite of all our technologicla advances, our feet aren’t much better than those feet in the sandals of the followers of Jesus. While they may be cleaner, to invite people to look at our feet is to invite them to accept us as we are, because we can do little to change their appearance.

This is an intimacy that perhaps we’re not likely to want to be a part of. Just like those layers of dirt of the disciples’ feet, we will keep our layers, thank you very much. It’s a little too much humility. Jesus’ humility is hard to look upon, the humiliation that will be seen most fully in his death. We don’t like this, or thinking of our own humility. Even when we care for others, we like a distance. Yet, Jesus shows a loving intimacy that we are ill at ease with. He removes the distance between him and his followers, and brings them face to face with pure love. For Peter and for us there’s something else at stake besides Jesus’ dignity. It is our ability to receive this love that comes as a gift we didn’t earn or deserve, that doesn't allow us to keep our status. Jesus loves us as we are up close, without the layers and pretense, and shows us how we “instinctively seek to protect our position and perception of power and control.”

We don’t respond to God’s commands or to God’s saving initiative easily, but we are even more ill at ease with this searing honest love. Yet, it is only in God’s steadfast faithfulness, seeking and shaping, washing off the layers that we can begin to approach self-giving love- either to receive it or to model it in the world. Tonite we hear again, that we are to love and be loved in this way.

We prefer to let God love us in ways that let us save face, but when we do this, we miss the possibility of God revealed in our midst in ways that break open deeper love in community. 
Who is God using to show us this love?
Can we learn to simply receive it and the  hospitality of others?
Will be willing to risk deeper, more intimate relationships, and proclaim a death to our barriers? The story of footwashing invites us to Christ in these things. Things that break open barriers to real relationships, and encourage us to be willing to lay down our lives for this new way of being.
To believe that Christ’s love for us is even deeper than our willingness to admit our need. And that the love God the Father has for the Son is the love the Son has for us-No reservations. This kind of relationship is possible for us here. Mutual love, without any special treatment. Honest love for who we are.

Foot-washing shows us both the depth of Jesus’ love and the model for us as disciples. While we can’t love as deeply as Christ, we’re invited to step deeper into this reality nd to believe God really does intend such love for us.

When we begin to believe this is true for us, we’ll be more able to receive God’s love through all kinds of people who bear Christ into our midst.
And then...we’ll be unable to keep from showing the light of this love to others, even when it means sacrificing our comfort level.

A real, intimate love willing to go to places our social standards would say we should avoid that models the real, intimate love that went the places God didn’t have to go. Self-giving love seen fullest in the cross.

Tonite we’re asked to remember and here is God's message-
I love you. Love and be loved as I have loved you.
Love like THIS and the whole world will know who I am .