The Hope of the OK Sign

What do we owe each other?

This is the question I have been pondering this week.

What is it that binds us together, that holds us together?

This life that we live can be heartless, and difficult.

Sometimes we have a hard enough time living our own lives how can we possibly worry about someone else's life?

Some days it is hard enough to simply get through a day.

We work hard for what we have.

What do I owe anyone else?

According to Jesus and the scribe we owe each other love.

We owe each other exactly what we would give to ourselves.

I want to share this picture with you.

This is a picture of my Dad.

He died when he was 58, about 12 years ago.

I love this picture of him.

If you didn't know him this picture sums him up as person.

First of all he is eating.

He loved to eat and drink.

He loved a good time.

This picture is taken at Camp Calumet which was his favorite place on earth.

Finally, it shows him giving the "OK" sign.

He was an optimist.

He was quick to give you a compliment, say he was proud of you, or liked something you did.

He was not a rich man, not a famous person, not a great thinker.

He had his flaws.

He sometimes let his demons get the best of him.

He was also quick to acknowledge when he was wrong, and ask for forgiveness.

When I think of him I think of a man that loved his family, was a faithful church person, had lots of friends, and gave back to those around him.

When I think of what it means to be a good man, I think about him.

I am sure you have your own people.

They are on the list that we read this morning.

People who taught you what is important in this life.

They taught you that your life is never simply about you, it is about those around you.

It is about how you show that you love them, and give to them?

Buried in the two great commandments is exactly this thought.

We are not our own.

First, all that we are belongs to God.

All of our thoughts, our passions, our good and bad.

All of those things are in service to God.

As a person of faith God resides in our lives.

This life is meant to be lived not for my glory but for God's glory.

And second it isn't about me, but about how I give that love to my neighbor.

It is about how do I share it with those around me?

Friday, I went to Temple Beth Jacob for Shabbat.

They invited people in the community that wanted to show love after the shooting last week in synagogue Pittsburgh.

The synagogue was packed.

They ran out of chairs, and had to go get some from downstairs.

It shows that we are indeed responsible for one another.

We do belong to each other.

I didn't live in any other time than this.

I can't say if this time is worse or better.

All I can say to you this morning is that I need moments like the one I experienced at the synagogue on Friday night.

I need to know that we are not alone.

That people think about more than themselves.

I need that to give me hope.

I need it with all of my heart, body, and soul.

Because without it I think I would break.

This is why we remember our dead.

This is why we read the names.

Because it helps remind us that this isn't all there is.

That there awaits for all of us something more glorious.

It reminds us of the hope that we as people of faith share.

Rabbi Robin said something at our Greater Concord Interfaith Council meeting.

She had been interviewed for an article in the paper.

The reporter asked her, "Why do you think anti-Antisemitism is on the rise".

She told the reporter that she wasn't going to answer that question.

Because Jews live by hope.

And it is time to look forward and not backward.

When we as Christians think of the cloud of witnesses we should think of them giving us hope.

Telling us not to live for ourselves, but for our neighbors.

Telling us to not let death have the last word.

Telling us that God loves us through eternity.

Giving us the Ok sign.

When I look at this picture I would like to think that my dad is giving me this sign from heaven every day.

Encouraging me to move forward, to live today in gratitude towards God.

That is what the saints that have gone before can do for us.

Encourage us to remember that tomorrow is still filled with endless possibilities yet to be discovered.

The mourners Kaddish says, "Exalted and hallowed be God's great name in the world which God created, according to plan.

May God's majesty be revealed in the days of our lifetime and the life of all Israel--Speedily, imminently, to which we say Amen.

Blessed be God's great name to all eternity.

Blessed, praised, honored, exalted, extolled, glorified, adored, and lauded be the name of the Holy Blessed One, beyond all earthly words and songs of blessing, praise, and comfort. To which we say Amen

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and all Israel, to which we say Amen.

May the One who creates harmony on high, bring peace to us and to all Israel, to which we say Amen."

This is not a prayer of our faith tradition, but it speaks to the same things that we would pray today.

May the peace that God creates in heavens be here on earth.

May we know that peace.

May we have hope in that peace.

As people of faith maybe this is what we owe our neighbor and the world.

A sense in the hope that we all know in Jesus Christ.

It is a hope that comforts us when those that we love die.

It is a hope that gives us courage in the midst of a violent and hateful world.

It is a hope that reminds us that we are not alone, and that we belong to one another.

It is a hope that reminds us that God cares about us, and walks with us in the most difficult of times.

It is a hope that indeed we will someday love our neighbors as ourselves.

It is that hope that I cling to today.

It is that hope that I think about when I see this picture of my dad.

It is the hope of all the saints that have gone before us.
It is that hope that I look forward and not back, knowing that just ahead of me, just out of my reach,  is the kingdom of God.

May you have that same hope today, and always.

Amen

Men Being Men!

At the gym I saw a man on CNN talking about the anniversary of the #metoo movement.

I didn’t catch all of what he said but he did say, “We have to let men be men”.

This seemed curious to me.

When I heard it I wondered what he meant.

I spent Friday night and most of yesterday at Camp Calumet as the Speaker for the Men’s retreat.

At meals we took some time to talk about what it means to be a man.

There are of course lots of images that come to mind about what it is to be manly.

These are perpetuated by Hollywood, and popular culture.

They are mostly images of men with big muscles shooting guns, yelling, fighting wars, or acting detached and cool.

We see this in the Rambo movies, the James bond movies, and war films that over glorify what actually happens in war.

It got me thinking about the men in our congregation.

What is it that we know about being a man?

I want to show you images of men in our congregation being men.

(If you didn’t make any of these pictures take no offense.)

You can see that the images of what men in our congregation do is really different then what we are told in Hollywood movies we should be doing.

We can see men serving their families, loving their partners, giving of themselves.

They are pictures of men being tender, caring, and loving.

Like that person on CNN know many people that would say that men have been stripped of their manliness.

What does Jesus tell us about being a man?

Jesus this morning reminds his disciples that being a man is not about having power over others.

It is not about being domineering.

It is not about being controlling.

It is not about getting our own way.

It is not about using violence to get what we want.

It is about giving our lives for others.

It is about serving the people around us.

Because Jesus didn’t come to dominate us.

Jesus didn’t come to force us to love God through violence or corrosion.

Jesus came to serve us, to show us what love looks like.

Jesus came to be non-violent.

Jesus came show us how to be vulnerable and caring.

Christians follow Jesus.

And it should not be among us the way it is in the world.

The way that it is in our politics or in the movies.

It is the way of love.

It should look like the pictures I showed you of the men in our congregation.

Here is one of the big problems is that we are even trying to decide what a man should do.

The question shouldn’t be about men and women.

It should be about our humanity.

What does it mean to be a good human being?

One of the things that is so disturbing to me about the way that women are treated in our society is the way that we try to dehumanize women by making them sex objects.

Or by fitting them into previously constructed boxes of what we think a women should do, or be.

We have lost our way as we try to take away what it means to be a human being, and instead insisted that, “Men should be men, and women should be women.”

What if Jesus way would be the better way?

What if we saw each other not as objects to be ruled over and pushed around, but fellow humans who needed us to serve and love?

Because ultimately this is how God thinks about us.

God doesn’t see our gender, our race, our religion, our politics, and our economic status.

Those are all superficial categories.

God sees the person we are deep in our souls.

Underneath our skin God see our fears, hopes, dreams, our scares, our abilities, and our short comings.

God sees us as complete human beings complex and Wonderful.

The disciples themselves are good example of this.

We have been having almost four weeks of the disciples not getting what Jesus is trying to teach them.

Even though Jesus keeps giving the same lesson over and over.

Even though right before our Gospel this morning Jesus tells them that he will die for the sake of the world.

They still don’t get it.

They still want to rule over others.

They still want it to be like it is in their minds.

And yet, Jesus doesn’t give up on them.

He doesn’t yell and scream.

He just keeps teaching.

He knows them deeply.

He knows their flaws, and what they want this all to mean.

I sometimes wonder, why he picked these twelve at the beginning.

When he came down to the sea of Galilee and he saw James and John tending their nets.

He must have known that they were not the smartest.

He must have known that they would be hard headed.

He must have known that they wanted to go from the bottom to the top.

And yet, he choose them anyway.

He looked through who they were on the surface, to understand them on a deeper level.

God does the same with all of us.

God looks into our humanity.

God looks into our souls.

God asks us to see other people as human, as loveable, as children of God.

What a great thing to know.

That I am not tied to the world’s thoughts on what it means to be a man or woman.

I am not tied to what others think I should be or not.

Instead I can be me.

I can be a tender man.

I can be a fierce woman.

I can be who God made me to be.

Finally, we have to look to Jesus.

And we have to think about the ways that his death and resurrection changed the world.

How does it change us?

How does it make us more than what people see, what the world tells us?

Jesus didn’t die so we would be trapped as a man or woman, but so we can live free as God’s child.

Jesus put to death any system that tries to dehumanize us, tries to dominate and control us, and rises in its place a system based on love and service.

Like the disciples we are not always ready for those old systems to die.

We try to sneak in and still think we can rule and control others.

Through God’s grace Jesus comes to us again and again to put the old systems to death, and rise in us new things.

I hope for all of us the dying of the old systems so that we may live.

If you are man I hope you have the freedom to live as loving, gentle, caring people.

If you are a woman I hope that you are able to live as God has empowered you to.

Mostly I hope we all live as God’s children serving each other, as Christ has served us.

Amen

It Is Better!

"It would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea."

A millstone looks like this.

It was a tool used to grind grain, nuts, or corn.

An animal would pull the millstone as it ground what was needed.

You can see from this picture that it was a good size.

So if you were to tie this around someone's neck and throw them into the sea there would be no way to escape.

And we know that this was actually a use of capital punishment.

I can only imagine that this was a horrific way to die.

What are we to do with verses like this in the Bible?

This is a pretty harsh way for Jesus to talk.

It doesn't seem to fit into the Jesus we know.

The Jesus who loves us and forgives us.

If you are somebody who believes in taking the Bible literally then you would have to believe that Jesus is describing a use of capital punishment.

But nobody that I know of is actually suggesting that stopping little ones from having faith deserves this kind of death.

What Jesus is doing is using Hyperbole to make a point.

If you remember last week's Gospel Jesus had placed a small child among the disciples and told them that to live in the kingdom is to welcome a little child.

This week our Gospel is still in that moment.

Jesus is still sitting there with a little child among them.

And one of his disciples says this non sequitur about other people casting out demons.
As a way of saying that the disciples are better than other people.

Again, they don't get what Jesus is trying to say.

Jesus realizes that he has to get them to listen.

So he uses hyperbole to show them how serious this issue is.

They shouldn't stop a "little one" from having faith.

I have been thinking all week about this.

And I don't know if Jesus words here are too harsh.

Because when I think about Priests sexually molesting kids I get really angry.

And I would say it would have been better for them to have a millstone placed around their necks and thrown into the sea then what they did!

Or for that matter any person who commits crimes of sexual aggression.

I have no patience for it.

We can see how much it ruins lives, how much it takes away someone's spirit and life.

So Jesus is on to something.

It is better to have no life than to have a life that ruins and does damage to other lives.

But something else about Jesus saying kept coming up for me.

I have met so many people that are weighed down by so many things.

I have met people that seem like they have a millstone around their neck.

Sometimes people do say, "That is like a millstone around your neck."

And I can see in people's story that they have these things that they are struggling with that are so heavy.

This week I was about to leave my office.

And this women called from Riverbend wanting some help with gas.

She was on the phone crying.

I have become a little too accustomed to people crying and telling me their stories.

I told her I was about to leave but if she came right now I could get her some gas.

It took her longer than I thought to get here, and then she had trouble following me to the gas station.

So I was a little annoyed, because I was late for my next appointment.

I paid for her gas and was about to get in my car.

She came and shook my hand and told me that she would do something to help the church to pay us back.

I told her, "That she didn't have to do that, because this is a free gift."

For the first time I stopped being in a hurry and looked at her.

She started crying.

I could see the millstone, the heaviness of her life in that moment.

And that a free gift was overwhelming.

What if Jesus frees us from the millstone?

We all have the burdens of life upon us.

We all are weighed down by so much.

By death of those we love.

By trying to keep up with the world around us.

By the shame of our sin.

By just trying to live.

Jesus says, "It would be better..."

Isn't it better to live with Jesus than without.

Isn't it better to live with grace.

Isn't it better to live with the free gift.

Jesus words seem harsh, because we read them as punitive.

But I think they more likely explain our lives.

To live in a world as the disciples see it is so burdensome.

Because that world is filled with competition.

Who is the best?

Who has done the best?

Instead Jesus invites us into a better world.

It is a world without competing with each other, or with the world around us.

It is a world where we are who we are.

We are flawed and imperfect.

We are the woman at the gas station so weighed down by life that at the first sign of compassion or freedom we cry.

That is all Jesus is expressing to his disciples.

They have been freed with good news!

And it is better to live with the freedom of that good news then to put stumbling blocks in our lives or in the lives of others.

We often suffer unnecessarily.

Because we can't seem to live knowing that we are loved beyond the universe.

We don't know that sins are forgiven, that this isn't about being perfect, or having it all together.

Jesus is there telling us that we don't have to carry the millstone.

I hesitated to say this next thing, because it might be misunderstood.

And it is politically a fire ball right now.

But One of my friends on Facebook wrote this about Judge Kavanaugh.

"Some further reflection on the painful train-wreck of this week:

As I watched the SCOTUS hearings, watched Brett Kavanaugh clamor and claw his way through his testimony to prove his cleanliness, I thought: Wow.

Now there is some poverty.

That man is full of shame. He doesn’t trust his own worthiness.

He must work towards being (seen) as good and a god, rather than trusting his humanness, his inherent goodness and withness.

And, I felt sorry for him and, gasp -- some twinge of compassion -- because I can hustle for my belonging with the best of them. Because what would happen if he admitted his own fallibility and culpability and need?

Would he not discover grace?

Would there not be the opportunity to participate in God’s energy and momentum of redemption?

(I'm gonna sit in this for myself. As the mother of a white boy who will become a white man, as a white woman, and as a human being. Where am I missing the opportunities for grace and redemption and healing and new life for me, my neighbor and the world? And, don't think for a second that I don't think he should accountable for his actions or that I think he should be allowed to sit on the SCOTUS. I just think Love is up to something...and he is missing it. Where are we missing it?)"

My friend said what I was thinking.

In trying to defend ourselves, and trying to keep up appearances we are losing the free gift that Jesus has given us, not being perfect, and being broken people.

We miss out on the kingdom of God, and we keep the millstone around our necks.

I hope for all of you this week to experience the beauty of being broken.

And that you may experience the free gift of God's grace in your lives.

I hope that you can experience the free gift so that Jesus can take away the millstone from your neck, because it is better to live in God's grace.

Amen

Who Do You Say That I Am!

One of the things that kept me from wanting to be a pastor was Jesus.

Not the Jesus I knew growing up as a kid.

Not the Jesus my grandparents and  parents taught me about.

Not the Jesus I heard about at Sunday school or in worship.

But the Jesus who I heard about from other Christians.

The Jesus of exclusion.

The Jesus who disliked certain people because of who they were, or the bad choices they had made.

The Jesus who said that it was his way or the highway.

The Jesus of oppression.

The Jesus who said that if you prayed with Muslims you somehow sold out to your belief in Jesus as savior.

You see the Jesus I heard about in Church.

The Jesus my parents taught me about was one of grace and inclusion.

The Jesus I learned about in Sunday school was the Jesus who loved me, and all the children.

The Jesus I learned about forgave sins, and set us free to live and abundant life.

The Jesus I knew loved the world, and allowed us to live within it without being afraid that we would end up in hell if we made bad choices.

The Jesus my grandparents told me about loved gay people, prisoners, people of other faiths, people experiencing poverty, women who had abortions.

The Jesus I learned about loved us so much he was willing to die on the cross in the most humiliating way possible.

The one I learned about is the Jesus I wanted to serve.

But that other Jesus was so strong in our culture, in our world, I didn't know if I would be forced to serve that Jesus.

And this is why the question that Jesus asks of us today is so important, "Who do you say that I am?"

That is the question.

What Jesus do we serve?

We can see that for people of faith who claim to follow Jesus this has always been the question.

For Jesus' first disciples this was the question.

There were lots of competing narratives out there.

Lots of things that Jesus could have been.

He could have been simply a prophet.

Someone who came to point out all the ways we have failed God.

Failed to live up to the standards that God had put before us.

He could have been just like John the Baptist.

Telling us to repent.

Telling us that our personal choices were not good enough.

Telling us we needed to do better.

He could have been like Elijah.

Sent to do miracles and prove that our God is better than other gods.

He could have been what Peter and the disciples think he might have been.

Sent to conquer the evil Roman empire.

Sent to restore Jerusalem to her rightful former glory.

Ruling with Justice.

Maybe these are things that we wish Jesus was for us.

That Jesus could come and get rid of all the bad things in the world.

That Jesus would come and tell us that we are great everyone else is awful.

I wish I could tell you this morning that my answer to Jesus' question is the one that you should believe to.

But faith is not that simple.

You can't have my faith, and I can't have yours.

We all have to struggle with this question in our own way.
We all have to come to understand who Jesus is for us.

And the truth is that Jesus is big enough to be it all.

Jesus can be for us who we need Jesus to be.

This is what surprised me about this sermon.

I thought I was going to get up here and tell you all that you should believe that Jesus is this and that.

But the more I talked to people this week.

The more I thought about it.

The more I realized that I can't harmonize Jesus for you.

Because Jesus is all those things.

Jesus is a prophet, he is a miracle worker, he does call us to repentance, he does ask for justice.

Jesus is our friend, our brother, our savior, our Lord, our Rabbi, Our Messiah.

And at different times in our lives we need Jesus to be different things for us.

Even the Biblical witness does not say that Jesus is only one thing.

There is not easy answer to the question.

Who do you say that I am?

Even though we all have to struggle to find the answer to that question.

What we can know is that Jesus died and was resurrected.

That regardless of what Jesus means to you at any minute you can know that Jesus loves you enough to die.

That Jesus gave us an example of how do we live, how do we see God is in the dying and rising.

I say this because Jesus strongly rebukes Peter.

Jesus is consistent throughout the Gospel in saying that he shows us the way through his death and resurrection.

I lived in Boston for a year with some friends from Camp Calumet.

One night we were on the roof hanging out, and one of my friends wanted to know why we should believe in God.

He was having a faith crisis.

He told me that he had been to worship recently with his family.

While he was at the communion rail kneeling when he realized that he didn't believe in this.

He looked around and just thought to himself, "This is silly."

We talked about for a while that night.

I don't think I convinced him of anything, and I am not sure I was trying to.

I was simply trying to be a friend and hear him out, and maybe share my own faith.

This weekend that friend came to run Reach the Beach with me.

He lives in California now.

We hadn't seen each other in 27 years or so.

He was telling me about the UU church that his family attends.

I am not sure what happened in the intervening years.

But he must have struggled with that question, "who do you say that I am?"

He must have come to some conclusions that made sense to him.

And that is the same journey we are all on together.

Learning what it means to die and be resurrected.

Learning what it means to follow Jesus.

I eventually made peace with going to seminary.

I eventually found a way to hold on to the Jesus my grandparents, parents, and Sunday school teachers taught me about.

My friend eventually found his own way to make peace with God.

What is your story?

Who do you say that Jesus is?

The answer to that question is everything in our life of faith.

I know as your pastor that I can't answer it for you.

But this morning I am hoping to get you to think about that question.

To ponder what does it mean for you to follow Jesus.

Because it is in the pondering.

It is in the searching.

It is in the dying and rising that we find out who Jesus is, and what it means to follow him.

May your journey be one of death and resurrection.

May Jesus be with you as you struggle to answer that essential question.

"Who do you say that I am?"     Amen

We Do This

One thing that people share regardless of political affiliation, religion, or age is the belief that world is not as it should be, or could be.

We all have some sense that things are not going well.

There is too much violence, hatred, vitriol, and poverty.

I hear it a lot from people in my congregation regardless of who they are.

They will say, " I can't believe that this thing is happening, or that things is going on in the world."

I want to tell you this morning that this is nothing new.

My mother reminds me all the time that we have always had a world not as it should be.

We might have thought that things used to be better, but they were never as good as we remember.

Our Gospel for this morning takes place as the disciples are returning from being sent out by Jesus into the world.

Right after that we are told the story of how Herod had John the Baptist killed by cutting off his head.

That is the world that we are asked to go out into.

A world where people have their heads cut off, merely for speaking the truth.

All of this begs the question what are we to do about such a world?

There are so many problems that seem so overwhelming.

They seem to close in on us all the time.

Jesus saw this need all the time in his ministry, and now the disciples see it too.

What are we to do?

Twenty years ago this summer I had the greatest job (besides being a pastor).

I was the CIT trainer here at Camp Calumet.

A couple of summers after that I was here visiting Calumet and I saw one of my CITs who was working on puddle that summer.

I asked her, "What are you doing to make the world a better place?"

She didn't miss a beat and replied, "This."

At first I was taken a back, I didn't think that was good enough.

She should be doing more.

Feeding the hungry, protesting war, teaching underprivileged kids.

but then I realized that it was the perfect answer.

This is what we do.

In this world that is never what it should be we should be doing exactly what we are doing this morning.

Gathering together with Jesus, praying, singing, and hearing that God loves us.

Because tomorrow we all have to get back into the world.

We will have to confront again the imperfections of ourselves and the world around us.

This is what the disciples did after they got done being sent out by Jesus.

They gathered again with Jesus.

They told their stories of God's work among them in the world.

This is what we have.

If you think it this not enough, that there is something more sensational that we should be doing, you might be right.

I want to share with you some stories of what I think  it looks like to gather around Jesus in the midst of the world we face.

Liam is the grandson of two of the most faithful members of Concordia Lutheran Church.

Bill and Gail Magan are the people in our congregation that make sure once a month our congregation serves at the soup kitchen, they have been doing it for over 25 years.

They are in worship every Sunday, even if they go somewhere esle.

Liam is a transgender man.

I will not tell you all of Liam's story, because he will be here on Tuesday morning to tell it to us over in the conference center.

But Liam came to our church to tell us his story.

Part of it is that Liam's parents were not supportive of him.

And part of that came from them telling him that God didn't want him to be a man.

Because of this Liam told us he had trouble going to Church.

Liam has a powerful story, and after he left I sent him a text.

"Thanks so much for being here on Sunday.

Your story is inspirational and important.

I don't know if this is helpful but I wanted you to know that God loves you for you."

Liam replied, "That actually means a lot to have you say that!

I was glad to share my story and it was one of the first times I've felt welcomed in a church in a long time."

What are we doing to make the world a better place?

This is what we are doing.

We are reminding people that regardless of who or what they are, God loves them.

This is what we do as Church.

This is what this is all about.

It is a powerful and transformative message.

It is not liberal or conservative it is Gospel.

A couple of times a month in front of the Federal Norris Cotton building in Manchester NH people of faith gather.

We gather there because that is where the office of ICE is.

We gather to support those people who are there to check in.

They might that very day be separated from their family.

They might be sent to Dover to live in a cell.

They might be sent on an airplane back to a country they haven't lived in for 20 years.

When we gather at the building we sing songs, pray, share stories.

And then we walk around the building seven times.

The walk is based upon the story in the Bible when the people of Israel walk around the walls of Jericho.

We have been told by more than one person that our being there for them is a great comfort.

We have been doing it for more than a year, in rain, snow, sun, heat, and cold.

We are not there to protest, we are there as a spiritual symbol to remind the people checking in that in God's eyes no person is illegal.

That God's love is for them in this difficult time.

This is what we do in these times.

We gather, we sing, we pray, we march.

And I will tell you that on more than one occasion I have thought this is silly.

This isn't doing anything.

But as people of faith this is what we have.

We have God's love and we have it to share with others.

It is not about conservative or liberal it is about God's love for all people.

It is for people that are hurting and need others to show up for them.

This is what we do in these times.

In all times this is what we do.

This is what we are doing this morning.

We are gathering together and singing songs about God's love, and reminding each other that we are not alone.

We are sharing our stories of what God has done for us, and for other people.

We are together around Jesus Christ.

It doesn't seem like much, it might not be enough to combat all the evil in the world.

It will not solve all the problems of the crowds that are coming at us with all their needs.

But this is what we have to offer.

This is different than anything else that the world can offer.

We are not giving some grand political solution, those are always dangerous.

We don't offer you utopia, or perfection.

We are giving the world only what we ourselves have been given.

God's love.

Unconditional not based on what country we are from, what language we speak, who we love, what our gender is, or who we vote for.

It often doesn't seem like much, but to people like Liam and the people who have to show up to ICE it changes everything.

So what are going to do to make the world a better place?

Hopefully you will do this.

Amen