Pastor Jon's Reverent Best Guess

Turn Around!

2012-01-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

We have had a very successful year at Concordia Lutheran Church.
Today at our annual meeting you will hear all kinds of good news.
Good news about our worship attendance being up.
Good news about Sunday school growing.
Good news about our financial stewardship growing.
Good news about our membership growing.
All these things are good.
We should celebrate them and rejoice together in our mutual ministry.

This past month as I was preparing for our annual meeting I was thinking about all our success and what would be the message I would give to you this Sunday.
Once again the Spirit of God moved because the lessons for today say it better than I ever could.
God is always calling us away from our comfortable lives and into good news.
Maybe a better way to say it is that God is always interrupting our lives and calling us to turn to something new.

Think about Simon and Andrew this morning.
They are at work.
They have been doing this for a long time.
Their father before them fished these waters.
They probably thought that for the rest of their lives this is what they would be doing.
Waking up every morning, mending nets, pushing out the boat, sailing on the water, catching fish, hauling them in, selling them, going home, eating, going back to bed.
Some days were better than others, some days there were storms or trouble, but it was usually about the same.
Then Jesus arrives, calls them, and everything changes.
I am hoping that in the next year of our ministry together this will continue to happen, both for our congregation, but also for all of you individually.

We think of churches as static things.
In many ways it is comforting to think that something in our lives will always be the same.
We can count on the church to remain the same to always be there in the same way it was.
However, the truth is that the Church is not a static thing.
If it is to constantly hear the call of God it can never be static.
The church always is in motion.
I think it is merely a reflection of our own lives.
We are always in motion.
Things change.
People grow up, grow old, grow apart, and grow close.
This is the nature of the world.

I guess the question for all of us is how will we handle it?
What will be our reaction?
I suppose that one thing we could do is fight against it.
We could try with all of our might to keep things from never changing by creating traditions and set patterns of thought and behavior.
This is usually what I do.
I create in my life tons of traditions to keep up the appearance of things remaining the same.
If we do something once and it is good instantly for me it becomes a tradition that can never change.
I will tell you I am working on this because it is unhealthy, and a lot of work to try to keep everything exactly like it was.

We could also simply become upset and angry that things are not the way they once were.
I have spoken many times about this condition.
It is really not good for you, because you become mad about things that you have no control over.
You end up alienating other people who don’t share that same world view.

Today I am going to go against type and suggest to all of us that we learn to embrace it.
Jesus told people that the “Kingdom of God had come near. Repent”
We hear that word repent and we think about confessing all the sins that we have committed in our lives.
But hear it is about turning ourselves around changing the direction of our lives in order to be able to correctly see the Kingdom of God that is already here now.
Unless we allow God to turn us around we can never hear and see the good news.
We will not be able to follow Jesus down unwalked paths.

As we enter this new year of ministry together perhaps this is a helpful image in our church and in our lives.
We might find our lives on a certain path, going a certain way.
Today is a good day to hear Jesus tell us to turn around look at things in a new way.
I know that there are probably whole hosts of ways that I need to turn around.
There are things I need to look at from a fresh perspective.

There is immediacy to our life.
We don’t have all the time in the world.
Our lives are finite with a limited amount of time.
More than this Jesus tells us that God’s kingdom time is now.
Right in front of us, now, is the good news that we need to hear and believe.

We can’t look back because that is already done.
We can’t look ahead because we don’t know what that will be.
We can only have now!
We have the immediacy of this moment.

I know that some of you feel at times that we as a church are moving too quickly.
Things are happening at an accelerated rate.
Know that I am sensitive to that.
But also know that there is immediacy to our actions.
The Church as we know it is dead or dying.
If you don’t believe me all you have to do is look at the statistics and see that we are heading in a negative direction.
I believe that God is calling us to turn and see things from a different perspective.
I understand that it is not easy.
It probably was not that easy for the disciples either.
But we have to be open to the ways that we will be turned around.

I had this moment this year when I panicked.
Three leaders Alva Hauser (Who was head of our altar guild), Phil Joseph (Our council president), and Bob Hunton (Our treasurer) were all stepping away from the positions they currently held.
Three leaders of our congregation who I rely on were stepping away from their positions!
The reasons for their stepping away were varied and none of it was due to hurt feelings or bad blood.
It was just natural for these three leaders to step away.
In Phil’s case it was constitutionally mandated that he step down.
But when I heard it I freaked out.
I relied on those people.
I knew they would do the job.
It was comfortable for me.
For example, I never worried about the altar.
I knew that Alva would make sure everything was just right.
What was the church going to do without them?

But I was turned around.
God calmed me down.
The Holy Spirit reminded me.
This is the natural course of action for congregations.
This is the way things go.
New leaders will be called, new people will step up.
Those three leaders are being called in a new way.
At the end of it I could see it as a good thing.
I share this with you so that we can remember that God is always turning us around.

The question I want to leave you with is where do we need to be turned?
What are the things that we have become so comfortable with that they keep us from following Jesus?

As we individually and as a church face the challenges ahead let us remember to let God turn us around so we might here the call and believe in the Good News.
Amen

Tough Mind and Tender Heart

2012-01-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

It seems that we are living in a time like that of Samuel.
It seems that we are living in a time when the word of the Lord seems rare, when visions are not widespread.
I remember in seminary being at a discussion about social inequality.
A retired pastor got up and asked, “When are we going to see person like Martin Luther King again.”
He went on to talk about how young people didn’t care like they used to back in the day.
He believed that the church had become complacent with prestige and power.
I thought his assertions where not only not untrue, but extremely insulting.
First of all not all of us are called to be Martin Luther King Jr.
We are not all called to be a prophet of a movement for justice.
We are not all called to preach and call people to think about their actions in light of the Gospel.
Secondly, I thought it was offensive because there are plenty of people in our world fighting for justice; standing up for what is right and good.
There are plenty of people advocating for peace, working with people experiencing poverty, fighting the good fight.
I happen to know that in Concord there are many good people out there doing the Lord’s work with passion.

It is wrong to assume that Martin Luther King went into the ministry to become an international figure for justice and peace.
By all accounts he went into the ministry to preach the word of God.
It just so happened that just after arriving in Montgomery Alabama, to be the new pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, King was called to be the leader of a movement.
That is the way calling works.
It is about our context and the circumstances around us.
One of the reasons there can never be another Martin Luther King Jr. is because there already was one.
Because Martin Luther King heard God’s call and saw the vision of a different world we no longer need to fight the battles that he fought.

We today have newer battles to fight.
This morning I want us to think about what it is that God is calling us to do?
Because when we hear God’s call, when we respond to it, two things happen.
One, we see and experience great things.
Jesus promised his disciples that they would, “You will see great things than these.”
Later in John’s Gospel Jesus will tell his disciples that they will also do greater things than these.
I believe responding to God’s call opens our lives to all sorts of wonderful blessings.
We get to see the heavens open up and angels ascending and descending.
The second thing is that our life will become harder.
Think about Samuel this morning.
After hearing God’s call the task that is given to him is to tell his boss, Eli, that God is firing him!
Not an easy task.
In fact, Samuel is reluctant to do it.

Hearing God’s call and responding usually means that we will have to take on something that is going to be controversial and difficult.
It means giving up some comfort on our part.
Again, it will bring great rewards, but always at a cost.

The people who have dared to follow God know this truth.
Because, ultimately following God’s call for justice and peace lead to Dr. King’s assignation.
Following God’s call lead Jesus to be crucified.
I am not suggesting that any of you go out looking to be crucified, but I will suggest that following God’ call cost us something.

This week I kept coming back to this question: Since we are not Martin Luther King Jr. or Jesus, What is it that God is calling us to?
It is a hard question because often times we have a hard time even hearing God.
I think one of the great tasks that we face in our day is trying to hear God through all of the clutter.
In our day when there are so many opinions about everything, and all those opinions are right at our finger tips, how do we hear what is authentically God?
There are people telling us that God is found only in traditional doctrines know by the church for centuries.
Others are telling us that God is found in new innovative programs, worship, and theology.
Still others tell us that we can only hear God’s voice through a literal interpretation of the Biblical witness.
Some will say that the Biblical witness must be heard through the cultural lens that we know today.
We hear opinions from politics from left and right wing preachers.
Each of whom is sure that God is heard and found where they are pointing.
In such a world with bloggers, pundits, and prognosticators with all their own slants, prejudices, and opinions how do we know what God is really saying?

This morning I would like to suggest some ways that we can hear God’s voice.
We can recognize God talking to us when we hear words that are tough minded and tendered hearted.
Dr. King in one of his sermons suggested that these are two characteristic Jesus’ demanded of his disciples.
On the one hand we must use our minds for “incisive thinking, realistic appraisal, and decisive judgment”.
Discerning God’s call always includes thoughtful examination of the facts before us.
We must in this time weed out those things that are not true.
Just because we hear something on Television, read it on the internet, or see it in print that does not make it true.
A tough minded person always asks the next question, and wonders at the possibilities.

But discernment can never forget to be tendered hearted.
When discerning God’s call we must remember that God always calls us to love.
God calls us to give of ourselves for others, and to love even those who are our enemies.
As Dr. King once said, “On the one hand, God is a God of justice who punished Israel for her wayward deeds; on the other hand he is a forgiving father whose heart was filled with unutterable joy when the prodigal returned home.”

For me it comes down to being able to stand up for the things I believe in, to fight for what I believe to be just and true, but it is also about never losing sight of the fact that God never calls us to hate our neighbor even if they disagree with us.

I think the implication of this is that when we set out on a course to be a disciple of Jesus Christ our lives are forever changed.
We see great things and do great things.
And our lives are never quite the same again.

When God calls you what will be your response?
When God calls you to see and do great things will you be able to hear and respond?

God will call you.
God will call you to have a tough mind and tender heart in all sorts of difficult situations.
Will you be able to hear that call?
Will you be tough minded and tendered hearted?
When your co-workers are gossiping about someone else will you be able to stand up for the person being picked on?
When your cousin asks for forgiveness for the remark they made about you at a party will you be able to forgive?
When your kids steal a candy bar from the store will you be able to discipline them?
When we hear on television that such and such candidate, said this or that, will we be able to discern what is true, honorable, kind and good?

We will be able to hear God’s call, if we talk about it with other people of God.
Just like Samuel needed Eli to help him hear God’s call, just like Nathanael needed Philip to help him hear Jesus call, we need each other to help us hear God through the clutter.
We will be able to hear God’s call if we are able to remain close to Jesus.
Just like the disciple’s needed to remain close to Jesus so he could show them the way, truth, and life we need Jesus in order to help us discern what God would call us to do.

In this time of what seems like God’s silence and visions that are not widespread let us remember to listen to God’s call and follow with a tough mind and a tender heart.
Amen

Happy New Year!

2012-01-09T07:57:00.000-08:00

There is a moment that happens for me just after midnight on New Year’s Eve.
It happens just after the ball drops and I hug my wife and friends to wish them a “happy new year”.
It is a moment when I believe that this year will be better than the last.
It is a moment when I kick the old to the curb and anticipate the arrival of the new and possible.
I love that moment.
However, it is usually short lived.
I started my New Year off this year by attending a funeral of a dear soul who always brought joy to whatever room she was in.
On my way home from the funeral I thought, “This year will be no different than last year.”
This year will bring its shares of good times, celebrations, and joys.
But like last year there will also be disappointments, deaths, and difficult times.
I don’t want my sermon to be a downer to all of us this morning.
There is nothing wrong with that moment just after midnight when all things seem possible, when hope shines into our lives with the possibility of a new beginning.
It is just that our lives are not that simple.
Just because we turn the page on the calendar it does not mean that life will not go on as normal.
In this year life will go on.
There will be children born, celebrations, joys, and sorrows, and people will die.
I suppose that it is the uncertainty of life that makes us yearn for signs of something more stable.

As I was thinking about this year to come and its uncertainty about the things that we might face I was sure about something.
God will still be our companion in 2012.
We will still be called to live in the grace and mercy of God.
Perhaps that is why life is so uncertain to begin with.
It forces us to trust our lives to God’s care.
If we could know everything, if we could control life then there would be no need for God.
If we could stop our loved ones from becoming sick, if we could stop ourselves from practicing self destructive behaviors, if we could stop others from committing sins, than we could live life without ever having to rely on God.
Our own will is insufficient for these things.

When I was at the funeral this week I was sitting in my pew before the worship service began and I was looking around at the Church that was packed with people.
Every pew was filled, and people were standing along the walls and in the back.
I was thinking that this is why the Church will never go away completely.
We will always need a place to come and collectively grieve together.
We will always need a place to come and pray that God’s grace will be sufficient for today.
We will need a place to come to when everything else is falling apart around us.
When we have lost our money, our families, our friends, and all the things that keep up the illusion that all is well then we will see clearly our need for God.

That is what our Baptism is about helping us live our lives under a new understanding.
Baptism brings into our life a different reality.
In Mark’s Gospel Jesus Baptism is the beginning of his public ministry.
Thirty years into Jesus’ life he begins this important work.
And the world will never be the same again.
For the world it meant that God cannot be kept any longer in the heavens.
God is not the merely the work of theologians and church people.
But God becomes part of the human story.
God in Christ begins a new chapter.
At Jesus Baptism the heavens rip open and God comes out of the heavens and is set loose on the world.
We will see during the other Sundays in the season of Epiphany that from here on out Jesus begins to challenge the things in life that hold us back.
He cures the sick, cast out demons, challenges deeply held religious beliefs, and sends the powers of death and sin on the run.

Perhaps for us Epiphany is a good time to wonder what will be new and possible in our lives.
Our baptism is not merely about having an insurance policy that gives us something to lean on in the tough times.
Rather our baptism is the means by which God has communicated to us his grace.
Because of God’s grace every day we are able to rise and challenge death and sin.
Baptism allows us to deal with the uncertainty of life.
One of the things I am becoming more thankful for is the feeling of loss.
It reminds me that I am alive; it reminds me that I love and care.
My life with God allows me to live more deeply into the human reality.
It is not a way to avoid life but rather a way to live more deeply.

If we are always protecting ourselves against feeling bad than we will never truly live.
Baptism helps us live trusting that God is at work in all things.
When you were baptized when the pastor dunked or poured water on your head life changed.
In that moment and for the rest of our lives new possibilities were opened up to us and the world.

One thing is for sure about this New Year we can never go back to 2011.
Whatever mistakes we made, whatever triumphs we had they are in the past.
We are now on the move to our next destination.
We have new challenges to face, and new mountains to conquer.
I hope in this New Year you will be able to trust that in all things God is near.
God is with you and around you.
God is working through you.
God is speaking words from the heavens, “This is my beloved child and with him/ her I am well pleased.”

Those words that are spoken to Jesus God also speaks to you.
They are spoken especially in those moments when you feel like they can’t possibly be spoken about your life.

There are many people who get this whole religion thing way wrong.
Like I said earlier they see it as an insurance policy against anything bad ever happening to you.
If I have faith, if I do the right things, if I live the right way than everything will work out the way I think it should.
I consider myself a pretty religious person.
I go to worship every Sunday, I study the Bible daily, I pray every day.
On days when I am visiting shut-ins I will take communion three or four times.
Despite this since July of 2011 the following things have happened in my life.
My wife’s grandfather died, my grandmother fell and broke her hip and moved into a nursing home, our son’s godmother (who is only 34) and lifelong friend was diagnosed with an aggressive life threatening type of cancer, another one of my long time friend’s mother died, my mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.
I tell you this so that you see that having faith is not a guarantee against anything.
It is not insurance of a life free from pain or struggle.
Instead it is about a God who comes out of the heavens to tell us that we are beloved.
A God who offers us words of grace at every turn.
It is a God that encourages us to love in a world where things are uncertain.
None of the people we love will live forever.
That love that we share with others is proof that we are still alive, that we still care, that we are living out what God put us on this earth to do.
If you want a life that removes us from pain, and the hard parts of life than being baptized into the Christian faith is not for you.
Jesus baptism leads him to the cross.
It leads him to be tempted, reviled, deserted, betrayed, and ultimately killed.
Ours leads us into a life that is always uncertain, but always blessed by a God who has come out of the heavens to call us beloved.

In this season of Epiphany let us be able to see God at work in our lives.
Let us be able to trust God even in situations that are out of our control.
Most of all let us remember that God has called us beloved!
Amen

Do You Hear What I Hear?

2011-12-27T08:58:00.000-08:00

Every year on Christmas Eve my Grandfather would put us in his big Cadillac and on the way to church we would search the winter sky for Santa Claus.
What was amazing is that every year we would see Santa Claus led by Rudolph traversing the night sky on his way to deliver presents which would always be waiting for us when we got home from Church.
I am wondering if tonight when we search the winter sky what will see?
Or maybe even more what will we hear?
As we leave here tonight will the echoes of the Hallelujah chorus be in our ears, will we hear the angel song singing sweetly in the sky?
Will we hear the mountains echo the joyous strains?
Can we imagine just over the tress the sounds of angel’s sweetly singing songs of good news, joy, and peace to all people?
Can we hear the song of the angels on this Christmas?

There have been attempts to domesticate this wonderful Christmas story we hear from Luke.
Sometimes we want to make it more realistic and more acceptable to our modern ears.
But I believe that even we that live now in the 21st century need things in our lives that don’t make sense.
We need to believe in things just beyond the realistic expectations of human beings.
We need to recapture the mystery and wonder of this night.
Angels singing in the sky might sound improbable, but I would love to have some things that are improbable.

That song that we hear from the night sky, that song of good news, joy, and peace is exactly what we need.
That Hallelujah chorus that rings in our ears speaks to our deep need for God to be with us.
It speaks of our need to be transported away into the realms of glory that tell us of Good news, joy, and peace.
“For we are bringing you good news of great joy.”

It seems that our lives are filled with bad news, hard times, and violence.
It is nice to believe that just beyond our sight, only in the place of mystery and wonder there lays a new reality.
This is what Christmas is about mystery and wonder.
It brings me back to searching for Santa in the night sky, and to that feeling I had when we finally saw him.
It brings me back to that feeling of the joy and wonder of it all.
Perhaps the only word I can think of to describe that feeling is Hallelujah.
That is really the only appropriate word for the wonder and joy of Christmas.
“To you is born this day in the city of David a savior.”
We need a savior!
We need a savior who brings good news.
Most days when I come into the office I read the news.
I have to tell you and can be depressing.
We hear bad news of bad politics, bad economies, and bad people.
The other day on the homepage of MSNBC there was a story of a man in New York who got on an elevator, and set a woman on fire and then watched as she burned to death.
My immediate thought was what are we to do?
How can we hear the song of the Angel’s through such bad news?
In faith we turn to something greater, more mysterious, and wonderful than we can think is possible.
We need look towards the heavens to hear that song of sweet Good News.
We need to hear the angels sing to us that chorus that rings louder than all the bad news.
Louder than all the sensational headlines.

We need joy!
We get stuck in our lives sometimes.
We get stuck in the mundane getting up and going about our business.
A few weeks ago I got to spend a night out with some friends.
It was such great medicine.
I didn’t realize how much I needed to laugh and have good time.
Joy brings release.
We need the angel’s song that reminds us that all is not lost.
There is something greater in store for us.
The joy of knowing God helps us not merely tolerate life, but helps us to triumph in it.

We need peace!
We need to be able to rest and to calm our minds and bodies to feel secure and safe.
This is no small thing.
We are in so many conflicts with ourselves, our family, and our friends.
This is not even to mention our prejudices and our separation from that which is different from us.
Peace is more than merely an absence of conflict it is the restoration of balance that gives our lives wholeness.

Tonight God has come to earth.
Tonight earth has ascended to the heavens.
The song of the angels is filled with mystery and wonder because they sing it to our humanity.
Hallelujah is the reminder that God is going to dwell in a baby sleeping in a manger.
God is here in the flesh, and we have experienced on earth good news, joy, and peace.
Can you hear the song of the angels just over the trees?
Can you hear the song of the angels drown out the bad news, the sorrow, and the conflict?
Tonight I wish you all the wonder and mystery of the angel song that sings from the skies and comes down to us this nigh, so that we might know our savior and have good news, joy, and peace.
Amen

The Crazy Plan

2011-12-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

It is a crazy plan.
God is going to use a fourteen year old girl to bear His Son who will save the world.
Salvation is going to come to the world through a poor girl of no consequence in a poor back water town in Nazareth.
It just doesn’t make sense.
So we can understand Mary’s confusion when the angel shows up and tells her that she is favored.
“She was perplexed by the angel’s words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.”
Who is she that God would favor her?
Who is she that God has chosen her for this task?

We talk a lot about God’s plan, but what we forget is that often times God’s plans don’t make much sense to us.
This is one of those plans.
We get lost in this story on some of the more sensational points.
Was Mary a Virgin?
I had a friend in college who was estranged from the Church who insisted that the word virgin simply meant young woman.
I often thought she got lost in this point, but forgot to look at the more scandalous parts of the story.
Sure according to the story Mary is a virgin but that is not the most sensational part.
The fact that God would come to dwell among us, that God favors us, is really crazy.
Look at us human beings, there is not all that much to find favor with.
We hurt one another, we are greedy, and we are focused on the wrong things.
And yet, God sees it important to dwell with us.
In our lowliest of moments God is dwelling with us.
That is something extraordinary and mind blowing.

We think that an angel showing up to deliver this news is mind blowing.
But most people believe in angels to some degree.
Most people have a statue of an angel somewhere in there house.
We love angels so much that they are in movies all the time.
An angel is not the crazy part of the story.
God dwelling in the heart of human life is the craziest part of the story.

Virgin births, Angels delivering messages, these are not the real crazy parts of the story.
They are details added for effect or for theological reasons.
The real scandal here is that God, the Most High, the ruler and maker of all things, has favored this girl of no significance.
That God is going to dwell in the skin of human beings.

The Christmas story is about God showing up just outside our expectations.

God is always working in ways that we just don’t understand.
Consider King David from our first reading this morning.
By all accounts he is making a reasonable assumption.
He lives in style in his house of cedar.
The Ark, and in David’s mind this means God, is living in a tent.
Shouldn’t God live in something grander?
But God refuses to be domesticated.
God doesn’t need or want some fancy house.
God asks David, “did I ever ask for a house?”

It reminds me of all those Christmas gifts we get that we didn’t really ask for but get anyway.
The feety pajamas sent to us by some distant relatives, the sweeter given by a neighbor, a Chia pet, a personalized belt buckle that flashes your name in neon.
I once saw Bill Cosby in concert and he told this story about his birthday.
He had hoped that he would get a new car.
He spent months dropping hints that he wanted this new car.
On the day of his birthday his wife woke him up all excited.
She brought him down to the garage and sat him in a chair.
She told him to wait there.
He waited in anticipation of his new car.
A few minutes later his wife backed their old car into the garage and in the back of the car was a new cedar dresser.
Bill Cosby sat there thinking to himself, “Did I ever say I wanted a new dresser?”

This is God’s attitude toward David this morning, because God does not want to be boxed in.
God wants his home to be in every human heart.
What is it that we are going to give God this Christmas?
God does not want or need anything fancy.
God does not want a new home, or car, or dresser.
God wants you.
God wants all of you.
God wants to dwell in your heart, live among you where you are.
Our Gospel reading this morning reminds us that we are God’s favored ones.
God brings you this morning Good news.
God remembers today the promise of mercy made through the generations.

We can certainly see how God is working in our congregation to show blessings to others and us.
In this advent season we have heard lots about what our congregation is doing.
How we are spreading the good news through our worship and music.
How we are touching the lives of the youth.
How we are proclaiming the good news to the next generation through our Sunday school.
How we are reaching out to the hungry.
All those are great things, but they are not our work.
They flow through the Holy Spirit into us and out into the world.
The Holy Spirit has come upon us and that is why we do these things.
We don’t do them to curry favor with God.

This morning as you fill out your commitment cards, I want to warn you that giving your money to this Church gets you nothing.
It does not curry you favor with God.
Rather giving is an expression of the gifts that God has given.
God in his mercy has favored us.
And God has called us blessed.
Go has favored us not because we are special, not because we give money to the church, but because God wants to live in our hearts.
God has called us blessed.

This week the Patriots will play the Denver Broncos.
For those who don’t know Tim Tebow is the quarterback for the Denver Broncos he is a sincere young man who plays football really well and has a deep faith in Jesus Christ.
According to his pastor, Wayne Henson, "God favors Tim for all his hard work.”
But Tim Tebow is not favored by God anymore or any less than anyone else.
Our Gospel this morning and Mary’s magnificent remind us that God dwells and lives not in those who are rich and famous.
Not by those who are powerful.
God finds favor with those who are of little or no consequence to the world.
God finds favor with those who don’t work hard.
And winning football games, elections, or being a pastor is no sign of God’s favor.
God is always working outside the box, just beyond our expectations.

If you are feeling lowly, unimportant, and forgotten remember today that God is favoring you.
God is looking for you.
And when God shows up I am willing to bet that your reaction will be one of puzzlement.
What kind of greeting can this be?
What kind of plan is this?

Because when our lives are tied to God’s we find that our lives too are out of the box.
God is always interrupting our lives with surprises and new revelations.
How can this be?
Is often our response to what God is up to in our lives?

Advent is coming to a close.
I hope in this advent season you have been surprised by the ways that God has shown up in your life.
I hope that you are willing to give to God all of our life, your heart, your time, talent, and treasure.
Not because you are paying a bill but because God has granted you favor, and given you the greatest gift that of his Son Jesus Christ who brings Good News to all people.
Amen

The Not So Perfect Christmas.

2011-12-14T06:11:00.000-08:00

What is our picture of Christmas?
For many of us it looks like this ?

Or this?

Or perhaps this?

For most of us Christmas look like family gathered around a perfectly decorated house, kids happily opening presents, and smiling families gathered around a big table filled with food.
In many ways this ideal of Christmas is what we all strive for.
It is why we work so hard in the days leading up to Christmas to make sure that we have bought the perfect gift, cooked the perfect meal, and decorated appropriately.
This often leads us to feel really stressed.
In fact we often don’t feel the wonder and beauty of Christmas because we are too busy making the perfect Christmas.
We are trying to live up to the ideal in our head.
But often times Christmas brings with it not so good times.
Sometimes we are so stressed about making everything perfect that we end up not simply enjoying being together, or sharing gifts.

I know that I have many great memories of Christmas.
However, I have some not good memories too.
This week we put up the tree in our house.
We had a wonderful time.
But Vicki and I were talking about how when we were kids we didn’t remember that time as being really great.
For example, my parents would fight as they put up the tree.
Because of this, we have a rule in our house that you are not allowed to fight as you put up the tree.
The cost of perfection is sometimes that it stresses us out to the point where we no longer enjoy the moment we are living in.

I know that other people are going to be struggling this year.
They might be in a nursing home for the first time and feel depressed that they can’t have the ideal Christmas.
Some families are experiencing great financial stress at this time of year and can’t provide the ideal Christmas we all have in our head.
I know that other people are mourning the death of a loved one and feeling not so merry, but sad that the person will not be here to fill out that ideal picture.
One of my friends wrote on her Facebook page, “Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is to catch a break!!”
Sometimes life just feels that way, and it can feel even worse at Christmas because life is not measuring up to our perfect picture.
Because perfection is so hard we end up feeling likes failures when we don’t get there.

I say this because our witness to the world is not about the perfect Christmas.
Being a person of faith does not guarantee that your Christmas will be perfect like this picture.
As Christians we are not promising anyone the joys of spending holidays with friends and family, or the blessing of gathering around the table to eat at great feast.
Our witness is about the light.
It is the same witness that John the Baptist has for us in our Gospel lesson this morning.
The light comes into the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.
We are not the light, our families are not the light, the perfect Christmas is not the light.
No we testify to the light that is more secure than all these things.
We testify to the true light that shines in our darkest days.

Our proclamation is about the one who comes to take away the sting of death, the one who comes to take away the sins of the world.
The John the Baptists from this morning’s Gospel is much different than the one we met last week.
In Mark’s Gospel John is a prophet in the tradition of Elijah, John comes to tell us to repent.
In John’s Gospel John is the one who testifies, who proclaims that Jesus is coming, that the light is shining.
John prepares the highway by proclaiming the thing that we all need.
And what we need is Jesus to come into our imperfect life.
We don’t need perfection, because it only brings stress.
Perfection is never a good thing.
Instead we should embrace our darkness; because it is there that Christ will shine the brightest.
Our proclamation to the world is this truth that into the darkness Christ comes to shine light.
And that we all have darkness.

Our proclamation is an important one.
Because it helps us overcome the picture of perfect.
It allows us to live in our imperfection.
This is why our Sunday school is such an important part of our ministry here at Concordia.
We get to proclaim to the next generation the truth of Christ coming.
I know that the teachers take this task very seriously.
They see it as part of our responsibility to keep the promises we made at the baptism of our children.
The Congregation promises to proclaim Christ as they grow in their faith.
As one person wrote on our giving tree, “(Teaching Sunday School) Gives me the opportunity to touch the lives of children and let them know that God loves them. And hopefully prepare them to lead others to Christ.”
Proclamation begins here among and with us.
We must proclaim to each other that Christ comes in our darkness.

John came proclaiming Christ not to strangers but his own people.
John came proclaiming the light in the darkest of hours for the people of Israel.
Just like Isaiah before him.
John was telling an expecting people that God had not forgotten the promises God made long ago.
It is important for us as a community to proclaim that same truth to one another.

Visiting people who are sick reminds them that you care and have not forgotten them.
Being with people when they have lost someone they love gives them human contact when they need it the most.
Walking with someone as they struggle to overcome problems they face gives hope.
We can be the light to others.
We can be the light that God sends to proclaim light in the dark times.
But just like just like John we also must proclaim that we are not the one who people are looking for.
We are not prophets.
We are not Elijah.
We are not the messiah.
We are imperfect people simply proclaiming that in Jesus others will find what they are searching for in their lives.

This message hit home with me this week.
I was in the middle of preparing my sermon this week.
In the middle of writing it I got a call from my sister that my mom had been diagnosed with cancer.
It was a wakeup call from God that I don’t only preach these things to you, but I live them with you too.
I need this advent season to be about more than the picture of perfection.
It is not perfect;
It is lousy in so many ways.
I need it to be about Jesus Christ and the light he spreads into my life.
I need it to be about how Jesus comes and heals an imperfect world, saves us from death and sickness, and sheds light even on the darkest of times.

I hope that this year your Christmas is not perfect, but rather it is filled with the light that only comes from Jesus Christ.
Amen

Spiritual But Not Religious

2011-12-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

The fastest growing religion in the United States is unaffiliated.
People who are calling themselves “Spiritual but not religious” are leaving behind churches.
It got me thinking about how people are flocking away from Churches.
What is it that they are leaving and what is it that they are looking for?
Because today’s Gospel reading tells us that people were flocking into the wilderness to hear John.
I was thinking this week about those flocking to the wilderness.
I was thinking about those going out to hear John speak, and baptize.
They went to hear John because something they had a deep need to be saved.
They went because they were anticipating something great was going to happen.
John was preparing them for something even more.
I am wondering what is it that we are anticipating this advent season?
What do all the people out there need who say they are “spiritual but not religious”?
What are the people looking for who show up here at worship on Christmas eve but who don’t usually come?
What is it that they come to hear?

One thing they don’t want to hear is that they need forgiveness for their sins.
One of the criticism is about the Church is that people don’t want to come here to “feel bad about themselves”.
John’s message for our time is a radical one.
It is a message that demands of us serious preparation.
It demands preparation so that we are able to hear the good news.
Mark’s Gospel begins in this very simple way.
There are no birth stories, no genealogies, no angels, no wise men, or shepherds, just a message of preparation.
Repent!

Because John knows that the good news is hard to hear without repentance.
If you don’t think there is anything wrong with you, if you don’t think that you sin, then how can you hear the good news of Jesus Christ.
The coming of the messiah means nothing if you think all is well.

I remember meeting with a family before a funeral.
It was in their home.
The grand daughter was telling me that she did not really think that religion was that important.
She was saying that she was “spiritual but not religious”.
She then told me this, “I am a good person. I try to do the right thing.”
Sin is not about being a good person or a bad person.
It is about something deeper in us that make us always seek out our self interest over the interest of our neighbors.
It is what makes us believe that we don’t need God because we can all improve ourselves.
Repentance is not about saying “I can improve. I can get better.”
Repentance is admitting that we can’t improve and we can’t get better and we need God to save us.
Without repentance it will be hard to hear the good news.

I too will tell you that I am spiritual and not religious.
There are many things I really dislike about religion.
I dislike that we use at as a way to divide ourselves from one another.
I dislike that we use at as a way to deny progress and science.
I dislike that we use at as a way to make ourselves feel superior over other people.
“My people are going to heaven, and your people are going to burn in the fires of hell.”
I dislike that religion often is the defender of the status quo, instead of a defender of the left out and lost.
So there is a lot to dislike.
But there is also a lot to like.
What I believe is that I can’t be spiritual with being religious.
I need some way to express my spiritual nature.
I need some where to go and pray.
I need some where to go and read the Holy Scripture, and be challenged in my beliefs.
I need a place to sing the praises of my God.
Without religion how would I do that?
I want to know what people who say they are spiritual but not religious are doing to be spiritual.

That is why I love Sunday’s, because on Sundays I get to come here and be spiritual.
To me this space that we occupy every Sunday together is like a wilderness.
It is a place I flee to.
Like the people in our Gospel this morning I come here to have a place to repent.
I come here to prepare myself for life, and to receive the good news of Jesus Christ.
And it is the wilderness because when I come to worship I get to leave everything else behind.
I can leave my busy life behind, I can leave the problems of the world behind, I can leave all my sin behind.
In this space I can recharge myself as I hear the good news of Jesus Christ.
It is like every week is a new beginning for me.
I can understand why the crowds flock to the wilderness to hear John.
They want bad1ly to have a new beginning of their lives.
They want to know the God of good news.

I know that many of you feel the same way.
On our giving tree people wrote about how worshipping here brings them closer to God.
As one person wrote, “Choir and music in the church brings me closer to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. It is a reinforcing of the message of the Word through praise and song.”
In other words, it is here together in worship that we are met by the Holy Spirit.
It is here that we experience together spiritual worship.
Those who look at worship and see only boring hymns and outdated rituals don’t see it properly.
So much more is going on in our worship life together.
We are confessing our sins, emptying ourselves of pretention, seeking the mercy of God, deeply intersecting our stories with the story of God, and renewing ourselves to the mission of spreading the good news to others.
We are not just talking about being spiritual we are practicing our spirituality.

What John the Baptist calls the people of Jerusalem and Judea to this morning is something more than merely a ritualized bath, but he is calling them to spiritually prepare themselves for the good news.
And every Sunday we come together to prepare ourselves to receive the good news of Jesus Christ.

In this advent season preparing for us means that we confess our sins, sing praises to God, enrich our lives with the Word, and hear anew the promise of God’s good news coming to each of us.
We travel into the wilderness to do it.
We travel away from the hustle and bustle of buying presents, hanging decorations, and cooking food into the wilderness where God always meets God’s people.
We do it not because those other things are bad, but because we need it, we yearn for it.

For the people of Jesus’ day they were so eager to hear the good news that they came to the wilderness.
I think we too have that same hunger.
I believe that all those “spiritual but not religious” people in the world are deeply starved for the good news.
They too yearn to be loved.
They too yearn to hear God say words of comfort and joy.
Perhaps that is why in our culture Christmas is so wildly celebrated.
That even though people may or may not be prepared for Christ to come at Christmas they still yearn for it in their souls.
Buying presents is a great way to show your love for others, bringing light into our houses during the darkest time of the year is a great way to remember hope, hearing songs is great way to bring joy to others.
All these traditions of Christmas are not what Christmas is about, but perhaps they are signs of what we truly yearn for and really want in our lives love, peace, comfort, and joy.

Those of us who have come to worship this morning have traveled into the wilderness so that we are prepared for the good news.
We are preparing for the true spiritual beginning that comes to us from our God who comes to comfort us.
Let us leave knowing that we are prepared to receive the good news of Jesus Christ.
Amen

Why I am supporting the occupy movement!

2011-11-30T13:24:00.000-08:00

There has been lots said and written about the occupy movement. Lots of it negative. “Those people are bums!” “Why don’t they get a job?” One of the biggest criticisms I have heard from people, some of whom I would have thought would be supporting the movement, is that they don’t have a cohesive message. I don’t think that is true, but let us say that it is. Does that mean that I shouldn’t support them? If one cares at all about peace, the environment, the poor, the middle class, the working class, and vast majority of people in the United States, then you should be for the occupy movement.
From what I can tell after reading about it, and talking to people who are currently in involved, the movement is about how our system is failing so many. A system built for the domination of a few wealthy people over the rest of us. The occupy movement is about protesting a system that is destroying our planet, ruining our food, corrupting our youth, testing our children into inefficiency, starting wars in our name without our approval, and eroding the most basic code of humanity that we care about our fellow travelers in this world. This is the system that needs to go. It is about more than just electing a new person into a corrupt system but about challenging us to change the roots of the system that is failing.
As a person of faith I have to be on board with the occupy movement because at the heart of the Biblical witness is a God who challenges human systems all the time. Prophets often spoke out against systems that helped a few and failed the rest. Jesus challenged a system that made it impossible for ordinary people to worship God and live the abundant life intended by God. As people of faith any human system always has to be under suspicion. Whether it is a religious system or a political one, because all human systems end up failing when left unchecked and unquestioned. The best we can do is keep our elected leaders accountable to maintain peace and justice. Ultimately, all systems fail because it is only God who can bring about true peace and justice for all.
I am also supporting this movement because the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) has produced a teaching document that supports the “Sustainable, Livelihood, for All”. As all good Lutheran teaching documents do it does not give specific answers, but lays out ground work for the kinds of questions and answers we should be seeking from a system that fails so many. To quote just one part of the teaching document: “We call for efforts to increase the participation of low-income people in political and civic life, and citizen vigilance and action that challenges governments and other sectors when they become captive to narrow economic interest that do not represent the good of all.” This is exactly what the occupy movement has done. I have sent several emails to our presiding Bishop asking why he does not publicly support the occupy movement. I hope soon he will support it. Because if the Church cannot stand for peace, for justice, against war, against the wasting of our planet, and for the vast majority of poor and disenfranchised then we cannot call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ.

Here are a few links to read more about the occupy movement http://www.nycga.net/resources/declaration/, http://www.occupytogether.org/

The Sky Is Falling!

2011-11-28T12:20:00.000-08:00

So this week I experienced one of the signs of the end of the world.
It was at a Target in Portland Maine at 12:00 am for what is commonly called black Friday.
It was the first (and hopefully the last) time I will be out shopping on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving.
I am glad I went.
I got to experience for myself this rite of passage for many holiday shoppers.
What was astonishing to me was that the line to get into Target went totally around the store.
And everyone who came to get in line had the same reaction, “This is crazy!”
And yet they all got in line and waited.
All the people in line with me on black Friday were there in order to be ready for the big day.
They all had to wait.
Some came hours early to be the first in line.
Others like me came right when the doors opened and had to wait to be let into the store.
As I stood in line waiting to get in I thought about how it is like advent.
In advent we are getting ready, we are waiting, and it is all a little crazy.

Jesus this morning gives us a vision of what the last days will be.
Jesus lays out what will be when God comes again.
The vision can sometimes seem scary; Stars falling, the moon turning black, the sun not shining.
Jesus is expressing what it will feel like to be in that end time when the world will change from what it is now to what it will be.
Heaven itself collapses down on us.
But I bet that if we think about it our lives often feel this way.
We often feel that the world is crumbling around us.
So what changes is that when we are ready we know that in the midst of our lives falling apart God is present.
It is not just that the world is coming to an end, but that God is intervening in the midst of our lives.

To be ready is not a moral imperative, but an imperative of faith.
Are we ready to experience God?
Are we ready for God to rip open our lives and enter in?
The thing about God is that he does not always show up when everything is well and good, but shows up in the middle our struggles.

Last week at our adult Forum we were discussing atheisms.
One of our youth was attending this discussion and shared with us his struggles with faith.
He shared with us that at time when his father was dying he questioned God’s existence.
He questioned if God really cared about him.
And he flirted with the thought of becoming an atheist.
He told us that being involved in the youth group here at Concordia pulled him back into faith.
And that looking back now he could see that it was God who got him through.
Our Youth group is inspiring our young people to have faith, and to remember that even when the heavens are falling God is at work.
As one person wrote on their leaf, “Our teenagers have an anything is possible attitude that reminds me daily that with Christ anything is possible.”

It is true for us too.
That amidst the hard things of life and the struggles God is bringing new things to life for us.
The problem is that bringing new things to life often hurts.
It is painful to bring in the kingdom of God because we so naturally resist it.
Maybe this is the best news of all that despite our failings.
Despite our sin and our natural aversion to what is best for us God is determined to enter into our lives anyway.

As Dietrich Bonnhofer once preached, “God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be - in our sin, in our suffering and death. We are no longer alone; God is with us.”
Advent is the time of getting ready.
Not for Christmas per se.
Not a time for us to get nervous that we didn’t buy presents.
Not a time for us to be overwhelmed at all the things that have to get done.
But advent is a time of hope.
Advent is a time for us to be ready for God to enter into our lives that feels like the heavens are falling.

It is a time to see God working in our lives through all of the loss and pain.
You know the bad thing about holidays is that not everyone experiences them as a joyful time.

I was in line getting coffee the day after Thanksgiving.
This woman behind me was telling her friend how awful Thanksgiving was with her family.
How her parents thought of her as a disappointment.
How her siblings did not like to be around her.
Not everyone is in a jolly mood at this time of year.
Consider that in Arizona, Los Angeles, and North Carolina there were acts of violence as people trampled, sprayed maze, and shot one another trying to get to the perfect gift.
When I heard that I thought the sky was falling and it was a certain sign that things have gotten out of hand.
How can God want to be part of this very human life with all of our foibles?
Somehow Jesus birthday is about us hurting each other as we try to get the “best” gift.
In such a world it is going to be painful to let God enter into our lives.
It is going to be painful to see that we don’t have the power but that God does.

Mark’s Gospel is all about God ripping open the heavens and entering in.
At Jesus’ Baptism the heaven’s rip open as Jesus enters the world, at Jesus’ death the curtain rips in two as God ends the separation between the heavens and earth.
Mark’s Gospel is about how Jesus comes into our lives.
Are we ready?

You have to be a little crazy because you have to hope against all the evidence before you.
To be ready means to have faith that even in all of life’s troubles God is somehow at work bringing life from death, righteousness from sin.
To be ready means believing that God is faithful even in the times when we are tested.
It is not easy to be ready because so many things pull at us and distract us.
But if we can be ready for black Friday then we can be ready for Christ coming.
If we put in as much time working on our relationship with God as we did plotting how to get the perfect present then I know we will be ready.

Jesus is coming into your life today.
Advent is about the past, present, and future.
It is about how Jesus came into the world to be our savior so many years ago.
It is also about our lives today and being ready for God to come into them in love.
It is about our ability to see God working in our lives right now.
Lately it seems that more and more people I love have been struggling.
We had a very good friend of ours diagnosed with a rare form of Breast cancer, another friend lost her mother to cancer last week, Vicki’s grandmother is in the hospital, my aunt is recovering from a crippling illness, not to mention the four or five other things that are happening to those we love.
I was not ready for those things to happen.
I am thankful for this time of advent so I can be ready for God to come into my life with all of its craziness.

And it is about the future the time not yet come when God will put all things right.
It is about the day when there will be no more dying, or tears, no more killing, or fighting, no more pain and suffering.
In all these things we need our faith.
It is about the hope realized in Jesus Christ, which carries us through today, and makes us look with joy towards tomorrow.
So be ready when the sky is falling we know that Jesus Christ is here.
Amen

The Sheep and Goat Test

2011-11-21T08:02:00.000-08:00

For a while now I have been skeptical of the self help craze so I have decided to give up on all self betterment programs.
I guess I am sick of thinking that the better me is right around the corner.
That if I read some new book, or go to some seminar I will discover some secret to finding life’s happiness.
The fact is that this is it.
We are who we are.
We can’t make ourselves better.
Now you might think that this is some flag of surrender on my part.
That I have given up on life.
To the contrary I have decided not to dictate the terms of my life.
Instead, I have decided that we live each day in the grace of God.
As Americans we spend about 8 billion dollars a year on self help material from books, to seminars, to programs, to DVDs.
And despite all this we don’t feel any better about ourselves.
So today I am giving everyone here permission to stop trying to improve yourselves.

Today’s Gospel is often preached and heard as “We all need to work harder at being better Christians.”
So go out there and feed the poor, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and those imprisoned.
And then just like reading a self help book we leave worship and not much changes in our lives.
I think it is a miss use of the Bible to see it as a Christian self help guide.
The Bible is about the essential question of life.
Who are we?
Who is God?

What is worse is that people who get the most media attention are really people disguising Christianity as self help.
Rick Warren became a millionaire by selling a book called “The Purpose Driven Life.”
Which is really just a book about how finding our purpose in life we can find the better us.
Rick Warren has admitted that he made the mistake of overlooking 250,000 other verses in the Bible that deal with how our lives should be about serving others, and not just naval gazing.
Joel Olsteen who preaches weekly in a football stadium and has a television show had a New York Times Best seller with the book, “You Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living to Your Full Potential.”
The book says nothing about helping the stranger, the poor, the sick, or imprisoned.
I don’t remember Jesus giving us 7 steps to living our full potential.
It simply does not pass the sheep and goat test.

Of course it is not just pastors; Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann who are running for the Republican nomination to be President of the United States belong to an organization called New Apostolic Reformation.
The basic idea of the New Apostolic Reformation is that Christian leaders (Apostles) need to take over the world in preparation for the end times.
Now I have said many times I have no interest in being a politician, but if politicians insist on being theologians than I have to speak up.
It is not a Christian’s job to take over the world.
The Bible is very clear that God is in charge of the world, and gives it to us to be good stewards.
That is what Jesus is upholding in today’s Gospel.
What Jesus tells us is this morning is that if he is Lord of our life than we as good stewards will care for the poor, imprisoned, naked, stranger, and sick.
I don’t know if we can claim to follow Jesus if we can clap when someone is electrocuted, or deported, or kept out of the health care system.
I don’t care what political party Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry belong to the simple fact is that they do not pass the sheep and goat test Jesus gives this morning.
My guess is that they are molding a theology to justify their politics.
I don’t have a problem with someone who says they believe in the death penalty, or the idea that we live in a world where every person is for themselves, or the idea that in a capitalist system some people are left behind, just don’t call it Christianity.
But what I won’t say is the Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann need to work harder, or be better.
The problem is that they just don’t know Jesus that well.

In our text today neither the goats nor the sheep know who they are.
“When Lord? When did we see you hungry, naked, thirsty, sick, or imprisoned?”
Being a sheep and a goat is something that we don’t do because we have thought about all the options and decided to do this thing over that thing.
It is something that comes naturally from who we are, and what we are about.
Those who know Jesus well will know that he does not care about conquering the world, or self help programs.
Jesus cares about the lost, the broken-hearted, the poor, the sinner, and sick.
People who know Jesus well know that he had no use for taking over the world, or making sure that you had your best life now.
Jesus died because he knew that we did not have it all together.
Instead he died so that we might be saved from ourselves.
Jesus gave his life even though he could have taken over the world.
So if you are really a Christian and really know Jesus well then you cannot believe that executing people is a good thing (even if as a government official you might have to do it).
You cannot possibly believe that some people will fall behind and that is OK.
You cannot possibly believe that a health care system that allows about 50 million people to be without health care is a good one.
You cannot possibly clap when you hear that people have died, been left out, or been deported.

For me it brings up two very difficult things.
On the one hand it brings up the question of what it means that I am Christian.
And what does it mean that Rick Warren, Joel Olsteen, Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann claim to be a Christian too.

I guess the only difference is that we can claim not to be perfect.
I don’t know what my best life is, and I don’t want 7 steps to get there, I don’t care what my purpose is, I don’t want to take over the world for Jesus.
I simply want to know Christ and him crucified.
I want to know that his grace is sufficient for this day.

I believe that being part of this Christian community helps me to do things that I maybe could not do on my own.
You may not have the ability and time to do all the things that Jesus names this morning.
But here you belong to this community that does.
And the things that you cannot do someone in this community are doing on your behalf.
Consider that about 6 people for the last year have been working with a refugee family here in Concord.
They have been doing this not because they thought it would get them in good with Jesus on the last day.
In the words of the one of the participants of that group, “I want to show them love. So they will know God’s love.”
That is why they do it.
Because they feel it is where Jesus would be.
Recently our congregation helped to give a baby shower for this family as the welcomed there newest member.
At the shower I felt that they appreciated those gifts.
In fact, they invited us on the following Monday to their family celebration.
I went and I have never felt more welcomed in a place.
In that time I felt Jesus among us and with us.
This is who we are.
We are welcoming to the stranger among us in them we see Christ.

When I was at my endorsement interview, which is the final step in our churches discernment process before ordination.
I was asked what I liked about doing ministry with the poor.
All I could say was, “I don’t know. I have always just felt that is where God called me.”
It was not that I set out in my life to try and be more Christ like.
It is that through getting to know Jesus I naturally did the things that are Jesus like.
We are all really flawed human beings.
The best thing we got going for us is that we know Jesus Christ.

Having Jesus as our Lord and savior is the best self help we can have.
It does not tell us to change or be different then we are it just asks us to acknowledge who we are.
This is not about making a choice or trying harder it is about living in the grace and mercy of God, and seeing everyone else living in that same space.
We don’t know if we will pass the sheep and goat test either, we can only get to know Jesus better and believe that through him we too will be saved.
Amen

What We Have Been Given!

2011-11-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

Every year when it is time to talk about stewardship people begin to worry.
I believe it is because most of us are not giving what we wish we did.
And so when we talk about giving we feel guilty.
We know that we have done enough.
Then we hear a text like our story from Matthew’s Gospel and it confirms for us that we are slated for the place of outer darkness.
Because we just feel that we can’t give anymore.
How can we give more money in a time of economic peril?
How can we give more time when so many things pull at us?
There are teenagers to monitor, proposals for work to be completed, leaves to rake, parties to plan, kids to drive, homework to be done, life is busy.
We simply cannot do it all.
Let us start by saying that you are right you can’t.
Let me shatter any allusions any of you have this morning about having it all together.
You on your own do not possess enough money, time, or talent to save the world.
Today’s parable is misread if the message we take away is that we should do more to make our lives better.

So this morning I am not going to preach about how much more you should all be doing.
Instead let me tell you about all the things that we are doing, and let me assure you that they are never enough.
I know this because I see the people who come to our church looking for help.
I know that our resources are too small to truly make the type of impact that is needed.
I see the people living under the 393 bridge, the woman who comes to the Friendly Kitchen with her Wal-Mart uniform on, the single mother who husband is in jail struggling to keep the roof over her head, the addict struggling to stay sober.
These problems are bigger then what we do here, they are problems that need more than the band aid we are to provide.
But I want you to know that I am not in any deterred.
I am not pessimistic or jaded about the world.
Because I know that God can do what I cannot.

The Parable for this morning is not about what we don’t have.
It is not about what we lack.
And thank God for that because we lack so much.
Instead it is about what we have been given.
We each have been given according to our ability gifts from God.
We all have been given money to use for the better good.
We all have been given talents to use for the building up of our neighbor.
We all have been given time to use in the spreading of the kingdom of God.
The parable never says that we will solve all the problems.

But that we should use the gifts of God now.
I hope you hear that as good news.
It is not meant to be a burden, but a gift.
God has given us more money then we need!
That is a gift!
God has given us a talent that can be used for the greater good.
That is a gift!
We have been given a new day to labor in the vineyard for God.
That is a gift!

The problem in the parable is that the person who buries their gift in the ground does it out of fear.
Fear of the master.
Our freedom as a Christian allows us to act without fear.
I wonder if how the story changes if the person who was given the one talent tries to do something with it but loses it.
Will the master still be upset?
My guess is probably not.
The problem is that he does nothing with it at all.

I feel this way about the Church.
God has given us this great gift.
We have this wonderful treasure.
It is the Gospel.
It is the wonderful amazing grace of God.
It is not flashy or fancy.
And it actually has no real value in the world.
You can’t buy a new car with the Gospel.
You can’t pay your mortgage with the Gospel.
You can’t win a presidential campaign with the Gospel.
You can’t attack another country with the Gospel.
You can’t cure cancer with the Gospel.

It would appear that it has very little use.
Until you talk to people who have encountered it.
Until you see how it really does help us live in a complex world.

The Gospel tells us that true joy is found in giving away our lives.
That happiness is about making others happy.
The Gospel is found in the poor, the sick, and imprisoned.
It is found in the smallest of seeds.
It is found hidden among us today.
And the parable is asking what will we do with that treasure?
What will we risk for it?
What will we give for it?

To me it is the most precious thing I have.
And I did not work for it, toil for it, it was simply given.

On our tree one person wrote about how they were working at Rise Again.
They met a woman who had been given a bike by our congregation.
That bike made all the difference in this woman’s life.
It was a ride to work and a way to get around.
It represented freedom.
A used bike seems like a simple thing, and yet it meant so much.
When we were going to collect the bikes there were a whole lot of questions that I did not know the answer to.
How would we get them?
Where would we keep them?
Who would take them?
We only knew that there were people in our community who could use them.
We took a chance.
We tried something.
We risked failure, and uncertainty.
That is what the Gospel is about this morning.
Taking a risk and investing in the business of the Kingdom.
As the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

There is one more thing we have to talk about.
It is the outer darkness and the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
It appears that the master is very harsh on the servant who buries his one talent.
In Matthew’s entire Gospel when we encounter the outer darkness we see that it is because people have misunderstood the nature of the kingdom.
In this case the servant with the one talent thinks the master is “a harsh man”.
That is what he gets.
If our image of God is one of task master, of harsh words and actions, of anger then we do not see God properly.
We will not be able to accept the true nature of the kingdom.
We will not be able to see God in the things foolish and useless to the world.
We will not be able to see God in the poor, the humble, the lost, the mourners.
We will not be able to accept that the kingdom is not about what we get, but how we use the gifts God has given.
And if we can’t see God and we can’t accept the Kingdom then we will be in the outer darkness and there will be weeping and gnashing of the teeth.
If talking about using our money, time, and talent for God makes you want to weep and gnash your teeth then perhaps you have misread what God is really offering.
God is offering you the Gospel.
A life lived in freedom for others.
A life lived in the mystery, wonder, and faith.

So let us go from here to live without fear, and use our gifts for the building of the kingdom not because we feel guilty but because we feel blessed.
Amen

When The Saints Come Marching In!

2011-11-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

What will heaven look like?
Who will be there?
What will happen there?
These are questions that have touched the imagination of people since the beginning of time.
Since it is All Saints Sunday it seems appropriate this morning for us to ponder these questions together.
I don’t know exactly what heavens is like but I believe two things strongly about heaven.
One, lots of people will be there.
Two, God will be at the center.

These two things for me are at the heart of the Biblical witness.
Consider our reading from Revelation this morning.
(By the way, if you are attending our Wednesday night Bible study on Revelation I am about to give away what I think the whole book of Revelation is about.)
We are told that “there was a great multitude that no one could count.”
Heaven is full of people.
In fact, it is so full of people we should start getting used to the idea that there are going to be a whole bunch of people in heaven that we don’t expect to be there.
For those who say that getting into heaven is the prerogative of only a few “special” people they have not read all of Revelation, or they have not read it carefully enough.
In fact, we are told that there are people from every tribe, nation, and languages.
That no one is excluded from this celebration.

Look around the room today at the names written on the wall.
In just our small congregation look at all the people that we remember.
We have filled it with a multitude of people in our lives that have touched us, loved us, and given us a foretaste of God’s ultimate love.
The Saints surround us today.
They are with us are bowing at the throne worshiping God.
This is the vision of Revelation.

Revelation has a vision of what is behind the curtain, and that is what our reading is this morning.
It is a glimpse of what is going on in what we call heaven.
Revelation shows us that behind all the madness of the world is a God of great grace.
That even though we live through many trials and tribulations now there is something more glorious and wonderful in store for us.
Every one of the names on these walls has a story.
Every one of them lived through some kind of ordeal, overcame obstacles, and still managed to make a difference in our lives.
Every one of them did bad things in their lives they regret.
Every one of them did great things that we remember and celebrate.

That is why it is so important to remember those that go before us.
Because it grounds us in whom we are today.
It is a reminder that we don’t truly die that our story lives on.
Instead, we live forever in the things we build up and tear down.
We live forever bowing at the throne of God.

This week it was my sons 5th birthday.
We were out having pizza on his birthday and his mother and I were telling him the story of his birth.
Part of that story is that his name was going to be “Micah”.
It was a done deal.
Then in August before he was born my dad died.
It seemed perfect that his name would be Charlie after my dad.
So instead of having a son named Micah I have a son named Charlie.
We were telling him this story and he said, “So I am Charlie so you can remember your dad.”
Yes, that is exactly right.
And when I see my son do certain things or act in certain ways it reminds me of things my Dad might have done.
It is a reminder that we don’t die.
This life is not the end, but only part of the story.
My dad’s story lives on in me and my children.
Just as the people on these walls lives on in each and every one of you.

Perhaps that is why we have saints so we have a way of keeping alive those people in our lives who have loved us.
I don’t know what exactly heaven is like, but I believe that all those people will be there surrounding us when we get there.

That is why we have written the names on the cards that surround our sanctuary today because it is good to think of the saints that surround us all the time.
It is good to remember them and keep them alive.
It is good to remember that when we worship God we don’t do it alone but with all the saints that have gone before us throughout time and space.
That in our worship in this time and place, we worship with the great multitude of every time and place.

And what we worship is our God who sits on the throne.
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the lamb!”
Again I don’t know what heaven looks like but I am sure that God is at the center.
I am certain that in the midst of our lives God is at the center of everything.
All Saints day was initially a celebration of people who were martyred because of their faith in Jesus Christ.
It helped people remember that they did not die in vain, but they died because they believed in something greater than this life.
We are lucky that we don’t live in a time when we are killed for our faith.
But we still live in a time when times are challenging.
It still takes lots of faith to make it in our world today.
The names that surround us today remind us that at the center of everything in heaven and earth God is sitting on the throne.
God does not abandon us to a life of desperation.
God gives us hope when things are hopeless, life in the midst of death, strength when we are week.
Today with all the saints that have gone before us we worship God who is at the center of all things.

That is what salvation is about.
It is not about whisking us off to some place with harps and clouds.
It is about helping us to keep in perspective our lives.
Salvation is the reminder that this life is not the end.
There is more and it is glorious.
Salvation belongs to God!
Whatever is happening in heaven it is not dependent on what we do.
I am so glad that salvation belongs to God.
It does not belong to us.
It is not ours to earn, to work for, to pray for, to hope for.
It is God’s to give to us.

And today we can be assured that all the people that surround us one these walls are with God bowing at the throne.
Not because they were good people, but because they were beloved children of God.
The Bible is the promise that salvation belongs to us through God who loves us.
It is one of the great gifts that God gives.

Any guessing on our part about who might or might not be part of the saints is just that it is guessing.
What we are promised in the Biblical witness is that it is a great multitude, that it is not based on our ability to be good or do good, that it is not based on our tribe, nation, or language.
What I think is that instead of trying to guess who is in and who is out, we should be celebrating that God is welcoming all in!
That today you are welcomed into God’s salvation.
Today you hear the promise that there will be a day when the tribulation will end, when there will be no more tears, hunger, and our shepherd will lead us to springs of the water of life.
What a promise!

That promise is remembered every time we think of those saints that have gone before us.
Every time we think of them we think of how they were beloved children of God and how they showed us a glimpse of that love in this life.
The best of them is now with God and still with us.
Even though we are not sure of what heaven is like.
We are sure that God is at the center because salvation belongs to God, and that we are in that number when the saints come marching in!
Amen

An Idea That Changed The World

2011-11-03T09:32:00.001-07:00

It is amazing how an idea can change the world.
Two men decide that humans can fly; a man decides that we can harness electricity to light our houses; people imagine that images and sound can travel to a screen in everyone’s living room; someone imagines there is life in outer space.
All of life’s great inventions started from an idea.
The Reformation is about an idea.
Or more specific it is about Truth.
The idea (or the Truth) is that God forgives our sins in the person of Jesus Christ.
This idea changed the world.
It was not a new idea per se.
It was one that had been lost because the Church was too busy trying to keep power, hold unto its influence over others.

I would suggest that in every generation, and in every Christian denomination, we need to unearth, and rediscover this idea.
We often lose our way as we make up new ways to keep the institutional Church alive instead of worrying about the central idea that is always at the heart of what the Church is about.

This past week I was at the Bishop’s convocation and the keynote speaker was a pastor from Denver Colorado.
She reminded me that what is at the core of what we are as Lutherans is this idea, this truth.
That God is always coming to us we are never moving towards God.
That our sinful nature always keeps us away from being the people God wants us to be.
When we talk about our sinful nature we are not talking here about feeling guilty about all the things we mess up on.
We are talking about recognizing a fundamental truth about who we are.

One of the biggest problems we have is that we are lying to ourselves about who we are.
Think of all the ways we try to cover up our sin.
All the ways we present ourselves to each other as OK.
We look good, dress good, and underneath all of that we are falling apart.
In fact, lots of people think that in order to walk through the Church door and be part of a believing community you need to have your act together.
Nothing can be further from the truth.

This morning in our Gospel reading Jesus is pointing out to the “Jews who believed in him,” that they are slaves to sin, and they have the nerve, the collective bad memory to say.
“We have never been slaves to anyone.”
Hello!
You don’t remember that whole Egypt thing that happened not too long ago.
You don’t remember how God heard your cries of hopeless and came and saved you from Pharaoh and his army.
Don’t you remember that whole slave thing that is essential to your identity?!?!?!?!?!!??!?!?
Do we remember that our identity is caught up in remembering that we are slaves to sin?

Sometimes when I hear people talk I feel like I am hearing this same scene played out over and over again.
I have a friend who likes to talk about himself a lot.
Every time I am near him I know I am not getting a word in edge wise.
It is fine because I love him anyway and I have come to expect it.
Well we were at a party together and someone else was talking about themselves a lot.
We leave the party and my friend starts to complain about this other person.
“Can you believe how egotistical that person is they talked about themselves the whole time and never let anyone else talk? Who does such a thing?”
I had to say to my friend, “You do such a thing!”

All of us have fallen short of the glory of God!
And therefore all of us are slaves to sin.
If we forget that then we forget one of the essential ideas, one of the essential truths, of who we are as people of God.
We become blinded to the Truth about ourselves.
All have fallen short of the glory of God.

Now if that was it.
If that was the only part of the reformation there was it would be a pretty depressing history.
And this would be a pretty depressing day to celebrate or remember.
But the second part is just as important.
All “are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
That God remembers our sin no more.
God’s love given in Jesus Christ has set us free.
Free to love, to be loved, to forgive and be forgiven.

Jesus says that if we live in his word then we will be set free, because Jesus word is a two edged sword.
Jesus word tells us that we are sinner on one side and beloved child of God on the other.
Jesus is writing for us a new story, bringing salvation to us as a free gift.

Now we are free to admit this simple truth.
We don’t have it all together.
We don’t know all the answers.
We are a mess.

We are free as parent to say that we worried that they will mess up their children?
We are free as teenager to say that we are worried that they were not good enough?
We are free to say when we are senior citizen that we are worried that we are no longer worth anything?
We are free as middle-aged person that we are worried that we didn’t live the life they really wanted to?
We are free to stop trying to cover it all up.
We try and say that everything is fine and I have everything under control.
But deep down we know that we don’t.

I will confess to all of you this morning a simple truth about myself.
I don’t have enough skill, knowledge, and wisdom to be a good pastor.
There are millions of things I do every day that I second and third guess.
I confess to you that I am a mess.
I have fallen short of the glory of God.
What about you?
Are you clear about your story and your history?
Have you forgotten your slavery?

It can be a pretty hard thing to admit.
It is hard to admit our slavery, our sin.
But my God is bigger and greater than my slavery.
My God is better than me!
Thanks be to God for that!
My God doesn’t care about my short comings, but on a cross God takes it all and makes it something else.

The Bible is really a retelling of our story.
It is renaming us that are sinners as children of God.
That is what the reformation was about.
It was not about tearing down the Roman Catholic Church.
It was not about forming a new church.
It was not about singing, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”, or wearing red.
It was not about Lutherans being better than other Christians.
It was about the idea that in Christ Jesus we are freed from our slavery to sin.

We are slaves to so many things.
And Jesus today wants to set you free from those things.
When we abide in Jesus word I believe that we are set free.
That allows us to make mistakes, not have it all together, and to be a mess.
Most important it allows us to retell our story as God’s story.
To say that God’s grace is sufficient for today.

So today as we remember the reformation.
We celebrate this great idea that we have to constantly unearth.
The idea that we are sinners and God is bigger than our sin.
God does not see our sin, but in love sends Jesus to remind us of our slavery and freedom from it.
Amen

You've Lost That Loving Feelin'

2011-10-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

In my time as a pastor I have heard it many times, “I just don’t feel God in my life.”
This morning I am sure that someone here is struggling with this issue.
That even though they come to Church and participate in the life of the congregation they just don’t feel God’s love.
Or they question their own faith, because they haven’t been, “Feeling it.”
There are times like that for all of us when we come to church expecting that our palms will get sweaty, our heart rate will increase, and we will get goose bumps.
We will expect that God will show up for us and make us feel something.
That while worshiping we will feel love all around us.
But in the words of the Righteous Brothers, “You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling.”.
This morning I want to propose something radical to you.
Our relationship with God has nothing to do with our feelings.

This morning Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment.
He responds by quoting two Old Testament verses one from Deuteronomy 6:5 and the other from Leviticus 19:18.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Now when we hear this verse we think of love as a feeling.
That is how love is presented to us in our culture.
Love is a Righteous Brothers song.
It is a mushy feeling we get about someone or something.
But in Greek the Word is Agape.
Unlike Eros or Phila, Agape love has nothing to do with how we feel about something or someone.
It has to do with how we act towards others.
And that is the kind of love Jesus is talking about here.
Our love for God does not come from a feeling we get because we heard a hymn that gives us goose bumps, or we heard a sermon that really knocked our socks off.
Our love for God is about action, it is about doing.
To love God in this case is about how we act towards God.

If you want to get back that loving feeling then act like you love God.
Do something that shows your love.
Even if you don’t feel like it do it.
I had a parishner once who told me this story about his giving.
He said that he didn’t tithe because he never felt good about the Church.
There were all these things that the Church did that he disagreed with.
So he was waiting to give until he felt better about the Church.
One Sunday he had an epiphany.
That perhaps if he tithed he would feel better about the Church.
So he tried it.
And wouldn’t you know he started to care more about Church.
He became more passionate about what happened because that is where his money went.
His relationship with God grew.
In his own words it changed his life.

This is not a sermon about giving money to the Church.
It is a sermon about the way we love God with our whole heart, mind, and soul.
And sometimes we get discouraged in our faith life because we just don’t feel it.
We don’t feel the love.
We don’t get the same feelings that we once had about God.
And how can we?
It would be impossible for us always to feel the same about God.
Some days are better than others.
Some moments are better than others.
Some worship services are better than others.

The same is true in our relationships with one another.
In our marriages for example, we don’t always feel the love.
I would suggest that in our marriages that instead of waiting for that to come back do something for your spouse that in no way helps you but shows them that you love them.
My wife will do this for me when she buys me olives.
She does not like olives, but she buys them for me because she knows I do.

So what we are confronted with is how do we keep this relationship with God going when we are not feeling the love.

One suggestion I have is to do something for someone else.
Jesus tells us that loving our neighbor is the same as loving God.
And if we want to feel close to God we can do something good for someone else.
It is in many ways counterintuitive to what we think we should be doing.
We think that in order to get closer to God we should go off somewhere and pray, or be alone to connect better with God.
What Jesus says is that doing good for others draws us closer to God.
If you want to become closer to God.
Go serve at the Friendly kitchen in the people you serve you will see God.
If you want to be closer to God go play bingo at a nursing home with some of the residence, in their faces you will see God.
If you want to be closer to God forgive someone who you have held a grudge against.
If you want to be closer to God sit with refugees as they welcome their new baby into the world.
If you want to be closer to God give some of your money away.
It won’t make you feel any better, but it will make you more loving.

Loving God, growing in faith, is about action.
It is about caring for the world and the people that God has made and put in your path.
I would suggest that worship is not about what we get out of it, but what we put into it.
When you come to worship do you come with your whole heart, mind, and soul?
Do you bring all of yourself and give it to God.
If worship is about feeling something good than we will not always succeed.
I know that there are weeks that I feel something deeply about God.
I will get goosebumps as we sing a “Might fortress is our God” on Reformation Sunday, or “Silent Night” on Christmas Eve, or “Beautiful Savior” at a funeral.
But there are other weeks when all the hymns sound alike or I don’t know them and the sermon is just not that great.
Or there are times when I am distracted.
I am thinking about a fight I had with my wife, or the way my kids misbehaved, or all the things I gotta get done following worship.
So worship can’t always be about the way we feel.
Instead it has to be about the way we love God.
The way we give ourselves over to God for this one hour of time.

How would thinking about worship in this way change the way we experience it?
For example, I know one person whose favorite part of the whole worship experience is the offering.
It is there that they get to do something for God.
It is there they get to give and show their love.

How about the peace?
The reason we share the peace with one another is so that before we have communion we make peace with our neighbors.
Jesus tells us earlier in Matthew’s Gospel that before we come to the table we should make sure we are all set with our neighbors.
One of the reasons I make sure that I share the peace with everyone in the congregation is because I just got done preaching and I am sure I made someone mad along the way, and want there to be peace between us before we share communion.
Perhaps sharing the peace is the best part of worship because it is there we get to show our love for one another.
It is there that we get to forgive one another.

The hymns are not about if I like them or not, it is about singing praise and thanksgiving to God.
The sermon is not about how good the preacher is, but about my ability to use it to grow in faith towards God.

You might like worship or not like, it is your right to have an opinion, but worship and our life as people of faith is not about our opinion.
Our life of faith is about how well I am able to give my whole life over to God.
It is about acting for God and neighbor.

So if you have lost that loving feelin’.
If you are struggling in your relationship with God you can get it back by serving others, and giving all you have to God.
Amen

The Third and Fourth Possibility!

2011-10-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

“They were amazed.”
Why were the religious leaders that come to entrap Jesus so amazed at his answer?
Because they never for one minute considered that there was any other possible answer to their question.
They thought that they had thought of the perfect question to entrap Jesus.
Either he says, “Yes”, or “no”.
If he says that it is lawful to pay taxes to the Roman Empire then he would turn the crowd against him.
Jews in Jesus day hated paying taxes. (I guess not much has changed)
They hated it because it was giving money to Caesar who claimed equality with God.
If Jesus answers yes, then he is going against the teaching in the Torah that the land belongs to God and therefore Israel, and they should not pay taxes to a graven image.
More so they hated it because the system was rigged against them.
They paid so that corrupt politicians could become richer and more powerful.
They paid so the empire that oppressed them could continue to do so.
If Jesus says that it is not ok to pay taxes then he is going against the empire.
Jesus is creating an act of treason.
It would be easy for the religious leaders to get rid of him and charge him with being a zealot out to rise up an army and retake the land.
Either answer Jesus gives in this situation it appears that the religious leaders have painted him into a corner.

But Jesus does not fall for the trap.
He does not fall for the idea that there are only two possible answers to a question, and he comes up with an answer that is both and neither.
He comes up with a third option that upholds both our living in this world and our call to a new reality under God.
“Give to the things that are Caesars and toGod the things that are God’s”
Jesus gives a third option that drives us away from the position that it can only be one or the other.
It can only be God or politics; it has to be about us and them.

This is a big problem in our world still today.
We are often left thinking that the solutions to the problems we face, the choices we have, are only two.
It is either this or that, yes or no.
Being a Christian I think takes us away from such a harsh dichotomy of thinking.
It is not that we are against the idea of right and wrong.
It is that as Christians we use our imaginations to think of better alternatives then the world gives.
We consider ways to build bridges to understanding.
In our political discourse it seems at times that all we have are two options.
Often we don’t think outside the box.
We don’t consider that beyond the political rhetoric there are better ways.

One thing that disturbs me about our current religious and political climate is that people too often use God to back up their political ideology.
Sometimes it seems that people are using their political ideology to dictate their theology, rather than using God’s ways in dictating their lives.
For example, I have heard people from the tea part movement argue that God is for fewer taxes on the rich, because to tax rich people and use it for helping the poor breaks the 6th commandment. (Though shall not steal)
It seems to me this is really stretching the meaning of that commandment.
It appears that in their political ideology they have tried to squeeze out a meaning of the Bible that is not intended.
I have heard Michelle Bachman talk about God’s desire for a government that is smaller.
In an infamous incident she claimed that recent natural disasters were God’s wake up call for Washington.
“I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians.
We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane.
He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now.
They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending."

On the left we have an equally egregious ideology.
People on the left believe that social security, Medicare, and Medicaid are somehow ordained by God.
They hold that Government’s job is to follow the Biblical mandate to help the poor by having a certain tax code.
Al Sharpton has implied on many occasions that God would be displeased with the way our tax policy is geared towards the rich.
There is no doubt a Biblical mandate to help the poor.
I am not sure that Jesus had a particular legislative agenda in mind.

So maybe the best thing would be for religion to stay out of politics all together.
There is after all a separation of Church and State.
I would argue that this is impossible.
That whatever we are doing as Christians God is always on our mind.
That even in the voting booth God is there with us.
To suggest that somehow we can divorce ourselves from our faith simply because we enter the public square would be ridiculous.
And it would mean that we were making some kind of arbitrary rule about how to compartmentalize our lives.

Instead I would suggest this morning that we always begin our lives by searching for the third way.
By searching not for our ambition but striving for the kingdom of heaven.
And the first step towards that is moving away from the dichotomy of us versus them.
And towards a worldview that we are all one.
We are all on this ride together.
As one of my college professors would say to us, “We are all bozos on this bus.”

An Episcopal priest whose congregation is on Wall Street wrote this about the protest happening in Manhattan,
“I write and preach regularly that in God's economy there is only an "us," and whenever we fall back to us-and-them thinking, we are contributing to a powerful but failed system that Jesus came to tip into collapse.
Jesus in his Resurrection, steps beyond death and creates a new dimension.
There is no retribution for his killers, how could there be? – he has just stepped into larger life where the only message can be: "Come on, join in the party."
Any act of scapegoating - it's their fault; this one is to blame - feeds the old death-bound beast.
Making something new is making something together - receiving something together from a God who gives all.”

In our public lives we can be amazed to know that there is a third way, maybe even a fourth way.
A way that points us forward not to a political triumph, but to a life lived under the reign of God.
My friend and I were talking this week about how bad our politics have become.
It seems that the only thing that politicians care about is winning.
It is creating a system of us versus them.
A system with winners and losers.
Jesus teaches us a new way.
A way were the last are first, were the mourners rejoice, were the old and young come together, were the rich are overly generous, and were we are all one under God.
It is a way of no losers only us working together for a better tomorrow.

When rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s we can never forget that we are bound to something so much more.
We are bound to a God who sees no limits and has no bounds.
We are bound to a God who is not bound to our two dimensional thinking.
A God who is not trapped into an either/or mentality.
We are bound to a God who is always outside the box.
A God who talks of a King who invites good and bad people to the wedding feast, a God who opens up a better tomorrow, a God who is generous beyond our comprehension, a God who loves more deeply than our prejudices and dislikes, a God who does not give us what we deserve but gives us what we need.
This is the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.
This is what amazes us is God’s constant grace for us.
It is a God who loves enough to give up everything for us.
For you this morning God has given up everything and asks nothing in return except for your love, trust, and devotion.
There are no taxes to pay for God’s love.
In short, God asks you for everything, but in return you get more then you can possibly imagine.

God is not boxed in by our thinking.
God does not have to give only one of two possible answers.
God can give a third answer, even a fourth.
May we have the creativity and grace to always look for that third and fourth possibility.
Amen

Prepare for the wedding feast!

2011-10-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many of you would have turned down an invitation to go to the Royal wedding of William and Kate’s.
If you would have been invited what would you have worn?
I bet that many of you would have bought a new outfit for the occasion.
I know in my house when we go to a wedding I have to spend some time going through the different options of what my wife might wear.
Usually it takes at least two days of thinking about what to wear before she settles on a dress.
This is all to say that when we go to weddings even the most mundane of weddings we take time to think about what we are going to wear.
And if we ever went to a royal wedding we would think about even more.
How much more should we think about showing up at banquet prepared by God?
That is the question that is posed to us this morning in our Gospel.

When we first read the Gospel parable this morning we might be perplexed at how the guest who shows up without the correct attire is treated by the king.
It seems a bit harsh.
No one else wanted to go this wedding so he should get some points for showing up right?
Why does the king treat him so badly?
Well, because showing up is only the start.
When we have faith in God we grow in a relationship with God.
We begin, sometimes unconsciously, to bend our lives towards God’s will.
We begin to think more seriously about who we are and what we are doing in relation to God.
Just like if we went to the royal wedding we would give lots of thought to our dress and manner.

This parable is not about good people versus bad people.
Notice that both good and bad people are invited to the wedding feast.
It is about being prepared to live a life of faith.

Today we get to be witnesses to the Baptism of Allison Mamos.
And today is the start of her relationship with God.
For it is in the waters of our Baptism that God claims us as his beloved children.
It is in these waters that we are freed from death and sin.
It is here this morning that Allison will receive the greatest spiritual gifts her parents could give her.
Baptism is not about who is good or bad.
In fact, it assumes that we are all a complicated mix of good and bad.
That we are born in the image of God, and with a rebellious spirit of sin.
Baptism also does not remove these things from us.
The question becomes what are we going to do with this gift?

What are we going to do with the invitation that God has given us to the banquet table?
This morning I want all of you to think about what are you going to do with that gift?
What will Allison do with the gift?

I remember as a kid receiving a new stereo as a present from my parents.
It was a great gift.
It had these really big speakers, a turn table, tape deck, and even a place to plug in one of those new CD players that had just come out.
The gift was free.
I didn’t really deserve the gift.
As a son as was at best mediocre.
I didn’t always get good grades, I didn’t always come in on time for curfew, I didn’t always do what was expected of me, or even what I was taught was right.
However, my parents gave me this stereo anyway.
The only question was how I would treat it, and what I would do with it.
I treated it with great care.
I honored it and treasured it.
I really liked that stereo.
I used it all the time.
The same is true of our faith in God.
It is a gift.
We have done nothing to earn it.
In fact, at times we really try to mess it up.
Yet, God invites us anyway.
What will we do with it?
How will we dress for the banquet feast?

Today Paul gives us some ideas.
“Rejoice in the Lord always!”
I hope that all of you take time in your day, in your life to rejoice in what God has done for you.
Sometimes we can get caught up in all the things we don’t have, instead of looking at all the ways God has blessed our lives.
Even in the worse of circumstances I bet there are ways that God is blessing your life.
Paul even though he was in prison rejoiced in what the Lord had done for him.
I hope today for Allison that she knows how much God loves her, and how much God has done for her so that in all the times of her life both good and bad she can learn to rejoice in the Lord.

“Let your gentleness be known to everyone.”
Living a life in Christ means learning everyday how to love and forgive more.
It means learning to be less judgmental of others, and showing mercy and grace to all those we encounter.
In Baptism we take on the righteousness of Christ and learn how to live more fully into it.
I hope for Allison she learns to be gentle to herself and others.
Always willing to forgive others as she knows that she is forgiven.

“Do not worry about anything”
What a blessing to not have to worry.
We are told in Psalm 23 of God’s care and concern for us.
We are reminded of this again and again.
And yet so much of our time is spent worrying about things that will never happen or things that we can’t control.
To live a life of faith is to put all of our life into God’s hands.
I hope today for Allison that she learns to put her life into God’s hands so that she will not worry about anything.

“But in everything by prayer and supplication make your requests be known to God.”
Prayer is our constant communication with God.
It allows us to complain, to unload our burdens, to ask for our needs and the needs of our loved ones.
Prayer is what helps to settle our often disjointed soul.
Prayer is what helps us stay connected to God and his love for us.
In prayers we hand over the burdens of our lives to God and in doing that find a peace.
I hope today that Allison finds the peace that is beyond understanding.

These things are not meant to be rules.
They are meant to be a blessing.
In this life that is so complicated and often out of our control it feels good to be able to rely on God.
The Gospel from this morning can be seen as a harsh judgment.
Surely no one wants to be cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
But let me suggest that when we fail to hear the gracious invitation to the wedding banquet, when we fail to keep our relationship with God going, then we are already in the outer darkness.
Our lives are not as rich, are not as peaceful, and are not as whole as they can be with God at the wedding banquet.
Jesus sometimes uses harsh language to describe what it means to be away from God not because he wants us to be in the outer darkness, but because that is the truth.

I hope for all of you today that you count your blessings.
That you give thanks to God that God invited you to be part of the wedding feast.
I pray that we may spend no time in the outer darkness.
Because we have taken time to prepare ourselves for the joy of the wedding banquet.
Amen

There Is a Big Bright Beautiful Tomorrw

2011-10-03T11:18:00.000-07:00

This last week I was on vacation with my family in Disney World.
My favorite ride in all of Disney World is a ride called, “The Carousel of Progress”.
For those who have never had the extreme pleasure of going on the Carousel of Progress let me explain a little about the ride.
It was originally designed by Walt Disney as an attraction at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City.
You sit in a theater and watch a number of scenes as an American family move from the turn of the 20th century until the present day.
The theater moves in a circle as the father of the family explains all the technical advances of the 20th century.
For example, in the opening sequence the father of the American family explains that they can get from California to New York in Seven days by train.
He goes on to explain that two brothers are working on a flying contraption that “will never work”.
I love this ride because it reminds us of where we have been, of all of the progress that we have made in a short time of human history.
But I love it most because it reminds us that the future is wide open.
That all things are possible, and that we as human beings have a great capacity to think, invent, and create.
The chorus to the song on the ride goes, “There is a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day.”

When I read the Gospel for this morning I instantly thought of this ride.
Because one of the questions we always have to wrestle with is why didn’t the religious leaders of Jesus day recognize who he was?
Why didn’t they know he was the Messiah?
Why did they conspire with political authorities to have him killed?

Last week we heard them question Jesus authority, and Jesus told them a parable.
They didn’t understand that parable so Jesus tries again with the parable of the vineyard.
In this parable the stewards of the vineyard come to believe that the landowner is done with the vineyard, and that now they own it.
So when servants show up to ask for the fruits of the vineyard the steward left in charge doesn’t want to hear it.
Here is part of the problem of the religious authorities.
They stopped believing that God was talking to them.
They believed that God had chosen them, and have made certain promises to them.
That God would deliver the kingdom to them.
They came to believe that the vineyard was theirs instead of God’s.
They got stuck in what had always been and forgot that God is always working on the future.
Because of this they did not believe that God was still at work in Jesus.

I believe this sometimes our problem too.
We have become complacent with the idea that Jesus Christ is our savior.
We have become complacent with the idea that the Church is the gathering of God’s people.
Because of this we forget that God is always speaking to us.
God is always demanding that we are producing fruit.
To be the people of God, to be the Church, it is not enough to merely believe that God is with us.
We have to act like we believe it.

If we live in the grace in mercy of God then we will act like it by extending that grace to others.
Do we believe in the big bright beautiful tomorrow of God?
If we did we would not believe that everything is done or that are best days are behind us.

One of the great things about the resurrection of Jesus Christ is that it points us not to what happened, but what will happen.
It shows us that God is never done, but always working.
We should always be in on the lookout for what God is up to next.
I once heard a comedian talking about people’s obsession with television.
He said, “You gotta understand my generation saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot on national television. We were glued to the screen for the next forty years wondering what would happen next.”
The same is true for our lives in Christ we should be clued to the screen wondering what will God do next?
What ways will God call me, our congregation, and the Church to bear good fruit?
What needs to be gathered and harvested for the good of others?
What is it this day that God is calling me to give so others may flourish?

I really believe that we are living in an extraordinary time in Christian history.
It is time when anything and everything is possible.
All of the old doctrines are being questioned.
Lines of denomination and even religions are being crossed.
Barriers to people often left out are being crumpled to the ground.
Consider that in our day the supposed third world has the largest growing population of Christians in the world, while Christianity in America and Europe are fading away.
I could for see the day when Africa sends missionaries to the United States to try and convert us heathens.
Consider that in our day young people are saying no to discrimination, hatred, and prejudice based on gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else.
Consider that more and more people are pushing the boundaries of the Church beyond four stained glass walls and into bars, coffee shops, homes, and wherever people are meeting.
Consider that information and ideas flow between people at a pace that is sometimes dizzying but always interesting.
All of these things are making for some pretty exciting times in Christianity.
They are making for opportunities to reach out and be a blessing to the world.
Are we ready to follow God into his bright big beautiful tomorrow?

It is also scary times for some people.
Ways of thinking that have sustained people in difficult times in the past are being questioned.
Ways of making ourselves feel safe are being torn away.
But I believe it is simply God speaking to us in new ways.
God helping us see the progress that tomorrow brings.
God helping us see what happens when we labor in the vineyard, not because we own it and expect to get paid, but because we know it belongs to God and expects everyone to share in the bounty.

I suppose some of you could take my sermon this morning and just think that I have gone drunk with the magic of Disney.
But my sermon comes from my faith in God who does not leave us alone.
It comes from a Biblical faith that God has promised us a bright big beautiful tomorrow and given us the gift of being stewards in the vineyard.
What a gift to have this wonderful vineyard that God planted, put a fence around, dug a wine press in, and built a watchtower.
What a privilege to serve God in God’s vineyard.
And God knows that we need reminding from time to time that it is not our vineyard, but God’s.
We need reminding that we don’t tend this vineyard for our own purposes, but for the world to see.

In our Isaiah reading this morning the prophet reminds the Israel that God made them a people not for their own good but so they might be a blessing to other nations.
That is why we have a church.
Not to hold the relics of the past, but to remake a big, bright, beautiful tomorrow in the image of God.
That is why God sent Jesus to us.
Not so we could brag that we are favored by God, but so that we might spread God’s love, joy, and peace to the world.

The religious leaders of Jesus day might have known the past.
They might have known tradition, but they forgot God’s future.
They forgot that the vineyard was planted not for them to horde, but for them to give away to the world.
Because of that they shut their hearts to hearing the message Jesus brought.

May we always have our hearts open to Jesus message as we see God’s great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of everyday!
Amen

"Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good."

2011-09-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

“Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.”
I think we can remember a time when someone harmed us.
When someone intentionally or unintentionally did us wrong.
Today is a good day to think about how we feel when others do harm to us.
Ten years ago on a crisp, beautiful September morning, 12 terrorist hell bent on destruction and death, filled with hate, flew plains into the world trade center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
In all they killed over 3,000 people.
They inflicted intentional pain upon thousands more.
Family members, co-workers, friends, churches all were affected that day.
Not to mention our country and our sense of whom we were in the world.
President Bush was right to talk about what happened in the starkest language possible.
Calling what the terrorist did as evil.

But ten years from the day as we think back, as we remember what it all means to us and our country, can we say that what the terrorist intended for evil, God intended for good?
What can we say about ourselves as a people, our country, and our lives?

There are some bad things that happened because of 9/11.
Our government allowed people to be tortured to obtain information, we started two wars one of which was unnecessary, and we became more distrustful of our Muslim neighbors.
We can’t say that everything is good.
But we can also say that lots of good happened after 9/11.
That day and the weeks following we had an incredible sense of unity.
We came together as a country.
We came to see that all of us are of one humanity people died from 90 different countries.
We started to question the wisdom of religious extremism.
We started new interfaith dialogues in an attempt to understand.
People started new groups such as the Women Transcending Boundaries which is a group of woman who gather for service and understanding to stop discrimination.
There are other things that have happened since that day.
Others ways that people grew in understanding and love.
Like Cecelia Kuath who this year went on a cross country bike trip to honor her father, and other who died on September 11th, and raise money for World Bicycle Relief.
Or Marie Rose Abad whose husband built 50 new homes in the Philippines to honor his wife.
"It's like a new life sprang from the death of Marie Rose and so many others." said villager Nancy Waminal.
There are so many good things I couldn’t possibly tell all the stories in one sermon.

When Joseph says to his brothers that what they intended for evil God intended for good he was not saying that everything was going to be great forever more.
He was seeing in the story of his life, and the life of his family a larger narrative at work.
I wonder if we too are able to step back from intended evil to see something greater at work.
Are we able to forgive people and move on because even though they harmed us we can still see God at work?

I am wondering in our lives if we are able to see as clearly as Joseph did.
Are we able to forgive and move on with our lives seeing even in the things that harm us God’s work?
I want to be clear.
I am not suggesting that God intentionally had fanatical terrorist kill thousands of people so we could learn a lesson about our humanity.
The people who committed that act did it intentionally of their own free will.
They choose that path for themselves.
I am suggesting that as people of faith we be able to step back and see greater forces at work then evil.
See God at work in all things.
See the good that grows out of even the worse things that happen to us in our lives.

Let us also be clear that the forgiveness and wonderful words that Joseph speaks to his brothers only come after a long time.
This is the end of Joseph’s life and his forgiveness and his reconciliation has been many years in the making.
For us too forgiveness is never an easy solution.
It takes years to work out our pain and hurt.
It takes years to overcome something like 9/11 and for some the affects still linger, and for them it might take even more years.
But forgiveness is a way forward.
As one of the family members who lost someone on 9/11 said, “Deep down I have to forgive and move on. I am just not ready.”
The time to be ready will come.

This is the view of faith that we see all things through the lens of a God who wants good for us and our lives.
It is why Sunday school is so important
Sunday school helps children to know God and know him intimately.
And when evil happens they can deal with it.

Sasha Vaccoroo was in kindergarden when he saw the planes hit the towers.
He said of that day, “Before, I thought the world was perfect and everyone was nice,” he said. “It’s when I stopped believing in God.”
I hope that our children learn that the world is not perfect, and it is not always nice.
I hope that they learn there are parts of the human heart that do evil.
But that we as people of faith don’t have to be afraid of it.
We can see through evil intention of people to the greater intention of God.
I hope that in Sunday school our kids learn how to forgive.
I don’t think that our kids need Sunday school to become better people, you as parents teach them that every day.
But in Sunday school we learn about God’s love and forgiveness, because forgiveness is often the healing balm of our lives.
Without it we cannot move forward.

And we all need to forgive someone for something or maybe multiple things.
This is why Jesus tells us to forgive not just seven times, but seventy times because it will take lots of forgiveness to get us through life.
Our parents maybe didn’t love us enough, or maybe they loved us too much.
Our siblings didn’t treat us right and tried to undermine us.
Our boss is a jerk.
Maybe we were picked on as a kid.
Whatever the pain is that we carry around the only way forward is through forgiveness.
That of course takes time; it is not an easy answer but a faithful answer.

I think it would help us a lot in our lives if we are able to step back and see the greater intention.
If we could let go of what others do to hold us back to see God working to bring us to where we need to be.

I think if we could have that perspective about 9/11 we could see God at work even amongst the evil.
said about 9/11 “Human history is full of tragedy, and within these tragedies there is room for growth. There is no growth in human beings without struggle. I’m convinced of that.”
Joseph grew through his life struggles.
He grew from a self righteous brat to a man of forgiveness and humility.
He was able to grow to the point where he could even see God at work in what his brothers did to him.
He grew to the point where he could forgive them.
I am hoping we too are able to grow to the point where we see God at work even in the sin that happens to us.
I am hoping that we are always able to forgive, not just seven time, but seventy-seven times.
Amen

Disillusion

2011-09-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

If we are honest we have all done it on more than one occasion.
We have all talked about someone behind their backs or made discouraging remarks about another person when they were not in the room.
I hear it all the time in conversations, “I can’t believe she did that. I would never do that.”
We all have been guilty of spreading rumors or talking out of turn.
I know that whenever I do it I almost immediately feel wrong about it.
And most of the time it comes back to get me.
Not only in our personal relationships but throughout the history of Christendom this has been a problem.
How many times after a council meeting do people go out in the parking lot and begin to talk about other people, or the pastor?
It is the amazing thing about Jesus that nothing is too small for him to care about.
Jesus even cares about how we talk about other people when they are not around.
This morning Jesus gives what I have always considered to be practical advice on how we should interact with each other.
"If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”
How many problems could we avoid in life if we simply take Jesus advice?

I know in the church we could save ourselves a lot of drama if we stopped making assumptions about people’s motives and simply talked about our differences.
So in part our Gospel for this morning is simply about good advice in dealing with conflict among people church.
I would suggest it is good advice in general and not just in the church.
Most of the time the things that others do to make us angry or upset are not done out of spite or because the other person is bad they happen as a misunderstanding or what one person considers wrong would never occur to another person.

For example, I had a friend in seminary.
She told me about this person she was dating.
Since none of us ever met this person or knew about him I made a bad joke about how he probably lived in Canada. (Wink, wink)
When it was time for our senior year I noticed that she stopped coming over our house for dinner.
I also noticed that some of my other friends had stopped coming around.
I was told by one of my classmates it was because I made that joke that she didn’t want to hang out with me anymore.
I was shocked!
If you know me you know I make jokes.
I mean nothing by them they are just meant to be funny.
This one was not funny.
I think it was sad that this person simply didn’t confront me with her feelings.
I could have apologized.
We could have saved a lot of drama.

Anyway, you get the point.
Jesus advice on handling of our internal problems is a good one.
If you have a problem with someone talk to them about it!

But I am not sure that our Gospel for this morning is merely about good advice Jesus gives when handling our personal disagreements.
I think it is about the imperfection of the church.
Jesus has no disillusionment about the church.
Jesus knows that someone in the church will sin against someone else at some point.
Jesus also knows that it will be our first reaction when someone sins against us to go and talk about it behind their backs with someone else.
Jesus presupposes sin in the church.
I wonder if we are as truthful about what happens here as Jesus.

There is a joke about a man who is rescued after many years on a desert island.

As he stands on the deck of the rescuing vessel, the captain says to him, "I thought you were stranded alone. How come I can see three huts on the beach?"

"Well," replies the castaway, "that one there is my house and
that one there is where I go to church."

"And the third one?" asks the skipper.

"Oh, that's the church used go to."
Many people have left a church because they did not like the way someone did something.
Many people have been disillusioned because the Church did not live up to its or their high ideals.
I have met so many people who don’t go to church because they say that the church is filled with hypocrites.
To which I always reply, “Well of course it is there are people in the Church.”

But this morning we see the truth about human relationships.
They are very complex.
They take time, work, and most of all forgiveness.
Jesus has to come up with a very long system for dealing with these disagreements.
First confront the person, if that doesn’t work bring another person, if that doesn’t work bring more people.
What is even more amazing about what Jesus says this morning is that despite all this Jesus would still be in found where his followers gather.
“Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Jesus is among two or three even though he knows it will not be perfect.
Jesus knows that were two or three are gathered there will be a problem.
The Church is not meant to be a place where perfect people come together to make themselves feel superior to the rest of the world.
It is meant to be a place where imperfect people come to worship a perfect God.
There is no such thing as a perfect church only a perfect God.
It is meant to be a place where we struggle with living in a community of people that we don’t always agree with.
I would say that gathering in Church helps us do away with our disillusionment of perfection or high ideals.
The church shatters our false notion that somehow somewhere there is a perfect community out there with perfect people.
The good news is that Jesus is among us and still despite this empowers us to love others.
To loose and bind chains.
How much better is it for us to be able to let go of resentment?
How much better for us to seek reconciliation with each other?
As Joseph Campbell once said, “We sacrifice in a relationship not for the other person but for the relationship”
This morning what we are confronted with in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is this question about our lives.
How will we live with the limited amount of time we all have left?
St. Paul tells the church in Rome, “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.”
Paul like many people believed that the end of time was coming soon.
He believed that when Jesus told his followers he was going to return, Jesus meant sooner rather than later.
And because of this Paul often pleaded with people to act like their time on earth was short.
We have become less and less enthralled with this idea, because as time has moved on we see that Jesus has not returned sooner rather than later.
In fact, we often take tomorrow for granted; we simply believe that whatever we leave today we can always do tomorrow.
But if we live like there is no tomorrow we can see that there is simply not enough time to be resentful, petty, or angry.
If we live like there is no tomorrow we live in love.

Relationships mean so much to us in our community because they are the back bone of what we are about.
In a society that teaches us we can have everything our own way it is good that we still have places where we don’t always get our own way and we still have to compromise and learn to live with people of different opinions and world views.

That is why we gather here every week.
It is why we attempt to go out and invite others in.
We do it because we believe that Jesus Christ is present in this place.
We believe in forgiveness of sins.

To me this is good news.
It means that we owe each other nothing except to love one another.
Loving means forgiving each other, and living amongst our own fragilities and complexities.
Jesus was not disillusioned about whom we are or what the church is.
May we learn to disillusion ourselves so that we are open to accepting the forgiveness and presence of Jesus Christ and live our short time on this earth in love.
Amen

Faith That Grows!

2011-08-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks I have been at Camp Calumet Lutheran.
Last week I was on vacation, but the week before that I had the honor of being the chaplain.
It is something that always rejuvenates me.
I get to be around young men and women who are idealistic.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
More than this I get to see them giving of themselves all the time for the greater good.
I overheard two counselors talking about how little money they make, how much they have to work, and yet how they get so much more out of it than they put into it.
This year I loved it for another reason.
I got to see the way that the staff struggled with faith.
I am not talking about believing in God.
All of the staff believes in God.
But what do they believe about God.
That is not such an easy answer.
And for young men and women from 16 to 25 it is even more difficult.
They are all forming those answers.

This morning we see Peter struggling with his own faith.
Not his faith in Jesus as the Messiah, but in what that means that Jesus was the Messiah.
Just last week he was the hero.
When Jesus asked, “who do you say that I am?”
Peter gave the right answer that Jesus was the Messiah.
Today we see that even when we give the right answer we might not fully understand.

One of the things I love about the disciples is that I always find them relatable.
We can all understand Peter.
We all have struggled to understand God.
None of us gets it completely.
Peter thinks Jesus is going to set up a great new kingdom, and there at his right hand will be Peter.
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
But Peter goes from being the rock to being a stumbling block.
He goes from the gates of Hades not prevailing against him to being Satan.
This is quite the turn of events.

But I can understand Peter.
Jesus plan does not sound like a very good one.
Instead of establishing a great kingdom and rescuing the people of God from the Romans Jesus is going to die on a cross and rise again.
That does not sound very grand.
It does not sound very Godly.

Here is the problem for most of us we have no problem with the grand plan.
It is the when it is dirty and messy that we can’t come to terms with it.

I noticed the same is true at camp.
When we are in the outdoor chapel dancing and singing praises to God it all seems great.
When we are trying to deal with a problem camper, or another staff member who does not agree with me then it gets messy.
When the skit we planned does not go well we get disappointed.
When we are trying to help the kids understand how the Bible verse for that day relates to the theme of the day and we don’t understand.
But the message of the cross is that God is in it all.
God is in our disbelief as much as in our certitude.
God is in the calm but also admits the chaos.
God is right there in the mix.
I am sure that all of the people who worked at Calumet this summer grew in ways they never knew possible.
I am sure that their faith was strengthened through all the questions and the uncertainty.

During my vacation week my sister’s father in law who is a Lutheran pastor in Pennsylvania was telling me that he never knew the gifts he had until camp Calumet.
That it was there that God called him into the ministry through other peoples and through the chaos of his own life.
God was at work in his life even though he didn’t understand it fully at the time.

We can understand why Peter is confused because we are often confused.
We want God to do something big.
We want God to cure diseases, part the waters, create peace in the Middle East, and stop hurricanes.
Jesus death changes our notion of how God is at work in our lives and in the world.
God is at work in the questioning and searching of a twenty two year old trying to find work and their place in the world.
God is at work in the relief workers who come to lend a hand to their neighbors.
God is at work in the family member keeping vigil while their loved one dies.
God is at work in the chaos of life.

One of the other reasons I like being at camp is because it makes you see that the world is not so bad.
Often in the church our conversations revolve around how horrible things are now.
How the kids are out of control.
How we don’t teach and respect authority.
How kids only care about their video games.
How things used to be better is some by gone era.
I suppose there is some truth in those complaints.
But we always must remember that God is always at work.
In all things God is moving.
Being around young people that do care about the world about others changes your perspective.
It makes you more hopeful.

You see that even through the death of things that once we cherished there is God building up.
Perhaps we all need to lose those notions of the way things should be.
Peter learned that God was always up to something that went well beyond his comprehension.
If we forget this then we loose perspective.
We end up pulling Jesus over to the side and saying, “You know Jesus this might be what you want but it does not fit my notion of how God works so let’s not do it your way.”
We have expectations of what it means to follow Jesus that are often crushed by the reality of what it actually is to follow Jesus.

I know that many times people will get involved in volunteering or doing ministry.
Then they get disappointed because no one said thank you, or the situation of the person they were trying to help never changed.
We have to learn that it is through us being there that life changes.

Jesus changed our perspective on God because he was here with us.
Jesus went through every conceivable pain of human life, even death on a cross to show us that God was at work in all things.
Even the chaos, the loss, the hard times, the disappointing times God is always up to something.
I saw it at Camp Calumet.
I see it in our life together as a community trying to pick up our crosses as we follow Jesus.

I see it as we help our Bhutan refugee family, as we serve at the friendly kitchen, as we gather items for the poor, as we reach out to new people, as we care for one another.
I see it as we struggle together to grow in faith.
To learn more about how God is at work in the world and our lives.
I see it as we struggle sometimes to love each other, and loose our lives so that we might really find them.

Martin Luther once said, “Behold, from faith thus flows forth love and joy in the Lord, and from love a joyful, willing, and free mind that serves one’s neighbor willingly and takes no account of gratitude or ingratitude, of praise or blame, of gain or loss.”
The perspective of a deep faith is that what comes out is not victory but service.
This is the faith that Peter is struggling to understand, it is the faith that we are struggling to understand.
But when we do we become little Christ daily picking up our crosses and follow Jesus in love and joy.
Amen

Stay In The Boat!

2011-08-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

There is a little half truth parents sometimes tell their children.
“You can be anything you want to be if you only work hard enough.”
It is a nice thought.
We say it because we want our children to be self confident and we want them to work hard.
But it is not entirely true.
I mean I would love to be the starting power forward for the Boston Celtics.
It is not going to happen.
I could practice every minute of every day for years and still not be a basketball player in the NBA.
I am not tall enough.
OK, then my second dream is to be Rock star in a Rock-n-Roll band.
Not going to happen.
If you know me you know I have no musical talent whatsoever.
And contrary to popular belief you actually do have to have some musical talent to play in a Rock band.
I could spend every minute of every day and practice the guitar for the next 10 years and still not be a good musician.
Instead, I am what I believe God made me to be a pastor.
Perhaps instead of telling our kids that they can be whatever they want we should be telling them that they should be what God made them to be.

This morning’s Gospel is often part of the problem.
We have all heard the sermon about Peter getting out of the boat and falling to walk on water.
And if only he had kept his eyes on Jesus he could have done it.
If only Peter had more faith he would have been able to walk on water.
So if we have faith we should be willing to take risks and walk on water.
If only we have faith we can do whatever we want.

It is certainly one interpretation of the text.
The problem is that it not entirely true.
Faith does not give us superhuman abilities.
I have always preferred the interpretation that Peter’s problem is that he gets out of the boat at all.
Peter’s proper place is in the boat!
In the story you will notice that Jesus comes walking on the water towards the disciples who are on a boat.
They see something on the water and become afraid.
“They were terrified saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried in fear.”
Jesus tells them not to be afraid.
And then Peter challenges Jesus.
“If it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
Eventually he falls into the water and Jesus puts him back in the boat and says to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
It is not that Peter doubted he could walk on the water, but he doubted that it was Jesus walking on the water.
He needed proof.
He asked to come out of the boat.
Peter should have known it was Jesus as soon as he said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
There is another way to interpret this text and that is that Peter should have stayed in the boat because he should have believed in Jesus words not to be afraid.
Peter’s proper place was in the boat not walking on the water.
After all he is not Jesus.

Today Nathan Marshall will be baptized.
He will be drowned in these waters and raised to new life with Christ.
And the message I want to give to his parents, family, friends, and the congregation is that we should be helping him for the rest of his life to recognize Jesus.
So that when he is feeling alone, afraid, off course, lost, terrified, he will need to know the one who calms the winds.
It is Jesus who he will need to worship as the one who helps us through this world and our lives.

Nathan Marshall cannot be anything he wants to be.
That is not God’s promise to him today.
What God has promised is that he has given Nathan gifts to become something very specific.
And in Nathan’s Journey to figure out what God made him to be then God will be there the whole time.

I think that we get disappointed with our lives because they sometimes don’t seem so glamorous.
There are lots mundane things we have to do.
And sometimes they seem boring.
Then we see rich and famous people with these exciting lives and we wish that was us.
And we feel let down because we couldn’t become anything we wanted to be.
Instead we are at home on a Friday night doing laundry, and putting kids to bed.
I think one of the spiritual problems we face is that just doing the little things doesn’t seem to matter as much.
Being a good father, husband, machine maker isn’t enough anymore.
Everybody wants to save the world.
And in the end it is not our job to save the world that is God’s job.
We have to figure out what it is God has called us to do.
What we were meant to do.
I wish we would do more soul searching about what God wants us to do.

I wish Peter would have thought a little more about his testing of Jesus.
Peter’s place is in the boat with the other disciples.
It is not to be Jesus.
Yeah it is not as exciting or exotic.
Jesus gets to walk on water, we just get to row.

On Friday I was at Soulfest with the youth group at Gunstock Mountain.
For those who don’t know Soulfest is a large Christian music festival.
The main stage is set up right by one of the ski slopes, so you sit on the mountain in a folding chair and watch the concert.
I was sitting on this mountain watching one of my favorite bands, Jars of Clay, perform and it started to rain.
At first it was just a drizzle.
The lead singer in the band said to the crowd, “Sing this song of praise to God and we will move this rain right out of here.”
The words were still coming out of his mouth and you know what it did.
It started to pour down rain.
It would be nice to think with our prayers, or our faith that we can stop the rain.
The truth is that is not our job.
We are not the creator of the universe.

It is not our job to walk on water.
It is our job to be drowned in water.
To let Jesus Christ be our new life.
That is what is happening to Nathan today.
He is receiving a great gift.
It is not the gift of becoming a super hero.
Baptism gives us no super human strength, the ability to fly, to become invisible, or even to walk on water.
It gives us assurance.
“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

And Nathan like all of us will have some times in his life when he will be terrified, uncertain.
Like the day he graduates from high school and the speaker will say that they can do anything, but Nathan is not sure what he wants to do.
Or after college when the speaker will again give a speech about remaking the world, and Nathan can’t find a job doing the thing he really wants to do.
Or the time he breaks up with a woman even though he wants her to be the one.
Or when he is older and laying in a hospital bed about to die.
There will be those times when he questions himself and the world.

I hope in those times he knows to get back in the boat.
For Matthew a boat was the symbol of the church.
It is here when we gather that we come to this place for comfort, for acceptance, for love.
It is here we come to hear Jesus tell us, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Don’t misunderstand me we have to go back out into the world.
The next part of Matthew’s Gospel is about Jesus and the disciples going into strange and scary gentile country.
But today the message is about how we find here together in this boat a message that helps us every day.

Get back in the boat.
You are not meant to walk on water, calm storms, stop the rain, or be whatever you want.
You are meant to be a beloved child of God, who is here to love your family, and work for your neighbor.
So when things are too much, when life seems boring or terrifying remember that Jesus is walking towards you with peace, ready to calm the winds.
Most important remember to stay in the boat!
Amen

A Fortaste Of The Feast To Come!

2011-08-03T07:49:00.000-07:00

It is something that we do all the time every day in fact.
We sit and eat.
Some time we take it for granted.
We eat without really thinking about it.
We think that we are eating to satisfy our hunger.
But eating is so much more than merely taking in calories for survival.
Eating is filled with meaning.
Jesus knew this.
It is why we can never separate Jesus out from his eating habits.
Any moral or ethical debate about what it means to live a Christian life has to start and end with something that we do every day.
It has to start at our dining room tables.

Jesus knew that food was more than food.
That eating with people sent a message about who he was, and who God is.
It is why the Gospels are filled with stories about Jesus eating with tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, and other undesirable people.
For in eating with them Jesus was making a point.

In today’s Gospel story we see that feeding 5,000 men was about more than merely offering hungry people food.
Sometimes with this story we get caught up in things that don’t matter.
We want to know if this is a historical story or not.
Interpreters have argued about it for years.
This morning I don’t want to talk about that I want us to see what the meaning is of this meal that Jesus shares with the crowd that day.

The key to the story for me is this one line, “when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them.”
Jesus feeds the crowd out of compassion.
Out of love Jesus takes time to be with them, cure the sick, and ultimately feed them.

To feed someone is to love them.
I learned this lesson for the first time when we got our cats.
It was before we had children.
And it was my job to feed them.
I would come home from a long day at work and I was tired.
I just wanted to sit on the couch watch the baseball game.
But these cats would come and meow at me or nudge at me until I got up and fed them.
I would say to the cats, “You know I love you because I am going to get up and feed you right now.”

Of course, it came into even more focus when I became a parent.
I would see my wife get up at all hours of the night to feed the baby.
Even though she needed sleep or was hungry herself she gave of herself because of the great love she had for our kids.
And now most of what I do is try to provide food for them.
In that simply act of putting food on a table we show our love and concern for someone else.

Eating has meaning when we cross cultures.
I have been blessed in my life to serve at two congregations that were ethnic specific ministry.
One was an African American church; the other was a Latino church.
In both places the food was different then what I grew up with.
But in both places I grew closer to the people when I would share their food.
I ate pig’s feet, collard greens, rice, and a whole bunch of things in order to show that I cared.
And they fed me in order to show that they loved me and cared about me.
In both cases the populations that I served were not overwhelming rich, but they had rich food which they gladly shared with me every chance they got.
When I was in New York I went and met with the Imam from the local Mosque.
When I got there he offered me tea and food.
I turned him down.
He then said that it was part of their custom to offer strangers food.
I then agreed to the food even though I was not hungry, because I realized that he was showing me compassion by offering me this food.
Sharing food with others bonds us together.
I am thankful for those experiences where I got to cross cultures and bond with others over food.

Even more then this think of the times when you shared meals with people.
They are usually around very significant events.
When you are married, when you are celebrating a graduation, when it is your birthday, to celebrate your anniversary, when someone dies are all times when we share a meal around significant life events.
Last week on my vacation we attended a wedding and we saw what all meals should look like.
A wedding banquet is filled with love and joy.
I would hope that all our tables would look like this every night.
Last night I was at my sister’s 40th birthday party.
You know what my wife and I did for the party.
We cooked my sister’s favorite food.
So that she might know how much we love and care for her.
Eating has great meaning to us.
It is why we do it at such important moments in our life.
It can help us celebrate, it can help us mourn, it can help us feel joy and ease sorrow.

My dad really liked to sit and enjoy a good meal.
One of the things that we shared was a love of cherry stone claims.
If it was on the menu we would order it and share it.
My dad always would insist that I have the last one.
I am sure he wanted it for himself.
But he would always say, “Jon, eat the last one!”
I would try and protest, but in the end I would get the last one.
It wasn’t just that either, almost always if there was something to eat and we both liked it he would insist that I eat the last part.
At the time I didn’t pay too much attention to it.
But looking back it was one of the ways that he showed how much he loved me.
It was a little moment but it carried lots and lots of meaning.
The feeding of the 5,000 is the same way.
Jesus here does something that is somewhat mundane.
He gives people food, but whatever happened on that day it was so meaningful that all four Gospels write about it.
It was one of the ways that Jesus showed us God’s compassion.
Here are these people and they need food, and God cares about them so God feeds them.
As if God is saying, “Here you take the last bite, it is for you”.

And Jesus invites his disciples to participate in this great act of compassion.
“You give them something to eat.”
In other words it is God who provides the meal, but the disciples who distribute and who collect the leftovers.
Jesus invites us to participate in this act too.
Jesus invites us to have a table that looks like his ministry.
Jesus invites us to have a table of people that are lost, down, and broken that is filled with compassion and love.
A table that looks like a wedding feast filled with joy!
Tables were people are always willing to give up the last bite in order to show love to someone else.

Jesus fed 5,000 people.
That is the story.
But the meaning is so much more.
It is about God’s compassion and love for us and all people, and an invitation to us to have that same compassion and love that Jesus has so that all the meals that we share might be a foretaste of the feast to come.
Amen

Weeds and Wheat

2011-07-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

All of us at one time or another has wondered why God allows evil.
We have all questioned why bad things happen to good people.
Why does God allow evil people to hurt others?
Why does God allow evil people to make millions of dollars off innocent unsuspecting people?
Why does God allow evil people to kill without being punished?
This morning our Gospel lesson gives us some very interesting thoughts from a parable Jesus tells about seeds being planted.
In the parable Jesus is the one sowing good seeds, and the evil one sowing bad seeds.
What is amazing about the parable is that both good and evil grow together.
I am no expert farmer but I read this week that the kind of wheat and weeds that Jesus is talking about look very much alike.
And that the roots of the weeds and wheat would get tangled and caught up together.
This is the problem with evil people is that they look just like good people.
It is not until they act that we can see the difference and sometimes even then it is hard to tell.
The parable is really astonishing because the slaves, noticing that the weeds have infected the good wheat, want to pull out the weeds, but the householder will not allow it.
“No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.”

All of us in order to feel safe, in order to make things right have in us the same tendency as the slaves in the parable.
We want to root out evil and do away with it.
For example, after 9/11 we all felt vulnerable and what made us feel better was hearing from the president that we were going to get the bad guys; we were going to, “smoke them out”.
This year when we heard that Osama Bin Laden was killed people danced in the street.
We love it when evil is defeated it makes us feel safe and good.

The problem is that in our attempts to root out evil we might just pull up the good wheat with it.
For the most part, it is hard to tell who is good and who is evil.
Perhaps what made people so upset about the Casey trial was they felt that justice was not served.
That this woman who many thought was guilty did not get what was coming to her.
Jesus is telling us this morning that we are to take the long view.
Jesus asks the slaves to see even beyond this time and place to a different season to see beyond today into God’s future.
To understand that in God’s time all things will be put right, but in the meantime it is not our job to figure out who is in and who is out.

This week in the Concord Monitor there was an article about the Friendly Kitchen.
The neighbors living around the Friendly Kitchen have said they do not want the Friendly Kitchen to be rebuilt in the same spot.
They have threatened legal action.
The Friendly kitchen does not have the resources to fight a long legal battle so they have agreed to find some other place.
One of the neighbors said that she was very pleased that the Friendly Kitchen is moving and that since it burned down it has been extremely quiet.
One of the neighbors a couple of weeks ago wrote and op-ed about how great the neighborhood is now that those people have left.
The neighbors have said that before this there was noise and disruption caused by the people using the Friendly Kitchen.
I can understand where the neighbors are coming from.
I understand the part of us that wants to get rid of the bad things.
My question is what kind of damage this has done.
It has done damage not only to those people using the Friendly Kitchen but to the neighbors and our community.
I have always been proud of the way that Concord works to help all people in our community.
I have preached about how great it has been to see the support coming from people in our community to rebuild the Friendly Kitchen.
This has really disappointed me.
It would be nice to think that all we have to do is get rid of some folks and then everything will be fine.
I don’t think the neighbors realize that by pulling up the bad weeds they are also destroying the good.

They are destroying the good that our community does to make sure that people get a good meal and a Friendly place to go.
They are destroying their own ability to show compassion and mercy.

Throughout history people have tried to rid the world of evil.
They have tried to get rid of what was not pure and good in their minds.
Often times this has lead to nothing but fear and hatred.
We have tried to define “the other” “those people” that are to blame for the world’s problems.
In the meantime we have destroyed our own moral compass.
Think of people who are against abortion and in pursuit of trying to rid the world of what they perceive as evil end up killing doctors who perform abortions, or bomb abortions clinics.
In trying to root out evil we might uproot the good including the good in ourselves.

So if it is not our job to uproot evil what is our job?
Are we suppose to let evil wreak havoc on us and the world?
Are we not supposed to stand up for what is right and good?
Yes but we do it always through love, not through trying to get rid of people we find undesirable.
Our job is to tend the garden.
Indiscriminately show the good news of Jesus Christ.
We are to help all people even if they are weeds.
The people that Jesus ministered to and hung out with where considered by many to be the weeds.
They were the ones who were destroying good family values.
They were the ones who were blight on the neighborhood.
And Jesus told us to love our neighbors, to pray for those that persecute us.
This morning he tells us to let the weeds and wheat grow together because in the end it will be God who judges.
It will be God who sorts through what is good and evil.
It will be God who in the end will make all things right and make us shine like the sun.

We also see in this in churches.
We don’t like someone so we want them to go away.
Or we don’t like the way things are going so we pull away and think it is better to let all “those people” do whatever they want.
We wrongly believe that if we only could get rid of the people that disagree with us everything would be fine.
Or if we just went to another church where everyone agrees with me then all will be well.
The truth is that even here among us there are moments when we are the wheat and moments when we are the weeds.
The beauty of being a member of a faith community is that we agree in a non verbal contract to hang in there with each other.
We agree to let God work it out.
We agree that we are at the same time saints and sinners.
We are all sinners before God and yet made righteous through Jesus Christ.

St. Paul tells us that there is no condemnation for those who know Jesus.
We know Jesus and because of this we become heirs to a wonderful promise.
A promise that says that no matter what God forgives and loves us.
I think we should be spreading that message wherever we can.
We should be helping others to know that even if they think they are the weeds God can make them into so much more.
God can make them into heirs, into a shining sun, into righteousness.
When we invite people into our community of faith we are not inviting people because they are perfect, but because we want them to know that they too are heirs of God’s promise.

We can never tell the weeds and wheat.
And we will never be able to pull the weeds out without also tearing out the wheat.
What we can do is tend to the Garden.
We can spread the good news of Jesus Christ that we are heirs to a wonderful promise and a great future.
Amen

Where Is Authority?

2011-07-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

This week one of our members Gretchen Jacques died.
I met with her daughter and sister to plan the funeral.
They wanted to select reading that talked about the animals and God’s creation because Gretchen loved animals so much.
The daughter asked me about a passage that said something about the animals teaching us.
Not knowing the specific verse I took out my concordance, which is a book that shows you all the verses in the Bible that use a specific word.
In this case I was looking for the word teach.
I found this verse that said, “Does not nature itself teach you that if…”
In the Concordance it does not give the rest of the verse.
It appeared from those couple of words that I found the verse it was 1 Corinthians 11:14.
I looked it up and read the rest of the verse to the family here is what it says, “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him?”
We didn’t use that verse!
(By the way the verse that she was thinking of was Job 12:7)

The great question of our day is how do we understand scripture?
What is it about scripture that makes it authoritative for our lives?
I obviously have ignored 1 Corinthians 11:14.

Sometimes when we read the Bible we believe that there is only one way to interpret what we are reading.
The problem is that most of the Bible is not intended to be interpreted in only one way.
Parables are intentionally left open ended to many different interpretations.
Take for example our Gospel parable for this morning.
Anyone, who has been coming to church for a while has heard this parable many times.
We have all heard sermons about it.
Most of the time we are told that we are the soil, the Gospel is the seed, and God is the sower.
In fact, we actually have Jesus interpret the Gospel for us.
It would almost appear that I have no work to do this morning.
But here is where it gets tricky for me.
What happens when we are not good soil?
What happens when we are like the soil that is among rocky ground?
Who exactly is the sewer is it God or us?
Are we not also supposed to sow?
So maybe in the parable we are supposed to be sower?
How about the seeds?
They are what grow into the fruit, the flower?
How come we are not the seeds?
In other words the parable does not work as simply a wooden interpretation.
I want to suggest this morning that at any given moment in our lives we are the soil, the seed, or the sower.

There are times in our lives when we are simply not at our best.
There are times when we are the path, the rocky soil, thorns, and on rare days good soil.
There are times when we simply do not want to hear what God wants to tell us.
Days when we are mad at someone and don’t want to hear about forgiveness or love of enemies.
There are days when we think we want to hear God, but other things are taking over our lives and simply cannot pay attention long enough.
There are times when financially we live so close to the bone that we don’t want to hear Jesus tell us to give anyway.
There are days when our faith is not deep enough to overcome what is happening.
In other words the parable of the sower is not about a once in a lifetime opportunity.
That all we get is one day to hear God’s word and if we miss it then we are in trouble.
It is about all the times in our lives when we hear the word of God and the varying reactions we have to at any given time.
One of the great things about the parable is that the seeds are always being sewn.
The sewer lavishly sows the seeds.
There is always time in our lives to come around.
To let God make our hearts be good soil.
In fact, what we have in life is a journey of hearing God’s word over and over and over again, and each time it may mean something different for us.

This is what scripture can do for us it can be a companion in our faith journey.
Because it has multiple meanings it is something we can come back to again and again.
It is not that what the Bible means has been set for all eternity.
Sometimes we talk about the Bible as if there is only one message one understanding that we can get from it.
I think that we find solace in this that is why we like.
We like the easy answer.
But there is real beauty in always approaching the Bible like a treasure.
What is in here that I can explore?
What will I learn about God today that was hidden from me yesterday?

For me it is like Star Wars.
I have seen that movie probably about 200 times.
Every time I see I understand or see something different.
We just re-watched Episodes 4-6 again in our house.
This time what I noticed was how mean c-3PO is to R2D2.
I never noticed it before.
The same is true when we continually read the Bible we pick up on nuances we missed the last time, or it means something different to us because of where we are in our lives.

I know someone who wrote a song about how we are all seeds in God’s hand.
That we land in different places.
Some of the lyrics to the chorus go:
“We’re all just seeds in God’s hands. We start the same but where we land. Sometimes fertile soil and sometimes sand, we’re all just seeds in God’s hand.”
The first time I heard it made me think about this parable very differently.
Not that what I had learned before was totally wrong it just made me see it from another angle.
It made me see God from another angle.

Is that not the beauty of the Biblical text that we can read it and re-read it and come to see it differently every time.
It does not make it any less powerful.
In fact, I would argue more powerful.
The best art in the world is what makes us come back time and again because it speaks on so many levels to the human condition.
The Bible is art, but it is also more than that because it for us is God’s word.
It is what comforts us, encourages us, challenge us, and shows us God’s intention for our lives.

We do it a disservice to believe that it only says one thing.
And if we don’t get that one thing that we missed the whole point and we are waste of time.

Think about the disciples themselves.
They are not always good soil.
They often don’t understand what Jesus is talking about.
They often let the cares of the world choke them down.
They often don’t have deep roots.
And yet Jesus continues to work with them.
Jesus continues to teach and preach.
Jesus continues to sow the seeds.

We can take heart that God will not give up on us.
Even when we fall amongst the rocks and thorns God will try and replant us in a better spot.
Even when our hearts are not ready or unwilling to hear the word of God the Holy Spirit goes to work to make our hearts better soil.

Authority does not come from our interpretation of the text.
It comes from our constant engagement in our relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that we meet in the Biblical witness.
It comes from a faith that takes lots of tending to.
We need to weed it, water it, talk to it, and even pray for it.

So may you constantly come to God’s word and be nourished by it comfort, encouraged by it, challenge by it, so that you may grow and produce good fruit.
Amen

Repairing The Damage!

2011-07-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

This week I was away with the confirmation students at confirmation Camp.
We spent the week at camp Calumet Lutheran on the shores of Lake Ossipee.
I want to thank the congregation for making this happen.
I believe it is an important part of faith formation for our confirmation kids to be around other Lutheran kids from New England, to receive the blessings of growing in faith, and making new friends.
We always go as part of a larger New Hampshire conference so our confirmation students get to know kids from churches in Newington, Laconia, and Endfield.
One of the things the New Hampshire conference did at confirmation camp was go for a canoe ride down the Sacco River in Fryeburg Maine.
It is one of the things I really look forward to.
We have a great time canoeing, splashing each other, tipping canoes, being in God’s creation, and generally having fun.
This year we were canoeing along and we saw a rope swing to our left.
So we beached our canoes on the right side of the river on a sand bar and swam over the rope swing.
I don’t know about you but I have a general rule never to pass up a chance to go on a rope swing.
Anyway, there was this father and son who were just ahead of us who had already pulled over and were going to use the rope swing.
The kids and I arrived just as the son about the age of 9 or 10 was going to go off the swing.
Unfortunately we got in his way and he had to wait until we were safely on the shore.
I want to say that the kids were not in any way being rude or disrespectful they were simply being kids happy to be on a river about to go off a rope swing.
The father of the boy began to yell at me that we had totally taken over and it would have been more considerate to wait on the other side until they were done.
I apologized and said that he was right it was inconsiderate and asked him how we can make it right.
First, I offered to let his kid go as many times as he wanted and we would wait for him to be done.
Then, I offered for us to swim back to the other side until they were done.
To which he replied, “The damage is already done there is nothing you can do to fix it.”
The damage is already done there is nothing you can do to fix it.

I wonder how many of us have had difficulty in our relationships and thought or spoken these words.
How many friends have we lost because they did something we couldn’t stand and we simply could not repair the broken relationships.
How many times have we taken up positions that are so intractable that we stubbornly will not hear someone offering us an olive branch of peace?

I am thankful everyday that our relationship with God is never damaged to the point of no return.
I am thankful that God never says to us “the damage is done and there is nothing you can do to fix it.”
Since the time of Adam and Eve, God has been searching for ways to repair the damage.
The Bible is one long story of God trying desperately to get God’s people to notice how much he loves and cares for them.
Even though we stubbornly want to go our own ways God is always looking for a way to get into our hearts.
God has been extending to us over and over again an olive branch, trying to bend over backwards to get us to see his love for us.
This morning in our Gospel Jesus gives us a wonderful grace filled offer.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
We are all burdened down by so many things in our life.
But the greatest is Sin.
We are taken down by our selfishness, our own intractable ways, and our own thoughtless disregard for others.
Jesus offers us rest from all of that, and offers us a life of grace.

After the exchange at the rope swing with the father I was proud of the way the kids in our group processed what happened.
One confirmation student said, “Perhaps he was having a bad day and just took it out on us.”
Another said, “He must be embarrassed to act that way in front of his own son.”
They were able to process what happened in a way that showed compassion for the man.
I have to say that I did believe he had a point.
We could have/ should have stayed away until he was done.
It would have been the better thing to do.
But as St. Paul reminds us this morning we don’t always do what we are supposed to do.
We don’t even always do the thing that we know we are supposed to do.
We don’t always think of other before ourselves.
I will tell you I saw that rope swing and couldn’t wait to get on it.
I didn’t give one thought to the man and his son.
I should have.

There are lots of things we should do, but don’t.
There are lots of things we want to do, but won’t.
We confess to things done and left undone.
We confess that we are captive to sin.
We know this about ourselves.
Even people that seem like they don’t know it and come across as cocky or really sure of themselves even those people carry burdens.
Even those people know deep down that they are not good enough.
Even self righteous people know that they are sinners like the rest of us.

The only difference is, are we ready willing and able to admit our burdens?
Are we ready to give them over to Jesus?
Are we ready to take those things in our lives that hurt us, that damage us and others and give it to Jesus?

The good news is that Jesus tells us he is ready for them.
Jesus tells us he can handle our burdens.
I don’t understand Christians who cannot or will not admit their own sins.
Because our whole religious understanding of who we are is about admitting our sins and allowing God to work on us to transform them into new life.

I believe that man on the river was so burdened by his own life that he could not find his way to compassion for us who did him wrong.
I don’t believe that for Christians this is ever a stance we can take.
There always has to be ways for us to repair the damage.
There has to be grace offered to others for not being perfect.

Because our God is so gracious that he came down and lived with us.
Our God is always searching for ways to repair the damage.
“The Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
God in Jesus Christ showed us grace and mercy.
Jesus calls us to take the burdens we have the sin we carry, the regrets, and the wrongs and put them on him so that our burden can be lighter.
As St. Paul says, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

That is where we find rest from being captive to sin.
We come to Jesus with all of it from our lives and Jesus gives our souls rest.

It is true that the good we want to do we cannot will it on our own, but through Jesus Christ we can learn to live in God’s grace.
May all of you be able to place your burdens on Jesus Christ our Lord so that you may have rest.
Thanks be to God that the damage can always be repaired so that we might have peace.
Amen

A Cup of Cold Water!

2011-07-05T06:49:00.000-07:00

It is overwhelming sometimes to come face to face with death.
Through it we see just how small we are to control life.
My wife’s (Vicki) grandfather is dying.
For us and her family it has been hard to watch a once active man change and move on to the next phase of life.
He is still the same gentle loving soul even now in these final days, but he is not the same.
He is changing as he makes the final journey to be at home with his Lord.
But you want to stop it, or speed it up and make it less painful for him and everyone else.
We see that in these instances despite our pleas there is inevitability to it all.
But in that moment you feel helpless.
Yesterday we were visiting him.
As I was talking with him trying to comfort him he kept asking me for “Cold water”.
I got the nurse to bring some cold water.
Sometimes that is all we can do.

Our Gospel from Matthew today comes at the end of a long discourse about mission and discipleship.
It comes after the sending of the seventy, and Jesus talking about what it cost to be a disciple.
Jesus reminds the disciples once again that it is not easy.
That they too may not be welcomed just as Jesus in certain cases was not welcomed.
To be a prophet is to be disliked.
To live a righteous life is too take the hard road.
And it is not for everyone.
But the least we can do is give a cup of cold water to one of God’s little ones.
Jesus is arguing from most to least.
You can welcome prophets and the righteous.
But even just giving a cup of cold water will do.

There is something comforting about that.
Not that being a disciple is easy, but that what we are called to do is obtainable.
There are so many things that we want to change but in the face of them we are often left to feel inadequate.

Recently, there were tornadoes in Springfield, Ma.
Seeing the destruction on the news made one feel inadequate.
What are we to do in the face of such destructive power?
It just so happened that the weekend after the tornadoes we had our synod assembly in Springfield.
Only a couple of blocks from where the tornadoes ripped through the city we met to be the Church.
And on Saturday we set out to do what we could.
My service project was to go to a park and put on a carnival for some neighborhood kids with an organization called the Lion’s den.
The pastor who runs the program told us that we were doing a great thing by showing up and doing what we could to help.
It wouldn’t seem that putting a carnival in a park would help.
I mean we were not moving trees from people’s houses or cleaning up after the tornado.
But the kids in that park were also affected by the tornadoes they saw it and had fears about being confronted with something of such awesome power.
They needed something that was good and reminded them about the normalcy of life.
We did not save the city of Springfield we merely showed up and gave a cup of water to people in need.

A couple of months ago the Friendly Kitchen burnt down.
It was again one of those things that made you feel that you were powerless in the face of the power of fire.
One of our members John Jurnot was moved to say that he could do something.
He organized people in the community to put on a successful concert at the Barley House.
Because of his efforts the Friendly Kitchen now has $2,000 more dollars to build.
It has not rebuilt the entire house.
But John showed up and gave a cup of water.

This week we hosted Bike and Build.
We did not do this last year for whatever reason.
But Marlene Smith and Linea Stevensen came to give them rides to the Holiday Inn to shower.
Jennifer Buck cooked dinner and Cynthia Marple cooked them breakfast.
Bike and Build is young people giving up a summer of their lives to build affordable housing from New Hampshire to British Columbia.
Each participant had to raise $4,000 to go on the trip and they use the money to build affordable housing partnering with local groups.
It did not solve all the worlds housing problems, but we got to welcome some young righteous people putting the world back together.
People from our congregation spent some of their time helping others.
It may not seem like much but people showed up and gave a cup of cold water.

Sometimes we get lost in all the things we can’t do.
We get lost in the complexities of the situation or the problem.
When all that is really required is that we show up and give of our time and talent.
That is what Jesus always asks of us is that we show up.
When called we are ready to do what is necessary.
We don’t have to do everything only the things within our power.
Certainly welcoming others and giving a cup of cold water is within our powers.

What are the ways that you will be called on to serve God this week?
Who will ask you for a cup of cold water and will you be able and willing to do it.
Or will you get lost in how big the problems are, how little control we have, how complex the solutions seem to be.
I think it is easier then we make it look.
If someone is in front of you that needs help do it.
Don’t over think all the eventual possibilities simply show up and give a cup of water.

I learned this week that at the end of our days that is really all we need or want anyway.
We want someone to be there holding our hand and getting us our cold water.
Everything else is in God’s hands.
This is how we live in grace and not in the law.
This is how we live sanctified righteous lives.

St. Paul tells us this morning that because of our baptisms we are given new identities.
We no longer allow sin to exercise dominion in our mortal bodies.
That instead of living for the law we live in grace.
That grace gives us the power to put on the face of Jesus Christ.
That we don’t have to be slaves to sin, but can be slaves to righteousness.
This means working to make things right.
Righteousness does not mean perfection, but toiling in the world to make things the way God intended them to be.
One of the bikers was telling me how the trip was reminding her of all the good that is done in the world.
What I think that looks like is that each of us in our lives has opportunities to offer others cups of cold water.
Each of us has the opportunity to offer hospitality.
Each of us has the opportunity to share the grace of God with others.

It is sometimes overwhelming to remember how little control we all have.
We cannot solve so many of the world’s problems.
We cannot stop our loved ones from dying.
But we can hold the hand of someone dying, offer some bikers a place to sleep, make a meal for weary travelers, give money to a worthy cause, and give a cold cup of water.
Amen

Go!

2011-06-20T15:21:00.000-07:00

Who are we that God would pay attention to us?
The God who made the heavens, who fashioned the mountains and stars, who reigns from the heavens, cares about us.
It seems almost inconceivable.
That is what the psalmist wonders this morning.
“What are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them?”
Perhaps we have all had this moment in our lives.
When we are overcome with the mystery and wonder of God, and we question why God would care about us at all.

Perhaps what makes us special is that we are called to take part in God’s activity.
We are given a task.
In the psalm the task is to be stewards of the things that God has made.
To watch over the cattle, birds, and field.
In our Gospel this morning we are called to be even more than this.
We are called to “Go” and spread the Gospel.
We are called to teach others about the wonders of God, and to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
What makes God mindful of us is that we are called to participate in divine activity.

I was thinking a lot about Jesus words to us this morning.
I was thinking of what it means for us to Go.
I am not sure that all of us can be the apostle Paul who travels the known world to tell others about the Gospel.
We are not all called to be missionaries in South America.
For those of us who are not called to leave home and family what does it mean for us to Go?

Perhaps it simply means that where we are we should be open to the activity of God.
This week I got a couple of phone calls where people were asking for some things that were out of the ordinary.
In one case a woman who was going to Afghanistan wanted to come and plan her funeral.
In another case a family whose daughter wants to marry a man from Germany needed a place to get married in a hurry due to timing and immigration issues.
I was not physically traveling anywhere to fulfill these requests but I felt the message of this morning’s Gospel.
To Go is not just about the physically going to a place but about going to help where God is leading us.
There are plenty of opportunities we have in our lives to Go and help others.

All that is required of us is openness to what God is doing.
But maybe more than this is the realization that God does care about human beings.
That God is mindful of what we do and what others do.
And that God is still at work in our world today.
God is active in your life and God calls you to Go.

I learned early in my ministry to say the word, “yes” as often as possible.
I learned that to say yes to people opened the door to a whole new and exciting ways that God was at work.
For me to Go means to going and doing things in ministry that I never thought I would do.
For me to Go means to open up myself to the mystery that is God.

To Go means to tell others about God.
When we Go to do God’s work it is important to think about what we will say about God.
What will be the words we will use to express the God of the universe?
In early times in the Church they came up with complicated formulas to how one could and could not speak about God.
For good reason the early church worked out the doctrine of the Trinity.
I think that this doctrine still has important and significant things to teach us about God.
But I think that it is not the way we would explain God to others.
It is not the best ways to open up God to others.
Because even when doctrine is well reasoned and crafted it still cannot say enough about the mystery and wonder of God.
Consider that St. Augustine wrote fifteen books over the course of his lifetime to try and explain the Trinity.
Even at the end of all that work he did not find a satisfactory answer.
Why?
Because God really has to be found in mystery of life, not in the answers we think up in some book.
What made the Psalmist contemplate the heavens and the earth is the same dilemma we find ourselves in today.
How do we explain the mysterious ways of God?

In the satirical paper the Onion it was suggested that God was simply Bi-polar.
That this explains how God can save a man from cancer and then have him die in a tornado a couple of weeks later.
Of course, this is a joke.
But I think that it points out that once we try and explain everything the worse we get.
There are some things simply not meant to be explained, and even if everything was then what need we would have for faith.

The woman who came to see me about her funeral does not know what will happen in Afghanistan.
She asked me to make sure that her family would be comforted, to let them know that she was with God.
That is what faith is all about.
Not knowing the outcome we place our hands in the God who made us and cares about us.

The family who needed a wedding saw our congregation as the answer to their prayers.
Having been turned away from other denominations whose rules prevented them helping they found help here, because we were willing to say yes and trust in God for the rest.
This is what faith does for us is give us the perspective that God is involved in everything and God does care about us humans as little as we are.

Finally, I want this morning to mention all the Dad’s out there today.
I know that when my kids were born I was called to Go in a whole new way.
It was something that I was called to that I was not really equipped for and had no idea if I was going do well.
I have simply trusted that this is God’s work.
That being a Dad is a great privilege that I have been called to do.
That in my duties as father is included the teaching of my children about this God who really does care about them deeply.
It is my responsibility to be an example not of perfection (thank God) but of faithfulness.
Martin Luther thankfully found holiness in our mundane callings as parents.
He once said, “There is more rejoicing in heaven over the smell of a father changing a dirty diaper then all the incense in Rome.”
We are called by God to Go and teach and be Christ in our homes, workplace, and anywhere we find ourselves.
We don’t have to go to Africa to be a missionary we can be one right here.

Someone once told me a story about their congregation that back in the 1950’s fathers would drop off their wives and children at Church and then sit in the car smoking cigars and reading the papers.
When the pastor and lay leaders realized what was happening they decided that during Sunday school they would go out and invite those men to come into the church.
The practice of sitting in cars outside church stopped.
It may not seem like it was all nations but it was still a calling from God to go.
Go and invite others into the mystery of a life of faith.
Go and help others to see that the God of all things cares about them enough to not allow them to sit in their cars and ignore their own calling.

God is so mindful of us that he calls us to participate in being stewards of the word of God.
God is mindful of us and calls us to go and help others to say yes and to invite them into the mystery of faith.
So let us Go!
Amen

Confirmation Is Not Graduation From Church!

2011-06-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

Today we get to witness something really special.
We get to see these four young people confirm the vows that their parents made at their baptism.
We get to be witnesses to the Holy Spirit descending like fire on each of these fine young people.
Some of you who are here today saw them be baptized.
Some of you were the ones who stood up and said that you would make sure that they got to this moment.
You said that they would learn the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, that they would learn the Bible stories, and they would come and worship among God’s faithful people.
I know that the parents of these four young people took the promises they made very seriously.
We should congratulate them on getting their kids to this point.
Today I would like to talk about some of the things that might be said along the journey to this moment.
Here is what happens.
Somewhere between fifth grade and seventh grade church becomes boring.
Kids begin to find their own voice and begin to rebel against coming to church.
Most Sunday mornings becomes a battle between parents and their kids.
I can say this because this was how it was in my house growing up.
And parents being responsible say something like this, “You have to go to church until you are confirmed and then it is your choice.”
Let me say I don’t think this is the wrong thing to say.
The sentiment behind it is correct.
Parents made a promise to get their kids to this point.
This morning I want to say to Elena, Rene, Ben, and Ben that after today it is not your choice anymore.
This is your last chance to run for the door and to say “no”.
Because confirmation is not graduation from Church!
In fact: let me hear all of us say that together.
Confirmation is not graduation from church!

I have gotten to know these four young people over the last two years.
I want you all to know that they are extraordinary people.
God made them each unique and gifted.
As we heard St. Paul tell us this morning we are all “given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
Each one of these young people has something special to add to the body of Christ.

Take Rene for example.
Rene cares about the world deeply.
He thinks about issues of justice.
He thinks about the people who are left out.
Rene supports causes like fair trade and gay rights.
He cares about the world.
That is a passion that we need in the body of Christ.

Take Ben Wirth for example.
Ben has energy.
He likes people and is passionate about the people he meets in the wider church.
Ben this year went to the synod assembly with me and he was so happy to build relationships with other people from other congregations.
Ben is extremely active and brings energy and life to everything he is involved in.
Isn’t that something that we need in our church?

Take Elena for example.
First of all Elena knows the Bible better than I do.
When we need a Bible verse Elena is right there with it.
She is dedicated and determined.
She wins the award for the best attendance, but more then this Elena brought her love of the God into everything she did.
Don’t we need that in the Body of Christ?

Take Ben Maurer for example.
Ben came here a year ago, but he managed to fit right in with everyone.
I was grateful for Ben because he was often the person doing exactly what he was suppose to be doing.
He was the calm amidst the storm.
He is steady and dependable.
Don’t we need that in our church?

Each one of the young people today picked a Bible verse to be their confirmation Bible Verse.
I have written them down.
I would like them to hold them and one parent to come forward.
Would the parent please read their child’s verse one at a time.

What was amazing about this process was that each young person picked a verse that I thought really suited them well.
It was a real Holy Spirit moment.
And today is a real Holy Spirit day.
It is filled with a rushing wind, fire, and a sense that anything with God is possible.
I hope that you all will remember your confirmation verse and carry it with you in your life.
That you will remember this day as the day when you felt the Holy Spirit and were blown away with the wonder and awesomeness of God.
I hope you will remember this day as a beginning in your faith journey.
Today is the beginning of you taking even more seriously your commitment to God.
Because confirmation is not graduation from Church!

Imagine if after having been given the Holy Spirit by Jesus the disciples stayed in that lock room.
Jesus died on a cross, rose from the dead, and gave his followers the power to go out and live as a child of God.
How can we waste such a precious gift?
The truth is that all of us everyday affirm our baptism.
Every day we go out into the world and live as disciples of Jesus we are saying to the world were our priorities are.
Because all of you who were confirmed years ago that was not graduation from Church for you either.
It was just the start of something even greater.

I want to say one more thing this morning.
After the Holy Spirit comes over the crowd on that first Pentecost Peter gives a sermon and he uses as his texts the prophet Joel.
He talks about how the young will see visions and the old will dream dreams.
He talks about sons and daughters prophesying.
In other words all the people gathered there were going to be needed to accomplish the work of the church.
Confirmation is not graduation from Church.
It is important for all of us to remember that.
Because I think that sometimes congregations expect that young people will simply go away after confirmation.
I don’t expect that at all.
I expect that these four young people will use those gifts and passions to grow the church.
I expect that they will change the church.
I think that we as members with them in the Body of Christ have to respect them.
We have to be willing to listen to what they say even when it is not what we think.
Our young people are prophesying to us all the time and often we don’t listen and simply dismiss is as foolishness.
The church has to be a place where we all come together for something greater then ourselves and that means listening to the next generation.
These young people need our support because they will not get it out in the world.
It is not like when I was a boy.
All my friends went to church.
That is not so anymore.
These young people are going to have a hard enough time trying to maintain their faith in a world that says that faith is for the foolish and the week.
We need to be there to tell them that this is there church to explore to prophesy, to see visions of the way the world can be.
And we old people can dream dreams with them of what God will and can do.
Confirmation is not graduation for us either.
We are not done with these young people.
We are excited to have them as our brothers and sisters in Christ as we are led by the Holy Spirit to do God’s work in the world.
Let us go forth led by the Holy Spirit to call on the name of the Lord so we might be saved.

Amen

We Are Not Orphaned!

2011-05-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

This week I had some friends come over to hang out.
We were talking and having a good time.
We started to talk about the Trinity (It is normal in a pastor’s house to talk about the Trinity around the dining room table with friends) and almost at once all of them including my wife said that their favorite part of the Trinity was the Holy Spirit.
I was really surprised because Lutherans are notorious for not talking about the Holy Spirit.
And yet here were all these Lutherans saying that the Holy Spirit was their favorite.
When I asked my wife why she liked the Holy Spirit so much she said that it was because, “It is the easiest to see. We see it in action every day. We see it working in and through people.”
The more I thought about it the more I realized what a good point they were making.
The Holy Spirit is what we experience every time someone does something extraordinary in an ordinary situation.
It is what makes people believe in God even when all seems lost.
(Maybe it is what kept me believing that the Red Sox would get better this season.)
It is what helps us to do the right thing even when we would rather not.
It is what makes ordinary people express an extraordinary love.

My cousin this week on his Facebook page posted a video of an ABC show called, “What Would You Do”.

It was one of those shows were they put actors in a common place and then have them do something bad to see how people would react.
On this show they had two actresses play a lesbian couple with kids; go to Norma’s Café in Farmer’s Branch Texas.
Then they had an actress playing a waitress berate them for being gay and refuse to serve them.
One of the people in the restaurant pulls the waitress aside and says, “Do you know Jesus?”
Then he tells her not to judge just as Jesus would not judge.
When the waitress will not stop the man leaves the restaurant and then returns with a note to the two women that says:

Dear Friends,
I know it doesn’t mean much but I wanted you to know that I love you all.
You have a beautiful family and I pray that one person’s judgmental intolerance does not in any way put a damper on your hearts or minds.
In the words of MLK Jr. “In the end we remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.” -Donavan
The actresses were so touched they started to cry.

These are Moments when the Holy Spirit is at work.
The Holy Spirit is moving among and through us, keeping us close to the commandments that Jesus taught us.
The Holy Spirit helps us to act with compassion and love.
But the Holy Spirit does even more than this.
In the Gospel from John this morning Jesus is about to die, and he is trying to comfort the disciples who will have to go on without him.
So he tells them that he “will not leave them orphaned.”
That he will send the Holy Spirit to be with them.
The Holy Spirit is partially our reminder of the compassion that Jesus taught us.
The Holy Spirit is also our support in the midst of trouble.
And we need that because when trouble comes it often knocks us out of our comfort zones and makes us disoriented.

In Joplin Missouri we all saw the devastation of the tornadoes.
The town was devastated so much so that people in the town could no longer find their way around.
Without the landmarks of the doughnut shop, elks club, and thrift store people are having a hard time navigating around time.
For example Mr. Woolston who lived in Joplin his whole life.
This is what he says about finding his way around Joplin after the tornadoes, “Particularly at night, but also during the daytime, areas that you’ve gone through thousands of times — you just don’t recognize,”
“I have to stop and get my bearings to realize where I am at, simply because everything is just completely altered.”
This is how we often feel after a disaster in our lives.
We feel disorientated like the world doesn’t make sense anymore.
We feel that everything has been altered and we can’t seem to get our bearings.
Jesus knew that is how the disciples would feel during and after the crucifixion.
Jesus knew they would need support admits their struggles.
So Jesus told them that he would send the Spirit to come along side them in those struggles.
The Holy Spirit would remind them that they are not alone.
It would remind them what Jesus said and taught them.
It would give them strength in difficult times.
It would help them to keep their bearings so they could still navigate the world they lived in.

Today the Holy Spirit does the same for us.
When you are disorientated and don’t know the way anymore it is the Spirit that comes and puts you back on track.
When you are moved to stand up for someone else who is being torn down it is the Spirit that is there.
When you act out of love it is the Spirit moving you.

I see the Spirit moving all the time in this congregation.
I feel that the Spirit is supporting us in our mission to spread the love of Jesus Christ.
I feel that the Spirit is really moving and alive all the time.

For example, one of our member’s mom died two weeks ago.
I had talked to Kate at our annual Meatball dinner and she was sharing how bad her mom was doing at this point she didn’t know that her mom was dying.
The next morning before worship I was praying for Kate and something made me write her a letter that I intended to send to her that week.
It was a weird thing because I am not really a letter writer I just felt that Kate would need some words of encouragement during this difficult time.
Anyway, I put the letter on my desk intending to mail it on Monday.
After worship when Kate told me that her mom was dying and she was flying to see her that day I took out the letter from my desk and gave it to her.
I told her that the Holy Spirit must have been working because just that morning something told me that she might need some encouragement.

The Holy Spirit is working all the time.
Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit so we can remain close to him.
Jesus sends the Holy Spirit so we can be supported, and we can love one another.
Jesus knew that we would need this in our faith journey and sent it so we don’t feel orphaned.
Perhaps we should start talking about the Holy Spirit more.
We should share those moments when the Holy Spirit moves over and through us to know God is near.

People in our world today know the Holy Spirit real well.
In most studies about religion more and more people are saying that they are spiritual and not religious.
A recent study found that 18 percent of people 18-39 identified themselves as spiritual and not religious.
In 2008 just a couple of years ago only 11% said the same thing.
What they are expressing is exactly what we are talking about this morning.
That Jesus will not leave us orphaned.
Even if we are to reject the structure of the church Jesus still wants to know us to know him, and so the Holy Spirit is at work all the time in many people’s lives even outside the church.
What we offer here is to help people remember this very truth.
Look it is hard for the other six days of the week not to get disorientated,
It is hard to remember that the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives.
We come together to remember that the Holy Spirit is there to support us and come along with us in our lives.

And so as we go back into our lives for the other six days of our week let us remember that Jesus did not leave us orphaned but gave us an advocate to be with us always and that helps us to get our bearings, helps us to love one another, and supports us when things seem hard.

Amen

Growing Into Our Salvation

2011-05-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

This week was first communion for five young people in our congregation.

I have always loved the idea that we grow into our salvation.
I love the idea that salvation is something that has been given to us, but it is really too big an idea for us to grasp and understand fully.
Consider the idea that God’s Son who made the universe and the stars, who was mighty and power, gave all that up to become a mortal.
Not only that but a mortal human being who was killed in one of the most humiliating ways you can think of.
None of that makes sense, and it does take a lifetime to really come to terms with it.
We have to grow into it.
Consider our Gospel for this morning.
Jesus is going to die, he has told his disciples that he will be denied, betrayed, and killed.
They cannot understand.
Even now after all this time, after all the things that they have been through together.
After all the healing, all the forgiveness, after all the miracles, and after Lazarus was raised from the dead they still can’t get it.
I am so glad that God gives us time to grow into our salvation.
Because we need that time to understand and come to terms with what Jesus says today, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places and I go to prepare a place for you so that were I am you may be also.”
That is an amazing statement.
Jesus is preparing a place for us.
Jesus is getting everything ready for us to arrive.

I remember as a kid when people would come over to our house my mom would go crazy preparing for them to come.
She would clean every inch of the house.
In fact, while cleaning she would make me and my sisters go outside and not come back until the people got there.
It was always lots of tense moments preparing for people to come over.
But the thing was my mom wanted everything to be perfect.
She wanted the house to look good, and for the food to taste good.
She wanted people to know one another and have a good time.
She cared about the people coming over and wanted everything to be perfect.
I like to think the same about Jesus.
That he cares so much about us that he is busy preparing a place for us.
A perfect place where we feel welcomed, loved, and at home.

But even that takes a long time to get used to.
Because we think that maybe we have to do something to earn it.
But it is free is too big an idea for us.
It is given in grace, and we spend our lives growing into that truth.

Today Catherine, Angelina, Grace, Riley, and Evan grow a little more into the salvation prepared for them by Jesus.
They grow by tasting and seeing Jesus offering them so much.
Because when we come to this table we are offered a foretaste of the feast to come.
We get to see what that home is like that Jesus is preparing for us.
It is a home filled with love, compassion, joy, forgiveness, health, life, and peace.

We know this because Jesus has showed it to us.
And when we see Jesus we see God.
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father….Believe in me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
It all takes a great leap of faith to believe in such a thing.
And that leap does not happen once it happens many times and takes us a long time to grow into it.

It makes me think of when I was a kid and I was growing a lot.
My mom would take me to the store to get new clothes or shoes.
And she would always buy me clothes that were too big for me.
“You’ll grow into it.”
She would say.
That is what God says to us about our salvation.
It might be too big, but you will grow into it.
Someday it will make sense things will fall into place.

That is why I am so overjoyed that these young people are coming to the Lord ’s Table, because I know that here they will experience that growth.
They will grow into knowing the promise of God from tasting and seeing how Jesus is good.

The book we read to prepare for this day was called “A Place For You”.
In it we heard about how Jesus gave us this special meal so that we can remember that he goes and prepare a place for us.
In Jesus’ special meal we can remember that we are loved and cared for, and called to love and care for others.
These seem like such simple things, but living and believing them is so much harder.
It would seem easy to believe that Jesus loves us all, but we are often given contradictory messages.

For example, this week Family Radio’s founder Harold Camping predicted that yesterday would be the rapture.
I must say I am glad that all of you are hear for me to preach to this morning.
The rapture is the belief that some people will be pulled up from earth and taken to heaven, and the rest would be left behind to go through a horrific apocalypse where Satan would rule, and be in pain and torment.
I am sure all of you know this already, but just in case let me say it again.
This is not a Biblical view.
The Bible never once uses the word rapture.
The Bible talks about the end of the world.
But those visions are not about people being drawn into heaven.
The Biblical view of the end of the world is what Jesus tells us this morning,
“That he goes to prepare a place for us…so that where I am, there you may be also.”
Whatever the end entails it means being with Jesus and we know that is not scary at all....It has nothing to do with earthquakes, zombies, destruction, and death.
In my view the rapture was all cooked up by some Christians out there to scare us into believing.
In other words…believe in Jesus or else.
The Biblical view is much better.
Jesus offers us a promise.
It is a promise that says, “I go to prepare a place for you.”
It is a promise that says God calls us out of darkness into the light.
It is a promise that says, “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
My problem with the rapture is that it makes Christianity seem so mean and petty.
It makes it seem that belief is one time thing, and then we all of a sudden have everything figured out.
Instead of the Biblical view that belief is a process, belief is something we grow into.
It comes from growing into the promise that God has given.
It comes from our understanding that God is building us into a spiritual house.

Consider the signs that were up about the rapture.
“The end is coming. Believe in God.”
That is all it takes as if believing in God can be comprehended in one minute.
God’s grace given in Jesus Christ takes a lifetime to understand, and in some ways we could never understand it fully.
I know that I am often overwhelmed when I think of the magnificence of the promises made to me by Jesus Christ.
I know that often I am at the table receiving communion and I am just overcome by what God has prepared for me.
I am still growing into my salvation as are all of us.

Today Catherine, Angelina, Grace, Rieley, and Evan get to experience the awesomeness of God’s promise.
Today they get to grow a little more into that salvation.
They get to glimpse at what God has prepared for them.

For those of us who have been tasting and seeing God for a long time we get to have that exact same experience.
And today we can all grow into the salvation given to us by God through Jesus Christ.
Amen

True Life!

2011-05-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

This sermon is partially based on the PBS show Frontline about the nature of advertising.

It doesn’t happen very often but every now and then we will get a call in our house asking if Mr. or Mrs. Hoopkins is there.
You probably get phone calls like this from telemarketers wanting to pitch you something.
What makes me laugh about these calls is that the company is trying to get me to think they are thinking about me personally by using my name, instead of saying something more generic, but really they are totally turning me off because they don’t know my name.
This morning’s Gospel from John is about this very thing.
It is about who we belong to, who gives life, and how we know when they call us.
Jesus uses the image of a shepherd calling his sheep and a open gate.
“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…They will not follow a stranger.”
It is not a command but an invitation into the pasture, into a life full of abundance.

We are sold almost daily a lie.
It is a lie that something we buy or own will be the thing that gives our lives meaning or value.
I am not saying that buying things is evil.
We need to buy things in this world to live.
We need to buy cars, food, clothing, and foot wear.
I am also not saying this morning that we should be on guard against over consumption. (Although we should that is another sermon for another day.)
I am saying that psychologically, spiritually we are told by companies that happiness and life come from buying their products.
Ad companies no longer want you to believe that their products are the best; they want you to believe that what you are buying will give your life meaning and purpose.
You can find identity and transcendence in the things that you buy as a consumer.

In fact, the ad companies did research into why people joined cults or participated in cult like behavior.
They discovered that people who joined these things were looking for identity, purpose, community, and transcendence.
So they set out to market products based on these ideas.
No longer do we buy a shoe, we buy a lifestyle that comes with that shoe.
In one of my favorite examples there was a commercial some years ago about Chinet paper plates.
The tag line was, “What are you saying with your Chinet plates?”
I am saying it is time for a hamburger!
Nothing more nothing less.

Today we are told by Jesus that what gives us life, true life, is knowing the shepherd.
What gives true life is going into the pasture with the other sheep.
Being in the pasture is about blessing and not being in want.
It is about knowing that God is with us and having true life.
True life is being able in all circumstances to be able to thank God.
It is not about the car we drive, the clothes we wear, or what kind of paper plate we use at our cookout.

Because Jesus always knows our name never would Jesus call me up and ask for Mr. Hoopkins.
Jesus would know my name and use it to call me blessed, loved, and holy.
Today Jesus knows your name and calls you by it and invites you to have true life.

What does it look like this life in the pasture?
What does it mean to live in the pasture with other sheep?
It looks like the picture in Acts, “They broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.”
It is not about following rules or doing the right thing.
It is about having glad and generous hearts because of what God has done for us.
It is about knowing that there is the shepherd who leads us beside the still water, and revives our souls.
It is found in those little moments of grace that we sometimes get to experience.
It is found in those noisy times when the whole family gathers for a meal.
It is found in those quiet moments of prayer.
Jesus invites us into a relationship that is real and living.
It changes and moves us and we move with it.

When I was a child I didn’t understand it this way.
I thought of God as some far off distant figure who would show up in the stories I heard in the Bible.
But the older I get the more I need God in my life I have discovered that God is not far off at all he is right here with me.
I find that I enjoy the times in the pasture knowing Jesus is near and I am with the other sheep praising God.

The problem with the things we buy is that they will never really satisfy what we truly want.
They will never be able to give us true identity.
They will ultimately fail to transcend this life because they are of this life.
They will not be able to give our life true meaning, because at the end of the day a sneaker is just a sneaker, paper plates are just paper plates nothing more nothing less.

Jesus on the other hand is so much more.
Jesus is everything we will ever need to satisfy our true longing for community, identity, meaning, and transcendence.
No matter what you need in your life you can turn to Jesus and receive it today.
If you need forgiveness it is offered.
If you need someone to talk to Jesus is there for you.
If you need meaning Jesus gives it to you.
If you need community the Church of Jesus Christ (hopefully) is there for you.

The life that Jesus offers comes from knowing that we need a shepherd.
It comes from knowing that we don’t have all the answers and don’t have our act together.
The times when we admit that we need help, that we are lost, and need to be lead, comforted, and lifted up these are the times when we come to see Jesus in our lives.
The whole thing about having a car that defines us means we are trying to hide something missing in ourselves.
We are trying to identify ourselves by what we own rather than who we are.
Because we are often afraid of whom we are or what we might be.
We might not measure up to others.

Today Jesus is inviting us not to jump the fence, but rather doing the hard work of recognizing our need.
There have been many times in my life when I have needed Jesus.
There was this one time in college when I was having a particularly bad semester.
I had a whole bunch of thing go wrong in my life, and I was doing a whole bunch of bad things.
I wasn’t really sure who I was or what I was doing.
One night I took a walk to the chapel on campus.
It was a huge chapel with big gothic ceilings.
I prayed that night for God to help me because I was lost.
I prayed that I might have the strength to admit that I couldn’t do it.
I asked God to forgive me for being selfish and prideful.
When I left it started to rain.
I took that as a sign from God that it was time for a new start, that my sin was being washed away.
No sneaker or paper plate can do that!
Things got better for me after that.
I felt a strength that was not there before that night.
I wish I could tell you that was it.
But there have been other times since when I have been in need and fell to my knees and prayer.
Each time I have heard Jesus call my name and bring me back to the pasture.
Each time Jesus has opened the gate for me and led me to still waters.
Jesus brings me to the waters that calm my restless soul.

Can you hear Jesus this morning call you by name?
Can you hear Jesus invite you into the pasture?
Today Jesus offers you abundant life filled with meaning, community, transcendence.
What the psalmist sings is true; “with God surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Amen

On Our Way!

2011-05-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

We are a people on the way.
Just like our two disciples this morning who are on the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
We are on the way from sadness to joy.
When traveling on the road we sometimes hit low moments.
This was one of those low moments for the disciples.
Jesus was dead, so they thought, and their hopes were dashed.
So they walked along this road sad and disheartened.
When we are on the way we too sometimes feel sad or disheartened.

For example, last Saturday we all heard the horrible news that the Friendly Kitchen had a fire.
We heard the horrible news that one of the most beloved places in our community was destroyed.
It was a place of welcome for people who needed a meal and a friendly atmosphere without judgment.
It was a place that people down and out depended on for sustenance.
I know that it brought me immeasurable joy the Sundays I get to serve at the Friendly Kitchen, and if you asked anyone else who did it they would tell you the same thing.
Then on Saturday afternoon it was gone destroyed by a fire.
It was disheartening.
Except that out of that fire our community came together.
Within hours of the fire I was receiving calls from members of our congregation saying that we should offer our congregation as a place to temporarily house the Friendly Kitchen.
Only our church was not needed, because First Congregational had already offered.
Then the Greek Congregation said the Friendly Kitchen could be there “indefinitely”.
Then people started to give money.
I understand that in those first couple of days they raised about $7,000.
Since, then I have heard of several different ways that people in the community are planning to help.
Far from being a letdown people in the community of Concord rallied, pulled up their sleeves and went to work.
As Gail Megan said to me last week after worship, “I am just so proud of how our community came together.”
I would agree it is inspiring to see so many people offer to help.
Far from being a story about death it became a story about how our hearts came together to do something great.
Many of you may know that the word “Concord” actually means “with one heart”.
So it is appropriate that our community’s hearts come together when we experience a tragedy.

It is also what means to be a people on the way.
It means to have our hearts burning with the passion of our resurrected Lord.
This morning in our Gospel the two disciples recognize Jesus in the burning of their hearts as he explained scripture to them, as they walked and talked with him, as they broke bread together.
This morning I want to suggest the same is true for us.
As we are on our way we can know the risen Christ by paying attention to our burning hearts.
Our hearts burn and we know Christ’s presence by gathering together, by hearing and studying the word of God, and by sharing a meal with strangers and loved ones.

This helps us on our way.
Because what I hear about from people all the time is the struggle that comes with being a people on the way.
We are all on our way from or to something.
We are all getting better from something or just starting to struggle with something.
We are on the way to being cured, or on our way to ill health.
We are on the way from youth to old age.
Spiritually we are on our way to seeing and understanding, or forgetting and ignoring.
The road we travel is long and there are lots of highs and lows.
The disciples found this out, because they thought Jesus death was the end of the story.
“We had hoped he would be the one to restore Israel.”
That was it for that chapter.
Expect God was doing more in Jesus then restoring Israel.
He was moving hearts.
Jesus was making hearts burn as they went on the way.
That morning those two disciples were reminded that it is not over, and that God can do some wonderfully amazing things.

We are not only a people on our way to a place; we are a people of the way.
The earliest Christian community called themselves people of the way.
They believed that they were walking and following the way of Jesus Christ, and so are we everyday in faith walking the way.

This week we were also all relieved to hear the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death.
I think it was the right thing to do.
I am glad for our country and the world.
But as I watched the news coverage of people dancing in the streets I could not bring myself to celebrate.
The death of any human being, even if that human being does evil things and speaks evil thoughts, is still a human being to me.
Since today is mother’s day it should be pointed out that Osama Bin Laden had a mother.
He was born in the same way all of us were.
He had children and wives.
His wives and children grieve because they have lost their husband or father.
Every human life is created by God and therefore loved by God.

I think this is what it means to be a person of faith.
It is what it means to be a person who follows the way of Jesus Christ.
So even though everyone else is dancing in the streets and celebrating death we are praying for peace and life.
The way is to love even our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us.
Sometimes the way is not easy.
Sometimes it is not what we want to do.
But Jesus comes and opens to us the scripture.
Jesus shows us God’s plan for the salvation of all people.
Jesus then breaks bread with us and tells us that our sins are forgiven.
Jesus assures us that there is life after death.
How can I then go out and rejoice in death?
The way is not always popular either.
The way is not always easy.
The road is long and there are many twists and turns.

But we are on our way all the time.
We are always on the road to somewhere or something.
Life is in constant motion.
And often we would like it to slow down or take a break.
But one thing after another comes at us.
Ultimately we have no choice but to face it.
I have found the only way to face it is for Jesus to be my companion all the time.

I believe he is, but sometimes I lose track of him.
Just like the disciples did not recognize Jesus at first we too sometimes forget that Jesus is there for us.
But when our hearts burns then we realize it, then we understand.
We understand the beauty of people coming together in tragedy, the importance of all lives, the wonder of forgiveness, and the joy of our faith.
That is ultimately what sustains us as we are on our way.
We are sustained by a faith that tells us about God’s ability to bring people together, and raise His Son from the dead.
Our faith is the assurance of things not seen.
We cannot see what is ahead.
We don’t always know the way we are going.
But our faith assures us that Jesus is there walking beside us and opening up the God’s word for us to understand and draw strength from.

Do not your hearts burn this morning from knowing Jesus is alive!
This is what will give us the ability to be a people on the way, following the way.
May you know that Jesus walks with you on your way!
Amen

God Rocks Because, God Loves Everyone!?

2011-05-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

This is a sermon I gave on Saturday night at Nativity Lutheran Church in North Conway, NH, at their Rocharist worship service. It was a little strange that I mentioned Osama Bin Laden and he was killed Sunday night. This is the reason that I can not cheer his death. Although I think it was the right thing to do, I still don't think that killing someone is a reason to cheer. We are all children of God even the evil ones.

When I heard that the theme for our worship was that God is awesome. God loves us all.
First thing I thought was I wanted to change God is awesome to the more acceptable theologically correct, God Rocks.
Second, I thought that would be an easy thing to preach about.
God loves everyone.
In some ways we all take this for granted now.
I get up and tell you that God loves everyone and you all think “yeah of course”.
But the more I thought about the more I realized that what sounds good in theory is hard in the real world.
I mean when you think about the people that everybody includes.

Does God love this guy?

Almost every theological discussion about good and evil includes a discussion about Hitler.
I thought we would start here so we can get it out of the way.
Hitler not only started a war he also killed thousands of blacks, gays, intellectuals, and Jews.
Hitler did not merely kill people but he built a philosophy to make that killing seem good.
A man of such hate and evil God could not love this person could he?

How about this person?

Osama Bin Laden is responsible for the killing of many innocent people.
He believes in using terror as a political tool.
Just looking at his picture makes us mad and disgusted.
Right now our country is still trying “hunt down and kill him”.
Not only that but he happens to be of another religion.
God can’t possibly love this guy right?

How about this guy?

Jeffery Dahmer would bring people to his apartment in Milauwakee kill, rape and then eat their bodies.
In all Dahmer killed 17 people in cold blood premeditated.
After his death in prison, Dahmer's mother, Joyce Flint, responded angrily to the media, "Now is everybody happy? Now that he's bludgeoned to death, is that good enough for everyone?"
Does God love Jeffery Dahmer?

How about this person?

In discussing sexuality at my last congregation in New York some people were saying that they could understand homosexuality.
But they drew the line at transvestites.
Why do they have to throw it in our face?
This is a picture of a transvestite at a parade in New York.
Does God love this person?

How about this person?

For many liberals Pat Robertson is the devil.
He is seen as twisting the word of God to fit into a type of politics and world view that is mean spirited.
He is also rich and powerful.
He has his own television show watched by millions.
Does God love this person?

My point is that we all have our lines.
We all have people that we think about and wonder if God could really love that person.
Recently Rob Bell wrote a book called “love wins” in it he suggests that God’s love is bigger than our sin.
And he suggests that everyone goes to heaven, or that Jesus has made hell irrelevant.
This has caused a major reaction from some Christians not wanting to give everyone a free pass.
They would argue that without hell there is nothing holding us accountable.
I mean if Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, and Jeffery Dahmer are allowed in heaven what is the point.
If God loves everyone then what makes us as Christian special.

The Biblical problem is that God is always opening the door to more and more people.
The Bible is not about God’s love for only some people it is about God’s love for the world.
John’s Gospel starts with this global perspective that God loves the world.
It is then lived out in the real world by Jesus.
Jesus loved the rich and poor, the well and the sick, the prostitute and the Pharisee, the lost son and the good son, the sinner and the saints.
Tonight we hear about Jesus appearing to his disciples after his resurrection.
In the middle of a locked room Jesus appears to the ones who betrayed, denied and fled from him and offers peace.
Then he comes back a second time to show himself to one who does not believe.
Over and over the Bible tells us stories of Jesus going the extra mile for those that are lost and forgotten.
The Biblical view is that God loves everyone regardless of political ideology, sexual orientation, race, creed, and sin.
In Jesus God shows God’s loves to all and offers the love of God to all.

It should be noted that Jesus does not like everyone’s behavior, and is not afraid to point this out.
Especially the rich, religious, and privileged Jesus challenges them to think of the ways they build system that abuse others.
Jesus challenges them to think that their privilege does not make them more loved by God, which was a common theological thought, and still is today, but that they have more responsibility to help others not exclude them.

Cornell West has said that “Justice is what love looks like in public, just as intimacy is what love looks like in private.”
As Christians regardless if we like people we are too love them, because God rocks and God loves them.
This means insuring that every one of God’s people receives all the things that they need to succeed in life.
It means insisting on justice for people experiencing homelessness, addiction, mental illness.
It means having mercy and compassion for those that are less fortunate.
It means extending grace even to the most despicable of people.
It means not allowing anyone to feel less than anyone else.

The ultimate question is does God love this guy?

Do we have faith and believe that God loves us?
Do we believe that God wants the best for us?
Do we believe that Jesus died and was resurrected so that we might have peace?
It is hard to believe sometimes because we don’t always love of ourselves.
On any given day we are the outsiders.
We don’t think we are good enough, pretty enough, rich enough, well enough, young enough.
We are the people who talk in hateful words.
We are the people who kill our neighbors and desire for laws rather than love and mercy.
We are the ones calling out for revenge and blood to be spilled.
Can God really love me?

The answer tonight is that yes God does because God rocks!
Amen

The Resurrected Jesus Continues to Appear to Us Today!

2011-05-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

Last week at the end of my Easter sermon I said that the Easter story is not the end of the Gospel, but only the beginning, because we continue to experience the resurrected Jesus in our lives all the time.
This morning’s Gospel shows that Jesus continues to show up to his disciples after that initial Easter Sunday morning.
For the next six Sundays we will hear Gospel stories of Jesus appearing to various people.
This morning we have the privilege of being together for the Baptism of Cynthia Marple.
This is a real treat for our congregation because Baptisms in our tradition are usually done when we are babies.
But today we see that God is alive and at work in lives like Cynthia’s.
We see that the resurrected Jesus continues to appear to us today.
For Cynthia, it has been a long journey to this moment.
One of the things that Cynthia told me about her faith journey was that when she thought about God she would see Jesus.
That for her it was Jesus who best exemplified the things that she believed and understood about God.
So, even before this day Jesus was showing himself to her and was appearing in her life.
Jesus resurrection is still happening today.

Now even though Cynthia is not a baby there are couple of things that are still the same about Cynthia’s Baptism and that of a child.
First, is that Baptism is only the beginning in our relationship with God.
Like I said Cynthia has been experiencing Jesus in her life for a long time before today, but she will admit that she still has much to learn and to know about God.
In Bible study she will say, “I am just a newbie at this…”
It is really the same for all of us.
Our Baptism is the start of a long journey and a deep relationship that we develop over time with God.
It is in Baptism that God claims us as God’s children from that day we begin to mature in our faith and it is something we work on for a lifetime.
Even those of us who have been Christian our whole life still need to constantly work on our relationship with God.
We still need to seek God in our daily lives.
It is like any relationship that we have in this world.
If it is a relationship with our spouse, or a close friend we need to foster it and work on it.
The same is true of our relationship with God.

Second, it is God in our Baptism who chooses us.
Even though Cynthia is an adult this day is not about her choosing God.
It is about God coming into her life and inviting her into a greater relationship.
Consider our Gospel for this morning.
In the midst of fear and anxiety Jesus comes to his disciples in a locked room.
He comes and offers peace.
What is amazing about this story is that just a couple of days before these are the same disciples who betrayed, denied, and fled from him.
In other words they were ready to choose something else over Jesus.
They were ready to choose their own comfort over following Jesus to death.
But Jesus comes and offers them peace, and new life.

Not only this but Jesus comes back again because one of them wasn’t there and didn’t see Jesus for himself.
Thomas was missing from Jesus initial visit and doesn’t believe what the others were telling him.
So, Jesus comes back to show his wounds and offer more peace.
Even in doubt Jesus comes and brings us back into the fold.
Given the choice Thomas doesn’t choose Jesus.
It is only because Jesus went out of his way to show himself to Thomas that he comes to believe.
As Martin Luther once said, “I only believe that on my own I cannot believe.”
Earlier in John’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I choose you.”
Today Jesus has chosen you Cynthia to live forever with and in him.

And the same is true for all of us.
Given our own choose we might not choose Jesus.
It is really something that doesn’t make sense.
I watched this video of Rich Mullins who wrote the song Awesome God.
He said, “That if you are looking for a religion that makes sense then you shouldn’t choose Christianity.”
I would agree.
It doesn’t make sense that we are offered grace instead of judgment.
It doesn’t make sense that God would let his Son die for sinners.
It doesn’t make sense that Jesus would rise again.
That is why we really can’t choose God, because too often God just doesn’t make sense to us.
Thanks be to God that Jesus continues to bust down our locked doors and come to us so that we too might believe in grace and eternal life.

Third, whether we are adults or children, Baptism is not about salvation.
We are not saved by being Baptism.
No religious ritual, however good, can save us.
No act of ours, however holy, gains our salvation.
Salvation was given to us as a gift on the cross and we experience it all the time as we meet the resurrected Lord.
Cynthia you are not being baptized into a religion today.
You are not being baptized so you can be a Lutheran.
But you are being baptized into a relationship with a living God.
You are being baptized into new life with a risen Jesus Christ.
What this means is that you will continue to experience the risen Lord.
In the studying of his word, in the preaching of his word, in the gathered people of God, in his holy meal, you will hear Jesus again, again, and again come to you and say, “Peace be with you.”

Fourth, whether we are adults or children, baptism is a public affirmation of our believing.
We sometimes think of our life in Christ as a private matter.
But Jesus would not let the disciples remain behind those closed doors.
He gives them the Holy Spirit so that they can go out and tell others about God’s love and grace.
Cynthia you will have your own intimate relationship with Jesus.
But you are also called to live that out in the world.
You are called to proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.
In doing we are called to make our faith a public matter.
When we help others we always do it in the name of Jesus Christ.
We do it out of the love that is given to us from Jesus so that all may know God’s love and care.

Today is wonderful day because right before our eyes we see the way that the risen Christ is appearing to people today.
We see how God has been at work in Cynthia’s life leading her to this wonderful moment.
I hope that all of us can see in our lives the ways that the living God, who is constantly coming for us to bring us back into the fold, is working in our lives.
I hope that every day we wake up and are ready to serve the risen Christ.
I hope every day we hear Jesus say to us, “Peace to you…Now get out of this locked room and tell others that I love them too.”

Finally, May we all come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
What John’s Gospel tells us this morning is exactly what Cynthia is receiving today.
She is receiving faith so she may know the Son of God and have life in his name.
Today we are so overjoyed to welcome Cynthia into this life that we know through Jesus Christ.
May this day be a constant reminder that Jesus has chosen you, given you eternal life, called you to proclaim his grace and love, and invited you into the greatest most powerful relationship you will ever have.
Amen

Earthquakes!

2011-04-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

Many of us have heard the Easter story many times which sometimes makes it difficult to hear it with new ears.
What struck me this year about the Easter Story from Matthew was that Jesus rising was accompanied by an Earthquake.
Both at his crucifixion and now God creates an earthquake.
In the last couple of years we have become accustomed to earthquakes.
It seems that we move from one earthquake to another Indonesia, Haiti, and most recently Japan.
They can be destructive.
They rip through countries causing lots of damage, and destruction.
And we all have things in our lives that are damaging and destructive.
But this morning’s earthquake is there to open the grave and announce the resurrection.
Just as the earthquake on Good Friday announced Jesus’ death today’s earthquake announces Jesus life.
That is thing about earthquakes is that even though they destroy they also bring new things as the earth moves and shifts, so too God moves and shifts even in death bringing hope and life.

Consider the case of Dina.
On a normal day she awoke and drove 20 miles to her brothers wedding.
She left behind her three sons who were 2, 3, and 5 years old because they were too young to be at a wedding.
That was the day that the earth shook and disrupted her life forever.
It was the day in Indonesia of the tsunami.
Her three sons died in that earthquake.
How does one go on after such a thing happens?
How does one find life again?
Today Dina runs post traumatic groups for people that have lost loved ones.
She has become a surrogate parent to children who have lost their parents.
In the midst of the earthquake she found new life.
Dina says that she lives knowing that one she will meet her boys again.
“Life and death are too close.” She says.
That is the Easter story out of death comes life.
Out of the earthquake that destroys and disrupts hope comes.

In Matthew’s Gospel it does not tell us why the women are coming to the tomb that morning.
In the other Gospels it is to anoint Jesus body, but in Matthew’s Gospel the woman sit and watch Joseph of Arimathea put Jesus body in the tomb, and then come back on Sunday morning.
I like to believe it was because they knew something was going to happen.
They knew that this was not the end of the story.
It is the same reason we go and visit the graves of those that we love, because we know in faith that they are not gone just temporarily away from us.
Death is the ultimate earthquake it is the most disruptive part of our lives and yet because of faith even that is not the end for us.
Even in death we still have hope.
We still believe in life eternal.
That is the Easter story out of death comes life.
Out of the earthquake that destroys and disrupts hope comes.

That is what the resurrection does for us it tells us that no situation is hopeless.
Consider the story of Molly Macdonald.
She was diagnosed with Breast cancer.
She was a single mother and a lawyer.
Because she couldn’t work during her treatment she lost her job.
She had to make a $1,200 cobra insurance bill every month.
She lost her house to foreclosure.
Her and her kids were homeless and would get food at the local food pantry.
She said that she felt like a “total loser”.
Then she got better, she got a job, and began to put her life back together.
Because of the generosity of the people who kept her going during that time she was able to change.
She knows now that anyone’s life can change in a heartbeat.
She knows that earthquakes happen at any minute.
Now she gives back by volunteering at the food bank so others can get the help that was given her.
From out of the rubble of her life came something new and better.
Earthquakes can help us to re-orientate and gives us new life.
That is the Easter story out of death comes life.
Out of the earthquake that destroys and disrupts hope comes.

This week I had to go to Manchester and I was in a Starbucks in Manchester, and right after I got my drink order the power went out.
It was totally dark in Starbucks.
At first we all thought that the electricity would come back on in a few minutes.
Then a fireman at one of the tables showed us the fire on the poll down the street.
It was then we all realized that the power was not coming back on any time soon.
The workers were telling us that they were going to lock the doors so that no other customers would think they were open.
One of the other people in line yelled, “All right a party.”
In the midst of darkness and disruption a party broke out on a Wednesday afternoon at Starbucks.
That is the Easter story out of death comes life.
Out of the earthquake that destroys and disrupts hope comes.

Sara is from Sweden and in 1994 she was on a cruise when her boat sank in the Baltic Sea.
She managed to get into a raft with 16 other people.
In the morning when they were rescued on 6 people were still alive on that raft.
When she heard about the earthquake in Indonesia she volunteered to help.
She organized groups of people who met to comfort and console one another.
She said she knew, “how important it was to meet others who had lived through disaster. The aim is to go on with life”
Out of a tragedy God was making something new happen.
God was bringing and showing life even in the midst of death.
That is the Easter story out of death comes life.
Out of the earthquake that destroys and disrupts hope comes.

John Lennon on the night before he was shot gave an interview and famously said, “Where there is life there is hope”
The message of the Gospel is even more dramatic because it says where there is death there is life and hope.
Earthquakes will come and disrupt and damage, but Jesus Christ is risen so we live and have hope.
The Easter story is not the end of the Gospel it is only the beginning because all the time we experience the life coming out of death.
All the time we experience the hope we have through knowing Jesus Christ who this day has risen.
He is risen!
He is risen indeed Alleluia!
Amen

Why?

2011-04-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

Reflection for Good Friday based on the song, "Why?", by Michael Card.

It was suppose to be different.
It was not suppose to end this way.
Where are the Trumpets?
Where is the joy?
Where are your friends?
Where was the crowd cheering and praising you?
Kings were supposes to bow before you?

Now there is just you alone, derided, and dying.
No friends.
No crowds shouting your name.
Now there are nails and thorns.
Now there is a cross and darkness.

The Earth shakes at this death.
Why is this story?
My God, my God!
In the darkness as the earth shakes I wonder why?
Why am I so scared?
Why am I so worried?
Why do I deny and desert you?
Why do I give thorns and nails to the one I am supposed to love?

Because instead of love I want power.
Instead of suffering I want comfort.
Instead of your will I desire my own.
The story must end this way because we reject, deny, and betray you.
We offer thorns and Nails instead of love, peace, and hope.
Now on this cross we see clearly the way it is suppose to be.

Love given.
Forgiveness offered.
Sacrifice made.
God’s love poured out.
“This is why---for you my deserter, my betrayer, my denier, my executioner I give love, peace, and hope.”

The World Is Being Turned Upside Down!

2011-04-22T07:14:00.000-07:00

What was this thing that was happening?
What was Jesus doing?
The world was being turned upside down.
The one whom the disciples called “Lord” and “Teacher” was washing their feet, a job usually reserved for a servant.
It was inconceivable that Jesus would do this.
Something was happening, but they were not exactly sure what it was.
It is no wonder that Peter does not want Jesus to touch his feet he is confused.
The world was being turned upside down.

Tonight is the beginning of the drama that leads us to Easter.
Tonight is the start of something big.
Something earth shattering.
I wonder if we can feel it too?
Are we ready to have God move us?
Are we ready to have Jesus touch our feet?
Those of us who have heard this story many times can we hear it for the earth shaking story that it is.
Nothing after this night would be the same.
Nothing after what was going to happen in the next three days would be the same.
Those with authority would be the ones who would serve.
Death would mean life, up would be down, sin would mean forgiveness.
Even God’s Son was going to be a servant.

Tonight is not only about the institution of the last supper.
It is not only about Jesus redefining the meaning of Passover.
Tonight is about the world turning upside down as Jesus does something new.
Tonight is about a new commandment.
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should love one another.”
This is a real radical commandment of Jesus.
It is more than merely, “love your neighbor as yourself.”
In this new commandment we are to love as Jesus loves.
Jesus loves us to the end.
Through our sin, our imperfections, our deep down failures Jesus loves us.
He loves the disciples even though they betray, deny, and flee from him.
He loves his accusers and crucifiers.
He loves the world that rejects and hates him.

To love as Jesus loves is a radical proposition.
It means to love even when someone else does not return that love in kind.
I have given up all too often on people because I felt that they were not putting in the same kind of effort I was.
It means to love someone even when they do something that hurts us.
I have lost friends because they hurt me in some way and I found it hard to keep that friendship going.
What is amazing about Jesus is that he loves us through all these things.
Despite the ways we fail God Jesus still calls us his friends.
Even though we don’t always do what we are supposed to or act the way we should.
Jesus gives everything for us.

Tonight is about a new commandment to love as Jesus loves.
It might appear on the surface that this is just another commandment that we will break.
It is more than that it is the flowing of God’s grace from us.
It is what happens to us when we allow Jesus to wash our feet and touch the unclean places of our lives.
If we know that God loves us to the end through all things and in all things it becomes who we are to extend that same grace to others in our lives.

This is what Jesus is talking about with his disciples.
That they are not merely to be good people, but that they are to people of grace.
As Christians, we are who we are not because we are following some law, but because we can recognize our own need for grace.
This is what happens when Jesus turns our world upside down.
This is what happens when we allow Jesus to touch the unclean parts of our life God’s love overflows in us.

That is what Holy week can do for us help us recognize our need for grace.
It is life shattering and moving.
It turns our world upside down and helps us to see again with new eyes.
Instead of seeing our lives a series of has to and demands, Jesus helps us to see the world filled with grace.
When Jesus washes our feet we see our lives so filled with grace that our cup runs over and pours out into those around us.

That is what this meal is about.
This meal that Jesus gives to us is about Jesus touching the sinful part of our lives.
Paul retells what was given to him, not a ritual per se, but a new way of being.
One of the reasons Paul is writing to the Church in Corinth is because people were practicing the ritual of communion but not extending God’s love to each other.
Paul is upset with the church because when they would come together to eat some would eat more than others, and some people would even go home hungry and this was causing division.
Paul wants the meal to be about the love we share with one another in God, not about who has more status or who has more than someone else.
When we eat this meal we all receive the same thing.
Everyone receives the same amount of bread and wine, because it is about our love and concern for each.
We celebrate this meal together because in it we all come to know our need for God’s forgiveness.
It is a meal where we realize our need for grace.

That is what this act of the foot washing is really about.
It is about Jesus washing the dirty places of our lives with love.
I know that I am always a little embarrassed to have my feet washed because I have some really nasty disgusting feet.
Usually I can hide them in shoes and socks, but not tonight.
Tonight I hope we allow Jesus to wash your feet.
When allow Jesus to touch the parts of our lives that are not clean we can better live in God’s grace and know God’s love.
Tonight will you let Jesus into the places in your lives that you hide that you don’t want anyone else to know about because then you will be a bad Christian?
Will we let Jesus into our pain and heartache?
Will we let Jesus touch us with his love?
These are the places that Jesus comes to wash.
Jesus knows that none of us are clean that we all need washing.
The amazing thing is that he loves us anyway.
That Jesus loves us to the end.

Tonight the world is being turned upside down the one we call Lord is coming to touch our lives and wash away the dirty parts of our lives.
Are we ready for the world to move?
Are we ready for Jesus to change us and overflow our lives with love and grace?

Get ready because God is moving and changing the world, and changing our lives every day with the love and grace offered in Jesus Christ.
Amen

Who Is This?

2011-04-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

“Who is this?” the crowds ask this morning in our Gospel reading.
This seems like a good question for us to wrestle with this morning.
Since Holy Week is coming it is good for us to consider who Jesus is for us.
I would assume this morning that if I took a survey I would get a variety of answers.
Just like the crowd in Jerusalem when Jesus rides into the city on a donkey we all have different answers to this question.
How we answer it depends on how we grew up, what we were taught, what types of sermons we have heard.
More than this we also have all been influenced by popular culture and what they have told us about Jesus.
But this morning I want you all too really think about this for yourself.
Who is Jesus?

Surely since Jesus ascended into heaven people have been struggling with this question.
The early church was filled with people with different answers.
In our own day there are thousands of different denominations of Christians each having a different answer to who Jesus is?
Some Christians see Jesus as a prophet who brought a message of repentance.
Some Christians see Jesus as a teacher of the law.
Some Christians see Jesus as bringing a spiritual revolution.
Some Christians see Jesus as bringing order to our lives.
Some Christians see Jesus as bringing us a choice between God and the devil.
Still others see Jesus as starting the church and the institutions we have come to rely on for spiritual direction.

Certainly in the crowd on that first Palm Sunday there were a number of people who probably had different answers.
This morning we see that Jesus brought with him the expectation of being a great prophet and a king.
“Hosanna to the Son of David!” they shout.
“This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Jesus was expected to bring in a new rule, to save the people from the rule of Rome and synagogue.
But Jesus was different from any of those expectations.
Jesus was more than a prophet or King.
I understand the desire to have Jesus be a social revolutionary.
I too see the world and how messed up and backwards everything is.
I see that baseball players get paid 154 million dollars over 7 years to play a game, and school teachers are derided because they make $40,000 a year for teaching our children.
I see that millionaires get bonuses when they tank the stock market, and a janitor is fired for messing up.
These are the times I wish Jesus was more of a revolutionary.
Just the other day I had a young man who I help out sometimes show up at my door on Friday night looking for help.
He was homeless and he was only wearing a t-shirt on a night when the temperature was about to go down to 15 degrees.
If you knew this young man’s story you would know that it was filled with heartache and pain.
Most of what happened to him is not his fault.
I don’t know if he found a warm place to sleep that night.
It is time like those that I want so desperately for things to be different.
I want Jesus to fix it and make it all better.

But the truth is that wouldn’t be Jesus.
That would be Superman.
Superman is the one who takes away all the bad and at the end of the movie restores order and justice.
So if Jesus is not a revolutionary set out to fix all the problems of the world who is he?
Who is this Jesus of Nazareth that we all came here this morning to worship?
Who is this Jesus who we sing hymns of praises about?

I was thinking about who Jesus is for me these days.
For me Jesus is not about being Superman in my life.
I don’t believe that Jesus can magically make all the problems of the world go away.
I also don’t believe that having faith in Jesus somehow makes me superman.
That because I am a Christian or because I go to worship that it means that I have somehow reached some level of perfection.
Instead, for me Jesus is my companion, my comforter, my friend.
This has its own theological flaws, but I have learned in my faith journey that trying to be better never works out for me.
Instead, I just want everyday to be human, to live in the grace of God.
This comes from the way I was raised.
I grew up in a house that was more religious than most.
Our week revolved around church activities.
My parents every Wednesday night would go to choir and my friend Kevin from church would come over and hang out.
On other nights of the week one of my parents would be out at some church function.
And then Sunday was an all day event.
We would be there early for Sunday school and be the one of the last to leave.
After church we would often get together with church friends for a meal or we would have family time.
Here is the thing it never felt weird to me.
My parents were normal people.
They did normal things.
My dad loved to watch sports and drink beer.
On many occasions I heard him tell an inappropriate joke.
My mom kept the house, loved to watch soap operas, and movies.
My dad was a Reagan Republican, my mom a born and raised FDR democrat.
My parents like to have people over and play cards and laugh.
We were taught right from wrong but it was never put to us that this really had much to do with God.
We treated people with respect because that is what people should do.
God was about grace.
God was about giving us strength to meet the challenges ahead.
God was never presented as the one to solve problems, never the big man in the sky who was looking down and taking notes on all the bad things we were doing.
Christianity has morphed into something that at times I can’t identify.
It has become this thing that tells us that the world is a big bad scary place, and we better run from it or we will be crossed off the good list.
I am not interested in that Jesus.
I am not interested in the Jesus who makes everything better.
I am not interested in the Jesus who is anointed king.

I am interested in the Jesus who died on a cross.
I am interested in the Jesus who knew that entering Jerusalem with a big crowd was going to cause a stir.
I am interested in the Jesus who kicks over the tables of the money changers because religion was ruining people’s relationship with God.
I am interested in the Jesus who does not run from the world, but who is willing to fight in it for all that is good.
I am interested in the Jesus who gets his hands dirty and eats with sinners.
I am interested in the Jesus who people called a “gluten and a drunkard” because he spent most of his time eating and drinking with the undesirable people of the world.
You can have Superman and I will take Jesus.

This week as we hear the story again of Jesus death and resurrection let us remember that it was all done for us.
It was done for a greater purpose then merely some religious piety.
It was done so that we could be normal, fully human, and live in this world.
Jesus is not merely our prophet reminding us of the ways God will punish us.
Jesus is not merely our king who brings revolutionary utopia.
Jesus is our savior, who takes away sin and death so that we might live.

Who is this Jesus?
This morning I have shared some of who Jesus is for me.
But every one of you has your own relationship with Jesus and all of us in our faith have to wrestle with this question.
Every one of you has to come to terms with who Jesus is for you.
And the thing is that at any given time that answer might be different for you.
It is not my job to tell you who Jesus is for you.
It is not my job to tell you what is right and wrong.
Those are things that you have to discover on your faith journey.
It is my job to remind you every week that God is there with you on that journey.
It is my job to remind you that while you struggle to fight for what is good and do what is right that God’s grace is sufficient for this day.
As we enter this Holy Week and the drama of the last days of Jesus’ life let us see in the story the God of grace who came not to make everything fine, but so that we might know the depths of God’s love for us.

Amen

What I Have Learned About Bible Study.

2011-04-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

I have been reading lately other blogs debating the need to haveprofessional clergy who are trained at seminary. The argument being that seminary teaches people to hold positions of authority over others. I loved my seminary education. I found it to be extremely helpful in making me an effective (at least most of the time) leader in the church. My seminary education did not make me feel like the expert instead it helped me to ask questions and seek answers. This is what I would say about our seminary education it is limited. Seminary cannot teach people how to interact. It cannot teach social skills or social intelligence. These things are inherit in who we are. This is not about being extroverted or introverted it is about being able to connect with people. It is about taking what you learn in seminary and then making it connect with people and their lives. It is about being open to the idea that we are all learning all the time. The best pastors are able to do this, and the worst pastors simply take what they learned in seminary and try and impart it on “their flock”.
I have learned this lesson many times in ministry. I have learned that what people want is not information so much as connection. In our Bible studies at Concordia we have a very open style. Here are some things that we have learned worked in our Bible studies.

Off topic subjects are the topic: We start with the text but we often end up way off in some other place. When someone realizes this they say, “But we are off topic”. My response is always to say this is what is on our hearts so this is the topic. As the pastor I don’t try and control where the conversation goes. I let people ask the questions that are on their minds and see where the spirit leads us.

Learning comes from confusion: The enemy of learning and growing in faith is certainty. I see my job as the pastor is to ask tough questions and challenge people’s preconceived notions of God. This includes my own. Often in Bible study someone will say something about the text that I had never thought of and I will say, “I never thought of it that way”. It opens my eyes and mind to all sorts of new possibility. As the pastor I don’t have something I want to teach people. My job is to be a guide. I study the text myself before our Bible study and then I bring up points, provide historical information, and offer a wide range of interpretive possibilities. My goal is for us to struggle with our faith and life together not to impart wisdom.

Read the Bible carefully: We take one book at a time and study it one piece at a time. Often this means we will spend a long time on one book of the Bible. Currently we are studying Isaiah we have been studying it for a whole year, and we will probably not finish for another year. This allows us to read carefully and to really understand what Isaiah is trying to tell us about God and God’s people. It also means we can’t skip pieces of the text we don’t like. We have to deal with them and struggle with what it means. I think sometimes we take the wrong path when we take a modern day issue and then try and decide what the Bible has to say. Working on one book at a time and going slowly allows us to deal with all the different ways that God is talking to us.

Everyone’s faith journey is different: Respect for others is big in Bible study. You have to allow people to be where they are at in their relationship with God. One of the examples I would use is the question of who wrote the Bible. I always tell people in Bible study that if it helps your faith to believe that the Bible is literal then who I am to mess with your faith. My job is to guide people by telling them some of the latest Biblical scholarship and then let them process that information for themselves. My job is not to convince them that what scholar X thinks is the right way. This is hard for pastors who have been to seminary and think they know everything. My job is not to disprove all of the things you learned in Sunday school, but to help you grow in your faith.

I Am Real Life, Messy, Complicated Life!

2011-04-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

Recently I read a book someone in the congregation lent to me called “90 minutes in heaven.”
It is a book about a man named Don Piper who dies for 90 minutes and miraculously comes back to life.
He describes what it was like to go to heaven.
His description of heaven is of a wonderfully joyful and comforting place.
However, most of the book is about his struggle to live after this experience.
He becomes very upset with God that he is not allowed to stay in heaven.
Don becomes upset with God now that he has to struggle through recovering from the injuries he sustained.
It is some of the most excruciating pain he has ever experienced.
It got me thinking about our Gospel story this morning about Lazarus.
Is he mad at Jesus for bringing him back to life?
What was life like for Lazarus after he is raised from the dead?
After going to heaven and seeing the joy and comfort that waited him was he upset that he had to come back to life and suffer more.
After all he is going to have to eventually go through the whole thing again.
Lazarus will grow old and die.
It brings up another question is it easier to be dead then to live?

There is a joke about a rabbi, a priest, and a Lutheran pastor.
One day they were having a discussion about death.
The rabbi asked what you would want people to say at your funeral.
The priest said, “I would like everyone to remember how I preached the word of God and tried to do God’s will.”
The Rabbi said, “I would like to be remembered as a man of peace, and goodwill.”
The Lutheran Pastor said, “I would like everyone to say look he’s moving!”
Often times we think of our faith as a way to get us to do all the good things that we want people to say about us at our funeral.
But really life is more than this it is about the journey; it is about the way that we experience God now today.

Much of Christianity has been presented to us as a way to have the assurance of eternal life.
And I have heard sermons on this very text that makes it sound like the whole reason for being a Christian is to receive the reward of heaven after we die.
I think this is a very narrow and not helpful view of Christianity.
For following Jesus is not just about the reward of heaven.
It is about the comfort, strength, and life we receive from knowing Jesus now.
Following Jesus is about living a full life now.

We don’t merely follow Jesus to receive rewards that await us.
But we follow Jesus because when we do we receive those rewards today.
For example, anyone who has ever given of their time for a greater cause knows this to be true.
If you ever volunteered to help someone in need you know that a real life is found in helping in giving of ourselves for someone else.
The rewards of giving are greater than we can imagine.

This is what Jesus says to Martha.
She knows about the resurrection in the last days.
But Jesus adds that he is not only the resurrection he is also life.
Life is now!
Life is today!
Don’t merely live for some future time when you get the rewards but celebrate it today.
Life for today.

We all know that life is not always easy.
Sometimes it feels like living is harder than dying.
When we die we receive eternal joy, there is no more suffering, no more wondering what it all means.

I had a friend who was always searching for her calling in life.
She had lots of gifts but could never figure out where to apply those gifts.
She wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, maybe a preacher.
Everything was about what she would be some day.
Eventually she figured out that it wasn’t about that.
It was about what God had made her today.
What was the life that she was meant to live now?
She learned not to look over the horizon but to take every day as it came.

We can get so wrapped up in what we will be, or what we wished we would be we forget that God has given us a life today.
There are things today that God has called us all to.
We only can live out those things now.

We can get so worried about the heavenly home that God has prepared that we forget there is work to be done now.
There are people to love, joy to spread, and grace to receive.

We can get wrapped up wondering where God is for us.
We become like Martha and Mary, “Lord if only you had been here.”
We often feel this way.
That God is silent or absence from us.
Really what is going on is that we are stubborn.
We don’t like the answer God is giving.
We would rather have our own way instead of following the way of Jesus.
We want everything to go smooth.
We want life to be easy and have easy answers.

It becomes too easy to give the easy answer instead of living with the hard truth.
This for me is the constant challenge of my faith.
I want to always skip to the easy answer.
So and so is dying, “Don’t worry they will be in heaven soon.”
I am really struggling with my health, “Just have faith and everything will work out.”
I don’t know what God wants me to do, “There is a plan just hang in there.”
This stops us from having to live right now.
It stops us from asking some real hard questions about God and our lives.
It stops us from having to deal with the struggles of life.
And I believe it stops us from living in the moment of grace.
Because we can shuffle off all real emotion and real life to some future time or into a quick easy sound bite.
What I have discovered is that faith is harder than that it is more complex then easy answers.

When we go through hard times and experience the struggles of life we do learn from them.
We grow from those struggles.
Most of the time we also grow in our faith as our relationship with God changes and becomes stronger.
This is the problem with the easy answer is that it stops us from struggling with some of the more difficult parts of life that really do lead to deeper meaning and value.
Saying that we follow Jesus so we can go to heaven is too easy.
Struggling to know Jesus in all the things we go through in life gives us real life and a real relationship with Jesus.

I want to leave you with the thought today that “Everyone dies but not everyone lives.”
To know Jesus as your Lord and savior is to have life.
To know Jesus is to have real life, messy life, with all of its struggles, questions, and complications.
We can’t have this life when we skip over the harder parts of our life with slogans and easy answers.
To know Jesus is to have life in abundance.
To have the dry bones of this life have spirit blown into them.
So today let us leave this worship serves and go out and live.
Live in grace, love, and joy.
Love everyone, cry often, give of yourself for others, pray unceasingly, struggle with the hard questions, embrace today, and know that your work is a calling from God.
In short, know that Jesus is the resurrection and the Life, real life, messy complicated life!
Amen

Grace or Karma?

2011-04-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

I recently read an interview with Bono the lead singer from the Rock group U2.
He basically said that most religions, including lots of things we hear in Christianity, work on the premise of Karma.
We believe in a system where we get what we deserve.
We believe in the system that tells us that bad things happen to bad people, and good people who follow the rules and do the right thing get rewarded.
It is clear from this morning’s Gospel that the disciples also believe in Karma.
They see a man blind and assume that it is because of something he did.
“Who sinned this man or his parents?” they ask Jesus.
Jesus once again surprises with his answer.
Jesus does not worry about who is to blame only what needs to be done now.
Jesus only wants to show God’s glory.
Jesus is not worried about Karma he is about grace.
God is about grace and that is so hard for us to accept.
We like Karma better it is easier.
We come up with a system of laws, of good things and bad things.
Anyone on the good side wins.
Anyone on the bad side looses.
The problem is that life does not work that way.
Life is more about grace, because we are often given a second chance.
Often times we are given something when we really have not earned it.
For us as people of faith this is not merely life it is God showing us his love in unexpected places.
As Bono went on to say, “Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.”

Grace is hard to deal with.
It is hard to believe that God loves some of the people in the world.
That God would forgive some of the horrible things that people do.
Or that life is not as cut and dry as we would like to make it.
That the things we believe to be sin are not really sin.

We all have things that we believe to be true.
We all have theories, philosophies, and things that we believe to absolutely true about God.
We have all have a certain moral compass that guides and helps us order the world.
All of that is good.
But what happens when God shows up and upends those things that we think or even know to be true.
What happens when grace appears and it does not fit into the boxes we have constructed.

We become like the Pharisees in our Gospel story this morning.
We become blind to the wonder and amazing grace of God.
We begin to shout that we already know everything there is to know in this world.
“We have Moses!”
We have been taught by this authority or that authority.
Instead of letting God set the rules and move in the world, we come to believe that we do.
The religious people of Jesus day are so blind that they don’t even see the Son of God right there in front of them.
They don’t realize that God is moving and working in their midst.
They don’t see it because they are too busy defending what they know.
They like Karma much better then grace.
In the story the blind man sees because he sees grace.

I know that I have been surprised on many occasions by God.
That something has happened that made me rethink all of what I thought before.
Something that showed me how stubborn I was, or how uncompromising I can be.

In our current times I think that we do not allow enough for grace.
We are always predicting that whatever is happening will be the end of the world.
This week someone came to see me and said they were going to move to Sweden because there they could get the services they needed after all the budget cuts.
They went on to say that the budget about to be passed by our legislature was the end of the world.
(Just to be clear I don’t like the budget that passed the house, I don’t like Governor Lynch’s budget.
I was right there protesting the passage of the house budget.
I too think it will hurt the most vulnerable, I think it is irresponsible, and morally wrong.)
However, what do I know?
What do any of us really know?
Is it possible that this could lead to an economic recovery and the creation of lots and lots of jobs?
Maybe?
I have to leave room for grace.
I have to leave room for God to do God’s work.
Perhaps out of all of this mess, all of this tearing down God will find a way for people to grow and change.
I know this for sure it will mean more people will be coming to our church looking for help.
Last week I received 10 phone calls from people looking for help in some way shape or form.
Perhaps this is an opportunity for more outreach.
Perhaps God’s grace will move in a whole new way?

I have my boxes too.
This week I was working on letting in space for God to work in a different way.
We have been trying to start a worship service for the people experiencing homelessness.
And we have been doing it with other churches that have a different theological bent then we do.
It has been good for me to open up to another view, to see another side of God.
We can all get stuck in our ruts, become programmed into a certain way of thinking.
When this happens we become blind to what God is up to in our world.
We become blind to the ways that God is using other people to be a blessing.

I say that because my stubbornness and prejudice is not about seeing people who are poor in different light.
For me it is about seeing the rich, the religious, and the powerful in a different light.
All of us are subject to God’s grace.
That is my point that we can never rule out anything when it comes to God.
Because in ruling it out we try and confine God to our rules, or philosophies.
We simply have to live, to love, to share ourselves with others, and be on the look out to what God is up to in the world and in our lives.

For a short time in my life I worked as a waiter in a pizzeria.
It was a crazy place because it was filled with crazy people.
There was the owner’s daughter who was aspiring to be a writer.
She was educated, liberal, and always pushing buttons.
There was her boyfriend who was an aspiring camera man.
There was the guy who made the pizza who was really street wise, but never went to college.
There was the manager who was an atheist and a right wing conspiracy theorist.
He believed that the FBI was staked in the drive way next to his house because he owned a couple of guns.
No lie one day he asked me if I wanted to go to Pennsylvania with him to sell guns because they were legal in NH but illegal in Pennsylvania.
“It will only take us a day and we will make tons of money.”
There was the kid who dropped out of high school so he could travel the country with the band FISH selling sandwiches.
There was the high school kid who lived his whole life in North Conway but tried to act like he came from Brooklyn.
It was a very human place.
It was filled with grace.
At the end of the day, especially after a hard day, we would sit and drink beer together.
We would tell stories, argue about religion and politics, and laugh.
Each one of those people in some way taught me about God’s grace.
Each one of them was different and unique, and each one was loved by God.
I went back after I had been in Seminary for a while and I saw my old boss.
He told me that he had become a Christian, and he said that I had helped him see that Christ was just about being himself and accepting God’s grace.
It was a place that was not about Karma but Grace.

There is a great quote, "Love isn’t finding a perfect person. It’s seeing an imperfect person perfectly."
That is what Jesus does for all of us.
We are not perfect, but we are loved perfectly by Jesus.
That is the essence of grace.

This morning let us leave here believing in Grace instead of Karma, and being open to seeing it all around us.
Amen

The Spiritual Connection

2011-03-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

What a wonderfully beautiful story we hear this morning from John’s Gospel.
It is a story of God’s love and grace.
A story about a woman tired, dried up, and all used up by life.
Who comes to a well to do something very simple.
She comes to get water in the heat of the new day sun.
There she has a chance encounter that will forever change her life.
She encounters Jesus who offers her more than mere water but living water.
It has always been our assumption that this is a sinful woman whose life is changed because of this encounter with Jesus.
It is true that her life is changed, but not from sin.
But what struck me about the story is that Jesus never condemns her.
Jesus never mentions the word sin, never gives her a lecture about the proper sexual ethics for women.
Jesus simply sees this woman.
Jesus sees her life with all of its complexity and duality.
Jesus sees that she is dried up and used up from life.
The text never actually tells us that she has done anything wrong.
We just assume it.
Truth is that all those husbands could not be her fault.
It is the men in that society who have the ability to divorce.
The man she lives with now could be a brother of a dead husband as the law prescribes.
Jesus in looking at this woman does not see a sinner, but sees someone in need of more.
Jesus does not see a Samaritan woman, but a person.
Jesus does not see a woman, but someone used up by life, a person alone and not connected to her community.
Jesus crosses all sorts of boundaries in this story that have been set up by society, and in so doing connects with her on a deep spiritual level.

Lots of times we make every Bible story about sin and redemption.
Instead of seeing it for what it is an invitation by God for connection.
That is what we all really desire to connect with others and share our lives.
The woman gets it.
“He told me everything I have ever done.”
Jesus connects with her life and really sees her.
Her level of belief is bigger than that of the Nicodemus from last week.
Even though Nicodemus is a religious leader he cannot see the need for more.
Nicodemus gets caught up in the physical world and cannot see the world through God’s eyes.
Like all the Gospels it is the people who are left out, dried up, and used up that are most ready and willing to see God.
The woman in this morning’s Gospel is seen by Jesus and she is connected to him and very real way.
She is so overcome that she leaves her water pitcher behind, because she sees that Jesus is the real water that gives life.

Our own lives often can feel like this woman’s.
We can be dried up and tired from all the things life has brought us.
Some of those might be our fault and some might not.
Either way Jesus comes not to scold us, but to see us.
Jesus comes to love and care for us, and show us how much God really cares about us.

I believe that this changes us.
Just like the woman at the well is changed forever because Jesus sees her and offers her true life our encounters with Jesus are powerful reminders that God is about changing lives.
Our encounters with Jesus are about God connecting with us and giving us true water that does not dry up.
We all need this water, because life is always trying to dry us up.
There is always some message out there that tells us we are not good enough and we don’t measure up.

In 1950 they asked high school students if they thought they were special and only 12% said that they were.
In 1990’s they asked high school students the same question and 80% said that they were special.
Some people believe this is a bad thing.
That we have watered down what it means to be special.
I wish every kid in high school saw themselves as special, because God sees each of them as special.
Our problems come from fear of not being loved.
Brene Brown a researcher who studied what makes people do things like become addicted to drugs, over spend, and have a narrow world view, says that it is our inability to connect with others that drives us to these things.
That connection is what gives life meaning.
When we are able to connect we are willing to risk making ourselves vulnerable.
We are willing to admit that we are not perfect and neither is the world.
She said that we should not be telling our kids they are perfect, but instead loving them through their imperfection.
This is what I believe God can do for all of us.
This is what Jesus did for the woman at the well.

Jesus connects with her.
Jesus offers a connection to God.
This is what Jesus does for all of us, is connect our lives to God.
Jesus gives us a new identity where we are able to see ourselves and live with who we are.
Not tell us how perfect we are, but help us live with our imperfections.
Help us take a risk and connect with others around us.
At the end of our story what gives it the happy ending is that the woman is able to be a respected member of the community.
It took some risk for her to run back and tell people what Jesus had done for her, but that is what makes her able to connect with others.
And our lives are better when we are connected.

When we are connected to Jesus, and to one another, we are able to have this spiritual well of joy, forgiveness, hope, and love.
That is the real water that does not run out.

This week I did a funeral for a family who are not members of our congregation.
They were your average family filled with love, joy, and brokenness.
Their mother was the one who connected everyone in the family together.
I told them that their mother was not dead but lived in eternity with Jesus.
And that the love they shared with their mother also lived on for eternity.
This is real connection, and when we find it we are changed forever.

We are given a new identity that surpasses whatever labels others want to give us.
And we are brought to the new reality that is about being authentically human.
We can then live with our failures and brokenness.
We can then live without shame or fear and embrace our need to connect and be seen.

Today Jesus comes and sees us for who we are.
And then offers us real living water that flows from God’s grace.
I know that there are many times in my life when I feel like the world is against me.
There have been many times when I felt shame because of my sins.
When I feel let down because things are not working the way I want them to.
There have been times in my life when I did not feel connected to others around me.
I think about Jesus and how my life is always connected to his.
And I realize that I have many blessings, I have much joy, and there is always hope.

I know that Jesus is there for all of you too that when life is getting you down that Jesus is there to lift you up.
Jesus gives the true water that does not run out, but quenches our thirst for connection and love.
Jesus sees all of you, and knows you, let that be your connection that gives you life.

The woman at the well is given her connection to a new identity, to a new life with real living water.
She sees Jesus because he sees her and shows her God’s love.
When we feel dried up and used by life let us see Jesus in our lives and receive the water that does not run out, but that leads to eternal life filled with love and connection.
Amen

Pulled Into the Light

2011-03-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

Our Youth Group had a 30 hour famine from Friday to Saturday. 12 Youth participated and learned about hunger and the poor.

This morning we hear two stories of faith.
One of Abram being called away from his home into the future that God has promised.
The other of Nicodemus who comes to Jesus searching for answers, for something more, and for what God has in store.
Neither man knows the outcome, or is sure as to why God is moving in a certain direction in their lives.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, by the cover of darkness.
It is significant in John’s Gospel because everything is moving towards the light.
Everything is moving towards Jesus as the one who shines light into the darkness of the world.
But Nicodemus is not sure, he has questions he needs answers.
But Nicodemus comes anyway.
And his questions are not answered in the way he would have expected.
A lot of times we are like Nicodemus.
We are in the dark, wondering, searching for something.
We have questions about our faith.
We have questions about the power of that faith to change lives and about God’s power to work in our lives.

Lately we all have had many reasons to ask questions and wonder.
I was at the hospital this week and I was on the elevator.
A woman was riding with me and she sad, “Some earthquake in Japan…how about what is going on in Libya? My grandmother told me this is all in the Bible and everything is going to end!”
Not enough time on an elevator ride to get into it all, but my basic response was, “I believe it will all be all right…it is in God’s hands.”
In many ways this answer seems too easy.
However, as a person of faith it is the right answer.
Abraham didn’t know what the future held, but he placed that future into God’s hands.
Abraham believed that God cared and loved him and had some greater thing in store then he could imagine.

We too have to believe that the God who loved this world enough to send his only son for us will not let our lives go to ruin.
That God has a greater idea of what we need then we even know or imagine.
God is bigger than a tsunami, or the latest war, God is bigger than whatever situation we find ourselves in today.
I place my life in the hands of the God who has spent time building a relationship with me, God who has loved me all my life.

It is why things like the 30 hour famine are so important for our youth.
It gives them time to wrestle with some of the harder questions of life.
Why do some people have more than others?
Why would God allow people in the world to starve?
What does this mean to me and my faith?
The 30 hour famine was about making our way through the dark into the light.
From despair to hope.
From ignorance to understanding.
From resentment to mercy.

It is important to understand that the world is not always fair, and things don’t always have a happy ending, and not every problem is solved in an hour.
But it takes time and understanding.
The truth is that Nicodemus maybe still did not understand what Jesus was trying to tell him.
The power of Jesus’ statement is only understood after he gives his life for our sin and new life.
It maybe took more for Nicodemus to find his way out of the darkness into the light.
And for most of us, well I will just speak for myself, it takes time lots of time to work our way out of the darkness.
It takes a lifetime to be able to see that it is all in God’s hands, and that our job is to follow faithfully.
It takes a lifetime to understand the depths of God’s love for the world.
And that relationship is what protects us from giving up when something bad happens in our life.

Some people see an earthquake and people dying and think that it is proof that God either does not care, or that there is no God.
How could God allow such a thing to happen?
These are questions we ask in as we grope around in the dark trying to understand.
When we see the light of Jesus shining then we see things through faith.
We see things from above, and from God’s understanding.
We see that God loves this world that God wants to save us from ourselves.
Then the question becomes how can I help?
What can I do?

Seeing things from a worldly perceptive everything seems so dark, so lost.
That is exactly where God meets us in the dark, and brings us to the light.
It is where Jesus met Nicodemus.
Because Jesus wanted to help Nicodemus come to the light.
Faith in God brings us from the darkness to the light.
Perhaps St. Patrick whose day we celebrated this week said it best. "Whatever will come my way, whether good or bad, may I accept it calmly, and always give thanks to God, who has ever shown me how I should believe in God, unfailing and without end." St. Patrick

This morning all of us have come here with questions.
We are all wondering what God has in store for us, for our families, for our community, and for our world.
Here is the right place to ask the question, and grope in the dark for the light.
Because here we will see the light.
We will hear Jesus tell us that, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life.”
Here this morning Jesus will call you out of yourself to see others in the world suffering.
Jesus will call you from this earthly place to the eternal place.
Here Jesus will draw you from death to life, from despair into hope, from the darkness into the light.

This morning as we heard our young people share of their experience how can we not be moved to believe in God’s future?
12 young people gave up a Friday and Saturday to not eat, to raise money for the poor, and to be together.
Twelve young people were willing to search in the dark and to see the light.
What will be the thing that Jesus will do for you?

This week as you go about your life and grope in the dark for faith know that Jesus is there to pull you into the light.
Jesus is pulling you into the light so that you will see the love of God, your salvation, and the bright future that awaits you.
Amen

No Short Cuts

2011-03-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

This week began the budget hearing at the state house.
Ahead of these hearing the NH council of churches sent out a letter to different elected officials asking them to reconsider some of the cuts they are proposing especially the cuts to the poor, handicapped, and elderly.
Since I represent the Lutherans on the NH Council of Churches I received a copy of one of the letters we got back in response to our letter.
Stella Tremblay a representative from Rockingham district 3 wrote a lengthy and inflammatory response to our letter.
I do not have time to read the entire letter but her opening couple of sentences was this, “I am absolutely astounded how “social justice” has crept into the NH Churches. A concept that was introduced by a communist/socialist ideology.”
The letter goes on to say that the poor are simply breaking the 9th commandment by coveting what the rich have.
My first response was going to be to write a very…well clear letter about how much I disagree with her ideology, theology, and Biblical interpretation.
However, I decided that such a letter would not really help the matter in fact it might make things worse by entrenching both of us in our own positions.
A letter would have been satisfying but it would have also been inflammatory and it would have been a short cut to the hard work that lies ahead of us as we try and come up with a budget that is just and responsible.

This morning we see Jesus involved in a similar struggle against the devil.
Jesus is being tempted by the devil to take a short cut.
In order to accomplish his mission all Jesus needs to do is turn stones to bread, be serviced by angels, and bow down before Satan.
In order to entice Jesus into doing these things the devil quotes scripture, offers ideological sounds bites, and theological twists.
What can we learn from this encounter that Jesus has with the devil?

One lesson is that we cannot skip the hard parts of life.
There is no magic wand to fix what is going on around us.
I saw that this week when I went to the hearings on the budget at the capital this week.
Our elected officials are in a hard spot.
They have to either cut services or raise taxes.
I really did feel for them.
Because none of those options seems very appealing.
One thing was clear from the time I spent listening to people against the proposed budget cuts, both from the Governor and the House of Representatives, we are going to cut services for the most vulnerable.
The blind, crippled, handicapped, the addicted, home bound, homeless, and seniors.
All of these groups were represented in some way by the people giving testimony.
We heard one heart wrenching story after another.
In the face of such hard decisions I think it is too easy to merely spout political ideology.
Because it goes around the fact that these cuts will hurt real people.
It is too easy to simply say, “It is not the role of government to take monies from those that work and give to those who cannot or will not.” (as Rep. Stella Tremblay stated in her letter.)
It is too easy to say that because she is not the pastor who has a line outside the door with people who are hurting.
I hear the stories.
I see the desperation on the faces of people struggling to make a go of it.
It would be easy for me to suggest that all they need to do is find a job.
I got a job, I got a house.

Jesus in his temptation finds out this same truth.
There is no ideology/theology except that of really living.
Jesus does not accept the devil’s deals because he knows that he is called to a life of service to others and trust in God.
He is not here to rule over the world, but rather to love the world and the people that are in it.
He is not here to do magic tricks that show us how to avoid real problems, but rather to touch the people with those problems.
All of Jesus healings are about him touching something that someone else said was unclean.
He is not here as some social fixer of poverty, but to live with those that suffers from hunger, and to be one of them.
Jesus refuses the short cut; instead he takes the hard road of self sacrifice and ultimately the cross.

I have come to believe that political rhetoric and ideology are really just short cuts to the hard problems we actually face.
Easy to say this is the problem it is a lot harder to be living in the problem and with problem.
Easy to say that we need to feed the poor a lot harder to live with the poor, and help them on a daily basis.

What I have discovered is that the poor are like everyone else.
Sometimes they are liars, so is everyone else.
Sometimes they are willing to do whatever it takes to get what they need in life, so is everyone else.
Sometimes the poor are generous and loving, so is everyone else.
Sometimes they teach us about God, so does everyone else.
Sometimes they take the short cut instead of doing the hard thing, so does everyone else.

That is sometimes our problem we take the short cut.
We call names instead of trying to understand what the other person is saying.
We quote scripture instead of trying to see God through someone else’s eyes.
We throw away people instead of offering forgiveness.
We grab for power instead of reaching out in love.
But all is not lost because we have Jesus Christ in our lives.
Jesus who teaches us the real way to life is through services, through the cross, through living more fully into our humanity.

And this is what amazes me about so many people in churches I have been blessed to be a part of that so many people are willing to go out of their way to help.
People are willing to put aside their personal needs in order to meet the needs of others.
It amazes me when people are willing to listen, to comfort, and to befriend.
It amazes me when people show up time and again not because it is convenient or easy, but because they believe in love, forgiveness, and charity.

Perhaps the best example of this is the earthquake/Tsunami in Japan.
There is no easy way out of such a tragedy.
There is no political ideology that will solve it.
There is no theology that will explain it.
There is only living through it.
There is only banning together and beginning step by step to clean up and heal the wounds.
There is only gathering by the graves to cry and commend our loved ones to God.
There are no short cuts in life, only the real experience of living.
There is only living in a life with all the complexities of sin and redemption, of brokenness and grace, of life and loss, of rich and poor.

So today I can say that I do feel for Representative Stella Tremblay because she is in a very tough position.
I pray that she will have compassion on those whose lives will be forever changed by the decisions she makes as an elected leader in our state.
I pray for those who are less fortunate, the blind, lame, mentally handicapped, and homeless.
Their lives because of these cuts will be harder.
I pray this day that our country will become more compassionate.

Most of all I want to encourage all of us not to take the short cut.
Not to rely on ideology, theology, or even clever quotes from the Bible.
Instead follow Jesus.
Follow him into the wilderness, and into the conflict of human life.
On the Sundays of lent Jesus will have encounters with a Pharisee, a woman of ill-repute at a well, heal a man born blind, weep over the death of his friend, and face his own death at Golgotha.
In each case through these encounters Jesus will change lives.
Not by easy answers, but because he entered into the hard parts of people’s lives.
Jesus today is in the hard part of your lives.
Jesus is in the struggle of whatever you might be facing.
Jesus does not offer us slogans and bumper stickers instead he enters a real life, with real conflict, and real people with real problems.

So this lent let us follow Jesus as he gives up his life so that we can see the glory of God in all the complexity and relationships of our lives.
Amen

Now Is The Acceptable Time

2011-03-09T17:01:00.001-08:00

I had a friend posted the following thing on her Facebook wall.
What a long day....one of my best friends layed her mom to rest today, makes me appreciate every day with my own mom even more than I already do!!!! Not only are me and my sisters so lucky to have her...so are all her lovely grandcherubs! We love you!!!!
Ash Wednesday is about recognizing this truth that came to my friend.
Life is short, and so we better give thanks for it and use it.
Time this side of heaven is not forever.
Tonight we gather and we have ashes put on our head and we are told, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return”.
We are reminded that life is mortal, life is short.
Our time here on this earth will not be forever.
This is hard for people like me because I am a great procrastinator.
I get things done, but usually not until the last minute.
Not until I absolutely have to.
My motto seems to be, “Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow?”
I have thought that I have gotten so good at it that I should put procrastination on my resume as a skill.
Not only this, but I am reminded of all the things in life that need to be done.
And yet there is never enough time to do them all.
There are people to save, groceries to buy, kids to feed, causes to speak out for, new things to learn, music to listen to, books to read…
And yet here I am wasting time watching to see what crazy thing Charlie Sheen will say next.
When, I wonder, will I get myself together?
When will I do all the things that I should be doing?
St. Paul reminds us that “Now is the acceptable time…Now is the day of salvation.”
Lent is that reminder that now is the time for us to get ourselves together, because there is limited time.
But we are all so busy.
We are running around doing all the things that life demands.
But tonight we are not given another task.
Rather we are given a chance to set things right.
Tonight we are given the gift of being able to turn from our selfish ways and to remember God.
What we are given in lent is not so much direction but grace.
We are given the gift to reorient our lives to God.

We are given the gift to be reminded that the God of grace has called us to something more.
The God who saves us from becoming mere dust is the God who gives us more time, more life, and more love.
God has given us this time.
And with this time we have the ability to choose God.
But what Paul tells us is that it is not going to be easy.
Choices never are.
We might have to give something up.
We might have to let go of control.
And that is what the struggle is really about.
Who is in control of our lives?
Is it us in control who are really only dust?
Or is it God who makes us more than dust?

St. Paul, through faith, knew that our lives are more than dust.
This is why Paul could look at the things that had happened to him and see not what humans see but what God saw.
“We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known, as dying, and see-we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making everything rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
And lent gives us the opportunity to see us and the world through God’s eyes.

You might be sick; you might be despised, you might be rejected by some, and you might be dust.
But in God’s eyes you are much more than that.
In this community of faith you are much more than that.
In this community we are all heirs of God’s wonderful promises.
And tonight we hear the words of our mortality and we are reminded of a far greater truth that with God we are more than mere dust.
We are not really dying, but living.
We are not unknown because with God every part of our being is known.

That is really our problem we are afraid of becoming nothing, of becoming unimportant, or left out.
Most of our actions are to avoid this problem.
This is what Jesus is talking about in our Gospel reading for tonight.
It is unnecessary to try and be the most impressive prayer, faster, or alms giver God already knows what you are and what you do.
God already sees you as beautiful and wonderful so why try and prove it before others.
You don’t need all those treasures on earth because God has promised to prepare for you greater treasures in heaven.

In our trying to avoid becoming dust we cause lots of problems in our lives.
We don’t want to be nothing so we try to accumulate things to show that we are something.
We don’t want to seem unimportant so we say, “Look at me and all the Facebook friends I have, or how many texts messages I get”.
We don’t want to look like bad people so we say, “Look at me I go to church every week aren’t I better then all those other people”.
We want to be noticed so we say. “Look at me I pray, fast, and give money to the poor I am really holy”141.
We don’t want to be old so we try and make ourselves younger more attractive.
We don’t want to be alone so we choice the wrong people to be with.
We don’t want to die so we pretend that we will live forever.

With God life is so much better because we don’t have to pretend anymore.
We can tell the truth, “We are dust and to dust we shall return”.
We will die and so today we will live like there is no tomorrow.
Today will be the day.
Today will be the day I tell my mother I love her.
Today will be the day I tell my wife she is the most important thing to me.
Today will be the day I will give of my life for someone else.
Today is the acceptable day!
Today is the day I will turn and see the grace and beauty of God in and through all things.
And every day of this mortal life I will give thanks to God for my blessings, and I will share them with others.
“Today is the acceptable day….Today is the day of my salvation.”
Thanks be to God for this day, and the grace to be and do more!
Amen

Transitions

2011-03-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

This past week as most of you know I was on vacation with my family.
It was my favorite kind of vacation.
We basically drove around and visited family, and old friends.
It started with the baptism of my new nephew in Allentown, PA.
Along the way I got to visit friends from college, and seminary.
We ended our trip by visiting with our neighbor from Valley Stream, NY and as a bonus we ran into some parishioners from our last congregation.
Our trip was filled with old memories, but also with a sense of change.
One of my friends has died and we visited with his wife and heard about how she was adjusting to a new life without her husband.
Another one of my friends just took a new call and his family was adjusting to a new church and new community.
One of my friend’s wives was in the middle of getting her degree to be a teacher.
Because today was going to be transfiguration Sunday it got me thinking about all the transitions we go through in life.
How we grow and change with each step in our journey.
Today is Transfiguration Sunday and it is really a transition liturgically, theologically, and Biblically.
It is a transition from the season of Epiphany to Lent.
It is a transition from the light and glow of Jesus teaching into looking at our inner spiritual wellness.
Biblically our Gospel reading for this morning is also a transition.
In Matthew’s Gospel (as with Luke and Mark) the transfiguration is really a transition in Jesus ministry from healer and teacher to messiah and savior.
It is here that Jesus begins his Journey to Jerusalem and to the cross.
This is fitting because we will be on that same journey until Good Friday.
So today is a transition.
But there are so many transitions in our lives.

Being born, getting baptized, learning to walk, losing a tooth,
going to school, learning to read,
falling in love, breaking up, learning to drive, graduations,
falling in love again, getting married, our first job, our last job, raising children,
retiring, getting old, getting sick,
feeling mortal, and dying.
I am aware that today many of you are facing some pretty big transitions in your lives.
Many of you are facing the death of someone you love, children growing older, children being born, new jobs, illness.
More than this there is the internal spiritual transition that we face.
These are even more dramatic.
Realizing God’s amazing love and grace changes our lives in ways that we could never imagine.

How can the story of Jesus transfiguration help us in our transitions?
We should not be scared off by the big word transfiguration.
In fact, the better word that fits closer with the Greek should really be transformed.
The text this morning should read “For they saw him transformed before them.”
It is the same word that Paul uses in Romans to talk about what happens to us spiritually when we have Jesus in our lives, Paul says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”
What is really happening to Jesus is a transformation.
In this transition moment Jesus is transformed before his disciples into God’s beloved son.
We too are transformed all the time.
The transitions that we go through are not bad they are opportunities to grow to be transformed into children of God.

Transitions are holy moments when we can pause and take stock of our lives.
Look at where we are going, what we have been, and who we will be.
Think of a baby at her baptism.
It is a moment of being drowned to the old and rising as a child of God.
Think of a teenager graduating high school.
It is a leaving of what was and stepping out into a bright new future.
Whoever you were in high school does not matter, only what you will be in the next phase of life.
A college graduate has the opportunity to choose from an infinite amount of options.
A new parent learns about strength and commitment on a level that no one thought was possible.
A parent of teenagers learns to trust God in a whole new way.
Someone in a nursing home learns to let others help even when they want to do it all themselves.
Finally, death is not an end it is merely the transition into a whole new more glorious life.
We are transformed from this mortal body into immortality, from the perishable life into the imperishable.
Transitions are moments when we are transformed into something totally different.

Of course transitions are also scary.
This is why we might be able to so easily identify with the disciples in this morning’s Gospel.
They don’t fully understand what is happening.
They see Jesus change, they see Moses and Elijah.
But they don’t get it.
They are scared and confused.
And for many of us moments of transition feel this way.
The best thing we can come up with is make a monument to the past.
Try and keep everything up on the mountain.
Try and keep everything the way it was, not the way God is transforming it to be.

On my trip as I visited with people who have been important parts of my life I became really thankful for each one of them, because of them I am the person I am today.
Because of them I was transformed.
I was also aware that in each case I was glad that I moved on, I was thankful for the transition itself.
I am glad for the time I spent in college, but I am grateful that I did not stay in that spot.
I am glad for the time I spent in seminary; they are some of the best years of my life.
I have memories of seminary I will treasure forever, friendships that will always be close to my heart, but I am glad that I moved on to be a pastor and preach the Gospel.
I am ever grateful for the people of New Hope Lutheran Church in Valley Stream.
That place and those people helped to form me as a pastor.
They loved me more than I deserved.
But I am glad that we moved on.
I have grown in new ways by being your pastor.
And when our time together is through I will be thankful for our time together, but I will also rejoice in the next transition, and look forward to the next transformation of my life.

What about you?
What are the transitions in your life that you are thankful for today?
In what ways did those transitions transform your life?
What was God doing in those transitions?
Perhaps today you have come here burdened or worried about a transition in your life.
If that is true then go with Jesus up to the mountain.
And see him transformed.
Listen to the voice from heaven that tells you, “This is my son, the beloved...listen to him.”
Because the best thing we can do in times of transitions is to listen to Jesus.
Hear Jesus tell us not to be afraid.
Hear Jesus tell us about God’s ever abiding spirit and love.
And then go out and shine.
Go out into your life and be transformed by Jesus’ words.
Live deeply into all of the transitions of life, love more, and most of all be thankful that God has transformed you.
Amen

2011-02-21T09:18:00.001-08:00

All You Need Is Love!

2011-02-21T06:35:00.000-08:00

This sermon was inspired by a presentation given by Rev. Dr. Stephen Bouman at the Metro New York Synod Assembly.

Before I began the sermon I played the song, "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles.

I love the Beatles.
I was not born when the Beatles broke up.
But I was given a love of this band by one of my aunts.
For years she would argue that the Beatles were the greatest group ever and I was missing out on something by not listening to them.
At that time in my life I was into heavy metal.
I was listening to groups like Anthrax, Mega Death, Motley Crue etc..
I thought the Beatles were simply about silly love songs.
My aunt eventually prevailed and she gave me a great gift, the gift of silly love songs.
Songs like the “All You Need Is Love”.
This morning I want us to consider the power of silly love songs.
The power of the silly little songs of love we pass one from one person to the next.
A couple of years ago I bought my children the Kids Bop version of Beatles songs.
And the song, “All You Need is Love” is on that CD.
We were listening to it one day in the car and singing along.
My daughter then five years old said, “Daddy you know this song. Well it says all you need is love and that is nice, but you know you kinda need money too.”
I bet she is not alone in thinking this way.
Many of us secretly believe that love simply is not enough.
That life includes love, but it is only an idea that has nothing to do with the real world.

This morning Jesus challenges us again with his teachings about love.
Love for Jesus is more than idea.
It is an action.
It is a disciplined action that we are confronted with everyday.
Are we going to act in the old way?
“You have heard it said an eye for an eye”
Or are we going to walk in the new way.
“But I tell you love your enemies pray for those that persecute you.”
The crowd that Jesus was talking to in the Sermon on the Mount knew about persecution.
They knew what it was like to be trampled on and forgotten.
Every day they were confronted with the indignities of being a people oppressed by an occupying power.
Jesus words are not pie in the sky wishful thinking.
They are concrete actions that help us confront the evil of the world.
If you want to eradicate evil it is no use to try to do it with evil, only good will win.
Only love can defy hate.
Only non-violence can crush violence.
We have seen this play out many times in human history.
Ghandi’s revolution in India, civil rights in our own country, and more recently in the middle east we are seeing once again the power of people using non-violence resistance to defeat powerful evil.
All of these are powerful testimony to the truth of Jesus’ words we hear this morning.

This might be simply a silly little love song, but it has a power beyond that of the most powerful army of the world.
And that is the wonder of our faith.
That at the center of the universe is the beating heart of an all loving God.
We can talk about God in many ways.
There are many attributes about God.
There are many ways that God calls us to follow him.
But what is at the start of every discussion of the God we know through Jesus Christ is that God is love.

It is the bases for everything we know about God.
Why did God create the world?
Out of love.
Why did God make a covenant with Noah?
Out of love.
Why did God call Abraham?
Out of love.
Why did God rescue Israel from slavery.
Out of love.
Why did God give the law to Moses?
Out of love.
Why did God send his only Son?
Out of love.

The very first thing that we should be telling our children about God is that God is love.
The reason we have Sunday school is so our kids know the silly little love songs that God sings to them every day.
The reason why we gather here on Sunday morning is to sing silly little love songs to God, and hear God’s love song to us.
This morning we will sing songs about God’s love “Then let the servant church arise a caring church that longs to be a partner in Christ’s sacrifice.”
“Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art; visit us with thy salvation, enter every trembling heart.”
Silly little love songs that speak of the foundation of our faith in a loving God.
They are important because they tell us of the life that we want.
The life we desire is a life of love.

It is a life that knows how to turn the other cheek.
The life that is so filled with love that it is not threatened by its enemies; it is not threatened by its persecutors.
This life is only possible through Jesus Christ.
When Jesus tells us to, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
He is not telling us that the expectation is to live without moral imperfections.
He is telling us to be whole.
To know the fullness of God’s intention for us is.
And that is love.
To be full of love, and to live that love out in our everyday lives.
The old saying is true, “Love covers a multitude of sins.”
That is why it is not foolishness to believe.
It is why we pass on those silly little love songs.
Because we want to live fully into what God has planned not just for us but for all people.

St. Paul said it best, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”
When we know of God’s love we allow it to dwell in our hearts and it overflows even to our enemies.
That is how much love God has to give us, enough that it can flow even those people that we don’t like, or whose ideas make our skin crawl.
That is what it means to be whole to fulfill the role that God has given us as the Church and as individual Christians striving to be more Christ like in our daily lives.

And that is why we share those silly love songs, it is why we come here on Sunday morning and here the same stories told again and again.
It is why we sit through sermon after sermon.
We are reminded each time of that great song of God’s love for us.

A couple of weeks ago we were invited by the Smith family to go sledding in Bow after worship.
My son Charlie and I were walking up the hill together so we could sled down.
As we walked Charlie reached out and grabbed my hand and sang, “I want to hold your haaand. I want to hold your hand.”
The Beatles Kids bop had worked Charlie knew his Beatles songs.
I hope that he will always know the silly little love songs that produce in us the ability to reach out in love.
The ability to take someone’s hand and walk in harmony.
I hope he knows that the power of God’s love can not only transform his life, but the world.

It might seem silly, overly optimistic, even foolish.
But I do believe that all we need is love.
I believe in those silly love songs passed on to me from my aunt, and the other saints who have gone before me.
Most of all I believe in God’s love given to me in Jesus Christ that spills out of me into even my enemies.
As Mother Teresa once said, “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”
So may your day and your life be filled with silly little love songs.
Amen

Choose Life!

2011-02-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

Today’s Gospel reading is challenging to say the least.
Jesus makes demands on us that seem impossible.
It is not good enough to merely follow the law, what is needed is what comes from the inside of us.
“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’…but I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.”
These are pretty hard words because all of us have been angry with someone else at some point in our lives.
In fact, I would be willing to say that all of us at some point have been angry with someone in the church at some point.
Someone did not do what we thought they should or in a way we thought we should and it made us upset at them.

What are we to do with Jesus teachings this morning?
They leave no room for us to wiggle out of the demands of the law.
They leave no room for us to feel that somehow we have been able to do the right thing with God.
And maybe that is part of the point.
For if you want to justify yourself using the law you better be careful because it is likely you yourself have broken the law.
There is no boasting before God.

There is something more going on than this for us something that I discovered not in confirmation or even seminary.
It was something I discovered on a youth retreat after I had been in ministry for a couple of years.
There was another pastor giving a presentation to the kids about the Ten Commandments.
Listening to her talk on the Ten Commandments I had a revelation the law is good.
That if we lived our lives according the Ten Commandments everything would be great.
If we treated everyone with respect, if we loved God with our whole hearts then this world would be a great place.

That day what struck me about the Ten Commandments was that they were so practical.
In these ten laws we had all we needed to know about living a good life with each other.
Don’t murder, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t cheat on your spouse, don’t covet other people’s things, remember God is the most important thing.
These are good things to live our life by, and I guarantee that if we lived this way our lives would be great.
It is exactly like what God tells us today in our reading from Deuteronomy, “ See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live….Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”
To follow the law is to live a good life.
God gives us the commandments out of love, because God knows humans so well that he gave us a way to live.
Jesus knows this too and Jesus interprets these commandments to mean even more then outward behavior.
Jesus is telling us that the commandments go beyond outward behavior to the heart of who and what we are as God’s people.

Here is the key the commandments are not about a tyrannical ruler making us do things that prohibit freedom and free thought.
God is not some ruthless dictator demanding that we follow rules blindly and then punishing us for not following them.
We have seen in extraordinary fashion recently that people yearn to be free.
First in Tunisia then in Egypt we saw that people will not live under tyrannical rules forever.
That eventually people rebel and resent those in power.
In fact, what happened in Egypt has been brewing for a long time.
Yes, people might have outwardly been doing what was being asked but deep down they yearned for more.
And so the commandments and the demands of a Christian life are not about bowing down to a dictator type of god.

I think the history of the church has proven that people will not simply go along with the program.
When the Church has been about controlling people then it has lost its most powerful and central message.
That God is a God of love, forgiveness, and desires a deep relationship with us.
I am glad that the church is not about doing what the pastor tells us, it is about us together collectively journeying to know God better.

That is what Jesus teachings are about this morning.
It is about a God who wants more for us.
God does not merely want us outwardly to do the right thing, but wants us to feel it in our souls.
God does not merely want us to walk through the motions; God wants us to change in our inner selves our orientation to every part of life.

God does not merely want us to not commit adultery, but wants us to have our spouses be the only target of our affection.
God does not merely wan1t us to come to church and get through it, but wants us to be active in a community of love.
God does not merely want us to swear that we will do what we say, God wants us to do what we will say.
How much better our lives will be when God is in our hearts and minds.
How much better our lives will be when our thoughts are the thoughts of God.
That is how intimately God wants to know us.
That is how intimately God wants us to know God.
God wants to know our inner selves.
In this world we often don’t get beyond what is on the outside with people.
We get to know what they do for work, how many kids they have, what their hobbies are, and where they like to eat dinner.
But we don’t get to know there inner thoughts.
God wants to know us so well that he knows our inner thoughts.
Even more God wants our thoughts to be God’s thoughts because our inner thoughts often lead to our outer action.

For example, I know this congregation that was having a progressive dinner.
One of the parishioners on the way out of someone’s house slipped and fell.
They took this person from their own church to court and sued them for damages.
This is a true story.
You can imagine the damage this did to the fellowship of the people in that congregation.
It made it hard for some people to go to worship.
It made others take up sides.
And it put the pastor in a really awkward position.
What is going on inside of someone when they sue another member of their own congregation?
How can that be the will of God?
The inner life leads us to the outer life.

When I was working in an inner city congregation in Allentown PA, I would go with the pastor to visit to the youth of the congregation.
Most of the kids lived in the projects.
She would tell them you have two choices you can come to church and live or go out on the streets and die.
It was a life and death decision.
God led to life and the streets led to death.
This morning we are confronted with the same choice.
To know God, to love God is to truly live.
To ignore God is to die if not literally then spiritually.
To ignore God is to ignore the inner part of ourselves that yearns for something more.
More than merely filling a role, or following rules, it is about really living.

Yes, God’s law is good.
Knowing God is good, and leads to life.
So today let us choose to know God better and deeper and in doing choose life!
Amen

Salt and Light!

2011-02-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

This past week we were all reminded of the importance of salt.
Where would we be without salt to make our roads free from snow and ice?
They are finding out in Dallas this week the importance of salt.
Dallas is where the super bowl will be played today and the weather there has been snowy and icy, and they don’t have any salt for the roads.
Dangerous road conditions led to this headline, “Snow adds to weather misery in Dallas-Fort Worth”
Salt in our case is what saves us in our difficult winter conditions.
Salt is the subject of Jesus preaching this morning.
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”
If we lose our connection to Jesus we lose our saltiness.
We fail to live righteous lives and we fail to have faith in difficult times.
We fail to have our righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees.
Likewise we know the importance of light.
Without light how can we see in the dark?
How can we find our way?
We are the light of the world.
And if we are not shining with the love of Christ how will others see through the darkness.

It might seem like a tall order that Jesus has given us.
This is a lot of responsibility to be the light of the world and salt of the earth.
But where else are people going to find their way?
How else are people going to have a sure footing and safe travel through the journey of life?
The truth is that there have been other people who have come before us.
There have been other people who were salted who shined light into the dark places.
All of us have these people in our lives.
We all know of someone who we looked up to and thought I want what that person has.
I want to have a faith like that person has.
I want to serve others like that person does.
So we know that what Jesus asks of us is not impossible.
I would say that we need to be even more salted now than ever.
When religion is seen as a negative thing.
When religious morals and values are being eroded we need now more than ever to be the light of the world to be the salt of the earth.
We cannot expect that the world will be able to teach peace, love, and compassion.
We know that it does not.

For example, in a reactionary move the state legislator is considering adding more reasons to allow the death penalty in New Hampshire.
It is no doubt that the murders from home invasions are awful.
But I am not sure that killing more people will solve the problem.
Have we as a society totally given up on the idea of reconciliation.
Have we given up on forgiveness?
Only people who are salted know that these are important moral beliefs.

I was thinking of the people in my life who I have met who where lights shining for me, of the people who were well salted in their lives.
They all shared certain characteristics.
One, they all had a deep relationship with Jesus.
They studied their Bibles even into their later years knowing that God’s word was the key to knowing their Lord.
They had disciplined prayer lives, and they all felt worship was the highlight of their week.
Two they all had a certain amount of humility.
Not fake humility, but the idea that they were no better than anyone else.
Three they all were eager and able to forgive.
Four they were about creating peace in their lives.
In their families, in their churches, in their homes they were about peace.
Not peace as a political slogan but a deep and abiding peace in the depths of their souls.
Five they had a faith in the possibility of a better tomorrow.
Six they loved deeply and told you that they loved you.
Seven no matter their life circumstances they had faith in God’s ability to do something amazing and wonderful.

I am sure there are more but these were the ones that came up easily for me.
When I think of what Jesus meant by being salt and light I think of these things.
Not because they are great religious ideals (even though they are) but because they were brought to life by someone I knew and respected.
If we are able to live as Jesus teaches us to I think that some people will revile us.
But I also think that some people will look at us and think, “I want what that person has.”
I want to have faith in the midst of trouble and turmoil.
I want to love more and say it to those I love.
I want to have a deep and abiding peace.
I want to have faith in a better tomorrow.
Maybe you are one of those people like me who desires more out of life then the accumulation of wealth, or winning the big game, or being the best and brightest.
I want more than this.
I want what Dorothy Ricks has.
She is an extraordinary woman who was the chair of my internship committee while I was in seminary.
She had seen many things in her life.
She had good times and bad times.
And she had this thing about her.
She was faithful, loving, caring, and a person of great peace.
She loved Jesus and knew her savior well.
She was my teacher, and my guide for the year I was on internship.
Then there was Ms. Rene.
Another salted person who lived a life of service.
She was the first one at the church every morning and the last one to leave.
She was one of the people that started the homeless feeding ministry.
She was strong, clear, and filled with the spirit.
She was my teacher too.
I could go on and on of all the people I have known who were well salted who shined a light into my life.

To be salted and the light is to know Jesus and who he is.
That is why the sermon on the mountain is so important because Jesus is giving us a road map on how to live.
We live through Jesus.
Jesus fulfills the law, by helping us see it in life.
If you want to know what it means to follow God then look at Jesus, know Jesus and his teachings.
The problem is that we fall away very easily from our relationship to Jesus.
We get busy and other things get in our way.
We are too busy to pray, or study the Bible.
I will worship when I get other things in my day.
And then we lose our saltiness, we lose the light that makes us see through the darkness.

This is not about following the law.
It is about knowing Jesus so well that instinctively without thinking we live as the salt and light.

I want to end by saying that our children especially need this.
Our children have lost their way.
This week I heard a report that kids are less connected to social networks.
Because of this they are becoming less compassionate.
Malcolm Smith of the University of New Hampshire gave a lecture this week and said that “repeat bullies have a deficit in social learning and are missing basic values like manners, civility and kindness. He says they think they are better than others.”
We need to be salted ourselves and remain in relationship with Jesus and one another.
The church is still that place where we have to show up, and we have to deal with other people.
The Church can be the place where we show that kindness matters, and that we are no better than anyone else.
But that God loves us all the same.
That we are all equally sinful and saved by the light and salt that is provided by Jesus Christ.

I believe that we have an important part to play in our world.
That we can be the place that continue to teach about the important morals of peace, love, kindness, civility, and compassion.
Jesus told us that we are the salt of the earth; we are the light of the world.
And through us others would see God and glorify God’s name.
Jesus believed that we as the church centered in Jesus can provide safe travel through the dangers of life.
People would see our good works and think, “I want what they have.”
So go out and be the salt of the earth and the light to the world.
Amen

We are Fortunate!

2011-01-31T07:23:00.000-08:00

Today we begin the Sermon on the Mount.
For the next month until the start of lent we will hear the entire Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew takes all of Jesus teachings and makes them into one huge super sermon.
I am thankful that we don’t have to have the whole sermon today. (As I am sure you are too.)
Today we start with what is the most well known part of the Sermon on the Mount.
We start with the beatitudes.
We think we know them really well.
And yet to read them again they seem well odd.
Jesus says blessed are those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are persecuted, those who are peacekeepers, those who are meek.
This is not a list of great things to be.
The preacher Robert Schuler once gave a sermon where he argued that these where the “Be happy attitudes.”
If we saw life through the beatitudes we would have a better attitude about life and we would be happy.
But looking at them again I don’t see these things leading to happiness.
All of us in this room have been mourners at some point.
I don’t believe that is really a way to be happy.
I don’t know how being poor in spirit would make my life better.
I mean isn’t the point to try and live a more spiritual life?
Don’t I want to be like the saints who pray five times a day, and sleep on a bed of nails?
Peacekeeping seems like a good idea.
But man it is hard and really unpopular in our day.
People who advocate for peace are called unpatriotic, and are ridiculed as unrealistic.
I don’t know about you but I liked to be liked, I don’t want to be reviled and persecuted.
When people talk bad of me I get very upset, and don’t feel happy at all.
I don’t think that Jesus is prescribing a way to be happy.

The word blessed here means something else.
It means fortunate.
But even that seems a little odd.
How are we fortunate to mourn, or be poor in spirit?
We are fortunate because in those times is when God comes closes to us.
Jesus taught us that God is about coming from the bottom up.
In the lowest of the low, in the worst of the worst, God is at God’s best.
On the cross God did the most wonderful amazing thing.
At that moment of violence and death, God showed us true life and love.
The Beatitudes confirm that it is ultimately in what the world sees as foolish that God does God’s best work.

Jesus in the beatitudes is not prescribing a way to live, but describing what he sees in the crowd.
Jesus is describing our lives that are filled with times of mourning, of being poor in spirit, of being reviled, because we want peace and righteousness.
Jesus is not prescribing actions that we should take, but describing the human condition, and God’s actions in the face of those realities.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
It is true that when we lose someone we love we feel sad.
We feel that lose deep to our core and cry out in the pain of death.
And yet as people of faith we know that into that pain steps our God.
In our mourning we see God offering us the comfort of eternal life.
Does not stop us from feeling sad, but offers us hope in the midst of the pain.
I know that when my dad died it was the worst feeling in my life.
The pain of that loss still stings today.
Except when I think of my Dad I think of him with Jesus in his heavenly home.
We are blessed in our mourning because through death we see the gateway to eternal life.

Blessed are they who are poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
I know that I do not possess enough faith.
I do not possess enough spirit in my daily dealings with my life and the people around me.
I was listening to a woman talk about her life this week, how it had become unbearable.
She had lost her spirit.
Yet Jesus tells us that this is exactly where God comes to offer the kingdom of heaven.
The kingdom is not for ultra religious people who walk around as if nothing can bother them ever.
It is for you who have lost your way, and don’t know where God is anymore.
For you God comes and lifts out of your spiritless existence to a new place.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Last week our car broke.
It is only a three year old car.
It has been a struggle against Chrysler to try and get the situation resolved.
In the process I have felt rather week against this major corporation.
We all feel this way to some extent in our lives that there are forces out there bigger then we are controlling our destiny.
St. Paul called these power and principalities.
But Jesus says that it is the meek the lowly that will inherit the earth.
Not the rich, not the powerful, not the people pushing all the buttons but the lowly and least.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
After my sermon on righteousness someone told me that the word righteousness meant literally, “things as they were meant to be.”
How we ache for things to be as they were meant to be.
How we ache to live in world free from violence, and oppression.
Yesterday, I was out with Rise Again preaching before we handed out items to the homeless.
How I long for the day when all God’s children have the basic necessities of life.
Jesus tells us that there will be a day when everything will be as it should be.
We can catch a glimpse of that day sometimes now when we act in a way that puts life as it should be.
When we act for those that are the least in this world, but the most in God’s kingdom we strive for righteousness.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
One of the great things about being Christians is that we don’t have to pretend that we are perfect.
And we can then offer forgiveness to the other not perfect people of the world.
Surely forgiveness is the center of the Christian life.
And Jesus tells us that we receive mercy from God.

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven.
Jesus never said that following him was easy.
To be a Christian is to be a little odd.
As one person said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you odd.”
To follow Christ means to love in a world filled with hate, to have compassion when others are screaming for revenge, to strive for peace in a world in love with violence, to offer forgiveness even to one’s enemies, to help the stranger and the poor.
These are things at odds with those around us, and it will make you stand out and look odd.
Yes, people will attack you as some idealist fool.
What we will find is that when Jesus is our companion that nothing in life can get us down, and we will be able to rejoice even in the face of being reviled.

That is what all the beatitudes are really about is finding God in the midst of all the struggles of life.
Not about being happy, because happiness is always a fleeting thing.
We can be happy one day and down the next based on what luck comes our way.
But with Jesus we find that life is not about luck.
It is about being fortunate enough to know God.
And then in the middle of the struggle we can see a greater purpose, we can see a better day, and the light of Christ shining in the darkest spots of our lives.
When we have Christ the situation of life does not matter, what does matter is knowing God.

So may all of you be fortunate enough to know God…so that you may rejoice and be glad in whatever situation you find yourself.
Amen

This Wonderful, Frightful, and Life Changing Story

2011-01-24T06:37:00.000-08:00

It seems appropriate on the day of our annual meeting that our Gospel reading for this morning is about the call of the disciples, because annual meetings are about a call.
A call we hear from God to do the work of the Gospel in this time and this place.
In Matthew’s Gospel the call for all Christians and all time is presented at the end, “Go therefore into all nations baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
But in today’s Gospel we have the start of that call, the beginning of the extraordinary story of Jesus life.
This morning we hear Jesus offer a call to some fishermen on the shores of a Lake.
Fishermen who are going about their business one minute, and the next being called into participation in a wonderful, frightful, and inspiring story.
We too are called into that same story.
Today at our annual meeting we do more then pass budgets and hear reports on meetings held this past year.
We discern together what it is God is calling us to.
Where is Jesus telling us to lay down our nets and follow him?
Where is our story connecting with the story of Jesus?

Think about the disciples who leave their nets in order to follow Jesus.
They leave a steady job to follow some long haired hippy idealist talking about the kingdom of God.
I can only imagine the conversation they had with their families when they tried to explain their next big career move.
The message of the call is clear.
God, not just in this case but all the cases of calls in the Bible, says it is too safe to simply continue to go about our business as usual.
Jesus is calling us away from that into something more, into a story more than we can imagine, into places yet unknown.
Churches are famous for playing it safe.
Churches are famous for doing the same thing over and over.
The line, “That is the way we have always done it.” I am pretty sure was uttered by one of the disciples inside the upper room where they were hiding after Jesus crucifixion.
You can hear the discussion right now.
Peter saying, “Why are we in this room? We should get out and do something.”
John saying, “But this is what we have always done.”
So every year I think it is important to ponder the question where is Jesus calling us this year.

Consider that Jesus own life in the Gospel of Matthew was not one of ease.
Jesus was always moving about never having a home.
In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus is an internet preacher moving about always into new uncharted territory.
This morning for example we are told that Jesus moves into Gentile country.
Away from his home and what he had known into uncharted territory in order to follow the call.
Jesus then calls us away from what is familiar and easy into what is unknown in order to follow God.
What will that be for our congregation this year?

Last year we embarked on the Heart for the Homeless campaign.
For our congregation it was stepping out into an unknown world into new territory.
And this last year we listened for the ways that God was calling us to help those in need.
Because we were open to that call we have done some extraordinary work together.
We have helped many people.
We started a community circle to help a refuge family here in Concord.
For many of us this was new territory.
We did not speak the same language, there are many cultural differences, we were not sure what we were getting into, and we were not sure we can do it.
But that group of people has really done an outstanding job.
They heard God’s call and stepped out in faith.
This year we heard about the need in Concord for help for families and children who were homeless.
We started to organize a Family Promise organization here in Concord.
It has been difficult there have been set backs.
We are not always sure it will work.
But in faith we feel God calling us in this effort.
We have heard the call and are following into unknown territory.

This is true not only in our life together.
But also as Christians who live outside of these walls.
What are the ways that you have been called by God?
Where are the places in your life that God has called you to spread the Gospel?

Has God called you to a new vocation?
Has God called you to witness to someone in your life that needed God?
Has God called you to love someone everyone else dislikes?
Has God called you to forgive a wrong done to you?
Has God called you to leave something you regret behind?

Perhaps today is a good day to hear the call of Jesus.
Come and follow me and I will make you fish for people.
Come and follow me join my story to your story.
Come and follow me make your life about my life.
Come and follow me to what is unknown, scary, and yet life changing and wonderful.
Do we dare?

As Paul says to follow Christ is to take the story of the death and resurrection and make it our story.
“For the message of the Cross is foolish to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
To follow Christ is to make the Cross about our story.
To be saved to find and discover the power of God in following the one who has no home except where people need God.

This is where our church belongs following Jesus.
Because otherwise we find ourselves following something or someone else.
This is what is happening in the church at Corinth instead of following Jesus people have begun to take up factions and follow certain leaders in the congregation.
This of course has caused different groups to fight.
It reminds me of the story about a young rabbi who found a serious problem in his new congregation.
During the Friday service, half the congregation stood for the prayers and half remained seated, and each side shouted at the other, insisting that theirs was the true tradition.
Nothing the rabbi said or did moved toward solving the impasse.
Finally, in desperation, the young rabbi sought out the synagogue's 99-year-old founder.
He met the old rabbi in the nursing home and poured out his troubles.
"So tell me," he pleaded, "was it the tradition for the congregation to stand during the prayers?"
"No," answered the old rabbi."
“Ah," responded the younger man, "then it was the tradition to sit during the prayers?"
"No," answered the old rabbi.
"Well," the young rabbi responded, "what we have is complete chaos! Half the people stand and shout, and the other half sit and scream."
"Ah," said the old man, "that was the tradition."

Our tradition is not about who sits or stands, what songs are sung, what food is served, or what battles have been won and lost.
Our tradition is simply Christ crucified.
Jesus died so that we may live.
And today Jesus is calling us to hear that call from the shore.
Away from what is familiar and safe, and into a greater story.
We are called.
What will it be this year for Concordia Lutheran Church?
What will be the wonderful, frightful, and inspiring ways that God calls us this year?
Let us go forth and be ready to hear the call and follow Jesus on this wonderful, frightful, and life changing story.
Amen