A Place to Belong!

We all want to belong.
In fact all of our growing up years are spent trying to belong.
Trying to like the right music, dress in fashionable clothes, and be cool.
Our whole human instinct makes us want to belong.
Biologically we are made social creatures who want to be accepted by others.
Perhaps that is why religion has been such a powerful force.
Ever since humans could talk and write there has been a belief in God, and a need to codify it.
What draws people together is a need to belong.

And yet…We spend so much of our life feeling like outsiders, like we don’t belong.
Tonight we come together to remember a powerful night.
It is a night that we reproduce every time we gather as a worshipping community it is a night, when Jesus drew all things to himself, when he gave a gift of belonging.
Tonight we heard from St. Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth.
St. Paul is writing to a church that is in conflict.
The church in Corinth was divided and some were made to feel that they didn’t belong because they didn’t have the status of others.
Some could talk in tongues and others couldn’t.
Some had more money and used it to exclude the poorer members of the community.
Some were spreading division by teaching different doctrines.
Paul is trying to pull them all together.
So he tells them about a meal that happened with Jesus and his disciples on the night he was betrayed.
He is handing off the gift that he received.
It is the gift of the meal that bonds us together, and that makes us belong.

It is regrettable that over the centuries the very thing that is supposed to bring us together has been the thing that has become the symbol of our separation.
As Christians one of the things that we should be united over is that in this meal that Jesus gave us we can come together.
Perhaps the meal has even greater meaning for us.
Perhaps it could be the place where we all come together.

The Passover meal was originally the meal of remembering God’s release of the Israelites from captivity.
Jesus uses that meal as a way to expand the plan of God’s salvation.
God’s plan of salvation is not only for Israelites, it is for anyone who remembers that history, and the history of God’s salvation.
Jesus expands the meal so that even more people belong at the table.
It is too bad that we have made God so small as to believe that this meal is only for those who believe what we believe.
It is only for those that hold the same doctrinal positions that I have.
This meal is for all.
It is a meal given in grace.
Consider that Jesus celebrates this meal with Judas his betrayer, and Peter his denier, and the rest of his disciples that will abandon him.
Jesus knows that the “shepherd will be struck and the sheep will scatter”.
But he is there anyway, offering himself up.
Jesus knows that those of us who come here are broken too.
We are not without sin.
I will never understand why people who have sinned feel that they can’t come to celebrate communion.
This is exactly where you belong because it reminds you of forgiveness and grace given in Jesus Christ.
It is where we belong.
We belong because God has invited us.

In high school I went to a party.
I didn’t really know the people throwing the party, and I hadn’t really been invited.
It was one of those things were a friend of mine had heard that it was happening.
“Come on man, come with me to this party it will be great.”
So and so told me that it was going to happen.
I got there and some other people had pulled up before us.
They too had gotten hold of the news of this party.
Someone came out of the house and started yelling at the people in the car that just pulled up.
“Casey, you are not invited get out of here.”
“Go home”
Perhaps we shouldn’t go in either.
But my friend insisted that all was well.
We went in but you know I never felt welcomed.
I wasn’t really invited.
I didn’t really belong there.

This is much different picture from what we get tonight.
Tonight everyone belongs.
No one is asked to go home, or made to feel unwelcomed.
Tonight we are invited to come.
You are welcomed here at the table that Jesus has prepared for you.

Tonight everything is ready the food and drink, the host has even made sure your feet are cleaned from your long journey.
Tonight we all belong.

Perhaps someone here tonight does not feel that they believe totally everything.
Tonight perhaps some of you have questions or doubts.
Are you welcomed too?
Of course, Jesus did not ask everyone to make a profession of faith before offering his life for them.
He gave it freely as a gift.

The other things in our life, that we belong to, have to do with status and/or our abilities.
If you belong to a sport team it is because you have a special ability.
If you belong to the YMCA it is because you paid for it.
If you belong to club of some sort it is because you have some common interest with the people there.
If you belong to singing group it is because of you talent.
If you belong at work it is because you have a skill and you are judged based on how well you perform your tasks.
Tonight Jesus invites us, through this meal, to belong.
Nothing is needed from you only your presence.

Jesus invites us all rich and poor, those with spiritual gifts and those who are poor in spirit, those who are sure and those who doubt those who think they are sinless and those riddle with guilt, those who have found and those still searching.
Here is the place for you.
Jesus has set everything up perfect.
It is bread and wine with words of remembering what God has done for us.
When we share this meal we remember that God free the Israelites from slavery.
We remember that Jesus frees us from sin and death.
We remember that God forgives us and loves us.
We remember that Jesus is the one who comes to serve.
We remember that we belong.

For me the table is a sign of God’s kingdom.
It is the place where we belong.
It is the place that we call home.
The place we feel equal.
And the place that we most feel loved.
This is the place we belong.

So tonight it is not I but Jesus who invites and welcomes you.
Jesus sets tonight a feast before us of mercy and grace, a feast of bread and wine, water, and word.
Tonight we are our dirt is washed and we are welcomed into a place of love.
With Jesus we know that we always belong.
Amen

Save Us!

During lent I love to attend the Lenten lunches put on by the Greater Concord Interfaith Council.
For those who have never been they are basically a chance for lay people to get up and talk about their faith and how it affects their daily working lives.
For the last three Lents I have had the privilege of hearing some ordinary tales of people doing extraordinary things here in New Hampshire.
A man who makes his own furniture, a stay at home mom, a poet, a musical therapist, a doctor who goes to Jamaica to give free medical care.
This year we got to hear about a young man from our congregation that engages people who love music in doing community service.
These are stories that we don’t hear enough.
Every day we are bombarded with stories about all the bad things people do, but we don’t hear enough about all the good that is happening in the world today.
My theory is that we are too cynical about the world, and so ordinary person doing extraordinary things does not sell.

Today we begin the holy week by hearing the story of Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
This week we will experience the events that lead to Jesus death.
I wonder about the crowd that shouts Hosanna today.
Hosanna means “save us”.
The great thing about Jesus is that he does what the crowd asks.
The problem is that he doesn’t do it in the way they want.
They expect Jesus to take over, to rise up the people and take over Rome.
They want Jesus to show power over the powers that have held them back.
This just might be our problem too.
We want to be saved but not in the way that Jesus offers.
We want it to be really magnificent and impressive.
We want to see it in the papers and on television.
We want a display of power and might.
But here comes Jesus on his donkey, not saying anything.
Jesus is not yelling or tooting his own horn.

We wonder where is God?
Why doesn’t God do more to stop evil?
But God is at work all the time.
We just don’t like the way God is working.
We don’t care about all those tales of people doing ordinary things.

A couple years ago a grandmother came up to me on a Sunday morning.
She wanted to tell me about her granddaughter.
She was so proud of her; she was going to be going to Guatemala to help poor people.
Wasn’t she great, isn’t she such a great Christian.
Well, yeah she is, but there are lots of great Christians in the world who don’t go to Guatemala.
There are great Christians who serve God every day.
I guess that I am disappointed that more of what is truly about discipleship is not given enough attention.
Discipleship is about following where Christ leads us.
If Jesus leads you to serve others in Guatemala than great but it doesn’t have to be there.
It can be right here in boring old Concord New Hampshire.

I see it all the time when I do funerals.
All of the funerals I have done are for ordinary people.
Their passing is hardly noticed by the rest of the world.
But what I notice is that each of them served God by caring for their families, giving to their church, helping those in need, and spreading God’s love.

Jesus entry into Jerusalem is a social commentary on the political powers of his day.
Instead of coming on a powerful white horse, he comes on a humble donkey.
Instead of being triumphant and to show off his power, he comes to give his life.
Roman empires would ride majestic white horses as a sign of their military might.
The Donkey is the symbol of one who comes in peace.
I think in our discipleship we should be counter cultural.
We should not work to be famous or powerful, but we should be willing to come in peace and win over others with love and self sacrifice.

The crowd that morning was expecting something.
They wanted this preacher/teacher from Galilee to save them, to give answers, and to help their life.
I suppose we all want answers.
One of the things about our culture today is that we have become very cynical about good that people do.
For example, there is an organization called invisible children.
It started when three college friends went to Uganda to do a film about the country.
They met there a child who told them about a man named Joseph Kony who was abducting children and forcing them into his rebel army.
They made it their life mission to stop this atrocity, by bringing it to the attention of our government.
This year they put out a video that made millions of people aware of what was happening.
Almost instantly they received negative press.
People criticized them because they weren’t really doing much.
Kony is already a wanted man for war crimes.
But this group helped millions of young people care about something going on in the world that had nothing to do with them.
Is it perfect, no, but nothing really is.
All of our attempts to do good are filled imperfections.
We are human and we can never truly fix all the world’s problems.
What we can do is act with passion to help those we encounter around us.

This is another problem of our world today.
We are always shocked when our heroes fail us.
When sports figures behave badly, actors who go through multiple marriages, or politicians who lie and cheat, we always seem surprised.
But why are we surprised?
I suspect it is because we are hoping that they will save us.

Perhaps this is what happens with Jesus during the next five days.
People become disillusioned by him.
He is not what people expected or wanted.
He seems too human.
How can he let himself get killed?
That is not what powerful people do.
They take power and solve problems.
This is no way for a king to act; it is certainly not a way for God to act.

In the Gospel’s one gets the feeling that some of Jesus’ own disciples feel this way.
The one they thought was the messiah; the one to redeem Israel, the one to sit on the throne of David is dead.

In our own faith lives we too can become disillusioned about Jesus.
We find our lives are much too complex and we feel that Jesus does not save us from everything.
But that is only because we missed the signs of his triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
We did not see that he was sitting on a donkey, we didn’t see that he was silent admits the praise; we did not see that salvation can come from giving away self.
We took the cheers to mean that this was going to be it.
Perhaps we rushed to Easter morning too quickly and we forget that the story takes a lot of unexpected turns.
The one who is a master acts like a servant when he washes his disciples’ feet.
The one adored by the crowd is left alone to die on a hill.
This parade leads to death and not confetti raining down.

This morning as we enter holy week are we ready for what is about to happen.
Are we ready to serve, to lay down our lives, to see Jesus die for us?
Salvation does come, but not in the way we want or expect.

Today we join in with the crowd.
We shout Hosanna, and hope that salvation will come.
Are we ready for it to come to us from one who dies to show us God’s nature?
Are we ready for the one who comes not to conquer with armies but the one who comes to conquer our hearts with love and grace?
Can we see the signs set out for us on his triumphant ride into Jerusalem?
Are we ready to follow Jesus and give of ourselves for our families, church, community, and world?
In doing we are truly saved. Amen

Snake Bitten!

Have you ever been snake bitten?
Not literally bitten by a snake, but felt paralyzed by events in your life.
Have you ever felt fear that made you unable to move, to act, to make progress in your life?
This is what sin does to our lives.
It paralyzes us and makes us unable to move ahead, to make decisions that are good and positive.
It is what the Israelites are experiencing in our reading this morning.
They are so consumed with what they lack that they forget what they have.
They forget that it was God who saved them from slavery and bondage in Egypt.
They are so fearful that they will not get to the Promised Land.
If we live in fear we are often unable to see what God is doing, and what needs to be done.

I will admit that this story from the Bible is a challenging one.
We have to wrestle with the idea that God sends snakes to bite and kill his people.
I would like to make a couple of observations.
One God does not directly harm anyone.
It is a small point, but an important distinction.
Two, I can completely understand what God does here.
It comes from being a parent.
Nothing annoys me more than when my kids act like spoiled entitled brats.
They just had a birthday and gotten tons of presents. (More than I got when I was a kid.)
And the next day they want something else.
The presents they got are not good enough.
They seem to forget all too quickly what they had been given.
That is what is happening in this scene.
God has already sent manna, water, and quail.
The people complained they were thirsty.
So God made water flow from a rock in the desert.
The people complain that they are hungry.
God made bread fall from the heavens.
The people complained that the bread wasn’t good enough.
God made quail fall from the sky so they could eat.
And here they are after all that still complaining that it is not good enough.
I can totally understand God’s actions.
You know we are quick to point out God’s actions and totally forget the sin that is committed in order to make the action happen.

That might help you with this story or not, but for me God actions makes sense within the context of the relationship he has with the people of Israel.
But the next part is what is so amazing.
God gives a way out.
God offers a way for people to be saved.
Simply look at the pole with the snake and you will be saved.
Notice God does not remove the snakes, but offers a way out.

This whole story is then reinterpreted in the Gospel of John.
Jesus becomes the saving agent.
We will be snake bitten.
We will sin.
We will complain that we don’t have enough.
We will be selfish.
But, if you want a way out, look towards Jesus.
Jesus is our way out, our way forward.

If you are in a situation in your life that paralyzes you, makes you afraid, makes you wonder about the fairness of the world, then look towards Jesus.
In Jesus you will find your answer.
In Jesus you will find you way forward.
In Jesus you will be healed of your snake bite and be allowed to live again.

It might sound too simplistic.
I mean we find ourselves in pretty complicated situations.
Life can be complicated.
The answers that we seek are not always very obvious.
Sin is hard to untangle.
Does Jesus have all the answers?
Most of my week is filled with untangling sin.
Not in some superficial theological way, but in the very real life of people’s existence.
What I see are people snake bitten, people who are lost in sin.
The parents who are disappointed by life and so they take it out on their kids.
The young married couple fighting all the time because they are both to stubborn to compromise.
The regret of someone who feels they have wasted their life, the single person who doesn’t like their job, the wife who cheated on her husband, the person who cheated someone else out of money and just got out of prison.
The husband dealing with regret that he wasn’t better of a man, the homeless person who can’t break the cycle, real life in all of its complication and brokenness.
Once in a great while there are practical solutions.
Most of the time what is needed is a spiritual solution.
Most of the time what is required is a real searching of our soul.
And then there is God who offers us a way out if we only look in the right direction.

If we only look towards Jesus Christ we can stop being snake bitten.
If we only admit our sin and failure and ask for forgiveness God is willing and able to offer it, to give it.
Are we willing to look in that direction?

I once had a woman come to me who was in an abusive relationship.
It was one of the harder things I had to deal with as a pastor.
It was one of those things they just don’t prepare you for in seminary.
The worse thing about it was that she blamed herself.
She was too bossy, too demanding.
Maybe if she just backed off things would be better.
The practical answer was that she should leave him.
She had not sinned but the sin of her husband was breaking the marriage vows.
But that had all sorts of consequences that at this time she was not willing to deal with.

She was snake bitten, not by her sin but by the sin of someone else.
It caused her to get lost in her fear, shame, and feelings that she was worthless.
What helped was the spiritual answer.
God did not want this for her life.
God did not desire for her to be hit.
She needed courage, conviction.
I could sense that what was at the heart was a real loss of her own self worth.
This too can be a spiritual wilderness for us.
To somehow undervalue our self worth makes us broken people.
To deny what God wants from us leads to despair.
Could she see that in her life?
Could she turn to the God who lifted up Jesus for her, a God who loved and cared about her beyond her own limits to love herself.

That is really the question that we all have to struggle with this morning.
Can we see beyond the snake bite, beyond our shame, and inadequacy to what God lifts before us?
Can you?
Even in the face of death can we see beyond that limited human life to something even greater in store.
Jesus is lifted up on the cross for us, but also beyond that to his resurrection and ascension.
Jesus might not answer every question, but Jesus gives us the answer to the biggest questions.

Are we worthy?
Yes, you are because God so loved you to give you a way out.
Are we forgiven?
Yes, because God loved us enough to send his only son to offer forgiveness.
Are we loved?
Yes, by a God who dwelt in this world filled with darkness God offers us light.
Is there a way to cure the snake bite?
Yes, by looking God who gives true life.
As we here today let us look to God to save us from our snake bites.
Amen

The Gift of the Ten Commandments

Since my joke went over so well last week I have decided to risk it another week and open with a joke this week.
What is the Lutheran Ten Commandments?
Just pick your favorite five.
I suppose this joke is told because Lutherans can come across to some as antinomian, or people without the law.
We Lutheran tend to be worldly people.
We don’t refrain from drinking, playing cards, dancing, watching certain movies, reading certain books, or listening to certain music.
Martin Luther himself was a rather crass person.
He used inappropriate words, drank beer, and used tavern music to make hymns.
But we should not mistake this for a person who thought less of the law.
In fact, anyone who has ever spent time with Luther’s Catechism knows that Luther had a very high respect for the Ten Commandments.
In fact, I would argue he elevated them.
He made them into more than mere window dressing we put over our religious nature to pretend that everything is fine.
He went deeper into the meaning of the Commandments and set the bar so high that it is impossible for us to obtain what Luther believed about the commandments.
First and foremost Luther saw the commandments as pointing us towards our sin, and therefore drawing us closer to Jesus Christ who saves us.
For Luther our true selves are revealed when we tried to play God and pretend that we could be “good Christians” by simply following a set of laws.

What then do we say this morning about the Ten Commandments?
First it must be said that the commandments are a gift from God.
We should not despise them because they point us to what God would intend for our lives if we could escape our sin.
The commandments were meant to be a gift to Israel who up to this point are wondering in the desert.
The Ten Commandments becomes the way in which Israel can find the good life they are searching for.
God loves them enough to give them these commandments as a way to live a full life God intended.
I don’t have time this morning to go through each commandment one by one.
That sermon would take too long and well you probably wouldn’t stay to listen anyway.
So I want to concentrate on just one commandment.
I want us to think about how our lives would be if we could just follow one of the commandments.
I would like to concentrate on the commandment that tells us not to covet.
Imagine how good our lives would/could be if we simply did not covet.
If we could somehow find contentment in our lives, how good our lives would be.
If we did not measure our worth based on what other people had we could find joy in simply being who God made us to be.
If we did not covet, every day we would be able to wake and count our blessings.
I know for me I often covet things that others have.
A friend who gets a new television set.
I covet when a colleague who preaches so eloquently that I only wish to someday be able to explain the Gospel in such a way.
God gave us this commandment because to live by it would mean a blessing for each of us.
I know that I am always searching for contentment.
I am praying that I will be able to be satisfied with my life and the things in it.
Because the truth is that my life is nothing but blessings.
I have a great job, a wonderful wife, two great kids, a roof over my head, plenty of food on the table.
Life is good.
But there is that part of me always wanting something better.
Looking at someone else and thinking that perhaps if I just had what they had then I would really be happy.

Friday and Saturday our youth group fasted for 30 hours.
We raised money for poverty around the world.
But I think we did something that was of extraordinary spiritual value.
We reminded ourselves of what the blessings we have.
By not eating we were reminded of how much we get to eat.
I told the kids that the spiritual discipline of fasting hopefully produces two results.
On the one hand, we learn to be thankful for what we have.
We learn to be content with what God has given.
And secondly, we learn that this world is not fair or just.
That for someone living on this planet, a planet that God made and gave us all plenty of food, not to eat for 30 hours is just wrong.

Notice that being content is not the same thing as being complacent.
I should be content with what I have, but I should never be complacent about the state of the world as it currently is.
I have an obligation and a call by God to do everything in my power to make it different.
I have a call to make sure that all children not just my own, but all children go to bed at night safe and fed.

Luther in the Catechism says that it is not enough to merely not want what our neighbors have.
We should also, “be of help and service to (our neighbor) in keeping what is theirs.”
Our thoughts should not be only about our own happiness and desires but also of that of our neighbor so that we aid them in attaining the same things that we enjoy.
By doing this we truly live contented lives because we are not concerned with our neighbor getting more than what we have.

During lent it is always good to take time and thank God for our lives.
To look at our lives and be content with what we have.
What would your life be like if you could be content with what God has given?
How much better would it be?
I guarantee that life lived in thankfulness is better than one lived always thinking of the things that we don’t have.
St. Paul wrote in his letter to Philippians, “for I have learned to be content with whatever I have.”
I pray to God that we too might learn to be content with whatever we have.

We can see from this one commandment what great spiritual gains we would have to learn not to covet.
We see that our lives would be so much better if we could learn to be content .

Why then don’t we do it?
I would suggest that the problem with the law is that we use it as a measuring stick.
Instead of seeing it as a gift that God has given us to help us live a more godly life, we use as a way to judge ourselves and others.
It is always the danger with the law.
The law stops becoming something that gives life and instead becomes for us a way to decide who is a better Christian than others.
Who is more religious than others.

This is precisely why we need Christ.
We need Christ because Jesus reminds us of our true selves.
Jesus reminds us that without God as the center of life we cannot do it on our own.
The key to our contentment is for me to release myself absorption to God.
I know that I cannot by myself of my own free will choose to be content.
But knowing God more leads to a more content life.
I can see that all the things I have in my life are really just temporary.
They all can go away.
The only thing that I can really count on is God.
The commandment when see through this prism are not about being good so that I can please God.
Rather they become about learning to trust God in all things.
The commandments help us to know God and know what God has created in our lives.
To admit the things that God needs to redeem in our lives, and to rely on God to make us holy through the Holy Spirit.
Through this process we can see all the things that God has given us and be thankful.
We can admit when we have been ungrateful to God for this life.
And we can trust that God will continue to make us more content with life.

God gave us the Ten Commandments because God loves us and wants us to have life and have it in abundance.
When we hear God’s word we learn of God’s love for us and we desire to have our lives shaped by God alone.
May we all continue to hear God’s word and allow the Holy Spirit to shape us so that we might learn to live a contented life, because of the riches of Jesus Christ.
Amen

Hope Against Hope

This lent we are hearing stories of God’s promises.
It started last week when we heard the promise that God made to Noah after the flood.
It continues this week with a promise that God makes to Abraham and Sarah.
God promises that Abraham will be the father of many nations, and Sarah that she would be the mother to many nations.
This promise seems impossible, improbable.
Abraham and his wife Sarah are 99 years old.
How can they have a baby?

In our time we are rightfully suspicious of promises.
How many times in our lives have they been broken?
Politicians make us promises all the time.
They tell us that they will cure all the ills of the world if only we vote for them.
Then we are crushed when they fail to follow through on those promises.
Our loved ones sometimes make us promises and often times they fail.
I am always amazed at how many martial vows are broken by a cheating spouse.
I am amazed at how many parents fail to live up to the promise of being a loving supportive parent.
I am amazed at how many friendships end because the unspoken promise go unrealized.
I am amazed at how many churches fail because the promise is broken between a pastor and the congregation.
I know that there have been times when I promised my kids something, and for whatever reason I was unable to keep that promise.
I know there have been other times when I have let people down because of an un-kept promise.
Yes, we have all experienced the pain of un-kept promises, and we all have been responsible for un-kept promises.

Perhaps we can understand then when people are cynical about God’s promises.
God makes a lot of promises.
In our baptisms God promises to be with us throughout our lives.
God promises to be with us and love us.
I know that people in their lives sometimes feel that God has not always kept that promise.
When something goes bad they wonder where is God and why has God left them.

This is why stories like that of Abraham and Sarah are so important for us to hear again.
Abraham and Sarah had no logical reason to believe that God would be good to God’s word.
After all even they seem to know that people don’t start having a family at the age of 99.

In fact, they are so suspicious of God’s promise that they already tried to circumvent the process.
Abraham had a child with their slave Hagar.
It seemed like a good plan.
If Sarah was barren then perhaps someone else could lend a hand in the process.
Again, one can understand why they did it.
They can understand the despair that comes with realizing that maybe all of your dreams won’t come true, or that maybe God would not come through with what God promised.

And yet of all the promises God has made we can look at this one and see the results.
Now with all these years of hindsight we can see that what God says is true.
We are here this morning because of that promise.
We are here because we too are children of Abraham and Sarah.

This is the thing though it took a rather odd route to get here.
Yes, Abraham and Sarah did have their child, but there was still nothing that would make us think that it would work out like this.
We are part of that promise because St. Paul re-interrupts what it means to be a child of Abraham and Sarah.
It used to be about circumcision, and following the law.
But Saint Paul says it is about faith.
That what we share with Abraham is not the law but faith.
We are Abraham’s heirs through our faith in God who makes what seems improbable and impossible true.

This week I heard a joke on Prairie Home companion.
Last week I told a joke that totally bombed.
I decided this week I have to try and redeem myself.
So a monsignor, a Pentecostal preacher, and a rabbi challenge each other who could convert a bear.
After going into the woods, they come back together to share what happened.
The monsignor says well I totally converted a bear.
I started by reading the catechism, then I threw holy water on him, totally changed the attitude of the bear became gentle as a lamb.
Next week the Bishop is going to go out and give him first communion and confirm him.
The Pentecostal minister said well I too converted a bear.
I started by wrestling with him.
We rolled around until we got to the water.
Then I held him under and baptized him.
He came up and was totally changed was as gentle as a lamb.
The Rabbi was there in a body caste.
He looked at the other two and said, “Well maybe I should not have started with circumcision.”

This is the problem that is confronting St. Paul and the early Christian community.
As they convert Gentiles to Christianity, in order for them to be part of God’s promise the question is do they have to be circumcised, and follow all the dietary laws of Israel.
St. Paul’s answer is that we are part of God’s promise by having faith.
Now faith is not about never doubting.
Doubt is a natural part of our relationship with God.
Even Abraham and Sarah had doubts.
Faith is about not living in fear.
It is about hoping against hope that God is there with us and is working everything out for the best.

This is not always easy to do just as it wasn’t easy for Abraham and Sarah to believe that they would have a child at such an old age.
But the thing is that it worked out even better than they could have imagined.
So many people of faith today link their heritage back to Abraham.
Christians, Muslims, and Jews all believe they are part of God’s promise to Abraham.
One of the great things about what St. Paul says is that it widens the scope of what people of his time envisioned.
It made God even bigger than what was religiously narrowly defined.
I think that we are always better off when we widen the scope of who is and is not part of God’s promise, because God’s actions are not just for a few, but really for all of us.
And because of what St. Paul says we can believe that God followed through on his promise to Abraham.

That is what makes this story so important is that for us it is one of the times when we can see that God’s promise come true.
In fact, God is not done.
God is always widening the net until all are under the promise.

In your life you might have moments when you doubt the promise.
There might be times when you feel the world falling apart, or when it seems impossible that God is looking out for you.
I can imagine that people who just experienced tornadoes are really struggling to believe that God is with them in their lives.
That is what faith does for us it gives us hope even when everything is lost.
This morning I want to encourage you to hope against hope.
Because even though politicians let us down, even though our spouse let us down, even though our family lets us down, even though our friends let us down, even though we let others down, God is always true to God’s promises.

The God who claimed you in your baptism keeps his promise to you.
As we say in Baptism as we place the cross on our foreheads, “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”
We are sealed by God so that we are raised to new life, freed from death and sin.
Hold on to those promises, hope against hope, and grow strong in your faith as you give glory to God. Amen

Noah's Ark: Really Not for Children

A child asks his Grandfather, "Grandpa, were you in the ark?"
He chuckled and replied, "Well, no I wasn't."
There was a pause, and the child looked up at him quizzically and asked, "Then why weren't you drowned?"
We always think of Noah’s Ark as a children’s story.
Many Sunday school lessons, VBS curriculums, and Christian Education programs have been about Noah’s Ark.
I suppose it is because there are animals involved and we think that the kids will love animals.
However, the story of Noah’s Ark is not really a children’s story.
It is a complicated story.
It is about God wiping out all of creation, men, women, children, all the animals, except Noah his family and two of every kind of animal.
It is about a God who is angry and takes that anger out on a sinful world.
I am not sure that is the image that we want children to come away with of God.
To understand sin and it’s complications we need a faith that is more mature than what kids have at this point.

Not only that but for our modern ears the story is hard to believe, but also the idea that forty days of rain floods the entire earth is a hard sell.
The idea that two of every living creature got onto the Ark is another hard thing to believe.
I saw a comedy special on HBO by Ricky Gervis he had a whole part of his comedy act where he mocked the story of Noah’s Ark from a book he had as a child.

So if this is not a children’s story, and it is a hard sell among people of the modern world, what are we to say this morning about Noah’s Ark?
I think that to start we all have to come at this story with new perspective.
We have to throw off our earlier notions of what we learned as Children.
Perhaps it is the hardest thing to do as an adult is to unlearn what we have learned.
To make the transition from the faith of Sunday school to the faith of someone who is an adult.
Our experiences show us that the world is complicated and the way our faith interacts with that world is equally complex.

It is not helpful with Noah’s Ark to try and explain in it in scientific or historical terms.
When we do this we get lost in the minutia of detail, and we miss out on the magic that really is the Noah’s Ark.
In other words, whether you think this story is an historical fact or not, is not the point.
What matters most is what the story is telling us about God and our relationship to God.
How can this story help us live today and make sense of the world around us?

It is really a problem that we have with our faith in general.
We want the Bible to confirm for us our preconceived notions of things, instead of allowing it to change us, and make us see things from God’s perspective.
We want the Bible to go along with our thoughts on how God should be.
In fact, in our lives this is often a problem too.
We think that God should do the things that we want God to do.
We demand that God act in a way that we think the world should work.
The good people should get rewarded for their good behavior, and bad people should be punished for their bad behavior.

The story of Noah’s Ark is wonderful because it does not conform into a nice neat box.
It starts with God being brokenhearted over the sin in His creation.
Instead of saying that it is good, as God did in the Genesis account of creation, God is sorry that he ever created human beings and decides to wipe them out, except Noah and his family.
So we might think ok there it is God wipes out the wicked and saves the righteous.

But then something amazing happens, God changes God’s mind.
Consider that God makes this covenant, at the end of the story, although he knows that “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth” (back in Chapter 8)
The covenant that God makes is despite our inclinations God has promised to care for and love us.
That includes those who we deem evil.
It is stunning really.

In our reading from 1 Peter he interrupts the story of Noah and Jesus to say that Jesus went and witnessed to the evil people that God destroyed in the flood.
That God cared about even those evil people enough to not let the stay lost for eternity.
That God through water now saves us.
Water that God used to destroy has become the chosen vehicle of God’s saving grace.
“And Baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you.”
This is hard to comprehend, even for us adults.
I am not sure how we would think a child could grasp it.

I hear this all the time from people.
How can my loved one be suffering when there are so many bad people in the world who deserve it more?
That assumption is built on an unbiblical principle.
That God deals with sin by killing evil people.

The Biblical witness is much more complicated than this oversimplification.
The Biblical witness shows a God deeply wounded and hurt by our sin, but a God who is patient slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.
The Biblical witness shows a God adept at working with human sin to bring about change.
It is actually a beautiful thing.
Because it says that no matter what we do, no matter who we are God will love us until we are found, whole, healed, and put back together.

The truth is that world is a harsh.
It is unfair and unjust.
There are lots of bad things happening all around us, all the time.
I am not trying to be downer here I am just stating what you all already know.
And the adult question we have to work through is where is God in all of it?
What is God’s role in our lives?
Is God that old man on the cloud protecting the good and punishing the bad?
Or is God something more to us?

When we grow in our faith we realize God is something more.
God is a God who makes covenants with us.
God comes to us despite our inclination to evil.
Despite what the world is God has promised to forgive and love.
And that is how God changes the world not through destroying everything evil, but loving it and forgiving it.

For me in my faith journey this is how God has interrupted my life by love and forgiveness.
I think of what I could have been, who I am now, and what I am hoping to be.
It is because of God’s love that I was not totally lost in my wild youth, It is because of God’s forgiveness that I can go about everyday with boldness, and because I know that God is not done with me I have hope for the future.
In this season of lent let us remember that covenant so that we can see God trying to win us over with love and forgiveness.
God is interrupting our lives to say that we are not lost but found in God’s grace.

There used to be a day when the church won people over with fear and intimidation.
Either you do this or else...God will get you.
But this morning let us look at the Noah’s Ark story and see a God who made a covenant of love and forgiveness with us in the saving waters of our Baptism that has nothing to do with how we act.
Let us remember that the covenant is still continues this day through Christ who suffered once and for all for our sins.
And may you live everyday in the saving waters of Baptism knowing of God’s love and forgiveness.
Amen

New Wine and New Wineskins!

Traditionally we see lent as a somber time.
I remember once coming out of church on Ash Wednesday with some friends.
Something happened (I can’t remember what it was) and we laughed.
Instantly one of the older members of the congregation dressed us down for our sudden outburst.
“Lent is no laughing matter”, he said, in a voice that was both meant to intimidate us and show us our proper place.
I have often reflected on this.
I think there are times for silent contemplation.
I think there are times for somber reflections.
I just don’t think it belongs in lent.

“Why don’t your disciples fast.” The good religious folks ask Jesus.
Why are they not more somber like other good religious people?
Why are they laughing, eating, and having such a good time?
It would appear that Jesus is letting his disciples run wild, no discipline.
Jesus responds that while he is around there is only time for celebration and joy.
This is what lent is suppose to lead us to celebration and joy.
Lent is supposed to help us see our lives connected to Jesus and that is a joy.
Lent reminds us that while the bridegroom is with us no need to cry and lament, but to party and rejoice.

We have been told that lent is a time to take inventory of all the things that we have done wrong in our lives.
That what we need to do during these next forty days is really feel bad about our sin.
This reduces Lent to merely a self improvement time.

To me that is like putting new wine into old wineskins.
You see when you put new wine in a wineskin it would start to ferment and expand, and new wineskins, made out of animal skin, would expand with the wine.
But if you used an old wineskin then it was already pushed out, and it would explode when the new wine expanded.
The good news of Jesus Christ is that we are always being expanded by God, we are being made into more than merely sin and called into a new life of grace and mercy.
When we have old wineskins we have no room to let God into our lives.

Lent is about God growing closer to us.
It is about seeing the newness of our lives in relation to the story of God.
It is about expanding our lives of faith.
If all we do is fast because that is what we are suppose to do than we are not opening ourselves to what God is currently doing in our lives.
If we walk around sad and somber for the next forty days than we are not allowing our lives to be expanded by God.

For those of us who have been Christian for a while putting on new wineskin is difficult.
We have become somewhat complacent.
We think we know what this is all about and we are comfortable.
We are like the old wineskins that are already stretched out and break with the new wine.

Which is why it is good that we have lent every year it helps us to remember that we are always being called by Jesus to throw out the old and welcome the new.
What are the new things in our lives that we have to make room for?
What are the ways that Jesus is stretching us to grow and change?

I once had a friend who was teaching confirmation.
She asked her class how we are saved.
“By grace through faith.” they obediently responded.
They knew the answer but had no love for it, no passion for it, they had new wine but only old wineskin.
And by trying to put one in the other they were destroying both.

Perhaps that is what we do too often.
We take outdated forms of being and believe that if we merely stick some new message on it than all will be fine, maybe if we just do the right action, or know the right formula than we will be able to get everything right.
Jesus suggests that the new message of the Gospel has to be accompanied by totally new ways of being and living.
Knowing Jesus causes us to throw off the old forms of convention and live in a whole new way.
It means we embrace who we are and live in the grace of God.

It means getting rid of the piety that is empty gesture to really getting down to the nitty- gritty of our faith.
It means getting rid of the pretense that we have it all figured out, and we got everything together.
Our relationship with Christ is an honest reflection of who we are, “We are dust and to dust we shall return.”
Within this day there are new opportunities to grow in our relationship with Jesus by recognizing that Jesus is right there with us.
Within today I can throw off my mistakes of yesterday, and I can ask for and receive forgiveness.
I can see new ideas and possibilities.
I can see new ways of living this message of the Good news of Jesus Christ.
I can see new ways that the kingdom of God has broken through into the world.
I can see new ways of seeing myself and my life.
Today I can own my failures, I can own my sin, and today because of the grace of God I can live a new life.

This is what Lent is about.
It is about the joy that comes with recognizing God as our constant partner in this life.
It means we don’t have to fast, or pray, or feel guilty, or feel good, or accept the way things are.
No today we can live knowing that the bridegroom has come.
Today is the day of the wedding feast and the day of celebration.

This is what life looks like from the other side of our baptism.
It looks different.
Today I want to invite you on your way out of worship to wipe away the Ashes on your forehead in the baptismal font.
As a reminder of the covenant that God made with you in your baptism.

Sure we are dust, and dust we will return, but because I know the bridegroom I can rejoice in the water that washes away and brings new life.
I can rejoice that this life is not the end.
I can rejoice that there is a tomorrow and Jesus is in it.
Today I can laugh because there is no sadness in recognizing my own sin, only the joy in the good news of Jesus Christ.

This is why we give things up in lent.
The purpose is to show you Jesus in your life and remind you of his presence.
To remind you of your mortality and sin, so you can remember your salvation and forgiveness.
This is how one person explained what fasting did for them, “Several years ago I followed a fast through the forty days of Lent and found that it changed my view of Easter, and that it changed me.
Fasting and meditating on my weaknesses helped me grasp the intense significance of the crucifixion, and gave me a deep and powerful longing for the resurrection, which then became joy on Easter Sunday.”
That is what Lenten disciplines are supposed to do for us help us see the significance of Jesus for us.
They are not meant as self improvement tricks, or empty pietistic gestures.

What is it that will help you see Jesus in your life?
What will help you to grasp the meaning and value of what the good news means to you?

I know that many people take this from all kinds of different angles.
I know some people make it a point to be nicer to someone at work that makes them mad.
I know some people that devote more time to reading the Bible.
Some people give more to the poor.
Some people do nothing, because what they need in their spiritual journey is to let go of trying too hard.
Some people add more time with their family.
Some people have less time with their family.
I could go on and on, but the point is that for all of us it is going to be different.
There is going to be something different that you will need in order to know that Jesus is with us in our lives and rises us out of the ashes.
There is something different each of us needs to be ready to accept the new wine that Jesus is pouring into us.

Whatever we do during Lent let it lead us to celebration, joy, and laughter.
Let us wake up every morning to experience the new thing that God is doing so that we are ready through faith to accept the good news of Jesus Christ.
Amen