Unlikely Ones

Unlikely Ones (based on Luke 8:26-39)

Five-Minute Gospel Sermon, Introduction to Preaching

October 11, 2021

The disciples should have seen it coming. Hours before, on their way across the Sea of Galilee, a sudden storm rose up, and the swells threatened to capsize their boat. It must have been a wild storm to scare Peter and Andrew, James and John, the experienced fishermen. The panicked disciples woke up Jesus, who calmed the storm. Coming ashore in Gentile territory, the land of the Gerasenes, the disciples continued to talk about their teacher. Who was this Jesus, anyway, with authority to calm the wind and waves?

Their discussion was interrupted the moment they reached the shore, by a wild, naked man who rushed their boat and fell at the feet of Jesus. Jesus already had commanded demons from people. But right away, they could tell this man was different. He was overwhelmed with so many demons, he had lost his identity. Legion … the name he spoke, or more likely the demons spoke through him, suggested not just one or two, but an army of demons had overtaken him.

Jesus commanded the demons to leave the man. And just like in Luke chapter 4, the demons recognized the divine authority of Jesus, addressing him as Jesus, Son of the Most High God, the equal of God, sharing the same essence. These demons did not question Jesus’ power to cast them out or send them to the abyss. They even asked permission from Jesus to enter the herd of swine, most unclean animals to the Jews.

In Luke’s gospel, the most unlikely recognize Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Most High God. A baby still within Elizabeth’s womb. Shepherds and wise ones from far-off eastern lands. A centurion. The Devil and demons. And there on the Sea of Galilee, in the storm, Creation itself. All recognizing Jesus as the anointed one, the Messiah, well before those who had left everything to follow him. Not only recognizing him, but proclaiming and witnessing to the truth of his authority.

Meanwhile, humans who should have caught on to Jesus’ true nature are prevented from seeing the truth by their disbelief and fear. It would be another chapter before the first of Jesus’ disciples first connects Jesus as Messiah. The Gerasene townspeople who saw the demoniac restored to wholeness were so afraid they chased Jesus from their midst.

The unlikely recognizing Jesus’ authority: that theme repeats. The man formerly known as Legion continued telling what Jesus had done for him. A woman who had been possessed by a demon become the first witness of the resurrection. A Christian persecutor named Saul became Paul, apostle, church planter, and theologian.

And the story of the unlikely recognizing Jesus’ authority and becoming God’s witnesses to proclaim the good news continues now. Right here in this place. Find yourself in this story of God’s unlikely people, who by God’s grace have become witnesses and proclaimers:

• Those who ever ended a marriage or relationship, or didn’t raise perfect kids, but care for our shut-ins, Sunday school kids, or any other folks.
• Those who closed a business or lost a job, but keep serving in outreach, multi-media, music or property ministries.
• Those who struggle with addictions, but mentor others who need a sponsor.
• Those who aren’t sure they believe everything they confess, but keep attending worship and bible studies with their questions.
• Those who kill plants, can’t drive a stick shift, hate computers, sing off-key, occasionally drop an F-bomb – I think that covers most of us.

·         Except I would be remiss not to include you nerdy, gawky, scared, or too-cool middle-schoolers who not too long ago shared your faith stories on your confirmation day.

Every one of you, an unlikely one, showing up, speaking your truth of Jesus’ authority by your presence here and your love and service in this world, called to be witnesses and proclaimers of the good news. Unlikely? Yes. But somehow, it fits. Because we have a God who moves and loves in the most unlikely ways.

Amen.

Wrestling with God

Wrestling with God (based on Genesis 32:[9-13] 22-30)

September 22, 2019

Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, Clarkdale, AZ

Grace and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Christ.” Amen.

The year was 1986, and I had recently moved to Arizona from Wisconsin for a news reporting job. Originally, Mike and I were bound for Bullhead City, but in my great fortune, the company decided I should go to Cottonwood to work for the Verde Independent, while another reporter would go to Bullhead City.

My areas of coverage for the next eight years, the formative years of my reporting career, were education and sports. I had experience covering education issues, less experience covering sports. But I had played and watched sports, and had every confidence I could cover whatever local sports came my way.

So, when I arrived in the fall, it was football, golf and volleyball season. I was familiar with those sports, and could knowledgeably write about them. Then the seasons changed and winter sports arrived. Again, basketball and soccer – no problem. But then I went to talk to the Camp Verde wrestling coach to preview his team’s season, and was CLUELESS where to start. I ended up asking him to be merciful to someone who had never SEEN a high school wrestling match.

Thankfully, that coach was Dennis Sterrett, and if anyone embodied grace and breathes wrestling, Dennis was the man. He explained weight classes – wrestling bouts match people of similar size. He described the challenges of a wrestler’s training: mental toughness and physical strength and agility.  And probably most important, he explained the moves and how wrestlers score points. Takedowns, escapes, reversals and penalties.

Key to winning was keeping the superior position, avoiding being taken down or pinned to the mat, reversing or escaping when on one’s back. A match was six minutes, broken into three two-minute periods, but it was all-out action for all six minutes. No time outs, no stalling, no leaving the circle.

That experience puts a different take on this reading of Jacob’s wrestling match. Jacob’s bout wasn’t wrestling at all, but a no-holds-barred free-for-all. Jacob prayed, took his family across the river and returned. His opponent attacked him in the dark, without warning. There were no rules, no referee, no timed periods.

To understand how Jacob got here, we need to back up and pay close attention to three names. For the first name, we go back into Jacob’s history, as far as we can go. Back to his birth to Isaac and Rebekah. Jacob was a twin, and his brother Esau was born first. Jacob came out grasping his brother’s heel. And one meaning for the name “Jacob “was “to follow at the heel.” Jacob also can mean “deceiver,” or trickster, and that would be what Jacob would become. Names matter.

Today, one would think that twins would be equally important to their parents. But not so in Isaac’s day. Esau, who was born first, would not only inherit a large share of the family’s wealth, but also the blessing – he would be head of the household when Isaac died. By being born just seconds later, Jacob would be subservient to his brother for the rest of his life. So Jacob turned to deception not once, but twice, to gain both Esau’s birthright and his Isaac’s blessing. After hearing his father had blessed his brother over him, Esau was so angry he wanted to kill Jacob. So Rebekah sent Jacob out of the country, to her side of the family, until Esau cooled off. He would work for his uncle, Laban, for many years.

The next episode would make a great Biblical soap opera. Jacob fell in love with Laban’s daughter Rachel. But Laban wanted both of his daughters to marry. So after seven years of work, Jacob, the deceiver, was himself deceived by Laban into marrying older sister Leah rather than Rachel. He would have to work another seven years to marry Rachel. At that point, Jacob made another enemy by taking Leah, Rachel, their sons, their servants, and all their livestock, and leaving Laban. Eventually, Jacob and Laban settled their score, and Jacob knew it was time to make amends with Esau.

Jabbock, the river that was the scene of the wrestling match, is the second name. Jabbok means “to empty out,” and it does empty into the Jordan River just a little ways to the west. But this is the place where God chooses to empty Jacob of himself. Throughout his life, Jacob was chosen by God. But instead of letting God work out God’s plan, Jacob takes matters into his own hands. He gets the birthright and blessing by trickery. He runs from Esau. He gets Leah and Rachel and leaves Laban. And now, headed back to the brother who wanted to kill him so many years ago, he sends for information, and learns that Esau has 600 men and they were coming for him.

Jacob is distressed and frightened and prays to God. Then he comes up with yet another scheme. He would send livestock as gifts to his brother. After a couple of waves of cattle, goats and sheep, perhaps Esau would be appeased. But as he and his wives and family approach the river, he hears that Esau still is waiting for him. So he sends Leah with part of the family and part of his herd, then has Rachel and the rest of the family and herd cross over, perhaps hoping that if Esau wanted to kill him, he might spare his family, or at least part of it. Then Jacob went back across the Jabbok.

And here’s where we pick up the story. Jacob is attacked by the unknown man, and it’s a dead heat all night. Jacob keeps struggling into the superior position, and gets taken down and reversed, nearly pinned, again and again. And close to daybreak, Jacob realizes that he isn’t wrestling just any man, but God.

“What a fool I am, to think I could be superior to God,” Jacob must have realized. “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing my whole life? Why didn’t I just trust God all these years to make things right?” And finally submitting, Jacob lay there exhausted, clinging to God.

Ending the match, God dislocated Jacob’s hip, but Jacob kept holding on, asking for a blessing. And God asked him his name – not because God didn’t know him, but in saying his name, Jacob had to own it. Confession time. “Yep, I’m Jacob—deceiver. I’ve schemed, and plotted, and done things my way instead of trusting you.”

And God gave him a new name. Not just a new name, but a new life, a second chance, a way to live into God’s promise. “The old Jacob is gone. You are now Israel, for you have strived with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”

And finally, name No. 3: Jacob names the land on the edge of the Jabbok “Peniel,” meaning “For I have come face-to-face with God, and yet my life is preserved.”

Eventually, Jacob, now Israel, does meet Esau, but instead of trying to kill him, Esau had gotten the word, and had come to embrace him. Esau has been blessed – not with his father’s blessing – but with family and livestock and land. He was ready to mend their rift. That’s where this story ends.

But what if Jacob never wrestled with an unknown man at all, but spent the night terrified, his sleepless, agitated mind wrestling with his history, his deceptive ways, and his brother’s wrath? What if his wrestling was a metaphor for painfully struggling with the person he had become, the person he was not proud to be? Some scholars think Jacob fought with himself all night to daybreak, emptying himself, laying it all out before God, and that’s when God appeared to Jacob and renamed him Israel.

There’s a part of me that wants to picture Jacob physically wrestling with God, God matching him move for move until Jacob realizes he’s been fighting God for control all along, then submits, holding on to God for dear life.

But the other part of me relates to an all-night emotional struggle. I’ve been there more than a few nights, a standoff between this child of God and my shadow side -- that part of me that I deny wanting to stay in control, and the rest of me wanting to give it all over to God -- praying, pleading, gut-wrenched sobbing, falling asleep still on my knees. Finally worn down and holding onto God with everything I have left, discovering that God has been there at rock bottom, waiting for me to arrive.  Perhaps that’s a place you’ve been as well.

More than a few of God’s people have lived that struggle, pitting their own control against submission to God. Abraham and Sarah had to stop trying to control God’s promise. Moses spent many dark nights of the soul in the wilderness. Even Jesus wept in the Garden of Gethsemane, pleading with God for another way, but then submitting to God’s plan.

And I’m certain I will be back there, another night at my Peniel, wrestling, meeting God face-to-face, still practicing that hard-fought lesson: to empty myself and hold on onto God until the blessing comes.

Amen.   

Keeping Promises

A fork in the road of my blog. Instead of full litany and prayers, I will publish the sermons I have given, in churches, classes, and at chapel at LSTC. Some day I would like to return to writing litanies for worship, but for now, here is where I am.

 

Keeping Promises (based on God's promise to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7)

September 15, 2019

Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, Clarkdale, AZ

“Grace to you, and peace, from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.”

And in the manner of Paul, I bring you greetings from the other side of Mingus, from Pastor Tricia Lowe, and from your brothers and sisters in Christ at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Prescott Valley, and from the saints at Windhaven Hospital, where I would normally lead worship on Sunday morning. Blessed be the Word we serve and share in the name of Jesus. Amen.

“But, Mom, you promised!”

I would be hard-pressed to remember more heart-breaking words from my son when he was young. Whether it was a day at the park ruined by an unexpected thunderstorm, or a game I couldn’t attend because of a work assignment, hearing Michael’s words, knowing that I had broken his trust, could fill me with guilt. Even with the best of reasons, I had failed to keep my promise.

Promises are the building blocks of relationships. Marriage vows are promises to be faithful to one another, to put the relationship before other people and other commitments. So important are these promises that they are often made before God, and in the presence of the couple’s family and friends.

Lies and broken promises are the foundational cracks that crumble marriages and friendships. They strain and divide family bonds. Sometimes it is a huge rift, but more often it is hundreds or thousands of repeated schisms and dashed expectations that finally cause irreparable damage.

God had made a promise with Abraham and Sarah that seemed a bit far-fetched from the start. God had shown Abraham the vast, clear night sky, and told him that his descendants would be as uncountable as the stars. God chose a 75-year-old man and 65-year-old woman to create this nation.

Believing God was faithful, Abraham and Sarah left their family as God directed. And with each passing year, the promise grew a bit less hopeful, and carried more sting. The couple, who thought they had found favor with God, found their confidence fading. No son, not even a family heir. Most likely, those closest to the couple had stopped asking. And as they distanced themselves from God, they determined if baby was to be, perhaps it wasn’t Sarah who should be the mother. Sarah and Abraham decided her slave girl, Hagar, could bear a child. And they set aside the promise and estranged themselves from the Promise Maker.

After Hagar’s baby was born, God arrived and repeated the promise. Your son, born of Sarah, will be the way my covenant will be fulfilled. Reassured, they share the good news with their extended family and neighbors, and tell people to save the date for a baby shower – which was the best joke among the women at the water’s edge for months. More time passes and many more prayers are lifted. Each morning, Sarah glanced at her magnificent aging body with despair. Each night, Abraham considered the beautiful night sky with discontent.   

God appears again, with the same promise. Abraham and Sarah must have wondered what God was up to … making a promise that their aged bodies most assuredly could not keep. God, they decided, has a rather unconventional, or maybe even hurtful sense of humor.

A familiar saying, when things don’t go as we expected is, “We plan and God laughs.” On the other hand, in this case, perhaps the saying should go, “We laugh, and God plans.” This time, Abraham laughs at God. Maybe “scoffs” is a better description. “Imagine that, your promise is a promise this old man’s body can’t keep.” Now God’s pronouncement seemed empty. They certainly didn’t share the news. They avoided each other’s looks for days. Both of them exchanged unspoken sadness: “How could God raise our hopes, then leave them dashed in the desert?” They were certain God had passed on making them parents of a great nation – perhaps something had caused them to lose favor in God’s eyes. Heavy thoughts, indeed….

I imagine at some point in your life, you’ve been right there with Abraham and Sarah. Looking back, life didn’t turn out the way you had hoped. Maybe you never found a life partner. Maybe you never graduated or went to college because your family needed you to work. Perhaps you made regrettable mistakes, your health failed, or your family had to sell the farm. At some point in life, all of us share that same question: “Why, God?”

And maybe the situation made you bitter and unfulfilled. Or you came to terms with it and did your best to be grateful for what life did provide.

However, when three men show up at the tent, Abraham welcomed the distraction. He greeted them with words and water, asking them to rest in the shade while he found a bite to eat and share.

Now here’s where words are important. These are strangers to Abraham and Sarah. And the custom was to be hospitable to visitors. But Abraham didn’t just welcome them – he ran to meet them and bowed low to the ground. His words and actions went far beyond welcome: “My lord (he addressed all three), if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.” He told them he would get a bit of water and a bit of bread. No visitor would refuse a small touch of hospitality – it would be offensive.  So they stayed. Then Abraham had a servant butcher and cook a calf, had Sarah bake three measures of flour – imagine a five-gallon bucket packed full of flour and you get the picture – enough bread to eat for days. And I’m sure Abraham didn’t skimp on the water, milk or curds. He had ordered up a feast!

And there were THREE men. Three is biblical code for completion or fulfillment: the three persons of the Trinity, Jesus’ three temptations, three crosses at the crucifixion, Peter’s three denials, Resurrection on the third day…. The Bible is full of 3’s – 467 appearances of the number three, according to one reference. My guess is that Abraham knew God was present, and hence his over-the-top hospitality.

Abraham and the visitors ate. Time passed. And then one visitor fulfilled Abraham’s expectations. In due season, at the appointed time, the visitor said, he would return and Sarah would bear a child. Still flour-dusted, hot and tired from bread-baking, Sarah laughed out loud from where she was hiding, just inside the tent. Now, revealed as the Lord, the visitor asked Sarah why she laughed. “Why?” she must have thought. “Why? We’ve been waiting 25 years. People who know us have ceased to believe and think we’re crazy. We’ve stopped believing. We’re senior among senior citizens. We’re. Not Having. A. Baby.” But then, afraid of her disrespect, she denied she laughed. And the visitor, in that one glance, put her at ease. This IS unbelievable. It IS OK. “But you did laugh.”

And Sarah became pregnant, and in due time, a son was born. And perhaps in the last laugh, they named him “Isaac,” meaning “he laughs.” Imagine the laughter when Sarah felt the first movements, pieced together a layette, saw Abraham’s handiwork in preparing a bassinet. Imagine the cries mixed with laughter as they met their son, and as they woke in the middle of the night to tend to his needs. ”Your turn, old man.” Imagine the stories they told their toddler, and later, the laughter as they suggested young man Isaac might not want to wait until he’s 100 to grow that nation!

As we begin this journey into the story of God and God’s people – maybe the question that comes to mind is why? Why did God promise Abraham and Sarah they would be the beginning of a great nation? Why did God wait so long to bring the covenant to fulfillment? Why was this story carried by God’s people, and included in the beginning of the larger story.?

First, and here’s that number THREE again: Abraham became the father of a great nation – or three great nations! Not only did Abraham and Sarah begin the Jewish people, but they are the beginning of the Judeo-Christian tradition. They started the tradition out of which Jesus, the Messiah, would be born. And through Abraham, especially the line with Hagar and her son, Ismael, the Islamic faith would grow.

Second, God is faithful. Not sometimes. Not usually. God is faithful. Period. Maybe that’s the word you need to hear today, or the word someone else needs to hear from you. God’s promises are certain, even when we don’t hold up our end:

• God promises to be near to the broken-hearted, even when our grief turns us from God.

• God promises to forgive, even when we cannot forgive others or ourselves.

• God, “who began a good work in you, will bring it to fulfillment by the day of Jesus Christ.”

Third, God’s timing is not our timing, and nothing we do or do not do will change that. Even today, when we may struggle to hear God’s promises, those we read in scripture, those pronounced at our baptisms, and those we hear from each other, those promises are just as certain as God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah. Sometimes we will have to wait … maybe even a long, LONG, L-O-N-G time. That’s the word this impatient child of God often needs to hear. Maybe you too.

And finally, equally worthy of our contemplation, God is the master of the impossible, the improbable, the unbelievable, the inconceivable. We are made in God’s image, and with God, all things are possible. So be faithful, stay connected, believe in all things, and … on this journey of God’s relationship with God’s people, and on our own faith journey – Don’t forget to LAUGH!!

Amen.