Living Ready, Pilgrim, Advent 1A, Nov 27, 2022

My second sermon at Pilgrim Lutheran Church and School during my Ministry in Context Field Placement in 2022-23 during my third year at LSTC.

Title Slide

Happy New Year! Today is truly the New Year, for the church, as we joyfully await and prepare annually to welcome Immanuel, God With Us, our God who became human in order to show us the way of Love and Life!

The next few weeks are designed to help prepare our hearts and minds through themes of hope, peace, joy, and love for Jesus’s coming. We who live in the middle of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection 2,000 years ago, and Jesus’ return in the soon but not yet, know that the season of Advent touches on both the incarnation and the Second Coming

Gospel of Matthew slide

First, let’s meet our writer for the majority of the gospel lessons over the next year. The gospel of Matthew is traditionally ascribed to the disciple Matthew, for a community of Jewish Christians, written about 35-40 years after Jesus’ resurrection. They lived in eager anticipation of the return of Christ and expected it to happen in their lifetimes. And with every year that passed, people became more confused, complacent, or downright cynical about the idea that Jesus was coming back at all.

So, Matthew’s gospel spoke to his generation and the generations to come about preparing for that moment, that hour, that day, that much-awaited event. There’s an emphasis on time, both Kronos (or clock time) and Kairos (which means God’s time). And that’s where the text has taken on a life of its own:

Matthew 24:40-44

Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left. Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Those verses have been used by faith leaders and writers to create anxiety, dread, and fear – pretty much anything but Hope, Peace, Joy and Love!

Preaching about the Rapture, sermons about the End Times, the Left Behind series of fiction novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, and similar apocalyptic writings have created among some Christians a culture and attitude of fear, of not being good enough to spend eternity with God.

I am convinced that Matthew had no agenda with this text to create fearful, paralyzed disciples of Jesus who were terrified about their loved ones being whisked away mid-sentence and being left behind because they weren’t prepared. These Christians in the latter part of the first century had enough to be frightened about.

Siege of Jerusalem slide:

In the year 70, the Roman empire destroyed the temple and overran Jerusalem. These followers’ lives were hard enough, believing in Jesus the Christ when other Jewish people still awaited the Messiah’s coming. We know they had challenges. We read in Paul’s letters when he and others were starting churches, they were collecting money for the church in Jerusalem.

So, when Matthew recalled the words of Jesus to be prepared, he was using them to rally the followers of The Way into joyous hope! Keep awake! Be ready! Jesus is coming soon! Really! Keep the faith!!!

What do we, as Christians, do with these texts in 2022, when Jesus still hasn’t come? Are we any different than Matthew’s early Christians? Aren’t some of us a little confused, complacent or downright cynical about the idea that Jesus could show up any day?

Save the Date slide

I know people who belong to churches whose leaders keep making predictions about the day of Jesus’ return. Many of those dates have passed. So the leaders read some more, recalculate, and give their followers a new date that Jesus is surely coming back. Talk about FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out.

But how did the Gospel today end: Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Every morning when I was young, my mom stood watch at our kitchen window, looking south over County Highway K, waiting for a glimpse of red flashing lights a mile and a half up the road, telling us it was time to run down our long driveway in time to catch the school bus. But there are no flashing lights, no billboards, no true predictions to tell us Jesus is coming. Nowhere in the Bible does it say when it will be. We have to live ready.

So what does “living ready” look like? I can think of three things that mark people who are living ready.

Living Ready 1 slide

First, people who live ready believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

OK, this seems obvious, but it’s a very serious matter. We asked our three confirmands about their belief in Jesus Christ just three weeks ago. We asked Camryn’s parents and sponsors last weekend at her baptism. As part of our worship, we profess our faith through the Apostles’ Creed almost every week. Why? It is ultimately a statement of belief AND belonging. As Ben Sternke put it:

“To say ‘I believe…’ is not so much to confess individual confidence but to confess corporate belonging and participation in the Church of Jesus Christ, across time and space. The communion of saints throughout the world and throughout the ages who belong to Christ and participate in the life of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

To say “I believe” is an act of faith that we need to practice regularly among people of faith. It is a communal building up – to increase our faith while we increase the faith of others.

Living Ready 2 slide

Second, people who live ready live as “set-apart people.”

They live in the world, but not of this world. They act upon their faith in how they live every day, not just under this roof. They live generous, thoughtful, helpful lives, because of who they are. From the people who allow someone with three items and three small children to go ahead of them in the grocery line, to the couple who set aside their lives for months to assure Mike and I were packed and moved to Chicago, they are considerate in things small and great. They consider their lives a gift, every action a way to use that gift.

Right now, think of one person who has modeled for you that Christ-like generosity, thoughtfulness, and helpfulness. Someone who is living in this world, but living set apart. Now on the count of three, we are going to shout those names together, in a burst of gratitude. Ready? One, two, three! ……

Living Ready 3 slide

And, third, people who live ready want everyone with them.

When that unexpected day comes, I couldn’t help but be disappointed if the crowd was underwhelming. I picture an uncountable mass of all people from all times and places. People who live ready want a party, a banquet for everyone on that day. They can’t help but share the Good News of God’s love and God’s grace for all people.

Many of you have heard the story of the anthropologist studying an African community who set a basket of candy by a tree and offered the candy to the child who could get to it first. The children joined hands, ran together and shared the candy. One child explained it to the anthropologist: “Ubuntu. How can I be happy if all the others are sad?” Ubuntu: I am because we ALL are.

In what seemed to me a twist on that Ubuntu story, a good friend of mine wrote about Life as a headlong race toward Home: sometimes picking up others along the way, sometimes being carried yourself when you fall or falter. Knowing that we are going to make it, she said, by the grand-slam that is God’s grace. And learning how to absolutely, positively, no-matter-what trust in that. That has become my own vision of what our hope, God’s kindom, looks like. Not something I win, not a date that I need to calculate, not something for which I sit passively in the window and wait, but living ready, running toward Home, holding hands with others until we all reach Home.

That, Pilgrim, is our hope this Advent season. Living ready means not living in fear, but living every day filled with hope. Believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior, living grateful, thoughtful, and helpful lives, and bringing everyone home.

Final Slide

That is our hope this Advent season. As we wait for the arrival of Immanuel, and as we wait for the return of Christ. As we prepare for Christmas parties and negotiate stores filled with impatient shoppers. As we try to hold space in our own lives and hearts for some much-needed Christmas peace. Stay awake, my friends. Stay awake, be prepared and live ready!

Dreamers Among Us, Pilgrim, Genesis 40-41, October 16, 2022

This was my first sermon at my MIC site, Pilgrim Lutheran Church and School in Chicago. Ministry In Context is a field placement for seminary students, intended to give them a light version of an internship. I was fortunate to be placed with Pastor Kristian Johnson, a gifted preacher, an encouraging supervisor, and continued mentor. This was the fourth part of a seven-part sermon series on Joseph. 

Children’s sermon

All of us have dreams. Sometimes those dreams are fun and happy. Sometimes they are scary and sometimes they even wake us in the middle of the night – they feel so real. Can you remember one dream that has stuck with you?

Sometimes, the Bible says, God tries to get our attention through our dreams. Remember a couple of weeks ago, Joseph had a couple of dreams and when he told his family, they weren’t very happy.

I admit, I’m not good at remembering my dreams. Sometimes I remember them for a few minutes when I wake up, but then I start thinking about school or work or making breakfast, and the memory of that dream just disappears. If God was giving me a dream, do you think God would make sure I remembered it?.

Once in a while. people have weird dreams that they don’t understand. Maybe someone has a dream that their feet are stuck to the ground and they can’t move. Or maybe they have a dream that they were swimming in deep, deep water. And the next morning, they wake up and say, “Wonder what THAT was about?” And when they tell someone, that person says, “Oh, I know!” You dreamed you were swimming in deep water, because you’re going through something kind of scary, and deep water can be scary too.

So, not only did God give Joseph dreams, God gave him the ability to understand other people’s dreams. God also gave all the people here dreams and abilities too. Not just the adults, but you, too. Different dreams, different abilities, because God knew our church would need many different dreams and abilities.

Thanks for coming up. I have a couple things for you to keep reminding you that God needs your dreams. And, on the way back to your seat or to Sunday school, can you tell one of those adults: God needs your dreams? They may need a reminder – and you’re so good at encouraging them!

Sermon, with image descriptions

Image: When we last left our hero:

As I thought about preaching my first sermon at Pilgrim at the midway point of the Joseph story, I was reminded of those multi-part action-adventure series when I was a kid. The announcer would start the weekly episode with something like “Previously …” or “When we last left our hero…” Every show ended with a cliffhanger. The hero or star faced serious danger.

So, in the spirit of that memory:

(Shift to narrator role and voice) “Previously on ‘Journeys with Joseph,’” as a youth, Joseph, his father’s favorite son, was given an ornate, beautiful cloak. After Joseph revealed that he had two dreams that his family would bow down to him, his fed-up brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt. For a short time, it appeared things might go well for Joseph, as he was sold to Potiphar, the head of Pharoah’s royal guard, and Potiphar came to trust him completely. However, last Sunday ended with Joseph in prison, unjustly accused of trying to go behind Potiphar’s back with Potiphar’s wife. Yet, even as a prisoner, Joseph gained favor with the warden as a man the warden could trust. And now, back to today’s story.”

Image: Joseph in his Coat of Many Colors

Joseph was no longer a teenager or 20-something as we reach today’s part of the story. Genesis gives us hints that he is older and more mature. The passage starts out with “Some time after this.” A couple of verses later, Joseph is put in charge of the Pharaoh's chief cupbearer and baker – the ruler’s personal attendants – who have gotten on the wrong side of Pharaoh, and “they continued for some time in custody.” Joseph is imprisoned with them long enough to know they are unusually disturbed following their own dreams. And after he interprets their dreams, two full years pass. We have to imagine Joseph as no longer an impetuous teenager, lording it over his brothers, but a thoughtful man, perhaps in his early 30s.

Image: Joseph in prison

This is the older and wiser version of Joseph. Older and wiser, perhaps, but certainly not all-knowing. In fact,

• Joseph likely had no idea God was working out a future for God’s people through him.
• Joseph had no idea that his dreams, and his ability to interpret others’ dreams, were a gift from God.
• And Joseph had no idea that God was using the gifts that God had given him, as a manager, as a keen observer of people, and as a visionary and interpreter of visions, time after time, in all of the places he landed.

How about us? Do we really understand the way God equips each of us with our unique capabilities as gifts? That your ability to provide hospitality, or your ability to sing or play music, or your ability to keep your home or business finances organized – those are gifts! And God specifically equipped you to fit into this world, into your own community, and into this congregation with those gifts.

It wasn’t so many years ago that the leaders of a congregation I belonged to were stressed. Chuck, a long-time member, was moving away. This person had filled lots of roles: treasurer, chair of the finance committee, audit committee member. Congregational leaders were really down about the hole he was leaving. However, it wasn’t too long after Chuck moved away that the congregation welcomed some new members, including a woman who was a retired accountant. It has happened too often in congregations I’ve been in to be coincidental – God provides the people and the gifts that are needed. It is up to us to find them and encourage them, and assure them their presence and work among us is the Body of Christ as it should be.

Now, that’s not to say that God always has us using our gifts in the same way. My bachelor’s degree is in journalism and mass communications. So, for the first 15 years of my career, I reported for community newspapers. But life changed and I went into human services work. In 2010, I joined a new congregation, and it wasn’t too long before my gifts led me to the communications ministry and into writing liturgy. And when God called me to seminary, those gifts didn’t go away.

Earlier this month, I looked at the calendar, and realized it was 36 years from my first day on the job with my first newspaper. And what was I doing at that moment? Sitting at my laptop, writing a feature story for the seminary’s Marketing and Communications Department. God is faithful, and the gifts that God gives us are meant to be put to good use.

That holds true no matter your age, your experiences, your skills, your length of time in the congregation. What a perfect message for today, when Pilgrim is holding its ministry fair. God called you here, and God finds ways for your gifts to shine: whether you are an accountant, a writer, or, even returning to our story, a dreamer or dream interpreter.

Image: Dream cloud

Dreams and visions – they keep showing up in Joseph’s story. Joseph had two dreams as a young person that he rather smugly shared with his 11 brothers and parents. Those dreams were pretty transparent: the sheaves in the field bowing down to his sheaf, the sun, moon and 11 stars bowing down to him.

Just as an aside, I come from a large family. I’m pretty certain that if one of my youngest brothers told our family a dream like that, there would have been repercussions.

But then Joseph’s story involves another pair of dreams: dreams by the Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker that Joseph was able to interpret in prison: that the cupbearer would be restored to the Pharaoh's good graces, while the baker would lose his life. And … spoiler alert … there are more dreams to come in Joseph’s story.

The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible says the ancients saw dreams as messages given in our sleep by deities, demons, or the dead. Many people of faith continue to believe dreams are one way God communicates with us. And “visions” serve the same role when we are awake.

Image: Scripture from Joel:

Every Pentecost Sunday, when we celebrate the Holy Spirit setting the Church on fire with the power of the Good News of the love of Jesus Christ, we use a passage of scripture from the prophet Joel:

“I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

When the prophet spoke about people dreaming dreams and having visions, he wasn’t just talking about people in ancient times, or at the end of time. If we are open to them, I think that God gives people dreams and visions all the time. And God gives us the power to welcome and interpret those dreams and visions.

Last week, Pastor Kristian asked two questions:

• What is God’s vision for you?

• What is God’s vision for Pilgrim?

Some people would see those questions as “one-person questions.” God’s vision for me – that’s my question. And what’s God’s vision for Pilgrim – let’s leave that one for Pastor, or maybe our Church Council President.

But just as our dreamer Joseph had the gift to interpret the cupbearer and baker’s dreams, we are both dreamers and dream interpreters. Pilgrim would not have existed had people not envisioned a place to worship in this part of Chicago and made that vision a reality. Pilgrim School wouldn’t have started had Pilgrim members not dreamed of a place where their young people could grow in wisdom AND faith, and then put bricks on that dream to open the school.

So I ask you again:

• What is God's dream for you?
• What is God’s vision for Pilgrim?
• What dreams are your passions and God’s gifts stirring in you?
• What visions does Christ have for this congregation, in this community, in 2022?

I believe those dreams and visions are here, among us, today. I believe that God has given us the people and the gifts we need. I believe that Christ is calling us to be the dreamers and the dream interpreters, the ones who will share Christ’s love in new ways for such a time as this.

Amen.

Honest Questions, Real Faith, SOJ Easter 2, April 24, 2022

I preached this sermon at Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church in Clarkdale, AZ, the Sunday after Easter, my final sermon in person at the church Mike and I helped charter in the 1990s.

Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus, who is our Christ. Amen

St. Thomas shares the spotlight with the Risen Savior this weekend, not just in this church, but in most churches around the country.

In churches that use the Revised Common Lectionary, this is the traditional Sunday-after-Easter gospel every year. We hear about Thomas, who was not with the other disciples Easter night, who is present a week later. And for churches using the narrative lectionary, like Spirit of Joy, this passage is appointed for the Sunday after Easter this year, and every fourth year. So, countless sermons have been preached about this text over the years, and probably tens of thousands more will be preached this weekend.

Thomas always seems to get a bad rap in this passage. Those of us who grew up in the church have always heard a certain label applied to Thomas, because of the words Jesus speaks to him. Labels matter in how we read and respond to this story. Let’s take apart this familiar encounter and look at a few pieces in detail.

At the start of the gospel, the disciples are gathered in an upper room, locked in, for fear of “the Jews.” Or in other translations, “the Jewish leaders.” I don’t think anyone can fault them for locking themselves away, for being afraid. They’ve seen their teacher taken away, tried, scourged nearly to death, and then crucified. It makes sense that they expect to be next, and they are terrified.

Aside from that, they are grieving. They knew that Jesus died three days earlier, his lifeless body washed and wrapped and placed in a donated tomb. They heard the stories that the stone was rolled away and he was not there when the women went to the tomb at dawn. Whether his body was stolen or he is risen, they don’t know. They aren’t sure whether to go back to their former lives or proclaim the risen Savior, so they are stuck: fearful and questioning.

I’m sure many of us can empathize with the disciples. We’ve just lived with a global pandemic for two years, and 6 million deaths later, it’s still not over. My congregation in Prescott Valley is not meeting in person this week and next due to a Covid outbreak during Holy Week. Many of us have spent so much time behind our own locked doors, fearful and questioning. Is it safe to gather, to go back to work or school or church? Should we get another booster? Should we keep wearing masks? So many questions, honest questions. And the first truth of today’s story: It is the human response to ask questions.

Second, none of the gospels explain where Thomas was on Easter night. But he was not with the others. I think his absence points to the second truth: People are different and people come to faith differently, and that’s OK. For starters, not everyone handles grief the same way. A group of disciples locked themselves in an upper room on Resurrection Sunday to grieve, maybe to be safe, perhaps to share the wild hope that Jesus had risen from the dead. But not everyone was there. Perhaps Thomas just wanted to be alone to process his grief, ponder his questions. Maybe he didn’t want to lock himself away from the world. Or it’s possible that his was not the popular opinion – he couldn’t bear to start believing in a resurrected Jesus only to have his hopes dashed again. Remember, the disciple Peter wasn’t the only passionate one. Earlier, when Jesus said he was returning to Judea, as Lazarus had fallen ill, the disciples tried to talk him out of it, since some Jewish folks wanted to kill him. Thomas, however, knew what was at stake, but was all in with Jesus. “Let us also go, that we may die with him,” he told his fellow disciples.

During the six weeks of Lent, a group from Spirit of Joy gathered to study “The Difficult Words of Jesus.” In this study, we talked about six gospel texts that have vexed Jesus followers and theologians for two centuries. Not every word Jesus uttered was graceful and compassionate. We reflected on Jesus’ instructions to the rich young man to sell everything he owned, and to his disciples to go nowhere among the Gentiles. We heard passages that suggested Jesus wanted to divide families, and others that seem to suggest Jesus sanctioned slavery. We talked about heaven and hell, and scriptures that vilify Jewish people. Vanderbilt Divinity School theologian A.J. Levine provided some guiding thoughts, but at the end of the day, we didn’t walk out in complete accord. And that’s OK. We don’t have to live this Christian faith in lockstep. Our God is big enough for our questions and doubts.

The story is told of a self-proclaimed, self-assured atheist who would take great pleasure in publicly denying the existence of God. He would constantly tell anyone who would listen what was wrong with a God who would allow cruelty and injustice to continue. One day the great Hassidic master Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, Ukraine, approached this man and said, “You know what, I don't believe in the same God that you don't believe in.”

Faith is not a once-and-done proposition. It’s not like learning to read or do multiplication. We don’t go to Sunday School and confirmation, or an Alpha class or Diakonia, or a new member class, and walk out the door understanding it all. Perhaps the father of the boy that Jesus healed in Mark 9 uttered the most honest words in scripture when he said, “I believe; help my unbelief.” The third truth for today: We can live in the paradox of faith and unknowing. The opposite of faith is not doubt. Doubt is part of faith. The opposite of faith is certainty.

And that brings us back to the disciples in today’s passage. Look closely at the story. On Resurrection Sunday, Jesus suddenly is with the remaining disciples, without Thomas. They were terrified, and now they think they are all having a communal apparition – this must be a ghost. What else appears despite a locked door? But Jesus tells them to be at peace, allows them to see his wounds and touch his flesh, and they rejoice. It IS Jesus!!

Then a week later, same time and place, Jesus appears again and tells them to be at peace. Jesus, sensing Thomas’s uncertainty, invites him to do just as his fellow disciples had done the previous week – see and touch his wounds and prove to his senses that he is their resurrected teacher. Jesus’s words are not a rebuke, but an invitation. “Do not doubt, but believe.”

And Thomas does not disappoint. As soon as he touches the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side, any uncertainty he may have had is gone. His words surpass simple knowing, or even the joyful recognition of the disciples a week earlier. His response is the ultimate faith statement of the Gospels in five words, as he exclaims: “My Lord and My God.”

And the fourth and final truth: Jesus addresses his last comment in the passage not to Thomas, not to the other disciples, but to his followers not in the room that night, the ones who would not be able to place their hands in his nail holes and his side. “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Blessed are those who have not seen. Not Mary who meets the risen Jesus in the garden. Not the followers on the road to Emmaus, who meets the risen Lord in the breaking of the bread. Jesus is talking to those who would become Christ-followers from the disciples who couldn’t stop telling others about the resurrected Jesus. First, in Jerusalem, and then throughout the world. From Peter, who spread the good news to Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia and beyond. From Philip, who met the Ethiopian eunuch and began the spread of the gospel to Africa. From John who preached through Asia, and from Thomas, whose witness of “My Lord and My God” traveled to Persia, beginning faith communities that now are the rock-solid Christian congregations throughout India.

Jesus is talking to Christians in Corinth and Ephesus and Thessalonica who would hear about Jesus from Paul, and to the followers around the globe who were inspired by the 3,000 people infused by the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem on Pentecost.

And Jesus is talking to you and me, and the people we tell, a continuing story of faith brought to life by “those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

It is a wild and almost unbelievable story, about God who stopped at nothing to keep loving God’s people, God who loved creation enough to be born as one of us, about a Savior so in love with humanity that he laid down his life. But if you open your heart to be touched by those wounds, and see the risen Christ, perhaps you, too, proclaim with Thomas, “My Lord and My God.” Or maybe you have your questions, but you showed up, and are here to worship our God who is big enough and loves you enough so you can live into your questions, now and always. Blessed and beloved are you, either way.

Amen

 

The Flood, the Future, and God's Redeeming Covenant, LSTC Echols, March 29, 2022

This was my sermon for the 2022 James Kenneth Echols Preaching Celebration at LSTC. It was delivered over Zoom, as I was still in Arizona, preparing to move to Chicago for Clinical Pastoral Education in June. I was selected as runner-up for the prize in 2022.

If someone asked you what is the saddest phrase in the Bible, what would you pick? How could you choose?

This is not some hypothetical question. One can find many responses to this same question online in Biblical blogs. Some people think the saddest phrase comes within the first chapters of Genesis: “So the Lord sent them out of the Garden.” Others select “there was no room for them at the inn” from Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ birth. Still others point to some later words from Luke, spoken by Cleopas on the road to Emmaus: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Or many people name those two words in John, chapter 11, “Jesus wept,” upon the death of his friend Lazarus. Or perhaps you can think of others.

All of these are tragic commentaries: on the brokenness of humanity, a lack of hospitality, the hopelessness of Jesus’ followers after his crucifixion, the sting of death that even shattered Jesus’ heart.

But after reading today’s lessons again, I can find nothing more heart-wrenching than the phrase that begins the flood story, the introduction to the narrative that concludes in today’s lesson. From Genesis Chapter 6, verse 6, “God was sorry for making humankind on the earth, and it grieved God to the heart.”

Only six chapters into the Bible, sin had so thoroughly ravaged humanity that God regretted creating us, not just a fleeting moment of regret, but such unbearable grief that God contemplated obliterating us – not just the troubled human species, but every living thing.

Genesis 6 doesn’t go into the specifics of humankind’s depravity. The text leaves it up to our imagination what humans were doing that disappointed God so deeply.

However, God revises the original plan and decides to redeem Creation by selection. One human family. Pairs of all types of animals. And the rest of God’s creation, well…

This flood story – Noah and the Ark – is not really what you want to paint on your congregation’s nursery wall. Not the best story for toddlers in Sunday school. Despite a torrent of artistic picture books and a deluge of kids’ songs, this narrative, allegory, or myth from the beginning of the Hebrew Bible is at its heart a Creator’s dilemma. Let humankind continue in its evil ways and perhaps destroy all living things or commit near genocide to try to redeem Creation.

Flood stories, as well as fires, stars falling from the sky, shaking earth, and exploding mountains are common to every civilization’s history. Geomythology was the way our ancestors tried to make sense of massive planetary events.

However, geologic evidence never has been found for a global flood that covered earth’s highest peaks and every continent. But geologists have found massive floods, including a large regional one in Mesopotamia that may have corresponded with the account from Genesis, chapters 7 through 9, and the nearly identical account from the Quran. Theologians have surmised that the Priestly writer of this section of Genesis spun together this regional flood and the account of God’s despair. This has led to deep divisions between those who would see the story under a lens of Biblical inerrancy and others who ponder the story as a glimpse at the complex and compassionate nature of God.

Compassionate may not be the word some might choose to describe the metaphor of a disappointed deity who decides humans are behaving badly, and the corrective action is to wipe out all living things. But at its heart, this IS a redemption story, a covenant story, not just between God and homo sapiens, but between God and humankind and the whole earth.

In the story, God does not reduce the earth to clay again, but saves humanity and life itself by choosing a family set of each species to repopulate the earth, a reset so to speak, a reboot of Creation itself. In effect, a third Creation storyline. And when the water recedes, God doesn’t throw out a bunch of punishments or rules. It is a merciful, thoughtful God who meets Noah’s family in Chapter 9, having taken the biblical measure of 40 days to determine how to proceed from this new starting point.

“Never again,” is God’s opening line. And three times God repeats “Never again.” Never again will I send a flood like this. Never again will I destroy life to restore it. Never again will the earth be a weapon against living things. And this arc of color, set against the gray and black forces that are storm clouds, this will be the seal of my promise to you, to all living things, to Earth itself, that henceforth, these clouds will provide needed rain to nourish the earth, not to annihilate it. Look to the sky, when you see storm clouds building and fear overtakes you, and remember this covenant. Never again.

As far as covenants go, this covenant following the flood, sometimes called the Noahic Covenant, is somewhere down most people’s lists of the most important covenants. God’s covenant to make of Abraham and Sarah a great nation, the covenant through Moses to provide a land and promise to God’s chosen people, God’s covenant to David to make him the beginning of an everlasting royal lineage – those are the Covenants people recall from the Hebrew Bible. And Christians add to that list the New Covenant, spoken by Jesus to his disciples, “for you and all people,” on that last night in the upper room. The New Covenant – the restoration of relationship between God and God’s people for all time.

Yet, the covenant from today’s text is not one that we should dismiss lightly. It is not a bilateral covenant, requiring a commitment and action from both sides. Like the New Covenant, it comes with no strings attached, a gift of grace for all people, for all time. Out of the depth of God’s grief, a gift of grace, as God bridged the gap between Godself and Creation. And unlike the others, this covenant was not between God and Noah, but between God and all living things, as well as the earth itself. God’s heart was broken, but God acted to restore humanity and protect all the Earth.

So, how does this covenant speak to us today, millennia later? Is there a promise in these words for us as we ponder the broken environmental accords, witness species after species of God’s creation becoming extinct, and see the clock ticking toward time when our planet may no longer support life as we know it?

While God did not ask our opinion in creating this world or restoring life through the creative waters of rain and flood through the ages, God said this covenant was “everlasting” and “for all future generations.” God was looking ahead, knowing that this covenant would speak to people in difficult times. In times of brutal dynasties. In times of World Wars and bombs that could destroy life itself. In times like today when our nation’s leaders and citizens are not on the same page on dialing back climate change.

Perhaps our role in God’s rainbow covenant meshes with one final covenant: the one spoken in each of our baptisms. In our baptismal flood waters, in which we were washed and welcomed into God’s family, we were baptized into faith in action, living with and loving one another, striving for justice and peace in all the earth. This is the time for God’s people to live into those words, and help assure the promises “for all future generations.”

The opening line was perhaps the saddest one in the Bible: “God was sorry for making humankind on the earth, and it grieved God to the heart” The story of God and God’s people is one that still is being written with us. Perhaps it is our thoughtful, every day actions of living together, loving one another, and striving for justice and peace that will change that sad opening line to a different kind of ending, for all future generations.

Amen.

Called to Speak the Truth, Epiphany 4C, January 30 2022

Grace and peace to you from God who calls us all beloved children, and from our Savior Jesus, who is our Christ. Amen

When I was growing up, my hometown country radio station had a feature every Monday through Saturday after the noon news. Some of you probably remember Paul Harvey’s News and Comment radio shows that ran for decades on ABC radio. Paul Harvey added another segment to his shows in 1976 called “The Rest of the Story.” This show’s lead in was “You know what the news is; in a minute you’re going to hear The Rest of the Story.”

The way today’s Gospel follows last week’s text from Luke, I feel like today’s message is The Rest of the Story – a real cliff-hanger, so to speak.

How could Jesus go from “well-spoken hometown hero” to “public enemy No. 1” in seven verses? Let’s go back to the beginning of his visit to Nazareth. Luke writes that Jesus had started teaching in the synagogues throughout Galilee, and his reception there was quite favorable.

 

Apparently the word made it back to his hometown and Jesus was invited to teach there. Or maybe Jesus was in town for a home-cooked dinner. However it happened, Jesus was in the synagogue on the sabbath and rose to read. The attendant handed him a scroll to read from Isaiah, and Jesus found his place, the prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah 61:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And after this truncated reading, as was the custom, Jesus sat down to teach. And the words that came out of his mouth are the starting point for today’s Gospel. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

And those sitting in the synagogue marveled at the gracious words, the eloquent wisdom that Jesus was teaching them. So, what turned their admiration for Jesus to a mob scene just moments later? There were three things that happened next that turned their raves into rage:

 

The first was that Jesus had changed. While this was Mary and Joseph’s son, he no longer acted like the young man they thought they knew. He had a different presence and a different calling. He saw through their expectations that he would remain in Nazareth and heal there: Jesus said, “And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” Jesus knew he was being called to share the good news to other people in other places.

Second, Jesus wasn’t acting like one of them. While Jesus reading from Isaiah 61 and telling them that the prophecy about the Messiah was being fulfilled in their presence didn’t sink in immediately, the community was getting it by the time he called himself a prophet: Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” And then Jesus launches into examples of prophets who left home to do their work. Not a couple of minor-league prophets either – no, Jesus goes big. His examples were Elijah and Elisha. Other than Moses, Jesus couldn’t have picked two bigger names to throw out to his community and the Jewish leaders. Can you imagine the temperature starting to rise in that synagogue?

And third, Jesus was asking then to step out of their comfort zone. Jesus explained that during the 3 ½ year famine, there were multitudes of widows Elijah could have fed right there at home, but did Elijah stay there? No, Jesus reminded them. Elijah went to Zarephath in Gentile territory, north of Tyre. And how about Elisha? Did he heal lepers just among his neighbors? Nope, he healed Naaman the Syrian – again, a Gentile. 

In short, that Spirit of the Lord that filled him was sending him to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and a proclamation of God’s favor, not just at home, but everywhere he could carry it. He was called to bring the truth of God’s favor, God’s grace, God’s love, to God’s people everywhere. His call was even bigger than Jesus understood that day. And it was too big for Nazareth.

As the truth of what Jesus was saying sunk in, the collective group of listeners in that synagogue turned on Jesus, interrupting his proclamation, driving him out of the synagogue, out of town, and nearly over a cliff before Jesus somehow “passed through the midst of them.” Perhaps during their walk, in their collective rage, they turned on each other. Or somehow Jesus gave them the slip. Luke doesn’t go into detail – he just says Jesus managed to get out alive that day, to continue to ignite other folks with the good news, and inflame others with that same truth.

In a commentary on this passage, Lutheran pastor Roy Harrisville III said “Preachers who try to preach only messages of conciliation are merely preaching half a gospel. The other half is an attack on all fronts against human presumption.” He goes on to say, “Christ’s epiphany is not two-dimensional and easy to take. His disciples are charged with preaching the full and complete word, the hard word, the saving word”

 

Imagine if Jesus walked into this building today, picked up Isaiah 61, and preached that sermon here. I wonder how that would sound? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor – so many poor folks here. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor right now in 2022.”

• I wonder: Would Jesus stretch us to bring good news to the poor – beyond our interfaith meals and monthly food drive– to find ways for Emmanuel to bring lasting change to the hungry and homeless in our community? 
• I wonder: Would Jesus provoke us to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind by reaching out to people with various disabilities in our community and offering to work with them to create programs and worship that would meet their needs?
• I wonder: Would Jesus challenge us to let the oppressed go free– beyond providing assistance to people in temporary financial trouble – by advocating for refugees, helping people who have served their prison sentences find meaningful work and community, and mentoring people caught in generational poverty so they and their children can have better lives?
• And I wonder: And would Jesus task us to proclaim the Year of the Lord’s Favor – especially on this fifth anniversary of our decision to become a Reconciling in Christ congregation? Beyond the welcome statement and the RIC logo on our website, would Jesus challenge us to reach out to the LGBTQIA+ community in the Quad City area, from questioning teens to gay and trans elders who have been deserted by their families, to find out how we can really love our neighbors with various sexual orientations and gender expressions?

If Jesus walked in on our joint service and congregational meeting today, how seriously would we take his call to find new ways to be the Church? Or would we run Jesus out of town and over a cliff when we realize that what he is asking us to do today is the same thing he preached to his hometown on that sabbath day two centuries ago?

 

Jesus asked them, and is asking us now, to break down our walls and keep finding ways to spread Love further, to challenge our ideas of who are the people we are to serve, the people who deserve God’s favor.

 

Amen.

Living Hope, LSTC Preaching, November 29, 2021

This was my final Introduction to Preaching sermon, an occasional service sermon based on 1 Peter 1:3-9. In my case, a funeral sermon, preached as if I had delivered the homily for a 2-year-old girl I wrote about, many years ago, who died of leukemia. Rest in Peace, Chelsea.

We gather here today, filled with a mix of emotions. Mostly sadness and a collective community grief, for Bob and Kim and their families and friends. We had hoped things would turn out differently.
   • We had hoped that Chelsea’s leukemia would have stayed in remission.
   • We had hoped that the bone-marrow transplant would have taken.
   • We had hoped that this beautiful, blonde-haired toddler would not have left us so soon.

Perhaps you have other emotions, too. The disbelief that Chelsea is really gone, that so many dreams for her future will never transpire. That mix of pain, confusion and anger that wells up when we try to understand why little children get cancer or die under tragic circumstances. The wonder of this family’s faith, that they asked that today be a celebration – a celebration of the birth of their daughter into everlasting life, rejoicing in the midst of their mourning.

No words or ritual today are going to remove or resolve the many conflicting emotions present within us. And I want to reassure you – all of these emotions are OK. Not only OK, but holy as an outcome of our love for one another. Our sadness, our pain, our anger, our questions, and even the joy and laughter when it bursts through the others. Grief is a strange visitor: quick to arrive, and oh, so VERY slow to leave. The best any of us can do is capture the communal longing, the breadth of concern for the Hodous family, and share in the hope we have in the good news of Jesus Christ.

There’s a reason that this text, read on many Easter mornings, is also read at memorial services. All of our emotions stemming from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are lifted up in this passage -- the suffering, the testing, mixed with our joy in our daily life together and eternal life to come. This letter was written to encourage groups of new believers as they dealt with trials and persecution in their communities in the latter part of the first century.

“In this you (not just you, but ‘y’all,’ the entire community) rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials…”

Trials. We’ve all read about the trials this family has been through, the trips to Phoenix Children’s Hospital for the diagnosis, the two times remission was achieved and then slipped away, the encouragement that Ryan’s bone marrow was a match, and the trip to the Mayo Clinic. Faith communities all over the Verde Valley prayed for Chelsea’s healing continuously for 14 months.

Never once did I hear Bob or Kim utter a “Why, us?” or “Where is God in this?” Bob and Kim testified that God was right beside them and their daughter every minute of her illness. Our God who knew the suffering of a child, who felt Jesus’ tears and pain, who shuddered at the cruelty of Jesus’ crucifixion. That same God was present at Chelsea’s birth, was in the room during every test and procedure, and was right beside them as Chelsea drew her final breath. And God is present with us now, helping us to deal with the paradox of grief at Chelsea’s death and rejoicing at her homecoming with Jesus.

None of us in this room has been face to face with Jesus. We have only our beliefs and our imagination of what that day will look like. Yet, by turning Chelsea’s memorial today into a brightly colored celebration of her birth into new life, they have modeled a Living Hope, a trust that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foretelling of the new life Chelsea and all of us are promised.

So, while our hearts are broken today as we gather with this family, we can share that Living Hope. And today, or perhaps in the days ahead, God’s Spirit will help guide us all through the mourning to joy in the hope we share in Jesus Christ. Or as today’s reading concludes: “Although you have not seen Jesus, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” Amen.