Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on December 25, 2016
Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:1-7
Pastor's Note: In keeping with a long-time personal tradition, I composed another "storytelling sermon" for Christmas Day this year. This time, I took on the role of Joseph.
What a long strange trip it’s been.
I’d thought I’d heard and seen it all. My name is Joseph. I hail from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. I’ve seen 35 or so summers, making me something of a venerable figure in our village. (Before you folks from future generations laugh, remember that many in my day and time are lucky to see 40. I am very much an old man for my time.)
Twenty years I’ve worked at my trade, learning from my father the art of carpentry. I’ve worked hard, made my meager fortune, and gained a reputation as a fair and honest businessman. The village respects and looks up to me. My reputation has spread to the neighboring villages. My work can be found in the homes of Capernaum and Bethsaida.
It doesn’t hurt that I can lay claim to being a descendant of King David through his son Solomon. Sadly, that lineage gave me none of their fabled wealth, but having a decent pedigree is always a good thing.
Why am I sharing all of this with you? Well, all of this, my reputation, my profession, my pedigree, all of it has been my evidence that I am a worthy suitor to the lovely Mary. Mary is the most beautiful girl in the village and, after all these many years, I feel it is time to end my bachelor life and start a family. She’s the one I want I start it with.
But to woo her, I must prove myself first to her family, to her father Joachim and her mother Anne. Hence the need for all this evidence that I will prove a good husband, that I will take good care of her. And in that endeavor I was successful. We were betrothed, pledged to wed.
Then I began to prove to Mary herself that I would be a good husband to her. Oh, I know. In my day and time such effort would be seen as frivolous or foolish. Who cares what women think, one might say. Well, I do. Perhaps that makes me strange for my day and time, but strange is the name of the game for this story.
I discovered that Mary was very devout, that faith and devotion to God were of utmost importance to her. Good thing that I too have been very dedicated to our synagogue and to the study of the Scriptures. This became our bond, allowing us to grow in love and affection for one another around a common interest.
News from the wider world interrupted our courtship. The Caesar had spoken. Parthian raiders had been giving the easternmost provinces of the Empire some trouble and Rome was now determined to punish them. Why the Caesar at his great age would want to prosecute another war is beyond me, but Rome’s thirst for blood never quite seems to be sated. Either way a tax was announced for all the Empire. I would soon have to depart to the ancestral home of my family line: Bethlehem in Judea.
It was around this time that things began to get a bit weird.
One afternoon, not long after the census was announced, I went to call on Mary at her parent’s home. I caught her in an unguarded moment and spying upon her from afar, I noticed the telltale bulge of her belly. She was with child. How could this be! The two of us had had no marital relations with one another and I did not know of any other man who had been in her company. A scandal! A betrayal! How could she do such a thing to me?
I retreated to my home to consider my options. I loved Mary even in the midst of her obvious betrayal. I decided to break off our betrothal, but announce that decision only to her and her parents. No doubt, they would find a relative to hide her until the growing evidence of her scandalous behavior went away. Perhaps her old cousin Elizabeth in Judea would serve.
I decided to sleep on my decision. As I slumbered, I received a vision from on high. God sent one of his angels to me in my dreams. The angel spoke. Mary’s child was not the product of a betrayal, but the blessed work of the Holy Spirit. The child would be the promised Messiah and that I was to name him Yeshua, “God will save us.” I awoke from this dream, astonished at the strange and wondrous times in which I was living. God had blessed me, me of all people, to be the father of his Messiah.
I hastened to Mary the next day. Let us be wed immediately, I boldly declared to her and her family. Let the village gauk all they want. God is at work in us and what matter the opinions of onlookers. Mary and her parents, who apparently had received visions of their own from God about the nature of this child, agreed. We were wed within the week.
Soon thereafter, Mary went off to visit Elizabeth, who I came to discover was also expecting a child in her great age. Another miracle. I was surrounded by them. Evidence that God was at work in our world. Yes, it was weird and strange. Virgins conceiving children. Elderly barren women doing the same. The impossible was happening all around me. And it was wondrous!
Some months passed while Mary stayed with Elizabeth. I then set out to perform my public duty, travelling first to fetch my wife and then on to Bethlehem. You know the rest of the story. The first night we were there, the city was so crowded there was only room for us in a barn with the animals. Mary had begun her labor pains as we settled down and later that night she gave birth to this miraculous child. More miracles would follow. Shepherds came calling, speaking of visions of angels heralding the birth of the child.
As dawn approached, I began to settle down after a very sleepless night. I offered up a prayer. Thank you, Lord, that I would be witness to such strange and yet wondrous moments. I have seen God at work in our world. I have seen that his promises, made long before I was born, are true and that he is faithful to them. I would wish the same upon you, my eager audience. May you witness the wondrous, even the impossible. May your eyes be opened to God at work in the world. For he is faithful to his promises. Jesus is proof of that. The Messiah has come and may that same Messiah be a blessing to you and yours.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Sermon for Christmas Eve 2016
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on December 24, 2016
Scripture text: Luke 2:1-7
I try to have a sense of how I’m going to preach Christmas Eve some weeks before the day arrives. In an effort to find some ideas, I went through my sermon blog to review old Christmas sermons and I found some inspiration in the very first Christmas Eve sermon I preached here. In it, I ranted and raved against the “Christmas rules.”
Well, not much has changed in four years. I still hate the Christmas rules, those requirements that are placed upon all of us to have a sense of artificial cheer and sentimentality during this time of year. Be happy. Be joyful. Be full of mirth. OR ELSE!
In recent years, there’s even been a new rule. The old ones weren’t enough, so they added a new one. Back during my childhood all those years ago, “Happy Holidays” was a perfectly acceptable greeting for people during this time of year. But not anymore. Now using that particular phrase makes you are some manner of Christmas apostate. A heathen who rejects the true spirit of Christmas. Another rule. Yet more Christmas rule nonsense.
I don’t like these rules because they create an aura of fakery and deceit around this holiday. They force us to feel things we might not. They force us to gloss over memories that might be painful. They force us to pretend that the world is not what it is, to ignore the fact that our fellow citizens celebrate a whole myriad of holidays from Hanukkah to Kwanzaa to Mawlid to Yule to New Year’s Eve. I doubt many of even us Christians will forego that last one in order to somehow make Christmas the sole holiday of the season. I know I won’t.
These rules force us to pretend. To be something we are not. To feel things we may not. I don’t like that kind of fakery. I like the truth. I like what is real. And I’m not alone.
You see, all the very BEST Christmas stories don’t obey the rules. All the best Christmas stories begin dire and dark. The Grinch is going to steal all the Christmas presents. Scrooge is a horrible nasty person who’s going to be damned if he doesn’t shape up. George Bailey is about to jump off a bridge and kill himself. Even Charlie Brown is made fun of for his wimpy little tree, and Rudolph can’t play any reindeer games. These are not happy stories, at least not the start. They are grounded in the real and often painful experiences of human beings.
Luke’s Gospel story of Jesus’ birth, the story of the first Christmas, does not begin as a happy story either. That’s because it’s not some fairy tale fantasy. It is not perfect and pretty like a Norman Rockwell painting. It is grounded in the real world. Luke begins the story not with “Once upon a time,” but with a statement of the political order of the day. “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus” and this happened “while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”
The decree is for a census, to discover the population of the vast Roman Empire. Older translations of this story, like the KJV, cut to the chase. The census is for a tax. A tax of this magnitude can only mean one thing. The Empire is going to war. There is an invasion planned, perhaps of Briton or Germany or Parthia (modern day Iran.) Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Then as now, those lands where human civilization was born are seemingly a place of unending conflict and turmoil.
This is the world into which Jesus is born. A world upon which a shadow of death and suffering lies. People are going to die in the Empire’s war. There will be disease and famine, with refugees displaced from their homes. It will be a nightmare and this is the world into which Jesus is born..
Jesus’ birth is the coming of light into the darkness. Hope in the midst of despair. Love in the midst of hatred. Mercy in the midst of vengeance. Life in the midst of death.
THIS IS WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT. Jesus comes into the real world, the world in which we all live. A world that is what it is, not what we pretend it to be.
This world’s been broken since before the beginning of human history. Sin and death has plagued us and our forebears for as long as we can remember and even before. But the birth of this child that we mark on this night is the beginning of a new reality, one where that which is broken is set right.
This child, once he becomes a man, shows us what that looks like. He makes the lame to walk and the blind to see. He heals people of horrible disease. He welcomes strangers and outcasts. He forgives the guilty, embraces the broken-hearted. He brings to life again the dead. In small ways, Jesus puts things right, a preview of what is to come for all of us.
This world is broken, but it will not always be so. There is still a shadow of death and suffering cast upon us, but it is fading. It is fading because God is at work in our world. He wants the wrong set right. He’s wanted that since day one.
Christmas is the culmination of a promise made to the patriarch Abraham at the dawn of human civilization. I will make of you a great nation and from your descendants shall come a blessing for the whole world. That blessing would be the one to put right what has gone wrong in this world. That blessing would be a child born in a manger, born in the shadow of the pain of war, born to set the world free.
God lives in the real world with us. Jesus was born into the real world with us. And because of that, the real world in which we live is changing. Tears will be wiped away. Sorrow and death will one day be no more. All that is wrong will be put right. THIS IS WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT. It’s about a broken world being put right.
To those whose Christmas memories are not always joyful, here is your hope. To those who feel pain on this night, here is a salve for your wounds. To those who keenly feel the absence of loved ones, know that this child in the manger has come to bring them to life again. To those of us who live in the real world and not a picturesque fantasy, a real Jesus has come to bind up our wounds and to put the world right. He has come in love offering hope and bringing light and life to a darkened world. That is Christmas. That is why we are here tonight.
Merry Christmas and God’s blessings be upon you all. Amen.
Scripture text: Luke 2:1-7
I try to have a sense of how I’m going to preach Christmas Eve some weeks before the day arrives. In an effort to find some ideas, I went through my sermon blog to review old Christmas sermons and I found some inspiration in the very first Christmas Eve sermon I preached here. In it, I ranted and raved against the “Christmas rules.”
Well, not much has changed in four years. I still hate the Christmas rules, those requirements that are placed upon all of us to have a sense of artificial cheer and sentimentality during this time of year. Be happy. Be joyful. Be full of mirth. OR ELSE!
In recent years, there’s even been a new rule. The old ones weren’t enough, so they added a new one. Back during my childhood all those years ago, “Happy Holidays” was a perfectly acceptable greeting for people during this time of year. But not anymore. Now using that particular phrase makes you are some manner of Christmas apostate. A heathen who rejects the true spirit of Christmas. Another rule. Yet more Christmas rule nonsense.
I don’t like these rules because they create an aura of fakery and deceit around this holiday. They force us to feel things we might not. They force us to gloss over memories that might be painful. They force us to pretend that the world is not what it is, to ignore the fact that our fellow citizens celebrate a whole myriad of holidays from Hanukkah to Kwanzaa to Mawlid to Yule to New Year’s Eve. I doubt many of even us Christians will forego that last one in order to somehow make Christmas the sole holiday of the season. I know I won’t.
These rules force us to pretend. To be something we are not. To feel things we may not. I don’t like that kind of fakery. I like the truth. I like what is real. And I’m not alone.
You see, all the very BEST Christmas stories don’t obey the rules. All the best Christmas stories begin dire and dark. The Grinch is going to steal all the Christmas presents. Scrooge is a horrible nasty person who’s going to be damned if he doesn’t shape up. George Bailey is about to jump off a bridge and kill himself. Even Charlie Brown is made fun of for his wimpy little tree, and Rudolph can’t play any reindeer games. These are not happy stories, at least not the start. They are grounded in the real and often painful experiences of human beings.
Luke’s Gospel story of Jesus’ birth, the story of the first Christmas, does not begin as a happy story either. That’s because it’s not some fairy tale fantasy. It is not perfect and pretty like a Norman Rockwell painting. It is grounded in the real world. Luke begins the story not with “Once upon a time,” but with a statement of the political order of the day. “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus” and this happened “while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”
The decree is for a census, to discover the population of the vast Roman Empire. Older translations of this story, like the KJV, cut to the chase. The census is for a tax. A tax of this magnitude can only mean one thing. The Empire is going to war. There is an invasion planned, perhaps of Briton or Germany or Parthia (modern day Iran.) Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Then as now, those lands where human civilization was born are seemingly a place of unending conflict and turmoil.
This is the world into which Jesus is born. A world upon which a shadow of death and suffering lies. People are going to die in the Empire’s war. There will be disease and famine, with refugees displaced from their homes. It will be a nightmare and this is the world into which Jesus is born..
Jesus’ birth is the coming of light into the darkness. Hope in the midst of despair. Love in the midst of hatred. Mercy in the midst of vengeance. Life in the midst of death.
THIS IS WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT. Jesus comes into the real world, the world in which we all live. A world that is what it is, not what we pretend it to be.
This world’s been broken since before the beginning of human history. Sin and death has plagued us and our forebears for as long as we can remember and even before. But the birth of this child that we mark on this night is the beginning of a new reality, one where that which is broken is set right.
This child, once he becomes a man, shows us what that looks like. He makes the lame to walk and the blind to see. He heals people of horrible disease. He welcomes strangers and outcasts. He forgives the guilty, embraces the broken-hearted. He brings to life again the dead. In small ways, Jesus puts things right, a preview of what is to come for all of us.
This world is broken, but it will not always be so. There is still a shadow of death and suffering cast upon us, but it is fading. It is fading because God is at work in our world. He wants the wrong set right. He’s wanted that since day one.
Christmas is the culmination of a promise made to the patriarch Abraham at the dawn of human civilization. I will make of you a great nation and from your descendants shall come a blessing for the whole world. That blessing would be the one to put right what has gone wrong in this world. That blessing would be a child born in a manger, born in the shadow of the pain of war, born to set the world free.
God lives in the real world with us. Jesus was born into the real world with us. And because of that, the real world in which we live is changing. Tears will be wiped away. Sorrow and death will one day be no more. All that is wrong will be put right. THIS IS WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT. It’s about a broken world being put right.
To those whose Christmas memories are not always joyful, here is your hope. To those who feel pain on this night, here is a salve for your wounds. To those who keenly feel the absence of loved ones, know that this child in the manger has come to bring them to life again. To those of us who live in the real world and not a picturesque fantasy, a real Jesus has come to bind up our wounds and to put the world right. He has come in love offering hope and bringing light and life to a darkened world. That is Christmas. That is why we are here tonight.
Merry Christmas and God’s blessings be upon you all. Amen.
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Sermon for Fourth Advent
Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly on December 18, 2016
Scripture text: Matthew 1:18-25
Rules. Every human society and institution has them. Our government has rules that order life here in America. Speak freely. Worship as you please. But don’t murder. Don’t steal. Don’t run red lights. Etc. Clubs and other organizations have rules. Pay your dues. Show up for meetings. Participate in activities. So forth. Religions have rules. Honor God. Love neighbor. Be good. Families have rules. Listen to your parents. Be home by 10pm.
Everywhere you look there are rules. They guide human society and civilization. They keep things running smoothly...most of the time. Of course, since many rules are human created and human enforced, there are times when rules are unfair or unjust. When you were a kid and you finally got the tree house of your dreams and you put out that sign on the outside of it, “NO GIRLS ALOUD!” (For those of you reading this on the blog, that misspelling is deliberate.)
That’s not a fair rule. Sadly though, such unjust rules are not confined to children. We adults can do that sort of thing too.
In addition to unfair rules, there are also times when the rules probably should be waived. There are mitigating circumstances that might mean that the rules shouldn’t apply. Probably the most dramatic example of this is the insanity plea in our court system. A person has committed a horrible crime, but they didn’t completely understand what they were doing. They weren’t in their right mind. Those are mitigating circumstances. Judges and juries wrestle with whether or not to apply the rules to such a person or waive them because of mental illness and the defendant’s inability to comprehend what precisely they did.
Rules. Joseph of Nazareth struggles with what to do about the rules in our Gospel lesson today. One of the rules, certainly more strict in past times but still often potent in these times, is that you’re not supposed to have sexual relations before you’re married. You’re certainly not supposed to, if you’re a woman, get pregnant. And you’re not supposed to cheat on the person you’re in a relationship with. Yet that appears to be precisely what’s happened here. Joseph’s fiance, Mary, is pregnant and the most logical conclusion is that she got that way by fooling around with someone other than Joseph.
What’s a man to do in those circumstances?
If Joseph were the vindictive type, he could call her out publicly for what she’s done. He could shame her, make her a public embarrassment, and then walk away, breaking off their engagement with a public display of disdain and anger. He would be within his rights to that. In fact, that’s pretty much what the rules demand he do. But Joseph is not vindictive. The storyteller points out that he is a righteous man, and this is one of those circumstances where that word should not be taken sarcastically as it often is when referring to folks like the Pharisees. Joseph is the real deal. He wants to do what is right. And in this case, doing what is right means not doing what the rules demand.
Joseph decides as the story tells us to divorce her “quietly.” He doesn’t want a spectacle. No witch hunt. No lynch mob. He just wants things to go away and he wants to do it in a way that doesn’t hurt Mary. Despite the appearance of her betrayal, Joseph still wants what’s best for her. He wants to uphold her well-being. No wonder he was chosen to be Jesus’ earthly father.
Of course, the story ends with Joseph receiving a vision that tells him the whole truth. Mary has been faithful after all. This child she bears is not an ordinary one, but the promised Messiah, conceived of the Holy Spirit. Joseph changes his mind and he goes forward with marrying Mary. That too is breaking the rules. Imagine the spectacle that was! Joseph and Mary (clearly pregnant) standing before the rabbi with much of the village standing around, saying their vows to one another. Both of them with defiant grins on their faces, not caring one whit what the world thinks. Both of them knowing the truth of what God is doing with them.
They did what was right. Not what the rules demanded.
Jesus clearly followed in their footsteps. As an adult, he was a great one for rule-breaking. He ate with tax collectors. Touched lepers and bleeding women. Talked with Samaritans. Healed the servant of a Roman centurion, a Gentile invader. Defied the rules lawyers in the Pharisees and other religious authorities all the time. He did what was right, not what the rules demanded.
One could argue that even in his death, there was a defiance of the rules. He’s innocent and yet he makes no defense. He has the power to come off the cross and the justification to do so, and yet he remains up there. He has no reason to let himself die and yet he does. Because he did what was right. He died for the sake of the world, innocent blood shed for the sake of the guilty. Oh, and speaking of rules that he breaks, there’s another. What’s dead usually stays dead, but not Jesus. He didn’t obey that rule either. He returned to life and then promised the same to all of us.
But what are we to take away from all this? Well, don’t let the rule get in your way to do what is right. There have been many unfair or downright evil laws in our society. Owning another person whose skin color was different was once perfectly legal in this country. The genocide of the Native population was once legal in this country. The internment of loyal citizens whose ancestry was the same as a declared enemy was once legal in this country. None of these things were what was right and there are those in our society today who would see them become legal again.
Few in number perhaps, but they are bold and vocal. As Christians, we are called to be as Joseph was, as Jesus was. To do what is right and not always what is legal, not always what the rules demand. We must resist these voices of evil. Because if these things or other atrocities were to become legal once more, where do you think Jesus would be if he were on Earth today? He’d be in the internment camps with the immigrants or the Muslims. He’d break the rules to do what is right. Because regardless of whether those people believe in him or not, they are still beloved of God. Still folks for whom, like us, he hung on that cross. Can we do any less?
Sometimes the rules are wrong. Jesus knew that and so should we. But all of us, for the sake of those whom he loves, should do what is right. Amen.
Scripture text: Matthew 1:18-25
Rules. Every human society and institution has them. Our government has rules that order life here in America. Speak freely. Worship as you please. But don’t murder. Don’t steal. Don’t run red lights. Etc. Clubs and other organizations have rules. Pay your dues. Show up for meetings. Participate in activities. So forth. Religions have rules. Honor God. Love neighbor. Be good. Families have rules. Listen to your parents. Be home by 10pm.
Everywhere you look there are rules. They guide human society and civilization. They keep things running smoothly...most of the time. Of course, since many rules are human created and human enforced, there are times when rules are unfair or unjust. When you were a kid and you finally got the tree house of your dreams and you put out that sign on the outside of it, “NO GIRLS ALOUD!” (For those of you reading this on the blog, that misspelling is deliberate.)
That’s not a fair rule. Sadly though, such unjust rules are not confined to children. We adults can do that sort of thing too.
In addition to unfair rules, there are also times when the rules probably should be waived. There are mitigating circumstances that might mean that the rules shouldn’t apply. Probably the most dramatic example of this is the insanity plea in our court system. A person has committed a horrible crime, but they didn’t completely understand what they were doing. They weren’t in their right mind. Those are mitigating circumstances. Judges and juries wrestle with whether or not to apply the rules to such a person or waive them because of mental illness and the defendant’s inability to comprehend what precisely they did.
Rules. Joseph of Nazareth struggles with what to do about the rules in our Gospel lesson today. One of the rules, certainly more strict in past times but still often potent in these times, is that you’re not supposed to have sexual relations before you’re married. You’re certainly not supposed to, if you’re a woman, get pregnant. And you’re not supposed to cheat on the person you’re in a relationship with. Yet that appears to be precisely what’s happened here. Joseph’s fiance, Mary, is pregnant and the most logical conclusion is that she got that way by fooling around with someone other than Joseph.
What’s a man to do in those circumstances?
If Joseph were the vindictive type, he could call her out publicly for what she’s done. He could shame her, make her a public embarrassment, and then walk away, breaking off their engagement with a public display of disdain and anger. He would be within his rights to that. In fact, that’s pretty much what the rules demand he do. But Joseph is not vindictive. The storyteller points out that he is a righteous man, and this is one of those circumstances where that word should not be taken sarcastically as it often is when referring to folks like the Pharisees. Joseph is the real deal. He wants to do what is right. And in this case, doing what is right means not doing what the rules demand.
Joseph decides as the story tells us to divorce her “quietly.” He doesn’t want a spectacle. No witch hunt. No lynch mob. He just wants things to go away and he wants to do it in a way that doesn’t hurt Mary. Despite the appearance of her betrayal, Joseph still wants what’s best for her. He wants to uphold her well-being. No wonder he was chosen to be Jesus’ earthly father.
Of course, the story ends with Joseph receiving a vision that tells him the whole truth. Mary has been faithful after all. This child she bears is not an ordinary one, but the promised Messiah, conceived of the Holy Spirit. Joseph changes his mind and he goes forward with marrying Mary. That too is breaking the rules. Imagine the spectacle that was! Joseph and Mary (clearly pregnant) standing before the rabbi with much of the village standing around, saying their vows to one another. Both of them with defiant grins on their faces, not caring one whit what the world thinks. Both of them knowing the truth of what God is doing with them.
They did what was right. Not what the rules demanded.
Jesus clearly followed in their footsteps. As an adult, he was a great one for rule-breaking. He ate with tax collectors. Touched lepers and bleeding women. Talked with Samaritans. Healed the servant of a Roman centurion, a Gentile invader. Defied the rules lawyers in the Pharisees and other religious authorities all the time. He did what was right, not what the rules demanded.
One could argue that even in his death, there was a defiance of the rules. He’s innocent and yet he makes no defense. He has the power to come off the cross and the justification to do so, and yet he remains up there. He has no reason to let himself die and yet he does. Because he did what was right. He died for the sake of the world, innocent blood shed for the sake of the guilty. Oh, and speaking of rules that he breaks, there’s another. What’s dead usually stays dead, but not Jesus. He didn’t obey that rule either. He returned to life and then promised the same to all of us.
But what are we to take away from all this? Well, don’t let the rule get in your way to do what is right. There have been many unfair or downright evil laws in our society. Owning another person whose skin color was different was once perfectly legal in this country. The genocide of the Native population was once legal in this country. The internment of loyal citizens whose ancestry was the same as a declared enemy was once legal in this country. None of these things were what was right and there are those in our society today who would see them become legal again.
Few in number perhaps, but they are bold and vocal. As Christians, we are called to be as Joseph was, as Jesus was. To do what is right and not always what is legal, not always what the rules demand. We must resist these voices of evil. Because if these things or other atrocities were to become legal once more, where do you think Jesus would be if he were on Earth today? He’d be in the internment camps with the immigrants or the Muslims. He’d break the rules to do what is right. Because regardless of whether those people believe in him or not, they are still beloved of God. Still folks for whom, like us, he hung on that cross. Can we do any less?
Sometimes the rules are wrong. Jesus knew that and so should we. But all of us, for the sake of those whom he loves, should do what is right. Amen.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Sermon for Third Advent
Preached at Grace Lutheran York and Canadochly Lutheran on December 11, 2016
Scripture text: Matthew 11:2-11
Expectations. Last Sunday, I spoke about how the crowds had certain expectations of John the Baptizer. He was to be their charismatic revolutionary figure, the one that would change their world for the better, throw out the Romans, bring back the throne of David, etc.
John, of course, was not that. He did not want to be that. He knew that was not his purpose, so he resisted the desires of the crowds. He was the herald of Jesus, the one preparing for the coming of the Messiah. In the end, he disappointed those hoping he was something else. He did not meet their expectations.
Fast forward to today’s Gospel lesson. Circumstances have changed. John has met Jesus, baptized him, introduced him to the world. He’s done what he came to do, but instead of going off quietly into retirement, he finds himself in prison. He’s under threat of execution. This is not what John expected would happen with his life. His expectations have not been met and he is afraid.
People who are afraid lose their confidence. They lose their certainty. They can make foolish decisions, and John is no different. He sends disciples to Jesus to ask him, “Hey, are you the real deal? Are you the one I was preparing for?”
John the Baptizer doesn’t know this? He doesn’t know that Jesus is the Messiah? Wait a minute here. He’s the one that leaped in the womb when the pregnant Mary came to visit the pregnant Elizabeth. He knew before he was born who and what Jesus was. Could it be? Could it be that John the Baptizer, the herald of the Messiah, has lost his faith? Yes, it could be. He’s afraid. His life has not turned out the way he thought it would. His expectations were not met and all of his certainties are now in question.
We’ve been there too. Probably more than once.
I was there this week. I’m there now. Two years ago, my friend Daniel died in his sleep unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 42. In the midst of my grief was also the fear that could be me. Fast forward to recent events when I discover that many of the conditions that led to his passing are ones that I have. I spent a week in the hospital a few months ago because of them. That’s not how I expected my forties to go, to be battling life-altering and even life-threatening illnesses. My expectations have not been met and I am afraid.
Last Sunday, during the fellowship time at Grace, a member (and I apologize. I will learn names eventually) pulled me aside to remind me that not all people who voted for Trump did so out of hatred and bigotry. I know that and I try to make that point clear when speaking about the election. But who are those others who are not the bigots and white supremacists? Well, they’re folks a lot like those I grew up around. I grew up in Charleston, WV, gateway to coal country. I worked 11 years in ministry on top of a mountain in WV. I was surrounded by people who believed very firmly in the American Dream, that if you just worked hard and honestly, you’d get ahead in life. There are a lot of folks who have worked hard and honestly who are falling further and further behind. Their expectations have not been met and they are afraid.
Not so different are those people who took to the streets after the election. Many of them people on the margins of our society: people of color, alternate language, LGBTQ, and so forth. Many of them concerned about the tone of the election and many of them disappointed their preferred candidate did not win. They too have not seen their expectations met and they too are afraid.
People who are afraid lose their confidence. They lose their certainty. They can make foolish decisions, and we see this all around us. It could be us. It could be people we know. It’s certainly what we see on the news each night. Even the great villains of our time. Those aforementioned white supremacists, the terrorists of ISIS; they do what they do because they are afraid.
To John’s fear, Jesus gives an answer to which we should also take heed. “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” The kingdom continues. God is still at work. Look not with eyes of fear, but with eyes of faith.
Life doesn’t always work out the way we think it should. We all learn that lesson fairly early on, and yet it always comes as a surprise to us despite that. And as much as we pretend that civilization makes us superior to the dumb animals in the wildernesses around us, we cave into our base animal instincts quite easily. Fight or flight in the midst of fear. But Jesus calls us to look to the good in the world, to recognize God’s hand in the midst of all that goes on in our lives.
God’s promises have not faded away in the midst of this world’s chaos and violence. They are still there in the midst of hatred and uncertainty. They are still yours and mine in the midst of broken expectations. You are still baptized. You are still claimed by the one who lived, died, and then rose again. The world may rage or cower in the midst of its unmet expectations, but God is still on the throne. Still at work. Still our loving father, eager to forgive and love.
This is Jesus’ message to John and to us. He also emphasizes it with the crowd on that day. John is the greatest, but the kingdom is still greater. We know this world, but what God is bringing is better. Do not let the disappointments of this world cloud your judgment. There is still the kingdom, God at work in this world. Making the blind to see, the lame to walk, and encouraging those imprisoned by fear.
The third Sunday of Advent is Gaudate, the Sunday of Joy. It’s the Sunday we light the pink candle of the Advent wreath (if you hold to the older liturgical tradition). It’s why I wear a pink shirt on this Sunday.
Joy is the opposite of fear and joy comes from seeing God at work in the world and in our lives. He’s there. He’s bringing the peaceable kingdom that Isaiah so poetically envisions. He’s doing the things that Jesus tells John the Baptizer, healing the sick, welcoming the stranger, changing the world. It may not always seem like it, but it is happening. God is at work, now and always. Open your eyes and see it. Amen.
Scripture text: Matthew 11:2-11
Expectations. Last Sunday, I spoke about how the crowds had certain expectations of John the Baptizer. He was to be their charismatic revolutionary figure, the one that would change their world for the better, throw out the Romans, bring back the throne of David, etc.
John, of course, was not that. He did not want to be that. He knew that was not his purpose, so he resisted the desires of the crowds. He was the herald of Jesus, the one preparing for the coming of the Messiah. In the end, he disappointed those hoping he was something else. He did not meet their expectations.
Fast forward to today’s Gospel lesson. Circumstances have changed. John has met Jesus, baptized him, introduced him to the world. He’s done what he came to do, but instead of going off quietly into retirement, he finds himself in prison. He’s under threat of execution. This is not what John expected would happen with his life. His expectations have not been met and he is afraid.
People who are afraid lose their confidence. They lose their certainty. They can make foolish decisions, and John is no different. He sends disciples to Jesus to ask him, “Hey, are you the real deal? Are you the one I was preparing for?”
John the Baptizer doesn’t know this? He doesn’t know that Jesus is the Messiah? Wait a minute here. He’s the one that leaped in the womb when the pregnant Mary came to visit the pregnant Elizabeth. He knew before he was born who and what Jesus was. Could it be? Could it be that John the Baptizer, the herald of the Messiah, has lost his faith? Yes, it could be. He’s afraid. His life has not turned out the way he thought it would. His expectations were not met and all of his certainties are now in question.
We’ve been there too. Probably more than once.
I was there this week. I’m there now. Two years ago, my friend Daniel died in his sleep unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 42. In the midst of my grief was also the fear that could be me. Fast forward to recent events when I discover that many of the conditions that led to his passing are ones that I have. I spent a week in the hospital a few months ago because of them. That’s not how I expected my forties to go, to be battling life-altering and even life-threatening illnesses. My expectations have not been met and I am afraid.
Last Sunday, during the fellowship time at Grace, a member (and I apologize. I will learn names eventually) pulled me aside to remind me that not all people who voted for Trump did so out of hatred and bigotry. I know that and I try to make that point clear when speaking about the election. But who are those others who are not the bigots and white supremacists? Well, they’re folks a lot like those I grew up around. I grew up in Charleston, WV, gateway to coal country. I worked 11 years in ministry on top of a mountain in WV. I was surrounded by people who believed very firmly in the American Dream, that if you just worked hard and honestly, you’d get ahead in life. There are a lot of folks who have worked hard and honestly who are falling further and further behind. Their expectations have not been met and they are afraid.
That look of disappointment is very genuine, I'm sure.
Not so different are those people who took to the streets after the election. Many of them people on the margins of our society: people of color, alternate language, LGBTQ, and so forth. Many of them concerned about the tone of the election and many of them disappointed their preferred candidate did not win. They too have not seen their expectations met and they too are afraid.
People who are afraid lose their confidence. They lose their certainty. They can make foolish decisions, and we see this all around us. It could be us. It could be people we know. It’s certainly what we see on the news each night. Even the great villains of our time. Those aforementioned white supremacists, the terrorists of ISIS; they do what they do because they are afraid.
To John’s fear, Jesus gives an answer to which we should also take heed. “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” The kingdom continues. God is still at work. Look not with eyes of fear, but with eyes of faith.
Life doesn’t always work out the way we think it should. We all learn that lesson fairly early on, and yet it always comes as a surprise to us despite that. And as much as we pretend that civilization makes us superior to the dumb animals in the wildernesses around us, we cave into our base animal instincts quite easily. Fight or flight in the midst of fear. But Jesus calls us to look to the good in the world, to recognize God’s hand in the midst of all that goes on in our lives.
God’s promises have not faded away in the midst of this world’s chaos and violence. They are still there in the midst of hatred and uncertainty. They are still yours and mine in the midst of broken expectations. You are still baptized. You are still claimed by the one who lived, died, and then rose again. The world may rage or cower in the midst of its unmet expectations, but God is still on the throne. Still at work. Still our loving father, eager to forgive and love.
This is Jesus’ message to John and to us. He also emphasizes it with the crowd on that day. John is the greatest, but the kingdom is still greater. We know this world, but what God is bringing is better. Do not let the disappointments of this world cloud your judgment. There is still the kingdom, God at work in this world. Making the blind to see, the lame to walk, and encouraging those imprisoned by fear.
The third Sunday of Advent is Gaudate, the Sunday of Joy. It’s the Sunday we light the pink candle of the Advent wreath (if you hold to the older liturgical tradition). It’s why I wear a pink shirt on this Sunday.
A pink Pope Francis? Oh, yes.
Joy is the opposite of fear and joy comes from seeing God at work in the world and in our lives. He’s there. He’s bringing the peaceable kingdom that Isaiah so poetically envisions. He’s doing the things that Jesus tells John the Baptizer, healing the sick, welcoming the stranger, changing the world. It may not always seem like it, but it is happening. God is at work, now and always. Open your eyes and see it. Amen.
Sermon for Second Advent
Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on December 4, 2016
Scripture text: Matthew 3:1-12
So, John the Baptizer. We come into the second week of Advent with our annual introduction to Jesus’ cousin, his herald, the “voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” John is all these things and yet he remains one of the more enigmatic figures in the Gospel story. People don’t get him. They didn’t get him at the time and I’m not sure people get him now. And maybe for the same reasons.
Let’s travel back in time to the 1st century. It’s a Roman world and pretty miserable if you aren’t Roman nobility or one of their lackeys. The people are hungry for change. They’re looking for a charismatic figure to lead them into a new era. A time when things will be great again.
Sound familiar?
Ok, there’s some parallels between John’s time and our own. People were looking for political change, political revolution. John fit the bill of that charismatic figure, so people flocked to him to hear his message. His message fit their hopes in its own way also, a call for repentance. If we just get rid of sin, people reasoned, God will bless our efforts to redeem our nation.
That should sound familiar also. After all, there are a number of people (as I’ve pointed out) who voted the way they did if the mindset of “If we just get rid of (insert minority group here), God will bless our efforts to redeem our nation.” If we just get rid of sin... If we just get rid of the sinners...
The Pharisees and the other religious leaders of the day show up also to check out John. They, of course, have the most to lose if things change, so they want to know what’s what with the enemy. John excoriating them as he does (You brood of vipers) also plays into the crowd’s expectations that he’s the herald of a new political order.
But this isn’t what John is about. Matthew, whose version of John’s story we receive, is rather vague about the content of John’s message. Luke fills in those gaps by telling us that what John is preaching is a repentance that takes one from a life of selfishness to selflessness, from taking to giving, from looking out for #1 to self-sacrifice. He’s not calling for a political revolution, but for a moral one.
He is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. He is the herald of the Messiah, the one who is coming who will baptize with fire and change the world. Get ready.
That’s John’s purpose. That’s his job. He’s no revolutionary leader like George Washington or the late not-so-lamented Fidel. Of course, what ends up happening is a lot of these folks just transfer their revolutionary expectations from John to Jesus, which wasn’t any better. In that regard, John in some ways fails in his task. They don’t get what this is all about.
Do we?
It is very easy for us to misunderstand John’s purpose even IF we understand his call for a moral revolution. We spent so much time of our Christian life being bombarded by the idea “if we just got rid of sin, God would love us again.”
But that’s not the point of John’s call to repentance. He understands something that we often miss.
You see, if we start living a life of sacrifice and selflessness, we start to live like Jesus. And if we live like Jesus, if we act like Jesus, we might start thinking like Jesus. And if we start thinking like Jesus, we might start understanding Jesus.
You see if John’s call to repentance is a call to moral perfection, then Jesus makes no sense. Jesus shows up on the scene and he doesn’t go to the morally upright. He doesn’t hang out with the “good people.” He goes to the tax collectors, the lepers, the prostitutes. He hangs with sinners. That’s where his focus is. He’s with the poor, not eating $200 dinners with the President-elect and the powers-that-be.
But if we follow John’s counsel, we see why Jesus does this. These are the ones that need him. These are the ones who are precious to him. These are the ones that he loves. You see, as we well know as Christians, Jesus comes to save the world. The whole world. EVERYBODY if possible. That’s the plan. That’s what this scheme of God’s is about. Salvation of the whole world.
If we start living a life of sacrifice and selflessness, we start to live like Jesus. And if we live like Jesus, if we act like Jesus, we might start thinking like Jesus. And if we start thinking like Jesus, we might start understanding Jesus. And what we want starts becoming the same as what he wants. We look upon the “sinners” (however we might define them in this day and age) as precious children of God that he sees.
Considering the nature of our times, John’s call for a moral revolution is something we should all take seriously. For our society has grown frighteningly hostile to people that Jesus, were he living today, would include in his inner circle. People he loves. People he wants to save. We live in an era where threatening letters are written to mosques, where swastikas are graffitied onto churches, and schoolchildren whose skin color is not white are bullied mercilessly. This is not the world Jesus wants.
Jesus wants a world of welcome and acceptance. He loves you. He loves me. He loves all. He wants to save all people from sin and death, you, me, and everyone. To that end, he came. To that end, he was born. To the end, he died on a cross. To that end, he rose again on third day.
John knows Jesus’ purpose, but the world wasn’t ready for it. In many ways, it still isn’t. John’s work isn’t done. His moral revolution is still necessary. We, even now, need to prepare the way of the Lord. We need to open our eyes to see the world like Jesus and we need to call others to do the same. Because Christ came to save the world. Do you understand what that means? Act like Jesus, think like Jesus, and you will. Amen.
Scripture text: Matthew 3:1-12
So, John the Baptizer. We come into the second week of Advent with our annual introduction to Jesus’ cousin, his herald, the “voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” John is all these things and yet he remains one of the more enigmatic figures in the Gospel story. People don’t get him. They didn’t get him at the time and I’m not sure people get him now. And maybe for the same reasons.
Let’s travel back in time to the 1st century. It’s a Roman world and pretty miserable if you aren’t Roman nobility or one of their lackeys. The people are hungry for change. They’re looking for a charismatic figure to lead them into a new era. A time when things will be great again.
Sound familiar?
Oh, yeah...that guy.
Ok, there’s some parallels between John’s time and our own. People were looking for political change, political revolution. John fit the bill of that charismatic figure, so people flocked to him to hear his message. His message fit their hopes in its own way also, a call for repentance. If we just get rid of sin, people reasoned, God will bless our efforts to redeem our nation.
That should sound familiar also. After all, there are a number of people (as I’ve pointed out) who voted the way they did if the mindset of “If we just get rid of (insert minority group here), God will bless our efforts to redeem our nation.” If we just get rid of sin... If we just get rid of the sinners...
The Pharisees and the other religious leaders of the day show up also to check out John. They, of course, have the most to lose if things change, so they want to know what’s what with the enemy. John excoriating them as he does (You brood of vipers) also plays into the crowd’s expectations that he’s the herald of a new political order.
But this isn’t what John is about. Matthew, whose version of John’s story we receive, is rather vague about the content of John’s message. Luke fills in those gaps by telling us that what John is preaching is a repentance that takes one from a life of selfishness to selflessness, from taking to giving, from looking out for #1 to self-sacrifice. He’s not calling for a political revolution, but for a moral one.
He is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. He is the herald of the Messiah, the one who is coming who will baptize with fire and change the world. Get ready.
That’s John’s purpose. That’s his job. He’s no revolutionary leader like George Washington or the late not-so-lamented Fidel. Of course, what ends up happening is a lot of these folks just transfer their revolutionary expectations from John to Jesus, which wasn’t any better. In that regard, John in some ways fails in his task. They don’t get what this is all about.
Do we?
It is very easy for us to misunderstand John’s purpose even IF we understand his call for a moral revolution. We spent so much time of our Christian life being bombarded by the idea “if we just got rid of sin, God would love us again.”
"The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can't save ourselves. What Jesus did was sufficient." - Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel
But that’s not the point of John’s call to repentance. He understands something that we often miss.
You see, if we start living a life of sacrifice and selflessness, we start to live like Jesus. And if we live like Jesus, if we act like Jesus, we might start thinking like Jesus. And if we start thinking like Jesus, we might start understanding Jesus.
You see if John’s call to repentance is a call to moral perfection, then Jesus makes no sense. Jesus shows up on the scene and he doesn’t go to the morally upright. He doesn’t hang out with the “good people.” He goes to the tax collectors, the lepers, the prostitutes. He hangs with sinners. That’s where his focus is. He’s with the poor, not eating $200 dinners with the President-elect and the powers-that-be.
The very author of this Gospel would have been excluded if this was all about moral perfection.
But if we follow John’s counsel, we see why Jesus does this. These are the ones that need him. These are the ones who are precious to him. These are the ones that he loves. You see, as we well know as Christians, Jesus comes to save the world. The whole world. EVERYBODY if possible. That’s the plan. That’s what this scheme of God’s is about. Salvation of the whole world.
If we start living a life of sacrifice and selflessness, we start to live like Jesus. And if we live like Jesus, if we act like Jesus, we might start thinking like Jesus. And if we start thinking like Jesus, we might start understanding Jesus. And what we want starts becoming the same as what he wants. We look upon the “sinners” (however we might define them in this day and age) as precious children of God that he sees.
Considering the nature of our times, John’s call for a moral revolution is something we should all take seriously. For our society has grown frighteningly hostile to people that Jesus, were he living today, would include in his inner circle. People he loves. People he wants to save. We live in an era where threatening letters are written to mosques, where swastikas are graffitied onto churches, and schoolchildren whose skin color is not white are bullied mercilessly. This is not the world Jesus wants.
Jesus wants a world of welcome and acceptance. He loves you. He loves me. He loves all. He wants to save all people from sin and death, you, me, and everyone. To that end, he came. To that end, he was born. To the end, he died on a cross. To that end, he rose again on third day.
John knows Jesus’ purpose, but the world wasn’t ready for it. In many ways, it still isn’t. John’s work isn’t done. His moral revolution is still necessary. We, even now, need to prepare the way of the Lord. We need to open our eyes to see the world like Jesus and we need to call others to do the same. Because Christ came to save the world. Do you understand what that means? Act like Jesus, think like Jesus, and you will. Amen.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Sermon for First Advent
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on November 27, 2016
Scripture text: Romans 13:11-14
Advent has begun. This season of preparation for the Nativity of Our Lord always has something of a peculiar character. We mark our time of readiness for Jesus’ first coming by looking towards his second. That gives Advent not merely a spirit of looking to the past, but also to the present and to the future. What is our world now and how does Jesus need to come into its midst in this time?
Well, we know what our world is now. It’s an ugly place, filled with violence, anger, and hatred. There are wars across the world with ISIS and Syria. People dying for no reason other than being caught in the crossfire between fanatics and tyrants. Civil strife here at home. We’ve had a contentious election that has made the divisions in our society all the more real. People are marching in the streets in protest. Others are seeing the victory of their side as sanction to brutalize, bully, and threaten.
In the midst of all this, I think it is fair to say that one of the things that is being lost is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is being silenced, lost in the din.
But make no mistake. Christians and Christianity are doing just fine. In fact, they may be doing the best they’ve done in a long time. Our evangelical brothers and sisters were key in the ascension of the new President and they enjoying the fact that they’re going to be on top. The problem is it’s the people who are ascendant, not the message. No, the message of Jesus, who he is, what he came for, that’s still silent.
Instead of “love your neighbor,” it’s hate the different. Instead of welcome the stranger, it’s “build a wall.” Instead of “turn the other cheek” and “Father, forgive,” it’s let’s get them! The truth that God loves all is hard to see. The fact that Christ died and rose again for the sake of all people is invisible. The Kingdom of God, which should be ever marching forward, appears to be taking a few steps back.
“You know what time it is. How it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.” St. Paul wrote those words with the expectation that Jesus’ second coming could happen any minute. He was obviously wrong about that, but it’s still important for the Church to have a sense of urgency. History has shown, time and again, that evil does not sleep. It lurks and waits and makes ready for the time when it can come forth again. That’s true of the evil within our hearts and it is certainly true of the evil in our societies.
We live in evil times. The question, which I’ve been asking for several weeks now, is what are we going to do about it? What does it mean for us to “wake up” in this generation?
Well, let’s be blunt. We’re a tiny little church on a forgotten intersection in a largely forgotten part of York County, PA. We’ve spent the past two years burying many of most beloved and esteemed members. We just had a congregational meeting that was quite a bit of a downer. No compensation increase to our staff and we cut our giving to charity because we’re running out of money. By many benchmarks, we’re a dying church.
Going off to sleep might seem awfully tempting right now. Just let fate run its course. Keep the doors open long enough to bury me and that’ll be that. A lot of churches in this country have chosen such a course. We could join them.
Now I’m not convinced that’s the truth. I’m not convinced we’re done yet. St. Paul tells us that now is the time to wake from sleep and I believe he’s right. The message of Jesus is being silenced under the volume of hate and fear. No, we cannot let that be. The Kingdom must march forward once more and we, Canadochly, can do our part. We’ve been doing our part. We cannot give up now, no matter what the writing on the wall says.
Even if we are dying, there is something to be said for not going quietly into the night. If we are fated to end, then let us make such an end that people remember us. That people miss us once we’re gone. Not all churches are called to be successful, but all churches are called to be faithful. Like Luther planting his tree when he knew the world would end tomorrow, let us do what we’re called to do, regardless of our circumstances. Show the world the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Be Jesus for the sake of the people around us. Let them see what God is really about through us.
One of my favorites movies is an often-forgotten gem from the late 90s called “The Man in the Iron Mask.” Based on the Alexandre Dumas story of the famous Musketeers, it has quite a stellar cast (Jeremy Irons, Gabriel Byrne, Leo DiCaprio, etc.) At the end of the movie, the Musketeers have broken into the Bastille prison to rescue the Man in the Iron Mask. They get trapped by the evil king and his soldiers.
Realizing their fate, they decide rather than surrender that they will go out as they’ve lived and they charge into the muskets of the soldiers.
That could be us. If we hold to what we believe and if we hold to what we’ve been called to do and be, that could be us. Go out doing what we’ve been doing for almost 300 years. Being the church. Caring for the poor. Welcoming the stranger. Spreading the Gospel in word and deed.
Now is the time to wake from sleep, my friends. You might be surprised what happens when you wake up. In the movie, the soldiers are so stunned and awed by the Musketeers’ bravery that they foul up their own shots and all the muskets miss. The heroes survive, the soldiers surrender to them, and turn over the evil king to them for justice. I don’t know what God will do, but I do know that when the Church has stood faithful in the past, that’s when it’s thrived the most. Sometimes, when things look the bleakest is when God is about to do something amazing.
After all, wasn’t that what happened on Golgotha? Christ dying on a cross sure looked like a defeat. Sure looked like the end. It wasn’t.
So what’s to be our fate? Do we go off quietly or do we go out with a bang? Or are we really going out at all? Really only one way to find out. Time to wake up. Amen.
Scripture text: Romans 13:11-14
Advent has begun. This season of preparation for the Nativity of Our Lord always has something of a peculiar character. We mark our time of readiness for Jesus’ first coming by looking towards his second. That gives Advent not merely a spirit of looking to the past, but also to the present and to the future. What is our world now and how does Jesus need to come into its midst in this time?
Well, we know what our world is now. It’s an ugly place, filled with violence, anger, and hatred. There are wars across the world with ISIS and Syria. People dying for no reason other than being caught in the crossfire between fanatics and tyrants. Civil strife here at home. We’ve had a contentious election that has made the divisions in our society all the more real. People are marching in the streets in protest. Others are seeing the victory of their side as sanction to brutalize, bully, and threaten.
In the midst of all this, I think it is fair to say that one of the things that is being lost is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is being silenced, lost in the din.
But make no mistake. Christians and Christianity are doing just fine. In fact, they may be doing the best they’ve done in a long time. Our evangelical brothers and sisters were key in the ascension of the new President and they enjoying the fact that they’re going to be on top. The problem is it’s the people who are ascendant, not the message. No, the message of Jesus, who he is, what he came for, that’s still silent.
Instead of “love your neighbor,” it’s hate the different. Instead of welcome the stranger, it’s “build a wall.” Instead of “turn the other cheek” and “Father, forgive,” it’s let’s get them! The truth that God loves all is hard to see. The fact that Christ died and rose again for the sake of all people is invisible. The Kingdom of God, which should be ever marching forward, appears to be taking a few steps back.
“You know what time it is. How it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.” St. Paul wrote those words with the expectation that Jesus’ second coming could happen any minute. He was obviously wrong about that, but it’s still important for the Church to have a sense of urgency. History has shown, time and again, that evil does not sleep. It lurks and waits and makes ready for the time when it can come forth again. That’s true of the evil within our hearts and it is certainly true of the evil in our societies.
We live in evil times. The question, which I’ve been asking for several weeks now, is what are we going to do about it? What does it mean for us to “wake up” in this generation?
Well, let’s be blunt. We’re a tiny little church on a forgotten intersection in a largely forgotten part of York County, PA. We’ve spent the past two years burying many of most beloved and esteemed members. We just had a congregational meeting that was quite a bit of a downer. No compensation increase to our staff and we cut our giving to charity because we’re running out of money. By many benchmarks, we’re a dying church.
Going off to sleep might seem awfully tempting right now. Just let fate run its course. Keep the doors open long enough to bury me and that’ll be that. A lot of churches in this country have chosen such a course. We could join them.
Now I’m not convinced that’s the truth. I’m not convinced we’re done yet. St. Paul tells us that now is the time to wake from sleep and I believe he’s right. The message of Jesus is being silenced under the volume of hate and fear. No, we cannot let that be. The Kingdom must march forward once more and we, Canadochly, can do our part. We’ve been doing our part. We cannot give up now, no matter what the writing on the wall says.
Even if we are dying, there is something to be said for not going quietly into the night. If we are fated to end, then let us make such an end that people remember us. That people miss us once we’re gone. Not all churches are called to be successful, but all churches are called to be faithful. Like Luther planting his tree when he knew the world would end tomorrow, let us do what we’re called to do, regardless of our circumstances. Show the world the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Be Jesus for the sake of the people around us. Let them see what God is really about through us.
One of my favorites movies is an often-forgotten gem from the late 90s called “The Man in the Iron Mask.” Based on the Alexandre Dumas story of the famous Musketeers, it has quite a stellar cast (Jeremy Irons, Gabriel Byrne, Leo DiCaprio, etc.) At the end of the movie, the Musketeers have broken into the Bastille prison to rescue the Man in the Iron Mask. They get trapped by the evil king and his soldiers.
Realizing their fate, they decide rather than surrender that they will go out as they’ve lived and they charge into the muskets of the soldiers.
That could be us. If we hold to what we believe and if we hold to what we’ve been called to do and be, that could be us. Go out doing what we’ve been doing for almost 300 years. Being the church. Caring for the poor. Welcoming the stranger. Spreading the Gospel in word and deed.
Now is the time to wake from sleep, my friends. You might be surprised what happens when you wake up. In the movie, the soldiers are so stunned and awed by the Musketeers’ bravery that they foul up their own shots and all the muskets miss. The heroes survive, the soldiers surrender to them, and turn over the evil king to them for justice. I don’t know what God will do, but I do know that when the Church has stood faithful in the past, that’s when it’s thrived the most. Sometimes, when things look the bleakest is when God is about to do something amazing.
After all, wasn’t that what happened on Golgotha? Christ dying on a cross sure looked like a defeat. Sure looked like the end. It wasn’t.
So what’s to be our fate? Do we go off quietly or do we go out with a bang? Or are we really going out at all? Really only one way to find out. Time to wake up. Amen.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Sermon for Christ the King
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran on November 20, 2016
Scripture text: Jeremiah 23:1-6
The lectionary can be a great tool for us preachers. It provides us properly thematic texts from the Scriptures at appropriate times around the year, It gives us a direction and a guide on where the Holy Spirit might be taking us in any given week. It can be remarkable how well these selections can line up with world or local or personal events and that’s probably not coincidence, since God kinda does have a hand in all this.
There are times though when, at least for this preacher, when the lectionary annoys me. I feel like I’m being led to repeat myself. I spoke about the election in my sermon last Sunday. I spoke of how we should not get caught up in the hype, that the coming changing of the guard in the White House is neither the “bestest thing ever,” nor is it “the end of the world as we know it,” and that we as Christians should simply keep on keeping on at what we’ve been called to do in the world.
I thought it was a good sermon. Reasonably respectful and fair-minded about people’s feelings about what has happened on both sides. And then comes this week and what do I get out of the lectionary...
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”
Too easy and, as I’ve learned in 15 years of preaching, often too dangerous. The inclination, of course, to let my liberal Christian flag fly proudly and point my finger at the President-elect and go “HA!” Like Darth Vader in his TIE fighter, “I have you now. You...you evil shepherd, you.”
But to do that would be dishonest to these times and to this text. This text isn’t just about political leaders, of our time or any other. Human society, then as now, is intertwined and interconnected. Religious, social, political circles all overlap with one another, and a problem in one likely has its origins in another.
So this text condemns all leaders who fail to uphold the common good. It condemns politicians who, in an effort to save a few bucks, would poison an entire city with lead water. Or those who would disenfranchise thousands because of their skin color or lack of economic resources. Or those who’ve ignored time and again the fact that the prosperity of these last few years has largely confined itself to those who already have plenty.
It condemns business CEOs who save a few bucks by cutting safety and letting workers die or be injured on the job. It condemns CEOs who, in order to get a new yacht, will send a factory overseas and lay off hundreds. It condemns journalists who would print lies people want to hear over the truth they need to. And it condemns preachers who use their sacred pulpit for their own enrichment or for the purpose of gaining worldly power.
You want to know why Trump won. It’s because of these folks, these shepherds of our national flock. One of the great ironies of our time is that the people who voted for him and the people who now protest him in the streets are angry about many of the same things. Leaders who care only for themselves, who turn a blind eye to the evils in our midst, and do nothing but enrich themselves at our expense.
So what does this have to do with us as Christians?
Again, another easy preaching trap I could turn to right now is to point to our Gospel lesson, say something like “Jesus is the only one who can save us, so to heck with the world and its so-called leaders,” and end there. But that sort of pie-in-the-sky preaching, where everything is solved by heaven, is trite and empty. It’s also dishonest to our Lutheran tradition.
Here we are in the midst of this 500 year celebration of the Lutheran church, so here also is a reminder (a refresher perhaps) about one Luther’s key theological tenets: the Two Kingdoms. God rules not just in heaven (the Kingdom of the Right-hand) but also here on earth (the Kingdom of the Left-hand). His will, which in the Kingdom of the Left is intended to be carried by our leaders, is order and the common welfare. The hungry should be fed. The poor cared for. Justice should be even-handed and fair. Prosperity should be shared so all may benefit.
Imagine if we did that, or perhaps held our leaders to account when they fail to do that?
Yes, one day we, like the repentant thief on the cross, will receive our salvation and be welcomed with joy into the Kingdom of the Right. Never question that. It’s a done deal. But until that day, we’re living in this world and God gives us a job to do. It is our duty and calling to spread the Kingdom of the Left as far and wide as possible. Here again, we come back to what I said last week. Do what we are called to do for others. Care, respect, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, love.
The reason we are in this mess (and we’d be in this mess regardless of who won two Tuesdays ago) is because we have failed to spread that kingdom. People have no respect. No compassion. No empathy for one another. Well, how are they going to have that if we don’t show them? This world beats all of us down at times and it is so easy to give in the anger, hate, and fear. Many have done so. We see them on the news every night. Not just the protesters or the angry mobs at Trump’s rallies. But the criminals in the ghetto and in the statehouses. People broken by the world.
That’s our mission field, my friends. It’s the people terrified of what President Trump might do to them marching on the streets of our cities. It’s the people terrified of what a President Hillary would have done in our heartland and Rust Belt. And all those who think the only way to survive in this world is to only look out for #1, laws, morals, and ethics be damned. We can show them a better way than the path of fear and rage. We can show them the Kingdom of God, perhaps not in its fullness, but at least in part. We can make this world better for them.
And maybe, just maybe, by doing so, we can finally get some decent shepherds for our flock. Amen.
Scripture text: Jeremiah 23:1-6
The lectionary can be a great tool for us preachers. It provides us properly thematic texts from the Scriptures at appropriate times around the year, It gives us a direction and a guide on where the Holy Spirit might be taking us in any given week. It can be remarkable how well these selections can line up with world or local or personal events and that’s probably not coincidence, since God kinda does have a hand in all this.
There are times though when, at least for this preacher, when the lectionary annoys me. I feel like I’m being led to repeat myself. I spoke about the election in my sermon last Sunday. I spoke of how we should not get caught up in the hype, that the coming changing of the guard in the White House is neither the “bestest thing ever,” nor is it “the end of the world as we know it,” and that we as Christians should simply keep on keeping on at what we’ve been called to do in the world.
I thought it was a good sermon. Reasonably respectful and fair-minded about people’s feelings about what has happened on both sides. And then comes this week and what do I get out of the lectionary...
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”
Too easy and, as I’ve learned in 15 years of preaching, often too dangerous. The inclination, of course, to let my liberal Christian flag fly proudly and point my finger at the President-elect and go “HA!” Like Darth Vader in his TIE fighter, “I have you now. You...you evil shepherd, you.”
But to do that would be dishonest to these times and to this text. This text isn’t just about political leaders, of our time or any other. Human society, then as now, is intertwined and interconnected. Religious, social, political circles all overlap with one another, and a problem in one likely has its origins in another.
So this text condemns all leaders who fail to uphold the common good. It condemns politicians who, in an effort to save a few bucks, would poison an entire city with lead water. Or those who would disenfranchise thousands because of their skin color or lack of economic resources. Or those who’ve ignored time and again the fact that the prosperity of these last few years has largely confined itself to those who already have plenty.
It condemns business CEOs who save a few bucks by cutting safety and letting workers die or be injured on the job. It condemns CEOs who, in order to get a new yacht, will send a factory overseas and lay off hundreds. It condemns journalists who would print lies people want to hear over the truth they need to. And it condemns preachers who use their sacred pulpit for their own enrichment or for the purpose of gaining worldly power.
You want to know why Trump won. It’s because of these folks, these shepherds of our national flock. One of the great ironies of our time is that the people who voted for him and the people who now protest him in the streets are angry about many of the same things. Leaders who care only for themselves, who turn a blind eye to the evils in our midst, and do nothing but enrich themselves at our expense.
So what does this have to do with us as Christians?
Again, another easy preaching trap I could turn to right now is to point to our Gospel lesson, say something like “Jesus is the only one who can save us, so to heck with the world and its so-called leaders,” and end there. But that sort of pie-in-the-sky preaching, where everything is solved by heaven, is trite and empty. It’s also dishonest to our Lutheran tradition.
Here we are in the midst of this 500 year celebration of the Lutheran church, so here also is a reminder (a refresher perhaps) about one Luther’s key theological tenets: the Two Kingdoms. God rules not just in heaven (the Kingdom of the Right-hand) but also here on earth (the Kingdom of the Left-hand). His will, which in the Kingdom of the Left is intended to be carried by our leaders, is order and the common welfare. The hungry should be fed. The poor cared for. Justice should be even-handed and fair. Prosperity should be shared so all may benefit.
Imagine if we did that, or perhaps held our leaders to account when they fail to do that?
Yes, one day we, like the repentant thief on the cross, will receive our salvation and be welcomed with joy into the Kingdom of the Right. Never question that. It’s a done deal. But until that day, we’re living in this world and God gives us a job to do. It is our duty and calling to spread the Kingdom of the Left as far and wide as possible. Here again, we come back to what I said last week. Do what we are called to do for others. Care, respect, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, love.
The reason we are in this mess (and we’d be in this mess regardless of who won two Tuesdays ago) is because we have failed to spread that kingdom. People have no respect. No compassion. No empathy for one another. Well, how are they going to have that if we don’t show them? This world beats all of us down at times and it is so easy to give in the anger, hate, and fear. Many have done so. We see them on the news every night. Not just the protesters or the angry mobs at Trump’s rallies. But the criminals in the ghetto and in the statehouses. People broken by the world.
That’s our mission field, my friends. It’s the people terrified of what President Trump might do to them marching on the streets of our cities. It’s the people terrified of what a President Hillary would have done in our heartland and Rust Belt. And all those who think the only way to survive in this world is to only look out for #1, laws, morals, and ethics be damned. We can show them a better way than the path of fear and rage. We can show them the Kingdom of God, perhaps not in its fullness, but at least in part. We can make this world better for them.
And maybe, just maybe, by doing so, we can finally get some decent shepherds for our flock. Amen.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Sermon for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on November 13, 2016
Scripture texts: Malachi 4:1-2, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Luke 21:5-19
Eight years ago, as all of you I’m sure can recall, we had an election. One for the history books. The first African-American President, Barack Obama, was voted into office. This was cause for great exaltation on one side of the political aisle. Jubilation at this sea change in our society. Racism was done. It was over. It was a time of hope and change. Everything was going to be different now.
On the other side, things weren't quite so happy. There was suspicion, fear, trepidation. He’s coming for our guns. He going to make our lives harder. He’s a usurper, not even born in America. The end of the world is at hand. The anti-Christ has come. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Everything was going to be different now.
Well, here we are eight years later and American society is neither a Star Trek-like utopia where everything is perfect and wonderful where no one has any problems, nor it is “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.” All of our excessive jubilation or fear and trembling at the prospect of an Obama presidency at its start seems wildly misplaced now. It was, now that we have hindsight to see it, a pretty ordinary presidential term. Some people benefited and some more than others. Others were hurt and again some more than others. There were a few exceptional moments, but the idea that it was going to be some sort of massive transformation of our society (for better or worse) seems silly now.
What will we say four or eight years from now when now-President-elect Donald Trump finishes his run?
It is easy to buy into the hype, either as the winners or the losers. Part of our political process is to create hype for the chosen candidates. Trump, the brilliant salesman that he is, was exceptional at this. Secretary Clinton, not so much, hence why (in part at least) we have the outcome that we do. But all eyes now turn to the future. What happens next?
I don’t know the answer to that. What I do have are the words of Scripture that (probably not coincidentally) come out of the lectionary today. Words fitting for recent events. Words of Jesus warning us not to get too caught up in hype and hyperbole as the disciples do upon witnessing the grandeur of the temple. Words of the prophet Malachi warning us about evil among us and how it will not stand the Day of the Lord. Words of Paul to the church of Thessolonika exhorting them to keep doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
There was a part of me that almost wanted to skip the sermon entirely because these three texts speak so perfectly to these times. The simple truth of the matter is that, for whatever else we might want to believe of him for good or ill, President-elect Trump is still a human being. He is not a god. He is not an ubermensch. He is not a superhero. He is, like all of us, a mix of brilliant gifts and massive flaws. He is not a demon. He is not our savior.
He is not Satan nor Jesus incarnate. He’s just a man. Satan is Satan. And Jesus is Jesus. And as Christians, it is the real Jesus that we follow and the real Satan that we oppose.
And how do we do that? We follow Paul’s counsel here. We keep doing what we’re supposed to be doing. Loving our neighbor. Caring for people in need. Feeding the hungry. Speaking up for the voiceless. As I said of Obama’s tenure, there are people who benefit from the work of our government and there are those who suffer. That will be true of Trump as well. People who will thrive in his Presidency and those who will suffer. That’s the way of things.
And our job as followers of Christ is to proclaim the Gospel and one of the best and most powerful ways to do that is stand there and catch those who fall through the cracks of society. The poor, the different, people of color, the gay, immigrants, refugees, all those the world would rather forget. But not Jesus, our TRUE Savior. He won’t forget them and he wants us to not forget them as well.
Make no mistake my friends. There are going to be a lot of folks falling through those cracks in the years to come. Even if Trump does his utmost to make good on his victory speech promise to be a President for all Americans and becomes a model President, there are still those who supported him because they WANT to hurt people. They are still out there. I hope and pray they are a very small percentage of our population, but they do exist. And they are going to want satisfaction for their hate and anger. And they’ve already begun their work.
Kids bullied in school for being.Latino. Swastikas graffitied in a dorm room. Black people hung in effigy. Welcome to the future.
The question before us is what are we going to do about it. The tribunal that Jesus speaks of in his Gospel may take the form of you and I standing in the gap between a mob of haters and a gay man. Or we may be called to be the Samaritan to an Arab or Black man lying on the street bleeding after being attacked. It chills me to think such things can happen here, but there are those hungry for such things. What are we going to do about it?
Standing in that gap is not going to make us popular. It will make us enemies and it will not feel good. But fear not. Our enemies are nothing to the God we serve. NEVER forget that as we seek to do the good in the world in which we live, whatever form it takes.
Friday night, I was off to Washington DC to see one of my favorite musical groups, the Pet Shop Boys. I was juggling a few thoughts in my head as I was heading down there. The Boys have a very loyal following among the gay community and are themselves gay, and I was thinking how welcome will they and many of their fans be in this country in the future (The band members are British by nationality.)
I was also wondering if there would be protests or even riots by those frightened by a Trump presidency. All the while I’m listening to my wife’s curious mix of Broadway showtunes that’s she’s playing while we’re driving down: Jersey Boys + Les Miserables.
Now Les Mis is my favorite musical of all time and I’ve used it numerous times as a sermon illustration. It occurred to me that’s fitting today. It takes place in a revolutionary time in 19th century France. There’s a rebellion, an effort to overthrow a corrupt and tyrannical government in the midst of the story. People trying to change things. People wanting things to be different. It fails utterly.
Nothing changes. The nightmarish reality of France at the end of the story is the same as at the beginning.
But that’s not really what the story’s about. The story’s really about the revolutionary act that occurs within one man, Jean ValJean, to go from being thief and scoundrel to a man of God. For him to do as Paul has called us to do, to not cease in doing good. And in the end, he is welcomed into the arms of his Savior not because he’s made this transformation, but because that’s what God does. ValJean realizes this. God is love. God is mercy. God is forgiveness. And ValJean realizes God offers all these things to him long before he’s changed his life. He changes because of those things, not because that’s how he gets them.
You and I, my friends, are ValJean for this time and this generation. The world’s going to do what it’s going to do, for better or worse. You and I, we have work to do. Caring for people. Loving them in our Savior’s name. Doing for them what others can’t or won’t do. Showing the world that there is a throne greater than the chair in the Oval Office. There’s a heavenly throne upon which sits the one who will truly save the world. Correction, one who HAS saved the world through the cross and empty tomb. That’s not hype. That’s not hyperbole. That’s not showmanship or politics. That’s truth. Go and tell. Go and show. Do as you are called. Amen.
Scripture texts: Malachi 4:1-2, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Luke 21:5-19
Eight years ago, as all of you I’m sure can recall, we had an election. One for the history books. The first African-American President, Barack Obama, was voted into office. This was cause for great exaltation on one side of the political aisle. Jubilation at this sea change in our society. Racism was done. It was over. It was a time of hope and change. Everything was going to be different now.
Good times.
Image from Wikipedia
On the other side, things weren't quite so happy. There was suspicion, fear, trepidation. He’s coming for our guns. He going to make our lives harder. He’s a usurper, not even born in America. The end of the world is at hand. The anti-Christ has come. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Everything was going to be different now.
Well, here we are eight years later and American society is neither a Star Trek-like utopia where everything is perfect and wonderful where no one has any problems, nor it is “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.” All of our excessive jubilation or fear and trembling at the prospect of an Obama presidency at its start seems wildly misplaced now. It was, now that we have hindsight to see it, a pretty ordinary presidential term. Some people benefited and some more than others. Others were hurt and again some more than others. There were a few exceptional moments, but the idea that it was going to be some sort of massive transformation of our society (for better or worse) seems silly now.
What will we say four or eight years from now when now-President-elect Donald Trump finishes his run?
It is easy to buy into the hype, either as the winners or the losers. Part of our political process is to create hype for the chosen candidates. Trump, the brilliant salesman that he is, was exceptional at this. Secretary Clinton, not so much, hence why (in part at least) we have the outcome that we do. But all eyes now turn to the future. What happens next?
I don’t know the answer to that. What I do have are the words of Scripture that (probably not coincidentally) come out of the lectionary today. Words fitting for recent events. Words of Jesus warning us not to get too caught up in hype and hyperbole as the disciples do upon witnessing the grandeur of the temple. Words of the prophet Malachi warning us about evil among us and how it will not stand the Day of the Lord. Words of Paul to the church of Thessolonika exhorting them to keep doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
There was a part of me that almost wanted to skip the sermon entirely because these three texts speak so perfectly to these times. The simple truth of the matter is that, for whatever else we might want to believe of him for good or ill, President-elect Trump is still a human being. He is not a god. He is not an ubermensch. He is not a superhero. He is, like all of us, a mix of brilliant gifts and massive flaws. He is not a demon. He is not our savior.
He is not Satan nor Jesus incarnate. He’s just a man. Satan is Satan. And Jesus is Jesus. And as Christians, it is the real Jesus that we follow and the real Satan that we oppose.
And how do we do that? We follow Paul’s counsel here. We keep doing what we’re supposed to be doing. Loving our neighbor. Caring for people in need. Feeding the hungry. Speaking up for the voiceless. As I said of Obama’s tenure, there are people who benefit from the work of our government and there are those who suffer. That will be true of Trump as well. People who will thrive in his Presidency and those who will suffer. That’s the way of things.
And our job as followers of Christ is to proclaim the Gospel and one of the best and most powerful ways to do that is stand there and catch those who fall through the cracks of society. The poor, the different, people of color, the gay, immigrants, refugees, all those the world would rather forget. But not Jesus, our TRUE Savior. He won’t forget them and he wants us to not forget them as well.
Make no mistake my friends. There are going to be a lot of folks falling through those cracks in the years to come. Even if Trump does his utmost to make good on his victory speech promise to be a President for all Americans and becomes a model President, there are still those who supported him because they WANT to hurt people. They are still out there. I hope and pray they are a very small percentage of our population, but they do exist. And they are going to want satisfaction for their hate and anger. And they’ve already begun their work.
Kids bullied in school for being.Latino. Swastikas graffitied in a dorm room. Black people hung in effigy. Welcome to the future.
A small sample of what's been happening out there. We can pray it never gets any worse than a few obscene marks on buildings, but I'm not holding my breath.
Image from The Federalist
The question before us is what are we going to do about it. The tribunal that Jesus speaks of in his Gospel may take the form of you and I standing in the gap between a mob of haters and a gay man. Or we may be called to be the Samaritan to an Arab or Black man lying on the street bleeding after being attacked. It chills me to think such things can happen here, but there are those hungry for such things. What are we going to do about it?
Standing in that gap is not going to make us popular. It will make us enemies and it will not feel good. But fear not. Our enemies are nothing to the God we serve. NEVER forget that as we seek to do the good in the world in which we live, whatever form it takes.
Friday night, I was off to Washington DC to see one of my favorite musical groups, the Pet Shop Boys. I was juggling a few thoughts in my head as I was heading down there. The Boys have a very loyal following among the gay community and are themselves gay, and I was thinking how welcome will they and many of their fans be in this country in the future (The band members are British by nationality.)
"It's a Sin" is one of their more challenging songs on the issue of being gay in this world
I was also wondering if there would be protests or even riots by those frightened by a Trump presidency. All the while I’m listening to my wife’s curious mix of Broadway showtunes that’s she’s playing while we’re driving down: Jersey Boys + Les Miserables.
Now Les Mis is my favorite musical of all time and I’ve used it numerous times as a sermon illustration. It occurred to me that’s fitting today. It takes place in a revolutionary time in 19th century France. There’s a rebellion, an effort to overthrow a corrupt and tyrannical government in the midst of the story. People trying to change things. People wanting things to be different. It fails utterly.
Nothing changes. The nightmarish reality of France at the end of the story is the same as at the beginning.
But that’s not really what the story’s about. The story’s really about the revolutionary act that occurs within one man, Jean ValJean, to go from being thief and scoundrel to a man of God. For him to do as Paul has called us to do, to not cease in doing good. And in the end, he is welcomed into the arms of his Savior not because he’s made this transformation, but because that’s what God does. ValJean realizes this. God is love. God is mercy. God is forgiveness. And ValJean realizes God offers all these things to him long before he’s changed his life. He changes because of those things, not because that’s how he gets them.
You and I, my friends, are ValJean for this time and this generation. The world’s going to do what it’s going to do, for better or worse. You and I, we have work to do. Caring for people. Loving them in our Savior’s name. Doing for them what others can’t or won’t do. Showing the world that there is a throne greater than the chair in the Oval Office. There’s a heavenly throne upon which sits the one who will truly save the world. Correction, one who HAS saved the world through the cross and empty tomb. That’s not hype. That’s not hyperbole. That’s not showmanship or politics. That’s truth. Go and tell. Go and show. Do as you are called. Amen.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Sermon for All Saints Sunday
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on November 6, 2016
I spent weeks confident in how I was going to preach last Sunday’s Reformation sermon. I knew precisely what approach I was taking, what I was going to say, what my point was. This week, for All Saints, not so much…
It took me a while to figure out how to approach what we’ve been facing over these past two years. We have buried, in our little intimate church community, nine souls in those 24 months. Of course, the number doesn’t even remotely tell the whole story, because these people were our friends, our parents, our spouses, our children. People that we loved dearly and still do.
In some ways, for me, this journey through the valley of death began even earlier. It was three All Saints Days ago that I stood up in this pulpit and talked about my friend Dan Taraschke, who died very suddenly and unexpectedly at age 43 in his sleep just a few days before I was to preach. Dan was such a larger-than-life character, so full of joy and passion at life. He brightened every room he walked into, filling it with his gregarious and friendly personality. I talked about all that and when I was done, I sat down in this throne here behind me and broke down.
I remember very clearly what happened next. What a wonderful moment of grace, one that many of you here witnessed. Amy came up and gave me a tissue. Mike came up and put his hand on my shoulder. Simple gestures, but they meant the world.
There is a certain ironic juxtaposition in knowing that one of those who comforted me that day is also our most recent death in his community. But thinking about that got me wondering. Why do we mourn? Why do we grieve? Why does this hurt so damn much?
Maybe those are silly questions. We never ask them, perhaps because we know the answers so innately that we needn’t bother. But I think, for our purposes today, it may help to tease out those answers. To say openly that truth behind the tears.
We grieve because we’ve lost something. Something amazing. Something unique. Something special. And while we Christians hold to a truth that this loss is only temporary, we still have lost. We have lost the gift of who they were. We have lost the gift of their life.
You know, when we talk about the “gift of life,” we usually talk about it in terms of self. I am alive today and that is a gift. And it is. But that’s not the only way to think about it, because our lives are also gifts to each other. You being here and being in my life is a gift to me. My being here and in your life is a gift to you. And that gift has an impact.
Would I be as joyful if I hadn’t received the occasional wink from Suzie or that beautiful beaming smile of Vale’s? Would I be as courageous if I hadn’t seen how Freddie faced his work and his illness? Would my love of working with children and youth be as strong if I hadn’t known Amy? Would I be as compassionate towards others if I hadn’t known Mike? No, I wouldn’t. These and so many others made a difference, in both great and small ways, in who I am today. They were a gift.
And if I were to ask any one of you here today to stand up and tell us what those people meant to you, you’d say much the same. Or to ask who mattered in the course of your life, you’d offer a long list of parents, grandparents, teachers, friends, siblings, spouses, children, co-workers, and other souls who’ve crossed your path and, in some way, perhaps great or small, made a difference in who you are today.
When I left my call in Davis, I wrote little personal good-byes to each of the members there. And I remember writing to the now-late Dick Wolfe, who I admire beyond words, “I want to be you when I grow up.” That’s kind of how this is. We learn from each other. We remake ourselves in the likeness of those who’ve mattered to us. I said a few weeks ago how we come here to this church, in part, to learn how to be better people. We don’t just learn that from what I say in these sermons, but from one another and the way we witness how we carry out our lives. We matter. We influence. We love and care for one another.
That is the gift of life and when we lose it, it hurts. And there’s just no way around that.
But there is hope.
I want to conclude today with two thoughts, thoughts I hope will encourage and inspire you in the midst of the darkness in which we’ve unavoidably dwelt today. The first is to remember what a gift you are. God put you here for a reason and while you may not always realize it or be aware of it, you matter to countless others. You are precious to them. They love you and they will miss you when you are gone. You have had an immense impact already on so many lives. People are who they are today because of you.
So many of us never realize our importance. But our lives are so much richer for having known one another. I thank you and I thank God that you are here, for me and for each other and for all those others throughout our lives for whom we’ve made a difference.
The second thought is to remember again what we’ve been promised. Last week, we tried to show the Luther movie and technical difficulties snared us up. We’re going to try again this week (it works. I’ve tested it.) But I want to illustrate this thought with a scene we’ll see in that movie, my favorite scene in the film, in fact.
A young boy in Luther’s village commits suicide. The Church being what it was back then claimed such a death was damning, that the boy could not be saved. Luther will have none of it. He defies the Church, digs the grave himself in holy ground, and argues openly how wrong the Church is because that boy belonged to Christ. He was HIS and always would be.
My friends, those that we love belong to Christ. They are HIS. They were his in life and they are his in death. And you and I are his and always will be, in life and in death. And because this is true, because we have been adopted by God through the cross and empty tomb, a truth testified to by the waters of baptism and the bread and wine of Eucharist, a truth testified to by the Word of God from the Scriptures and from countless sermons, we will one day be reunited with those that mattered to us in life. Those that we’ve loved and lost. This is Christ’s promise to all of us. Revelation shows us a vision of that multitude, unable to be accounted there are so many: You and I among them.
That’s God’s dream, his plan, and you and yours are a part of it. You are loved and you are precious to the one who is mightier than death. Yes, it still hurts that they are gone, but they will not be gone forever. God has seen to that. Amen.
I spent weeks confident in how I was going to preach last Sunday’s Reformation sermon. I knew precisely what approach I was taking, what I was going to say, what my point was. This week, for All Saints, not so much…
It took me a while to figure out how to approach what we’ve been facing over these past two years. We have buried, in our little intimate church community, nine souls in those 24 months. Of course, the number doesn’t even remotely tell the whole story, because these people were our friends, our parents, our spouses, our children. People that we loved dearly and still do.
In some ways, for me, this journey through the valley of death began even earlier. It was three All Saints Days ago that I stood up in this pulpit and talked about my friend Dan Taraschke, who died very suddenly and unexpectedly at age 43 in his sleep just a few days before I was to preach. Dan was such a larger-than-life character, so full of joy and passion at life. He brightened every room he walked into, filling it with his gregarious and friendly personality. I talked about all that and when I was done, I sat down in this throne here behind me and broke down.
Still miss him. Dan on the left here.
I remember very clearly what happened next. What a wonderful moment of grace, one that many of you here witnessed. Amy came up and gave me a tissue. Mike came up and put his hand on my shoulder. Simple gestures, but they meant the world.
There is a certain ironic juxtaposition in knowing that one of those who comforted me that day is also our most recent death in his community. But thinking about that got me wondering. Why do we mourn? Why do we grieve? Why does this hurt so damn much?
Maybe those are silly questions. We never ask them, perhaps because we know the answers so innately that we needn’t bother. But I think, for our purposes today, it may help to tease out those answers. To say openly that truth behind the tears.
We grieve because we’ve lost something. Something amazing. Something unique. Something special. And while we Christians hold to a truth that this loss is only temporary, we still have lost. We have lost the gift of who they were. We have lost the gift of their life.
You know, when we talk about the “gift of life,” we usually talk about it in terms of self. I am alive today and that is a gift. And it is. But that’s not the only way to think about it, because our lives are also gifts to each other. You being here and being in my life is a gift to me. My being here and in your life is a gift to you. And that gift has an impact.
Would I be as joyful if I hadn’t received the occasional wink from Suzie or that beautiful beaming smile of Vale’s? Would I be as courageous if I hadn’t seen how Freddie faced his work and his illness? Would my love of working with children and youth be as strong if I hadn’t known Amy? Would I be as compassionate towards others if I hadn’t known Mike? No, I wouldn’t. These and so many others made a difference, in both great and small ways, in who I am today. They were a gift.
And if I were to ask any one of you here today to stand up and tell us what those people meant to you, you’d say much the same. Or to ask who mattered in the course of your life, you’d offer a long list of parents, grandparents, teachers, friends, siblings, spouses, children, co-workers, and other souls who’ve crossed your path and, in some way, perhaps great or small, made a difference in who you are today.
When I left my call in Davis, I wrote little personal good-byes to each of the members there. And I remember writing to the now-late Dick Wolfe, who I admire beyond words, “I want to be you when I grow up.” That’s kind of how this is. We learn from each other. We remake ourselves in the likeness of those who’ve mattered to us. I said a few weeks ago how we come here to this church, in part, to learn how to be better people. We don’t just learn that from what I say in these sermons, but from one another and the way we witness how we carry out our lives. We matter. We influence. We love and care for one another.
That is the gift of life and when we lose it, it hurts. And there’s just no way around that.
But there is hope.
I want to conclude today with two thoughts, thoughts I hope will encourage and inspire you in the midst of the darkness in which we’ve unavoidably dwelt today. The first is to remember what a gift you are. God put you here for a reason and while you may not always realize it or be aware of it, you matter to countless others. You are precious to them. They love you and they will miss you when you are gone. You have had an immense impact already on so many lives. People are who they are today because of you.
So many of us never realize our importance. But our lives are so much richer for having known one another. I thank you and I thank God that you are here, for me and for each other and for all those others throughout our lives for whom we’ve made a difference.
The second thought is to remember again what we’ve been promised. Last week, we tried to show the Luther movie and technical difficulties snared us up. We’re going to try again this week (it works. I’ve tested it.) But I want to illustrate this thought with a scene we’ll see in that movie, my favorite scene in the film, in fact.
A young boy in Luther’s village commits suicide. The Church being what it was back then claimed such a death was damning, that the boy could not be saved. Luther will have none of it. He defies the Church, digs the grave himself in holy ground, and argues openly how wrong the Church is because that boy belonged to Christ. He was HIS and always would be.
My friends, those that we love belong to Christ. They are HIS. They were his in life and they are his in death. And you and I are his and always will be, in life and in death. And because this is true, because we have been adopted by God through the cross and empty tomb, a truth testified to by the waters of baptism and the bread and wine of Eucharist, a truth testified to by the Word of God from the Scriptures and from countless sermons, we will one day be reunited with those that mattered to us in life. Those that we’ve loved and lost. This is Christ’s promise to all of us. Revelation shows us a vision of that multitude, unable to be accounted there are so many: You and I among them.
That’s God’s dream, his plan, and you and yours are a part of it. You are loved and you are precious to the one who is mightier than death. Yes, it still hurts that they are gone, but they will not be gone forever. God has seen to that. Amen.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Reformation Sermons
Pastor's Note: There are two, very similar, sermons here in this single blog post. That's because I re-purposed and amended my Sunday sermon for use at the South York Conference meeting where I also preached. I figured I'd post both today, since they are targeted at different audiences (one a typical Sunday morning, the other a group of pastors) and show a bit of the art of sermoncraft. How does one tailor a message for a particular audience? And so forth.
Sermon #1
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on October 30, 2016
Normally, on this Sunday, you get me all dressed up in some costume, pretending to be some major figure from Reformation times, like Luther or Pope Leo (I haven’t tried Katie yet. Anyone know a good cross-dresser that can make me look good in that role?) I’m not doing that this time, obviously.
You see, I’m in the process of raising a 13 year old daughter, who has reached the point in her academic life where she is asking the question “Why do we have to learn all this stuff? What good is it going to do me?” In truth, that’s a good question. Why is the Reformation important? What do the events of 499 years ago matter to folks living in 2016 America?
So, that’s my focus today. To answer that very question.
I stumbled upon an article on the internet about two or three weeks ago titled “Why Conservative Evangelical Christianity Is The Worst Evil Ever Manifested Upon The Earth.” The title is a bit extreme, a lot of hyperbole there, but it got my attention. Turns out, I simply could have read that article as my sermon today, because it articulated precisely why the Reformation matters here and now.
You see, many of us have come to believe, thanks to certain already-named segments of the Church, that God’s love is conditional and that everything is dependent upon what you DO. Christ died on a cross and rose again, BUT have you accepted him in your heart? God wants to bless you, BUT have you prayed enough? God loves you, BUT do you deserve it? Have you been good enough? Jesus saves, BUT you’ve got to do your part.
All too often, we make “God’s love, power, blessings, and desires...only as effectual as our human capacity to respond correctly.” We make God powerless to anything without our action or consent, leaving us in the driver’s seat and nothing could be more terrifying.
I spoke last week about how not-perfect we all are. None of us measures up even to our own standards of ethical or moral behavior all the time, let alone the standard set by God. We fail. We fall short. It’s what we do. We’re human. We make mistakes. We have vices. We stumble and fall.
But the false teachings of parts of the Church hold all that against us. If you fail, you die. If you screw up, damnation calls. There will be consequences. Penalties assessed. And as a result, we often twist our lives into desperate effort to avoid all sin or to make amends for sins already committed, hoping that (again) by our efforts, we might convince God to let us in on all that love, blessing, and salvation. We make it all about us.
Part of the reason I think the title of the article is a bit extreme is because this is not a new problem. It’s been going on for thousands of years and the errors of modern churches are simply the current manifestation of ancient heresies.
Fifteen hundred years ago, when the Church was still basically a toddler, a man named Pelagius began teaching that one had to earn salvation by doing good works. He was condemned as a heretic and his teaching regarded as erroneous and dangerous. One of the people key in that condemnation was a Bishop named Augustine.
Fast-forward a thousand years and you have a member of the monastic order dedicated to Augustine who discovers that the Church has fallen into the Pelagian trap again. Now you have to kiss relics, buy indulgences, pay the Hail Mary 500 times a day, obey the Pope, and do all this other stuff in order for God to love you. Same crap, different day. So this plucky little German monk decided to do something about it. His name was Martin Luther and the Reformation began.
Fast forward again five hundred years and here we are again. We’re still doing it. Still falling into the same trap of believing God’s love is conditional upon our response and action. No no no no!!!! If you believe that, stop it! Stop putting yourself through a hell of your own making. Stop believing that God feels and thinks about you the way you do.
God loves you. Period. End of story. Done. And because he loves you, he send Jesus to live, die on a cross, and rise again on the third day FOR YOU. Because Jesus has done this, you are saved. Period. End of story. Done deal. And God’s promise to save you is unbreakable. There is nothing you can do or fail to do that will change it. YOU ARE HIS and always will be.
That is what the Reformation was about. The rediscovery of that simple truth. God’s love is NOT conditional. It doesn’t matter how many Sinner’s prayers you pray, or don’t. It doesn’t matter how many altar calls you accept or don’t. It doesn’t matter what your personal theology is, if you even have one. It doesn’t matter how many good works you do. It doesn’t matter who you vote for in the upcoming election. It doesn’t matter your understanding or lack thereof of the Bible. None of what you do or think or say matters in regards to God’s love and offer of salvation. He loves you and he always will. He’s saved you and that will not be taken from you.
Charlatans in the church HATE this truth, because it means they can’t control you. They can’t make do what they want with the threat of hellfire and brimstone. God ain’t gonna cooperate with their agendas, so they lie. My friends, we’ve been lied to for a very long time. We’ve been told God is capricious, not steadfast. God is hateful, not loving. God is punitive, not embracing. And soul after soul throughout the years has been brutalized by these lies, perhaps yours.
Don’t believe it anymore. Believe instead the truth. God loves you and always will. He loves you when you’re bad and good. He loves you when you obey and when you disobey. He loves you when you’re perfect (those rare moments) and when you sin. He loves you so much that he’d rather die than be without you. That’s what the cross means. It’s a sign of how much God truly loves you, how far he’d go to just be with you.
That’s what Luther found again when he opened up the Scriptures and discovered God was not who he’d been taught. He discovered he’d been lied to. I ask you to rediscover what he did: the truth of a loving God who will not ever stop loving you no matter what. God that died for you and rose again to give you eternity. You’re his and always will be. Period. End of story. Amen.
---
Sermon #2
Preached at the South York Conference Meeting on November 1, 2016
Normally, on Reformation Sunday, you’ll get me all dressed up in some costume, pretending to be some major figure from Reformation times, like Luther or Pope Leo, much to the amusement and delight of the folks here at Canadochly. I haven’t tried Katie yet, I’ll admit, and my friend Chao (who’s a champion cross-dresser) might be able to help me with that.
I did something different this year however. You see, I’m in the process of raising a 13 year old daughter, who has reached the point in her academic life where she is asking the question “Why do we have to learn all this stuff? What good is it going to do me?” In truth, that’s a good question. Why is the Reformation important? What do the events of 499 years ago matter to folks living in 2016 America?
So, that was my focus on Sunday. To answer that very question. And it seems fitting to revisit it yet again today for this august crowd.
I stumbled upon an article on the internet about two or three weeks ago titled “Why Conservative Evangelical Christianity Is The Worst Evil Ever Manifested Upon The Earth.” I don’t like that title, but it got my attention. Turns out, I simply could have read that article as my sermon, because it articulated precisely why the Reformation matters here and now.
You see, many have come to believe, thanks to certain already-named segments of the Church, that God’s love is conditional and that everything is dependent upon what you DO. There’s always a “but.” Christ died on a cross and rose again, BUT have you accepted him in your heart? God wants to bless you, BUT have you prayed enough? God loves you, BUT do you deserve it? Have you been good enough? Jesus saves, BUT you’ve got to do your part.
All too often, we make “God’s love, power, blessings, and desires...only as effectual as our human capacity to respond correctly.” We make God powerless to anything without our action or consent, leaving us in the driver’s seat and nothing could be more terrifying.
In my sermon on the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, I spoke about how none of us measures up even to our own standards of ethical or moral behavior, let alone the standard set by God. We fail. We fall short. It’s what we do. We’re human. We make mistakes. We have vices. We stumble and fall.
But the false teachings of parts of the Church hold all that against us. If you fail, you die. If you screw up, damnation calls. There will be consequences. Penalties assessed. And as a result, we often twist our lives into desperate effort to avoid all sin or to make amends for sins already committed, hoping that (again) by our efforts, we might convince God to let us in on all that love, blessing, and salvation. We make it all about us. The very core definition of sin to begin with. We make salvation sinful.
I don’t like the title of the article from which I got many of these thoughts. Not only is it ignorant of human history and vast numbers of atrocities we’ve committed against one another over the generations, but it’s also ignorant of Church history. This is, as we clergy know, not a new problem. It spans from Pelagius and his heresies in the 5th century to the relics, indulgences, and pieties of the Roman church in Luther’s day and on to today. Now, it’s the Sinner’s Prayer, altar calls, the Christian Entertainment complex, the 700 Club, the Prosperity Gospel, hating on abortion and gay marriage, and treating a certain political entity of our country as if “GOP” really does stand for “God’s own party.” Same crap, different day.
So what are we, as the clergy of Christ’s Holy Church, going to do about it?
About ten years ago, I remember when Jim Martin, the Methodist pastor who preached my installation here at Canadochly, was just starting in Davis, WV. Like me, serving on a mountaintop in WV where the only true church, regardless of what denominational name was on the sign outside, was a Pelagian one. He was very frustrated with this, and I remember consoling him over this by telling him, “Just preach the Gospel. Many of them have never heard it before.”
That counsel echoes across the years to today and to here. Words I need to take to heart myself, a reminder perhaps that we all need from time to time. Preach the Gospel.
Preach that...
You see, that is what the Reformation was about. The rediscovery of that simple truth. God’s love is NOT conditional. What we do or don’t do doesn’t matter in the end. It’s what God did that counts.
The very first thing any of us learns walking into one of these buildings as a small child is that God loves us. Jesus loves me, this I know...Even now, how ever many decades later, we can still sing that children’s song. But as we grow older, we think it’s TOO simple, and we (clergy and laity alike) have to gum up the works.
And we gum it up with lies about how our response or action or behavior or our piety matters. But God does love us and he always will. He’s saved us and that will not be taken from us. Sin is forgiven. Our failures forgotten. All that matters is God’s love and the demonstration thereof on the cross.
It’s a sign of how much God truly loves you, how far he’d go to just be with you. As the late Brennan Manning was fond of saying in his writings and preaching, God would rather die than be without us.
That’s what Luther found again when he opened up the Scriptures and discovered God was not who he’d been taught. He discovered he’d been lied to. As inheritors of Luther’s discovery and clergy of God’s church, it falls to us to remind everyone of this. In every generation, we face a tidal wave of lies about God and his love. The only answer is the truth. One that will set us and everyone free. Amen.
Sermon #1
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on October 30, 2016
Normally, on this Sunday, you get me all dressed up in some costume, pretending to be some major figure from Reformation times, like Luther or Pope Leo (I haven’t tried Katie yet. Anyone know a good cross-dresser that can make me look good in that role?) I’m not doing that this time, obviously.
You see, I’m in the process of raising a 13 year old daughter, who has reached the point in her academic life where she is asking the question “Why do we have to learn all this stuff? What good is it going to do me?” In truth, that’s a good question. Why is the Reformation important? What do the events of 499 years ago matter to folks living in 2016 America?
So, that’s my focus today. To answer that very question.
I stumbled upon an article on the internet about two or three weeks ago titled “Why Conservative Evangelical Christianity Is The Worst Evil Ever Manifested Upon The Earth.” The title is a bit extreme, a lot of hyperbole there, but it got my attention. Turns out, I simply could have read that article as my sermon today, because it articulated precisely why the Reformation matters here and now.
You see, many of us have come to believe, thanks to certain already-named segments of the Church, that God’s love is conditional and that everything is dependent upon what you DO. Christ died on a cross and rose again, BUT have you accepted him in your heart? God wants to bless you, BUT have you prayed enough? God loves you, BUT do you deserve it? Have you been good enough? Jesus saves, BUT you’ve got to do your part.
All too often, we make “God’s love, power, blessings, and desires...only as effectual as our human capacity to respond correctly.” We make God powerless to anything without our action or consent, leaving us in the driver’s seat and nothing could be more terrifying.
I spoke last week about how not-perfect we all are. None of us measures up even to our own standards of ethical or moral behavior all the time, let alone the standard set by God. We fail. We fall short. It’s what we do. We’re human. We make mistakes. We have vices. We stumble and fall.
But the false teachings of parts of the Church hold all that against us. If you fail, you die. If you screw up, damnation calls. There will be consequences. Penalties assessed. And as a result, we often twist our lives into desperate effort to avoid all sin or to make amends for sins already committed, hoping that (again) by our efforts, we might convince God to let us in on all that love, blessing, and salvation. We make it all about us.
Part of the reason I think the title of the article is a bit extreme is because this is not a new problem. It’s been going on for thousands of years and the errors of modern churches are simply the current manifestation of ancient heresies.
Fifteen hundred years ago, when the Church was still basically a toddler, a man named Pelagius began teaching that one had to earn salvation by doing good works. He was condemned as a heretic and his teaching regarded as erroneous and dangerous. One of the people key in that condemnation was a Bishop named Augustine.
Fast-forward a thousand years and you have a member of the monastic order dedicated to Augustine who discovers that the Church has fallen into the Pelagian trap again. Now you have to kiss relics, buy indulgences, pay the Hail Mary 500 times a day, obey the Pope, and do all this other stuff in order for God to love you. Same crap, different day. So this plucky little German monk decided to do something about it. His name was Martin Luther and the Reformation began.
Fast forward again five hundred years and here we are again. We’re still doing it. Still falling into the same trap of believing God’s love is conditional upon our response and action. No no no no!!!! If you believe that, stop it! Stop putting yourself through a hell of your own making. Stop believing that God feels and thinks about you the way you do.
God loves you. Period. End of story. Done. And because he loves you, he send Jesus to live, die on a cross, and rise again on the third day FOR YOU. Because Jesus has done this, you are saved. Period. End of story. Done deal. And God’s promise to save you is unbreakable. There is nothing you can do or fail to do that will change it. YOU ARE HIS and always will be.
That is what the Reformation was about. The rediscovery of that simple truth. God’s love is NOT conditional. It doesn’t matter how many Sinner’s prayers you pray, or don’t. It doesn’t matter how many altar calls you accept or don’t. It doesn’t matter what your personal theology is, if you even have one. It doesn’t matter how many good works you do. It doesn’t matter who you vote for in the upcoming election. It doesn’t matter your understanding or lack thereof of the Bible. None of what you do or think or say matters in regards to God’s love and offer of salvation. He loves you and he always will. He’s saved you and that will not be taken from you.
Charlatans in the church HATE this truth, because it means they can’t control you. They can’t make do what they want with the threat of hellfire and brimstone. God ain’t gonna cooperate with their agendas, so they lie. My friends, we’ve been lied to for a very long time. We’ve been told God is capricious, not steadfast. God is hateful, not loving. God is punitive, not embracing. And soul after soul throughout the years has been brutalized by these lies, perhaps yours.
Don’t believe it anymore. Believe instead the truth. God loves you and always will. He loves you when you’re bad and good. He loves you when you obey and when you disobey. He loves you when you’re perfect (those rare moments) and when you sin. He loves you so much that he’d rather die than be without you. That’s what the cross means. It’s a sign of how much God truly loves you, how far he’d go to just be with you.
That’s what Luther found again when he opened up the Scriptures and discovered God was not who he’d been taught. He discovered he’d been lied to. I ask you to rediscover what he did: the truth of a loving God who will not ever stop loving you no matter what. God that died for you and rose again to give you eternity. You’re his and always will be. Period. End of story. Amen.
---
Sermon #2
Preached at the South York Conference Meeting on November 1, 2016
Normally, on Reformation Sunday, you’ll get me all dressed up in some costume, pretending to be some major figure from Reformation times, like Luther or Pope Leo, much to the amusement and delight of the folks here at Canadochly. I haven’t tried Katie yet, I’ll admit, and my friend Chao (who’s a champion cross-dresser) might be able to help me with that.
I did something different this year however. You see, I’m in the process of raising a 13 year old daughter, who has reached the point in her academic life where she is asking the question “Why do we have to learn all this stuff? What good is it going to do me?” In truth, that’s a good question. Why is the Reformation important? What do the events of 499 years ago matter to folks living in 2016 America?
So, that was my focus on Sunday. To answer that very question. And it seems fitting to revisit it yet again today for this august crowd.
I stumbled upon an article on the internet about two or three weeks ago titled “Why Conservative Evangelical Christianity Is The Worst Evil Ever Manifested Upon The Earth.” I don’t like that title, but it got my attention. Turns out, I simply could have read that article as my sermon, because it articulated precisely why the Reformation matters here and now.
You see, many have come to believe, thanks to certain already-named segments of the Church, that God’s love is conditional and that everything is dependent upon what you DO. There’s always a “but.” Christ died on a cross and rose again, BUT have you accepted him in your heart? God wants to bless you, BUT have you prayed enough? God loves you, BUT do you deserve it? Have you been good enough? Jesus saves, BUT you’ve got to do your part.
All too often, we make “God’s love, power, blessings, and desires...only as effectual as our human capacity to respond correctly.” We make God powerless to anything without our action or consent, leaving us in the driver’s seat and nothing could be more terrifying.
In my sermon on the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, I spoke about how none of us measures up even to our own standards of ethical or moral behavior, let alone the standard set by God. We fail. We fall short. It’s what we do. We’re human. We make mistakes. We have vices. We stumble and fall.
But the false teachings of parts of the Church hold all that against us. If you fail, you die. If you screw up, damnation calls. There will be consequences. Penalties assessed. And as a result, we often twist our lives into desperate effort to avoid all sin or to make amends for sins already committed, hoping that (again) by our efforts, we might convince God to let us in on all that love, blessing, and salvation. We make it all about us. The very core definition of sin to begin with. We make salvation sinful.
I don’t like the title of the article from which I got many of these thoughts. Not only is it ignorant of human history and vast numbers of atrocities we’ve committed against one another over the generations, but it’s also ignorant of Church history. This is, as we clergy know, not a new problem. It spans from Pelagius and his heresies in the 5th century to the relics, indulgences, and pieties of the Roman church in Luther’s day and on to today. Now, it’s the Sinner’s Prayer, altar calls, the Christian Entertainment complex, the 700 Club, the Prosperity Gospel, hating on abortion and gay marriage, and treating a certain political entity of our country as if “GOP” really does stand for “God’s own party.” Same crap, different day.
So what are we, as the clergy of Christ’s Holy Church, going to do about it?
About ten years ago, I remember when Jim Martin, the Methodist pastor who preached my installation here at Canadochly, was just starting in Davis, WV. Like me, serving on a mountaintop in WV where the only true church, regardless of what denominational name was on the sign outside, was a Pelagian one. He was very frustrated with this, and I remember consoling him over this by telling him, “Just preach the Gospel. Many of them have never heard it before.”
That counsel echoes across the years to today and to here. Words I need to take to heart myself, a reminder perhaps that we all need from time to time. Preach the Gospel.
Preach that...
- God loves us. Period. End of story. Done.
- Because he loves us, he send Jesus to live, die on a cross, and rise again on the third day FOR US. FOR YOU. Because Jesus has done this, we are saved. Period. End of story. Done deal.
- And God’s promise to save us is unbreakable. There is nothing we can do or fail to do that will change it. WE ARE HIS and always will be.
You see, that is what the Reformation was about. The rediscovery of that simple truth. God’s love is NOT conditional. What we do or don’t do doesn’t matter in the end. It’s what God did that counts.
The very first thing any of us learns walking into one of these buildings as a small child is that God loves us. Jesus loves me, this I know...Even now, how ever many decades later, we can still sing that children’s song. But as we grow older, we think it’s TOO simple, and we (clergy and laity alike) have to gum up the works.
And we gum it up with lies about how our response or action or behavior or our piety matters. But God does love us and he always will. He’s saved us and that will not be taken from us. Sin is forgiven. Our failures forgotten. All that matters is God’s love and the demonstration thereof on the cross.
It’s a sign of how much God truly loves you, how far he’d go to just be with you. As the late Brennan Manning was fond of saying in his writings and preaching, God would rather die than be without us.
That’s what Luther found again when he opened up the Scriptures and discovered God was not who he’d been taught. He discovered he’d been lied to. As inheritors of Luther’s discovery and clergy of God’s church, it falls to us to remind everyone of this. In every generation, we face a tidal wave of lies about God and his love. The only answer is the truth. One that will set us and everyone free. Amen.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Sermon for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on October 23, 2016
Scripture text: Luke 18:9-14
“Oh, Lord, I am so thankful that I am not like this Pharisee. That I am not so stuck up on my own righteousness. That I understand how much better it is to be humble before you. That I am not so close-minded and bigoted about the people around me. That I know that I am not better than everyone else just because I love you....”
Or do I?
The great challenge of our Gospel text today is to avoid the reverse of the sin of the Pharisee, to turn our prayers into thanksgiving because we’re not like him, so full of his own self-righteousness. It’s a tall challenge in these polemic times. Oh, how I am so glad I am not like those...well, fill in the blank: Rich folk, bigots, fundamentalist Christians, Donald Trump supporters, bullies, rednecks, fans of UVA, people who turn without signaling, and children who kick the back of my seat in movie theaters.
You’ll note that’s not my usual list of suspects. That’s deliberate. When I talk about “those people,” I’m usually listing off the groups that society has, for a variety of reasons, rejected, people we divide from based on race, language, economics, or sexual orientation. But if I talk about my own set of “those people,” well, that’s who they are. And we all have them. Even the most open minded of us finds ourselves confronted by the reality of the human condition. There’s always an enemy, always somebody we just can’t stand.
Oh, Lord, how I am glad I am not them.
And yet, we are still called to love even them. And yet, we are called to not place ourselves above them, no matter how tempting it is. A tall order indeed.
It’s a tall order because it’s such an easy trap to fall into. Why are we here each Sunday? Why do we come to this place and sit in this space and listen to me prattle on about whatever I’m preaching on that Sunday? Well, there’s a variety of reasons. We come to hear God’s encouragement, to gain his strength through word and ritual, strength that will help us through the trials of the week to come. We come to embrace friends and to receive their encouragement and support.
But among all those reasons, but sublime and gross, we come to learn. We come to learn in particular how to be better moral agents in the world in which we live. To put it more simply, we come to learn how to be good. We come to learn how to be better people.
And one of the easiest ways for me to teach that is to point to some figure known to you, a celebrity, a pundit, a politician, or a generic stereotype and say “Don’t do that.” “Don’t be that way.” “Don’t behave like that.” “Don’t think that way.” It’s not right. It’s not moral. It’s not Christian.
But sadly, in doing that, I make it an easy jump from us seeing their bad behavior to thinking they’re bad people.
Truth is, none of us wake up each morning planning to be or do evil in the world. Even the most evil monsters in history had their own, albeit twisted, moral code that they held to that defined good to them. We’re not them. Most, I presume, of the figures I speak of as examples are not them. They are, instead, people who are just trying to live life, try to be good, and then screw up from time to time.
We try. We try to do good. We try to do better. But every now and then, we cave in. We give into our vices: our greed, our lust, our ambition, our anger, our whatever, and we do evil. We sin. Sometimes it’s just impulse. Other times it’s deliberate. But either way, we mess up. We make mistakes. We hurt people. We hurt ourselves. We break faith with God and our neighbor.
It’s what we do. It’s part of being human.
And that’s Jesus’ point in the parable. None of us, regardless of how hard we try or how successful we are at being good, pulls it off perfectly. We all sin from time to time. We all embrace, again deliberately or accidentally, the brokenness of our human condition.
What makes the tax collector’s prayer so profound is his honesty about that. He’s screwed up. He knows it. So he calls upon God to fix things. “Have mercy upon me. I need your help. I can’t do this on my own. I need you, Lord. I need you.” He embraces his humanity and the brokenness thereof. He also embraces his need for God and his love, forgiveness, and mercy.
He doesn’t blame anyone else for his failures. He doesn’t even make a claim that he’ll do better. He throws himself before God and says “I’m yours. Do with me as you will.” That’s trust. That’s faith. God could hit the smite button on his computer keyboard (like the classic Far Side cartoon), and end this guy right now.
He doesn’t.
God is a god of infinite second chances. He’s a god of infinite forgiveness. That’s the whole point behind Jesus’ coming. The world is screwed up. It’s broken. And God could just throw the whole thing (and us) away, but he doesn’t. He loves his creation. He loves his people. He loves you and me and wants us around forever. So he sends Jesus to show us what the forgiveness looks like. It’s in his teachings. It’s in his miracles. It’s in everything he does, most profoundly (of course) in the cross and empty tomb. I will go to any length to see this world put right. This is how far I’ll go for you...and you...and you.
The tax collector knows that, so he prays with humility and confidence. Two things that don’t usually go together, but here they can. He prays out of his brokenness to a God who seeks to repair that brokenness. A god who will forgive his sins. A god who will embrace him regardless of all his failures. That’s our God and for you and you and all of us, he will do the same. Trust in that. Amen.
Scripture text: Luke 18:9-14
“Oh, Lord, I am so thankful that I am not like this Pharisee. That I am not so stuck up on my own righteousness. That I understand how much better it is to be humble before you. That I am not so close-minded and bigoted about the people around me. That I know that I am not better than everyone else just because I love you....”
Or do I?
The great challenge of our Gospel text today is to avoid the reverse of the sin of the Pharisee, to turn our prayers into thanksgiving because we’re not like him, so full of his own self-righteousness. It’s a tall challenge in these polemic times. Oh, how I am so glad I am not like those...well, fill in the blank: Rich folk, bigots, fundamentalist Christians, Donald Trump supporters, bullies, rednecks, fans of UVA, people who turn without signaling, and children who kick the back of my seat in movie theaters.
You’ll note that’s not my usual list of suspects. That’s deliberate. When I talk about “those people,” I’m usually listing off the groups that society has, for a variety of reasons, rejected, people we divide from based on race, language, economics, or sexual orientation. But if I talk about my own set of “those people,” well, that’s who they are. And we all have them. Even the most open minded of us finds ourselves confronted by the reality of the human condition. There’s always an enemy, always somebody we just can’t stand.
Oh, Lord, how I am glad I am not them.
And yet, we are still called to love even them. And yet, we are called to not place ourselves above them, no matter how tempting it is. A tall order indeed.
It’s a tall order because it’s such an easy trap to fall into. Why are we here each Sunday? Why do we come to this place and sit in this space and listen to me prattle on about whatever I’m preaching on that Sunday? Well, there’s a variety of reasons. We come to hear God’s encouragement, to gain his strength through word and ritual, strength that will help us through the trials of the week to come. We come to embrace friends and to receive their encouragement and support.
But among all those reasons, but sublime and gross, we come to learn. We come to learn in particular how to be better moral agents in the world in which we live. To put it more simply, we come to learn how to be good. We come to learn how to be better people.
And one of the easiest ways for me to teach that is to point to some figure known to you, a celebrity, a pundit, a politician, or a generic stereotype and say “Don’t do that.” “Don’t be that way.” “Don’t behave like that.” “Don’t think that way.” It’s not right. It’s not moral. It’s not Christian.
But sadly, in doing that, I make it an easy jump from us seeing their bad behavior to thinking they’re bad people.
Truth is, none of us wake up each morning planning to be or do evil in the world. Even the most evil monsters in history had their own, albeit twisted, moral code that they held to that defined good to them. We’re not them. Most, I presume, of the figures I speak of as examples are not them. They are, instead, people who are just trying to live life, try to be good, and then screw up from time to time.
We try. We try to do good. We try to do better. But every now and then, we cave in. We give into our vices: our greed, our lust, our ambition, our anger, our whatever, and we do evil. We sin. Sometimes it’s just impulse. Other times it’s deliberate. But either way, we mess up. We make mistakes. We hurt people. We hurt ourselves. We break faith with God and our neighbor.
It’s what we do. It’s part of being human.
And that’s Jesus’ point in the parable. None of us, regardless of how hard we try or how successful we are at being good, pulls it off perfectly. We all sin from time to time. We all embrace, again deliberately or accidentally, the brokenness of our human condition.
What makes the tax collector’s prayer so profound is his honesty about that. He’s screwed up. He knows it. So he calls upon God to fix things. “Have mercy upon me. I need your help. I can’t do this on my own. I need you, Lord. I need you.” He embraces his humanity and the brokenness thereof. He also embraces his need for God and his love, forgiveness, and mercy.
He doesn’t blame anyone else for his failures. He doesn’t even make a claim that he’ll do better. He throws himself before God and says “I’m yours. Do with me as you will.” That’s trust. That’s faith. God could hit the smite button on his computer keyboard (like the classic Far Side cartoon), and end this guy right now.
He doesn’t.
God is a god of infinite second chances. He’s a god of infinite forgiveness. That’s the whole point behind Jesus’ coming. The world is screwed up. It’s broken. And God could just throw the whole thing (and us) away, but he doesn’t. He loves his creation. He loves his people. He loves you and me and wants us around forever. So he sends Jesus to show us what the forgiveness looks like. It’s in his teachings. It’s in his miracles. It’s in everything he does, most profoundly (of course) in the cross and empty tomb. I will go to any length to see this world put right. This is how far I’ll go for you...and you...and you.
The tax collector knows that, so he prays with humility and confidence. Two things that don’t usually go together, but here they can. He prays out of his brokenness to a God who seeks to repair that brokenness. A god who will forgive his sins. A god who will embrace him regardless of all his failures. That’s our God and for you and you and all of us, he will do the same. Trust in that. Amen.
Monday, October 17, 2016
Sermon for St. Luke's Day 2016
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on Oct 16, 2016
Scripture: Matthew 8:1-17
Pastor's Note: This is my first sermon back after a month-long convalescence for some pretty serious medical issues. I'm better and back to work. I'm also immensely grateful for the prayers, support, and patience of my congregation. You guys are the best. God bless you all.
Almost 25 years ago now, I wandered into Luther Memorial Church in Blacksburg on a Sunday morning. This was typical of my college years; I attempted at least a somewhat regular schedule of church attendance, made easier by the fact that my dorm was only a block away from the church. But this Sunday was different. I wandered inside in a bit of a daze. Over the past week, I’d discovered I’d failed a midterm project in my computer science class and failed a calculus exam. My one true love, the one girl I thought I’d be spending my life with, wrote me a Dear John letter. Everything I thought I was going to be in life had come to an abrupt halt. I walked in that church that Sunday feeling like my whole world was ending.
Obviously, it wasn’t. But in the moment, my 19 year old self didn’t know whether he was coming or going. Completely in over my head with what life had thrown at me. It was October 18, 1992, the feast day of St. Luke and that day was the healing service. I sat there and just absorbed the whole experience. I heard the words of the Gospel, stories of how Jesus healed those in need. I listened to the sermon. I went forward for anointing and laying on of hands. And in all that I found a tiny measure of hope to help me carry on.
I’ve come to appreciate this day and this service immensely because of that experience. And in a lot of ways, as I stand before you today, I find myself in not so different a boat. I’m stronger now, more anchored, more mature, and not quite so prone to fits of despair. But I am here today after a month long convalescence for a whole host of life-altering and borderline life-threatening illnesses. And I’m having moments where I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. I may not feel that my whole world is ending, but I do feel like I’m completely in over my head with what life has thrown at me.
And yet, I still have hope. I have hope because of what this day means. I have hope because of what Jesus does. He’s the one that holds me together in the midst of this and every other daunting trial life throws at me.
And as I look out at all your faces, I suspect I’m not alone in this boat. I see here today others who are struggling with illness, with cancer, and all the uncertainty that brings. I see here today people wondering about the future. Worried about bills and income and jobs. I see folks who have among their friends and even family Latinos and blacks and gays who are wondering what sort of world are we creating when so many of the powers-that-be (or could be) are so openly and viciously hostile to them and anyone else who is “different.” And, of course, the elephant in the room here at Canadochly. I see the faces of people grieving. People who have lost friends, parents, spouses, and even children.
And yet, we still have hope.
Why?
Because we know that we have a God who puts things right. We have a God who restores. We have a God who heals, heals the body, the mind, and the heart. We have a God who enfolds us in his arms when our souls ache with fear and sorrow, who wraps us up and whispers in our ears, “I know. I feel it too. I get it. I understand. I’m here.”
We know we have this God because we have his stories. We have story after story of miraculous healing. We have strength restored to Samson. We have leprosy cured on Naaman. We have the son of the widow of Zarephath brought back to health, and that’s just the Old Testament. Let’s toss in Jesus who restores sight to the blind, makes the lame to walk, and even raises the dead. Let’s talk about the apostles at the portico of Solomon commanding a lame man to walk. Let’s talk about all these stories, because they’re our stories. They’re really about us and what God intends to do for us.
In fact, I would argue that nearly every story of the Scriptures is about some form of healing. Nearly every one is about some form of restoration or revitalization. Nearly every story is about going from what one is to what one is meant to be. Noah’s ark? Escaping from the death and destruction of the flood to a new life. Sodom and Gomorrah? Again, fleeing out of death to freedom and life. The Exodus? Liberation from bondage to freedom. David and Goliath? David goes from being a nobody to a hero lauded by his people.
In each case, God takes something broken or imperfect and makes something new of it. Are the stories we have in our Gospel so different? People taken from the brokenness of sickness and brought back to health. Brought from a form of death back to life.
My friends, is that not the resurrection? Is that not the empty tomb writ small? Time and time again, we find these stories and they point to something. They point to a greater truth that we have come to embrace. God is bringing us all from death to life, from sickness to health, from brokenness to wholeness, from what we are to what we are meant to be.
Your story is that story too. My story is that story too. God is doing the same thing with each of us. To those who have lost, do we not cling to the promise of resurrection, knowing that one day we will be reunited with those that we love? To those who suffer, do we not cling to the promise of restoration, knowing that even if what we have kills us, there is an empty tomb and the bliss of life eternal beyond? To those who worry about the world, do we not cling to the promise of the new heaven and new earth, knowing that God will put right all that has gone wrong in the world through life, death, and resurrection of his Son?
That, my friends, is our hope. That’s what this and every day really is about. God is still on the throne. He is still working in each of our lives to put right what has gone wrong. That’s his plan. It’s the plan of the Old Covenant, when he promised a blessing for all people. It’s the plan of the New Covenant, written in the flesh and blood of the Christ who revealed to us God’s heart, mind, and intentions. We are all a part of that, the recipients of those blessings. It is our hope and our promise. God has declared, “What is wrong will one day be put right. Life will be restored. Relationships healed. Death put asunder. And will be as it should be, as it was meant to be.” That is God’s kingdom. May it come quickly. Amen.
Scripture: Matthew 8:1-17
Pastor's Note: This is my first sermon back after a month-long convalescence for some pretty serious medical issues. I'm better and back to work. I'm also immensely grateful for the prayers, support, and patience of my congregation. You guys are the best. God bless you all.
Almost 25 years ago now, I wandered into Luther Memorial Church in Blacksburg on a Sunday morning. This was typical of my college years; I attempted at least a somewhat regular schedule of church attendance, made easier by the fact that my dorm was only a block away from the church. But this Sunday was different. I wandered inside in a bit of a daze. Over the past week, I’d discovered I’d failed a midterm project in my computer science class and failed a calculus exam. My one true love, the one girl I thought I’d be spending my life with, wrote me a Dear John letter. Everything I thought I was going to be in life had come to an abrupt halt. I walked in that church that Sunday feeling like my whole world was ending.
Obviously, it wasn’t. But in the moment, my 19 year old self didn’t know whether he was coming or going. Completely in over my head with what life had thrown at me. It was October 18, 1992, the feast day of St. Luke and that day was the healing service. I sat there and just absorbed the whole experience. I heard the words of the Gospel, stories of how Jesus healed those in need. I listened to the sermon. I went forward for anointing and laying on of hands. And in all that I found a tiny measure of hope to help me carry on.
I’ve come to appreciate this day and this service immensely because of that experience. And in a lot of ways, as I stand before you today, I find myself in not so different a boat. I’m stronger now, more anchored, more mature, and not quite so prone to fits of despair. But I am here today after a month long convalescence for a whole host of life-altering and borderline life-threatening illnesses. And I’m having moments where I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. I may not feel that my whole world is ending, but I do feel like I’m completely in over my head with what life has thrown at me.
And yet, I still have hope. I have hope because of what this day means. I have hope because of what Jesus does. He’s the one that holds me together in the midst of this and every other daunting trial life throws at me.
And as I look out at all your faces, I suspect I’m not alone in this boat. I see here today others who are struggling with illness, with cancer, and all the uncertainty that brings. I see here today people wondering about the future. Worried about bills and income and jobs. I see folks who have among their friends and even family Latinos and blacks and gays who are wondering what sort of world are we creating when so many of the powers-that-be (or could be) are so openly and viciously hostile to them and anyone else who is “different.” And, of course, the elephant in the room here at Canadochly. I see the faces of people grieving. People who have lost friends, parents, spouses, and even children.
And yet, we still have hope.
Why?
Because we know that we have a God who puts things right. We have a God who restores. We have a God who heals, heals the body, the mind, and the heart. We have a God who enfolds us in his arms when our souls ache with fear and sorrow, who wraps us up and whispers in our ears, “I know. I feel it too. I get it. I understand. I’m here.”
We know we have this God because we have his stories. We have story after story of miraculous healing. We have strength restored to Samson. We have leprosy cured on Naaman. We have the son of the widow of Zarephath brought back to health, and that’s just the Old Testament. Let’s toss in Jesus who restores sight to the blind, makes the lame to walk, and even raises the dead. Let’s talk about the apostles at the portico of Solomon commanding a lame man to walk. Let’s talk about all these stories, because they’re our stories. They’re really about us and what God intends to do for us.
In fact, I would argue that nearly every story of the Scriptures is about some form of healing. Nearly every one is about some form of restoration or revitalization. Nearly every story is about going from what one is to what one is meant to be. Noah’s ark? Escaping from the death and destruction of the flood to a new life. Sodom and Gomorrah? Again, fleeing out of death to freedom and life. The Exodus? Liberation from bondage to freedom. David and Goliath? David goes from being a nobody to a hero lauded by his people.
In each case, God takes something broken or imperfect and makes something new of it. Are the stories we have in our Gospel so different? People taken from the brokenness of sickness and brought back to health. Brought from a form of death back to life.
My friends, is that not the resurrection? Is that not the empty tomb writ small? Time and time again, we find these stories and they point to something. They point to a greater truth that we have come to embrace. God is bringing us all from death to life, from sickness to health, from brokenness to wholeness, from what we are to what we are meant to be.
Your story is that story too. My story is that story too. God is doing the same thing with each of us. To those who have lost, do we not cling to the promise of resurrection, knowing that one day we will be reunited with those that we love? To those who suffer, do we not cling to the promise of restoration, knowing that even if what we have kills us, there is an empty tomb and the bliss of life eternal beyond? To those who worry about the world, do we not cling to the promise of the new heaven and new earth, knowing that God will put right all that has gone wrong in the world through life, death, and resurrection of his Son?
That, my friends, is our hope. That’s what this and every day really is about. God is still on the throne. He is still working in each of our lives to put right what has gone wrong. That’s his plan. It’s the plan of the Old Covenant, when he promised a blessing for all people. It’s the plan of the New Covenant, written in the flesh and blood of the Christ who revealed to us God’s heart, mind, and intentions. We are all a part of that, the recipients of those blessings. It is our hope and our promise. God has declared, “What is wrong will one day be put right. Life will be restored. Relationships healed. Death put asunder. And will be as it should be, as it was meant to be.” That is God’s kingdom. May it come quickly. Amen.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Pastoral letter on the life of Mike Wanbaugh
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I regret deeply being unable to be there earlier today. You know me. You know if it were possible, I'd have been present. But life has given me a series of curve balls of late as well, as you well know. But I did not want this day to pass without sharing some of my own thoughts and reflections on Mike, his life, and his impact on my own. I also did not want to discredit or preempt the contributions of my colleague, Pr. Tom McKee, who I am grateful was able to be present with you on this day. I am certain he shared with you the Gospel truth of the resurrection, a truth we all need to hear in the midst of such things.
But, regardless, here now are my reflections on Mike Wanbaugh.
---
It was Monday afternoon. I had just finished office hours and was on my way home for lunch. As had been my habit for the past several working days, I took a detour on the route home to swing by Yorkana to stop in and see Mike Wanbaugh. I arrived at the house to be greeted by enthusiastically by the dog (He was good at announcing my presence.) I stepped inside and there was Mike, lying as he usually was on the sofa, surrounded by his family and friends. I slipped in, greeted him and began my visit.
I had not intended to stay long, knowing Mike was low in stamina at this point. He was a shadow of the man that I had known and yet, there was still his spark. Still his heart. Still his soul present in that broken down body. Still, I didn’t want to overtax him. But Kathy did offer me some lunch, namely some of Chuck Van de Water’s notoriously delicious pulled pork BBQ.
Well, I wasn’t going to say no to that. So I made myself a plate and sat at the table to eat. But the whole time I was watching things in that living room. I saw Kathy, after a few moments, slump into the recliner in tears. Sensing a moment, I jumped up to console her. I took her in hand, offered some words of comfort. But then Mike caught my eye.
He was still were he had been, but he was watching the two of us. And then, with a smile, he flashed me a weak “V” sign with his fingers from across the room.
It was a simple gesture. Identical to the one I often jokingly give in church as my “long distance peace.” Was that what he meant by it?
Perhaps. It would be something fitting. No one had any clue was about to happen to me. Within 24 hours of that visit, I would find myself in the hospital in the midst of a desperate battle with a condition I had no clue I was battling. A week long stay, five of which was in ICU. Had the Holy Spirit given Mike the foresight to see what I was to face and was he doing what Mike always did? Caring for others in whatever way possible?
Because that’s who he was. Monday afternoon would hardly have been the first time he’d done that sort of thing for me. I remember sitting in my pulpit on that All Saints Sunday where I’d spoken about my friend Dan who had died unexpectedly. After I finished preaching, emotion overtook me and I burst into tears as we were singing the hymn. Mike came up to console me.
When I could barely stand in the sanctuary due to the pain of my colitis last May, it was Mike who comforted me. It was he who drove me home that day. That’s what he did.
And not just for me, but for so many of us. For Freddie during his battle with cancer. For others at the cancer that he provided rides, conversation, and support. For those who will one day benefit from the knowledge doctors gained from his experimental treatments. For many of us here at Canadochly. Our brand new chair lift was his final project for us. I’ve said several times, to Mike himself among others, that he gets it. God loves us so we can love others. God takes care of us so that we can take care of others. He personified that Christian ethos as well as any soul I’ve ever met.
I envied him that, in some ways. I always want to do better on that front. I wanted, to borrow an advertising phrase from a few years ago, to “be like Mike.”
So maybe that’s a takeaway. Keep up the good fight. Keep on taking care. Let the work continue. Let God’s people continue to receive what they can of our bounty, our skill, our talents, and our love. Words of encouragement, all wrapped up in a simple gesture. A v-sign.
But there’s another way this gesture can be read. Past generations know that the V didn’t just mean peace. It was the symbol proudly flashed by Churchill upon the defeat of tyranny two generations ago (as evidenced in the picture above). It means also victory.
Was that what it meant for Mike? I don’t doubt that. Because he did have victory. He knew. He never doubted where this was going to end. Jesus had claimed him in baptism, held him in his arms all these long years, and now was going to take him home. Of that, he had total and complete confidence.
Would I be able to say the same in the face of such a tragic and unexpected end? Would any of us? I don’t know, but we can. Those promise he received, we’ve received. That embrace? That adoption through baptism? Those are ours. God will not let us down. All that we’ve ever needed he’s provided. We belong to God and neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come will ever be able to snatch us from his grasp. I may not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. GOD WINS!
And that victory he shares with all of us. His victory is our victory. His empty tomb is our empty tomb. His resurrection is our life eternal. I want to be like Mike. Thanks to Christ and his resurrection, we WILL BE because we too will have the victory.
Of my friend, I will miss him terribly. Writing these words, knowing that my present health issues will prevent me from saying these things from the pulpit, hurts me deeply. But things are what they are. I know Mike would understand. I know that he loved me and I loved him. And as the tears flow as I sit here, I know also that I will see him again. God be praised. He was a blessed man and he was a blessing to so many. And a blessing to me. I am so grateful to have known him. He’s the sort of person I aspire to be. The person I hope to be. He was a hero to me.
All that he was can really be wrapped up into that one gesture he flashed to me that afternoon. Do not forget what this means, he seemed to say. Do not forget this truth, this peace, this victory. It’s mine and it’s yours and it’s all of ours. Do not forget. Amen.
I regret deeply being unable to be there earlier today. You know me. You know if it were possible, I'd have been present. But life has given me a series of curve balls of late as well, as you well know. But I did not want this day to pass without sharing some of my own thoughts and reflections on Mike, his life, and his impact on my own. I also did not want to discredit or preempt the contributions of my colleague, Pr. Tom McKee, who I am grateful was able to be present with you on this day. I am certain he shared with you the Gospel truth of the resurrection, a truth we all need to hear in the midst of such things.
But, regardless, here now are my reflections on Mike Wanbaugh.
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It was Monday afternoon. I had just finished office hours and was on my way home for lunch. As had been my habit for the past several working days, I took a detour on the route home to swing by Yorkana to stop in and see Mike Wanbaugh. I arrived at the house to be greeted by enthusiastically by the dog (He was good at announcing my presence.) I stepped inside and there was Mike, lying as he usually was on the sofa, surrounded by his family and friends. I slipped in, greeted him and began my visit.
I had not intended to stay long, knowing Mike was low in stamina at this point. He was a shadow of the man that I had known and yet, there was still his spark. Still his heart. Still his soul present in that broken down body. Still, I didn’t want to overtax him. But Kathy did offer me some lunch, namely some of Chuck Van de Water’s notoriously delicious pulled pork BBQ.
Well, I wasn’t going to say no to that. So I made myself a plate and sat at the table to eat. But the whole time I was watching things in that living room. I saw Kathy, after a few moments, slump into the recliner in tears. Sensing a moment, I jumped up to console her. I took her in hand, offered some words of comfort. But then Mike caught my eye.
He was still were he had been, but he was watching the two of us. And then, with a smile, he flashed me a weak “V” sign with his fingers from across the room.
It was a simple gesture. Identical to the one I often jokingly give in church as my “long distance peace.” Was that what he meant by it?
Perhaps. It would be something fitting. No one had any clue was about to happen to me. Within 24 hours of that visit, I would find myself in the hospital in the midst of a desperate battle with a condition I had no clue I was battling. A week long stay, five of which was in ICU. Had the Holy Spirit given Mike the foresight to see what I was to face and was he doing what Mike always did? Caring for others in whatever way possible?
Because that’s who he was. Monday afternoon would hardly have been the first time he’d done that sort of thing for me. I remember sitting in my pulpit on that All Saints Sunday where I’d spoken about my friend Dan who had died unexpectedly. After I finished preaching, emotion overtook me and I burst into tears as we were singing the hymn. Mike came up to console me.
When I could barely stand in the sanctuary due to the pain of my colitis last May, it was Mike who comforted me. It was he who drove me home that day. That’s what he did.
And not just for me, but for so many of us. For Freddie during his battle with cancer. For others at the cancer that he provided rides, conversation, and support. For those who will one day benefit from the knowledge doctors gained from his experimental treatments. For many of us here at Canadochly. Our brand new chair lift was his final project for us. I’ve said several times, to Mike himself among others, that he gets it. God loves us so we can love others. God takes care of us so that we can take care of others. He personified that Christian ethos as well as any soul I’ve ever met.
I envied him that, in some ways. I always want to do better on that front. I wanted, to borrow an advertising phrase from a few years ago, to “be like Mike.”
So maybe that’s a takeaway. Keep up the good fight. Keep on taking care. Let the work continue. Let God’s people continue to receive what they can of our bounty, our skill, our talents, and our love. Words of encouragement, all wrapped up in a simple gesture. A v-sign.
But there’s another way this gesture can be read. Past generations know that the V didn’t just mean peace. It was the symbol proudly flashed by Churchill upon the defeat of tyranny two generations ago (as evidenced in the picture above). It means also victory.
Was that what it meant for Mike? I don’t doubt that. Because he did have victory. He knew. He never doubted where this was going to end. Jesus had claimed him in baptism, held him in his arms all these long years, and now was going to take him home. Of that, he had total and complete confidence.
Would I be able to say the same in the face of such a tragic and unexpected end? Would any of us? I don’t know, but we can. Those promise he received, we’ve received. That embrace? That adoption through baptism? Those are ours. God will not let us down. All that we’ve ever needed he’s provided. We belong to God and neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come will ever be able to snatch us from his grasp. I may not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. GOD WINS!
And that victory he shares with all of us. His victory is our victory. His empty tomb is our empty tomb. His resurrection is our life eternal. I want to be like Mike. Thanks to Christ and his resurrection, we WILL BE because we too will have the victory.
Of my friend, I will miss him terribly. Writing these words, knowing that my present health issues will prevent me from saying these things from the pulpit, hurts me deeply. But things are what they are. I know Mike would understand. I know that he loved me and I loved him. And as the tears flow as I sit here, I know also that I will see him again. God be praised. He was a blessed man and he was a blessing to so many. And a blessing to me. I am so grateful to have known him. He’s the sort of person I aspire to be. The person I hope to be. He was a hero to me.
All that he was can really be wrapped up into that one gesture he flashed to me that afternoon. Do not forget what this means, he seemed to say. Do not forget this truth, this peace, this victory. It’s mine and it’s yours and it’s all of ours. Do not forget. Amen.
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