Sermon for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on November 17, 2013
Scripture text: Luke 21:5-19

The weeks between All Saints Day and the first Sunday of Advent take on an apocalyptic air in the life of the church. The texts from Scripture that we read on each of those Sundays are often drawn from various End Time prophecies out of Revelation, Daniel, and the Gospels. It's the one time of year we in the more mainline and mainstream church traditions focus on what our evangelical brothers and sisters spend most of the year on.

I may get in a bit of trouble for saying this, but to me, it's two to three weeks too many. As a culture, American Christianity is obsessed over the end of the world, an obsession we don’t really need to feed any further. We talk about it. We calculate it. We interpret each and every event in the life of the world as having some manner of cosmic significance. It borders on the neurotic and just as unhealthy as that clinical diagnosis implies.

Amy Dietz joked on Wednesday at Bible Study that we had come through another milestone. Apparently this week, the survivalist movement had predicted the great Black-out that would destroy society and usher in a time of chaos before the "end of the world." Nothing of the sort happened, of course. I replied with a joke of my own, having now survived Y2K, the end of the Mayan calendar, the great Black-out, and 2 or 3 of the Rev. Harold Camping's predicted second comings of Jesus. I also managed to dodge WW3 during the Cold War, so I guess I've got a pretty good track record when it comes to evading Armageddon.

This is typically my approach to this topic: amusement, laughter, maybe even a bit of mockery. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I am a historian and a theologian. The truth is, we've been in the End Times since Jesus' moment of ascension. For 2000 years, we've been awaiting Jesus' return and for all we know, it could be another 2000 before he truly comes back. He's shown no inclination so far of accelerating his time table. And for those who think "Well, surely he'll do it now. After all things are so terrible," I offer a reminder of just a few brief points of history that did nothing to change God's mind.

The Fall of Rome and the near destruction of civilization. The dawn of the Dark Ages and no Jesus. The Black Death. Remember the old college joke about looking at the person on your right and left and being told that only one of you will pass? Change that to "only one of you will survive" and you've got what that time in history was like. No Jesus then. Nazi Germany nearly enslaved the whole world in tyranny and fascism. Nope, no Jesus didn't come back then either. Krakatoa erupted. Chernobyl exploded. San Francisco flattened by earthquake in 1906 and Tokyo in 1923. Natural disaster, war, disease, famine, and for 2000 years, Jesus has not returned.

However much we might want to believe otherwise, our time in history is not any worse than any other. In fact, there is significant evidence life is much better now than it has ever been. We have to take the world as it is, not as we believe it to be or wish it were. But therein lies my conundrum. You see, I wish everyone realized the folly of wasting all this energy on something we have no power over nor can we predict with any accuracy. But that's what I want, not what really is. As it is, our world is full of people increasingly paranoid about the End Times. Terrified. Frightened. Paralyzed.

And what are we to do about that? Perhaps the best place to start is to ask what is it that people fear about the End Times.

Is it the turmoil of society that is supposed to prelude Christ's return? The danger of being imprisoned, tortured, or even executed for one's political or religious beliefs is reality for many people throughout our world, one we have thankfully been largely free of here in America. But what if that were to change in the chaos that accompanies Jesus' return? What if being a Christian (or the wrong kind of Christian) became illegal here?

Well, to that possibility and for the many for whom that is already reality, Jesus himself offers the counsel of our Gospel lesson. "I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be hated, but not a hair of your head will perish." Christ himself offers us assurance that, whatever chaos envelopes the world around us, we will endure. There is nothing to fear.

Perhaps that's not it. Perhaps it is the fear of what will happen when we move from this world to the next. For what it's worth, regardless of when Jesus returns, this is a reality we all will face in the moment of our death. But here again, the Scriptures offer a word: the promise of Easter. That because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, death no longer has its sting. Death cannot separate us from God. Life eternal is ours. I would lose count of the number of passages where this promise is affirmed: Romans, the letters of John, the Gospels, Galatians, even Revelation itself speaks to this truth. There is nothing to fear.

If not that, then what else could we fear so? Could it perhaps be God himself? Sometimes I think that truly is it. We've come to be afraid of God. Afraid that he will punish us. Afraid that we're not good enough for him. Afraid that he'll cast us into the pit of fire along with the rest of the sinners.

Well, if that's God's intent than I suspect he will find heaven a very lonely place indeed, for none of us are good enough. Not you. Not me. But if we've come to believe that matters, I ask again that we turn to Scripture and even to the examples I've already given. If damnation is to be our fate, then why would God bother to defend the believer who stands before a tribunal fighting for his life? Why would God bother with the whole incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus bit? Why would Jesus even show up the first time if all he's going to do the second time is cast us all into hell? That, my friends, makes no sense.

No, more rational, more logical, and far more true is what we find, time and again, in God's holy word. A god of love, of compassion, of mercy. One who cared about you and me enough to bother. To bother with Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. To bother to stand beside you and I in our trials. He bothers because you and I are loved by him and it is a love the likes of which mere words cannot express.

I said a minute ago we need to take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. Well, that's what God does. He's not interested in a perfect world, because that doesn't exist. He's not interested in a perfect you, because that doesn't exist either. What he is interested in is you as you are. Me, as I am. The world as it is. The person that he loves in you and I and throughout this world is not what we could be or should be, it's who we are now with all our flaws, imperfections, and mistakes.

It was that person that Christ came to save. It was that person that Jesus died for, and it is that person who will stand beside Christ at his return. You. Me. God is not our enemy. He is our greatest and most passionate lover, an ally in all things.

And if that is who stands with us in the midst of all the things this world and this life throws at us, there is nothing to fear. Let the world end. So what? Let the world endure for another ten thousand years. So what? God remains and he remains ever by our side, his eyes full of love for who we are, not who we wish we were. Amen.

Sermon for Youth Lock-Out

Preached at St. John's Lutheran, New Freedom, for the Youth "Lock-Out for the Homeless" on November 16, 2013
Scripture: Joshua 1:1-2, 5-9

Trivia question. What do all the following have in common?

• Abraham
• Moses
• Elijah
• Jesus
• Peter
• Paul

If you said “they’re all people in the Bible,” you’d be right, but that’s not the only thing they share in common. You know what else? Every single one of them was homeless at some point in their life.

• Abraham is told by God to pack up his things and leave for a land he’s never seen.
• Moses leads the people of God wandering through the wilderness for 40 years.
• Elijah is exiled from the king’s court and to avoid getting himself perished, he wanders about the countryside where no one can find him.
• Jesus leaves his home to begin his ministry and never really returns.
• Peter is called from his fishing boat by Jesus and spends the rest of his life on the road.
• Paul is famous for his great missionary journeys which take him from one corner of the Roman Empire to another.

In fact, this is only a short list of the homeless characters in the Scriptures. There are dozens, if not hundreds, more. Some of them walk away from hearth and home by choice; they are called to a new life by God. Others are forced from their homes by threat of war. Some are kidnapped and taken away. Some are exiled as punishment. Still others are carried off into slavery. The Prodigal Son is a story about a homeless young man. Lot is driven from Sodom before the cataclysm that destroys the town. Hundreds of examples.

We are very fortunate. Most every night we come home to a warm house with a warm bed. We come home to food on the table, to family that love and accept us.

Tonight, however, and every night there will be nearly one million people in our country who lack some or all of that list. There is no home for them to come back to. No warm bed. No food and no table. Their family may be with them in their plight or they may have long since abandoned them. Over the next 12 or so hours, we will share in some small fashion what it is like to be them.

Most of them, I am certain, did not choose this fate. It was thrust upon them by circumstances well beyond their control. Just as it could be for us. Life is full of uncertainties. One of us could be among them for real some day. Or may face other trials in our lives. What hope is there for us?

Joshua is among that long list of homeless wanderers in the Bible. He’s lived most, if not all, of his life wandering from place to place in the wilderness under the guidance of Moses. Now, Moses is gone and leadership of the people has fallen to him. The people of God are still without a home. They have not yet returned to the land promised to them, and it is on Joshua’s shoulders to get them there. But in the midst of this moment of uncertainty and anxiety, God comes to Joshua and gives him words that are comfort to him and to all of us.

“Be strong and courageous.” Three times, God tells him this. God knows that what Joshua is facing is difficult. It’s going to be hard, so he has to repeat himself. Drive home the point. But what is it that will make Joshua strong and courageous? God tells him that too. “I, the LORD your God, will be with you wherever you go.”

As it was with Joshua, so too with us and with those whose lives we experience tonight. God is with us no matter what happens. No matter where we end up. No matter what triumphs or trials we experience. He is by our side; there to offer his love, his strength, his support, and his courage to us. We could ascend the heights of success and find him still at our side. We could struggle as so many do with the basic needs of life and yet he is there with us.

“Be strong and courageous.” With God beside us, what then can the world really do to us? Amen.

Sermon for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on November 10, 2013
Scripture text: Job 19:23-27

Halloween is now over a week past, but I'm still enjoying a bit of the afterglow from the holiday. It's my favorite time of year and probably my favorite holiday. TV and film are particularly fun around this time, full of stories and shows about ghosts, goblins, vampires, mummies, and the like. I'm not a big horror movie fan, but I do like the classics: Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and their films from decades past. The scares of yesteryear, as it were.


Thursday night, after Emily had gone to bed, I sat down to watch one such classic horror movie: The 1972 Christopher Lee film The Wicker Man. I'd never seen the original film, although I'd heard it was vastly superior to the recent remake of a few years ago. As much as I'd heard about this film, it was not quite what I was expecting.

The story is basically this. A very devout Christian police officer is summoned to remote Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. No one on the island claims to know the girl, yet the officer keeps finding clues that prove she's real. In the meantime, our good church-going policeman is utterly baffled and disgusted by the religious practice of the islanders, who are all pagans. Eventually, (spoiler alert) he realizes he's been duped, that he was lured to the island in order to be a human sacrifice in the islanders' fertility rites. The officer is captured and then burned alive in the titular Wicker Man.


One of the things that stood out to me as I was watching this film (and the reason I've decided to make this my sermon illustration this morning) is the unwavering faith of Sgt Howie, the police officer. The islanders are constantly trying to tempt him with their pagan ways, their hedonistic sexuality in particular, and he always resists. Even when he realizes he's about to be murdered by these people, he holds fast to his faith, trusting that God will still be there for him no matter what.


It's funny, but some of the best portrayals of Christians and Christianity in popular culture can be found in horror films. Time and again, we find people of faith confronted with horrific villains and demonic monsters and time and again those same characters stand steadfast against the darkness. No matter what happens to them, they trust in God's saving grace.


I kept feeling that I had seen this sort of story somewhere else. Oh, yeah, it's in our lessons this morning, particularly in the Old Testament book of Job. Here again is such a person. Devout, steadfast, and he experiences horrific tragedy. His whole life is obliterated, his children killed, his fortunes lost. And yet despite all that and despite the counsel of so-called friends who tell him to “Curse God and die,” he remains steadfast in his trust that God will redeem him.


In fact, it is his statement of that very trust that stands as our first lesson this morning. I know that my redeemer lives! I know, even if the flesh rots from my bones, I will see God's deliverance.


He's not the only one in the Scriptures who makes such a bold claim. Our second lesson is a letter of St. Paul, who faced shipwreck, imprisonment, assault, attempted murder, and was eventually executed for his faith. Yet, he held steadfast in the face of those near-impossible odds.

Peter, James, Stephen, and many others faced similar fates. John, according to tradition the last and only apostle of the Twelve to not be martyred, faced his own trials: exile, loneliness, and perhaps a good dose of survivor guilt. Time and again, we see these great paragons of faith confronted with evil that should by all accounts drive them to renounce Christ, to run away, to live a normal life of relative peace and safety. But they never do. They rush headlong into danger because they know that God will be there for them.


They weren't wrong.


Job, at the end of his book, is granted an audience before God himself. And God proves faithful by restoring what had been lost. Peter, Paul, and the martyrs were not so fortunate as that, but they had witnessed with their own eyes something equally remarkable: They had seen Jesus. They saw his cross. They saw his tomb. And they saw him, scarred by the nails, yet alive again. They knew, all of them knew, that if Jesus could pull that stunt off, what couldn't he do? When they came to understand what that miracle meant, the question changed. Not just “what couldn't he do,” but now “what wouldn't he do?”


Those two questions are important for us today and it is the reason we tell these stories of unwavering steadfast faith. Let's be honest. We're not going to be burned alive in some pagan ritual like Sgt. Howie in the movie. We're not going to be eaten by lions in the arena like some of the martyrs. But we are going to face down trials. We are going to experience heartbreak, financial struggle, disease, injury, and death. These things are going to hurt and they are going to make us doubt and question. We are going to wonder if perhaps there isn't an easier way, to just give up and walk away.


When we are confronted by these villains, what then are we to do? The answer is here, in the faith that brings us each week to this place to worship, to learn, to pray, and to receive Christ in the sacrament. Those questions come to the forefront for us here.


What can't God do for us? He who made the universe so vast we humans can barely comprehend it. He who restored the fortunes of Job and who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus. What can't he do?


And what won't he do? The same God who showers you each day with all you need to live: air, food, shelter, loving friends and family. The same God who came to this world incarnate of a virgin to teach us and to show us how much he loves us. That love drove him to a horrific death on a cross to take away your sins and to grant you life eternal.


We talk a lot about our faith in God. But the truth is the martyrs were faithful, because they knew God was faithful. That he can and will do what he says he will. He has told us in his holy Word that he is with us, that he will not forsake us, that he will save us. We too can be faithful because God is faithful. All around each of us throughout all the days of our lives are signs of that. He is in his Word. He is in the Sacraments of table and font. He is in the kindness of friends and strangers. He is in the beauty of nature. And he is within you and I and all he has claimed as his children.



If he can do all that, what can't he do? If he was willing to bear the cross for us, what won't he do? In the face of all the trials of our lives, the answers to those two questions can keep us steadfast. Because he can and will do anything to keep us his. Amen.

(Pastor's Note: Some of you may perhaps have a bit of curiosity about the film I speak about in this sermon. If you haven't seen it and are curious, do be forewarned that it is not a film for the prudish. There is a great deal of nudity in the early scenes.)

Sermon for All Saints

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on November 3, 2013
Scripture texts: Ephesians 1:11-23, Luke 6:20-31

(I would be remiss if I did not give credit here to the writings of the late great Brennan Manning. His book The Ragamuffin Gospel is the current topic of our Bible Study at Canadochly and was a big inspiration for this sermon.)

---

Ok, show of hands. How many of you are currently holding...
...a sinner card?

...a saint card?

And how many of you have figured out that you have both, depending on how you're looking at it?

Alright, next question. How many of us believe we are a sinner? Ok, why then don't we act like it?

How many of us believe we are a saint? Again, why don't we act like it?

To all of us fake sinners, I have spoken a great deal in my sermons of late, because we don't act like it. Sin is always something other people do. This, in many ways, has become our holy symbol. 

The pointing finger. How dare you!

How dare you, poor lazy freeloaders! How dare you, rude obnoxious young people! How dare you, corrupt politicians! How dare you, workers of the sex trade! How dare you all!

• An angry woman came up to my internship supervisor after funeral one time. “How dare you, Pastor! You called my mother a sinner. She never sinned a day in her life.”
  

• A Tea Party activist went to rallies and protests, railing against the evils of the welfare state. Then he found himself unemployed. He immediately signed up for food stamps, unemployment insurance, and the like. When he was asked about this, his answer, “Well, unlike those other people, I deserve this help.”
  

• Many atheists argue that all the world's problems will be solved if we just dedicate ourselves to creating atheistic societies, atheistic governments. Get rid of religion and there'll be no more war. No more conflict. No more persecution. But when told about the two times in history we tried that, Stalin's Russia and Mao's China, both nations whose body count and butchery of dissent rivals that of Hitler, they have nothing to say in response.
  

All three of these stories are true. They are about real people I or my friends have encountered. All have one thing in common. They are examples of either/or thinking in a both/and world. If those people are sinners, then I am not. Sin is something someone else does, but not me. Not my people.

If we say then that we believe we are sinners, who then are we to dare stand in judgment over others? And yet, that's precisely what we do. ALL THE TIME.

To all of us fake saints, I have words as well. I'm curious about something. If we are such wonderful followers of Jesus, if we live day in and day out living out his virtues of compassion and mercy, why then are these things still true?

• A million people will sleep on the streets tonight, between ¼ and 1/3 of them are veterans of our armed forces. We call our soldiers “heroes,” but why then do we treat them so?
  

• One in five children will go to bed hungry tonight. We say we are pro-life. Why then do we let this happen?
  

• Countless seniors each month struggle with a decision. Pay my rent or pay for my medicines. Why?
  

We like to call ourselves a “Christian nation.” Why then is it in our society that there is always money for guns and weapons and jails, but not enough for food and education? Not enough for medicine? There's plenty of money to kill people, but never enough to help people. Why is that? If we say that we are saints, why then do we let this go on?

If I am a saint, then they are not. They don't deserve help, only me and mine do. They only earn punishment. Either/or in a both/and world.

Doesn't matter how you flip the card, the ugly truth is we don't believe any of it. Not one bit. Our actions, our lifestyle, show the truth of it.

Why is it so hard for us to be honest about who we are and what we are? Why do we keep playing these games? Deep down inside, we all know the truth. We know what skeletons hide in our closets. We know what we've done to others. We know the blind eye we've turned to evil in our society. The apathy we've shown when injustice reigns. We know all of it and we hate ourselves for it.

As much as we mature and age over the years, in many ways, we are all still like schoolchildren. Desperately hoping that the more attention we throw upon others' faults, the less they will be able to see our own. Davey picks his nose. Let's all laugh at him, and then hope no one notices that I still suck my thumb and curl up with my blankie at night.

The funniest thing about all this is how we think we can fool God too. Look over there. Look at those people. Please don't look at me.

If the doors in the back of this sanctuary opened up at this very moment and Jesus walked it. If then he walked right up to you and looked you in the eye, what would he say?

I know what he'd say, because it's what he says time and time again in his holy Word. It's what he says time and time again through his sacraments of table and font. He says something so astonishing my jaw almost hits the floor every time I hear it. With him, standing there before me, with all my faults, flaws, sins, mistakes, idiocy, arrogance, and stupidity laid bare before his eyes, what he says is “I love you. I want you. I desire you. I adore you. Please be mine.”

We spend so much time and energy hiding and lying to ourselves, that we don't see what God is trying to do with each one of us. God pursues each of us like a desperate lover, like one who can't live without us. Us, you, me, the pathetic examples of humanity that we are. And he knows. He knows all of it, and yet still his desire, his hope, his passion for us never wavers.

That passion is so strong that he dared do things that gods never do. He came down from heaven and was incarnate as one of us. That's not all that unusual in the ancient myths; other gods did stuff like that too. But what happens next is utterly unique to Yahweh. He comes into our midst not to shower the worthy with his blessings, but the unworthy. He eats with sinners. He heals the broken and hurting. He calls to his side not the royal, the powerful, the wise, and the great, but the worthless, the nobodies, and the hated. Gods don't do that. They love the great and despise the sinner, or at least they're supposed to. That's how the old stories go, but not this one.

This god, our God, loves his broken and worthless creation so much that he does something else that gods never do. He submits to our idea of justice, where he is beaten, abused, tortured, and then executed on a cross. He lets us kill him. Gods don't die; that doesn't happen in the stories either, but it does in this one. He does this to say to each and every one of us, “I would rather die than live without you. So I will die so I can be with you.”

That death was no accident, no unanticipated twist of fate. It was the plan all along. Our god did something that's never been done before, not even in the fanciful stories of folklore and myth. He took on our faults, our brokenness, our sin, and received the punishment that we deserve for it. This death had purpose. It was to take away the consequences of our sin and to wash us in Jesus' blood so that we could be saints and live forever with him.

The death and resurrection of God incarnate as Jesus was, in many ways, a wedding ceremony, binding us together so that we never need live without one another again. The great lover that is God has won us for himself. He's won you, every last one of you, to be his forever.

A saint, according to Thomas Merton, is “not someone who is good, but rather one who experiences the goodness of God.” We are both sinner and saint, and that's okay. My friends, we don't need to play these games anymore. God showers his goodness upon us every day of our lives. He's seen the truth of who we are and what we've done, and he loves us anyway. He can't help it. That's who God is. That's what he does.

We don't have to pretend anymore. Yeah, I'm a sinner. Always have been. So are you. But because of Christ, because of how much he loves you and I and everyone else in this world, we are also saints. We are now a bride adorned with his goodness so that we never need be apart from him again. He's won us and made us his own, because when you love something as much as God loves us, you just can't help it. You'll do anything to have your heart's deepest desire. God died to have you and me. That's all we need to know. Amen.