Sermon for Gaudete Sunday (3rd Advent)

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on December 14, 2014
Preaching text: Isaiah 61:1-11

It was an act of desperation. A young woman in Florida filled up her shopping cart with food and tried to slip out of the store without paying. She was not successful. The store staff caught her and called the police. What a frightening moment that must have been for her, a woman of color, poor and impoverished. Now a criminal in a society where far too many are perfectly okay with the most extreme of punishments for the most minor of crimes for people who look like her.

The officer arrives on the scene. She assesses the situation, knows the law, knows the crime that has been committed here. She listens to the woman’s pleas. “My children are hungry.” she says through her tears. “I wish I could tell you I’d never do this again, but I can’t. My children are hungry.”

What happens next is a moment of pure grace.

Rather than put this young mother in cuffs, dragging her off to the station, leaving her children to whatever fate our government deems, this officer pulls out her own debit card, goes into the store and buys a week’s worth of groceries for the woman. She then loads these groceries into her patrol car and then drives the mom and the groceries back to her home.

The law was clear. This young mother was a criminal. She deserved punishment, a fine, imprisonment, something. But that’s not what she got. Mercy, compassion, kindness are what she received instead.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;

My friends, this is what it looks like.

I needed to hear this story. It may surprise you to learn that for us much as I enjoy excruciating the evils in our world today, there does come a moment when Nietzsche's statement proves true even for me. “Stare too long into the Abyss and it begins to stare back.” There’s been so much evil in our world and in our lives of late. So much darkness from Ebola to death of dear friends to police abuse to torture to the difficulties here of so many of our members: cancer, a child born much too early to be safe, old age, and all the rest.

And yet this is 3rd Advent, the Sunday of “pink.” Gaudete, the Sunday of Rejoicing. Gaudete in Domino semper. Rejoice in the Lord always. That’s hard to do when we are weighed down by sins both within and without, the darkness of our own souls and the darkness of the world in which we live.

But despite all that, there is reason to rejoice. Because there is light in the midst of darkness, there is grace in the midst of sin. And while evil has its moment, it will not last. For the year of the Lord’s favor is upon us and the day of vengeance for our God will bring comfort to all who mourn.

This passage from the 61st chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy is notable because it was with these very words that Jesus began his public ministry. In Luke chapter 4, we see him stand up in the synagogue of his home town and proclaim that this prophecy has come to pass in him. This is the world he brings. This is the kingdom of God made manifest. And while we may not yet see it in its fullness, it does appear in tiny little miraculous moments like a cop buying groceries for a desperate mother. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

God wins. I often jokingly say that the book of Revelation, an intimidating mystery to many, can be summed up quite simply with those two words: God wins. In truth, you can sum up the whole of the Scriptures that way. You can sum up the whole of life that way. God wins. Not evil. Not sin. Not death. Not disease. Not poverty. Not tyranny. Not fear. Not hate. Not pain. God wins!

And if there is anything in this world to rejoice over it is that.

It was around this time of year in 1998 when my sister, myself, and my friend Kevin (who just became a father for the first time this week. Truly, another moment of divine grace.) went to NYC to see a Broadway show. We saw Les Miserables and it would not be an understatement that seeing that show changed my life. I was already in seminary by that point but in the story of that show, I realized what sort of pastor I wanted to be.

Les Mis is full of these moments of grace. It’s saturated with them. From ValJean being forgiven by the Bishop in the beginning of the story to his later sparing Javert at the barricade, there is hardly a moment where we don’t see God’s kingdom emerging through the darkness of the events of the story. But of all the moments, my favorite is at the end. ValJean lies on his death bed and he is visited by his daughter and her husband. As he slips from this world to the next, the whole cast of the musical, most of whom are dead by this point in the story, steps out onto the stage and sings him home to his Savior. They’re all there, no matter what terrible fate befell them in this world. No matter what evil came upon them. They’re all there. God wins.


This is our faith. We trust in God’s ultimate victory. In spite of all the darkness of this world, we cling to the hope of his salvation. Christ saves the world. That’s why he came. That’s why he was born. It’s why he lived. It’s why he died and it’s why he rose again. Evil does not have the last word. God does and his word is victory. His word is salvation. His word is mercy and love and compassion and grace.

His kingdom is coming! Rejoice! Again, I say rejoice. Amen.

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on December 7, 2014
Scripture Text: Mark 1:1-8, Luke 3:10-14

I’ve shared some of my history with you all before. I’ve spoken about that time in my teenage years when I dabbled in other forms of Christianity, specifically the hand-waving rock-n-roll variants of Evangelicalism that were popular in the 80s and 90s and remain so today. I’m often rather harsh in my critique of that kind of Christianity because I had a very bad experience and I often remain bitter about that. But it’s not just my bad feelings. Every form of our faith, every religion born out of the teachings of Jesus, has its flaws. Even our own.

I’ve spoken before about what I consider to be the big flaw of Evangelicalism and it’s in its very name: the emphasis, to the exclusion of all else, on evangelism and conversion. Everything and I do mean everything in that variant of Christianity is tied to that.

I remember in quite a number of sermons (although not quite in this specific language) that the only thing that really mattered was how many souls I won for Christ. How many people I could convince to “give their heart to Jesus.” They kept score. Every soul won for Christ was a “jewel in my crown in heaven.” I heard that language a lot. I started to wonder, “Is it like Sheetz coffee, if I win 9, do I get the 10th one free?”

I joke about it, but there is a serious problem here. Why was it always about me? How many souls I won? What was my score on that tally? How many people did I talk to about Jesus today? How many jewels were in my crown? I started to question, dangerous in any circumstance. Why is all this emphasis on conversion more about how many points I score with God than about how great salvation is for them? Why am I never told that I do this to help others? Why is it always about helping me?

Christianity became for me a self-improvement program, one I wasn’t very good at. It was all about how much work I did. I’ve got news for us all however. Evangelicalism is not the only form of Christianity that is guilty of this sort of thinking. Whether it’s the penance of traditional Roman Catholicism or the ever present idea that we have to be good for God to love us, we are all guilty of turning our faith inward. We make it all about me. My soul. My salvation. God is here to serve me.

That is not what we find when we read the Scriptures. Time and again, we discover it is not about us, it’s about them. They, the people out there, are the ones that really matter.

We see this in the story of John the Baptist, whose introduction to our Advent journey begins today. Mark tells us John’s purpose: He “comes to prepare the way” for the coming of the Messiah. He does this by proclaiming a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

Mark is typically brief, so we don’t get a lot of detail about what these things mean. For that, we must turn to the other Gospels, where we see a much broader view of John’s ministry. Luke, in particular, gives us an idea of what “preparing” looks like.

And it’s pretty much boilerplate Old Testament moral teaching: Take care of the poor, treat people with dignity, be honest, be compassionate on the less fortunate. Nothing new in John’s teaching. But note who it is that these things are done for. You do these things to help others and to prepare the way of the coming Messiah. Note who’s missing in that equation.

It’s not about us. It’s about them.

All of Scripture supports this idea. The Hebrews were the Chosen people not because they were more special or better in some way than all others. They were Chosen to be God’s messengers to the world. The morality of God’s law was not to save anybody, but to demonstrate a better way of life to the nations and tribes that the Hebrews encountered. The Hebrews were a priestly people for the sake of the world. And we, as the Church, are now called to be a part of that process. We exist not for ourselves, but for them. We are here to make them ready for God.

We always forget that part. Sin turns us inward. Helping others is hard, but helping ourselves is easy, so our egos always default to that position. “Thou shalt not” do the bad things is a whole lot easier than “Thou shalt” do the good things. “Hating evil” is easier than “loving good.” But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to serve God and we do that by doing what he tells us to do: serve others.

Last Sunday, I spoke at some length about how screwed up our world and our society really is. And the events of this past week have done much to reinforce that. It feels as though evil is winning, both within and without. To me this is a wake-up call, fitting perhaps for this season of Advent, a season whose clarion call is “keep awake!” The Church is being called to action for a world that needs us now more than ever. The darkness is growing, but we can show them the light.

The light that we have received. The light we’ve been given freely. The funny thing about all this emphasis on self that we so often fall into is that it’s all wasted effort. Jesus came to take care of all that. He lived, died, and then rose again so we wouldn’t have to worry about how many jewels are in our crown in heaven. We don’t have to worry about that because we’re going to be in heaven. We’re going to be with God. We’re going to have salvation given to us. Jesus calls out from the cross what are probably the second most important words in the Bible (after “Fear not”), “it is finished,” or more accurately “it is accomplished.” That’s Jesus telling us from the cross as he dies for our sake “Don’t sweat this. I got it. You’re cool now.”

That’s our freedom. We don’t have to worry about ourselves; God took care of that in Christ. All of us in here are good; We’re covered. All our energy and effort can go towards making this world a better place. For the sake of them, the people out there who are in need of all sorts of things: food, freedom, dignity, humanity. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. That’s what it means. That’s what we’re called to do. Amen.

Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on November 30, 2014
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 64:1-9, Mark 13:24-37

Pastor's Note: I was very encouraged by the conversations that emerged from this sermon. I have endeavored to extensively note and source my assertions in this sermon regarding the events in Ferguson, MO. For those interested in learning more about the racial issues in our nation that we whites are so often oblivious to, I would recommend clicking those links.

This has been a tough week. A hard week.

Luther talks about God’s law as an “unblemished mirror.” Its reflection reveals our true selves without the distortion of ego and self-delusion. This week has been an unblemished mirror for both me personally and for us as a nation. It’s not a pretty picture.

Sarah finally talked me into watching Fireproof with her on Tuesday night. Some of you may be familiar with that movie. It’s a story about a marriage in trouble and it’s meant to be used as a tool by couples to improve their relationship. I’ve been avoiding it because I have some real issues with its star. Kirk Cameron is, well, one of my least favorite people in the world, up there with Pat Robertson and Richard Dawkins. But regardless, we did watch it and it showed me that while my marriage to Sarah may not be even close to as bad as the one presented in the film, there’s a lot I could do differently. A lot I could do better to be a good husband to the wife I love.

That’s not an easy truth for a husband to admit.

And then there’s Black Friday. All the talk this year was about how Black Friday is now beginning on Thursday. That retail workers are being forced to work on Thanksgiving. That stores and businesses are being forced to open on a holiday that many families regard as sacred. I wonder what that says about us as a society. The relentless encroachment of Christmas is truly swallowing up every other holiday near it, all because businesses are desperate to make more and more and more money. The irony of losing our national day of giving thanks for all that we have to the unyielding demand that we obtain more is pretty vulgar quite honestly.

Not an easy truth for us to admit.

And then there’s Ferguson. I don’t know what to think about all that. I know that the grand jury was presented the evidence and they have concluded that the shooting of Michael Brown back in August was not a criminal act. But I also know that we as a nation have not been honest with ourselves about our shameful legacy of racism and discrimination. I know that black men die by homicide more than just about any other cause, whether by cops or each other. I know that our prisons are filled to overflowing with people of color because judges and juries are statistically proven to be more lenient to whites for the same crimes. I know that black people are predominantly poor, hungry, and unemployed and not by choice, despite the lies we tell ourselves to make us feel better. Their anger is real and while they may not always act on it in very productive or helpful ways, it is, I believe, quite justified.

Not an easy truth for us white folks to confront.

The Biblical tradition of prophecy is not prognostication. It is not fortune telling or predictive of the future. It is TRUTH TELLING and then as now it is to reveal the truths we do not want to admit about ourselves. We all live with this self-delusion that our lives are pretty darn good. And in many ways, they are. But how did they get that way? We’d like to believe it is by virtue, but is that really true? Or did we get ahead by privilege, luck, or by cheating? Are we overlooking something about ourselves, our environment, and our whole reality because it’s convenient and not overlooking it tells us truths we rather not face? Are we blindly and deliberately ignoring the festering cancer of sin in ourselves and in society?

Absolutely we are. Until it explodes in our face like it has this week.

We need, all of us, a genuine Come-to-Jesus moment. And when Isaiah calls out for God to “tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at (his) presence— as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make (his) name known to (his) adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at (his) presence,” that is precisely what he is asking for. He is asking God to quite literally come down and scare the hell out of us, because there is far too much hell in each one of us and we inflict it on those around us whether we care to admit it or not.

I said in my newsletter article about Christmas is not the nicey-nice holiday that we like to make it out to be. It is God’s answer to evil, God’s declaration of war on sin. Part of that process is for us to recognize that there is evil within us, that we are truly sinners. That we have failed as individuals and as a society to be the people God has called us to be. The hungry continue to go without bread. Too many of our honored veterans still sleep under bridges in the cold. We still do far too many things to wound and reject people because their skin color is different from our own. We consume voraciously the resources of our world in a desperate race to have the most toys when we die. WE do these things. WE are guilty.

Every one of us guilty. You. Me. If we haven’t done these things directly, then we have benefited from those who have. Our inaction and apathy in the face of these evils is just as damming.

Jesus calls us in our Gospel lesson to “keep awake.” To be awake is to be aware and to be aware is to be honest. When the moment comes when we must stand before God and give account of our lives, we will not be able to justify ourselves. There will be no excuses, no explanations. “Those people deserved what happened” will not fly. “I was too busy” will be ignored. “I didn’t know” isn’t good enough. The evidence against us will be overwhelming. All we can do in the face of it is confess. The only thing we can say is “I failed,” because we have.

The unblemished mirror of God’s law shows no other truth but that one.

The only recourse, the only chance we have, is mercy. The same mercy we failed to show to others. But God is not us. As Isaiah says elsewhere in his prophecy, “his ways are not our ways.” Good thing too, because when he looks down at the width and the breadth of our lives, it will not be the evidence against us that he sees. It will be his son, stretched out on a cross, instead.

“Not them. Take me instead.” How many cheezy movies have we seen that cliche play out, that trope? Where the hero asks that their loved one be spared and themselves punished instead. That’s what Jesus does for us. “Not them. Me. Yes, they deserve it, but take me anyway.” That’s what the cross is about. That’s what it means. It means we don’t get what we deserve. It means our sins, as numerous and as vicious as they are, are not held against us. We get mercy when we don’t deserve it. Out of love, Christ stands in our stead and wins us a pardon by his sacrifice on the cross.

That’s not the ending we deserve. Not by a long shot. But it is the one we get. And the only way we get it is through Christ. Not by ignoring the evil within ourselves. Not by pretending it isn’t there. And certainly not by pretending that our sins are somehow justifiable or permissible because someone else out there is worse than us. No, none of these things can save us. We are guilty. Period. Our only hope is pardon, forgiveness, mercy. And because of Christ, that’s precisely what we receive. Amen.

Sermon for Christ the King Sunday

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on November 23, 2014
Scripture text: Matthew 25:31-46

Patee posted a cartoon on Facebook back in September on my page. It showed an exasperated preacher slumped over his pulpit, proclaiming “The title of my sermon is I spent all week on a sermon and I got nothing.” It’s a bit how I and pretty much every other pastor I’ve talked with over the past week has felt about this Gospel text. “What are you going to do with it?” “How are you going to preach it?” “Where’s the good news in this text?”

Questions. Lots of questions. Troubling questions. Questions with difficult answers. In my opinion, texts that do this to us are, in many ways, the best passages on which to preach. The old cliche about a good sermon “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable” applies best to these passages of Scripture. If come away from a story like the Sheep and the Goats without being unsettled, you probably read it wrong.

This teaching of Jesus is the very last one in Matthew’s Gospel. What follows in Chapter 26 and beyond is the Passion narrative, Christ’s journey to the cross and the empty tomb. That’s not likely coincidental. Matthew and the other authors of Scripture write their stories of Jesus with a very deliberate intent and agenda; They want us to understand what was important to Jesus. If this is the last one in Matthew’s Gospel, if this is the final lesson, then what does it have to say to us about what matters to Jesus?

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced this is part two of a teaching Jesus gave earlier in his Gospel narrative. Jesus boldly proclaims after the confession of Peter that any who wish to become his disciples must (we all know this phrase) “take up their cross and follow him.” Well, Jesus is now about to take up his cross, but it is not our fate to actually literally join him on Golgotha. So how then do we take up our cross and follow? That’s the question this story was told to answer.

You want to serve God? Here’s how. You go into the midst of the least, the lost, the broken, the abandoned, the rejected, and the hated. You serve them. You want to serve me? You’ll find me there with them. Among them. I am them.

Jesus says “I’m going to the cross to take care of you. To erase your sins and give you back the life you were meant to have. Now it’s your turn. I’ve taken care of you. Go! Take care of them.”

It is not erroneous to say that this is a fundamental piece to being a disciple, to being a Christian. In fact, I’d argue that this is more important than just about everything else. The Christian life is Christ comes, lives, dies, and then rises again for us. We believe and trust in that and then we serve others in Christ’s name. Notice what’s missing in that formulation? Church membership? Nice, but not that important. Coming to worship every Sunday? Nice, but not that important. Having the right theology or understanding of Scripture? Nice, but not that important. Having a solid moral and ethical character? Nice,but not that important. All these things are trumped by service.

And that’s a lot more troubling to us than we care to admit. Going to church is easy. Hammering out your doctrine and dogma is easy. Marking off your checklist of “thou shalt nots” is easy. Getting down in the muck and the mire with people, that’s hard. And we are full of excuses as to why we won’t do it.

They don’t deserve it. They’re horrible people. The poor are lazy. People on food stamps are thieves who take more than their fair share. Gays are deviants and perverts. Blacks are criminals. Latinos are illegal immigrants. Young people are spoiled. Women are dumb. Turn on the news or read a political website and you’ll see and hear excuse after excuse of why “those people” are the scum of the Earth and deserve nothing but scorn, disdain, and hatred. And we listen to this vile rhetoric because it tells us we don’t have to do what Jesus told us to do.

This isn’t anything new. The naked were unclean. The prisoners deserved it. If you had leprosy, you were forsaken by God. Today’s poor and different were yesterday’s tax collectors and Samaritans. Which is why Jesus makes his argument in such stark and harsh terms. Ignore “those people” at your peril, because if you turn your back on them, it’s like you’re turning your back on me.

I cannot overstate how important this is. I mentioned last week that the Gospel of Matthew was written largely to give a wayward church its identity back. To tell early Christians who they were and this passage drives that home. Who are you? Who am I?

We are the people who take care of the world because Christ has taken care of us.

That’s who we are. That’s why Christ has called us to be his own. That’s what we do.

This is Christ the King Sunday, the day of the church calendar that marks the end of the church year cycle. It is here to remind us that we are not the king, we are his servants. We serve the king by serving his people. We do what we’ve been told to do, as good servants should. The king has taken care of us. The king has saved us. The king has died for us and risen again on the third day. Now he calls us to live our lives in that same pattern. To take up our cross and serve others. Amen.