Sermon for Transfiguration 2017

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church and Grace Lutheran, York, on February 26, 2017
Preaching text: Matthew 17:1-9

For much of the course of history and certainly within American culture, the Church has stood as a bastion of the established order. It had stood firm for maintaining the status quo in society and has tenaciously resisted change. It is, fundamentally, a conservative institution: politically, theologically, and socially. It has always striven to keep things “the way we’ve always done it.”

And that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

And why is that? Because Jesus Christ, the founder of our faith, is fundamentally an agent of change. He comes on the scene and turns everything on its head. We’ve spent the last four weeks looking at one of his most important teachings, namely the sermon on the mount. And what does he do there?

Blessed are all those people that fate has dumped on all their whole lives. The poor, the grieving, those hungry for justice. They are the ones God will bless the most. You have heard the law say this, but I say you must do more than that. Love not just those who love you, but also those who hate you. Don’t strive to avoid sin, since you’ll never succeed at that, but strive instead to love God and serve only him. He’s jumbling up everything. Changing the way we’ve thought about God. Changing the way we are to treat those around us. He is, in parlance of my home state, meddlin’...in everything.

Jesus is a radical, come to make the kingdom of God real for people here on Earth. He calls his disciples to continue that work. We are the light of the world. We are those sent to make disciples of all nations. We are those meant to change the world.

And we have spent the last 1500 years (at least) trying to keep the world the same as it was.

The transfiguration story, in many ways, encapsulates all these dynamics at play. Jesus goes up to the top of a mountain and reveals his glory in its fullness. He transforms from what he is to what he will be. He changes forms. He transfigures. All those are words that denote change and movement, not stagnation and status quo. He shows the future in himself. He gives a preview of the kingdom in himself and it is glorious.

And what do the witnesses decide to do? Peter proposes the construction of a monument to the moment. Let’s remember this. Let’s erect a shrine to this event, so we can come back here one day and remember what happened in the past. They anticipate their future as one that looks backwards on what has come before. Not one that looks forward to what will be.

Boy, if that isn’t a statement about life in the church, I don’t know what is.

How did we get here? Our whole society seems predicated in these times on recapturing some lost golden age. Our new President ran his campaign on the idea of “Make America Great Again,” as if there was some moment where we stopped being great. Nostalgia has become our new idol. We hunger for what once was.

I'm no different. When I turn on the radio, what I want to hear is the music of my heyday, songs from the 80s and 90s. And I spent all day yesterday glued to my computer, playing the remake of Master of Orion, a video game that originally came out in 1993.

The church is certainly no different. With declining budgets and attendance, it’s hard to not pine for days when pews and coffers were both full.

And the future? That looks scary to us. A new world filled with all kinds of different ideas about God and society and politics and people. As technology shrinks our world, we encounter the other more and more than ever before and we become so very tempted to try to shrink back into little enclaves where everyone is just like us. But therein lies the problem. How did we get here? Because WE MADE IT ALL ABOUT US and not about God.

It’s become about our fears and anxieties and not about the kingdom. It’s about our hopes and desires and not about Jesus.

When Peter makes his statement about the booths, one can almost imagine God the Father giving himself a facepalm as he hovers above the mountain, a gesture of frustration that echoes across the generations. We’ve missed the point of the church. The point of the transfiguration. The point of all of this. It’s about changing the world and it always has been.

Jesus never loses sight of what he came to do. As the group the descends the mountain, he tells the disciples very clearly “Don’t talk about this until I have risen from the dead.” Jesus knows darn well where his road leads. He knows what it will take to save this world, to change this world from sinful to graceful. He knows it won’t be pleasant. He knows it won’t be fun. He’s scared to death of it (as evidenced by his prayer in Gethsemane.)  But he also knows it’s necessary. It has to be done.

He loves us. He wants to be with us. And he’ll do anything to see that happen, even die on a cross and rise again on the third day.

The real glory of the transfiguration isn’t on the mountain top. It’s in the garden where stone rolls away. It’s not in the moment; it’s in the future. And it’s the same thing for us. Our golden age as the church isn’t in the past or present. It’s in the future. It’s coming with the kingdom of God.

And how do we embrace that future? By remembering who we are and what we’re here to do. God loves us. God loves everyone. And how are they going to know if we don’t tell them? How are they going to know if we don’t show them? It’s like the old joke. “We love to sing Standing on the Promises while sitting on the premises.” Our future’s out there in a world in desperate need of change and transformation. A world that needs God. A world that God loves. Time for us to arrange an introduction and watch as the world and lives change. Amen.

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on Feb 19, 2017
Scripture text: Matthew 5:38-48

Last Sunday, as you may recall, I concluded my sermon with a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. There’s an amusing story behind the quote I used. I was, at first, looking for a different quote from Bonhoeffer and, in my quest for it, stumbled upon the one I used. That substitution has proven providential, because the original quote I was seeking is far more fitting for today’s text than last week’s.

“Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.” That was the quote I was originally seeking and it is a good fit for today’s message.

Because what is Jesus doing here? Between this week and last, he’s turning the law on its head. He’s not changing anything, but he is asking his listeners to look at God’s commandments differently. Stop spending all your effort on avoiding sin, he seems to say, because you’ll never avoid it all. You’ll always stumble somewhere, somehow. Instead focus your energy on actively doing good to neighbor and yourself and let God take care of the rest.

As we saw last week, none of us is as morally upright as we’d like to be. Even the mere impulse or thought of sin can make us guilty of it, making sinning near impossible to avoid. That high standard, as I pointed out, is deliberate, forcing us to rely on God’s love and mercy instead of our own futile efforts.

But what are we to do with ourselves? If we are the “light of the world,” as Jesus pointed out even earlier in his sermon on the mount, how are we to do that if we do not hold ourselves to some high standard of moral perfection?

That question reflects the old way of thinking, the old understanding of morality, the very thing from which Jesus is trying to steer us away. You see, if you’ve ever done debate or rhetoric in school, there is a simple rule that you’re to follow. Never try to prove a negative, because it’s nigh on impossible to do so.

What do I mean by that? Well, I can’t prove to you that I’m not a bad person. You’ll never see the sins I don’t commit. But what I can prove to you is that I am a good person, by showing you kindness, acts of charity, etc. That’s the logic Jesus is running with here. Don’t try to prove you’re not bad by avoiding sin. Prove that you are good by actively doing good.

Or as Bonhoeffer put it, “Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.”

And what is God’s will? Love, plain and simple. That’s his standard of goodness, how much you love. Love God. Love neighbor. Love yourself. Upon these hang all the law and the prophets. Jesus says this elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, but he introduces the idea here.

But how do you do that? Jesus gives us some concrete examples in our text today. The first is the famous and sometimes controversial passage about “turning the other cheek.” All too often, people have seen this as passivity. Be a doormat to those who mistreat you. That was never Jesus’ intent here, but to fully understand what he’s saying, you have to remember a bit about Middle Eastern culture.

Turn the other cheek. Walk two miles when forced to walk one. Give your cloak as well as your coat. All these actions are predicated on shaming the one who is mistreating you. Middle Eastern culture is centered on honor and shame. If you turn your cheek, your opponent must strike you with his left hand, the shameful “toilet hand” (for lack of a better way of putting it.) Giving more and going that extra mile (this is the origin of that cliche) are meant to embarrass your opponent, revealing you as the better person.

Gandhi and MLK understood this and when they wanted to bring change to their societies, they embraced this ethos. Non-violent resistance. The end result were onlookers increasingly horrified by the brutality inflicted on people who were doing nothing wrong. They shamed their enemies and changed the world. And they did it without hurting their opponents.

Turn the other cheek. Do not avenge, but love. Love yourself enough to get out and get away. Love your enemy enough to do what you can to change their ways. That may mean turning them over to authorities or forcing them into rehab or some other form of tough love. But don’t be a doormat. This is not passively just “taking it,” it’s actively and courageously loving yourself and them enough to do what is right.

Love your enemies. Not an easy thing to do, but they too are our neighbors. In tense times of violence and fear, it is all the harder. But perhaps that’s why it’s so necessary right now. Can we embrace those who are different in religion and national origin? The Muslim, the immigrant. They too are our neighbor and we have often come to see them as our enemy. Can we embrace those whose political affiliation is different? They too we have often come to see as our enemy.

If we can do that, if we can show love for those we hate (or who hate us), the world will take notice. We will have proven our goodness for all to see. And when they see us, they will see him, the one who loved his enemies enough to forgive them even as they drove in the nails. The one who died for his enemies and rose again for them. The one who loved all, even those who did not love him back.

That’s what it’s all about my friends. As the old camp song says, “We love, because God first loved us.” Go out and love. Love your neighbors. Love your God. Love yourself. And yes, even love your enemies. And as the other camp song goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Amen.

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on February 12, 2017
Scripture text: Matthew 5:21-37

Every month when I was serving my first call in WV, the local Lutheran pastors would gather together for conversation and study. We plan our upcoming sermons, share our life experiences, and give each other support as best we could.

Many of those colleagues are still there and in this photo. I miss WV-WMD Synod, even though I love being in LSS.

One of my colleagues, Pr. Nielsen, once told a tale of his childhood. His father did not attend church and he and his dad once got into an argument over the fact. His father bellowed loudly, “I’m not going. That place is full of nothing but hypocrites.” To which young Nielsen replied, “That’s okay, Dad. We’ve got room for one more.”

Suffice to say, that didn’t end well for the young Pr. Nielsen.

But we’ve all heard that complaint, haven’t we? “Church is full of hypocrites.” It’s hard to refute because it’s true. We all carry our various hypocrisies with us, both inside and outside this building. We often blind to them and, if we are not, we are reluctant to admit to them. But they are there nonetheless.

Probably the biggest one is the idea that somehow being in this building makes us better than those outside. All too often, we gain a sense of religious superiority over those unwashed masses outside these walls. We’re simply better people than those folks.

Well, if any of us here gathered have come to believe that about ourselves, Jesus has just burst your bubble. As we continue through the Sermon on the Mount, we get today to the portion where Jesus talks about sin. And he leaves us very little room to maneuver on the subject.

Religious arrogance is not a new phenomenon. There were certainly many in Jesus’ day among the ancient Jews who believed that their religious devotion and doctrinal dedication made them better than everyone else. The scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and many others had taken the idea that they were the Chosen people and twisted it into something it was never meant to be. As I pointed out in weeks prior, being Chosen means God’s given us a job to do, not that we’re somehow superior to others.

So it was to those who believed such then and to those who believe such now that Jesus dedicates these words.

• You have heard it said ‘You shall not murder’...But I say, ‘if you are angry, you have already murdered.’
• You have heard it said ‘Do not commit adultery’...But I say, ‘if you’ve looked lustfully at another, you have already betrayed your spouse.’

Just thinking of sinning makes us just as guilty. Uh oh. We’re in trouble now.

I’m not like those swindlers. Those thieves. Those murderers. Those scum over there. I’ve never stolen, or murdered, or cheated on my spouse. Or any of those things. Have you really?

Yeah, I’m not a thief but boy, that Aston Martin DB11 is such a beauty. What I wouldn’t give to have a car like that? To have the money to buy one of those. Oops.

It so pretty!!!

Yeah, I’m not an adulterer, but man, those ladies on those internet sites are just...and some of those Hollywood celebrities. Wow. What I wouldn’t give for a night with one of them! Oops.

Confession time! My celebrity crush for the last 25 years or so: Winona Ryder.

Yeah, I’m not a murderer, but that President Trump and his administration and all his supporters....Arrgh!!! Oops.

Those kids, those millennials have no sense of right and wrong. No respect for anyone. Yet we forget that our parent’s generation said that about us. Oops.

Time and again, we find ourselves caught in the trap Jesus has laid for us. There’s no escaping it. No escaping our hypocrisies. No escaping our sin.

And that’s the point.

We keep trying to fool ourselves by believing that if we’re just sinless then God will love us enough to save us. Problem is, we’re not sinless. None of us are. We can hide our secret sins from others, but God sees all. He knows that darkest part of your heart and mind better than we do.

And he loves us anyway.

And there’s the other problem. We are theologically trying to “reinvent the wheel,” creating something that already exists. We keep trying to earn what we already have. We keep trying to make God love us when he already does. It’s never been about how superior we are to others. It’s never been about how much more moral and righteous we are than others. It’s never been about how good we’ve been. It’s never been about us at all. It’s been about God’s love all along.

And yet that love is all about us. God’s overwhelming undeniable hunger for our companionship. We are his deepest desire. He wants us more than anything else in all of creation. So much so that he put into action a plan to save us from sin and death. A plan that centered on Jesus, his son, incarnate here on Earth, dying on a cross, and rising on the third day.

That’s what it’s really about. God doing everything to demonstrate his infinite love for you and me and everyone. It’s not really about our sin at all. It’s always about God’s love.

To close, I want to share with you a quote from a great Lutheran of generations past: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He writes, “God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive..., what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.”

Indeed it is. Amen.

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on February 5, 2017
Scripture text: Matthew 5:13-20

Jesus says, “You are the light of the world.”

Wait a minute here. If I may be so bold, I think Jesus got it wrong here. He’s the light of the world. I mean, that’s been kind of our overarching theme over these past several seasons of the Church year. It’s been all about light and how Jesus is that light.

• The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
• Those who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
• In the beginning...let there be light!
• The magi come following the light of a star to Jesus.

All this is about Jesus, about the Christ. Even our liturgy expounds upon this idea. Look at how many times in our worship service we refer to Jesus either as light or as the bringer of light into the world. There’s at least three or four places where that idea is expressed openly in our worship service.

He is the hope of the universe. He’s the one who has come to save us, to save the world. To redeem what has been lost in the fall. To put right what has gone wrong. To put sin and death asunder. Jesus is the light of the world.

And yet, here in Matthew’s Gospel, in the sermon on the mount, he says it is us who are that light.

What gives?

Truth is, God could have chosen from among an infinity number of plans to bring the world back into alignment with his will. An unending list of schemes that would put right all that sin had made wrong. With his power, might, and majesty, he could have done anything. He chose a plan however a plan that required an element of partnership with the human race.

Rewind all the way back to Genesis. God comes before a Sumerian of Ur by the name of Abram and says to him, “Hey, I need your help. I need you to become the father of a new nation, a new people. A people that I am going to teach my ways, my laws, my commandments, my desires. I want to use them to show the world how life could be. Because I want to bless everyone and I want to use you and yours to do it.”

That’s basically the Old Covenant in a nutshell. God making a pact, a partnership with the Hebrew people, so that they could show the world what God is about. In much the same way as a priest (or pastor) often acts as an intermediary between the divine and the mortal, the Chosen People would act as that intermediary between God and the world. God would reach the world through those Chosen and those Chosen would bring the world to God.

The rest of the Old Testament is made up basically of stories about one of four things:

• the people doing what God wants them to do and when they do, wondrous things happen. (the walls of Jericho, David and Goliath, etc.)
• The people failing to do what God wants them to do and God trying to steer them back onto the path (pretty much any of the prophetic writings)
• God teaching the people his will and desire (The ten commandments)
• God and the people dealing with some manner of setback that has cropped up (the Exodus, the Babylonian exile, etc.)

So there’s the Old Testament in a nutshell. Now, we come to Jesus. Why would things change now? The plan, so far, has been working. Not perfectly, of course; we are dealing with human beings after all. But the partnership has been working. Now, it’s time for an expansion.

Hence, Jesus says to the crowd “You are the light of the world.”

He says that first, of course, to the people gathered around him: Jews, descendants of the ancient Hebrews. People of the Chosen, reminding them that they are the Chosen. But we who hear those words now, generation upon generation later, have been Chosen as well, grafted onto the Old Covenant by the New. The light all of us reflect is not our own, but the light of God, shining in this dark world and setting things to right.

We are God’s partners. That’s what he has called us to be. He has called us to bring hope and light into a dark world, a world of fear, doubt, and uncertainty. He has called us to tell the ancient stories:

• of how God called Abram to bring forth a blessing for all,
• of how Jesus came, the son of God, born in a manger to be that blessing.
• Of how Jesus died and rose again to save the world. To save you and I and perhaps everyone.

That’s our job. That’s our calling as Christians, as people of the New Covenant. Go forth and show the light of the world.

You know, it’s funny. We talk time and time again in Church about how we’re to have faith in God, about how we’re supposed to believe in him and his promises. But passages like this remind us that it is, in fact, a two-way street. Yes, we believe in God, but by calling us to be the light of the world, he shows that he believes in us. He’s called us to be a part of his plan, to be his partners, in showing the world his love and salvation.

You are the light of the world. Go forth and shine, so that the world may see God in you. Amen.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Grace Lutheran, York and Canadochly Lutheran on January 29, 2017
Preaching text: Matthew 5:1-12

One of the more striking moments in the recent Inauguration was the recitation of the very passage we have as our Gospel lesson today. It was striking for a couple of reasons. One is because there is a common argument used whenever the question of whether the USA is a “Christian Nation” or not comes up. If so, some argue, why is it that there are no proposals to post the Beatitudes in public places like there are proposals to post the Ten Commandments? I always found that a good question, since if we see ourselves as a Christian nation, one would think we’d value the words of Christ more often. But no, it's usually Old Testament all the way.

Fast forward to 2:17 to see the Beatitudes.

The second reason the presence of the Beatitudes in the Inauguration ceremony was striking is simply thus. No government, no society, no civilization on Earth even remotely looks like the world described by Jesus in this text. It’s a utopia almost beyond our comprehension, let alone our achievement.

Come on. Think about it. Blessed at the poor in Spirit? We are constantly bombarded by the expectations and judgments of the hyper-religious. People who at least act like they’ve got this whole God thing down pat and unless you become just like them, God won’t love you. In such a world, there’s no room for questions or doubts or contrary theologies. If you don’t believe like they do, or if you don’t think like they do, or if you lack their fervor, well, say hi to Satan when you get to hell.

People like this guy.

Blessed are the meek? Do I even have to go into this one? Say what you will, good or bad, about our new President, but one thing he is not is “meek.” Truth be told, there are pretty much none of the powers-that-be that are. Not Trump. Not Hillary. Not Obama. Not Paul Ryan. No one in elected office. None of our captains of industry and technology. Not one can really be described as meek or humble. They wouldn’t have gotten as far as they have if they were.

Blessed are the peacemakers? What is that meme I see from time to time? In the 200+ years of our nation’s existence, we have seen only about 21 years of peace. We’re always involved in some international conflict somewhere. We’ve just come out of the longest war we’ve ever fought and that’s only if you don’t count the fact that “military advisors” are still present in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Add to that the skirmishes and conflicts within our society, whether it be the crime of our cities, the domestic violence hidden away in our homes, or the fearful worship of firearms and violence in many of our rural areas.

And it’s not just us Americans. No one’s going to describe Putin or Netanyahu as meek. The British Empire once spanned the globe and you can’t tell me it got that way peacefully. The French produced Napoleon and the Japanese the samurai. And what is ISIS if not the hyper-religious of the Islamic faith?

To our credit here in America, our ideal is that we have a society and a government that is “of the people, by the people, for the people,” as Abraham Lincoln once so eloquently put it in his Gettysburg Address. Truth is, we don’t really live up to that ideal and we have a society (like so many others) that is for, by, and of the wealthy, the strong, and the fanatically devout.

And that is why Jesus’ words are so striking and so oddly out of place in a celebration of our society as it is. He’s describing the kingdom of heaven and it is utterly unlike anything we’ve seen here on Earth. Because quite frankly, the world we live in worships success, strength, cleverness, money, and fanaticism and is utterly hostile to being human.

If you could sum up the Beatitudes in one sentence, it would be thus: “Blessed are you for being human.” Poor in spirit? Well, of course, we are. There’s so much about God that is beyond our human comprehension. We’ll never get it all right, no matter how much we might pretend otherwise. We’ll never be devoted enough. Never be right enough. Never be knowledgeable enough. And that’s okay.

Blessed are those who mourn? Who doesn’t? Death comes to us in so many ways. There is the physical loss of life, the end of brain activity, the ceasing of the heartbeat, the departure of the soul. But there’s also the loss of jobs, opportunity, health, dreams; these too are a form of death and we mourn them also.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Again, who doesn’t? We want our world to be fair and just. We want to have the opportunities given to others, the same chances, the same lucky breaks. And when we come before a judge or jury in a criminal or civil proceeding, we hope that no extenuating circumstance will tip the scales unfairly, such as our economic status or race.

Blessed are the pure in heart? Most of us have little ambition beyond a peaceful life, food on the table, and good opportunity for our children. What is more pure than that?

Peacemakers? Who doesn’t want peace to seek those simple pleasures of life? Again from our founding documents, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Blessed are the persecuted? Doing good when it is not popular or politic is a dangerous thing in this world. The annuls of history are filled with the names of martyrs who died for doing the right thing. Standing up for what is right should be rewarded, even though it often isn’t.

But here’s the catch. Those things that you desire, a life without pain and death, a life of peace, a life of simple pleasures. That’s what God wants for you too. That’s why Jesus came. It’s why he went to the cross. It’s why he rose again. This is all about the kingdom, the kingdom we hunger for, the kingdom we desire above all other things.

And it will be ours. God has seen to that. It doesn’t really matter to him if we’re successful or strong or powerful or rich or fanatical. What matters is that you are you. I quote the late Brennan Manning a lot in these sermons, but what he said proves true. “God loves you as you are, and not as you should be, because you’re never going to be as you should be.” God loves you as a human being and not some paragon of what this world values. God loves you as you are and he sent Jesus for you as you are. And he will give you the kingdom as he promised. You are human and to God that is the greatest thing of all. Amen.