September 5, 2012
Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Psalm 15
1st Reading: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
2nd Reading: James 1:17-27
When I was growing up, we were fortunate to live only 20 minutes away from both sets of grandparents. Four kids meant a lot of mouths to feed and gas prices were low, so almost once a week we went to one grandparents or the other for dinner. At Grandma Nana’s (named so because I couldn’t say grandma as a baby, but only nana) I remember she would call, “Go wash your hands for dinner!” That meant everyone lining up at the one bathroom in the house and washing our hands before we could find our place at the kids’ table to eat. At Grandma V’s house, (so named because no one wanted to have to say Grandma Vorderstrasse, even though it was all our last names) the ritual was praying before our meals, “Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let thy gifts to us be blessed.” It sounded a little to me like, “give us more gifts,” but that was the prayer we said. At home, we didn’t do either of these two things, but we did have our own rituals such as where we sat at the table and having to take three bites and having the timer set for 5 minutes if we were not taking our bites. These rules and rituals were to help us know what to expect. They helped prepare us to eat together in community, in family, not to waste food, to get along with each other, to have good health in our bodies, and to remember our food comes from God who we remember and thank.
At our house, now, our routines are changing due to a child in our midst. We still haven’t got our family meal ritual together—we eat at different times. But we are getting the bedtime ritual down pat. It helps our son know what to expect. It helps prepare him for healthy sleep. When he sleeps, we all sleep, which is good and very good.
So the Israelites, too, needed rules and rituals to help them interact together in community, to be healthy and get along and respect each other, and to know what to expect. So God gave them the commandments. And we, too, in society and in church need rules and traditions to help us on our spiritual path and to progress in our relationships. In church, we have many of these rituals. We are so attuned to say “And also with you” when the pastor says, “The Lord be with you” that we even say it when someone says, “May the force be with you.” We are ready to say the Lord’s Prayer, when the pastor says, “God remember us in your Kingdom and teach us to pray.” Or we are ready to respond, “Thanks be to God” when the reader says, “Word of God, word of life.” We are ready to hear the scriptures having sung a hymn in praise to God. We are ready to go to communion, having heard a word of hope. We are ready to go and be the good news to someone in need having gathered in community to worship God.
Our way of worshipping is helpful to us in many ways. Like dinner or bedtime rituals there is no one right way of doing it. We use words from scripture in our worship and we use a formula that makes sense to many of us. And there are other, completely legitimate and wonderful ways to worship God, different words we could use and different order to the elements of worship. And our way of Lutheran worship allows for much flexibility and openness to different options in worship. What matters most is not the words we say, but where our heart is and what our motivations are. What is behind the actions we do and the words we say. Do we worship this way to serve ourselves? Are we flexible enough to be relevant to the world we live in? Do we try to help others understand why we do what we do? Do we leave room for the Holy Spirit in, with, and under our rules and traditions so She can teach us new ways to interact with God that help us grow spiritually?
And one of the biggest questions of all is this: Do we worship the rules so that they cannot be questioned? Or are we willing to examine our traditions to make sure they are still doing what they were intended to do, which is to help us move along a spiritual path toward greater love?
Jesus cautioned us toward worshiping the rules. He said the rule and the tradition is not the thing. They are meant to point to God. He was constantly breaking rules. He picked grain and healed people on the Sabbath. He touched lepers. He talked to prostitutes. And he didn’t wash his hands before dinner, which would have been ok with grandma V., as long as he prayed, but not ok with grandma nana and not ok with the Jewish people and probably not ok with many of us here today. And of course don’t forget that God’s rules were used against him at his trial and because he didn’t deny saying he was God’s Son, he was crucified.
We all know the rules aren’t perfect. Innocent people get sent to jail. People find loopholes in the rules and exploit them, like with the Adjustable Rate Mortgages. The banks were following the rules, but that didn’t mean they were doing the right thing. We often interpret the rules in ways that benefit us. We use the rules to get more power for ourselves or our group and to take that power away from everyone else. Is anyone else as glad as I am that this election will be over soon? Is anyone else as disgusted as I am that both parties are using and misusing power so blatantly? What a waste of time!
In the midst of all this vying for power, the apostle James asks us to hold up a mirror. He asks us to reflect on ourselves and to stop and take a good long look at ourselves and the rules and traditions we use. It is a good thing to do individually. It is a good thing to do as a congregation. Rather than just go through the motions of our laws and traditions, we should look at them. We should assess whether they are accomplishing the work of God. Are they spreading God’s love? Are they helping people on their spiritual journey? Do we do them just because that’s what we’re used to? Do these laws and traditions draw people together into deeper relationship with each other and with God? Do they drive a wedge between people and show who is in and who is out and become ways of excluding people who aren’t like us?
When we look in the mirror, the world tells us not to like who we see. They tell us that we need something to make us likeable-whether it is a new truck or a certain brand of paper towel or a certain food. They promote the tradition of “Buy more stuff until you feel better” because it benefits them. They sell more stuff because of our fear that we aren’t good enough without this that or the other.
God tells us that we are created good and that we are beloved. When we look in the mirror we should see a beloved child of God. We start from a place of love and hope. God also gives us an honest assessment that we are afraid, that we are self serving, that we bend the rules to benefit ourselves, that we compare ourselves to other people. God doesn’t want that for us because it isn’t good for us and it isn’t good for others. So God offers us a better way. It is a way that we can reach for but never fully attain. It is our spiritual path to do God’s word and not just pay it lip service. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God meaning that we are unable to follow God’s commandments. But that doesn’t mean we give up. We want to serve. We want to try to follow God’s rules and commandments so that we can live long in the land and so that we and others can have enough, life abundant. Widows and orphans are still relying on us to be God’s hands and feet helping them. The world is hungry for justice and compassion and hope that God brings through us living that word. God’s rules help us to act justly so that people are fed and clothed and relationships are built.
When we look in the mirror God asks us to see Jesus within us. God wants us to treat that person we see in the mirror as we would treat Jesus. God wants us to have love and compassion for ourselves. God asks us to see the holy within us. God asks us to see Jesus in the eyes of all we meet—all our brothers and sisters, too. When we see Jesus there, we don’t see a rival to compete with. We see a brother who we love and who loves us. We see someone we want to empower rather than to take advantage of. We aren’t to judge that person, but to have a relationship with them.
When we see Jesus in that mirror, we see ourselves like God sees us. We get credit for Jesus’ perfection. God sees the family resemblance. And when we see Jesus reflected back in our neighbor’s eye, in our enemy’s eye, our hearts soften in love.
Jesus takes our place in that mirror and instead of our failures that we would normally see when we look at ourselves, we see what can happen when God works through our hands and feet to help others. Instead of judgment of our shortcomings, we find forgiveness from God and from ourselves. Instead of hatred for ourselves or others, we see our divisions going away. Instead of despair at our inability to do anything about our shortcomings, we get a picture of what could be. Instead of being stuck and hopeless, we get imagination to build a more just and loving future. Instead of seeing rules and traditions to cling to, we see the life and hope the rules point to. When we look in that mirror and truly self-reflect, we find hope, not just for ourselves, but for others. When we become doers of the word, we share that hope with others.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Sermon for August 19, 2012
August 19, 2012
Gospel: John 6:51-58
Psalm 34:9-14
1st Reading: Proverbs 9:1-6
2nd Reading: Ephesians 5:15-20
Eating flesh and drinking blood. It sounds like a zombie or vampire story right? These have been all the rage the past few years. A couple of years ago I stayed with a pastor friend of mine in Eugene for part of my vacation. We went into a bookstore looking for a particular book in the “Son of a Witch” series. Finally, after not finding it where she expected to, she asked the clerk where it could be found. The clerk replied, “That’s in ‘Teen Paranormal Romance.’” I had to stifle my snicker! Number one, an adult was reading these books. Number two there was a whole section for this type of book. Number three, I am superior since I’ve never even picked up one of these “Twilight” books or seen any of the movies.
Of course on further reflection I admit that I am not superior or immune. When I was growing up the vampire movie was “The Lost Boys.” I went to the theater to see “I am Legend” when it came out, a zombie/vampire story. Just this year Nick and I started watching the “Walking Dead” series that we stream from the internet. I also watched a season and a half of “True Blood” until I just couldn’t suspend disbelief enough to watch it anymore. I can say that my tastes are less geared toward teenagers, and less about romance, but my friend who was looking for her teen paranormal romance book is probably more in touch with today’s cultural references, and can have a more informed conversation with a teenager than I can.
These vampire and zombie movies, books, and TV shows may or may not be what you’re watching or reading, but they are what your children or grandchildren are watching and reading. Some religious leaders have condemned these books as well as Harry Potter, because of its connection to black magic and witchcraft, but they do have strong spiritual themes. This can be a convenient way to talk to your child or grandchild about spirituality and even Christianity or even think about it more deeply for yourself.
The eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood might not be the first theme you want to go to, but it is front and center. It is pretty gross to think about. But the truth is, Jesus asked us to do it and it is the central ritual, the Sacrament that we gather around every Sunday. It is at the table that we meet and eat Jesus.
Vampires and Christians share something in common and that is the view that blood is life, it is empowerment. Vampires and Christians find eternal life by drinking blood. When vampires do it, they damage the person from whom they drink. In the Lord’s Supper, when we drink the blood, we share in the eternal life of Jesus, but we go from damaged to whole. We take on Jesus’ kind of life that is eternal, but we also take on Jesus’ manner of life that is self-giving and loving and welcoming. Some questions to consider when thinking about the Lord’s Supper and literature and movies about vampires is this: What does it mean to live eternally? What does it mean to truly live? What gives life? What takes it away?
In these vampire stories there is usually the theme of “us verses them.” There is the fear of the unknown. There is the “other.” Often these films take on a Romeo and Juliet flavor in which two young people fall in love, when that is forbidden because they are from different groups, one a human and one a vampire. Through their love, they teach others to lose their fear and instead embrace differences and break down barriers separating the two groups. Another sub-theme is about judging a book by its cover.
Now maybe I should have preached separate sermons on zombies and vampires, because they are very different creatures, but I don’t know if you would sit through two of these sermons or if I could stomach preaching about this twice, so here we go.
Zombies eat flesh. Once they do, the one they’ve eaten also becomes a zombie. They are dead and yet they move and hurt people and spread this zombie disease. I think zombie stories are so interesting because they challenge the life we live now. Sometimes I know I feel like a zombie, going through the motions, in my routines, walking through life in a daze unaware of my surroundings, drawn in by advertising and the messages culture gives me about what to spend my money on and what is important in life.
Jesus is the anti-zombie in this case. When we eat of his flesh, instead of becoming less alive, we become more aware and more alive. Instead of then going and feasting on other people, we invite them to feast with Jesus and truly live. Through this meal we become more aware of how we treat other people. We are invited to share our food. We are invited to see every meal as a gift from God. We are invited to sacrifice our own wants and desires to make sure that others have life abundant.
Finally, both vampire and zombie stories are about the world falling apart all around us and how we behave when we are faced with tough choices. Faced as we are with the loss of environment and habitat, pollution and a warming planet with extremes of weather, it does seem that we are living in times of desperation and fear. Other moments in history have had their own notions of a world torn apart, whether it was The Black Plague, times of war, the fear of “the bomb” or whatever. And we know that there are places in this world that have fallen apart and would look very much like the set of a zombie movie. It isn’t that far-fetched to see ourselves in a world where we are desperately trying to survive. We do have to make tough choices every day. And sometimes those choices are made for us as we age or get sick or financial markets take their toll or whatever.
These stories make us think about the question of who we are. When it is easy to be generous and loving, sure I will be those things. Would I still be the same when times are tough? Jesus showed us God, loving even as we were crucifying him. This truly showed that God does not resort to violence, no matter the situation. It shows God welcoming the criminals on either side of him as he hung there on the cross, even as he suffered and died. Who are we really? Are we really loving and faithful even when it isn’t easy to be? We don’t know until we come to that point and our faith is tested. But you don’t have to wait until the world is a desolate wasteland and you’re being pursued by a pack of zombies to know. We go through hardships that help us practice loving kindness. We know we’d give a jump to a woman with a baby stuck in the grocery store parking lot. But what if it was a guy with a lot of tattoos? What if it was our enemy? What if it was hailing? What if there were zombies coming after us? It isn’t often life or death. That just makes for good TV and sells a lot of books. But it is a matter of how we live our faith in a response of thanksgiving to God who does give us life and life abundant through the flesh and blood of his son Jesus. It is God who makes us flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood and invites us to help join others to the body of Christ through acts of love and grace.
Gospel: John 6:51-58
Psalm 34:9-14
1st Reading: Proverbs 9:1-6
2nd Reading: Ephesians 5:15-20
Eating flesh and drinking blood. It sounds like a zombie or vampire story right? These have been all the rage the past few years. A couple of years ago I stayed with a pastor friend of mine in Eugene for part of my vacation. We went into a bookstore looking for a particular book in the “Son of a Witch” series. Finally, after not finding it where she expected to, she asked the clerk where it could be found. The clerk replied, “That’s in ‘Teen Paranormal Romance.’” I had to stifle my snicker! Number one, an adult was reading these books. Number two there was a whole section for this type of book. Number three, I am superior since I’ve never even picked up one of these “Twilight” books or seen any of the movies.
Of course on further reflection I admit that I am not superior or immune. When I was growing up the vampire movie was “The Lost Boys.” I went to the theater to see “I am Legend” when it came out, a zombie/vampire story. Just this year Nick and I started watching the “Walking Dead” series that we stream from the internet. I also watched a season and a half of “True Blood” until I just couldn’t suspend disbelief enough to watch it anymore. I can say that my tastes are less geared toward teenagers, and less about romance, but my friend who was looking for her teen paranormal romance book is probably more in touch with today’s cultural references, and can have a more informed conversation with a teenager than I can.
These vampire and zombie movies, books, and TV shows may or may not be what you’re watching or reading, but they are what your children or grandchildren are watching and reading. Some religious leaders have condemned these books as well as Harry Potter, because of its connection to black magic and witchcraft, but they do have strong spiritual themes. This can be a convenient way to talk to your child or grandchild about spirituality and even Christianity or even think about it more deeply for yourself.
The eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood might not be the first theme you want to go to, but it is front and center. It is pretty gross to think about. But the truth is, Jesus asked us to do it and it is the central ritual, the Sacrament that we gather around every Sunday. It is at the table that we meet and eat Jesus.
Vampires and Christians share something in common and that is the view that blood is life, it is empowerment. Vampires and Christians find eternal life by drinking blood. When vampires do it, they damage the person from whom they drink. In the Lord’s Supper, when we drink the blood, we share in the eternal life of Jesus, but we go from damaged to whole. We take on Jesus’ kind of life that is eternal, but we also take on Jesus’ manner of life that is self-giving and loving and welcoming. Some questions to consider when thinking about the Lord’s Supper and literature and movies about vampires is this: What does it mean to live eternally? What does it mean to truly live? What gives life? What takes it away?
In these vampire stories there is usually the theme of “us verses them.” There is the fear of the unknown. There is the “other.” Often these films take on a Romeo and Juliet flavor in which two young people fall in love, when that is forbidden because they are from different groups, one a human and one a vampire. Through their love, they teach others to lose their fear and instead embrace differences and break down barriers separating the two groups. Another sub-theme is about judging a book by its cover.
Now maybe I should have preached separate sermons on zombies and vampires, because they are very different creatures, but I don’t know if you would sit through two of these sermons or if I could stomach preaching about this twice, so here we go.
Zombies eat flesh. Once they do, the one they’ve eaten also becomes a zombie. They are dead and yet they move and hurt people and spread this zombie disease. I think zombie stories are so interesting because they challenge the life we live now. Sometimes I know I feel like a zombie, going through the motions, in my routines, walking through life in a daze unaware of my surroundings, drawn in by advertising and the messages culture gives me about what to spend my money on and what is important in life.
Jesus is the anti-zombie in this case. When we eat of his flesh, instead of becoming less alive, we become more aware and more alive. Instead of then going and feasting on other people, we invite them to feast with Jesus and truly live. Through this meal we become more aware of how we treat other people. We are invited to share our food. We are invited to see every meal as a gift from God. We are invited to sacrifice our own wants and desires to make sure that others have life abundant.
Finally, both vampire and zombie stories are about the world falling apart all around us and how we behave when we are faced with tough choices. Faced as we are with the loss of environment and habitat, pollution and a warming planet with extremes of weather, it does seem that we are living in times of desperation and fear. Other moments in history have had their own notions of a world torn apart, whether it was The Black Plague, times of war, the fear of “the bomb” or whatever. And we know that there are places in this world that have fallen apart and would look very much like the set of a zombie movie. It isn’t that far-fetched to see ourselves in a world where we are desperately trying to survive. We do have to make tough choices every day. And sometimes those choices are made for us as we age or get sick or financial markets take their toll or whatever.
These stories make us think about the question of who we are. When it is easy to be generous and loving, sure I will be those things. Would I still be the same when times are tough? Jesus showed us God, loving even as we were crucifying him. This truly showed that God does not resort to violence, no matter the situation. It shows God welcoming the criminals on either side of him as he hung there on the cross, even as he suffered and died. Who are we really? Are we really loving and faithful even when it isn’t easy to be? We don’t know until we come to that point and our faith is tested. But you don’t have to wait until the world is a desolate wasteland and you’re being pursued by a pack of zombies to know. We go through hardships that help us practice loving kindness. We know we’d give a jump to a woman with a baby stuck in the grocery store parking lot. But what if it was a guy with a lot of tattoos? What if it was our enemy? What if it was hailing? What if there were zombies coming after us? It isn’t often life or death. That just makes for good TV and sells a lot of books. But it is a matter of how we live our faith in a response of thanksgiving to God who does give us life and life abundant through the flesh and blood of his son Jesus. It is God who makes us flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood and invites us to help join others to the body of Christ through acts of love and grace.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
July 29, 2012
Gospel: John 6:1-21
1st Reading: 2 Kings 4:42-44
Psalm 145:10-18
2nd Reading: Ephesians 3:14-21
If you would have asked me a couple of years ago, I probably would have told you that I didn’t believe in miracles. The sick are healed because doctors do good work and people feel the support of their family and friends across great distances. This Gospel story of the feeding of the 5000 is a story where one boy decided to share his lunch and everyone else got out their picnic lunches and shared them, too. And don’t even get me started on the Virgin Mary.
I am part of a cynical generation. We are known for our wry sense of humor. We question everything. It is a rite of passage to reject everything our parents believed in, God, America, family, to prove that we are our own person. We may or may not be in the same generation, but I know you’ve experienced it to. We are in an age where we know everything about every politician. Someone that you might have wanted to vote for now has their affairs broadcast in great detail on every internet news site. Books are written tearing people down, prying into their lives until nothing is left to the imagination. In some ways more information is good, because who doesn’t want to be informed. On the other hand, some things just shouldn’t matter, and yet they do.
My cynicism, like a lot of people’s, started with my teenage years. That’s when we all start to realize that there is so much suffering in this world, that the good guys don’t always win—in fact they seldom do, that there are wars and disease and terrible things going on and very little that anyone is doing about it. We notice our parents being hypocritical. We wonder if there is anyone or anything that we can rely on.
And religion isn’t immune from this cynicism. Read your history and you can see how people have misused religion to gain power for themselves, to hurt other people, and to control people. It is no wonder people are suspicious of religion and people of faith.
On top of that, it has been a tough couple of weeks in the news. A week and a half ago, we had the shooting in Colorado. I read a story in Rolling Stone magazine about climate change and how by the time Sterling is 16, we’ll be at the tipping point of environmental collapse. I read how fossil fuel companies are literally invested in burning 5 times the carbon that our planet can handle without whole countries being submerged in the ocean and society breaking down and our planet being too hot to support the foods we love to eat, that we need to eat. I just didn’t realize it was happening as fast as it is.
This kind of news has a numbing effect. Sometimes I find it hard to have hope. I want to do something, but I know what I’m doing will never be enough. I picture all the suffering people and I can’t do a darned thing to help them. It is hard to believe in miracles when the world is falling apart around us.
And yet, today, I can say I believe in miracles. I’m in a little different place—a little more hopeful place, than I was a few years ago, because I am aware of miracles going on around me. I’ve seen real miracles. I know it is a miracle that happens to almost every woman eventually, but in the past year I’ve grown a child inside my body, experienced the miraculous growth, felt every miraculous kick and hiccup. Now I get to see a human being learn every little thing, which is a kind of miracle.
I also believe in miracles because my child believes in them. If you want to see a miracle, watch a toe wiggling in a sock, watch a butterfly flit around your yard, sit down and really taste your food like you are trying it for the first time, watch light patterns stream through windows, stare in the face of someone you love, listen to some music, sit in a breeze, study a set of keys. All these things I took for granted for so long, are now new again. Things I quit noticing, I notice again and appreciate. Many of you experience this now through grandchildren or great grandchildren. Those everyday things have been miracles all along, just now I see them for the miracles they are. And what a miracle, our five senses that we have to explore our world.
We find hope through these new little people who show us miracles every day. Because of that hope and that belief in miracles, we will do what it takes to make more miracles happen. Because we believe in miracles, we won’t return violence with violence, but we’ll find a way to forgive. Because we believe in miracles, we’ll give our time and our money to make sure that other people get to experience the miracle of their child being well fed, receiving medical care, and growing up in a world without the fear of violence. Because we believe in miracles, we’ll lobby our officials to change the rules so we don’t pollute and ruin this beautiful planet that we want our grandchildren to experience.
The one miracle I’ve always believed in is that God came as one of us to experience our life, died and rose from the dead to give us life. Even if we can’t believe in miracles, or there are times in our lives when we quit noticing miracles, God believes in us and works miracles through unlikely, clueless folks. God keeps pouring God’s abundant grace into us. The abundance of God is all over the stories for this morning.
In 2 Kings, Elisha looks at what little he has, just 20 loaves of barley bread and some flour. He questions what good it is going to do when there are 100 hungry people to feed. God tells him to share it and let the people eat. And they do and there are leftovers.
The Gospel reading parallels this reading—even the kind of bread is the same, barley loaves. The Disciples have been around long enough to know they want nothing to do with a hungry crowd. Have you heard this new word “hangry?” It is a combination of “hungry” and “angry.” I know being hungry doesn’t make me a happy person. This crowd is going to be hangry any minute now.
I love that it is the little boy who saves the day. He is the only one naïve enough to think that he can make a difference. He believes in miracles. He has been learning what the adults have been teaching him—how to share. They have been teaching him what they don’t remember how to do. Now he is going to show them what it means to share. He gives without regard to whether he’s going to get any. He doesn’t eat his lunch and give what’s left. He doesn’t just give 10% or 2% of his lunch. He gives it away in a bold offering. It is only a little, yet it is enough because Jesus is enough. Love is enough. God is generous and when we have faith in him and are generous, it is enough. Jesus can use us to make a miracle if we will let him instead of being cynical and afraid and greedy.
The second reading speaks of the “riches of his glory.” The God would use God’s power to strengthen us. That it isn’t our own power, but Christ dwelling in us, rooting and grounding us in love. The prayer is that we would know Christ’s love and be filled with it, that we would be filled with the fullness of God. Because of this, God is able to work through us more than we can imagine. We have the power to make this world more just, more peaceful, healthier, stronger. Or rather it is God through us who is doing miracles everyday, right in front of our eyes, and is asking us to participate in his miracles of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, comforting the bereaved, and caring for nature and our planet so that it can continue to support abundant life and future generations can continue to know the grace that we know.
1st Reading: 2 Kings 4:42-44
Psalm 145:10-18
2nd Reading: Ephesians 3:14-21
If you would have asked me a couple of years ago, I probably would have told you that I didn’t believe in miracles. The sick are healed because doctors do good work and people feel the support of their family and friends across great distances. This Gospel story of the feeding of the 5000 is a story where one boy decided to share his lunch and everyone else got out their picnic lunches and shared them, too. And don’t even get me started on the Virgin Mary.
I am part of a cynical generation. We are known for our wry sense of humor. We question everything. It is a rite of passage to reject everything our parents believed in, God, America, family, to prove that we are our own person. We may or may not be in the same generation, but I know you’ve experienced it to. We are in an age where we know everything about every politician. Someone that you might have wanted to vote for now has their affairs broadcast in great detail on every internet news site. Books are written tearing people down, prying into their lives until nothing is left to the imagination. In some ways more information is good, because who doesn’t want to be informed. On the other hand, some things just shouldn’t matter, and yet they do.
My cynicism, like a lot of people’s, started with my teenage years. That’s when we all start to realize that there is so much suffering in this world, that the good guys don’t always win—in fact they seldom do, that there are wars and disease and terrible things going on and very little that anyone is doing about it. We notice our parents being hypocritical. We wonder if there is anyone or anything that we can rely on.
And religion isn’t immune from this cynicism. Read your history and you can see how people have misused religion to gain power for themselves, to hurt other people, and to control people. It is no wonder people are suspicious of religion and people of faith.
On top of that, it has been a tough couple of weeks in the news. A week and a half ago, we had the shooting in Colorado. I read a story in Rolling Stone magazine about climate change and how by the time Sterling is 16, we’ll be at the tipping point of environmental collapse. I read how fossil fuel companies are literally invested in burning 5 times the carbon that our planet can handle without whole countries being submerged in the ocean and society breaking down and our planet being too hot to support the foods we love to eat, that we need to eat. I just didn’t realize it was happening as fast as it is.
This kind of news has a numbing effect. Sometimes I find it hard to have hope. I want to do something, but I know what I’m doing will never be enough. I picture all the suffering people and I can’t do a darned thing to help them. It is hard to believe in miracles when the world is falling apart around us.
And yet, today, I can say I believe in miracles. I’m in a little different place—a little more hopeful place, than I was a few years ago, because I am aware of miracles going on around me. I’ve seen real miracles. I know it is a miracle that happens to almost every woman eventually, but in the past year I’ve grown a child inside my body, experienced the miraculous growth, felt every miraculous kick and hiccup. Now I get to see a human being learn every little thing, which is a kind of miracle.
I also believe in miracles because my child believes in them. If you want to see a miracle, watch a toe wiggling in a sock, watch a butterfly flit around your yard, sit down and really taste your food like you are trying it for the first time, watch light patterns stream through windows, stare in the face of someone you love, listen to some music, sit in a breeze, study a set of keys. All these things I took for granted for so long, are now new again. Things I quit noticing, I notice again and appreciate. Many of you experience this now through grandchildren or great grandchildren. Those everyday things have been miracles all along, just now I see them for the miracles they are. And what a miracle, our five senses that we have to explore our world.
We find hope through these new little people who show us miracles every day. Because of that hope and that belief in miracles, we will do what it takes to make more miracles happen. Because we believe in miracles, we won’t return violence with violence, but we’ll find a way to forgive. Because we believe in miracles, we’ll give our time and our money to make sure that other people get to experience the miracle of their child being well fed, receiving medical care, and growing up in a world without the fear of violence. Because we believe in miracles, we’ll lobby our officials to change the rules so we don’t pollute and ruin this beautiful planet that we want our grandchildren to experience.
The one miracle I’ve always believed in is that God came as one of us to experience our life, died and rose from the dead to give us life. Even if we can’t believe in miracles, or there are times in our lives when we quit noticing miracles, God believes in us and works miracles through unlikely, clueless folks. God keeps pouring God’s abundant grace into us. The abundance of God is all over the stories for this morning.
In 2 Kings, Elisha looks at what little he has, just 20 loaves of barley bread and some flour. He questions what good it is going to do when there are 100 hungry people to feed. God tells him to share it and let the people eat. And they do and there are leftovers.
The Gospel reading parallels this reading—even the kind of bread is the same, barley loaves. The Disciples have been around long enough to know they want nothing to do with a hungry crowd. Have you heard this new word “hangry?” It is a combination of “hungry” and “angry.” I know being hungry doesn’t make me a happy person. This crowd is going to be hangry any minute now.
I love that it is the little boy who saves the day. He is the only one naïve enough to think that he can make a difference. He believes in miracles. He has been learning what the adults have been teaching him—how to share. They have been teaching him what they don’t remember how to do. Now he is going to show them what it means to share. He gives without regard to whether he’s going to get any. He doesn’t eat his lunch and give what’s left. He doesn’t just give 10% or 2% of his lunch. He gives it away in a bold offering. It is only a little, yet it is enough because Jesus is enough. Love is enough. God is generous and when we have faith in him and are generous, it is enough. Jesus can use us to make a miracle if we will let him instead of being cynical and afraid and greedy.
The second reading speaks of the “riches of his glory.” The God would use God’s power to strengthen us. That it isn’t our own power, but Christ dwelling in us, rooting and grounding us in love. The prayer is that we would know Christ’s love and be filled with it, that we would be filled with the fullness of God. Because of this, God is able to work through us more than we can imagine. We have the power to make this world more just, more peaceful, healthier, stronger. Or rather it is God through us who is doing miracles everyday, right in front of our eyes, and is asking us to participate in his miracles of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, comforting the bereaved, and caring for nature and our planet so that it can continue to support abundant life and future generations can continue to know the grace that we know.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Sermon for July 22, 2012
July 22, 2012
Gospel: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Psalm 23
1st Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6
2nd Reading: Ephesians 2:11-22
This week, at Vacation Bible School, I made a little boy cry. It will probably take me longer to get over it than him. In fact he was back the next day and feeling fine and we had a positive interaction, although I was sure not to mention the previous day’s incident. I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings. Sometimes I forget that some people see me like the principal of the school. I am in authority. These kids don’t know me, even if I know them, even if I baptized them and pray for them. Of course the last thing we want from Bible School is for a kid or volunteer to have a bad experience of church or the pastor. It is all about having a good experience. But any time people come together, whether it is for VBS or anything else, the potential for division is automatically created.
I hurt this boy’s feelings and now I hear from Jesus’ own lips, “Woe to the shepherds that scatter the flock.” I just know he’s talking about me. This boy will be fine and hopefully have not lasting effects from this shepherd, but what about all the other people I’ve offended or driven off or failed in one way or another?
This isn’t just about pastors either. You might not consider yourselves shepherds, but you are Christians, held to a high standard. It says in the Gospel of Luke, “To those whom much is given, much is expected.” There are people who don’t like you, who have hurt you or been hurt by you, people with whom you feel a wedge in your life, where the hope of reconciliation is pretty much nonexistent and that a conversation about a toy boat can’t fix. Yet much is expected of us, who have been given everything that means anything, from God, our father.
We’re separate and broken from each other. That’s part of being in a state of sin. And woe to us! Yes it does feel pretty woeful. I hate conflict. I want everyone to like me. But to be in relationship is to take a risk—a risk of hurting someone’s feelings. We can’t all agree. We don’t all communicate the same way. We all have different levels of sensitivity. We’re all going to experience woe, and the regret of scattering the flock, of breaking something that was beautiful, of driving away reasonable people.
The Old Testament reading speaks of a scattered remnant. If you do any sewing, this brings to mind of course the scraps, the fabric left over at the end of a bolt of material. If you don’t sew, maybe you can relate to using scraps of wood or what is left of a can of paint to complete a project, or using the leftovers in your kitchen to make something delicious for dinner.
I love remnants. My grandma made me a quilt out of remnants. Looking at it with my mom, we point out together which blocks were made from scraps from my mother’s childhood dresses, or aprons grandma made. The scraps bring back memories of more than what we wore, but of what we did as we wore those handmade treasures. The quilt brings back memories of twirling skirts, or cooking with mom, or rolling down the hills, or getting ready for bed.
It is so much fun to search for exactly the right piece of fabric to complete a project. Often at the fabric store, I stop by the shelf of remnants to see what’s there. It is all half-price and I can’t resist a bargain. You never know what you might find, that you wouldn’t have thought of, that will work for a project in progress.
My favorite place to get scraps is at the Goodwill, and more than that at the Goodwill outlet store, or “The Bins” as it is commonly known. There I dig through mounds of clothes, broken toys, bits of paper, and every other kind of trash you could think of to find treasures. Once I spent a half an hour gathering beautiful glass beads at the bottom of one of these bins. I spent about 25 cents for what I would have paid more than ten dollars for at the regular store, but I had to dig and pick every last one of those little beads out of the bottom of that bin. At the bins I’ve found maternity clothes, books for children and adults, a plastic storage bin that I use as a tub to bathe my giant baby. The thing I like to find most is fabric remnants. I especially love it when I find some quilt squares already assembled. I made a quilt for my cousin’s wedding from 10 large quilt squares I found at the bins. Sometimes you find some already assembled squares plus some pieces cut out ready to be sewn and often fat quarters of the same fabric waiting to be cut to fill in the gaps. I don’t often have the time and patience to make a whole quilt myself, but if I can complete someone else’s project, it can be very satisfying. I try to imagine the person that started this quilt. Did they give up? Did they die? Who was this project intended for? I like picking up where they left off.
Jesus loved the remnants, too. He loved everybody, but the remnants were crying out to be used in a project of God’s design. They were just begging to be gathered. The sick were following him from place to place in the Gospel, just hoping to touch the remnant of his cloak, to feel connected to him, to find hope, to believe wholeness was possible for them. He needed some rest, but he also had compassion for them and he was trying to balance the two.
We have a tendency to scatter the flock. We tend to break apart what God has brought together. Of course we try not to do it and we try to learn from our mistakes not to repeat them. I know that with small children, I should consider asking their grandparent to explain things to them, instead of doing it myself. I need to carefully choose my words and actions. I want to be someone who gathers rather than scatters. And yet I am aware, that I, too, am a remnant, a scrap that experiences separation from others. I need Jesus to sew me together with other scraps to make something beautiful and useful. In some ways all I can do is to be available to be sewn together. I can be aware of my incompleteness. I can look forward to making connections with others. Maybe I can smooth out some of my rough edges so I can fit with others around me.
We rip apart the fabric, saw the wood, and cut the vegetables. It is usually with the intention of making something from it. We aren’t trying to be hurtful. Sometimes someone else has started the project and we get to be Jesus’ sewing machine or hammer helping to put things together in a new way, to make something useful out of what was just a scrap, a remnant, a nothing. Sometimes we start a project and someone else gets to finish it. But always it is God working through us to gather the flock, to heal, to feed, to soothe, to bless.
Jesus is digging through the trash heap, but he doesn’t see trash. He sees something ready to be gathered, healed, adopted, brought into relationship, sewn, glued, or attached. Jesus sees the potential there in the remnant, rather than the deficiency. Jesus looks with eyes of hope, with creativity to bring together unlikely combinations to make stunning designs. We tend to scatter. When we do, let us look to God to put us back together again in unexpected ways. Let us be ready to be healed, to be brought back into relationship with those we might have written off. We are all reaching for the fringe of his cloak to be joined with him, to have new life. And we find him reaching out to us and we find ourselves joined then to everyone else, no longer a scrap, but part of something bigger, a web of compassion and love, a quilt of new life, a house of warmth and shelter, a meal of healing, the body of Christ.
This week, I made a boy cry at VBS. But God gives us second chances and often so do little boys. Maybe that’s part of what Jesus was saying when he told us to be like little children. He wanted us to forgive. So God took the scraps, the scattered remnant and sewed us back together again. God is restoring us to health and wholeness and making us part of God’s beautiful quilt, a creative combination of colors and shapes, to bring warmth and life into our lives and the lives of those around us.
Gospel: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Psalm 23
1st Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6
2nd Reading: Ephesians 2:11-22
This week, at Vacation Bible School, I made a little boy cry. It will probably take me longer to get over it than him. In fact he was back the next day and feeling fine and we had a positive interaction, although I was sure not to mention the previous day’s incident. I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings. Sometimes I forget that some people see me like the principal of the school. I am in authority. These kids don’t know me, even if I know them, even if I baptized them and pray for them. Of course the last thing we want from Bible School is for a kid or volunteer to have a bad experience of church or the pastor. It is all about having a good experience. But any time people come together, whether it is for VBS or anything else, the potential for division is automatically created.
I hurt this boy’s feelings and now I hear from Jesus’ own lips, “Woe to the shepherds that scatter the flock.” I just know he’s talking about me. This boy will be fine and hopefully have not lasting effects from this shepherd, but what about all the other people I’ve offended or driven off or failed in one way or another?
This isn’t just about pastors either. You might not consider yourselves shepherds, but you are Christians, held to a high standard. It says in the Gospel of Luke, “To those whom much is given, much is expected.” There are people who don’t like you, who have hurt you or been hurt by you, people with whom you feel a wedge in your life, where the hope of reconciliation is pretty much nonexistent and that a conversation about a toy boat can’t fix. Yet much is expected of us, who have been given everything that means anything, from God, our father.
We’re separate and broken from each other. That’s part of being in a state of sin. And woe to us! Yes it does feel pretty woeful. I hate conflict. I want everyone to like me. But to be in relationship is to take a risk—a risk of hurting someone’s feelings. We can’t all agree. We don’t all communicate the same way. We all have different levels of sensitivity. We’re all going to experience woe, and the regret of scattering the flock, of breaking something that was beautiful, of driving away reasonable people.
The Old Testament reading speaks of a scattered remnant. If you do any sewing, this brings to mind of course the scraps, the fabric left over at the end of a bolt of material. If you don’t sew, maybe you can relate to using scraps of wood or what is left of a can of paint to complete a project, or using the leftovers in your kitchen to make something delicious for dinner.
I love remnants. My grandma made me a quilt out of remnants. Looking at it with my mom, we point out together which blocks were made from scraps from my mother’s childhood dresses, or aprons grandma made. The scraps bring back memories of more than what we wore, but of what we did as we wore those handmade treasures. The quilt brings back memories of twirling skirts, or cooking with mom, or rolling down the hills, or getting ready for bed.
It is so much fun to search for exactly the right piece of fabric to complete a project. Often at the fabric store, I stop by the shelf of remnants to see what’s there. It is all half-price and I can’t resist a bargain. You never know what you might find, that you wouldn’t have thought of, that will work for a project in progress.
My favorite place to get scraps is at the Goodwill, and more than that at the Goodwill outlet store, or “The Bins” as it is commonly known. There I dig through mounds of clothes, broken toys, bits of paper, and every other kind of trash you could think of to find treasures. Once I spent a half an hour gathering beautiful glass beads at the bottom of one of these bins. I spent about 25 cents for what I would have paid more than ten dollars for at the regular store, but I had to dig and pick every last one of those little beads out of the bottom of that bin. At the bins I’ve found maternity clothes, books for children and adults, a plastic storage bin that I use as a tub to bathe my giant baby. The thing I like to find most is fabric remnants. I especially love it when I find some quilt squares already assembled. I made a quilt for my cousin’s wedding from 10 large quilt squares I found at the bins. Sometimes you find some already assembled squares plus some pieces cut out ready to be sewn and often fat quarters of the same fabric waiting to be cut to fill in the gaps. I don’t often have the time and patience to make a whole quilt myself, but if I can complete someone else’s project, it can be very satisfying. I try to imagine the person that started this quilt. Did they give up? Did they die? Who was this project intended for? I like picking up where they left off.
Jesus loved the remnants, too. He loved everybody, but the remnants were crying out to be used in a project of God’s design. They were just begging to be gathered. The sick were following him from place to place in the Gospel, just hoping to touch the remnant of his cloak, to feel connected to him, to find hope, to believe wholeness was possible for them. He needed some rest, but he also had compassion for them and he was trying to balance the two.
We have a tendency to scatter the flock. We tend to break apart what God has brought together. Of course we try not to do it and we try to learn from our mistakes not to repeat them. I know that with small children, I should consider asking their grandparent to explain things to them, instead of doing it myself. I need to carefully choose my words and actions. I want to be someone who gathers rather than scatters. And yet I am aware, that I, too, am a remnant, a scrap that experiences separation from others. I need Jesus to sew me together with other scraps to make something beautiful and useful. In some ways all I can do is to be available to be sewn together. I can be aware of my incompleteness. I can look forward to making connections with others. Maybe I can smooth out some of my rough edges so I can fit with others around me.
We rip apart the fabric, saw the wood, and cut the vegetables. It is usually with the intention of making something from it. We aren’t trying to be hurtful. Sometimes someone else has started the project and we get to be Jesus’ sewing machine or hammer helping to put things together in a new way, to make something useful out of what was just a scrap, a remnant, a nothing. Sometimes we start a project and someone else gets to finish it. But always it is God working through us to gather the flock, to heal, to feed, to soothe, to bless.
Jesus is digging through the trash heap, but he doesn’t see trash. He sees something ready to be gathered, healed, adopted, brought into relationship, sewn, glued, or attached. Jesus sees the potential there in the remnant, rather than the deficiency. Jesus looks with eyes of hope, with creativity to bring together unlikely combinations to make stunning designs. We tend to scatter. When we do, let us look to God to put us back together again in unexpected ways. Let us be ready to be healed, to be brought back into relationship with those we might have written off. We are all reaching for the fringe of his cloak to be joined with him, to have new life. And we find him reaching out to us and we find ourselves joined then to everyone else, no longer a scrap, but part of something bigger, a web of compassion and love, a quilt of new life, a house of warmth and shelter, a meal of healing, the body of Christ.
This week, I made a boy cry at VBS. But God gives us second chances and often so do little boys. Maybe that’s part of what Jesus was saying when he told us to be like little children. He wanted us to forgive. So God took the scraps, the scattered remnant and sewed us back together again. God is restoring us to health and wholeness and making us part of God’s beautiful quilt, a creative combination of colors and shapes, to bring warmth and life into our lives and the lives of those around us.
Sermon for July 15, 2012
July 15, 2012
Gospel: Mark 6:14-29
1st Reading: Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
2nd Reading: Ephesians 1:3-24
When I was growing up, my grandmother mail-ordered books for my sister with her name in them as the name of the hero. To us, it was incredible that my sister could become the main character of a book! I don’t remember much about them except that one had space aliens in it and another had something about candy, two very important topics for little kids. And my name appeared too as the big sister.
Today, we are co-authoring a story with God. It is even more than blanks left and names being inserted. God writes and we write and together we weave a story of creativity and hope and joy and challenge and suffering and triumph. It isn’t just a story to write and to read, but a story to live. It is a story of relationship, a life of relationship and a story we know the beginning to and the end of, but the middle is still in process.
We know the beginning. We know a loving God created us to be in relationship with God and with all creation and with one another. And we know that isn’t always easy. We know characters before us have screwed it up and been given second chances and remained in relationship and struggled and come through it.
And we know the end, that in the fullness of time, God will gather all things together, in heaven and on earth, and that we will all be together with God. Sorry to ruin the end for you, but I think you knew it anyway. In many good stories, you have a feeling it is going to turn out ok, but it is how the characters are going to get there that is so exciting. For instance, Harry Potter: You know he’s going to be ok because there are 5 more books, but you’re at the edge of your seat wondering how he’s going to get out of this impossible situation, and he always does. It is the same with us, that our story goes on, and God’s story goes on. Sometimes we’re at the edge of our seat wondering how.
Let’s look at the first reading for this morning. Amos was the very first prophet. We get the benefit of reading his story thousands of years later, but think what it was like for him to live this story. We know the beginning, and so did he, that God created him and everything and everyone around him for relationship. And we know the end, that God will draw everything and everyone back together. The middle chapters of this book are being co-written by God and Amos. You might not think God would co-write a book with a shepherd and arborist. He’s nobody special. But God had been trying to co-write with the religious leaders and kings of Israel and it hadn’t been going well. The kings wanted to write their own book with themselves as the heroes, and themselves getting the money and women and land in the end. God was tired of that kind of trashy novel. The story God wants to write is leading to an ending with everything being drawn back to God. The story these important people are writing is driving a wedge between people.
God wasn’t going to give up on Israel either, because remember that God is all about relationship. So God goes to Amos, who isn’t distracted by all these other concerns and gives him a message to tell about holding Israel accountable and holding up a ruler, a plumb line to measure them by, a kind of an outline to follow when writing.
I think Amos responds like any of us would when invited to co-author a life with God and to go and speak a hard truth to the rulers of Israel. “You don’t want me, God, I’m just little ol’ me. I’m nobody special.” But God says to him, “You’re exactly who I’m looking for, someone not too full of himself, someone in relationship with animals and trees who can translate that caring to people and show them how to care for each other and get back to writing the story that God has in mind for them.
What happens next is that Amos warns the people. They don’t listen. They go into exile. God stays in relationship with them. They start to get it. God brings them back to Israel and in some ways their story still goes on, as they write a story together with God. The beginning is clear, God creating them and loving them and choosing them. The end is clear, with God drawing them all together again. The middle is still being written about whether or not they love their neighbors as themselves and difficulties and joys they face and God walks with them through the whole story.
Ephesians also talks about this story the people of the church in Ephesus write with God. It affirms the beginning where God chooses them and blesses them. And I also think this is our story. This was for the early Christians. For later Christians, it also holds true. Notice in this story, God is very active. God is the hero, not us. God chooses, blesses, bestows grace, destines, redeems, forgives, lavishes, gathers, marks, and accomplishes. We are co-writers, though, too. Our active words are believe, hope, hear, and praise. We are more recipients and yet God clearly works through us, as flawed and helpless as we are, to bring the kingdom of God to those who need it most, to bring justice, to share, to love, and to carry God’s story to people who might not have experienced it before.
Now we come to John the Baptist’s story. Kind of a downer for the middle of the summer as we’re getting ready to kick of VBS! We know the beginning of the story. God created everything including John, Jesus’ cousin. As a fetus, John lept in his mother’s womb when Mary came with her baby Jesus bump to his mother Elizabeth’s house. John was a wild, fiery guy. And we know the end of the story, that he was gathered together with God who never left his side, despite a gruesome death and many difficulties. God and John were writing the story of his life. John was very aware of that plumb line, that measuring stick. Herod had crossed it when he married his brother’s wife. There was a lot of corruption in this family and John wasn’t going to keep quiet about it. And Herod knew John was right. He was afraid and intrigued at the same time, so he would go and listen to John sometimes. A part of him wanted to write the story of his life the way God would have it go. Part of him wanted to do what was right.
Unfortunately, he probably had too much to drink and was showing off for a big crowd and because of that did something he probably regretted the rest of his life. He had John beheaded.
One thing I really like about John the Baptist was that he didn’t really know who the Messiah would be and what he would be like. But he was still able to point to him. He went around stirring people up to give up a life where they were the hero of their own story and to let God play that role. They were baptized into a new life of repentance to get ready for the coming Messiah. John knew it was imminent, even though he didn’t know what it would look like or what it would mean. Still he was able to pave the way for Jesus.
So God is writing the story of our lives with us as the co-authors. We know where we come from, from our good and loving creator. We know where we’re going—to be gathered together again. And we’re still writing the middle chapters of our lives or maybe some of the later chapters. There are times when God is calling us in those chapters and we’re humbly declining. “But God, I’m just a regular person. You couldn’t really want to use me to help other people, to speak up when I see an injustice, to change the world to better reflect the story that God intends for all people.” And God is saying, “I said what I meant. I choose you. Now let’s get to work!” And we get to do God’s work, feeding people, visiting the sick and imprisoned, speaking the truth even when it hurts, giving of ourselves and our time, and praising and thanking God.
“In the fullness of time, God will gather up all things in himself.” When you hear this, do you think of heaven, after we die? I do, too. But there is something about the word “time” here that you might not notice. This is not about chronological time. It is a “kyros” moment. Earlier in the service we sang, “Kyrie eleison” or “Lord have mercy.” Kyrie refers to our Lord. Kyros is from that same word. A kyros moment is a God moment. We don’t have to wait until we die to have God’s kingdom here on earth. Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God has come near.” It is breaking into our world, even now. Now is the fullness of time, when God writes the story with us. God is here now. And we can help usher in that kingdom now when we do justice, when we love others, when we quit making ourselves the hero of our story and instead put Jesus front and center. Then others experience the kingdom here and now where everyone has enough to eat, where there will be no more weeping, where all are welcome and all know God’s love.
Gospel: Mark 6:14-29
1st Reading: Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
2nd Reading: Ephesians 1:3-24
When I was growing up, my grandmother mail-ordered books for my sister with her name in them as the name of the hero. To us, it was incredible that my sister could become the main character of a book! I don’t remember much about them except that one had space aliens in it and another had something about candy, two very important topics for little kids. And my name appeared too as the big sister.
Today, we are co-authoring a story with God. It is even more than blanks left and names being inserted. God writes and we write and together we weave a story of creativity and hope and joy and challenge and suffering and triumph. It isn’t just a story to write and to read, but a story to live. It is a story of relationship, a life of relationship and a story we know the beginning to and the end of, but the middle is still in process.
We know the beginning. We know a loving God created us to be in relationship with God and with all creation and with one another. And we know that isn’t always easy. We know characters before us have screwed it up and been given second chances and remained in relationship and struggled and come through it.
And we know the end, that in the fullness of time, God will gather all things together, in heaven and on earth, and that we will all be together with God. Sorry to ruin the end for you, but I think you knew it anyway. In many good stories, you have a feeling it is going to turn out ok, but it is how the characters are going to get there that is so exciting. For instance, Harry Potter: You know he’s going to be ok because there are 5 more books, but you’re at the edge of your seat wondering how he’s going to get out of this impossible situation, and he always does. It is the same with us, that our story goes on, and God’s story goes on. Sometimes we’re at the edge of our seat wondering how.
Let’s look at the first reading for this morning. Amos was the very first prophet. We get the benefit of reading his story thousands of years later, but think what it was like for him to live this story. We know the beginning, and so did he, that God created him and everything and everyone around him for relationship. And we know the end, that God will draw everything and everyone back together. The middle chapters of this book are being co-written by God and Amos. You might not think God would co-write a book with a shepherd and arborist. He’s nobody special. But God had been trying to co-write with the religious leaders and kings of Israel and it hadn’t been going well. The kings wanted to write their own book with themselves as the heroes, and themselves getting the money and women and land in the end. God was tired of that kind of trashy novel. The story God wants to write is leading to an ending with everything being drawn back to God. The story these important people are writing is driving a wedge between people.
God wasn’t going to give up on Israel either, because remember that God is all about relationship. So God goes to Amos, who isn’t distracted by all these other concerns and gives him a message to tell about holding Israel accountable and holding up a ruler, a plumb line to measure them by, a kind of an outline to follow when writing.
I think Amos responds like any of us would when invited to co-author a life with God and to go and speak a hard truth to the rulers of Israel. “You don’t want me, God, I’m just little ol’ me. I’m nobody special.” But God says to him, “You’re exactly who I’m looking for, someone not too full of himself, someone in relationship with animals and trees who can translate that caring to people and show them how to care for each other and get back to writing the story that God has in mind for them.
What happens next is that Amos warns the people. They don’t listen. They go into exile. God stays in relationship with them. They start to get it. God brings them back to Israel and in some ways their story still goes on, as they write a story together with God. The beginning is clear, God creating them and loving them and choosing them. The end is clear, with God drawing them all together again. The middle is still being written about whether or not they love their neighbors as themselves and difficulties and joys they face and God walks with them through the whole story.
Ephesians also talks about this story the people of the church in Ephesus write with God. It affirms the beginning where God chooses them and blesses them. And I also think this is our story. This was for the early Christians. For later Christians, it also holds true. Notice in this story, God is very active. God is the hero, not us. God chooses, blesses, bestows grace, destines, redeems, forgives, lavishes, gathers, marks, and accomplishes. We are co-writers, though, too. Our active words are believe, hope, hear, and praise. We are more recipients and yet God clearly works through us, as flawed and helpless as we are, to bring the kingdom of God to those who need it most, to bring justice, to share, to love, and to carry God’s story to people who might not have experienced it before.
Now we come to John the Baptist’s story. Kind of a downer for the middle of the summer as we’re getting ready to kick of VBS! We know the beginning of the story. God created everything including John, Jesus’ cousin. As a fetus, John lept in his mother’s womb when Mary came with her baby Jesus bump to his mother Elizabeth’s house. John was a wild, fiery guy. And we know the end of the story, that he was gathered together with God who never left his side, despite a gruesome death and many difficulties. God and John were writing the story of his life. John was very aware of that plumb line, that measuring stick. Herod had crossed it when he married his brother’s wife. There was a lot of corruption in this family and John wasn’t going to keep quiet about it. And Herod knew John was right. He was afraid and intrigued at the same time, so he would go and listen to John sometimes. A part of him wanted to write the story of his life the way God would have it go. Part of him wanted to do what was right.
Unfortunately, he probably had too much to drink and was showing off for a big crowd and because of that did something he probably regretted the rest of his life. He had John beheaded.
One thing I really like about John the Baptist was that he didn’t really know who the Messiah would be and what he would be like. But he was still able to point to him. He went around stirring people up to give up a life where they were the hero of their own story and to let God play that role. They were baptized into a new life of repentance to get ready for the coming Messiah. John knew it was imminent, even though he didn’t know what it would look like or what it would mean. Still he was able to pave the way for Jesus.
So God is writing the story of our lives with us as the co-authors. We know where we come from, from our good and loving creator. We know where we’re going—to be gathered together again. And we’re still writing the middle chapters of our lives or maybe some of the later chapters. There are times when God is calling us in those chapters and we’re humbly declining. “But God, I’m just a regular person. You couldn’t really want to use me to help other people, to speak up when I see an injustice, to change the world to better reflect the story that God intends for all people.” And God is saying, “I said what I meant. I choose you. Now let’s get to work!” And we get to do God’s work, feeding people, visiting the sick and imprisoned, speaking the truth even when it hurts, giving of ourselves and our time, and praising and thanking God.
“In the fullness of time, God will gather up all things in himself.” When you hear this, do you think of heaven, after we die? I do, too. But there is something about the word “time” here that you might not notice. This is not about chronological time. It is a “kyros” moment. Earlier in the service we sang, “Kyrie eleison” or “Lord have mercy.” Kyrie refers to our Lord. Kyros is from that same word. A kyros moment is a God moment. We don’t have to wait until we die to have God’s kingdom here on earth. Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God has come near.” It is breaking into our world, even now. Now is the fullness of time, when God writes the story with us. God is here now. And we can help usher in that kingdom now when we do justice, when we love others, when we quit making ourselves the hero of our story and instead put Jesus front and center. Then others experience the kingdom here and now where everyone has enough to eat, where there will be no more weeping, where all are welcome and all know God’s love.
Sermon for July 8, 2012
July 8, 2012
Gospel: Mark 6:1-13
1st Reading: Ezekiel 2:1-5
Psalm 123
2nd Reading: Corinthians 12:2-10
The 4th of July is something we can all get behind. Who wouldn’t want a day off work on a warm summer day? Who doesn’t like picnics and parties? Even if you don’t agree with everything our country is doing, we still love our country and appreciate our freedoms. And add to that a number of bright explosions in the sky, and you’ve got the perfect day. Aren’t fireworks amazing with all the power of the lights and sound, the whizzing through the air, zigzagging, popping, glittering! It is truly a display of power.
On the 5th of July I read a story about Depoe Bay that didn’t have a fireworks show because of the danger to sea birds who leave their nests because of the noise and return to find that predators have ruined their nests and eggs. I also heard an interview on the radio with Portland’s new fire chief and she mentioned the impact on pets and veterans with PTSD. We had a new perspective of it this year with a baby finally going down for the night at 11 pm, 3 hours later than usual.
I began to wonder whether it takes more power to have a fireworks display or not to. Maybe there was more power in their putting someone else ahead of themselves, than in all the loud booming fireworks that the rest of us shot off.
“Power” is the theme for this Sunday. I see a common thread about power in all the readings for today, but before I go into that I first want to talk about why the subject of power might matter to us.
Power is kind of a scary topic for a lot of people. It might especially be for meek Lutherans. It is for much of society who sees a lot of misuse of power in government or who associate power with power over, or abuse of power by dictators, or corporations, or doctors, and so on. I’ve learned a lot about power in the Metropolitan Alliance for the Common Good, or MACG, power is simply the ability to act. It is the ability to get something done. It is a tool that can be used for good or ill.
Churches used to be a powerful force in our communities. I have often heard people lamenting the times when Sundays were sacred and Wednesday evenings were reserved for church night. Soccer practice was held other times. The church has lost that automatic power. A pastor was given more authority and perhaps respect. That could be good or bad depending on how that pastor used that power. Now I have to convince you of what I am saying. And I’d rather you asked questions and thought for yourselves rather than do what I say anyway. In the same way, the greater world needs churches to prove that they are worth supporting. Pastors and churches have to earn that respect. Do they give back to the community? If I give my volunteer hours and money to a church will they use that power to make this world better? This kind of scrutiny is good for us because it helps us see what builds up the kingdom of God, what is doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God, which is our mission and purpose.
I also think we experience a lot of powerlessness in our lives. And these readings help remind us not to give up in those moments but that God can work with that. God can bring something powerful out of a situation of rejection and helplessness. God did that with Jesus on the cross and does that often with us, especially when we work together with others and share our power to get something done, like we have with the pantry and like we did with the Domestic Violence Survivor House.
The readings are all about power. The first reading is about the power of God. God reminds Ezekiel that he is just a little mortal human being. God is so powerful, that even though the people won’t listen, God is going to keep hounding them until they do. And we know that eventually they get it, since this writing from Ezekiel makes it into the Bible. Although God may seem weak since the people don’t listen, God is loving and persistent, and triumphs.
In the reading from 2 Corinthians, Paul is writing with authority that he can’t claim for himself, but he hopes that his readers will bestow on him. He’s just a little servant of God with no power of his own. Yet Paul has something to say to the people in Corinth, so he’s trying to convince them to listen to his important message. He wants to be powerful in their view so they listen, understand, and act accordingly.
Paul is talking about the power and authority that comes from God. It isn’t the kind of power that compels people to do whatever God wants or Paul tells them to. It isn’t the kind of power from the Roman Empire where people and nations obey Caesar or they get annihilated. It is the kind of power that is shared. It is the kind of power that takes a risk and reaches out a hand in friendship. It is power with. Because whenever you reach out a hand in relationship you can get rejected, it is a kind of power in weakness. It is a power that says we can do this better together. It is a more difficult kind of power than power over if you are the one in authority.
Now we come to the Gospel for today. Jesus comes to his hometown. He’s already shown that he can heal and feed people and speak with authority. Yet nobody in his hometown is open to that power. Jesus isn’t going to force them to be. He’s not going to use power over. He wants power with and they are unwilling and they lose out.
Then Jesus teaches the disciples how to have power with. They go out in pairs, supporting one another, modeling cooperation. They don’t bring so much they are self-sufficient. They are going to need the people they meet. They are going to need to build bridges and share power in order to survive.
They are going to have mixed success. There will be some people who reject them. In a power with situation, you put out your hand in connection and relationship and some people accept it and others spit in your face. When the disciples are welcomed, then Jesus encourages them to stay until they leave. Good advice for any of us. And when they are rejected, no skin off their noses. They can go on their way. No sense in making a big deal out of it. As a result of this approach, many people were helped.
The power of God stands against the powers of this world. There are a lot of powers at work in our world. Some of them are for good, but a lot of them hurt people, too. People have lost power in a lot of ways as they lose their jobs and then their homes. People get sick. People are sad and grieving. We work more hours. We are torn in a million different directions. Our school class sizes keep growing while our education budget gets cut every year. All of these powers are putting pressure on us.
Jesus came redistribute power, to empower those who were on the fringes, who didn’t have enough to eat and who were barely alive and who no one would listen to. That’s what we call justice—redistributing power so it is more equal. The church is a place where we redistribute money which is one indication of power. If you remember last week we had a lesson about sharing our money so that the one who had much, didn’t have too much and the one who had little didn’t have too little. It is about stepping in and using our power as a buffer in people’s lives, so that when the pressures of the world come crushing down, we help deflect those pressures. For example, when people meet the pressures of unemployment, they can continue to live and feed their children because of the food pantry. And best case scenario, the churches help get at the root causes of hunger so someone never gets into that situation in the first place, which is what I‘ve seen with the campaign to get rid of payday loan businesses. It is about restoring health so that people can be contributing members of society, which Jesus tries to do in today’s Gospel reading. It is about making sure that people have enough to eat, that they have a say in their communities, that they share power across all lines.
We use a power-with model because of who God has been for us. God decided from the very beginning to let people make up their own minds. God could have created a world where we all obey. But God gave us free will. God didn’t want to make us worship and acknowledge him. God wanted a real relationship with a feeling, thinking person. So here we are. God chose power with rather than power over. God wanted a relationship, someone to collaborate with and share with. Sometimes he reaches his hand out and we spit in his face. God reached out to us and we crucified his son. God has a weak spot for humankind, but God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
Any of you with children can understand. It might be easier if your children did everything you wanted and liked all the same things as you, but then they would just be you all over again. How boring would that be? Instead, you humble yourself to who they are becoming and let them develop and wonder in the beauty of it—the utterly frustrating beauty of this whole new person that you can’t control, but who you can have the most interesting relationship with and learn from and see yourself reflected back in.
Our God is powerful, so powerful that he can take a risk and be vulnerable. God’s power is made perfect in weakness. God’s power is love which does not compel or force. We are God’s people and our power is also love. Let us not lose heart when we face rejection or the daunting task of redistributing power, but let us instead use that power with others around us to make our neighborhood more like God’s Kingdom everyday.
Gospel: Mark 6:1-13
1st Reading: Ezekiel 2:1-5
Psalm 123
2nd Reading: Corinthians 12:2-10
The 4th of July is something we can all get behind. Who wouldn’t want a day off work on a warm summer day? Who doesn’t like picnics and parties? Even if you don’t agree with everything our country is doing, we still love our country and appreciate our freedoms. And add to that a number of bright explosions in the sky, and you’ve got the perfect day. Aren’t fireworks amazing with all the power of the lights and sound, the whizzing through the air, zigzagging, popping, glittering! It is truly a display of power.
On the 5th of July I read a story about Depoe Bay that didn’t have a fireworks show because of the danger to sea birds who leave their nests because of the noise and return to find that predators have ruined their nests and eggs. I also heard an interview on the radio with Portland’s new fire chief and she mentioned the impact on pets and veterans with PTSD. We had a new perspective of it this year with a baby finally going down for the night at 11 pm, 3 hours later than usual.
I began to wonder whether it takes more power to have a fireworks display or not to. Maybe there was more power in their putting someone else ahead of themselves, than in all the loud booming fireworks that the rest of us shot off.
“Power” is the theme for this Sunday. I see a common thread about power in all the readings for today, but before I go into that I first want to talk about why the subject of power might matter to us.
Power is kind of a scary topic for a lot of people. It might especially be for meek Lutherans. It is for much of society who sees a lot of misuse of power in government or who associate power with power over, or abuse of power by dictators, or corporations, or doctors, and so on. I’ve learned a lot about power in the Metropolitan Alliance for the Common Good, or MACG, power is simply the ability to act. It is the ability to get something done. It is a tool that can be used for good or ill.
Churches used to be a powerful force in our communities. I have often heard people lamenting the times when Sundays were sacred and Wednesday evenings were reserved for church night. Soccer practice was held other times. The church has lost that automatic power. A pastor was given more authority and perhaps respect. That could be good or bad depending on how that pastor used that power. Now I have to convince you of what I am saying. And I’d rather you asked questions and thought for yourselves rather than do what I say anyway. In the same way, the greater world needs churches to prove that they are worth supporting. Pastors and churches have to earn that respect. Do they give back to the community? If I give my volunteer hours and money to a church will they use that power to make this world better? This kind of scrutiny is good for us because it helps us see what builds up the kingdom of God, what is doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God, which is our mission and purpose.
I also think we experience a lot of powerlessness in our lives. And these readings help remind us not to give up in those moments but that God can work with that. God can bring something powerful out of a situation of rejection and helplessness. God did that with Jesus on the cross and does that often with us, especially when we work together with others and share our power to get something done, like we have with the pantry and like we did with the Domestic Violence Survivor House.
The readings are all about power. The first reading is about the power of God. God reminds Ezekiel that he is just a little mortal human being. God is so powerful, that even though the people won’t listen, God is going to keep hounding them until they do. And we know that eventually they get it, since this writing from Ezekiel makes it into the Bible. Although God may seem weak since the people don’t listen, God is loving and persistent, and triumphs.
In the reading from 2 Corinthians, Paul is writing with authority that he can’t claim for himself, but he hopes that his readers will bestow on him. He’s just a little servant of God with no power of his own. Yet Paul has something to say to the people in Corinth, so he’s trying to convince them to listen to his important message. He wants to be powerful in their view so they listen, understand, and act accordingly.
Paul is talking about the power and authority that comes from God. It isn’t the kind of power that compels people to do whatever God wants or Paul tells them to. It isn’t the kind of power from the Roman Empire where people and nations obey Caesar or they get annihilated. It is the kind of power that is shared. It is the kind of power that takes a risk and reaches out a hand in friendship. It is power with. Because whenever you reach out a hand in relationship you can get rejected, it is a kind of power in weakness. It is a power that says we can do this better together. It is a more difficult kind of power than power over if you are the one in authority.
Now we come to the Gospel for today. Jesus comes to his hometown. He’s already shown that he can heal and feed people and speak with authority. Yet nobody in his hometown is open to that power. Jesus isn’t going to force them to be. He’s not going to use power over. He wants power with and they are unwilling and they lose out.
Then Jesus teaches the disciples how to have power with. They go out in pairs, supporting one another, modeling cooperation. They don’t bring so much they are self-sufficient. They are going to need the people they meet. They are going to need to build bridges and share power in order to survive.
They are going to have mixed success. There will be some people who reject them. In a power with situation, you put out your hand in connection and relationship and some people accept it and others spit in your face. When the disciples are welcomed, then Jesus encourages them to stay until they leave. Good advice for any of us. And when they are rejected, no skin off their noses. They can go on their way. No sense in making a big deal out of it. As a result of this approach, many people were helped.
The power of God stands against the powers of this world. There are a lot of powers at work in our world. Some of them are for good, but a lot of them hurt people, too. People have lost power in a lot of ways as they lose their jobs and then their homes. People get sick. People are sad and grieving. We work more hours. We are torn in a million different directions. Our school class sizes keep growing while our education budget gets cut every year. All of these powers are putting pressure on us.
Jesus came redistribute power, to empower those who were on the fringes, who didn’t have enough to eat and who were barely alive and who no one would listen to. That’s what we call justice—redistributing power so it is more equal. The church is a place where we redistribute money which is one indication of power. If you remember last week we had a lesson about sharing our money so that the one who had much, didn’t have too much and the one who had little didn’t have too little. It is about stepping in and using our power as a buffer in people’s lives, so that when the pressures of the world come crushing down, we help deflect those pressures. For example, when people meet the pressures of unemployment, they can continue to live and feed their children because of the food pantry. And best case scenario, the churches help get at the root causes of hunger so someone never gets into that situation in the first place, which is what I‘ve seen with the campaign to get rid of payday loan businesses. It is about restoring health so that people can be contributing members of society, which Jesus tries to do in today’s Gospel reading. It is about making sure that people have enough to eat, that they have a say in their communities, that they share power across all lines.
We use a power-with model because of who God has been for us. God decided from the very beginning to let people make up their own minds. God could have created a world where we all obey. But God gave us free will. God didn’t want to make us worship and acknowledge him. God wanted a real relationship with a feeling, thinking person. So here we are. God chose power with rather than power over. God wanted a relationship, someone to collaborate with and share with. Sometimes he reaches his hand out and we spit in his face. God reached out to us and we crucified his son. God has a weak spot for humankind, but God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
Any of you with children can understand. It might be easier if your children did everything you wanted and liked all the same things as you, but then they would just be you all over again. How boring would that be? Instead, you humble yourself to who they are becoming and let them develop and wonder in the beauty of it—the utterly frustrating beauty of this whole new person that you can’t control, but who you can have the most interesting relationship with and learn from and see yourself reflected back in.
Our God is powerful, so powerful that he can take a risk and be vulnerable. God’s power is made perfect in weakness. God’s power is love which does not compel or force. We are God’s people and our power is also love. Let us not lose heart when we face rejection or the daunting task of redistributing power, but let us instead use that power with others around us to make our neighborhood more like God’s Kingdom everyday.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Sermon for July 1, 2012
July 1, 2012
Gospel: Mark 5:21-43
Psalm 30
1st Reading: Lamentations 3:22-33
2nd Reading: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15
I’ve mentioned before my best friend growing up dying when she and I were both 14 years old. I used to think of her every day. When that stopped, I felt guilty. Was I forgetting her. Now I don’t think of her very often at all. But the last two weeks she’s been on my mind. The week before last we had the lesson of Jesus calming the storm. That was the scripture read at her memorial service. This week we’ve got the lesson of Jesus raising the girl from the dead. Of course, my friend Charmin came to mind again.
When she died, we didn’t have a lot of explanation of what had happened. It was sudden. A few months later her mom came to visit and to tell us more what had happened that day and the events leading up to her death. It was so nice of her to do it since we had so many questions. I think it helped us to grieve, to be able to ask questions, and to have more of a picture of what went on. And I’m sure it was good for her, too, to recount the story to friends, and to try to make sense of what happened. I remember my mom trying to find the words to express how sorry we were and how much we felt for her, losing a young daughter like that. And I remember Charmin’s mom saying that it must have been God’s will.
That’s the way she was making sense of it. It was what she needed to say to bear her pain. It was what she needed to hold on to as she pictured her daughter in Jesus’ arms, at peace and unafraid, waiting for her family to join her, there with her father by her side, who had also died of the same heart condition as a young man.
The Old Testament reading for this morning says, “Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.” This is kind of a mixed message that God causes grief but not willingly.
The Bible isn’t exactly clear on this, because the writers of the Bible weren’t clear on it. What is the cause of suffering? If God is all powerful, then isn’t it God’s power which makes sick as well as heals? Or is it another force of chaos and evil that makes sickness? Does God let this other force run rampant? Why does God let bad things happen to good people?
Let’s see what the Gospel is saying about it. So we’ve got the story of two very sick people. Jesus is once again crossing into an unfamiliar place where he might be uncomfortable, where uncomfortable people are laying in wait to grab him and take him home to treat their friends and family members. Jesus is asked to use his healing powers to help a girl who is very ill. As Jesus is walking with him, someone else interrupts for healing. And then the story continues with the healing of the little girl.
You’ve got two very different people who come to Jesus for healing. One is a very important official making an appeal on behalf of his child. He’s got it all together, normally. The other is an unclean woman who no one will go near, hopeless and alone—someone who can’t even pretend to have it all together. These two very different people find themselves level with Jesus, level with each other, seeking the very same thing, meeting the very same Jesus, sharing the very same page of the Bible, the same paragraph. No matter how rich or important you are, you will know illness and grief. And no matter how poor and forgotten you are, you matter to God. Both of these people know pain and suffering. Both of these people are loved by God.
For those of us who like to have things all together, probably everyone here, we still need God. We iron our shirts (or our wife does). We eat right. We exercise. We speak properly. We get a good education. We show up to work. We sit and stand with the asterisk. We pray our prayers. And just like everyone else who doesn’t do these things, we get sick. We lose people we love. We die. And Jesus is there for us.
For those of us who are a mess, who cry in public and embarrass ourselves, who only have time to throw our shirt in the dryer for a moment to get the most obvious wrinkles out, whose shoes smell like mildew, who are unshaven, who limp about, Jesus is there for us, too.
And it is a good thing, because even if we were the one in the all together category we will inevitably find ourselves in this second category. I hear about that struggle all the time. When one can no longer drive, those who once had it all together, now have to ask for help getting place to place. It is a difficult situation to face that loss of independence. To have to rely one someone else is less than ideal. You have to be flexible to someone else’s schedule and reliability. You have to accept their vehicle—is it going to be too high to get into, or too low to get out of? Will it be so clean you can’t eat your snack in there or filled with junk so you can’t fit your bags in there with you? Will the person drop you off and pick you up or wait with you through your shopping or appointment? It isn’t easy. Whereas you once had the ability to do what you want when you wanted how you wanted, now you rely on others who don’t do things the same way you do.
It is a similar situation when you were once healthy and now you’re getting older, can’t climb ladders or eat sweets or hear very well. I experienced it too in my pregnancy. I had to rely on other people. I had to let them love me the way they wanted to, not necessarily the way I would want them to. It turned out to be lovely, but it caused plenty of anxiety. It was probably good. Any anxiety I had about the birth was nonexistent—I transferred it to silly things like my baby’s carbon footprint and not wanting to be the center of attention when I was as big as a house.
Ok, we’re going to have times of trouble no matter who we are. And Jesus is there for us, no matter who we are, according to this Gospel. The general and the old widow get the same treatment. Each approach Jesus for help. They are both quite desperate. They’ve got nothing to lose. They’ve tried everything else. Jairus, the religious leader, is confident. The widow is more meek. She doesn’t want to bother Jesus, she just wants to touch his cloak. Both of them believe in the power of God for healing. One marches right up to Jesus. The other sneaks up.
Jairus is probably used to asking for what he needs. People respect him as one of these folks who has it all together. They give him what he asks for.
The woman has asked and asked. She’s spent her last dime and endured many treatments with no effect. She’s at her wits end. Perhaps in their frustrations, her physicians have made her feel it was God’s will. They might have asked her many questions about her medical history which made her feel guilty. “Do you drink? Do you smoke? What are your eating habits?” These kind of questions don’t directly blame the patient, but don’t you feel kind of guilty as you’re putting down how many drinks a week? Maybe that is why she doesn’t ask Jesus. Maybe that is why she approaches with fear and trembling when he asked who touched him. Maybe she did feel she deserved her disease. Or maybe she thought it was God’s will in some way.
But this scripture makes it clear that it is not God’s will. Jesus came for healing. Jesus came to restore relationships between people. Jesus came to heal this world, to restore balance, to heal people’s physical bodies, to heal their minds of terrible thoughts of God inflicting people with tragedy and sickness. He is going to Jairus’ house, not ignoring him. He isn’t too busy to stop for a woman in need. He touches her even though that makes him unclean. He gives her a clean bill of health physically and spiritually. She is restored. Since he’s already unclean, he might as well touch a dead girl. And in some foreshadowing of his own resurrection he says, “Little girl, be resurrected. Rise up.” And immediately she rose from the dead, just as he would and she began to even walk around, not just lay there in bed.
Any of you who have been close to a child who has died, know how unsettling it is on top of all the other grief. There is that unsettling feeling that this isn’t the way it is supposed to be. God feels that way when we are sick or hurting and sends us Jesus, our great physician, to show us that God is a healer, not an afflicter.
God does not make us sick. God comes for healing. Sometimes that is for our bodies. Sometimes that comes through prayer. Sometimes it comes through doctors. Usually it comes through both. And yet we all know we’re going to die someday. Even Jesus had to die. But we can know that “Whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s.” Jesus will be with us, his broken body at the side of our broken bodies. And he goes to the cross and grave to show us how to die everyday, to practice dying with him and to hear the words “Old man, old woman, rise, get up, you are resurrected with Christ!” Just like I know my friend, Charmin, heard those words, “Little girl, get up!” and welcomed her into his arms. Just like her mom heard those words, “Grieving mother, rise, get up. God is with you as you try to go on with your life having lost your baby girl.” God says to us, “ I, too, know what it is to lose a son and I will be with you through all your losses and bring you together on the last day.”
And leave it to Jesus, that the next thing he says after telling them to get up, is to say, “Let’s eat!”
Gospel: Mark 5:21-43
Psalm 30
1st Reading: Lamentations 3:22-33
2nd Reading: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15
I’ve mentioned before my best friend growing up dying when she and I were both 14 years old. I used to think of her every day. When that stopped, I felt guilty. Was I forgetting her. Now I don’t think of her very often at all. But the last two weeks she’s been on my mind. The week before last we had the lesson of Jesus calming the storm. That was the scripture read at her memorial service. This week we’ve got the lesson of Jesus raising the girl from the dead. Of course, my friend Charmin came to mind again.
When she died, we didn’t have a lot of explanation of what had happened. It was sudden. A few months later her mom came to visit and to tell us more what had happened that day and the events leading up to her death. It was so nice of her to do it since we had so many questions. I think it helped us to grieve, to be able to ask questions, and to have more of a picture of what went on. And I’m sure it was good for her, too, to recount the story to friends, and to try to make sense of what happened. I remember my mom trying to find the words to express how sorry we were and how much we felt for her, losing a young daughter like that. And I remember Charmin’s mom saying that it must have been God’s will.
That’s the way she was making sense of it. It was what she needed to say to bear her pain. It was what she needed to hold on to as she pictured her daughter in Jesus’ arms, at peace and unafraid, waiting for her family to join her, there with her father by her side, who had also died of the same heart condition as a young man.
The Old Testament reading for this morning says, “Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.” This is kind of a mixed message that God causes grief but not willingly.
The Bible isn’t exactly clear on this, because the writers of the Bible weren’t clear on it. What is the cause of suffering? If God is all powerful, then isn’t it God’s power which makes sick as well as heals? Or is it another force of chaos and evil that makes sickness? Does God let this other force run rampant? Why does God let bad things happen to good people?
Let’s see what the Gospel is saying about it. So we’ve got the story of two very sick people. Jesus is once again crossing into an unfamiliar place where he might be uncomfortable, where uncomfortable people are laying in wait to grab him and take him home to treat their friends and family members. Jesus is asked to use his healing powers to help a girl who is very ill. As Jesus is walking with him, someone else interrupts for healing. And then the story continues with the healing of the little girl.
You’ve got two very different people who come to Jesus for healing. One is a very important official making an appeal on behalf of his child. He’s got it all together, normally. The other is an unclean woman who no one will go near, hopeless and alone—someone who can’t even pretend to have it all together. These two very different people find themselves level with Jesus, level with each other, seeking the very same thing, meeting the very same Jesus, sharing the very same page of the Bible, the same paragraph. No matter how rich or important you are, you will know illness and grief. And no matter how poor and forgotten you are, you matter to God. Both of these people know pain and suffering. Both of these people are loved by God.
For those of us who like to have things all together, probably everyone here, we still need God. We iron our shirts (or our wife does). We eat right. We exercise. We speak properly. We get a good education. We show up to work. We sit and stand with the asterisk. We pray our prayers. And just like everyone else who doesn’t do these things, we get sick. We lose people we love. We die. And Jesus is there for us.
For those of us who are a mess, who cry in public and embarrass ourselves, who only have time to throw our shirt in the dryer for a moment to get the most obvious wrinkles out, whose shoes smell like mildew, who are unshaven, who limp about, Jesus is there for us, too.
And it is a good thing, because even if we were the one in the all together category we will inevitably find ourselves in this second category. I hear about that struggle all the time. When one can no longer drive, those who once had it all together, now have to ask for help getting place to place. It is a difficult situation to face that loss of independence. To have to rely one someone else is less than ideal. You have to be flexible to someone else’s schedule and reliability. You have to accept their vehicle—is it going to be too high to get into, or too low to get out of? Will it be so clean you can’t eat your snack in there or filled with junk so you can’t fit your bags in there with you? Will the person drop you off and pick you up or wait with you through your shopping or appointment? It isn’t easy. Whereas you once had the ability to do what you want when you wanted how you wanted, now you rely on others who don’t do things the same way you do.
It is a similar situation when you were once healthy and now you’re getting older, can’t climb ladders or eat sweets or hear very well. I experienced it too in my pregnancy. I had to rely on other people. I had to let them love me the way they wanted to, not necessarily the way I would want them to. It turned out to be lovely, but it caused plenty of anxiety. It was probably good. Any anxiety I had about the birth was nonexistent—I transferred it to silly things like my baby’s carbon footprint and not wanting to be the center of attention when I was as big as a house.
Ok, we’re going to have times of trouble no matter who we are. And Jesus is there for us, no matter who we are, according to this Gospel. The general and the old widow get the same treatment. Each approach Jesus for help. They are both quite desperate. They’ve got nothing to lose. They’ve tried everything else. Jairus, the religious leader, is confident. The widow is more meek. She doesn’t want to bother Jesus, she just wants to touch his cloak. Both of them believe in the power of God for healing. One marches right up to Jesus. The other sneaks up.
Jairus is probably used to asking for what he needs. People respect him as one of these folks who has it all together. They give him what he asks for.
The woman has asked and asked. She’s spent her last dime and endured many treatments with no effect. She’s at her wits end. Perhaps in their frustrations, her physicians have made her feel it was God’s will. They might have asked her many questions about her medical history which made her feel guilty. “Do you drink? Do you smoke? What are your eating habits?” These kind of questions don’t directly blame the patient, but don’t you feel kind of guilty as you’re putting down how many drinks a week? Maybe that is why she doesn’t ask Jesus. Maybe that is why she approaches with fear and trembling when he asked who touched him. Maybe she did feel she deserved her disease. Or maybe she thought it was God’s will in some way.
But this scripture makes it clear that it is not God’s will. Jesus came for healing. Jesus came to restore relationships between people. Jesus came to heal this world, to restore balance, to heal people’s physical bodies, to heal their minds of terrible thoughts of God inflicting people with tragedy and sickness. He is going to Jairus’ house, not ignoring him. He isn’t too busy to stop for a woman in need. He touches her even though that makes him unclean. He gives her a clean bill of health physically and spiritually. She is restored. Since he’s already unclean, he might as well touch a dead girl. And in some foreshadowing of his own resurrection he says, “Little girl, be resurrected. Rise up.” And immediately she rose from the dead, just as he would and she began to even walk around, not just lay there in bed.
Any of you who have been close to a child who has died, know how unsettling it is on top of all the other grief. There is that unsettling feeling that this isn’t the way it is supposed to be. God feels that way when we are sick or hurting and sends us Jesus, our great physician, to show us that God is a healer, not an afflicter.
God does not make us sick. God comes for healing. Sometimes that is for our bodies. Sometimes that comes through prayer. Sometimes it comes through doctors. Usually it comes through both. And yet we all know we’re going to die someday. Even Jesus had to die. But we can know that “Whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s.” Jesus will be with us, his broken body at the side of our broken bodies. And he goes to the cross and grave to show us how to die everyday, to practice dying with him and to hear the words “Old man, old woman, rise, get up, you are resurrected with Christ!” Just like I know my friend, Charmin, heard those words, “Little girl, get up!” and welcomed her into his arms. Just like her mom heard those words, “Grieving mother, rise, get up. God is with you as you try to go on with your life having lost your baby girl.” God says to us, “ I, too, know what it is to lose a son and I will be with you through all your losses and bring you together on the last day.”
And leave it to Jesus, that the next thing he says after telling them to get up, is to say, “Let’s eat!”
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