November 25, 2018

John 18:33-37                     

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14        

Revelation 1:4b-8

                Long live the King!  Long live the King!  It’s Christ the King Sunday, King of Kings Lutheran Church’s 54^th Anniversary.  As much as I’ve lamented the name of this church, so patriarchal, so unrelatable (This country was founded on people who wanted to rid themselves of a king’s rule), as much as I’ve tried to rename this church, Servant of Servants or Queen of Queens, on days like this I am grateful.  This is a church whose very name places at the center the reign of Christ. 

                From the time the Israelites first asked God for a King and God gave in, God still reigned supreme.  Whoever the kings were, they had to answer to God, God’s priorities, God’s power, God’s love.  A few ruled well, and were faithful to God and to God’s priorities, the widows, the orphans, the hungry.  Most misused their powers, second-guessed God’s priorities, and tried to gather more power for themselves.  They were unfaithful, untrustworthy to God and God’s priorities.  The same is true of our earthly rulers today.  A few are faithful and many are corrupt.

                For the Hebrew people in the book of Daniel, they were in captivity in Babylon.  When they tried to explain to themselves why this terrible thing had happened that they were defeated and dragged off to another country, they reasoned that their kings had not been faithful to God, so God allowed them to be kidnapped to another country.  They felt afraid.  They felt far from God since they were far from the Temple where God was believed to reside.  They felt regret.  Now they were under the rule of the King of Babylon, and yet another when Babylon was captured by yet another king.  These other kings were all about amassing power for themselves and worshipping other gods with other priorities.

                In the midst of this, Daniel has visions.  He envisions all these thrones.  He is sorting out who is in charge.  He finds, God, the Ancient One on his throne, powerful with blinding light and fiery flames.  Daniel pictures fire, like the pillar of fire that led the Israelites through the wilderness, God’s presence with them, making a faithful community out of them.  Daniel pictures the power of God, flowing out so that it touched the lives and people all around.  This was a shared power.  It was moving power, available.  God’s power and authority are affirmed by the numbers of those who served him and attended him, ten thousand times ten thousand, more than can be counted.

                David’s vision, his dream, his prophecy goes on.  One like a human being comes before the Ancient One.  Is he the anointed, the Christ, the Messiah?  He seems like an intermediary between heaven and earth, standing in the presence of the Ancient one, but having a human form, and coming on the clouds of heaven.  He is given kingship and glory and all peoples would serve him. 

                Not only were the kings of Babylon not in charge, but neither were the kings of Israel.  It must have been a really difficult vision for Daniel to take in, the difference between the reality they were living and the view, the promise of this dream, which was the actual truth, the reality, that God is nearby, God is accessible, God has heard the cries of the people, and that God is the one with authority and power.

                In Revelation, the people were in desperate need of some good news.  Nero was emperor of Rome.  The Christians were persecuted, hauled off to be killed, rumors spread about them that made their own family members disown them.  The Temple had been destroyed, a Jewish insurrection had been quashed, and Christians were wondering if Jesus would come back before all the Christians were wiped out.

                Into this chaos and gross misuse of power, when kings and rulers were more corrupt every day, John the Revelator had a vision.  His vision of what true leadership is, stood in great contrast to the hellish worldly reality that the people were living under.  He wrote his vision to give hope to the Christian Churches that were just hanging on.  His was a vision of a different kind of king, a different use of power.  He names God as eternal, the one who exists now, has always existed, and always will exist.  God is named the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and everything in between.  God created everything that exists and is part of every interrelationship.  And God is called “Almighty,” referring to God’s power.

                Jesus is also named.  There was a tradition of piling on names of important people or gods.  So Jesus is called in Revelation, faithful witness (another word for witness is martyr), the firstborn of the dead (since he rose in the resurrection), and ruler of the kings of the earth (King of Kings).  Each week in Advent we’ll sing “O Come O Come Emmanuel” and a different name for Jesus will be lifted up, first Emmanuel or “God with us.”  “Key of David,” meaning King David’s descendant, “Dayspring” meaning dawn or new day, referring to new life.  Each name lifts up an aspect of Jesus’ character, where he comes from and what his life is about. 

                At Jesus’ crucifixion, we have Jesus arrested being interrogated by Pilate.  These two representatives of power, one of the power of this earth and the other Divine powerPilate has the authority and power given by this world.  He can make judgments or set people free.  He can take away life or he can let someone keep his life.  But right away, we see how tenuous his power is, how flimsy.  First of all, he is only in Jerusalem because of the Passover.  Not because he is devout, but because of other people’s expectations of him.  He doesn’t live in Jerusalem, even though that’s where his headquarters are, because Jerusalem is a tinderbox, a place of high emotion, where revolt and insurrection are imminent.  The chaos of Jerusalem is threatening to Pilate, so he lives in a more peaceful place when he can.  However, he doesn’t really control his comings and goings.  He’s not that powerful, because here he is compelled to, first, come to Jerusalem, and second, to hear this trial of a nobody, Jesus.  Secondly, Pilate is walking in and out of his headquarters.  You’d think if he was powerful, he’d make people come to him.  However, the religious authorities need to remain clean.  If they enter his chambers they won’t be able to participate in the Passover celebrations.  So the religious authorities are standing outside and making him walk back and forth and do their bidding against Jesus.  Pilate isn’t in control at all.

                This reading also highlights the hypocrisy of the religious authorities.  They are trying to stay ritually clean, however in their hearts they plot and plan to take the life of the Divine one.  What use is it to pay lip service to religion and not live by its tenants, when our actions don’t match what we profess in our faith, when we don’t live by God’s values.

                Instead Jesus is revealed to be King.  He pokes holes in Pilate’s power.  Any leader of this world comes in contact with limits of that power, things they can’t make happen, no matter how they try.  So here is Pilate.  He’d rather be resting, but his power is limited and he has people he has to please, so here he is.  Jesus points out the faith that Pilate and many leaders put in violence and fighting.  But this kind of power also has limits, because all it takes is a bigger or smarter army, and that power is over.

                We may not have a king, but we have many kings, many priorities of this world that are different from God’s priorities.  We have as king our nation’s military, however we meet our limit when we rack up debt that we can never repay.  We have as king our entertainment, our sports and movie stars.  We track their movements, celebrate their weddings, cry at their divorces, and are shocked or not at their flaws.  We worship as king our comforts, our house, our clothes, our vacations.  We worship as King our money, our capitalist system, we can’t picture any other way.  We worship as King our church, the way we’re used to worshipping, our building, our position, the respect people give us, our pew, our relationship with the pastor, how important we feel when we find justification for continuing to live our lives just as we do.  We worship violence as we view it in movies and on TV and as our country’s military budget soars above all others.  We put our faith in democracy and borders to keep us safe and help us keep what is “ours.”  We worship ourselves.

                But sooner or later all these kings fail.  They are not forever.  They are not free of corruption.  They cannot give us the satisfaction and hope that God can.  They can’t give us the love and forgiveness and new life that God can.  God reigns and Jesus is our king of kings.  We are subject to his judgment.  We are subject to his laws.  We are subject to his love and new life.  Put aside your other kings and focus on the one who gives us life.  There is no border to his Kingdom.  We are all brothers and sisters.  There is no violence, no greed, no consumers.  There is only loving relationship, inclusion, welcome, forgiveness, hope.  There is new life in this new kingdom which is coming into the world.  

                Joy to the world!  Let earth receive our King!  This king is not dressed in jewels and fine fabrics.  This king comes in rags and sandals.  This king is not found in a castle, but in the slums.  This king stoops to wash our feet.  This king feeds us with his body and blood.  This king goes out searching for every last one of us when we are lost.  This king rejoices when he finds us.  This king is not full of self-importance, but love and compassion and mercy.

                Let not only the name of our church be King of Kings, but may the King of Kings rule in our hearts and help us set our priorities.  May we follow the King of Kings in works of charity and justice, seeing the world’s power for what it is, weak and temporary and an illusion, and looking to God’s kind of power, in vulnerability, in poverty, the truth of the love that lasts and unites this world under the reign of the only one who is trustworthy and genuinely concerned for all life, Jesus Christ, our King of Kings.

November 18, 2018

Mark 13:1-8    

Daniel 12:1-3  

Hebrews 10:11-25

            We are coming up to the end of the church year.  This Sunday is the next to last Sunday before we start at the beginning again in Advent.  So the readings are about endings—the end of the world, the end times, the end of empire.  So I thought I’d give you some quotes about endings to start us off.

            The first I thought of was “All good things must come to an end,” a proverb by Chaucer from 1374.  The word “good” was actually added much later.

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” ― Frank Herbert, American science fiction writer, wrote Dune and its sequels.

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.” ― Brazilian novelist and lyricist Paulo Coelho in his 2005 novel, The Zahir,

“Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending.” ― C. JoyBell C.  author of the Sun is Snowing and other spiritual works

“There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry.” ― Ellen Goodman Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist and syndicated columnist speaker and commentator.

            Endings, transitions, a time to look back on what has happened up until now, an opportunity to reflect on lessons learned, a chance to decide what to take forward and what to leave behind.  Everyday we experience endings.  When we go to bed at night we experience the end of the day.  Sometimes it is a relief to finally climb in bed and close our eyes and sometimes we lay awake going over our thoughts that just won’t end.  I drop Sterling off at school and that is an end to our morning.  I pick him up and it is the end of his school day.  I sit down at the end of the day and breathe.  Sometimes I want to think about what happened that day, sometimes I can’t stop thinking about it, and sometimes I just want to veg out and let my worries get swept away as I ponder the worries of my favorite movie or TV characters.  And sometimes I sit at my sewing machine and reflect.  Every seam has its end and at that point you backstitch over the last 4-5 stitches you’ve just completed to secure the seam, to anchor it.  At the end of the day, how do we make a healthy transition, and backstitch over what we’ve just done to secure it in place?  And then we start a new seam until the garment is sewn.  How do we anchor our memories, our learnings, the gifts of this moment so that we can honor them and move forward in hope?

            Sometimes an ending is a bad thing.  When we’ve had it good, it is so hard to let it go.  The end of a family Birthday party when I haven’t had the chance to visit with each person, I often feel a little bit sad.  Times when we’ve moved, I have felt sad.  These past few months with the deaths of 2 Betsy’s and Margaret and Phyllis I’ve definitely felt sad.  It isn’t that they had bad endings, but that its so hard to say goodbye to people who mean so much. 

            These wildfires and floods are bad endings, whole towns wiped out by disasters.  These mass shootings are devastating to whole communities.  Whenever a church burns down or a Synagogue is defaced with slurs, so much pain is uncovered.  And we shouldn’t deny our pain.  We hurt for people.  We believe in the brotherhood and sisterhood of all people, of all creatures.  The endings hurt and we can honor that hurt by allowing ourselves to feel it.  We may feel helpless or angry or sad or weary.  There are things we can do that help us put our feelings into actions, because feelings are messages, telling us what’s important, and if something important is happening, it makes sense that we take action, that our actions match our values, our feelings.

What can we do when we are at a difficult ending?  For one thing, we can pray.  We can center ourselves, take a breath or two or three.  We can stop and reflect on what is most important and enduring, what we want to take away from the experience.  As it says in the book of Hebrews, “hold fast to the confession of our hope”—to cling to what is hopeful, that Jesus is our King of Kings, our ruler and maker who loves us.  When we pray, we remember who we are, who made us and for what, who gives us purpose, who guides us, who comforts us.  When we pray, we remember the story we are part of, people struggling and oppressed, freed by God’s grace to become a people who trust God and live in community and love.

What else can we do?  As it says in Hebrews, “Provoke one another to love and good deeds.”  We can let God work through us to build the Kingdom.  We can do unto others as we would have them do to us.  We can use our time in service to others.  We can build something of use.  We can create something of use.  We can share our time, our money, our skills.  We can teach someone something we know and they are interested in.  We can invest our time in someone who could use a friend.  We can take our energy and emotion and allow it to motivate us to do something that matters, that creates community, that is loving, that brings hope to us and others.

Endings can also be good.  When oppressive forces come to an end, that’s good.  In our reading for today from the Hebrew Bible, the end of the world has something good to offer, there will be a sorting that will clear things up.  Those who have led a righteous and good life will finally get the recognition and reward they deserve.  The rulers of this world won’t control the future.  The end of their oppressive rule is good for everyone, even those rulers, though they may not recognize it at the time. 

The New Testament reading for today mentions an end to the futile sacrifices made my priests, the end of sin, the end of lawless deeds, the end of God’s enemies, the end of broken covenants.  These are all things to celebrate and give thanks for.

And the Gospel reading mentions the end of the Temple rule, the end of these large buildings.  It seems sad that this beautiful architecture should come to an end, but this temple was built to establish the place of religious power, so that humans could claim it and say where God is and where God isn’t.  This temple was a place of oppression for so many, where they heard the bad news that they didn’t matter because they couldn’t afford the sacrifice, or because they didn’t fit the “clean’ category.  Since the temple was already knocked down by the time Mark wrote his Gospel, he might as well say something good about the fact that it was no more.  There was a new temple in its place, not made of stones that could be knocked down, but in the person of Jesus Christ, and in the people of God as his body, a loving, moving temple, available, going to the places it is needed most.

The end can be scary.  It can make people anxious as they try to anticipate when and be prepared to survive.  There are all kinds of terrible things that can happen that are out of our control.  What use is it to be afraid and anxious?  We should pay attention when people try to make us afraid, because people do try to take advantage of people when they are scared and sell them cure-alls or give them assurances.  But Jesus is saying to keep the faith.  We can be led astray in fear to put faith in our buildings, our religious practices, our sacrifices, our possessions, or leaders who seem to have all the answers.  But Jesus is saying, “Keep the faith in God.  Stay calm.  Be the people of God who worship God alone and who value the smallest and weakest and who support each other in community.  Stay focus on what matters and live your life with the love of God for one another.”

God has the bigger picture in mind.  Our end is not God’s end.  God has an ending planned in which everyone will be valued, fed, and loved.  God has an ending in which all will be one.  God has an ending in mind in which all will be drawn together, no one will weep or mourn, no one will be hungry or afraid.  The ending will be a new beginning of new life, abundant life.

So as we come to this end and all the others we face, we must honor where we’ve come from and been through and take forward whatever we’ve learned.  We can have hope in what is to come.  Betsy Belles has died, but from her possessions come these amazing banners, and we remember her and share our thoughts about what she’s meant to us.  This year comes to an end.  We have known happiness and loss, growing pains, and been challenged.  Our building is tired, our furnaces are getting old, but we don’t put our faith in what doesn’t last.  This whole place could fall apart all around us and God would still be Lord of Heaven and Earth, we would still have the forgiveness and love of God, we would still be God’s people who God is working through to bring good news to those nearby and far away.

It is the end of one thing, and the beginning of another.  To be continued…

November 11, 2018

Mark 12:38-44                   

1 Kings 17:8-16                  

Hebrews 9:24-28

                There was no reason that the prophet Elijah should know or be concerned about a Gentile widow from over the mountains.  They couldn’t have been more different, Elijah and the widow of Zaraphath—different races, different cultures, different religions, different genders.

                But God commanded Elijah to go to her.  Why?  He had the people of Israel to instruct, to grow, to bless.  I think Elijah was instructed to go to her because she had something to teach him about faith and something to teach all of us who get to hear this story, thousands of years later.  God commanded her.  She didn’t know God, yet she listened to God, and was obedient.  She used the last of her resources, flour and oil, and the skill she had to make that something edible, and she made it and shared it.  I admire this widow*.  I admire her resourcefulness, the way she keeps going despite the growing knowledge that she’s going to run out.  I look in my cupboard and if I’m missing one ingredient, I’m in a tizzy.  It must be time for take out.  But over these weeks, she rations what she has, stretches it, and finally on the last day, as she shakes out the last whisper of flour from her jar and after leaving her oil container upside down all day, she hopes she has a teaspoon full, enough to make a last meal for her and her son.  She is teaching us to value every little bit, and isn’t this last bit the most valuable of all, a last supper, a family communion that they will remember until they fade away from hunger and are no more.  She is this flour, this oil.  She is the forgotten, the nothing at the bottom of the jar.  Her neighbors don’t know or care, or maybe they also hunger because of a famine upon the land.

Now, along comes a stranger, Elijah, a prophet of God.  Elijah has stood in God’s presences, suffered persecution from God’s people, brought difficult, challenging words to God’s people, a food they just couldn’t swallow, something that would have nourished them, if they hadn’t been so distracted with their own self-importance.  So here he comes to a nobody according to what this world values.  However, she is more faithful than any of the widows in Israel.  So Jesus says when he almost gets himself killed in his hometown of Nazareth.  She listens to God.  She cooks this meal for Elijah.  She treats him like her own son, better than her own son.  She teaches us and Elijah about family, how to ask for help, how to tell the truth about our own need, how to come together in community and work together, who to trust when we cannot trust the powers of this world to feed the hungry, who to look to for resourcefulness and faith and obedience. 

There was no reason that the Scribes at the Temple would see the woman put in her last 2 coins, but there they stood not 10 yards from each other.  He was strutting around, making sure everyone was listening to him, seeing him, blessing him.  She went unnoticed, as she put in her 2 coins and a prayer.  He would take those 2 coins and it would mean nothing to him, even though it meant everything to her.  Would she, like the widow of Zarapheth, go home and cook her last meal and starve unnoticed?  What would the scribe do, when he got home?  Would he eat his fill and still feel empty?  God brings these contrasting people together to teach each other something.  They are a few feet away from each other, but they may as well be on different planets.  They don’t know the same people.  They don’t live by the same truths.  They don’t have the same priorities.  And yet they affect each other.  He affects her because he devours her last 2 coins, all she has to live on.  He doesn’t seem to be affected by her, because what she offers seems so small compared to everything else he has.  However, Jesus says, he will eternally be affected by how he has treated her.  He receives the greater condemnation.

The other contrast that the Scribe and widow teach us, is about acting out of fear and acting out of faith.  Why is he strutting around like this?  It is because he is afraid that he isn’t enough.  He’s put his faith in his position, and his wealth, and his importance, and it isn’t fulfilling him.  If he doesn’t have the reassurance and recognition that he gets from long prayers and even longer robes, he is afraid he isn’t enough.  He is acting out of fear.  She is acting out of faith.  She has put her faith in God.  She knows that robes and recognition don’t give satisfaction.  You’re always going to need more.  But she gives her last 2 coins, knowing that money isn’t everything, having experienced miracles before and knowing that God can make something out of nothing, trusting that her coins will be valued, if not by the scribes, then by God.  And she’s right.  She knows God made us good.  She knows that God values every contribution no matter how small.  She gives out of her faith, rather than her fear, and she becomes an example to us.

There was no reason that a poor family, driving an old white Ford 1-ton van the mom a childcare worker and the dad an insulation installer would fit in at the local Lutheran congregation full of teachers and nurses and doctors.  But that’s where we found ourselves.  My mom with 4 kids, dad staying at home.  We did our best to fit in, but I know we stuck out.  They gave us their hand-me-downs, and we were thrilled to get them.  We shared our friendliness.  My mom took on the Sunday school superintendent job.  We couldn’t afford $10 apiece for the Mother/Daughter banquet, that would have been $40, more than my mom made in 2 days work.  We stood up and said it was unjust.  We were heard.  We changed our community.  And we were changed by our community.  They were examples of professionals, of how life could have many choices with an education, so they helped me with my college applications, and paid for my books in seminary.  They changed me.  Mom took piano lessons, started a mom’s group, started a support group for people struggling with depression.  Two groups of people who should never have come together, did for the betterment of both.

A little babe is born on a cold night in a barn.  His cry pierces the night.  God made flesh, come to us.  So many unlikely combinations: The Christ child and the shepherds, the son of God and the magi, the shepherds and the angels, God and humans together, Jesus and the lepers, Jesus and the Samaritan woman, Jesus and the Roman Soldier, Mary and Elizabeth.

There is no reason that God should come here to us, people of no importance, who struggle, who are weak, yet Jesus came to share our experience and know us, and to give himself as a living sacrifice that we might have life abundant in communion with him and the whole people of God and all of Creation.  He came to us to make us family, to make us strong, to heal the world.

A little Spanish-speaking church is looking for space.  A little bigger Lutheran Congregation finds an opening as a preschool vacates the building.  There is no reason that we should come together, but 5 years later here we are, friends, working side by side for the Gospel.

There is no reason that any of us should be here, except we felt the pull of the Spirit calling to us, inviting us at different times from different places, to participate in something messy but beautiful and at times frustrating, but to be part of something bigger than ourselves and our needs.

There is no reason to think that a church is needed or welcome out there in our county offices, testifying at city hall, or relating to neighbors, but somehow God keeps bringing us together to teach us something about ourselves and to help us open our ideas of who we are and who matters in God’s Kingdom wider until we truly all are one.

And I can’t help but wonder what unlikely pairings and combinations of people we will find ourselves in in the coming weeks and months, how we will be challenged and stretched as we reach out to our neighbors, how we might be surprised by the person or people that God places in our hands, that when we thought we were the ones helping, we find ourselves helped, stretched, learning, growing, valuing life differently, seeing people instead of problems, awed by the complexity of our systems that keep people down.  There are neighbors right next door that we don’t even know their names even though they’ve lived there 10 years or more.  God has placed them here not for us to overlook the or assume we don’t have anything to offer each other, but to show us that we are all related, we need each other, and everyone has something to offer, gifts from God for the good of the whole and that we are stronger together. 

October 28, 2018

Gospel: John 8:31-36                       

Jeremiah 31:31-34            

Romans 3:19-28

               

Today is Reformation Day.  It is the day we celebrate the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. October 31 is the postmark on 95 Theses, or 95 points that Martin Luther was asking people to think about and debate with him.  But we continue to celebrate the Reformation as ongoing, because we’ve never arrived at the perfect congregation or larger church organization, or denomination, but everyday we celebrate our baptism as dying to our old self, the sinful broken parts of our congregation and denomination and selves which come together to make the body of Christ, and we rise again to new life, with forgiveness, for new possibilities, in the hopes that God can make something out of us, as flawed as we are.  So the reformation is ongoing and we pray that God would reform us today.

God reform us, we pray. God answers, “The days are surely coming.”  The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when God will come near and there will be abundant life.  No longer will they read commandments on stone tablets, but God’s commandments will a part of everything the people do.  People will know God as a mother or father, a friend, and approach God with hope.  No longer will we look at our brothers and sisters as strangers, but we will welcome them, and see them as God sees them.

No longer will broken relationship be the norm, but there will be renewal and love.  The days are surerly coming, when brothers and sisters have a complaint against one another, they will not hide their feelings, or go and talk to someone else about it, but they will approach the other person, seeing their full humanity, and being confident that the relationship will not be broken.  They will examine themselves and accept their own part of the disagreement and make any changes to themselves that might be necessary.  They will approach the other person seeing the best in them, that they will be open and receptive and loving in their response.

No longer will there be destruction and violence, but the lion and the lamb will lie down next to each other and the child will play near the snake’s den.  The days are surely coming when no longer will people destroy each other with weapons or grieve their children shot down in Synagogues and churches and schools and streets, but peace will reign and hope will live.

No longer will mass incarceration deprive people of a chance to live, while lining the pockets of politicians and those in power.  The days are surely coming when all races of people will be treated with justice and love, when no longer will lighter skin mean a lighter sentence.

The days are surely coming when, no longer will people forget who they have to thank for their lives and well-being, but God will be praised by all creatures. 

The days are surely coming when no longer will we push each other around, but we will take God’s hand and be led in abundant life. 

The days are surely coming when no longer will we compete in contests of strength and power, but we will work together to make sure everyone has a part.  There will be no war or genocide, but world powers will work for the good of the weakest member.

The days are surely coming when no longer will congregations discriminate against pastors based on their gender or sexual orientation, when gay pastors will get calls to churches that are a good fit, just as their straight brothers and sisters in ministry.  Candidates for ministry will no longer doubt their call or look to serve in other places because the church is afraid of them.

The days are surely coming when no longer will we talk over each other, but the powerful will be silent to give voice to the oppressed. 

The days are surely coming when no longer will we feel that we are never enough, but we will know that Jesus and his love and forgiveness are enough. 

The days are surely coming when no longer will we judge each other, but we will humble ourselves and see the best in our neighbor. 

The days are surely coming says the Lord, when God will come near.  When God comes near, the Bible says, there will be judgment, there will be forgiveness, and there will be healing.  Jesus will show us by the people he associates with, that our priorities are not God’s, and that God has good news precisely for those who haven’t heard any good news in a long time.

                The days are surely coming says the Lord when God will come near and judge the world in righteousness.  We will see clearly the times we’ve stood in the way of God’s dream as individuals and as institutions, like churches.  The honest assessment will say that we’ve broken the commandments.  We’ve broken the covenant.  We’ve sinned against God and each other.  We’ve forgotten who made us and freed us. 

                The days are surely coming when we will know we are free and live in that freedom, using it for good and the building up of the Kingdom of God.

                The days are surely coming when instead of banishing us or destroying us, we will understand that God chooses to partner with us.  This doesn’t mean any of us can brag or boast about how good we’ve been, or how much God loves or forgives us. 

                The days are surely coming when we will come to understand this passage as Martin Luther did, “Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by God’s grace as a gift.”  What a moment that must have been, when he read that, and read it again, and again!  The word “justified” is a difficult one to get a handle on.  We cannot justify ourselves.  We cannot make ourselves just by our good works or right action.  I think of type on a page being right justified, aligned on one side.  We cannot align ourselves with God.  We can’t match God’s righteousness or glory or wisdom.  Instead, justification, or alignment is a gift that God gives us.  We can’t get to God’s level.  So God came and aligned God’s self to us, justified us, not because of anything we did, but just to be in relationship with us, and not the important people or the rich people who were too busy justifying themselves by their wealth and influence, but the most neglected little people, the throw-away people that no one noticed or cared about.

                The days are surely coming when we will understand this is a free gift.  It does come at a cost, and that is the death of Jesus our Savior.  He paid the price for all our sins on the cross.  But he didn’t want us to remain in sorrow and pain.  He not only died, but he rose again and raises us up with him to new life, today and every day.

     The days are surely coming!  Jesus’ reign is surely coming!  God’s forgiveness is surely coming!  Celebration is surely coming!  New life is surely coming!  

October 21, 2018

Mark 10:35-45                   

Isaiah 53:4-12                     

Hebrews 5:1-10                

                When you hear the word “leader,” who do you think of?  What qualities are important in a leader?  These questions were important to the Disciples following Jesus.  They were important in the early church.  And they are important in our church. 

                Being a leader is a mixed bag.  When we are asked to lead, we take on responsibility to make things happen.  We want to be knowledgeable on the topic in which we lead.  We want to be reliable.  We want to be inspiring.  We usually want to get things done.  On the other hand, we don’t want to do all the work ourselves.  If we have accepted responsibility, there are times we might find ourselves hustling at the last moment to complete tasks that volunteers committed to, but were unable to finish.  And we sometimes get the credit for the work others have done, which is also uncomfortable.  Sometimes as leaders, there are others who don’t like the way we lead, who challenge us out of jealousy or another reason.  We often don’t want to put ourselves in a position of power over others, or be seen as doing so, yet we might have skills or knowledge that other people don’t have. 

                The prophet Isaiah today talks about the fate of people who stick their neck out, of prophets who accept or who are compelled to tell the truth to rulers and whole communities of people who need guidance.  Many times, that help and challenge is not accepted, and that person is punished, made to suffer for doing what he or she had to do because of conscience or the Holy Spirit. 

                The readings for today help us think about leadership, our own, and that of others.  According to Isaiah, a leader is a healer, someone has a certain kind of knowledge, someone who is often abandoned, abused, and even crushed.  A leader is sometimes punished unjustly.  However, in the end, God will not forget someone who leads righteously, who selflessly gives and serves and tells the truth.  Such a leader will eventually find prosperity and celebration, and community.  This kind of leader will be eventually recognized for his or her gifts and sacrifices.

                We, of course, think of Jesus.  But this refers to what prophets have endured through the ages.  This is a story that recurs, over and over again. 

                According to Hebrews, a leader is able to “deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness.”  A leader not only relies on his or her strengths as a guide, but isn’t it the bad things we’ve done and the weaknesses we’ve endured that help us serve others the most?  Some of our pantry clients have come to be some our best volunteers.  Because they know what it is like to be without food, they come to make sure others don’t have to go through that.  Many hospice volunteers give their time because they’ve been through a death of someone very close to them.  They know what that’s like to hurt so deeply and feel so lost.  So they serve out of a place of pain. 

                This leadership that comes from a place of pain or weakness is a good thing.  It takes a terrible situation and creates power, the ability to act, to do something to relieve the suffering of others.  It creates community.  It says, “I’m not going to sit home with my problems and let them overwhelm me.”  Instead, this kind of service links us to other people.

                In the reading from Hebrews this morning, we find that leaders are to be obedient.  We associate obedience with being a kid.  We don’t have that many positive associations with the word “obedience” for adults.  But being obedient to God, is to trust God’s vision and direction and humble ourselves to be followers of the only one who is trustworthy and has the complete picture.

                Finally, in Mark, we learn that a leader is to be a servant.  Jesus is the ultimate example of that.  He is a leader who spends his time with the lowest of the low, at the bottom of the heap.  Jesus prioritizes those who others completely disregard.  He got no recognition for it.  He did it because those people matter in the Kingdom of God and were open to meeting him and were actually able to see God in him.  He found people who knew what all was wrong with this world, what was crushing people, what was causing suffering, and he joined with them in a vision of the Kingdom of God where everyone is valued and has a voice, where children are leaders, blind people are leaders, grieving people are leaders, sinners are leaders, all of us following Jesus our Savior, our shepherd, the only trustworthy leader, the only one who could give us what we really need, abundant life.

                Jesus disciples desperately want to lead.  Who knows if they want the recognition, or if they just want to be close to Jesus.  They want the seating chart in the next life.  Jesus tells them that he doesn’t make the seating chart, but if they want to be near him, they must be near the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, because that is where Jesus is.

                He is so kind to them.  Jesus doesn’t get angry when they are jockeying for their position next to him in the next life.  Instead he askes them if they have what it takes.  Are they prepared to drink the cup and be baptized with his kind of baptism?  They say, “Yes,” not knowing what they were saying.  Jesus refers Holy Communion and Baptism, the two sacraments, the two things Jesus commands we do and does himself to experience the real presence of God.  He will be present with us when we follow him faithfully despite suffering and pain.

                The cup is a cup of celebration.  But it is also a cup of blood.  This is Jesus’ blood poured out.  Are the disciples ready to pour out their blood?  They say they are willing, and they will as martyrs.  I think of the cup from the 23^rd Psalm, “My cup runs over.”  There is blessing in the cup that spreads out to others.  This is a cup more than half full.  I also am reminded of the cup that Jesus prays about in the garden of Gethsemane.  “If it by thy will, take this cup from me.”  This is a cup of suffering, of death, of sacrifice, of servanthood.

                Jesus asks if they are willing to be baptized with a baptism like his.  A baptism is celebration of a person’s place in the community of believers, a washing away of sin, a moment when we are claimed by God.  It is also a commemoration of the Israelites passing through the Red Sea, crossing over into a whole new life in which they would learn to trust God and be God’s people.  It was a death of the old Israelites, and the birth of a new nation.  When we baptize we baptize into Jesus’ death and resurrection, drowning the old self, and rising to new life.  When the disciples were agreeing to his baptism, they didn’t realize they were agreeing to live in a whole new way in which their old self would die, the old self that was blind, the old self that wanted the seating chart, the old self that wanted to be important.  In baptism, too, we die to our selfish ways and are reborn into the body of Christ.  We are responsible to all others in the body.  It isn’t about us anymore, but about the health and wellness of the weakest members.  But the Disciples agreed to it anyway, and eventually his disciples would all learn what it meant to die to their old self and rise to become servants.

                In this church we have the most amazing leaders.  I have been so impressed by the people taking leadership.  Some pastors complain that they have to drag their congregations out into the community to lead.  But here, you're all telling me which community meetings it is important for me to attend.  You know your commissioners, the Mayor of Milwaukie and everyone in his office.  You are volunteering in the community and making a difference.  You are leaders.  We have a strong Stewardship Team.  Lots of people come up with ideas and work to make them happen.  The leaders in this church are phenomenal!  

                I don’t know if this is going to change how we see leaders, and put our faith in Jesus rather than earthly rulers and tyrants.  Of course, I urge you to vote.  And then I urge you to hold our elected leaders accountable to the people who are hurting the most, who lack power and influence, because this is who Jesus told us to look out for, because we are joined with them in one body.  Their pain is our pain.  Their joy and health is our joy and health. 

                And even though we are imperfect leaders, we shouldn’t give up.  We have the forgiveness and love of God, and a community of imperfect people who understand when we mess up.  We should strive to be trustworthy, however, we know that only God is good and reliable, so we step up with humility, never to draw attention and glory to ourselves, but to participate in God’s vision of healing and hope for all the world.

October 14, 2018

Mark 10:17-31                   

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15            

Hebrews 4:12-16

                Sit up and take note.  This is a story in which Jesus talks to someone much like us.  Take a moment to put yourselves in his position.  We may only have one car, we may have downsized to an apartment, we may not have a lot, but compared to most of the people of this world, we are rich.  And some of us clearly do have nice houses, cars, and possessions, even rich in relationship to most Americans.  Many of the stories of the Bible speak of Jesus interacting with those who are poor, or sick, or rejected, or blind, disregarded in some way.

                “As Jesus was setting out on a journey….” Maybe that doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but I think it might be.  Jesus was going someplace.  He was on the move.  Part of what enabled him to do that was his lack of material things.  Everything he absolutely needed, he could carry with him, most notably the approval and mission he had from his Father.  Everything else he needed, he opened himself up to receiving from God through the people he met and the land he crossed.  He is truly a person of the exile, living a life of wilderness wandering.  But he wasn’t on the journey to learn to be one of God’s people.  He was on the journey to show us the way through the wilderness to be part of God’s family and so that we could learn to trust the one who is trustworthy.

                “A Man ran up and knelt before him and asked, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.’”  This man approaches Jesus.  If everything was all right, he would never have left the house.  But something is not right.  I can relate.  Do you feel it, too?  When things aren’t right who do you go to?  Or do you have a place you go?  This makes me wonder how many spiritual leaders this man approaches before he comes to Jesus.  Somehow, he’s come to the one who is trustworthy, who has the key to eternal life.  We all have access to Jesus.  We can come to him.  We can come to him in prayer.  We can come to him in Scripture, in the Bible.  We can come to him in each other, in relationship to the body of Christ.  So we come and kneel before him and we confess that something isn’t right.  Life, as I’m living it, is not abundant.  Life is not fulfilling.  Something major is missing.  I hurt for this world.  I hurt for the systems I’m a part of that destroy people and God’s good creation.  I wake up at night and think of all those separated from their families by flood or war or famine.  I worry about the destruction and pollution of this earth.  I grieve my losses and consider my sins, and worry about what others think of me. 

                Jesus says, “Why do you call me good.  Only God is good.”  He deflects the praise, which is not a sign of what the man really thinks of him, but a polite greeting from one person trying to get into the good graces of another.  Jesus may well know the man isn’t going to be calling him good for long. 

                Jesus lays out the commandments.  But the man has kept the commandments and still isn’t living an abundant, eternal, satisfying, fulfilling life.  Something is still missing.  Martin Luther has pointed out in his writings that the 10 Commandments are really a minimum requirement.  It is a minimum not to take a weapon and take another person’s life.  But do we not take another person’s life when we steal their livelihood from them by cheating them or charging them too much?  Don’t we take a person’s life when we find them sleeping under our stairs and we shoo them away?  Don’t we take a person’s life when we add to air pollution so that it gives children asthma?  This man has followed the commandments, checked them off his list one by one.  Yet he has not found or shared abundant life. 

                And Jesus, looking at him, loved him.  It is a tender moment.  Jesus loved him.  Agape love is a self-sacrificing love.  Maybe this is partly why Jesus didn’t want him to call Jesus “good.”  Jesus is self-sacrificing.  He gives himself up for the love of his friends and for the abundant, eternal, fulfilling life of the world.  Jesus knows what it takes to find eternal life—self-sacrifice.  He knows that this man’s possessions won’t fulfill him.  He knows that actually this man’s possessions are holding him back, keeping him feeling safe and secure, keeping him tied to his home base, keeping him from following Jesus.  They are keeping him from following Jesus literally on his way to the cross, from learning from him.  They are also keeping him from following the way of Jesus, which rejects possessions and material things and embraces relationship and connection and vulnerability, which you just don’t have when you surround yourself with comforts.  Jesus’ self-sacrificing love is something he calls us into, because that does lead to abundant, fulfilling life for all.

                Jesus then talks to his disciples about how hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter God’s Kingdom—harder than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.  Many of you probably already know that the entry gate into a city was referred to in those times as the eye of the needle.  Sometimes you get camels trying to get through the gate that are so loaded up, they aren’t going to make it.  With a needle and thread, they are pretty useless without each other.  It’s pretty hard to thread a needle until you’ve had a lot of practice. 

I thought of that sewing needle and I thought of that gate into the city and I thought about eternal life verses the kind of life we’re living surrounded by possessions and comforts.  All of these needles are pinch points, they are points of transition.  In all transitions there are certain things we let go of.  That’s what we fear.  If we let go possessions or positions in the community or relationships or anything, we are afraid that we will grieve, that we will be vulnerable, that we will be pained.

But what we fail to consider is what is on the other side of that eye.  If God is the one we say God is, and if we trust God, we have a vision of the Kingdom of God that is worth letting go of everything in this world and moving through that eye, that transition, that little death, that pinch point.  I stood on the beach this week.  Somehow the sun on the water and the dog and bird footprints in the sand and the little crabs and jellyfish and shells and rocks and sounds of the waves and the sight of blue water and blue sky that melted into one another, in some ways overwhelmed me with the hugeness and power of this world, reminded me of the cycles and seasons throughout the ages and going forward, and made me feel connected to distant shores and people, and plant and animal life, the salt water matching the salt of my tears, the sun warming me and the water, at once feeling so small and so connected.    Nothing I had or was could give me the gift of the ocean.  It is not kept for rich or poor, but available.  There is a glimpse of what lies at the other side of the needle, the other side of the gate, the Kingdom of God.

The scriptures describe a reality in which we will not grieve or mourn, no one will be hungry or sleeping in the parking lot, no one will have more than they need and no one will go without, but we will all gather around a table of abundance and feast together in community and fulfillment and satisfaction and eternal life.

With a needle and thread, they are pretty useless without each other.  If we are the thread, we can do very little on our own.  Until we are threaded we won’t be fulfilled, we won’t be able to do our job, no matter how fancy we are.  Secondly, it’s pretty hard to thread a needle until you’ve had a lot of practice.  When a person first tries to thread a needle, usually they will try to stick the thread through the eye of the needle.  Sometimes we’re like that, too.  We try to force ourselves through the pinch point, win the Kingdom of God with our works, by being nice or enough.  But sadly we just crumple against the needle, like this rich man.  However, someone with experience will tell you, hold the thread still and pass the needle over it and you will likely be successful after just a few attempts.  First get the thread wet in baptism.  Then, pass the needle over.  We cannot force ourselves into the Kingdom, but the Kingdom will come to us.  We will not be comfortable.  We will let go of things that don’t fit with God’s justice, that hurt our neighbors, that protect us from needing each other.  We will have to let go of the things we think give us life and give our life meaning, but we will find what is eternal life, fulfilling, abundant life.  We will find Kingdom life, or rather it will find us.

               

September 30, 2018

Mark 9:38-50

            I am so honored to bring you a message today.   I am grateful to God that our two communities can be engaged in the same work in our community, sharing the message of God’s love, and the good news of abundant life in Christ.  As a small congregation, it can be easy to get discouraged about how much we can really accomplish.  But knowing that you are here and that we have partners and friends everywhere we look, and even places we never thought to look, is encouraging.  Your congregation is an inspiration to me, faithfully meeting and praying and learning about God’s word, challenging yourselves in leadership roles, and I especially appreciate the way you hold me and our congregation in your prayers always.  Because of your example, we remember you every Sunday in our prayers as well as during the week.

            Sometimes, especially in a small congregation, the people of God forget how expansive God’s love is.  We can get focused on our own congregation or our own trials, our own lives.  We’re not so different from Jesus’ first disciples.  It makes me feel better to read about their questions and mistakes, because a lot of times I don’t understand what God is trying to teach me, either.  In today’s reading the disciples are concerned because an outsider was casting out demons and they tried to stop him.  The funny thing is, just a little earlier in Mark’s Gospel, those same disciples were trying to cast out demons and they failed.  Now they are upset because someone else is doing the good work they couldn’t do.  I don’t know if the disciples were jealous, or if they thought this outsider was making them look bad.  The disciples didn’t like it at all. But Jesus liked the work of these outsiders.  They weren’t outsiders to Jesus. 

            Sometimes we Christians can get territorial.  We get possessive of our people, our area, even about the message of God’s love.  But Jesus says, you can’t control God’s Spirit.  It is bigger than your ideas of it.  God’s Spirit is plentiful and goes out where it will.  You can’t contain it.  Every time humankind tries to contain God’s Spirit, we get a rude awakening.  When the Israelites wanted to build God a temple, God wasn’t too happy about that.  God liked being in a tent, a moveable tabernacle, so God wouldn’t be seen as only being in one place.  When the Israelites were in exile in Babylon, they thought God was far away, until Ezekiel had a vision of a burning chariot with eyes all over it, and realized that God was right there with them and couldn’t be contained far away from the people who were suffering.  When people thought they knew God, God came as the baby Jesus, to walk among the people and experience our life.  Every time we think we can contain or control God, we get surprised by the expansiveness of God’s Spirit.  No one group has a monopoly on God’s power and Spirit.  And that is the joy we share as two congregations doing God’s work in this place.  We are part of the same body of Christ.

            Jesus says, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”  I love this!  People usually say, “Whoever is not for us is against us.”  That is human nature.  We suspect each other.  We don’t trust each other.  We put everyone not immediately related in the category of suspicion.  But Jesus says that’s not God’s view.  God knows the true story and that is that we all are related.  We come from the same Creator.  We all feel pain, we all bleed, we all have hopes and dreams, we are of the human family.  God’s view is not of exclusivity.  God says that unless we have good reason to believe that someone is against us, we must include them in our circle.  And that is because God gives gifts to all God’s children, all God’s creation, and God doesn’t want us putting out stumbling blocks, barriers to anyone using their gifts, because that would be trying to put up barriers to God’s life-giving work.  So to you this day, Church of God of Prophecy, I say, we are with you, King of Kings Lutheran Church is with you, and we give thanks that we are all doing God’s work and listening to God’s voice for the good of this neighborhood and for the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

            Now humans are so predictable.  We so easily put others on the outside and question the motives of others, but we give ourselves so much credit!  The first Disciples weren’t even able to cast out the demon, but they guarded their closeness with Jesus.  We, too, minimize our shortcomings and make excuses for ourselves.  Sometimes this reading about cutting out eyes and limbs has been used to banish people who we see as sinners from our communities, or as ammunition to use against people we disagree with.  However, this reading is about self-reflection.  If it was about pointing out the sins and shortcomings of others, we wouldn’t have this part about putting a stumbling block in front of other people, which we do when we judge them and push them away from  us.  God is watching out for the ones we often criticize, the little ones: the children, the women, the widows and orphans, the foreigner, the sick or imprisoned, or poor, or grieving.  God says instead of tearing people down who are little, who are down already, take a long look at ourselves and see what might be getting in the way of our wholehearted commitment to the reign of God.  Whenever we do hurt people who are already suffering, we are cutting at the body of Christ, hurting his little ones, hurting this beautiful community that God has made of the people, putting out an eye in the body of Christ, or severing a foot or hand.  I’m happy to say I agree with Pastor Juan that this is not a scripture about physically injuring ourselves!  But it is pointing out how we injure the body of Christ when we sin and when we put out barriers and stumbling blocks to God’s people.  And when we injure the body of Christ, we are only going to cause more stumbling.  If your eye causes you to stumble, he says, tear it out.  But that will only cause more stumbling. And the same with a hand or foot.

            When we read this Gospel we realize how serious it is when we sin, when we put up barriers to God’s work among us, when we exclude little ones, when we hurt each other.  I have to admit that I struggle with the concept of hell.  There are several words that get translated as “hell” in the Bible.  One is the grave, which is more a place of rest.  This one in the Gospel today refers to the garbage heap outside of Jerusalem that was perpetually burning.  Whether hell refers to a place of eternal torture, or the garbage dump, I think the message is the same.  We should take our sins seriously, because they hurt especially the little ones, the vulnerable people around us.  Whatever causes us to sin, we should figure out how it happened and work to find a way so that it doesn’t happen again.  We should look at our lives and find out what we do that causes us and others to stumble, and root it out.  We don’t want to waste the gift God gives us, throw it away, because we’re letting something get in the way.  We want to use these gifts as God intended them, to serve the vulnerable ones.

            I wish it was as easy as that to root out sin, to cut it out.  But how do we cut out our fears that cause us to stumble?  How do we cut out our jealousy?  I am reminded of the scripture from Ezekiel.  God is speaking and says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”  Our hearts are soft toward ourselves, but to others they can be so hard.  God is trying to give us a heart transplant.  Maybe it is the same with our eyes and hands.  If we remove our eye or foot, we will just stumble more.  That is the problem when humans try to fix it ourselves.  But when we let God lead and heal us, we find God is replacing our eye with God’s.  So now we don’t just see the short view or how something benefits us, but we start to see with God’s eyes.  Where we once saw a stranger or foreigner or a threat, now we see with the eyes of God our brother and sister, a little one we care about.  Where we once reached out in greed with our own hand, now we reach out with God’s hand in generosity.  Where once we walked on our feet all the places we wanted to go, now we walk with God’s feet with direction and purpose to serve the little ones.  Whereas once we were tasteless, now we are salty, a little bit going a long way, seasoning and influencing those around us.  Whereas before we thought we were chosen by God for privilege and importance and riches, now that Jesus is correcting us, we see that we have been chosen for service, to be a blessing to others, to usher in the Kingdom of God.

            We give thanks that God is merciful, because instead of cutting out all the parts of us that are sinful, Jesus took all those wounds upon his body on the cross.  And he entered hell and conquered death that we might have eternal life and not be slaves to sin eternally.  Instead we are raised with him to eternal life.  So we move boldly forward, in the confidence of God’s love, not fearing that we might sin or make a misstep, but knowing that we are redeemed to serve for the flourishing of life.