Sermon: The Beatitudes

            Remember back to Christmas? When I offered up 12 questions to reflect upon,

to ponder as Mary pondered…
all ultimately impressing upon you the meaning of that great mystery
—God comes among us in Jesus Christ.

            That mystery spills out beyond personal ponderings at Epiphany.
And, despite the snow
(and this January where it felt like years have happened before our eyes)
we’re, in fact, 4 weeks into the Season after Epiphany.
We’re thick into that unfolding mystery,
beyond Mary, beyond the Holy Family, beyond John the Baptist, beyond the Brothers Zebedee
—what does that mean for the Whole World?
What does it look like when God comes near?

Prayer

 

            There are quite a few different ways to read Jesus’ blessings
—the Beatitudes.
When we covered it a few weeks back at Bible Study, I think I described them as:
Descriptive—Jesus did just heal a bunch of people before he blessed him.
Inspirational—keep on keeping on even in the worst of it.
Transformational—What if our world did bless these types of people.
Observational—What if we at least noticed the meek and impoverished?

            Bigger picture, there are two main ways of reading the Beatitudes:
as Virtues (be this way!)
or as Reversals (God’s going to flip your awful situation around)…
and neither way QUITE works… at least in Matthew.

 

            The tradition of these being virtues has heavily influenced how Jesus’ blessings get translated,
without getting into the weeds, this way of reading things assume Jesus is basically a Roman or a Greek philosopher… not a Jewish Holy Man.

Don’t get me wrong, “Be pure in heart. Be peacemakers.”
that works, but
“Be hopeless, miserable, humiliated, starved for justice.” Not so much.

 

Likewise, reversal works only up to a point
—sure turn mourning into gladness, please every day!
But surely Jesus isn’t telling us to be Merciless, hypocritical, warlike, or persecutors! It’s just not there!

 

So, Biblical Scholar Mark Allen Powel, looked at these two competing readings
—Jesus is offering virtues versus Jesus is pointing to reversal,
and essentially says, “Why not both?”
After all, Matthew’s Gospel always points to humans being messy and mixed up
—wheat and weeds, sheep and goats
—Simul Justus et Peccator to use Lutheran Language.

            What if, Dr. Powel asks, the first 4 beatitudes name reversals
—Because God is at work: kingdom, comfort, inheritance, and fullness have come. Because God has come near there will be reversal of fortunes.

 

            And the second set names 4 virtues to practice in such a reality
—if God is at work in the world practice: mercy, pure hearts, peacemaking, and a commitment to righteousness.

            Think back to your small Catechisms,
(if you have one of our new ELW next to you check out page 1163).
Luther explains that God does stuff without our asking for it,
but we’re asking that those things might come among us…
That we might notice it, that:
God’s name might be holy/ Thy Kingdom come / God’s will be done—and the like… for us, not simply in a universal and general sense.

            I’d mentioned the Holy Family earlier, think about Joseph, when he first hears that his fiancé is pregnant,
he decides to do the virtuous thing by “putting her away quietly”
but then he catches a glimpse of God,
and realizes the right and virtuous thing is to stay with her and raise the child who is God with us.
Virtues isn’t about moral rectitude, but seeing God! Virtue as vision.

            Or, to go back to the Beatitudes…
 those who directly experience God reversing their humiliation, will likely know it…
but those who are more fortunate
—they need a practice to see what’s right in front of their nose
—making war isn’t a good way to remember your baptism,
you can’t be merciless and still sing, “Lord have mercy”
without it catching in your throat.

 

            All that to say, this reading of the Beatitudes leaves a place where
the haves and the have nots,
those suffering and those just trying to figure out what’s going on,
can meet,
can both be citizens of the Kingdom of God.
The poor in spirit and the merciful meet,
those who hunger for justice, are upheld by those taking it on the chin for justice.

            It’s good news for everyone
—after all we’re all one medical bill or accident or stroke or societal shift
away from being one of these for whom reversal by God is our only hope.

           

            So, to make this all a little clearer—take out that green sheet.
I’ve reordered Matthew’s beatitudes, and interpreted them without the Greco-Roman flavoring, or at least be able to hear it without the dullness that familiarity brings:

 

 

Beatitudes

“Blessed are the hopeless, for God will reign among them
 and blessed are those who show mercy, for they will receive mercy.”

May the hopeless be met with a show of mercy.

 

“Blessed are the miserable, for they will be comforted
and blessed are the authentically honorable, for they will see God.”

May the miserable find comfort from someone who deeply cares.

 

“Blessed are the humiliated, for they will receive their share
and blessed are those who make things whole, for they will be called children of God.”

May the humiliated be made whole.

 

“Blessed are those who are starved for justice, for they will be stuffed with it
and blessed are those who are persecuted for their commitment to justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

May the justice-starved be fed by one who is doggedly committed to justice.

 

And finally, the 9^th blessing:

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

May we be found together when God comes near. Even when it’s hard. Especially, when it is hard. Beside the foolish cross, humble, kind, and just. Amen.

COVID is back (A Poem)

COVID is back

Those so formed by Covid-tide

Distance, speaking to empty funeral homes,

Yet another video spoken into the void,

Even gospel gobbled up by the single dull distorting, yet reflective, eye,

Of our black mirrors.

Now I see the former,

things, that dangerous time.

It reappears as a fresh reaper,

replaying at inopportune times.

 

This time, returning recklessly at a snowstorm.

Canceled events and quickly snaggled anxiety

Expressed in outrage.

It is our awful emptiness

being so alone in a nation of millions,

All so frenetically alone.

 

The Déjà vu of no support or solidarity or simply connecting the dots

Instead society slicing itself up

Non-reckoning with violent consequences

Of violent policies.

Stuck at home, seeing clashes in our streets

Consequences.

Consequences of choices.

Do not lie, at least not too often.

This is what we chose.

 

Ice thick violence

George Floyd

Good and Pretti

Minnesota cold

Camera capturing again

Our failure to imagine

Imagine a world where peace reigns

Where the pieces are put back together

Where the rough reality of life is lifted up

Examined, and empathized with

Taken seriously

As seriously as we take quack conspiracies

And fringe fanatics

 

All that is old is new again

What once was, is and shall be.

Turn turn turn.

Gyres of our wretched hearts

Perhaps we must lean into the skid,

Point not to the target, but to the solid blacktop.

"Help Us!" they write

 

On Wednesday we got word from Greenland, “Help us!” The Lutheran Bishop of Greenland expressed the great worries of her people, and urged us Americans “to write to their representatives on Capitol Hill to ask them to stand by Greenlanders in their right to determine their own future.”

On Thursday all 6 ELCA Bishops of Minnesota wrote a letter saying, “Help us!” expressing the profound fear and anxiety of the people in that state, our fellow citizens. “We are tired, and our hearts are broken. Yet we are not deterred… Go to church… ground yourselves in Scripture, and surround yourselves with those who will echo the voice of God for you. This is the nourishment that will sustain us… join calls for a thorough investigation into this case, accountability for the shooting and a de-escalation of ICE enforcement across the United States.”

On Friday we received yet another missive, this time from Canadian, Danish, and American Lutheran Bishops pleading, “Help us!” Writing, “We pray for peace and respect between nations… We invite you to write to your elected leaders and tell them to respect the independence of Greenland and the Greenlandic people.”

Help us, they write. Pray for and with us. Root yourself in faith and speak up for us. Care, for God’s sake, please care. Please help us.

Here is a link to find and contact your Representative, and here are two prayers.

“Almighty and everlasting God, we come before you in prayer for our nation. We pray that you would bless all elected officials with the wisdom and courage needed to best serve the common good of people. May they govern with a spirit of reverence for your will and respect for the will of the people. We especially pray for our president, our governor, our legislators, and those who serve in the court system. Amen.” (Minister’s Prayer Book, page 45)

“O Lord, make me the instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O Lord, grant that we seek not to be consoled, but to console; not to be understood, but to understand; not to be loved, but to love. For it is in giving that we receive, in forgetting that we find ourselves, in pardoning that we are pardoned, and in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.” (Minister’s Prayer Book, page 176)

Sermon: The Epiphany of Baptism

             Here we are, in the season after Epiphany, the season of Revelation

—what once was quietly pondered by Mary, is now being unveiled
—broadcast to a wider and wider audience
—Salvation has come to us in Jesus Christ.

            God’s desire discovered today in a series of lessons about Baptism
—the water and word revealing what was previously hidden:
Hidden Righteousness—not Self-righteousness,
a Promise—Hidden inside physical things,
and a hidden Lord—a Judge who is also THE Scapegoat.
In Baptism the hidden is revealed.

Let us pray

 

            “No no Lord, you’re doing it wrong. You need to baptize me.”
We need to do it right.

            This line of logic John is starting down,
tumbles always to a place of self-righteousness OR condemnation.
Absolute correctness, perfection—or perdition,
follow the law exactly, or the law will exact an evil punishment up you.
I did it right, why can’t you?

            And yet, he responds, “Let is be so, it will fulfill all righteousness.”

            Righteousness
—Justice & justification, both common translations.

Biblical Scholar and Bishop, NT Wright, offers “Rightwise” from some form of old English.

Homiletics Professor Richard Jensen offers, “It Works” or “It is Alight”
as in Bob Marley’s “Don’t worry, ‘cause every little thing gonna be alright.”

            “It will make everything alright
—doing it this way’ll work
—it is justified
—the Baptism of Jesus will rightwise things.”

            Matthew’s Gospel loves talking about rightwising
—later Jesus is confronted by some self-righteous folk,
people who think they can make things work on their own
—they say, “Justify yourself, why do you spend time with traitorous tax collectors and sinners of all sorts!”

            To which Jesus responds, “I don’t come for the those for whom everything is working out, but for those who need everything to be alright!”

 

            And so Dearest Jesus is Baptized by John
—it fulfills all righteousness.

            Now—regarding our Baptism,
it must be said that if we regard it as just water, instead of Justifying water
—we go wrong.

-If it is a ritual that we choose,
one that we seek and find,
if it is only a sign of our commitment, our will and work,
screwing up our emotional fervor or biblical knowledge to attain..

-Then, we can just as easily lose it,
think or work our way out of it,
… lose that loving feeling,
it becomes just another self-justifying ritual
—a lying sign of self-justification…

A theology of choice is an awful, fearful thing
—for we are fallible, we will try and fail,
and in failing, forgiveness withers and God becomes an Omnipotent Bully, instead of a Loving Father.
As Luther writes about this theology, it creates “work-Devils” turning faith into the object of faith, “To have faith in faith is to destroy Christianity completely.”

Siblings, it isn’t about us, it’s about God’s grace… first last and always!

 

            God is not a bully
—while we call him Lord and Judge of all
—the one who will bring justice
—look at where he is most clearly revealed—Jesus
—he’s not here to catch you out,
not here to bring down the hammer,
or hurt you!

 

            Yes, the same internal/infernal voice that causes John to shrink back and say, “Let’s make sure we do it right” takes a back seat to the voice of God!
“I am please, you are my son, I love you!”

            What is revealed, is a grand surprise
—As I said, Matthew loves talking about rightwising
—Jesus’ final parable there culminates with folk being invited into the throne room of God and offered good things…
and they are confused and ask why,
and Jesus says, “you fed me and clothed me, you cared for me and visited me.” And they asked, “When did we do that?”
and Our Lord replies, “when you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.”

            Hidden righteousness instead of self-righteousness
—that’s our game,
that’s what Jesus promises to us
—holiness flows from being loved,
not from our will,
but from the Beloved.

 

            The Beloved, who offers us a promise in our baptism…
not water, but water with a promise inside
—not our doing or will, but the clarion call of God to Christ.
God creates through the word!
God makes something out of nothing!
The water! It calls us Children of God,
the wine belts out, “Beloved”
the bread, “I am so very pleased.”
We get to cling to these tactile, experienceable, promises of God
—promises of the sheer and utter love of God
in the face of so much of the opposite.

            “Baptism is neither something that we can destroy once we’re adults, nor a thing chosen by our wills, instead it is God’s promises. Everything depends upon the Word and Commandment of God.”

While human hands and everyday water do the baptism, ultimately, we are baptized by God
—Baptism is an Act of God…
think about that phrase
—insurance companies use it to say, “wild and overwhelming, unavoidable, uncontrollable,”
 that is the unconditional promise of God,
that meets you in your Baptism!

An unconditional promise revealed in the water!

 

A promise by our Lord.
What kind of Lord?
What kind of Judge?
Who brings justice to all the earth!?!

According to Peter in Acts, he is a Lord of Peace;
the one who will judge the living and the dead
is the same one who just sent a bunch of people out
preaching resurrection to the dead
and forgiveness to the living!

According to Isaiah, the one who will make sure
“every little thing gonna be alright,”
God’s chosen one, his son, the one who delights the soul
—the one who embodies the stuff of our Baptism
—he will be gentle and humble,
 he will bring justice without killing or maiming or power plays of any sort.
His is a peaceful Lordship
—his voice a merciful whisper,
his rightwising of the world
will not break even brittle reeds
or put blow out a dying candle
—justice, righteousness, everything working out for the good
—without violence or coercion…
these days that sounds like an impossible dream
—but In Baptism the hidden is revealed.
That’s the baptism we are baptized into!
That’s the God revealed in his Son Jesus Christ.
That is God’s righteous gift to us. Amen.

Just War: Venezuela

              Upon waking up to news about our attack on Venezuela, images played on repeat of massive explosions and burnt out Venezuelan military vehicles, and reports of their president and first lady, the Maduros, capture… with militias gathering up for reprisals and other South American countries activating their militaries, I went back and looked at previous pastoral letters I’ve written, one from when it looked like President Obama was about to invade Syria because they used chemical weapons, and another after the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani in the first Trump Administration.

              I started those letters with words that loom large in my heart today as well. Kyrie Eleison—Lord have mercy.

              Kyrie Eleison… This is how we start our opening prayer to God in worship—the start of the prayer, in which we pray for peace from above and for our salvation—peace for the whole world.

              And I would ask that you take a moment to pray this prayer from our Hymnal:     

“Gracious God, grant peace among nations. Cleanse from our own hearts the seeds of strife: greed and envy, harsh misunderstandings and ill will, fear and desire for revenge. Make us quick to welcome ventures in cooperation among the peoples of the world, so that there may be woven the fabric of a common good too strong to be torn by the evil hands of war. In the time of opportunity, make us be diligent; and in the time of peril, let not our courage fail; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

              Now, our present moment is a little different from the two previous times I responded with pastoral letters, as there is a quasi-policing veneer to last night’s attacks, the situation has been escalating for months, and there is a sense (incorrect I believe) that what happened last night ends things. Our killing of Soleimani didn’t stop attacks on US soldiers in the Middle East or our bombing of Iran a few years later. Likewise, our inaction in Syria festered for a decade until Assad was deposed by his own people. As someone who studied the history of war as an undergraduate, I would point to that truism that every soldier can quote by van Moltke, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Engaging in battle has a force to it, choosing to fight innately radicalizes the goals of those who go to war—if you give a general a cookie, he’ll keep the tanks moving. Additionally, war tends to reshape national identities in unexpected ways.

              And our faith has something to say about such things. For two thousand years we Christians have been struggling with being faithful in the world as it is, in situations of persecution, famine, feast, might, and war. And those struggles have given us a rich tradition of thought and action, something much deeper than the knee-jerk reactions of TV pundits and political intellectuals.

              In the early days of the Church, Christians were known for being pacifists. In fact, the Society of Friends (Quakers) and Mennonites still are pacifists, they see refusing to go to war as a witness to the world that the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, reigns. Other Christians, such as us Lutherans, follow a tradition that includes Just War Theory, “which requires certain conditions to be met before the use of military force is considered morally right. 

These principles are:

1.      A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.

2.      A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.

3.      A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.

4.      A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.

5.      The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.

6.      The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.

7.      The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.”

              Additionally, this Church, the ELCA, in 1995, created a document “For Peace in God’s World” which particularized our understanding of Just War Theory to the challenges of the 20^th and 21^st century. Here are a few stand out statements:

            “Wars, both between and within states, represent a horrendous failure of politics. The evil of war is especially evident in the number of children and other noncombatants who suffer and die.”

            “Helping the neighbor in need may require protecting innocent people from injustice and aggression. While we support the use of nonviolent measures, there may be no other way to offer protection in some circumstances than by restraining forcibly those harming the innocent. We do not, then--for the sake of the neighbor--rule out possible support for the use of military force. We must determine in particular circumstances whether or not military action is the lesser evil.”

            “From the posture of the just/unjust war tradition, the aim of all politics is peace. Any political activity that involves coercion should be held accountable to just/unjust war principles. They are important for evaluating movements, sanctions, embargoes, boycotts, trade policies to reward or punish, and other coercive but nonviolent measures.”

            And finally, and most solemn, "Any decision for war must be a mournful one."

            And so, I conclude this letter as I did the last two, Kyrie Eleison.

Sermon: Ephesians Christmas

 

            “How would things be different, if Jesus had never been born?” he asked us.

            Unfortunately, he asked Dayna, Micah, Billy, and me
—I don’t know if there were 4 kids in all of Wyoming more in their heads than us.
We proceeded to:
-imagine western civilization without a Christian influence,
-sketch out where rocketry and astronomy might have been at, without the Roman Catholic Church’s condemnation of Galileo,
-considered the forces of colonization of the Americas without the religious missionary zeal involved…
…and on and on…
that poor Sunday School Teacher…
he just wanted us to say without Christmas we wouldn’t be saved…

            Here in Ephesians,
in this packed 200-word sentence of Paul’s
(in English we break it down into 6 sentences… but it’s actually one big one)
—Paul gives an equally heady, but decidedly more faithful, sort of witness. He describes what it means to be In Christ.
He explains the why of Jesus Christ
—the Why of Christmas
—he came among us
—as John talks about today,
he was born among us,
that we might be born of God.
He is in us, that we might be found in him.

The why of Christmas,
the reason Jesus being born makes a difference
—is that because of Christmas we are in Christ.

Let us pray

 

            9 times in a single sentence, Paul describes what it is like to be In Christ. But, to get there I think it is worth considering each one’s opposite
—after all if Christmas is about being saved,
we obviously must be saved FROM something,
to be saved FOR something.

 

            When we are outside of Christ, it is like we’re cursed
—imagine that, a world cursed, a world where we don’t want the best for each other,
where even our best efforts, our most holy and righteous acts
—are awful, are failings and condemnation.

            Outside of Christ we are rejected…
like a dog shooed away from a taco truck,
or a fugitive
—chased for the whole of our life,
never able to relax,
always looking over our shoulder.

            Outside of Christ, we are orphaned,
like a character in a Dickens novel,
or the backstory of some superhero or another
—the tragedy that at our most vulnerable, the person who would be expected to care for us, is dead.

            Outside of Christ, we are impoverishment.
A fallen Victorian estate,
a scammer getting hold of the family bank account while away on vacation,
a major medical bill not covered by insurance
—losing everything.

            Outside of Christ, we are kidnapped
—held for ransom…
and the clock runs out,
no one comes for us.
We start to ask the frightening questions like:
“How long will our captors keep feeding us? What’ll they do if no one comes?”

            Outside of Christ is obscurity and ignorance.
We’re thrown into a situation without an explanation,
blindfolded, barefoot, spun around,
and then instead of being pointed toward a piñata or given a tail to pin on the donkey,
told to watch out for the broken glass, it’s everywhere.

            Outside of Christ we’re disinherited
—losing status, told implicitly or explicitly, “you are not my child. You aren’t part of my family.”
            Outside of Christ are broken promises
—being lied to,
buying a ticket for the 8:15am train, and 8:15 has come and gone, and come back round again.

            Outside of Christ it is a Caviat Empor world, buyer beware
—it is all on you,
you’re ripe for the picking,
every deal is a trick,
every sale is final.

Cursed, rejected, orphaned, impoverished, kidnapped, obscured, disinherited, lied to, untrustworthy…
I know—that all sounds a little dire,
especially in the season of Christmas,
but hopefully these long shadows, help us to see what it means to be In Christ,
it helps us to crack open the why of Christmas
—it’s meaning here in Ephesians.

            In Christ we are: blessed, chosen, adopted, gifted, redeemed, informed, entrusted, promised, and sealed.

            In Christ God’s good plan for all the earth is revealed.
God’s plan to right the whole world
—save his beloved Creation
—is most clearly seen in Christian Unity.
We witness to God’s work in the world the best, when we love each other!

            In Christ we find a sibling—a brother,
adopted into God’s family. That’s the baptismal promise after all, right?
—hey you, you’re a Child of God now, welcome to the family!

In Christ we are redeemed
—a relative sees us captured and comes along and frees us,
buying us out of captivity,
out of slavery,
rescued from the bonds that hold us,
by our kin who loves us.

In Christ there is blessing and life.
Kindness, goodness, mercy, is all poured out like an overabundance of oil,
given to us freely, unmerited grace
—we did nothing and receive everything! How can that be? Thanks be to God!

 

“How would things be different if Jesus had never been born?”

We would be outsiders, but we have been made insiders.
Christmas is a revelation.
Christmas is a homecoming.
Christmas is a rescue mission.
Christmas is mercy all the way through!

Amen.