It feels like I can see in color again!

As some of you know I’ve been anxiously awaiting the results of an MRI of my heart.
What you may not know is how anxious I was. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. I too didn’t realize quite how large a burden I was carrying—until I was released from it today.
The way the doctors were acting was the way they acted when I was 18 and ended up having emergency open-heart surgery. I genuinely believed I was going to cracked open within the week.
And with that I figured my internship was done—I would have to leave St. John’s and Baltimore and find somewhere to recuperate and relearn all those basic things that your body kind of forgets when it has had a massive trauma to its core. I figured I would be held back in the call process. I figured, because the seminary insurance has all but dropped me because they’ve seen fit to call my life a “congenital condition” this was in a sense also economic finality for me. I also remembered that open-heart surgery is not without danger, without a chance that I could die.
But I just sort of soldiered on and put it in the back of my mind. I did take time and write about it some. I also did talk to a few close friends about some of my fears. So no problem… or so I thought.
Then today I found out the doctors were acting funny because they were unsure how/why the doctor who did a particular part of my first full correction when I was a three years old.
Since finding out this afternoon I feel like a burden has been lifted. When I drove to a friends this evening for a meal I genuinely thought the sun was brighter and the colors that naturally occur on this beautiful earth were more vivid. The steak my friends and I ate, was, better… then again Ward is a damn good cook… but none the less, I just feel so relieved.
It feels to me now like Easter wasn’t last week, but today.

A Prayer

Because I know You
I bow before Your sacredness
Come to me
Thread Your being throughout my life
Remind me of Your mercy
Infuse my soul with Your spirit
Be with me
All that sustains me is from You
It gives me great joy
I am marred, and You love me
I am mangled, and You keep me
May I too love and keep my siblings
I am thrown into ambiguity—may I trust You are with me
Bring me from the valley to the mountain peeks
Through the cloud to see Your face
Yes!

My bishop's reflection on Holy Saturday

The Vigil of Easter

May the light of Christ, rising in glory, dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.

Joan Chittister writes that everyone who has ever lived, or who will ever live, will someday undergo a Holy Saturday of their own. Someday we will all know the power of overwhelming loss when life as we know it changes, when all hope dies in mid-flight. Then, and only then, she writes, can we begin to understand the purpose of Holy Saturday.

No doubt about it: this is the day of going down into the tomb---our own as well as Jesus'. It is now time for us to die to false hope. It is also time for us to die to faithless despair. Finally our hope is in the mercy of God in Christ, and not in our faithless attempts to construct hope in our own image, for our own ends. Finally, to begin to see the world as God sees the world and trust that God is the light in every darkness, is hope, whether our eyes can see the hand of God, or not.

To be able to come to that point before the beginning of the Easter Vigil, before the cantor sings the Exultet into the darkness, is what Holy Saturday is really about. Then loss is gain, and silence is a very clear message from God.

Adapted from The Liturgical Year, Joan Chittister

prayer

Merciful God, you heal the broken in heart and bind up the wounds of the afflicted. Strengthen us in our weakness, calm our troubled spirits, and dispel our doubts and fears. In Christ's rising from the dead, you conquered death and opened the gates of everlasting life. Renew our trust in you that by the power of your love we shall one day be brought together again with all whom we have loved and lost. Grant this, we pray, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

ELW, page 285


--Bishop Allan Bjornberg

Surveying the wondrous cross

“When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died/ My richest gain I count as loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.”
When I survey the cross, something happens. It changes the way I look at the world, and at myself. When I survey the cross I am struck by the man stuck on that tree. I am struck with fear and trembling that it is in fact God who is on that tree.
God is crucified on a cross, and I am surveying that cross. It forces me to pay attention. It makes me look at the world around me in a new way and with new questions. It forces me to wonder why I’m down here and God is up there. It-throws-me-out-of-myself.
(Turn to your neighbor and repeat after me) When I survey the cross. It throws me out of myself.
When I survey the cross. When I survey the cross.

Lord God, on this, the remembrance of your passion and death, please allow me to speak a word that is true. Please allow me to preach a word to these people about you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations upon all of our hearts be acceptable to you this Good Friday. In the name of your son, Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

When I survey the cross I see a man going up to Jerusalem. This capital city. This center of faith.
And he doesn’t look like much. He’s just another pilgrim from the countryside. He argues and debates with his fellow Rabbis. They argue about the same thing humans are always arguing about: Life, death, and taxes to Caesar.
Then he does some street theater. He rides that donkey that makes all the difference rough shod over Roman warhorses.
He even goes a step too far to bring his message home. He symbolically attacked the Temple. He rearranges the money changers.
But doesn’t he know? Doesn’t he know about revolt and repression?
Doesn’t he know about the slaughter of a few years previous?
Hasn’t he heard that a few years back a Roman soldier made an obscene gesture toward the Temple. Doesn’t he know that caused a riot? Doesn’t he know about Roman “Peace Keeping”? Doesn’t he know of the thousands of bodies that littered the street that year?

Riling up folk on the biggest holiday of the year, that’s a good way to get your fool self killed.

And that’s just what happens. He ends up at that lonely garden praying those fervent, frantic, and faithful prayers. And his friends fall asleep—for they can not stay awake with him even for one hour.
Then there is the betrayal. His friend came with a well-armed crowd and this man was caught by a disciple’s kiss.
When I survey the cross I see a troubling trial. I see a man beaten, lashed with Roman whip.
He is paraded around, he is mocked. Thorns are threaded together into a crown. They are placed upon his brow in a kingly coronation of pain.
But that isn’t enough. When I survey the cross I see a man who has to be dealt with. It is said he is a king. It is said he refused to pay taxes to Caesar. It is said he would destroy the temple.
It was this first charge, his claim of kingship, I believe, that got him killed.
When I survey the cross I see a man being executed for expediency. A man with big dreams and expansive ideas being killed because he talked about “The Kingdom of God.” Killed because kings don’t like their kingship questions and threatened.
So they execute him on a cross. They kill him along with thieves and criminals.



When I survey the cross I see a massive tragedy perpetrated by a mad system, scared people, and this man Jesus simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. In a sense, when I survey the cross, I simply see foolishness.

Yet. What a shift, if on that cross hangs God.
If the Creator of all that is, hangs upon a two by four and breaths one last breath. If the one who can say, “I am,” and end that statement with a period has become flesh. Become flesh to the point of crying out to God in anguish, God screaming out in God-forsaken-ness!
Then, then, we are knocked flat when we survey the cross. We are thrown out of ourselves, when we survey the cross. Any belly button gazing, any righteousness we believe we have collected is found to be folly. Any wisdom is foolishness and any strength weakness, when we survey the cross.
Oh yes, when we see the curse of the tree and the life of the Messiah meshed and mashed together we see the paradox of power and weakness, wisdom and foolishness. Because we’ve been thrown out of ourselves.
All the systems that we have set up to cope with the world as it is are judged in light of killing God. Every piece of reality and every piece of ourselves is confronted by the cross.
All that brought God to the cross, all that nailed Jesus to the tree, all that crucified God, is unmasked as an idol.
When we survey the cross we are thrown out of ourselves and realize our religious assumptions killed the Messiah, our power to mete out punishment lead to the Passion of God!

And I wish more people could be thrown out of themselves when surveying the cross.
I wish that religiosity was not a way to mangle lives and torture God.
I wish that brute force and violence was seen as an enemy of God. Our purity and our power are idols that we will sacrifice God for.
Look at the headlines. Catholic Bishops hiding sexual abuse, hiding rape! They did this to make sure hierarchy and structure appeared holy—so that religious authority would not be questioned. So that purity remained.
And, I don’t want to single out our Catholic sisters and brothers. After all we can admit hard truths at the cross. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was one of the first churches to settle a sexual abuse case.
Look at the headlines. A so-called “Christian” militia was recently arrested by the federal government. They were preparing to confront and kill a cop and then increase the carnage by exploding a dirty bomb at the funeral. Fanatical fantasies of power and violence replaced faith.

But it is not enough to point to the idols manufactured by those who protect pedophile priests. It is not enough to point out the idolatrous sliver in the eye of right wing militants.
What of ourselves? What about you? What about me? After all we are thrown from ourselves—I from myself and you from yourself.
What idols are reveled by the tree on which our God rests?

Do I need alcohol? Do I need drugs? Do I need romantic relationships? Do I need sex? Have they became as indispensable to me as breathing?
Has appearance become my idol? Does my appearance dictate who I am? Do other people’s appearances dictate how I treat them?
Am I needy without meeting the needs of others?
Have I fedishized my title, my calling, my degree, my uniform, my religious garb, my future plans?
Do I refuse to let go of the past even as it crucifies me?
Does violence satisfy some secret, or not so secret, longing of my heart?
Has my faith become a church thing, instead of a God thing?
What golden calf is revealed by the 3 hours of darkness when they crucified our Lord? What do I fear more than I fear God? What do I love more than I love God?
Surveying the cross shakes our assumptions about religious wisdom and strength. It causes us to see our own guilt and culpability in the crucifixion of the Christ. It reveals idols. If God is brought low by wisdom and strength, what does that say about wisdom and strength?

But what of those who come to the cross, not in pious wisdom or strength? What of those who do not view the cross from a place of disinterest, nor do they see the man on the cross as a threat to their idols? What of those who come to the cross because find themselves there too.
They too are thrown out of themselves. Out of their situation. Out of their sin. Out of their painful places and difficult decisions.
When I survey the cross I am thrown out of myself and thrown into God! Into the open arms of Jesus on the cross.

There was once a Jewish boy named Elie (LE) Weisel. He survived the hell of the holocaust. Later he would come to write about his experiences. At this point he has written 54 books and has even won a Nobel Prize in literature.
In his most famous book, Night, he describes a very horrible time amongst the dreadful canvas of horrible times. At one point people were being hung. As the bodies piled up at the foot of the scaffold and the situation became more dire, a young boy was hung, and because he was so malnourished was strangled by the rope instead of having his neck broken by it.
And a man asked, “Where is God now?” And the author “heard a voice within” himself answer, “Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows.”
Yes, this is a word of despair—of tragedy. But it is also the truth we affirm on Good Friday. God hangs from the gallows with us and for us. Foolishness and a stumbling block, yes, but there God is! We are thrown into God.

When I survey the cross I hear God—emptied of all power and might for our sake—intercede for his captors saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” I don’t know if there are any sinners in this church other than the one in the pulpit—but I want you to know tonight that God forgives you!
When I survey the cross I see God, even at the hour of His death, looking to a criminal in need of consolation and saying, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” To those caught up in things, who feel you have no chance, know that in Jesus there is always a second chance. Ours is a God of second chances.
When I survey the cross I see God providing His bereaved mother companionship, a son. Those that are lonely can look to your right and to your left, in front of you and behind you, there are brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters.
When I survey the cross I hear God crying out as we all do in our moments of despair, “Why have you forsaken me.” You who are forsaken struggling through the Dark Night of the Soul Jesus wants you to know that Psalm 22 doesn’t end with the word “forsaken!”
When I survey the cross I see parched lips and hear a crackling voice—God crying out in thirst—just as millions of God’s children cry out for clean and dependable sources of water.
When I survey the cross I see God with us to the end. Abandoned? No, never alone, never alone!
When I survey the cross I hear God sending His Spirit on, trusting, always trusting, that God is a merciful Father. Fear God? Fear not!

Not only that! When I survey the cross I hear God saying to the abused “that’s not purity, that’s foolishness.”
When I survey the cross I hear God saying to the victims of violence, “that’s not power, that’s weakness.”
When I survey the cross I am thrown out of myself. When I survey the cross I am thrown into God!
“When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died/ My richest gain I count as loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.”

The authority is gone!

This morning, before listening to MLK’s speech on my I-pod, I was woken to further news about the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. There is a chance it goes all the way up to the top, to the “Vicar of Christ.”
Well, this “Vicar of St. John’s” was none too impressed by the Pope’s response. Essentially, “aren’t those Bishops of mine naughty”… and, “man, there are a lot of rumors out there.”
I mean we’re talking about rape, rape of children!
It feels like people in authority just don’t care. It’s like this “too big to fail” mentality has been taken up by people we genuinely trust. It’s like authority means never having to say you’re sorry. I mean I don’t like “the Pope’s bulldog” turned Pope, but I figure if you’ve got a bulldog the least you can do with it is use it to protect children!
I know half a generation turned counter-culture after Nixon’s breach of trust was revealed, and the war in Vietnam was called into question. I wonder if we’re at another such moment.
My generation has seen some pretty big shifts in the world, and they definitely don’t make those in charge, or those institutions that put them there, look very good.
There was the dot-com bust and the impeachment of President Clinton. Then we had democracy called into question with a close election in 2000 that some claimed was rigged. Then the myth of America being a safe place was stripped from us on 9/11. Then there was the half-truths that got us into Iraq. Then there was the abuses of Abu Ghraib. Then there was a more popularized understanding of how our actions affect the environment. Then there was the giant economic downturn. Then there has been the response to the 2008 election of America’s first African American president—people have been throwing more and more partisan, and sometimes racist, vitriol out there and people are actually turning violent!
And now the most recognized figure of global Christianity may be directly involved in a cover up of child rape in his home country and indirectly involved in such actions throughout Europe, and perhaps the world.
I mean… I mean… I mean, I was raised by fairly non-conformist parents—I affectionately refer to them as a biker and a hippie—I listen to Alice’s Restaurant every Thanksgiving—because I wanted to end the war and stuff… but you know!
You know! I kinda held out hope that those people and systems that had been given authority would at least use them wisely. In fact, I would go so far as to say I had some affection for authority figures—my way of rebelling against the morals and norms of my parents I suppose—but I think its getting pretty hard to do…
…You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Excepting Alice
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

Da da da da da da da dum
At Alice's Restaurant

The Meta-narrative is broken?

This morning, as I exercised, I listened to Martin Luther King’s sermon “Paul's Letter to American Christians.” In it he goes off on the following trope:
“For many years I have longed to be able to come to see you. I have heard so much of you and of what you are doing. I have heard of the fascinating and astounding advances that you have made in the scientific realm. I have heard of your dashing subways and flashing airplanes. Through your scientific genius you have been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. You have been able to carve highways through the stratosphere. So in your world you have made it possible to eat breakfast in New York City and dinner in Paris, France. I have also heard of your skyscraping buildings with their prodigious towers steeping heavenward. I have heard of your great medical advances, which have resulted in the curing of many dread plagues and diseases, and thereby prolonged your lives and made for greater security and physical well-being. All of that is marvelous. You can do so many things in your day that I could not do in the Greco-Roman world of my day. In your age you can travel distances in one day that took me three months to travel. That is wonderful. You have made tremendous strides in the area of scientific and technological development.
But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about "improved means to an unimproved end." How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.”-- http://www.mlkonline.net/christians.html
Now, this isn’t the only sermon in which he wonders at the scientific advances of his age (and how much more our own?). He is consistently impressed by skyscraping buildings.
As a caveat he calls on his listeners to move forward in thinking, in morality, in matters of the heart, to a point at which we truly match our physical sciences with the science of the spirit.
But, being influenced in my thinking by Paul, Augustine, and Luther I know humans are both dust and spirit. Even at the heights of our powers and even our morality there is a propensity to do evil.
And then I remember my own vision for the world. The closest thing I’ve ever written to a dream for the time I reside in. I re-write Genesis chapter 22 to speak to a time in which religion and violence have become, for some, synonyms:

“And Abraham weeps, and puts down his knife, and comes to his children and hugs them tightly. And he suggests that they bind themselves to an oath, saying, “Yours is a generation unlike mine. In my day only God could knock down the tower of Babel,” and he picks up the sacrificial knife off the ground, “now 19 men armed only with these can do similar. Sectarians have been unbound throughout Babylon, and it is in flames. Man’s consumption can cause a new flood and his bombs can bring Armageddon. Cuneiform tablets and riders on horses have been replaced with the keyboard and instant communication and so being respectful to one’s neighbor is now a global affair.” With that he throws the knife onto the altar, “Yours is a generation where individuals can impact the whole world as never before. You carry a responsibility that previously was the burden and pleasure of only the elites and the statesmen of the world. We have become god-like and never even noticed. The myth of redemptive violence, a myth I unwittingly have given to each of you, must be extinguished. So bind upon your hearts a promise to shake off the nihilism of violence.”—“Religiously Motivated Violence and the Akedah,” in An Uncomfortable Bit of Rope” page 92.
And I wonder if I am simply diagnosing, in more mythical terms, the same malaises of our age—simply pointing to the shadowy cloud that billowed from those sky-scrapping buildings instead of the fact that they scrape the sky. King, in the 50’s looked at technology with wonder and hoped for a morality to match. We, in this millennium, look with horror at our morality and don’t even realize “we have become god-like.”
The world King read he read in a prophetic way—projecting forward that which was to come, a mix of hope for what is and anguish for what will be. We, on the other hand, are living amongst the rubble and in the midst of the anguish, with only a peep of hope, like that faint feather resting in Pandora’s box.
So, the questions are: Is this continuity or discontinuity? Is the myth of progress, either moral or material, still something that is worth talking about? Or have we reached an age at which we may no longer reach for the heights of beauty, truth, honor, pity and compassion? Is the only question remaining the very question William Faulkner spoke against in his Nobel prize speech, “When am I going to be blown up?”

Dinner with Grandma--a Children's sermon Mad Libs

Names: 1 and 12
Animals: 2, 7, 8,9, 11, 14, and 18. Number 11 has to be an animal 1 would be afraid of
Food: 3
Sound: 4
Baltimore sports team: 5
Elementary school: 6
Street name: 10
Color: 13, 17
A subject in school you didn’t really like: 15, 16
A song: 19

Dinner with Grandma

( _____1______ ) was a (__2___). He had just moved to Baltimore with his mother (_____).
They’d packed and packed and packed.
Then they drove and drove. And finally they made it to Baltimore.
“Mom, I’m tired,” said (__1___) as he put down the last box in his room, “and I miss my friends.”
“I know dear, change can be hard, but we’ll make it through. And tomorrow night we’ll have dinner with Grandma. And she’ll prepare your favorite food (__3___).”
And that night (_1____) cried himself to sleep. The new apartment was strange and scary. Outside there were loud (__4___) sounds and he could hear his new neighbors talking about the Baltimore (__5___).
“This is scary, but I’ll see Grandma tomorrow and that will be good,” he said to himself and fell asleep.
And the next morning was (__1___)’s first day of school. The bus droe him to (__6___) Elementary School. (___7__),(___8__) and (__9___) all sat on the bus with him, but he didn’t know any of them. So he sat alone.
“I’m lonely, but I’ll see Grandma tonight and I know Grandma loves me,” he said to himself as the bus bounced along (__10___).
And then he got to class. He sat in the back of the room behind a (__11___) who looked mean and intimidating.
“I’m intimidated by this (__11___) in front of me, but I’ll see Grandma tonight and I know Grandma loves me,” he said.
Then Mr. (__12___), a giant (___13__)(___14__) came into the room.
Mr. (__12___) said, “Good morning class. Is everyone ready for their MSA?”
(__1___) had never even heard of an MSA. But before he had a chance to raise his hand and figure out what was going on Mr. (_12____) was passing out bubble sheets and pencils.
“Paragraph 2 of this section is mainly about blank…” “Look at the expression below 12+4x(12-9). What is the value of the expression?”
“how should I know?” he thought.
“I am so confused, but I’ll see Grandma tonight and I know Grandma loves me,” he told himself.
And, remembering that his Grandmother loved him, (__1___) was able to make it through the day. He made it through (___15__) and (__16___), he even talked to a (__17___)(__18___) on the bus ride home.
And when he entered the apartment building he could hear his Grandma singing (__19___). And when he opened the apartment door he could smell (__3___) in the air. And then there she was! Grandma! She smiled, looked down at him, and said, “(__1___), I love you!”

Churches on the Weekday

So, today I went to Liberty Heights to get my oil changed. I forgot to bring a book with me and I didn’t really feel like sitting around watching bad local TV for an hour and a half. So instead I stepped out into the rain in my stylish black trench coat and fedora and took a wander around that neighborhood. Interestingly enough the mechanic I went to is in between two Lutheran churches, St. Paul and St. James…
Ironic I know—James the Brother of Jesus who Martin Luther accused of writing “a letter of straw” and the Apostle Paul who never knew Jesus before his experience of him post-resurrection when Jesus knocked him off his ass outside of Damascus.
So, I strut down to St. James. Water is billowing off the brim of my fedora. There are a few cars in the parking lot. I ring the bell, figuring I’d see what kind of hospitality the church has to offer. The secretary looks down the hall, through the glass and at me. I waved in my gentle smiley way. She shook her head and looked away.
Strike one for the Epistle of Straw. I wander around the building a little. There appears to be an outreach center of some sort. The building was in use, they just weren’t friendly to soaked strangers.
So I head back toward the city, pass the garage, and find my way to St. Paul’s. There were no cars in the parking lot… oh, and this parking lot, its to die for! Seriously! 100’s of spaces! And if you maxed out I’m sure you could sneak a few folk into the parking spaces of the apartment complex… and you know maybe some people could… I don’t know… walk to church.
So I ring the bell. No answer. I peek around a bit and see that another church uses their building too, and they at least have one AA group.
But seriously, the beautiful parking lot that could usher in hundreds of people seeking God’s word and love, redemption and recovery, and its empty!
All of this to reflect upon Church. There is that tired cliché “Church isn’t the building it’s the people.” Damn skippy! But still, in many cases we have a building!
I would maintain that yes, Church isn’t the building, it’s the people. But I would also say “What church people do with the building is the church.” How we are stewards to this building that is often used for formal worship only two, maybe three, days a week speaks volumes to our commitment to our community and how we model stewardship of those things that we have.
Maybe I've just been spoiled by the excess of activity at St. John's. We have a steady stream of 12 NA groups a week. Literally between 500-1000 people use our building as a safe space for those in recovery to gather. I hope that if I ever lead a community that has a building I'll do what I can to keep it buzzing.
Just a thought from a wet man with a newly oiled up car... and they topped up my windshield wiper fluid as well!

Health Care

2 Kings 17:24-28 Lions, Samaritans, and Fear! Oh My!

Well, I preached at the Wednesday Evening joint service "Wade in the Water," at All Saints.
What you see here is the sermon as written, not exactly as preached, because you know, you double space these things to leave room for the Holy Spirit.
One of the best part of the nights was when I had people amening right and left--then I got to the line, "I believe this so strongly that at one point it almost made me leave Christianity!" Utter silence... so I asked, "am I not getting an Amen for that?"

Having grown up in Wyoming, it feels funny when people on the East Coast talk about nature.
Frankly, I don’t believe they’ve ever been in it. Their descriptions feel so bloodless, so sapped of power, and I would go so far as to say sapped of meaning, that I don’t believe they’ve ever seen the wild.
It is like they had only seen nature through the eyes of Walt Disney. It is like Bambi and Thumper are their only experience of the wild. It is like they really believed that birds would fetch Snow White’s slippers.
And it has taken me a while to realize why. It is because they’ve never been in the wild. No. Druid Hill Park, or Patterson Park or Park Heights, don’t count as the wild.
Friends, I want you to know that I’ve seen nature. I’ve been in the wild. And the wild can kill you!
I’ve looked into the golden eyes of a mountain lion lounging on a rock. I’ve seen a baby bear and smelled the rot and decay of a momma bear coming up to defend her child.
And I can assure you that being between a mother bear and her cub is not where you want to be!

And you know, while bears are dangerous, there are some precautions you can take to be safer.
For example, it is important to wear bear bells so they can hear you coming. That way you won’t startle them. Because you really don’t want to startle a bear!
And it’s also important to have Bear Mace with you, because Bear Mace it is one of the few things that might stop a bear if it charges you.
Of course, these precautions are only precautions—they don’t necessarily work in every situation.
You see, they say you can tell the difference between a brown bear and grizzly bears by looking at their scat. (explain scat? A predator’s poop)
Brown bear scat is filled with berrys, nuts, and small rodents.
Grizzly Bear scat is filed with bear bells and bear mace!

I say all of this because I must admit when it comes to Lions I could just as well be an East Coaster. I don’t know much about wild lions. I don’t know what it was like for the first generation of Samaritans that we read about in today’s lesson. I don’t know what being terrorized by lions is like.

But I want to make sure we don’t Disney-fy today’s lesson—this isn’t the Lion King.
There will be no: “Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our Kingdom.” There will be no: “Hakuna Matat.”
Because tonight I want to talk about how our Baptismal vocation is, “to serve all people following the example of Jesus Christ.”
I want to talk about what this vow means for the Samaritans and for all those who fear lions.
What this vow means for the Samaritans and for all those who fear lions.

Let us pray:
Lord God. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. May they remind us of your gracious gift to us in Baptism and its fruits of service and comfort for all people. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Imagine all of these Easterners—Babylonians, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim. They’ve been kidnapped by the Assyrians and transported far from their native land, dropped off, and made to colonize Samaria.
Its sort of like what the British did with their prisoners in the late 18th and early 19th century—they dropped their criminals off in Australia.
The difference of course being that the Assyrians dropped off their Prisoners of War—not their criminals—in parts of the world that they occupied.
I’d imaging things started off fine for these Easterners. They occupy the houses of the original inhabitants—the Israelites—who had themselves been kidnapped and moved elsewhere by the Assyrians.
These Easterners likely start to farm, and re-establish trading routes, and generally get the things done that need to be done for ghost towns to be enlivened again.
But after a time—once a rhythm gets established. Once the unknown becomes known—they get bored. They begin to wander farther afield. They begin to check out the back woods of Samaria.
And maybe that is kind of fun at the start. They feel like genuine woodmen—like Johnny Appleseed before Johnny Appleseed existed.

But then, like some horror film—this new adventure goes sour. People start disappearing.
Perhaps the Assyrian officials begin by trying to cover things up—I mean what’s one more or one less Avva to an Assyrian? But then, I imagine, after a while, there are survivors who tell their story.
They tell of giant golden cats stalking them—playing with men the way house cats place with mice.
So the authorities get wise. They start sending people out wearing Lion Bells and packing Lion Mace.
Imagine it—these folk wandering through the valley of Jezzrel—the jangling of their Lion Bells echoing through the valley as they went. These folk clutching their Lion Mace until they get within the city limits of Meggedo.
But all this does, in the end, is change the content of Lion scat. It begins to contain mace, bells, and bits of Babylonians.
So, in desperation, as a last resort, they find an Israelite priest and bring him back to Samaria. These Easterners convert to some form of what will eventually be called Judaism, in order to protect themselves from lions. They convert because they are afraid of lions.

And you all are looking up at me, and down at your bulletins, and back up at me and wondering, “Isn’t this called “Wade in the Water?”
“What the heck does this have to do with our baptismal calling “to serve all people following the example of Jesus Christ.”?”
You think to yourself, usually—at these things—the preacher at least took the time to find a Biblical passage that involves water!

Well, I’ll tell you what this has to do with our covenant calling found in Baptism! These Babylonians, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim stay in Samaria. They become Samaritans.
And that doesn’t sit will with the rest of the people in the land. The rest of Judaism resent them.
They call them “Lion Jews”—that is L-I-O-N, not L-Y-I-N-apostrophe.

They resent these late comers—these people who are faithful only out of fear.
I would go so far as to say that Samaritans became, for their neighbors, the Eternal Other. They become the Eternal Other—the person you define as not you.
You know, “I may have a drinking problem… but at least I’m not a Samaritan.” “I may be out of a job, but at least I’m not a Samaritan.” “I may be a sinner, but at least I’m not a Samaritan.”
The Samaritans were a continued thorn in the side of Jerusalem—an unnatural addition to the family. The in-law that you really can’t stand—the houseguest that just doesn’t go away.
The person who has slept on your couch for so long there is a sweat stained imprint of them embedded into the upholstery.

Do you remember the most insulting thing ever said to Jesus? “You are possessed.” At least that’s the part we remember—because we read that as blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
But the full quote, found in John 8:48, is, “Aren’t we correct in saying that you are a Samaritan, and are possessed by a demon?”
Oh, yes, these Lion Jews were bad news, they weren’t the kind of people you want to associate with, talk with, or break bread with.
But Jesus has a different spin on these Lion Jews, these descendants of those Easterners who wandered around with Lion bells and Lion mace.
Jesus tells a story—a very famous story—in response to the question, “Who is my neighbor.”
Jesus tells a story about a man in distress—robbed and alone, bypassed by his own people—helped only by a stranger, by a Samaritan. Jesus is saying in no uncertain terms, “The Samaritan, the Lion Jew, is your neighbor.”
When Jesus heals and cleanses ten lepers the only one who thanks him, is the descendants of these Assyrian Prisoners, a Samaritan.
When Jesus stops at a well to drink he gets into an extended conversation—with a woman—scandalous enough—I know—but not with just any woman, with a Samaritan woman!
Not only that! This woman goes to all her Samaritan friends and tells them that the Messiah showed up, and they come and see.
Lets compare that to what happens when the Apostle Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. He then spends the rest of the gospel backtracking from that statement until the cockcrows and the Christ is Crucified—but this Samaritan woman—this Lion Jew!—oh, she goes out right away and tells everyone about her conversation with Jesus!

We are to serve ALL people following the example of Jesus Christ. All people—our neighbors—not just the Priest and the Levite—but also the Samaritan—not just the elderly church lady in the in apartment next to you, or the nice Pentecostal on the 3rd floor, but the young men who get drunk and pump up the bass and play Nas and Street Sweeper Social Club until 3am every Saturday night. Because they’re my neighbors too.
We are to serve ALL people following the example of Jesus Christ. All people—because it is those who we treat as farthest from the gospel that see it most clearly. It is those who don’t expect their leprosy to be cleaned that will rejoice when it happens.
We are to serve ALL people following the example of Jesus Christ. All people—because conversations with Samaritan women keep us honest—sometimes more honest than we can be with our own flesh and blood. And that refreshing honesty is infectious!

You see I believe in my heart of hearts that serving all people is central to Christ’s message and to the very meaning of his existence. I believe that expanding the borders of the kingdom of God. Recognizing the full citizenship of Samaritans—is the gospel of Jesus Christ!
I believe this so strongly that at one point it almost made me leave Christianity! For you see, I was on board with Jesus’ kingdom plan—with trudging through Galilee on the way to Golgotha picking up the neer-do-wells, losers, outcasts, sinners, and Samaritans for the journey.
But, when I looked out at the church I didn’t see any of that. I didn’t feel any Galilean wind rippling the calm tides of our baptismal pools. I felt that Christ had called for the Kingdom of God and the Church showed up.
And you know who I blamed? The Apostle Paul! I did not believe his testimony that Jesus Christ had came to him after the resurrection. I knew Jesus and I knew he didn’t want women to be silent in the church. He didn’t want to strengthen Roman family structures. He didn’t want formalize structures of authority.
But, the more I beat my head against Paul and spilled my heart out to Jesus I realized something. All those things we accuse Paul of—sexual repression, patriarchy, and all sorts of malarkey—were secondary to Christ’s calling on his life.

His calling was to bring Gentiles into the kingdom—to bring us on the journey. Us Lion Jews, holding tight to our Lion Bells and clutching our Lion Mace for all its worth. Us Samaritans stuck in a strange land fearful of lions.
It was finally Paul’s magnificent words, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus,” that shown through as a light in my dark night of the soul.
I finally realized if it is true that this Radical Rabbi from Galilee who supped with sinners and Samaritans was raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God.
If the cross of Christ filled the whole cosmos and the resurrection revealed God’s risky yes to all people—then Paul’s messy and dangerous ministry to gentiles—his improvisational-free-style form of, “serving all people following the example of Jesus Christ”—while flawed, was still faithful!
We’re all here—all of us who are non-Jews—because Paul served all people following the example of Jesus Christ.

Now I know that “the mind can only comprehend what the seat can endure,” but please come with me a little farther.

If we are to serve all people following the example of Jesus Christ we really need to serve ALL people. Samaritans, as well as all those who clutch Lion Bells and Lion Mace so tight their knuckles crack.
We need to remind them that they don’t need to fear Lions, because we serve the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
But, more than that, we need to remind them
—and remind ourselves… because I’ll admit it, I sometimes fear lions more than God and want God to be my Lion Bell and Lion Mace—
we need to remind all the world of what John the Revelator found out about the Lion of God as he wrote the book of Revelation on the Island of Patmos.
Do you remember?
Do you remember John’s powerful vision?
John stands with an angel, fearing that the full revelation of God will not happen because there is no one powerful enough to open up the scroll. This so distresses John that he weeps.
But then it is powerfully sung to him, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
And he turns to see this Lion. This powerful character—this king of the beasts—this Lion Bell and Lion Mace guaranteed to succeed against all animals in heaven and on earth.
And John turns!
--And behold, “a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered.”--
Conquest, powerful revelation, salvation itself, is effected by a slain lamb that has rose again.
Oh yes, sometimes we spend so much time worrying about lions.
And we spend so much time worrying about who is in and who is out—that we forget that God is not a carnivore! God is not a carnivore!
Our baptism is death with Jesus and resurrection with Jesus. It is an unconditional yes from Jesus. It is the grace of Jesus.
Our Baptism is entering into the messiness of life with Jesus. Serving Samaritans with Jesus. Comforting those who come to God out of fear with Jesus.
Our baptism is stepping out into the wild world—not into Disney world, but into the wild world—with Jesus.
Our baptism is stepping out into the wild world with Jesus amongst lions. Our baptism is stepping out into the wild world with Jesus amongst Samaritans. Our baptism is stepping out into the wild world with Jesus amongst fear!
Lions, Samaritans, and Fear. Oh my! And Amen.

How and Who

How and Who
I have to admit that I’ve dreaded preaching this sermon for about a month now. I have dreaded it ever since I was told by pastor Gregg that I would be preaching on the subject, “Blessed are those who weep.”
At first I was just uncomfortable confronting suffering, loss, weeping, mourning, and tears.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say about these things. I’ve suffered through 4 open-heart surgeries, I’ve felt the loss of leaving loved ones scattered all across the country and the globe as I’ve moved from place to place. I’ve mourned the death of family. I’ve shed my share of tears.
But, I ask, “what can I say from this pulpit that your own tears have not told you?” “What effect can my words have upon your soul that your soul has not already effected in you?”
But that’s not even the whole of it. As Lent came these questions became even more serious.
You see this Lenten season—this season in the church year in which we remember our mortality and our sinfulness, this season in which we talk about being “in the wilderness for 40 days,” has seemed to be just that—a wilderness experience. It seems like everyone I know is “going through some things.” And I had to ask myself, “Can I really say something from this pulpit that is meaningful for people as they weep?”

Still weighed down by these questions I drove back to Philadelphia on Tuesday in order to attend “Preaching with Power.” This is a weeklong event held by my seminary that brings some of the best Black preachers from across the country together to preach.
Dr. Cleophus LaRue—Princeton Theological Seminary’s Professor of Homiletics—that’s the art of preaching—gave a lecture entitled, “Why black preachers still love artful language.”
Being the studious guy that I am I took extensive notes. But there were two things Dr. LaRue said that struck me hard enough that I didn’t need to write them down. These two things seemed important to my struggle to preach on the subject, “Blessed are those who weep.”
The first thing he said that struck me was that “Sermons must take the assembly”—that’s all of you—“more seriously than they take themselves.” “Sermons must take the assembly more seriously than they take themselves.”
The second thing Dr. LaRue said that I found important was, “Preachers call forth a world that doesn’t exist…at least not yet.” “Preachers call forth a world that doesn’t exist…at least not yet.”

And it was because of these two comments on the art of preaching that I chose our lessons from the book of Lamentations and from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Lamentations takes the assembly seriously and Romans calls forth a world that doesn’t exist… at least not yet.

And so let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts are acceptable in your sight Lord God that they might take seriously these present sufferings and weeping. So too LORD may they point us beyond tears, to joy. In the precious name of Jesus. Amen

The book of Lamentations was written as the first response to devastation. Lamentations was written in response to Babylonians destroying the Holy City of Jerusalem. In response to Babylonians knocking down walls, burning the Temple, and destroying houses. In response to the purposeful depopulation of the city through the means of killing the poor and kidnapping the rich.
It was, in a sense, a man made disaster.
We’ve seen the images from Haiti and Chile. Those were natural disasters…devastation by means of earthquake. What the Babylonians had brought to the city of Jerusalem was the equivalent of a human caused earthquake.

And imagine the author. Tradition says he composed the book in the midst of the ashes, and the rubble, and the grief, and the misery of his city ground to bits. Tradition also has it that he wept while writing and the ink ran wet with his tears even as he wrote.
Think of it. He survived the devastation, he wasn’t rich enough to be kidnapped, but wasn’t poor enough to be slaughtered.
Perhaps he was shaken with survivor’s guilt? Perhaps he was rocked by Post-traumatic stress disorder?
And brothers and sisters—there is one more layer of tragedy embedded in this book. This layer of tragedy has been covered up by time and bad translation.
You see the title “Lamentations” is not the title of this book. Or at least it wasn’t the title given to it by the earliest of scribes, neither, I would claim, was it the title given to it by its original author as he wept in the ruins of his wrecked city.
You see the original title of Lamentations was Akah. Now when the Bible was being translated into the Greek they didn’t know how to convey “Akah,” so they translated it as Lamentations. But that’s not what Akah means! (Ask Matt to translate…how)
You see the horror the author is experiencing is so fresh—so present—so real to him that all he can say his Akah! How!
Note that this isn’t a question. It is a sort of verbal punctuation, a spoken exclamation point!
How! How! How!
This word How! Punctuates our tears just as this book HOW! describes the content of our tears.

How! Our tears are loneliness!
How! Our tears are being downtrodden!
How! Our tears are mockery!
How! Our tears are loss!
How! Our tears are being stripped naked.
How! Our tears are worthlessness.
How! Our tears are physical aching! Fire in our bones, a wrung out heart, a churning stomach!
How! Our tears are deception by a lover, abandonment by the faithful, and even by God!
I’m not being melodramatic here! In the moment of crying it is real! How! is what it feels like when we cry. Our tears are real. They’re serious, they express the trouble we’ve seen. They are an admission that sometimes we don’t even have it in us to say, “God is good, all the time.”
How!

Tears are serious. Tears are also universal.
What do I mean by that? Let me tell you a story:
There was once a woman whose son had died. She mourned him deeply. She wailed and wept, she threw herself onto his grave. She became obsessed with her dearly departed son. She stopped eating and couldn’t get out of bed.


So one day her neighbors came to her and told her of a wise man who lived one town over. “Maybe he can make things better,” they said.
And so the woman caught the next Greyhound bus and went to the next town over and she found the wise man.
“What can I do to bring back my son? What can I do to get over his death?” she asked.
“Here,” he said, handing her a cup, “fill this with wine from a household where no one has cried in sorrow.”
And so she started out right away, going from house to house, asking if they had experienced sorrow.
“We are still mourning our Father,” one said.
“I was left at the altar and live alone,” said another.
“I’ve committed terrible sins,” said still another.
And after she’d went from house to house, town to town, city to city, she finally saw that there is no household empty of tears—no person without pain.

But I would take this story a little farther. Well, actually Paul takes this story a little farther.
In today’s reading from Romans the Apostle Paul describes creation herself groaning-weeping-crying. Creation cries because it knows the way things are supposed to be, and yet they aren’t that way. Creation knows death and war, sin and separation—all the ills of the world—are unnatural and so she weeps. Creation herself exclaims “How!”

Tears are no laughing matter. Nothing to sneeze at. Nothing to just (sign) brush off. Our tears are not ours alone, for all cry with the same passion and pain. For that matter the world itself weeps.
Yet today Jesus says, “Blessed are those who weep now, for you will laugh.”
Creation is crying, humanity is wailing, I am mourning—yet Christ calls this blessed!
How! How?
When we look around at what else Jesus says we can see that, “Blessed are those who weep now, for you will laugh and woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep,” is part of a larger program of Jesus. The Kingdom of God program. The firsting the last and lasting the first program.
Yes, this is what we call theology of the cross. This is finding God in the last place you would look. This is a solid statement that God is with the poor, the hungry, the persecuted, and yes the weeping.
But like the author of the book formerly known as Lamentations—the book of How—I ask How! how! How?
How are those who weep now blessed?

It could be that you need the bad to appreciate the good. You can only see the stars at night, you can only read the letters on a page if there are blank spaces around it.


It could be as simple as “there is a time for weeping and a time for laughing.” Our emotions and our life situations are transient and temporary. If things are going poorly, blessed are you because they will get better. If things are going well, woe to you because the other foot is about to drop.
It could be that the seeds of despair grow into the heights of beauty and greatness. That pressure produces pearls. There are after all plenty of examples of this. Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while mourning the death of his son Willie and Beethoven wrote some of his best music while deaf.

And all of these are blessing to those who weep. But to my ear none of them transform the moment—none of them “call forth a world that does not exist…at least not yet.” None of them transform How!
And that’s why I turn to Romans. It tells us things too deep for us to perceive and too high for us to hear. Paul writes of the inner workings and logic of the universe itself! Paul “calls forth a world that does not exist…at least not yet.”
Paul tells us that we all jointly suffer—that none can see the sensibility of our suffering and so we step out on hope—we look beyond ourselves and what is. We peer forward into the future and into the invisible face of God.
You see Paul shifts the focus of our suffering from how! to who! From how to who!
How is suffering, but the who is God! The who is God!
We are blessed in our weeping because we are grounded in hope that God is for us.
Hope that despite suffering God groans through the Spirit and is birthing out of this messy life a wide and deep family.
And hope in the unseen workings of God gives us joy.
Now Joy is not happiness. It is not a sloppy emotion. Joy is an inner-equilibrium. A sold stone on sinking sand, good suspension system on a slippery road.
You can have joy while weeping and have joy while laughing. You can have joy in the ashes of Jerusalem and Joy this morning at church. Joy in prison, alone. Joy in a crowd of people, at a party. Joy at a wedding and joy at a funeral.
We can have joy because we know who holds tomorrow.
Who can separate us from the love of Christ?
Who Death? Who Life? Who Angels? Who Rulers? Who Things that are? Who Things to come? Who powers? Who heights? Who depths? Who anything in all of creation?
No nothing! Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand; but I know WHO holds tomorrow, and I know WHO holds my hand! (415)

Sarah's perfect storm

So, many people think Sarah Palin doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming president… in fact some people compare her and her chances to that of Jesse Jackson’s 1988 run. I’m not so sure, because 2012 isn’t 1988.
Specifically there are two things that are different:
1. The rise of the Tea Party.
2. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
The first would provide foot soldiers—the grass-root. The second would provide money—lots of it.
If you have enough people hot and bothered and willing to knock on doors you’ve got a good start. If you’ve got more money than God… you can paint your opponent into corners left right and center. If you’ve got both… you can win.

Mortal, repent, prepare for Easter!

Mortal, repent, prepare for Easter!

When I read about Isaiah’s fury against false fasts,
external humility,
ashes without regret,
sackcloth without repentance,
and ritual without justice…
When I read all of this while preparing to put ash crosses on people’s foreheads I get a little nervous.
When Jesus speaks poorly of outward almsgiving, prayer, and fasting—on this Ash Wednesday,
On this start of Lent, when traditionally Christians put a special emphasis on almsgiving, prayer, and fasting—
the imposition of ashes almost feels like dumping hot coals on people’s heads.
Both of these readings tell us of the danger of religious ritual.
Isaiah speaks to the fact that religious ritual can get in the way of justice.
We can say to ourselves, “I heard about being concerned about fellow Children of God at church—that makes me a religious person.”
Or I had ashes rubbed on my forehead—so I don’t need to help my neighbor out of the ash-heap.
For that matter, Jesus speaks of another way religious ritual can be abused. We can use our perceived piety—our public faith—to make us popular and impressive.
We can use our faith to get ahead to make people like and trust us. We can put people at ease by reminding them we’re Christian.
And, Dr. Wangert—the Confessions professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia where I am studying—understands both of these dangers to be part of a much larger tendency of human beings.
We thrive on works righteousness—we want to earn our way into heaven.
So deeply does Dr. Wangert worry about this tendency that—to protect himself from works righteousness—gives up the same things every Lent.
For the 40 days of Lent he refuses to eat Whale Blubber.
He fasts from eating Whale Blubber because he never has ate Whale Blubber—in fact he’s never even seen Whale Blubber.
So this fast is so easy that there is absolutely no way he could make the mistake of thinking his Lenten discipline makes him righteous.

So my question becomes… if Religious Ritual is such a risk
If putting ashes on our head is such a danger
If a forty day fast is so perilous
Why do we do it? Why do we risk Ash Wednesday and Lent?

We risk Ash Wednesday because we need to be reminded that we’re mortal.
We risk Ash Wednesday because we need to be reminded that we’re sinners in need of repentance
And we risk Ash Wednesday because we need to prepare for Easter.
We’re mortals, we’re sinners, and we’re preparing for Easter.

Lets pray:
Lord God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Amen.
We’re mortal. When we hear the words, “You are dust and to dust shall you return,” we remember our origin is in the earth.
We remember that we are perishable
we remember that we have an expiration date.
We look back to scripture and meditate on how in the earliest chapters of Genesis we are described as dirt with spirit breathed into us.
We are earthlings created from the earth.
Dust to dust.
These words from scripture remind us of our impermanence here on this earth in the same way the death of No-dar Kum-ar-it-ash-vili—the 21-year-old Luger from the country of Georgia—did last Friday in Vancouver when he died practicing for his Olympic event.
Even a young Olympian—a man at the top of his game—one of 8 people representing his country to the world—is still dust.
We are reminded of our mortality this Ash Wednesday the same way as when we drive in the snow
and we can’t quite see over the snow bank
and we go to make a turn and next thing we know we are close enough to an oncoming truck that we can look the driver right in the eyes.
Ash Wednesday is a close call. It gets our hearts beating fast and our adrenaline pumping.
Ash Wednesday reminds us that we—like snow—will melt away.
We like dust will blow away. We are mortal.

Ash Wednesday also reminds us that we are sinners in need of repentance.
When we feel the ash upon our brow—
we are mourning our own failures toward God and toward our neighbors.
We are being reminded of our own fallibility—our own imperfection and our own weakness.
Administering ashes remind us of the life shattering capacity of sin just like the two shootings that broke Baltimore’s eight days of being a murder free city did on Monday.
Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.
Ash Wednesday reminds us of how we act without the ability to know the full consequence of those actions,
That we are born into situations with no good solutions.
Ash Wednesday reminds us that even in those rare moments of clarity, when we see the good and the right and we have the ability to do the good and the right, we fail at that too.
Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are sinners in need of repentance.

And sometimes being able to say, “I’m a mortal sinner,” has its effect.
Sometimes saying, “I am mortal” grips me with a realization of how precious life is. Sometimes it shakes the assumptions of my death-denying culture. It moves me out of a frame of mind fixated on quick fixes, instant gratification, and lack of concern for others.
Sometimes saying, “I’m a sinner” is like holding up a mirror to myself. I am faced with my own motives and drives and realize where I am wrong.
I can look at my ritual and my robes and see that it has robbed someone else of justice. I can look at the motives for my almsgiving and see that I just want to be seen.
I can ask myself what do I treasure that is deadly and what do I treasure that is sinful?
Sometimes stating that I’m a sinner works repentance in me.
But sometimes saying, “I’m a mortal sinner,” weighs me down. Sometimes I am so aware of my own inadequacy that my feet of clay all but kill me. Sometimes the shortness of time I have on this earth paralyzes me with fears about my future and regret about my past.
And in those times it is good to look around. It is good to see the ash upon the head of my brothers and my sisters. It is good to see that I am in good company. I am in a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.
I am reminded that as with it and as on top of things as (Pastor Gregg/Mother Glenna) is (he/she) is still another mortal sinner like me—full of fallibility and fragility. We’re all in the same boat—we’re not alone in our struggles and our fears.

Not only does Ash Wednesday and Lent remind us that we are all mortal, and that we are in need of repentance, but it is our preparation for Easter.
If I look closer still at my sister’s ashen cross I am struck by something
Its something so obvious that you might not think about it unless you stopped and thought about it.
It’s a cross on our forehead!
It’s the Cross of Christ—for He too suffered death, and he who knew no sin became sin for us.
Jesus Christ himself shares this ash with us.
Yet I hasten to add that when Christ shares with us there is something more going on than simply solidarity with us.
There is something more going on than Jesus being in the same boat as us.
There is something transformational going on as well!
When he shared the dust of death with us on Easter morning he enlivened it with breath and spirit.
When he shared the ash of sin with us on Easter morning he made soap out of it—He made it an instrument of our purification.
He has transformed the human condition itself—he transformed every part of being human in this world—into something worthy of God.
And I’m here to tell you I believe in transformation.
I believe out of the ragged stuff of humanity God can patch together a quilt!
I’ve seen with my own eyes a sign of sin and death embedded upon a man’s brow transformed into Easter hope.
Seven years ago I was volunteering at the Comea Shelter a homeless men’s Shelter back home in Cheyenne Wyoming.
Each day I filled the shelter’s old blue mini-van up with bedding and drove it down to the commercial laundermat, picked up any donations around town, picked up the clean bedding, and brought it all back.
Sometimes shelter residents would ride with me and help me load and unload things.
There was one resident in particular who would often ride with me.
He happened to have a swastika prominently tattooed on his forehead.
We worked together for several weeks—and during that time I did my best not to stare at that thing on his head—I did my best not to ask questions about it.
Then one day we were driving along and he said to me, “Chris. I know you look at it.”
“Look at what?” I asked.
“The swastika,” he replied.
I was –this close—to responding, “What Swastika,” but by that time I was staring at his forehead instead of the road, so I replied guiltily, “Yeah, I do.”
“I got it while I was in prison down in Denver,” he explained.
That was of course just the kind of comforting thing you want to hear while alone with a guy twice your size.
All I could reply was, “Oh?”
He then told me how he had hated blacks and Latinos… though he used much stronger language for both.
“Oh,” I against replied, limply.
He continued, “Then I got out. No landlord wanted someone like me as a renter… the only place that would take me was a housing co-operative ran by a black man. It took me a while, but I just couldn’t hate them any more.”

So yes, I trust that mortality and sin can be made into eternity and sanctity.
I trust the Easter promise.
I trust in a light shining in the darkness
I trust the gloom of night to be as bright as the noon sun.
I trust that our needs will be satisfied in parched places.
I trust that ruins will be rebuilt and the breach will be restored.
I even trust that the treasure of Christ has transformed our ritual into justice,
our self-flattery into piety
our works righteousness into works of love,
and I’m willing to stare sin and death in the face in order to prepare to celebrate that!

The reason we risk Ash Wednesday and we risk Lent is because we’re mortal, we’re sinners, and we’re preparing to celebrate Easter. A+A

My dream church

I dream of doing a Mission Start for the ELCA.
Specifically, I dream of starting the largest poly-ethnic Lutheran church in the Northwest either in Seattle or Portland. Why the Northwest? 1. Its one of the most unchurched regions of the country 2. For all the PC talk of multi-culturalism in the Northwest its pretty darn mono-cultural.
I dream of a church where our Santa Lucia is an African American girl, where Asian-Americans are shouting "Amen" and "Preach it," where European Americans are singing "Santo Santo Santo," and Mexican Americans "Sekai no tomo to te o tsunagi."
I guess why I mention this now is two fold. Firstly, a friend sent me a link to a purposefully multi-cultural church in Minneapolis Sanctuary Covenant Secondly, my mind, heart, and prayers are with my brothers and sisters back at Seminary who are getting assigned tonight. Thirdly, I should be putting the finishing touches on my Ash Wednesday sermon and blogging is a good way to procrastinate.

Sermon on the 2nd Sunday after the snowfall

God is with us, let’s follow Him down the mountain!

Its good to be back this 2nd Sunday after the snowfall.
Welcome to all visitors
Welcome back to everyone who was snowed in last Sunday.
Welcome on this end of Epiphany—the season in which we celebrate God being manifest—being disclosed—being revealed—showing up—in Jesus Christ.
Welcome on this Transfiguration Sunday—the Sunday that functions as the capstone of the season of Epiphany and the most overt example of God showing up in Jesus.
And on this day I hear Scripture saying to us “God is with us, lets follow Him down the mountain!” God is with us, lets follow Him down the mountain!”

Let us pray:
Lord God, be with the preacher, be with the assembly, be with all of us here at St. John’s that my words and our meditations may move us to follow you son down the mountain. Amen.

Today both Jacob and Peter have a close call. A close call with God. They both have their own personal powerful Epiphany experience. They both are confronted with the fact that God is with us.
Jacob, escaping from family troubles, heading to far off Haran, finds himself, as it says in Genesis, “at a certain place” when the sun set. And so he takes a stone as a pillow and drifts off to sleep.
And soon enough he finds that he has in fact rested his head upon the escalator of angels.
It is in that place that he finds his father’s God standing beside him.
It is there that his father’s God speaks to him for the first time.
It is there that the magnificent promise of his ancestors—a promise that he has heard about, but never experienced, becomes solidified before his eyes—it became his own promise.
Yes, it is at that place, at Bethel, that Jacob hears loud and clear that “God is with us.”
He didn’t expect to meet God that night—he just wanted to get some shuteye for his long journey north—but God showed up.
And so too with Peter. This faithful disciple climbs a mountain with his teacher and manages to stay awake and see his master manifest
among the likes of Moses—the author of the Law
and among the likes of Elijah—the most famous of prophets

Further, right before his eyes his master was changed and was shown in glory.
In this transfiguration Peter sees the most awe inspiring, most full, biggest, example of “God is with us.”
Scripture doesn’t say what Peter was doing or thinking those eight days before he went up the mountain with his master—but I don’t think he expected the terror of transformation—none the less God showed up.

And St. John’s, I want to tell you the very same thing. God is with us—God shows up.
This Valentines Day God is with us—like a Valentine from a secret admirer, God just shows up. While we may write poems, buy candy and flowers, and make cards to woo our beloved God doesn’t need wooing.
God is wooing us. God is with us.
I’m here to remind you and remind you again that God comes down Jacob’s ladder to us.
God chooses us.
God woos us.
God is with us.
God shows up.

But do you know one of the dangers of God being with us?
Do you know what we, in our human sinfulness, want to do when God shows up?
We want trap God for ourselves.
We want to confine God in the act of Grace.
We want to domesticate God.
We want to tame God.
We want to snow God in!

Look at Jacob—he tries to snow God in. The LORD, hovering over him like a mighty pillar assures him, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”
Yet Jacob responds, “Surely the LORD is in this place… How awesome is this place!”
He gives the place a name, “Beth-el,” that is house of God. He declares the place of this experience of God showing up the house of God and the very “gate of heaven.”
God says I’m with you wherever you go and he respondes, “How awesome is this place.” He has transformed “wherever you go” into “right here.”

Likewise Peter tries to snow God in. Like Jacob he tries to make a beth-el, a house of God, up there on the mountain.
Even as Moses and Elijah are talking about Jesus’ impending departure—Peter overcome by his experience of glory—suggests that they make dwelling places for the three men.
He tries to snow in his present experience of God in Jesus!
(pause) Yet even as I admonish these pillars of the faith I can understand their taste for snowing God in.
We too—like Peter and Jacob try to snow God in.
We too attempt to lock ourselves in with God—fit ourselves in a particular place of faith.
We too try to seal our faith in a box, a building, a place, or a space.
We try to make God comfortable for us.
I think of my time in the Holy Land a few years back. I went to do research at the Albright Institute in East Jerusalem, but I mixed pleasure with business as I went during Easter so I could see the sights and sounds and smells of Holy week in the Holy Land.
I remember all the gilding and gold, all the buildings and bustling surrounding the places where Jesus had done things.
Shrines where Jesus was flogged,
monuments where his body had been laid, churches… everywhere. –I bristled at it—this was an attempt to snow God in.
I also remember this serene church on a Mountain in Galilee.
Its olive green roof blended in with the natural world around it.
Architecturally it was humble yet glorious.
You could look down and see the Sea of Galilee stretching out before you.
It was magnificent, and… and so right!
You could see that this was the kind of place where Jesus would want to hang out.
And in fact it was where Jesus preached the beatitudes—his blessings to the poor, the meek, the mourning, the hungry, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted.
I remember saying to myself, “finally a building and a place worthy of my Lord.”
I finally found a comfortable house for my God.
Then I read a pamphlet about the Church of the Beatitudes only to find that it was built at the behest of the fascist Italian dictator Benito Mucilini.
It was then I realized I’d tried to snow God in.

But God won’t let us do that.
You can snow in your Vicar, you can snow in your Pastor. You can snow in your Mayor and your Governor. Heck, you can snow in the whole Federal Government if you try hard enough!
but you can’t snow in God.
No, God is with us.
And when I say that I mean all of us.
God is with us on the mountain and with us at the base of the mountain.
God is with church people and God is with the unchurch.
God works in the life of saint and sinner, holy man and heathen.
God’s with us… and God’s with THOSE PEOPLE
God’s with our household… and with our neighbor.
God’s here…and God’s there.
God’s there in the rapture of religious ecstasy… and in the doldrums of everyday need.
God’s in the church…and in the snowed in apartment.
God’s in the transfiguration…and down the mountain with father and son.
So lets follow him down the mountain.

God says to Jacob, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”
And boy does Jacob go with God to some strange places, from Cannan to Harran—or to say it another way from Modern day Israel to Modern day Turkey—wrestling at the river Jabbok and amongst messy family squabbles.
God is with Jacob beyond Bethel, and with people other than Jacob.
So lets follow God down the mountain.

And so too Peter with Jesus. After Peter’s suggestion of creating dwelling places for Moses and Elijah clouds rumble in.
A front of epic proportion—more low pressure systems and high pressure systems crashing together than we’ve ever seen—gathers
and from the depths of the storm comes the words, “this is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.”

Now what does this have to do with following him down the mountain? you might ask.
Two things:
1) The last thing Jesus had said to Peter before the transfiguration was that he was going to be killed and raised. You can’t be killed and raised if you’re stuck on top of a mountain!
2) The next words Jesus speaks, kind of scary words at that, are the words, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” Jesus isn’t just up in the mountain at the zenith and the heights of faith and power—he is also down with us at the base of the mountain where there is faithlessness and perversity.
On the mountain we get a clear picture of Jesus in his glory. In the riveting and rolling clouds and thunderous voice we witness the greatness of God. We even hear that Jesus is God’s Chosen son.
But we get a clear picture of Jesus and of God down here at the base of the mountain too! In restoring an only son to his father—by healing the boy—we are astonished at the greatness of God.
Lets follow him down the mountain to see that too!
As important as the mountaintop is—as important as the realization that God is with us is, we can’t stay there—God is with us all—so let’s follow him down the mountain.

Two weeks ago Monday I was at the funeral of Mrs. Ezra Cole of Tabernacle Lutheran Church in West Philly where I did my Field Education last year.
Now I didn’t know Mrs. Cole particularly well—I just thought of her as the nice well-dressed lady who sang on the choir.
But when I arrived at Tabernacle it was obvious she was much more than that—she was Lutheran royalty.
Three generations deep of pastors—including St. John’s own Pastor Rosa Key—as well as one of Tabernacle’s Vicars from 1973, were all in attendance to say a few words.
The place was packed!
It turns out Mrs. Cole was quite a woman—that day we heard stories about her faith, her sense of style, and her singing, and on more than one occasion, humorous stories were told at the expense of her husband.
But that’s not what caught my attention.
What caught my attention was that Mrs. Cole was the first African American member of Tabernacle—then an exclusively German church now a mainly African American one…and even more interesting was that she had become a member in the 1950’s.
The Coles had moved into West Philly just as they had their third child. And having three children under the age of 2 can be a hand full—or so I’ve heard.
And one of the Cole’s neighbors—a little old German lady—came up to her one Sunday and said,
“Dear, three children are too many to have without a church family to support you.”
And that very day she drug Mrs. Cole and her three children down Spruce street to Tabernacle.
And two weeks ago—well over half a century and multiple pastors later there she was, surrounded by her three children and so many people who she had touched—and loved—and had loved her—still at Tabernacle.
And I can’t help but think--What if that little German Lady hadn’t been confident that God was with her.
What if that little German Lady had tried to snow God in.
What if that Little German Lady hadn’t realized God was with Mrs. Cole too?
What if that Little German Lady hadn’t followed Jesus down the mountain and next door to her neighbor?
I don’t know the answer—but I fear both Tabernacle and West Philly would be a poorer place for it.
And I’m just so glad she knew God is with us and that she followed God down the mountain. A+A