Jacob is Jibekking at the Jabbok

Jacob is Jibekking at the Jabbok

          Today, we are confronted with a man named Jacob. We find Jacob at the Jabbok. And there, at the Jabbok river, Jacob Jibeks… That is, in the Hebrew, wrestles. Jacob wrestles.

          And I think it is no coincidence that this name, this place, and this action are all tightly linked in this story, Jacob Jibekking at the Jabbok.

No, this is no coincidence. This alliteration is illustrating a point. This jumble of Js, B’s and K’s are holding up this whole story.

          And so, I want to tell you all a little something about Jacob Jibekking at the Jabbok.

Jacob Jibekking at the Jabbok.

Prayer

          Oh Jacob. Your name linked to a constant struggle.

          Grasping your brother’s heel within the womb. Grappling your brother’s birthright from him in a moment of hunger—selling him out for some stew. Grabbing his blessing from him by tricking your blind father Isaac. Wrestling wives, riches, and more from your father-in-law.

          And here in the night, at the Jabbok River it all catches up to you—all that struggle. As you rush away from your father-in-law, you rush back, toward your brother, your brother who you double crossed.

          Yes, you are wrestling with what this name has done to you and what you’ve done with this name.

          Yes, there at the Jabbok River you are confronted with the depths of your life.

          You are so frightened by your brother, who is coming forth to meet you with an army of 400. You expect him to be angry at you for all you’ve done against him. This furry red mountain man brother of yours, who is good with a bow, who you have defeated only with your cunning—is coming at you.

Yes, this man is bearing down on you and you hide there on the other side of the Jabbok.

          You split your herds and wealth up into two pieces and send them forward to your brother in two waves. Then you sent another wave of your wealth toward that brother you tricked. And still more, you sent your wives and children on ahead of you, to the other side of the Jabbok.

          Yes, for his wrath to get to you he’d have to go through herds and harems, and women and children, and that river—the Jabbok River.

          Yes, you feel secure there on the other side of the Jabbok…alone.

          But, rivers at night are strange places. Water crossings are, as Celtic Christianity will later call them, thin places. (EG Billy Goats Gruff, Dryads, Trolls)

Places where past and present,

 God and Humans,

things seen and things unseen,

have a way of crossing over to one another.

          And something does cross over. A man, a man whom you wrestle, you Jibek with.

          Yes, there, that night into the morning, you wrestle with … someone.

          You wrestle with your nature—being Jacob who tricks and wrestles, and always must come out on top at the expense of someone else.

You wrestle with your brother Esau, just as you did in Rebecca’s womb—

yes that night you were born and that night you Jibeked at the Jabbok

—that night you wrestled with all you’d done to your brother.

          That night, you also wrestled with God—the God who formed you in that womb, and who has followed you through all of your wrestling and trials and been with you despite your trickster nature.

          And you cling to God there—you cling to the infinite in this finite person—clinging to God in the form of a man, there by the Jabbok river.

          Yes, Jacob Jibekks at the Jabbok. Jacob clings to God in the form of a man.

He wrestles with his past,

his relationship with those he’s hurt,

his name and his very nature.

He steps through that thin place and comes out changed.

          Night turns to day.

          He receives a new name—Jacob becomes Israel. The Grasper becomes the one grasped by God.

          He is changed, made to limp, to humbly go forth always aware of God’s action that night.

          He meets his brother, and they are reconciled to one another

—embracing one another,

 becoming family again and journeying alongside one another

—no longer wrestling to see who is on top.

          Yes, Jacob stepped through a thin place and was changed, that night when Jacob Jibeked at the Jabbok.

And we too, in our Baptisms, have stepped through a thin place.

          We too, in that moment, are at a thin place—a watery crossroad of sorts.

A place we step through and are changed.

Where we are grasped by God in a loving embrace.

Where we receive a new name “Child of God.”

Where we are marked by the cross of Christ forever.

Where we can find reconciliation and family alongside us in this journey. 

Where the infinite comes to us in the finite—God in the person of the man Jesus Christ.

Behold, the water—the thin place—our Baptism.

A+A

God can’t be bribed, but can be thanked

         Did you hear that one about St. Peter standing at the pearly gates?

         Three men came by to enter into heaven.

         The first said, “Oh, you can let me right in, I’m from America and God has a special relationship with America.”

And Saint Peter let him right in.

         The second one coughed, and kept winking at St. Peter, and passed an envelope filled with 100-dollar bills to that Old Staint.

And Peter let him right in.

         And the third said, “I did all the right rituals, and I did some amazingly hard things, like climbing Mt. Everest and I also…”

Before this man could finish his sentence St. Peter waved him on through.

        

         I’m getting blank stares—you’ve never heard this one? Well, that’s because it’s not how God works.

         I want you to know this, God can not, in any way, shape, or form, be bribed, but God can be thanked.

God can’t be bribed, but God can be thanked.

Prayer

         God can’t be bribed.

         God can’t be bribed by national allegiances.

         Where you’re born, what country you are a citizen of, has no bearing on God’s love for you.

         Look at Naaman. He is the military commander of the nation of Aram, a nation at war with Israel, and yet it is said, “Because of him the LORD had given victory to Aram.”

         God’s the God of all the earth, not just Israel.

         Not only has God entered into Naaman’s actions, but as we read Naaman is healed by God.

         So too, the Samaritan—healed by Jesus along with 9 other lepers.

         In both cases, the national origin of these men do not goad God into action.

        

         And just so you know, there has been, quite often, in the history of Christianity a mistake made, that ties national identity—patriotism even—tightly to faith and even to God. Since the earliest days of Pagan Rome “Deo et Patria” “God and Country” get entangled again and again.

         In fact, one of the most important non-biblical books ever written, St. Augustine’s City of God, was written in response to a crisis. Christianity had clung too close to the Roman Empire, and when its capital city was sacked, people genuinely wondered,

“Can Faith continue?

Has God abandoned us?

Is it Jesus’ Kingdom of God which lies in ruined rubble there in Rome?”

         For that matter, in England, where there is a State Church, there are people who have never been baptized, never set foot in a church, never even opened a Bible, but assume they are upstanding members of the Church of England, because they are English after all.

         And I would quickly add there are people here in America who make those same assumptions.

         But let it be known, God is not bribed by our allegiance to country.

        

         Neither is God bribed by our wealth.

         This is after all one of the founding assumptions of the Lutheran Reformation. In order to pay for St. Peter’s Cathedral people were commissioned to sell get out of purgatory free cards—even for sins not yet committed. And Luther saw this, and looked at his Bible and his church history, and said to this practice loudly and clearly, “No.”

         So too, if we read verses 4-6, in 2^nd Kings, we see that Naaman tried to bribe God, or at least God’s prophet, and fails. Because God is not bribed by our wealth.

         Finally, we read about what Naaman

hopes will happen to help his healing.

He expects waving of hands or some great quest or task, in order to cure him of his leprosy. Instead, he is simply told, “Wash, and be clean.”

         He hopes that some great or magical act will move God. Will make it clear that he will be healed, that God will show loving kindness to him.

         And we do the same sometimes, we look for signs, strain to grasp meaning and earn attention, yearn for easy, even magical, answers.

         But again, we find that neither good work nor ritual is an adequate or appropriate bribe for God.

         Yes, if Grace is true, if Grace abounds. If God really is for us and not against us,

then no amount of bribery, will make God for us and not against us,

No amount of bribery, will cause grace to abound

No amount of bribery, will make grace true

because it is already true, grace already abounds, God already is for us!

         Further, if a bribery scheme is needed, we know that Jesus has already bought us through his life, death, and resurrection.

         Our pittance of bribe to God or to the Devil, to father figures or to societal norms is cheap.

         But Christ’s gift to us, is both expensive—even the gift of his life—and is at the same time free—freely given.

         God cannot be bribed, but God can be thanked.

         As we read today of the Samaritan leper who returns to thank Jesus, we can notices that all 10 lepers are made clean, but only one is made well.

         Here thanksgiving is seeing what God has done… stopping, and being stunned by the magnificence of it.

         It is also speaking about the good thing God has done—letting people know how the good news of Jesus has become good news for you right now, concretely.

         Yes, thanksgiving involves seeing and speaking.

         And we humans might even be hardwired to do so.

         A study was recently conducted in which subjects were asked to reflect on, and then write about, someone they were thankful for, and why.

         Then they were connected with that person via Telephone and they read why they were thankful for that person.

         And the results were astonishing. The people who did this, the people who expressed their thankfulness, were less likely to be depressed for a whole month after. Likewise they were happier for a whopping six months after having thanked this person.

        

         But it’s not just realization and remembrance—seeing and speaking, that is thanksgiving, it is service of neighbor as well.

         In a sense, we can’t thank God for God’s goodness in any concrete way—but we can pass on those gracious gifts of God to our neighbors.

         For example, St. Stephen’s renewed interest in stocking the local food pantry in its time of need, is wonderful. It is a witness to our thankfulness—it is our recognition of where our daily bread comes from. We’re showing forth God’s grace through our gracious action.

         God can’t be bribed, but God can be thanked.

         Our nationality means nothing to God/ our recognition of His goodness does.

         Our money means nothing to God/ our telling people what God has done for us does.

         Our ritual and our struggle for His approval means nothing to God/ our service of our neighbor in need does.

         Have you heard the one about St. Peter standing at the pearly gates?

         Three men arrive at the gate. The first says “You won’t let me in, I was American.”

The second says, “You won’t let me in, I was rich.”

And the third says, “You won’t let me in, I was overly scrupulous and fixated on working my way into heaven.”

         And Jesus comes to the gate, and ushers them in, not on their merits, but because he loved them. And they rejoiced,

because God can’t be bribed, but God can be thanked. A+A

Scripture’s message to those in Poverty and in Wealth.

        15 years ago, I preached my first sermon…

on this very text—I preached about the parable of Lazarus and the Rich man. I declared the Rich man to be an example for us all on how not to treat the poor.

         In fact, I think I came pretty close to condemning all rich people to hell in that sermon—(as only a 15 year old boy can.)

         After all, this Parable is much more direct than last week’s Parable. When it chews on you, it’s not because you’re trying to grasp it’s meaning, but instead because the meaning is so plain you worry about wailing and gnashing of teeth.

         The Rich Man goes to hell and the Poor Man to heaven—and there’s a chasm between them.

         But if it’s wealth alone that sends us to heaven or hell, where’s the line? Where does this valley separating the rich and the poor lie?

         For example, in a study released this week by the Census Bureau the top 1% now control just under 20% of the wealth in this country—this is the highest rate of inequality since the year 1927.

Would that be the line in the sand, the people with the highest 1% of incomes in this country are “The Rich?”

         In another study, economists found that if you make less than 140,000 dollars a year you are, more likely than not, worse off economically than you were 33 years ago.

Are those worse off, the Lazaruses of the world?

         Or… there is the fact that someone who makes in a year what I make in a month is richer than 80% of the world.

Is that the dividing line—3,000 some odd dollars a year?

         I suppose the location of the line—the chasm—between Lazarus and the Rich man,

between Rich and Poor,

is not as important as the message given… in all our readings from Scripture, to those experiencing poverty and those experiencing wealth.

Scripture’s message to those in Poverty and in Wealth.

Prayer

Scripture’s message to those in Poverty and in Wealth.

         To the Poor, today’s lessons echo a larger message found throughout scripture, but found especially in the Gospel of Luke:

Jesus came into this world while his mother sang about the hungry being fed,

he came to preach good news to the poor,

and he constantly extended the Kingdom of God to those who had been cast out, the blind, the lame, and yes the poor.

         And today, we are reminded by Timothy that Contentment and Godliness does not come by way of the coin.

         Today, the Prophet Amos reminds them—reminds us—that God sees injustice

 and calls it out for what it is, a sense of false security, a trap, and a sin.

         And to the Lazaruses of this world, Jesus’ parable points out that God doesn’t just see injustices, but also sees the victims of injustices—and even knows them by name.

         Lazarus is, in fact, the only character in a parable who Jesus names—

this poor man ignored by everyone except dogs—

is named by the One Who Has A Name Above All Names.

         He’s named, and he’s seen.

         Now, I’ve had a few homeless friends, and all of them say the worst part of being homeless is that no one sees you—

it’s like you become invisible—

people avert their eyes and ignore your existence.

Well, to you—and all those in poverty—let it be known God sees you.

God really sees you.

         As for the rich, they are frequently told about camels not passing through the eye of a needle,

about storing up treasures only to die,

about rich rulers being unable to follow Jesus.

         And today, Amos calls us—calls them—onto the carpet.

         He reminds the rich that they have immense power to shape their society for the good. Their nation is at a cross-road, and at a point headed for calamity, but can still repent and reverse things…

Yet the rich prefer to entertain themselves to death instead of seeking justice and righteousness.

          They’re on the Titanic headed toward an iceberg/ and chose to fiddle with the deck chairs and drink pina coladas.

         And our Gospel lesson paints the Rich a rough color.

         The Rich Man refuses to see, or care, for his neighbor in need.

And this rich man fails to repent, even in Hell.

He assumes his wealth meant something, even in Hell.

He thinks he can order Lazarus around, even in Hell.

Riches can be truly hellish.

         In the letter to Timothy, we are warned that riches are traps.

They’re held on to, and evaporate.

We easily trust in wealth, and find our worth—over against the worth of other people—in our wealth, and ultimately lose both our respect for others and our own worth.

Wealth can be corrosive to our faith.

         So far, a pretty tough take on wealth. But do not despair my 1% friends, God loves you too.

         We also find here in Timothy, that all that is necessary for the good life, is from God—

Remember your Large Catechism, it rains on both the just and the unjust—God provides bread enough for all, as long as all use and share it well.

         Ultimately, recognizing that all we have, is bread from heaven, given to us by grace, through no work of our own.

That is the key to it all.

         It is, to quote St. Augustine, “the very commerce of the City of God.” We do not so much buy and sell, as receive and give.

         Receiving from God, but not holding on to it, instead being rich in goodness and generosity.

That is where true riches lie.

         Scripture’s message to those in Poverty and in Wealth, no matter where the line is drawn… is clearly too complex for one sermon, but here’s some strands of it:

         To the rich, you are called to responsibility and to remembrance of the source of true riches.

         To the poor, you are seen and you are named. A+A

A Rough Parable

         A man is accused of squandering his boss’ property and he finds out he’s going to be fired.

         So he goes and squanders his boss’ property—forgiving a large portion of those indebted to his master—in order that those people will be kind to him after he’s unemployed.

         And instead of being fired, he is commended.

         Last week I told you all that, when we take the time to chew on a parable, the parable begins to chew on us.

            Well… let me tell you something, this parable has chewed on me—if I was bubble gum, I’d be long out of flavor.

         It’s a strange story, and each time you try to grasp its point, the point seems to snake & slip out of your hand.

         In fact, the point of this parable seems so opaque, so hard to see—that Luke himself—the only gospel writer to keep it in his account of Jesus’ life—gives 4 different explanations of this parable.

·      He tells us that “the children of light” aren’t shrewd enough, but should be.

·      He tells us mammon’s use—the proper use of improper wealth—is to make friends, so that when it is gone they’ll welcome you into your eternal home.

·      He tells us faithfulness in small things leads to faithfulness in large things.

·      And finally, he tells us that we cannot serve God and wealth.

         Let us pray

         The children of light ought to be shrewd like the dishonest manager, like the children of this age.

         This is similar to where Jesus commands his disciples, “be as innocent as doves and as shrewd as serpents.”

         Yet sometimes the church is accused of being like an ostrich—with its head buried in the sand. It can be known as an institution that ignores the world as it is, with its sins and sorrows, joys and challenges. It no longer knows the age its in.

         And in that ignorance, we loses our ability to witness to the world, we gets laryngitis; the church loses its relevance, and starts to look like a museum of saints instead of a hospital for sinners.

         Not so this shrewd, dishonest,

manager.

Look, the world changes around him, he lost his job,

and he sprung into action, he looked at everything differently and did what he needed to do

he was willing to shift when the ground underneath him shifted,

when the rich man abandoned him, he went to the debtors.

         Money’s proper use—is to create relationships.

         This dishonest steward’s shift is from wealth as an end unto itself, managing and mismanaging that which the rich man entrusted to him, to wealth as a way to make friends.

         It’s a rather self-serving shift. Essentially the man is hoping to make friends so he can couch surf at their place, and be thought well of by these friends, and be taken care of by these friends, once he’s out of a job.

         Still it is a shift, from consumership to relationship.

         But it’s more than that, in doing this, he will be welcomed into an eternal home.

         Just as we read in the Prophet Amos today, there are cosmic implications to using our money to be a friend to those who are in debt, who are in need.

        

         Small faithfulness leads to big faithfulness and small dishonesty leads to large dishonesty.

         As way of example, I have a friend who believes how you live on New Years Day will reflect how you’ll live your entire year.

         That is of course going a little over board, but it is worth remembering, as we live each day, that they stack up, and the weight of them create a life.

         Finally, we are told that you can’t serve both God and Wealth.

         That at the end of the day, what is of ultimate value must be weighed and found heavier than that which is of lesser value.

         That, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans, we humans have to be slave to something and we can only hope it’s to God.

         Yet, this whole parable, these 4 explanations of it by Luke, don’t quite balance out—or perhaps more accurately, they balance one another out so well that we’re left with a null weight, with an empty balance.

         Be enslaved to God not Mammon/yet be shrewd and slippery about Mammon.

         Act dishonestly for the sake of relationship/ but know you’ll be judged for this dishonesty.

         Luke’s explanations are all true as far as they go, and worth sitting with and contemplating, but none lift up the parable fully.

         Luckily Christ, and his actions for us, does.

It lifts this parable to its highest of heights.

         This parable is one of 4 parables Jesus tells in response to the Pharisees seeing him eating with tax collectors and sinners.

He responds by telling of the lost sheep and lost coin, which we read about last week.

He responds with the famous parable of the prodigal son.

And then, he responds with this parable.

         This parable about the good news that there was a man who represented his Master.

         And was accused of squandering the master’s possessions.

         And so he casts forgiveness of debtors to and fro, so that he might number himself among them.

         The focus on counting of debts is destroyed, and the Master says to this man, “well done good and faithful servant.”

         Do you hear me?

         Christ Jesus is the very face of God, God incarnate, God’s representative on earth—God’s manager.

         Christ is accused of kindness toward the accursed, giving to them the things of God—forgiving their debts.

         And Christ increases this accusation to a fever pitch all the way to the cross, where he is found crucified with sinners—truly welcomed into their home, our home.

         And God sees this sacrifice and assures us God is not in the counting sins business, by raising Christ from the dead. God assures us that, when we hear words of forgiveness from Christ’s lips, they are from God’s lips.

The fullest explanation of this parable is found in our receiving the wealth of God’s storehouse of mercy given out by Jesus Christ.

A+A

An open letter to my congressman regarding SNAP--a creative response

Dear Representative Lance

            Greetings, my name is Christopher Lee Halverson, I’m the pastor of St. Stephen Lutheran in South Plainfield, NJ. I sent you an email via my denomination’s advocacy office letting you know that voting for deep cuts to SNAP harms the neighbor in need, which according to our tradition is an unfaithful act.

            In fact, Luther talks about making public officials of his time wear shirts (okay, it might have been a coat of arms) with images of bread on them, to remind them that their primary duty is to ensure that the daily bread God provides to all—the just and the unjust—is distributed in such a way that everyone has enough.

            Your office will be receiving a copy of this T-shirt as a reminder.

Peace,

Pastor Chris

Lost

         Finding a lost coin is like welcoming sinners.

         Finding a lost sheep is like eating with tax collectors.

         Two parables about lost things, a critter and a coin.

        

         As I’ve said before, Parables are simple stories told to tell a complex point.

         Parables express something that is abstract, and out there, in a concrete way, right here.

         Parables speak truths into being.

         Parables plant seeds in us, with their clear images and raw meaning.

And they grow inside us, clinging to our ears, and mind, and heart

and change

and blossom,

and change us.

As we take the time to chew on a parable, the parable begins to chew on us.

         Instead of us reading a parable, the parable begins to read us.

         But, time has a way of increasing the ambiguity of a parable. I don’t imagine we have a lot of 1^st century shepherds in the assembly today—or know the exact practices of Jewish women of the time period.

         This leaves us with a question—what is Jesus saying here?

         Is the focus of the parables we read today that God is a little crazy and overly joyful?

…         Or is the focus of these parables that humans, even sinners, are really beloved and important?

         If the first is true the shepherd is so excitable that he leaves his 99 sheep alone and afraid, and finds a sheep that is worth-less than the party he has, to celebrate finding that sheep when he returns home

         Likewise, the woman digs around for this coin, which is worth a day’s wage, and then spends more than a day’s wage celebrating the recovery of that coin.

         In other words, God’s love of sinners is so extreme and so single minded,

and his joy at recovering them is so great,

that God goes over the top and acts irrationally!

God Acts incredibly strange when relating to sinners.

        

         Alternatively, sheep are the shepherd’s livelihood, one sheep more or less could mean the difference between his family making it or not—losing even one is devastating to him.

         Likewise, some have posited that these 10 coins were 10 coins wrapped in a handkerchief as a dowry, kept to remind a woman about her wedding—the 1^st century equivalent of a wedding ring.

         To make it plain—the recovery of sinners is so important and essential to God that God MUST act to get them back. It would be an affront to God not to do so.

         As you can see, there is a difference of emphasis, not essence, between these two readings.

God can be crazy in love with sinners, because sinners are tied inextricably to God.

         Additionally it’s worth mentioning that Jesus is eating with real sinners—this isn’t a Simul Justus Et Peccetor moment.

         Jesus is with scary folk—sinner,

Jesus is with people who’ve betrayed their country—tax collectors,

Jesus is with people outside the norms of society, people you’d not want to meet in a dark ally.

         It is also worth mentioning, finally, that these parables have a very weird view of repentance.

Listen to the description of repentance today.

Repentance is a sheep being slung over the shoulder of the shepherd.

Repentance is a coin being swept up off the floor.

Repentance, being turned around, is ultimately a very passive thing in these parables

After all, Coins and Sheep can’t repent.

        

With all those points made, I just want to tell you about some lost things.

Prayer

         Which of you, at the site of the World Trade Center 12 years ago, having lost a friend somewhere deep in the rubble, does not dig and dig and dig, day-in and day-out, until you find that friend.

         Then, when you do find her, you call all those who you love to tell them the good news that you found your her, and you tell them “rejoice with me.”

         “Just so is the joy among the hosts of heaven over the repentance of a single sinner.”

         Or which of you, your wedding ring falling down the drain, would not dig down into that drain with a coat hanger, and take apart the pipes, piece by piece, and dig through the guk in the trap.

         Then when you find the ring, you rejoice. You call up your husband and say, “rejoice with me, my ring was lost, but now it’s found.”

         “Just so is the joy among the hosts of heaven over the repentance of a single sinner.”

         Or, because I did say God appears to be acting irrationally in this parables,

what CIA agent—tailing Edward Snowden—the leaker of top-secret CIA and NSA documents,

         Following him in that Russian airport for months on end, because we lost track of him,

         What CIA agent wouldn’t scoop him up by the scruff of his neck and drag him back to the US…

and throw him a party at a disco.

         “Just so is the joy among the hosts of heaven over the repentance of a single sinner.”

         Or, lastly, who, having a parent suffering from Alzheimer’s does not lean in to listen, and hope at every visit that dad will remember your name.

         And when he does , don’t you call everyone up to rejoice at that. Saying, “My name was on dad’s lips at least one last time. Come over and rejoice with me.”

         “Just so is the joy among the hosts of heaven over the repentance of a single sinner.”

A+A

A full throated roar for the ELCA on the celebration of its 25th anniversary

  The Book of Deuteronomy is a re-telling. It’s a re-write. It’s a re-boot of the stories found in Exodus through Numbers.

         It’s as if some un-named author asked the question, “If Moses was on that mountain, looking down at the Kingdom created from the descendants of the people he brought out of Egypt and through the desert from slavery into freedom, what would Moses say to us? How does he see God acting now?”

         The book of Deuteronomy tells the story again, in a new place and at a new time.

         And I think today, on this day in which we celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the formation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, it’s worth telling our story again, in a new place, at a new time.

         After all, the way we’ve been telling that story is all wrong.

         For a wide variety of reasons we’ve fixated on the ELCA not being the ALC, the LCA, or the AELC—the churches the ELCA comes out of. We’ve been mourning the passing of these previous church bodies for the last 25 years—and so, when we tell the story of the ELCA, we have this great unconscious propensity to tell the story of what it’s not. It’s not the church of 25 years ago.

         But, as someone who was never a member of any of those predecessor bodies let me make it clear—we’re not 25 years ago. We’re here and now.

         With that in mind, it’s worth going up the mountain with Moses so we can look back down at ourselves and see what God is doing more clearly.

How God is making all things new.

How God is reconciling the world to Himself through us.

Prayer

         To get up there, on the Mountain with Moses—to see and hear the story of us Always Being Made New,

of being Reconcilors.

To know what the ELCA looks like from the Mountain Top,

we have to start with what Christ has done for us.

         You hear this time and time again,

as service begins/ at the font/ from the pulpit/  in the creed/ at the table/ as we leave/ and as we live.

         But in case you hear it wrongly, or too softly, or just can’t really believe it to be true.

         Let me tell it to you again.

Christ Jesus saves sinners, and has saved you.

Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has made peace between God and the world.

God does not count our trespasses against us, but instead has made us right.

God reconciles the whole world to Himself through Jesus Christ.

         And in that,

insofar as we are in Christ,

 we have been made new.

We’ve been drafted to be ambassadors for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been made messengers to spread this good new about Jesus to the ends of the earth.

All of us, who’ve heard this Good News, have been ordained to the ministry of reconciliation!

Empowered by the Holy Spirit to re-unite people to God and to one another.

         And for these last 25 years, the ELCA has been engaged in the hard, but righteous work, of making all things new.

         We’ve been Ambassadors, Messengers, and Ministers.

         For the last 25 years we’ve been a reconciling church.

         I imagine Moses looking down the mountain and seeing a church that enters into the places of deepest hurt and acts as little Christs there.

         He looks down and sees El Salvador, during the height of the civil war there. He sees whole villages being massacred by both sides of the conflict.

And he sees Pastor Greggory Knepp and other ELCA members going there, and living in the most vulnerable of villages, because they know that the militias there would think twice before massacring Americans.

         Looking down, and seeing the Za’atri refugee camp in Jordon, where thousands of refugees from the civil war in Syria gather. And seeing members of the ELCA and members of our partner church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordon and the Holy Land, ministering to those refugees. Mending our broken world, making all things new even there.

         He takes a panoramic view of the whole earth, and sees us, in these last 25 years, sending out 2,000 missionaries to over 100 countries.

He sees the webs of connection being formed as each Synod of the ELCA partners with an International Lutheran Church, so that we can be ambassadors of Christ to one another, widening our understanding of what it means to be Lutheran—to be faithful, in a new place, at a new time.

He sees our efforts to fight global poverty, hunger, and disease. He sees our investment of over 350 million dollars toward the alleviation of hunger and poverty.

         A little closer to home, he looks at the New Jersey Synod, and marvels. He sees that we fight well above our weight class.

         We make up 3% of the state’s population, but build more affordable housing than almost any organization other than the state of New Jersey itself.

         Our Synod partners with the Lutheran Church of Na-mib-ia and we sponsor and host 14 annual reconciliation camps in Bosnia.

         Moses sees our deacons and our advocates enter Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding cells in Elizabeth and Newark and elsewhere—the only organization that brings bibles in the native tongues of those held there in.

I’d imagine Moses thinks to himself, “Remember, you were sojourners in Egypt.”

         I’m sure Moses looked and saw how Christ, using the ELCA, reconciles and makes new families through our adoption programs and our re-settlement of refugees.

He saw St. Stephen hosting Vietnamese families back in the day, and churches in North Dakota hosting Somali families, and the herculean effort of Lutheran Immigration and Resettlement Services on behalf of the Hmong population transplanted to Minneapolis.

         He’d hear of how we are reconciling the society in which we live through critical and muscular wrestling with social issues—through statements and actions—word and deed—involving race, poverty, peace, and economic life.

         He’d see that when disaster cleaves our brothers and sisters from normalcy and safety, we get busy.

          From the floods in the Midwest to the South Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, we were there, and in the midst of all that, Christ brought a new creation out of everything old that had passed away.

         From the mountain he would also hear the beautiful chorus of reconciliation within the Church that we are bringing about, “that,” to quote the 17^th chapter of John “all may be one in Christ.”

         He would listen to us leading a great and joyous ecumenical song between Congregationalist, Methodist, Episcopal, Moravian, Presbyterian, and Reformed, Christians.

         He would likely note our historic agreement with the Roman Catholic Church stating that the Reformation was both tragic and necessary.

         He would be in awe of our being reconciled with the Mennonites, asking for, and receiving, forgiveness from them for our historical persecution of them during the Reformation.

        

         From the mountaintop, brothers and sisters—we can see that this church continues to be Ambassadors of reconciliation in the name of Christ Jesus.

         Over there I can see the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Myanmar—sometimes called Burma—being birthed.

         There, a gaggle of Lutheran Teens at the Church Wide Assembly noticed the ELCA’s new fundraising budget didn’t include anything to help the disabled, or work with young people—so they made their case and that good work will be included too.

         Also at that Assembly, a Sikh man who lived through the shooting by a white supremacist at his temple in Oak Creek Wisconsin, came and gave greetings, saying of the ELCA, “Your words of support and encouragement came as a shining light at a time when my community was recovering from the numbness-of-senselessness.”

         And over there, Lutheran Disaster Relief is getting a much needed boost. The Red Cross, having seen its good work after Katrina—that we’re still in New Orleans, putting things back together 8 years later, long after everyone else has left—the Red Cross sees fit to give 2 million dollars of their donations to us to continue our work recovering from Sandy—because they know we’re the real deal.

         Speaking of Sandy, over there, I see a woman named June in Hoboken, at St. Matthew-Trinity Lutheran, finding socks and shoes for a man made homeless by the Hurricane, and let me tell you, she not only finds those socks and shoes, she kneels down and puts them on that man’s feet.

Talk about making all things new!

         From the mountain, we can survey, with Moses, these 25 years, and see a church, and a people,

set free by Christ,

reconciled to God,

doing the hard, but faithful and necessary work

of reconciliation.

From the mountain we can tell our story,

and tell Christ’s story,

again.

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