Poetic Sermon/Gospel Reading

The Holy Gospel According to John the 4^th Chapter

         So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Resting on the wrong side of the track

The bad part of town

A gay couple wandering into Westboro Baptist,

Into Fred Phelp’s funeral

A Ukrainian Soldier off base in Crimea

When the gates smashed open

Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

When Nicodemus showed up,

To meet with Jesus

It was night

In the darkness was unbelief

Not now

Now in this noonday sun

All is visible

All is known

Here comes belief.

         A Samaritan woman came to draw water,

A Samaritan woman…

No name.

Nicodemus had a name

She does not

Nameless

Just some other person

and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."

         (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

When a parent wants to get something done

But the kids are there

They might be in the way

Daddy gives them busywork

Dig a hole

Count the leaves

Fill in the hole

Jesus says,

“Oh… could you all go and get us some food?”

So the disciples won’t get in the way

In the way of this woman’s important experience of Jesus

         The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)

She’s unnamed… but

She’s a woman

She’s a Samaritan

The wrong gender

The wrong religion

For Jesus

         Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

Living water

The Rabbis recommend it

For ritual baths

The Early Church Fathers recommend it

For Baptism

Water that flows

Fresh and clean

Bubbling, clear, and living

From God’s good earth

         The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"

         Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

Think of it!

To be filled up with a life flowing

Flowing from the goodness of what God creates!

A living, clear, bubbling life

Fresh and clean

Flowing from purity and in the likeness of our Baptism

         The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

She just wants a small thing

One less backbreaking job

No more going to draw water in the heat of the day

That’s all, slaking thirst and less monotony

A small thing

But he’s offering more

A big thing

         Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back."
         The woman answered him, "I have no husband."

         Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!"

 

Five husbands

Some assume adultery

But

My bet is abandonment

Maybe because of barrenness

Left

Again

And again

And again

And again

And again

Left to fend for herself

To carry her own water

To grow hard

Abandoned

         The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

Peter doesn’t even top this

Nicodemus was blind

But she sees

Sees Jesus in the noon light

Both of them

Exposed for who they are

He names her and she names him

And they see

There at Jacob’s well

         Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem."

         Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
         You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

You’re a prophet, but not of my religion

So

Brass tacks then

The place between you and me

The space between Mt. Gerezim and Jerusalem—Mt. Zion

What of it?

…You say there is no space?

It’s not about place…

Huh.

         The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us."

         Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."

He doesn’t say I am he…

English communicates this poorly

He says I am.

I AM

…When Moses spake with the burning bush

The bush said, “I AM”

I am. with a period after it

No genealogy, but Genesis instead

The origin

The formation of it all

It all flows out from this

He says I AM

         Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?"

These awkward, unspoken, question marks

Would be shepherds crooks

Removing this bad comedian from the stage

Removing this woman from the Lord’s presence

This is why Jesus came up with that task

This is why he said,

“Oh… could you all go and get us some food?”

They see a woman

They see a Samaritan

The Disciples get in the way of Jesus

         Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"

         They left the city and were on their way to him.

Her question mark is a shepherds crook too

One leading her people,

Like Moses with a staff

Miriam’s song at the river

She’d found the one who fills her water jar

Fills it forever

She’d seen one who saw her

Knew her name and saw her

In the noon sun

She saw him

Come and see

         Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something."

         But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about."

         So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?"

         Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.

Sometimes the disciples don’t see

Even in the noon sun

They don’t see

         Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

She sowed

She sowed with her words

Sowed in the noon sun

Sowed because of who she saw

They did not labor

But they will reap

Because she sowed

There in the noon sun

         Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done."

         So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word.

         They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

They came to see

In the noon sun

Bright with belief

These Samaritans

Stayed with the Savior

Seeing him

Because she sowed

And said

And suggested

And saw her Savior.

The Gospel of the Lord,

God and the Other Guy: How God acts toward people who aren't you

God's Good News for the Millennial Generation

         The Pew Research Center recently surveyed adult Millennials—so people between the ages of 18-33

—just to be clear your pastor is a Millennial by Pew’s definition.

         They did this survey, and found hard numbers to back up what to this point has been hearsay

—we’re a disconnected and distrustful bunch.

         We are distrustful of marriage

—only 26 percent of us are married, compared with 48% of our parents at the same age.

         We’re distrustful of political parties—about 1/2 of us are independent.

         We’re also distrustful of both religion and God… with 86% of us believing in God and only 60% identifying with a religious tradition.

        

         And so, today, in the face of these numbers and the anguish behind them, I wish to preach on the subject, “God’s Good News for the Millennial Generation.”

Let us pray

         “God’s Good News for the Millennial Generation.”

         I’ll start off with a small thing … one of the statistics that confused Pew, was when the Millennials interviewed were asked if they were Environmentalists, they generally said no—in stark contrast to every other generation

… but when they dug a little deeper it turned out that what previous generations considered “environmentalism” is just common sense to us.

         And there is something very basic to that—taking care of the Earth

… in fact, according to the 2^nd chapter of Genesis that’s why we’re here—to keep it—keep it like the commandments are meant to be kept.

         Sometimes folk like to focus on “be fruitful and multiply” and forget this other end of things:

Keep the garden… guard the garden, for it too is holy.

        

         At the same time, one of the reasons Millennials are distrustful of religion, of faith—is that we feel like we’re being asked to turn off our mind, or choose between science and religion…

         And for many of my generation Science wins that argument… if I’m forced to choose between a talking snake or a polypeptide chain

Choose between Adam and Eve or Physical Anthropology

… I’m probably not going with the snake.

         That said, I’d hasten to add there are folk who are fixated on Science as trumping Religion, who have no clue how peptide bonding works or remotely understand Anthropology.

         But the good news, the news us Millenials need to hear, is we don’t have to choose between Genesis and Geology… It’s a false choice.

         A literal reading of Genesis, as the way the earth was formed and people came into being/

instead of, modern Biological and Geological findings,

has only been a popular way to read Genesis for 100 years.

         Between the years 1910 and 1915 an oil Tycoon by the name of Lyman Stewart sent out a set of essays entitled “The Fundamentals” to every Christian in America he could get an address for. These essays covered topics as diverse as The German School of interpreting scripture, Mormonism, The Atonement, and yes, Evolution and the Book of Genesis.

         The Fundamentals is where we get the term Fundamentalist and Fundamentalism. It is one of the places where a dividing line between The Faith and Modernity/ Religion and Science, were drawn.

         And as I said before, it needn’t be so.

 There are other ways of reading scripture

—for example, as a Lutheran I’d say interpreting it as Law and Gospel is a pretty good place to start

—where does it convict us of our sins?

—where does it remind us of God’s love?

Or another favorite of mine is to interpret scripture literarily (did you hear me right—literarily not literally)—meaning I take into account what type of literature the thing is…

If I read a story about why we love our partners so deeply that they feel like flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone,

or if I’m reading a poem about how God doesn’t need to act violently to create,

I’m not going to assume that piece of poetry, or that story, is a science textbook.

I wouldn’t do that any more than I’d read Emily Dickinson to determine how old the Earth is.

         Or read the Early Church Fathers, they interpret the Bible literally, spiritually, allegorically, morally, Christologically, anagogically, ecclesselogically…

         Or look today at Paul—he interprets Genesis typologically

—Adam is a type of Jesus

—a disobedient one.

         He interprets Genesis to mean Sin and Death go all the way back

—that throughout history there have been a myriad of ways we’ve sinned and brought death to our neighbor and to ourselves

—but the good news is that Jesus’ actions didn’t just wipe away a single sin,

or even each of these individual sins,

but Sin itself with a big S, the root, that’s what he went after

—God’s grace, which Christ brought in through his obedience, rolls back all of it.

         And that’s good news to us Millennials.

         Because there’s a lot to roll back in our relatively short lives.

         We distrust marriage, because half of us are children of divorce, and we know even if we overcome that distrust, we still can’t afford to get married… we’ve got friend on food stamps and younger brothers who’ve yet to get a job or go to college or move out of our parent’s house.

         We distrust political parties, politics, and people in charge, because they’ve made partisanship a virtue and politics a banal zero-sum blood sport, and those in power got us into two land wars in Asia and didn’t give our brothers and sisters who went to war proper equipment to survive there or proper treatment when they came back.

         We distrust religion because we’ve seen the fundamentalism that toppled the Twin Towers and we’ve seen Catholic Bishops hide child rape.

         When asked the question, “Generally speaking, would you say most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people,” 81% of us said people are not trustworthy—even 31% of those supposedly cynical Gen-Xers before us trusted people, but not us.

         And that goes for God too

—after all, what kind of God would condone unthinking suicidal violence and unspeakable abuse?

That kind of God, would be a monster, would be Satanic.

         And that’s why we,

my people,

the Millennials

That why I myself

need to hear about Jesus.

         Hear what He did today. How his responses to temptation reveal a God

 I

can

trust.

         Satan baits Jesus—“if you are the Son of God”—right after God revealed Jesus’ Sonship at Baptism—

“if you are the Son of God, feed yourself… feed on others, use that power for personal gain—isn’t that what a real God would do?”

… but Jesus uses his Sonship to feed others, to feed the hungry-ones… because Jesus can be trusted.

         Satan baits Jesus—“Be protected, be revealed at the Temple as the Son of God, be glorified and sheltered, use religion as a shield from the reality of gravity and use it to be honored and above reproach.”

…but Jesus uses his Sonship to be vulnerable at the Temple, to be attacked by the religious folk—lifted high, but upon a reproachable cross—giving himself fully… because Jesus can be trusted.

        

         Satan baits Jesus—“then be a typical human, give it all up for power, worship a false god, worship the horrific and monstrous and Satanic—so that all things will be yours.”

…but Jesus points to the One Who Truly Deserves Worship, and in doing so, he shows us that the One Who Gave Up All Vestiges Of Power is truly worthy of honor… because Jesus can be trusted.

What is God’s Good News for the Millennial Generation?

         Keeping God’s Earth is a Holy Calling.

         We don’t have to check our mind at the Church door.

         Jesus conquers Sin and Death, even right now.

         And finally,

Jesus can be trusted.

Amen.

Ash Wednesday Message

         Look at the person nearest to you—at their brow in particular.

         Nothing?

No smudge, no black spot, no dust and ash cross on their forehead?

         Well, the wild thing is that it is already there

—that ash

—that ash is already there on their forehead and upon your own as well.

         You are dust and to dust shall you return—that’s an obvious truth, we are mortal, we’re confined to a particular time and place. Our bodies break down and things fall apart,

to quote both William Falkner and the Buddha,

“All things impermanent.”

         That’s already the case.

“All things impermanent,” is a reality whether I put ash upon your brow or not…

but when I do, this hidden truth is made plain,

it becomes obvious,

it comes to the forefront of our lives. What was hidden is revealed. The invisible is made visible.

         And, very briefly, because the ritual actions we do this night speak more powerfully than any words I can come up with,

I would like to talk to you about the power of hidden, invisible, things.

Prayer

         In today’s Gospel we read of hidden things—Hidden Alms, Hidden Prayers, and Hidden Fasting.

         These are of course things we, as people of faith, do.

Things we as children of our Heavenly Father do, not to be seen, not to be honored,

 but because of the wondrous grace we’ve received and continue to receive from God.

         These hidden things—

-giving of our possessions to those in need,

-praying to God that the reality of Heaven might break into our lives and into the lives of both friends and enemies,

-and consuming less, so that others might have enough

are all practices of the Christian Church

—I could, I believe, name times when each one of you have done things that fit within these broad categories,

Alms, Prayer, and Fasting.

         And it is during the season of Lent—these 40 days leading up to Easter—when we make obvious these actions, when we afford ourselves extra opportunities for these practices.

         These things we as God’s people do in secret, are made more obvious in Lent.

Like that hidden dust that is already on your brow, yet will be revealed shortly

—the hidden piety of the people of God is revealed in Lent.

         Jesus speaks of hidden deeds, and Paul speaks of a hidden triumph, a hidden kingdom, and a hidden citizenship.

         Not to get too deep into the geopolitical mud, but look at what the country of Russia is claiming and doing. They’re claiming a right to defend Ethnic Russians, no matter what country they live in, and they’re giving Russian passports to Ethnic Russians who are citizens of Ukraine.

         It is as if these Ukrainians are secret Russians, they have a secondary, invisible, citizenship.

         And that is what Paul is pointing to today, an invisible citizenship that motivates the Christian life.

         Through Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection we can say:

 -now is the acceptable time,

-now is the day of salvation. We know his death, and our own, is ultimately a triumph, taking the dark no of mortality/ and redeeming it with the overshadowing mercy of God’s Yes for us.

         We’ve found a second citizenship—an invisible one, the Kingdom of Heaven.

         And we are ambassadors for that Kingdom, for that Good News.

         We’re freed to live out that calling, which may bring about hardships of all sorts…

yet we struggle to respond with goodness in all things,

finding ourselves held taut by that tension

 “treated as imposters, yet in truth, true/ dying, and yet see! we are alive.”

         Yes, look to your sister or your brother,

at their forehead,

their brow,

their mortality is there,

“All things impermanent.”

--but so too is Alms, Prayer, and Fasting

—so too is Christ’s triumph and their citizenship in the Kingdom of God. Amen.

Peter on the Transfiguration

         I guess I can tell you now, after all he’s risen from the dead and the Spirit has sent us to proclaim that message from Jerusalem to Rome and on to the ends of the earth.

         I’m not quite sure where to start though—at his Baptism maybe—after all my story today echoes that Baptism by John…

         Or maybe that’s where it starts—I think so…

John was killed by Herod, so we went off to a quiet place to rest and mourn that great man’s death—but people showed up

—we tried to escape and reflect, but everyone was draw to Jesus, and we needed to feed them…

sure Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes, but we disciples still had to distribute the food

—imagine it, bachelors and fisher men, and tax collectors—12 men—feeding thousands of people

—it was hardly in our skill-set

—it was exhausting to provide for all those people.

         Then Jesus tried to escape off to quietly pray

—and by the end of that I walked on water

—though first I nearly sank

—a scary exhausting experience.

         Then we fed another crowd.

         Then I confessed who he was… who he is.

Jesus is “The Messiah, the Son of God.”

         I felt like I was finally on solid ground with that

—but then he talked about suffering and death

—he kept talking about suffering and death

—following him by taking up a cross

—a God-forsaken-cross.

         The cost of following Jesus,

the constant threat of death, affliction, and doubt,

feeding people constantly,

the low level wear-and-tear of all of it,

the constant grind,

it was too much.

         But then, after six days, he took the three of us up the Mountain.

         Up the mountain like Moses and Elijah

—Moses receiving the commandments and Elijah instructed by God to find the people in Israel who remained faithful.

         Jesus was changed before me, before us, becoming radiant, bright—like an angel a Son of God.

         And then those Holy Men of Old were there—Elijah and Moses—the Law and the Prophets, both there with Jesus.

         And all that… that fear and sorrow and worry and hurt that came from following Jesus, evaporated.

        

“Let’s stay here.  I’ll build booths!”

         I know, it might sound stupid, or naïve, or silly

—written down in our holy books now

—my weakness recorded forever, and even preached about in churches,

but that moment on the mountain, I felt safe.

It was a solid rock,

 something that wasn’t demanding of me,

taking from me.

It was something other than suffering and death and service.

That’s why I wanted to build a booth there.

         But all that was overshadowed by what came next

—that voice—the Bet Col, the voice of God

—just like at Jesus’ Baptism. It said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him.”

         My confession

—that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God

—was confirmed by a voice from heaven!

Confirmed just as it was at Baptism

—but more than that, there was a command too, “listen to him.” Listen to suffering, death… and resurrection.

         In that sublime moment of rest and confirmation there was also a calling, a calling to what comes next

—it literally bowled me over. Knocked down into a little ball by the holy terror of what this calling was

—who this Son of God is.

         It might sound odd, but Jesus telling us about suffering and death is one thing… but the blinding divine confirmation of that calling, is a whole different thing—it was so frightening… hell, it IS so frightening.

         And to my fright came a gentle touch and the words, “Get up and be not afraid.”

         Those words, “Be not afraid,” are the words of angels and prophets,

as well as words from God Godself

—words He spoke to Moses when the Egyptians breathed down his neck

—words spoken to Elijah when he confronted the king

—words spoken by Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Joel

—words to me and to all of us from my Lord Jesus.

         Jesus, there, now alone, no ancient prophets or sparkling Messiah,

but Jesus, leading us down the mountain,

back to the hard work of service,

down the mountain to Jerusalem with its suffering and death.

         Down the mountain in silence, telling no one of this experience

—Jesus revealed to us fully, in glory, in completion

—revealed to us as our comfort and God’s Beloved Son

—revealed to us in commands about following him even to the most disastrous of ends, and following even then

—so that we can tell of his Resurrection

—tell of him being raised from the Dead.

—Tell of how suffering and death,

service and discipleship

are matched with being a Child of God, comforted by the Christ.

The Valley and the Mountain are both there.

         As we head down the mountain into the valley,

the darkness of that,

we have seen the light,

and it changes this journey to Jerusalem with Jesus.

A+A

Seminary Debt 2014 edition

So, one of my hobby horses is Seminary Debt… and making pie charts… lots of pie charts.

Well, tax time rolled around again, and I wanted to pass on a picture of how things look in 2013. My taxes have went up a little, but thanks to the Obama Administrations student loan modification plan the amount I owe on Seminary Debt went down, and both my tithing and my remaining income went up.

Below is the chart:

A story about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount

            There was once a village, and at its center was a maze, and in that maze was a monster, vicious and cruel, death dealing to an extreme. But the villagers said to themselves, “stay on the safe side of the maze, and you’ll be all right.”

            But it seemed the monster could navigate the maze and get in and get out.

            So, the villagers built a wall around the perimeter of the maze, and told their children, “just stay on the safe side of the wall and you’ll be all right.”

            But then the village’s sheep started disappearing, people started seeing a monstrous thing in the shadows.

            One day a Builder came to the village, and volunteered to create a barrier for the sheep and the children, so that the Monster would be kept at bay, and they would be safe.

            The village rejoiced and it was built, so sturdy that they knew the children and animals would be safe.

            Then the Builder offered to create a trap for the monster, and as bait to catch the Monster he offered himself—the Builder was the bait for the Monster.

            That night he sat in his trap, and dusk came down. He could hear the Monster claw at the walls where the vulnerable were, but it did not break the barriers.

            Then it entered his trap, rushing at him… and the trap was tripped, a net came down over the monster and scooped it up

            … and the monster was revealed—it was the villagers themselves.

            The Monster was the people, their anger, lust, and lies driving them to do things they could not imagine they were capable of.

            And then in the light of day, the Builder unsprung his trap, releasing them all from the Monster.

A colorful map of the Synods of the ELCA

I'd noticed there were no maps of the 65 Synods of the ELCA that were very distinguishable--instead they were all monochromatic--so I colored them in.
PA and the Northern Midwestern patchwork are kinda funny--they're thick with Lutherans.