Sermon: All Cross

All Cross

         Today I would like to talk to you all briefly about three things,

Identification,

Direction,

and Sight

… thought at the end of the day, I really only want to talk to you about one thing—the Cross of Christ.

Prayer

         Today we read that Jesus and his disciples find themselves in Caesarea Philippi.

         This is no small thing, that Peter confesses that Jesus is Messiah there—the first use of that title in Mark’s Gospel since it’s opening lines.

         That he makes this confession in Caesarea Philippi is important.

         Caesarea Philippi, named after Caesar—ruler of the Roman Empire, and Philip, one of Herod’s sons, is such a strange hybrid of power and culture.

         On one end there is Rome, with all its power and pretention, holding everything together with brute force

—peace by superior fire power

—Emperors deified by threat of death.

         On the other end is Jerusalem, the world Peter and the disciples identify with.

Jerusalem, filled with Elders, Priest, and scribes—a seeming faithful counter-balance to Rome.

         And like some strange Venn Diagram, Caesarea Philippi is where those two worlds intersect—the farthest edge of Israel and a city claimed for Caesar.

         And yet, none of these identifications

—Roman or Jew

—speak to Jesus’ identity, or the identity of those who follow him. Jesus is not a Messiah of Imperial Power, or one of Religious piety or one that mixes the two up

—he is one that point to a fourth option

—to crucified messiah-ship

—to a life shaped by the humble, humiliating, cross.

An identification with the one so humble he died a shameful death, the king crowned by thorn and enthroned on a cross.

         Yes, our identity is in the cross instead of nation or religion or some mix of the two.

         Yes, when the world offers us the choice between citizenship or membership as our center of self, we say no and cling to the Cross of Christ.

         Today we read as well of Jesus and the disciples being “on the way.”

This phrase is of course packed tight with meaning—it is the name Christians were called in the earliest years of our movement—people of the way.

         And one of the problems Christians have, and have had from the beginning

—is a place problem

—a direction problem,

 a where are we on the way problem.

         Today, Peter gets ahead of Jesus on the way, claiming the way does not involve rejection and suffering and all of that

—he refuses to believe the direction they are headed is conflict and cross.

         Soon enough he’ll be calling on Jesus to stay in one place, to not go any farther down that road.

Later the disciples will argues the road should really go toward greatness,

And later still they’ll argue about place—where they get to be—ask to be on his right and on his left.

         And in response to each of these place questions

—these where on the way ought we to be questions,

Jesus responds “Cross, Cross, Cross.”

He points to the way that is The Way.

         He warns about:

going too fast,

staying in one place,

seeking greatness instead of God,

and going on the sideline when we’re called to follow him, wherever he may go.

         His rebuke of Peter, is this “get behind me.”

Follow after me.

Be my disciple.

         Follow after him, even when it means cross—and please don’t misunderstand, there is no need to make our own crosses, when we follow him they will come. There is enough suffering to go around, enough suffering to bear well, without adding to our labor.

         Today we read about Peter seeing, but not seeing

—knowing who Jesus is, but not knowing.

Confessing, but still getting it a little off.

         This from the same gospel that makes a big deal out of a blind man healed by Jesus, but still not completely seeing, needing a second go of it.

         This from the same gospel that contains a father who cries so eloquently “I believe, help my unbelief.

It’s    I see, sort of.

         I believe, sort of.

         And now today “I confess, sort of.”

         Peter confesses that Jesus is Messiah

—wow, he get’s it…

 but then loses it,

he rebukes the Messiah for defining himself, defining Messiah-ship as suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection.

         Peter thinks he has it, but doesn’t.

         It’s like the famous Buddhist saying, “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”

In other words, if you finally believe you’ve reached enlightenment, that only means you have no idea what enlightenment is all about.

         Likewise, Peter, if you think you’ve boxed in what Messiah is, you’ve only boxed yourself in.

You’ve seen Messiah only partially,

you’ve believed in Messiah, but only partially.

You’ve confessed Messiah, only partially.

         In fact, the only person who fully grasps who Jesus is in Mark’s Gospel

—the only one who fully sees,

 fully believes,

fully confesses

—is the Centurion—the Centurion at the end of the Gospel there to see Jesus breathe his last, his life end, end on the cross.

Yes, we see Jesus fully on the cross.

We head in the right direction when we follow after him, onward to the cross.

We know who we are, when we find our identity in Our Lord on the cross.

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Nadia Bolz-Weber=Joe Biden: A Review of Accidental Saints

            Nadia’s latest book Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People begins with her discovering Alma White, a woman church planter in Denver from 1901. Nadia thinks “Gee (okay, it’s Nadia so her internal monologue probably begins with something stronger than“Gee”) a female church planter in Denver from way back… an old version of me… maybe old Alma is someone I could see as a role model and/or hero!” When she looks up Alma she finds out the lady was a bigot, and not just a little bit. Yet, Nadia realizes God used Alma for the Gospel despite her faults (side note, here is a good critical reading of this portion of Accidental Saints). God made her an accidental saint, because it’s God’s righteousness that makes us saints, not any of our own work. Accidental Saints takes a look at a few of those unlikely sinners God has grasped and sanctified, those Accidental Saints…

            …Hold up, you say. A review is great, but what’s up with your title? Were you just trolling Nadia (maybe a little)? Does Nadia=Joe mean something?

            Nadia, as she herself admits, is a biographical preacher and writer; she “preaches from her scars.” Nothing too strange there, it is often said Pastors preach to themselves first… it’s a thing we do. That said, she has a unique biography and a unique call as Pastor of The House For All Sinners and Saints (HFASS), and such a beautifully unique voice as a writer, that her words just bleed authenticity!

            So too, Joe Biden is so authentic that excess authenticity sloshes around in his shoes. You could hear it slurping around his toes the other night on Cobert. In a political field where people like Bush, Cruz and Clinton are so very calculated, the laughing, smiling, Irish mom quoting, biography laden, Biden is so clearly cut from a different cloth.

            The brilliance of Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People comes from Nadia’s authenticity; it’s brilliant in the same way Biden was brilliant in the Vice Presidential Debate, his authenticity, he wasn’t afraid to be Biden. Nadia’s personality, her Lutheran sensibilities, and her pastoral identity, all combine to make Accidental Saints a good read.

Personality

            Nadia is plenty aware of her new found stardom as the face of hip/relevant Lutheranism. In a chapter entitled “Whale Spit in the Superdome” she describes feeling unprepared to preach to a bunch of teens, especially since she’d become “What middle-aged people think teenagers” think is cool. This is so true, the Nadia effect in the ELCA can be border on embarrassing. I know of a Pastor who faced a call committee that insisted, if he wanted the job, he had to get a tattoo in order to “do that thing Nadia is doing.”

            Another very revealing moment is from the chapter entitled “The Lame” where Nadia notes that many people who show up at HFASS aren’t cool, they’re broken people, and she worries she’s not attracting people like her… then she realizes she is… that she’s not cool, that her tattooed bad ass exterior hides a bug-eyed hurting kid inside.

As a heart surgery scarred little boy who was always the new kids in school who has a propensity to hide behind words and degrees, this chapter above all the others, moved me! “The Lame” is worth the price of admission by itself.

Lutheran

            My initial tweet/facebook post about the book was that Accidental Saints is so Lutheran it made me cry (well that and “The Lame” chapter). Part of this is that we Lutherans don’t have a lot of voices in the mainstream, so reading a really solid proclamation of the Lutheran faith that engages with the world as it is and written for a popular audience, is really refreshing.

            Speaking of faith engaging with the world as it is, she insists on asking what Jesus thinks of Christianity’s Wishful-Thinking-Hallmarketting of idealistic positivity in the face of true despair and desperate moments. She “calls a thing what it is”… as Luther talks about in the Heidelberg Disputation.

            She considers Mary and her blessedness, that it comes neither from obedience nor some sort of purely political reading of her situation, but instead it is something imputed to her by a gracious God, “Mary is what it looks like to believe that we already are who God says we are.”

            Additionally, she challenges the Rapture-industrial-complex that is so widespread in North American Christianity. She challenges it with an “Advent Conspiracy-esque” reading of season that takes the rapture film “A Thief in the Night” and turns it on its head—perhaps in the crazy pre-Christmas consumerism of Advent, “the idea that Jesus wants to break in and jack some of our stuff is really good news.”

Pastor

            So, being a Pastor is funny, sometimes ha ha funny, sometimes strange smell from the education wing funny. Nadia nails the sacred strangeness of it, allowing people a peek into the life of a Pastor, and it rings true.

            For example, she describes a month when she was only going to have three days off (This is not uncommon for Pastors), and she is asked to do a funeral for a non-member on one of those days off. She totally doesn’t want to do it… she does it, but there’s that hesitancy that gives way to a holy act.

            She also writes, “I never feel like I’m getting everything done or am ever pleasing everyone in my life.” Definitely a common Pastor experience (and a common experience for most, let’s be honest). She compares this over functioning to her time as an addict, that white wine and cocaine isn’t all that different from habits of highly effective people.

            The two experiences she shares that most match my own are—knowing you’ll fail your people, and being surprised when you experience the very grace that you preach every Sunday.

            She, in fact, has this thing she tells new people “I will at some point let you down. I will say or do something stupid or disappointing. You need to decide before that happens if you will stick around after it happens.” She also shares a particular time when she failed a couple very badly, yet was offered grace by them, and she was struck by the grace, yet also recognized it as the very grace of God she preaches!

            Ordination is of course not all one big horror show. She also describes some of those intimacies we clergy are let in to experience—baptismal water, “last rites,” prayer vigils at houses where suicides take place, those little things done in the community and neighborhood that are noticed but not mentioned, because they are too intimate to do so. These are the things of a Pastor’s life, and she captures them well.

            What I’m saying is that it’s a good book, it is authentic about what Nadia sees God doing in the lives of 19 "Accidental Saints." And I’m left asking, have you ever seen Nadia and Joe in the same room together? ;)

Five Links 4: Kim Davis, Reggie Williams, and Iran

1. She’s a prop! Read Dreher’s article, but more importantly watch the Youtube video of Kim Davis… she’s a Prop for Mike Huckabee! Back in 2008 I actually kinda liked the guy, he talked the whole compassionate conservative things well, but my God, he’s creating, coddling, feeding, and riding a tiger… that’s a dangerous thing to do!
2. Kim Davis isn’t Rosa Parks. Kim isn’t Rosa—Rosa Parks was a private individual standing up against a law that forbid her from riding in the front of the bus on account of her skin color, she was fighting against discrimination. Kim Davis is a public official refusing to follow a law ending discrimination against gay people.
3. Or MLK. Mrs. Davis’ letter from her jail cell essentially promotes two particular candidates for president… she’s being used, or alternatively trying to squirm herself into the spotlight. MLK was political, but you didn’t see him endorsing candidates while jailed in Birmingham.
4. Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus. Check out Clint’s review of Reggie Williams’ book.
5. Senator Booker’s Iran vote. He’s decided to back diplomacy with Iran. Notice he does so very hesitantly.

Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday Sermon

         The African Methodist Episcopal Church called on all faith communities to make today, September 6^th, a day to confess and repent from the sin of racism and  to preach about racism.

         In response our Presiding Bishop, Elizebeth Eaton, has declared today, "Confession, Repentance and Commitment to End Racism Sunday."

         Not too long ago one of the men who caused the economic crash of 2007 was interviewed by a Christian Reporter, and he said something rather striking.

         “I’ve went to church my whole life, and not once did I hear anything that would make me think what I did was wrong.”

         And I wonder about Dylann Roof, the Lutheran who shot and killed 9 people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church… I wonder if he could say the same about his actions? That he’d never heard anything in his church that would make him think what he did was wrong?

That he never heard a word that challenged his racist assumptions…

Challenged his glorification of Apartheid South Africa—a country that ceased to exist the same year he was born—

Glorification of the Confederacy, a country that ceased to exist 150 years ago, and even then only existed for 4 years.

I wonder if in the ELCA we clearly articulate that White Supremacy is wrong and that all forms of Racism are in open conflict with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

         And so today, I want to tell you four things I wish Dylan Roof had heard in church.

-Those who foster division do not have your best interest at heart.

-Everyone is someone’s child.

-We’re more fully Church when we cross racial boundaries.

-The Resurrection touches everything.

Prayer

         Those who foster division do not have your best interest at heart.

         In James’ letter, he warns of divisions in the body of Christ—that church folk are making distinctions between one another on economic grounds.

That they treat one another as better or worse

based on expensive clothing,

based on how much coin clinks in the person’s pocket.

         In response to this James shames the church

—he goes class warfare on that church.

He reminds the church that the rich oppress, litigate, and blaspheme the name of Jesus.

         He points out that those he is writing to likely have more in common with the poor person than with the rich person.

         And this speaks to one of the roots of Racism in America. In the Virginia and Massachusetts colonies there were indentured servants of all sorts—black and white. It was only when poor whites and blacks started to resent and at times resist their Monied Masters that permanent enslavement became wedded to darker skin. It was believed,

rightly as history has proven,

that making a distinction between slave and serf based on skin color divided resistance to the will of the elites.

         I believe James would write to one of those colonial churches,

“Is it not the people who own you who are against you?

Just because they have the same color skin doesn’t mean they have your best interest at heart.

This division you’ve accepted, blasphemes the name of God.”

         So too, he would say to us today, “those who foster division, those who pit you against people who are your brothers and sisters—they don’t have your best interests at heart, they blaspheme Jesus’ name.

         Everyone is someone’s child.

         It should not be overlooked, when we read of Jesus’ encounter with this Syrophoenician woman, that she comes to him in the name of a child.

         Jesus’ cultural armor

—the assumption that he’s here for the children of the covenant

—is cracked open by a mother pleading for her little daughter.

         I think of the Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron. Not too long ago he was speaking out against refugees and immigrants coming to Britain in a way reminiscent of Churchill’s famed “We’ll fight them on the beaches” speech.

         Now, confronted by that horrifying photo of Aylan Kurdi, the 3 year old Syrian boy whose body washed up on the shore of Turkey a few days ago, Cameron is promising an additional hundred million pounds in aid to refugees and is inviting thousands of Syrians to come to England’s shores.

         For that matter I think of Ezra Cole, the first African American member of Tabernacle Lutheran in West Philly where I did my Field Ed. She jointed the congregation in 1950… at that time it was a German Lutheran Church… as in so German I would have been seen as out of place, even unwelcome, there.

         Well, in 1950 the Coles had moved into West Philly and just as they had their third child

—and having three children under the age of 2 can be a handful

—or so I hear.

         Well, 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 supportive church family.”

         And that very day she brought Mrs. Cole and her three children down Spruce Street to Tabernacle

—that was the start of an over 6 decade relationship between the Coles and Tabernacle…

because a little German lady saw children and knew what the right thing to do was

—even if it meant crossing barriers and challenging the identity of her church.

         Yes… there is something about children that moves us and helps us consider more gently our neighbor.

         And it must always be remembered—every one of us is someone’s child. We all have such potential in us, such humanity… we all ought to be handle with the gentleness of a child.

         We’re more fully Church when we cross racial boundaries.

         Today’s gospel lesson is a strange one—the same Jesus who teaches that the Kingdom of God is like seeds scattered everywhere

—the same Jesus who teaches that the Gospel will erupt in unexpected places

—is caught off guard in Tyre.

         One of those kernels of Gospel he’s planted explodes in front of him in the form of a needful woman

—a gentile woman

—a woman of a different race

—she confronts him with her need

—but also with the expectation of the Good News he has been preaching.

         And this transforms his ministry

—from here on out he engages and interacts with non-Jews on a regular basis

—he, as we read, goes on to the Decapolis—the 10 gentile cities—and there he heals a beggar and there gentiles proclaim that he has fulfilled the words of Isaiah “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped.”

         Jesus is more fully the Messiah—more fully fulfilling his role in the world—because he crosses racial boundaries. He’s more faithful to the very good news of the Kingdom—his presence in the world—when he is present with all peoples.

         So too the Church—we are the body of Christ when we cross the chasms the world has unjustly created.

 When we crack open the cultural assumptions we have and hear anew the Gospel,

when we keep up with the seeds long sown,

when we follow after the Holy Spirit, who goes where She wills.

         I think of my experience with Young Adults in Global Mission and Time for God—surrounded by people of different races and nationalities heading off to different nations, all singing God’s praise.

         Of my internship and field ed at congregations primarily of a race different than my own.

         I think as well of the meeting between the Church Councils of all 5 Lutheran Churches in South Plainfield, Plainfield, and Edison in the basement of Cross of Life in Plainfield—people of different races together for the gospel in this area.

These are Jesus moments, these are Spirit moments, these are Body of Christ moments.

         Jesus was more fully Christ when he crossed racial boundaries and we too are more the Church when we do the same.

        

         And Finally The Resurrection touches everything.

         Yes, those seeds of Gospel that Jesus sent out spread—beyond Judea, Samaria, Tyre and Sidon, to the ends of the earth.

         His body too was a seed, sewn and sprouted in resurrection.

         And that resurrection power has spread everywhere. It touches all parts of our life.

         Perhaps having a Sunday dedicated to preach about racism can be uncomfortable for some—but it would be decidedly more uncomfortable if we didn’t

—if in our silence we suggested that there is a part of life that is far away from God’s touch, far away from resurrection power.

         But friends, there is nothing that we can do or be that God can not transform.

         The Resurrection of Jesus Christ unmasks division as devilish and the petty plots of people.

         The Resurrection of Jesus Christ exposes everyone as children—as Children of God.

         The Resurrection calls the Church to be the Body of Christ by going where the Spirit calls.

         The Resurrection of Christ is a calling upon our whole lives.

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All The Books videos

Below are brief videos about each of my books:

Seeing with the Mind, Hearing with the Heart: A Thematic Bible Study on Luke by a Young Pastor and a Not So Young Parishioner

Silicon Soul

9 Sermons from the LTSP class of 2011

Read, Reflect, Pray: A Lutheran Prayer Book

An Uncomfortable Bit of Rope contains three essays and a play about the 22nd chapter of Genesis

Sermon: Confession and Forgiveness

Confession and Forgiveness

         When Jesus criticizes the traditions of the elders

         When James waxes eloquent about forgetful hearers and gifts from above

         And when the Israelites Identity is being formed by Statues and Ordinances

         I can’t help but think about Confession and Forgiveness… confession and forgiveness.

Prayer

         What’s Jesus on about today? Who wouldn’t want people to wash their hands before they eat? It’s one of the basic things you get taught as a kid, don’t touch the hot stove, say please and thank you, wash your hands before you eat.

         Jesus is not against this practice because he likes microbes crawling around on his hands, or because he, like a Chinchilla prefers a dust bath.

         No, he has two reasons for rejecting the practice. First He sees this ritual action as following an invented tradition, and secondly creating a division between holy and common things that ought not be created.

         The Pharisees were Popularizers, egalitarians if you will… they took the laws, many of them intended only for the temple, and brought them into the home—so that everyone was a priest, everyone was seeking holiness. In this case the people were told to emulate the priests ritual cleaning before the altar of God at their dinner table. And Jesus takes this to be a way in which human tradition has trumped God’s.

         Additionally, this ritual washing was a way in which people would move from their common every day lives into a holy portion of their life—their table and their home a separate place from the world outside of it.

         And this is not an uncommon religious impulse. Think of dipping your finger in the baptismal font to remember your baptism before going up for communion—you are ritually opening up a holy space as you enter into a holy meal.

         Or, think of the tradition of wearing your Sunday’s best. Putting on a certain style of clothing, not our work a day clothing, but Church Clothing—Holy Clothing for a Holy Time.

         Again, this makes sense, we’re opening up a space where we are more fully aware of God’s presence.

         The danger however, is that in these things we do, the sign of the cross, wearing our Sunday Best, ritually washing up to our elbows—we end up doing these things for the wrong reason.

         We end up doing them to hide what’s inside—if we can control the outward then we can ignore what is inside.

         James might compare this to looking into a mirror, looking away, and forgetting what we look like… the danger is we’re distracting ourselves from ourselves.

         There was a man who marched into a clinic and told them to run him through a battery of tests. He said “MRI my whole body, except my left foot.” Then he had them X-ray all of him… except for his left foot. Then an expert clinician examined every inch of him, except for his left foot.

         By the end one of the interns had to ask, “Why haven’t we examined your left foot?”

         And he responded, “Oh, well there’s something wrong with my left foot, but I don’t want to know about that.

         Yes, the danger is we end up hiding from what is wrong, leaving it’s image in the mirror, hiding it under our Sunday best, washing with water that which needs to be dealt with in community and by Christ.

         And that’s why I’m so glad we’re a Church that confesses. It’s almost an anti-ritual in which we take off our Sunday best and all the rest and appear naked before God. We confess a whole alphabet of intricate ways we offend both God and our Neighbor.

We abuse, betray, curse, destroy, envy, act foolishly and with greed, hate, injure, judge, kill, lie, murder, notice not our neighbor in need, oppress, profit unjustly, stay quiet when we should speak up, rig the game in our favor, sin, torment, utter falsity, act with vanity, will evil, stoke xenophobia, yearn for the good but do the evil, and lag in zeal.—Do those 26 cover everyone, at least a little bit?

         Yes, confession of sin keeps us from manufactured holiness. It helps us recognize with James that every act of goodness, ultimately, comes from above—it is a gracious gift from God. Every good act is from God.

         It’s like when you talk to city and suburban kids…some adults too I would venture—they think food comes from the grocery store. Perhaps packaged elsewhere, but it’s connection to earth, to soil and work, agriculture and irrigation, is lost.

         So too, when we put our trust in our own actions—whatever equivalent to washing to our elbows we come up with—we miss God too acting within us. The very struggle between saint and sinner, which follows us our whole life long, that’s all churned up by God. When care for Orphan or Widow trumps adultery or avarice—that’s ultimately from God, we maybe even cultivate the act a little—but it’s bursting on the scene, the fruit of it all, is from God.

         And recognizing that, these things we do—ritually and morally—become part of our identity—a badge to point to God. Just as Moses and the Israelites “heeded the statues and ordinances of God” so that people might look and say, “Wow, the God of those folks sure is close to them,” we too can wear grace and generosity as a marker pointing to God—even as we must remember it is not ours alone and comes from God alone.

         It points to our identity as a freed and forgiven people.

         It points to the reality of our forgiveness.

         Just as confession points to the ABCs of our brokenness, forgiveness points us to the ABCs of God’s grace.

         It points to a God who:

         Affirms, Bestows life, sent Christ, Destroyed death, Enlivens us all, Forgives continually, is Generous, Hates not anything He Has made, Invites us in, Justifies, shows Kindness, Loves us, Made us in His Image, Names us and claims us as His own, Opens the gates of heaven, Pours out mercy, Quells our doubts, Receives us as beloved children, Saves us, Turns us around, Ushers in the Kingdom, Values every one of us, Wills life, is exalted, is the Yes to all the world’s No’s, and renews our Zeal.

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