My fears about Trump, realized

You might remember going into the 2016 election I had three fears about the election of Donald Trump:

1. He will weaken insurance protections for people like me with pre-existing conditions and mess with Obamacare generally.

2. He’ll say anything and mean nothing.

3. He’s authoritarian.

I checked back last year and concluded that I was not wrong.

How do things look these days?

1. He continues to go after the ACA.Challenging it in court, allowing the sale of plans that can deny people coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and promised to make repealing the ACA a centerpiece of the 2020 election.

2. As for the president lying and wallowing in vacuous slogans… Well, he has 12 pages worth of false statements on politifacts and averaged 15 lies a day last year. He’s fought against windmill cancer, exaggerates his net worth,exaggerates about the benefits of his tax cuts, and there was the whole Kanye West thing… not to mention we had an embarrassing and costly ($11,000,000,000 costly, destruction of national parks costly, hungry people not fed, food not inspected, workers not paid for their work costly… etc) government shut-down because “We’re going to build a wall and Mexico will pay for it” turned into “We’re going to build a wall and I’m going to hold the country ransom to pay for it.”

3. Finally, there is the authoritarianism.
-I’d remind you that the “gloves off” “sometimes you have to break some eggs” approach to ICE enforcement has ruined the lives of a few folk I know personally. We’re now the country of baby jails and what look an awful lot like concentration camps.
-Neo-nazis are being called “very fine people” by the president, and he’s inspiring violence at home, and abroad.

-Speaking of abroad, Trump continues to be cozy with authoritarian leaders, Putin especially.

In conclusions, Trump endangers the health of people with pre-existing conditions, the empty words he planted are now being harvested in unforced errors with unforeseen consequences, and his authoritarian streak is curdling the soul of America and emboldening enemies of freedom everywhere.

Bear Fruit

         Consider the folk shot in Christchurch, New Zealand, were their sufferings and their deaths the result of their sins?

         Or those in Nebraska, who have, due to the horrific flooding, lost their livestock and their crops, and their homes and some even their lives. Were they worse sinners than all the rest of us?

         By no means…

         Jesus decouples sin from suffering—in fact, that’s one of the reasons for Jesus’ healing ministry, he heals people who have been put out from polite company on account of their ailments, because polite company believed their ailments were a sign of sin.

         And this view of a causal-relationship between sin and suffering makes some sense, doesn’t it? Actions shouldhave consequences.  It makes for a well-ordered universe.
If a bad thing happened to me, I know I’m at fault… such a scheme is easy,
but as we all know from our actual experiences in life, it is never that simple.
Yes, actions have consequences, but the connections between them are rarely crystal clear. 

         

         And that ambiguity can get us alltwisted up.
It can cause us to pay much closer attention to the facts of our life and the ramifications of our choices.

When we come near to suffering it can stir up a lot of unspoken things in us.

It can make us take our own lives more seriously…
“What if it had been me instead?”

“Wow, he lost everything, what’s really important in my life?”
“Shoot, he’s dead and I never got to say goodbye, who else do I have unfinished business with?” 

         (To be clear, our primary concern when faced with someone who is suffering, ought to be care for the suffering person, not turning inward and making their suffering about us)

         Yet, those questions linger in the air, they are moments filled with potential, moments of opportunity and peril,
forks in the road…

They can lead down a path where our discomfort with death and suffering can lead us into the arms of idols
—after all idolatry is putting our “fear, love, & trust” in anything other than God… where does our loyalty, love, and awe get tested more often than in the face of suffering? 

         We can go down that idol road, or we can go down another path, the one Jesus points us to… 
in the face of these questions,
to the lonely searching of our soul,
we can cling to the answer Jesus gives, “Repent, bear fruit.”

         You’ve come face to face with those places in your life that are not fruitful, you recognize in a stark way those things that pull you away from the center of life, you are aware of where you’ve fallen short and where you’ve made a wrong turn… 

         Repent—turn around,
fall in line behind our Lord and follow him!
Get back on the path of being a disciple; change your ways!

         And do you know why repentance is possible? Why change can happen?

Because you can repent from a place of stability and self-worth!

Because you can change knowing God will catch you when you fall!

Look! In the heat of the day, God’s wings, a cool shroud shelters you.

Look! Out in the wilderness, far from civilization a cool spring and wilderness meal!

Look! Food and drink aplenty, no strings attached, no debt incurred.

Look! You are a blooming garden, ripe with potential and awash with opportunity!

You are beloved of God, baptized and fed, gathered together in God’s arms!

Gathered together to go out. To be salt and light to the world, a world deeply loved by God! A world that needs to know it’s worth!

Even those far off, those who have shaken off the dust of the faith and intend never to go back—the gift is still there. No one can take God’s promise from you! No idol can stop your ears from hearing God’s call!

Praise be to God whose ways are mysterious and great!

Praise be to God who brings heaven to earth!

Praise be to God who calls forth fruitfulness from us!

         Yes, we can bear fruit, because we are grounded in God’s good soil!

         We can face those big questions stirred up in us in the sight of suffering, avoiding the temptation of idols, because we know God holds us and is with us and will never abandon us.

         Never abandon us, even if it means coming in flesh, suffering with us, dying with us… even then, God will never abandon us!

         We can ask those big questions and find faithful, fruitful, answers, because God loves us!

Fruitfulness…

         Fruitfulness!

         Following after Jesus, being like him, becoming little Christ’s!

         Fruitfulness!

         Living a generous life in such a way that everyone has enough! Are we not entertaining angels unaware?

         Fruitfulness!

         An openness to those on the outside, because we know God is found on the margins, even outside the gates of Jerusalem on a cross! 

         Fruitfulnessalso taking relationships seriously. On Wednesdays we’ve been talking about the concrete steps that it takes to forgive someone.
-telling your story,

-naming the hurt,

-forgiving the offender

and only then deciding whether to restore the relationship, or release it.

         Fruitfulness!

         Trusting that you are not alone in all of this, that there is a Gardner who will dig around your roots and tend us all with good soil
—the Gardner who makes us to bear fruit and at the resurrection calls us by name.

Amen

Sermon after the Christchurch shooting: Sanctuary

Sanctuary

         “For in the day of trouble God will give me shelter, hide me in the hidden places of the sanctuary, and raise me high upon a rock.”

         Sanctuary—this space where we are worshipping at this very moment, and a generic term for a place of safety.
A worship space and a place of safety… Sanctuary.

         A year or so back we did a pub theology that looked about disaster preparedness, the focus was how can we help when the next hurricane hits? What do we do if someone faints?

         Fast forward to last month. We put together a “Congregational Disaster Preparedness Team” and one of the things we’ll need to think about, at least a little, is what happens if our sanctuaryis under attack.

         Sanctuary… a worship space and a place of safety…
We need sanctuary!

Prayer

         At first blush it’s a strange thing, the Pharisees warning Jesus about Herod’s threats of violence. But they realize their fate is directly connected to Jesus’. You see, for Herod, one pious Jew looks very much like another… and it was known that Jesus didargue about interpretation with the Pharisees, and dideat with them
—breaking bread and asking “how do you read”
—as far as Herod cared Jesus was just another Pharisee…
and there is a history of the Royal Family off-ingPharisees, Herod’s great grand-father-in-law once executed 800 Pharisees in a single day.
The Pharisees knew that for Herod, Violence is as violence does.

         So they warn Jesus to cool it!
He’s been describing God’s Kingdom in epic ways, which has King Herod worried… 

“Just cool it or we’re all dead!”

         But Jesus won’t be slowed down, he’s doing what he’s doing
—going to Jerusalem… Jerusalem where the Prophet’s are killed…
(some of you have been asking what this phrase means)
Jerusalem, the center of religion
—where else would a prophet die, except in a confrontation with God’s people
—religious messengers are killed for delivering their message to religious people,
God’s people who reject God’s message due to their religious convictions,
convictions that are ultimately idolatrous!

         And Jesus laments this, that all these people are loved like Children whose lives are cut short,
loved like chicks who refuse to nestle down and are in grave danger…
ultimately the image Jesus conveys about his message to Jerusalem, an image which will be born in his very body on the Cross, is this:
There is a Fox seeking to eat the Hen’s precious chicks,
-the Hen seeks to save them putting her very body in the way of the deadly fox,
-and the chicks, turn on the Hen, their own mother, and kill her…
-and then, in turn, the fox kills the chicks…

God help us… we need sanctuary!

         We need sanctuary!

-Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg,
-Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston,
-First Baptist Church in Southerland Springs,
-the Sikh gurdwara in Wisconsin,
and now the twin mosques in Christchurch…

         It feels like, to the Violent, to people of ill-will, we are all prey.
Wherever groups of goodwill gather together, violence is as violence does… there are no distinctions made… We all need sanctuary!

         Yet, that’s not quite right, with the exception of the shooting at First Baptist in Southerland Springs (which was an incredibly tragic domestic dispute),
there wasa common thread,
there WERE distinctions being made
—in fact, like violent religious martyrs, the shooters gave witness to their faith, they named very clearly why they committed these horrendous acts of violence
—the worship of whiteness… they were all white supremacists, 

They fit the same pattern as:
the murderer who killed 77 people over in Norway 8 years ago,
or the shooter at the Overland Park Jewish Center 5 years ago where three people were killed,

Or Charlottesville nearly two years ago, where neo-Nazi chanted “Jews will not replace us”
… where counter-protestors were beaten and clergy pelted with coke bottles filled with cement, an African American church put under siege,
and the whole event culminated in a white supremacist running over the counter-protesters with his car, leaving twenty eight people injured and one young woman dead.

         They worship whiteness.

         And again, in the name of this hellish God,children, women and men, mothers and fathers, all gunned down while they worshipped together.

         The absurd horror of a refugee who escaped violence in Syria shot dead at a mosque in New Zealand, where he had found sanctuary…

         God help us, we need sanctuary!

         In the face of Herod,
in the face of the tragedy of Jerusalem,
thank God we can see the Pathos of God in Jesus!
Thank God for his tender sorrow,
the tears of God,
and the tragedy tearing at God’s heart!

         Thank God, as well, that he goes to Jerusalem,
that God in Christ Jesus puts himself in the way,
goes forward anyhow,
knowing that he goes forward to be betrayed by religion and authority
—the impulse of every Jerusalem, every instinct to worship that bypasses God… Jesus goes to meet men whogladly sell all that is good in religion, for violence’s sake.

         Do you hear me?
The pathos,
the tender sorrow,
the torn heart of God!

         God is moved!

         God weepsat the attack on the worshippers at Al Noor mosque and at Linwood mosque.

         God weepsevery time sanctuary is supplanted by violence!

         Do you hear me?
Jesus puts himself in the way!

         God is always found between the victim and acts of violence! 

         God was withDaoud Nabi, the attacker’s first victim, the greeter who was at the door to the mosque and whose first and last words to the attacker were, “welcome brother.”

         God was withthe father shot in the back while shielding his two sons, now in a coma.

         Even when the church sells itself out to quietism, get-along-ism, that’s-too-political-ism,
when it turns its eyes from white supremacy and any other idolatry under the sun… even then

—God shows up!

         “For in the day of trouble God will give me shelter, hide me in the hidden places of the sanctuary, and raise me high upon a rock.” 

Sanctuary…
a worship space and a place of safety…
We need sanctuary!

Amen, and God help us.

Temptation

Temptation

(to congregation)        

Look at him, filled with Spirit—and nothing else…

          I’d watched him at the river when he was Baptized, it was a sight to see, the heavens opened, that vile Dove, the Holy Spirit, she was there with him, and the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, told him, “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”

          Doesn’t look so happy now does he? Bet he’s not filling Ol’ God with happiness now… all gaunt and starved, skinny, wasting away.

          Truly, I wonder, what kind of Son of God is this? The whole thing is so incomprehensible to me. What kind of Son of God is this Jesus?

(to cross)

          Jesus! Since you’re the Son of God, I expect you can follow in your father’s footsteps, you can do for yourself like he did for Moses in the… well… (indicate surroundings) the wilderness… since you are God’s Son, make for yourself bread…

          Take this rock here, make it into manna…

(to congregation)

          And he spits back at me scripture… “One does not live by bread alone.” Nodding to Deuteronomy, to the reminder found there that the 40 years Moses wandered in the wilderness were about God’s people aligning themselves with God’s will, being tested and finding that they trusted God, trusted God’s providing, even when it looked to be the opposite…

(to cross)

          Tell you what! You can’t even make manna from stone…
 you are hardly a Son of God… you are powerless… follow me…
(WALK TO NEW SECTION)
Look at all of this, every nation—look at the strut and strength they have, their glory and authority—it all belongs to me, I’ve taken it from them, they gave it to me willingly, they tripped over themselves selling themselves… and I can do whatever I want with them, I could even give all of this to you…

 If you worship me, then all of this, this magnificent prize, is yours.

(to congregation)

          Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.

          Bllaaa! Again with Deuteronomy… describing one of those powers that I offered him, the might of Egypt, seduced and fallen, describing how the Israelites were strangers and then slaves, and no amount of power freed them, only God freed them, only God is worthy of worship!
This guy, I think I need to try a new tactic.

(to cross)

          Come with me, up to Jerusalem, such a Holy and important place, the belly button of the world, its bedrock, its beginning and its ending…
 no, don’t stop here… come up higher still, up to the tip-top of the temple, up to the highest height, for all to see…

          Look Jesus, since you are the Son of God, spread out your arms, fling yourself from here, and they will see, they will see that you do indeed fulfill scripture, “He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you” and if that’s not enough scripture for you, “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”

          Huh? How about that, that’s how a Son of God acts, isn’t it? Centering himself and showing everyone his holy power, his heavenly protection—Jesus, that’s how the Son of God acts!!!

(Storm out to congregation in a RAGE!!!)

          And a third time, Deuteronomy, describing the meaning of this God of liberation, this God who took God’s people out of Egypt and through the Wilderness! “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

          What kind of Son of God is this Jesus? He will feed the multitudes with bread, but not himself.           What kind of Son of God is this Jesus? He will bring people from every tribe and race, every nation under the sun under his rule, but not for the glory and authority that nations and races and tribes offer.

          What kind of Son of God is this Jesus?

          Who gets up and goes with that Holy Dove still upon him, who leaves me behind and goes and preaches,

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

          What kind of Son of God is this Jesus?

          Jesus!!!

          Look, back at the temple again! Back in Jerusalem!

          What an opportune time!!!
(GO TO CROSS)

          Look at you on that cross!

          Dear Jesus, now you thirst! Bring out water from a stone! Now is your time to produce manna in the desert—show them you’re God’s Son.

          Now you are abandoned by the very one you worship! “Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani”

          Now you are feeling what it means to reject the power of a nation—executed by the state! There is a simple truth to this world, Oh Son of God, if you aren’t doing the killing, you will be killed.

          Now you wonder, are you God’s Son?

          Now your arms are outstretched! Again, in Jerusalem…

          Show them, just show them, what kind of Son of God you are!

          Call upon angels for protection, worship me, be satisfied by more than gall from a rugged stick and sponge!

          Show them what kind of Son of God you are!

          No… you just quote scripture again, “Into your hands I commend my spirit, you will redeem me, Lord God of truth.”

Ash Wednesday: We are to take up our Lenten Disciplines in such a way that we remain disciples of Christ.

Ash Wednesday

          So here we are… another Lent, so late this year that we were lulled into a false sense of security and it managed to sneak up on us.

          Here we are—on the precipice, ready to follow Jesus down the mountain and head to Jerusalem.

          Here we are—shaping our lives into a unique holy time through a 40 day focus on Alms, Fasting and Prayer.
          Using ELCA World hunger resources for Self-examination and Repentance, Prayer and Fasting, Works of Love and Sacrificial Giving.
          Gathering together on Wednesday to work out the actual nuts and bolts process of forgiving someone and some of us helping each other along the way as prayer partners.
          Many of us searching our own souls and finding particular areas in our life that need 40 days to clear out and re-create so that it more closely clings to the Gospel and to Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the face of all these doings, let me say this as plainly as I can: these efforts are to be taken seriously, seriously enough to fail at them, but they are not to be taken seriously enough to cause other people to fail. Jesus says our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees and the Scribes, but that is not a call to self-righteousness or self-satisfaction.

          We are to take up our Lenten Disciplines in such a way that we remain disciples of Christ.

Prayer

          We are to take up our Lenten Disciplines in such a way that we remain disciples of Christ.

          Beloved in Christ, give alms, for doing so will connect you to the real and ongoing needs of the world. Give of your time and your possessions, in so doing you will find that, despite the stories of our society and the voices in our heads, there will be enough—in God’s good creation there is enough!

          Beloved in Christ, do not give of your time and your talent in such a way that you may brag of your busyness or lord your generosity over another person, being their patron. Doing so will breed resentment and you will not be listened to.

          Beloved in Christ, fast, for in so doing you will remember what sustains you—that everything nourishing for the body is a gift from God. You will become aware of the body which God has given you. You will also be reminded that many go to bed hungry, and you will hunger for their fullness.

          Beloved in Christ, do not fast for show or to become proud of your control over your body, for it is not your own.

          Beloved in Christ, pray regularly. Pray for our future and for our greatest needs—they need to be named and known, or we will go quietly and unthinkingly into a future that is not only frightening, but uncaring. For that matter, there is a lot of you inside of you, its good to get it out in the open, express it to God, God’s shoulders are big enough to bear it.

          Beloved in Christ, do not pray in order to manipulate or to gossip, do not pray breathless prayers in the hopes that they take your neighbor’s breath away. Doing so mocks God and dishonors your neighbor.

          Beloved in Christ, Seek repentance and forgiveness, your actions and your inner being are worth taking seriously. So is your neighbors.

          Beloved in Christ, do not seek repentance and forgiveness for show, or to stir up controversy, only do so because the image of God is found in the mirror and right next to you.

          Dearest Christian friends, recognize the weight of taking on a Lenten discipline. It is as heavy as Joel’s religious response to a plague of locusts and the famine that followed, it is as Paul writes becoming reconciled to God.

          Recognize too the goal of such a discipline, you are being shaped into the Image of Christ, not into a hypocrite.

          We are to take up our Lenten Disciplines in such a way that we remain disciples of Christ.

Amen.

The Transfiguration

The Transfiguration

            One of my favorite movies, a guilty pleasure I suppose, is Shrek. There is this scene where Shrek is trying to explain to Donkey that Ogres are more than violent brutes, and he comes up with this analogy: “Ogres are like onions.”

            Donkey, being donkey, replies, “They stink? They make you cry? If you leave them out in the sun they get all brown and start sprouting little white hairs?”

            “No,” Shrek shouts, “Layers! Onions have layers! Ogres have layers! Onions have layers! You get it, we both have layers.”

            So too the Transfiguration, there are layersto it, to get to the center of its meaning we have to peel back many layers, each one important in its own right, and yet not complete.

            The transfiguration has layers.

Prayer

            The Transfiguration has layers.

            The first one is the experience itself, dazzling and glorious, the Apostles are weighed down by sleep, yet able to keep awake, and in keeping awake able to see Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah—these ancient heroes of renowned.
The Apostles are overshadowed by God’s holiness and
able to hear the very voice of God.
Able to know, not simply by faith, but by sight, that Jesus is God’s Son.

            Yes, these mountaintop experiences—maybe you’ve even had one… Those moments of clarity, those moments of closeness to God, perhaps while…
singing a favorite hymn,
on retreat,
at baptism,
at confirmation class or Sunday School,
during communion,
literally on a mountaintop able to see a wide swath of God’s good creation.
Perhaps you’ve had a particular spiritual experience, been moved by a piece of Scripture, felt the Spirit upon you in a unique way.

            That’s all part of the Transfiguration, but that’s not allof it, after all, The transfiguration has layers.

            Part of having a mountain top experience is coming down the mountain, right? There is a crowd, no more mountain retreat for Peter, John, and James
—then they are confronted with the failure of their fellow disciples, those disciples can’t heal a boy who has seizures. The disciples have to go from this place of comfort, where Peter would just as soon have set up permanent residence, they have to go down
and interact with the world as it is,
heal, share that special something that they wished to bottle up, up there.

            I guess Donkey was right, Onions, left out in the sun, don’t hold up well, and so too the faith… Though forged and found in a particular place and time, it needs to be translated, transitioned, shared, brought down the mountain…
Gospel is for spreading, communion for becoming a people,
hymns for singingtogether.

            And yet, perhaps I’m overstating our likelihood of having a mountaintop experience at all,
a religious experience at all…  

after all, even the Evangelist Billy Graham wrote a book wresting with the fact that a majority of Christians, 60 some percent according to his calculations, never have a religious experience their whole lives.
So, for most of us being told to go down the mountain makes no sense, because you were never up with Shiny Jesus in the first place…
But fear not, the Transfiguration is for you too,
after all, The transfiguration has layers.

            For a lot of folk, faith isn’t either of those extremes, overawed direct experience of God, or going down in the muck and healing… In fact there is so much grey space in between the two you could make an elephant out of it…

no, we’re often like Peter, aren’t we? “not knowing what he said.”
Things are unclear, maybe they’ll only make sense in hindsight, yet we’re in the moment and puzzled!
We’re kinda confused about the whole thing, yeah, we’ve had things happen to us, strange experiences, close encounters with death and life and some stuff in between…
but it isn’t a clear booming voice, it makes you catch your breath
or bug out your eyes
or just stay silent about the whole thing,
stuck with more questions than answers… 

Have I got news for you! That’s a part of the faith too
—the 2000 year history of Christian theology is best summed up by Amsalem, “Faith seeking understanding.”
We have yearnings and hunches and baptism and history and piles of scriptures we hold dear, and among all of that we seek… faith seeking understanding.
We don’t have cut and dry answers that stretch the whole of the sky, we have a faith seeking expression.

            

            But sometimes we seek with a greater urgency, it is more than just curiosity or an ordering of the mind or even a search for origins…
sometimes it is true desperation!That too is packed up in the Transfiguration…The transfiguration has layers.

            So desperate
—disciples who are awake with Jesus now, but will fall asleep in his final hours… falling asleep before the Son of God’s execution
—that’s desperate…
but perhaps more desperate still, this father we read about today, desperate for healing for his son (often desperate parents will stop at nothing), these disciples are his last hope…
this Jesus is his last hope…
When he is about to lose his only son, there he finds the Only Son, and that’s where we so often find the greatness of God, in our desperate hour, when our souls are being scoured…

            From the vantage of desperation we finally reach the onion’s center, we reach the final layer, for The transfiguration has layers.

            We reach, you guessed it, Grace… 

Peter continually wants to act,
to catch lightening in a bottle,
from a frantic frenetic pacehe tries to find peace
—but all that the Transfiguration requires of us is this,
“This is my Son. Listen to him.”
You can almost imagine the cloud shouting, “quit it Peter! just sit down for a second and use your ears!”
There is nothing you can do in the face of God’s unveiling, just be present!
All the Transfiguration requires of us is to hears—hear him announced “Son of God” and hear what the Son of God has to say! Hear him!

            Like onions and ogres, The transfiguration has layers.Mountain top experiences and leavings,
confusion and desperation,
and always grace,
simply being present as God acts on you through Word and through Witness.

A+A

Snow Day Pub Theology: Discipleship

Sermon: Our Calling

          Such a vision—seeing God enthroned, robe outstretched like glory, filling the temple. Fiery angels, Serephs, who are overawed by God, struck like a match off of God’s holiness—that same holiness that they sing of, “Holy Holy Holy, truly the Lord God’s glory fills completely the cosmos!” Their song overwhelming like earthquake and volcano, a wildfire upon the great heavenly altar!

          What can a human do faced with the divine? How can our faults not be so obvious in the face of the Faultless?

          And yet, that too is taken care of… from the billowing heat of the altar a coal transforms Isaiah, his lips—the lips he shall use to speak to God’s people—are transformed like gold is transformed—purified, all that is dross falls away, gold alone remains, all that is rough is removed, diamond alone sparkle with the light of God.

          He hears God calling to him, “whom shall I send? Who will go?”

          And, these lips, now joined to the holiness of the heavenly temple reply, “Here am I; send me!”

          And Isaiah spends the remainder of his life warning the people of danger, of troubles not only immediate—the Assyrians who will disperse the 10 tribes, but in the works, the larger Eastern Empire rising, Babylon, who will end the earthly temple and destroy the Davidic dynasty.

          Imagine that, just look at the strange calling of Isaiah, “shut their eyes, make them dull, keep them from turning and being healed, until all that remains of what was great is a stump.” Not until Jerusalem is burning and whole classes of people are being carted away does his message make sense.

          Just as Isaiah confessed his sinfulness and weakness before he could receive those holy lips, so too his nation had to be humbled before God did a new thing.

          Or consider Peter.

          The Lord hijacks his boat to escape the crowds and preach the word.

          The Lord, this carpenter, tells him how to do his job, has him fish funny, putting down his nets at the wrong time and in the wrong place, and yet a bounty, more fish than one boat could hold, if you look carefully, more than two boats can hold safely!

          That’s when Peter gets the message Jesus was preaching in the synagogue—“The Spirit of the Lord is upon  me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

          Peter didn’t get it in the Synagogue. Peter didn’t get it when Jesus healed Peter’s Mother-in-law. Peter didn’t get it when Jesus turned Peter’s house into a hospital and psych ward for everyone in Capernaum and the region of Galilee.

          But catchin’ fish… that does it for him. He confesses, like Isaiah, of his own inadequacy—he humbles himself, “Go away, I am a sinner.”

          But Jesus quells his fear and calls him again, using more fishy language, “You will now fish for people.”

          And that did it, he received his calling, said in effect, “Here I am, send me.” And he followed after Jesus…

          Followed him through healing and preaching and trial and denial and execution and mourning and resurrection and joy and proclamation and imprisonment and if tradition holds executed by the Romans for holding fast to his faith.

         

          Or consider Paul, puffed up and zealous—utterly convinced of his rightness, that these “People of the Way”, these earliest Christians, must be stopped; must die if need be!

Utterly convinced, until he was overturned, blinded on the Road to Damascus, face to face with the one the Way worshipped, this Jesus the Messiah. From there taken care of by the very people he hunted and hounded and hurt and persecuted, transformed into a man who can call himself “the least of the apostles” and recognize his new calling, this new humility, as a gift from God. Able to throw up his hands, recognizing his folly and confess, “I am what I am.”
Yes, 180 degrees wrong on what God was doing in Jesus Christ.
Yes, I now confess that the Messiah died, was buried, and rose, and this is in line with scripture.
Yes, he continued to work through the Spirit to empower his followers.
Yes, that includes me!

          Dramatically confronted by Jesus, he is transformed and called, and eventually can say “Here I am, send me.”

          And sent he was, preaching throughout Asia and Europe, writing to communities far and near, dreaming even of preaching in far off Spain. His calling planted seeds for a worldwide church, people of the way throughout the world!

          Or consider yourselves.

          Yes, you live in a society where following Jesus is treated like a hobby, faith like a leisure activity instead of a matter of death and life.
          Yes, the Church that once was is quickly becoming a stump, crouched and humbled.
          Yes, it can feel like the world is so big and each one of us is so small that maybe even a calling from God won’t do so very much…

          Yet the faith is a matter of death and life. Crouched and humbled is when tendrils of new growth come and God does a new thing. Fisher people and those of unclean lips, and even enemies of the church, called by God, can be called to do the unimaginable.

          We are still called to write letters, tell the truth even when it won’t be heard for generations, transform the prows of our boats into pulpits and tell God’s story in words that people today can hear!

          Humbled and expectant we can still respond to God’s calling with, “Here I am, send me.” A+A

Love Sermon

         I gotta say, I didn’t plan this—Lisa and I were just looking for a time between Christmas and Ash Wednesday to get married—it is just a coincidence that the Sunday after our wedding the Gospel lesson was about the Wedding at Cana, and now my first Sunday back in the pulpit we read 1^stCorinthians 13… the love chapter… where Paul uplifts love, defines it, and assures us it isn’t going anywhere, for it is the greatest of God’s gifts… It’s so often read at weddings that we forget that it isn’tPaul’s advice to newlyweds.

         Pastors often end up doing this funny two-step where they:
-remind the couple that Paul is talking about love being acted out in a Christian Community,
-and then they hope the couple can be a small Christian Community to one another…

         And that’s the dance we so often play with Paul’s words, so often that we miss that first part
—Paul is writing to a Church, a community of believers, a bunch of sinners who trust that they’ve been made right by Jesus
—a group of people… isn’t is said one of the dangers of community is that “we judge ourselves by our insides, but everyone else by their outsides”
—the motivations and methods of other people are always opaque and mysterious… and a church consists of a bunch of other people… what could possibly go wrong?

         Yes, Paul is writing to a whole community, a Church
—a bunch of folk with different gifts given to them by God, a people with a variety of talents and treasures, a diverse bunch of people,
all united together, even as they are broken and incomplete,
together striving to let it be known that “Jesus is Lord” and striving to work for the common good,
even as they do so from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of gifts given by God… gifts and backgrounds that are all valuable, all important to God…

         And yet, there is something more valuable than all that
—let me tell you about the most valuable thing
—let me tell you about love.

Prayers

         Let me tell you about love.

         I want to sing and speak in such a way people listen, oratories and arias that receive standing ovations and kisses blown from ivory balconies…
-Without love, all anyone will hear from me are babbling speeches and bad violin screeches.

         I heartily wish to plumb the depths of this world and the next, to bear upon the tip top of my bald spot the meaning of life and be a fountain of wisdom that the next generation can come to in order to fill up their cup…
-Without love, I’m a divine dunce, hardly human—truly so heavenly minds I’m no earthly good.

         I strive to be generous, to give what I got and more if I can, to fill any outstretched palm and ensure no belly goes to bed empty
—without love, no one trulyreceived anything from me… God help me!

         Let me tell you about love.

         As I said it is hard to measure the motivations of others, or even our own, if we’re honest—is it a loving action I do or not? How do I measure that, how do I know the nature of what I do or what is done by another? What does love look like?

         Loving actions are not done to one-up another or to shame someone.
         Loving actions are not done out of arrogance or to bring about discomfort.
         Loving actions are not all about you.
         Loving actions aren’t motivated by rage or grudge.

         No, loving actions are always magnanimous and always kind. 

         Love never rejoices in injury! 

         Love rejoices in the Truth, for love is eternal, it shall not buckle as if weighed down, nor be worn away by the ravages of time.
         Love is the subject of our hope and the object of our faith. The promises of love are true; love is trustworthy.

         If I was on a journey from Teaneck to San Francisco I’d certainly be on Interstate 80 headed west.
         If I was on a journey from Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida I’d certainly be on Route 1 heading south.
         And if I was on a journey of the Spirit I’d have faith in love (that is, I’d put my trust in love) and be hoping for love and my final destination would be love.

         I’m just somewhere along that road,
I’m trusting and I’m hoping—we all are—but friends in Christ we will make it to love!
Hold fast to your faith in the love found in Christ Jesus our Lord,
dream of the day when his love will find completion in us!
Love every chance you get! 

         Yes, these three, faith, hope, and love—they are gifts from God that abide—and the greatest of these is love.

A+A