Advent One: The Son of Man’s Great Heist

 Advent One: The Son of Man’s Great Heist

 

         Today, with this talk in Matthew’s Gospel about Jesus being thief-like, 
we ought to wrap our imaginations and minds around The Son of Man as a thief in the night
—the mastermind of The Great Heist
his ministry is clandestine, 
hidden from the powers that be, 
investigated but not undone, 
a trick and a trap to undermine, restrain, and redeem sin, death, and the devil…

Jesus is robbing authority from worldly empires,

Stealing the sting from death, 

and pilfering the powers of the evil one… it’s a heist!

         And you know what, every good Heist movie
—be it Oceans 11 or Kelly’s Heroes, The Inside Man or Antman, The Italian Job or The Great Muppet Caper, 
they all have a formula: 
-There is a Plan, 
-the Execution of the plan, 
-and the Aftermath.

         The Plan
—who is this Son of Man and what is expected of him?

         The Execution of the plan
—how Jesus actually lives out his identity as the Son of Man.

         The Aftermath
—There are ongoing consequences to Jesus being the Son of Man, 
the Church is living out the aftermath of Jesus’ Great Heist.

The Son of Man’s Great Heist.

Prayer

 

The Plan:

         In scholarly circles, there is much discussion about the term “The Son of Man.” In Jesus’ day, it could be used three different ways: 

-It can be a polite way not to refer to yourself, 
“The Son of Man would like you pass him the cranberry sauce.”

-It can a way to name one’s mortality, 
“Hold the Ladder steady, I’m a Son of Man after all, this fall would kill me.”

-It can be refer to a figure in the book of Daniel who will overthrow monstrous kingdoms and replace them with a humane, kind, and gentle, one. The Kingdom of God…

This third usage, I believe, is the identity Jesus is claiming.

         Many sects of Judaism had built upon and expanded out the slim words in Daniel about The Son of Man, interpreted him 
as:
-A military or political figure—like King David, 
-A High Priest. re-instituting right worship of God,
-A Prophet, like Moses or Elijah,

         The idea of Messiah (God’s chosen and anointed one) and this Daniel Figure became fused
—God active in the world, 
performing a great deed that will make all things right, 
fulfilling all the promises about the Day of the Lord
—The Son of Man a figure to wait for, with longing and awe.

         That was the plan….

 

The Execution of the plan:

         One of my favorite parts of a heist story is how things aren’t as they appear
—the bombshell at the roulette table is actually watching the safe, 
the plan doesn’t go as practiced, 
but that too is part of the plan within the plan...

         So too, Jesus gathers a very unlikely crew, with unexpected gifts, everyone from: 
fishermen, revolutionaries, tax collectors, women, the possessed, the ill, and those in need… 
yet somehow this B team, gathers a crowd and brings Jesus into the Holy City in an astonishing way that makes waves.

         But then the plan goes south, 
or so it appears… 
one of the team betrays him, 
another denies him, 
all the men folk run away.

 

         Well… 
the plan was more than any heart could hold, right?
An impossible dream
—the world being made right, 
a non-corrosive Kingdom without end…
A Priest, Prophet, King who embodied the promises of God…

         To do all those things that the plan requires, 
it would have required an imagination beyond what we could hope for… 
we were naïve for hoping…
         Look how the plan went wrong… 
every proof positive that he’s failed is up in our face. 
-All is wrong not right, 
-King is killed, 
-Priest is sacrificed, 
-the Prophet was wrong about God’s will… 

         If you wanna talk about Noah’s flood… 
Jesus is taken, 
the Son of Man swept away, 
left alone abandoned by those who love him… 

 

         But… 
but you need to keep watching to the end, 
there is a plan within the plan, 
things aren’t as they appear….

if you keep awake with him, 
the grand and awful midnight hour will be transformed into daybreak, 
the unexpected hour of his resurrection will arrive! 

         The Great Heist happened while we all looked away in grief!

 

The Aftermath:

         And what now? The heist worked, the plan was a success… 
The criminals can get out of the business (Hell itself has been harrowed)
—it was one last job as the cliché goes,
the happy rendezvous with the crew in some tropical locale 
(or in Matthew’s case on the height of a mountain)… 
things are different on the other side of the capper.

 

         For we Christians, living in the already not yet
—the Great Heist is done, 
we are still trying to comprehend the riches of it all
—the Resurrection and the Spirit… 

         Ours is a time of active waiting. 
Staying morally and spiritually awake, 
living lives that trust the promises of God to be true
—from Genesis and Isaiah to Romans and Revelation… 
even the words spoken at our baptism 
and the words “for you” spoken at the altar... 
trust God’s promises…

         The Church participating in Jesus making all things new, all things right, 
even as we recognize it is not our doing, but his…

         Staying awake as we:
-walk wise paths, 
-discern God’s judgement and justice, 
-seek the promised peace: 
swords will be plowshares, 
spears pruning hooks, 

nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more.

         Even as we look at our world today, 
both over in Ukraine and right here at home 
and pray an echo of Isaiah:
May Night clubs be sanctuaries, 
Department stores safe,
Missiles unneeded,
Water and electricity restored...
may it be so… 

Stay awake

Be ready
The Son of Man is coming 
at an unexpected hour.

         The Great Heist happens, while we all look away. 

Amen.

Why Lutheran?

 Lutheranism is a kind of confession.

A confession about what the Holy Spirit did within the Church those 505 years ago. 
A confession of God’s amazing acts in the lives of the Lutheran Reformers.

Confession that usually includes 95 Theses, Heidelberg Disputation, A Mighty Fortress, Luther’s Death Mask, and the Book of Concord…

            But today I’d like to give you all a bit different confession of the faith… 
Today I will answer, 
for myself at least, 
Why Lutheran?…

Why, when I look at this tradition that is over five centuries old, do I feel it echo in my soul?
Why can I affirm, “yeah, that’s it… that’s a faithful description of what I know God to be doing”?
Why Lutheran?

 

Prayer

            Why Lutheran? Because I was welcomed into the Faith through Baptism. 
Three days old, a life-threatening heart condition, 
they brought in a chain smoking Chaplain who happened to be Lutheran. 
She baptized me in the triune name, and that was that
—the start of being Lutheran.

 

            Why Lutheran? Because I encounter God in scripture. 

I lived in a very religious community out in Wyoming, 
and my father, God bless him, 
gave me a used Red Letter King James Bible, 
so I could read it and see if it said what preachers and other proselytizers said it did. 
Inside the Bible, I didn’t find the End of the World, or a list of people to hate
—but instead I experienced its words as Law and Gospel…

In the Gospels, when you read about people first encountering Jesus, almost inevitably it leads to moments of rejecting Jesus, or repentance that leads to life
—Law or Gospel, as we Lutherans might say, 
and I found that in spades, in the Bible
—an encounter with the profoundly strange, yet compelling God, 
who reveals himself to us in the Word.

 

            Why Lutheran? Because of Grace.

            Once bitten by this God bug, I rushed to find the Church, 
a community connected to the Bible, 
and more importantly, connected to the God that the Bible bears witnesses to, points to. 

Soon enough, I had “accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior” at a summer VBS, and was overjoyed… 
but one summer later… that joy was taken from me…
we same kids who had said the sinner’s prayer and accepted Christ, 
were asked to do it again, 
as a way to peer pressure the younger kids into doing the same… 
they’d engineered a religious experience
—I’d built my understanding of salvation on being MANIPUTED… 

If I wasn’t a Lutheran before, 
that experience was a “Here I Stand, I can do no other” moment, if I’ve ever had one… 
my salvation, 
the state of my eternal soul, 
my very self in its fullness,
I knew then, was God’s alone
—God’s choice, 
not my emotional state, 
or pedigree, 
or anything else... 
God’s grace alone holds me fast.

 

            Why Lutheran? Because faith is more than cognitive ascent, 
but a matter of the heart, 
trusting God. 

My parents didn’t exactly know what was wrong in my childhood church-search, 
but on a hunch my mom took me to the faith of her childhood
—a Lutheran Church, 
Christ Lutheran in Cheyenne Wyoming
—and there Pastor Sarah preached grace, grace, 
always grace, 
and it was only in such an environment that I could trust it to be true, 
to have the sure confidence that God is for me, not against me.

 

            Why Lutheran?  Because we are the hub of the Ecumenical wheel
—the Lutheran definition of “Church” is radically simple 
“a gathering where the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly,” 
everything else, 
from worship style to church governance, 
is considered an indifferent thing. 

This opens us up to all kinds of partnerships and relationships and re-interpretations of the faith
—it lets us be Church in whatever culture or time in which we find ourselves… 
And in my time in college and then over in England, 
I was able to join with Christians from all over, all types, 
hearing their traditions’ particular duet with God
—be it in haunting plainsong, reworked French monastic chanting, booming charismatic Gospel, or Scottish brogue, 
each different, and yet each beautiful and faithful.

 

            Why Lutheran? Because all roles and relationships can be a holy calling. 

I’ll never forget that funeral at Tabernacle Lutheran in West Philly, it was the first one I’d done as any sort of official in the Church
—a Field Education Student
—and I arrived 45 minutes early for the viewing
—and couldn’t find a parking spot, 
and wheeled around block after block, 
only to realize there was a line going all the way from Malcolm X Park to that little Lutheran Church there (13 blocks). 
You see, the man they all honored was a bus driver
—one who’d stop for you!
One who treated every passenger as he would Jesus Christ himself. 
He was a Lutheran, so he had known that everyone has a vocation, 
be you a bus driver or the pope, 
teacher or parent, you have a calling!

 

            Why Lutheran? Because the incarnation matters, 
the physicality of the sacraments matter… God showing up in the world as it is, matters!

My first week as Vicar of St. John’s Pimlico in Baltimore, 
someone jimmied open my mail and stole it all, 
I witnessed a shooting, 
and I got mugged by knife point. 
And then, that Sunday when I knelt down and received Holy Communion
—I realized that bread and wine, body and blood
—were as real as crowbar, a bullet, and a knife, 
a physical promise from God 
“for you.”

 

            Why Lutheran? Because when I married Lisa that thing I’d seen in Philly
—that vocations matter to God, became more concrete
—God doesn’t just care what kind of Pastor I am, 
but what kind of Husband I am, what kind of Uncle
—those roles too are holy.

 

            Why Lutheran? because, I came for the Grace, 
but I stay for the Theology of the Cross. 
God in the last place you would think to look
—God enthroned on a cross, 
God in weakness and poverty and pain, God with us when we really need him… 
And as a Pastor it is one of the greatest privileges, 
to see the life of a congregation through cross shaped glasses. 
Christ showing up in the mundane and transforming them into the profound, 
God hidden in plain sight. 

Seeing God acting, not in triumph or glory, 
but at hospital bed tables turned into altars, 
those quiet friendships that help folk get through hell, 
the protection and care of children, 
the steady plodding that is rarely recognized, 
painful choices that are faithful… always the cross.

 

Why Lutheran? Because, from Baptism to Vocation, Cross to the centrality of the Word, it’s the truest thing I’ve ever known.

Adele… all of you, 
I pray our way of being faithful to God
—this way that trusts only in God’s faithfulness,
will serve you well your whole life long. A+A

40 Negative Propositions about Lutheranism

 Lutheranism is not…

1.    About what we do, but what God does.

2.    Morality or ethics, but grace and response, grace and response

3.    Bound, but is freed in Christ

4.    About being upright, but being made right by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection

5.    About self-reliance, but relying on God as a mighty fortress

 

Lutheranism is not…

1.    The Way, the Truth, and the Life, but witnessing to the one who is all those things

2.    Private, but Evangelical—the impulse to share the good news of Jesus!

3.    Ashamed of the Gospel, but embrace a living daring confidence in God’s grace

4.    Spiritual, but instead embodied in the profoundly common

5.    Triumphant, but students of the God found on a cross

6.    Fundamentalist, but the experience of God’s Word as a two-edge sword

7.    An ‘ism, but a relationship with Jesus

 

Lutheranism is not…

1.    All Casseroles and Coffee, but receiving the Bread of Life, for you!

2.    Monolithic, but a great variety of people found by God’s grace

3.    An ethnicity, culture, or nation, but a people gathered by God.

4.    Theology, but continual failures to fully name the Divine

5.    A Style of Worship, but whatever actions will make Christ known

 

Lutheranism is not…

1.    The Only Church, but a spoke of the ecumenical wheel affirming the historical creeds, the Word expressed as Law and Gospel, and sacraments administered rightly

2.    A denomination, but a mustard seed planted for all to find rest within

3.    The point, but compost & leaven to enliven the whole church

4.    Parochial, but Catholic, Global, Universal

5.    Perfect, but always reforming

6.    Limited to Luther, but encompasses all who take his writings and insights to heart

7.    A form of Church Government, but whatever form that allows us to be faithful

8.    Independent, but interdependent with the whole body of Christ

 

Lutheranism is not…

1.    Having our own way, but respecting one another as God’s Children

2.    A museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners

3.    Putting our heads in the sand, but engaging with the world around us, thinking through faithful engagement with our world with social messages and statements on everything from peace and policing, to education and the economy

4.    Words without actions, but 2% of people in North America are assisted by some sort of Lutheran Social Ministry each year

5.    Exclusionary, but inviting and listening and trying to understand each other

6.    Afraid of questions, but begin our faith life asking, “What does this mean?”

7.    Self-righteous, but trust that God is for us

8.    Anti-Semitic, but repenting and repairing the breach between us and our Jewish friends

9.    Politics, but vocation, roles and relationships lived faithfully

10. Afraid of change, but it is one of our core values

 

Lutheranism is not…

1.    The purview of our great great great grandparents, but springs from their faith and faithfulness

2.    Old, but always being made new

3.    Frozen, but passionate about matters of life and death, and life again

4.    Dying, but more alive than ever, thriving around the world!

5.    The Past, but for you, right now in this moment, and for everyone who chases after the Holy Spirit into God’s future

Made Right by a Merciful God

          There is a story told in “A Treasury of Jewish Folklore” worth repeating:

“Once there was a rabbi who was at the point of death, so the Jewish community proclaimed a day of fasting in the town in order to induce the Heavenly Judge to commute the sentence of death.

On that very day, when the entire congregation was gathered in the synagogue for penance and prayer, the town drunkard went to the village tavern for some schnapps. When another Jew saw him do this he rebuked him, saying, "Don't you know this is a fast-day and you're not allowed to drink? Why, everybody's at the synagogue praying for the rabbi!"

So the drunkard went to the synagogue and prayed, "Dear God! Please restore our rabbi to good health so that I can have my schnapps!"

The rabbi recovered, and it was considered a miracle. He explained it in the following way: "May God preserve our village drunkard until he is a hundred and twenty years! Know that his prayer was heard by God when yours were not. He put his whole heart and soul into his prayer!"

 

         Jolting isn’t it? 
A little politically incorrect, kind of uncomfortable… 
that’s exactly how Jesus’ parable ought to make us feel...

 

         If that story doesn’t transport you into today’s parable, try this:

         The Economist recently did a survey to find out what the two most respected professions were
—they were nurse and solider. On the flip side, the two least respected professions in America were 
used car salesperson and politician.

         So, there once was a combat medic and a car salesman turned Senator who both entered the national cathedral. 

The Combat Medic prayed, “I’ve got people out of hairy situations from Granada to Mogadishu to Kabul
—I’ve patched up the unpatchable, 
and on top of that I’m a tithing member in good standing at my congregation, 
and I just thank God I’m not some creepo, 
like that guy over there.”

         That guy over there, was of course, the senator-car salesman, and he simply prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

         Get this, it was the second man that was made right.

Let us pray

         I offered those two brief re-tellings of Jesus’ parable, because there is a peril in reading a 2000-year-old story flat, without accounting for all that time it traveled to get here.

         “Pharisee” is now often used as an insult, right? 
But in Jesus day the Pharisees were the folk trying to ensure everyone, 
whether they lived in Jerusalem, or hundreds of miles away, whether they were priest or pauper…
were able to be faithful to God. They re-interpreted scripture so it was accessible to everyone… some people go so far as to argue Jesus himself was a Pharisee… 
so when Jesus is telling this story, we’re supposed to hear this first character as an upstanding individual.

         Likewise, while there is often some grumbling about tax collectors every year around April 15^th, 
in Jesus’ day there was a lot more than grumbling… 
Tax Collectors were Jewish agents of Rome, 
sympathizers, 
quislings, 
lackeys getting rich off their kin-folk’s cruel repression.

 

         The upstanding religious man exalts in his good name, 
he is self-satisfied and confuses his respectability with righteousness. 
More than that, it divides him from his fellow worshipper, 
it makes him think himself better than the other man…

         It makes you wonder how religion
—seeking to be bound to the Holy
—can get so twisted… 
as Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels once penned: “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

 

         The man of disrepute, however, knows his lack, 
the ways he has fallen short; 
he acknowledges his own unrighteousness. 
It strikes him to the bone. 
But he does not hide it
—he does not try to put his best foot forward out of fear of God, 
he does not try to curate his life for God’s sake … 
no, he knows all is not well and comes to God without mask or costume… 
just as he is.

         The Tax Collector, unable to do anything but repent, 
is able to trust… 
perhaps simply hope… 
that God is merciful. 

Maybe he remembered his grandmother reading him a Psalm about birds resting on God’s altar, 
sparrows and swallows nesting in God’s temple
—finding home, finding rest there for weary wings… 

         There, at the temple, he is made right, he goes home justified… 
the humble are exulted
—this is par for the course for Luke
—Luke who records Mary’s song, “God my Savior shows favor to the lowly, 
the proud are scattered, 
the humble are uplifted.”

 

         You don’t need to hide your true self, 
though your troubles and trials, sins and missteps, may be many
—God already knows them, and does not reject you.

         Pastor Sarah, my Pastor growing up, used to always say, “Whenever you draw a line in the sand meant to exclude, you’ll find Jesus on the other side.” 
I thank God for her wise words
–growing up is hard enough, without thinking God is against you too!

         God does not reject you, instead when he finds us just as we are, 
God is moved and makes things right, 
justifies us, 
because God loves us! 

The comforting embrace of Love is the only space from which meaningful transformation can occur—not fright or self-righteousness or punishment or judgement… only love transforms!
By the power of the Holy Spirit we’re able to trust that promise
—able to come before our loving Father and pray to God as Martin Luther prayed all those years ago:

 

 

         Behold, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord, fill it. 

I am weak in the faith; strengthen me. 

I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent, that my love may go out to my neighbor. 

I do not have a strong and firm faith; at times, I doubt and am unable to trust you altogether. 
O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in you. 

In you I have sealed the treasure of all I have. 

I am poor; you are rich and came to be merciful to the poor. 

I am a sinner; you are upright. With me, there is an abundance of sin; in you is the fullness of righteousness. 

Therefore, I will remain with you, of whom I can receive, but to whom I may not give. Amen.

Sermon: Jacob Jebeks

Jacob Jebeks

         I love Genesis… 
it’s weird
—it’s spooky, 
God is unchained and unpredictable
—as are the people God encounters... 
God’s personality is being revealed in real-time. 

         Genesis can be a little scary… but it can also be playful. For example, Jacob wrestles… struggles… at the Jabbok river… or in the Hebrew, 
Jacob Jebeks at the Jabbok. 
He struggles from nightfall to the dawn with this 
man… angel… God.

         In the latest J.R.R. Tolkien adaption—Rings of Power—a stranger falls from the sky like a comet, and one of the central questions to the TV show is, “Who is this Stranger?” 
Is he Sauron, a Blue Wizard, Gandalf? 
The show is filled with purposeful misdirects and mystery. 

         So too the identity of this man who Jacob is wrestling with… 
yes, he is wrestling with God, 
but also with his brother Esau and… 
with himself as well…
Jacob is wrestling with Jacob

         Jacob struggles with God, his kin, and with himself.

Let us pray

         Jacob Jebeks… he wrestles… with himself 
and his reputation… 
with the choices he’s made from childhood on, 
choices that have stranded him there alone in the dark, 
on the other side of the river.

         He wrestles with his nature—what it means to Jacob
—Jacob, a trickster who struggles and wrestles and always has to come out on top
—come out ahead
—always… 
especially… 
at the expense of someone else.

         He wrestles with his choices, 
his inclinations toward control and domination, 
shrewdness that falls into injustice and even outright theft.

 

         Jacob wrestled with himself… do we do the same? 
Do we take ourselves seriously enough to lose sleep over who we are and who we have become? 
To reflect on the consequences of our actions
—mulling over the intentions of our hearts? 
Jacob wrestled with himself… do we?

 

         Jacob Jebeks, he wrestles with his brother Esau… 
as he had done from his mother’s womb onward.

         Jacob knows that the next morning he will face his long estranged brother, 
face the long avoided consequences of the confrontation that has blown up well beyond mere sibling rivalry, with Esau.

         Esau who he grasped and grappled with in his mother’s womb, 
pulling him back in so he could win that earliest of races, Birth… 

         Esau whom he cheated out of his birthright and whose blessing Jacob stole by trickery.

         Esau who he antagonized up to that tense point in their family history, 
when Jacob had to go, 
leave home or else.

         Esau of whom Jacob is terrified
—so afraid that he sends his fortune barreling on ahead of him on the other side of the river as a sign of intimidation or appeasement… 
so scared that he sends his family out ahead of him, 
across the river to the other side as human shields, 
as one last trick, 
decoys sent so that Jacob can run away while Esau is otherwise engaged.

         He wrestles there at the Jabbok all night 
with Esau, his kin, 
because he knows that at first light he too has to cross over and come face to face with Esau, his brother; 
tomorrow will either be a day of reconciliation or destruction.

 

         Jacob wrestles with his kin… do we?

         Do we struggle with the task of reconciliation? 
Do we concern ourselves with the hard and necessary task of confession and forgiveness?

         Desmond Tutu, who ran the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the fall of Apart-heid, has seen what it means to really forgive someone 
more deeply than most mortals, and he has broken the process down into four concrete tasks: 
1. Admit the wrong 2. Listen to the Story 3. Ask for Forgiveness 4. Renew or Release the relationship… 

         Yes, righting a wrong takes more than a band aid, more than a surface “I’m sorry.”

 

         Jacob Jebeked… he wrestled… 
with God. 
This is the plainest reading of the story
—he sees God face to face… there at the Jabbok River…

         There by the river, a crossing point from one plane of existence and another
—one reality and another… 
he meets the stranger and fights, wrestles… with God.

         This is where you’d expect such an encounter
—where you might meet a god. Think of trolls on bridges, 
Dryads in their pools… 
in the ancient imagination watery places are thin places
—the barrier between heaven and earth is more permeable, 
the border between divine and human can be forded, 
down by the river.

         Yesterday I baptized Derek
—a great great grandson of one of the greats of this congregation… 
baptism… 
water… 
water is still a thin place for us today
—Derek was named and claimed, encountered, by God in the waters of baptism…

         Jacob is pulled through that thin space, 
brought face to face with God… 
as he wrestles there.

 

         Jacob wrestles with God… do we?

         Do we? 
Do we take our faith outside these Church walls and into all our moments? 
Do we probe and strain to discern God’s will and meaning for us? 
Do we follow Jesus, 
are we his disciples? 
Do we wrestle with our question about God until our question marks are bent into exclamation points? 
Do we at least experience the solace of wrestling with God questions, 
even if the wrestling is the most important part?

 

         When we join Jacob and do these things… 
take our self seriously, 
do the hard work of reconciliation, 
when we reconfirm our faith again and again, 
renewed by the font of God’s baptismal grace, 
we are ultimately wrestling with Love.

         What do I mean by that? Think carefully of Christ’s only command… 
the great Commandment… 
Love God 
and Love your neighbor 
as yourself.

         Love.

         Love God
—trust God’s promises in such a way that they become a lamp to your feet and a light unto your pathway.

         Love Neighbor
—Relationships take work, 
trust takes time and consistency, 
and righting wrongs doesn’t happen in a day.

         Love Self
—Before you can love another, you need to be grounded in a certain level of dignity and self-worth, 
it is the well from which other relationships can flow.

 

         Jacob wrestled… 
as do we… 
with Christ’s gracious command
—it can be a struggle, 
at times a battle even…
         Yet it is a struggle worth dedicating our lives to, 
worth the wrestling and the dark nights, 
the thin places and the missteps, 
the striving and the dreaded-blessed-glorious dawn.

         Jacob wrestled, 
and so shall we. 
Thanks be to God. Amen.