Year: 2018

 

Luke 1:39-45 [46-55]    

Fourth Sunday of Advent

December 23, 2018

 

Are you ready?  Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve.  Two more days until Christmas!  Christmas brings with it many different emotions, sometimes all in one day. There is a time for every season. It may be this is the year that you are grieving the death of a loved one.  Maybe one with whom you usually spend Christmas will be elsewhere.  This Christmas might be shared with someone new,–a friend, a or a baby.   Maybe this is the year that your son is giving gifts of socks with his portrait on them.  (Yes, THAT son!)

While Christmas this year may have changes, we have traditions that we keep.  Maybe it is buying your children new toothbrushes, or making pecan pie.  Reverse that. Toothbrushes should definitely come after the pecan pie. Do you all open gifts one at a time, or is it a free for all? Would it still be Christmas if you did not drive around looking at Christmas lights? Then there is Uncle Joe who always wears the sweater that won the ugliest Christmas sweater contest.

Churches have traditions, too, like jingling bells when singing carols, or setting out the manger scene over the course of Advent.  One of my favorite traditions is to go with people to sing Christmas carols to those who are ill and those who are homebound.  This year, as in many past, when we gathered in a large room and begin to belt out tunes, people come out of their rooms to join us.  I always assume that it is because these carols warm their hearts, and not that they think they heard feral cats fighting when I begin to sing. This year, when we asked one lady who had joined us what her favorite Christmas carol is, she quickly responded, “Jingle Bells.”  There has been quite of bit joyful singing lately. The coming of our Lord inspires people to burst out in song.

It was as true in the beginning as it is now.  That first Advent, John, who would become the Baptizer, danced in his mother Elizabeth’s womb when he heard Jesus’ mother Mary speaking. Then Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she began to sing.  Mary followed Elizabeth’s song with one of her own.

It’s easy to picture this scene as an upbeat musical starring two pregnant women, but it really wasn’t like that.  Elizabeth was too old to have a baby, and Mary was too young.  Mary was not even married.  (Getting married before having a baby was normal back then.)  Pregnant Mary traveled this long road by herself. Mary probably went far south to stay with Elizabeth because her pregnancy would, at the very least, have brought shame upon her family.  At worst, she could have been stoned to death for adultery.  Now here she was with Elizabeth, pregnant and unmarried, not knowing much about what was to come because she said yes to God’s invitation.

The fact that God chose Mary to be the mother of our Lord and Savior is… interesting.  Mary was poor, uneducated, and young.  Almost everything about her was condemned by society.   She was a nobody, and God picked her?  How ridiculous! … How subversive!

In a world where the chasm between rich and poor people was pronounced, the disabled were ignored, and women and children were considered inferior, Mary sings:

He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

And lifted up the lowly;

He has filled the hungry with good things,

And sent the rich away empty.

These are God’s promises, and Mary proclaims them as if they had already been accomplished.  Mary herself was, in fact, part of the reality of God’s kingdom come. Mary is evidence that God opens the way to make the impossible happen.  It began with this marginalized young girl saying “yes” to God.  This was probably the first time anyone had every shown her mercy instead of judgment.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Mary received a new sense of purpose, and the knowledge that impossible things happen.  Christmas sweaters and looking at Christmas lights are part of tradition, they are not what Christmas is about.  The birth of Jesus is about God doing something we never would have thought was possible.  It began with God’s invitation through the angel Gabriel, and even though Mary was perplexed, she said ‘”Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”’  Through Mary’s “yes,” the lamed walked, and lepers were healed.  The lost were found.  With five loaves and two fish, thousands upon thousands of hungry people were fed.  Tax collectors gave refunds.  Sins were forgiven, and healing happened.

What if we said yes to God’s invitation to open our eyes to the joy and possibilities of God’s kingdom? What if we trusted in God’s promises? What if we really knew God loves us? What if we believe God loves people of every shade and color and orientation? What if we believed that the person walking the streets is as worthy as we are of love?  Would we showed mercy instead of judgment? What if this Christmas, we put aside our anger, our self-centeredness and our fear?  Would everyone have food, and shelter, and medical care?  What if we believe that through God the impossible happens?

May God open our hearts wide enough so that we break out in song.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

Luke 1:68-79  Luke 3:1-6

    2^ndSunday in Advent

 

Our Gospel reading this morning begins with a list of the top seven people in “Who’s Who in the world of the rich and powerful.”  While names like Tiberius and Lysanias are not on the tips of our tongues, their mention would evoke a strong response from those under their rule.  These leaders were people of power and privilege who shaped the political, economic and religious landscape.

These were very important people! Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas and Caiaphas were busy reinforcing systems that kept them exactly where they were, which meant that those on the bottom stayed there, too.  The word of the Lord did not come to them in their lofty places. The word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, one of those people on the bottom of society. It came to him while he was in the wilderness.

You know the wilderness because you have been there.  Maybe you are there now.  It’s a place without sufficient resources, and the direction you should go is not clear. It is a place of fear, and scarcity. The wilderness may be that you are unhappy in your relationship with your partner or a colleague.  The wilderness is where we struggle with addiction to porn or alcohol or drugs or shopping.  In the wilderness, it is hard to know who your true friends are, and you wrestle with loneliness.  Grief and depression can overwhelm us there.  The wilderness is that place where we cannot survive on our own.

It is into this context that the word of God came to John, and he went, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  “Repent,” John said.  In Hebrew scripture, “repent” means to turn or to return.  This word is tied to ancient Israel’s exile in Babylon, and to their return and their back to their homeland, to the place where they knew God was.[1]  To repent is to return to God, who is already there, waiting for us.  God has already forgiven us, even when we have not forgiven ourselves.

Sometimes it is hard to forgive ourselves.  Like that time you went into your mom’s jewelry box and took her new gold charm. Then you dug a hole near the lamp post and buried it like treasure so you could go back and find it later. Only when you went back to dig it up, you couldn’t find it.  Hypothetically speaking, of course.  Sometimes it is hard to forgive ourselves.

The New Testament Greek word for “repent” adds to the Hebrew meaning.  It translates best as “To go beyond the mind that we have,” as Marcus Borg explains. “[We see] in a new way—a way shaped by God as known decisively in Jesus….[The] emphasis is not so much on contrition and sorrow and guilt…To repent means to turn, return to God and to go beyond the mind that we have and see things in a new way…It’s about change, not a pre-requisite for forgiveness.”[2]

You may remember hearing these words said at the baptismal font, inviting us into this new life:  In baptism our gracious heavenly Father frees us from sin and death by joining us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.[3]  We said yes! We are set free from our wounds, and the shackles of our sin have been cut with big bolt cutters.  Liberated from those things that wrestle us to the ground and hold us captive, we are free to turn to God and see ourselves with God’s eyes.  We are not in competition to be loved by God, so we can shed our defensive ego, and our need for self-justification.  In doing so, we are able to turn from ourselves to serve others, to lift them up, and to show them that they are loved, too.

Even this new life is hard for us because, as Luther observed, we are both saint and sinner at the same time. “The sin of which we are guilty is precisely the refusal of new life through our own attempts to remain in the saddle at all costs,” asserts one theologian.[4]  Who we let be in charge of our lives is a daily challenge.   “…As Luther insists, “baptism remains with us in daily contrition and repentance and in daily rising to new life.”[5]  After confessing our sins to God, and to each other, the pastor speaks of forgiveness from God.  In the name of Jesus Christ your sins are forgiven, and all things are made new.  Sometimes we fail to hear the second part, “all things are made new.”

We profess that we believe in God’s forgiveness of sins, but I wonder.[6]  It seems to me that intellectually, we know that God forgives us.  It’s our hearts that have a hard time with it.  “If only I had not said that” haunts us as we replay that scene over and over again, adding, “I should have done this instead of that.” Our part in failed relationships seems to increase in our minds.  If you are a parent, there is no end to reflecting on the times you fell short.  If you happen to forget, your children will remind you.  Let me count the ways.

In this Advent season, as we focus on waiting for Christ to come, and to come again, what does repentance look like?  What is it that is interfering with opening up our whole heart to God, and to all of God’s creation? Where in our lives are the crooked ways that need to be made straight and the valley that needs to be lifted?  Where are we focused, and how many degrees do we need to turn to see Christ? This is exactly where God meets we who are vulnerable.  God comes to us, in our wilderness, bringing to us grace and mercy.  Grace and mercy and forgiveness were there all along, but we fail to see them unless we turn around.

John the Baptizer comes, inviting us to prepare the way for the Messiah to come. John, who never made the top 7 of “Who’s Who,” was the one in whom God trusted to prepare the way for the Lord. In this season of waiting, you might hear God’s invitation through guests at the homeless shelter, the barista at Starbucks, or in the unabashed delight of a child. People who might seem insignificant are the ones God chooses, and if you listen closely, you will hear God say, “I love you.”  Turn around.  You will see the breaking in of God’s promise of new life.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]Borg, Marcus.  Speaking Christian.  New York: Harper Collins, 1989. 158-159.

[2]Ibid.

[3]ELW, 227.

[4]Forde, Gerhard O.  Justification by Faith: A Matter of Death and Life. Mifflintown, PA:  Sigler Press, 1990.  85.

[5]Stjerna, Kirsi.  “The Sacrament of Holy Baptism and Confession.” By Heart: Conversations with Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.  Minneapolis:  Augsburg Fortress, 2017.

[6]This is part of the third article of the Apostle’s Creed.

Matthew 12:38-44

Lectionary 32 ~ Pentecost 25

 

We have had a couple weeks of horror, and I am not referring to the midterm elections.  In Thousand Oaks, California, only days after the killing of thirteen people, raging wildfires in that same area drove people from their homes.  A couple of weeks ago, after finding the doors of predominantly black church locked, a gunman killed two African Americans at a nearby Kroger.  In Pittsburgh, on October 27, 11 Jewish people were murdered while in their house of worship, Tree of Life Congregation. The shooter, Robert Bowers, was injured, and taken to a local hospital.  One of the medical staff, Ari Mahler, RN, shared his reflections, writing, in part:

I am The Jewish Nurse. 

Yes, that Jewish Nurse. The same one that people are talking about in the Pittsburgh shooting that left 11 dead. The trauma nurse in the ER that cared for Robert Bowers who yelled, “Death to all Jews,” as he was wheeled into the hospital. The Jewish nurse who ran into a room to save his life. …I just know I feel alone right now, and the irony of the world talking about me doesn’t seem fair without the chance to speak for myself…. 

When I was a kid, being labeled “The Jewish (anything)”, undoubtedly had derogatory connotations attached to it. That’s why it feels so awkward to me that people suddenly look at it as an endearing term. As an adult, deflecting my religion by saying “I’m not that religious,” makes it easier for people to accept I’m Jewish – especially when I tell them my father is a rabbi. “I’m not that religious,” is like saying, “Don’t worry, I’m not that Jewish, therefore, I’m not so different than you,” and like clockwork, people don’t look at me as awkwardly as they did a few seconds beforehand. 

To be honest, I didn’t see evil when I looked into Robert Bower’s eyes. I saw something else…. I can tell you that as his nurse, or anyone’s nurse, my care is given through kindness, my actions are measured with empathy, and regardless of the person you may be when you’re not in my care, each breath you take is more beautiful than the last when you’re lying on my stretcher. This was the same Robert Bowers that just committed mass homicide. The Robert Bowers who instilled panic in my heart worrying my parents were two of his 11 victims less than an hour before his arrival.[1]

The mass murder of Jewish people is nothing new.  80 years ago, on November 9th and 10^th, the Nazi party’s paramilitary forces and German civilians attacked and murdered more than 90 Jewish people.  Because shards of broken glass littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed, the event became known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.

Sometimes we fail to see each person as God’s beloved creation. Jews, blacks, gays, liberals, conservatives, those who are poor, those who are blind or differently-abled–people who are not like us–become “those people.”

In his 1980 commencement address at Spelman College, Howard Thurman recounted this conversation. “I have a blind friend,” he said, “who just became blind after she was a grown woman. I asked her: ‘What is the greatest disaster that your blindness has brought to you?’ She said, ‘When I go places where there are people, I have a feeling that nobody knows that I’m here, it is hard for me to know where I am.’”

There is profound truth in that. Our world is relational.  We know about ourselves in relation to others. I know that I am short because I have to look up to see the face of almost everyone who is over the age of ten.  Although we have commonalities, we are also all different.  God delights in the diversity of God’s creation.  Even each snowflake is unique.  When we fail to see that, when we group people together and label them, we strip them of their humanity.  In losing our ability to see people as individuals, they become sub-human. Either they become targets, or we don’t even know they are there.

“When I go places where there are people, I have a feeling that nobody knows that I’m here, it is hard for me to know where I am,” Thurman’s friend said. Can we recognize the humanity in our men and women who did their job in the midst of war and now are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome? Sometimes it’s hard to realize that the person who passed you on the street has no home. A significant number of people with no home are veterans.  Eating our fill of food that we get to choose makes it easier to forget that families with children may have only one meal a day, or none.  Even if we notice someone, we might not see the struggles that impact them so deeply, like the man who can’t afford his medicine, or the woman who recently had her third miscarriage.

The woman who put two coins in the offering plate, who was she? We don’t even know her name.  She was a widow, so we can make some assumptions. In those days, losing her husband meant that she was poor.  Because she was a woman, she had no inheritance rights.  Her poverty was not only financial poverty, it was also her lack of personhood. The crowds in the Temple did not see that she was there. Even if the religious leaders stumbled over her, they ignored her. But Jesus noticed her.  He drew the attention of the disciples to her. “Look at this woman.  See what she is doing.” Out of her poverty, she gave up all that she had to the benefit of a corrupt, sinful system, a system that Jesus condemned. In giving of all of her resources, she gave up her life, literally.  Blessed are the poor.

Immediately after the widow left, Jesus also came out of the temple.  One of the disciples pointed out the large stones of the buildings around them. Jesus responded, “Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”  In other words, immediately after encountering the widow, Jesus proclaimed that God will not let the systems of injustice stand.

It would be only 4 days later that Jesus would give up his life, for a corrupt world, just as the unnamed woman gave up hers to a corrupt church.  They gave all that they had.

Nurse Ari Mahler ended his post about treating the shooter with these words:

I’m sure he had no idea I was Jewish. Why thank a Jewish nurse, when 15 minutes beforehand, you’d shoot me in the head with no remorse? I didn’t say a word to him about my religion. I chose not to say anything to him the entire time. I wanted him to feel compassion. I chose to show him empathy. I felt that the best way to honor his victims was for a Jew to prove him wrong. Besides, if he finds out I’m Jewish, does it really matter? The better question is, what does it mean to you? 

Love. That’s why I did it. Love as an action is more powerful than words, and love in the face of evil gives others hope. It demonstrates humanity. It reaffirms why we’re all here. The meaning of life is to give meaning to life, and love is the ultimate force that connects all living beings. I could care less what Robert Bowers thinks, but you, the person reading this, love is the only message I wish instill in you. If my actions mean anything, love means everything.[2]

Jesus is God’s incarnation of love in the face of evil.  In and through the cross, in his death and resurrection, God’s love proves stronger than hate.  Herein lies our hope.  We pray in the name of Jesus, who was, and is, and is yet to come, Your kingdom come.

 

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

[1]Posted November 3, 2018 on FaceBook by Ari Mahler.

 

[2]Ibid.

Mark 19:17-31 

Lectionary 28 ~ Pentecost 21

In case you have not noticed, we are a generous congregation! This year, we donated over 200 pairs of sneakers to children so that they could begin the new school year without the embarrassment of wearing worn out shoes that don’t fit.  As a result of our scholarship money given to our Preschool, a child has been afforded the chance to form healthy relationships with teachers and other children, and to engage in learning that provides foundational skills needed to grow.  We have funded education for young people in Africa through Godparents for Tanzania. One of our beloved students, Roggy, was able to come for a visit through your generosity.  He is now working to keep elephants and rhinos and other wildlife safe from human predators.  As a side note, Roggy will be getting married to his love, Consesa.  On November 18, come to church with smiles. We will be videotaping our blessings to them.

The many ways we give extends far beyond the few things that I have mentioned. Many of you volunteer not just here, but out in our community as well. We are a generous congregation! Did I mention that today is Stewardship Sunday? Which leads me to our reading from Mark.

As Jesus was just beginning his journey, -he was headed toward Jerusalem and his death-a man ran up to him.  The man’s question for Jesus was weighing heavily on him.  “‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”  I can’t help but wonder why he asked this. The man didn’t ask for things that others did, such as to be healed, or for bread.

Jesus answered him, “Don’t murder or commit adultery.  Don’t lie, steal or cheat.  Do honor your parents.  “I’ve obeyed these laws all of my life,” the man defended.  “There is one more thing,” Jesus answered.  “Go sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  Did I mention today is Stewardship Sunday?

The man was shocked and began to grieve. We are not told specifically what caused the man to be so sad, but scholars believe that he couldn’t bring himself to part with his stuff, and so he walked away from Jesus upset.  He was disappointed that he could not have both eternal life and his life as it was, too.  What he thought was that everything he had was his.  The truth is that everything we have is God’s.

What we do know is that in the time and place of Jesus’ encounter, society was structured hierarchically.  The rich were at the top, and the emperor was at the tippy top.  When the emperor granted gifts, his beneficiaries showed their gratitude in the form of taxes, tributes, loyalty, and favors.  When a rich person gave business or gifts to people, or did favors for people of a lesser status, they were given honor, and gifts and favor in return. In other words, these benefits imposed a debt upon the recipient.  If I do something for you, you are obligated to me. The culture was one of transactional gratitude. Of course, times have changed and this system doesn’t exist in our society, right?

When the person asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life,” he was trapped in his  transactionally-minded culture. Inheritances are gifts, not something you do to earn them. We are inheritors of gifts that we dId not earn, and do not deserve.   In our baptisms, by water and the Holy Spirit, we are reborn children of God, and inheritors of eternal life.  In our confession, we are reminded that God, who is rich in mercy, loved us even when we were dead in sin, and made us alive together with Christ.  By grace, [we] have been saved.

The person in our story to needed to DO something.  His life needed to be under his control. If he sold everything he had, and then gave his money to the poor, he would lose his position as a benefactor, his social standing would  plummet, and he would lose the honor and respect that he bought. Worst of all, he would lose the independence.

I think this is Jesus’ point.  This man depended on status, things, people, and money for his life. Giving all that up would mean he would be totally dependent on God.  Jesus challenges this unnamed man, and us, to let go of the things we think we need.  Jesus calls us to follow him, to trust him with our whole lives, not just part of it.

Jesus does not see this person as intentionally evil.  Jesus confronts the man with his weakness, his captivity to possessions.  This is what stands in the way of him living into the full life of God’s kingdom.  This person’s name could be yours or mine.  We all cling to something that prevents us from totally trusting God. What would happen if we let go of whatever that is?

We are a generous congregation!  God calls us to grow in our generosity.  Scholar Walter Brueggemann writes:

Imagine stewardship as moving toward and living in the impossibility that is God’s good gift.  Before God finishes with us, we shall be new selves, praising our savior all the day long, going out in joy, walking in the light of shalom, no longer petty, or calculating or grudging.[1]

God blesses us richly so that we will bless others.   I invite you to do as I am—delve deeply into your relationship with God, and your response to God’s generosity.  I invite you to delve deeply into your wallet!   If you are not giving at all, in what are you placing your trust?  I invite you all to take a leap of faith.  If you contribute 5 percent of your income, commit to 6.  If 10 percent, promise 11.    Not only is generosity a gift of the Spirit, it is a spiritual discipline that changes our relationship with stuff, with people, and with God.  Did you know that research shows people who give generously are happier than those who don’t?  How happy do you want to be?

Brueggemann concludes:

You may think, as I often do, that to be resituated in and redefined by the mystery of generosity and gratitude is impossible…But what the Lord …said to the rich guy he also says to us:  For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.[2]

 

Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

 

[1]Brueggemann, Walter. “The Impossible Self as Steward.”The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann.Louisville:  John Knox Press,  2015. 275-276.

 

[2]Ibid.

 

Mark 9:38-50

Lectionary 26    Pentecost 19

“’If your hand or your foot gets in God’s way, chop it off and throw it away” Jesus says.  “You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owner of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away.  You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.’”[1]  Four times, Jesus says, “It would be better if you get rid of any body part that causes someone to stumble.

Jesus sounds a little harsh, don’t you think?  Chop off my hands and feet and pluck out my eyes?  I have great concern for those who take the Bible literally!  This passage has me longing for the Jesus who says, “Be healed!”  and “Oh, are you hungry? Here, have some bread.”  I cling to Jesus’ pronouncement, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The thing about hands and feet and eyes is that Jesus tells us to use them for God’s work.  But our eyes spy things that we want, both objects and people.  Our feet can be used to walk away from those who are hungry and take us to places we should not be.  Our hands touch things they should not touch and hold on to things they should let go.   It’s surprising that Jesus does not tell us to cut out our tongues, for it seems that tongues are often involved in our sin.

Jesus expresses himself this way, not because he wants to boost the prosthetic industry, but because he wants us to know how important what we do is. Causing someone who is growing in their faith to stumble, to fall a step away from God, is serious. Ask someone why they don’t go to church, and chances are good that they will tell you that Christians are hypocrites. Our walk doesn’t always match our talk. There’s a gap between who are, and who we claim to be.  Those who are uncomfortable with Christians and church will say we are judgmental, which goes along with being hypocritical.  We profess to love others as we do ourselves, yet we judge people for their sexual orientation, or their political affiliations, or their ethnicity.  You can’t judge someone and love them at the same time.

Barbara Brown Taylor reflects on these things, writing:

I have spent a lot of time thinking about stumbling: how we do it, how we cause others to do it.  Talking one way and acting another.  Talking about how we are all God’s children and then treating some of those children like…orphans, putting them away somewhere and then forgetting to visit. Talking about God’s good gifts to us and then hoarding those gifts like misers, refusing to share ourselves, refusing to share what we have with others.  Talking about God’s amazing grace and then saving up our own old hurts …–the time he did this, the time she said that—a catalog of griefs that collect bitterness like dust.[2]

Chop off my hands and feet and pluck out my eyes?  What part of yourself needs to be pruned? What is it that keeps you from trusting in God completely? The disciples needed to hear Jesus’ admonishment.  First, they were fighting with each other over who was the greatest.  Now they come tattling to Jesus that someone was healing people in Jesus’ name.  “We tried to stop him,” they said, “because he was not following us.” Not Jesus. The disciples were focused on themselves, their own importance,  and their own accomplishments.  Where is Jesus in their ordering of priorities and relationships?  One of the definitions of sin is missing the mark.  Sin is that which separates us from God.

Out of all the body parts engaged in sin, the one that is really responsible is our heart.  After all, our feet and our hands and our eyes don’t act on their own.  They follow our heart.  God wants to be first in our hearts.  You shall have no other gods before me, not ego, not money, not status, God tells us. This is the first commandment, from which all the others flow.  It’s a matter of heart.

In explaining this commandment, Luther writes:

You can easily understand what and how much this commandment requires, namely, that one’s whole heart and confidence be place in God alone, and no one else.  To have a God…does not mean to grasp him with your fingers, or to put him into a purse, or to shut him up in a box.  Rather, you lay hold of God when your heart grasps him and clings to him.  To cling to him with your heart is nothing else than to entrust yourself to him completely.[3]  What more could you want or desire than God’s gracious promise that he wants to be yours with every blessing, to protect you, and to help you in every need?[4]

Jesus came to love us.  It sounds like a cliche to say “Jesus loves you,” But even as he told the disciples to sharpen their axe, he was on his way to Jerusalem.  There he would be betrayed, beaten, hung on a cross to die, and abandoned. This is how much God loves us.  It transcends what we do for a living, our race, and our gender, and even our sin. There is nothing that can make God stop loving us, not death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation.[5]  In the waters of baptism, God says, “You are my child.  I promise to love you, and care for you as if you are the most precious thing on earth.  See that person over there, and there, and there?  I want you to love them just as I love you.”  Isn’t that what love is for, to give it away?

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]Peterson, Eugene.  The Message Bible.  Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002.  1828.

[2]Taylor, Barabra Brown.  Shock Therapy. 115.

[3]Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy, eds.  The Book of Concord.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. 388.

[4]Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy, eds.   391.

[5]Romans 8:38-39

Mark 8:27-38

Lectionary 24 ~  17^thSunday after Pentecost

What kind of investor are you?  How much are you willing to risk in order to gain? Are you conservative, hiding your dollar bills under your mattress?  Are you one who takes risks, helping to fund speculative start-up companies?  Maybe you keep your money in safe savings accounts, or certificates of deposit. I’m only asking because in our reading today Jesus talks about saving, and losing, profit and gain, forfeit and return.

We also hear about suffering and rejection, denying ourselves, picking up our cross, being killed and losing our life.  “All this can be yours,” Jesus says.  “Just follow me!”  (I think he needs a new public relations director.)   So what kind of investor are you?

The answer to that question is predicated on our answer to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter, the disciple who usually blurts things out without thinking, who normally misunderstands Jesus, and the one with whom I closely identify, answered, “You are the Messiah!”  For once, Peter got it right! The other disciples patted him on the back and gave him high fives.

But then Jesus teaches them that he will suffer greatly.  He will be rejected by those in leadership positions.  He will be killed.  While Peter was trying to wrap his mind around all of this, Jesus said something incomprehensible, “After three days, I will rise again.”  Still trying to understand suffering and death, Peter took Jesus aside and scolded him. “Jesus, no!  That’s not how this works!  A Messiah doesn’t suffer!  A Savior doesn’t get killed!  A Savior saves people!  Your job is to make my life better, and keep me safe, not get me killed!  Get rid of that oppressive Roman government!   While you are at it, stimulate the economy so that my savings account increases significantly.  Bring an end to those things that break my heart.  Let me have a peaceful, happy life.  Let’s skip the cross.  Nobody wants to go to the cross.  We can just go right to Easter.”

“Who do you say that I am? Jesus asks.  To Peter, Jesus was the one who would defeat his enemies.  Jesus was the one who would make life easier. Peter thought Jesus’ miraculous deeds of feeding and healing were about power, when they were really acts of love. Who is Jesus to you?  Suffering, rejection, death, and rising on the third day, this is what defines Jesus. The cross is God’s entering into the depths of our human suffering.  The cross gives shape to our lives.

“Deny yourself and take up your cross,” Jesus tells us.  This saying has been misinterpreted to tell people that they need to put up with abuse. There is no justification for abusing someone. Abuse should not be endured. Suffering is not redemptive in and of itself. Those who were hurt by others and marginalized by society are the very ones Jesus spent his life healing and restoring to community.  Through his actions and teaching, Jesus’ compassion reflects God’s claim that everyone deserves love, and dignity and respect. The suffering of which Jesus speaks comes through proclaiming the gospel of God’s love and forgiveness, seeking justice for the marginalized, and challenging social systems that reject the humanity of various groups of people.

“We have substituted a cushion for a cross,” Martin Luther King wrote.  “We have substituted the soothing lemonade of escape for the bitter cup of reality.  We have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.”[1]  Just a few days after his home in Montgomery was bombed, Dr. King preached this in a sermon.  Martin Luther King took up his cross, and suffered the ultimate consequence of following Jesus. “Deny yourself and take up your cross,” Jesus tells us.

What does it mean to deny yourself?  To deny ourselves means that we should deny those parts of ourselves that are shaped by society instead of created by God.  In Dr. King’s case, that would be systems and people telling him that blacks are inferior and that they don’t deserve the same rights and privileges that whites do.

Deny yourself.  Deny the voice in your head that says you are not worthy of love or that you are enough.  Deny the parts of yourself that are devoted to impressing others.  Embrace what Richard Rohr calls your “true self.” To deny ourselves is an invitation into community, to recognize the we can never become fully who we are without others.  To deny ourselves is to stop asserting that we have all the answers.  To deny ourselves is to let God be God and stop acting like we are in control.

Peter thought that he would find God in Jesus’ strength and power, but God’s son had come to suffer and die.  In the pain and forsakenness of the cross, we discover that there is no place God will not go to redeem us.  Jesus invites us, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Follow me into people’s pain and brokenness.”  It is the journey to and through the cross that enables Jesus to enter into our lives.  It is our experience of suffering that allows us to enter into the lives of others.  It is out of our wounds that we find compassion and love for those who are struggling.  It is out of our hurt that we find connection with each other.  In the depths of pain, we are changed.  God is present in all of it.

On the other side of the cross is new life.  Life that has been formed by the cross will find life in the resurrection.  “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  That’s the paradox of the cross, and God’s promise to us.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/Vol06Scans/5Feb1956It%27sHardtoBeaChristian.pdf accessed 9/14/2018.

 

John 6:56-69

14^thSunday after Pentecost ~ Lectionary 21

This is our fifth Sunday reading from the 6^thChapter of John’s Gospel.   Have you had your fill of bread yet?  This series of readings began with a large crowd following Jesus because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick [John 6:2b].  They were with him all day watching him heal and hearing him teach. When it got time for dinner, Jesus wanted to feed the people, rather than to send them away.  You remember the story.  A boy shared all the food he had.  Jesus gave thanks to God, and miraculously, 5 barley loaves and 2 fish were more than enough for everyone.

The next day, this same crowd followed Jesus across the sea to Capernaum.  In the synagogue there, he continued to teach them, saying, “I am the Bread of Life. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I am them.”  To the Jewish people, this was scandalous.  Children of God don’t eat flesh with blood in it!  That’s what Pagans do!

Jesus’ teachings were hard! They were hard to understand–Jesus is the Son of God, the true Bread from Heaven? They were counter-cultural—the first shall be last, love your enemies?  This last encounter pushed some away. Many those who had been following him turned back.  Jesus watched these disciples whom he had healed, and taught, and fed, and loved, as they walked away.  Then, turning to his most faithful, the twelve, he asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?”  How many times had they asked themselves that same question?  Do you also wish to go away?  Do you?

The truth for all of us is that sometimes the answer is yes.   We stop and think twice when Jesus calls us, as he did Peter, to step out of the boat, take his hand and walk on the water with him.  It’s not easy to trust Jesus completely when he calls us out of our comfort zone to do something we’re sure will drown us. Leaving seems like a better alternative than loving our enemies. We think about walking away when we pray for a miracle that never comes.  When God opens our eyes and our hearts to those who walk the streets and sleep in the woods because they have no other place to go, our insides fill with tears. When children are violated by the ones who are supposed to keep them safe we think about walking away from the God who let that happen.

Following Jesus is hard! Sometimes, we want to protect our hearts rather than give them away. It seems to come naturally to respond with anger instead of seeking to understand. It’s easier to go along with the crowd rather than speaking out against discrimination and injustice.

Who or what we have faith in has been an issue ever since Adam and Eve and the snake and the fruit. Choose this day whom you will serve, Joshua tells the Israelites as they gathered before God.  Do you also wish to go away?, Jesus asks.  Simon Peter answers him, Lord, to whom shall we go?  Even as we hear these words leave his lips, we know that we have gone elsewhere.  We have devoted ourselves to money or to our work, as if they can save us. We find fleeting comfort from a few glasses of wine, or in an unhealthy relationship.  We turn to our favorite vice and forget to pray. It is so easy to slip away from Jesus a piece at a time.  Lord to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life, says Peter, the one who will later deny Jesus three times, and, along with the other apostles, abandon him at the cross.

You may remember this story from Mark’s Gospel. There was a father whose son had a spirit that caused him to have seizures.  The father brought him to Jesus.  Take pity and heal him, if you are able, the father asked. “Jesus said to him, If you are able! —All things can be done for the one who believes.  Immediately the father of the child cried out, I believe; help my unbelief![Mark 9:14-24]. We, too,  live with this paradox.

It’s not God’s love that is in question.  It never was. Adam and Eve, the Israelites, the ones who followed Jesus, Peter–all of them, were already chosen and loved by God. In John’s Gospel, even the ones who walked away from Jesus were called his disciples. God had already chosen them. Even when he let them walk away, his love went with them.

God has already chosen us. What about our part of this relationship?  What about our faith?  It is the Holy Spirit that makes faith possible.  In the explanation of the third article of the Apostle’s Creed, Luther writes, I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in the true faith.[1]

Professor emeritus Timothy Wengert expounds further:

Faith…comes by hearing—not by deciding or willing or coming to God. God in Christ comes to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  So the Holy Spirit calls through the gospel (Word and Sacrament) and thereby puts an end to our works.  Faith is not a work or even a “response”;  it is an event, what happens when we hear the lover’s voice and fall in love…In the midst of our deafness, God speaks; in our blindness, God shines.[2]

To put it simply, faith is a relationship response.  We are grateful to have a relationship with our Preschool families, and to have children worshipping with us.  Jesus said that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it[Luke 18:17]. Children aren’t hung up on theology, or creeds, or praying the right words. What matters is that they are loved. Children form loving relationship without going through a decision-making process.  Teenagers do the same, although hormones seem to be responsible for the lack of thought.  Remember the first time you fell in love?[3]

Because our human sinfulness enters into all our relationships with us, they are messy, complicated, inconsistent and unreliable.[4]  But God’s love for us never waivers.  God gives us what no one and nothing else ever can—not our partner, not knowledge, not money, not anything.  Do you also wish to go away?  Lord to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.

 

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy, eds.  Book of Concord.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.

[2]Wengert, Timothy.  Martin Luther’s Catechisms. Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2009, 62.

[3]This is the description used by Rev. Dr. Dave Delaney in an e-mail to me.

[4]Ibid.

 

Ephesians 5:15-20, John 6:51-58 

Lectionary 20  Pentecost 13  

Knowledge and wisdom are two attributes that our society values.  Access to knowledge is easier today than ever before.  Books, documentaries, and the internet are readily available resources, as long as you can discern fact from fiction.  Having knowledge does not necessarily make a person wise. There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom.  That a tomato is a fruit is knowledge.  Not putting tomatoes in a fruit salad is wisdom.

The dictionary defines wisdom as the ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good decisions and judgments.  People are not always skilled at that.  This is why we have hot dog eating contests and mud wrestling.  What is the last foolish thing you did?  This is why we have confession.

While we do not always make good choices, even our wisest human wisdom is different than God’s wisdom.  In our human wisdom, we place a high value on money and material acquisitions.  Our human wisdom produced the expression, the one who dies with the most toys wins.We judge people on their appearance, if they are chubby or thin, do they have an accent or speak a different dialect, are they dark skinned or light.  Looks count for quite a bit.  Research shows good looking people are generally treated better than others, and are also perceived as being more likable and trustworthy.[1]   Our wisdom has produced anxiousness, fear, and self-indulgence.

Be careful then how you live not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil, Ephesians says.  Sometimes evil is painfully obvious, as in the most recent revelation of sexual abuse in the church.  We see evil in acts of violence and in discriminatory policies.  Sometimes evil can be hidden.

Gerald May writes in his book, Dark Night of the Soul:

I must confess I am no longer good at telling the difference between good things and bad things.  Of course, there are many events in human history that can only be labeled as evil, but from the standpoint of inner individual experience the distinction has become blurred for me.  Some things start out looking great but wind up terribly, while other things seem bad in the beginning but turn out to be blessings in disguise…I also feel that the dark night of the soul reveals an even deeper divine activity: a continually gracious loving, and fundamentally protective guidance through all human experience—the good as well as the bad.[2]

May’s thoughts of continual gracious loving echo what the author of the letter to the community of Ephesus wrote, Give thanks to God at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  To be thankful in the face of the evil of the world seems to us to be a foolish way to live, but God’s wisdom sent us Jesus to be the light that no darkness can overcome.

When we live a life of thanksgiving, we know most deeply what God has made available to us. We realize that we are God’s beloved.  Our scripture reading gives us other instruction.  Understand what the will of the Lord is.  Be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Sing songs and hymns together.  It is in community that we discern the will of God.  It is in community that Jesus is alive through the Holy Spirit.  That’s God’s promise, that wherever two or three are gathered in His name, God is present. It is in community that our voices join together to sing  more powerfully than we can alone.

Even in the church, Frederick Buechner writes, [you catch glimpses of the joy beyond the walls of the world although] church is apt to be the last place  because you are looking too hard for it there.  It is not apt to be so much in the sermon that you find it or the prayers or the liturgy but often in something quite incidental.[3]We find it when we see someone here who has been on our prayer list, or in conversation in the Gathering Space.  Joy can strike us when looking at the saints in our stain glass windows, or seeing our babies born into this congregation.

It is in community that we come to receive Jesus, the one who assures us, I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.  Jesus tells us that consuming him is a matter of life and death, not just for us, but for the whole world.  This bread, this Word of God, came down from heaven like manna and became flesh.  In Holy Communion, we are jointed to Christ, not through anything we do, but as a gift.   The paradox is that out of Jesus’ death on the cross comes life. God invites us to live in the world recognizing God as the giver of life, present in all moments.  We learn to recognize that God invites other to the table, too.

Jesus invites us to a different kind of life, a life that gives itself away to the world.  This is wisdom, to come together in community and fill ourselves.  Then go, carrying our songs beyond our walls out into the world.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/studies-show-the-advantages-of-being-beautiful-2013-6

[2]May, Gerald.  The Dark Night of the Soul.  New York:  HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.  1-2, 12.

[3]Buechner, Frederick.  Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale.  New York: HarperCollins, 1977, 84.

John 6:24-35     Ordinary Time ~ Lectionary 18

 

Beginning with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish, Jesus fed all of them, more than five thousand people.  They ate until they were satisfied, we are told, and there were leftovers to boot. When daylight came, the people went looking for Jesus. Where could he have gone? His disciples were missing, too!  Soon, they decided to expand their search. The crowds got into boats and sailed to the other side of the sea where they finally found Jesus.

In their encounter, we hear the questions that that they had—lots of questions.

Rabbi, when did you come here?

What must we do to perform the works of God?

What sign are you going to give us?

What works are you performing?

Reading this passage brings up questions I have of Jesus, too. Where are you when I can’t find you?  Why do I feel empty and hungry sometimes? How can you love me?  Don’t I have to do something?  How can I be sure? What sign are you going to give me? My questions are not so different than those of the people following Jesus.

My hope is that you also have questions.  To have all the answers about God is certainty, not faith.  “Faith,” writes one scholar, “can take us to holy realms certainty can never reach.”[1]  Jesus doesn’t ask us for certainty, or intellectual assent.  Jesus wants a relationship.  What Jesus tells us is “Follow me.  Believe in me.” Jesus calls us to trust him.

After the more than 5,000 people ate their fill, they hunted Jesus down. When they found him, Jesus responded to them, “You are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” This sounds like an accusation, and it strikes me hard.  Does it you, too? It prompts me to ask myself why I am I looking for Jesus. Why are you looking for Jesus?  What do we want from him?  What do we expect from Jesus?  When our physical being is well-cared for, and satisfied, for what are we hungering?  What will satisfy the longing that is deep in our soul?  What are the things we do that work toward that?

Where are we spending our time and our energy?  Watching movies, FaceBook, the internet?  Shopping?  The latest technology, or more clothes, or more books may bring a few moments of happiness. Eating cookies, especially with chocolate and nuts in them, is filling.  But do these things that seem to consume us really satisfy our deep hunger? Do they sustain us, especially when we are stricken with grief, or illness? Can we turn to them when we feel disappointed, or angry, alone or lost?

Are we hungry?  For what?  As of this morning, I have a desire to be understood.  I want to love, and to be loved.  My hunger is to have purpose, and to make a difference, even if it is in the life of one person.  I want to engage the world God created.  My desire is for joy that radiates from my very being.  I want to help one person to love God as deeply as I do. What are you hungry for?  What is on your list?

Jesus tells us that he is bread—our very basic food for nourishment.  He says, I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.  Jesus invites us to feast on him, –to consume him so that we are consumed by him. This passionate relationship is what will satisfy our hunger and thirst.  Though I know this, I sometimes forget, or worse.  That’s usually the time when I go shopping on-line or grab a cookie.

One of my favorite writers has similar issues.  She writes:

Do I really trust that Jesus is my bread?  My essential sustenance?  Very often, the answer is no.  Very often, Jesus is an abstraction.  A creed. A set of Sunday rituals I consider pleasant but optional.  Why?  Because I don’t come to him ravenous.  I don’t recognize my daily, hourly dependence on his generosity.  In short, I just plain don’t expect to be fed by him.  Instead, I hide my hunger, because I’m ashamed to want and need so much.[2]

The people Jesus invited to sit down on the lush green pasture so that he could feed them were in need of healing. There was the father who argued constantly with his teenage son, and the mother who found herself feeling inadequate every time her new baby cried.  The one who house was packed to the brim with stuff was there, along with the one who lied on a job application, and the one who drank a bit too much in the evenings. They were broken people, just like you and me.  They were following Jesus.  They had questions, but also a deep desire to be made whole by Jesus’ love, just as we do. Jesus healed them. He fed them. He gave them himself, just as they were, no questions asked.  Jesus invites us to come to the table, just as we are, where there is healing, and love, no questions asked.

In a moment, we will sing our Hymn of the Day, assuring us that Jesus invites to the table, providing bread that fills that empty place inside of us.  Jesus, a feast of love offered to us, our hope of everlasting life.  In our singing, may we accept Jesus’ invitation.  After the hymn of the day, we confess our faith.  God the source of our being and the goal of all our longing, God, embodied in a human life, God, life-giving Spirit, we believe and trust in you.  In our speaking, may we be strengthened.  In consuming the body and blood of Christ, may we become consumed.

 

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1]Barnes, Craig M.  “Uncertain and Faithful.”  Christian Century, July 28, 2018.

[2]Thomas, Debie. “Bread of Heaven.” Journey with Jesus. Accessed July 30, 2018.  www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay.  I give thanks for her perspective on this text.