Year: 2018

 

John 6:1-21    

Time after Pentecost ~ Lectionary 17

Signs are helpful, most of the time.  They give directions so that we know what to expect. Some signs are very clear, like the one in a coffeehouse that reads, “Unaccompanied children will be given an espresso and a puppy.”  Signs tell us which direction we need to go to get to our destination.  Sometimes signs are not well understood. If you are directionally challenged, which I am, signs can be confusing. Have you been to where Route 60, Francis Street, Lafayette, and Page Street meet?  Signs can be misinterpreted, even with a GPS.

A large crowd kept following Jesus because they saw the signs he had done.  Our story is told in all four gospels for a total of six times.  Each gospel writer has a different nuance.  John’s gospel emphasizes Jesus’ “signs.” In other words, what Jesus does reveals something important not only about Jesus, but about God.

The crowds had been following Jesus for a long time, and he was tired.  He took the disciples with him up to the mountain to find some quiet time.  It was Passover, the commemoration of God’s freeing the Jewish people from bondage to the Egyptians.  When Jesus looked up, he saw the crowds.  So many people, each of them broken in different ways.  They were following him because they placed their hope in Jesus because of the signs they had seen.

When Jesus saw them, the first thing he thinks of is feeding them. His disciples thought, “Yeah?  How’s that going to work?” Philip couldn’t imagine paying for that much food.  Andrew was slightly more helpful.  “’There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.’”  Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down where there was a “great deal of grass,” an abundance of grace, green pasture like that to which a good shepherd would lead his sheep.[1]  It’s a sign that leads us Jesus as the good shepherd. Then Jesus took those five barley loaves and two fish, and gave thanks to God for them.  In the blessing, Jesus had enough to give to everyone, enough so that they were satisfied.  Not only did they eat their fill, there were leftovers.

Would we be satisfied, eating while sitting on the grass with 5,000 of our closest friends?  Would a meal of fish and bread be enough?  One of my favorite writers imagines how we might receive this meal today.  “’We ate, but only the fish, not the bread. You know.  Carbs,’ or maybe, ‘We ate, and looked around to see if we’d eaten more or less than the people sitting next to us.’”[2]  Would we want to order it our way, or maybe even refuse it?

When we come to the Lord’s table, we receive Jesus in the bread and the wine, physical expressions of God’s great love for us.  I wonder, –do we take the bread and wine, but not fully receive God’s abundant love and forgiveness that is in and under and through it?  I wonder because I see us in the disciples.  Jesus says to his disciples, “You feed the people.”  They balked. “We can’t do this.  We don’t have enough. We aren’t enough. We aren’t good enough.  We aren’t faithful enough.”

Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen writes, “I hope you can somehow identify in yourself the temptation to self-rejection, whether it manifests itself in arrogance or in low self-esteem….Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’”[3]  The voice of God calling us “beloved” seems like a whisper drowning in the noise of the world.  Our mistreatment of ourselves and others is evidence that we don’t always hear God say to us, “I love you.”  How can we be bread for the world, how can we share the love of Christ to others, if we do not know or are not satisfied by God’s love for us?  We need to be not only to be fed, but to be nourished. Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Sister and author writes, “Sooner or later, in desperation perhaps, people will be forced to go inside themselves to find the part of life and soul that are not being nourished and figure out why.”[4

Everything we think, say or do should reflect the truth of being loved by the God who created us.  How do we close the gap between this reality of God’s deep love for us, and how we feel about ourselves?  Nouwen believes that the first step is to realize that we are chosen by God, and the second is to realize others are, too.  “When love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one, and it chooses without making anyone else feel excluded….To be chosen does not mean that others are rejected.”[5]

This goes against what we have learned since we were babies.  There are only so many cookies, and when I get two or three or four, someone else won’t get any.  If you are chosen to be on a team, then I won’t be.  When we realize our shortcomings, it is easy to try to beat out the other guy through any means necessary, or to simply give up trying. After all, there is only so much to go around, right?

Jesus teaches us in his feeding of thousands and thousands of people is that no one is excluded.  Everyone is fed. Not only are you enough for God to love you, God has enough love for everyone. You can’t hoard love. You can, however, give it away.

Nouwen explains:

…Claiming your own blessedness always leads to a deep desire to bless others. The characteristic of the blessed ones is that, wherever they go, they always speak words of blessing.  It is remarkable how easy it is to bless others, to speak good things to and about them, to call forth their beauty and truth, when you yourself are in touch with your own blessedness….No one is brought to life through curses, gossip, accusations or blaming….The voice that calls us the Beloved will give us words to bless others and reveal to them that they are no less blessed than we.[6]

There exists a kind of urban legend that you may have heard.  A wise elder was teaching his grandson about life. “I am fighting a battle, and it is a terrible fight,” he told him.  “Inside of me there is a wolf made up of anger, envy, greed, self-pity, resentment, and arrogant pride.”  The boy looked stunned.  “There is another wolf, a good one, made up of love, humility, kindness, truth and compassion.  The same fight is going on inside of you.  In fact, it is in everyone.”  The grandson was quiet for a moment.  “Which wolf will win?” the boy asked.  His grandfather answered, “The one you feed.”

In our Lutheran language, we say that it is God who feeds us.  If we cannot taste God’s love and forgiveness, if we cannot swallow it, that often means, as Nouwen says, “that God is calling us to a greater faithfulness. It is precisely in times of spiritual dryness that we must hold on to our spiritual discipline so that we can grow into new intimacy with God.”[7]  Spiritual disciplines, such as confession, prayer, scripture reading, and listening for God help to nurture the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self-control.[8]  Look for signs of God’s love.  Engage in these practices daily.  Every time you wash your face, as Luther said, remember your baptism.  Remember God has claimed you as God’s beloved.

Jesus is the Bread of Life. Take and eat, swallow, savor it, all of it, just as Jesus offers.  But more than that, let Jesus’ love and forgiveness consume you.  Then go feed his sheep.  There’s more than enough for everyone.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

[1]See John, Chapter 10:  1-18.

[2]Thomas, Debie. “Enough and More.” Journey with Jesus. https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay. Accessed July 23, 2018.

[3]Nouwen, Henri.  Life of the Beloved. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2000. p. 28.

[4]Chittister, Joan.  Between the Dark and the Daylight.  Image:  New York, 2015. p.53.

[5]Ibid. p. 45

[6]Ibid. p. 67.

[7]Henri Nouwen Society Daily Meditation, Spiritual Dryness, on-line, July 29, 2018.

[8]Galatians 5:22-23.

Job 38:1-11     Mark 4:35-41    

Lectionary 12    5^thSunday after Pentecost

 

On that day, our reading begins. That daywas a long one, it was the day Jesus, using parables about seeds and sowers, taught about God’s kingdom.  He spoke to the crowds that had gathered, and then explained the parables more fully to his disciples in private.  It was the end of the day, and Jesus now wanted them to go with him to the other side. He was talking about going across the Sea of Galilee.  This is their first venture into gentile territory, the country of the Gerasenes. There were hostile strangers there, and even enemies,–or so they thought.  The unknown made it a dangerous destination.  It was also evening, when the sun has gone down, and the darkness was getting darker.

Jesus was already in the boat, just as he was, and the disciples climbed right in with him.  It wasn’t long before a great windstorm came upon them.  Four of the disciples were fishermen, and no doubt they had experience with severe storms.  This night, the winds were especially fierce, like a tornado.  The boat began rocking back and forth, and they had left their dramamine in the other boat. The wind and the waves made their journey chaotic and terrifying.  Kinda like life is right now.

According to author Thomas Friedman, our political disagreements arise from the disparity between our advances in science and technology and our response to them.  We live in an age of acceleration.  The world is rapidly changing and being dramatically reshaped. We know this to be true. Friedman provides details in his recent book, Thank You for Being Late.[1]  For example, it used to take 20 or 30 years for scientific or technological changes to cause societal discomfort.  Think about cars.  As they advanced, so did the need to change roads, and ways to manufacture parts to repair them, and adapt insurance policies, and new traffic laws, and product liability lawyers, and personal injury attorneys.  Only ten years ago, a cell phone was not capable of storing a single photo.  Now the storage capacity of a phone is more than sixteen billion bites.  So far, I have 3, 217 pictures on my phone.  When things change in our world faster than we can adapt, we feel out of control.

Quoting Dov Seidman, Friedman writes, “’The world is starting to operate differently’ in many realms all at once.  And ‘this reshaping is happening faster than we have yet been able to reshape ourselves, our leadership, our institutions, our societies, and our ethical choices.’”[2]   The resulting storm is chaotic and terrifying.  So what is it that frightens you?

While the wind and the waves battered the boat, Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on the cushions, dreaming of rainbows and French bulldog puppies, —  white ones.  The intensity of the storm grew, and the disciples were unable to manage their fear. Shaking Jesus awake, they demanded an answer.  Don’t you care that we are perishing?

Jesus, don’t you care that we are perishing? ask those who do not have enough to eat.

Jesus, don’t you care that we are perishing? ask those who cannot afford to buy medicine.

Jesus, don’t you care that we are perishing? ask the victims of violence.

Jesus, don’t you care that we are perishing?  cry the children of illegal immigrants.

It’s a situation that seems to be changing daily, but the fact remains that at our borders, thousands of babies, toddlers, and children have been separated from their mothers and fathers.  Some children will be lost forever from their family. The psychological damage to the children resulting from this experience will be hard, if not impossible, to heal.  This is a moral and ethical issue.[3]

Jesus calls us to care for those who are most vulnerable, and there are none in this world more vulnerable than children.  Our ELCA bishop, Bishop Eaton, declares, The Forced separation of children from their parents is unnecessarily cruel, further traumatizing families who have already suffered in their countries of origin and on the dangerous journey to the U.S.[4]

There is fear in everyone these days.  Fear can paralyze us.  Faith breaks the shackles of fear and stirs us to be God’s hands and feet in the world. Fear can stop us in our tracks. Faith calls us forward beyond our fear toward God.

Jesus, don’t you care that we are perishing? Jesus woke up, and told the storm to be still.  In the dead calm, Jesus asked them, Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith? Have you no faith because of the wind and the waves? Have you no faith because human sinfulness seems to be running rampant?   Have you no faith because God’s kingdom appears to be taking such a long time to come into its fullness?

In the book of Job, keeping faith alive while experiencing unjust suffering is a mystery of the human heart.  Job suffers the death of his children, he loses his wealth, and he becomes painfully ill. Job angrily asks God to show up and to explain.  God comes, out of the chaos of a whirlwind, making it clear that God does not answer to humans, but humans are to answer to God.  God does not give an explanation of suffering, why God allows it.  He reminds Job that it was God who laid the cornerstone of the earth and hung the stars in the sky. God does not provide answers to the questions of suffering, nor does Jesus give an explanation of the storm.  Though we don’t get answers, scripture is very clear that we are called to help those who are in need.

Job endured tremendous losses, which God did not stop, but God showed up out the chaos of the whirlwind. God did not stop the storm from coming, but Jesus was in the boat with the disciples while it was being battered by waves and wind.  We are not left abandoned. God does not give answers, but rather gives God’s self.

Where is your faith?Jesus asks.  Is it in the wind and the waves, or is it in me?If our faith is in the wind and the waves and the chaos, we will be paralyzed with fear.  If our faith is in the wind and the waves, then we have no hope.  God calls us to faith so that we can be God’s voice and hands in this world.   

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]Friedman, Thomas L.  Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations.  New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.

[2]Ibid. p. 28.

[3]Find ways to help immigrant children separated from their families on our Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service web page at https://www.lirs.org.

[4]https://www.elca.org/News-and-Events/7935accessed June 21, 2018.

Mark 4:26-34 

4^thSunday after Pentecost Lectionary 11  

 

Do you remember your high school English class, the one where you learned about allegories and fables?  David Lose, to whom I give great thanks for his guidance with our passage, says that fables and allegories are meant to teach and instruct.  Filtering the mustard seed story through an allegory lens leads us to conclude that our faith starts out small, and when it is tended, it grows.  Approached as a fable, and we learn that God will use our small faith to do big things. These are certainly safe ways to interpret our reading.

But what if, as Jesus so plainly tells us, this story is a parable? Parables are not safe; they are provocative.  They are meant to throw into question what we think we know.  Parables create an “AHA!” moment. If the story of the mustard seed is a parable, we need to look beyond the obvious.  One of the more noticeable aspects of our story that deserves to be examined is the mustard seed itself.  A  mustard, in fact, as our master gardeners will tell you, is not actually the smallest of seeds.  That honor belongs to an orchid seed.  A mustard seed was used medicinally, and like it is today, a spice.  But it is a weed, and not just simply a weed.  It is a weed on steroids.

When I moved into my house, we were looking for a plant that would act as a screen between my property and my neighbor’s.  My husband wanted to plant bamboo.  People warned us, don’t do that.  You will be sorry!  Once it is planted, it will take over your yard.  Nothing can stop it. Kudzu, the plant that ate the South, works the same way. Both plants are invasive.  They get out of control.  Mustard shrubs are like that. They are wild and unpredictable. They go where they are not wanted and then they take over.  This is what the kingdom of God is like, Jesus tells us. And those birds that made their nests in it?  The last time Jesus talked about birds, in the parable of the sower, they were eating seeds off the path.  So that their seeds are not eaten, farmers put up scarecrows to keep the birds out. Birds were an undesirable presence. Just like the unfavorable men and women that Jesus hung out with.

To the people listening Jesus, hearing the kingdom of God being compared to a mustard seed must have challenged them.  What they had expected was a regal forest arising from the noble cedars God planted. That’s the story that had been passed down to them.  The image of Israel’s greatness brought about through God, according to Ezekiel, was this majestic tree, which would stand tall and strong against their enemies.  Jesus replaced their story of stately cedars with one about invasive bamboo and kudzu full of people no one else viewed as valuable.

If you have watched the news lately, or if you woke up this morning, this invasion of weeds is actually good news! God is breaking in to disrupt and overpower our real enemies,–fear and injustice and a mentality of scarcity. Those whom the world finds undesirable, those who are poor, disabled, mentally ill, or of a different race or ethnicity, will have a safe home in God’s kingdom, like the birds resting in the shelter of the mustard bush. Nothing will stop it from taking over. God’s invasion into our world is where our hope lies.  It’s this hope that gives us power.  It’s this hope that overcomes fear.  It is this hope that calls us to be an instrument in bringing in God’s kingdom.

Our hope is well founded. We are surrounded with God’s kingdom coming among us.  Look for places where fear is overcome.  Search for where those who are oppressed find liberation. When I looked for places in which God’s kingdom is breaking in, I immediately thought about Malala.  When she was 16 years old, this young lady won the Nobel Peace Prize.  This Pakistani woman was shot in her face by the Taliban.  She had struck fear into them because of her advocacy for the education of females.  Rather than silencing Malala, their actions drew even more attention to her work. Because of her, and with the power of her witness, there will be thousands of girls in Pakistan getting an education.  Malala is an instrument of hope.  Hope is not only invasive, it is contagious.

God’s kingdom will grow into its fullness. It begins now.  It starts as small seeds and grows in places we cannot even imagine.  There is hope all around us.  It is where you find light entering into darkness.  You will find it when someone says, “I’m sorry,” and “I forgive you.”  Hope is the cry of a newborn baby. Hope is supporting students in Tanzania so that they are educated to use their God-given gifts.  It’s a white guy clearing the weeds out of a long forgotten African-American cemetery.  Hope is praying with people whose political views are different than yours.  Hope looks like a flower sticking up out of the cracks in the sidewalk and a double rainbow stretching across the sky.  Hope is a dog and a cat eating out of the same dish.

I am giving you homework this week!  Here is your mission.  Look for mustard seeds.  Look for places where God creates hope. It may not be obvious.  Take a picture!  Write it down!  Send them to me by e-mail (pastorcg@saintstephenlutheran.net).  I will make a spot for your sightings on our church’s FaceBook page so that others will be inspired.

God’s kingdom is now. God’s kingdom is coming.  It is coming with hope, invasive hope.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

Genesis 3:8-15   Mark 3:20-35

Pentecost 3 ~ Lectionary 10

I got to hold my baby granddaughter, Haddie, in my arms this week.  As we stared at each other, everything else faded; all we could see was each other.  Then her eyes smiled, and for the first time, she made sweet baby sounds, cooing and gurgling.  As I looked at this beautiful blessing, the words from Genesis ran through my mind–God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them[Genesis 1:27]. So, while I think Haddie Rose looks like me, the ultimate reality is that she bears the image of God.  And so do we, but we either forget that, or we don’t believe it.

Adam and Eve lost sight of that.  Their view of themselves changed after they realized they had done the very thing God told them not to do.  In their sin, their separation from God, they tried to hide. Have you ever tried hiding from God?  How did that work out for you?  Confronted by God, Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent, and before you know it, all their relationships were broken.  We as a people have not quite recovered.

Which brings us to this week, a week in which the top news reflects humanity’s broken relationships. It’s been a week!  As the G7 Summit begins in Canada, tensions regarding trade are rising.  Three American soldiers were killed in Somalia. The Department of Justice has said that insurance companies should not have to provide medical coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

The news that has captured our attention are the suicides of celebrities Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. Suicide is one of the top causes of death in the United States.  Every 12 minutes, someone in the United States commits suicide.  The rate of suicides is on the rise.  Just a few years ago, it was one every 16 minutes. Each suicide intimately affects at least 6 people.[1]

I think the reason that Kate and Anthony’s deaths hit us so hard is that they appeared to have a life full of everything anyone could want.  Some suicides are prompted by a bad situation from which death would provide a solution or relief.  Other people who kill themselves suffer deeply from depression.  In either case, people are enveloped in such thick despair, they cannot see past it.

Sometimes, it is a physical illness. This is the case of one of my friends, who wrote this in response to the week’s events:
I’ve seen a lot of comments where people say something like, “He/She was lonely”, “If their family loved them more…”, “Maybe if they asked for help/ gotten help they wouldn’t have died”. These comments need to stop. Mental illnesses have nothing to do with love or lack of it. I am SURROUNDED by love. I also happen to have depression and anxiety…. People who commit suicide KNOW they are loved. I’ve been in that place several times. I KNEW I was loved. Sometimes people with depression just have a hard time seeing tomorrow while also seeking help and being medicated.[2]

Whatever the reason, that a child of God would end his or her own life is painful. While there are so many things we don’t understand, and thousands upon gazillions of unanswered questions, we live in a world where there is good and evil, light and dark.  We live in a world in which it is easy to forget that we are created in God’s image. It seems it is also easy for us to forget that others are, too.

Jesus did not.  In a society where only people without disabilities, who were male, and adult, oh, and not poor, were of any value, Jesus spent his time with all the “wrong” people.  He spent his days and nights in the company of those whom society judged worthless, and then loved them into wholeness.  He restored a mis-shaped hand, cast out demons from people, and kissed the leper clean. He ate with prostitutes and fed the hungry.

By putting the needs of people above the rules of society and religion, Jesus’ behavior was called into question.  Some said he was possessed.  His family came to see if he needed help, or maybe stage an intervention. But Jesus was surrounded by people who wanted to be loved into wholeness, and his family couldn’t get through the crowd.  “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are asking for you,” someone told him.  “’Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,’”   as he pointed to the poor, the injured, the mentally ill,, and the disabled surrounding him.

If you were his family, this must have sounded a bit harsh, but Jesus is not denying his family.  He is extending it.  Much like the answer to the question, “who is my neighbor?,” Jesus breaks traditional definitions.  God’s love is radical enough to include those whom society chooses to ignore.  He brings into his family those who are hungry for God’s love not just for themselves, but for everyone.  Jesus sees as family those who believe God’s love is stronger than evil.  Jesus embraces those who suffer from mental illness, and grieves when depression claims a life, and those who work for equal rights for all people.  Jesus claims those who forgive like he does, and those who dare to see a world where no child goes hungry, and peace prevails.

Jesus will go so far to show God’s love for people, that he will be unjustly killed for it.  Some in our world will go that far to keep people from being included in God’s love and mercy and forgiveness.  But a love as fierce as God’s cannot be contained nor stopped.  On the third day, Jesus was raised from the dead to new life.

In our baptisms, we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection.  By water and the Holy Spirit, God claims us as God’s own.  We are sons and daughters of God, which makes us brothers and sisters in Christ.  This morning, Haddie Rose will join our family through God’s gift of baptism.  We will welcome her into the body of Christ.  Just as important we will invite her into the mission we share.  Do you remember what that is?  As stated in our baptismal rite, it is to give thanks and praise to God, and to bear God’s creative and redeeming word to all the world.

That’s what God calls us to do, to be family to each other.  Of course, all families are dysfunctional, but ours is called to show love in new ways and to tell the world.  A week like this is evidence that we are still learning how to do this. We do not love perfectly, but we are loved by a God who does.  Thanks be to God.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]If you are in crisis, call the toll-free National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All calls are confidential.

[2]Used with permission.

John 3:1-17     Holy Trinity Sunday

 

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday. Since the time of Christ, people have tried to nail down the Trinity, but understanding the Trinity is like getting a cat to figure out integral calculus.[1] Can we ever fully express who God is as Father? Our words fail when we try to convey God as Son, crucified and risen. Try accurately defining the Holy Spirit and you might as well join your cat.[2]  While it is helpful know what we believe, sometimes we limit our view of God by defining God.  Words can never bear God’s fullness.

Richard Rohr devotes his book, The Divine Dance, to helping us gain some understanding.  In expressing thoughts about the Holy Trinity, he cites other theologians, writing:  For God to be good, God can be one.  For God to be loving, God has to be two.  Because love is always a relationship, right?  But for God to “share excellent joy” and “delight”—and this is where his real breakthrough is—God has to be three, because supreme happiness is when two persons share their common delight in a third something—together. (98).[3]

Rohr references Dave Andrews, who phrases his thoughts about the Trinity this way:  It takes one person to be an individual.  It takes two people to make a couple.  And it takes at least three people to make a community….Because the ultimate reality of the universe, depicted in the Trinity, is a community of persons in relation to one another, we know [that three] is the only way it is possible for people to relate to one another with the individuality of one, the reciprocity of two, and the stability, subjectivity and objectivity of three (101).

In other words, the Holy Trinity is about relationship. It is about love. It is about community.  We are here today in community because we have a hunger, a deep need, to know God, to discover more about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  But I don’t think we are here in worship together to figure out if all the words to the Creeds are factual and accurate.  I think we are here to encounter God in all of God’s fullness.

Nicodemus was looking for the same thing when he went searching for Jesus.  He was a Pharisee.  That means that he knew the law, both the written law laid out in the scriptures, and the oral laws passed down to him through the generations.  He did his best to do what was right.  He was a religious leader, and most likely had heard about John the Baptizer’s testimony that Jesus was the Messiah, and the stories of the Holy Spirit descending from heaven when Jesus was baptized.  He knew that Jesus said, “Follow me,” and that Andrew, Simon, Nathanael and others dropped what they were doing to go with him. No doubt he learned that Jesus turned water into fine wine for the wedding guest at Cana.  You know how people talk, and the story of the Temple could not be contained.   Jesus driving people out of the Temple and of doves flying everywhere, and tables crashing, and coins clanging as they hit the floor was front page news.

So, Nicodemus came under the cover of darkness to see Jesus for himself.  Yes, this is where we get the phrase, Nick at Night.  “Rabbi,” Nicodemus said, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”  Jesus answered that it was not as simple as Jesus plus God equals two.  Jesus was not something that could be figured out like a math problem.  Jesus says something more abstract.  “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Every time we think we have God all figured out, Jesus takes us to an entirely new realm. We have all heard the forms that this expression, born from above.  One of the most common is born again.  I lived for a bit in Alabama, and I fell in love with the people there. But we often had conversations that this genetic Lutheran found…interesting.  Have you been born again?they would ask.  Have you been saved? And exactly when was that? When did you make that decision?

 No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above, Jesus said.

For those of you who have participated in birth, it does not seem to be much of our own personal decision to beborn.  Being born is not something we choose.  You might recall these words from the beginning of John’s gospel, that we are born not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God (1:13). Jesus followed up with Nicodemus saying that, the wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do know where it comes from or where it goes. In other words, it is not under your control.  Like being born, you don’t cause it, or make it happen. Your chances of figuring this whole God thing out, of being in control, are as good as a cat’s chances of passing a calculus exam.

“Trinity Sunday,” writes one liturgical scholar, “…is a celebration of the experience of the God of the Bible as the human mind has reflected on that experience.  It is, in a simple phrase, a celebration of the mystery of God….In the face of such mystery, language fails, and without words, the heart must in silence rejoice that God is God.”[4]

God’s love is so huge that it cannot be contained. St. Paul tells us that God has embraced us and made us heirs as God’s own children.  Our reading from John reminds us that God so loved the world.  That’s why we come, to be reminded, again. that God’s love is bigger than us.  We know that intellectually, but illness that will not go away, people trying to squash you to boost their own ego, the persistent worry, “is there enough,” and the demands of the day tend to take center stage in our lives.  We come when we are full of ourselves so that we may become instead filled with God.

All that is here is worship contributes to our experiencing of God.  We come together to be stirred by our stained glass of the faithful from times long ago.  The voices of the choir and notes ringing out from the organ express, without words, God’s love.  Feeling in our hands the words of our book of worship and joining others through the same words of confession and praise that have been said this day,  seeing the cloths on the altar, and the light of the candles, and tasting the bread, and sharing this together.  We come to share God’s peace that transcends our own egos.  We come to breathe in all of it. We come to experience love, breathing in the fullness of the God who birthed our world and us.

Breathe this holy air deeply so that we will not suffocate as our days wear on.  Breathe deeply that when we walk out of our worship space, we may be God’s instrument to resuscitate someone looking for Jesus in the dark.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]The first ecumenical council was the Council of Nicaea in 325, which produced the Nicene Creed, the first uniform doctrine of the Church.

[2]I really do like cats!  They are very smart, especially compared to my dog, Winston.

[3]Rohr, Richard.  The Divine Dance:  The Trinity and Your Transformation.  New Kensington, PA:  Whitaker House, 2016. p.

[4]Pfatteicher, Philip.  Journey into the Heart of God: Living the Liturgical Year.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2013.  p. 288-289.

 

John 17:6-19     7^thSunday of Easter

 

What is the best gift you have ever received?  Was it the gift of time with someone you love?  Maybe a family heirloom?  Maybe a grade you did not deserve?  Or a job? My sister puts a lot of thought into the gifts she gives.  She examines every aspect of her perspective gifts, making certain that all details are fitting for the recipient.  She delights in the giving.

We are the gift that God delights in giving!  God gives us to Jesus.  We are a gift!  It is mentioned four times in our reading, emphasizing that our “givenness” is important!  I have made your name known, Jesus prays, to those whom you gave me from the world.  They were yours, and you gave them to me… 

We often hear that someone is a gift from God, usually when they bring some form of relief to someone. Do you think of yourself as a gift from God?  Based on the articles and books that I see published, many of us do not.  “You can be better” can also say that you are not good enough.  If you do a search on Amazon for self-improvement books, the results indicated that there are over 100,000 of them. I suspect Amazon stops counting when it gets that high because when I did a Google search, the result came back 20,300,000.  Most of us  do not see ourselves as a gift.

Jesus’ prayer in our Gospel reading speaks to our being in the world, but not belonging to the world. This is the world that tries to tell us who we are, which is anything but a child of God.  At best, the world tells us we are nothing special, and at worst, we are told we are defective.  How easy it is to listen to the voices that say we are not enough—not smart enough, not thin enough, not doing enough,–not enough something.  Somehow those voices stay with us more than the voice of God that  says we are a gift.  Richard Rohr ends his book, The Divine Dance, with this observation:  God is on your side, honestly more than you are on your own.[1]  How true that is!

We have to dare to reclaim the truth, Henri Nouwen writes, that we are God’s chosen ones, even when our world does not choose us.  As long as we allow our parents, siblings, teacher, friends and lovers todetermine whether we are chosen or not, we are caught in the net of a suffocating world that accepts or rejects us according to its own agenda of effectivity and control.[2]

There is a cultural thread in Japan called wabi-sabi.  It arose in the 15^thcentury out of a time when lavishness and perfection in all things was valued.  Wabi-sabicelebrates cracks and crevices.  It embraces authenticity over perfection.  When the Japanese mend broken objects such as pottery, they fill the cracks with gold to highlight the damaged area.  They believe when something has suffered it becomes more beautiful.  As Lutherans, we say that Christ is present in our suffering.  The light of Christ shines in our broken places, and through our cracks.

In our time and place, we think being cracked and broken makes us worth less.  But in our brokenness, God gives us to Jesus as a gift. God proves God’s love for us in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).  We are God’s gift, but we also live into becoming God’s gift. To recognize that we are a gift to God helps us not only to live with our brokenness, but also allows us to better grow into who God created us to be, and to deepen our relationship with God.  When we accept both our own giftedness, and our own sinfulness, we learn that it is impossible to compete for God’s love.  We are loved enough. We are better able to see God’s gifts in others, which opens us up to find joy in community.

Jesus continues his prayer, asking his Holy Father that he protect us so that we may become one with both the Father and the Son, that we may share in that relationship.  He goes on to say, “But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.”  Jesus’ joy is our joy, and our joy is in Jesus, but because we still live in the world, we live between God’s joy and the world’s anger, prejudice and human judgment.

As you have sent me into the world, Jesus prays, so I have sent them into the world.  As one commentary states, this is the world that we are sent into, a world that “loves its people in such a way that we do not love its ways…. The world is our goal, not our source…not our measure of worth.”[3]

My sister engages every part of her being into matching the gift’s qualities with the recipient’s character. In doing so, she delights in the joy of the other.  Sometimes the gift says more about the giver.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]Rohr, Richard.  The Divine Dance:  The Trinity and Your Transformation.  New Kensington, PA:  Whitaker House, 2016. p. 194.

[2]Nouwen, Henri.  Life of the Beloved.  New York:  The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992.  p. 48.

[3]Bruner, Frederick Dale.  The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Grand Rapids:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2012, p. 993-995.

Acts 8:26-40, 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8

     The Fifth Sunday of Easter

I don’t know about you, but I am, as a prayer in our worship book says, wearied by the changes and chances of life(ELW 325).  Three deaths and three funerals preceded by months of struggle have left us all, I think, feeling swept under.  In addition, there are those of you with serious illness and questions about tomorrow.   Abide in me, Jesus says.

Other discomforts may have walked in the door with us and sat down in the pew with us.  Maybe you have carried with you a sense of not being good enough, or even of failure.   Or maybe you still feel the slap of those harsh comments made by someone who will never apologize for them.  It could be that you are feeling disconnected from people.

You might be able to relate to the main person in our reading this morning from the Book of Acts. He was out there on the margins of society.  So much so that no one bothered to tell us his name.  You can bet that he was never the guest of honor if he was even invited to any parties.  He was not allowed to go inside the Jewish Temple because he was an Ethiopian eunuch, a man who has had a procedure that leaves him non-functional in the procreative sense.  (See Deuteronomy 23:1.)  There is little doubt he was weary. When we meet him, he is reading about the suffering servant in the book of Isaiah.

He was reading about a sheep led to the slaughter, a lamb unable to speak as it is headed to be stripped of its wool, both humiliated and denied justice.  No wonder the eunuch was drawn to this passage. “Who is this?” he wanted to know.  Philip told him about Jesus. As they came upon some water, Jesus whispered, Abide with me. “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” the eunuch asked, and then he and Philip both went into the water to drown all those things that were not of God.  With water and the Word, Philip baptized him.

This morning, Andrew Francis Stahl was baptized.  Andrew’s parents, Chris and Kristin, and sister Charlotte, brought him to our font where he will, through water and the Word, be forever joined to Christ. Andrew will later affirm his baptism, as Jaina, Caitlin, and Casey will do on Pentecost.  These young people have come to their decision because at home their families have encouraged them, and their church family has shown them the love of Jesus.  They have been learning from teachers whose ultimate goal is that their students fall in love with God in three persons, as they have done, and are still continuing to do.

We are baptized incommunity.  We are baptized intocommunity. God’s love calls us into relationship with people who are different than we are, people who need our help, people who may not always be kind, with those who are struggling, and those who are dying.  We are called into relationship with the unnamed Ethiopian, and with sweet baby Andrew.

In The Divine Dance, the book some of you are studying, Richard Rohr quotes Miroslave Volf:

Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion.  One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the triune God—a “foursome,” as it were—for the Christian God is not a private deity.  Communion with this God is at once also communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God.  Hence one and the same act of faith places a person into a new relationship both with God and with all others who stand in communion with God.[1]

We are forever joined not only to Christ, but to all the saints who were, and who are, and who are yet to be. All of life is lived within the grace of God’s love.  Come to me all who are weary, and I will give you rest.  Abide in me as I abide in you, Jesus says.  Dwell in me as I dwell in you. Sit down, right here, next to me. Stay with me.  I will never leave you.

On Holy Saturday, at the Easter Vigil, the Paschal candle,–the tall candle by the baptismal font—was lit. It was the light in the darkness of the night.  If you look at the candle, you will notice the cross in the center.  You will see five nails, for the ones put into Christ’s hands, and through his feet, and the spear that pierced his side.  You will see two stalks of wheat at the bottom, for Christ is the bread of life.  Imposed on top of all these are the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, for Christ is the beginning and the end.  During this evening service, we hear the stories of salvation. We are brought with Christ from the darkness of the tomb into the light of resurrection, from death into life.  We become part of a story larger than any one place or time, into life beyond the boundaries we humans set.  The light of this Paschal candle is the light of Christ which no darkness can overcome. This is the light we receive in our baptisms.  This is the light from which Andrew’s baptismal candle was lit as Christ whispered, Abide in me as I abide in you.  Share my light. 

We who are wearied by the changes and chances of this world come this morning to pray with each other, to invite peace among us, and to simply be with each other.  Here, in the flames of the candles, the light of Christ, and through his broken body and poured out blood, the bread and the wine given and shed for us, in the reading of the word, and the singing of our hymns, we live into our prayer for God’s kingdom to come among us here.  Abide in me as I abide in you, Christ invites us.  Thanks be to God.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]Rohr, Richard.  The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation.  New Kensington, PA:  Whitaker House, 2016. p. 97.

John 20:13-23   

Second Sunday of Easter  

When it was evening, on that day. You know the day.  It was in the dark of the morning that Mary Magdalene discovered the empty tomb. Jesus stood beside her, unrecognizable, until he called her name.  That evening, the disciples gathered together in a house.  They shut the door, and slid the deadbolt into place until they heard it click, and then locked the doorknob with a key.  Just in case, they slid a dresser in front of the door.  Then they drew the blinds and turned off the TV and the lights.  They spoke only in whispers, just in case,–just in case the authorities who nailed Jesus to the cross and hung him up in the heat of the day to drown in his own breath were after them, too.  They holed themselves up because they were afraid.  Fear is costly, and it seems their fear overwhelmed their grief.

Deadbolts could not stop Jesus. That his closest followers, those he loved had abandoned him at the cross, did not deter him.  He stood in front of the disciples and his first words were, Peace be with you. In those words were absolution. The Risen Christ’s first words were his gift of grace.  His didn’t ask where they had been through all of his suffering and death. He didn’t say, “You failed me.” He didn’t even say to Peter, “I told you so!”  He didn’t call in a different crisis response team.  He gave them his peace, his forgiveness, and his blessing.  That is the first thing that Jesus did when he met his community of disciples.

Thomas was not there with the others when Jesus came the first time.  Doubting Thomas.  We all know him.  We know this story.  Or at least we think we do.  When you read the story carefully, you will find that Thomas doesn’t ask for anything that the other disciples had not already gotten.  Thomas was one who wants to make sure he has all the facts, and he needs to know that he understands. The last time Thomas spoke was in response to Jesus telling him that he was going to prepare a place for them, and that they know the way. It was Thomas who spoke up, saying, “Uh, Lord, we don’t know where you are going.  And if we don’t know where you are going, how are we to know the way?” Thomas just wants to make certain that he understands.  We know that he gets it when his is the one who first confesses Jesus to be, “My Lord and My God.”  When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was Thomas who was willing to take the risk of death at the hands of the religious leaders along with him.  So when Thomas heard of Jesus’ presence with the other disciples, Thomas wanted to, Thomas needed to have the resurrection experience.  He needed to touch the scars on Jesus’ hands and his side, and Jesus wanted Thomas to do whatever it took to believe.

But it isn’t Thomas so much who captures my attention in the gospel for this morning.  It’s those scars, Jesus’ scars.  When God raised Jesus from the dead, why didn’t God fix him up?  Why did God leave the scars when Jesus was raised from the dead? We are reminded that the Word had become flesh.

We might make the assumption that God didn’t do that so that the disciples would know for certain that it was Jesus, dead and risen. But Mary knew it was Jesus when he spoke her name.  Jesus’ followers on the road to Emmaus knew it was him in the breaking of the bread. There is something in the scars – something important.  “Touch the mark of the nails in my hands, and my feet. Touch where the spear pierced my side” Christ says.  “Touch my wounds, and peace be with you.”

You know, we don’t have pictures of our hands and feet to identify us on our driver’s licenses, but yet, they say a lot about who we are.  Before my grandmother died, I went to see her in the hospital.  There were two older women in the beds.  Neither one looked like my grandmother.  Neither one was wearing the glasses that had made my grandmother’s eyes look so big, and their faces were gaunt.  They were both skinny.   So I approached the one that most resembled her.  When I got to the bed, I saw her hands. She had hands much like my father’s. The pores on her skin were large and noticeable. Her right hand bore the scars of working with them for so many years. Her index finger was badly bent a little toward her pinky fingers.

Look at your hands.  They are unique. My own hands are freckled from too much sun, and though faded, you can see the burn marks on my left hand from my days of putting food in the deep fat fryer at Burger King.  Scars will never completely disappear.

“Touch my hands,” Jesus said.  His hands that had pressed mud into someone’s blind eyes so that they could see.  His hands that took the dead little girl’s as she got up.  Jesus’ hands that held those of a leper.  His hands that blessed and broke the bread so that it was enough to feed the throngs of people who had come to hear him.

“Touch my feet,” Jesus said.  His feet that had walked hundreds of miles, kicking up dust as they went. Jesus’ feet that had sunk into the desert sand for forty days of temptation by the devil.  His feet that had become wet with the tears of a woman, who then dried them with her hair.  His feet that that had walked into the graveyard where the Gerasene demoniac lived, and took him up the mountain to pray.

“Look at my hands and my feet,” Jesus tells his disciples.  “Touch my wounds.” They would know Christ through his scars.  Christ, living but not all fixed up.  Christ, not bound by death, yet scarred for eternity.  The symbol for Christ in sign language is to put your finger of each hand into the palm of the other.  Jesus, the one with wounded hands.  The marks of the nails screamed that Jesus had gone through pain and suffering, not around it.  They told the truth about who he was.  They said where he had been, and whom he had touched.  Love that saves is vulnerable and costly.

It is Christ’s bearing his wounds that says to us that each of us, that Christ is with us in both our woundedness and our healing. We all have wounds, those that others can see, and those that are hidden. It is Christ’s wounds still visible that says our hurts become part of who we are, and that is how God would have it be. Christ’s scars give us hope that our wounds can be transformed into scars, too, and that they will become a gift.  It is in the sharing of our wounds that enable us to be healed, and it is in the sharing of our wounds that we can help to heal others. Our hands, because of our wounds, bear unceasing witness to the love of God in Jesus.

When we come to the table for the Lord’s Supper, we open our hands to receive Christ’s wounded body and poured out blood. Researchers have found that our physical bodies carry with them past traumas. We will bring to the altar our own wounds, our physical, emotional, and spiritual ones. We will be fed with bread, and wine, –by the life, and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  In doing so, our wounds won’t disappear, but through God’s forgiveness and love in the Risen Christ, they become blessed.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

Ephesians 2:1-10     John 3:14-21

Fourth Sunday in Lent

It was right after Jesus had raised a ruckus about unscrupulous people in the temple exchanging money, and selling cattle, sheep, doves, and cats, that a leader of the Jews came to Jesus in the darkness of the evening.  His name was Nicodemus, and he was a Pharisee.  You’ve heard of Nick at night, right?  The Holy Spirit stirred his heart slightly.  Perhaps he even had a mustard seed of faith.  Whatever urged him on, it was enough to make him want to know, even need to know, more about Jesus.  Nicodemus realized that religious leaders are highly scrutinized, so he came to Jesus in the cover of darkness.  Meeting Jesus, he was the first to speak.  “We know you are a teacher who has come from God. We see the signs,” he said.  “Let go of what you think you know,” Jesus told him.  “You have to be born from above.” After a confusing conversation about being born of water and the Spirit, he asked, “How can these things be?”

Jesus answered that Nicodemus did not believe the earthly things he had told him,– how could he believe the things of heaven?  Jesus  said that God would lift him up, just as Moses had lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.  Humiliated and exalted all at the same time, Jesus would be lifted up on the cross, to save people from death.  Then Jesus said to Nicodemus these words:  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

For God so loved the world.  A few years ago, it was popular to toss this phrase around on football field.  Twenty years ago, that was a bumper sticker.  Now it’s a tweet.  But like most tweets, it’s fullness cannot be contained in six words.  Jesus will be sentenced to death.  He will be mocked and tortured, and with his mother watching, he will be hung on a cross to die.

The Holy Spirit must have grown that mustard seed of faith that Jesus had planted in Nicodemus. After Jesus died, he and Joseph of Arimathea came with a staggering amount of myrrh and aloes, and linen cloths to give Jesus a proper burial.  And then God raised his only begotten son on the third day.

In the waters and the words of baptism, we are joined to Christ, to his life, and his death and his resurrection, we, too, receive new life.  When Jesus came up out of the waters of his baptism, God said, You are my son, the beloved.  In our baptisms, God claims us as sons and daughters.  We are God’s beloved.  This morning, Mira, the precious daughter of Michael and Sharon Powell, will be baptized.  Through the Word and the water, Mira will be set apart for God’s use, which is the definition of a saint.  She will receive the sign of the cross on her sweet, little forehead, and her life will become holy because God has laid God’s hands on her.[1]  God loves her, and her parents, and her grandparents, and promises to never let go.  This is God’s pure gift to us. Tim Wengert explains, God comes to us “in the flesh, in the water, in the bread and wine, in my needy neighbor, and even to children and infants. In a world where religion is what we make of it, this external, water and word, with all of its benefits, comes from outside of us and give us what no self-imposed piety can offer:  God at work in the last place we would reasonably look.”[2]

God’s claim on us as God’s Beloved comes not from us, but from outside of us.  I have a story about that.  Like most people when they are shopping in the grocery store, I end up in conversations with strangers.  One evening, I was standing there eyeing the fruit, when a woman looked at me and said, “What do you think heaven will be like?”  Mind you, I was not wearing my clerical collar at the time.  The woman didn’t even take time to catch her breath before she exclaimed, “It will be wonderful!  But some people will be surprised when they don’t end up there.”  I asked her if she thought she would be one of the ones who makes it.  She replied, “Well, I better!  I’ve been baptized 14 times!” (As my husband likes to say, more is better!)  I smiled and nodded as I made my way over to the bread section.  The bumper sticker that I had seen came to mind.  “Jesus loves you, but I’m his favorite.”

As Lutherans we believe in one baptism, hearing in Ephesians, For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. So I wonder how this woman understood baptism.  Did its effectiveness wear off?  Did she earn her salvation, like climbing a ladder?  Was it all dependent upon her?  Did she reach a higher level each time she was baptized? If so, what difference does Jesus’ death on the cross make?

As Mira grows, the world will teach her that she is rewarded for her good behavior, and forgiveness must be earned.  She will be loved her for working hard, for doing the things which society desires, and for giving the “right” answers.  But God’s love is not like the world’s.  Our salvation does not depend on us.  Neither does God’s claim on us. As Mira lives her days, the world will also tell her that sometimes she is beloved, and sometimes she is not.  This is our reality, too.  We hear from our society that we are not enough.  We, in our struggle to be who we think we should be, lose sight of our belovedness, and we become separated from God.  This is sin.

Before we can even confess our sin, we hear these words:  But God, who is rich in mercy, loved us even when we were dead in sin, and made us alive togher with Christ. By grace you have been saved.

In our baptisms, we are marked with the cross, in which God claims us as his beloved. There is nothing that can change that, even our refusal to love God with our whole hearts. The mark of our baptism is the foundation for the ashen cross placed on our foreheads at the beginning of this Lenten season. Even in our death in sin, none of us is beyond God’s love and grace and redemption. Where we commit sin, God offers forgiveness. Where we see death, God brings life.   For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

In keeping with the baptismal emphasis of Lent, being reminded that we are joined to Christ in his suffering, and looking to this coming St. Patrick’s Day this coming Saturday, I end with this story.  Legend has it that, about in the middle of the fifth century, King Aengus was baptized by St. Patrick.  Sometime during the rite, St. Patrick leaned on his sharp, pointed staff and inadvertently stabbed the king’s foot.  After the baptism was over, St. Patrick looked down.  Seeing all the blood, he realized what he had done, and begged the king’s forgiveness.  “Why did you suffer this pain in silence?” Patrick wanted to know.  The king replied, “I thought it was part of the ritual.”

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

 

[1] See Seilhamer, Frank.  Lima, Ohio:  We Believe: an historical and spiritual guide to the Nicene Creed, 1993.  61-62.

[2] Wengert, Timothy.  Martin Luther’s Catechisms.  Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2009.  112.

 

Mark 8:31-38     Lent 2

 

“Deny yourselves!  Take up your cross!”  we hear Jesus say.  Oh, my.  Maybe someone copied that down wrong?  The problem with that hope is that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all share this story.  “If any want to become my followers,” Jesus tells us, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 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.”  Pick up my cross?  Life is hard enough!  I’d much rather hear, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).  But this is what our Revised Common Lectionary, the set of readings that guides our worship, gives us for today.

This morning’s reading from Mark is a curious one, and you have to feel for the disciples. Our Gospel begins with Jesus predicting his own suffering and death.  Of course, the disciples were afraid, and fear almost always clouds our thinking. Peter had just confessed Jesus as Messiah, and now Jesus explains just what that entails. Jesus taught his disciples that he would suffer greatly, and that he would be rejected by those whom the religious community held in high esteem.  He told them that he would be killed.  By now, the disciples’ minds must have been reeling.  When Jesus said that he would rise after three days, what was that supposed to mean? All this news was shocking.  It was so devastating that Peter said “No! This can’t happen to you! There must be another way!”  Peter’s reaction resulted in Jesus calling him “Satan.” Then, calling the crowd to come and listen to him, too, Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”’

Let me make this perfectly clear.  Jesus is not condoning abuse.  This text has been used to justify inflicting injury on partners or family members, and to keep them subservient and submissive.  God has created us to flourish, and Jesus came in human flesh to confirm that.  Jesus said, I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10). God desires all our relationships to be ones in which we lift each other up, not tear each other apart.

What do you think of when you hear, “Deny yourselves”?  Do you think about giving up chocolate for Lent?   Maybe denying yourself means that life should be hard, and we should not have any pleasure.  Or maybe denying yourself means to deny those parts of ourselves that we don’t like.  Deny your fears.  Pretend you can handle anything that comes your way without help. Or maybe, as our culture teaches us, denying yourself means that you must be someone else, someone you are not.  You should be thinner than you are, and appear younger than your years total.  Maybe denying yourself causes you to think about all those things that you should do to be different than you are.  “I should do more than I do.  I should not make mistakes.  I should write better sermons.”  What are your “I shoulds”?    Put all those “shoulds” that you tell yourself together and you come up with a person who is not you.  Deny yourself.

Jesus did not pretend to be other than who he was.  In fact, if we follow Jesus, we become who God created us to be.  If we follow Jesus, we realize that denying ourselves means that we open ourselves to the needs of others.  We give ourselves away in love.  To deny ourselves means that we are not the center of our universe.  There are times to put others first.  If you have ever been in a healthy relationship, you understand that love expresses itself both in generous giving and in receiving.  Our experience is that the more we give of ourselves, the more we receive.  When our St. Stephen community looks out for each other, we find joy and happiness.

This is how Jesus lived.  He loved people even when they misunderstood who he was, and what he said.  Jesus even loved those who did not follow him.  “Take up your cross” means that our love is a generous love, not one that is destructive or self-serving.  It’s a love that seeks the good of the other, and not glory for oneself.  “Those who want to save their life will lose it,” Jesus said, “And those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it.  For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?” (Mark 8:35-36).  This life of which Jesus speaks is one of an abundance of love and of forgiveness.

The deep secret of Jesus’ hard words to us, Barbara Brown Taylor writes,

…is that our fear of suffering and death robs us of life because fear of death always turns into fear of life, into a stingy, cautious way of living that is not really living at all.  The deep secret of Jesus hard words is that the way to have abundant life is not to save it but to spend it, to give it away, because life cannot be shut up and saved any more that a bird can be put into a shoebox and stored on a closet shelf….[Jesus’ words are] not an invitation to follow Jesus into death but an invitation to follow him into life, both now and later on.  To be where God is—to follow Jesus—means receiving our lives as gifts instead of guarding them as our own possessions.  It means sharing the life we have been given instead of bottling it for our own consumption.[1]

St. Francis captured the essence of this in his prayer:

Let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

 

In the name of Christ, let it be so.

 

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

[1] Taylor, Barbara Brown.  The Seeds of Heaven.  Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. 79-81.