Year: 2019

John 20:19-31    

Second Sunday of Easter

 

Easter was glorious, wasn’t it?  Our worship space filled with flowers, music that stirred our souls, and lots of smiling people. The atmosphere was joyous!  How very easy to forget that only two days earlier Jesus hung on a cross until he died. We had little thought to Jesus’ pierced flesh.  We have no problem putting that in the past and disconnecting it from Jesus’ victory over death.

When it was evening on that day.  That day was the first day of the week, the same day that Mary stood weeping outside the empty tomb, and the same day she saw the resurrected Jesus.  On that day, his disciples retreated, shutting the doors of the house and locking the world out.  Now Jesus stood in front of them, and his first words were, Peace be with you.  The Risen Christ’s first words were his gift of grace.  See my hands and my sides, he invited them.  Thomas wasn’t with them at the time, but a week later, Jesus came to the house again.  Put your finger here, he said.  Put your hand inmy side.  They weren’t scars.  They were wounds, and deep enough to put your hand in.  The places where the nails and the spear pierced Jesus’ flesh were so fresh, they might bleed if you touched them.

How many of us are walking around with fresh wounds?  Who among us does not bear scars?  When you experience something awful, is it literally gut-wrenching?  Our bodies react in various ways,–headaches, upset stomachs, and our heart pounding so hard we can hear it in our ears.  If the upset is constant, we may try to shut it off with drugs or alcohol.  People who study trauma have found that it can lodge itself into our bodies.

Bessel van der Kolk, a leading innovator in the treatment of traumatic stress, tells a story from the 1970’s when he began working with the Veterans Administration.  The first patient he saw was a Vietnam veteran who suffered with terrible nightmares.  He prescribed medication, which the veteran never took.   Van de Kolk’s patient explained, “’I did not take your medicines because I realized I need to have my nightmares because I need to be a living memorial to my friends who died in Vietnam.”

Trauma victims hold in “their hearts and minds and bodies and brains” things that no longer exist.  Their experience never fades; the memory of it remains as if it were happening currently.  Trauma lands in the parts of the brain that help people see clearly.[1]  There responses and decisions become impaired.  Perhaps that is what made the man in California filled with hate, so much that he killed one and wounded three other Jewish people gathered at their synagogue.

To a lesser degree, all of us at one time or another become impaired.  We experience parts of our brain shutting down when our emotions are high. Van der Kolk provides this example:  You get really upset with your partner or your kid, suddenly you take leave of your senses and you say horrible things to that person.  And afterwards, you say, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to say that.’”[2]

The things that happen to us, chronic illness, addiction, abuse, violence, anything that leaves scars, become part of who we are.  Our woundedness goes with us wherever we go. Jesus entered the locked room, carrying his wounds with him.  Even in his resurrection, Jesus shares our humanity. When the Word became flesh, God affirmed the goodness of our bodies.  When that flesh became broken, God honored our experiences.  Jesus’ raw wounds did not define him, but rather testified to his real presence.  The same is true for us.  We are more than the things that happen to us.

Thomas returned to the house. We know him as Doubting Thomas, even though he did not ask for anything the other disciples had not already experienced.  His need to verify was not unique to him.  After all, the women who saw the empty tomb were thought to be telling an idle tale at first.  But now Thomas was in the middle of believing people, his friends, who had already seen Jesus. In front of them all, Thomas declared his doubt.  We should all be brave enough to voice our doubts! He had so many questions for Jesus floating around in his head.  Why would someone as sinless as you suffer?   Are you staying? What does this all mean? What questions are you asking?

In the house with Thomas were his grief, his fear and his uncertainty.  Wounded Jesus showed up and said, “Peace be with you.”  Suddenly, Thomas didn’t need to touch him, or to ask any questions.  He needed nothing else but Jesus to be right there next to him.  When Thomas’ doubt met Jesus still bearing wounds, something happened.  He saw the world differently.  He began to live into a new identity and new stories. Thomas began to live resurrection life.

I think trauma really does confront you with the best and the worst,Bessel van der Kolk says. You see the horrendous things that people do to each other, but you also see resiliency, the power of love, the power of caring, the power of commitment, the power of commitment to oneself, the knowledge that there are things that are larger than our individual survival. And in some ways, I don’t think you can appreciate the glory of life unless you also know the dark side of life.[3]

Each of us has known that dark side of life.  Together, we are the wounded body of Christ.  We are witnesses who have survived our brokenness. We are living testimony that through Christ, we have life of abundance.  The risen Christ is with us this day, in our sharing of the peace, in our prayers and in our praise, and in the hearing of the word.  Christ comes to us in the breaking of the bread, and the drinking of the wine, the body and blood of Christ.  In all these ways, Christ comes to be with us.

Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan said, “If the Resurrection of Jesus actually happened, then nothing else really matters.  If the Resurrection of Jesus did not actually happen, then nothing else really matters.”[4]  Our belief in the resurrection is more than a confession of faith.  It is a declaration of a relationship.  He is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!  Alleluia!

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]https://onbeing.org/programs/bessel-van-der-kolk-how-trauma-lodges-in-the-body-mar2017/.   Accessed April 23, 2019.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Ibid.

[4]Bruner, Frederick Dale.  The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012, 1163.

 

John 13:1-17, 31b-35    

Maundy Thursday

In Northern Ireland, there were three decades of deathly struggles between Catholics and Protestants.  The Troubles, as the conflict was called, was both religious and political.  Although the Good Friday Agreementin 1998 was to end the conflict, low-levels of violence and open wounds still exist. A community leader, Pádraig Ó Tuama, ministers to heal broken relationships between Irish Catholics and Protestants. Using an Irish idiom to talk about trust, he says, “You are the place where I stand on the day when my feet are sore.” He says, “It’s so physical, that beautiful understanding.  You can find that with each other, even when you think different things.”[1] To me, this says that when the foundation of my being hurts, and I cannot go another step, it’s good to be together, and to rest in our relationship. “You are the place where I stand on the day when my feet are sore.”

We come from a history of religious and political “troubles.” Jesus sparked an atmosphere that grew more tense the longer he was around.  He threatened the established political hierarchy, social system, and economic structures.   When the time drew near for Passover, people wondered if Jesus would show up at the Passover festival.  “Keep an eye out so that we can arrest him,” the religious leaders plotted.  Most recently, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. Now the religious leaders wanted to kill both Jesus and Lazarus. Some people believed he was the Messiah, the one who came from God to save them from their oppression. Some didn’t.  The struggle was a both political and religious.

It wasn’t only Jesus’ enemies speaking of his death. Jesus himself began talking about it, too. To say that Jesus’ healing and proclamation of love and God’s forgiveness brought misunderstanding is an understatement.  Anger, even hatred, rumors and collusion permeated the air.  Tension, and suspicion were at every turn.  Where were truth and trust?  Where do you stand when your feet are sore?

For over a century, people attended the churches in the St. Landry parish in southern Louisiana.  Generations of families had made these predominantly black churches their spiritual home. About three weeks ago, over the course of ten days, three of the churches in this parish were destroyed by fires that were intentionally set. The 21 year-old man who destroyed the buildings was charged with hate crimes and arson. Parishioners have said that although their churches were destroyed, their spirit was not.  Statistics show that most hate crimes in our country are committed by white people who are motivated by race, religion and sexual orientation.[2]Where do you stand when your feet are sore?

Our “troubles” are also fueled by issues surrounding immigration, The organization Human Rights Firstcompleted a study of “the mental, physical, and legal impacts of massive overuse of immigration detention in California.” The report documents sexual assault complaints, verbal and physical abuse, lack of legal representation, lack of mental and physical healthcare, and poor detainment conditions.”  Many people are held for years despite the fact that they“qualify for release under U.S. law, regulations, and other relevant criteria.”[3]  In addition to this, thousands more children were separated from their families than previously thought.  It could take up to two more years for them to be identified and reunited.[4]  Where do you stand when your feet are sore?

Jesus and his disciples gathered privately for what would be their final meal together.  Sitting around the table were Judas, who will soon betray him, and Peter, who will come to deny Jesus not just once, but 3 times. James and John, the ones who will be unable to keep watch or pray with Jesus in his dark hour were there, as well. They were sitting among others who will abandon Jesus at the cross.  Though Jesus knows these things, the word we hear Jesus speak repeatedly in John’s gospel islove. He says this word 31 times in his Farewell Discourse.[5]

As Jesus shares his last meal before his death, we are drawn back to the waters of baptism.  During supper, after the meal had started, Jesus got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around his waist.  He poured water into a bowl. and washed their feet, and then dried them with the towel, Judas, and Peter, and James and John, and the other disciples– no one was excluded from this radical act of love.

Peter was horrified.  He couldn’t accept Jesus serving him, and refused to have his feet washed. Martin Luther posited that it is often our “righteousness” rather than our sin that gets in the way of our relationship with the Lord.[6]  Jesus explained that his relationship with Peter depended on servanthood. Peter, putting himself in charge– again, and not understanding– again, told Jesus to give him a bath.  “Oh, Peter!”  Jesus said, shaking his head. “You really don’t get it, do you? Trust me.”

Just like everything else Jesus did, he turned the custom of washing feet upside down.  When guests came to a home, they had walked along dusty dirt roads.  With sandaled feet, they walked the same dirt path that animals walked, and they stepped in what animals leave behind after digesting a hearty meal. When guests arrived, the dinner host had servants wash their dirty, tired feet before the meal. By washing the disciples’ feet, he demonstrated radical love that overcomes status and power.  It upsets the imbalance of privilege.  Jesus’ simple act of hospitality put relationships on the basis of equality and mutual respect.  “Do this,” Jesus told them.  Where do you stand when your feet are sore?

“I will give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  Jesus’ words are not just for the disciples around the table.  They are for us, too. What makes this mandate to love one another newis its source, Jesus. Love them, Jesus says. Love the one who betrayed you.  Love the denier, the self-centered and inattentive. Even love those who refuse to stand with you through the things that kill you.  Love the black one, the brown one, the purple one, the Jewish one, the Muslim one, the atheist, the straight one, the gay one.  Love them enough to wash their feet.

Where do you stand when your feet are sore?  Stand with the One who will wash them.  And then stay for dinner.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

[1]On Being with Krista Tippett, https://onbeing.org/programs/padraig-o-tuama-belonging-creates-and-undoes-us/.  Accessed April 12, 2019.  Pádraig Ó Tuama is the community leader of Corrymeela, Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization.

[2]https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/hate-crime-statistics.  Accessed April 17, 2019.

[3]https://www.gcir.org/resources/prisons-and-punishment-immigration-detention-california. Accessed April 17, 2019.

[4]https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/us/family-separation-trump-administration.html.  Accessed April 17, 2019.

[5]John 13:31-17:26.

[6]Bruner, Frederick.   The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Grand Rapids:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012.  767.

Isaiah 55:1-9    1 Corinthians 10:1-13    Luke 13:1-9    

3^rdSunday in Lent

Frank had been accepted into a doctoral program at Harvard. He and his family were active members in the church my family attended. Frank’s dad had formed a large and prominent company, and I imagined that Frank would be quite an asset there after graduation.  He hung around with friends over the summer.  In the fall, two of his friends would begin their graduate classes at Yale. When the news came that Frank and these two friends had all died in a car accident, the community was in disbelief. Frank was intelligent, young, handsome, and had a bright future in front of him.  How could this have happened?

A drunk driver had entered the interstate going in the wrong direction and hit their car head on.  Was there a reason this happened, other than someone irresponsibly chose to drive after consuming more than enough alcohol to impair his judgement?

After the funeral service, Frank’s parents stood in the church gathering space as people moved in a line to offer their words. Frank’s dad was numb, and his face expressionless as people shook his hand.  Frank’s mom tried hard to graciously smile.  As I waited to greet them, I thought that there were no words, really, that could offer comfort.  As I took her hand.  I asked, “Did you get to say good-bye?”   She told me that she had spent a couple of hours in conversation with Frank before the service that morning.

I remember some of the things that I heard others say to her.  “God must have needed another angel,” and “This was part of God’s plan.” “Everything happens for a reason.”  “God never gives us more than we can handle.” I looked to see if they found solace in these thoughts.  Some people do.  The people who spoke these things were answering the question of “why.” We humans try to find a reason for everything. There must be a linear connection, a cause and effect, for what happens in our world.  After Frank’s mother told me about her final time with her son, she said, “I asked God what it was he had done, or that we have done, to deserve this.”

Since Jesus was born, Christians have struggled to find answers to why God allows suffering and evil in our world.  “Theodicy” is the word for this.  We continue to try to make sense of that which makes no sense to us. We have yet to find satisfactory answers, and so we keep asking.

A few people who were among the crowds listening to Jesus expressed their concern that Pilate had slaughtered a group of Galileans and mixed their blood with the blood of their sacrifices.  In the background was the news that 18 people were crushed to death by the collapse of the tower of Siloam. Their concern was really about themselves, and Jesus knew it.  “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?”  In other words, was God punishing them?  Will God punish us like that, too?  We like to think that people get exactly what they deserve in this life, good or bad. Do children deserve to be abused by someone they should trust, or to become refugees?  Do adults get dementia because God is angry with their whole family?  Every day we hear of bad things happening to good people.

How does Jesus respond?  A flat and simple “No.”  He does not explain any further.  He gives no answer as to why.What he does say, however, is “But unless you repent, you are going to lose some blood, too.”[1]  With these words, Jesus takes their fear to motivate them to turn back to God.  Instead of leading people to their death, he was trying to lead them to life!  That’s God’s desire for us!

Our second reading contains the source of another platitude.  Paul writes to the Corinthians, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone.  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the test he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it” (vs.13).  In other words, turn to God when you are tested, and God will help you. Put this in context and you will find that Paul is speaking of temptation, not of adversity.  Some have transformed this into, “God will not give you more than you can handle.”[2]   Tell that to the family of a suicide victim.

If you think through the things we say to those who are already suffering, and those who are grieving, you will realize that many of them are terrible!  They are dismissive.  They shut the door as if everything is settled. They communicate the message, “Just get over it because this is God’s will.  It must be okay.”  Our cliché sayings keep us from living in the uncomfortable mystery and grief.  They keep us from entering the holy space of suffering with someone.  They disconnect us from humanity, and deny our own brokenness.

If we could just understand why, then we wouldn’t have to live with the uncertainty of mystery.  We would not have to be afraid.  We could prevent tragedies from happening.  We would be in control.  Maybe “why?” is not the right question.

In our Gospel reading Jesus continues, telling us a parable about a fig tree in the vineyard, a fig tree with no figs on it. “Cut it down!” the vineyard owner said.  ‘It’s wasting soil!”  We, who are so results oriented, probably agree with the owner.  If your metrics at your place of work are off for the month, you are out of there.  If something breaks, we throw it in the trash.  The gardener, however, wants to provide the tree with all it needs to thrive, and live into possibilities.  “Give it one more year. I will dig around it.  I will put natural fertilizer on it. I will give it what it needs.”  This is our God, the one who will not give up on those who stray, who sweeps the house all night looking for a lost coin, and leaves the 99 sheep to find the one has wandered away.  Our God is the father who stands on the porch waiting, looking for us to return, and runs in his robe to greet us when we come home. Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.

Instead of giving any answers to our questions of why, Jesus gives us both a promise and an invitation. “Come to me. Return to me. Bring your tears and your anger. I will sit right there with you.  I will care for you.  I will love you in your living and your dying.”  This Lenten season, you are invited to return to God.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

[1]One can interpret Jesus’ statement as meaning that we will cause our own downfall through our own bad choices because we do not follow Jesus.

[2]For further study of familiar platitudes, read Adam Hamilton’s book, Half Truths:  God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn’t Say.  Abingdon Press, 2016.

Luke 4:1-13

First Sunday in Lent   

What tempts you?  Scripture is full of stories of temptation.  Of course, it began with Adam, Eve, a talking serpent, and a fruit tree. Moving on, Cain murdered Abel.  Then there’s King David who gave in to his lust for Bathsheba. Joseph’s brothers sold him to strangers when they could not control their jealousy.  Although we don’t know exactly what was in his heart, Judas betrayed Jesus for silver.

What have you been tempted to do?  Did you actually do it?  Remember the last time you drove down the interstate and that guy pulled within an inch in front of you and didn’t even have on a turn signal?  We are tempted to put things off, to worry, to eat way too much at the pot luck meals, to spend too much money, and the list goes on.  Is there a person who tempts you?  Perhaps you become competitive with a particular person, or given to gossip, or maybe you are tempted to judge someone. Is there someone who draws you into behavior of which you are not proud?

Lent, which began this past Wednesday, invites us to look at these things that separate us from God. Those who came to church had ashes imposed on their foreheads, as the pastor invited them, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These are the words God spoke to Adam after the infamous apple incident. “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return” [Genesis 3:19].

This dusty cross that marks us reminds us of our sin, our fragility and our death that will surely come.  The first cross that is traced on our foreheads was imposed during our baptism.  In that marking, God claimed us as God’s own child.  We were adopted as God’s beloved, with God’s promise that God will never let go of us.  That sooty cross does not negate our baptismal cross.  It is placed on top of it, and the promises of baptism remain foundational to who we are. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. + While we are God’s beloved, we will also die.

At Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan, “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved.’ [Luke 21b-22]. Despite God claiming Jesus as God’s precious child, it is God who brings Jesus to temptation.  Listen again:  “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”

Jesus was told by God that he was God’s child and God loved him.  He was full of the Holy Spirit.  Yet God sent him to the wilderness.  This sounds like our story, too.  In the wilderness, you are uncertain if you will make your way through because it is a harsh land, and because the path is not clear.  You have been there.  You have been there waiting for the results of medical tests, and through the exhaustion for being a caregiver.  Wilderness surrounds us in the struggle with depression or drug addiction. It is a place where we hunger for wholeness, and question our worth.

Jesus had nothing to eat for 40 days when the devil tempted him.  “Ifyou are the Son of God,” the devil said, which is pretty funny because out of all those who encountered Jesus, the devil was most aware of Jesus’ identity.  “If you are, turn those stones into loaves of bread.”  God’s son should not be hungry!  Debie Thomas sees it this way:

In the devil’s economy, unmet desire is an unnecessary aberration, not an integral part of what it means to be human. In inviting Jesus to magically sate his hunger, the devil invites Jesus to deny the reality of the incarnation. To ‘cheat’ his way to satisfaction, instead of waiting, paying attention to his hunger, and leaning into God for its lasting fulfillment. Along the way, the devil encourages Jesus to disrespect and manipulate creation for his own satisfaction.  To turn what is not meant to be eaten—a stone—into an object he can exploit.  As if the stone has no intrinsic value, beauty, or goodness, apart from Jesus’ ability to possess and consume it.[1]

For what do you hunger? Sit with ashes in this season of Lent. Sit with our hunger, and learn from it. The challenge is not to let the devil talk us into satisfying ourselves instead of waiting and listening for God to nourish us.  The devil will try to convince us that God must not love us if we are walking in the wilderness and hungry.  The truth is that God leads us to discover that because we are God’s beloved, we can not only survive, but grow in faith and strength.

After tempting him with hunger, the devil offered Jesus power over the world if he would worship him. This authority was not the devil’s to give. Our ego wants the whole world to love us, but following the devil only leads to broken relationships and false ego.  The devil’s lies tell us that our worth comes through perishable attributes rather than being God’s child.  Listening to the devil encourages us to act out of our pain rather than love, and to forego compassion.

Lastly, the devil took Jesus to Jerusalem.  His suggested that Jesus throwhimself from the top of the temple, thereby testing God’s love for him. If God loves us, God will keep us safe.  This may be the devil’s most enticing and harmful lie.  We get cancer, lose jobs, and suffer losses that threaten to break us. We question our identity and forget who we are in the word and water of our baptism.  We forget that the cross of baptism forms us first as God’s beloved.

I want to share with you a poem that I came across a poem entitled, Beloved Is Where We Begin, authored by Jan Richardson.[2]

If you would enter

Into the wilderness,

Do not begin

Without a blessing.

 

Do not leave without hearing

Who you are:

Beloved,

Named by the One

Who has traveled this path

Before you.

 

Do not go without letting it echo

In your ears,

And if you find

It is hard

To let it into your heart,

Do not despair.

That is what

This journey is for.

 

I cannot promise

This blessing will free you

From danger,

From fear,

From hunger

Or thirst,

From the scorching

Of sun

Or the fall

Of the night.

 

But I can tell you

That on this path

There will be help.

 

I can tell you

That on this way

There will be rest.

 

I can tell you

That you will know

The strange graces

That come to our aid

Only on a road

Such as this,

That fly to meet us

Bearing comfort

And strength,

That come alongside us

For no other cause

Than to lean themselves

Toward our ear

And with their

Curious insistence

Whisper our name:

 

Beloved.

Beloved.

Beloved.

 

In the name of Christ, giver of all grace, Amen.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]Thomas, Debie.  “Human and Hungry.”  Journey With Jesus. Web accessed 3 March, 2019.

[2]http://paintedprayerbook.com/2016/02/11/lent-1-beloved-is-where-we-begin/

Genesis 45:3-11, 15     Luke 6:27-38

7^thSunday after Epiphany

 

Sometimes, it just feels so good to be angry!  Do you know what I mean?  We continue to find terrible things our enemy did that prove our position. Believing that we are justified in our anger, we puff-up with righteous indignation.  We take pride at being wronged by someone when we are so obviously innocent. It makes us feel that we are better than the other guy.  Then we come to church and Jesus tells us, “Love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you.  Bless those who curse you.  Pray for those who abuse you.”  As if this were not difficult enough, Jesus continues, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.”

Before we go further, hear this clearly; Jesus is not condoning any form of abuse.  Abuse is never justifiable. Jesus is not saying that we should tolerate violence, or that we should submit to someone who denies our personhood. God’s desire is for us to flourish and be full of joy. Being silent about your pain can kill you Perpetrators are to be held accountable for their actions. Forgiveness does not mean that you excuse or forget the wrong that has been done. Forgiveness means that you are not shackled to your pain.  Can our wounds turn into scars, and can we really be free from our woundedness, without forgiveness?  With God’s help, forgiveness helps us to find a path forward and a way to live in hope as God beloved.

“If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.”  How do we make sense of that? To know that any human could hurt another human angers us. That’s appropriate.  Anger is a sign that something is not the way it should be. It may be that “the something” wrong is with us. Anger can be instrumental in protecting ourselves and others. Anger can be used productively.  Anger can be the impetus that propels us to change discriminatory systems and to expose injustice.  The key is not to let anger take control of us so that we lose perspective.  Anger needs to be managed before it consumes us, and before we use it to hurt others.

What we read today is a continuation of last week’s Gospel. Last week, we heard that Jesus and his disciples had come down from the mountain. Standing on the plain, people gathered around to hear him speak. Others came to be healed.  When Jesus began to teach them, he said that the poor and the hungry were blessed.  After speaking of blessings and woes, Jesus continues, prefacing his imperatives, “But I say to you that listen.”  These are God’s people who are looking for, and are part of, all at the same time, the in-breaking of God’s kingdom.   “You that listen,” Jesus addresses those standing with him. “You who listen,” Jesus addresses us, we who gather around his word.  We who listen have come because we are in need of healing.  We who listen hunger for a better way to live in a world full of injustice and untruths, full of destructive anger and unforgiving.

To we who come to this holy house while separating ourselves from others whodo not think as we do, or love in the way we do, , Jesus says, “Don’t judge, don’t condemn, forgive, and give.”  These are words to us, we have been wronged, and to we who have wronged someone else.  We have done both.  Just as we are both saint and sinner, we are also victim and victimizer.

Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann keenly observes, “If you find some part of your life where your daily round has grown thin and controlling and resentful, then these texts are for you.  Life with God is much, much larger, shattering our little categories of control, permitting us to say that God’s purposes led us well beyond ourselves to give and to forgive, to create life we would not have imagined…. The terms of life, however, are other than our own.  They are the terms of the generous, merciful, giving, forgiving God.”[1]

The story of Joseph and his brothers provides a perfect illustration.  Did you know Joseph’s brothers sold him to strangers?  My sister did that to me.  It was when she starting marking down the price that it really got to me. Today we focus on the part of the story in which Joseph forgives his brothers and saves them from starvation. Read the whole story.  Joseph set his brothers up.  He made his siblings shake in their saddles, deceived them, and made it look as if their brother Benjamin was a thief.  There are no innocent people in this story.

It seems that what Jesus is telling us to do is impossible for us.  In Lutheran language, it is law.  To love our enemies and do good to those who hate us can only prove that we are sinful. We are broken people who cannot always do what is right, and who can never save ourselves.  Realizing this, we are driven into God’s open arms of grace and mercy.

Lutheran pastor and professor David Lose suggests that Jesus’ words are not law, but rather are a promise, a promise which invites us “into a whole other world. A world that is not about measuring and counting and weighing and competing and judging and paying back and hating and all the rest. But instead is about love. Love for those who have loved you. Love for those who haven’t. Love even for those who have hated you. That love gets expressed in all kinds of creative ways, but often come through by caring – extending care and compassion and help and comfort to those in need – and forgiveness – not paying back but instead releasing one’s claim on another and opening up a future where a relationship of…love is still possible.”[2]

“Hate cannot drive out hate,” Dr. King said, “only love can do that.”  Violence draws retaliation, angry words are met with more hostile ones, and misdeeds matched with misdeeds creates a vicious cycle and a world full of fear.  It seems endless. When we forgive, when we seek the good of the other, the cycle is disrupted, and justice can happen.  We don’t seem to be very good at loving our enemies and forgiving those who have wronged us.  The one we have the most trouble forgiving is ourselves.

Jesus was.  Jesus was so good at bringing God’s forgiveness and loving his enemies that they killed him.  Even from the cross, he loved them. Our human anger, our clinging to established systems of injustice and even our violence against the one who came to save us could not win.   God’s love for us defeated death itself.

For we who have been victims, suffering and diminished, Jesus says, “Here is my body, broken and given for you.  Take and eat,–you will be made whole.”  For we who have victimized others, Jesus says, “Here is my body, broken and given for you even while you were still sinners. In it there is forgiveness powerful enough to break the chains that bind you.”    In Christ, in his suffering, death and resurrection, in his forgiveness and love, is our hope.  May it be so.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]Brueggemann, Walter.  The Threat of Life.  Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1996.  15-16.

[2]Lose, David.  In the Meantime.  Epiphany 7C. http://www.davidlose.net/2019/02/epiphany-7-c-command-or-promise/

Luke 5:1-11

Lectionary 5    ~  Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

 

To be or to do things in our world, you must be qualified.  You must meet certain qualifications to graduate from high school and to enter college.  Doctors and Certified Public accountants have requirements to practice.  Athletes and horses need to qualify for competitions. Discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto became the ninth planet in our solar system.  But in 1992, some people began to question Pluto’s status. In 2006, Pluto was demoted.  Pluto failed; it no longer qualified as a planet.[1]

Of course, there are formal and informal qualifications.  Informal qualifications are expectations, more or less.  An informal qualification for a carpenter is to be skilled at using a saw and a hammer.  One would expect a dog walker to like dogs.

In Simon Peter’s time and place, you qualified to be a fishermen by obtaining a license, which could only be gotten by joining a syndicate.  The waters and the fishing industry were under the control of the Roman Empire.  The informal qualifications to be a fisherman were to catch fish.  Simon Peter must have been able to catch enough fish that after the government took their hefty share, he still had enough to support himself. But that night, he had been out from the setting of the sun to its rising, and caught nothing.  One day, which happened to be this day, Jesus was on the shore of the lake.  Throngs of people had followed him.  There were so many there crowding in on him, he had no choice but to jump into a boat before he got trampled.  Peter’s boat, which was empty because he had not caught any fish.  Peter had given up, and, with the crowds looking on, he cleaned his bare, floppy nets.  The whole community witnessed his failure.

From Simon Peter’s boat, Jesus spoke to the crowds.  When he said all he was going to say, he turned his attention to Simon Peter.  “Go on out to the deep water, and put your nets out.”  “But, Jesus, I fished all night long, and I did not catch anything, not even an old boot.  I don’t even think I am qualified to be a fisherman,” Peter said, confessing his failure. “I am physically and emotionally exhausted.”  With deep resignation, Peter sighed, “Yet if you say so.”

Have you ever disappointed someone, possibly, most likely, yourself?  Have you ever tried so hard, giving it everything you have, and fell flat on your face?  Maybe like me, you have gotten to the point where you said, “I’m done.  I’m just done.”  Maybe your failure was a job, or a ministry.  Maybe it was a relationship.  I once spent 6 hours playing 9 holes of golf.  Perhaps you would answer all of the above, and, no doubt you have failed more than once.

At the point that the fishermen said, “I’m done,” Jesus showed up.  They brought their boats to shore, and were cleaning their nets before they put them away.  The details of this story are revealing.  Did you notice that before Jesus teaches the people, he gets into Peter’s boat? Then, before he instructs Simon Peter to fish once more, Jesus teaches the crowds. Which means that before Peter tries again, he hears Jesus say to all the people gathered, and to him, “God loves you.”  He hears Jesus say, “You may have given up on yourself, but God will never abandon you.”

When he was finished teaching, Jesus told Peter and the others to let down the nets. They just wanted to go home to bed, but it was Jesus who wanted them to do it. (Have you ever tried saying no to Jesus?) Last night’s failure was in their minds as the ropes left their hands.  But this time was different.  Jesus was there, right there in the boat with them, out in the deep water.  They pulled up so many fish that their nets stretched almost to the breaking point.  The first boat was filled, and then a second boat.  The weight of their catch began to sink the vessels.  This was not just one day’s worth, or even two.  This was unbounded abundance.  It was God’s grace, like two fish and five loaves feeding thousands upon thousands.

Peter, looking at everything and everyone, dropped to the floor.  “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful person! You have done for me what I could not do for myself, but I am not good enough for you to love me this much.  I don’t deserve your blessings.”  Peter’s words sound like someone who feels like a failure.  “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful person!”

Jesus’ next words to Peter were, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” In other words, “Don’t be afraid, Peter!  You are exactly who you should be.  I will help you.  And if you fail, God won’t.  God’s abundant grace will overflow.  I trust you enough to share my mission with you.  I trust in you, believe in you, love you.  Do the same for me.

Like Peter, God says to us, “Do what you do.  Your workplace, your community, your life–that’s where I will show up. My promise to you is to use what knowledge, skills, and gifts that you have, to bless them and multiply them with blessings that know no bounds.”  Following Jesus means trusting that God always loves us, whether we fail or not, and whether we can fish, or play golf, or not.  God never gives up on us.  God entrusts God’s mission to us, with the promise to be with us, to love through us, to save through us, and to bless others through us.

Let us pray.  O Lord God who has called us, your servants, to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, and through perils unknown, give us faith to go out with good courage, knowing that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!

~ Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]https://www.space.com/41769-pluto-planet-definition-debate-rages-on.html.  The definition agreed upon at that IAU meeting requires that an object meet three conditions to qualify as a planet: It must orbit the sun, it must be massive enough that its gravity pulls it more or less into a spherical shape, and it must clear the neighborhood around its orbit.

 

1 Corinthians 12:12-31   Luke 4:14-21

3^rd Sunday after Epiphany

What is the best part of your physicality?  Is it a strong jaw, or thick hair, or muscular legs? What is your least favorite part of your body? As I have gotten older, the list of my not so favorite parts has grown. In recent decades, people’s perception of their bodies has become increasingly important to them, even to the point of affecting personal happiness. Cosmetic surgery is on the rise. Oh, the things people do to themselves! And then show it all on YouTube!

The magazine Psychology Today reports:

When most people think of body image, they think about aspects of physical appearance, attractiveness, and beauty. But body image is so much more. It’s our mental representation of ourselves; it’s what allows us to contemplate ourselves. Body image isn’t simply influenced by feelings, and it actively influences much of our behavior, self-esteem, and psychopathology. Our body perceptions, feelings, and beliefs govern our life plan—who we meet, who we marry, the nature of our interactions, our day-to-day comfort level. Indeed, our body is our personal billboard, providing others with first—and sometimes only—impressions.[1]

A distorted body image is one of the factors in anorexia and bulimia.  An extreme concern with developing muscles leads to over-exercising. The most common eating disorder in the United States is binge-eating.Eating disorders can begin in childhood.  Although the rates of these illnesses are higher in women, men are not exempt. [2] We tend to judge ourselves more harshly than we do others.  We fail to see how amazing God made each one of us, from our heads down to each cell.

Our bodies are amazing, and tremendously complicated.  Our cells contain a nucleus with a membrane, ribosomes, Golgi apparatus, DNA, RNA, and mitochondria, just to name a few of the structures.  Each one has a specific function. In fact, mitochondria are an “organelle,” a cell within a cell.  Without mitochondria and Golgi apparatus, among other parts, we might be simply a bacteria.  The key is that each part of us works with the other parts of us.  Not only is that necessary for our survival, our body parts join together to accomplish more than each part can alone.  Our parts are different, and yet work together.

This is how God created us, and the example of our bodies is what St. Paul used when he wrote to the people of Corinth.  Their questions and differences with regard to worship, ethics, and spiritual gifts led to quarreling in the community.   Using the metaphor of the human body, St. Paul tells of talking eyes and hands. “If the foot would say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.”  Central to Paul’s comments is that people were comparing the “worth” of their spiritual gifts with one another.  Comparing leads to ranking.  This grows to a perception that some are better than others.  If some people are better, then some are thought of as less.

Inherent in Paul’s images are those who think higher of themselves than God would have them.  Also included are those who don’t value themselves.   Henri Nouwen challenges our self-image in what he terms, “The Five Lies of Self-Identity.” [3]   These five lies are:

I am what I have,

I am what I do,

I am what others say or think about me,

I am nothing less than my best moment,

and

I am no better than my worst moment.

God has created us, and we are God’s beloved. There is no hierarchy in God’s kingdom, even though we rank people according to their social station, their level of education, or their financial holdings.   It is tempting to value those whose work for God is visible more highly than we do those whose acts we do not know.  The one who preaches is no more important than the person quietly praying in the pews, or the one in a care facility whose very presence witnesses to God.  Paul asks, “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of smell be?” God’s economy is not like ours. It’s hard for us to value a nose hair as much as we do the nose.  That we are separate is an illusion.

Jesus encounters that kind of thinking when he preached in his hometown.  He declared that God’s favor rests on society’s lowest–the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed.  He declares God’s release to the captives, and the freedom of the oppressed.  Just as God’s economy is different than our society’s, so is the freedom God brings through Jesus. We are set free from the judgement of others, and free from proving ourselves worthy. We are set free from sin and death.  In the waters of baptism, God joins us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.[4]

Jesus challenges the powerful and encourages the powerless.  Jesus’ deliverance alters the status quo. As comforting as this is, it is also disconcerting when the world with which we are most familiar is shaken up. But we never go it alone.  God has joined us together—the weak and the strong, the tall and the short, blacks and whites.  God draws us together into one body through the sharing of broken bread, the prayers we have lifted up for one another, and the singing of our alleluias and kyries.  As fingers and toes, and noses, we are all one body in Christ, each of unique in giftedness, each of value.  As Jesus says, “Today, this very day,  this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/199702/body-image-in-america-survey-results

[2]https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/eating-disorders/index.shtml

[3]https://twitter.com/henrinouwen/status/1023714857219186688?lang=en.  See also Brene Brown’s TED Talks.

[4]ELW page 227.  Holy Baptism.  See also Luther’s Small Catechism, explanation of The Sacrament of Holy Baptism.

Isaiah 43:1-7

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, our scriptures begin.  In the beginning, what was thought to exist was a watery void.  God separated the waters and brought into being sky. Then God gathered the waters into lakes and oceans and rivers, and dry land appeared.   The Psalmist asked God to lead him to still waters, and Peter joined Jesus walking on water.

Water cleans and purifies. It has no shape of its own, and if you hold it in your cupped hands, it will slip right through your fingers.  Watery tears of laughter and tears of sorrow can flow out of our eyes. Our bodies are an average of 60% water.  Water can be calming.  I find peace when looking at the ocean.  It restores my soul.  But although I know how to swim, I wear a life jacket in the wave pool at Water Country. If my grandchildren are with me, I hold on to them so they are not swept away. Water can be dangerous! Just ask Jonah or Noah.  As essential as water is to life, it can destroy it.  Water can bring life or death.

John stood in the Jordan River baptizing a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  There was something so compelling, people from all walks of life came. They must have had a sense of life and death standing in the water against the current, without life jackets, and holding on to each other so as not to be swept away.   The whole thing was very dramatic compared to our standing at the baptismal font. So impressive was this strange man John that the crowds thought he might be the Messiah who would save them. As they stood waist-high in the river, John denied it, saying, “I am not the Messiah!  Just wait!” John’s baptism offered a ritual cleansing through which people were told to repent, to turn around to face God.  What John could not give them was healing and salvation.  But he told them who could. It is the one whose shoes John said he was not worthy enough to stoop down and untie.

This one is Jesus Christ, the one in whose name we are baptized. Being one with God, and one with us, Jesus himself was baptized. Luther points to Jesus’ baptism as the call for his followers to imitate his action and adhere to his mission.[1]  Whether we want it or not, God is not willing to be separate from us.  God chooses to be with us and engaged with us.  Through Jesus, God chooses to be one of us, risking safety and security, and experiencing love and betrayal,  life and death.

After Jesus was went under in the waters of baptism, he prayed.  Right then, God declared, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” God shouted this from the heavens before Jesus had made a paralyzed person walk, or driven out demons.  Jesus had not yet fed thousands of people from a dinner for five.  Jesus had not begun to teach anyone about God’s love.  In Luke’s gospel, the only thing we are told that Jesus did happened when he was growing up.  He ditched his parents in the Temple.

This should sound familiar to us.  Not just the ditching our parents when we were young, but God proclaiming God’s love for us without our having earned it.  In the water and Word of baptism, God’s grace is made visible and real.  In our baptism, we become daughters and sons, heirs of God’s kingdom.  God loves us first. [Those of you in the By Heartbook study with Pastor Ballentine will read similar thoughts and words.[2]]

How often do we forget that we are set right with God, that through Christ, we are justified by God’s grace alone?  How often do we think, God could not possibly love me, especially after I lost my temper, ate the last cookie, and cursed the driver who cut right in front of me? And this was just this morning!  How could God love me when I don’t even love myself?  As Luther expressed in his Heidelberg Disputation, we cannot make ourselves lovable to God; God has already made us lovable.[3]  .” God is crazy in love with us!   I’m not certain why in awe and wonder we don’t stop breathing for a moment.

God has always loved God’s creation.  God has from the beginning longed for a relationship.  God calls us by name.

But now thus says the Lord,

He who created you, O Jacob,

He who formed you, O Israel;

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

When you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

And the flame shall not consume you…

Because you are precious in my sight, and

honored, and I love you…[4]

 

God first spoke these words to the Israelites who had been exiled, taken to a strange and foreign land called Babylon.  On the edge of extinction, they had become a people of deep fear.  They were overwhelmed and unprepared for life’s hard places. They were in the deep end, and forgot that God is the one who saves them, who is their life jacket. God sought to draw these bruised, bloodied, beleaguered people back to the relationship for which they were created in the first place – to life with the God who loves them.  With these words, God reminds them to whom they belong.

That is what we are doing today as we welcome eight people into our community.  In affirming our baptism, we remember that God has made us daughters and sons. By water and the Word in baptism, we are God’s own beloved.

In the silent moments that follow, I invite you to consider what would be different if you fully understood how much God loves you.  How would knowing you are unconditionally loved change your relationship with others? Would anything change knowing that God also loves those people whom you have difficulty?

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1]By Heart: Conversations with Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.  Minneapolis:  Augsburg Fortress, 2017.  Chapter 5, 123-147, written by Kirsi Stjerna.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Ibid.

[4]Isaiah 43:1-2, 4a, 5a.