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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.

 

Luke 1:39-45 [46-55]    

Fourth Sunday of Advent

December 23, 2018

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

And lifted up the lowly;

He has filled the hungry with good things,

And sent the rich away empty.

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

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

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

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

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

Luke 1:68-79  Luke 3:1-6

    2^ndSunday in Advent

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

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

[2]Ibid.

[3]ELW, 227.

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

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

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

Matthew 12:38-44

Lectionary 32 ~ Pentecost 25

 

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

I am The Jewish Nurse. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

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

 

[2]Ibid.

Mark 19:17-31 

Lectionary 28 ~ Pentecost 21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brueggemann concludes:

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

 

Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

 

 

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

 

[2]Ibid.

 

Mark 9:38-50

Lectionary 26    Pentecost 19

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

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

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

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

Barbara Brown Taylor reflects on these things, writing:

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

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

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

In explaining this commandment, Luther writes:

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

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

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

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

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

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

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

[5]Romans 8:38-39