Sarcastic Lutheran

Sermon on the Bleeding Woman

2009-06-28T19:45:06-07:00

Text is from mark chapter 5

21When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live." 24So he went with him.
And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." 29Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" 31And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'" 32He looked all around to see who had done it. 33But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
35While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" 36But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe." 37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." 40And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!" 42And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

There were a lot of things and people in the time of Jesus that were considered unclean. The list is long and found, not surprisingly, in Leviticus. To be unclean means that you are unfit to enter into the temple. To be unclean is to be unholy and therefore unfit to be in the presence of a Holy God. And to even touch someone deemed impure…like a bleeding woman or a corpse is to defile yourself so that you too are now impure. In this system things were clear and everyone had an identity. But Jesus messed the whole thing up. Which…is just like him.

I love that today’ gospel text is about Jesus touching people he shouldn’t be touching. Jesus defiling himself and breaking all society’s rules about purity. Making all the wrong people worthy to be in the presence of a Holy God. I love that this text comes to us on this day… the Feast Day of the unclean…otherwise known as Gay Pride Day. It is fitting that we sit here and read this text as the trannys and drag kings and fags and dykes and all the other people who society treats as bleeding women and dead girls walk the streets of Denver. There’ a famous episode of the Simpsons titled “Homer-phobia” where Homer’s wife Marge makes friends with an interior decorator voiced by the very famous and very gay film director John Waters. He and Homer make fast friends until Homer finally suspects his new friend is gay. The John Waters character has been trying to tell Homer that he is gay for most of the episode until finally Waters says “Homer – I’m queer” to which Homer replies “You can’t call YOURSELF queer. That’s our name to make fun of you and we neeeed it”.

    We need to have the clean and the unclean. We neeed it - to know who we are. We need “those people” to point at whoever “those people” are to you: The intolerant conservatives or the immoral liberals. The filthy poor or the filthy rich. The atheists or the Evangelicals.
    Last week we read the story of Jesus and the disciples crossing the choppy dangerous fearful sea from the Jewish side to the gentile side. And today in Mark’s gospel we are all of the sudden back at the Jewish side but what we missed in-between is amazing. See, while on the Gentile side of the pond Jesus casts out an entire legion of demons from this crazy homeless dude. Great story. And while you might think that the town would be happy that their crazy homeless dude is now clothed, in his right mind and … you know, eating with utencils and everything. They’re not. They’re fearful and furious. Because as long as he is the town crazy guy they don’t have to look at their own crazy. Jesus disordered this little purity system and they were angry. They neeeed that guy to be what is un-holy so that they can feel right with God. They ran Jesus out of town because he took something precious from them…namely the identity they had in relation to who they deemed unclean.
    But Jesus will have none of that. Instead he actually touches everything we deem impure, defiling himself again and again.
    But that’s the way this crazy kingdom of God thing happens. It brings healing and a disordering of our identities and our purity systems but the thing is…. Sometimes healing can create it’s own wound. I wonder about our sister the Bleeding woman. I wonder what her life looked like after that moment. I wonder if it hurt to be healed.   Like a frostbite patient … when the blood comes back into the extremities it’s incredibly painful. It’s actually more comfortable to allow parts of ourselves to die than to feel them have new life. It’s actually more comfortable to cling to the identity of being unclean because then at least we know where we stand. At least it’s an identity. But while everyone else neeeeded to call her impure, call her unclean, call her un holy,..…he called her daughter. In that one word Jesus tells her who she really is and even if that word caused pain as it surged through the parts of her that had been deprived of love and life– child of God is what she is.
    And when it comes down to it, any identity we cling to or insist is primary becomes nothing less that an idol for us to worship and is not IS NOT the word of God. The radical reign of God that Jesus ushers in destroys the systems that say who is clean and who is unclean. In the radical reign of God anything that I use to define who I am… and anything I use to define who everyone else is other than the gospel is going to be taken away and I’m going to hate it and It’s going to hurt.
     Because what ever it is that you cling to: money, status, education, marginalization, victimhood, political correctness, moral superiority, resentment…what ever it is….it can never love you like your Jesus can. These things we choose to keep us safe and comfortable they will never confirm the only identity that really matters…the only identity that brings us healing, wholeness and salvation. Because when our impurity and isolation touches even the garment of God it all falls away. We no longer remain who we say we are or who society says we are or who our families say we are…because as Paul of Tarsus tells us if anyone is in Christ they are a new creature. A new identity.
But then what? To where do the formerly unclean go?
      I like to think that maybe the bleeding woman met often with the other lepers and rich young men and prostitutes and tax collectors who had an encounter with Christ. I like to think that they gathered and ate together and sang of God’s salvation and reminded each other that they are a new creature. When they lived in a world that wanted them to remain the identified problem. When they lived in a world that wanted to give them a identity based on something false and small and insignificant to God. In a world where it’s easy and feels safer to cling to marginalization and victimhood like a blanket. When they perhaps felt drawn back every day to being what they had been because it’s familiar and comfortable. I hope they became community. Because it is as the broken and blessed body of Christ that we share the discomfort and joy of healing and remind each other of the Gospel which rings with pain and beauty as it rips away that which we cling to. I hope that the bleeding woman had the other healed freaks over on a regular basis because it is only in this way that we remember who we really are. Not the unclean, or the impure, but beloved children in the presence of a Holy God who has made us so.
AMEN

A poem inspired by the post below

2009-06-15T06:07:56-07:00

Richard Russeth, a member of HFASS is a rather remarkable man for many reasons, one of which is his poetic chops.

on being denied the eucharist (for r. pater)

when prophets are denied,
as they so often are,
they shake the dust from their sandals
and board when their rows are called.

watching from your plane, you see
the mountains shepherd the sunset into darkness.
lightning drives cracks into the midnight sky.
just for a moment the vast forest
is there -
a revelation
followed by thunder that rolls away
like a resurrection.

when a wind comes hurling accusations
against your plane, the trees huddled
on the mountainside suddenly seem
alarmingly close.

in denver, brushing tears
from your eyes, you exit the plane, and
discover you were never in
any real danger after all

for in a room at the airport,
in a gathering of two or three,
the bread and wine are
freely given to you
so that the darkness is pierced,

and through this wound in the sky,

the moon rises.

taking the Eucharist to Denver International Airport at 10p on a Wednesday

2009-06-11T13:20:01-07:00

Last Sunday I got a call at 11am. It was Rachel calling from her home town church (denomination to remain unnamed). It took several minutes before she could form a proper sentence through her sobs. Finally in a shaky voice, this came out: "I'm at my parent's church....they are doing communion.....and I'm not allowed to take it." Having spent the last year in such a deeply sacramental community where all freely receive the gifts of God Rachel was devastated at being kept from the table. I texted her later to ask if I could share this story with some of the other HFASSers and she agreed.

"Rachel called me sobbing" I told them, "because she wasn't allowed to take communion at her parent's church this morning". Stuart immediately responded "Well then we'll have to take her the Eucharist at the airport when she gets home". Of course.

When Rachel got off the escalator she saw a sign reading "Rachel" on one side and "Child of God" on the other. I then lied just a tiny bit and asked if she wouldn't mind if we just popped upstairs because someone had asked me about the chapel and I wanted to make sure I knew where it was.

So at 10p on a Wednesday night 8 people were waiting in the aesthetically questionable "Inter-faith prayer chapel" at Denver International Airport to give our sister in Christ the gifts of God that are truly for her and for all.

This is how they will know that you are my disciples: that you take my body and blood to the airport.
Amen?

Amen.

Bluegrass at Pentecost

2009-06-03T12:13:00-07:00

Pentecost at HFASS included a bluegrass liturgy (see the link for Kent Gustavson on the side bar for more information about the music)

The Holy Ghost Bluegrass Band (i just named them that...) The Mandolin player is my baby daddy/boyfriend/partner in crime/husband

We wrote prayer for the church, the world, and all those in need on muslin and hung them for the Spirit to intercede with sighs too deep for words...may these prayers be carried to God.

Holy Ghost Red velvet cake. A HFASS Pentecost tradition (because we've done it twice...)

63 people showed up!

Sermon on Judas (Easter 7b)

2009-05-24T18:42:40-07:00

Fair warning; I’m going for the whole Outlaw Preacher thing today and preaching from the 3 verses that the lectionary politely left out of today’s Acts reading which is supposed to be chapter 1 verses 15–17, 21–26. The revised Common Lectionary from which we get our assigned readings each week accidently left out 3 verses. but I’m going to read them to you because frankly I think you can take it..…here we go Peter is talking about Judas..…

for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” 18(Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. 19This became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their language Hakeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

In Matthew’s telling of the gospel Judas repents and then hangs himself but here in Acts we are told that he bought a field, tripped and fell, bursting open his guts. He died alone in a field of blood. He died knowing that he was a sinner and perhaps thinking that God did not want him.

See, there was no Easter for Judas. There was no resurrection. There was no light shining which the darkness could not overcome. There was no experience of the risen Christ for Judas. He never got to be filled with joy and disbelief like those in the upper room. He never got to stick his fingers in the resurrected wounds of God. He never got to eat sacramental broiled fish on a beach. Judas did not get to experience the defeat of sin and death revealed in the breaking of the bread. He chose death before seeing that death was done for. Our brother Judas. Was what he did beyond forgiveness? How is it that Judas who betrayed Jesus once and was filled with remorse became the villain and Peter who denied Jesus 3 times and wept bitterly became the rock on which the church was built? When it comes down to it, what is the difference between Peter and Judas. Well, Nothing. Absolutely nothing and while we’re at it we might as well admit that there’s not whole lot of difference between us and them either. We are all the beloved Christ deniers. But we share something with Peter that Judas never got to experience and it’s the thing that could have made all the difference. In Judas’ isolation he never availed himself of the means of grace. Judas carried with him into that field the burden of not receiving God’s grace because he was removed from the community in which he could hear it. In Judas’ ears there never was placed a word of grace. And let me tell you. …that’s not something the sinner can create for him or herself.
We cannot in our isolation manufacture the beautiful radical grace that flows from the heart of God to God’s broken and blessed humanity. As human beings there are a lot of things that we can create for ourselves. Entertainment, stories, pain, toothpaste. We cannot create the thing that frees us from the bondage of self the thing the frees us from the shackles of sin and death and the guilt of all of it. We cannot create for ourselves the word of God. We must tell it to each other. You cannot as it was said of Judas “turn aside and go to your own place” of meditation or yoga or your own place of resentment and anger or your own place of voluntary simplicity or even prayer and create the proclamation of God’s grace. That’s why we have community. So that we can stand together under the cross and point to the Gospel. And it takes a good sinner to really get the gospel; which Bonhoeffer says is frankly hard for the pious to understand. Because this grace confronts us with the truth saying: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner, now come as the sinner you are to a God who loves you. God wants you as you are; God does not want anything from you; a sacrifice, a work. God wants you alone.

Nobody said this to Judas.

. How would that early Christian community have been different if Judas had received forgiveness as the rest of them had. Again and again Jesus had said they should preach forgiveness of sins in his name. I mean, it was forgiveness of sin that got Jesus in trouble with the pious folks. He was pretty serious about the whole thing – mentioned it all the time even.

Maybe Judas was destined to betray Jesus. Maybe it all had to go down just like it did. And maybe Judas chose death too soon. Maybe he didn’t avail himself of the means of God’s grace…. But maybe his community never sought him out and offered. Maybe extending the Word of God’s forgiveness to Judas was simply too painful for them. Maybe it was easier for Judas to be the identified problem in the family. Certainly would have been tempting to me. Judas is the traitor…not us. We need a villain so that we don’t have to sit in the awkward and discomforting reality that it is actually all of us. Maybe his community failed him.

And if they failed him. I hope they confessed their sin and heard the ringing freedom of the very forgiveness they were charged with proclaiming to the world they were sent in to. Because they needed it. And you need it and trust me, I need it.

We have to hear again and again who God is for us and what God has done on our behalf. We must free each other from bondage through our confession and forgiveness. We need to break through the isolation of sin and remorse to stand as Christ for one another. I think this is actually why we at House for All Sinners and Saints say that we are religious but not spiritual. Spiritual feels individual and escapist. But to be religious is to do this thing of being human not in isolation but in the midst of other sinners as equally messed up and obnoxious and forgiven as ourselves. And sometimes this can look a whole lot.. like helping to keep each other’s guts from exploding alone in a field.

That’s why we must be little preachers for one another. That’s why we defy the encroaching darkness by pointing to the light of Christ. The light of God entering into our ears as the Gospel and into our mouths as the body and blood – a light which pulls us from being turned in on self. This is a light we cannot create for ourselves. We cannot absolve ourselves. We cannot commune ourselves. We cannot enter into the story of who we are and who God is by ourselves. So you come here with your churning guts and you hear that you are forgiven. You come here in your ambivalence or piety and hear of a God who climbs down from heaven to enter the pain and beauty of humanity. You come here and hear of a God who climbs up from the earth still stinking of the grave and offers his body for us so that we might in turn be his body in the world because, brothers and sisters, there are fields of blood all around us. There are the abandoned spaces of loathing and remorse in which God’s beloved isolate. The gut wrenching reality of solitude threatens us all. But here you are. Gathered by the Spirit. Forgiven. And about to be fed at a common table. Blessed and together. Once again God refusing to lose another Judas to a field of blood.

Video of the St Gregory of Nyssa liturgy for which I was the preacher

2009-05-21T10:21:50-07:00

Here

HFASS Blessing of the Bicycles

2009-05-20T14:08:25-07:00

A reading from the Prophet Ezekiel:

When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When they moved, the others moved; when they stopped, the others stopped; and when they rose from the earth, the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

Holy Wisdom, Holy Word
Thanks be to God

Each petition ends with God of life,
and you respond “Hear our Prayer”

Let us pray,

Present in a world groaning under the excesses of consumption we acknowledge the inherent goodness of non-motorized human powered transportation and give thanks for the simple beauty of the bicycle. God of life,

Hear our prayer.

Present in a community filled with children we pray for those learning to ride. Keep them smart, safe and visible on their neighborhood roads. God of life,

Hear our prayer.

Present in a community filled with strife we pray for the victims of road rage, and bike theft. And we ask for the strength to forgive mean people. God of life,

Hear our prayer.

Present in a world of work we pray for those who build, repair and clean our bikes and those who rely on bicycles to earn their living. Bless those who choose to not drive to work and those for whom driving isn’t even an option. God of life,

Hear our prayer.

Present in a community of beautiful diversity we ask your protection and blessing on all who ride; Pedi cabbies, weekend warriors, athletes, homeless folks, students, children, eco-warriors, bike co-op anarchists, messengers and all the others who take to the Denver streets, bike paths, parks and mountains. Keep us safe as we ride. God of life,

Hear our prayer.

We now observe a moment of silence for all who have died while riding…

God of life,

Hear our prayer.
AMEN

Now receive this blessing and bless one another by repeating each phrase after me as we bless you with water and incense:

May the road rise to meet you….. May the wind be ever at your back. ….May all your journeying be joyous. …. And until we meet again ….may God hold you…. and your bicycles….. in the palm of God’s hand.

Go in peace and safety.
Amen.

Sermon on Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

2009-05-10T20:47:08-07:00

A sermon for Easter 4b

Text: Acts 8
26Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." (This is a wilderness road.) 27So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." 30So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" 31He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
    "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
    and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.
33In his humiliation justice was denied him.
    Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth."
34The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" 35Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?" 38He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

As many of you know, last week Seth and I attended the Rocky Mountain Synod assembly – the legislative body for this region of the Lutheran church. For more than 10 years my denomination has been talking about human sexuality. Much like the early church who were convinced that gentiles could only become Christians if they changed into being Jews first (which, for the record, involved a rather unpleasant process), much like our first century brothers and sisters there is a segment of the church today who thinks that if we extend the roof of the tent to include “the gays” then the whole thing will come crashing down around us. We must “evangelize” them – ie. change them into us before they will fit. Or else the roof can’t hold. Meanwhile the other side of the church is all about “inclusion”. We must extend the tent to include the marginalized, the less fortunate the minorities.

But then we have this story of Phillip and The Ethiopian Eunuch. A text which I have always heard as being about evangelism. “The conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch” it was called. I was always told that the message of this text was that we should tell everyone we meet about Jesus because in doing so we might save them. We might convert them. We might change them into being us.

But today I’m not so sure. Because if the Eunuch was reading Isaiah as he returned from Jerusalem having gone there to worship – see if he was reading Isaiah then I would bet he was also familiar with Dueteronomy, specifically 23:1 “No one whose testicles are cut off or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord” Anyone have that one as a memory verse growing up?
This law strictly forbids a Eunuch from entering the assembly of the Lord. Their transgression of gender binaries and the inability to fit in proper categories made them profane by nature. They do not fit in the tent. But the Eunuch went to Jerusalem to worship despite the fact that in all likelihood he would be turned away by the religious establishment. The Eunuch sought God anyway.

See, when the Spirit guided Phillip to that road in the desert I like to think she guided him to his own conversion. As he approached the chariot he may have been thinking OK…I’ll just beat him with the scripture stick until he becomes what I am comfortable with. But when Phillip joined this person who sought to worship God despite his exclusion form the tent, maybe it was Phillip himself who was converted to the faith. It was perhaps even a mutual conversion. Maybe because they simply asked each other questions in the desert. The only imperatives came from the Holy Spirit. Phillip and the Eunuch only asked each other questions. The only commands came from God and the command was go and join. Go and join the other. What we don’t know is if the Spirit also gave the Eunuch a command to invite. Invite this nice Jewish boy – representative of all that clings to the law and rejects you from God’s house. Invite him to sit by you. Go…join…invite…ask questions. Perhaps Phillip in his encounter with this gender transgressive foreigner learned what seeking the Lord looks like.

A couple weeks ago Stuart showed up to liturgy wearing slacks and button down shirt rather than his Grease Monkey jacket and jeans. Earlier that day He had stood as Godfather and baptismal sponsor for the child of his friends’ ; a straight couple who have known Stuart for a number of years. Apparently after the baptism there was a little reception back at this couple’s house. To Stuart’s surprise his friends got all of their guests attention so they could say a few words about why they had chosen Stuart as their child’s godparent. “We chose you Stuart” they said “because for most of your life you have pursued Christ and Christ’s church even though as a Gay Man all you’ve heard from the church is that ‘there is no love for you here’”. I heard that story as his friends saying to him “you, Stuart convert us again and again to this faith”

All many of you have heard is that the tent is simply not big enough unless you change to fit in it. Change your sexuality, your personality your doubting. Change your addictive patterns, your story, your brokenness. And if you can’t, then just pretend. Yet here you are. Converting me once again to this faith.

Because how can I know what it means to follow Christ unless I learn it from someone who has done so despite every obstacle possible? That’s why I am so in awe of those in our community who have heard again and again “there is no love for you here unless you let us change you into who we feel comfortable with you being”. Not just the queers either. Also those who have the wrong personality or the wrong socio economic status or the wrong gender or the wrong immigration status or the wrong politics to fit under the tent.
I think maybe that we can’t actually know what this Jesus following thing is about unless we too have the stranger show us. This is far more than “inclusion”. Inclusion isn’t the right word at all because it sounds like in our niceness and virtue we are allowing “them” to join us - like we are judging another group of people to be worthy to be a part of this thing. “inclusion” seems like a small thing. A charity. A mercy. But the truth is that We need the equivalent of our Ethiopian Eunuch to show us the faith. We continually need the stranger, the foreigner, the “other” to show us water in the desert. We need to hear “Here is water in the desert, so what is to keep me the eunuch from being baptized” or me the queer or me the intersexed, or me the illiterate or me the neurotic or me the over-educated or me the founder of Focus on the Family. Until we face the difficulty of that question and come up as Phillip did with no answer…until then we just look at the seemingly limited space under the tent and either think it’s our job to change people so they fit or its our job to extend the roof so that they fit. Either way, it’s misguided because …it’s not our tent. It’s God’s tent. The wideness of the tent of the Lord should concern us only insofaras it points to the gracious nature of a loving God who became flesh and entered into our humanity. The wideness of the tent should only concern us insofaras it points to the great mercy and love of a God who welcomes us all as friends.

The bigness of God’s tent is why we have an open communion table. When we come to the table we all come as Christ’s guests to his feast. And as much as we’d like to be - we are not the makers of the guest list. We come to the table with those who accept us and those who reject us. We come to the table with those we love and those we distrust. We come whether or not we feel worthy. Because It is God who has made us worthy in the invitation. It is God who has torn the curtain of the temple so that there is no longer Jew nor Greek, Slave nor free, Male nor Female gay nor straight. Liberal nor conservative.

So maybe here in this story of the conversion of Phillip and the Eunuch is some hope for the church. That under God’s really big tent we might ask questions, invite those who represent the establishment to come and sit by us, to stay in the scriptures, to be converted anew by the strange and the stranger, to see where there is water in the desert, to enter fully into the waters of God’s mercy with the foreigners, with the “not us”. And to go on our way rejoicing having converted each other to this beautiful, dangerous expansive life of faith.

HFASS' 1st Annual Blessing of the Bicycles

2009-05-05T05:08:59-07:00

Bike to church for a Blessing of the Bicycles Sunday May 17th 3:30p at 501 Bannock. All are welcome.

Installation of Paul Fromberg as rector of St Gregory of Nyssa church in SF (sermon)

2009-04-28T12:27:20-07:00

This past Saturday I flew into San Francisco to preach at the installation service of Paul Fromberg as rector at St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal church. It was a beautiful experience all the way around.

Before the service...

Preaching the word...

Here's the sermon:

(texts were feast of St. Mark)

So Jesus came proclaiming the good news of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

I bring you greetings today from the people of God at House for All Sinners and Saints; a Lutheran mission church in Denver Colorado. We are a liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice oriented, queer inclusive, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient - future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination. At least that’s what our website says. It’s an honor to be with you.
A few years ago on a bright Tuesday in March I was driving to seminary and I found myself stuck in traffic on I-25. Sitting in a dead stop on the interstate I stared up into the clear blue Colorado sky and thought “What the hell am I doing? I don’t believe a word of this stuff. I mean, It’s a fairy tale”. But then in the very next moment I thought “except…throughout my life…I have experienced it to be true.” I experience the gospel to be true even when I can’t believe it. And honestly sometimes I believe the gospel even when I don’t experience it. And I suggest to you today that this is why we have and need Word and Sacrament.
People of St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal church, this is why you have called your brother Paul to be your rector. It may seem that you called him because you need a good administrator or because you need a strong leader to take you into a vision of a preferred future for your church. That’s all well and good but what you need, my brothers and sisters, is the Gospel. Charge him with that: putting Jesus in your ears and mouths and eyes. His charge is not to be a professional Christian on your behalf. He is not charged with being a quivering mass of emotional availability on your behalf. He is not charged with doing good works on your behalf. He is charged with preaching the gospel and presiding at the table. He is charged with none other than putting Jesus in your ears and mouths so that you might believe the good news and continue to share it with others. That you might experience this thing to be true.
Why? so that you might be free. Free from the bondage of sin. Free from the abject lies of salvation through good works, or salvation through political correctness or salvation through just trying harder or salvation through self-care, or…brace yourselves…salvation through liturgical fabulousness.
So, good people, when you have exhausted the efforts of climbing higher to God through piety and virtue and self-improvement and social justice and beauty I pray that Paul might feed you the very gospel of Christ. And if you, as we all inevitably do, try and appease the God “up there,” may he tell you of a God right down here, who loves you madly, deeply, messily. May he tell you of St Mark’s gospel which says:
And at once, as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.'
May Paul continue to scandalously proclaim to you this love of God which tears open the heavens and overflows into a muddy river full of sinners. Only in Mark’s Gospel do we get the Greek word Scizomai here anemically translated torn apart. But see scitzomai is not nearly as polite a thing as “torn apart”…to say as Mark does that the heavens were scitzomai is to say they were Ripped in an almost violent manner as to not be repairable. God - so desperate to be with us --comes in flesh and blood and enters a muddy river full of sinners. God – so desperate to give God’s self to us tears, rips, rends open the heavens as though to say I will not be confined to your so called “up there” any longer. I will not be known as the God of vengeance: I am gonna love you no matter what. This is the God who offers an insistent yes to all our polite little no thank yous.

In a muddy river full of sinners God tears open the heavens to bring the good news. God says “YES: you are my beloved” . But be warned, the crazy beautiful love of God isn’t a winning the lottery kind of Good News. The gospel of Jesus is more of a muddy river full of sinners and Baptizers with questionable fashion sense kind of good news. The gospel of Jesus is actually more wilderness than sandy beach, it’s more crazy desert men than respectable religious types. It’s more dinner with whores and traitors than award banquet. And if there are any “Church growth consultants” present let me assure you: This is not the kind of thing that sells very well. You can build an entire television empire based on the so called prosperity gospel – pawning off greed as righteousness and telling folks that Jesus makes you rich - but there isn’t a whole lot of demand out there for “Jesus bids you come and die.”

But dying ..is the business of the church—dying to our individualism and sense of specialness and fears, so that we can become new people, beloved new people, with life in Christ. this is the good news. Because in the dying to self that comes in repentance there is a small Easter for all of us. There is resurrection.
What you do here every week in church--your liturgy and the Word of God and the sacraments and repentance and forgiveness and Christian community and being changed by the stranger--- this is the means by which we have resurrection. My worship professor at Luther Seminary asked his students on the first day of class: What is it we do in worship? “We praise God”, one answered. “We gather around Word and Sacrament” said another. “We pray for the whole world” someone else said. And after we had exhausted the obvious Dr. Teig said, “We raise the dead”.

We come here where the dead are raised and the demons cast out, for it is we who are drowned in that muddy river full of sinners and over and over we are raised to new life in Christ- filled whether we believe it or feel it – filled with God’s love which has replaced our brokenness. Here in this place we have Jesus stuffed in our ears and mouths so that we might experience this thing to be true. So that we might again believe the good news that we are the beloved of God. Which, in the spirit of full disclosure, I might mention comes with a fairly hefty workload. And so today, people, you are charged with taking up Jesus’ work, and proclaiming the good news, carrying it forward to all the rest of the sinners and saints you meet. St Gregory’s church, beloved of God, is given a blessing and a commission. You are given new life.

And Paul – if there is one thing this fresh, young, smartalec preacher can say to you - a much…muuuch older priest - it is this: We Christians are a forgetful people. Never assume that just because your people leave here on Sunday believing the gospel that when they return an hour or a day or a week later that they still believe it. Don’t assume that if they once experienced this thing to be real that they still do… Put Jesus in their ears and mouths and don’t ever stop. And receive the living Christ from them as well, let them stuff Jesus into you, because you are as forgetful as the rest of us.

I tell you this because I have experienced it to be true. But I had forgotten it all by this morning. So I hope you have some Jesus for me at that table.

HFASS Easter vigil

2009-04-15T05:50:54-07:00

Easter vigil was incredible. We had no idea that 70 people would show up! Here's some of the highlights:

An Ethiopian thurible gifted to us by our brothers and sisters at St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.

Dave and JP lit a New Fire outside from which we lit the Paschal candle and chanted "The Light of Christ; Thanks be to God" whil entering the dimly lit sanctuary

The children were charged with the telling of the creation story and they did a wonderful job using art they had made.

Jim and Stuart took on the Noah and the flood story with camp and heart. The spray bottle was, of course, central.

Notice the waters having come up around the ark. Noah sends out the dove (which I believe was a knotted sweat sock.

Looking out the window Noah sees that the dove has returned with and olive branch in it's mouth.

And of course, the rainbow.

Amy and Sheralee told the story of Ezekiel and the valley of the dry bones. The image on the screen is of an amazing photo of Amy's of hands holding little bones. After the reading there was a black and white video clip of a quartet (from the 1950's form the look of it) singing Dem Bones Dem Bones.

Brandi spray painted this image of Daniel and the fiery furnace and Andi read the text. Very cool.

An amazing slam poetry- techno interpretation of Isaiah 55 played while Sara dramatically set the altar table. "You who have no money come to eat and drink"

And what's a Bible story without a flannel-graph? Roxane and Rachel tell us all about the deliverance from the Red Sea

We take the thurible and in a procession around the block chant the litany of saints. The names of the saints were provided by the community. "Uncle Bobby and Aunt Gladys"....."Come celebrate with us".

After inviting the faithful departed to celebrate the resurrection with us, the children dug up the Alleluia banner the community had made and buried on the final Sunday before Lent. Note to self: muslin molds.

The following is from an email a couple day later from a member of our community who is new to all of this:

... the Alleluia banner. It was buried beautiful and highly adorned. It was dug up in a different state(by children of course. Are the liturgical churches always so damn symbolic?). While its shell - the outer sheet -was unharmed by its venture into death, the banner was me. Yes, it still reads, though a little less legibly, "Alleluia". But it is speckled with mildew. And there are buttons missing. And some things that were added to "prettify" it are caricatures and garish in its new state. It isn't pretty, but it is still, maybe even more, true.

And there I am, dug back up and brought back to church. Who knew?

We pound on the closed doors of the church and when the doors open the sanctuary is blazing with light and filled with lilies. We sing Alleluia for the first time since Lent started!

Jessica sings the gospel reading from John 20.

We welcome Bill into the body of Christ. Yes, I dunked his whole head in - 3 times! I'd prefer a baptistery for full immersion but this is the next best thing.

After the baptism we celebrated the Eucharist.

The whole experience was amazing. The community I get to serve is so creative and funny and faithful. I'm very blessed.

This, by the way, is a little thing we call "pridefulness"

So how do you celebrate the closing of Holy Week???
Answer: DANCE PARTY

Electric slide. I'm not proud.

Nothing says "He Is Risen" quite like a chocolate fountain in the baptismal font.

Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to pull off the Triduum!

HFASS Good Friday

2009-04-11T06:14:35-07:00

Our Good Friday service.

45 of us entered in silence. The stations of the cross set up around the room. Only a black cloth covering the altar.
Chanted Psalm 22
A sermon of only questions.
O Sacred Head Now Wounded.
Procession of the crucifix - Chant: "behold the life-giving cross on which hung the savior of the whole world" response: "O come let us worship Him"
The cross is laid on the altar.
Adoration of the cross: bowing, laying purple tulips, kissing it....
The Solemn Reproaches
"Were You There When They Crucified My Lord" acapella (of course) during station of the cross.
Leaving as we arrived: in silence.
Then several of us took all the tulips that had been placed at the cross and laid them where there had been a shooting in Denver last week.

And from an email from my beloved friend Sara: honey, it's unstoppable now. he's rising. death is finished.

HAFASS Maundy Thursday

2009-04-10T05:11:54-07:00

A few years ago someone asked me, when they heard about me wanting to start a Lutheran emerging church, what kind of building would be ideal? A warehouse? Storefront? No I said. A hundred year old church building with no pews. That would be perfect. I honestly did not know at that time that my synod happened to own a 100 year old church building with no pews. It was Bethany Lutheran - established in the late 1800s and disbanded sometime in the 1960's. For the last 18 years the building has been given to the American Indian community to use. They share the space with us.

So, yesterday afternoon as I was trying to move some stuff around for the Maundy Thursday service, I found in the back of a closet the Original Bible and cross which I'm assuming were used on the altar back when there was a Lutheran church still worshiping there.

That's the Bible. Published 1952. The font is the original which we just moved back into the space a month or so ago.

We used the cross. When I realized what I had found I started to cry.

In my tradition there is no absolution during Lent. We confess on Ash Wednesday and do not receive the absolution until Maundy Thursday. Everyone comes forward and the pastor lays hands on them saying "In obedience to the command of Christ I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins. Amen"

We remember the command of Christ to Love one another and to wash one another's feet.

We as an act of serivce and worship assembled bleach kits for Denver's underground needle exchange because:

...we are unconditionally loved in our own beautiful, broken process

...our brokeness does not dictate how many chances we get and how many times we are offered safety and care

...we continue to see the way our lives our changed, without merit and outside of achievement

... we believe and confess that grace is real

To sing "Take O Take Me As I Am" while putting cookers and bleach and condoms in bags felt quite holy.

As we left we threw "30 pieces of silver" into a basin by the door. This is to be given to a group who has been betrayed. This year it goes to the American Indian community we share space with.

It was an amazing night.

Now for Good Friday...

Palm Sunday Surprise!

2009-04-07T05:04:21-07:00

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, but it was also the first Sunday of the month which mean it was Nosh. Nosh is our monthly sabbath as a community. Rather than a full sung liturgy, we gather for a small meal. A couple people take turns cooking for everyone else. We gather, read the gospel, pray, sit down to a simple meal - in the middle of which I stand and say a simple Eucharistic prayer ans we all commune each other around the table.

Then we continue with the meal, say a benediction and go. Simple Word and Sacrament. But this
Sunday as we sat at table, there was a rather loud (and honestly terrifying) knock om the church doors. One of our guys got up to get the door, exclaiming as he opened it "It's Martin Luther!!!"

In walks J.P. dressed as Luther - with a small gift bag in his hands. In German he says "Thank you, my Pastor!"

The community had bought me something I had always wanted: a replica of Martin Luther's wedding ring.

It was a wonderful thing. And an amazing way to start Holy Week.

Here's a great opportunity to give away some of that extra money you have laying around

2009-04-04T05:59:12-07:00

Dear Sarcastic Lutheran readers,

You may wonder why I have gathered all 2 dozen of you here. Well, I am going to shamelessly ask you to give your hard (or not so hard) earned money to my little church. This is kind of like an NPR plea. People have asked me to "monetize" this blog, ie advertising. This is, of course, evil. But if you are a regular consumer of Sarcastic Lutheran content and sermons please consider supporting House for All Sinners and Saints. There is a new "donate" button on the left. You can also go to the "give" page at House for All and set up a monthly donation. Even $5 a month from my readers would make all the difference. Why should you do this? Because it is deeply a-rational and beautiful to give away your money. It's good for you. And hey, it takes A LOT of candles to keep an emerging church going.

Thanks!

Nadia