The Lutheran Zephyr: Sermons

Resurrection: It's Not Just For Jesus

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Tue, 03 May 2011 08:22:46 PDT

Second Sunday of Easter, Year A
1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
May 1, 2011

Christ is risen. Alleluia!

Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

Resurrection.

It’s not just last Sunday’s news. And it’s not just something that happens to Jesus.

Resurrection is a promise and a living hope given to all of us

who have found new birth in Christ our Lord.

Like Jesus, each and every one of us will be raised from the dead.

In flesh and blood. For real.

Our Lord’s resurrection represents for Christians

a new birth into a new life in our Lord’s new Kingdom,

a reign of peace that will be realized

when Jesus comes again in glory in the last time.

This hope – the hope of the resurrection,

the hope that, as Paul says in Roman 6, we who have been joined to a death like his

will surely share in a resurrection like his –

this hope was the central hope of the early church.

Resurrection. The promise of a real, flesh and blood resurrected life, like that of Jesus,

is the promise to which those early Christians clung,

and the central promise proclaimed by the church to this day.

And it is the promise that pours forth from our second reading this day.

It is a promise that we need to hear today.

Look at that second reading.

In the English translation that is before you,

the first sentence of our reading sprawls over three verses.

It’s a pretty impressive sentence, chock-full of theologically rich goodness.

In the original Greek, however, the entire reading – plus a few more verses, through vs. 12 –

constitute one incredibly long, run-on sentence.

It’s as if the author of this letter is so excited to proclaim this good news

that he didn’t want to pause, even, to place a period or catch a breath.

You can practically hear him bursting at the seems,

unable to speak fast enough to get all this good news out for the world to hear.

And who could blame him?

He’s speaking about the real promise of life,

to a people who are suffering under the weight of death.

You see, those early Christians lived a life and did church in a way

that would be almost unrecognizable to us today.

Their society was not Christianized in the way that ours has been over the past 1600+ years.

Being Christian was simply not acceptable.

People didn’t wear crosses around their necks as nice pieces of jewelry and signs of faith –

they wore crosses on their backs, as they were being executed,

or in the wounds they suffered from beatings and stonings.

Like the Lord they followed, many Christians were persecuted and martyred for their beliefs.

Living their faith, or striving to in such a difficult environment,

invited attention, and often abuse, from those who did not share their faith.

While it is often challenging for us today to live our faith,

none of us in North America face the kind of persecution and sufferings

for practicing faith that the earliest Christians did.

This is not to minimize the challenges we have in living out our faith

but I say this to put this letter we’re reading in perspective.

It is in stark contrast to the early Christian day-to-day reality of oppression

that this letter opens with such a hope-filled promise.

Follow along with me in that second reading:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,

kept in heaven for you who are being protected by the power of God through faith

for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Our new birth is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

an event that defeated sin and death,

an event that gives a living hope to us all,

since sin and death no longer have an ultimate claim on our lives.

We were born anew, hope was born anew, in that empty tomb of Easter morning.

All that we believe as Christians, all that we do as Christians,

all those promises of forgiveness and life everlasting to which we cling as Christians …

all these hinge on the empty tomb.

We are born anew in that empty tomb,

as if it were a womb of resurrection life.

Our hope and expectation that we, too, will raise from the dead,

that the stones will be rolled from our tombs,

the grave stones will be laid aside so that we might rise,

that hope, that most central hope of our faith,

springs forth from our Lord’s empty tomb.

And so we are called to live in hope,

to live knowing that death is not the end of the story,

that the grave isn’t our final resting place,

but rather a temporary place of respite,

a holding pattern of sorts, until as today’s reading from 1 Peter says,

“the last time” when “Jesus Christ is revealed.”

On that day, we will be raised, and a new Kingdom, a new way of life will commence:

in which all will be gathered at the mountain of the Lord

and will be filled with good things,

as shown in the parables and miracles of Jesus,

and in the prophets of old, notably in Isaiah 25.

This resurrection hope stands in stark contrast to the bleak,

oppressive situation in which the early church found itself,

and in contrast, too, to the resignation and destruction that pervades our society today.

A variety of issues can keep us from being less than optimistic about the world,

whether it is the ongoing wars in far-off lands,

or economic struggles here in our own back yard;

divisions in our society along racial, class, and economic lines,

or our fears that society’s great institutions are failing to fulfill their public trust –

industry, schools, the church, government.

In fact, we can so easily feel like Thomas, in our Gospel reading today,

who couldn’t bring himself to share in the same joy of his fellow disciples.

Having seen the risen Lord,

the disciples knew that something had changed.

They knew that because of what God did in Jesus, the world would not be the same.

They knew that the resurrection represented a new life, a new birth,

not just for Jesus and not just for them,

but for the whole world and all people in it.

They knew, they had seen, the first born of the resurrection,

the first fruit of God’s new reign.

But Thomas hadn’t. And he wanted what anybody in his position would want –

the chance to see what everybody was raving about.

Until that point, however, I can imagine that he felt a bit cheated,

not having seen what the others had seen,

and thus unable to share in their joy and hope

for what God has done and would continue to do.

I think that we can easily be like Thomas,

struggling to believe that which we cannot see,

struggling to believe in new life when we’re constantly reminded of death;

struggling to believe that sin has been conquered,

when we’re confronting sin both within and beyond ourselves every day,

struggling to believe that a new rule of love and peace and abundance

is awaiting us in the time to come

when in this time we are afflicted with division, war, and scarcity.

But our hope and faith isn’t based on what we see;

it is based in the promise of the empty tomb,

a promise that echoes from that tomb to our time today

through the words that we share in this place

and the things that are done in the name of the one who abandoned the grave.

Yet … God does give us something to see.

Our hope is hidden in the sacrament we share here,

a measly meal of abundant grace and flowing mercy and everlasting life

that is freely offered to all.

Our hope is hanging in the Clothes Closet,

where those who have many needs come to have one of those basic needs met.

Our hope is wrapped up in the meal that is delivered to our home when we are sick,

and in the conversation we share during coffee hour,

and in the care extended to us by a neighbor, friend, or complete stranger.

Our hope rings forth in the pounding of nails and hum of power tools at Rebuilding Together

and anywhere where people gather to share love and grace through acts of service.

Our hope rides the Metro to work and is revealed

in the faithful efforts of civil servants whose work safeguards the public good.

We don’t hope for what we can see …. at least not what we can see directly, clearly, or easily.

For, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, we see dimly now,

and as this letter from 1 Peter tells us bluntly, we have not seen Jesus.

Yet we believe, because like with Thomas our Lord has given us some things to see.

Jesus gives us glimpses of God’s work of ongoing resurrection,

glimpses of new life that seem to reach from the empty tomb to our lives,

breaking the grip of sin and pain and death,

and giving us a window into the certain future of God’s promised reign.

These glimpses of resurrection and life,

coupled with the resurrection words and gestures we share in this place,

nurture in us a living hope,

a hope that what we see in glimpses and shadows will one day emerge into full view,

that resurrection will come to all people and all the world,

making all things new.

This is the good and wonderful news, dear friends:

all will be made new;

the resurrection God began in Christ will continue in us;

we have an inheritance, imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,

kept in heaven for us,

until that day when our Lord joins heaven and earth

giving us our inheritance, and our life, in full.

That is our promise and our hope,

leading us to rejoice through words and deeds, as 1 Peter says,

with an indescribable and glorious joy of what our God has done,

and of what he promises yet to do.

Christ is risen. Alleluia!

Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Amen.

Promises of Life on the Eve of Death

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:11:45 PDT

Holy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-14; John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Thursday, April 21, 2011

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

“This month shall mark for you the beginning of months,” the Lord says to Moses.

It shall be the first month of the year for you.”

Beginning. First.

With these words the Lord initiates a new thing and indicates a promise of deliverance.

The beginning that the Lord announces –

the Passover and deliverance of God’s chosen people from slavery into freedom –

the beginning, oddly enough, hasn’t quite yet begun, actually.

Pharaoh still keeps the Israelites in bondage.

But time has begun, the Lord says.

The promise has been spoken.

The day when the Lord speaks to Moses, the day when the promise is given,

is the first of all months, the beginning of a new time,

the time of the Lord’s promise.

Now, the Passover itself won’t take place for several more days,

and the exodus will last 40 years …

Nonetheless, the beginning of months, the start of a new thing,

begins not when the people are actually delivered from bondage,

it begins not when the people arrive in their Promised Land,

begins not when something recognizable actually happens, oddly enough ...

Rather, the new thing begins when the Lord speaks words of promise.

This shall mark for you the beginning, says the Lord.

We hear words of promise and see a new thing at this table.

Yes, before the horror of Friday and the glory of Sunday,

we have this night, on which words of promise are spoken,

a prelude of promise prior to the pain of death.

Echoing the promises that God spoke to the Israelites

before his saving act in the Passover and Red Sea crossing,

our Lord Jesus speaks promises to his disciples before his saving act

on the cross and in the empty grave.

To the followers of Christ about to experience gut-wrenching anguish,

God speaks promises of forgiveness and life.

This is my body, Jesus says. This is my blood.

Given. Shed. For you.

These words of promise were spoken first, before anything else happened –

before his betrayal, death, and burial;

before his resurrection and ascension;

before his coming again in glory.

Before all this divine activity, words of promise are spoken first.

And to us, God does the same.

To the baptized God has spoken words of promise –

promise of new life through the waters of baptism,

waters that represent a death and new life,

a drowning and a rebirth,

a washing and a renewing.

The first thing in the Christian life is a declaration of God’s promise

in the waters baptism.

First comes the promise.

God’s promises come first and, come what may –

War. Hunger. Oppression. Shame. Infidelity. Exploitation. Joblessness.

Poverty. Greed. Pain. Abuse. Immorality. Illness. Death. –

come what may, our Lord’s promise has come first,

before whatever else we might endure.

In the beginning was the Word, the first verses of John’s Gospel remind us.

This is the first day, the first month of a new beginning,

the Lord says to Moses before deliverance.

This is my body. This is my blood. Given and shed for you. For the world,

Jesus says to his disciples, before his crucifixion and resurrection.

Before all things, God’s promise comes first.

Tomorrow we will stand here and gaze upon the cross.

And on Sunday, we will gaze upon the empty tomb.

On this night let us gaze upon this table,

and let words of promise ring in our ears:

promises of liberation that were spoken to a people still in slavery,

promises of love that splash in the waters of the unlikely servant’s bowl,

promises of our Lord’s presence and forgiveness in the gift of his body and blood,

promises of life that are shared on the eve of death.

Amen.

"Lord, if you had been here ..."

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 05:31:14 PDT

Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A
John 11:1-45
Sunday, April 10, 2011

Lent 5 - Year A 2011

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

Martha, grieving her brother,
says to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Actually, I’m pretty certain she didn’t say it the perfectly calm tone of a church lector
reading the Scriptures on a Sunday morning.
Rather, I think she would have said it a bit more emphatically, sadly, angrily, emotionally:
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
If you had been here …

This isn’t just Martha’s comment, question, plea, either.
We share this sentiment with her.

We cry out with her and with others who cry out, suffering pain and loss:
Lord, if you had been here, that plane wouldn’t crashed into the Pentagon.
Lord, if you had been here, that sniper wouldn’t have killed those people.
Lord, if you had been here, my little brother wouldn’t have run into the street and been killed.
Lord, if you had been here, my father wouldn’t have abused me.
Lord, if you had been here …
We all have these cries. We all can finish the sentence: Lord, if you had been here …

These words are words of faith – Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
Martha knows that Jesus has the power to heal,
    and she knows that Jesus could have prevented her brother’s death.
Martha here is confident in the power of Jesus to cure and to heal.
These words are words of deep faith.

But clearly, these are also words of lament.
Not only does Martha express with these words confidence in Jesus’ ability to heal,
    but she also expresses regret that he was not there to perform the healing.
“You could have done this, Jesus,” she says, “but you didn’t, because you weren’t there.”
“Lord, if you had been here …”

That’s the big critique of Christianity, isn’t it,
    and the big struggle even we believers have, isn’t it?
Bad stuff happening, no God seemingly there to keep it from happening?
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

Understandably, we try to explain these things,
    but our explanations are half-measures that only make things worse.
Some might say that “God has a plan.”
    Really? God has a plan that involves mass murder, tragic accidents, torture,
    and painful, debilitating diseases?
That sounds pretty darn cruel and twisted, if you ask me.
Related, we might say that “everything happens for a reason.”
No. God has no plan that involves such pain and suffering,
    and there is no reason for pain and suffering.
This ain’t the work of the God I know.
Well, “God wanted a new angel in heaven,” some might say.
    Again, really? Is that the case?
Is God so selfish that he’ll cause all kinds of pain and suffering in this world
    just so he can have an angel by his side in heaven?
Not the God I know.

The problem with pain and suffering and tragedy is that it defies
    all what we think we know about God –
    that God has the power to heal and create, and that God is all-loving and merciful …
And yet, there are times, too many times, when the two fail to come together.
We’ll experience God’s love at times, and God’s power at other times …
    but there are plenty of times when we don’t feel either of these.
No power. No love. Just absence.
Lord, if you had been here.

It’s like the scene in Superman II, the 1980 sequel to the classic first Superman movie,
    after Superman travels to the North Pole to his Fortress of Solitude
    and relinquishes his power so that he can live a normal life,
    and draw closer to Lois Lane, his love.
The people of Metropolis cried out for Superman to save them from their troubles,
    but Clark Kent, now rid of his powers, is unable to do anything.
Superman ain’t there.
General Zod and his sidekicks, a superhuman criminal gang that escaped their imprisonment,
    begin their takeover of the Earth … and Superman is nowhere to be found.
    The President of the United States, captured by these Supervillans,
    goes on a national television broadcast to abdicate all power to the Supervillans,
        and he cries out:
    “Superman! Can you hear me? Superman, where are you?”
Superman, where are you? The world is being taken over by superhuman criminals,
    and people are dying.
Superman, if you were here …
Lord, if you had been here …

Of course, faith in Christ is not a superhero fantasy lifted from the pages of a comic book
    or the screen a movie.
Faith is much more real and, unfortunately for we who suffer and cry out,
    not as predictable and universally-happy-ending as superhero tales.
We have faith in a God who deigns to take on our experience and walk with us,
    who came to us and promises to keep coming to us,
    a God who in one blink of the divine eye is there, in the Beginning,
        making heaven and earth,
    and in the next is there, in what for his disciples seemed like the End,
        dying a horrible death on a cross.
This is a God who, in flesh and blood,
    performed amazing signs, yes … and in today’s reading he does that, too.
Christ sees the grief that Mary and Martha are both suffering, and he joins them in weeping.
And then, defying all the laws of nature, he brings Lazarus back to life.
Lord, if you had been here, Martha had cried, my brother would not have died.
Lord, you are here, and my brother lives.

As wonderful and special and miraculous as this miracle is,
    it’s not about Lazarus.
Yes, Jesus loves Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha,
    and I believe that he was truly moved by his love for them.
But in the Bible miracles don’t serve as a sort of catch-all universal fix-it mechanism,
    a cure-all for every ill.
Rather, miracles in the Gospel narratives tell us, the readers, about two things:
    who our Lord Jesus is, and the future he promises.
These stories are not meant to cultivate in us faith in miracles,
    but faith in Christ.
These miracle stories are like signs and windows:
    they are like neon signs with big blinking arrows that tell us clearly that Jesus is the Son of God;
    and they are like windows that show us the future Jesus promises to bring.
That is, these miracles stories are not about the one who is healed,
    and they are not even about the miraculous healing.
Instead, they are about the one who heals,
    about the one defies all logic and nature and propriety
    to reach out in love and restore the dead to life.
And that whole restoring the dead to life is great stuff, truly great ...
    unless you’re a modern-day Martha, wanting your miracle, crying out,
        “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died …”
It's great stuff,
    unless you're trying to make sense of all the suffering and pain and angst in the world –
        which you can’t, because there is no sense to it.
Indeed, in less than two weeks we will be gathered here on a dark evening,
    recalling Jesus’ agony and death on the cross, and his cry:
    “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
“Why have you forsaken me, God? Why weren’t you here, God?”
And Jesus, the Son of God, wept with Mary and Martha.
And Jesus, God in flesh, died on the cross.
“Where were you, God?”

Actually, it seems that God was there all along,
    that God is there after all … in the suffering.
Crying and dying along with us.
This is our God. A God who is with us. A God who empties himself in love for us.
A God who weeps and suffers and dies with us,
    promising that when we weep and suffer and die,
    we are not alone.

The stories continues, of course …
    Lazarus is raised from the dead; and,
    a few days after his death on the cross,
        Jesus too is raised from the dead; and,
    in the promised future, all who have died will be raised.
        Suffering will be gone, and joy will reign in our hearts and in all the world.

But let’s not go there yet. The church maintains the blessed season of Lent for a reason.
Let’s not rush to the glorious triumph of love and life over death.
Let’s stay there with Mary and Martha, weeping and grieving.
Let’s stay there at the foot of the cross,
    looking up and seeing Jesus suffer and die.
Let’s stay there because, if we’re honest with ourselves,
    it’s where we are, it’s where we live, it is our reality.
Pain and struggle and grief and death … it’s part of who we are …
    and it is part of who God is, too.

Belonging

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 06:51:26 PDT

Third Sunday in Lent
John 4:5-42
Sunday, March 27, 2011

Lent 3 - Year A 2011

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

“But I’m a creep.
    I’m a weirdo.
    What the hell am I doing here?
        I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here ….”

So sings one of the alternative rock anthems of my youth, a song called “Creep,”
    by the massively successful but never quite mainstream band Radiohead.
“I don’t belong here,” they sing.
How do we determine who belongs anywhere?
How do we determine who does not belong?
And more – what does it say about a generation, my generation, Generation X,
    when one of its defining songs laments not belonging here … or anywhere?
Belonging.

Yesterday I ran a race. A long race. A 26.2 mile race.
And I have to tell you – I’m not sure I belonged there.
And I especially wasn’t sure about belonging there while running uphill
    somewhere around mile 23.
Of the thousands of runners who signed up for the half marathon and the marathon,
    most were much more experienced than I was.
Most were much more fit than I was.
Most, let’s admit it, had bodies that just plain looked much better than mine.
Of the 3989 people pre-registered for the marathon,
    only 166 signed up for the “overweight” race classes.
For the men they call us the Clydesdales, and for the women they’re called the Athenas.
Yes, these are real race classes …
I didn’t really have any business running this race.
I’m not sure I belonged there.
Belonging.

My childhood home was in a white, middle class neighborhood just outside of Philadelphia,
    not unlike Arlington, in fact.
Just a mile or so from my house,
    City Line Avenue formed a border between my neighborhood and West Philadelphia.
When African Americans would drive through the township,
    the all-white police force would get on the radio and, in code,
    signal to other officers that a black man was driving through.
This was in the 1980s.
These drivers would be followed through the township,
    and sometimes stopped for no other reason than being black.
“They” didn’t belong there.
Belonging.

Last weekend the youth went on a trip to an event called “Shekinah,”
    which is a gathering of Lutheran youth from around the DC area.
It was a fun weekend of making new friends and spending time with old friends;
    of praying and playing, sharing Bible study and worship in new ways,
    of singing songs and knocking on walls to the cute girls in the room next door.
Upon driving home, one of our kids told me,
“Pastor Chris, don’t tell my parents that I had a good time. They might make me go again.”
I suspect that this kid didn’t feel like he belonged on a church trip …
    But, of course, he did belong.
Belonging.

Who belongs? Who belongs here? Who belongs anywhere?

Today’s Gospel is a study in belonging.
Jesus, a Jew, finds himself in Sychar, a Samaritan town,
    where he meets a woman at a well, and asks her for a drink.
But the problem is that Jesus doesn’t belong there.
St John, who wrote down today’s Gospel,
    plays out this question of belonging
    through the way he records the woman’s comments in verses 9 and 20,
    and also his own editorial comment at the end of verse 9.
In short, Jews and Samaritans did not mix.
They did not live together. They did not break bread together.
They did not respect each other.
They didn’t belong together … or so they told themselves.

Today’s Gospel takes place entirely within that framework –
    St John himself presents the story in this way,
    and we can’t avoid it.
Two people who don’t belong together are there, together,
    talking at the well.
And Jesus, who is the Word of God made flesh,
    by nature of his divinity doesn’t really belong on earth
        hanging out with us sinful, broken, unclean, and certainly not divine people.
But he’s here anyway, here at the well,
    crossing all kinds of lines that define social propriety
    for men and women, Jews and Samaritans.
He’s crossing these lines to reveal himself
    as the font of living water for Jews and Samaritans alike, indeed, for all people …
And in so doing Jesus re-defines what it means to belong.

You see, the Samaritan woman engages in a wonderful back-and-forth banter with Jesus,
    ultimately pushing Jesus on the question of where to worship,
    the defining point of contention between Jews and Samaritans.
And this is very important,
    because I’m going to suggest that worship is an experience of belonging
    – to a community and to a God.
And if worship is an experience in belonging,
    then this question about where to worship is ultimately a question about belonging,
    her question at the well is a question about who belongs to who,
    and about the God to whom we belong.
It is in his response to this question about worship
    that we understand belonging in the eyes of God –
        the where of worship, a construct that ultimately divides,
        is not central to our identity as people who belong to God.
Speaking of the blessed future of God’s Kingdom, which we already see now in Jesus,
    Jesus says that we will worship God not on the mountain at Sychar nor in Jerusalem,
    neither in the precise manner of the Samaritans nor strictly in the manner of the Jews
    nor, by extension, in any of the other narrow boxes of faith and worship
    we’ve constructed for ourselves over the centuries …
But instead, ultimately, we will worship God in spirit and truth.
The worship that God desires is done in spirit and truth,
    which are accessible and given to all people
    without geographic or ethnic or religious boundaries …
This, then, redraws the map of religious faith and of human community.

Indeed, in these words Jesus redefines basic notions of belonging – to God and to each other.
In his response to the woman at the well,
    Jesus invites her to drink of a living water that is freely given,
    without restraint, to all who thirst.
Belonging. Redefined.
All who thirst now belong, no matter where they stand or who their ancestors were …
Belonging, now, is a function of thirst.
Jesus, the living water,
    found himself among a thirsty people, and so he stayed there. For two days.
He belonged there with them, and they with him.
Samaritans and Jews. Together.
Thirsty people and living water. Together.
God in flesh, and God’s people. Together.

The theme of this sermon is belonging,
    because questions of belonging, I believe, are front-and-center in this story, and
    because I believe that questions of belonging are front-and-center today
        in our church and society, as well.
We’re a fractured society, and we’re a fractured church.
We all lock our doors and don’t know our neighbors
    and spend more time online than on the porch talking with neighbors.
We split into micro groups, into affinity groups
    of people who share our same thoughts and perspectives and beliefs,
    and we don’t often venture to reach beyond those comfortable, familiar boundaries.
Even in our congregation, our various groups –
    from the Sunday School families to the seniors to the choir to the circles –
    who all do great things that contribute to our shared ministry,
    nonetheless often operate like silos, rather than an integrated whole.
And within the broader church,
    we Lutherans here at 6201 Washington Blvd
    hardly know a soul down at the Episcopal Church in Westover,
    at 1132 N Ivanhoe Street …
Yet the Lutherans and the Episcopalians are in full communion.
We share so much in terms of our teachings and our liturgy
    and the ways in which we live into and express the Gospel,
    and yet, we’re practically strangers to each other,
    in our own neighborhood, in our own faith ...
In church as well as in society, we don’t know each other,
    we don’t feel that we belong to each other.
Belonging.

And this is not just what I see – it’s what I hear you all saying.
Many of you tell me how you feel that our church is disconnected
    along age and interest groups,
or that you’re struggling with the seemingly petty issues
    that often divide churches and congregations and, as a result,
    sometimes causes distress to your families
    when it comes time for family baptisms, funerals, or weddings.
Some of you tell me that you want to cross boundaries of social or economic lines,
    in love for and fellowship with others,
    so that we might live more faithfully in the way God would have us live,
    but you’re not quite sure how to do it …
Why not? Because we don’t feel that we belong to each other.

I don’t belong here, the song sings.
They don’t belong here, the cop in my hometown says.
We don’t belong together, is what we ultimately come to believe.

But we do belong together, dear sisters and brothers.
We belong together, not just we who are under this roof this morning,
    but especially we belong to those who are not under this roof.
We belong to those who are in bed right now,
    those who are working at Starbucks right now
    those who are in other churches right now,
    those who are suffering right now,
    those who are dying right now,
    those who are quite different than us in creed and deed,
    we belong to them.
We belong to them, because we all belong to Jesus,
    the whole stinkin’ world belongs to our Lord!
Them and us, belonging,
    creating no longer a “them and us,” and an “us and them,”
    but creating one type of people – thirsty people.
We are all thirsty people, and there is one source of living water – our Lord Jesus.
May we here who are thirsty come to the table and drink of the cup,
    seeking solidarity with all others who are thirsty –
    thirsty for God, thirsty for justice, thirsty for peace, thirsty for happiness,
    thirsty for an abundant life, or thirsty simply for an adequate life ...
May we who are thirsty seek solidarity with all who are thirsty,
    because we all belong together. And we all belong to God,
    who pours out for all a living water.
Amen.

Our temptation: to trust sin more than we trust God

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 06:28:43 PDT

First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11
Sunday, March 13, 2011

Lent 1 - Year A 2011

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

On this first Sunday in Lent,
    we begin with sin.
And not only do we begin with sin, but we begin with the beginning of sin.
In our first reading, we are introduced to The Fall,
    the Biblical account of how sin entered into the world.
To hear the author of Genesis put it,
    our first sin was to disobey one of the laws that God gave to man.
Now, in this brand new creation, God had already given several laws,
    perhaps not formally formulated or laid down in written code,
    but God put man in the garden of Eden
    with the expressed responsibility to till the land and to keep it,
        a form of law, a command, to care for the earth that God has just made.
And, too, God laid down one prohibition:
    Man was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now, we can discuss or speculate or study why the Lord gave this prohibition to man,
    and it surely could be interesting and enlightening to discuss,
    but that “why” question is not ultimately the point of the story, I believe.
What we have here is a simple law: do not eat the fruit, and yet man eats the fruit anyway.
    Humanity’s first violation of the law.
OK, actually, the woman eats the fruit, but I’m going to give her a pass. Why?
First, the command not to eat the fruit was told by God to the man,
    and then later, after the command was given,
    in the verses from the end of Genesis chapter 2 that are omitted from today’s reading,
    woman was created.
Woman never heard the command from God,
    because she hadn’t even been created when that law was given.
Anyway, when the serpent tricks the woman and she takes and eats the fruit,
    the man is standing right there with her.
Poor Eve gets the bad reputation as the one who ate the forbidden fruit,
    but the truth is that Adam was right there too, by her side (see Gen 3:6).
So, don’t let the whole man/woman thing get in the way of seeing this story
    as a story of the fall of people,
    the failure of humanity to accept the role God intends for it in creation.
And indeed, with the man and the woman,
    and their shared disobedience –
    not to mention the sneaky serpent who tricked them into eating the fruit
        they were commanded not to eat –
    it is clear that not just humanity, but creation itself,
        is headed on a spiral of corruption, deceit, and brokenness.
And on this First Sunday in Lent, this is what we read. This is what we hear.
We begin with sin. The sin of the first creatures, the first people,
    the sin that sets into motion all sin for all time for all places.
Wow. Welcome to Lent!

And of course, we could go on and on about the legacy of sin,
    the legacy of the corruption, deceit, and brokenness of the created order.
Sure, I could stand up here and rail against the moral failures of society
    and the greed of distant politicians or faceless corporate executives …
    but that would be too easy.
I could lament the loss of a supposedly better time,
    or rattle off statistics about poverty or domestic violence or hunger or …
But just think in your life, your personal life,
    about those times when you’ve felt deep in the marrow of your bones
    the power, the sting, the pain of sin that squeezes and maims you
        as if you were a lemon or an orange smashed into a juicer,
    draining the life out of you, leaving you like a lifeless shell to be discarded …
Think of that kind of sin,
    the kind of sin that leaves you disregarded, as if tossed on the side of the road.
Or the kind of sin that leaves you feeling about two inches high,
    such as when you are bullied or taunted in the hallway at school,
    mocked because of your weight
        or suffering unwanted sexual advances from your boss at work.
Or when you’re identified not by who you are but by your accent or immigration status,
    the color of your skin or your religion or your gender
    or marital status or sexual identity …
Yeah, that kind of sin. The kind of sin that really, really hurts, to the bone.
Personally, viscerally, heart-breakingly, soul-crushingly …
Oh God, that kind of sin just kills.

Yet, on this First Sunday in Lent, we hear some good news to us,
    Good News that runs contrary to Lent’s guilt-inflicting reputation,
    a well-earned reputation earned in part by our predecessors in the faith
    who were perhaps a bit overzealous
        in the Lent-as-season-of-self-examination department,
    to the point where they turned Lent into a season of navel-gazing self-absorption,
        in which Christians worried more about their own actions
        to the neglect of our Lord’s solidarity with the suffering and
            his redemptive work on the cross …
Oh, how our concern for our own works can become an idol and stumbling block to faith …
Yes, contrary to the guilt-inflicting reputation of Lent,
    the church in its wisdom has seen it fit on this First Sunday in Lent
    to give us a Second Reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans
    that brings to us the sure and certain Good News
    that “just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all,
        so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification for all.” (Rom 5:18)
What I love about these words is just how complete they are.
    One man’s trespass, the sin of our ancestor Adam, led to condemnation for all –
        introduced sin into the created world and really screwed things up for all people.
    We know about the ways that sin can screw things up.
    We just looked at that a moment ago.
        We’ve all suffered it, in one way or another.
And yet Paul tells us here, that one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification for all –
    Jesus’ efforts on the cross and in the empty grave invalidates the ultimate claim of sin;
    his defeat of death by the glorious empty grave on Easter morning
        is the first crack in the wall of sin and death,
        a wall that we are blessed to see chip from time to time,
        a wall that we know will crumbles to pieces
        when our Lord returns to reign in love and peace in the Kingdom of God.

So we begin Lent with a harsh and honest look at the beginning of sin,
    a tale of creation’s archetypes succumbing to the power of sin,
    and passing on, as an inheritance, a legacy of sin to all creation.
Yet we begin, too, with a promise that just as the sin of one affected all,
    so too does the righteousness and love and grace of one affect all,
    imbue all with a promise, a hope, and a certainty of life eternal with our Lord.
But then we have temptation.
Sin in our first reading, redemption in the second, and then, in the Gospel, temptation.
The movement of our Bible readings today reflects, actually, our faith story, doesn’t it?
Born into a sinful, broken, messed up human nature ,
    claimed by Christ in baptism and sealed with promise, grace, and mercy,
    and then in the course of life tempted,
    tempted to be our own gods or, at the least, to accept other gods,
        or at the least to resist the God
        about whom we read in the pages of our holy scriptures,
        the God who feeds us at this table,
        the God whose voice booms from the heavens at our baptism.
Temptations surround us,
    and threaten to tear apart whatever moral fiber we might have …
But, I believe that the biggest temptation we Christians have is not the temptation
    to eat chocolate during Lent after we’ve just announced to our friends
        that we were giving it up,
    or the temptation to neglect our spiritual disciplines of daily prayer or scripture reading,
        as real as those temptations are,
    or even the much more serious temptations to break a marital vow or
        to selfishly inflict harm on a neighbor,
but rather I think the biggest temptation we Christians face
    is the temptation not to believe any of this,
    the temptation to think that Paul had it all wrong
    when he wrote in his letter to the Romans
    that life and salvation comes to all through Jesus.
That is, the biggest temptation we Christians face is the temptation to believe the false doctrine
    that Adam’s failure to abide by God’s one law about not eating a certain fruit somehow
    is somehow greater than God’s love for us,
        that the power of Adam’s sin is stronger than the power of God’s love.
That is our temptation,
    to not believe any of this,
    but to cling more tightly to our doctrines of sin
        than to our doctrines of grace and love,
    to seek out the speck or even the logs in our neighbor’s eye
    rather than proclaim God’s deep and profound and overwhelming love for our neighbor,
        a love that will certainly wash away whatever it is that is in her eyes.
Our temptation is to stay curved in to ourselves,
    obsessed with discerning or demonstrating
        our moral or emotional or theological standing
    and thus too often unable to open up and bare it all
        – our wounds, our brokenness, our hurt, our sin –
    unable to bear it all for the One who died on the cross
    to hold our hurt and to heal our wounds and to make us new.
Our temptation, this season, is to deny all that Christ did on the cross,
    to deny his presence in the suffering of the world this day,
    and to deny all that he promises yet to do for us.
This is our temptation – to trust sin more than we trust God.

Please, continue to keep those Lenten disciplines of abstinence from chocolate,
    and those disciplines of prayer and Bible reading,
    or whatever else you might be striving to do or not to do this Lent,
    for the spiritual and moral strength that these disciplines can build
        is necessary for the Christian life.
Yet, let us not allow Lent to simply be a season of self-flagellating navel-gazing,
    but instead let it be a time to wash ourselves anew in the love and grace of God,
    to cling anew to the promises of the cross and the empty grave,
        promises that are made for us and for the whole world.
Let our focus be not on our sin but on God’s love,
    not on our death but on the life God promises to us, and to all.
For sin and death, and our preoccupation with both, pale in comparison
    to God’s promises of life and love for all.
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
    the Good News is that we were made in love and we are destined for life.
May this promise of life and love guide our journey and strengthen our disciplines
    and fill us with hope and faith during this Lenten season.
Amen.

Sermon was written after reading Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins (which I was able to purchase at my local bookstore several days before it was formally released). The argument and some of the tone of this sermon was clearly influenced by the book, which I recommend.

Shiny Jesus, and His Shiny Happy Kingdom

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 11:28:42 PST

Transfiguration Sunday, Year A
Matthew 17:1-9
Sunday, March 6, 2011

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

In preparation for today’s Transfiguration Sunday sermon
    I couldn’t help but think of the peppy 1991 song Shiny Happy People
    by the great alternative rock band of my generation, REM.
This song is quite peppy – nauseatingly so, perhaps – but as you watch the video,
    you can’t help but smile as you see smiling, happy people
    sing and dance and come together in a celebration of happiness.
Lead singer Michael Stipe sings the repeated refrain,
    “Shiny happy people holding hands, shiny happy people laughing”
    while dancing in circles with a silly hat on his head.
It is pure, unadulterated – and terribly cheesy – happiness.
And so I think of this song today, on Transfiguration Sunday,
    as we read of Jesus standing atop the mountain alongside Moses and Elijah,
    with his face shining bright like the sun.
Shiny happy people, shiny happy Jesus, right?

Well, no. Not exactly.
I think there’s something to the song,
    and to the image of joy and happiness that it presents,
    an image that resonates with the pictures that Scripture often paints for us
    of a great banquet, a great celebration, a great season of joy and love
        in the kingdom to come.
I can imagine in that coming Kingdom that there will be singing and dancing,
    and praise being given to God though the tenderness and love
    of a new human community formed in love by the Lord who will raise the dead
        and establish a new way of life in the world to come.
But … but atop that mountain in today’s Gospel text,
    Jesus might be shiny,
    but I’m not seeing much happiness or hand-holding or dancing.
No. Today’s Gospel text, if turned into a motion picture,
    wouldn’t have REM’s Shiny Happy People on the sound track.
Because the tone of today’s text isn’t happiness,
    but something rather ominous, foreboding,
    and definitely confusing for those disciples.

It all begins with Jesus taking his inner circle of disciples up the mountain,
    the same three he will later take with him to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane,
    before his crucifixion.
And up there atop the mountain his face is set aglow
    and his garments dazzle a brilliant white, reflecting the glory of God.
Not only that, but two long-gone pillars of the faith,
    Moses, the giver of the law, and Elijah the prophet,
    also show up and stand alongside Jesus, talking with him.
Oddly enough,
    the disciples don’t seem overly impressed or awed or surprised by any of this.
Peter simply offers to make three dwellings, three tents,
    one each for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.
“It is good for us to be here,” Peter says.
While Peter is all gung-ho up about setting up camp so they can remain there for a while,
    the voice of God thunders from a cloud about them:
    “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
At this point the disciples fall to the ground and are overcome by fear,
    and begin to recognize that, oh my,
    something special and even fearful is going on here.

Now, our English translation doesn’t quite render the original Greek correctly –
    not only did the disciples fall to the ground in fear,
    but they fell with their faces to the ground,
    a traditional posture of worship,
        looking down, so as not to look upon the presence of the holy,
        for it was believed that no mortal could behold God’s glory and survive,
        so overwhelmed would they be by God’s holiness.
So our disciples fall to the ground, in fear, yes, but also in an act of worship.
And the heavenly voice repeats what was announced at Jesus baptism,
    about Jesus being God’s son, the Beloved, with whom God is well pleased.
But this time God adds another line, an imperative: listen to him.
    Listen to him, God commands. Listen to Jesus.

Why this addition?
    Perhaps because those disciples hadn’t been listening ….
Just a few verses earlier, but not in today’s Gospel selection,
    Jesus tells his disciples that he will undergo suffering,
    be killed, and on the third day be raised.
He predicts his Passion.
And to that startling, quite unhappy pronouncement,
    Peter responds by rebuking Jesus, saying,
    “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”
To which Jesus famously responds,
    “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me,
    for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

So, to recap:
We have Jesus predicting his suffering and death.
We have Peter confronting Jesus, and Jesus confronting Peter right back,
    calling him Satan for getting in the way of divine things.
And we have fear atop the mountain.
    Yeah, Shiny Happy People this is not.

Fear.
There’s lots of fear in our world and our society today.
In North Africa and the Middle East,
    popular uprisings are introducing a new uncertainty to an already volatile region.
And as excited as many of us are to see a new push for democracy and freedom
        in these parts,
    the violence that has occasioned the uprising in Libya
    and the long, uncertain road ahead for countries such as Tunisia and Egypt
    introduces fears of greater instability, both politically and economically,
        for this vital yet volatile region of the world.
And in our own land the economy continues to grow,
    albeit at a pace far too slow to dramatically change the anemic employment data,
    which reveal that nearly 9% of Americans are unemployed,
    not counting all those who are underemployed
        or who have given up looking for work altogether.
Given the current economic situation,
    and the significant shifts in the American economy and our nation’s demographics
        over the past several decades,
    more and more experts are predicting that mine might be the first generation to,
        as a whole,
    not fare as well as their parents’ generation did or, at the least,
        we will not improve our quality of life as much vis-à-vis our parents,
        as our parents did vis-à-vis their parents.
Few job opportunities exist, mounting debt overwhelms us,
    and few prospects that things will get better any time soon,
    translates to an atmosphere of fear that overshadows many younger people today.
Fear.

And so the disciples are there on the ground,
    their faces down, their bodies trembling with fear before the presence of God,
    and Jesus bends down, reaches out, and with a touch says,
    “Get up and do not be afraid.”
The Greek word that we translate “get up,”
    is actually the word that Matthew later uses for the resurrection.
It’s as if Jesus is commanding his disciples to resurrect from the death of their fears,
    rise from fear and not be afraid.
And so the disciples rise up, and they see Jesus – ordinary Jesus.
No blazing face, no brilliant garments. Moses and Elijah are gone.
    The divine display of God’s glory is over, for now.
What’s left is Jesus, who with a touch and a word of resurrection hope,
    bids them to rise up and be free of their fear.

We know, however, that the disciples will continue to live in fear.
They will continue to be unable to accept Jesus’ passion,
    and in fear they will deny Jesus rather than face his same fate on the cross.
And so, Jesus’ words here to get up and not be afraid seem to be a command
    that the disciples cannot follow …
And yet, perhaps these words – get up and do not be afraid –
    perhaps they are also words of promise looking ahead not only to his resurrection,
    but to the resurrection of all the dead that Jesus will inaugurate
        in the life of the world to come,
    when he comes again in glory to set the world to rights,
        and rule the world with justice, mercy, and peace.
That is, here, atop this mountain, surrounded by the glory of God,
    these disciples die in fear, and Jesus raises them with a healing and hopeful touch,
    and he speaks guiding words of living without fear,
    prefiguring the resurrection that will come when Jesus returns in glory.

We will continue to live in fear – to fear, like the disciples atop that mountain,
    the almighty, overwhelming presence of God
    that causes us to cower and fall to our knees.
And like the disciples,
we will continue to fear and reject the presence of God in suffering and pain and death,
    wanting only the God of the resurrection and glory,
    forgetting about the God who suffers on the cross.
We will continue to fear geopolitical shifts halfway across the world,
    and economic shifts right here in our own land.
We’ll be afraid about the future of our country and of our church,
    afraid about our children and our own health,
    afraid about our safety and our livelihood,
    afraid about the environment and our own moral standing …
We all bear fears …
And while I wish we could simply heed Jesus’ command to not be afraid,
    that ain’t going to happen.
Jesus himself didn’t calm the fears of his own disciples,
    despite the raw display of his glory atop the mountain.
Yet his command to get up and not be afraid is also a promise,
    a promise that our Lord will come again in glory – shiny face or not –
    to raise us up, not in fear but in hope,
    and make all things new.
Our fears will continue … but our hope is nourished, too, at this table and in this fellowship,
    by the promise of Jesus to come alongside us when we’re fallen down in fear,
    and to raise us up, just as he was raised in glory on the third day.
Afraid and hopeful, doubtful and faithful … that’s what we are, all at the same time.
So while not putting all fear aside, for this is something that we just cannot do,
    may we look honestly at our fears and accept them for what they are,
    and strive to look hopefully at our Lord’s promise
        to stand by our side, to reach down to us, and to say,
    “Get up, resurrect. Do not be afraid.”

On that great day of his coming, then,
    we just might find ourselves singing and dancing along to that song by REM,
    Shiny Happy People.
Or not. Perhaps you’re more of a Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World, kind of person.
But no matter the soundtrack, I imagine that it will be a day where God’s glory shines,
    God’s people revel in happiness,
    and the whole stinkin' creation dances in the joy and love of the resurrection life.
This is God’s promise, this is our hope.
May this promise and hope guide us as we enter into Lent,
    and as we acknowledge the everyday fears of our lives and of our world.
This promise and home may not alleviate or cast our fear away,
    but it gives us confidence that what God promises to do in and through and for us
    is more powerful than those forces of sin and evil
        within and beyond us that seek to keep us down.
For we are not destined to stay huddled down on – or buried in – the ground forever,
    but instead we are destined, at our Lord’s call and touch, to rise up with him in new life.
Amen.

Loving our enemies - and our youth - for the sake of the Gospel

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:00:53 PDT

Lectionary 7 (Seventh Sunday after Epiphany)
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; Matthew 5:38-48
Sunday, February 20, 2011

Lectionary 7 Year A 2011

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

Last week’s Confirmation Class began with a thud. I told the class,
“Alright, open up your Bibles to the book of Ruth. It might be hard to find –
    it’s a small book, buried in the Old Testament somewhere.
    Use the table of contents if you like.”
“Pastor Chris,” one of them said, “We know where it is. We read from Ruth last week.”
Oh, crud, I thought to myself.
I had prepared the wrong lesson, the one that Randy Correll,
    one of our wonderful Confirmation Ministry teachers, had taught the week before.
So, while my brain was spinning about what to do,
    I showed the class a video on YouTube of a Doritos commercial from the Super Bowl,
    something I had planned to do anyway.
The commercial dealt with Doritos, yes, but also with resurrection,
    and I thought it would be a good way to start our class.

In the commercial we meet a guy who is watching his friend’s apartment for week,
    but having neglected his duties to feed the fish and water the plant,
    both the fish and the plant have died.
When he sprinkles crumbs of Doritos on the fish, to his surprise the fish comes back to life.
Then, he drops some Doritos crumbs on the plant, and it springs back to life, too.
Toward the end of the commercial, as he is cleaning up the apartment,
    the guy accidently spills over an urn
    containing the cremated ashes of his friend’s grandfather.
Having brought the fish and the plant from death to life with a few crumbs of Doritos,
    he then applies the Doritos crumbs to the ashes … and Grandpa comes back to life.

So I asked the class … is this how resurrection works?
What does the Bible, what does the church say about life, death, and resurrection?
    We had a fascinating conversation, one that I was truly privileged to be part of
        and which showed me that these kids think deeply about faith,
        even if they don’t think about it using the precise language that we find
            in our worship books or ancient creeds,
        but rather use more contemporary images and idioms to describe their faith.
Speaking about death, resurrection, and what happens after death,
    it was no surprise that we quickly moved to the topic of heaven and hell,
    and specifically to what one has to do to get to heaven.
Then, one of the students cited an episode of That 70s Show,
    the popular comedy that aired from 1998 through 2006.
In this episode the family is arguing about going to church:
    the kids don’t want to go because it is boring, or because the church is hypocritical,
    or because they had already met a guy on a bus who claimed to be God –
        this was the 70s, after all.
Dad doesn’t go to church because he claims that he had a heart-to-heart with God
    during his military days as his ship was sinking,
    and that granted him a life-time waiver from church.
After a Sunday morning argument about church, Kitty,
    who is the mother of this loving yet dysfunctional family,
    stands at the door and says,
“I’m going out to the car, and I’m sure that you will make the right decision
    and I won’t be sitting alone at church.”
In the next scene, Kitty is sitting alone in the church, while the rest of her family is at home,
    and sitting in the church Kitty daydreams, imagining what heaven is like.
People are lined up on a cloud to get into heaven,
    with Saint Peter standing at the pearly gates, wearing a white robe.
Kitty and her whole family are there, and she approaches Saint Peter.
Looking directly at Kitty with a disappointed expression, Saint Peter says, laying on the guilt,
    “If you had only gone to church with your family.”
Kitty’s face looks struck with horror,
    and Saint Peter immediately lunges back toward a big lever and shouts, “Down you go!”
    as if he’s about to open a trap door that leads to hell.
The family gasps and they try to hold on to something.
Saint Peter then lets out a huge laugh and then says, “I love that gag!”
    “If only you had gone to church,” Saint Peter said.
“So,” one of my students said, “this show said going to church helps you get to heaven.”
So I wrote on the board, under the heading of “heaven,” “Go to church.”
But then one of the students said, “But, what if you go to church and you’re completely selfish?
    I don’t think that person would go to heaven.”
“And what if you’re completely selfless, like Jesus, caring for others,
    but you don’t go to church? I think that person goes to heaven.”
“Heaven’s not really about going to church,” they said. “It’s about being selfless and caring.”
“Yeah, it’s about following the Ten Commandments,” another one said.
Ah, I thought to myself. This kid has been to Confirmation Class.
    He knows that the Ten Commandments are largely about
    how we live in relationship to one another, that being selfless, caring for others thing.
But, I told them, even the Ten Commandments contain three laws
    that are explicitly about our relationship with God,
    and that would suggest at least some sort of commitment to church,
    to nurturing our relationship with God through prayer,
        worship and the community of the faithful.
Still, though, they were unsatisfied. “Church is boring a lot of the time,” some of them said.
“Church doesn’t make sense. Church doesn’t relate to our lives.”

We who are a wee bit older might bicker with their characterization of church,
    even if we also hate to admit that we actually see their point, to some extent.
But bickering would get us about as far as it got Kitty, the mother,
    in that episode of That 70s Show I described earlier – sitting alone in church.
For what it is worth, this is the church that we’ve given to many of our children –
    one they see as hypocritical, irrelevant,
    and more concerned with old stuff or Bible stuff or ritual stuff
        than with real life, than with the stuff they deal with on a daily basis:
    friendships, family, goals, hopes, dreams, dating, sexuality, money,
    pain, suffering, sadness … and the list goes on.
The church we’ve given to our children is one that they see
    as being divorced from their lives.
And when I say “we,” I say “we” as a parent,
    but also as a member of this congregation and the broader Lutheran church,
    as a church leader, as a pastor.
It is no secret that kids drop out of church at a fairly high rate following Confirmation,
    they drop out in part because they fail to see the point of church,
    they fail to see its relevance.
By and large, our kids – and in general, kids in this “Millennial” generation –
    don’t feel that church is speaking to their questions,
    their concerns, their experiences, their lives.
Maybe it’s not just the kids who feel this way.

Yet what I see in today’s Bible readings, particularly in Leviticus and in Matthew,
    is that God cares quite a darn bit about the very questions, concerns,
    and experiences of his people.
Leviticus makes for great reading,
    but too often we pass it over thinking that it is filled with all kinds of laws
    that were rendered irrelevant by Jesus or by the Reformation or by the Enlightenment
    or by Post-Modernity or perhaps by something that Oprah said …
But Leviticus is rich because we see in it the pattern of life that God wills for his people,
    a pattern of life calls us to live love in our everyday actions,
        to love our neighbor and to care for the poor,
    a love and care rooted in the love that God has for us,
    the love that compels us to live Holy lives ...
It all starts with God’s desire that his people be holy, that we be holy,
    and that we witness through our lives to the Lord our God, who is holy.
And as we go through the laws laid out in today’s first reading,
    many of which echo the Ten Commandments,
    we see that holiness involves some rather mundane, everyday stuff:
    how you harvest your field, intentionally leaving good fruit for the poor and alien;
    how you are to pay your employees, so that they receive timely and just wages;
    how you are to treat the deaf and the blind,
        taking care that they are not abused or taken advantage of;
    how you are to speak of and treat your neighbor,
    so that love and justice would govern the ways we live and interact with one another.
All these dictates, and more, are commanded by God,
    bookended by declarations of God’s holiness, in vs. 2 and in vs. 18,
    and calling forth from us a holiness that is derivative of God’s,
        a holiness that is lived in relationship to others.
This should not surprise us that holiness is lived not in some spiritual abstract
    of prayer or theology or proper devotion,
    but rather in how one lives their everyday life.
Indeed, what Leviticus here describes resonates quite nicely
    with what our Confirmation Class described,
    a way of life that is selfless and oriented toward caring for others.

In today’s Gospel text,
    Jesus takes this orientation of care and selfless living to an even further degree.
I wish we had time to walk verse by verse through this Gospel,
    because it is just so full of rich, counter-intuitive direction for our lives,
    but we’d be here all day if I were to do that …
The whole “turn the other cheek” thing, for example, is not an invitation to abuse,
    but rather a non-violent way to stand up to and heap shame on your attacker,
    but 2000 years later we misread the cultural cues that are imbedded in this story,
        and sadly we misread these verses as if they were an invitation to abuse …
        which is not the case!
These words of “turning the other cheek” were spoken in love,
    a nonviolent response to violence,
    as a call to live in love, even toward our attackers, even toward our enemies,
        even toward our persecutors.
Now, not many of us today have attackers, enemies, or persecutors,
    and so it is hard for us to grasp the depth of what Jesus here is saying.
But the earliest of Christians who first heard Matthew’s Gospel
    in the generations following Jesus’ death and resurrection,
    were attacked and persecuted by the religious and civil authorities,
        and for them these words came as a life or death challenge …
    and many of them lived up to that challenge,
    responding to the attacks of their enemies with love and prayer,
        rather than seeking to use force or the structures of power to their advantage.
And so, love not only those who love you,
    but also love those who don’t love you, those who might hate you,
    and those who you don’t even know.
And greet not only those who greet you,
    but greet with love also the stranger, the outsider, the other.
“Be perfect,” Jesus says, “as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
How do we be perfect? Jesus says it right here:
    By caring for and loving others, despite what they do or fail to do for us.

And so, back to our Confirmation Class.
They understand that the good life, the Godly life, is about caring for others,
    living selflessly, and loving our neighbors and enemies.
And in our Confirmation Class lessons, and in sermons such as this one today,
    they’ll come to understand that such a way of life resonates with Scripture,
    that such a life resonates with how the church calls us to live.
But still … they’ll say that church is boring and irrelevant,
    and many of them will stop coming,
    and I think that’s a shame.
The God about whom we read in the Bible
    is a God that is deeply enmeshed in the lives of his people,
    a God that so much wants to be in relationship with us that he sent his Son
        into the world so that we might get reacquainted with the Father,
        and be moved by the presence of the Holy Spirit,
            that through this blessed Trinity we might know God and each other,
    not just in a right-brained, bookish knowledge kind of way,
    but to know God and each other
        in a deeply flesh-and-blood, sweat and tears kind of way,
    to be in relationship with each other,
        to walk and share meals and to love and to be loved
        and to die and live and live and die together ….
This kind of knowing, it seems to me, would be quite compelling to a Facebook generation,
    a generation of kids growing up with many layers of relationships and realities,
    a fact that is both filled with possibility but fraught too with complexity.
Entering into the possibility and complexity of our teenager’s lives is our Lord, Jesus Christ,
    who comes bearing words of love and hope,
    without being shy about the realities of sin and despair that these kids face every day.
Can the church bear witness to this Lord,
    to the God who comes to us not just through ancient texts and sacred rituals,
    but to the Living Word of God who comes to us in our daily deaths,
        who stands alongside and turns his cheek with the kids who are bullied,
        and reaches out with a defiant love to the bullies?
Can the church proclaim the Good News of a God whose design for the world is justice,
    whose love for his people is endless,
    whose hope for the young is boundless,
    and whose promise for the future is glorious?
Yes, it can, and yes, it must,
    for proclaiming this Good News is far easier than loving our enemies.
For such proclamation requires simply that we love our own kids,
    and that we believe that God does, too.

Be perfect, Jesus says, for your father in heaven is perfect.
Be holy, Leviticus commands, for the Lord your God is holy.
If we find perfection and holiness too daunting,
    perhaps we can start with something more down-to-earth:
    Love, for God is love.
Amen.

It ain't about us

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 07:40:49 PDT

Lectionary 3 (Third Sunday after Epiphany)
Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 4-9; Matthew 4:12-23
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Sermon manuscript as PDF: Download Lectionary 3 - Year A 2011

Lectionary 3 - Year A 2011

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

Why did they do it?
Why did they drop everything and follow Jesus?
    And more than why … how?
In today’s Gospel, we hear the story of Jesus calling the first four of his disciples,
    Simon and Andrew, James and John.
These guys drop their nets, leave their boats and even their loved ones,
    and follow Jesus.
I’ll be honest … on the surface this can seem like a scene out of a bad zombie movie,
    or like something out of an old Gilligan’s Island or I Dream of Jeannie episode,
    in which someone watching a pocket watch swing
        back and forth, in front of their eyes
    falls into a trance and does whatever the holder of the pocket watch says.

For in the Gospel we don’t see that those who Jesus calls to be his disciples
    sit around and think about it.
They don’t stop and pray, make a list of the pros and cons and consider their options.
They don’t even speak a response to Jesus.
Upon hearing the call from Jesus, they just get up and go with him,
    leaving nets and boats and family members behind,
    without even finishing their tasks of mending those nets,
    or saying a word of goodbye to loved ones.

I’ve been struggling with this story all week, because I find it just so stinkin’ strange,
    just so implausible that these four people
    could hear a total stranger say, “follow me,”
        and unhesitatingly respond with their lives.
We have no indication that up in Galilee these guys had heard any news about Jesus,
    whose baptism was down in Judea,
    and we’d do well not to speculate too much about such things.
The text is amazingly simple in its narrative of this scene –
    Jesus speaks, the disciples follow.

So I can imagine that countless sermons will be preached this week
    about how we are called to drop our nets,
Preachers will ask their hearers to consider
    what they are willing to drop and leave behind for Jesus.
Simon and Andrew, James and John will be set up as some sort of archetype
    for the life of discipleship,
and church members will be told that they should strive to answer God’s call in their life
    as Simon and Andrew, James and John answered God’s call.
And while I think these questions are good and wonderful to consider,
    I’m not going there,
    because ultimately today’s Gospel text is not about
        Simon and Andrew, James and John.
It can be too easy for us to descend into a discussion of what
    Simon and Andrew, James and John did when they heard Jesus’ call.
And it would be too easy to get wrapped up into pious consideration of what
    we ought to do when God calls us.
But you know something?
It ain’t about us.
Today’s Gospel text is about the power of God to do something new.
Yes, today’s Gospel reading, reporting on the start of Jesus’ preaching ministry,
    is about the new things that God is doing –
    new things in the lives of Simon and Andrew, James and John, for sure,
        but they’re not the main actors.
God is doing a new thing in this new community of promise that Jesus is forming
    with the twelve disciples,
    twelve people who represent a new Israel,
    a new covenant between God and the world.
A new thing.

Of course, we could have seen this coming.
The great story of Jesus calling the first of his disciples has this wonderful prelude
    in verses 12-17 of today’s reading,
    for there Matthew tells us that John the Baptist had been arrested –
        signaling the end of one chapter, so to speak –
    and that Jesus then moved to Galilee …
        signaling the beginning of another chapter.
Now, Galilee was a rather nondescript region to the north of Jerusalem,
    populated by Jews and Gentiles alike,
    a region that throughout Israel’s history had been at the edges of its control,
    and was subject to direct or indirect control by foreign, occupying powers.
So why doesn’t Jesus begin his preaching ministry in Jerusalem, at the heart of it all?
Perhaps because he’s doing a new thing …
And to signal that something’s quite special about this new beginning,
    Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah,
    speaking of the promise that would come from the Galilee region,
    the light that would shine from there,
        shining life and hope on those who were once in darkness.
Indeed, the quoted passage comes from Isaiah chapter 9, today’s first reading.
But if you dial back to chapter 8,
    you’ll find God’s people in a rather depressing state of affairs.
God had hidden himself from his people,
    a people who were increasingly consulting ghosts and the dead and strange spirits,
    in violation of the covenant they had with God.
For these people Isaiah foretells darkness, anguish, and distress.
But those who had been undergoing another kind of anguish,
    those who suffered under foreign rule in the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali,
    they will see a great light, the prophet declares.
Isaiah here tells of a reversal of fortunes, of sorts,
    with those at the center of it all – in Jerusalem and all Judea –
        succumbing to the darkness of their rebellion against God,
    and with those at the margins –
        up north in the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, the Galilee region –
        basking in a great light with joy and exultation.

From the prophet Isaiah to the Gospel of Matthew,
    the Good News for us today is that God is doing a new thing,
    casting light where there once was darkness
        and renewing a covenant of unparalleled love
        through the creation of a new community of promise.
We see today the beginnings of the unique community of the twelve disciples
    who follow our Lord at times with grace and at times with grumbling …
    kinda like us.

So, what about us?
Today we are going to gather for our annual meeting.
There may be some grace and there may be some grumbling,
    as is always the case when we Christians get together.
Yet looking beyond that,
    this meeting will be a chance for us to consider the new thing that God is doing here.
New members of Council will be elected this day.
    New ministries from the past year will be celebrated,
    and new ministries for the coming year will be anticipated.
We will discuss and vote on a budget,
    and we will recognize some of those who have made extraordinary contributions
    to this ministry we share.
But just as today’s Gospel text is not about Simon and Andrew, James and John,
    today’s meeting is not about us.
What we do today we do in the name of God and in response to our Lord’s call …
This is about the things, the new things, that God is doing here at Resurrection
    and in our community,
    and it is a time for us to discern
        how best to be a part of God’s holy presence and blessed work here.
For we didn’t bring God to this neighborhood …
    we simply built a church so that we could dwell with God for a little bit in this place.
And so we dwell with God here and we do special God-things here,
    such as worship and study the Bible and pray and share Christian fellowship …
But we also go from this place to those other places where God dwells,
    we go to serve among the poor and the needy, and God is there.
    we return to our homes and workplaces to carry out sacred vocations,
        and God is there.
    we find ourselves in the love of friendships and the heartache of loss,
        and God is there.
    we walk in the public square and we wander in our private thoughts,
        and God is there.
God promises to show up and do something new in all of these places,
    here at Resurrection and beyond.
Thus our work today can be summarized by the words of today’s psalm,
    the author of which asks of God one thing:
    that he may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life,
        to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.
May we this day dwell with joy in the house of the Lord,
    and gaze upon the beauty of God’s presence and work,
    for we know that God is with us,
    calling us to be his people,
    and doing a new thing among us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.

God is Doing a New Thing

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 07:59:53 PDT

Baptism of our Lord
Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Preached on the day following the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords

Baptism of our Lord - Year A 2011

A few months ago,
    when comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held a rally on the Mall,
    a lot of people dismissed their efforts as little more than a publicity stunt
    and thinly-veiled politicking just two weeks prior to the election.
Part satire, part political demonstration,
    these comedians lampooned our nation’s broken politics,
    and assailed its hateful, vitriolic political rhetoric.
Comedians did this, because few others had the guts to do so.

And perhaps as many as two hundred thousand people attended,
    to take a stand – and have a laugh doing so –
    calling for our nation to turn down the rhetoric of vitriol and animosity,
    to stop labeling political opponents as enemies and
    to stop characterizing politics as warfare,
    as if our elections were a matter of life or death,
        as if one party were the path to socialism and the other to fascism,
        both roads to ruin and death.
Give me a break.
We’re all Americans, these comedians said,
    and they bid everyone – particularly the news media – to just calm the freak down.
Though it is not clear what motivated Jared Lee Loughner
    to target Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords yesterday at a Tuscon, AZ, event,
    early indications are that politics were at least a contributing factor.
Our political discourse is sick, it is terribly sick,
    and the environment in which Jared Loughner acted is terribly polluted with
    violent imagery, false us/them dichotomies,
        and extreme language that only hurts our country
        tears its people apart.
The way we talk about those with whom we disagree has consequences.
They things that TV and radio star commentators say,
    on the left and on the right, have consequences.
The bumper stickers we place on our cars
    and the links we post on Facebook have consequences.
The fear that the media feeds on for ratings has consequences.
The polarization of our nation into red and blue
    rips at the fabric of our flag and denies our unity as We the People,
    seeking a more perfect union.

Words are powerful things.
We Christians should know this more than most,
    for we follow a Word made flesh who speaks words of hope and of life,
Jesus, the living Word of God, died so that death would have no more power over us;
    He is the Word of Life that silences words of death and hatred and violence.
God has spoken his Word into our world and into our lives …
    but it has not yet been fulfilled, completely.
Just a look around will make that truth abundantly clear.
God’s living Word promises to come to us again and to make things new,
    in the blessed future when Christ comes again to usher in his Kingdom.
For that we wait in hope and we live in hope,
    speaking words of life and of hope now,
    witnessing now to the gifts of life and love that Christ gives to us,
    knowing that our Lord is present in the suffering of this world,
        and that suffering is not the end of the story for him or for us.
We are confident in what Christ has done and what Christ promises yet to do.
And so may we speak words of life and of hope into the world this day,
    echoing the Living Word who took on flesh and dwelled among us,
    who did not let death defeat him, but who rose again,
        the first fruit of the new creation promised to us all.

And now, to the message I had prepared for this day,
    a sermon that speaks in hope about the new thing that God is doing in Jesus,
    written prior to yesterday’s shooting.
May God do a new thing in us, and in our nation, in this time.

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

Many of you have been watching college bowl games for the past few weeks,
    and for those less-than-marquee games back around Christmas time,
    you probably suffered through some interesting camera angles.
You see, I’ve noticed that for some of these games,
    the camera operators go to great length not to show the stands …
    because the stands are mostly empty.
Cameras show players on the field, coaches on the sidelines,
    cheerleaders doing their routines,
    but rarely pan out to show the whole field and seating area.
We see few of those slow-motion replays of the whole field of play
    that show how a certain play developed,
    for fear of revealing that the Big Corporation Bowl Game
        couldn’t draw more fans than a concert of past American Idol runner-ups.
Today’s reading from Matthew suffers from that same camera angle affliction,
    narrowly focusing on two people in the center of the action –
    John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth –
    but failing to pan out, to show us the full picture.
But unlike Big Corporation Bowl, this event draws a massive crowd.
If we pedal back the reading for a few verses,
    we get to the passage that we read on the Second Sunday in Advent,
    the story of John the Baptist, at the River Jordan,
    announcing that the Kingdom of God has come near,
    calling people to a baptism of repentance, inviting them to confess their sins
What we read there, among other things, is that “the people of Jerusalem and all Judea”
    were going out to John to be baptized,
    as were the people from the region around the Jordan.
Matthew doesn’t merely say that “some” people went,
    but by saying that “the people” of Jerusalem and all Judea went,
    he seems to suggest that a massive crowd gathered there at the Jordan,
        making a brief exodus out of Jerusalem to the river to repent,
        and join in this prelude to the coming of God’s Kingdom that John announced.
Interestingly, even “many” Pharisees and Sadducees,
    who would eventually become Jesus’ prime antagonists,
    were there, to be baptized.
John’s pull was huge. The crowd was massive.
Folks from all walks of life,
    even the religious elite,
    were drawn to the shores of the Jordan river
    to confess their sins and participate in this prelude to the Kingdom.
And so too was Jesus.
There, alongside religious elite and common folk,
    in a diverse crowd that included
        pious and less than observant Jews,
        those who supported the Roman occupation,
            and those who would rise up against it,
        sinners and tax collectors and law abiders and Pharisees,
        rich and poor ….
Alongside these, Jesus shows up,
    and joins them in this ritual,
    this event that anticipates the coming of God’s kingdom.
Well, John sure got a surprise, didn’t he?
There he is, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has drawn near,
    and next thing we know he’s baptizing Jesus
    and the heavens are opening up, the Spirit of God descends from the sky,
    and our God’s voice booms from the heavens,
        announcing for all to hear,
            for all Jerusalem and Judea to hear and to see,
        that this one who John has baptized is the Son of God.
The Kingdom of God come near? John, change your script.
    In these verses, we see that Kingdom of God is not near, but is here!
    The Kingdom has arrived.
This is Emmanuel, God with us:
    God dwelling with a teeming mass of sinners and saints,
    who gather together at the river of repentance,
    where the King is revealed to his people,
        starting a new thing.

“New things I now declare,” says the Lord in our first reading from Isaiah.
New things indeed,
    such as a servant, chosen by God and pleasing to God,
    who will bring forth God’s justice in all the earth.
But these lines from today’s first reading from Isaiah are a bit ambiguous –
    is this servant a single individual,
        as verses 1-4 seem to suggest,
    or a people, God’s chosen people Israel,
        as verses 5-9 seem to suggest?
Christians have traditionally read these verses as prophesies about Jesus,
    foretelling about our Servant Lord.
Jewish commentators, quite obviously, have interpreted this differently,
    recognizing in these passages a call to God’s chosen people Israel in exile
    to return to its mission as God’s covenant people to the world,
        God’s shining light on earth before the nations.
So this servant, is it a single person, or a whole people? Who is Isaiah describing here?
The ambiguity is excellent and not one that needs to be resolved cleanly,
    for the ambiguity draws us to see both/and …
    to recognize in the single individual, Jesus,
    the incarnation of the promises given to the whole people of Israel,
    promises that persist in them but which are now too embodied in our Lord.
Isaiah speaks of Israel, yes, and her mission to be God’s covenant people,
    revealed to us now in this new thing,
    the newborn King about whom we sang during the twelve days of Christmas,
    the embodiment of Israel and fulfillment of God’s promises.
Thus it is perfectly appropriate that there, along the Jordan River,
    among a massive and representative portion of God’s chosen, covenant people,
    God does a new thing,
        ripping open the heavens,
        sending his spirit upon Jesus, the Messianic Servant,
            who is the Son of God,
        dwelling among the people whose flesh and life he shares.
God with us.

Several years ago Joan Osborn famously sung a compelling question –
    What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?
    Just a stranger on a bus, trying to make his way home?
What we see and hear in today’s Gospel text is clear –
    God is not one of us –
        Holy Spirit visibly descending like a dove,
        heavens ripping open,
        booming voice from heaven –
    but God is to be found among us,
    walking with us to the river,
        joining with us in our hopes for something new,
    starting his work of recreating the world not over and against the world,
    but in the midst of it.
Indeed, that dove-like Spirit falling upon our Lord Jesus,
    after his soaking in the Jordan River,
    echoes loudly with imagery of the flood,
    where a dove brought to Noah a branch of a tree,
        signifying the end of the flood’s destruction and the beginning of a new thing,
        a new creation,
        and a promise that such destruction will no longer come upon the earth.
What we see in today’s Gospel, then, is a renewal of that covenant God declared to Noah –
    a recommitment by God not only to not allow his creation to be destroyed,
    but a commitment too that it will be made new in Christ our Lord.

The camera pans out, and as Jesus and John get smaller and smaller in the picture,
    we see the massive crowds,
    witnesses to this new covenant.
Today, in this public proclamation of God’s Word, we are in that crowd,
    we are witnesses to what our God is doing in Jesus,
    we are part of the new thing that begins at the River Jordan,
    and flows out into all the world.
We are there; Christ is here,
    choosing to walk with us and to do a new thing among us.
“See, the former things have come to pass,” the prophet says,
    “and new things I now declare.”
In this new year, let us walk with him and with all those with whom he chooses to dwell,
    with the massive crowd of humanity that Jesus graces with his presence,
    let us walk and let us see the new things he promises to do.
Amen.

It Doesn't Matter What You Came Here To See

lutheranzephyr@gmail.com (Chris Duckworth) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:16:57 PST

Third Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11
Sunday, December 12, 2010

Grace to you and peace, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

Steve Martin, the noted actor, comedian, and writer, is a funny guy.
Find videos of his performances on YouTube, and you’ll be laughing for hours,
    often at jokes and references that are not entirely appropriate for church.
Tickets sell out quickly when he does live appearances,
    because people will gladly pay big bucks to have this living legend make them laugh.
And so when Steve Martin agreed to do a live appearance at the 92nd Street Y in NYC
    it was a surprise to no one that tickets sold out quickly.
Now, this particular appearance, back on November 29, was not a stand-up comedy act.
Rather, it was billed as an interview between Mr. Martin and Deborah Solomon,
    a columnist for the New York Times Magazine,
    about his most recent book, An Object of Beauty, which is about the art world.
Perhaps not the most scintillating of settings or topics,
    but about 900 tickets were sold, for $50 each, to benefit the work of the Y.
Even if Steve Martin were standing on stage reading a phone book,
    it would probably be worth watching.

And so 900 people packed into the Y auditorium, and the interview began.
They discussed his book and his art collection,
    just as they had planned, just as the program had advertised.
But the audience – online and in person – was getting restless.
Live online comments revealed that the audience was bored,
    waiting for the comedian to do something funny,
    to burst into song and dance,
    to say something outrageous,
    to crack a joke that causes hearers to bust a rib laughing.
But that didn’t happen.
    This was an interview about his book.
But that’s not what the crowds came out to see.
    They wanted a show,
    they wanted a laugh,
    they wanted vintage Steve Martin, perhaps from his Saturday Night Live days.
And all they got was a book interview,
    and that is not what they came out to see.
The Y, embarrassed by Mr. Martin’s less-than-comedic performance,
    offered refunds to everyone who attended.

“What did you go out there to see?” Jesus asks the crowd, about John the Baptist.
“A reed shaken by the wind? Someone dressed in fine robes?
    Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces.
    What then did you go out to see? A prophet?
    Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.”
Jesus here seems to be reflecting a bit of a disconnect
    between what the people, or some people, anyway, were expecting to see in John,
        the preacher and prophet announcing the coming of God’s Kingdom,
    and what they actually saw in John.
What they found out there in the wilderness was a rather rough-around-the-edges,
    fiery preacher calling God’s people to repentance,
    and predicting a punishing, unquenchable fire for those who don’t repent.
Earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, we learn that John was the kind of guy
    who wore clothing of camel’s hair and ate locusts and wild honey.
This isn’t the kind of guy who would preach
    in accordance to the latest political or theological winds,
nor is he the kind of guy who would curry favor as an in-house religious advisor
    for the ruling class.

In fact, for calling out King Herod on his relationship with Herodias, his brother’s wife,
    John was imprisoned, and later beheaded.
He’s got a different agenda – that of announcing the Kingdom of God from the wilderness,
    from the margins of civilization,
    good news for those who find themselves at the margins of society,
    and challenging words for those who find themselves at the center of it all.
What did you expect to see? Jesus asks.
    Some proper, well-educated, refined preacher?

What did you come here to see?
What did you come here, to this place, to see?
    What did you come here to hear, or to experience?
Is it the beautiful music and faithful hymns?
The prayers and the sacrament?
Did you come here to say hello to your friend,
    or to get your weekly serving of community and fellowship?
To encounter God in the liturgy, and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit wash over you?
Perhaps, simply enough, you came here do your churchly duty,
    because you were signed up to be acolyte, communion assistant or usher.
Or did you come here to hear a preacher, dressed in fine robes?
No matter your reason – and I hope you’ll continue to ask yourself that question –
    I’d love to hear your responses, on email or in person.
But let me turn that question on myself, for a minute.
What did I come here to see today?
What did I come here to see, to hear, to experience, or,
    in my particular role as pastor and preacher,
    what did I come here to say?

I’ll be honest …. sometimes I wonder why I come here.
Am I allowed to say that, particularly from the pulpit?
Sometimes I wonder what I come here to see or do or experience or say …
You see, there’s part of me that looks longingly at John the Baptist,
    with his wild clothing and bizarre diet of bugs,
    and his take-no-prisoners approach to preaching …
And I look at him and at myself, and I can’t help but see a disconnect.
Jesus tells us that we shouldn’t expect John to be a reed shaking in the wind,
    to be blown by the winds of political or social or religious trends …
But you want to know the truth? I am.
    I am shaken by the winds of my church and my world,
    and by the winds that blow through this congregation.
I get up here and I worry at times about what I will say,
    if it will hurt or offend or rub someone the wrong way.
    I worry about what you all will think, to be honest.
John, he couldn’t care less.
I wear a fine robe and sit in a nice office – not a palace, for sure –
    but a very refined office, fit for a pastor, perhaps,
    but not for a prophet like John.
Like John, I am called to proclaim the coming of God’s Kingdom,
    but the way I do it – the tone, the manner, the setting,
        the fine robes I get to wear, the winds that shake me –
    it all looks so different than the picture painted by the words of scripture.
And it is days like this, when I’m called upon to read texts like this,
    texts that reveal such a contrast between me and my Biblical forbearers in the faith,
    on days like this I can get all flummoxed by the questions,
        what did I come here to see?
        what did I come here to say?

Like the audience at the Steve Martin interview who didn’t get what they expected to get,
    I wonder if you’re getting what you expect to get when you come here,
    or what God expects me to give you.

Before you all head for the doors asking the ushers for your refund,
    give me just a few more moments.
I’m not entirely sure, week to week, what I come here to say or to do,
    and I’ll bet that’s the case for many of you, too.
Our faith isn’t a straight and consistent line, as much as we might like it to be.
Our ability to get out of bed, to get motivated, to get the kids together,
    or to muster up the energy and will
    to move achy bones and a weary soul to get to church
    waxes and wanes.
Sometimes we come out of habit, sometimes out of faith,
    sometimes out of a mixture of the two, and that’s ok.

So I’m not entirely sure what I came here to see,
    but I will tell you what I’ve seen, or rather, heard here, today.
I heard the prophet Isaiah’s vision, in the first reading,
    of dry land being transformed into rich soil bursting with blossoms
    and teeming with life.
He saw a vision of God’s glory shining on the promised land of God’s chosen people.
He spoke promises about a day when all kinds of human ailments will be cured,
    and people beaten down by crippling conditions will be renewed.
He spoke with hope about this glorious future, promised by God,
    even as his people were, at the time, held in captivity in Babylon,
    even as the hopes and dreams and life of the people Israel seemed crushed.
From the point of despair and isolation,
    and far removed from the life they were called to live,
    Isaiah offers words of hope and a promise of a better world to come.
Most significantly, he tells of a way, the Holy Way,
    which stretches from the blossoming promised land
        all the way into the darkness of their exile,
    showing the Israelites the way, and giving them a path to live,
    a path that is for God’s people, even (vs. 8) for the foolish among them.
It is a pathway that is safe and guarded by the love and promise of God,
    sorrow and sighing is left behind,
    and songs of joy and gladness are sung upon it,
    and though he doesn’t say so, I can imagine that there’d be some dancing, too.
This is what Isaiah saw,
    no matter what I came here to see,
    no mater what you came here to see or hear or experience,
    because it doesn't matter what you came here to see,
    for this is something that God has given us to see this day.
It may not be what we’re looking for,
    and it may not be what the church in its imperfection and brokenness
        makes evident in its ministry each week,
    but today it is what God gives us to see.
And how appropriate.
For despite whatever doubts or concerns or inconsistencies of faith we might have –
    and we all have them, if we’re honest –
    we hear today that even when we are held captive by doubt and hopelessness,
    when we feel exiled from our selves and our faith and even from God,
    when we don’t know what we’re looking for or what we come here to see,
    our God gives us a way, a Holy Way,
        a glorious vision of what lies before us.
And this is the good news of our faith:
Steve Martin will not always be funny,
    and my preaching will not always be spot on,
    and our will to do all that we ought to do as Christians and members of this church
        will not always be as strong or confident as we might want it to be,
    but God’s faithfulness doesn’t depend upon us.
God’s faithfulness, God’s gift of the Holy Way
    isn’t contingent on us being good church members,
    or on me being a faithful and focused preacher each week,
        though these things surely are good for us in our journey of faith.
But these things do not usher in the Kingdom nor do they give birth to Christ in our lives.
No.
Only God can do that,
    the God who gives life to the dessert
    and hope to the hopeless.
    The God who gives renewed life to the downtrodden,
    and who gives to his people a Holy Way,
    which reaches from a promised future to the less-than-perfect today.
It is this Holy Way that we await to be revealed to us this Advent season,
    a Holy Way that is given to us in a manger in Bethlehem,
    in the waters of baptism,
    in the bread and wine of Holy Communion,
    and in the fellowship we share here.

What did you come here to see? We will each answer that question differently.
But what do we see here today?
The promises of God, revealed in Scripture and Sacrament,
    a foretaste of the feast and kingdom to come.
Amen.