Palm Sunday

Matthew 21:1-11

Palm Sunday is one of my favorite celebrations – and maybe one of yours, too.  It’s fun waving palms and shouting Hosanna!  This is one of the rare stories found in all four of our gospels, so it must have been a favorite of Jesus’ followers from the beginning.

The story is set in Jerusalem when people are gathering for Passover, a spring festival that celebrates God setting people free from slavery in Egypt.  Those who were able to travel were required to be in Jerusalem for Passover, so there would have been thousands of travelers crowding the streets.  As they came into the city, they would have been singing verses from the Psalms, like we did today.  John tells us that as they gathered, they were wondering if the new prophet from Galilee would show up for the festival.

This is a celebration of freedom observed by people who were occupied and oppressed.  They were in a mood for something important to happen in the face of Rome.  Jesus is staying with friends in the nearby village of Bethany, and when he comes to the city it’s no surprise that a spontaneous welcome breaks out in the crowd.  Matthew quotes scripture to prove that Jesus is coming as the Messiah – reflecting his agenda to prove that to later first-century Jews.  Maybe people saw Jesus as a Messiah.  They certainly saw him as a challenge to Roman rulers.  They were hoping for insurrection.  (They never dreamed they’d get resurrection instead.)  Surely the positive reaction of the crowd to Jesus’ presence and their attention to his teaching prompted Rome to arrest him and execute him.  They too saw him as a threat to the peace, if not to their power.

We’ve talked in other years about the fact that Jesus is portrayed as entering Jerusalem from one direction in peace while Roman soldiers are entering from another direction in a show of military force.  The troops are coming to control the crowds about to gather.  They don’t want trouble and they have the physical might to squelch any uprisings.  I’m pretty sure the contrast between military power and peace was lost on the crowds that day.  They wanted an armed uprising that threw off Roman control.  They weren’t looking for a theological understanding of the nature of power and the reign of God.  Those understandings only come after decades or centuries of reflection.  What the story was about on the day it happened and what it means to us two millennia later aren’t the same.  

Let’s start with a parade that celebrates Jesus.  In the first century that would have been a spontaneous challenge to established power.  It would have been a hope for the overthrow of oppressive government and a violent response to the violence of the times.  The people celebrating for the most part misunderstood all that Jesus was teaching about peace and love.  But they did understand what he was saying about justice and the abuse of power.  Their society needed to change, and Jesus represented change, even if they weren’t ready to hear his non-violent teachings. 

 A parade that celebrates Jesus today wouldn’t be a challenge to power it would celebrate the prominence of Christianity as a force in contemporary life.  Some of the conservative churches in our towns are planning a March for Jesus this spring.  This march won’t be a challenge to those things in our current society that are unjust and divisive.  It will celebrate the values of the Christian right – many of which bear no resemblance to Jesus’ teachings.  It will be an endorsement of power and a way of thinking that seeks to control social norms based on a misunderstanding of Jesus’ vision.  I suspect it will stand in stark contrast to the first Palm Sunday because it celebrates the way that Christianity has become the Empire.

Next, let’s look at the role of violence in this story.  The Psalms quoted suggest that Jesus comes in peace, symbolized by the donkey he rides (which isn’t a war horse).  Jesus’ teachings are about peace – turn the other cheek, go the second mile, love your enemy.  He wanted to change the way life worked as much as those who advocated revolution, but he wanted to do that in a very different way.  He talked about forming community, caring for one another and sharing power for the benefit of everyone.  Rome maintained control of society for the benefit of the wealthy through violence, particularly crucifixion and warfare.  Centuries later we are still unpacking what nonviolence means and how it can be used to create a better world.

It’s very hard for us to understand how nonviolence and the teachings of Jesus can operate in a world even more visibly at war in this moment.  It’s tempting to meet bombs with bombs and death with death.  Our world has been attacked – indeed has never been without attacks in one place or another.  The current violence in Ukraine is just more visible to us that some of the many other places at war.  I have no answers as to what a follower of Jesus would do in response.  I do know what Jesus did. He confronted abusive power and called it out for what it is.  He encouraged people to live from a core of love and compassion.    That’s incredibly hard.

Russia is by no means the only aggressor in our moment in history.  While we name aloud their actions, we also need to name the ways in which we too participate in the abuse of power and in violence toward others.  Sometimes that’s military violence, but it’s also economic and racial.  It has to do with the distribution of wealth and the opening of opportunity, with available food and health care and education.  It has to do with how we live within our country and as leaders in a complicated world.  

Our time in history feels more complicated to us than the first century, maybe because we’re living in the thick of it and lack the perspective of time.  So the lessons we learn from Palm Sunday are also more complicated.  They tell us to celebrate – who Jesus is and what he teaches us to do and to be.  Celebrations matter.  We can embrace them.  At the same time, we celebrate not because Jesus eventually won and we benefit from being on top.  We celebrate because we too stand at a moment when change is both badly needed and possible.  Like our spiritual ancestors we hope that Jesus brings something different, and we don’t yet understand what that is.  We want God’s vision to be in control of the world and we aren’t quite sure how to make that happen.  

This week Katanji Brown Jackson was confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice.  The hearings around her approval demonstrated the progress of our nation and the great distance we still have to go.  She represents a milestone in justice and freedom and the fact that we aren’t yet on the same page.  She represents possibility.  We are celebrating what has happened, even as we clarify what still needs to come.  It’s a good example of what it means to celebrate a Palm Sunday moment.  Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.  Now that we see him among us, what will we do next?

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Luke 13:18-21

Jesus lived in a difficult time.  We’ve highlighted all the troubles of the first century many times – Roman occupation, income inequity, disease, poverty, hunger, violence, war, slavery, religious and political divisions.  Maybe we talk about how hard life was then because when we make the list it sounds like today.  What goes around comes around.

In those difficult times Jesus talked often about the Kingdom of God. 

“The Kingdom of God is among you.” 

You are invited into the Kingdom.  Today we read about the nature of God’s Kingdom.  It’s like he’s saying that despite how hard life seems, a better way is possible.  In fact, it’s already here if we learn to see it and to live it.  Like the seed planted that grows into a tree or the yeast that makes flour rise into bread.  Small things can make a big difference over time if we encourage them.

You are often at the mercy of whatever I’ve been reading lately as the things I learn creep into the sermons.  Today I want to share with you something from the book God: A Human History by Reza Aslan.  It’s a big idea and sermons are short, so stick with me.  We know that throughout history there have been many ways to think and talk about God.  In earliest prehistory people seem to have seen God in the things that made life possible – the pregnant female figures of most ancient times, the beast-man god which blessed hunters, the sun & rain gods that made crops grow, the war gods which protected from dangerous neighbors.  These became over time the Greek, Roman, and Norse pantheons, or household of gods in charge of everything that happens. Eventually they became the Jewish god Yahweh, father of Jesus, recognized as Allah by Islam.  This is the God we know and love.  

Behind this urge to know and to name God is an eternal sense that there is more about life than just what can be seen or touched.  That life has a soul that connects with humans and with all creation, making us who we are.  People who know nothing about God still innately connect with something larger than individual life and even larger than community.  Something beyond.

In his book Aslan traces the history of all the ways people have thought about God as they evolved into more complex societies.   There are two common threads –every society believes there is something indescribable that they call “God,” and everyone describes that something in human terms.  God loves, blesses, holds, creates and sometimes judges and destroys.  God exhibits both positive and negative emotions we experience – because we have no way to talk about God except in terms of what we know.  We want to relate to God but we don’t know how to do that except in terms of personal relationships – so we understand God in personal ways.  We don’t have vocabulary for something or someone so exceptional, so we use the personal words we have and then say, “only bigger and better.”  

That is part of what it means to be human and it’s perfectly okay.  I would never suggest that however you connect with God isn’t right.  Any relationship we have with God that works for us is to be celebrated.  But today I want to suggest that you consider adding to that relationship an idea Aslan gives us.  Here it is:

Drawing on his personal experiences in Christianity and Islam, particularly on the mystical Sufi tradition, Aslan starts with the understanding that God created everything that is.  We’ve read stories about that this Lent!  The question is – if God created everything, then what did God create it from?  The logical answer is God created from God’s own being – because there was nothing else.  Before creation there is only God and therefore anything that exists as part of creation had to come from God.  Which leads us to say, “everything that exists IS God” – in essence.  That doesn’t mean that each individual is the totality of God, but that every person, creature, or thing was made from the being of God.  Like a drop is part of the ocean or a leaf is part of a tree.

Several years ago Oprah Winfrey was interviewing Eckhart Tolle and asked him what he thought of God.  He replied, “I am God.”  Which led Oprah to panic, thinking of all the angry emails she was about to get.  But by the end of the interview series she understood what he meant – not that he alone was God but that God was fully in him because God is fully in everything that is.  Eckhart was God because every person is God and all that exists is God.  And still God is more.  This is what Aslan concludes from his study of the religious impulse throughout history.  It’s what I hear when we read that God created humans “in God’s image.”  I offer the thought to you to hold alongside what you already know about God.  In addition to your connection with the God you have come to know, consider that God is also a part of you – of everything – and that your life then reflects the presence, the very being, of God.  The air you breathe, the energy moving in every cell, the mystery we call “Life” is God.

Then let’s come back to today’s scripture and the idea that the Kingdom of God is growing in the world, through the world, through us.  It’s certainly true that not everything happening in the world today is godly.  People and systems have the freedom to ignore what we call God and to act in terrible, hurtful ways.  They also have the potential to act in loving and healing ways.  I think Jesus tells us that the reign of God comes from that potential.  Yes, we live in troubled times, but we can transform our times by the way we live.  Yes the world is at war in Ukraine and many other places, AND the world is standing up to injustice, feeding and housing refugees, offering love in the midst of fear.  Yes the need in our own community can be overwhelming AND we can cook a meal, plant a garden, give blood, help a friend. 

I believe that God is the life that moves in us all and that it’s possible for God to be known in our living.  Every day you are making God visible and others are showing God to you.  I hope you see some bit of that today.  I hope you claim the promise that gives our world.

Fourth Sunday in Lent

1 John 4:7-12 & John 3:11-17

Let's talk about love. Love is all around us. Love is in the air. We easily add heart emojis to our texts and facebook posts and more - sometimes in long chains: love, love, love, love. Love is so easy to say and so hard to do.

God is love. Let us love one another. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love is the very core not only of our religion but of who we are. Made in the image of God our essential nature is love.  But not many of us pull off being loving day in and day out.  If love is  who we are, why is it so hard to be loving?

Let's not start with how we keep messing up these clear requests for how we live. Let's start before that: not with what we do but with who we are. Let's start with "you are loved." God so loved the world. We are bombarded every day with thousands, maybe millions, of messages and very few of them are this:  you are loved.  Many of them tell  us what's wrong with us. You are too fat, too short, too tall, too thin, too young, too old, too dumb, too smart, too poor, too rich, too liberal, too conservative, too out of shape, too obsessed with exercise, too lazy, too busy, too talkative, too quiet. Have I hit your buttons yet? If Goldilocks is known for finding something just right, we have very few Goldilocks moments in life. And when we do, we seldom remember those good messages and instead focus on what's wrong with whatever.

 Into all that noise Jesus' message comes to us: you are loved.

In a happy accident we printed the wrong scripture in the bulletin today - the long story  of Jesus' interaction with the Samaritan  woman at the public well.  You've probably heard that story. The woman has come to the well at midday when few others would be there because she was the talk of the town. Jesus asks her for water, violating social taboos that say a man can't talk to an unknown woman. She was a Samaritan and he a Jew, enemy factions that had nothing to do with each other. When she asks about why he's breaking down these barriers, he tells her to call her husband. Then tells her she's had five and is living with a man who's not her husband. We hear this as promiscuity. It may or may not be. In the first century it would have been about economic insecurity.

A woman without a husband or adult children would have no legal means to support herself. This woman didn't divorce five men because women weren't allowed to divorce anyone. Five men had either died or driven her out and she was forced to accept the charity of a sixth in order to survive.  We don't know how exploited she was, but we  know that the community looked down on her, without empathy for her vulnerable situation. Yet Jesus spoke to her like an equal, someone to have an important conversation with. He offered her respect and dignity. It was an act of love.

Through Jesus God says to us over and over "you are loved." Love doesn't depend on your circumstances or your behavior. It doesn't depend on keeping the rules and having everything go well. You are loved - before anything else.

So love isn't the endpoint of our living, it's the beginning. Whatever love we're able to express flows from that beginning. Because you are loved, you can love one another. The first letter from John tells us that we know about God's love because we can see it in action. We know about God by the way we live God into the world. For us as a congregation we've decided that means to welcome everyone: welcoming all into the fullness of God's love. For some of us that means we cook. Remember the resident of LaGrave on First who asked why we cooked for him, as he said, "an old drunk." We cook because we love our neighbors, some of whom live at LaGrave. For others we make quilts and blankets. We wrap people in love, especially in times they feel most unloved. A few of you donate blood.  That kind of love is life-saving.  Others offer care to family members out of love. Or rides to appointments for friends and neighbors. Or donations to help people keep apartments and be sheltered. Or food for refugees from war.

Each one of us loves in unique ways, but each of those loving actions is a sign of God among us. The Gospel of John tells us that love leads to eternal life. Jesus comes to the world when it's broken and hurting to invite people to love each other. Over the years we've come to think that this love gives us a passkey to heaven - eternal life. I believe that's true. But first it helps us create heaven among us. When we love one another, heaven is already here.

Yesterday my daughter and I were reflecting on how crazy life is right now. People are busy trying to make a living and care for families. Each day brings unexpected challenges and stresses to overcome. When we think we're about to see an easy way, somebody at work or in our family manages to make things harder. Then there's a country running amok and Russian starting a war. Why are things so broken?  I told her I hope it's because we're about to evolve to a higher plain and the chaos is resistance to that progress.  Meanwhile, what do we do while we wait for the world around us to evolve with us?

We love. Through our frustration, we love. Through our fear, we love. Love insists on telling the truth in the face of lies. Love says no to violence and destruction.  Love stands alongside folks experiencing the consequences of poor choices and extends another chance to choose again. Love cooks and sews and repairs and sings and grows and donates. When the world is scary and broken, Mr. Rogers tells us to look for the helpers. We can extend that and resolve to BE a helper. Let's commit to do all we can be BE love for this world. In the process we come to know eternal life.

Third Sunday in Lent

Genesis 3:8-21; Romans 8:31-39

This is the third Sunday we’ve visited the story of beginnings in Genesis.  Today we read about the consequences of letting the serpent choose the dinner menu, better known as The Fall.  Last week we learned that the first humans disobeyed instructions and ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which gave them the ability to know right from wrong.  This week we find them hiding in the garden so that God won’t find them and learn what they’ve done.  Their loss of innocence is noted here by their awareness of being without clothing and their attempt to remedy that problem.

Remember this story is an origin story and not a history.  Our ancestors told this and similar stories to explain why things were.  So rather than starting with an action and describing the consequences, they worked backwards from the consequences to the cause.  Given the way life is, what could have happened to explain this reality.  Today’s part of the story answers many questions.  Why does childbirth hurt?  Why is farming so hard?  Why are there snakes? The answer is that God is displeased with the behavior of the humans.  Some contemporary authors suggest that these stories explain the transition from cultures of hunter/gatherers into fixed settlements of farmers and herders.  That’s an interesting theory we’ll never be able to prove or disprove.  But it reminds us how very old these stories are and how very different life was when they were developed

If we were explaining these things today, we’d give a different answer.  We’d turn to obstetrics to describe the birth process, which involves pain because of the movement of muscles.  We’d ask a meteorologist and an agronomist to talk about the difficulties of farming in times of drought or flood.  We’d ask a herpetologist to tell us that snakes are wonderful creatures, not to be feared irrationally.  But ancient folks didn’t have the same resources we do so they did the best they could.  These are stories we can appreciate and enjoy as they help us reach into our ancient past.

It's interesting that although three religious traditions share these stories, only one sees it as a “Fall” from grace.  Judaism, Christianity and Islam share common stories but only Christianity sees this story as describing a fatal flaw in humanity, the reason why we aren’t and never can be perfect and so we are rejected by God.  In the first centuries of Christianity, philosophers used this story to explain why Jesus had to die – we were broken in Eden and Jesus fixed that.  But Jesus was a Jew and that’s not his understanding of what his ministry was about.  Yes, these stories describe the reality that human life is both beautiful and hard and people know good and bad and sometimes make wrong choices about that.  It seems to me that it’s possible to admit that reality and still not condemn humans for being human. 

The translator we’re using for our scripture this year points out an interesting fact – in this story the serpent is cursed (having to crawl on the earth and be hated by people) and the earth is cursed (resulting in weeds) but the people aren’t cursed.  Yes, their life is hard but the text doesn’t describe that reality as a curse.  It’s just the way it is.  Yet over the centuries we’ve come to believe that we’re cursed – doomed if you will – because of the behavior of original people.  If this story isn’t history, then neither is that understanding of our situation.  Maybe there’s a better way to understand what’s going on.

You laugh with me about how much I hate Lent and its themes.  This is the heart of why that’s true. Lent plays on the theme that we’ve been hopeless sinners since the moment we ate the fruit in the garden and God made life hard as a result.  We were supposed to be perfect but we’re not.  Since we can’t pull off perfect, we can’t save ourselves and “get right” with God.  So Jesus died to make up for our evil.  If we believe that, God will ignore our imperfection and let us into heaven anyway. There are just so many ways this seems wrong to me.

First of all, who says we were supposed to be perfect?  If I could, I’d eliminate that word from our vocabulary.  How much energy do people expend and how much pain do they experience because they can’t do everything perfectly – color in the lines, win the game, live in a relationship, look like a movie star, become rich and famous.  Day after day people do the best they can and feel like failures because the result isn’t perfect.  It’s time to give up that impossible, ridiculous standard.

Second, who says God is offended by ordinary successes and failures?  Life can be hard and sometimes we pull it off better than others.  But do our bad days really disappoint God?  Are they divine punishment for not getting everything right? Jesus says not.  He says God is Love and love doesn’t give up on anybody, even on the worst days.

Third, who says Jesus died in our place?  Well, actually, lots of people say that.  But Rome killed Jesus and Rome wasn’t at all interested in doing it for our sake.  Rome wanted to silence him because he was a trouble-maker, talking about love and mercy and economic justice and especially drawing a crowd.  Rome wanted to end the challenge to power that Jesus represented.  Instead they multiplied it infinitely.  They gave a rag-tag bunch of Jesus’ followers courage to continue to change the world

One of them, the Apostle Paul, was so bold as to completely defy the power of Rome.  Both Paul and Jesus lived when Rome made life terrible.  Taxes were crushing.  Official violence was pervasive.  People were enslaved physically and economically.  They were starving and oppressed.  Jesus says, “God loves you.  God is love.  Love one another.”  Not even Rome was stronger than the power of love.  Paul said, “Nothing can separate you from God’s love.  Not Rome, not danger, not the local governor, not enslavement, not death.  Nothing.”

It seems to me that neither Jesus nor Paul was saying, “You’re not perfect so Jesus will have to rescue you.”  They were saying, “Life is hard and sometimes unjust and terrible, but love is stronger than anything.  Love each other and together we’ll make it through.  God is always with us.”  The first idea takes away our power:  there’s nothing we can do to make life better.  The second idea gives us power:  nothing can defeat us if we live in love.

Our world is a pretty big mess right now.  Evil is destroying a beautiful country and an amazing people.  Only it’s not.  Because people are standing up with courage to fight it, and to welcome refugees and to feed strangers.  The world is far from perfect and some of it is terribly broken.  But even in the face of great danger love is finding a way.  Love is making us human in the face of dehumanizing attack.  In Ukraine.  In our own community.  In our workplaces and homes.  God hasn’t cursed us.  God loves us.  God hasn’t driven us away.  God is with us.  We aren’t powerless.  We have the power of love on our side and love will always find a way.

Second Sunday in Lent

Genesis 3:1-7 & Matthew 7:15-20

For our journey through Lent we’re starting with the second creation story (Genesis 2).  We’re taking it in small bites – three sermons instead of one – and today we bite off the bit about what gets eaten.  Traditionally, this is an apple, although that’s not identified here.  Interesting that although the apple features as the bad idea in the way we remember the story, we still believe that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

Last week there were lots of word plays in the scripture and we begin this week with one.  We ended last week with the idea that the humans were naked and unashamed and we begin this week with the note that the serpent had “naked” intelligence.  Interesting that the same word is used for both.  We have been taught that the serpent is the bad guy in this because he’s crafty, but the word used to describe his intelligence isn’t a negative word.  

At issue this week is the matter of eating of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  God has instructed the humans not to eat its fruit, but there it is in the middle of the garden.  If it’s so bad, why is it there?  The simple answer is that this is an origin story, one that explains why things are, and the author needs it for the story to work.  But it seems odd that God would intentionally set humans up for failure at the very beginning of this human experiment.  We’re told that those who eat this fruit know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong.  Over the centuries this story has been explained as testing humans’ ability to follow directions.  God says don’t eat it, so don’t.  Disobedience is bad and has disastrous consequences.  God says you’ll die.  The serpent says no, you won’t die, you’ll become like God (who knows the difference between good and evil).  Which one was right?  Interpreters have told us that this disobedience is the reason humans are mortal and eventually die, but there’s nothing in the story ahead of this action which says humans were immortal.  In fact we know we aren’t and never have been.

So what’s at stake in this story?  First of all it’s a very ancient story that shows us how people were trying to make sense of their world.  As such it functions more as a snapshot of what ancient people might have been thinking than as a definitive explanation for all times.  They were wondering why there is both good and bad in life and this is a way to explain that.

Second, let’s think about what it means to be able to make decisions about what’s good and what’s bad.  Humans begin life without that ability.  Infants and small children are innocent – a word we use to say they don’t have a framework for making choices about good and evil.  Hopefully they have only positive experiences (although that changes the minute they are first hungry or need a diaper change), and so they see the world through eyes which expect good.  Slowly, they learn that some things are acceptable and others not – they acquire the knowledge of good and evil.  It’s good to share your cookie with a friend and bad to run away from Dad in a parking lot.  The norms of culture and family shape a child’s understanding of morality, starting with simple rules and growing into complex issues.  Children who don’t develop this ability to understand right and wrong and make positive choices are diagnosed with personality disorders and become a menace to society.

So why would it be better for humanity not to develop this ability?  What happens if the humans remain innocent forever?  First of all, that simply wasn’t possible.  Simply by living they are going to encounter the joys and difficulties of life.  Second, the shaping of what we call civilization requires that people make choices about what’s good and what’s not.  We have to agree on the rules in order to live in community.  Yuval Noah Harari is a popular author whose books Sapiens and Homo Deus are rising on the best-seller lists.  They are books about how humanity evolved, particularly in our thought processes.  He suggests that stories like the one we consider today teach us that God is the one who establishes what’s right and what’s wrong and has the authority to tell us what to do based on that criterion.  We’re familiar with that idea – think the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule.  In Jesus’ day the Law was the criteria by which life was governed – the Jewish law or Torah for religious rules in his circle and Roman law in political circles.  People followed God by following the rules.

But it’s instructive to ask who benefited when people followed the law.  Surely the common folks weren’t getting much help from it.  Roman law was oppressive and violent.  Religious law was expensive and divided the people in power who could afford to follow it from the peasants who couldn’t.  If you were poor or enslaved, the law separated you from God.  Interesting that these stories are preserved and promoted by the folks who hold power and get to say what God wants.

Then let’s put Jesus’ teaching into this mix.  First Jesus simplifies the law by suggesting that it’s just Love – love God and love your neighbor.  Then in today’s reading he reminds folks that you can judge the quality of a person by watching what she or he does.  You will be known by the fruit you produce.  (Notice that centuries later, we’re still talking about fruit.)  People can be known as generous, kind, and just or they can be known as stingy, mean and self-serving.  You can tell by what they say and what they do.  It’s possible to follow the written law and be a bad person and to break the law and make the world a better place.  Everything is complicated and there aren’t always (or often) easy answers.  Because we know what’s good, we become responsible for how we use that knowledge and for what we choose to do.  

Responsibility for making choices is harder than just following rules.  The rule says “don’t kill.”  Tell that to a Ukrainian solder defending a city.  An old rule says “women should be quiet.”  We’ve decided as a community that rule isn’t useful and should be changed.  It’s hard for us a groups of people to work out what it means to live in community and care for each other.  But the effort is part of what makes us human and what allows us to evolve as a society. 

It seems to me that it’s not possible for humanity to exist without knowing good and bad – that some things work for good and others cause harm.  The suggestion that we could have been human without this is a pipe dream.  Humans know right and wrong as they experience life.  Whether or not this makes us “like God” depends on what we do about it.  If we define God as what is good, then when we use our knowledge for good, we are showing God’s image.  If we use it for ill, then everyone suffers, including ourselves.  Jesus assumes that we can tell the difference and encourages us to work together for those things that lift everyone up – food, clothing, shelter, dignity, compassion.  No matter what the story says, this is knowledge that we all have.  The question is, what will we do with it?  How will we form a community that blesses everyone?  What fruit will we bear individually and together?  And how will we know when we’re making progress?  

First Sunday in Lent

Genesis 2:7-25

Each year we try to find a special focus for Lent and this year we’re going to begin with one of the stories about creation in Genesis.  Our scripture today comes from the second chapter and is the second creation story in the Bible.  The first one is in chapter one and is actually the newer of the two stories.  (We know that because of the vocabulary differences and because it uses a new name for God than the second one.)  

 Both of these stories are “origin” stories – they tell us how things came to be the way they are.  They were probably written into what became Hebrew scripture when the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon.  Most of scripture has a long history of oral tradition and then becomes written when there is danger of it being lost or forgotten.  So some is written when the northern ten tribes are defeated by Syria in the 8th century BCE.  The creation stories are probably written when Jerusalem is conquered and most of the people exiled to Babylon in the 6th century BCE.  The first creation story shows significant influence of the creation myths of Babylon.  Other stories such as Daniel were written when Alexander the Great conquers Jerusalem in the second century BCE.  The Christian Gospels are written when it becomes clear that Jesus isn’t going to return before the original disciples die at the end of the first century CE.  Scripture is made of the stories that were so important to the identity of our spiritual ancestors that they went to great trouble to preserve them, writing them down so they would survive if the people themselves were overcome by disaster.  

One more note about the first story of creation before we leave it for another time and focus on the second…This story is the one with six days of creation and a seventh day of rest.  It’s the one that usually gets turned into children’s books with lovely art.  We know it as the one that starts out ‘in the beginning.”  But the first word of this story isn’t “in the beginning.”  The first word translates “while creating.”  While creating, God created the heavens and the earth.  It strikes me that this is a small but significant difference.  “In the beginning” has taught us through the years that the first thing ever God did was create our earth.  Everything else is subordinate to us – sun and moon to give us light, water and earth to give us live, all creatures to fill the earth with plenty and then as the piece de resistance the human to enjoy it all.  “While creating” implies that creation isn’t a moment in time – a beginning – but is a process.  “While creating” many amazing and wonderful things, God made the earth we know.  It’s a very different perspective and a bit humbling to think that all we know was just one small part of a vast creation.  Like when you pick up the dining room table on your way to do laundry.  It’s an important thing to do, but not the most important.  It’s good for us to be put in our place, perhaps.

But now on to the feature of the day – creation story two – which is quite different from the first with everything happening in reverse order.  This story presumes the existence of earth, filled with dust.  From that dust the first human is made.  Human from the humus our translation says.  That’s important because the Hebrew says “Adam” from “Adamah.”  It’s an intentional play on words.  (There are two more coming.)  This first human is made of the ground and lives when God fills its nostrils with air – wind/breath/spirit are again a play on words.  They are the word of being, just as now when someone stops breathing and their spirit leaves life stops and being is no more.  

Last Sunday after Epiphany

Luke 7:24-35

This scripture reading qualifies as confusing.  Surely much of its meaning has been lost over time and because we don’t read it in the same way first century folks heard it.  In the paragraph before today’s lesson we learn that John the Baptist has sent messengers to Jesus to ask if he’s the Messiah – the “one we’ve been waiting for.”  Jesus ignores the question for the afternoon while he heals people, feeds people and teaches about community.  Then he directs the messengers to go tell John what they’ve seen.  If this is what you are looking for, then I’m the one.

Today’s passage addresses the hierarchy of leadership.  John is a great prophet.  If Jesus is the Messiah, then he’s even greater.  Yet “the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” Jesus suggests that folks are attracted to John’s preaching and by inference to Jesus because they want to follow the “right” leader who is going to change the way the world works. They are waiting for God to send a Messiah to fix what’s broken about their time and place and they want to be sure they recognize the right person. Yet Jesus isn’t about replacing one top-down system with another.  He’s not about setting John or himself up to be the authority everyone follows.  He’s inviting people to join in what he calls “the kingdom of God” where everyone is equal and no one is greater than any other.

The translation we read suggests that those who accept this kingdom are those who accept God’s justice.  Those who don’t join are looking out for themselves.  But the movement isn’t about the leader, it’s about what is happening among the people.  For some, John is too ascetic and too odd.  For others, Jesus is too lax and accepting of outcasts.  No leader satisfies the crowd. Jesus says it’s because it’s not about the leader, it’s about the community they are invited to form.

Most of us were encouraged to adopt our religion because it’s the right one and to pay attention to the leaders – the local ones we know and the leadership of the tradition throughout history.  We learned to respect authority as telling us the right information about the way things are.  Jesus seems to be telling people to stop looking for answers to their problems in leaders or authorities and to form communities that work better for all.  Look at what’s happening, not at who’s doing it.  Figure it out for yourselves and don’t wait for the perfect leader to do it for you.  God’s wisdom and God’s justice lie in the collective wisdom of the group, not in the preacher.  Not in the authority of religion.

How would Jesus talk to us about this today?  Maybe he’d ask us to look for the kingdom of God among us.  It’s not about belonging to the right denomination or maybe even to the right religion.  It’s about practicing the justice of God in daily life.  We show our commitment to that when we talk about putting our faith into action and celebrate the way we’re light in our communities.  We do that when we wrestle with right and wrong in the world around us by asking about impacts on people’s lives.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve supported the effort in Grand Forks to pass a city ordinance opposing hate crimes.  We sent a letter on behalf of the church through the council and people have written individual letters of support.  For us that’s a justice issue.  No one should be harassed or discriminated against because of who they are, what they look like, or whom they love.  We stand up for friends and neighbors and for ourselves.  A hate crimes ordinance is important because it protects some folks from those who would do them harm.  It’s also important because of what it says about all of us – we will be a community that cares about everyone and respects all people.  When we do that life is better for all of us, not just a few folks in certain categories.  We stand up and say we will be a community without hate, with respect and justice.

Last week in the sermon that was lost to a blizzard I was going to talk about healing.  We want to be well and we want those we love to be well.  But we can’t just leave that to the medical professionals, saying “take care of us and don’t let anything bad happen.”  We have a responsibility as a community to work for health for everyone.  We do that by advocating for affordable health care.  We do that by adopting healthy practices – decaf coffee after church and healthy treat options.  We do that by acknowledging the many ways people are impacted by health – physical needs, mental health struggles and addiction.  The need for nutritious food and strong friendships and a community that supports each of us on good days and in hard times.  We create health for one another by creating a healthy environment for everyone.

This week we’ve been horrified by the war Russia started in the Ukraine.  We’re all struggling to know what’s the right way to respond.  From a distance we don’t have a way to make this go away.  Yet if we want to live in a world with peace, we have to stand up to violence no matter where it happens.  We can’t just ask our leaders to fix this.  We have to support their efforts.  If that means rising gas prices or disrupted supply chains, we cope.  We pray that this won’t become yet another war to end all wars and that our children won’t be endangered by fighting.  That doesn’t happen just by ignoring the news.  Already we are seeing protests around the world asking that the war stop as quickly as it started.  We can join our voices with those to clearly state that we want ALL people to live in peace.  We can add our ideas to the peacemakers’ and the strength of our community to the call for peace.

Jesus tells us that the least in the kingdom of God is greater than the leaders.  We have been invited into that kingdom.  We say “yes” not by waiting to be told what to do but by working every day to create the kingdom in our midst.  If we want justice, health, peace and love, then we must live justly, promote wellness and work for peace.  Each week we sing “Christ has no body now but yours.”  The kingdom of God is in our hands and it will be what we make of it.

Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

Acts 8:36-42; Luke 7:11-17

Today we have two stories about healings from the first century.  I don’t know about you but stories of healings mystify and confuse me.  That’s not a great place to begin a sermon, so I invite you to think about these stories with me to see what helpful things we can discover.

First we can say that the ability to heal was common in biblical times.  The ancient prophets sometimes did miraculous healings.  Jesus did them.  He taught the disciples to do them.  And other itinerant preachers did healings.  They were one way to attract a crowd.  We also know that throughout history there have been skilled people who knew about herbs and their medicinal effects and others who practiced energy work like today’s reiki or healing touch and helped ease pain and cure illness.  So although our ancestors suffered from diseases that we now easily cure, they had some medical knowledge and skill available to them.

Healing stories are about more than just the physical action of being made well.  They are even about more than being able to resuscitate people who appeared to be dead.  They are an announcement that the person doing the healing has God’s power.  If life and death are in the hands of God, then the ability to prolong life and defer death is godly.  Healing stories about Jesus not only tell about this power but remind the people that in history it was prophets who healed.  They are a way of saying that Jesus is a great prophet, the Messiah they have been waiting for.  When we read through the book of Acts we read this story about Tabitha and learned that it and others like it were evidence that the disciples had the same power Jesus had and along with it the same authority.  So the stories are about something miraculous that happens and about someone with great importance.

There’s also a social statement buried in these healings.  When Peter is called to Tabitha’s death-bed, her friends show her all the clothing that she’s made for them and for the town’s widows who can’t afford to make their own clothing.  In our terminology we’d say that her mission is sewing and she’s doing God’s work by clothing people.  When Peter raises her from the dead, he affirms that work and gives God’s stamp of approval to it as well.  Jesus sees a funeral procession for a young man whose mother is mourning his death.  Of course that mourning is the sign of a mother’s love.  It’s also a reminder that widows had no means to support themselves and older adults, especially women, who were childless would soon be destitute.  So when Jesus raises the young man, he saves his mother from a desperate situation caused by the inequality of the times.  It reinforces his teaching that God intends for everyone to be cared for.

Throughout history people of faith have been involved in healing ministries.  Medieval monks created hospitals.  Islamic scholars did early medical research.  Christian missionaries built hospitals and clinics in the developed world and across the globe.  Mother Theresa gathered the dying poor in India and cared for them.  The Good News of Jesus has always included the capacity to care for those who were ill or dying.  That’s an important part of our heritage which we can celebrate.  Last week when we were talking about faith and science, we affirmed that medical knowledge and advances can be embraced as one way that God continues to care for us.  We are grateful for the skilled people who make up the medical community.

At the same time we are realistic about expecting miracles of healing.  Some illness is cured.  Some isn’t.  We want to be careful about saying that’s because God is choosing that some will live and others won’t.  My grandkids are praying for healing for their maternal grandpa who has a terminal illness.  I worry about how his eventual death will impact their trust in God.  So many times I hear folks saying that death is God’s will as if God’s picking a team for earth and another for heaven.  I just can’t believe that’s the way it works.  But I do believe that centuries of accumulated knowledge which make seemingly miraculous advances in our own lifetimes have a godly element to them.  We know so much more than our ancestors and we contribute to the advances generations will make after us. 

It's worth thinking a bit about what it means to be well.  In my own transplant experience I learned that it’s possible to be very ill and still completely well.  I’m not even sure that I can describe what that means to me.  It’s a peace that says whatever the outcome there’s no need to worry.   It’s a sense that when a body is ill the person is still whole.  The old hymn says, “It is well with my soul.”  That’s something we can affirm.

The Buddha’s search for meaning started as a way to address the suffering he saw in people around him.  He wanted a way to help people overcome suffering from illness or poverty or any of the hard parts of life.  After his own enlightenment he taught people that suffering is a choice.  You can’t choose your circumstances, but you can choose how you think about those circumstances.  You may not be able to choose if you are ill or well, but you can choose how you live each day in the midst of illness.  You can look for good, for compassion, and for moments of joy.  In all the ups and downs of life there are choices to be made for better or for worse.  Faith can help us learn how to make those choices for the best possible life.

As people of faith these stories invite us to be advocates for others.  Not only do we applaud modern health care, we work to be sure that everyone has access to that health care.  The availability of medical treatment shouldn’t be dependent on where you live or whether you can pay the price.  That’s why our denominations and our local church support efforts to expand health care for everyone in our nation and to make medicine available to people around the world.  We know personally that health isn’t just about bodies but also about minds and spirits.  Our advocacy needs to be for mental health, addiction treatment, overcoming abuse of all kinds, and all the ways people need help being well.  The people in our stories today were part of communities that cared for them and rejoiced with their healing.  Our church community also does all we can to support wellness for our friends and loved ones.  And we encourage wider communities – cities, states, nations – to place all kinds of wellness in the heart of how we treat one another.  It’s a way that God’s love and power is shown among us.

Evolution Sunday

Psalm 104 (selected verses) & Luke 7:11-17

Today is Evolution Sunday, a project of an organization called The Clergy Letter Project which began in 2004. In response to a Wisconsin school board's decision to dilute the teaching of evolution in science classes, statewide clergy wrote a letter supporting the partnership of faith and science. Eighteen years later over 17,000 clergy in six faith traditions world-wide have signed that letter and many of their congregations now celebrate on the weekend closest to Darwin's birthday each year. In 2021 a new letter in support of climate action has received more than 1,000 signatures and this year's celebration focuses on both climate and the pandemic experience we share. I've printed that new letter in this week's bulletin for you.

This project began to counteract the false idea that faith and science are at odds and that people of faith must reject science if it contradicts a literal understanding of sacred texts. That literal understanding in the United States was sparked by the writings of Darwin and others in the nineteenth century, suggesting that life on earth evolved over millions of years rather than being created fully formed in six days. Since then, some people have equated faith with believing the Bible stories as literal explanations of history and science, something they were never intended to be and were never understood to be in earlier days of Christianity.

We celebrate Evolution Sunday as a chance to clarify for ourselves and others how we see science and religion as partners in our contemporary world. This year Psalm 104 provides part of our scripture for reflection. The Psalm celebrates the goodness of creation as a gift from God. Three thousand years ago when the Psalm was written this was the common explanation of how the earth and its wonders came to be. Even now we look at the beauty of creation and the abundance of food Earth provides and see the hand of God. We use verses from this Psalm in our opening prayer each Sunday.

They speak of how amazing this planet is and how grateful we are for its bounty.  It's not necessary for us to accept these words as a literal explanation of how the earth was made in order to see God's presence in creation. In fact, as we learn more about the complex processes of Earth's development over billions of years, we are even more amazed that so many minute happenings coalesced to make such a magnificent place. Our home in this universe is amazing and it speaks to us of the presence of something greater and more wonderful than we can imagine - God. The capacity to be amazed may be one of the starting points of religion and faith.

Today 's reading from the Gospel of Luke is one of the foundational scriptures in our understanding of Jesus and his ministry. Jesus is preaching in his home synagogue, reading from the prophecy of Isaiah and suggesting that the prophecy was being fulfilled in that moment. The poor hear good news; the blind see; the oppressed are set free; God is visible in the midst of the people. His neighbors questioned him, asking for the miracles that were rumored from other places. "If you're so great, Jesus, show us the signs!" But Jesus doesn't do miracles at home, suggesting that they weren't able to see them. Maybe that's because these folks weren't in a mind to be amazed by Jesus.

After all, he was Joe and Mary's boy who grew up down the street and played with their kids when he was younger. He took over the family business when his father died and worked with them on building projects in nearby Sephoris. Then he abandoned his mother and took off to follow that radical John the Baptist and came home spouting strange and dangerous things about raising up poor people and healing beggars. They saw what they had always seen and consequently they couldn't see new things - healing illness of body or of community. They couldn't change what they had always believed to receive something new and better.

I wonder if the perceived conflict between science and faith in our own time is caused by the inability of people to see something new and be amazed by it. In Jesus' day his teaching was radical and challenged the status quo. Over time it's become settled as tradition. In his time it was quite new. In our time it can be used to prevent change.

Science tells us that creatures and systems that aren't evolving - or changing - are dying. The same can be true of religions, any religions. Unless we are changing in response to new situations and circumstances, including new scientific knowledge, we're dying. We lose our capacity to be amazed and our capacity to grow.

Our sacred texts inform our understanding of our world, but they were written in a time when the world was quite different, and people understood it differently. They are an accurate reflection of the time they describe, but their contemporary truth is in the underlying meaning and not in the details. The stories of creation in scripture don't include contemporary scientific understanding because that wasn't part of the knowledge of their time. But we can make space for their conviction that there is a greater power at work at the same time we learn about how that power worked over time through intricate scientific processes. This knowledge isn't mutually exclusive.

My very Catholic granddaughter told me a joke this week: How does a scientist answer a question he doesn't understand? Become a Catholic and when he gets to heaven, he can ask God to explain it! (She thought that was very clever.) I suggested she could use her God-given mind and do experiments to find the answer. Just because contemporary scientific evidence gives us answers that weren't known thousands of years ago doesn't mean they aren't right or that God isn't in them. We can believe in both God and science, and we can change and adapt to continue the holy work of creation - preserving the earth and making its benefits available to all creatures.

This Evolution Sunday we're asked to think about Climate Action. Science agrees that the earth is in trouble because of pollution caused by our current use of fossil fuels and over-exploitation of natural resources. Al Gore called that "an inconvenient truth" because it challenges our current lifestyle. Our faith makes it clear that we are stewards of these resources and of the earth. We can't ignore the harm society is inflicting on Earth and be good stewards. Jesus calls us to be advocates for justice. We can't ignore the injustice that people with less advantage pay the highest price for this harm. Rather than denying the need for climate action, faith leads us to engage in change which benefits our own and future generations.

We're also asked to connect this Sunday with the pandemic that has changed our lives for two years now. Science has.given us ways to address this illness and reduce infection and death. Scientists developed vaccines in record time and are just as quick in finding treatments that improve recovery. They have given us guidelines for masking and distancing and updated those as they learned more. Some are resisting this help on religious grounds. But religion which rejects science when science saves lives looks a lot more like politics than faith. We are indeed our neighbor's keeper, and we love our neighbor best by using all tools available to prevent disease and promote  health.  Might I suggest that the amazing advances made in such a short time show the presence of God among us?  Isn't it more faithful to accept new knowledge and adapt to new realities than to say "no" to simple measures which save lives?

Our religious ancestors saw God in their time and place and tried to live by the values they believed were godly. Our time and place are much different and scientific knowledge is a big part of that difference. We don't honor faith by refusing to evolve with these new realities. We don't honor God by freezing God in the first century. We can trust God to be just as present in our time and place and live by the values which are timeless. We apply those values to our new knowledge and our new circumstances by asking that they preserve the planet, improve the lives of all people and all creatures, and do no harm. And we give thanks for good brains and kind hearts that use science to continue the creation of the amazing world.

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

John 2:1-11

Our Justice Conversation group uses Sojourners magazine as a thought starter for our meetings. Last month we were introduced to A Women’s Lectionary by Wilda Gafney through that magazine. A lectionary is a schedule of scriptures for worship, and this book chooses scriptures which include women, not because women are more important than men but because the stories in which women appear are often overlooked in traditional selections. So for a while we’re going to let this book guide us to some interesting stories for our consideration.

Today’s story is about the wedding in Cana. Jesus and his mother are there, maybe even his whole family. They must have some connection to the host because when the wine runs out Jesus’ mother wants to help avoid the embarrassment of not having enough for the celebration. We see a bit of Jesus humanity, including his irritation that his mother wants him to fix this situation. She is in effect forcing his hand at showing publicly what he’s able to do. In spite of his rebuke to her he goes ahead and turns six large jars of water into wine, even better wine that the host originally supplied. Ever since, we’ve been referring to this miracle at parties around the globe.

The author of John’s gospel tells us that this is the first sign Jesus performed in his ministry and because of it people believed him. We need to put the story in the context of John’s gospel, often called the “signs” gospel. Rather than following the same timeline of the first three gospels (Matthew/Mark/Luke) John strikes out on his own to tell the story of Jesus. He does so by moving through a series of miracle stories, each one being a sign of Jesus’ power. His purpose is to prove that Jesus is God’s Son by reminding people of all the amazing things he was able to accomplish. John wants us to believe in Jesus and these stories make his case.

We can connect what John is doing to our own practice of naming “light signs” each Sunday. What we are about in the world is the “sign” of our faith. We hope it’s persuasive to others and they might want to join in on the fun we’re having making a difference in the world.

In Sunday School we may have learned these stories as historical, the very signs John wants us to see and be amazed. It’s more accurate to take these stories as metaphor. John’s gospel was probably the last to be written, a full two generations after Jesus’ life and ministry. It tells stories not known to the other gospel writers, which makes it likely that John has at least embellished them significantly if not invented them completely. But they are still “true” stories in showing us who John believed Jesus to be. If they are indeed signs leading to faith, we can ask ourselves, “What are they a sign of?” It's safe to say that this story isn’t a sign of Jesus advocating for excessive drinking of wine, even though he made such an abundant quantity. This story can be problematic for the many folks among us who need to avoid wine for health reasons or who struggle with addiction. Our own church has stopped using wine in communion so that no one needs to hesitate to participate. We use only grape juice. Wine was the common drink in Jesus’ day, being healthier than untreated water in many circumstances. This story is about running out of beverages, not about promoting alcohol. I love the fact that Jesus and his mother were attending a wedding together of family friends and that some of the early disciples were there with him. Jesus’ ministry emerges out of his life, his real life. He introduces the men who are gathering around him to his family. They go to celebrate with friends, maybe friends they had in common. Jesus isn’t dropped into the world as a holy being, different from others. He’s a man with a God-sized vision who lived in a particular time and place and was part of that culture and history. He was real. That’s one of the signs we see in this tale.

It’;s important that they are at a wedding, a time of great celebration. He makes the party better. He participates in the joy everyone is feeling. This story is a sign of the joy that was part of being with Jesus. Sometimes the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry seems heavy with significance. John is reminding us that it began in joy.

So what are the signs of joy that come with being a follower of Jesus? Let’s start with LOVE, a good place to start at a wedding. Jesus often spoke about love: love God, love your neighbor, God is love. It’s easy as his followers to get bogged down with what we need to do or to believe. Those or good things, but they start with the simple fact that we are loved. God loves us. God IS love. Before anything else, we can remember that we are loved and valued for who we are. We can’t hear that message too much. You are God’s beloved.

There’s a second sign of joy in the gathering of this community. So many folks came to the wedding and stayed so long that they ran out of wine. They were having a good time together. Jesus’ new disciples came to the party. His whole family was there. Being a follower of Jesus has the perk of getting to be together with great people. Today after worship we’re going to have a potluck and celebrate the past year. Before that we’re going to gather at Jesus’ table and remember that it all starts with his love. It’s a good thing.

Finally, there’s a sign of joy in helping people. Jesus rescued his host from embarrassment. Our own signs of light reach out to folks we know and those we don’t. When you are filled with the joy of God’s love, you shine your light in the world. Not because you have to but because you want to. It’s what comes naturally to people who are loved and who are happy about it.

The greatest sign of joy and love is making a difference in the world.

That’s what we do. That’s what Jesus does with us.

Third Sunday after the Epiphany

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

In my Grand Forks family we coordinate our calendars by birthdays.  We try to get together to celebrate each person’s birthday, and at that party we plan…when is the next birthday?  How long until we can have a party again?  Will we see each other in between?

In the church our calendar is strung like lights along the string of Holy Days.  There are the big ones: Advent/Christmas/Epiphany, Lent/Easter, Pentecost.  And enough little ones between to keep us moving along:  Baptism of Christ, Transfiguration, Trinity, Reign of Christ.  January is a “between time” after Christmas and before Lent.  In our frozen part of the world, it feels like “in between” as we all hunker down in warm places and minimize the times we have to venture out.  Add Covid to the mix and more and more of us are isolating at home and maybe feeling lonely.

It's a gift that this year the cold between is filled with the scripture from 1 Corinthians that tells us we all matter and we’re all connected to each other.  Nell and Neil have done a great job of helping us step into these scriptures and hear their messages with new ears.  Today we take one more step and remember how interconnected we all are.

Paul uses the image of the human body to talk about community.  The body has many parts, just like any group of people – a family, a workplace, a school, a church.  It takes ears and eyes and noses and hands to make everything work well.  It takes cheeks for kissing and other cheeks for sitting.  Paul reminds us that each one is essential, even if some are better known or more visible.   Some of us have parts missing (spleen, gall bladder, appendix, thyroid).  When something is missing, the rest of the body has to compensate for that.  When some skill is missing in a community, we all have to compensate.

In our little church we’ve learned not to try to fit the parts into some ideal called “church.”  We don’t have enough parts to do everything that much larger churches do.  Instead we fit “church” into the pieces we have.  We build what we do on the skills and the interests of the folks who are here.  We have cooks, so we cook.  We have sewers and crafters, so we crochet blankets and make quilts.  We have musicians, so we enjoy their music.  We have handy-folk, so we do some of our repair work.  We don’t have many kids on Sundays, so we have kids programs on Wednesdays when they can come.  What we don’t have, we do without.  That doesn’t make us less of a church than those who have more people.  It makes us the just-right church for this group of people.

When new opportunities come our way, we ask: can we do that?  Do we want to do that?  If the answer is yes, we take it on.  We’re now expert food-box-fillers.  If the answer is no, we leave it for someone else. Right now we don’t have a youth group or a men’s or women’s group. I hope we don’t feel bad about that. It’s just not our time for it.

Our scripture asks us to value every single part of what’s here.  I hope you experience that value we hold for you.  Each and every person is a blessing, regardless of age – young or old, or the time you have to give, or the number of times you sign the clipboard.

Just being you makes us better.
Thank you for who you are.

Because we are such nice folks, it’s pretty easy for us to appreciate our church family.  I suspect Paul would challenge us to expand our circle a bit.  In our wider community or even our country or our world, I don’t have much trouble valuing nice folks who do nice things.  But if it’s true that we’re all interconnected, then our community also depends on those who push our buttons or make life harder.  That’s more difficult for me to get my head around.

Paul is talking about how each part builds up community, but what about those parts which seem to break community?  How do we think about them?

This week I’m pretty irritated by those who voted against voting rights in the Senate.  That’s an issue I care about.  You probably have a list of things you wish our representatives or other parts of government would do something about.  The price of prescription drugs, child tax credit, inflation…you can fill in what matters to you. How do we value those who keep what we want to do from happening?  First, we value them for who they are and not for what they do.  They are important because they exist.  They are children of God and God loves them.  Second, they can inspire us to work harder and louder in support of those things we think would help everyone. 

In our town there’s a controversy about UND’s new policy of inclusion.  They say everyone will be respected and those who want new names or pronouns to celebrate a new identity will get them.  The Catholic church in our area is encouraging students to boycott UND.  Our council is going to write a letter on our behalf to thank UND for stepping up to this plate and making their community more just and respectful.  The noise about this issue gives us the change to clarify what we value and to do something about it.

In our world we’re watching as Russia threatens Ukraine.  We all hope there won’t be a war over that border.  The soldiers on all sides hope the same.  The situation gives us a change to support our leaders who are working for peace.  And it gives us a chance to reflect on places where our own country might be supporting aggression:  Yemen, Syria, our own borders.  Those who cause trouble give us the opportunity to act is ways to control aggression and work for peace.

We could list more examples of situations or people who seem wrong to us.  We believe we are called to do something about those situations.  To stand up for peace and justice.  To encourage the systems we live within to be more equitable and to support opportunities for everyone.  We start by valuing ALL the people involved.  By realizing that we are all part of one whole – not them vs us but all of us together.  When we value even the difficult parts as beloved and necessary, then we can engage in respectful dialogue. We can talk to one another about what matters to us.  Maybe we can reach a new consensus. 

Even if we need to say no, to impose consequences for bad behavior or make certain actions illegal, we still need to approach that with love and respect.  The banner Victoria made for us says “Hate has no home here.”  That’s true when we are working to overcome the hate expressed by others.  It’s also true when we think of our own attitude toward those we see as causing harm.   We may well need to stand up to injustice and prevent damage to others.  But we do it with love.  We do it recognizing that we are always connected to each person.  We do it in a way that heals community and mends the brokenness for everyone.

Second Sunday after the Epiphany

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Friday morning, I received a picture of a walleye in a text message. The message was from my daughter in West Fargo. The fish had been caught by my grandson, Blake. Blake is 10. He was in Warroad for a hockey tournament this weekend. With school in West Fargo being virtual on Friday, they figured they might as well go to the hockey tournament a day early and go ice fishing on Lake of the Woods. There was another picture of Blake, with three of his friends/teammates standing holding this 15-18 inch walleye. The snow-covered frozen lake stretched almost as far as you could see. In the evening, Nell's brother in New Orleans, was complaining about how cold it was. The temps overnight had dropped down to the lower S0's. Blake has never lived south of Fargo. Nell's brother has never lived north of Louisiana. Are they just used to the weather? Or does each have the ability to be better able to handle the weather where they live?

In the past year I have been to more hockey games that I had been to in all the previous years of my life combined. Many of you know that the reason is because of going to hockey games for, Blake, my 10 year old, grandson in West Fargo. I am far from an expert on hockey. Lots of the technicalities of hockey are unknown to me. I am learning. Often the penalties are things I do not understand. I will ask my grandson, Blake, to explain things to me. A number of times, I have asked Blake why he did something in a game and not something else. He often says that he does what he is supposed to and trusts his teammates to do what they are supposed to do. He told me that some on the team can do some things better and some can do other things better. He says that they do not all have the same abilities, but when they work together, they get more done than any of them could do alone. That is probably the most important thing that we can learn from team sports; we usually get more done when we work together than we can get done by ourselves.

Our lesson this morning is not about hockey or ice fishing. At least it is not directly. To many church people this is a familiar text, or at least one that we remember that we have heard. I am not saying that it is a scripture lesson that we all know and understand and can give brilliant explanations to everyone, but at least it sounds sort of familiar. Part of that is common sense.

We all know that not everyone has the same gifts. Not everyone has the physical gifts to be a professional athlete, or the intellect to be an accountant, or the ability to be a professional musician. Not everyone is a good cook or good at sewing, or mechanics, or a brilliant surgeon. Different people have different gifts.

Over the years, I have been asked to do, or help with, many different things in the churches that I have been connected to. But no one has asked me to be the pianist or organist. I just plain do not know how. Maybe I could learn, but right now, I just do not know how. No one has asked me to be the church treasurer. I just plain am not that good with numbers. Some of you do amazing things that I am not able to do, and maybe I even do some things that some of you cannot do. Different people have different gifts. Paul tells us that there are a variety of gifts.

A variety of gifts. We have heard that. Most of us realize that. But then Paul ups the ante a bit by telling us that all of our gifts are given by the Spirit of God. Think of that simple sentence. All of us have gifts and abilities and all of those gifts and abilities are given by the Spirit of God. If we are able to acknowledge that our gifts come from God, then every time we use our gifts we are really speaking or acting on behalf of God. Don't get hung up on the word gift. This is not like a wrapped present. This usage of the word gift is really anything given to us without our earning it. So, baking on behalf of God. Singing on behalf of God. Doing repairs on behalf of God. And the list could go on and on.

I have heard a number of sermons and Bible Studies that have looked at this text. Often, I have heard people get hung up on Paul's listing of a variety of gifts. But, the emphasis is on everyone having a gift or gifts, and that the gifts all come from the same Spirit-the Spirit of God. The emphasis is not on each individual gift. This is not Paul giving us a comprehensive listing of all the gifts that anyone and everyone has received or will ever receive from God. This is a listing of some examples.

If I ask you what you saw on your church today, you will be able to tell me some things. It is very unlikely that you would be able to tell me everything that you saw on the way to church. And if someone was riding with you, their listing will be different than yours. Paul is trying to explain what he has been telling us, and so he gives us some examples. We have examples here of gifts from God.

Sometimes people get hung up on which gifts are more important. Paul is not giving us a listing that either comprehensive, all encompassing, or in an order of some hierarchy. He gives us some examples.

The purpose of the gifts is not whose is the best, but that they are all from the same spirit, the Spirit of God, AND that they are all given for the common good. There is no attempt here to define each of these gifts listed. The emphasis is on all being given gifts from the same Spirit and that all the gifts are given for the common good.

Look around at the people that you see today. If God gives gifts for the common good, then they are for the common good of the Body of Christ, the believers in Christ. They are gifts for us to use for the benefit of all of God's people, which means for everyone. They are for all of us as the Family of God. They are for all of us. They are not for the purpose of dividing people or excluding people. They are for all of us. They are all given from the same spirit, the Spirit of God. They are all for the same purpose, the common good of all.

May each of us be able to always use our gifts and abilities for the common good of all-in our families, our church,
or community, and even our world. Amen.

— Pastor Neil Lindorff

First Sunday after the Epiphany

The Baptism of our Lord

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

About 95% of the time, I loved, loved, loved teaching confirmation classes. The kids were great, if not always attentive, kind, if not always to each other, smart, even if they are smarty, at points of the day, depending on their sugar levels. It was really a privilege to teach them and to learn from them and I mean this with all my heart. And I miss it. I don't miss a whole lot of things about professional, called ministry, but I miss the kids, little ones and those who fall prey to my confirmation classes.

Sometimes, though, in the noise and giggles and competition of the classroom, it would become apparent to me that what I am teaching is so completely foreign to them that I feel like I am on a hill far, far, far away shouting over a storm and they cannot hear me. I don't mean that to say that the preparations for confirmation class that began when their parents taught them their first prayer at bedtime, or the church school teacher taught them to sing, Jesus Loves Me, didn't happen. It’s just that I would get them for an hour a week and the rest of the world got them the other 167 hours a week and so who do you think they listen to the most? Or even got it when I told them things that sound like I am talking about life on another planet. Or at least about someone else, not them.

And then, heaven only knows, sometimes we in church get it wrong too. Not totally, not intentionally, but we put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

Like this Christmas. We spent a great deal of time celebrating and giving thanks to God for the incarnation, the becoming flesh, the dwelling among us, the absolute miracle of God choosing to become close to us by becoming like us: human, a child, born of a poor but obedient mother and a brave, but overwhelmed father. Amazing, we say. What was God thinking? We say. Emmanuel, we sing. Okay. Got it.

And then, we go to the baptism of Jesus. One Sunday. Done and over. And when I teach about the baptism of Jesus, the connection between that event and their own baptisms, and our baptisms, and the discussion gets rerouted to the ways and means side of their brain: why do we baptize infants and other churches don't, and why do they immerse and we pour and the other church sprinkles? You were immersed? You mean your whole head? What if they held you under too long? Point: when I asked one student, why he or she was baptized as an infant, the answer was, I guess my parents weren't thinking clearly. The awesomeness of the baptism gets messed up with the means of delivery and the one baptism we proclaim in the Apostle’s Creed gets fractured by tradition and preference.

And they miss it: this is how you are like Jesus, the beloved, with whom God is well pleased. The incarnation says, this is how Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity is like us, born a baby, had a family, went to school, learned a trade, had friends, etc. Baptism is how you are like Jesus. Baptism is about identity. As in Mark, the voice from heaven is addressed to Jesus in the first person: "You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased." Baptism teaches us who we are - God's beloved children - and confers upon us the promise of God's unconditional regard. In an era when so many of the traditional elements of identity-construction have been diminished - we change jobs and careers with frequency, most of us have multiple residences rather grown up and live in a single community, fewer families remain intact - there is a craving to figure out just who we are. In response to this craving and need, baptism reminds us that we discover who we are in relation to whose we are, God's beloved children. We belong to God's family, and baptism is a tangible sign of that. Remember, I shout over the storm, whose you are. And the other 167 hours a week, everyone else tries to tell them, you are the jock, you are the Barbie, you are the outcast, you are the mess up, you are what we can sell you, you are just like your grandpa and that ain't all good.

I don't want our kids to confirm their baptism,
but remember it, every day. You, too.

I want them to remember that it matters little how it happens, because we have our beliefs and our preferences and our traditions, but this is God's work. Baptism is God's work and that is what I want them to remember.

Notice, interestingly, that in Luke's account John does not actually baptize Jesus. John is in prison. Who, then, baptizes Jesus? The Holy Spirit! In fact, it's the same Spirit that baptizes us! Baptism, then, is wholly God's work that we may have confidence that no matter how often we fall short or fail, nothing that we do, or fail to do, can remove the identity that God conveys as a gift. Our relationship with God, that is, is the one relationship in life we can't screw up precisely because we did not establish it. We can neglect this relationship, we can deny it, run away from it, ignore it, but we cannot destroy it, for God loves us too deeply and completely to ever let us go. I shout over the storm, people are going to leave you, people are going to disappoint you, people are going to love you as long as you love them back or are young or think like them ... but you can depend on your relationship with God to be solid, no matter what. That is that grace, we like to talk about. In fact, trusting that this relationship is in God's hands, we are freed to give ourselves wholly and completely to the other important relationships in our lives, which means no matter what else we may be, we are still God's.

I was up against those other 167 hours in a week, with people like you too, not just teens in cofirmation classes. Our pastor gets us one hour a week and the world gets us all the rest. I want you to remember your baptism, too, when you are not sure who you are or if who you are is enough for anyone else, or if you matter to anyone else, or if you are too lost or too old or too sick for anyone else to care. Or if God is calling you to do something great and you want to hide behind excuses. Or if God is holding you while you rest, so you can go hold someone else in God's name and let them rest.

I have not told you anything you don't know this morning. I'm retired and I don't have to be clever any more. But I do think about how hard it is to sort through the identities that our world, our culture, our history gives us. We are cancer survivors, we are abuse victims, we are strivers for justice, we are over comers of hardships, we are watchers of the world, a lot of times, we are hope bearers once in a while. Where is the room in our lives to remember we are God's? And that identity can be the source of tremendous strength and wisdom and I believe I, we need that nowadays.

I want you to know that same spirit that baptized Jesus made you God's beloved. That is very special. Hold on to that, every hour, every week, every year. That is the challenge and the good news for today.

— Pastor Nell Lindorff

Luke 2:41-52

Of the four Gospels in our Bibles, only Luke mentions Jesus’ childhood, giving us two stories.  (The Infancy Gospel of Thomas tells stories about Jesus’ early years, but they are clearly invented – showing a petulant child using magical powers to get his way until the neighbors must ask his family to move to another village because their son isn’t safe to have around.)  We don’t often read Luke’s stories because they fall between Christmas and Epiphany when many of us are traveling, and the church is busy with other things.  So today we enjoy this story and unravel it a little to see what it teaches us.

It’s clear that Jesus came from a pious family.  They travel to the Temple in Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Passover.  (We also learn that they are probably poor.  There are three festivals each year requiring Temple attendance – Passover, and the two harvest festivals.  One of these falls in spring at the time we call Pentecost and the other comes in the fall, now called the festival of booths. Jesus family attended only one, either because they couldn’t afford to go three times or because they weren’t farmers and so didn’t have harvest to tithe.)

Jesus’ family travels in the company of family and friends, telling us that Jesus grew up in a community that valued their faith and traditions.  There was a village raising him to be a good Jewish man.  At twelve he would have been considered a man religiously, having studied scripture throughout his life and now taking his place among the men as a reader in the synagogue.  Clearly, he cared about scripture because he spent several days in the Temple listening to the scholars’ debate what tangled passages might mean and joined in the conversation.  Luke wants us to know that Jesus had the authority of knowledge behind his teachings. 

This story tells us that Jesus is also human.  He may be religiously mature at 12, but he’s still a boy.  His parents are happy for him to walk home with his friends, but when they camp for the night and can’t find him, they are naturally upset.  They walk a full day back to the big city to look for him – for three days.  Eventually they find him talking with the scholars in the Temple.  No word here about where he slept or what he ate all that time.  And when they do find him and share their frustration and fear, he brushes them off.  “Didn’t you know I had to be here?”  As if it would be normal to look for a boy among the powerful scholars.  There are volumes written about how Jesus was human but without sin.  Whenever I read this story, I’m convinced that’s a lot of men talking after the fact.  Any mother knows that this was a naughty boy.  If one of our children did something like this, they’d never again see a video game and they’d be grounded until graduation.  Maybe it’s okay for Jesus to just be human.  Later in life we’ll see him angry, frustrated, tired, but also loving and laughing and human in many other ways.

Our story tells us that Mary treasures these stories from her son’s childhood, and surely remembered them twenty years later when he began his public ministry.  The roots of that ministry were planted in these early years.  They are deep in scripture and in the faith community.  The are fed by his mother’s vision for justice and by his father’s struggle to support his family in the poverty of being a carpenter in hard times.  Jesus’ faith comes from his life and his message grows out of his experiences.  That message is also formed by his deep conviction that God is a part of that life and always fully present in it.

We’ve talked often about how hard life was in first century Palestine.  Encouraged by their religious leaders, the people longed for a Messiah who would come from God to rescue them.  They were waiting for God to clean up what was a big mess in daily life.  It’s sometimes convenient for people in power to suggest that they can’t do anything about what’s broken in society but must wait for God to make improvements.  Jesus had a very different message.  He told people that God’s love was already powerful among them, and they didn’t need to wait.  A new way of living – a Godly way of living – was available to them right now.  Then he showed them what that looked like:  those with bread shared with the hungry; those with two robes gave one away to clothe a neighbor; people ostracized because of illness could be healed and re-enter the community; those who lived in the margins (women, beggars, slaves) could be treated with respect and given dignity.  Jesus challenged the authority of those who had the opportunity to make change and protected their own power rather than healing the community. 

The story of the earliest followers of Jesus is the story of those who took his message seriously and lived by it.  They formed communities that cared for one another.  The story of Christmas as we tell it is about waiting for God.  It’s also about noticing that God is already here.  God isn’t delaying the time when God will fix the world for us.  God is waiting for us to live in a different way.  When we remember the invitation to love one another, we create that way of life.  We talk at Christmas about God taking on human flesh and living among us.  Today we are that human flesh and we make God visible in our lives through our actions.

In our time we continue the work of first century Jesus followers through many small acts of kindness.  We believe we bring light to the world in simple ways that have big impact and we celebrate that every Sunday.  One difference between our time and the first century is that we have vastly more power than most of those folks ever imagined.  Yes, we work in small, personal ways, but we also have influence on policy – we have a voice and a vote and the freedom to use both.  In our century the message of Christianity to government and society has been highjacked by the Evangelical movement.  Theirs is a message of protecting wealth and giving power to the few.  They want to create a rulebook which controls individual choice and flaunts our common responsibility to care for those who struggle.  It’s a message of exclusion and judgment. 

In my childhood mainline Christianity had influence and it’s time that we took it back.  What we can’t do as individuals, we can do through community and government.  We can reclaim the vision of Jesus that’s not about judgment but about justice, not about power but about equality and dignity for everyone.  Jesus wanted to level the field so that everyone ate and had health care, everyone could succeed so the community was lifted up together.  His encouragement to “love one another” is how we love God.  Sometimes we’re told that vision isn’t realistic and will never work in the “real” world.  I say it’s not a failed vision, it’s a forgotten vision and it’s time we remembered.  It’s time to make some holy noise and get in some good trouble to change what’s “real.”

This doesn’t mean that God has abandoned us to take care of ourselves on our own.  It means that God has always been here within us, always moved among us.  God acts through us to re-create life in the image we call holy.  That is the celebration of Christmas that lasts all year.

Forth Sunday of Advent

Micah 5:2-5; Luke 1:46-55

Today we come to the end of our Avent journey for this year.  We have been waiting.  We wait for Christmas.  We wait for God to enter into our world and transform it.  And while we wait, we get ready.  We shop and bake and decorate and travel and send greetings near and far.  We have been challenged to expect peace, to watch with hope, to find joy, and today to do it all with love. 

In the midst of all there is to do, sometimes love gets lost.  We can forget that all this shopping and cooking and connecting is really about the people we care about.  Sometimes we expect more of friends and family than they are able to deliver and we’re disappointed.  Sometimes they expect more of us than we have to give and we’re frustrated.  If we strip away all the expectations that this holiday carries with it, we’re left with the people who matter most in our lives.  And with love.

What we feel for family is also true of our relationship with an incredibly complex and messy world.  We have so many hopes for what this life will be.  We long for peace, for justice, for equality.  We want our neighbors to act with compassion and mercy.  We expect people to be lifted up and given a chance to succeed and then to turn around and lift up those who follow.  We want this world to be God-filled and holy.  Usually, we’re disappointed or frustrated.  We ask the world to be perfect and it never is.  We feel like the world asks us as individuals and as a community to be more perfect than we’ve ever managed and we rarely pull it off.  Maybe all the world really asks of us is that we love it the best we can.

In today’s readings we hear from the prophets Micah and Mary.  (Mary usually just gets to be a mother, but today she’s a prophet too.)  Although they lived centuries apart they shared a common vision of good things for their people.  They ask us to carry that vision in our century.  It’s a vision of peace and freedom.  A vision of people living without hunger, without illness, without fear.  Mary taught that vision to her son Jesus and he shared it with the people of his time.  They came to listen and to hope.  But it’s not a vision that drops out of heaven, sent from God.  It’s a vision God helps us create by living in community and caring for one another.  It’s about how the world changes when we dare to love and to be loving.

Last week we were reminded that this vision of the way things are meant to be isn’t a burden, it’s a joy.  It’s a joy because it is born in love for one another and it rises up as we live that love day by day.  It’s rooted in love because God is love and at the core to be alive is to love and to be loved.  Any place where love has been set aside or pushed down, life is broken.  We are called to clear away and heal the broken places until love can thrive again.  That’s called new life.  It’s what Jesus and Christmas are about.

I encourage you, no matter how much you have left to do, to leave space to just love.  Love yourself.  Love those around you.  Love the world.  Let the rest on your to-do list take second place.

Then in the year ahead let’s commit ourselves and our church to the love of God coming among us again and again through Jesus and his vision.  His Father’s vision.  His mother’s vision.  God’s vision for peace, hope, joy and love for all.

There is so much to do.  So much to fix.  So much to make new.  All of it begins simply with love.  We care for one another and our whole world because we love.  Scripture encourages us to “let all that you do be done in love.”  There’s isn’t a better place to start.

Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 12: 2-6 & Luke 3: 7-18

This third Sunday in Advent we celebrate that we are waiting for something to happen with great joy.  The very best things we wait for are joyful – the birth of a child, the arrival of holiday guests, Santa Claus.  This Advent we’ve been remembering that first century and twenty-first century folks wait for the world to be more hopeful, more peaceful, and more joyful.  We expect what’s broken to be mended and what’s oppressive and unjust to be changed.  Meanwhile, we wait with joy.

Many spiritual leaders tell us that what we think impacts what happens in our lives.  If we expect good things, then good things happen.  Maybe not because we change the course of history or our lives but because we see what happens through new eyes.  In a very troubled first century Jesus encouraged people to act with mercy and compassion toward one another and called leaders to task for not protecting those who were poor and hungry.  I suspect that people flocked to him because he was teaching them that by living in a better way, they could create community even when they couldn’t change their external circumstances or their government.  A new way of living begins with a new vision for life.  A new vision for life is created with joy.

This is the second week we’ve had scripture about John the Baptizer.  In his day people came to hear John preach because, like Jesus who followed him, he told them that they had the power to improve their lives and their world.  He called them to be honest and just and generous and told them that if they did those things they would see the benefit of change all around them.  People want the world to be better and these prophets empowered folks to create the change they wanted.

We too are facilitators of change, creating a better world for ourselves and others.  It’s one of most important ways that we live out our faith.  We don’t just wait for God to fix something, we work to make things better.  Sometimes we’re discouraged because we can’t wave a magic wand and fix the whole world.  Joyful eyes can help us see the difference we are making, even when it seems small.

Our ELCA Advent guidebook has been reminding us that as we wait through Advent we are standing along side those who are waiting for much more than Christmas.  They are waiting for the necessities of life, sometimes with little hope of receiving them.  Last week (when we were kept away by snow) the focus was on those without shelter.  Even in our own community some people have no place to call home.  Some are in emergency shelters and others stay a few days at a time with friends.  In winter lack of shelter is life-threatening. 

This week we are asked to focus on people who are hungry.  Our study reminds us that in 2019 the Department of Agriculture reduced SNAP benefits for many people, encouraging people to be self-sufficient.  With the pandemic many of those benefits have been restored, along with significant aid to families who were struggling as the world has been turned upside down.  There’s a real difference in philosophy between these two approaches. 

Often our American culture has lifted up self-sufficiency as the ideal and glorified “self-made” folks as heroes.  It’s a myth that anyone can get ahead with hard work.  Sometimes that’s true.  Sometimes it’s also true that no amount of work can close the gap between poverty and wealth or between ethnic groups with and without advantage.  Rugged individualism isn’t a Christian value.  John and Jesus didn’t talk about getting ahead on your own.  They talked about building community and caring for each other.  In hard times they encouraged people to watch out for each other.  In our times that’s still a value of our faith.

We have become a church that feeds people.  We’ve made meals happen at LaGrave on First.  We take our turn at the Love Feast.  Last week I made 11 pounds of ham balls for St. Nicholas Day at Christus Rex and this week I made 11 pounds more for LaGrave birthday night.  We also help in other ways.  A year ago Roberta raised thousands of dollars for Homeless Helpers.  This week we made the down payment on a dental bill.  Over time, we’ve met a lot of needs for many people.

Why do we do these things?  At least in part we do them because they make us happy.  It’s joyful to meet needs.  It’s joyful to make our faith real by making the world a better place.  Being a community isn’t a burden, it’s a joy.  Taking care of one another isn’t an obligation, it’s a privilege.  When any one person is lifted up, we all rise.

Our nation is having a great debate right now about how we will see the role of government and how we will define community.  Some churches are vocal about protecting the rights of the wealthy and reducing the role of government in our lives.  It’s important that we clarify that faith isn’t an individual focus and never has been.  Faith is about community and the things that make our common life better.  It’s about justice for everyone, especially those who have experienced injustice.  It’s about respect for all people, particularly those who haven’t been acknowledged.  It’s about being sure that everyone is housed, everyone eats, everyone has access to education and health care.  Providing those things for us all isn’t an imposition, it’s the way Jesus showed us and we can do it gladly.

We are waiting.  We are hoping.  We are joyful.

What brings you joy?

Second Sunday of Advent

Luke 1:68-79 & 3:1-5

We are in the new season of Advent when our focus is on waiting for something important to happen.  Sometimes in this season we lose the sense of anticipation because we’re so busy making things happen – shopping, decorating, baking, partying.  It’s good for us to pause a moment and remember that we are expecting something to change – some improvement which Advent promises is just around the corner.

Luke locates our scripture today in a very specific time and place by listing off all the people who are in charge of the world – the rulers and the priest who have control over how the system works, or doesn’t work, for everyone.  In spite of, or maybe because of, these people this is a time of great fear and violence.  Roman soldiers patrol cities and towns and keep order by randomly harming people.  A population that’s afraid may be more easily controlled.  They will obey oppressive laws and taxes because they fear the consequences of disobedience.  If innocent people can be punished, guilty folk are in even more danger.  It wasn’t a good time to be alive.

Into this troubled time comes the prophet John, whom we know as the baptizer.  He quotes the Jewish prophets who promise peace and well-being to the people.  He is an unknown person, living in poverty, who stands in stark contrast to the people of power.  He preaches peace, not by calling for political revolution but by asking people to change the way they each live their own lives.  Both John and Jesus asked for this change in lifestyle.  Rather than attacking Rome from the top down, they advocated for reform from the bottom up – change the way you think and live and the world around you will change in response.  This change begins by not being afraid.

Throughout its existence the Christian tradition has stood for peace – and in over 2000 years has more often created violence than ended it.  Common wisdom is that peace is a nice idea and not actually possible.  That human beings cannot live without the kind of competition which leads to warfare.  That seems to be true.  It’s also true that the folks who make decisions have rarely if ever actually tried to be peacemakers.  It seems to me that we shouldn’t give up on the idea until we actually try to implement it.

You’ve heard me say before that I used to suggest that no nation be allowed to go to war unless the actual battles would be fought by rich white men.  It’s the people in power who choose conflict but they aren’t the ones who suffer the gravest consequences.  In our nation, and in many nations, the soldiers on the ground are disproportionately men and women raised in poverty, who enter the military because they can’t afford to go to school or enter other careers.  This became clearer to me when I met my son-in-law who is a man of great skill and commitment and serves our country well through the National Guard.  We can be so proud of those who serve us.  At the same time we can acknowledge that in our nation those who are poor make greater sacrifices in times of war than those who are in power.    When conflict was forced on us by the decisions of other nations, we have responded.  It’s possible to honor those who have fought in our wars and at the same time work so that the next war doesn’t happen.

I’ve come to say that rather than being fought by powerful men, all war should be fought by grandmothers and their only weapons should be pictures of their grandchildren.  They would harm many fewer people, destroy much less property and be highly motivated to reach nonviolent solutions.  It seems new to me to hear folks talking now about how the United States can impact the world more through diplomacy than through military action.  Our armed forces can use their power to create incentive for conversation rather than to attack.  They can use their skill to make life better in places prone to despair and then to conflict and so avoid the need for combat.  It seems like progress to hear people openly talking about new ways of relating to other nations.

In our support of peacemaking as an endeavor of faith and the faithful, we don’t want to lose sight of John and Jesus suggesting that we begin to make peace by being at peace in our own lives.  We can learn to live at lower levels of anxiety and greater openness to others.  We can teach ourselves to be slower to take offense and quick to collaborate for the common good.  Even in violent times, we can be centers of peace that infect the world around us.  Consider if inner peace was as contagious as Covid 19, how quickly the world might change, how we could come together.

Some years ago someone gave me a list of the Symptoms of Inner Peace.  I’ve printed that for you and will enclose it when we mail the sermons and post it to our facebook page.  I keep them on my refrigerator so that I can read them from time to time.  In this busy time of year, we could still make a beginning at being a more peaceful people.

This Advent we’re also encouraged by the ELCA Hunger Action team to be intentional about standing with those whose needs are greater than our own and who would benefit most from changes in our world.  Today we remember those who are without adequate shelter.  We read of Hala, a Sudanese mother of four who is a refugee in Cairo, Egypt.  Her husband died early in the Covid pandemic and from a Lutheran organization she received a grant which kept her family from being evicted.  She then was helped with training so that she could get a job and provide both food and shelter for her children.

In our own community both Northlands Rescue Mission and LaGrave on First meet the needs of people without shelter, each connecting with different parts of that population.  In addition, Homeless Helpers and others meet the needs of those waiting to qualify for services or those who fall through the cracks of the current system.  We’ve been a part of helping in all those ways.

It’s almost impossible to be at peace and to live without anxiety if you don’t know where you will sleep at night or if you will be warm enough during winter days to be safe.  When we first started cooking at LaGrave, there were frequently arguments and altercations among residents who had lived on edge for so long.  Now the stress level is visibly lower as people have learned to trust that they will have a warm place to live.  There are rarely arguments and people are clearly in a much better place.

Jesus told us that we can’t just wish for people to be at peace, “go in peace, be warmed and fed,” unless we’re willing to make that peace possible.  So we do.  We help people stay in their apartments and we make sure they have good food to eat.  We are waiting for peace to come to our world.  In the meantime, we’re creating a little peace along the way.

Symptoms of Inner Peace

• A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experiences

• An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment

• A loss of interest in judging other people

• A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others

• A loss of interest in conflict

• A loss of the ability to worry

• Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation

• Contented feelings of connectedness with others and with nature

• Frequent attacks of smiling

• An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen

• An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it

First Sunday in Advent

Jeremiah 33:14-16 & Luke 21:25-26

Today we enter the season of Advent, which is the beginning of the Christian year.  Like every new year’s celebration, we begin by wondering what the year ahead will bring.  The traditional theme for Advent is waiting, and every year we wait and wonder about what lies ahead  Most year’s we hope that something better is around the corner.  Waiting implies that something good is coming.

In the first century most folks were waiting for something better.  They were surrounded by oppression, taking the forms of slavery, poverty, hunger, warfare and hopelessness.  Religious folks turned to the prophets, longing for a promise of redemption and reform.  They wondered if the struggles of daily life were the signs that God was going to act on their behalf.

Our part of the twenty-first century may not be as dire as the first century experienced, but folks seem to think that our society is broken.  Every day I hear friends wonder how we can be so divided, how people can think and act so contrary to the values we hold.  And then I hear the folks whom I’d like to call out saying the same things about me.  There’s a lot of fear in our world – fear of other people, of economic disaster, of Covid and other illnesses.  We, too, are waiting for something better!

Our scriptures remind us that fearsome times can be the harbinger of important change.  When things seem to be falling apart, they may be about to fall together in a new and better way.  Or not.  So we, too are waiting for something new and wondering if the love of God will be in the heart of whatever that is.

Today our scriptures and Advent candle readings invite us to consider what it means to hope in the midst of hardship and chaos.  The ELCA Hunger Program has also given us an Advent study booklet to consider where God is moving among us.  On this first Sunday they give us stories of health care ministries and ask us to remember that these ministries bring hope to many people around the world.  They tell the story of Charity Toksang, who was able to birth a healthy baby boy in a hospital in South Sudan because the church opened a free hospital there.  South Sudan is a troubled place, but babies being born are a sign of hope, even there.

When I think about hope and health care, I think about my brother-in-law and sister, who are medical missionaries in Angola.  Ten years ago they moved to the remote village of Cavango and re-opened the clinic there.  Patients were reluctant to trust them and living conditions were difficult.  Today they see almost more patients than three providers can keep up with.  They are building a hospital and a larger clinic with a lab.  They have brought reliable electricity to their clinic.  They opened a TB sanitorium where patients learn to take their medications correctly so they can be cured.  They fly patients to the city for life-saving surgery.  Because last year’s crops failed in a drought, they are keeping families alive by buying corn for them, in exchange for labor in the building projects.  What once was a place of despair is becoming a place of hope.

In our own community I think of our partnership with Spectra Health.  People without insurance have better access to medical and dental treatment.  Because Spectra sees a whole person and not just a patient, folks are getting help with housing and food and transportation.  Sometimes we help make that possible.  As health care is expanded in our country, Spectra is there to be sure people access the care they need.

I’m reminded also of the many people in our families who are medically fragile or in need of special care.  Because we are an older congregation, several of our members deal daily with health concerns and even life-threatening conditions.  We wait with them from day to day, hoping for good days ahead.  We support our members and their families who seek mental health treatment and deal with conditions that make some days uncertain.  We hope for medications and treatments that make life easier.  We know that in most families there are folks who deal with addiction and seek a treatment program that will work for them.  We hope for days of sobriety.

As a congregation we have advocated for a health care system in our country that makes it possible for everyone to access the care they need – medical, dental, vision, mental health, behavioral health.  Jesus healed people in his ministry.  In his name we work to see that the means of health are available to all people worldwide.  In small steps we are moving toward hope in health care.

Our Advent candle lighting gives a place for each of us to think about how we see signs of hope in our own lives and the world around us.  I’d like to end with a time for us to consider what is hopeful and perhaps to speak those hopes aloud.  (If you are reading this sermon, you may want to pause and think of some specific ways you find hope in your life.) 

Like the people in the first century we wait with hope because we believe that something better lies ahead.  We believe that God is with us and through that holy presence our world is being transformed.

Acts 27 & 28

Today we read the last bit of Acts and we will have completed our journey through this book, which began last May.  Because the reading is again long, I’ll combine a summary of the scripture with the sermon.

These two ending chapters cover Paul’s journey as a prisoner from Caesarea to Rome.  He’s under the charge of the soldier Julius, who treats him like royalty in this story rather than like a common prisoner.  The journey is full of Mediterranean place names which aren’t familiar to us, but we recognize the Island of Crete where they arrive as winter is setting in and sailing becomes difficult.  Paul suggests (Why would a prisoner have any say about the ship captain’s plans?) that they winter in Fair Haven but it’s decided to move further west on the Island to Phoenix, which is a better harbor for winter. 

On the way to Phoenix a huge storm comes up and blows them toward the coast of North Africa.  In order to save the ship they throw the cargo overboard and then the ship’s tackle.  When they’ve been 14 days at sea without food (no cargo) Paul tells them to prepare a meal with what they have left and celebrate that they are about to be saved.  Soldiers in charge of prisoners (there must have been several) suggest that they be killed so they don’t escape, but Julius convinces them otherwise and so Paul lives.  Some of the sailors try to escape on the lifeboat but Paul tells Julius to stop them and he cuts the lifeboat free before it can be used.  Finally, they shipwreck on the island of Malta, where they are welcomed warmly by the inhabitants, who are called barbarians because they don’t speak Greek.  They build a bonfire on the beach to warm the people coming wet from the sea.  Paul adds wood to the fire and is bitten by a snake hiding in the brush.  Rather than dying, he shows no signs of poisoning.  The people decide he’s a god and give him special treatment.

Eventually spring comes, they hire another ship and arrive in Rome, where Paul is under house arrest and seems able to meet with the leaders of the Jewish synagogue.  Some Jews in Rome accept his teaching about Jesus being the Messiah and some don’t – just like in all the other towns he’s visited.  It’s interesting that although we have a long letter of Paul to the church in Rome, Acts doesn’t mention that church or show Paul relating to them the way he did to churches in other towns.  We learn that Paul lived in Rome for two years.  Although tradition tells us that he died there, Acts doesn’t mention his trial or death.

Some things to note from these final chapters…

The sea voyage that brings Paul to Rome is reminiscent of his other voyages and patterned again after the great sea voyages of Greek mythology.  They reinforce the idea that Paul is an epic hero, coming in triumph to Rome, even though he comes in chains.  Rome is the heart of the Empire and with Paul the good news about Jesus comes into the very center of power there.  Paul as a great hero is able to do miraculous things – survive a snake bite, rescue a whole ship of people from a storm, heal several folks along the way.  Again we see that Paul has the same powers that Jesus had and so his message is truly from Jesus.

The entire book of Acts has served the purpose of its second century author – show that Paul’s mission to the Gentiles was with the approval of the original apostles in Jerusalem, prove that the Jews were offered the message about Jesus and rejected it, and show that even the Gentile believers were closely connected to “true” Judaism as practiced by Jesus and Paul.  While Paul is the hero of more than half this tale, his teachings are much less important (and not outlined in much detail) than his presence.  Our author is in the thick of the second century church figuring out what it means to be a follower of Jesus among the many options that had developed over time.  He’s staking his ground and standing firmly on it.  His view prevails in the history of the church.  But there is not a single way to be a follower of Jesus and we can celebrate diversity and each find our own way within it.

I want to spend some time with the idea that winds through this tale that God intends for Paul to spread the message of Jesus and come eventually to Rome, and so through every difficulty God opens a way for Paul to succeed.  In today’s reading, all the people on the ship are saved from shipwreck because they are with Paul and he must be saved to continue his journey.  Our author shows Paul living his life under God’s direction and confident that everything is going to work out in the way God planned.

Over the centuries, that line of thinking has led some to believe that God has planned each individual life and that for any one of us, all that happens during our lifetime is the direct choice of God’s plan for us.  That can be comforting, giving us confidence that all is well no matter how hard life seems in the moment.  It can also lead to thinking that seems quite abusive to me.  I’ve had parents tell me that the death of a child is a good thing because it’s God’s will.  We’ve heard preachers say that the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina was God’s will as judgment on the lifestyle of people who lived there.  If we follow this line, everything bad is supposedly really good and we can’t do anything about correcting it.  It seems dangerous for me to say, “Not everything that happens in our lives is the direct result of a choice God makes.”  But I want to indeed say that and invite you to see if that fits with your experience.  I’m convinced that people have more freedom to make their own choices and also more responsibility for how life unfolds for themselves and others. 

 At the same time, I absolutely believe that God is present in our lives as a powerful, positive energy of love and connection.  When we face hard times and find strength to keep going, we tap into that love energy.  When we face decisions about what we will do, where we will go, how we will live, whom we will live with – we can choose whether or not to align those decisions with the values we identify as God-like.  In that way it’s true that we can be guided by God as our life unfolds.  I know that at times I’ve felt like God was in the events of my life – when I was hired in one place and not another, when I was raising children alone and worrying about how that would turn out, when I was learning new things or trying new skills on for size.  But I no longer understand that to be a distant and distinct God manipulating my life to go according to a pre-conceived plan.  Rather I’ve come to believe that when we align ourselves with what is good and kind and even holy, then the events of our lives can be seen through the lens of that world view.  I don’t get the job I want, but I get another that is rewarding.  My father doesn’t accept cancer treatments which would prolong his life, but he has a peaceful death and I still feel a connection to him that’s bigger than life. 

Maybe this boils down to two things we might consider – how we look at our own lives, seeing what’s good in spite of what’s hard, and how we take responsibility for the common life that we are creating on this earth.  The first is about finding inner peace and acceptance for what is, even when we’re planning for what’s next.  It’s about giving and receiving support when life is hard. 

The second is about working to change our culture to be better for everyone.  It’s not, I’d suggest, God’s will that some people are hungry or homeless or without education or denied access to advancement because of their color or language or religion.  That’s the responsibility of a system of inequality and it may well be our responsibility to change it.

If God is love, and I believe God certainly is love, then we live in God and with God when we know that we are loved and when we create a society that’s loving toward others – all others.  We’re not passively waiting for God to move our life in a direction of God’s choice.  We’re actively creating a life – our own and our common life – that reflects the presence of God as love in all we do.  I see that as a correction to a way of thinking too long endorsed by the church.  We can’t use God as an excuse.  Life happens – sometimes beyond our control.  But we can choose our response to life and we can choose how we structure our community to be inclusive and just.

So we have read Acts, heard some wonderful stories, learned how one author understood his moment in the scope of Christian history.  Our job isn’t to shape our church or our own lives in the mold of his time, but to consider carefully how we feel called to live and move in our time.  Where is God moving among us?  What will that mean for us today and in the future?

Paul's arrest and trial in Jerusalem

A summary of Acts 21-26

Paul is making his farewell journey through all the churches he’s been associated with between Corinth and Jerusalem, surrounding the northeast Mediterranean.  He meets with and encourages the leaders and ensures that they have the Jesus message down in the way he interprets it. 

It’s clear that no one expects to see Paul again, but unclear whether that’s because our author is foreshadowing his arrest and execution or because Paul himself hopes to go from Jerusalem to Rome and then on to Spain to preach about Jesus.

Everyone he meets encourages him not to go to Jerusalem, but he insists.  So when he arrives in Jerusalem, he meets with James and the leaders of the church, who welcome him and the collection from various churches he’s brought to help the poor folks in Jerusalem.  Paul tells them of his great success converting people to the way of Jesus and they respond by telling of great success in converting Jews to Jesus.  They warn Paul that this religious revival among Jews has led to greater adherence to the Torah and consequently the Jerusalem community of Jesus people has concern about Paul telling Gentiles they don’t have to follow the law or be circumcised.  The leaders insist that they still agree Paul’s method is right, but that there might be trouble.  In order to show Paul’s commitment to Judaism, they suggest that he join a small group who are making a religious vow and pay their expenses as a sign of good faith, which Paul does.

In completing this vow, Paul goes to the Temple, where some Jews from Ephesus recognize him and incite a riot against him because of his teachings.  The Roman military gets involved and rescues Paul.  On his way to safety in the Roman barracks, he asks for permission to address the crowd and tells the story of his conversion from a pious Jew to a follower of Jesus – but still a Jew.  The crowd wants nothing of it and the captain of the guard takes him into safe-keeping.

The next day the captain takes him to the Jewish Council for examination, trying to figure out what the problem is and what crime Paul is accused of.  Paul’s defense includes setting the Pharisees and Sadducees against each other, starting another riot, so that the captain takes him back into Roman custody to protect him.

The Jews in Jerusalem plan to ask for Paul to appear again before the council so that they can murder him when he’s out of Roman custody.  Paul’s nephew overhears them plotting and tells Paul and then the captain of the plan.  The captain sends Paul right away overnight to Caesarea to the custody of Felix, the governor of the region.  Felix puts Paul under house arrest in posh quarters. 

The Chief Priest sends a smooth-talking lawyer to Felix to accuse Paul of crimes of disturbing the peace and causing riots because of his association with Nazarenes – the followers of Jesus.  Paul claims his innocence and Felix (who is a sympathizer of the Jesus movement) keeps him in house arrest and over the next two years Felix and his wife Drusilla often listen to Paul talk about Jesus.

After two years Festus replaces Felix as regional governor in Caesarea.  When he’s making the rounds to visit major cities in his area, he goes to Rome, where the Council again stirs up trouble about Paul, asking that he be sent to trial in Jerusalem.  But Paul insists on being tried by Romans and appeals to Caesar.

Soon after that King Agrippa and wife Bernice visit Festus to welcome him to his new post.  Festus consults with Agrippa about what to do with Paul and Agrippa has Paul tell his story.  Paul again tells of his conversion from persecutor of Jesus folks to chief spokesperson to the Gentiles on Jesus’ behalf.  Agrippa is moved by Paul’s tale and sympathetic to his cause.  He declares that it’s too bad Paul has appealed to Caesar because Agrippa would have set him free.  But since he’s made the appeal, he’ll be sent to Rome.

Here are a few things to notice about this story
as we near the end of our journey through Acts:

The people who accused Paul and started the riot in the Temple were from Ephesus.  For this and a number of other detailed reasons, some scholars believe that the author of Acts was from Ephesus.  We know from Paul’s letters that there was a debate among the Jesus followers in that city about differences in teaching represented by Paul and by John.  This author clearly favors Paul’s version of the message and may be writing Acts as an apology for Paul’s teachings over those of other teachers.  Because of the way ancient writings have been preserved, it’s Paul’s theology that most heavily influences Christianity today.  That’s not to say that Paul is always right or that what is says is wrong, but it’s good for us to notice that there isn’t one right way to be a follower of Jesus.

Paul was a Pharisee who believed in the resurrection of the dead.  The Pharisees and the Sadducees were two branches of Judaism in the first century.  The Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection, life after death, the appearance of angels, or any religious believes that bordered on the supernatural.  When Paul appears before the council, he sets these two factions fighting as a way to take the heat off himself.  As a Pharisee and believer in resurrection, Paul has to have influenced the early church to put central focus on the resurrection and eternal life.  We see that in the letters he wrote and in the way his message is phrased in Acts.  Not every part of early Christianity has that same emphasis.  Again, this isn’t to say that one is right and another wrong, but only that it’s possible to focus on the meaning of Jesus in a variety of ways.

Finally, during one of the times Paul is imprisoned in this story he has a vision of God telling him that everything is going to be alright and that this trouble he’s having with the Jews is eventually going to get him on his way to Rome to preach about Jesus.  Paul uses the fact that he’s a Roman citizen, by birth and not by bribery, to throw his case into Roman court.  This offers him protection from the Jewish council and prevents him from being whipped or otherwise tortured because of his rights as a citizen.  It also means that when Agrippa would have set him free, he can’t because Paul has appealed to Rome.  So that tactic worked both for and against Paul, if we’re to presume that he was eventually executed in Rome.  There’s a wonderful story about how the events in life can be both bad and good, depending on how we see them.  We should put that on our list to consider in future sermons.  For now, suffice it to say that there’s no point in second guessing decisions we make or wondering how our lives might have been different if we’d made different choices.  Paul tells us that the outcome is all in God’s hands, and we too can leave it there.

— Gretchen Graf