Month: November 2024

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood ⁶ and made us a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Look! He is coming with the clouds;
    every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him,
    and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.
So it is to be. Amen.
 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Revelation 1:4b-8

My sermon from Christ the King Sunday (November 24, 2024) on Revelation 1:4b-8.

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So in my house there’s a large closet full of games. Some of the games are fairly simple with little cards covered in dinosaurs we’re supposed to match. Others are a bit more complex, inviting us to be like squirrels gathering acorns before winter or acting as owls trying to get home before the sun finally rises. Every game comes with its own rules that aren’t always easy to learn but help make the whole experience more fun. And what these rules do is provide a sense of order that allows the rest of the game to flow. Most of us, when it comes to games, try to hop, jump, skip, and scheme our way into a position to win. But when we try to jump into the middle of what’s going on, we sometimes end up surrounded by folks who have hotels on all their properties in Monopoly. Learning and living into the order that makes the game work is a skill we need to continually work on. And we often see this kind of order show up in other areas of our lives. Paying attention to the beginning, the messy middle, and the end we long to win provides a way to shape our relationships, experiences, hopes, dreams, and fears. It helps to ground us through all those parts of the game of life that can be confusing, harsh, fun, and sad. Knowing this order and holding to this order can provide a sense of comfort when we’re worried about what the future might bring. This order provides stability for the ways we navigate through life which is why it’s kind of interesting that in our reading today from the book of Revelation, the order that shapes our lives is interrupted by the One who put everything in that order in the first place. 

Now the book of Revelation has, for almost two thousand years, captured the minds of Christians since it seems to describe the order the future will follow. It’s a book full of fantastic creatures, terrible wars, and the hope for new life. Some have tried to discover what that order might be as a way to learn when Jesus will finally return to make God’s kingdom real in our world. Yet whenever they identify a certain leader or war or a disaster that fits the order for the end of the world, life keeps marching on. I have, in the past, described Revelation as a kind of graphic novel using words to paint pictures that cycle and spiral through, and around, each other. These pictures weren’t only meant for those living when the end comes near. They were also crafted, and shared, to seven specific Christian communities that once existed in modern-day Turkey. John of Patmos was a Christian who was exiled to a small island in the Mediterranean Sea around the year 100 or so. While there, he received a vision full of angels, throne rooms, mythical beasts, and God. The communities John was told to share this vision with were all experiencing their own kinds of challenges. Some were being actively persecuted for the faith they proclaimed while others were so rich, comfortable, and complacent that they allowed those around them to define what it meant to be faithful and true. Revelation was meant to be a disordered story that could reoriented our own story towards the One who has claimed us as His own. And so, the vision John received to do this, began by reminding us who our God is. Now, in the ancient world, there was a standard formula used when describing the divine. It was embodied by the author Pausanias who described the head of the pantheon of the Ancient Greeks as “Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus will be.” This pattern fits the order of life we’re familiar with since we each have a past, a present, and a future filled with all kinds of longings and hope. If we wanted to describe something that broke through the boundaries of time, using this kind of formula makes sense. But when God first showed up in John’s vision, the description moved in a slightly different way. What defined God wasn’t that God existed through all the order that shapes our life. Rather, the first – and defining characteristic of this God – is that God is active, right now. God is present. God shows up. And it’s because God jumps into the middle of the game while we’re already playing it that ends up shaping our past, our future, and our entire world. 

How God does this is reflected in who John knew Jesus to be. Rather than first identifying Jesus as the Son of God or the Messiah or the One who was there when the universe was made; John’s first words about Jesus were rooted in what he had done. Jesus is a faithful witness and to be a faithful witness meant Jesus had to do all kinds of living. Jesus wasn’t simply some divine being living far away that we had to do all kinds of things to get his attention. Jesus is, instead, someone who lived; who listened; who served; and whose entire ministry can be summed up in the phrase: “Repent! For the kingdom of God has come near.” It’s this Jesus who, as we’ll hear in just a few weeks, chose to be born; chose to be cared for; and chose to know how fragile life truly is. It’s this Jesus who learned how to have friends; who went to synagogue; who lived in a community; and who knew what it was like to be loved, valued, rejected, and left on his own. And when all the world’s might, strength, and grandeur confronted Jesus since it assumed having power over others was all that mattered, Jesus loved them to, and through, the end. When God chose to enter into the game we call life, Jesus didn’t show up at the beginning or the end. Rather, Jesus showed up in the middle because God doesn’t let us play on our own. Through his life, his words, and his ongoing presence with us in baptism, in prayer, at the His table, and those times when we suddenly realize that something else is with us too – we are transformed into something more. The order we assume we’re supposed to follow – or break on our behalf – so we chase after all the power, wealth, violence, sin, and stuff that builds chasms between us and our neighbor isn’t the only way life needs to be lived. Instead, we can pay attention to the new way of being – rooted in mercy, forgiveness, and hope that Jesus brings into our being. That doesn’t mean life will always be easy or that we won’t have moments when pain, suffering, and sorrow remind us how fragile life can be. Yet the God who was there when the universe was made and who will be there long after its over, is the same God who is with you right now. And during those days when it feels like we are destined to lose every game we are currently in, remember that your beginning and your tomorrow is with the One who is and was and will always be – for you no matter what comes next. 

Amen.

As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

Mark 13:1-8

My sermon from the 26th Sunday after Pentecost (November 17, 2024) on Mark 13:1-8.

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There are many different ways we read the Bible. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s one way of paying attention to these sacred words that matter more to us than any other. We, for example, might imagine this library of books as a repository of holy words we use to gain eternal life. Or we might consider the Bible as a rulebook that defines what is good and what is not. Maybe, to us, the Bible is a devotion inviting us into a deeper relationship with our God. Or we might treat God’s story as a kind of answer book for questions we can’t easily put into words. The ways we read scripture shape how we use the Bible in our everyday lives. And I’ll admit that, for me, how I read the Bible is by, first, sitting with those who experienced these events – or heard these words – for the very first time. That’s why my sermons often invite us to sit alongside Peter, John, Mary Magdalene, Salome, and all the unnamed people in the crowd as they experienced what it was like for the kingdom of God to come near. I find that a lot of spiritual fruit can be discovered when we hold all the wonder, confusion, doubt, excitement, sorry, and joy that was very real whenever Jesus preached, taught, or made a difference in someone’s life. Usually, when I approach today’s reading from the gospel according to Mark, I invite us to linger over how over-the-top this moment in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem must have been for Jesus’ friends. In Jesus’ day, the place where God promised to be was one of the largest religious complexes in the world. King Herod had, decades before, initiated a renovation project that doubled its size. The Temple was covered with large columns, gigantic stones, expansive courtyards, and colorful murals meant to reflect the glory and majesty of God. The spiritual energy, awe, and wonder of the physical space must have been overwhelming for this rag-tag group of disciples who mostly came from small villages around the Sea of Galilee. Jesus and his friends were surrounded by a magnificent place filled with pilgrims who traveled from all over the Mediterranean Sea to celebrate the Passover with all of God’s people. And it was then, among all the physical and spiritual signs of power and strength when Jesus proclaimed it would all come tumbling down. The weirdness of that moment is something we should sit with and ponder. But we can also choose to sit with those who – forty years later – were the first to hear Mark’s version of Jesus’ life and realized they were living on the other side when all those big stones were rubble on the ground. 

Now Mark’s version of Jesus’ life didn’t appear during – or immediately after – Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. The book that eventually became part of our Bible didn’t show up until around 35-40 years after the Cross. Before the year 70 or so, Jesus’ story was primarily shared through people with first-person accounts of Jesus or who knew people who knew Jesus. The small Christian communities scattered throughout the Mediterranean shared letters, sermons, oral testimony, and a small collection of writings on scrolls that were mostly just a list of things Jesus said. But as the initial generation of Jesus’ disciples began to pass away, the community decided they needed a more orderly narrative of what Jesus’ story was all about. Those putting together these different sources into the gospels had a slightly different perspective than the first disciples since they knew how Jesus’ story turned out. Yet they also had lived through a variety of experiences that made Jesus’ words seem too real. In the year 66, Jewish groups around the Sea of Galilee began an armed revolution against Roman rule. The movement quickly spread throughout the region and they achieved some initial success. Rome, though, refused to walk away and mobilized their military might to confine the revolutionaries in a series of isolated fortifications and the city of Jerusalem itself. After nearly four years of armed struggle, Jerusalem was finally put under siege. Those within its walls, though, began to fight among themselves. The war became a kind of civil war that hastened the collapse of the city. The Romans burned the city, sold the survivors into slavery, and paraded some of the holiest relics from within the Temple through the streets of Rome itself. The disciples, when they first heard Jesus speak, couldn’t imagine how the sacred place would ever be torn down. And yet those who first heard Mark’s version of Jesus’ life knew what it was like to live on the other side of whatever we consciously – or unconsciously – put our trust in. 

Now the experience of finding ourselves on the other side of the end is something some of us know too well. We, for example, might not have realized how much our identity was defined by our job until we were told we were no longer needed. There might be a medical diagnosis that interrupted, permanently, the promises we made to ourselves, our loved ones, and the future we expected to find. And when things grew hard, difficult, confusing, or made us feel like we’re left behind – we might chase after whatever strength and power that make us feel as if we’re on the so-called “winning” side. It’s not easy living in the world after what we’ve built comes to an end. And we might not always have the mental, emotional, or spiritual tools to process the role we played in what happened to us and to our world. We try, as best we can, to hold onto whatever gives us hope. But hope isn’t always easy to see when the foundation we built our future on comes completely undone. Jesus’ words, though, weren’t only for the disciples who first heard him speak inside the Temple. He wasn’t merely trying to make a prediction that would later reveal how true his words always were. Jesus was, I think, pointing to what we can always trust in whenever hope feels far away. When we put our trust into a future that resembles what the world imagines is great and strong, we miss noticing the future God has already entrusted you with. When God claimed you as God’s own through baptism, you were brought into God’s future. You were given a promise that you were part of what God is doing in the world. That promise, though, does not mean life won’t be full of all kinds of joys, sorrow, happiness and tears. Nor does it absolve us of the responsibility to follow God’s call to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Rather, it was a promise that instead of putting our trust in what we build or grab, we can always trust the future we have with our God. Life has a habit of undoing the pillars we build our lives on. Our own strength, intelligence,  passion, and even our sense of self will often waver because being human can be very hard. Yet God promises that we are worth more than what we’ve done; worth more than what has been done to us; and worth more than all the ways we are led astray by false promises of might, comfort, greatness, and power over those around us. Our future will never be as secure as we want it to be. But when we lean onto the eternal commitment God has already made to each of us, we get to discover how God’s future is already being lived out today. Rather than assuming that what comes next depends on how imperfect, fragile, and sinful we are; we can trust that we have a God who, through the Cross, has already shown how the future we try to build has already been rewritten by the One who promises to be with us – forever. 

Amen.

As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Mark 12:38-44

My sermon from the 25th Sunday after Pentecost (November 10, 2024) on Mark 12:38-44.

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So I’m going to start this sermon sounding like an old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn even though the worst offenders of what I’m describing are old enough to have kids – and grandkids – of their own. There was a time, not that long ago, when only one or maybe two screens were on at any time in the house. If our parents, kids, or roommates ended up grabbing the tv remote first, we had to watch whatever they wanted to watch no matter how often we whined or complained. Sometimes we might choose to look at a book, read a newspaper, or walk out of the room if the story on the screen wasn’t our cup of tea. But it wasn’t long before we were peering over the top of the page or standing in the doorway to see what was going on. This is how we discovered our favorite teams for sports we didn’t even know existed and how some of our favorite movies were created decades before we were born. When other people showed us the stories that interested them, there was a good chance that we’d suddenly become a fan. Even though the story on the screen wasn’t what we picked, it was healthy to have our likes challenged and expanded by something new. But today, even when there is only one big screen in the house, most of us are sitting in front of it with a smaller screen in our hand. We might be aware of what’s going on out there but we choose to give our attention to whatever story is brewing through the text message, websites, podcasts, social media, and video taking over our phones. These stories, supported, curated, and shaped by an algorithm that cares more about clicks than truth, can wrap us up in a bubble of our own creation. Rather than having to be inconvenienced by other people’s stories, we choose to sit with the one that fits whatever we imagine life to be. And while the amount of information and stuff at our fingertips feels endless, the story we choose to focus on is actually pretty small. This smallness impacts how we engage with God and with one another. And as we see in our reading today from the gospel according to Mark, sometimes the most holy thing we can do is remember how God’s story is always bigger than our own. 

Jesus was in the city of Jerusalem, filling his time with a lot of conversations between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Since the festival of Passover was near, the Temple was full of rabbis, itinerant preachers, priests, and other religious leaders preaching to the pilgrims visiting the holy city. Jesus was doing what people expected him to do and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t the only one complaining about the scribes. Yet we have to be careful to not reduce Jesus’ words as meant for only the so-called “elites.” Even when we don’t see ourselves in the people he is talking to, his words are also meant for us. And so when I patiently sat and listened to what those scribes did, I was struck by how small their world actually is. They were, according to Jesus, people with a lot. They had money, fancy clothing, and knew exactly what to pray. They were the ones with the resources, fame, and sense of security that we want when things are hard. But even though they had everything, what they chased after was pretty small. They acted as if life was a zero-sum game where there’s only so much mercy, comfort, and grace to go around. They wanted to always be on top and so they sought out other people’s attention, respect, and power. They wanted people to notice them and so they fought for the best seats in the synagogue and in the marketplace. And since there was only so much attention or money or food or resources in the world, they would consume whatever they could get their hands on. They had everything and yet they lived as if the world was so small they had to fight, struggle, and devour everything around them. The story they chose to tell was one where there’s never enough. And yet God, through a widow, promised that there always is. 

We don’t know much about the widow Jesus saw. We have no idea how old she was or where she even came from. There wasn’t even an assumption that she, before she made her offering, had ever heard Jesus speak. But when she stood in line to give her gift to God, her two small copper coins – worth about a penny – showed how big she trusted her story actually was. Compared to some in the line, her gift had no practical value. And if she had asked any of us what she should give, we’d tell her to take care of her bills and other responsibilities first. The widow, though, lived first hand in a world that treated her as very small. She was defined by the loss of a relationship and the rest of the world rarely gave her the support, opportunities, and care she needed to thrive. In a zero-sum kind of life, she came out on the bottom. But instead of choosing to live in the smallness of the story others created for her, she believed she was already part of the story God chose to tell. Her generosity was rooted by living in a story that wasn’t defined by scarcity, fear, and worry. And while she knew what it was like to be consumed, she chose to live in a different story rooted in God’s holy hope. 

Now there’s a risk when it comes to focusing on only one story. We have a habit of letting these one set of words, traditions, images, videos, and commentary define which stories have value and which ones we ignore. The more we focus on one story, we end up being consumed by the news, media, podcasts, social media, group texts, group chats, and websites that only consist of one specific point of view. When we choose that kind of story, we make our world incredibly small. And since it’s a world that is too small for all of us, we treat everyone and everything as part of a zero-sum game that not everyone will survive. But when we live that small, we miss noticing what our God has already been up to in the world. We forget how God’s story chose to take on the smallness of our story through an incarnation that experienced all the joy, hardships, and pain life can bring. God, in Jesus, chose to focus on our story as a way to bear witness to how big God’s story of peace, love, and mercy truly is. Jesus, over and over again, pushed people to see life as more than a game since God, through the generous gift of creation itself, made enough for us all. We are the ones who choose to keep people’s stories small and we assume that God act’s like us too. But if God’s story was that small, there wouldn’t be a place within God’s story for any of us at all. Yet God, through the gift of baptism, has already promised that you are part of what God is doing in the world. And so if God’s story is big enough to include even someone like you, then we have the responsibility to make sure that our story is just as big too. 

Amen. 

²⁸ One of the scribes came near and heard [Jesus and the Sadducees] disputing with one another, and seeing that [Jesus] answered them well he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰ you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” ³² Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; ³³ and ‘to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” ³⁴ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Mark 12:28-34

My sermon from All Saints’ Sunday (November 3, 2024) on Mark 12:28-34.

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Today’s reading from the gospel according to Mark is a bit different from what we’ve been listening to over the last few weeks. Jesus’s friends had, since Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah way back in chapter 8, been trying to figure out what this meant for them and for their community. They assumed the Messiah would, in a very tangible way, rewrite the religious, political, and social reality of their world. And yet Jesus, who had the power to cure the sick, feed thousands with a few loaves of bread, and even control the weather, couldn’t stop mentioning his own death and humiliation. Jesus’ words didn’t match their expectations of the power they felt entitled to as part of Jesus’ inner circle. This ongoing internal argument about their place within the kingdom of God continued for several chapters while Jesus took his final steps towards Jerusalem. They were busy arguing about which one of them was the greatest while Jesus kept inviting them to recognize those who we always push aside. These internal arguments about the nature community continued until they crossed into the city of Jerusalem at the start of chapter 11. Once there, in the heart of the city where God promised to be, the focus of the story shifted to what happens when God’s kingdom comes near. A series of contested and sometimes heated conversations between Jesus and various religious and political leaders took place in various places around the city. And among those he regularly argued with was a group of unnamed people Mark only described as “scribes.” 

In Jesus’ day, only a small percentage of the population were literate yet writing was a skill that everyone needed. An entire industry came into being where people were paid to read and write. Scribes were necessary to write and share the proclamations made by those in power and to transcribe all decisions made in the local courts. Scribes were needed to maintain, preserve, and copy all the sacred texts that shaped religious life since the printing press hadn’t been invented yet. Scribes could be found in every marketplace who would, for a fee, write a letter to your family who lived on the other side  of the empire. And when your family sent you a letter, that scribe – also for a fee – was available to read what you couldn’t. A scribe was basically a librarian, teacher, postal carrier, court transcriber, notary, and contract drafter all rolled into one. And since scribes were always close to those in power, scribes were the ones it was okay to complain about. They were, through Jesus’ story, identified as a kind of villain or foil to what Jesus was up to. Yet here, in chapter 12, we meet a scribe who is anything but. This scribe reminded me a bit of my kids who, while eavesdropping, can’t help but add to the conversation. After listening to the back and forth Jesus had with the various leaders, the scribe felt compelled to ask a question of their own. And instead of asking about something personal – such as what they needed to do to inherit eternal life – this scribe wondered, in an almost abstract kind of way, about which commandment was the source for everything that comes next. 

Now we Christians have often had a rather complicated history with the commandments. There are times when we take them literally and then seriously and then metaphorically all at the same time. We’ll use these commandments as a kind of weapon to beat over the heads of those we disagree with. But we’ll also, in the same breath, pretend they only partially matter whenever someone holds us accountable to them. We often treat and act as if the commandments – the ten big ones and the hundreds of others scattered within the first few books of our Bible – are either a list of rules or a mantra that can inform the life we choose to live. Yet for Jesus and the scribe, the commandments were primarily seen – and identified as a gift from God. They were given by the One who had, centuries before, freed their people from slavery in Egypt. After hundreds of years of not having power over their own lives and their own bodies, the Isrealites found themselves at a loss of what it meant to live together. And so God, in response, sent Moses down a mountainside with a description of what it looks like when God’s kingdom is near. The scribe, I think, wasn’t merely trying to get the opinion from an argumentative rabbi of which commandment they liked better than the rest. The scribe was looking for that one thing – that one word or phrase or idea or belief that serves as the gift that carries us through. It’s the kind of question we might have asked ourselves during moments full of anxiety and fear. We long to hold onto that one thing which can bring us a sense of peace, comfort, security, and hope. When our life is swirling in chaos, what we seek is that tangible assurance that what we’re experiencing today won’t be the limit of what tomorrow might be. What the scribe wanted to hear about the gift they can hold onto when the life they’re living  comes undone. 

And so Jesus, in response, did something a bit strange. He doesn’t give the scribe one commandment. He instead crafted and shaped them into two. Jesus’ words resemble what other rabbis and religious leaders at the time were saying when they were asked to summarize the commandments from God. Yet what made his words different was how he proclaimed that these two were really one and the same. Rather than reducing these words into that one that might fix, reform, or change whatever we’re going through, Jesus invited us to look to God – and to one another – all at the same time. What we need for the lives we live isn’t a mantra or a phrase or even a word that can guide us through. What we truly need – and what we are given – are people who reflect the fullness of who our God chooses to be. We have a God who chooses to show up; to live our human life; to love and serve and welcome and include and to not let our limits be the limit of our God. The One who is with us knows what it’s like to cry at the tomb of a friend and to be on the other side of all kinds of relationships that come to an end. We have a God who knows what it’s like to be taken care of even by those who don’t always get it right. And this love that we receive from the One who knows us, sees us, and created us isn’t a gift meant to be received from God alone. It’s also embodied through those saints God connects us to. They are always exactly who they are – people with their own imperfections; people who commit mistakes; people who don’t always get everything right. Yet through their care and support and time and hope – reveal to us what happens when God’s kingdom comes near. They’re the ones who made sacrifices for us, who were able to say “I’m sorry,” and who believed in us even when we didn’t believe in ourselves. These saints were the ones who made God’s love tangible and real in our lives when they were filled with all kinds of chaos and fear. They weren’t meant to be perfect people but they did reflect the perfect love of the One who is always for us. Jesus’ summary of the commandments wasn’t HIs attempt to reduce them to that one word or phrase we can cling to when life gets hard. Rather, he was reminding us that when we we have nothing left to hold on to – our God and the saints God sends us – will the one who, through love, grace, kindness, and their willingness to simply be with us through whatever might come – they will be the ones who will carry us through. 

Amen.