Author: MASadmin

Sermon: Controlling What We Can Control – Jesus and Don’t Worry

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Luke 12:32-40

My sermon from the 9th Sunday after Pentecost (August 7, 2022) on Luke 12:32-40.

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It’s not typical for a meeting with financial advisors to help me prep for Sunday morning. But earlier this week, a Zoom meeting between the investment managers, trustees, and beneficiaries of the Ana and Dominick Ricci Foundation helped me see today’s text in a slightly different way. Now every year, we, along with several other organizations, receive money from this foundation which was created by a couple who made CLC their spiritual home. It’s our tradition to use this generous gift to increase our ministry here at the church and to make an impact all over the world. Usually by this point in the year, you would have received many invitations to nominate projects, non-profits, charities, and other ministries we, as a congregation, should support. However, that hasn’t happened, because we haven’t received this year’s money from the foundation. Your church council has been working with the other beneficiaries to move this whole thing along. But we can only control what we can control; and there’s not a lot we can do until the trustees cut the checks. Our meeting earlier this week included a long conversation about some of the issues tying everything up. Yet we also took some time to listen to a presentation given by the foundation’s investment managers. With the recent declines in the stock market, the weirdness within the bond market, and the violality all around us – it’s not surprising that the foundation has a little less money today than it did in January. The investment team overseeing the fund was there to talk through this current moment, using their skills, knowledge, and expertise to describe what’s happening in the financial markets. They named and identified those things they were worried about and were honest about all the things they couldn’t control. Yet even during this weird moment, they saw opportunities so that the foundation could keep making a difference in Northern New Jersey. They didn’t claim any special foresight into what the future might bring. But they did control what they could control by staying focused on why the foundation exists in the first place. Through the stories told by those who knew the Ricci’s and who had been touched by their generosity, the investment team had a sense of what this fund is supposed to do. And rather than let their worries about the future be the only thing that guided them, they let a different story shape what they recommended to do next. 

“You can only control what you can control” is something we’ve all probably said at many different times in our lives. But it’s pretty amazing how fleeting those words are because we’re very good at worrying about what we can’t control. Some of our worries might feel small while others are exactly as big as we think they are. We worry about our families, our friends, our situations, and about what tomorrow might bring. And while some worrying is completely normal and necessary for us to thrive, there’s also a different kind of worry that seems to grow and grow and grow. When we worry about the basic necessities of life and about the well-being of ourselves and our loved ones, that’s us being human and is why God gives us a community to help carry all the worries we hold. But there are other worries that sort of take on a life of their own, becoming a story we tell ourselves over and over again. These kinds of worries create an imaginary future filled with our greatest fears because we can’t see how our tomorrow could be any different. Now there are moments when we can no longer manage our worries by ourselves and you are not a failure or weak or unfaithful if you seek out professional psychiatric help. Accepting help is one of the most Christian things you can do because it lets someone else fulfill their calling and ministry. We, as a people, worry and there are times when that worry is just too much; which might be why Jesus, after sharing a short story about a person trying to control their own future, then told the disciples: “not to worry.” 

Saying “don’t worry,” doesn’t mean we won’t. And I don’t think Jesus was turning “worrying” into some kind of sin. Rather, I wonder if he was inviting us to make sure we’re telling a real story about ourselves and our world. Like I said last week, the parable of the rich fool wasn’t only about God’s call for us to be generous. It’s also about the story we tell ourselves. The rich fool told a story that was so small, it didn’t have space for his neighbors or for God. And after sharing that story to the crowd, Jesus looked at his own disciples. This ragtag group of followers had left their homes, their families, and the future they expected – to go and see what this Jesus thing was all about. Their lives and their story had been transformed, challenged, and upended in ways outside their control. And they, as we see in scripture over and over again, were “worriers.” Jesus kept pushing them into a new future they couldn’t imagine through the situations and relationships that broke through the boundaries we’ve built between each other. Those who followed Jesus had every right to worry because their future always seemed to be slipping a little bit outside their control. So that’s why, I think, Jesus took a moment to look at them with compassion and remind them of the one story that would never let them go. 

God’s love for them – and for us – isn’t pretend and we’ve been given a promise that we, no matter what, belong. Through our baptism, our faith, and in the Lord’s supper we celebrate each week, we are given a tangible reminder of how we are part of God’s story and how God’s story is part of us. We will never be able to control all the things we want to control because we live in a world where sometimes the things that shouldn’t happen – do. There are too many broken hearts for us to become a people who never worry. That story is one we can never ignore but we can trust in the other story Jesus tells us. Your worries are not the limit of who you are or the limit of who you can become. Your worries are real – but God’s presence in your life is real too. When your worries become too much, you can ask for help and those around you should respond with love and care. But when you find yourself with a sudden abundance of money or time or energy or an incredible feeling of peace, Jesus invites you to share all that you have with those whose worries are interfering with their ability to see God. And when we care and love and serve each other, we take on the real story of who we’re meant to be. Instead of letting our worries become our only story, we can listen to the story Jesus tells us about who and whose we are. And when we do that – which is never easy and requires us to return to Jesus over and over again as new worries pop up – we then let the love God first gave us be what helps us lessen all the other worries in our world. 

Amen.

Sermon: Sharing Our Faith Story

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:13-21

My sermon from the 8th Sunday After Pentecost (July 31, 2012) on Luke 12:13-21.

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For the last 7 months, the New Jersey Synod has hosted a monthly gathering for people to talk about evangelism. Evangelism is a church word that sounds scary but it’s really just telling others how their story is already part of God’s story. That sounds pretty simple but we know it isn’t because, for better or worse, Jesus has chosen us to do this kind of work. We tend to avoid practicing evangelism because we’re not sure how to do it. We also worry we’ll come off as being like one of THOSE kinds of christians who we view as super judgemental and hypocritical. There’s also the worry people around us might get really defensive when we talk about something that has made a personal difference in our lives. We want our sharing of Jesus to be very authentic while shielded from any chance at rejection. That’s why we typically stay quiet, choosing to live our lives like Jesus rather than telling others why we do what we do. The series put on by the New Jersey Synod has tried to give us the tools necessary to share our faith with others. And one way we do that is by sharing with others our faith story. 

Now a faith story is simply a description of our personal encounter with God. These encounters with the divine can sometimes be really big, full of spiritual fireworks that make everyone go “wow.” Yet these encounters can also be so rooted in our everyday lives we don’t even notice them until we take a moment to reflect on our story. You, right now, have a faith story worthy to be shared. And one way we can discover that story is by going through a few mental exercises that get us to look back. The NJ Synod gave participants a list of different questions to answer. For example, we were asked to “tell about a time when you didn’t think you could have made it through a situation if God had not been there to bring you through it.” Or we could “tell about a time when you heard God speaking to you through another person or situation.” These prompts invite us to reflect on our personal story while noticing how God was already a part of it. God is an active participant in your life and when we know our faith story, we can then share Jesus with others. Stories are powerful which is why Jesus told a lot of stories to the people around him. Yet it’s also interesting that he, unlike us, rarely named God in any of the parables he shared. God wasn’t explicitly identified in the parable of the good samaritan, the parable of the prodigal son, or in any of the others. But in today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, God showed up to change one rich fool’s story into something more. 

Jesus told this story after someone asked him to intervene in family squabble. We don’t know much about it though it’s possible a younger sibling wanted a piece of their family’s inheritance. They had, for cultural or family reasons, received nothing and they wanted Jesus, the Son of God, to get busy in their family fight. But instead of simply asking Jesus for help, they told Jesus how to act. With only a few words, this someone revealed to everyone a bit of their story. We discovered how they truly believed that Jesus had the authority and the power to change the outcome of their situation. They also, of course, trusted that they were right. Jesus would and should do exactly what they wanted because that’s how things were supposed to be. And while this someone might have had a legitimate bone to pick with their brother, Jesus wondered if they truly wanted the “One who was there when the universe was made” to get involved. There’s never a guarantee Jesus will do what we want him to do and yet the person in the crowd couldn’t imagine their story going in any other way. So that’s when Jesus decided to tell a different story that, for the first time, mentioned God. 

Now the key to interpreting this parable is to pay attention to who is involved in the conversation the rich man had. After noticing how the land had produced more crops than he could ever use, he wondered: “what should I do?” That question, by itself, is one we should ask when any kind of abundance comes our way. Yet instead of reflecting on his story – on where this abundance came from; on how it was produced; and how his faith informed – or didn’t inform his responsibilities to be generous – he stayed focused on himself. The “I’s” and “my” and “will” show how small his story was. Rather than bearing witness on how this bounty depended on a number of other workers to create and required the kind of weather only God could control, he told himself: “I did it.” It was his land, his grain, his goods, and his work that made it happen. By talking and thinking about no one else, the answer to “what should I do?” was all about himself. So that’s when God showed up, announcing how the story the rich man told about himself wasn’t a real story after all. 

This parable Jesus shared wasn’t only about the obvious: that those with enough should share their wealth in the ways God intended. Jesus was also very concerned about how the stories we tell ourselves can create a life that has no room for our neighbors or for God. We should celebrate, point to, and be honest about how through guts, tears, and perseverance, we should say “I did it.” But we also need to see all the people, resources, opportunities, and support we were given to say that in the first place. That’s not easy to do in our American pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of culture. We’re taught that our “I” never really needs a “we” to help us thrive. If we actually admitted all the help we needed to be who we are, we’re afraid we’d lose our sense of independence and reveal to others how vulnerable and fragile we truly are. That’s the story we don’t typically want to share with ourselves. But it is the story about ourselves God already knows. God invites us to admit our hurts, our failures, our brokenness, and our need for help. God wants us to be honest about our worries about the future and how our insecurities often get in the way of being generous to others. We need to move beyond the focus on the “I” and turn towards the “we” that through baptism and faith, you are already a part of. You, right now, are more than just you because you are part of the body of Christ. You are part of a “we” even in those moments when your “I” feels so small and broken. And that, I think, is a big part of what our faith stories are all about. They are the moments when we see ourselves as we truly are and how God shows up anyways. It’s hard to admit to others the ways we’re not as strong or mighty or as put together as we would want them to believe. Yet during our most imperfect moments, God shows up to say you are loved. That’s the story we get to share and show others since God loves them too. 

Amen.

Sermon: Being Taught

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 So he said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, may your name be revered as holy.
    May your kingdom come.
3     Give us each day our daily bread.
4     And forgive us our sins,
        for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
    And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
5 And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
9 “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? 13 If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Luke 11:1-13 (NRSVU)

My sermon from the 7th Sunday after Pentecost (July 24, 2022) on Luke 11:1-13.

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So where do you think Jesus was praying at the beginning of today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke? We’re told Jesus was at a certain place but there’s very little connecting this story to what came before. It reads like a singular scene that could have taken place during any part of Jesus’ life. Luke, out of all the gospel writers, does this a lot and it’s not helpful that our lectionary, the three year cycle of readings we use in worship, often jumps around and between different gospels. There’s no guarantee what we heard last week is chronologically related to what we heard today. Yet this time, there is. Jesus, at the end of chapter 10 was in a certain village, hanging out with two sisters named Martha and Mary. It was there when Martha, an independent woman, did the unlikely thing of inviting this wandering preacher – and his disciples – into her home. After their eating together; drinking together; and teaching Mary as the disciple Jesus said she was, Jesus went to a certain place to pray. And I like to imagine that all Jesus did was sort of step out the front door, seeking peace in the courtyard of Martha’s home. As he prayed, another disciple snuck outside and waited for Jesus to finish. And when Jesus looked up, this unnamed disciple asked Jesus to teach them to pray.

Now this unnamed disciple had, most likely, been sitting at the feet of Jesus just a few moments before. And they, I think, were pretty familiar with what Jesus does. Their relationship had history and so this probably wasn’t the first time this disciple saw Jesus pray. There’s also a good chance that they, themselves, had a long history of prayer since they, like Jesus, were Jewish. The book of psalms, which we’ve been listening to this summer, was their prayer book and it was common to pray in the morning, in the evening, and at the beginning and ending of meals. They, as regular prayers, also had a rich experience using their own words to communicate with God. It’s safe to say this unnamed disciple bugging Jesus in the courtyard of Martha’s home knew what it was like to be an active participant in a life of prayer. That nuance about their story was something I hadn’t really noticed before since I assumed they were seeking a how-to guide when talking to God. But there might be more to this story since, out of the blue, this unnamed disciple made sure to include the name of John the Baptist in their question.

John, like Jesus, was a teacher and he also pulled together his own group of disciples. We don’t know much about them except they were drawn to this man who was teaching, preaching, and baptizing in the wilderness. They, like countless others, saw how, through God and through John’s witness, they had an opportunity for a different kind of life. The disciples of John were, like Jesus, faithful and followed him even after he was killed by King Herod. Some, though, switched from following John to following Jesus even when John was alive. And I wonder if this unnamed disciple was one of them. If that’s true, then their own life had been full of ups and downs and all kinds of changes as they grew in their connection to God. They, themselves, had seen their life of faith change as new people, new places, new ideas, and new experiences transformed them. Their life with faith had included saying prayers in a variety of settings with all kinds of people. And since they prayed, they knew what it was like to have some, but not all, of their prayers answered. The ebb and flow of their life of faith, full of unexpected challenges and changes, probably even included moments when they felt alienated from God, from people, or even didn’t really think about God at all. They were a disciple who had lived their life and while outside Martha’s home, they found themselves with the opportunity to ask Jesus to teach them to pray.

And that’s exactly what Jesus did. He shared a version of a prayer we’ll title as the Lord’s prayer – acting as if it, somehow, belongs to him. But the disciple who asked this question didn’t ask Jesus to repeat the prayers he had just brought to God. Instead, he asked to be taught which means the Lord’s prayer is really our prayer. And Luke’s version of this prayer shows how personal it’s supposed to be since the “our Father” simply begins with “Father.” The father Jesus imagines in this moment isn’t necessarily defined or limited by our experiences of having a father, being a father, or living with a father who was anything but. This father is, I think, reflected and enhanced by where they were at that particular moment. Jesus and this disciple were in the courtyard of Martha’s home after having experienced a hospitality that was stretched and expanded by the welcome Jesus gave to all. Martha and her sister were brought into the fullness of being with God while surrounded by disciples who had heard Jesus share the parable of the good Samaritan and who had depended on the hospitality of strangers when Jesus sent them to bring peace to the homes of people who were thought to be their enemies. This Father was more than a creator of the universe who demanded and expected a kind of reverence based on hierarchy and power. This God was also a God of welcome and inclusion who wanted us, in prayer, to always be ourselves. And one of the tools Jesus gave us to do all of this was the Lord’s Prayer. It, with only a few words and sentences, makes sure we hold any part of ourselves back from God. It describes how we diminish the name of God by acting as if God is merely an extension of our own opinions and ideas. These words also admit that our world, our lives, and every so-called kingdom we build fail to fully reflect the love God made real on the Cross. We, on a personal level, plead not only for the resources we need to thrive but also push back against the habit of hoarding God’s gifts of food, money, and other things as we seek to secure our future at the expense of everyone else. And, at the end, these words from Jesus invite us to ask God to carry us through every trial we face since life isn’t easy. In essence, this prayer helps us admit the ways we’ve failed to be hospitable to ourselves and others while, at the same time, letting these words guide us into practicing the kind of hospitality Jesus experienced and showed to Martha and Mary. He wanted them to always be human and he invites us, especially in our prayers, to do the same. We, through baptism and faith, have already been welcomed into a relationship big enough to hold us through what our lives might bring. And this connection to God stretches, moves, expands, and changes no matter where life takes us. The prayer Jesus taught us is a promise that God has already made the decision to be with us, no matter what because Jesus is Emmanuel. Wherever you are in your journey with God, may your prayers never pretend you’re something you’re not. You can be with God like that pushy friend who won’t hold back because God’s own hospitality towards us expects nothing less.

Amen.

Children’s Message: Don’t Stop Learning

So it’s my tradition after the prayer of the day to bring a message to all of God’s children. And I have with me a tool used in the kitchen. Have you ever seen something like this before? Let’s describe what we see. 

Describe the tool. 

This is known as a Honing or Sharpening steel. It’s a tool used in the kitchen to help keep knives sharp. A knife works by having one edge sharp – at a point. And that’s why you have to be really careful with knives because if you touch the sharp edge rather than dull edge, you could hurt yourself. When you see knives or use knives, make sure your parents and guardians are around. Knives aren’t toys – they’re tool – that I use a lot to cut strawberries, apples, cucumbers, and other food items in the kitchen. A sharpening steel is pretty easy to use. You take a knife – with a blade and you just gently drag it down one side and then the other. You can hear it make a noise – like a sheeen. After a few “sheens,” the knife is sharper than it once was and that’s important because a sharp knife will do what you want it to do – making it safer and easier to use. For the longest time, I thought the sharpening steel was similar to what a knifer sharpener was. But I was wrong. For years and years, I thought I knew what this thing did. Turns out, I was mistaken and I just recently learned what a sharpening steel does. 

ANd to know what it does, we have to realize we can’t see everything and what we think we know might not be the full story. If you look at the edge of the knife, it looks pointy and sharp. But our eyes, without help, can’t really see what is happening at the pin-point edge. It’s the pin-point edge where the edge of the knife touches the apple – and it’s there where the knife can start to get faulty. The more we use a knife, the more that edge gets out of whack. It’ll start to wobble, no longer be straight, and resemble a squiggly line. Parts will flatten out or point in random ways and will no longer have an edge. That’s what makes the knife dull – which makes it harder to cut and harder to do what you want it to do. When you rub it on a sharpening steel, you’re bending the edge at a microscopic level so that’s it straight. It’s not actually sharpening the edge which would involve using stone or something harder than the knife to actually rub metal off, making a new point. It simply brings the edge back to the way it was. And it takes care of an issue we know is there but that we can’t physically see. 

So why bring up a sharpening steel in church? Well, for a few reasons. One is that, for the longest time, I didn’t know what this thing actually di. I thought it actually changed the blade by physically grinding away bits of metal from the edge. But it didn’t. You’re always going to learn new things, no matter how old you are. And you’ll often discover that what you do know isn’t quite right. It’s okay to admit when we get things wrong because we will. We don’t always see the full story because we’re only human. We can only see what we can see – yet we have opportunities and tools that might help us see in new ways. Seeing things in new ways is an important theme in our stories about Jesus. He is always helping people look at their lives, the people around them, and what they hold most dear – and wonder if there’s a more loving, more kind, more patient, more godly way of looking at things. Jesus knows what it’s like to be like us – to only see a bit of the picture. But Jesus is also God – and knows that there’s so much more to see, to wonder, and to understand. Jesus invites us to stay open the possibility that we’re not right about all things and that we will always need to keep learning. And it’s okay to always be a learner – even when what we learn my challenge something very important to us or upend what we thought we knew. We get to learn and grow and change and, even when it feels difficult to do that, we should do it anyways because Jesus loves us, Jesus is with us, and Jesus – through the gift of faith, the bible, prayer, and the spirit – will keep showing us all the new ways to look at ourselves and the world. 

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, 7/17/2022.

Sermon: Jesus was also in the room with Mary and Martha

Now as [Jesus and his disciples] went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. \She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:38-41

My sermon from the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (July 17, 2022) on Luke 10:38-42.

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There’s a scene in the 2001 film adaption of The Fellowship of the Ring that makes me wish I could experience the hospitality of a hobbit. Aragorn, an extremely well trained swordsman and a natural leader, had just saved a small group of hobbits from being killed. This small fellowship headed off into the wilderness, seeking safe passage to the elvish city of Rivendell. The next morning while trudging through some rough terrain, Aragorn looked back and saw Pippin, Merry, Frodo, and Sam taking off their packs while preparing a small campfire. Aragorn was a bit confused and he told them they weren’t stopping until nightfall. This bit of news shocked the hobbits because they had some expectations of how the day was supposed to go. Pippin asked the leader of this growing fellowship: “what about breakfast?” Aragorn reminded them they had already eaten. “We’ve had one, yes,” Pippin agreed, but “what about second breakfast?” Aragorn didn’t even bother responding to that and kept leading them through the wilderness. Merry, Pippin’s good friend, came up and said, “I don’t think he knows about second breakfast.” Pippin was crushed and he cried out: “ What about elevenses? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn’t he?” Merry, who was getting to keep following the one who saved them, simply replied: “I wouldn’t count on it Pip.” 

Today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke is a story that has been identified as a kind of competition between Martha and Mary. Martha, after welcoming Jesus into her home, was busy showing her guest hospitality. A good definition for what that hospitality looked like comes from The Rev. Dr. Niveen Sarras, a Lutheran pastor of Palestinian descent. She recently wrote, “In my culture and in first-century Palestine, hospitality is about allowing the guest to share the sacredness of the family space.” We can imagine the work it took for Martha to make that happen. And while moving between what needed to be done and her guests, she kept seeing her sister Mary doing nothing. Every time Martha refilled a glass or brought out a new snack to share, she noticed her sister just sitting there. Martha, at first, kept her feelings to herself. But after a bit, she begged Jesus to intervene. Jesus, I believe, truly listened to Martha – hearing the anger and worry and frustration in her voice. Yet he chose to answer her in a way she didn’t expect. Jesus said it was Mary who had chosen the better path which makes it seems as if Mary won whatever competition these two were in. One lesson from this passage is that those who do too much should learn how to stop and listen to Jesus. But I also wonder what this story says to those who do too little because serving others is part of our life of faith. Something else, I think, was happening within Martha’s home. And if we only pay attention to what the women did in the home, we forget that Jesus was doing something too. 

Now this story took place only a few verses after Jesus began his long journey to Jerusalem. He was headed towards the cross but he also took the most round-about way to get there. Instead of heading straight to the city, he sent his followers 2 by 2 to visit villages in the land of the Samaritans he planned to go to. Jesus told his disciples they would have to depend on the hospitality of others. And when they came back to him, they overheard Jesus tell a story about an unexpected hero who was a hospitable neighbor to their so-called enemy. After he shared the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus then entered the village where Martha and Mary lived. Once he wandered into what might have been a strange new place, Martha made the choice to welcome him into her home. There’s a bit of a parallel here between the commands he issued to his disciples and what he, himself, chose to do. And just like he sent them into unexpected places, Jesus did the unexpected thing of entering the home of a woman. It was the cultural practice at the time for the home to be identified as belonging to whoever the male head of the household was. So if Martha lived with her husband, father, or even her brother, Luke would have said the house belonged to them. But this was Martha’s home which meant she was, most likely, an independent woman. This independent woman extended hospitality to a wandering Jewish teacher and those who followed him. Jesus wasn’t supposed to be there yet when he entered the home, he did what he always does. He taught; he listened; he ate; and he was the kingdom of God come near. In that moment, Martha’s hospitality created a space where he belonged. But since Jesus is always Jesus, his presence showed how they belonged too. 

And we can see that by paying attention to Mary. She, like her sister, was expected to serve since the work of including a guest in the sacredness of your family space was often assigned to the women of the household. Even though it was Martha’s home, she and Mary were called on to make sure Jesus was included. Yet instead of following along with what Martha was doing, Mary did something else instead. She sat at the feet of Jesus which isn’t a phrase simply describing her physical location. Rather, when someone sat at Jesus’ feet, they were taking on the posture of a disciple. Mary, in that moment, engaged with Jesus in the same way that all the apostles did. And instead of sending her away to help Martha serve, Jesus served Mary by including her as one of his own. Suddenly, the family space within Martha’s home became bigger because Jesus made sure to include them in his. Jesus, by entering an independent woman’s home, did more than just stretch the boundaries of where God chooses to show up. He also changed what hospitality looks like because he welcomed Martha and Mary while they were welcoming him. Hospitality, when Jesus is involved, means more than just inviting someone into your family space. It also means staying open to the ways you will be changed since the unexpected people God values and loves is now part of your family too. 

Jesus’ visit to Martha and Mary is more than an example of our need to prioritize our time with Jesus. It’s also an illustration of how Jesus’ presence extends the body of Christ beyond every one of our expectations. We, who are busy living on the other side of the world almost 2000 years after Jesus visited a certain village, are not much different from the kinds of people Jesus reached out to. We, like Martha and Mary, are the unexpected followers of Jesus who, through baptism and faith, have been brought into his family space. It’s a family space that, like all families, is full of love and joy and hurt and frustrations and many broken expectations. But it’s also a space that’s not centered in blood lines, DNA, cultural bounds, or even our choices. It’s an environment drawn together by Christ because, through God’s love, we have been chosen. You have already been welcomed into God’s family space with a love that will keep pushing the limits of our welcome until it matches God’s own. Instead of serving and loving and welcoming others in the ways we’ve always done, we will need to re-evaluate and change what we do while staying open to the ways Jesus is already changing us. He is the one who shows us what God’s hospitality looks like. And when we find ourselves focused on our expectations, choosing to stop and stew and chew on what we thought we already knew, Jesus will be right there to lead us into a fullness of life that we can always count on. 

Amen.

Sermon: Do – Not Only Be

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Luke 10:25-37

My sermon from the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (July 10, 2022) on Luke 10:25-37 (with a hint to Psalm 25:1-10)

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Marvel Studios’ newest show, Ms. Marvel, tells the story of Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-descent teenager living in Jersey City. She is, for all intents and purposes, a geek in a world where superheroes exist. She’s a gamer, a writer of fan fiction, and a cosplayer who spent days perfecting a costume of her favorite hero – Captain Marvel. Kamala is also a daughter of immigrants, a devout muslim, and lives in a society that doesn’t believe brown girls from New Jersey can save the world. She, like all of us, contains a multitude of identities and everything gets really complicated once she has powers. Once she secretly begins being a hero, everyone in her community can’t stop wondering who this hero might be. And during a party thrown by her parents, Kamala was sitting on her front steps when the iman of her mosque stepped out the front door. He asked her why she was sitting all by herself and she, being a teenager, didn’t exactly answer. Kamala wanted to know what he thought about this new hero but, instead, he turned the question around and asked her what she thought. With a bit of ache, worry, and sorrow in her voice, she wonderered how this muslim, pakistani-american, a daughter of immigrants from Jersey City, could show everyone that she was good. The iman looked at her and before heading on his way, simply said: “Good is not a thing you are, Kamala. It is a thing you do.” 

Today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke is known as “the parable of the Good Samaritan” even though the word “good” never appears in the text. Jesus, while chatting with the disciples who had returned from their mission to share peace with villagers living in the land of the Samaritans, was asked a question by a lawyer. This lawyer sort of shows up unexpectedly because Luke never tells us how they got there. They, an extremely educated person who knew not only the law of the government but also the ethics laid out in the first four books of the Bible, asked Jesus about what God wanted them to do. Now Jesus could have answered the question straightforwardly but instead, he flipped the script. He asked the lawyer what he thought and the lawyer responded with a mashup of two verses from the book of Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Jesus told the lawyer that he already has the answer to his question. But the lawyer wasn’t done and instead of asking another question about what to “do,” he wondered “who is my neighbor?” 

Jesus, at this point in the interaction, could have responded in a couple of different ways. He could have flipped the question again or pulled together an answer out of the very same chapters in Leviticus and Deuteronomy the lawyer had quoted. Those chapters show how our neighbors include the immigrant, the stranger, and the person who isn’t like us. Jesus could have made the neighbor the center of his answer but he didn’t. He chose, instead, to tell a story. Now it’s important, I think, for us to remember this story wasn’t only designed for us. It was also meant for the people who first heard Jesus tell it. Stories are how we teach, share, and highlight what matters the most to us. And our stories also rely on certain social cues, tropes, and conventions to get their point across. We know, for example, that when a story begins with “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” what follows next will unfold in a certain kind of way. Jesus knew his culture’s storytelling conventions and so we also need to pay attention to the kinds of stories people told in the years surrounding Jesus’ resurrection. The scholar Amy-Jill Levine has spent a lot of time wondering what Jesus’ words sounded like to the Jewish community living in the first century. Her work has revealed the conventions people expected Jesus to follow when he told a story. Since folks within the 1st century Jewish community often identified themselves as either a member of the priestly tribe or as a Levite or as an Isrealite, those identities popped into people’s heads when Jesus’ story mentioned a priest and levite. When the story was about to reveal the third person who walked by, those in Jesus’ first audience would have expected an Israelite to be named next. And since the Isrealite would be the third person identified as walking by the person left for dead, the storytelling convention meant he would be the hero of the story. The lawyer, Jesus’ disciples, and all who listened in expected an Isrealite to save the day. Yet when Jesus got to that part of his story, the first words out of his mouth were: “a Samaritan.” 

When the lawyer moved from a “do” question to a “who” question, Jesus told a story with a “who” they didn’t expect. The Samaritan was, as we’ve heard over these last few weeks, seen as an outsider and as an enemy. They were the neighbors no one wanted and who, it was assumed, didn’t want the Jewish community as their neighbors either. Those listening to Jesus assumed when the Samaritan showed up, violence would follow. Yet the hero no one expected was the one who showed what “good” looked like. When it comes to a life with faith, good isn’t really a noun or an adjective. Good, like love, is a verb – an action we gift to others through the gifts God has first given us. And if we want to loosely define what good is, all we need to do is to turn to the unexpected hero of this story. Good is noticing the person in need and choosing to care. Good is the giving of a mercy that not only alleviates the immediate peril they’re in but does all it can to make the wounded person whole. When God says we’re to love our neighbors as ourselves, this is what God is talking about. Yet this love – this offering of goodness and mercy and neighborliness to all – is hard because it shows how “goodness” isn’t meant as an identity that defines who we are. We, as human beings, are flawed and we often embrace cultural conventions and ways of being in the world that we uncritically assume are good. But when those conventions are challenged, we do everything we can to justify ourselves because we can’t believe we’re not who we imagined ourselves to be. Rather than letting our identity as a so-called “good person” be what defines us, we can let God – through Jesus – tell us who we really are. You, through baptism and faith, have been publicly declared as a beloved child of God. This is one of the many identities you hold but was one gifted to you rather than one you earned. You are very human, full of a variety of identities, beliefs, opinions, and point of views that might show how you’re not as good or loving or welcoming or neighborly as you thought you were. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do what Jesus knows you can do. You have already been given the gift of grace; the gift of God’s word; the gift of prayer; the gift of Jesus’ stories; the gift of the Holy Spirit; the gift of faith; and the gift of knowing you are valued and loved. We will always struggle using these gifts to help us figure out what is good and neighborly now that we’re living 2000 years after a lawyer questioned Jesus. But during those moments when we feel like we have no idea what we can do, we can lean into the way of our Lord by always choosing to do and give mercy. 

Amen.

Children’s Message: Showing Your Work

So it’s my tradition after the prayer of the day to bring a message to all of God’s children. And I have with me a workbook that I make my children work on during the summer.It’s a workbook full of things they might have learned in school over the previous year. I know, I know, having to do schoolwork in the summer sounds awful. But it’s my way of encouraging them to keep their skills sharp so that, in the fall, the school year is easier for them. 

The workbook is full of different sections – including science, social studies, writing, and…math. Math is full of numbers, operations, adding things up, subtracting things away from each other, and more. There’s a lot of different methods or ways of finding an answer to a math problem but one thing I found is that, the more math I did, the easier it got to solve problems in my head. I could do the addition, the subtraction, the division or whatever in my head because I had practiced those kinds of problems over and over again. I remember doing math homework, worksheets, or tests – and simply writing the answer down because I had already done the work in my head. But teachers were never really interested in me getting the answer. What they wanted was to show my work. They wanted to see me take the time and do the steps needed to solve the problem. If I filled out the worksheet and just wrote down an answer – they wouldn’t know how I got the answer. And often showing how you get an answer is more important than getting the answer itself. 

So showing your work – showing how you do something or why you do something – is important. It’s not just enough, sometimes, to have an answer. The people around you want to see how you got that answer as well. When we show others the work we’ve done, we help them see why we do what we do and how we solved the problem. It’s not always easy to show our work because it can reveal our shortcomings; what we got wrong; and maybe how we don’t always know what we’re talking about. But showing our work is how we built trust with others – and also is how we show our faith. We call others we’re a christian or we’re baptized or we’re beloved by God. All those things are true. Yet people around us would also want to show how we’re a Christian – and how following Jesus changes what we do right now. We can tell people we’re a Christian but we can’t show them without doing Christian work. And that work is, as we’ll hear in our story about Jesus today, about showing mercy; about caring for others; about sharing love even when it’s hard. It’s about being kind, patient, and willing to make sacrifices for others. It’s about doing the work of love instead of telling folks we love them. And that’s what God invites us to do; to show the work of what following Jesus is all about.

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, 7/10/2022.

Children’s Message: Prepped for Failure

So it’s my tradition after the prayer of the day to bring a message to all of God’s children. And I want to talk a little bit with you about something that everyone experiences but we’re not very good at how to deal with it when it happens. It’s something everyone in the pews has experienced and something that even the followers of Jesus, 2000 years ago, experienced too. So to explore what that is, we need to talk a little bit about the story of Jesus we’re going to hear. And to do that, I’ve got a picture.

So what do you see in this picture? There’s groups of people two-by-two knocking on the doors. It seems like there’s a road, a path, and a lot of these groups knocking on doors. What do you think they’re doing?

What we’re going to hear is that Jesus asks his disciples to go ahead of him into places Jesus plans to go. Jesus is going to villages located with folks who were Samaritans. Samaritans had similar beliefs to Jesus’ own Jewish background but there was enough differences that they didn’t get along. Jesus, as a very religious Jewish person, wasn’t supposed to hang out and eat meals with Samaritans. But he went to see them anyways cuz God’s love, regardless of beliefs or religion or culture or background, is for everyone. Jesus told his disciples, who were probably mostly Jewish like him, to go ahead of him. He sent them in groups of two and told them to bring very little with them. They won’t bring money, extra clothes, or extra shoes. Instead, they’d have to rely on the generosity of others – of people not exactly like them – to help take care of them. 

So do you think it would have been easy or hard to accept that kind of help?

It was probably really hard because it could go really well or it could go poorly. And if people didn’t accept them or didn’t talk to them or told them to go away, the disciples would have felt like the failed Jesus. Failure is something we all experience – when we try something and it just doesn’t work. We fail at school when we take a test. We’re not always the best player on our baseball team. We sometimes come up short in the championship game. Or we try to beat a level in the game we’re playing and we just can’t do it. Sometimes we fail because we didn’t practice enough, study enough, or do the work we needed to do well. But sometimes we fail because our best just wasn’t enough or because we were never going to be successful as we thought we were. Failing is a hard thing to experience and, when it happens, we might think we – over all – are just failures too. 

We’re going to hear in our story that the disciples that were sent out were successful – but that Jesus also did something special for them. He also prepared them for failure. He prepared and talked to his disciples about what happens when someone turns them away or when things don’t go as well as they wanted. He told them to shake the dust from their shoes – which is a weird expression – but one that could be like shrugging shoulders and saying “oh well” when we fail. It’s a way to admit we haven’t been able to do what we set out to do. That doesn’t mean we won’t feel angry or upset or frustrated because we’re allowed to feel those things. But we don’t have to blame ourselves or believe that because we failed, we ourselves are a failure. Instead, we learn to move on; to try again; to be okay that we’re not supposed to be the best at everything. We’re going to fail and that’s okay because God’s love for us doesn’t depend on whether we are a success. God loves you; God cares for you; God will guide you; and because we have been baptized and brought into Jesus’ special family, it’s safe for us to try and fail because Jesus will never let us go.

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, 7/3/2022.

Summer Spaces: peace, Satan falls, and the 70 disciples

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

My sermon from the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (July 3, 2022) on Luke 10:1-11,16-20 and Psalm 66:1-9.

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One of the fun things about summer in suburbia is that we, unintentionally, have created these little opportunities where we can wonder. Since this is the season when schools shut down and a lot of us head to the shore, we live in this strange reality where life is still busy but our urgent emails that need an immediate response go unanswered. We, together, slow down because we have to wait for someone else to answer. That’s a bit maddening but there’s not much we can do about it because so many folks have out-of-office announcements on their voicemail. We find ourselves living through these little gaps of space and time where we have to wait. And while we wait, our minds are allowed to wander. We could ponder one of the deep fundamental questions about our place in the universe. Or, if you’re like me, you might wonder why hot dogs are sold in packs of ten but their buns are sold in bags of eight. When I recently let my mind wander, I learned there’s something called the National Hot Dog Sausage Council and they’ve explained the difference between dogs and buns in this way. Around the year 1940, hot dogs were sold in packs of ten but, at the time, industrial technology required buns to be baked eight rolls at a time. Even though bakers today are not limited by that kind of technology, most still follow the old ways. If we wanted to make the buns and the dogs come out even at our next barbecue, we would need to be creative about how we use them. That creativity might resemble a recent article I saw by Jonny Sun where he imagined turning hot dogs into tacos or a weird kind of sushi or just throwing everything into a blender and making a really dense and bready smoothie. By giving us little moments when all we can do is wait, the season of summer grants us the opportunity to strengthen our spiritual imagination. All of us, no matter our age, can grow in wonder. And when we spend time wondering about big and small things, we learn how to see God’s word in a new way. That, I think, is a really helpful skill to have because we often stumble into some really weird things in our Bible like when Jesus said he saw “Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.”

Now this one sentence has inspired a lot of people’s spiritual imagination over the years. I’ve seen it used to inspire some incredible paintings and even movies that depict a kind of cosmic battle between the devil and God. Scholars, theologians, and deep thinkers have used this line to create a framework describing how heaven, hell, good, and evil interact in our world. This one line has been used a lot but it’s a bit odd since Luke doesn’t give us any words to flesh what Jesus said. There’s no actual description of some kind of cosmic battle and Luke doesn’t interrupt Jesus’ speech with a description of the disciples seeing something divine happening around them. Instead, this one sentence is embedded in a series of sentences Jesus spoke after seventy disciples returned and told him all they had seen and heard. Jesus was already beginning his final journey into Jerusalem. Yet he sent his followers to visit the land of the Samaritans which really wasn’t on the way. Jesus was doing something strange and I’m not sure if this one line was about some comic thing he had seen in the past. Rather it seems to me that Jesus, while looking at those who he had sent into an unexpected place, knew that their work had, in small and big ways, changed the world.

So if my interpretation is correct, how did the seventy disciples actually do that? Well I think part of it was because they went into an unexpected place, met with people they weren’t supposed to, and created tiny moments to wonder. Since Jesus was Jewish, there was no expectation that he, or his followers, would hang out with Samaritans. There was a long simmering religious and cultural conflict between these two groups even though they had some similar beliefs about God. Jesus was supposed to visit other Jews yet he sent his disciples, two by two, into villages full of people not like him. He gave the one he sent special instructions, telling them to bring basically nothing including no bags, money, or even an extra pair of sandals. None of them would have control over the hospitality they received; depending entirely on people they hadn’t met yet for food and shelter. They would go into these villages, knock on a door, and the first word out of their mouths would be: “peace.”

For the Samaritans meeting these followers of Jesus, that experience must have been weird. The strangers at their door wouldn’t, at first, introduce themselves or explain why they were there. All they said was “peace” and then they stood there, waiting for a response. The Samaritans probably recognized these strangers as members of the Jewish community which made the whole experience even weirder. In the constant religious and cultural struggle between these two communities, rarely would one put themselves in a position where the other side has control. Yet here they were, creating this strange moment in time and space where they waited for the Samaritans to respond. The strangers at the door put themselves in a position where the people who weren’t supposed to like them would be the ones to take care of them. And in this strange moment, the disciples didn’t try to coerce the Samaritans to get their way or flex some kind of faith-based muscle to show how awesome they were. Instead, they offered “peace” and created a moment where the people they were talking to could wonder what that peace should look like.

And that, I think, is something we, as followers of Jesus, get to do. Since Jesus included us in his holy family through baptism and faith, we get to bring peace into everyone’s home. This peace is more than merely a feeling of being comfortable and at ease. Instead, it’s a peace that encourages vulnerability while letting people be exactly who they are. The barriers, fears, mistrust, and anxieties we put into the spaces between us and others are meant to be bridged by those who follow Jesus. That isn’t always an easy thing to do because it requires us to be vulnerable with others. We, in those moments, create tiny spaces where they, and us, are empowered to make their own choices. That can feel very risky because we have no control over what they might do. Yet when we let others choose, we show how Jesus has already made a difference in our lives. It’s a strange thing to be so beloved by God that we are able to let others be exactly who they are. Yet it’s through the grace we are given every day by a God who has claimed us as God’s own, that we are empowered to love and serve; to sing and praise; and to tell others about what God has done for us and for them. By letting others choose, we show how our spiritual imagination has changed our lives and invite them to imagine what their lives can be too. And that helps us eat together; spend time with one another; and learn how our story isn’t the only story that matters to God. It’s within those little gaps of time and space when peace begins to be made real. And as peace grows, everything that stands against the kingdom of God – including Satan and the myriad of ways we keep each other apart – all of that comes tumbling down.

Amen.