Category: Faith

My sermon from the Fifth Sunday in Lent (April 7, 2019) on John 12:1-8.

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On Thursday morning, I was sitting in my office in the middle of a conference call when odd messages started popping up. At first, these messages showed up in my email. But then came the texts. And before you know it, I was getting phone calls, asking me weird questions about something I didn’t really understand. Many different people from this church seemed to be responding to an email I never sent. They wanted to know why I, out of the blue, needed them to buy some gift cards. I didn’t and that’s when I realized we were being scammed. Now, as a pastor, I’m used to being scammed. Every few weeks or so, I receive an email or phone call from someone asking for money. Since asking for help is one of the hardest things a person can do, I have a personal policy where I believe every story someone tells me. I believe them when they mention their recent medical trauma. I believe them when they describe the family they’re taking care of. I believe them when they talk about the tank of gas they need to make it to their next job interview. And I believe them when they mention they only need a hotel room for one night because they’ve got a place lined up right after that. I believe them because that’s sometimes true. And when I let them know how I can help, you can hear the tone of their voice change when they suddenly realize they’re being heard. But when a scam is taking place, that’s all pretend. The story we’re told isn’t real no matter how much detail they put into it. A scammer knows how to use our trust, our relationships, and our empathy against us. Someone went to our church website, noticed my contact information, and created a fake gmail account pretending to be me. They then, I think, tried to find email addresses for anyone listed on our website. When they found one, they immediately sent that person a note, hoping you believed it came from me. Once you replied, their ask would follow. All they needed was for you to go buy a few gift cards and send them electronically. At that point, it probably felt weird because I was asking you something I’ve never asked before and the emails I sent you never used your name. But, you’d ask yourself, what if Pastor Marc was really asking for help? And that’s exactly what the scammer hoped you would think. They tried to use the strength of our relationship and your generous nature to make a quick buck for themselves. Once your money was sent, it was as good as spent – and the scammer would go find another faith community to target in the same exact way. 

When it comes to scams, if something feels off, it probably is. As your pastor, I would not personally ask you to buy gift cards via email nor act as if I didn’t know who you are. When it comes to emails, phone calls, and anything we see online, we need to approach these situations with the same kind of suspicion we bring to the internet every April Fool’s Day. If it feels weird, it probably is. Our feeling of unease in those moments is not something we should quickly push aside. Instead, we should stay there, knowing that sitting with unease isn’t comfortable but it can be holy. And that kind of holy moment might actually be a gift from God. 

Today’s reading from the gospel according to John asks us to sit with a lot of unease. In the verses immediately prior to this one, people wondered if Jesus would risk coming to the Passover festival knowing that the religious and political authorities were planning to arrest him. What they didn’t realize was that he was already on his way. A few days before Passover, Jesus stopped in the village of Bethany, two miles outside of Jerusalem. Jesus’ old friends Lazarus, Mary, and Martha lived there and so they invited him to dinner. I imagine their meal was full of the kind of conversation, laughter, and joy that only comes when we dine with old friends. Yet, Jesus was eating with someone that wasn’t only a friend. He was breaking bread with the man that he, a few chapters before, raised from the dead. That dinner party in Bethany was a moment that shouldn’t have happened. Yet because Jesus was at the table, our expectations were replaced by the new thing God was doing. The unease we feel when we realize who was on that guest list is how we notice how holy that moment already was. Without our unease, Mary’s response to Jesus seems a little weird and a bit off. But when we pull up a chair and take our place at His table, Mary’s response to Jesus is the only reasonable response when God shows up. 

Because when God shows up, there’s nothing about it that’s pretend. Jesus is never anything but Jesus no matter where he is. He’s Jesus when he’s raising Lazarus from the dead and he’s still Jesus when he’s sitting at Lazarus’ table, chewing on a piece of bread. Jesus is the one who patiently taught his disciples even though they never quite knew who he was. And Jesus is Jesus when he’s welcoming the unwelcomed, offering them seat at the Lord’s table. Jesus was Jesus back then on his final journey to Jerusalem and he’s still Jesus, right now, when he shows up in our lives, in the bread, in the drink, and in the ways we love one another. Jesus never takes a day off from being himself even though he knows the risk being Jesus entails. Not everyone will choose to sit with his guest list nor will we always trust that the gifts of faith, hope, love will transform us into something new. We will, through our own experiences of sin and brokenness, believe that being as wise as serpents means we can never truly be as gentle as doves. We will be scammed and, over time, use that as an excuse to live a life thinking we’re safeguarding ourselves from death but, in reality, we’re denying ourselves true life. In the words of Michael Koppel, “so often we… store up precious resources – whether material, spiritual, or emotional – with the intention to use them eventually, yet the activity of saving can itself consume our lives and limit the opportunity for the outpouring of gifts. Our inclination may be to hold back, [afraid] that sharing the resources means losing them, unaware that some resources can become activated only through wholehearted offering.” When we are in the presence of Jesus, can we truly hold back? Mary couldn’t help but be grateful for God’s presence around and within her even though she knew the kinds of scams people played. Mary refused to let what others do be what defined her. Instead, she leaned on Jesus who never stopped being Jesus to her. As we go about our lives, we will face many situations that feel a little bit off, filling us with unease. But we can trust that unease because that might be how God shows us a new holy moment in our lives and how Jesus is already with us, leading the way. 

Amen.

My sermon from the Fourth Sunday in Lent (March 31, 2019) on Luke 15:1-3,11b-32.

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The words we use to name and title the different stories we have in the Bible matter more than we usually think. If we’re not careful, these short summarizing phrases can cause us to miss what’s actually happening in the text. If, for example, we opened our Bibles to the very first page, to the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1, we might find in bold print, a title placed there by an editor to help prepare us for what’s about to come. In one of the Bible I used, the word “Creation” is that title. Now, that title makes sense because the first chapter of the book of Genesis lays out one vision describing how God created the universe. Yet “creation” is a word with its own temperament and depth of meaning. To me, “creation” is a word that sounds historical, describing how something came into being and is now completed. That title seems to imply that God created the universe from nothing and sort of finished up by the beginning of chapter 2. The word “creation” invites us to see in the text a process that happened and is now mostly over. But what if that title was different? Would that cause to read the text differently? What if, instead of calling Genesis 1 “creation,” we called it “chaos,” since the story begins there, with a formless void? Or what if the title was a tad more active, pointing to what God actually does in the text? God, over and over again, speaks, using words to create a brand new song of life. What if the title we used for the opening chapter of the Genesis was something like “God speaks” or “God sings?” A title like that might invite us to remember that the God who created the universe is still speaking and singing, today. The names and titles we use for the stories we find in the Bible do more than provide a short summary of the text that follows. They also, on one level, frame how we choose to interpret that text as well. 

So in the spirit of creating different titles for the stories we find in the Bible, I’ve going to invite you to take a moment to give a new title to a piece of scripture I just read. Now, you might already know the traditional heading for this parable from Jesus from the gospel according to Luke but, if you can, try to forget it. Come up with your own title instead. I’m going to give you about 15 to 30 seconds to think one up before asking you to share that title with the people around you. So – focus on the text for the next 30 seconds – and I’ll let you know when it’s time to share. 

After 30 seconds, invite them to turn and share. 

After a minute or two, return to the sermon. 

Now, instead of asking everyone to go around the room and share what the title they came up with, let’s use a show of hands to see what common words or phrases showed up. 

So how many of your titles included the word “son or sons?” 

How many included the word “father?”

How many of us only focused on the younger son who went away? 

Did anyone focus only on the older brother who stayed? 

Did you include in your title anyone else, like maybe the slaves? 

Did your title include any action words like “run,” or “love,” or “grace?” 

Did anyone’s title only include God? 

Did anyone’s title only focus on the Father? 

Now, the traditional title for this parable is “the Prodigal Son.” And, if I’m honest, I’ve never really known what “prodigal” means. It’s one of those words I’ve heard so often, I assume I already know it. It must, somehow, describe the first son we meet in today’s text. This younger son, after demanding and receiving his inheritance from a father who is very much alive, traveled to a distant place and spent every penny he had. He spent freely and extravagantly, with no regard for his future or the relationships he left behind. When his money finally ran out, he was hungry, tired, dirty, and working in the fields with pigs. He decided to go home. But he’s not sure exactly how his father will respond to him. So the younger son prepared a little speech, one that I imagine he practiced over and over again. He would admit that he’s sinned, that he broke their relationship, and that he’s no longer worthy to be called his father’s kid. With that hard bit of honesty out of the way, the son would then make another demand on his dad. He would ask to be fed, paid, and treated like one of his father’s employees. But that final demand is one the younger son never gets to ask. When his father, who never stopped looking out for the son who left, finally sees him, the father runs to embrace him.  him. The younger son, believing this is finally his chance to make things rights, starts to recite his practiced speech. But after admitting who he truly is, that he is someone who no longer deserves a relationship with the one who is literally surrounding him with love, his father interrupted him. The younger son never gets to make his final demand on his dad. Instead, his father showered his kid with a recklass, extravagant, and almost wasteful response of over-the-top love and grace. 

Prodigal means being wastefully and recklessly extravagant. And the man and his two sons in this story were prodigal in their own ways. The younger son was a pro in spending his money on wasteful kinds of living. And the older son, the one who stayed, was prodigal in a kind of self-centeredness that, like the younger son, can only make demands on his father. Yet their actions, while as relatable to each of us, are not the focus of the story. This isn’t a parable about the prodigal son or sons. This is, in the end, a story about a man who had two sons. And he can’t help but be prodigal with grace and forgiveness to those he loved. That love didn’t depend on what others said and did. Instead, the father loved his children with abandon because that’s just what the father did. The title we should use for this text from the gospel according to Luke shouldn’t be focused only on the younger son. Rather, this is a story about a prodigal father who describes the God who loves you just as extravagantly, just as recklessly, and just as freely, as the man in Jesus’ parable did. God’s love for you doesn’t depend on what you do, where you go, or what you say. Rather, you are loved not because you are perfect but because you are worth the kind of love that can only come from a prodigal God. 

Amen.

My sermon from the Third Sunday in Lent (March 24, 2019) on Luke 13:1-9.

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“What does this mean?” is a pretty Lutheran question. If you opened up your copy of The Small Catechism, Martin Luther’s booklet to help parents teach their children what faith is all about, you would see a version of that question all over. Luther used the Apostle’s Creed, the 10 commandments, and the Lord’s prayer as tools to show everyone why Jesus matters. Now, if you grew up Lutheran, hearing that question might make you a bit uncomfortable. Because for generations, we traumatized 13 year olds at the end of their Confirmation programs by making them stand in front of the entire congregation and recite, from memory, Luther’s answers to that question. In the Confirmation program I teach, I no longer make kids do that. But we do spend a lot of time with the question: what does this mean? In fact, that’s pretty much the standard question we all ask whenever we are face-to-face with the Bible and with Jesus. When we discover terms, ideas, or stories that confuse us, that question helps us to find meaning in the things we don’t understand. But the search for meaning is more than a search for understanding. We also want to make this encounter with faith useful for our everyday life. That usefulness can be as simple as finding a moral argument we can use in our decision making or, when we’re confronted by a text that makes us a uncomfortable, we might want to find way to explain it away so we can ignore it. In the words of Diane Jacobson, we sometimes approach the bible, looking to “…[boil it] down to its core essentials.” We want every verse to have a obvious meaning, every paragraph to be a statement of faith, and every story about Jesus condensable into 140 characters or less. If we can strip down faith, we can then insert that faith into the things we already do, think, and feel. The question, “what does this mean?” is one of the ways we try to turn an encounter with faith into an actual faith that’s lived out in our lives. 

But that question doesn’t show up only in our encounter with the Bible. Because how many times have you starred in the mirror, looking at your current life, and wonder, “what does this mean?” How many times have you reflected on your family, your community, and maybe the entire world and found yourself praying, “what does this mean?” Our search for meaning isn’t limited to only our engagement with the Bible. Our search for meaning shows up in every moment of our lives. When we have a chance to catch our breath while living through a whirlwind of joy, despair, tears, and sorrow – “what does this mean?” is the right question. It’s a faithful question and one I believe God wants us to ask. But the simple, quick, and easy answer we want might not be the actual answer God’s telling us to hold on to. 

In our reading today from the gospel according to Luke, “what does this mean?” is a question the people around Jesus knew very well. We find ourselves dropped into the climax of a conversation Jesus began in chapter 12 while surrounded by a crowd of thousands. Jesus switched back and forth between talking to his disciples and to the crowd. He told those who followed him to be ready; to live confidently, trusting God, and encouraging them to remain faithful to what God was already doing. But that faithfulness wasn’t a call to wait and see what God was up to. Rather, since Jesus was with them, God had already made the first move. Everyone was invited to participate in what was already happening. People were being fed; the sick were being healed; the demons that drove people apart were being casted out; and those society chose to ignore were being seen, noticed, and restored to the community by Jesus himself. God was literally on the move and they were told to join in. The answer to the question of “what does this mean” when Jesus showed up was to get behind him so that God could take you where God knew you needed to go. 

Now, it’s at that moment when some in the crowd asked Jesus a “what does this mean” question of their own. They had watched the government brutally murder a group of people who had gathered for worship and they knew of a building disaster in Jerusalem that had killed 18 people. Neither of those groups had the opportunity to jump on board with what God was currently doing. The crowd wanted to know what does it mean since they missed Jesus. Did they die because they were worse than others? Was their suffering, pain, and sorrow caused by their sin and does God, somehow, love them less? Jesus answered: no. Violence, pain, suffering, and the things we don’t understand are not a sign that God loves us less. Nor are those kinds of experiences an example of God abandoning us in our hour of need. I honestly believe God’s heart breaks everytime ours does and we have a Jesus who knows exactly what it’s like to weep. Jesus’ divinity does not overwrite his humanity and his love for us cannot be overwritten by our brokenness, sorrow, or sin. 

Yet we will not always receive a simple, clear, or exact answer to the question, “what does this mean?” Pilate, the Roman governor, was wrapped up in an ideology and way of life that had no problem killing those who didn’t believe, act, or serve Rome like he did. His behavior seems like something we might understand or, at least, see other examples of in the world around us. But when the tower of Siloam collapsed…that’s just what it did.   We would like to know what it all means. We would like to know how we can take reality, mix in a little faith, and come out on the other side with an answer protecting us from what comes next. Yet the reality of our being alive means that we also need to come to grips with the mystery of meaning and the uncertainty of not knowing. And that kind of uncertainty is at the heart of parable Jesus used about the fig tree and the gardener. 

In the words of Eric D. Barreto, “Many of Jesus’ stories leave us with uncertainty…. we do not know if manure and a gardener’s touch ends up making any difference whatsoever. Does the gardener just delay the inevitable? Does the gardener hold off for one year the fig tree’s destiny of serving as compost for another, more productive tree?” Jesus’ parable ended before it could reach any kind of resolution. We are left with that tree, in the uncertainty of “one more year.” We find given the opportunity to notice what God is doing while realizing the urgency of what such a call truly means. Following Jesus isn’t something we’re asked to do tomorrow. Following Jesus is something we get to do today. In your baptism and in your faith, you are wrapped up by Jesus who isn’t waiting for you to be perfect before he called you to follow him. Instead, he came to you as you are so that you, through Him, can become exactly who God knows you can be. But, if we’re honest, we’re not always sure exactly what that means. A life with faith is a life that will sometimes be uncertain. A life with faith is a life that’s often doubting. A life with faith is a life that will often ask “what does this mean?” Yet, even when we don’t know the answer and we’re at a loss of what to do next – that doesn’t mean we’re alone or that God loves us less. When we find ourselves not being able to see the way forward, that’s when we’re called to get behind Jesus, because he’s already leading the way. 

Amen.

My sermon from the Second Sunday in Lent (March 17, 2019) on Philippians 3:17-4:1

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Everything we do on Sunday morning had to be invented. The type of prayers we say, the kind of music we sing, and the special vestments I wear – all of it comes from somewhere. Some items are pretty easy to explain, like my alb, the robe that I wear. It’s colored white as a reminder of our baptism and it resembles the kind of basic, everyday clothing, that people actually wore in the Roman world 2000 years ago. But not everything we do on Sundays is so easy to explain or so old. In the mid 1890s, the New York Times and other newspapers reported on a new trend in holy communion that had gone viral. Some of the more “hip” churches in Brooklyn were starting to use, for the very first time, individual communion cups. This trend was so compelling that reporters went to church to see how the people would react. Yet the energy behind this new movement in communion didn’t come from theology or some rediscovery of an ancient church practice. No, individual communion cups were all the rage because by the 1890s, the world had finally discovered germs. 

Now, it’s sort of amazing to imagine a time when we didn’t know about germs. Pretty much every cleaning item today brags about how many viruses and bacteria it can kill. But before the 1870s, germ theory and the dangers of microorganisms were not widely accepted. Yet as the science matured, people discovered how diseases could be transferred from person to person and how hygiene mattered. Hospitals began, for the first time, sterilizing their equipment and cities worked on the problem of sanitation. Dozens of new scientific journals dedicated to the wonders of hygiene started being published. And as indoor plumbing started to become more widespread, taking baths more than once a month became part of our cultural standard. A certain kind of cleanliness, once reserved for the very rich, was now available to many people, including the new “middle class.” It wasn’t enough to just own a large house. Your home, your body, and your entire life needed to be cared for, maintained, and “cleaned.” In other words, you needed to match society’s new definition of what was hygienic and everything that didn’t match this new spirit of “clean” was pushed away. 

Entrepreneurs, caught up in this moment in history, noticed how all kinds of people drank out of the same cup when sharing holy communion. A new technology needed to be invented to bring the spirit of hygiene to the practice of holy communion. Many different people, all at the same time, filed patents for individual communion glasses as a way to combat the supposed scourge of unhygienic holy communion. By the time individual communion cups finally reached New York City, the buzz had been brewing for so long that a Brooklyn church advertising their use was standing room only on Sunday mornings. Soon after, religious newspapers and theological journals were full of letters and articles debating the new practice. Some challenged it on theological grounds while others advocated for the individual cups as a way to make Sunday morning as clean as Jesus wanted it to be. The debate over individual communion glasses lasted decades with the question of hygiene dominating every argument. Science, not theology, was now the go-to for the how-to of holy communion. 

Yet in the dozens of articles, letters, and minutes from Lutheran churches who argued about this issue that I’ve read, it seems that the idea of hygiene rather than any scientific evidence was the real driving force behind the debate. Rarely did anyone show bacteria growing on chalices or give evidence showing how one communion cup spread some infectious disease. Instead, that conclusion was assumed to be true. Communion chalices had to be, according to advocates for the new practice, covered in germs. But that wasn’t the chalice’s fault. Rather, the real problem was the kind of people who drank from that chalice. And if you weren’t careful, the wrong kind of people would have touched that cup before you and they would make you sick. 

Over and over again, early advocates for individual communion cups moved from a general statement about hygiene to detailed arguments designed to make you afraid. They weren’t worried about people who dressed like you, looked like you, or lived in the same economic class as you. Instead, they were concerned about that other person who happened to be kneeling next to you at the communion rail. And since the authors couldn’t use science to diagnosis that fictional person, they vilified them instead. Using every ethnic, racial, and economic dog whistle they could, the authors of these writings tried to frighten so-called “respectable people” from being contaminated by what the “other” might have touched. Actual science and facts didn’t matter. Consciously or unconsciously, the early advocates for the individual communion glasses gave in to, and promoted, fear. It wasn’t germs they were worried about. Rather, they were concerned about who God might want them to share communion with. They had no problem communing with someone who fit into their ‘clean’ world but if someone didn’t dress like them, talk like them, shop in the same places like them, live in the same economic class as them, or look like them, then holy communion was literally off the table. Their claim as citizens of their so-called hygienic world was only available to a select few and that opportunity for citizenship was denied to anyone who they didn’t already pre-approve. 

Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, made a claim about citizenship that’s almost easy to miss. He was, as he wrote this letter, probably in prison writing to one of the many church communities he founded. That community, like all early church communities, struggled in the face of persecution, challenge, and internal conflict. Paul wanted to offer the two dozen or so followers of Jesus in Philippi some hope. The community there was surrounded by thousands of people who didn’t believe. Many of these early followers of Jesus probably didn’t grow up Jewish and they came from a variety of social and ethnic backgrounds. A few were probably even slaves. We can assume that a sizable portion of the church in Philippi were not Roman citizens and that they never expected to be granted that status. It wasn’t easy for them to keep the faith since so many other people were against them. So Paul wrote to strengthen them, encourage them, and remind them whose they are. No matter where they came from, what they used to believe, what language they spoke, what status they had, or what their personal hygiene actually was – they, because of the gift of faith and the gift of their baptism, belonged to God. Their citizenship in God’s kingdom, as they were, was already secure. Even in the midst of fear, terror, and conflict, they were Christ’s and Christ was already there’s. By standing firm in the Lord, they could live into a hope that would transform them into something brand new. They were no longer merely what they once were or limited by what the citizenship of the world could offer them. They were citizens of God’s eternal kingdom and that, to Paul, changed everything. 

But that citizenship isn’t a citizenship that’s only to come. Rather, for all who follow Jesus, that citizenship is here, right now. Jesus’ own ministry was a sign of God’s kingdom come near and as citizens of God’s kingdom, our very lives are called to do the same. We are rooted in an identity that will not let he worlds we create for ourselves hold us back from fully embracing the diverse world that God not only created but, through Christ, God truly loved. We are called to dismantle, uproot, and undo any  worldview that aims to do the opposite of what Jesus did. We are not here to deny citizenship of others; rather, we are called to live as if our citizenship actually matters. In the face of hate, evil, extremism, violence, and the very small worlds that we too, try to create and maintain, we are reminded that we are, first and foremost, citizens of heaven. And as citizens of heaven, the only thing we can do is to be like Jesus and that means, no matter the cost, we’re here to just love. 

Amen.