Category: Faith

With the ELCA capital campaign finally kicking off (maybe), I probably should share my two minute speech before the 2013 Churchwide Assembly.

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My name is Marc Almendarez Stutzel from the Metropolitan New York Synod, a seminarian, and I am completing my internship at Advent Lutheran Church in Manhattan. I am also the co-author of this amendment.

As a young adult who started his 20s as one of the self-identified NONEs, and as one who was invited, welcomed, formed, and loved by a small church that had barely a handful of adults in their 20s and 30s, I am a living witness to the powerful & inclusive welcome that our amazing church has.

This amendment to the capital campaign is about continuing this welcome to all youth and young adults who are being led by the Holy Spirit to live our their faith. Lay adults and lay youth are the bulk of the church. Lay leadership is the leadership of the church. This capital campaign amendment is a challenge to all of us to try new things, experiment, risk failure, and to believe that young adults and youth, empowered by the Holy Spirit, should be shepherded by the entire Churchwide expression.

When a church calls a young adult to be its council president, when a young adult feels called to start a mentorship program where the young shepherded the shut-ins, and when a youth feels moved to combat bullying in their school, wouldn’t it be awesome if the Churchwide expression saw them, heard them, and had a network of committed peers that the young person didn’t have to seek out but a network that sought them out.

I pray that we can be a church where no young person would need to ask “are you with us?”

Whether the capital campaign is approved or not, this amendment serves as a powerful witness to being a church committed to lay leadership and their faith formation, to say we are with all young people in our communities, especially those who are just outside our church doors, young people that the Spirit is calling us to see and meet.

O only made it half-way through the first lecture. It was past his bed-time.

Read the article on gts.edu.

The ELCA has a brand new look.

I haven’t dug enough into the new site to give a complete review but, at first glance, I like what I see. The website is fully responsive and seems designed from the smartphone, out. This is brilliant. The front page feels great on a smartphone, easy to navigate, intuitive, and the menu works perfectly (its large size is perfect for fat thumb syndrome and synchs well with other menus that look like it). This mobile site blows my most recent attempt at responsive design out of the water and, for that, I’m grateful. Well done!

Of course, the website itself is still too heavy. There is too much information on it and it is trying to do too much. This has been a problem for elca.org forever. The website is seen as a one-stop-shop for all denominational and visitor needs. I doubt any non-ELCA Lutheran will look at that site and be encouraged to dig deep within it. The desktop experience just is too bloated to cater to the brand new visitor. There are too many menus, too many sliding pictures, too many places to click, and too many different page templates. The interior pages, surprisingly, are not terrible but their experience on the big screen is lacking. The content in the center is not the focus of the experience. On a small screen (or smartphone), that center content would really pop. But, on a big screen, it is trapped by content around it. And the deeper you get into the site, the less intuitive the menu choices become. It is easy to get lost in the site and not know why that happened. There’s just too much here – and just not enough of the right stuff.

All in all, this isn’t a bad attempt but I’ll hold off on my final judgement until I see how the new call process/assignment/clergy-paper-work section looks after December 9. As an almost-clergy person (God willing), these new web-forms are what I’m really looking forward to seeing and exploring.

On Tuesday, November 12, I gave the homily at the monthly gathering of the Manhattan Ministerium. The Ministerium consists of the ECLA Lutheran pastors and leaders who work in Manhattan or call Manhattan home. We were using the readings for the lesser feast day from our Episcopalian brothers and sisters because later that evening I would be delivering my senior sermon at General Theological Seminary. My plan was to use the Ministerium gathering as a trial run for my sermon. Instead, I wrote two different sermons for Tuesday. The context for the two were just too different to use the same sermon twice.

Readings: Romans 10:8b-17, John 21:15-17

For the audio inclined, download an .mp3 file here (warning, some loud noises make the first 3 seconds a tad annoying): A reflection on Charles Simeon.

Charles Simeon:Wikipedia edition.

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A Reflection on Charles Simeon

Imagine, for a moment, if every sermon you’ve ever preached was collected in a book. Every single one. All the manuscripts, all the notes, all the ones that were preached off the cuff ‚Äì all of it collected in one big book. In some ways, that might look like our life’s work. So now that I’m imagining that collected body of work ‚Äì and being a former engineer – my mind just starts asking quantitative questions like, how much of the bible would those sermons actually cover? What’s the ratio of Sunday sermons to the others? Which gospel book did I preach on the most? The least? And what’s the ratio of clunkers to actually decent ones? And I’m sure I could come up with a bunch of other questions look at ‚Äì but there would be one that I would want to wrap up on ‚Äì one final question – looking back, how many of them truly preached Christ crucified?

Our readings today are for a lesser feast from the calendar of our Episcopalian brothers and sisters. It’s the feast day of Charles Simeon, an Englishman born in 1759. He grew up from modest means, attended Eaton, and graduated from Cambridge. He eventually was ordained and appointed Vicar of Holy Trinity in Cambridge. During his ministry, he helped co-found missionary societies, send missionaries to India, and actually built a campus ministry before those things even existed. And he served as the Vicar of Holy Trinity for 54 years. One place – for 54 years. And during that time, he wrote a sermon for every chapter of the bible. Every single one. But he didn’t just keep his sermons for his congregation and himself. During his ministry, he was constantly publishing his sermons and his sermon outlines ‚Äì he called them “sermon skeletons.” When these outlines were finally complied together, he had a 21 volume commentary on the complete bible. And these sermons and outlines were just devoured by his peers. Hundreds of priests all over England were busy using his outlines or just stealing his sermons when they had to preach. He’s a reminder of those great movers and pillars of the Christian church who’s influence grew not in some great event but in the long, drawn out slog that can be congregational ministry ‚Äì of feeding lambs, tending sheep, and also having breakfast while you’re at it.

And that’s one of my favorite bits from this part of John ‚Äì the fact that this exchange happens after breakfast. This snippet is completely pulled out of it’s context but you still can’t take breakfast out of it. Being fed by Jesus ‚Äì being invited to the table to have a little meal ‚Äì that happens first. Peter is nourished before the questions from Jesus begin. I almost imagine Peter lounging a bit, full and alert. He’s in a secure place; he’s sitting with Jesus; he just caught a ton of fish; and he’s just been fed. He’s in the best place he could possibly be in, right now. And it’s only then, once the food starts being digested, that Jesus starts questioning Peter. Jesus tackles him when Peter’s feels he’s at his peak ‚Äì that’s when Jesus’s three questions begin. And Peter can’t do anything but be fluster about it.

I fully identify with Peter here. There are definitely times in my ministry where I’ve had some successes and felt good about what happened, confident about what went down, excited and secure about what the future will bring. I forgot to show humility ‚Äì I act like I’m full from breakfast, and that I can handle anything that comes down the road. I start to just get a tad too me focused ‚Äì and forget that God’s got a say in all of this too. And it doesn’t usually take long before reality hits, things crumble, because I became a tad too confident in me and not confident enough in God’s faithfulness and love.

But even when that happens ‚Äì there’s still breakfast; there’s still that nourishment from God; there’s still, as I’m hearing in this text today, there’s still Jesus right here, in the thick of things, not abandoning me to my confidence, but transforming me into a better servant; transforming all of us, all the time, to be better servants; better caregivers to the lambs, to sheep ‚Äì to all of those who God calls us to serve. Whether ordained or not, we’re all in ministry for the long haul. We might not be in the same place for 54 years, but we’re called to live out our ministry fully and completely. But we’re not called to do that alone. We’ve got Christ; we’ve got this ministerium; we’ve got our brothers and sisters in the Episcopal church too ‚Äì so let’s everything we do, as we gather today and next month and the month after ‚Äì tend sheep, feed lambs, proclaim Christ crucified ‚Äì a Christ given for me and for you.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Preached at Advent Lutheran Church. At the 11 am service, six young persons were confirmed.

Lessons for the day (Pentecost + 25, Year C): Job 19:23-27a; Psalm 17:1-9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5,13-17; Luke 20:27-38

For the audio inclined, listen to the sermon here.

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I’d like to time travel for a bit, if that’s okay. Two years ago, right here in the sanctuary, sitting in a circle of chairs, a group of young persons here at Advent invited me to lead them in their early Confirmation classes. We started by looking at the first books of the bible, Genesis and Exodus. The story of creation, the story of Adam & Eve and the reality of sin ‚Äì we were hitting the big questions right at the beginning. And we knew they could take it. But we wanted to make sure that all questions, big or small, silly or serious, would be welcomed in that space. And I remember…in all honestly, I think I said this a dozen times in our Confirmation classes ‚Äì I remember looking at these young people, when the conversation got quiet, when there was a lull in the teaching, I remember asking them “do you have any questions?” And I then did…I did what teachers, bosses, mangers, have done countless times before me and will do countless times after me, I said with a straight face “there are no stupid questions!”

But has that ever actually convinced someone to actually ask a question? Because questions are strange beasts; once they enter the world, they take on a life of their own. There’s the question asked about our math homework that shows we actually didn’t understand last week’s assignment. Or the question in our World History class that receives snickers from our classmates once they hear it. Or the question a politician asks another during a debate that is a question designed to make their opponent look silly, ridiculous, make them look utterly wrong. I don’t think it takes long for us to learn that questions can easily be more than just seeking information about something we don’t know. Questions can have bite, emotion, consequences. There might not be any stupid questions but there are definitely questions that, if we ask them , cause all sorts of problems.

And that’s what the Sadduccees were doing in our Gospel reading today. They were asking Jesus a ridiculous question, knowing that Jesus would give them a ridiculous answer, making Jesus look silly. Jesus’s answer would make the right kind of people just ignore him. That was the plan. But what they didn’t expect was Jesus’s real answer ‚Äì an answer that revealed God’s unbelievable, undeserved, almost ridiculous, love for each and everyone one of us.

In Jesus’ day, the world of Israel was a politically and religiously diverse place. The Roman Empire stood at the top of the political heap, with puppet kings below to oversee the local happenings. And religions flowed, moved, and were in constant contact with each other. The Roman Empire itself was just getting started with elevating their emperors to be gods and they had a huge pantheon of gods such as Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. The Jewish community of Israel was split into different groups. There were the Pharisees, the Sadduccees, the Essenes, and other sects within First Century Judaism. The Sadduccees were, most likely, the sect in charge of the Temple in Jerusalem. They were associated with the rich and wealthy, and focused their faith on the first five books of our Bible. One of the big differences between them and the Pharisees was the notion of the resurrection ‚Äì of what happens after a person dies. Jesus, in many ways, lines up with the teachings of the Pharisees ‚Äì so the Sadduccees, when they see Jesus roll into town, call him out. They decide to test him ‚Äì to cause him all sorts of problems by making him answer a ridiculous riddle.

They’re asking him a “gotcha” question of their day. So they come up with the scenario of a woman who marries a man with six brothers. But, eventually, he dies and they have no children. Following the custom of levirate marriage, the woman marries the next brother in line, the idea being that the children from this marriage will grow up with the name and rights of the older brother who just died. In a society where women had few options, making sure assets of the family weren’t lost if an heir wasn’t produced and some widows weren’t tossed out into the street ‚Äì that was important. So, this woman marries her brother-in-law and, well, then he dies and there’s no children so she just cycles through and marries the next brother-in-law. They keep dying, she keeps marrying, until she married them all and finally she dies, with no children and no heirs. And the Sadduccees ask Jesus their question: in the resurrection, in the world to come, just who’s wife would she be? She has seven options! Does she get to pick? Is it random? Is there a version of the “Bachelorette” with a resurrected version of Chris Harrison as host? In the world to come, just what is going to happen?

And Jesus just cuts the question at its knees. He doesn’t answer it. He doesn’t even accept their basic premise. He takes a step back and looks at what they’re truly saying, how they’re truly characterizing the resurrection ‚Äì as if the resurrection is just a copy of life on earth as it is ‚Äì maybe its a little nicer ‚Äì maybe its subways run on time more often ‚Äì and maybe the coffee just tastes a little better and your soda pop never goes flat ‚Äì but the resurrected life is just like now; where institutions are the same, morals are the same, the rule of life is just the same. Everything is just the same as it ever was. Jesus sees the Sadduccees big question not being about a woman in a riddle; Jesus sees what they’re really asking ‚Äì they’re asking about the nature of God’s relationship with God’s people; God’s relationship with us; they’re asking just when does that relationship ends?

And Jesus says “God is never through with you.”

Even in death; even in silence; even if you feel turned away from God, God is never through with you. The resurrected life isn’t a repeat of the life before with maybe better clothes or better hair. No, the resurrected life is something brand new. It’s something beyond what we can even think of. The resurrected life isn’t limited to our expectations, it’s so much more. The woman in the riddle is going to live differently, be different, experience a whole new reality, embraced fully in the presence of the God of the living. And her husbands too. The institutions right now aren’t the limit to God’s imagination; there will be oh so much more.

But this isn’t just about tomorrow; about what happens when we die. Because Jesus isn’t just answering the big question about what’s to come ‚Äì he’s answering an even bigger question about what to do right here, right now. What do we do right now about a God who is never through with us?

[At the 11 am service / In a moment], we’ll invite six young people to come forward to be confirmed and to make a public profession of their faith. And we’re also inviting them to know that we love them, care for them, and, above all, know them. They’re going to stand up here and make known the reality we all share ‚Äì that we are all living in that big question ‚Äì about living a life with a God who is never through with us. In the times of doubt, sorrow, lost, and pain ‚Äì God is not through with us. In the times of joy, happiness, laughter and smiles ‚Äì God is not through with us. And even in all the times in between, God is never through with us. We’re never alone because God claims us as God’s own. In the saving work of Jesus on the Cross, when God’s love for the world and for you and me was seen, felt, heard, tasted, and touched ‚Äì God showed us that we belong to God, even if the world tries to tell us we don’t. We’ve been baptized into Christ, into his death, and into his resurrection ‚Äì his present resurrection ‚Äì not some resurrection to come but in the right here, and right now. That’s the gospel, that’s the gift that is given to each and everyone one of us, everyday. That we are not alone; that we are loved; that God knows us even if we feel like our pain, hurt, and tears can never make us known to anyone. We all live in the big questions; we all live wondering what to do with this God who is never through with us. And we’ll never fully have all the answers. And that’s okay. It’s okay to doubt; it’s okay to not know all the ins and outs; it’s okay if you even don’t have ten commandments memorized or the books of the bible memorized either; it’s okay to get it wrong. God can take it. God can handle it. Just keep on living in that big question ‚Äì wherever it takes you. God will love you. Jesus will be there with you. The Holy Spirit will nourish you. And, with Paul, we can gladly say to our confirmands, to each other, and to everyone in this community of faith, and even to ourselves: “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.”

Amen.

My Christmas started early this year. Over the weekend, I experienced Halloween three days in a row, eating my body weight in candy; my brother sent me my Christmas present early; and, today, I wandered into work and found a box with my name written on it. A colleague of mine is going through their collection of vestments and asked if I wanted any. I said “yes” and this was the initial set to head my way.

I was giddy.

Once O went to bed, I opened up the box and basically played seminarian dress up. While in my Sunday casual-best (colorful socks, skinny jeans, and a Denver Broncos jersey), I slipped these religious garments over my shoulders. I tried on the first piece, a white chasuble. It looked good, a little long, but nothing too wild. I could see myself wearing this. A purple cope (I think) followed. The problem with my religious education is that my ability to name ritual objects is limited. I’ve got cassock, alb, and…that’s about it. When it comes to fancier pieces of liturgical garments, I’m still a young padawan. So, when I pulled out the last two pieces, I was a little taken aback. My colleague mentioned that they were a Coronation Cope and Chasuble. I’m not sure what a Coronation Cope is used for but, wow, did it look fancy. I tried it on and walked around the apartment. I felt big, important, larger than life, and swimming in fabric. While I was whirling around my living room, I heard a knock at the door. My wife and I looked at each other. Do I answer while still in dress up mode? I looked out the peephole and saw a classmate of mine. That made my decision for me. I opened the door in full regalia. My classmate burst out laughing. It was a perfect way to end this day.