Category: Faith

And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

Luke 1:43-51

My sermon from the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany (January 18, 2015) on Luke 1:43-51. An ice storm canceled the church service but I recorded the sermon anyways. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

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Now, there’s something about this passage from John that I struggled with all week. And its about that first verse today – verse 43 – where we hear how Philip became a disciple of Jesus. His whole story about becoming a follower is not even one verse in length. Jesus meets Philip, and he says just two words: “follow me.” And that’s it. That’s all it takes for Philip to become a disciple. We don’t even know if Philip was looking for Jesus or if Philip had heard about Jesus before Jesus showed up. The text doesn’t give us any backstory – or history – or anything. We just get this one sentence. I struggle because it seems so easy for Philip to be a disciple of Jesus – and I wish it was so easy for me.

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This text from John is part of a series of stories where we hear how Jesus put his band of followers together. Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke – there’s no temptation in the desert in the gospel according to John so after Jesus is baptized, which we heard last week, Jesus immediately starts gathering his followers. The first two followers of Jesus are disciples of John the Baptist. They hear John the Baptist declare that Jesus is different and they want in. They ask to see what Jesus is doing, where Jesus is staying, and Jesus invites them with just three words: “Come and See.”

And one of those two is named Andrew and Andrew goes off to find his brother, Peter, and he invites Peter to come and see.

Then, after Peter, we have today’s reading where Jesus decides to go to Galilee and runs into Philip – who is from the same town as Andrew and Peter – and Jesus tells Philip to “follow me” and Philip does.

That’s how this Jesus thing takes off. These initial gatherings – these initial encounters – are simply Jesus or a disciple of Jesus finding someone they know and simply saying “come and see.”

That’s how disciples are made.

But this is hard to hear because it sure doesn’t feel, to us at least, like that’s how disciples should be made. Even that word – disciple – seems to imply that there’s something more involved. A disciple can’t be someone who just received an invitation. There’s gotta be more. Because, to be a disciple, shouldn’t someone need to have it all figured out? They should be incredibly faithful, maybe living the perfect life, always behaving and do nothing wrong? Shouldn’t disciples have proven that this God and Jesus story is exactly how it is? Disciples – they are people who have met Jesus, they have Jesus deep in their bones – and they are the kind of people we all wish we could be.

Not too long ago ago, I reconnected with an old friend from High School on – where else – Facebook. She knew me at a time in my life when I wasn’t Lutheran, I didn’t go to church, and I was dreaming of spending my life buried in some research lab inventing the next thing that would save the world. So when she went through my profile and saw I was a pastor – – that kinda shocked her a bit.

But she took this time as an opportunity to ask me about God. And she asked me good questions – questions someone might have asked you at one point or another, such as, “How do you know that God is real? How do you know that the Christian story is right? Do you think it’s fair that a child who never heard of Jesus ends up going to hell just because of where he was born?”

She was asking, really, what happened to make me, like Philip, meet Jesus and hear him say “follow me.”

And, if I’m honest, I can’t fully answer it. I can’t describe all the bits – all the experiences in my life that brought me to be here today. There are highlights – sure – those big moments that I’ve pulled out of my history and charted on my faith story – but I can’t share the million little moments, those little experiences, that brought me to finally realize that Jesus had been speaking to me for 22 years. It just took me that long to finally hear his words: “follow me.”

And I believe that we are all caught in our own stories of faith, our own stories of seeing, or not seeing, Jesus. One of the great things about being a new pastor is getting to hear new stories. I’ve been blessed to hear faith stories – to hear, and see, what those meetings with Jesus can be like. I’ve met the 85 year old where God is just a constant presence in her life – like another person just always in her house, the 70 year old who never lost faith even in the face of incredible ordeals, the people whose faith was lost but held together by an amazing community who prayed for them when they couldn’t pray for themselves, and I’m seeing all these kids who are just getting that first taste of what this faith journey is all about. Each of us are on our own path – our own personal, wonderful, and sometimes frustrating journey with Jesus. And, the amazing thing is that none of these stories is exactly the same. Our encounter with Jesus can come in many forms. Even in these short verses from John where we hear how Jesus gets his first team of disciples together – even Philip and Nathanel’s story is different. All of these stories are centered in that encounter with Jesus – and each of them lead into, or involve, an encounter with someone else.

Because something keeps happening after people encounter Jesus. They can’t stop telling people about him. They go out and invite. But they don’t try to persuade. They don’t try to convince. They don’t try to prove that this is the One who will heal the world. Philip didn’t respond to Nathanel’s quip about Nazareth with a reasoned argument or a snarky rebuttal. Philip merely says – come and see.

Come and have an encounter with Jesus.

Come and see how my life has been changed.

And come and see how this Jesus could matter to you.

Making this kind of invitation – that’s our call. That’s our job – because we are people who have encountered Jesus and we’re here to share our encounter too. We’re invited to be people persons – to, like Jesus and Philip, engage in that one-on-one encounter, that one-on-one relationship with another person, where our invitation to come and see is more than just about visiting a church – but is about meeting Jesus.

And in this invitation – we are opening ourselves to see just what God is doing with us. We’re seeing how God is at work in our relationships, how God is bringing new and different people into our lives – how we are living out of our own sense of encounter with Jesus – and how, in a small way, we are the start of that Jesus encounter with our family, friends, and strangers. We’ve been encountered so we’re called to be that Jesus encounter to everyone we meet.

Now, I can’t share exactly how living that encounter with Jesus – what it’ll actually look like. Since all our stories with Jesus are different, just how living as that encounter will look – that’s going to be different for each of us. But the stories of living as Jesus’ encounter are stories that surround us. From our grandparents who shared their faith in words and love when we visited them to the friend who helped us through a difficult time when we needed their hope to survive – and even in the story of a man who preached, rallied, and taught that racial equality wasn’t just a dream but was, and still is, something worth fighting for – those are Jesus encounters. That’s people living out their personal encounters with Jesus. Jesus is using us – Jesus is calling us to be that encounter – to see ourselves as his face and body in the world – so that we are not just telling people to “Come and See” but we are living as if we are that invitation too. Because whether our encounter with Jesus takes half a verse or 22 years – Jesus is there – Jesus is calling – Jesus is inviting us to be that invitation and to share how we have been changed. Our job is to invite – to show others what following Jesus looks like – and that this Jesus has a personal relationship, a personal encounter, ready for others to come and see.

Amen.

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John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Mark 1:4-11

My sermon from the Baptism of Jesus (January 11, 2015) on Mark 1:4-11. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

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It seems every year, around August, an article or facebook post about the university I attended catches my eye. And it’s always the same article and it’s always about the same thing: the swim test. My university is one of the few remaining schools that require you to pass a swim test to graduate. 3 laps in an olympic sized swimming pool – that’s all it takes – and then you’re able to graduate.

This requirement seems simple enough. But I rarely meet anyone who likes it. I remember as a freshman during orientation week, which is the usual time when you take the test, and I remember hanging out in pool house, and I was just one of hundreds of freshmen hanging out in their swimsuits, shyly just kinda milling about because no one knew anyone else – and we were all lined up, waiting for our turn. And then someone called our name – recorded our attempt to complete the test on a clipboard – and we’d jump in. I don’t remember if we all did it one at a time – or if a group of us jumped in like we were in our own Olympic race – but I do remember standing at the edge of the water, looking in. I remember the sounds – the talking – splashing – the looking around – and I remember feeling of nervousness about what would happen if I didn’t make it. Maybe I stayed out too late the night before or maybe the fact that I hadn’t swam a lap in years would actually show. I remember standing at the edge of that pool and wondering why – why was I – why was this huge freshman class – going through all of this to just swim 3 laps.
The funny thing was that when anyone asked why we had a swim test in the first place – no one really knew the answer. I remember being one of those kids who asked that “why” question. Rumors traced it back to a student who, years before, drowned in one of the nearby lakes. Others said it’s a legacy of the military training students use to undergo when the university first started. Or maybe its just because the university hoped that when we left school, we’d at least have one practicable skill under our belt. Whoever you asked – the answer always changed. No one knew why we had to get into the water and swim 3 laps. That’s a mystery. So as I stood there on the edge of the pool and my turn came – all I could do was just jump in.

And our story today about Jesus’s baptism – that’s a mystery too.

Today’s gospel reading is the continuation of the reading we heard just one month ago on the second Sunday of Advent. There we heard these opening words about John – this wildman in the desert – who is bringing people out into the wilderness, into the place where God met Moses and David and the prophets. And John is inviting people to meet God there too. And that’s when Jesus comes into the picture. There’s no birth story, no description of his teenage years, no – in the gospel according to Mark – the beginning of Jesus’s ministry is when he heads out into the desert, like everyone else, and meets John in the wilderness.

And it’s there that Jesus is baptized.

So why does Jesus get wet?

This is one of those, what you might call, “gotcha” questions for pastors – the kind of question confirmation students like to ask their pastors and watch them….well, fumble it. It even happened to a colleague of mine recently. He shared at our weekly Lutheran pastors’ bible study on Tuesday that, about a month ago, a confirmand asked him this question. And he answered it – but the question had been gnawing at him because he didn’t feel he answered it right. He felt he gave an answer – a true answer – an answer that a famous theologian might agree with – but, after, as he thought about what he said, his words felt hollow. He felt that he wasn’t able to answer the question of Jesus’s baptism fully enough.

And that’s because this question of Jesus’s baptism is a really, really hard question. There’s no real easy way to get through it. Even if we point to the difference between what John is doing and what Jesus does – even if we talk about the addition of the Holy Spirit into the equation – or point to the private moment, for Mark at least, when God calls Jesus his beloved Son in such a way that no one else hears it – even if we try to take apart the actions and dissect it, we’re still left with the fact that Jesus was baptized. God’s Son – the guy who is about to teach about the Kingdom of God and heal the sick – this guy who is about to reconcile the world through the Cross – this Jesus, somehow, needed to be baptized.

The question of why is all over this.

And I’ll admit that I don’t have all the answers. There’s a lot of nuance here that I don’t get and that I don’t see. The “I don’t knows” about this text from Mark outnumber the “what I knows” and if my Confirmands at class tonight ask me about it – there’s a good chance I’m gonna fumble it too.

But there’s something about this text that’s very tangible – very real – and it’s something we can relate too. And it has to do with what Jesus did. In Mark’s telling of the story, we don’t have any idea of what was going through Jesus’s head. We don’t know what he was looking at, what he noticed, or what he saw. But we do know what we did. Because when he stood on the edge of the Jordan – he walked in. He saw John, went to him, and Jesus felt the water over him.

I don’t know the answer to why Jesus needed to be baptized – but I do feel like I know why I – why we – need Jesus to be baptized. We need him to stand at that water’s edge. We need him to walk to where John was. We need him to jump in the waters – to feel it over his head – to experience what we experience. We need Jesus to experience that mystery because it’s in his actions – in his jumping in – Jesus extends an invitation to us to jump in with him.

Because baptism isn’t just an end in itself – even though it can sometimes feel like that. Even for those of us who were baptized as infants and who have no recollection that such an event happened – for the ones who brought us to the baptismal font, it sure felt like there was an end. I mean, there were meetings with the pastor, phone calls to family to arrange a date and a time. There were cakes to order, lunch reservations to make, and white outfits to buy. And then there was just those silent, and not so silent prayers, that everyone actually showed up on time. The baptism was an event – and once it was over, once all the planning was done, and the water poured, and everyone went home – we’re glad it’s over.

But the mystery of baptism is more than that. And that might be why we don’t hear about Jesus’s birth or back story or teenage years in the gospel according to Mark. Instead – baptism happens first. Before Jesus’s healing begins – before his words of knowledge come out – before he starts showing those around him what true human living looks like – before all of that – comes baptism. Before the Supper and the Betrayal by Judas and the Trial in front of Pilate – there’s just Jesus, jumping into the waters of the Jordan. He’s jumping into where his life will take him. He’s jumping into living a life that loves God and loves everyone he meets. He’s jumping into a ministry that is going to lead him to the Cross. And he’s jumping into a life that is going to be resurrected – a life that is given for us and to us and is with us – no matter where life takes us.

I don’t know if Jesus needed to get into that water but I do know we need him to get in that water so that we can witness that baptism isn’t an end – it isn’t just a requirement we need for graduation – but that baptism is a beginning. It’s a beginning of walking with Jesus because Jesus – this Son of God – this miracle worker – he’s more than just our Lord and Savior. He’s also our neighbor – our brother – he’s one of us, waiting at the edge of those waters that will be poured over him.

Jesus’s baptism is an invitation for us to jump into those waters too – to see where God will take us – to see just how God will use us to love, to care, and to be part of God’s work in resurrecting this entire world. The waters have been entered. The waters have been churned up. With Jesus’s presence – these waters have been changed. And we’re invited to just see where he might take us.

Amen.

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In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Luke 1:26-38

My sermon from the 4th Sunday of Advent (December 21, 2014) on Luke 1:26-38. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

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So what are you going to be doing at 6:03 pm today?

I know that some of us will be eating or making dinner. Others will be wrestling kids into their bedtime baths. Some will be seeing if the Giants can beat the Rams and a few youth and teens from Christ Lutheran will be busy getting ready for our annual Christmas party later tonight. The amazing thing is that we’ll all be doing something. We’ll be planning, doing, watching, moving – we’re gonna be active. And so most of us aren’t going to notice what happens at 6:03 pm tonight. Because at 6:03, the northern hemisphere of the earth will be tilted its farthest from the sun. Winter will officially start – and we’ll be in the beginning of our longest night of the year. And there’s also a new moon tonight – so once the sun sets, we’re going to be caught in a long, moonless, night.

It kinda makes me want to go home and turn on all the lights, just thinking about it.

And so it’s today – right before we enter our longest night – that we hear this reading from Luke – where the angel Gabriel comes to Mary. This reading is traditionally called the Annunciation and it’s when Mary discovers, for the first time, that Christmas – the birth of Jesus – is gonna happen. And she’s a pretty big part of it.

The text doesn’t tell us what time of day Gabriel met Mary. We don’t know if it was day or night, if she was in her room inside her house, or out in the field or on the street. All we know is that the angel, the angel is on a mission from God, and he comes to Mary. The angel finds her and greets her – saying – “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”

What gets me about this passage – about this moment – is Mary. This is how we meet her. We get no back story. There’s no genealogy pointing out her family, like there is in Matthew. We don’t know her age, what she likes to do, or even what she looks like. And the same goes with Gabriel. We know he’s an angel but…that’s it. There’s no talk about big wings or a sword or maybe a bright light. No, we just hear that he’s an angel from God – that he shows up to Mary – and that doesn’t seem to bother her. Mary seems to get that Gabriel is an angel, and that Gabriel is from God. And that doesn’t phase her in the slightest. No, what bothers Mary – isn’t that an angel shows up. What bothers her is what Gabriel says.

The angel calls her favored and that the Lord is with her. And Mary wonders just what that means. And when she finally gives a voice to her questions – she just asks “How can this be?”

Because what the angel says doesn’t match her experiences. What the angel promises doesn’t make sense to her. Mary doesn’t see herself as special. There’s nothing in Luke about Mary’s background that tells us to see her as being anything other than an ordinary young girl in a small town in a part of Israel far from Jerusalem. She lives in Nazareth, in Galilee, in a part of the country far from God’s temple, far from God’s presence, far from God’s light enshrined in Jerusalem.

And Gabriel continues – sharing a story about Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, who is too old and too infertile to be with child. And yet she is. Elizabeth isn’t suppose to give birth. She’s not suppose to have a child. In the normal trajectory of how the world works, what is happening to Elizabeth isn’t suppose to happen. But the angel knows God. Gabriel knows that God works in unexpected ways. God doesn’t always do what we think God should do. God doesn’t always aligned with those in power, with those in control, with those who appear to be the most religious and righteous. God has a habit of choosing unexpected people in unexpected places and telling them that the Lord is with them. Gabriel knows this and he shares this with this young girl in the small town of Nazareth. And Mary, as she hears Gabriel’s words, does an otherworldly thing. She believes him. She trusts those words. She has no idea of where these words will take her or where she will end up. She trusts God’s promises – that God knows what God’s is doing by choosing this girl from Nazareth – and Mary commits herself to God’s promise by saying: “Here I am.”

In a moment, after the hymn of the day, I’m going to invite Patrick Kurtz, his parents, and his sponsors to come on up here, in the center of this big step, and stand right by the font. And Patrick, I’m going to ask you some big questions. Important questions. Questions about God and about Jesus and about what we’re suppose to do as we live in this world.

And it’s okay if you’re not sure what all of it means. And it’s okay if you’re a little nervous, or curious, or maybe not sure exactly what we’re saying.

But we’re not here to do anything that God hasn’t already been doing. Like Mary 2000 years ago – when the angel came to her – and said that she mattered to God – God is saying the same thing to you. Patrick, you matter to God. You matter so much that the Holy Spirit saw it fitting to bring you here to Christ Lutheran, today, to be baptized. Any earlier, any later, and in any other place just wouldn’t do. God was active in bringing you, your family, and all of this – together today.

And because God wanted you to be here today, that means God doesn’t want you to stop asking questions. God doesn’t want you to stop doubting. God doesn’t want you to stop being you. Because even Mary wondered. Even Mary got confused. Even Mary was bold enough to ask an angel from God just exactly what was going on. Because the faith journey that you are on Patrick is the same faith journey that we are all on. It was the same journey Mary took 2000 years ago. We are here because God called us – God grabbed us – God chose us first – God said we mattered first and welcomed us into the Holy Family. We’re here because we believe – because we trust what Gabriel told Mary – that God is with us.

The promises you will hear today are a re-affirmation of those promises that have led you and your family and all of us to be here today. And these promises are that no matter how long the night is, no matter how long there is no moon in the sky, no matter how long the world causes pain, suffering, hurt, violence, and death to each other – Jesus is with you. Jesus is walking alongside you. Jesus is holding you tight and not letting you go – because God’s light can’t be overcome.

And, like Mary who believed, we are all part of God’s light. In the long night that our world is in – when some days are so bleak, scary, and awful that it feels as if the sun will never break through – like Mary – we are called to live God’s light out. That means, Patrick, you are about to be given a job – the same job that your parents have – that your friends have – that even I have – and this job is to love everyone. You’re here to follow Jesus’s light, to be a light during the long and cold winter nights – to share God’s story, to fight against injustice, to comfort those who are mourning and sad, and to do all that you can to heal the world rather than cause problems in it.

Now, this job is a hard job. And, sometimes, it’ll feel like an impossible one. There will be times when anger and hatred seems to win – and there will be times when you’ll wonder if you know God or if God knows you – and that’s okay. The journey you’re on is not an easy one. But throughout all of it – trust in this one promise. Like Mary, you are favored. Like Mary, you are blessed. Like Mary, God knows and God loves you. And, like Mary – today, Patrick, you’ll do the hard thing. You’ll join all of us, as part of Christ’s family, and do what we do everyday. We stand here, not because we are perfect or wonderful or awesome. We stand here as people who ask questions, people who doubt, people who get things wrong, and we sometimes don’t love as we should. But we stand here because God brought us here. God grabbed us before we even knew where we were going. And as we go through this longest night – we know we are God’s light in a very scary world. So Patrick, welcome to being part of God’s light in the world. Welcome to being, like Mary, part of God’s future for the world. We’re not going to get everything right – but we’re going to love – because we matter to God. And you matter to God too. And so, lets all together today be like Mary when Gabriel met her in Nazareth. Let’s question. Let’s wonder. Let’s not be sure exactly where God is taking us. But let’s live as Christ’s light because we are favored. We are loved. We are with the Lord. And let’s commit ourselves to God’s promise – to God’s love – and to God’s hope. Let all of us – as God’s people – say “God, here I am. Let it be with me according to your world.”

Amen.

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