Sermons – Page 12 – Pocket Sized Pastor*

Sermon: God’s Weird in Love

“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. “It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

My sermon from the Seventh Sunday after Easter (May 29, 2022) on Luke 10:25-37 (with a hint to Psalm 25:1-10)

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How do you end a book about the end?

If that question sounds familiar to you, it’s because I’ve asked it before. But unlike other writings we know, the questions we bring to Revelation rarely have only one answer. And that’s because the entire book is a little weird. Revelation was written by a man named John who was living in exile on the island of Patmos, a small piece of rock off the coast of modern day Turkey. After receiving a series of visions from God, he composed a manuscript known as an apocalypse. Now to us, an apocalypse is the end of the world but in John’s day, an apocalypse was a genre of writing meant to unveil or disclose something new. The idea was to show that no matter what people were going through, there was always more to the story. That more was hidden behind the everyday troubles of our world; a world wrapped in violence, fear, and sorrow. An apocalypse might be filled with descriptions of incredibly outlandish things but it was always written for real people living real lives. And so that’s why, way back in chapter 1, John mentioned seven specific faith communities in Asia Minor – aka modern day Turkey – that his book was written for. Each one of those communities was going through their own set of challenges – with some being persecuted by local authorities because they called someone other than the Roman Emperor, Lord. Others, though, were doing just fine. And yet that fine was, to John, a bit inauthentic. They were communities that busied themselves with being comfortable. They lacked a sense of urgency or purpose, seeking out the status quo because they assumed there would be enough time tomorrow to deal with the Jesus who came to them today. These kinds of communities were going through a very different experience than those who faced persecution from the government. Yet to John, the very weird visions God gave to him were visions meant for them both.

So that’s why I like to imagine John, while trying to end his book about the end, re-reading everything that came before. He had used words to paint images of very odd things that cycled in and through and around each other. There was this throne in heaven, surrounded by four really weird looking creatures, a host of angels, and a chorus of singers that included all of creation – even the microbes living in the sea. There was Jesus who wasn’t described with long brown hair or sandaled feet. Instead, he had a sword for a mouth, looked like a lamb who was killed, and shone so bright there was no longer a need for a sun in the sky. John’s words also described broken seals, monstrous beasts, angelic trumpets, a red dragon, the spilling of all kinds of wrath on all kinds of people, and even several horsemen who brought death to a world reeling in pain. In the end, John wrote about a new holy city descending from above with streets covered in precious jewels and gates that never shut. Everything in Revelation is over the top, shocking, and downright weird. But through it all, God was present, active, and chose to do something even more weird: which was to just love. God took what was already here and made it new. And even when God felt far away – too far to care about those who were suffering and too far to make a difference in the here and now – Jesus was right there with you.

Yet I know that kind of hope isn’t always easy to see because real life paints its own kinds of pictures we can’t easily shake from our heads. The picture I keep seeing are the words used to sketch out the timeline of cell phone calls made from Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas while the attack was on going. It’s an image I wish never had to be made yet shows how heartbreaking this life can be. And I’m not sure, exactly, what hope looks like when our status quo tolerates this kind of pain. Our first instinct might be to try and sketch out a competing vision for the world. It’s possible to imagine John of Patmos choosing to end his book with all kinds of blessings, joys, and images of love. He could have stopped with the weird and focused more on bringing us a sense of comfort and peace. Yet that wasn’t what John chose to do. Revelation “weaves notes of inclusion,” welcome, and blessing and notes of exclusion, expulsion, and fear “into a single fabric.” As Greg Carey noted, this “passage excludes transgressors from the Holy City, but it also extends an invitation—’Come!’—to everyone who is thirsty. The broader context of Revelation’s closing chapters imagines a lake of fire that receives every person whose name is missing from the Book of Life (20:15) but also a tree that bears fruit ‘for the healing of the nations’ (22:2). Revelation shows the nations and kings being annihilated during the final battle (19:15, 19), but in the New Jerusalem the nations walk by its illumination and their kings bring their ‘glory’ into the city (21:24–26).” And if we try to choose which kinds of weird from Revelation we pay attention to, Revelation doesn’t let us pay attention to only what brings us comfort. This book is meant to be taken as a whole because our whole lives are meant to be taken as a whole too. Real life is very weird and so, I think, Revelation is supposed to stay weird too. The book doesn’t contain some kind of secret message we’re supposed to decode that reveals when God’s kingdom will finally come. Rather, John used images and pictures that mixed, cycled, terrified, and excited because only that kind of weirdness can speak to how ridiculously weird it is to live in a world where what happened at Robb Elementary is accepted as part of the status quo. When John wrote the end to the end, he wanted it big enough to contain all the ridiculousness of real life. Because when we notice and accept and own just how strange, wonderful, and hard life actually is, we realize we’re not actually God. And if we’re not God, that might be the hope we need.

Because if we are not God, then the story we’re currently writing through our actions and inactions isn’t the real story. The status quo we’re living through isn’t all there is because there’s another story – a heavenly story – where God’s weird trumps our own. God’s weird includes how we, through baptism and faith, are transformed into more than who we thought we were. We are Christ’s body – which is a weird thing to say and an even weirder thing to trust and know is true. And while that’s a beautiful sentiment to express, it’s also difficult when we admit the whole of who we are. We are not perfect. We are often at fault. We exclude, push aside, and let others be expendable as long as we’re as comfortable as we feel entitled to be. We’re broken and wounded and far from ever feeling as whole as we believe we’re supposed to be. We’re just people – people who need Jesus rather than the other way around. Yet Jesus, the son of Mary, the healer, teacher, and rabble rouser who kept reaching out to include all he could, doesn’t expect us to be perfect. Jesus just asks us to trust that the more is our whole story. The body of Christ – a body full of wounded people – is a body with hands and feet that still bear the wounds of the nails that were smashed through them. Yet even the status quo of the Cross for that body was changed into something new. We can, like John of Patmos, paint a new picture that takes seriously the whole of our lives while, because of Christ, knows how the end of our story is already being written. What we imagine is the status quo today is a contradiction from the true status quo we were given in baptism and in faith. Things can, and should, change because we are part of the weird of God. And if God’s weird is to always love – then our status quo can only be to love just as weird as God.

Amen.

Sermon: Where We’re From

During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.
Acts 16:9-15

My sermon from the Sixth Sunday of Easter (May 22, 2022) on Acts 16:9-15.

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So last Sunday afternoon, I managed the Tri-Boro Food Pantry’s table at Woodcliff Lake United: a day of service. We, along with other faith communities and organizations, gathered together hundreds of rolls of paper towels, toilet paper, toothbrushes, dish soap, maxipads, tampons, adult diapers, toothpaste, shampoo, and laundry detergent. Our hope was that attendees would learn which items were not covered by SNAP benefits and then pack tote bags filled with those items for the 130+ families who rely on the food pantry every week. My favorite part of the event was seeing people having “ah-ha” moments when they imagined what their lives would be like without toilet paper or soap. This event not only made a real difference in people’s lives; it also invited everyone into a deeper conversation about who calls Northern New Jersey home. Yet one of those conversations has been gnawing at me all week. Two women came to me, wondering what all the stuff was about. I explained to them, in detail, about what we were trying to do and how food isn’t always enough. They were excited to learn there was a pantry and local faith communities who actually cared. As we talked, the conversation became a little more personal as they wanted to know more about this church and about me. It’s then when one of them asked me a question I’m never quite sure how to answer. She looked at me and with incredible kindness and sincerity in her voice, asked: “where are you from?”

Now it took me a moment to respond because we were at an event called Woodcliff Lake United and so I knew she wasn’t asking about my connection to New Jersey. I had a hunch, based on our entire conversation, that she was asking about my ethnicity. She had expectations of who I was based on what I looked like. And I knew, at that moment, I needed to be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ready to deal with whatever this conversation brought up. I hoped that at its best, we might be amazed at how so many different people from so many different places throughout the ages led us to be, together at that moment, packing bags to support all the people who call Northern New Jersey home. But I also knew, at its worst, I might be asked to prove how American I actually am. “Where are you from” is a difficult question for me to answer since my family tree is a little complicated. I can trace my ancestors back to colonial America and to people who, legend says, fought for the British in the Revolutionary war. There’s also another branch of people who were indigenous to the land and those whose nationality changed after the border moved during the US-Mexico War of 1848. I also have ancestors who were refugees who fled Mexico in 1917 as well as others who left southern Italy to make a new life for themselves in the city of brotherly love. There’s a lot of stories within my ethnicity but I chose, at that moment, to simply say I grew up in Colorado. That wasn’t what she was looking for so she followed up with another question. She wondered “if I spoke Spanish because I look like I should.” There is, in our culture, an expectation that Americans look a certain way, speak a certain way, and are always easy to see. But the idea of what an American is – is an idea that’s been contested for centuries. Way back in the 1700s, Ben Franklin said some nasty things about Germans because he thought they could never be like him. And our violent, complex, and painful history of slavery and the treatment of Native Americans show that even acting like an American doesn’t mean you’ll be accepted as one. The Irish, at first, weren’t included in the fabric of America and it took awhile before people from Italy were as beloved as the pasta dishes and pizza they cooked. It even took a Chinese-American who simply wanted to return home to the city in California he was born in to redefine our idea of citizenship. We are engaged in an on-going conversation about who’s allowed to claim the American dream as their own and this conversation is full of conflict, protest, anger, fear, joy, inclusion, welcome, and violence. This question of American identity isn’t a question limited to our past because there are some who have done horrible things because of this conversation at a grocery store in Buffalo, a Walmart in El Paso, and at a Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Who we are and who we’re allowed to be is a big part of our story. And that reality shows up in our reading from the book of Acts because when Paul went looking for one identity, he instead met a woman from somewhere else.

Up to this point in the book of Acts, Paul – a Jewish man who was also a Pharisee and a Roman citizen – had been primarily bringing Jesus to the people living in Asia Minor, aka modern-day Turkey. But one day God showed him a vision of a man asking for help. Paul and his companions then crossed the Aegean Seas because they recognized the man as Macedonian. This small group landed in the city of Philippi, the capital of the Roman Macedonian province, on the mainland of Europe. Now when Paul arrived at a new place to share Jesus, he had a pattern of first visiting the marketplace or the local synagogue. But instead, we’re told he went to a place outside the city gates that was known as a place for prayer. We don’t know exactly what Paul was looking for but we do know what he found. He came across a group of women and among them was Lydia, who is the first named person in Europe we meet. But Lydia, herself, wasn’t known as a European. She was, instead, from Thyatira, which was located in Asia minor. Lydia was a businesswoman, a trader in purple cloth which was the color reserved for emperors, kings, and the very rich. She was also known as a worshiper of God which meant she was, like Paul, either Jewish or a God-fearer, a gentile who believed in God but who hadn’t fully converted to Judaism. Since it was the Sabbath, I assume Lydia and the other women were there to worship God. And since only women were in that space, there’s a possibility that Paul wasn’t supposed to be there. But Paul didn’t let other people’s expectations get in the way of Jesus. He, on that holy day, shared how the divine and human had come together in a way where neither lost its distinctiveness nor became something it wasn’t. Jesus was fully human, fully divine, and had an identity big enough to hold all other identities within the limitlessness of the kingdom of God. Lydia, even though she lived in Philippi, was still known as someone from somewhere else. She knew what it was like to be asked if she belonged. Lydia, because of her career, her wealth, her status, her gender, her background, and her ethnicity, lived with an identity that was often contested. Yet when Paul showed her Jesus, she saw her place in Him. Through faith, grace, and baptism, Lydia gained a new identity as a publicly declared child of God. This identity did not replace who she was but invited her to become something more.

In the words of Professor Jennifer T. Kaalund, ”Paul [set] sail looking for a man to share the good news with in Macedonia. Instead, he encounter[d] a group of women.” His expectations were modified and replaced because Jesus’ story is a story meant for all. The question – “where are you from” doesn’t just impact those whose identities are contested by others because who we are and who we are allowed to be matters to us all. Yet through Jesus – you are always more than what others say about you. And that’s because you are the body of Christ. When we find ourselves face to face with sinful, heretical, and unChristian ideologies like “the great replacement theory” or any other belief that draws boundaries based on hatred and fear, our Christian response starts by noticing our place within the body of Christ. We, through Jesus, are part of something more; a more than includes a Macedonian man, a woman from Thyatira, a Pharisee from Tarsus, a person who recently discovered what isn’t covered by SNAP benefits, those families who rely on the Tri-Boro Food Pantry to survive, and all of us gathered in worship right now. When we have Jesus, where we’re from is not limited to where we were born or where others think we belong. Instead, we’re first – and foremost – with God and we’re part of a love which, even on the Cross, kept its arms open to all.

Amen.

Sermon: Hey! We’re meant to listen.

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”
Acts 11:1-18

My sermon from the Fifth Sunday of Easter (May 15, 2022) on Acts 11:1-18

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A few weeks ago, my three year old walked into our hometown’s library with the kind of confidence only a three year old has. She made her way to the children’s section and pulled a dozen books off the shelves. We dragged them over to a table and she asked me to read them out loud. I didn’t really know where to start so I chose a book by Cori Doerrfeld. On the cover was the image of a young child with curly dark brown hair who was wearing green and white striped pajamas. The kid was crouched into a ball, with their knees pulled close to their chest. But instead of being completely sad, they wore a slight smile because a gray fuzzy bunny was hugging them. As I flipped open the book, I read out loud the title to the story: The Rabbit Listened.

The story began by introducing the young child on the cover. Their name was Taylor and Taylor was about to build something amazing. Using a bunch of small wooden blocks, Taylor assembled a castle that stretched high into the sky. It was awesome but then suddenly, everything came crashing down. Taylor, who had done nothing wrong, curled up into a ball, feeling every one of their feelings. After a bit of time, a talking chicken noticed something was wrong. They rushed over to offer their condolences and invited Taylor to talk and share about everything they were feeling. But Taylor didn’t feel like talking so the chicken left. A moment later, a giant bear strolled by. The bear assumed Taylor must be angry and said they could, together, roar and growl and shout about how unfair the whole thing was. Taylor, though, didn’t feel like shouting so the bear left. It wasn’t long before an entire zoo of animals came to see Taylor, including an elephant who offered to fix the castle and a hyena who wanted to lighten the mood with a few jokes. An ostrich came by, inviting Taylor to stick their head in the ground and pretend that nothing happened. And when that didn’t work, a snake slithered by and said they should go find someone else’s castle to knock down too. But Taylor didn’t feel like doing anything and so they all, eventually, left. Taylor kepting sitting there, barely noticing the rabbit who showed up next. The little bunny said nothing as it inched near Taylor. And when the space between them was practically non-existent, the bunny stopped and curled up next to Taylor. The rabbit, unlike the others, said nothing and instead let its presence be the only thing filling the air.

The reading we heard a few moments ago from the Acts of the Apostles is, I think, Peter telling others about the power of presence. As we heard last week, Peter was hanging out in the city of Joppa after he met the disciple Tabitha. A commander of the local Roman garrison named Cornelius learned he was near. Cornelius, unlike other soldiers, was a God-fearer: someone who believed in God but who hadn’t converted to Judaism. He was a gentile – a non-Jew – who served in the army that killed Jesus. Peter, as a follower of Jesus, was supposed to stay far away from people like Cornelius. Cornelius, though, sent messengers to find Peter and that’s when God sent Peter a dream. In his mind, Peter saw a picnic blanket descending from the sky covered with all the foods he didn’t eat. But that doesn’t mean Peter was a picky eater. He was a faithful follower of God who followed the Bible including when it said some foods were okay to eat because they were spiritually clean while others were not. These food laws were not primarily about maintaining someone’s physical health. They were, instead, a daily reminder showing how God’s people were set apart from others so they could serve God, honor God’s law, and trust that God would deliver them. The rules about eating were not experienced as a burden. They were seen as a sign of how every bit of our life, including the meals we eat, mattered to God. This encouragement to be distinctive helped Peter imagine that since God gave everything its proper place, Peter’s place was always with his God. But then God, through a vision, invited Peter to eat new things. And when he awoke, everything had changed. He soon met Cornelius’ messengers and agreed to visit this commander of the Romans. I imagine that when Peter entered his home, he might have been inclined to be anything but himself. He could have pretended he wasn’t Jewish or that he loved Rome or that he didn’t remember what the Romans had done to Jesus. Peter could have acted as if his identity didn’t matter but he chose something else instead. Peter stayed fully himself and when he saw Cornelius, he didn’t ask him to be anything else either. Instead, they both shared their experience of God with each other. Through their mutual telling, listening, and paying attention to one another, the Holy Spirit formed them into something new. They were both who they always were but, through Jesus, they were now bound together in a way that couldn’t be undone. Their individual stories were no longer just their own stories but were now integrated into the lives of others. Wherever Peter went, a part of Cornelius’ story would be with him. And when Rome sent Cornelius to fight in some far off place, a part of Peter would be with him too. Through Jesus and in Jesus, the baptized, the faithful, and all who follow Christ, are now fully present within each other’s stories.

Now the rabbit, when she curled up next to the kid who was busy feeling all their feelings, didn’t ask Taylor to be different. The rabbit didn’t insist on talking, shouting, laughing, helping, or getting Taylor to do anything. The rabbit just sat there, letting its presence show Taylor they weren’t alone. And once Taylor felt seen, noticed, and accepted, it’s then when they talked, shouted, laughed, roared, cried, and started building a new castle once all the feelings were fully felt. The rabbit didn’t have to know the right thing to say when she saw Taylor in distress. The rabbit just had to be there so that Taylor could see how the rabbit knew Taylor mattered. The vision of the picnic blanket full of the things other people ate wasn’t, I think, an invitation for Peter to stop being who he was supposed to be. Rather, it was God’s way of inviting Peter to see how our practice of distinctiveness sometimes makes us not as fully present to others as we should be. Peter, before the vision from God, probably wouldn’t have entered Cornelius’ home. But once he got here, he discovered how Jesus was already there. Sometimes the most loving and Christian thing we can do is to simply be present with other people. We can enter their spaces, their struggles, their joys, and sit in their heartaches. And when our traditions and experiences that make us distinct keep us from being actively present in the lives of others, we can remember how Peter’s distinctiveness grew when he noticed what God was up to. God was already swirling within the life of Cornelius and God is also present in the lives of everyone you meet. The rabbit listened by first being present to Taylor. And we can be fully present to all our neighbors if we work to listen to the ways God is moving through their lives. To do that well, we, and everyone else, need to be fully ourselves. If we pretend to be anything but, we risk failing to embrace how, through Christ, the stories of others have become our story too. We might not always known exactly what to say when someone is being fully themselves. But we can stay with them because, even after Jesus was killed on the Cross, Jesus chose to stay with us too.

Amen.

Sermon: A Sudden Discovery

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Luke 24:1-12

My sermon from Easter Sunday (April 17, 2022) on Luke 24:1-12.

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Now for those who have a car or driven a car or taken a lyft or been around cars, I wonder: what do you do when a mysterious light suddenly appears on your dashboard? When that happens to me, I usually let out a sound that’s sort of a combination between a growl, a feeling of surprise, and the sheer anguish and anxiety about how much this mysterious light is going to cost me. Most dashboards today are always lit up, giving us all kinds of information about our speed, where we’re going, and how far we’ve traveled. But there are all those other symbols or error messages which appear like a thief-in-the-night telling us that something’s up. Some of these symbols I recognize on sight because they show up quite a bit. There’s the exclamation point surrounded by squiggly lines letting me know my tires are getting flat; the yellow colored gas pump telling me I’m about to run out of gas; and the “check engine light” which can be nothing or everything at once. My standard operating procedure for when a mysterious light turns on is, to first, ignore it. If the car seems fine, I’ll just keep driving and act like it’s not even there. But there comes a point when the light on our dash requires us to stop what we’re doing and go on a journey of discovery. We can either take the car to the mechanic, look up the symbol online, or call every car person we know and describe, in detail and with sound effects, what’s wrong with our car. Even if we ignore the mysterious light for days, weeks, or even months – there comes a time when we need to discover what’s up.

That spirit of discovery is something that can be exhilarating, shocking, joyful, or full of sadness. Usually when I use the language of discovery, I connect it to something positive – like learning a new skill or exploring a place I’ve never been to before. But the things we discover can also be all the stuff we never wanted to see in the first place. Over the last week, we’ve been with the disciples as they lived through the fullness of Jesus’ story. They arrived in the city of Jerusalem full of hope as they waved palm branches in the air to announce the arrival of the one who made the impossible possible. Jesus then taught and healed, refusing to respect the barriers we put up to say who is worthy of God’s love and who isn’t. As Jesus’ reputation grew, the disciples couldn’t wait to see what would come next. But then the soldiers came and after his arrest and trial, Jesus was led to a place known as the Skull. Those who followed him thought that, because of Jesus, everything would change. Yet the Roman Empire did its best to end Jesus’ story. The reality of the Cross was a crushing discovery to the disciples because they learned that they weren’t who they imagined themselves to be. Many of them lost hope, direction, and a sense of purpose. Yet the women chose to discover something new. They didn’t stay far away from what had happened. They went and discovered the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid. With that knowledge firmly in their mind, they returned to where they were staying, planning to come back in two days to bury Jesus with honor, dignity, and love.

Now Luke doesn’t tell us much about what happened between their discovery of the tomb and the break of dawn on the third day. We don’t know what the women did or said – only that they observed the sabbath. On the day set aside by God to interrupt our work, our schedules, our never ending to do lists, and the myriad of ways life refuses to let us rest, the women woke up and discovered that everything was still covered in shadow. Natalia Terfa, a pastor and an author, recently wrote a poem on what that day looked like and why it matters to us. She wrote: “It’s a day we’d rather rush through in order to get to Easter quickly. We don’t like to sit in the [dim] and sad places. But this day is important. Because we will feel this way again. The day after someone we love dies. The day after a diagnosis. The day after the worst day. The day before the resurrection. The in-between day. It’s not as hard as yesterday. It does not contain even a teeny bit of tomorrow’s joy. But here we are” – being with the women who discovered what it was like to live through the day after.

And so on the next day – the first day of the week – these followers of Jesus woke in the middle of night and gathered everything they had prepared. When it was still dark, they ventured into the city streets and out the city gate. They weren’t sure how they were going to open the tomb but they knew where Jesus was and they knew how to prepare a body for burial. They no longer wanted to discover something new; instead, they wanted to lean into what they already knew. As they neared the tomb, I imagine they talked about the ways they would care for Jesus since he had cared for them. But once they arrived, there was so much more to discover. The giant stone serving as a door was pushed to the side and Jesus’ body was gone. In an instant, the trauma of Friday and Saturday came roaring back as this new discovery brought so much confusion and grief. Again, for the third day in a row, it felt as if everything had fallen apart because they lost the one thing they thought they knew. But right when that moment of terror and confusion swept through them, two visitors appeared. Their clothes dazzled within the tomb, shining like a light that couldn’t be ignored. And they shared a message to the women that Jesus’ story would continue. For three over-the-top days, these women kept discovering new and conflicting and challenging experiences which turned everything upside down. And each time it happened, they were left on their own. But this time, under the guidance of the visitors, they told their friends what they had discovered. No one, at first, believed them and I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t really believe themselves. After all, the only thing they had at this point in the story was that Jesus would be found wherever our lives are lived. And that’s because, through the Cross and in God’s willingness to love us to the end, we can trust “that the worst thing is not the last thing.”

That Easter promise is not an easy one to cling to because there’s plenty of stuff trying to convince us it’s not true. What we need is an external reminder to cut through all the noise and grief and busyness and ways we chose to not love or welcome each other. We need a kind of light, shining bright, informing us that our present reality has now been changed. When that light appears, we’ll do our best to ignore it by pretending we don’t see it or that everything seems okay enough right now. But as beloved children of God, the light of Jesus shines is a light we can never turn off. Every Easter, every Sunday, every time we gather to pray and sing and take a seat at Jesus’ table, this check reality light of our Lord shines – showing that our worst day will not be the last. Now we don’t always know how long or soul crushing these inbetween kind of days will be. But because the tomb is empty; because the women preached first; and because you, as you are right now, have been claimed in love through baptism, faith, and the fact that you’re here right now – we know Easter has come. Jesus will always be found among those who live in love. And he will be with you forever.

Amen.

Every Nook and Cranny: How Smell Reveals Jesus

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
John 12:1-8

My sermon from the Fifth Sunday in Lent (April 3, 2022) on John 12:1-8.

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A couple weeks ago, the Paris Review of Books, published a conversation between three scholars about how to choose a perfume. They talked about the power of gimmicks, how weird perfume commercials actually are, and how not everyone gets to choose their smells. Our sense of smell is the most sensitive of our senses and its one we process almost spontaneously. When we smell, the odor enters into our bodies which we then respond to in a very embodied way. Smells do more than just tell us if something is sweet or stinky. They also remind us we don’t live in a void or a vacuum. In the words of Jude Stewart even, “air’s existence… becomes palpable because smells ride on air.” Smells extend our environment, connecting us to a world that’s much bigger than what’s in front of us. Smells also have the power to collapse time, transporting us into the past while keeping us rooted in the present. A sniff of a cherry pie, the scent of an ocean breeze, and even the fragrance of a flower in bloom can connect us to those moments and the people that changed us. Smells can announce our arrival before we enter the room and they grow, change, and evolve depending on what other smells they run into. And overtime the intensity of a smell drops off unless it was cause by a 3 year old who emptied an entire bottle of perfume in her room one spray at a time. We know how powerful our sense of smell can be because when we lose it, either through age or accident or an illness like COVID-19, our engagement with our lives fundamentally changes. It’s difficult to put into words the totality of smells and our sense of smell. Yet we know how smells soak into every nook and cranny around us. Smells have their own potent kind of power which might be why the gospel of John was very specific in our reading today about the kind of smell that interrupted a dinner party for Jesus.

Now the story about Jesus being anointed with perfume appears in all four gospels. Jesus, while at a dinner, ends up being interrupted by a woman with a jar of expensive perfume. After she pours it on him, the disciples and other guests in the room tend to get a bit ornery. Jesus, in response, simply says to leave her alone. Jesus, while very much alive, experienced a ritual typically reserved for a person after death. This general outline fits every version of this story. Yet I’ve often found that it’s in the difference where we discover a bit of what this story might mean. Three of the gospels place this story in the village of Bethany, 2 miles outside of Jerusalem. The dinner party was held in either the home of an unnamed Pharisee, a leper named Simon, or in the home of Lazarus and his sisters. The perfume, typically identified as nard, is always described as expensive but only John says it was worth nearly a year’s worth of wages. Both Matthew and Mark describe the woman pouring the perfume over Jesus’ head, soaking his entire body, while Luke and John limit the action to only his feet. In the other three gospels, the woman is never named. But John, however, chose to give us a name. With that name, he also gave us an entire story. And so the Mary we meet is a sister who just a chapter before sent word to Jesus that her brother was ill.

By the time Jesus arrived at their home, Lazarus had already died. He stood outside the tomb and cried. He wept for his friend, showing us that grief, tears, and sadness aren’t things unknown to God. And after expressing with his body just how much Lazarus meant to him, Jesus then told him to come out. Jesus didn’t stick around very long with Lazarus’ family and soon headed towards a village far away. But when the holiday of Passover drew near, Jesus turned and returned to Jerusalem. When he neared the city, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus invited him over for dinner to do all the things we do when we share a meal with a beloved family friend. As the meal stretched on, Mary left the table to retrieve a very expensive bottle of nard. And when she returned, she did for Jesus that one thing she had actually done for her brother just mere weeks before.

Now imagine what that moment must have felt like for everyone in that room. The smell would have reminded them of one of those most awful experiences they had lived through. The grief and sorrow that filled their soul while they watched their brother grow ill would have been mimicked by how that scent seemed to fill every nook and cranny in the room. Martha and Mary would have remembered pouring the perfume over their brother’s body and how its smell changed as it gradually soaked into his skin. Once Lazarus was sealed in this tomb, the smells had nowhere else to go. Everything would have lingered in the air with the expectation no one would sniff that specific combination of smells ever again. But when Jesus told Lazarus to come out, the first thing Lazarus’ body would have processed was the smell. From that point on, the smell of nard would have been permanently connected to that moment in his story. Lazarus knew what that smell was used for. Yet he also experienced a new promise where, in the words of Rev. Karoline Lewis, “the life that God provides will be present even in the reality of death.” Later, while gathered around a shared table, that promise sat with them too. The smell of nard still represented what it was typically used for. Yet because Jesus was there, it reaffirmed their connection to love that would never end.

We might not have a story like Mary, Martha, and Lazarus where the promise given by God was made palpable in a way others could see. We might feel as if our life exists in its own kind of void – one empty of connection, healing, wholeness, and a sense that all of this has meaning. I’ll admit that I sometimes feel lost, especially when the horrors of war, violence, anger, and fear reveal how talented we are at being as unloving and hurtful as possible. I wish we all had the opportunity to sit at a table with Jesus to let his presence soak into every nook and cranny in our world. We need his love and grace to be more than something hanging in the air. We need it to be palpable, tangible, and real – like a smell reminding us what’s always around us. And that’s one reason why we have baptism and faith. It’s why we were given the ability to pray; to worship; and to belong to the community that God knows can’t be what it’s supposed to be without us. We need reminders, especially when we doubt, or question, or find ourselves overwhelmed by what’s around us, how God’s love is what truly holds us through. It’s why we have a table – the Lord’s table – where we are welcomed and fed not because we are perfect or because we know everything the Lord’s supper is about. We are included because we are loved. It’s a love we haven’t earned or one we’re entitled to. It is, instead, a love freely given because that’s who God is. At this table – one that extends to wherever and whenever you are – you are gifted a promise that makes you brand new as it soaks into every nook and cranny of your imperfect, but fully known, life.

Amen.

Sermon: The Monty Hall Problem

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”
Luke 15:1-3,11b-32

My sermon from the Fourth Sunday in Lent (March 27, 2022) on uke 15:1-3,11b-32.

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There’s a brain teaser, a kind of probability puzzle, known as the Monty Hall problem. It’s named after the former host of the old game show Let’s Make a Deal. The puzzle begins by imagining there’s three doors in front of you. Behind one of the doors is a new car and behind the others are goats. You don’t know where the car or the goats are but a game show host does. The first thing you get to do is pick a door you think the car is behind. The host then opens a different door to reveal a goat behind it. You’re left with two doors – one you picked and one you didn’t. The host then asks you a question: do you want to stick with the door you’ve picked or do you want to switch?

I was thinking about this puzzle while reflecting on our reading today from the gospel according to Luke. It’s a story you might have heard before and it’s usually known as the parable of the prodigal son. Prodigal is one of those words we don’t use very often. It means “to be wasteful and recklessly extravagant.” That’s a pretty good description for the younger son because he’s reckless throughout the story. At the very beginning, he asked his very alive father to pretend he was dead and give the younger son an inheritance. The younger son then traveled to a far off country and spent every penny they had. We get the sense the younger son didn’t care about their future or, at least, chose not to be prepared for whatever might come next. And so, when the money ran out during a crisis he couldn’t control, he survived by working with animals the Jewish community considered unclean. This is a kind of parable that invites us to add our own personal motivations into the story because we can be just as reckless. The dopamine hit we receive through pleasure, entertainment, and what we think success looks like, is often easier to deal with than the sadness, struggle, anger, and frustration that comes through the relationships that make up everyday life. The more we chase after the things we think will make us happy, the more we lose touch with what might actually bring us joy. We soon find ourselves trying to fill a kind of emptiness that no amount of recklessness can ever truly fill.

But the prodigal son isn’t the only person in the story. There’s also two other main characters we could focus on. There is, for example, the generous parent who kept looking towards the horizon, waiting for their child to return. In fact, Jesus sort of makes this the title of the story by opening it with the line “there was a man who had two sons.” We know nothing about his relationship with his children before the story began. Yet it’s not hard to realize how difficult it must have been when his child asked for him to be dead. The father didn’t have to honor his request but he chose to do so, which isn’t typically how the story goes. Usually, the first born son was the one who received most of everything for their inheritance since it was their responsibility to maintain the family’s story into the future. But our Bible has a habit of making the unexpected child favored. Younger siblings such as Jacob, Joseph, David, and those who weren’t even sons, like the daughters of Zelophehad, help us expand our vision of what God’s kingdom is all about. Maybe the father knew these stories and that’s why he fulfilled the unexpected request from his son. Yet I wonder if there’s more to the story because there’s a moment in it when the father wasn’t really as loving as they could have possibly been. When the younger son returned, the father didn’t immediately send someone to tell his older brother what happened. Instead, the older son found out when he came home to a party he wasn’t originally invited to. This older brother is the third character we could focus on. And his response to everything is very relatable because it’s full of anger, frustration, and a kind of exhaustion that comes when you’re the responsible one while everyone else acts up. When the younger son returned, the father organized a giant wedding feast that caused everyone else’s work to stop. But the older brother only learned of it when he came to the other side of the door. I imagine his mind raced through all the things he had already picked as part of his life story. He had never acted like his father was dead and he had lived with his family as they dealt with the emotional, spiritual, and financial consequences that came with a brother who decided their family wasn’t family anymore. These three characters give us three choices on what we could focus on. But for me, at least, I’m drawn to the older brother who ends the story standing outside that door. He has the opportunity to switch away from his previous choice and do the one thing he hasn’t yet done in the story. He could open the door, see his brother, interact with them, and enter into a new future big enough to transform all of them into something more.

Now the solution to the Monty Hall problem can be full of math but, at its simplest form, the answer is a bit counterintuitive. Our instinct is that, once the host revealed a goat, we have a 1 in 2 chance of finding the car because there’s two doors unopened. Switching, we think, won’t improve our odds. But the truth is that we should switch because, by revealing a goat, the host has changed the story. When we first picked a door, we created two subsets with one holding the door we picked and the other the doors we didn’t pick. There’s a 1 in 3 chance the car is in the subset of doors we picked but there’s a 2 in 3 chance it’s in the other group. When the host revealed a goat, they added new information into the subset of doors we didn’t pick. The 2 in 3 chance for those 2 doors didn’t change but we suddenly know which one of them doesn’t hold the car. Your best bet is to switch because a new story has already begun. We can choose to be like the older brother – sticking with the choices we’ve already made because that’s how we want our life to be. But when he got to that door, the party was already raging. That party didn’t come into being because the family was perfect with a father who always knew how to love in every possible situation. The family in our story is a bit dysfunctional which means they couldn’t have pulled this off on their own. What they needed was a gift of grace that would remind them of the generosity at the heart of love. This grace is a gift given to us through baptism and through faith. It helps us do basic things like waking up in the morning and worshiping in any way that we can. This grace brings us through the everyday bits of our everyday lives. And it also welcomes us back even when we, through recklessness or apathy, ignore the God who has already claimed us as God’s own. The story of the prodigal son is a story of embracing grace. This grace is big enough to help us confess our sins, seek forgiveness, and keep us ready to welcome the unexpected people God will bring into our midst. This grace helps us get over ourselves even when we feel we’ve done everything right. And this grace is what helps us grow in love because generosity isn’t for us alone. We get to make a choice to switch away from acting as if grace is only for those we deem worthy and we can, instead, open a new door where the grace we’re given becomes the grace we share.

Amen.

Sermon: A Fig Tree in a Vineyard

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
Luke 13:1-9

My sermon from the Third Sunday in Lent (March 20, 2022) on Luke 13:1-9.

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Why was a fig tree in a vineyard?

Now that might not have been the first question that came to mind while you listened to today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke. This text is difficult because it begins with suffering. A group of people came to Jesus with news about the Roman governor slaughtering Galileans during a recent religious ritual. Jesus responded by reminding them of another recent event when a tower collapsed, possibly during an earthquake. We don’t know much about these two events because these are the only words we have about them. Yet we’re not unfamiliar with this kind of suffering because we see it whenever we turn on the tv or look at our phones. It’s not always easy making sense of suffering. And figuring out why suffering happens is really hard. When we try to make meaning out of that kind of misery, we sometimes focus on those who were harmed. We act as if suffering cannot be meaningless and so those impacted by it must have contributed to it in some way. When the people came to Jesus with news about the slaughter of those who were worshiping God, their attempt at making sense of what made no sense led them to act as if the victims caused God to remove God’s love from them. Jesus listened to the news they brought and heard the anxiety, worry, and fear in their words. They wanted something to help make sense of the world. So Jesus shared with them a parable – a short story – that doesn’t really make much sense on its own.

Now I’ve never grown a fig tree but an old friend of mine in Astoria, Queens had one in the backyard of their building. The yard wasn’t very large but it had a little patio, some grass, and a lone fig tree all by itself. The tree had been there for a long time and every year, my friend would invite us over to pick fresh figs. The whole yard wasn’t well maintained and I don’t think the owner bothered to take care of it. Yet fresh figs came every year and it seemed strange to have this one plant all by itself. But I recently learned fig trees tend to be loners. They’re self-pollinating which means they don’t need multiple plants right next to each other for them to form fruit. A few versions of fig trees have really aggressive roots which means they don’t play well with others. They need a lot of sun and elbow room so that they can breathe. Fig trees are fairly robust, only needing a few inches of compost, a tiny bit of fertilizer, and rainwater from the sky to grow to their full potential. And when their environment is halfway decent, it can take anywhere from three to five years for a fig tree to mature and grow ripe fruit. We don’t see many fig trees here in Northern New Jersey but the people who first heard this story saw them everyday. They knew fig trees were loners and that it was normal for a tree to need more than 3 years to mature. A vineyard full of grapes and fig trees flourishing in a field were completely normal things. But a fig tree in the center of a vineyard wasn’t. Something about this parable wasn’t quite right. So how do we make sense out of a story that makes no sense?

Now one thing we might try to do is figure out which character in Jesus’ story we’re supposed to relate to. But I wonder if we could, instead, simply pause and let the whole scene sink in. We have in front of us a vineyard where life was meant to grow. Not everything in the vineyard made complete sense but that doesn’t mean life wasn’t possible. Everything is owned by a landowner who’s impatient, anxious, worried, and consumed by an unmet expectation. And the fig tree at the center of it all still needed time to fully mature. Yet when the landowner came to see the tree, their first response was to let it burn. The fig tree, in a sense, shouldn’t be there but I wonder if maybe that fig tree had some other purpose that the landowner couldn’t see. Maybe it was meant to grow, to endure, and to provide shade for those who worked in the vineyard. Maybe it wasn’t there to be consumed by others and just needed an opportunity to live. In a vineyard that doesn’t always make sense and that others sometimes want to burn, here was a fig tree with a chance to become something new. And while there was a landowner threatening violence, there was also a gardener willing to nurture everything into more.

One of my issues with life is that it doesn’t always make sense. We exist in a world where things happen and we sometimes never know the reasons why. We live in an interconnected world filled with people who have their own stories and histories. We often act as if we move through the world on our own but we’re not actually isolated from one another. We live in our own version of a vineyard that is often off kilter and with more than one thing amiss. We do the best we can to control what we can yet no amount of fertilizer or compost can make everything grow the way we wish. There’s always a storm brewing over the horizon and the rain, sun, and so many other things remain outside our control. Life is full of mysteries and it doesn’t always make sense. And while our desire to make meaning out of the misery might encourage us to blame victims for the violence that happened to them, we can choose to do something else. We can take a step back, look at the entire picture, and name those who choose violence rather than mercy. We can identify the real victims instead of those who embrace their own kind of victimhood. We can choose to not let people, including ourselves, off the hook for the suffering we cause. And when we are victims, we can know that it wasn’t our fault. There are moments in our lives when others choose to cause us fear but there are other times when something like an earthquake will cause us to wonder if God’s love is real. I wish we lived in a world without suffering and I think God wants that too. Yet when God saw the suffering that is part of our story, God chose to live through that suffering too. We, in Christ and with Christ, do not go through our lives alone. We have with us a gardener, who is here to nurture us through. That doesn’t mean things won’t be hard or that we won’t suffer. But it does mean that the story of suffering doesn’t have to be the limit to all there is. In a world full of vineyards and fig trees growing together, we can step back and embrace a different kind of life that does not ask us to lie, or fear, or harm each other. We can, instead, see how we are nurtured; notice how we are loved; pay attention to the suffering of others; and let their pain break open our hearts. We can cry and mourn and rage and wonder why God and ourselves let these kinds of things happen. We can notice how this mystery is a part of our lives and how the gift of grace, through word, prayers, song, kindness, support, reconciliation, repentance, and even the Lord’s supper, promises to carry us through. We can look at the moment we’re in and simply live because we have with us the One who will make us more.

Amen.

Sermon: Don’t Outfox the Fox

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Luke 13:31-35

My sermon from the Second Sunday in Lent (March 13, 2022) on Luke 13:31-35.

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A couple of years ago, I was leaving the church office through the door facing Pascack Road when I noticed something through the window. I had already pushed the push bar all the way down but I stopped before I opened the door. Sitting at the top of the steps was something small and fuzzy. It had two large pointy ears, a small pointed black nose, two deep eyes, and fur colored red, gray, and orange. I stopped in my tracks and stayed perfectly still. And when the little baby fox started to sniff around, I knew it had no idea I was there. The little guy – or gal – looked like a stuffed animal that had come to life. It was small, fluffy, adorable, and just waiting to be hugged. The fox explored the area for about ten minutes before walking away. And while I almost went “awww,” I also knew one of its parents had to be nearby. The next day, at about the same time, I was heading out the same door when I spotted something that made me stop. Sitting at the top of the steps was an adult fox staring at me. We don’t see many foxes out here in suburban New Jersey but the reservoir across the street provides a place for them to live. Foxes are predators, spending their days hunting rabbits, birds, and mice. But every once in a while, a fox will attack a pet or even a person. Foxes can be quite handsome but they’re also sly, cunning, clever, and we imagine them to be pretty untrustworthy. We even have a proverb about not letting the fox guard the henhouse. Foxes hunt and kill because that’s what they’re designed to do. And in our reading from the gospel according to Luke, a group of Pharisees go out of their way to tell Jesus that a “fox is after you.”

Now we might wonder why the Pharisees told Jesus that King Herod was after him. Our Bible often describes the relationship between the Pharisees and Jesus to be pretty conflicted. In the decades after Jesus’ death, the writers of scripture used the Pharisees as a foil to Jesus. Yet the Pharisees were, when Jesus began his public ministry, just one of the many different flavors of Judaism. Their religious leaders were known as Rabbis which is what Jesus’ followers called him too. Jesus was engaged in an active conversation with other faithful Jewish people about God’s call for their lives. The Pharisees weren’t the ones who had political power and while they might have disagreed with Jesus about certain things, we also have plenty of stories where Jesus and the Pharisees shared a meal with each other. The motivation behind those meals is sometimes up for debate but I wonder if their relationship to each other is similar to our relationships with different flavors of Christianity. Being a Lutheran Christian is a bit different than, say, being a Roman Catholic Christian or a Coptic Christian. And while we do have a history of fighting against each other – using an unholy amount of war, oppression, and violence – there are moments when we chose to be for each other. Today’s story seems, to me at least, to be a moment when a group of Pharisees chose to be “for” Jesus. That doesn’t mean they followed him or that Jesus followed them. But I think they saw in each other a kind of faithfulness that, while different, could be respected. The Pharisees weren’t big fans of King Herod because he helped oppress the Jewish community. He had political power because Rome gave him that power. He, and the rest of his family, used force and violence to stay in control. And even when he was glitzed out in the finest clothing and following the religious traditions of his people, Herod often chose to rule by fear. He was a fox, always ready to hunt.

So when the Pharisees said “Herod was near,” they were, I think, truly afraid. They were afraid for Jesus, for those who followed Jesus, and for themselves. Herod wouldn’t discriminate against who got caught up in the violence he caused. The Pharisees knew Heord could attack at any time and for any reason. Herod wanted those around him to feel as if there was a fox sitting on their front steps watching everything they do. And when you live in that kind of environment, it’s difficult to live life to the fullest because there’s this fear overshadowing you. It’s a fear that makes us second guess who we are, what we say, and what we do. It’s a fear that doesn’t let us be authentically who we are because we’re scared everything could be taken away. It’s a fear that makes every moment uncomfortable, drawing our focus and energy away from the life God wants us to live. This kind of fear is a powerful motivator which is why some create their own fake fear to further their own agenda. Yet there are those who spend every moment of every day making sure what they say and do doesn’t lead to violence. That kind of life is exhausting because you never know exactly when the fear will be realized. It’s a fear that is sometimes hidden within families that no one else sees and it’s a fear I see lived out among my friends and colleagues with kids who are trans as they gather together piles and piles of documents to show that their kid is really their kid. At any time, their greatest fear can become realized because of the choices others make. Foxes can be anywhere but I’m not sure if God designed us to cause others that kind of fear.

Which is why, I think, Jesus responded in the way he did. He didn’t tell the Pharisees they shouldn’t be afraid or that they should choose faith over fear. He didn’t brush aside what Herod could do or invite everyone to run and hide. Instead, he named Herod as the fox he was and gave them a message to share. Jesus told them to tell his story and the life he chose to live. He was going to keep being Jesus: casting out demons, curing the sick, and bringing wholeness to those in need. He was going to center the stories of those who lived in fear because of the actions of others. Jesus was going to bring good news to everyone in harm’s way even though he was well aware of what we do when God’s love shows up. He wasn’t going to let the lies we tell and the fears we spread limit his story. Instead, in the words of Rev. Jennifer Moland-Kovash, Jesus said: “Go and tell that fox that I’m busy – bringing good news to those who need it, being the hands and feet of God in this world. Go and tell that fox that I’ve got better things to do in this world than huddle in the corner waiting to die. God and tell that fox we’re busy living, but when the time comes, we’ll [always] be under the wings of Jesus.” Jesus doesn’t let the fox center their story at the expense of those longing for God’s love. And that’s because, through baptism and faith, we all have a new story to tell. We live in a world full of foxes yet we don’t have to be one or let foxes tell us who we are. Instead, we get to live into the promises of God and do the living God wants us to do. The good news we bring into the world is that something other than this is possible. That doesn’t mean things won’t be hard or we’ll never be afraid. But we can, together, decenter our fears and embrace the new life we’ve already been given. Jesus has already gathered us under his wings so we, with him and through him, get to do the living God wants us to do.

Amen.

Sermon: In Groups vs Last Minute Field Goals

²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” ²³He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ ” ²⁴And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land, ²⁶yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. ³⁰But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Luke 4:21-30

My sermon from the 4th Sunday after Epiphany (January 30, 2022) on Luke 4:21-30.

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So last weekend was a really amazing weekend for football. Every game was close, exciting, and required a last minute field goal. My favorite articles this week were full of quotes from Kansas City Chiefs fans who chose to leave Arrowhead stadium when there was only 13 seconds left in the fourth quarter. If you’re a fan of one of those teams that played or will play today, I’m happy for you. But if you’re a fan of another team, you might have spent this last week wondering how yours will stack up twice a year against Patrick Mahomes now that he’s entered his final form. As a devoted fan of the Denver Broncos, I have no idea how we’re going to win in the future. But I’m hopeful the team can figure it out and they started that process this week by hiring a new coach. Now, I’m getting used to the fact that, every two or three years, the Broncos fire their head coach and go find a new one. A good coach is hard to find and I don’t know all the details of what it takes for that to happen. But the whole process, from the outside, can be a bit frustrating because it feels like the same small group of people are interviewed every year. It seems like most have been a coach on each other’s staff and the whole adage – it’s not what you know but who you know – is on full display. On some level, it makes sense to hire people you already know because, in theory, you understand their strengths, weaknesses, and how they work. Yet when the same group of people keep hiring each other, a kind of bubble forms where their conversations, thoughts, expectations, and points of view reinforce the status quo. And once we’re in a bubble, our world becomes really small. This kind of network of relationships can be a life-giving place where we experience love, care, wholeness, and a sense of purpose. But when our network stays small, we end up limiting who we are because we act as if we already know what we can become.

Today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke is a continuation of what we heard last week. Jesus had just started his ministry and was wandering in and out of the towns around the sea of Galilee. He made a pit stop in the town he grew up in, taking the opportunity to see his folks, do his laundry, and eat his mother’s food. He wasn’t in Nazareth for very long but Jesus, being Jewish, made sure to head to the synagogue on the sabbath day. When he walked through the door, I imagine people nodded their heads and came over to say hello. The community knew about his travels and they wanted to ask about his mom, his siblings, and what life was like being on the road. He was among the people he grew up with and that included his friends, his classmates, his neighbors, and everyone who had their own story about interacting with Jesus. They had, over the years, attended each other’s weddings, helped build each other’s homes, and brought their version of a 1st century casserole when a neighbor was in need. As neighbors in a small town, they created their own small network of people who had invested time, energy, and care for each other. They were their own kind of community and Jesus was a part of them. So when they handed him a scroll containing words from the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus was simply their Jesus. And after he announced he would be the one who’d make the oppressed go free, give sight to the blind, help all captives be released, and bring good news specifically to the poor, the community was amazed. Their Jesus was becoming a big deal and they turned to each other to speak.

Now our story records one thing they shared but I imagine that wasn’t the only thing they said. They already knew Jesus was doing new things and they got excited about what that might mean for them. In a world where who you know matters a lot, having a miracle worker in your in-group would be pretty awesome. We don’t know exactly what the community thought Jesus might do but they were excited about the possibilities. Their minds raced because they knew Jesus before he was cool. They assumed he would stay close to his friends and offer them the good news they specifically wanted. Yet what Jesus had in mind was a bit bigger than anything they expected. The good news he was bringing into the world wasn’t meant only for them. It was meant for everyone – which meant his words and his ministry were going to be a bit complicated. The good news one group wants to hear might not be the good news others need. Yet God’s love is always God’s love – and it works to constantly expand our imaginations about what is possible in our world. It moves us to break through the bubbles we build because the limitations we place on our relationships will not limit the work of our God. When we stay primarily focused only on the people around us, our imagination becomes a bit stagnant since the stories we share, the situations we find ourselves in, and our assumptions about what it means to live well in the world remains the same. It’s difficult to be new when we can’t see new and we sometimes don’t even realize how limited we are. We need a gentle or not so gentle nudge from Jesus to show our bubbles are not the limit of what it means to be with God. There is always more and that more is going to build bridges through, around, and over the walls we build that keep our relationships small.

Now those kinds of relationships are never easy because what works among one group of people might not work with someone else. We have to grow in how we communicate with each other and that requires learning each other’s history, values, hopes, and dreams. This work invites us to listen to stories that might challenge who we know ourselves to be. And it expands our sense of what good news actually is because what’s good for a Bronco fan might not be what the Rams need when they take the field this afternoon. The good news of God is a very particular kind of news because it speaks to who we are right now. It challenges us in ways that require us to love and serve and see the world differently while giving us hope that God’s promises are actually true. The limits we place on what’s possible with God are limits that God will always break through. And that’s because by the very nature of our baptism – of our being brought into this body of Christ that includes people from all places, all walks of life, all genders, all nationalities, and even from different time periods – we are already connected to a web of relationships that can never be small. We are part of an inclusive and expansive in-group that breaks through every smaller in-group we set up that invites us to do one one hardest and yet most essential things we can do in our lives. And that’s to just love. Love the people we’re with. Love the people who know us and who claim us as their own. Love the people we don’t know and those who God brings into our lives. And when we feel the urge to keep our network of relationships small, we need to let the limitlessness of God’s love show us how big God’s kingdom actually is. Now we’re always going to have our own in-groups. And it’s okay to have our own network of people that nourishes our body, mind, and spirit. Yet these networks are not meant to be the limit of our relationships because the Son of God connects us to so much more. We can, through love, keep ourselves and our communities open to the possibility we can change and grow. And even though we can’t fully know what that growth will look like, the Jesus who has made us part of his network of relationships will be there to carry us through.

Amen.