Category: Sermons

¹All the people [of Israel] gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. ²Accordingly, Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. ³He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. ⁵And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people, and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. ⁸So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

⁹And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. 

¹⁰Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord, and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

My sermon from the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany (January 23, 2022) on Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10.

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One of the neat things, I think, about the incarnation – about God’s decision to enter the entirety of our human story by being a real human being – is how it invites us to pay attention to the physical nature of our lives and our world. We are not just a series of thoughts floating around in our heads. We are embodied, moving through a world filled with things to touch, smell, taste, see, and hear. This  physicalness is a big part of our lived story and it’s also a big part of God’s story too. One way we engage deeper with our Bible is by remembering how these stories happened in places filled with dirt, buildings, trees, grass, sand, rocks, animals, and people. The words in our Bible are more than just bits of ink on a piece of paper or shaded pixels on a screen. They show us where God’s story is lived out. 

And that physicalness, I think, is a big part of our first reading from the book of Nehemiah. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were originally one story that was eventually split in two. And they give us a kind of spiritual reflection unpacking what happened in Jerusalem once the Jewish community returned. In the year 586 BCE, the Babylonian empire destroyed Jerusalem and forced most of its surviving population to live hundreds of miles away along the banks of the Euphrates river. For roughly 70 years the community lived in exile and had to learn what it meant to be Jewish without access to their promised land. During their time away, they began to give the Hebrew Bible its shape. Their story – from the book of Genesis through the Prophets – was collected, edited, and written down on scrolls. This process involved a lot of listening, reading, reflecting, prayer, and negotiations over what to include. They clung tightly to promises given to Abraham and to how God rescued them from slavery in Egypt. They celebrated every commandment, every covenant, and the glory they saw in the Davidic kingdom. And when things went wrong, they noticed their God was with them even when their hope was gone. 

Now when the Persians destroyed the Babylonian Empire, they allowed the Jewish community to return to Jerusalem. Some chose to stay where they were while others packed up their belongings and headed west. When they arrived in their former capital city, what they found was a lot of work. Jerusalem was in ruins and the Temple – the place God promised to be – was a pile of rubble. The old rules about who lived where and who owned what no longer applied because those who weren’t exiled had made new lives for themselves in the place where the kings of Judea once ruled. Those who returned knew things had changed but after spending an entire lifetime listening to stories of the city’s greatness, they had a vision in their heads of what the city of Jerusalem was all about. Yet when what remained of the city first came into view, their expectations ran headfirst into their reality. Everything had changed and their hard work had just begun. 

So when the community gathered at the Water Gate, they were doing two things. First, they were celebrating the holy day that would eventually become known as Rosh Hashanah. Second, they chose to also acknowledge that, roughly 65 years since their initial return from exile, the city walls were finally complete. Jerusalem was beginning to look like the city they held within their hearts and they could, in a tangible way, express their faith through an early version of the Torah in their City of David. I can’t help but think that, while standing and listening to God’s story in that physical place, some felt as if things were finally returning to normal. As they closed their eyes, it seemed as if they had gone back to that moment before all this stuff happened. But when they opened their eyes and truly saw what was all around them, they wept because they realized they couldn’t go back. Change had happened. And in the words of Rev. Katie Hines-Shah, “maybe… [they couldn’t] return to [their] normal after all.” 

Now Nehemiah doesn’t tell us exactly why the people wept. But on this Sunday as we return to in-person worship after a few weeks away, I see their weeping as a response to the loss of our so-called normal. We all had our vision of what the church and our lives would be like when this pandemic was finally over. And last summer and fall, it looked like our normal might finally return. But then the uncertainty of this pandemic required us to step away from in-person worship again. And while each of us has been impacted by this current stage of the pandemic in different ways, what I saw and heard and personally experienced was a kind of exhaustion manifesting itself as sadness, tears, anger, frustration, and a desire to just pretend as if we’re already moved on. It’s hard to not be really tired right now. And it’s exhausting being a parent or a grandparent or a caregiver or a teacher or nurse or a doctor or just a plain human being in this moment. Many of our actions and in-actions have been shaped by a longing and a grief for this return to normal. Yet there are days when our weeping and mourning seem to be the entirety of what this new normal is all about. We still don’t know what the future will bring but we do know there’s no going back to the way things were. Everything has changed and it’s okay to stop pretending that it hasn’t. 

Yet, as we hear in our words from Nehemiah, “this day is holy to the Lord your God.” This day – not the one that happened in the past or the one we hope for the future – is holy. And that’s because God doesn’t wait for the city to be rebuilt, repaired, and returned to its former glory before God chooses to re-enter the story. God didn’t despise the Jewish community because things had changed. God didn’t shy away from them because they were gathering and celebrating and doing things a bit differently than before. God was with them in their new ways of being in the world because God had always been with them – even when they were exiled to a place far from their physical and spiritual home. And when it came time to hear God’s story, the bits that were shared came from the Torah – the first five books of the Bible that do not focus on the community’s time in the promised land. It’s a story that’s a little incomplete because it ends before they get to the place where they are going. The story ends with the community still wandering but trusting that God was about to carry them into a new kind of future. The narrative within the Torah wraps up long before the story of the community ends. And that’s because God knew that they had a future and had way more life to live. 

So that means, that even during this time which will never again look like our past, we get to celebrate the goodness of our God because God has already declared we belong. Our story is still not complete but we are completely in our God because, through baptism and faith, we are part of God’s future. That doesn’t mean that today won’t be hard. But it does invite us to trust that what’s changed won’t change the promises of our God. We can, together, use this moment to make sure that our worship, our prayers, and our lives embody the physical presence of the God who is always with us. We will move into God’s future because God’s future is already moving through us. 

Amen. 

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
  And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
  As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
  So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people.

John 3:7-18

My sermon from Third Sunday of Advent (December 12, 2021) on Luke 3:7-18.

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A few days after Thanksgiving, a strange knocking was heard throughout Allen Dale Elementary School in Oregon. It didn’t sound like the normal kind of knocking; rather, it was more like a peck. There’d be a peck at the door of one classroom and then, a moment later, a peck at the window of another. At first, no one knew what was going on but then someone saw what was making the noise. There was a crow going from classroom to classroom, knocking and pecking and peering through the windows. Now if you’ve ever been an elementary school student or a teacher, you know a crow knocking on the window is going to disrupt your entire day. There’s something very Edgar Allen Poe-ish about a crow systematically checking out each classroom. I’m pretty sure the school didn’t have a plan on how to deal with a crow knocking on the window so they called the state police and a wildlife officer came out. They noticed the crow wasn’t being very aggressive and it was being kind to the kids. It gently landed on their heads and, since crows can learn words like a parrot can, it asked them “what’s up?” The crow also knew a lot of swear words which made it even more endearing to the children. The whole experience was very fun, very weird and very disruptive. And no one ever in that school expected to find themselves in a kinder version of Poe’s poem The Raven. Yet the weirdness made them feel as if the the bird was searching for something. And that energy – including the breaking of expectations and the longing for something different – is, I think, present in our reading centered on John the Baptist. He, like the crow, was a bit wild but he wasn’t, I think, the unexpected part of the story. Instead, what’s really strange is why certain kinds of people with certain kinds of power were asking him: “what should we do?” 

Now during this season when our wider community is busy counting down to Christmas, the church is busy living into Christmas’ future. Today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke takes place roughly 30 years after Jesus’ birth when a man named John was preaching in the wilderness. Unlike our popular imagination today, the Bible doesn’t treat the wilderness as a pristine place meant to be some kind of national park. The wilderness, instead, is a place full of unexpected things we can’t control. And that’s where John decided to make his home. To us, that might seem odd because we usually don’t plant roots in a place full of the unexpected. But 2000 years ago, the wilderness was exactly the place where prophets were expected to live. A prophet was a person who had encountered the divine and was given a message to share. Sometimes a prophet was a royal official, serving as an advisor to the king. Yet most of the words of prophets recorded in our Bible come from folks the authorities didn’t like. These prophets lived on the margins and told those in power that they had failed to take care of the most vulnerable among them. These prophets felt compelled to afflict those who were comfortable and bring comfort to the afflicted. That’s why so many prophets ended up in prison. By the time of Jesus, people had certain expectations for what a prophet looked like and what they did. And when they heard that John was out in an untamed place with untamed hair eating bugs and saying things King Herod didn’t like – that fit into everyone one of their preconceived notions about what a messenger from God was all about. People expected John the Baptist to be exactly who he was. He fit into every culturally defined bucket of a prophet that they had. And so when he started name calling, people knew that was just part of his job. Yet what I find to be most surprising about this whole story is that the tax collectors and soldiers listened to his words. Both those groups were expected to live their lives in certain ways. Tax collectors made their living by taking more money than the government requested. The government used contractors to collect the money and those contractors were allowed to charge more than the government wanted. Soldiers were empowered by the state to use violence and the threat of violence to keep their employers in charge. Soldiers often weren’t paid well on purpose. When they took money from the people near their base, the local populace disliked them and that made them even more loyal to whoever employed them. Both groups lived within a system that encouraged folks to take advantage of the other. And in the world they called home, that was seen as the only way to live. 

Now we never actually learn why the tax collectors listened to John nor do we see the soldiers following his commands. All we hear is the word of God meant for them. And instead of telling them to worship God in a certain place or to say the right kind of prayers or to look at all the excess their extortion had earned them and give a bit of it away – John invited them to step into a new kind of life that would be willing to give half of everything they had so that others could thrive. That’s a very wacky thing for John to say especially to those empowered to take things from others. If the tax collector or the soldier changed how they lived, they would no longer fit into their world’s expectations. That would make them dangerous to the system that required them to operate in a certain way. And once they chose to no longer make their home in that kind of system, they would invite everyone to examine how they’ve been empowered culturally or politically or financially to impose their wills on others. That kind of work requires us to see the world as it truly is while also using our imagination to see what the world could actually be. To do that well, we need to rethink, reevaluate, and revisit the expectations at the heart of who we are. That sounds pretty daunting but Jesus knows we can do that. You, through your baptism and your faith, are already rooted in the One who came to give life to our world. Jesus’ very presence gives us a series of new expectations for what life can be. And instead of asking others to do our will, we get to unpack what it means that Jesus’s first bed on earth was a manger and that he was killed via the method the Romans reserved for those who challenged the status quo. It takes a bit of time and effort and lots of prayer to unpack a tiny bit of what that might mean. Yet when we do that, we begin to create a new home in this world that believes God’s kingdom has come near. 

Now the crow I talked about at the beginning of this sermon was different because they had been rescued when they were very young and raised by a person. It’s presence among the human community changed how it lived in the world. But not everyone was thrilled with a foul-mouthed crow hanging around the neighborhood. So, over thanksgiving, someone took the bird and donated it to an animal sanctuary. The sanctuary took it in but the crow knew that wasn’t their home. It got out as soon as it could and flew around the neighborhood. As luck would have it, it recognized a kid their human knew. The crow followed them to school and started pecking on doors to get their attention. The crow was looking for it’s home – that place where it was loved. And maybe that’s what John’s words were all about. He invited those with power to create a new home outside of the expectations of the world. They didn’t need to use violence to gain their sense of security. They could reexamine everything and live in such a way that love, rather than fear, would carry them through. John’s invitation to those tax collectors is also an invitation to us. You are already loved and valued and because of Christ, you’re already home. You get to see the world differently and not be limited by the expectations the world places on you. Instead, you get to proclaim that the expectation of living in, with, and sharing God’s love can be everything that this world needs. 

Amen.

[Jesus said:] “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Luke 21:25-36

My sermon from First Sunday of Advent (November 28, 2021) on Luke 21:25-36.

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So on Tuesday, I loaded up my minivan with all the potatoes, squash, apples, and oranges you donated to our annual harvest altar and delivered it to Tri-Boro Food Pantry. Now I, for some unknown reason, assumed the pantry would be pretty quiet that morning. The big Thanksgiving meal distribution had already happened and the volunteers, I figured, would be focused on the future. Due to the increased need in our area, the pantry pre-packs all the bags of groceries they distribute. Janelle and the rest of the team work really hard to make sure the 100+ families that rely on the pantry all receive similar things. Rarely do people donate 100 of an item to the pantry so it takes a lot of advance planning to take what’s donated and turn it into something families can use. The pantry actually has a notebook filled with lists prepared weeks in advance detailing what food goes in what bag. This kind of work helps the distribution of food go smoothly while also allowing the opportunity for volunteers to get to know the clients and if they need anything special. By working on the food people will need in the future, the pantry limits the kind of chaos that can happen when people have to wait in line in a parking lot. When I arrived on Tuesday, the pantry was working perfectly. As the clients arrived, the volunteers knew exactly what to do and it was awesome seeing how they made sure everyone had what they needed. Their work serving others went without a hitch. But since it was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, chaos reigned in different ways. Car after car kept showing up, each one filled with people donating turkeys and hams and veggies and snacks and paper goods of all kinds. There was me bringing in hundreds of pounds of produce and also half-a-dozen SUVs filled with canned goods from Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley. There were cars from local businesses and schools dropping off all the items they raised during their Thanksgiving food drives. And since many who donated were visiting the pantry for the very first time, it was a bit of a mess. All we could do was get the food inside and the volunteers would spend their future figuring out how best to use these gifts. The season of Thanksgiving is a time when people are very generous but during the week of Thanksgiving, the gifts given to the pantry don’t usually end up on people’s tables in November. Instead, they are a kind of down payment on the future, delivered by people in the present, who gathered these items during their immediate past. Yet these kinds of gifts are amazing because people always need more than one meal. Last Tuesday morning, I saw how the future impacted the present while holding true to the full story of the past. And that’s a strange way to experience this moment but it is, I think, what the season of Advent is all about. 

In today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, the future is everywhere. We’re told there will be signs causing people to fear what is coming upon the world and that the powers of the heavens will be shaken. People will see the Son coming on a cloud in glory and even when the earth and heavens disappear, Jesus’ words never will. Throughout this passage, the verbs point to the future – and paying attention to the verbs is one way we interpret scripture. This future orientation helps us to unpack Jesus’ words but to do that well we also need to pay attention to his present and his past. Jesus, at this point in the story, was near the end of his earthly ministry and he knew it. He tried, for quite awhile, to prepare the disciples for what was coming next. They, however, didn’t get how someone with so much power could lose to a few people wielding swords. Jesus, over and over again, showed them that people in power do not respond well when God’s love shows up. God’s love often serves as a disruptive event because it refuses to let our comfort come at the expense of others. Jesus, in his own way, was a chaos making agent because he confronted people’s present reality in a way that upended their future. In the words of Audrey West, Jesus knew his presence forces us to question who the future actually belonged to. And so that’s why Jesus brought up the future because who we are today is shaped by what we imagine our tomorrow to be. 

Now that call to think about tomorrow is one that’s still relevant today because we often fight and kill and defraud and threaten and make the lives of others hard because we’re trying to hold onto a future that can easily be undone. We want to be comfortable. We want to be in charge. We want certain moments to last forever and we don’t always want change to come. We hold onto the future we imagine and we become our kind of chaos making agent trying to make that vision come true. But the story of Jesus is the story of how God chooses, over and over again, to disrupt the chaos we create so that a different kind of future breaks through. That’s why, in the story of ancient Israel, God always showed up and why, in the story of Jesus, he entered the human story with a mother who was poor and gave birth next to animals. And when those in power did all they could to keep the status quo, Jesus’ story continued through the Cross. God’s story is a future oriented story where wholeness, hope, mercy, and love is at the center of it all. And everytime we cling to only one kind of future, God breaks through to say that everything will change. 

Now that’s scary because the future is always scary. We don’t know exactly what will happen next but we do know what it’s like when the future we planned for is completely undone. That’s why, I think, why we fight so hard to bring about a certain kind of future. We know how unexpected life can be and we seek a kind of security that will carry us through. Which is why, I think, Jesus made sure that the future oriented verbs in today’s text also told the story of what God had already done. The kingdom of God coming near is more than just a future where no one ever needs to visit a food pantry again. It’s also a descriptor of what people experienced when Jesus showed up. He showed how healing and care, wholeness and hope, should be the power that shapes everyone’s future. His presence made an impact on people who suddenly had a story of how God’s love made a difference in their past. Advent, then, is more than a countdown to a Christmas that is historical and made a bit nostalgic. It’s, instead, an invitation to rethink today by looking forward to how God’s promises become real in our lives. Advent is a way of life that notices how we, through baptism and faith, have already been drawn into the story of Jesus. And since Jesus has been made real in our past, we, as the body of Christ, get to bring the kingdom of God to all those near us. We, the ones who struggle against God’s future, are called to  bring wholeness and healing into the lives of others so that their future will be different. The Advent season is a strange season because we’re looking forward to the future while counting down to the Christmas that’s already happened in the past. Yet when we focus on what’s coming, we get to change what today is all about. We know that chaos is a part of life and our future will never be as secure and comfortable as we would like. Yet through it all, we belong to God and we have a Savior who will never let us go. So I invite you this Advent season to look to the future. Look towards what God’s kingdom is all about. And when your future ends up being completely disrupted by the unplanned chaos of today, hold close to the promise that God’s future is already on its way because Christmas has come, Easter is real, and we are part of every bit of Jesus’ story – forever. 

Amen.

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.” Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”

2 Samuel 11:1-15

My sermon from the 10th Sunday after Pentecost (July 25, 2021) on 2 Samuel 11:1-15.

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You might have noticed that our gospel reading today wasn’t from the gospel according to Mark. Instead, we side-hopped into the sixth chapter of John which we’ll be in for the next five weeks. This chapter is known as the “bread of life” because Jesus fed five thousand people with a few loaves and fishes and then kept saying he was bread. So these readings will be really exciting if you’re a bird. And since this is our Christmas in July Sunday, you would be totally excused if you spent the rest of the day humming a song about swans, geese, calling birds, french hens, turtle doves, and a partridge hounding you for this gluten-based treasure. But today is also a day that needs our creativity because we’re being asked to do a lot. We need to, somehow, integrate the songs of Christmas with a book from the Bible we haven’t spent much recent time in, And we also are sitting with King David’s sexual assault on Bathsheba. None of this is easy and if you’re not able to listen to this sermon right now, you have my permission to do what’s right for you. And one practice we might try to help us discern where we spiritually are right now is to create some breathing-space for our mind and our soul. So before we do anything else and dwell deeper in this complicated moment, let’s take a moment to just rest. 

 But how do you rest during worship, especially if you’re sitting in hard wooden pews or at home trying to get your kids to stop hitting each other while I speak through a microphone not everyone can put on mute? Worship needs us to do a little work. We need to be fully present, either virtually or in-person, while singing, praying, reading, tasting, and listening. And even if we’re not paying attention to everything happening around us, we often come to worship with our mind still buzzing about an argument or an experience we had earlier in the week. Worship gives us a chance to spiritually recharge but that doesn’t mean it’s always restful. So we need to learn how to do that: to make time to rest our minds and our bodies. If we don’t, our creativity and our lives suffer because we weren’t designed to just keep going. We need tob reathe or, in the words of Rev. Kirk Byron Jones, create what he calls: “peace pockets.” He models these mental respites by following rules laid out by Mary Oliver. These periods of time are when he’s “not-thinking, not-remembering, and not-wanting.” This resting can be physical, like taking a nap or making sure your phone is not the first and last thing you see during the day. This resting can also be mental, like taking twenty minutes to look out a window, light a candle, or take a walk. And if you can’t find a moment of silence, you’re invited to make the noise around you into white-noise: changing your focus so that sound of restless children or heavy traffic or lawnmowers becomes an indistinct buzz that loses all meaning. We don’t always have the luxury of resting as deeply as we can. But I hope each of us will realize we can make rest happen. So let’s practice that together. Let’s rest. If it’s helpful, take a deep breath and exhale out all the worries, anxieties, and struggles you carried with you into this space today. Turn your head and look at a window or zone out while staring at the back of a pew. Just…rest because your creative spirit and your life needs it. 

Now, in a perfect world, you would rest multiple times a day. And that rest would bring you a bit of peace that would lead to an experience of clarity that would help you see what’s right in front of you. I know we haven’t really rested long enough for this to happen so if you want mentally turn my voice into white noise while I keep talking, I won’t take offense. Yet I did want to share something I saw in our readings today that came to me after I rested. The crowd that came to Jesus was a crowd full of people in need. They were the culturally unclean; the people the rest of us believed deserved everything that had happened to them. The status quo did everything it could to leave these behind. But when Jesus chose otherwise, making sure each one had more than enough to eat, the crowd tasted something new. They experienced a creative use of power that didn’t try to dominate them. Instead, it included them. It listened to their cries; their concerns; their fears; and their hopes. And it made each person in the crowd feel like they belong; like they matter; like their life had meaning. God’s love did more than just feed them. Jesus’ presence created a new kind of community that even included the unwelcomed. This experience of power was new, exciting, and different because it fed life rather than say one life was more valued than the other. And it was a power, in a weird way, that seemed to ask for very little because it was too busy being for the people who had no power in the first place. It was a power that gave their lives a bit more meaning and it was willing to give everything to help the most vulnerable thrive. 

So when the crowd finally found themselves being part of a community they never had before, they tried to make Jesus a king. Yet Jesus knew our experience and understanding of power was  still a bit too self-centered. Instead of seeing power as a gift meant to be given away, we choose to hold onto power as tight as we can. And we look for leaders willing to fight instead of leaders willing to be for others. King David, while at the pinnacle of his power, sent his army away to do the work he no longer needed to do. And instead, he chose to assault Bathsheba because he knew she couldn’t say no. But when she told the truth of her story, his commitment to power ended up causing more violence, with Uriah hand delivering the order that would kill him and his entire battalion. Everytime we do what we can to hold onto the power we think we have, the creative spark of life meant for all is dimmed by our own hands. Yet the God who claimed us in our baptism, who gifted us faith, and who chooses not to give up on us when we give up on God, refused to be held captive to these creative limitations. God, instead, chose to be born. God chose to need love. God chose to be vulnerable and to reach out to all we make vulnerable too. God chose to be for others while we hold closely to ourselves. And even when God’s love was strung up on a Cross, Jesus’ arms still remained opened to all. 

And so that’s, I think, why we need to make time to rest and to help others rest too. A good nap does more than make us feel good; it helps us see the new life God is inviting us to live. Our present is not the end of God’s story. Rather, it is merely the raw materials God is busy transforming into a new reality. The king of kings, whose first crib was a food dish for farm animals, is more than just our Lord. He also came to trigger our imagination to notice that power can be about so much more. And if Jesus Christ can be for us, then we can learn how to nurture our creative spirit through rest so that we can be for others too.

Then [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Mark 8:31-38

My sermon from First Sunday in Lent (February 28, 2021) on Mark 8:31-38.

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One of the easiest ways to cause a problem in your relationship is to speak up in a very public setting. For example, let’s say you’re out with friends and everyone was having fun. One of your friends made a light hearted comment and then you, without thinking, turned that comment into a joke at their expense. Or maybe your coworker was telling a story but left out something that’s a little embarrassing. That little detail had no bearing on the outcome of the story but you couldn’t help to speak up and reveal what they didn’t want you to share. Or maybe you and your loved one were having an argument. It was simmering for a while and it wasn’t resolved. You were starting to feel a little bit resentful and while staying up way too late scrolling through social media, you made a post, turning your private conflict into one that’s now very public. Not everything in our relationships is designed for public consumption. And I know, personally, how easy it is to create drama by inadvertently crossing that line. We don’t always mean to call attention to our friends in a way that makes them defensive. But it’s sometimes easier doing that than telling them, “we need to talk.” What we need to do is own up to the truth that these kinds of one-on-one conversations are really hard. They aren’t always easy but they can be the one thing we’re supposed to do. So I wonder if Peter, in our reading today from the gospel according to Mark, was trying to do a hard thing. I know he usually gets a bad wrap when we read this passage because it takes a certain amount of gumption to messiah-splain to the Son of God. Yet if Peter really wanted to call out Jesus in an unintentional or difficult way, I imagine he would have done so in front of all the disciples. Instead Peter waited for an opportunity to pull Jesus aside and say, “hey, we need to talk.” Peter did the hard thing – and Jesus responded by doing everything you’re not supposed to do when tending to a relationship. 

Now before we go too deep into Jesus’ actions, it’s important to set the stage of what’s happening in our reading. Jesus and his followers were approaching the city of Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea was founded by Herod the Great’s son – Herod Philip – and his kingdom included parts of Galilee, Syria, and Jordan. Caesarea Philippi became the administrative center of his little empire which is why he named it after himself. But Herod Philip also decided to use the name of the city to flatter the person who gave him his power. Caesarea was named after Caesar – aka the Roman Emperor. Herod Philip ruled the area because the Roman Empire, which controlled the region, let him rule. Without their authority and power, Herod was nothing. So he filled the city with Roman imagery, Roman statues, and they even built a temple honoring the Roman Emperors outside the city. As Jesus and his disciples neared this very Roman looking city, Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah. Peter’s confession was more than just a theological or spiritual statement. It was also a political one – because if Jesus is Lord – that means the Emperor – and those who supported him – were not. By saying Jesus was the Messiah, Peter was proclaiming that the structure of power in our world was about to change. Jesus’ ministry wasn’t only only about taking care of people’s souls; he was also going to take care of their bodies, their ideologies, and the ways they live with one another. Jesus’ good news for the poor was literally that – good news for the marginalized; the pushed aside; and those without power. But any good news for them was also anything but for those who enjoyed power in the here and now. Peter couldn’t wait to see God’s compassion for the marginalized realized in his lifetime. But when Jesus started talking about suffering, pain, and this…thing used by the Roman Empire to maintain their power and control – Peter felt compelled to say to Jesus: “hey, we need to talk.” Peter wasn’t being malicious but he couldn’t imagine God’s love bringing about a kind of conflict where the Empire, rather than Jesus, would win. 

Now, I don’t know what Peter expected when he pulled Jesus aside – but he probably didn’t plan for his private conversation to become very public. Not only did Jesus bring their conversation back to the disciples – he then included the entire crowd. In fact, we’re still reading about Jesus calling Peter “Satan” 2000 years later – which is usually not really a great way to keep a relationship with each other. Peter, after witnessing Jesus’ fame grow and after experiencing Jesus’ power, assumed Jesus would install himself into a position of authority that held power over others. Jesus would become a kind of benevolent emperor – a kinder version of the type of ruler they had all grown up with. But Jesus, as the Son of God, didn’t need to be installed in to power. He already had it. The difference, however, was that he wasn’t interested in what we imagine power to be all about. What he wanted – what he practiced – and what he taught – was a power with others and one that would heal the world. It’s why he ate meals with sinners and hung out with the poor rather than the rich. It’s why he healed people on the sabbath – not letting people suffer even one day more. And it’s why he wouldn’t allow the maintaining of the status quo interfere with the giving – and sharing – of life. In the words of Ira Digger, “Mark is saying that the Son of God will not dial down his ministry to spare his own life, or even to ease his suffering. His commitment to the healing of humanity literally knows no limits.” The power Jesus lived out was a power meant to help others – regardless of their social status, their identities, their genders, their ages, or their wealth – to thrive. His mission in the world was, by default, going to disrupt the world. And so that’s why the world’s response to that kind of disruption – is always the Cross. 

Now it’s a bit strange to talk about Jesus’ ministry of healing in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. I know too many people who’ve been infected by COVID-19 in just the last few weeks. If there’s anything I want right now, it’s Jesus’ healing of the world. But I’m also mindful of how I want that healing to just be a return to how things were. We all want this disruption to end but that doesn’t mean we’re always open to the kind of disruption Jesus’ healing actually brings. We want a return to normal but Jesus was never in the business of letting things remain the same. God always comes to us in love and that’s why we try to resist it. We want Jesus to move in our world but only on our terms. We are fine with God’s love as long as we don’t have to give up our ideas of freedom, of power, of position, or our points of view. We’re okay with Jesus as long as Jesus doesn’t ask us and our  communities to change too much. And we assume that good news can only be good if it caters to us. Yet God won’t let us get in the way of a love and a hope and a way of being in the world that lets God be God and lets let’s life, not the Cross, be what we share with all. There is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus – and that means we are called to give up ways we resist what God is doing in our world. We need to give up limiting who deserves love and who doesn’t; we need to give up limiting our attention to only people who are like us; we need to give up the ways our social status and power requires others to make adjustments for us; and we need to lean into relationships with all people instead of only a chosen few. We need – in a way – to be like Peter and Jesus. We need to refuse to give up on one another. Because even when Peter thought Jesus got it wrong and when Jesus called out Peter for all time – they doubled down their commitment to each other. Even when we get our relationship wrong; even when we say something we shouldn’t; and even when something private becomes way too public; we can commit ourselves to being Jesus’ good news in our world. And this is something we can do because in your baptism, in your faith, and in this very moment – Jesus has already made the promise to never give up on you. 

Amen. 

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 7, 2019) on John 12:1-8.

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

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

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

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

Amen.

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 31, 2019) on Luke 15:1-3,11b-32.

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

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

After 30 seconds, invite them to turn and share. 

After a minute or two, return to the sermon. 

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

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

How many included the word “father?”

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

Did anyone focus only on the older brother who stayed? 

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

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

Did anyone’s title only include God? 

Did anyone’s title only focus on the Father? 

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

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

Amen.

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 24, 2019) on Luke 13:1-9.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.