Sermons – Page 6 – Pocket Sized Pastor*

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.

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: Mis-speaking UP

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.

Unity of the Valley – Recipes

My message for the Unity in the Valley Event hosted at Pascack Valley High School on March 19, 2019. Unity in the Valley is a community organized gathering to encourage inclusion and fight back against recent examples of antisemitism and more.

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I want to start my remarks tonight with a simple question: what’s your favorite recipe? Now, it’s okay to take a few moments to think about it because it might not be the easiest question to answer. I’m not asking you to name your favorite thing to eat or what restaurant you like to go to. No, what I want to know is: what’s your favorite recipe? What dish, or meal, do you love to make or, if you don’t cook, what recipe does someone make for you that reminds you you’re loved? Once you figure out an answer to that question, hold onto it, because we’re going to use it in a few short minutes.

Now, as person of faith who didn’t grow up with one, I’m fascinated by the stuff of religion. There’s the big things like the rituals, the prayer books, music, and art. But there’s also the little things – like what faith communities choose to post on their bulletin boards and what little booklets they keep by the front door that no one ever picks up. One of those things I sometimes find in the lobbies of many different kinds of faith communities is: that community’s cookbook. They were usually published at least 10 years before, the pages are now yellowed, and the whole thing is bound together by an oddly colored piece of plastic. In Christian communities, we usually make these as a kind of fundraiser, asking people to submit recipes they want to share with everyone else. And these cookbooks are always filled with recipes you can’t find anywhere else. Sometimes, you’ll read about a chutney or hummus that someone’s mom used to make. But you’ll also find things that are a tad…frightening. As a Lutheran Christian, those kinds of recipes usually involve a casserole dish, jello, a fruit you’ve never heard of, and a can of tuna fish. When you read these cookbooks, you’ll wonder if someone submitted something just to punk you. Yet, you’ll also discover something beautiful. You’ll be invited to make that pineapple cake that someone always brings whenever there’s a funeral. And you’ll be able to taste the rice and beans someone prepares every time a church member is in the hospital, leaving it on the family’s front porch with a note saying we’re thinking of them. These cookbooks are more than just a collection of recipes. They’re a collection of stories – passed down from generation to generation – meant to be shared during incredible celebrations and to bring hope in moments of incredible sorrow. Our favorite recipes do more than tell others what we like to eat; they show our neighbors a bit of who we are, where we come from, and what makes us, us. We all carry within us a cookbook of recipes that lets other people know the entirety of our story.

But the cookbooks we carry are not, I think, meant to be only for ourselves. When we eat, we’re meant to eat together. Many of our faith and cultural traditions are centered at the table, at the place where dishes are served and meals are shared. Because we are invited to do more than just eat. We are here to get to know each other. The recipes we share are an opportunity for us to be vulnerable, to share a part of our tradition, our history, and our soul with someone else. The table is where we get to be human and that creates an opportunity for unity that is honest with itself and its past. The meal we share is how we discover each other’s joys and struggles. But it’s also a moment for confession, when we finally see how our way of life has negatively impacted another. It’s there where we reflect on the fullness of our story and admit the ways we didn’t take seriously the story of the other. It’s at the table when our -isms and -phobias breakdown. Antisemitism, sexism, racism, islamophobia, homophobia, and every other wall we build to deny people a place at our table is undone. When we take seriously what it means to really share a meal with your neighbor, we’re no longer in a position to hate and harm each other. Instead, we’re called to feed each other, to serve one another, and to help each other thrive.

And that calling isn’t always easy. Sharing a meal together will always take risk. We need to be honest and to admit the ways we’ve hurt one another. As a Christian, I have to name, outloud, the ways my faith has been used to hurt and harm people. I have to acknowledge how we have, wrongly, denied people a place at our tables because of who they are, who they love, or where they come from. We haven’t done enough to live into the reality of our faith tradition, about a Jesus who kept getting in trouble for sharing recipes and meals with people he wasn’t supposed to. But we can, and we will, change that. We’re not here to deny someone a place at the table. Instead, we’re here to eat and to be fully human, together.

So what’s your favorite recipe? Who taught you it and why? Was it your grandma’s cookies, your brother’s chili, your best friend’s gluten-free mac and cheese, or that recipe you found online that you cooked all on your own for the very first time? I want you to turn to the person next to you and take the next minute to share that recipe with them, why it’s important to you, and how you’re going share your table with someone new.

Prepare: God and the Wilderness

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

Luke 3:1-6

My sermon from the Second Sunday of Advent (December 9, 2018) on Luke 3:1-6. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

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I’d like to start my sermon today by inviting you to forget something we just did. We heard a tiny bit of Jesus’ story from the gospel according to Luke which is one of the four gospels that contain the theological insights that serve as a foundation for our faith. Every Sunday morning, I introduce our reading from the gospels by inviting you to stand if you are able and then I say something like, “The gospel according to Luke, the Third Chapter.” This introduction prepares us for what comes next. We know we’re going to hear Luke’s version of Jesus’ story and since we’re in the third chapter, we’re already moving through the story God wanted to tell. In fact, we know exactly where we are in God’s story, including chapter and verse, because, at Christ Lutheran Church, everything is printed in our bulletin. But what if it wasn’t? What if there was no introduction to this text at all? I imagine it might sound different. So let’s try it. Let’s forget everything we just heard, including where this text appears in God’s story, and let’s listen to the first two verses as if we’ve never really heard them before: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

If we didn’t know better, those two verses sounded like the beginning of an epic story. We met an Emperor, a governor, two rulers, two high priests, God, and some guy named John who was hanging out in the wilderness. The text begins at a specific time, in the fifteenth year of some Roman emperor’s rule, and it’s okay if you don’t have the years of the reigns of all the Roman Emperors memorized. What matters is that these verses are focused on a specific time and on a specific place where everything is defined by who was in control. The Emperor Tiberius was on top. He’s the one who appointed the governor and he allowed Herod and Philip and Lysanias to rule as kings subordinate to him. Even the religious authorities were under the Emperor’s control because no high priest could assume their office unless Roman power let it be so. So we received seven names, showing us the complete picture of who had power when this part of Jesus’ story took place. And that’s when the word of God, God’s voice, God’s energy, God’s point of view, and God’s power, came to a guy named John who was hanging out in the wilderness.

Now, the wilderness John was in was overseen by one of the rulers the Roman emperor put in place. But being a ruler of a place and actually ruling it are two different things. In the Bible, a wilderness was always a strange, mysterious, and untamed place. We might imagine John wandering into ancient Israel’s version of the Alaskan frontier, a place where wild animals ruled and where the necessities for human life were hard to come by. A wilderness, especially in the Bible, was a place of desolation and scarcity. But a wilderness was also, at the same time, an experience of God’s provision and protection. During the story of the Exodus, the ancient Israelites complained constantly about spending 40 years in a place without enough food and water. But that wilderness was also where God provided them manna and its desolation shielded them from being re-enslaved by their former Egyptian rulers. Later, the young David who eventually became king and the prophet Elijah both fled into the wilderness for safety and, while there, they were sustained and protected by God. The wilderness, according to Scripture, is more than just a desert or an untamed mountain range. The wilderness is also an experience where our normal sense of who’s in charge and who’s in control is undone. Our wildernesses are those moments, places, and even years where the control we assumed we had over our lives is turned around. John wasn’t only hanging out in a desolate and untamed place. He was also living into an experience where he had limited control. The structure of order and power proclaimed by the first seven names that started this passage wasn’t where John was living. Instead, John was in the middle of his wilderness, in the middle of nowhere; a nowhere that fully embodied the isolation, the fear, and the anxiety we all experience when we are in our “nowheres” too.

Yet it’s in that “nowhere” where the word of God comes. It’s in those untamed and uncontrolled moments when God shows up. The word of God skipped over the seven names of those who had control and instead went to an eighth name living in the wilderness. We sometimes act as if John, the son of Zechariah, appeared in the wilderness suddenly, only when the word of God showed up. But John wasn’t only passing through the wilderness when God’s word came. Instead, he had been in the wilderness for a very long time. The fifteen years of the reign of Tiberius was also a signal to us that John’s life in the wilderness lasted longer. John’s faith, personal growth, and spiritual strength developed in that place where scarcity, isolation, desolation, fear, and lack of control was all he knew. God formed John to be the one who could prepare the way for Jesus, not in spite of his wilderness experiences but because of them. John knew that, when we’re living in the wilderness, it’s only by trusting God that we can be carried through.

Our wildernesses might not fully match up with John’s. There’s a good chance we won’t find ourselves near the Jordan River, deep in a deserted desert. Our wildernesses, instead, might be located in a doctor’s office, a school, at work, or even in our homes. Our wilderness might, instead, be something we carry with us as we live our life with grief, or sadness, or a lack of knowing who, exactly, we’re supposed to be. The wildernesses we live in might last a day, a week, a year, or even a lifetime. Yet our personal wilderness does not mean that we are far from God. Our wilderness cannot separate us from the One who skipped over those who thought they were in control and instead visited John who knew how little control he actually had. God doesn’t wait for us to have our lives together before God shows up. God makes a commitment to each of us that there is no wilderness we find ourselves in that God won’t go into too. The structures we put into place to try and figure out where we are in God’s story will always miss seeing the ways God provides, nourishes, and sustains. And when we believe that our wilderness is hiding us from God, trust that God is already there with you, and that you will find your way through.

Amen.

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How Can We Thank: God’s Generosity

How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

My sermon from the First Sunday of Advent (December 2, 2018) on 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

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When was the last time you received someone’s generosity?

I’d like you to think about that because, in a few moments, I’m going to ask you to share that experience with the person sitting next to you. Now I know this question can, at first, be a bit vague because we usually don’t talk about those moments in our lives when we receive generosity. Instead, we like to focus on being generous, on how we give. Generosity, as a concept, “has to do with the way we use our skills …[to] share ideas, practice hospitality, offer encouragement, make connections, and use our time [and resources] to address the needs of others.” (Living Generously, Stewardship Resource) Generosity is seeing someone else’s vulnerability and, for a moment, helping that person become a little more “complete” than they were before. It feels good to fill the need we see in the people around us. And it’s also easier to talk about the ways we’re generous because we then don’t have to let others know about those times in our lives when we were vulnerable too. Showing others our generosity sometimes invites us to bury those moments when we needed help and care. Yet generosity is how we love and it’s also, I think, how we experience love from one another. Generosity is an action, a practice, and a virtue that forms us, molds us, and helps us build the relationships we need so that we can become the people God wants us to be. And that kind of generosity takes many forms. It could be financial, like when a friend takes us out to dinner knowing we can’t pay them back. Or generosity could be when a loved one lets us vent, knowing they can’t solve our problems but they can create a space where all the feelings, emotions, and words inside us are finally let out into the open. A friend we haven’t spoken to in awhile might give us a call or a stranger might notice how tired we are and give us their seat on the bus; these are all examples of generosity and we receive this kind of generosity everyday. Yet we struggle to acknowledge it. But as we see in our reading from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, naming our vulnerability and celebrating generosity is part of what being a Christian is all about.

Paul’s first letter to the community in Thessaloniki is, most likely, the earliest piece of Christian writing we have. Paul wrote to a small group, of maybe a dozen or so, early Christians who had responded to Paul’s preaching and teaching in their city. Paul wanted to spend a significant amount of time in Thessaloniki, to support the small Christian community and help their relationship with Jesus grow. But something happened and Paul had to flee. The community in Thessaloniki was left on their own with no formally trained spiritual leader to guide them. And this worried Paul because Thessaloniki wasn’t your regular ancient Mediterranean town. It was the capital of a Roman province, with a large garrison of Roman soldiers keeping watch. Thessaloniki was a city full of Roman monuments and buildings promoting the authority of the Roman emperor who was starting to call himself “the Son of God.” Temples to other gods filled the city and each one had a large and devout following. And since Thessaloniki was a city in northern Greece, on a clear day, every person in that city could see in the distance, Mount Olympus, the tallest mountain in all of Greece and the legendary home of Zeus and other gods. Paul had to leave behind a small community of Christians in a city where Roman power, Roman rule, and Roman religious life had all the outward benefits and prestige. Paul worried that this community wouldn’t survive in the face of all that Rome. Yet it did. And not only that, they thrived. Their faith grew. They continued to worship. And they, as a community, learned how to live together – persevering through hardships and celebrating each other’s joys. God, through a divine and generous love, protected them and Paul’s joy literally leaps off the page. He can’t thank God enough for them, for this community in the shadow of Mount Olympus, that God didn’t abandon. Paul, I believe, honestly wanted to return to them, to be with them, but he knew that it wasn’t him who kept them together. Rather, it was God’s generosity in the face of their vulnerability that carried them through. The Christian community in Thessaloniki, on the surface, wasn’t very strong. The community was young, it’s spiritual leader had fled, and Christianity was so new that the New Testament hadn’t even been written yet – so there was no collection of writings to help shape and guide them. They were a community surrounded by other faiths and points of view that were bigger, more powerful, and were more richly rewarded. The Thessalonians in Paul’s community were completely vulnerable – and yet, they thrived. In the face of overwhelming outside pressure, the Thessalonians and Paul admitted to themselves and each other that it was only God’s generosity that kept them following Jesus. And this true God, this only God, was, while they were vulnerable, truly with them – giving them a faith that would carry them through.

Receiving generosity is hard because we then have to admit our own vulnerabilities. Yet we all have stories where the generosity of others is what carried us through. That kind of generosity, while mediated through human hands, comes from God. And it’s God’s generosity that sent Jesus into our world to experience everything we do, including what it’s like to be vulnerable. It’s God’s love that shows us how we can be generous. And it’s Jesus’s generosity that reminds us how we all need love.

I invite you now to take a few moments, a couple of minutes, and share with the person next to you a short description of a moment when you received someone else’s generosity.

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Truth is a Person: Pontius Jesus Politics

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

John 18:33-38a

My sermon from Christ the King Sunday (November 25, 2018) on John 18:33-38a. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

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There are no Republicans or Democrats in the Bible – but the Bible is full of politics. Politics, in its broadest sense, is how we make, preserve, and modify the general rules under which we live. (See Andrew Heywood’s book). These rules, spoken or unspoken, show up whenever groups of people live or work together. As human beings, we need each other. But that doesn’t mean we always get along. Our rival opinions, competing needs, and different wants leads to conflict, cooperation, and more conflict. We team up with each other, form factions against one another, and use every skill we have to “win” whatever conflict we’re in. Politics are the rules, expectations, and activities that form and shape how we work – or how we don’t work – with each other. Now as a faith community located in the United States, it’s not hard to hear the word “politics” and immediately think of political parties, recent elections, and which family members we avoided talking politics with during last Thursday’s Thanksgiving dinner. Politics is also something, we think, the church should avoid because politics feels partisan, biased by whatever political leanings and political party we identify with. We tell ourselves that politics doesn’t belong in the church so we seek out the “spiritual” meaning of every text in the Bible that we read on Sunday mornings. But when we only look for the spiritual, we miss the political realities that impacted Jesus’ life and ministry. Today’s text from the gospel according to John is a political text. And we can’t discover it’s spiritual meaning until we are honest about the political reality that informed Pilate’s first words to Jesus: “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Now, if you were meeting Jesus face-to-face for the first time, what would your question be? It could be anything yet I’m pretty sure none of us would ask Pilate’s question. Pontius Pilate, as we remember, was a Roman governor who ruled Jerusalem and the surrounding communities during Jesus’ years of public ministry. Pilate was appointed by the Emperor and he embodied Roman authority, control, and military might. He was the Emperor’s representative when the Emperor wasn’t around. And when Pilate spoke, everyone in Syria, Judea, and the Middle East listened. Pilate’s governor mansion wasn’t based in Jerusalem. However, when the Jewish festival of Passover took place, Pilate moved into the city with a large cohort of soldiers. They were there to provide security, crowd control, and to keep everyone in line. Gigantic religious events had a tendency to encourage riots, conflict, and revolts. So Pilate was ready to eliminate any threat, no matter how small it seemed. Jesus had also recently arrived in the city. After teaching in the Temple and sharing a final meal with his friends, he was betrayed by Judas and arrested. After being convicted in a trial overseen by the religious authorities, Jesus was handed over to Roman power. Pilate didn’t care if Jesus was a spiritual leader. And he wasn’t looking for any religious advice. Pilate wanted to know if Jesus was a threat. And since the religious leaders had handed Jesus over to him, Pilate already assumed he was. Pilate’s first question, out of the gate, was a political one. He wanted to know if Jesus claimed any kind of authority that would challenge Rome’s rule. Pilate could only imagine the world as he knew it to be. And any king in his world needed certain things. A king needed territory, followers, and resources. A king needed an army willing to kill on his behalf. A king, in Pilate’s mind, needed to inspire fear, conflict, and co-operation in those they ruled. And if Jesus could do any of that, then he would be a king and he would challenge Rome’s monopoly on that power.

Pilate, as depicted in the gospel according to John, wasn’t interested in the truth. His questions to Jesus were not a gentle inquiry into Jesus’ life, ministry, and mission. Instead, it was an interrogation because Pilate needed to confirm Jesus’ identity as a threat. Pilate knew how his world worked and as the Emperor’s representative, the truth he knew was centered in power, control, and someone “winning” every conflict – no matter what. What Pilate couldn’t see, or chose not to see, was the truth right in front of him. And that truth wasn’t a what, an idea, or some kind of fact written down on a piece of paper. The truth was a who because, as Jesus shared in John 14:6, he is “the way, the truth, and the life.”

We tend to imagine the outcome of politics as having some kind of material shape. Politics involves people having power and that power is expressed by having authority over others. Politics is made real in a specific location – be it in a city council chamber, in a part of Congress, or even in the unspoken table seating charts dictated in some high school lunchrooms. Politics, we believe, is about controlling domains and forming our own, personal, kingdoms. Yet Jesus’ politics was, and is, different. He came to live out his commitment to a world that was already overseen by him. As part of the Holy Trinity and as the One through whom the entire universe was made, there’s no domain or kingdom or territory that doesn’t already belong to Him. When it comes to God’s creation, there’s no territory that Jesus needs to fight for to control. So Jesus chose to build personal, meaningful, and deep relationships with us since we already live in God’s world. And in the words of Rev. Karoline Lewis, “… Jesus’ Kingdom can be anywhere, anytime that Kingdom behavior is exemplified…lived out…and That Kingdom witness [is] heard and observed.” What Pilate couldn’t see was that Jesus’ kingdom was rooted not in things but in people. Jesus wanted people to connect with God’s ultimate promise to them – that we are loved not because we are perfect but because God is – and that promise…changes everything. It changes how we interact with each other. It changes how we live with our neighbors. It changes how we make, preserve, and modify the general rules under which we live. Rather than being focused on “winning” whatever conflict we’re in, our faith in Jesus compels us to realize that we – on a cosmic and divine level – have already won. So instead of competing with one another, we can choose to love each nother. Instead of seeking out victories over those we disagree with, we can chose to help them thrive. Instead of building walls to give us a fake sense of security, we can work on building bonds of friendship – knowing that those bonds take much more work to create but are the only way to develop lasting peace. We get to be honest about the ways we’ve failed to use our power for good and we get to stand up to racism, sexism, classism, and every-ism that stops us from seeing the image of God in the people around us. And because of our baptism, we get to imagine how our politics can be a way we serve God and our neighbors. Jesus as the truth means that, sometimes the truth we tell, is anything but. Yet when we cling to Jesus, listening to his voice over all others, we find ourselves testify to his truth of forgiveness, mercy, service, and, above all, love.

Amen.

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Speaking Gratitude at the 50th Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Worship

Pastor Marc’s sermon for the 50th Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service (Upper Pascack Valley Clergy Council) hosted by Congregation B’nai Israel on November 18, 2018. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below.

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So I’m not sure how it happened but I, somehow, went through all of my formal education without really digging into the rules of English grammar. I never diagramed a sentence. I never memorized what a split infinitive was. And, to the chagrin of those who edit my newsletter articles, I love the Oxford comma. At first, I was fine with this lack of formal grammar education because, as a kid, I planned to grow up and become a paleontologist, or a computer programmer, or an engineer. I figured I could learn what I needed to know through a version of paper-and-pencil based osmosis, absorbing whatever it is I needed to know. But the Lord had other ideas. And I’m now in a career where using words is what I mostly do. Every day, there’s an important conversation about faith and life that becomes a vehicle through which we love our neighbor as ourselves. And there always another sermon to write, article to compose, and newsletter to create. These words end up being more than just a tool for communication. They are how we love, serve, forgive, welcome, and embody the faith that makes each of us exactly who we are supposed to be. For those of us who are able to write and speak, our words become containers of the sacred. And this sacred speech does something. Our words are how we build relationships with each other. Our speech is how we create opportunities for reconciliation and forgiveness. Our words can make someone’s day and, when misused, can cause unbelievable harm. I sort of wish I paid more attention in English class. But there’s at least one grammar rule that I, somehow, can still articulate. And that rule says we’re never to end a sentence with a preposition.

Now, a preposition is a word like with, by, for, in, or, to, and it’s used to express a relationship between a noun or a pronoun and some other element in a sentence. For example, in Deuteronomy 8, verse 3, it says: “God humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna…” That “with” is a preposition. I was taught to avoid ending any sentence with one of those kinds of words. But as I prepared for tonight’s message, I discovered that this so-called “rule” wasn’t really meant for English speakers. The grammarians who decided this took a rule for latin and dictated that English speakers should do the same thing. It’s a bit ironic that I ended up memorizing the one grammar rule that wasn’t really a rule to begin with. But it helped me stay connected to prepositions. And these kinds of our words, which contain the sacred, are especially important when we’re talking about thankfulness and gratitude.

Diana Butler Bass, in her book Grateful, pointed out that “gratitude…always comes with a preposition.” (page 97) “We are grateful for something, grateful to someone, and…grateful with others. Even [when our gratitude is] untargeted…prepositions [still] show up.” We might, for example, find ourselves completely alone on a deserted beach right before the dawn breaks. We listen to the waves gently crashing onto the shore. And then, as the sun rises, we witness the wispy clouds turn pink, orange, and red. Even though no one else is there, we still feel the need to, somehow, say thanks. Now, we sometimes define gratitude and thankfulness as rooted in a kind of exchange, where someone gives us something and we are indebted to them, in small and big ways. This kind of gratitude is built into our culture and it’s so embedded in us that we don’t realize how much this required reciprocity is part of the words we use and teach. I know my kids are a little tired of me always saying, “now what do you say?” after they’ve been given something. Yet gratitude doesn’t need to only be a transaction involving debts and debtors. Gratitude can also be structured through gifts and response. And when we shift our perspective away from looking at life as if it’s recorded on some kind of eternal balance sheet, we discover the gifts that already exist. We can see that “the universe [itself] is a gift. [That] life is a gift. Air, light, soil, water… friendship, love,…and [birth or chosen] family…[these are all] gifts. We live on a gifted planet.” (xxiv) And without these gifts, we wouldn’t even exist. Gratitude and thankfulness is rooted in these initial gifts. Each one of us, by merely existing, end up being a beneficiary in God’s world. And instead of only saying that this arrangement makes us indebted to God, we can choose to “express our appreciation for [these gifts] by … [giving all sorts of gifts – those that are large and small] … to others” (xxv)

When we center our gratitude in gifts rather than in indebtness, the prepositions of thankfulness show us that when gifts are given, “connection comes alive.” (97) In the words of Diana Butler Bass, “when it comes to gratitude, ‘me’ always leads to ‘we’.” (97). When we are grateful for something, grateful to someone, and grateful with others – our gratitude creates community with all those things on the other side of the prepositions. And that community is grounded in every gift that the Eternal One has first given us. Now, in my Lutheran Christian tradition, everything begins with gifts. Our life is a gift. Our relationship to God is a gift. Jesus, we believe, is a gift. And even our faith, our ability to say who we are and whose we are, is a gift. In theory, we should be good at recognizing the gifts given to us. Yet using words to name our gifts isn’t always easy. One of the skills we need to learn is how to name all our gifts out loud. Because it’s a gift that we are here tonight, celebrating 50 years of interfaith partnership and support in the Pascack Valley. It’s a gift that we, together, can choose to love, care, and be with each other – even though there are forces in this world that want to tear us apart. It’s a gift that I, a Christian, was invited to say these words tonight even though the history of antisemitism in a twisted version of my faith has led to incredible horrors against the Jewish people – an evil that we will continue to denounce, fight against, and do whatever we can to remove. And finally, it’s a gift that every one of you is here and that we, together, will use our words to affirm our collective call to welcome, love, and stand with all. Because as faith-filled people living in Bergen County, we are a gift to each other. As we look forward to our next 50 years together, I don’t know what nouns and pronouns will be on the other side of our future gratitude prepositions. But I believe that our love for each other will grow as we continue to stand in solidarity with each other. And that we will be a welcoming, diverse, and inclusive community of communities, rooted in our eternal gifts, so that we can be grateful for, grateful to, and grateful with.

Amen.

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