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¹Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus.]

² And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

³So he told them this parable: ^11b “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. ¹³A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. ¹⁴When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. 

¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶ He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. ¹⁷ But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! ¹⁸ I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 
¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ 

²⁰ 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. ²¹Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²² 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. ²³ And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, ²⁴ for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. ²⁵ “Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 

²⁶ He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. ²⁷He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ ²⁸Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. ²⁹But 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. ³⁰ But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 

³¹Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. ³² 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 30, 2025) on Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32.

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Today’s story from the gospel according to Luke is all about lives that were lived – which is weird to hear on a day when, in a few minutes, we’ll be celebrating a life that is basically brand new. Jesus, who regularly used stories to explore deeper truths about faith, grace, hope, and love, shared with us a family whose life together was a bit complicated. We often identify this story by focusing on the so-called prodigal son, whose wasteful and recklessly extravagant behavior eventually brought them home. The end of the story, then, shapes our interpretation of what Jesus’ words were all about. But we can’t get to the end without all the stuff that comes before. The parable of the prodigal son is full of all the juicy stuff we love to analyze and gossip about. But if we’re still at the beginning of our own story – not even realizing our parents still exist when they cover their eyes while playing peekaboo – a story about lives that were lived feels a bit out of place. Yet I wonder if – on this day of beginnings – that the beginning of Jesus’ story reveals the kind of grace that carries us through whatever comes our way. 

Now, to notice that, I think we need to remember why Jesus told this story in the first place. He was, at this point in Luke’s version of Jesus’ life, taking his last journey to Jerusalem in a very roundabout kind of way. Jesus regularly made it a point to preach, teach, and heal at various places along the way. And since he – and his friends – were always traveling, finding their next meal was always a bit of a challenge. Jesus rarely ever said no to someone who invited him to eat at their table. And he regularly set a place at his table for anyone who came his way. This, though, caused issues since not everyone who visited Jesus were the kind of people we’d want kneeling next to us at the communion rail. These so-called sinners weren’t simply people who considered themselves good but who occasionally made a mistake. Those breaking bread with him included those who were seen as destroying the very fabric of what it meant to be a faithful community in the first place. The tax collectors often used violence and intimidation to funnel money to the Roman soldiers who occupied the land. Their work required them to violate the religious and cultural expectations that shaped who they knew themselves to be. And Jesus not only took the time to listen and care for them; he also ate with them in a very empathetic and merciful kind of way. Giving that kind of focus to those considered unworthy is something we all struggle with today. Yet instead of telling a literal story about the tables we choose to sit at, Jesus told a story about a father and a son whose table could only be described as completely dysfunctional. 

Now we don’t actually know what life was like for this family before the younger one left. Jesus doesn’t tell us if they got along or if any other family were around. All we get in the beginning is a conversation that includes no small talk at all. Rather, the young son went to the day and said “I wish you were dead.” I know that sounds a little harsh since it feels like all he did was ask for money. But the words he chose show how he wanted what he felt he was entitled to once his father was no longer there. Maybe, in our own lives, we’ve said – or imagined – or slammed a door while shouting down the hallway something that sounds a bit similar. Yet the weird thing that makes this entire parable something odd is how, at the beginning, the dad said “okay.” When it comes to Jesus’ stories, it’s always the weird, the absurd, the that-doesn’t-sound-right that provides us the opportunity to deepen our faith. This dad, after his younger child asked for the future to start right now even though his culture didn’t always give younger kids all that much – this dad agreed to do exactly that. And while there might be those among us who have offered – or received – a fairly significant financial gift like a college education, a wedding, a downpayment for a house, or cash to start a business to embrace some kind of new beginning – we don’t usually give the next generation our 401ks and social security payments before they’ve kicked in for ourselves. We, like the father, have our own needs, responsibilities, and callings from God to live out. Maybe, if we had the foresight and luck to know we won’t need our wealth to pay for our future health needs to be a bit more generous than we expect to be. Yet the need to hoard, to be afraid, and to keep what we feel we deserve often limits just how imaginative we get to be. The father had a lot of life yet to live but decided to act as if his future was already over. 

Then, what followed was a story full of excessiveness, unfaithfulness, anger, worry, confusion, mercy, and grace. And it was a grace I’m not even sure the father fully understood since, when the younger son came home, the ring, the sandals, the robe, and the fatted calf he gave no longer belonged to him in the first place. When the father accepted a future that no longer included him, the kid who stayed home received everything else. That son’s anger, frustration, and belief the one who didn’t repent shouldn’t then get a spot at the table is about more than them simply being jealous of the love the father showed. Rather, the dad was abundantly over the top with stuff he, in theory, no longer owned. It wasn’t his to give and yet, when an opportunity came to show grace to the graceless, he couldn’t help but live into a future where love abound. The father didn’t create a new beginning for his younger son when he came back after living his life. Instead, he built it at the start and refused to live – or accept – that their future could be anything else instead. Before the younger son left, his seat at the table was already set. And when he finally caught up to that different kind of future, a ring was placed on his finger and new sandals on his feet. That is, I think, one of the ways to imagine what our life with Christ looks like. We are, already, wrapped up in the new beginning he brought us by living a human life, going to the Cross, and living into the new future God has already brought about. We, as the Ones already made – or about to be made – as part of the body of Christ, have a seat at a table where God’s love never ends. This future was given to us not because we’re perfect, holy, or get everything right. Rather, the beginning we have with our God is the beginning of just how human we get to be. What allows us to be ourselves – to live and grow and face whatever comes next – is the grace that keeps the spot at God’s table for us. And since it’s God’s grace that holds the spot open, we get to extend that same kind of grace to those we’d rather push aside. It’s at Jesus’ table where we learn to listen, to care, to change, and be changed by one another and our God. And while Kennedy (who will baptize later) might find different parts of her life feeling like the father, or the older son, or maybe the younger one who just wished that the future she wanted was starting right now, the God who promises to be with her will carry her into a more holy future where Christ’s love is the beginning that never ends. 

Amen.

From Dollarstore Children’s Sermon. 

Bring two cards from the sign board. The letters I and F 

So it’s my tradition after the prayer of the day to talk to all of God’s children. I brought with me two of the letters we use to put messages on the sideboard. It’s the letters F and I. These letters can spell a couple of words. One is the word FI which doesn’t sound like a real word to me but something giants say in stories like Jack and the Beanstalk. The other word, though, is one we’ll hear in our reading about Jesus today. It’s the word – IF. If is only two letters long but I think it’s a big word because it’s a word that is used for questions. What do you think is a question we could ask that needs the word if? Accept answers. A lot of times, these questions are really a kind of contract. For example, “if you clean up your room, I’ll let you play on the iPad” or “if you give me your ice cream, I’ll be your friend.” Sometimes these questions are simply negotiations that feel fine – but other times that make us wonder if we are who God knows we are. They’re questions that make us think maybe we’re not good enough or kind enough or loved enough to be a friend or to be a part of the popular kids or to even be liked by those around us. If you do this for us, we will do this for you – can be very scary when it seems related to our identity in the world. If is scary – and it’s a question Jesus will be asked a lot today. After he was baptized, he’ll feel compelled to go into the wilderness and while there, evil will come and ask him a lot of “if” questions. This evil force – the devil – everything that is against God – will ask Jesus to be something other than he is. And the devil does this by using the word “if.” If you are the son of God, turn these stones into bread you can eat. If you are the son of God, worship me and I’ll make you the most powerful ruler in the world. If you are the son of God, jump off a high building to force God to take care of you. If – if – if – which implies that Jesus is not. It was a test to prove who he is and to doubt his own story. Yet Jesus doesn’t because he knows who he is. 

There are times when we’ll doubt our own story too. We’ll doubt we’re loved or we matter or we’ll let others around us tell us who were supposed to be instead. But I think it’s important to realize that these questions to Jesus came after his baptism – after a moment when he heard God call him beloved. And that’s because, in your baptism, you’ve already been called beloved too. That doesn’t mean we’re always perfect or that we won’t make mistakes. But whenever someone – or even yourself – wonders if you matter, if you’re important, if you have value, if you’re worth dignity and care and support – know that God has already declared you are loved, that you matter, that you are worth more than you could ever imagine. No one can take away from you that the Creator of the Universe thinks you’re neat. And if we’re loved by the Creatore of everything – then we can live out that love by moving away from always asking others “if” and, instead, shift our words to remember that “since we’re loved – we get to be kind, be patient, to care, to support, and to show others just how much God loves them too.” 

Now[Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing

Luke 13:10-17

My sermon from the 11th Sunday After Pentecost (August 21, 2022) on Luke 13:10-17.

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The older I get, the more life feels like it’s mostly a series of interruptions. Most of our interruptions are quite small – like an unexpected phone call or a cat begging for its dinner or even a self-caused interruption when we take a four hour excursion through the land of social media. Yet there are those other kinds of interruptions that seem to change who we are. In today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, our English translation of the ancient Greek language Luke wrote in, introduces us to an unnamed woman who seems to have interrupted Jesus while he was teaching on the sabbath in a synagogue. He was, I imagine, up in the front, speaking in the way he always does. Then, while in almost mid-sentence, Jesus stopped because this bent over woman came in. She, in her own way, interrupted what Jesus was doing which happened quite a bit during Jesus’ ministry. People, in all the gospels, kept getting Jesus’ way, sharing with him their needs, concerns, and even disagreements. Responding to these interruptions was a big part of what Jesus did. And this woman seemed to fit the pattern even though she’s never recorded as asking to be healed. But when I was preparing for this sermon, I noticed how other translations of this text don’t act as if the woman was the interruption. Instead, she’s described as just being there and was among those listening to Jesus while he taught. We don’t know much about her and even her ailment is a bit of a mystery. All we’re given is that for 18 years, she was bent over. And yet during those same years, she was part of this community who gathered together on the sabbath for worship, study, and prayer. The reaction of the crowd after she was healed shows how they were her people and how, even before her healing, she was already one of them. So if she was there while Jesus began to speak, she wasn’t the interruption in the story. Instead, that title really belonged to Jesus because he was there in front of them. As we heard a few weeks ago, Jesus was in the middle of his long round-a-bout journey to Jerusalem. Every day he taught and healed and got into arguments with all kinds of people. When he entered the unnamed synagogue in the unnamed village where this unnamed woman lived, he wasn’t the usual person who got up and taught. Jesus interrupted their normal sabbath routine and this interruption grew when the woman suddenly became visible to him in a way she wasn’t before. When he finally saw her, he stopped all that he was doing, called her over, and interrupted how she had typically celebrated the sabbath over these last 18 years. The healing she received didn’t pretend as if she had never suffered nor did it change her presence within the community she called her own. She still belonged but her life was now a bit different. And once Jesus spoke his words of hope, she kept doing what she had already been doing: praising God with the people who called her their own. 

But that’s when the grumbling started. A leader within the community wasn’t thrilled with what he just saw. Now he wasn’t necessarily upset about the healing itself. Rather, he wasn’t happy that it had happened today. That might sound like a weird thing to be bothered about but we can give him the benefit of the doubt by remembering what it’s like when we’re asked for some professional advice when we’re supposed to be off duty. It’s not uncommon for us to interrupt someone else’s day off when we think they can help us. And once people know who we are and what we do, there’s a chance that every one of our conversations with friends and acquaintances end up feeling like work. On a day when we’re trying to get away from all the other activities that dominate our week, this one word can interrupt our rest by making today feel like every other day. The leader of the synagogue might have known of Jesus’ reputation as a healer – something he had the habit of doing almost every day. Being able to heal others was a gift from God and, in his mind, should have been shared abundantly. Yet the Sabbath was meant to be a break for everyone, including those who could heal. When Jesus interrupted what he was doing on the sabbath to heal a woman with a chronic but non-life threatening ailment, it looked as if Jesus wasn’t taking the Sabbath seriously. He was doing on God’s day what he did every day, blurring what the Sabbath was supposed to be about. The leader of the synagogue felt it was his responsibility to help the entire crowd keep the Sabbath so he did what he could to interrupt the focus they had on Jesus. 

And so, as we can see, today’s story is a story all about interruptions. The entire community was called to interrupt their daily lives by spending one day a week in synagogue with their God. Jesus, while in that space, interrupted their usual flow of worship by teaching and preaching in a community he wasn’t always in. And then, when he noticed this woman, he interrupted what he was doing so that her ongoing condition could be interrupted too. The faith leader believed that Jesus’ actions had interrupted the Sabbath by making this holy day feel like every other day of the week. The Sabbath is more than a day of rest; it’s an interruption to our lives where we intentionally do not go our own way; serve our own interest; or pursue our own affairs. Instead, we spend time with our God who encourages everyone, regardless of age, gender, economic backgrounds, or physical, mental, and spiritual health to just stop and be with God. The Sabbath is how we hear we are loved and the love we’re given transforms who we are and what we do. The Sabbath is how we learn that every other day this week can be something different. The leader of the synagogue was afraid Jesus was trying to turn the Sabbath into something that looked like every other day of the week. But Jesus was there to remind him that through God, with God, and in God – it’s the Sabbath day that transforms what every other day can be about. It’s through this interruption that we gain the rest, care, and insight we need to live through the rest of our lives. And when we embrace the interruptions we are given, we then get to participate in a life with wholeness and hope. 

In a little bit, we’re going to do another thing that doesn’t feel like an interruption but actually is. We’re going to do what we’ve done a lot – and that’s baptize a little child and welcome her, publicly, into the body of Christ. Now Kaylee has already experienced a lot of interruptions to be here today – giving up her normal Sunday morning routine to travel several hours so she can be surrounded by her beloved family. God already knows her, loves her, and values all that she is. Yet today is also when we interrupt who she will be by inviting her into something more. When the water is poured over her head and the seal of the Cross marked on her forehead, she will no longer be defined by what people say about her or by what she thinks about herself. Those opinions and points of view will be interrupted by her identity as a beloved child of God. That identity will be with her, interrupting every part of her life so she can grow into the love God gives her every day. And as she gets bigger, learning all the different ways she can easily interrupt whatever her parents or her brother are doing, she’ll never be able to interrupt how God sees her. Kaylee will now have a lifetime to experience God’s constant interruption of grace, mercy, and love on every sabbath and on every other day in the week. And when all the stuff life brings tries to interrupt God’s love for her, Jesus will be right there, bringing a word of comfort, healing, and hope. 

Amen. 

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” ² So he said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, may your name be revered as holy.
    May your kingdom come.
³     Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴     And forgive us our sins,
        for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
    And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
⁵ And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
⁹ “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹ Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? ¹² Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? ¹³ If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Luke 11:1-13 (NRSVU)

My sermon from the 7th Sunday after Pentecost (July 24, 2022) on Luke 11:1-13.

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So where do you think Jesus was praying at the beginning of today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke? We’re told Jesus was at a certain place but there’s very little connecting this story to what came before. It reads like a singular scene that could have taken place during any part of Jesus’ life. Luke, out of all the gospel writers, does this a lot and it’s not helpful that our lectionary, the three year cycle of readings we use in worship, often jumps around and between different gospels. There’s no guarantee what we heard last week is chronologically related to what we heard today. Yet this time, there is. Jesus, at the end of chapter 10 was in a certain village, hanging out with two sisters named Martha and Mary. It was there when Martha, an independent woman, did the unlikely thing of inviting this wandering preacher – and his disciples – into her home. After their eating together; drinking together; and teaching Mary as the disciple Jesus said she was, Jesus went to a certain place to pray. And I like to imagine that all Jesus did was sort of step out the front door, seeking peace in the courtyard of Martha’s home. As he prayed, another disciple snuck outside and waited for Jesus to finish. And when Jesus looked up, this unnamed disciple asked Jesus to teach them to pray.

Now this unnamed disciple had, most likely, been sitting at the feet of Jesus just a few moments before. And they, I think, were pretty familiar with what Jesus does. Their relationship had history and so this probably wasn’t the first time this disciple saw Jesus pray. There’s also a good chance that they, themselves, had a long history of prayer since they, like Jesus, were Jewish. The book of psalms, which we’ve been listening to this summer, was their prayer book and it was common to pray in the morning, in the evening, and at the beginning and ending of meals. They, as regular prayers, also had a rich experience using their own words to communicate with God. It’s safe to say this unnamed disciple bugging Jesus in the courtyard of Martha’s home knew what it was like to be an active participant in a life of prayer. That nuance about their story was something I hadn’t really noticed before since I assumed they were seeking a how-to guide when talking to God. But there might be more to this story since, out of the blue, this unnamed disciple made sure to include the name of John the Baptist in their question.

John, like Jesus, was a teacher and he also pulled together his own group of disciples. We don’t know much about them except they were drawn to this man who was teaching, preaching, and baptizing in the wilderness. They, like countless others, saw how, through God and through John’s witness, they had an opportunity for a different kind of life. The disciples of John were, like Jesus, faithful and followed him even after he was killed by King Herod. Some, though, switched from following John to following Jesus even when John was alive. And I wonder if this unnamed disciple was one of them. If that’s true, then their own life had been full of ups and downs and all kinds of changes as they grew in their connection to God. They, themselves, had seen their life of faith change as new people, new places, new ideas, and new experiences transformed them. Their life with faith had included saying prayers in a variety of settings with all kinds of people. And since they prayed, they knew what it was like to have some, but not all, of their prayers answered. The ebb and flow of their life of faith, full of unexpected challenges and changes, probably even included moments when they felt alienated from God, from people, or even didn’t really think about God at all. They were a disciple who had lived their life and while outside Martha’s home, they found themselves with the opportunity to ask Jesus to teach them to pray.

And that’s exactly what Jesus did. He shared a version of a prayer we’ll title as the Lord’s prayer – acting as if it, somehow, belongs to him. But the disciple who asked this question didn’t ask Jesus to repeat the prayers he had just brought to God. Instead, he asked to be taught which means the Lord’s prayer is really our prayer. And Luke’s version of this prayer shows how personal it’s supposed to be since the “our Father” simply begins with “Father.” The father Jesus imagines in this moment isn’t necessarily defined or limited by our experiences of having a father, being a father, or living with a father who was anything but. This father is, I think, reflected and enhanced by where they were at that particular moment. Jesus and this disciple were in the courtyard of Martha’s home after having experienced a hospitality that was stretched and expanded by the welcome Jesus gave to all. Martha and her sister were brought into the fullness of being with God while surrounded by disciples who had heard Jesus share the parable of the good Samaritan and who had depended on the hospitality of strangers when Jesus sent them to bring peace to the homes of people who were thought to be their enemies. This Father was more than a creator of the universe who demanded and expected a kind of reverence based on hierarchy and power. This God was also a God of welcome and inclusion who wanted us, in prayer, to always be ourselves. And one of the tools Jesus gave us to do all of this was the Lord’s Prayer. It, with only a few words and sentences, makes sure we hold any part of ourselves back from God. It describes how we diminish the name of God by acting as if God is merely an extension of our own opinions and ideas. These words also admit that our world, our lives, and every so-called kingdom we build fail to fully reflect the love God made real on the Cross. We, on a personal level, plead not only for the resources we need to thrive but also push back against the habit of hoarding God’s gifts of food, money, and other things as we seek to secure our future at the expense of everyone else. And, at the end, these words from Jesus invite us to ask God to carry us through every trial we face since life isn’t easy. In essence, this prayer helps us admit the ways we’ve failed to be hospitable to ourselves and others while, at the same time, letting these words guide us into practicing the kind of hospitality Jesus experienced and showed to Martha and Mary. He wanted them to always be human and he invites us, especially in our prayers, to do the same. We, through baptism and faith, have already been welcomed into a relationship big enough to hold us through what our lives might bring. And this connection to God stretches, moves, expands, and changes no matter where life takes us. The prayer Jesus taught us is a promise that God has already made the decision to be with us, no matter what because Jesus is Emmanuel. Wherever you are in your journey with God, may your prayers never pretend you’re something you’re not. You can be with God like that pushy friend who won’t hold back because God’s own hospitality towards us expects nothing less.

Amen.

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:13-21

My sermon from the 8th Sunday After Pentecost (August 4, 2019) on Luke 12:13-21.

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Imagine, for a moment, being at home. You’re sitting by the window, watching a thunderstorm head your way. Before too long, the clouds have darken the sky around you and the wind rushes through the trees. I’m going to assume that most of us, at some point, have watched a storm come near. But in our little scenario for today, I’d like you to imagine watching that storm in a different way. For those of us who are not little kids, imagine sitting by that window when you were 3 years old. I want you to think 3 year old thoughts and view the world in a 3 year old kind of way. I want you to sit by the window, stare and wonder. And while you do that, I want you to believe that the storm is more incredible than anything your parents could imagine. 

Earlier this week on Twitter, I came across something shared by thousands of people. A mom was watching her little kid watch a storm outside their front window. The kid was lost in their own thoughts and was busy talking to herself. She said, to no one in particular, ““quiet…quiet. Kaboom comin.” And then, right after she said that, a huge crack of thunder filled the air. It was the kind of sound, I imagine, that would make us jump and maybe run away from the window. But not that little girl. Instead, in a whisper her mom could barely hear, she said to herself, “I did it.” The storm wasn’t something that happened to her. Rather, she believed she made the thunder happen. 

Now, I’ve watched way too many movies and read way too many comic books to say that this little girl was wrong. She could be the next Thor, the god of thunder, who is now realizing the full extent of her powers. Yet, what really struck me about that tweet was how I reacted to it in many different ways. I wanted to high five that little girl for having an incredible amount of confidence in herself. And I also felt a little bit like a sap because what she said was pretty adorable. When I first saw that tweet, I literally laughed out loud because I found it funny. But I was also a bit jealous because I know nothing I’ve said will be enjoyed by the same amount of people who saw that mom’s tweet. Yet there was something else there, in our reactions to that tweet, that was left mostly unsaid. What made this tweet funny to us was the assumption that the little girl was being absurd because she didn’t know the limits to her own reality. Those of us who are older and, in theory – wiser, could come up with a dozen reasons to explain why her understanding of her situation was wrong. We have no problem rewriting her experience so that her sense of “I did it” ends up not being true. We’re pretty good at showing other people how their understanding of their reality is wrong. But do we, when were caught up in our own “I did it” moments, have the  gumption, integrity, and ability to analyze ourselves in the very same way? 

Because, as we see in our reading from the gospel according to Luke today, our “I’s” matter. Jesus was approached by someone in the crowd who was going through a family squabble. We don’t know all the details about their story but it’s possible a younger sibling wanted a piece of their family’s inheritance. They had, for cultural or family reasons, possibly received nothing and they wanted Jesus’ to intervene. Their request for an intervention was exactly that: a request that didn’t ask Jesus for his thoughts or his advice. Yet Jesus gave them his opinion anyways by inviting them to listen to a parable. And for the last two thousand years, the church has affectionately named the parable Jesus told: the rich fool. 

Now the key to interpreting this parable is to pay attention to the I’s, that pronoun and letter, in the passage. After the rich farmer noticed his land producing more crops than he could ever use, he asked himself, “What should I do?” That’s a good question – one we should ask when abundance comes our way. Yet notice that question wasn’t directed to anyone but himself. And instead of just talking to himself, he answered himself as well. Not once did he seek out anyone else’s advice or think about anyone but himself. Which shows us the false reality that he lived in. Because there’s no way he could have planted, tended, and harvested such a large amount of food by himself. Other people were needed to make that harvest happen and yet all the rich farmer could say was, “I did it.” We also know, based on our own experience at the garden here at church: you can research, plan, and do everything correctly – but we still can’t make those plants grow. The land produces what it produces – and we don’t have as much control as we wish we did. The rich man could have named this reality, could have said thank you to the workers who made his harvest happen; and he could have thanked God for providing the rain, the sun, and the seed to make the land produce as much as it did. But he didn’t. Instead, he looked out his window at the abundant harvest he didn’t cause to fully happen on its own, and he said to himself, “I did it.” 

We’re pretty good at claiming credit, at saying “I did it” when it suits us. And we’re also quick to deny that kind of credit when something interferes with the story we prefer to tell about ourselves. We often celebrate, high five each other, and act as if we were the players on our favorite sports teams when they win a national championship. We easily make their victory into a version of our own. But we also distance ourselves from those moments in our country or in our collective life together that we claim are not part of who we are. We separate ourselves from the fact that things like mass shootings happen in our country every day – from garlic festivals in California to Walmarts in El Paso and, as I woke up this morning, to bars in Dayton, Ohio. We choose to act as if we are not truly part of this reality that we’re already in. Our “I did its,” when stated without reflection or even gratitude, is an attempt by us to imagine we live in a world different from the one we’re truly in. Yet Jesus chose to stay in the real one – in the place where God’s reality confronts and reveals the truth about our own. God names our hurts, our failures, our brokenness, and the ways we let the focus on ourselves, our love of the “I’s,” blind us from seeing the truth and the people who are around us. God names our world as it truly is – yet God also chooses to not let us stay there. Instead, Jesus is already present here, revealing to us what God’s reality, God’s kingdom, can actually be. When we follow Jesus, when we feed others like he did, heal communities like he did, stand up against violence and hate like he did, and when welcome all people like he did – we end up seeing, in a flash, what God’s kingdom is all about. Now, none of that work is easy. It takes guts and courage to reflect on our “I did it” moments with nuance, humility, and gratefulness. It’ll also take hard truths for each of us to own every one of our communal “I did it” realities – including those things we wish weren’t true. Yet we don’t go about this work on our own. Because, in our baptism and in our faith, we have Jesus. And when we cling to him, hold onto him, and work to align our lives away from ourselves and instead towards God and our neighbor*, our world and our community will end up being rocked by a different kind of thunder: one filled with hope, mercy, and a love that will carry us through every storm. 

Amen. 

*http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4048

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” ² So he said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, may your name be revered as holy.
    May your kingdom come.
³     Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴     And forgive us our sins,
        for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
    And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
⁵ And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
⁹ “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹ Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? ¹² Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? ¹³ If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Luke 11:1-13 (NRSVU)

My sermon from the 7th Sunday after Pentecost (July 28, 2019) on Luke 11:1-13.

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You would think, by this point in my life, that I would be pretty good at recognizing when a sixth month old needed to go to sleep. I should, now that I’m on kid number three, be able to notice when she’s only a few minutes away from needing to fall asleep. My real-life training should enable me to swoop in, pick her up, and know exactly what to do so that, after only a few minutes, she’s embraced her naptime zzzs. But there are times when my baby-sleeping skills are not as strong as I expect them to be. I’ll catch her rubbing her eyes and thinking she’s ready for a nap. I pick her up, get her all setup to safely rest for a few hours, and I start carrying her around the house. I then start imagining all the stuff I can get done once she finally falls asleep. Yet that’s when I discover that I didn’t read her correctly. She’s not as tired as I thought she was and since I’m now holding her, she doesn’t want to be put down. The moment I planned to help her fall asleep turns into minutes and maybe hours. It’s not long before I lose feeling right arm while she’s happily talking at me and looking around. It’s not long before the deadpan look of a child needing to fall asleep that I expected to see on her face – is now actually on mine. I end up feeling as if I’m in a sort of a trance, walking around my house and not really seeing what’s in front of me. And it’s at that moment when my sixth month starts getting to work. She’s able to see what I can’t and so, before I know it, she’s grabbing everything that she can. She’s snatching the take-out menus we’ve left out on the counter, the toys scattered on the dinning room table, and all the hand towels and random clothing left around the house. I keep finding her holding things in her hands even though I never see her pick anything up. I swear there are times when I’m pretty sure she’s grabbed stuff that I don’t even own. Yet, when I’m caught up in my own stuff, unable to pay attention to everything that’s around me, she’s still wide-eyed and looking for all the things I can no longer see. She’s able to pay attention when I cannot – and her awareness becomes a defining part of who she is. The ability to always be paying attention is one of the things I think Jesus was trying to get at in our reading from the gospel according to Luke. Today’s passage isn’t only about prayer. Jesus also shared with his friends and with all of us – an insight into what God sees and what God is holding onto in our lives. 

Now, we could spend time today digging into the nuts and bolts of Luke’s version of the Lord’s prayer. This text and it’s counterpart in the gospel according to Matthew is the foundation for what we’ll recite later in our worship service. But, at this moment, I’m drawn to what starts this whole reading off. After praying in a certain place, one of Jesus’ disciples asked: “Lord, teach us how to pray.” Scripture doesn’t tell us the name of the person who made this request but I’m pretty sure everyone had it in mind. Jesus, the Son of God, was literally walking with them so it made sense to ask him what his prayer life was all about. How does he, the One who was there when everything was created – talk, communicate, and connect with the Father and the Holy Spirit? The “how” in that question seems to imply that the disciples were asking a technical question. They, we think, were looking for some training on what techniques they should use in their own prayer life. That training could, we imagine, be used to make our prayers feel more substantial, proper, and holy. Now, since Jesus followed the disciples’ request with a version of the Lord’s prayer, our interpretation of this passage as some kind of technical manual seems to make sense. And if Jesus had stopped talking at verse 4, then Jesus’ answer would be exactly what we were looking for. The Lord’s Prayer could be seen as some kind of technical training that defined how we connect to the creator of the universe. It could then be like a recipe or a list of magic words that convince us that, if we said the right thing in the right order, then God truly would hear our prayers. 

But that kind of guarantee isn’t a very strong one. Because we end up thinking that the Lord’s Prayer is somehow needed to get God to do something. Prayer, then, becomes a way for us to activate God; to make God move towards us – but only on our terms and after we’ve said the magic words. That kind of God is a God that only works on-demand and who remains pretty silent and pretty quiet until we need them. Yet a God who waits for us to move isn’t really the God we get. Instead, as we remember today on this Christmas in July Sunday, Jesus didn’t wait for us to be ready before Jesus, finally, showed up. There was no one magic word or statement or belief that made God live as a human being on earth. And there was no magic word or something or belief that made Jesus show up in your life. Jesus always comes on his terms – because there is no moment when God’s love isn’t on the move. That’s why, I think, Jesus didn’t stop his words with verse 4. Instead, he continued and his answer stopped being technical. Jesus told a parable about an unexpected guest showing up in the middle of the night. And instead of waiting until the morning to take care of them, Jesus admitted how we might shamelessly, and persistently, do whatever we could to take care of them. We didn’t ask that friend to show up. But since they did – we freely and abundantly serve and love them. 

The Rev. Matthew Skinner, professor at Luther Seminary, recently wrote, “everything about a prayer reveals something about what the pray-er thinks God is like.” And according to Jesus, our God is anything but technical. Our God, instead, is in the business of knowing who we are, where we’ve been, what brings us our greatest joys, and what it is that keeps us up late at night. Our God doesn’t wait for us to say some magic word before getting active in our lives. And that, I think, is one of the reasons why we pray. Not because our words will somehow get God to do whatever it is we want but because God has already made the decision to be with us, no matter what. In our baptism and in our faith, we are united with a Jesus who chose to see us as we truly are. When we are caught up in the busyness of our everyday life, plotting through without the time or the energy to reflect on where we’ve been, where we are going, or where we are right now – we have a Jesus who is already there, holding onto all the things we need to help carry us through. Even when we can’t see it, Jesus is making sure that God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness, and God’s love is being given to you. The God who made you, who came into the world for you, who died for you- sees you, values you, and is already listening to you. Your prayers and your silences are not going unheard because God will, shamelessly and persistently, always love you. 

Amen. 

*Quote: from http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=5367