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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.

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:
“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
    humble and mounted on a donkey,
        and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Matthew 21:1-11 (NRSVue)

My sermon from Palm & Passion Sunday (April 5, 2020) on Matthew 21:1-11.

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I don’t usually include props in my sermon but since you’re zoomed in right now, I figured today could be a little different. Before I sat here, I stopped by our church’s utility closet to pick something up. A utility closet is where we store stuff that we use at the church to make sure it stays clean and safe. And our closet is, thanks to the Property Committee, really well organized. It’s full of extension cords, paint rollers, screwdrivers, screws, paper towels, and this – toilet paper. Now toilet paper has been in the news recently because everyone seems to be buying it and no store seems to have it. A few nights ago, someone posted in one of my town’s many facebook groups that the local grocery store had just put out a pallet full of toilet paper. People, of course, were excited and they quickly shared their excitement by leaving comments on the post. Some people thanked the person who shared and then headed to the store. Others made jokes and posted funny pictures. Still more left comments lamenting our current situation. And then there additional people wondering why so many people were hoarding toilet paper that they didn’t need. Those last comments are one of the stories we’ve been telling ourselves constantly over this last month. When we go to the store and see barren shelves, we wonder what it is that other people are doing and why there’s nothing there for us. Toilet paper has, in many ways, become a symbol of the moment we’re living in right now. There are pizza shops where, when you order a pizza, they give you a roll of toilet paper. And there are jokes all over the internet where toilet paper has become like another form of currency. Every time a roll of TP shows up in a store or online, it’s not long before the story about other people hoarding supplies pops up. But – I’m not sure if the story about TP is really the story we’re telling. Because the shortage we see at stores is because our wider story has changed. We’re now spending most of our time at home and we no longer need our offices or schools to be stocked full of paper products. The companies that kept those places full of what they needed were not designed to cater to the ways we live at home. Rarely, if ever, is a roll of toilet paper in someone’s home the size of a hubcap. Yet that’s the standard size we see in offices, buildings, and at school. The paper companies that serve business and schools usually do not serve the consumers at home. So when we made the choice to stay at home because we wanted to keep other people safe, what changed was our entire story. The system we use to keep our stores stocked with all kinds of paper products was not designed for the story we’re currently living in. 

One of the things that struck me about today’s story from the gospel according to Matthew is the very last question that we hear. As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the entire city wondered out loud: “who is this?” This moment is unique to Matthew and it hints at his vision of this moment being sort of this large and over-the-top kind of moment. The passage began with Jesus doing a slightly excessive thing, and asking for 2 animals to be brought to him rather than just one. And then, as he rode the donkey into the city, a large crowd led the way. People climbed trees to break off branches so they could wave them in the air. And still more took off their cloaks and jackets, throwing them onto the dirt road, so that no dust could be kicked up and obscure this over-the-top sort of moment. The crowds that surrounded Jesus kept shouting the words “Hosanna” and named Jesus as the son of David – and the one who comes in the name of the Lord. In Matthew’s version of this story, Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem is anything but quiet. The crowd is large and the shouts even larger. News about his arrival quickly floods the city and overwhelms whatever else was going on. No longer was the city of Jerusalem preoccupied by its everyday story. Jesus’ arrival changed that. Instead, the city seethed in confession by the arrival of this person and this movement that came from somewhere else. And Matthew lets the entire city speak out loud – as it wonders just who this Jesus is. 

That question – who is Jesus – has been our question this entire season of Lent. Each week, we’ve spent time during the sermon thinking about that moment when Jesus felt very real to us. Using that moment as the source of our faith story, we’ve been working on how to share that story with others. And we did that by finishing a series of sentences. We started by setting the stage for our story with the sentence: “Once upon a time there was…” We then kept our story going by describing a part of what our normal life was life by finishing the sentence “And every day…” But then Jesus showed up – and we noticed it right away or only saw it later, when we looked back at our life and realized that Jesus had been a part of it for a very long time. So we then added to our faith story by finishing the sentence “Until one day…” “And because of that…” our life shifted and changed. Last week, we described how that change sort of climaxed in our lives by finishing the sentence “Until finally…” Yet we know that the climax of the story isn’t the end of it. Rather, it’s the start of a new moment in our lives when the story that we tell becomes fully part of who we are. This pandemic that we’re living through wasn’t one that any of us planned for. We didn’t want it to come. We didn’t want it to impact Bergen County, our friends, our neighbors, and even ourselves as much as it has. We, together, have no idea when it will end. And we’re not sure when we’ll be able to go to the store again and be greeted by a mountain of toilet paper that we can freely buy. There’s a lot to our current story that we don’t know. But – there’s something we can add to that story by focusing on the question the city shouted out in today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew. When the city asked the question, they actually received an answer. And though the answer stated in the Bible is important – what I’m more struck by is who it is that does the answering. It’s not just the disciples who answer who Jesus is. Nor is it only specific people – those who knew him his entire life, or those he healed, or those he fed with a few loaves of bread and fishes. Rather, it’s the crowd – the entire crowd – that gets to answer. That crowd wasn’t made up of only one kind of person. It was diverse – filled with people of all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of experiences. Each one of them, if you asked them who Jesus was, would have given different answers based on their personal experiences of Jesus Christ. Yet, together, their stories pointed to a wider story – that Jesus was someone who made a difference in their lives. The Jesus who came to us in our baptism, in our faith, and in that moment that we’re trying to share right now – is still here. He’s still with you. And he’s still an active part of your life as you learn to live into this new story of pandemic, barren shelves, and looking for rolls of toilet paper. So as we finish this Lenten series on telling our story – I invite you to reflect on what your life was like after Jesus was real to you. What new story did you find yourself living out? And then finish this sentence: “And ever since then…” 

Amen.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. ² He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished. ³ The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” ⁴ But he answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

⁵ Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, ⁶ saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
    and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
⁷ Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”

⁸ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, ⁹ and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
    and serve only him.’ ”
¹¹ Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Matthew 4:1-11 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the First Sunday in Lent, (March 1, 2020) on Matthew 4:1-11.

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One of the quirks of today’s story from the gospel according to Matthew is that we never hear why the devil chose this moment to tempt Jesus. There’s no flashback scene showing us the many ways the devil and Jesus didn’t get along. And there aren’t even a few words giving us insight into the devil’s planning for this moment. All we know is that after Jesus was baptized, God’s Spirit led him into the wilderness. Now, if we were writing this story, we might want to make the characters’ motivation more explicit. We could, for example, start our version of the story before the world was even made – and include some great battle between good and evil. Jesus and the devil would, at some point, stare at each other and then fight, sharing a few one-liners that would make any Marvel Superhero Movie proud. After the initial fight, we would then see the devil always lurking in the background. But we would also try to make it clear why the devil went after Jesus as an adult instead of, say, when Jesus was 9 or 10. We would make each temptation connected to the back Jesus and the devil both shared and each one would feel more personal and deadly than the last. I’m pretty sure that if we were the ones telling this story, we would use way more words than Matthew did. Because telling stories and making them come alive for others is actually hard. Storytelling is something that we can all do but it’s a skill that takes time for us to develop. And one of the core elements in storytelling – focusing on what’s central – isn’t always an easy thing to suss out. 

So that makes me wonder, what do you think is central in this temptation of Jesus story? Now, I plan to share what I think is central but before that, I want you to answer that question for yourself. If you had to make this story real for someone else – where would your focus be? 

[pause]

Now, if you didn’t come up with an answer, that’s okay. Because, like I said, storytelling is hard.  And there’s a lot of things in this story about Jesus that we could make the center. It would be helpful if we had a model for storytelling that we could easily use to re-tell this Jesus story. Lucky for us, we see storytelling at work everyday. And some of these storytellers, we pay lots of money to watch their movies, buy their t-shirts, and own their toys. One of those kinds of storytellers that’s popular in my house is the animation studio Pixar. Since 1995, they’ve made some of the most popular movies in the world including Cars, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Coco. Their use of computer animation is pretty unique and defines their signature styles. But they also have a pattern they follow when it comes to telling their stories. And this method of storytelling that is what makes their movies about what toys do when we’re not looking or what jobs the monsters in our closets have – actually work. From what I’ve been told, their format follows a basic six part outline. It begins with: “Once upon a time there was…” They then expand their  initial environment by adding “And every day…” But then something happens and they move into “Until one day…” The story then cycles through its ups and downs by repeating the phrase “And because of that…” over and over again. Eventually, the story then moves towards a resolution with “Until finally…” The story ends not with “and happily ever after,” but it sets up for a sequel with: “And ever since then…” This six part outline of telling a story is something we’ll spend time doing during Lent. And since today is the First Sunday in Lent, let’s focus on that first part: “Once upon a time there was…” 

Because that opening, I think, is what sets the tone for what’s central in the story. It helps reveal the characters, the setting, and gives hints at what’s possible. Today’s reading from Matthew isn’t at the start of the book but the devil, I think, knows what’s central to the entire story. And the tempter revealed why he reached out to Jesus now by repeating the same phrase at the start of the first two temptations. Although it’s possible to act as if the tempter was asking a real question when they said “if you are the Son of God,” I find the tempter’s words in that moment to be way more sarcastic. The tempter knew who Jesus was because, right before this moment, Jesus was publicly identified by God as God’s Son during baptism. That declaration wasn’t hidden and it wasn’t meant only for the crowd gathered around Jesus that day.  It was a word that made Jesus the center of the world’s story – and so, in response, the forces that wanted to be at the center instead, had to respond. The temptations, I don’t think, were not the central element of this story. Rather, it was Jesus himself. The tempter wanted to challenge Jesus’ own self-understanding. By poking at his very identity, the tempter was hoping Jesus would stumble. Instead of keeping himself at the center of the story, the tempter tried to make personal desires, a sense of self-importance, and the lust of power and control, be that focus instead. The devil knew Jesus’ story would end if there was anything else that stood at its center. But Jesus, instead, refused to let anything else stand in the place where he belonged. 

Yet I’m pretty sure we’re all familiar with what it’s like to live lives where isn’t always at the center. We can get so wrapped up in the busyness of our lives that we end up giving permission to something else to define the heart of who we are. This shifting away from Jesus is something we can choose to do – but this shift also happens without our being aware it has. It sort of sneaks up on us and we find ourselves living lives where self-interest, personal desires, and power over others defines the choices we make as individuals and as a community. Instead of living in love, we live in fear. Instead of taking a risk and showing mercy, we ignore those in need. Instead of staying open to the diversity within the body of Christ and in our world, we close ranks around those who already think, believe, and act like we do. We think Jesus is at the center of our story – but we end up putting our trust, focus, and identity into everything else. 

Today’s story, I think, is less about avoiding temptation and more about keeping Jesus at the center of our story. It’s the belief that the story of who we are cannot be fully told unless the Jesus who claimed us in baptism and in faith is part of the story we tell. And we need to learn – and relearn – how to tell it. Our faith story is exactly that – our own. It doesn’t have to be as big and wild as a Pixar movie to be meaningful and true. Instead, it just needs to be ours – honest, authentic, and that names the moments when Jesus felt present and when he didn’t. Our faith story, as we grow, will change and evolve. But by telling the story, we give witness to the truth that Jesus refuses to give up on us, no no matter how many other things we make central. So, this Lent, let’s learn how to re-tell your faith story. Think about your faith and that moment when Jesus became real to you. It could start with a parent, a grandparent, or yourself. It could involve a specific place, a specific time of your life, or a specific experience you had. Start thinking about who Jesus is to you – and let’s have the Pixar model of storytelling help you tell your Jesus story. And we can start by using that space in the back of the bulletin by my reflection to finish that sentence: “Once upon a time there was…”

Amen. 

²⁰ So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. ²¹ For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

6 As we work together with him, we entreat you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. ² For he says,
“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
    and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”

Look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation! ³ We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, ⁴ but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: in great endurance, afflictions, hardships, calamities, ⁵ beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; ⁶ in purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, ⁷ truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; ⁸ in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors and yet are true, ⁹ as unknown and yet are well known, as dying and look—we are alive, as punished and yet not killed, ¹⁰ as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything.

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 (NRSVue)

My sermon from Ash Wednesday (February 26, 20202) on 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10.

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When I read the Bible for myself, I read it assuming it was written seriously. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t parts of the Bible that are absurd, silly, shocking, or funny. But in my head, I imagine that when the words for the Bible were first written down, the physical act of writing happened in a reverent and serious way. The original authors who recorded or wrote these words probably didn’t know they were crafting scripture that would last thousands of years but I think they must have known they were writing something holy and important. When I read the Bible, I assume the reverence I bring to the text is something the original authors experienced too.

But my assumption is just that: an assumption. And sometimes a text comes along like tonight’s reading from 2 Corinthians that needs more than just reverence. The text needs passion and energy and a little theatrics because that’s probably how Paul composed this text nearly 2000 years ago. He was caught up in a pattern of writing letters back and forth with a Christian community he founded in the Greek city of Corinth. From what we can tell, Paul had established a shop in Corinth’s marketplace as a kind of leather worker. As people came to his shop to place orders for the different things he could make, he talked to them and eventually shared who he knew Jesus to be. Through persistence, grace, and a lot of help from the Holy Spirit, a group of maybe two dozen people started gathering together for worship and prayer. Paul stayed maybe 18 months before moving on to a new city. But his relationship to the Corinthian community continued. And it wasn’t long before the community started to split into different cliques. People argued about who had the right understanding of Jesus and they started valuing people based on the amount of spiritual gifts they had. These disagreements got so intense that people stopped worshipping together and they kept only to their friends. As these splits grew, someone finally wrote to Paul asking for his thoughts. We don’t have the letters that were written to Paul but we do have Paul’s responses – and they were eventually arranged into what we know as First and Second Corinthians. These two books were his actual responses to actual people trying to figure out what it actually means to follow Jesus Christ, together. Paul didn’t think he was writing the Bible. Instead, he was addressing people who were trying to embody the grace God had already given them.

And since this grace was embodied, we should see Paul’s words in this letter as embodied too. Because he didn’t physically put these words on paper or vellum. Instead, he probably hired a scribe to write down these words as he said them. So instead of imagining Paul, a Jewish scholar sitting in a quiet room, writing a letter in the most reverent way possible; it’s better to see Paul speaking and how he became more animated as he spoke. He was, most likely, walking around the room and gesturing wildly with his hands. And when he got to the middle of verse 2, he exploded with energy because he knew what it was like to hold onto hope even in the middle of hopeless moments. We can almost hear him speaking faster and faster as he connected so many different and competing experiences with one another. His words rolled off the tongue because he was giving voice to what his life with Jesus was all about. It wasn’t a life that was easy or simple or that focused on his being comfortable. Rather, it was a life that lived into everything it was given because it trusted in a promise: a promise that our life is not evaluated only by our health, wealth, age, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, social class, or any of those things we use to keep our communities apart. Rather, our value is defined by God – and God loves you.

But God doesn’t only love the best version of you or the version of you that’s always reverent all the time. God loves all of you – including the parts that are over-the-top, passionate, and full of theatrics. God loves the parts of you that you do not like; the parts that don’t work like they should; and all those things that you push off to tomorrow when they really should be taken care of today. God’s love isn’t reserved for the best version of who God wants us to be. God loves you. And it’s a love that makes a difference in the world – and in you.
Because for our sake, God moved into this world. And in a verse Paul might have rushed through as he geared up for the high energy of verse 2 and beyond, Paul revealed what his experience of Jesus was all about. He knew Jesus as a gift – a gift of love because God came to us. This gift wasn’t something Paul earned after he was already the faithful person God wanted him to be. Rather, Jesus came to him as love incarnate first because that’s just what Jesus does. This love isn’t meant only for our comfort or to make us feel better about ourselves. Rather, God’s love comes with an energy, passion, and theatrics of all its own. Jesus moves us into a new reality where the love we receive becomes the love we give. And this love, like Jesus’ himself, knows no bounds.

The love God gives us is a love that is always honest about who we are. It doesn’t run away from our faults, our fears, and the ways we don’t love each other like we should. It doesn’t ignore the ways we, as a community, sometimes limit who we offer love too – holding back from those who might not act, or think, or carry themselves in the ways we think they should. This love also doesn’t ignore the ways our wider community- the neighborhoods, towns, state, and nation we call home – acts as if this love from God is, someone, limited. We have no problem saying that Jesus’ love is for us but then we act as if God’s love stops there, letting us remain as we are instead of seeing how God’s love transforms us into something more.

Which is why, I think, we celebrate events like Ash Wednesday. It’s why we will use ashes in just a few minutes to remind us exactly who we are. Yet we are also different because we are marked by the sign of the cross. We do these things, as a community, so that we can help one another realize that Jesus has inserted himself into our lives, helping us be the more generous, more inclusive, more compassionate, more merciful, and more loving people God knows we can be. The love we feel and the love we give is not only for our own personal benefit but it’s also meant to be, like Jesus, a gift given for the world. There will be times when we’ll need to be reverent, serious, and all that those words means. But there are other moments when the love we give needs to be animated and full of energy. We are not the keepers of God’s love. We are the ones called to give that love away. And so tonight, as we remember the whole truth about who we are – we will also remember the new truth that God’s love says about us. And how, through Jesus, God’s love is made visible in our reverent and not-so-reverent lives.

Amen.

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵ People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:13-20 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 5th Sunday after Epiphany (February 9, 2020) on Matthew 5:13-20.

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So I want to start today’s sermon by highlighting something I’ve been doing these last few weeks that’s sort of grown into an unintentional sermon series. Two weeks ago, I asked all of us to imagine different superheroes and the places that made them who they are. We talked about Batman and the City of Gotham, Superman and Metropolis, and even Black Panther and Wakanda. Those places shaped those superheroes were and we are shaped by our places too. Last week, I started by asking all of us to imagine just how loud the Temple in Jerusalem would have been when Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus engaged in some of the rituals of their Jewish identity. Our expectation that holy sites should be serene and quiet probably didn’t match the actual experience of worshippers in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Instead, the noise and bustle of the Temple pointed to the life that God’s presence brought to God’s people. And so today, I’d like us to – once again – use our faithful imagination as we engage with this text from the gospel according to Matthew. But instead of asking you to imagine being a piece of salt or being an actual city on a hill, I want to point out what I think our imagination does for us when we let it encounter the Bible. When we engage our imagination, the possibilities of where the text will take us is practically endless. The words, rather than ourselves, take the lead and we don’t assume that we already know what this passage is all about. We don’t limit the text to only be moral instruction or so-called life lessons or even details about what we’re supposed to believe. Instead, we let the Word of God meet us as we are right now. And instead of working on the text, our point of view shifts and we see how the text, and God, has already been working on us.

So let’s take a second to shift our mental gears and engage our imaginative ones. I’m going to re-read verse 13: “[Jesus said] You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” I don’t know if that verse sounded different to you than it did before. But I find that when I use my faithful imagination, I’m able to ask questions I might not have been brave enough to ask before. Usually, when we read this verse, we assume Jesus knows a lot about what salt can do. And so he must have known that salt could, while walking around the sea of Galilee, lose its taste. Yet our imagination might be emboldened to wonder if Jesus got this little snapple fact wrong. Because salt, which is just sodium chloride, can’t actually lose its saltiness. If it does, it’s no longer salt and it couldn’t be thrown onto the ground. Some have argued that the salt Jesus was referring to was of poor quality, mixed with dirt and sand and could, after time, lose its taste. But it’s also just as plausible that Jesus was maybe purposefully describing something impossible but used words that invited us deeper into his story. It’s kind of like when someone tells you something that, at first, seems completely reasonable but then later, when you actually think about it, makes you go “what?” The absurdity we didn’t see at first ends up pulling us in. And we wonder where Jesus is taking us next.

Now the transition from salt to light to city to lamp is a little jumbled but there’s an opening here that fits our use of faithful imagination. We shouldn’t only focus on visualizing ourselves to be lit up like a lighthouse, seeing ourselves as a revealing symbol to the world. Instead, we can narrow the vision for our imagination by zooming in on the bushel basket. The bushel basket Jesus had in mind was probably made out either wood or reeds woven tightly together. It would have been used regularly to collect fruits, grain, and other agricultural products and it probably wasn’t entire air-tight or fully sealed. The bushel basket was a tool that didn’t need to be perfect to get its job done. And it also wasn’t designed to be around lamps. In Jesus’ day, if you wanted light to shine without the help of the sun, you had to light something on fire. The lamps Jesus probably had in mind were little oil lamps with a wick burning an open flame. Putting a dry and wooden bushel basket over a lamp would, most likely, burn the basket up. The ordinary beauty of a lampstand lighting up an entire house does not erase the absurdity in the first half of Jesus’ words. That weirdness is right there in the text and we’re not, I think, supposed to smooth out what Jesus said. Rather, these moments might be a sign that we are witnessing Jesus’ faithful imagination at work – an imagination that reconfigures and transforms the world through God’s absurd and loving grace.

Because it takes a special kind of imagination to wonder if salt could lose its saltiness and if an easily flammable basket could cover a burning flame. An imagination that is comfortable with those kinds of absurdities is one that’s also capable of reimaging us. Instead of letting us lean into our default settings of “comfort, conformity, and complacency,” God’s holy imagination invites us to see how our actions and our inactions always have an impact. Too often we let our fears, worries, and our unwillingness to admit our wrongs, limit our imagination and what we think is possible in the world. This is manifested in the many ways we ask others to show us grace while we give them none. And how we are quick to label other people’s stories, identities, and experiences as absurd because we can’t imagine how their lives are connected to our own. We often act as if the limits we place on our own imagination come from God. Yet, as we see in our reading today, the God who has already re-imagined you as being the light of the world will not be limited by what we think that means.

Instead, God will continue to do absurd things, like giving us the grace to expand our faithful imagination. Because it’s that kind of imagination that, I think, helps us trust that the promises God made to other people God also made to us. The impossibility of salt losing its saltiness means that you, as the salt of the earth, will not lose God’s promises too. And since a flammable bushel basket will only burn brighter when it meets the lamp of God, your identity as the light of the world is a gift God has already given to you. These declarations from God are not given to us in response to something that we do. Nor are they merely affirmations of what we’re already doing. Instead, the promises of God are gifts, re-imagining us into the people God wants us to be. It’s a re-imagining that expands our limits of what it means to show mercy, to give grace, and to love. It’s a re-imagining that expands our capacity to say we’re sorry, to seek justice, and to see what we can do so that others might thrive. And it’s a re-imagining that helps us expand the imaginations of others too. As little Henry is about to hear shortly in his own public welcome into the body of Christ – we are here to let the light of God’s grace shine in all that we say and do. And that light – a promise of love, a promise of mercy, and promise that you are already part of God’s holy and life giving imagination – is a gift that we are called to freely give.

Amen.

¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. ²⁰ But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

²³ “Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
    and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” ²⁴ 

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife ²⁵ but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 22, 2019) on Matthew 1:18-25.

*****

I’m sure you know we’re only two days away from Christmas Eve. And if you’re like me, just saying those words out loud makes you feel pretty anxious. There’s still a lot that I need to do – and even though I know Christmas Eve comes whether we’re ready or not – I hope it at least waits until after the bulletins are printed, the presents are wrapped, and the cookies and milk for Santa are placed where they’re supposed to be.

Now, one of those things I’d like to do in the next two days is to make sure that our red and blue activity bags that kids can use during worship are ready for Christmas Eve. I want to make sure that all the books, toys, crayons, colored pencils, word searches, and coloring pages inside those bags are up-to-date and clean.. And since I’m a bit of a church geek, I’d also like to make what in those bags match our church season. But that’s not always easy. If you do a quick google image search for Christmas coloring pages, there are plenty available with an older looking Joseph, a Mary who doesn’t look like she just gave birth, and a newborn Jesus who can already hold his head up without help or support. They’re pages that show the characters but they don’t tell the whole story. However, last year, I found a different kind of coloring page. Mary was resting on a bed of straw and she looked completely exhausted. Joseph sat a few feet away from her, giving Mary the space she needed. But Joseph wasn’t asleep, tending to the donkey, or chatting with some random shepherds. Instead, he was busy holding Jesus – gently rocking him while Mary slept. In our Lutheran tradition, we don’t always see Joseph in this way. He’s usually depicted like he is in our creche – faithful, righteous, and kneeling besides Jesus. But then we sort of forget his place in the rest of Jesus’ story because the Bible doesn’t mention him very much. Once Jesus grew up and was preaching around the Sea of Galilee, his mom was the only one the gospels mention by name. Yet our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew invites us, I think, to spend a little more time with Joseph – especially when he was living through his version of Christmas Eve.
Our passage begins with Joseph facing a dilemma: the woman he’s engaged to was pregnant. Unlike the gospel according to Luke, the gospel of Matthew doesn’t have any backstory to this moment at all. Mary enters the story pregnant – and Matthew zeroed in on Joseph’s reaction. We find out, pretty quickly, what his decision eventually was. But we hear very little about the mental, emotional, and spiritual process that led to his making that choice. There’s a gap at the start of Joseph’s story that we can either zoom past or we choose to stay there. And on this fourth Sunday of Advent, I think we’re invited to be in that gap between verses 18 and 19. That gap lets us use our imagination – to see what we would have done if our fiance showed up pregnant. What questions would you have asked? What thoughts would have raced through your mind? And if we take seriously our family history, our cultural background, and what it’s like to be here in Northern New Jersey in the 21st century – what would you do if you were Joseph and Mary came to you?

The process of asking those questions – of being honest with ourselves about what our life is actually like – is the same process we can use to imagine Joseph in his story. And as we reflect on what we would do in that situation – we have to admit that knowing the right thing is something that’s not always easy to figure out. Joseph’s background as a first century Jew living near the Sea of Galilee and influenced by the Greco-Roman economic, cultural, and political systems that informed how people lived their lives – that mix of culture, tradition, and way of life – had something to say about his situation. Because Joseph lived in a place where traditions and legal systems around engagement, marriage, the role of women, inheritance, and property defined what being married and being engaged. And Joseph, raised in that cultural system, probably assumed that there were certain things that worked a certain way because that’s just how things were done. Joseph’s upbringing within his context would have shaped and informed the process his thoughts and feelings would take once Mary showed him what was new. Plus, if his family and friends knew about the situation, they probably had no problem telling Joseph exactly what he should do – giving him their free advice whenever he saw them. It’s also possible that Joseph visited his local synagogue, participated in various religious rituals, an even prayed – hoping that God would tell him what to do. We have no idea if Joseph really did any of those things. But we can imagine that this man, who God wanted a parent for Jesus, did what we would have done: taking what makes us who we are – our personality, our story, our experiences, our background, and our influences – to form his choice. And even with all of that, with everything that made him who he was, when God showed up to him in Mary – Joseph said no. He couldn’t, as faithful and good and righteous as he was, see that Christmas was coming. So God, once again, broke into this world – sending an angel during Joseph’s waiting for Christmas – letting him know that, ready or not, Christmas would come.

It’s hard to imagine that the devoted, righteous, and faithful person we imagine and portray in our creche and in our children coloring would also be the same kind of person who, when faced with Jesus, would first say “no.” Yet his no did not stop Christmas. God chose to do what God always does – to continue to bring God’s kingdom near – but this time God’s kingdom showed up in a new way because God lived and experienced human life up close and personal. And when God showed up, even Joseph couldn’t imagine that this was how God would expand what love, mercy, and forgiveness might be like. So today, when we’re sooo close to Christmas that our anxiety and excitement has blended into one almost unbearable mess, we’re reminded that God still comes. It isn’t our goodness, faithfulness, or righteousness that defines what God will do. Rather God, through the Holy Spirit, moves into our world and into our lives, opening us to what’s possible with Jesus Christ. And those possibilities are not limited by our imagination, culture, context, or by anything ever describe as “just the way things are.” Rather, the only limit to what God is up to is God’s limitless love for all.

Now we might know that we’re nowhere near as righteous as Joseph. Yet we are wrapped up in our own waiting for Christ – and we, like him, need the Holy Spirit to intervene. As we worship, pray, and share in holy communion – we are reminded that we are here because the Holy Spirit continues, in a myriad of ways, to come to us – working God’s grace on our hearts, souls, and minds. We, through the Spirit, are being transformed. And even though we might not feel more righteous today than we did yesterday, God’s Spirit is helping us to become a more active participant in what God is doing in the world. Because even Joseph, when he was face-to-face with what God was doing in the world, chose to send God away. But as the story kept going, he eventually found himself letting Mary sleep while he held God’s new and holy presence in his arms. As we wait for Christmas Eve to come, know that it doesn’t depend on us. Jesus does, and will, come. And as he does, love will grow.

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