Our Gospel reading this morning is a tale of bondage and freedom. The bondage and then the release Jesus provides take us into two different ways of living and believing. They move us from a world of glory to the utter reality of Jesus’ cross-shaped new life. And it all hinges on a single word from our Lord.
This crippled-over woman was useless, good-for-nothing in the shape she was in – all curved in on herself. For eighteen years her spine had twisted so far that she was nearly folded up into a package that looked nothing like a human being was supposed to look. They said she had a spirit in her that made this happen, but we ought to remember that’s the language ancient people used to talk about what causes things. While we look to viruses and pathogens as causes of illnesses, people in biblical times didn’t have microscopes or the scientific method. They looked at insurmountable things like illnesses and saw demons and spirits at work – things they had no control over. At any rate, this woman couldn’t stand up straight. This bit of human origami couldn’t unfold herself into a position that would free her to carry on life.
Just before the story of this healing, our gospel writer Luke tells us a bit about how this woman was regarded. Jesus tells the parable of the fig tree. A man who owns a vineyard also has a fig tree planted there. When he comes to pluck a couple figs for his afternoon snack he finds a barren tree. In fact, it’s happened for three years running. So he tells the gardener to cut it down and use the soil for something more productive. Our crippled woman is unproductive. She can’t bear any fruit worthy of the kingdom of God. She can’t tend her household. She can’t serve on the PTA. She can’t dandle grandbabies on her knee. She’s a drag on society. She’s a misplaced fig tree stuck where productive, useful people might better work. And yet, how does the gardener in Jesus’ parable respond? He says, “Hang on another year. Let me work the soil and add a bit of manure as fertilizer. If that doesn’t do the trick, then it might be a good idea to chop the tree down.” Luke shows Jesus doing that very thing to the crippled woman.
All it takes is a word from Jesus to straighten her out: “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” The ancient Greek word Jesus uses there is apolelusai (apolelusai), and it means to release. Try this with me: Stick out your index finger on one hand and grasp it with your other hand. Now squeeze as tight as you can. Keep squeezing. Tighter. Tighter. For just a bit longer. Now let go. That’s apolelusai – the release of a muscle or tendon that’s being flexed or held tight. What takes us four words to say in English, “you are set free,” is just one word in Greek: apolelusai. To paraphrase “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” one little word subdues her ailment. One little word and this woman was released from the grip of her illness. It’s no surprise that after living all hunched over for eighteen years she did a quick stretch and started praising God for release from her bondage. That woman was no dummy when it comes to the source of her healing. She knew whom to thank and praise, serve and obey.
What is this word from Jesus? What power does it have? His word is simply himself. He gives himself to her, attends to her, lays consoling eyes and powerful hands on her, and claims her as his own. The bent-over woman comes into Jesus’ presence and he transplants her into the good soil of his kingdom. He turns her soil and adds the fertile mix of his coming death and resurrection – which the world regards as pure manure, barnyard leavings. The Word of God himself, Jesus Christ, is added to her dead limbs and spines and, bam!, fruit appears. The woman can’t stop telling people what God has done, and the crowds hear and rejoice.
Did I mention that all this happened on the Sabbath day? Oh, yes, it did. And there’s the rub. Jewish religious law is very clear on this count. It would come to include 39 categories of work that could not be done on God’s day of rest, including carrying, writing, erasing, harvesting, plowing, weaving, cooking, building, tying and thirty others. When Jesus heals the woman, he’s breaking the Sabbath command to rest. And any time you break any of these lesser commandments, you’re also breaking the granddaddy of them all, “You shall have no other gods before me.” By deciding yourself what you can and can’t do on the Sabbath, you’re putting yourself before God who himself commanded the day of rest.
The leader of the synagogue will have no truck with that. He knows the law and knows that it doesn’t give an inch. He lives his entire life within the parameters of this legal system. For him, virtue and piety are the criteria for both future success and God’s good pleasure. If you don’t act as religiously as required, there’s no place for you in God’s kingdom. Jesus blows it all away by assuming his right to bring people into the kingdom when and where he pleases. So the leader of the synagogue calls Jesus on it. And now we get to the crux of the matter.
This story of Jesus healing the woman isn’t really about physical sickness and infirmity (although God does promise to bring healing to all). No, in this story we find the very thing Jesus, the great physician, has come to set right: sin. While the crippled woman had a spine that curved her in on herself, the leader of the synagogue is even more curved in and needs Jesus’ release just as much. Jesus claims all of the creation for his own. He says he wants to “draw all unto himself.” When he says, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” he makes himself the criterion for entry into God’s kingdom. Sinners want nothing to do with that, neither the leader of the synagogue nor we sinners gathered together today. We’d rather be a part of a system where we can determine who’s in and who’s out. So we look to legalities, immutable commands that allow us to rate ourselves and others and, if necessary, work just a little harder to achieve a future for ourselves. Usually that comes down to being virtuous, pious or religious. But when God takes on human flesh and bone in the person of Jesus, he means to end it all. He says, “That religious business of clothing yourself in piety and virtue? Enough! It’s time to stop that folderol.” For the leader of the synagogue, that was too upsetting. Better the ceaseless demands of the law than the danger of letting go.
That rabbi was just as barren as the crippled woman. He too was curved in on himself, constantly looking at his own navel to see if he was good enough, righteous enough, clean enough. If he’d been alive today, he would have fallen prey to the legal scheme of our own day: the advertising and marketing world that demands of you to buy this, accumulate that, wear these, if you want to secure your future. We’re called on to satisfy those demands, and they force us to look inward to see if we’ve achieved the goals they set before us. When Jesus cuts in our dance with the law and insists on being paired up with us for the rest of his divine gala, we object. We say, “I’m not going to polka with you, because God’s orchestra is playing a waltz. The dance goes like this: one, two, three, one, two, three.” But it’s even worse than that. We don’t just refuse to dance, we take our new divine dance partners out behind the dancehall and let the brutes with Budweisers in one hand and brass knuckles in the other teach him what’s what. When Pontius Pilate presents an option for what to do with a lawbreaker like Jesus, our only answer is, “Crucify him!” We’d always rather stick to our schemes of glory, glitz and glamour than succumb to a life where we are nothing and Christ is everything, our all in all.
It sure would be nice if we could just jinn up our courage and muster the wherewithal to simply decide to answer Pilate differently. If only we had it in us. But we don’t. We can’t do it. We and that rabbi are just as stuck as the crippled woman who can’t straighten herself out. If we don’t have it in us, it’s going to take something outside of us. That something isn’t a thing, but a somebody – Jesus, who heals and straightens and makes new. You see he has come for sinners, and not just to restore you to the possibility of doing something good, but to make something new out of the nothing that is you. You know where your life is headed – to a plot of land about seven feet by three feet or to a cardboard container ready to hold some ashes. Created from nothing, you end up as nothing. And yet Christ comes to make something new out of your nothingness. The rabbi refused to let go of his imagined control and came away having been put to shame. The crippled woman knew she had no ability to fix things, to bear fruit or to stand as righteous before God, and she was given new life. The rabbi demanded commandments and obedience, and that’s what he was left with – the judgment of God. The crippled woman ran into God’s promise in Jesus and was made new.
Jesus certainly isn’t polite about these things. In fact, he bids you to run from God to God. That means Christ pulls you away from thinking all of God’s ultimates like salvation, forgiveness and eternal life depend on your fulfilling God’s demands. And he draws you in to his kingdom where it all hinges on his promise to you. And of course, that’s what the Sabbath was always for in the first place. It’s given not just so you can rest your weary bones, but so that your spirit can rest fully and finally in him, the great physician, the divine promise, the Lord of all life. Is this not why we gather together to worship? We worship so we can confess our nothingness, our inability to find any life in virtue, piety and religion, our unwillingness to anything but our own people. We worship together so we can sing, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” We gather together together so we, too, might be set free, so that we, too, might know a true and eternal Sabbath. We gather together to be straightened out from looking at our own navels and so that we can begin looking to our neighbor’s need.
So how about about it? Look at your navel now and repeat after me: I confess. And now straighten up and look my way and hear what Jesus has sent me to tell you: You, my fellow sinner, are forgiven in his name. You, dear friend, are given his unbreakable promise of salvation and new life. Where before you were curved in on yourself and good for nothing, now you are unfolded and made new. You now know Christ’s gift of apolelusai. Now you can sing God’s praises with that straightened-out, good-for-lots-of-things woman and the psalmist: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits – who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.” Now, you former barren fig trees, let’s see if a little fruit doesn’t start growing on your branches. Amen.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Martha running ragged
Genesis 18:1-10; Psalm 15; Luke 10:38-42
Preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Knoxville, IA
Because I teach these days, I’m not a regular Sunday-after-Sunday preacher. I always feel a bit rusty when I sit down to write a sermon. This week I looked at a couple commentaries and some preaching blogs to see what people are saying about our readings today. Here’s what I found out:
Doing work is a good gift from God. Martha sure was right on that count. There’s nothing wrong with good, hard work – producing something for the common good or to meet your neighbor’s need. That’s something God has made us for. When Luther explained the Lord’s Prayer in the Small Catechism, he told us what daily bread means. He said it includes everything we need in this life – including work and income.
Work is such a part of us that we hardly notice it until it’s gone. Unemployment numbers are important not just because people need to earn money to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. They’re important because they’re a sign of people who don’t have access to the good work God intends for us each day. When we don’t have work, we hurt. When there’s no work to do, it affects what Martin Luther called the conscience. He used that word to described our sense of ourselves. You conscience is your what you understand about your standing before God and before you neighbor. Lack of work wrenches your conscience, because your work helps tell you who you are and whose you are.
Later this week I’m driving out to western South Dakota for a big wingding at the old country school my dad attended. So I’ll meet lots of sheep and cattle ranchers whose last names I’m known for most of my 50 years. I’ll tell them my name and shake a handful of calluses. And you know what the first question they’ll ask me will be? They’ll say, “What do you do these days?” When I tell them I’m a Lutheran pastor and college religion and philosophy professor, they’ll know something about my place in the world.
So Martha’s puttering around the kitchen throwing a kosher casserole together is just a part of how God makes the world. Doing is a good thing. But when sin enters the picture, everything changes. When it comes to doing or not doing, we sinners are an odd bunch.
God’s given us a good batch of things to do and keep from doing: things like having no other gods, honoring your father and mother and remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy. And if that’s not enough God has given us neighbors galore to care for.
But from Adam and Eve in the Garden on down to us, we sinners have wanted it our way. We’re like two-year-olds in a high chair who refuse to let our parents feed us. We say, “My do it myself.” Doing? Yup. We like doing. As long as we get to decide what to do and when we do it.
We sinners treat the gift of doing, God’s gracious gift of work, just like we treat all of God’s gifts. Our sin-clouded eyes aren’t able to see God’s gifts as gifts. Because we don’t trust God to give us all we need for this life, we turn away from the divine giver and use the gifts for our own ends. At best we begin to think of God’s gifts as tools to achieve our own goals. I work so I can buy more consumer electronics. I work to keep my lawn green and mowed, so won’t be an object of scorn at our neighborhood block party. At worst we not only turn away from the divine giver, we also turn the gifts themselves into false gods. We look to the things of the creation, including work, as the be-all and end-all of our existence. We trust them to give us what we think we need. Instead of fearing, loving and trusting God above all things, we look to things to secure our future and stave off the terror of not knowing where we’re headed.
Now we’re at the corner Martha turned in her busyness. Her work had become the source of her security and future. The gift of work became an end in itself and just as quickly became a burden. She started to see all that needed to get done if the evening with their guest of honor was ever going to come together. And make no mistake, getting supper together in first-century Bethany was no easy task. There’s no nuking things in the microwave, no refrigeration, no Calphalon cookwear and no Cuisinart food processors. It’s just constant drudgery. And there sits Mary, hanging out with Jesus and the guys. She’s in the other room sitting at Jesus feet, gazing at him all star-struck like a 12-year-old at a Justin Bieber concert. Isn’t Jesus supposed to be all caring or something? Shouldn’t he notice her burden? Shouldn’t he whisper, “You know, Mary, I think Martha could use a little help out there”?
Martha’s gotten all turned around with work. Stoke the fire. Wipe the brow. Knead the bread. And forget about just who it is the supper’s being cooked for. Martha’s worried about getting the meal together, but even the Devil knows that if he wanted to Jesus could grab a couple rocks and turn them into nice loaves of focaccia. Martha’s forgotten about who she’s dealing with.
So Jesus brings her back to the place of the lilies of the field that neither toil nor spin. Doing what needs to get done is great. He just wants her to keep her doing in its proper place, so she can see what’s really going on in the house she and Mary and Lazarus share. The Lord himself is with them, the Holy One of God. He didn’t choose to go to dinner with the Chief Priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, he came here to Bethany.
There’s great danger in letting work be the one thing that defines you in any moment. Because you see yourself able to exert your efforts to accomplish something, you begin to think that you might even be in charge. You yourself become the ultimate cause of your days and deeds. You become the game master. It all depends on you. But when you live under that illusion, what happens when you come to a place where no effort of your own, no work, no exertion of effort can change anything?
I suspect there are quite a few people in Pella these past few days are feeling the shifting tides of paralysis and powerlessness. Two boys drowned at an FCA camp pool party and there’s not a thing you can do to change the fact. The history will always be there. And nothing any of us does can create a different future. Life is full of those places and situations. We run along busy as can be and trip on the cold, unexpected truth that we are not in charge of our future. The word “cancer.” The loss of a job. The prospect of an empty next. The cruel names tossed in a middle school hallway. The slow, inexorable pull of gravity on our body’s various flesh bulbs. The inevitable last day and last breath that creep steadily toward us. All these things pull our ability to work out of our hands and remind us that we are not our own gods.
Each of these places in our lives offers a hidden Word from God, speaking to us the same way Jesus spoke to Martha. “You’re right,” he says, “You have come to the end of your rope. What exactly do you think happens when you discover you can’t fix things? Do you think the final catastrophe is at hand? Did you think you were in charge?” So Jesus brings a clear no to Martha and to us. There is a limit to what doing can accomplish, especially when it comes to ultimate matters like your death, your salvation, your verdict come Judgment Day.
But then Jesus turns Martha’s attention to her dear sister. “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” You see, there are lots of things you can do and may want to do. But there’s one thing that rises above everything else, and it’s not even a thing. It’s a person. Jesus. He has given himself to awestruck Mary, to busy Martha, to Lazarus soon to be dead and stinking in a tomb, to Peter, to Paul, to St. Monica and St. Clothild, to Martin Luther, and to you, sinners all. And here he promises that he can never be taken away. As Paul says in Romans, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
It’s just like Jesus to pull this on Martha. He has a habit of zeroing in our disasters and frustration. He has a way of finding our weak spots, of taking a magnifying glass to our sins and peccadilloes. He doesn’t mind pushing us to the limit and over it, because when we fall he gets to do what he does best: catching fallen sinners. He wants them to know that, work or no work, powerful or powerless, we remain subject to his own mighty affection. Meal schmeal, who cares what you’re cooking up for yourself. He has something better in store for you, the ultimate feast of mercy and forgiveness, the sacrament that bestows a future.
To paraphrase Psalm 15: You shall dwell in his sanctuary and live on his holy hill. No longer will you seek to be blameless in your work and production. Your purity comes from the one who died for you and rose again. He is the one who keeps his oath, even when it hurts. His promise on the cross is for you. Risen from the dead, he will never be shaken. He’s done all the work and now gives you the wages of faith: your salvation, forgiveness and deliverance from sin, death and the devil. For that we might just be willing to let the fires die out and the pots turn cold on the stove. And that’s just why we’re here today, to sit her at Jesus feet and hear him promise to stick with us always.
Calendars and to-do lists get put in the proper place when Jesus is around. Work becomes a gift again. And the invitation stays in place for the rest of our days: “Settle in now,” Jesus says, “And hear what I’m doing for you, always for you.” Amen.
Preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Knoxville, IA
Because I teach these days, I’m not a regular Sunday-after-Sunday preacher. I always feel a bit rusty when I sit down to write a sermon. This week I looked at a couple commentaries and some preaching blogs to see what people are saying about our readings today. Here’s what I found out:
- Abraham and Sarah in the Old Testament reading are to be praised for their hospitality. They welcome in the visiting angels and cook ‘em up a dandy supper.
- Today’s psalm gives us line after line of the things you need to do in order to dwell in the Lord’s sanctuary.
- And then we get to the story of Mary and Martha in the gospel reading, Jesus seems to tell Martha that her distracted doing is a problem.
Doing work is a good gift from God. Martha sure was right on that count. There’s nothing wrong with good, hard work – producing something for the common good or to meet your neighbor’s need. That’s something God has made us for. When Luther explained the Lord’s Prayer in the Small Catechism, he told us what daily bread means. He said it includes everything we need in this life – including work and income.
Work is such a part of us that we hardly notice it until it’s gone. Unemployment numbers are important not just because people need to earn money to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. They’re important because they’re a sign of people who don’t have access to the good work God intends for us each day. When we don’t have work, we hurt. When there’s no work to do, it affects what Martin Luther called the conscience. He used that word to described our sense of ourselves. You conscience is your what you understand about your standing before God and before you neighbor. Lack of work wrenches your conscience, because your work helps tell you who you are and whose you are.
Later this week I’m driving out to western South Dakota for a big wingding at the old country school my dad attended. So I’ll meet lots of sheep and cattle ranchers whose last names I’m known for most of my 50 years. I’ll tell them my name and shake a handful of calluses. And you know what the first question they’ll ask me will be? They’ll say, “What do you do these days?” When I tell them I’m a Lutheran pastor and college religion and philosophy professor, they’ll know something about my place in the world.
So Martha’s puttering around the kitchen throwing a kosher casserole together is just a part of how God makes the world. Doing is a good thing. But when sin enters the picture, everything changes. When it comes to doing or not doing, we sinners are an odd bunch.
God’s given us a good batch of things to do and keep from doing: things like having no other gods, honoring your father and mother and remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy. And if that’s not enough God has given us neighbors galore to care for.
But from Adam and Eve in the Garden on down to us, we sinners have wanted it our way. We’re like two-year-olds in a high chair who refuse to let our parents feed us. We say, “My do it myself.” Doing? Yup. We like doing. As long as we get to decide what to do and when we do it.
We sinners treat the gift of doing, God’s gracious gift of work, just like we treat all of God’s gifts. Our sin-clouded eyes aren’t able to see God’s gifts as gifts. Because we don’t trust God to give us all we need for this life, we turn away from the divine giver and use the gifts for our own ends. At best we begin to think of God’s gifts as tools to achieve our own goals. I work so I can buy more consumer electronics. I work to keep my lawn green and mowed, so won’t be an object of scorn at our neighborhood block party. At worst we not only turn away from the divine giver, we also turn the gifts themselves into false gods. We look to the things of the creation, including work, as the be-all and end-all of our existence. We trust them to give us what we think we need. Instead of fearing, loving and trusting God above all things, we look to things to secure our future and stave off the terror of not knowing where we’re headed.
Now we’re at the corner Martha turned in her busyness. Her work had become the source of her security and future. The gift of work became an end in itself and just as quickly became a burden. She started to see all that needed to get done if the evening with their guest of honor was ever going to come together. And make no mistake, getting supper together in first-century Bethany was no easy task. There’s no nuking things in the microwave, no refrigeration, no Calphalon cookwear and no Cuisinart food processors. It’s just constant drudgery. And there sits Mary, hanging out with Jesus and the guys. She’s in the other room sitting at Jesus feet, gazing at him all star-struck like a 12-year-old at a Justin Bieber concert. Isn’t Jesus supposed to be all caring or something? Shouldn’t he notice her burden? Shouldn’t he whisper, “You know, Mary, I think Martha could use a little help out there”?
Martha’s gotten all turned around with work. Stoke the fire. Wipe the brow. Knead the bread. And forget about just who it is the supper’s being cooked for. Martha’s worried about getting the meal together, but even the Devil knows that if he wanted to Jesus could grab a couple rocks and turn them into nice loaves of focaccia. Martha’s forgotten about who she’s dealing with.
So Jesus brings her back to the place of the lilies of the field that neither toil nor spin. Doing what needs to get done is great. He just wants her to keep her doing in its proper place, so she can see what’s really going on in the house she and Mary and Lazarus share. The Lord himself is with them, the Holy One of God. He didn’t choose to go to dinner with the Chief Priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, he came here to Bethany.
There’s great danger in letting work be the one thing that defines you in any moment. Because you see yourself able to exert your efforts to accomplish something, you begin to think that you might even be in charge. You yourself become the ultimate cause of your days and deeds. You become the game master. It all depends on you. But when you live under that illusion, what happens when you come to a place where no effort of your own, no work, no exertion of effort can change anything?
I suspect there are quite a few people in Pella these past few days are feeling the shifting tides of paralysis and powerlessness. Two boys drowned at an FCA camp pool party and there’s not a thing you can do to change the fact. The history will always be there. And nothing any of us does can create a different future. Life is full of those places and situations. We run along busy as can be and trip on the cold, unexpected truth that we are not in charge of our future. The word “cancer.” The loss of a job. The prospect of an empty next. The cruel names tossed in a middle school hallway. The slow, inexorable pull of gravity on our body’s various flesh bulbs. The inevitable last day and last breath that creep steadily toward us. All these things pull our ability to work out of our hands and remind us that we are not our own gods.
Each of these places in our lives offers a hidden Word from God, speaking to us the same way Jesus spoke to Martha. “You’re right,” he says, “You have come to the end of your rope. What exactly do you think happens when you discover you can’t fix things? Do you think the final catastrophe is at hand? Did you think you were in charge?” So Jesus brings a clear no to Martha and to us. There is a limit to what doing can accomplish, especially when it comes to ultimate matters like your death, your salvation, your verdict come Judgment Day.
But then Jesus turns Martha’s attention to her dear sister. “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” You see, there are lots of things you can do and may want to do. But there’s one thing that rises above everything else, and it’s not even a thing. It’s a person. Jesus. He has given himself to awestruck Mary, to busy Martha, to Lazarus soon to be dead and stinking in a tomb, to Peter, to Paul, to St. Monica and St. Clothild, to Martin Luther, and to you, sinners all. And here he promises that he can never be taken away. As Paul says in Romans, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
It’s just like Jesus to pull this on Martha. He has a habit of zeroing in our disasters and frustration. He has a way of finding our weak spots, of taking a magnifying glass to our sins and peccadilloes. He doesn’t mind pushing us to the limit and over it, because when we fall he gets to do what he does best: catching fallen sinners. He wants them to know that, work or no work, powerful or powerless, we remain subject to his own mighty affection. Meal schmeal, who cares what you’re cooking up for yourself. He has something better in store for you, the ultimate feast of mercy and forgiveness, the sacrament that bestows a future.
To paraphrase Psalm 15: You shall dwell in his sanctuary and live on his holy hill. No longer will you seek to be blameless in your work and production. Your purity comes from the one who died for you and rose again. He is the one who keeps his oath, even when it hurts. His promise on the cross is for you. Risen from the dead, he will never be shaken. He’s done all the work and now gives you the wages of faith: your salvation, forgiveness and deliverance from sin, death and the devil. For that we might just be willing to let the fires die out and the pots turn cold on the stove. And that’s just why we’re here today, to sit her at Jesus feet and hear him promise to stick with us always.
Calendars and to-do lists get put in the proper place when Jesus is around. Work becomes a gift again. And the invitation stays in place for the rest of our days: “Settle in now,” Jesus says, “And hear what I’m doing for you, always for you.” Amen.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Sam, Andy and Toy Story 3
In Toy Story 3 Andy is heading off to college (and behind the wheel of his own car, no less). It's somehow fitting that we saw this movie the summer before our son heads off to his freshman year at Luther College, in Decorah, Iowa. After all, he's grown up with Andy. And they're both members of the incoming class of 2014.
We first met Buzz, Woody and Andy in Decorah. We took our son to see Toy Story at the Viking Theater when he was almost three and I was serving as a pastor in Calmar. Now, as Andy leaves his toys behind, Sam leaves his own childhood behind to go back to Decorah for four years at Luther. And we discover that the movies were never about the toys, but about the boy who loved them.
Suffice it to say, sitting there next to the young man who still loves us, tears were shed in the darkness of a movie theater last weekend. But it's been a fun three movies and an even better 18 years of parenting. As Sam posted on his Facebook page, "Dear Andy, Thanks for sharing your toys with us." Thanks for sharing these years with us, Sam.
We first met Buzz, Woody and Andy in Decorah. We took our son to see Toy Story at the Viking Theater when he was almost three and I was serving as a pastor in Calmar. Now, as Andy leaves his toys behind, Sam leaves his own childhood behind to go back to Decorah for four years at Luther. And we discover that the movies were never about the toys, but about the boy who loved them.
Suffice it to say, sitting there next to the young man who still loves us, tears were shed in the darkness of a movie theater last weekend. But it's been a fun three movies and an even better 18 years of parenting. As Sam posted on his Facebook page, "Dear Andy, Thanks for sharing your toys with us." Thanks for sharing these years with us, Sam.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Beyond flames and tongues
A sermon preached at Grace Lutheran Church in Adel, Iowa, for Pentecost Sunday 2010.
Happy Pentecost and happy birthday to Christ’s church. This day was an important day even before the one that Acts tells us about. For the ancient Jews, including Jesus and his disciples, this was the day to remember how God gave the Law and Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai, from “You shall have no other gods” to “You shall not covet your neighbor’s manservant, maidservant, cattle or anything else that it your neighbors.” The Law and Commandments were such good things. They were a way to know how and where you stood: In or out? Righteous or unrighteous?
To this day we still like that Law stuff. In fact, it’s absolutely embedded in our consciousness without our thinking about it. Here’s a quick quiz for you. We’ll see how much Law you know. Complete the phrase:
Imagine dishing up the potato salad at your family’s Fourth of July picnic and Aunt Bertha, who’s rarely been out of Iowa let alone gone abroad, starts speaking Mandarin Chinese or Hindi or Swahili to the folks at the next picnic table. If you knew she’d never spoken that language before, you’d try to make sense of it somehow. Maybe she isn’t really speaking it. Maybe she’s just goofing on your picnic neighbors. Maybe she’s had a stroke. Or maybe she’s gotten into the cooler a little early and downed a few too many bottles of hard cider.
That’s exactly what those folks in Jerusalem did when they saw and heard what was happening with the disciples. Those fellas were Galileans. No way could they speak Greek. Everyone knew that Galilean fisherfolk could hardly speak their own Aramean dialect, let alone fancy schmancy Greek. So what are the options if you want to make sense of things? You might decide you didn’t hear right and just imagined you heard them speak your language. You might think your mind was playing tricks on you. Or maybe, just maybe, you might think, “These guys are blitzed to the gills.” And then you’d look at your hourglass or sundial, look down your nose, and think, “Oooh-whee. Drunk at this time of day?” The multiple-language-speaking disciples don’t fit into their categories, so the spectators in Jerusalem find one that fits: public drunkenness. The crowds know the world works according to the law, commandments, structures and powers. Their reaction to the disciples shows how truly strange living by faith looks to the world. Something incredible has happened to the disciples, and the crowds just don’t understand it.
But what happened to those twelve guys isn’t just tongues of flame and foreign languages. For a few hundred bucks you can buy a week of campfires at Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota and have your flames and foreign tongues. The miracle of Pentecost that the crowds didn’t understand goes much deeper. What the disciples experienced with the gift of the Holy Spirit is part of the mystery and wonder of their relationship with Jesus.
These followers for whom things exploded on Pentecost had been hand-picked by our Lord. Not a one among them was someone to be reckoned with. They weren’t people of power or position. All they were was a group of guys who heard Jesus say, “Follow me,” and couldn’t resist him. At first they thought they’d gotten in on the ground floor with someone who was going to make it big, like meeting the winner of American Idol way back at the initial auditions. But instead they wound up following Jesus’ path to the cross. They saw how our Lord’s utter faithfulness and devotion to God freed him, how it gave him power to heal and forgive, and how the sum total of his worldly success was a sarcastic scrawl on a board over his head on the cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
These disciples were bound up in a relationship with the Son of Man who lived in full faith, and they saw exactly what it got him. Giving yourself up in devotion to God and in service to your neighbor attracts the world’s scorn, the condemnation of the powerful and the religious, and the shame of an execution by crucifixion. You see, to be the Christ (and a Christ-follower) means chucking your power into the ditch, snipping the apron strings that tie you to comfort and status, pinching off the shoots of success, and, plainly, dying to your own control, glory and carefully planned and managed future. For our Lord, true living means dying.
But if you think a few flickers of fire and speaking the language of the Phrygians and Medes is something, what happened to the disciples’ Lord was too much to believe. When it comes to blowing minds, Timothy Leary has nothing on Jesus Christ. Our Lord lay dead in a borrowed tomb. It looked like his program of bringing in the Kingdom of God was a bust, a complete failure. His followers had fled. And his dying words were a cry of abandonment by God. And yet. And yet. What happened two days later changed everything. The dead, crucified Jesus was alive. God’s raising him up said yes to the very path that looked like the end of all hope. The resurrection confirmed that Jesus’ path to the cross is the path, the only path of faithfulness.
The first part of the true miracle of Pentecost happened somewhere in the seven weeks between the Resurrection and this Jewish festival day. It happened as God’s own word in scripture worked on these lowly followers of Jesus. When Cleopas and his friend walked their grief off after seeing Jesus crucified, they didn’t recognize the risen Lord on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t understand anything about what Jesus meant, what he signified, what difference he made in the end. And they certainly didn’t recognize him. But there Jesus is, risen and new, bringing them the exact same stuff he’d given them all along. He taught them the scriptures, told them why, what and wherefore. And when they sat down to eat with him, they knew who he was and what he had been up to. These followers had a relationship with Jesus that came to be defined by his path to the cross. It was confirmed in the resurrection. And now with the word, it came clear.
Have you ever watched one of those Texas Hold-‘Em poker games on T.V.? There inevitably comes a time when a player puts down the cards, pushes every single chip into the center of the table, and says, “I’m all-in.” The player has such a great hand or such a great bluff that she’s willing to risk everything. What these followers of Jesus had experienced, learned and now were filled with, is the hand the Holy Spirit dealt in the promise of the resurrection to a ragtag bunch of losers. And here on Pentecost Sunday, these guys couldn’t help themselves. They had been released into an all-in life that risks everything for the only thing that lasts. Those tongues of fire were just the sparkly tip of a whole new life that had already begun when Jesus called to them to follow. The flames were the tip-top flickering of a relationship with the Lord who won’t and can’t stay dead, the Christ whom power and religion can’t eradicate, Jesus our brother, savior, high priest, good shepherd, treasure and hope. And now the followers became the forward picket, the rolling edge of the storm of faith.
And what about the Parthians and Medes, the people from Phrygia and Pamphylia, and all the rest? They were not to be left behind in their plodding allegiance to power, in their stuckness on what was comprehensible, reasonable or plausible. Those guys from Galilee weren’t drunk like they thought. It was, after all, only nine a.m. And Peter stepped to the fore to let loose a torrent. And that’s where the second part of the true miracle of Pentecost happened. Peter preached. The one who denied even knowing Jesus now couldn’t help the proclamation of the risen Lord from flowing trippingly off his tongue. He announces the truth of the situation to them, and does it by blasting both barrels: “You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.”
And then the third part of the real miracle of Pentecost happened. The crowds in Jerusalem that mid-morning sabbath in Spring heard this word, this preaching, this ministry of the true gospel…and they believed. They asked Peter how the unvarnished truth of their complicity in Christ’s death might be dealt with. He told them, be steeped in the promise of forgiveness that comes in baptism. And 3000 of them came to believe that very day.
It turns out that that part of the miracle wasn’t a one-off affair. It was the beginning of the Holy Spirit’s ongoing breaking-in and breaking-open of sinners closed to hope, love and mercy. What this means for you, my fellow sinners, is that you are about to be included in that last part of the Pentecost miracle, for God has sent this preacher to you today. For I, too, have been given a relationship with the crucified and risen One. I have been given the gospel word and called to deliver it to you. And I have been given a tongue to speak to ears that are ready to hear.
This is the word for you, sinner, broken one, unbeliever. Listen closely. Jesus, dead for your sin and risen for your hope and joy, has made himself your Lord. He is given to you from the foundation of the world, that you, even you, might know God’s mercy. Not only that, but he has grafted himself to you so that his new life might be yours as well.
And if you wonder what you ought to do with that, well, there’s water in that font. You have a pastor in this congregation, and he is champing at the bit to attach God’s word of promise to that water and give you the kind of cleansing bath that only God can give. And if you’ve known that promise of Christ in the water, there is a meal that’s been cooked up to sustain those dripping wet from their divine bath. It’s a meal of simple bread and wine, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. It is Jesus body and blood. It is the whole relationship he’s established with you, tied up in a handy little, worldly package.
Instead of leaving you harping on the implausibility of it all or slapping a label on the purveyors of this unlikely miracle, today I pray the Spirit gives you the faith that frees you, sustains you, and gives you eternal life. I pray God so works in you that the world may look at you and say, “Humph, drunk,” and that that will be your chance to say, “No, not drunk. But let me tell you about my Lord.” And in that moment, the real miracle of Pentecost will still be alive and new and true – for you and for the world. Amen.
Happy Pentecost and happy birthday to Christ’s church. This day was an important day even before the one that Acts tells us about. For the ancient Jews, including Jesus and his disciples, this was the day to remember how God gave the Law and Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai, from “You shall have no other gods” to “You shall not covet your neighbor’s manservant, maidservant, cattle or anything else that it your neighbors.” The Law and Commandments were such good things. They were a way to know how and where you stood: In or out? Righteous or unrighteous?
To this day we still like that Law stuff. In fact, it’s absolutely embedded in our consciousness without our thinking about it. Here’s a quick quiz for you. We’ll see how much Law you know. Complete the phrase:
- An object in motion [tends to stay in motion unless acted on by another force or object.]
- For every action there is [an equal and opposite reaction.]
- There’s no such thing as a [free lunch.]
- Pull yourself up by [our own bootstraps.]
- A stitch in time [saves nine.]
- A penny saved is [a penny earned.]
- What goes around [comes around.]
- Click it or [ticket.]
Imagine dishing up the potato salad at your family’s Fourth of July picnic and Aunt Bertha, who’s rarely been out of Iowa let alone gone abroad, starts speaking Mandarin Chinese or Hindi or Swahili to the folks at the next picnic table. If you knew she’d never spoken that language before, you’d try to make sense of it somehow. Maybe she isn’t really speaking it. Maybe she’s just goofing on your picnic neighbors. Maybe she’s had a stroke. Or maybe she’s gotten into the cooler a little early and downed a few too many bottles of hard cider.
That’s exactly what those folks in Jerusalem did when they saw and heard what was happening with the disciples. Those fellas were Galileans. No way could they speak Greek. Everyone knew that Galilean fisherfolk could hardly speak their own Aramean dialect, let alone fancy schmancy Greek. So what are the options if you want to make sense of things? You might decide you didn’t hear right and just imagined you heard them speak your language. You might think your mind was playing tricks on you. Or maybe, just maybe, you might think, “These guys are blitzed to the gills.” And then you’d look at your hourglass or sundial, look down your nose, and think, “Oooh-whee. Drunk at this time of day?” The multiple-language-speaking disciples don’t fit into their categories, so the spectators in Jerusalem find one that fits: public drunkenness. The crowds know the world works according to the law, commandments, structures and powers. Their reaction to the disciples shows how truly strange living by faith looks to the world. Something incredible has happened to the disciples, and the crowds just don’t understand it.
But what happened to those twelve guys isn’t just tongues of flame and foreign languages. For a few hundred bucks you can buy a week of campfires at Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota and have your flames and foreign tongues. The miracle of Pentecost that the crowds didn’t understand goes much deeper. What the disciples experienced with the gift of the Holy Spirit is part of the mystery and wonder of their relationship with Jesus.
These followers for whom things exploded on Pentecost had been hand-picked by our Lord. Not a one among them was someone to be reckoned with. They weren’t people of power or position. All they were was a group of guys who heard Jesus say, “Follow me,” and couldn’t resist him. At first they thought they’d gotten in on the ground floor with someone who was going to make it big, like meeting the winner of American Idol way back at the initial auditions. But instead they wound up following Jesus’ path to the cross. They saw how our Lord’s utter faithfulness and devotion to God freed him, how it gave him power to heal and forgive, and how the sum total of his worldly success was a sarcastic scrawl on a board over his head on the cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
These disciples were bound up in a relationship with the Son of Man who lived in full faith, and they saw exactly what it got him. Giving yourself up in devotion to God and in service to your neighbor attracts the world’s scorn, the condemnation of the powerful and the religious, and the shame of an execution by crucifixion. You see, to be the Christ (and a Christ-follower) means chucking your power into the ditch, snipping the apron strings that tie you to comfort and status, pinching off the shoots of success, and, plainly, dying to your own control, glory and carefully planned and managed future. For our Lord, true living means dying.
But if you think a few flickers of fire and speaking the language of the Phrygians and Medes is something, what happened to the disciples’ Lord was too much to believe. When it comes to blowing minds, Timothy Leary has nothing on Jesus Christ. Our Lord lay dead in a borrowed tomb. It looked like his program of bringing in the Kingdom of God was a bust, a complete failure. His followers had fled. And his dying words were a cry of abandonment by God. And yet. And yet. What happened two days later changed everything. The dead, crucified Jesus was alive. God’s raising him up said yes to the very path that looked like the end of all hope. The resurrection confirmed that Jesus’ path to the cross is the path, the only path of faithfulness.
The first part of the true miracle of Pentecost happened somewhere in the seven weeks between the Resurrection and this Jewish festival day. It happened as God’s own word in scripture worked on these lowly followers of Jesus. When Cleopas and his friend walked their grief off after seeing Jesus crucified, they didn’t recognize the risen Lord on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t understand anything about what Jesus meant, what he signified, what difference he made in the end. And they certainly didn’t recognize him. But there Jesus is, risen and new, bringing them the exact same stuff he’d given them all along. He taught them the scriptures, told them why, what and wherefore. And when they sat down to eat with him, they knew who he was and what he had been up to. These followers had a relationship with Jesus that came to be defined by his path to the cross. It was confirmed in the resurrection. And now with the word, it came clear.
Have you ever watched one of those Texas Hold-‘Em poker games on T.V.? There inevitably comes a time when a player puts down the cards, pushes every single chip into the center of the table, and says, “I’m all-in.” The player has such a great hand or such a great bluff that she’s willing to risk everything. What these followers of Jesus had experienced, learned and now were filled with, is the hand the Holy Spirit dealt in the promise of the resurrection to a ragtag bunch of losers. And here on Pentecost Sunday, these guys couldn’t help themselves. They had been released into an all-in life that risks everything for the only thing that lasts. Those tongues of fire were just the sparkly tip of a whole new life that had already begun when Jesus called to them to follow. The flames were the tip-top flickering of a relationship with the Lord who won’t and can’t stay dead, the Christ whom power and religion can’t eradicate, Jesus our brother, savior, high priest, good shepherd, treasure and hope. And now the followers became the forward picket, the rolling edge of the storm of faith.
And what about the Parthians and Medes, the people from Phrygia and Pamphylia, and all the rest? They were not to be left behind in their plodding allegiance to power, in their stuckness on what was comprehensible, reasonable or plausible. Those guys from Galilee weren’t drunk like they thought. It was, after all, only nine a.m. And Peter stepped to the fore to let loose a torrent. And that’s where the second part of the true miracle of Pentecost happened. Peter preached. The one who denied even knowing Jesus now couldn’t help the proclamation of the risen Lord from flowing trippingly off his tongue. He announces the truth of the situation to them, and does it by blasting both barrels: “You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.”
And then the third part of the real miracle of Pentecost happened. The crowds in Jerusalem that mid-morning sabbath in Spring heard this word, this preaching, this ministry of the true gospel…and they believed. They asked Peter how the unvarnished truth of their complicity in Christ’s death might be dealt with. He told them, be steeped in the promise of forgiveness that comes in baptism. And 3000 of them came to believe that very day.
It turns out that that part of the miracle wasn’t a one-off affair. It was the beginning of the Holy Spirit’s ongoing breaking-in and breaking-open of sinners closed to hope, love and mercy. What this means for you, my fellow sinners, is that you are about to be included in that last part of the Pentecost miracle, for God has sent this preacher to you today. For I, too, have been given a relationship with the crucified and risen One. I have been given the gospel word and called to deliver it to you. And I have been given a tongue to speak to ears that are ready to hear.
This is the word for you, sinner, broken one, unbeliever. Listen closely. Jesus, dead for your sin and risen for your hope and joy, has made himself your Lord. He is given to you from the foundation of the world, that you, even you, might know God’s mercy. Not only that, but he has grafted himself to you so that his new life might be yours as well.
And if you wonder what you ought to do with that, well, there’s water in that font. You have a pastor in this congregation, and he is champing at the bit to attach God’s word of promise to that water and give you the kind of cleansing bath that only God can give. And if you’ve known that promise of Christ in the water, there is a meal that’s been cooked up to sustain those dripping wet from their divine bath. It’s a meal of simple bread and wine, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. It is Jesus body and blood. It is the whole relationship he’s established with you, tied up in a handy little, worldly package.
Instead of leaving you harping on the implausibility of it all or slapping a label on the purveyors of this unlikely miracle, today I pray the Spirit gives you the faith that frees you, sustains you, and gives you eternal life. I pray God so works in you that the world may look at you and say, “Humph, drunk,” and that that will be your chance to say, “No, not drunk. But let me tell you about my Lord.” And in that moment, the real miracle of Pentecost will still be alive and new and true – for you and for the world. Amen.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Winter driving
Psalm 147:12-20 Second Sunday in Christmas
To begin, note two things: First, winter weather in western South Dakota is fickle, not to be regarded lightly. The air never stops moving, even on the most clement, merciful and kind days. Second, when driving the normal three hours on the two-lane black-top from Pierre to Sturgis there are zero stop signs and not many more outposts of civilization.
I had done a burial at Black Hills National Cemetery and caught a ride back to Pierre in the hearse with the funeral director’s wife. I volunteered to drive. As the sun slid behind the mountains at our back, an early November blizzard brought the curl of its system up from the south. The road turned from black top to white top. The edge of the road was more often than not imaginary. Beside me, Trudy prayed and sang spiritual songs. The coffin carrier began to feel like a coffin itself, shrouded in a pall. Burial cloths whipping around us.
The psalmist says, “He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes. He hurls down hail like crumbs — who can stand before his cold?” (Psalm 147:16-17) Standing I can do. Driving, not so much. Thanks to my winter excursion in the Feigum Funeral Home hearse, I have a winter driving phobia. I fear slick roads and whiteout conditions. Pulling out of the garage in the midst of flurries gets my pulse racing. Who will save me from this auto body of death?
My phobia, of course, is that I will lose control. And if I think I can manage the rest of my life a bit better than I can slick roads, it’s only an illusion. I am out of control, spinning, slipping, sliding through my days. The forecast is for more of the same. The slick lane leads to the ditch. Beware all you other drivers, I may take you out on the way in.
I have no ability to find my way to sunnier climes or drier paths. If I’m to make it home, it can only come at God’s behest. My help is in the name of the Lord. He alone “sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.” (Psalm 147 18)
At the font comes God’s promise of an eternal January thaw. He declares his word and provides more than safe haven from the storm. He is the divine Climate Changer. The weather system sent by his holy wind brings a life-giving Word that thaws the road and the icy, controlling heart, for Christ’s forgiveness and mercy are not fickle. They can be counted on to carry home a dead person like me more surely than any hearse.
So in our winters we pray and sing spiritual songs, even in the most limited visibility, for we are even now being carried home. We pray and sing, even when spinning in the face of on-coming traffic, for the one who is the Way promises to bring us with him to the end, safe and secure. We sing and pray, for our deliverance in Christ Jesus is dawning. The bright day of Epiphany is on its way.
To begin, note two things: First, winter weather in western South Dakota is fickle, not to be regarded lightly. The air never stops moving, even on the most clement, merciful and kind days. Second, when driving the normal three hours on the two-lane black-top from Pierre to Sturgis there are zero stop signs and not many more outposts of civilization.
I had done a burial at Black Hills National Cemetery and caught a ride back to Pierre in the hearse with the funeral director’s wife. I volunteered to drive. As the sun slid behind the mountains at our back, an early November blizzard brought the curl of its system up from the south. The road turned from black top to white top. The edge of the road was more often than not imaginary. Beside me, Trudy prayed and sang spiritual songs. The coffin carrier began to feel like a coffin itself, shrouded in a pall. Burial cloths whipping around us.
The psalmist says, “He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes. He hurls down hail like crumbs — who can stand before his cold?” (Psalm 147:16-17) Standing I can do. Driving, not so much. Thanks to my winter excursion in the Feigum Funeral Home hearse, I have a winter driving phobia. I fear slick roads and whiteout conditions. Pulling out of the garage in the midst of flurries gets my pulse racing. Who will save me from this auto body of death?
My phobia, of course, is that I will lose control. And if I think I can manage the rest of my life a bit better than I can slick roads, it’s only an illusion. I am out of control, spinning, slipping, sliding through my days. The forecast is for more of the same. The slick lane leads to the ditch. Beware all you other drivers, I may take you out on the way in.
I have no ability to find my way to sunnier climes or drier paths. If I’m to make it home, it can only come at God’s behest. My help is in the name of the Lord. He alone “sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.” (Psalm 147 18)
At the font comes God’s promise of an eternal January thaw. He declares his word and provides more than safe haven from the storm. He is the divine Climate Changer. The weather system sent by his holy wind brings a life-giving Word that thaws the road and the icy, controlling heart, for Christ’s forgiveness and mercy are not fickle. They can be counted on to carry home a dead person like me more surely than any hearse.
So in our winters we pray and sing spiritual songs, even in the most limited visibility, for we are even now being carried home. We pray and sing, even when spinning in the face of on-coming traffic, for the one who is the Way promises to bring us with him to the end, safe and secure. We sing and pray, for our deliverance in Christ Jesus is dawning. The bright day of Epiphany is on its way.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Kicking and Saving
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Luke 1:39-42 (Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year C)
Apparently encountering Jesus is a real kick. Just ask Elizabeth. He was already at it in utero, John was. Kicking. Goading. Getting sinners' attention — even his mother, old cousin Elizabeth. Whoever knew a baby could prepare the way of the Lord?
But crazier yet, whoever knew a baby could be the Lord? Jesus: God contained, limited, enveloped within Mary's womb. Immortal, invisible, God only wise. In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes. He's limited himself to a warm, wet place. He's wrapped himself up within a package of skin cells. He's hidden himself within our human hide.
The coming of the Lord Emmanuel, God With Us, is to ransom captive Israel, and his first step is to cut us open. His simple coming lays claim to all of creation as his own. He takes what is his, no matter how hard we grasp and claw at it as ours.
Whether floating in amniotic fluid, wriggling in swaddling clothes, or wrapped in his final shroud, he says, "Mine. All mine. Every last bit of it!" And it's a blow to the sinner's solar plexus. All our striving for something beyond ourselves, our doing for God is for naught. Our little plans and projects are now eviscerated. They lie empty and exposed. Elizabeth got off easy with a little taekwondo kick to her insides.
And though you know your life is lost and your salvation project is null and void, there's something that's so much easier to see now. In claiming it all for himself, Christ our Lord turns you to the only one who has the power to give you life and who promises to do it.
If he claims it all as his, that means even a hollow-hearted sinner such as you belongs to him. Now it's you who is wrapped, contained and ensconced. And not just in your own flesh, but in the heart of God. The baby Jesus, the boy Jesus in the Temple, the Jesus tossing the moneychangers on their ear, the risen Jesus revealing himself in the bread at Emmaus -- he swathes you within the very will of God.
Christ is put on you. You are enveloped in his comforter, gathered up in the Holy Spirit.
That's quite a kick.
Apparently encountering Jesus is a real kick. Just ask Elizabeth. He was already at it in utero, John was. Kicking. Goading. Getting sinners' attention — even his mother, old cousin Elizabeth. Whoever knew a baby could prepare the way of the Lord?
But crazier yet, whoever knew a baby could be the Lord? Jesus: God contained, limited, enveloped within Mary's womb. Immortal, invisible, God only wise. In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes. He's limited himself to a warm, wet place. He's wrapped himself up within a package of skin cells. He's hidden himself within our human hide.
The coming of the Lord Emmanuel, God With Us, is to ransom captive Israel, and his first step is to cut us open. His simple coming lays claim to all of creation as his own. He takes what is his, no matter how hard we grasp and claw at it as ours.
Whether floating in amniotic fluid, wriggling in swaddling clothes, or wrapped in his final shroud, he says, "Mine. All mine. Every last bit of it!" And it's a blow to the sinner's solar plexus. All our striving for something beyond ourselves, our doing for God is for naught. Our little plans and projects are now eviscerated. They lie empty and exposed. Elizabeth got off easy with a little taekwondo kick to her insides.
And though you know your life is lost and your salvation project is null and void, there's something that's so much easier to see now. In claiming it all for himself, Christ our Lord turns you to the only one who has the power to give you life and who promises to do it.
If he claims it all as his, that means even a hollow-hearted sinner such as you belongs to him. Now it's you who is wrapped, contained and ensconced. And not just in your own flesh, but in the heart of God. The baby Jesus, the boy Jesus in the Temple, the Jesus tossing the moneychangers on their ear, the risen Jesus revealing himself in the bread at Emmaus -- he swathes you within the very will of God.
Christ is put on you. You are enveloped in his comforter, gathered up in the Holy Spirit.
That's quite a kick.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
On Being Lutheran but not "Lutheran"
A (belated) sermon for Reformation Sunday
Most semesters I get to teach a course called "Dynamics of Christian Faith and Life." Like most of my classes it's usually populated with a good mix of 19 and 20-year-olds, all of whom are at this incredibly important point in their development, exploring who they are, what they believe and what earthly good they might be in the world. About three times a semester in that class we play a fun game called "Stump the Professor." Students get to put me on the spot by writing down anonymous questions on slips of paper, and I get to try answering. It never fails that one of these fresh-faced young adults, looking for a place to be in the world asks the denomination question. "How do I know which church is the best when they all say they have the truth?" I know what's appropriate in a classroom, so I say, "Well, my family and I are members at Faith Lutheran Church, the Best Buy church on University. But you need to figure out what it is you're looking for and land where it's the right fit."Standing in front of you today, though, I can come clean. I'm Lutheran. I can't help being Lutheran. Being Lutheran is like breathing for me. It keeps me alive. And I'll tell you why.
I'm Lutheran because of what I believe. And boy do I ever believe a bunch of stuff. I can believe 30 things before I crawl out of bed in the morning. I believe that I can accomplish anything, if I just want it hard enough. I believe that I'll be able to stave off a miserable death from colon cancer if I eat a fiber-rich diet that gives me happy poop. I believe my future is in my own hands. I believe my wife has stuck with me for 19 years, because I'm lovable, likable and still have most of my hair. I believe that the little bit more in consumer goods that I accumulate every week, every month, every year, is a good thing – sure to make my life happy, because, as I also believe, more is better. I believe that we're in good enough shape financially to be able to have the church do an automatic withdrawal from our account each month. I believe my son is so talented, handsome and bright that there's nothing but glory ahead of him after high school, thanks to my genes. I believe in the aw-shucks cuteness of puppies, in the beauty of trees at the height of fall color and in a piping hot bowl of red beans and rice – all of it a sign of the existence of a glorious, marvelous, awesome God who accepts me just as I am. Oh, I believe. I really do. In all of it. And much, much more. I expect I'm not much different than you on that count. I believe that all of this is true.
And the reason I'm Lutheran is that what I believe, everything I believe, every last single thing I believe...is wrong. I'm Lutheran because not only is all that stuff wrong, it's dead wrong. None of it's true, and believing it has all kinds of possible consequences, but only one that is inevitable, certain and sure. What I believe will get me only one thing – a hole in the ground big enough to lower my body in when my power, glory and potential are over with. I'm Lutheran because day after day, when I look honestly at myself, what I believe in is me. And I want you to believe in me, too.
At first glance that's a pretty fine place to be. Look at me. I'm free to choose the life in front of me. Let's hook elbows and go forward into progress. It'll be sunshine, rainbows and lollipops. Well, there's that ache I get in my right knee when I walk too long. Yes, I know. There's also that time I took my son on a college visit to LA and stood at a car-rental counter at midnight with an expired driver's license. That wasn't my best moment of having my poop in a group. I know I'm not perfect. But the life I believe in will still be good, won't it? At least I've got my intentions rightly placed. I want to get better. I'm planning for my retirement. I got myself tenured at a good school, which means there's a tuition benefit for my kid. And I still have my potential. What's that you say? You want me to remember what the past month has been like? A wife and son sick in bed with colds. And then my son with a five-day fever and a another week of school missed. And my wife healthy one day and then in the hospital for a week with a staph infection. I can't wait to see that hospital bill. Even though I believe we'll be able to deal with it, thanks to our monthly insurance contributions, it's put some fear deep down inside me. I'm just a breath away from disaster. Maybe it'll be deeper cuts in state government that force a lay-off for my wife. Or an illness that hits my son that NyQuil, Tylenol and Mucinex can't handle. Blood coming from a place on my body that hasn't been cut. A lump that wasn't there before. A phone call from a family member that says, "I came home and she was dead." Or the doctor who says to me, "It's cancer and it's a fast one." Or how about the late-night drive home on the freeway and the lights that suddenly come across the median toward my lane. I believe. I believe. I believe. I really believe. I really do. But what will believing in my potential, my value, my promise, my good intentions or myself do for me then?
I'm Lutheran because of what I believe and because of what little good it does me. In our gospel reading today, Jesus says, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." I'm Lutheran, because the first part of knowing the truth is knowing what is not the truth. Ever since Luther's first hammer-fall on the nail holding up the 95 Theses in 16th Century Germany, we've been reminded of the world's most important distinction. To use Steve Paulson's words, God slices our reality in two, into what is Christ and what is not Christ. There's all kinds of stuff at work in the world, all kinds of intentions, all kinds of talents, gifts and powers, and, no matter how good or powerful any of them are, they are not Christ. They don't have the power to save me. I'm Lutheran because I'm so dang-blasted weary of what I believe, because I'm so tired of having to confect my days, invent my future and secure and protect what is rightfully mine. Once the truth gets told that what I have and hope to be is simply nothing, well, there's nothing to grab onto and keep safe anymore. Sure, my life, my family, my stuff -- it's all a good gift. But in the long run, it's nothing if it isn't Christ. If I keep grasping after my illusions of control and contentment, my actions begin to look like flailing at thin air.
I'm Lutheran because getting that truth out is crucial. It's the crux of everything. The literal cross road. I remember that I am dust and to dust I shall return. I confess that I can't believe enough. I confess that I don't believe. I confess that I won't believe in anything less than myself unless I'm forced to do it. And I finally let go when my powerlessness is clear. When exactly have I ever prayed to God, trusting in more than myself? When has it been that I've resorted to God's Word as the one place I could find hope? When have I ever been able to admit the truth of something like "Footprints in the Sand," which religious sophisticates love to mock? It's only when the bottom has dropped out – when I'm worn down to nothing and the only thing left to believe is that I'm being carried along by the one who carried his own cross. I'm Lutheran because I know the narrow nothingness where I, too, hang crucified with Jesus, with a voice too hoarse to speak my final plaintive cry, "My God. My God. Why have you forsaken me?"
I'm Lutheran because once there's nothing left I can grasp, work toward and assert, there is a Word that comes. One little Word that is not a what but a who. One little Word who has the power of eternity in his little finger and who subdues the devil, the world and my sinful self. This one remaining Word is the gospel that has been preached for nigh these 500 years since Luther, the 2000 years since Paul wrote Romans, and the timeless eons since God first looked at creation and said, "Tov me'od. Way good." Now that I know what is not Christ, what is Christ comes as glorious good news. Jesus is God for me. Jesus is my Lord – not a wimpy God who merely nods and accepts me but one who takes my disastrous attempts to conjure a life and makes the dead, old me new. My being Lutheran has so very little to do with a structure, institution and denomination that carries Luther's name and everything to do with Jesus' death and resurrection – and mine.
I'm Lutheran because Jesus is the one, the only to whom Luther, Paul, Peter, Mary Magdalene and the Ethiopian eunuch could point. I'm Lutheran because when I was a skinny little bed-wetter, my Sunday school teachers June Aldrin and Bob Lee gave Jesus to me, made sure I knew he was for me. I'm Lutheran because even when every attempt at being more religious and spiritual in college, from wanting to speak in tongues to reading my Bible every day, came to naught, I could go to worship and hear my campus pastor Mark Jerstad bring the truth back. I could confess my sin and hear an absolution that broke open a future with forgiveness as its linchpin. I'm Lutheran because if all I had to go on was the potential and power the world says I have inside me, then I would be lost, most to be pitied, and without a shred of hope. I'm Lutheran because the truth sets me free. I'm Lutheran because this is the proclamation given to me. Jesus Christ, true God from eternity and true human being, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord. I'm Lutheran because it's not something I have to believe. It's not something I can ponder and nod assent to. It's not something I'm called forward to choose and turn my life over to. I'm Lutheran because Christ has made himself my Lord, pulling me out of the drowning waters of baptism and the death that is my life, with no choice or surrender of my own. I'm Lutheran because Jesus wants to feed me the flesh and blood he's given up for my sake. I'm Lutheran because he's not a belief, but the one person, the only one I can fully trust. I'm Lutheran because my Lord promises that where there is trust, I have a future that is better than any I could create. It's eternal. It's rich. It's true. And it keep setting me free.
So that's why I'm here. I'm Lutheran, galdernit, because what I believe is wrong as wrong can be. I'm Lutheran because the only one who is right and just is giving me new life. And how about you? In the face of his truth, are you also done believing, crafting, grasping and creating yourself and your future? Are you also not now drawn into trust and faith? Are you not also his, forgiven and set free? That's not just true. It's life itself. Amen.
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