"To Be A Hero" - Pentecost C

Genesis 11:1-9
Acts 2:1-21

Charles Dickens began the book David Copperfield with these words:  “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”1

Those brave men who, “In the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944 ... crawled down swaying cargo nets and thudded into steel landing craft bound for the Normandy coast” were heros. Their senses were soon choked with the smells of wet canvas gear, seawater and acrid clouds of powder from the huge naval guns firing just over their heads”2 but they pressed on.

They all probably left American soil with tears in their eyes asking one question running through their minds: “Where am I going, and when am I coming back.”3
 

When asked to describe D-day by Shepard Smith Cpl. John McHugh described it this way:  “Well D-Day was– you really can’t describe D-Day. You’re so, you’re petrified. You’re absolutely petrified,” said McHugh. 

“It’s hell. It’s just hell on Earth. I can’t describe it any better. I don’t think anyone can really describe it.   It’s - needless to say, I had a bad day.”

Shep then asked him about his “big picture considerations back then, such as that they were fighting for freedom.”

“I was in the Army, and they told me to go that way, and I went that way,” came the veteran’s veteran reply. He added later “You know, you get drafted. You had to do it, and I did it. Did it pretty good, too."4

That is the way it is with heros, real heros.  They don’t get up at nine o’clock in the morning and say to themselves: “Today I am going to do something heroic.”
 

Heroism is something that gets thrust upon you and whether you become one or not only the pages of you own life can show.

The people of Babel were going to write their own story in which they were the heros.  They were going to make themselves superstars in the world of pre-history construction.

They said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let’s make ourselves famous so we won’t be scattered here and there across the Earth.”

It’s all about them!  We’ll do this and we’ll do that and our work will reach up to heaven. 
 

But God knows that, as Harry Carey used to say, “There is danger here, Sharie.” So God says to God’s self:  “‘One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they’ll come up with next—they’ll stop at nothing! Come, we’ll go down and garble their speech so they won’t understand each other.’” Then God scattered them from there all over the world.”5

When left to our own devises humans can cause such things as a D-Day to become necessary.  Left on our own there is no telling what we will do but when God is at work in our lives there is no telling what we can do.

It is nine o’clock in the morning when we find the disciples huddled in their room not knowing what they should do.  They were doing what Jesus told them.  They were waiting for some kind of gift.  They didn’t know what it would be or how it would be delivered but then it came.
 

The wind came.  What was first heard was then seen.  Tongues of fire appearing among them and resting on the head of every believer as if they were human candles.
 

Sufficiently frightened while, at the same time, inspired by the Holy Spirit they began to speak in other languages.  This was not gibberish, this was not babble, they were speaking in other languages each of which could be understood by all the curious onlookers who gathered around.
 

It was nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit was at work.
 

It was nine o’clock in the morning and some of the awestruck bystanders concluded that the followers of Jesus were tipsy.  That’s the only kind of conclusion we can make if we focus on the mayhem coming from the disciple’s at that early morning hour.
 

Pentecost is more than wind, fire, and a crash course in foreign languages.  It is the announcement that God’s involvement with human life did not end with Jesus’ Ascension.  It is the startling realization that God is going to be involved in your life and mine no matter who we are or, frankly, even what we believe.  God is going to bring out the best in us just as God was doing in Peter.

Here, before the half-inquiring, half-mocking crowd, Peter is the first, the very first, to lift up his voice and proclaim openly the word that only a few weeks before he could not speak to a serving woman at midnight.  The Spirit had breathed new life into a cowardly disciple and created a new man with a gift of bold speech.6

 Peter was becoming a hero at that nine o’clock hour.  Gail O’Day was right on the mark when she wrote:

There are days, oh so many days, when we are “sore afraid.” Afraid of the decisions we have to make, the risks we have to take.  Afraid of what happens when we do listen to Jesus’ promises, afraid of what happens when we do not.  Afraid that the world ... is the victor and we will live forever without hope and joy.  Afraid we will be crushed before we find the strength to be faithful to God’s promises for our lives and our world.7

 It is then the Spirit comes to write new chapters in the pages of our books.  The Spirit comes to make us heroes in our own way. 
 

We’re not all going to be a Churchill or an Eisenhower, or even heroes who floated around in the waters of the Pacific for a couple of hours (which must have seemed like an eternity) after our ship had been sunk, but that doesn’t mean that the Spirit isn’t at work in us and in our lives.
 

Pentecost was a unique event within the life of the church.  Pentecost was a dramatic sign to show that the Spirit’s work is bringing all people to a unity of understanding in Jesus Christ.

Whenever people come together and community happens in families, churches and neighborhoods, it’s nine o’clock in the morning and the Spirit is at work making heros.
 

Whenever fresh winds blow and you feel like you did the first time you saw Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”.  It’s still the same sky that you’ve seen but everything is different, better, more passionate.  The blues, the yellows, the swirling stars, everything has feeling, movement and even the colors seem alive.
 

It’s like lying on one of Monet’s water lilies.  It’s the warmth of a Georgia O’Keefe flower wrapped around you.  It’s the power and strength of a Degas dancer.

 When you feel that, it’s nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit is at work, making heros.

Where human life is most human - when athletes and physicians, dancers and attorneys, teachers and politicians and homemakers reach deep inside to give more, and create more, and be more human... 8

 ...it’s nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit is at work, making heroes.

When churches rise up and become great realizing that the Gospel is not just for us or aimed at “Parthians and Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesoptamia” (Whoever they were?) but for all people - Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, married, never-married, divorced, gay, straight - it’s nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit is at work making heroes.

And when our own life is depleted and we are literally and figuratively out of breath and .and quietly we feel restoration happen and vitality return...9

...it’s nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit is at work, making heroes.
 

When individuals come together and exercise their rights to celebrate their differences and see in those differences see unity the Spirit, God’s Spirit, is at work making heroes.
 

Hey!  It’s almost 10:15!  God’s Spirit must be at work.  Let’s go find out where and how. 

______________

1.   Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (Harlow: Penguin, 2008), p.  1.

2.  David Chrisinger, "The Man Who Told America the Truth About D-Day," The New York Times, June 05, 2019, published June 5, 2019 , accessed June 08, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/magazine/d-day-normandy-75th-ernie-pyle.html.

3.  Tom Strong, "Memories of World War II Still Strong for Aurora Veteran," The Beacon-News (Aurora, Illinois), May 26, 2006, sec. 1.

4.  Caleb-Howe, "Shepard Smith Talks to D-Day Hero in Gripping, Emotional Interview: 'We Were Absolutely Petrified'," Mediaite, June 06, 2019, , accessed June 08, 2019, https://www.mediaite.com/tv/shepard-smith-talks-to-d-day-hero-in-gripping-emotional-interview-we-were-absolutely-petrified/.

5.  Genesis 11:4 & 6-9 (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

6.  William H. Willimon, Acts: Interpretation Bible Commentary, vol. 21, 33 vols. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).  p.  33.

7.   Gail R. O'Day, "From Fear to Joy," Pulpit Digest 73, no. 515 (May/June 1992).  p.  11.

8.  John M. Buchanan, "Like a Breath of Fresh Air" (Sunday Morning Sermon, The Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, June 4, 1995).

9.  ibid.

Trinity C - "Talking Trinity"

Psalm 8
John 16:12-15

The year was 325 and my guess is that as many people cared about what was going on in the small city of Nicea in the center of Turkey as do now which is to say, not very many.  Over the years the city’s name has been changed to Iznik but what was done there effects what we do in this place and places like it almost every Sunday.  

That year the city hosted a religious conclave bourn out of a religious and political necessity. 

Emperor Constantine had converted to Christianity right before his conquest of Rome in October of 312 and quickly went about making the empire a Christian nation.  His goal was that the nation be united politically and theologically.

Standing in his way was a bishop named Arius of Alexander who held that God was a static God.  The creator of all things but then not involved in creation.  For him Jesus was human but not divine having no direct knowledge of God the creator.
 

He was opposed by Athanasius of Alexandrea who held that God was a dynamic self-giving God who in Jesus held nothing back.
 

Constantine saw this division as having the potential to split Christianity and the emperor called a council to “talk Trinity” and settle the matter.1  The primary document produced at the Council of Nicea is a creed that many churches recite every Sunday - the Nicene Creed.
 

We say it but we don’t talk about what we are saying much because “talking trinity” is not only hard but a little boring.
 

It may be something that is better experienced.

Dr.  Scott Walker, not the governor of Wisconsin but the professor of Christian Growth at Mercer University, gave us one experience when he “talked Trinity” in his book Where the River Flows.\
 

He grew up in rural Georgia and remembered that, as a teenager, he and his buddies used to cruise the town not on the internet but in their cars looking for some sort of excitement.  Finding none he would often return home disappointed and go out in back of his house and just look at the sky.
 

It has been my cathedral, my high vaulted place of worship; my dark blanket which has brought me the warmth of God.  Conversely it has also been the place where I had been brought into the stark fear of the holy.2

I hope you have had experiences like that in your life because, if you have your “talking Trinity.” 

When we look up into the night sky and see, in the mystery of stars and space, a far greater mystery, we’re “talking Trinity.” It is not something we can easily put into words because it is the magical wonderment of the greatness of God and the reassurance of God’s presence. 
 

It is also something that might cause us to exclaim half in question, half in confession, “what are human beings that you spare a thought for them?”3
 

There have been times in all of our lives when events and circumstances have led to awe at the greatness of God and to wonder if God, who is so vast and so marvelous, does indeed have time to spare a thought for us. 
 

God as creator can only bring us so far which why we need God as redeemer.
 

There are those who claim that they can discover all there is to know about God in their gardens, or on a golf course, or quietly reading the Scriptures to themselves and then praying alone in their own room.  But sometimes these individualized paths to faith do not hold up in troubled times.  It is then we need to talk Trinity.

 Retired pastor, Dr.  Fred R. Anderson wondered once in a sermon:

What makes you think the divine arms are wide open?  Are you a Rotarian, a Wall Street Banker, a father, a mother, a physician, a retired person, a singer, writer, teacher, scientist, or educator?  Of all the choices out there [only] the church tells you that you are first and foremost a child of God.4

The church is where I learned how to “talk Trinity” even if I didn’t even know what I was talking about.  I was there to sing the songs in Sunday School but  around me were people who not only told me about Jesus but showed me in real ways the power of God’s love and the acceptance of the Holy Spirit in such a way that I saw God working in them and through them.  This made a  made a powerful impression of me.

There have to be people like that for you!  Some person at home, or at work, or at school, or on the baseball field came into your life and “talked Trinity” in such a way that you knew that you belonged to God.
 

That’s the way most of us have experienced the faith.  Not in the grand gesture but in the simple act of one who has reached out to us and by that very act reminded us that we are children of God. 
 

Sometimes those moments are hard for us to remember so we need the Spirit to come and remind us. 
 

The Holy Spirit is probably the most elusive actor in the Trinity.  It’s hard to define, hard to pin down.  Most often we see it in our brothers and sisters who are Spirit filled. 
 

Pentecostals seem to have cornered the market on the Holy Spirit and in their worship and lives its presence is quite evident.  There is speaking in tougues which, unlike inthe original Pentecost event where everybody could understand, these utterances nobody can understand.  There can be dancing in the aisle and waving of hands.  On occasion there ever are people who are “slain in the Spirit” who seem to faint dead away.
 

It can all be a little overwhelming for the rest of us who like our worship orderly and we may think we are missing out on something. 
 

We are not. The Spirit does have to overwhelm only to remind.  And that reminder can come anywhere in myriads of ways.
 

Sometimes we may be surprised that we played a part in the Spirit’s reminder.
 

Long ages ago I asked Dr.  Elam Davies, a retired pastor who once was named one of Time Magazine’s Ten Great Preachers in America to come and preach at an anniversary service of a church I was then serving.
 

You cannot imagine my surprise when I opened a collection of sermons he was featured in and read these words.

I was preaching at a Anniversary Lutheran service ... a special reunion of past and present members and friends.

There was a communion service ... in which the Pastor gave the elements to those of us kneeling in the chancel.  I shall never forget the experience!  Quietly he gave me the bread and wine, each time addressing me personally, “Elam, Receive the body of Christ broken for you!  Receive the blood of Christ shed for you!”

Do you wonder why I was so deeply moved?  Suddenly, the “heart of the universe” knew my name and declared that I was worth it!  I now, as never before, experienced what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, “The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”

This is the most humbling and exalting of experiences.  The most searching and affirming of moments.  When God tells you that you count without measure ... you can get up again, forgiven, renewed, confident, “standing tall” inspite of what others (or we ourselves) have done to us.5

Actually this ancient doctrine is not just something we recite from rote in our worship it’s something we experience everyday.

Every time we are moved to wonder at the grandeur of God and in that experience feel God’s love we’re “talking Trinity.” 

Every time we have an experience of the Spirit of God moving us closer to Jesus and we feel “renewed, refreshed, restored”, whether we know it our not, we’re talking Trinity.
 

We may not “talk Trinity” but we experience Trinity everyday in many ways.  All of these experiences point us to God and make them well worth having.
 

Don’t you think?  

_____________

1.  http://www.classichistory.net/archives/constantine-christianity

2.  Scott Walker, Where the River Flows  (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helyn, 2002)

3   Psalm 8:5.  (JB)   [JB=The Jerusalem Bible]

4.  Fred R. Anderson, "Why the Church - Who Needs It" (Sermon, Sunday Worship, Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, New York, May 2, 1999)  

5.  Elam Davies, “God’s Secret of Renewed Self-Esteem” in Best Sermons II, James W.  Cox, ed.   (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), p.  294

"Who Believes in You" - Tansfiguartion C

Saint John 17:20-26

Late May and early June are the seasons for graduations and commencements.

I have always loved the colors if not the excitement of a good college commencement.  The robes which often matched the school colors, the academic hoods to signify the degree, and the hats.  Of course the hats where  mortarboards, berets, and the occasional biretta on the clergy make for a spectacle worthy of opening day at Ascot or the Kentucky derby.

I have saved a card from my last commencement because it summed up the occasion perfectly.  “Graduation.”  it said.  “A time when really smart people dress up in really stupid outfits.”

Every commencement worthy of the name has to have a speaker.  A man or woman is required to get up and say something.  The something they say is usually some “out the door” advice to students who would rather be “out the door” than listening to advice. 

If you are at a really famous university chances are you will have a really famous speaker.  If you are at a smaller school you’ll probably hear from a major donor or a crony of one of the trustees.  In the latter case you probably won’t even know who it is.

I wonder how many students in the 2014 graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin knew who Admiral William H.  McCraven was.

He was profiled recently on CBS News Sunday Morning and even though the piece was about his retirement from the Navy after leading missions to Iran and Afghanistan and commanding the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound when I saw him I said to Lowell, “He’s the ‘make your bed’ guy!”

It still amazes the Admiral that a little commencement speech he made five years ago is what he is most remembered for.

Here is the part of the presentation that went viral.

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Viet Nam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed.

If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack-rack—that’s Navy talk for bed.

It was a simple task—mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle hardened SEALs—but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.

By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.

And if by chance your have had a miserable day you will come home to a bed that’s made - made by you - and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.1

 In today’s gospel we are listening to Jesus’ last minute instructions.  This may seem strange because we are seven Sundays into the Easter season and almost to the day of Pentecost but the instructions from Jesus that we read today come before the crucifixion.  The crowds of thousands are long gone and he is alone with his disciples in a private quarter of Jerusalem.  Immediately afterward in John’s gospel he heads to the garden site where he is arrested. \

He concludes his instructions with a prayer.  It is a powerful prayer for them and for us.  Listen carefully to the words again from another translation:  “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message...”2

That’s us.  That is you and me.  Jesus is praying for us.  Jesus is praying for this church.

What if we really believed that?  What if we really lived into the promise that Jesus is not only hoping the best but praying the best for us?  What if we remembered that, in his darkest hour, Jesus fell to his knees and prayed for us?

It makes a difference when a person prays for you and believes in you.

Here is how that might work from a Rick Reilly column on espn.com when he wrote about the “the oddest game in high school football history ...down in Grapevine, Texas. It was Grapevine Faith vs. Gainesville State School and everything about it was upside down.”

This all started when Faith's head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team. Faith had never played Gainesville, but he already knew the score. After all, Faith was 7-2 going into the game, Gainesville 0-8 with 2 TDs all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the latest equipment and involved parents. Gainesville has a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery—many of whose families had disowned them—wearing seven-year-old shoulder pads and ancient helmets.

So Hogan had this idea. What if half of our fans—for one night only—cheered for the other team? He sent out an email asking the Faithful to do just that. "Here's the message I want you to send:" Hogan wrote. "You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth."

Some people were naturally confused. One Faith player walked into Hogan's office and asked, "Coach, why are we doing this?"

And Hogan said, "Imagine if you didn't have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you."

[So] when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through.  They even made a banner for players to crash through at the end. It said, "Go Tornadoes!" Which is also weird, because Faith is the Lions.

More than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on—by name. [T]he Gainesville Tornadoes were turning around on their bench to see something they never had before. Hundreds of fans. And actual cheerleaders!

"I thought maybe they were confused," said Alex, a Gainesville lineman (only first names are released by the prison). "They started yelling 'DEE-fense!' when their team had the ball. I said, 'What? Why they cheerin' for us?'"

As one might expect Grapevine Faith beat the Gainesville State Tornados by a whopping 33-14.

After the game, both teams gathered in the middle of the field to pray and that's when Isaiah surprised everybody by asking to lead. "We had no idea what the kid was going to say," remembers Coach Hogan. But Isaiah said this: "Lord, I don't know how this happened, so I don't know how to say thank You, but I never would've known there was so many people in the world that cared about us."3

People of God the good news for you this morning is that somebody cares about you.  Somebody is even praying for you. 

As you go about the everyday tasks of the day be they great or small someone cares about you.  When you face the greatest struggles of life somebody believes in you and is praying for you.

And that somebody is no less than Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thanks for listening.

________________

1.  William H. McRaven, "Find Courage to Change the World" (speech), June 17, 2014, accessed May 31, 2019, https://news.utexas.edu/2014/05/16/mcraven-urges-graduates-to-find-courage-to-change-the-world/.

2.  St. John 17:20.  (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]

3.  Rick Reilly, "Life of Reilly," ESPN, May 12, 2014, , accessed June 01, 2019, http://www.espn.com/espn/rickreilly/news/story?id=3789373.
 

"Wierdos Welcome" - Easter 5C

Saint Peter Contemplates Who Gets In

Acts 11:1-18

“Weirdos Welcomed”

One of the Lutheran Church’s best pastors and thinkers is Nadia Boltz-Weber. 

If you were to meet her you might be taken aback by the fact that she sports tattoos clearly visible on her arms and has an over-all smokie, gothic look.  Like the rest of us she has more than a few faults that she readily admits. 

I have heard her speak a couple of times and on each occasion she wowed the audience with her wisdom and wit.  I even had the pleasure of acting as her host for a synod conference that I used to chair and found her delightful.

Pastor Bolz-Weber’s claim to fame is her founding of a Lutheran church in Denver called House for All Saints and Sinners which she described as “a little indie boutique of a church” that attracts people who might never feel comfortable in a traditional congregation.  A congregations like Our Saviour.

I’ve been to off-shoots of churches like this and while I have found them interesting to sample I also knew that over time they would not be my cup of tea.  The constant Sunday after Sunday trendiness would leave the traditionalist in me longing for something more constant.

After House for all Saints and Sinners had been featured in the Denver Post Pastor Bolz-Weber felt conflicted as more and more people came to visit the church.  Experiencing what would make most churches ecstatic the congregation and the pastor became troubled. Their problem was that the visitors weren’t at all like them.

Here is how the visitors were described by Pastor Bolz-Weber:

[They] were a bunch of people, baby boomers who wore Dockers and ate at Applebee’s, who had driven in from the suburbs to consume our worship service because it was neat and so much cooler and more authentic than anything they could create themselves. It felt horrible and I became angry.1

Do you see the irony here?  The people that Pastor Bolz-Weber and her congregation were trying to exclude were people like us - you and me - because we weren’t like them.  In their world view we would be the outsiders and they would be the insiders.  Hard as it may be to believe for those of us gathered at Our Savior’s we would be a threat to their way of doing things.  They would be afraid that our traditionalism would eventually triumph over their free-spirit creativity.

In one way or another this is a problem that has been around for the church since the time of Saint Peter’s first missionary journey.  He would understand the conflict perfectly.

The great saint has been is a roll.  By the eleventh chapter of Acts he is walking around preaching the gospel, spreading love, healing the paralyzed simply by walking near-by, even raising the dead.  He’s so popular that even outsiders - people who had no connection to Judaism or Jesus - were inviting him into their homes for a little coffee and conversation.  Peter accepts the invitation of one of them named Cornelius who is a Gentile, for a little gab and grub.

For this act and because the church has always been the church Peter gets hauled before the council of First Church Jerusalem. 

He is greeted not with a parade to celebrate his faithful discipleship and his amazing acts of healing and hope.  He is greeted with consternation and condemnation for defying the fundamentals of his Jewish tradition by eating with Cornelius and his household. 

[His accusers] express deep concern that Peter has lost perspective and ignored the divine imperative not to associate with, much less to engage in table fellowship, with those who were unclean.2

The key to understanding this passage is that we are the outsiders.

Just as the good people of the Church of All Sinners and Saints saw the Docker wearing and Appleby’s eating visitors as threats the church council of Jerusalem saw gentiles as dangers.  To the Jewish mind we are still and will always be gentiles.  So both groups would look askance at us. 

Just as to a faithful Jew we are gentiles and to the faithful at Pastor Bolz-Weber’s church we are just too normal.  In either case we - Yes!  You  and I - would be the interlopers that both groups might be tempted to exclude.  We might have remained on the outside were it not for Peter’s vision.

When he gets called back to Jerusalem to face the music his first response is that this was not idea.  This was God’s idea, he explains.  

I fell into a trance and saw a vision: Something like a huge blanket, lowered by ropes at its four corners, came down out of heaven and settled on the ground in front of me. Milling around on the blanket were farm animals, wild animals, reptiles, birds—you name it, it was there. Fascinated, I took it all in.

“Then I heard a voice: ‘Go to it, Peter—kill and eat.’ I said, ‘Oh, no, Master. I’ve never so much as tasted food that wasn’t kosher.’ The voice spoke again: ‘If God says it’s okay, it's okay.'3

 Then he asks the key question to that first century church, House for All Saints and Sinners, Our Saviour, and every church in Christendom.  “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”4

 If God is speaking and an eclectic group of people are gathering in a coffee house and singing songs that would never make it into any mainstream church’s hymnal, who are we to argue.

If God is speaking to a middle class group of people like us who wear nice clothes to church - dockers, sports jackets, suits, wing-tips, Topsiders - and whose restaurant of choice may be TGIF rather than Applebee’s, who is anybody to object?

If God is speaking to charismatics waving their hands and speaking in tongues or Quakers sitting in silence waiting for that same Spirit to move, how can anybody stand in God’s way?

If God is leading anyone, by any means, to a repentance that leads to life, who is anybody to argue?

This is a message that needs to be heard by everyone who thinks they have it all together and that there are others that don’t.  This message of exclusion is one that reaches from the wealthiest of the wealthy to the poorest of the poor and it is one that divides rather than unites people who have been called to proclaim the Gospel.

Not long ago I was asked to serve on the board of a Lutheran Campus Ministry at the prestigious University on the North Shore where the seminary I attended was located.

Because their congregation was made up exclusively of college and graduate students who were incurring enormous debt to get an education the ministry was always scrounging for money.

There was a Lutheran church on the south side of town and another on the north side with no place to worship anyplace near what was called the “ministry center.”

As with most board meetings the conversation was more about money than ministry and I got to thinking about people I knew.  

I thought about the young couple who had twins under the age of three who weren’t particularly faithful not because they didn’t want to come to church be but because even if they started getting ready for church at 8 A.M. by the time they got their children dressed, ready, strapped into their car seats, removed from the car seats because one of them had to go to the bathroom, and stopped them from fussing the only worship they could attend was the 5 P.M. “last chance mass” at Saint Monica’s.  
What if we told them there was a “ministry center” with preaching and a full Eucharist every Sunday that they could walk to and would welcome them?  

I thought about the older person with the broken hip who might have lived three doors away and who couldn’t drive yet but who could hobble over?  Wouldn’t it be great to reach out to them?

I thought about how good it would be for the students to worship and fellowship with people who were not like them. 

When I spoke my thoughts aloud it was like I was facing same people who Peter faced at the First Council of Jerusalem.  

The pastor’s response was (And how I wish I was making this up!):  “As long as they are not weirdos.”it’s okay.’

I thought she was kidding and said, “Hey!  Hey!  I’m a weirdo and I resent that remark.” The lack of laughter told me that she was not joking in the least.

In some places people who might need the Gospel that leads to life  must live up to some arbitrary standard that we are creating on the fly - before they can join the fellowship.  They are welcome so long as they are not “weird.”  A stipulation that would exclude not only me but almost everybody I know or would choose to be associated with.

It’s a hard lesson to learn but every time we exclude anybody we hinder God.

I think my pastor, The Rev’d Shannon Kershner, who serves Fourth Presbyterian in downtown Chicago is closer to catching the spirit of Peter’s vision. 

From the outside, with its location on the Magnificent Mile, Fourth looks like it would only serve the best and the brightest, and it does.  However, on any given Sunday there are also the least, the lost, and the lonely sitting in the sanctuary.  At coffee hour there is not only the well quaffed who you would expect to be there but also people who have everything they own in their backpacks.

Here is what Pastor Kershner said when she preached on this text.

God takes our boundaries; God takes our stereotypes; God takes our rules; God takes our expectations; God takes all of that and often God looks at ... it and says, No. I don’t have favorites. Your limits, your litmus tests, your fears—none of that limits me. I embrace whom I embrace and guess what, God says, I have got really long arms.5

 For me, my fellow weirdos, and weirdo wanna-bes the idea that God has long enough arms to reach across any artificial barriers that might be created is good news.
 
For all of you who have ever felt excluded in any way the idea that we have all been embraced by God’s love is good news too.  It is nothing less than the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ - the Gospel that leads to life.

Don’t you think?

____________

1.  Nadia Bolz Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint. (New York, NY: Jerico Books, 2014), p.  178-187.

2.   Gary W. Charles, "Acts 11:1-18. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture," in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C. ed., vol. 2 (Louisvill, KY: Westminister-John Knox Press, 2018), p.  249-250.

3.   Acts 11:5-9 (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

4,  Acts 11:17.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

Shannon J. Kershner, "Hindering" (Sermon, Sunday Morning Worship, The Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, April 24, 2016).  http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2016/042416.html

5.  

Shepherd > Sheep > Shepherd - Easter 4C

Psalm 23
Saint John 10:22-30 & 21:15-19

At the Tuesday Morning Bible Study I attend one of the members wondered about the effectiveness of street preachers.

I must confess that, as yet, I haven’t spent enough time in Aurora to have run into any but I am sure they are there.  In downtown Chicago it is impossible to walk four blocks without seeing or hearing one.

They are easy to spot with their signs that usually read something like “Repent or Die” or “The Wages of Sin is Death” and their bullhorn blasts condemning all who pass by to the fires of hell unless they embrace Jesus in the exact same way they have embraced Jesus.

My bible study friend, one of the kindest men I know, wondered if they get any takers.  He wondered if people really respond to their message.  He wondered if anybody ever went up to them and engaged in conversation.  He wondered if their efforts led to any converts. 

While everyone in the group had seen street preachers none had actually spoken to one.  They usually give them a wide berth and pass by.  If they run into one they say something like, “I’m late.  I gotta go.” Or, and I’ve never dared to use this one on anybody who was abrasive but I would love to someday, “I’m sorry, I’d like to stay and chat but I think my appendix just burst.”

I am not so sure that bellowing at people on a street corner while waving a big bible in their faces is the best way to share the faith.  

I prefer the way depicted in the picture above where one sheep says to another about the shepherd.  “What I like most about him is that he never tells you to stay in line but asks you to stay in line.” 

The fact is, beside the sheep, shepherds in Jesus day couldn’t make or even ask anybody to stay in line.  According to Fr. Raymond Brown:

To modern romantics the shepherds described [in Scripture] take on the gentleness of their flocks... In fact, in Jesus’ time shepherds were often considered as dishonest, outside the law.1

 No matter their keepers’ reputation sheep needed somebody who would care for them and these outsiders took on that responsibility.  They cared for the sheep isolated from society - keeping watch over the flock not only by night but by day.  The relationship between sheep and their shepherds was an intimate one.

Roy Howard, Pastor of Saint Mark’s Presbyterian Church in North Bethesda, Maryland once got a real lesson on sheep/shepherd relationships by a infuriated man in his congregation who insisted that sheep were not dumb.

He was offended that I would speak of sheep in such derogatory terms. (He didn’t say anything about humans.) When I told him that I was repeating what had been told to me by another farmer, who was also a member of the congregation whose family he knew well. He replied, “Huh! Well, that explains it! He is cattleman who doesn’t know a thing about sheep.” Then he said with confidence that sounded like love, “I know sheep and they know me. They do as I say, because they know who I am.”2

 That’s the kind of shepherd we have in Jesus. 

He’s is not seen as one of societies high and mighty but rather as someone who really is on the fringes.  He is a carpenter turned wandering rabbi who goes about teaching in humility about goodness and mercy.

He is not like some of the others.  He doesn’t condemn like the street preacher - telling us all the ways we have fallen short.  He encourages us.  He doesn’t tell us to stay in line.  He doesn’t even ask us to stay in line.  He shows us how to stay in line.  We listen to what he says because the way he says things makes us want to follow him.

We will go wherever he leads us because we trust him.

Think of the most peaceful place you have ever been, Jesus is there.  Think of the darkest time you have ever faced.  Jesus is there, too.  Not only does Jesus never leave our side or leave us out of his sight he never even lets us slip out of his hand.

Wouldn’t it be great if the street preachers were proclaiming that?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were saying: “Did you know that somebody loves you?”  Wouldn’t it be great if the primary message coming from every church was not one of judgement but rather: “Did you know there is nothing you can do to break the bonds of God’s love?”

That’s the message of Jesus but it is a message the comes with  great responsibility.

That is why I added the end of the gospel from last week to this weeks lesson. 

Here Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him and each time Peter answers with a stronger and stronger “yes.”  Then Jesus gives him something to do:  “Feed My Sheep.” “Tend My Lambs.” 

The good shepherd has made us, his sheep, into shepherds.  We are to care for others the same way that Jesus has cared for us.

I owe this insight to a pastor friend of mine who wrote in a recent devotion for his church.

Admitting that there were times when he “struggled with issues that have seemed overwhelming and insurmountable.”

A marriage that was not working. A child with special needs. A vocation in which I felt inadequate and ill-equipped. These were the times when I felt completely alone and cried out for a Savior. But I saw no savior come in obvious or dramatic ways. It was through a counselor, a social worker at our child’s school, an inspired idea that mysteriously came at just the right time, a group of fellow strugglers who let me know I was not alone after all. And it was often during worship when my eyes were opened to the Source of all these blessings. Through a sermon preached that mysteriously spoke to exactly what I was going through; a scripture that was read; an anthem or hymn that was sung.3

My guess is that this is how most of us have had Christ come to us. 

Christ did not come in the harsh harangues of the street corner, fire-and-brimstone, preacher but by the words and deeds of other sheep who know the shepherd and who are always with us, as our shepherds not telling us what to do but always watching, always willing us to turn in the right direction.

Christ comes in those who are willing to stand with us when wait for our life’s jigsaw journeys to come together.  Christ comes to us in those times when we wander, wonder, look for inspiration and find all that we need in the words and deeds of other sheep who know the shepherd.

That’s how it works.  The gospel is transmitted from Jesus, our good shepherd, to us sheep, so that we can becomes shepherds for one another. 

From Shepherd to sheep to shepherds is a better way to tell the story of God’s ever-lasting, never-ending, ever-living love than by blasting it at innocent passers-by through a bullhorn. 

Don’t you think?
 
____________

1. Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. (New York: Doubleday, 2008), p. 420. 

2. Roy W. Howard, "This Is the Good Shepherd" (Sermon, Saint Mark's Presbyterian Church, North Bethesda, Maryland, May 10, 2019).
 http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/JOHN-10.2011.pdf

3.  David S. Handley, "Revelation 5:11-14," Daily Devotions, May 7`, 2019, , accessed May 11, 2019, http://www.fourthchurch.org/devotions/2019/050719.html.

Gone Fishin' - Easter 3C

Saint John 21:1-14

This may surprise you but one of this highest rated cable networks does not feature talking heads screaming at each other but rather “countdowns”.  In addition to “Countdown to Christmas” and “Countdown to Valentines Day” they also have mysteries such as (and I am not making this up) “Murder, She Baked,” “Morning Show Mysteries” and “Fixer Upper Mysteries.”  What we are talking about here is The Hallmark Channel.

 In the midst of television mayhem it is a pleasant place to be and I much confess that in troubled times I find myself turning to it more and more.  I like to because I know that no matter what I am watching everything will turn out fine in the end.  The answer to every promo on the channel is always “Yes.”

 “Will the woman who goes to Paris to start a vineyard and a man who is rebelling against his father who owns a winery fall in love?”  “Yes!”  “Will the local baker find the killer in her community with the help of a police detective who is also her love interest?”  “Yes!”  “Will the couple who buys houses, fixes them up, and sells them find love in the lumber yard?”  “Yes”  

 (Come to think of it all these promos need is a voice over by Marv Albert.  “Love from the three point line?  Yes!”)

 The feeling may come when we get the occasional glimpse of what could be but then look around and say to ourselves “as things were so shall the ever be, you can’t change nothing in this world.”

 The feeling may come when we have tried and tried our very best and still come up short.  It is then we may want to give up and give in, on a job, a relationship, even our future by just announcing that we’ve “gone fishin’”.

That is exactly what the disciples did.  They trudged back to exactly the same thing they were doing before Jesus called them to be his followers.

  

 They had a wonderful ride with him.  They heard some great ideas on how the world should be and saw things that were miraculous.  They were feeling that, like in a Hallmark movie, everything was going to be alright.  Then their friend who they tied their whole lives to had gone and gotten himself killed.

 The period of time for them that we commemorate with real Hallmark Easter cards was one of total confusion.  Jesus, keeps popping in and out of their lives.  A little of him here, a little there.  If he would stay in one spot everything would be fine but his buzzing about is more than a little upsetting.

 So they go back to the business they knew best - fishing.  This people fishing stuff didn’t seem to have much of a future to it so they go back to fish fishing.  It seemed like the reasonable thing to do.  It fits their skill set.

Now they are even having trouble even in their former trade.  They fish all night and come up with nothing.  They can’t even seem to get “going fishin” right.  Their empty nets must have seemed to them like a symbol for what they felt.  They must have felt like total failures unable to do something they knew how to do.   There is a real danger here that their failure may become permanent.  

 It’s that way for us too.  It comes in those moments when we have tried to make things better and have come up empty.  When even “going fishin” doesn’t seem to be working we may be tempted to ask ourselves who was I to believe that anything could change?  Who was I to think I could make a difference?  Who was I to think that it would be different this time?”  When we begin to think that failure will be permanent and that it will never get any better than this we scare ourselves stuck.1

 That is where the disciples were.  They were stuck on a boat, on a lake, with nothing to show for a nights worth of work.

 It is then that Jesus appears to them but only as a figure on the beach.  I think they didn’t recognize him because they were still staring at their empty nets and thinking about what failures they were.  It is only when they wiped the sorrow from their eyes and looked up could they hear him say, in one of my favorite paraphrases: “Any fish, boys?”2

 They have to admit that they have “gone fishin” and have caught nothing.

Then in almost a minute by minute, word for word, recreation of their original call in Saint Luke’s Gospel Jesus suggests that instead of being stuck they try another strategy.  He merely suggests that they might be fishing in the wrong spot.  He suggests that they move their nets to another spot and, wonder of wonders, they do!

Some people I know who love fishing tell me that this may be Jesus’ biggest post-resurrection miracle.  Based on the premise that “you can always tell a fisherman but you can’t tell them much” they contend that getting the disciples to listen and take his advice to move their nets was a huge miracle.  To get seasoned fisherman to admit that they might have been wrong about anything and give into someone else’s idea is big stuff indeed.  

When they do as their told and their nets are almost breaking someone calls out, “It is the Lord.”  Pandemonium ensues as the weight of all the fish in nets almost causes them to break.  Peter is leaping  through the water and the disciples are dragging their catch ashore.

 Over all the commotion Jesus invites them to come and have breakfast.  Jesus gives these tired, hungry, disciples who have “gone fishin” on him and maybe even the rest of their futures exactly what they need.

This is not a gourmet meal at Joe’s Seafood and Stone Crab, or Shaw’s, or even Red Lobster.  This is only some broiled fish and some  bread but coming from the hands of the Jesus, the master chef, it is more than enough to get them back on their feet and back on their journey.  It is enough to get them unstuck.

Easter is not a Hallmark movie.

 If we think that Easter and the risen Christ means that Jesus has erased all discouragement, frustration and failure from our world and from our lives, we will be sorely disappointed.  We will remain scared and stuck.  While we may go fishing on Jesus, Jesus will never go fishing on us.

When we are tempted to shrug our shoulders, walk away from his resurrection and go back to our everyday routines, Jesus will be there.  The promise of all the resurrection appearances is that even in the midst of our failures, Jesus shows up and gets us moving again.3

All we have to do is to look up from the empty fishing nets and see where Jesus is and then be willing to move to the place where Jesus wants to meet us so that he can give us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.

 It’s not quite a Hallmark movie but for real life, real faith, real encounters with Jesus, it will have to be enough.  Because for those of us who have looked up and seen him, it is more than enough. 

Don’t you think?

____________

1.  Michael Bos. "Where Do I Go from Here?" Sermon, Sunday Morning Worship, Marble Collegiate Church, New York, New York, April 28, 2019.

2.  Saint John 21:5.  (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]

3.  William H. Willimon, "Fishing, Failure, and a Future" Sermon, The Third Sunday of Easter, Year 3, Richmond, Virginia, May 4, 2019, May 1, 2019, accessed May 4, 2019, https://www.dropbox.com/s/zj9bma4dk75uohd/Will Willimon, John 21.pdf?dl=0.

"Doubting or Faithful" - Easter 2C

Saint John 20:19-31

I cannot imagine what it would be like to have my name mentioned specifically in a Sunday confession of the church.  I would be mortified!

I have enough trouble with the general confessions that we say every Sunday which remind me that I have sinned in “thought word and deed.”  That is general enough not to cause too much anxiety but when we get to something more specific like “we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves” I get more antsy.

You probably can breeze through all this without any problem  but I think of the shouting match I had with my real neighbor last week.  I think of the times I have yelled at my friends.  And please, don’t even mention the things I have said to people while driving!

The good thing is I have never been called out by name but poor Thomas has.

In the church we worshiped in on Palm Sunday here is what was said about him in the confession no less: “Thomas, servant of doubt, where are you?”  And we were all supposed to respond: “I am here!”1

How would you like to be known as a “servant of doubt”?  Sure, there are times when we all have doubts that creep in every once and awhile but we are not their servants.  On the contrary we’d like to get rid of them as soon as possible and get back to making this uncertain life as certain as possible.

Poor Thomas is forever stuck with the moniker “servant of doubt”. But what if he isn’t?  What if this whole episode is not about doubt but faithfulness?
The only thing Thomas is guilty of is absence on that first Easter evening when Jesus made one of his appearances to the whole group of disciples.  They were all gathered together but Thomas is not there.

Perhaps he got tired of the endless speculation about what happened.  Perhaps he was as confused - as we can sometimes be - by all the stories of resurrection encounters with Jesus.  Perhaps he was just tired of staring at the wallpaper and wondering what to do.  Perhaps he needed a breath of fresh air.  We don’t know what Thomas was doing. All we know for certain is that he wasn’t in the room when Jesus made his grand re-entry into the disciples’ lives.

Upon his return all Thomas does is wonder if what his friends are saying is true.

Remember, what they are telling him is that his friend Jesus who was stone cold, definitely dead a few days ago is running around making guest appearances to everybody Thomas knows.  Everybody that is but him. 

We’ve been celebrating Easter for all of our lives and while the story has not lost one bit of its power hearing it for the very first time must have been an entirely different matter.  This is not something that is taken in easily and Thomas is not sure he can believe it just based on word of mouth.

It is then, I believe, that faithfulness begins to appear.  It is visible and invisible.  Faithfulness is there in what is done and left undone.
The disciples who were there do not try to persuade Thomas that they are right and he is wrong.  They do not berate him for being gone when the big moment came.  They don’t even doubt the sincerity of his doubt.  They just keep the faith for him and isn’t that what we do?

I am sure that there were lots of people who came to this church last Sunday that we won’t see again until Christmas.  Where I used to attend we called them “CEO’s” for “Christmas and Easter Onlys.” 

We may wish they were here every Sunday.  We wish they would walk with us and discover that there is more to this Jesus guy than a manger full of baby and a tomb full of empty but they have decided that twice a year is plenty. 

Our job is to do for them what the disciples did for Thomas.  We are to keep the faith for them so that when they need it, when they want to have a real experience with Jesus, a place and a people will be there for them to do just that.

That is what the disciples did for Thomas and that is our work in the world - to remain faithful.

Thomas didn’t just doubt.  He hung around.  This is the second invisible moment in this story that we miss.

Thomas didn’t listen and dismiss the other’s story as being out of hand.  He didn’t say, “Ah, you’re nuts!” or “What have you been smoking?”  He stays with his community.  Even amid his doubts he sticks with his friends.  He lets their certainty buoy up his uncertainty. 

We do that for each other too.  In difficult times when those doubts begin to creep in, at our best, we are there for each other with a word of reassurance that all is not lost and God is not finished.  We can say this because of the faithfulness of Jesus. 

If you don’t remember anything else I say this morning remember this: Jesus was faithful too.  Jesus never gave up on Thomas! 

Jesus could have responded: “All right then, don’t take your friends word for it.  Don’t listen to them for all I care.”  He could have even said, “Listen I’m not going to subject myself to your cockamamie tests.  Either believe or don’t believe but don’t you be poking me.”

Instead Jesus says: “Whatever you need Thomas.  Poke, prod, ask, talk, do whatever you want.  While your doubts may have rocked your faith a little  I have never lost faith in you.”

It is then that the doubter, the one we have mistakenly labeled “the servant of doubt” makes “the supreme christological pronouncement of the Fourth Gospel” when he says: “My Lord and my God!”  This confession, this acclimation, these words go far beyond any titles bestowed anywhere else in the Gospels.  The greatest doubter has become the greatest believer.

As you know we follow a three year cycle of readings called the lectionary.  Very few stories appear more than twice, most only once but every year like clockwork on the second Sunday of Easter we have Thomas. 

As the sound of the trumpets have died out, as the crowds have returned to their normal size, there is the story of Thomas because he is us.

Sometimes we doubt.  Sometimes we believe.  Faith is a struggle.  It waxes and wanes.  Faith is sometimes strong and sometimes weak.

In this story we hear Jesus tell us.  “Yes, you weren’t there to see my miracles first hand but here you are in church anyway faithfully working your way through your doubts and opening your eyes to faith.”

When that moment comes and faithfulness triumphs over doubt maybe we will be able to say with Thomas - perhaps in a shout, perhaps only in a whisper - “My Lord and my God.”  And we’ll no longer be servants of doubt but servants of faith. 

Thanks for listening.

Sermon preached at Our Saviour Lutheran Church

Aurora, Illinois

28 April 2019