"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

"Holy Family Dynamics" - Christmas 1C

Saint Luke 2:41-52

The Saturday before last my partner and I went downtown to the Christkindle Market in Daley Center.  By Chicago standards it was a mild Saturday evening and the place was packed.  It was cheek to check packed.  If someone would have fallen down or had passed out the market would have been closed by the time they were found.

Times like that always make me smile and remember what I was told to do as a little kid if I got lost.  My Uncle Herb’s first rule on becoming separated was that I was to “stop and stay”.

The theory behind this is simple: If two people are wandering around looking for each other it becomes like Brownian motion - two people, in this case, just wandering around and perhaps even passing each other without either one knowing it. While if one just stops and the other does the searching all the searcher has to do is retrace his or her steps and allowing for a reunion to take place more quickly. 

This is exactly what today’s gospel is about. 

But I must warn you that I have read countless sermons and articles on this reading and most of them have missed how very human the whole business is while they focused on the divine.
The facts are simple.

Mary, Joseph, Jesus and a whole group of relatives, friends and neighbors from back home are making their annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem in a first century tour group for the Passover.

The city is as crowded as the Daley Center was and somehow, someway, Jesus becomes separated from his parents.  The text says only that he remained in Jerusalem but whether it was by accident or choice remains unclear.  What is clear is that the whole party was a day’s journey out of town before it was discovered that Jesus was missing.

Anyone who is a parent or who has ever been charged with the care of a child knows all about the mixture of fear and anger Mary and Joseph must have felt.  The overwhelming fear that some harm may have befallen their son mixed with the anger of a parent who says: “I hope he’s okay because when I find him, I’m going to kill that kid!”

That last option was not open to Mary and Joseph because of the divine nature of this story.  While they were frantically searching every wagon and asking every relative and friend if they had see Jesus  Mary was remembering the visit from the solitary angel named Gabriel, the shepherds, and finally the multitudes of angels who hailed her son’s birth.

Joseph was remembering his visit from that same angel, and three years later, the wise men. \

I cannot believe that at this moment Mary and Joseph were serene people of prayer with hearts and minds at peace.  No, they were remembering and they were worried because it was not just their son but the son who had been entrusted to them by God who was missing.

There is only one thing to do but make the long journey back to Jerusalem.  Two exhausting days of traveling and worrying.  Two sleepless nights spent tossing and turning.  Then another day searching in shops, and markets, and anywhere else they could think of asking everyone they had met if they had see their son.  Frantically they searched for Jesus.

Finally they try the temple maybe to look and maybe to pray. And when they do, lo and behold, there is their son sitting among the teachers asking questions and amazing eavesdroppers with his understanding.

Mary is not as impressed as the other and instead expresses her relief and frustration in one loaded sentence: “My child, why have you done this to us?”

Do you hear the guilt in that question?  It is almost as if she is saying:  “Why have you done this to us?  Why have you made us suffer so?”

Then Mary continues: “See how worried your father and I have been looking for you.”  Now she is bringing Joseph into it.  “Its bad enough you have done this to me but look at what you have done to your father. You know he was never sure about this whole business in the first place and now you’ve made him a nervous wreck.”

This is real family dynamics at its best. Not Holy Family dynamics but real family dynamics because all of us in this room have been involved in the same type of situations and conversations.

Every child who has ever stayed out too late or forgot to call home to tell his or her parents where they were or that they had arrived safely has heard, “We were so worried.”

And every parent has had to endure the kind of answer Jesus gives.  “Why were you searching for me?”

You can almost hear Joseph, can’t you?  “Why? Why? I’ll tell you why! What did you expect us to do? Were we supposed to go home and wait for you to show up?  You’re twelve years old pal!”

To add fuel to the family dynamic fire that is now raging Jesus says: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house. But they did not understand what he said to them.”

And neither do we because we load so much theological baggage onto this encounter that we fail to see the reasonableness of his response.

What was he supposed to do, check into an inn? He was a little young for that and besides, his previous experience with inns and innkeepers had not been that pleasant.

No, when he was separated from his parents he headed for the safest place in town, the temple. Here is would be sheltered, secure, and cared for until his parents showed up.

This is the only story we have of Jesus between the time of his infancy to his adulthood. So, it leaves one to wonder why it, above all others, is remembered.

I have no proof of this but I think that, as he grew, Jesus told this story to any who would hear to remind himself just how much his earthly family loved him. That even though his family may not have understood what he was up to, or even approved of what he said or did, they still loved him enough to search every nook and cranny of Jerusalem until they found him.

And I think he told us to remind us that there wasn’t anything in this life that he did not experience.  He told it to remind us that now God knows that even the simplest of family outings can turn into disasters of frustrations and frazzled nerves. 
Several years ago someone gave me a sermon preached by Dr. Frederich Niedner of Valparaiso University.  In this sermon he quoted from a seven year old child’s letter to God:

Dear God,
 I worry about you since you must not have a family the way we do. You must get real lonely. How about sharing my family? They argue a lot but they’re good to have mostly.
     Love,
     Ann Marie

  “That’s it,” Niedner wrote, “we argue a lot but we’re good to have mostly.  In Jesus God did come to make a home with us and be family with us. Here we discover that our love and our capacity to forgive is bigger and stronger than all our arguments put together.”

That is what Jesus taught at twelve and teaches still. There will be times when we feel like we have been left behind.  There will be times when our lives and schedules will be as crowded and confusing as the Christkindle market during Advent or Jerusalem at Passover. But it is just there where God has promised to be with us.

Jesus came to remind us that we are part of God’s family - God’s confusing and confused; God’s wandering and wonderful family; God bemusing and blessed family - all wrapped up in the love of God who came to be family with us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

That is the best news for all of us who have ever been caught us in the same crazy family dynamics that the Holy Family was on their annual outing to Jerusalem. Don’t you think?

Thanks for listening.

__________

1. St. Luke 2:48b (JB) [JB = The Jerusalem Bible]

2.  St. Luke 2:49a (NRSV) [NRSV = The New Revised Standard Version]

3.  St. Luke 2:49 (NRSV)

“The Triumph over Anger and Fear” - The Reign of Christ

Saint John 18:33-37

Unless you pay particular attention to the opening credits of  television’s most popular comedy series you don’t know this man’s name.

I didn’t either until a couple of weeks ago when he was profiled on CBS Sunday Morning. 

Chuck Lorrie is the creator of some of the most popular TV comedies “in the past three decades, including the original ‘Rosanne,’ ‘Cybill,’ ‘Grace Under Fire,’ ‘Mike and Molly,” and ‘Two-and-a-Half Men.’”

Even if you are a news, sports, and British mystery guy like me while you may have never watched more than a minute of these programs you have heard of them.

“And that’s not even counting what [Lorrie] has got going on now.  ‘Young Sheldon,’ ‘Mom,’ and ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ [three shows that [together] average more than 40 million viewers a week.”

Even as Lorrie was making viewers laugh he was making co-workers cower with his infamous explosive temper that once got him labeled “The angriest man in television.” 
 

He’s mellowed over the years and now refers to himself as a Teddy Bear.  

In a reflective moment he looked back at his tumultuous years and said: “Fear for me exhibits as anger.  ‘Cause I am not going to show you fear; I’m going to show you anger.”1

It seems to me that there is a lot of fear exhibiting itself as anger in today’s Gospel.
We can see the fear on the angry faces of almost every member of the cast in order of appearance.

Anger is there on the face of Pontius Pilate who had been awakened at an early morning hour by a mob with a prisoner.  His relationship with the people standing before him has been tumultuous from the start when he, full of himself, insulted “their religious sensibilities ... [by hanging] worship images of the emperor throughout Jerusalem and had coins bearing pagan religious symbols minted.”2

They ware not his supporters and Pilate was afraid that it is possible to lose control of this angry mob very quickly.  If word of a Jewish revolt got back to Rome it would call his leadership abilities into question.  It might cost him his job, his pension, his security, even his life.

We must understand that matters of religion do not matter to Pilate.  He has only one legitimate concern, and that is whether Jesus poses a threat to Rome.  If Jesus is assuming the role of king, that is treason—punishable by death.   

However, Pilate can hardly imagine that this ordinary looking man would be trying to pass himself off as a king.  His question to Jesus is really a mocking question of the crowd: “Are you the king of the Jews?”  He is bating them and appealing to their sense of tribalism.

We know all about that.  A leader who may be afraid keeps showing us his anger.  Exploit divisions that may already exist and make them deeper.  Play to the people’s fears.

The people in front of Pilate were exhibiting their fears in their anger as well.  They too were afraid that they were going to lose everything.  

Herod the King had curried their favor by rebuilding their temple.  He didn’t do it out of any sense of religious obligation but because he saw the financial advantages.  If the temple was magnificent people would flock to it and tourism in Jerusalem would prosper. 

While the religious leaders saw the temple as the center of their worship life Herod saw it as his Disneyland.  For him it was a tourist attraction.  Think of it like that re-construction of Noah’s Ark in Kentucky.

With political leaders there is always a catch.  For Herod the catch was this: He would build them a temple and they would give him peace.  They would be free to practice their religion any way they wanted so long as they didn’t question the authority of the state. 

If Herod found out that they were swearing their allegiance to another king there would be trouble.  Big trouble.  The people knew that!  Even Pilate knew that!  That is why he uses the title “King” for Jesus.  

If the designation of Jesus as king was done to get the Romans involved they were now and their involvement was a two edged sword.  Their fear and anger has forced the people into a Hobson’s choice.  Is Jesus their king or is Caesar their king?  Choose Caesar and deny their faith.  Choose Jesus and lose whatever freedom they had.

Anger born of fear can lead us to terrible places.  Anger born of fear can lead us to do terrible things.
It can lead some people to define truth as anything they want it to be.  It can lead some to believe that anybody who opposes them should be locked up.  It can lead some  to want to separate families lest they, while searching for a better life, take jobs that few are willing to do anyway.  Anger born of fear can cause us to call out the military to “protect” us from a group of men, women, and children who are  fleeing their home counties for the lives.  Anger born of fear can cause some to see a  group so small that it wouldn’t even fill the average minor league ballpark as a national security threat.  Anger born of fear can cause any who have a heart or fear for their mortal souls to look back at what they have done and be very, very sorry.

And today’s gospel tells us that anger born of fear can lead to the death of an innocent man.

Yet this innocent seems to be the only one in this little tableau to not be fearful or even angry.  Instead, he seems to be the only one who is in control.

Instead of referring to Jesus’ trial and crucifixion as a Passion Narrative Father Raymond Brown in his book The Death of the Messiah calls it “The Book of Glory” in which Jesus comes to do what he ultimately came to do.

He came to do what he is recorded as doing today: Challenging the powerful. 

Pilate, who may see himself as the most powerful man in the city, is ultimately the one Jesus puts on trial here. 

When Pilate asks him sarcastically here, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus replies in effect, “Who told you that?”

At this point Pilate has to admit that he is just listening to the cries of a fearful, angry crowd.  He is not his own person.  He is not thinking for himself.  He is just parroting what others have told him.
He will actually be doing the will of the high priest Caiphais who fear is so great of this itinerant carpenter that, in a moment of frenzy, he says to the crowd:  “You know nothing at all!  Nor do you understand that it is expedient and politically advantageous for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.”3

Kill this guy and we’ll have nothing to fear.  Kill Jesus and we will have one less thing to be angry about.  Kill this rabble rouser and maybe his crowds will go home and our nation will be safe.  Kill Jesus and maybe, just maybe, everything will be great again.

It is not as Pilate asks “What have you done?” but a matter of what Jesus about to do.  He is about to do that for which he was born and for which he came into the world.

Amidst the anger and fear of his crucifixion Jesus is about to show us a kingdom not built on anger and fear but a kingdom based on something else.  God reign and rule begins with an act of redemption and love.

It begins with a conversation between Jesus and the two thieves hanging on either side of him.  One is fearful and angry that Jesus won’t save himself and them.  The other’s fear is not turned into anger but trust and absolute dependence.   All he asks is that Jesus remember him.  All he wants to do is to be remembered.  In his fear of God all he desires is not to be forgotten.  

Jesus promised him more than that.  “Today you will be with me in Paradise. This is a solemn promise.” Jesus says.

That is Jesus promise to us not for sometime, somewhere, out there but for here and now.
When fear manifests itself as anger Jesus shows us a better way. Even from the cross he shows us that the way of God is the way of love that is so deep, and broad, and high that it can embrace the two thieves on either side of him.  

Jesus is showing us that God’s love can’t be defeated by anger or fear but always triumphs. 

Jesus shows us that God’s love always has the last word.  Jesus shows us that even in the darkest hours of our national or personal lives God’s love will triumph. 

It will triumph over despots, the Pilates of our day.  It will triumph of the mindless amid the crowds that march out of fear born of anger.  We hold on to faith that tells us that God’s love will ultimately win.

In Jesus we know that the love of God is for every single one of us.  In Jesus we discover that God’s love is a stunning, beautiful, expansive love that is for everybody, everywhere.
It’s for you.  Yes, it’s even for me.  It’s for us when we are fearful and yes, even angry.  God’s love never fails. 

That is something that can give us a glimpse of paradise on this Sunday we celebrate the Reign and Rule of Christ.  Christ’s love can reign over fear and anger on this Sunday,  every Sunday, and every day of our lives if we would only allow it.   Don’t you think?

Thanks for listening. 

_______________

1.  Tony Dokoupil, writer, "’Big Bang Theory’ Creator Chuck Lorrie Reflects on His New Netflix Series," on CBS Sunday Morning, CBS, November 4, 2018.

2.  Encyclopedia Britannica, , s.v. "Pontius Pilate: Govenor of Judea," accessed November 21, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pontius-Pilate.

3.  St.  John 11:49b-50.  (AMP) [AMP = The Amplified Bible ]

Sermon preached at Faith Lutheran Church 

Bellingham, Washington