May 13, 2020
Week of Easter 5

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to preach these days. But I recorded a brief reflection for Camp Calumet’s virtual Holden Evening Prayer which was shared online tonight. You can check out the whole service here. The text is shared below.

A reading from 2 Corinthians (4:6-12):

For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

⁷ But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. ⁸ We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. ¹¹ For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. ¹² So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Word of God, Word of Life.

 

It’s become cliché, but it’s true. These are strange times.

I don’t know how you’re doing, but every day just seems really hard right now.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot that’s good – my family and I are healthy and safe and reasonably secure, a privilege I know many don’t have on a good day, and even less so in this crisis.

Even though I’m not always very good at it, I really do try to pause and be grateful for all the good things – my daughter has the most joyful laugh and I have loved watching her learn to ride a scooter and a bike with training wheels in these last weeks. We’ve had some beautiful weather for walks and exercise outside.

There’s all the good being done by people on the front lines – nurses, doctors, patient care assistants, EMTs. And all the people we should have been celebrating all along…the grocery store workers and delivery people, pharmacy clerks and gas station attendants, food pantry volunteers and social workers. Thanks be to God for them all!

And maybe there are a few silver linings – some people are spending more time with their family or getting creative about connecting across distance. We’re learning to appreciate some things we previously took for granted.

People in congregations are learning new ways of being church together – I wish I had time to share all the stories of our congregations in New England finding new ways to serve their neighbor – making sure people have food and shelter and community and other essentials in this pandemic.

As true as ALL of those things are that I just named, as important as gratitude and joy and celebration all are, also…things are still really hard right now.

Looking on the bright side without acknowledging the pain and struggle that stand beside it would be false. It’s a struggle to get through these days, sheltered in place, grieving things we cannot do, longing for people we cannot see and hug. It’s especially hard for kids to understand, and I wish they didn’t have to understand.

We miss church. We miss singing together! We miss the community!

And as hard as all that is, people are dying. Not just from COVID, but from all manner of other things, now with the added burden of dying alone and the grieving unable to gather with their communities of support. And like almost every other crisis or disaster, it’s hitting our black and brown siblings even harder. It’s hitting people experiencing homelessness even harder. Domestic violence is on the rise.

The economic downturn hurts older folk and low-wage workers and immigrants harder. And the “normal” we are so eager to return to is a normal that has been built on the back of people we failed to treat with basic dignity.

All of this is true – that which is good and beautiful and that which is bad and even worse.

That’s why I come back again and again to this passage from 2^ndCorinthians. Because it doesn’t demand we live in one place or the other – in the joy orthe pain. It reminds me that the joy andthe pain are both very real. Both always stand together all the time in our world and in our lives.

We have this treasure in clay jars…the light of God in fragile and seemingly ordinary vessels. We carry in our bodies the life andthe death of Jesus. Each of us is easily broken; each of us bumps up against our limits; each of us some days just can’t hold it together. And always the light of God within us.

That’s what every Easter season, but maybe especially this year’s Easter season is about: telling the truth about life that stands alongside death. Like the resurrected Christ who still bears the wounds of crucifixion, we live as resurrection people even though our clay jar selves are breaking and dying. We live as resurrection people even though our lives have suddenly come crashing down around us. We live as resurrection people even though the world and its systems are terribly broken. We are afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed.

I want it to be one or the other. When I’m focused on the hard stuff, I easily get bogged down in all-or-nothing thinking, unable to celebrate the good. I lose sight of what God has done and is doing.

And the moments when the joy is in focus, I want to ignore the hard stuff. I want Easter without the wounds.

But always both together in us, both together in our world, both together held in God’s eternal loving embrace. Amen.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Third Sunday in Lent
March 15, 2020

Hello online readers. Peace to you in these uncertain times. I’m not preaching as regularly in my new role, but I do get the privilege of doing so some weeks. Below find Sunday’s gospel reading and a video of my sermon at St. Paul Lutheran Church in East Longmeadow, MA. Thanks to Pr. Anne Strickert (videographer) and the people of St. Paul’s for hosting me.

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he,the one who is speaking to you.’

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word.They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’ -John 4:5-42

Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 26, 2020
On the occasion of my last Sunday as pastor of Christ the King, Windsor, CT

¹²Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. ¹³He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, ¹⁴so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
 ¹⁵“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
  on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
 ¹⁶the people who sat in darkness
  have seen a great light,
 and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
  light has dawned.”
¹⁷From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
  ¹⁸As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. ¹⁹And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for human beings.” ²⁰Immediately they left their nets and followed Jesus. ²¹Going on from there, Jesus saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. ²²Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
  ²³Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the dominion of heaven and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. – Matthew 4:12-23

I am not a fisherman. I have been fishing exactly once, and I’m not even sure there were any fish in the pond where we spent all of about 30 minutes in a rickety rowboat. But one does pick up a few things about fishing, at least about first century fishing in Galilee, in the process of studying the Bible. Here are some things we think we know about the livelihood of Zebedee and his sons and the others who made their living fishing at the time of Jesus:

These are not rich folk. They eked out a bare bones subsistence in a couple of tiny villages, mostly forgotten by places with larger populations. Their boats were simple craft, not fashioned by mastercrafters and made of fairly low-quality materials.

As a result, they were pretty practical, adaptive, and resourceful. They mended their own nets. They fixed their own boats. They lived a life that was physically demanding and required them to be on their feet literally and figuratively. It was exhausting work in the harshness of the water and sun.

They fished with nets, a kind of fishing with very little finesse. Not unlike bigger fishing operations today they cast large nets down in the water and brought up whatever managed to be hanging out below their boats. They had preferred fish, surely – things that were better for eating than others – but they hauled it all up into their boats: good fish, bad fish, muck and junk. There was no means to be picky about what they were pulling in.

They were accustomed to small successes and exhausting failures. Sometimes, at least according to some of the Biblical narrative, they would fish all night – the best time to catch certain fish – and come up with nothing to show for their work. Other times they’d have an okay catch, enough to get by on through a few more days.

So Jesus comes to thesefishermen. Maybe these are folk who have been hanging around listening to Jesus’ early preaching and teaching in their spare time, or maybe it’s a miraculous kind of encounter that lifts them right up out of their life by Jesus’ charisma and call. But his words always intrigue me: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

I wonder that in modern times we think differently of the fishing metaphor since most of us don’t live in coastal fishing villages. Perhaps we imagine a recreational activity, the selective catching of particular kinds of fish, the use of bait and hooks. And sometimes we try to fish for people that way. Hoping we’ll find just the right people to round out our church, trying to draw them in and hook them, and taking up the work when we feel ready.

But the call of Jesus is a lot more like the kind of fishing that those first disciples knew backwards and forwards. It’s hardscrabble kind of work that requires a significant investment of time, self, energy, and strength. It takes a tough skin sometimes. It means a lot of days of failure and occasional successes. It requires being practical, adaptive, and resourceful. And it casts a broad net that brings together all manner of folk to be in community together. The work to which we are called as followers of Jesus is challenging.

It’s work we’ve tried, if always imperfectly, to do together for the last 18 months. Together we’ve tried new things, we’ve thought more deeply about who we are as a congregation, we’ve explored ways to start reaching out to the community. All the while we’ve carried on the work of being church together, a broad mix of people who all got caught up in this same net for a while. And now there’s a new call, one that feels a bit out of nowhere like Jesus walking up and snatching up some disciples from the fishing boats.

And I find myself thinking about Zebedee. We will hear more about his sons as they go on to ministry with Jesus, but we never hear more about Zebedee and the others who get left behind in their tiny fishing village. Now they’re short a few workers. They’ve got the same work to do and fewer people to do it. They miss the people they’ve shared work with, shared food with, shared their lives with. No choice in the matter, except to pick up and carry on. They are grieving in all its dimensions of sadness, denial, resignation, anger, and whatever else gets mixed up in all that, while still throwing down the nets day in, day out.

Perhaps you’re noticing a parallel that struck me – imagining, perhaps, that I’m the one called forth to something new and am leaving you, the people of Christ the King, behind. I’ve been sitting with that this week, these last several weeks, really. Worried about what my leaving does to those left behind. There’s a way in which that parallel holds some truth about this moment. You still have work to do – more work than before, in fact, and now fewer resources to do it. You are perhaps feeling grief whether over me or over where the congregation as a whole sits or people who may be leaving this community or grief over what once was in this place. While it does not change my sense of call to pick up and follow where as far as I can discern Jesus is asking me to go, I deeply regret the pain and challenge this call has created for you.

But, I don’t think that’s the whole picture. Holding onto the truth of the image of being left behind, I think there is space to hold in the other hand the view that you, people of Christ the King, are also ones being called into something new. You will not carry on as you have before. Jesus comes to you, in the midst of your daily hardscrabble work, and speaks a word of invitation to follow. A time of transition makes it more obvious, the new thing you’re called into will be easier to distinguish because there is a marker point on this journey, but that new call from Jesus would be there whether I stayed or went. Because the reality is that Jesus doesn’t just come call us up once to follow. Jesus keeps showing up and Jesus keeps calling with every new day, every new moment, every new endeavor. Jesus comes to you perhaps especially in this moment of transition and issues you a new call forward, to be disciples in a new way, in a new time.

We, all of us, are experiencing the disruption of Jesus walking into our lives and inviting us to follow into the next opportunity for ministry. My wish for you is that in the midst of being the ones left, you might also know the excitement of what God is calling you to next and the sense that all of us together are leaving behind what is safe and comfortable to use what we’ve learned, to build on the skills we’ve practiced, and employ them in a new way in a new adventure. I don’t know if it looks like a church growing in numbers and program…in all honesty the statistics for happening that aren’t stellar – pastoral transition or not. But I know that whatever form it takes that Jesus is stepping into your lives every day. Jesus is leading. Jesus is calling. Jesus is excited to work with you as you take the next steps.

It is hard work. It doesn’t always look like our definition of success. It wears us out some days. It forces us to toughen our skin and plow forward. But Jesus keeps stepping in, calling us through worship and community and service, welcoming all of us onto a new adventure with every new breath. Come, let us follow Jesus.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

2nd Sunday after Epiphany
January 19, 2020

²⁹John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰This is the one of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ³¹I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” ³²And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. ³³I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
  ³⁵The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” ³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where Jesus was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁰One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). ⁴²He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). – John 1:29-42

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before 250,000 people gathered for the March on Washington in the midst of the civil rights movement, and he delivered what might be his most well-known speech, which contained these words:

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”

King was a brilliant orator, formed by the profound tradition of preaching in the black Baptist church. While some of his other writings are even more theologically rich, while some of his other writings more thoroughly articulate the pursuit of justice and the role of the church in that work, it is this speech that is most often quoted and remembered. In part it’s the beauty of the speech, in part it’s the timing and publicity of the moment in which it was delivered. But I think part of what captures our attention in King’s most famous speech is that he so clearly lays out a vision of what is not yet realized. This speech is captivating because he envisions for us what is not yet a reality. He says to the nation in 1963, and still today to us who continue to live in a world of profound racial and economic inequality, that there is a possibility of something different. “Look!” King cries out to us, “Look and see what is possible!”

It’s not unlike what John the Baptist cries in our gospel reading today. At this moment in the gospel Jesus is still basically unknown outside of his own community. His ministry has not yet begun. The possibility of the coming reign of God, the possibility of liberation, justice, freedom is just that – a possibility. There is not yet anything public that would indicate Jesus is poised to usher in something new. And yet, John the Baptist can see the possibility. He has a dream of sorts to see the reign of God become reality. And, like King, he doesn’t keep it to himself. He calls out, “Look! Here is the Lamb of God! Look! Here is the one who through forgiveness has the capacity to usher in a new reality!”

I marvel at his capacity, like King, to compel people to see this vision with him, his ability to draw people into the movement by helping them see what is possible, even when the present reality is so far from the future vision. He says, “Look!” and people do, some with enough curiosity to follow Jesus, to begin to join him in the earliest days of his ministry. Some of them are compelled enough to go and tell others, who in turn also begin to follow along. To be sure there are plenty who do not follow, who ignore the invitation to see what is possible or who perhaps are too distracted or too afraid to be among those taking the first steps toward the new reality. But in this moment, the movement begins, or rather a new phase of God’s movement in the world begins.

It’s Jesus who will ultimately do the saving work. It’s Jesus who will bear most clearly, most publicly the pain and suffering, the abuse and rebuke that often comes to those who take steps toward a vision of justice and peace. It is Jesus whose commitment to nonviolent resistance and forgiveness in the face of cruelty and injustice will usher in a new reality in which forgiveness is possible for us and for the world. Though the disciples, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others would follow the same path, it is Jesus who leads the work.

What comes into focus in this passage where John the Baptist calls out and the first disciples begin to invite others along for the journey, is that though Jesus does the saving work, we are invited first to see – to behold the vision, even when it is still far off. Then we are invited to be the ones who go out and point the way. Once we have seen, once we have experienced, if not the reality of God’s reign of justice, forgiveness, and peace, then at least the compelling vision of that possibility, then we get to go out into the world and point it out to others. We get to have the opportunity to say with boldness, “Look! Here is the Lamb of God! Look! Here is the beginning of the transformation of our world of pain, injustice, inequality, and fear into a world of love, forgiveness, grace, and peace.”

Now some of you are probably sitting there thinking, “But that’s not my gift, to be out front, talking, proclaiming, inviting.” And, yes, I hear you. One of the things the Forward team has been learning and reflecting on this past year is the way in which we all have different kinds of gifts and that all those different gifts are needed in the work of the church. Some have the capacity to see lots of possibilities for the future, others have the capacity to help us stay rooted in tradition, others help bridge the gap. Some people are the ones out there always inviting people to church, others are the ones quietly caring for neighbors in ways that point, perhaps without words, to the future reality that is possible. There are many ways to experience the vision and many ways to help point toward it in the world.

King was one famous face of a whole movement. He was gifted and particularly suited to be the public face of so many working for justice in different communities and in different arenas. There are other well-known leaders of the movement who don’t have the same name recognition of King: Ella Baker, Ralph Abernathy, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, Dorothy Height, and many others. Many who put their time, energy, and lives down for the movement. No one of them the one to save the world, but each in their own way pointing to the vision, calling out to others “Look! See what is possible.”

Because once you’ve seen it, once you’ve had a taste of it, once you’ve really envisioned God’s future, one can’t help but be filled with overflowing excitement at the possibility. Each of us has had some kind of encounter with Jesus, some kind of encounter that draws us back here week after week. Some vision of what God has in mind to bring about in the resurrection kingdom. And each week we sing the words of John the Baptist, “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” as we prepare once again to receive the presence of Christ in bread and wine. And there we encounter God again. There we are commissioned again to go out into the world to be witnesses, to notice the signs of God at work bringing about justice, peace, and forgiveness. Whether it’s here in this church community or somewhere out there in the world, we get to participate as John the Baptist and as Jesus’ early disciples to say to others, “Look! The Lamb of God! Here there is forgiveness and peace! Come and see!” until the vision – the vision of John, the hope of Jesus, the dream of King, the hopes and dreams of all of us are gathered into the kingdom of God.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

Baptism of Our Lord
January 12, 2020

 ¹Ascribe to the | Lord, you gods,
  ascribe to the Lord glo- | ry and strength.
 ²Ascribe to the Lord the glory | due God’s name;
  worship the Lord in the beau- | ty of holiness.
 ³The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of | glory thunders;
  the Lord is upon the | mighty waters.
 ⁴The voice of the Lord is a pow- | erful voice;
  the voice of the Lord is a | voice of splendor. 
 ⁵The voice of the Lord breaks the | cedar trees;
  the Lord breaks the ce- | dars of Lebanon;
 ⁶the Lord makes Lebanon skip | like a calf,
  and Mount Hermon like a | young wild ox.
 ⁷The voice | of the Lord
  bursts forth in | lightning flashes.
 ⁸The voice of the Lord| shakes the wilderness;
  the Lord shakes the wilder- | ness of Kadesh. 
 ⁹The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the | forests bare.
  And in the temple of the Lord all are | crying, “Glory!”
 ¹⁰The Lord sits enthroned a- | bove the flood;
  the Lord sits enthroned as king for- | evermore.
 ¹¹O Lord, give strength | to your people;
  give them, O Lord, the bless- | ings of peace.  – Psalm 29

¹³Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵but Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. ¹⁶And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” – Matthew 3:13-17

What does the voice of God sound like?

I wonder if the voice of God is musical – like the sound of a perfectly tuned symphony – resonating in multiple registers, many notes at the same time all producing together a harmonious song, sometimes shifting from loud to quiet, sometimes involving all the instruments at once and sometimes dropping down to a single solo instrument. Or is it more like the single soprano on my favorite Christmas album recorded in a cathedral, a strong, clear single note piercing the resonant air.

I wonder if the voice of God is the one we hear in nature. The sound of ocean waves, babbling brooks, waterfalls that rush with a deafening roar, rain pitter-pattering on the ground. Or the sound of birdsong, coyote howls, chirping squirrels, and even hissing snakes.

If the voice of God sounds like a human voice, then which one? Hollywood actors who have played or voiced God include Charlton Heston, Whoopi Goldberg, Alanis Morissette, Morgan Freeman, and Groucho Marx. Is God’s voice a booming bass, a soft and soothing alto? Is it shouting or just a whisper?

When bombs blast as they have in Iran and Iraq this week or when earthquakes shake foundations as they have all week long in Puerto Rico, or when wildfires rage as they do now in Australia, I wonder – is God’s voice louder than it all in order to reach the hurting ones with comfort and shout for peace and steady the ground? Or is God’s voice still and small, whispering under it all with words of steady love in the midst of chaos?

Sometimes I think the sound of God’s voice is more like pure, unbroken silence. The kind of silence that simultaneously invites and unsettles, which speaks without words and which holds more power sometimes than thousands of shouting voices.

The psalmist this morning speaks over and over again about the voice of the Lord. The voice of the Lord is powerful and full of splendor. The voice of the Lord breaks the mighty cedar trees, it bursts forth like lightening flashes. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness and make the oak trees writhe. The voice of God makes things happen.

We talk about the power of words in our world, and true, words are very powerful. But God’s voice is more than the power to communicate. God’s voice causes things to happen. The poem of creation in Genesis 1 says that God speaks the world into existence. The voice of God creates from nothing.

And it’s the voice of God that always strikes me when we read the story of Jesus’ baptism. Yes, the interaction with John and the dove and the being driven out into the wilderness. But every time, the voice of God: “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.”

That voice, powerful and full of splendor: does it whisper those words so that everyone leans in to hear or do they boom from the heavens causing everyone to take a step back? How does Jesus feel in his body the sound of God’s voice in this moment?

Of all the things God might have spoken just then…instructions for what to do next, words of warning, a motivational speech, God speaks belovedness. God names Jesus as son and calls him beloved. I wonder that we forget that as we ponder what the voice of God sounds like.

Too often consciously or not, I imagine God’s voice speaking things like “Come on, get going, lots to get done!” or “You know you really shouldn’t have done that.”  Or “I need you to get this list of things done on my behalf.” But when God’s voice breaks open the heavens to speak, it’s not with any of those words, not warning or reprimand, instructions or motivational speeches. It’s with a message of belovedness.

Not that those words are all just warm and fuzzy. Jesus is about to embark on his ministry, one in which he will be argued with, ignored, chastised, misunderstood, threatened, and ultimately killed. He needs to be grounded in his belovedness to face all of that. He goes into ministry in a world that is very broken, full of hurting people and the need for peace and wholeness. If he’s going to do the work of justice-making and peace-building then he’s going to need to recognize his own belovedness and the ways in which that belovedness is spoken to others.

Sometimes it would be easier to hear instructions or warnings or even reprimands. Because something in us can make rational sense of those things. Something in us can choose to believe them or not, follow them or not. But love. Love spoken from God, the God who speaks things into existence. When the voice of God says that, there isn’t really any choice but to fall into it. The ways in which that love motivates us to the justice-making and peace-building work in the world is not so easily ignored.

And we do, siblings in Christ, hear that voice of God in our own baptisms. The voice of God that speaks creation into being also speaks belovedness into being for you. And God speaks it in whatever way you need to hear it now in whatever voice you need to hear ti. Yes, God also speaks words of call and words of challenge, words of direction and correction. But first God speaks your belovedness and names you as children of God.

It’s that belovedness that sustains us through all things, that belovedness that sustains us even through death. On Friday we laid to rest the ashes of Jill Johnson, a long-time member of this congregation who lived to be 99. That’s a lot of years – many years full of good things, but also struggle, pain, grief, loss, and challenges of all kinds. At her death as we do at every one in the church, we recalled God’s promise of baptism, the promise that sustains us through all the challenges of living and carries us forward into God’s loving arms in our dying, God’s promise of baptism that speaks belovedness into being for us.

It’s that word of belovedness that sustains this community week after week, year after year, through ups and downs, through every transition and change that comes along. It’s that belovedness that holds those in our extended community who are sick and in pain. It’s that belovedness that holds those who have lost lives and homes and loved ones this week from violence and natural disaster.  It’s that belovedness that is stronger than anything that comes to us, stronger even than death. That is what the voice of God speaks to you today. A voice powerful and full of splendor, a voice that shakes the cedar trees and bursts forth in lightning flashes. It shouts over the racket and whispers to your soul “You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

2nd Sunday of Christmas
January 5, 2020

 ⁷Thus says the Lord:
 Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
  and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
 proclaim, give praise, and say,
  “Save, O Lord, your people,
  the remnant of Israel.”
 ⁸See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
  and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
 among them the blind and the lame,
  those with child and those in labor, together;
  a great company, they shall return here.
 ⁹With weeping they shall come,
  and with consolations I will lead them back,
 I will let them walk by brooks of water,
  in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
 for I have become a father to Israel,
  and Ephraim is my firstborn.

 ¹⁰Hear the word of the Lord, O nations,
  and declare it in the coastlands far away;
 say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him,
  and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.”
 ¹¹For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
  and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.
 ¹²They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion,
  and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord,
 over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
  and over the young of the flock and the herd;
 their life shall become like a watered garden,
  and they shall never languish again.
 ¹³Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
  and the young men and the old shall be merry.
 I will turn their mourning into joy,
  I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
 ¹⁴I will give the priests their fill of fatness,
  and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty, – Jeremiah 31:7-14

See also Ephesians 1:3-14 & John 1:10-18

One of our bedtime books is called Sometimes Rainby Meg Fleming. Its simple and beautiful poetry begins, “Sometimes drizzle, drip-drip drain. Sometimes picnic, sometimes rain.” The book takes you through a year highlighting the joy and sometimes frustration of the changing seasons. Sometimes picnic, but sometimes rain. In winter, sledding fun but frozen toes and sometimes boring but also full of wonder. In spring, “sometimes clear, bright and growing” but also “so much melt the mud is growing.” It has become a meditation for me on living in the moment with what is – sometimes picnic, sometimes rain – and, with every turn of the page, change. A new season, a new movement, a new shift in the reality of the world. With all the ups and downs of the seasons, with so much change, the book ends with the words, “Sometimes wandering, far or near. Always knowing someone here. Always ready. Stay or roam. Always welcome…always home.”

When we read this book Chanel often asks what the ending means: always welcome, always home – kids often ask the most poignant questions! What does it mean to be always home, to always know a sense of welcome even when change is constant and when the ground seems to shift beneath our feet.

We’ve just observed the passing of another year, a notable if ultimately arbitrary threshold, an opportunity to reflect on where we’ve been and what we might want to do that is new or different in the coming year. The transition comes in the midst of a holiday week when school is off, and even some workplaces are closed. Many families and friends gather and travel. Routines are thrown off, which adds to the feeling of standing in a threshold, the place that is neither before nor after that is neither here nor there.

And here we are as a congregation standing in another threshold, another in-between time. After less time than we imagined when we first began our relationship as pastor and congregation, we now stand at another turning point as I prepare to move in a few short weeks to a new call and this congregation will once again be in a pastoral transition. You’ve done this before. Many routines will carry forward. But it is a time of change, a time when other routines will be thrown off. Just like the turn of the new year, this point becomes a marker along the congregation’s journey.

The Hebrew people whom Jeremiah is addressing in our first reading were also in a time of transition, a threshold of sorts. We’re not 100% sure exactly when these words were first spoken and then recorded, but it was sometime in the decades of their national, tribal identity falling to pieces as larger, stronger empires took control of their land, their way of life began to crumble, and their leadership often changed or faltered. Whether they were watching their neighbors fall and anticipating the day when they, too, would succumb, or whether these words were first spoken to those who had already lost their homeland and were living in exile in a foreign land, the words are spoken to reassure people living with change beyond their control. Not only had they been forced from their homes, they had been separated from their community and dispersed to various parts of the empire. They had certainly seen some die in the violence of the takeover. Their religious practice was difficult to hold onto so far from home, especially when their practice had been so tied to a sense of place that was now far away.

This time of transition, this liminal space, this threshold that is neither quite here nor there in the life of their people, is the context for God’s message of hope to them through Jeremiah: “See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together; a great company they shall return here. With weepingshall they come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I have become a father to Israel.”

More easily said than believed, perhaps, when a sense of being home, of being settled, of being grounded in a place is thrown off. It can be challenging to hold on to hope when we are mired in the mess of transition. And let’s face it, the church in the 21^stcentury is in constant transition. Your Forward Leadership team just returned from a retreat that marks the end of the first year-long phase of this program that seeks to discern mission and ministry in a changing and challenging context. It’s a program with lots of questions and few clear, simple answers. Even for those of us who have participated in all the programs and retreats, and who have valued the work it has inspired, it can feel hard to find solid footing, to say, “Yes, this is it, we’ve figured it out.” I have enjoyed and been honored to do that work with you, but it’s ultimately the work of the whole congregation to sit in the questions together, to engage the struggle together, to talk openly and honestly with one another about what the future holds. It’s the work of the whole congregation to echo the promises God speaks through Jeremiah, to remind one another of the promises God has made to accompany you, even when things crumble around you, when things seem uncertain, when the path forward is unclear.

That promise that echoes is every one of our readings today is that we have been adopted as children of God. Sometimes there is rain on our picnic. Sometimes there is change we can’t control. Sometimes a pastor leaves before anyone expected. Sometimes death visits too soon. Sometimes empires crumble. Sometimes the rug gets pulled out from under our feet in any number of challenging ways.

I wish I had a crystal ball to tell you how this congregation’s story will turn out. Part of me wishes I got to spend a little more time on the journey with you to wherever that is. I wish I could at least leave you with some clearer answers. But that is not God’s promise. God’s promise is that wherever you go, however far you wander, whatever surprises you, discourages you, threatens you, whatever befalls you for good or ill, that you are always welcome and always at home in God, as a member of God’s family. John says “to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” Paul in Ephesians says “God destined us for adoption as children…we have obtained an inheritance, having been destined according the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will.” They both echo Jeremiah, “I have become a father to Israel.”

You are children of God. The ground may shift. Your world may, in fact, crumble. It might rain on your picnic. Winter might bring frozen toes. Spring showers might bring muddy days. But none of that can change that there is a place for you and for everyone in God’s family – a home that you can rest in wherever you go and whatever comes your way, a place set for you at the table to be renewed and refreshed for the journey, a place where you are always welcome and always home.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

First Sunday of Christmas
December 29, 2019

¹³Now after the magi had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” ¹⁴Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
  ¹⁶When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. ¹⁷Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
 ¹⁸“A voice was heard in Ramah,
  wailing and loud lamentation,
 Rachel weeping for her children;
  she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
  ¹⁹When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ²⁰“Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” ²¹Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. ²²But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. ²³There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”- Matthew 2:13-23

Imagine with me, as theologian Serene Jones does in her book Trauma and Grace,* a conversation on a hill outside Jerusalem a few decades after our gruesome gospel reading in which Herod orders the slaughter of innocent children. Imagine on this hill…it is late afternoon on a Friday, just before the Sabbath is to begin. It is year 30 in the Common Era, give or take a few years. Two women cross paths on the road. Both are weeping. At first they do not look at one another because each is consumed in her own grief. But something causes them to pause, look up. Maybe it is that each recognizes the weeping of another mother who has lost her child.

One is Mary. Her son has just given his final breath. Crucified for claiming to be God’s flesh on earth, for provoking and threatening those in power, for his commitment to unconditional love. But to Mary, he is the one she birthed in a lowly stable, the one she nursed and cared for. The one she loved and cherished. She had been treasuring the wondrous and mysterious things that had surrounded his birth and his life, pondering them in her heart. And somehow she is not entirely surprised by this ending, though it rips her to pieces. Her grief is new and raw.

The other woman on this hill might be any one of those unnamed mothers whose grief is older but still sometimes raw and always painful, grief that has been carried long like a weight that will not be sloughed off. She is one of the mothers of children slaughtered by Herod in a fit of fearful rage at the idea of another king born in his own kingdom. We might call this woman Rachel, after the matriarch of the Hebrew people named in the quotation from Jeremiah in the gospel reading today – the one who died in childbirth and who from her grave weeps for all her children – the ones faced with famine, the ones sold into slavery, the ones wandering in the desert, the ones exiled to a foreign land – that’s where Jeremiah picks up her weeping – and now she weeps for the young infants slaughtered in and around Bethlehem by a tyrant afraid of an infant whose unusual if small bunch of supporters claim as a king. Rachel weeps for her children says Matthew, quoting Jeremiah, refusing to be consoled, for their children are no more. For grieving parents, for Mary or Rachel or any of the unnamed women who lost their children to famine, disease, war, or genocide, there is no word, not even a word from God, that will console them. There is no way to undo, to go back, to feel better. There is no reason, no platitude, no divine plan, no making sense of tragedy of this scale, no making sense of tragedy at all.

These two women whom we imagine meeting on the hill outside Jerusalem, they are relevant to us not only as figures of history but also as stand-ins for all the weeping and grieving that has taken place since and which continues to take place today. Millions of refugees await permanent homes in Kenya, Jordan, Sudan, Pakistan, at our own country’s southern border and even in present-day Bethlehem, many of whom have lost children to war or famine or the flight from unspeakable violence. Parents are separated from their children by economic hardship and cycles of abuse and addiction they cannot break out of. Gun violence continues to rip children away from parents, even at the places that are supposed to be the safest. Children are still sold or taken into slavery. Global epidemics arise faster than cures can be discovered and distributed, and children still die of preventable childhood illness. Climate change is only accelerating famine: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.”

There is no divine plan that explains this violence. There is no word of consolation that makes it better. There is only weeping on the hillside. But these two women are not alone. There is another mother with them on the hillside whose weeping joins theirs. It is the holy parent whose love for their own child crucified on a hill ruptures the very heart of God. It is the holy parent whose love for their own children killed in Herod’s senseless rage ruptures the very heart of God. It is the holy parent whose weeping for all her children who have died will not be consoled. There is no divine plan that explains the violence, no divine word capable of consoling the grieving parents. There is only the presence of a God, weeping and inconsolable at the pain that we cause one to another in this world.

Christmas is not only about the birth of the infant Jesus, it is about the incarnation of the divine in the midst of human pain and suffering. It is about God as the mother of all creation, weeping inconsolably at the pain that exists in the world. It is about God manifest in ourmidst, weeping ourtears with us. It is a day, a season, like Good Friday and its companion Easter, that can hold in its breadth the pain and suffering along with the seeds of resurrection.

Christmas is about that incarnation in Jesus beginning to grow into fullness, that incarnation bearing the weight of those tears in the world in ways that blossom into healing for the broken, forgiveness for the sinner, peace for those at war with each other, and even resurrection that Jesus imparts to the child of Jairus, the child of the widow at Nain, and for Lazarus, who is someone’s child. Christmas is only the beginning of that story unfolding, the tiny spark of God’s incarnation in all of history.

Christmas is only the beginning of the story that nears its fulfillment some 30-odd years later on a hill outside Jerusalem, a hill just within view of the one where two weeping women cross paths. It is on that hill that God does bring to completion a plan – not a plan for consolation but a plan for resurrection. There is nothing that can make us feel better about the violence, nothing that can soften this harsh text, as much as we might want to just a few days after Christmas. But there is, present in the dying one, present in the grieving one, the God of life who is working out resurrection. There is the beginning of the promise for us now.

It is Christmas, still. Which is why we remember that we have within us both the presence of God weeping with us in our sadness, pain, and grief, but that we also have the seeds of resurrection in us, waiting to grow into fullness – through the cross, but ultimately on to God’s new life for us and all the world.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

*This imagined conversation which Serene Jones writes is not copied here but it is the basis of what I share in the first paragraphs of this sermon in my own words. She takes it further and discusses the rich dimensions of the imagined encounter and what that means for our understanding of trauma and God’s grace. It begins on page 107 in the first edition of her book Trauma and Grace.

First Sunday of Advent
December 1, 2019

[Jesus said,] ³⁶“About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³⁷For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son-of-Man. ³⁸For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, ³⁹and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son-of-Man. ⁴⁰Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴²Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. ⁴³But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, the owner would have stayed awake and would not have let the house be broken into. ⁴⁴Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son-of-Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” – Matthew 24:36-44

Imagine those times you’re driving down the highway, traveling some normal, appropriate speed, or if you’re me, maybe even pushing the speed limit a little, and seemingly out of nowhere a car comes racing past weaving around traffic like a bolt of lightening. Even a careful driver would be hard pressed to notice it coming and only some kind of superpower of sight could make out the license plate before it zooms on.

It’s the kind of experience that can make your heart skip a beat, the kind of thing that leaves you a little startled or rattled. It can make you hyperalert or so distracted you can’t focus again for a minute. It can even make you question what you just saw, your perception of reality, and forget where you’re going.

Like a thief in the night, Jesus says, is the coming of the kingdom of God. Or…maybe like a speeding car. No one knows when it is coming, not even Jesus. Just like the days of Noah, he says, when all but Noah and his family were surprised by the flood that swept them away. Like two workers in a field, one swept away the other still plowing along. Like two women grinding meal, one swept away the other left grinding away.

Popular culture and lots of misunderstanding has amplified this passage into something people call the rapture, the idea that on some future day the faithful will be swept suddenly into paradise while the rest are left to their own devices in a world of suffering and pain. But not only is Jesus not clear about which ones get swept away and why and how and to where, he’s also not laying out a systematic theology of a rapture. He’s admitting that even he doesn’t know when this thief in the night is coming.

What Jesus really wants to say about the coming day – about which know one really knows anything – is to be prepared. Hmm…you might ask, then, how does one prepare for something that comes speeding up so fast you aren’t even sure it’s really there? How can you prepare for the unexpected?

Sometimes our Advent preparations end up being about our attempts to create something picture perfect. If it isn’t the lead up to a perfectly cooked Christmas dinner eaten by a harmonious family surrounded by Martha Stewart quality décor and the perfect gift for everyone on your list, then maybe it’s the idea that somehow through our preparation, by our Advent devotion or prayer or repentance or whatever we try to do, that we could somehow bring about our own and our loved ones’ happiness and health. I think in these church year seasons that lead into big festivals we can sometimes consciously or unconsciously begin to feel as if we must work our way toward God’s kingdom, bring ourselves up to the level of preparation that would tip the scales toward whatever our idea of the coming reign of God looks like. Subtly we take on responsibility not just for creating the perfect holiday but creating the perfect world. But that’s God’s work. Ultimately this season is more about attentiveness to the surprising ways that God appears when we least expect it.

Now that doesn’t mean our preparation, our waiting, doesn’t come with some work to be done. If we were to draw from our Isaiah reading this morning, one key preparation would be to beat swords into plowshares. For the prophets, this time of readiness sounds not like jingle bells but like the clanging of iron being molded by the blacksmith’s hammer. It’s the sound of war being turned not just into peace, but into community. It is not just the destruction of weaponry that Isaiah calls for, but the coming together of warring factions into communities that have the capacity to produce food to nourish one another. Instruments of harm become instruments of food production and community. That can sound a little pie-in-the-sky in a world filled with violence, but consider these modern examples of Isaiah’s call lived out…

Activist Pedro Reyes in Culiacan, Mexico, the city in that country with the highest rate of gun deaths has collected 1,527 guns and turned them into 1,527 shovels which will be used to plant 1,527 trees in the city.

In the 90’s there was a project in Russia to turn uranium from nuclear warheads into the kind of uranium that could power local communities.

Or an artists’ collective in Palestine that has taken shards of broken glass from bombings and other violence and turned them into artwork to promote peace and tell the story of their communities.

Or think about all the ways that people who have experienced violence and harassment have turned that into the power of community. When a few years ago there was yet another wave in the news of men who abused and harassed women, most of whom were not being held accountable, it launched an international movement of women who said, “Me, too!” It made more space to speak the truth in public, it developed more networks of support, and it started, at least a little bit, to bring about greater accountability. I think there’s a bit of turning swords into plowshares, there, too.

These are just some of the big and small ways that people are preparing for the coming of Christ by beating swords into plowshares. Over time these things do gain power and momentum and open up new ways of being together in the world. Yet none of them alone or even all of them together can fix all of human history or change entirely our human capacity for violence and our susceptibility to pain and suffering. What they can do, besides making small inroads to the kingdom of God, is begin to help us see something new. They begin to help us see new possibilities. They begin to open up hope for us. They call us back to the promises God has made to come to our world again and again. They remind us of the promise of God not to abandon us. And they remind us that sometimes the kingdom of God is sneaking up on us and sometimes zooming right past us before we even begin to realize it.

If only we could see all these ways in which that happens every day in the world. It’s easy to hear about the coming day of the Lord and look around at the state of the world and land solidly in a state of despair. Even if we aspire to the kind of peacemaking work that is part of God’s kingdom, even if we prepare our hearts and our communities and our planet for the resurrection life God has promised us, we find ourselves inevitably falling short.

Except that despite all that, sometimes the grace of God comes flying up so fast that we aren’t prepared for it and we aren’t quite sure what it even was, except that is disrupts our life in ways that reshape us going forward. Sometimes grace wells up within us or flows around us in ways that surprise and startle us. And maybe more than anything, those moments heighten our awareness if only for a bit. Even fleeting moments of grace, things that in retrospect seem small, can be enough to make us sit up and stay prepared for more to come. That’s what Advent is about – the power of God to race in and surprise us in ways that heighten our senses, perk up our awareness, and develop our preparedness for the coming kingdom of God, that will surely speed into our lives when we are least expecting it and in the most surprising of ways.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Christ the King Sunday
November 24, 2019

³³When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. ³⁴⟦Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”⟧ And they cast lots to divide his clothing. ³⁵And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” ³⁶The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, ³⁷and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” ³⁸There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
  ³⁹One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding Jesus and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” ⁴⁰But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴²Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:33-43

Ok, don’t settle into your pew to listen just yet. I’m going to ask you, as you’re able, to get up and move. I want you to hear this sermon from a different place in the room. If you sit on this side, move to that side, or if you sit in the back move forward. When I say go, find a different spot in the room to sit. I know some of you have roles that require you to sit somewhere in particular – it’s ok, you can go back after the sermon is over. Ready? Go.

…Now. Look around you. This room is a bit narrow and the seating options only so many – the effects might be more dramatic were we in a bigger room. But do you notice anything different? Do you notice anyonedifferent? Does it feel different?

The forward leadership team has been practicing this kind of exercise around our church building – outside and inside, we’ve been trying to put ourselves in the shoes of a visitor to our community. What do they see? What do they notice? What does that communicate about who we are? And we’ve noticed that when we stand in a different place, look with different eyes, we start to notice some different things. Maybe you noticed today when you came in that some things were rearranged in the gathering area outside our worship space. The Forward team wondered what it would be like to look at that space a little differently. When we start to question the things we do every week, suddenly we start to see new things and it starts to spark new ideas. Maybe we’ll like it, maybe not – nothing is permanent, but together we’re going to try standing in a different place.

Today is Christ the King Sunday. It’s the church festival and title for Jesus after which our congregation is named. It’s this day that we wrestle with just what it means that Christ is king. And I think the way we understand the kingship of Christ depends on where we sit:

Those who experience oppression might from their position see the kingship of Christ as the military victor who has the power to turn the tables on oppressive leaders, hold back unjust armies, and set free those who have been literally enslaved or imprisoned. Those who experience relative comfort and wealth might see Christ the King as the steady monarch who protects and sustains the kingdom. Those with chronic diseases, pain, or injury might see Christ the King as the universal healer who rules even over the things that destroy and ravage our bodies. Those who feel wronged by others might see side of kingship that is responsible for meting out judgments and justice that will serve everyone and bring all things into alignment with the values and principles of the kingdom. Those whose focus is primarily on what happens after we die might see Christ’s kingdom as a heavenly realm beyond our earthly troubles, while those whose focus is on bringing the world as we know it closer to God’s way of being might see more clearly Christ’s rule over our lives now.

All of these have some merit. None is a complete picture alone. And there are many more dimensions to this than can be named right now. But where we sit matters. We see things differently and experience things differently depending on where we sit in the world. And that includes who and what we understand God to be.

But it matters, too, where Jesus sits. Today we might be tempted to imagine Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father, the Biblical and creedal language that places the resurrected Jesus reigning from heaven. Perhaps we imagine a gilded throne and jeweled scepter. At least I do, even if I don’t mean to. I wonder that when we see Jesus sitting on such a throne we can’t help but see God as judge of our actions, as one to whom we must prove ourselves worthy, one who is perhaps distant and even sometimes seemingly unattainable. Christ enthroned in heaven is powerful, important language – Biblical language! – to describe the rule of Christ. But not the whole picture.

In our gospel reading today, Christ is not on a gilded throne, but rather hung from the cross with criminals hung to the right and to the left, one taunting, the other begging. In this day that is supposed to bring together all the understandings of Jesus that we have explored in the course of the church year – the infant in the manger, the emerging rabbi, the miracle worker, the healer, the forgiver of sins, the advocate with the poor and outcast, the dying one, the resurrected one, the sender of the Holy Spirit. On this day that is meant in some ways to pull all those threads together into the power and rule of Christ, Jesus is on the unexpected throne of the cross.

Of all the places to choose for a throne, Christ the King chooses to rule from the place of the crucified. This is the position from which God sees the world, the lens through which we, too, are invited to view the kingdom of God. It is the opposite of our world’s understanding of power. God’s crowning moment is placed among criminals, suffering and dying. This says something about who our God is. Of all the ways in which God operates it is at the cross that we as Christians turn first and foremost to understand the nature of God. God moves from the heavenly throne to the manger, to the margins, to the cross and tomb to see the world from our perspective, to join us in our struggle, our pain, and our dying.

It’s this perspective that shapes God’s understanding of us and our world. It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t hold us accountable, it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t hold cosmic power and bring about justice. But it does mean that God receives our taunts and rebukes, our anger and accusation from the place of understanding the depth of brokenness from which it comes. And it means that God receives our pleas to rest with Christ in paradise from the understanding of how desperately we long for God’s redemption and freedom. God sees us not as the broken ones we are, not as criminals whose value is diminished by our actions, not as subjects to be ruled or overpowered, but fellow sufferers standing with Christ at the threshold between life and death, afraid and in pain, longing for hope and wholeness, love and grace.

God moves places to rule from the cross to join us, to see us, to be in us. And from there through tomb and resurrection God comes here in bread and wine to dwell in us. To make us another throne for Christ the King. In sharing Christ’s body, we become the place where God comes to sit. God comes to see us and see our world – our joys and our pain and our hope and our struggle. God joins us there and accompanies us through death into life. And that, is how God chooses to be, how God chooses to rule, how God chooses to be powerful, how Christ chooses to be king.

-Pastor Steven Wilco