25th Sunday after Pentecost
November 11, 2018

³⁸As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, ³⁹and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! ⁴⁰They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
  ⁴¹Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. ⁴²A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. ⁴³Then Jesus called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. ⁴⁴For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” – Mark 12:38-44

A nameless widow. Not that she didn’t have a name, but it was not recorded for history, this woman that only Jesus notices dropping her last two pennies into the temple coffers.

Maybe her name was Joanna. She spent her life mostly out of the public eye, one of those people who serves quietly – a backbone of her community even though few people realized it, few people were even sure they knew her name. She baked cookies for the neighborhood kids. She showed up with a hot-dish ready every time someone was sick or grieving. She quietly prayed simple prayers for mercy for the world. She took in stray cats who were starving. And she was never much good at managing money because it never really meant that much to her. She gave away whatever she could to help someone who needed it. After her husband died and society left her without the means to make money on her own, the little bit she had quickly disappeared for the orphan’s school books and a meal for a neighbor who couldn’t work with his hands anymore after they had been overcome with arthritis. She didn’t make a fuss about it, but she was a giver and not so comfortable receiving things, so when she had just two pennies left – not enough even to buy a last meal – she took it to the temple as an offering and she went off to die in peace. In a line of powerful people only Jesus notices her, only Jesus sees her.

Or…maybe her name was Mara, and she was one of the people Joanna had been helping. She was a lost soul. She had never quite been sure what to do with herself. When she was widowed just months after her marriage, she was alone in the world, still a teenager. She ducked in and out of rehab. She really tried to kick the habit, but she never quite had the support to do it. She sold herself when she could – she never liked it but it paid for meals and roof over her head. Sometimes she resorted to begging to make it through the end of the month when her meager welfare check had long since run out and the pantry was cleared of the last crumb. It’s been years since she had much money to her name, and now with two pennies left she’s given up. Everyone in town has seen her at one point or another, but almost no one remembers her face or even wants to know her name. She drops the two pennies in the temple coffers, thinking it’s something of a last prayer for a life full of regrets before she goes off to die alone and forgotten. And in a line full of powerful people, only Jesus notices her, only Jeuss sees her.

Or….maybe her name was Berenice, and she lived a comfortable life. She came from a good-enough family. She had a good-enough home and a good-enough life. She always gave away just enough to feel better about herself for helping, but not enough that she ever much missed what she had given away. She raised her kids and volunteered for the PTA. She wasn’t what anyone considered rich, but she never wanted for much in the way of material things either. She assumed it would be that way forever. But her husband died and there was a hospital bill that she couldn’t quite pay, bad financial decisions made by someone else on her behalf, leaving her without much to live on. She felt the shame that society heaps on those whose circumstances leave them impoverished. She didn’t know where to go to get help. She didn’t believe in the prosperity Gospel, the idea that giving to the temple would bless her with material wealth in return, but desperation has a way of changing long-held theological commitments. Having no other ideas she dropped her last two pennies into the temple offering plate and went to wait out her fate. In a line of rich and powerful people, only Jesus notices her, only Jesus sees her.

And whatever her story is, now that Jesus has drawn our attention to her, what do we do in response??

We could rail against the corruption Jesus observes – scribes who devour widows houses. The temple and, let’s be honest, a lot of other churches and religious institutions since have gotten rich on guilting people of little means into giving up what they don’t have to build bigger temples. We could get angry at the leaders themselves or try to transform the system that keeps them in place, demand there be laws in place that use the temple’s money to serve the community rather than build up its own buildings. We could demand regime change. And I believe that would be holy work. It is work the church of the 21^stcentury has to continue – how use our resources – time, money, and otherwise – to serve the world and not just our own faith community. There is a time and place for that work.

We could rush down and stop the widow from making her offering. Tell her not to give her money away. Can’t she see that it isn’t going to make much difference to the temple and that she could maybe do somethingwith it for herself?! We’d even pitch in enough to buy a meal and maybe walk her to somewhere she can find some help. Though it would be holy work to see her and accompany her in some way to opportunities to continue living, I don’t think it’s right to deny anyone the opportunity to share what they have, even if it is the last they have to live on. To do so would dishonor her and her beautiful offering.

But interestingly, Jesus doesn’t do either of those things. What Jesus does is follow in her footsteps. If any of us were presented with a photograph of this moment in time and asked where we see God in this picture, we might be drawn to the magnificence of the temple. We might note the scribes who have devoted lives to the study of Torah, whose prayers and study on behalf of the people helped carry their religious traditions from one generation to the next. We might note the grand generosity of any number of people in line at the temple treasury. But most of us, without some prompting, without steeping ourselves in Jesus’ own story, would look right over the woman who puts in everything she has, because her offering looks to us like next to nothing. Because, whatever we imagine her story to be, too often we see heras next to nothing. But in a scene filled with symbols of power and people who are deemed to be powerful, Jesus notices one woman with nothing left to live on. Perhaps he notices her above everyone else because he sees in her final offering an image of himself, who in just a few short days will give up everything he has left – his very life – to the hands of the religious leaders. Jesus calls our attention to this one woman perhaps to draw our attention to the way of God in the world to come as the powerless one, to give away everything God has to give, to be at work in ways that are often overlooked.

Today, as every Sunday, you are invited to make an offering to God. An offering of your money, sure, and today members of this community are invited to offer a commitment for next year’s offering. But also an offering of your time and talents. An offering of your songs and prayers. An offering of your presence in this place which is always a gift we give to one another in worship.

If what you offer in any of those categories today is out of some kind of abundance, if it is a generous but proportionate gift, which is perhaps the place most of us find ourselves in – offering something, even something generous and sacrificial, but not the last we have to live on, then know three things… first, thank you. Your offering is beautiful and holy. Second, together we as a community will try to hold one another up as we challenge one another to continue serving the world. And third, and most important, God sees you, God knows your story, God comes to you today.

But even if we give from a place of abundance today, sooner or later all of us will find ourselves in the place of the widow, in the midst of a world of injustice and imperfection, not having much left to offer anyone. So if what you offer today in any of those ways feels like the last you have to give – if it took all your energy to make it here today, if what you drop in the offering plate is all the money you have left to buy groceries this week, if you feel like any more commitments will drain the last drop of life from you…know three things…first, thank you – your offering is a beautiful and holy thing. Second, I and we the congregation want to accompany you – accompany each other – in whatever way we can – tell us how we can help you or at least let us sit with you in the hard place. And third, and most important, God sees you, God knows your story, God stands in that place with you.

What we offer in worship is important, holy, beautiful. But we gather here Sunday after Sunday because of what God offers us. It doesn’t look like much – just a morsel of bread and a sip of wine. Like two pennies in the coffer compared to all it seems we need. But if we look closely at that little bit that God offers us, we might see what Jesus sees in the widow – the offering of all God has left to give, a piece of God’s very body for the sake of the world, for the sake of an imperfect people. And there in that tiny offering from God, that widow’s mite, is healing and hope and life. There in that tiny offering from God is the transformation of our broken hearts and our broken world. There in that tiny offering from God is everything we need forever.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Saints Sunday
November 4, 2018

³²When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Judeans who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵Jesus began to weep. ³⁶So the Judeans said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
  ³⁸Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³When Jesus had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” – John 11:32-44

Mary and Martha’s worst fear…our worst fear…has come to pass. Lazarus, their brother, a member of their household, a person they shared daily life with, who brought them joy, who loved them and whom they loved, has died. He is gone. They hold memories of their relationship – good ones, bad ones, complicated ones. They perhaps imagine what might yet have been if he had lived. They are sad and angry and exhausted and confused. They are tending to details to avoid dealing with the deep and confusing feelings of grief. And the deep and confusing feelings make it impossible at moments even to think clearly about simple tasks. Death has visited again.

It is a reality that all of us must face, one we remember for so many dear ones on this All Saints Sunday, one that almost no one really wishes for unless the pain of living has become so unbearable that it feels like the lesser of two evils. It is a reality that can come suddenly in the flash of a car accident or an act of violence, or one that can drag on for years through slowly debilitating terminal illness. Even when it is the end of a long life well-lived or a release from years of suffering, it can still be hard to be separated by death from the ones we love. And so we learn in certain ways and at certain times more than others, to fear the reality of death that all of us one day must face.

Sometimes this fear keeps us safe – like reminding us not to walk too close to the cliff edge or not to drive too recklessly. Sometimes, perhaps, that fear will remind us to live life to its fullest. But all too often that fear of death, whether conscious or not, makes us hold on tightly to what we have. We do not want to think about people beginning to move on with their lives without us. We do not want to think that we lack infinite years to read through libraries of books, or travel the world, or learn new languages, or whatever is on your bucket list. We do not want to think about all that we will one day miss. And that can make us dig in our heels and clench our fists to try to grasp ahold of whatever we can. The reality of death – the death of our loved ones and death that will one day visit each of us – binds us up like Lazarus in the tomb.

In the face of the greatest thing we cannot control – our own mortality – we often seek to control all manner of smaller things and close ourselves off to new things – to anything that might ask us to risk giving up a part of ourselves. We cling to my way of life as the only way to be. The things I have experienced are how the world is. My religious beliefs, my political stance, my thoughts about who gets certain rights and who doesn’t become a life or death struggle as if by just controlling some corner of our world we can maybe stave off death. Instead of gracious stewards of our lives and our gifts we can easily become tight-fisted managers of whatever we can control.

I hear it in the news this week as we discuss the migrants making their way through Mexico to the US border. The language that people on many sides are using is of fear, as if by their seeking assistance there will somehow not be enough for others. I might have to give some part of my life away to make room for someone else to have a life.

I hear it in the political ads that have been endlessly leading up to Tuesday’s election. Vote in a way that will benefit you and your personal self-interest rather than holding up the common good. Circle the wagons lest we lose some part of ourselves.

I hear it in faith communities across the country whose fear of dying as a community leads to closing in and gripping more tightly to what is and what has been in ways that can cloud a vision for living into something new.

I hear it maybe most of all in myself. I am afraid of being forgotten in death and so I cling too tightly to things that I think might give me status or notoriety. I am afraid that my life will not be full of the right kinds of meaning and so I find myself anxiously trying to do things in ways that end up merely adding more anxiety to life in the moment. I am afraid that failure will feel too much like death, and so too often I play it safe. I am afraid of the future so I worry about money and how much is saved and how. I become tight-fisted with my financial resources and just about everything else.

Some at least would say that all these little fears are representations of our larger fear of death, that death has a hold of us long before we die. Like Lazarus we are bound up by grave clothes and shut away in our tombs.

We are not wrong to fear death. Death is powerful. It robs us of the people and things we love. And we face little pieces of death all the time in our lives. Death is a hard reality of living. But it is not the only reality. In this gospel story Jesus meets Mary and Martha and every grieving person beside the tomb. Jesus receives the sadness, the anger, the blaming, the longing for what might have been. And that is another reality – that God in flesh feels deeply the sadness and anger of death. Death of this particular one that we have loved and all the things that death in a broad sense robs us of.

But there is yet one more reality that surprises everyone in this story. Jesus does not just stand in solidarity and empathy with the grieving, but he does what everyone else is afraid to do – he opens up the grave of a man who has been dead four days. And he does what no one, even his most ardent supporter, is expecting. He calls the dead man’s name: “Lazarus! Come out!” And he comes. Our third reality: Jesus has power over death. Death is powerful. God stands in solidarity with the dying, the dead, and the grieving. And Jesus has power over death.

Lazarus emerges from the tomb still wrapped in the graveclothes, something a bit mummy-like. Miracle of miracles he is alive again, but he is still bound up by death. Like all of us who live in the shadow of death and afraid in so many ways, he is still gripped by the grave. And so Jesus shouts again, this time to the crowd, one of my favorite lines in all the gospels: “Unbind him, and let him go!”

It is one of my favorites because it names the way that all of us are still bound up by death even after Jesus has raised us up from the waters of baptism. That is the freedom God speaks to us in baptism. That is the freedom God offers in the renewal of baptism every day. That is the freedom God speaks one day into our grave, calling us forth into God’s new life.

And one wonders then, how Lazarus lives having been resurrected from the dead and unbound from the power of the grave. One would like to think perhaps that he was newly generous, ready to risk it all for the sake of serving others, able to set aside his fear about life and, maybe for the first time to really live.

But my guess is that he didn’t. Not all the time, not the whole of his remaining life before his second death into God’s embrace. Because I have heard God’s call my name, and I know the life-resurrecting freedom it calls forth, and I still live most of the time as if death is the only reality I know.

And so we come together in community to be reminded. To have our neighbors call our names in ways that echo Jesus. To remember the baptismal resurrection we have experienced at the font. To give ourselves away for the sake of the world. So that we might have an opportunity to live all over again and try out that God-given, life-affirming freedom of being unbound from the grip of death.

In my own practice of trying to live into this kind of freedom, one of the things that has become very important to me is giving away some of what I have. I try to do this with my time, with my energy, with my many other gifts. But it’s terribly concrete to do it with my financial resources. My fear can make me tight-fisted when it comes to spending and sharing. So it has become an important part of my spiritual practice to commit every year to regularly giving away part of my financial resources as we are in the midst of doing again this year as a congregation in our Stir It Up stewardship campaign. It forces me to practice the habit of letting go and trusting God. It’s part of my own practice of remembering that what I have is not ultimately within my own control, that in fact my life and my death are not in my control but rather in God’s. Because otherwise I find myself still bound up in the grave clothes when it comes to money, and then by extension in so many other things, too.

I’m not saying giving money away to the church or anywhere else is going to set you free from death, or even teach you all the time to live more fully with the promise of resurrection. But I do know it’s one of the things, alongside singing together and eating together and praying together, that reminds me that death and all my fear, anxiety, and grasping at everything I can get my hands on is not the only reality. It’s a part of reminding me that God is calling my name over and over again and setting me free daily from the bonds of death, so that one day, when death itself does come, I will be ready and waiting for one more call, one more unbinding to join the saints already at the feast.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Reformation Sunday
October 28, 2018

³¹The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was married to them, says the Lord. ³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. – Jeremiah 31:31-34

The following sermon was heavily influenced by the commentary of Professor Margaret Odell. The quotation below is from that commentary. The image of the tree for the reforming church is something I heard from Brian McLaren when he was a speaker the New England Synod Bishop’s Convocation some years ago, though certainly others have used tree imagery in many ways in reference to the church. 

There’s a way of telling the story of the Protestant Reformation that makes a hero out of Martin Luther and a devil out of the pope. In some ways that’s the story Luther himself promoted. It’s a narrative that very soon became justification for violence and war. It’s a narrative that persists to this day – in families divided by the inability of one branch of the church to recognize another, in the competition we perceive between churches in a community. And despite the many gifts of the Protestant Reformation and the needed critique of things that stood in the way of the gospel, it’s a narrative that isn’t true.

There’s also a way of telling the story of Christianity that makes a hero out of Jesus and his followers and a devil out of the Jewish authorities in the gospel narratives and the many Jewish communities then and since who have heard God’s promises in other ways. It’s a narrative that has, sadly, been used to denigrate Judaism and Jewish theological convictions. It’s a narrative that has been used terribly and wrongly to justify not only theological arguments, but the crusades, the Holocaust, and continued violent anti-Semitism like the shooting that took place yesterday at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. And it’s a narrative that is simply not true.

There’s a way of telling a lot of stories about who we are that way – we cut out, lock away, kill off the old to make room for the new. And most of the time, it just isn’t true.

In our first reading from Jeremiah, God promises a new covenant unlike the old. But this isn’t an abrupt break as so many have believed. This isn’t an out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new kind of move for God. For generations God has been faithful to the people despite their repeated failure to be faithful in return. For generations God has been seeking new ways to communicate the covenant and a hope for an abundant life together for the community – through Abraham and Sarah, through Moses and Miriam, through judges and rulers and prophets. And over and over again, the people wandered away.

But this time will be different says God: this new covenant will be written right onto their hearts. They will know it deep within in ways that well up from inside them. The promise God made earlier in this chapter will never be lost: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” In the words of Professor Margaret Odell: “What is imagined here is a resilient relationship of trust and mutuality, in which Israel responds to God from the heart, and God accepts Israel freely, with mercy and forgiveness. But what makes the new covenant possible is what had always been true but needed to be learned again. ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.’ This love, suggests Jeremiah, is nothing new.” (see full commentary here)

We might think of a tree growing and changing as an image for this ever-renewing covenant. Here in New England we have been witnessing again the transformation of the deciduous trees in another brilliant display of color. Yellows, oranges, even reds as bright as today’s paraments. A sign of the seasons changing, a reminder that new growth comes every year and then yields to what must come next. It draws up water and nutrients from the soil, it takes in the sun’s energy, and it grows in new directions. New branches emerge and grow. It bears fruit and seed nourishing humans and animals and flourishing as new growth in other soil. This is what an ever-reforming faith looks like. Not chopping down the old and starting over, but always growing, always changing, always making room for more branches, more leaves, more fruit.

What I like perhaps most about the image of the tree for the community of faith is that every new growth depends on what has been before. Anyone who’s seen a cross-section of a tree before has seen the history marked by the growth rings within. Every new leaf, every new branch, every seed that grows into a new tree depends on all that has gone before it. The Reformation was a radical shift in the church, but it was only possible because of what had been before. That there was a church to reform was the product of centuries of investment by people across the globe. Centuries of flawed and faithful ministry in which new branches grew, in which each year brought new life and growth, in which fruit and seed were produced, in which what had been before supported and held up what was emerging new. And as the reformation took off, more branches with more gifts began to bless the whole communion of saints. And as a rabbi friend of mine is fond of saying, modern Rabbinic Judaism is more like a sibling to Christianity than a parent. Both grew forth and branched out from ancient Judaism, from the generations of people who carried forth God’s promises before. We both grow from the same trunk and drink for the same deep well of grace. When one part of this great tree suffers – as it did so violently yesterday in Pittsburgh, all of us lose, all of us are harmed. And on the flip side, when other parts of the tree are supported and lifted up, all of us flourish.

In a few moments we will witness together a baptism. Anna Lorraine will come to the font to hear God’s promise for her. A new covenant, a chance for her to draw into herself the love and grace of God. But it is a continuation of the promise God already made to her, the love God already has for her from before she was born, from before the years of her parents waiting and longing for her arrival. Yet today is an opportunity for her to hear that promise anew, to have it written deep within her, to have the sign of the cross sealed on her forehead.

And what we are about to witness at the font this morning is the radical reformation of the church, the renewal of the covenant, the writing of God’s promise on the heart in a way that can never be lost. This – the welcome of new people to an existing community struggling daily to discern God’s presence, struggling daily to live in grace with one another, struggling daily to find new pathways forward in faith. As if a sign of that ever-reforming church she wears her mother’s baptismal gown – the promises of the past brought anew to another generation. And we will welcome her today into the mission we share as the body of Christ – to bear God’s creative and redeeming word to all the world. We don’t know now how she will do that. We don’t know what new hopes and dreams she will bring to the church and to the world. We don’t know yet all that she will accomplish. We don’t yet know how like all of us, she will misstep and need to fall back on the promise of forgiveness. But we do know that today she is supported by the strength of those who have gone before. That this newly sprouting branch of the tree is fed and nourished by the work of generations before her. And that God’s love and grace from of old will be made new again for her every new day of her life.

And that is true for all of us. All those who come to the font, whether as tiny infants or as grown adults, are works in progress – still growing, changing, learning. All of us supported by the many saints who have gone before us and all of us contributing to the life and growth that will come after us. As Anna comes to the waters today, I invite all of you to rejoice, not just in the promise God makes to her, but also in the promise God makes to all of you. For you are part of this great tree of life, nourished by the waters of baptism, and bearing the fruit of peace and reconciliation into the world.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

22nd Sunday after Pentecost
October 21, 2018

With thanks to Pr. Dan Wilfrid of Immanuel Lutheran, Holden, MA, whose sermon on this text inspired mine.

³⁵James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” ³⁶And Jesus said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” ³⁷And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” ³⁸But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” ³⁹They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; ⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
  ⁴¹When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers are domineering, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son-of-Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” – Mark 10:35-45

“Be careful! You might just get what you ask for.”

You’ve probably heard this, and maybe even said it. I imagine a little kid wishing for hundreds of candy bars to eat, and a tired, slightly scolding adult trying to remind the poor kid that hundreds of candy bars would result in a stomach ache and perhaps regret over having gotten what was desired. “Be careful! You might just get what you ask for.”

But change it around to the things we hear adults wishing for, and we might not be quite so dismissive. If only we had a few more hours in the day, but: “Be careful! You might just get what you ask for.” Maybe those extra hour will come with the expectation of more work to do. If only I could just get a little bit more money to feel financially secure, but: “Be careful! You might just get what you ask for.” One might find that the extra work and other sacrifices to get that money takes away some of one’s joy and freedom. We know deep down, I think, that even things we dream about come with unintended or unforeseen consequences.

But sometimes we just want what we want. We want the candy bar, the extra hours, the financial security, whatever we think will make us fulfilled and happy. We just want life to be a little easier, a little more perfect. We want to know we’ve made it and can relax a little. And we don’t want anyone to remind us about the possible consequences.

That’s really all James and John want when they come to talk to Jesus. Sure their request sounds a bit grandiose – a seat at the right and the left of Jesus in glory. But they’ve given up a lot to follow Jesus, and in the moment a heavenly throne seems a reasonable request. Maybe more than anything they’re looking for a little affirmation, a statement from Jesus that they’ve made it. They want to know they can rest and enjoy things once Jesus finally takes his throne. And Jesus’ response is not to laugh at their request, but to remind them – again! – what that actually means. “Be careful! You might just get what you ask for.”

You see, James and John haven’t figured this out yet, despite Jesus’ repeated predictions. But anyone who’s read to the end of Mark’s gospel knows exactly what James and John are asking for. Because Jesus never ascends a gilded throne. Jesus’ glory comes on the cross and the seats to the right and the left are held by two criminals crucified right alongside him. Jesus’ glory is when he loves all people right through his own suffering and death.

Of course, that’s not what James and John meant. But that is what they asked for. And bless their hearts, they will miss it when Jesus has his upside-down glory on the cross. They will not follow to the cross to take their place at Jesus’ right and left. They’ll be hiding, afraid. But Jesus’ resurrection will set them free again into the world to practice that same servant-like, self-giving kind of love that will get them their own glory seat in not too long. Tradition has it that they, like many of the disciples, met their own death as martyrs, as people so committed to God’s radical love that the world tried to put it – and them – to death. Be careful. You might just get what you ask for.

I wonder then what kinds of things we 21^stcentury disciples are asking of God…

When people come to the font asking to be baptized, I always want to warn people to be careful, because they might just get what they’re asking for. Some people are looking for Christian community, others for an assurance of God’s love, still others for some kind of eternal sense of security in this watery promise. But what I find we usually get at the font along with God’s profound assurance of love and grace is one wild ride – a calling that pushes us beyond the limits of what we thought possible, pushes us to love people we’d rather shun, sweeps us into uncomfortable and challenging places to discover God’s love at work in us and in the world. Be careful! You might just get what you ask for.

And we all come to church for different reasons. I assume many of you come because you get something good and beneficial. Perhaps some encouragement or comfort that helps get you through the week, perhaps a community of support and care, maybe something that will help you live out your faith and values a little bit better, maybe the ritual – the prayers, the singing, communion – helps ground you again. All well and good, but be careful! You might just get what you ask for. Because grounded, comforted, held in community you may find that there is where God calls to you, challenges you, invites you to serve others. Many of you tell stories of coming to this community or to other church communities and finding yourselves serving in ways you never thought you would because there was a need, because someone asked. That’s the way of God – not demanding servitude or certainly not that we all become doormats for others, but that held in grace we are empowered to serve in ways that we never could have on our own.

And today you’ve heard that you’re going to receive a reverse offering. We’re going to give you money today. Now at first that may sound like a pleasant surprise, a wonderful gift. You may not have thought to ask for that, but perhaps it sounds like something we should have thought to ask for! But be careful! You might just get what you didn’t know you were asking for. As someone who has known this was coming for several weeks, I’ve already had a chance to think about how to share that gift with someone else, and I’ve managed to think of a few ideas, but it has struck me as a big responsibility. $10 isn’t really much in the scheme of things these days, and yet to be given a gift like that to use for good feels like something not to take lightly. And as your pastor I want to say – don’t get too anxious about how to use it. Think about something good in the world to do with it and go for it. At the same time, it is something we are entrusting you with, a responsibility you may not have quite been asking for. If you came to church today looking for a gift for your week – this may be it. Not the $10, but the invitation to serve your neighbor.

As I’m getting around to visiting with each of you, trying to learn this new community of people who have welcomed me as pastor, one of the things I hear over and over again is the hope that our congregation will grow again. I hear the longing. You love this community, you love what it has given you over the years, the opportunities you’ve had to learn and grow and serve, the opportunities to love and be loved. But be careful! You might just get what you ask for. To grow again in a new time and place might look very different from what the congregation once was and what it is now. To be a place where people find that same community, that same opportunity to love and be loved, the church might change in the process. All of us, myself included, might need to let go of what we see to be the vision of the church today. It may not be what any of us envisions, but it will continue to be the church God dwells in.

So, like James and John, God has plenty of surprises in store for us. We will fall short sometimes. We will be bumbling, anxious disciples at times. And yet God loves us into a new reality all the same. We ask every week in our prayers and our songs for the kingdom of God to come. That kingdom, thank God, probably won’t look like what we imagine or even exactly what we ask for. Because we don’t always know what it is we really want or what it is we really need, what glory really looks like. And that’s the craziness of the cross. That in the places where we least expect it, in ways that challenge all our assumptions, God ushers in a new creation, makes us a new creation, and resurrects us into new life.  And there we might finally discover that every seat has been next to Jesus all along, that every seat is a seat of glory, and that this unexpected new creation challenges us into a new and grace-filled way of being together as the people of God.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

21st Sunday after Pentecost
October 14, 2018
& the blessing of the marriage of Corey and Gloria

¹⁷As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁸Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’ ” ²⁰The man said to Jesus, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” ²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” ²²When the man heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
  ²³Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the dominion of God!” ²⁴And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the dominion of God! ²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the dominion of God.” ²⁶They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
  ²⁸ Peter began to say to Jesus, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” ²⁹Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” – Mark 10:17-31

I’ve never been any good at the game of poker. Part of it is that I never managed to remember which combinations of cards beat other combinations of cards, so I always had a hard time figuring out what to aim for in my hand. Part of it is that I have a really hard time lying – I have absolutely no “poker face.” But my biggest problem is that I was always afraid to bet anything, at least when any actual money was at stake. But there’s a phrase we’ve borrowed from the world of gambling that I do sometimes use. When you’ve got a hand that you think is so good, so perfect, so likely to beat out anyone else’s hand that you’re convinced you’re going to win, one can, if one is not as betting averse as I am, go “all in.” You can put all your chips, everything you have to bet, on the chances of this hand winning. It’s terribly risky. You could lose everything or you could gain everything. When you’re all in you’ve put everything you’ve got on the line and you have nothing to do but hope you’ve made the right call.

In some ways the rich man who comes to Jesus in today’s gospel reading is trying to play this kind of betting game. His whole life he’s been betting on the idea that if he just studiously, carefully, constantly obeys every last detail of the law that he’ll be right with God. And he’s done a good job. I believe the poor guy who comes to Jesus hoping to be affirmed in everything he’s done. Maybe this guy isn’t perfect, but he’s pretty darn close – as close as you can get, really. He’s kept at least all the major commandments, and some extra ones that Jesus throws in there. And well enough, says Jesus. It’s probably served you well and been a gift to your community that you so carefully followed the rules. But that’s not what will earn you eternal life. In fact, you can’t really earn it at all. What you have to do is go all in with God and, frankly, all in with the poor of this world, and find yourself with nothing left but to fall on grace. And the man is deeply grieved. He’s been playing wrong, playing safe his whole life and he’s just found out instead he’s got to do what seems impossible.

We are mostly in the same boat with this rich man. We have a hard time letting go and going all in. We might take risks, even big risks, but compared to selling absolutely everything we have and giving away the last penny to our names, they are more like careful calculated bets. We cling to our stuff, our sense of pride, ourselves. We justify our own wealth by point to the superrich as the benchmark. It would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for us to enter the kingdom of heaven. We just can’t seem to get up the nerve to risk everything in the way that God invites us to do.

And yet today this community surrounds Gloria and Corey with our blessing on their marriage, because they have decided to go all in with each other. Corey and Gloria, this community stands with you on this important day. You’ve made a big decision to start a new kind of life together as a married couple. And it’s a risky proposition – anyone getting married. Because what you promise today is to be with one another, to stick by one another, no matter what comes in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and health, in plenty and want. You’re making promises to love and cherish even though you can’t see what life will deal you going forward. And you know what? You won’t do it perfectly. It’s impossible to do it perfectly. Sooner than later you’ll have to find yourselves giving and receiving grace. You’ll find yourselves learning not to count up all the things you’ve done right (or wrong), but to forgive yourself and your spouse, because you’ve decided to go all with one another. You’ve decided not only to give your possessions but your whole selves to one another.

But even more than the promises you make today, my hope for you is that having gone all in, that when things are difficult, when things seem impossible for whatever reason, that you can fall back not only on the promises you make to each other today, but on the promise this community makes to surround you, on the blessing God offers on this life together today, and the never-ending promises God has already made to you in your baptisms. Because when you’ve gone all in on something, that’s the only thing that will catch you when you really fall.

But Corey and Gloria are not the only ones who are invited to go all in today. All of us have an opportunity every day to do what Jesus invites this man to do. Jesus asks us to go all in. Most of the time we fall short. We are hesitant bettors at best. We give to the poor, but we rarely do it in ways that put our own financial safety at risk. We share our resources but only so far. We are reluctant to cast our lot with the poor by divesting ourselves not only of all our stuff, but of the narrative that we have somehow earned it and deserve it. I don’t like to think of myself as materialistic, but I sure like some of my stuff and having a roof over my head and food on the table. I like not to have to depend on someone else for everything. So I’m honestly not very likely to go all-in very soon.

And yet that’s exactly what Jesus calls us to do, exactly what the life of faith is about. When parents bring young children the baptismal font, we ask them to make promises: “to live with them among God’s faithful people, bring them to the word of God and the holy supper, teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, place in their hands the holy scriptures, and nurture them in faith and prayer, so that your children may learn to trust God, proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.” But I think sometimes we think of baptism and the life of faith as about working our way through this very important list. And we are well-served and the community is well served, by honoring this difficult and challenging work of growing in faith. But that’s not the central part of baptism. The central part of baptism is letting go of the child – or letting go of yourself for those who come to the font when they are older – to fall into the water. To go all in with God and experience God raising us up again from that water to new life. It’s impossible to live out those promises perfectly, it’s even impossible to fully go all in to trust the promises God makes to us. The joy of baptism is that in the font we have already lost everything and gained the whole world. We’ve already gone all in to the water.

But what is not possible for us is possible for God. Because God goes all in with us. God puts God’s very self on the line in human flesh. God gives up the riches of heaven to experience life as a vulnerable child, born to a young, unmarried woman, who as a child flees as a refugee, who grows up to be an itinerant rabbi, and who is arrested and executed among criminals. God sells off everything and goes all in with the poor. Not just giving them the riches of heaven, but coming to live among them, in community with them, with us.

And sooner or later, whether we want to or not we reach the point where death does us part. And if it hasn’t happened already, there we are stripped of all the things we have been clinging to, all the things that have kept us from really, truly going all in with God and with the poor of this world. There we are stripped down to the place where God can thread us through the eye of the needle into the heavenly feast, where we will find Jesus and the poor ones already celebrating and wonder why we never managed to go all in for this kind of party before.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

20^thSunday after Pentecost
October 7, 2018

A note about this week’s texts: Our church, along with many others, follows the Revised Common Lectionary, a set of Biblical texts appointed on a three-year rotation. Some weeks present challenging texts, which is a good thing. This week’s assigned readings present more than just a challenge, because they come with centuries of baggage from their abuse and misuse, particularly their use to control women and exclude LGBTQIA persons. Some argue that we should just replace these texts when they come up in the rotation – there may well be wisdom in that. On the other hand, reading these texts in worship presents an opportunity to name some of the brokenness in our relationships that touches everyone one way or another and perhaps to begin to see these passages and our own brokenness in light of God’s profound grace. I hope that in attempting that latter, God’s grace shines through:

A video of today’s sermon is available here. (The readings begin at about 6:15, and the sermon begins at about 13:20.)

¹⁸The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the human should be alone; I will make that one a helper as a partner.’ ¹⁹So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the human to see what that one would call them; and whatever the human called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰The human gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the human there was not found a helper as a partner. ²¹So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the human, and while that one slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²²And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man the Lord God made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³Then the man said, 
 “This at last is bone of my bones
  and flesh of my flesh;
 this one shall be called Woman
  for out of Man this one was taken.”
²⁴Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.  – Genesis 2:18-24 (NRSV, edited)

²Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” ³Jesus answered them, “What did Moses command you?” ⁴They said, “Moses allowed a husband to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” ⁵But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses wrote this commandment for you. ⁶But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ⁷‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, ⁸and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
  ¹⁰Then in the house the disciples asked Jesus again about this matter. ¹¹He said to them, “Whatever man divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; ¹²and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
  ¹³People were bringing little children to Jesus in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. ¹⁴But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the dominion of God belongs. ¹⁵Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the dominion of God as a little child will never enter it.” ¹⁶And Jesus took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. – Mark 10:2-16

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God said, “Light!” and there was light. God separated water from sky, then land from water, then day from night. God made fish and birds and creepy crawlies and land animals.  And it was good. It was good. It was good. Then God made humankind in God’s own image and – wow! – it was verygood!

That’s first of the creation poems that begin the Hebrew scriptures. And in the second, this: God comes to dig in the dirt, the dust, the mud – the adamah. From the adamah God fashions a mud creature, an earth-creature – an adam(who we know as Adam). Not a man or a woman this first of God’s creatures, not yet differentiated by gender labels, a unique and precious work of God’s creation. Presumably this is good, even verygood. This earth-creature living in and tending the garden. But then comes an abrupt shift as our first reading for today begins. For the first time this new creation is not good. Because the adam needs a partner.

Not a helper, exactly, as our translation offers. What the earth-creature needs is not a servant or an assistant, but a partner. The word that we translate “helper” is used twice in the scriptures of Eve, three times in reference to powerful military assistance, and 16 times to describe God coming alongside to be a “helper” to God’s people. This is not a maid to cook and clean and manage the home, or someone to hang around to fulfill the needs of the other, this is a strong ally, a true friend, a powerful companion. This is someone to share the work of life, someone with whom to tackle the challenges of living. This is what the earth-creature needs.

So God begins to create again. And one imagines the comical scene, God at the pottery bench sculpting away with the mud again. Along comes the cow and the earth creature thinks how useful it will be, but not a companion. Along comes the dog and brings great joy to the earth creature, but it is not the kind of companion that is needed. Along comes the giraffe, the platypus, the flamingo, and the penguin, and the earth-creature says, “Ok, enough with the jokes, where is my companion?”

And so finally God creates another earth-creature from the first. And this, the first earth-creature says, is good: bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh; mutual helper, partner, ally, companion. Equals. And it was very good.

What was very good, perhaps, is that from the beginning human beings were created for relationship with one another. Not ordained to all be married, not all made to be partnered off two-by-two as some kind of goal for completeness. These earth-creatures, these humans are full works of God’s creative power all on their own. But they arecreated to live in community together. Whether people choose to marry or don’t, stay married or don’t, almost no one can thrive entirely and forever isolated from other human beings.

Now whether we agree with God about the wisdom of having been created for community or not, we spend a great deal of our time managing our relationships with one another. Friendships, business relationships, dating, romantic, and marriage relationships, family relationships, parent-child relationships, church relationships.

And while there are certainly exceptions, after the family we’re born into generally relationships of any other kind are begun because there is something good about them. We become friends because we value some qualities of another person. We enter romantic relationships because we connect in some way or another with someone else. We join a church because something about the community calls to us. In the beginning, it is good. Sometimes, even very good. But then, at some point, in nearly any relationship, is a moment where things are, for the first time, not good.

Now there’s the kind of not-good that can be worked out. The squabbles over how to exist together, the way that we sometimes take out our stress on the closest and safest people in our lives. The kind of hard work it takes to be in relationship with someone who is not oneself, the kind of hard work it takes to respect and honor the full personhood of someone else. And, really, let’s be honest, whether we’re talking about marriage, a friendship, a job, a church community – it’s a huge challenge to do that day in, day out in all the contexts of our lives. The only alternative is total isolation.

But there are also the kinds of not-good that cannot be worked out in relationships. When there’s abuse, when there’s something in a relationship that prevents either or both parties from living in fully life-giving ways, when there’s simply a persistent disengagement or a persistent disrespect, when the relationship itself keeps the people in it and the people affected by it from living at their best. There are times when the best, most life-giving thing is separation. This gospel reading has been misused and abused by the church and by people in power in relationships in terrible and harmful ways. These words of Jesus are not meant to keep people in relationships that are hurtful, harmful, or simply not life-affirming for everyone involved. We, all of us, have to start standing up more to those who abuse others, who misuse power, who treat others as less than human. We, all of us, have a role in supporting one another through tough times and through the pain of separation when that is the best path.

When Jesus gives his reflections on keeping the law about divorce we ought to consider the context. In his own and many other cultures of the day (and too often in our present time and culture), men generally had power over women in relationships. Jesus’ response is one that some scholars have suggested invites his listeners to consider that even if divorce is lawful, that it not be done in ways that give men permission to disregard women or treat them as disposable. And further than that, we recognize that the ending of significant relationships, whatever they might be, is a loss. There might well be gains, but there is loss, too. Relationships with other people shape us and form us, so their dissolution also shapes us and forms us.

I wonder if we could hear in Jesus words, not so much a prescription for legal divorce in the first or twenty-first century, but instead an attempt to recognize that fundamental truth of human creation, that we are, in fact, relational human beings. That when we end relationships, even when that is the best, most life-giving course of action, that those relationships don’t just disappear. Those relationships we have with other people in our lives have shaped us for good and for ill. The effects they have on us and our communities do not simply disappear. When a relationship is severed we do not go back to being the people we were before the relationship began, we go forward as people still learning and growing from all that has been. We take with us all the joys and sorrows, the sickness and health, the riches and poverty of our ways of being with one another. And those shape our current and future relationships. I’m not saying who you were in one relationship means you are that forever, simply that in conscious and unconscious ways we carry with us the effect of all the past relationships. It seems to me that this is what Jesus is saying: Yes, the human reality involves broken relationships. Let’s be honest about that and about the fact that no legal certificate, no judgment of the authorities can simply make our relationships past or present disappear.

So where is there good news for us humans, created for relationship but also created in such a way that we end up making a mess of the things that God created good? What is the good news for us who all have broken relationships, who all carry with us the blessings and scars of what has been in our lives and seek now to form new ways of being together?

The good news is in that beautiful creation story in which God stoops down to mold us from the mud and muck of the earth. The God of that kind of creation is one who enters into a deep and abiding kind of relationship with us. The earth-creator who knows the earth-creature so well that God recognizes the need for humans to be in relationship with one another that God works tirelessly, endlessly until that need for human community is achieved. Creating and recreating until that need is met. This is a God who not only stoops down to form us from the earth, but stands beside us in all things, who lives in constant relationship with us. And just as our relationships shape and form us, so too is God shaped and formed by relationship with us. The kind of intimate relationship a potter has with the clay is the kind of deep relationship God has with us. And whatever happens, whatever unfaithfulness on our part, whatever ways we misuse our relationship with God and break the promises we have made, whatever ways we feel God is too slow to act or seems to be not listening to our pleas, God has been forever and irrevocably transformed by relationship with us.

Nothing can change that. We can run from God or forget God or certainly get angry with God. But God has been so shaped by relationship with us that nothing can undo God’s deep love for us, earth-creatures though we may be. It so shapes God that God takes bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh in Jesus and embodies that love for us all the way to the cross. God becomes our helper – our strong ally, our true friend, our powerful companion, one to share the work life and the challenges of living. And that love forever transforms us to be the beloved of God, to be people infused with love and grace, to be people who share that love and grace with the world. And that, relationship by relationship, begins to create a new a world in which God’s vision for humanity, God’s hope for abounding love and grace, begins to become reality in our broken world.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

19th Sunday after Pentecost
September 30, 2018

³⁸John said to [Jesus,] “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” ³⁹But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. ⁴⁰Whoever is not against us is for us. ⁴¹For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.
  ⁴²“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. ⁴³If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. ⁴⁵And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. ⁴⁷And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.
  ⁴⁹“For everyone will be salted with fire. ⁵⁰Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” -Mark 9:38-50

There are a lot of firsts as a parent. Of course there are all the delightful firsts one anticipates with a child growing up – holding the head up, sitting up, first steps, first words. But there are also all those parenting firsts. The first time you lose your cool with your child. The first time you realize you aren’t as patient as you thought you were. The first time you realize you’re bragging about your child being better than other kids (even if you don’t phrase it that way and even if you swore you’d never do that). But there’s another parenting first that took me by surprise even though I’d heard about it from others – the first time someone hurts your kid.

For me C— wasn’t more than a few months old and some other older kid pushed her out of the way in a playspace, knocked her down, and she started to cry. It was the first time I felt that protective rage as a parent. I was so angry at that other little kid, even though my rational brain knew it was age-appropriate behavior and that no real damage had been done. I didn’t do anything other than comfort my own kid, but I certainly thought about some things I’d like to say to the other kid.

Fast forward just a few months and another parenting first – the first time it’s your kid doing the pushing and grabbing. And one is confronted by an oddly similar range of feelings and at times a real conundrum about how to communicate about appropriate behavior. You want to do everything you can to teach them in healthy ways to interact with care and compassion they aren’t developmentally ready to enact in adult ways. There’s a sense of desperation either way.

Now, I’ve never had this experience, but certainly many people with more than one child have: what do you do when both kids are your kid – both the one who hurt and the one who got hurt? This, I can only imagine, is God’s constant conundrum. What to do with a world in which the people hurting and the people being hurt are God’s own beloved children?

And I think that’s where we catch Jesus in today’s reading. Perhaps he is still holding the child he picked up as an object lesson in the previous verses which we read together last week, perhaps still lifting up this young one as tangible reminder of the need for love, care, welcome, and compassion. And  Jesus’ disciples insist on keeping up their bickering. First it was who is the greatest disciple. Then it’s anger about some other guy doing ministry who – heaven forbid! – isn’t doing it with us, in our way, the way we like to see it done, and with our permission and control. And that all can sound like just words, just some not-so-ideal chatter. But I think Jesus sees where it’s all headed.

I think Jesus sees the way the arguments about who has permission to claim God’s authority will evolve in to tribalism and nastiness and even outright war and genocide between people of different faith traditions or even between different ways of practicing the same religious tradition. I think Jesus sees the way in which the subtle grabs for power will emerge into outright control over others – not just over others’ faith but over their bodies and their freedom to live and flourish, their freedom to exist in the world without fear. Jesus sees ahead slavery and racially-motivated violence, and abuse and assault that will come from all of that. Jesus sees the ways in which relationships will be shattered by the pain of all this. And Jesus loves everyone. Jesus loves the people who are hurt and traumatized and victimized by the big and little things that we do to one another as human beings. And Jesus loves those same people when they turn around and do the same terrible things to someone else.

When Jesus goes off in today’s gospel about cutting out your eye and cutting off your hands and your feet when they cause you to sin, when Jesus suggests it would really be better off for people who get in the way of another living out God’s truth to jump into the lake with a 3,000-pound millstone hung around their neck, I think it’s out of this deep sense of pain at all we humans have done and will do to one another.

It’s not just the big stuff, though there’s plenty of that. It’s the small stuff, too. It’s the ways we subtly tell one another that we aren’t worthy, the subtle ways we tell others they aren’t welcome, the subtle ways we want everything to be in our control. And pretty soon we find ourselves pushing and grabbing others to get what we want. Or we find ourselves knocked over by someone angling for a better spot for themselves, to get what they want. And it’s really, really hard.

I don’t think Jesus is being literal about cutting off your hands and jumping into the sea with a millstone around your neck. But I do think Jesus is dead serious about wanting to do whatever it takes to create a world in which we all just stop this nonsense with one another. I think Jesus has gone into parent mode, filled with serious rage about how often his kids, by which we mean all of us, get hurt and damaged and cast aside. And he’s had just about enough. So he uses some serious hyperbole to make a serious point: the ways in which we hurt each other and hurt ourselves – that’s worse than chopping off body parts. And it is. We know how much pain there is in the world. We know how much pain is deep inside of us.

So Jesus takes these complicated emotions – the anger at those who are doing the hurting, the empathic pain with those who are suffering, this passion for a world made whole again, and he doesn’t start chopping off hands or casting perpetrators into the sea, or even into the fires of the pit where the worm never dies and the fires are never quenched. Instead Jesus proclaims this new world, this new kingdom in which our greed, our anger, our pride, our envy, all the things that cause us to hurt and harm one another have been cut out and thrown away. Jesus proclaims a beloved community. And our world’s greed, anger, pride, and envy, can’t handle the thought and so send Jesus to the cross, to the very pit of hell of which he speaks. And there we discover that this vision of a new reality a new kind of beloved community, a new way of being with one another, cannot be killed.

It may not be our reality yet. We still live in a world of injustice and pain. But we live there with a God who loves us with a fierceness that goes to the depths of hell and back to bring about a new life for us free from hurt and hurting. The power of one who loves us unconditionally has the power not only to heal our wounds, but to carry us into that new life beyond what we can yet imagine. Amen.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

18th Sunday after Pentecost
September 23, 2018

³⁰[Jesus and the disciples went on] and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;³¹for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” ³²But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
  ³³Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” ³⁴But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. ³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” ³⁶Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” – Mark 9:30-37

A few years ago I was trained by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center in conflict transformation for churches. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to lead a few mini-workshops for congregations on general conflict transformation skills. Which in large part are really about listening. One of my favorite exercises is one where we get everyone in the room into groups of three:

One person shares a personal story or talks about a topic of interest. Another is supposed to listen and paraphrase back without adding commentary, questions, or personal responses. The third person is there to observe and notice whether this actually happens. Most people can’t do it. Most people as the listener, when it is their turn to paraphrase, instead ask questions to get more information, talk about something in their own life that relates, talk about how they would feel in that situation, or simply be unable to recall much of the detail of what the other person has said. In one sense it’s an artificial setup. And yet, it’s telling to me that so many of us haven’t learned to listen without judgment, problem-solving, or inserting our own thoughts and ideas into the conversation. We fail to listen, and it gets us into all kinds of trouble.

The disciples, as usual, are great examples for us, not as heroes of the faith, but as human models for what we do all the time. For the second time now Jesus has predicted his suffering, death, and resurrection. . Jesus has explained to them what it means not just to be the greatest but to be God’s anointed one, to be the Messiah, the savior. And they took notes on his lecture, packed away their composition books in their backpacks, and walked out of class not contemplating this profound mystery but instead arguing about who was the greatest as if they hadn’t heard a word Jesus said.

One piped up talking about how much time he had spent with Jesus. Another about how much better he understood Jesus’ teaching than the others. Another about how much better he had done when they all went out on their own. Another about how devoted he was to prayer just like Jesus. And I think what might have started out as a little bit of a competitive conversation turned into quite the argument in which each ended up convinced he was the greatest disciple of all. They heard what Jesus said, but they clearly didn’t actually listen in a way that made them understand what it was all about.

What’s troubling is how often it happens that we hear but don’t listen:

This week we had a national conversation about who we were going to listen to when allegations were made about sexual assault against a supreme court nominee. Ignore the details of the high profile positions involved and the timing of the allegations, and what we were arguing about is whether and how and when we were going to listen to someone naming her painful experience of assault. Whatever the facts of the case, whatever the right outcome most people have already made judgments about what is right before hearing out the details. For far too long we have erred on the side of failing to listen to those experiencing abuse and violence. We fail to listen to stories when they put us at risk for changing our established opinions about things.

I was reminded this week of the way in which so often those who are older and those who live with dementia are ignored and not listened to. So often people are treated as less than human, people who have nothing to say, to offer, to contribute. We dismiss their conversation as irrelevant or untrue. It’s unconscionable and yet it’s the reality that many people live with every day. It’s hard work sometimes to listen through a dementia patient’s speech to understand at least the feeling they want to communicate. Sometimes even without dementia we dismiss our older neighbors, mistakenly thinking they don’t have something important to contribute. And yet we miss so much when we fail to listen.

And for all the ways we lift up and protect and honor children in our own culture, that has not always been the case. And even today I am struck by how little we sometimes stop and listen to the voices of children. It happens in everyday kind of ways. Just yesterday I was having a conversation with our toddler. She was trying to tell me about something that was important to her and I listened long enough to guess what she was telling me, which, of course wasn’t right at all. She was actually trying to tell me about an interesting detail she had observed three days before, a detail my adult brain had learned to tune out as part of the background. But I assumed that I as the grown-up knew what she was saying and kept trying to redirect her to what I understood the conversation to be about – until I stopped and reallyactually listened. And with a toddler learning to express herself, no matter how hard we try, that happens a lot.

But what about all the voices of kids we have ceased to listen to in really important ways? The voices of children who play games that have no winners and losers. The voices of children who wonder about deep mysteries and ordinary details. The voices of children who see what we fail to see because of our busyness. The voices of children who demand our attention and care. The voices of children who are hungry and afraid. The voices of children who are abused and neglected. The voices of children who are trapped in cycles of violence and poverty.

As adults we get busy. Sometimes like the disciples we are busy arguing about who is the greatest or busy striving to become the greatest even if we won’t admit that’s what we’re doing. And sometimes we’re just convinced we know what is right and that we don’t really need to finish hearing someone else out. Sometimes we just don’t want to listen to the things that challenge us to new perspectives and new ideas, things that push our boundaries and make us change.

But that’s exactly what God lifts up as a vision of the kingdom: not an award to the greatest disciple, not even himself as the one who listens perfectly, the one who gives up his life for the world. It’s the image of a little child and the person who listens. That’s our call: to listen deeply to one another.

That’s my call as your pastor – to listen to your stories and maybe in doing so to help you hear God at work in them. That’s our call together as the church in this community: not to make assumptions about what people need or want but to listen carefully to what they actually say they need from us as the church. That’s our call as human beings: to listen one another in ways that remind us who we are as beloved people.

Because that’s who God is – the one who listens. God listens not to catch us in our less-than-great moments, but to really understand us as we are. I imagine that to God we are so often like small children who are still learning to talk, still learning that there is a world beyond ourselves. And God pauses –  every time we speak – to listen. Not just to nod and say, “uh-huh, uh-huh, yes honey,” but to drop everything else when we speak, hang on every word, help us along as we struggle to name our deepest needs and hopes and fears to God. That’s what is means to really welcome a child, and that’s the kind of welcome God has already given us. So come as children, and let us offer to God our songs, our prayers, our thanksgiving, our meal together. And receive that generous welcome from the one who promises to hear our every word and gather us in to the one kingdom that truly is the greatest.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

17th Sunday after Pentecost
September 16, 2018

²⁷Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” ²⁸And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” ²⁹Jesus asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” ³⁰And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
  ³¹Then he began to teach them that the Son-of-Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and looking at his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
  ³⁴Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son-of-Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” – Mark 8:27-38

“Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks. It’s a brave question, because it’s not always good to know everything that people are saying about you when you aren’t present. The disciples give very obedient answers, truthful ones, probably. There are likely people trying to understand Jesus’ ministry, and they are looking to the models from the scriptures like the promised return of Elijah or from people whose ministry they have known personally like John the Baptist. But these are the quintessential Sunday School answers. What the disciples don’t say is that some people snicker behind his back. Some people think he’s a charlatan or just another guy in a whole line of others with a savior-complex. Some people think he’s just an interesting rabbi. And still others think he’s downright subversive – a rabble-rouser who has no business disrupting the order of things.

But Jesus knows all that already. So he asks them what he reallywants to know, “Who do yousay that I am?” And this isn’t a pop quiz. It’s not about getting the exact right answer. It’s an important question to Jesus because the answer says a lot about what kind of relationship someone has with him. It’s not ultimately about what they think about Jesus but about how the disciples choose to be in relationship with him. Are they merely curious, are they eager to learn, are they holding back until they know a little more?

Peter gives his very bold answer – Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, theone God has chosen to lead and deliver God’s people in this moment. The answer speaks one important truth about Jesus, but more than that is speaks to Peter’s bold willingness to put his all behind Jesus.

So…the question is, “Who do yousay that Jesus is?”

Sometimes we think of Jesus as a warm and friendly companion. Think of all the times Jesus welcomes children, the comparison to a good shepherd who tenderly cares for the sheep who know his voice. This is an image we like to put out as the church – come and experience the warmth and care of Jesus who will comfort you and care for you. As a church community we live that out in the ways we visit the sick with communion, in the ways we sit down for a chat at coffee hour, the way we tend to the needs of our companions along the way.

Sometimes we think of Jesus as a social justice advocate. Think of all the parables in which the rich and powerful are turned on their heads, the song of Mary that even before Jesus’ birth proclaims food for all the hungry, all the times Jesus asks the rich to share their wealth, the oppressed people to whom Jesus proclaims freedom. As a church community we seek to be present with people who are suffering – in small ways with food drives like our pasta and sauce collection happening this month and in big ways like Lutheran Disaster Response which is supported through our network of ELCA congregations ready to help with post-hurricane recovery in the Carolinas and with other disasters. And we speak with power to our elected officials about things that affect the poorest and most vulnerable in our communities.

Sometimes we think of Jesus as the one who can rescue us from the worst that life has to throw at us. Think of all the stories of Jesus healing people, the times he restored people to community, the calming of the storm when the disciples were terrified. When we identify Jesus this way we lift up our prayers to be delivered from illness and injury, to be protected for the day and through the night. We engage the world trusting that God will hold us and keep us one way or another.

But what we don’t usually put on our church sign or on the front of our bulletins or in our first pitch to a neighbor who might be interested in learning more about the church or about Jesus, is exactly what Jesus describes after the disciples have answered his question: that Jesus is the one who suffers and dies. Like Peter we often skip over this troubling detail except, maybe, on Good Friday, or if we are really penitential through the season of Lent leading up to Easter. But the answer Jesus gives to his own question goes right to this very point. He is the dying one.

A disciple that calls Jesus the dying one is prepared to follow in those footsteps. Recognizes that we, too, are dying. That we are dying every day to our own selfish desires, dying to our self-centered living. We are people who face loss head-on, who recognize that all of us are dying one way or another. We recognize that suffering is real, and try our best not to sugar-coat the realities of our lives and our world. We don’t glorify it, but we name the truth of a suffering world.

And we accept that we are a dying church. Now hear me say this – I did notsay a closing church or a powerless church or an irrelevant church. But every church of Jesus is a dying church. Not just in the sense that over time the generations turn over, but in the sense that we are always leaving behind what has been, experiencing the losses that come in the course of a congregation’s ministry and life – dear saints who have shaped the church and gone on to the heavenly feast, thriving programs that have run their course, hopes and visions for what might have been. Churches are always facing hard decisions and tensions between members that need working out.

But we are also, like Jesus, rising from the dead. Individually we experience new opportunities and new ventures, opportunities to begin again. We live in the promise of resurrection from the dead. As a church we are always experiencing anew the grace of God – always an opportunity to learn from failure, to rebuild broken relationships, to begin a new opportunity for ministry, to discover something new that God is doing in our community.  And we live in the promise that the church will persist by the grace of God even when our best efforts are imperfect and even, or especially, when they fail.

But what poor Peter, and truth be told we too, cannot understand is that the rising is only possible when we experience the hardship and dying first. He’s ready to call Jesus the savior, but he isn’t yet willing to accept the truth of the dying that comes first. And who can blame him? It’s much easier and more pleasant to talk about the other parts of who Jesus is. It’s much more pleasant sometimes to deny the reality of our dying world in order to pretend that things are ok. But Jesus keeps interrupting us when we do that, asking us to look hard at the question of just who Jesus is in our lives.

And maybe when we have a hard time giving that hard answer, we can turn the question back on Jesus: Who do you, Jesus, say that Iam? And he will remind us that we are the dying and rising ones. We will hear him name the depth of the suffering we experience, acknowledge the pain of our dying and having to face death. Perhaps we will hear in Jesus’ answer the kind of truth-telling that we long for, the kind of words that cut through our defenses and our walls to acknowledge our reality. And then we will hear the end of the story that from death and dying is the rising again. And perhaps we will hear when we are scared and afraid, when we do not yet know where to turn next, Jesus answer our question with the words, “You are my beloved ones whom I have redeemed, my beloved ones with whom I share all your suffering, my beloved ones whom I raise up with me from the depth of despair and death.” Amen.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 16th Sunday after Pentecost
September 8, 2018

The book I and many other pastors have often used for communion instruction with young people is called A Place for Youby Daniel Erlander. It details the many times that Jesus sits down for a meal. He eats with his disciples, with rich people and poor people, with social outcasts. He sets a feast of bread and fish for thousands. He eats a last meal with his disciples, except that it’s not his last with them because after he rises again he comes back again and again almost every time at a meal. And as the book details all these meals that Jesus participated in, on every page is a place for you. A gap in the simple and beautiful line drawings of these meals where you can draw yourself into God’s welcome feast. It’s a way of welcoming to the table young and old alike who long for the grace offered at the Eucharistic table and ultimately at God’s great eternal feast. And I think it captures one of the key truths of scripture.

But perhaps as you might guess, today’s gospel reading is notamong the meal references included in the book. Because this time Jesus says to a desperate woman begging for healing for her daughter, “Actually, there isn’t a place for you at the table.” At least not until everyone else takes their place first. Jesus is very clear, if there’s room after the first group has gotten a seat and eaten their fill, you can have what is left over – the crumbs that fall to the dogs. Jesus himself is an outsider in this territory – he has traveled outside his native Galilee and says to this woman of a different ethnicity, a woman from a different people, to someone in her own hometown no less, to wait her turn…with the dogs.

There is really no explaining this away. Jesus does not proclaim an open welcome, does not jump to heal, does not immediately exude God’s expansive grace. Jesus reflects back to us in this story the all-too-human response to outsiders and people in need. It’s as if in this moment Jesus’ humanity shines through and we see for a moment the ugly reality of our world in which people are too often denied a place at the table. We see here the language of calling other human beings dogs. Language that continues to find a place in othering people who are different from us, especially, as in the case of the Syrophonecian woman, people whose ethnicity is not that of the dominant group. These are the words of Jesus according to the gospels, and yet it isn’t consistent with the core of the gospel message that Jesus is otherwise teaching.

Yes, God chooses to work through a particular people in the Hebrews and a particular human incarnation in Jesus, born in Bethlehem, in order to break open the story of salvation to the world. But from the beginning God reminds them and us that the alien in their midst, the outsider, the vulnerable, the refugee and immigrant, the poor and hungry, the orphan and widow are to be given a place at the table. From the beginning God’s love is for the whole world.

In this story, the one who clings to that legacy of grace is the woman in need. As is sometimes the case, the person experiencing great and desperate need has the most profound words of gospel. She responds boldly and confidently that even the dogs get crumbs that fall from the table. And in her statement is the fundamental belief that despite what Jesus has just said to her that even a crumb of God’s grace is enough to transform her deepest need and fill her and her daughter with abundant life. She comes as a beggar and she demands what she knows is hers – the love and grace of God. She knows that is what she needs. And she stays until Jesus grants it. And from there Jesus goes on to heal and minister in more places outside of his own territory, as if her words have helped open Jesus’ ministry to the nations.

But we should pause to say that while God will use a mere crumb to accomplish the world, crumbs are simply not enough when others are feasting. It is not enough to say that the people in need to wait their turn. We ask people to wait their turn to get their basic needs. We tell people demanding justice and basic rights just to be patient while we continue to enjoy the things they don’t yet have. We ask people to stand in long lines and give up their dignity in order to access basic food and healthcare. And we justify it with our language that calls them less than human. And whether we seek to walk alongside them in solidarity or whether we in any given moment are the ones ignoring the needs of others, we often discover not that we bring the gospel to them, but that they proclaim the gospel to us, that they surprise us with words of grace that open us to the gifts of God for our lives. That everyone has a place at the table means that even Jesus gets surprised by the profound new ways the gospel is proclaimed by those who join the feast.

As much as we want people to come into our community, our congregation to see the tremendous gifts of God offered here, as much as we want to offer others a place at this table, we remember, too, that we must go out to discover the ways in which God’s gospel is already out there in the community in ways that we need to hear, in ways that will transform and change us and open us to new ways of understanding the expansiveness of God’s love, in ways that will maybe even push usas the seats at the table are rearranged to make a place for everyone. That is the work of God – overcoming our sometimes all-too-human responses of exclusion. When we recognize everyone’s place at the table, we prepare ourselves for the opportunity to hear the gospel from every person’s perspective. We open ourselves to hear the rich diversity of ways that God’s love is expressed and even demanded.

Because all of us are in need of a word of grace. Sometimes we are the ones who think we have the gospel all figured out until someone steps in and expands our understanding of God’s grace even further. Sometimes we are the ones who are begging. We are the ones who are desperate for hope and healing, desperate for our place at the table. Sometimes all we need is a crumb of good news, a morsel of hope, a tiny piece of the feast. Sometimes all we need is a tiny piece of bread and a sip of wine to renew and heal our own deepest need. Always we are the beloved of God who have a place at the table for the never-ending feast of grace.

-Pastor Steven Wilco