Sunday, February 5, 2017
5th Sunday after Epiphany

[Jesus said:] 13“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
  14“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
  17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 5:13-20

On Thursday evening I attended the opening night for an art exhibition. It wasn’t a big, flashy event, in fact I had to wander around the dimly lit campus of Hampshire College following minimal signage to find the out-of-the-way gallery tucked into the lower floor of the library. The art was not done by famous people, at least not by anyone I had heard of. It was all art by and about people in prison: An exhibit of photographs of products produced by prison labor. Art done on prison bedsheets and smuggled out of the institution through contacts in the mailroom. Abstract paintings. Some really poignant poetry and editorial cartoons by locally incarcerated people. Video of very evocative modern dance inside a prison cell.

What better place is there than that to ponder this week’s words from Jesus, that the law is not abolished but that there is something more than the law, more than getting it right, more than our walls and boundaries and prisons. Too often we define people by their criminal records and we too often forget to listen to their voices, to see their light.

When I say “salt-of-the-earth people” you probably don’t picture people in prison. I usually picture people with a cozy home, maybe they even farm the land, maybe they go to church every Sunday or synagogue every Saturday or Jumu’ah prayers every Friday. They’re nice and generous and kind. They tend to think the best of everyone. They tend to more-or-less follow the rules. They fit into a nice, socially acceptable picture of what it means to be an upstanding citizen. I, at least, too often assume that’s who Jesus is talking to and about when he says “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”

And thank God for these people. That describes some of you. You are an inspiration to all of us. Jesus is talking to you. And Jesus is also talking to a whole lot of other people, also. Jesus’s sermon here is not just for the people we mean when we say “salt-of-the-earth” but also for the people that we as a society have determined to have lost their saltiness and are only worthy to be trampled underfoot. Jesus’ sermon is an expression of gratitude for the people whose light has been hidden away under bushels, behind fences, in prison cells, and on the streets. It’s an expression of gratitude for the people whose saltiness and light haven’t always fit into society’s neat boxes.

Consider these examples of salt and light:

We often think of refugees as the recipients of our light, but they, too, shine in our world. Take, for instance, singer Mohamad Isa Almaziodi and poet Raed Al Hussein, in Jordan’s Zaatari Refugee Camp, whose music and poetry transcend the circumstances of their lives to sprinkle a sense of wholeness in a place that we from afar think of as focused on daily survival. You, refugees, poets and musicians and everyone else, are light and salt in this world.

The local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness hosts an annual art show at the Chicopee library, coming up again in April, with the work of some very talented artists who refuse to be defined solely by a mental health diagnosis. You who live with such a diagnosis or who live afraid to seek help, you, too are light and salt in this world.

We have seen an increase locally in the number of people experiencing homelessness and living economically on the edge. We can sometimes wrongly see them as only recipients of our light and salt, forgetting they too bring God’s presence to us from music on the streets to wisdom from their own experience shared in the community. You who we see on the streets and whose names we rarely stop to learn, you are salt and light in this world.

I was at the winter farmer’s market yesterday in the middle school cafeteria and noticed some unexpected light. Middle school cafeterias tend to be, understandably, places of utilitarian and institutional architecture, not the first place we tend to look for the light of the world. But in addition to the local farmers and activists bustling about, I noticed displayed on the walls student artwork beautifully depicting the words on Martin Luther King, Jr., on one wall and the UN Declaration of Human Rights on the other wall, giving what I thought was fresh perspective on words we have heard so many times before. I was reminded that we sometimes forget to look to our youngest neighbors to recognize their gifts. You, middle schoolers and infants, elementary students and high schoolers, are salt and light for this world.

I have this week been struck by light and salt shared in the arts, but light and salt come in scientific research and volunteering for local charities, in daily small acts of faithfulness and political engagement at the local, state, and national level, in rising in the morning with hope and in connecting with the natural world, and in ways too many to name. Everywhere around us something more than just getting by, something more than just following the rules.

There is the law, Jesus says, and it isn’t going anywhere. It is there to remind us who we are and whose we are, to remind us of our responsibility to our neighbor and to God. And also to remind us that even if we spent all our effort trying to fulfill it, we would still ultimately fall short. We will not live lives that are perfect, lives that perfectly love, lives that always honor the salt and light of others. And so often we stop there, defining ourselves by where we fail to measure up. Defining ourselves as people who have messed up, who have failed to make change, who cannot live up to the ideal image of what we are called to be. Too often we let ourselves be defined by the pain of broken relationships, and the pain of regret, the pain of our failing to live up to the ideal. We too often define prisoners by their criminal records, refugees by their lack of a country to call home, people experiencing mental illness by their diagnosis, people on the streets by their economic status, or young people solely by their age. But Jesus defines us by more than the law. Jesus defines us as salt and light.

And no one I’m aware of has yet been able to determine what could possibly make salt lose its saltiness, even as it is used to lend its flavor and preservative properties to other things. And a lamp in Jesus’ day was one with a flame, so hiding it under a bushel was liable only to catch the bushel on fire and make more light. As if Jesus is reminding us that no living up to or not living up to law, no conforming or not conforming to the community’s expectations, no place of privilege or lack thereof can change who you are as God’s light and salt for the world.

You are named again here in this place today God’s light and salt. By the waters of baptism and the gift of Christ himself at the table. These gifts of God offered for you, salt of the earth and light for the world. For you as you flavor the world and light it up. For you if you feel you’ve lost your saltiness or been trampled by the world. For you if feel your light has been hidden away or is flaming out. For you, simply because it is God’s gift to you, salt of the earth and light for the world. Thanks be to God.

-Pastor Steven WIlco

Sunday, January 29, 2017
4th Sunday after Epiphany

“With what shall I come before the Lord,
  and bow myself before God on high?
 Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
  with calves a year old?
 7Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
  with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
 Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
  the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
 8He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
  and what does the Lord require of you
 but to do justice, and to love kindness,
  and to walk humbly with your God? – Micah 6:6-8

1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
  3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
  4“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
  5“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
  6“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
  7“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
  8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
  9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
  10“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
  11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” – Matthew 5:1-12

I know that some of you have been eagerly awaiting a sermon illustration from my experiences as a new father. I couldn’t help myself this week.

Our little girl is 3.5-months-old. As I watch her these last few weeks, she is desperately trying to figure out what to do with her hands. She has some sense that she can control and manipulate things with them, but she lacks the coordination to do anything with consistency. She swats and grabs indiscriminately sometimes, other times she tries to get ahold of something too large for her little hands. She reaches and pulls often without the intended effect. She spends a lot of time trying, and is starting to handle some of the basics. Sometimes she grabs too quickly, misses what she’s reaching for, and doesn’t understand why the desired object is not in her closed fist, reluctant at first to open her fist and try again. Her successes are, at least at first, almost accidental and seem to surprise her as much as they delight us. But she also gets quickly frustrated, seeing what she wants to do and mostly unable to make it happen. She’ll try and try and try until finally she looks up at one of us, seeming to say, “I’ve done all I can do, please help me. Right now!” We cannot fix it for her, her amazing little brain and body will do that soon enough, but we scoop her up and give her a break and in time put her back to try again.

What strikes me about her frustrated attempts to influence the world right in front of her, is that I’m feeling pretty much the same way. The prophet Micah famously bids us, the people of God to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. It’s bumper sticker worthy, catchier than most of what the prophets of ancient Israel usually rattled off. But in reality, it’s a pretty hard to actually do. There is simply so much happening in the world right now that concerns me, that I find myself swatting at issues, trying to grasp the whole picture, and getting very quickly frustrated that I can’t figure out how to make a difference.

It seems that almost hourly there is something new to be concerned about in the world. Each one seems more important than the last and draws my attention toward something new. Every incident of violence, every person unjustly condemned, every person denied their basic rights, every stranger shut out in the cold, every person left on the wrong side of a wall demands my attention. Though I think the intensity is ramping up, this is nothing new. I think back to the stream of gun violence, the moments that have uncovered our systemic racism, our distrust of people who look and speak differently from us. This has been a particularly difficult week for immigrants and refugees. None of this is new. We’re not the first generation or the last to feel frustrated with our inability to make changes, to be disheartened at the failure of our attempts to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Attempts to influence public policy, align our privilege with the marginalized, influence our own small sphere of life, are successful it seems almost by accident. All our swatting and grabbing and pulling at justice seems to lead us to frustration. And today, this week, this month, I’m at the point where I just want to cry out for somebody to scoop me up and fix it, because all my attempts have fallen short – all my swatting, grabbing, and reaching have not yet coalesced into something that looks like God’s kingdom.

And that’s just the doing justice part. Loving kindness and walking humbly aren’t going so well either of late. And you just have to read the comments on social media, which I don’t actually recommend, by the way, to see that I’m not the only one struggling with kindness. I’m trying desperately to understand the perspective of others. What am I missing by only seeing the world through my own eyes, my own experiences, my own perceptions? How has grabbing onto one project or another kept me from opening my hand to a neighbor who thinks differently than I do? Like a child learning to coordinate her hands, our efforts to live the kind of life God not only encourages but demands of us quickly fall short and leave us frustrated.

This is the crowd that has come to follow Jesus, the disciples who sit to listen to Jesus’ most famous sermon. A crowd frustrated and dejected. They live a difficult life filled with hunger, disease, inequality, injustice, and fear. They are deeply frustrated that their hard work seems to get them nowhere. They are the ones who need help. They are the ones trying to help others. And as they sit down to listen what they hear is that they are also the ones who are blessed.

At the end of their ability and their energy, Jesus calls them blessed. Not blessed because there’s some hidden joy or gift or lesson in poverty of spirit, in mourning, in meekness, or in hungering and thirsting for anything, though sometimes there may very well be. And not blessed because there’s some hidden joy or gift or lesson in the often tiring and depleting work of showing mercy, purifying your heart, making peace, or being persecuted and reviled for righteousness’ sake, though there may very well be some of the time. But they are blessed because they have a God who is right there with them, yearning at least as much as they are for a world transformed, for them to grow into the fullness of justice, kindness, and humility. Blessed because they have a God who delights in their tiny and sometimes accidental successes, with much more enthusiasm that is objectively warranted. Blessed because God’s capacity for blessing is endless and overflowing. Blessed because they have a God who embraces them not because they get it right but because they need embracing in order to keep on going.

You are invited today to sit at the feet of Jesus, you who mourn and you who hunger and thirst for righteousness. You whose spirit is seeking refreshment and renewal. You who are tired of pursuing justice and peace only to have your efforts fail as often as not. You are invited to this table of blessing to be fed and nourished, to be scooped up and held. You are invited to receive the oil of anointing, the oil of blessing, the sign of God’s naming you blessed and beloved in the midst of your brokenness, frailty, and helplessness, the oil that also anoints you to be peacemakers and merciful neighbors and pursuers of righteousness. Surrounded by this community you are invited to feel God’s embrace holding you in love. And then you will be put back down in the world to try again, to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Put back down to share and proclaim that blessedness with others. For God’s blessing multiplies within us and gives us the courage to stand once more in a broken world, ourselves both broken and blessed, to learn day-by-day the way of God’s justice, God’s kindness, and God’s walking humbly with us.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Sunday, January 22, 2017
Third Sunday after Epiphany

12Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
 15“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
  on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
 16the people who sat in darkness
  have seen a great light,
 and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
  light has dawned.”
17From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

  18As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. 19And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

  23Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. – Matthew 4:12-23

Jesus came down to the shore of the Sea of Galilee and said to Peter and Andrew, then to James and John: “Come. Be fishers of people.” And, amazingly, they said “Yes!”

Even more amazing? They’re not the only ones.

Jesus also called Bryan Stevenson on a similarly ordinary day while he was sitting in a visiting room on Georgia’s death row. He was a law-student at Harvard feeling that he wasn’t being called to the path that many others were to big law firms in big cities. He was on a month-long internship, trying to get away from his context and contemplate his path forward, trying to get more engaged at the ground level. He knew nothing really about capital punishment cases or how to talk to someone condemned to death. But through the voice of death row inmate Henry, he was called, not away from his chosen profession, but more deeply into it. Stevenson went on to spend his career fighting for people who hadn’t gotten a fair shot at a trial, often because of race, almost always because of poverty, and he wrote the best-selling book Just Mercy, which our book group discusses tomorrow evening. He doesn’t mention Jesus in his call story, but I hear him there, showing up on an ordinary day and saying, “Come, be a lawyer for the forgotten and condemned.” And, amazingly, he said “Yes!”

This week’s Amherst Bulletin shared the story of Belchertown business owner Andrea Boyko and her call story. She runs a business out of her home making shoes and clothing out of recycled materials to sell in her shop. She usually takes January off after the rush of the holiday shopping season. But as she saw and heard over and over again about refugees and felt the despair that so many of us have felt of not knowing what to do, she realized one thing she could do. She could make shoes that would be durable but easy to rinse and dry, ideal for often-muddy refugee camps. So she is spending her month off at her sewing machine with a picture of a refugee boy in front of her making shoes to send to Syria and Greece. She didn’t mention Jesus in her call story either, but I hear him there stepping into an ordinary day and boldly inviting: “Come, be a shoemaker for the kingdom of God.” And, amazingly, she said, “Yes!”

I don’t think either of these people was particularly expecting to be called into that kind of service any more than Peter, Andrew, James, and John were when they started their work, probably at some very young age, as fishermen. When they woke up that morning by the Sea of Galilee they probably weren’t anticipating dropping their nets to follow Jesus. They were already engaged in helping to feed the community, which is most certainly holy work. But as they went about their daily duties they were interrupted by something they just couldn’t shake, a voice that wouldn’t let them go, a calling that stirred something deep in their gut. Come, be fishers of people. Come use the incredible patience you’ve learned fishing day in and day out to travel the long journey toward the kingdom of God. Come, use the understanding of teamwork you’ve established working the nets together to build a community that proclaims God’s good news. Come, use your skill at mending nets to help knit together the people of God. Come, use the hard work, persistence, and energy you’ve been using to bring food to people to help spread the feast to others far and near.

Jesus doesn’t call these disciples by saying, “Come, learn to be a rabbi like me.” He does call them away from their work, but he does it with an interesting choice of language. Language that roots their call in who they are already. God’s call isn’t about changing who we are or becoming something we aren’t, but instead about learning how who we are fits into God’s proclamation of justice, peace, freedom from oppression, and welcome for the stranger. It’s about being who we are where we are. Jesus didn’t ask Bryan Stevenson to drop law school for some kind of “religious” life. Nor did he ask, it seems, all of Stevenson’s colleagues to give up their work in high-powered law firms for low-paying pro bono work, for surely God needs their work in those places, too. Andrea Boyko’s call was not to fly to Syria and run a refugee camp, but to use the skill and time she had in service to the world, while what she can offer is not a skill that many others have.

Don’t get me wrong, Jesus’ call was a radical change in the lives of these first of the disciples. This day was the beginning of their end. They are called into this work by Jesus in the shadow of John the Baptist’s arrest for doing the kind of work that Jesus is calling them to do. This is the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem, to Jesus’ cross and tomb, to their own cross and tomb. This was a departure from their families, from their relatively stable livelihoods. But it was rooted in who they were. It was not asking for a fundamental change in the core of their being. Jesus affirms who they are and what they do, while inviting them into a movement that will transform the world, folding them and their vocation into the death and resurrection of Christ and the renewal of creation.

So I find myself wondering what Jesus’ call looks like to us today. Surely some will be called out of what they are doing now to bring their gifts and presence to something radically different – to uproot to a new place or a new career or a new and risky venture, pursuing God’s call toward something entirely different. But it seems more likely that many, perhaps most of us, will hear that same radical urging to follow in the midst of what we are already doing. Not just in what you do for the church but in what you do in the rest of your life, too. To open ourselves to the reshaping of our existing lives to align them with God’s renewing, reshaping, and resurrecting the world. In baptism Jesus is calling you to be who you are where you are for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Jesus also steps in and issues that unexpected call to faith communities. A few years ago Immanuel looked at where God was calling us to use a flat roof – something we considered a liability in New England – to install solar panels which allow us to reduce our carbon footprint and direct more money to other ministry and community organizations. Using who we are, where we are for the work of God’s people. When we were figuring out where to focus our energy in campus ministry we considered that several other colleges are served by our full communion partners but that our unique location made our ministry particularly important at UMass right next door, where we are the only LGBTQ-affirming Christian ministry formally involved on campus and a ministry gaining a reputation among the faith groups as actively engaging interfaith relationships and supporting social justice. That’s just us being us in our own backyard for the sake of the kingdom of God. So I wonder what else we will discover about how God is calling us to more boldly be the people we were created to be. Does it have to do with welcoming refugees, or building on our commitment to working against hunger, or recommitting to the work of ending racism, or addressing the shortage of affordable housing, or something else? Because as we continue daily our holy work, Jesus is stepping in again and again with a call to follow.

And the journey will not be an easy one. But step by step we follow the one who affirms our lives and leads us though the dark valleys and into abundant life. So come, be fishers of people, or lawyers to the condemned, or shoemakers for refugees, or doctors for the sick, or teachers for the curious, or simply practicers of kindness and compassion. And open your eyes to see how God transforms you just as you are and your work, imperfect though it may be, into the kingdom of heaven come near.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

Sunday, January 15, 2017
Baptism of Our Lord (Transferred)

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

For the most part we don’t think too much about crossing rivers. It takes three crossings of the Connecticut River just to drive to Hartford, and most of us probably never thought twice about it. But before the era of easily and safely built bridges, before airplanes that can cross oceans much less rivers, before modern boats and ships, rivers represented significant boundaries. River crossings took on mythic meaning that was more than just getting from here to there.

It was on the bank preparing to cross the Jabbok, a tributary of the Jordan River, that Jacob wrestled with God and emerged marked, blessed, and given the name Israel. On the other side of the river he found reconciliation with his long-estranged twin brother, a process that cannot have been easy, no matter how life-giving. The river was the boundary between an old life and a new one, between enmity and peace.

It was crossing the Jordan River that marked the fulfillment of God’s promise to Israel’s descendants having wandered forty long years in the wilderness after their escape from Egypt. They were claimed as God’s people generations before, but crossing that river was the fulfillment of a promise they may long have given up on. The river was the boundary between wandering homeless and arriving home.

It was after crossing the Jordan River that as the story goes Elijah was taken up into heaven by a flaming chariot and the calling to be God’s primary prophet in the land was given to Elisha. Only a short while later, Naaman the Syrian is sent to wash in the waters of the Jordan to cure his leprosy. He thinks little of this muddy stream, but finally relents and washes to find those muddy waters granting him a new lease on life. The river was the boundary between life and death, between disease and wholeness.

It’s the Jordan river that John chooses as his spot to call for repentance, to name the injustices of the religious and political leaders, and proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom. And so it is that Jesus comes to cross the river, for cleansing, for a fresh start, for a renewal of ancient promises, for the proclamation of justice and hope, for the courage to be God’s prophet. Jesus comes to the Jordan River to remind us that the God who comes to earth is a crosser of boundaries.

But so many do not get the opportunity to cross their Jordan River. Millions of people are trapped by political and economic barriers unable to make a living for themselves and their families in safety and so they long to cross the boundary of the Rio Grande into the Southern United States. They wander in the wilderness, quite literally, like the Israelites long ago, but even those who make it across don’t always find a place of safety.

Living not far from the present day trickle of a stream that the Jordan River has become as a result of climate change and over-consumption of water, there are tens of thousands of people who long to cross the barriers of 25-feet high concrete and armed checkpoints that keep Palestinians from access to basic utilities, medical care, and sometimes even from food and water. Many have been waiting to cross that barrier for decades.

In our own country and around the world people long to cross the barriers of race and class that prevent people from living in safety and peace. Women are still waiting to cross the boundary of equal pay for equal work. Our nation is held up by an inability to work across the boundaries of political parties.

We live too often aware of the boundary between life and death, the boundary that separates us from loved ones who have died. The boundary that at times frightens us and fills us with anxiety.

In light of so many who have been unable to make those boundary crossings, what then does it mean for Jesus to enter the waters of the Jordan, for us to enter the river of baptism? What does it mean for Fadia today, and for all of us, to immerse ourselves in ordinary water and in doing so be united with so many watery people before us, to be united with Jesus himself?

Here I turn to two baptismal stories:

One I happened to read this week of an unnamed 4-year-old Canadian girl who in church one day said, loudly, boldly, “I want that water!!” in such a way as to indicate that she fully expected to meet God in that water and to be changed for it. With a child-like energy, enthusiasm, and trust, she knew that water held power. She may not have been able to articulate it, but she saw in crossing that watery boundary the power of God’s love, the promise of God’s naming us beloved. And she expressed her willingness to be changed by it, to live differently having crossed into the promise of that belovedness.

The other story is that of the baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr. who we in the church and in our nation commemorate this week. He tells the story that he only went up for the altar call because his sister did, and in contrast to the 4-year-old girl, he confessed to not really having any idea what he was doing or what it was all about. He was baptized nonetheless, called beloved just as strongly, and in a way that all of us have come to know, was called from that foundation of belovedness to a life of boundary crossing.

That is what it means to come to cross these baptismal waters, like so many before us – it means approaching with naïve eagerness and healthy fear and a bit of confusion, too. It means being united with Christ in life and death. It means becoming so rooted in God’s love that we have the courage to follow that baptismal call to “proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to care for others and world God made, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.”

The water of our baptismal font is just as ordinary as the water of the Jordan was to most people then and is to many people now, but the invitation to boundary crossing is just as powerful here. For it is in these waters that our new identiies are formed, as members of God’s church, as prophets, as ones refreshed by the fulfillment of ancient promises.

And because God’s very flesh has splashed in these same waters, our work as prophetic boundary crossers is rooted in God’s having already promised the destruction of all boundaries that divide and harm, rooted in God’s having already broken down the divisions between us and them, rooted in God’s having already destroyed the boundary between death and life, that all creation might live as Isaiah describes in these words from our first reading:

“Thus says God, the Lord,

who created the heavens and stretched them out,

who spread out the earth and what comes from it,

who gives breath to the people upon it

and spirit to those who walk in it:

6I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,

I have taken you by the hand and kept you;

I have given you as a covenant to the people,

a light to the nations,

7to open the eyes that are blind,

to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,

from the prison those who sit in darkness.”

May it be so as we splash today and always is God’s baptismal river.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve 2016

1In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3All went to their own towns to be registered. 4Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
  8In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
 14“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
  and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
  15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. – Luke 2:1-20

The Christmas story begins, not with the baby in the manger, or even with a 9-months-pregnant Mary riding into Bethlehem, but instead the Christmas story begins with a forced migration at the hands of a great empire in cahoots with the governing power in Syria. It begins with taxation, with authorities whose concern is primarily economic gain without consideration of the poor and marginalized. It begins in a colony of an empire that systematically divides and privileges people by country of origin and social class. It begins out of Isaiah’s context of the rod of oppression and the boots of trampling warriors. It begins with a refusal to welcome, and the vulnerable ones shut out.

If any of that sounds at all familiar to our 21^st century ears, take heart, dear friends, for that is the beginning of the story of God’s incarnation. But also be forewarned, because the next part of the story is not a clear and immediate fix for any of it. The next part of the story, of course, is that God comes to be with us…as an infant. The ranks of heavenly angels come, not as an army to vanquish evil but as a choir to announce to a few lowly shepherds and their mostly uninterested sheep the birth of a baby to a not-yet-married couple sheltering in a stable. A star appears that will in time draw a few mystics from far off places. Everyone else goes on about their business. This is God’s brilliant plan?!

To all our deepest longings, to our distracted and busy lives, to a violent, unjust world, God sends not a fully formed adult with authority and power and might to jolt us from our distraction and rally us to fight, but instead a tiny sign of hope announced only to a few of the people who probably needed it the most.

But then real love, the kind of love that is willing to give up heaven for earth, and real power, the kind that pours itself out for others, these things rarely fall fully formed from the sky. Instead they must grow. And when great love is shown to us at first in the smallest of ways it sometimes disarms us more than extravagant gestures. It may seem like a simple story, the story of a birth that happened so long ago, a birth like so many others before and since. But maybe God’s coming as an infant into the mess of our world really is a brilliant plan, for what better way to put flesh on love than to give us a child to take care of. Because something about a child disarms us, stripping us of the masks we try to hide behind yet desperately want to rip away. Sometimes before we even notice it, that tiny love worms its way into our hearts longing for hope. An infant invites and demands our attention. An infant draws deeper love out of us, love that grows and grows as the infant does, spreading roots into every corner of our lives. And so it is that this love-made-flesh in Jesus grows day by day, hour by hour – growing with new hope and new life at every turn, growing into its fullest expression, growing into the one who pours out everything for us. For that is the nature of this kind of love – it cannot, it will not stay stagnant. It will take the tiniest signs of hope, the tiny glimmers we see of peace and justice and wholeness and life in our world and draw them into the growing reign of God. We may have hoped for a solution to our biggest problems, but instead we find love-made-flesh growing with us, present beside us as both we and Jesus experience the pain and challenge and grief of this world.

So here tonight we come as beggars to the table in the midst of a world we cannot control to receive love-made-flesh for us – a piece of bread and a sip of wine. We form a tiny manger with our hands like the Christ Child’s borrowed manger so long ago that we, too, might become the dwelling place of God-with-us. It seems so small, and our place in the larger context so seemingly powerless. But this tiny love-made-flesh in us will grow like the Christ child once did, so that no matter where we find ourselves this night – surrounded by community or feeling alone, distracted by the busyness of this season or quietly contemplative, full of faith or full of doubt, in despair about the world around us or inspired to act for transformation, Christ is born among us today in ways that most of us will not even notice, enfleshed in more ways than we can count. And before our story is over, Christ’s love will have grown into the triumph of God’s reign of peace and justice for all creation. For not just thousands of years ago, but tonight, here, now, Christ is born among us. Amen.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

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23rd Sunday after Pentecost
October 23, 2016

9[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:10“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” – Luke 18:9-14

Let’s be honest. The Pharisee is a good church member. Whether boastful or simply naming the reality, he’s the kind of person every church wants to move into the neighborhood. He supports the work of the church with a generous financial contribution. He participates regularly not just on Sunday but in spiritual disciplines throughout the week. He runs for church council, he has boosted the ranks of the Sunday School with his 2.3 children, and he hosts coffee hour twice a year.

The tax collector not so much. He has a job whose very nature is a little dishonest and very much supporting the empire. He slips into the back after worship starts and leaves before it is finished. He is too shy or ashamed or afraid or confused to get too involved in what is going on. He has not managed to turn his life around into something that looks like respectability. His prayer is short and simple and to the point. And he is the one who walks away justified, realigned, made right with God.

And usually we assume that in being made right with God he goes off and becomes a Pharisee. I mean, we wouldn’t say it that way, but we often think this tax collector goes off to mend his ways. He no longer takes more than his share of taxes from the community. He no longer gambles, or drinks too much, or abuses other people, or whatever else it is we think he may have been doing with his life. We might assume that he’s at least on a journey of progress to becoming a good churchgoing person, a Pharisee.

But let’s be honest again. Is that a realistic picure of what the tax collector is doing at the temple? Is that a realistic picture of what we are doing at the temple? How many of us have come to church with the best of intentions to confess the sins that weigh on us, whether that’s greed or lust or sloth or racism or sexism or indifference or our failure to trust in God or something else, how many of us have come confessing with the best of intentions, only to find ourselves back again the next week confessing the same thing? [I have!] Or how about this: How many of us have come to confession and just left something off the list because, well, we knew we weren’t about to deal with changing it anytime soon? [I have!] Can we expect the tax collector to be doing any better?

Whether we pray like the Pharisee or like the tax collector, we are people who still believe the fairy tale, despite evidence to the contrary, that we’re on the path toward bettering ourselves, toward becoming the upstanding person we think we’re all supposed to be. And in doing so, let’s be honest again, we frequently make ourselves feel better about our place in that journey by comparing ourselves to other people.

And what happens with all that striving and comparing is that sometimes as the institutional church, we set it up so that the church resembles what we all think we’re striving for. We set it up so that the church welcomes people who don’t have a house to live in as long as they’re on the way to living in a house again or at least willing to accept the help we offer. We welcome addicts as long as they’re seeking recovery. We welcome people with criminal records as long as they’ve turned their lives around. We welcome people who don’t look like us or talk like us or worship like us as long as they start changing to become like us. We as the institutional church tend to welcome sinners as long as they’re on the path to change.

This isn’t to berate us here at Immanuel Lutheran Church. At the risk of sounding like the Pharisee, I honestly think we’re doing pretty well by a lot of measures. We don’t always welcome perfectly, but like every church we’re constantly learning, growing, stretching. What I’m saying is that it’s human nature to subtly start reinforcing this paradigm that being a person of faith is about getting better. And to keep up the façade that we’re doing so, we sometimes shape our institutions to reflect the prayer of the Pharisee. At least we’re not like those people in those other churches who do whatever it is we don’t think is quite up to our standards.

But this parable isn’t about changing or getting better. It’s not a lesson in becoming more humble. It’s not a lesson in repentance. Because the Pharisee isn’t the one who saves the world. It’s a lesson in dying to the idea that we can do anything but fall on the mercy of God. The one who goes home justified isn’t the one who turns his life around or gets it more right than not. The one who goes home justified is the one who recognizes that his life depends on the mercy of God. The Pharisee will fall apart sooner or later, for all of us do. Even the ones who seem to have it all together – there just isn’t anyone who’s got it perfect. Even just one little vice, like the pride of the Pharisee, will find somewhere in the arc of eternity a place to exercise itself and mar his perfect record. And God will be there with mercy all the same.

What the tax collector sees clearly that the Pharisee cannot is that his dream of getting it all together is already dead. And that his only hope is a God who can bring life up out of the grave. He believes in resurrection because it’s the only hope he’s got. The shame of the Pharisee is that it might take him his whole life and his actual death for him to finally experience resurrection, where, on that last day, it might very well surprise him to find himself at the great resurrection feast seated next to the tax collector, the one from whom he kept his distance all those afternoons praying in the temple. The shame is that if it weren’t for the great distance they both created between themselves and the other, they might well have discovered the joy of that feast this side of the grave.

My hope for you, sisters and brothers in Christ, my hope for all of us, is that we would go from here knowing now the taste of that freedom. That when you bring your broken selves to the confession of sins you would hear the promise, “I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” And when you respond, “Amen. Thank you, I’ll do better this week,” that you hear God’s response, “You’re welcome, but it doesn’t make any difference: Your sins are forgiven.”

My hope is that when you come to this table today that you taste the freedom of God’s love poured out for you. And if you wonder whether you’re worthy or whether you’re welcome to the table or whether you come with the right reasons, that you hear God’s response, “That doesn’t matter. This is the body of Christ for you.”

My hope is that wherever we tell ourselves the myth of the Pharisee, the myth that love can be earned, or the myth that we can keep it all together, that we hear God’s voice resonating, “It doesn’t matter. Welcome home, Child of God.”

For it’s there, from that place of scandalous mercy, that love of God and love of neighbor overflow with generous abandon. It’s from that place when we are confronted with our own mortality that we are brought home with God. It’s from that place that we are finally freed to live fully alive, faults and all, in the mercy of God and the expanding of God’s kingdom on earth.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

Sunday, October 16, 2016
22nd Sunday after Pentecost

22The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” 29Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” 31The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.- Genesis 32:22-31

1Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ 4For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” 6And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” – Luke 18:1-8

Ida B. Wells knocked on the door of that unjust judge all her life. Like the woman of the parable, her name is not one that most people remember. She was born into slavery in Mississippi in 1862. She lost her siblings and parents in a yellow fever epidemic and had to work hard just to survive. Decades before Rosa Parks, this much-less-known woman refused to give up her seat on a train car. The unjust judges of the Supreme Court ruled against her and the Civil Rights act of 1875. But she just kept knocking. She was a teacher and then a journalist focused on issues of racism in the United States. Her life was threatened by many but she kept writing. Her investigative journalism documented the lynchings of black men in the early 20^th century and later her activism expanded to include women’s suffrage as she knocked again and again bringing to light what the culture wanted to keep behind closed doors. By her own account, she was even shut out of the list of founders of the NAACP by her sometimes collaborator our valley’s own W.E.B. DuBois. Ida B. Wells knocked all her life, and the responses of the judge were too few and too slow.

And so we pause to knock at the door with her, praying for an end to racism and racially motivated violence, for a rich and diverse community. We pray in song: “Lord, listen to your children praying. Lord, send your spirit in this place. Lord, listen to your children praying. Send us love, send us power, send us grace.”[1]

In the midst of a story of war, Leymah Gbowee, the author of this week’s Immanuel Book Group book, just kept knocking on the door of the unjust judge. She says this early in the book: “They say God responds to our prayers but we have been praying for deliverance and nothing happens. The war is not ending…He is not listening to us.”[2] She recognized that in the stories we tell about war we almost always tell of men and of boys. But she and the other women of Liberia knocked at the doors of justice day after day after day. For a while they did it by fighting for survival and hiding the men of their family lest they be killed or conscripted. Then Leymah knocked at the door of justice in her work with trauma victims. But the door remained closed. So she founded the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, and through peaceful demonstrations, strikes, and sit-ins over the course of a year they knocked loud enough for the world to sit up and listen. And they ended the war. But there is still work to be done to heal and rebuild, more doors that need to be opened. And so few people even know her name.

And so we pause to knock at the door with her, for peace in every nation, for healing and reconciliation where unspeakable atrocities have ripped human lives apart, for child soldiers and countries where poverty and drought disproportionately affect the daily lives of women and children, praying in the words attributed to St. Francis: Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

And this week, I listened to many named and unnamed women in the news and on social media describe their experience of sexual assault. Women who bravely named their experience in a world that usually reacts with skepticism and excuses. Women (and men, too) at our local colleges have been part of a national movement working to name and address the culture that too often excuses sexual assault, but the changes have been inexcusably slow. Knocking at the door of justice where the response is too often inaction. This week I heard people I care about deeply describe not one but repeated incidents where their right to protect their own body from others was ignored not just by their assailants but by people in authority. When will the unjust judge open the door?

And so we pause to knock at the door with them, for justice, for safety, for both men and women caught up in a culture that treats other human beings as objects. We pause to pray in silence…

These are the stories Jesus tells with this parable. Jesus frames it as a fictional story, but you wonder if he had some particular widow in mind. His mother, perhaps, who sang her song of justice, her song of turning the world upside down. Or the widow whose son he raised from the dead. Or one of the women who show up later in his story, when the disciples have all hidden themselves away in fear. Whoever Jesus has in mind, this woman pounds and pounds and pounds at the door. And this is like prayer, Jesus says. The assumption is that it’s like prayer because we keep hounding God for what we need. Not even luxuries or miracles, but peace, food and water, shelter, equality, justice. We pray. Every Sunday. Every day. Maybe multiple times a day. We pray in song, in words, in silence. We pray in letters to the editor and in protest signs and sit-ins. We pray in the voting booth and in our community engagement and in our conversations with other people. And despite many, many points of progress, it feels like the one to whom we address our prayers isn’t bothered enough yet to do anything about it.

But listen to this from Harriet Tubman, another woman who knocked and knocked at the door: “Long ago when the Lord told me to go free my people I said, “No, Lord. I can’t go. Don’t ask me.’ But he came another time, and I said again, ‘Lord, go away. Get some better-educated person. Get a person with more culture than I have.’ But he came back a third time, and spoke to me just as he did to Moses. He said, ‘Harriet, I want you.’ And I knew then I must do what he bid me do.”[3]

That’s how this story is like prayer. For prayer is where we often talk to God until God finally gets us to quiet down and listen. Prayer is where God hounds us until justice emerges. Prayer is where God wrestles a blessing into us like God did to Jacob, a blessing that opens us to the possibility of reconciliation, but also a blessing that leaves us limping, leaves us disturbed at how the world is. Prayer is God banging down our door until we are so completely and utterly disturbed that we are transformed from unjust judges into widows begging for justice. God pounding away at us until we find ourselves on the other side of the door, with Ida and Leymah and Harriet, all the women who have survived through violence, on the side of the door with Jesus, the vulnerable one.

So do not lose heart in your praying, Jesus says. Do not lose heart when God pesters you in prayer, for when God has pounded so hard that the door between us falls down, when we find ourselves with Jesus, we are at once made whole again, brought to a place of peace and safety, and at the same time disturbed and perhaps even frightened at what we have been called to say and do. Because when we find ourselves with Jesus and with the persistent widow, we are headed for resurrection, but not until God has pounded down every last door to draw all creation into the kingdom of God.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

[1] Ken Medema, “Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying.” Hope Publishing, 1973.

[2] Leymah Gbowee. Mighty Be Our Powers. (Beast: New York, 2011), p. 25.

[3] Quoted in More Days for Praise by Gail Ramshaw. Augsburg: Minneapolis, 2016, p. 56

October 9, 2016
21st Sunday after Pentecost

1Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. 2Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” 7When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”
  8But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. 10Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” 11But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! 12Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. 13But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.
  15a-cThen he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.” – 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c

11On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”- Luke 17:11-19

The Naaman story is easily one of my favorite Bible stories. A man is healed, he learns that God acts in unexpected ways, through unexpected people in ordinary and out-of-the-way places. But who is Naaman? Naaman is a military commander. From Syria. According to some, from the place we now know as Aleppo. Naaman is the enemy of the people who are telling and listening to this story. The outsider, the one whose supposedly state-sponsored violence sickens us. The story becomes a little harder for me to swallow when I imagine the one begging for mercy to be none other than Bashar Al-Assad. When he’s the one offered healing in our waters, in the waters he’s tried to cut off and the waters he’s bloodied with war. Though I don’t wish actual evil or harm to anyone – not even the worst of my enemies, I have to pause and think about whether I’m okay with him begging for mercy for a skin disease after leading so much death and destruction.

And then Jesus heals ten lepers. Another beloved story. The ones who were kept separate, who were named unclean and kept at a distance are welcomed by Jesus, who hears their cries of mercy and offers healing to set them free for a new life of hope and promise. They do as they are told and head off to show themselves to the priests. Only one turns around upon seeing his skin clearing to give thanks to Jesus. And it is the Samaritan. There wasn’t open hostility between the Judeans and the Samaritans at this point in history, but they were still considered the other, even if just in politically incorrect jokes and in subtle stares and other little things that kept them set apart as “those” people. It’s this one that comes back, the one the tellers and hearers of this story see as less-than. It’s the person with a criminal record, the undocumented immigrant, the Haitian living in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, the one asking for change on the street corner, the one who, cured of his leprosy, still doesn’t have a place to call home. All the lepers were marginalized and all of them were healed. It’s the one we might not think to invite to our parties, the one who is doubly marginal to society, who comes back to give thanks.

And so in these stories of healing and giving thanks, it starts to not be quite so tidy as God fixes us up and we gladly give thanks and praise the rest of our days. It’s not as simple as a moral lesson in trusting God or in giving thanks. It starts to raise questions for us about what it means to give thanks when the healing that comes from God still leaves us on the margins of society. It challenges us to consider what it means to be thankful when God’s way of healing us takes us to places we’d rather not go or asks us to do things that knock us off our pedestals in the process. It challenges us to consider what it means to give thanks when we are excited about the gift we have been given but find no one alongside us to share our joy. It asks us what it means to give thanks when our enemies are healed and we sometimes are not. It asks us to give thanks somehow even when faced with terrible news of hurricanes that devastate people already living in poverty and when racism and xenophobia persist and when the climate is shifting in ways that threaten our existence.

It’s not that we need to start giving thanks for all the bad things in the world, but maybe there’s something to the practice of finding a way to say thank you in the midst of any moment, of every moment, that begins to train us to see God in all the unexpected and mysterious places we never thought to look. Maybe we can learn to say thank you for every last human being on this earth because no matter what they do or say they are made in the image of God, even totalitarian dictators and ponzi-scheme designers and yes, even, the other party’s political candidate. And while it’s hard to say thank you for hurricanes that devastate and tear down, perhaps we can say something like “Thank you God for never leaving anyone to face the storm alone.” And when refugees continue to flee dangerous war zones, perhaps we can find a way to say thank you to God for an opportunity to deepen our commitment to welcome and hospitality more than we had imagined possible.

Because living from a place of gratitude, from a place of recognition of God’s life given to us, requires practice. What if this story isn’t meant to make us identify with either the one thankful leper or with one of the other nine, but rather to suggest that 9 times out of ten each of us fails to notice with deep and profound joy what God is up to in our lives. What if we just kept saying it, every moment, every circumstance. “Thank you.” What if we kept practicing saying “Thank you,” as if we are a toddler first learning to use the phrase because we are told to until it becomes a phrase we mean with all our heart.

And so we come to church each week and at the heart of our worship service we practice giving thanks. We call it the Great Thanksgiving. We call it Eucharist, a Greek word that means to give thanks. We pause to invite one another to give thanks. I say, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” And you say. “It is right to give our thanks and praise.” And we proceed to give thanks – thanks for God’s creating the world, thanks for God’s faithfulness across generations, thanks for unexpected miracles along the way, thanks for the Word made flesh in Jesus, but ultimately thanks for the cross. At the core of our great prayer of thanks, prayed every Sunday, is Jesus is betrayed, handed over to death, and killed. At the heart of our thanks is Christ’s body broken for the sake of the ones he loves. At the heart of our thanks is God refusing to leave the most God-forsaken places we can imagine, God refusing to abandon all the hells we create for one another, God dying and being given away for the sake of life. At the heart of this meal what we share is the realization of God’s come down to our broken-open hearts and bodies to be present with us in the worst we can imagine. We give thanks for the cross not because we want more death or pain or grief, but because the cross reminds us that God is there.

And so we are invited then to go out into our lives and practice giving thanks for things that don’t at first seem like things to give thanks for. We are invited to become like Naaman, who discovers much to his chagrin the God of life hidden in the muddy backwater stream called the Jordan River deep in the territory of people he doesn’t like and who don’t like him. And the thankful leper – the others are headed where they are told, to show themselves to the priests, to go to the center of power, to the ones who can restore them officially to community, to the focal point of God’s presence on Earth. But this one turns around, perhaps because he recognizes in the unassuming peripatetic preacher who spoke words of healing was really the center of power, the place where God was dwelling among us, the one who could restore him to community. And maybe we, too, in our giving thanks will discover God, in hidden places and unexpected corners, transforming our broken selves into the body of Christ, the cross into an empty tomb, and death itself into life.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

Sunday, October 2, 2016
Blessing of the Animals, Commemoration of St. Francis

There are few things more infuriating than being told in a moment of anxiety to just stop worrying. Don’t worry! Be happy! My response to that is to ask what sort of Pollyanna planet people are living on if they aren’t worried.

But Jesus said to his disciples: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?

But, well-fed raven aside, even as we bless and celebrate animals in our homes and in our world today, we know that on a daily basis species go extinct from habitat destruction in rainforests and from the effects of climate change. We know that ocean animals are chocking on garbage and at risk from overfishing and oil spills. We know that we are all at risk when plants and animals alike are in danger, when ice caps melt, and deserts expand.

But Jesus said: Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!

But there are currently around 65 million people forcibly displaced from their homes. There are 3 billion people living in poverty, 1 billion of whom are children, and one billion of whom live in what is considered extreme poverty. Most of the countries of the world are involved in some kind of armed conflict in one way or another within their own borders or in fights far from their shores.

But Jesus said: And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

But our community and nation are torn apart by divisions. Our loved ones are sick and dying. Our bank accounts might be looking emptier than we’d like. Our own plans don’t always seem to line up with what God has in mind.

How is it that the God who sees the mountain goats give birth and the calving of the deer, who sees the hawk soaring and the eagle making its nest, who causes the grass to grow and waters the trees of the forest, how is it that this God can point to a few beautiful things and suggest we not worry? It’s the age-old question of how we can worship a God who creates the world and who seemingly does not or cannot intervene in situations where evil is present. A God who says don’t worry about this world seems awfully out of touch.

But then for all our worry – about ourselves, our loved ones, the world at large – we fail miserably at fixing it. Sometimes it’s by choice. We choose not to intervene when we ought. We choose certain things over others, certain goods over the good of those who manufactured them, moments of self-satisfaction over the good of our relationships. But so often with the really big things it’s not a matter of choice, but a matter of what we simply cannot do. We can work toward peace and justice and wholeness, but we cannot ever seem to stop wars and pollution and the evils that confound us. And we might delay it but we cannot stop death from happening. The God who sees every last animal and blade of grass also sees us worrying over these things we fail to do and these things we cannot do.

I wonder if our worry comes not because we are deeply engaged in what it broken but because we are wrapped up in our failure to do anything about it. If our view is about what I can do, or my church can do, or my social justice organization can do, or my political party or political candidate can do, then there is every reason to worry. But thankfully it’s not. And maybe it helps to consider the lilies of the field and the well-fed ravens or to pause and play with our beloved furry friends, because it gets us out of our heads for a moment. But I don’t think that’s ultimately Jesus’ point here either.

Because Jesus just doesn’t strike me as the “Don’t worry. Be happy.” type. Because, as Paul reminds us, Jesus doesn’t just consider lovely plants and well-fed ravens and assume everything is fine. And Jesus doesn’t just consider the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, and the oppressed. Jesus becomes the poor, the sick the vulnerable, the oppressed, the crucified. So maybe there is something after all to this directive not to worry. Because it seems rather than worrying, God becomes one with what is broken and hurting.

And what Paul also reminds us is that through baptism, we are also made one with all that is broken. Made one with each other, with plants and animals, with water, soil, and air. Such that through baptism we are joined to all those things we like to worry about. We are made one with them. One with those who are satisfied and one with those who are hungry. One with those who are thriving and one with those who have gone extinct. One with the deep pain of the world and one with the God who redeems the worst we can imagine.

And it’s from that place that we are called to live. From a place of recognition that Christ’s cross has shown us the depth of God’s love and the completeness of God’s commitment to us and to this earth, from that place where we are so loved that God would not simply worry about us, but would come to take on our brokenness, and then call us also not to worry but to trust that all things are held in God’s love and in God’s being, freeing us to be stewards of God’s gifts in such a way that all might be fed, the lonely brought to community, and our enemies transformed to friends. So, do not worry, but do take notice of the waters of baptism and the bread and wine at this table, binding you to the one who takes on our broken world and who sets you free to steward the abundance of this earth, humans, plants, and animals alike.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

Sunday, September 25, 2016

[Jesus said:] 19“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ 25But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—28for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ” – Luke 16:19-31

‘            I’ve always read this story with the assumption that the rich man had ceased to see Lazarus sitting by his gate. That until the rich man himself is in need he’s considered Lazarus to be simply part of the scenery – not something important enough to be bothered with. But someone pointed out to me this week that the rich man knows Lazarus’ name. Let’s consider that for a minute. Either he’s stopped and asked, had a conversation with this man he passes every day, or the man is well-enough known in the community that the rich man has picked up his name. I don’t think this is a mean and selfish rich man.

In fact maybe the man with economic privilege was entirely charitable. Maybe the from his place of privilege he brought him leftovers from their fancy dinner parties. Maybe he gave Lazarus some cast-off clothes and shoes. Maybe he bought him an umbrella when it rained. Maybe Lazarus always said thank you as the rich man walked away satisfied with having done his duty for the man resting by the gate.

But what he didn’t do, what perhaps the rich man couldn’t do, was invite Lazarus to his fancy table or stoop down to touch the sores that only the dogs would come and lick. And maybe he even did invite Lazarus to his table, but with such a look of pity that Lazarus declined the invitation. And so there was a fixed gulf between them a deep crevasse of economic privilege that neither could cross. When they die, as the parable goes, the tables are turned but the gulf between them only gets deeper and wider and harder to cross. The rich man’s death is honored by his friends and neighbors, and Lazarus relies on only the angels to honor his death, though I’d say Lazarus may well have gotten the good end of that deal. But even then, the rich man believes that he can order Lazarus around. Maybe it’s a tit-for-tat kind of thing, thinking he had given him some stuff in the other world and now Lazarus could return the favor. But Abraham will have none of it, and so the story ends, the rich man in torment and Lazarus finally at rest. And all of us left to rely on Moses and the prophets if we want to find salvation. But if we’re honest, we don’t often give much more than lip service to the prophets and their justice.

Because here’s another retelling of the parable based on what’s happened just this past week in multiple places across America. I’ve slightly adapted this from a group of other ELCA clergy who posted it this week:[1]

“There was a white man who was pretty nice to everyone, never told racist jokes or said overtly racist things, and even voted for America’s first black president. Yet, he enjoyed a life of white privilege every day. 20 And at his church doors lay a black man named Terence, covered with the scars of injustice, 21 who longed to satisfy his hunger for justice and need for safety with the scraps of privilege from the white man’s table; but even the police would come to stop and frisk. 22 The black man was shot and died and was carried away by the angels to be with the Ancestors. The white man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw the Ancestors far away with Terence by their side. 24 He called out, ‘Have mercy on me, and send Terence to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames. Have him come serve me again, the way I’ve been accustomed.’ 25 But the Ancestors said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Terence in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27 He said, ‘Then, please, I beg you to send him as an errand boy to my father’s house— 28 for I have five siblings —that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29 The Ancestors replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they have Harriett Tubman and Malcolm X and Angela Davis and Fannie Lou Hamer and Michelle Alexander and Ta-Nahesi Coates; they should listen to them.’ 30 He said, ‘No; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 They said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

However we tell it, this is a depressing parable indeed if it’s about heaven and hell in the afterlife. It’s depressing for the rich people, by which we can include much of the United States, and it’s depressing for people of any kind of privilege because for them it ends in torment. The only answer is to divest ourselves of everything and search out hunger, disease, and death. And if this parable is about the afterlife, it’s also depressing for Lazarus, for those experiencing poverty, and anyone who lacks privilege in this world – persons of color, women, LGBTQ persons, documented and undocumented immigrants, the old, the young. It’s depressing for them because it says you just have to wait it out in this life.

But… But…If this parable instead is about the kingdom of God whatever side of death we’re talking about – and Jesus talks way more about the kingdom of God than he does heaven and hell – then maybe there’s hope. Because what I think keeps the rich man in torment at the end is his failure to join the party. It’s his failure to actually really finally die to himself. He’s died in the parable, but he’s kept one very alive hand firmly grasping his position of privilege. I wonder that the unbridgeable chasm isn’t so much a punishment for who or what he was, but the reality that his staying firmly planted in privilege without a recognition of what is going on keeps him from resting in God’s kingdom. His refusal to let go of a sense of privilege over Lazarus keeps him from resting in a kingdom bursting with diversity of every kind and not a place of power to be found.

This parable isn’t in the end about pointing fingers at the rich man, the white man, or any other person of privilege, but it’s an invitation to live like Lazarus, that is, to live like Christ himself, not seeking out dire poverty or deadly diseases or crosses to die on, for we will find enough of that without searching, but living in such a way that we do not fear the deaths that come our way. Living from a place where we have come to terms with dying. Living in a way that allows us to finally let go of the things we cling to so tightly that are keeping us from resting in the bosom of the Ancestors, to let go of the things that keep us separated one from another. To let go of the things that keep us from taking hold of the life that really is life.

And all we have to do is die: die to ourselves, die to the idea that the world runs on money and power and privilege. All we have to do, really all we ever can do, is to drown in the baptismal waters where God has already proclaimed us dead to the kingdom of the world and made alive again in the kingdom of God. Alive in the way the only someone who has come to terms with dying can live. Alive to proclaim freedom and hope and justice and resurrection. Alive to the ways in which the kingdom of the world does not yet fulfill God’s vision. Alive to the courage to stand up for justice. Alive to the unfolding movement toward a lasting peace that invites everyone to the table. Alive to the feast where we serve one another. Alive to live as Christ lived – still lives! Alive forever in the kingdom of God.

[1] I read this thanks to Pastor Clint Schneckloth’s reposting on Facebook, but I wasn’t certain of its original source. I have made a few alterations to the text as posted.

-Pastor Steven Wilco