“What’s the good word?” Bob always asked when I stopped in to visit. Today the good word is that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. Today the good word is eternal life through the love of God in Christ Jesus. Today the good word is resurrection and the promise of life even as we continue to see only death. That, Bob, is your good word and ours this day.

Some days it’s easier to answer Bob’s question. You’ve heard family and friends tell about highlights of Bob’s life with his wife and children, with his church family here at Immanuel and in the other places they lived, his business contacts, and friends in the community, the delight he took in his relationships, especially with Peg.  That community was a good word to Bob and he to them.

There were plenty of things to celebrate in his life, and even when there weren’t obvious things to celebrate he often found a lightness and levity in the midst of things that were quite difficult. There are always days when it’s not easy to answer with a good word, whether for reasons within or without. There are plenty of days when it is difficult to give a good response to Bob’s question because we cannot see beyond the troubles we face and the grief that has entered our  lives, we cannot see beyond the world in which death reigns among us.

Among other things Bob used to tell stories about the building of this church in which he played a part. One in particular that I have retold on several occasions was the frustration of the construction workers who had to get the cross up on top of the tower. I love it not just for the humorous way he could deliver the story, but because it says something about his Christian life and ours. About the challenge and gift of living under the cross. The challenge and gift of always seeking the good word in the face of suffering. The challenge and gift of a God who is revealed through our weak moments, through our hard times, and through death itself.

When they were still living here in Massachusetts his health was already declining some, and I understand that by the end he couldn’t communicate much at all. In those final days it was God’s good word that sustained him. When those who loved him witnessed his final days, it was harder to find the good word. But I understand that in his those days when he wasn’t able to say much else he still managed to pray the Lord’s prayer along with his family. Our Father, who art in heaven. The words handed down through generations of the faithful rang out in his own voice to remind us all that in the midst of the worst we can face, in the midst of death itself, God’s good word speaks to us through the sorrow we feel and the grief we experience. Hallowed by thy name; thy kingdom come.

The good word is that the Lord’s prayer is not the prayer of the dying but the prayer that connects us to the God of life, the prayer that connects us to the one whose will it was to experience death for us that eternal life might be ours through him. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. It’s the prayer of the saints below and the saints above who are sustained by God’s loving hand. Give us this day our daily bread. It’s the prayer that connects us to the cross and resurrection of Christ. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. It’s the prayer that connects us to the community of faith which is always dying and rising again. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. It’s not the prayer that Bob used to pray with us but the prayer that Bob prays with us now. Those words unite us together across the boundary of death and across the boundaries of space and time. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.

So our grief continues, but we grieve knowing the promise that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, that God’s mercies never come to an end. We grieve in the shadow of the cross that reminds us of God’s sacrificial love that ensures that no one is lost and that death is not the final word. We grieve, but we do so with hope. And in a few minutes we will pray together the prayer that Bob knew so well. We will pray this good word with him and with all the saints from all times and places. And that good word will connect us to the God of life and love and resurrection. Forever and ever. Amen.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

²I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows.  ³And I know that such a person — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows —  ⁴was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.  ⁵On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.  ⁶But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, ⁷even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.  ⁸Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me,  ⁹but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. ¹⁰Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 

See also the other of today’s texts: Ezekiel 2:1-5 & Mark 6:1-13

“What is your greatest weakness?” This is the stereotypical job interview question even though everyone hates it. Of late I’ve heard it rephrased to sound a little more encouraging, something like, “What are your growth areas?” But most of us know that we’re supposed to answer with something that’s honest, but not too honest. Something that we can easily turn around into a positive or something we can demonstrate intentional development in. Or the classic answer, “My greatest strength is also my greatest weakness.” True though it may be that our greatest strength is sometimes our downfall, that’s a cop-out answer and we all smile and nod as if it’s somehow profound and demonstrative of a good job applicant. We do not admit, much less celebrate the ways in which we are weak and the ways in which we fail.

But today we celebrate weakness, which according to Paul, is the source of God’s power made manifest in us. Ezekiel is warned that he will fail. Paul names a personal struggle of some kind that God will not remove. The disciples are given instructions about what to do when they fail.  Today, even Jesus fails, weak in the presence of his closest family and hometown friends. Failure, it seems is inherent to the ministry that each of us is called to do. In every reading he good news of God’s transformative love falls on deaf ears and ruffles feathers and in some cases sends the prophet, disciple, or messiah on to the next town. Even the heroes of the faith demonstrate weakness.

One of the weaknesses we must confront is our inability to transform the bigger systems which perpetuate injustice. When we attempt to take action against racism, or action to slow and reverse climate change, or action against gun violence, so often we run up against a larger force that we alone and even sometimes we collectively cannot overcome. What I see too often in the conversation about these important issues are people who attempt to overcome this weakness with statements of certainty. “I know how to fix it. My way is right and yours is wrong and stupid.” Instead of conversation and dialogue that might be productive, we try to cover up our not knowing with bravado and certainty. This generally gets us nowhere. The people I most respect are the ones who admit they don’t know all the answers. Yet we’re conditioned to hide our weaknesses from one another.

But weakness is not an excuse for inaction. In all of our readings, God leads God’s people forward with their weakness to whatever is next. Ezekiel is told people will not heed his message and God sends him out anyway. Jesus fails in his hometown so he moves on to all the other towns that need to hear the message of the good news. The disciples are told they will encounter a lack of hospitality in some places and they are to keep going. Nowhere does it say that their lack of success indicates they should stop what they are doing. Our weakness and our failure is still an opportunity for God to act. Our weaknesses do not hold us back from doing God’s work. In fact, Paul says, our weakness itself is an opportunity for God’s power to be revealed.

I admit that I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to face all of the big problems that we have. Anyone who tells you they have the solution is probably lying. I don’t even have the solution to the questions we ask one another about the best way forward in ministry at Immanuel. We’re all learning as we go. But we do have the capacity to take action. Flawed action. Action that is impacted by our weakness. But action inspired by the spirit and placed in God’s hands.

Something I have to learn over and over again in my own spiritual journey is that God is not waiting at the end. God does not dwell only in the successful outcome or the perfect product. God dwells in the here and now. God’s holy place is in the uncertainty and the confusion of our lives. God dwells in our failures along the way. God dwells in the place where we have no answers, no clear path forward, no hint of success. And God is doing something bigger than we can imagine in the midst of it. God is using what we perceive to be our personal and collective failures to work something new and powerful in and through us. As God says to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

This is our calling as individuals and as a congregation: to admit that we are imperfect. To admit that we do not have all the answers to anything. To admit that we sometimes fail. To name the things that make us weak, so that their power might shine forth. AND our calling is to go out and boldly proclaim our experience of God’s love, perhaps even the ways we have seen God using our weakness to work something powerful in the world. To proclaim the message of the cross, that what looks like failure, even God’s failure, has the power to transform the world.

So…I invite you now to take a quiet moment to honestly name your greatest weakness. Not the one you would share at a job interview, but the thing that deep inside you know is your weak spot. You can write it down on the blue index card provided in your bulletin or simply name it quietly to yourself. No one will see what you write. No one is collecting the cards. This is a chance for you to name it for yourself. Take a moment to contemplate it, then we will close together with prayer…

Dearest Jesus, you have shown us today that it is okay to be weak. You have called us to ministries that are full of failure and you remind us that’s okay, too. We lift our weaknesses to you now. We do not ask you today to transform them. We do not ask that you take them away. Instead we give you thanks for them. We ask you that your power be made known to us and to the world through these weaknesses. Praise to you for loving us as we are and calling us to share your good news. Amen.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
²“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
³Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
⁴“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
⁵Who determined its measurements — surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
⁷when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
⁸“Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb? — 
⁹when I made the clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
¹⁰and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
¹¹and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped’? -Job 38:1-11

³⁵On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”  ³⁶And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.  ³⁷A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.  ³⁸But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  ³⁹He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.  ⁴⁰He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”  ⁴¹And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” – Mark 4:35-41

I’m just going to start off right at the beginning with the difficult reality of this past week’s national news. Most of you have probably already heard about the 21-year-old racially-motivated terrorist who walked into a historic black church in Charleston and murdered 9 people. There is no way to get around talking about the harsh reality of that event. Families are grieving, churches are confused and frightened, excuses are already being made. Whatever other factors may or may not be involved in this particular case, we live in a society that continues to have a problem with racism and a problem with guns. I’d like to find a way to distance myself from this incident. I’d like to feel safer by creating explanations and setting up barriers. I’d like to blame it on the south or some extremist religious group. I’d like to think it’s not as likely to happen to me – to us – for one reason or another. Yet, however irrational it is, this event feels even closer to home because two of the deceased were graduates of the ELCA Lutheran seminary in South Carolina, and the shooter was a confirmed member of an ELCA congregation. This is not someone else’s problem. This incident, this systemic racism, this glorification of violence. This is our problem.

I’m not suggesting that his Lutheran church actively encouraged this violence or racism, at least I pray not. But I am suggesting that we as a church have continued to participate in institutionalized racism. We have continued to allow this to happen. As a denomination predominantly of European descent, our privileged position in society has allowed us to ignore or sideline the conversation about race. As we reel from yet another violent event with more lives lost, and as we reel from all the other violence, small or large, that inhabits our own daily realities, we cry out to a Jesus who appears to be asleep in the midst of a violent and deadly storm, and we long for his words to take control over wind and waves, to take control over our troubled hearts and minds, to take control over the streets of Baltimore and New York and Ferguson, to take control over every place touched by gun violence, to take control over the hatred we store up in ourselves and the hatred we see spilling out into the world. Jesus! Speak your words, “Peace, be still.”

I wish I knew why Jesus slept through most of the storm in today’s gospel. Maybe that would make it easier to figure out what to do when praying no longer seems like enough in the face of our storms. I wish I knew why God allowed such a violent and stormy sea in the first place. But like Job, we can only stand back and be grateful that we are not the creator and we do not need answers that we cannot understand. God’s answer to us is that God is God and we are not. This week that answer does not feel like enough, but it is the one we get.

But we do get this story. And this story has a larger context. Up until this point, Jesus and those he has called to follow him have been residing primarily in their home territory. These are people who know Jesus. For the most part they share cultural and religious ties. They are not entirely uniform, there are certainly divisions and inequalities, but they are community. When Jesus takes the disciples out onto the Sea of Galilee today, he seems to have another destination in mind. “Let us go across to the other side,” he says. This is not a large body of water. On a clear day you can see the other shores pretty much all the way around. But in the ancient world and even to some extent today, there is a different world on the other side. Communities of people who are not like them. Communities who we learn in the next story keep unclean animals (though of course there were things about their community that the others would have thought unclean, too). The Gerasenes to whom they seem to be headed in the boat, are another group, the other. Jesus, not just in this story but in so many stories, leads the disciples and leads us to cross out of the place where we feel comfortable, the place where we experience privilege and to enter into a genuine relationship with people who are different. If Jesus were tweeting this journey across the lake, perhaps he would use #gerasenelivesmatter #blacklivesmatter #alllivesmatter

The storm happens in between and on the way. Storminess is perhaps to be expected when we begin to cross the divide. Maybe it’s even the storminess itself that blows us closer to connection with the ones who are different from us. But I caution us against ending the story with Jesus’ command, “Peace, be still.” That is what the disciples wanted. That is what we want. Stop the storm! Stop the violence! Make us comfortable again!

But I don’t think the disciples were prepared for Jesus to actually stop the storm. I think they just wanted him to get up and bail some water. I don’t think they were prepared to be in the presence of a God who actually changes things, who actually has the power to control the wind and the waves.

Their question at the end of the passage is not a pious theological inquiry. This is a group of people who have just realized they are in the boat with a God of unimaginable power. “Who is this that the wind and waves obey him?” If I were in their shoes, I’d be more scared now than I was before. A storm, deadly and violent as it might be, I recognize. I understand it. It is in my realm of experience. People who bring utter calm to wind and the waves, that is new, and unexpected, and frankly, terrifying.

This is the one they have chosen to follow. This is the one we are invited to follow. This is the one who has pulled us into the boat with him. And we are crossing the divide. We are going to meet the other. We are going because God has chosen them, too. We are going because stilling the storms is not what God’s kingdom is all about in the end. We are going because God’s kingdom is about gathering in every last one until every last one is wrapped in God’s love.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, I don’t want to have to admit this, but to move forward I think we all need to start being honest with ourselves. I don’t know what scares me more – the storminess of what is going on around us or the thought that Jesus is leading me, leading us to do something about it, to cross the sea, and enter into the kind of relationship with people on the other side of the race barrier that will change me, that might – God forbid! –  inconvenience me, that might threaten something about the privilege I benefit from. And I’m ashamed of that. Ashamed of institutionalized racism and privilege that create a status quo that perpetuates inequality and benefits me.

So today I come to the table seeking forgiveness and I come to the table trembling in fear at the power of God not so much to still the storm but to call us to this boundary crossing work. And in our fear and anger about what happened in Charleston and Baltimore and New York and Ferguson and all the other places, I trust that God meets us here in bread and wine. I trust that God is here leading us – pushing us – in the work that needs to be done to bridge the divide of racism. It’s at this table that storms are calmed and passion for the kingdom is stirred up; it’s at this table that the divided are made one; it’s at this table that the broken are made whole and the dead made alive. It is here that Jesus calms the storms of our sin and fear so that we have no choice but to go boldly forward to the work of God’s kingdom. And so we stand in awe: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?!”

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Sunday June 14, 2015
3rd Sunday after Pentecost

²⁶He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,  ²⁷and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.  ²⁸The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.  ²⁹But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
³⁰He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?  ³¹It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;  ³²yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
³³With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;  ³⁴he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.- Mark 4:26-34

We like to root for the underdog. I know this because most places I go if I tell people I went to Valparaiso University they only know one thing – that they’re the small, Lutheran liberal arts college in the Midwest not known for their sports prowess that managed a near-miraculous shot to land them in the sweet sixteen of the 1998 NCAA March Madness basketball tournament one year. (I knew none of this until well after I had already sent in my tuition deposit.) But people remembered it because the little unknown team scored big. We like to root for the one we don’t think will make it – the scraggly but cute runt of the litter, the bright student who overcomes generational poverty and becomes rich, the slow and steady one who wins the race against the flashy star.

But most of the time we like to root for the underdog only as long as they remain the exception and not the rule. We love stories where someone rises to the top against all odds, as long as they don’t question the odds or do so at the expense of those of us on top.

We love a story about someone who grows up hungry and becomes a successful champion of feeding programs as long as we don’t question the policies that make so many hungry. We love a story about someone who overcomes the challenges of living with mental illness or addiction as long as we maintain the stigma that surrounds it and keep most of “those” people away. We love a story about someone who turns his or her life around after having been in prison but we fail to address mass incarceration, the school to prison pipeline, and the pervasive racism that makes it so hard for so many to achieve success. And maybe those examples are ones you already fight for, but if you look long enough and hard enough I bet you, like me, will find some bias hiding somewhere in your heart and mind.

So I think it’s easy for us, at first, to celebrate this idea of a mustard seed being a sign of the kingdom. The small seed becomes something great. Although to be honest, it’s not that great. It’s a scraggly, bushy, invasive plant. It is used for flavor but not a nutritional staple. And it’s an annual, so it dies every year and new seeds have to be planted. The sign of the kingdom could have been a tall and stately cedar, much used as a symbol in the Bible for strength and majesty, but instead uses a little liked and mostly unimportant shrub. A classic underdog story. But Jesus doesn’t tell this story as a way to celebrate the underdog who suddenly makes it to the top. This is not about an isolated incident in an otherwise rough and challenging world. This as it is, Jesus says, is the kingdom.

This is not the exception to the rule or the one who gets elevated to high rank. This tiny seed, this plant that is merely for flavor, this bush that frankly looks like it’s been run over by a truck. This is the kingdom. Not what grows into the kingdom, not what gets lifted up into the kingdom, not what overcomes its history and triumphs over bad odds. This tiny seed and scraggly plant is the kingdom, just as it is.

To which most of us respond, really? Is that all there is? We are facing some pretty big problems. I have been absolutely disgusted by the videos of police officers abusing black teenagers in Texas and by multiple stories in the news these past few weeks of people who are locked away by the criminal justice system and forgotten about. (See this story or this story for starters.) I am disturbed by the persistence of poverty in what seems like a world of wealth in so many ways. I am disturbed that death has once again this week unexpectedly touched our community. And Jesus’ answer is this mustard plant?!

I want the stately cedar tree. I want the powerful image of the kingdom. But instead the kingdom is already hiding in the ordinary. Instead of lifting up the underdogs one by one to the top, God comes down to dwell with them, to be one of them. We who are waiting for an end to injustice, an end to poverty, and end to death itself, we have work still to be done. But we do not have to wait for the kingdom. Because the kingdom is already here. The place where God dwells is in you in the present, before the transformation, before the victory.

The kingdom of God is present in the people who are disproportionately targeted by police and imprisoned. AND the kingdom of God is present, in spite of their actions, in the brokenness of the people who perpetuate that injustice. The kingdom of God is present in the pain and anguish of the addict who cannot get free. The kingdom of God is present in our tiny and scraggly lives. God’s kingdom is alive here and now, not when the underdog wins, but walking alongside when things are still looking bleak. God’s kingdom is alive in souls tortured by the past, alive in grief and pain, alive in us despite our shortcomings.

So we can wait for the underdogs to make it. We can wait for them to rise to victory. We can wait for our broken selves to make it. We can even work hard to bring it about. And maybe we’ll get there and maybe not. Maybe it will be soon and maybe we won’t get there this side of death. Maybe our hard work will shift oppression and bring relief for suffering. Or maybe it won’t. So we can sit and wait, or we can look for the kingdom of God breaking into our lives now, in unexpected places. We can see God not in the triumph but in the struggle. We can look for the power of God at work in the midst death as much as in life.

And to those underdogs. To our broken, hurting, confused, grieving selves, God’s kingdom is here in bread and wine, body and blood. For you, child of God. Now. As you are. No qualifications attached. Not for you only when you make it, not for you only when life is all good, not for you only when you can finally see God at work, but Christ broken and poured out for you now. This is the kingdom. This world filled with people that look too insignificant and people who look scraggly and people whose direction is unclear and people whose lives are cut way too short. And that’s the kingdom – that’s where God chooses to dwell. That’s where bread and wine are offered.

So large or small, joyful or hurting, dead or alive, come to this table. Come eat the feast of the kingdom, for God is here in our midst, at this table, and to the end.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  ²The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;  ³but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'”  ⁴But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; ⁵for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  ⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.  ⁷Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
⁸They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.  ⁹But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”  ¹⁰He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”  ¹¹He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”  ¹²The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”  ¹³Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”  ¹⁴The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals
and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.” – Genesis 3:1-15

Other texts for the day include 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1, a glorious statement of God’s resurrection promise, and Mark 3:20-35, a somewhat confusing passage in which Jesus touches on a number of things including blasphemy against the Spirit, the nature of which is the subject of much disagreement. 

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

When I was little, I got a bit confused. My mother was working part-time out of our home as a seamstress. Being a good and diligent mother, she warned my little, 3-year-old self to stay out of her sewing room because there were things in there that might be dangerous. She meant a stray sewing needle that got stuck in the carpet or sharp scissors for cutting fabric or the top-heavy dressmaker’s mannequin that could be pulled over by a short and curious 3-year-old. But I thought she meant monsters. Big red and green monsters, with lots of fur and big eyes. And they lived in that room, but I knew that they would come out of there if I gave them a chance. For a while, there was simply no convincing me that this was not true. While I remained mostly unaware of the actual dangers, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to try to protect myself from those monsters. Someone is surely going to go home and try to psychoanalyze all that, but my point is, a little bit of knowledge can be a scary thing. Sometimes when we know a little, our mind begins to imagine all kinds of terrible things. We begin to spin elaborate scenarios of doom and destruction.

Which leads me to a possible title of today’s sermon: Don’t Eat the Fruit.

Our reading today is part of this ancient tale about a man, a woman, a serpent, and a piece of fruit. For the sake of simplicity, let’s call it an apple. They have been warned, you see, not to eat from this one tree in the garden – the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For if they eat of it, God says, on that day you will surely die. The serpent convinces Eve that God is holding out on them. Now the traditional interpretation of this is that Adam and Eve are eternal creatures living in blissful ignorance. Eating the fruit is breaking God’s rule and so God sentences them to a hard life of labor outside the perfect garden and that’s why humans developed the phrase life sucks and then you die.

But what if we consider for a moment another understanding? What if this blissful couple was going to die all along, but they just hadn’t realized it. What if eating the apple created in them the knowledge that they would die. What if that is what creates this incredible sense of fear, dare we say shame, within them. They know they are going to die. But like an average 3-year-old they do know have the capacity to process the information.

And so their mind begins to create monsters where there are none. They hear God’s footsteps. And suddenly there is fear. A reason to hide. Perhaps many of you, like me, sense the fear at what is to come when we hear those footsteps in the garden. Perhaps we hear the reprimand coming. Perhaps it reminds us that we, too, know we will face death one day. But God’s conversation is not a harsh one.

“Where are you? Who told you that you were naked? Oh no, you haven’t eaten from the tree I warned you about did you?” These are words of interest and concern. If we hear shaming or reprimanding, if we hear monsters when God speaks to us, perhaps it’s that we, too, have eaten the fruit and do not fully understand. Perhaps its that we, too, are flooded by fear at this power we do not have the capacity to comprehend. “What is this you have done?” God laments alongside Eve, weeping with her at the knowledge of death made real to her. And even to the Serpent, God simply names what is already true, already in the nature of the serpent its relationship to creatures that appear threaten it.

This tale is a story about human beings coming to terms with their own failure, brokenness, and impermanence. Their eyes are opened to judgment. The differences they noted with wonder before – night and day, light and dark, cold and warmth, male and female and intersex, shades of skin, different sexual orientations, different ways that our brains work to make sense of reality – suddenly these differences take on judgment. They realize their capacity to rank and discriminate. They now have concepts for good and evil but not yet the understanding to judge rightly which is which. So they create monsters out of anything that seems different or outside of what they know.

This is a story about human beings who recognize for the first time that surely they will die some day. They have from the beginning had bodies that change constantly, cells replacing cells, DNA splitting, copying, starting anew, and the old dying away. Death has already been at work in them – that is what it is to be alive! But now they know that a bigger death is coming. But instead of an interesting reality within them it becomes for them a monster looming in the distance, ready to attack at any moment. You might remember that in the verses after our reading part of the supposed curse is that these earth creatures will toil to exhaustion to get fruit from the land. Perhaps it is simply that this knowledge of death becomes an impetus to buy more stuff while they still can, to work oneself to exhaustion to make more money before death comes, to tear down others, to murder bodies and spirits, to take advantage of the poor, the weak, the young, the aged – anything to ward off the death monster from attacking ourselves.

And this knowledge that we will die, this knowledge of good and evil without a way to conceptualize which is which – it stirs up in us a deep sense of fear at the possibility of failure. We are afraid we will disappoint each other and ultimately ourselves. We are afraid to risk anything lest we lose the partial grasp we think we have on life. We are afraid when we hear phrases from Jesus about unforgivable sins and spend our lives trying to figure out what it is so that we can avoid it, meanwhile wasting valuable energy that could be poured into the life we have. Eating the fruit, it seems does not give us the ability to see into the future, only the possibility that it could contain something called evil. So we create monsters in the present to distract us from the not knowing.

But here’s the thing: once we’ve eaten the fruit we can’t go back. Once we know we cannot un-know. And most of us eat it, metaphorically speaking, before we’re old enough to talk. Before we’re old enough to make any sense of it, we begin to learn that there is something out there that might hurt, and we spend the rest of our lives warding off monsters. But perhaps there is another way – a way to see death for the reality it is rather than the monster we suppose it to be. There’s a quote from Rachel Held Evans that says this: “Maybe a little death and resurrection is what the church needs right now…Death is something empires worry about. It’s not something gardeners worry about. It’s not something resurrection people worry about.”

And let’s remember that it is God’s garden where this tale takes place. God is the gardener who sees the cycle of life emerging, changing, growing, dying, and being reborn year after year. This is a place of resurrection. So when you fail, when you commit unforgivable sins, when you mislabel evil “good” and good “evil,” when your monsters chase you down and gobble you up, that’s when resurrection happens.

That’s when God goes to work. This tale comes at the beginning of our scriptures not to place it in a historical timeline but because everything else after it is the story of God entering out story and resurrecting us from failure and fear, defeat and despair, confusion and calamity, from death itself. This tale is our coming to know death, the only way God has to show us resurrection.

-Pastor Steven Wilco, with thanks to ELCA TX/LA Gulf Coast Synod Bishop Mike Rinehart for posting his rethinking of this text, which became the starting point for this sermon.

Holy Trinity Sunday
May 31, 2015

 ¹²So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh —  ¹³for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  ¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!”  ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,  ¹⁷and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. – Romans 8:12-17

What have you inherited? Most of us probably haven’t inherited millions of dollars, though perhaps some have been heirs to a bit of money or property that a previous generation tucked away. Some of us perhaps have inherited items of sentimental value – a knick-knack or a piece of furniture. Some of it beautiful and useful and sentimental, and some of it just sentimental. Some of us have inherited family stories and photo albums. All of us have inherited genetic material, which for most of us creates a mixed bag of traits, some of which we love and some of which we love to hate.

What if you inherited enough money to make you comfortable for the rest of your life? Not filthy rich, but enough to live on comfortably for the rest of your days. How would it change you? Not so much what you’d buy, or how you’d treat yourself upon first receiving it, but more how would knowing your future was absolutely secure change the way you live in the present?

Paul uses language of inheritance to describe our relationship to God. We have been adopted into God’s family and made co-heirs with Christ, being given a spirit of adoption rather than a spirit of slavery. That sounds really great, but you know I have bills to pay, and things to get done. There’s a drought in California and flooding in Texas. There’s violence and racism and prejudice of all kinds. There’s cancer and all kinds of other diseases. And a spirit of adoption is real nice, but couldn’t we have inherited something a little more useful?

You see, I think in our minds we usually reduce Paul’s words about our inheritance to simply a get-out-of-hell-free card. And that’s great, but it just sits on a shelf until we need it. I think this inheritance is much more about the eternal present. I think it’s much more about the expansive love of God that surrounds you now and tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. This inheritance is much more the kind of thing that has the power to change how we live.

I think we have the potential to miss the power of a lot of what we are doing and talking about in worship today. Some things feel like a real nice gift, but not quite the inheritance we were hoping for. Take the Holy Trinity for instance. Three-in-one, one-in-three, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal, et cetera, et cetera. Fascinating for systematic theologians, but not something most of us ponder in day-to-day life. Left in the realm of logic and explanation, it is an inheritance to be left on the shelf in a hidden-away corner with the tacky knickknack you inherited from old Aunt Mildred. But if it reminds us of God’s mystery, if it reminds us that God’s three persons exist in relational form for the sake of extending that relationship to us now, then maybe it has the power to transform how we live. Maybe it has the power to help us wonder at the world around us and discover the divine exploding in all kinds of mysterious ways.

And what is Trinity Sunday without a recitation of the creed? We have mostly stopped subjecting congregations to the Athanasian Creed, but the Nicene Creed we’ll recite today and the Apostles’ Creed we often recite are plenty confusing enough. It can be a lot to swallow all at once – the creation of the world, the incarnation, the resurrection, ascension, and coming again in glory, the unity of the church, and the life everlasting. In a world where we have learned to question everything, the creed feels to some like a lousy inheritance – something that is as outdated as avocado green appliances. Another reminder of a church that has all too often seemed concerned with right belief over faith and God and human relationships. And yet, we say it week after week recalling not just the deeper meaning the words can contain for us, but also drawing us together as a community to support one another when we cannot go it alone, tying us week after week to the saints who have recited those creeds before us, weaving us into a family of faith that for all its quirks and challenges bears the means of grace to us.

And today we carry out an ancient tradition that we have inherited from the church – anointing for healing. Here again, beautiful though it is, it’s not always what we might have hoped for as an inheritance. The God who created heaven and earth might well have handed down to us the power to fix. But instead we got only tools to invite God’s healing work: the of laying on of hands, anointing with oil, and prayer. This inheritance does not promise an answer to every prayer or a solution to every problem. But it offers the power of God shared in community. It offers hope and healing in deep ways that are sometimes hard to name.

And we offer a blessing to graduates. Once again, it seems inadequate to the realities they face: the uncertainty of the future, the student loans, the job search, the start of college, the important decisions. This blessing does not save you from that. If anything it reminds you to throw yourself into the hard stuff. It sends you with our love and support and prayers. It reminds you that you are part of something larger than yourself and larger than the sometimes all-consuming world of academia. But most of all it’s a reminder that no matter what, the inheritance you have is that God loves you today, tomorrow,  and forever.

It may not always look like much in the eyes of the world. And it may at times feel inadequate to stand up to the challenge of our reality. And yet we have the assurance that “God loves you for Christ’s sake and will never let you go.” That is our inheritance. Lived out in a community of broken people who sometimes get lost in dogma and doctrine or who forget to see beyond the simple actions we share in community with one another.

What if we let that reality change us? What if that promise became so real to us that we could let go of the things that create within us a spirit of fear and live instead in the spirit of adoption into God’s family? What might you do differently this week because of the truth of that promise? Because whether it changes us or not, it’s the reality we live in. We are children of God, heirs of the promise, co-heirs with Christ. We have been invited into the mystery of this God who cannot be explained in human language or formulas. We have the security of God’s love now and forever, and that changes everything.

-Pastor Steven Wilco, with thanks to David Lose for the springboard of talking about inheritance. And in loving memory of Professor David Truemper whose gospel in a nutshell phrase was “God loves you for Christ’s sake and will never let you go.”

Pentecost
May 24, 2015

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.  ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?  ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?  ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,  ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,  ¹¹Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”  ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”  ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” 
¹⁴But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.  ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.  ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
¹⁷‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;and they shall prophesy.
¹⁹And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
²⁰The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
²¹Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ – Acts 2:1-21

²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;  ²³and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  ²⁴For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?  ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
²⁶Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.  ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. – Romans 8:22-27

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Alleluia! The Spirit is among us! The Spirit is among us indeed! Alleluia!

We, like the disciples, have just completed 50 days of Easter. Seven weeks to wonder, question, and dwell deeply in the paschal mystery. But as I think back to those who experienced the first Easter, I realize that it was mostly about the in-crowd. The stories we have are mostly about Jesus meeting with his disciples and those who already knew Jesus’ story. It was a close-knit circle trying to sort out first whether the resurrection happened then second what it meant. The first Easter took place in the darkness of night with no witnesses and took even Jesus’ closest followers days or weeks to come to grips with it. But now 50 days later Pentecost bursts forth. With wind and flame and commotion the energy of what Easter is all about bursts forth to the public, drawing people from the farthest corners of the known world.

And despite our best efforts with red in the sanctuary and wearing red clothes, we don’t always celebrate this day with quite the same gusto as Easter. Like maybe we’ve somehow managed to tame the Spirit in these 2000 years of church history. Or that we’ve redefined the church given birth to on Pentecost in terms of buildings and committees, budgets and salaries.

But Pentecost AND the church – then and now – is ALIVE with the Holy Spirit. And that deserves a lively sermon. So I’m going to need your help with that. I’m going to ask you to talk to one another. We tried this last Spring, so you’ve had a year to recover. I’d like you to share with someone near you what you are really passionate about. It can be a social issue or a neighborhood issue, your children and grandchildren, your favorite recipe or breed of dog. What are you really passionate about?

[With a little more instruction we stopped to discuss this with one another. If you’re reading online, actually pause to answer that question for yourself before continuing on.]

This, sisters and brothers, is the Holy Spirit. This is Pentecost. Sometimes we think about the Spirit as advocate or comforter – the one who comes alongside us in our hardest moments. Absolutely true. Sometimes we think of the Spirit as the one that sustains the church over 2000 years of human mistakes. Absolutely true. But it’s also true that the Spirit is at work stirring up within us excitement and energy about the world. Sometimes it’s huge stuff – passion to change the big problems of the world. Sometimes it’s as simple as the excitement and energy of reveling in one small corner of God’s creation. This is the work of the Spirit!

Paul uses that beautiful language of the world groaning in labor pains. And we are so often groaning alongside that world. Hurting and longing for peace, justice, and wholeness. And Paul describes the work of the Spirit as interceding for us with sighs too deep for words. That’s absolutely the untranslatable prayers we cannot bring to our lips, but what if the sighing of the Spirit is also that fire that burns within – stirring up in us the passion  the world needs.

We talk about Pentecost as the birthday of the church, but for me that inevitably conjures up the institution, even in its best forms. But the institutional church is not born on Pentecost. What is born is a movement of people burning with passion that spills out into the farthest corners of the world. The birth of the church at Pentecost is the commissioning of God’s people to share their passion with the world.

The significance of the languages spoken so that all heard in their own language is our reminder that the gospel takes shape in every culture, tribe, and language – that the expression of the gospel must be spoken and shared through different people in different places in order to be truly the gospel. And not just every culture and language but every individual within those cultures. Your passion and your passion and your passion and my passion are different. The same Spirit is at work igniting us for work in the world in so many different ways because the Spirit is too broad and inclusive to be limited by a single person or language.

A Pentecost church is one that fuels that Spirit-led passion in every individual and empowers us to proclaim and share it with the world. In doing so a Pentecost church draws in people from every walk of life. Yet, too often we do nearly the opposite – we clean up and narrow down the Spirit’s work until our passions get put aside. We worry we have to translate our passions into church speak in order to be good Christians (whatever that means!) or worse yet that we have to check the things we really care about at the door. But the Spirit is simply not that small.

We Lutherans may not be as vocal about the Spirit most days – we’ll have to work on that! – but we do have a great theology of the priesthood of all believers. Contrary to popular belief this is not primarily about everyone having a ministry in the church, though that is true. It’s really about everyone having a ministry in the world. It’s a theology that’s about the work of the Spirit lighting us all on fire about something and leading us out into the world to share it.

We in this congregation are a Pentecost church. I see it in the passions that we share collectively: a passion for our partnership with the Survival Center and other ways of helping neighbors in need, a passion for the environment expressed in advocacy and in concrete actions like solar panels and energy efficiency, a passion for worship and music, a passion for  leading and being led by our youth and children, a passion for caring for one another in difficult times. The Spirit is alive here!

And I know from talking to you and from listening to the noise and energy as you were just talking to one another that each of you is stirred by the Spirit in rich ways, each of us carrying a piece of the Spirit’s work. We are a Pentecost church.

This is a church that offers a feast to empower you for your work and put you more in touch with your passion. This is a church where people find support and encouragement for their work. This is a church that is full of passion and energy. This is a Pentecost church because God blows in here every day and promises to breathe us full of life and light us on fire for the work to which we have been called and leads us forth to do it in Jesus’ name.

Alleluia! The Spirit is among us! The Spirit is among us indeed! Alleluia!

-Pastor Steven Wilco

[This post is recreated from notes – the specific text here differs slightly from the sermon itself.]

7th Sunday of Easter
May 17, 2015

¹⁵In those days Peter stood up among the believers (together the crowd numbered about one hundred twenty persons) and said,  ¹⁶Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus —  ¹⁷for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.”  ²¹So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,  ²²beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us — one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.”  ²³So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias.  ²⁴Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen  ²⁵to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.”  ²⁶And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles. – Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Matthias is chosen. But I’m not quite sure for what. Mathias appears nowhere else in scripture. We never heard about him in the gospels, even in Luke to which this book of Acts is part two. And we never hear any more about what he does as one of the twelve. But to be honest, that’s true of a number of the 12. Thaddeus for example – not exactly a major Biblical hero.

Usually when we think of being chosen, it’s a position of honor or distinction, a reward for hard work or at least a certain level of natural talent. Usually it comes with some mention or acclaim. We might expect a position as important as filling out the 12 apostles to come with some mention of how he fulfills the role later. Yet we hear nothing.

But perhaps that’s an indication that this type of choosing isn’t the usual kind. The casting of lots, however strange to us, was their way of making sure that God was the one doing the choosing. The only qualification they imposed was that this position be filled by someone who had been with Jesus from the beginning, from Jesus’ baptism through his resurrection. That there are multiple people who are not part of the 12 who have been part of this story through all of that ought to open our eyes to the possibilities of all the unmentioned people who were part of Jesus’ story for all or part of his ministry.

Beyond the one qualification they set, God was to do the choosing. God was to place the right person in the right position. This wasn’t about skill or accomplishment. This was about putting the right person in the right place at the right time. It is not necessarily a call to perfect obedience – Judas, after all, was called by Jesus to be the right person in the right place at the right time, too. That’s to say that perhaps all Matthias was called to do was to be himself. Perhaps his role, newly called to be numbered among the twelve and named in scripture, was to serve Jesus in his daily life. And that work is both extraordinary and unremarkable at the same time. He was part of starting a new church. Not a new congregation but a whole new way of worshipping God, and still his story of being a faithful disciple in his own place and time is not recorded for us to know.

We, too, have been chosen. Not chosen to win some kind of salvation lottery. Not chosen to be closer to Jesus. Not chosen for fame and fortune, at least on account of this particular choosing. Each of us has been chosen by baptism to be the people of God called to this place and time to live out our faith and tell our stories of encountering Jesus in our current context. Few if any of us will be immortalized for that work, yet to be followers of Jesus, companions with him in ministry and sent out to serve, is an incredible honor and privilege, an extraordinary, life-changing calling.

That’s true of our calling to serve in the congregation of which we are a part. We are human, and so sometimes we do fall into the trap of worrying about people having the right qualifications for a particular role in the congregation. We worry if we have or someone else has what it takes in terms of skills and qualifications to step up and take a role that needs doing, when the main qualification of the early church was relationship with Jesus.

What if we began to transform our congregational culture to refocus on telling our stories of faith, our stories of what it is that we have seen and heard in our travels with Jesus, such that all the ministry roles that we have that need to be filled are looked at first from that perspective – whose story with Jesus places them in our midst in this time and place to carry out the important work of ministry with one another?

And maybe more importantly, what if we thought about our daily lives primarily from the perspective of Jesus’ calling to us, as we cook dinner and take care of our friends and families and as we go to work and school? What if we lived our lives from the place of confidence and security that God has chosen us to be the one to serve in our place and time… Rather than worrying if we’ve gotten it all right or gotten it all done. Instead of wondering if we’ve done enough or are enough… What if we found a way to rest in Jesus’ calling us to be who we are in the place where we are.

And this is true whether we’re talking about the nice positions we long to have or the familiar day-to-day callings we have mostly mastered or the places we find ourselves in that aren’t the callings we necessarily wanted to have. I think this week of the people who were asked to decide between life and death for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. I think of the people who are serving to clean up after continued earthquakes in Nepal or the train crash in Philadelphia. These are not callings to which we aspire, not callings we want to face. And I wonder sometimes if Matthias wasn’t quite sure he wanted that role of apostle and what hardship might have come his way because of it. And yet his relationship with Jesus is the qualification, because that’s the only thing that can sustain him in such challenging work.

In baptism we are united with Jesus in his death and resurrection. We are made companions with Jesus from the beginning and end of his journey. We have already met the qualification for service by God’s having claimed and called us through baptism. We are the ones who are being chosen by lots to places of service in the kingdom. We may be Matthias who is chosen in the moment for a place on the leadership team or we may well be Joseph called Barsabbas whose calling is somewhere else doing some other piece of God’s work. And either way we may get very little recognition for it. Most of us are not likely to go down in history for it. But it is the work of God to which we have been called and equipped.

And we are sustained in that work by that relationship. It is through baptism and the communion meal which is an extension of the baptismal promise that we are sustained for the work to which we have been called. It is here in community that the call of God is discerned and encouraged, here that it is strengthened and nourished, here that we practice living it out. With Matthias and all the other unsung people of faith, we join the work trusting not in our own strength but in our relationship with the one who redeems us from the grave.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 26, 2015

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

            When I was a teenager I took private viola lessons from a local teacher. On one visit I noticed that she had hung a new sign in her music studio. I don’t ever remember her mentioning it or referencing it, but I can still see it hanging there, more or less in my line of sight every time I looked up from my music stand. It read: “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.”

True confession: I hated that sign. I hated that sign because even though I was there of my own choosing I didn’t always love to practice. Mostly because I knew the sign was right – I wasn’t always practicing well ingraining some bad habits I never did fully break. And partly because it reminded me that I didn’t always get it right.

And it seems to me there’s no better time than Easter for the church to be practicing. Resurrection is brand new to the early disciples and in a way new to us every time we come around again to the Easter season. When we focus on resurrection again, we come to it with a whole new year’s worth of experiences. We come having walked through the valley of the shadow of death, having sat at the table in the presence of our enemies, having thirsted and hungered for still waters and green pastures. We need to practice resurrection again together, not to perfect it, but to make its reality stick with us.

Today, the fourth Sunday of Easter we always practice the 23^rd psalm paired with a portion of the “I am the good shepherd…” discourse from John. I often come to this particular Sunday tired of the clichés that accompany our religious sheep and shepherd art and storytelling. I come to it reluctant to practice the power of these words. Often when it comes up in worship on the regular lectionary cycle, it lacks for me the same power that it seems to have in the dark moments – when we read that psalm together at funerals or beside the bed of those who are sick and with those who are dying. It may call those moments to mind, but it rarely carries the same power in the moment for me. But we come back around faithfully every year because we need to practice it.

I carried the 23^rd psalm around on a card in my wallet as a teenager because someone gave it to me and someone told me I should memorize it. I always liked it but it took a few years before there was a point when I really deeply needed its power. By then it was there, permanently.

We need to practice the words that will bring us some measure of comfort in our darkest moments. We need to practice together being lead, even forced, to eat and drink in the green pastures and quiet waters. We need to practice being anointed with oil, feasting at the table in front of our enemies. We need to practice joining together as one flock under one shepherd with people we may not always want to be joined together with.

We need to practice because someday we’re going to need it. Maybe it will be this week and maybe it won’t. Maybe it will be this year or next. Maybe it won’t come for a long time. But what we do today is practice for the moments when death comes knocking, the moments when despair and sadness overwhelm, the moments when we simply cannot take another step.

Every Sunday we practice forgiveness because sooner or later we are going to have to face a really difficult hurt that requires deeper forgiveness. We practice our singing because there will be a time when we need the songs of the church to carry us through or to ring out for justice. We practice the creed so that when moments of doubt come the words permanently engrained in us carry us through. We practice prayer because we need it now, but also because we know there will come a point of stress or anxiety or fear when we will need it even more.  We practice sharing the peace because there will come a moment when sharing the peace with others in the congregation or in the world will be more difficult because of divisions. We practice generosity because we need that generosity to live freely in the world. We practice eating together because we need a model for giving thanks and sitting down to table with a diverse body of people. And we practice going out again to the world because over and over again we have to make new beginnings as we serve God and neighbor.

And there are all kinds of other ways that we practice as the church. We practice community together in the parish hall. We practice describing our faith in adult forum so that we are more attuned to it in daily life. Lutheran Disaster Response practices so that when an earthquake devastates Nepal, they are on the ground the same day helping the local communities put themselves back together.

And in this context, that sign that hung on the wall in my teacher’s music studio takes on a wholly different connotation. Practice doesn’t make perfect. It does not solve all the problems. It does not mean that when the next piece of music comes we don’t stumble around to find our place in it. It doesn’t mean that the church after centuries of practice is in any way, shape, or form perfect. It does mean that we ingrain in ourselves the stories and rituals that lead us to God’s permanent and enduring love and mercy.

We practice because God comes to join us in the practicing, not so much that we might be perfect, but that by practicing in human skin and with human frailty God might make permanent God’s presence among us. We practice not because we’ll get it right in the end, but because God already has. So with old, trusted language and with new words that emerge from our modern lives, let us join together this Easter season in practicing resurrection until it becomes our way of life, until God shapes us into the permanent Easter people we were made to be.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

-Pastor Steven Wilco

On April 19th we had a paperless worship service. In that spirit, this sermon was preached without printed notes of any kind. Below is a typed version similar to what was preached.

^36b“Peace be with you.”  ³⁷They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  ³⁸He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”  ⁴⁰And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.  ⁴¹While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”  ⁴²They gave him a piece of broiled fish,  ⁴³and he took it and ate in their presence.
⁴⁴Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”  ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,  ⁴⁶and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,  ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. -Luke 24:36b-48

Just who does Jesus think he is? He just comes waltzing in to the dining room with the disciples as if the most significant thing in the salvation history of God’s people hasn’t just happened. The disciples have just witness the execution of their friend, teacher, and Lord. They are worried that they might be next. At the very least they still live in a world in which people are crucified every day and the Romans continue to oppress their people, a world in which people still die too young. And with the disciples disbelieving and terrified, thinking they are seeing a ghost, Jesus walks in and asks for a piece of broiled fish to eat.

And to go further, Jesus starts talking about forgiveness as he so often seems to do in these post-resurrection appearances. And not just forgiveness for them for leaving him when things got rough, and not just forgiveness for the people they know, but a command to go and proclaim forgiveness to all the nations, including Rome and any other place that hadn’t really been so deserving of forgiveness. Does Jesus really know what he’s asking of them?

And don’t we wonder sometimes about Jesus’ radical forgiveness – about whether he really gets just how hard it is for us to ask for and receive forgiveness? I have a hard enough time forgiving the people who cut me off on the highway, much less all the people with whom I have an ongoing relationship whom I have harmed and who have harmed me. And those are just the interpersonal things.

What about forgiveness on a global scale? Our paperless service today is primarily about engaging with each other in worship in a particular way, but we’ve timed it to coincide with the week of Earth Day. One church not using bulletins on one Sunday hardly makes a dent in our ongoing abuse of the environment. And Earth Day is often accompanied by feel-good attempts to celebrate the pretty world around us, but at the heart of it is the recognition that we are killing the earth and ourselves. Plant and animal species are disappearing at an alarming rate, global temperatures are rising, ice caps are melting, humans are already dying from the effects of climate change. We pollute our water and our air. How do we forgive each other and ourselves for that? Or more importantly how do we ask the earth itself for its forgiveness?

And then we have the direct human-to-human atrocities. We just had Holocaust Remembrance Day when we remember the 6 million Jewish and other persons who were deemed unworthy to live by the Nazi regime. And though we all were told to remember that it might not happen again, it continues to happen. I just learned recently that almost as many people as were killed in the Holocaust have been killed as a result of the war in the Congo – just in our recent history. These things are inexcusable and they feel unforgivable.

So just what does Jesus think he’s doing to these already terrified and confused disciples asking them to proclaim forgiveness to all the nations? What is this forgiveness all about?

This is what Frederick Buechner says: “To forgive somebody is to say one way or another, “You have done something unspeakable, and by all rights I should call it quits between us. Both my pride and my principles demand no less. However, although I make no guarantees that I will be able to forget what you’ve done, and though we may both carry the scars for life, I refuse to let it stand between us. I still want you for my friend. To accept forgiveness means to admit that you’ve done something unspeakable that needs to be forgiven, and thus both parties must swallow the same thing: their pride.”

These words are a challenge to us to swallow our own pride in order to enter into deeper relationship with those persons, animals, plants, and other things that we have harmed. It’s hard work that Jesus is calling us to as an Easter people.

But I think that it’s really at the heart of what Easter is all about. It seems to me that it is the work of Jesus on Good Friday to extend the offer of forgiveness to death itself. As he comes to terms with his death he makes peace with it, enters into a relationship with death, giving up his principles of abundant life for the sake of relationship with life’s very antithesis. Though he is not alone, for many finally make peace with death as the end approaches.

What changes things is rising again three days later. Doing so forces death to swallow its pride. Doing so forces death itself to accept the forgiveness, such that forever after the God of life is always present in the places of death. The one who goes to the depths of hell for us reconciles with death that it may no longer have power over the world.

At the heart of who we are as Easter people is forgiveness for the worst that can possibly be. And Jesus does understand the seriousness of that. But Jesus also recognizes that it takes us a while to catch up. It takes us a while to get over ourselves. It takes us a while to figure out the power of this Easter promise. So Jesus sits down at the table to wait for the disciples, and he might as well have something to eat while he does. And he invites us to join him at the table every Sunday, in our terror, amazement, and flat-out disbelief. And there he feeds us with his very self. And that’s the only way we have the power to take up Jesus’ resurrection command to proclaim forgiveness far and wide and to proclaim the truth that death has swallowed its pride once and for all.

-Pastor Steven Wilco