After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
⁶I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. – John 17:1-11

In lieu of having a transcript of this sermon, below is summary reflection based on the sermon:

I learned an important lesson this week. One I had learned before and probably will need to learn again. I was in a meeting that had been called to resolve some conflict that had emerged within a group that I am a part of. We went around in a circle several times speaking one at a time without interruptions. When we finished, what I realized was that the very differences that had created a challenge for us were in fact our greatest asset. It was only when we finally came to honor those differences rather than trying to make everyone else the same as ourselves that we found unity in purpose and direction to go forward.

Essentially this is what our gospel passage is about. Jesus is praying to the first person of the Trinity in earshot of the disciples. For all the confusing language – I in you and you in me and they in us and all that – this passage points us to the important differences that exist within God and the incredible unity with which those differences exist. It also invites us into that unity in all our important differences. The final line of the passage this week is Jesus’ prayer that we, the people of God might be one, as he and the first person of the Trinity are one. Not the same – how boring that would be! – but one in God with all our diversity honored. We are invited to join this dance of the trinity – to celebrate the incredible gift of our uniquenesses as well as enter into the joy of being one in purpose and mission, united together by God.

This plays out in very real ways. Each of us in relationship with others – marriages, friendships, business partnerships. We join with others because other have something different from us. Something that makes us stronger together. But those differences inevitably cause conflict – whether it’s an introvert and an extrovert, a planner and a procrastinator, or people with different conflict styles. But our relationships grow stronger when we stop trying to force others to be who we are and find a way to celebrate the difference within the context of relationship.

This is also at the heart of the local news story about the high school teacher who has been subject to racist graffiti and threatening notes. While I know that we try in our community to celebrate diversity, I wonder if sometimes we too often assume that we are somehow all the same. Studies have shown that younger generations see racism as history because “we know we’re all the same now.” I wonder if we are seeing some problems emerge not just here but everywhere because we have failed to fully appreciate our important and different contributions while still recognizing a shared humanity and equality.

This is important in the church, too. The power of the ecumenical movement is in lifting up the traditions of each denomination while finding reason for common ground and joint purpose. It would be a tragedy to erase all denominational identity – each tradition brings something unique, each tradition helps us better to know God in a different way. The more we cooperate, share resources, find common projects and move to greater unity the better, but never at the expense of the diversity within the Christian tradition. That is one of the great gifts of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We have six full communion agreements and several other ongoing dialogues, each representing years of painstaking work to name our differences and our commonalities, all with the goal of reflecting the unity and diversity of God.

And it happens in our own congregation, too. We are a people with many similarities, but we are also people who come from very different backgrounds, people with different personalities. We have different experiences of God, different ways of talking about those experiences, different ways of naming God, different ways of expressing that in prayer and in worship. We have different ideas about the focus of mission and purpose as a faith community. Yet we come together as one community, celebrating God together. I see it happen that we find ways to honor difference and still be a people, but as broken human beings we always have room to grow as we learn to do this even better. Celebrating the challenge of our diversity as a gift rather than trying to get people to see things our way.

So how is God bringing all this to be? I see it happen every week in worship. You come here, gathering from disparate lives, each with their obligations and concerns. We are gathered by prayer and song. We hear a common word. We share a common bread. Unity in difference. In fact we’ve been singing it every week in our offertory hymn, an ancient text set to a newer tune: “As the grains of wheat once scattered on the hill were gathered into one to become our bread, so may all your people from all the ends of earth be gathered into one in you.” And that one bread, mysteriously, paradoxically when broken and shared makes us into one – a single body of Christ.

This. This, Jesus says, is eternal life. To know God and to know God expressed in Jesus. To know the dance – the difference and the unity. And to be caught up in this incredible power of God to love us for who we are and gather as one body together.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Sunday, May 25, 2014
Sixth Sunday of Easter

¹³Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?
¹⁴But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, ¹⁵but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; ¹⁶yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. ¹⁷For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. 
¹⁸For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, ¹⁹in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, ²⁰who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. ²¹And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you — not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²²who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him. – 1 Peter 3:13-22

 

¹⁵If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
¹⁸I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” – John 14:15-21

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

           A few weeks ago, I went with the confirmation class to see the movie Noah. All of us were anticipating a very Hollywood-ized version of the beloved Bible story, and we certainly got that. They added some serious violence, romance, and suspense for dramatic effect, of course. An obscure verse from the Biblical narrative became an integral part of the movie version, interpreted as giant rock creatures, though it was a convenient explanation for how such a large ship was built by one man and his three sons, if you were looking for that. And one particularly disturbing message from the movie was that Noah and all the other people in the movie were light-skinned – a not-so-subtle message, perhaps, that racism is alive and well not only in Hollywood but in the storytelling of the church.

However, there is something that I think the movie highlights well – maybe, dare I say, better than the biblical story. That’s the issue of what kind of man Noah was. Yes, the movie depicts him as a faithful man, a man who cares about the earth and its creatures. Yes, the movie depicts him as a dedicated to following the best he can the word he has received from God. But the movie also points us over and over again to Noah’s dark side. Adding, of course, much to the story, the movie shows scenes of his unbending nature, his use of force and violence. It weaves in a story about his desire for vengeance for a past atrocity done to his family. And it includes the part at the end of the story, which is in the Biblical narrative, about his getting drunk once he’s able to plant himself a vineyard. And the movie wrestles with what it means that the flood is in fact unsuccessful at solving the world’s problems.

Here’s why I think that depiction of Noah is important: If this story is in fact a story about God’s saving us through water, a prefiguring of our baptism as our second reading today says, then it’s important to remember that there isn’t something special about Noah. Noah maybe have been a man who believed in God, who tried to do the right thing. But God doesn’t choose him because he’s perfect. He just happens to be chosen.

I think the Noah story is a way for us to think about what salvation is all about. It’s a story about how to fix, or rather how not to fix, the problems of the world. In the story of the flood God gets angry with the way things are happening in the world and decides to wipe everything away. To destroy it and start over with a faithful family. But as it turns out, that doesn’t work. Because even the faithful family can’t get it all together. So God’s promise at the end is never to try that again, maybe out of compassion or maybe just because it doesn’t work. And shortly thereafter a new storyline emerges with Abraham of God walking with God’s chosen and messed up people over and over again.

For us as baptized people of God, it’s a good reminder. A reminder that baptism is an incredible and life-changing gift, but not one that fixes everything. In fact, in Noah’s case it made things rather more difficult. But it is a promise of God’s presence with us not just in the difficult moments the ups and downs of life, but in the long in-between days, too. God’s presence transforming also all those days floating from one day to the next, storms raging around us, the same old thing happening day after day.

That’s what Jesus is trying to tell his disciples in the gospel reading: I will not leave you orphaned. When I am gone there will be another advocate, one to come alongside you. It will not be any easier than being a follower of Jesus, in fact it might be harder for not being able to see this new advocate. There will be ups and downs and long periods of waiting for what comes next.

When John writes the gospel, the community for which he writes it is feeling lost. Few, if any, are still alive who lived in the presence of Jesus. They have long since expected Jesus’ return. They are aware of Jesus-following communities under persecution if they themselves are not. Perhaps they are feeling a bit like Noah and his family, trapped on the ark, floating in between. Aware of what God has done for them, yet waiting for the fulfillment of the promise. So John reminds them of the promise, that no matter what happens, God has promised not to abandon them.

We, too, especially in this Easter season are living in an in-between time. Assured of the promise of new life, but still unsure what that will mean for us. That’s what the church is – a community adrift between God’s already and not yet promise. One of the churchy words we use to describe the sanctuary, specifically the part of the sanctuary where people sit, is the nave. It comes from that Latin navis, meaning ship. That is you, we, the church sitting here in our pews, are adrift on the ark. Brought to new life through baptism and floating on those saving waters, yet still waiting the fulfillment of the promise. Dry ground still waiting for us. Still stuck in a dark and smelly ship, with a constant awareness of the destructive powers that rage around us, yet confident of God’s coming alongside us, confident of God’s promise to us.

I confess that I read these Easter season readings, including these at the end that are actually from Jesus’ last words to his disciples, and I’m not quite sure what to do with them. I see so much of what Jesus comes to proclaim not yet accomplished, and sometimes carrying the celebration of Easter all the way through the fifty days seems like it takes a lot of work against the power of what I hear going on in the world and the day-to-day tasks that have to be done. But I take comfort that God can take any of us broken people and not only give us fresh starts, but like Noah and his family, by the power of God at work, can usher in new life for the whole world through us. That the promise of God to be with us is true whether we can see the way out or not. No matter how long it seems to take or how many times we mess up along the way.

And I think that is the core of the Easter message. The power of an impossible hope breaking us open to new possibilities. The power of a God who works in us and with us. The power of a God who can come alongside us and walk the in-between times with us. And I pray that each of us might know that power revealed in our lives.

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

 

Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 18, 2014

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴And you know the way to the place where I am going.” ⁵Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
⁸Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” ⁹Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. ¹²Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. – John 14:1-14

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

Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote unfinished essay, with the working title “What does ‘telling the truth’ mean?” Sitting in prison and having been interrogated a number of times for his participation in anti-Nazi activities, he was wrestling with what it meant to tell the truth in that context. So he presents this hypothetical: A boy is called before his entire class and the teacher asks him, “Is it true that your father is a drunk?” It is well known in the community that the boy’s father often drinks to excess. The boy is caught in a terrible conundrum. Does he admit that this is who is father is, even though he is embarrassed to be known for his father’s indiscretions? Or does he deny what everyone in the room already knows to be true?

The boy chooses to answer “No, he is not a drunk.” Yet, Bonheoffer draws the conclusion that in fact the boy does speak the truth. He is not denying that his father drinks too much or that his actions under the influence have been visible in the community. But in the face of a clear abuse of power on the part of the teacher the boy speaks to a larger truth that he knows the man not as a drunk but as a father. The boy knows that he is a loving and caring man who provides for his family and maybe who takes him to the park on Saturdays. It’s another truth, perhaps a deeper truth, one that speaks to the relationships at play and the complexity of human reality.

Today’s gospel contains one of the well-known “I am” statements: Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Many of us have probably heard this passage used to justify the call for a personal statement of faith in Jesus Christ as the true way to heaven to the exclusion of all others. While I don’t deny an invitation for relationship with God and the promise of eternal life in God as revealed in Jesus Christ, I think this passage is speaking to a deeper kind of truth. A truth about relationships more than a truth about facts.

We are faced with all kinds of truth that challenges us. We are faced with our own limitations and brokenness. The reality of what we cannot accomplish. We are faced with the fact that each of us is guilty of offenses, things done and left undone. We are faced by the reality of atrocities committed in the past and being committed today around the world. The truth is that there are people suffering in Syria and Palestine and Nigeria, in protests in Vietnam and the mine disaster in Turkey. The truth is that there are people hurting in our own community – isolated or hungry or subject to discrimination.

The truth is that each of us is a fragile human being. We will get sick. We will break. We will, one day, die. Truth is ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Truth is that we cannot save ourselves.

And we tend to perceive the world this way. We treat one another as if we exist in a win-lose, zero-sum-game kind of world. A world where truth is yes or no, where my way comes at the expense of your way, where life is defined by wealth, power, and status. We keep count and assign blame or reward to ourselves and others. Is that what truth is all about?

When Pilate asks Jesus the question a few chapters later, “What is truth?” Jesus could have responded with any of those things I just named. Or Jesus could have talked about the injustice of what was about to happen or the political realities of the day or his identity as the Word from the beginning. But Jesus instead says nothing. As if to answer Pilate, “Wait and you will see. Wait and you will see pain and suffering and death lead to an empty tomb and the rebirth of hope and the transformation of reality. That’s truth.”

Pilate could have just as easily asked “What is the Way?” or “What is life?” and gotten a similar answer. The way, the truth, and the life that is Jesus is not the kind of way and truth and life that has clear yes and no answers and quick and easy exclusions, and gains at the expense of others, but rather the promise of God’s presence in our suffering and God’s promise of a life of abundant hope. The answer to, “What is truth?” is what Jesus does shortly thereafter in Jerusalem. That when we have emerged from hardship with hope and from death with life into the arms of God, that what we discover is that we have been traveling the way of Jesus all along. That the places have been prepared for us by the one who walked ahead.

And through the cross God speaks a truth similar to that spoken by the scared and embarrassed boy in Bonheoffer’s story. When asked what the truth is about us, God does not deny our failings and fumblings, our failure to live up to our calling, our failure to contain our faults or stand up for what is right. God doesn’t pretend that we aren’t finite and frail. But God chooses to answer the question about who we are with another truth.

In the Hebrew’s reading: “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” God’s answer when asked about the truth of human beings. No they are not defined by their limitations but by the God who has claimed them and made them a people. Defined by the power of what God can do.

So today let truth be proclaimed. In the waters of baptism the truth of new life poured out. In the bread and wine of the eucharist the truth of God incarnate for us. In word and song the power of God’s truth spoken into reality for us again.

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

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

Third Sunday of Easter
May 4, 2011

¹³Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. ¹⁷And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. ¹⁸Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” ¹⁹He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. ²²Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” ²⁵Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” ²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
²⁸As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³²They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” ³³That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together.³⁴They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” ³⁵Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. – Luke 24:13-35

With special thanks to the commentary on this passage by Dr. Fred Niedner shared at the 2014 Institute of Liturgical Studies making the connection between Luke 24 and Genesis 3. 

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

This is a beloved story. It’s a classic Easter text, answering for us some fundamental questions about who we are as Easter people – Where is this resurrected Jesus we proclaim? And how does one recognize him? Two companions on the road traveling to Emmaus who had lost hope are restored to themselves, to Jesus, and to the possibility of something more, giving us hope, too. For churches with strong traditions of celebrating the Eucharist – this holy meal of bread and wine, preceded by the opening of scriptures is a story that points us again and again to the way Christ is revealed in our worship together as we gather to hear the word and feast on the meal before being sent on to share the good news. Christ revealed in the breaking of the bread that points us back to Christ in scripture and ultimately Christ in our everyday lives.

But this magnificent story is made possible only because of hospitality shown to a stranger. It would be easy to make this all about our worship within a tight-knit Christian community, but that would limit the story. Because it’s not simply followers of Jesus gathered privately to break bread with one another. It’s two people who meet a stranger on the road. Two people who listen deeply to someone they do not recognize, someone whom they subsequently invite into their home.

Yet how often is our default to be skeptical of the stranger, to close our ears rather than listen deeply. We teach our children not to talk to strangers, for good reason, but we tend to carry that into adulthood. And I don’t just mean introverts. Even those who readily engage the stranger in the supermarket line don’t usually have the kind of courage it takes to go this deeply into the most intimate places in our hearts. Few of us readily welcome strangers into our most personal of stories or into our homes for a meal.

We tend to create communities around ourselves of like-minded people. We associate with people like us who tend to reinforce the things we already know. People who are not strangers. It’s not wrong to need some time in which we are not challenged, time to recharge after encountering a world of people who are mostly different from ourselves. But then even when people are very much like us, we still fail to recognize the profound and rich differences we have from each other.

But the danger in doing that is that we miss out on the possibility of learning something important, of being challenged out of our comfort zone into the possibility of something we had not imagined before. We risk missing an opportunity to experience the resurrected Jesus among us.

I’ve seen it happen in this community. Assumptions are made about particular liberal political and social views held by those who live in this valley. While that can be a safe assumption about many, it’s easy to act in a way that unintentionally excludes the other, the very ones with whom we need to be in dialogue. It sadly leads sometimes to an assumption that we have solved all our problems already, making us blind to real needs in our community and our world. It causes us to forget the need to continue to work even here on economic disparity, exclusion of the other, fear of those who are different.

But that kind of welcome requires not just a nice word of welcome to a visitor, but the strength and courage to lay open a part of ourselves to one another. Cleopas and his companion on the road are surprisingly willing to share with this stranger that their deepest hopes and longings have not been fulfilled.

This surprises us because we don’t do this naturally. We learn from an early age to hide parts of ourselves. I am reminded of the way in which the writers of Genesis understood the damage of human sin and brokenness which leads to us hiding our vulnerability. As the story goes Adam and Eve are in the garden with one instruction: not to eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As they are out for a walk they encounter a serpent, a stranger to them. They invite the serpent into their conversation, and through that conversation are opened again to their desire to eat the fruit, their desire for more. When they do the serpent disappears, but they are immediately left vulnerable. They are aware of their nakedness and immediately hide from one another and from God. This story from Genesis points us to the ways in which from the very beginning we have been hiding the closest and most personal parts of ourselves, physical and emotional, from one another.

But in today’s gospel reading about the road to Emmaus that is undone. In the garden two companions meet a stranger on the way, they enter into conversations that touch deep inside of them, and they eat in a way that transforms their lives forever. The difference in the Emmaus story is that now the stranger the companions meet is Jesus, the conversation points them to the hope of life and resurrection, and the breaking of bread reveals not their own nakedness but the presence of Jesus. In this story it is God who is revealed, God who is made vulnerable to us in the strange person who calls us to eat.

By participation in such a meal we are invited into God’s presence, made vulnerable for us. Despite our own brokenness deep inside us, despite our inability to understand, our failure to hold on to hope, Jesus enters into conversation with us and gives his body, broken for us.

Through this coming of the resurrected Christ we are freed to live as people who are broken then for others. We are freed to open ourselves to the stranger. Not just to the people we have never met before, but to the people we see every day to whom we are in many ways still strangers. We are freed to recognize the profound difference of the other and rejoice in the way that God is revealed in our interactions with the stranger and in the profound listening to one another that such encounters demand. We are even freed to share the things closest to our hearts.

Through this table where our eyes are opened to see God with us, our lives are transformed to see the power and presence of God in us. And maybe by healing the profound brokenness that makes welcoming the other so painfully vulnerable, Jesus meeting us on our way transforms the way we live as a community, too, forming us again to be the body of Christ for the world.

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

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Second Sunday of Easter
April 27, 2014

¹⁹When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
²⁶A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. – John 20:19-31

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

Well, now what? Easter Day is over, the candy and Easter eggs are mostly eaten, many of the decorations have been put away.

But that question – “Now what?” – that’s the question every great movement faces when it reaches its stated goal. The civil rights movement saw the enacting of laws that prohibited discrimination and lead the country in some of the initial tasks of integration. After each victory a great celebration. And then the next morning people woke up and asked what’s next? There was and is still clearly more to be done.

When the church voted to change its policy to allow same-gender couples to marry in the church and LGBTQ pastors to serve openly, there was a great celebration, and then everyone realized there was more to be done and we needed new goals.

We all have those individual moments in our lives when we ask ourselves that same question. Whether it’s graduating from school or even just finishing a semester, completing a big project, getting kids off to college, fighting off a major illness or bringing an end to a long challenge. Now what?

The disciples in today’s gospel reading are sitting around a table, in a locked room, afraid. They have heard the news of the risen Jesus from Mary Magdalene, but they don’t know what to do. Maybe they had a chance to celebrate with Mary before they hid themselves away. Maybe they had a time to laugh and cry with relief. But suddenly they are confronted not so much with grief, but a question. Jesus is risen! Now what?

We are dealing with the same questions. Together we just celebrated a joyful Easter in grand style, a task that kept our focus for the last weeks, and now a week later, some of the excitement is starting to fade and we ask ourselves, now what? How do we live as Easter people in the world? How does Jesus’ resurrection change our day-to-day lives and the life of our congregation and community?

We are also at a point in our congregation’s natural rhythms in which we have completed the specific tasks from our previous vision statement. We have been actively engaging our community, participating in service, caring for one another, growing in generosity, and continuing to worship joyfully. We have so much to celebrate! And as the celebrating winds down and good work continues in many directions, we find ourselves at the point in time when we ask, Now what?

We may not have locked ourselves in, but the future is always a little uncertain. Something new is always a little intimidating. Looking ahead may remind us of past challenges. But that’s when the risen Christ appears, ignoring our locked doors and our fear and reminds us of the power of what God can do.

The disciples didn’t have a lot of answers about how to live as Easter people, not yet, but Jesus comes to them anyway. Jesus’ physical presence stands among them as a tangible sign that resurrection is possible, as a sign that there is promise and hope in the future. Jesus breathes on them the power of God’s spirit to transform their lives and carry them through the difficult task that lies ahead, figuring out what it means to be the people of a crucified and risen God. At exactly the moment when they seem most afraid, Jesus appears among them to give them hope and courage for whatever comes next.

So I’m going to ask us to do something a little unusual today. I’m going to invite you just for a minute or two – no more than 120 seconds – to talk to one another right here in the middle of worship. In order to ground the visioning process we are getting ready for in our celebration of the presence of God come among us, the conversation I’m inviting you to have is about where you have seen the risen Christ in your own life, in the congregation, in the community, or in the world. It can be something very personal or something very general. A personal struggle that you have overcome or piece of music that speaks to you, a helping hand in the community or a beautiful sunset. But one place you have known the presence of God with you. There are no right or wrong answers. You can talk to family or strangers, and no one is obligated to talk. We’ll agree to respect one another and anyone who wants to meditate on the question silently. Start by repeating the question to your conversation partner. So get ready, you only have a little less than two minutes – ask your neighbor: “Where have you seen the risen Christ in the world?”

[Pause for conversation.]

Now that you’ve had a chance to name it, I’m going to invite you to think about what you said and what your neighbor said. To hold it in mind as you go forward. As we discern how to enrich the wonderful ministry happening here at Immanuel and as you head out to the challenges of your week, we all hold these stories of the way God has touched our hearts. And we pray that those things will come to mind in the moments when we become uncertain about what is next.

And the real beauty of this story is that the disciples end up all locked away in a room again the very next week, this time with Thomas among them. And even though Jesus had already physically stood in their presence, they still seem confused and afraid. And even though they apparently haven’t figured out the answers yet, Jesus comes and stands among them again. A potent reminder to us, that no matter how many times we encounter God’s action in our lives and forget, that Jesus is ready to burst in again and surprise us all over again with the presence of God to transform our present and our future.

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

 

 

 

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ²And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. ⁴For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. ⁵But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” ⁸So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”  — Matthew 28:1-10

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Christ is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

The women at the tomb say nothing. Earthquakes and angels like lightening. The Risen Jesus appears before them. And silence from the women. Not a single word is recorded as having come from their lips on that first Easter morning. Maybe the church has been trying to make up for their silence ever since with our trumpet-filled, Alleluia-shouting Easter morning jubilation.

But that first Easter there was little that could be said. If Mary Magdelene and the other Mary were anything like me, they had plenty of thoughts racing through their heads as they walked to tomb that morning. There was silence on the outside, but the questions inside were deafeningly loud: “Why has death come to visit us again? When will death come for me? Is there anything that can lift this weight of grief? Could we have done anything to stop it? What can the strange events of these last days mean? Who will lead us forward now?”

We may not have said anything on our way to church this morning, either, but somewhere in us are those same questions: “Where is God when tragedy strikes my life? Where is God when my life overwhelms? Where is God in Ukraine and Syria and Sudan and the Central African Republic? How has there been another act of gun violence? Have we crossed the point of no return in our destruction of the earth?” Maybe we didn’t say it out loud, but by coming to church this Easter morning, in one way or another, we were asking, “Is. there. hope?”

But then the women arrive at the tomb as the earth begins to shake. In their silence the disruption seems even louder, the glow of this mysterious messenger even brighter. The guards at the tomb are knocked silent, too. And the first words of the morning are spoken, though not by the women: “Do not be afraid.” Don’t be afraid of what is taking place in front of you, don’t be afraid of death, perhaps the messenger even means do not be afraid of the transformative power of new life that crumbles your assumptions about the world. Do not be afraid to believe what cannot be true, that Jesus, the crucified one, is not here for he has been raised.

We, too, are silent at the announcement of this good news. We are not yet sure if it is true. The joy arises still surrounded by fear. We are not certain that it means what we think it might. The questions still race in our minds. The problems are not yet solved. But now the thoughts keep circling back around to a single question: “Is there hope?”

And so the women go as they are told, racing from the tomb, filled with more questions and now unable to speak as they race out-of-breath to try to find someone else to tell. The silent questions are racing: “Is it true? Can it be true? If it is then what? What does this mean?” In joy and fear they do not know. They do not have the answers. And yet they run to proclaim the mystery, because it seems there is nothing else to do.

And so we run through our busy lives, out-of-breath even if we knew what to say. We are still living in the mystery and confusion about what this resurrection means for us. If death can be defeated… If the dead can rise… If wars can cease and hatred turn to love… If our brokenness and failings can be healed and our worries and cares relieved… Then what else is possible? What can this resurrection mean for us and for this broken and hurting world?

And in their joy and fear. in their questioning and hurry, Jesus meets the women on the way. “Greetings!” he says. (Not Jesus’ most eloquent moment.) And again, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell!” Still silent they fall at his feet in worship; no words seem big enough, clear enough, powerful enough to speak this reality of resurrection. They do not need words, because the presence of God is standing among them again in flesh and blood.

And Jesus meets us here on our way in bread and wine, stops us in our hurry. God in flesh and blood for us. And we are in awe. We are speechless. How is it that the risen one can be among us here?! Among us now?! There are not words big enough, clear enough, powerful enough to speak the mystery. There are not enough Alleluias in the world to proclaim the power of the crucified and risen presence of Christ among us here. Among us now. Among us forever.

And yet we hear the call to go and tell. Not yet sure how this news changes the answer to all our deepest questions. Not yet certain how it has the power to renew every cell and the power to resurrect the cosmos. And so all we can do is to echo the words we have heard: “Do not be afraid! He is not here, he is risen. Come and see.”

The words we sing and speak today and every Sunday are mostly not our words. They are always God’s words that we echo to one another, God’s speaking life to us. They are words of mystery and awe. Words that exclaim and proclaim what is true even when they fail to explain how it is so. Simple words that remind us of the power of Christ risen among us in our questions, in our silence and confusion, in our fear and joy. Christ risen among us in bread broken and wine poured, among us with water in abundance to transform and renew. The presence of the risen one meeting us on our way. Here. Now. Forever.

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

Easter Vigil, Saturday, April 19, 2014

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ²So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” ³Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰Then the disciples returned to their homes.
¹¹But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹²and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” ¹⁴When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” ¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. – John 20:1-8

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

Resurrection is a dirty job, but someone has to do it. In fact, I would vote for savior of the world as a candidate for the television series Dirty Jobs, where they go into the grossest, dirtiest workplaces and experience what it’s like for those who day in and day out experience work in that kind of environment. Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber suggests that maybe Mary thinks Jesus the gardener because he’s still covered in dirt from his tomb. The man’s been crucified and laid in a tomb for a few days. It’s not inconceivable that he’s got some dirt under his fingernails.

But no matter how you look at it, resurrection is messy work. Because it’s always messy when we deal with physical bodies. It’s always messy dealing with death, when things start to fail and break down. Let’s be honest things start to rot, and that gets really messy.

In our creeds we confess that Jesus descended into hell. Which I take to mean that in the three days from cross to empty tomb that the power of God’s love poured out for us through Jesus soaks into the depths of all the hells we’ve created in human past, present, and future. That God’s redemption soaks into the dirtiest, grossest, messiest places we can imagine. And THAT is certainly dirty work.

Everything about the last three days has been messy. Thursday was all about washing feet. Friday we dwelt in Jesus’ suffering and death. And our readings tonight got messy, too. The chaos of water is tamed in the creation account. The earth is destroyed and brought to life again through the waters of the flood. The sea is moved out of the way to let the Israelites pass through. Our hearts are ripped out to create something new. Jonah finds himself inside the digestive system of a giant fish. The things that God does to save us are a dirty business.

But that’s because so much of our lives are full of mess. Our bodies themselves require constant care to keep clean and healthy. The work of being in relationship and community with one another is anything but simple and clear-cut. We find ourselves making mistakes and having to work at fixing them. We are confronted by our limitations when we cannot solve the messes we create that explode out of control to be come global crises. Our lives are full of disorder and chaos, full of things that break and decay and die.

So Jesus meets us there. Descending into our dirty, nasty world. And Jesus transforms it, not into something that looks neat and clean and shiny, but into something that looks just as messy but is now full of life. Something like the garden that surrounds the empty tomb. A garden is about as dirt-filled as it gets, but with seeds sown it is full of the promise of life that will nourish us with food and beauty. This night we see the seeds begin to sprout from that garden when Jesus stands and calls out Mary’s name.

Though sometimes, like Mary, we won’t recognize the dirt involved in resurrection from the dirt that we’re create ourseleves. In our despair, sometimes we miss the work that God is doing. Until our name is called. Until out of our mess God starts to spring up new life. Until our death is resurrected. That’s what tonight is about: an opportunity to dwell together in the mess of resurrection.

This night isn’t so much about being done up in our Easter best and the trumpets that will shout out tomorrow morning, but about discovering what new life Jesus is bringing into our mess right now.

Delving into the work of the last three days washing feet, proclaiming the cross, boldly crossing through the waters, we have been finding ourselves beside Jesus and in so doing have found Jesus come next to us. Tonight we are still confused and surprised all over again that Jesus has appeared resurrected in our mess. Yet tonight we explore what it means when we are called to rise up from our weeping, from our confusion, from our grief and despair to see an unrecognizable Jesus leading us to new life. And all over again we are freed to live transformed by the mystery of this night.

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

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Good Friday, April 18, 2014

The Passion According to John.

Interspersed with verses of “There in God’s Garden,” including the line: “This is my ending, this my resurrection.” (Text by Kiraly Imre von Pecselyi, tr. Erik Routley)

THIS is my ending. THIS my resurrection.

This. This whole story. This whole long, painful story is what we came to hear today. The story of Jesus which has been hurtling toward this moment since the beginning, and picking up speed as it gets closer to this. To this ending. Jesus, whose raising Lazarus from the grave finally pushed the authorities over the edge. The story of Jesus spending final moments with his closest companions, ending with a prayer not for himself but for us, for the whole world. The betrayal and arrest, the confrontation with Pilate and the religious authorities, the suffering, the cross, death. THIS is what we expect on Good Friday.

It’s a story Christians have been trying to make sense of for centuries. What is it in Jesus’ action on the cross that saves us? How is this death redemptive? How could an excited crowd and some fearful leaders do such a thing? What is this thing that is at the heart of our faith? How does it save us? What does it mean?

This is MY ending. This MY resurrection.

It troubles us, this story, because it’s more than a story about an unknown person in a far away time and place. It troubles us because it is our story. We know we should choose Jesus but every year we find ourselves in the place of the crowd shouting for crucifixion and for Barabbus over Jesus. We find ourselves shouting “Crucify him!” and we the ones casting lots for his clothing. The story convicts us of the ways in which we, too, have squelched God’s expressions of love and new life because they made us uncomfortable. It troubles us for the ways we participate, even unknowingly and unintentionally in the suffering of others. It’s a story that does not make us feel good.

But even more so, for all our rituals in these holy days, we are not attempting to theatrically recreate the actions of Jesus, but rather we are trying to figure out how, by living into this story, we can begin to sort out what Christ’s death and resurrection means in our present lives. So if we are enacting anything this day, it’s not Jesus’ death that we practice, but our own. It is about finding ourselves bound up with Jesus, who leads us boldly and without fear to the grave on this Friday.

This is my ENDING. This my RESURRECTION.

This day feels like an ending, like the close of the book. The end of the story. But we are an Easter people, even on Good Friday. We look back on this story of Jesus and ahead to our own stories of death. With the help of the writer of the Gospel of John, we look at even at death through the lens of Easter triumph. We see this day, all evidence to the contrary, as the final conquering of death itself. That is why we triumph on this day, albeit in a somber fashion. We do not pretend that Jesus is dead, but in solemn reverence acknowledge before the cross the power of God revealed in weakness, the mystery of God’s very self given up for our sakes, and in that the defeat of death itself. We acknowledge with joy that there is no resurrection except by way of the cross. That there can be no Easter life without a death to precede it.

And so we proclaim this day the paradox that in submitting to death God’s power is fully revealed. The power to renew and resurrect not just Jesus, and not just us, but in fact the whole cosmos. It is at the very core of our faith that today we stand at the cross not in sadness but in awe. That we are invited into the upside-down victory that God unleashes on the world this and every day. And this power cannot be contained. Not by nails and thorns, not by soldiers and weapons, not by our limitations and fears. Because at this God has triumphed. At this the world is redeemed. In death’s ending is now resurrection. May this indeed be our ending AND our resurrection.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

Maundy Thursday 2014

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ²The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper ³Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, ⁴got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. ⁵Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. ⁶He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” ⁷Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” ⁸Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” ⁹Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” ¹⁰Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” ¹¹For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
¹²After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³You call me Teacher and Lord — and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.¹⁵For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. ¹⁷If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. ^31b“Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³²If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. ³³Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” — John 13:1-17, 31b-15

Tonight is not about Jesus. In a week when everything is usually intensely focused on Jesus, tonight, in a way tonight is not. We’ll talk about Jesus, we’ll remember Jesus with our words and actions. But on this first night of the great Three Days of the church year, there’s a way in which tonight is about us.

Because tonight celebrates first and foremost Jesus’ instruction to the disciples and to us: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus seems to know this is the end for him. At least in John’s gospel he spends a good deal of time preparing his disciples for things to be left in their hands. He turns the work of all of his ministry over to them. Jesus has been teaching, healing, forgiving, and challenging power all over Galilee and the road to Jerusalem. And tonight God turns over this crazy sight-restoring, captive-releasing, outsider-inviting, dirty-feet-washing ministry into our clumsy hands.

Let me point out that this does not seem like a smart move on God’s part. God has lots of experience dealing with God’s people, and God’s people have not been particularly faithful.

We read tonight about the people of God enslaved in Egypt. They cried out and God heard them. Moses is sent…okay, dragged along… by God to be the one to lead them into freedom. In the night before their deliverance, they are instructed to complete this mysterious action of slaughtering a lamb and smearing its blood on the door before they are finally set free. And God makes a point about Passover. God says to remember it. Remember that this is the length to which God will go to set you free. But they don’t remember. It isn’t more than a week in the wilderness and they begin to complain against God. They quickly become whiny and quarrelsome. They will try their best to take matters into their own hands instead of trusting God. And these are the people God entrusts with ministry?

But that’s been the story of God’s people from the beginning. Forgetting who God is, what God has done for us, and what we are supposed to be about as God’s people. We know ourselves. We know the ways we fall short. We know the ways we have failed to be the people God asks us to be. We know the problems that exist in our world: war, hunger, famine, inequality, violence small and large, damage to the earth itself. We know what brings us to long for the words of forgiveness and grace pronounced to us from God.

Yet God, fully acquainted with our capacities, offers forgiveness with reckless abandon and then turns this ministry over to us anyway. Jesus on this night before he is betrayed takes time to serve his friends, washing their feet. He takes time to remind them and teach them once more what their calling is really all about.

And in so doing, he turns over to them and to us two things on this night in particular that I find particularly daring on God’s part. The first is the ministry of care for one another. Into our fragile hands Jesus places the responsibility of loving and caring for our fellow fragile human beings. The very thing God has created and formed and loved to the end is what Jesus hands over to a group of people with a terrible track record, knowing full well that in doing so the need for grace, healing, and forgiveness will only increase.

And so it is that God hands over the second even more daring and even more important thing. Jesus hands his very self over to us. He gives his body over to the cross rather than go back on his promise of radical love. But Jesus hands himself over to us also in the gift of bread and wine accompanied by the promise that he is here every time. That every time the bread and wine is shared in community and the promise is spoken and remembered, Jesus is there, giving his very self over to us again.

So why does God do this? Why does God place not only the care of other human beings but even God’s very self into our fragile and clumsy hands? Why risk everything on us? The answer goes back to the statement at the core of our service tonight: “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, love one another.” Because that is who we are. We are people lovingly created for love with one another. Not sappy romantic love, but deep care, concern and service to each other.

Tonight is about what God has done for us: this crazy thing of calling each of us to the work of God in the world because we are loved first. By the grace of God we are called worthy to be swept up in the mystery of these days – washed by the waters of baptism, fed by the bread and wine, and then carried through death into new life all over again. Amen.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

 

The text of this week’s Gospel, John 9:1-41, was read throughout the sermon, rather than in one reading. It is below in italics.

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. ²His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. ⁴We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. ⁵As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, ⁷saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. 

If only everything were that simple. The man was blind, but now he sees. Problem solved.

This is the Jesus we like a great deal. He swoops in and fixes the problems that we can’t handle ourselves. This part of the story fits into our worldview nicely. We may struggle with the miracle part in our world of scientific knowledge, but we generally agree with Jesus that it’s not about the sins of the man or his parents and we also generally accept that blindness needs healing. Even if the mud and saliva method is a little unorthodox, we can believe what we want about that part and go on about our lives.

We encounter all kinds of challenges in our daily lives. Certainly some people live with disabilities or challenges that are clear and diagnosed. But even without that, everyone faces what is simply a complicated world. We are challenged by demands on our time, but relationships that require difficult work. We are challenged by mysteries we cannot solve. We are challenged by world problems that weigh down our hearts.

So why can’t Jesus come and fix it? We might even be willing to make some mud with spit if it would make things any better. We might even be wiling to travel around the world to visit the Pool of Siloam if we really thought it would make our lives easier in an instant.

For this man who is transformed, it is something amazing and incredible. And we, too, want something amazing and incredible to land in front of us without our having to even go looking for it. That’s not why God came down to earth. If only it were that simple…

⁸The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” ¹⁰But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” ¹¹He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” ¹²They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

         ¹³They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. ¹⁴Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. ¹⁵Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” ¹⁶Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. ¹⁷So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

         ¹⁸The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight ¹⁹and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” ²⁰His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; ²¹but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” ²²His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. ²³Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So here the story gets complicated. It turns out, no, it wasn’t actually as simple as a blind man suddenly being able to see. For one thing, we realize that even the problems that seem individual to us, problems that we think we face alone or that affect only us, are actually connected to the whole community of which we are a part. Surely a blessing to be so interconnected, but also a challenge. It seems as if Jesus swooping in to fix the things we identify as our own issues or even the things we are individually worried about in the community and the world may not actually fix everything.

Part of this complication of being in community is that the healing that has taken place makes this man unrecognizable. The healing is so transformative that the people no longer recognize him. He has been up to this point in his life characterized by his disability. He’s known even to us now not as the man who received his sight but the man born blind. The community has long since carved out a place for him and it is certainly not among them as a member of their community. This man is to them a non-person. He is an object of their pity and maybe, if he’s lucky, their charity. Jesus’ healing doesn’t change that.

Actually, as much as we long for healing, I think this part of the story reminds us that healing actually means transformation and transformation means change and change means loss. Certainly in Jesus’ time, regaining his sight would mean significantly more opportunities for him. But it meant losing the identity that he knew from his beginning. And the community isn’t exactly ready to embrace him for who he is.

But we know this, too, about our world. That when things change, not everyone is ready to accept it. Whether it’s the ordinary family down the street who wins the lottery and suddenly finds people can’t relate to them, or whether it’s the resistance we face from big and powerful groups and corporations to making social changes that have the potential to benefit the planet and our fellow human beings. Not everyone jumps on board so easily.

But now I think we’re getting closer to what this story is all about. It’s about the transformation of a man born blind, but it seems it’s actually about how disruptive that transformation can be. Sort of a”be careful what you pray for” kind of message. The transformation may totally turn your life upside down, and the consequences may not be exactly what you’d expect.

²⁴So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” ²⁵He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” ²⁶They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” ²⁷He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” ²⁸Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. ²⁹We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” ³⁰The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. ³¹We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. ³²Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. ³³If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” ³⁴They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Driven out. That’s what this man gets. He has been physically transformed and now wants to rejoin his community in a new way, with his new identity, and the reaction is that he is driven out. His testimony about Jesus does not fit into their preconceived notions about what God does and does not do, how God does and does not work. The problems just seem to get worse.

But this man has been transformed in such a way that he will not concede his point: “Here is an astonishing thing!” he says to the authorities, and maybe the most powerful words any of us can use to witness to God’s work: “I do not know. One thing I know, I was blind, and now I see.” I was dead but am alive, I was lost and am found.

The kind of transformation that Jesus brings, the kind of transformation we are waiting for is not a simple fix for our problems. It’s instead something so transformative that we lose our bearings entirely. It strips away all that we know of the world. It makes us into a new person in such a way that the old is no more. The kind of transformation that Jesus enacts is what calls us to selfless acts of generosity, to radical welcome for anyone and everyone, to the proclamation of life over death.

There are many things we do not know. And we may as well admit that upfront. But we do know the power of God in our lives that draws us into this place – to this font and this table. We do know the disruption that Christ’s presence causes in us. And sometimes we even know the community’s harsh or misunderstanding response to our Christian identity. And yet here we are to proclaim to one another the power of God at work disrupting our lives.

But as wonderful as that is, is that all that Jesus offers to us?

³⁵Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” ³⁷Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” ³⁸He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. ³⁹Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” ⁴⁰Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” ⁴¹Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

Finally Jesus reappears in this crazy story. Jesus could have stepped in, demonstrated his power somehow in front of the very people making life difficult for this man. But that simply plays into their assumptions. To have done that would have given credence to the assumption that blind is bad and sight is good. Sick is bad and healthy is good. It would have given blessing in a sense to the power they have claimed to include or exclude from God’s community. It would have only supported their established way of relating to one another through categories.

Instead Jesus shows up where Jesus always shows up, to the side of the one who is cast out. Jesus appears again at the point in the story when it becomes clear that this man is once again marginalized. Jesus stands with him there in that place, challenging the power of the Pharisees to exclude, challenging the valued of insider/outsider language, challenging everyone’s assumptions about identity.

But the problem is that it leaves the poor Pharisees to wonder if in fact they are the ones who are blind. Through this crazy series of events, Jesus has managed to place a question in their minds. It has caused them to stop and wonder, to stop and reconsider. Suddenly they are questioning their own assumptions. Questioning not just this blind man and this unregulated healer, but also perhaps now their assumptions about what it means to be in community and what it means to be blind.

And maybe Jesus causes us to question, too, if we might also be in need of transformation. If our assumptions and categories need turning over. If our lives need a little disruption, too

And it may seem that Jesus’ response to them and to us is to abandon us in their disrupted state. But if we’ve learned anything in this story, it’s that disruption is part of God’s transformation. Disrupting individuals, disrupting social structures, disrupting death itself.

And disruption is threatening and downright terrifying, but it is part of the work of God in the world. It’s what resurrection is all about. And in the middle of it we find Jesus beside us, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. That’s what we prayed in our psalm refrain today: “Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.”[1] Bring us your disruption, O God.

And God answers that prayer by lifting up the man born blind and coming alongside the same man thrown out of the temple. Cracking the shell of the Pharisees who cannot see beyond their own rules and categories. Breaking us apart and putting us back together again to be witnesses to the power and the possibility of resurrection in our world today.

So whether you are confident or confused, sighted or blind, lost or found, dead or alive, this transformation is for you. This disruption is for us all. Jesus promise of life is bursting forth for everyone.

-Pastor Steven Wilco