18th Sunday after Pentecost

September 30, 2012

Numbers 11, James 5:13-20, Mark 9:38-50

There is an ELCA pastor whom I have quoted before in sermons. She writes articles for The Christian Century, she speaks all over the country, her blog posts get passed around facebook all the time. She pastors a congregation in Denver called House for All Sinners and Saints. But Nadia Bolz-Weber is not a stereotypical pastor. She does not look like a stuffy, institutional person.  Her background includes some less than ideal moments. Her tattoos and piercings turn some off and her language is not always clean.

I found I could get past all that pretty easily as she spoke to the pastors in New England last year. But when she told us that for their Easter celebration their church puts a chocolate fountain in the baptismal font, I just couldn’t go there. I admit that my response, though I chose not to say it aloud, was, “But you can’t do that!” She gets this response to a lot of things she does. While she is the first to tell you she is not promoting this as what should be done in every congregation, still she gets a lot of people telling her she can’t do what she’s doing. You can make a faithful theological case for it and a faithful theological case against it, but I would suggest that whatever the issue or concern, as soon as we start to say “But you can’t do that!” God starts responding, “Oh really? Wanna bet?”

The theme running through our readings today reminds us about the power of the Holy Spirit to fall on whomever it will and in whatever way it chooses. Moses is in need of help in leading this large crowd of sometimes cranky people on their desert journey and God instructs him to appoint 70 elders to receive the spirit. All well and good until Eldad and Medad, perhaps numbers 71 and 72 on the list of elders who didn’t quite make the cut, start prophesying, too. In fact they don’t do it just once like the others but consistently. Joshua, faithful upholder of the way things ought to be, comes running in to say “But you can’t do that!”

John comes to Jesus with a similar story – people they don’t know are using God’s name to do good things! Careful to preserve the integrity of Jesus’ movement and teaching, he wants Jesus to step in and say “But you can’t do that!”

And though no one says it out loud in the James reading, when he reminds us that healing the sick and forgiving sins can be done by all the Christian community, and when he reminds us that Elijah (who is arguably not your average everyday Joe, but human nonetheless) held off the rain for three years, I wonder if our response is to remember the times we have laid on hands and prayed in earnest for someone or something and healing has not come. Maybe a disappointed response, “But we can’t do that!”

Each attempt to shut down and shut out the power of the Holy Spirit, each attempt to put it in a box and tell it where it can and cannot reside is met with holy laughter. I think the author of Numbers left out an important detail, because I imagine Moses getting in a good hearty laugh before he says – “Would that everyone was filled with the spirit like these people!” And maybe even Jesus has a glint of humor in his eyes when he lists off the ridiculous alternatives that would be preferable to trying to trip up the Holy Spirit’s work in others. Maybe almost as if he is saying if you’re going to try to get in the way of the Holy Spirit, you’d have better luck going through life having cut off your hand or your foot or having gouged out your eye.

It’s easier than we think, though, to begin this kind of thinking. It doesn’t take much. Maybe just an assumption that things will always be as they are now. We are not creatures who deal with change well, and so we are quick to label difference as wrong, quick to label the work of the spirit through someone else as outside the realm of possibilities.

Cathedral in the Night is a good example. For those who haven’t heard about this yet, it is a community that gathers weekly for worship and a meal on the street in Northampton. Our larger church isn’t quite sure what to call it because it doesn’t look like a congregation. It doesn’t have a constitution and by-laws and a membership roster. It’s goal is not to start a building. Can they do that? Others focus on it primarily as a meal for the needy, and it is that, too, even if it’s a meal that intentionally blurs the lines of who we call needy. We’re quick to try to put it into our box. But ultimately it’s church, as much church as we are here with a building and an organ and coffee hour. Can they do that?

Or here’s another example: Yesterday our synod installed a new bishop. Much has been said about the contrast. For 12 years the synod had a woman as bishop who was shorter than average, introverted and generally soft-spoken. Now the synod has a man as a bishop who is taller than average and extroverted and at times boisterous. Our challenge is not to look at the difference and label one wrong and one right, not to say “But you can’t do that!” but instead to look with curiosity at how the spirit is at work differently in them and also at work in ways that are the same.

That takes courage from us – to approach life with curiosity. Or rather it takes courage from the Holy Spirit. Because actually Joshua, and John, and all the naysayers previously mentioned are a little right. They can’t do that. You can’t do that. We can’t do that. But God can do that.

I was reminded at yesterday’s installation for the new bishop how often we pray for the Holy Spirit. At installations and ordinations we invite the spirit very intentionally. At confirmations when individuals come forward to affirm their baptismal promises, we pray for the spirit. But most fundamentally we pray for the Holy Spirit at baptism – using language that intentionally echoes in those other occasions: we pray for “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever.” Ministry, that is, the work of all the baptized, cannot be done on our own but only by the power of the spirit.

And today, too, we invite that spirit into our midst. You’ll hear it several places but specifically you’ll hear it in the Eucharistic prayer: we ask God “with your Word and Holy Spirit to bless us, your servants, and these your own gifts of bread and wine.” But watch out – because praying for the spirit is a dangerous thing. We may not always be happy with the results. We may find ourselves saying things that resemble “But you can’t do that!” when the spirit works in ways we cannot expect.

I don’t anticipate getting rid of our building so that we can be like Cathedral in the Night, but maybe the spirit’s work there has something to teach us about being church together and visible out in our community. I also don’t anticipate putting a chocolate fountain in the baptismal font for Easter. But maybe the spirit’s movement in that community could encourage us to find our own, authentic way to demonstrate sheer excitement and joy at the Easter gift that is ours through baptism. Maybe those could be reminders for us to turn our cries of “You can’t do that!” into questions about what God might be doing for us and for others.

It takes courage. We won’t be perfect at it. We will take comfort in our familiar ways and our order for things. And we are called to be discerning. But each of us has been given God’s spirit. And each of us is called to a unique ministry in our lives. I pray that the spirit will continue to give us the courage for curiosity and to remember that when we think we can’t, that God actually can.

Pastor Steven Wilco

50th Anniversary of Immanuel Lutheran Church
September 23, 2012
1 Kings 8:22-30; 1 Peter 2:1-9; John 10:22-30

How joyfully we sang as we entered the sanctuary today – filling the courtyard and this sanctuary with our praises: “Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim, til all the world adore his sacred name.” And we followed the cross to our places in these pews, a people gathered around the crucified and risen Christ. But for us to gather here a group of faithful people had to work together to make this sanctuary possible.

And of all the stories I’ve heard about this congregation and its history, some of my favorites have been about the construction of the building – the faithful visits to the site in those early years as a congregation still worshipping in the Odd Fellows Hall; the inevitable moments as the building was first taking shape when things didn’t go as planned; the time the altar arrived after all the workers went home and Pastor Koenig called in some members for the nearly impossible task of moving this enormous slab of concrete. In another instance I’m told that a conversation among some of the construction workers was overheard. They had been hard at work on the tower all day long, and, tired and worn out, they were admiring their work and congratulating themselves on a job well done, that is, until someone pointed out there was one task remaining to finish the tower. And here I quote as accurately as possible, “You know, we still have to get that damn cross up there.” So much for lift high the cross. The love of Christ proclaim?

But what a wonderful image for us as construction workers in God’s kingdom, working together to build something that is not yet complete without the cross. In fact figuring out how to deal with the cross in the midst of everything else going on has been the mission of the church since Jesus’ resurrection. In fact, even before Jesus was crucified, the disciples and others were trying to figure out what it meant for them. Some Jewish members of the community ask him in today’s gospel, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly!” He has told them plainly, and yet they do not believe. It’s that darn cross that stands in the way of their understanding. Jesus was on the way to building a pretty good reputation as a renowned teacher and healer; the disciples and the crowds are desperate for more. They’re happy with the tower as it is with no cross on top. The cross just doesn’t make sense.

And yet, 2000 years later, this congregation was founded around the cross by a dedicated and faithful group of people, some of whom are sitting with us today. They came with a vision for this place and with hopes and dreams of what it could be as a witness to God’s love. Hopes that became a congregation, that became a building, that became a thriving community of living stones, built by God as a holy dwelling place and as a witness to the community. By many accounts a great success.

But the tower is not complete without the cross. Along with all the wonderful parts of the original vision that came into being by God’s grace, there were also things that didn’t work out as intended. It turns out we’re human. It turns out each of us that has been part of this community brings along our own version of the dream that has to be reconciled with the dreams of others. Over time the building developed its share of cracks. In fact, over time the community has developed its share of cracks. In 50 years’ time there are lots of things that didn’t go as planned for better and for worse. With the folks in John’s gospel, I wonder if we, too, ask, “How long will you keep us in suspense?” How long, God, will we continue to struggle over and over again with what it means to be in ministry in this community with these people? How long will we have to struggle with the hard work of putting stone on stone to be a witness to your love in this time and place?

But just as it is in the gospel reading the answer is already staring us in the face. It’s that —- cross again. The cross that reminds us when we forget that ministry isn’t about our success but about God’s love being proclaimed to the world. The cross that reminds us that the broken places, the cracks that inevitably develop within us and around us, are the places God chooses to be revealed most fully. The cross that reminds us that forgiveness is offered freely to us that we might also freely forgive.

Now sometimes it would be easier without the cross. We could charge forward on the basis of our own wisdom, and trump others with our own power. We could focus on our own success and celebrate our own achievements. We could be satisfied with a tower with no cross on top. The cross sometimes makes things more challenging or it can seem like one more thing we have to account for after all of our other hard work. It isn’t always easy to see how God is at work in the difficult moments, in the moments when we are tired from 50 years of good hard work in ministry. I wouldn’t be surprised if the construction worker in the 1960’s was not the last person to utter essentially those same words about the cross.

When we face challenges and moments of failure and when we like the disciples can only see the cross and not the resurrection that is promised, we do have a history to remind us.

God has been among us in countless hours of Bible study from the very beginning, through deep discussions in Sunday school and adult forum, and most recently with the community in our lecture series. The first part of our mission statement: God’s Love in Action – journey in faith. God has been among us week after week after week of worship on over 2600 Sundays. God’s Love in Action – worship with joy. God has been among us serving the needs of the community offering welcome to immigrants and refugees, hosting community Thanksgiving meals, raising money to help people we will never even meet. God’s Love in Action – serve with love.

But none of that is complete without the cross, without God’s self-emptying for us to make us the people of God. And if we forget who we are, if we forget that we are children of God, these stones are here to remind us. Well, ok, maybe not stones exactly, but these poured concrete pillars and cedar planks.

These walls have heard our songs – the many beautifully sung and played hymns and anthems, and the occasional not so beautifully sung ones, too. These walls have heard our prayers – our deepest longings expressed from the heart and maybe also our less sincere words of prayer, too. These walls have heard the splash of water from the font and the sound of bread broken and wine poured – the gifts of God in the most ordinary of things for us God’s ordinary yet chosen people. These walls, this cross, this ridiculously heavy altar and font call out to us, reminding us of the years together supporting one another as living stones, as the people of God. They remind us of God’s faithful listening, that we are God’s people, and that God has indeed come to be Immanuel, “God with us.”

So our story – our individual stories and our story together as people of Immanuel – is also God’s story. And God’s story is our story: cross and resurrection. So we journey forward trusting that only God knows where we are going – putting stone on stone trusting that God will lift high the cross for us. The last 50 years has brought this community a wonderful and rich ministry. We cannot know what the next 50 years will be. But we do know this: that God’s story does not end with the cross, damned or otherwise, but rather it ends in resurrection. And God’s promise to us, whatever the next 5 years, or 50 years, or 500 years brings our way, is that resurrection is the end of our story, too.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 16, 2012

James 3:1-12, Mark 8:27-38

Words seem to be flying in every direction in our Gospel reading today. Jesus gives his disciples a little pop quiz at Ceasarea Phillippi – a midterm at this halfway point in Mark’s gospel. Each answer loaded with theological significance – John the Baptist, Elijah, a prophet. And Peter’s direct and prophetic answer, “You are the Messiah.” But don’t tell anyone Jesus says as he goes on to explain he must die and rise again. Peter takes him aside and rebukes him, Jesus in turn rebukes Peter and gives everyone a good stern warning. Significant words flying back and forth, rebuke coming from every direction.

But before we get too hard on Peter, I want to point us back to some very important words in the reading from James. With all the words flying around in the readings, I don’t want to miss it. It comes in the second verse: “For all of us make many mistakes.” I want to take a moment to honor that those words are scriptural. That the Bible says, “You know what, all this stuff I’m telling you, I know you’re not always going to get it right.” James does not let us off the hook. He calls us to strive toward greater control, deeper discipleship, richer words that bless rather than curse. But he wouldn’t have to say it if everyone was getting it right.

Peter certainly makes a mistake. Actually I’d like to propose that he makes several mistakes. The first is that he says to Jesus, “You are the Messiah.” He’s right, of course, technically. Jesus is the anointed one, which is what Messiah means. But it quickly becomes clear that what Peter means by that statement is not at all what Jesus has in mind. Peter meant you are going to be the one who liberates us and leads us out of slavery into freedom in a political sense.

Here is where Peter’s second mistake comes in. When Jesus explains how he will be the Messiah, Peter doesn’t have the good sense to check his words and listen but instead rebukes Jesus. I give him a lot of credit here for engaging Jesus. You have to wonder that everyone else isn’t thinking the same thing and keeping it to themselves until they can talk about it later on behind Jesus’ back. At least Peter engages Jesus, and gets this nonsense out of the way.

Jesus informs Peter and the disciples that they are mistaken. They are not going to get their way, and it’s going to be okay. They aren’t going to win the day over Roman rule, and it’s going to be okay. They aren’t going to get rich and famous, and it’s going to be okay. They aren’t going to be popular or successful, and it’s going to be okay. “For all of us make many mistakes,” you can almost hear Jesus saying maybe even chuckling to himself.

Now sometimes our mistakes are big. This week people died because of someone’s hateful words. To be honest that probably happens more than we know, but this week it made international news. I’m talking about the anti-muslim video that sparked a violent attack in Libya. Hateful words were spoken and people died. Rebukes flying back and forth. The counter-demonstrations, though, sounded like James. There were signs that reminded people that Muslims are people who strive to do what James requires of us – they condemn the hate speech against Islam and they condemn the violence supposedly done in its name. They are taking a stand that they will not be people who curse with the same mouth from which they bless. That video and the violent attacks were terrible and tragic mistakes, and yet it isn’t that different in nature than some of our mistakes.

I’m hoping that none of us in this room would go to the lengths of creating a movie that defames anyone else for religion or otherwise. But I’m guessing that all of us have started down that path with words that do not lift up, with words that, intentional or not, have done harm. Sometimes they come from our own place of hurt, often from our own deepest place of need. But they do not belong with the words of blessing that also come from our lips.

And like Peter we have literally or figuratively taken Jesus aside and rebuked him for not having things our way. We use our words to remind Jesus and others that we are right. That our religion is right, that our way of life is right, that our ideas are right. But in the end it’s not about getting it right. For all of us make many mistakes. Like Peter, we don’t, in the end, know what it is that is best for us. Peter gets the words right but not the meaning and doesn’t want to hear that there is another way.

The reminder from James that all of us make many mistakes is not an excuse to give up trying. In fact quite the opposite. It’s permission for us to try again after we’ve failed. We might easily give up when, we like Peter realize we haven’t gotten it right the first time around, or when we like Peter make it worse on the second try. The reminder to us is that not only does Peter earnestly and honestly, if also mistakenly, engage with Jesus, but Jesus also earnestly and honestly engages with Peter.

Jesus rebukes him and it probably does not feel good. But he also reminds Peter that it doesn’t depend on him. His place is following, even if that is a bumbling kind of following with words that aren’t always right and an ego that sometimes gets in the way. It’s a rebuke, but also a comfort to know that it does not depend on us getting it right. For all of us make many mistakes.

Ultimately it is not our words, for good or for ill, that save us from ourselves, from our sinful nature, or from death. It’s God’s words for us. The words that say I love you, you are mine. And I imagine God often getting a good laugh at our many mistakes and our attempts to fix them. In Jesus’ words we have our minds stuck on human things and not divine things. Things that in the end simply don’t have the power we try to give them. Because louder than our failed and broken attempts to answer Jesus’ question and louder than our failed and broken attempts to bless or curse one another are God’s words of profound forgiveness, God’s words of abundant blessing, God’s words of life.

Pastor Steven Wilco

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 9, 2012

James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37

Dogs know who will give them food. Some dogs are so well trained that they don’t beg at the table, but I haven’t met too many of them. Perhaps because in a lot of homes there is someone who will slip them a little food from the table or someone the dog knows is bound to drop something from the table. I was at a party last week where someone’s new dog was entirely uninterested in me, didn’t even notice that I came into the house until I had a plate of food in my hands. And suddenly it wanted to be my best friend. I resented it a little that it had been uninterested even in a scratch behind the ears until I had food, which I had no intention of giving up. I love dogs, I really do. I even find it a little cute when they race around the room trying to guess who will drop something scrumptious on the floor first. I’ll even give them extra treats for no reason. I’m just a stickler for not giving them people food. But you have to give them credit for trying and for their being thoroughly convinced they deserve a little something from my plate.

With that image we turn to the woman in today’s troubling Gospel text – troubling because Jesus calls her a dog. I don’t think we can get around it. Scholars point out that it’s a diminutive, something like “puppy” or maybe “doggie.” I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. We could go with the interpretation that he is testing her and/or demonstrating something to the disciples. That doesn’t make me feel much better, given this woman’s daughter is in desperate need this is no time for Jesus to be playing games. Or we could chalk it up to Jesus’ humanity being a little worn out or even unsure about the breadth of his mission. I like that a little better in the context of Mark’s gospel where a little more of Jesus’ human side shows through, but it does not clear my uneasiness.

He calls the woman a dog because she is an outsider come to beg for a personal need. Perhaps Jesus even cares for her deeply, touched by her story, but she isn’t going to get anything from his plate. This is not the kind of Jesus we want. In fact, I’d probably run away from this Jesus and not come back. But what amazes me is that this woman does not go away. If he’s going to call her a dog, she is going to beg at the table for anything, a crumb will do. If her race and religion relegate her to a place on the floor she is not going to give up – she will sit at Jesus’ feet and wait.

The grace, the gospel, the good news in this passage does not come from Jesus’ mouth. It comes from the mouth of the outsider. It comes from a woman, who in that day and tragically still sometimes in our day, would not have been considered a worthy teacher. The good news comes from the one who is in need. Jesus, like the deaf man he encounters in the second half of the passage, needs his ears opened.

Why does this make us uncomfortable? Perhaps, in part, we have come to emphasize Jesus’ divinity over his humanity. A balance that 2000 years of church scholarship and debate has yet to understand fully. But maybe what is so uncomfortable is the reminder that God’s incarnation is not limited to the first century person of Jesus. God is embodied in this story in Jesus. God in this story is also embodied in the woman.

God in this story shows up in this parent who will not stop at anything to save her daughter. Unselfishly ignoring that Jesus compares her to a dog because she is so focused on saving her child – unstoppable persistence on behalf of the other. Sounds like God at work to me.

This rejected woman clearly states that God’s crumbs are more than enough to heal, sustain, and even bring the dead to life. It’s an image as vivid as some of Jesus’ parables. The word of God taking flesh and bone in surprising ways.

I can’t help but think that this story is meant for Christians like us. Christians who have forgotten how radical God’s incarnation was in Jesus. Christians who, like many of us, are so used to the story of God made flesh in Jesus that we forget God’s ability to become flesh in us, too.

All of this has some very real implications for our lives of faith. It forces us to look beyond ourselves, our membership, our churchy life, in order to find God’s incarnation at its fullest. God is embodied here: in you and me, in bread and wine. But God is also embodied out there in people not like us, in people who haven’t been to church in a long time or ever.

You may remember that a month or so ago there was a shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The presiding bishop of the ELCA, Mark Hanson, made a statement that reminds me of our reading today: “It is my hope that this is more than a time to express personal sorrows. Our most concrete rejection of violence occurs when we engage the neighbor, the neighbor who is new in our community, the neighbor who worships differently than we.”

To fully engage our neighbor, to stand against this kind of violence, we have to recognize and respect God’s ability to be embodied in the other, maybe especially in the other. Jesus seems to be coming to terms with this gentile, this non-Jew, becoming part of the covenant. And we as a community have to come to terms with the idea that we are called to learn from the world around us and not always the other way around. We as a community need to come to terms with the idea that it is not our job to pull people into our God, but to welcome God in them into our midst. We are in good company struggling with this, though, because Jesus himself isn’t quite sure what to do when the stranger shows up and gets the gospel exactly right when he doesn’t seem to get it at all.

Jesus who is usually portrayed as an outsider to the religious establishment has become the insider. Perhaps he hadn’t even realized it was happening. But suddenly he has become the religious establishment he has elsewhere rebuked. What remains consistent is that God shows up on the side of the outsider.

This woman does not argue with the fact that she is an outsider and she does not ask to join the disciples’ membership. She does however, become for them God incarnate, opening their ears to the gospel and loosening their mouths to share freely much the way Jesus will do in his next encounter with a person in need.

This unnamed woman is utterly convinced that the crumbs that fall from the table are meant for her. She will wait and beg like a dog at a party for whoever will drop the first crumb. Because that crumb is hers. Those gifts of God, she reminds Jesus and us, they’re for everyone. Whatever Jesus is doing and saying in this story, God’s voice comes through – there are no boundaries, there are no limits to God’s love. There is no distinction between people food and dog food, and there is enough for everyone.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

14th Sunday after Pentecost

September 2, 2012

Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-9; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

“For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.”

What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you see yourself for who you are or do you the person you wish you were? Do you notice the blemishes and wrinkles more than you’d like? Maybe you look at yourself and remember a younger you. Or maybe you imagine what you’ll look like when you’re older. I don’t think there’s anyone that at some point hasn’t looked in a mirror and wished they saw something different.

That’s why I’m always fascinated by self-portraits. Besides my sheer amazement that some people have the skill to reproduce a human likeness with a paintbrush, self-portraits are an opportunity to look in the mirror and create what you imagine instead of what you see. Some, maybe even many, have certainly been attempts at realistic physical likenesses. But others subtly or more boldly depict what the artist imagines him- or herself to look like. Some self-portraits depict a hint of madness, others more than hint. Some depict pain or sadness that seems to overwhelm. Exuberance and zest for life come through in others. Some are so abstract I can only imagine what the artists sees in the mirror. Whatever comes across, it’s a chance for the image we see in the mirror to depict how we really feel or how we really wish to see ourselves. The inside becomes visible.

The problem is that the insides aren’t always as nice as we’d like. Today’s readings remind us of a lot of ways that we fall short. Jesus’ list of the things that come from inside us is not pretty: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice (which is the hoarding of wealth), wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. It always amazes me when we manage to muster up a “Praise to you, O Christ” or a “Thanks be to God” after reading texts like these. Jesus seems to be reminding us that one way to depict ourselves, perhaps the most honest way to see our reflection, is by the things that come out of us.

Pick your vice from Jesus’ list. Or two or three. I have my own favorites. And probably most of us have elements of all of them to some degree or other when you get right down to it. And thousands of years of recorded human history seem to suggest that there isn’t much hope of ridding ourselves of that anytime soon. This is a pretty bleak reflection of humanity.

The reading from James has a suggestion that we work at replacing those faults with actions for good. Actions that help the orphan and widow and I think you can fill in here the poor and imprisoned, the outcast and stranger, the hungry and homeless: words you’ve heard before, words we all would love to embody. Something in us knows that that caring for one another, especially the least and most vulnerable, ought to be the natural outcome of our faith. This congregation is committed to striving for that. “Serve with Love” is part of our mission statement. You are generous people and together we try to live it out. And we’ve done some good work in the community on our own and in partnership with the other churches and places like the Survival Center.

And yet, all those efforts get tainted, too. That’s Jesus’s reminder to Pharisees who had taken a good practice and made it into something it wasn’t – a burden, a cause for division, a reason to point fingers at others, a reason to feel they were better than others. They had, with all good intentions, begun to live out Isaiah’s prophecy, becoming a people who honor God with their lips but not in their hearts.

The law begins to feel like a burden when we look honestly at ourselves and our world: things we know we should do, things we know we shouldn’t. Trying to serve God and messing that up, too. But God gives us the law anyway. And that’s the crux of the matter for us: because through the law, God draws us into community. And not just any community, not just any club or organization, but the gift of the law draws us into God’s community. God sees us for who we really are AND calls us to be a part of God’s people. God sees what comes out of us. Probably more than we’d like, probably more than we even know ourselves. And yet…God chose the Israelites. Jesus chose the disciples and even the hypocritical Pharisees to be the people of God. And God chooses us.

God sees who we are – not just the outside, not just the front we put up, not just our attempts to show others the person we want to be, but who we really are. And also chooses to see us as God’s children, God’s community.

I think our challenge from these readings today is not, first and foremost, to become the best and brightest social justice advocates, even as I pray that we will be bold witnesses of the kingdom in word and deed for the sake of the orphans and widows. And I don’t think our primary challenge in these readings is to wallow in a realistic picture of ourselves, even as we weekly come together to acknowledge our failings and hear God’s words of forgiveness.

I think our primary challenge from these readings today is much more difficult; it’s to look in the mirror and see what God sees. James says that “If any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves, and going away, immediately forget what they were like.” We touch the waters of the baptismal font or taste the bread and wine and we remember who we are in God’s sight. But we soon forget. We forget that we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. We forget that God has seen us for who we are and called us to be the people of God anyway.

Being doers of the word comes from a profound recognition of who we are – broken people claimed by God to be imperfect witnesses. And our struggle is to hold the two in tension. The more we try to cover our impurities with good actions, the more we end up like the Pharisees who I have to believe Jesus pities for their lifeless interpretation of the law. But the more we dwell in God having called us as we are, the more our faith flows out in love to those around us.

So the next time you find yourself in front of a mirror, take a minute to stop and think about who you really are. Imagine the invisible cross marked on your forehead at baptism made visible. Hear God’s call to you, as you are – short or tall, thick or thin, wrinkles and blemishes and everything else. See the brokenness and see the redemption, side-by-side. And when you walk away from the mirror, from the moments where God’s reality shines through, try to remember who you are – forgiven and beloved people of God.

 

13th Sunday after Pentecost

Sunday, August 26, 2012

John 6:56-69

Many of you may have missed the movie that came out in 2010 called Unstoppable. It’s a fairly predictable action movie, an underdog-hero-saves-the-day kind of movie. The basic plot is this: there is a runaway freight train careening toward a populated town where it is bound to run off the track, potentially killing untold numbers of people when it derails and spills its dangerous contents. That same day, a veteran train engineer is assigned to work with a rookie conductor. As one attempt after another fails to stop the train, the veteran engineer has the only plausible plan to save the day – speed toward the train, couple onto it, and drive it in the opposite direction, slowing it down enough eventually to stop it. After the veteran explains the plan with a slightly crazed look in his eye, he asks the rookie, “Are you in or out?” [See the clip referenced here.]

The plan is going forward with or without him. It’s Hollywood, so at this point you have a pretty good idea the plan is going to work, but it would be risking his life to board that engine with this seemingly crazy man. The plan is a long-shot at best. But the movie is going to be a lot less interesting if he stays behind. Are you in or out? All or nothing. He considers what his life is like if his family and friends could be killed by the runaway train if he doesn’t act. He’s in. And they leap aboard the engine and speed off to save the day.

That moment of decision is where we find Jesus and the disciples this morning, at the decision point in an action film, the point at which the characters are either moving forward or being left out. Many who have been hanging around Jesus out of curiosity, fascination, or maybe even deep spiritual longing have now turned away because his teaching is too difficult to accept. They decide that he is too crazy for their taste. I don’t blame them. It is difficult teaching. Their lives are probably safer and in some ways more blissfully pleasant without trying to understand all this.

I think sometimes we, too, wonder about all this teaching that is difficult to accept. We recite the creed every week and some of that is certainly difficult to accept. Sometimes loved ones drift away from the community of faith and we wonder how they make it on their own. We look at any number of choices that face us in our daily lives and wonder if we made the right one. Did we walk away too soon and miss out on a wonderful adventure? Was choosing to stay and stick it out on the difficult road the right decision after all if the easier road might have gotten us there just the same? Are we ready to join in together on another academic year that seems to have come again too fast? Do we really want to get on that train, even if it is going to save the day? Are you in or are you out? Hanging in that moment of decision, some days, maybe most days, we’re not always sure which is better.

And Jesus turns to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” “Are you in or out?” I can imagine the human side of Jesus emerge. He’s a little disconcerted that so many are unable to see the abundant life he is offering. He’s wondering if his closest companions feel the same way. Has he failed to communicate the message? What will he do if these also walk away?

What I find fascinating is that it seems to me to be a genuine question on Jesus’ part. Maybe it’s asked in a slightly exasperated tone, or maybe it’s more loving. But Jesus is serious, he’s not forcing them to join this crazy mission to save the world. He’s conceded the point of those who have walked away – this teaching is difficult to accept. Jesus’ mission is going to the cross. It’s going to be unpleasant at many moments. There are no guarantees that any of them will make it out alive. And Jesus wants to give them a genuine choice here. “Are you in or out?”

But, wait a minute, is Jesus really going to let them walk away? What about the God who pursues us, who holds onto us no matter what, who will go to the cross to save us? That God is just going to let some walk away? Yes.

Like the forgone conclusion in a formulaic Hollywood action movie, Jesus’ plan for the world is going to work. People who will never know the adventure they’ve missed out on or how close they all came to a disastrous end, will benefit from Jesus’ saving work. Jesus can let them go precisely because God is already stronger than evil, stronger than death. God’s victory has already been determined.

Jesus is not operating under the rules of the world in which victory comes with the greatest number of followers. This is not a political campaign in which lines need to be drawn and allegiances declared. No attack ads need to be run. If they defect to the other side, if they walk away and never think about it again, or if they walk away and always wonder what might have been, they don’t miss out on God’s love and grace by walking away.

This is John’s gospel where before Jesus goes to the cross he reminds the disciples as they overhear his prayer that not a single one has been lost. This is John’s gospel where the good shepherd gathers in all the sheep, even the ones not yet in the fold, such that none are lost. No one is left out, not the ones who find the teaching too difficult to accept, not the ones who leave angry, frustrated, or confused.

The ones who walk away will miss out. They won’t be there to see the blind man healed; they won’t be there to see Lazarus get up out of the grave. They will miss the chosen one bending down to wash their feet. Perhaps they will not see the empty tomb or eat fish on the beach with the risen one. But Jesus lets them go. Because death is already defeated and victory over death is already won.

Peter’s response, which we often sing as part of our gospel acclamation, is to get up and say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Where else could we go? If this is the only thing that’s going to work, we might as well go along for the ride. And their lives are forever different. They will be there for the moments of joy and wonder but also the moments that seem the darkest – the cross moments, the moments when hope seems lost, but where God is just as surely at work.

It’s a hard journey, and the disciples continue to fail miserably, misunderstand Jesus’ difficult and confusing teaching that God offers life through him, life freely given, life for all. They betray, deny, and fall away. And they still get persecuted for it all. It becomes for them not a once and for all decision but a daily opportunity to take the soon-to-be risen one at his word and go along for the ride.

I get the impression the twelve don’t understand any more than those who walked away. But as we can look back and identify with their confusion and their sometimes foolish willingness to keep following and hear our own stories of wondering, following, and walking away, so, too can we look back and see the ending – the ending where life is given abundantly and freely, and hear our own stories there, too.

So are we in or are we out? We answer with Peter: Where can we go that does not lead into the open and waiting arms of God?

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

10th Sunday after Pentecost

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15; John 6:24-35

Imagine yourself at the dinner table and seated across from you is a picky eater. Originally I thought I would suggest you imagine a child, but in my experience adults are at least as picky if not more so. And the vegetable dish comes around full of Brussels sprouts, that much maligned vegetable that for some reason seems to have more opponents than fans, and this picky eater makes a face. “What is it?” Or if the person has really bad table manners – and again here I include at least as many adults as children – maybe they even pick one up, holding it between two fingers an arm’s length away. “What is it?” Have you got that image in your mind now?

When the Israelites landed in the desert after their exodus from Egypt, they quickly began to whine about the food they had to eat. I can’t blame them so much really – to this day you can stand on a hill by the Nile river and see where the brilliant green fields grow out of fertile soil irrigated by life-giving water and then the line where it suddenly stops and the desert begins for as far as the eye can see. The Israelites have just experienced the life-transforming, power-crushing, overturning power of God’s liberation, but they have come to a dead end in the desert, and they’re right, there is nothing to eat. They began to think, that’s it – God’s power is used up and now we die.

But they are not without food for long – God hears their concern and rains down food from heaven. I can imagine these Israelites on that first morning that the bread from heaven appears, picking it up between two fingers, holding it out, and asking “What is it?” In fact according to the author of Exodus for the next forty years wandering out in the desert the Israelites will call this daily, heavenly bread “manna,” a version of the Hebrew man-hu “What is it?”

God’s gift to them of daily bread in the most literal sense, food to sustain them in a barren land, and they don’t even know what it is. And perhaps at first they hold it out eyeing it suspiciously, as if picky eaters approaching the ancient world’s equivalent of Brussels sprouts. It strikes me that of the many ways we can draw parallels between us and the Israelites of the Bible, this is one of them – we are a people who have God’s daily bread laid out for us and too often we either don’t understand or don’t want to have anything to do with it.

In what ways do we together as the people of God in this place overlook the gifts God has placed among us? Maybe some of us, like the Israelites want to look back to another time that may or may not have been as good as we remember it. There were certainly times when mainline protestant churches were, on the whole, more prominent and successful by the world’s standards. The church of today does not look as it did before and sometimes the way ahead looks bleak. And yet in the form of exciting moments in ministry, in the gifts of God shared among ourselves and in the community, like the Israelites, we are given daily bread – enough for today and the promise of enough tomorrow.

Or have you ever looked at someone else or yourself and wondered what that person has to offer? Dismissing someone with a metaphorical “What is it?” It’s sometimes easier to see faults than gifts or to wish that someone’s gifts were different and to dismiss that person because they don’t fit the preconceived notion of what kind of person we need to have to in order for things to work out. As a congregation sometimes we can get caught up on the groups of people we don’t have that we’d like to have. Our demographics aren’t what we sometimes imagine the church ought to look like. We look around and wonder, “What is it?” How are we supposed to make this manna into something edible? Maybe we wonder why this particular arrangement of people is here in this place now. But perhaps we can begin to see what a life-giving blessing it is from God that these people are the amazing gifts that God has provided for today. Tomorrow’s bread may be different, but today this is the bread sent down from heaven for us.

The Israelites are faced with a choice, go back into slavery in Egypt or go forth into the wilderness with God and with God’s sometimes unidentifiable blessings. It’s an easy choice for us who can read the story of the wilderness wandering in a few hours rather than actually facing it for forty years. But for the Israelites it isn’t so easy. As they look at the journey ahead and ask the question, “What is it?” with scrunched up noses and curled lips, they had a lot to learn.

And they did – they began to gather the mysterious substance. And some wanted to gather more than they needed while others didn’t feel motivated to pick up much at all, but in the end all had exactly what they needed and no more. When they put it in jars to keep for the next day it spoiled – so they learned to use what they had in front of them and to trust that tomorrow’s would be there.

Eating the bread they learned to see God’s provision for them. Like the followers in the Gospel lesson who came searching for Jesus – and he says to them that it is not because they saw the sign but because they ate the bread. They took in the abundance of God and learned to look for more. Within them grew a hunger to see – to see themselves, their neighbors, and their lives in terms of God’s daily bread – a gift to be enjoyed rather than held onto, a gift that is what God has intended it to be rather than a gift that we have defined.

What is it? What is this thing that God has given us to sustain us and feed us. What is this thing we do not yet fully understand. What is this bread from heaven that we are called to take into our very being and make our own.

So the invitation to eat – to eat the bread of life from heaven. To gather together with the people of God to hold out our hands and ask, “What is it?” And the answer will be, “The body of Christ given for you.” A piece of bread to train us to look for the presence of God in our world. A piece of bread to strengthen us for our journey. A piece of bread to send us out into the world to serve.

I did not eat Brussels sprouts growing up. I listened to the rumors that they were not worth eating. I let my “What is it?” mindset take over. But as an adult I discovered what I had been missing. I discovered another reminder to open my eyes to new possibilities. I turned my disgusted bewilderment into a question of excited curiosity, “What is it?!”

Sometimes I fail to see God’s gifts for what they are. I don’t recognize what is right in front of me. I miss out on the enjoyment that comes with the mystery of daily bread. But what a joy it is to come across those moments when it becomes clear and the mystery of God becomes clear to us. May we this week and beyond look with excited curiosity at the gifts of God, and nourished by the bread in this place, go looking for God at work in our world.

-Pastor Steven Wilco