50^th Anniversary of the Ordination of Pr. Rolf Hedberg
Concordia Lutheran Church
October 22, 2023

¹Comfort, O comfort my people,
 says your God.
 ²Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
 and cry to her
 that she has served her term,
 that her penalty is paid,
 that she has received from the LORD’s hand
 double for all her sins.
 ³A voice cries out:
 “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
 make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
 ⁴Every valley shall be lifted up,
 and every mountain and hill be made low;
 the uneven ground shall become level,
 and the rough places a plain.
 ⁵Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
 and all people shall see it together,
 for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
 ⁶A voice says, “Cry out!”
 And I said, “What shall I cry?”
 All people are grass,
 their constancy is like the flower of the field.
 ⁷The grass withers, the flower fades,
 when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
 surely the people are grass.
 ⁸The grass withers, the flower fades;
 but the word of our God will stand forever. – Isaiah 40:1-8

¹³For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
¹⁴But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? ¹⁵And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” ¹⁶But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” ¹⁷So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ. – Romans 10:13-17

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:16-20

In the name of Jesus. Amen. 

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

            I don’t know if it’s because we often read these words of Isaiah in the season of Advent when we are anticipating the celebration of Christmas and remembering the ways Christ has already come to clear the way for us. Or maybe it’s just our human nature. But I often hear this passage and imagine that there is a beautiful, newly paved multi-lane highway ready to drive away on. As if this passage announces for us smooth sailing ahead. Just get in the car and drive forward into the reign of God. 

            Now, Rolf, I didn’t know you at the time of your ordination 50 years ago. I met you first when I was myself an eager young seminary graduate hoping to soon be ordained and you were gracious enough to lend me your pulpit for a Sunday, putting a level of trust in me that, looking back, was remarkable. But I do know that most of us entering ministry imagine to one degree or another that highway sign that we think Isaiah gives us: Drive forward! The road is ready. Just get in and drive forward into the reign of God. The church is ready to welcome you and your gifts and your leadership and your ideas. And I’m sure all 50 years of ministry have been smooth sailing, just like that, right? No? 
            What about you, people of God? Though your paid calling may have been different, all of us share God’s call to go forth and make disciples and teach the ways of God. All of us just sang together “I want to walk as a child of the light. I want to follow Jesus.” When people founded the congregation of Concordia, when you joined with them in mission, when you were baptized or welcomed into the fold, did you too imagine that Isaiah was offering you smooth sailing ahead? Just climb aboard and enjoy the ride? Maybe we don’t articulate it, and maybe when we say it out loud we don’t even really believe it, but something in us thinks being church together should just all work itself out, everyone should get along, and even the hard work will be joyful and fruitful. That’s been your experience here, right? Everything just sails forward? No? 

            It could be that you, like me, have often misheard this passage from Isaiah. “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.” The sign is not “Road all clear, proceed ahead.” The sign is actually, “Road construction ahead.” God is doing some work. And we’re not talking about a simple resurfacing job. We’re talking Boston’s “Big Dig” level road construction. Mountains are leveled, dirt is moved. Construction equipment rumbles. Everything is dirty and muddy. And traffic. Traffic is eternally snarled up. 

            The Hedbergs are familiar with Northern Virginia, which is where I grew up. And there the road construction just moves up and down the highway. As soon as they widen it all the way to the end it’s literally time to start back at the other end and widen it some more. Whole interchanges are leveled and redesigned and then leveled and redesigned all over again. That’s, I think, the kind of project Isaiah is talking about. God’s highway is not a one-and-done path, but never-ending project of opening up a way for God in our broken and hurting world. The promise is not an easy road but the promise of God’s presence with us to the end of the age.

            Does that sound a little more like what 50 years of ministry has been like? I know that you’ve walked with communities through all manner of challenges. I know you’ve navigated challenging turns of events in the congregations you’ve served, in the community around you, in the world at large. 6 transition ministry gigs and three long-term calls – that’s plenty of ups and downs, twists and turns. And it hasn’t been easy – no good ministry is. You’ve been participating in God’s work of constructing a reconstructing a path for God’s love and grace into the world.   

            You’ve followed the call to Comfort! Comfort! And to speak tenderly to those who were grieving, making a way for God’s voice of comfort in the midst of some of the greatest upheavals of people’s lives. You have similarly walked for 50 years alongside moments of joy – baptisms, confirmations, marriages and more. Those too are moments where God is building something new, and you answered the call to speak God’s love into it, creating a path. Through your teaching, preaching, and faithfulness in leading and shaping worship. I know this not because I’ve known every moment of your ministry, but because I know you and that love and that good humor you bring to this work. I know your faithfulness to your people. And even though sometimes it feels like driving in snarled traffic through a massive construction zone, that’s the call, and one you’ve done faithfully. And, yes, surely God would have found a path one way or another, but how can we believe if we have not heard, how can we hear if there is not someone to proclaim? Thank you for answering that call in the places you have served these 50 years. 

            This goes, too, for all of us. We live out this wild and crazy call to go and make disciples, to proclaim comfort and challenge. But that work is not easy and not smooth sailing. You do it as a community – holding one another through all the difficult moments. Putting up with the ways in which God has been shifting and constructing and rerouting you. This congregation is in yet another time of discernment about what the future of ministry is like, but it is not the first time or the last that God will be doing work that feels inconvenient, disruptive or anything but smooth sailing. God is making a way, it’s just not always the straight highway we think we’re getting or we’d like to get. 

            Everything I’ve said so far is about our navigating God’s messy construction around us. But the construction is not just around us, but also within us. Part of God’s clearing the way of love and grace and justice and peace is right through our imperfect and broken selves. Whether we like it or not God is moving mountains and valleys that we would just as soon keep within ourselves. None of us is perfect, not even pastors, sometimes especially not pastors. And God works with that, builds with that, proclaims the message of love and grace with that. 

            Here is where I want to say, in addition to all I’ve already said about Rolf’s ministry, what I think is a particular gift of Rolf Hedberg the pastor and Rolf Hedberg the person, what makes him in my mind an exceptional pastor and a trusted colleague – and that’s his openness to the ways God is at work and moving within him. I have known you, Rolf, to be a person open to new ideas, new challenges, new ways of seeing things. After 50 years of ministry, some are convinced they’ve figured it all out. But in the time I’ve known you, you have always been open to learning something new. You might call it humility or integrity or openness, but I think your openness to God’s construction and reconstruction in you one of the things that continues to make you a good and faithful pastor and something you model for me and for all of us. Thank you. 

            For all that and more we are gathered to celebrate this morning. To celebrate Rolf, his ministry, this ministry. We do so not because the project is over and the road is finished. This is not the end of Rolf’s ministry. The discernment you are engaging here at Concordia is not fully clear. The church at large is and I think always will be very much still under construction. And frankly, it’s not going to get any easier. And I would be remiss if I didn’t at least name that we are gathered to celebrate this morning in a world which is very much in pain. Israel and Gaza, Ukraine, Armenia. A congress that cannot seem to govern even itself. And all the other deep and abiding challenges that our world contends with every day. With all that going on, it can feel as if the completion of this grand highway of peace and justice where the glory of the Lord will be revealed is a distant reality. Thank God the construction isn’t stopping here where we we are now. 

            But every Sunday, in the midst of all that is going on – big worldwide grief and despair, our own personal griefs and despairs – in the challenging and wonderful work of ministry, in the midst of all the big leveling that is happening, God makes one small level place in the midst of the construction, and there lays out bread and wine to be for us God’s body and blood, to be for us the promise that despite the construction and the traffic and the frustration and the mess and the violence and the fear and all of it, that God’s glory will be revealed in the end. Until then we gather at this one little level place to feast. And Pr. Hedberg will do this morning what he has done thousands of times over and call us to that table. There he will proclaim so that we can hear that God is here for us in the midst of it all. And before we are sent again to do the hard work with God of building this highway to the reign of God, we will feast together and know deep within that God’s peace is indeed possible, that God is here. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

18th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 26A)
Christ the King Lutheran Church, Nashua, NH
October 1, 2023

²³When [Jesus] entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” ²⁴Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ²⁶But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” ²⁷So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
 ²⁸“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ ²⁹He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.” – Matthew 21:23-32

            Anyone who has been a parent knows the two sons of Jesus’ parable. You needn’t have had two or more children, or sons specifically. In fact, anyone who has managed other people, existed in a family, or, really, existed as a person knows these two sons. The one who says yes but does not follow through, and the one who says no but goes and does it. My child has both inside of her. I have both inside of me. I suspect you have both within you, too. 

            I know I sometimes have the best of intentions. I’m going to get better at regular daily devotions. I’m going to eat healthier. I’m going to do more work for justice in the world. I’m going to read more, learn more, be a more patient parent, be a more present spouse. There are a thousand things I really should be doing and I fully acknowledge they would be good to do. Sometimes I do them, and often I don’t. It’s merely talk. I fall right back into old patterns. 

            Other times I hear about something I should be doing and I think “I just can’t. Not one more thing.” Or sometimes I’m resistant – someone calls me out on something I’ve done that is unintentionally offensive and my instinct is to be defensive. But then, I take it in, remember my core values and I do commit to doing better, learning more. I do this at home, too – I just can’t right now play tag in the yard one more time with an almost-7-year-old who is honestly speedier than I am. Then I take a breath and remember how much I love her and how short this time is and I go out and play…sometimes. 

            So I know what these two sons are like from the inside. And I also know what it’s like when my kid does this. She has been known, perhaps more frequently than I’d like, to shout “NO!” (or worse) but then take a breath and go do what’s been asked. I have learned to pause and wait and let her body catch up to her mouth and do what she knows needs doing. And just as often I’m telling her something and I realize she just isn’t taking it in even when she nods in agreement – she has said yes, but she hasn’t even heard the request much less had any plan to accomplish it. Here, more as a parent than as the child, is where I realize something deeper about this parable. At the end of the day I love this kid with both things in her. I love her when she says yes and does no. I love her when she says no and does yes. What’s most important in all of it is our mutual relationship. 

            A lot of folks have made this about the importance of action not just speaking. Faith without works is dead. Promises without follow-through are empty. There is agreement between Jesus, the Pharisees, and I suspect among us that it’s better to do it than to say it. But I don’t think that’s primarily what Jesus is driving at here. 

            First of all, it’s better to do it AND say it. Neither of the sons in the parable is fully correct in their actions. We’d all like to be the third offspring who always says AND does the right thing. But that’s too much fantasy even for a parable – a person who always does and says the right thing. 

            Second of all, spinning wheels about saying versus doing isn’t really consistent with the rest of Jesus’ teaching. Both are important. In some ways the people he’s arguing with aren’t saying or doing anything worth much of anything helpful. They seem more interested in argument for the sake of argument. 

            I think, and here I draw on renowned Episcopal writer and preacher Robert Farrar Capon, that this parable is really Jesus saying to the people around him and of course to us: “Are you in or out? When the rubber meets the road, when things get tough, when the cross comes and suffering comes and death comes are you going to fall on God or not?”

            Because that’s exactly where Jesus is headed. Maybe we’re not thinking about that because it’s a long way off in our church year to get to Holy Week and Good Friday, but all these parables we hear this fall are Jesus’ last conversations before he lands in the hands of the authorities and in the grip of the tomb. The time for talking is done. 

            Here’s the thing – the action to be taken, the work to be done. It’s not good works. As vital as it is to our life and our world and our faith, the task in this parable isn’t serving others, welcoming the stranger, fixing our broken politics, or enacting world peace. And please, please – those tasks are urgent – lives are at stake. We need to do those things. But that’s not what the father is asking of the sons in this parable. The task at hand is going to the cross. 

            It sort of turns the whole thing on its head when you think of it that way. A landowner had two sons. He asks the first one: “Do you want to go and die?” The first son answers “Uh…heck, no!” or maybe even something a little saltier than that. And who would say yes to such a request? But then, who knows what happens. Maybe everything else falls apart. Maybe he finally realizes he can’t do it on his own. And he falls the only place he knows, on his relationship with his father who has called him to walk the way of the cross. 

            The second son answers the same invitation with a laugh. “Ha! Yeah, right, Dad. The cross. Ok. See ya there!” But he understandably has no intention of pursuing that path. So he spends the rest of his days toiling away working hard, trying to prove himself to someone – to his father, to himself, to the world, to anyone and everyone, missing the one call that really mattered – to come and die. To come and let go. 

            And sooner or later we all get there. Some sooner than others. We realize in one moment or another that we have to let go, stop trying so hard, let go of the thing we thought was right or good. Let go of striving for perfection, let go of the world’s ideas of success, let go of whatever it is that keeps us from fully trusting God and opening our hearts to the world. And if we can’t do it on our own, sooner or later our bodies fail us and we have no choice but to land back in the arms of God and find the life that God offers at the cross and the grave. Say yes or say no, do what is asked or don’t, but one way or another you’ll find yourself falling on the one relationship that can offer new life forever. 

            And so we ask, perhaps, what that has to do with this community’s task today as we plan to gather after worship to better understand the history of CTK. This is a community like any other that has answered God’s call in so many ways. And also a community like any other that has failed in other moments to live fully into that same call. This congregation, like any other, has been at various times both children from the parable – the say yes and do no one, the say no and do yes one. We’ll take some time to look at your history after worship today. Where are the places you discovered God really powerfully at work through the ministry you did by the power of the Holy Spirit? Where are the places you have discovered God really powerfully at work when you failed at something and realized God was there to hold you, pick you up, send you in a new direction? 

            And then for each of us individually and for this and every congregation, to begin asking, what’s next? Where is God calling us to let go of one thing, to die to one thing so that new life can emerge? I think for our church communities right now, it’s particularly a time of grieving certain things about how we’ve done church, really honoring what has been, so that we can open ourselves to where God is moving into something now in this moment. 

Our temptation as people and as churches, at least for me and many of the churches I work with, is to try to be busy. We say yes to the cross, but then we let a million little tasks consume us because the deep, hard stuff is, well, hard to do. What might it be like to let some of that go? To forget what we think we should do and should say, so that we can hear what God’s call is now? I don’t have easy answers. I wish I did. I wish I could tell you exactly what to do as individuals and as a congregation to get through the next 10 years or at least the next 3-5. But I don’t know. That’s a task to explore together. What I know is that God is calling. God is inviting. And God will love us through every step and misstep along the way and meet us in the crucial moments, the hard moments, the moments that feel like deaths, meet us in actual death – and lead us from there into new life. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

17th Sunday after Pentecost
September 24, 2023
St. Paul Lutheran Church, Berlin, NH

¹⁰When God saw what [the people of Ninevah] did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
 ^4:1But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. ²He prayed to the Lordand said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. ³And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” ⁴And the Lordsaid, “Is it right for you to be angry?” ⁵Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
 ⁶The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. ⁷But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. ⁸When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
 ⁹But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” ¹⁰Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. ¹¹And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” – Jonah 3:10-4:11

[Jesus said to the disciples:] ¹“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. ³When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; ⁴and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. ⁵When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. ⁶And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ ⁷They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ ⁸When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ ⁹When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. ¹⁰Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. ¹¹And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹²saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” -Matthew 20:1-16

            This week I needed a little break in the evening and went looking for a feel-good movie to watch to unwind. I stumbled on the recent remake of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. If you aren’t familiar with the original book or one of the movie adaptations, it’s a fairly simple story. Mrs. Harris is a hard-working cleaning woman and war widow in London in the 1950s. She’s salt-of-the-earth kind of people. She works hard, treats everyone with kindness even when they treat her like dirt. She gives her much richer employers not only her best work but also tends to them even when they fail to pay her on time. 

            As a woman of modest lifestyle, she has rarely let herself dream, but something sparks her to pinch every penny to go buy a dress from the famous fashion designer Christian Dior. Through a series of events, largely because of her kindness she comes into just enough money to fulfill the dream. When she arrives in Paris, she discovers it isn’t quite so easy as she thought to walk into the world of Paris high fashion – not everyone thinks a woman of her position in life should have access to the upper echelons of high fashion. But there, again, it’s her kindness that earns her the sympathy and support of the whole staff. Jumping over lots of details, she gets everything she deserves in the end. She works hard, treats people with love and respect, and in the end she’s not rich or famous, but she gets the dress, a friend, a place, recognition – all that she deserves for the way she lives. 

            I share that story with you because it’s what we want, right? We want hard-working people, kind people, the people who go out of their way to make the world better to get their just reward. It’s a true feel-good outcome. It makes us feel as if everything is right with the world. 

            But, that’s Hollywood. And while there may very well be some individual times and places where people do get rewarded for doing what’s right, the real world is much less predictable. You and I know deep down that people who pour their heart and soul into their work day in and day out often fail to earn the salary they really deserve, while people who manage to lie and cheat and prey on others can sometimes earn millions of dollars. Some people who do all the right things get crippling diseases, kind people get trampled on, and salt-of-the earth people get forgotten by the world. Life, unlike Hollywood, isn’t fair. 

            Which makes it that much harder to listen to today’s Bible readings. Because you know what? It’s not fair! Jonah, after much reluctance, finally followed God’s call and marched right through the heart of evil proclaiming God’s wrath to them. Ninevah was then the world’s center for fat-cat bankers, rich robber barons, corporate greed, inequality. It was a land of waste and excess, where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. And Jonah came to tell them God wasn’t pleased. Jonah hopes those rich, big-city cheats get what’s coming to them. But what happens in the end? They put on a little sackcloth and say they’re very sorry, we won’t do it again. And God relents?! That’s it?! That’s all it takes?! What is fair is destruction. These people have caused harm to one another, to the world. They deserve repayment for the harm they have caused. In the balance, this few hours worth of repentance doesn’t outweigh the wrong they have done! And Jonah wants nothing more than to see them get what is only fair and right and the thing God told him to go proclaim. If you were just going to show mercy, God, why did I bother? 

            The same is true of the parable Jesus tells. He wants us to sit up and yell “Wait! That’s not fair!” Some people work all day and get a day’s wage. Some people work an hour and get the same day’s wage?! Unfair! And the boss makes sure everyone knows it. If the owner didn’t want to be so public about it, he could have paid the first that came to work before paying the others. They never would have known about the injustice. As they come into the line to receive their pay, the ones who just came in for the last hour are expecting what’s fair – a perfectly fair proportion of the perhaps well-paying landowner. In their surprise at getting a full day’s wage, they shout with glee. And the others are starting to add it up – if an hour is worth a day’s wage and I worked 3 hours – hey! That’s three days wages! I worked all day – that’s easily 10 days wages right there. But then the grumbling begins as every single pay envelope contains the same daily wage. You almost see the glint in the landowner’s eye as he watches this unfold. No one is paid less than promised, but it’s utterly unfair – to everyone! 

            This is a thread running through a lot of parts of scripture – life isn’t actually fair. On the one hand, this feels like bad news. If life were fair, we could exert some level of control. We could work hard and anticipate our reward. If we messed up we could expect what is due in return, but then move forward again. Our friends would prosper and the ones who have done us harm will suffer. Part of us would love to live in a world that makes sense on paper, where everything adds up and balances out. 

            But it’s also good news, because I don’t know about you, but if I really add things up in my life, I know I’d rather receive grace than the punishment I might rightly deserve. It means when the people closest to me hurt me, there is grace enough to mend the relationship instead of meting out punishment on the ones I dearly love. I want my kid to live in a world where grace is abundant, even if it’s also a world in which bad things sometimes happen to good people. In moments of anger I want my enemies punished, but really I want everyone to find wholeness and fullness of life. 

            Right now I hear a lot in our churches about our expectations for what church life ought to be. There was a brief moment in time when if churches did all the right things they’d probably grow in size and expand their ministry. Have good preaching and engaging worship, serve the community, share the faith and expect more money in the plate and more people in the pews. This didn’t work everywhere but for a while it was a reasonable expectation: work hard, get your reward. But the world has changed. A faithful church, like St. Paul’s, can serve the community with a winter warming shelter in partnership with fellow people of faith, have faithful preaching and engaging worship, share the faith and…well, God hasn’t promised you growth. Just daily bread – the bit you need for today – no more, no less. 

            You might grow larger again – that can happen to, of course – but I want our small churches like yours to know you’re not alone. You’re doing good work. Your ministry matters. And that there’s still no guarantee that you’ll grow. Or any guarantee that you’ll exist in the same way forever and ever. I hope you’ll keep showing up and doing ministry. Whether some days you’re a reluctant or tired prophet like Jonah, or an eager early-bird worker, or slipping in at the last hour, God’s calling you. God needs your presence, your gifts, your skills. God sees you, loves you, knows you. 

            I wish for you the picture-perfect, feel-good Hollywood ending. I wish you the kind of adventure that Mrs. Harris has in Paris – changing the world, experiencing riches of every kind – both tangible luxuries and human connection, finding yourself back at home with a new sense of energy, courage, and hope. I wish that for you. Each of you. 

            But what I can promise you is God’s grace sufficient for you. God’s love poured out on your in your good moments and just as much in your bad ones. God’s love poured out on you in your joys and in your struggles. God’s love in life and in death. You don’t get more if you work harder. You don’t get less if you mess everything up. In fact, God says, just don’t even try to keep score. What really matters isn’t something that can be added and subtracted. God’s love just is whole and perfect and for everyone – there isn’t more here and less there – it’s just not that kind of thing. So go! God calls! There is work to do! Love to share! But the lesson in these texts is this: God loves you, and there’s just nothing you can do about it. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

13th Sunday after Pentecost
August 27, 2023
Messiah Lutheran Church, Amherst, NH

¹I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
 ³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. – Romans 12:1-8

¹³Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. – Matthew 16:13-20

Context: Messiah Lutheran Church has a history of being a Welcoming Congregation for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. This Sunday they were hosting their new asylum-seeking family at worship. This sermon was preceded by a bi-lingual children’s sermon reading the picture book Sugar in Milk by Thirty Umrigar, read aloud here: https://youtu.be/ls7PDr2cBBU?si=Eq7521OlV7gFncuA. It is referenced in this sermon. The full recording of worship can be found here https://www.youtube.com/live/KTlJUvUVItM?si=iz79NwKCRB7tonTh

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Most of the time we hear this gospel passage, at least in my experience, we focus on the rock. Much angst has been had over interpreting Jesus’s words. 

Is Peter the rock on which the church is built? Certainly some strains of Christendom focus on Peter as the one charged with starting the church. Some churches even claim that bishops are all in a line of succession from Peter himself. 

Others suggest that the confession of Christ as Messiah, Son of God, is the rock on which the church is built. That belief, that early and simple Christian creed is a rock solid foundation for the work of the church. 

Perhaps, too, we should consider that it isn’t so much the words explaining it but Jesus himself who is the foundation going forward. Peter and his confession after all are rooted there, in the God made Flesh. 

But I’m not interested so much in the rock today. I’d like to think together about what gets built on top of the rock. What is this thing we call the church? We have a solid foundation – Christ, the Son of God, confessed by Peter, and shared through his and other voices. That’s not going anywhere. The foundation is solid, however you slice it. 

But the church…? Well, let’s just say that you and I know the church is sometimes a bit shaky despite its solid foundation. The church is often mired in conflict – over not enough money, what to do with the money we have; too much political involvement, not enough political involvement; too loose boundaries, too tight boundaries; who is welcome and who isn’t; whether worship starts at 9:30 or 9:45. We are in a time of massive cultural shift away from widespread support of formal institutions like government, education, civic organizations, and, yes, churches. That brings anxiety and grief for those who have loved the current structures of church into being. And, just plainly, being in community together is always hard. This was true for the disciples of Jesus, the early church, and anyone who has ever tried to live with another human being. 

The foundation is solid, but people make the church sometimes a little shaky. And if we feel worried about that, maybe we can take heart that all the way back at the start of the church the apostle Paul was trying to address the same thing with the church of Rome. “Look folks,” he says, “Quit going around bragging about being better than other people. Though we are many, we are one body. Every part is important, it just does different things.” 

Clearly the people of the early church in Rome were squabbling – some putting themselves out as better than another. Maybe saying it out loud and maybe just walking around with a smug attitude. And I’m sure there were parking lot conversations and back channel communications. Maybe there were tense council meetings or people who sort of just drifted away. 

We’re tempted to think we need to all get onto the same page. If everybody could just see things exactly the same way – we do have this clear confession at our foundation, after all – then we’d get along and everything would be fine, right? 

Well, no. This church that Jesus speaks about building doesn’t work that way. It’s not supposed to be that way. 

That’s one of the reasons I love the book I shared a few moments ago. In the old tale, the king is convinced that they have everything they need. Maybe they’re not all exactly the same, but close enough. No more room. We’re sturdy just as we are. But when new people arrive on the shore, they are challenged to think again. See – we’re full, like this glass of milk, the king says. No more room. We have everything we need. And the creative and wise leader of the people who have come to stand on the shore of the kingdom replies with a spoonful of sugar. Not only is there room but they are better for welcoming newcomers. They are better not because they are like the people already there or will become like the people there. They are all better because of their unique differences. 

You’ve been doing this work boldly and faithfully here at Messiah. You have made space to welcome families seeking asylum in this country. You have made physical space, space in your congregation, space in your schedules. I hope you also see the gifts you have gotten to experience in the connections you’ve been making. 

You’re gearing up for another God’s Work. Our Hands. Sunday. It is not only a time to provide needed beds to people who might not otherwise have a place to sleep, but you’ve made it a chance to build relationships with other Lutherans and with the Turkish Cultural Center. I haven’t gotten to experience these events with you, but it sounds to me like the experience is richer for including more people from different places. 

            We are in a time where this kind of partnership, this kind of relationship building is even more essential than usual. There is so much that needs bridging in our communities. There is is so much need for welcome, for food, for care, for love and compassion. Our congregations never should have operated as silos, but it’s clear they won’t survive into the future without recognizing the gifts of others and living into relationship with our communities in deeper ways. 

            I don’t know which part of the body you are here at Messiah. I don’t know what part your neighbors are. Maybe it would be a fun exercise to talk about whether you think you’re ears or feet or biceps or liver. What’s most important is that you find a way to build those relationships both with one another here at Messiah and with people beyond your congregation. And not only making room but actively celebrating one another and your differences. 

            For too long the prevailing wisdom (or lack of wisdom) was that as long as we had everything we needed ourselves in our own congregation or our own community, we didn’t need anyone else. Whether we thought like the ruler in the story that we were all full up or whether we were just too prideful to acknowledge that we didn’t have everything we already needed, when we build bridges across differences and cultures, and across boundaries, our lives get richer, our communities get richer, and our churches get richer. And by that I don’t mean, necessarily financially richer. That may come or it may not, but richer in the sense of adding sugar to the milk. Richer in terms of recognizing the gifts of each person and each community. 

            Christ has given us a rock solid foundation. In doing so Christ invites us into partnership with God in building up the church. Not always or necessarily actual buildings and institutions, but always and forever the rich ministry of love and grace in community with all God’s people from every place and time. That, along with the foundation, is the strength of the church that God brings to life in this and every age. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

11th Sunday after Pentecost
August 13, 2023
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Oxford, CT

²²[Jesus] made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side [of the Sea of Galilee], while he dismissed the crowds.²³And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, ²⁴but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. ²⁵And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. ²⁶But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. ²⁷But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
 ²⁸Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” ²⁹He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. ³⁰But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” ³¹Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” ³²When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. ³³And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” – Matthew 14:22-33

            What does it feel like to walk on water? When Peter steps out into the stormy waves does he have to balance as the water moves underneath him? Does his foot find something steady, even as the top layer of water sloshes over his feet? Do his feet even get wet? 

            There’s a Tik-Tok video I’ve seen of a floating walkway that undulates with the waves and people walking on it have to balance and change their speed to accommodate the walkway rising and falling beneath them. They look terribly unbalanced and brave, but a little ridiculous.

            Or is it something like when I take my daughter to the trampoline park and I – inadvisably – attempt the ninja warrior style obstacle course with her and try to run across the giant foam roller. One braces oneself, puts out a tentative foot, then at some point you have to commit and go for it trying to keep momentum forward to get across before it rolls you off. It is extremely disconcerting and I always end up in the foam pit, and usually with some bruises. 

            For the science types out there, the problem with walking on water is that our center of mass is so much higher than our center of buoyancy, such that even if we put boat shoes on, we’d find ourselves falling in before we even got a first chance at a foothold – there’s a whole science demonstration available on YouTube if you’re curious about why we can’t walk on water, at least with the constraints of earth’s gravity. 

            However you look at it, walking on water is not easy, and even if we could sort of do it, we’d look unbalanced and a little ridiculous. It’s inherently unstable both because of how we’re made as humans and because of what water is and does. Just talking about it makes me start to imagine the ground swaying beneath me. 

            Unfortunately life is a lot like trying to walk on water. Which is perhaps what makes this gospel story such a well-known and powerful one. Here we are buffeted by wind and waves, trying to row a boat with some direction, with some purpose but being thwarted even in our strongest efforts. 

            It’s just that the storms are so much beyond our control. Literal storms have become increasingly strong and unpredictable with global climate change. Vermont was flooded by storms last month, devastating communities. Winds from Hurricane Dora stoked wildfires in Maui killing more than 80 people and destroying property. Winds have carried smoke to us this summer from raging wildfires in Canada. 

            The proverbial winds of change seem to be blowing faster than ever. The winds of economic change have whipped up waves of concern over rising inflation, destabilized markets, and uncertainty for the future. Politics remain stirred up by opposing winds of ideology, creating a swirling storm that often hurts most the vulnerable among us. We are swept forward by technologies that are often more advanced than we are prepared to manage in an ethical and thoughtful way, creating their own storms of bullying and misinformation. 

            And while the church has often been depicted as an ark – a large safe haven from the flood-making storm outside – a more apt description for the church at least in today’s world is the disciples’ rickety fishing boat buffeted by the storm. The church is in a time of tremendous change – a shift from carefully organized congregations, each led by a standardized hierarchy of educated clergy, carefully ordered committees, and Roberts Rules of Order toward something that exists in many forms in many places with leaders emerging in different ways. That’s not to say there won’t still be congregations and clergy, but we are seeing tremendous change from social forces that may feel like they are dangerously rocking the boat that at least for many seemed a bit more steady before. 

            I would love to tell you that we’ll be sailing any moment into the end of the gospel reading where the storms finally cease. We often think of this story and the power of Jesus to calm the storm and bring us to a safe and comfortable place. Yes, dear ones, Jesus holds us close and comforts us. Jesus provides a safe haven for weary, storm-battered people. And some of the storms we face will quiet down even as others begin. But stopping the storm is not the first thing Jesus does when he arrives on the scene. He initially makes no move at all to stop the storm. In fact, this whole story is about him trying to convince them that it is in fact he who has come to join them in the storm. They think it’s a ghost. It almost seems they’re more afraid of Jesus coming in a way they don’t recognize than they are of the storm. And Peter’s venture out onto the water is actually a test to see if it really is Jesus. All of this while the storm still rages.  

The reality is that we live mostly in the midst of this story rather than at the end of it: surrounded by wind and waves, in rickety boats with water sloshing in and trying to walk on water. And frankly, often more afraid of Jesus showing up in new ways than we are of the storms of life around us. 

So, church, if Jesus isn’t always first and foremost going to stop the storm, how are we as church going to figure out how to steer the boat and maybe even walk on the water? I’d love to tell you that when you call a pastor that the uncertainty and wondering you feel will all go away and the storms will settle. As important as pastoral leadership is, as hard as we’re trying to find a good fit for you, as hard as your call committee is working at thoughtful discernment, that isn’t going to stop the storm. On some level we know that, but it’s a tempting milestone to look forward to. If only we can keep the boat afloat that long.

Or maybe it’s more general – like maybe we just have to figure out how to keep the boat and ourselves afloat until the culture swings back into an anomalous era where the institutional church is at the center. Maybe if we just hang on long enough to restart a Sunday school, if we just hang on long enough to get worship right (nevermind that means something different to each person). Maybe we can just hang on long enough to see Jesus still the storms. 

But that’s not the point of this story. The point of this story is that Jesus comes and joins us in the rocking boat and invites us into the impossible and bizarre task of walking on the waves. The church has work to do. Not because it’s essential to keep the boat afloat. If the boat sinks, Jesus is there to lift us out of the water and do something new. But we have work today because we don’t really have any other choice but to ride the storm. 

I think you’re already well on your way to doing that here at Immanuel. You’ve embraced the people from Trinity with wide hospitality – you’ve made room in the boat for lots of new folks from different places to join together in the struggle. You’ve wrestled with the ongoing work of anti-racism – engaging with the pernicious storm of racism seeking to navigate it in new ways so that together we might all better see Jesus. You’ve lifted up and honored lay leadership in important ways – it’s clear that’s a key factor in thriving while the church rows through the current storms. You’ve done experimental work in children’s and youth ministry, you’ve wrestled with difficult questions about who you are in this transition period – you’re figuring out how to row in a storm and walk on the water. 

            I know it’s not easy. I know it feels unsteady and uncertain. I know it feels like you can’t quite get a hold on how to do it. And I know that sometimes it feels downright impossible. But I also know Jesus is among us. Calling to us, reassuring us, and inviting us to take the next step forward in the storm. It’s in taking those steps, in persevering in the storm that we discover the presence of Jesus with us. Without Jesus we wouldn’t be able to take any of those steps at all. 

            Yes, one day the storms will cease and we will find rest with Jesus. Until then, God is among us in the storm and cheering on our often wobbly, unbalanced, and fearful steps, reaching out a hand to help us up and always reassuring us through it all. Thanks be to God. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

5th Sunday after Pentecost – Lectionary 13A
July 2, 2023
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Rutland, VT

¹God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ²He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” ³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. ⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. ⁵Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” ⁶Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” ⁸Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.
 ⁹When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. ¹¹But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”¹²[The angel] said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”¹³And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” – Genesis 22:1-14

[Jesus said to the twelve:] ⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” – Matthew 10:40-42

           A fundamental question of faith, for me at least, if not for most or maybe all people is about self-worth. Do I matter? Do I have value? Am I enough? Most of us ask some version of that question in general and perhaps particularly of God. 

            I suspect if I asked each of you, you would tell me that God is love, God loves everybody. Of course. End of story. But I suspect that while each of us knows that to be true we also sometimes doubt it in our hearts or at least act in ways that don’t live up to that. We make choices – we choose one over another, we support the existence of in-groups that leave others out, we forget for ourselves and others that fundamental truth. We exist in a world that in all sorts of subtle and overt ways tries to counter that fundamental truth, calling into question for us our sense of worth. 

            Today I want to turn to what seems at first an unlikely place to reassure us of that fundamental truth – the story of Abraham and the almost-sacrifice of his son Isaac according to God’s instructions. 

            First…some context: Abraham and Sarah, the parents formerly known as Abram and Sarai, were old – like really old – and barren – no biological children to speak of. Until God called them up out of the land of Ur, promised them descendants as numerous as the stars, a land of plenty, and blessing enough to spill out to the whole world. God said “I love you! You matter!” They said “yes” to God’s call, with a good bit of mistrust, laughter at God, and disbelief along the way. Waiting for the son God had promised through Sarah, Abraham got impatient – perhaps too many things calling the promise into question for him – and he took matters into his own hands fathering a child by his servant Hagar. God, ever patient, reminded him the promise was for Sarah as well and in time she bore Abraham a son. 

            But this is where trouble begins (again), for now there are two sons of Abraham – a firstborn who ought to have the rights as such and a second born that is the one everyone is focused on. There is jealously, and the problem at least for Sarah is solved when Abraham gets fed up and sends Hagar and their son Ishmael out into the desert to die. God, of course, takes care of them in the wilderness and tradition has it that our Muslim siblings are descendants of Abraham through Ishmael. God forgets no one, leaves no one behind.

            We, though, are left with Abraham, Sarah, and their son Isaac, and our story for today comes along right after this whole incident. God summons Abraham to a test of faith. Sacrifice your son, your only son, the passage says. We might read, the only one you have left. Abraham begrudgingly trudges up the mountain with Isaac, binds him for a sacrifice, only to be interrupted at the last moment by a heavenly messenger. Jews and Christians have puzzled over this for centuries since. What kind of cruel God initiates such a grotesque test of faith? Is it a commentary against child sacrifice? Certainly, yes, though God forbids plenty of other things without dramatic object lessons. Is it a test of faith? Sure, but why at this moment after so many admittedly imperfect but passed tests of faith already? And to use a well-worn saying, God doesn’t call the equipped, God equips the called. 

            But let’s remember that in the immediately preceding chapter we are for some reason less troubled that Abraham dismisses his first born son and his son’s mother to die in the desert. Could this be the only way God could get through to Abraham that no child – indeed no person – is disposable? This is God making clear to Abraham the depth of his disregard for the human lives under his power and influence when he dismissed Hagar and Ishmael. 

            And before we too quickly dismiss Abraham, let’s remember that our world has long chosen who gets privilege and who doesn’t, who is considered disposable and who isn’t. We have often treated those experiencing poverty as objects of charity rather than human siblings and those with wealth as more important. Our world has again and again for centuries privileged lighter skin tones over darker ones. Our country continues to relegate indigenous people to the margins and favors native-born people and native-English speakers over immigrants and non-native speakers. We favor our in-group over strangers. We sacrifice people all the time for the sake of one thing or another. And all of us are hurt by the inequities and divisions that permeate our lives. 

            We rightly rage against God’s invitation to sacrifice of Isaac and Abraham’s willingness to carry it forward, but the lesson for Abraham is the same for us – to look more deeply at ourselves and our community and perhaps to see some of the ways we are complicit in sacrificing one person or group of people for our own advantage. God’s message is that absolutely no one is disposable. End of story. 

            This is what Jesus echoes in today’s gospel reading. Christ himself is present in the stranger – whoever welcomes you, welcomes me. Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to the little ones will not lose their reward. These are calls to honor the presence of God in one another, not just by being nice, but being deeply kind and compassionate, radically welcoming, and standing against all the forces that work toward oppression, prejudice, division, and death in our world. 

            It’s a high calling. And it is not easy. You know that it’s not easy to live in community together. Living in community requires healthy boundaries and sometimes saying farewell to people who have been a part of the journey. That is rarely easy. But how can we set those boundaries and make those separations in ways that honor Christ present in one another? 

            And as you look to what is next for this congregation, as you consider what mission and ministry will be on the horizon as you continue forward as a congregation, it will be important to ask the question – how do we honor God’s presence in every human life around us?

You do that in relationship with people at Companions in Wholeness. I have long admired that program because it sees people experiencing poverty and other challenges not as objects of charity but as fellow community members we get to accompany for a moment, offering the cup of cold water Jesus speaks of while gaining the joy of new companions on the way. 

We honor God’s presence in the other when we provide quality child-care and preschool for families as their children are young, doing it because it provides a needed service to families and not just because maybe it will boost our own church’s Sunday school. I know that last bit is hard, and you absolutely should reach out, invite, discover relationship, but I encourage you to do it in ways that honor where they are and not where you wish they could be. 

Every one of us has the opportunity to go out from here this day and honor the presence of God in every human life – the clerk at the store, the fellow families at the park, the particular people in your household. And people in general in our communities, our state, our country and world. 

Here’s the thing, this isn’t just some good deed we go out and do because we’re told to. We don’t honor every life because it’s some arbitrary rule or test of our faithfulness to God. We do it because that is perhaps the best way to discover our own worth in God’s eyes. Entering into genuine relationship with others is a primary way we get reminded that we are God’s beloved, too, that we are the recipients of welcome, of grace, of a cup of cold water on a hot day. This is how we discover again not just in our heads but deep in our hearts, too, that we are indeed worthy. God will not let a single one be abandoned or sacrificed for another. 

As we journey, we will forget. We will forget and allow people to be harmed in the process. Prejudice, oppression, and division will not die easily. But Christ is there with us inviting us in again and again, refreshing us with the cool waters of grace that wash over us in baptism, proclaiming us always and forever beloved of God.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Second Sunday of Easter (Year A)
April 16, 2023
First Lutheran Church of the Reformation, New Britain, CT

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 20:19-29

            The disciples are grieving. At the beginning of this story, they are still uncertain about the news of the resurrection – they know Jesus’s body is missing. The women have made reports to them. But they have not yet seen. They no doubt want to believe but can’t quite yet.        

            If you’ve ever grieved the loss of someone you love, you can imagine the longing the disciples have been feeling since that fateful Friday afternoon. Longing for one more chance to speak with the one you love, one last chance for an embrace, one more moment together. What the disciples wouldn’t give this Sunday evening for a hug from Jesus. Hold that in your mind for a moment – longing for an embrace by Jesus, longing to be held, reassured, comforted. 

            I want to pause there and think for a moment about just what a hug is. Theologian Miroslav Volf describes an embrace in 4 parts: 

            First, you open your arms like a door left open to welcome a dear friend. 

            Second, you wait. If you do not wait, the embrace is coercive, forced. Waiting for the other is key. 

            Third, when the person comes you close your arms. There is connection. The two do not become the same, become one, but they are changed by their relation to the other – each giving and receiving something from the other. 

            And finally, fourth, this is key, you open your arms again. The two separate. They are changed but once again apart, now available, open, ready for another embrace. 

            Now, this may sound a little strange to dissect such a natural and intimate gesture into component parts. But bear with me.                

            The disciples are longing for Jesus’ embrace. But they are also deeply afraid. No one can blame them. They are at risk of suffering the same violent death as their friend and teacher. They are uncertain whether the empty tomb and stories of Jesus appearing have any merit or if that is one more thing they must fear. And so, despite longing for Jesus’ embrace, they gather in a room, closed the door, and lock it tight. It brings a momentary sense of security, but it is also the exact opposite of what they long for. They long for an embrace from Jesus, but they have closed their arms by locking the door. Without arms open, how will they welcome an embrace.

            But this is what fear does to us. We are afraid of our security so we turn to violence whether with guns in our communities or armies to fight wars on our behalf. And what we often get is not security but more violence. 

            We are afraid of losing what we have so we clutch more tightly to what we have so much so that we sometimes squeeze the life out of it. We do that with money – crossing the line from healthy financial planning for the future to tight-fisted management of money forgoing the things that might give us joy and failing to share it with those whose lives could depend on our generosity. 

            We are afraid of dying and so we shut out any talk of death. We try to hide signs of aging, we glorify unrealistic youthful bodies, and we come up with all manner of euphemisms to avoid ever saying that someone has died. 

            And friends, I fear that we are a fearful church. Not just you here at First, but our churches as a whole. I worry that too often the disciples locked away out of fear is an ideal metaphor for the moment we find ourselves in. 

            We fear losing the traditions that have been meaningful to us, and fail to welcome new ones that might bring the Spirit’s breath into our midst. We fear losing beloved buildings and congregations, and in that fear cling so tightly to it that we bring about our worst fears. We fear changes, we fear risks, we fear the things Jesus might call us to step out of our comfort zone to do. 

            We long for God’s embrace, and new people, and new energy, and a vibrant future. But instead of opening our arms, we too often lock our doors instead. Maybe – hopefully! – not literally locking our doors to keep out others. But sometimes we get so caught up in God’s embracing us that we forget to open our arms back up to welcome the next person in need of embrace. Or our embrace is unintentionally coercive or fails to allow ourselves to be changed by the presence of the newcomer. Or sometimes we’re too afraid to even experience God’s life-changing embrace in the first place. 

            It feels safe to stay locked in the room. There is anxiety, but it is familiar and protected. The locked room is its own kind of embrace, one that doesn’t quite follow the full pattern. 

            But this is where Jesus enters. Ignoring the closed and locked door, Jesus, fully embodied, fully resurrected stands before them in the room. The lock may or may not have kept out someone wanting to cause them harm, but it has no power to keep out the life-changing presence of God. 

            Jesus stands with them, his very presence the embrace they have been longing for. His breath upon them easing their fear. His word of peace reminding them of what God can do even in the midst of death and violence. 

            They may have closed and locked their door, they may have been overcome by fear. But the resurrected Christ breaks in to set them free. In doing so he reminds them of their deep call to go out from their locked room and offer embrace to the world, to offer the same peace they have felt just now to others. 

            This is the good news. Even when we as people and as institutions act out of fear, God sets us free over and over again to be God’s people in the world. 

            Perhaps we might place ourselves in Thomas’s shoes for a moment – the one who is left of out of Jesus first appearance among them. He wants to believe, wants more than anything to see and touch. But he cannot yet ready himself for what comes next until he gets that chance. Once he does he is flooded with relief, with peace, with energy, with faith. And then he, too, is ready. 

            As we make decisions for ourselves, for our church, for our community, maybe we can pause and ask ourselves whether this is a decision out of fear or faith. Are we locking the door so that we can feel secure, or are we reaching out, opening our arms, and taking a risk so that we might share God’s embrace with the world? 

            When we realize we are making decisions out of fear, what are our touchpoints, the places where we can be reassured of Christ’s resurrected presence among us, to remind us again of the power of God to support us and resurrect us? Perhaps it is this Sunday morning worship where we encounter Christ in bread and wine, in water and word, in song and fellowship. Maybe it is in serving our neighbor where we meet Christ in the oppressed and hungry, the imprisoned and sick – encountering the presence of the resurrected Christ in our fellow human beings and in the imperiled natural world. Maybe it is in personal devotions, sabbath rest, or in the intricacies of science or art or dance. Where is it that you have touched the risen Christ? 

            When we connect with those moments of Christ’s touch in our lives overpowering our fear, experiencing the risen one, what is that feeling? Does it feel like the locked up room, or does it feel like a brave and exhilarating energy that drives you to do the things that seemed impossible before? 

            What adventures is the resurrected Christ calling you to here at First? Is it in the call of your next pastor to lead you into something new? Is it in the releasing of resources to serve the needs of the community and the church at large? Is it in expanding the connection to your neighbors and serving more people? 

            Beloved ones, God has embraced you in a gesture of grace and peace. God has broken down your walls to be present among you. Now you are being called to open your arms from that embrace, forever changed, forever free to embrace others. Go forth, then, arms open wide and hearts ready to welcome. Because God is doing something new and inviting you to be a part.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

4th Sunday in Lent
March 19, 2023
St. Peter Lutheran Church, Cornwall, CT

¹As [Jesus] 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. 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.”
 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.
 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.” – John 9:1-41

            I invite you to think for a moment about all the incredible technology at our disposal in this moment in time. Probably many of you are carrying right now in your pockets a device that sends information to and from space in order to access all the knowledge of the world at the swipe of a finger. Now Imagine traveling back 100 years ago with just such a smartphone – even without the internet and cell service to connect it, people would be baffled by its capacity and at the time they would have had a hard time even imagining it as a concept much less a reality. 

Or think about 1000 years ago when many still believed the earth to be flat, despite early Greek philosophers having more or less proven that the earth was round. Today we would laugh at their notions as backward or silly because we’ve not only sailed and flown around the globe but been able to view it from space. All of which would have been merely a fanciful dream to someone in the Middle Ages. 

And that makes me wonder – what is it that I believe now that will become a relic of the past in 50 years or 100 years or 1000 years? What sort of limitations do I assume are inherent in the world that will become obsolete in the future? Where does my imagination fail in picturing what is possible? 

I think that question is at the root of today’s story of Jesus and the man born blind. Think about all the assumptions embedded in the story: 

The people assume that the blindness of this man and other physical ailments were a result of particular sins. Today we might mostly laugh at this notion, and yet we blame all sorts of misfortune, poverty, ailments, and the like on people’s bad choices whether they really were choices or not and ignoring the social context the exacerbates so much suffering. 

The particular religious leaders in this story fail to imagine a broader interpretation of the Sabbath day, even though Jewish traditions already had many ways of interpreting the gift of the day of rest. We might judge them for judging Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath as if they were backward folk. But we continue often to have a traditional view of what ought to happen on our day of religious observance and resist disruptions to that. 

The man himself probably dreamed of what it was like to see, but likely considered it nothing more than a fantasy that he could one day have sight given to his eyes. For years he navigated a world in which his blindness was an obstacle to participation in the community. Though today we have made strides in welcoming people with visual impairment, we sighted folks still often consider them in need of help or, worse, pity. I wonder that as much as we still don’t have a way to change many kinds of visual impairment, we also still need our imaginations broadened to welcome people whose bodies function differently than the prevailing cultural norm.       

            There are always assumptions that we operate within. We may look back on other times or look at other cultures and make judgments about the assumptions they make, but we, too, assume certain things that may one day be disproven. We have come to assume the existence of hunger, poverty, and inequality in our world. We have come to assume certain systems of governance and economics. We have come to assume that the world as we know it will continue more or less as it is. 

            While that can sometimes be comforting, we’ve also made peace with the reality of certain things in our lives. We carry grief, for those who have died, for hopes never realized. We carry regrets and shame. We live with bodies that are prone to diseases and traumas. And we have, in some ways, made a certain uneasy peace with all that as it is. Even when we hope and pray for things to change, we have a certain awareness that even as some situations will be relieved, in general our world is one that operates with grief, regret, and disease. Things will always be that way.  

            And in the church we have a lot of assumptions about how things will be, often that they will be very much like what we have always known. There will be church buildings with pews (an invention only of recent centuries), there will be formally trained clergy at every congregation (something that’s been inconsistent at best across the history of the Christian church), and that worship, fellowship, learning, and the like will be much as we recognize them from our own background. We assume things will be as they are. 

            But this story of Jesus and the blind man upends all the assumptions. The man’s assumption his body would always work in the way it had, the crowd’s assumption that ailments were a result of misdeeds, and the religious leader’s assumptions about what the Sabbath is really for. 

            Often we assume we can just celebrate the transformation of the man born blind and dismiss the others as somehow out of touch with the glory of the transformation. But I don’t think it’s quite that simple. The restoration of sight alleviates one major challenge for the man but suddenly makes him the center of a community controversy. And the rest expend a considerable amount of energy trying to restore the order they’re familiar with. This transformation is disruptive!

            That’s what Jesus does. Disrupts the way things are. Yes, he comforts, heals, feeds and teaches. But that’s disruptive in its own way, challenging the economics and politics of the day, challenging the institutional expressions of religion, challenging people to a new way of life that lets go of a lot of assumptions they’ve made. Ultimately, it’s what gets him killed. These are the lengths to which we will sometimes go to keep things stable even if they aren’t good. And if that were the end of the story, it would be a great commentary on how difficult it is to transform the world. 

            But even in Lent we know the story does not end there. In the end Jesus disrupts even the thing we think is absolute and final – death itself. Resurrection is a disruption to our world’s sense of order.

            We are weary of disruption. I know. COVID lingers and continues to interfere with our lives. We have collectively endured three years this week of total disruption to our lives. We live in a time of rapidly changing technology, pendulum swings in political leadership, and an economy that bounces up and down in ways the experts can’t even seem to predict. And our lives are full of their own individual disruptions and roller coasters. And so we may not always welcome Jesus inviting us in to something new. 

            That’s part of why the New England Synod is making this fundamental concept of our faith its theme for this year. Because we are in a time of upheaval as the church. What we have known is in many ways shifting and changing. Some remnant of what we have known will remain and yet, but Jesus is disrupting something. I have deep faith that God is at work in the world and faith is growing in places we don’t even imagine, but we may not always jump at the chance to have our worldview challenged and to have what is familiar threatened, even if the world as we know it isn’t what we want it to be.

            Death and resurrection is one giant disruption that is at the heart of faith, one that even after Jesus we still sometimes struggle to believe. It’s the equivalent of a renaissance poet trying to make sense of a smartphone. It’s so contrary to our expectations of the way things will be that we sometimes struggle to even imagine it. But do not be afraid, even when we aren’t ready, Jesus breaks into our lives and raises us to new life. Disrupting our brokenness, our pain, disrupting our entrenched inequality, disrupting our grief and shame, and, yes, even disrupting death itself. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

3rd Sunday in Lent
March 12, 2023
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Rutland, VT

John 4:5-42

⁵[Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
 ⁷A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) ¹⁰Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” ¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
 ¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” ¹⁷The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” ¹⁹The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” ²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
 ²⁷Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” ²⁸Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” ³⁰They left the city and were on their way to him.
 ³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³²But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” ³⁴Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. ³⁶The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
 ³⁹Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹And many more believed because of his word. ⁴²They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

            Imagine if this conversation went differently: 

            The Samaritan woman arrives at the well. Jesus says “Give me drink.” She shrugs her shoulders and draws water for a drink. They comment on the warm weather. They ask about how the local sports teams are doing. When she’s done filling her bucket, she nods. Bids him a good day. They leave, both less thirsty but otherwise unchanged. 

            There are all kinds of good reasons that might well have happened. There were customs about how and when men and women spoke to one another alone. There were clearly divisions between people of Judea and people Samaria and how they worshipped the same God differently. And when the conversation did get started, the truth-telling might well have scared the woman off without finishing the conversation. 

            Or more than all that, just the sheer inertia of our human nature. While there were different cultural trends and norms in Jesus’ place and time than in our own, I imagine it was easy to get through most days without sitting down for a deep conversation. 

            Have you ever noticed how little we actually know about some of the people we encounter every day? How much does the grocery store clerk know about his customers that he might see twice a week? How much does the engineer know about her coworkers’ faith commitments? How much does the middle school student know about the home life of their English teacher? While some professions and personalities might tend to go a little deeper, most of our daily work and conversations stay pretty surface level. And I’ve found this to be just as true at church as anywhere else. 

            I can’t tell you how many times I’ve realized people sitting next to each other in the pews for decades were surprised to learn basic information about their fellow parishioners. Of course, some people do dive deeper. When crises emerge perhaps we do turn to our faith communities with a new vulnerability. But most of the time we miss some of the really important stuff. 

            But the important stuff is exactly where Jesus and the woman go with their conversation. Yes, truth-telling about her realities, more, I think, a recognition of her pain and suffering than a moral judgment as we have often read it. But more than that, they hit the core of faith, of longing. The thirst for the water that ends all thirst. The hope for the one who will come and rescue from despair. This woman, passed from husband to husband, alone in her chore in the middle of the day, she carries who knows what other pain and grief day in and day out, things that go mostly unspoken and unheard by her community, at least until Jesus cuts to the core of it in this conversation at the well. 

So I ask you, what deep pain, grief, or longing would that saving water deliver you from today? 

            No, really! If you walked up and discovered Jesus in the flesh waiting to offer you living water, what deepest longing would he already know, what deep pain or perhaps deep joy would find voice in that conversation? 

            Now what if we shared that with one another? What would happen? What could happen? Now, before you all get so anxious you run from the room, I’m not going to ask you to share your deepest pain and fears. But I am going to ask you to share something of yourself, to open yourself up to one another and to Jesus, who is here today as living water for our deepest thirst. 

            You see, we’re here today to talk about why this congregation is here and why you have chosen to be a part of it – whether you just walked in today or you’ve been here decades, something draws you to this place. 

            Our challenge, though is to get beyond the first layer. Because as important as they are, the whats are not as critical as the whys. Maybe you come because you like the music, or the preacher (not me, the one over there you usually come to hear). Maybe you like something the congregation does like support the preschool or connect with the community at the Comfort Zone. Maybe you like the people or the coffee. Those things are so deeply important. But they’re not why you come. Because if that was all there was to it, if this was transactional and programmatic, you could go to many of the churches in the community that do similar things. They all have worship and prayer. Most do social outreach of some kind. Most of them are full of other nice people and good coffee. But something unique to you and to this place draws you here. 

            So now I am going to ask you to share with each other: Why do you come to this church? We’re going to pick up this conversation over coffee after worship, but I want to invite you now into a brief 2-3 minute sacred conversation and share something about why you have come to this place… [discussion]

            Now, here’s the thing. Jesus is here. Today. Here today in bread and wine, in water and word, present here in you gathered together in this moment. And Jesus knows your story. Jesus knows your past, knows your hurts, knows your deepest longings. Jesus meets you and welcomes you just as you are to this place. 

            But this comes with a warning. When you go deep in conversation with Jesus – and, I believe, when you go deep with one another, because we are all bearers of Christ to each other – then you cannot expect to leave without being transformed. Jesus is not here to talk about the weather or the sports scores. Jesus isn’t even here to talk about church budgets, worship styles, evangelism programs, or Sunday school curriculum. Jesus is here for you. And when you encounter Jesus here, really encounter that deep conversation, Jesus sends you out without you even realizing it’s happening. 

            The encounter with the Samaritan woman ends with her becoming a prophet and evangelist to the whole village. And did you notice Jesus never even tells her to go? It wasn’t an assignment, a task to be checked off the list. It was the way his deep engagement with her filled her to bursting with living water such that she couldn’t help but run back and tell her story. She doesn’t say, come and join the Jesus movement, or come get the three point plan for better living. She says, “I’ve just had an encounter with something so beyond myself I am forever different.” And that’s something they want to know more about. 

            That’s the power of sacred conversation, of building relationship beyond the surface level with each other and with the community. And that’s the power of connecting with a deep sense of what brings you to this place. I look forward to continuing this conversation after worship, but for now, know that Jesus is here with you and for you, inviting you to sit down and share a cup of living water. Amen. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

First Sunday in Lent (Year A)
February 26, 2023
St. Paul Lutheran, Terryville, CT & Our Savior Lutheran, Thomaston, CT

Link to Facebook recording of worship at Our Savior, Thomaston: https://fb.watch/iYHbLqAzfC/

¹⁵The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
 ^3:1Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ²The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; ³but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ” ⁴But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; ⁵for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. ⁷Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. – Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

¹Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. ²He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. ³The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” ⁴But he answered, “It is written, 
 ‘One does not live by bread alone,
  but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
 ⁵Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, ⁶saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 
 ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
  and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
 so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
⁷Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
 ⁸Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; ⁹and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” ¹⁰Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 
 ‘Worship the Lord your God,
  and serve only him.’ ”
¹¹Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. – Matthew 4:1-11

            There is a very dangerous phrase that is probably part of our vocabulary, something we say without thinking and probably with some regularity. That phrase is “If only…” 

            “If only I had a 5% raise, or another $1000, or another $1 million…” 

            “If only I had an extra hour in the day.” 

            “If only I had made a different decision that fateful day.” 

            And here’s one I hear in my work all the time: “If only we had 10 new members and another $20,000 in annual offerings.” 

            If only…It seems so innocuous, right? It’s just a wish, a dream, a hope. Something perhaps to strive for. But it catches us longing for something different that we often have little control over. It comes, I think as a symptom of living in a society shaped by consumerism. It is instilled in us from the youngest of ages to want just a little more. And as soon as we get it to want a little more than that, then a little more and a little more and… One day we realize we can never be satisfied with what we have. 

            Maybe we play the lottery dreaming of what we could do with lots more money in our bank accounts. Maybe we dream of fame and success, being recognized as the best and brightest in whatever our chosen field of work or hobby. We live in a society that is so shaped by productivity that one of the first questions we ask of children is what they want to be when they grow up, as if we need to imagine more from them than simply being children in the moment. 

            Our prevailing North American culture has done an insidious job of instilling a dissatisfaction with the present, with what is – always driving us to want more, be more, do more. 

            And isn’t that what the serpent suggests to Adam and Eve – don’t you want to be more? What you have isn’t good enough. What you have isn’t enough. Just give it a try. They have everything they could ask for, a life of abundant ease and still that voice tempts: If only we had one more thing…

            And isn’t that what the the devil says to Jesus, too? Unlike the well-fed Adam and Eve, he’s been fasting in the wilderness. And the devil comes to tempt him. The suggestions seem almost innocuous, at least at first. What could be wrong with conjuring up a little bread to eat? Certainly Jesus himself will later multiply the loaves to feed those who are hungry. And what’s the harm in a little test of the angels’ power. And, honestly, what if Jesus were in charge of all the earthly kingdoms? Wouldn’t that bring us peace on earth? 

            But subtly, each time the tempter suggests dissatisfaction with what is. Wouldn’t you like things to be a little different, Jesus? If only we had a little bread. If only we could prove God’s power. If only we had a little more power. If only…

            It’s quite literally the oldest trick in the book – If only you had a little bit more. 

            But what if we attuned to what we already have here and now? I know I have to stop myself sometimes thinking about buying something I don’t really need that won’t really make me happier. I have to stop myself from “if only…” thinking about my work, my child’s school experience, my home, and so many other things. It’s so easy to slip into that thinking and miss the incredible gifts I already have.

            And it’s so very true of the life of our congregations in this time. I don’t like to make generalizations, but I think it might be true that every congregation I visit shares some form of subtle or overt “if only…” thinking. Almost every congregation would love to have more people, a bigger budget, more energy, more younger families, more outreach, more, more, more. 

            Now, yes, Jesus gives us a great commission to share the good news to the ends of the earth. And that calls us to important work of reaching out to others. But nothing in that call mentions membership numbers or budgets, building up particular congregations or denominations. 

            How would our congregations be different if we lived into who we are now. You all at St. Paul and Our Savior are on the frontlines of an emerging church. I know it’s not easy at times. There are times the schedule and logistics are complicated. But you’re living into that great commission with what you have now. Figuring out what it means to be community together and discovering the gifts that come from partnership. They’re different gifts, I think, than the ones that come from the fewer and fewer larger congregations with bigger budgets and more people. Not better or worse, just different. I think there’s creativity and flexibility that emerge when you partner like this – things that serve the gospel well. There are gifts like the capacity to share not just a pastor but staff. There are gifts in the way each congregation’s strengths help build up and shape the other for even richer ministry?

            Because if the questions are only about more people, more money, more power, or trying to reclaim what we know from the past. Even when it seems innocuous or even for a good cause, we might pause and ask where that voice is really coming from. But if the questions are about deeper relationship, more equitable justice, increased care for neighbor, the extension of grace, that might be more the voice we want to tune into this Lent. Because that’s what Jesus is about. Jesus is about lifting up the lowly, scattering the proud, upending systems of power and oppression, even, especially about entering death in order to find life. If we are to talk about the way of the cross in Lent it’s about, in part, dying to that voice that is always suggesting what else we could do, what else we could be, what else we could get if only… 

            Instead we might ask ourselves, “Where is God in this? And what might God be doing here and now?” Because despite the voices that draw our attention elsewhere, I believe God is in it, whatever it is we’re experiencing, wherever we find ourselves. And that is the work of Lent, to tune in and notice like a scientist, a detective, an artist, a poet – take your pick – to the big and little ways God is raising up new life among what is often a narrative of loss and death. Because the voice of the tempter is often loud and persistent. It is often enticing and seductive. But the voice of God is steadfast. And even when the call is to the way of the cross, and often not what we think we want in the moment, God pursues us every step of our journey until sooner or later we do face death and meet God’s life there. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco