Altars, Altars Everywhere (Sermon)

Outline for sermon based on Acts 17:16-31

Paul wanders through Athens, sees idols, and is dismayed at the sight.

What idols would someone see wandering through Anchorage? LCOH? Our home/car/backpack?

In order to convince the Athenians to put up an idol to a new god, the evangelist of the new deity must assert the ability to speak of the deity and the deity’s desires. One of the desires of the god must be to reside in Athens. The god’s Athenian residency must bring good will and blessing to the citizens.

Yet, the Athenians have installed an altar to an unknown god.

What actions in our life that would indicate to people that we worship a known God or an unknown god?

Paul speaks to them the one whom they have classified as “unknown” is actually God over all things. This God is not limited in space, time, or material, but is the source of all things. This God is not a small provincial idol, but the Divine Presence of every place and within whom everything “lives and moves” and has being. Furthermore, God is not capricious, creating blessing and suffering with equal whimsy. Instead, God has continued to create revelation of the Divine will.

It was God’s pleasure to reveal the Divine desire for relationship through worship, prayer, and service (summed up as discipleship) through the life and teaching of Jesus. God has also communicated an intention to judge all people on their discipleship and, according Paul, Jesus’ resurrection is the sign that this judgment will occur. There is time to repent (to turn around) and to live in imitation of Christ.

How do we do that, if we know longer see him?

Jesus tells us that we are not orphaned, but we have the Holy Spirit- who comes alongside us and guides us specifically in worship, prayer, and service to others.

Did the Athenians go out and tear down their idols?

Did the story of God’s omnipresence and power and Jesus’ resurrection move them to a conversion and dedication of their city, their homes, and their lives to the one true God?

Does it happen for us?

What are your (our) idols- not just visible things (like habits or physical items), but also intangibles like convenience, patriotism, intelligence, rationality, logic, efficiency, novelty, traditions, orthodoxy, or perfection? Idolatry can take all kinds of forms. These things can be our “unknown gods”, but they often have bigger place in our lives that the God who actually saves us from death, hell, and ourselves.

A thought to meditate on this week: how would you (we) need to alter our routines, homes, or lives to demonstrate that God- Holy Parent, Holy Son, Holy Spirit- has our truest devotion and our highest allegiance? What would that look like? And what holds you (us) back?

Listen

If I was taking a walk with You, I’d say, “It turns out there isn’t a limit to how frustrated I can get. Or how many bad decisions people can make. Is there no bottom?”

I think you would be silent.

We would walk on and I would get exasperated.

Yes, with You.

“Are you going to say anything?” I will ask.

Stride, stride, stride. Pause.

“I am.”



Originally written for and posted at RevGalBlogPals.org, 5/19/17. 

Sermon: Made, Loved, Kept

I understand and I truly believe that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, from his conception unto his resurrection. In his fully human nature, he would have been tempted to sin. Not just the sins experienced through the devil's presence in the deprivation of the desert, but also in every day ways. Thus, when Jesus clearly states to Thomas,

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.

And Philip IMMEDIATELY responds,

Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.

I believe that Jesus was tempted. Perhaps not tempted to violence or sarcasm, but tempted to abandon patience, to growl at Philip, to roll His eyes, to throw up His hands and cry out, "How can I lead when the people I'm leading keep retreating?". A fully human Incarnation was tempted to something in that moment, but did not yield to that temptation. Blessed be the one who resists in the name of the Lord. (Hosanna in the highest.)

Despite having seen Jesus turn water into wine, bring sight to a man born blind, cast out demons, and restore Lazarus to life from the dead, once Jesus begins his "Farewell Discourse" to the disciples, telling them what is to come, they panic. They doubt their life experience. They forget what the truth they've learned. The Way in which they've learned to walk because slippery.

While Jesus, in that moment, resists temptation, the disciples give in to it. They give in to the siren call of despair, frustration, mistrust, and testing God. Asking Jesus to prove himself, again, is putting God to the test, even if the disciples felt it was necessary in their distress. Of course, most of us can relate to the disciples in that because we have often wanted, and sometimes demanded, that God reveal the Divine power through a clearer revelation of strength, healing, or resurrection.

In 2005, I went to Iona, Scotland for the first time. Getting to Iona in its own pilgrimage, in that one must get to Glasgow, then take a train or bus to Oban, then a ferry to the Island of Mull, a bus across Mull, and a final ferry from Fionnphort to Iona. Doing this journey alone in 2005, I was tense and nervous. What if I missed my stops? I did not know that each part of the trip is its own end... the bus stop in Oban is clear and the train terminates there. There is only one ferry stop on each of the boat trips. The bus across Mull starts one side and ends on the other. From the stop in Fionnphort, you can see across the water to Iona, easily recognizable by the huge medieval Abbey. You can be late, but you can't get lost- unless you become so distressed that you miss the signs or demand additional signs of your bus driver, who is not likely to be as patient as Jesus.

Additionally, in 2005, I had just come off my Clinical Pastoral Education work in Providence Hospital. I had been with life support withdrawals, natural deaths, unnatural deaths, and distress in medical treatment. My heart and my history had been laid bare in talking with my learning group for the purposes of learning to pull out the eye logs of my own experience so that i could be more fully present with others in their times of need and uncertainty. I was going to Iona to rest from all this and to heal in a holy place. Like the disciples, however, I was demanding a sign- a holy Iona experience- without contemplating the signs I had already been given.

And, in 2005, I did not have a holy experience. I was overwhelmed with my own stuff. I arrived just a couple weeks after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and people in western Scotland, at the time, felt very free to tell me what they thought of how the United States government in general and President Bush in particular handled all manner of situations. One gentleman (?) even noted that I would just have to take his negative opinions on the chin. So, I was stressed about making the trip correctly, demanding of a holy experience of this much touted thin place, overwhelmed by life and death, and then attempting to figure out how to explain, if not defend, my home country. For a long time, I held all of this against Iona. Maybe it just wasn't a place for me.

So, when my support group of sisters of my heart in Christ- RevGalBlogPals- decided to make our own trip to Iona for study and rest, I hesitated before I committed to going. It was easier to say yes and to present a good case to you when I was traveling as a chaplain with the group. Knowing that I would be presiding, praying, and waiting in stillness with direction gave me purpose for this trip beyond hoping to redeem my last experience.

Yet, the last twelve years have not been for nothing. I have to come to perceive the presence of the God of life in moments of death. I have felt the truth of Jesus in the times when we have had to let a program or situation come to an end. I have known the Way of the Spirit in waiting for direction and clarity. Thus, when three of us missed a ferry by minutes, we were frustrated and attempted to find other solutions, but eventually settled into the reality that we were waiting. And, as one woman pointed out on Tuesday, four days later it did not matter that we were two hours behind everyone else.

This time, on Iona, I was blessed with the spiritual gifts of stillness, laughter, and healing. I don't think this is because I am that different, though 12 years makes a difference, but because I have learned from Philip. After asking again and again for signs, asserting that with one more I will be satisfied, I have learned that the signs are actually happening, constantly. If I watch for them, they will be seen. If I see them, their truth will be revealed. If I can perceive the truth of them, the Way becomes clearer.

On Monday night of this past week, I led compline- the last service of the day. It was the feast day of Mother Julian of Norwich, an English visionary and mystic from the 14th century. In preparing to remember her life, the reading I found in a prayer book was something that I hadn't read before...

From Revelations of Divine Love...

And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, 'What may this be?' And it was answered generally thus, 'It is all that is made.' I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.  

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it. But is to me truly, the Maker, the Keeper, the Lover- I cannot tell. For until I am substantially [united] to him, I may never have full rest nor true bliss. That is to say, until I be so fastened to him that there is nothing that is made between my God and me.

All things have their beginning in the love of God. Because God has made them, God loves them. Because God loves them, God keeps them. Sit with that for a moment.

I can have some real Philip moments (and Thomas ones too, for that matter). How will it happen? How can I know? What can I do? What shall I say? Show me a sign. One more sign. A clearer sign. A louder sign.

However, daily I hold in my hand- water or bread or light for a candle or someone else's hand. Are there greater signs than these? Truths, ways, lives that God has made, loves, and keeps?

Julian of Norwich lived through the plague, the splitting of the Church, the 100 Years War, famines, political revolts, and a wide variety of other human- caused and natural disasters. It seems that people haven't really changed that much seven hundred years later. Frankly, when we look at the stories of the Bible- the disciples and their predecessors and spiritual descendants- people have always been the same.

When we, like the disciples, make demands of Jesus- about directions, signs, and explanations... surely Jesus is tempted to respond other than how he does. Yet, the Pioneer of our Faith does not yield to sarcasm, cruelty, or dismissal, instead Jesus says to Philip, to Thomas, to us-

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 

Believe me, says Jesus to his weary and worried disciples, that I am One with the Maker, Keeper, and Lover of all that is and all that has been and all that will be. Trust me, says Jesus to disciples in pain and confusion, that all that has been created is beloved, including you. Yield your desire for control to me, speaks the Savior, and look at the Way that is open to you.

Julian of Norwich became distressed, like any disciple does, and Jesus spoke to her:

In my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the onset of sin was not prevented: for then, I thought, all should have been well. This impulse [of thought] was much to be avoided, but nevertheless I mourned and sorrowed because of it, without reason and discretion.But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'These words were said most tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any who shall be saved.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not let your hearts be troubled. In the midst of chaos, pain, and turmoil, the path of discipleship- of doing the healing, companioning, and loving of Jesus in our neighbors- is actually very clear. Jesus says we will do these things, not in the way that he does them, but in the way that he leads us to do them- in the very places, time, and realities that we face daily. And, in the midst of all things overwhelming, we are made, we are loved, and we are kept. 

Do not let your hearts be troubled. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. 

Amen. 

Repost: 10 Things to Know about Hell

I wrote and posted this originally in 2015, but I recently dusted it off and updated it to preach to a group of clergy colleagues. It's one of those sermons that is truly written for oral delivery with asides, facial expressions, and gestures, but it's still good in the reading.
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The Top 10 Things to Know about Hell

10. About 99% of the images in your head of hell- the red demon with a pointed tail, the levels of suffering, the pit of fire, the presence of those who never knew Christ, the darkness, AND the eternal wailing and torment (plus the image of Judas in hell)- are all from Dante’s The Divine Comedy (or The Inferno). His writing was a piece of political literature that condemned powers of his day that he didn’t like. It also was Dante’s way of confirming himself as a poet for the ages by using the poet Virgil, who lived and died before Jesus, as his guide. Additionally, Dante’s work was a distillation of Greek and Roman mythology, some alleged gospels from the second, third, and fourth centuries, and one other work that had serious influence in Dante’s lifetime. The majority of the artwork about hell is not from Biblical interpretation, but is based on The Inferno- which takes very little from actual Holy Scripture.

9. What was the influential work that circulated in Dante’s life? It was a work that had been translated into Latin and was very popular in upper class Italian household in the thirteenth century. Even if Dante hadn’t read this work, he would have been familiar with its descriptions of a fiery hell, divided into seven levels, and particularly populated by people who did not believe in God. What was this book? The Koran.

8. Isaiah 14, when it mentions Lucifer, is not talking about Satan. It is a prophetic statement against the then present-day Babylonian leader who brought suffering upon God’s people. The punishment for the shining leader would be an ignoble death and then to be completely forgotten. The prophecy also turned about to be prediction as no one is quite sure to which king this passage refers. Dante, as well as John Milton in Paradise Lost, expounded upon medieval Christian ideas of the ruler of the underworld being an eternal force that opposed God and was cast down. What force, anywhere, would have the temerity to attempt to oppose an eternal God? God has no eternal counterparts. Only God, as the Holy Parent, Holy Word, and Holy Spirit, exists outside of time.

7. The four horsemen in Revelation are not signs of the apocalypse. Apocalypse means disclosure. The four horsemen, as the images in Revelation 6 are called, are signs of apocalyptic literature. They help readers to know that they are dealing with a story that seems to be about the future, but is really dealing with present realities. The four horses and their riders are the gospel, war, poverty, and death. These things struggle, but one will triumph. (Hint: it won’t be war, poverty, or death.) Those who are believers or who wish to be believers must remember to place their trust in what is truly permanent and act accordingly.

6. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the dead are dead. Period. Sheol is a place where the dead may be gathered and perhaps they are shades, or shadows of their former selves in that place. Ancient Israelites did not engage in ancestor worship, unlike most of the other regional religions of the time. Furthermore, an attempt to contact the dead (as Saul did when he used a fortuneteller to contact Samuel) is a sign of failure to trust in God as the one who holds the future and in whom one should place all confidence. Sheol is sometimes perceived to be a pit where one might descend spiritually- like the psalmist or the prophets Jonah or Jeremiah. Yet the fear is of being forgotten and God does not forget God’s children. Even in the deepest depths, God still knows the intimacies of creation.

5. Satan is an adversary in the Hebrew Scripture, but not an eternal being. When Satan’s name is used in the New Testament, it is either a pseudonym for powers and principalities or how the presence of evil, within one’s own heart or outside of one’s self, is named. When contemporary religionists empower the name of the enemy by attributing works to Satan or giving Satan characteristics that are not biblical, they are engaged in a form of idolatry. Idolatry is not only worshipping the wrong god. It is also idolatrous to be afraid of the wrong power. The idea that there is a force equal to God with evil intent and the power to lure us into eternal separation and that we would be motivated by the fear of that being… Nope. That is not the essence of the Gospel, which is about the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

4. When Jesus talks about hell and says, “hell”, he is referring to an actual geographical location outside of Jerusalem. There, outside the city, was a horrible trash pit that burned constantly. The place was called Gehenna and it is the word that we have translated in the gospels as “hell”. Gehenna had once been the site of child sacrifices, the very sacrifices that were forbidden to Jews, but were practiced by other religions to appease their gods. It eventually became the place of the very worst trash and it was where Roman soldiers would dump the bodies of people who were crucified. It was this horrible place- a place of ignominy, terror, and avoidance- that Jesus urged people to avoid by encouraging them to care for one another, to tend to the sick and the dying, and to practice a radical kind of welcome. The Way of Christ would have meant being a community that saved one another, and the outcasts of society, from being burned with trash and forgotten.

3. In the fundamentalist Christianity in which I grew up, I understood the following: “Baptism, praying in the name of Jesus, and the King James Version of the Bible are all magical talismans against suffering in hell. Not drinking, dancing, swearing, or getting caught wanting to are also important.”

If “I will draw all people to myself” (John 12) AND “Nothing can separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8) and “I have seen the Lord” (John 20) are true, then which of God’s children will be cast into an eternal separation from the presence of grace? We are not all traveling up the same mountain. We are not all feeling different parts of the same elephant. But if God is God AND God is love AND God has been revealed in the person of Jesus AND the Spirit intercedes for us in a variety of ways, then we cannot confidently make predictions about anything that comes after what we know, except to say, “God will still be God and, therefore, in charge.” Is it in keeping with how God has revealed the Divine character to the world to punish people for an infinite amount of time for bad decisions made during a finite period of time?

2. He descended to the dead. Everything from Acts to 1 Peter to the Gospel of Nicodemus to The Inferno written about Holy Saturday- the day between Good Friday (when Jesus was crucified) and Easter (when he was known to be raised from the dead)- everything written about this is an attempt to answer the question, “Where the hell was he?” Truth: no one knows. We are comforted by the idea that Jesus took the message of his triumph over death to the spirits of those who had died and brought them (or those who believed) to heaven. It makes great artwork. We don’t know. Theologian Yvette Flunder says, “Religion is violent because we insist on making the uncertain certain.”  Trying to create a definite answer for what happens on Holy Saturday is, essentially, an attempt to nail Jesus down. Again. So that we don’t have to live with a little mystery.  

1. Hell is not a geographical location. It may be a spiritual location. Hell, if it is anything, is a perception of the absence of God. A perception that is patently false, but that appears when our own experiences, ideas, certainties, or doubts attempt to make gods of themselves through confidence or through fear. That perception is transformed through our acceptance, with Christ’s help, of the height and depth and breadth of grace. People need hell to exist as a reality because they don’t trust that there’s enough of God’s love, grace, or mercy to go around. If there’s not, they want to be sure they’re on the receiving end of it.

When we open ourselves to the hopeful truth that God’s grace overflows- in terms of time, space, context, materiality, and spiritual revelation- we then become more rooted in the joy of our salvation and the good news of freedom in Christ. Rejecting hell as something that must exist removes the scales from our eyes so that we can see how the kingdom of God is at hand.

Living faithfully, through God’s grace, means separating what we have ingested culturally through literature, art, theater, movies, and television and actually examining the written Word and the revelation that can come from tradition, reason, and experience. We reflect on those things in community and with the help of the Holy Spirit. Anything else leads us away from the grace that is amazing, transformative, salvific, and eternal. What can be said about anything that leads us away from the fear, love, and trust of God?  Resurrection grace says, “To hell with that.”

Amen.

Easter Sanctuary

This sermon builds on the idea that the design of the sanctuary is to help us realize that we are safe there- baptized and safe in God's family, fed and safe with God meeting our needs, alive in Christ off the cross and safe because God is bigger. 

          It is one thing to tell children that sanctuary means safety and that everything in a church is designed to help us feel safe. It is quite another thing to try to convey that same idea to adults, particularly adults who are very aware of how church has not always represented safety or sanctuary for all kinds of people. Additionally, the words of the gospels have not always been used for comfort, consolation, or assurance of safety in God to people from a wide variety of backgrounds and circumstances.

           The church has been unsafe at times for women, for divorced people, for children, for people who sought the gospel in their own language, for people who were anything other than heterosexual and cis-gendered, for people with disabilities, for depressed people, for sick people, for grieving people, for people of no faith, for newcomers, for minority races in majority communities, for those who struggle with addiction, for those who do not have work or much disposable income, for conservative people, for liberal people. If I keep going, it would mean acknowledging that for almost everyone in here, at some point, has felt or does feel unsafe or uncertain about their safety in church. Which means that the very thing we call sanctuary hasn’t always been that.

            When that is the case, the church is nearly indistinguishable from the outside world. If this is not a fundamentally safe place, not a sanctuary, then people will look at the church and expect it to be violent in word and deed, untruthful, closed, oppressive, and dying. It is only when we remember, trust, and accept that the God of resurrection is all about the unexpected that we can be truly church- learning to live and die in Jesus and teaching others how to do the same.

            We are called to remember, trust, and accept that:

- God does not repay violence with violence, but meets violence with forgiveness.

- God does not repay questions or doubts with shaming, but meets them with experiences and teaching.

- God does not repay a lack of mercy with a lack of mercy, but with grace and disciplining.

- God does not repay an attitude of oppression with oppression, but with freedom in heart and mind.

            When the church imitates God, instead of the news or the powers and principalities of the world or even an insistence on tradition, when we imitate God- we enter into God’s tradition of life out of death, hope out of despair, truth from lies, and healing out of pain. The reality of the various resurrection accounts speaks to this.

            The gospel writers are counteracting despair. Mark is writing for those who need to perceive how God’s kingdom was at hand, even after the ascension of Christ. When Matthew and Luke are writing, nearly forty years after the events of the day in question, the Temple has been destroyed by Rome. The followers of the Way of Christ are beginning to experience serious struggles. The Pax Romana, or Roman Peace, was only peaceful in that you could be left alone as long as you appeared to be cooperative in every way possible with the political leaders at all levels- keeping your head down, your taxes paid, and your mouth shut. There were wars or rumors of wars or quickly silenced insurrections with rebel factions disappearing into the deserts to try to live quiet lives of worship and devotion, which is an ironic way to rebel. The Fourth Gospel is specifically written for one of those communities, drawn together and attempting to live the Way of Christ according to the teaching of John the disciple.

            These were desperate times, during which people began to despair-  the expectation of every day being exactly the same as the day before and the complete lack of expectation that anything can or will change. Doubt is not the same as despair because doubt is logic combined with hope. Doubt looks at the facts, but believes in a larger truth. Despair believes hope is lost.

            For first century Christian, the resurrection accounts were written to remind them that their core story is an earth-shaking, ground-splitting, stone-moving, Rome-silencing event. The resurrection truth, their source of their life in community, is one that is designed to crush despair and feed the flame of hope.

            Across the accounts, Jesus is not where you think he will be, does not appear first to whom you think he will appear, and does not go to the place you expect him to go. (Galilee of the Gentiles isn’t exactly the expected appearance location for a risen Messiah.) In the face of all of that, despair cannot flourish. It is shaken off its foundations. Despair needs suffering, oppression, and routine (the unholy trinity).

           

            This brings the story to us.  We also live in a time of some leaders who act without thinking, think without studying, and study only those who agree with their worldview. We also know a world of competing military powers and oppression of the poor and marginalized communities. We know the exhaustion of attempting to alleviate pain and the feeling of frustration when we cannot gather the momentum to create real change. We need a place to feel safe and a place to draw strength for the work that our God leads us to and expects of us.

            Nevertheless, we are a community who needs to hear resurrection words. We are also people who need to remember that resurrection is an event that affects the whole creation. It shakes up everything. We are embraced by a love and truth that will not let death have the final word. That reality changes everything. Resurrection is an event of forgiveness, an event of God’s on-going revelation of divine mercy, the power of the Spirit continuing to create and transform. The earth cannot keep still under the power of that kind of love. It might not be geologically correct to say that God’s response of love to human violence shakes the earth to its core, but it is theologically true.

            Therefore, we do not despair. We keep the faith. It is not a faith that comes from seeing or even hearing. It is a faith that comes from God- God’s welcome, God’s inclusion, God’s hope, and God’s refusal to let the creation remain unshaken. God’s love is the same, day after day, year after year, eon after eon. That love is vast, however, that it contains truths that are beyond our comprehension- that death is not an end, that forgiveness happens, that all means all, that eternal love is exactly what it sounds like. The love of God gives us the sanctuary we seek and that we are called to offer to the world, most of all from this place. The vastness of the Divine Self encompasses all for which we dare to hope, in the light of which- despair shrivels.

            And then we crush it completely- with voices that quake with joy and trust, “He is risen. Alleluia.”

            He is risen, indeed.

Amen.

Whole Lotta Shakin'

In Matthew’s Easter account opens with two women approaching the tomb and an earthquake. (The two events are only related because of Jesus, not the former causing the latter.) The women are there to witness if Jesus walks out of the tomb, but he doesn’t. The stone is moved and he is simply gone. There is an angel sitting there, matter-of-factly, to tell them that he has been raised and gone to Galilee, just like he said he would.

We do not get a reaction of the women to the earthquake or to the rolling away of the stone. Unlike in the other gospel accounts, we don’t even know why the women are going to the tomb this morning. They simply are. Of course, it is possible women were no longer able to be surprised, given the events of the past three days and the fact that Matthew inserts several earthquakes into his version of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Both seio (the Greek word for shaking and quivering) and seismos (the Greek word for earthquake or commotion) are used liberally in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ last days.

All of this quivering and quaking indicates that something deep is happening. This crucifixion, the betrayals, the death, and the attempt to prevent anything unusual from happening to the body cannot seem to occur without provoking a seismic reaction in heaven and earth. Everything is shaken and stirred.

What should we make of all this movement? Is this an attempt to give geologic proof to the story of the resurrection? It is not. Matthew wants to counteract despair*. When Matthew is writing, nearly forty years after the events of the day in question, the Temple has been destroyed by Rome. The followers of the Way of Christ are beginning to experience serious struggles. The Pax Romana, or Roman Peace, was only peaceful in that you could be left alone as long as you appeared to be cooperative in every way possible with the political leaders at all levels- keeping your head down, your taxes paid, and your mouth shut. There were wars or rumors of wars or quickly silenced insurrections with rebel factions disappearing into the deserts to try to live quiet lives of worship and devotion, which is an ironic way to rebel.

This kind of living leads to despair- the expectation of every day being exactly the same as the day before and the complete lack of expectation that anything can or will change. Doubt is not the same as despair because doubt is logic combined with hope. Doubt looks at the facts, but believes in a larger truth. Despair believes hope is lost.

The Christians in the time of Matthew had begun to despair. Thus, his resurrection account is written to remind them that their core story is an earth-shaking, ground-splitting, stone-moving, Rome-silencing event. The resurrection truth, their source of their life in community, is one that is designed to crush despair and feed the flame of hope.

This is a resurrection account in which Jesus is not where you think he will be, does not appear first to whom you think he will appear, and does not go to the place you expect him to go. (Galilee of the Gentiles isn’t exactly the expected appearance location for a risen Messiah.) In the face of all of that, despair cannot flourish. It is shaken off its foundations. Despair needs suffering, oppression, and routine (the unholy trinity).

Which brings the story to us.  We also live in a time of some leaders who act without thinking, think without studying, and study only those who agree with their worldview. We also know a world of competing military powers and oppression of the poor and marginalized communities. We know the exhaustion of attempting to alleviate pain, which feeling frustrated in the momentum to create real change.

Nevertheless, we are the same community who needed to hear Matthew’s words. We are also people who need to remember that resurrection is a seismic event. It shakes up everything. We are embraced by a love and truth that will not let death have the final word. That reality changes everything. Resurrection is an event of forgiveness, an event of God’s on-going revelation of divine mercy, the power of the Spirit continuing to create and transform. The earth cannot keep still under the power of that kind of love. It might not be geologically correct to say that God’s response of love to human violence shakes the earth to its core, but it is theologically true.

Therefore, we do not despair. We keep the faith. It is not a faith that comes from seeing or even hearing. It is a faith that comes from God- God’s welcome, God’s inclusion, God’s hope, and God’s refusal to let the creation remain unshaken. God’s love is the same, day after day, year after year, eon after eon. That love is vast, however, that it contains truths that are beyond our comprehension- that death is not an end, that forgiveness happens, that all means all, that eternal love is exactly what it sounds like. The vastness of the Divine Self encompasses all for which we dare to hope, in the light of which- despair shrivels.

And then we crush it completely- with voices that quake with joy and trust, “He is risen. Alleluia.”

He is risen, indeed.

Amen.

*This concept of despair is something I have adapted from a definition by Pastor Rob Bell. 

Follower or Admirer (Sermon)

John 12 

           Jerusalem is full of people who are gathered for the Passover celebration. There are people everywhere. Think of the sounds of children, family reunions, animals being bought, sold, and traded. There is the smell of bodies, dust, excrement, cooking, and perfumed oils that some use to disguise the odors. There is a rush to purchase food, oil, wine, and charcoal.

Of course, there are also Romans- soldiers and their families. They look on at the sudden rush of people in from the countryside with alarm. Where did all these people come from? Will they bring trouble? Will an influx of people make it difficult to get some of the food and goods they prefer? Better also head out to the market.

            There are non-Judean Jews coming in for Passover as well. If valid worship or sacrifice can only occur at the temple, they also make the pilgrimage. It seems that some of them have heard of this itinerant rabbi, Jesus, of whom it is said that he raised a man who had been dead four days. When the Greek Jews come into town, they go seeking out Jesus. They say to Philip, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” (Philip is a Greek name, so he may be or appear to be Greek.)

            We want to see Jesus. Why might they want to see him? To find out if all they have heard is true? Perhaps they need a miracle. They may be interested in learning from him or simply very curious looky-loos. When they see Jesus, though, they will be confronted with the deepest question that comes to all who meet him. Will they follow him or will they just be in his fan club? Will they be admirers or disciples? Will they want the connection at the foot of the cross or only as the palm parade is going by?

            In an article called “Followers, Not Admirers”, the theologian Søren Kierkegaard writes, 

“It is well known that Christ consistently used the expression “follower.” He never asks for admirers, worshippers, or adherents. No, he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for…. What then, is the difference between an admirer and a follower? A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An admirer, however, keeps himself personally detached. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon him, and thus he fails to be or strive to be what he admires.”

A true follower of Jesus is an imitator of Jesus. It is important to remember that God had spokespeople prior to the Incarnation. That’s what a prophet is, a mouthpiece for the Divine. Therefore, it was not necessary for a person of the Trinity to pour the power and strength of being eternal into a fragile human body simply to impart lessons through teaching. Jesus’ teaching matters because it explains his deeds.

The words of Jesus- in conversations, in teaching, in prayer- make connections between what the Divine character always was and how God expects those who are led by the Spirit to respond. But the words were never the thing, because anyone might have taught in the name of the Lord. Within the Apostle’s Creed, we have very limited verbs about Jesus- born, suffered, crucified, died, buried, and rose. These verbs are concrete because they require a body.

            A body is unit of action. Jesus, with a body, is God prepared for action in the flesh. The body is not merely a receptacle of information. We are not merely encased spirits, biding our time. We are bodies in motion. We have been brought into a body, the Body of Christ. How we will respond to that inclusion, though… how we will respond to the gift of grace… how we will respond to always being Easter people, even on this side of Holy Week… that response is up to us.

            And, so, will we be followers or admirers? Being an admirer is nice. You still get the identity: “Oh, I love Jesus. I like to sing about him. Love to talk about him. Read his book sometimes, even.” So, if someone came up to you and said, “Sir, madam, we wish to see Jesus.” What will you show them: a hymn, a Bible, a catchy bumper sticker? Is it enough to be in Jesus’ fan club?

            In Fourth Gospel, it is said that those who have seen the Son have seen the Father. In today’s passage, Jesus asserts that anyone who is truly his follower will serve him. Logically, then, if Jesus is being served, he is present. Where true followers of Jesus are acting in service in imitation of him, he is there. And if he is there, then God is also being revealed. All of this happens through the power of the Holy Spirit.

            To reiterate: if you are imitating Jesus' actions in service, he will be present to be served (in the situation in which you are acting). If he is present, the whole Trinity is there because they are fellow travelers always. Thus, when one is a follower, an imitator, a disciple, and is asked, “We wish to see Jesus”… the answer will be clear because his presence will be felt in the act of service.

           Crucially, imitating Jesus will quickly separate the followers from the admirers. Eventually, admirers feel the pinch of knowing that Jesus does some things, says some things, and likes some people who are sometimes outside the edges of propriety. Jesus will be seen, unashamed, with the dying, the dead, the diseased, the depressed, the deserted, the demon-possessed, the downtrodden, the drug- addicted, the dastardly, and the desperate. He will see them for who they are and where they are and acknowledge them of as children of God, dealing with their needs before he makes any expectations of them.

            Following in those footsteps, truly committing to that level of kindness, gentleness, peacefulness, and honesty in our daily lives can be tough and frustrating. Furthermore, it does not really win a lot of friends and influence enemies. It mostly gains disdain from some, confusion from others, and a lot of God work that you carry in your heart because you worry that people will think you are crazy if you share it.

            Today is the martyrdom date of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian. He was committed to what he believed were basic Christian principles of the church in the early days of the Third Reich, which included welcoming, evangelizing, and baptizing non-Aryan Christians. As Adolph Hitler’s regime grew in power, Bonhoeffer was part of a splinter church within Germany that focused on resisting the church being an arm of the power of the state, particularly of state violence. Bonhoeffer sought to teach and preach in both Britain and in America at different times, but ultimately returned to Germany because he believed that he had to be a part of resisting evil there in order to be able to live in the Germany that he perceived would be rebuilt after the war.

            He was arrested for being a double agent and then his significant role in a plot to kill Hitler was discovered. He was hanged on this date in 1945 in Flossenburg concentration camp, one month before Germany surrendered. During his time in prison, he continued to write to friends and to his family, as well as some theological thoughts. These letters and papers from prison were smuggled out and published as a book by the same name. Within one letter, Bonhoeffer reflects, 

“We have learned a bit too late in the day that action springs not from thought but from a readiness for responsibility.”

            The admirer of Jesus is always ready to think about him. The admirers on that in Jerusalem waved palms and smiled. They could have pointed Jesus out to the Greek passersby and said, “There he is. Ain’t he great.” As the week went on, the admirers of Jesus would have been among those who frowned at the woman who wept over his feet and dried them with her hair. He shouldn’t have let her touch him, they’d have said. The admirers would have been aghast at Jesus washing the disciples’ feet or proud to be included, but having no intention of repeating the incident. They may have tried to blend into the crowd or disappear at the crucifixion. Ultimately, admirers will end up disappointed with the true Jesus. He’s too much or not quite enough or right time, wrong place or wrong time, right place. They sure do admire him, but…

            The followers of Jesus, the disciples, those on the Way of Christ have come to accept that faith is not the absence of doubt. It is action in spite of doubt. The followers have already assumed the readiness for responsibility that Bonhoeffer mentions. They waved their palm branches, but only with one hand because with the other they had escorted a leper, a bleeding woman, a child, sex worker, a blind man, a refugee, a centurion, or a hesitant Pharisee to be within reach of Jesus. For the followers, commentary on the goodness of Jesus is strange because sometimes the many ways in which they encounter him through service are not always good, by the usual definition of that word. They are, however, always holy.

            In the week ahead, whether you attend services or pray through the daily readings or simply try to make it through your regular to-do list, ponder in your heart whether you are a follower or an admirer. Are you all in or are you watching from a distance? Does this week get to you because you realize that imitation of Christ demands a solidarity in these events that is truly spiritually and emotionally overwhelming? Or is this a week to be with other fans of God’s work?

            When someone says to you, “We wish to see Jesus,” how do you respond? In word or in deed? Will you be an admirer or a follower? 

Dare I Ask (Dare! Dare!)

Maybe you have a question about one of these topics? 

I would like to emphasize how much I appreciate questions. As a pastor, questions help me to know how people are thinking around me. They point me to information that I might have that I could share. They provide a path for me to encourage discernment by and wisdom gathering in others.

I have previously answered questions here and here. These aren't two "good" questions. They were genuine questions that people asked of me and gave me time to ponder my answer.

Recently I did "Ask a Pastor Anything" or "Pastor in the Hot Seat" with a confirmation class. The group of 11-14 year (and a couple adults) asked the following questions:

- Were there any conflicts between people who believe in religion and people who believe in science? If so, what happened?

- What is theodicy?

- Could God have said things much differently and we misunderstood his teaching or mistranslated his ideas and, therefore, some things seen negatively could've been positive? (sic)

- What happens to people when they die?

- In Revelation, God speaks through John to tell us about the "overcomers" who rule/reign with Christ for a thousand years. Who are the "overcomers"?

- Is there resurrection for everyone?

- Have Lutherans ever tried to force their religion on other people, when they're missionaries or anything? (sic)

- Where did Jesus die?

- When was the Holy Bible made?

- Why should I care about being a Christian at all? What's in it for me? Why is this important?

- When were you baptized?

- The Bible says women should remain silent in church- why, then, do we ordain women?


These are good questions. Most of them reflect the internal struggles of the asker, but almost everyone present was curious about the answer. Perhaps you, too, are curious about some of the answers.

There's another "Ask a Pastor Anything" event coming up at Lutheran Church of Hope on Wednesday evening, 4 April (6:15 pm). In the meantime, you can always put a question in the comments or email one to me (lcohpastor@alaska.net). People at the event will have the benefit of being able to ask anonymously, but I never publish names with questions if you send one via email.

Jesus never punished anyone for asking questions. God encourages our desire for knowledge and understanding. The Spirit draws us together that we might learn from each other.

A Good Yarn about Believing

At this time four years ago, I did not know how to crochet. I was in the middle of a very dark
depression that came on about two months after V--, my youngest, was born. Each day was a effort toward my goal of "everyone alive at the end of the day". I wanted a craft to do, something that didn't involve intense focus. The only handicraft I knew at the time was cross-stitching, which is not mindless.

I had started using a knitting loom in the fall. This is a round loom with pegs around which you loop the yarn. Using a hook, you pull stitches over one another. I made a scarf for my sister and some hats. Carrying around even the small loom, though, seemed awkward. I wanted to be one of the people with a small ball of yarn and needles in my bag that I could unobtrusively pull out during a meeting.

When my mother-in-law came in June 2013 to help out while Rob went to Ft. Rucker for 13 weeks, I asked her to teach me to crochet. I knew that she knew how and that she could show me. With a hook and a ball of yarn, she showed me the stitches she knew, how to practice a chain to get tension right, adding at the end of a row to make sure the increases are correct, and how it is okay to pull out a couple rows to fix a mistake.

And, thus, a crocheter was born. I was hooked- which is a crochet pun, since that is what the crochet tool is called. In fact, I was so into crochet that I promptly went to the yarn store and crocheted a lap blanket for her before she left to go back home. In the first two months of knowing how to crochet, I made a pillow cover, a neck pillow, 10 crowns for birthday party favors, a tiny blanket for a stuffed otter, and a queen-sized blanket for my brother who moved in with us.

In the middle of my darkness, the loops and strips of yarn made me feel as though I was accomplishing something. They drew out of myself and out of my head and into a space of quieter focus and peace. I learned that crocheting during a meeting helped me to listen to others better, because it slowed down how quickly I wanted to respond.

It became easier for me to meet people because people will help a fellow crafter learn a new pattern or find a specific tool. I had a new language- hooks, gauges, swatches, stitch markers, in the round, join, increase two together, and magic circles. I had a new identity. I was a crocheter. Now, four years into that identity, my son offers my services on the playground. I've made hats for three second-graders who are not my child and I have requests for more.

This reminds me think of a book I read in 2012, so before I became a crocheter. In Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening, Diana Butler Bass writes about how the church has a framework of believe, behave, belong.

She talks about how the model outside of church for learning a skill follows a different pattern. In the book, Bass uses the example of a person who wants to learn to knit. This person might ask someone to teach them or join a knitting group, thus seeking to belong in order to acquire the skill. Through belonging, the person learns to behave like a knitter- buying yarn, patterns, starting projects and leaving them around, and knitting. Through belonging and behaving, the person eventually becomes to believe things about knitting and knitters- about focus, skill, planning, generosity, or artistic ability. Belong, behave, believe...

Bass says, "Relationships lead to craft, which leads to experiential belief. That is the path to becoming and being someone different. The path of transformation."(201)

For a long time, people have approached being a follower of Jesus, the Way of discipleship, in the other order... with believing first, then behaving, and, after those were correct, then one could "belong". That order makes people wary of church, wary of Christians, and wary of the God who is supposedly represented by these two groups.

When we flip the order, as a community of faith and as individuals, we offer the welcome that reveals the truths that saves, the truth that welcomes, the truth that Nicodemus sought, under the cover of night. Belonging gives a sense of safety that leads to behaviors that reflect Christ's love- the love that defined his life, death, and resurrection. The ability to be part of sharing and receiving that love and welcome builds to believing, trusting in things that are beyond our full comprehension and yet we perceive that they are true.

There is a program called "Everyone Teach Two", which involves people who know how to knit or crochet teaching two other people in their life how to do it. Teaching involves inviting the person over, having a meal, talking, having a small project started, showing stitches, and praise. What if our sense of evangelism was directed in the same way? The invitation, the welcome, the hospitality, the tolerance for questions, for mistakes, for laughter and conversation- and through belonging and behaving would come belief.

In June, I'll have been crocheting for four years. In August, it will be 30 years since my baptism. I am neither the best crocheter or the best follower of Jesus, but I feel secure in belonging in both categories. I can teach two. I belong, I behave, I believe. I believe there is enough yarn to go around and that there is even more of God's love.

Childlike Vs. Childish

Last night, I was asked an excellent question. We read and meditated on this passage from Paul’s writing:

For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:9-12

Someone asked, “Why does that passage talk about children like that if Jesus said we have faith like a child?”

People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it.  But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” Luke 18:15-17 

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. Matthew 18:1-5

Great question! Why do we have a passage from the apostle Paul that seems to specifically contradict a teaching that we have from Jesus?

The first thing to remember is that Paul did not have written gospels to read, as far as we know. He taught from his memorization of what was handed down to him and from the leading of the Holy Spirit. The gospels are written accounts that are crafted, by inspiration, with literary skills like foreshadowing, plot, and theme.

Paul has his own rhetorical flourishes and themes. Where these things seem to contradict one another, we must always follow the guiding of Jesus. However, it is worth a closer look to see if a contradiction is truly present.

When Jesus speaks to his disciples regarding children and faith, it is important to remember that he commends a child-like faith, but not a childish faith. In this time period, children were blessings, but also non-entities. Families had many children in hopes that some would live and would be useful to the family business or farm. One hoped for the dowries that might come with daughters-in-law and worried about the dowries to provide for one’s own daughters. Children were not only not heard, but also barely seen.

Yet, outside of the legal realities, children were certainly valued. God describes the Divine nature as being like one who lifts an infant to the cheek (Hosea 11:4). And in Luke 11, Jesus acknowledges that parents want good things for their children. So, we can ascertain that children in a healthy family system were loved. Children in this circumstance have an awareness of their value. They ask questions, play without fear, and freely give and receive affection.

This is the childlike faith that Jesus holds out as an example to the disciples. In the gospels, people and created beings who are in the margins, which included children, perceive who Jesus is as the Christ. They do not fear him in this role, but are drawn to him. As the One who contains the Eternal Word that is Love, Jesus could certainly see and sense the fear, guilt, shame, and worry of adults. He saw them with love and commended them to a faith of healthy security, trust, and openness- like that of the children who sought out their Savior.

Paul, instead, is writing to the Corinthians who have habits that exemplify childish behavior. They do not share. They engage in grouping up and keeping some people out of the group. They make bad choices and defy others to correct them. They tell Paul, “You are not the boss of us.”

Paul’s great argument toward the behavior that comes with love- being loved and showing love- is a direct hit against childishness and a push toward childlike faith. Be adults, he is arguing. Stop with petty jealousies and score keeping. Don’t show off. Don’t be rude. Stop pretending you have a secret club in Jesus’ name- that’s offensive. God is the boss of you and God sees what you’re doing. And God knows you can do better!

Paul is exactly speaking against the kind of childish behavior for which loving parents correct their children, so that they will learn to leave those things behind. Regrettably, as with the Corinthians, many of us do not leave that behavior behind and adopt a more adult way of reasoning and showing love to our neighbors. However, God was not done with the church at Corinth, which is why Paul kept writing them, and God is not done with us. The Spirit still moves.

So, when we compare these two passages, it is a difference between embracing a childlike faith and rejecting childishness in faith (and faith community). This was an excellent question and an excellent thing for us to work toward on our way to Easter resurrection celebration.