Faith, Grace, and Hope

Isaiah 45:1–7; Psalm 96:1–9; 1 Thessalonians 1:1–10; Matthew 22:15–22 Once upon a time, there were two groups of people. Both held a lot of power, and they struggled against each other constantly. People grew tired of hearing them complain about one another because it seemed nothing ever changed. One group was fiercely protective of their home territory—very interested in national security, if you will. They were deeply concerned with both the private and public lives of the people around them. This group was considered devoutly religious, though their strict focus sometimes kept them from seeing the forest for the trees. The second group was known for aligning themselves with foreign powers. Their idea of peace came through surrendering authority to leaders far away. They were major proponents of heavy taxation. Even though they weren’t typically viewed as religious, they developed a sudden interest in religious leaders and theological issues whenever it became politically expedient. ...

Synod Sermon – Pentecost 19, Lectionary 27, Year A Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:7-15; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46 D ear Friends in Christ, Grace and peace to you on this celebration of the Lord’s Day. I thank God for you and for all the Spirit is doing in and through you. Remember, beloveds, that the work of God is not only what   we   can name with our traditional spiritual frameworks, but also the gifts of the seasons, life-giving weather patterns, and the wonder of wild things. In the shifting sounds of autumn, I would like you to take a moment to reflect on the idea of walk-up music. Almost always, walk-up music is associated with baseball. It is the snippet of a song that comes over the loudspeaker as a player approaches the batter’s box. The music is both for the player and the fans. It hypes up the player and lets the crowd join in on the excitement of who is up next. Walk-up music makes an appearance in other arenas. Some large public-speaking events have adapted t...

In June of 1939, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He had visited and studied there in the 1930–1931 school year and was returning as a potential lecturer. In the years between those visits, Bonhoeffer had been a founding member of what was called the Confessing Church, a movement of committed Christians—clergy and laity—who were resisting the state church’s alignment with the government of the Third Reich. Bonhoeffer had been offered several opportunities to leave Germany to teach and preach elsewhere in safety. When he came to the United States in 1939, he was doing so for his safety and to escape conscription into the German army. He was in the U.S. for two weeks before he realized he’d made a mistake. He wrote to his friend and fellow theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, these words: I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America this time. I must live through this difficult period in our national h...

This might be a post about ranch dressing. Or maybe not.   Last September, I was so sick. I felt awful and not being well kept going on and on. I tried to hide it as best as I could, even downplaying the situation when I told people that I wasn’t well or when I had to step back from a responsibility.  It wasn’t that I don’t know how to stop. It was that stopping meant time to consider how bad things were. I didn’t want to.  Eventually, after not quite two months, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. There were many medical tests and a lot of contradictory advice that finally led to the diagnosis. By the time I was diagnosed, I felt weak, sick, and confused. An autoimmune disorder was better than what we had thought might be happening, but learning the shape of my new life seemed like a climbing a mountain shrouded in fog. I could keep climbing, but I had no idea what would come next.  I had been in a place before where I thought I might choose to walk down a path and...

What’s the next step when you pull up to a gas pump?  What are the steps to making pasta?  What order do you put your clothes on (provided you’re not Superman)?  What happens at a stop sign?  For most of us, the way we do these things is ingrained in us. We’ve done them so many times, we probably don’t think about them anymore.  There are other situations that occur less frequently for which we need to memorize what to do.  What are the signs of a heart attack in a man? In a woman?  What are the signs of a stroke?  What to do if a rancher says the hospital might be necessary?  We CAN learn what to do in each of these situations and we should. You should know what your first, second, and third steps will be. There are fridge magnets, flyers, and all kinds of internet guidance for these situations.  Do you know what your next steps are if someone tells you that they don’t want to be alive anymore? Do you have a plan for if a friend says, “...

In general, other than at a funeral close to the time of death, I do not say prayers for people who are already dead. I pray for the grieving, for those who continue to mourn, for those with unspoken pain, for the currently dying, for caregivers, for those with vocations surrounding the realities of death, for those tending to the many tasks that come with death. All of that, yes, but almost never directly for people who are long dead.   That changed this summer as I visited cemeteries, happened upon graveyards, viewed countless war memorials, paid my respects where markers had worn away, and stood in places where blood watered fields.  I went to the cemetery that holds the mass graves and some individual plots for the victims of the  Lusitania  disaster. I wept at markers for the dead of the Great War (WW1) and the Second World War and stood quietly at markers for the lost in individual battles.  My son and I read through names on a memorial marker to the ensla...