The Constancy of Christ

 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. - Hebrews 13:8

In every conversation about societal change, people who seek wisdom from the Bible turn to this phrase. Maybe not every person, but these words show up in each argument. 

Once this phrase appears, the person using it has shut down. They’re no longer open to holy imagination, reason, or even (eyeroll) the devil’s advocate. They’re done. 

Bear in mind, please, that people used these words to justify the chattel slave trade, the subjugation of women, the forcible removal and attempted extermination of Native peoples, the right to “subdue” the land without thought for renewal or regeneration. 

The sameness of Christ has been invoked to support antisemitism, racism, LGBTQ+ shaming and harm, marginalization of those with mental illness, harm to neurodivergent folks, people who are divorced, people with physical illnesses, and the list goes on and on. 

There is no one reading this who hasn’t been harmed by these arguments, directly or indirectly. 

If the constancy of the nature of the Divine, especially in Jesus Christ, is thrown down to show that Jesus dislikes the behavior that I dislike, I might as well allot time in my week to polish the golden calf I’ve made of my own understanding, my own comfort, and my own expectations. 

If Jesus hates who I hate and loves who I love… then the message of Jesus is not good news for me or anyone else. 

Since our faith tradition firmly asserts the mercy of God in Christ as gospel (good news) for all people, then the living out of that faith means examining what we’ve been taught and how I show up in the world. Are our words and deeds showing forth Christ’s love and grace, inclusion and hope, mercy and justice? 

“But Jesus would never want people to continue in sin.” This is true. It is also true, however, that the only sinner I am able to correct is myself. Herein lies the consolation of the constancy of Christ. I am going to sin through things done and left undone, what is said and left unsaid. The sameness of Christ from day to day means the consistent truth of forgiveness, guidance, and connection to the Creator. My sins do not create a chasm of varying depth and breadth, depending on how much I am forgiven and claimed. Jesus’ consistent and gracious presence eliminates those things and, by His example, leads me to better behavior. 

If or when we use the verse, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” as a way to shut down conversation, then the words are no longer good news. They have become a weapon we are using to shape the world the way we want it. This way leads to death- death of the conversation, death of relationships, death of community, death of the hope of God’s will being done on earth as in heaven through our hands, feet, mouths, and ears. 

When we invoke the constancy of Jesus, God’s son, to say, “This is how it is”, we are no better than the folks in the parable who sit themselves right down next to the host, at the top of the table, in the place of honor. (Luke 14) Jesus warns that kind of thinking will lead to shame when a person is asked to move on down to a less prominent seat. It can happen to me, to you, to any of us. 

The humility that is needed in our time, the humbleness of heart that can end bullying, division, all the “isms”, and the taking of God’s name in vain by asserting zeal God would not own… that softness of heart comes in considering the constancy and consistency of Christ to be a comfort and tool for hope, not a weapon or a punctuation mark on an argument. 

 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. This is not an invitation for us to harden our hearts or close our minds. It is meant to be the everlasting arms that surround and guide us into new growth, new understanding, and new life every day. For the gospel to be good news for us, it has to be good news for everyone. And the constancy of Christ is definitely good news in a world desperate for it. Let us bear it in truth with soft hearts, open minds, and deep faith. 

 

Amen. 

Wanting to Justify Himself (Sermon)

Luke 10:25-40

Over the course of my life, I have watched the focus of today’s gospel story shift. As a child, I received the most common interpretation- that the goal of our life as followers of Jesus was to be like the merciful Samaritan. We are called and equipped to stop and help. How could we do any less, given that our Savior stopped and helped us? 

Good Samaritan laws and a variety of organizations are named after this interpretation. Looked at from this view, the story draws us all toward opportunities of mercy and generosity. Those are certainly two things the world could use more of- mercy and generosity. They can come from unexpected sources but should certainly come from people who claim to be following Jesus. 

 

Then came the reflections on why the priest and the Levite did not stop. I have read and listened to countless explanations of why these two people rushed past a man in need. Sometimes the reasons seem to make sense; sometimes they are difficult to understand in light of human suffering. Looking at this story from the angle of the folks who did not stop is a reminder that we always have reasons for not stopping that make sense to us. Whether those reasons are acceptable to God is a different story.

 

There are other potential ways of looking at the story. One such inflection point is considering from whom we would accept help. Are we open to anyone who might help us or are we only willing to accept help from certain people in certain circumstances?

 

Currently, many people are thinking about the narrative from the perspective of the innkeeper. Through interpretation, he can help think about the people who take on the task of on-going care after a crisis. He is a person who takes on the long-term work after the disaster- tasked with rebuilding, trauma relief, and rehabilitation. This is actually an important role on which to reflect as we often forget the toll of cleaning up and starting over after a catastrophe. 

 

Additionally, many people, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., have pointed out that a major aspect of the story is the need to make the Jericho Road safer. Should we take it as given that a dangerous road must remain dangerous? Should we accept it as inevitable that some people will be harmed? The story lifts up the ones who show mercy in a bad situation, but perhaps part of the response is also to make a bad situation stop by creating different and more optimal conditions. 

 

All of these are valid and important ways of considering this familiar story. I’d like to draw back, to zoom out a little and consider the framework of the story. Jesus tells this parable, a story with an indirect point, in the context of being questioned by an expert in legal interpretation. In the scene, it’s not totally clear where Jesus is, but he is in a place where people can ask him questions. This doesn’t seem to be a trap, but a question from a man who both wants to impress Jesus and to be sure he is exactly following the letter of the expectations that will keep him in good relationship with God. 

 

The key phrase that draws my attention is this, “wanting to vindicate himself”. Sometimes we hear, “wanting to justify himself”. One Bible paraphrase says the man was “looking for a loophole”. No matter how you look at it, though, the man isn’t looking for a way to generously interpret how to live in relationship with God and others. He’s looking for the narrow interpretation that would mean he’s done exactly what was required and nothing more. 

 

After all, why ask “who is my neighbor” unless I want to clarify who is NOT my neighbor? When I drive up the Boulder, which license plate numbers or locations should I stop to help if they’re pulled over? That’s only necessary if I assume there are some people I should not stop to help. Wanting to be right in front of Jesus, the man with the question assumes that there are people Jesus would expect him not to help? He believes there are children of God who do not have to be loved as he loves himself. 

 

While we might speak of him derisively, we do exactly the same thing all the time. The hamster wheel of self-justification is always turning in all of us. Even more than the priest and the Levite who hurried past, our reasons for ignoring pain, suffering, trauma, human need, or historical issues that contribute to modern problems fall more into the category of “wanting to justify ourselves”. Our desire to be right in our own eyes steals God's intended peace from us and from others.

 

Repair of the Jericho Road would cost too much and take money from other problems. 

The man should have known better than to be on that road. And what was he wearing when he was attacked? 

The Samaritan probably wasn’t going to come back and cover the bill, so it was left to the innkeeper. Samaritans always take advantage. 

 

“Wanting to justify himself…” 

 

Some of the most common phrases I hear regarding Bible interpretation go like this: 

• Well, the early church life happened a long time ago and things are different now. 
• Jesus didn’t tell us exactly how to respond to this thing or that thing, so we’re doing the best we can. 
• I can always ask for forgiveness if it turns out badly. 

 

Every single one of those statements is an attempt to justify oneself, to make oneself right before God by the letter of discipleship, but not the spirit. If we want to get off the hamster wheel of self-justification, if we want to stop scrambling and be still and know the presence of God, the grace of God, the peace of God, then we have to believe Jesus meant exactly what he said. 

 

A neighbor is one who shows mercy… go and do likewise. 

A neighbor is one who shows mercy… 

 

What is mercy? Mercy is the compassion one shows when one has the power and opportunity to cause harm. Mercy is not the absence of justice or a casual forgiveness or ignoring the law. To be merciful is to seize the chance to exhibit kindness and generosity instead creating unnecessary pain. 

 

When we look at situations around us, whether close at hand, nationally, or internationally, and we begin to make noises about why mercy “won’t work”, we have begun to spin on the wheel of self-justification, self-vindication, self-righteousness. 

 

All that will do is keep us all turning and turning, but never moving forward, never seeing the will of God accomplished through us, never seeing our neighbors as fellow children of God, never realizing that they could see us that way as well. 

 

We are people who sing about amazing grace. We are people who know that God so loves. We are people who believe in the inclusive fire and power of the Holy Spirit. We are people who have been marked by the cross of Christ and given instruction on what it means to follow him. 

 

As long as I stay in the looping dizziness of self-justification, I cannot experience the joy and the hope of any of that. But, with the help of the Spirit, if I lean and trust on the everlasting arms of Christ’s mercy, I can stop trying to justify myself. We can stop trying to vindicate ourselves. We can do what we know Christ has called and equipped us to do. We can be who our baptisms have equipped us to be. 

 

We can be neighbors. We can show mercy. We can love and be loved. We can, indeed, go and do likewise. 

 

Amen. 

 

 

Some thoughts on rewriting a sermon on Saturday night because of current events

 Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:19-28; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-3

 

Goodbye well-crafted words based on the Galatians text of the day. Reflections on unity in the early church, of social sacrifice, and mutual care across social and racial lines will have to wait for another day. Another time, God willing, we will return to Paul’s words regarding the disciplined Divine love in the law and the matching compassionate grace to be found in Christ, the inheritance of the descendants of Abraham, the children of God.

 

Farewell to thoughts on Isaiah- musings on people who sought power in the wrong ways and worshipped their own understanding, rather than the mystery and awesomeness of God. Delete, delete, delete over sentences regarding what it might mean for a people to follow their own certainties to such an extent that they miss the providence and guidance of God right before them. The prophet speaks of God’s impatience, but the people do not see it and we will not spend time with that truth today. 

 

The laments of Psalm 22 are not ours for discussion at this service. A man feeling forsaken, a people who feel unheard, any understanding that dominion belongs to the Lord…. Those words are all sermons in themselves, if we pray with humility to hear them.

 

Erased too are the thoughts on the suffering of a man who suffered the effects of a mob of demons. The pain of isolation, of mental and physical torment, the grief of feeling out of control. No time today to discuss both the real spiritual, physical, and psychological aspects of being ill- and how we should consider all of those as equally important. 

Here I am deleting the Flannery O’Conner quote, “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” Contemplation on why the folks asked Jesus to leave town after such a powerful healing. The restoration of a man to wholeness cost at least some of them their livelihoods in the form of the pigs. They had to consider how to relate to the healed man in a new way. It was too much, too fast and change is painful. And grace both requires and facilitates change.

 

In light of the bombs dropped on Iran, based on what I know on Saturday night, looking at my computer at 10 pm and knowing the outline I memorized will not be the words I deliver, this is what I believe we must consider today. 

 

We must think about this in the light of being followers of Christ- people called and equipped to give glory to God in word and deed, to imitate Christ, and to share his love. 

 

It is easy to listen to this story from Luke and to think its first hearers would have kind of been glad about the death of a herd of pigs. They didn’t eat pork. Why should they care? 

 

It is easy to listen to this story and to think about Acts and the early church learning about the wideness in God’s mercy and considering what it truly means not to call something or someone whom God has made unclean. 

 

But the pigs aren’t just dead pigs. They don’t just represent lost livelihood. The pigs are the collateral damage of evil. 

 

The demons did not wish to be cast into the abyss- a permanent destruction that the first century hearers of the story would have recognized as the end location of conquered evil spiritual forces. 

 

The demons beg to be sent into another host; they want to live. Evil does not go quietly into the night. It fights and fights and it takes down everything it possibly can on its way. Spiritual evil. The powers and principalities of this world that oppose the Divine will. The evil of human brokenness in sin. 

 

Jesus knows the consequences of letting evil have its way, but he permits the demons to enter the pigs. And the pigs respond by rushing down the steep bank and drowning, which effectively sends the demons into the abyss, permanently, anyway. Evil is destructive and, ultimately, self-destructive. It will not win, and it doesn’t actually care who or what it takes down on the way to the abyss. 

 

It is far too reductive, too simplistic, to read today’s story and say, “Sometimes some pigs have to die for someone to be free.” That is never the conclusion of the gospel. 

 

Jesus came upon a scene of despair, pain, and torment, which had occurred through years of evil at work in the form of the demons and complicity with evil in the form of how the man had been treated through isolation, force, and domination. It was not inevitable that the pigs had to die. There is more than one way to combat and reject evil. 

 

Almost everyone in this room has a different idea of what exactly is evil in our present circumstances in the world. And we could fight about that all day. Our call, however, is not for arguing about evil, but living together for the good will of a gracious God. And that is why this sermon had to be rewritten on Saturday night. 

 

Followers of Christ do not accept that evil is inevitable. We renounce it. 

Followers of Christ do not accept that isolation, force, and domination make for safety. We renounce it. 

Followers of Christ do not accept that sometimes the pigs just have to die. We renounce it. 

 

In this world, in a time in need of hope and peace, followers of Christ are called to believe, attest to, and live out the only thing we truly believe is inevitable- the grace of God. And that’s the sermon. 

 

 

 

Prayer of the Day: O Lord God, we bring before you the cries of a sorrowing world. In your mercy set us free from the chains that bind us, and defend us from everything that is evil, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

 

 

 

 

The Politics of Good News

Transfiguration Sunday: Year C: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2; Luke 9:28-36 

 

"Keep the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other." 
- Karl Barth, German theologian (1886-1968)

It has never escaped my attention that people do not like sermons that they perceive to be political. Furthermore, many people come to church, hoping for a break from the endless news cycle and its doom, gloom, and overwhelming encroachment on peace of mind and heart. Desperate for good news, when these people come to church, they implore the pastor to stay away from politics or news, just preach the gospel. 

What is that gospel, exactly? Does this mean a desire to hear the story of Jesus welcoming the children over and over, with no assessment as to why the disciples tried to keep the children away or how children were treated in that society? Does it mean to only proclaim the stories of healing and ignore how the sick were marginalized and shut out from the benefits of the society at the time? Does it mean to embrace historical treatment or explanations about Jews or Romans, but never lift up God's covenants with the former or the pressures of empire on the latter? 

I am never fully sure what to think when I am told to stay away from political topics, particularly when I serve a very mixed congregation politically. I'm especially unclear on how to do it when it seems antithetical to the text in front of me. Most Biblical passages seem to me to be very political, very concerned with how people live their lives and their freedom to do so. 

When I know that people do not want political sermons, I do not know what to do with the words in today's texts that refer to Elijah and Moses speaking to Jesus about his "exodus". Our English versions say "his departure", but the word "exodus" is more than clear in the Greek. For Luke's community, use of the term 'exodus' would have brought up more than just the memory or the story of Moses leading the Israelites to freedom. 

The exodus story features a despotic ruler, a hardened heart, blood and the loss of children, fear and destruction. In order to move toward freedom, Moses and the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, must be willing to acknowledge that being free means the opposite of all that surrounds them and shapes their daily lives. When Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem, his focus isn't specifically or merely on his death, he is focused on the truth of his mission- the freedom that comes from understanding and being in relationship with the God of freedom, the God of released captives, the God of truth-telling and redemption. 

To appreciate the fullness of the Incarnation, Christ's presence in the world, we must consider what use of the term 'exodus' means here in Luke. We must recognize that Jesus, as the enfleshed person of the Trinity at this point in time, God with skinon, pursued justice throughout his life, not just in being willing to die. Exodus does not happen just when the Israelites step out of the Red Sea or, for us, once the tomb is empty, God works to bring hope, healing, and freedom before the human story is even on the page. That truth is political, and I cannot ignore it. 

In seeking an apolitical sermon, I must turn away from Paul's circumstances. I must try to consider him writing words in vacuum to people whose sins, whose straying, is simply a matter of their as-yet-unturned hearts. I must pretend that there is no pressure on them to yield to the expectations of the Roman empire, no financial threat to them if they fail to worship the emperor, no existential threat to their lives as the occupying force of the Roman garrison parades in the streets. 

To strip Paul's writing of political implication, I must set aside that his words have been willfully misinterpreted to harm Jewish people, women, racial minorities, and others throughout history, even into the present. I must water down his intense rhetoric to platitudes. "Since it is by God's mercy we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart." That sounds nice. And it's much less challenging that the pressure to act with boldness, to remove veils from our faces, to renounce the shameful things that are in opposition to God's will- both in our own hearts and in the world. Being willing to do that means having prayerful conversations about these shameful things and each of us feeling the Spirit's conviction about things we've said and believed. 

Lastly, if I am to pretend that there are no politics in scripture, I must simply describe Moses's dramatic and terrifying appearance on the mountain with no other commentary. I will not say anything about the reception of the 10 commandments. I will pretend that we all know what it means to turn away from murder- in word and deed, as well as what it means not to adulterate relationships- platonic or romantic. Honoring the sabbath is obviously a clear commandment in a 24-hour world and bearing false witness is only applicable in court as opposed to a reality for our everyday speech in how we speak well (or don't) about others. In case my tone was too subtle, all of that was tongue-in-cheek. 

The commandments, their interpretation, their use, or disuse is all political speech- having to do with our relationship with God and with others, every minute of every day. They cannot be stripped of their intent for God's justice and God's will to be done. 

Here we stand, on Transfiguration Sunday, about to enter Lent. We are on a mountain peak with Jesus and, while we can see the empty cross from here, we are called and compelled by the Holy Spirit to proceed into a season of reflection, contemplation, and repentance. 

The best thought I can give you in this season is a verse from a Christmas carol: 

Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by

Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

 

It is only by acknowledging political realities, personal griefs, and painful truths that we can fully appreciate what it meant and what it means for the "hopes and fears of all the years" to have been gathered and confronted in Bethlehem on that night. Those hopes and fears do not wait for the cross or the tomb, they are present and being confronted from the moment Gabriel speaks to Mary, from the moment Joseph lays Jesus on Mary's breast, from the moment the shepherds are shocked out of their wits. 

 

The hopes and fears of all the years are confronted when the dove descends at Christ's baptism, at the first exorcism, at the first raising of the dead, at the first healing, when the first bite of bread and fish passes the lips of the first person on that hillside among the thousands of other people. And every single one of these acts was political- concerned with the well-being of people, concerned with the well-being of God's people, the well-being of all people. 

 

Our faith, our trust in God, our daily responsive living to the grace which we have received cannot be untangled from politics, from the political realities of our day, from our prayer that God's "will be done on earth as in heaven." Each time we say those words, we are asking God to give us the will, strength, and courage to be part of the accomplishing of that will. We are acknowledging the hopes and fears of all the years and asking that God, who already knows them, continue to meet them in every street, in every home, in every field, on every mountain. 

 

Let it be our hearts and minds which are transfigured today. Let it be our spirits which shed fear. Let it be our mouths that utter "Thy will be done" and mean it for every corner of our lives. 

 

And let it be our lives, transformed by the grace which has met all our hopes and fears... let it be our lives, which are full of words and deeds that compel others to give glory to God and to seek the Divine will of love - in the mundane and in the political. 

 

Amen. 

 

In the End, We are Loved

         When you think of John the Baptizer, what do you consider? His strange diet of bugs and honey? His wardrobe choice of camel’s hair? The fact that he did not become a priest in the Temple like his father and instead went out to the edge of the civilized world to preach? 

         If I asked you, what is the point of John the Baptizer; why does he exist? Maybe you would say “to point to Jesus”, which isn’t wrong, but is definitely not the whole story. John’s life is more than simply to tell people that his cousin is God’s chosen One. John’s existence has a complex purpose and reason for being, just like each of ours. 

 

         Consider what his father, Zechariah, says in the blessing that we read today as the psalmody (Luke 1:68-79): And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give God’s people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (vv. 76-79)

 

         John’s purpose, besides bringing delight to his parents as a child of their old age, is to tell people that they have received salvation, a restoration of wholeness, through the forgiveness of their sins. The people must know that this compassion is part of God’s nature in order to understand who Jesus is when He comes. 

         

         Did you get that? Zechariah understands a concept of salvation, of reunion with the creator, of wholeness and hope- before Jesus is born. Additionally, it is this message that John will proclaim in the wilderness. He is not saying that the Messiah isn’t necessary. He is pointing to the fact that God is already loving, already forgiving, already compassionate, already merciful, and the coming of the Messiah is the telos of the nature of God, not an anomaly. 

 

         Telos is a fancy church word. The writer Rachel Held Evans describes it best in her latest and last book, Wholehearted Faith. I will read her words to you, rather than reinvent a wheel. Evans says: 

 

“… Scripture reminds us, the end is never quite the end as we typically understand it; it’s only a beginning. One of the biblical words for “end” is telos, This Greek word doesn’t have the air of finality that the English word “end” has. In other words, it’s not a dead end. To the contrary, it’s full of life, because it has a sense of completion and contentment. It carries the satisfaction of doing what you know you’re called to do and the fulfillment of being who you were always meant to be. 

         The telos of an apple tree is to flower and to fruit, producing blossoms and apples and seeds that will propagate the next generation of tree. The telos of a honeybee is to collect pollen and produce honey, working in concert with other honeybees throughout seasons of plenty to store sustenance for seasons of lack. The telos of a surfboard is to help a surfer catch a wave. The telos of bread and wine is to sustain and to nourish, to delight the tastebuds and gratify the body until the next meal comes…

         The telos of a human- your telos, my telos, our telos- is to love lavishly and indiscriminately, as our God has loved us. Love is what we were made to do. But even more than that, love is who we were made to be.” (Evans, Wholehearted Faith. p. 177f) 

 

         This telos, this end which is not an end, matters. When John goes out to the wilderness to preach about the nature of God, he is doing so because the message matters. If he does not proclaim this word, which likely burns in his chest and keeps him awake at night, he knows people will fail to perceive and to understand the One whom God sends.

 

         The very same misunderstanding that John feared still happens today. Christians still tend to believe the God of the Hebrew scripture (Old Testament) is angry, vengeful, and in need of appeasement. No matter how many times we read in the psalms, in the prophets, and in the writings that God is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”. No matter how many messengers proclaim, “Be not afraid”. No matter how many times we read about the Divine Being always keeping promises, covenants, and commitments. Still, still, STILL- people hold wrong ideas about God the Holy Parent and, when they do, they form wrong ideas about Jesus. 

 

         The telos of John the Baptizer was and is to remind people, even the worst people, of the merciful and covenant keeping nature of God who creates and preserves a welcome to all prodigals in all places, at all times. 

 

         He points to a God whose telos is to make all things new, not to make all new things. The incarnation, the coming of Jesus- as God- among us, is one aspect of that telos. 

 

         Which brings us to our own selves, our own vocations, our own telos. As Evans wrote, “The telos of a human- your telos, my telos, our telos- is to love lavishly and indiscriminately, as our God has loved us. Love is what we were made to do. But even more than that, love is who we were made to be.”

 

         How do we be love? How do we live out this miraculous, hopeful, and holy way of being, doing, and resting in this life and into the life of the world to come with the help of the Holy Spirit? 

 

My inclination is to tell you that first we must reject the aspects of our lives that do not conform to God’s love and will. However, even as I think and write that, I realize that it is wrong. 

 

First, we must actually believe that God is love. We must lean into the gift of faith and believe that we have been made in God’s image- all of us and every person we know. We have to believe that God sees us as worthy of love, of compassion, of restoration. 

 

When we dare to believe that this love is true, true for us, true for all people, then we will be open to the repentance that John points to. The turning away from division, the rejection of injustice, the spurning of habits and ways that cause pain and bring death. 

 

          The chief purpose of our lives has never been to make ourselves worthy of the gifts of God. Rather, the chief purpose is to grow in the understanding of those gifts and how God equips and calls us to use them, with the help of the Holy Spirit, for Christ’s sake in the world. Comprehension of our telos comes through leaning on the everlasting arms and knowing that we did not earn our place there but have been gifted it through Christ’s faithfulness. 

 

         In this season of Advent waiting and preparation, in thinking about the celebration of Christ and the promise of Christ’s return, I invite you to consider your own telos, the fullness for why you have been created. It is not merely for your parents, your children, or even your neighbors. There’s a reality for why you specifically have been made, a special way that you specifically can glorify God and imitate Christ, a specific way that you are called to live and show love among God’s faithful people and in the world. 

 

         We have been called to love because we have first been loved. We were created from love, and, in the end, we return to the source of love. This is not a new thing since Jesus’ birth, but the reality of who and how God- Creator, Word, and Spirit- has always been. Love made us, made all things. And it is our telos to love with our whole being- in all we do and say- every moment of our lives. 

 

         This is not impossible. It is very possible and even probable, if we are willing to believe the truth about the nature of God. The truth that has always existed. The truth that we heard from our brother, John. 

 

Amen. 

10 Things to Know about Advent

 

 10. Advent is Latin for “come in” and the practice of observing Advent prior to Christmas goes back before the Middle Ages. For these many centuries, Advent was a penitential season, like a slightly shorter Lent. Christians were encouraged to fast, give to the poor, and devote themselves to other outward and inward signs of faith as part of the work of getting ready for the advent of Christ, for Jesus to “come in.” We as Lutherans no longer observe Advent as a season of repentance, but as one of joyful anticipation in the fulfillment of God’s promises. Each candle we light, hymn we sing, and prayer we utter is part of how we join in the Spirit’s preparation for what is to come.  

 

9. By the 1600s, northern hemisphere Christians adopted the practices of their non-Christian (usually pagan) neighbors, using rings of candles to mark the passing of the dark season associated with northern winters. We know that versions of these candle rings were being used in connection to the Advent season in the 1600s, especially in Germany. By the early 1800s, Advent wreaths that would look more familiar to us were in use in Europe as a teaching tool to help children mark time until Christmas. Such wreaths didn’t come into widespread use in the United States until the late 1800s and early 1900s. 

 

8. Since official church use of the Advent wreath is much newer than use of it in the home, “official” prayers and liturgies for lighting the candles in the congregation are still being developed, written, and adjusted. The most common themes for the four Sundays of Advent are “hope”, “peace”, “joy”, and “love”. Blue candles and blue church decorations are used for Advent in most Protestant and some Catholic traditions because of the connection between blue and hope. The Roman Catholic Church still officially uses purple for Advent, but both some Protestant and Catholic traditions use a pink candle for the third Sunday in Advent to go with the theme of joy. 

 

7. There are alternate themes to go with the candles. For example, the candles are sometimes lit to represent prophets, Bethlehem, shepherds, and angels. These connect to the other themes with the idea that the prophets had hope, Bethlehem (the City of David) had faith, the shepherds had joy, and the angels proclaim peace. Please note that it is difficult to use the word “traditional” around Advent themes when most of them are less than 150 years old. 

 

6. Speaking of traditional, the singular, oldest tradition we have around this church season is the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”. This hymn was composed for use during vespers- evening prayer- services sometime prior to the 8^th century, The earliest printing we know of was in the 1200s. The verses, in Latin, spell out a reminder of Christ’s coming. They also lift some of the many biblical names and promises attached to Jesus’ birth as God coming among us. The tune is meant to sound both mournful and rejoicing, underscoring the themes of the season- both joyful anticipation and heavy longing. 

 

5. We often assume heavy longing is necessary because of the idea that Advent is an eschatological season. Eschatology is a fancy church word that means study or focus on the final things. In our day, right now, people use the word eschatological when they are talking about the last days and what will happen at the end of all things. However, that has not always been the case in Christianity. The development and use of the word, eschatological, in English only goes back to about 1850. Does this mean that people weren’t worried about what comes next before 1850? No, but it means they weren’t spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on pamphlets, books, movies, and television ads that promised to tell them exactly when and how things would end. They focused on their own families, their communities, and the faith that God had everything else under control. It wasn’t fatalistic way to live, but a trusting one with a deep, abiding consolation that God had kept promises before and would again. 

 

4. That kind of faith brings us to the other way to use the term, eschatology. In Christian mysticism, eschatology is a metaphor for the end of ordinary reality and a reunion with the divine. This means that readings and hymns about destruction and the end of the world as we know it are meant to help us dig deep, become more attuned to the Spirit, and find within ourselves and all around us a greater awareness of the presence of Divine love. I realize for super concrete-thinking Norwegians, practical Germans, and please make it plain Montanans of all descents, that sounds a little woo-woo and maybe like something you can pretend you didn’t hear in this sermon. (*Please hold while I look you all in the eye with my patented “Pastor Julia stare”.) 

 

There is a very real aspect to faithful living that is beyond our full explanation, but not beyond our comprehension. You’ve all felt it when outdoors, in a quiet moment of thought while moving a herd or a flock, or in a meditative moment doing dishes, sewing, gathering wood, or cleaning animals for the freezer. You know what it means to have an awareness both of yourself in a moment and of that particular moment’s connection to something larger, something more, something that both is the source of everything and welcomes all things home. That is the essence of real Advent eschatology- those moments that pause the ordinary reality (with its unnecessary hustle and bustle) and causes us to be connected to the very ground and source of our being. 

 

3. It is that particular moment and experience that pastors, teachers, musicians, and choir directors are striving for when they hold back on the Christmas music and keep Advent in place for all four weeks. The Advent hymns are not focused on getting ready to celebrate a baby; they are focused on Christ’s return, the fulfillment of God’s promises, and the hope we all hold for the time when all things are made new. Listen again, God has not promised to make all new things, but to heal, renew, restore, and resurrect- making all things new. This truth is the focus of Advent. This truth matters and it cannot, should not, and will not be rushed, not matter what the world tries to press upon us. 

 

2. If we rush, we will get the wrong idea about God. If we rush, we will miss the moments to perceive and understand the nature of the Holy to whom the psalmist prays, “Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all the day long. Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting.” (Ps. 25:4-6). 

 

If we rush, we will miss already with us glories of the one of whom Jeremiah proclaims, “⁶In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” (Jer 33:16) 

 

If we push past Advent and all it brings, we will misunderstand the One whom Paul says can, “make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.” (1 Thess. 3:12) 

 

If we rush, we will forget the word of Jesus, word that tells us there are always going to be disasters in the world around us, yet our redemption, the kingdom of God, our own peace is near. (Luke 21:25-36) 

 

1. The number 1 thing to remember about Advent is that it exists for a reason. It has its own lessons to teach us besides waiting for Christmas. Advent has lessons about waiting with joy, about saying yes to what sounds impossible, about remaining strong in faith, about doing what’s right even when afraid, and about the ultimate truth that God is love. If we listen carefully, openly, and with mystical eschatological hope to the lessons of Advent, we will not come to the idea that we are sinners in the hands of an angry God. 

 

If we listen carefully to the lessons of Advent, then we will arrive at the manger with great hope, peace, and joy, looking down into the straw, and understanding all over again, “God so loved. God so loved. God so loves.” 

 

Amen. 

 

 

 

 

In the Time to Come

Luke 20:27-38 Common English Bible (CEB)

Some Sadducees, who deny that there’s a resurrection, came to Jesus and asked,  “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a widow but no children, the brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers. The first man married a woman and then died childless.  The second  and then the third brother married her. Eventually all seven married her, and they all died without leaving any children. Finally, the woman died too.  In the resurrection, whose wife will she be? All seven were married to her.”

Jesus said to them, “People who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage.  But those who are considered worthy to participate in that age, that is, in the age of the resurrection from the dead, won’t marry nor will they be given in marriage.  They can no longer die, because they are like angels and are God’s children since they share in the resurrection.  Even Moses demonstrated that the dead are raised—in the passage about the burning bush, when he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  He isn’t the God of the dead but of the living. To him they are all alive.”

The first thing that comes to mind when I read this passage is the phrase, "Be careful that you're not so obsessed with heaven that you become no earthly good."

The first significant point to understand here is that the Sadducees, as a religious group, valued the Torah or the five books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy) as the only valid scriptural resources. They rejected the oral tradition, which other Jews embraced, and they also did not count the words of the prophets as having religious authority. Since the Torah itself does not discuss the idea of resurrection or any life beyond this life, the Sadducees rejected that idea as possible.

When people are not willing to consider a new idea, they tend to try to reduce that idea to its most absurd conclusion. There's even a name for this kind of argument: reductio ad absurdum. You have likely seen this kind of thing when you may be having a discussion with someone about a given principle and either one of you makes a a big leap, off a slippery slope, to a conclusion that isn't actually relevant to the conversation. I see this most often in confirmation students, youth group members, and people outside the church who think they are the first person to find a flaw in the argument for the existence of God. Thus, they present me with the question- if God can do anything, can God make a rock that's too big for God to lift? Ninety thousand dollars of theological education means being willing to deal with that question repeatedly for years. 

Thus, the Sadducees are presenting Jesus with a rock question of their own. In the ancient Near East principle of levirate marriage, if a man died without children, his brother was to act as a husband to his widow. The children created in through the brother would be known to carry the name and heritage of the first man. In a life without an understanding of resurrection, having one's name carried forward and remembered by the living was the only way of existing beyond one's death. 

It's important to remember that marriage in this time is not about love, but about property and power. Women belonged to their fathers until they belonged to their husbands until they belonged to their sons or to a very generous son-in-law. The Sadducees are not imagining a woman who has loved seven men deeply or even seven men who have had a deep emotional commitment to the same woman. They are essentially asking, "To whom will this woman belong in the afterlife, if such a thing were true?" 

Jesus' first response is to explain that no one will belong to anyone else in the next life. For those who are inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, their way of being will be redefined according to God's economy of justice and mercy, not in accordance with how things have worked on earth. 

Secondly, Jesus says, when we are alive in and with God in the world to come, we are alive in a way we have always been. When God speaks to Moses through the burning bush, God does not say, "I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." God says, "I am... I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Even though Moses is many, many generations removed from the patriarchs, they are not dead to God, but still alive to the One who made and loves them. Just because we do not understand how this can be so does not make it untrue. What's true is true, regardless of our belief or understanding. 

Those listening to Jesus, especially the Sadducees, would have been familiar with the characters of stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob beyond the patriarchs. The God of the patriarchs is also the God of Sarah, Hagar, Keturah, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah. These women are also alive in God. Given the complexities of some of those relationships, my sanctified imagination sees Jesus raising his eyebrow at the Sadducees, daring them to posit how they believe those relationships would look in their reductio ad absurdum discussion of the afterlife. 

Jesus' main point, then, is that people in this life and people who are in the next are both alive to God. The way we make connections here does not determine the shape of our relationships in the life of the world to come. Being alive in God makes all things new and gives higher, broader, and deeper meaning than we can begin to imagine or comprehend. 

Being alive in God gives specific shape to our life of faith and our life in community now. Jesus is making a subtle attempt to upend the Sadducees' understanding of relationship. What does it do to a woman to be widowed seven times, have no children (and therefore no social capital), and be thought of as property- neither belonging to God nor to herself? What does it do to community to have an expectation that marriage can only look and function in one way? How is keeping God's laws to the letter helpful if it crushes the spirits of those who are alive and beloved to God? 

Jesus sees the Sadducees' questions and raises his own points, silencing their arguments. The scribes tell Jesus that he has spoken well and the Sadducees do not appear again in Luke's gospel account. 

So it is for us as we think of our saints and of heaven. Just because we do not fully understand it does not mean the reality of the life of the world to come is not true. And efforts to explain and clarify heaven take time and energy away from the life of faith we are called to here and now. 

I was recently asked what I think heaven is like and I replied, "I don't. I don't think about heaven. I believe in it, but heaven is not my job. I'm not in charge of getting people in, room assignments, or landscaping. I am charged with faithful living and teaching in this life and repair of the world for Christ's sake in the here and now. Heaven belongs to God and is God's job, not mine." 

How do we go out today- glorifying God, modeling Jesus Christ, and sharing his love? We celebrate that we are alive in God, as are the ones who have gone before us. We take questions seriously, but do not get sucked into ridiculous debates. And we believe and teach what God says is true about welcoming others, being generous, and trusting in grace. Then we will find resurrection truth, not only on Easter Sunday, but on all the days of this life and into the life of the world to come. 

Amen.