salvagedfaith

Do What Is Good

Posted on February 18, 2018Leave a comment

I think in many ways it is a cruel irony that as we begin our Lenten series on heroes that our first pop culture example is the Dark Knight, Batman.
As a young boy, Bruce Wayne was a victim of gun violence.
In a dark alley, his parents were gunned down by a thief in front of his very eyes.
That traumatic moment forever changed the course of his life – setting him on a path to fight crime, battle evil, and protect his city.

Over the past few days, I have watched other young people, teenagers who survived the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, take up their own calling to demand change in a society in which too many lives are taken as a result of gun violence.
I read a story this morning about moms in Keosauqua here in southeast Iowa who rallied together on Thursday to raise the money to install a safety device called a sleeve in every classroom in their small school.
As one mom said, “we’re tired of it. It’s like, OK, nobody’s going to do anything about this: Our government, our state government, our national government. We’re the moms, and these are our kids. What can we do?” (https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/columnists/kyle-munson/2018/02/16/sick-school-shootings-these-iowa-moms-took-action-single-day-make-their-kids-classrooms-safe/344133002/?hootPostID=746aea71a5583aa9b0209e37f4bdbabb)

What can we do?
When evil seems to lurk around every corner…
When the places we thought were safe become sites of terror…
When a sense of hopelessness in the ability to truly witness change starts to seep in…

Sometimes our “what can we do?” is a cry of resignation.

Where are the good guys? Where are the heroes who are going to rise up and make everything better?

And sometimes, it is a reminder that we, too, have been called to act. Our discipleship is lived out in how we answer that question.

Each of the weeks of this Lenten series, we are going to be exploring together ways we often see the world through opposing lenses: good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, insiders vs. outsiders. We divide up this world and place ourselves firmly in one camp or another.
And yet, as we think together about how Jesus comes to redeem and restore this world… how Jesus acts to save us from sin and bring us eternal live, we discover that often Jesus turns our ways of viewing the world upside down.

In fact, when a leader of the community tried to call Jesus “good” in an effort to flatter him, Jesus practically rejected the label. “Why do you call me good?” he asks in Luke chapter 18. “No one is good but God alone.”

In doing so, Jesus reminds that all that is good comes from God.
When our Creator spent six days building and forming and shaping all that we know and see, God looked out and called it good.
That isn’t because of something innate within us.
It is because we are from God.

And so, what is this evil that we promise to resist in our baptismal vows?
What is this force that opposes life and leads so many on paths of destruction?
Matt Rawle defines evil in his book, “What Makes a Hero?” as nothingness. “Evil represents a void…. Evil is a shadow that cannot stand on its own. A shadow by itself is nothing but the absence of light… made manifest when someone or something stands between us and the light of God shining through Christ.” (p. 26)

Evil is the result when we let anyone or anything stand between us and the love and power of God made manifest in this world.
Sometimes what blocks the goodness of God is our own selfishness and sin.
Sometimes it is anger and resentment.
Sometimes it is idolatry – when we take something that is on its own good or neutral in value – but elevate it to a status that blocks our ability to reason or follow God.
I think in many ways, our nation’s obsession with guns has reached the point of idolatry. Guns themselves are not good or bad, they just are… however, our unwillingness to even allow for research to be done as to the causes of such endemic gun violence means that we cannot take the actions we need to in order to curb the tide of this deadly force.

I think about how through training and technology, Bruce Wayne would put on his bat costume and watch over Gotham, but traditionally, Batman never took up a gun himself. Even as he fought night after night against the dark forces, he sought to never use deadly force in bringing justice to his city. He kept himself focused on his purpose and what he was fighting against.

As people of faith, our call is not simply call something good or evil, but to keep our eyes focused on our purpose and the source of what is truly good, God alone.
It is what Christ did as he lived out his ministry among us.
And in many ways, the blueprint for how we should live and follow his example is found in that familiar verse from the prophet Micah.

“He has told you, human one, what is good and what the Lord requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.”
Goodness is therefore the result of a life of justice, mercy, and humility.

First, we are called to do justice.
As Jesus reaches out to teach a lawyer about how to receive eternal life, he tells the parable of the good Samaritan.
The lawyer must learn to recognize even the Samaritan as his brother.
He must do justice by acknowledging that God has created each and every person.
Oppression and violence and hatred must cease.
We must always look out for the outcast, the vulnerable among us.

Second, we must embrace God’s love and practice mercy.
Jesus lived this out through acts of healing and mercy – feeding the hungry, healing the sick.
In every action, he sought to bring life to people by reaching out and touching them.
It is not just reaching out in love, however, to people we know and care about… it is also reaching out to offer kindness and forgiveness even to those who would seek to harm us.
Just as Bruce Wayne refused to take up the weapons that destroyed his family, so Jesus refuses to play the games or fight in the ways of evil.
He forgives those who crucify him.
He doesn’t fight back.
He knows that with God there is another way.

Lastly, we are called to walk humbly with our God.
Jesus showed us what this meant through the cross.
The greatest love, he told us, was to lay down our lives for our friends.
And so as the Christ hymn of Philippians reminds us, even though Christ Jesus was in the form of God, he emptied himself, he was born among us, and he humbled himself even to the point of death in order to serve the will of God. (Philippians 2:5-8)

Today, we are called to a life of goodness. A life of justice, and mercy, and humility.
We are called to lay aside anything that would distract us from God’s life and power in this world.
When evil looms around us and lives are being taken every day by forces that oppose God’s will, I think we are invited this Lent to a time of reflection and repentence.
Where are we complicit?
Where do we need to seek justice?
Where do we need to practice mercy?
Where do we need to humbly bow before our God and lay aside our idols?
May God stir our hearts…

Ashes and Prayers

Posted on February 14, 2018Leave a comment

A colleague, Elizabeth Dilley, shared the story of imposing ashes on the foreheads of children. As she made the sign of the cross on one little boy’s forehead, “From dust you came and to dust you shall return,” his mom bent over and whispered in his ear, “But not for a really long time, okay buddy?”

We have a hard time accepting our mortality. We run from it. We do everything we can to prevent it. We seek to guard and protect our children and ourselves from every danger.

We want to whisper into every ear of every child, “not for a really long time, okay buddy?”

And yet, this world is full of sin and grief and we have allowed anger and violence to be common place.

At a school this afternoon in Florida, seventeen people died when a young man opened fire upon students.

I was overcome with grief at the image of a mother, weeping, the sign of the cross on her forehead, clutching in her arms her teenage daughter.

“Not for a really long time, okay buddy?”

We are nothing but dust.

We are human.

We are sinful.

We cannot solve these problems on our own.

And yet the hope, the promise, the reason we gather on a night like this is to remember that out of the dust of the earth, God made beautiful things.

Where our human limitations and sin threaten to destroy us, God promises to be present and redeem and restore.

When we simply cannot find the way out of the muck and the mire of life, God shines a light.

When the dust of death and the grave loom so large over us, God shows the way through even the valley of the shadow of death to the hope of eternal life.

And God begs us to repent, to believe the gospel, and to allow the power of God to fill our hearts so that we can confront the impossible evils of this world.

We cannot do it alone.

But with God’s help, swords can be beaten into plowshares.

With God’s help, thoughts and prayers can be transformed into deeds and actions.

May it be so.

God is Speaking!

Posted on February 11, 2018Leave a comment

Last Saturday, Brandon and I cuddled up on our gigantic couch in the family room, turned on Netflix, and proceeded to binge watch an entire season of a new show.
There was no waiting to see what would happen next… the episode played automatically.
There were no spoilers, because the series, Altered Carbon, had just come out and there wasn’t any buzz about it yet.
We just curled up, stuffed our faces with popcorn, and had the opportunity to experience the entire wild ride.

That is very different from how we used to watch television.
I can still remember in seminary how obsessed I was with Grey’s Anatomy. On Fridays, a girlfriend and I would meet for coffee and we would recap the previous nights episode. There had been one particularly harrowing cliff-hanger and to spend an entire week waiting to see what would come next felt brutal. We spent most of our time debating whether or not we wanted to go online and glimpse at the spoilers on the fan sites to get a clue as to how the situation might turn out.
In the end, we decided we wouldn’t be able to concentrate on our class work if we didn’t know if the character lived or died… We were invested in the story, in the people… as ridiculous as it sounds, we needed some kind of hope, some glimpse that things were going to be okay. So we sought out every single spoiler alert we could find.

Over these past few weeks, we have ever so briefly followed the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. In reality, we’ve only scratched the surface, living mainly in the first chapter of Mark’s gospel. And already, we’ve encountered God, watched ordinary people become disciples, and have witnessed any number of miracles of healing.
The gospel of Mark moves so quickly from one moment to the next… just like those episodes on Netflix play automatically and keep you engaged for just one more…. In fact – I bet if you went home after worship today and opened your bible you’d find that reading through Mark is a breeze and it would be over before you realized it.
We find out Jesus has the power to not only cast out demons and heal, but to calm the waters and miraculously produce food out of crumbs. Like any great season of television, the energy is building towards triumph and freedom and release over the first eight chapters of Mark’s gospel.

And then we get to chapter 8.
As we reach the very end, Jesus begins to teach the disciples that the path towards victory and life and God’s salvation for all people was a journey through death.
He began to warn them about the suffering and rejection and brutal punishment that awaited.
And it was not an easy message to swallow. Peter even had the audacity to scold Jesus for saying such things.
Yet, this was the path before them.

Imagine, for just a moment, that you are in the very last episode of the season and THIS was the dialogue that was taking place.
You begin to realize that the next part of this story was going to look very different than the first. What was full of joy and celebration and miracles is going to be darker and more dangerous.
You are now invested in this journey, you’ve left everything you have to follow Jesus and now the path looks so different…
How are you going to make it through to the next season?
How are you going to manage the wait and the anxiety and the unknowing?

And so before this part of the story ends, Jesus shares with a few of the disciples a gigantic spoiler alert.
He takes them up the mountain and as they reach the summit, Jesus moves a few paces ahead and then turns around to face them.
And as he does – he changes before their eyes!
His whole body seems to radiate with an inexplicable glory and even his clothes shine brighter than the sun.
Just as the three disciples begin to adjust their eyes to this brilliance they see two figures appear beside their Master… two figures who could only be Moses and Elijah.
As Peter and James and John cower in fear and trembling before this amazing visage – the three figures have a conversation.
Now, if I’m Peter, if I have been learning at the feet of Jesus for a few months, if I have been a part miracles that have taken place, and if I’m led up to the top of a mountain where my teacher suddenly begins to glow and radiate glory… and if I am terrified to face a path of suffering and rejection… then I might grab a hold of this moment and think that THIS was what they had been preparing for.
He interrupts them, offers to build shrines and temples, essentially trying to re-direct the entire journey and turn season two of this story into a show on top of the mountain.

But that is NOT why they are there.
A cloud overshadowed the trio of disciples like a fog rolling in. The glory of Jesus, Moses and Elijah was concealed by the dense cloud and in a rumble of thunderous glory the voice of God spoke to their hearts: This is my Son, This is my Beloved! Listen to him!
Just as quickly as the cloud moved it, it dissipated, and the three bewildered and terrified disciples opened their eyes to find their teacher Jesus, standing before them alone. With hardly a word, apart from telling them not to talk about what they had seen until after the resurrection, Jesus leads them back down the mountain.

I can vividly remember pouring over still images on websites with my friend, trying to guess what was going to happen next in our favorite show based on a few glimpses. We would speculate based on the characters or where they were standing or what else was present in the background and try to make meaning out of the signs so we had something to hold on to.

In many ways, this brief moment on the mountaintop was that kind of spoiler alert, giving the disciples something to hang on to.
The voice of God rang out, shaking them to their very core, and reminded them that God’s power and purpose was present in their teacher, Jesus.
The presence of Moses and Elijah, affirmed that the law and the prophets were being fulfilled in the ministry of the Son of God. Everything they had been taught and believed about the restoration of Israel… of all creation… would come to pass.
And, it was a reminder that even though the next part of this story would look different, they had a glimpse of the light and the glory that would give them hope on dark days.
In Mark’s gospel, Jesus has now set his face towards Jerusalem. They were leaving behind the healing and the teaching and were heading straight towards the seat of power… not to be a force that would overthrow it violently, but through a display of righteous love.
They didn’t quite understand what the resurrection meant… but they saw a glimpse, a spoiler, of the things to come, that they could hold on to when the going got tough.

We were never called to build tents and tabernacles to enshrine these moments forever.
This story is not yet finished.
We have to keep working.
We have to keep seeing what changes need to be made.
We have to keep hearing the voice of God speaking into our lives.
And that means coming down from the mountain, rolling up our sleeves, and getting to work.

After all, that is what Jesus did.
The light of glory revealed on the mountaintop was meant for the world.
And Jesus knew that for that light to dwell within each of us, he was going to have to shine even in the darkest places of the world.
He was going to have to confront evil powers.
He was going to have to withstand betrayal and abuse.
He was going to have to carry his cross and enter the grave of death.
But he did it all so that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God could shine on us.

Unlike the disciples, we know how this next part of the story ends. We’ve seen our way through Jerusalem, through the cross, and have watched countless generations listen to God’s call to let their light shine.
What we sometimes forget is that we can’t stay on the mountaintop either.
This is not simply a story we curl up on our couches to experience.
Our season, our part of this journey is still being written.
And God is still speaking and still calling us to follow Jesus.

So as we enter the season of Lent, we, too, will set our faces towards Jerusalem.
This Wednesday, we will remember our mortality and our own journey through death with a cross of ashes on our foreheads.
We will once again have the opportunity to redefine ourselves in the light of the one who came to save us.
Over these coming weeks, we’ll explore what it means for Christ to be our hero and our savior and perhaps we will discover all over again what it means to be a disciple.
Friends, let us come down from the mountain where we have tried to wrap up our faith with a neat and tidy bow. A whole new season is beginning and this time you are ones God is calling to let your light shine.

Focus!

Posted on February 4, 2018Leave a comment

My aunt Barb was an amazing woman. She put a positive spin on everything that she experienced. She had an incredible work ethic and loved her catering and restaurant businesses. But she also deeply loved those she worked with and her family grew to include not only her own flesh and blood, but also their employees. She lived out her faith with such a genuine passion that encouraged others to claim their own.

And, my aunt had a focus in her life. She knew that God loved her and that God had called her to love and serve others. She found her passion – cooking – and used it to bless as many people as possible in this world, loving and serving them through food. Whether it was bread broken around a family dinner table or a festive celebration, Barb was an instrument of God’s work in this world.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Barb as I wrestled with the text from Mark this morning.

When I think about Simon’s mother-in-law, lying in that bed, sick with a fever that was threatening to take her life, I think about the low points in my aunt’s journey with cancer.

The days when the pain was too much. Or when she felt too weak.

When her singular focus was trying to get back up out of that bed and to get back to taking care of others.

When we read this passage in Mark, sometimes we might wonder what kind of cultural expectations would have led this woman, who only moments before was ill, to serve these men who have visited her house.

But we miss that this is her opportunity to once again reclaim her focus and take up her calling: her place in the community, her role. The phrase used her for her service is the same term used for a deacon. As Megan McKenna notes (On Your Mark: Reading Mark in the Shadow of the Cross):

She “ministers” to him, just as the “angels ministered to [Jesus]” during his time in the desert. Jesus has gone out to Simon’s mother-in-law in her disease and grasped her by the hand … In gratitude for his taking hold of her and giving her life to do his work, she responds wholeheartedly. Now the first four followers of Jesus become five in number.

Her strength comes not only from the healing power of Jesus.

Her strength comes from her focus on serving Jesus.

She has bound herself to him.

She has let him come into her life and now it is Christ’s strength that flows out of her.

Even on really difficult days, I was amazed at the strength my aunt found to do just that because she hoped in the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth.

In Isaiah, chapter 40, we are reminded that even young people like myself will faint and be weary if we try to go on our own. We will fall absolutely exhausted by the side of the road. Simple youth is not a prescription for strength or health. Military might cannot save us. Protein shakes and lifting weights cannot build the kind of muscles that we need to endure through our darkest days.

My aunt Barb was able to tap into a spiritual strength that helped her to make the most of every moment of her life. She crossed items off her bucket list, passed on wisdom and insight, brought joy to her grandkids and nieces and nephews and their kids.

Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Those who wait for the Lord…

The Hebrew word for “waiting” here is the same as the word used for twisting – like making a rope. It is not a passive state, but one of tension as you are being worked on. This kind of waiting is focused, expectant, gathering together all that you need to keep going. (from Lindy Black).

As an expectant mother waits for new life to come into the world, the waiting is not passive… it can often be painful. It is full of uncomfortable moments. It is filled with longing and stretching. And a kind of singular focus takes over: What you eat matters. What you drink matters. How you move matters. A relationship is formed in the process of the waiting. Your life and their life is bound together – it is entwined.

That’s how it should be when we wait for the Lord…

our life becomes entwined with God’s as we worship and serve…

as we are bound together…

and in the process, God’s strength becomes our strength.

God takes our single cord and with others in the church we are made into the many… we are made strong.

God’s strength and Barb’s strength became the strength of our entire family as God took her by the hand and raised her up to find healing in the next life.

For Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, that healing came in this life, as Jesus entered her room, took her by the hand, and raised her up.

As Sarah Henrich notes (http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1200) , this “raising” describes the strength given to someone so they “may again rise up to take their place in the world.”

And this is how the church should always be responding to the power of God in our midst.

Suzanne Guthrie writes:

[She] is lifted up, as in the Resurrection…

And she begins to serve – just as the apostles are sent out…

She is the church’s first deacon. She announces the Gospel by her action.

Healed, transformed, and readily at service she slips into her role as easily as if her life-time had prepared her for it…

She serves, like Jesus himself…

She receives the Light into her home, she is raised up by the Light, the Light shines through her as she ministers to others.

The healing, transformative power of God in our lives enables us to get up and be servants ourselves.

God reaches out to touch us through the bread on this table, through a prayer shawl from a friend, through a hug or a kind word.

And we, are called to rise up, to get out into this world to take our place and to live out our own calling.

Perhaps it is to make food or to teach.

Maybe it is to share music or laughter.

Maybe you have a ministry of writing cards and knitting or woodworking.

Whatever it is, God is asking you to focus on the strength of the Lord that will fill you up as you live out your purpose in this world.

So, let us come and be healed, so that we might go out and serve.

Answer!

Posted on January 28, 2018Leave a comment

In October, my facebook feed and our news stories were filled with two little words:
#metoo
Sisters from all sorts of walks of life started telling their stories, speaking their truths, naming names.
It was like the flood gates had broken loose.
Some could only type out those two words (#metoo) and others wrote chapters that had never before seen the light of day.
Women found the authority and the confidence to share some of the most mundane and monstrous things they experienced. The momentum of one voice, added to another, and to another, was a powerful thing to behold.
Just this past week, we witnessed the sentencing hearing of Dr. Larry Nassar whose abuse only came into the public eye in the midst of this past fall. 156 women and girls gave their testimonies as Judge Aquilina opened the courtroom to all who needed to speak their truth. In the end, he was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for the things the had done and taken from them.
As six-time Olympic medalist, Aly Raisman, said: “Let this sentence strike fear in anyone who thinks it is O.K. to hurt another person. Abusers, your time is up. The survivors are here, standing tall, and we are not going anywhere.” (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/24/sports/larry-nassar-victims.html)

Your time is up.

When Jesus entered the synagogue and began to speak the truth, to lift up the word, to tell stories of how God was moving in the world around them, he was telling all that opposes the Kingdom of God that it’s time was up.
But evil doesn’t want to go down without a fight.
Right there in the synagogue, a spirit began to cry out:
“What have you do to with us? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are.”

We don’t necessarily experience demonic possession and evil spirits in the same way today that they did in Jesus time. We have different understandings of bodies and mental health and to be honest, we filter out the spiritual and mystical and rationalize it away.
But I fully believe that evil is present in our world.
I believe that people can be ensnared by addiction and hatred and violence.
And I believe that when we, like Jesus, confront the sin and injustice and evil of this world and demand it to come out into the light of day then there can be the possibility of release and restoration and healing.
When the evil spirit began to speak out and interrupt the teaching of Jesus, he commanded it to be silent. To come out. And that spirit shook and screamed and then it finally released the person it had possessed.
It’s time was up.

What troubles me, both about this passage of scripture and with the countless stories of the #metoo movement, is the question of why it took so long?
How many times before had that evil spirit cried out in the midst of God’s people?
How long had the demon been hushed or covered up or ignored?
How many people had refused to stand up to it, to name names and call it what it was?
How many were frightened and simply stayed away?

William Cummings reported for USA Today about the woman who began the “me too” movement over ten years ago: Tarana Burke. In 2006, she founded an organization called Just Be Inc which helped young women of color reclaim their sense of well-being after they had been abused or exploited. But nearly ten years before that, Burke was a camp director and a little girl came to speak with her.
“The girl began to tell a story about her mother’s boyfriend ‘ who was doing all sorts of monstrous things to her developing body.’ Burke was horrified and as she listened it began to stir up all sorts of her own memories and emotions. She realized that she could not help in that moment and cut off the little girl in the middle of sharing this painful experience and directed her to another counselor.
Burke shared later, “I could not find the strength to say out loud the words that were ringing in my head over and over again… I watched her walk away from me as she tried to recapture her secrets and tuck them back into their hiding place. I watched her put her mask back on and go back into the world like she was all along and I couldn’t even bring myself to whisper… me too.” (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/18/me-too-movement-origins/776963001/)

Sometimes it is not our personal experience that keeps us from calling out and naming the evil before us, but our unwillingness to see it.

The complicity of systems that are focused on a singular goal, like that of Michigan State University and U.S.A. Gymnastics and the Olympic Committee, blind them to the allegations and words of little girls when they try to speak their truths.

As Amanda Thomashow, one of those who testified at Nassar’s hearing said, “the school I loved and trusted, had the audacity to tell me that I did not understand the difference between sexual assault and a medical procedure.” Another talked about how she was attacked on social media and called a liar for sharing her truth. Another, talked about how her parents “will forever have to live with the fact that they continually brought their daughter to a sexual predator, and were in the room as he assaulted me.” (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/24/sports/larry-nassar-victims.html)

Sometimes, we simply normalize these types of experiences and can no longer see them as out of the ordinary. Last October, I remember that I almost didn’t post my own “me too”, because my stories seemed so inconsequential compared to the hurt and pain I knew of others.

But then I started thinking about all of the stories and they kept adding up and some of them were crazier than I want to publicly admit. From cat calls to the phone call at my church office in Marengo that necessitated a call to the police and my district superintendent… The fact that I would write it off as just a normal part of ministry was not okay.

We, like the people of that synagogue in Capernaum, too often have been bystanders. We sit back and watch unwilling to do anything. We sweep the words of those in pain under the rug where we don’t have to listen.

In his poem, “Partnering with God,” John van de Laar names the reality we experience:

The struggles of our world feel overwhelming, Jesus;
Beyond our ability to understand, let alone solve.
We do not have the capacity
To silence the justifications,
To heal the addictions,
To restore the brokenness,
To repair the destruction,
Or to reverse the trajectories
Of our self-centered, short-sighted weakness,
Our heartless, dehumanising aggression.

But we do not have these struggles alone, Jesus;
You have aligned yourself with us,
In taking on flesh,
In going through the waters,
In laying down your life;
And you have invited us to partner with you,
In proclaiming Good News,
In freeing the imprisoned,
In restoring the broken,
In uniting the divided;
And you have given us the capacity,
The divine Spirit,
To be co-workers with God.

For this, we are eternally grateful. Amen.

God has given us the capacity, the authority, the power, to name and call out the presence of evil in our world. Even if it feels overwhelming. Even if it feels insurmountable. Even if it is too personal to face.
Because God’s authority comes with the presence of the one who has already experienced the worst of human suffering. And Christ walks alongside us as we silence and call out those forces that would harm the lives of others.

But you are also not alone, because you are part of a community. This body of Christ has promised in our baptismal vows to
“renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sin.”
And “to accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”

So that means two things.
First, I promise, as a pastor and faith leader, that I will listen to you. I promise not to cover up or deny. If you have a story that you need to tell, I am here to help you bring that story out of the darkness and into the light.
But second, it also means that if you are scared or hesitant or afraid you do not have to do this by yourself. Millions of women found the courage to say, “me too” this fall because they looked around and saw that they were not the only one.

Look around this room right now. You are not alone. All of those who are in this room who have taken their baptismal vows have already promised to help one another stand up to evil and injustice. We have committed to partnering with Jesus to proclaim the good news and to free the imprisoned and to restore the broken and unite the divided.
And by God’s authority, we can bring injustice into the light of day so that it can be healed and transformed and set free by God’s power.

Amen and Amen.

Listen!

Posted on January 14, 20181 Comment

About nine years ago, we were in the midst of one of those bitterly cold Januarys… not unlike the one we have experienced here!
The snow was falling and the temperature was below zero, but I bundled up that afternoon and went to the local nursing home where I held a monthly worship service.
I really enjoyed this time of worship there. While I rotated with other community pastors for this afternoon time of singing and preaching, I was one of the only pastors who also celebrated communion with these folks. Other denominations were more exclusive about who is welcome at the table. So it was always a joy to walk around the room and share the bread of life and cup of salvation with those dear folk.
On this particular cold day, we shared the same text that we are focusing on this morning. As we heard about how Jesus entered those waters of the Jordan, we remembered our own baptisms.
I carried around the circle a basin of water and invited each one to dip their fingers in and remember that God has loved them and called them each by name.
As I came to one woman, she had fallen asleep, as often happens with that group, and she was gently nudged awake by her neighbor.
Hopefully, you won’t have to nudge your neighbor awake this morning!
I kept working my way around the room and came to another woman who proclaimed with joy, “I was baptized in the Iowa River!”

There was another woman whose name was Grace and all throughout the service, she would interrupt to ask who was going to take her home.
At the end of worship, I had the chance to sit with her and chat and with the bitter cold outside, she kept asking who was going to come and get her and take her home.
She openly began to weep because she had been forgotten and no one was coming to take her home.
I reminded her gently that this was her home now…
this was where she belonged…
But more importantly… I reminded her that she was not alone.
In fact, she was loved.
She was a child of God, blessed by the Lord, and touching those waters a voice from heaven was pouring out upon her, reminding her that she was beloved.

As I listened to Grace’s insistence that she go home, I knew that dementia was speaking loud and clear… but there was something of all of us in her words, too.
Don’t we all want to go home?
Don’t we all want to experience the kind of belonging where we are called beloved?

I said earlier that I really enjoyed worshipping there at Rose Haven in Marengo… but there is another part of me that found those times and moments extraordinarily sad.
Some of the residents were vibrant and full of life, but others were barely functional in mind, body or spirit.
Many had been forgotten by their families.
This was not the highest quality facility in the county… and there were many things that made me pause when I thought about the care that I would desire for my own loved ones.

In that moment of worship, I had a chance to name each and every single one of those residents as beloved…
but I also found wondering how my own community of faith was living out our baptisms…
How did the call of God that poured out in our baptisms invite us to be present in the lives of these people in a different way?

You see, on the one hand, our baptism is an echo of the one Jesus experienced… so we proclaim that each and every single one of us is also called beloved by our God.
You are beloved.
You are beloved.
You are beloved.

But so often, we hear those words falling upon our own heads in our baptism and then we stop listening.
I am a beloved child of God, we hear in our hearts. Period. End of story.

But that is not how Mark tells this story.
No, his version of this tale is urgent and messy.
He starts with John the Baptist at the Jordan River, inviting people to come and be baptized as a sign that they were changing their lives.
Rev. Mindi Welton-Mitchell reminds us that, “the Jordan river was where people went to wash their dishes and their laundry. It’s where they went to bathe. In other words, the river flowed with [the] filth and muck of human life… this wasn’t water that washed clean, but rather water that acknowledges the muckiness of our communal lives.”
John knew that his baptisms were not the end of the story, but that someone was coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit.
And then Jesus shows up.
This guy from the dump of a town, Nazareth…
A nobody from nowhere…
And yet, the very presence of God in the world.
And as God-with-us, Immanuel, Jesus Christ, waded into those filthy waters of the Jordan River, the very heavens split open.
And in that moment, the ministry of Jesus begins.
The Spirit flows upon him like a dove, names him beloved, and then forces him into the wilderness.

“What are our baptisms for?” Ted Smith asks in his lectionary reflection (Feasting on the Word).
Baptism is not simply something that makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside.
It is also the reminder that God’s power, God’s spirit, God’s life has poured out upon us… the very heavens were torn open and now YOU are sent out, like Jesus, into the wilderness of this life.
Because not only are you beloved… but so is every other child of creation.
No matter where they have come from or what their life has been, they, too, are beloved by God.
Whether they are from a place that is beloved or a place that has been condemned by others, they, too, are beloved by God.
Whether they are surrounded by love or whether they are forgotten and alone, they, too, are beloved by God.
And in our baptisms, the power of heaven itself pours out on us and calls us into the world to act on the behalf of our brothers and sisters.
To create opportunities.
To open doors.
To work for justice.
To call one another to reconciliation and repentance.
To make God’s love real in this world through our worship, through our work, through our play.
It is the call that drove Martin Luther King, Jr. to proclaim the dream that one day the children of slaves and slave holders would be able to sit down and share a meal together.
The dream that children would not be judged by color of their skin or where they were born, but by the content of their character.
That little children of different races and abilities and backgrounds would be able to join hands with one another.
That we can work together, pray together, struggle together, stand up for freedom together.

Our baptism is the foundation of every single thing we do as a church. Because this is not my place of ministry, but ours.
You are a beloved child of God.
The heavens were tore open as you were baptized and the Holy Spirit sends you out into the world to share the life you have found here with others.
On this day, let us shout with joy for the presence of God is in this place, leading us, calling us, shoving us out into world and reminding us with gentle words that every person we meet is a beloved child of God.
Amen.

Rise Up!

Posted on January 7, 2018Leave a comment

As we gather this morning to worship, we are looking backwards towards these strange individuals who saw a star in a sky and who let it take them to a manger in Bethlehem.
They heard God speaking through that heavenly vision… maybe not in so many words, but in a language and a message that they could understand.
They were stargazers, astronomers, people who identified with the light.
And when God spoke to them, they arose.

“Arise, shine, the light has come” we hear in Isaiah, chapter 60.
Arise! Shine!

These are not words spoken only in far off lands to far off people.
No, God is still speaking.
The message of old is still being heard throughout this world.
Even in the midst of times that seem dark and troubling, painful and chaotic… there is a still small voice that is whispering:
“Arise… shine…”
In his reflection on these texts, Rev. Dr. B. Kevin Smalls notes (https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/worship/season-after-epiphany-2018-worship-planning-series/january-7-2018-god-is-speaking/epiphany-baptism-of-the-lord-2018-preaching-notes) that sometimes the darkness in our lives is so thick that we don’t trust the things that resemble the light:
“Might be a trick… and tricks don’t always
Lead to a treat, so I retreat in the darkness,
Hoping, slightly, ever so lightly that
My deepest fears will submit to the changing
Of dark gears leading to light years of praise
And adoration.”

We like to believe that we are the people of the light, like the Magi, but there certainly are times that we refuse the light.
We hesitate to take a risk, a step of faith.
We are comfortable in the darkness, in what we know, in what is familiar.
As Smalls writes,
“Darkness is for lying down, laying down, hanging around, pretending to be asleep.”
And wow, it feels good to pretend to be asleep. Or to actually be asleep.
To close our eyes and ignore what is happening outside of our lives, our homes, our neighborhoods, our country.
And so we get complacent in the midst of a changing climate and culture.
Statistics that should make us quake with their injustice barely faze us.
• Black women in the United States are 243% more likely to experience maternal death than white women. (https://www.thecut.com/2017/12/black-women-are-3-times-more-likely-to-die-from-childbirth.html)
• Every day, 46 children and teens are shot in murders, assaults, suicides & suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and police intervention (https://www.bradycampaign.org/key-gun-violence-statistics)
• 1 in 5 adults in the United States or 43.8 million people experience mental illness in a given year (https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers)

But usually, we are too nice and kind to want to have real conversations about racism or gun violence or mental health.
We hesitate to talk about these things in church or to ask how God might be speaking, calling, pushing, begging us (the people of God) to respond.
Maybe we are like the people of whom Isaiah was speaking…
You see if we turn just one chapter ahead in that prophetic text, these people felt like:
“justice is far from us and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo! There is darkness… we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.”
They were sitting back, retreating into the darkness, waiting for someone else to do something about it.
“Hoping, slightly, ever so lightly that
My deepest fears will submit to the changing
Of dark gears leading to light years of praise
And adoration.”

But then Isaiah comes along with the reminder that we can’t just sit back and wait for our fears to go away.
“Arise, shine, the light has come”
Maybe those old words aren’t quite seeping deep enough under our skin to be heard and felt.
Let me try it again from the Message translation:
“Get out of bed, Jerusalem! Wake Up! Put your face in the sunlight. God’s bright glory has risen for you!”
God’s glory has risen for you… So what on earth are YOU going to do about it?

The Magi in our scripture rose up… they got out of bed and they followed where God was leading them.
Over field and fountain, moor and mountain, that star in the sky was their guiding light until it took them to the place where the child was.
And when they arrived, they could barely contain themselves.
They felt an overwhelming kind of joy, the Gospel of Matthew tells us, that was born out of the sense that they were in the right place at the right time.
So they fell on their knees and worshiped that little child.

You and I… we are called to get out of bed, to shake off the sleep, to open our eyes and put our faces into the light and to hear where God is calling us to go.
As we start a new year, of ministry together, I have such a fire and energy in my heart.
I can see all sorts of amazing things that God has in store for us if we would simply put our face in the sunlight and head out into this world.
This church is so generous, so powerful, so filled with talent and compassion and love.
And as we have risen up and followed God’s leading – I know that many of you have experienced that immense joy that comes from being in the right place at the right time… from finding that place where your gifts have met some great need in this world.
We experienced that kind of joy in our gigantic Joppa garage sale.
We experience it as we laugh and serve together at CFUM.
We experience it when we dress up in ridiculous costumes to help our young people understand something in confirmation.
Or when our children teach us the nativity story on Christmas Eve.
And in all of these places, we are also discovering the joy of realizing that we are not alone!
There are all sorts of other people on this journey with us. People who have the same kinds of yearning and hopes and fears… and who are ready, with us, to rise up and to truly make a difference in this world for the sake of Jesus Christ!
They are sitting right here in the pews with you.
But they are also outside of these walls – our neighbors here in the community – who might have the same kinds of passion and see the same needs, but might not use the same faith words to describe it.

Maybe they are the Magi – the strangers, the Gentiles, the ones who we didn’t know, but who have been on this journey as well, to bring light and hope into the world.

God is speaking and leading all around us…. Giving us opportunities to bring hope and joy and light and love to all we meet. Together, let us rise up to seek them.

God Moves In

Posted on December 24, 2017Leave a comment

“Before the creation of the world,” Ephesians tells us, God had a plan.

Before you made plans to join us here in worship at Immanuel.
Before the star in the sky led the Magi to Bethlehem.
Before the prophets first heard the voice of God.
Before the moon and the stars were set in the sky.
Before everything!
While “the earth was without shape or form” as the first words of the Bible tell us…
And while “the Word was with God and the Word was God” as John proclaims…
There. Was. A. Plan.

What kind of a plan was this?
If we look to the root of the word used here in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, oikonomia, we find that it describes the administration of a household or an estate.
It’s the same word we find at the root of ecology and economy.
It describes how something is held together… the rules that govern how it functions, what sustains it, how it thrives.
So Paul is telling us that from the very beginning, God had a plan for how all of creation, God’s household, was going to work.
God wanted to bring everything – from the highest heights of heaven to the deepest crevices of the earth – together and to make a home among us.
And God’s plan was made known to us in Jesus Christ.
Immanuel.
God-with-us.

In these weeks leading up to Christmas here at Immanuel, we have been exploring God’s love for all of creation.
When we open up our bibles to the very first chapters, we discover this plan of God’s was already set in motion.
For six days, God was building, creating, and giving life to all things in the heavens and on earth.
And God looked around and saw that it was all very good.
And then God rested.

Now, I have to admit to you. Typically, when I think about God resting, I imagine that God goes back to wherever God has come from… leaving earth to go and take a day off.
After all, that is how we treat Sabbath, isn’t it?
The day we get away from everything?
Turn off the work email… veg out in front of the television and watch Netflix… get away from everyone and go fishing or golfing?

But, what if we have it all wrong?
What if the Sabbath is part of God’s plan?
What if in that moment of rest, God is with us?

The theologian Jurgen Moltmann describes Sabbath as a time when God “begins to ‘experience’ the beings he has created… He adopts the community of creation… He allows them to exist in his presence. And he is present in their existence.” (God In Creation, page 279)
God-with-us. Immanuel.
God creates us and on the Sabbath day of rest and presence, heaven and earth are one.
That’s why we are called to honor the Sabbath and make it holy.
Because whenever we truly stop to rest and worship and simply be in God’s presence, we are participating in that amazing plan set in motion before the stars were put in the sky.
We remember that God has already moved into the neighborhood.

If we are honest with ourselves, however, we know that is not how we usually keep the Sabbath.
In fact, throughout human history, the people of God have often forgotten the presence of God in their midst.
We turn our backs on God.
We seek our own will.
We make mistakes and fail in our humble striving.
But God is not content to be driven out of our lives.
God refuses to be turned away.
God has a plan, remember, and so God acts over, and over again, in ways that bring heaven and earth together.
After all, as John’s gospel tells us, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.” (John 1:5)
And so God heard the cries of the oppressed and rescued them and brought them into the land of milk and honey.
And so God called the people of faith over and over again through the words and actions of the prophets.
And then God acts by coming in really close… diving in deep to all of the mess and the struggle, the pain and sorrow of our human worldly lives.
As we moved away from God, God moves towards us.
The Word became flesh.
Immanuel.
God-with-us.

And it happened in a particular life, in a particular time, in a particular place.

Now… I don’t want to ruin the Christmas story for you… but I’ve come to realize that we’ve been telling it wrong.
And I think when we hear this story again, put back into its context and place, in many ways the story of Christmas becomes all the sweeter and more meaningful.

You see, as we read in Luke’s gospel, Jesus was born in the city of Bethlehem to parents who really weren’t anyone important. And Mary “wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom.”
When you look back to the original koine Greek, it says katalyma. This was a place where travelers spent a night… and while it could have referred to an inn, it was used to describe “the sleeping area in a single-room Palestinian peasant home” or a guest space in such a house.
The homes in Bethlehem would have had one large living space and if they were lucky, they might have had a smaller private room set aside for guests.
There would have been an area by the entrance where animals were brought in at night to keep them safe and warm.
And that large multi-purpose room would have not only had places to sit and eat and cook… but also mangers, built out of wood or hollowed out of the ground, where straw for those animals were kept.

The scene reminds me a lot of Christmas celebrations among either sets of my grandparents. You see, my dad was one of five kids and my mom was one of seven kids and the holidays were always a big deal. Everyone would come back home and the grown-ups would get the bedrooms that they slept in as children, but the grandkids would all pile together in the living room with sleeping bags and pillows. If you had to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you had to take care not to step on one of your relatives!

If we peered back into Bethlehem on that night long ago, instead of a cold and lonely couple huddled in a shed, we probably would have discovered Mary and Jospeh surrounded by family… in fact, maybe a bit too crowded by family – remember, Luke says there wasn’t room in the guest room. Everyone had come to town to be registered in the census so aunties and uncles and cousins galore would have been packed into the room together.
And right there in the midst of it all – in a normal home, in an everyday life, in the midst of community and the animals, Christ was born.
God moved into the neighborhood.
Immanuel.
God-with-us.

I think the most powerful statement of the incarnation is the reminder that right here… on this earth, among all of creation, surrounded by our community, is where we are redeemed.
God’s plan is not that this earth will waste away and we will be whisked away to some far off heaven.
No… in Jesus Christ all things in heaven and on earth will be brought together.
Right here is where salvations shows up.

As we have been leading up to this day, this time of worship, when we remember the birth of Christ, we have also been looking ahead to a moment that is yet to come.
For, we are still waiting.
This morning, I prayed for two colleagues who lost their mothers yesterday.
This world is still filled with disease and struggle and this might be the last Christmas we celebrate with certain loved ones.
We even remember that places like Bethlehem are today places of conflict and strife.
God’s plan isn’t complete yet.

So as people of faith, we are also looking ahead to that day of new creation when the kingdom of God is made known.
John tells us that the light shines in the darkness and has not been overcome by it… and when we keep reading to the Revelation, we find hope in the words that “death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying or pain anymore… There will no longer be any curse… Night will be no more. They won’t need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine on them.” (21:4, 22:3,5)
At the climax of all times, when the plan is fully complete, the heavens and earth will be brought together and God will make a home among us.

The Letter to the Ephesians may seem like a strange text to share together on Christmas Eve, but for me it is a reminder that the promises we hope for can already be experienced right now. Paul’s words here remind us that while the plan isn’t quite yet complete… it has already become a reality within the church.
You see, from the moment the heavens opened and the angels began to proclaim the birth of our Messiah, we have been invited to participate and respond to the kingdom of Glory.
Shepherds left their flocks to search out the baby in the manger.
Magi traveled great distances to greet the newborn King.
Fishermen would leave their boats to follow the Messiah.
Rich men like Zacchaeus gave away their wealth.
Scholars like Paul set aside everything they thought they knew about God to discover the message all over again and then carried it across the world.
The ripples from the birth of that one moment built the church, the Body of Christ alive in this world today.
Friends, you and I are that body of Christ right here and right now.
And as Ephesians 2 tells us, “we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.”
We have been adopted into God’s household, filled up with the Spirit of God, and called to imitate Christ wherever we go.
So fall on your knees in this time of worship.
Remember that God set the stars in the sky and the ground beneath our feet.
Imagine the birth of that child in Bethlehem.
And ask how God is inviting you today to love one another and to bring peace and joy to all who struggle.
Because it is through you… and you… and you… that the presence of God can be known in this neighborhood today, and tomorrow, and the day after that.
YOU are also God’s plan for this world.