Day of Pentecost

John 20:19-23

Grace and peace to you.

Today’s Johannine Pentecost is a familiar text, if only because we heard it on the Second Sunday of Easter in a longer passage that included the story of Jesus and Thomas. The Acts passage with its imagery of fiery tongues appearing and everyone hearing God speak in their own languages is always part of our readings on the Day of Pentecost but the gospel varies, sharing different parts of the Farewell Discourse and the earlier promises that Jesus makes to send a paraclete to the disciples and to give them his peace.

On Pentecost we particularly remember that Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into his disciples and commissions all of us to continue his work of making God known in the world. Particularly this year, when we are being careful to not breathe on one another or be breathed on, we can appreciate the intimacy of that moment, receiving the very breath of God from Jesus.

And then, in verse 23, Jesus tells us what that work looks like, saying

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

In John’s gospel sin is isn’t about morality; it isn’t about being a good or bad person or knowing right from wrong. Sin is not recognizing and embracing the revelation of God in Jesus.

Luther teaches in his Small Catechism that the Holy Spirit “abundantly forgives all sins – mine, [yours] and those of all believers.”[i] It is this same Holy Spirit that sanctifies us – or makes us holy – that we may bear witness to God’s love and mercy.

And it is through the Holy Spirit, that we, as Matt Skinner writes, “can set people free from their inability to see or refusal to recognize God in the world.”[ii]

Of course, the other side of this charge is that when we fail to point to Jesus, 

when we fail to bear witness to God’s love and mercy,

we fail our neighbors and community. The world retains its sin of not recognizing God in its midst, or “grasping the knowledge of God.”

Pentecost reminds us that Jesus did not breathe the Holy Spirit on the disciples for their own sake, but for the sake of the world. As God’s people animated by God’s breath and clothed with God’s power, our freedom as Christians is always for the sake of the world.

The Resurrected Christ commissions us and sends us into the world to tend to those who do not believe, not to condemn them but that they may be saved. (Jn. 3:17)

Wherever you are gathered today as the Church, celebrating Pentecost means moving out into the world so that our neighbors will know the God who loves them. While the ways we can physically be present in each other’s lives and in the community remain limited because of COVID-19, we have not stopped being an extension of Christ’s presence in Shelby and Cleveland County.

Sometimes, we use words; we’ve installed a new banner outside the church on Lafayette Street that proclaims to anyone who passes by, “Jesus is always with you.” Other times, we share out of the abundance we’ve been given; this past week outreach volunteers voted to send $500 to the Cleveland County Potato Project which continues its mission to feed hungry neighbors here; CCPP had an opportunity to buy a surplus harvest of potatoes in Washington State and let us know that they needed partners to help fund the project.

Maybe pointing to Jesus, living the life of Jesus today, looks like sewing masks for those who need them, providing transportation for a friend or delivering groceries for a neighbor who is at risk. Maybe it sounds like a phone call to someone you haven’t seen in a long while or inviting someone to evening prayer online. I’m confident it looks like wearing a mask, standing six feet away from other people and washing our hands.

And this week after the death of George Floyd, I believe that living the life of Jesus also means naming the places where I am complicit with the ways that being white means I can run through my neighborhood, drive my car, wear a mask or a hoodie, and never fear for my life because of the color of my skin.

I confess when 17-year old Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida in 2012, I didn’t understand what it had to do with me. That happened in Florida and I was here in North Carolina. What I forgot, or could not yet see, was that we are all God’s beloved children and it doesn’t matter if the deaths happen in Florida or Georgia or Minneapolis. What wounds and kills one of us is lethal to us all. The sin of systemic racism doesn’t only shorten the lives of our black and brown siblings. It diminishes your life and mine, too.  

My prayer this Pentecost is that just as we listen for the rush of wind of the Holy Spirit we will listen to black and brown voices. Not debate, not argue, not analyze, but listen. Tonight at 8 o’clock on Facebook Live, local black pastors Donnie Thurman, Jerret Fite, Chris Gash, Billy Houze, Lamont Littlejohn, Ricky Mcluney and James Smith will be speaking and I invite you to listen with me.

Let us pray…

Come, loving and merciful God, into our lives.

Come, Jesus Christ, breathe on us and send us into the world as your witnesses.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in us the fire of your love.

Amen.

[i] Martin Luther. Luther’s Small Catechism. Augsburg Fortress. 31.

[ii] Commentary on John 20:19-23.Workingpreacher.org, accessed 5/29/2020.

Day of Ascension

Luke 24:44-53

Grace and peace to you.

Recently a memory flew across Facebook showing my oldest daughter on a river dock after a race. Rowing is one of those sports that parents love; you spend twelve hours waiting to watch your child compete for less than ninety seconds. But I was well-practiced, because before she rowed, Casey was a gymnast. She started the sport late, at the wizened age of 10, and when she was trying to get her back handspring her coach said, “It’s always easier for the younger gymnasts. They’re fearless because they haven’t learned that falling hurts.”

This memory came back to me as I read the late author Danaan Perry’s essay, “The Parable of the Trapeze” which is in his book Warriors of the Heart. Describing life as if it were “a series of trapeze swings” Perry writes about looking forward and seeing the next trapeze bar with his name on it and knowing he will need to release his grip on the bar he has in order to reach out and grab the next one. [i]

And then he writes,

Each time, I am filled with terror. It doesn't matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of unknowing I have always made it. I am each time afraid that I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between bars. I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow to keep hanging on to that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. So, for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of “the past is gone, the future is not yet here.”

The disciples knew how much it hurt to fall, and to fail. They had witnessed the crucifixion and watched as Jesus was executed by the religious authorities. Gathered together they had tried to make sense of the news of the empty tomb that they had heard from Mary, Joanna, the other women and from Peter. Startled and terrified, they had witnessed Jesus returning to them and eating with them.

And now, they are listening to Jesus open their minds to the Scripture, and tell them he is leaving them and they are to wait for the Spirit to come to them.

Only Luke narrates the event of the ascension and he places it at the end of the same day as the resurrection. They had experienced a roller coaster of emotions – of grief, loss, fear and hesitant hope – and now, as Perry wrote, they realized, “The past is gone, the future is not yet here.”

That in-between time is transition. It is both terrifying and transformative.

We have had a lot of practice lately learning to let go of the past – what we know and love, what is familiar and treasured – and reaching into an unknown future. I know for me, some days it feels like I have a firm grip on what will happen next. And other days, or maybe even later that same day, it feels like my hand has just grazed the rung but it’s out of reach and I am freefalling.

But I’m not. I know God is with me and will keep me and sustain me, and all I can do is take the next faithful step.

At the Ascension, Jesus doesn’t vanish into a black hole or mythical abyss; in fact, he only leaves us so that we might know his presence even more fully.

Making us witnesses to all he has taught and said, he promises us that we will receive the power from on high – the Holy Spirit – and going ahead of us and leading us, he sends us into the world to tell everyone what we know:
that, in his name, “a total life-change through the forgiveness of sins” is offered to us, in the gift of grace.[ii]

In this in-between time, that sometimes feels like seconds but often feels like an eternity, Jesus is with us, leading us toward the new thing that God is doing and calling us to be.

May we open our minds and reach our hands out to receive Jesus’ blessing and leading.

Let us pray…

Holy God, Thank you for going before your people, leading us and making us witnesses to your Word.
Bountiful God, Thank you for your providing all that we need and sustaining us.
Merciful God, Thank you leading us to your grace and forgiveness by Your Word and Son Jesus.
God of Creation, Resurrection and Ascension, Clothe us from on high with the power of your Holy Spirit and encourage us to share the Good News of forgiveness and new life found in Jesus.
We pray in the name of your Risen and Ascended Son, Jesus.
Amen.

[i] “The Parable of the Trapeze” in Warriors of the Heart. Danaan Perry. http://www.earthstewards.org/ESN-Trapeze.asp, accessed May 22, 2020. Used with permission.
[ii] Luke 24:47 The Message

Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 14:15-21

Grace and peace to you.

Today’s gospel picks up where last week’s text left off. Jesus still is speaking to the disciples in his “Farewell Discourse.” He has washed their feet; he has spoken to them about betrayal and death; and he has given them the commandment to love one another, just as he has loved them. (John 13:34) Last week we heard him reassure the disciples that God is with them even in the uncertainty and disruption they are facing. (John 14:1-14)

Today’s text begins and ends with bookends of sorts:

First Jesus says “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” and then he repeats himself, saying, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me.”

In both verses, the Greek verb for “love” is better translated as “keep on loving Jesus”, as in “the ones who keep on loving Jesus will keep his commandments.” And “the ones who keep his commandments are those who keep on loving Jesus.”

Some fifty-six years ago, a phrase came out of pop culture when American folk musician Len Chandler recorded a song and Martin Luther King, Jr. included some of the lyrics in a speech he made. The song was “Keep On Keepin’ On.” Today when you are in the midst of hard or challenging times, someone might tell you, “Keep on keepin’ on.” It’s encouragement to do what you know how to do as best as you can, trusting there’s hope ahead.

And that’s what Jesus says to his disciples in this text:

Keep on loving me – you know how to do that; love me by following my commandment to love one another. Keep on keepin’ on.

And when life is hard —
and we’ve talked about how being a person of faith and following Jesus doesn’t mean that we never face challenges or hard times, so we know it’s okay for us to admit there are times when life is hard — when life is hard, Jesus promises again that we are not left alone. Here he tells us God will give us another paraclete, an Advocate, Helper, or Counselor.

I hadn’t noticed before that the text says that God will send us another paraclete. Lutheran pastor Brian Stoffregen suggests that the Helper is not so much our helper as a helper to Jesus, reminding us of all that Jesus has said to us, what the promises of God are, and awakening us to the holy in our ordinary lives. We know Jesus as the One God sends us to show us how God suffers with us and how much God loves us. And here, Jesus tells us that God will send another One to us. 

John’s gospel alone describes the paraclete as the “Spirit of Truth”. Jesus says here, “This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him...” (14:17) And later in 15:26, he says “the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father…will testify on my behalf.” And in 16:13, he promises that “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth….”

The bad news is that hearing “all the truth” means hearing that we are sinners. Turned in on ourselves — full of ourselves — we cannot receive the love God offers as we are. Grasping for what’s known and familiar, we cannot, by our own efforts or merits, open our hands and hearts to receive God’s surprising grace.

But there is good news in this truth-telling, too.

The paraclete is the One today who shows us the extraordinary truth of God’s abundant love and mercy as God lifts our chins and opens our eyes to see our Savior on the cross with open hands stretched out to the world.

Luther wrote in his explanation of the third article of the Apostle’s Creed,

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith…. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers.

The paraclete is the One who helps us hear the Gospel — the Good News — that God loves us and does not leave us alone in our brokenness and in our sinfulness, but forgives us and gives us new life. In this same text in the The Message paraphrase of the Bible, Eugene Peterson writes, “you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive.” And I hear Jesus saying to us,

Keep on keepin’ on. Find your life in keepin’ on loving me and loving others as I love you.

Thanks be to God.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 14:1-7

Grace and peace to you.

Earlier this week, I went over to the sanctuary. We have not worshiped together in that space since March 8th and I haven’t led worship there since March 22nd. I thought about today’s gospel text as I removed the purple Lenten paraments and carried away stones and branches that adorned the altar. I’ve heard from altar guild volunteers that preparing the sanctuary for worship is a kind of devotional practice, and I could hear Jesus’s words, “I go to prepare a place for you” as I hung a new season’s paraments and replaced the wooden candlesticks on the altar.

These are also verses we often hear at funerals, and for many of us, it may be hard to separate them from images of heaven, or the life we have been promised after death.

It’s true that this passage is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse when he is telling his disciples goodbye, but he isn’t merely consoling or comforting them in their grief and sorrow.

When Jesus talks about the many “dwelling places” that God provides, Jesus is talking about God, Emmanuel, the God who is with us, here and now.

Back in the very first chapter of John, the Fourth Evangelist told us, “the Word became flesh and lived among us….” (John 1:14) Johannine scholar and preaching professor Karoline Lewis teaches that the verb here means “to tent”.[i] God pitches his tent alongside ours. Or as Eugene Peterson writes in his paraphrase The Message, “God moved into the neighborhood.”[ii]

That is good news when we are separated from each other and from our traditional worship spaces, the very places we think of when we hear the words “in my Father’s house.”

So, I want to hear from you what space you are in as you are worshiping today? Your living room, a bedroom, a basement? I invite you to use the chat or comments to name the space where you are.

Now, hear this promise:
God abides or dwells there with you.

After Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to prepare a place for them, he says, “And you know the way to the place where I am going." (John 14:4) And immediately, Thomas leads the disciples in questioning him and says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (John14:5)

When we are anxious or living in uncertainty, like Thomas we jump to those How, What and Why questions, “How can we know?”, “What do you mean?”, “Why is this happening?”

But Jesus answers the “Who” question instead, saying “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:5-7)

Jesus explains that the Way isn’t something we find on any roadmap. It isn’t a set of directions from Google maps or a GPS. It is a way of being in the world, living in relationship with God, and living in the image of God, in our daily lives. God shows forth who God is through God’s own good creation — us! God speaks through our lives as we bear God’s merciful love into the world.

Fourteenth century English mystic Julian of Norwich served as an ‘anchoress’, or spiritual counselor, in her community about 100 miles northeast of London. Cloistered in an approximately 12-foot square room attached to the church she participated in worship through an open window and people visited her in her cell for spiritual direction. [iii]Methodist pastor Kate Hanch imagines Julian, sheltering in place in her cell, mindful of the suffering she still witnessed in the world – illness, poverty and famine – mouthing the refrain attributed to her, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”[iv]

God’s promise to dwell with us is not that that God will end all adversity, calm all the storms, prevent death or even cure all the disease. The promise is that God is right there in the disruption and uncertainty with us. Confident of God’s abiding with us, we can pray in the words of Julian of Norwich:

In you, Father all-mighty, we have our preservation and our bliss. In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving. You are our mother, brother and savior. In you, our Lord, the Holy Spirit is marvelous and plenteous grace. You are our clothing; for your wrap us and embrace us. You are our maker, our lover, our keeper. Teach us to believe that by your grace all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
Amen.

[i] Lewis, Karoline M. John (Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries) (p. 17). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[ii] ibid
[iii] “About Julian of Norwich.” Julian Centre. http://juliancentre.org/about/about-julian-of-norwich.html
[iv] Kate Hanch. “Amid this pandemic, can we say with Julian of Norwich, ‘All shall be well’? https://baptistnews.com/article/amid-this-pandemic-can-we-say-with-julian-of-norwich-all-shall-be-well/?fbclid=IwAR3j2dWUhkCLlZ9_YWAuqjPcf559FaBoDk0303wtlb_JLQCjGsfgcPlo5_w#.XrbWxWhKhBz

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Psalm 30 

Grace and peace to you.

One of the reasons I decided to teach about the psalms during this Eastertide is that the psalms give us language to share all of our emotions with God. Following the Revised Common Lectionary, we only hear or sing about two-thirds of all the psalms though, and most of those are the ones that offer our worship, thanksgiving or praise. But there are psalms of confession, there are psalms of persecution, pain and personal struggle and even of violence and anger. Like I said, all of our emotions.

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says there are three types of psalms: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of new orientation. The psalms of orientation “express confidence and serenity while psalms of disorientation name the places where our human experience, life and the world differ or break from those neat and orderly plans. [i] And then the psalms of new orientation “bear witness to the surprising gift of new life just when none had been expected.” [ii]

The psalm from the exile lectionary that we heard today is Psalm 30, one of the psalms of new orientation. In this psalm or song of thanksgiving, which we often hear at Easter, the psalmist “tells the story of going into the trouble and coming out of the trouble.”[iii]

Although we do not know what the nature of the psalmist’s suffering was, verse 3 explicitly names Sheol and the Pit, synonyms for the place people went after they died. But life and death weren’t just biological functions; life encompassed abundance and vitality, and conversely, death was any loss that diminished a person’s capacity for life.

In the New Testament, life means being in relationship with God. And death is the separation from God and the absence or brokenness of that relationship. Martin Luther teaches that one use of the Law is “to convict me that my own righteousness is never good enough. I need the righteousness that comes from God as a gift.”[iv] It drives me to name my sin and bare it before God that I may know the joy of salvation, of being brought into right relationship, and given new life.

In Psalm 30, the psalmist bears witness to how God responded to him, and offers praise for the healing and restoration he has experienced. He doesn’t deny that God is angered by our sin, but he knows first-hand how much more God desires to be in relationship with us than execute punishment upon us.

In verse 5 he says,

5For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

A clergy colleague’s young son said after a particularly bad day, “Jesus forgot to help me today.” The psalmist knows that when we confront the places where we have done wrong, when we confess our sin, we can feel very isolated and God can feel very far away. But the good news is that God’s victory over sin, death and the grave by any name is complete and total. This is the Resurrection Promise we hold – that in Jesus there is nothing, not even death, that can separate us from God.

And in verse 11, indeed the psalmist declares:

11You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

The promise we hear is that with forgiveness and grace, the God who loves us restores us and clothes us in new life. A new life that lets us continue to bear witness to what God already has done in our lives, and to continue to be transformed by God’s love and grace.

As we enter our eighth week worshiping apart, may we name all the deaths that we have experienced from this time of quarantine and those that continue to diminish our lives. Remember the Psalms teach us that there are no emotions we cannot share with God. God’s love for us is big enough to hold all of our disappointment and grief. And then may we join with the Psalmist in celebrating the Good News that God brings us through all kinds of trouble and may we offer thanksgiving that our trouble will not last.

Thanks be to God.

[i] Walter Brueggemann. The Message of the Psalms. 25, 51-52.

[ii] Brueggemann, 123-4.

[iii] Brueggemann, 126.

[iv] The Rev. Brian Stoffregen