Lectionary 16B

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

For most of the last week, I’ve been fighting a summer cold, 
armed with hot tea and honey.

So, perhaps that’s why, as I listened to this week’s gospel, what caught my attention was how the crowds chased after Jesus and the disciples, reaching the shores ahead of them to be in their presence, clamoring to be heard and scrambling to touch even the fringe of Jesus’ cloak, so that they would be healed.

And I remembered that in Greek, the word translated here as “healed”, as in “all who touched it were healed” is the same word as “saved”. All those who touched the fringe of his cloak were saved.

I thought about all the different reasons we search for healing. Just within the gospel text, we see different examples.

Many of the people coming to Jesus were physically ailing, but some may have also been suffering mental illness. And the disciples themselves were trying to retreat for renewal after their ministry work had left them with no time for rest, or even a meal.

Sometimes we look for healing because like the crowds chasing Jesus and the disciples, we’re physically hurt or we’re sick: with cancer, with chronic pain, with addiction.

Sometimes we seek healing because we’ve experienced trauma, abuse or neglect, or, like the disciples, we are exhausted or burnt-out.

And sometimes we seek healing because we are grieving broken or difficult relationships.

And as I thought about all the reasons why we seek healing, I thought about all the places where we look for healing.

Maybe, we’re lucky and we find our way to a twelve-step meeting in a church basement, or maybe we find peace in the sanctuary of a professional therapist’s office. Unfortunately, too often, when people are desperate to find healing, they try to find a faster way or a shortcut and fall victim to schemes.

When Luther went to Rome he was disgusted by priests like Johann Tetzel, who reportedly “preached to the faithful that the purchase of a letter of indulgence entailed the forgiveness of sins.”[i] People who were afraid of being cast out of God’s love and mercy would pay money to buy a so-called assurance of their salvation.

And the practice didn’t end with the Reformation.

There are modern accounts by the Lutheran World Federation of “people pay[ing] the pastor for praying for them to be cured from illness” in India, and just a few years ago, “People apparently paid 100,000 Namibian dollars to sit next to [a preacher called “the prophet of Namibia”], because they hoped to be healed.[ii] 

Certainly, as with any scam, education reduces the risk that vulnerable people will be harmed by people who would exploit them. But why are they so desperate that they are compelled to look for healing there in the first place?

There’s an old saying, sometimes attributed to Bishop Desmond Tutu, that says,

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.

The hope we have from today’s gospel is that hurting people will find Christ’s healing presence in our congregations and faith communities   ̶

that God’s people will communicate the good news of God’s healing grace to everyone who walks through our doors;

that we would see their pain or sadness,

and we would have compassion for them.

But the conviction I have from today’s gospel is that too often,

they don’t.

And too often, we don’t.

Ouch. Believe me, I’m right there, wanting to say, “not my church.” “not my congregation.” But I know I need to check myself when I get defensive, because I also know I can name times when my first response wasn’t compassion, it wasn’t what Jesus models.

Too often, the vulnerable show up in our churches and find judgment and suspicion, and even rejection and hostility. And instead of being told they are children of God who are loved and saved by God’s grace, they hear that they don’t belong or aren’t welcome.

That’s not Jesus.

Jesus sees the crowd and has compassion for them.

He is moved, by their presence, by their suffering and by their need, to be with them where they are.

He stretches out his hands to them and gathers them in, teaching and healing them.

He offers them belonging first.

God loves us, and God’s mercy is new every day, so today we can repent for the times when we have failed to show compassion, and the times when we have not welcomed the stranger or loved our neighbor as God loves them. It is never too late to start.

May we stretch ourselves to reach for those who are reaching for Jesus’ healing grace and gather them into God’s family.

Amen.

---

[i] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther/The-indulgences-controversy , accessed 7/20/2024

[ii] https://2017.lwfassembly.org/en/news/regional-stories/false-promises-salvation, accessed 7/20/24.

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 23A

Matthew 18: 15-20

When I hear this gospel, I cannot help but hear it in the context of church discipline; in our model constitution in the ELCA, these verses provide the framework for the discipline of church members. On our first hearing of the text, it comes across as “three strikes and you’re out” —a lot of law, not a lot of gospel, and, frankly, not a very interesting sermon text.

The first strike isn’t even the sin. While Jesus says these are the steps to take “if” someone sins against you, we know there’s no “if”. In our human condition, we will sin.

So, Jesus says that when another person sins against you, first you should address them one on one. If he or she cannot hear you, that’s strike one.

If they cannot hear you, then you should find two or three witnesses to accompany you and try again. If he or she still cannot hear you, that’s strike two.

The next step is to bring the matter before the church for resolution. And if he or she still cannot hear you, that’s strike three.

It is only after these three failed attempts – one on one, with witnesses and as the corporate body of Christ –that you treat the person as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

Three strikes and you’re out.

But that doesn’t sound like the same Jesus who had just told his disciples in verse 14, “It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost. (Matt. 18:14)

So this morning, I want to invite you to ask a couple of questions about the text, and then hear the text as if you have never heard it before.

The first question I want you to ask is , “Why is Jesus talking about this now?” Immediately before this he told the disciples the parable of the lost sheep where the shepherd leaves the 99 to find the lost one. And next week we will hear Peter ask how many times he should forgive. Matthew is the only gospel writer to include this conversation; we don’t know why the other gospel writers don’t include it, but it could suggest that Matthew was trying to address conflict that was happening in his community in the late first century.

The second question to ask is, “Who is Jesus talking to?” We know he’s talking to his disciples, but it’s helpful also to remember that what Matthew calls the church would have been small house churches of a dozen or so people who gathered together. Many of them might have been extended families. There weren’t congregations with hundreds, or even dozens, of people during Matthew’s lifetime. There were none of the denominations, confessional doctrines or even creeds that we associate with the capital-C Church today.

That’s also why in my reading, I used the words “brother or sister” instead of a “member of the church” which is what you find in the New Revised Standard Version translation in verse 15. The Greek word used here is ἀδελφός  which actually means “brother”. Translating the word as “brother or sister” helps us remember that, in Christ, we are all adopted as children of God, siblings to one another, in one family.

So now, as we listen to this passage, instead of hearing it as policy for the institutional church, let’s try to hear Matthew speaking to the small communities and families of Jesus’ followers who were gathered around Word and Table.

While we like to imagine churches as places where peace and goodwill prosper, we know families squabble. Generations of family linked together by blood and DNA and church families too. That doesn’t surprise us and it didn’t shock Jesus either. Whenever there is a group of people gathered together there is going to be disagreement.

In our communities of faith we have used this text as prescriptive policy for church discipline. And, because Pharisaic law looked at Gentiles and tax collectors as either unclean or unrepentant and cast them out of community, we have heard this instruction as if Jesus was saying, “If the sinner doesn’t listen to you, cast them out.” Excommunicate them. Cut off fellowship with them. Banish them.

But again, does that sound like the Jesus you know?

When we look to Scripture to see how Jesus dealt with Gentiles and tax collectors, we see where tradition says that Matthew himself was a tax collector and yet he was called as one of the twelve apostles. (Matthew 10)

And Luke tells us Jesus called to Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and had dinner at his house. (Luke 19)

And the woman who spoke to Jesus a few weeks ago about the crumbs from the table was a Gentile. (Matthew 15:22)

So it turns out that Jesus did not cast out the Gentile or the tax collector, but instead broke bread with them, listened to their pleading, and loved them.

So when he tells his followers, “let such a one be to you like a Gentile or a tax collector”, perhaps what he is telling us is to love the person with the love of Christ.

What’s clear is that he does not say, “Break off relationship and never talk to them again.”

But all too often, in the church, we don’t follow Jesus’ teaching. We get it wrong from day one.

There are times we wound another person deliberately and the need for confession and forgiveness, and for reconciliation is obvious.

And there are circumstances, such as physical violence, murder or rape, when these gentler steps toward reconciliation do not apply.

But often, we may not know what we have done or how deeply we have hurt another person.

As we say in the confession at Compline, “Some of my sin I know – the thoughts and words and deeds of which I am ashamed – but some is known only to God.”

Someone may be wounded, and we may not be able to see the pain we have inflicted upon them.

Jesus would have the person who is wounded confront the person who sinned against them.

But that isn’t the way our world, or our congregations, function most of the time. Instead, the wounded person turns to a third person or a group of people and vents their anger and frustration there. We create triangles and talk about each other, instead of speaking directly with one another. We fastidiously avoid confrontation.

But here’s the thing, as Michael Chan writes, “to deny someone God’s corrective word is every bit as sinful as the deed under scrutiny.”[i] As siblings in Christ, we do not confront one another to point out sin and pile on shame, judgment and condemnation. Instead we are called to name the sin that we see so that the person may be convicted or “convinced and confident that [the evidence] is true.”

When we confront the sinner, our goal is conviction, not condemnation; conviction that leads to Godly sorrow and repentance.[ii]

When I discover that I have wounded someone else, either through reflection or because it is brought to my attention, it is painful because that isn’t how I want to love others.

But it is even more painful to discover too late that someone has been hurt and is suffering and I didn’t know. All too often when that happens the wounded person has churned in frustration, only to get fed up and break off relationship, angry, hurt and disillusioned. The path to reconciliation is much more difficult then.

In today’s gospel, Jesus offers us a way to be a community of Christ followers, reconciled with one another and united in faith.

Jesus doesn’t promise that we won’t hurt each other and that it won’t be messy – lives lived in relationship are going to be messy – but he promises that faithful and loving community in Christ is possible. In fact, this whole passage is about choosing the kind of community we want to be: divided or united.

The later verses are ones that we again often hear out of context. It’s hard to hear the Good News in Jesus’ promise that “if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done” if you can recall a time when you prayed for something and your prayers went unanswered.

But in the context of pursuing reconciled relationships and restoration to community, what Jesus tells us is that if the two or three who have been in conflict can come together in prayer and be unified in faith, God is there with them and listening to their prayers.

The Good News that Jesus promises here is not that God will answer our prayers by giving us everything we ask, but that God cares about our relationships with one another, and is with us, even when we are in conflict. God is listening and watching and working in and through us, even in our brokenness and imperfections.

Instead of “three strikes and you’re out”, Jesus reminds us to “try, try and try again.”

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus who reconciles us to You and through whom we know mercy and forgiveness.

Teach us to live as siblings together in community, and love each other as Christ loves us.

Give us courage to boldly name our sin and pursue redemption and reconciliation with those who we hurt.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. 

Amen.

[i] Michael J. Chan. Dear Working Preacher. Luther Seminary.

[ii] Notes from lectures by Dr. Shanitria Cuthbertson in the NC Synod Racial Justice Network’s course “The Hidden Curriculum of White Supremacy”

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 21A

Matthew 16: 13-20

Today’s gospel reminds us to listen to the whole biblical narrative with an ear for who gets named, or re-named, and who is left nameless in the background.

Matthew’s gospel gives us lots of opportunities for this kind of listening, beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, which includes, by name, three Canaanite women — women who we learned last week would have been outside the Jewish community. (Matt.1-17) But it’s not only in Matthew; throughout Scripture we hear people renamed by God: Abram is re-named Abraham (Genesis 17:5); Jacob is re-named Israel (Gen. 35:10); and Saul is renamed Paul (Acts 13:9)

And in today’s gospel, after the disciple Simon makes his confession of faith, Jesus renames him Peter, which comes from the Greek petra or rock.

This is the same disciple who a few weeks back nearly sank in the stormy sea and was called out by Jesus for having little faith.

The same Peter who, we know, will not want to hear Jesus tell of his death and resurrection. (Matt. 16:22)

The same Peter who, we know, will want to stay on the mountaintop at the Transfiguration when Jesus is illuminated, and God speaks from the heavens. (Matt. 17)

The same Peter who, we know, will deny Jesus three times at his arrest. (Matt. 26)

This often-reckless, selfish, and imperfect disciple is the one whom Jesus calls “the rock” and says, “I will build my church upon you.” (v. 18)

I found myself wondering what Jesus meant. Scholars debate whether Jesus spoke of Peter himself, the foundational confession that Peter makes here, or something else entirely.[i]

During our lectionary study earlier this week, one of my colleagues called Peter “Peter the blockhead.” Maybe you remember that “blockhead” was a favorite insult by the Peanuts gang in the comic by Charles M. Shulz. Lucy calls Charlie Brown a blockhead and his teammates pile on him, blaming him for losing the baseball game. His little sister Sally calls Linus a blockhead for ruining her Halloween. Calling someone a blockhead was another way of saying, “You got it all wrong.”[ii]

The image of “Peter the blockhead” being the rock upon which the Church is built has stuck with me, precisely because sometimes Peter got it all wrong, and Jesus loved him anyway.

Reflecting the meaning of the metaphor, another pastor described her family’s experience of trying to build rock cairns, the stacked towers of stones that you can find in all different places, built for all different reasons. I’ve seen them near mountain trails and in rivers, signposts that a place has meaning. In their attempts to build cairns, two things stood out to her; first, despite their appearances, the rocks didn’t have any perfectly flat surfaces, which made it really difficult to stack them evenly and keep them from slipping and tumbling over. And second, she confessed that trying to find ways to balance them tested her family’s patience and they gave up. [iii]

Like those precarious rock cairns, the Church that we have today is filled with its own imperfections and rough edges and sometimes it feels like it wouldn’t take much to make it come tumbling down.  There are gaps where the gospel that we proclaim doesn’t match up with the witness of our lives. And sometimes it is enough to cause us to lose patience, throw up our hands in frustration and even want to give up and walk away.

But God doesn’t give up. Not on Peter and not on us.

God is still here among all of us imperfect, rough-around-the-edges people. In fact, God calls us “precious living stones” (1 Peter 2:5) and works through us to build the Church that we may continue to tell the world how much God loves us all.

A third image comes from earlier in Matthew 7, in a part of the Sermon on the Mount that we didn’t get to hear this year; it’s where Jesus says,

24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.  (Matt. 7:24-25)

Too often, in our sin, in our self-centered failure to trust God, and our temptation to listen to lies and evil that would destroy what is given by God, we question why God would try to build anything with us or entrust this life-giving Gospel to us. But God is a God of wisdom, not foolishness, and God has built on rock, a solid foundation grounded in faith.

In The Message translation of this passage, Eugene Peterson writes that Jesus told Simon, “I’m going to tell you who you really are.” Who you really are in God’s eyes. Not who others say you are, not who you appear to be on your clumsiest or least grace-filled day, but who God says you are. There are times when we are blockheads. There are times when we stumble and fall down or get knocked down. But the God who loves us sees all of our imperfections, knows our sins before we even commit them, and forgives us abundantly.

The ekklesia or Church is the community united by faith in this Good News, in God’s saving action for each one of us. And Jesus has placed the Church into our hearts and hands, that our neighbors and community would know it too.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your Son Jesus who sees us and calls us by name. Thank you for your abundant grace that sees our imperfections and the works through us anyway.
Teach us to trust your wisdom and share your Good News that our neighbors will know Your love.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.

[i] Audrey West. “Commentary on Matthew 16:13-20.” Workingpreacher.org.

[ii] There is even a book published in the 1960s called The Gospel According to the Peanuts; the author Robert Short was a Presbyterian minister and Lutheran pastor Martin Marty wrote the foreword.

[iii] “A stack of rough stones.” Liddy Barlow, “Sunday’s Coming,” The Christian Century.

Second Sunday after Epiphany

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

So this weekend, our congregation council and I were on retreat at Lutheridge with a half-dozen other congregation councils from the Carolinas, to focus on congregation vitality. And as Pastor Mike Ward was facilitating the retreat and talking about how we inspire others to participate in our shared ministry he played a clip from the Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger movie “Jerry Maguire” where Jerry has stayed up all night in his hotel room pouring his heart and his passion into a twenty-five page mission statement. You’ll be happy to hear that was an example of what not to do.

But I also remember another scene from that movie, where Jerry’s wife stops him in the middle of a speech, and says,
“You had me at hello.”

Well, today begins the first of five weeks in the revised common lectionary, the three-year cycle of readings that we follow in worship, when we are reading through the epistle, or letter, written by Paul to the church in Corinth.

Now, Paul can be verbose or wordy - he doesn’t get right to the point -  so perhaps it isn’t a complete surprise that this letter is divided into sixteen chapters in the Bible. This year, the lectionary only takes us through the first three.

Today we begin at the very beginning, with the salutation, or where, essentially, Paul says, “Hello.”

We believe Paul began the church in Corinth around 50 CE, almost twenty years after the crucifixion. And now he’s writing from Ephesus, responding to letters he has received. It becomes clear in later parts of this epistle that there have been divisions within the Corinthian church and Paul wants to address those schisms.

But he doesn’t begin there. He first reminds the people in Corinth who they are:

They are the “church of God” (v.2);

They are “sanctified (or made holy) in Christ Jesus”;

and they are called to be saints. And here it becomes clear that saints are not just those who have died. (v.2)

Instead Paul reminds this church that they are called “with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 2)

This week in the Church, really beginning yesterday on the 18th, is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Remembering we are called with all who call on Jesus helps us recognize that

1. The Church is not ours at all, but Christ’s; and
   
2. Christ’s Church isn't Lutheran or Episcopal, Baptist or Methodist, or whatever other tradition or denomination you may encounter. I converted to Lutheran theology and I treasure it, so I want to say both that the differences in our theology and our practices are meaningful and that what matters most is that we are following Christ.

So far in his greeting, Paul has said, “I see you; I know you Christ-followers are trying to live as church together.” But he doesn’t just tell them “good luck with that” and leave them, wondering how they will ever figure it out. Instead, he offers them encouragement, writing, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (v.3)

Paul uses this same greeting in many of his epistles and sometimes we reachers will echo him at the beginning of our sermons. But these words aren’t just a churchy way to say “hello.” These words help us remember everything we Christians need to know:

Jesus has come into this world,
Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed One, and
Jesus has come to offer grace and peace to you, and you, and you and everyone. [i]

And then Paul ends with thanksgiving, naming all the ways God is present for the church in Corinth. He writes:

The grace of God has been given to you, or as Eugene Peterson wrote in his paraphrase The Message: “you have free and open access to God.”

Your lives bear witness to Christ’s presence – you show forth Jesus.

And you are not lacking in any spiritual gift.

I have to stop there and wonder if people could hear Paul’s words…really hear them and believe them for themselves.

I think there were probably some skeptics who doubted. Maybe they snickered and said, “Huh, he must not have been talking about me!” or “he wouldn’t say that if he knew me!”

But here’s the thing. He did know them and he was talking about them. And perhaps even more importantly, Paul knew first-hand what it is to be a sinner who encounters Christ and how Jesus changes our lives.

These same Christ-followers were trying to be church together in their corner of the world probably share more in common with our congregation today than we might guess.

But Paul looks at the church and sees abundance. Abundance of grace. Abundance of love. Abundance of giftedness.

And if doubts or fears linger, Paul’s last words are ones of promise and assurance that our faithful God will strengthen the church, not just for one day or one trial, but to the end. God has called us to be church and God gives us the gifts we need to respond to the holy calling on our lives.

Let us pray….
Good and gracious God,
We give you thanks for the saints before us like Paul and the saints around us who call on your name in neighboring churches and worshiping communities.
Thank you for the grace you have given all who call on you, that nothing separates us from You.
Teach us how to show your mercy and love in our words and actions that others may see Jesus through our lives.
Alert us to the gifts you have given us and give us courage to use them for ministry.
We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

[i] Anna Madsen. “Know Your Home: If Necessary, Go Another Way to Get There.” OMG: Center for Theological Conversation. http://omgcenter.com/2020/01/06/know-your-home-if-necessary-go-another-way-to-get-there/, accessed 1/18/2020.

Lectionary 19C/ Proper 14

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

This week the churchwide assembly for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) convened in Milwaukee.

In the ELCA we celebrate being one church body organized in three expressions – the local congregation, the synod, and the churchwide organization, and the churchwide assembly (#ELCAcwa) brings those three expressions together every three years. There, voting members elected by each of the sixty-five synods, as well as our synod bishops and assistants to the bishop and the Church Council gather to listen for where God is speaking and leading; to bear witness to God’s activity in the world; and to take action that shines God’s light in the world in solidarity with the poor, and oppressed, calling for justice and proclaiming God’s love for the world.[i]

I watched worship and plenaries on the livestream from the Wisconsin Center, and while there’s much that could be said about Roberts’ Rules of Order, parliamentary procedure and hot mic moments during the assembly, what made it extraordinary was the joyful worship and preaching that proclaimed that we are saved by a God whose grace has no limits, and the actions taken that spoke to how God’s kingdom is breaking into the world even now.

And, as I listened and watched, the words of our second reading from the book of Hebrews returned to me:

1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen… 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Like us, the audience being addressed in the book of Hebrews “were not eyewitnesses to the ministry of Jesus and [they] lived in a community that had been founded some years before.”[ii] Like those “Christians who were having trouble holding onto hope when Christ did not return immediately after his resurrection”, we, too, wait for answers from God, and in the midst of daily life we can become discouraged that evil and sin continue to exist in the world. [iii] But the Good News of Jesus Christ is that we are not alone, or abandoned to our despair or our fear.

This text tells us first that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for.”(v. 1) Furman University religion professor John C. Shelley notes, “what we hope for is intimately connected to our faith.”[iv] In the gospel, Jesus tells us “Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.” (Luke 12: 34) The places where we commit our selves – our time, talents and our money – reflect the desires of our hearts, and they reflect our faith because our lives are lived in response to the grace we have been given. The hopes we hold for ourselves, our church and the world cannot be separated from our faith.

One of the actions that the churchwide assembly took was to adopt a memorial that “encourages our synods and congregations to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of the ELCA’s ordination of women in 2020;
the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the ordination of women of color in the Lutheran tradition in the United States and
the 10th anniversary of the ELCA’s decision to remove the barriers to ordination for people in same-gendered relationships..."[v]

I am grateful the ELCA “recognizes the diversity of gifts that women’s ordination brings to this church”[vi] and to this congregation for calling me as Ascension’s first female pastor, but I lament that many congregations throughout the ELCA still refuse to recognize the calls of women in ministry, people of color and our LGBTQIA siblings in Christ. For all who have been told that they cannot serve, in our denomination or elsewhere, our churchwide affirmation of women in ministry witnesses that “the way of Jesus is the way to become who [each of us] most truly is,” as a child of God.[vii] Our action sustains hope for those who do not yet see a way forward.

The text also tells us that faith is “the conviction of things not seen.” (v. 1) As Shelley writes, “faith is not supported by the surrounding culture.”[viii] We forget sometimes how political Jesus was; he challenged the existing systems and leaders on behalf of those who were suffering or ignored and, ultimately, he was executed for it. In Luke’s gospel particularly, he speaks up for the poor, with more than 30 references to wealth, money, possessions and alms in Luke-Acts alone.

We cannot listen to Jesus’s words and think he doesn’t have something to say about how we spend, save and give.

Rolf Jacobson, a professor at Luther Seminary, tells the story of how he started tipping more and then realized he was noticing more the people who are dependent on tips. It’s not just wait staff at restaurants. It’s service personnel who don’t have living wages, and often don’t have benefits that provide healthcare or retirement savings. Again, we hear Jesus: “Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.”

Budgets are faith statements, and at the churchwide assembly, one of the first celebrations was that “Always Being Made New: the Campaign for the ELCA” exceeded its goal, raising more than $250 million in support of new and existing ELCA ministries. Those gifts will provide needed revenue to expand ministries for supporting congregations, leaders, and the global church and addressing hunger and poverty, and we can and should celebrate the ways God will be made known.

Later in the week, the assembly adopted the three-year budget for the churchwide expression which designated 75% of expenses to support and grow vital congregations here in the U.S. and to grow the Lutheran Church around the world; provide relief and development to help end hunger domestically and globally; provide coordination and support for churchwide ministries and support and develop current and future rostered and lay leaders in the ELCA.

Clearly, we long to participate in the beautiful kingdom work that God is doing through our church.

But then, one of the last pieces of business that the assembly engaged was the discussion of a cost-saving measure taken earlier this year that changed the healthcare benefits for the employees at the churchwide organization. The assembly was asked to consider restoring those benefits and the difficult discussion highlighted the challenge of managing money, people and ministry. It also, importantly, affirmed our own social statement that acknowledges how health and health care depend not only upon personal responsibility, but also upon other people and conditions in wider society. It states, “Such interdependence is at odds with the common message of this individualistic society, but it flows from the biblical vision of wholeness.”[ix]

We cannot make decisions about our lives and the lives of those around us apart from our faith.
In the verses that follow those that I read, the writer of Hebrews shares the stories of heroes of faith including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and reminds us that, as Shelley notes, “faith may provoke hostility and ridicule…and it also presents itself as courage.[x]

Several of the actions taken this week by the assembly required great courage. After thirty years the ELCA has even fewer people of color than our predecessor bodies of the ALC and LCA did; in fact, we are the whitest denomination in the U.S. No single action or set of actions can change that reality quickly but the assembly took three actions that begin to address our history and our future. First, the assembly apologized to the African descent community for our historical complicity in slavery and its enduring legacy of racism in the United States and globally. The second action recalled the events of June 17, 2015 when a young man, baptized and raised in an ELCA congregation in the Carolinas, murdered nine people at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston; in commemoration of those nine martyrs, June 17 was designated as a day of repentance, grounded in prayer. And the third action was the adoption of an unambiguous resolution to condemn white supremacy, proclaiming that “the love of God and the justice and mercy of God are for all people, without exception.”[xi]

There is a Zulu proverb that says, “When a thorn pierces the foot, the whole body must bend over to pull it out.”[xii] We cannot follow Jesus but expect others do the hard and necessary work to address systemic racism in our nation and within the Church.

There are many more examples from churchwide assembly that connect faith and Scripture to our everyday lives and remind us that we are part of the Body of Christ in all its beauty and all its mess. I encourage you to learn more about the actions the assembly took, but also to look at your own decisions and see how your faith informs your live in the every day.

Our faith is alive – it is hope-filled; it is relational and it is public.
It is our faith in Christ whom we proclaim crucified and risen that gives us courage to confront evil and sin in the world with the confidence that God prevails. The writer of Hebrews assures us: we do not need to be discouraged and we are not without hope.

Let us pray…
Creator God,
We give you thanks for the world created by your word
and for Your Son who shows us Your Kingdom.
Forgive us when we fail to put our faith in your promises.
By your Holy Spirit, strengthen and give us courage to seek justice for all your children.
We pray in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Amen.


[i] Constitution, Ascension Lutheran Church.
[ii] “Hebrews”. Enter the Bible. Luther Seminary.
[iii] David E. Gray. “Hebrews”, Feasting on the Word.
[iv] John C. Shelley. “Hebrews”, Feasting on the Word.
[v] Legislative Update, https://www.elca.org/cwa-2019/guidebook-web-version, accessed 8/10/19
[vi] ibid
[vii] Shelley.
[viii] ibid
[ix] https://www.elca.org/Faith/Faith-and-Society/Social-Statements/Health-Care, accessed 8/10/19
[x] ibid
[xi] Legislative Update, https://www.elca.org/cwa-2019/guidebook-web-version, accessed 8/10/19
[xii] The Right Reverend W. Darin Moore, Bishop, AME Zion Church, speaking at ELCA CWA 8/8/2019.

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Psalm 67

Before he left for a camping trip this weekend, Jamie showed me the new t-shirt design for this year’s High Country Bus Festival. That’s the Volkswagen campout he organizes every year that happens on the last weekend of July on the New River. 2016 was its 20th year, and I think Jamie’s been involved for the last twelve.

We started bus camping when Emma was not quite six months old, packing up the sleeping bags, coffee pot and cookware and joining VW friends in their buses at VW campouts that happen all up and down the East Coast and in Canada. Jamie always goes to a few more campouts than I do, but High Country is the one that both girls and I will make sure we make. This year, when we get there, we’ll reunite with friends, and say a final goodbye to our chocolate lab Heidi who loved nothing more than chasing a stick or a ball into the river.

One of my favorite times at these campouts happens after the sun sets and people set up their camping chairs around the fire pit, and the ones who are musical bring their instruments, and someone brings a bag of marshmallows and chocolate bars and graham crackers and we sit, circled around the firepit remembering the day’s adventures and telling stories. I think I could sit there all night with the lulling hum of conversations all around me.

If you see photographs from High Country, you see people on bicycles, in golf carts, on river rafts and in kayaks; teenagers and twenty-something’s, young families with newborns and toddlers, and grandparents and grandchildren; American flags mixed in with Grateful Dead stickers and tie dye. We bring different backgrounds, educations, work lives and experiences with us and we have different ways of looking at the world, but under a wide blue sky on the riverbank, we are a gathered community. And if someone is in need, the whole community steps up and responds.

In those moments, it’s a whole lot like church, a gathered community united by a common faith.

Our shared lives are the marks of a community, and in Psalm 67, the Psalmist is reminding us that we are drawn together as a community because we share in God’s blessing.

The Psalms are songs that are written down as in a prayer book, and this one, which is only seven verses, begins and ends with words of blessing that we hear in our own worship:

In verse 1,

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us…

And in verse 7,
7 May God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him.

In Scripture, God’s face is a metaphor for the presence of God. The Psalmist witnesses to us that God is not abstract and distant, but present with us. “God is blessing us with God’s own self.”[i]

In today’s gospel, Jesus delivers this same message to his disciples when he tells them about the resurrection. We are not abandoned or alone; God is with us and the Holy Spirit is speaking into our lives, leading and directing us.

But if we only hear the praise and confidence in God’s blessing, and bask in the radiance of God’s face shining on us, we aren’t paying attention.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book Life Together:[ii]

It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God's Word and sacrament.

Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who helped found the Confessing Church, a resistance movement that defied Hitler during World War II. He was executed in April 1945 as the Nazi regime was collapsing. Bonhoeffer was insistent that our faith calls us to engage in the world and act in it.

As a community of God’s people, we are not simply given God’s blessing for our own benefit. God’s blessing to us and our community is inseparable from God’s blessing for the world.

Receiving God’s blessing and promises,
as the gathered community of God’s people,
we are given a responsibility to live among all the nations and all peoples as representatives of God’s kingdom,
as reconcilers in the world.

When conflict and disagreement happens, we are called to make God’s ways “known upon the earth”.

As one preacher wrote, as Christians we are, “people who can hold on to hope in the midst of despair and trust through times of loss and desolation.”[iii] 

Telling the story of Jesus who himself was unjustly executed and made a scapegoat, we offer God’s healing to a neighborhood torn apart by hate or violence.

Meeting basic human needs for shelter, food and hygiene, we offer God’s healing to people who have only known neglect and scarcity.

Remembering how Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus, we offer God’s healing to those who are grieving, confident that God is with us even when the world feels broken.

Each of us who has experienced God’s increase in our lives is called to share that blessing with others. Sharing our blessing also means sharing our lives because it is through God’s people that the world comes to know God.

We are called to share our lives
with the person who is suffering,
who is out of sync with the world around them,
who is disconnected by shame, anxiety or sorrow;
with the person who cannot hear or see the face of God shining on them, or recognize the promise of hope that we all have through Christ;
with the person experiencing “the dark night of the soul”,
who cannot imagine the unconditional love of God;

For the sake of these people – our family and neighbors and strangers – we are called to bring healing to our community.

We offer refuge and safe spaces where people can be restored, regain hope.
We offer forgiveness and mercy, remembering the mercy we are shown every day.
We offer the comfort of an embrace, knowing God’s love is boundless.
Sharing our lives, we can awaken a joy for living that soothes aching hearts and shadowed souls.

Wherever we share our lives - whether it’s around a campfire, or a dinner table; in the dining room or the library, or in a phone call or a handwritten card, when we share our lives, we share God’s blessing in our lives.

Living out of gratitude for the abundance in our lives,
and remembering the great stretch of God’s saving love,
we can help others meet Jesus and fulfill “the deepest longing of the human heart, to know with assurance the loving, living abiding presence of God.”[iv]

Let us pray…
Lord God,
We give you thanks for Your Son who shows us Your love and teaches us to love others;
Forgive us when we are self-centered or turn inward on ourselves,
forgetting that your blessing is meant to be shared;
Confident in your promises and Your presence with us,
make us bold witnesses to Your abundant and merciful love.
We pray in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

[i] Bartlett, David L.. Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide . Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition. Location 17094.
[ii] Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Life Together.
[iii] Bartlett, Location 17088.
[iv] Bartlett. Location 17102.

Epiphany of the Lord

Matthew 2:1-12
Isaiah 60:1-6

Twelve days after our celebration of the birth of Jesus on Christmas morning, the world has certainly moved on. While the glitter and bling of New Year’s Eve festivities drew our attention from a lowly manger to the sky where fireworks exploded and confetti rained down, we oriented ourselves to look ahead to what is coming and what will be.

But hearing Matthew’s gospel account of the magi traveling to honor the infant Jesus, we are invited to pause and allow ourselves again to be filled with wonder and joy at the presence of our Lord and Savior, in the flesh. In Jesus, God comes to all the people of the world as our Redeemer, and at Epiphany, we celebrate that the light Jesus brings into the world is neither dim nor narrow, leaving swaths of people in darkness, but it is bright and shining, illuminating our lives and beckoning us to participate in God’s kingdom.

Like the exilic people of Judah whom the prophet Isaiah was addressing, we too are called to arise, shine, lift up our eyes and look around.

The Isaiah text we heard is from the third book of Isaiah, the portion most likely written after the people had already returned to Judah from their exile in Babylon. A whole generation had passed since people had lived in Judah and their return was not easy. This section of the book was written to help the people recall what God’s promises are and remember what it means to live as God’s people, even when there are problems or despair.

The prophet’s first command is, “Arise!”
Maybe you hear echoes of the prophets telling us in Advent to get ready, stay alert and prepare. Faith is active and participatory, and at Epiphany we are invited to find our places in the procession to see our King.

The next command is, “Shine!”
Each of us is created and gifted uniquely to take part in God’s kingdom on earth. Later in Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus is addressing the crowds during the sermon on the mount, he describes the light that we each carry and warns his followers not to hide it. This command to “Shine!” is to look at the light we carry — the gifts we bear — and share them with the world.

Our Lutheran understanding of faith is that God’s grace is freely given and received; it is not earned, and nothing we do or don’t do separates us from God’s love. Therefore, any response we make to God is in gratitude for what God has first given us.

Today as we install our congregation council, we gratefully recognize the gifts that each person gives to God and to the Church as leaders in our congregation, but each one of you here has gifts that are uniquely yours and can be shared.

The final command Isaiah gives is, “Lift up your eyes and look around.” Sin can be defined as being curved inward, focusing on ourselves; others may call it navel-gazing. At the prophet’s insistence, we must raise our eyes up to take our eyes off ourselves, and see not only the people around us but also see how God is already active and dispelling the darkness:
to rejoice at the goodness that we witness when God’s people unite instead of divide;
to celebrate the reconciliation and reunion of families separated by war or conflict;
to delight in the ways God’s love is being made known through local and global ministries that are making a difference.

As followers of Jesus, we are compelled to extend God’s love to others, and to respond to our neighbors’ suffering and need. So, when we look around with our eyes open, we must not ignore the tremendous need the world has and the needs that still exist right here in our community: for caring adults in the lives of children; for basic clothing and hygiene, safe shelter and access to nutritious food; for protection from violence and abuse; and for compassionate care for older adults who are living with chronic or terminal illness.

As the Church we are invited to be God’s presence, God’s hands and feet, on earth, so, Dear Church, arise, shine, lift up your eyes and look around, and may we shine forth the light of Christ in all we do and say.

Let us pray…
Redeeming God,
Thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus, the light of the world whose birth we continue to celebrate.
By your grace, you make each one of us a sharer in the promised light that we may bring light to those in thick darkness, hope to those no one cares for and act as a voice to those no one speaks for.
By your Spirit empower us to live as Your people, remembering your promises and participating in your kingdom.
We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.

3rd Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 3:20-35 

In Mark’s gospel Jesus’ ministry begins immediately with healing, confronting powers and principalities and “encountering the power of unclean spirits and demon possession.”[i] And in response, in today’s Gospel reading, the Pharisees and scribes level “a charge against Jesus, accusing him of being in league with the ruler of demons.”[ii] His own family arrives on the scene, saying he is “beside himself” or “out of his mind.”

Responding to their accusations, Jesus takes seriously the realities of Satan and other demonic powers. His direct speech about Satan makes us uncomfortable because in our “secular age” we live in a largely “disenchanted world” where “talking about the Devil is more and more awkward” and more “like telling a story about ghosts, alien abduction, or Bigfoot.” [iii]

Whatever our understanding of these powers are, the reality that Jesus names here is that we are captive “to the powers of evil signified by “Satan,” powers that continue to seek our allegiance” even now.[iv] “The proper name “Satan” comes from the Hebrew … word that simply means adversary.”…Biblically, Satan names that which is working against God and God’s kingdom in the world.”[v] These are the powers that “capture us and cause us to hurt ourselves, to hurt others, and to hurt God.”[vi]

And, captive to these powers, in our communities and neighborhoods, and even within our congregations, we become the “house divided” that Jesus references as we continue to label people as “out of their minds” and in direct opposition to the Gospel — the Good News of Jesus Christ — we demonize, “other” and de-humanize the ones who stand outside: the refugee, the immigrant, the person with brown or black skin; the convict, the poor, and the homeless; those who are differently abled and those whose mental health is compromised.

Nearly four years after comedian and actor Robin Williams’ death by suicide, suicide returned to the news this week followings the deaths of designer Kate Spade and chef Anthony Bourdain.  In addition to having resources and celebrity, all three of these beloved sons and daughters of God had the unfortunate distinction of belonging to the group of people – those between 45 to 64 years old –  who have the highest suicide rate (19.21%) in our country. But the next highest group affected is those 75 and older at 18.59%.[vii] And, across age groups, veterans account for 22% of suicides. No one is immune. 

And yet, despite its prevalence,
despite the fact that each year more than 44,000 Americans die by suicide, and, on average, in our state, one person dies by suicide every six hours, mental health conversations remain difficult and conditions like anxiety, bipolar, depression, and psychosis remain highly stigmatized.  [viii]

The first words of Mark’s Gospel say, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1) but in his book Jesus and the Disinherited Howard Thurman wrote, “Christianity is only good news, if it’s good news for “those who stand, at a moment in human history, with their backs against the wall.”[ix]

Thurman’s words provoke us to recognize the ways in which too often today, people affected by mental illness still live with their backs against the wall.

And it’s not only “those people,” the ones we don’t know. It is us, it is our children and our sisters and brothers.

Fully 1 in 5 adults experience mental health conditions every year.
1 in 5.And because few of us grew up in settings where mental health was openly discussed, we think, “I should be happy.” “I just need to be more positive.” “I just need to work this out for myself.” And when we don’t find that way forward all on our own, without medication, professional help or counseling, we become more frustrated, more disappointed and more critical of ourselves. [x]We churn in an eddy of dis-ease, shame and mis-understanding, with voices echoing in our heads:

“I am unforgiveable.”
“God punishes and condemns me.”
And “I have no purpose.”

And those are lies. Those are the very evil lies that Jesus names when he “[exposes] our captivity to the “strong men” of our lives.”[xi]

Today’s gospel demonstrates that, truly, “we are enslaved to oppressive spiritual forces …[and] God is acting in Jesus as [our] liberator, emancipator and rescuer.”[xii] 

The Good News that Jesus brings is the assurance of grace that says,

“I am forgivable.”
“God loves me.”
And “God has a purpose for me.”

And it is in those moments when we are freed to “experience the gracious and stunning love of God.”[xiii]

It is really important to say out loud here that people who complete their deaths by suicide are not outside of God’s grace; their disease tragically altered their lives and brought about their premature deaths, but they are not separated from God’s love.

A clergy friend shared the story of a congregation where a row of eight headstones sat at one end of their cemetery. Each of the markers was for a person who had completed their death by suicide. At the time of their burials, the graves had sat beyond the fence around the cemetery; they were considered outside the grace of God at their deaths. Since then, compassion had prevailed and the fence had been moved, so that today, they stand united with the other saints who were laid to rest there.

Maybe you remember those days. Thankfully, similar changes have happened in the majority of Christian traditions, and today, Christians who complete their deaths by suicide are interred or inurned with the same rites of committal and commendation as anyone else.

For each of us here, confident of God’s mercy made new every morning, we can live this Gospel’s Good News out loud in our lives and in our congregation, neighborhoods and communities.

If you are struggling, know you are loved. You matter. You are wildly loved. You are not alone. Stay with us. Please. You brain chemistry is broken, not you. Ask for help. Seek counseling. Work with a doctor to manage the right dose and kind of medication. Freedom awaits. But hear me when I say, if you cannot do any of those things, it doesn’t change the facts: You matter. You are wildly loved. You are not alone. Stay with us. Please.[xiv]

If you are healthy today — and it’s always today because mental health isn’t static and set, it changes and depression can come roaring back into a person’s life without warning — if you are healthy today, learn the number for the Suicide Prevention Hotline. Learn about Mental Health First Aid and QPR trainings that will equip you to respond to others whose mental health is affected. Advocate for comprehensive access to healthcare. Learn about warning signs of suicidal thoughts and behaviors and learn how to listen non-judgmentally to people when they are hurting. Learn and share information about the resources that are available here in Shelby and Cleveland County, and walk alongside people who are hurting, without trying to “fix” them. [xv]

Following Jesus, we are freed to open our imaginations to see the world that Jesus sees, where, as Paul writes in Romans 8:21, “we obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

No longer a house divided, we are freed to become a community where we practice care and love and reconciliation, working out the messiness of our lives face to face with real people. That is who the Church is called to be in this hurting world.

Pray with me…
Healing and life-giving God,
Thank you for your Son Jesus who defeats all the powers of evil that persist in this world;
Thank you for your abundant and healing mercy and grace.
Give us courage to confess our dependence on you and name our sin and willfulness when we try to “go it alone.”
Strengthen us by your Holy Spirit to follow Jesus into the world with Your love.
Amen.

[i] https://www.enterthebible.org/newtestament.aspx?rid=3, accessed 6/9/2018.
[ii] https://www.enterthebible.org/newtestament.aspx?rid=3, accessed 6/9/2018.
[iii] Richard Beck. Reviving Old Scratch. xv.
[iv] Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16), (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) (Kindle Location 4329). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[v] Beck, 8.
[vi] Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16), Kindle Locations 4330-4331.
[vii] 45-54 19.72%, 55 – 64 18.71%, 75-83 18.2%; 85+ 18.98% according to https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/, accessed 6/9/2018.
[viii] https://afsp.org/about-suicide/state-fact-sheets/#North-Carolina, accessed 6/9/2018.
[ix] Howard Thurman. Jesus and the Disinherited, 11.
[x] Adapted from Rev. Keith Spencer.
[xi] Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16), Kindle Location 4337.
[xii] Beck, 44-46.
[xiii] Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16), Kindle Locations 4335-4336.
[xiv] Adapted from Rev. Jason Chestnut (@crazy pastor)
[xv] Adapted from Rev. Keith Spencer.

What our Sunday clothes say about who we are

The online community at RevGalBlogPals is participating in #NaBloPoMo, encouraging writers to respond to prompts every day throughout the month of November. If you haven’t discovered it yet, RevGalsBlogPals is a network or web of women clergy and their allies who support each other through prayer, fellowship, and conversations about the Sunday lectionary readings. Our virtual community intersects with our face-to-face lives when we find other RevGalBlogPals in our own local communities and networks.

Female clergy colleagues often note people’s propensity to comment on what we are wearing, which makes me chuckle at the first prompt which says:

“Write about what you wear at church (your best clothes, your comfy clothes, robe, stole, etc.) What does the phrase “church clothes” look like in your world?"

On Sundays in my Lutheran church, I am teaching, leading worship and preaching, so I wear a clerical shirt with whatever other clothes I wear that day. On a work day or the day of our annual congregation picnic, that may be blue jeans, but most often, it is business clothes. During worship in my traditional setting, I most often wear a plain white cotton alb with a rope cincture or rope that wraps around my waist, and a liturgical stole that reflects the colors of the season in the church year. On some of the major festival Sundays, including the Nativity of our Lord (Christmas Eve), Easter Sunday and Pentecost, I also wear a chasuble, which is an outer garment that I wear over the alb and stole.

Because the stoles and chasubles reflect where we are in the church year, they help me tell the story of the promises we receive in this gift of faith that God gives each of us. And while this Sunday’s Gospel reading (Mark 12:38-44) says, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes,” I see my vestments, and especially my alb, as a reminder of those promises:

“Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27)

Advent Confidential

As the Church enters a new year, the first four Sundays (which happen to begin on December 1 this year) mark Advent, a time of waiting and preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ birth at Christmas. RevGalBlogPals asked about our favorite memories or traditions for today’s FridayFive Advent Confidential.

Growing up, my family (1) had Advent calendars (2), and each day in December began with our opening a cardboard window and trying not to peak ahead to the manger scene hidden under the double doors marked “24” or sometimes "25". Sometimes they had verses but often they were just pictures related to the story of the birth of the infant Jesus. At least one year, on Sunday nights during Advent, my mother played carols at the piano while a fire was lit in the fire place, and my dad read from the King James Bible at our very own wreath lighting (3).

In those days, in the Episcopal tradition, we used the pink and purple candles. The colors of candles, the variety of four-fold meanings of the candles, and the significance of where and when the wreath lighting happens in worship are all nuances that were lost to me before going to seminary. If your curiosity is piqued, you can check out Advent resources on Text this Week, or from Worshiping with Children.

As an adult, my favorite Advent memories are from the soup suppers (4) and worship services on Wednesday evenings. Admittedly, when my children were younger, I figured we had done well just to slow down enough to get to the supper, so we often left before the actual worship began. Last year, I participated in community Advent services that brought together four different congregations, rotating the cooking responsibilities as well as the hosting of the services. As fewer people attend the midweek worship services for Advent, they are becoming harder to find, but these special services provide a much-needed chance to reset and refocus (5), an art often lost by the third day of a busy work week.

For me, this year’s season of waiting is punctuated by the different kinds of waiting we have happening in our house as I await my first call as the pastor of a congregation and my daughters await news of school acceptances for next school year. We are, as the people were at the time of Jesus’ birth, filled with hope and anticipation at what God is doing, and we wish and pray for peace and healing in this season.

Preacher without a pulpit

I finished my seminary internship, completing thirteen months of pastoral ministry at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Asheville in August. Approved for assignment, I am now eligible to receive a letter of call as a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) following the completion of my MDiv degree this December.

This in-between time is interesting because I formed my identity as a pastor, a preacher and public Christian leader during this past year, but right now I do not have a congregation or a pulpit. For now, my family and I are waiting for what will unfold. It's interesting in this interim to think more fully about the idea that the Holy Spirit forms faith through preaching, that preaching brings a person to Christ and knits them into the body of Christ, and then to think about what preaching looks like outside of ordained ministry.

Meanwhile, here are my last two sermons from St. Mark's.

July 21, 2013
9th Sunday after Pentecost (Year C)
Amos 8:1-12
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

Listen Now



August 25, 2013
14th Sunday after Pentecost (Year C)
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

Listen Now

"Always Being Made New"

As you know, if you are reading this here, I am a church geek. On Wednesday, August 14, 2013, I joined more than 2,000 others watching a LiveStream of my denomination's Churchwide Assembly -  a national gathering of about 952 representatives that happens every 3 years. Thankfully, this year's gathering of the Evangelical Church in America (ELCA) is being held in Pittsburgh which makes it easy for me to indulge in conversations and watch the live feed.

I watched in the morning as four people  - our Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, and three women currently serving as synod bishops - spoke about leading our Church in the next six years, and I watched in the afternoon as a fifth ballot between the two final nominees was held.

For those of you who think this is as interesting as watching grass grow (my frequent analogy for watching golf on television, or live for that matter) what made it wonderful was the color commentary provided by other church geeks, like me. As the people in the room listened and made their decisions about which candidate would receive their vote, I listened on Twitter (#ELCAcwa) and chat to the overwhelming respect and affirmation of our current leader's gifts and ministry. Presiding Bishop Hanson has led the ELCA for twelve years with grace and compassion even as congregations are getting smaller, even as seminaries are struggling, even as controversy erupted over who we ordain as leaders for our congregations.

And in the midst of recognizing the blessing that Bishop Hanson has been to the office of Presiding Bishop, and at the same time listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit for us in the world today, our church elected a new leader - and for the first time, a woman. It was a day to celebrate the Good in the Church even as we look for ways to move forward.

As a seminary student anticipating assignment and my first call in the ELCA, I am grateful for the day and the memory. I am grateful for the women in ministry who have preceded me. I am grateful for the faithfulness of all the leaders - women and men - who have challenged us to "always be made new" and who have shown courage in walking with us into new places and new ways of being church.

If you are a church geek, too, here is the video of Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson introducing Presiding Bishop-Elect Elizabeth Eaton. (This is a formal moderated press conference. Bishop Hanson's remarks begin at about 2:34 mark and Bishop Eaton begins about 5:27)

Summertime in the Preacher's Corner

For my family and me, summertime means barefeet, swimming in the river, campfires and cooking on the grill. For one of my daughters, it isn't summer without the beach, and for another it wouldn't be the same unless she was at Lutheridge for at least one week. Summer means something different for everyone. As we live into the season and all the meanings it carries for people, as a preacher, one of the questions I'm trying to figure out in the midst or Mother's and Father's Day, Memorial Day and the 4th of July, is where, if at all, should my preaching connect the Gospel to these celebrations and traditions?

Here are my three most recent sermons. The first was preached on Trinity Sunday, which fell this year on the last weekend in May, which for most Americans anyway, is Memorial Day Weekend, the official unofficial start of summer when the public swimming pools open, grills are fired up and  the shoes come off.  The second sermon was on June 23, in the midst of the long green season both in the church and in a world where everything is growing and green, and the third was on June 30, the Sunday before America's Independence Day celebration.

I didn't try to make connections to the season's celebrations in this year's sermons and I haven't resolved my questions about the importance of those connections. Part of me wants to stubbornly stick to the text and not be concerned about them, but I also want my hearers to connect the Gospel to their own lives -  to know that they are loved by God and God cares about what happens in their lives - and going forward, I think that may mean making room for the celebrations. Please let me know what you think.

May 26, 2013
Trinity Sunday (Year C)
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15



 Listen Now


June 23, 2013
5th Sunday after Pentecost (Year C)
Isaiah 65:1–9
Psalm 22:19–28 (22)
Galatians 3:23–29
Luke 8:26–39


Listen Now


June 30, 2013
6th Sunday after Pentecost (Year C)
1 Kings 19:15–16, 19–21
Psalm 16 (8)
Galatians 5:1, 13–25
Luke 9:51–62


Listen Now

Preacher's Corner in Eastertide

Each year in the three-year cycle of the lectionary  (the Revised Common Lectionary), many churches follow lessons chosen primarily from one of the synoptic gospels. In Year A, Matthew; in Year B, Mark; and in Year C, Luke. But in the Easter season,we are given the story of Jesus' ministry that we hear in the Fourth Gospel, or the Gospel of John. Here are sermons from the 2nd and 4th Sundays of Easter this year.

April 7, 2013
2nd Sunday in Easter (Year C)
Psalm 150
Acts 5:27-32
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31

Jesus commissions us to bear witness to the identity of God.

Listen Now 


April 21, 2013
4th Sunday in Easter (Year C)
Psalm 23
Acts 9:36-43
Revelation 7:9-17  
John 10:22-30 

God has given us to Jesus as part of the Good Shepherd’s flock; Jesus leads us out of lost-ness.

 Listen Now

Kyrie Eleison... Lord Have Mercy

In a week already marked by anniversaries of past tragedies like the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, the shootings at Virginia Tech (2007) and at Columbine High School (1999), as well as the 1993 shootout in Waco, Texas, we witnessed more death and destruction and, while my community is hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from the tragedies that struck this week, I felt called to say the following to the people who gathered at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Asheville this morning for Good Shepherd Sunday. The Gospel text was John 10:22-30.

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When I was growing up, my parents’ generation could remember where they were when they heard that President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed.

For me, the first event that I remember in that way is the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.

A litany of unthinkable events have happened in the years since then.

Like it or not, these incidents become waymarkers in each of our lives, like blazes on a footpath or buoys in a channel.

When new news of death and destruction hits us, like it has this past week with the bombing at the Boston marathon,
the explosion of the fertilizer plant in Texas,
the earthquake in China’s Sichuan province,
we freshly mourn the loss of lives
and try to find our true north, to regain our equilibrium,
wishing our cries of “Enough” and “Never Again” were sufficient.
But somehow, they aren’t,
and now, here we stand together again,
lost and disoriented,
deeply grieving for the hurting world around us.

We all react differently to these experiences.
Some of you may be able to neatly categorize these events as the stuff of history
while others have heard or seen so much in your lifetimes that you numbly accept yet another tragedy,
while for others, each new tragedy is a sharp jab to your gut
as the memory of “where you were when you heard” rushes back and knocks the wind out of you, all over again.

Poet Mary Oliver suggests yet another reaction, writing,
“Read one newspaper daily …
And let the disasters, the unbelievable yet approved decisions, soak in…
What keeps us from falling down to the ground…?”(1)



Indeed in today’s Gospel, I think we are called to fall down –
called to admit that in this broken and hurting place, we can do nothing apart from God,

called to kneel before God and confess Jesus as Messiah – the Risen and Living Christ who died to restore us in relationship with God – 

and called to stand and follow him,
as our Good Shepherd, confident in God’s love and care for each of us.



Speaking to a Jewish audience, Jesus takes the image of the Good Shepherd,
a familiar image known to them through the prophets Ezekiel (34; 22:27), 
Zephaniah (3:3) and Zechariah (10:2-3, 11:4-17),
an image that compared the unfaithful leaders of Israel to bad shepherds who consigned their flocks to the wolves,
and tells them, "Look again!"

Recalling the promise of a future shepherd,
a good shepherd, who will gather God’s people as one flock,
Jesus says,
“Look around you! I am the Good Shepherd. My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.” God has fulfilled God’s promise to Moses, to David, to Israel!

God has given God’s people – us – a good shepherd who gathers us into one flock,
one community of followers who know Jesus.

We don’t just know his genealogy or where he was born; in John’s Gospel “knowing” is not just a “head” matter, but a “heart” matter. Knowing is not just an intellectual task; “knowing” is “believing” – God’s people believe Jesus is the Messiah and follow him.

And not only has God given us a good shepherd;God has given us to Jesus.
Just as a shepherd knows the flock in his care, Jesus knows each one of us –
the good, the bad and the ugly. 

Jesus knows us in our anger, our hurt, and our tears.
And Jesus knows us in our generosity, our mercy, and our joy.

We know his voice – his Word comes to us through Scripture. Psalm 23 tells us

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
   I fear no evil;
for you are with me;”

His Word gives us assurance of his presence and reminds us of his promise:

that we will have eternal life – that death will not have the last word;
that we are held in God’s loving hands – no one and nothing can snatch us from God;
that God is greater than the evil we see perpetrated;
that God is greater than the powers and principalities that try to separate us from one another and from God.

And so, we follow him. United as one flock, our waymarkers are not the tragedies that we experience in our lives, whether they make the news cycle or not.

Our waymarkers are God’s commands to love God and our neighbor. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, leads us in God’s ways and keeps us on right paths.



Reassured by God’s steadfast promises in a world violently shaken by the brokenness of human sin and by death, we walk “on the rough ground of uncertainties”(2) ; we claim God’s love, grace and forgiveness and confess Jesus as Messiah.

In a message shared Friday night, Bishop Mark Hanson told us, “There are no God-forsaken places and there are no God-forgotten people….”(3)  We may be “washed in life’s river”(4), but we are baptized as God’s children; our Shepherding God knows each one of us by name and loves us and cares for us.



Let us pray. (4)

O Lord, our Shepherding God, come close to us now
Come near us in our time of need.

Guide us with your voice,
Help us to listen and follow no matter where you lead.
Help us to trust you.

Shepherding God,
thank you for your son who laid down his life for those who follow him and for those who are not yet in the fold …

We pray for those who don’t know the shepherd. We pray that by our actions and our reaching out into the community, they may come to know you.

Shepherding God,
Guide us with your love and renew us with your peace. Amen.

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Notes:
(1) excerpt from Mary Oliver, “The Morning Paper” in A Thousand Mornings
(2) excerpt from Mary Oliver, “A Thousand Mornings” in A Thousand Mornings
(3) ELCA, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2q4IuPQcow&list=PLC4E2E3CA2B79AA24&index=1
(4) excerpt from William Blake, “Night”
(5) excerpt from Abigail Carlisle-Wilke, "Sunday Prayer for Easter 4C", RevGalBlogPals, http://revgalblogpals.blogspot.com/2013/04/sunday-prayer-for-easter-4c.html