Second Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 11A

Romans 5:1-8

Grace and peace to you.

For most of the summer, our epistles or New Testament readings will come from St. Paul’s letter to the Christian church in Rome. It is the longest of Paul’s letters, which is why it is the first one in Scripture. Scholars believe Paul wrote it between 55 – 58 CE while he was living in Corinth, and unlike some of the other epistles attributed to him, this letter’s authorship is undisputed.

While Romans is not one of the four Gospels in our canon, Martin Luther once called it “the chief part of the New Testament and the [clearest] Gospel.”[i] Luther wrote that a Christian finds most things one ought to know in this letter,

namely, what is law, Gospel, sin, punishment, grace, faith, righteousness, Christ, God, good works, love, hope, the cross, and how we are to conduct ourselves toward everyone.[ii]

A summary of Paul’s teaching to the Church, the letter

is about God's saving work in Christ for Jew and Gentile alike, both of whom fall short of doing the will of God yet receive grace and mercy from God.[iii]

Whenever we hear one of Paul’s letters it’s helpful to remember that we are not the intended audience. We are eavesdropping on a conversation he is having with another group of people.

Often Paul wrote to communities where he had planted churches and addressed specific conflicts that were happening in those places. In his letter to the Romans, while he knows some of them by name, he is writing to a community or congregation of Christians that are largely unknown to him; he is planning to go there and meet them but that hasn’t happened yet. [iv]

Because we are on this side of history, we know it never will. He will go to Jerusalem where he will be arrested and lose his freedom, and when Paul does go to Rome it will be as a prisoner of the state and not a free missionary. [v]

But that’s another part of the story.

In this letter, instead of counseling the Romans on a particular aspect of their life together, Paul addresses fundamental parts of their – and his and our – life in Christ.[vi]

And as if we found scattered pages laying on the kitchen table, we pick up the letter in chapter five.

Here Paul writes about new life in Christ and the fruits of that life.

He begins,

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; (5:1-2)

I don’t know about you but, today, with our human sinfulness and brokenness on display throughout the world, in places of government, in intensive care beds in our U.S. hospitals and in places like Ghana where their public health officials have to fight COVID-19 with inadequate equipment, in the faces of hungry neighbors here and on the streets of places like India, this reassurance that we have peace felt like balm, soothing and restoring me.

And yet, if we only understand peace as a sense of calm and rest, we lose out on the fullness of what Paul is describing.

Peace with God is reconciliation with God. It is the peace of being in relationship with God, a relationship that only happens through Jesus Christ.

This relationship is only possible because of the grace - God’s favor or goodwill – we have received. It is never because of our works, or our efforts, but God’s own divine action upon us. Grace isn’t a transaction.

“This grace in which we stand” is the place where we are freed from sin and we are living in faith in Christ and Him alone.

Luther wrote, “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace.”[vii] Karl Barth wrote in his commentary on Romans that faith doesn’t offer us any shortcuts, but it does offer us hope that God will accomplish God’s purposes. [viii]

Continuing his letter, Paul wrote,

hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (5:5)

So maybe this peace with God, which is ours through our new life in Christ, is balm after all:

healing that comes from the Holy Spirit poured into us by God who abundantly loves us and gives us everlasting life;

and reconciliation – the restoration of relationship – that only happens when we see each other as God sees us, whole and beloved.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God, Thank you for your Son Jesus in whom we have faith. We stand in Your grace that brings hope for our lives and our world. Show us how to bear your love into the world and see our neighbors as you see us, whole and beloved. Amen.

[i] Martin Luther. “Preface”, Commentary on Romans. Translated by J. Theodore Mueller.vii.

[ii] Luther, xxv-xxvii.

[iii] Arland Hultgren. “Summary.” Enter the Bible. Luther Seminary. https://www.enterthebible.org/newtestament.aspx?rid=6, Accessed 6/13/2020

[iv] Anders Nygran. Commentary on Romans. Translated by Carl C. Rasmussen, 1-8.

[v] ibid

[vi] ibid

[vii] Luther, xvii.

[viii] Karl Barth. The Epistle to the Romans. Translated by Edwyn C. Hoskins. 153.

Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas Eve)

Luke 2:1-20

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

When we hear this very familiar Christmas story, it’s easy to hear what we remember from childhood and from past Christmases. The challenge is to hear what this living Word is saying to us today, in our lives and our world, because the story of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, the wonder and mystery of the Word made flesh, isn’t just something that happened in history. The incarnation – God made human – matters today to all of us here and now.

As I was thinking about how we hear this story I remembered the scene near the beginning of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” when the angel Clarence is summoned and begins to learn about George Bailey. From the heavens above, he and Gabriel look down on earth and, at first, it’s a little blurry and then Clarence can see the town of Bedford Falls where the story takes place. Reflecting on the gospel story tonight, we are zooming in from far above to pay closer attention to what is happening on the ground.

In tonight’s gospel the very first person Luke names is Emperor Caesar Augustus, immediately putting us in the Holy Roman Empire, and in any other story of the birth of a king, we’d expect to see a palace or castle. But Luke keeps moving and next he names the governor of Syria which then was a Roman province and we have a little better sense of where this story takes place. A place that looks different from here, a place where people lived thousands of years before the birth of Jesus. But Luke doesn’t stop there; he keeps going, on to Nazareth, and then to Bethlehem, where Joseph and Mary have traveled.

Those details may not seem important, but they are, because we are hearing the story of the Savior of the World, and at that time, that was the title given to Caesar Augustus. He was called the Savior and he was called the Son of God. So from its very beginning, the birth of Jesus turned the world as it was known on its head.

It’s also important to hear that this isn’t a story about Joseph and Mary traveling to be with family; if the governor ordered a census, it was required and they had to make the trip. Maybe Joseph couldn’t pay for someone to stay with Mary, maybe Mary didn’t want to be left in Nazareth when she was heavy with child; we don’t know. What we know is that when we meet them in the Gospel, they have traveled a long way to an unfamiliar place, and now the time has come for the baby to be born.

And that is when Luke tells us that there is no room in the inn.

Sometimes that is heard as Joseph, Mary and Jesus are on the street; other times, we hear the word “manger” and recall nativities we’ve seen and imagine a cow stall and a wooden trough. The finer points of Palestinian sociology and archaeology aren’t really the point.

Whatever their surroundings, it feels very cold and very lonely for Joseph and Mary, if it were not for the presence of this Child in whom so much has already been promised in the words of the angel who visited Mary: “the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)

Writing about the birth of Jesus, Martin Luther said there was nothing fearful or frightening about God coming to earth as vulnerable infant. Instead God who comes to us as a baby brings us comfort and consolation. [i] In her poem Amazing Peace, poet Maya Angelou wrote, “Hope spreads around the earth brightening all things.”[ii] This is the Child whose birth we celebrate tonight.

Presbyterian Ann Weems wrote in her poem, “In Search of our Kneeling Places” about being “Bethlehem-bound.” All Advent we have been Bethlehem-bound, and tonight we find ourselves alongside Joseph and Mary bearing witness to this wondrous miracle.

In his Christmas sermons, Luther scolded Bethlehem for being inhospitable to the Baby Jesus, and he didn’t give the rest of us much credit either. He said that we would have been happy today to help the Baby and wash His linen because we know Christ, but if we had been there in Bethlehem, we would have done no better. [iii]

Weems is gentler but her challenge is similar. She wrote, “In each heart lies a Bethlehem, an inn where we must ultimately answer whether there is room or not.” [iv]

That is the question we hear tonight as we listen again to the Christmas story: “Will we make room for Jesus?”

God has come and is offering us God’s own Son, who comes into this world to give us life eternal, to make us children of God, just as He is. God makes space in our hearts to receive Christ with all the wonder and mystery of the Incarnation. If anything has distracted us from Jesus before tonight, it is gone now. We are here this Christmas Eve to receive our King, our Savior and Messiah.

Will we make room?

Let us pray…

Holy God,
We give you thanks for coming to us as an infant,
God enfleshed, without titles above us or power over us.
We give thanks for the hopefulness, comfort and consolation that the birth of Jesus brings to us and to the world.
Help us make room in our hearts and lives that we may known your abundant love and grace.
We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.
Amen.

[i] Martin Luther’s Christmas Book. 33
[ii] Maya Angelou, Amazing Peace.
[iii] Martin Luther’s Christmas Book. 31.
[iv] Ann Weems. “In Search of Our Kneeling Places.” Kneeling in Bethlehem.

Third Sunday of Advent

Matthew 11:2-11

We have jumped ahead again in Matthew’s gospel and now the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, the cousin of Jesus called John, the same John who had baptized Jesus in the river Jordan is in prison. And Matthew tells us he has heard what the Messiah – the Christ, the Anointed One – has been doing and now he is sending his disciples to talk to Jesus.

Do you ever wonder what John heard? Had he caught snippets of conversations between the guards at the castle, like a game of telephone where the words become garbled and the message confused, or had friendly fishermen embellished the stories, so that they took on mythic proportions?

I like to imagine that faithful people found a way to get word to John that all he had foretold was now taking place. The crowds who had witnessed the sermon on the mount were now repeating it from memory. And others were rejoicing that Jesus not only healed a leper and the demoniac, but also a Roman centurion’s servant and a hemorrhaging woman. And, I can hear their excited whispers, had John heard that Jesus had opened the eyes of the blind?

We can’t know how John heard what was happening some ninety miles north of him in Galilee. But somehow word of what Jesus was saying and doing had reached his cousin and now he sends his own disciples to Jesus to talk with him.

Sometimes when we hear the question asked by John’s disciples, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” we hear doubt. Maybe they thought the expected Messiah would come with more fury, that Rome would be vanquished immediately, or the kings and emperors would be brought low. Maybe they though the least this supposed Savior could do was to get his cousin out of prison.

But in his sermon on this text, Martin Luther preached that John wasn’t in doubt; after all we know from all four gospels that he recognized Jesus as the Christ, he baptized him, saw the Spirit descend upon him in bodily form like a dove, and heard God say, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”[i]

John is like Moses, standing on top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho. (Deut. 34:1) Standing in his prison cell, unable to go where Jesus is going, John points to Him as the One to follow.

John asked his question on behalf of his disciples who did not yet see Jesus as the Christ. Sending them to encounter Jesus face to face, he knows they will witness the transformation that is taking place as Jesus ministers and teaches, heals and saves.

During this season of Advent, we find ourselves traveling with these other disciples, waiting for the One who has already come. We catch glimpses of the Kingdom that is promised, and we hear stories of thanksgiving and praise, gratitude and joy. But we also see the suffering around us and in the world and we wonder where the balm is.

The Good News is that Jesus doesn’t respond with ridicule or contempt or send the questioning disciples away. Instead, Jesus invites them into the reign of God that is happening, asking them,

“What did you expect to see?”

Our expectations can keep us from seeing what is happening.

Our lives are laden with expectations. And in these weeks leading up to Christmas, it can feel like there isn’t any time to wait or any time to watch. It can feel like you are just hurtling from one event to the next and any kind of Advent practice of preparing for the Messiah can feel like one more thing that has to be done before you can rest. We hear and see these unrealistic expectations in commercials and stores and in tv, movies and songs, or we place them on ourselves to continue traditions and rituals that we remember from childhood. And the expectations conflict with one another. Be still but light the Advent wreath and open a new square on the Advent calendar every day. Remember Jesus is the reason for the season but also remember to buy presents for your favorite people. Jesus gives us permission to name the expectations we have put on ourselves or we have picked up from others and discard the ones that keep us from seeing Jesus transforming the world around us.

Christ calls us to open our eyes to see the world anew, alert to what God is doing. Who is being set free from burdens? Where is healing taking place? Where is good news being shared?

This past week the local paper ran a story on the Totally Free Clothes Store, which is over on Warren Street. A local attorney took space he had in his office and transformed it into a place where people can get donated clothing. He doesn’t ask them for ID or to prove they’re deserving. He is adamant that “people deserve clothes every day of the year.” The naked are clothed.

Last week several of our women went Christmas shopping for the holiday backpacks for Graham School students. They bought board games, make your own ornaments and Christmas candy to put together gift bags and included the cards you gave, too. The gifts went to all of the students who rely on the backpacks to have access to food when they’re not in school. The hungry are fed.

And on Wednesday another group from our congregation collected all the body wash and washcloths and razors we donated for Heritage Oaks and put them in packages. Those items will be delivered this week and the people will be reminded of the Good News that they are not alone in this world, but are loved by God and by their siblings in Christ.

This Advent, may we let go of expectations that keep us from seeing Jesus in the world around us, and meeting Jesus in our own lives, may we be transformed.

[i] Martin Luther. “Christ's Answer to John The Baptist.” http://web.archive.org/web/20021220115716/www.markers.com/ink/mljblg.htm, accessed 12/13/2019.

Reformation Sunday (October 27, 2019)

Jeremiah 31:31-34
John 8:31-36

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Sometimes I wonder what someone new to faith and religion, someone who identifies as “spiritual but not religious”, or perhaps even a “none”, a person with no experience with religion or the church, sees when they come into our worship spaces. Especially on a day like today when we are celebrating Reformation Sunday and recalling Martin Luther’s boldness, when pageantry and exuberance energize the air, and we take in the music and the red paraments and banners,
what do our neighbors see?

A preaching colleague regularly reminds us to “show ‘em Jesus” and certainly, that is my prayer, that people encountering us for the first time see Jesus.

But showing people Jesus doesn’t mean only reading and teaching the parts of Scripture, what we call the New Testament, and particularly the Gospels, that include the stories of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection. The Old Testament texts also show how “the Word of God [has entered] communities of faith by calling, warning, exhorting, judging, redeeming and forgiving.”[i] These texts narrate the experience of our spiritual mothers and fathers.

In tonight’s Old Testament text, we hear from Jeremiah, a prophet and an unpopular truth-teller commissioned by God who was active from approximately 627 BCE through the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BCE. Remaining in Judah until he was forced into exile in Egypt, Jeremiah tried to awaken Israel to the ways that the people had been un-faithful to Yahweh.

He repeatedly charged God’s people with fickleness and urged them to return to their God, warning them of the destruction that would follow rebellion, and worse, their indifference, to their sovereign Lord. In defiance to royal posturing, Jeremiah announced God’s severe judgment and offered lament for the unavoidable devastation of Jerusalem.

In contrast, the text we just heard comes from a portion of Jeremiah called “The Book of Consolation” or “The Book of Comfort” because the verses in these chapters voice “comfort, consolation, assurance and hope”, rooted in the character of God.[ii]

From the beginning, God created humankind for relationship, establishing a covenant that was carried through the generations. “Covenant” is a 50-cent word for relationship. First with Noah, and then with Abram, Isaac and Jacob, and again with David, God established a covenant with God’s people, promising to be in relationship with them.[iii]

The covenant God created was meant to be eternal, for-ever, but again and again throughout Scripture, God’s people rejected their covenant relationship with God,
grasping for power, wrenching control away from God and insisting on their own plans.

When Jeremiah speaks on behalf of the Lord in these verses, God’s people are in exile, suffering their punishment for breaking their covenantal relationship with God. And it is into that disconsolation and despair that God promises a “new covenant”. (v. 31)

For we Christians, it is important to remember that these words were spoken first to Israel. The words are ours only because they were spoken to people who were our ancestors in faith. God has not forgotten or replaced Israel.

God names this a “new covenant” because God is offering God’s people a “new” way of being in relationship with God. It is a “new” covenant” because it transforms us, reconciling us to God.

In these verses, Jeremiah explains how this transformation will take place. The teaching and instruction that were written on stone tablets and given to Moses at Sinai were neglected by God’s people, and their hearts were corrupted by sin and willfulness.

Now God’s law will be written in our hearts, at the center of our being, so that it will become part of our nature so that, instead of an impulse toward rebellion against God, we will be instinctively drawn into life with God. As Walter Brueggemann writes, “Our identity will now be internal, “so obeying will be as normal and as readily accepted as breathing and eating.”[v]

This “new covenant” is not an ethereal or ambiguous hope. It is a divine promise that God enables us to live in covenant and relationship with Godself, and empowers us to live according to God’s instruction. [vi] With abundant grace, mercy and forgiveness, God un-binds us from our sin and frees us to begin again.

This promise is at the heart of the Reformation.

This grace-filled God is the one that Martin Luther discovered when he learned Hebrew and Greek and read Scripture in its original languages. Even after he had become an Augustinian monk, Luther had remained terrified of the vengeful God who would exact punishment upon pitiful sinners, but then he discovered the evidence of God’s grace throughout the canon and gained a new understanding of the depth of God’s love for each of us. In his famed 95 Theses, Luther argued against church practices that were corrupt or kept citizens captive to papal authority and he urged reform. His intent was never to separate from the Catholic Church but, like Jeremiah, to speak truth to a culture, authority and institution that was faltering.

One of the revelations that Luther shared was that faith was rooted in direct relationship with God and no one mediates faith for another person. This is the idea of covenant; God’s covenant is not with Rome or with our bishops or denomination authorities, it is with each and every one of us.

“John’s Gospel, [especially] focuses on the Covenant and becoming one with God.”[vii] In tonight’s gospel text, Jesus, speaking to believers, says,
“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”[viii]

When we hear the word “truth” here, in our humanity, like Pilate we want to know, “What is truth?” “What do we have to know?” “What do we have to do to get the ‘true disciple’ badge?”

Is truth found in the right style of worship, the right number of members, the biggest vacation bible school, the prettiest stained glass windows or the best sound system? Is it known through strict piety with morning and evening prayers and daily confession? Tell us and we’ll do it!

Sometimes we want to know we have the truth so that we get the bragging rights. We want to feel special. So, too often, as we observe the anniversary of the reformation, we tell the story in such a way that it sounds like Martin Luther was the first and only one who challenged the Roman church, as though he must have been the one who knew the truth because his arguments prevailed. Of course, he wasn’t the only one, and the truth that Jesus names here isn’t ours to keep for ourselves.

The very first time we hear this word in John’s gospel is in the prologue in the first chapter, when the Evangelist tells us, “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth”.[ix]

Jesus isn’t using the word “truth” to describe a coveted treasure, a checklist, or an argument to be won. Jesus is the truth, and the embodiment of God’s compassionate mercy in the world.

God loves us because God cannot help but love us, and in Jesus, we see God’s love with skin on it.

Speaking about Jesus, the incarnation and the resurrection, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr describes the messiness of the world we live in and says, “the undoing is part of the remaking.” [x]

This past summer, I began pottery classes at the community college and, as a novice potter, I love that phrase: “the undoing is part of the remaking.” Seated at the potter’s wheel, one of the first steps is called centering. You use water and the rotating wheel to prepare the ball of clay, coning it upward and then cupping it and returning it to more of a ball. It gets the air out of the clay and gets the clay to sit evenly on the wheel. One of the ways you know the clay is centered is that your hands no longer shudder or vibrate as the wheel turns beneath them. If you don’t get the clay centered or keep it that way, your work will be lopsided, or as my instructor kindly says, “organic”. Other times, when you’re working at the wheel, the clay gets too wet or thin or collapses on itself, and when you know you can’t redeem it, you scrape it off and put the clay into a bag where it will dry out enough to be shaped into a new ball that can become something new the next week.

“The undoing is part of the remaking.”

The undoing, disorder or disorientation that we experience in our lives is not in vain. It is part of the reconciling work that God is about in the world.

Reformer John Wesley defined salvation as the restoration of our capacity to bear God’s image in the world.[xi] And Luther wrote, “We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road.”[xii]

In this way, we are semper reformanda, always reforming.

A life of faith isn’t predictable or linear and it rarely follows our plans. And sometimes it means starting over and waiting on God to reveal what’s next. A life following Jesus breaks open our ideas about where we find truth and meaning. And through this messy and unpredictable life together, Jesus reveals that God is working in and through us.

Redeemed by God through faith in Jesus, we are invited to participate in this new life and show forth the love of God to our neighbors and the world,
showing ‘em Jesus.

Let us pray…
Holy God, our Redeemer and Lord,
By your Word, you invite us into a new covenant, promising forgiveness and love.
Teach us to abide in Your Word, to remain in your love, to continue in your presence.
By your Spirit, guide us in the truth that is in Jesus, truth that does not exclude but includes, and sends us into the world to bear your love to our neighbors and communities.
We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.

[i] Terence Fretheim. The Pentateuch. 21.
[ii] Brueggemann, Walter. Jeremiah. 264-265.
[iii] Breen, Mike. Covenant and Kingdom: The DNA of the Bible. 3DM. Kindle Edition.
[iv] Jeremiah 31:33, NRSV.
[v] Brueggemann, Walter. Jeremiah. 293.
[vi] Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination (p. 56). Augsburg Fortress - A. Kindle Edition.
[vii] Breen. Location 2014.
[viii] John 8:31-32, NRSV.
[ix] John 1:14, NRSV.
[x] “Jesus, Incarnation and The Christ Resurrection”. Another Name For Every Thing with Richard Rohr. Podcast audio. August 3, 2019. Center for Contemplation and Action. https://cac.org/podcasts/1-jesus-incarnation-and-the-christ-resurrection/.
[xi] Joy Moore. Sermon Brainwave #687. Luther Seminary. Podcast audio. October 27, 2019. https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx.
[xii] Martin Luther, *Defense of All the Articles*, Lazareth transl., as found in Grace Brame, *Receptive Prayer* (Chalice Press, 1985) p.119

Fifth Wednesday in Lent

We continue reading tonight from Paul’s letter to the Philippians with Chapter 3, verses 4b through 14 and I am reading from the English Standard Version translation:

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

In this portion of his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul begins by offering what is sometimes called a “humble brag.” In seven concise statements, Paul presents his credentials: he is a member of God’s covenant people; an Israelite by birth; a descendant of one of the faithful tribes; a son of Hebrew parents; a strict observer of the Law; a zealot for God; and blameless.[i]

And while his speech may sound arrogant to us, Paul is using language that his hearers would have recognized, a kind of cultural currency that would have been important to them. In the same way that I would introduce our North Carolina synod bishop by saying that he is a cradle Lutheran who grew up at St. John’s in Salisbury, graduated from Chapel Hill and most recently served at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Atlanta before his election as our bishop, Paul lists his qualifications to bear witness to the church.

But then he surprises us all because he says that even though these are the facts, they are not the things that carry value and worth for him; they are not the things in which he store his identity or his faith. Paul writes that these things are nothing more than σκύβαλα (v 3:8) or sewer trash.

Writing about this chapter of Paul’s letter in Because of This I Rejoice, Methodist pastor and author Max O. Vincent describes how years ago he took down what he called his “I Love Me” wall. That’s his name for the wall in his office where he had hung his credentials — framed diplomas and awards — so that whoever came to meet with him would be impressed.[ii] He doesn’t go so far as to call them dung, which is the meaning of the Greek word in the text, but in their place he has hung artwork from the children of his congregation and a crucifix that he says “remind him to be a human, to be a fellow pilgrim on the path of discipleship, and to look for hope in the most unlikely places.”[iii]

In Paul’s letter he invites us to step out of a threshold where the past is clearly visible and strive for what lies ahead.

In the “bracketology” that led up to the seeding for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, even as experts described how the University of Virginia Cavaliers had won 35 of their 38 games this past season, the pall of the season-ending defeat in round 1 of the 2018 tournament overshadowed anything they had accomplished this year. After all, they had been the unexpected phenom the year before, ascending into the Top 25, winning the ACC championship and earning the overall #1 seed for the tournament before they fell in the first round to the #16 seed University of Maryland Baltimore County with a dramatic twenty-point loss. So when this year’s tournament opened and UVA faced Gardner-Webb in the first round, the Cavs were standing on a threshold between what was behind them and what was ahead.

Remembering that thresholds are both exits and entrances, Duke Divinity School professor Susan Eastman describes the threshold that Paul describes in his letter as a “cruciform” threshold, a place where we leave behind the past, forgetting whatever is there and discover “our life, our purpose, our identity” in Christ.[iv]

Often we think our identity is bound up in the past but, in Christ, we are called to slough off the past. And while stories about the transforming power of faith frequently focus on people who have hit bottom in some way, experiencing a failed relationship or business, an illness or addiction, or like the Cavs, a team that lost everything, Paul reminds us that even when we have “made it” in the world, it counts for nothing.

That doesn’t make any sense at all in a world where credentials remain the cultural currency in many places and the judgment of a person’s worth is still based on their title or position, degree or affiliation. But the gospel is counter-cultural and Paul instructs us to define ourselves by the grace we have received in Christ.

Luther, too, teaches in his Small Catechism that, lost and condemned, we are redeemed by Jesus and “cannot by [our] own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, [our] Lord.” It cannot be said more plainly: our score-keeping is garbage. This shouldn’t be news to us, but it is Good News for us!

If you didn’t follow March Madness after Chapel Hill and Duke fell, or if you don’t watch basketball, UVA managed to advance through every round of this year’s tournament. They kept focused on the prize and didn’t let the critics, on the broadcasts or in their own heads, beat them. And on Monday night, they won their first-ever NCAA Championship in overtime to take home the trophy and the title.

The upward call and prize that Paul writes about isn’t accompanied by trophies or parades.  He calls Christ-followers to strive for what is ahead, forgetting what is behind, and placing our confidence in the cross and the power of Christ’s resurrection for our identity and our purpose that we might enjoy now and always the fullness of life lived in Christ.

Let us pray…
Holy God,
We give you thanks for Your Son Jesus whose life, death and resurrection shows us the power of faith to make a way where there is no way.
By Your grace alone You redeem us and make us Your children.
Give us courage to press on, counting all as loss except what we have in faith in Christ.
Instead of keeping score, teach us to keep faith that we would be witnesses of your love and mercy in all we do and say.
We pray in the name of Your Son Jesus.
Amen.

[i] Elizabeth Shively. “Commentary on Philippians 3:4b-14.” WorkingPreacher.org. Luther Seminary.
[ii] Max O. Vincent. Because of This I Rejoice. 96.
[iii] Vincent. 97.
[iv] Susan Eastman. . “Commentary on Philippians 3:4b-14.” WorkingPreacher.org. Luther Seminary.

Reformation Sunday

John 8:31-36

On this Reformation Sunday, we celebrate the freedom that we have in faith,
the very same freedom that the apostles claimed even when they were imprisoned for witnessing to “all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day he was taken up to heaven” (Acts 1:1-2), and, the very same freedom that the Augustinian monk Martin Luther seized when he criticized the Catholic Church for false teaching and abuses of power.

But, dear Church, dear Church, please hear me when I say that this “freedom” is not the same freedom that western culture, and especially our American culture, has embraced; the freedom we have through Jesus Christ is not unfettered individual choice.

It is not the freedom to construct and deliver explosives that can kill or maim, regardless of how much you dislike a person, resent their power and position, or disagree with their political viewpoints. 

And it is not the freedom to violently act out against a group of people in their place of worship and murder men and women who believe differently about who God is.

The freedom we have in faith is a freedom for the neighbor and the stranger.

Yesterday afternoon, after a man killed eleven people and injured others at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, these words were lifted up by colleagues:

Goodness is stronger than evil;
love is stronger than hate;
light is stronger than darkness;
life is stronger than death;
vict'ry is ours, vict'ry is ours,
through God who loves us.
Vict'ry is ours, vict'ry is ours,
through God who loves us.

Text from An African Prayer Book selected by Desmond Tutu, © 1995 by Desmond Tutu.

That hymn, “Goodness is Stronger than Evil” was written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1995 when he was chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that examined the atrocities committed by both pro- and anti-apartheid groups during the period of white minority rule in South Africa in the second half of the 20th century. Unlike Nelson Mandela who was jailed for 27 years for his leadership in the African National Congress, Tutu lived and worked in Johannesburg throughout the 70s and 80s advocating for change by building consensus in his community. Working from within the Anglican church first as the dean of the cathedral and then as Bishop he also worked in the secular world to address injustice and in 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his achievements.

Tutu’s witness embodies the freedom we have in faith that is not self-centered or motivated by self-interest but rooted in love for the neighbor and the stranger.
But all too often, we exercise our freedom at the expense of others and when we do that, we are not free at all, but captive to sin. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus is telling the Jewish leaders about this freedom that is found in faith when,
as if their ancestors had never fled Pharaoh’s Egypt,
or wandered in the wilderness for forty years,
or been exiled to Babylon and later persecuted by the Romans, they said, “Wait, we've never been slaves! We are descendants of Abraham.” (v. 33)

Comfortable and complacent now, they had forgotten where their very own grandfathers and great-grandfathers came from and how their own ancestors suffered. They were oblivious to the weight of sin they carried and to the ways they remained bound and shackled.

Jesus tries again, saying, “everyone who sins [which, by the way, is all of us] is a slave to sin.” (v. 34) And then, again he names that freedom from sin that is the promise received through faith.

The Prayer of the Day we said earlier in worship was inspired not by Desmond Tutu, but by another Anglican priest, a 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury named William Laud. In its words, we called on God, remembering that Jesus continues to free us from our sin.

In the petitions we asked for God’s promised redemption, publicly and institutionally, in the capital-c “Church”
where it is corrupt – as in the decades of sexual misconduct by Catholic priests that was first covered up and now is being addressed there and across denominations to ensure the safety of children and adults;

We asked for God’s promised redemption, where there is error – on Saturday, the family of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was killed in Wyoming twenty years ago in a hate crime, inurned his ashes at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. in a reversal of (again) the capital-c “Church"’s historic position rejecting LGBTQ people.

We asked for God’s provision for the Church and among its people where it is in need – not because we live in fear of what we do not have or cannot see, but because we trust God that will equip us for the ministry we are called into for this time and place.

And we asked for God to unify the world where it is divided – as Bishop Elizabeth Eaton wrote last night,

“We are reminded that hate-filled violence knows no bounds – whether a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, [Wisconsin], a Christian church in Charleston, [South Carolina] or a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania]. As people of faith, we are bound together not only in our mourning, but also in our response.”

Today, we can respond by claiming our freedom in Christ to love the neighbor and stranger.
Many of you will remember Pastor Dee Liss who preached here in the summer; her husband Howard, one of the co-owners of Bicycles here in Shelby, attends Temple Beth El in Charlotte with his father, and last night, I asked their permission to write notes of encouragement to their congregation. So on your pews you have notes like this and you have pens. I ask you now to write words of encouragement and prayers for their community. If you’d like to just sign your name or our church’s name, that’s ok, too. I will send our notes to their rabbis this week.

Thank you.
Now, in a tradition that reaches back through generations, may we ask for God’s ever-reforming presence and power to accomplish what God has begun in us.

Let us pray… [1]
Almighty God, through the death of your Son you have destroyed sin and death. Through his resurrection you have restored innocence and eternal life. We who are delivered from the power of the devil may live in your kingdom. Give us grace that we may believe this with our whole heart. Enable us, always, to steadfastly praise and thank you in this faith, through your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.

[1] “Martin Luther’s Prayer for strengthened faith,” in Herbert F. Brokering. Luther’s Prayers.

15th Sunday after Pentecost

Psalm 15

It is, of course, Labor Day Weekend and the traditional end of summer just in case you missed the swell in the volume of cars on the roads, schoolbuses and back-to-school sales.  But with every ending there is a beginning. For our students and teachers, it’s the beginning of a new school year, but September often means the beginning of new schedules, routines or rhythms if only because summer is fading. Here at Ascension, while the long, green season of Ordinary Time continues through the end of November, today marks the beginning of a new season for our worship with a different musical setting for parts of our worship like the acclamation before you hear the gospel read, the dialogue during Holy Communion and for Lamb of God. We resumed singing the kyrie – our plea for God’s mercy – and the psalm and we returned to the gospel of Mark after five weeks of eating the bread of life in John’s Gospel.

So isn’t it fitting that today we hear Psalm 15, a psalm that probably functioned as an entrance rite for pilgrims arriving in  Jerusalem and entering the temple for worship?

As a liturgical starting point in worship, the psalm first poses a question to God, and then tells us how God answers.

The question that is asked is “Who shall live in God’s house?” In some translations it asks, who can dwell on God’s holy hill, dwell in God’s sanctuary or abide in God’s tent. It is a question about worship and everyday life and how we will “invite and welcome God’s nearness or presence” in our lives.[i]

Instead of standing guard or acting as a gatekeeper, here the psalmist is speaking to God’s people in the same way that Joshua addressed the Israelites, in Joshua Chapter 24. Joshua told them what the Lord had said and then challenged them,

“Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, … but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24:15)

The psalmist encourages us to answer,
as for me and my house,
as for us and this congregation,
we will be ones who dwell in God’s sanctuary because
we will be the kind of people God describes here.

In four short verses the psalmist describes how God’s faithful people live.

The psalm can be read as a summary of the laws given to Moses and recalled in Deuteronomy Chapter 4, the ones that would set the Israelites apart as a “wise and discerning people.” (Deut. 4:6) As modern psalmist and songwriter Richard Bruxvoort Colligan says, “Tell the truth. Live honestly. Be kind. Be generous.”[ii]

But these statutes and ordinances are about more than the Golden Rule or even preserving good order. This is who we are and how we are to live because we are God’s people in the world.

Each week at the beginning of our worship, in our corporate confession, we acknowledge our own sinfulness, so when God asks us to “walk blamelessly,” it seems like an impossible task. And it is, when we try to do it alone! But we believe that when our sin brings us to the cross, and we cannot redeem ourselves, God forgives us and redeems us. So, in that same rite, we also receive God’s forgiveness, and by the Holy Spirit, we are sanctified or made holy, so that we can walk blameless in God’s sight. Writer Nan Merrill describes this way of being as “[walking] with integrity and in harmony with [God’s] Word.”[iii]

Continuing, the psalmist describes God’s people as ones who “speak the truth.” In today’s Gospel Jesus criticizes the very religious because they are not being genuine, or truthful, saying,

"Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; (Mark 7:6 NRS)

Deceiving ourselves into thinking that we are imitating Jesus, we are quick to point fingers or draw our own lines between good and evil, and inevitably, place ourselves on the side of the “good.”

But as theologian Ted Peters writes, the truth is that, “when we draw lines between good and evil, curiously, God places the divine self on the evil side of our line.”[iv] So, here, again, we find ourselves in an impossible situation!

At least it seems impossible, until we stop trying on our own “to make ourselves look and feel like we belong on the good side.” [v] When we confess our arrogance and vanity, God takes us from where we really are — on the evil side of our line, blinded by our own sin — and forgives and redeems us.[vi]

Do you see how, in each verse, the psalmist corrects our propensity to rely on ourselves? We cannot be either blameless or honest, truth tellers until God transforms us. We cannot live as God’s people apart from God’s participation in our lives.

The remainder of the psalm shows us how God wants us to love others, with unwavering commitment and without either malice or deceit. Freed by God’s participation in our lives, we can participate fully in the lives of those around us. As Martin Luther writes in “Freedom of a Christian”:

[we] should be guided in all [our] works by …[a desire] to serve and benefit others in all that [we do], considering nothing except the need and the advantage of [our] neighbor.[vii]

While there are religious traditions that emphasize following God’s law and commandments so that you will not anger God or so that you may receive God’s blessing, reading this psalm through the lens of our Lutheran faith instructs us that living as God’s faithful people is a response to what we have first been given. In this time of new beginnings, serving our neighbors and communities, and placing the well-being of others ahead of our self-interest remind us that all life begins with God and all things spring forth from that holy beginning.

Let us pray…
Holy God,
We give you thanks for the forgiveness you give to each one of us, that we may walk blameless in your sight, not by our efforts, but by your grace.
We give you thanks for your infinite patience as we stumble and try to go it alone, returning to you with bruised hearts and egos.
Help us always worship and live in harmony with your Word.
Send us out into the world, empowered by Your Holy Spirit, to invite and welcome others into life with You.
We pray in the name of Your Son Jesus.
Amen.

[i] Craig A. Satterlee. Working Preacher Commentary. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=619, accessed 9/1/2018.
[ii] Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/epiphany4a?rq=psalm%2015, accessed 8/28/2018.
[iii] Nan C. Merrill. Psalms for Praying. 21.
[iv] Ted Peters. “Dirty Ethics for Bold Sinning.” Journal of Lutheran Ethics. Volume 15, Issue 8.
[v] ibid
[vi] ibid[vii] Martin Luther. “Freedom of a Christian.” Three Treatises. 302.

11th Sunday after Pentecost

Ephesians 4:1-16

In the epistle reading, the writer instructs each of us to “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”

Unfortunately, too often that word “worthy” prompts us to ask ourselves, “What must I do to be worthy, or more worthy?” We compare, measure and question our relative worth, mis-understanding worth as a calculation of achievement, wealth, position or power.

But that’s not what worthiness means. Worthiness means “having sufficient merit.”

In the whole of Scripture there are only a handful of verses that speak about “worth” and none that use the word “merit.” More often, the word that is used is “favor.” And can you guess what the Greek word for “favor” is?

It’s χάρις
Grace — which we define as “God’s unmerited favor.”

So, “worthiness” is having sufficient grace.

God’s grace is a gift, not something we earn or accomplish through our good works or efforts, and God’s abundant grace is sufficient – it is enough. These are promises we hear in Ephesians 2 and in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.[i]

 So a paraphrase of Ephesians 4, verse 1 could be:
“Live out your calling according to the grace – or unmerited favor you have already received from God.”

In verse 2, the letter continues urging us to live “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.”

But again, these virtues are not achieved by our work or effort. As Martin Luther wrote when he defended his theological thinking to his fellow Augustinians in 1518 in his Heidelberg Disputation, “[One] is not righteous who does much, but [one] who without work, believes much in Christ.”[ii]

It is Christ in us that produces these inevitable fruits of “God’s Spirit working in and through our lives.” [iii] They are evidence that Christ lives in us through faith.[iv]

Episcopal priest and visiting professor at Wake Forest Divinity School, the Reverend Doctor G. Porter Taylor writes, “Humility keeps us grounded in the reality of who we are as creatures formed from the dust by God.”[v]

And, preaching on this text, Lutheran pastor Tony Durante reminds us,

if it were not for God breathing into the nostrils of Adam,
he would’ve only been dust;
if it wasn’t for Jesus Christ, when he returned from the dead, appearing in that room and breathing the Holy Spirit on his apostles, they would’ve only been dust;
if it wasn’t for Jesus Christ sending out into our lives servants of his Word, we would only be dust,
but in his resurrection, Jesus kicked up some dust![vi]

What I love about Pastor Tony’s image is that it makes room for the messiness of life in ministry and life together in community. Think about when dust gets kicked up, or stirred up: that happens when we move in spaces that have been ignored or forgotten; when we disturb things that have set unchanged or unchallenged for too long; when we dig into dry ground to add the nutrients to make good soil and plant a new harvest. Kicking up dust means moving in new ways, examining what is here now and creating and planting new ideas and ways of living life together as God’s people.

The text says that Jesus equips all the saints — not only the most articulate or educated, not only the prominent public theologians or the celebrity religious — but each and every one of us.

In examining the gifts we have been given, author and Quaker elder Parker Palmer urges us that the standard should not be effectiveness but “faithfulness" —
faithfulness to your gifts, faithfulness to your perception of the needs of the world, and faithfulness to offering your gifts to whatever needs are within your reach.” Palmer goes on to say, “The tighter we cling to the norm of effectiveness the smaller the tasks we’ll take on, because they are the only ones that get short-term results.”[vii]

Like the disciples who scoffed at the five loaves and two fishes in last week’s gospel, our vision often is too narrow, focusing only on our proven abilities, instead of trusting that God is working in our lives in new ways and equipping us for new ministry.

The epistle writer encourages us to have confidence in God’s grace, in faith, and listen to God to discern, or understand, God’s call on our lives.

Last week we reflected on one of our congregation values – outreach – and how God works through seemingly foolish ideas and against absurd odds to accomplish God’s work in the world. As we are called to service – another of our congregation values here at Ascension — let’s pay attention to questions like,
“Am I faithful to responding to the needs that I see?” and
 “Do I enter into opportunities or run away in fear?” [viii]

Jesus shows us in John’s gospel when the crowds want to make him their king and again when they cannot see him as more than a miracle worker that ministry is not about us and it’s not about what we can do; ministry is about living in relationship with God, with one another and with the world, and the relationships we forge and bear in love are our kingdom work. God delights when we use the gifts God gives us for the sake of the world.

Let us pray…
Holy God,
Thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus who gives us grace through faith,
Teach us humility, gentleness and patience, and inspire us by Your Holy Spirit to respond to your invitation to participate in your kingdom work in the world.
May your abundant love always be visible in our words and actions.
We pray in the name of Jesus,
Amen.

[i] 2 Corinthians 12:9
[ii] Martin Luther. “Heidelberg Disputation.” Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings. 59.
[iii] Sam K. Williams. Galatians. Abingdon Press. 151.
[iv] [iv] Martin Luther. “Heidelberg Disputation.” Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings. 60.
[v] 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 Locations 10764-10765). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[vi] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6V1dwbBlxE, accessed 8/1/2018.
[vii] http://www.couragerenewal.org/living-from-the-inside-out-parker-palmers-naropa-university-commencement-address/, accessed 8/1/2018.
[viii] https://www.crossfieldsinstitute.com/from-effectiveness-to-faithfulness/, accessed 8/1/2018.

Reformation Sunday 2017

Today we mark the 500^th anniversary of the protestant Reformation. And while we may know the folklore of an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to a church door, and his words “Here I stand, I can do no other” when he boldly refused to recant his criticism of the Catholic Church, the significance of the Reformation, Luther’s role in it, and, more importantly, its meaning, and relevance, for us today may not be as well known.

Before we talk about what we treasure from the Reformation, it is important to say aloud that Luther was human and imperfect and some of his later writings are ugly and address people, particularly Jews, in language that is rightfully called anti-Semitic, and has been repudiated in our lifetimes.

What we celebrate today is that five hundred years ago in 1517, Luther risked his position in the Church and as a university professor to publish his 95 Theses, a list of topics he wanted to debate that addressed the ways the Catholic church and the papacy, the authority in Rome, were corrupt or inept. Luther was neither a church planter nor a missionary; he never intended to start a new denomination, but he urged reform. Calling the Bible “the manger in which Christ is laid,” he argued that common people should be able to hear and understand Scripture; until then, it was only read in its original languages or in translation in Latin. From his own reading of Scripture, Luther had discovered the evidence of God’s abundant grace and taught that God grants this unmerited favor; it is not mediated through a priest, earned by good works or purchase. Whether he was teaching Bible at the university, in conversation with students and colleagues, or writing sermons, catechisms, prayers or hymns, Luther was a teacher and he was eager for everyone to know God’s grace received through faith in Christ.

Even as we celebrate this anniversary of the Reformation, we remember that it wasn’t accomplished in one day, or even one person’s lifetime. Our tradition honors the risks taken by the Reformers and empowers us to continue to advocate for a Church that tears down barriers and shares the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that is that God’s grace, given for you, without exception or condition. The late Lutheran pastor Tim Lull wrote,

"Many Christians today are understandably skeptical about how important old confessional issues are for a future oriented church. There was a time when there was no Lutheran church and there will come a time -- surely at the end and perhaps long before -- when there will be no need for a Lutheran movement within the church catholic. My own sense is that this time has not yet come. A homogenized Christianity would be unlikely to have the courage to proclaim grace freely, to celebrate Christian freedom, or to admit that the church itself is often sinful and deeply in need of reform."[i]

Psalm 46, the psalm for today finds us in that place that Pastor Lull names – a place where we feel deeply the despair of sin and brokenness. It is a psalm that was read widely at community services after the events of September 11, 2001 and it continues to offer “an anchor against the sense of chaos” that we experience today. Whether you are suffering, or heartsick about someone dear to you, or just generally dismayed by the state of the world’s affairs, this psalm speaks to you in your circumstances.

It is what Old Testament professor James Limburg calls a psalm of trust, but notably, the psalm is spoken in plural voice; this isn’t one person praying or singing; it is a community, standing shoulder to shoulder, proclaiming what we know about who God is and then listening when God responds with a promise and assurance of divine presence. Gathered as the church, we are bound together in a common faith and tradition, and we trust in God’s promises because God has already demonstrated what God can do, in the lives of our ancestors in faith and in the lives that we share with each other.

With God’s command to “Be still and know that I am God” we are reminded that our worries and handwringing and our angry shouts and frustrated rants are but crude expressions of the helplessness we feel and we are given permission to respond differently to the events around us. Naturally, we can respond fearfully and anxiously. But the psalmist encourages us to, instead, adopt a courageous, even fierce, defiance toward what makes us fearful, and confront it with quiet confidence.

Writing about this psalm, Limburg tells the story of a retired pastor he met who had lived in East Germany. The man owned a trumpet and had played in brass choirs throughout Germany during his lifetime. Before he retired, he had a practice of opening his window and playing two hymns each morning at eight o’clock; as it happens, his parsonage faced the offices of the communist officials in his town. Like bells chiming from a church, the hymns were reminders of faith to anyone who could hear them, including the people working in those offices. When he met Limburg, he played two of the hymns. Limburg didn’t recognize the first one, but the second, was “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”, one of Luther’s best-known hymns. In its verses, Luther paraphrased this psalm to proclaim that our enemies cannot win the day because the kingdom is ours forever!

While it is easy for anniversary celebrations to become backward-looking forays into a romanticized past, the 500^th anniversary of the protestant Reformation compels us to recognize the ways in which we are semper reformanda, reformed, and also, always being re-formed, by God. It is not a wistful look in the rearview mirror but a hope-filled assessment of what God is already doing in us and the work that God is equipping us to do next.

Let us pray…

Holy and Living God,

When we are wounded or afraid, you are our refuge and hiding place. Thank you for the gifts of Your Word and faith, given to us in your son Jesus Christ;

Thank you for the Church that you have built and the Kingdom you promise; give us courage to continue to break down barriers, that all of your children would know your infinite love and mercy.

Amen.

---

[i] Timothy Lull, The Vocation of Lutheranism, Lund, Sweden, 2000