Commitment - "Gathering and Gospelling" Week 4

Numbers 6:22-26 

Isaiah 6:6-8

Have you ever been in a group where there’s a task to be assigned and no one volunteers? Silently each person is thinking, “Choose somebody else.”

In cartoons, everybody else takes a step back making it look like one person volunteered by stepping forward. Among friends, maybe you touch your finger to your nose, and the last one to catch on takes on the task. Maybe you draw straws. Rarely do we raise our hand and say, “Here I am, send me.

But in today’s text, when God asks aloud, “Who will I send?”, that is exactly how the prophet Isaiah responds.

Isaiah witnessed God’s glory and experienced God’s forgiveness. His sins were blotted out, and now he was ready to be dispatched on God’s behalf, to speak words of judgment and hope to God’s people.

 Often when we respond, “Choose somebody else.” we think we have good reasons:

I don’t have time.
I don’t know enough.
I don’t have experience.
I can’t do as good a job as Jack or Julie.

But when we are focused only on what we already know or already can do, we are making God small, forgetting that God is at work in and through us.

Isaiah wasn’t under any illusions that he was the perfect messenger, or that his words would always be welcomed. But he remained willing.

That is what God asks.

God creates each one of us, gives each of us unique gifts, and expects us to show God’s mercy and love to others. God knows us from the moment our inward parts were knit together in our mothers’ wombs to today, and God knows our sin but forgives us and loves us anyway. In relationship with God, we are asked to respond, “Yes, Lord, Here I am – send me!”

I never know exactly what saying “Yes” to God looks like, and I expect it looks different for each one of us.

Maybe God is placing a burden on you to reach out to neighbors here in our community. To care for children. To comfort the sick. Maybe you are being curious about vocation and listening for how you might serve God in your life. Maybe you are being called to a deeper commitment to prayer. Maybe you have gifts that are going unused or even undiscovered.

Isaiah invites us to listen and be alert for the moments in our lives where God is breaking into our routines. Pay attention to how God may be calling you to do something that challenge you.

Importantly, when we say, “Yes” to God, we are not alone.

First, God is present with us and goes with us. The Aaronic blessing from the Numbers text is one we often hear as our benediction before we are sent from worship into the world. The text provides a pattern for God’s movement, through us and into the world. As the psalmist writes, God keeps us from all evil, and keeps our going out and our coming in. (Ps. 121:7-8). God provides clarity and revelation as God shines God’s face upon us. (Ps. 67) and God graciously extends mercy to us. (Ps 123:2-3)

And, second, the community of faith surrounds us too. As we listen more closely for God’s calling on our lives, let’s be in conversation about what we are hearing from God. Let’s commit to thinking more about how God is moving here at Ascension and in our lives together. Where could God be calling us, beyond Sunday morning worship?

I don’t know what this “Yes” will look like either, but let’s discover where, together, you, and I, can say “Here I am, Lord; send me!”

Let us pray.

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for keeping us near to you that we may know your light and love in our lives;

Thank you for you for not dealing with us according to our sin but with undeserved forgiveness;

Thank you for your abundant love and compassion.

Give us courage to respond to your presence in our lives and say, “Here am I, send me” trusting you will accompany us and equip us.

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

Amen.

Holy Spaces - "Gathering & Gospelling" Week 2

Exodus 3:1-6

Our reading today takes place in Midian, which was to the east of the Sinai peninsula, in modern-day Saudi Arabia.

And more particularly, it takes place at Mt. Horeb, a place whose name means “parched place” or “wasteland”.

Moses is there tending his father-in-law’s flock. There’s a strip of land closer to the Red Sea that is fertile but as you move east, it becomes hotter and more arid, and I’d guess that in that mountain pasture you could hear the ground crunch beneath your feet.

What you don’t hear in today’s reading is how Moses wound up at Mt. Horeb.

Moses, a Hebrew, had been raised by Pharaoh's daughter in Egypt but when he had grown up, he saw an Egyptian man abusing another man and he killed the Egyptian. And then he fled Egypt and went to Midian, and there he met and married Zipporah, one of the daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian. (Exodus 2)

So now we’re caught up.

In today’s reading we hear how God speaks to the exiled son-in-law, a murderer, while he is hanging out in a wasteland.

That’s probably not how you heard Moses described in Sunday School, but it’s really important

to understand that Moses didn’t do anything to earn God’s favor or promises; and

to recognize that God knew exactly who God was speaking to, and God chose Moses anyway.

Imagine how Moses felt wandering that mountain pasture. This was his everyday routine; he probably knew every tree or bush in that pasture, every hill and valley. So, of course, at first, he is curious when he sees the flaming bush and the bush is not consumed. But then he hears God speaking to him, and the writer tells us Moses was afraid.

Well, of course he was afraid! He knew the wrongs he had done. And he probably imagined that the fire was going to be his destruction.

But instead, God visibly speaks to Moses, calls the ground on which he is standing holy and goes on, in the verses that follow ours, to tell Moses that he will deliver Israel from slavery into freedom. (Exodus 3:10)

God invites Moses into an in-between time or a liminal space. Moses is in this in-between space of knowing both what happened in the past and that God has said God will be with him in whatever comes next.

Liminal spaces or in-between times often occur in the midst of major transitions or times. Catholic author and teacher Richard Rohr writes, “It is a graced time, but often does not feel “graced” in any way. In such space, we are not certain or in control.”[i] He continues:

The very vulnerability and openness of liminal space allows room for something genuinely new to happen. We are empty and receptive—erased tablets waiting for new words. Liminal space is where we are most teachable, often because we are most humbled.[ii]

I have two powerful memories of God’s presence in in-between times. 

In 2006, I left my nonprofit job in Washington, DC to be the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation’s first director of development, but before I started my new job, I went to Biloxi, Mississippi with a team from my congregation in Winston-Salem. It was a little more than one year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had swept through the Gulf Coast. We visited a church that opened a crisis center the day after Katrina hit. That was the first time I encountered shower trailers as a ministry opportunity; the congregation had transformed its sanctuary and kitchen and was providing temporary shelter, laundry, showers and sack lunches to their community. And we spent a lot of the week working at Miz Ola’s house. It had been almost entirely gutted and one day, we bleached the bones of the house to get rid of any mold that was still in it. Another day we rebuilt doorways and prepared studs to hold sheetrock. We met some of her family including her sister and mother, celebrated her mother’s birthday over lunch at a local place and went to a high school football game together. In that liminal space, we knew the destruction that had come to the Gulf Coast but we could see God’s fingerprints everywhere.

Six years later, in 2012, a few weeks after I stopped working in Christ School’s advancement office but before I began my pastoral internship at St. Mark’s in Asheville, I returned to the Gulf Coast. This time, I was there as one of the adult leaders who took our youth from our congregation in Asheville to the Youth Gathering that was held, for the second time, in New Orleans. More than thirty thousand youth and leaders descended on the city’s neighborhoods, replanting wetlands, wielding paint brushes to brighten up school hallways and cleaning the grounds and equipment at children’s playgrounds. We worshiped in the coliseum and toured the city where we heard more stories about the destruction wrought by the storms. In that liminal space, we witnessed the slow pace of rebuilding but we also saw God working through the Gathering to build relationships, deepen our faith, and challenge us to serve our neighbors when we returned home.

In these liminal places, we see God speaking, just as Moses saw God speaking in the burning bush.

Mt. Horeb was a wasteland, but God makes it holy by God’s presence and design. God used Moses to bring freedom to Israel, and the mountain where God found Moses will become Mt. Sinai, where Moses receives the gift of the Torah from God during the exodus journey.

The storm battered Gulf Coast had its share of places that were ruined but God used the people who lived there, who had known destruction and loss, to create new ministries and new relationships.

At the beginning of worship, you were invited to pick up a rock and place a silent prayer into it, as a way of marking this as a holy place and time. You may think it’s easy to know we are in a holy space here in the sanctuary because here we can see the pews and altar and we are surrounded by stained glass windows. But the Exodus text reminds us that God is the One who makes places holy.

This sanctuary, as beautiful as it is, is just a building, unless we enter into the activity God calls us to. Unless we embody God’s promises in the world. So I invite you to recognize the holy ground where we gather and hear God speak, and then listen for what God is inviting you to do next.

Let us pray…

Holy God,

Thank you for choosing us as your children and speaking to us. Thank you for your abundant mercy that you do not give us what we deserve but instead grace us with your mercy and forgiveness. By your Spirit show us the holy places in our world, make us humble and give us courage to share your love with our neighbors.

Amen.

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[i] “Between Two Worlds.” Center for Contemplation and Action. April 26, 2020. https://cac.org/between-two-worlds-2020-04-26/, accessed 7/17/2021.

[ii] ibid

Practicing Communion - "Gathering & Gospelling" Week 1

1 Corinthians 10:16-17

John 6:30-35

One of my favorite stories of experiencing God is one Sara Miles tells. Miles was an atheist living in San Francisco when she wandered into St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church on a Sunday morning. She writes that she’d never heard a Gospel reading or said the Lord’s Prayer, but she found a seat and took in the scene, and when the priest said, “Jesus invites everyone to his table” the whole gathering moved to a table that had some dishes and a pottery goblet on it. She goes on to write that after some standing and singing, someone pressed a piece of fresh, crumbly bread in her hands saying, “the body of Christ” and handed her the goblet of sweet wine saying, “The blood of Christ.” She ends this part of her story saying, “Then something outrageous and terrifying happened. Jesus happened to me.”[i]

Another story is one I witnessed this past Easter morning. We were still worshiping in the parking lot where we had been most every Sunday since October. And as I preached, I saw a man stop on the sidewalk on Marietta Street. He stood and listened, and as the hymn of the day played, I walked over and invited him to come closer and join us. He moved a little closer during the prayers, and when we received communion that morning, I took bread and wine to him where he stood, and he received it. And just like on that morning at St. Gregory’s, Jesus happened.

What we find in “the bread and wine set in God’s Word and bound to it” is the treasure of God’s promised forgiveness of sins for you and for me.[ii]

In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther wrote,

This treasure is opened and placed at everyone’s door, and yes, upon the table, but it also belongs to the sacrament to take it and confidently believe that it is just as the words [“given and shed for you”] tell you.

Addressing the crowd in John’s gospel Jesus says, “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (6:33)

And they respond eagerly, commanding Jesus, “Lord, give us this bread always.” (6:34)

Hearing their enthusiasm, I remembered that Luther wrote,

If you could see how many daggers, spears and arrows are aimed at you at every moment, you would be glad to come to the sacrament as often as you can.

In the sacrament, Christ “gives himself for us, so that it is impossible for sin, death, hell and Satan to stand before him”, thrusting our weakness and his strength together, where they become one.[iii]

Today’s worship theme is “practicing communion” and while “practicing communion” begins with receiving this treasure from Christ, it doesn’t end there.

When we receive communion, we become one bread and one drink among another, as Paul said to the Corinthians. (1 Corinthians 10)

When you make bread all the grains of wheat are crushed and ground so that each grain becomes the flour of the others, and they’re all mixed together and not one grain of wheat retains its original form. Instead, each loses its body in order to become the one body of bread.

In the same way when you make wine, each grape mixes its juice with the others so that no single grape remains Each loses its form to become one drink. [iv]

Gathered here together as church, our many-ness becomes one-ness, and the result isn’t mealy or bland, sour or sharp. Instead, it is hearty, sweet and joy-filled.

“Practicing communion” nourishes us as we support the life with God we each have in faith.[v]

Faith is never only about Jesus and you. As much as God’s promise is for you, your witness to the faith that sustains you matters to others. Watching how you persevere in hard times. Witnessing the gratitude that you name in joyful times. Hearing your questions when you wrestle with God. Experiencing peace when you pray together.

Seeing how you care for all those whom God loves.

Practicing communion means your presence and participation in this body of Christ matters. Whether you are worshiping online or in the sanctuary, commit to not being a spectator but participating fully in worship, willing to be surprised by God’s work in and around you.

I hope that through our worship together over this six weeks, we will be able to name reasons we gather together and what difference our faith makes in our lives, and how your faith and witness makes a difference in the lives of the people you encounter.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus, the One who brings life to the world.

Thank you for your forgiveness for our sins, and the strength to stand against evil.

Give us courage to practice communion at the Table and in our lives that we would be nourished by you and support one another in all things.

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

Amen.

[i] Sara Miles. Take this bread. 2007. 58.

[ii] Martin Luther. "The Sacrament of the Altar”, Book of Concord. LC 469:21-22.

[iii] Martin Luther. “Of the Holy Sacrament, and of Confession and Absolution”. 1523. 18.

[iv] ibid. 21

[v] Martha Grace Reese. Unbinding the Gospel. 14.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 14B

Mark 6:1-13

If I wanted to proclaim the Good News and show how Jesus is the Son of God, I don’t think I’d choose a story about a time that Jesus’ power was diminished or curtailed, but that’s exactly where Mark begins here.

Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth, and while at first, the people there were amazed by his teaching, their wonder quickly turned to offense and ridicule.

And then Mark says Jesus was amazed too – only he was amazed by their unbelief or lack of faith. Mark goes on to say that in that place, Jesus couldn’t do many deeds of power or miracles.

There in Nazareth, the people rejected Jesus and the work of God in him. It wasn’t their first rejection of him, and it won’t be the last. The final rejection, of course, will happen at Golgotha where he will be crucified and die. But the story of cross, just like our first story today, shows God’s power at work in God’ weakness.

Part of faith is believing God is at work even when, or perhaps especially when, we cannot see evidence of it. In this story we see that, even with the power of God in him, Jesus experienced helplessness – situations and people he had to surrender to God.

Jesus’ experience in Nazareth also shows his followers that not everyone will hear the gospel as Good News.

There are going to be people who do not want to hear the Good News that God loves you and wants good for you; that God forgives your sin and offers you new life in faith in Christ. There are going to be people who care more about where you’re from and who your daddy was than anything else you have to say. There are going to be people who cannot see Jesus or God’s abundant grace and power in the world in your witness.

In his encounter with his hometown crowd, Jesus shows his disciples how to respond when the Good News is not heard as Good News.

Jesus doesn’t curse the Nazarenes, threaten them or shame them. He walks away, just as he will go on to tell his disciples, “if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave….” (6:11)

But as important as their response is, Jesus also instructs them on how to go into the villages and towns. Mark says he sends them out two by two and he tells them to be dependent on the hospitality of others. The Lord’s Prayer that we hear in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount doesn’t appear in Mark’s gospel, but Jesus’ instruction here is similar – take only what you need. In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God for our daily bread – enough to sustain us for this day – and we trust that God will provide for all of our needs. In the Small Catechism, Luther expands “daily bread” to include,

everything included in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, farm, fields, livestock, money, property, an upright spouse, upright children, upright members of the household, upright and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

We are dependent upon each other and we are called to rely on God, depend on God’s grace and sufficiency and trust the future to God.

Where Jesus’s experience in his hometown had been disappointing and confrontational, the disciples go out together from the villages, preaching, driving out demons and anointing and healing people who were sick.

Accompanied by Jesus, we too are sent out of our sanctuary and into the world, called to meet our neighbors and bear witness in our community to God’s healing love and forgiveness.

And we are asked to be expectant about what God can accomplish through us and trust that God’s grace will be active in what we do together.[i]

Lutheran pastor Delmer Chilton tells the story of being with the congregation council at the church where he served as a vicar or an intern pastor. They were talking about the budget and he and a newly elected council member – let’s call him Henry - were there too. Henry was an alcoholic but he’d put together some sobriety and was working AA and had been worshiping at the church a while at that point. During the meeting, Delmer was given the chance to tell the leaders about some ideas for ministry that he had, and they were kind but they said that their congregation was too small for any of those big ideas he had. Before they ended the meeting, they asked Henry to pray, but Henry said no. And when they asked him, “Why not?” And he said to them, “Well, I’ve learned one must depend on the higher power and to pray is to ask the higher power for help, and it’s evident this here church ain’t going to do nothing it can’t do by itself. So why pray? We don’t want God’s help.” And the leaders thought for a minute and they turned back to Delmer and said, “Preacher, which of these ideas is the most important?” and he told them and they decided they would try that one new thing.

Sometimes God is calling us to do more than our resources say we can or asking us to do something that is beyond our own imagination or ideas. At that moment we need to say yes and let God send us, trusting God is with us.

Let us pray…

Good and Gracious God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus who experienced all the disappointment and the joy of human life.

Forgive us when we forget to ask you for everything we need for life.

Help us depend on you in all circumstances and ask you for help, trusting in your grace will be present in the work you send us to do in the world.

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

Amen.

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[i] Lectionary Lab Podcast for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 13B

Mark 5:21-43

Telling these two stories Mark makes a sandwich where he begins one story and then tells another and then wraps back around to finish the first story. The gospel writer does this more than a half-dozen times in his gospel – intentionally using two stories to illuminate each other and something about the character of Jesus or the kingdom of God. So as we hear today’s gospel reading we are being asked to listen for what is being revealed to us.

Another reading of the gospel might notice that Mark begins and ends with the sympathetic story of a father and his little daughter, and that the story of the woman’s troubles with her ‘female problems’ is almost hidden within the first story.

I listened to a biblical storyteller telling this story and he dropped the volume of his voice as he told the woman’s story. He said later he wanted to mimic that Mark is narrating the woman’s inner thoughts as she approaches Jesus. But perhaps the softer and quieter voice also reflects how we tend to whisper when we speak of crises, diagnoses and trauma, as if speaking them aloud makes the suffering more real or, more to the point, not speaking them aloud lets us pretend the pain isn’t there.

Of course, the only ones we are fooling are ourselves. The pain and suffering is all too real for the parent whose child has died or the person whose illness has changed the course of their life or activities. It may help us deceive ourselves that tragedy can’t happen to us, but our reticence or silence only widens the distance between us and leaves the other person more alone.

In the story we see this distancing from tragedy happen again after the woman is healed. People come to Jairus to tell him that his daughter has died and say, “Why trouble the teacher any further?”

Even if we didn’t know what happened next, maybe the reason to trouble the teacher is that we need to share our hearts – our joy and our pain – and know that people see us when we are hurting. We need to know we are not alone.

Jesus does not leave us alone.

Jairus the synagogue leader, a Pharisee, is associated with the very same people who, in Mark’s gospel, have already begun conspiring with the Herodians to destroy Jesus. (Mark 3:6) And yet, when his daughter is near death, Jairus comes to Jesus and falls down before him, saying, “I need help.”

And the woman whose hemorrhaging made her ritually unclean hides in plain sight in the crowd and draws near to Jesus, risking everything to touch his clothes, believing that touching him would heal her. (Mark 5:28) And when he notices her touch, different from the jumbling and jostling of the regular crowd, she falls down before him and tells him her whole story, saying, “I need help.”

Why are those three words so difficult to say? “I need help.”

Some of it may be ego. We don’t want to rely on anyone else.

Some it may be denial. If I don’t name whatever it is I am facing, maybe it will just go away.

Some of it may be shame. If I had done x, y or z differently, this wouldn’t be happening.

Jesus hears your objections and your reluctance, and he sees how you are hurting, calls you beloved child, and tells you to believe he is in the messiness of life with you.

Jairus said, “My child is hurting and I cannot fix it and I need help.” The woman said, “My body is sick and I need help.”

What would you say to Jesus?

I don’t know how I will pay my rent next week, and I need help.

I don’t have a safe place to sleep or shower, and I need help.

I am afraid I am going to use or drink, and I need help.

When I am depressed or anxious, my brain lies to me, and I need help.

I am alone, and I need help.

Jesus doesn’t interrogate Jairus about why his daughter is so sick. He doesn’t make the woman justify why she spent all her money on doctors who couldn’t help. What he does is listen to them and accompany them, so they are not alone.

Jesus isn’t even the one who fixes their problems; he credits their healing to their faith and belief.

For any of us who has prayed for someone with a disease that isn’t cured or suffered the death of a beloved, when we hear these stories, even if we never say it out loud, we may think, “If only we had had more faith, my wife/my husband/ my son/my daughter would have been made well.”

That isn’t what is being said here. Many faithful people believe and pray and their loved ones continue to suffer or die. And I cannot make sense of that or explain it, but I can name it.

What I do know is that here, in these two instances, faith healed their physical conditions, but Jesus isn’t there as the faith healer; Jesus is there to bind up the broken-hearted. Jesus is there to say to Jairus that he does not need to be afraid of what is happening to his daughter. Jesus is there to say to the woman that she is not defined by her sickness and she is loved no matter what. The power of God is active in Jesus in restoring dignity and life to these hurting people and in bringing them back into relationship with others.

So, I’ll ask again, “What would you say to Jesus?”

What is going on in your life that you need to come to Jesus and ask for help? Jesus is waiting, ready to call you beloved and listen.

Amen.

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost/Lectionary 12B

Mark 4:35-41

If you like sea stories, there’s some wonderful literature, folklore and myth. There is Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Homer introduced us to Scylla and Charybdis and the sirens that plagued Odysseus and in the Old Testament we meet Leviathan.

A popular tale is that medieval mapmakers would print “Here be dragons” to signify unknown regions on a map. While that is more fantasy than fact, mapmakers did include illustrations of monsters and fearsome creatures in the unexplored places.[i] For them, the oceans and seas were places of adventure and mystery.

In the biblical narrative, the sea symbolizes chaos and disorder.

In today’s gospel, Jesus finishes preaching to the crowds from the boat on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and tells his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” 

It wasn’t a small ask. Some of the disciples were experienced fishermen and would have been familiar with the frequent storms that developed on the sea; others may have been more like fish out of water, being asked to set sail when they hadn’t spent much time on the water. Whether they had their sea legs or not, Jesus was asking the disciples to go to the territory of the Gentiles, people who were unknown and strange to them.

And as they crossed to the other side, sure enough, a storm rose up. The word here is the same as ‘the whirlwind’ in the reading from Job. There was power and strength in these winds; Mark says the waves beat into the boat. (v. 37)

It would have been simple enough to turn and go back to shore, to seek shelter and refuge, to retreat to calm and quiet safety. But the disciples don’t do that.

Mark says, instead, they wake Jesus who’s asleep in the stern or the back of the boat.

Do you think Jesus was being irresponsible or callous by taking a nap while the storm tossed them about?

We hear the disciples cry out, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (v. 38) But remember, at least some of the disciples were fishermen. Jesus knew this was their boat and he trusted their gifts, as the crew, for navigating the sea.

When they do come to him, he responds immediately, rebuking the wind and telling the sea to be still. And Mark says, then, there was a dead calm.

In that moment, the people on the boat with Jesus and in the boats around him witness the power and strength not of nature, but of Jesus, as Lord of all.

Jesus accompanies us in our own lives and never promises that he won’t ask us to go into unfamiliar situations. Following Jesus isn’t about going to places we already know or being with people who make us comfortable.

And Jesus never says we won’t experience storms or get beaten by circumstances and even be afraid. There is evil in the world. And even when we are safe from explicit evil or overt violence, we still live in a world filled with people and every one of us is saint and sinner, and, apart from Christ, we cannot be redeemed. Christ alone delivers us from sin and saves us.

In the text the disciples encountered a weather event - a physical storm of wind and waves - but often we find ourselves in the midst of storms emotionally and spiritually - steered in one direction or another by forces outside our control, slammed this way and that by emotions and fearful of what is ahead.

And when we are overwhelmed, the temptation is to think God has forgotten us or abandoned us and isn’t paying attention and doesn’t love us.

Mark reminds us that Jesus not only accompanies us in the chaos and disorder; Jesus also equips us, nurturing our gifts for specific vocations or callings. We are created for community and relationship and Jesus places us in people’s lives so that they can see God’s love and power through us.

And when we do get overwhelmed or fear paralyzes us, Jesus responds to our cries and invites us into his peace.

Unlike the desert fathers and mothers in the early church, or even monastic orders today, most of us find ourselves every day in the midst of the chaos and turmoil of the world and that is where Jesus anchors us in his peace, despite the storms of life, and invites our trust.

Hearing Mark’s gospel, I think God has equipped us, as the Church, for all that is ahead and expects us to use our gifts and talents for ministry in our community and world. We do not need to be afraid and we must trust that Jesus is with us as we share the Good News of God’s love for the world.

Let us pray…

Good and Gracious God,

We give you thanks for your deliverance from sin and evil, and for your Son Jesus.

Thank you for your steadfast love and presence with us even in the tumult and turmoil of the wildest storms life brings.

Anchor us in your peace that we would be your witnesses in the world.

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

[i] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/here-be-dragons/, accessed 6/11/2021.

Second Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 10B

Mark 3:20-35

Throughout Eastertide, our gospel readings were in John’s gospel as we witnessed the resurrection appearances and the ascension, and then we celebrated Pentecost and Trinity Sunday.

But today we find ourselves back in Mark’s gospel, and many of our gospel texts from now through the Reign of Christ on the last Sunday before Advent will come from this gospel.

Remember, each gospel writer placed a different emphasis on the character of Jesus : Matthew emphasizes how Jesus is the Messiah and the fulfillment of the prophecies in Judaism; Luke draws our attention to the boundary-breaking nature of Jesus’ acts of healing to say that the gospel is for the whole world; and John defines faith as a relationship of trust in God and Jesus.[i]

Mark, who wrote the first and oldest gospel account, wants us to know that Jesus is the Son of God and he came to bring Good News to the world. He begins his gospel with the baptism of Jesus, his temptation and then launches his ministry in Galilee.

Immediately before the passage we just heard, Jesus appointed the twelve apostles, including Judas Iscariot, and then Mark says Jesus went home. I think we often think of Jesus as an itinerant preacher traveling from one town to the next, but here we’re invited, with the crowds, to his house.

So there we are with Jesus, the apostles, and the crowd filling his house, shoulder to shoulder, leaning against walls and sitting on the ground. A crowd of followers so dense that Mark says they could not even eat. Imagine the rising temperature inside, the buzz of conversation growing louder and the restless energy of the assembled crowd.

And there are still more people outside the house. In particular, there are these other two groups.

One group is his mother, brothers and sisters. People who had known Jesus since childhood and watched him. People who should have known that he was the Son of God. But instead of believing his testimony and his proclamation, they accuse him of being ‘out of his mind’ or ‘beside himself.’ Mark says they are there to restrain Jesus or seize him and prevent him from continuing his ministry.

The second group is the scribes. These would have been the Temple heavyweights, the religious and theological experts who held authority over people. One might expect they would recognize the Divine in their midst. But instead of affirming Jesus’ identity as the Son of God, the scribes accuse him of being possessed by Beelzebul and under the power of demons. They want to discredit him and prevent him from continuing his ministry.

But Jesus doesn’t indicate that he feels any obligation, responsibility or duty toward his relatives or the scribes. His identity and his obedience, his authority and his power come from God alone.[ii]

Instead of recognizing the gospel work Jesus has been doing, healing people from diseases and fevers and setting others free from demons or unclean spirits, these two groups rejected his ministry and condemned him because they did not, or could not, recognize God at work.

Maybe their hearts had been hardened, or maybe they felt threatened – were his relatives afraid of what people might say about them? Perhaps they had already heard rumors and unkind words. Did the Temple authorities feel exposed by Jesus’ teachings that opened wide the possibility of God’s restoration for all people and disrupted their power to control or coerce?

Whatever their motives, Jesus calls out their sin. They have failed to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit taking place right in front of them. And they have blasphemed – reviled or insulted – the Holy Spirit with their denial.

That is the meaning of verse 29 – the unforgiveable sin is not to curse or take God’s name in vain when you hit your thumb with a hammer or get cut off in highway traffic. The unforgiveable sin to attribute the work of Jesus to Satan. It is to do evil in the name of God.

Like the people in Galilee, today we are easily divided and separated.

If we follow Jesus’ mother, sisters and brothers, we put a greater value on what others are saying about us than whether we are doing God’s work and witnessing God change people’s lives.

If we follow the scribes, we value own power and systems over the transforming healing and restoration that God makes possible for every one of God’s children.

Instead, Jesus invites us into his house and calls us to follow him and do the will of God. It is in the gospel work of loving God and loving each other that we find unity. It is in Jesus that we find our identity and in God that we find our authority.

We mustn’t doubt that the Holy Spirit is at work among us inside this congregation and in our community and world; instead, we are called to open our eyes and hearts to see how God is working.

I am always excited to come back and preach after synod assembly because that time together is always a vibrant display of the Holy Spirit at work in our ELCA congregations and with our partners. Even though we met on Zoom, this weekend’s assembly testified anew to the Spirit’s work across our synod. The Reverend Doctor Tim Smith was elected to a second six-year term as bishop of the North Carolina Synod, and we adopted a budget and ministry plan that prioritizes our mission start congregations including collaborations with the Episcopal and Moravian Churches, and establishes a new giving opportunity in the All Races, One Church, or AROC Fund, to encourage creative and sustainable ministry in our seven NC congregations that are primarily black, indigenous or people of color.

We celebrated anniversaries of congregations and ministers, including the Rev. Glenn Riechly [reekly] who has been ordained in gospel ministry for 71 years and 14 congregations where faithful people of God have gathered together for more than 225 years each!

And we met seminary students who are our synod’s candidates for rostered ministry –young adults who are called to lead the Church in new ways. We learned how our college campus ministries sustained their mission during the pandemic and how our camp ministries at Agape/Kure Beach, Lutherrock and Lutherridge are preparing to welcome campers this summer after being closed last season.

We have talked before how challenging this last fifteen months have been, but as we witnessed and I heard again at assembly, God was still with us working to bring about good and working to bring transformation to God’s people.

Thanks be to God.

[i] Enter the Bible, https://www.enterthebible.org/newtestament.aspx?rid=5

[ii] Breen, Mike. Covenant and Kingdom: The DNA of the Bible. 3DM. Kindle Edition.