Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 5:1-9

Hearing today’s gospel, I was reminded of the story of the prodigal son. While it’s probably one of the best-known Bible stories, it’s a story that is heard differently in different parts of the world. In one place, the emphasis falls on the son who wastes his inheritance and disrespects his father. In another, the focus is on the father’s reckless love for his children, while in yet another, the story’s interpretation revolves around the famine that took place and how the son began to be in need but “no one gave him anything.” (Luke 15:14, 16)

I expect the same thing happens when we hear this gospel story, the story of a man whose illness was measured not in months or even years but decades. We never get his name, but in his gospel, the Evangelist John tells us the man is in Jerusalem at a pool where the infirm would gather. He describes their physical conditions –blind, lame and paralyzed. And then he tells us that healing happened there at the pool. The common belief was that the first people into the water when it was stirred would be healed.

But the main character in today’s gospel has been afflicted for 38 years and has never been healed.

We could hear this story and focus on what the man had or hadn’t done. Where was his family? Was he so miserable that no one wanted to help him? Or were others judging him for being unwell? Later in John, when Jesus heals the man born blind (Ch. 9), the disciples asked if his blindness was caused by sin. People in Jerusalem may have seen the man’s suffering as punishment for some unnamed sin.

Jesus asks the man a question, which in the NRSV reads, “Do you want to be made well?” With this question, the story could be heard as a testimony to a faith healing. Except the man never answers Jesus’ question. He never makes a profession of faith. He never even gets in the water. The man doesn’t do anything differently to prompt the healing to happen when it does.

In fact, instead of answering Jesus, he replies with what is probably a well-worn story of how nobody helps him, and other people jump the line and go into the pool ahead of him, stealing his chance. It’s a story of scarcity, where there’s only enough for a few and where the narrative is shaped by what he doesn’t have.

But we have another option, and it’s one that’s usually pretty good when we read Scripture. And that is to focus on what the story tells us about God.

In the gospel of John, “to be made well” through Jesus Christ is to be given the life abundantly given [to] all creation by God.[i] Healing won’t always look like a physical cure or relief from symptoms, but “healing from Jesus brings life and freedom.”[ii] And in the gospel, we see that, even though the man never answers Jesus, Jesus restores his freedom and life, as well as his body, telling him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” (15:8) He is no longer left behind or forgotten, physically broken or unwell. [iii]

The Gospel first shows us that God’s actions happen in God’s timing and not ours. The man presumably had sought healing frequently during his 38 years of illness and yet he had never been delivered from it. There’s not an easy explanation for why he waited so long and it’s easy to get stuck on the question of why some people suffer more than others and wonder where God is in the midst of suffering. However, in this gospel, God is there.

The question Jesus asks can also be paraphrased, “Are you convinced that you are already made whole?” Because God loves us, God desires healing and wholeness for all creation. God has already acted out of God’s love for this man, showing us that God’s love is greater than our human imagination, rites or rituals.

The question the Gospel leaves us with is not whether God will heal, but what is the healing you are waiting for?

Because wholeness is more than physical health.

Wholeness includes our spiritual health – our relationship with God and our understanding of God’s unlimited love and grace for each one of us.

It includes our minds and intellect – how we learn, enrich our lives and experience the world.

It includes healthy personal relationships with family and friends whom we love and who love us.

It includes our emotional and mental health – our compassion for others, our resiliency in difficulty and challenging situations in our own lives and our ability to ask for help when we live with addiction or depression.

And it includes our vocational and financial well-being, remembering that each of us is gifted and called to participate in God’s kingdom and find fulfillment in our work and learning to see the world as a place of God’s abundance, and not of scarcity: to see the world as a place where God provides what we need.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus heals not only physical ailments, but attends to the wholeness of each person. In John’s gospel alone he ministers to the Pharisee Nicodemus (John 3), the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4) and the woman accused of adultery (John 8). For these people, healing wasn’t physical. For Nicodemus, it was having a safe place to ask questions about the kingdom of God; for the woman at the well, it was being known and loved even when she was an outsider; and for the woman who stood accused, it was receiving forgiveness and a new beginning.

Whole and healed, each of us is freed to participate fully in the new life God gives us and to share how God’s love transforms our lives and the way we live in the world.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for your abundant love that cannot be contained. Thank you for accomplishing in us what we cannot do on our own, healing our wounds and restoring us to new life in your Son Jesus Christ.

May your grace flow over and through us.

Send us into the world, whole and healed, as witnesses to your love and mercy.

We pray in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

[i] Jarvis, Cynthia A.; Johnson, E. Elizabeth. Feasting on the Gospels--John, Volume 1: A Feasting on the Word Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition

[ii] ibid

[iii] ibid

Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

“Peace be with you” and again, “Peace be with you.” And again, “Peace be with you.”

Anytime we hear something repeated in Scripture we know to pay attention, and in today’s gospel, Jesus says these words not once or even twice but three times.

When Jesus finds his disciples on that first Easter evening, he offers this greeting to them. But his words are more than an elaborate “hello”; Jesus knows they are hiding and afraid and the first words he says are “Peace be with you.” There’s actually no verb in the Greek phrase, and scholars say his words are better translated as “Peace is yours.” or “Peace is with you.”

It's not wishful or aspirational; it’s a declaration:

“You are my disciples and with me, you have peace.”

“Peace be with you” is easy to say here int he pews, but sometimes it’s hard to believe and harder still to feel. Maybe for some of his followers, seeing Jesus resurrected - risen from the dead- frightened them even more than seeing him crucified. The dead are supposed to stay dead after all.

After his declaration, Jesus spends time with them and shows them his hands and side. John the Evangelist says that they rejoiced then

and we remember that Jesus promised:

“I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:22 NRS)

But in the “both/and” world that we live in I imagine that the disciples both experienced joy and had questions and lingering anxiety.

After all, the political leaders were still angry at Jesus’ followers and the disciples’ future was uncertain.

As Jesus reminded them of their purpose - to be sent out, just as God had sent Jesus - they had to be wondering whether being like Jesus would mean they would die the death that Jesus died.

So, Jesus repeated this assurance to them again and in that moment, perhaps they were able to recall when he told them:

“in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!" (John 16:33 NRS)

Jesus’ promises joy and peace that come out of knowing Him as Lord. And God’s promises are neither arbitrary nor can they be compromised by circumstances. We can rely on God’s Word to us, even when we face uncertainty, or we feel afraid.

The disciples who were with Jesus on that first Easter evening were excited to tell their friend Thomas how they had seen the risen Lord.

Do you remember Thomas? He was the one who spoke up when Jesus was telling the disciples about the way to the Father and he told them, “You know the way to the place that I am going.”  It was Thomas who said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" (John 14:5 NRS)

Often mischaracterized as “doubting Thomas” he wasn’t with the other disciples on that first night. We don’t know where he was or why he wasn’t with the other disciples when Jesus appeared, but he wasn’t.

So he missed it all. He missed seeing the risen Lord. He missed seeing the marks in his hands and side. He missed hearing Jesus’ declaration of peace and reassurances.

So, it isn’t that surprising that when the other disciples told Thomas that they had seen Jesus, Thomas doesn’t believe them.

Really, he’s not so unlike the disciples who heard the women’s proclamation that the tomb was empty in the resurrection story that we heard on Easter morning. Luke said most of the disciples judged the women’s words to be “feverish babbling.” They didn’t believe them either.

Here, Thomas speaks up for himself again and tells the other disciples he wants the experience they’ve had. He wants to experience the risen Lord - to see Jesus - for himself.

The next time Jesus finds the disciples together, Thomas is there, and Jesus doesn’t chastise or ridicule him.

Instead, he repeats his assurance of peace a third time and offers his body to Thomas, inviting him to touch the very marks that Thomas had wondered about. And his invitation provokes Thomas’ confession of faith, “My Lord and my God!”

Faith in John’s gospel is always about knowing Jesus. It is never an intellectual exercise, believing is about being in relationship with the risen Lord and knowing Him.

Jesus appears to the other disciples and to Thomas and doesn’t demand anything.

He meets them where they are.

He invites them to see him, to listen and to follow.

He offers his own body so that they can satisfy their questions.

He promises joy and peace amid uncertainty - “a peace that comes in the midst of conflict and threat rather than as the absence of such.”[i]

Someone this week imagined the disciples were like the refugees in Mariupol, Ukraine. Shell-shocked, living in hiding, subsisting but not thriving, fearfully listening for foreign soldiers knocking on the door. To those who have lost everything, Jesus says, “Peace is yours.”

Here in our corner of the world, few of us have experienced the fear of being refugees or the difficulty of living in war-time conditions, but we still know conflict, fear and condemnation. We know the emptiness of loss. And we know the terror of loneliness and isolation. And to each of us, Jesus says, “Peace is yours.”

This healing and reconciling peace is ours that we may be witnesses, that we may go out, sent like Jesus, to a hurting world and share the stories of how God has shown up behind the locked doors of our hearts and lives and given us peace.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus, whose very presence brings peace into a hurting world overcome by fear.

Thank you for your grace that finds us, forgives us and invites us into life with you.

May we always bear witness to the difference your peace and presence makes in our lives.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

[i] Duane A. Olson, “The Church in Mission: Gospel Texts for the Sundays of Easter (Series C). Word and World, Volume XV, Number 2. Spring 1995.219.

Palm Sunday

Luke 19:28-40

Remember when Jesus was teaching and some of those listening warned him about the Galileans who had been killed by Pilate? (13:1)

Or later when they warned him to flee because Herod wanted to kill him? (13:31)

Time and again, people “in the know” – leaders in the towns and villages where he was preaching and teaching - shushed Jesus and his followers, warning them to know their place, to keep their heads down and stay out of trouble.

Here again, after the crowds burst into praise and shouts at his arrival in Jerusalem, some of the Pharisees come to Jesus and tell him to order his disciples to stop:

“Jesus, get your people under control.”

I am all for good order and I like knowing what to expect. But this isn’t about decorum. This is about fear.

I wonder what they were afraid of. Were they worried the Roman soldiers would report the parade to the governor? Were they afraid the assembly would become violent? Why was the crowds’ joy and fervor so unsettling?

We don’t know. Maybe they were protecting themselves or even trying to protect Jesus.

But Jesus is unwavering. Once again, he asserts God’s dominion and kingdom, declaring

“If these [people] were silent, the stones would shout out.”

The promise of God to raise up a deliverer for God’s people cannot be thwarted or silenced by human fears, doubts or disbelief.

When we hear Jesus say, “The stones would shout out” we don’t expect the stones to audibly cry out.

But consider the cries of creation that the psalmist describes when “[the meadows and valleys that] shout and sing together for joy” in Psalm 65 (v. 13) and how Saint Paul tell us that “the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains [for the glory of God to be revealed.]” (Romans 8:22) And then, imagine how the stones that make up the arid landscape of Israel might shout in joyful praise at Jesus, the Living Water sent by God, arriving in Jerusalem.

On this day, the whole of creation, including humankind, recognize Jesus is King and God has fulfilled God’s promise of a Messiah, Lord and King.

The stones would shout out.

Imagine the stones that bruised the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5); the stones that fell from the hands of those who accused the woman of adultery (John 8); and the stones that were thrown against the prophets who came before Jesus (Luke 13:34). Those stones bore shame, judgment and punishment. But, when Jesus enters Jerusalem, he comes as the Savior who heals every ill and promises forgiveness and mercy.

The stones would shout out.

Imagine how the stones in the fortifying walls around Jerusalem or the walls of the Temple itself might shout to proclaim Jesus is Lord.

Imagine the bloodshed and agony those stones have witnessed - especially by the time of Luke’s writing, after the temple had been destroyed in 70 CE. Today the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem is a sacred space where the stones literally hold millions of prayers in notes placed there in the wall’s crevices each year by visitors.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem, he comes as the Prince of Peace and one who will conquer death.

The stones would shout out.

Each of us too is invited to add our shouts of praise as we enter this Holy Week. Whether it’s the glory of creation, the beauty of forgiveness and mercy, the hope of healing or the victory of God over death and evil, may you remember how God’s presence has made a difference in your life and experience.

Name the ways God has brought you through the rocky and stony parts of life, when you have received grace and healing, and where you have experienced new life in Christ.

If we were not here to tell the story, to shout the glad hosannas and to sing and praise God, the stones themselves would shout out to proclaim the Jesus we know as Lord and King, as Messiah and Healer, and Prince of Peace.

But thanks be to God, we are here to tell the story.

This story, the story of Jesus’ last week begins today and continues on Maundy Thursday when Jesus gathers with his disciples one last time. We’ll tell the story of Judas’ betrayal and hear Jesus’ command to love one another. We will share in the Lord’s Supper together. And we will be here on Good Friday when the very same crowds, including all of us, who are praising Jesus’ name this morning will cry out, “Crucify Him!” and he will be put to death on a cross. And then, one week from today, we will be here to tell the rest of the story.

I hope you will gather with us for all of it.

Let us pray…

Holy God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus coming to us with grace and mercy.

As we enter this Holy Week, help us tell the story of your Son faithfully and to see how the whole of creation witnesses to your redeeming love.

May your Spirit give us courage to never be silenced by fear or doubt but always shout your praise and proclaim your Good News.

In Jesus’ name we pray.

Amen.

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Luke 15:1-2, 11b-32

When I was in seminary, I was part of a cohort or group of students that began our coursework together and, in every class, our professors would invite us to introduce ourselves. It didn’t take long before we knew each other’s introductions well enough that we could introduce each other. Chris from Ames, Iowa was a painter, a retired nurse, a wife and a mother of 3 grown children; Aaron from Eau Claire, Wisconsin had been a PK – a pastor’s kid – and he was married and expecting their first child, and so on and so on. We knew each other’s stories so well that eventually we stopped listening carefully.

I would guess that many of us when we hear Jesus say, “There was a man with two sons…” do the very same thing. The parable we have in today’s Gospel is one of the most familiar stories in Scripture and, because it’s so familiar, we may stop listening carefully when it’s told.

The other thing that often happens with parables – the stories that Jesus tells to illustrate the Good News – is that we start trying to figure out who the characters are. If the father is God, then who are the sons? Is this a morality tale? 

But treating this parable as an allegory with a hidden meaning or a puzzle to be solved distracts us from hearing what Jesus is saying.

Because in Scripture –God’s story – God is always the actor – the main character – and the text is telling us something about who God is.

So, the first thing we need to do is listen attentively to the gospel, as if we haven’t heard the story before, as if it were completely new.

Luke begins by explaining that the religious experts were criticizing Jesus. Now that in itself is not new, but this time, they’re complaining because he is drawing crowds that include known troublemakers. They don’t want those people in their spaces, listening to Jesus.

And Jesus doesn’t just say “all are welcome”. He goes a step further, giving them seats at the table and eating with them.

It’s scandalous. Doesn’t he know better? After all, where are his standards?

Well, when Jesus hears them grumbling, he tells them three stories.

The first two aren’t in our gospel text this morning. First Jesus tells them about a lost sheep and the shepherd who went after him and found him and rejoices. And then he tells the story of a lost coin and the woman who searches carefully until she finds it and then she calls her neighbors to celebrate with her.

And finally he tells the story we just heard, the one of the man with two sons.

But instead of asking who does each of the characters represent, what is the moral of the story or the solution to the puzzle, the second thing I want to invite you to do is to ask a different question. This time, let’s ask, “Where do you see yourself in this story?”

Because I would guess that we are never only one of the characters in this story.

When we meet the younger son, he isn’t merely wasteful and reckless. He basically tells his father “You’re dead to me.” And leaves, taking what he can. When he realizes the hole that he’s dug for himself, he comes up with a new plan and heads back to his father. Sometimes he’s described as repentant, but a skeptic might wonder how honest he was being. It’s possible he even deceived himself, thinking, “If only I can return, I’ll do better.”

In contrast, the older son models responsibility, but with each furrow he digs, the chip on his shoulder increases and his resentment both toward the brother who left and toward his father becomes more and more entrenched.

Both sons betrayed the love of their father. The younger with careless arrogance and the older with unresolved anger and bitterness. 

Jesus doesn’t tell this story so that we’ll take sides or champion one over the other; maybe he just wants us to see how we all have a little of both sons in us. 

So back to the question we’re asking,

“Where do you see yourself in this story?”

And I’ll add,

“When have you turned your back on your identity, on who you are?”

“When have you squandered the grace and love that’s offered to you?”

And then, of course, there is a third character, the father of the two sons.

The father who doesn’t shun the son who asks for his inheritance. The one who lets him go.

Who watches for his return, yearning and waiting.

And when the father sees the son returning, he runs out to meet him, to restore him and to rejoice at his homecoming. You can picture how brightly the father’s face beamed and how his eyes shone with thankfulness at finding the one who had been lost. You can hear his joy in his words.

While at the very same time, the older son is overcome with jealousy and resentment. But the father is steadfast. He tells his older son that he has always had all that belongs to the father, and that while he felt disregarded and disappointed, the father’s love was constant even when the older son doubted it.

I asked how we may be like the two sons, but have there been times in your life when you can see yourself as the father?

The one who responds with joy and love and refrains from judgment? The one who welcomes lavishly and without restraint?

This is the God who we worship and know in the person of Jesus Christ who gives us everything that is his and takes all that is ours that we may be restored to relationship with God.

This is the God who tells the criminal beside him at the crucifixion that he will be with him in heaven.

This is the God who loves Peter even after he denies him as Messiah and Lord three times.

We worship a God who loves lavishly and without restraint and Jesus invites us to love others the same way. God invites us to the banquet and the only question left to answer is,

if there’s a party being thrown, will you go to it? 

Because God is watching, yearning and waiting, for you to return and join in.

 

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for your Son Jesus,

for redeeming us and giving us new life.

Thank you for your lavish love and mercy, for your abundant grace, especially when we turn away from you or turn in on ourselves in sin.

May we always remember you are watching for us, yearning for us to return to you.

With the help of your Spirit, teach us love others as we are loved, rejoicing with you and making space at the table for all.

We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Second Sunday in Lent

 Luke 13:31-35

There’s a children’s fable by Aesop that tells the story of a fox who came upon a tree and saw a rooster in its branches.[i] Hoping for lunch, the fox who was cunning and sly approached the rooster with jubilation and said, “Oh, Mr. Rooster, Have you heard the wonderful news? Your family and mine and all of the other animals have agreed to forget our differences and live in peace together. Won’t you come down and celebrate with me?” The rooster answered, “I am truly delighted with this news” and he stretched and appeared to be on his tiptoes looking at something on the horizon. When the fox saw his gaze, he asked, “What is it that you see?” and the rooster told him, “I think I see a few dogs coming this way; they must have heard the good news too,…” but before he could finish his sentence, the fox had begun to run away. The rooster called after him, “Wait, where are you going? Why are you running? The dogs are friends of yours now too.” And the fox replied, “Yes, but they may not have heard the news yet, and besides I have an important errand I had almost forgotten.” And the rooster remained in his perch, satisfied he had outwitted his cunning enemy.

When Jesus calls Herod a fox, this was the image that came to mind for me. Hungry and manipulative. Sly and untrustworthy. Destructive and self-serving.

The Herod who’s named in our gospel today is Herod Antipas who was the son of Herod the Great whom we remember from Jesus’ birth narrative. This is the King Herod who murdered Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist, and reportedly now, he is seeking Jesus and desires to kill him too.

Since the transfiguration, Jesus has been moving away from Herod’s kingdom which included Galilee toward Jerusalem, but, in Luke’s gospel especially, that journey takes a long time – ten chapters of the gospel. In today’s text, we hear some Pharisees come to him and urge him to move even more quickly, to “get away from here.”

But Jesus digs in. He tells them what he’s there to do - to cast out demons and to perform cures – and he refuses to be rushed or run away. Just as he was with the devil in the wilderness, Jesus is clear in his identity as the Son of God and in his obedience to the Lord our God and no one else.

Another image I could not avoid as I read this text and prepared to preach this morning was that of the suffering in Ukraine. War is complex, and I don’t pretend to understand the dynamics of the world, military and economic factors in play. But I do see the similarities between the people who came to Jesus searching for deliverance and healing, for liberation and restoration, and the now more than two million people who have fled Ukraine and are seeking shelter as refugees.

I am grateful that last Sunday here at Grace we raised more than seventeen hundred dollars for Lutheran Disaster Response who is working with Lutheran World Federation member churches in eastern Europe to distribute hygiene supplies, food, medicine, bedding and psychosocial and pastoral care to refugees and internally displaced people, most of whom are women and children.

I believe our response to suffering must be rooted in our identity as God’s people, and our obedience to God must mirror the same strength and determination that Jesus demonstrated in our gospel today.

The third image for today comes from what Jesus says next as he laments over Jerusalem. Jesus cries out as he describes the ways that God’s people have been disobedient and the violence they have perpetrated, stoning and killing God’s messengers and prophets.

And as he names his grief, Jesus describes himself as a mother hen.

Now we could joke about mother hens who becomes obsessive about details of other people’s lives, nagging or fussing and interfering. But the image of a mother hen that Jesus is using here is one of a mothering God who wants to stretch out her wings and gather the fledglings, the newest and most vulnerable creations, within the safety or refuge, and protection of her reach. (Ruth 2:12)

Lutheran pastor Delmer Chilton tells a story of being with his grandmother who got fresh eggs from a neighbor.

One day they walked down the road to the neighbor’s house where the eggs were kept cool in a springhouse. And as they were coming out of the spring house, they heard a ruckus in the chicken yard. Chilton says there was “a sudden raising of dust, flurry of feathers and scattering of hens and chickens, much screeching and squawking; and then, just as suddenly, things calmed down and an old gray hen emerged from the bushes with a large black snake in her mouth.” [ii]

That mother hen wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her chicks or eggs.

This is the image for God that Jesus offers us today. Instead of a king who manipulates us and threatens us into obedience or one whose rule is iron-fisted, we are created and beloved by a mothering God whose love is sacrificial and boundless. God yearns to gather us in, to embrace us and to welcome us all into God’s safe keeping.

With his lament, Jesus leaves space for God’s people to respond to God’s promise of life. It’s not too late to choose God and choose life. It’s never too late. Because God acts first for us and offers us mercy and grace that is new every morning. When we reach Holy Week, Jesus will die in Jerusalem, at the hands of God’s own people, and he will be raised and resurrected to show that the forces of sin, death and the devil that defy God and rebel against God do not triumph.

Regardless of what we have done and the ways we have turned away from God and God’s word in the past, God yearns for us to find our home with God. In faith, we are freed for the sake of the world, and our obedience to God flows from our salvation.[iii] Our obedience then is our response to God’s good and generous grace that has been poured out upon us.

The late pastor and author Eugene Peterson described obedience as “the strength to stand and the willingness to leap.”[iv]  As we go out into the world this week, as we continue to pray for peace in Ukraine and for the safety of the refugees may we share God’s mothering love with all whom we meet, and respond to the suffering we witness with courage, strength and willingness.

Amen.

---

[i] Library of Congress. Aesop’s Fables for Children. https://read.gov/aesop/018.html, accessed 3/10/2022.

[ii] Chilton, Delmer. The Gospel According to Aunt Mildred: Stories of Family and Faith (p. 26). Brasstown Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

[iii] Luther, Freedom of a Christian, 405.

[iv] Paraphrased from Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience, p. 164-165

Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

I remember the first time I was invited to impose ashes during an Ash Wednesday service. A mother brought her infant forward and seeing the baby, I froze. I knew the words I was supposed to repeat:

“Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

I marked a cross on the mother’s forehead and said the words to her, but I was not prepared to place an ashen cross on that tiny forehead and say those words to one who had been born just weeks before.

But that mama knew what she was doing when she brought her child to the altar rail to receive ashes. She knew how precious and dear, and sometimes how fleeting, life is.

The ashes remind us both of what we already know and of what we sometimes forget – that in Christ, death does not get the last word. I haven’t hesitated since.

Ash Wednesday invites us to speak honestly about sin and death. We join in confession for our sin, and on behalf of those who are not here with us tonight, acknowledging our complicity in the brokenness of the world where we live.

A world that cannot live in peace;

A world that cannot see that every person is beloved and created in God’s image;

A world that cannot be vulnerable and authentic in its compassion and prayer for the stranger.

Our confession is our response to God’s Word and promises for us. As disciples of Jesus, we confess “with confidence that the judgment has been, is and will be lifted from us by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.” (The Rev. Fleming Rutledge)

And in its honesty, our confession becomes the turning point of our lives where we commit to actively “turn around” — to turn away from ourselves and return to God with all our heart.

Just as Pastor Mark said on Sunday that after the Transfiguration, Jesus turns his face toward Jerusalem, in Lent, we turn our faces toward God, coming up from the ashes to learn to live as disciples of Jesus in new ways and to commit to the deeper work that leads to transformation.

Here at Grace, our midweek learning and worship will focus on deepening our practices of prayer, both communally and individually.

Often prayer is described as talking to God, but prayer practices also invite us to rest from all the other things we could be doing so that we can draw close to God and renew our strength. Spoken prayers let us name the concerns of our hearts, but because the best conversations aren’t one-sided, prayer also asks us to wait on the Lord to speak. Amid the noise and wordiness of our lives, silence invites us to listen for God.

One week we’ll explore a prayer labyrinth, where prayer is combined with movement, and another week we’ll experience different kinds of healing prayers. Other weeks we’ll practice morning and evening prayer as well as prayers around the cross and centering prayer.

Throughout the season, Jesus’ words in Matthew’s gospel will remain with us. There Jesus tells the disciples to “beware” or “pay attention” to where their hearts are in all they do, whether it’s giving or praying or fasting. Jesus urges us, in whatever we do, to act with honesty and authenticity. It’s too easy for our motives to get mixed up, for our hearts to harden, or for us to curve in on ourselves in sin. In a world that so often is transactional, rewarding merit and achievement, we are called to remember that discipleship isn’t about what we get or whom we impress but who we are, in relationship with God through Christ: forgiven and reconciled.

On Ash Wednesday, and throughout the Lenten season, we are invited to focus on how God’s grace-filled and loving response to us defines who we are and how we practice our faith day by day.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

We give thanks for your abundant grace and mercy and for your steadfast love.

Thank you for forgiving our sin and for inviting us to return to you again and again.

Reconcile us to you and to one another as we practice our faith and deepen our relationship with you.

We pray in the name of your Son Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

Luke 6:27-38

When you were in school, did you ever arrive to class after the instructor had begun teaching? That’s a little like where we find ourselves today, listening to Jesus.

Because of how the lectionary – that three-year cycle of readings that we follow – is divided, Jesus’ sermon on the plain comes to us in three parts. It began with the gospel we heard from Pastor Alfredo last Sunday – where Jesus proclaimed blessing for the poor, the hungry, and those who weep and declared woe for those who are rich or sated or laughing. In that text, Jesus promised that God’s ways are different from the ways of the world.

Today’s gospel continues his sermon and then, there is yet a third part - the concluding verses of this chapter - that we won’t even hear in worship.

When we hear Jesus say, “But I say to you,” we know we need to hear today’s verses in the context of what came before, in order to understand what Jesus is saying. Because Jesus is not condoning abuse and he is not advocating staying in violent or unsafe situations. He is saying that

our lives cannot be lived in response to either our enemies or even our friends, but to God.

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

God calls us to act in love and grace toward all people, not only those whom we like or who like us. Not only those who convictions and beliefs are the same as ours. Not only those whose behavior is acceptable or even legal. But all people, because all people are created and beloved by God.

If that sounds difficult, you’re right; it is difficult.

And we are not the first people to struggle with Jesus’ teaching.

Throughout God’s story, God’s people have heard this difficult word – to be merciful, to be generous, to do good – and struggled with it.

In the Old Testament, after God spares Nineveh, Jonah angrily complains to God, saying,

Isn’t this what I said, Lord? I knew that you’re a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. (Jonah 3:2)

Then in the parable of the vineyard workers in Matthew, the landowner hires workers throughout the day and when evening comes, he pays them their wages and when the workers who had been hired in the morning saw they were all paid the same, they began grumbling. And the landowner asks, “Are you envious because I am generous?” (Mt. 20:15)

And in the story of the prodigal or lost son, the older son became angry when he sees how his wayward brother is welcomed home, complaining that “this son who has squandered your property comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”

So I ask you, “What do you make of God’s impartiality?”

Part of my story of faith is coming to believe that God’s grace extended even to me. I had not really grown up in the church, although I’d been christened in the Episcopal Church. I was pretty self-destructive in my late teens, but I was drawn back into relationship with God in college through campus ministry and it was there that I finally came to understand that God’s mercies were new every morning and that God’s forgiveness was even for me;

that as Luther writes in the explanation of the third article of the Apostles’ Creed in the Small Catechism– “the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins – mine and those of all believers.”[i]

Because of God’s great love for each one of us, God therefore forgives us all our sin, known and unknown and invites us into life with God.

For Luther, the relationship which God establishes with us through the forgiveness of sins in love was at the center of our life of faith. [ii] He writes in his commentary on the psalms, “Where there is no forgiveness there is no God; where there is no God, there is no forgiveness.”[iii]

In Unbroken, World War 2 veteran bombardier Louie Zamperini describes returning to Japan and meeting the Japanese prison guards who had been responsible for the years of mistreatment and abuse that he suffered as a prisoner of war. In 1950, He went to Japan and traveled to Sugámo prison where many of the guards were held for their war crimes and there, Zamperini told each one face to face that he forgave them.[iv]

Where was faith when he was 8?

It was watching his mother pray on her knees.

Where was faith when he was lost at sea on a life raft in the Pacific?

It was pledging himself to God’s service if God saved him.

As his faith evolved, he put his faith into action, in love and in forgiveness.

Importantly, Zamperini’s act of forgiveness did not erase the crimes the guards had committed; it did not commute their sentences, change their consequences or diminish their accountability.

But it did release Louie from the burdens of anger, vengeance and retaliation, and we can imagine that it released the guards from their burdens of shame and alienation. We know from his account that several of the guards found faith through his act of forgiveness.

The late American poet laureate Maya Angelou is often quoted for saying, “You cannot forgive without loving.” She was careful to say forgiveness wasn’t about sentimentality and it didn’t mean she was going to invite the person to Sunday dinner. In her words, forgiveness was “having [the] courage to stand up and say, “I forgive. I’m finished with it.”

Jesus commands us to love our enemies, but following God’s commands, even the ones to love and forgive, isn’t something can do all on our own. We are dependent on the Holy Spirit to keep us in faith and grow in living in response to the love God has first shown us through Jesus.

So I invite you to a prayerful practice. Take a minute to silently name a person who you have struggled to forgive. Be as specific as you can. And commit to praying for God’s help to forgive that person. Ask God for the courage and will to love your enemy, to forgive and be merciful. Commit to pray daily and see what happens.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

Thank you for giving each one of us abundant mercy and forgiving all of our sins.

Thank you for your Son Jesus who teaches us to pray and calls us to love, forgive and be merciful.

Today, by your Holy Spirit, enlighten us with the name of someone we have struggled to forgive and, day by day, give us the courage and will to forgive.

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

Amen.

[i] Martin Luther. Small Catechism.

[ii] Martin Luther. Commentary on the Psalms, 1532-1533 cited in George W. Forell, Faith Active in Love. 63.

[iii] ibid

[iv] Laura Hillenbrand Unbroken. 2010; also, in film 2018.