God pulls us outside ourselves

This is a continuation of our favorites series as we prepare to close our ministry.  For the children's sermon I told the story of the cracked pot.

 

The first reading was Genesis 45:3-11, 15.

The holy gospel according to Luke (6:27-38).

Jesus said:

²⁷“But I say to you that listen,

       Love your enemies,

              do good to those who hate you,

                     ²⁸bless those who curse you,

                            pray for those who abuse you.

       ²⁹If anyone strikes you on the cheek,

              offer the other also;

       and from anyone who takes away your coat

              do not withhold even your shirt.

       ³⁰Give to everyone who begs from you;

              and if anyone takes away your goods,

                     do not ask for them again.

       ³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you.

³²“If you love those who love you,

       what credit is that to you?

              For even sinners love those who love them.

³³If you do good to those who do good to you,

       what credit is that to you?

              For even sinners do the same.

³⁴If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive,

       what credit is that to you?

              Even sinners lend to sinners,

                     to receive as much again.

³⁵But love your enemies,

       do good,

              and lend,

                     expecting nothing in return.

Your reward will be great,

       and you will be children of the Most High,

              who is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

³⁶Be merciful,

       just as your Father is merciful.

³⁷“Do not judge,

       and you will not be judged;

do not condemn,

       and you will not be condemned.

Forgive,

       and you will be forgiven;

³⁸give,

       and it will be given to you.

A good measure,

       pressed down,

              shaken together,

                     running over,

                            will be put into your lap;

                                   for the measure you give

                                          will be the measure you get back.”

The gospel of the Lord.

-----

“Love your enemies.  Do good.  Bless.  Pray for.  Offer another cheek, another coat.  Expect nothing.  Be merciful.  Do not judge.  Do not condemn.  Forgive.  Give.”

Jesus, it seems, is full of instructions today.  Some easier than others.  Some more reasonable than others.  If I were in the habit of giving “how to” sermons or instructions for being “properly Christian,” this would be about as easy as it comes today.  But there is not much grace in that.  There is not much assurance or proclamation of the Good News of God’s endless unconditional love for you and for me. 

The Good News that I am a bit more desperate for these days.  Good News I need as the world still feels chaotic and unsafe, as predominately black churches continue to burn, as people with guns take the lives of those who choose to serve our country.  Good News as our closing worship is now less than a month away.

Because the thing I’ve come to realize and the real reason I love to preach, which may not always be clear even to me, is that I am desperate for the Good News of God’s grace, desperate to be pulled beyond myself into something bigger than my little place in this corner of the world.

If that is what we need, that Good News of Why God is in the world, then we are in luck.  That is really what Jesus is getting at this week.  These different exhortations and calls to action are not to-do lists, but life lived beyond ourselves, reliant on a God who is bigger than our to-do lists and wish lists.

These sayings, from “love your enemies” to “turn the other cheek” to “do to others as you would have them do to you” open us to something bigger than ourselves.  It is way too easy to get pulled into ourselves, holding a grudge, withholding forgiveness because of the hurt and the pain that we still feel.

But God is bigger than that.  God is bigger than the fear, the hatred, and the pain that can build up walls around us and keep us from being open and vulnerable with others, that can push us to run away or to dig in for a fight instead of following Jesus’ third way of loving engagement.

These counterintuitive, wacky exhortations pull us toward that.  They pull us into a community of faith where we are not alone.  Where we can be hurt and can still continue to learn compassion and empathy.  Where we can pray for those who are so broken that they abuse others, where we can love,                        and mourn every death from Osama bin Laden to Norm Kettner to Sandra Bland, who died while in police custody in Texas.

Turning the other cheek is not about being a doormat.  In Jesus’ time, if you hit someone with the back of your right hand on their right cheek, it was an insult, it reinforced their inferiority to you, like a slave.  When you hit someone on the left cheek, it was a sign of equality.  So, turning the other cheek meant shifting the slap or the hit from insult to equality and it made clear the imbalance of power creating the opportunity for change and repentance in offering the other cheek.[1]

If Jesus were speaking these today, perhaps he would say, “when fighting with family, remember the power of tickling.” “when your congregation is closing, dig into your faith in the time that you have together.” “When reading comments on KSL, engage with love and prayer.” “when the ku klux klan holds a protest, bring your sousaphone.”   

That is what one man did to challenge their hatred.  As the KKK marched in protest of removing a symbol of hatred and racism, this man on his tuba-like instrument played Ride of the Valkyries, the score for the White Supremacist film, Birth of a Nation, exposing the foolishness of the KKK’s hatred and racism.  And it fits!  It is a creative way of challenging the hatred, pain, and anger that can easily consume us.  That is what God is all about.  God finds creative ways to bring about good, to turn the tables on those who oppress others, to create a third way.

That is how God brings us outside ourselves.  It is God’s third way.  Neither fleeing from conflict, from abuse, pain, or anger, nor reacting impulsively to it.  It is engaging it in love.  That is how God brings a new reign, a new dominion to earth. 

Creatively.  Engaging in new ways, responding in creative love rather than reacting out of pain.

We’re not fundamentally changing who we are or what we do to follow a new list of the how-to’s of being a “good Christian.”  God is the one who is already claiming us, who is already at work.  As in today’s reading from Genesis, what Joseph’s brothers intended for harm—mainly selling him into slavery—God managed to use for good.  Not that God causes the harm, but that God can work even through our brokenness, even through the cracks in our water pots and in our lives.

Nothing is too big or too bad or too painful for God to handle, because God is in that too.  God, in Jesus, comes into our hurt and pain and brokenness and takes it onto himself, onto the cross—with us in suffering.

God brings creative, new life even out of ways that lead to death.  Jesus spends his life bringing new life, restoring community, responding creatively to the powers of evil and oppression at work in the world. 

Ultimately he responds even to death—the worst death, by crucifixion—with creative new life.  He doesn’t raise up an army to fight the Roman occupiers, nor does he give in to the inevitability of oppression.  He takes the third way, proving once and for all that death is no longer the final word.  God is.  And in God there is life and love and a creativity that pulls us out into the world.  God pulls us into considering how another might want to be treated, into loving even the unlovable, into new ways of being in the world, and into community in love.

Thanks be to God.

---

[1] https://www.ualberta.ca/~cbidwell/DCAS/third.htm

God creates complexity

Continuing our series on favorites, all three of the passages for today were favorites of at least one person.

 

The first reading was Ecclesiastes 3:1-13.

The psalm was Psalm 23.

The holy gospel according to Matthew (5:1-12).

When Jesus saw the crowds,

       he went up the mountain;

       and after he sat down,

              his disciples came to him.

       ²Then Jesus began to speak,

              and taught them, saying:

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit,

       for theirs is the dominion of heaven.

⁴“Blessed are those who mourn,

       for they will be comforted.

⁵“Blessed are the meek,

       for they will inherit the earth.

⁶“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

       for they will be filled.

⁷“Blessed are the merciful,

       for they will receive mercy.

⁸“Blessed are the pure in heart,

       for they will see God.

⁹“Blessed are the peacemakers,

       for they will be called children of God.

¹⁰“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,

       for theirs is the dominion of heaven.

¹¹“Blessed are you when people revile you

       and persecute you

       and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

              ¹²Rejoice and be glad,

                     for your reward is great in heaven,

                            for in the same way they persecuted the prophets

                                   who were before you.

The gospel of the Lord.

-----

The readings for today are probably some of the most beloved readings found in the Bible.  They are poetic, comforting, and fairly clear.  There is “a time to be born and a time to die.”  “Those who mourn…will be comforted.”  These iconic pairings are much more easily understandable than some of Jesus’ other sayings.

Or so it seems.  They appear clear and common sense, but on closer exploration, they are much more complicated than we give them credit for.

Ecclesiastes separates the times and seasons into their own spaces, making the distinctions seem clear.  Psalm 23 is a comforting reminder and prayer of God’s presence even as it acknowledges that we at times “walk through the darkest valley,” or as is more commonly quoted, “the valley of the shadow of death.”  Jesus, however, brings things that seem distinct together.  Not only are all of the blessings stated together, they run into each other.  The merciful probably also have a pure heart.  Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness also probably mourn the pain of injustice and suffering.

The Beatitudes actually remind me of the movie Inside Out.  The movie came out a few weeks ago and takes place largely from inside a soon-to-be teenager’s head.  In the control room are the emotions, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger.  These characters each have a color, which controls or determines each of the girl’s memories.  Most memories are the gold of Joy, but as the family moves to a new place, Sadness starts turning memories, especially Joy’s golden memories, blue.

Now, spoiler alert here.  In the end, the memories become multi-colored with Sadness’ blue and Joy’s gold, with the green of Disgust, the red of Anger, and Fear’s purple all mixed together on different memories.  And the memories become richer and stronger because of this greater complexity.  Like Jesus’ words that “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,” we are richer and our experiences are richer when our emotions are fuller.  When we take time to really experience the many emotions we feel every day.

After all, if I don’t mourn, how will anybody know I need comfort?  If I don’t vocalize or express my anger, no one will know I’m upset or that anything is wrong.  If I don’t express my joy, how will anyone know to celebrate with me?

Just like day and night are not so different during twilight or dawn, our emotions and situations are rarely as clear-cut as we like to make them.  So how do we tell the difference?  How do we actually interpret Ecclesiastes and the Beatitudes?

When is the time to be born and the time to die for a baby who is stillborn or a person who survives after their heart has stopped?  What about the time to kill and the time to heal?  When is the time to mourn and the time to dance?  Or can those be the same times?  Have you ever found yourself weeping and laughing together?  In your bulletins is an insert with part of our readings today.  In the next few minutes, I invite you to split into small groups and share a time or two when one of the pairs from Ecclesiastes have both been true for you at the same time.

(time for sharing individually and then with the larger group)

Now, when have you experienced one of the Beatitudes?  Have you been comforted in your mourning?  Has your hunger and thirst for righteousness been filled?  I invite you to share again in your groups.

(time for sharing individually and then with the larger group)

We are complex people and that is precisely how God creates us.  God’s intention for us is to be complex beings who can experience many emotions at once.  It enables us to feel compassion and empathy for others.  It creates space and ways to be in relationship with those who are different from us.

God creates us for these complexities and relationships and in so doing, God creates us for love, the most complex of them all, which holds all of our contradictions and all of our emotions together at once.

Thanks be to God.

God is faithful until death and gives the crown of life.

We're going off the lectionary for the rest of the summer and I'm preaching on people's favorite bible passages.  This week's favorite bible passage was from Revelation 2, specifically verse 10b: "Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life."

The first reading was Job 19:1-12.

The gospel was Luke 12:22-31. 

A reading from Revelation (2:8-11).

God says,

⁸“And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write:

       These are the words of the first and the last,

              who was dead and came to life:

                     ⁹“I know your affliction and your poverty,

                            even though you are rich.

                     I know the slander on the part of those

                            who say that they are Jews and are not,

                                   but are a synagogue of Satan.

                     ¹⁰Do not fear what you are about to suffer.

                            Beware, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison

                                   so that you may be tested,

                                   and for ten days you will have affliction.

                     Be faithful until death,

                            and I will give you the crown of life.

                     ¹¹Let anyone who has an ear listen

                            to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

                                   Whoever conquers will not be harmed by the second death.

The word of the Lord.

-----

Today’s readings are a bit of a mixed bag.  Job complains about the treatment and poor advice of his friends toward his trials and tribulations while in Revelation we hear God’s words to the church in Smyrna, a community of faith that is afflicted even in its affluence, facing persecution.  And into the midst of that fear God speaks words of encouragement. “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

God is saying, “No matter what may come, I am with you.  I have chosen you as my own.”  God does not promise an easy life.  God does not even promise survival.  These words are spoken into the midst of suffering and persecution.  I wonder how those who gathered for Bible Study at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston would hear these words.  "Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life."  Or those whose church buildings have been set ablaze.  What would they hear in these assurances from God? 

But God is the only one who can speak encouragement into persecution and into suffering because God is speaking as one who suffered the deepest depths of torture and death on the cross.  God knows the pain and the sorrow of each community and still speaks words of promise and assurance.

God knows Job’s complaints as he confronts his friends and laments that “God breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, God has uprooted my hope like a tree.”  Job is in the full throes of his despair and yet God knows them and knows it is not the full story.

The ravens have food enough, the lilies are clothed in splendor and Jesus declares, “Of how much more value are you than the birds!”  Job’s worth and yours is so immense that it is immeasurable to God.

Claimed in the waters of baptism, God put our sinful selves to death with Christ, bringing us to new life in the crucified and risen one, giving us “the crown of life.”  We have been put to death and yet are alive, poor even in richness.

As Lutherans especially, we live into the paradox of things that appear to be opposites—dead yet alive, sinner and saint, living into God’s reign on earth, even as it has yet to be fully realized.  Even our language about God is paradoxical!  Jesus is both fully human and fully divine.  God is the alpha and the omega, or as in Revelation, “the first and the last, who was dead and came to life.”  God is a paradox, a mysterious mix of unknown and knowable.

Right now we have many people trying to win the crown to rule our country.  Ok, it might not be an actual crown, but sometimes it seems like that with all the pageantry and pontificating.

Political campaigns are the perfect place to examine human hypocrisy, human paradox.  Each campaign works overtime to root out opponents’ hypocrisies—flip flop positions, suspect donors, and actions that don’t match up with stated values.

Lesson learned:            everyone is a hypocrite:                        you, me, every one of the many candidates for president on all sides;            we’re all hypocrites.  In theological language we could say that “we have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) 

The hypocrisy is not that we fall short, but that we pretend we do not.  We put on a face of perfection, we do our best to appear to all the world as beings without fault, totally put together, without sin, without any complicity in injustice, completely unbroken and unwavering in our faith.

But we proclaim Christ crucified.  The cross, an instrument of political torture used to keep Jesus in his place, has become the symbol of life.  It is our theology based precisely on this cross            that compels us to name reality as it is.   

We mess up.  We are complicit in injustice.  We do not do everything we can to stop the killing of children of God of African descent, we shy away from tough conversations even as we know their importance.  We harm ourselves and we harm others.  We doubt and we worry.  We are slowly being put to death by the subtle ways our culture undermines all of our humanity.

But lest you preemptively despair, joining Job in his lament that “God has stripped my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head,” remember God’s words in Revelation, “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

God comes in to save us.  Putting us to death with Christ in our baptism, making us “faithful until death” in order to “give [us] the crown of life.”  God makes us alive again with Christ.

God gives the crown of life to the whole body of Christ, not just you or me or Christ the King or even the whole ELCA, but the whole body of Christ, the whole church.  The crown of life empowers us to live into our new identities as saints in Christ and empowers us to name the ways we are still sinners, the ways we don’t measure up, because no one ever does.  No one can measure up.  And no one has to. 

God doesn’t ask us to be perfect.  God doesn’t ask us to do better than everyone else.  God’s hope is that we will be ourselves, that we will live into our identities as beloved children of God.  God bestows love and blessing on us.  “Be faithful until death,” death at the hands of a racist man with a gun in bible study or at the end of a long life, and even death in the waters of baptism, whether those waters poured over you last year or decades ago.  God’s faithfulness in death brings us to the death of Christ in the waters of baptism so that God may “give [us] the crown of life.”

In our baptism we are crowned with the crown of life, that whatever may come, whatever our mess ups and triumphs may be, our God who loves us is the God of new life.  The God of hope.  The God of our future, with us now and always.

Thanks be to God.

In the beginning: creating creation

We're going off the lectionary for the rest of the summer and I'm preaching on people's favorite bible passages.  It seemed fitting to start off this sermon series with favorite accounts of the start of all things.

The sermon this week follows the genre of the readings, which is poetry.  Genesis 1 and John 1, two of our most well-known biblical accounts of creation are poems.  

The first reading is Genesis 1:1-2:4a.

The holy gospel according to John (1:1-18).

In the beginning was the Word,

       and the Word was with God,

              and the Word was God.

       ²The Word was in the beginning with God.

              ³All things came into being through the Word,

                     without whom not one thing came into being.

                            What has come into being ⁴in the Word was life,

                                   and the life was the light of all people.

⁵The light shines in the darkness,

       and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶There was a man sent from God,

       whose name was John.

              ⁷This one came as a witness to testify to the light,

                     so that all might believe through him.

                     ⁸John himself was not the light,

                            but he came to testify to the light.

                                   ⁹The true light,

                                          which enlightens everyone,

                                                 was coming into the world.

¹⁰The light was in the world,

       and the world came into being through the light;

              yet the world did not know the light.

              ¹¹The light came to its own,

                     and its own people did not accept the light.

                     ¹²But to all who received it,

                            who believed in its name,

                                   the light gave power to become children of God,

                                          ¹³who were born,

                                                 not of blood

                                                 or of the will of the flesh

                                                 or of the will of a man,

                                                        but of God.

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us,

       and we have seen its glory,

              the glory as of a parent’s only child,

                     full of grace and truth.

¹⁵(John testified to it and cried out,

       “This was the one of whom I said,

              ‘The one who comes after me

                     ranks ahead of me

                            because that one was before me.’”)

       ¹⁶From the one’s fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

              ¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses;

                     grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

¹⁸No one has ever seen God.

       It is God the only Son,

              who is close to the Father’s heart,

                     who has made God known.

The gospel of the Lord.

-----

In the beginning when all was yet to be discovered.

In the beginning when what is was not.

In the beginning when the Word and the wind blew through all that was to come.

Before me.

Before you. 

Before all that is and was and is to come. 

Before life and love.

The Source—full of grace and truth.

God began

       creating,

       imagining,

       breathing,

       speaking,

       sparking

              the cosmos into existence.

The formless forming

            into land, water, colors, shapes.

The darkness and the light finding their place

Names—

       called into existence by the Word—

                            Day, Night, Sky, Earth, Seas

                                          Sabbath.

The Light of the World before all of creation

              illuminating the gifts, the creativity of the Creator.

The power of God—the Source of all life,

claiming us and calling us beloved. 

Children of God,

       made in the divine image,

              according to God’s likeness. 

Each unique.

Each loved.

Each powerful beyond measure.

Together.

Together good.

Together blessed.

Together.

And there was evening and there was morning. 

The days in their turn. 

Evening into morning. 

Morning into evening. 

Day into day into day until—

STOP.

Sabbath.

Rest and holy.

Pause.

Stop.

Grace upon grace.

Rest upon rest.

Work into work into work until—

STOP.

Rest.

Breathe.

Breathe into me,

Breathe into you,

              the breath of Life.

And it is so.

God creates,

       imagines,

       speaks,

       acts,

       comes

              comes to creation,

              comes to earth,

              comes to me and you.

The Word the Wind here among us.

The Word of Wisdom that speaks the cosmos into being

              and it is so.

The Wind that blew over the waters,

that blew life into existence,

that blew through the locked room with tongues of fire,

              sharing the news—

                            the Good News—

              stirring up the waters of baptism,

              pouring out on us. 

              And we pour out on others—

                            into the world,

                            born as we are,

                                          of God.

And God created.

And God saw.

God saw

God saw that it was good.

God saw everything.

Everything God saw.

And God saw everything that had been made. 

Everything that God had made, and indeed.

Indeed!

It was very good.

And there was evening

and there was morning.

And the Word continued the work. 

Creation moving and breathing

       losing self and health. 

       Losing sight of God,

                            of love. 

       Losing the Light of the world,

                            the spark in the darkness,

                            the color in the dull gray of pain and sorrow.

“The true light, which enlightens everyone” was coming,

              coming into the world. 

              Back into creation. 

The light—the Word. 

       Into the brokenness. 

       Into the chaos of the cosmos. 

       Into the challenge of people gone astray.

       Into sin and sorrow.

       Into pain and privilege.

       Into oppression and anger.

The Word comes.

The Word incarnate. 

The Word enfleshed in a baby. 

From the wood of the manger to the wood of the cross. 

The Word—Jesus the Christ,

              crucified among us. 

Redemption,

Reconciliation,

Salvation,

Liberation.

For all—

       ALL of Creation. 

And God saw them.

       And God blessed them.

       And indeed it was very good.

Amen.