god is hope in the face of disappointment: advent 3b

The first reading is Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11.

The holy gospel according to John 1:6-8, 19-28

⁶There was a man sent from God,

        whose name was John. 

                ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light,

                        so that all might believe through him.

                         ⁸He himself was not the light,

                                but he came to testify to the light.

¹⁹This is the testimony given by John

        when the Judeans sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him,

                “Who are you?” 

²⁰John confessed and did not deny it,

        but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” 

²¹And they asked him,

        “What then?

                Are you Elijah?”

He said,

        “I am not.”

“Are you the prophet?”

He answered,

        “No.” 

²²Then they said to him,

        “Who are you?

                Let us have an answer for those who sent us.

                        What do you say about yourself?”

²³John said,

        “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,

                ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’”

                        as the prophet Isaiah said. 

²⁴Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 

        ²⁵They asked him,

                “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

²⁶John answered them,

        “I baptize with water.

                Among you stands one whom you do not know, 

                        ²⁷the one who is coming after me;

                                I am not worthy to untie the thong of their sandal.” 

²⁸This took place in Bethany

        across the Jordan

                where John was baptizing.

The gospel of the Lord.

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When I was in college, one of my majors was Spanish, which required me to spend at least one semester in a study abroad program in a Spanish-speaking country. 

I was really excited about this—I’d traveled some and part of my interest in a Spanish major was because I loved getting to know new cultures and new people.

So, as I prepared for my semester in Argentina, my excitement only grew as more and more of my fellow students told me that studying abroad would be “the best experience ever!”  When I finally dove into my five months in Buenos Aires, ready for an unequivocally awesome time, I … was disappointed.

My study abroad experience wasn’t terrible.  I made friends in and outside my program, some of whom are still friends today, and I got to know a lot about Argentine culture and history.  I learned a lot in my classes and I did a lot of soul-searching, discovering more about who I was and, like John in today’s gospel, who I was not.  I also, as with many people spending time in big cities, got catcalled.  I spent more than a few lonely nights at home.  And I had plenty of miscommunications to deal with.

All in all, the experiences that made up my five months in Argentina were probably no better or worse than anyone else’s study abroad experiences, but I had definitely gotten my hopes up ahead of time.  Everyone had said that it would be amazing and not once did someone suggest that there would also be times that were hard or lonely or even just awful.

I wasn’t expecting the hard times because nobody had mentioned that there would be any.  I thought it would be great all the time.  I don’t know if you’ve ever had an experience like that—planning the perfect party or vacation, or even a holiday celebration that only ends up with disappointment—but the original hearers of today’s readings would have been quite familiar with disappointment.

In our first reading, Isaiah is speaking to a people who are finally back from exile, which they’ve longed for for what feels like forever, and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.  Life isn’t all of a sudden perfect like they’d thought.  The devastation of the exile is still too present in the destruction of cities, the hard memories of their time in exile, and the changes they’ve experienced. 

And yet Isaiah proclaims, “The spirit of the Sovereign God is upon me, because the Sovereign has anointed me; God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners. ”  Isaiah’s message, which Jesus will reiterate in his ministry, is good news for those disappointed people. 

This liberty, this release, this good news doesn’t have the delivery time that every online retailer currently seems to be offering—“oaks of righteousness” do not grow over night, after all. 

Isaiah states that “as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Sovereign God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations,” but he never says it’ll be quick.  The seeds are planted and will grow into oaks … eventually, but not on the timeline of these people who have finally returned from their exile and just want everything back to the way it “should be” now.  Patiently or impatiently, joy will come, but now it’s time for them to wait.

Like those early Israelites returned from exile, the Judeans in the gospel reading are also waiting.  They’re anticipating this coming messiah, and John seems like a pretty good candidate, so the religious leaders send some priests and Levites to investigate.  Filled with hope and expectation for the one who will deliver them from the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire, they ask, “Who are you?”

John’s reply, however, is another disappointment. 

John.  Is.  Not. 

“I am not the Messiah.” Not Elijah, not the prophet.  Not any of the really important titles they want to give him. 

Instead, John is the voice.  The voice crying out not of despair, but of hope—in preparation.  The voice who is a witness to the one who is coming.

John’s call in this moment is to hope and prepare for the one who is to come.  John’s work—crying out in the wilderness—may seem a bit fruitless.  But those seeds, scattered with his words on the wind and splattered with the drops of baptismal water, will find a landing place.  John’s witness will take root in the one to come—the one who shall be called Jesus.

In this time of Advent, we wait and hope.  We wait for Jesus to come again.  We hope for God’s reign to be made manifest all around us.  We wait and hope for peace.  We wait and hope for Good News in the midst of disappointment. 

Even as we sit in this Advent time of knowing that God wins—that Jesus conquers death and evil—we are also sitting in this disappointing time of God’s reign not yet fully on earth as it is in heaven.

This Advent time when the seeds are planted and may even be sprouting, we are still far off from the sturdy “oaks of righteousness” to come.  And yet, this is the time that we make for ourselves.  To join with John in preparing for God to come—bearing witness to Jesus and sharing the hope of a God who will come to us as the baby of homeless peasants who will soon flee to Egypt as refugees.

This time of waiting anticipates joy to come—it knows the ending.  And we can look back to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we can look back at the ways that God has been at work, not only 500 years ago during the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, but every day before and since. As I look back on my study abroad experience in Argentina, I am grateful.  While it was an experience filled with both disappointment and joy, I recognize God’s presence and work in me through that time.  Without it, I wouldn’t be the pastor I am today.

The holidays to come will also be joyful and disappointing.  They will be filled with memories both good and bad, which will bring any number of feelings up for us.  And yet, in all of those memories, God is with us.  In recognizing God at work in the past, working for good even in the midst of disappointing situations, we gain hope for the future that God is bringing about—a future of hope, a future of joy, and a future of Good News for us all.  Our hope rests in the oaks springing up, in the One who comes to us as Jesus, the Word of God, God-With-Us, Immanuel, our Hope and Joy.

Thanks be to God.

reformation bios

Each Sunday during October this year, we learned about different reformers throughout history, culminating in a Eucharistic Prayer celebrating them and the Reformation of which we are all a part.  I mentioned some of them in my Reformation Sunday sermon and in a couple different sermons.

These are the bios, with links to more information, for those who are interested:

Argula von Grumbach lived in Bavaria (now known as Germany) from 1492 until about 1554.  Having received her own copy of the Bible at the age of 10, she was an fierce advocate for reform based on her scriptural studies.  Von Grumbach’s first publication was a letter in defense of a University of Ingolstadt student who had been imprisoned for possessing illegal pamphlets promoting Reformation theology. She viewed her public opposition as necessary when no one else would, it appeared, speak up against this miscarriage of justice. Argula even challenged the faculty to a debate on the doctrines in question!  Von Grumbach’s husband was not supportive of her activity.  Even through he lost his government job because he couldn’t control her, von Grumbach continued to advocate for the Reformation. 

Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen lived in Germany and then Sumatra, Indonesia from 1834 to 1918.  Nommensen was a German Lutheran missionary to Sumatra who also translated the New Testament into the native Batak language, embracing the spirit of the Reformation that people should be able to read the Bible and worship in their native language. He also helped establish schools, hospitals, and seminaries in Indonesia.

Jehu Jones lived in Charleston, South Carolina and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1786 to 1852.  Though his parents were enslaved, they were freed, creating the opportunity for Jones to earn an education and a living.  With encouragement from his pastor, Jones pursued a call to ministry and was ordained by the New York Synod in 1832 and served as a mission developer of several congregations throughout Pennsylvania.  Although he faced racism, which impacted the church finances and his ability to serve the church as God was calling him, Jones persisted to follow God’s will.

Catharina von Bora Luther lived in Saxony (now known as Germany) from 1499 to 1552.  Though she was a nun, during the reformation, she left the convent and married Martin Luther.  Not only did she care for Martin as his wife, she also filled a role equivalent to managing a midsized business.  Von Bora Luther ran the household finances, business, family, and hospitality, prompting Martin to leave everything to her in his will.  Thanks to her education at the convent, Katie and her husband also engaged in theological discussions throughout their marriage.

Vine Deloria, Jr. was a member of the Yankton Sioux tribe and lived from 1933 to 2005.  As a professor and activist, he worked legally and politically in support of treaty rights in relationship with the u.s. government, promoted American Indian spiritual traditions and religious freedom, and furthered Native American historic and scientific thought.  Deloria was a prolific writer, educator, and advocate, challenging and deepening many deeply held beliefs and theories.

Søren Kierkegaard lived in Copenhagen, Denmark from 1813 to 1855.  He lived with depression throughout his life, which informed his philosophical writings on the importance of experiencing life rather than just describing it.  Kierkegaard’s writings challenged the church of his time, which he viewed as failing to embrace the costliness and risk of following Jesus, and gave voice to the depths of despair and a mystic experience of faith that resonates with many still today.

Katharina Schütz Zell lived in Strasbourg, on the border between Germany and France from 1497 to 1562.  As one of the first women to marry a pastor, Schütz Zell was active in ministry as a partner with her husband, visiting those who were sick or in prison and supporting refugees during the Peasants’ War.  She was prolific in her writing and hymns, publishing the Hymnbook of the Bohemian Brethren in 1531.

Philipp Nicolai lived in Germany from 1556 to 1608.  Serving as a pastor in various communities and advocating fervently for what became known as Lutheranism, Nicolai is most remembered for his hymns.  Two of his hymns, which survive in many hymnals today are “Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying,” and “Oh Morning Star!  How Fair and Bright.”

Leoncia Rosado Rousseau, known as Mama Leo, was born in Puerto Rico in 1912 and came to New York City to live from 1935 to 2006.  Rev. Rosado Rousseau birthed the Damascus Christian Churches movement and ministered with people in the throws of addiction and people living on the streets.  Even with little support from colleagues, her ministry inspired programs for faith-motivated recovery programs and inspired Nicky Cruz, who went on to establish TRUCE, a worldwide evangelistic ministry, and Jim Jimenez, pastor of the Rock Church.

Marie Dentière lived in Geneva, Belgium and Strasbourg, Germany from about 1495 to about 1561.  As an abbess, when Dentière learned about the Reformation, she left her position and encouraged other nuns to leave as well.  She and her husband began a girls’ school and Dentière spoke out in both support and criticism of her fellow reformers, gaining enough respect from John Calvin that she wrote the preface for one of his sermons. 

Leymah Gbowee was born in 1972 in Liberia.  In 2011 received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work for women’s safety, rights, and full participation in peace-building in her country.  Motivated by her faith, Gbowee organized Christian and Muslim women to protest corruption in the government and end the civil war and continues to advocate throughout the world.

Dag Hammarskjöld lived mostly in Sweden from 1905 to 1961.  Serving in the financial and business sectors in Sweden, he gained the knowledge and education to move into areas of international political service as well, eventually becoming the Secretary-General of the United Nations.  For his work with the United Nations, Hammarskjöld posthumously received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Olympia Morata lived in Italy and Germany from 1526 to 1555.  From even a young age, Morata proved herself to be a scholar, even lecturing at the court of Ferrara in Greek and Latin.  Her scholarly endeavors kindled deep faith so that even when she had to deny a position lecturing at a university due to health concerns, she continued to write with deep theological and faith convictions that influenced other reformers.

Elizabeth Fedde lived in what is now Oslo, Norway, New York City, and Minneapolis from 1850 to 1921.  As a Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess, Fedde founded the Norwegian Relief Society, a deaconess house and the hospital that became the Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn.  Moving to Minneapolis, she founded another deaconess center and hospital that because part of Hennepin County Medical Center, and continuing on to establish centers of care for people throughout the country.

Darnell L. Moore was born in 1976 in Camden, NJ and lives in Brooklyn, NY.  As a fierce advocate rooted in anti-racist, feminist, queer of color, and anti-colonial thought, in connection with religion, Moore has presented at theological seminaries, national conferences, and global settings.  Moore especially focuses on youth development and social justice from marginalized communities in this country and throughout the world.

The Holy Spirit Entangles us with Jesus: reformation 500

The other reading referenced is Romans 3:19-28.

El santo evangelio según San Juan (8:31-36)

³¹Then Jesus said to the Judeans who had believed in him,

      "If you abide in my word,

            you are truly my disciples;

                  ³²and you will know the truth,

                        and the truth will make you free."

³³They answered Jesus,

      "We are descendants of Abraham

      and have never been slaves to anyone.

            What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?"

³⁴Jesus answered them,

      "Very truly, I tell you,

            everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

                  ³⁵The slave does not have a permanent place in the household;

                        the son has a place there forever.

                              ³⁶So if the Son makes you free,

                                    you will be free indeed.

El evangelio del Señor.

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As we celebrate the 500^th Anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, there has been a lot of reflection throughout our denominations on identity and meaning as people of faith.  Where is our identity rooted?  What does it mean to be Christian, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Protestant?  Throughout the country and the world, Lutherans and Catholics especially, as well as a variety of people from different Christian denominations, have been gathering for ecumenical worship services.  Well, that’s old hat for us—we worship ecumenically every single week!

But as Jesus talks to those who believe in him—that is, us—in today’s gospel, the source of identity comes into play.  Jesus is talking to his community—his followers.  They believe in him, and yet when he questions their identity, they respond with the identity they’ve always had, “We are descendants of Abraham.”

They may believe in Jesus, and even want to follow him, to be his disciples, but their identity is not rooted in him.  It’s rooted in their ancestor, Abraham.  So then we are left to ask the question: what does it mean to believe in Jesus if it doesn’t reshape—or re-form—your identity?

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he focuses on the power of faith, using a phrase in the Greek that can mean both a faith in Jesus Christ and the faith of Jesus Christ.  Because the original Greek can be both, it lets us explore the potential meanings.  A faith in Jesus Christ is our trust in the Word made flesh who has come to abide with us.  And the faith of Jesus Christ is Jesus’ faith in and for us, a love for all of creation and a faithfulness to all of creation, even when we are unfaithful.

And as a Lutheran who cherishes the theology that affirms a both/and God who can hold paradox in tension together, even in the midst of our either/or world; and as a queer person for whom binaries, especially around gender and attraction, don’t fit, what I find most compelling is that Paul can mean both senses of the word.  It is not only our “faith in Jesus Christ,” but also and especially the “faith of Jesus Christ” in and for us that manifests God’s righteousness.

This divine entanglement of faith, where the two are entwined into informing each other, makes the difference between believing or trusting in Jesus and being entangled with Jesus so that our identity cannot be separated out, but must necessarily be rooted in Jesus, who makes us free.

As we are entangled with Jesus, we change.  Throughout this month we have been learning about different reformers throughout history and even into today.

One of the common characteristics of these reformers and others that we’ll name today during our communion liturgy is that their faith in and of Christ re-formed their identity.  As they took to heart Jesus’ invitation to “abide in my word,” Jesus also re-formed their identity, rooting it so deeply in Christ that they could live out of it, reforming the world and the church, Christ’s own body.  This divine entanglement re-forms not only individuals, but the whole body of Christ as well.

Argula von Grumbach, Catharina von Bora Luther, Katharina Schutz Zell, Marie Dentière (Dahn-tee-air), and Olympia Morata all challenged the common identities their cultures held for what it meant to be a woman as their identities reformed around faith in Christ and the liberating theology that the Protestant Reformation brought about.

Theologians and pastors like Jehu Jones, Vine Deloria Jr., Soren Kierkegaard, Mama Leo, and Darnell Moore were all informed by their faith to a deeper call and identity in Christ, which entangled them with others and the world in such a way that Jesus had to make change through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The list is endless.  And it raises our question again today.  Where is your identity rooted?  A great upheaval,      or reformation, takes place in the Church about every 500 years.  It is a time for us to dig deep and wonder about what our faith means, where our identity is grounded, and what needs to change.

This is the time to ask as individuals, as a community of faith, and as a whole body of Christ, who believes in the resurrection: what needs to die for resurrection to break in?  What parts of our identity are we trying to keep separate?  How is faith with Jesus entangled in our past, present, and future?

The Holy Spirit is alive and active in this community of faith.  I have seen her at work throughout these last two years as we have struggled together to make sense of where she is leading us.  The Holy Spirit calls us all to new things—to death and resurrection.

This 500^th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation is the perfect time to take seriously our identities in Christ—identities entangled in the cycles of life, death, and resurrection.   

Identities not rooted in false ideas of the past or what could have been, but instead rooted in the liberating work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  

Identities grounded not in a specific building or location, but instead grounded in the way this community lives out God’s love for the world.   

Identities not held back by fear or anxiety about what the future might hold, but instead willing to risk for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is no guarantee of comfort or ease in our walks of faith, but there is a guarantee of Christ’s presence and faithfulness.  The Holy Spirit is calling us all into the death and resurrection of a life of faith.   She entangles us forever with Jesus, the One who makes us free.

Thanks be to God.

God's authority is given in baptism: 17th after pentecost a

A reading from Philippians (2:1-13).

¹If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
 ⁶who, though he was in the form of God,
  did not regard equality with God
  as something to be exploited,
 ⁷but emptied himself,
  taking the form of a slave,
  being born in human likeness.
 And being found in human form,
  ⁸he humbled himself
  and became obedient to the point of death—
  even death on a cross.

 ⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him
  and gave him the name
  that is above every name,
 ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus
  every knee should bend,
  in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
 ¹¹and every tongue should confess
  that Jesus Christ is Lord,
  to the glory of God the Father.

  ¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Word of God, Word of Life.

The other reading I reference is Matthew 21:23-32. 

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In the summer of 1523, with the debates and battles of the Reformation in full swing, the faculty of the University of Ingolstadt received a letter challenging their action in forcing a student to recant his support of the Reformation.

What is perhaps most stunning is that Argula von Grumbach, the author of the letter, was the only one speaking out against this injustice and as a woman whose husband was Catholic, the odds were stacked against her.  But von Grumbach had studied the bible and knew about the priesthood of all believers.   

She knew that, as we hear in Philippians, Jesus’ authority comes from God, and she knew that she was entitled to share in that authority.  She embraced the spirit of the Reformation and used her authority and call as a baptized child of God to speak out against injustice.  Truly, we could say to her, “it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.”  God was indeed working through her.

Looking back, it’s clear to us, but it can be harder to recognize God at work in the moment, to acknowledge that God is up to something in us.  That’s partly why we have extended processes for ordination in both the PCUSA and the ELCA.  Recognizing God’s call in us is important, and we also work together as communities of faith to recognize God’s call in each other.

Sometimes the call is to leadership in the community or congregation and sometimes it is to ordination, as was the case when you all recognized and affirmed gifts for ordained ministry in Leah and Carina.

In 1832 the New York Synod recognized that God was calling Jehu Jones to ordained ministry.  Born to enslaved parents who were freed when he was 12, Jones joined a Lutheran congregation in Charleston, South Carolina, which encouraged him to pursue ordained ministry in the North.  Jones became what we would call a mission developer in Philadelphia, founding multiple congregations throughout his ministry.

Jones knew with a greater depth than we could know what it means that Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”  Jones’ ministry was founded on the authority of God and even as he faced a lack of financial support for his ministries and mission as one aspect of racism in both the culture and the church, he persevered in what God was calling him to do.

The Lutheran Church recognized and affirmed God’s authority at work in Jehu Jones and called him into difficult ministry and Jones persevered through it all.

Then fast forward to 1990 when the predecessor organizations to Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries ordained first Jeff Johnson, Ruth Frost, and Phyllis Zillhart and then in the years leading up to the ELCA’s 2009 policy change they ordained another 15 people who had been banned from ordination in the ELCA due to sexual orientation and/or gender identity.  When these “extraordinary ordinations” took place, it was clear to those working toward policy change that eventually the ELCA would change its policy, and so people talked about borrowing their authority from the future.

They knew God was at work in them, and they knew that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," so, in the spirit of the Reformation, they did what was simultaneously controversial and faithful.  They “look[ed] to the interests of others” who would follow in their footsteps toward ordination.

Although this month we will celebrate the 500^th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, the Reformation didn’t happen in the 1500s and then stop.  It continues even today.  We continue to find new ways that the Holy Spirit is at work.

As in today’s gospel, we continue to hear people in positions of power question the authority of others to do the work of God, but Jesus still responds, pointing to the work of ordinary people like John the Baptist, Argula von Grumbach, Jehu Jones, Jeff Johnson, Ruth Frost, and Phyllis Zillhart, whose power and authority come by the Holy Spirit.

In Philippians, we hear the exhortation, “⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, ⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.

“⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Who else has heard this exhortation?  Who else proclaims this Good News?  Are there others today who humble themselves—perhaps in controversial ways—to look to others’ interests?

We don’t need to be powerful in this world to make a difference.  God empowers each of us.  Argula von Grumbach made a big difference without much power.  Jehu Jones’ persistence testified to God’s authority at work in him who was born into slavery.  Without those first 3 or 18 extraordinary ordinations, there wouldn’t be 274 publicly identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer members in Proclaim.

Jesus’ controversial claims, like the one in today’s gospel, are part of following Jesus.  They’re intended to make us and others think.  So as we wonder about Jesus’ controversies we can also wonder: when Colin Kaepernick takes a knee, who is it for?  When the president tweets, when a protest is held, when something happens that rubs us the wrong way or makes us feel defensive, what is the real issue and how does it impact the most vulnerable?

Protests and controversies aren’t intended to make us comfortable, but they make us wonder with the crowd around Jesus: whose authority is most important?  How is God at work?  What would Jesus have to say about helping hurricane recovery in Puerto Rico, about the importance of the lives of Black people who face racism daily, about the immigrants in our community who face discrimination, and about those who will be banned from this country by the newest travel ban?

Jesus preaches and teaches with divine authority and as we follow him, he calls us to “look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others,” to bend our knee at the name of Jesus and in service to others, because that is God’s call for us in baptism.

Thanks be to God.

International Roma Day

On April 17, 1423 King Sigismund wrote a letter of safe conduct for "Ladislaus, Gyspy Voivode, and those who depend on him."  This is one of many letters and one of the most well-known granting safe travel and autonomy for Roma in Central Europe.  This letter protected Roma, who have lived throughout Central Europe (and the whole world) from even before that time and since.

Today is International Roma Day.  Many people have no idea who Roma are, let alone that this day exists.  If our current administration is any example, they also have absolutely no clue of the difficulties Roma have historically faced and continue to face today.  I was one of those people for a long time.

In 2009 I was accepted to serve with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Young Adults in Global Mission program in Slovakia.  I worked with Phiren Amenca, which meant that I spent much of my time in relationship with Roma in the village of Rankovce.  This year was profoundly formative in my life for many reasons.  The relationships I formed and the people who opened their lives to me, an outsider from the states, continue to impact how I live (and are part of why I am writing this blog today).  Roma have not always been welcomed, valued, or affirmed like they were by King Sigismund.  Their history is much more difficult.

Growing up, the sentence that best sums up what I learned about the Holocaust, or porraimos (the devouring) in Roma was: six million Jews died in the Holocaust.  Since then I have learned better.  I don't know of anyone who "died" in the Holocaust.  People were systematically targeted, tortured, and killed in the Holocaust.  Six million of those targeted, tortured, and killed were Jewish.  Almost five million more were not Jewish.

It is, indeed, vital to recognize the ways that anti-semitism (including anti-semitic writing from the namesake of my faith tradition, Martin Luther) actively targeted and still targets Jewish people.  It is also important to recognize that, by our best estimates from incomplete information, at least half a million, or 500,000 Roma (sometimes known as gypsies, though unless someone is self-identifying, that is generally a derogatory term) were also targeted, tortured, and killed.  This is between one quarter and one half of all Roma living in Europe at the time.

It's harder to know the details about Roma because frequently they were categorized as "social deviants," "tramps," and later "Gypsies," among other terms.  The Romani and Jewish peoples were the two main and largest groups targeted because Nazi Germany categorized them as "racially inferior."  The intentional targeting, torturing, and killing of Roma was not recognized as being racially motivated until the 1970s and most scholars didn't begin to pay attention until the 1980s.

Roma also continued to struggle under communism, which attempted to erase their culture.  After the fall of communism, since the discrimination that Roma have faced for centuries was never addressed, and even the reality of their persecution under the Holocaust has been erased and downplayed for so long, Roma have continued to face discrimination throughout the world, especially in Central Europe.

Roma in Slovakia especially are often placed in schools for children with learning disabilities, hired last for work--if at all--even when they do a better job, and stereotyped as lazy, thieves, or conniving (where do you think the term "gypped" comes from?).  The Roma I encountered cared deeply about me.  They wanted to get to know me and I wanted to get to know them.  We were both outsiders in the dominant culture, which helped us connect.

Whether it was connecting with the children who came to our after school-type program or youth group activities, or the adults who volunteered and worked to help the kids who came or who participated in our bible studies, we took the time to get to know each other.  The friends I made among the Roma were the hardest to say good-bye to.  They taught me (or tried to teach me) to dance.  They stood up for me personally as a queer person and for other lgbtq+ people they didn't even know at bible studies and when I couldn't be there or couldn't stand up for myself.

Today is International Roma Day.  This month is a great month to learn more about Roma, so here are some resources:

Books:
We are Roma: One Thousand Years of Discrimination by Valeriu Nicolae
Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonseca

Links: 
Check out #internationalromaday on social media.
My friend and fellow YAGM, Matt's blog, which includes a paper shared at the European Commission Meeting on Roma in Europe in 2010. 
Phiren Amenca, the European-based organization I worked with as a YAGM.
A Huffington Post article about some of the five million people targeted, tortured, and killed during the Holocaust who were not Jewish, yet were purposefully targeted, including the Roma.

the holy spirit is stirring: 3rd after epiphany

The first reading for today was Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10.

The holy gospel according to Luke (4:14-21)

¹⁴Then Jesus,

      filled with the power of the Spirit,

            returned to Galilee,

            and a report about him spread

                  through all the surrounding country.

                           ¹⁵He began to teach in their synagogues

                        and was praised by everyone.                   (glorified)

¹⁶When he came to Nazareth,

      where he had been brought up,

            he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day,

                  as was his custom.                       

            He stood up to read,

                  ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.

                        He unrolled the scroll

                        and found the place where it was written:                        

                              ¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

                                    because the Lord has anointed me

                                          to bring good news to the poor.            (beat down)

                                    The Lord has sent me to proclaim

                                          release to the captives

                                                and recovery of sight to the blind,

                                          to let the oppressed go free,

                                                ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”     

            ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll,

                  gave it back to the attendant,

                        and sat down.

                              The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

            ²¹Then he began to say to them,

                  “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The gospel of the Lord.

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About every 500 or so years, the Holy Spirit digs deep and stirs up the church.  It is a time of great change as people once again dig into the Bible, discovering new and different things about it as well as their faith.  As Ezra and the leaders in Jerusalem do in our first reading, these times of renewal bring new interpretations of the Bible, new ways of examining and exploring our faith—our relationship with God in new contexts and communities. 

As we look at the state of the church and churches today, it is not surprising that next year we will celebrate the 500^th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.  While stirrings of the Holy Spirit began well before and continued long afterwards, the event we point to as the beginning is Martin Luther posting his 95 theses at the church in Wittenberg.

Now in the life of congregations and individuals, there are renewals and stirrings of the Holy Spirit with much more frequency than every 500 years, considering most congregations—especially on this continent—don’t or haven’t lived that long, and people certainly don’t.  The Holy Spirit stirs in smaller ways all the time, whether it’s in different congregations coming to worship together, public and prophetic witnesses to God’s love, or a commitment to feeding those without enough, filling the backpacks, just to name a few.

The Holy Spirit is always at work and in our time it is at work in new ways.  The Protestant Reformation of the 1500s was tied-in also with the European Enlightenment.  It brought with it a shift in faith to believing doctrine;             answering “what” questions—what do you believe, or think—about Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, the church, the Bible. 

Through the gift of critical thinking, belief became more about thoughts and ideas than the origin of the word.  In Greek, the word for belief, πιστευω, means trust.  So in the Reformation, and afterward, trust in God has been shifting to become thoughts about God.

Since then, we have been exploring what we think with energy and excitement and we as the church have been teaching people what to think about God—which is part of why we have so many different denominations.  We all want to have a set of beliefs that everybody adheres to, that make us unique from Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics, or even just other Presbyterians and Lutherans. 

But in recent years, we’ve also been realizing that it’s not working the way it used to.  The cultural assumption that people will go to church, or at least come back when they have families and children, is no longer a safe assumption.  It’s not that people no longer care, it’s that we’re looking for deeper meaning everywhere. 

If we want a social club, we can find that in other places.  If we want meaning, sometimes we look to the church and sometimes we don’t or we can’t find it there.  And sometimes we feel like we don’t fit in, like our views and perspectives don’t match the rest of the church or denomination. 

The task for the church now is to follow in Ezra’s footsteps, to heed Jesus’ call to deeper faith and renewal.  The Holy Spirit is stirring up new questions about faith and life.

It’s no longer a question of what you believe, but instead, how does your belief—your trust in God—impact you, your life, and the world?  How do you live out your faith?  Where and how do you search for deeper meaning?  What is your response to God’s love in your life or to the pain and injustice in the world?

With all of the advances in science and technology, we are still filled with questions about God and the universe.  And communities of faith are beginning to wonder and explore these questions together.

We wonder at a God whose Word speaks the whole cosmos into being when we see pictures in space of stars exploding into life and planets like ours orbiting other stars.  We wonder at a God whose Spirit comes to us not with easy answers, but with new questions.

As much as I love deep theological conversations—and believe me, I do—the sacraments, God’s means of grace: baptism and communion are about life and action.  Our baptism is a call each of us receives from God to live into and in response to God’s love.  Communion nourishes us in new life to follow Jesus into the world.  Communion brings us all together—from all the struggles we face in life—with the great cloud of witnesses, past and present, to become what we receive.  To become the body of Christ in the world.

So we gather each week, explorers, questioners, dreamers, doubters, and followers.  We gather seeking God, seeking deeper meaning for our lives.  We gather, stirred by the Holy Spirit.  And we hear Jesus’ words,                “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  The Lord has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

The Spirit of the Lord is stirring things up.  Jesus, God’s chosen, brings good news to all who are beat down[1] by life, who don’t fit in, don’t have a place in society.  Jesus brings release, freedom for captives, especially captives of war—an end to war; release from all that oppresses, all that holds us bound in sin, from war and violence to spiritual, emotional, and mental brokenness.  Jesus brings that freedom and release as the Holy Spirit stirs us up to new life, new questions, new wonders and wanderings.  How is the Holy Spirit stirring in you?  How is the Holy Spirit stirring in us?

We have one more week of the same kind of homework we’ve been doing throughout the season of Epiphany.  One more week of intentionality as a community of faith of asking God how God is at work and calling us in this community.  This week spend your time in prayer in public spaces—at the library, post office, school, or city hall; in a business you frequent.  Again pray, “God, show me how you are at work.” And “God, show me how you are calling me.” And “God, show me how you are calling us.”  And let me and the community know how the Spirit is stirring in you.

Amen. 

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[1] Much of the interpretation and translation for Jesus’ words in the gospel, quoting and paraphrasing Isaiah, come from: http://www.progressiveinvolvement.com/progressive_involvement/2016/01/epiphany-3-luke-4-14-21.html